Prowlers

by Maurice Gee

  ‘I’m staying here.’ She swept the binoculars round. She wheezed and quaked and tears ran on her cheeks. Yes, yes, Kitty cried again. But she was hard and quick, and back and forth to the phone in her lumbering trot, on her swollen feet; and later in the day was dressed and gone and I did not see her until midnight. Then she was ill for a month. One reason I keep Archie Penfold as my doctor is the kindness he showed her then.

  ‘Noel,’ he said, ‘she’ll have to give it up. She’ll kill herself if she tries to see out her term.’

  ‘Let me,’ Kitty said. ‘Just let me get the park. Then I’ll stop.’

  She sat up in her pillows, wearing a pink bed jacket that didn’t suit her, with her grey hair done in a single plait. The bed creaked as she moved and a folder of papers spilled on the floor. I could not stop time from slipping about and did not know which Kitty it was I tried to persuade. My sense of her life was inclusive and would not be stopped at invalid or Madam Mayor or the Honourable Kitty – none of her personae would contain her. Kitty Papps. Or Nurse Papps. Or Mrs Hughes with sick husband and barefoot kids. I had Kitty complete, and understood that she would leave me soon and soon be dead. And yet I could speak only of the matter that concerned her.

  ‘All you want,’ I grinned, ‘is Kitty Hughes Park. It’s an ego trip.’

  ‘No more than Sir Noel,’ she retorted. ‘I’d never sink to that, believe me.’

  We made a bargain. She would finish getting the new park for Jessop and then would resign as mayor and look after herself. ‘I’ll sit on your sundeck and grow fat.’

  ‘Fatter,’ I said, and picked her folder up and put it in her lap. ‘Get on with it. I think all three of us could do with a rest.’

  The third one was Phil Dockery. This was the battle he’s told Kate about. He came to quarrel with Kitty in my livingroom and turned his ox-blood hue and shouted at her: ‘Comrade bloody Crappski, that’s who you bloody are.’

  I ordered him out but he stayed to shout some more, and Kitty answered back with fierce enjoyment. I thought if they swelled much more they’d go crashing up through my roof and tower on the hillside, two cloud giants, cumuli, beating each other with wind and storm. Blood went to my head, I shouted too, accusing them, and had to lie down. They came into my bedroom, quiet at last, and stood like parents looking down at me. Kitty put her hand on my brow. ‘He’s all right. Sorry, Noel. This greedy bugger always works me up.’

  ‘Talk some sense into her, Noel,’ Phil said. ‘People need houses to live in, not bloody climbing frames and flying foxes.’

  ‘People! Listen to him. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word. What are they Phil, these people you’re suddenly talking about?’

  ‘Don’t start again,’ I said. ‘Please don’t start.’

  ‘Bring him a whisky, Kit. That’s what he needs, the skinny sod. And have one yourself. Let’s drink to the old days. Tup Ogier, eh?’

  ‘Tup would have been on my side. Tup would have wanted a park.’

  ‘Please,’ I said.

  We drank whisky – Kitty had lime juice – and had a conversation from which, at first, the bottom fell out. They sent sharp grins at each other, stabbed with a finger, hooked with a thumb. I called them back and easiness prevailed. Kitty remembered well, so did I, but Phil, who had suggested it, had little practice and we kept on surprising him.

  ‘Hey, I remember that. Old Tup with his tuning fork, eh. Men of Harlech. That was a good song.’

  ‘Remember the pageant, Phil? The whoit cliffs? Mrs Beattie stretching your ear?’

  ‘And Edgar Le Grice?’ Kitty said. ‘Dad had to hide Frau Reinbold in the bakehouse. She ate one of his pies there.’

  ‘Yeah, she would,’ Phil said. ‘And Le Grice burning that piano. I dream about that joker, you know.’

  I looked at Phil with respect. I had never thought of him as dreaming. He seemed gifted, for a moment, with innocence. ‘Irene,’ he said, ‘she was a looker. Boy, did I have a crush on her.’

  ‘I thought it was me,’ Kitty said.

  ‘You too. The pair of you. Have you got any idea how you looked to a kid from the Port? With your Lamingtons and mince pies and fruit squares. Jesus, it makes me hungry now.’

  ‘Irene brought her lunch in a wicker box,’ Kitty said.

