by Gee, Maurice
But he had stood too long in one place and he moved, found the iron door to Ponder’s yard and side-stepped in among her rotting junk. She didn’t like him coming in the front way, he had to wind among the old lawn mowers that never got covered from the rain and would never sell, the stacks of timber spiked with rusty nails, the window frames and warped doors and fire places with the tiles dropped off; and the canoe with the rotten canvas, the piebald horse from a circus roundabout, the park bench, the bike frames and bike wheels, the chain harrow, the basketball goal, the stacks of rusty corrugated iron, the ship’s propeller. What did she keep these things for? They’d been lying in the yard for as long as he’d been coming. Under a lean-to the whiteware stood, black with grime around the foot and furry with dust. Handprints in it. Faces. Half a sum someone had not found the answer to. Washing machines further along, fridges and stoves out of the Ark. Freezers that would hold a horse, if anyone could lift them out of here. Rosser slipped amongst them and looked in at the door. Kapok mattresses roped up or flopping out like tongues. Bed wires, beds, ends of carpet, chests of drawers, wardrobes, bookshelves, books – and nothing ever changed and nothing sold. He saw her in her office, half way down, with what she called ‘my antiques, dear, my really good stuff’ between her and the street door. She wiped it with a rag sometimes but none of it sold either.
Rosser went towards her, rubber-soled. Shark, he thought. But when he was still five metres away she said, ‘Don’t come creeping up like that, young Brent.’ She must have mirrors; she couldn’t have heard, not with traffic passing in the street.
‘How are you, Mrs Ponder?’ he said, and stood at her door the way she liked.
‘You can come in. You can sit down.’
You had to wait until she asked. He sat on the hard chair, almost touching knees with her as she squeaked around to face him in her secretary chair, and he shivered at her scent as strong as Harpic and the purple lipstick that leaked into the wrinkles round her mouth. She was fifty, sixty, seventy, you couldn’t tell, with her hair red from a bottle and her eyes coloured up and her eyebrows shaved off and painted on and her nails dark red. ‘No decent woman paints her nails,’ his mother used to say. No decent woman, Rosser said, uses scent like that. He wondered what other smells it hid and what she might be like under her dress. Outside in the street she had a Volvo, bloody Volvo, and out in the Hutt somewhere a house crammed to the doors with stolen property, so he’d heard. She sat in here and played at junk and old furniture and all the time she was the biggest fence around. With millions in the bank probably. And never caught. Rosser had been passed on to her by Leon Briggs, who had let him play the Game City machines as payment for nicked stuff. He had got too big for Leon. And now he was too big for Mrs Ponder – moving on. He smiled at her.
‘Did you want me for something, dear?’ she said.
‘Yeah, I wondered’ – he swallowed and was angry with himself – ‘I wondered if maybe you’d like to buy my car.’
She watched him for a moment, then she smiled. Little brown quick eyes, she had. ‘You need your car, don’t you, Brent, you travel around so much?’
‘Yeah, well, I thought I might get a better one.’
‘So what you’re saying is, you want to sell me one that’s not very good?’
‘I didn’t say that. It runs okay. I’ve never had any trouble with it.’
‘Keep it then, dear. Never sell a car that’s running well.’
‘Sure, if you say so.’ She did this to him, tied him up, every time. He knew that he had made a mistake in coming to her.
‘Is there something else, Brent? Something you wanted to tell me?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘You haven’t been leaving it somewhere you shouldn’t?’
‘Course not.’
‘Well, that’s good.’ She put on a pair of glasses and looked at him over the top. ‘So many people bungle things. But you’re always such a careful boy.’
He understood at once that she knew something. And then believed that she knew everything. Ponder had a way of swelling out and wrapping herself round you so that you couldn’t move and couldn’t speak. His mother was the same. Knew everything.
He managed to say, ‘What do you mean?’ And saw from her smile that he had told her even more.
‘That horrible business in Kelburn, where the poor woman had her neck broken,’ Ponder said. ‘That’s an unlucky family, Brent.’
