by Anne Kennedy
I shuffle back from the ledge and look out at the panorama of Wellington, trying to stay calm. Then I feel a vibration on the flyover and hear a buzz coming from below. A carriage is travelling up the incline. Clearly, there is one last journey of the night. If I was worried about how I am to turn around on the narrow verge and make my way back up the flyover to the platform, I need not have concerned myself. I don’t know how I do it, but I somehow do. I have a memory of grazes, cold air, heartbeat, my life flashing before my eyes. I recall the taste of milk about to go off, a night of black plastic rubbish bags, and how it felt to become a woman. Before long I’m back on the zigzag, treading my way down the winding road to town. As I go, I think about how, in Antarctica, I will lie down on the ice, and the small coldness inside me will feel at home. I hope there will be enough ice for me to lie down in. I hope that my lying down in the ice will not cause a new piece the size of New Zealand to fall off; I hope I will not warm Antarctica with my grief.
*
The northerly comes in ferocious fits and starts, and I shrug my Antarctic jacket closer around me. My arms feel strangely light, not weighed down as they have been for the last few hours by my fridge and my laptop bag. But this lightness gives me no pleasure. I am like a rudderless vessel bobbing through the night. I notice a backache that had not presented itself when I was in the process of acquiring it, that is, dragging my fridge and shouldering my computer. The roar of the motorway reminds me that I’m approaching the neighbourhood where my laptop met with its demise; I try not to dwell on it but to concentrate on the present, and on thankfulness.
At a crossroads, where Salamanca Road turns into the more citified Bolton Street, I happen to glance left up Wesley Road and am aware that just over the darkly wooded brow of the hill lies the Lady Norwood Rose Garden. Not that I am going to make a detour at this time of night, of course, but I am reminded of a certain wedding I attended in the gardens back in February. Now it’s all water under the bridge, and as you know, I’m not one to bear a grudge; the happy couple was none other than Miles and Dorothy. I will take this opportunity to make some overdue thank yous re that auspicious event.
It was a beautiful wedding, all pink but not the least bit kitsch and, as I say, it was held in the manicured but dangerous regimen of the Lady Norwood Rose Garden. On the late afternoon of the wedding, I approached through the south beds, which turned out to be tricky—an unfortunate time of year in some respects; late summer, so the roses were resplendent in their second bloom and their massive prickles. Thanks are due to the wonderful staff at the Emergency Room of Wellington Hospital who so tenderly tweezered the thorns, and to the lovely house surgeon who, on learning that I have a low pain threshold, prescribed a nice long course of Celebrex, plus some Amoxil in case infection reared its ugly had. I was able to return to the champagne table just a little bit bandaged and to join in the wedding festivities, which featured dancing into the night.
The night was once again unseasonably warm and still, of the kind that makes Wellingtonians worry the world is coming to an end. (The opposite, I might add, to the inclemency of the weather on Antarctica Awards night, also in summer.) The air was tepid, perfume drifted from the rose beds, cicadas scutched. And so to the wedding. As I say, it was a beautiful occasion. Some of my former friends—who’d pretended to be chummy but had gone the same way as the apartment, and it’s true that I *had* only known them for two years and 364 days—shot me thunderous looks every time they whirled past me on the lawn. I’m incredibly grateful that I was subjected to this poisonous eyeballing because it gave me a chance to dig deep into myself for the wisdom to rise above such pathetic display of small-minded posturing. My deepest thanks are due to Tricia, Jeff, Melanie, Sue, Carmel, Dean, Paul R, Paul M., Liz and Bronwyn, oh, and Dan, not to mention my former de facto in-laws, whom I thank sincerely for not ever becoming related to me in any way, shape or form. I needn’t worry that any offspring of mine will carry the square-head gene, the low-to-the-ground simian build. The truth is, I didn’t care about attempts to turn me into a social pariah. I was having an excellent time, and I know that underneath, Miles was pleased I was there. I know Miles very well, and I know what that stony expression means perhaps better than anyone, and certainly more than Dorothy.
