I Got His Blood on Me: Frontier Tales

by Lawrence Patchett

  When I arrived I found Smith had been shifted to a window bay, his bed angled towards it and tilted right up. He was gazing out at the dusk. I said hello and was ignored and plonked myself in a chair, wondering what I was doing there. It was obvious Smith wouldn’t talk to me. It seemed unlikely he’d ever talk to me again. The visit would only make me late home, and when I got back Mary would be in bed, but not sleeping. I’d come in quietly and pitch my voice at a non-intrusive hello, and she wouldn’t even turn over to see me. She’d wait silently for me to extinguish my light, then go on lying in the same position.

  A long period of silence ensued, Smith staring into the darkening hills of Newtown. Then he turned and said, ‘How many guards are there?’

  At first I was so surprised that I didn’t reply. It had been so long since he’d spoken to me, plus he’d gained weight and recovered that cold stare.

  ‘In this hospital?’ I said. ‘I don’t know. Heaps—hundreds, maybe.’

  ‘Liar,’ he said. ‘How many?’

  I looked out the window and shook my head. It was just like before, Smith using me to get chocolates and morphine.

  ‘I don’t know, Smith,’ I said. ‘I don’t really care.’

  ‘There’s only one guard in this ward,’ he said. ‘There’s only been one this whole day.’

  ‘I wouldn’t try anything, Smith,’ I said. ‘You’ll get arrested if you assault someone. They’ll put you in jail.’

  ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you,’ he said.

  ‘Pardon me?’

  For answer he turned back to the window. Then he said, as if reflecting on the weather out there, ‘I might slit your throat tomorrow.’

  I gaped, tried to swallow, said nothing.

  ‘I’d quite like to slit your throat,’ he said. ‘I think you’d squeal. Just like a wee piggy, fresh from the barn.’

  I glanced at the door. I was very aware of my sitting position, of how quickly I could get out.

  The bed-metal clinked as he turned to face me better. ‘Why don’t you go home, Miller?’

  I recrossed my legs, smoothed my palms. ‘I will. I’m aiming at the nine o’clock train.’

  ‘No, why don’t you go home permanently? Why do you keep coming here?’

  ‘I don’t know, Smith,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you tell me? You seem to be very talkative today.’

  He smiled. ‘Answer my question, Miller.’

  It was hard to look at him. ‘I suppose I feel I’m obliged. I promised, remember? You made me promise, when I scraped you off the road.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ he said, amused. ‘And?’

  ‘And you don’t seem to have any other visitors, besides me. I’m doing you a favour.’

  ‘But you come here all the time,’ he said. ‘Don’t you have work to go to?’

  ‘I’m disestablished,’ I said. ‘They got rid of my job.’

  He grinned. ‘So you lied about working for the Government.’

  ‘I did not,’ I said. ‘I worked for the Ministry for twelve years. I lost my job two months ago. I still consider myself a civil servant, Smith.’

  ‘So you did lie,’ he said. ‘Besides, that doesn’t explain why you keep coming here.’

  ‘I don’t keep coming here. I visit you.’

  ‘You love it,’ he said. ‘And I know why. You’re planning an exhibition. You plan to put me up for display.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said. ‘That’s so paranoid.’

  ‘Look at the Pākehā-Māori,’ he said. ‘Look at his weapons. That savage. How could he. I bet he took a native wife, and everything. How could he.’

  ‘You’re an idiot, Smith,’ I said. ‘No one’s like that anymore.’

  ‘Say what you like,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen your books, your little mind working. I’ve seen your plan.’

  I laughed and looked elsewhere.

  Again he shifted on the bed to face me better. It was a slow and menacing lumber of limbs and the bed-frame. He waited until I could face him. ‘Well?’

  ‘Maybe I’ve developed an interest in you,’ I said. ‘In your story. But only because I like adventure stories—I always have. That’s not a crime.’

  He smiled and bunched his hair back as if this just confirmed everything.

  ‘Besides,’ I said, ‘I’m entitled to. I saved your life, remember.’

