by Fiona Kidman
Take Margie for instance. The whole town takes care of Margie. Which means that the caf takes care of her too, the way it did in the old days. That’s one the Riddles hadn’t bargained for.
And there is Reuben who will follow Della in any minute to do the day shift with her. He’s her nephew. No, the Riddles hadn’t bargained on her picking her own staff and looking after her relatives as well. Not that you could really argue about Reuben. He’s a smart one who went away to university for a while. He came back on account of his mother being sick, and the old man is dead and there are kids. There are some Pakeha who say in the pub that he didn’t do any good at the university, but then the whites here get very screwed up about kids doing well or failing, even though most of them have lived modest lives. They say it is the system, that their kids get a raw deal. Not that it interests Clarrie much. But it’s interesting to hear about young Reuben Royal from anybody but his auntie because nobody says anything against Reuben when she’s around. The silly part being that he has nothing bad to say about him. In general, it is just that he feels an outsider, will go on being one for a long time. Nothing new in that. Ah hell, Clarrie, once an outsider always an outsider. But yet they don’t know what to do with him, goddam them if they do, not since Margie latched on to him. Nope, it is a queer old set-up.
And while he’s standing here watching the ravenous girl attack the second lot of chips, Della’s fussing round, making sure everything’s in its place.
‘I’ll clean the vats out in a minute,’ Clarrie calls to her, still lingering.
‘Everything all right Margie?’ asks Della.
‘I think so,’ sighs Margie.
‘You can go now.’
‘But Clarrie’s not finished.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Della, ‘Reuben’ll be here to take his place soon. Now off you go.’
‘But I don’t want to go without him.’
Della looks at her again, senses sharpening. ‘No, but I think you should go all the same. What’s happening?’
‘I dunno, Della,’ mumbles Margie. ‘Girl come in off the trucks — dunno whether they like each other or not, they been acting real strange to each other. First look, I coulda sworn they hated each other, but now I dunno any more.’
They’re in the corner, and it is hard to tell what the man and the woman are saying to each other for the jukebox is still playing.
‘What’s your name?’ the hitchhiker says to the watching man, as she delicately licks the salt out of the paper with the tip of her tongue. ‘Clarrie did I hear them say?’
‘Yep.’
‘Clarrie who?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘Nothing in particular. I don’t care if you don’t tell me.’
‘Schultz. Clarrie Schultz.’
She expels a long breath. ‘German eh. So that’s why you’ve suffered.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Takes one to know one.’
‘You’re German?’
‘Eh? Oh no.’
‘Then what? What d’you mean?’ He starts casting for an escape route.
‘A sufferer. The tortured. Mmm … there’s a couple I didn’t see — look, they were between the top and bottom papers, pass the tomato sauce.’
Clarrie wants to run away. Every fibre of him is telling him to get the hell out of it, if necessary to run out the door. He feels himself being drawn down into a vortex. ‘What would you know?’ he says hoarsely.
‘It’s the difference you know. Being different, you always want to hit out.’
‘What would you know?’ Clarrie repeats.
‘My father would have hated you.’ The tiny greedy tongue flicks at the last morsels of food.
‘So that makes me different. Your father’s probably a prick.’
‘R.S.A. Yours’d never get in. Right?’
‘Who said he’d want to?’
‘Not wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Where were you in the war?’
‘Here. I mean — in New Zealand.’
‘That explains it.’
‘You think. You think you know a lot, don’t you?’
‘I’ll bet they were cruel to you,’ she says, and again there is that strange calm indifferent voice that’s impossible to read. It invites no comment. But Clarrie is due to explode. That is, it is still quiet, so that no one but the girl can hear him, but it comes up out of him like some nameless terrible thing.
‘To my mother.’
‘Ah yes, of course. I can see that.’
‘She cried — God how she cried. When she went to the shops you see. No she didn’t cry at the shops … but afterwards.’ He turns away from her, appalled. ‘Forget it,’ he mutters.
