Some Here Among Us

by Peter Walker

  ‘What men?’ said Morgan.

  ‘Those old men everywhere. In blazers. Old men in blazers on the street.’

  ‘They’re remembering the war,’ said Morgan. ‘What do you expect?’

  ‘I hate Anzac weekend,’ said Candy. ‘All those old men in their blazers. Glorifying war. The boys at Gallipoli.’

  ‘Well, they were boys,’ said Morgan. ‘They were boys. What do you think they were?’

  Candy looked baffled. She had had the feeling that Morgan was angry with her, but why? What had she done? Now he was picking a fight with her over war, of all things. War, you’d think, would be safe ground. She wished she remembered more about Gallipoli.

  ‘Gallipoli was absurd,’ she said. ‘It made no sense. The British—’

  ‘It made perfect sense,’ said Morgan. ‘Knock Turkey out of the war. Relieve the eastern front. No Russian collapse. No sealed train. No Lenin. No Bolshevik revolution. No Hitler. No World War Two. Seems like a good plan to me.’

  Candy gave up. Her brow was furrowed. Did Morgan really hate her? Sometimes she thought he hated her for taking Adam from him. Sometimes she thought he liked her more than he liked Adam. And what did she think of Morgan as a possible lover? That was dark to her. She turned towards Salmond.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘who’s the girl?’

  ‘You don’t know her,’ said Salmond.

  ‘In which case there’s no reason not to tell us, is there?’ said Candy.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ said Salmond.

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Sandra.’

  ‘OK,’ said Candy, nodding. ‘Sandra who?’

  ‘You don’t know her,’ said Salmond.

  ‘You’ve said that,’ said Candy. ‘Oh my God, not Sandra!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Salmond.

  ‘Sandra Isbister?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Salmond.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Candy.

  ‘Do you know her?’ said Salmond.

  ‘Of course I know her,’ said Candy. ‘Who was helping me make a dress this afternoon?’

  ‘Who?’ said Salmond.

  ‘Cassandra Isbister.’

  She gazed at Salmond with an expression that was kind and contemptuous. It was brave, and foolish, was what her expression meant, to fall for Sandra Isbister.

  ‘Everyone falls in love with Sandra Isbister,’ she said.

  ‘Not me,’ said Adam.

  ‘Not me,’ said Morgan. ‘I’ve only met her once.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Race. ‘I never heard of her before.’

  ‘You did,’ cried Candy, turning on Adam. ‘You said you thought she was incredibly attractive.’

  ‘Only because you asked me if I thought she was incredibly attractive, and I said I c-c-c-could see why people said so.’

  His stutter was back. He had felt the tension between Candy and Morgan and he was angry with Morgan for that.

  ‘She is incredibly attractive,’ said Candy. ‘She looks an ordinary little thing at first, then you realise she’s incredibly attractive. It’s not her hair, it’s not her eyes. They’re just grey eyes. It’s her walk. It’s her body. She has – jouissance.’

  No one said anything.

  ‘I’m being objective,’ said Candy. ‘You might give me the credit for that.’

  She turned back to Salmond.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘You’re the one who’s been to Scotland?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Salmond.

  ‘She told me about you! She told me about this guy who was coming back from Scotland and wanted to take her out.’

  ‘Did she?’ said Salmond.

  ‘Oh – my – God,’ said Candy again. ‘You saw her tonight?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she shut the door in your face?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So then you came here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To see Rod Orr?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A shoulder to cry on?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Salmond.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Candy. ‘That’s just incredibly funny. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh, but it is funny.’

  ‘What’s funny about it?’ said Morgan.

  ‘It was Rod who put her off you,’ said Candy. ‘He said – I’m sorry, I’m just repeating what he said – he said you were this, well, rich country boy who dresses like Prince Charles or someone and doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on.’

  ‘Is that what he said?’ said Salmond. His face went red.

  Candy looked slightly guilty about her cruelty but she nodded. Salmond got up and went into the dining room and came back with a bottle of Chateau Pomerol and a bottle of Chateau Talbot, both of which he opened.

  He tipped wine into their glasses.

