She gave the duvet a quick tug. ‘After today I feel I ought to give them a chance. Hear the evidence or whatever. Find out. Does that make sense?’
He anchored his half. ‘Yes.’
‘It’s nothing to do with you being so ace or anything. But after today …’ She moved beside him.
‘It’s over, gone. I promise.’
‘It wasn’t Murray’s fault,’ she said as cramp seized his thigh.
He shot out of bed, his face manic as he pumped up down, up down till the pain faded. ‘Then whose was it?’ he gasped, watching her face as he crawled back beside her. ‘Miss Bowman’ll haunt you if you start that crap. We’re not going to take on that boyo’s guilt. It doesn’t exist for starters.’
She ran a finger down his nose. ‘You tell me things I need to know.’
‘Balls.’
‘Well, something.’
‘OK. Something.’
His eyes were closed when she spoke again.
‘There’s no safe place now, is there?’
‘There never was.’
‘But you tend to think, when you were a kid
She lay on her back beside him, her eyes open, her arms stiff, obviously, rigidly un-asleep.
‘Are you awake?’
‘Nh.’
‘Me too.’ The pause was long. ‘Tell me the history of the world.’
He dredged himself upwards, did what he could. ‘First there was the Big Bang or God or both.’
‘Then.’
He could hardly get the words around the yawn. ‘Science or people?’
‘People.’
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the history of homo sapiens as we know it … The consensus of opinion on the origins of man holds that … He was drowning in sleep, sinking, groping for lifelines. ‘Africa,’ he murmured.
‘Lucy?’
‘Yeah, Lucy, others. Lots … others.’
Wilfred was blown out of his mind. Like Spiro he collected idiomatic gleanings from other lands. It must be universal. At Rongotai an exchange student from Germany had come smiling to his friend Robin to tell him that he was so far up himself that Helmut was unable to call him cowboy any more.
Wilfred was still shouting down the line. ‘But why not till after Christmas? Why not now?’
‘I can’t leave Dionysus and Emmie’s in a kids’ play.’
‘A pantomime,’ roared the voice. ‘I saw one once. Couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Weird Brit thing. Put her on the line boy. Put her on.’
Emmie took the receiver warily, held it at some distance. ‘Hello, Wilfred.’
‘I’ve worked it out,’ she said later. ‘We’ll be flat out till after Christmas. I’ll just forget the whole thing. Let it sneak up on me like summer.’ He knew what she meant. The warmth which now seemed constant had been skulking and reappearing for weeks.
The refrigerator art had brightened. Images of sun and sand and matchstick heads in pink seas covered the door. The black smudges, Calvin told them, were sharks.
Postbank staff were busy, their faces glum beneath red festive nightcaps trimmed with white. They had not been consulted. Nor did they think nightcaps were the answer. Carol singers busked in green cassocks and work boots before a window decked with artificial snow and angels and Donald Duck seesawing in endless metronomic union with Mickey Mouse. The lights were up in Oriental Bay.
There were other signs of summer. Young women in filmy grey or black habits slashed to the thigh strode down Lambton Quay in boots or sat laughing with lunch and lovers at Oriental Bay as joggers rolled by beneath the Norfolk pines. Thin strappy frocks above T-shirts were long and postulant-like, but according to Emmie things would get better in high summer when the shirts were abandoned whereupon their wearers would be virtually naked above and shrouded below which would be interesting wouldn’t it, and would Rob take Calvin to see Santa and for God’s sake watch him. Haden, she said, had already been.
‘Hold my hand,’ he said giving a quick sideways skip to avoid a skateboard on the crossing.
‘Naa.’
‘No cool yule then.’
Small, boneless and hot, the hand appeared in his. Calvin’s mind followed no obvious thought patterns; he was interesting, a one-off job like his mother but less predictable. Rob grinned at the thought, glanced down at the orange bristle beside him and met the cool gaze beneath.
Emmeline was undoubtedly busy. She scrambled from rehearsals for Manu and the Kelpie to radio plays, from voiceovers to TV commercials for cheese and one next week for toilet cleaner but what the hell, they paid well and anything would be better than those green things dangling from the rim waiting for extinction from one squirt of whatever it was. Any moment soon she hoped to graduate to drench. Drench and dip are prime time—when the farmers are having their tea.
