Heartland

by Jenny Pattrick

  She looks.

  ‘Now look at this.’ He picks up a lace piece, delicate as snowflakes, which drifts in an irregular pattern over his oak dresser. ‘Now tell me, does that say Chinese to you?’

  Vera grins up at him. ‘There’s my point, Bull. It’s them you’ve got to persuade, not me. Di Masefield and the rest of them.’

  ‘Di Masefield!’ Bull clears his throat again. He carries plates to the sink, crashes around with water. Vera packs the empty dishes away in the pram. Then Bull measures Nescaf into two cups, adds generous slugs of whisky and a dash of boiling water from a kettle on the range. Bull still uses the old wood range because the chopping keeps him fit. Plenty of sportsmen, he says, run to fat once they give up, look at the rest of his year — flabby tubs of lard if they’re not dead. Bull’s legendary frame has remained well packed with muscle.

  ‘Rabbits this year,’ announces Vera. With a conjuror’s flourish, she takes from the pram a plastic box of lumpy shapes — chocolate rice-bubble clusters. Last Easter she made chickens which looked identical, though Bull, always one to encourage artistry, makes no mention of this. He mumbles praise.

  ‘I had that word with Donny,’ says Vera. ‘Seems the baby could be his.’

  Bull sighs.

  They sip in silence, in their usual chairs, at the kitchen table. They’ll probably play a game of Scrabble before she trudges back with the pram over the stony, empty road, arguing with herself, not even noticing the stars.

  Now, though, Vera returns to the Easter craft fair.

  ‘Is it your rugby mates?’ she asks.

  ‘Nah. None of the fellows would come within a country mile of the Lacemakers Guild.’

  ‘Their wives would.’

  ‘Whatever. I don’t care about them anyway, Vera, that’s all history.’

  ‘You might think so. I saw this good-looking boy on TV, about sixteen in the shade, laying down the law on some rugby thing. A record that was broken, something like that. There you were on the box! Did I tell you? Forty years ago, it said, and could’ve been yesterday for all the change in you. Charging down the field like a bulldozer. It was Sunday afternoon, you would have missed it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You saw it?’

  ‘No, I missed it.’

  ‘Well anyway. Look, Bull, look at it this way. Think what a boost to lacemaking if it came out that Bull Howie had won the regional senior open twice running. Not to mention what you’ll win with this year’s little beauty.’

  Bull runs a hand through hair still as bristly and thick as it was all those years ago when he rammed it regularly into the necks of opposing front-rowers. He smiles the same crooked, half-apologetic smile he used when holding up the Ranfurly Shield for the fans to see. The whisky has loosened his tongue.

  ‘To be honest, Vera, it’s Di Masefield. I can’t face a fight with her.’

  Vera sighs and he blushes, looks away. It’s not just Di Masefield, and they both know it. Getting through his own gate and into town will be enough of a challenge without that dragon waiting at the other end.

  They sip for a while, thinking of Di. Then Vera rallies.

  ‘When it comes down to it, Bull, what could she fight you over?’

  ‘That I’m not a woman.’

  There is another silence. Bull bites off the head — or is it the backside? — of a second chocolate rabbit.

  ‘She hasn’t a leg to stand on, you know,’ says Vera, ‘not a leg. There’s a man potter who exhibits every year. And several wood-turners.’

  ‘Lace is different, Vera, and you know it.’

  ‘Our Fitz was selling Maori kete that he’d woven at the Mardi Gras last year. No one turned a hair.’

  ‘No one bought them either.’

  ‘That’s not the point, Bull. I’m talking principle here. Look at that golf competition down south. You could take it to the Human Rights Commission.’

  But they both know that won’t happen.

  Vera can see that something has taken root, though, so she leaves the argument and they get on with their Scrabble. Bull wins right at the end, changing her RAPT to RAPTURE, which puts him in a good mood.

  As Vera buttons her old oilskin against the crisp air outside, Bull clears his throat — a tentative sound from a man so large.

  ‘I’ll give it a go.’

  ‘Under your own name?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘O-ho!’ Vera laughs out loud. ‘What wouldn’t I give to be a fly on the wall when Di hears!’

  ‘Come with me then.’ It’s a plea.

  But she won’t.