  ‘The thing is,’ said Morgan, ‘that it worked.’

  ‘What worked?’ said Race.

  ‘Gallipoli.’

  ‘No it didn’t,’ said Race.

  ‘It nearly worked,’ said Morgan. ‘We got to the top.’

  Candy stood up and left the room.

  Morgan stood up too, and then climbed on the coffee table and looked at the wall as if it was very far away.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Race.

  Morgan didn’t answer. His fist was clenched near his heart as he looked at the wall.

  ‘What’s he up to?’ said Race to Adam.

  ‘I d-d-don’t know,’ said Adam.

  ‘I’m the monument on Brooklyn hill,’ said Morgan.

  ‘I don’t know any monument on Brooklyn hill,’ said Race.

  ‘Well, exactly,’ said Morgan. ‘No one goes near it any more. That’s why I’m going to the trouble of standing on this table to show you. OK, so I’m the war memorial on Brooklyn hill. I’m the statue of a soldier. What am I looking at?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Race.

  ‘Some people say that I’m looking at the ships sail away to World War One. But that doesn’t make sense. If I’m a soldier, why would I be standing on Brooklyn hill watching the troopships sail away to war?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Race.

  ‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ said Morgan.

  ‘So what are you doing?’ said Race.

  ‘I’m looking at Constantinople,’ said Morgan. ‘I’m on the top of the hills at Gallipoli, and I’m looking east, at the lights of Constantinople. Because that’s what happened. We got there. We took the heights. The Wellington boys, the Maori boys. And they were boys,’ he said, looking down the hall where Candy had gone.

  Adam got up and went out of the room.

  ‘We got to the top,’ said Morgan. He followed Adam with his eyes. ‘The plan had worked. It was just like the Iliad. Troy was only fifty miles away from Gallipoli. A lot of people at Gallipoli thought they were in the Iliad.’

  Salmond went back to the dining room and came back with more bottles, a Chablis and a Nuits-Saint-Georges, both of which he opened.

  ‘Steady, lover-boy,’ said Morgan. ‘It’s only a girl.’

  He held out his glass. Salmond filled it.

  ‘The Greeks took Troy. We didn’t take Constantinople,’ said Race.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Morgan.

  ‘What I don’t see,’ said Salmond, ‘is why she should take any notice of Rod Orr.’

  He was kneeling, hunched, in front of the fireplace.

  ‘Women like disinterested advice,’ said Morgan.

  From his armchair Race looked down the hall. It was only a small house with a dining room off to the right of the hall and a bedroom off to the left and a kitchen at the back. He could see no one down there in the dark. A fire was now burning in the grate. Salmond was feeding it screws of newspaper.

  ‘In the Iliad,’ said Morgan, ‘there’s this big debate – whether to stay and take Troy or to sail home. Thersites said “Let’s go home” and so Achilles beat him with a golden rod.’

  ‘Who’s Thersites?’ said Race.<
br />
  ‘The ugliest man who ever came to Troy,’ said Morgan. “Squint-eyed, lame, hunched, pointy head crowned with fluff. He cared not what he said as long as he raised a laugh. ‘Let’s all sail home,’ he said, ‘the king can go fuck himself.’ ‘Silence,’ said Ulysses. ‘No mortal worse has come to Troy,’ and he beat him with his golden staff.” It was the same at Gallipoli. We took the heights. We could see the lights of Constantinople. We could have done it. But what happened? This journalist arrived. No worse mortal ever came to Troy. He only stayed for three days, listened to all the worst opinions he could find, and then went to London and made a fuss. He cared not what he said as long as he caused a stink. The British panicked and abandoned the campaign and so then we packed up and sailed away.’

  Salmond stood up and went over to the window. He stood on a chair and took down one of the red curtains with golden oboes and clarinets on it. Then he wrapped it around himself and lay on the floor.

  ‘There’s the difference,’ said Morgan. ‘Thersites got beaten with a golden rod, Murdoch got a knighthood. Then he founded an empire. They bought up the local paper here the other day. And that’s still the Murdoch racket: find the worst opinions you can, then package them up and sell them to the people you got them from.’

  Race looked down through the house from his armchair. He could see no one down there in the dark.

