by Steve Low
I was born in 1955, three years after Isobel and ten years after Richard. We grew up in the same street as the Kandy Korner dairy, the Presbyterian church and the Nelson Central primary school. The street was broad and flat, lined on either side by solid Plain trees growing out of openings in the asphalt. Our house was the stand-out of the street, a large wooden double storied edifice, white with navy trimmings. It butted hard up against the street – our front door virtually opening directly onto the footpath. A tortuous pepper tree grew between footpath and the house, covering much of the street-front aspect. The tree exuded a piquant sticky sap, a viscous adherent syrup which was a liability for any unwary hand that sought the support of its wandering branches. Year round, its tapered leaves would float down and become glued to the sidewalk. In the spring, a fine yellow dust was released, certain to promote a bout of sneezing should you push your way through a hanging cluster of leaves.
By the time I was old enough to create memory, Richard was already a teenager. He would come and go from the house in his navy blue blazer, his school cap perched above an imperious face. He was a reliable straight bat for the first eleven and more than adequate on the rugby field. On match days, Richard would emerge from his room smeared in liniment, pausing in the hallway to flex the impressive musculature, a giant of a man from my perspective. Even Isobel’s jaw seemed agape with awe. “Richard’s in the fifteen,” Graham would announce to visitors, his pipe held aloft, its blue smoke curling away towards the ceiling.
In his final year at school, the intercollegiate quadrangular tournament came to town. Isobel and I were allowed off school to watch the games. On the match days, we would board Graham’s Vanguard Six and drive up the hill to the college. There, standing proudly on the embankment, we shouted and cheered for the navy and sky blue hoops of Nelson College, as they were pitted against the other great schools of central New Zealand. There was Christ’s College in black and white, the all white strip of Whanganui Collegiate School and Wellington College in majestic black and gold. The waxing cacophony of a thousand schoolboys brought a lump to my throat, and a flashing pilo-erection through the skin. Julia was brought to tears as the haka roared and I would be not far behind, my chest swollen with importance. Isobel appeared amused and excited by it all, lifted by the transient exposure to these big city boys and their gregarious families. Graham seemed in his element, standing erect, shoulders back, offering a benevolent face and the odd quip about the game..
When it was all over, after the referee (in pristine whites) had blown his terminal note, Graham would have an inclination to linger and savour the moment. As the shattered players wheezed off the field, he would go to shake hands with the opposition parents. “Damned good game,” he would say, and the respective families would stand smiling at each other, warmed by the realisation of their success. Isobel would have half an eye on the developing after-match celebration. However Graham would usher us to the Vanguard. It would be ‘time to go’ and we would park ourselves on the back seat, the car beginning its silent glide down the long school drive. I would be watching through the windows as the adrenalised footballers clattered their sprigs up the concrete steps to the Spartan change rooms of Rutherford House.
Graham didn’t indulge in small talk – he was a big talk man. Once the relevant platitudes had been uttered to the appropriate people at the game, he was out of there. And as soon as he arrived home, he would disappear to his office, a lazy puff of smoke folding its way through the hall behind him. Julia, left to her own devices, would smoke enjoyably, perhaps ghosting into the room where Isobel and I might be playing. There she would perch on the edge of a chair to watch us at play, occasionally making a suggestion or joining in the contagious laughter whenever it arose. Her eyes were forever darting, full of a life of their own. Between Isobel and I, there was an unspoken acceptance of this quirky figure. We instinctively accommodated her enigmatic presence and her pleasure in our company. Julia liked the theatre, movies but above all she was a reader and a painter. Much of her life was spent in books or working on a painting. There were the three of us, then there was Richard . . . and there was Graham. Looking back, it is strange that we called him Graham rather than ‘Dad‘ or some other term of endearment. Julia always referred to him as ‘Graham’ rather than ‘your Dad.’ We had picked up on that.
Graham disliked socialising, unless it was important to him. For a visiting surgeon (an ‘expert’ from out of town), he would lavishly entertain at our home, exhibiting all the gracious airs he could muster. Generally though, he preferred to avoid social contact for its own sake, inevitably fashioning Julia to function within this rigid framework. As a consequence Julia had a ‘mid-week’ type of existence. Her close friends weren’t the expected wives of other medical men or women she might have met through charity work. But with these women she would meet for morning coffee at each others homes. There seemed to be little depth in these relationships – the participants often reduced to trading on their husbands’ names. Her real friends then were the arty type of women, other literary types, writers, musicians and thespians. Graham often referred to them as the ’arty-farties’ and would feign fear of this outspoken crowd. However beyond that classification his comments about Julia’s life were generally circumspect. He didn’t tend to mock anything she did but occasionally made a joke about it to us, his children.