‘How? Unlucky?’
‘You should read the paper, dear.’ She tapped an Evening Post folded on her desk. ‘Her husband’s brother is in court for stealing millions of dollars. Gordon Peet. And talk about coincidences, Brent, her husband is your landlord. He owns the house where you live.’
‘No he doesn’t.’ He could not move his arms from his sides. ‘I pay the rent to something called Athco Properties.’
‘Oh yes, that’s him. Athco. Athol Peet. He owns more than forty houses, would you believe? But now his wife has got a broken neck. And her jewellery is stolen too.’
It was like a dream where you had to run but your legs were dead.
‘I daresay whoever took it has thrown it in the harbour. That would be the sensible thing.’
‘Yeah. I s’pose,’ Rosser croaked.
‘And of course he should never work again. Not anywhere.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘They’ve got his fingerprints. Don’t ask me how I know, I just hear things. Have you seen the paper, Brent? No, of course, it’s just come out.’ She unfolded the Post and opened it at page three. ‘They’ve made an identikit picture.’
He looked at it. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him.
‘Now let’s drop this silly nonsense, Brent,’ Ponder said. ‘You’re a good boy, you’re a nice boy, but you’re finished in Wellington and I never want to see you or hear your name again.’ She took off her glasses and laid them down. ‘What you do is, you go away. And you never do your kind of work again, you do something straight, and you never say boo to a policeman. And most of all you never mention me. To anyone. Never ever, Brent, do you hear what I say?’
‘Yes, all right.’
‘Say it then.’
‘I never talk about you.’
‘And I go away.’
‘I go away.’
‘Because I can drop a word, in the right ear. Any time, Brent. Australia would be best. You go there.’
‘Australia. Yes.’
‘So that’s all. Except one thing.’
He waited, dry-eyed. He felt as if his face had withered up.
‘You took some money too. I want that.’
‘No, Mrs Ponder.’
‘Yes, Brent.’
‘I need it, I need it for Oz.’
‘You’ve got more. I know you’ve got more. I’m feeling generous so I’ll let you keep that. But I know how much you took from up in Kelburn. You bring it here tomorrow night. It’s my late night.’
He turned about, and turned, in his mind, but there was nowhere he could go. ‘Yes. All right.’
‘Come in the back way. And then, Brent, remember, Ponder never sees you again.’
He nodded his head. He could not speak.
‘Don’t look so sad. It’s a lesson in life, dear. Off you go now.’
He stood up. He went out through the old furniture and mattresses and through the junk-filled yard into the street. He did not know whether he should turn left or right. The weeds flowering in the gutter burned like fire. Lights in the sky shone down on him and there was nowhere he could hide.
Chapter Six
Leeanne had breakfast with Jody in the kitchen. She supplied the cornflakes and Jody opened a can of peaches. Leeanne fed peach syrup to Sam as he stood holding her leg. She liked to feel his nails, paper thin, cutting her. It hurt, but it didn’t matter; Sam was standing up and holding on. She loved each new thing that he did, like his first tooth, even if it made her nipples sore. Soon he would walk. That was when she would have to watch him. Sa
m was going to be lightning quick, like his old man. He’d go down the sideline and dive in at the corner and they’d be left sprawling on the ground, the beergut forwards and the skinny fullbacks, Auckland ones or Aussie ones, it made no difference. Sione’s patch, that was what they’d called the corner where he had dived in; and now he was in Sydney, trying to make it, and maybe he’d get a run for Souths next season and play in the grand final on TV. She would show Sam his father scoring in the corner and say, ‘That’s him, that’s your old man, you be like him, you play for Souths, no you play for Manly or Balmain, and you be famous and make us a million bucks.’
