by Derek Hansen
‘Maybe you should just keep your promise.’
‘But I want to help him.’
‘Who?’ Mr Holterman reached out and grabbed hold of my shirt. This was the Mr Holterman who scared the daylights out of me.
‘Mack.’
Mr Holterman let go of me and leaned back on his crutches. I could see he was thinking.
‘Mack?’ he said.
‘Yes. He’s my friend.’
Mr Holterman stared hard at me as though he was trying to look inside my head to see if I was lying.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow. Now buzz off.’
I buzzed off, elated and relieved. Mightily relieved. Mrs Holterman spotted her husband swaying impatiently on his crutches and almost ran in her anxiety to take him home. Like a rabbit bolting for its warren, Bobby was hot on her tail.
I went straight home and started working out what I’d say to Mr Holterman. It was no different to planning an essay. I knew I’d have to get to the point quickly, give an overview then expand upon it. I also knew I had plenty of time to organise my thoughts. Dad was doing his invoices. We always went out as a family on Sunday afternoons, sometimes for a drive and on hot days to the beach. The only issue was what time we went. Sometimes Mum packed lunch and we had a picnic. Other times Dad mucked around till well after three o’clock when the best part of the day was gone.
Nigel explained that to me, too. If we went late it meant Dad hadn’t got what he wanted that morning and he was deliberately finding things to do to get even with Mum. Again I was shocked. But the tight-lipped silences seemed to prove his point. I didn’t know whether to blame Mum or Dad and, since this was an adult issue beyond our scope of influence, I just had to accept it.
Inevitably we’d all pile into the car and sooner or later Dad would buy us all a Robinson’s Choc Bomb, which was our ice cream of choice. The frostiness would vanish for no good reason I could determine and we’d all end up singing corny songs as we drove along. According to Nigel there was a code adults used. He reckoned that somehow Mum let Dad know that the morning’s play had been rescheduled. What I could never figure out was why she didn’t reschedule in the first place and save us all a lot of hanging around.
Sunday nights were always spent around our old, green, Pye radio. I needed to refine the case I was going to put to Mr Holterman on Mack’s behalf but the best BBC programmes were played on Sunday nights. We’d listen to Take it From Here with Jimmy Edwards and then a serialised drama. The Day of the Triffids, based on one of John Wyndham’s books, was my favourite. No movie I ever saw or book I ever read fired up my imagination like those BBC dramas. The silver screen inside my head was infinite, the action more real and terrors more frightening than anything any director ever managed to put on film. I went to bed reliving the dramas, happy to let Monday take care of itself.
When I turned up at Bobby Holterman’s place after school, his mother didn’t want to let me in.
‘Come back another day,’ she said. ‘Bobby’s busy.’
Busy crying. I was standing at the back door because only adults and important people like doctors ever went to the front door. Bobby’s bedroom was two rooms up the hallway and his door was closed, but I could still hear him.
‘Actually, Mrs Holterman, I’ve come to see Mr Holterman. He asked me to come today after school.’
Mrs Holterman stepped back, riven by indecision. On one hand she wanted rid of me for the sake of peace and on the other she was reluctant to go against her husband’s wishes. She didn’t know what to do.
‘Who is it?’
As soon as I heard Mr Holterman’s bellow reverberate down the hallway I wished I’d heeded Mrs Holterman’s advice. I wanted to bolt. I could hear him cursing as he got up out of his chair. Bolting would only make matters worse, if not for me, certainly for Mrs Holterman and probably Bobby.
‘It’s the boy from the draper’s.’
The boy from the draper’s. See what I mean about circumstances defining who I was? She made me sound like an item of stock.
‘Who?’ Mr Holterman demanded.
The only time I’d heard so much anger in someone’s voice was immediately prior to a beating. Dad sounded like that when he’d caught me playing with matches or doing something equally stupid. Once I tapped three nails into a cotton reel and ran a length of wire from the reel to one of my Triang jeeps in the belief that if I filled it full of electricity I wouldn’t have to keep winding it up. Dad caught me just as I was about to stick my homemade plug into the power socket. He yelled at me and beat the daylights out of me but I still don’t think he sounded as scary as Mr Holterman.
