This Mortal Boy

by Fiona Kidman

  ‘Dear Peter, Here I am again as happy as can be. “Oh Oh!” What jolly good company. Sorry Peter, I hope you will forgive my sudden burst of enthusiasm. One goes a bit potty in here now and again so I guess I just write how I feel. I say, you have not told me much about your girlfriend — I mean, is she tall, fat, thin, strong, or something out of a vision? Oh sorry, I apologise for all that trash, my pen has a habit of running away sometimes. But I do want to know.

  ‘I am pretty busy at the moment, getting visits from psychologists, psychiatrists and what-not from the Department of Justice in Wellington. Of course, all this comes up in the Executive Council that is, or should I say, my last thread of hope. I expect that is why they won’t let you visit me till that lot pushes off. I think they will be finished with me by Saturday. I shall write after that and let you know what’s cooking. It was no great shock to me when my appeal failed, for I sort of expected what the verdict would be. As you probably know, Peter, I have never taken religion more seriously since I came in here. I can tell you, it has helped me to get through this without cracking up under the strain. I owe a lot to you, too, for having given me the strength to keep my chin up.

  ‘Another thing, some people don’t know when they are going, but me, I have a firm pointer. Maybe I should be afraid, but for the life of me, I can’t. I guess that’s God’s comfort to me.

  ‘I will write again in a couple of days’ time. God bless you, your friend Albert.’

  CHAPTER 25

  The psychologist who interviews Paddy is determined to be friendly, a small man with a short-back-and-sides haircut and a very straight parting. He holds out his hand to shake Paddy’s, as if they were on the outside, not sitting hunched in a cell. Paddy sits on the bed while the psychologist, whose name is Ramsey, perches on the chair.

  ‘I asked to see you in here,’ Ramsey says, his voice earnest, ‘so that we wouldn’t have guards watching us in the visiting area. I want to connect with you, Paddy. You know, really get to know you. I want to know what makes you tick, your thoughts and your feelings, to open up your heart to me.’

  ‘Well, some people would say I don’t have one of those. A heart, ha ha.’

  ‘This isn’t a laughing matter.’ Ramsey is wearing a lime-green merino jersey with a diamond-checked red and brown panel down the front, as if to show that he is really quite a casual person and not a bureaucrat. ‘It’s your life, young Paddy my lad. Believe me, I know the value of life, I was a fighter pilot in my war days. Flew Spitfires over the Pacific. Did your father serve in the war by any chance?’

  ‘He was a soldier, yes.’

  ‘Hmm. And what did he tell you about the war?’

  ‘Not much, sir.’

  ‘Please call me Ramsey,’ the psychologist says. ‘I want to be your friend.’ He has very bright blue eyes, as though he were wearing the sky in them, but somehow they contain a blankness, as if he wouldn’t recognise a cloud if he bumped into it.

  ‘My da said that it was best put behind us. The war, sir. Uh, Ramsey. He had a marley that he took off a German, but I lost it.’

  ‘What is a marley?’

  ‘A marble, sir.’

  ‘A marley, well now isn’t that interesting? I’ve learned something. Language is so fascinating.’ He seems to have given up on Paddy calling him by his name. ‘I’m interested in the meaning of bodgie. You don’t happen to know that, by any chance?’

  ‘I did hear. I had a friend called Henry, he stayed with me now and then and he was a Teddy boy. He was a pretty smart guy, was Henry, and he wore the best clothes — really smart Edwardian gear, if you know what I mean, the long coats and shiny shoes.’

  And talking about Henry reminds him of something that has hovered alongside him, the shadow of something or someone he hasn’t been able to recognise. It’s Henry’s face swimming before him, and he is in Ye Olde Barn cafe the night Johnny McBride died. Or that’s what he thinks, even though it’s improbable and wasn’t Henry away at sea that night? The Henry he is seeing is wearing a dark heavy jersey, not his Teddy boy clothes. He shakes his head; he must be dreaming.

  ‘So the bodgies? We were talking about the bodgies.’ Ramsey’s voice is insistent, persuasive.