  She rides to town with him, though, crammed into the front seat of George Kingi’s ute. The lace, its entry form filled in, and wrapped in spotless tissue, rests on Bull’s massive knee. The selection committee is, as usual, the chairwoman of the craft fair, Di Masefield, who somehow manages to hold sway over half the committees in Ohakune, and deaf old Mrs Stonycroft who won third prize in a Scottish Lacemakers’ competition in 1943. George drops Bull off at the dark doorway of the hall and Vera at the New World. Vera storms down the aisles with her trolley, thinking only of Bull left alone to face Di Masefield.

  Bull’s waiting on the road when they return. Looks down, pretending not to see Vera’s raised eyebrow.

  ‘We’ve got a battle on our hands,’ mutters Vera.

  But halfway home he says, looking straight ahead through the windscreen, ‘They accepted it.’

  ‘No fuss?’

  ‘No fuss.’

  At his place, he’s out of the ute and through his gate before Vera can get a word in. He heads for the back garden, walking head down as if into a gale. As they drive on she calls out, ‘See you at tea time?’ He raises one of his great beefy hands in acknowledgement, that’s all, before he disappears behind the house.

  Vera’s own house, ramshackle and untidy — two unused and draughty bedrooms at the front, toilet on the back porch — at least possesses a proper electric stove. Bull’s old wood-burner couldn’t cook a sausage, in Vera’s opinion. She stuffs a chicken (on special today at the New World), and roasts kumara and potatoes around it. All the time she’s wondering what’s up with Bull. Di must have had a go at him. She frowns to remember Di Masefield’s poisonous evidence at Donny’s trial, the way she managed to twist all the good words she and George Kingi had to say about him. A bitter, narrow woman; how she manages to fool other people beats Vera.

  As soon as the peas and carrots are done, she whips them into the heated bowl and tucks them down in the pram with the roast. On wet nights like this she covers the blanket with a square of black polythene. For some reason she’s dressed up a bit — wears her mother’s garnet earrings, and her woollen greatcoat instead of the usual oilskin. To celebrate the entry, perhaps, or cheer Bull up, if he needs cheering.

  Seeing the roast chicken, Bull opens a bottle of wine. The whisky-coffee at the end of the meal is not really needed, but they have it anyway.

  Vera’s cheeks are pink, she can feel them. ‘Come on, Bull,’ she says. Her voice comes out too girly. ‘What did the old dragon say? I know it was something.’

  Bull leans back, unbuttons his jacket, much more at ease. ‘She did say something. I’ve been thinking about it.’

  Vera waits. Push Bull too fast and you can forget about hearing a word.

  ‘I walked into the hall,’ says Bull at last. ‘The two ladies are right at the stage end facing you — it’s like walking up to a firing squad. You can bet Di Masefield planned it that way. Anyway, I stump over the bare boards towards them, and they lean back a bit, you know? Surprised. “My entry!” I say. I unwrap the tissue, spread the cloth and wait. Old Stonycroft twitters and chirps over the lace as well she might, her stuff has never been worth a prize anywhere in the world. She must have invented it.’

  ‘Don’t get stuck on lace now, Bull, you’re telling a story.’

  ‘Well. Di sits like a stunned mullet reading my entry form, or staring at it anyway. That w
itch would turn the All Blacks to stone at fifty paces. Good thing I’m battle hardened, Vera. She turns those whitey eyes full on me, and I’ll swear the hairs on her head were standing straight out like the Gorgon’s snakes.’

  ‘It’s just vigorous hair, you know that, always has been.’

  ‘Vigorous is right. Sell it for barbed wire. So.’

  Bull pours more whisky into his coffee, which is unusual. He takes a breath.

  ‘So. She looks at me down the barrel and says in a voice that could be rat poison, “Not you too!” I don’t know what she’s talking about — no other lacemaking men in the district as far as I know. “Me too, what?” I say. “You’re queer,” she says. “Bent, homo-sexual!”’

  Vera clears her throat.

  Bull charges on. The expression on his great weathered slab of a face is more puzzled than anything.

  ‘I still couldn’t see what she was getting at. “What do you mean? Are you gay then?” I say, and she rises slowly. I get ready to run, it looks like she’s finally gone over the edge, you’ve always said she would, Vera.’

