Telling Tales

by William Taylor

  The old house was a mansion, albeit decaying! It had been built as the residence for one of the managers of the two major mining companies which had plundered the riches of the mountain and its surrounds. Those managers sure knew how to live. Half a dozen bedrooms, two of which had dressing-rooms large enough to serve as bedrooms themselves. Adjacent to the cavernous kitchen-living room was a schoolroom for the manager’s offspring who were obviously considered too good to attend the local school with the ragtag and bobtail kids of the mining community. There was a dining room large enough to accommodate, at the very least, a table for a good couple of dozen diners. Off this room was a drawing room—and over a hallway an equally large sitting room. Dorothea and Ivan shared the largest bedroom, and each of their four kids selected their own apartments. Margaret chose the smallest bedroom; a small, windowless, closet-like chamber. Probably it had been the maid’s room. She settled in happily and arranged her holy pictures on the walls. It may well have been, back then, that—thus cloistered, cell-like—she had dreams of becoming a nun. Whatever, at least her tiny room appeared fully furnished, and that certainly couldn’t be said for the rest of the house.

  The house stood on seven acres of freehold land, reputedly the only land that was freehold in Karangahake; the rest was designated as ‘miners’ right’, meaning, presumably, that if you thought someone’s home was plonked over the golden stuff you had some right to get stuck in with a spade and dig it out. The seven acres had once been beautifully gardened, and there were old trees, giant rhododendrons and a fair number of fruit trees. An enormous plum tree grew directly outside the back door. All in all, it was a magic place. The couple of years we were to spend there live vividly in my mind and memory. I have used the actual setting, or, more frequently, adapted aspects of it, in several of my novels.

  The old house is gone. It burnt down years ago, well after we had lived there. Karangahake has become quite a popular tourist spot for visitors eager to delve into its golden past. Walking trails appear to have been developed. There is a café there, and it looks like the sort of place where they would sell a decent cup of coffee. There is development and it has a sort of minor trendy gloss. It wasn’t like that when we lived there. Back then, it was the sort of place you drove through without stopping and as quickly as possible. You lived there only if you were a sort of relic from the days of golden glory or else in transit to a more desirable location.

  Hugh and Jan were enrolled at Karangahake School. It was an old school, even back then. It had once been bigger: one of the unused classrooms was truly Victorian with a multiplicity of raked levels for the pupils’ desks with the teacher down the front. The school site was atop a steep hill directly above the gorge. A particularly beautiful setting.

  The secondary department of Paeroa District High School did not have a beautiful setting. It sat close to the road, across the river from the town right on the flood plain. The much larger primary department was in another part of the town. A small and bombastic gentleman, Shorty H., was head of the secondary department. He ruled over about a hundred pupils and assorted staff with a rod of iron and a cane of bamboo. However, above Shorty, Baldy Brass-Arse was the true boss, but his seat of power was over at the primary school. He did visit the secondary bit of his realm from time to time, but I have the feeling that he was not made particularly welcome by his underling. Shorty was never seen naked of his academic gown; Baldy didn’t seem to possess this costume advantage.

  For such a small and insignificant, out-of-the-way school, the place had a very good staff. Arthur Kinsella, later Minister of Education, taught Geography. I didn’t know for many years that, while I was a pupil there, Maurice Gee was let loose on the junior forms. Once when we were touring together, I asked Maurice how come I hadn’t been lucky enough to have him teach me. He told me that Shorty and Baldy didn’t have enough faith in him to let him have a go with the senior class. If I remember rightly, it was Shorty who taught the Fifth Form English. The Fifth Form was the senior class. There was no Sixth Form that year, but there was an Upper Sixth with one solitary pupil.

  Margaret and I started in the Fifth Form, our School Certificate year. About twenty kids were in the class, a number that would shrink to around a dozen by year’s end as the less academic ones peeled off into jobs or apprenticeships in those halcyon days of absolutely full employment.

