Dogside Story

by Patricia Grace

  On on on, giving his father a tongue bashing that had lasted until the sun began to drop behind the hills.

  Over there on the slopes their own niece was hardly under, hardly cold was what Pop was going on about.

  All this while his father had sat without moving, leaning on his knees looking as though he was enduring a hangover that he’d decided was nobody’s business but his own, waiting for it to be over.

  People had sat about, becoming shadows, scraping their hands up over their legs and arms, swiping in front of their faces and snorting down their noses at the mobs of sandflies that were attacking them.

  Then it was done. Pop Henry stopped and sat down on one of Wai’s chairs of big flowers without even singing his song—that’s how wild he was. People stopped waving at sandflies, kids stopped lugging the baby and he and his cousins had taken the opportunity to get down out of the tree.

  What next?

  He remembered that all eyes had been on his father to see what he would do, but his father did nothing. Eyes looked about to see if anyone else was getting up to say anything but it seemed not.

  All over.

  Lights went on in the house and when he went inside with his cousins, his aunties were in the kitchen slicing a cold leg, buttering bread, boiling water and laughing, ha ha, Tamarua sitting there like a kehua.

  ‘Pop dishing it out to him, laying it on. Wild as anything.’

  ‘Tamarua not a word to say.’

  ‘Scared he make matters worse.’

  ‘Ha, good way to spend a Saturday, you think?’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Well … Who can blame him anyway?’

  ‘A man is just a man.’

  ‘That’s a fact.’

  ‘Of course that Renie …’

  It seemed they’d all seen her in her little dresses, her short hair, all arms and legs dancing in her diamond shoes, even if today she did just look ordinary in her long skirt and white top, like an ordinary mother of a little kid. The baby was fat and nice, all had agreed about that, and agreed too that it was something to ring up and tell the other relations about. Juicy it was.

  As they were discussing all of this Nan Tini had come in bringing her old cousin, Nanny Blind, and the aunties had begun pushing furniture out of the way and getting an armchair ready. Tini had led Blind and her dog there, sat the old woman down in the chair and begun pushing her arms into a cardigan and buttoning it as though Blind couldn’t dress herself.

  They’d all started bossing, ‘Look now, look at your legs.’

  ‘You can’t stay there living in the trees with those.’

  ‘True, you can’t … She can’t.’

  The legs were big and fat he’d noticed, her feet pumped like balloons, and they’d all begun promising Nanny Blind that if she came out front to live with Arch or Wai, or any of them, they could rub her legs with Deep Heat or a slice off their aloe vera plant. They could soak her feet in boiled kawakawa or Vicks and warm water and rub in their creams, take her to town and get her an outfit for the wedding, get her some shoes, give her hair a trim. She could be near doctors. Also, they’d said, it would be closer to school for Ani Wainoa and better for her, because … because … because they didn’t want Ani Wainoa growing up in the trees, weird.

  Blind listened, and now and again he’d seen her lift her eyelids just far enough to show spooky half rounds of useless pale centres, rimmed by dark outer half rings, then whites that were bluish as though smoke had leaked into them. But Blind hadn’t been interested in his aunties’ rubs and cures, or in leaving her falling-down house and coming to live with anyone, or in outfits and hairdos, or in being near doctors and closer to schools. What she’d wanted that evening was descriptions.

  ‘T’is new woman of Tamarua?’ she’d asked.

  ‘Ah, Renie?’

  ‘Renie. Well, one of these skinny-as-a-stick ones with boy’s hair, all neck and arms and legs.’

  ‘Ah it’s a fact.’

  ‘Dressed in a yard of ribbon like Audrey Hepburn in old movies.’

  ‘True. Black version of Audrey.’

  ‘Long neck like Audrey.’

  ‘True, and black eyes.’

  ‘Skinny. Half a head taller than him.’

  ‘And … tis it his, tis it his?’ Blind had wanted to know.

  ‘Ah Tommy John. It is, you can see it.’