  Vera raises a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Her voice comes out all cold and distant, not like her usual forthright brisk way of running the world. Says that she’s a married woman with three damned children. That her daughter has been a dirty lesbian since age fourteen, one son going into the priesthood, everyone knows these days what that means, and now her last son — the one who accused Donny, Vera, you know the one — has announced to the whole world he’s gay. That’s her grandchildren down the drain, she whispers, and now they’re taking over lacemaking! Then she stops abruptly, complete change of tone, slaps my form down on the table and says my entry is accepted! Just like that! I hopped it fast.’

  ‘She’s mad,’ says Vera.

  ‘I suppose so,’ says Bull, ‘but it’s got me thinking. Do you think I’m gay, Vera?’

  ‘Well, don’t ask me,’ says Vera. She fiddles with an earring.

  Bull picks up a bobbin he’s been carving — cow bone, tiny and boat-shaped, with a Celtic knot engraved at one end. Every one of his eighty-four bobbins has a different pattern so his fingers know.

  ‘Maybe she’s right,’ says Bull. ‘How would you tell?’

  ‘Bull,’ says Vera, all patience, ‘have you been with a man?’

  ‘Come off it, Vera, what do you take me for?’

  ‘Well, do you fancy them then? Their bodies?’

  Bull thinks for a bit. ‘I like to see a good fit body on the field. Man who keeps himself in trim. You know …’

  ‘Well, so does everyone. So do I.’

  ‘You’re a woman,’ says Bull.

  Vera tops up her whisky too. ‘Well, have you been with women, then?’

  ‘Once I did,’ says Bull. He screws up his eyes for a moment as if something has suddenly pained him. ‘It was a terrible mistake.’

  ‘But do you think about them?’ says Vera, looking him in the eye. ‘Have you ever, well, fancied me, for example?’

  Bull laughs. ‘Of course I do, Vera.’

  ‘But I mean — you know … in that other way?’

  Bull taps the table with his bobbin, tap, tap, tap, the little bone incongruous in the meaty fist. ‘Listen to us!’ he says at last. ‘You’d think we were teenagers!’ And laughs. ‘All that stuff.’

  Vera grunts. The sound could mean anything. She lets go the earring and rises. ‘Yes well. I suppose. I’ll be off then.’ Her nod is friendly enough.

  Bull sighs. He rises, unhooks Vera’s old greatcoat and drapes it around her shoulders. He startles her then by leaning over and clumsily planting a kiss somewhere near her ear.

  ‘Thanks,’ he mumbles.

  For what, she’s not sure. She presses a finger over the place on her cheek, not trusting her voice to behave itself.

  Donny’s big trouble with the law (after a string of minor offences) had come during last year’s Easter Hunt, a time-honoured tradition in Ohakune. The Virgin, pregnant and working at Hoppy’s Takeaways, remembered the Hunt as a time of horror — like some dark and vivid nightmare. The smell, the carcasses, the strutting men, the kids running and screaming, their arms full of dead possums. More than once the bloody scene made her retch and run for the toilet. All weekend, men were out in the bush, hunting. The competition was for the best and biggest of every wild and huntable animal in the district (fish included as a less manly extra to make up the third item in the trifecta with deer and pigs). On the Sunday, the carcasses arrived at the ‘fair ground’ — the car park behind the pub — where they were weighed, tagged with the shooter’s number and hung up on display. Red deer and fallows hung on racks on the back of a truck, feet trussed, heads dangling. Antlered heads of stags stared out from their rows on the ground. There were fly-ridden piles of pig — kunekune, tuskers, Captain Cookers; a trailer full of possums and another of rabbits (here the competition was to shoot or trap the most, not the biggest). Eels dangled from a clothing rack borrowed from the second-hand shop. Why eels, the Virgin wondered, surely they didn’t shoot them? She especially hated that black and slimy display, some of the eels still wriggling feebly.

  She saw a woman with a dog on a lead approaching. The dog, a young ridgeback, suddenly planted its feet, nose in the air, whining. He’d caught the scent. They were a block away but the dog went rigid. Wouldn’t move no matter how vigorously the woman tugged. Obviously the overpowering stink, so different from a faint trail in the bush, was terrifying. Its tail was tucked tightly under its belly. With a sudden jerk, the dog pulled free of its collar, turned tail and went haring off, anywhere but the Easter Hunt display.