  I made no friends at all at school that year. I was an outsider. By this time I was quite used to the role and not particularly unhappy with it. I made no enemies, either. I was never bullied. Occasionally mildly teased, but not bullied as such. In this day and age when bullying in schools is, reportedly at least, at epidemic levels, when I think back to my own time at very many schools—generally as that ‘outsider’—I find it almost impossible to recall more than the occasional instance when it affected me or others around me. Yes, there were playground fights from time to time. Play could be rough, could indeed be quite rough on those of insignificant size, shape or appearance—and I was in this category—but it never seemed to roll too far over the top.

  I have always remembered an occasion when, in all truth, I may have been the one who was the bully in that I took things far too far. I was eleven—Form One at Levin Primary. I was picked on, verbally more than physically, by an individual rather bigger than me, rejoicing in the name of Neville Pink. He picked on me once too often, probably jostling me as he did so. I turned around and, with all the puny force I could muster, punched him once in the face and once in the guts. Whether from shock, pain or absolute surprise I will never know, but he doubled up and fell to the ground, writhing and winded. I can still see it! Not content with leaving things at this stage, I then proceeded to boot the shit out of him until I was dragged off. The bastard never came near me ever again. I sometimes wonder whatever happened to Neville Pink. Well, he’ll also be seventy years old now, and serve him right!

  I made almost no mark at all on Paeroa District High School. I did rise to the dizzying rank of lance corporal in the cadet corps. This must be measured, of course, by the fact that the other six or seven Fifth Form boys in the corps were at the very least a sergeant and my lance corporalship was the very lowest rank available. The school may have been tiny, but it did have a strong cadet corps and, indeed, its own rifle range. I excelled on the rifle range. Mere lance corporal I may have been, but I was the best shot! I surprised even myself on that score.

  I sat School Certificate, and passed in all five subjects. My highest score was 68 per cent for History, and this was no reflection at all on anyone at PDHS—I had taken the subject by correspondence. Good old-fashioned history back in those days; Great Britain from 1815 until, I think, what was then the present day. I certainly had more than a passing knowledge of the Corn Laws, the Irish potato famine, Queen Victoria and Disraeli, Queen Victoria and Gladstone, through the Boer War and a light dusting of World War I…and when I think of it, our study of history may have stopped at about Chamberlain and Munich. World War II, after all, was only a decade into the past and not real history at all. English was my second-best subject at 56 per cent. All the others hovered at around the halfway mark. Whatever, it was enough to get me through with a total of 229 for my best four subjects.

  The end of the year saw me even somewhat accepted by the other boys as we idled around, either waiting for exams to start or relaxing after they were over. They discovered that, although I may have proved hopeless at rugby and cricket—the only games on offer—I was a relatively good tennis player. At least marginally, and quite suddenly, I became one of them. A little too late to have much effect.

  The real height of my secondary school academic achievement was scaled at the Paeroa District High School prize-giving held at the town’s picture theatre: I was placed third in the class. In absolute honesty, this must be measured against the fact that the Fifth Form had by now shrunk to no more than a dozen students, and of that dozen almost half had been laid low by a mini-epidemic of, I think, measles at the time of
the exams upon which results the academic awards were based. However, every little helps, and already I was being head-hunted by the town’s employers. It couldn’t be said that the offers exactly poured in, but at least the Post Office, The National Bank, the Bank of New Zealand and the ANZ Bank were eager to make use of my skills! The last would be blessed with my services for the next two years. Margaret, still aged fourteen, was snapped up by whatever the Ministry of Works was called back then, but quickly moved on to the office of the town’s barrister and solicitor.

  It was a bit of a bugger, really. While secondary school had been largely a misery for me thus far, I had really wanted to go on for another couple of years and then to university. Family finances didn’t allow for such indulgence, however.

  No matter how confident any adolescent kid pretends to be, no matter how worldly-wise they imagine themselves, these are years of absolute uncertainty as you struggle towards identity and, by guess and by God, find out who you are, what you are, and how things work. If you can’t rely on some certainties and a modicum of secure mooring, quite simply you flounder.

