by Janet Frame
SUNDAY:
My tenants called by yesterday to deposit some of their goods in the one room I’ve managed to clean up. What nice kids they are! So sensitive, aware, overflowing with concern for everything & happily untrammelled by conventions of Victorian New Zealand.
Yes I’ll be seeing Frank S in Auckland & no doubt he’ll cook me a meal one evening with green peppers from his garden. He attends the hypertension unit at the local hospital & his reports of the conversations with other patients are hilarious. He insists that the blood-pressure reducing drug has a curious effect (yellow) on sex.
Goodbye for now. Love in transit, in packing, love-in-a-suitcase from me
& Fred & Gopher & all.
NEWS FLASH.
CITY SEARCHES.
WHO IS THE HERO OF THIS DRAMA?
Why –
(Now Read on)
– Lucas, of course!
Last evening five devoted servants (mother, father, three sons) of a certain vagabond familiarly known as Snowy, alias Lucas Burch, searched Dunedin for their straying master. Their first call was to a Blue Jay in Evans Street where, tearfully, they broke the news to the Jay, enlisting her in the search. Jay thought but did not say why should Snowy (formerly known as Lucas Burch) abandon luxury dwelling with 5 servants to return to 1 only?
Later:
NEWS FLASH.
An overjoyed phone call to Jay from the servants. Their master had been hiding and playing (wickedly not responding to calls) two days in a ditch a few blocks away, near the golf course.a Snowy, formerly known as Lucas Burch Convict 99 has the world at his whiskers. Jay who had been planning to make a phone call before she left to make sure L.B was O.K. is most happy at the power and personality of Lucas (Snowy) and the passion and devotion he continues to inspire. The end.
A cover-up, no doubt.
125. Wellington December 6 (handwritten)
My dears,
Last time I passed through Wellington I wrote you a letter from this room which is the young John’s room. The wind was blowing, I think, and the trees were knocking their branches against the window and it was morning and the rest of the household was asleep—Jacquie and little Stephanie, now. The daughter is up in Auckland, the husband is at the religious retreat he is founding in the wilds of the North Island, the son John whose room I have, is in a Detention Centre for three months on drug charges. This big solid house—very much like the houses we used to live in when we were children & so unlike my little cottage which trembles every time the wind lays a hand on its body—seems like a huge empty nest.
‘Who has no house now will not build him one . . .’
It is child-spattered where the children like young birds have marked the walls and the furniture. A big teddy bear (like yours, Paul, in the corner of your room) with its fur well kissed & rubbed & hugged away sits on top of the wardrobe. Someone has tied a red scarf around its neck & its head is sunk in the scarf.
I’m flying to Auckland today—an hour’s flight by jet; fourteen hours by train. It is wonderful to have left Dunedin. My last couple of days there were peaceful. As I planned to do I wandered to the place of The Stone Bees, to photograph them, and when I came to them I was confronted by my own imagination and memory, for they were so small I had to search for the carvings & I don’t think my photographs will show them. I decided to keep my detailed imagination and memory of them enriched and perhaps made more precious and varied by being set beside their surprising reality which in itself has a clear delight & teaches me a ‘lesson’. I’m afraid I profit from everything, even ‘lessons’.
The flight from Dunedin was pleasant. I found that Charles Brasch was also on the plane & we sat together—I think the first time in my life that I’ve had company on a flight. I warned him that I would be likely to grab his arm if the plane were being buffeted & he whom I’m sure has remained ungrabbed all his life, suppressed a slight alarm & gallantly said he did not mind.
The flight was calm though & we were chased by a wind.
And so to Wellington. I’ve just stayed at home here, reading. As this is Katherine Mansfield’s city, I at last got round to reading Anthony Alper’s Life of K.M. Very well written, very moving. I always have a curious feeling in Wellington, a city I’ve never lived in for more than a week. I feel I know it from other sources, as if I’ve lived in it. It was my mother’s city & so many of the names here were made memorable by my mother’s gift of saying everything—names in particular—as if they were part of a treasury of doom: which perhaps they were.
But, B P & N I’m rather ‘going on’ aren’t I? The sun has risen now. You’re all in my mind, as you see, and if you are able to prise any secrets out of Carnie he will tell you that he’s been seeing definite footprints of my brown bread shoes somewhere in the Live Oak Inn patio between the olive tree and the Bird of Paradise Flower. Ned has seen them too. That’s why he gave you that glance when you came home yesterday . . . remember?
Love in transit
Hello again from Auckland. Your letter was waiting for me, so nice and warm, letters & sun; it is early morning & already the Auckland mosquitoes & ants have revealed themselves unto me.
