‘Don’t be a cunt, Narby.’ The speaker has an upside-down cross tattooed on his forehead. ‘Give us one.’
‘You bring those, mate?’ says the other to Chris in a hoarse voice.
‘Yeah, I want to ask you guys about something.’
Narby stands over the crate, squinting as if dazzled by the sun.
‘Why’d you give Watto one?’ says the man with the cross on his forehead.
‘Punishment,’ declares the man with the hoarse voice.
‘Punish him, Narby,’ says Watto from the couch with his beer, his hard face cracking gleefully.
Another skinhead comes from the kitchen.
‘Who the fuck?’ he says to Chris, then sees the beer in the crate at Narby’s feet. ‘Praise be.’
Narby nods slowly and the newcomer picks up a beer and pops it with his lighter.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ he repeats, with more feeling, and takes a swig.
At last, Chris thinks, a straight question. ‘My name’s Chris Ipswitch. My brother is Patrick Ipswitch, the sumo wrestler. He had a kid with a Japanese woman. She was murdered. A three-year-old girl. No one knows who did it. Do you?’
There is a general expulsion of air.
‘Fuck me.’
‘Who’s this wanker?’
‘What the fuck?’
All eyes fall on Narby. He walks over to Chris with eyes no longer puzzled but dark and cold. Chris stands his ground, doesn’t flinch as Narby stops and straightens in front of him, grabs Chris’s balls, and weighs them. Braced for a head butt, every nerve ready to fire, Chris doesn’t move.
Narby releases his nuts and turns away.
It’s coming, he thinks, and scratches his nose to get his hand up in preparation to block the blow. It doesn’t come.
Narby takes a bottle from the crate. ‘You’ve got balls, mate, I’ll give you that.’ The bottle is the centre of the room’s attention. He holds it out. ‘Thomson.’
The man with the cross tattooed on his forehead takes it.
‘Give it to Roach,’ says Narby.
Watto laughs.
‘Narby, for fuck’s sake,’ says Thomson.
‘Give it to Roach.’
Thomson hands the bottle over, looking a little pleased despite his ostentatious annoyance. Chris notes he has The Lord’s Angles tattooed on his forearm.
‘You want a beer, Ipdick?’ says Narby.
‘No thanks. I’ll have a cup of tea though.’
Incredulous sounds again. Narby points dramatically to the kitchen.
As Chris fills the kettle to the minimum he feels how hard his heart is thumping in his chest. It’s silent in the lounge. A beating is brewing. Or an attempted beating. The jug boils quickly and doesn’t switch itself off.
Back in the lounge a circle has formed and each skinhead holds a beer bottle. The most pressing issue, Chris senses, is who will get the last bottle in the crate between Narby’s feet, not whether he will be beaten up.
‘Cheers,’ Chris says from outside the circle. He sips his hot tea.
Another expulsion of air and muttered curses.
Narby grabs his own nuts and turns to focus on Chris. This brings guffaws.
These guys are idiots, Chris thinks, reading Thomson’s misspelt tattoo again. They can’t tell me anything.
‘How’d you get this address?’ demands the man who took the beer from the crate himself, whom Chris takes to be Narby’s lieutenant.
‘A tow-truck driver in Christchurch,’ he replies.
‘Doober?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That cunt?’
‘My brother put him in hospital a couple of days ago.’
‘Hospital,’ says Narby.
‘Hospital,’ repeats Watto.
‘Hospital,’ echoes Thomson.
Chris knows this is meant to intimidate him, but he doesn’t feel weak, he feels strong, like on the rugby field where he never backs down to anyone.
‘I hoped you’d know something,’ he tells them.
‘If we did,’ says the lieutenant, ‘we wouldn’t fucking tell you, would we?’
‘Why not?’
Silence.
‘I wouldn’t go to the police about Christchurch skinheads. I’d take care of it myself.’
They believe him. In actual fact, it’s true. He has spoken the truth. He’s the tallest in the room and feels his height to be a mighty thing. And he won’t fight them and doesn’t need to, which is the mightiest thing of all.