  I was lucky to have the love of both my parents. Very fortunate on that score. Much less fortunate in other respects. The uncertainties in their own lives, our gypsy-like wanderings and frequently hand-to-mouth existence over that crucial five-year period had left on me, their eldest, some indelible marks. Low self-esteem, lack of social confidence, and a complete ignorance of the ways of the world would exact a toll. Margaret tells me that she didn’t exactly escape unscathed, but at least she was always more socially aware, and more popular with her peers than I ever was.

  On a fundamental level, neither of us ever received any instruction whatsoever from Mother or Father on that crucial matter—the birds and the bees! Dorothea may have tried to impart the facts of life, but, if she did, it was certainly very sketchy. From Ivan? Nothing at all. Because we never had the opportunity to build up anything like a network of close friends, instruction was not to be had there, either. Anything I did learn, I learnt from my sister. This was not always the most reliable of sources, particularly so when you don’t know what it is you need to find out about and end up asking completely the wrong questions!

  Fully naïve, but with School Certificate of course, I entered the workforce and almost overnight had a social life that extended well beyond that of just me and whatever book I was reading.

  In our present age of enlightenment, Len would be labelled a paedophile, would undoubtedly be on some list of sex offenders, official or unofficial, and subject to community protest and sufficient harassment to ensure he left the community in order to ply his deviant trade in someone else’s backyard. Len enjoyed the company of adolescent boys and generally had a ‘nephew’ in residence. Apparently, in the past, he had enjoyed a short period of incarceration at either His late Majesty’s or Her present Majesty’s pleasure, possibly for no more than some minor homosexual activity. Not that this was ever discussed openly in your more polite Karangahake circles of the time. Such matters were whispered about, and if I heard them I really had no idea what the whispers were all about. All much the same, really, as when I was unceremoniously yanked out of the choir of the Anglican church in Waihi on account of the vicar’s habit of fiddling with more than the parish finances. In that event I can remember, years and years later, when I found out all about the matter, being significantly pissed off that I had not been considered worthy of his attentions. I do remember that the vicar also enjoyed frequent visits from nephews. I became quite friendly with one of them.

  Len was not a vicar. Len was the youngest son of a well-known and prosperous local farming family. I don’t think Len ever did any farming, but he did live in one of the homes on their property. He was thirty-five or forty years old, pleasant, personable; in all a rather nice guy.

  My sister and I founded the Karangahake Table Tennis Club. There was no local community hall and the school was not a suitable venue. However, there must have been a club at some earlier point because there were two full-sized and quite good tables to be had, which fitted into our empty dining-room and drawing-room with plenty of room to spare. Thinking back, our organizational abilities must have been significant, because we immediately became an official club, affiliated to the Thames Valley provincial association and entered teams in the inter-club competitions. I had found the one sport at which I ever excelled—if you don’t count rifle-shooting. Margaret and I were very good indeed. (Hard not to be, given the proximity of the tables.) She and I played every day and, truth to tell, she was probably just slightly better at the sport than me. On one glorious occasion we even represented the province.

  God knows what we did with poor old Ivan and Dorothea at the time. The constant ping-pong must have driven them half mad. Mind you, the house was so big they probably just repaired to their own far-off bedroom and turned up the volume on their radio well away from the racket. The club prospered, and for a time the sport was Karangahake’s most popular winter activity.

  Len played table tennis. He was quite good at the game and frequently would be the last to leave, playing against either me or my sister. The time I remember most vividly was when Margaret and I were home alone—our parents had taken Hugh and Jan away for a little holiday somewhere. We couldn’t go with them because of work, and we were now thought old enough to look after ourselves.

  Len brought his newest nephew, Gary, in order to introduce him to table tennis. Gary had no interest in table tennis. Gary’s interest was in Margaret. It was late. Just the four of us left, playing rather lame doubles because of Gary’s inability to cotton on to even the obvious fundamentals of the game.

