by Derek Hansen
‘You’re just a cry-baby,’ said Maxie. He was always the first to go on the offensive. ‘Can’t take a joke. Typical bloody Pommy cry-baby.’
There it was, the ultimate insult. By then we’d reached Richmond Road. Maxie made me more determined than ever to make them pay.
‘We’ll soon see who the cry-babies are,’ I said viciously.
‘If you tell your dad I’ll never speak to you again.’ Now Eric was starting to blub. So what? I’d already decided Gary was going to be my new best pal. I left the three of them on the corner of Chamberlain Street and went home. They all knew that this time they were really in for it. I entered through the shop, past Mum. I knew Nigel would be panicking, expecting Mum to call him home immediately. If Maxie was true to form, he’d take off. Whenever he was on a hiding he always ran away and hid under the clubhouse. The silly bugger always hid in the same place so we knew exactly where to find him.
What none of them could have realised was that I was beginning to have a few doubts. My change of heart surprised me as much as it would’ve surprised them had they known. The fact was, telling your dad was one of the worst things anyone could do to their pals and the repercussions were felt for weeks. I knew because I’d felt them. Nobody would have anything to do with me for ages last time I’d dobbed them in. If I’d learned anything then it was to think twice before doing it again. I’d seen how scared my pals were and also how remorseful. It occurred to me that maybe just the threat of telling Dad was enough—provided they’d believed me, and there was little doubt about that. They were pissing themselves. Sometimes the anticipation of a belting is worse than the actual thing. I began to savour the hold I had over them. Whoever said revenge was sweet didn’t even get close. It was delicious. My decision was made easier by the fact that my brain was starting to kick in with ideas about writing another essay on the subject ‘Saved by the Skin of my Teeth’. Never mind the story about Uncle Vic, my adventure in the drain was pure gold. Having an idea for an essay always changed things. It made my pulse race and filled my head with so many possibilities there was no room for anything else; no room for fear and no room for vindictiveness. That could wait. I wanted to start my story immediately while my impressions of being trapped in the drain were still fresh.
I didn’t know whether to set the essay in a stricken submarine with me being the only survivor, exiting the hatch in the conning tower at the very last moment, or leave it in the drain, but this time have the water reaching up into the shaft. The latter idea appealed to me most but I knew there’d be hell to pay if my parents or teachers ever got their hands on it. They’d realise I was writing from personal experience. Yet the more I thought about it the more I wanted to set the story in the drain. I decided to give it a shot but have Catholic kids go down into it instead.
Catholic kids were always getting into trouble. It was generally accepted that Catholic kids were tougher than we were because the Brothers beat toughness into them as part of their curriculum. Being tougher it seemed reasonable that they’d take bigger risks. I’m ashamed to say my parents were receptive to criticism of Catholic kids and they weren’t on their own there. Catholic kids copped the blame for most of the trouble that occasionally flared up when the truth was they weren’t any different to us. Once I threw the Catholics into the mix, I knew I was onto a winner.
I heard Rod call out to me from the kitchen, which usually meant Mum needed something from the grocer’s. I was far too busy sorting out plot details to run errands, so I snuck back out into the shop, out of sight of Mum and her customers, and hid in the recess beneath the hinged section of the counter. I wanted to think through my new essay but instead I overheard what Mum’s customers were saying.
That’s when I learned what had happened to Mack.
CHAPTER FIVE
The school has a new swimming pool built into the bank alongside the playing field. All the boys love it and all the girls hate it. The girls hate the pool because it is always cold or raining when it is our class’s turn to swim in it. The boys love it because even a cold swimming pool is better than doing arithmetic or comprehension. Sometimes after swimming our feet and hands stay white and numb for more than an hour.
