Heartland

by Jenny Pattrick

  There was another silence. Bull could see that this was deep. For the moment at least, Vera had lost hope.

  The feet are the key, thought Bull, we’ll get back to the feet a bit later. First a good argument’s needed to get the blood moving again.

  ‘Vera,’ he said in his firmest leadership voice, ‘we need to locate your guardian angel. You are in need of a first-class booster-shot from on high.’

  ‘Guardian angel,’ said Vera. ‘Oh yes? I might be down, Bull, but I’m not barmy.’

  ‘No, no, I’m serious. Listen, I saw it all on TV last night. This fellow, he helped you see your guardian angels. Told you how to call them closer in time of need.’

  ‘Oh, TV,’ said Vera. It was a flat dismissal. Nature programmes and the weather were all she would watch, and with the weather it was only so she could disagree with the forecaster.

  Bull was not to be put off. ‘Well, I’m no pushover, as you know, but they convinced me.’ He was putting it on a bit, to gain her interest, but certainly it had made him think. Definitely there was something in it — or Them. Bull had been fascinated watching the man describe auras and glows and angels watching over. You couldn’t just write it off, the way this man put it. A guardian angel keeping watch at certain times could be a real comfort. Bull had imagined his aura — or was it the angel itself? — a creamy colour, like old lace. He had laughed at himself a little, of course, but liked the thought. At any rate the topic was sure to get earthy old Vera going.

  ‘It’s all tied up with colour,’ he said. ‘We all have a colour glowing round us that tells us what our nature is, and we all have guardian angels, several sometimes, and we can concentrate to bring them closer. This sceptic on TV had to admit he saw a glow.’

  Vera snorted. ‘And you saw the glow too, I suppose?’

  ‘The cameras can’t pick up auras, Vera. It has to be sensed live.’

  ‘Bull Howie, how can you believe such nonsense? I’m surprised at you. It’s some showman trying to take money from gullible people. Like you.’

  Bull tried not to let his delight show. He was surprised to see how much he needed Vera to be on top of things. Vera hopeless was somehow too awful to think about.

  ‘No, come on,’ he said, goading her, ‘just give it a go. You might be surprised.’ He stood up and walked to stand against the clean white surface of his kitchen door. On TV, the man had said it was important to position yourself against a light, uncluttered background.

  Vera sighed and rolled her eyes. She was definitely being drawn in. If only to prove him wrong.

  ‘No, no, turn right this way,’ said Bull. ‘Just look at me and let your eyes go a little fuzzy — out of focus, sort of.’

  Vera almost smiled. ‘My eyes are always out of focus, and yours are worse, as you well know.’

  ‘All the better! We’re perfect subjects. Now, just relax and look at me.’

  ‘There’s a stain on your shirt. You’ve spilt your breakfast.’

  ‘What! Where?’ Bull looked down in alarm. The shirt was spotless.

  ‘Ha! Got you, you old fusspot.’

  ‘Vera! This is a serious experiment. Go on, look at me and let your mind go blank.’

  Silence in the kitchen. Outside a bellbird called.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Vera.

  ‘Wait. Give it time.’

  Vera sat looking. Her face began to go blank again and Bull felt perhaps this particular activity might be a mistake. Then he saw a change. She frowned a little, watched with more intensity. Her eyes shifted away, then returned. She leaned forward, squinting. Bull felt heat rising in his face, as if a light were shining on him. He wanted to move away but some force held him against the door.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Vera. ‘Is this some trick, Bull?’ She couldn’t take her eyes away.

  ‘What do you see, what do you see?’ whispered Bull.

  ‘My eyes have gone soft on me — from looking too hard, that’ll be it,’ she said, but kept looking. ‘You look rather splendid, Bull. Shining.’

  ‘What colour? What colour?’

  Vera’s face showed a mixture of disbelief and awe. ‘A light sort of gold. Creamy gold, I suppose.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Bull, entranced, ‘the very one I wanted! I told you there was something in it, Vera.’

  Vera stood up and broke the spell. ‘It’ll be the sun coming round, maybe.’ But no sun shone in the kitchen yet, they could both see that. ‘Well, my old eyes, then. Everything’s running downhill.’

  Bull’s heart beat in his throat. A guardian angel! But Vera still needed rescue; this was no time to day-dream.

  ‘Now you, Vera. Come on, stand against the door!’

