Dogside Story

by Patricia Grace

  Kid didn’t seem to care for the doll. She’d taken it from him, looked into its green face and button eyes, touched the hat, lifted the crocheted frill then put it on the locker beside the bed.

  ‘I thought Ani Wainoa might be looking for something or following a cat or a bird, but why would she keep to the path if she was doing that? So then I thought she could be carefully carrying something that was secret. It’s what the trees told me, moving their heads here, there and hardly at all.’

  Using too many words, and Kid was lying back as if she wasn’t listening, because maybe she didn’t believe he was going to tell her anything different from what she already knew. Or maybe it was too late and she didn’t care any more.

  ‘Carrying a secret and I wanted to know what it was. I got out of the water, went round the cove bank without making any noise or disturbing any birds, and climbed the rocks on the other side to the ledge. Waited by the track where I knew she’d come out, waited a long time while she came slow, slow, slow with this secret.’

  And now he knew he had to lie, leave out some of what had happened that day and what was shouted into the trees as he backed away watching the two hands holding the lump of wood. Watching, watching, watching, throw it or I’ll kill you. There could be another time when he’d have to tell it all, but for now the trees would have something to keep.

  ‘At last she came out from the trees with her secret. You were her secret. She came out of the trees with you, but got a fright to know that I knew her secret, held you out for me to take. I took you, had you there. Freaked out, me—freaked out big-time, and so I stepped back.

  ‘Tripped and stumbled, then had to jump to save us from falling onto the rocks, folding you into me with water all round. My feet touched the bottom, pushed me up and when I reached the surface, swam like an upside down frog with you on my chest. Seagulls were flying.’

  You tell and … you tell anyone … after you … after you with, with a … knifeknife. It wasn’t that that had scared him.

  ‘Out on the bank dried you with my shirt but you were hardly wet at all. Like you’d been oiled. Ani Wainoa was gone, running—away through the blowhole and gone. I knew she would never come back so I took you to Nanny Blind’s, but it was no good leaving you there, Nanny Blind was crying and her dog was dead. Took you home.’

  It was what she already knew.

  ‘She gave you to me. Ani Wainoa gave you to me because it was me. It was me, how you got there in that Ani Wainoa.’

  Watching him tell what had been meant only for trees.

  Watching him.

  And he watched her, watched her understand, watched her eyes picking up light, watched her high cheeks pick up the colour of plums.

  ‘I was fourteen, too young to be your father and didn’t realise then that I was your father. I took you home.’

  She reached for the doll, put it in the bed beside her with its head on the pillow and its green arms out over the bed cover.

  ‘Your father, but it’s not all.’ He could hear lunch coming. The trolley was out in the corridor, footsteps in and out of the ward rooms.

  ‘It’s not all and … and, if there’s something bad, something bad … If there’s something not good … well … what will make up for it?’

  Because there was something that was known not only to trees, that anyone could tell her once they knew he was her father. He knew he had to be the one to tell and knew he had to do it now. She was watching him.

  ‘What will make up for it?’

  The trays were coming in and he could smell cauliflower cheese.

  She sat up. ‘That you never leave me,’ she said.

  He leaned and propped the pillows behind her, helped her balance the tray.

  ‘You’re living with me now. Going to have the house next to Pop Henry’s so it’s easy for you to go to school.’

  Had to stop talking about that. All of that was for later. Bread rolls and butter, wet salad, cheesy steam. ‘I was eight when my mother died,’ he said. ‘Her name was Ramari, your grandmother. My sister Moananui, who is your aunty, was four. Before my mother got sick we used to go to Nanny Blind’s once a week to take bread. We’d see Ani Wainoa there and my mother would say, “Come and live with Mummy now.” My mother was Ani Wainoa’s mother too.’

  He watched her as she unwrapped a knife and fork from a paper napkin and peeled back the foil lid on the butter. ‘Ani Wainoa is my sister, that’s what’s bad.’

  She broke the roll, smeared butter inside it, pulled a lump off with her teeth. ‘Who cares?’ she said.

