Fish of the Week

by Steve Braunias

  A search engine can access trials by name or date. But you can cut to the chase and dial up from a range of punishments such as whipping, branding, and hanging, drawing and quartering. And so, on July 12, 1683, Thomas Wallcot, John Rouse and William Hone were found guilty of treason (a plot to kill Charles II), and the court’s sentence was thus: ‘The accused will be Hanged by the Necks, then cut down alive, their Privy-Members cut off, and Bowels taken out to be burnt before their Faces, their Heads to be severed from their Bodies, and their Bodies divided into four parts, to be disposed of as the King sees fit.’

  Francis Stirn, found guilty of murder on September 10, 1760, took a fatal dose of poison in prison rather than suffer the fine machineries of torture and execution. He did not escape posthumous indignity. ‘His body was dissected, and buried in a crossroad, with a stake through him, near Black Mary’s Hole.’

  Crime and punishment always reveal the true nature of society. A nameless woman, lyrically referred to as ‘a little confident ungrateful Slut’, was found guilty of theft on October 11, 1676, and sentenced to ‘the correction of a gentle Lash’. The proceedings can easily be read as a Marxist history of struggle and oppression. On July 6, 1763, Cornelius Saunders, a blind serf arrested at the Man in the Moon tavern on suspicion of stealing seven guineas and four shillings, was found guilty and sentenced to death.

  There is feminist history too. On April 1, 1913, suffragette Isabel Irving was found guilty of maliciously damaging certain glass windows. She told the jury, ‘My motive was pure. I did not do it unlawfully, because I am not within the law. You may think I am, but I am not legally. I am a woman and voteless, and no attention is paid to women except to punish them. If you wish to punish women, you must first of all give them the same privileges that you enjoy before you mete out the same punishment as you would to men who have got privileges.’ The judge replied: ‘Six months’ hard labour.’

  On it goes, awful and clerical, unsentimental and appalling. George Simmonds, a harness-maker, sentenced to ten years’ jail on November 10, 1912 for ‘carnally knowing a girl under the age of 13 years’; eight years’ jail for Joseph Aldridge, found guilty on February 8, 1897 of wounding Mary Ann Bromley with intent to murder. Said the prisoner, ‘I came from New Zealand with this woman, and we have lived together happily until a few weeks before Christmas…’ New Zealand is otherwise mentioned only in passing—unlike Australia. The proceedings are already proving a valuable source for genealogists wanting to trace their ancestors who were sentenced to the penal colonies of that fatal Antipodean shore.

  Famous names inevitably appear. Two men were found guilty on December 6, 1693 of highway robbery; they had held up a coach carrying the great diarist Samuel Pepys, and relieved him of a silver ruler, a gold pencil, five mathematical instruments and a magnifying glass. They were sentenced to death.

  The trials of Oscar Wilde and Dr Crippen also feature, but the online archive is not an exercise in celebrity. It exists to remember the forgotten, to itemise wretchedness through the ages. On October 21, 1761, Richard Parrott was found guilty and sentenced to death for the murder of his wife, Anne. The prosecution questioned arresting constable William Haines: ‘What do you think was the cause of her death?’ He replied, ‘We have reason to think it was that of cutting her tongue out. She never was well afterwards.’

  [June 29]

  Father’s Days

  Everyone knows that fathers are the new mothers, fussing and clucking while stuck at home with a baby underfoot, so I take it on the chin when my fiancée swans in from a hard day at the office, gives me a kiss, and coos, ‘How’s the fat housewife?’ And everyone is aware of men who become fathers at an age when they can look back on their midlife crisis. In short, dads in my position and of similar vintage are thick on the ground. It’s nothing unusual. But I am still reeling from two recent encounters.

  The first was at my local tea room. I take the baby there every Tuesday and Thursday. She’s a wild date. She hoots and hollers, gazes at herself in the mirror, and her eyes wash over with dreamy, sensual pleasure when she shares my jam and cream doughnuts. She’s also very friendly to strangers. Naturally I find this charming, but it has its disadvantages.

  An elderly man who is probably lonely and possibly quite insane is another regular diner. He wants conversation. ‘This,’ he will announce, ‘is a very good cup of tea.’ The waiter is lucky: he can’t speak English. Everyone else ducks for cover, unless the man who can’t stop talking is also in the tea room, and he and the elderly loner will enter into a ridiculous, compelling dialogue.

  ‘This is a very good sandwich.’

  ‘Rain is threatened, but how can they tell? I’m all right. It doesn’t bother me a bit.’

  ‘You seem like a very happy man.’

  ‘People say, “You only live once.” But that doesn’t mean there aren’t rules.’

  ‘I would advise you to keep your voice down.’

  ‘You probably don’t like pets.’

  ‘I was born in Morrinsville.’ And so on.

  Last week, my daughter turned to the antique man from Morrinsville, beamed a lovely smile, and said: ‘Hello!’ Oh god, I thought. This will be his cue.

  It was. He turned to me and asked, ‘Is her name Betty?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘My mother’s name was Betty. Wonderful woman. Brought up ten children. Cooked and cleaned every day of her life. Never complained. Always happy. I’m the fourth youngest. My eldest brother Roy passed away. Terrible tragedy.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘My sister Penelope lives in Nelson. Another sister, Myrna, works in a bank. You might know my youngest brother, Jumbo. He doesn’t live around here. Another brother…’

  And so on. Long before his family saga got to the whereabouts of his ninth sibling, the baby lost her temper. We were packing up to leave when he suddenly asked, ‘Is she your granddaughter?’

