This Mortal Boy

by Fiona Kidman

  ‘Is he your mate? I wouldn’t have thought it,’ Paddy said. It came out mean, which was not what he intended.

  ‘Go easy,’ Henry said. ‘He’s a crazy mixed-up kid.’

  ‘What do you know that I don’t?’

  Henry shrugged. ‘Perhaps he’s not as bad as you think.’

  ‘He’s a piece of shite, a skitter if ever there was one.’

  ‘If you say so, Paddy. I’m just saying, mind how you go. Johnny doesn’t always mean trouble but he makes it anyway, it’s how he is.’ Henry turned away, sharp in his waistcoat and long pale-grey coat, his skinny tie, his shiny shoes. He didn’t seem to care that New Zealanders looked at him sideways in the street. Paddy had been with him one day when a man with a red boozy complexion had stuck his face in front of him, saying, ‘Don’t you think you’re looking for trouble when you dress up like a queer?’

  He recalled the calm way Henry had answered. ‘I wasn’t trying to attract attention,’ he’d said. ‘I just like these clothes. They’re the same colour as yours, just a different cut.’ The man had backed off. Paddy remembered that Henry had been a companionable, kindly guy while he stayed at the house. Some chill of apprehension passed through him, a feeling that he might not see Henry again, and it made him shiver, like somebody had walked over his grave. It was not like him to have premonitions: those were for the old people back home. He held out his hand. ‘Henry?’ The other man turned back to him and they shook. ‘No hard feelings?’

  ‘Go well, Paddy,’ Henry said.

  Will he see Henry again? Much later, when Paddy is in prison, he will wonder whether they did actually see each other again. But surely that wouldn’t have been possible, for Henry was going to sea that night? Henry was about to become part of a blur of shadows that would overtake him very soon. It must be, he will come to tell himself, that Henry is a presence.

  For now, Ray was ordering a taxi to take the beer to the boarding house. He and Paddy and Ted piled in for the short ride up Queen Street and over the Wellesley Street ridge. Ray put down a dozen of the beer inside the house, looking around with a critical eye. ‘You haven’t done much to liven the place up, have you?’ he said.

  ‘It’s not mine.’ Paddy thought he’d explained all of that to Ray.

  ‘Well, you know, if it was me I’d put in some black wallpaper and nice white carpets and plant a few pretty girls all dressed in pink around the place, kind of accessories, if you know what I mean. Some nice mirrors round the walls so we could see the girls dancing double time.’

  ‘I’m not planning to stay much longer.’ Already he was certain about this. He’d made up his mind.

  ‘Hey, it’s time we rounded up a few people. You can’t have a party without guests,’ Ray said.

  Paddy said then that it was too early, the party wouldn’t start until after eight, but Ray was off and out the door, Ted following. Paddy felt a new wave of anxiety. If he didn’t follow them, there was no telling how many people would turn up.

  It’s a party, it’s a party, a party. The words flicked around Ye Olde Barn cafe. He saw Rita Zilich, dressed in a tight red sweater tucked into a skirt so slim he could see every curve of her buttocks. He had seen her before and thought, in the past, that he might sleep with her if she were interested. That was before he was taken. Rita ran the tip of her tongue around the arch of her top lip.

  ‘Paddy,’ she said, ‘why it’s you. On your own, are you?’

  A tune had just finished on the jukebox. He made his way over to it. He wanted sex: for a minute or so he wanted Rita, here, there or anywhere. He slipped a sixpence in the slot and selected ‘Danny Boy’. Slim Whitman was singing and the song was all the rage, a hit-parade favourite. Funny how the old songs came back. Rita was at his shoulder. ‘Well, Paddy? Ray’s asked me to your party. I’ll be there a bit later.’

  ‘I’m meeting my girl,’ he said. ‘I’m meeting Bessie.’

  ‘Pity,’ she said. ‘Any time you’re free.’

  ‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ he said.

