From Under the Overcoat

by Sue Orr

  One Saturday morning she was all ready to lay it out in the open with him. It was a nice day, he was in an okay mood. Until he walked up the track to the main road, to collect the mail from the letterbox. Ronnie heard him coming back, heard Fucking wanker and branches being snapped off the trees. Then he stomped around the last bend before the house, chin shunting the air. The words sliced through the calm. We’re getting chucked out.

  The eviction letter went on about the tiles falling off the roof, faulty wiring, floorboards rotting and collapsing underfoot. Too expensive to repair, no longer insurable as a rental. Unliveable, condemned.

  Finding somewhere else to live, moving their stuff out and organising the party, with the big surprise at the end of the night. With all that shit going on, and her sneaking off to throw up every half hour, when was she supposed to bring it up?

  NOTCH’S VALIANT IS RIGHT by the house. He’s hooked speakers up to his car stereo and put them on the roof of the car. There’s no electricity any more — no nothing now, all their gear is gone. Everyone’s outside, hanging out round the keg on the tree stump, drinking beer out of plastic jugs. The girls are starting to dance, picking up the lazy reggae beat.

  Redemption Song’s booming, keeping time with the heat headache smashing at Ronnie’s temples. She moves closer to the tree trunk, to where the shade is best. She never wanted a party. It was hard enough just getting through the day and what was the point? It wasn’t as though they were leaving town. That was the trouble with Tokoroa. Parties just sort of germinated. One casual comment about a couple of beers on a Saturday afternoon became A few beers at Pete’s became A party at Pete’s became Pete’s massive eviction party.

  Pete’s easy to spot across the way, taller than everyone else. He’s wandering round, topping up beer jugs from his own. Ronnie watches him, doing the bro handshake: fist to fist, elbow to elbow. He’s the man. People are drawn to him like ants to a jam jar. He’s got mana; though he’s Pakeha, so it’s not mana but whatever the equivalent is. Funny to watch it from here, from a distance. Like watching a wildlife programme. Ronnie half expects that Pommie guy, what’s his name, Attenborough, to start whispering in her ear, the way he does on TV. And here we have the Tokoroa Species …

  She giggles. It’s the weed.

  Pete’s looking around. Ronnie slides her body down the tree trunk, sits back against it so he can’t see her.

  Behind the house, further across the paddocks, the mill looms like a massive painted backdrop on a stage, sits over everyone, everything. Ronnie’s never rested in this spot before, never looked at the house from this angle. The sun low behind the mill stacks, big orange burning through the thick dark smoke. She can’t stop staring; not just at it — at the whole picture. The mill, their house, their little puppet friends at the front of the stage.

  She’s seen people do what she’s doing. Pull over to the side of the highway, stand and stare at the mill. Hold their noses, fan their faces with their hands before jumping in their cars and driving off to somewhere pleasant. They’re strangers passing through, distracted for just a moment by the size of the mill, by the way it seems to have sprouted like a giant mushroom out of green farmland.

  Six-thirty. Still no wind, not a breath.

  Dust along the track. Ronnie stays where she is, against the tree. Crosses her fingers that it’ll be someone she doesn’t know. Just a few more minutes on her own is what she wants. But it’s Sandy and her boyfriend, Jack, the new vet. Jack’s ute slows and pulls in next to Ronnie.

  ‘Hello Ronald,’ he grins up at her, all gums, delighted at his own humour. He blinks at her through his round, rimless glasses. On the back of the ute, barking, tails wagging, two dogs with lampshade things around their necks. Jack’s patients, though who knows why he’s brought them to the party.

  ‘Jack. Hiya Sandy.’ Ronnie bends down to see who else is in the ute. Sandy’s brother Liam is in the back and a woman Ronnie doesn’t know.

  ‘How ya going, Ron?’ Sandy’s round the front of the ute, giving Ronnie a hug.

  Ronnie holds back, fearful the angry thing in her womb will somehow kick out at Sandy, alert her to its plight. Help me. Child abuse. Get me outta here. ‘Yeah, good. Just grabbing some music out of the car.’

  ‘This is Lucy,’ says Sandy, touching the stranger on the arm. ‘She’s just moved here. A reporter at the paper.’