  There was no doubt she wanted to be persuaded, grumbling about her feet, protesting she couldn’t stand for long, but pleased to be chivvied. Bull positioned her with a flourish and stood back. He breathed deeply and let his mind go blank.

  Vera began to fidget. ‘I feel bloody silly, standing here. Shall I do a striptease or something?’

  ‘Vera!’

  ‘Well, hurry up then, my feet can’t stand it.’

  Bull squinted, looked hard, turned half-on, squinted even more narrowly. All he saw was a blurred version of old Vera in a torn brown cardigan and stained drill trousers.

  ‘You can’t see anything, can you?’ she said, shifting her feet, disappointment in her voice.

  ‘Wait!’ cried Bull. ‘Wait! Yes, it’s coming. Stay still, Vera!’

  Vera stood still as a mouse. On her cheeks two pink spots glowed. Her eyes fixed on Bull, who counted slowly to ten in his head before he spoke again.

  ‘It’s blue! A lovely sky blue. All around you, Vera. Think about your guardian angel, go on, quick!’

  Vera closed her eyes. Bull put on a fine performance. ‘Yes, it’s glowing brighter. That means your angel’s coming closer. He’s a blue guardian!’

  ‘She,’ said Vera. ‘Or Them. I think there’s two of them. I can feel something!’

  Bull laughed out loud in excitement. He jumped forward to touch his friend. Perhaps he just wasn’t good at seeing other people’s auras. Or perhaps he had seen something after all?

  ‘Well, fancy that!’ said Vera, plopping down on the chair. ‘I’m all of a sweat. What does blue mean then, Bull?’

  ‘Tranquillity,’ said Bull, trying to remember. ‘Tranquillity and beauty. Just right for you.’

  ‘You’re kidding me.’ Vera was obviously more than pleased to be kidded. She looked at Bull with her good old sharp smile. ‘I suppose we’re just a couple of gullible old fools. But there might be something in it, eh?’

  ‘There must be,’ said Bull, ‘if you saw something. Nothing gets past you.’

  ‘True.’

  They sat there for a bit. Bull imagined his creamy-gold guardian having a chat with Vera’s blue one. Perhaps he should have chosen a rosy pink?

  Vera, practical as always, wanted to know what next. What use were angels exactly, or did they just hover around, glowing? Bull’s view was that they were sort of companions who helped you get over bad spots and gave you courage if you weren’t up to things. A theory which didn’t appeal greatly to Vera, who had never had much trouble fronting up. Or so she said. Vera wondered if a guardian angel could give her a bit of a lift in a more literal sense — take the weight off her feet, for example.

  ‘I’d pay to see that! You being wafted through the air by some sort of blue forklift with wings!’ They both laughed.

  The situation is saved, thought Bull, with a certain degree of smugness. The problem of the feet, an ongoing source of irritation to Vera, could now be tackled.

  ‘But what’s all this trouble with the feet, then?’ he said, tapping the lumpy arthritic toes. ‘I thought we’d solved the feet?’

  A week ago Vera’s one pair of leather boots had finally come apart at the soles. Bull, who had read somewhere that your feet held all the secrets to your inner wellbeing, and thought Vera’s black moods were probably rooted in her fe
et, had persuaded her to take money out of her savings and get a really good new pair: the sort the young people wore these days — soft leather and flexible soles. And a generous fit to accommodate the fiery points on her toes.

  Vera had been persuaded, and took a lift down to Ohakune in George’s truck. She spent all morning in the fancy ski shops and the one normal shoe store, rejecting pair after pair — something Bull would never, in a hundred years, angel or no, have had the courage to do. She came home triumphant, though, with a beautiful pair — shaved suede, dark blue. Bull would have given his eye teeth for a pair like that.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about those boots,’ said Vera now. ‘All my savings gone, and in the end they’re no better than the old boots. Worse, even. There’s something not right about them. I feel lop-sided like I’m going to fall.’ A thought struck her. ‘I tell you what, Bull, if my blue guardian could fix my boots, that’d be a job well done. I’m going to ask her right now.’ Vera closed her eyes, spread out her stockinged feet as if displaying them to the celestial view.

  Bull shifted uncomfortably. This demand for concrete manifestations was bound to end in disappointment. How could down-to-earth Vera place such hope in something as nebulous as an angel’s intervention in a boot problem? His angel would stay firmly in the air, somewhere well above his shoulder, keeping a friendly eye but never interfering directly.

