Our Future is in the Air

by Corballis, Tim

  ‘Maybe the desire to escape from the power of the image led some people to think again about TCF travelling. It’s possible the women had something to do with that. With TCF it was possible, if only just, to be in the future, to really experience it, and even to talk to future people about their own experiences. It seemed like a way to get past the images and into people’s hearts.’

  ‘So there were TCF users amongst you?’

  ‘No. Absolutely not. It was only an idea.’

  ‘I have a personal situation. I’m worried it will take my attention from my work.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘A friend of mine is missing, for almost a week now.’

  ‘It’s been on your mind a lot?’

  ‘Yes. God, yeah. His wife has been talking to me about it. I’m worried she thinks I’m responsible in some way. No. I mean, she doesn’t think that, but at some basic level.’

  ‘She hasn’t said as much?’

  ‘No. No, I know. It could as easily be my own feeling.’

  ‘Keep talking about it. If you need to take time off… ’

  ‘I might.’

  As he stepped out into the corridor a young man in a Black Power patch was there. This in itself was no surprise—he had often seen members of the gang, sometimes in his outpatient support group, or with various minor psychiatric complaints. The man looked at him. ‘Are you Marcus?’ Then, ‘You’re looking for someone.’

  Marcus stepped back.

  ‘Tama told us. We might be able to help.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks.’ They walked together to Marcus’s office.

  ‘Tama’s kind of my uncle.’

  ‘Okay. What do you know?’

  ‘Tama said your friend might be into TCF.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yeah. He said you’re okay and we could be straight with you.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t know how you’re going to help?’

  ‘It’s just, some of us do TCF sometimes. Not much eh.’

  ‘Hey, I don’t mind. Do you have a TCF kit?’

  ‘No way. But I know where you’d go for it.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Shit. I can’t tell you like that.’

  ‘No, of course.’

  ‘I mean, I could go ask the guy.’

  ‘Okay. I don’t… oh, shit. I don’t think I have a picture of him.’

  ‘That’s cool. What does he look like?’

  Marcus described Pen as best he could.

  ‘I’ll ask.’

  After the man left, Marcus remembered the purloined address book for the first time since visiting Pen’s office. He was still wearing the same jeans, and felt in his pocket. It had become more bent and frayed since he had taken it. He leafed through it to P, then tried under T—there was a number for Tom under ‘Tama’. He dialled the number, but there was no answer. Then, after a time, he called again, and after another half hour, again—and finally he got through.

  ‘He doesn’t live here anymore. But I know where he’ll be—I’ll give you the number.’

  On this second number, someone answered straight away and went to fetch Tom.

  ‘Ha! You found me. You got a visit today.’

  ‘A pretty brief one.’

  ‘I made him go see you. He’s a good kid.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll help?’

  ‘I don’t know, Marcus. Yeah, he’ll ask, since he’s met you and seen you’re okay.’

  ‘Tom, how much do you know about the TCF thing these days? How much trouble is it?’

  ‘Shit. I really don’t have time for this today.’

  ‘I don’t know if Pen would have been involved with something like that.’

  ‘Hey look, I’m leaving first thing tomorrow to go north and drum up support for the hīkoi. This was all just a hunch anyway, just a long shot? I don’t want to get you worried.’

  (A silence.)

  ‘Look, all right, I’ll come over for a bit, later. Okay? Just quickly. Where do you live?’

  Tom brought two bottles of beer. He and Marcus sat outside on the front doorstep.

  Marcus said, ‘To be honest, I don’t think this will turn him up.’

  ‘Nah. I think you’re right.’

  ‘But, you know, I don’t know what I should do. Thanks for doing something, putting the word around. I kind of thought you’d be asking around the activists.’ A laugh. ‘I wasn’t really expecting Black Power.’

  ‘Oh yeah, well, I did ask some of the activists too. It’s mostly the Māori movement I’m in touch with these days though—don’t see the white kids often. You been talking to them yourself?’

  ‘I just don’t know all those old people anymore. I’m not really one of them.’

  ‘Of course you are.’

  ‘Pen’s the only one I was in contact with really.’

  ‘It wouldn’t take you long to chase them up… ’

  ‘I’m not sure it has anything to do with people in the movement.’

  ‘Worth a try though.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Come on, mate. You’re just upset about it. Shit. The guy’s probably just gone bush for a while.’

  Marcus said, ‘What do you have to do with the gangs?’

  ‘Nothing. Just some of my people there. Those gang kids are okay though. They’re not bad. You know, some of them are even interested in what we’re trying to do, with the hīkoi. They listen. The Māori gangs just get a lot of bad publicity because they’re Māori, you know that, eh? They fill a social need for young people.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You could do worse than asking them for help. Better going to them than going to the police. If you’re worried about it.’

  ‘I know all that. I see them occasionally at the hospital.’

  ‘A lot of doctors would run off to some practice in the rich parts of town.’

  ‘It’s what I do now. You know. It makes more sense to me. I talk to people, help them out. It makes more sense than the activism we used to do.’