The university was empty, Robin’s marking finished.
The essential quality of poetry is that it makes a new effort of retention and ‘discovers’ a new world within the known world. Discuss this statement of D.H. Lawrence in relation to his own poetry.
As always he had been depressed by the depths and heartened by the peaks and pleased by the dark horses, the late starters, the also-rans who had pulled through against form.
As always he had fought for the deserving in post-examination grading sessions. They had done much better during the year in assignments, look at their records again. He insisted, would not be dissuaded and they passed. One of them who reminded him of Cara, generous in her triumph and unaware of its cause, sent him a card of the kotuku nesting in splendour at Okarito. She was going to have a go at American lit next year. Moby Dick was not mentioned.
His thesis languished as he had known it would. Dionysus Catering had taken over and November had been as busy as Spiro had predicted. ‘Every year they start earlier for Christmas. Soon it will be October we are sweating, then December dead as mutton.’
So his thesis was on hold, on the back burner and possibly down the tubes. It all depended on what happened down south. Emmie was right, he thought, watching Calvin perched on a wide red satin knee in Santa’s Cave between Toys and Children’s Wear. There were too many variables. No point in thinking about it. Not at this stage.
Santa’s boots were impressive, wide Cretan broad-nosed ones inadequately trimmed with cotton wool. The red pyjama suit was slippery, not a good choice, for knee work. Presumably the poor guy would have expired in wool. The beard was more con-vincing, false but not ridiculous, the hat a sumptuous squash of red with a cockade. The face was doing its best, nodding with encourage-ment, smiling incessantly between steel-rimmed specs and silver curls. Calvin, was it? That was an unusual name. Calvin. We don’t get many Calvins do we, he asked a passing elf. And what did Calvin want for Christmas?
Calvin told him in some detail. The list was long and comprehensive and did not include freshwater tropicals. Father Christmas winked at Robin above Calvin’s head. He should not have done that. He should take more pride in his work. If F. Christmas, sweating among tinsel streamers, silver bells, edible Christmas trees and smiling elves, could not sustain a willing suspension of disbelief who the hell could.
Calvin did not like his gift. He already had a ball at home he explained, and attempted an exchange, but Santa had disappeared. He had gone, said the elf, to feed the reindeer. Calvin’s gaze was more cool than ever, his disbelief total.
Robin took Ruby and Calvin to see Manu and the Kelpie. They liked monsters and impersonated them frequently, roaring and shaking and munching air at each other with stiffened fingers. This one, however, was a noble mythical water spirit. An object of awe and reverence not given to drowning travellers, at least not in this play. Nor did it appear in the form of a horse. This kelpie was a long-tailed creature, all shimmering greens and brackish weeds as it writhed and undulated its saving destiny across the stage. There were no shudders of fear or dread from the audience, no frissons of pity or terror. This was an amiable monster, glad to be befriended i
n its struggle against the evil forces of open-cast mining by a Maori boy called Manu and his friend Rosie played by Emmeline in brief shorts and a cap full of hair.
Like some other morality plays Manu and the Kelpie had its jokes, most of which fell flat with good reason. Calvin and Ruby preferred the slam bang of slapstick, the cut and thrust of action drama.
The best bit was the fight at the end when the kids won eh.
Spiro had had an excellent time in Kalives and was glad to be home. The best of all; good to go, good to come back. To be once more with the work and the fish. He had danced, drunk, kissed and fought. A ball he had had, and would have another one quite soon, now he knew Robin would turn up trumps. He had always known Robin could do it. Spiro had extracted this competence, on which Robin could look back in his darker moments which we all have even when we think they will never come again. ‘And I have decided to buy a cellphone,’ he said.
‘But you hate phones.’
‘For talk, I hate them, not for work. The bridegroom is a mechanic in Chania and has a share in a drycleaning business. Two jobs he can run.’
He presented Robin with a reproduction Attic vase depicting a priapic satyr in full cry after his fellows. Emmeline would be interested. Also Calvin. A gift for the whole family.