  ‘True you can see. Those fat photos of Rua and Moananui when they were babies, just like that, fat and nice.’

  ‘Her dad works on the trawlers,’ someone had said. ‘One of those town Hakopas, and the mother from up Wellington.’

  ‘Ah well, Hakopa,’ Blind had said. ‘Got a dance band all t’ose Hakopa, after the war when we go to socials and dancing, and I dance around seeing with half of one eye. Ronny, Chock, Tutu and their cousin Takumoana with only one hand after the war, so he have to be the singer. Hmmm, could be dead all t’ose.’

  On Blind’s dog were big fat fleas.

  When they went out again their Uncle Arch was pouring double slugs of whisky into two glasses for Pop and his father telling anyone else who wanted one to get themselves a glass. Renie was sitting by his father with a drink in her hand. Yes she had a long neck and kept swallowing even though she hadn’t started drinking—sitting really still, flicking her black eyes. Everyone was laughing and slapping the bloody sandflies, shouting and having his father on, ‘Ha ha Brother, all right, when’s the wedding?’

  Chapter Ten

  During the wedding ceremony when his father and Renie were married at the end of that summer, he’d watched Ani Wainoa—who was wearing a dress, a back-to-front waistcoat and an admiral’s hat, but for once nothing in white—edging away from Nanny Blind and making her way towards where he’d found a standing space along the back wall of the wharenui. She’d squeezed in beside him, made a hole in the side of her mouth and said, ‘The treasure of the boiling deep lies there, and the monster of the treacherous crossing is asleep.’

  He’d tipped his head in the direction of the door, letting her know to follow him, and together they’d slid out on to the veranda and looked across the marae to the water—which on that day was the shiny blue of bridesmaids’ dresses. They’d made their way round to the back of the meeting house from where they could see the blowhole, high, dry and open for them. Off they’d gone running.

  When they arrived at the cove they’d made their way up and along the track to the plank from where they could look out towards the last rock standing at the cove entrance, then past there to the wide band of water where, on that day, they could see that the taniwha was asleep. Beyond there was the island and Cave Rock where the treasure lay.

  It was the right day and they were alone.

  There had been other good days during the summer, but on those occasions there’d always been others there too. They’d had to wait all summer to be by themselves, because they knew that what they had planned, what Ani Wainoa had planned for them, wasn’t allowed.

  The log that they had practised with was above the high tide mark where they’d left it. It was long enough for both of them to sit on and had enough branching pieces on it to prevent it rolling in the water. They’d taken off their outer clothing and slid the log down into the water going one each side and kicking for the far rocks.

  From there they’d looked out over the forbidden band of water, which on most days was whipped and orderless, with waves that were tipsy, dislocated and skew-back because the taniwha was awake and raving. On this day, being a day of taniwha sleeping, the stretch of water was just bridesmaids’ dresses, with a frilly place out in the middle of the stream, tucked and pinned from breathing and snores.

  It wasn’t allowed, but they had positioned the log, angling it towards the island and the nearest side of Cave Rock, pushing off through the first band of water, ironed and satiny. When they came close to the strip of rucks and pinnings they’d prepared themselves, breathing in, propelling forward, cutting water with their fast, paddling feet and t
heir one-armed stroking.

  And they’d almost made it, could almost have touched the outcrops of Cave Rock with outstretched hands, but the log had begun to turn and they’d realised there was nothing their kicking or one-armed stroking could do. All they’d been able to do was cling to the log as it began rotating in the currents at the same time washing them sideways, out from the island where it spilled them into the calm water of the open sea.

  Climbing onto the log and laying flat along it, they’d leaned first to one side then the other to keep it balanced, knowing there was no way back and nothing they could do but allow the current to take them towards the shore of the next bay.

  Once there they’d rested, waiting until the sun began to go down before starting off around the cliff edges, climbing the jagged rocks and lower cliff faces to avoid what was now high tide water beating its way through the channels.