It was only at the very end of the evening, late-late, as I sat at one of the trestle tables in the summer house (which was just slightly ersatz Versailles) eating pavlova—reminded a little of Howards End and feeling very sorry for poor Jacky—that I sat back and contemplated how the night would proceed for Miles and Dorothy from here on in, compared with how it would go for me. Mandy had gone on one of her hysterical throwing-me-out jags, so I didn’t know where I was going to spend the night—reminiscent of the very night on which I am writing this down, the night on the eve of flying out to Antarctica. Despite my efforts, I didn’t seem to be able to get the attention of the nice waiter who had been topping up my glass. I could see Miles and Dorothy dancing on the moonlit lawn, kissing and pawing each other like bears. Once again I was struck by how unattractive she was, and I experienced another ontological hiccup in relation to myself. With my pavlova-laden spoon halfway to my face, I glanced up at the stage and noticed that the microphones (there were two) were unattended. The podium had recently been the site of some speeches, not the least bit sick-making.
I’ve always been rather good at limericks, though I say it myself. I was famous for them as a teenager. I hope I’m not blowing my own trumpet when I say that I showed signs of writing promise even then. An hilarious limerick about a teacher with a pole up her arse that I etched with a safety pin on the toilet wall got me expelled from Wellington East, which I’ve always regarded as a feather in my creative cap. I can’t think of anyone interesting who wasn’t expelled from school. Not that I’m claiming the label ‘interesting’ for myself, I hasten to add. I got up from the trestle table, wiped pavlova from my front, and tried to get up to the podium. The flimsy steps were uneven and I missed my footing for a moment but soon recovered and picked myself up off the wet grass. I might’ve lost a shoe, but I still made it to the microphones. While I’d been dilly-dallying over my pav, I’d composed a limerick that I knew would have Miles in stitches.
There was a young bridey called Dot
whose face was wet, hairy and hot.
In order to wed
the groom stood on his head
and said ‘Dotty, I do’ to her—
At that point in my recital, several of the ‘friends’ jumped up onto the stage and carried me down to the lawn. I must say I felt a bit like Lady Gaga after her Monster Ball concert at the Vector Arena. As for my own performance, in retrospect I’m grateful that the final line of the limerick was left dangling and for this I thank my former buddies. For me it turned out far better not to iterate the last word. I picture the word slaloming downwards and coming to rest on the dewy grass of the rose garden, from where it might flutter off to kingdom come, or be danced, bit by bit, into the plush grass, blueish in the moonlight. All things must pass.
I found myself being pushed rather roughly into the back seat of a car and driven, a little nauseously, down the winding road away from the Botanical Garden. Thanks to the ‘friends’ for the ride, and for not filling up the airwaves with idle chatter. They would’ve been absolutely at home in In My Father’s Den. I lay quietly on the back seat and almost managed to hold on to the pav until Tinakori Road, but not quite. Sorry about the upholstery of someone’s only slightly ostentatious Citroën.
Tinakori Road is unlit and empty at that hour of the morning. As I set off to find the footpath in the dark, a little lopsided from my lost shoe, I thought back to the moonlit lawn. I was sure I’d seen the happy couple look up from their ungainly groping and smile at my limerick. I am lucky to be able to count both Miles and Dorothy amongst my closest friends.
Having been deposited by the cable car at an inopportune stop after the demise of my laptop, I am trundling back down past the university, tha
t collection of Victorian and modernist buildings all mucking in together. No one is about and I feel tall in the dark. My footsteps answer me on the other side of the road. My first task is, of course, to collect my fridge from the cable car, the next to find a place to spend the night and hopefully someone more reliable than Eric who will look after said fridge while I’m in Antarctica. Something will turn up. The Terrace, when I turn into it, is like a wind tunnel. I battle the gusts and cling to everything: my hold-all, my jacket which balloons out so strongly I think I might lift off the ground. Caught in this fury with not much sense of where I am apart from in weather, I feel welling up in my diaphragm a strong urge to edit. I want to prune the section of my novel in which a wedding is called off at the last minute because the groom finds out a whole lot of terrible stuff about the bride—that she’s not who she says she is, she’s a confidence trickster like Amy Bock who pretends to love people in order swindle them. It’s probably the soapiest bit of the novel, so it really does need to go.