  ‘Yeah. And your white socks, eh. I don’t know whether I was after you or your lunches.’

  ‘Well, Phil, you’ve turned that upside down. I’m from the Port now, you’re from Nob Hill.’

  By this route they travelled back to their argument. I did not help by mentioning Bucks Hole. Bucks Hole was part of Kitty’s park. There would be paths by the river, an adventure playground with log fort and flying foxes, a fitness course, and playing fields on the flat land. The old Le Grice house would be pulled down and changing sheds and a pavilion go in its place. Kitty had a model on display in the foyer at the Council Chambers.

  Comrade Olga’s toy, Phil called it. ‘You should have stuck with dolls’ houses. That way you can’t do any harm.’

  ‘What to, Phil? Your bank account? Haven’t you got enough yet? Are you frightened of starving in your old age?’

  ‘Enough,’ I said. ‘Out. Both of you.’

  They went to the livingroom and shouted some more, and Phil stumped away up the path. Kitty came back to my room, breathing hard. ‘I’ll give him a heart attack yet.’ She looked near a heart attack herself.

  Phil won, as you know, Kate. He had friends on Council and though Kitty was popular in the town most councillors were tired of her and her ways. She had no patience left and showed her contempt. They would not vote money for her park. Phil bought the land and won planning approval and we have a new suburb now on Le Grice’s farm. One of the streets is called Kitty Hughes street.

  Kitty resigned for health reasons. She went for a holiday to Pam’s, your mother’s, Kate, in Wellington, and fell ill there and stayed. Our affair, our summer idyll, came to an end.

  48

  And, Kate says, I let myself go. I deny that. I took a Pacific cruise one year and even managed to flirt with a lady in her forties. I’ve been out and about quite a bit. I’m a well known figure in this town – or was until I grew tired of the same old faces.

  ‘Exactly,’ Kate says, ‘you gave up trying. When I came here you were a dried-up little –’ couldn’t find the word but I guess chimp – ‘with a nasty tongue. And none too clean. You never got out of your dressing gown. At least I got you wearing clothes again.’

  Lies! Distortions! Talk about selected memories! All right, I didn’t bath as often as I might have. Do you know how hard it is to bath when you’re old? You’ll find out. That’s one of my (nasty) consolations. Everybody finds out in the end, if they last that long.

  I’m glad you think I’ve improved. Describe me now. Go on. What am I like?

  She won’t do it. Perhaps she thinks she’ll have to allow me a good point or two. I still belong to the Jessop Club, Kate. Haven’t let my membership lapse. A gentlemen’s establishment, unlike that one for players Phil frequents. I’ll surprise you one day by going there for a drink. Won’t they raise their well-bred eyebrows when I walk in wearing slippers and scarf. Perhaps I’ll even wear my dressing gown.

  But yes, I’ll confess: I let myself go. And, in another way, I fought back. I’m no weakling Kate, I won’t have you think that. In all my years alone I never let myself fall into habits. I felt if they got a hold they’d compress me slowly, squeeze me dry, and I’d be dead. So I’ve been dirty now, clean another time, even bought a stick of deodorant once – threw it away when it made a rash in my armpits. I’ve eaten this for a season, that for another; muesli, beans on toast; turned my garden over, let it grow weeds. So on, so on. Kept myself alive.

  What was missing was a person to reflect me back at myself. And take reflections in her turn.

  A pinch and a punch for the first of the month. She’s getting chirpy, which I’m pleased to see, even though she bruised my arm. (Arnica, Kate, your box of trick
s.) I’m on my feet, and out on my sundeck, in my chair. It’s a blue and silver day in the upper air but green, explosive, on the ground. You can see the growth, hear sappy transportations. Kate has juices humming in her too. She sings in the kitchen, chipping plates, and here she comes to plump my cushions up and tousle my hair. The meaning of all this isn’t hard to find: she’s out of love. That is one of the great feelings.

  No more back-packers. Three cheers for that. The last one, a little German girl, a doctor she was, showed me her scalpel for slicing rapists. I could not stop my hands from leaping to protect my private parts. Nausea stirred in my stomach. ‘Put it away. Get out of my room.’ A man isn’t safe with some of these girls. But they’re all gone, hooray, Kate’s finished with them. Sibelius goes rampaging through the house and after him a breathy flute has its say. There’s no yearning in Kate though, and no storms gathering. Good health of every kind beams out of her. I’m just a little frightened that such wholeness is unnatural.