The Dionysus books were examined with care, menus inspected, new ones discussed. Robin’s heart expanded. It was over—and now for Central Otago. He dragged Calvin from the hypnotic fish, from the driftings and dreamings and sudden decisive dartings, embraced Spiro and headed down the hill.
Andoni had left a note on departure. He had enjoyed his time in Wellington and felt much better for the change. The fish had been fed that morning in case the aircraft crashed. He wished to know all and would ring.
What Emmie was going to do was simply to enjoy the holiday. She couldn’t think when she had last had a holiday—I mean gone on one you know? Packed a bag and shoved off somewhere. And Rob deserved one, not only Dionysus but look how much he’d done during Manu and the Kelpie, and boy, a hand in need is a hand indeed and not only a hand and why didn’t he come over here right this minute.
And one thing she would promise. She would give Wilfred a chance, a fair crack of the whip. She would just sit still and listen, hear the old guy out and then she would make up her mind about the whole thing. Quietly, soberly and in the fear of God Emmeline would consider the evidence, she would not become emotional. Robin need not worry.
The holiday did not begin well. Robin, alarmed at the thought of Calvin in the back seat for two whole days, had insisted they fly and hire a car in Dunedin. Also he had scruples about Emmeline paying her share with Aunt’s money. Truth was one thing—knives in the back of the deceased, as Eileen might have said, were a different thing again.
Emmie went disorganised on him at the last minute; she was still flinging things into the suitcase as the taxi arrived, still grinning maniacally at Calvin as she explained why his new trike couldn’t come but it didn’t matter as they were going to have fun and had anybody cancelled the mail? No—well maybe she better, oh, he had. Great.
‘The cab,’ said Robin, ‘is waiting.’
She was not much better at the airport, skidding around hunting for Wet Ones in case You Know Who is s–i–c–k, not that he will be of course, and great, she hadn’t seen a Metro for months.
‘They have them,’ said Robin, ‘on the plane.’
‘Yeah, but …’
‘We are boarding now.’
He sank into his seat. Emmie was staring at her boarding pass, her face puzzled. ‘Why am I Bombgardner all of a sudden?’
‘Because you’ve got the wrong boarding pass.’
‘How in the world did I do that?’
‘I have no idea.’
Mrs Bombgardner, large, blonde and draped in palm trees and bananas, surfaced from the seat in front. ‘Now how in the world, Elsa Bombgardner, did you turn into O’Malley at your age?’ They laughed, they were happy, they agreed it was the oddest thing but they guessed they were on board now and that was the main thing.
Calvin loved airports; aircraft, balloons, heavier-than-air machines delighted him. He sat wide eyed and beaming as the plane took off, liked the wrinkled sea below but took against the mountains the moment they appeared. Those hills were horrible. He did not like those hills. He began to bawl. He wanted to get out. Now. Right now. Immediately.
Alice had opened the box of her unread letters above these mountains where her grandson was now ‘creating’. Robin, as Emmeline told him, had an overdeveloped imagination but was pragmatic as a boot. With which he agreed, prided himself. No fey Celtic stuff about Dromgoole he remembered as the hairs on the back of his neck crawled. No ghosts here.
The man in the seat opposite Rob moved to the back. Emmie attempted comfort, the flight attendant sweets. Calvin clutched them in one fist and kept bawling. Tears shot from his eyes, splashed and fell again. But what is it, hon? What is it? I want to get out. I want to go away. Now.
‘You don’t think he’s going to turn into a little shit, do you?’ muttered Emmeline.
‘Not a chance. Here Calvin.’
Calvin did not pause.
‘Throw the little bugger over here,’ said a voice behind them.
Robin turned in fury.
‘Hi,’ said Clyde.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Wishing I’d brought my Walkman.’
‘OK. You come and shut him up and I’ll do the smart stuff.’
‘Right. Move over.’ Clyde ambled into the aisle, tugged his tracksuit pants, sat beside Emmie and took the momentarily silenced child on his lap.