  ‘That’s the racket,’ said Morgan.

  ‘Where have they gone?’ said Race.

  ‘To bed,’ said Morgan. He stepped off the table.

  ‘To bed!’ said Race. There was only one bed, he realised, in the house. ‘There’s only one bed,’ he said.

  ‘They have priority,’ said Morgan. ‘They get the double bed. Sex has priority. Troy was all about sex. Who gets Helen? Who gets Candy?’

  ‘Who gets Sandra Isbister?’ said Race.

  He looked at Burns wrapped in the red curtain like a chrysalis and apparently fast asleep.

  ‘Who gets Sandra Isbister?’ said Morgan, bowing his head as if acknowledging the oversight.

  Race looked down the hall and saw Candy come out of the kitchen. The kitchen and hall were still dark but he saw her walking carefully, carrying two glasses of water. She was naked. Race felt a cool pang in his throat and chest. Candy went through the bedroom door which was ajar; she opened it with one foot, there was a brief glow from a bedside light, then the door was closed.

  ‘That’s what the Iliad was all about,’ said Morgan. ‘Who gets the girl? Who gets the double bed? That’s always the big story. What about you?’ he said. ‘What’s your version?’

  2

  Race then told Morgan about his love affair the year before.

  ‘She was engaged to someone else,’ he said. ‘She was in love with him and going to get married.’

  ‘Well, that’s a bad start,’ said Morgan.

  ‘But he’d gone away,’ said Race. ‘He was on this ship that had gone to England. He was away six months. She was bored and a bit lonely and her flatmate invited me round to visit, I suppose to cheer her up. I didn’t care one way or the other. I went round because I had nothing else to do that night. Then this disaster happened.’

  ‘What disaster?’

  ‘I fell for her. I fell completely in love.’

  ‘That’s bad,’ said Morgan.

  ‘Maybe it was just that night, in that room – if someone else had been there maybe I’d have fallen in love with them instead.’

  ‘No,’ said Morgan firmly. ‘To hell with that!’

  ‘OK,’ said Race. ‘Maybe not. Anyway, it wasn’t someone else. It was her. And then I was obsessed. I was crazy about her. I went there every single night. Straight after lectures I would run right across town, I’d run all the way – down Courteney Place, up Kent Terrace. I couldn’t take the bus.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Morgan.

  ‘I couldn’t stand waiting at the bus stop,’ said Race.

  ‘No,’ said Morgan.

  Race wanted to describe the feeling he had when he ran across town every night and reached Kent Terrace where the statue of the queen with her crown on stood among the trolley-bus wires in the dusk. Up the hill was the house where his girlfriend lived. Her name was Bonnie. The road went up the hill and curved round a corner towards her house and the trolley-wires went up too, curving round the corner, and when he saw the statue of the queen among the trolley-bus wires, he felt a shift in his heart as though, in the dusk, that curve in the road, and the trolley-wires on the way to Bonnie’s house were changing the shape of his heart for ever. But he couldn’t say this to Morgan.

  ‘So what happened?’ said Morgan.

  ‘She liked me,’ said Race. ‘She let me come back to see her every night. We’d play games. We played cards. But mostly we just talked. She told me all about her family and where she grew up and so on. She loved talking. She talked about her fiancé too – to fend me off, you see. I hated that, but still it was better than not being there with her. I let her talk. Sometimes she even kissed me a few times. I mean she let me kiss her. But I always had to leave. I’d catch the last bus home.’

  ‘So then what?’

  ‘Finally one night she let me stay. I was allowed to sleep in the bed!’

  ‘Really?’ said Morgan.

  ‘But not between the sheets,’ said Race.

  ‘Jesu Criste!’ said Morgan. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Race. ‘She went to sleep and I went to sleep. I don’t think I really slept. I kind of just dreamed I was asleep all night. I was incredibly happy, you see. I was nearly there. I always thought I’d get her in the end and the fiancé would just never show up or something. Then that night there was a bang on the window. We were on the ground floor. The bed was in the bay-window. We were just about sleeping in the street. I sat up and pulled back the curtain. There’s this guy there, angry-looking guy about forty, red face, black combed hair, staring in at me. He’s a detective, he says. There’s been a murder across the street.’