  ‘Pah!’ he said. ‘I never asked you to save me—to drag me here.’

  ‘You would have died without me,’ I said. ‘You would have died in quarter of an hour.’

  ‘Ha!’ he said. ‘What a joke.’

  ‘Okay, so what was your plan?’ I said. ‘Where were you off to that day, on your one leg, fainting every metre or two? Eh? Your kneecap swinging everywhere.’

  Smith leaned out at me and pointed. ‘If you don’t leave me alone, I swear, I will kill you. I will slit your throat in your bed—you and your girl. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it to you.’

  Cold grabbed at my groin and began spreading.

  ‘I will gut you like an eel,’ he said. ‘I’ll feed you to the gulls.’

  ‘That’s very interesting, Smith, but what will you do then? Where will you go, out there?’ I jabbed my thumb at the outdoors, my voice quavery with fear. ‘Will you drive home, or will you fly? Maybe you’ll take a wheelchair? Do you know what century it is, out there? Do you know what a motorway is? A computer?’

  ‘You little fucker,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, good plan,’ I said. ‘Do you even know where that is, by the way—your home? Is it still there?’

  ‘Shut your trap,’ he said. ‘I’m not telling you, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Because you don’t know,’ I said. ‘You don’t even know whether your home’s still there. You wouldn’t survive ten minutes out there, so don’t go playing the big man with me, Smith, you snake.’

  ‘Pah!’

  ‘Who’s your wife, Smith? Do you have one? Have you still got one?’

  To this he ground his teeth and rolled away, really mad. In the first few days I’d asked him that question many times, though never so bluntly, and now I saw his nearest fist clench and unclench against the sheets, showing white round the knuckles.

  ‘I’m your only friend, Smith,’ I said. ‘I’m the only guy who helped you. And I haven’t told anyone about you, since then. I’ve kept my promise, even though you called me a liar. And thank you for that, by the way. Thank you for rubbing salt in that particular wound. I was good at it, Smith, my job. I got health information out to people, not all the time, but that was the basic idea. Not that you’d know anything about that—about public service. I know you’re a low-life. I know you stole from old ladies, back in Britain.’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘You did so. You were a thief and a cut-throat and a sneak. It’s so obvious. You probably knifed someone to run from your ship or camp or wherever you were when you deserted. You should be in jail. You were just lucky someone was kind to you when you washed up at Kāpiti. Which would be fine, if you didn’t lie about everything, didn’t pretend you were some big fighter all the time.’

  ‘What would you know about it?’ he said. ‘You’re a judgemental little coward.’

  ‘And you were lucky I found you, on the motorway. And before you ask, I don’t even want to know how you got there. I don’t care anymore.’

  He laughed. ‘As if I believe that.’

  I glared. ‘Do you want to know something, Smith?’

  ‘Oh yes, I would,’ he said. ‘I’m enjoying this. I’d love to know.’

  ‘Maybe I was interested in your story—maybe I am. But that’s not really the reason why I come here. I look out for you because I saved you. I’ve never done that before. And I think I did all right. I didn’t run away. I pulled finger when no one else would. I rescued you, Smith, and I’m bloody proud of it, too.’

  Smith rolled his eyes.

  ‘Maybe I have been coming here for something, Smith,’ I said. ‘Maybe I’ve been waiting for
you to say thank you. Do you know those words?’

  He laughed. ‘There’s no way I’m thanking you.’

  ‘Oh, I know that,’ I said. ‘I know what you’re like now. But maybe I thought you would see past your own bullshit to see me. I’ve got no money coming in, Smith, and a bloody big mortgage. And my girlfriend’s having a breakdown because she can’t work, and she won’t even talk to me.’

  Now he sighed up at the ceiling, pretending to be very bored.

  ‘But if you’re not interested, then screw you, Smith. You can just be some one-legged mess in a wheelchair for all I care. Go find your own way home. Go get your own car. If you’re not too afraid of everything out there, that is.’

