Loving Ways

by Gee, Maurice

He drove through Motueka and Riwaka and started the long climb up the hill. Every few moments, sweeping round a bend, he saw the fruit and hop and tobacco lands, always more flattened out and toy-like, with the sea brimming at their edge and the flooded estuary spread out like a hand. Pine forests with blocks milled out of them blackened the low hills beyond the Tasman orchards and cut Rabbit Island into strips. This was a view David approved of – land portioned out and put to use. The road stopped climbing and crossed the tops, where bracken was coming back and limestone outcrops ruined the properties for farming. Away to the left mountains pushed south, with hidden valleys in them: more land put to use. He came to the first of them, the Takaka Valley, and felt a lurch in his stomach as it opened out. It was as if a finger had come down on the hills and made this indentation that seemed, always, too sunken and low. You felt the sea should rush in and drown it. The paddocks down there, the roads and houses, were pasted on. He needed to drive fast down the looping road, back and forth, squealing on the corners, to restore himself. Once down it was all right, everything was solid, and he was impressed by the taming of the place, by the engineering.

  He drove fast up the valley – it was like climbing up to the sea instead of going down – and went through Takaka without stopping. The town was busy with tourists and he wanted none of that – rug shops, pottery shops, none of that crap. He made his way out and saw the white sea glittering ahead; and it came to him, now that he was half an hour away, that this of course was the place Freda had run to. She had holed up with May. The two of them would be there, talking their female stuff. He should have worked it out earlier. Freda was always buying pots and saying that she’d love to try making them one day. She’d asked May once, joking, to take her on as an apprentice.

  He passed Patons Rock and Onekaka. From the top of each rise he glimpsed the Spit. It was all that brought people here – that and the beaches and the Heaphy Track. There was no real reason for Golden Bay, which was why it had so many dropouts, he supposed. May had been a dropout, living in a shack, until she’d had the luck to get her hooks in Evan Yates – and look at her now: bloody rich, and all from the con trick, all from pots you were just supposed to look at and say ooh and aah.

  At Parapara he slowed down and thought how he would do this. No good just grabbing her, although he wanted that – put her under his arm, walk out, lock her in the boot if he had to. But it wouldn’t work; there’d be a fight. Freda would kick and scream, and May too probably. Evan Yates would get into it, and Evan was big enough to do some harm.

  David pulled into a layby. He smoked a cigarette and watched cars go by. More cars than he liked. And too much of the day left. It would have been better done at night; but once he got her home in Stoke, and those hippies arseholed out, he would make her see where she belonged. He meant not to hit her again, but talk to her and lay it down: marriage was for life. He would get her stripped and into bed. First though he had to go up there and smile at her. Sorry, sorry, he had to say, and put his John Wayne look on. Act sheepish. Freda, we’ll give it another chance. My fault, lovey. Please come home.

  He ground out his cigarette. If she’s there, he thought. She mightn’t be there. If she’s not, by God I’ll tear that fucking place apart.

  He pulled out of the layby, went up a rise, and there was Woods Inlet, Parapara’s twin – same houses, same causeway, same hills. The water lapped into the trees – high tide, turning tide. The place looked okay with its mudflats hidden. You could see why people might come for a holiday, but he couldn’t understand coming to live – unless you were picking the tourists off, like May. He shook his head, trying to shake her out. The turning round in her life seemed unnatural. He’d had her marked as a loser and could not get her placed any more. The pottery and the house up in the bush looked like someone’s country estate. May belonged in mouldy kitchens or in beat-up shacks.

  He coughed and rolled his window down and spat, and saw her appear from the bushes at the end of the causeway. She slipped her sandals on as he went by, twisting like a girl. Her bum pointed this way and that, and he thought, She’s getting thin, she’s supposed to be fat, and he shivered with anger that she wouldn’t stay still; then braked the car, reversed, rolled the window down the rest of the way. He remembered to grin.

  ‘May,’ he said.

  ‘What are you doing here, David?’

  ‘Visiting.’ He kept the smile. Hard work. ‘Just thought I’d see how you’re getting on.’