  ‘Yes, sorry. Bodgies, the way I used to dress after I got to Auckland, we’re a bit more casual. You know, sweatshirts and bomber jackets, that sort of thing. Anyway, Henry told me that bodgie comes from budgerigar, which is an Australian love-bird. We’re the down-under types.’

  ‘But you’re not a down-under man.’

  ‘I’d like to have had gear like Henry’s, but it costs, you know, all tailored stuff. The stewards and seamen who come off the ships, they’ve got money for it. I might have got round to it, but I was kind of saving my money for other things. Well, I was going to start saving.’

  ‘Like? Like what other things?’

  ‘Going home perhaps. I don’t know.’ His voice is wistful. Everything is floating before him now. The girl, his mam and da, the little boy Daniel, all of them.

  Ramsey is busy scribbling down notes. ‘So why do you people want to dress like this? These hair-dos and all this sort of thing?’

  ‘It’s a bit different, isn’t it? No offence meant, but everything’s a bit grey here, isn’t it, sir? I mean, why does everyone have to look the same?’ Paddy is trying to pull himself back into this strange exchange.

  ‘So everything in Northern Ireland is different from here, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘No, it’s pretty plain living in Ireland, sir. There’s not all that much money there, I can tell you that. But we get dressed up for the Orange Parade — you know, sashes and things.’

  ‘Ah yes, groups of Loyalists, hmm? So you like going round in gangs?’

  ‘We stick together. All the crowd at Ye Olde Barn cafe were like mates. Well, most of us, until things went wrong. As they did for me. You get a bad egg or two.’

  ‘But, on the whole, you’d hang out together and make yourselves very obvious? Quite provocative to passers-by. Would that be fair comment?’

  ‘Not intentionally. Some of these Kiwi blokes want a punch-up sometimes, they don’t like that we all have girlfriends.’

  ‘Your lot carry knives?’

  ‘Some of them do.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘That night. Not as a rule. If you got cornered alone in a back street and someone took against you, you needed to protect yourself. Some of the boys used their boots and broken bottles. Like Johnny McBride.’

  ‘But the witnesses say you had a broken bottle the night of the party at 105 Wellesley Street.’

  ‘Did they say that? I don’t really remember. I forget what happened that night. Does it matter now?’ Paddy feels very tired.

  ‘So let’s move on to the girls. Everyone had girlfriends, I gather?’ The voice of the psychologist is inexorable, the blue eyes shining with something like excitement, his first real sign of emotion. ‘The widgies. Do you know what a widgie is? Any idea where that comes from?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Widgeons, I’m told. A kind of duck. That’s what I’ve heard. Ducks, I tell you. Now there’s a bit of information for you.’

  ‘So you knew where bodgies came from before you asked me?’

  ‘Don’t go smart arse with me, Black. Of course I know the answers. I think I know the answers to most things about you.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘This conversation isn’t going anywhere much. You’ll have to be a bit more cooperative than you’re being now. How come this girl Rita was so quick to go to bed with you?’

  ‘Well, the girls, you know, they’re willing. They enjoy sex. So do I.’

  ‘So you had plenty of girls at your disposal? How often did you have sexual intercourse?’

  ‘Oh, four or five times a week.’

  ‘With the same girl?’

  Paddy has had enough of this. The man is writing away with feverish enthusiasm as if he were getting kicks out of the conversation. ‘
Nup, not always. I liked a bit of variety.’

  He hears himself in his head and feels slightly sick. ‘That is, until—’ He stops. But no, he is not going to tell the psychologist about Bessie. This is a grubby little game at best.

  ‘So it was all right if you double-crossed your own girlfriend?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’ But what was it like? He hopes the man doesn’t ask him that.

  ‘Did you take precautions against venereal disease?’

  ‘No, I didn’t, and so far as I know I’ve never had the clap.’

  ‘What about pregnancy?’

  Perhaps this Ramsey knows about Bessie anyway, but he won’t find out anything about her from him. ‘I guess some girls get pregnant,’ he says, in what he hopes is an even tone.