‘You haven’t.’
‘Then I don’t need you to remind me.’
‘And you still haven’t got even with them, have you?’
‘What make you think I tried?’
Three minutes. She was trying to poke a whole lifetime into those three minutes. Only they’d passed. They are into new time now. Time he hasn’t reckoned for. As if the whole world was going to stop three minutes ago, just to let Clarrie Schultz off. Only it hasn’t. It is still going on and taking him with it. A car on the road outside swerves to avoid an oncoming Kenworth. Perhaps he will be saved by a disaster, by death, by people strewn out across the road with their skulls split open. But the car rights itself, slows, moves on at a more cautious pace. Perhaps that is the answer, a better pace.
‘There were eighty-nine dead possums on the road from Taupo,’ says the girl, as if she too is tiring of the pace.
‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘He thought I was,’ she corrects him. ‘You’ve been inside,’ she adds as an afterthought, and also a statement, so that he knows that she hasn’t lost the thread of the conversation at all, but is actually pacing him.
‘Like you said,’ he retorts sharply, ‘it takes one to know one.’
‘I haven’t been in prison.’
‘Well bully for you. It’s my business.’
‘You can have skin grafts for tattoos like that.’
Silly bitch. As if he doesn’t know. ‘Maybe I want to keep them.’
‘Right. Of course you do. You haven’t finished getting even.’
‘I’d better be getting along,’ he says wearily.
‘Why?’
‘It’s going to be a big day. With the truckies, you know. There’s tomatoes to slice and potatoes to peel.’ It is a lie, it is Reuben and Della who will be doing that for the rest of the day. But it seems good enough.
‘Yes, I suppose they have to be fed. Bastards.’
‘Did he touch you?’ Clarrie realises suddenly that he wants to know very badly. ‘Joe?’
‘Not likely. Why d’you think I dropped off?’
‘Because he would have?’ There is no answer. He sees there are no answers. ‘Do they often?’ he asks.
‘Only when I let them,’ she answers fiercely.
‘Do they hurt you?’ You can hear his voice like a ripple in the desert tussock.
‘Sometimes,’ she says.
‘Why d’you let them?’ Oh, that she would tell him, the answers to all he has ever wanted to know about pain and cruelty, about those things which are done which ought not to be done. But she is flippant again, there’s no way of knowing which way she will turn.
‘What’s a nice girl like me,’ she says, turning it aside.
He says, ‘Yeah, well, I gotta clean the vats. They’re very fussy here you know. The bosses never sleep. Everything has to be cleaned out every day.’ This bit at least is true, for it is one of the rules of the place that the vats are cleaned and the fat changed regularly. There is nothing like the smell of old cooking fat, you can guarantee that all but the most hardened caf eaters will pick it up and pass right on the next time. It is a sickening decaying smell like dead animals, and that description is not too far from the truth. When the Jews were burned there was said to be the smell of fat in t
he air. He cowers.
‘Which side were you on?’ she says dreamily.
‘You never know when they might drive up,’ he says in a fever of energy. ‘They just drive up and pull in off the road. Own a chain, the Riddles do. Any time, They just drive up.’
‘What did you do to hurt them back?’
‘Who? The bosses?’
‘No silly. Those people when you were a kid.’
‘Oh … them. There was nothing I could do … nothing.’
‘But you must have done something.’
So he answers her at last in a weary monotone. ‘I — killed birds, and — and small things like that.’
Again she sighs, understanding. ‘Ah yes. I can see that. That would be the thing to do.’
They stay there looking at each other, until another truck pulls in. ‘I’d like some more food,’ she says humbly. ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’
‘Sure …’ and he gropes for a name he doesn’t know but feels he should have known before.
‘Aileen,’ she says. ‘Just call me Aileen,’ as if it might be her name and again it might not, but it is such an ordinary run-of-the-mill name, that he has no reason to doubt it, and she raises such candid eyes to his that she probably believes in her name too. Who knows, her name might even be Aileen.