  ‘What’s bad is Ani Wainoa is my sister. What’s bad is you’re not allowed to do that with your sister, not allowed to put a baby in your sister. A sister isn’t allowed to get a baby with a brother.’

  ‘Who cares?’

  ‘Well, you don’t want a daughter to know some things … about a father.’

  Daughter. Father. The words had been said.

  ‘Who cares?’

  ‘Or people to know wrong things about a … girl’s father and mother.’

  ‘Keep it a secret then, who cares.’ She was scoffing the bun. ‘Who cares if my mother is your sister?’ Chomping on the cauli-cheese and downing the soggy salad. ‘Who cares if that Ani Wainoa was going to drown me. Don’t give a stuff, Rua.’

  The mother of the bandaged baby in the corner cot was spooning mashed food into its mouth, tasting it first, eating half of each spoonful before giving it to the baby. He’d seen other mothers do that, eat half the baby’s food and always wondered why they did it. It made him feel like laughing.

  ‘We’re going to Wellington to get me a leg,’ he said. ‘You know, artificial, so I can walk good. We’re staying at Nan Tini’s while you have your dressings done, or we might just go to Wellington if they say you can get your arm done down there. Getting a car and furniture, beds, a blanket from Nan Tini.’

  He thought he should stop talking, let days happen a piece at a time, thought he should leave now and get a cab, pick up Tini and go to Pak’n Save to get a few supplies—and there was phoning to do. But he didn’t want to leave and decided he’d wait until someone else came in—Wai, Archie, Cass, Floss and Mint, Eva. In the morning he was going to buy a car, automatic, and good-looking enough so he wouldn’t get stopped by the police and asked for his licence.

  But it was Maina who came in. She’d slept, he could see.

  ‘How’s this Kiri?’ she asked. Kid held up the doll to show her. ‘Where’d you get that?’

  Kid tipped her head in his direction. ‘Him.’

  ‘Nan Tini makes them, sells them at the flea market,’ he said.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘How is he now?’ he asked.

  ‘Stable … and OK …’ a smile, a glance his way, into his eyes quick and out again.

  ‘His sister and nephew are with him, arrived last night so I went home for a sleep.’ She was seated opposite him, her hand on Kid’s forehead stroking back hair. ‘Are you allowed up?’ she said to Kid. ‘Have you had a coffee, anything to eat?’ she asked him. ‘I was on my way to … to have a smoke to be truthful, but coffee and a sandwich at the caf would do.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ he said. He took the knitted slippers from the locker and put them on Kid’s feet which were already dangling over the side of the bed. It was a shock seeing her feet, a copy of his own feet—narrow heels, wide fronts, wide gap between the big toe and the next one, the same pattern of toenails. Felt like mentioning it.

  He tied the strings and draped the hospital gown over her shoulders. ‘Dressing gowns,’ he said. ‘You got dressing gowns down there at DEKA?’

  ‘Let me get it. I’m calling in to work this afternoon and I get a discount … I know what …’ She left the room and returned with a wheelchair. ‘Here, so you won’t bump your poor arm.’ Kid got in and the two of them were off and out in the corridor waiting while he reached for his sticks and followed.

  ‘Fix you up tomorrow,’ he said. ‘For the dressing
gown.’

  ‘Get back to work as long as he’s OK,’ she said. ‘And be in lunchtime and after work tomorrow. His sister and Tony are staying ’til Sunday … Now, now … this dressing gown …’ she said to Kid. ‘Pink, pale blue, dark blue, dark red?’

  ‘Dark red.’

  ‘Like the slippers. Dark red’ll just suit you won’t it, Girl?’

  ‘She’s OK,’ Maina said, looking to where Kid had manoeuvred the wheelchair through the arrangements of brown tables and orange chairs to the windows overlooking the car park and outlying buildings, ‘She looks ah …’

  ‘Told her what she wanted to know,’ he said across the table.

  ‘How was it? Was it OK?’

  ‘It was. It was OK. Going to Wellington, her and me, while I get the prosthesis.’ There was his money to see to and he had to get to the supermarket then go home to Tini’s to ring Wellington for appointments before they closed down for the day. But he didn’t want to leave.