  CHAPTER 13

  Paddy did not, as Rita had told Oliver Buchanan at his trial, go home after he left her at the taxi stand. How would Rita know where he went? Instead, he began walking blindly towards Epsom. The trams were stilled, silence blanketing the streets of Auckland. He needed to find Bessie. No, that was not right, he was deceiving himself. He knew where she was and that he wouldn’t be able to see her, but it seemed that if he could be close to where she was, where she lay sleeping, or perhaps was wide awake like he was, he could connect with the spirit of her, make her understand what had happened that evening. The piercing cold of the July night entered his bones, but still he kept walking, mile after mile towards Epsom and the grand old house where he knew Bessie was.

  He wanted to explain to her that after he had drunk a beer, or perhaps two or three, he didn’t remember now, he looked at the time and saw with a start that eight o’clock had been and gone. He had left the party and gone running up the rise, down the hill, down past the old low Albion with its pressed tin ceiling, past the church, and the mannequins in Smith & Caughey’s, to meet Bessie at Ye Olde Barn cafe. The place was full, every cubicle taken. It took him a few minutes to spot her, sitting alone on a stool, an untouched coffee at her elbow, as if she had just bought something she didn’t want in order to keep her place at the counter. She was staring into space, seemingly oblivious of everyone around her. When he walked up and tapped her on the shoulder, she jumped, her eyes possum lamplights. ‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ she said. ‘Well, I was beginning to wonder. Can we find somewhere to talk?’

  ‘We can talk later,’ he said. ‘When everyone’s gone. Everybody’s up at the party now.’

  ‘Can’t they have the party without you?’

  ‘Not really.’ He was suddenly uneasy, aware that he was in charge of the house. The place was filling when he slipped out, there were more people than he expected, like word had got round all over town. The girls had tied a piece of string across the room, attached to the two chairs. The competition was to see how low they could go as they danced beneath it, knees bent, faces turned upwards. They were shrill with laughter as they bent and doubled. He knew he had to get back.

  ‘Paddy, you know I can’t stay,’ Bessie was saying. ‘I’ll get thrown out of the hostel if I’m not back in time.’ Her voice held a pleading note that grated with him. It was not what he expected from her, not like the girl he had met on the ferry.

  ‘Just for a little while. C’mon.’

  She’d climbed down off the stool, followed him reluctantly out of the cafe. She didn’t look like someone dressed for a party. Under her coat she wore a pleated tartan skirt and a green woollen jersey. At that particular moment Rita appeared, her hooped earrings glittering in the streetlights, her lips painted in a glossy red curve. She had changed her blouse for a bright-blue satin one.

  ‘Made it,’ she said, hooking her arm through Paddy’s. ‘Thank goodness my parents go to bed early. So who’s this then?’ she said, looking Bessie over as if she hadn’t seen her before.

  ‘This is my girlfriend, Bessie,’ he said, and untangled his arm from Rita’s.

  Bessie stepped up her pace and began walking ahead of them.

  ‘So are you in the dogbox or something?’ Rita said, and laughed.

  ‘Bessie, wait,’ he said. She wheeled around, looking at him and Rita. ‘It’s not what you think.’

  Rita flicked him a glance and spoke to Bessie. ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘it’s okay. Ray Hastie was the one who asked me to the party. I had to go and check in at home. We just bumped into each other, Paddy and me.’

  Bessie appeared to relax. The two girls drifted ahead of him, beginning to chat. He thought then that it would be all right, the two of them would get on. Rita was telling Bessie about her job, and how fast she was at shorthand, and how her boss had told her she’d get a pay rise. That was a relief, because she was fifteen when she started work at the beginning of the year and you
don’t get taxed until you’re sixteen. But now she had had her birthday and her four pounds a week had gone down six shillings. Bessie was nodding her head. Four pounds a week sounded like good money to her, she said. At training college that was nearly what she got paid a month. Mind you, she had her board and nice meals. Rita clucked her tongue and said something like, what a pity, they should be paying brainy girls more, chattering away until before they all knew it they were back at the boarding house.

  Bessie stopped at the bottom of the stairs, letting Rita go ahead.

  ‘We can talk out here,’ she said.

  ‘I need to make sure everything’s okay,’ he said. Music was wafting down the street; someone was singing ‘Twilight Time’. He joined in, mounting the stairs, with Bessie trailing behind him each day … just to be with you and held out his hand to her. He recalled later that she had looked very pale, almost ashen-faced.