  That year Fitz Smart from Manawa, nicknamed Notso for his many failed money-making schemes, had a stall selling roasted huhu grubs and pork crackling. Somehow he got the cooking process wrong — both grubs and crackling were flabby. More than one intrepid townie spat out the evil mixture, adding to the general rich stench behind the pub.

  The worst event, from the Virgin Tracey’s point of view, was the Pig Run alongside the river. A large boar carcass lay on the ground by the starting line. Anyone who fancied his strength — rugby front-rowers and sturdy farmers mainly — would try to carry the bloody boar on his shoulders, running over and under various obstacles, turning at the far end and running back to the cheers of the crowd, and then dumping it back on the ground. The aim was to be the fastest. As the day wore on, the stink of the carcass ripened, the boar’s head and slit throat lolled behind the runner’s shoulder more obscenely, flies gathered in droves. Often the runner stumbled and fell, the horrible beast on top or below, while the crowd cheered and jeered. A dark scene out of the Middle Ages.

  Donny was part of the hunt, though the Virgin wouldn’t have recognised him back then. She wasn’t living rough at that time but renting a tiny room in Ohakune. Donny had been taught to shoot by his granddad, the two of them riding the old motorbike up over abandoned milling roads into the bush behind Manawa. He was a good shot and a fearless tracker, hunting for food rather than competition, but last Easter George Kingi had invited Donny to hunt with him. It would be good for the lad to get away from those louts down in ’Kune who were a bad influence on him.

  ‘Hop aboard, lad!’ he shouted, his ute idling outside Donny’s in the frosty early morning dark. ‘We’ll head up Rangipo way. There’s a couple of herds of red up by the old power-station road. Should be some decent stags gathering there.’

  Donny, though bleary eyed from a night at the pub, was willing enough. He slung some warm gear and ammunition into his pack.

  ‘Bring your granddad’s old cow horn,’ said George, his weathered face alight with the excitement already, ‘and we’ll roar them out.’

  Together they headed towards Waiouru and then along the Desert Road, the top of the mountain just beginning to glow rosy with the dawn. A beautiful morning. At Kaimanawa Road they turned off towards the Rangipo power station and then up a rough logging road, lurching over rocks and through an
undergrowth of young scrub. When George found his spot, they shouldered packs and rifles and headed up into the bush. George reckoned he’d seen a twelve-pointer not far from the Urchin Track. They’d try there.

  At first Donny was sulky and slow, but as the booze wore off and his natural hunting instincts took over he climbed with a will, George puffing to keep up. From time to time Donny blew on the old cow horn. He could do a pretty good imitation of a stag’s roar and once heard a distant response. George thought it could be another hunter on the other side of the valley.

  ‘Too many human bloody stags,’ he muttered.

  Now and then they heard shots in the distance. Plenty of people out in the bush this weekend, looking for the big one. All day they searched, but nothing came of it.

  ‘We’ll sleep in the bush and have a crack really early,’ said George. ‘Get a step ahead of the others.’

  They rolled out sleeping bags and rigged a fly. Ate slabs of pork between thick wedges of bread. ‘Bull’s worried about you,’ said George as they tucked down for the night. ‘So are we all. Ethan Masefield and Tama and Stewie. Not the best company, Donny Mac. Time to give them the flick.’

  ‘Yeah, I reckon,’ Donny mumbled, but George doubted his advice would stick. Donny was unhappy and lonely. He missed his granddad. His life was adrift.

  ‘You’ve got friends in Manawa and the rugby club, Donny.’

  But Donny was too drowsy to respond, and anyway George had used up his small store of conversation. They slept, comfortable on a bed of soft beech litter, the great trees spreading above them.

  It was Donny who sighted the stag. It stood on a rocky outcrop a good hundred metres away, wisps of ground mist drifting below in the bush, its impressive antlers silhouetted against the palest early morning light. Head up, he roared his challenge. Donny was about to respond with the cow horn, but George put out his hand to stay him. ‘We need to lure him further down, near the truck,’ he whispered. ‘If we shoot him up here we won’t have a snowball’s of getting him out whole.’