by Derek Hansen
Her curiosity was aroused, and other parts as well. He had his back to her and was never more than a silhouette against the awakening dawn, but she knew he was naked and the wan light gave faint, teasing definition to those parts it touched upon. He was beautiful, like a beautiful animal. The ritual – whatever it was – was also exquisite and powerfully moving. Once again, Red managed to drag a tear from her eye. She wanted to reach out and grab her troubled neighbour, and haul him back into her bed where she’d engage him in ritualistic movements of her own, but she didn’t dare move so much as an eyelid. So she watched and waited, unsure whether she wanted him to stop or go on forever. How many more surprises did this man have for her, she wondered?
Red slowly brought his movements to a halt and stood motionless gazing out towards the spot in the ocean where he knew the cloud-shrouded sun would rise.
‘Red, what were you doing?’ Her voice sounded unnaturally loud even though she’d done little more than whisper.
‘Exercising.’
‘Weird exercises. Aren’t you cold?’
‘No.’
‘What about all your scratches and scrapes?’
‘They’re nothing, Rosie.’
‘Says who? Your doctor orders you back to bed.’
‘No. You stay there. I’ll make breakfast.’ He wandered out of the bedroom to the kitchen. Rosie watched him go in amazement. No man she’d ever slept with had ever refused her offer of a dawnbreaker. She didn’t want to put too fine a point on it, but she believed that if lovemaking ever became an Olympic sport she’d place among the medals. Her performance certainly hadn’t disappointed Red. She’d opened his eyes and introduced him to pleasures he’d probably never imagined. He’d been a clumsy, naive lover, but one who was ever willing. She’d made love to him and resurrected the dead more times than she could count, and more times than even he had thought possible. But there were moments when she got the feeling he was only acting under orders, responding to conditioning. His rejection of a repeat performance stunned her. Any other man would have ended up wearing her chamber pot around his head. But she had no anger for Red, only wonder. She didn’t think he was diffident, merely different. Very different. She yawned and snuggled down under the blankets. That was another thing. No other man had ever offered to bring her breakfast in bed the morning after. Most of them had been grateful just to have survived.
The light filtered green and yellow through the curtains as she awoke for the second time. Red the thoughtful, Red the truly amazing, had pulled the curtains together again so that she could sleep in. That was worth ten points. That rated above not leaving the toilet seat up and mopping up the splashes on the floor tiles. She felt well pleased with herself. She’d spent only two nights on the island this time round and Red had already shared her bed. It didn’t matter that he’d not whispered endearments into her ear, or even whispered anything other than answers to direct questions. He’d shared her bed. He’d had a taste of something both good and available. And tradable. She wondered how many nights of lovemaking it would take before she had enough leverage to convince him to sink a new pit for her toilet.
The thought of toilets reminded her of her own pressing need. This was no time to drag out Bernie’s old trusty potty. She rose, pulled on her dressing gown, staggered to the bedroom door and out into the main room. The unpacked boxes had been stacked neatly against one wall. Her floors had been swept. The table set for breakfast. The wood box in front of the Shacklock was full and freshly stacked. Red was washing the previous night’s dishes and a heady, unmistakably fishy, unbreakfasty smell pervaded everything. Another surprise.
‘Good morning.’
‘Good morning, Rosie. Ready for breakfast?’
‘Red, a wise man would not engage me in conversation until after I’ve been to the toilet.’ She walked past him and out of the door. Good Lord! she wondered. What in God’s name was he making? She ran through the drizzle to the outhouse, slammed the door behind her and sat shivering. She could understand the need for ventilation but could not forgive the icy draughts and infiltrating rain. How did men manage, she wondered, when the draughts caught them with their trousers down? Did it leave them with anything to hold onto? She was still following that train of thought as she wandered back to the bach. Then she smelled that fishy smell again and all other thoughts vanished. She made her way to the bathroom, washed her hands and face and finally decided against running a toothbrush around her mouth. Waste of time, she thought.
‘Bed or table?’
‘Table will do nicely.’