Sione wasn’t coming back, Leeanne knew that. The truth was she didn’t want him back. Sione was beautiful and Sione overflowed, and when you were with him you felt full yourself and were happy like him. But who was Sione? He shifted round so much in his head, and he was gone, nobody there, or someone else was there and you had no place with him even when you had his baby inside. Sione no-name. He’d left her sprawling on the grass like a slow forward. Okay, he’s gone, he’s doing something else; she was not going to get in his way. She didn’t love him, she’d just had fun with him, but fun always ended and she had come out of it with Sam and he had crossed the Tassie and got himself a Souths girl. Good luck, Sione. Show them, Sione. Get in the Kiwis, Sione, and I’ll tell Sam who you are.
She had left home at sixteen and gone to Auckland and fluked a job and followed a team and had been Sione’s girl, and now she was back home with a baby, in Wellington, and that was okay, but she wished to God they’d give her more in her benefit. Even the twenty-two bucks they took off because she wouldn’t say who Sam’s father was, that would help. She could maybe get rid of Jody then – not that Jody was a problem, but getting rid of her would get rid of Danny too and she hated him; it was like having an animal in the house, a pig, or a wild boar, yeah, grunting and farting and knocking things around and showing his muscles and his gut and his stupid tats and guzzling cans and squashing them and chucking them under his leg at the rubbish tin and always missing and Jody had to pick them up; and eating stew, that she had to pay a third share of, piled up like horse turds on his plate; and screwing Jody all night long until you thought there was a whole herd of pigs in there.
She wanted Danny out, but had to have someone to help with the rent. Another solo, that would be the story, and they could share on all sorts of things, split the washing and cooking and mind each other’s kids so they could have a night out now and then, just go to the flicks – she hadn’t seen a picture since before Sam was born. Danny had taken Jody’s TV into the bedroom so she didn’t even get to see that now.
‘Give us a smoke, Jody.’
‘Can’t. I’ve only got one left.’
Cigarettes were something else she had to do without. She only smoked when Jody was feeling generous.
‘He do anything to you last night?’
‘Nothing he hasn’t done before.’
‘You should boot him out, Jody.’ She had bruises on top of bruises. It didn’t matter whether he was angry or excited, the horse bites on her thighs hurt as much as the punches. ‘He’ll hurt you real bad one day.’
‘I know.’ Jody took her last cigarette and lit it. ‘How do I get some money if he goes?’
‘The benefit.’
‘I still got three months stand-down. I shoulda stayed with Norman.’
‘Boot Danny out and get Norman in.’ Whoever he was.
‘How do you boot out someone like Danny?’
‘Just tell him. I’ll do it. You want me to do it?’
‘No.’ Jody looked frightened.
‘I don’t want him here, Jody. You don’t want him either. Get him out.’
Leeanne did her washing. The wash-house was a lean-to shed at the back of the house. She took the nappies out of soak and rinsed them and put them in the old beater machine with her towels and sheet and nightie and blouses. Knickers too. All in together. Save on electricity. Stop the machine and take the delicates out so they don’t get beaten to death. Sam stood with his hands on the bowl to feel it churn – all through the wash, feeling it. ‘If you didn’t piddle so much, Sam, I wouldn’t have so much washing to do.’ She pegged it out, and there he was, quick as a flash, just as quick as Sione, across the yard on his hands and knees, and hauling himself with dirty hands half way up the sheet. She put him in the back door in his bouncer.
‘I’m going out,’ Jody said.
‘Where?’
‘Dunno. Down town. You going out?’
‘I might go and see Mum and Dad out Wainui.’ She needed to sit in a place Danny hadn’t stunk out, in a clean kitchen, and talk to someone she knew, even if her mum still wore her mouth like a zipper and gave Sam back as quick as she could. Her dad would cuddle him. She could talk to her dad in the garden, where the veges ran in rows, and bring home silverbeet and radishes. The five dollars Brent had given her would just about pay for the fare. ‘Your turn for tea, eh?’
‘Fish and chips.’
‘No way, Jody, you did that last time. I’ll bring some vegetables. You get some meat.’
‘I can’t cook it the way Danny likes.’
‘For Christ’s sake, put it in the pot and make a stew. Get some mince if you like and thicken it with flour. Okay? Okay?’