‘Nothing?’ He puts down his empty cup. ‘Thanks for the tea. I’ll let myself out. Enjoy the brew.’ Walking up the driveway he hears Thomson’s faint wheedling voice through the window. ‘Narby, don’t be a cunt.’ Gleeful voices rise in unison: ‘Punishment!’
Chapter 17: Mutiny:
Buried at sea
Some of the mortally wounded ask to be carried up on deck to taste the fresh air. Plate is one of them. At dawn the New Zealand flag can be seen flying on the main mast, and the ship’s bow chops like a slow axe towards freedom. When Plate dies after sunrise there are no sheets left for burial shrouds. The best they can manage is three white towels. Five Typhoons have already been shrouded and cast overboard, among a total of 160 dead rugby players. The body count would have been much higher but the Japanese ran out of ammunition. Everyone ran out of ammunition. It came down to knives, bayonets and metal bars, and the losers went overboard, either thrown or jumped. It’s the first daylight burial at sea, a dull cloudy morning. Plate’s teammates are close to his body; hundreds crowd the surrounding decks. It falls to Brian, who is grey with fatigue, to say a few words.
‘It brings us great sadness to lose another good man,’ he shouts into the wind, the tissue on his left ear red where the lobe was shot off. ‘Plate played a big hand when it looked like we might lose the ship. I’m sorry he didn’t get to experience the freedom that was his birthright.’ Brian looks up at the New Zealand flag and can manage no more. Marty feels Plate has been let down, that it would have been better that he go in the mass burial performed in pitch darkness a couple of hours after the ship was taken, when every able-bodied man on board performed a mighty haka and they stamped so hard that the ship shook with it.
The Hooker steps forward and lays his arm across Brian’s shoulders. Pale, still struggling with seasickness on top of everything else, Bogie begins the Lord’s Prayer. ‘Although I walk through the valley of death, I fear no evil … ’ Marty remembers the pathetic white packages sliding over the side, one after the other in the dark, so many of them, like grains of rice, all the same in death.
‘ … and forgive us our trespasses,’ continues Bogie.
There’s a faraway tearing sound. Heads turn to the sky. A jet. Bogie finally ends the prayer, having heard it last of all. ‘But deliver us from evil,’ he says quietly.
All eyes are skyward as Plate slides overboard. Marty promises himself that he will remember him properly with his surviving friends when they get to Australia, then he scans the sky like everyone else. The thick cumulus is beginning to separate. Deep wells are topped with blue sky. They look to the south, where the jet is coming from. The south. It means only one thing; it starts a stampede. But the crowd is big and the doors small. Marty sees the fighter glint in the sun and change course, bear straight towards them. Curses become cries of terror. Many can only crouch where they are as the jet tears down on them, and over them. By the time the plane turns around, Marty has got to the bow deck where twenty or so wounded lie. Stew is with him. They cannot move their teammates with care because the jet has begun its approach, head-on towards the bow. He counts four rockets slung under the wings as he and Stew carry Kev away from the open space. All of a sudden it comes very fast. He makes himself as small as possible as it screams over the bow. A crackle of small-arms fire becomes apparent as it recedes into the distance. Some of the wounded have been dragged back to consciousness.
‘What the fuck was that?’ Kev asks.
‘A Jap fighter.
’
‘Oh shit.’
‘If the fucker’s off a carrier we’re fuckin’ fucked.’
‘Might be alone, Stew. Long-range from Auckland. We aren’t sunk yet.’ Quietly, so Kev can’t hear, he adds, ‘We’ve got the lifeboats, too.’
The fighter has turned and approaches from the port side, low and slow, apparently preparing to fire its rockets at the broadside target, when another jet engine announces itself. A second fighter is coming very fast from the north. Before he can make out any detail, the Mitsubishi fighter abandons its run and activates the afterburner. There’s an ear-splitting roar and the sea flattens beneath the fighter as it accelerates into a vertical climb. The newcomer is a Hornet, emblazoned with a red kangaroo in a white-and-blue circle. Marty and Stew punch the air, their cries of joy lost in the roar of the engine as the jet disappears into the cloud in pursuit. As everyone watches and listens, the engines combine and diverge. The Aussie jet appears again in a gap in cloud beyond the stern. It tips its wings in salute, again and again, as it cruises slowly overhead. Marty yells himself hoarse and throws Stew’s beanie into the air.