Unfortunately, it has already gone.
I scale down some wet, dirty, Dickensian steps which lead darkly from the Terrace to Lambton Quay. After one block of the Quay, I turn into the lane that leads up to the cable car terminal. The alley feels synthetically claustrophobic; you’d expect filthy fake grass. Once past the news agents and the tea shops, I stand in the yawning industrial-revolution mouth of the cable car tunnel which seems sooty despite the line being electrified, and I peer past the ticket booth to the waiting area. A security guard dressed like a character from Grease is pirouetting into the corners with a flashlight. Instinctively I hang back, but I’ve already spied my fridge stationed in the middle of the scene as if performing to the bleachers. The security guard is having a called-out conversation with someone, and I see the bobbing grey head of a woman in the ticket booth. A frozen feeling creeps over me. I get the gist he’s talking about my fridge. I think I hear the word *gash* repeated several times amid the tinkling sound of cashing up. He and the woman are like smugglers from Famous Five, and I half smile at that. But I’m perturbed, too, and can’t decide whether I’d rather have a gash in my fridge, which would destroy its insulation, or in the carriage, which might get me into some kind of trouble.
There’s worse to come. The security guard, now swallowed by the yawning mouth of the tunnel, turns and calls clearly, ‘Geez she was lucky, poor old biddy!’ A gate clangs somewhere. I am, of course, mortified, imagining an old woman with a big purse lying kersplat in the carriage, knocked over by my rogue fridge. I press myself flat against the darkened window of a tobacconist’s. The right thing to do would be to present myself to the security guard from Grease and the grey-haired ticketseller. But as I stand intimately close to the items of death, the cigarettes and cigars, the tobacco pipes, I wonder—what good would it do for me to talk to the cable car people now? The damage is done. It is done, and nothing can change it.
I wait, plastered against the cold glass, wondering what to do. I cannot abandon my fridge to these people; it is unthinkable. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure they won’t just hand it over to me. If there is a gash in the carriage, if someone was knocked over, there might even be police involved. To be honest, I’m scared.
As I’m trembling and considering my options, the grey-haired woman comes out of her little cubicle and disappears around the back. I hear voices receding and when I poke my head out experimentally, I see that indeed both she and the security guard have gone, at least temporarily. I don’t need a second opportunity. I rush up the last few metres of the lane into the waiting area, grab the handle of the trolley, and jolt my fridge into motion.
We have bounced back, my fridge and I. We are on our way back down the lane to Lambton Quay by the time I hear the angry bellow of the security guard. To the sound of footsteps thwacking, I duck into an arcade and snuggle my fridge and myself into an empty wedge under a massive flight of stairs. There we wait until the security guard’s footsteps have calmed and the curses have waned.
I pat my fridge all over, like a farmer a cow at the stock market, inspecting it for damage. A couple of scuffs on the nether regions; nothing serious. I hope that the dark smudge I wipe off on my sleeve isn’t blood. I’m feeling a bit rattled, to be honest. My options—which just a few hours ago were wide open, and the summer evening full of hope—seem to have narrowed. Despair, both for myself and for my fridge, begins to creep over me. But I’m made of tougher stuff, I really am. And it is then that I remember Linda Dent.
I palm my forehead in a gesture even I recognise (in a moment of selfie-like analysis) as simultaneous castigation/congratulations: Idiot/Of course! If there’s one person I’m sure will put me up for the night, and likely look after my fridge for the duration, plus can probably be prevailed upon to drive me to the airport first thing, it’s Linda Dent. *Linda Dent!* It’s not that I haven’t thought of her earlier in the evening; indeed, on the way to the awards ceremony I had her in the back of mind. The only problem is, I’m not sure how to get in touch with her now. I’m sort of wishing that I hadn’t unfriended her, even though she was outrageously insensitive to me on social media. But Linda, she’s not so bad. We always had a good talk when we ran into each other at book launches. In fact, the last time I saw her at the Borich Festival, we had a really excellent rave, her with her little face and latest iteration of giant glasses. She’s actually kick-ass. If I know Linda, she will have got over our little contretemps and anyway, it’s just Facebook, it’s not real.