  Margaret drew me aside. ‘Gary and me are going for a walk,’ she said.

  ‘Where?’ I asked, stupidly.

  ‘Down the track to the bus shelter.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked, even more stupidly.

  ‘Gary wants to look at the moon, and so do I,’ she replied. ‘You and Len can go on playing singles. We won’t be very long, but you’ve got to promise me one thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Whenever you change ends, you just wait a little bit and then make sure you walk around the table the other way from what Len does. It’s very important and don’t you forget.’

  Over a hundred games later, they returned. Every second game I would wait, eyeing poor old Len until I spotted which direction he would take, and then I would take the other. And I never knew why.

  I have every reason to be grateful to the ANZ Bank, Paeroa, Mr Lee, the manager, Mr Simmonds, the accountant, Ron, the teller, Frank, the next one down the pecking order, and Rosalind and Shirley, who machined the ledgers down in the back room. Messrs Lee and Simmonds seemed to have a similar sort of relationship to that of Shorty and Baldy Brass-Arse down at the school. For half my time I assisted Mr Simmonds with the daily bookkeeping, transferring by hand the balances and assorted info into the enormous manual ledgers. Ink, of course. Long, heavy, round, mahogany rulers…I wore a jacket and tie. It was compulsory to be jacketed and tied when in the banking chamber. The other half of my time was far more exciting—down with Rosalind and Shirley machining the statements, jacketless. They were older women; one was eighteen and the other nineteen. Rosalind had a boyfriend with a red sports car. Well, she had a boyfriend until my sister commandeered him!

  There was not much wild social life for the young around Paeroa back in those days, but those beneath the rank of accountant on the staff of the ANZ did get out and about quite often, even if for no more than a picnic on Waihi Beach. For the first time since leaving primary school I found myself accepted, socially quite viable, indeed a little wee bit popular. I had some money in my pocket, too. Not very much—I think my salary was around £5 a week. Certainly enough to waste on clothes and a few other optional items.

  I even had a couple of mates out in Karangahake. The three of us made up the total adolescent male population of the community. Joe, who wore a perpetual grin, was a
year younger than me, and still at school. Barry, who was slightly more than half-blind and wore thick pebble-lensed glasses to prove it, was a year older. Barry had a motorbike, a cast-off from an older brother. It had no brakes.

  I had a rifle, purchased with some of my early earnings from the ANZ. A single-shot BSA .22, the most powerful weapon my father would permit me to own—and even then he lacked any degree of enthusiasm in that ownership. I can remember expressing surprise at this reluctance given his relatively recent military past. ‘That’s why,’ I clearly remember him saying. I still own the thing. A friend fully restored it for me some years ago, and it hangs up on a wall in the kitchen here in Raurimu, with an artificial rose sticking out of the barrel—a trimming given to me by Gaelyn Gordon.

  Armed and motorized, we frequently roamed the rough hills and tracks of the marginal farmland above the gorge, chasing rabbits and, in all truth, anything else that moved. However, our safaris were somewhat restricted in our having to remember to use our heels if braking was required—and it often was. Either in the company of the others or by hunting solo, I managed to accumulate sufficient trophy rabbit tails to neatly frame my recently received School Certificate that was pinned on my bedroom wall.

  Naturally my rate of smoking rose rapidly from one cigarette per annum—there is always a price to pay! Consumption of alcohol, however, remained at a very low level, restricted to the very occasional bottle of beer that Barry managed to purloin or wheedle out of the older brother who had donated his motorbike. (An older brother, incidentally, who would soon join the growing ranks of those who looked at the moon with my sister.)

  In retrospect it was fortunate, indeed life-preserving, that the motorbike frequently broke down. It broke down for quite a while on the day Margaret, clearly not having come to grips with its complete lack of brakes, took out the whole of our front fence. Dorothea and Ivan were not amused.