by Paula Boock
‘Get in! We’ll take you!’ I could only see the curly head and leather shoulder.
Now there’s one thing you should know about rhythm and blues – it gets you into this what the hell state of mind where you do things you’d never otherwise do. I had a moment’s hesitation when I saw there were four of them but just then a dirty gust of wind and rain almost knocked me over and I jumped in, hauled in my pack and slammed the door shut.
We took off with a roar. Holy hell.
Three of them were looking at me. The one who wasn’t was not, unfortunately, the driver. Beside me, the man in the leather jacket (and patch, though I didn’t recognise it) said, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Mel.’
‘I’m Riff.’ Riff, good grief.
No one else offered their names, so I placed my hands on top of my pack as prudely as if it were a handbag. There was no room for my legs, although Riff’s were planted like tree trunks about three feet apart. On the other side of him was a little ferrety man who looked out the window and said nothing.
They were playing mindless music so loud it almost blocked out the noise of the engine. In the front bench seat there was an enormously fat man with shorn blonde hair and tattoos. The driver had tattoos too, on his knuckles.
‘Hey Gross!’ roared Riff, ‘Gross!’
The fat man turned round.
‘Where’s the fags?’ The fat man couldn’t hear him. Riff stood up and leaned over the front, squashing me further into the door. His great arse was in front of my face and his jeans smelt. There was a black studded belt round them. Riff was slapping the fat man’s shoulder and talking to him. Then he giggled, high-pitched and the fat man snorted, lifting his lip in what I assumed was delight, though it looked more like a sneer. Riff took the cigarettes and said something else in his ear, giggling again.
He fell back down into the seat as we accelerated to overtake a car. He’d pinned down one side of my jacket and I couldn’t move. He looked at me.
‘I’ll light you a cigarette.’
‘Ah, no thanks. I don’t smoke.’
‘Go on,’ he said, laughing at the fat man who had turned to watch us. It seemed such a big deal, so I shrugged and said, ‘Okay’ He lit it, holding it in his big soft lips, so like Wai’s and Benny’s, and closed his eyes as he dragged in. He handed it to me. My arms were pinned at my sides and when I tried to move them, I couldn’t. Riff grabbed my pack and shoved it over the front to the fat man. He put it between him and the driver, who I noticed, was watching proceedings in the rear vision mirror.
‘There you go. Heaps of room now!’ Riff giggled again and the fat man snorted. I took the cigarette and smoked. What a jerk. I hate smoking, it makes me feel sick.
They settled down a bit after that. They turned up the music and the stereo speaker was right behind my ear, so I could hardly hear anything. Riff started deliberately singeing the sheepskin cover over the front seat with his cigarette. The driver would turn around and yell at him and Riff would giggle hysterically, looking at me and the fat man to share the joke. I found myself smiling weakly to make him happy. Yes, pinhead, I saw your dumb joke… Then Riff gave the fat man another slap and raised his eyebrows at me. He lifted his cigarette to the driver’s hair. Long, thin, light coloured hair. Riff’s cigarette smoked dangerously on the ends and the car was filled with the acrid smell of burning hair. Suddenly the driver swung around, realising what was happening. Riff pulled away his cigarette, hooting with the fat man as the driver beat at his hair to make sure it wasn’t on fire. The car was all over the road. The driver steadied it, then turned and hit Riff hard in the face. Riff fell back beside me and said something to the ferrety man who ignored him. He sat for a while and finished his cigarette. He leaned over me to open the window.
‘He’s a wanker, he is.’ He threw out his butt. ‘I’d do him in if he wasn’t driving,’ he yelled the last few words at the driver. Then he slumped back in his seat.
I thought about the story Benny had told me of hitch-hiking and being picked up by a carload of Mongrel Mob members. He was scared but they were kind to him and gave him food and somewhere to stay the night. He said gangs just got a hard time because mostly they were Maori and people were scared of them. I looked around the car. Were they like these jerks? Could he get on with people like this? I don’t understand guys, they change so much when they’re in a group. I thought about Benny being in a car like this picking up a girl hitch-hiking. What would he do? I didn’t know. He was meant to be my boyfriend and I didn’t bloody know.