Watching Mr Holterman work his way down the hallway towards me was more frightening than anything John Wyndham ever wrote. Sometimes I think I would’ve been better off if my imagination hadn’t been quite so active.
‘It’s me, Mr Holterman,’ I said, amazed that my voice wasn’t as shaky as I felt. ‘You told me to come today, after school.’
The crutches caused Mr Holterman’s shoulders to hunch up in a way that made him look even more threatening than normal. He towered over me, eyes glaring. Then for no apparent reason his shoulders relaxed and his anger seemed to fade like a fire running out of fuel.
‘So I did, son, so I did. You better come in.’
Mrs Holterman stepped back to let me pass. She was clasping her hands in front of her so tightly her fingers had gone white.
‘Would you like tea or coffee?’ she asked.
‘For God’s sake, woman, don’t fuss!’
If Mr Holterman had prodded her with a red-hot poker I don’t think she’d have jumped any higher. I jumped, too. I think that same poker might have brushed me.
‘If I want tea I’ll ask for it. If I want coffee I’ll make it myself.’ Mr Holterman retreated towards the living room. ‘Follow me, son, and close the door behind you.’
Close the door. All I could think was how the closed door would block my escape if I had to make a run for it. I was stunned. My dad never spoke to my mum that way. I hadn’t a clue what I’d do if he turned on me. I’d had to go to see the headmaster once for misbehaving knowing that I was going to get strapped, but that was nothing like as scary as following Mr Holterman into his front room and closing the door. Mr Holterman took ages to position himself before slumping back into an armchair that seemed to take up half the space in the room. He waved impatiently at me.
‘Sit down, sit down. You make the place look untidy.’
It’s funny how a silly comment can defuse a situation. That was something Mum said. I pulled a straight-backed wooden chair out from beneath a dining table that looked rarely used. The table was a showplace of framed photographs on doilies. Even though the curtains were half drawn and the room was almost as gloomy as chapel, I could see a photo of Mr Holterman standing in front of a Lancaster, and another with him and his crew in full kit. I could hardly pull my eyes away from them.
‘Now what’s this business with Mack?’
I had prepared my argument but wasn’t prepared for the reception I’d received. It took a moment to gather my thoughts and concentrate. I knew I had to get to the point quickly.
‘In June 1940 Mack got picked up by a German U-boat off Medlands Beach on Great Barrier Island. He didn’t report it like he was supposed to.’ Mr Holterman sat forward and pinned me with his eyes. I could tell I had him hooked. ‘The following day the Niagara was sunk off the Mokohinau Islands. Mack thinks it was sunk by the U-boat.’
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘But be careful what you say.’
I told him the story exactly as Mack had told it to me, told him of the moral dilemma Mack faced and the consequences; how in his shame Mack was destroying himself with booze. I told him how I’d inadvertently revived the memories and how I wanted to make amends; how I needed help so Mack would stop blaming himself and put the whole episode behind him. Mr Holterman heard me out without interrupting. He just sat there gently massaging his stump through his trouser
leg. When I’d finished he leaned back in his chair and thought for a while. I sat and waited. When his response came it was measured.
‘Mack had no choice. Most people in his position would’ve made the same decision but that doesn’t make it right. He should have reported the U-boat and there is nothing I can say now that can change that fact or make it any less of a betrayal. I can’t help you, son, and I can’t help Mack. Nobody can. I’m sorry.’
‘But…’
‘But what!’ Mr Holterman banged his fist down hard on the arm of the chair. ‘Don’t you dare but me! I’ve told you I can’t help you and that’s final. Final, you understand! Don’t think for a second that life is fair, son, it isn’t. Mack betrayed his country. It wasn’t his fault, but that doesn’t change anything. I can’t help you. I can’t help Mack and neither can you. That’s life. It’s unfair. Get used to it.’
I was stunned by his vehemence.
‘Thank you for listening to me.’ My parents had brought me up to be polite and I reverted to training. I didn’t feel like being polite. Talking to Mr Holterman hadn’t made things any better but instead made them worse. His emphatic rebuttal of mitigating circumstances undermined any hope I still had that I could help Mack. Disappointment had me on the verge of tears.
