Going West

by Gee, Maurice

  A piece of broad bean skin is lodged in his molars. He works with his tongue, patiently; gets it free; crushes it between his incisors. A delicate bitter flavour spreads along his tongue. ‘Thank you,’ he whispers. How like drunkenness operations are, they make you come out and say it. ‘Be careful, love. Remember your seat belt,’ he says.

  He does not tell John Dobbie that the enlarged gland reminded him of a rose, but likens it to a cauliflower. ‘Don’t be scared when your turn comes. It’s no worse than getting a tooth pulled out. The worst part is the pre-op stuff. Doctors poking round up your bum. The loss of dignity is the worst part.’

  ‘Do I necessarily have to have a turn?’ His stuffiness hides fear.

  ‘I don’t know the percentages. But you should have one, John. It’s a male experience. A man isn’t a man until he’s had his prostatectomy.’

  ‘Rex didn’t.’

  ‘But his father did. In the days when they did it by incision. Rex used it, remember, in “Unkind Cuts”.’

  ‘Yes, I know. It isn’t one of his best poems. In fact it’s rather bad.’

  Jack is disappointed. He prefers the Elf one-eyed. ‘I asked you to come …’ But he finds he can’t get to it without preliminaries. Enquires about the book and hears that it is early days, the actual writing is still years away.

  ‘I don’t think I want you just yet. One has to be organized. I’ve got my lists, and of course you’re one of the first on his boyhood one. It’s going to take a lot of your time, I hope you’re ready. And a tape recorder. Just taking notes isn’t any good.’

  ‘What if this thing turns into a cancer?’

  The Elf draws his breath in with a hiss. He really is afraid. ‘Don’t joke about it.’

  ‘Touch wood.’ Jack touches his head but the Elf leans down and touches the skirting board. ‘Anyway,’ Jack says, ‘it’s not only Loomis I know about. My wife saved Work Songs, you know. And some of the Loomis poems.’ He tells the story, tells it well, and is astonished to see that the Elf does not believe him. It’s fisherman Rex he rejects as much as the events of that night. There’s no place for dirty clothes and bleeding fingers in the authorized biography. ‘Ask Harry if you don’t believe me.’ But Harry is rejected too. Jack is furious. ‘There’s a grease mark on one of the books, from the rubbish tin. Go and look in the Turnbull if you don’t believe me. Jesus, do you want Rex or not? He was running away from Alice. He was clearing out.’

  ‘Perhaps he realized how upset she was by the loss of his finger and made himself scarce until it healed. He didn’t go back on the fishing boats. He’d got all he needed from there.’

  ‘Did she tell you that?’

  ‘It wasn’t an ideal marriage, everyone knows. But it lasted for twenty years, until that woman broke it up.’

  ‘That woman as you call her -’ But he stops. He’ll give away nothing about Margot. The Margot part of Rex’s life must come from her.

  The Elf, meanwhile, says, ‘The world came very close to losing Rex. If it hadn’t been for Alice, against enormous odds … If I’ve got an idea of him now it’s because of her. And I do have him, up here – ‘taps his forehead – ‘after huge amounts of work. There was so much to pull around and get in shape. And Jack, with respect, I don’t want you interfering. I don’t want people chipping in. All I want from you is some details about his boyhood.’

  ‘You’ll have to talk to Margot, though.’

  ‘Yes. It won’t be pleasant. I’ll face that. But she’s not going to alter Rex for me. What you forget is, I knew him too. I was his friend, I was at his shoulder …’

  You were squatting on the ceiling, watching him shit. And now you’re busy inventing a Rex who doesn’t have a lower bowel at all.

  He lies back on his pillows and closes his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve made you tired. I’ll go,’ John Dobbie says.

  ‘No, hold on.’ He takes two or three deep breaths. A present for the Elf …

  ‘One night we rode our bikes over to Te Atatu, when it was all farms there and no motorway. We had home-made flattie spears, number eight wire filed sharp and lashed on tea-tree poles, and we went after flounder on the mud flats. Rex’s father had lent us a kerosene lamp and we went along in water up to our shins … There were hundreds of them. We got a whole sugar sack. We got tired of spearing. But what I remember most, Rex put his foot on one and he got such a fright he dropped his spear. So there it was kicking under his foot – bare feet you know – and him yelling at me to pick up his spear. But what I did, I stuck my own spear in, so close it went between his toes, it grazed the skin. There isn’t any poem, but remember, “The muscle kick beneath the sole, the spear between the toes”- ’

  ‘In “Dangers”.’