  ‘So these gangs of youths you hung out with, they don’t work regularly?’

  ‘I didn’t at the time. But I did have the same job down south for a year and a half or thereabouts. I earned enough to get by.’

  ‘So really, you were a defaulting assisted immigrant picking up a bit of work here and there until you ran out of money again?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  The interview is over, the notebook snapped shut. ‘Well, thank you, Mr Black, you’ve been helpful after all.’ The psychologist doesn’t offer to shake hands this time.

  What was all that about? Paddy wonders. The man hadn’t wanted to get to know him at all; it seems he just wanted some gossip as juicy as possible. Paddy can hear it going down a treat in his office. It occurs to him then that this is what the Executive Council will hear. Well, hadn’t he known that from the beginning? This was his chance to grovel and he’s messed things up again. There is no taking any of it back.

  CHAPTER 26

  30 November 1955. After the weekly Cabinet meeting of the ministers of the Crown, the Executive Council meets to decide Albert’s fate. The Council is the highest formal authority of government, and its members also comprise the ministers, the institution through which the Government collectively advises the Governor-General. The Governor-General of the day is Sir Charles Willoughby Norrie. An Eton man, he has fought in both world wars; he plays polo and hunts foxes when he is at home in England. According to his reputation, he is a man averse to sentimentality.

  It’s a short meeting. The Prime Minister, Sid Holland, remarks again on the undesirability of men like Albert Black in New Zealand. If they can’t be sent back to where they came from, they have to be prevented from pursuing further crime in New Zealand. The reports on him suggest a highly immoral lifestyle, something that he and his friend Mr Mazengarb aim to stamp out. It will not just punish the crime that has been committed but serve as a short, sharp reminder to those who follow reprehensible modes of living and are sexually promiscuous.

  Ralph Hanan says, ‘So Black is to be made an example in respect of the Mazengarb Report?’

  ‘None of them were up to any good. The youth who was killed had been reading banned books. He even modelled himself on one of Spillane’s characters.’

  ‘So two men die, thanks to Mr Mazengarb. Aren’t we, as a government, not succumbing to lynch law?’

  The Attorney-General rolls his eyes, and the rest of the Council members sigh and look away.

  The Prime Minister says that unless there are any further objections, it will be recommended to the Governor-General that Black’s execution take place forthwith.

  There is a time frame for the procedure. Once the Council has made its recommendation the penalty must be imposed within seven days. Hanan looks at his colleagues one at a time, until they look away from him and drop their eyes.

  4 December 1955. She knows it cannot be long now. Kathleen feels like stone. She cannot move, she cannot cry, so removed does she feel from reality. The winter is closing in. She should have lit the fire, but it can wait. At last, hearing Daniel coming home from school, and throwing his bag down, she stands up from where she has been sitting on the edge of what used to be Albert’s bed. Like an automaton, she moves to the wardrobe. It is mostly Daniel’s clothes that hang there now, but there is still a jacket that his brother left behind him when he left for New Zealand. He wore it in his last year at school; she had saved up the money to buy it for him. Now she slides her hands into its pockets and holds them inside. His hands have been there. In a pocket she finds a piece of chewed gum rolled up in its wrapper, an unused matchstick, a small twig that he might have pulled carelessly from a hedgerow. She puts her face against the fabric, inhaling, as if she might catch his scent.

  ‘Mam,’ Daniel calls, ‘are you there?’

  He is hungry and she needs to tend to him, to still be the best mother she can. When he is sat at the table with a piece and a cup of hot milk, she says, ‘Would you like to look at the photographs?’ She rummages in the bottom drawer of the dresser and there it is, the little album where she has kept the pictures.

  He pulls a face. ‘Andy is waiting for me, can I go over to his house for a bit?’

  ‘As long as you’re not late,’ she says. And the fact is, she would rather be on her own.