‘You’d better go,’ he said.
‘Goodbye, Mr Holterman,’ I said. ‘Thanks again.’ I made no attempt to shake his hand. As I opened the living room door he called me back.
‘Mack’s secret is safe with me,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry about that. But don’t go sharing it with anyone else, you hear me? You say you’re Mack’s friend, so be a friend. Keep your lips buttoned. Buttoned tight. You can’t trust people nowadays. If I hear you’ve told anyone else I’ll give you a lot more than a thick ear. I’ll give you a thrashing you won’t forget in a hurry.’
‘I won’t,’ I said. I just wanted to get away but Mr Holterman’s threats weren’t something you could walk out on. ‘Honestly I won’t, I promise.’
‘You promise, eh? Just make sure this promise is better than the last one you made. Or else. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, I promise.’
‘Son,’ he said, his voice suddenly softened, ‘how do you think Mack would feel if he’d reported the U-boat and it had been found and destroyed? How would you like the blood of those German sailors on your conscience? That was the price of reporting the U-boat. In the long run it doesn’t really matter what choice Mack made. He was doomed to live with the consequences either way. Do you understand? Life isn’t fair, son. You can’t fight that. You just have to cop what comes.’
I didn’t know how to respond. I sensed that Mr Holterman had gone beyond talking about Mack and was referring to what had happened to him. Life certainly hadn’t been fair to him. He seemed to shrink back into his chair, turned away so I couldn’t see his face, raised his hand and waved me off. The back door was open and I went for it. I was gone in the time it took to say goodbye to Mrs Holterman.
It started raining as I ran home. Eric would be down under his house flying the old sofa to Dresden with no one guarding his tail. Gary would be sinking U-boats as usual. Nigel and Maxie would be getting into mischief somewhere. Big Ryan was probably still out riding his old clunker of a bike because he didn’t have the sense to get out of the rain. Or maybe they were all home polishing their shoes, getting ready for club. Life went on all around me but it was no longer life as I’d known it.
I’d just discovered that life was unfair.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The cannibals dragged me up from the beach to the village and threw me down before their chief. Perceiving that I was no threat to them, they laid their shields down and stood in a semicircle around me with their spears held high. The chief pinched my arm and then my thigh. He licked his lips. In desperation I reached into my pocket and pulled out a shiny two-shilling piece. The silver gleamed and sparkled between my finger and thumb and caught their eye. I pretended to take the coin exactly as the plumber had taught me and pretended to place the coin under the shield of the cannibal nearest to me. When he went to look under his shield I stopped him. I withdrew the same two-shilling piece from my pocket and repeated the trick with the next cannibal. I had them entranced. They could not take their eyes off me. I worked my way right around the semicircle to the chief, and this time actually took the coin and placed it under his shield. I pointed to the first cannibal. He lifted his shield and howled in disbelief when there was no coin beneath it. I pointed to a cannibal on the opposite side of the semicircle who immediately raised his shield and also came up emptyhanded. He, too, howled in dismay. The cannibals quickly got over their surprise and became angry, believing I was cheating them. I pointed to the chief. He raised his shield and…bingo! He was like a boy who’d opened his first Christmas present and found exactly what he’d asked for. The cannibals went wild.
I pulled another two-shilling piece from my pocket and this time let one of the warriors win. If anything he was more delighted than the chief had been. From that point on, they all wanted to win. I stood and walked back to the beach, coin held high in my left hand. They followed like sheep, eyes fixed on the prize. I arranged them in a line along the edge of the sand, facing back into the bush. I pretended to take the coin and blow through my fist as if blowing the coin into the undergrowth. I repeated the trick for each of the cannibals. Once they were all firmly convinced that a coin was lying hidden in the bush in front of them I gave the signal to start looking. As one they dived into the scrub. I calmly walked down to the edge of the water, pushed my rowboat out and started rowing. I had no fear of pursuit because the cannibals owned no craft. They didn’t need them. They didn’t have to go looking for food because food came to them; the rotting canoes of unlucky South Sea islanders and the skeletal remains of dinghies that had once belonged to sailors hoping to replenish their water supply littered the foreshore. To think that they’d died for the want of a few gallons of water, a little imagination and four shillings. Yes, that’s all it had cost to save my life.