  ‘Hi,’ says Ronnie. She’d make an effort to be more welcoming, she really would, but this happens all the time. New people arrive in town, professionals, all bright-eyed, keen to Get to know the locals. After six months they’ve had a better offer somewhere else, moved on. Besides, look at Lucy. Make-up, expensive haircut all bouffed up at the back to make it look like she’s just crawled out of bed. Come-fuckme stilettos which are going to make great viewing when she tries to cross the paddock.

  Lucy steps forward, holds out her hand to Ronnie. Pale, smooth, nice skin. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she says. ‘Hope you don’t mind a gatecrasher?’

  Golden retriever, Ronnie thinks; blonde and glossy and keen to sniff local butt.

  ‘Lucy, did you say it was?’ asks Ronnie, grinning at Sandy. Sandy’s dog, a big, goofy Lab is called Lucy. Jack treated it a while back — that’s how he and Sandy met.

  Sandy smiles. ‘Yes. Newshound, aren’t you, Lucy. After the big scoop,’ she says.

  ‘Woof woof,’ says Ronnie.

  Sandy gives Ronnie the go-easy-on-her look.

  ‘Oh, you know. Not really,’ says Lucy, not getting the joke.

  Lucy’s got a sweet grin, Ronnie thinks. The guys will love her.

  ‘Can’t be easy, reporting in a small place like Tok,’ Ronnie says. ‘Nothing happens here.’

  ‘There are stories everywhere,’ says Lucy, tossing her hair sympathetically in the direction of the township.

  ‘Gossip, you mean? That’s all that paper prints. Gossip and ads.’

  ‘Journalists call it human interest. People love that stuff.’

  ‘Sure,’ says Ronnie evenly. Her gut churns. She breathes through her mouth. How can they? How can they all stand here, chatting, and not be suffocating in the stench?

  ‘Is it true, what Liam said? This is an eviction party?’ Lucy asks. She’s looking over at the house. With the scrappy old curtains gone, you can see right through it, in one window and out the other. Ronnie follows her gaze. The Port-a-Loo they hired from town for the night looks posh compared to the house. She guesses what Lucy’s thinking: how funny that they had to be evicted.

  ‘It’s just, you know, I’ve never been to an eviction party before!’ says Lucy.

  ‘Really.’

  Lucy nods enthusiastically. ‘Any special plans?’

  ‘Special plans?’ Ronnie is so tired. Of the party, already, and of Lucy in particular.

  ‘Oh God, listen to me!’ Lucy singsongs. ‘Ignore me. All questions, that’s me.’

  Ronnie laughs because she has to. She has to either laugh, or tell Lucy to piss off.

  ‘Getting back to your first one, Lucy. We don’t mind gatecrashers. Not at all. As long as they leave their notebooks and tape recorders at home.’

  Silence.

  ‘Anyway, Lucy. I’ve got a question for you. What do you think of the smell?’ Ronnie asks. She nods towards the mill but Lucy’s not looking at her, none of them are. They’re all eyes on the party.

  ‘The weed, you mean? Don’t worry. I won’t be making headlines.’ Lucy laughs.

  ‘I meant the mill. The smell from the mill.’

  ‘Don’t even notice it. Used to it already,’ says Lucy. She teeters off, arm in arm with Liam, across the paddock.

  RONNIE WAS WORKING THE day shift at the truck stop at the north end of town. It was her summer job, before she started university in Auckland. She was seventeen.

  The third time he came in, he asked her name.

  ‘Ronnie,’ she replied.

  He reached across and shook her hand. ‘I’m Peter. Ronnie … is that short for somethi
ng?’

  ‘Veronica,’ she said, blushing.

  ‘It’s just different. Ronnie. For a woman, you know.’

  She liked how he said a woman, not a girl or a chick. She liked how the word somehow became more sexy because it wasn’t actually sexy at all. She’d never seen him before. It was hard to tell how old he was — his hair was shiny jet-black but his face and big hands were leathery, weathered. Nice eyes, dark brown. Twenty-something, she guessed.

  She cooked his burger and fries, and brought them to his table. He put the paper napkin across his lap and ate the food with a knife and fork: slowly, delicately.

  Ronnie stared.

  After a bit he put his cutlery down and looked up at her. ‘Is anything the matter?’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, blushing. ‘You’re using … a knife and fork.’

  ‘So sorry. I’ll tear it apart with my teeth.’