  Rita threw off her coat and straight away Ray Hastie began to dance with her, the pair of them shimmying together, thighs touching and parting. Paddy couldn’t help watching her. In fact, the whole room stopped to watch and applaud. That was the moment he looked across the room and saw Johnny McBride leaning against the mantelpiece.

  He walked across. ‘You weren’t invited here,’ he said.

  ‘I’m your lodger, remember,’ Johnny said, and laughed, showing the gap in his teeth. ‘This is my mate Stan,’ he said, indicating the baby-faced boy who had been in the pub with him.

  Rita spun round, saw them and disengaged herself from the dance. ‘Do you want to dance, Paddy?’ she said, and flicked her provocative little tongue over her top lip again.

  ‘Not now,’ he said. Bessie stood transfixed in the doorway. She hadn’t taken off her coat.

  ‘Bessie won’t mind, will you, doll?’ Rita said. ‘Oops, I think she does.’ So that he knew that under all the friendly talk Rita had been setting Bessie up for humiliation. She turned to Johnny. ‘You’ll dance with me, won’t you?’

  Bessie stared coldly into the room and turned to go. Paddy followed her to the door. ‘Bessie,’ he said, ‘I told you, it’s not how it looks. C’mon, just relax, have a good time.’

  ‘You’re all drunk,’ she said.

  ‘I am so not. I haven’t had a drink all day, I swear. Well, perhaps a couple, but I’m not pissed. Do I look pissed?’

  Bessie kept on walking down the stairs. ‘I’m going to catch the tram,’ she said.

  He found himself walking alongside of her, trying to keep up with her angry footsteps. He was beginning to feel furious too. ‘So what did you want to talk to me about? Eh? Don’t give me that silent treatment, I won’t have it.’

  ‘Oh, you won’t have it, won’t you? You don’t own me, Paddy,’ she said, still looking straight ahead. He saw that she was crying, and he thought there was defiance in her expression, the way she clamped her mouth shut in a tight line as if she looked down on him and all of his friends. They were supposed to have been her friends too.

  ‘What’s the matter? Have you got your pinny pain?’ he said, racking his brain for why she should be in such a mood.

  ‘My what? Oh, you don’t know anything.’

  They had arrived at the stop and right on time the red Epsom tram rattled up, tram number 101, he remembered that, it was the same number back to front and upside down.

  ‘Tell me,’ he shouted. ‘Bessie, what don’t I know?’

  She turned her cold face towards him. ‘You make me sick,’ she said as she climbed on the step.

  He couldn’t believe she was saying this. While she could still hear him, he called, ‘Bessie, listen. I’ll be at Ye Olde Barn tomorrow night. Seven o’clock. Meet me. Please.’ She paused, just long enough for him to know that she had heard him, before she was swallowed up into the tram’s bright interior, moving away from him.

  He kicked a rubbish bin as he passed, overtaken with fury. Perhaps, after all, he hated her. She had made a fool of him, turning up in her school-marm clothes, standing there at the party not speaking to anyone, walking out on him. A part of him wanted to go after her, jump in a taxi and follow her tram to its stop. But there was the party. The house. There was Johnny McBride to be taken care of. And there was the girl and he wanted her.

  The music had reached a crescendo, the girls stamping their feet, belting out ‘Comin’ round the mountain’:

  We’ll kill the old red rooster

  when she comes, when she comes

  We will kill the big red rooster

  when she comes, when she comes

  We’ll kill the big red rooster,

  we will kill the big red rooster

  We’ll kill the big red rooster

  when she comes, when she comes

  Oh yes we’ll kill the big red rooster

  when she comes

  The girl Stella, who was Rita’s friend, was running her fingers along the forearm of the young lad who wasn’t supposed to be there, tossing her red curls and arching her breasts. Johnny was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Rita. Paddy wanted to tell her he was free for the night. All he wanted now was to be beside a girl, feel the soft slide of her skin beside his, her hair beneath his hand, and he didn’t much care whose it was.

  He put his hands in the air, signalling for them to keep the noise down. As it subsided a little, he heard a voice from outside. He knew the voice. Then it went quiet.

  Outside, on the veranda leading to the back-yard toilet, Johnny stood kissing Rita.

  ‘Rita, come inside,’ Paddy said.