  ‘What does Pen think about that?’

  ‘Ha! He doesn’t agree.’

  ‘I always liked you. I never really got to know you or Pen though, not much. I remember giving Pen The Wretched of the Earth—he ate it up… ’

  ‘Fanon? He passed it on to me. I guess I ate it up too.’ Then, ‘What did you like?’

  ‘About you? You always had some interesting things to say. And you were always open to people. You’re what, a white boy from the South?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I liked that about you too. You got a good head on your shoulders but you never had problems with your ego, not like half of them.’

  ‘You ever done TCF?’

  ‘No. Never. Not drugs either—I really never touched anything like that. You?’

  ‘I smoked the odd joint. Still do. But not TCF. I was with a group of people a few years ago, not activists but friends of that crowd, I guess. They had this bus, and they were set up on a bit of land up in South Karori. They all took turns getting into the chamber. I guess I’ve been around it a bit, back then… but they had this chamber set up in the bus. It was made out of an old bathtub, painted with all kinds of stuff. Lilly and I chickened out.’

  ‘Well one thing I agreed with the Communists about—before we went our separate ways—was leaving all that stuff totally out.’

  ‘I always thought that was just Party discipline.’

  ‘It was. And about not giving the cops any reason to come raid you—which I agree with. But it’s also about taking things seriously. The movement’s a serious thing. All those protests and pranks, they were fun, but boy they were serious too. But you don’t want to mess with your brain.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any evidence TCF messes with your brain?’

  ‘The scientists might not have any. But someone said something to me once—he said, once you’ve travelled you’re not the same. You’re dissatisfied. You’ve seen this future, and you want it, really badly. Even
if it’s shit, even if what you’ve seen is shit, you want it just because it’s the future. You know, the relief to finally be there in the future. To know what’s going to happen. I started thinking, that’s just like what they say about heroin, always wanting more, never being satisfied with life. Nah. I’m dissatisfied already. I’ll turn my dissatisfaction in other directions. It gives me tremendous energy to turn it all in other directions.’

  ‘You still care about the future.’

  ‘In different ways. Working for it. That’s what I care about. You do the same with your doctoring, eh?’

  ‘I wondered, when I was with that group of people all getting into the TCF chamber—I helped them shoot up the tracing fluid! Ha. So I can find a vein pretty easily. I wondered if there might be something serious about travelling. If it might have its place too. People say that sometimes. So, don’t treat it like a frivolous thing, use it for something. The hippies go to some beach thirty years in the future, but maybe there’s other things to see, if you look for them.’

  ‘That’s a pretty wild bet. What do you think you’ll find?’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘I understand people wanting to think like that. I can’t judge it. It’s not for me though.’

  ‘I mean, it’s desperation, too—seeing how hard it is to bring about real change, how hard it is to work… ’

  ‘That’s what I mean. And you know the other thing about TCF—it’s like it’s the white brain at work. It’s like you’ve taken over the world, you’ve colonised everything, and now you’ve got to colonise the future too. Not you personally. That TCF kit, it’s like another damn ship, sailing off to new territory. Things aren’t good enough where you are, so instead of fixing them up you go off and find somewhere else. Doesn’t matter that there’s someone living there just fine already.’

  ‘But they always come back?’

  ‘You wait. They’ll be opening it up.’

  ‘Isn’t that supposed to be impossible?’

  ‘It’ll happen, I bet. It’ll be another thing to fight for—pieces of the future. They’ll find ways to open it up to investors.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. I’ve got no reason to think Pen was doing it.’

  ‘He was an impatient bugger. You two were a strange pair—you all laid-back and him all jittery. I remember you guys.’

  ‘He scared me sometimes. Till I worked out it was all just hot air.’

  ‘Okay, Marcus. I’ve really got to go.’

  ‘The bookshops represented a change of strategy for the movement.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘The protests aimed to shock. There were some very memorable protests, mostly concerned with the Vietnam War and contact with the apartheid regime in South Africa. They had their own powerful imagery. For example, protesters in Auckland intruded on a parade of returning troops in 1972 and, on a signal, opened bags of fake blood under their shirts.’

  ‘Weren’t they pleased the troops were returning?’

  ‘They weren’t pleased with what the troops had been involved in.’

  ‘Didn’t the bookshops also aim to shock?’

  ‘They had challenging material, but they also had information. Some were worried that the protests were too shocking. Many communists, for example, argued that shock tactics were alienating to working people and would distance the movement from them. They worried that the lifestyles of the protesters were too closely related to the general bourgeois counterculture. The protesters on the other hand, if they thought about their actions at all, saw themselves as a kind of avant-garde, leading by example.’

  ‘Isn’t that dangerous?’

  ‘It is unclear whether the public’s sympathy with the protesters’ cause or their shock at their methods was more determinant, in the long run.’

  ‘Did the bookshops attract “quieter” types?’