  I was standing now, and I looked at the floor, amazed at how angry I was, at the blood throbbing in my face and my arms. ‘I wasn’t very good at my job, Smith—not like Mary. I was just okay, nothing more. But I didn’t deserve to get the chop, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because you annoy me.’

  He shook his head, but he was facing away, and I knew I was getting through to him.

  ‘I really put myself out for you, Smith,’ I said. ‘And now you can’t even tell me what your wife’s name is, so that I can ring her and get her to collect you. You’re too scared to let me go, that’s your problem. You’re too scared that you won’t survive on your own without me.’

  He was hunched away and I thought that maybe he really was afraid as well as mad, and now even that fed my anger. Somehow Smith had a unique ability to concentrate all my inchoate rage about everything. ‘Find your own way back, Smith,’ I said. ‘Just go home on your broken knee. Walk all the way, and see if I care.’

  I turned to collect my wallet and keys from the windowsill, and though I didn’t need to shift the chair I kicked it to the side anyway, just for the noise.

  Smith made a sound, and when I whirled to face him I overbalanced, the blood rushing in my face. I was that overheated.

  ‘Hine,’ he said. ‘Her name is Hine.’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘Whose?’

  ‘My wife,’ he said, his voice muffled against the bedding. ‘You can call her Hine.’

  I stood waiting for more. I tried to breathe slowly. ‘That’s not her real name, is it.’

  ‘You can call her that,’ he said. ‘She’s real. I have got one.’

  ‘How can I contact her? I don’t suppose she’s got a phone.’

  ‘You’d never find her,’ he said. ‘It’s impossible.’

  I breathed deep again. I saw an end to it all. With this information I could be rid of him. ‘I won’t hurt her, Smith. I won’t tell anyone. Just tell me how to find her. It’s only fair to her, and to me.’

  Smith shook his head again. He was curled as best he could towards the window. ‘You’d never find it,’ he said. ‘And I don’t want you to meet her. You’re too hungry.’

  ‘What does that mean? I can help you.’

  ‘You want to know everything. You’re so greedy. You’d eat her up too.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘You’d better leave us alone,’ he said. ‘Leave me alone now.’

  ‘I will,’ I said.

  ‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘Don’t come back here.’

  ‘I’m going,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t come back,’ he said. ‘Actually, I need a nurse. Send a nurse up, on your way down. Then leave me alone.’

  It was two mornings after that. I was standing in the kitchen. I’d been out to the shed and fired up my job search and clicked on three remotely feasible job ideas, then closed my computer and come back inside, unable to deal.

  I heard the door. It was Mary, coming back from the shop. She had the newspaper in her arms and some milk. Seeing me, she stood just inside the door.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Right.’

  I was looking out the window at our barbecue table. My dad had built it a few summers before, when he’d come to stay. Mary moved to the fridge and I glanced at her shoulders as she bent to put the milk away and wondered how I could love her this much and piss her off this badly. How could this be my reward? Then she straightened and I resumed my stare out the window.

  She smoothed her clothes down. ‘Are you doing anything today?’

  I shrugged. ‘What’s to do?’

  She stared. Don’t be like this, I told myself. Be better.

  ‘What about your friend?’ she said. ‘Are you going to see him?’

  I shook my head. ‘He told me to leave him alone. He said he hates me.’

  ‘You were kind of researching him,’ she said.

  ‘What does that mean?’ I said.

  ‘You know,’ she said. ‘Your history-researcher thing. You were doing the interview.’

  ‘Sorry, you don’t know my ‘history-researcher thing’, Mary,’ I said. ‘You didn’t even know me at uni.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she said. ‘You know the interview.’

  I snorted. ‘And what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with being interested?’

  She arranged the paper on the table. ‘I’m just saying.’

  ‘I was helping him,’ I said. ‘I took an interest, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘You could call it that.’

  I shook my head, bitterly this time. ‘No one else helped him, that day. No one. They all just drove past. I was the one who stopped and got the ambulance. I got his blood on me, for God’s sake. I’m the only one who helped him, and now when I go to visit him—the only person who visits him—all I get is criticism, from you and from him.’