There was one other person who sought to tamper with the Davenport blueprint – beyond the efforts of the arty-farties . . . Margo Urquhart. From Wellington she would materialise, a shimmering flame that threatened to set alight the often dry Nile St home.
Before Margo’s arrival, I would sense a lift in Julia. She would move more adroitly about the kitchen, banging pans together like cymbals, or laughing readily at one of Isobel’s pranks. Playing an imaginary rugby game on the lawn, I would be halted in my tracks by the sound of Chopin on the living room piano. Julia always seemed to reproduce her childhood piano expertise when Margo was coming..
Come the day of Margo’s arrival, Julia, Isobel and I would be waiting at the bus station, the air of expectation (or was it uncertainty) delivering an unusual vibrancy. Isobel and I would run to the nearby intersection, the junction of Trafalgar and Hardy streets, hoping to be the first to catch sight of the arriving Newman’s bus. Often we would hear it first. A throaty roar as it changed gear through a distant intersection. And as it came up alongside us, we would see her, perched as always on a front row window-seat. I would see the silhouette of the immaculate coiffure first, then the gaunt features, as she brought her face close to the glass. There was the thin nose, and a flash of teeth between smiling lips. Isobel and I would dance and wave – for here was life itself – urgent talk about the house, animated faces, smoking and drinking. And Graham‘s opinionated presence would be diluted, since Margo often seemed to reduce him to awkward silence.
In the pleasant residue of trailing diesel gas, Isobel and I would sprint back to the bus station, arriving out of breath, to wave once again as the bus throttled down to a halt. Margot would reach out to pull us into her skirt. I would bury my face into the pleats, inhaling the big city aroma. She was thin and attractive like Julia, but more fashion conscious (a classic dresser), a wearer of exquisite perfumes, and her earrings sparkling as she clattered about on high heels.
Back at the house there would be excited talk about the year that had been. Margo was something of a rarity in those times – a career woman. She worked in government – a cog in the legislative machine. Of course, she must have been carrying a slight stigma. This was the 1960s and she was a divorcee. But I didn’t know about such matters then.
Margot was a radiant light in an already scorching summer. It would be many years before I began to ask the questions. And long before my enquiry, it was always Isobel who got to the bottom of things. She was astute when it came to working out the subtleties in life. From an early age, she was quite well able to manipulate Julia, and over the ensuing years managed to exhume key information about
the history of our family. Sometimes, to find the truth, Isobel would have to be underhand.
Isobel had ascertained that there had once been a Mr Urquhart. Her scouring of the attic had revealed old photographs of a holiday in the remote settlement of Pakawau. In residence were the Urquharts and the Davenports. That would have been the summer of 55/56. I would have been conceived about then, since my birthday was in the following October. Perhaps I was conceived at Pakawau. It’s hard to imagine now, Graham and Julia prompted into a moment of closeness – perhaps by the stimulus of friends, fun, and alcohol – or the sounds of waves on the long desolate beach.
Margo, despite her big city exterior, had a certain fragility about her that had me puzzled. On arrival, she would scoop up Isobel and I in turn for crushing embraces. Next she would hug and kiss Julia with an exaggerated fervour. At the house the conversation in the kitchen would be like a bush fire, jumping from one topic to another. The women’s faces would be vivid with stimulation. Yet nearly always, within a few hours of her arrival, or perhaps well into the next day, both of them would succumb to a mystery force. This phenomenon would halt the early momentum, taking them both down together. For me, as a young child, the abrupt change was confusing. Margo might abruptly retire to bed, and Julia, left in her wake, would slump deep into her chair, her eyebrows knitted, her head hanging.
“Margo is not feeling well,” Graham would say, replying to one of Isobel’s frequent enquiries. The next day at breakfast, I’d see the two women at the kitchen table, encircled by a swirl of smoke, their heads thrown back laughing. Only the red rimmed eyes of Margo, or often as not, Julia as well, would betray the drama of the night gone by. Sometimes I would crawl under the table, unnoticed by the rabid conversants, to watch their legs flex and extend with the rise and fall of their banter. I would stare at Margo’s inevitable stilettos, blood red or jet black, arched like a pair of angry cats. Julia’s legs were catwalk thin – too pale for the end of summer – reflective of her time spent reading in the shadows. Above the table, the tone of the conversation would be contrite, deferential, apologetic – then raucous, hilarious, or mocking. Sometimes they talked about their ‘moggies.’ It took a while to surmise that this referred to some kind of pacifier.