With a renewed sense of purpose I hurry one block back along Lambton Quay—the wind is nuts, going inhale-for-four-exhale-for-seven, like some kind of anti-anxiety exercise—and I pop into the selfsame internet café as before, do the whole beyond-the-curtain-at-the-back-of-the-shop thing all over again. The attendant and I do a shorthand negotiation about my fridge this time (? / No / Fine then), and I nestle in next to the teenage gamers and send Linda a fresh friendship request. I sit back and await her reply. Linda is one of those people who sits hunched over their social media waiting for the next red dot, replying within a second.
While I’m waiting, I look around at the gamers stoking their red flickering screens in the half dark like so many devils with pitchforks. After a minute, Linda still hasn’t accepted my friendship, so I decide I may as well attend to my other social media, as I’ve paid for the minimum half hour anyway. I tweet, Countdown to Antarctica, still pinching myself! Kudos to @ArtsNZ! A moment later, @fringefestdweller retweets me and replies, Good going @janiceawriter! Big hugs <3 It’ll be the middle of the afternoon in the UK. I wonder if @fringefestdweller is hitting on me from afar, with the hugs, seeing I’ve never met him, and I begin to wonder if he’s a bit of a creep. But I don’t have time to go into it because the night is wearing on. I check the Guardian quickly to see if any famous writers have died and Bookman Beattie to see if anyone I know has published a book with a spine. No, on both counts. And no acceptance from Linda Dent. I’m getting a bit worried that she’s signed off for the night; even Linda has to go to bed at some point. Luckily, I’ve been to her house, to a launch party she had one time for a book she’d self-published. It’s in Island Bay. I look up the exact address on the old Facebook event. Trent Street. I remember it, a beautiful summer afternoon with the smell of the sea coming in the open windows, and the speeches fuelled nicely by boxed pink wine. There was a lovely warm atmosphere and the crowd, Linda’s friends, were enthusiastic about Linda’s book. To tell the truth, I was the teeniest bit jealous, but I later managed to plough that feeling into my work in a productive way.
In the internet café, I finish with a final tweet. Edits going swimmingly #ilovemylife, which @nighthowler likes immediately and at the same time he also retweets my last tweet. I’m in the middle of thanking him for the RT when my screen dies, with no preamble. I’m disappointed that that has happened before I’ve heard back from Linda Dent a.k.a. @heartwriter, which means she is probably off the agenda, but such is life.
*
I’m cower-walking again, up Willis Street in the gale which seems to have had a personality switch, is a demon now; it blasts and twists around me from every angle, including underneath, making my heavy jacket flaunt itself like a mainsail. Unearthly bongs and rattles emanate from security doors and rubbish bins, sounds you hear only when there’s no one around, as if some presence has been lurking all along, waiting for you to be alone on Willis Street in the small hours of a Wednesday in early December. I don’t know where to go, I don’t know what to do, but it seems this state of emptiness—and perhaps the lonely state I find myself in, from which position I hope I don’t have to face the end of the human race—allows a thought to sprout.
I wonder tentatively whether it has been long enough, that is, whether there’s been enough water under the bridge, for me to turn up at the fifties apartment with the view of the harbour and ask to stay for one lousy night. I walk along Manners Mall, thinking the notion through in more detail. The air suddenly smells briny even though the harbour is a kilometre away, and I realise what’s happened: the wind has swung around to the south. That’s what all that play-acting was about; it was a northerly trying to be a southerly. Plus, I’m starving hungry. I have no choice but to buy a burger from the twenty-four-hour McDonald’s, even though it’s like eating silage, and I wolf it down in the green-lit tiled expanse, watching over my fridge, which I’ve left outside. While I’m in McD’s, a teenager in sweats comes and squats down next to the fridge, looking it up and down as if it’s a person. Binning my burger wrapper, I hurry back outside.
The boy is hugging himself against the cold, and as I approach he begins begging hopelessly, holding out his wizened hand and pleading from his deep purple eyesockets. I’m his only customer. I hitch up my fridge and take off. Further along Manners Street, I look back at the boy and we share a brief, terrified stare. There’s no one else to make eye contact with.