CHAPTER THREE
MAKIKIHI. NOT MANY PEOPLE have heard of Makikihi, but it has a pub and that’s why we stopped there. I didn’t know what was up until I saw the driver walking back in the misty light of the big DB sign, carrying a crate of beer. I’d been hoping he was using their toilet.
‘Hey you – you’ll have to carry this again,’ he said, passing my pack over the seat to me. I was trying to think of a polite way to get out of the lift now we were stopped, but before I did so, the driver shut the door and took off. There was no music this time, hallelujah.
Before we got over the bridge the fat man had opened two bottles and passed them over to Riff and the ferret. Then he passed one to the driver, f’chrissake.
‘Want some?’ Riff offered me his bottle.
‘No, thanks.’ This time he just shrugged.
Up till then the driving hadn’t been too bad. The car made a terrible noise – I don’t think it had a muffler – but we hadn’t been going that fast. I was more worried about Riff than the driver. Now, I started feeling differently.
It seemed as if one bottle had turned this guy into a raving maniac. He was passing everything, anywhere, with the fat man whooping in the front each time. Twice I involuntarily blurted ‘Watch out!’ when a car came round a bend towards us, and they all fell about laughing. The driver turned round to me.
‘Too many other cars, huh?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Okay. Too many cars here, boys.’ He swerved to the left and turned down a gravel lane.
‘Hey, where are you going?’ yelled Riff.
‘Short cut.
Now I really started to get scared. I mean, this was spooky. Where the hell were we going? Most of my attention was still on the road. We were tearing along, lights shining on only metres of gravel, and as we slid around corners all the boys were killing themselves laughing. Every time we swung to the right, Riff pressed hard against me and the door handle dug into my hip. I tried to keep quiet since my outbursts only made things worse. They were spilling beer everywhere and the car stank. I was getting seriously scared.
Suddenly lights appeared ahead of us. We were taking up the whole road and the other car pulled over to the left.
‘Chicken!’ screamed the fat man.
‘Yeah, chicken him, chicken him!’ Riff joined in, leaning forward with his beer bottle. I didn’t know what the hell it meant. We kept going straight forward, heading for the side of the road the other car was on. It pulled over to the right. We followed it, all the time going faster and faster. The other car stopped. We hurtled towards it, I was trying to yell but couldn’t find my voice, then at the very last second we swung round, spraying it with gravel as we passed.
My hands were tight on my pack, I sat rigid. I felt sick, and dazed, and there was a loud ringing in my ears. Gradually it passed and I could hear the others in the car again, whooping and laughing with delight. I don’t remember most of what I said, I just know I went crazy and started screaming like a mad woman in the back. It was the only time the ferrety man looked at me. I kept screaming and screaming because I didn’t know what would happen if I stopped, but I remember saying, ‘If you don’t let me out I’ll bloody shoot you all!’ and pretending I was getting a gun out of my pack.
They were arguing about it. I didn’t hear much, I was still screaming about my gun, and trying to get it out of my pack. I half believed I did have one by then.
The next thing I
knew they had pulled over and stopped. Riff was saying, ‘All right, she’s an ugly bird anyway.’ That was rich, coming from Riff.
I opened the door and almost fell out into the rain and the dark. I slammed the door. The engine revved loudly and they roared off into the night, spraying gravel and leaving me in a cloud of dust and exhaust. I watched the lights disappear and heard the noise float away in the dark and sat down on the wet road. I couldn’t see a damn thing.
* * *
It had been raining that night, too. I remember she left in a long green raincoat and a red umbrella. I don’t know how I remember that, I was only seven. When I told Helen later she cried and said, ‘Yes, that’s right.’ It was Helen who cried first, when the policeman came. I didn’t cry. I thought it was exciting. When he told me, I just nodded. I didn’t know what it meant. What scared me was Helen.