AN EXTRACT FROM ‘MY SCHOOL’
Kids are always surprised by the way events unfold. I remember how stunned Peter Davis was the day his parents separated. Peter sat three desks behind me next to Clive and played in the same cricket team. We didn’t have a lot to do with each other because he lived over in Herne Bay, at least a couple of miles from the school. But I knew him well enough. I remember him sobbing uncontrollably at his desk. He was taken to the sick bay where apparently he bawled even louder. You could have knocked us down with a feather. Peter was a tough kid. He’d woken up that morning and discovered his dad had left home. One day he lived with his mother and father. The next day he just lived with his mother. He’d had no inkling his parents wouldn’t live together all their lives. Peter absolutely adored his dad, who had once played representative rugby for Auckland and sometimes lent a hand coaching the school team. We all thought Pete’s dad was pretty neat. He was good-looking, tall and strong, and great at all sports. Praise from him was better than praise from anyone else. We all wished our dads were more like Peter’s.
I have no idea what happened to Peter because he moved away soon after and he has no bearing on this story. The point is, Peter loved his parents, was loved by them and assumed his parents must also love each other. From his perspective, everything was as sweet as pie. His sense of betrayal was pulverising, his bawling a pitiful cry against injustice. The suddenness and unfairness of it all shocked the daylights out of the rest of us. It meant that overnight our world could change forever. And we’d never see it coming. As it turned out there was a lot we didn’t see coming.
Peter was no different from the rest of us in that he judged everything from his own narrow perspective. I judged Mack’s story by its impact on me, by my sense of disappointment and by my sense of shared shame. When I’d lain awake in bed I’d never given a thought as to what effect the telling of his tale might have had on Mack. As far as I was concerned Mack had unburdened himself on me. In reality he hadn’t unburdened himself of anything—quite the opposite. By reading my essay to him all I’d done was open an old and painful wound. He hadn’t unloaded his burden but been forced to take it up again. And this time he proved unequal to the task.
I think Mack’s wife had died from cancer. My guess is based on the fact that my mother would never tell me what was wrong with her. Cancer was a word never mentioned in front of children and often only whispered between adults, the grown-up version of the nameless, faceless fear. Mack’s wife’s name was Anya, a foreign version of Ann or Anna. She might have come from somewhere near the border of Hungary and what had become Yugoslavia. According to Mack, her family had been displaced at the end of World War I and somehow they’d ended up in New Zealand. They’d chosen to live on Great Barrier Island because Anya’s father had been hell bent on getting as far away from Europe and the horrors of war as it was possible to go. He must have thought all his prayers had been answered when the old scow that occasionally plied the sixty-mile passage to Great Barrier Island landed them in Tryphena, on the island’s southern tip. Back in the early thirties the island was still wild, frontier country. It wasn’t the end of the earth but, as far as Anya’s father was concerned, it was a darn good likeness.
Mack met Anya at a dance. She was pretty without being a raging beauty and struggled with her English but, as Mack liked to say, he was neither Valentino nor Shakespeare himself. (I must admit Mack looked pretty goofy in his wedding photo on top of the HMV radio cabinet.) Mack also liked to say Anya was harder to catch than a snapper in shallow water on a bright, clear day. He had to go cap in hand to her family’s farm and was never allowed to sit alone with her. This went on for a couple of years before his patience and persistence finally paid off. To hear Mack talk about it, no angry or unkind word ever came be
tween them. They lived for each other; husband and wife, best friends and constant companions. Given that they had few neighbours and even fewer distractions, it was just as well.
When Anya fell ill Mack did everything he could to help her. He gave up a life he cherished to move to Auckland and live in a wooden cottage, cheek by jowl with neighbours on either side and behind him. It was the only way Anya could get the medical attention she needed. Nowadays oncologists tell us cancer is a word not a sentence. Back then it was a sentence and usually a pretty short one. Anya defied the odds and lingered, though I’m not sure it did either of them any good. Mack began drinking heavily as he watched his wife slowly waste away. Once a week one of the neighbours would sit with Anya so Mack could go fishing. Anya loved the snapper they’d lived on all their married life on the Barrier and Mack made sure there was always fish for her.