‘I’ll fix it,’ he says and turns away. ‘Morning Della,’ he says, in passing.
‘Nice to be noticed at last.’
‘The sale’s on in Taihape tomorrow. They say it’s going to be a heavy day.’
‘I can see that,’ says Della. ‘Can you stick around till Reuben comes?’
‘Sure,’ says Clarrie easily, swinging into his cheeseburger routine again. ‘Perhaps you could see to the chips Margie.’
‘I told her to go along,’ says Della.
‘I don’t mind, honest I don’t,’ says Margie.
Della minds her staying, but it’s too late to say anything, for there’s another wave upon them and this time it’s the stock agents as well as the truckies, the smoothies who make the play in the big arena, the smart alecks they all call them, and they shout their orders with authority.
‘Come on Clarrie,’ Della shouts impatiently.
And, ‘It’s got quick service on the notice,’ says an agent.
‘Sorry, you’ll have to wait,’ says Clarrie as he starts Aileen’s latest request.
‘Forget that cheeseburger,’ says Della. ‘These gentlemen want service.’
‘I don’t see any gentlemen,’ says Clarrie, going on his own way.
Ham and cheese fly from Della’s hand to Margie’s, the vat hisses as the damp potatoes hit the boiling liquid.
‘Is that ham fresh?’ calls one of the agents.
‘The pig just walked past yesterday,’ says Della, and they laugh, the atmosphere lightens, that’s Della’s way, she knows her customers. ‘A dollar twenty-five, and thirty for the can,’ she bids and it’s all sweetness and light on the face of Della though she reserves a special look of malice for Clarrie.
‘Looks like a tornado’s been through this place,’ she says, pointed and acid.
‘It’s her fault,’ says Margie.
‘Whose fault?’ says Clarrie.
‘That girl’s.’ The feeling between them has dissolved, she feels nothing now for the girl in the corner except a dull growing pain. It’s as near as Margie knows to hate.
‘You’re not getting smart are you Margie? Don’t surprise me.’ Clarrie’s tone is dangerous too.
‘You’re turning nasty though, aren’t you?’ says Della.
Aileen ignores them all. Clarrie goes over to her with his offering and lays it in front of her. She picks it up, and the eating begins again.
‘Have you got a car Clarrie?’
‘I got a ute.’
‘Can we drive away in it?’
‘Eh? Well … yeah … why not?’ And suddenly the road stretches away in front of him. It’s so long since he’s been on it, that he is ready to leave immediately.
‘Are you out of your mind Clarrie Schultz?’ asks Della.
‘Not at all,’ he says, standing proud. ‘I’m due to go off now. There’s nothing holding me.’
‘When this place has been cleaned up a bit,’ she snaps.
‘That’s Reuben’s job. If he ever gets here.’
‘His old lady’s sick this morning. He’s on his way, but he’s stood in for you plenty of times when you’ve slept in, so get to it.’
‘So speaks the great Maori princess. You’re really working for the bosses aren’t you?’
‘And there speaks the flea on the belly of the princess’s dog.’
‘You standing by that?’ asks Clarrie, full of bravado.
‘You started it,’ she says and carries on with what she’s doing.
There is a pause while he considers. He has wanted to impress the girl, but looking at her, he doubts that he has. Her face is still.
‘I guess I’m sorry.’
‘Yes,’ says Della nodding. ‘I expect you are.’ Her eyes travel from Margie to Clarrie and over to Aileen and then over all three of them again. She is troubled though she has not entirely defined the trouble, but she suspects that there will be difficult matters to reconcile before the day is over.
‘I think Reuben’s here now,’ she says. ‘Go on Clarrie, it’s okay.’ As he turns to go with the girl, she adds, ‘Take care eh.’
Clarrie turns back to Margie and says, ‘You get some rest eh? So we’ll work good tonight. Okay?’ And he is gone.