  ‘I told you to ring. Evan and I can’t stop work for visitors.’

  ‘I’ll stand and watch. Hey come on, give us a bit of a welcome. It’s not like I’m over here all the time.’

  She stepped close to the car as a bus went by. Its wind made her hair stand up then slant into her mouth.

  ‘Jump in. I’ll drive you home,’ he said.

  She went around the car and opened the door. ‘You can’t stay long, David. It’s our busy season.’

  ‘Still packing them in, eh? I thought they’d have woken up.’

  ‘What to?’ She looked at him sharply, meaning perhaps to be dangerous, but he grinned at her and got the car moving.

  ‘You can’t eat off that stuff. You could brain someone with the plate you gave me.’

  ‘If you don’t like it give it back. Anyway, David, I gave it to Freda.’

  ‘Freda, eh? How is she?’

  She took a moment to reply. ‘Very well, I imagine, these days.’

  He shrugged off the jab. Her pause meant she was thinking, she was hiding something.

  ‘I’ve been hoping you could tell me,’ he said. ‘I’ve been worried about her.’ He began to enjoy himself. Playing like this moved him on, it got something going. He felt the strain go out of his face. ‘Hey, May, relax. I’m not here to cause any trouble. I’ve done a lot of stuff wrong, I know, but it’s okay now. I’ve got my brain straight.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Freda doesn’t need to be scared of me. We love each other, you know that.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Come on, May.’ He had turned into the drive that climbed to the pottery, and he stopped the wagon and smiled again. ‘Give me a chance. People don’t stay the same. Look how you’ve changed.’

  ‘You leave me out of it.’

  ‘Special case, eh?’

  ‘No –’

  ‘All I’m saying is, if you can get yourself sorted out why can’t I?’

  She opened the door and put her leg out. ‘I’ll walk up, David. Why don’t you go home?’

  ‘Hey, just answer my question.’ He found that he could say things and move himself around while standing off to one side, listening and watching. ‘Come on, May.’

  She lifted the leg back in but did not close the door. ‘Hitting is what you do. It’s your way of life.’

  ‘That’s pretty unfair.’

  ‘You hit her once and promised that you’d never do it again. Then you hit her again, and promised not to, and so it went on –’

  ‘Hey –’

  ‘How many chances do you want? And then there’s all the other ways you found out how to hit her. Keep her just the way you wanted, which was – no, listen – someone who turned you back into David Macpherson when you couldn’t find out who you were. Hit her, eh? That’s my fist. Look at her cry. I did that, I’m David Macpherson and if they don’t know out there at least she knows it here. Jesus, David, she wasn’t yours to do things to like that. You came home and sat in her as though she was a chair, and when she wanted anything – ah, what’s the use. Go home, why don’t you? I don’t know where she is and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.’

  ‘Freda’s my wife.’

  ‘That’s one of the things she was, but not any more.’

  Where was he now? He struggled but could not find himself.

  ‘Don’t you hit me,’ May said. ‘I’ll put you in court.’

  ‘Bitch. You bitch. Fucking bitch.’

  ‘Ah, David.’ She stepped out and narrowed the door. �
�Look, get some help. Go and see someone. I’m not against you but I won’t have you here. There’s nothing I can do to help.’

  ‘Where’s my wife? You tell me or by Christ –’

  She slammed the door, half raised her hand and walked up the drive, then turned into the bush before he could move to run her down. A horn blared at his back. Another car had turned in and moved up close behind. He could see the driver’s hand tapping the wheel. He shouted out the window and saw her face draw back. He let out his clutch hard, spraying her with gravel. No bloody woman honked at him. He drove up the hill and swung into the parking yard; saw May come out of the bush and half-run to the showroom door. She called out something. Evan Yates came out.

  David opened his door and walked towards them. He did not know yet if he would hit May. The other car, the woman in it, turned into the yard. She wanted him to stand aside while she found a place but he thumped his fist on the bonnet hood, stopping her. He did not need to hit May after that. He felt in control again.

  ‘Gidday, Evan. I just thought I’d come and get my wife.’