‘I found the rice and soy. I got the rest from home.’
‘Very clever of you. What is it?’
‘Breakfast.’
‘Specifically, Red.’
‘Fish rice. Me and Archie always have it for breakfast.’
‘I suppose toast and Vegemite is out of the question?’
‘No. Not if that’s what you want.’
‘No, no . . . this will do nicely.’ She smiled and steeled her stomach against the impending assault. She dipped her fork doubtfully into the rice and raised it to her mouth. The touch of chilli and white pepper surprised her, as did the unexpected oiliness, but not at all unpleasantly. Without thinking, she dipped her fork in again. There was no doubt that it smelled fishier than it tasted, and it tasted strangely satisfying. ‘Mmmm . . . this is good!’ she said. ‘Surprisingly good.’
‘Protein and rice,’ said Red. ‘Muscles build and rejuvenate more readily during the first hour after sleep. That’s why you need protein. Rice gives you energy.’
‘Red, I come from a family of doctors.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Your mother teach you to cook this?’
‘No. The romusha.’
‘Do you want to tell me who or what romusha are?’
‘Asian labourers. The Japs used them as cheap labour. When they caught or bought fish this is what they cooked. When we got back to Singapore I had to work in the kitchen and vegetable gardens. They taught me.’
‘The war’s over, Red. Don’t you think it’s strange eating coolie food?’
Red looked away. His shoulders hunched and she guessed she’d touched on an issue he didn’t want to face. She could only guess at the struggle within.
‘I’ll get the tea.’ He rose and walked over to the kitchen, his jaw tight, brow furrowed.
‘Hey, it’s no big deal, Red. Eat what you like. Perhaps if I’d known it was going to taste as good as this I would have taken to eating it sooner. Beats the hell out of corn flakes.’ She was wasting her words and she knew it. Part of him had never returned from Burma, and perhaps never would. He’d learned to live with it, but Rosie was already beginning to believe she could make the living easier. The man needed help and she was fast convincing herself that she was the one person able to provide it. ‘Thanks.’ She smiled as Red placed her cup in front of her. ‘What do I do with the rest of my breakfast? Save some for Archie?’
‘Archie’s had his.’
‘I’ll save it for the chooks.’
‘I’ve fed them.’
‘You have been busy.’
‘Sorry.’
‘No, don’t apologise.’ Rosie wondered if this was the right time to ask the question that had been gnawing at her since Red’s flashback on the first day. ‘Archie was your mate in Burma, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Saved your life, I suppose?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you named your dog after him. Jesus, Red, you have a strange way of saying thanks.’
Red looked at her and suddenly laughed, not robustly but high pitched and almost childishly, as if it was something he shouldn’t be doing. He rocked backwards and forwards on his chair. Rosie began to laugh with him, not knowing why nor caring, either. Laughter was good therapy. If it helped drag some of the ghosts raging inside him out into the light, then he could only benefit. She hoped.
‘A romusha gave one of the Aussies a pet monkey,’
Red began. His face was flushed and he seemed impatient to tell the story. ‘He was devoted to the thing. He named it Tao because it was the spitting image of one of the guards we called Monkey Man but whose real name was Tao. One day the guards gave him a stick and ordered him to beat his pet monkey to death. They did that sort of thing a lot. They liked to watch suffering. Enjoyed it. They told him that, if he refused, they’d beat him to death instead. So, with the camp looking on he clubbed his little mate to a pulp. The guards laughed at him because he was crying as he did it. I went up to him afterwards to offer my sympathies. He just pushed me away. “Joke’s on them, mate,” he said. “I pretended I was killing Monkey Man.”’
Red began laughing again, but his laughter sounded forced and desperate. Rosie could see that he wanted – needed – her to laugh along with him, but she couldn’t find a vestige of laughter in her. The story appalled her. The men had made a joke of the killing and created a little fantasy because they couldn’t cope with the reality. Red still couldn’t. She rose and put her arms around him, clung onto him as his laughter degenerated into choking sobs. They hadn’t prepared her for this at university.
