Fire

by Deborah Challinor

  Poor old Derek hadn’t been bad-looking, and they’d kissed plenty of times, which had been nice, she supposed, but things had never advanced beyond that. It was just that…well, he just hadn’t set her on fire. She used to catch herself looking at him sometimes, trying to imagine what he’d be like in twenty years’ time, and in her mind’s eye he always came out exactly the same: sitting on a couch reading the paper or talking about the All Blacks with her father. Except he might be a bit fatter. Yes, he would definitely be fatter. In fact, he would probably be a lot like her dad, and, though she loved her father very much, she certainly didn’t want to marry him. Mind you, her father had a wonderful sense of humour, which made up for a lot. Derek, unfortunately, hadn’t. She’d once told him a very long, absolutely hilarious joke, making her father laugh himself sick and almost wetting her own pants in the process, and all Derek had said at the end was, were there any more date scones? She supposed that had been a warning sign, really.

  She sat down on a wall and lit a cigarette.

  Sonny was nothing like Derek, though, and he certainly had a sense of humour, though it was a little drier than what she was used to. And even if he hadn’t had a witty bone in his body, she didn’t think she would care because he was just so bloody sexy. Irene’s word really did describe him perfectly. The question was: what was she going to do about it? She was a virgin, but it wasn’t that she was deliberately saving herself for marriage or anything like that: she just hadn’t met anyone who’d tempted her enough. But now she had. And if she did sleep with Sonny, presuming that he wanted to sleep with her—which she thought was a fairly safe bet—would he still want to be with her afterwards? Or would he think she was easy and cheap? It wasn’t fair. Boys could go around sleeping with as many girls as they could talk into dropping their knickers and no one blinked an eye, but if a girl did it—or even just behaved as though she would like to do it, as Irene did—people were very disapproving and sometimes even quite nasty.

  She decided she should probably talk to her mother about it.

  Colleen was peeling potatoes at the kitchen sink, Donna and Pauline had disappeared somewhere and Sid was still at the pub.

  ‘Shall I do some carrots?’ Allie asked.

  Colleen nodded. ‘There’s some in the cupboard.’

  Allie started peeling, flicking the damp shreds of orange skin off her knife into the sink. ‘Are these out of Dad’s garden?’

  ‘No, you know he’s not very good with carrots.’

  Sid wasn’t really very good with anything in his garden, if they were honest, but he prided himself on having one, so no one ever said anything rude when misshapen and undersized vegetables appeared on their plates, not even Donna and Pauline.

  Allie scraped steadily away for a few minutes, wondering how to phrase what she wanted to ask.

  ‘Mum?

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘I think I need some advice.’

  Colleen stopped what she was doing and went very still. ‘What about, love?’ she said. There was a slight wobble in her voice.

  ‘It’s, well, it’s to do with Sonny.’

  Colleen put her potato and her knife down and leaned her hands on the bench, as though bracing herself for bad news. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, I really like him, Mum. And I think…’ Allie paused, then rushed on. ‘I think I’d quite like to sleep with him.’

  There, she’d said it.

  Exhaling loudly, Colleen exclaimed, ‘God almighty, Allison, I thought you were going to tell me you’d already done it and now you’re pregnant!’

  Allie stared at her mother. ‘Mum! I only went out with him for the first time on Wednesday night!’

  Colleen shoved a strand of hair off her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a sliver of potato peel stuck to her temple. She glanced at Allie and started to giggle.

  ‘What?’ Allie asked, picking the peel off and flicking it into the sink.

  ‘I suppose that would be a bit of a record, wouldn’t it?’ Colleen said. ‘Though it has happened, believe me.’

  ‘Well, not to me, it hasn’t,’ Allie replied.

  ‘And thank Christ for that.’ Colleen reached for her knife again. ‘What is it you want to know?’

  ‘Well, just what you think, really. Should I or shouldn’t I?’

  Colleen finished peeling her potato and dropped it into the pot. Then she said, ‘I don’t think you should.’

  ‘Oh.’ Allie wasn’t really surprised.