When I first met Mack he was a customer in the shop. He wanted some cotton so he could sew up a shirt he’d torn, because his wife was no longer up to it. Mum knew his situation and told him to bring the shirt or whatever over and she’d fix it for him. After that he always brought over his sewing or darning. His way of thanking Mum was to bring us snapper from time to time and that got me talking to him about fishing. He would have been in his late fifties but he was as fit and as strong as an All Black. I clearly remember how his back, neck and the back of his head cut one clean vertical line. He had the kind of build rugby commentators described as ‘rawboned’ and ‘sinewy’. You’d swear his shoulders had been attached with set squares. He was also tall, a good few inches taller than my dad, who was six feet one. But as Anya wasted away Mack seemed to shrink. By the time she died Mack was a bent and skinny mockery of the man I’d originally met.
The funeral service was held in the Church Army chapel. I wanted to go but Mum wouldn’t let me. She said funerals were no place for kids. She couldn’t stop me skipping school and standing outside, though. I remembered the times I used to sit in an old bentwood chair at the end of Anya’s bed so I could read my essays to her by the light coming in through the window. They used to make her smile. I remembered helping her carry her shopping home before she was confined to bed. And I remembered avoiding her once she got really sick because her sickness scared me.
Half the Sunday congregation turned up and quite a few people I didn’t know. It wasn’t a big funeral and there weren’t masses of flowers. I stood outside and waved goodbye to the hearse as it drove off. Mack spotted me and nodded. It put a lump in my throat as big as a cricket ball. Only five cars with headlights on followed the hearse to the cemetery. I thought I was witnessing an ending. I thought it was all over. Anya had finally died and been buried with appropriate ceremony. I fully expected Mack to get back to his former self. He’d promised to take me out fishing with him again and I fully intended to remind him. I wanted to make sure I got the trip in before he returned to Great Barrier Island.
But Mack failed to undergo any miraculous restoration. Instead he shut himself inside his house and hit the bottle. At first people were understanding but as time passed he dropped in everyone’s esteem. I heard customers in the shop say he only ever went out to replenish his supplies of booze, that he was a disgrace. Who knows how far Mack would’ve fallen if it hadn’t been for Captain Biggs. Once a week, first thing in the morning, Captain Biggs went around to Mack’s, dragged him out of bed, made him gather his fishing gear together and accompanied him on the trolley bus down to the Admiralty Steps. He sent Mack off fishing for the day on a boat called La Rita. How clever was that? The Captain must have known he’d never convince Mack to give up drinking, so did his best to rehabilitate him another way. I’m sure there were times when Captain Biggs paid the seventeen shillings and sixpence the trip cost. It was probably the only money Captain Biggs had. Mack had fishing mates who were also regulars on the La Rita. Between their support and Captain Biggs’s kindness Mack slowly pulled through. He came to terms with the loss of Anya, started attending church again and cut his drinking back to two or three quart bottles of beer a day.
Then I had to go and read him my stupid essay.
I’d left Mack with a fresh bottle of Dominion Bitter as I’d rushed out down the hallway but that wasn’t the last bottle he saw the bottom of that night. He drank the remaining four bottles in his cooler and a couple more from the shed. At some stage he must have decided to fry himself some sausages and fallen asleep with the gas on. The smell of burning fat alerted Mrs Bolger next door who raced in and turned off the cooker before the kitchen caught fire. It was fortunate Mack hadn’t followed me down the hall and slipped the catch on his door lock or Mrs Bolger wouldn’t have been able to get in.
Hearing this, I was once again overwhelmed by shame on Mack’s behalf. It hurt to hear Mack being described as an alcoholic and a boozer, particularly as I knew why he’d hit the bottle again but couldn’t tell anyone. People said he was weak and a wastrel and an affront to the memory of his poor wife. I wanted to defend him but in my heart I felt let down. Drunkenness was synonymous with disorder and the evils of booze were all too evident. Those were the days of the six o’clock swill. Every kid knew to give pubs a wide berth as patrons were forced out onto the pavement at closing time. Some drinkers continued conversations begun around the bar. Some threw up from trying to force too many beers down their throats in too short a time. Some came out spoiling for a fight. Some took their anger home with them and vented it on their wives and kids. Drunkenness was indefensible. I knew Mum wouldn’t let me go and visit Mack while he was on a bender, which was just the excuse I was looking for. True friends stick by their pals through thick and thin but Mack had crossed the line. The prevailing wisdom was that drunks didn’t deserve sympathy, but the truth was I didn’t want to be tainted by association.