AN EXTRACT FROM A THRIFT ESSAY, ‘HOW MY MONEY SAVED MY LIFE’
I didn’t have time to do much thinking about what Mr Holterman had said. Monday night was the formal club night when we had to wear our Church of England Boys’ Society uniform: navy shorts and shirt; red lanyard through tabs over our left shoulder and fastened through the middle button of our shirts; red kerchief around our neck fastened with a woggle (usually a well-worn shell with a hole in the middle); and black shoes and socks. Our socks had to be hoisted up to our knees and our shoes had to be shined until they glowed. (Along with every other CEB—we were called CEBS not scouts—I used to run to the clubhouse as fast as I could in the hope nobody would see me.) That particular Monday I had every reason to make sure my shoes were shined properly. I was hoping for promotion to vice-captain.
Club started at six with parade so I barely had time to polish my shoes before dinner. My head was reeling from my conversation with Bobby’s dad and the only time I had to think about it was while I sat on the back step and polished. I must admit life had always seemed pretty fair to me. There was a natural order to things. If you did your homework and paid attention in class, you did well in exams. If you turned up to football practice and did what the coach told you, you won matches. If you put in the work you reaped the reward. This was the ethic of the times and hard to argue against. The real clincher for me was that the fishing went off just as the soccer season started, and came on again just as the soccer season ended. What could be fairer than that?
I didn’t want life to be unfair. If it was unfair it changed everything. It meant you could do everything right and still have the rug pulled out from under your feet. If that was the case, what was the point of going to church? What was the point of working hard? What was the point of studying?
In my heart I wasn’t convinced that life was unfair despite what Mr Holterman had said. At the back of my mind was the nagging suspicion that somewhere
along the line both Mack and Mr Holterman must have done something wrong to earn God’s displeasure. Somewhere along the way they must have sinned in thought, word or deed and now had to cop the consequences. I know if I stacked my bike and broke my arm, all my pals would want to know what I’d done to deserve it. When Clarry broke his leg falling off the rope swing we all stood around his bed for ages speculating on what it was he’d done to upset God. We didn’t want to have our legs broken, too. There was something very uncompromising and contradictory about this God of ours. Captain Biggs preached the Christian principles of forgiveness and tolerance but God never hesitated to take his revenge. Accidents didn’t happen. Punishment happened. That was how things worked for kids and I couldn’t see whyit would be any different for adults. It seemed to me Mack and Mr Holterman were definitely being punished.
But what if they’d done nothing wrong? This was a distinct possibility, because I couldn’t imagine what on earth Mack or Mr Holterman could’ve done. Yet teaching from both church and school suggested this had to be the case. Complicating things was the fact that we’d never been able to figure out what Clarry had done wrong to deserve his broken leg. My head felt as if it wanted to explode from so much thinking.
Right then I would have given anything for the chance to talk this over with Dad, Rod, Eric or even Captain Biggs. At stake was nothing less than the principles which underpinned my entire life. But how could I, without opening the whole can of worms?
I decided to test Mr Holterman’s claim. My soccer team, Eden eighth grade, was going to win the championship by either two points or four points. Four points looked most likely because the one remaining championship game was against Pt Chev, and they couldn’t stand in line and kick the bum in front of them without missing. If life was fair we would also win the knockout because we were a four-points-better team than our closest rivals, North Shore. The problem was the last time we’d met North Shore they’d thrashed us three–nil. Their centre-half and fullbacks were huge. According to rumours, they’d already started shaving. It was hard to believe those kids were our age. Still, we were a four-points-better team and if life was fair we’d beat them and win both the championship and the knockout. I decided to make this the test. If we won, life was fair and Mr Holterman was wrong. If we lost, life was unfair and Mr Holterman was right. What could be simpler? The trouble was, the final of the knockout was four weeks away. Four weeks was forever and what was I supposed to do in the meantime?