‘Hi,’ he said. He told him his name was Clyde and did Calvin know about hydroelectric power stations and dams because he worked on one called the Clyde, named after him, because it was his and Calvin, was that right, Calvin, should come and see it some time. Clyde could show him the control room and the generators and the turbines and did Calvin know about penstocks? Had Emmie got a piece of paper? He drew diagrams with a felt pen. There was nothing in the world like dams and water under pressure. Wait till Calvin came one day and they opened the tailrace. Did Calvin know about tailraces? People talk about them as though they’re normal. They are much more than that, they’re super-normal. Did Calvin know about Superman? Yeah. Well, tailraces are Superwater. Water like all the water in the world, more water faster than anyone could believe, that was what happened with tailraces and dams.
Calvin, calmed by technologies beyond his dreams, lay still.
‘Best day’s work you ever did, chucking me out,’ said Clyde.
‘I didn’t.’
‘Well me, then. We’d just discovered Diane was pregnant. I couldn’t handle it. I had to have my dinky little degree, my As and Bs and all that shit like I told you. Not kids. There was a heavy scene. A real slammer and Diane threw me out. I couldn’t handle that either. I got blind, can’t even remember where I got the knife.’ Clyde shook his beautiful shaggy blond head in disbelief. ‘God, what a clown. It was the shirt that saved you. Still got that shirt?’
‘Yeah,’ grinned Robin.
‘Nice shirt. Like I was saying, I chucked it and we came south. Best thing we’ve ever done. Buster had a stinker of a cold so Diane didn’t make it up to Auntie’s funeral which was sad. She was a feisty old girl but glad to go. She told Mum. “I’m ready to go Edie,” she said.’ Clyde was talking, relaxed, in charge, he would yarn for ever. ‘They change every day little kids, y’know that? Ever been to Cromwell? Pity about the drowned bit but it’s a nice little town. Orchards and stuff and the pay’s good.’
‘Plenty of apricots?’ asked Rob.
‘Yeah, sure. Tons. D’y’want some?’
Wil came swinging across the concrete to greet them, one hand out to grasp, his khaki hat crumpled in the other. He was not smiling. He looked older, bleached and spare as a dried river bed.
He shook Emmeline’s hand. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said and
looked down at the grin beside her. ‘And what’s your name?’
‘Calvin.’
‘Calvin. If I don’t remember you tell me.’
‘OK.’
‘Come away in.’
They progressed in silence across the yard, Calvin detouring to embrace the labrador. The old dog clambered to its feet, licked the face and collapsed once more.
The air was warm around them, the dogs quiet, the breeze drifting across dry paddocks to the pine trees. There was not a rare fowl in sight. ‘Mind the crap,’ said Wil and was silent once more. Unease stirred around them. This was not what Rob had expected. He had told Emmie how delighted Wil would be to see them. How he loved kids, how excited he would be, how he was a great old guy.
Emmie strode beside him in silence, her head high. Half-way across the yard she started babbling in praise. In praise of everything. How much she admired the cottage, how cute it was and look at the view and they certainly were happy to be in Central, weren’t they Rob? She had never even been to the South Island before could Wilfred believe. She could see just from Dunedin and the Pigroot that scenic-wise it left the north for dead just like everyone said, and they were so right.
She couldn’t imagine how anyone would want to live anywhere else. Rob had told her it was freezing in winter but she wouldn’t mind that either. She liked a summer life, sure, but being a redhead summer was a bit of a drag even with Total Block, and Calvin was the same, poor little sausage, and anyway she liked the cosiness of winter. Close the door, light the lights, all that. She could see it was different for farmers, they couldn’t do that, could they? Out in all weathers, weren’t they?
‘Yes,’ said Wilfred.
Every sort. Yeah. She realised that. Those shots on TV of unseasonal snow storms. Dead lambs, starving cattle, the lot. But didn’t Wilfred agree? Didn’t he agree there was something about winter?
‘No.’
Nothing put her off. She was frenetic, could not, apparently, keep either still or quiet. Sidestepping, gushing at labradors, prattling. Nothing would stop her. ‘Don’t worry Cal,’ she said lifting the child from mess underfoot and restarting him on a cleaner route. ‘It’s ornamental fowl. A higher class of crud altogether. Not many people have ornamental fowl.’
The House Guest Page 29