Chapter 18:
Cherry Orchard
Monday is usually Chris’s big training day. He runs, goes to the gym, swims, and runs again. But now that his team has gone and he won’t be playing with them next season, there’s no pressing reason to get up and get fit. He’s still on the futon at 11 o’clock when the phone rings.
‘Hey, Chris … ’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Where do I start?’
Chris knows the news must be very bad. He braces himself. ‘The worst of it.’
‘I’m in prison. Chiyo’s missing … and … ’
‘What? Patrick? Are you there?’
‘It’s bad, bro. Her family think I killed her. That I would kill my—’ He sobs.
‘Pat? Are you there?’
‘Can you give me a minute?’
‘Sure, sure. Take as long as you need.’
The phone bangs. There’s a terrible moan. A scraping sound. ‘Ah, she’s disappeared, Chris. I don’t know where or why. They say I killed her.’
‘But … ?’
‘What’s happening? I love my wife and child and they blame me. Why the fuck is this happening?’
Chris feels panicky. He can’t handle his brother’s loss and confusion. It’s too big. ‘What can I do?’
Patrick has put the phone down again. A roar from a distant room brings hot tears to Chris’s eyes. The receiver clunks. ‘Chris. I’m losing my mind. Go and see my old master, Mr Ichiro. He might be able to help. If not … ’
Ninety-eight percent of prosecutions stick, and this means the death penalty. Chris fears suicide as well; his brother has never been so wounded and wild.
‘Master Ichiro,’ Patrick says. ‘You must remember.’
He’s a grandfatherly figure in Chris’s memory; another Japanese made human long ago by his brother’s power. ‘Yes, I remember him.’
‘Good. See him.’
‘Where?’
Patrick takes a deep breath. ‘He’s over from Japan visiting Cherry Orchard. It’s in the paper, that’s how I know. We fell out several years ago, but not over race or any of that bullshit.’ A ragged breath. Chris fears his brother will break. ‘Ask him to come and visit me.’ Patrick gathers himself and says clearly and emphatically: ‘Or at least call me. He knows everything. He’ll be able to tell me what the fuck is going on.’
‘I’ll go today.’
‘Thanks, brother. Tell him I only ever—’ His voice trembles. ‘I only ever punched with an open hand.’
The line is dead. Chris has never felt so powerless.
The phone rings.
‘Pat, listen—’
‘Pardon. It’s Masuda.’
‘Sorry, sir.’
‘You are needed here now.’
‘Yes.’
The trip to Cherry Orchard will have to wait until tomorrow. His duty is inescapable. It is unthinkable, impossible, to simply not turn up to work after Masuda’s call. In order to resign, a month’s respectful notice must be given. As he pulls on his suit he reminds himself about the overtime he’ll be paid, a strategy he’s used in the past when asked to work at inconvenient times, and pictures the silver Akai CS-F11 cassette player with Dolby-B Noise Reduction and digital peak reading display, nearly within his grasp, only two pays away. However, the usual pang of desire fails to materialise. He pictures the sleek slab of silver again, in his apartment this time, on the tatami by his futon. It doesn’t work.
As soon as Chris enters the staffroom Masuda stands and his spectacles flash.
‘This way,’ he grunts.
Chris follows him into one of the small interview rooms. Masuda wheels and shuts the door.
‘You are a competent teacher of English. However, we cannot have your family shame reflected on this institution. You will leave immediately. Do your best.’
‘Yes.’ Chris keeps his eyes down, partly because he doesn’t want to see triumph on Masuda’s face. ‘Please think kindly of me.’
Masuda grunts and is gone.
Chris quickly clears his few personal possessions from his desk. The Wellington Typhoons almanac from last season, when they won the national trophy, is the most important of his belongings. At least he can fulfil his brother’s wish and see Master Ichiro today after all. He holds on to this thought. It’s early and the other English teachers are yet to arrive, which he’s grateful for. He silently bows to the near empty staffroom. His exit goes unnoticed and he knows he will shortly be replaced and forgotten. He realises something he couldn’t admit to himself properly an hour ago: his brother will soon be executed.