  ‘A murder!’ said Morgan.

  ‘A girl across the street had had a party and everyone left except someone hid in her wardrobe and came out and killed her. I don’t know how they knew he’d been in the wardrobe. Well – we hadn’t seen anything. We hadn’t heard anything. We couldn’t help. But I thought: “Here I am, in bed with the girl I love, there’s been a murder across the street, and a plain-clothes man is looking in the window. This is it. Adulthood!” ’

  ‘Ha!’ said Morgan.

  ‘It was just before dawn. I saw the milkman at the end of the street. I even heard a cock crow. Imagine that – someone keeping hens in those old apartments on Mount Vic.’

  ‘Then what happened?’ said Morgan.

  ‘That was the end of it. The fiancé came back two days later.’

  Morgan burst out laughing.

  ‘What’s the joke?’ said Race.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ said Morgan.

  ‘Now she’s married him, and I’ll never see her again.’

  ‘At least she let you sleep in her bed,’ said Morgan. ‘What did you say her name was?’

  ‘Bonnie,’ said Race.

  ‘Sexy old Bonnie,’ said Morgan. ‘Liddy – Lydia – never let me sleep in her bed.’

  He stood up and began prowling round the room. ‘Probably that’s why I’m so incredibly fucked up,’ he said with aplomb. ‘But I happen to know she loved me. I was going to step right in and ask her to marry me. But she loved something else more. The social whirl she was in, with these rich red-neck farmers. Like what’s-his-name here.’

  He did a neat scissor-leap over the sleeping Salmond Burns.

  ‘He’s not a red-neck,’ said Race.

  ‘Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t,’ said Morgan, still prowling round. They were now very drunk, Race realised drunkenly, on Rod Orr’s wine. The fire was blazing up. The music was on. Miles Davis was on. Who had put Miles on? The vines seemed to be curling down the wall in slow motion.

  ‘
I have this cousin in love with me,’ said Morgan, ‘but she’s sixteen and my cousin and she’s none too bright, so that’s not much use, is it?’

  He took a letter out of his pocket and then began to read aloud:

  My dearest cousin Morgan,

  Having the opportunity of relazing I thought of such a charming idea to write. Here’s the local gossip not that it’s plentiful. Johnny had a big gathering at Cape Runaway. My real parents were there and I was so glad to see them. Johnny was buried on a hill looking down to the old school and the church to be. The church will be named St Johns after him. I didn’t pass the army because I’m absolutely dumb and dreadfully sad. I went up to Gisborne for my interview stayed there for a week and of course got involved with a couple of nice looking boys. One mind you was a Pakeha with glasses but a fab Velox, the unknown I would presume, but the first one I went with was a Maori his name was Charlie Hirini he had a bomb I kind of liked him because he was one of the boys that was interviewed with me. At night I roamed the streets. There was the bogies all in tight skinned clothing waiting in uncivilized places and taking girls on their motorbikes. Just the sight of them made me shrink a little. Came back through the gorge, decided to stay the night at Opotiki then right to Charlie Tuhiwai’s wedding. There was Charlie Spoons, Rangi Koroheke, Richard and Gladys, Whata Wairua, Jimmy Rhodes and Jimmy Devereaux. We stayed there two nights so like a flirt I decided to go with Whata, that’s Johnny Wairua’s brother he’s quiet nice but incline to be shy. He called me doll all the way, of course I got the cheap thrills. Martha who is not a friend of mine any more went with Porgy. No doubt I got kisses, kisses that one and only night. Queenie Rolleston is getting married Labour weekend. Dardanelle is going nursing. Mary Cowan’s bull jumped the fence and chased Hubert round his truck three times. My photo album is piling up for you to have a look. Rita and Teia are naughty day after day and we still got Ricky and Motu. Well so long, dear cuz, time slips away for another day.

  Long Live Love

  Please write cousin

  Count all mistakes as kisses

  Rianora Kingi

  ‘See what a silly girl she is,’ said Morgan. ‘She wants to make me jealous.’