  ‘No, no …’ She rolled her eyes, her face burning. ‘It’s just unusual … for a burger and chips. Takeaways, more or less.’

  ‘I never took it away.’

  ‘No. God. Sorry …’

  ‘So it’s okay with you, Veronica? If I eat my dinner with a knife and fork?’ He was smiling now, teasing her.

  ‘Well, you know … big brave breath … my mother would love you.’

  ‘You can hold your head high in any company, if you know how to manage yourself at the dinner table. My gran told me that.’ He ate another mouthful. ‘So what’s she look like?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your mother who would love me.’

  ‘A sore thumb. She sticks out like one, around here.’ Ronnie blushed again, at her own wit.

  Peter kept eating, slicing thin wedges of meat patty. He laid down his knife and fork, sat back, put his hands behind his head. Smiled at Ronnie. Ronnie melted.

  ‘She’s up herself, my mother,’ Ronnie offered. ‘She can’t be like everyone else. She won’t even try.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Oh, you know. She’s got this accent like the Queen and she doesn’t care. She starts talking and you can see people laughing at her, pulling faces and that. She just keeps going.’

  ‘Well, she can’t help it. None of us can help the way we were brought up, can we?’

  Ronnie shrugged. ‘I suppose … it’s embarrassing though.’

  ‘Only if you let it be. Your friends should have more respect.’

  ‘For my mother?’

  ‘For you.’ Peter smiled at her and finished his meal.

  The next time he pulled up outside the café, Ronnie reached for her handbag under the counter. She took out the cream linen napkin and the ornate silver cutlery — soup spoon, knife, fork, dessert spoon, dessert fork, teaspoon and the matching napkin holder — and hurried to his usual table. By the time he came through the doorway she was back at the till.

  He stood before the set table, arms folded. Ronnie held her breath, her heart thumped in her throat. His smile, when it came, made the skin on the back of her neck tingle.

  ‘Nice,’ he said, nodding slowly. ‘Very nice. Did you steal them from your mother?’

  ‘Sallies,’ Ronnie replied. ‘There was one of everything on the sale table outside. I was just walking past, that’s all. Saw the table setting, thought of you.’

  ‘Nice,’ Peter said it again, still smiling, but this time at her.

  He was just about finished his meal. Her heart was thumping. Ask now. Do it now.

  ‘Do you live in town?’ she said.

  He chewed and swallowed. Figures, she thought. No talking with your mouth full.

  ‘Just south, straight opposite the mill turnoff. Basic little place, but cheap. And quiet. I like being out of the way. Call in sometime. Come and have a look.’

  THREE DAYS SEEMED ABOUT right, she thought. Not too soon, but not so long he’d think she wasn’t interested. She drove past the gate a few times, just checking where it was. On the third evening, she turned off the highway, her heart thumping, and drove down the metal track.

  He was outside chopping wood. He blinked, his face frowning. He doesn’t recognise me. Ronnie panicked, her face bright red as she turned the engine off. Then he smiled and waved.

  They drank beer on the back steps. Sat there for hours, felt like it anyway. Ronnie couldn’t believe they’d met, properly, only a couple of days earlier. She felt like she’d known him all her life.

  He told her how his mother had tried to bring him up on her own, but couldn’t cope. She’d gone to Australia and left him with his grandmother. Ronnie said she was sorry to hear about it. Pete shrugged and said it was all okay.

  She told Pete she’d been thinking about going to university, but wasn’t sure about it now. Though she didn’t say the now.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked. She leaned back against the doorway, stretched her legs out in front of her.

  Pete shrugged. ‘You should do what you want to do.’

  ‘But what’s your opinion?’

  ‘I don’t have one.’

  ‘Well, what would you do?’

  Pete laughed, sat back against the doorframe with his arms folded. ‘You really want to know? If someone was offering me a free ride out of here? A chance at something big? I’d be gone.’

  Ronnie swallowed. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Though she still wanted to go to Auckland, it’d be nice to come back in the weekends and know he was around. She wriggled her toes, bent forward and picked fraying rubber off the edge of her jandals.

  ‘I get pissed off when people bag this place,’ she said. ‘Don’t you?’

  Pete shrugged. ‘Don’t care, really.’

  ‘That’s what’s made me think twice about leaving. You know. It’s as though everyone assumes you want to leave. It makes me feel like staying.’