  ‘For two reasons,’ Colleen said. She rinsed the vegetable knife under the tap and wiped the blade on the bench cloth. ‘The first is I don’t want you getting into trouble. It can happen like that, you know. I had a girlfriend when I was about your age who only did it the once and got caught. It could ruin your life, Allie.’

  Allie felt an irrational pang of hurt. ‘Like yours was, you mean?’

  Colleen winced inwardly. ‘Oh, of course not, love. I wouldn’t trade you or your little madam sisters for anything, I really wouldn’t. But your father and I would probably have our own home by now, if we’d had the time to work and save up. And we’d have had you anyway, love, just not quite so soon.’

  ‘Would you still have married Dad?’

  Colleen smiled. ‘Not if your nan had had anything to say about it.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I really don’t know. But I did, and I’m glad I did. I wouldn’t trade him, either, despite what it might look like sometimes. But it’s a huge risk, Allie, and I don’t think it’s one you should take.’

  ‘Even if I—if we—used something?’

  ‘Even then. They don’t always work, you know. That’s how we got Pauline. But for God’s sake don’t tell her that, we’d never hear the end of her being an unwanted child. Which she isn’t, of course.’

  Colleen ran the cold tap over the potatoes so they wouldn’t go brown, and set the pot on the stove. She turned the knob to start the gas, and swore when nothing happened. Digging a shilling out of her purse she handed it to Allie, who went out to the back porch and dropped it into the meter.

  Taking a plate of stewing steak out of the fridge, Colleen laid the pieces one by one on the chopping board. ‘Have you really thought about this, love? About what you would do if you did get caught?’

  ‘Not really,’ Allie said truthfully.

  ‘Well, you’d have to marry him.’

  ‘Would I?’

  Colleen cut into a piece of meat, trimming off the fat and putting it to one side. It wasn’t particularly good meat, but it was all she could afford when she’d gone to the butcher’s yesterday, and it would taste all right stewed with the carrots, a bit of celery and plenty of salt and pepper.

  ‘What else could you do?’ she said. ‘Go away to Wellington and everyone knowing what’s happened but pretending that they don’t, and then come back six months later with a flat belly but no baby and a broken heart? Do you really want that, Allie? Do you?’

  Allie was startled at the vehemence in her mother’s voice.

  ‘Because that’s what would have to happen, you know,’ Colleen went on. ‘You couldn’t keep it. I wouldn’t mind it if we had another little one in the house, but it would be a bloody great millstone around your neck until the day you die. People don’t forget that sort of thing, Allie. And they don’t forgive.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be my business, though, not anyone else’s?’

  ‘You try telling that to your Mr Max at Dunbar & Jones, missy. And anywhere else you might go looking for a job. I’m telling you, it’s not the sort of thing people turn a blind eye to.’

  Allie was quiet for a moment. ‘And what if Sonny and I did get married?’ Then she laughed. ‘This is silly, Mum. I haven’t even done it yet and we’re talking about weddings!’

  Colleen banged the knife onto the chopping board, making Allie jump. ‘No, we’re not talking about weddings, Allie, we’re talking about the rest of your life. Look, he’s a local Maori boy, isn’t he? Didn’t you say he lives up on Kitemoana Street
?’

  Allie nodded.

  ‘Well, I’ve no doubt he’s a nice lad, otherwise you wouldn’t be so keen on him, but what do you think your life would be like if you married him? A Maori boy?’

  ‘Well, like yours and Dad’s, I suppose.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so bloody stupid, Allie! It would be much harder than this! You know that!’

  ‘No I don’t.’

  Colleen took a deep breath, calming herself. ‘Allie, love, he’ll never get a decent job no matter how clever he is; he’ll never make a lot of money and he’ll always be treated as a second-class citizen. And people will treat you the same way, for marrying him.’

  ‘But why?’ Allie was amazed, and quite shocked, to hear her mother talking like this. What about what she’d said the other night, when her father had made rude remarks about Maori people, even if he had only been joking? Her mother had been genuinely cross about that. Or was it different when it came to the notion of her daughter actually spending her life with a Maori boy, rather than just going out with one a few times?

  ‘Because that’s the way it is,’ Colleen said. ‘Whether you like it or not, whether I like it or not, and whether that poor boy likes it or not. People will look down on you, and your poor bloody kids will be stuck in the middle of it with the worst of both worlds.’