“I was fine once I’d taken a moggy,” Margo would say.
“I had to take two,” Julia would reply. And under the table Margo’s hand would cross to squeeze Julia above the knee.
Isobel ferreted out the answer – Mogadon. It was a sleeping tablet, a mild tranquilliser. She would have searched handbags, toilet bags, cupboards . . . everything was vulnerable to the pretty inquisitor. She would have unearthed the packet, absorbed the drug name, then gotten into Graham’s office to search a pharmacopoeia for the answer. Isobel . . . she had everyone’s life worked out – except perhaps her own.
Margo was fond of Isobel and I. She didn’t have any children of her own. She wasn’t going to have any either. I overheard Graham and Julia discussing it one day. Graham said, “She’s got it in for men now.” She was especially taken by me. I became aware of this from an early age. Out of the corner of an eye, I could sense her watching me. Sometimes I’d round on her quickly and catch the quizzical expression dying on her turning face. Taking me up in her arms she would say, “How is my little boy.” It made me wonder . . . what was the misfortune that attracted such sympathy? I liked to climb up onto her lap, to stand precariously on her thighs, flinging my arms around her neck where I would find the most fragrant of perfumes. I loved to kiss the side of her neck, to breath in the evocative vapour, suggestive of a far off sophistication. And if I turned to take in the room, there would be Julia, her smile beatific, small lines crinkling at the outsides of her eyes.
Isobel would goad me. “You’re Margo’s pet,” she would say. “Margo’s got something for you, and you just lap it up don’t you.”
Graham was quite tolerant of Margo. He was polite to her – as if harbouring a reluctant respect. But mostly he kept out of the way, a hermit in his beloved silent office
One year, 1964 it would have been, Margot wrote saying she would like to bring a ‘man-friend’ with her to Nelson. For days, in the wake of this note, argument raged about the house. Would they allow this person to appear? Graham didn’t want anything to do with the ‘impostor.’ He hated meeting new people anyway. To have someone new in the house – presumably sleeping with Margo out of wedlock – it was a preposterous suggestion. And he, Graham Davenport, a surgeon of some standing, would be required to break his routine to entertain this alien. Julia took the opposite tack. Margo was sacrosanct. They had to bend over backwards for her. “We owe it to her,” she said, leaning back against the kitchen sink. From the doorway leading into the morning room, Graham’s tone was sharp. “You owe it to her,” he said. “I don’t.”
It was a Friday night when they came. Isobel‘s hands flapped in anticipation as we waited on the traditional corner for the controversial visitors. A fair crowd was in for late night shopping and we had to crane our heads to see over and beyond the teeming masses. The bus made slow progress through the bumper to bumper traffic. At last, with a throaty roar, it came over the last intersection and we could see Margo’s face pressed up against the window. In the shadows of the interior, I could just discern the silhouette of the much feared impostor. Around at the bus station, we stared in wonder at the figure that stood beside Margo, a big hand wrapped around her wafer thin waist. A foreigner! “This is Zachary,” Margo announced to her dumbstruck provincial friends.
Julia recovered her poise first and extended a welcome to the portly figure with the black curls and deep olive skin.
“Zachary is a Greek envoy,” Margo said. “He’s over here for six months.” As we packed their things into the Vanguard’s boot, I looked at Isobel and her at me. We were both thinking the same thing. How would Graham cope?
“I’ve never been to Athens,” Graham said later, as we all stood statuesque in the kitchen. Zachary smiled but said nothing. Graham was standing in the middle of the floor, his figure rigid as a lamppost. His neck and face were engorged with discomfort. When Julia took the two visitors upstairs to show them the sleeping arrangements, Graham disappeared into his office and wasn’t seen again until the next day. The rest of us moved into the lounge, where Julia and Margo filled the air with smoke and laughter, divulging to each other the recent events of their lives. Isobel and I soaked up every word, fascinated by the vibrant discourse. It was always exciting to us.
Zachary took little part in the conversation and eventually he turned to me. “You like to play?” he asked. We played scissors, rock and paper for an hour until Julia announced it was time for bed. I had been made to volunteer my room for the foreign visitor’s comfort. I was to sleep on a camp bed in Isobel’s room. However when Julia swept in to switch out the light, sleep was far from our minds. We were too excited about the presence of the Greek.