  ‘That’s good then. Is it?’ A glance and then away.

  And he felt like saying something to her, something loving, something out of his heart, but didn’t know what it could be. Didn’t know how to say something loving and out of his heart.

  Kid was up out of the wheelchair, pushing it, making her way back in and out among the tables.

  ‘I think of you,’ he said, breaking open a packet of sugar, shaking out the grains and looking deep into coffee.

  ‘But don’t.’

  When they arrived back at the ward Wai and Cass were sitting by Kid’s bed waiting, and he noticed the look that passed between them when they saw him and Maina together. It told him that on the morning when Cass had come to pick Maina up, the trees had told. It told him Cass thought it was funny and Wai didn’t think it funny at all. Not that he cared.

  He left Cass and Wai there with Kid and went to the elevators with Maina, poked the elevator button with his stick.

  ‘Because,’ she said, ‘I’m not the one for you. There’s someone out there for you. Someone young, someone without all this … baggage … I shouldn’t …’

  The lift was making its way up stopping, starting again. Red light, red light, green.

  ‘Someone who’ll want to have children. I mean, I shouldn’t …’

  The doors opened, an orderly came out pushing a trolley.

  ‘I have a child,’ he said as she stepped in.

  She turned, looking into him as the doors closed.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  He knew he should’ve called in to see Arch and Wai to tell them what he was doing but he was still wild with them. He’d gone in to see Pop Henry instead, brought him out and showed him the car and told him he was moving in next door when he came back from Wellington. Promised the old man a fish.

  ‘I know you,’ Pop Henry kept saying. ‘I know you, you’re Ru’s boy.’ There was a heater going and Reggae’s two kids were hot and grizzling.

  Now he’d come in to have a quick look to see if there were any repairs needed round the house and to try out the taps and switches. He thought about what he would have to get in the way of beds and bedding and other furniture, and measured up a space in the kitchen where he could put a fridge. Later he’d go over to the cove to get fish for Tini and the old man then get up to the old place and pack a few things.

  Instead of going over to her aunties’ place for clothes for Kid, he decided he’d get her new stuff before they left for Wellington in the morning. But how did you do that, buy her clothes?

  Maina had come into the hospital with the dressing gown. Kid was pleased with it, and it was really true that the colour suited her, but how did you know things like that? He had a child, but would he know what to do? Did he know how to be a father?

  It was near the end of the lunch hour and Maina, who had already been to see her father, was hurrying to get back to work. ‘Don’t think of me,’ she’d said again. And he’d wanted to say something to her that would let her know he understood.

  ‘It’s OK,’ was all he could think of saying.

  ‘There are things … and I want to live with my father.’

  ‘Nah, it’s OK.’

  And it was right, had to be OK. He had a daughter and wanted to be her father now, wanted to do that himself even if there were things he wasn’t sure about. How did you stroke a forehead, put back strands of hair, have the right words to say? How did you have what a girl needed, such as … Such as what? A good house and dresses, was all he could think of.

  Wai and Cass were out there looking at the car then coming towards the house dawdling and talking, coming to find out what he was up to. How to tell them what he had to tell? But he guessed it would all fall out of his mouth somehow.

  Wai came in with Cass following, both blinking coming out of the sun. ‘I’m moving in,’ he said. ‘She’s coming to live with me.’

  The look that passed between them, Cass trying to look serious, Wai looking wild, told him they thought he was talking about Maina coming to live with him. Made him mad. ‘Kid,’ he said, louder than he meant to. ‘She’s coming to live with me.’

  The words rattled in the empty room against wood walls, wood floorboards, wet plaster and dirty glass.

  ‘Ahh,’ Cass said.

  ‘Well aah …?’ Wai said, which meant she didn’t think so.

  ‘Clean it up, get what we need and we’re shifting in when we get back.’

  ‘Well … don’t know …’

  ‘Moving in.’

  ‘The Aunties …’

  ‘Got no say. Kid’s coming to live with me.’