  The jam and cream left a bitter taste as I clenched my teeth and said, ‘No.’ I have long accepted that the sweet bird of youth has flown from my life, but now I could no longer even hear its distant chirp. Sighing heavily, I rattled my old bones out of the tea room and back home to put away the dishes, put the baby down for her midday nap, prepare her lunch, do the laundry, etc. A fat housewife’s work is never done.

  The second episode was likewise random and unexpected. I had taken the baby to the local bakery—they do a superior jam and cream doughnut—and was waiting for service next to an ageing transvestite. He or she wore red hair clips and a pout. The baby sat in her pram and ogled the many and varied treats behind glass. She managed to tear her eyes away to look at the transvestite and say with a lovely smile, ‘Hello!’

  The transvestite did not return the greeting. Instead, he or she turned and looked at me for a few seconds, and then asked, ‘Is that your baby?’

  I love that question. The sun surrounds the sky, music plays, my heart dances a merry jig. I gaze at my daughter with a stupid smile that cannot be wiped off my face, and think: You are so beautiful, so adorable, so new. She has been a baby all her life. She is sixteen months old. She is in love with the moon, nursery rhymes, sand, yams, pears, mushrooms, doughnuts, books, her cousins Nina and Heidi; she sits on the mezzanine floor of her doll’s house, she has walked five steps, she is unfortunately addicted to children’s shows on DVD. She is in possession of many words: Mummy. Show. Mess. Up above. Nice. Red. Please. Oh dear. House. Cardy. Goose. Pamol, etc. She wears pink hair clips and a pout.

  ‘Yes,’ I said to the transvestite.

  He or she replied, ‘Well, you’re a late starter, aren’t you?’

  The smile was wiped off my face. I felt more of an old hag than the transvestite.

  Afterwards, decrepit and defeated, I took the baby to the park, and then home, to prepare her dinner, change her nappy, bring in the washing, and wait for my mocking fiancée to pull into the driveway. I thought: This is happiness.

  [July 6]

  Acknowledgements


  To Sunday magazine sub-editors Maria Hoyle and Jo Knight for their cool appraisals and face-saving corrections; to Mary Varnham and Sarah Bennett at Awa Press for their flair; and to all who first read these columns in Sunday and responded with wit, malice, confessions, gifts, kind remarks, valuable assistance, and letters from law firms.

  By the same author

  How to Watch a Bird

  ‘Braunias’s wit and charm are put to work to explain in easy non-scientific ways why looking at the commonest birds can be such a pleasure’

  The Dominion Post: Best Non-Fiction of 2007

  Prize-winning journalist Steve Braunias is standing on the balcony of an inner-city apartment on a sultry summer evening when a black-backed gull flies so close he is instantaneously bowled over with happiness. ‘I thought: Birds, everywhere. I want to know more about them.’ This highly engaging book is the result—a personal journey into an amazing world. It’s also a New Zealand history, a geographical wandering, and an affectionate look at the tribe of people ensnared, captivated and entranced by birds.

  ‘Braunias has touchingly brought love and bird-watching together in a book that stalks sewage ponds and grey warblers with curiosity and affection, and ends with contentment, bliss and a baby born. A lovely book’

  New Zealand Listener: Best Books of 2007

  ‘A small and perfectly formed jewel’

  The Sunday Star-Times

  ‘Awa Press plus Braunias plus birds makes for a tantalising literary marriage’

  New Zealand Life & Leisure

  Roosters I Have Known

  ‘Classic Steve Braunias—provocative, literate, disrespectful and eminently readable … some of the best writing you will read this winter’

  Christopher Moore, The Press

  In 2007 Steve Braunias embarked on a series of 27 interviews, one a week, profiling New Zealanders famous and infamous, both publicity-seekers and those desperate to hide from the spotlight. His startling survey of the national psyche ranged from the neuroscientist Richard Faull to rape survivor Louise Nicholas, from actor Adam Rickitt to TV star Paul Henry, from Cuisine’s Julie Dalzell to Fox Television’s Anita McNaught in Iraq. He also took us to our leaders —Labour’s Helen Clark, National’s John Key, the Maori Party’s Pita Sharples … and a miscellany of mayoral wannabes. You may never vote again.

  ‘Braunias proves that he is our best newspaper feature writer’

  Warwick Roger, North & South

  ‘Opinionated, prickly, sometimes fevered, often affectionate—cranky vintage Braunias’

  Lindsey Dawson, Plenty

  ‘Funny, touching, smart … Recommended’

  Sam Finnemore, Craccum

  ‘Steve Braunias is a very funny man’

  Beattie’s Book Blog

  First ebook edition published in 2012 by

  Awa Press, Level 1, 85 Victoria Street

  Wellington, New Zealand

  Copyright © Steve Braunias 2008

  The columns in this book originally appeared in The Sunday Star-Times.

  The right of Steve Braunias to be identified as the author of this work interms of Section 96 of the Copyright Act 1994 is hereby asserted.

  Copyright in this book is held by the author. You have been granted the right to read this ebook on screen but no part may be copied, transmitted, reproduced, downloaded or stored or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system in any form and by any means now known or subsequently invented without the written consent of Awa Press Limited, acting as the author’s authorised agent.

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Data for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

  Cover design by Liane McGee, Fortyfive Design, Wellington. The publisher acknowledges the generosity of artist Dick Frizzell and Harmos Horton Lusk for giving permission to use the painting Man Drinking Milk on the cover of this book.

  www.awapress.com