Davy had been at a ‘Dudes’ concert. I remember that too, because the police came and got him and he wasn’t able to see me first. So he wrote a message on the bright pink entrance card and the policeman brought it to me. It said ‘Th’ Dudes’ in heavy black letters. On the back Davy had scrawled something, but he’d forgotten I was only seven. I asked Helen to read it to me. It said, ‘I’ll be there soon. Whatever happens we’ll stay together. Promise.’ Helen cried like anything then and hugged me. I thought she was going to explode and I knew something awful had happened so I started crying too. And I copied Helen – to this day I remember how I copied her – saying, ‘Why? Why?’ The policeman said to me, ‘It was a car crash. It wasn’t her fault. Another car hit her and by the time we found her she was dead.’
I knew about car crashes from the telly. But it didn’t make sense. Bob talked about car crashes all the time. He let Davy drive his new car when we visited, saying he’d already crashed it twice. But nobody had ever said ‘dead’ There was something awful about that word, the way it began as it ended and sounded so flat in the middle. I said it to myself. You don’t even have to move your mouth. Dead.
* * *
I drew in one long, shaky breath. I’d been bawling all over the place. I wiped my face and looked around. There were some shapes blacker than others now. Trees, hills, a fence close by. I stood up stiffly. It was still raining lightly. I had to find somewhere to sit out the night. Ugh. I’m an urban kid through and through. Give me a city and I’ll find my way around, but the country, that’s different. I hugged my pack and headed along the road. I wasn’t even sure whether to go forward or turn back. I didn’t know where this dopey road went, and I didn’t want to run into those jerks half an hour down the track. I thought I could make out a building ahead, something with straight lines. I kept tripping over piles of gravel. How the hell had I got into this? I was probably going to die of exposure overnight, or step over the edge of a cliff in the dark. I tried to remember what I’d seen when the car lights were there, but all I could remember was the fat man’s leering face and my white hands fumbling with the zips of my pack.
It was a building. A barn. Now I understood. The road turned right and the barn was on farmland straight ahead. I walked into a fence. It wasn’t barbed wire. I chucked my pack over and climbed. There was this strange throbbing sensation. Jesus, it was electric! I fell over the other side, madly trying to disentangle my leg. That hurt. Actually, it hurt a lot more once I realised what it was. Funny, that.
I groped around for my pack. There. The barn was straight ahead. I started thinking about raging bulls between it and me. I really hate the country. I took big high steps to avoid tripping and found myself walking through gorse. No bulls, no cowpats, hallelujah.
The barn door had a bolt latch. I could cope with that. Inside it was still and smelt of hay and manure. I decided to stay where I was and curled up on the ground, with my back to the shut door, using my pack as a pillow. I tried not to think about the little scrabbling noises.
CHAPTER FOUR
I SLEPT SURPRISINGLY WELL, waking sore but not too cold. I was thankful for my big Doc Marten boots until I remembered that if I hadn’t bought them I would never have been in this mess…
My watch said 7.30 am. I carefully opened the barn door and immediately started feeling differently about the country. There was an incredible mist hanging just above head height and through it, I could see blue sky. The sun gleamed through the mist making the surrounding grassland and faraway hills all golden and warm, like some corny tinted movie.
Around the edge of the barn there was a flock of curious-looking goats. No bulls as far as I could see. These goats cracked me up, they stood in a great semi-circle staring at me as if I had two heads or something.
‘Hey guys, haven’t you ever seen a human being before?’ At the sound of my voice they popped all over the place and turned tail, trotting away. Curious, but jittery. I walked back to the barn door, noticing a single tap outside it.
I also noticed a plain, wooden farm gate opening onto the road along to the left. I’d been worrying about getting over that fence again. I opened my pack and found a brush. Then I got my toothpaste and went out.
There were these crazy goats again, this time right outside the door. I brushed my hair and cleaned my teeth under the tap. Two of them came right up to me and nibbled my jacket. Next thing I knew they were in the barn. Hell! I leapt in and yelled at them, chasing them away from the hay. They were bleating like crazy and sort of bounced back out. I grabbed my pack and went out, bolting the door shut. Time to hit the road, Jack.