  I should have touched wood. There was too much hubris about. But, all the same, she’s undefeated. I haven’t any doubt she will come through. She talks to herself. ‘Shit,’ she says. She grins unhappily and angrily. She is learning. Kate is increasing herself with a new growth ring. Victories are possible Kate, but not easy ones.

  ‘Stop mixing your metaphors,’ she replies.

  Very well then, simple terms: here’s what happened. That day she sang in the kitchen, yesterday, Phil Dockery called. ‘I’ve found your runaway boyfriend,’ he said.

  Phil interests me as much as Kate. I’m not sure he’ll survive this. I’m not sure what Phil will become. It’s a busy season at the stud. Phil is spending most of his time out there. Yesterday morning Shane knocked at his door. Stood there grinning, dressed in shorts and bush shirt, with feet bare.

  ‘So there you are, you young prick. Come back with your tail between your legs, eh?’ Words I have to guess, but I know Phil and they’re likely to be right. I’m not so sure about his actions. I see him throw his arms wide to give Shane a hug. Phil has taken Shane for his son. He loves someone for the first time in his life (although it’s possible he loved his father, I don’t know). And Phil is suffering, he’s in pain. His eyes were red and furious and perhaps he’d been crying.

  He said to Kate: ‘Can’t you hold your man, eh? All you’ve got to do is give ’em –’ He made an upward thrust with his middle finger.

  ‘Where is he?’ Kate said. In her usual way she began to mottle. Out of love? Not quite. Love had a bit of her pinched in its fingers, and made a lightning grab and had a handful. Love or something.

  Phil shook his head as though to work off a punch. ‘Out there. With that gang of Christers over the hill.’

  ‘The commune?’

  ‘If that’s what you call it.’ He looked at me and his eyes filled with tears. ‘All he came back for was his tools.’

  Kate turned away. She got my car keys from the drawer and went out.

  ‘He told me they pray for me.’ Phil ran to the door. ‘They pray for you, Kate. He said to tell you.’

  The car went off. We watched it cross the bridge and go out of sight.

  ‘She won’t get him. He’s screwing some sheila over there. It’s got to be that.’

  ‘But he goes along with the religious stuff?’

  Phil nodded. He was frightened his voice would wobble if he spoke. He sat down and held his knees and seemed to want to twist the kneecaps off. He dug his fingers under and held on. In that way he stopped himself from shaking. I asked how long Shane had been at the commune. He didn’t know. Told him to get his tools and get to hell off his property. Shane walked up the hill and over the top with the tool kit slung on his back.

  ‘Bloody fool. Bloody young fool. I was going to leave it to him, Noel. Jesus, he would have been rich. I’m a rich man. I’ve got no one to leave it to. He would’ve had the lot. All he had to do…’

  What did Shane have to do? Drink with Phil? Be a son? Love him?

  I drank with Phil. We drank the afternoon away. I want nothing from him. I don’t love him but have a feeling I can’t name, made up of pity and respect, and disapproval, and long familiarity. We are, simply, close to one another. It’s as if he’s in my family and I must love him willy-nilly in spite of all the things I loathe about him.

  That came out stronger than I intended. I wrote ‘love’ and the word isn’t right but I can’t find one to replace it with.

  Perhaps it’s right.

  I know that I love Kate. It needn’t be a secret. And I’m leaving her my property. You won’t be rich, Kate. I won’t change my mind if you go away. Leave or stay, it changes nothing. But don’t act on whims or fantasies. Think a while. You’re almost a grown-up person now. I took a much longer time.

  She tells me to keep my money. And get away from this airy-fairy crap about love. Now who’s mixing metaphors? But I’ll do as I’m told. I’ll stick to the facts, I’ll unstick the facts from me.

  I watered my whisky and drank only three or four to his dozen. But still I reeled as I crossed the room to call his taxi. ‘We don’t need ’em, eh Noel? Stuff the young pricks. You and me, we’re buddies, eh? One for the road.’ The wrongness of that ‘buddies’ troubled him. I don’t think it’s a term he’s used before.