“He’s not as nice as Francis was,” Isobel said. I shrugged my shoulders. I hadn’t seen the photographs. Margo’s former husband was a mythical figure to me. Isobel slipped out of bed and moved to a position by the door. A small crack between the door and its frame gave her a view of the passageway. One by one, the adults came to utilise the bathroom: Julia, Margo, followed by the Greek. The latter didn‘t disappoint our intrigue. After a few minutes of incessant gargling, there came the sound of crashing water, as though someone was hurling bucket-loads of water into the air and letting them fall onto the tiles. After that, there was five minutes of slow and heavy nose breathing. I crawled over to where Isobel lay, to catch a glimpse of the Greek when he emerged. Isobel was lying on her front, her nose not far from the crack in the door. I climbed up and lay on her back, my face enjoying the fragrance of her scented hair. “Graham’s coming,” she hissed, and we rolled away in unison, seeking the cover of the shadows. However, it was unlikely he would enter the room. He left the majority of the parenting to Julia.
Graham had finally emerged fr
om his office to prepare for bed. The rebuff of the bathroom’s locked door irritated. “Good God, what next?” we heard him say as he stalked back down towards his bedroom. “Next time she’ll bring a Turk,” I heard him say. Presently we heard the lock sliding back. Isobel raced back to the crack and I wasn’t far behind. The Greek emerged wearing only a towel about his lower half. His ample chest was covered in thick black hair, glistening with moisture. A solid wave of cologne rolled in through the crack. Isobel inhaled deeply, and half closed her eyes, as if in rapture. After a minute or two, Graham came silently back down the corridor and entered the bathroom. “Good heavens,” we heard him exclaim. It was enough for Julia to come scurrying along carrying a bundle of old towels. When she re-emerged, the same towels were now heavy with water. With the fun seemingly over, I crawled over to my stretcher and burrowed under the covers. Isobel however maintained her vigil at the crack, seemingly confident of more action. I watched her from the comfort of my burrow, pleasantly succumbing to a rising tide of slumber. Her hair looked golden in the wash of hall light, while her nightie was spare and I could see the smooth skin of her neck and shoulders. Her chest moved gently with her respiration. She looked succulent and I admired her more than anyone in the universe . . . apart from Julia maybe.
And in a flash, she was in a crouch position, her features alert. “Come,” she mouthed. I groaned briefly but managed to shake off the grabbing tentacles of sleep to slip back across to the door. It was Margo. She was inching down the hallway, looking across at Graham and Julia’s room, like a wary rabbit sensing a predator. She moved a step closer to their closed door, tilting her head to the side, as if listening acutely. Seemingly satisfied, she tiptoed along the passage to the Greek’s room, directly opposite our door. She knocked lightly on the door, which immediately opened and closed in a second, swallowing her inside.
“What are they doing,” I asked,- my voice far too loud. Isobel slapped a cupped hand over my mouth before lying down on her back and pulling me down on top of her. I lay my face against her chest, enjoying the hypnotic rise and fall. She smelt the top of my head desultorily, pushing about my hair with outstretched fingers. I assumed we were killing time before the next slice of action. I waited patiently, lifting my knees off the coarse carpet and placing my legs right on top of hers. I raised myself up onto elbows causing her to grimace, as pain shot through her shoulder muscles. I studied her face, fingering the freckles across the bridge of her nose, trying to determine if they had a palpable surface. She turned her face away to look towards the crack, as if she had sensed something. Beckoning me to follow, she got up onto hands and knees and we crawled out through the door. The light in the hall seemed intense after the darkness of the bedroom, but my pupils soon adjusted. She led me over to the opposite door and showed me how to listen through the wood. With the opening of my ear canal jammed against the surface, I could hear a muffled soundtrack from within the room. There was a rhythmic compression sound accompanied by heavy breathing. An intermittent deep rumbling was the Greek talking. Margo was vocalising more stridently, saying things like, ‘oh yes’ - ‘oh that’s nice’ and ‘faster’. I was puzzled by this, wondering what it all meant. But Isobel was shaking silently, a big wide smile adorning her face. At once the rhythm hardened up and Margo’s calls became more and more urgent. Isobel began to look worried and she kept glancing back down the passage towards our parent’s room. Then there came some guttural sounds and the breathing slowed to a few terminal shuddering gasps. I was fearful that someone was seriously ill. “Are they alright?” I asked, but Isobel had no such fears and she indicated we had to return to her bedroom. I was thoroughly tired out and flopped into bed, barely hearing the returning steps of Margo as she crept passed our door.