  ‘Stop right where you are,’ Evan Yates said.

  ‘I know she’s here.’

  ‘You’re on my place, David. Freda’s not here. Even if she was you couldn’t have her.’

  David lost his focus. Foreground and background ran together and he could not tell a small thing from a large. A door slammed behind him. A voice said, ‘How dare you hit my car?’ He swung backhanded, and his fingertips sent something looping away – a pair of glasses. Evan Yates jumped in close and tried to spin him round but David broke out of his clutch and ran to the showroom door. He had seen a face in there, swimming among the mugs and plates. ‘Freda.’ May tried to hold his shirt but he ripped free and went shoulder first into the room, where Freda, in jeans and shirt, backed away from him. He gave a cry. He spun in a circle. Not Freda. Not her.

  ‘Stay away from me,’ the woman said.

  Then Evan Yates had him, an arm around his throat, and was wrestling him outside. He felt gravel cut his back and water splash his skin as though it were scalding. May had a hose playing on his face. He heard Evan say, ‘Take that away, May. We don’t need that,’ and then he lay still. He felt as if he had no bones inside and that he was packed into a tiny space, into a box.

  Before Freda had left him he had been spread wide and she had been small, at the centre, where he had come to at the end of the day. Now he was shrunken, and wrinkled, and dry, and she was out there filling all that space and he could not put his hand on her.

  MAY

  In the morning Evan finished stacking the kiln. He walked down to the gate and turned the sign from ‘Closed’ to ‘Open’. May saw him come out of the path and cross the parking yard and she called from the window, ‘Heather’s getting her.’

  ‘I’ll bet she didn’t like that.’

  ‘No –’ and then she turned away, for Freda had come on the phone: ‘May? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Ah, Freda,’ she said, and tried to be careful. ‘I’m afraid we had a visitor yesterday.’

  ‘Him? David?’

  ‘Yes. It’s all right, nothing happened. Nothing too bad.’ (Except that he called me a fucking bitch. Two men in one day called me a bitch.)

  Freda’s voice made an ugly screech, nail on tin, and May held the phone away. She did not want to be involved, even for Freda, whose place had never been questioned – best friend. Only friend. She must not allow this invasion along the edges of what she and Evan had made – this penetration, by David yesterday and Freda now – or let her concern grow into guilt.

  ‘Wait a minute, before you fly off. Let me say what happened.’

  ‘You didn’t tell him where I am?’

  ‘I’m not silly, Freda. Before we go any further, he stayed the night. We had to let him. He left about twenty minutes ago so he should be passing through Tasman in about an hour. You’d better not be picking by the road.’

  ‘Jesus, May, what am I supposed to do –’

  ‘Don’t screech at me. I’m doing my best. I don’t enjoy lying, even for you.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m sorry. But you’re sure you didn’t tell him.’

  ‘Of course I didn’t. Look, Freda, David’s in a bad way. If he doesn’t get some help soon he’ll do something silly.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Threw his weight around. But this time he went right over the top. It used to be just noise and, God, I don’t know, punches, but now …’

  ‘Did he hit someone?’

  ‘Just about.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sally’s friend. Christine. Remember the lesbians across the inlet? She was here. David knocked her glasses off.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘They were squabbling about parking. Then he thought he saw you in the showroom and he went in there.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We calmed him down. Evan and me.’ She did not say that Evan had wrestled David to the ground or that she had squirted the hose on him. Or that Christine Smith, half blind without her glasses, had rushed in and aimed a kick that skidded off David’s ribs and took Evan in the pit of his stomach. She’d had to bear-hug Christine out of the way.

  ‘Did she go to the police?’

  ‘No, we stopped her. Evan stopped her. You know him, he’s good with women.’ Doubled up, holding himself, but reasonable still, with David behind him, cataleptic on the ground.

  ‘I don’t want trouble for him,’ Freda said. ‘I just want him to go his way and let me go mine.’

  ‘But that’s why I’m ringing. That won’t work. He’s not like other people.’

  ‘Did he do his John Wayne act? Aw, shucks?’