The goats followed me through the well-chewed gorse, up to the wooden gate. I farewelled my fans and decided to head back the way we’d come last night.
I still can’t believe how lucky I was. About ten minutes later a car came my way and pulled up. There were two women in it, about 50 and 60, I guessed. One of them said, ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ve got to get to the main road. I’m going to Christchurch.’
‘Oh, so are we! We’ll take you there.’
I guess it was about time my luck changed. These ladies were hilarious. One was an actor and the other a choreographer and they were going to a conference. They’d stayed overnight at a friend’s farm. This road serviced about a dozen farms, they said. The rest of the trip they spent trying to outdo each other in extraordinary stories to tell me. They kept interrupting each other and saying ‘that’s not an interesting story’ or ‘she’s exaggerating’ and arguing furiously about the driving – ‘You go too fast!’
‘Well, if you were driving we wouldn’t get there until the conference was over!’
In between they both plied me with food, insisting that I help them out by eating ‘those horrible scone things she made’ or ‘those sandwiches – we’ll never get through them, she always brings mountains of sandwiches.’ I was laughing so much I nearly choked at one stage and the one that was driving pulled over to a screeching stop and dragged me out of the car to apply the ‘Heimlich Technique’ which brought me close to tears, but did stop me choking.
I was almost sad to get to Christchurch. They were great. I hope I’m still as stroppy as that when I’m their age. They took me to the street Bob lived in and farewelled me amidst numerous warnings never to hitch-hike again.
Bob is the sort of guy who wears gold chains and half undone shirts. Get the picture? Late forties, good-looking in an over-ripe sort of way, Pierre Cardin pyjamas, copious mirrors in the apartment. Very white teeth.
He is into freedom and independence in a big way. So he was kind of proud that I’d left school in disgrace; he said it showed ‘spunk’ Spunk was the sort of word Bob used a lot.
He’d already heard from Davy. He’d been expecting me last night but, ‘I knew you’d have stayed over with some friends somewhere. No hassle.’ Huh, typical.
‘But now you’re here! Let’s do it!’
‘Do what?’
‘I don’t know. Your choice. Anything in the world, babe.’ I hate it when he starts the babe, sweetheart stuff. I’d spent most of my last holiday refusing to answer
to ‘princess’
‘I’d kind of like some lunch.’ I was still hungry.
‘Sure! Great idea. Let’s go out, my treat. Chuck your stuff in your room and we’re off.’
He showed me which was ‘my’ room. Everything in the flat was dark glass and chrome, shagpile carpet. Just so overwhelmingly tasteless that it was almost wonderful, except that Bob didn’t see it as tasteless at all.
The spare bedroom was apricot and white. He must have been waiting for me, there was an apricot towel and facecloth on the bed. Or was that the doing of one of Bob’s euphemistic ‘live-in cleaning ladies?’ There didn’t seem to be any sign of another inhabitant from the bathroom clues I’d come to read so well. Only one toothbrush, only men’s toiletries in the cupboard. After the creeps in the car last night it was nice to think that Bob at least always smelt and looked nice. I put my toothbrush beside his.
We went out to a very classy Mexican cafe where we had nachos and guacomole outside in the sun. Bob talked about himself of course; his car business, his winning the tennis tournament, his important and influential friends, but it was kind of nice, really. People have to care what you think to bother showing off. And he treated me like royalty; ‘Can you take the lady’s coat… let the lady taste the wine… Can you get the lady…’ He was funny too, always funny, imitating accents and people we knew. By the time we’d finished our meal, he’d remembered to ask me about things. He wanted to know all about Davy and Stef and the twins (never the grandchildren). When I told him how I felt about leaving school and not knowing what to do, he said, ‘What do you want to do?’
‘I don’t know. I want to go to Auckland and see Benny.’
‘Then so you shall, Cinderella, so you shall.’ Then of all the crazy things, he produces this bankcard, writes down his P.I.N. and hands it to me.