  Johnny dropped his arms from around the girl’s waist, moved towards him, smashed his fist into his face. His brain felt detached from his skull. He raised his fists to hit back. Johnny said, ‘I’d watch it, you yellow Irish bastard, there’s no fight in you. I’ll kick you till your sides cave in.’

  Rita had run screaming into the front room. The Quintal boys, Pooch and Ted, two others, Jeff and Mack, now appeared round the side of the house, grabbing his arms and those of Johnny McBride.

  When they were all back inside, the party was subdued, the atmosphere turned morose, you could feel the way everything had turned flat. Paddy lay down on the bed in the cubicle next to the front room, his head beating like a drum. He called the boy, Stan, over. ‘Bring me that knife,’ he said. They had been flipping tops off bottles with a kitchen knife.

  The boy stood, looking petrified. ‘Nah, mate, you don’t need a knife.’

  ‘I need to open a bottle of beer. Get me it, mate, I need a drink.’

  ‘Cool down, Paddy,’ Jeff Larsen said.

  There were red lights dancing in front of his eyes. ‘I said get me the goddamn knife.’ He found himself lunging off the bed, taking Stan down with him, and then there was more fighting, all over the room, bottles smashing, chairs overturned. Girls started hurrying towards the passage where their coats were hanging; Ray began to pack up the guitar. Paddy rushed through the house, grabbed Johnny’s suitcase and ran back, throwing it at him. ‘Take your stuff … Don’t come back.’

  Rita picked up her coat and started to leave in Johnny’s wake.

  Paddy drew in great gulps of air, rushing down the stairs after her, a glass in his hand. Or was it a bottle, he couldn’t remember. Or had Johnny taken a bottle with him when he left? All of those moments so filled with confusion. Mack Thompson was revving the motor of his car and people were getting in. By the time he reached the street, Rita had climbed into the back seat beside Johnny.

  ‘Get out,’ Paddy said to her. ‘Get out of the car. You’re with me tonight.’

  Johnny climbed out of the car then, fists and feet flying again, kicking him off balance, swinging his foot high, catching him in his groin, making his balls explode. Ted came down from the veranda and held him up while Pooch went over to the car, his hand held out to the girl. Johnny stood over Paddy, scowling at Ted and Pooch as they supported him against the fence.

  ‘I’ll be back to finish this off tomorrow,’ he said, before turning on his heel and returning
to the car. When it moved off, Paddy saw that Rita was standing on the pavement.

  Inside, she said nothing. Ray had finished packing up the steel guitar to take back to the Community Centre. The last partygoers left, some calling goodnight, most of them just slinking off into the shadows of Wellesley Street. He put his arm around Rita. The effort of standing was too much, so he lay down on the bed. The girl sat down beside him, unbuttoning the tight satin blouse, the bright white orbs of her breasts exposed.

  ‘Not now,’ he muttered. ‘Soon.’ Rita stood up again, starting to pick up beer bottles and put them in a carton, her blouse still carelessly undone. He found himself unmoved. The knife lay on the floor, one he had carried from his days in the Post and Telegraph for slashing pine trees and now used for peeling potatoes. Rita placed it in the carton with the bottles.

  ‘Never mind that,’ he said, ‘get me a mirror.’

  She looked around distractedly, took down the one that hung over the mantelpiece; it was heavy and she held it stiffly before her as she handed it to him. When he saw his face with his swollen eye, he swore and dropped the mirror; it shattered into a thousand pieces. ‘I’ll kill him. I’ll fucken kill McBride,’ he said.

  ‘You want to watch it,’ the girl said, ‘he might kill you first.’

  ‘Stay with me, Rita,’ he said. ‘Stay the night.’

  ‘I can’t stay the whole night,’ she said.

  Not that it would have made any difference, his dick a limp rag of beaten meat. What he said next would come back to haunt him: I’m not that horny tonight. He thought he had shamed himself, and her, and all of them. Most of all, he had shamed the girl he might have loved, taking her there when she was tired and she had wanted him to herself. He had let Rita make a fool of her. Well, that’s what he thought, for what else could he have done that made her so cold and distant towards him? She must know that she was his girl, not Rita, that it was her he wanted. Surely.

  None of these were things he would tell to a jury.