  ‘But that’s not fair!’

  ‘Life’s not fair, Allie.’ Colleen finished trimming the meat and dropped the fat on top of the scraps in the sink. ‘I’m sorry, love, but that really is the way it is. And I don’t want that sort of life for you.’

  Allie was sorry now she’d ever brought the subject up. But it didn’t change anything: she still wanted Sonny so badly she ached.

  She had planned to spend ages getting ready, but in the end she felt too upset about what her mother had said. She brushed her hair until it shone then pulled it back in a ponytail like the girl in the milkbar, patted some powder onto her nose, which had gone pink from being in the sun all day, and put on some lipstick. She dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt, snug-fitting rolled-up denim jeans and flats, and tied a light jumper around her waist. Sonny had said to wear longs, so she hoped being this casual would be all right.

  At twenty to six she said goodbye to her parents—but quickly, so that her mother couldn’t say anything else that might dampen her spirits—walked down to the end of Coates Avenue to where it met Kepa Road, and sat down in a bus shelter to wait. To her right, Orakei Basin glittered in the low, late afternoon sun, and she could smell a hint of mud and mangroves on the light breeze.

  At five past six she looked at her watch, then again at ten past, then again at a quarter past. What if he’d forgotten? Or, far worse than that, what if he’d changed his mind? A very unpleasant worm of anxiety began to uncurl in the pit of her stomach. Why had he asked her to wait here for him? If he was going to pick her up, what was wrong with coming to her house?

  She chewed nervously on the edge of a fingernail, then sat on her hands so she couldn’t. A car went past with two young men in it; they waved out and tooted the horn, but she didn’t respond.

  At twenty past, just as she’d decided to give it another ten minutes at the most and then she was going back home and Sonny Manaia could stick his good looks and his charm up his backside, a motorbike roared up the street. It slowed as it approached, and she saw with enormous relief that it was him.

  He coasted to a halt in front of the bus-stop. ‘Hey, sweetheart, want a ride?’ he said, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Beaut, eh?’

  Very long and low and currently emitting a loud, rumbling purr, the motorbike was all sparkling red paint and gleaming chrome, with a fringed, black leather seat, three headlamps, mirrors on the handlebars and white rims on the black tyres. Sonny, sitting proudly astride the machine, wore jeans, a dark shirt open at the neck and a pair of heavy leather boots.

  ‘What sort is it?’ Allie asked.

  ‘This,’ he said with an expansive, downward sweep of his arm, ‘is the finest motorcycle ever made: a 1953 Indian Chief with an 80-cubic-inch motor that’ll leave everyone else in this town in the dust. Hop on.’

  Allie hesitated. ‘I’ve never been on a motorbike before.’ Unlike my little sister, she thought sourly.

  ‘Nothing to it. Just climb on and hold tight!’

  Allie secured her bag over her shoulder, stepped up and swung her right leg over the seat.

  ‘Move up, so you’re close behind me,’ Sonny said. ‘Have you got your feet on the pegs?’ He twisted around to make sure. ‘You can either hold on to the bar behind the seat, or put your arms around me.’

  He turned back and she wrapped her arms tightly around his waist and pressed the insides of her thighs against his flanks. This close to him she could smell his hair and his skin, and feel his heart beating against her.

  ‘All right?’ he asked over his shoulder. ‘Hang on then,’ he said, and nudged the bike into gear.

  It rolled forward, lulling Allie into a false sense of security. She relaxed fractionally and Sonny opened the throttle, sending her lurching backwards and clutching wildly at his shirt.

  ‘Hang on!’ he yelled, laughing.

  Allie hunched behind him, terrified, as he shot off up Kepa Road. Her ponytail whipped out behind her and her jumper flapped like a sail as she hung on as tightly as she could. At the intersection of Kepa Road and Kupe Street he turned left, leaning the bike over so far that Allie panicked and, digging her fingers into Sonny’s chest, leaned the opposite way, causing the back of the bike to wobble alarmingly.

  Sonny slowed, pulled over to the side of the street and stopped. He turned around.

  ‘You’ve got to lean into the corners, the same way as me, or we’ll fall off.’