  Wai had begun to move about the room, stopping every now and again by old lino tacks with scraps of lino still attached, touching each with her toe. ‘They won’t give up easy,’ she said.

  ‘Coming to live with me because … I’m her father.’

  ‘Brought her home that time.’

  ‘Because I’m her father.’

  ‘Ani Wainoa …’

  ‘I’m her father.’

  ‘Watched out for her ever since then …’

  ‘And I’m her father.’

  ‘You were … ’

  ‘I’m her father.

  ‘A boy.’

  ‘Fourteen.’

  Archie had come in and was standing with his back to the window, sun all over him and blossoms from a pear tree outside snowing down behind. Cass leaned against the bench, watching with her mouth shut down. This was family business. Wai was pacing and toeing.

  ‘Who else but me?’ he asked. ‘Who else could it be?’

  ‘She told us herself …’ Wai said, but then she stopped speaking, stopped pacing, her eyes filled. ‘We believed her,’ she said. ‘Seen her with that Wiwi, that Dutch, that Swedish, whatever.’

  ‘But what?’ Archie said. ‘Come to think, what did we see? Saw her riding round all night in bumper cars, that blondie giving her free gos, that’s it. Never went off wit’ him, nothing like that.’

  ‘She been meeting him, she said. We rang her father’s mother after she left, Tawai. Ani Wainoa wasn’t there when we rang, but next afternoon her father got hold of us. She was there. I talked to her. “Stefan’s the father of the child,” she said. “He is my lover and we are soon to be reunited,” that way she talked. “I’ll never return,” she said, so we believed. You were a kid.’ Wai was pacing again, sniffing, tears of hers splashing on the floor.

  ‘Fourteen.’

  ‘A kid,’ Arch said. ‘And we didn’t watch out, didn’t look after you good. Didn’t look after them good, letting them live up there going funny in the trees, old Blind and Ani Wainoa.’

  ‘I was looked after good,’ he said. ‘And I knew …’

  ‘You were a kid,’ Arch was looking down on shoes. ‘But it happened and now … ’

  ‘And now we know … we know, but it can’t be told,’ Wai said. ‘Can’t be told that there’s a daughter come from a brother and sister. Outside of here it can’t be told.’

  ‘I’m her father,�
�� he said. ‘If people got to know … If I got to put it over Iwi Radio then I will.’

  ‘Listen. Let Sis and me go to Babs and Amiria and we tell them you want to have Kiri now because … because … she was given to you,’ Arch said. ‘Claiming her now as her closest relative, as the brother of Ani Wainoa. They got to be on the back foot those two, after what they let happen.’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘They might.’

  ‘If they don’t?’

  ‘Then we got to tell them what you told us, you might be her father and so you got the right. We tell them they got to shut up about it.’

  ‘Ahh, might as well ring Iwi Radio.’

  ‘Try, have a go.’

  Which they could’ve done before now he thought of telling them. ‘OK, but I’m having Kid anyway. No way she’s going back there. Tomorrow, off to Wellington and taking her with me. Staying with Dion while I get me a bionic waewae, then back to fix this place up for her and me.’

  ‘Got you a driver’s licence, Son?’ Arch asked.

  ‘No, but I put my name down.’

  ‘Got you a pretty good car.’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  ‘At least it’s cheap,’ said Dion from above. ‘That place I had last time you came was too expensive, and I had to travel into Vic every day on the bus. Cost me heaps. All I have to do now is run up the side of the hill and I’m there, run down and I’m home.’

  He’d expected something the size of a showground or a stadium but instead found that Te Aro Park was a small grassed wedge with tiled pathways, prow-shaped, with tiled pools set into it like peep holes from underground streams. At the bottom of each pool were painted swimmers that seemed as though they could have surfaced from the underground places and were now locked there, minding water as if it was the only bit remaining. Seagulls and pigeons stepped about in slow dance.

  But they hadn’t seen all this on the first day when the taxi dropped him and Kid off after shuffling them from the railway bus depot through the late afternoon traffic.