Margie stands over the chip vat, and says hopelessly, ‘You let him go away. Why did you let him go away?’
‘He’s got to have time off like everybody else, Margie,’ says her friend.
‘Will he come back?’
Again, Della looks troubled. But something else is dawning. Hope, perhaps? Della would have difficulty telling you herself. It is the scent of change perhaps and that might not be a bad thing. Reuben arrives, and it has a steadying effect. He knows without explanation that things are wrong, that Margie needs them. Margie has always needed them, will go on needing them, that’s the way it is.
‘I expect he’ll be back,’ says Della. ‘He’s got to work tonight. Now go on, why don’t you go home and get some rest … the way Clarrie said.’
‘Can’t I stay and wait till he gets back?’
‘No.’
Margie knows they won’t let her stay, and so she says simply, ‘I’ll be back tonight then.’
There is a strength in her too. It’s easy to overlook that, but it is awesome when it shows. She marches past them, skirt billowing with the petticoats of twenty years ago, the big hoop earrings swaying slightly, as she draws herself up to her full five feet. Her lipstick is smeared across her face and the thick mascara has slid along a crease beside her eye. But for the moment, her face is implacable. They fear for her.
‘Perhaps we should have kept her here,’ says Della when she’s gone, and she tells Reuben what’s happened in the caf this morning.
He shakes his head. ‘She’ll come back.’
The ute has pulled away from the caf, taking Aileen and Clarrie away. For a while they travel in silence. This then, is the highway towards the Desert Road and they are travelling south together. The sun has moved up into the high griddle of the sky. The day is collecting itself and they are moving with it. Clarrie sees that it is autumn after all, that the colour of the air has a silken shimmering appearance.
And over all, there is the mountain, turning its sharp head to the sky. The Falcon ute is purring. Clarrie remembers that he was young once, and wonders why he had forgotten. It was not so very long ago. The girl is arching her profile, head moving from side to side, lips parted so that again he sees that her teeth are fine and white. Her tongue flicks out filming her top lip with a shine you might call sensual. There is the old ache in the balls and he feels his prick harden. He wonders if he could have her and he remembers her fierce reply to his question in the Roadho
use Caf … ‘Only when I let them.’ Would she let him? Come to that, what did she want of him at all? A lift further down the road? Or to tease him along for a bit of sport? She said she knew about cruelty. Or maybe just to roll him for some dough. Well he’d pay for it if that was what she wanted. It was so long since he’d had it that he’d pay. Not that he couldn’t have had it. Thinking of Margie. He laughs inwardly at himself. He’s never found it easy to get a woman, and now here he is with it laid on and what does he do? Nothing. A man can still afford to be choosy. His amusement must show for Aileen looks sideways at him and asks what he’s thinking.
But he doesn’t tell her. It occurs to him that she mightn’t think it funny, and remembers that first look between Aileen and Margie. The fact is, too, that he would be lying to himself. It was something more than choosiness that had made him turn down Margie. For one thing there was fear. If he’d used her as a warm cave to snug up in, the people around might have damaged him. Nobody used Margie and got away with it. And for another thing, yes, he cared too, looked after her, if you liked to put it that way. That was his protection. He might hurt her simply by his presence, but there was not a thing they could hold at his door, and sending him away would hurt her too. So they were stuck with him.
They haven’t gone far, not more than two or three miles down the road and she says to stop. ‘Why?’ he says, pulling over to the side of the road, even as he asks her. Her eyes are shining, she flares around the nostrils a little, flicking her tongue up to her silvery snotty nose. He is repelled yet fascinated.
‘Look,’ she breathes.
He looks and can see nothing special. She is halfway out of the ute. The side of the road stretches away into a depression in the ground, and some way in, there are low manuka trees and rough cover. There’s been a fence but it’s fallen away. Only some strands of wire are slung low to the ground hanging from lurching posts covered in rust-coloured moss. Close by them there are clumps of thick coarse plants covered in purple flowers. It is these that have attracted her attention.