‘It’s over, Red,’ she soothed, knowing damn well it wasn’t.
Red went the moment the breakfast dishes were washed and put away. There were only a few of them, but Rosie was beginning to understand that Red couldn’t leave things untidy or out of place. He didn’t kiss her goodbye, comment on their lovemaking or make any statements of attachment. It was as if nothing at all had occurred. There’d be no roses, no cards, no tender notes or poetry from this man. Rosie watched him head off down the track towards the beach, doubtless to scrub off any blood that might have splashed over his boat’s paintwork, and collapsed back into her veranda chair drained and exhausted. The man was an emotional minefield! She realised she could waste the day worrying about him, or put him out of her mind and get on with the work that needed doing. The unpacking, the rusted-out guttering, the broken downpipes, the pungent outhouse, the tired garden, the unmade kiln, the idle potting wheel, and everywhere the bare and parched timbers screaming for a lick of paint or creosote.
‘God damn you, Red,’ she said aloud. ‘I have enough problems without taking on yours!’ She began to understand why Red and Angus cherished their solitude and clung to it. Why they’d tried to convince her to go back to Auckland and stay there. There was a lot to be said for giving up people and all their problems and just looking after number one. For running away from the world. Rosie was not unintelligent or insensitive and could see the parallels between Red, Angus and herself. All three of them were fugitives. Yet it seemed a hard call to run away from each other as well.
The splattering of rain on the edge of the veranda made her look up at the guttering. The man in the shop had told her exactly what she had to do to repair it and had made it sound so easy. She’d had every intention of doing the job herself. But what had sounded easy then was now a totally different matter. The man in the shop hadn’t been perched on a ladder twenty feet up in the air with a fifteen foot length of guttering waving in the breeze. She needed help but also knew she couldn’t ask for it. At Wreck Bay help was given at the discretion of the giver. Somehow she’d have to get Angus or Red to offer, and, of the two, Red was by far the more likely candidate. Perhaps she could barter services, but what could she offer him in exchange? What did any man want? She smiled to herself, but without her usual confidence. What had seemed fair trade in the afterglow of lovemaking had been devalued by Red’s passionless departure. She realised she was on her own once more, and couldn’t count on further boating mishaps to deliver Red into her clutches. Would he call by of his own accord, she wondered, not to give her surplus or ask favours, but simply for her company? They’d made love, but had they made friends?
The wind picked up and forced her back indoors. There was no joy in sitting and thinking when she could be doing something useful. Bath, dress, unpack, put away. Day three of her new life began to resolve in a list of domestic chores. Perhaps later she could also have a go at connecting up the Bendix so she could do a load of washing – not that there appeared to be any chance of it drying. Jobs for the hands, she thought as she turned on the hot tap over her bath tub, and a couple for the mind. She decided to surprise her father and write to him about Red. Maybe he’d condescend to throw her a few scraps of advice on possible therapies. She thought she’d also write to Norma and ask her to make enquiries about a certain Scottish ex-policeman who wrote children’s stories with a boy hero called Hamish. Information was wealth, even in the wastelands of Wreck Bay. She lay back in the luxury of her bath to plot and make plans.
‘Hello! Anybody home?’
‘Aye, there is,’ she said, irritated enough to mimic him. ‘And I’ll have you know you’ve come at a very inconvenient time. I’m in the bath.’
‘I apologise. We normally bathe earlier around here.’
‘Do we now?’
‘Aye, we do. Would you like me to leave?’
‘No, I’m coming. Make yourself at home.’ She dragged herself reluctantly from the bath, wrapped a towel around her body and slipped on her dressing gown. ‘What can I do for you?’ She looked Angus up and down in disbelief. Red dressed badly but Angus surpassed him. His khaki shorts showed through his plastic mac, which he wore buttoned right up to the neck over something red and tartan. Black gumboots completed the picture. She wanted to smile, but remembered their last encounter on the beach, and decided against appearing too friendly. Besides, the bastard had interrupted her bath.