‘Yeah, okay.’ Jody left.
‘Bloody no-hoper,’ Leeanne said. The truth is she wanted Jody out as well as Danny, and a solo like herself to share the house, no complications. Women together, and their babies, three maybe, even if the place was too small, and boyfriends out by eleven o’clock. She didn’t need a boyfriend now, not after Sione. She drank a cup of tea at the table and dreamed of him – Sione kissing. Kissing was just about the best part with him; he seemed to suck her life out and draw it into him, she almost died. Hours they’d spend; not like all those other useless buggers her girlfriends had, in out and let’s go down the pub and have a beer.
She caught a unit after lunch and changed to the bus at Waterloo. Up the hill they crawled and over the top, and suddenly it was a different world: the town in the valley, with bush all around. She had grown up here and when people said, ‘You come from Wellington, eh?’ she always answered, ‘No I don’t, I come from Wainuiomata, different place.’ She had it in her mind, the streets and houses and shops and schools, like a map; and the park where she had watched the league from the time her father took her when she was four and sat her on his shoulders to see over the heads. Wellington, okay, sparkled when you got to the top of the hill; it shone in the night and the road leading to it was like a string of beads. But coming back was better – down the hill, top speed, screaming on the corners, coming home. Wainui was best. That was what she had believed all the time she was growing up.
Even now it made her mad when people ran it down. State houses eh, working class, and all those Islanders and all those Maoris, and gang fights eh, and murders eh, and no jobs and half the people unemployed? But that wasn’t Wainui; that was everywhere, except a few suburbs up on hills where they didn’t have to know what went on because they were rich up there and didn’t have to see. Here in Wainui you had to see, and in Petone, and in Porirua up the line. All the league places. Her loyalty flared up and she thought of Sione running for the corner flag.
She passed the street where the fight had been – Islanders and Maoris and two people dead. So what? Up in Khandallah the doctors poisoned their wives and the lawyers bolted to Oz with other people’s money, millions of it. Here at least you hit with lumps of wood and robbed the corner dairy and got caught down the pub.
She stopped at the end of her parents’ street and looked at the house where she had grown up. State house, yeah, but her dad was buying it. The best-kept house in the street, best lawn, best garden – because he enjoyed it, not to show the neighbours up. That’s where he would be. Potatoes hoed and mounded, and the pea shoots breaking through, with bamboo stakes criss-crossed down the line. And the compost heap working in the corner, hot wh
en you stuck in your arm, if you had the nerve, and the worms in there pinker than the worms you dug outside. Her father wasn’t useless any more when he got a spade or fork or hoe in his hands, when he got seeds in his palm and squinted at them, picked a dud one out and flicked it away. She went along in front of him, poking her finger in the soil, and he walked patiently behind, dropping a wrinkled pea down each hole. ‘This one is the queen pea, she’ll grow extra pods’, and she believed him. It came up first and had fatter peas, she was sure.
Sam squirmed in the pushchair. He wanted out. ‘You’ll have the whole lawn soon,’ she said, and walked along to the gate. There it was, like a bowling green. With borders of impatiens, and freesias scenting the air. ‘Smell it, Sam.’ She went in and stopped on the path and picked a flower for him, but of course he wanted to eat it. She unbuckled him and left the pushchair at the side of the path and rang the bell. ‘Keep your fingers crossed, Sam.’
Her mother came; a shadow behind glass. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ and stepped away.
‘Hi, Mum. Long time no see.’
‘Wipe your feet. Is that baby dirty?’
‘Sam’s his name. No, he’s clean. Kiss him, you don’t have to touch. Kiss Granny, Sam.’
‘I’ll call your father. He’s in the garden.’
‘We came to see you too, Mum. Where do we go, in the kitchen? Hey, you’re looking well. Is that biscuits in the oven? They smell good.’ She kept a patter up so she would not put the baby under one arm and hit her mother. One day she would hit her, nothing surer. ‘Well, what’s new?’ She sat down at the table and held Sam on her knee.