  ‘That’s right. That’s where it comes from. It’s not obscure as long as you know.’

  ‘Jack, this is good. This is the sort of thing I want from you. As soon as you’re out we’ll make a time -’

  ‘We made tin canoes out of corrugated iron. Filled all the holes with pitch and sawed paddles out of six by one.’

  ‘I’ll bring my tape-recorder.’

  ‘We launched them at the back of Rex’s place and paddled all the way down Loomis Creek to the sea. You’re from Helensville, you know about mangroves. The tide was coming in and the wind was blowing. We ran into waves and we got swamped. He was in front, I saw him go down, then I went down. We had to swim. That was the first time he sank in a boat.’

  ‘Jack – ’

  ‘I suppose he thought about it out off Tiri that night.’

  ‘How can anyone know?’

  ‘Harry and I were overseas. I didn’t know he was dead until Jill wrote to us in Athens.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I would have written –’

  ‘Tell me about it, John. I went back through the papers but there wasn’t much.’

  ‘It’s in the book. It’s in the memoir.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ And quite well done: his passion for fishing, his love of being alone out on the sea; and the fishing lines, the tub of bait, the torn shorts, the old green and black Loomis football jersey. The clinker-built dinghy and the antique motor. But why did he go as far as Wenderholm when usually he started from one of the East Coast bays? And what about the easterly, the rain and heavy swell; and the time of day? How could an experienced boatie like Rex get halfway to the Barrier, in bad weather, in the dark, and then have his motor run out of fuel? Why don’t you ask those questions, John? Instead of going on about the tragedy?

  ‘Have you ever thought Rex wanted to die?’

  ‘No. Absurd.’

  ‘He didn’t have a life jacket. He didn’t have any oars.’

  ‘Rex was careless, you know that.’

  ‘He wasn’t careless on the sea.’

  ‘And over-confident. He went for those long swims. He probably thought he could swim ashore. I never met anyone less suicidal.’

  ‘John – ’

  ‘Anyway, the coroner went into that. I’ve got the report. He wasn’t very pleased with Rex – but it was carelessness. I suppose living with Margot would make one like that. And I must say, Jack -’

  ‘For God’s sake, you can’t blame Margot.’

  ‘- I’m surprised to hear you, his supposed best friend -’

  There’s a roaring in Jack’s ears. He’ll strike at the Elf for that ‘supposed’. He’ll strike for Margot too, if he can reach out fast enough.

  ‘Hey, hey! Nurse! Good God!’

  A sloth-blow. The Elf should have been away and halfway up the wall instead of being anchored in his chair, holding his shoulder in that disbelieving way.

  ‘That hurt.’

  ‘I meant it to. I’m tired of people getting at Margot. She’s worth a dozen of Alice any day.’

  ‘I’ve a good mind … you could …’

  ‘She’s probably got a stack of manuscripts, John. And you’ll never get your hands on them.’

  He sees that the Elf knows and is unshaped by
it: grotesquely swollen on one side and withered on the other. He’s hurt far more badly than by an inept punch. Jack should have seen it earlier and not let dislike and jealousy carry him away.

  The Elf moves his left arm. He moves his legs and feet. He’s like an insect on the pavement, trying to cross spaces too huge to comprehend. Jack wants to comfort him. Console him. Repair him.

  ‘I’m sorry, John. It’s just that people getting at Margot -’

  ‘I know she must have manuscripts. If you’ve got any influence-’

  ‘I haven’t. I haven’t seen her since Rex died. I’m sorry I hit you.’

  ‘I’ll have a bruise. Did you try to hit me on the jaw?’

  ‘Yes. Rex always aimed for the jaw.’

  ‘It’s not funny. I could charge you.’

  ‘Please don’t. I’m sick in hospital.’

  ‘I’m going.’