  ‘Oh yes, after a while. He’s clever, Freda, although he’s so transparent. Evan told him he couldn’t drive back to Nelson, so he stayed. God knows, I didn’t want him here.’

  ‘You don’t want anyone.’

  May ignored that, put it aside for later on. ‘He seemed to sleep all right. Even if I didn’t. But you can see things going on underneath, even when he’s grinning. I think he needs treatment. Lithium or something, don’t they give them that?’

  ‘Lithium’s for manic depression. David’s just – he’s a bloody loony. And I’ve got him tied around my neck. Look, I’ve got to go, your little girl is looking daggers at me. Just let me know, eh, if he comes back.’

  ‘Will you put the police on him?’

  ‘The police are useless. Here’s Heather.’

  At once a voice said, ‘Mum?’ and May thought, No, I don’t want this, why can’t people leave me alone? She said, ‘Just a minute, Evan’s calling.’ She put the phone down and walked to the window. Over there, behind glass, she saw him punching a firing program into the computer. He moved as though under water but there was nothing about him floating or fish-like, just Evan four square and sensible. She felt as if he had put his hands on her and stopped her from spinning. The tenseness went out of her jaw. I’m not dependent, she thought, I’m just happy with him. And I don’t want to think about it; all this consciousness is dangerous. She saw that he had coiled the hose and raked the gravel smooth where David had scuffed it. Good, she thought, and went back to the phone: ‘What is it, Heather?’

  ‘Robert’s not well. I think you should come over.’

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Lots of things. Old age. He’s gone to bed and he won’t get up. I can’t look after him, I’ve got to manage the orchard.’

  ‘And I’ve got to manage my pottery. So don’t think you can get me nursing him. I’m not falling for that one. He’s got plenty of money. Hire a nurse.’

  ‘He won’t have a nurse. I’m not asking you to come and stay. Just have a look. Try and make him be sensible. You’re his daughter.’

  And you’re mine, May thought, but how often do you come here? ‘Technically, yes,’ she said, ‘but not in any other way. He wouldn’t listen to me. Get Freda to look at him, she was a nurse.
’

  ‘He doesn’t like Freda. Anyway, I’ve hired her to pick apples. I should be across there in the shed, not talking to you. Are you coming?’

  ‘My season’s just as busy as yours.’

  ‘Okay, so you’re not.’ Heather hung up.

  May held the dead phone for a moment. ‘Goodbye, dear,’ she said. ‘Happy families,’ she said, working in the kitchen. She was not going to let hers reassemble and make demands. Twenty-five years she had been gone and no one had noticed her absence. She was not going to let them pull her back when it suited them.

  When she had tidied the house she drove into Collingwood. She preferred this town to Takaka. A pub, a tearooms, a grocery store, a garage, not much more. The sea on one side, lapping across the sandflats, the inlet on the other, full of swampy islands and dead trees. Population 290. It suited her; met something in her perhaps unfinished, perhaps maimed, but so much a working part that it was essential. On the hill above the peninsula someone had mapped out a city in the early days and declared it the future capital of New Zealand. It never failed to please her, that patch of scrub up there.

  She filled two cartons with groceries and was putting them in the boot when Christine Smith drove into the street. May gave a small wave, not encouraging. She got into her car. There was no need for yesterday to keep on – Christine’s part in it, anyway. She was a person who put herself at the centre of events, but David’s unlucky swipe at her was no big thing; he had done it like a man spitting over his shoulder as he ran.

  ‘Wait on, May,’ Christine called, striding from her car.

  ‘Sorry. It’s just, we’ve got a first firing. It’s a big day.’

  ‘I suppose that means you’ll be wanting Sal.’

  ‘Oh yes. We told her yesterday. I might have to go to Nelson too.’ This woman always made her say more than she meant to by an aggressive watchfulness. But May had used her now to force her own attention where she’d meant it not to go – to her father, and Heather’s summons. These things increased like a growth. ‘So I really have to be going. You can tell her to come early if you like.’

  ‘I suppose he’s not still there? That guy?’