  ‘That is one way to put it. They were places where different temperaments could coexist. Shocking imagery could sit alongside theoretical literature. People uncomfortable with participating in the protest tactics could help by volunteering at the bookshops. At the Wellington shop, there was some disappointment that the shop didn’t become more of a meeting place for the movement in general.’

  ‘Why is it interesting?’

  ‘Although not very much was planned there, any place where a lot of different ideas are concentrated is interesting. It represents a combination of reflection and action.’

  ‘It is also interesting because of suspicions of TCF activity.’

  ‘It is still not clear how strongly the Wellington bookshop can be linked to TCF.’

  ‘It is interesting because it attracted the interest of SIS agents such as Kenneth Grey.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He was interested in the Wellington bookshop because it was the only shop in the country to hold material of the local section of the Fedorovians?’

  ‘Yes. Grey, along with Shanks, his counterpart in the police, saw the Fedorovians as dangerous lunatics. The Wellington shop was open enough to allow their material in, and it attracted the attention of the police, partly because the Fedorovians’ local leader Kim Denby claimed to be working at putting their theories into practice. The bookshop was considered part of a trail leading to them, rather than being a site of criminality or subversion in itself. We understand that there was some security and police interest in the prominent activist Pen Evans, who was involved in the shop.’

  ‘How dangerous were the Fedorovians? How long did they last?’

  ‘That is not clear. TCF was of interest because it was both criminal in itself and considered potentially subversive. The Fedorovians represented the most extreme version of both aspects, although it is far from clear how practical or well developed their programme was.’

  Before Janet and Peter came, there were five adults in the house. They included Leonard, a prematurely mature seventeen-year-old they had recently taken in after he moved to the city, and Sandra, a student. They lived upstairs in two small rooms, and were often out at night.

  ‘What will the girls think?’

  ‘They might love it. They could play with Peter.’

  ‘Children cope well with new situations… ’

  ‘Sometimes it’s important to change things, make changes anyway. We can’t hide things from them. The way we want to live. We have to be honest with them.’

  ‘Does she want to come?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  And then it was decided: Janet and Peter would move in. Their arrival changed the house in ways that were hard to comprehend. Lilly, for her part, wondered if it was that the communal space of the house—problematic already, of course, because it was owned by her and Marcus—had begun to centre around something new, around the fact of a missing man. Did that diminish it, as a feminist undertaking? Did it diminish the openness, the sister-to-sister directness? Pen, somehow, controlled things in his absence—their thoughts, their feelings. He had been missing for weeks by this time. Leonard in particular seemed to have trouble comprehending the situation, and would question Janet about it when he saw her. The household was weighed down by sadness.

  Not long after Janet and Peter moved in, they all decided to terrace the sloping back lawn. The girls and Peter helped to dig up the grass, holding trowels under their bodies. It would be ready in time for spring planting. The soil was damp, cold and thin over clay. Janet, Marcus and Sandra dug deep into it and cut channels for drainage. In the evening Peter cried while being put to bed, and the girls stayed awake listening.

  And Pen? Would he have approved of the house? It would have been too much by way of LIFESTYLE CHANGE, not enough of SYSTEM CHANGE. Although it centred around him, they had created a house that he himself would not have wanted to move into. Perhaps they had given up on him—perhaps by now they suspected he would never come back. This calculation was evident to them all, but never mentioned. If he did come back—if it turned out that he had his own reasons for leaving and for coming back—the
n would Janet, or any of them, want him there?

  Pen’s mother visited for a week, staying in a motel down the road. It was the first time Janet had talked very much with her. Mrs Evans didn’t understand what was happening any more than the rest of them. She did like, though, that they were making a garden. She had advice about the clay loam. What she didn’t understand was that they hadn’t called the police. It’s possible she thought there was something Janet, Marcus and Lilly were not telling her.

  In the larger sense, perhaps, they were trying to make a future. Somehow, all around, they felt vaguely that things were collapsing. All they could do in the midst of that was create something—grow something in bad soil. For Janet, talking to Mrs Evans about gardening was like talking in metaphors about the possibility inherent in a bad situation. How was it possible to tell whether someone else was also talking in metaphors? Was she only talking about the soil after all?

  In the meantime, Mrs Evans sat with them, silent and vaguely uncomfortable. She was often reading TCL magazines—not the ones that featured big cities, buildings and bridges, but the ones that showed smiling children and weddings of the future. What could she find in these magazines? Did they give her some kind of comfort?

  They were all tired—especially Janet, who, on top of everything, had found work relief teaching. Sometimes Peter fell asleep on the sofa, his head on Janet’s lap. On one such evening, just after Mrs Evans had gone, she said, ‘I’d just like to know what’s happened.’

  Marcus said, ‘God, me too.’

  ‘How much did you find out?’

  ‘Nothing. I found that old address book, called some of the numbers, talked to some of the old people. You know all that. Nothing else.’

  ‘Have you given up?’

  ‘No. Have you?’

  ‘I haven’t got time to think about it. It’s just there as a hole in the back of my mind.’

  ‘Janet, I’m sorry. The house, the hospital, the kids… it’s all taken my time a bit, too.’