  It was night by the time they reached the cove and the familiar paths. On the grassy slope they’d waited for cuts and scratches to stop bleeding before putting their wedding clothes back on and setting out on the home tracks carrying their shoes.

  The tables had been cleared by the time they arrived, and the last of the dishes were being stacked in the wash-up area. Before coming out into the open they’d waited until there was only Uncle Morehu looking after the fires, knowing he wouldn’t ask any questions and would just give them kai.

  A year later when his father and Renie decided to move and take the family where there was work, he’d decided not to go with them. He couldn’t think at the time why he didn’t want to leave, only saying to himself that there was treasure lying at the bottom of the boiling deep. It hadn’t seemed to be the real reason, but even though he’d felt sorry for his father who had kept saying, ‘Your mum would want me to keep you kids together,’ he’d kept with his decision to stay there with Aunty Wai.

  After his father and Renie and the children left, life had gone on much as before even though it had people missing from it.

  Chapter Eleven

  He sent Kutu on ahead. Maina followed, coughing and staggering, slapping her snagged skirt down with the shoes that she’d taken off and now held either side of her. At the creek, where he could swing through to the other side so easily without getting wet, she made no attempt to cross on the stepping stones but waded straight through and up the sloping bank, breathing so hard he thought she might pass out.

  From there the track narrowed even more, going up and over the rise. He slowed down when he reached the top, sat and waited, looking out over the cove to the island and beyond to a flat horizon.

  In the other direction he could see over the bushes to the clearing and the tipsy chimney of the falling-down house that Nanny Blind had given him—after Toss died, after Ani Wainoa left, after Blind had gone to live at last with Archie Shoes.

  ‘His feet,’ Maina said, flopping down beside him, ‘you know … these perfect … feet. Sings to his feet, soaping, rinsing off, drying every bit, every baby toenail. A whole newspaper on the floor … sits there with clippers … files, making … making art … of feet.’

  Private life of Piiki Chiefy. She was a crack-up all right.

  ‘It’s a wreck,’ he said. ‘Falling down,’ excusing the house and thinking now that this wasn’t a good idea, wondering why he’d opened his mouth to say I know a place, wondering why he’d gone down to the beach and said it again, I know a place. He pushed the door and she went in, not hearing what he was saying, not understanding what he was talking about but just dropping her shoes, falling onto his lopsided bed asleep.

  Collecting his tent, sleeping bag and fishing gear into his backpack he prepared to go and join whoever would be spending the afternoon at the cove, intending to stay the next few nights there.

  When he arrived back at the old house the next morning with fish, her clothes were draped over a bush and she was sitting on the creek bank by the wash pool wearing a tee shirt of his and one of his beach towels.

  ‘Embarrassing,’ she said, ‘in this morning-after light. Sounds good when you’re drunk as a skunk, maudlin over your glass.’

  He unhooked his frying-pan from where it hung on the tree, set it up on the stones and lit dry grass and sticks under it. He filled his water pot and put it to one side of the fire.

  ‘Anyway just waiting for my things to dry and I’ll get moving.’

  That was a relief. There’d been no rain and the tank was just about empty. There were no supplies apart from a half loaf of old bread, a bit of flour, a few cans and a handful of teabags. He went inside for the tin of fat.

  ‘I mean I always end up going back to him anyway,’ he could hear her saying, ‘so why hang around just to try and prove a point. Prove what point? Or … or pretending?’

  He went out, scraping away layers of fat from the tin until he came to the clean stuff which he scooped into the pan. It slid and melted and began spitting.

  ‘Woke up in the bloody dark and didn’t know where I was. And didn’t care, just went back to sleep.’

  When the first fish was in the pan he went to the tank for a pot of water which he put on the side of the fire before returning to the house for plates, cups, salt and teabags.