  Her heart pounding, Allie looked at him doubtfully.

  ‘Trust me,’ Sonny said. ‘You’ll be OK, I promise.’

  He took off again, slowly at first to make sure she was settled on the pillion seat properly, then faster as he felt her relax against his back.

  Soon, as she started to get the hang of it, Allie began to smile. Then, as Sonny went even faster, swooping into corners and accelerating smoothly out of them, she found herself laughing out loud. Her eyes were watering, an early evening bug collided painfully with her cheek, and if she didn’t pay attention to when Sonny changed gear her nose banged against the back of his head, but she felt indescribably free and alive. It was so much better than being in a bus or a tram. She could taste the sea in the air and smell the summer gardens as they roared past and the faintly acrid stink of warm tar off the road and, best of all, she could feel the wind.

  ‘Good, eh?’ Sonny yelled over his shoulder.

  ‘Fantastic!’ Allie called back.

  ‘Shall we go for a burn along the waterfront?’

  Allie nodded.

  Sonny headed down towards Ngapipi Road and followed it around Orakei Basin. Ahead and to her left, Allie could see the stark concrete line of the sewer pipe stretching across the shallows of Hobson Bay before it marched onto land again. They turned right onto Tamaki Drive, roared around Hobson and Pokanoa Points and along into Okahu Bay where the sewer pipe cut directly across the shallows.

  Sonny followed the shoreline around Okahu Bay, then turned off Tamaki Drive onto Kitemoana Street. The road took them uphill to a cluster of several dozen new state houses in a cul-de-sac, squatting on raw, unlandscaped sections with barely a tree in sight, though grass was starting to grow on some of the lawns and bright, white footpaths had been laid on both sides of the road. In the middle of the road, kicking a battered football around, was a group of little kids, who didn’t bother to get out of the way to let Sonny through. He rode around them, then slowed outside a house near the end of the cul-de-sac. The street here was lined with an assortment of cars and trucks, the windows and front door of the house were wide open and Allie could hear music and raised voices.

  Sonny rode over the footpath onto the patchy grass of the front lawn and turned off the motor
. ‘Hop off,’ he said.

  Allie obeyed. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘My mum’s place,’ Sonny answered, dismounting himself. He looked at her. ‘This is where the party is.’

  ‘Oh. Right,’ Allie said, very relieved that she hadn’t got all dolled up, then feeling sharply ashamed for it.

  Sonny laughed. ‘It’s not what you’re used to, I know.’

  ‘No,’ Allie began, ‘it’s just that…’

  ‘You don’t go to many parties full of noisy, pissed Maoris,’ he finished for her.

  ‘No, it’s not that!’ Allie protested.

  ‘Yes it is. It’s written all over your face. And you’re going red,’ he added.

  Allie’s felt her cheeks burn even more, and a spark of anger flared. ‘That’s mean, Sonny. You could have told me.’

  ‘I would have, if you’d asked, but you didn’t. And I told you it wasn’t flash.’ He gave her a quick kiss and took her hand. ‘Come on, no one’ll bite.’

  Irene hurled a plate against the wall where it smashed, showering the floor with shards of china. She hated the plate anyway—Martin’s mother had given it to them as a Christmas present the year before and it had a hand-painted picture of a particularly gormless-looking cocker spaniel puppy on it.

  Martin finally folded his paper and set it aside. There were shadows of fatigue beneath his intelligent blue eyes, a dent between them where his glasses rested and his black hair stuck up from his habit of absentmindedly running his hand through it. ‘Obviously you’re not very happy, Irene.’

  ‘No I am not happy, Martin!’ Irene shouted. ‘I’m bored absolutely bloody rigid and I’m sick to death of sitting in this dreary bloody little flat night after night while everyone else is going out and having fun! It’s Saturday night, Martin. Why the hell can’t we ever go out?’

  Martin pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. This had been going on for nearly an hour now—Irene winding herself up into a state until she finally got his attention. He was always—always—aware of what mood she was in, and more often than not the reason behind it as well, but it just wasn’t in his nature to be as passionate as she was. He much preferred to discuss matters rationally, without the yelling and the histrionics, but he knew that Irene was incapable of that: it was one of the reasons he loved her so much.