He tries to enjoy his car as the luxury item it is as he sets off for Cherry Orchard. It will have to be sold after this trip, now that he is unemployed and can’t afford to run it. As he heads north on the motorway, the harbour is revealed to be almost entirely brown with sewage and drainwater after the storm. The runoff pipes overflow into the sewerage pipes; the Imperial Japanese Army is not prepared to invest the substantial amount of money required to repair and upgrade the system. I should keep going, he thinks; drive to Auckland and start a new life. But his name, he realises, will follow him everywhere. The only real escape possible is the kind of mission his team mates have attempted. Hijacking the ferry seemed suicidal to him before but now it makes perfect sense. The rewards are potentially huge: freedom; life itself. Failure means only more of the same. He wishes them good luck with all his heart.
For himself, the future holds a trip to Christchurch to be with his brother. He must accompany him throughout the public humiliation of his trial. He must walk with him to his death and dishonour. Chris’s eyes fill with tears and he has to pull over. In a dead-end street overlooking the Hutt River he cries for his lost brother, his lost niece, his lost friends, his lost job. He cries for Chiyo too, also dead before her time. Great waves of black and choking despair give way to fear. The future terrifies him, all the long and empty days of his life yet to come without any of the people he loves. The best things in his life have been torn from him. The injustice and the horror of it threaten to crush him and he moans and punches the dashboard.
When he starts the car fifteen minutes or so later, he feels his perspective is clearer. There is little point in going to Cherry Orchard. Better to return to Wellington and make a decent effort to find Bill and get blind drunk with him, as he should have when the ferry went missing. He will lock with Bill in a new team after returning from Christchurch, go to after-matches and meet Kiwi women, live by the sweat of his labour on road and construction gangs, and sabotage the IJA whenever possible. He will live like a New Zealander.
An old woman in a pink tracksuit with a permed helmet of white hair leads a toy dog on a long lead across the road in front of his car. Her transit takes long enough for him to change his mind about returning to Wellington. He switches the indicator to the right instead. I promised
Patrick, he thinks. It would not be wise to turn up in Christchurch without trying this one last thing.
After yakitori and a pint of Asahi at the top of the Rimutakas, he feels a little better. The road is not familiar to him because he and his mother always took the train to visit Patrick at Cherry Orchard, and he enjoys the sharp bends and vertiginous aspects. At Featherston he’s surprised at how unchanged everything is. Cherry Orchard itself—though a big complex, with many rooms and halls for trainees, instructors and bottom division wrestlers—looks basically the same from the road, but for a big tourist bus. The stable became famous after Patrick left. As he drives through the open gate Chris feels positive associations. It was a friendly place when he came here as a child. He and his mother were always warmly received by the master, even when Patrick was being punished.
‘Welcome to Cherry Orchard Stable, sir,’ says the receptionist. He asks her if it would be possible to see Master Ichiro, and tells her his name and his relationship to Rising Dragon, the famous wrestler from this very stable. ‘Patrick Ipswitch,’ he tells her blank face. ‘He was popularly known as the Night Train.’ The girl becomes very respectful and says she will do everything in her power to contact the master. She suggests he take a tour in the meantime; it began only five minutes ago and he will be able to join it in the wrestlers’ dining room. Chris knows where the dining room is. On his way there he hears the distinctive clip clop of wooden sandals worn by junior trainees. Three Maori boys of about fourteen come into view, clad in thin cotton robes, the full extent of their winter wardrobes. They’re still slim. Such junior trainees had seemed like men to him when he first visited Cherry Orchard as a child of six. He stops and watches them clip-clop down the path towards the kitchen door, probably on their way to peel potatoes. They will have been up since 5 am. Such a life once appeared glamorous to him. Potential must have been at the heart of it, the possibility of going all the way—to Japan, the top divisions, fame and fortune. He can still feel some of Patrick’s old ambition, and remembers sharing his contempt for those who dropped out. The boys disappear into the building and Chris stands for a moment, trying to understand what has happened to his brother, when he feels he is being watched.
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