  Mary sighed and I glared out at the view of our barbecue table and the sky, hating it, hating our neighbour’s chimney as well.

  ‘Maybe you were smothering him a bit,’ she said. ‘You can do that, sometimes. You have that tendency.’

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘Thank you for that insight, Mary. Next time, I’ll just leave someone to bleed to death, just in case I smother them once they’re recuperating.’

  Mary smoothed her clothes and exhaled again. ‘Pardon me for saying this David, and I’m saying it for both our sakes, but he’s kind of your only friend at the moment. It might pay to look after him.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ I said. ‘He told me to leave him alone. He told me to never come back. That sounds pretty clear to me.’

  ‘Can someone else talk to him? Maybe I could?’

  ‘He’s got a wife,’ I said. ‘Apparently. Not that he trusted me with that information.’

  She shook her head quietly, as if I wasn’t trying, and I couldn’t look at her, holding it all in. Then she made to go down the hall and I whirled on her.

  ‘And how about you, Mary?’ I said. ‘Where have you gone, lately?’

  ‘Pardon? Whoa, David. Calm down.’

  ‘No, you’re telling me not to abandon people. Hello? Haven’t you abandoned me?’

  She stared, then gave an incredulous laugh, her hands up before her. ‘That’s a leap, David. You need to calm down.’

  ‘You’re not the only one who’s disestablished, okay?’ I said. ‘You’re not the only one who can’t find a job.’

  ‘I never said that,’ she said. ‘I never said it’s not hard for you.’

  ‘Oh, so that’s why you never talk to me. That’s why you look at me every morning—every single morning—like “Oh Christ, I woke up next to that guy again. That guy who isn’t trying, who never helps me.” That explains it, I suppose.’

  Her voice went quiet. ‘I’m not dealing with this very well. I know that. I don’t cope well when I’m not working.’

  ‘Neither do I, okay? That’s what I’m saying. I’m—’ I shook my head. My face was hot with all the things I wanted to say.

  ‘I know,’ she said.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ I said. ‘You don’t. Work is not just important for you. It doesn�
��t start to matter only once you’ve got an MBA. You don’t know everything. You don’t.’

  She said nothing. Her head was down and I knew I was about to go too far, and I didn’t care.

  ‘It’s all about you, isn’t it, Mary. Your precious career. You’ve been selfish about this whole thing, right from the start—right from the start of us. Grade A selfish, that’s you.’

  She didn’t look at me. She waited with her face averted until she was sure that I had finished, then reached to the table and rearranged the newspaper and the heap of gutted envelopes that lived there. Then she went back out the door to her car and drove away.

  That afternoon I went down to the beach and threw sticks for the imaginary dog we’d never got around to buying. It always got rid of some venom, to hurl driftwood and watch him lumber after it into the waves. I’d missed him a lot lately, that nonexistent dog, happy and old, his warm head pushing against my hand. I threw him a dozen more sticks, then gave it up, turning to walk into the light southerly.

  It was my favourite walk and it did me some good, because the wind was cool against my still-hot skin, but it was hard not to think about Mary. It was hard not to rehash that argument. It was difficult not to picture myself entering my forties without her, living in a separate house somewhere in Paraparaumu with my small car parked outside, still without a job.

  A long boomerang of driftwood was anchored in the sand ahead of me and I sent it overarm towards the waves and watched the dog bound after it, and thought about heading back for the car, then decided to walk on. The coast cliffs above Paekākāriki looked steep and good and I pushed on towards them.

  Again I wished I had my dad’s fencing ability, or some semi-trade skill like builder’s labouring to fall back on. He was a scientist now, but Dad had fenced his way all through university and overseas, and he could still flick up a fence for any of his neighbours any time. He’d even done a voluntary stint in Australia after the fires. I’d got my degree but never mastered anything else. I could do my job on the computers at work, and I could mow our lawns provided the mower started, and I could cycle to the railway station. That was about the extent of my skills.