  As the door closes behind him, she opens the album. First up, there is a studio picture of wee William, his baby face pinched. It was an extravagance but she had wanted the picture so bad, as if she knew he wouldn’t make old bones. And here is a picture of her with Bert, and she is holding Albert in the doorway of their first house in Tate’s Avenue. She is wearing a summer dress, her arms bare. The baby is swaddled up in a shawl, just the top of his downy head where the caul has been and the tip of nose showing. Her mother must have taken that one, because all three of them are there, and she remembers now that her mother, who did not have so long to live after that, had come round to greet her when she came home from the hospital. And there Albert is again, in his little cotton hat, holding her hand. It is one of those street photographs, and he is pointing with his free hand and laughing at something beyond the edge of the picture. She wishes she knew what he was looking at then. Now, there they all are in this next one, her and Bert and Albert and Daniel, on their holiday at Ballycastle, the headland rising from the sea in the background. Oh, wasn’t that such a nice time? Who took that picture? A passer-by, she thinks. Bert had dug out his old Box Brownie his parents gave him when he was a we’an and his family still had the money. Perhaps they’d asked some stranger to point and click in their direction? In the next one Albert is on board the Captain Cook, his springy hair that resembles her own like a dark halo round his head, riffled by a breeze, his hands crossed and loose before him, and again the sea’s horizon at his back. Peter Simpson has sent her this, as he has the two remaining ones of Albert. These last two have been taken in New Zealand. In one there is Albert, holding a cat and surrounded by children, on Rose Lewis’s lawn. It’s Christmas Day, the past year. She had felt a pang of envy when she took that one out of its envelope. It was like Albert had another family in New Zealand. The last picture is more formal and it’s not a true photograph at all but a newspaper clipping. Albert is dressed smartly, his hair tamed and stylishly cut. His tie has a jaunty diagonal stripe, and the white shirt looks like the one she sent him for his birthday. He is looking a little away from the camera, not towards her.

  Horace Haywood is drunk and entirely on his own. He wishes he had some company, is nostalgic for the presence of Des Ball. But Ball doesn’t work here anymore. He thought he knew Ball, but it seems he was wrong. He wonders, in moments like this, when his head is floating and his thoughts off their tether, if it is the killings that have done it for Des. Some men have more fragile hearts than they let on. He wishes he could have helped him. For that matter, he wishes he could help himself. Tomorrow there is a job to be done.

  Why is he not at home with Ettie? He is as guilty of neglect in his own way as the other man. But she will be busy with her plans for the men’s bowling trip on Wednesday morning. Ettie always has a plan.

  Oliver Buchanan is so restless his wife is becoming irritable. No, that’s no
t fair. She knows what is going through and through his mind. There is nothing she can say to calm him down. He can’t look at her or the boys. He has decided to go for a walk, he tells her. It’s a warm night and he doesn’t take a jacket, leaving the house with his tie loose and his shirtsleeves rolled up. It is a Sunday night; he knows that the execution must take place very soon. He has been expecting the news every morning.

  He walks for a while around the wharves, watching ferries come and go, the evening light dropping over the sea. Don’t worry, I might be a while, he’d said as he left home. The streets are almost deserted. He takes the route along Queen Street, and almost decides to cross Albert Park, but something makes him keep walking, on and up past the turnoff to Wellesley Street, on further until he comes to Ye Olde Barn cafe. He expects it to be crammed with young people, but it too is nearly empty. Perhaps people have stopped coming, or perhaps the weekend has taken its toll; he wouldn’t know. The last time he was here, to study the scene of Johnny McBride’s killing, music spilled forth and the cubicles were full, as if nothing untoward had happened here at all. At any rate, there is just one man sitting by himself on a stool at the counter. He’s a Teddy boy, turned out like a male model, a mannequin in a shop window, so perfect his grooming.

  ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ Buchanan says. Silly, really, he thinks, when he’s not seeking company. There is something about sitting down in one of these empty cubicles that makes him uncomfortable. He orders his coffee from the man he recognises as Laurie Corrington, the man who had run down the street to find a policeman, blood splattered all over his apron.

  The young man grins, offers his hand. ‘I’m Henry,’ he says.