  He watched Vera’s quiet smile. Could she be serious? Was she perhaps losing touch with the real world? God help us if she is, thought Bull.

  ‘I tell you what,’ he said, ‘let’s have a look at these boots.’

  He brought them in, set them down on the floor. Oh, they were handsome! He shucked one foot out of its slipper and tried the boot. Bliss! ‘Fits me all right!’ he said, joking, but with an edge.

  ‘Have them!’ said Vera, coming out of her trance. ‘And good riddance!’

  ‘Now, now.’ Bull was severely tempted, but puzzled too. ‘What’s the problem, Vera? Too big?’

  ‘Too big, too small, too tight. They’re just wrong. They drive me crazy.’

  Bull slipped the other one on, just to see. Stopped halfway. Brought the pair to the window to catch a good light and examined the insides. Vera watched from her chair.

  ‘Here’s your problem, Vera!’ he cried. ‘They’re not a pair. No wonder they mucked you around.’

  ‘Never,’ she said, looking. ‘They were a pair in the shop.’ But she could see it written there: an 8 and a 9. She beamed. ‘I’ll take them back straight away.’ She winked at Bull. ‘Some guardian angel! She doesn’t waste her time.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Bull, his emotions too mixed to sort out. ‘It was me found the problem, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t be too sure,’ said Vera darkly, and left to find someone going into town.

  Bull sat in his kitchen, thinking about the creamy-golden glow Vera had seen. Had she really seen it, or were they fooling each other? He did feel a presence, didn’t he? Some warm being near to him? Who might keep an eye on him? There was no way he’d ask for a pair of boots, though. That would be an abuse of your angel. If he couldn’t afford boots like that — and there was no way he ever could — so be it. All the same …

  That evening, Bull watched Vera coming down the road with his tea. Her head turned this way and that, ready to ferret out interesting goings-on. Bull smiled to see her feet punish the ground, stump, stump, no trace of a limp. That’s better, he thought, we’ll have a decent meal tonight.

  Vera couldn’t wait to get inside. She stopped on the doorstep to hold out the parcel.

  ‘Happy Christmas, Bull!’

  Bull took the parcel. He could feel the lovely shape inside, but didn’t understand. Vera had her new boots on, a matching pair, properly laced. Who could afford another?

  Vera’s face was alight. ‘Go on. Try them on. Try them, Bull!’

  Bull spread the paper on his polished hall table, laid out the boots. Dark blue, shaved suede, just like Vera’s; one brand new, the other with a hint of mud at the heel. Gently he ran a finger along the leather, marvelling at the shadowy track it made, deeper than midnight. He looked at Vera in wonder, knowing they’d fit. Hadn’t he tried on the muddy one just this morning?

  Vera laughed out loud at his astonishment. ‘The lady at the shop wasn’t half mad! Her husband’s fault, she said. He’d wrapped up the boots wrong. Left them with two odd boots, no use to anyone. “Have them all!” she said. “The 9s are no use to me now with one soiled.” And out she stormed to the back to give her husband what-ho! You can bet I skedaddled fast as a skinned cat in case she changed her mind!’ She flapped at the boots. ‘Well, do they fit, man? Get them on! We all know what a bad fit can do to your life!’

  Bull sat to put them on carefully, with due reverence and a proper attention to the lacing. They each held their breath as he stood, letting the weight settle.

  ‘It’s a miracle,’ Bull muttered at last. ‘This fit is a miracle!’

  And then, as he looked up to thank her, didn’t he catch, only for a moment, a fleeting bluish glow somewhere just above Vera’s head?

  Vera hoped then that Bull had maybe turned a corner, that the presence of a guardian angel might provide the support he needed to face the world. But the setbacks in the following weeks were a test even for the celestials.

  From inside, the knock on the door sounds more like a small branch slapping: a light scratch, followed by a thump no stronger than a heartbeat. Even so, Bull jumps. Takes off his reading glasses, smooths down his tie, looks at the door and then at Vera. Clears his throat.

  ‘Someone’s at the door.’

  ‘I heard,’ says Vera. ‘It’s not the end of the world, Bull.’

  Bull’s big slabby hands brush at demons crowding in. ‘No one knocks this time of night.’ His eyes keep flicking at the door, then back at Vera.