  The driver honked his horn and finally came to the door, refused a drink, took him away. I boiled an egg and ate a water cracker spread with marmite. I went to bed and slept a painful half-drunken sleep for several hours. A glass of warm milk then and another cracker; and some sleep of better quality. I woke and worried about Kate and opened my bedroom door and turned on my lamp, inviting her to talk when she came in. The clock went round. The moon travelled twenty degrees in the sky. A siren sounded down by the Port. I thought of car crashes and suicide (facts, Kate, facts). She came at last, with rubber steps, with slamming door. And a muttered faecal expletive. (I wish you’d stop!) Refused my invitation. ‘Turn off your light, it’s half past three.’ I heard water gurgle in her bed. Later on she came down the hall and peed like the Swiss girl. Then we slept. I dreamed of Edgar Le Grice. What were your dreams, Kate? I’d like to include them.

  In the morning she was up and rattling dishes, scraping toast. She brought me a cup of tea and laughed at my headache, ‘Serves you right. I hope that senile lecher’s got a worse one.’

  I groaned and took a sip, and felt no better. ‘How was Shane?’

  ‘Off his rocker. He’s got Christian platitudes dripping out his ears.’

  And that is all she’s told me up till now. Please tell me, Kate. I was fond of him.

  She says, ‘Have you ever seen that place?’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Impressive. Did I tell you I lived in a commune once? It wasn’t religious. Well, I guess the religion was making things grow. And sharing things. I had to get out. I couldn’t stand all that forced togetherness.’

  ‘Is that what they’ve got at Long Tom’s?’

  She shakes her head. ‘It’s Jesus there, holding them. He’s, like, cement. That’s what Shane says. Poor Shane.’ She swings between grief and rage. Shane, in her view, is a casualty. He has suffered a dreadful defeat. He’s poor Shane one moment and a bloody coward the next.

  ‘They baptized him. They dunked him in the sea. God, what a laugh!’ Tears stand in her eyes. Poor Kate. And poor Shane, I agree, even though it seems he’s saved himself.

  She drove in after lunch, coming down the zig-zag road in low gear. They’ve cut their gardens from high gorse and manuka and planted shelter belts and toi-toi hedges. From high on the hill it’s beautiful, Kate admits. And down below – well, there’s nothing Mickey Mouse about the place, they’re in business. The usual commune things happen, of course: make your own butter, make your own bread, milk some goats, spin some wool. But they grow for commercial markets – strawberries and kiwi fruit and all sorts of vegetables. They’ve got cherry trees and nut trees coming on. They’re building a big glass-house for tomatoes. Tha
t’s why Shane wanted his tools.

  He pulled her out of the car and kissed her. ‘The big slob.’ His elf-locks were shorn off. They’re squeaky clean, Kate sneers, and what they can’t pray out they snip off. He introduced her and everybody smiled and smiled and smiled – they never stop – and said Bless you.

  ‘I’m not your bloody sister,’ Kate replied. They coped with her anger easily. ‘They’ve got that half-wit look, as though they’ve eaten too many greens. Or had their blood supply cut off to the brain. God, they’re zombies. Shane too. He’s getting it.’

  ‘Come on, Kate. Stick to the facts. Say what happened.’

  ‘Nothing happened.’

  She could make no dent in him. She’d gone out there to save or damage him and could do neither.

  I think about it. Happy Christians. Sad Kate. But there’s no message in it for me. I see them churning butter, picking berries (the season’s wrong, but that’s what I see) and hear them laugh and see them touch each other, but in the end the thing I’m most aware of is what they haven’t got that Kate has got. I won’t propagandize. I won’t say what it is. In fact I can’t. I don’t know. Nor does Kate. She walked among them chockful of her passions. She sneered at Shane and called him nasty names. They went down to the beach and sat on the sand and in that lovely place Kate was ugly with him. Why do I see her then as victor? I must, in fairness, say that no contest has been held. There was Kate, there was Shane, in their state of decreasing gravitational pull. That is all; and that’s a huge unknowable amount.

  ‘He told me to stop swearing. And blaspheming.’

  ‘What did he talk about?’

  ‘The blood of the Lamb.’

  ‘The wrath of God?’

  ‘They’re not into that so much. It’s all lovey-dovey.’

  I asked a difficult question. ‘Does he have a girlfriend there?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said airily, ‘there’s someone. They don’t do anything. Hold hands, I guess. I could get him. If I wanted him.’