By day, Zachary and Margo toured about, often taking Julia with them as they lounged at the beach, or drank coffee at the Chez Eelco (the only main street cafe in town). Graham was making minimal effort for the visitors, appearing briefly at meal times. However he was capable of turning on the charm and blowing his own trumpet once he got in the mood, The Greek seemed unaffected by Graham’s ambivalent welcome. The glint in his eye, suggested that he’d come to view my father as an amusing anachronism.
It was at night that all the real drama was taking place. Margo’s visits to the Greek’s bedroom carried on, right through the week. Their confidence of anonymity seemed to grow, since their encounters became more and more noisy and of longer duration. By the end of the week, I had grown bored with the aural entertainment. I didn’t even bother to cross the hall anymore to tune in to the show. Isobel though, was refining her techniques. She had acquired a long thin glass from the kitchen. She sat on the carpet beside the Greek’s closed door, the base of the glass up against the wood, her ear pressed into the rim.
One night, as the week drew to a close, I rekindled my curiosity, leaving my bed to join Isobel outside their door. Her face was animated, her eyes blazing. She motioned for me to use the glass. The new device was a revelation, bringing forth the chorus of love-making with new clarity. Soon I left her to it, returning to the comfort zone between my sheets. But after a few minutes I realised that the listening glass had become irrelevant. I could clearly hear the groans, and feel the rhythm of our guest’s pleasure, right there in my bed. Soon I alerted to a new commotion. First Isobel came scurrying back to bed, diving headfirst beneath the covers. Next I heard heavy footfalls in the corridor, undoubtedly those of Graham. He pounded the lovebird’s door. “Excuse me – do you mind? It’s not a zoo you know” we heard him say.
To this day, I don’t know whether he proceeded to enter the room uninvited, or if the Greek or Margo came and opened the door. Either way, there came the shock of raised and angry voices.
“We’re going to a hotel.” Margo’s voice was crystal clear and sharp in the passage. “I’ve tolerated you for long enough, Graham Davenport. You’re an intolerant buffoon. Why don’t you give up on all that old school rubbish?”
Isobel and I crept up to the crack in our doorway. Graham was standing right in front of us, hands on hips. We couldn’t see his face, but his neck was glowing. Margo had gone back into the room. The Greek stood beneath their door frame, his lower half again wrapped in a towel. He saw our faces appear behind Graham and he grinned amiably at us. Julia came out of the master bedroom, her face drained of all colour. She looked thin and disconsolate, with sagging shoulders.
Margo marched out past the Greek into the harsh light of the passage. “I’m sorry Julia,” she said. “I like you . . . You certainly don’t deserve this idiot.” She flapped a hand loosely at Graham’s face. “This intolerant . . . Jerk!” Instructing Zachary to get dressed, she turned and strode up the passage to her bedroom. Julia stood in the middle of the passage, started to say something but seemed to change her mind. Graham, his jaw rigid, walked right on up past her, disappearing into the master bedroom, the door swishing behind him.
That was the last we saw of Margo in Nelson for some time. From our street side window, Isobel and I watched her embrace Julia before she and the Greek entered a taxi. Julia, covered by a flimsy dressing gown, was left alone on the pavement waving and shaking her head as the taxi pulled away. Julia stood there for quite some time, one foot in the gutter, the other on the pavement, staring after the receding tail-lights. Isobel and I looked on silently, a disquieting silence between us and the figure below. “Come on Mum,” Isobel called softly. Julia looked up to acknowledge this soft voice from above. “It’s OK darling,” she said. “These things happen.” She shrugged her shoulders and came inside. I looked at Isobel and she looked at me and she shrugged her shoulders too and made a face. In this manner we withdrew from the window and retired to our beds.
It wasn’t the end for Margo and Julia. Instead of Margo visiting us, our mother took a ferry across the Cook Strait to Wellington, and visited Margo in Wellington. Graham had been enthusiastic about these weekends away, embarrassed perhaps by his rather pithy performance the pre
vious year. The trips proved quite useful as Julia was able bring back cases full of new and rare books.
But for Isobel and I – lives were all the poorer for the loss. Margo had brought us life, laughter and more importantly, the water tossing Greek!
Chapter 3