  ‘John.’ Stops him at the bed-end. ‘I will help. We’ll make a date as soon as I’m out. I’ve got lots of stuff.’

  ‘I think you should. It’s up to all of us – all of his friends … We’ve got to see that Rex is properly’ almost says ‘done’, but manages, with a stutter, ‘appreciated.’

  ‘I agree. Massage it, John. Get someone to rub liniment on.’ Does he still have a wife? ‘Thanks for coming. Good luck with your work.’

  ‘I never knew hospital visiting was so dangerous.’ The Elf gets out of the room with a joke. Jack is happy that he manages it. He is still unhappy with himself. Punches at sixty! And no answer to his question. The question bungled thoroughly in fact.

  There are not many people he can turn to now.

  Has weakness, medication, the knife (the electric current), pulled him so much closer to the surface of his feelings that he strikes at a man he does not like? What will happen (what happens) when a woman he likes, for whom in fact he has a guilty love, pays a visit?

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she says, ‘that it’s proper to call on a man in your condition.’

  He takes her hand. Tears start in his eyes. He hopes they remain invisible. ‘Fiona. How marvellous.’ The long vowel threatens to get away.

  ‘You don’t look sick.’

  ‘It’s not really a sickness -’

  ‘You look like a little boy wagging it from school. Can I kiss you?’ On the forehead. Sisterly.

  ‘Who told you I was here?’

  ‘John Dobbie came steaming in to see Mum. I’m staying there for a couple of nights. What’s this about Dad killing himself?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about that. How are you, Fiona?’

  She turns her head, turns back. He wonders about tears in her eyes – a tear-flash? She says brightly, ‘That sounds like more than just a polite enquiry.’

  ‘It is. You’re my might-have-been. Everybody needs one of those.’ This is what weakness brings: sentimentality. Fiona is only a little pleased. She takes her hand away and rummages in her bag.

  ‘I brought you something. Yoghurt. It’s only from the dairy across the road.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s still cold. Eat it now. Have you got a spoon?’ She goes away, finds the kitchen, comes back with a teaspoon. ‘You’ve got John Dobbie very upset.’

  ‘What about Alice?’

  ‘She’s interested. She’s not quite sure how it affects her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘As first wife. How it affects her standing. I think she’ll probably come down against it.’

  He finds this repugnant. The yoghurt, too, is not to his taste. Although there are lumps of peach the sweetness is synthetic. He puts it aside. Fiona, with her tanned face and large eyes, seems both tough and vulnerable.

  ‘Don’t you want it? I’ll finish it.’

  He would have wiped the spoon, even with a woman he loved. But there’s something over-emphatic, perhaps a little frantic, in the way she digs every last bit from the carton.

  ‘What’s wrong, Fiona?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong.’ She holds it over the basket and drops it like a bomb. ‘Bull’s-eye.’ Over-bright. ‘I think you’re wrong about Dad. I know he was supposed to be good in boats, and what he did was so bloody stupid. But I don’t know, maybe he got drunk.’

  ‘Booze was never a problem with Rex.’

  ‘Maybe he had a fight then, with what’s-her-name. And forgot all his boat-drill or something.’

  ‘Maybe. Can’t you say her name?’

  ‘Oh, I forget. Margot, is that it?’

  ‘Did you ever meet her?’

  ‘I never got the opportunity. Or had the desire.’

  ‘You would have liked her.’ But that is more sentimentality. Fiona brushes it away.

  ‘I know poets are always killing themselves. It’s an occupational hazard, isn’t that right? But Dad – he was far too tough, you know that.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.’

  ‘I’m not upset. If he did I want to know. In the cause of truth.’ Sarcastically. ‘Though I’m not sure I want it written down in that little man’s book. Have you talked to the Loomis lot? What do they think?’

  He tells her about his visit to Lila and it seems more than ever to him that something has been hidden. But he’s disturbed too by Fiona’s phrase, ‘the Loomis lot’. It hurts him to think of her locked away from them on the wrong side of Auckland. ‘Rex used to take you out there now and then.’

  ‘Oh, a few times. Lila’s birthday. I never even got to call her grandma. You were there. Sliding in the mud.’

  ‘At Moa Park.’