I nipped back to the kitchen and found out what Rod wanted from the grocer’s. I made sure I rode past Mack’s place even though it wasn’t on the way. That was the closest I came to supporting my friend. I rode past his house on my bike. I saw Captain Biggs come out his front door.
At least somebody had stuck by him.
CHAPTER SIX
My father is a toolmaker by trade. Because he can fix most things that break or go wrong, we rarely have to call upon tradesmen. One day Dad tried to fix a burst pipe under the bathroom floor and, to use his words, made a right mess of it. The next day Mum called in a plumber and it is a good thing she did. What the plumber taught me that day later saved my life. He didn’t teach me how to fix pipes or anything like that. Instead he taught me something much more important. He taught me how to make coins disappear into thin air.
AN EXTRACT FROM A THRIFT ESSAY, ‘HOW MY MONEY SAVED MY LIFE’
Nigel slunk home as furtively as a rat to its hole. It was almost comical. Mum collared him as he tried to sneak into the bedroom. He jumped a mile. He thought I’d blabbed and automatically raised his arms to protect himself from the onslaught. Mum never held back when she boxed your ears. They stung for ages. When I grew older I was stunned to discover Mum was only five foot five inches tall and slight. Let me tell you, she boxed divisions above her weight.
‘Wash your hands and set four places for dinner,’ she said.
Nigel’s jaw dropped open and he turned to look at me, stunned by the double blessing. He knew instantly I hadn’t said anything to Mum and, furthermore, he’d been granted a stay of execution. Incredibly, we’d both forgotten it was Friday and Dad never came home until at least nine-thirty on Fridays. Shops stayed open on Fridays until nine o’clock.
I think it was Hitler or one of his henchmen who claimed the English were a nation of shopkeepers. They could’ve held my parents up as evidence. Both my mother and father ran shops. My father was a toolmaker by trade but a shopkeeper by inclination. He loved being his own boss, but more than anything he loved dealing with the public. He ran a newsagency on New North Road about three miles away from where we lived. My pals thought we were rich because we had two shops but, let me tell you, neit
her shop returned much after paying the rent on one and the mortgage on the other. There again, toolmakers didn’t make much either and Dad always claimed he did better as a shopkeeper. His shop also stayed open until nine on Friday nights and Nigel was grateful for the reprieve. But that’s all he thought it was. He avoided looking at me all through dinner.
Rod had made dinner and Mum was busy in the shop. This left Nigel and me no choice but to do the dishes. Nigel offered to wash up, which was a first.
‘Are you still going to tell Dad?’ he asked once we were alone.
He and I had heaps of arguments and fights but we played together a lot more than we fought. I hated it when we weren’t friends. Little brothers always want the respect of older brothers.
‘What’s it worth to you if I don’t?’
Nigel seized on this glimmer of hope, the implication that I might let him off the hook.
‘What do you want?’
‘What are you offering?’
‘Buy you something.’
‘What?’
‘What do you want?’
‘What are you offering?’
Negotiations between kids are always banal.
‘An iceblock?’ Iceblocks cost fourpence.
‘Nah,’ I said. ‘A Topsy.’A Topsy was a chocolate-coated ice cream on a stick. It cost sixpence. Sixpence was half our weekly pocket money.
‘OK, a Topsy,’ said Nigel.
‘When?’
‘As soon as we finish the dishes.’
‘OK.’
‘Can you lend me the money?’
Nigel never had any money. We both got a shilling pocket money each week and Nigel spent his as soon as he got it. Eric and Maxie were as bad. I was the only one who ever tried to make it last through the week. I never lent money to Nigel because he never paid me back. He started laughing and I couldn’t help joining in. He knew I wasn’t going to tell Dad.