  ‘Woke up again it was daylight and still couldn’t remember much really. All I knew was I had no smokes, no clean clothes, no nothing. Found me a piece of soap and had a nice cold wash in the creek, in the hollow. Washed my things and it was just really, really …’

  She was a talker this one. He slid his knife under the fish and turned it. The cooked side had browned, the skin had crisped and the whitened flesh was beaded with juice.

  ‘And I was just sitting here, wanting a smoke, realising it was Monday and thinking I should ring in to work … ah, on a bush phone or what? But you know, I think I was so dead asleep last night that my watch stopped. Ten past two it says, so I don’t even know, no idea … what it is … don’t care really.’

  With his knife under the fish, he eased it onto a plate and handed it to her, then put the second fish in the pan and boosted the fire.

  Not long after sunrise he’d thrown his line out and spent about an hour before catching the two fish, then he’d scaled and cleaned them, washed up, taken his time coming back. Probably getting on for eight o’clock. Anyway it was all his own doing, getting her to come here. Why had he? He turned his fish and shuffled the pan, and when the fish was ready removed the pan from the fire and shifted the water to the middle.

  ‘This is um, it’s aah … unbelievable. I mean … My god … it’s …’ She was lifting the flesh away from the bones with her big fingers, which were full and round except at the tips where they looked as though they’d been sharpened—an expert when it came to cleaning up fish, he could see.

  ‘He goes to Wellington today, which is something I didn’t remember until my head cleared, another of his jaunts. Got a suite in a posh hotel down there that they reserve for him. Must just about own the place by now, or the Runanga must, since they’re the ones paying. That goes for the taxi company too—and Air Enzed. Once a month, all laid on.’

  When the water boiled he filled the cups and put a teabag in each. ‘There’s condense milk if you want.’

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  ‘On the shelf with the other tins.’

  ‘I haven’t had it since I was a kid,’ she said when she returned with the can. ‘Tea and condense milk, Weetbix and condense milk, condense milk on bread if we could get away with it.’ He bunged two holes in the can and she let the milk slug out into her cup while he whisked it with his knife. ‘Well, as for all that—flash hotels, flash women, someone else’s money—he can stick it. This … this is my idea of the good life.’

  She lay on her side facing the fire, resting on one elbow, shaping her mouth to sip the tea, ‘But I suppose … after this I’ll get going.’ Then she asked, ‘Who knows I’m here?’

  ‘No one asked.’

  It was true, no one at the cove the previous afternoon had menti
oned seeing him leave the beach with her and set out on the tracks, no one had asked about her or if anyone had come to pick her up.

  ‘It’s just that … well it’s embarrassing. My big mouth gets me in trouble sometimes when I’ve had a few. It just won’t shut up. I remember yesterday … life history, then before we went up to get your sticks, still half plonked asking about your leg.’

  So she wanted to bring that up again, only more carefully this time, still wanted to know.

  Nose trouble.

  Well the subject of his leg was fine, safe. He could talk about it anytime because it was nothing, and she was a stranger anyway, a piece of landscape lying there on her side changing the shape of the creek bank. She was someone he hardly knew, who would stand up soon and push off—maybe after he’d given her the piece of information she wanted, which it would take only one breath and one sentence to give. Lost in a car accident.

  Nothing secret about that. One sentence, or he could tell it all if he wanted to.

  On other matters there were things he’d never told and never would. Kid was the one asking him but she wouldn’t get it out of him, the secret for life, the one to die with.

  Did this one here know he wasn’t fooled, that he didn’t have to tell if he didn’t want to, that if he did decide to speak it wasn’t because she was there getting it out of him.

  Lost it in a car accident. Time to go. Ka kite ano.

  And if he put it that way, decided to say it like that, he’d be telling her that was all the information she was getting. She was waiting, her dark eyes dulled like Marmite. Wiped. She’d pulled right back after putting out bait, that’s how badly she wanted … to know?

  Or, to have conversation? A reason to stay a while?

  Anyway there was no way for her to get home now, because even if she did walk back along the tracks and then the three k’s into the township in her wrong shoes there wouldn’t be a bus at this time of day.