  None of this was true. Pete was the reason Ronnie wanted to stay. But she liked the way it all sounded, when she said it.

  ‘It’s never happened to me,’ Pete went on. ‘No one ever said Oh Pete, let me pay for you to go to university. So here I am. Don’t ever ask others to take responsibility for your happiness, Ronnie.’

  He put down his beer and kissed her. Then he took her hand and led her inside. In the dim light, he undressed her and they made love on a mattress on the floor.

  Some nights she stayed there. He never asked her to move in, but after a while most of her stuff ended up at his place. Halfway through that summer she turned eighteen.

  I can do what I like, she said to her parents, dragging her suitcase out the door.

  RONNIE HOLDS AN EMPTY jug under the tap on the keg, watches the beer flow. She turns it off when the jug’s a third full. Enough to make it look like she’s been drinking. The light’s fading, she can empty the jug bit by bit on the grass, no one will see.

  It’s amazing. An hour ago all she could think about was her next joint. Now she wants this baby. She wants it to be big and pink and healthy. Funny how it’s turning into a night for knowing new things. She feels it then, it touches the back of her neck like warm breath. You couldn’t call it a breeze, not yet, but it’s coming. She’ll be alright soon. Just knowing that the wind is on its way is enough.

  Pete’s talking to Jack and Sandy and Liam and Lucy. He catches her eye, winks at her. ‘You met Lucy?’ he calls out, beckoning her over.

  Pete’s telling them about a pig dog he used to have, when he was a hunter, years ago. Ronnie never knew he’d been a hunter. Then again, she’s never asked him what he did, before he worked in the bush. She’d assumed he’d always done that.

  ‘This dog,’ says Pete, ‘would take on any pig in the bush. It was tough as. But at night, when I went outside, I’d find the cat curled up asleep between the dog’s front legs.’

  Lucy’s gazing up at Pete, like he’s some sort of god, and Jack’s cracking up. Just the sort of story Jack would like. Sandy’s told Ronnie already how Jack can’t actually bring himself to do the dirty side of vet business, put animals down. Which is why he never
actually finished vet school.

  None of that matters, thinks Ronnie. She’s having a baby. They are, her and Pete. And look at him. Look at Pete — this man who makes everyone feel comfortable, talks to people as though he’s known them his whole life. Ronnie can’t wait. Not long now, ’til she can touch him on the arm, pull him quietly away from the crowd and tell him.

  IT’S DARK. THE PARTY’S in full swing. Everyone’s dancing and singing. Everyone’s out of it. Ronnie drifts around, dips in to conversations, then she’s off again. Mosquitoes buzz thirsty over skin. There’s a fire burning in a rusty old drum, the last of their wood from winter. It’s the only light and even though the night is hot, people close in around it. Giant bush moths, big as bats, dart towards the flames.

  Ronnie turns her face to the hill, looks up at the skyline. She can just make out the black silhouette of the tree tops against the sky. No chance of hearing the wind, not tonight, but it’s there. She closes her eyes and breathes in deeply.

  She turns around to the mill. It’s beautiful at night; a black monument studded with tiny moving lights. She imagines glow worms. The smoke plumes look as though they’ve been painted onto the sky but Ronnie knows they’re shifting, blowing away towards the west.

  Bob Marley’s singing about playing in the government yard in Trenchtown. Notch bearhugs her from behind. ‘You just got here? I was looking for you before. Where you been, cuz?’

  ‘Over at the car, getting some more tapes. Everyone’s sick of yours.’

  ‘You cannot be saying that, girl. You cannot be tired of Marley. Ever.’

  Ronnie would like very much to say how tired she is, but for the moment she enjoys the closeness of Notch. He’s her uncle, not her cousin, but there are only a couple of years between them. The family’s two black sheep — the ones who denied their potential and stayed in Tokoroa. Notch has always been around; skinny Notch with his limp and his cute dimple in his chin and his wicked quick wit.

  ‘You okay?’ He’s looking at her now, his hand under her chin, forcing her to eyeball him.

  ‘I’m okay. Knackered, though. From the packing up and shifting and that.’

  Notch’s mate Clem is rolling a joint on his knee, his leg propped up on the keg stump. Ronnie starts to move away, then she stops. She makes herself watch him. Watch as he sparks the joint alive, a red glow flaring on the first toke. He hands it to her.