‘I’ve come to thank you for the soup and for lighting the fire. I needed the soup and a hot bath to warm myself through. I thought I should tell you that.’
‘Thank you. You’ve made my day.’ She smiled sweetly.
‘I’ve also come to give you back your saucepan.’
‘Along with your gratitude?’ Rosie could see that he was wary and uncertain but thought she’d press her luck nevertheless.
‘Aye.’
‘I don’t suppose your gratitude extends to returning favours?’
‘Depends.’
‘I need a hand to repair the guttering.’
‘My gratitude does not extend to repairing guttering.’ His arrogance and chauvinism returned in a flash. He seized on her inadequacy and actually began to gloat. ‘I told you before. I’ll not be your lackey.’ He made no attempt to conceal the glee in his voice. ‘You don’t belong here. It’s not an easy life and I’ll not waste mine making it easier for you. If you can’t cope you should leave now. That’s all I have to say.’
‘That’s a pity, Angus,’ said Rosie sweetly, ‘you have such a lovely voice.’
‘What’s that? Aye. It’s been said before.’ The anxiety and suspicion returned.
‘Pity you waste it by talking through your arse.’
Angus’ eyes widened and his mouth groped for words like a stranded goldfish gulping for oxygen. None came and he spun on his heels and stormed off back down the track. Rosie watched him go, saw the bushes shake as he bumped into them in his anger. She hoped the leaves dumped buckets of rain water onto him. She speculated idly who was most in need of help, Angus or Red? Or herself? Between her ambitions and reality lay the realisation that there were some jobs that she simply couldn’t do by herself. Left entirely to her own resources, she would not be able to cope. It hurt her to admit it, but the grim truth stared her in the face. She hadn’t even settled in and already she’d sent both her neighbours packing. Either things changed or her days at Wreck Bay were numbered.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Mickey Finn would probably have advanced further in the ranks of the New Zealand Navy but for his unfortunate tendency to speak the truth. He saw stupidity all around him, heard the same pathetic excuses for not taking appropriate action when opportunities presented themselves, and found it hard to suppress his anger. He tried to button his lip, but he couldn’t stop seeing what he saw, hearing what he heard, and fee
ling what he felt. Whenever he was engaged in any operation, he was continually on the lookout for the leg which would reach out to trip him. He never knew where it would come from. Political interference, inter-service bickering, budget constraints or simple mechanical breakdown. More things went wrong than ever went right. If the foreign trawlers ever realised how completely they had the Navy by the balls they’d run riot. Mickey worked hard to prolong their ignorance. The phantom trawler provided a rare opportunity to strike a telling blow for his side, but that only had the effect of putting him more on his guard. How, he wondered, would the bastards get him this time?
By mid-afternoon, he figured he’d earned the right to a beer. Queen’s regulations, however, disagreed and there were few ways more certain to shorten a career than being caught drinking on duty. The pilot’s film had arrived and gone off for processing, hopefully by someone who knew what he was doing and not by some fresh-faced rating straight out of school. Negatives had been blurred or lost before. The big question was, did the pilot get a good enough shot to identify the trawler? The game was on, Mickey was sure of it, but he had no idea what plays would be involved. He likened it to the opening gambit in a game of chess played against an opponent he did not know but who knew all about him. He felt the first intimations of a thrill as old as time – the thrill of the hunt, the chase and the capture. He only wished he knew who he was up against.
While he waited for the photos, he organised a ride on the patrol boat Shearwater, which had undergone repairs and was scheduled for a shakedown cruise around the Hauraki Gulf and Great Barrier Island. He’d explained his needs and the Shearwater’s commanding officer had seen no reason why they couldn’t anchor a while in Wreck Bay to drop off a radio and explain operating procedures to a volunteer coast watcher. After all, as the young lieutenant had smugly agreed, coast watchers had an illustrious history of services to the Navy. Besides, he’d also heard about the packhorse crays, and thought it might be opportune to send a couple of divers down to check the effect of the Navy’s new antifoul on the indigenous aquatic species.