  She sighs. ‘It’s not yet eight o’clock, you big sook.’ But she catches the edge of his mood, and wonders. Everyone knows about Bull. Who, in Manawa, would arrive unannounced? Daytime’s difficult enough, let alone a moonless and silent night.

  She heaves out of the chair, shaking her stringy hair and muttering. ‘It’s your door, Bull, not mine. I’m not your bloody butler.’

  With a hand on the knob, she slips her feet into her lovely new boots to be ready, and then swings open the door. A small figure is already stumbling back down the steps.

  ‘Lovey?’ Vera lowers her head and growls. ‘Lovey, is that you?’

  The child stops and comes hopping back. It is indeed inquisitive Lovey, her sharp eyes half-hidden under the dark fringe, hand-me-down jersey reaching to skinny knees. Gumboots several sizes too big. Her smile comes and goes quicker than lightning.

  ‘Lovey Kingi, you little monkey!’ Vera reaches out quickly and grabs a handful of jersey. ‘What are you snooping round here for?’

  Lovey’s black eyebrows lower. She’s a match for most people, even Vera.

  ‘Let me go, you old witch. Dad sent me.’

  This is a surprise. George Kingi would know better. Vera growls again, keeps her handful of jersey, but her voice loses its edge. ‘Don’t you witch me, you cheeky chip. What’s up then?’

  ‘I got to tell you both.’

  ‘I’ll tell Bull. Spit it out.’

  Lovey plants her feet. ‘It’s specially for Bull. Dad said.’

  In fact, her father has said nothing of the sort, but Lovey wants to see inside Bull’s place. Just for a dare. With Vera’s wild old eyes glaring at her, though, she’s suddenly not so sure.

  Too late. Vera yanks her inside, crashes the door shut. She stands between Lovey and the door, a cracked old hand on each of the child’s shoulders, holding her pinned. Bull stands, backed against the wall, his smile anxious. Vera curses the sudden intrusion. Bull has been making good progress; this will be a set-back.

  ‘Get on with it,’ she mutters, ‘and then hop it.’

  Lovey’s quick smile flashes again. ‘Dad said you shou
ld know about the bush section down past Donny’s.’

  Bull and Vera wait.

  The child looks from one to the other, important now. ‘The spare block by the reserve.’

  Vera flicks a questioning eye at Bull but keeps her voice casual. ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘At the end of the road,’ says Lovey. ‘Dad heard it’s going to be used for a film.’

  ‘So what?’ says Vera, but her heart is thumping.

  Bull could be a shop dummy, so still he is in his brown corduroy jacket and grey pants, his face waxy.

  Lovey shrugs. ‘Some old-world movie. Or fantasy maybe. With strange creatures. They’ll be digging trenches and that in the bush, Dad said.’

  Bull puts a hand out to feel the table. Sits down slowly. Lovey’s quick eyes notice it all.

  ‘Dad said hop down and tell youse, because he’s got his hands full with Mum, so someone else will have to deal with it. That’s what he said.’

  Bull looks down at his hands without a word. Vera spins Lovey around so they are face to face. ‘That’s it then?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Right then. Hop it.’

  Lovey is not about to drop the matter. ‘Why’re you interested in that old block?’

  ‘Who said I was?’

  ‘It’s spooked, that bit of bush.’

  ‘Who said so?’ shouts Vera. ‘Who said that?’

  Lovey scowls back. ‘I said so. All us kids know. I went in for a dare. You can feel the spooks in there.’

  Bull clears his throat, taps the table-top. ‘Well, Lovey,’ he says, ‘it’s late for your bed. Tell your dad thanks.’

  ‘Okay,’ says Lovey. It’s the first time Bull Howie has spoken to her. She’s seen him heaps, of course, out on his lawn coaching Donny Mac, or in his garden, or splitting firewood down the back. Sometimes you’ll catch him standing on his front porch, just looking down the path to the gate. If you wave, he’ll sometimes wave back, that’s all. Now she can boast to her brothers that Bull Howie spoke to her.

  Vera shoves Lovey towards the door, but then notices the child’s backward glance at the table. Lovey’s always been an odd child, always poking about the place, singing to herself or making up stories with only herself for audience. She’s wild, like the other Kingi kids but, also like the rest, has good old-fashioned manners learned from their mother.