  ‘Hundreds of them. Enough to start a colony on Mars. And all their names. Tweetie-weetie. Toddy-woddie.’

  ‘They never said that.’

  ‘It seemed like it. You’ve no idea how I envied them. At home we all rattled round – peas in a can – but they were squashed up close, like strawberries.’ She frees herself with cleverness. ‘Anyway Jack, I think you’re wrong. I just think they can’t stand death if it comes too soon. Dad was only fifty-eight. And somehow they’d lost him sooner than that. He died before they could get him back.’

  He’s startled by the insight, and wants to know how she arrived at it. But suddenly she’s had enough of Rex. ‘We’re going to have him breakfast, lunch and tea for years now, with this stupid book.’

  ‘Are you going to help?’

  ‘I suppose so. I suppose I’ve got to. I’ve even said I’ll try to get the other two to help. Mum’s got so much invested in it. It’s her book really, she’ll just about write it. The first one was Dobbie’s ego trip.’

  ‘Is that why you’re staying at her place?’ He knows she wants to talk about it. There had been a pause at the start – a coin upon the ground that he might pick up if he cared. Now she decides to be evasive.

  ‘How do you like retirement, Jack? What do you do with all your time?’

  ‘I work in the garden. I grow broad beans.’

  ‘Is that going to keep you occupied for the rest of your life?’

  ‘I go for walks. I drive down to Takapuna beach and walk along it and walk back. Long Bay too. Long Bay’s longer. When I’m out of here I might walk North Cape to the Bluff.’

  ‘While Harry works?’

  ‘Harry might come. She’s nearly finished her book.’

  This time it’s more than a tear-flash. She makes no attempt to conceal it. He’s tired now – five minutes, a change of direction, can tire him – but he knows the duty laid on him. Is she grieving, or despairing, or just sad? He keeps a pack of Snowtex by his pillow; pulls one out, offers it. She slashes at each eye. It seems a way of saying that she has no value.

  ‘Harry makes sense. I’d give anything to be like her.’

  ‘You make sense. Your work’s just as important.’

  ‘How does she stay so – all together?’

  ‘She’s not. You’d be surprised.’ He does not want to talk about Harry. ‘What’s wrong, Fiona?’

  ‘Remember at Mum’s barbecue? How I caught him wa
tching us?’

  ‘Your husband? I wouldn’t say caught.’ He feels a little stab of pain – alarm – in the place by his pubic bone.

  ‘I never knew until then I could make him jealous.’

  Is that what she is doing now, coming to visit? ‘Fiona -’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing to do with you.’

  He is relieved to be dismissed – although he doesn’t like it. But she is close to giving up confession and going away. He sees her flash of anger, no more tears.

  ‘Sorry, I’m a bit confused. Marriages are hard to understand.’

  ‘Mine isn’t. Mine is simple.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I found out I don’t like him.’

  ‘Nonsense, Fiona.’

  ‘For God’s sake.’ She stands up. ‘Is that all you can say?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I might as well have stayed at home with Mum.’

  ‘Sit down. I’m not used to people telling me things. Come on. Sit down.’ She obeys. ‘Now, what happened?’

  ‘No fights. No kitchen knives, none of that. I was just so sure of him, that’s all. And when I found out he was jealous I started looking at him again. I saw all sorts of things I didn’t know. Like, I saw he was cheating. Not just with women – although he’s doing that. I mean in conversation. Pretending to care. Pretending to care about me. He’s jealous just because I’m his, that’s all. He doesn’t really want me except as part of his territory. And the children the same. All it is is “my kids”. He doesn’t even like them.’

  Jack wants to say she imagines it. But she leans forward as though she’s now about to say the worst thing. ‘Jack, he doesn’t care about his work. He’s just been saying all that too. Pretending to be pretending he knows what people are. But what we are – me, the kids, his job, we’re a kind of fuel he pumps into himself to keep on running.’

  Stories, he thinks. Everybody has one. Marriages: each one the same, and different. ‘He must like the children. I can’t believe he doesn’t.’

  ‘Do you think I’m saying this for fun? Jack, it was like unzipping him, a zip fastener right down his middle – you saw how pink and fat he was, and pleased with himself, and everything – and out stepped this, I don’t know, black little dwarf.’