I liked the sound of the dinner with Lehmann & Co. Lehmann was Frank S’s first publisher way back in the days of New Writing & it was he whom I once hoaxed by pretending I was a little native girl from the South Pacific. The poems, he said, (these were poems I wrote specially in my role as l.n.g.) were ‘so fresh & new’ clearly because English was not my native language and when I learned a little more English he would be happy to etc. etc. . . . That isn’t an exact quote but it’s the gist.
It feels so strange being on top of N.Z.
I’m sleepy & crazy & longing to be with Bee the Calmed the Liever the Cause the Dazzled; Pee the Knoll the Can the Body, En the Noble the Tice the Fold.
Northern loveMore soon.
126. Auckland December 9 (handwritten)
Dear Blades strange & freeing,
Early morning. Sounds of coughing (engines and neighbours) of many wide-awake birds, & my c(l)ock ticking fast because its mainspring has been abused.
As usual I have spent my first two days here in a daze & bikini & without energy. Yesterday I made the big journey to town to confirm visa news which the office boy at the American Vice-Consulate had given me over the phone; to find that the office boy was the Vice-Consul himself who told me I’d have to wait about a year for a visa but as I have a visitor’s visa which, strictly speaking, should not be used, I can go to the States & adjust visas there as soon as a number becomes available for me. I liked the Vice-Consul. He is very pale & sad & he looks as if he is dying . . .
In my confusion in town I lost my purse with a lot of money, keys etc. & I haven’t much hope of recovering it.
Last evening I went to Frank’s for dinner. He was in good form, & Harry, who appeared from the small apartment which Frank had built to house him, looked fine. Frank is giving a broadcast on Christmas Day, along with the Governor General & Dame Ngaio Marsh etc. etc. & Frank insists that his message is an account of his favourite Christmas meal, written in old-fashioned script—
fucking pig and apricoks
We had a pleasant evening—rather sad as well as humorous, for Frank discussed his death & his will and so on, between telling me such tales as that of the young man who went to church for the first time and being asked by the robed priest who was attending to the censer how he was enjoying the ceremony, he replied, ‘Your drag is most impressive but your handbag’s on fire.’
And another earthy N.Z. tale of the Englishman at work for the first time on a N.Z. farm, & given the job of taking the cow to the bull.
‘Are you sure you know how to go about it all?’ the farmer asked.
‘Quite sure,’ the Englishman replied.
And when he returned & the farmer asked how the event had gone the Englishman beaming replied,
‘Oh top-hole, top-hole!’
Stars for rude Jay.
&nbs
p; More stars.
The household here is my sister & her husband & one nephew & one niece (the other nephew is away doing research on a computer in Wellington). They’re nice kids, packed with problems. When they start telling me about the movies they like, the books they read and so on, they say, ‘You probably wouldn’t enjoy this, it’s mostly for young people.’
dots.
Love waves across the Pacific to you. If you once again question Carnie he will tell you that not only the brown-bread shoe prints may be seen but the peanut butter haze in the patio of patios.
Your ptgs will be waiting impatiently in the gallery now to be hung. B, I think it would seem as if one created a tribe or herd of living images so you are driving your flock to market where they will be devoured/patted, admired, envied, skinned, coveted—even paid for, perhaps.
You know now that I’m lost in words so I’ll stop writing this & adjust my earthy peedauntal.
May’s poems sound very good. I’m looking forward to reading them.
You know that I don’t know what to say when I learn that some people are reading my writings. I can only repeat that I’m really a simple non-verbal non-bright feelie so I now send feelie love to
all at Live Oak Inn see you soon soon soon
127. Auckland December
Dear Bee and Pee and Enn and all the other inhabitants musical botanical, simian, and the paintings on the walls,
Hello. Early morning. A grey Auckland day, warm, a slight wind blowing. I’m sitting on my bed in this basement room typing this while the rest of the household prepares to go to its work—my brother-in-law to his office, my sister to her Kindergarten College, my nephew to the broadcasting Offices where he is a Sound bloke, while my niece (fifteen) and I stay home. The other nephew is in Wellington—he’s the one whose photo I sent once, God knows what for. ‘The heart has reasons that reason doth not know.’ It’s time I found a new quote from the abundance available.
Last week, the big day, my sister’s Diploma giving. She and two other older women had been studying among eighteen-year olds, and the valedictory address referred to ‘you young girls going out into the field’. The setup—the audience, the clothes Doris Day style—all part of a world I don’t inhabit and don’t care to—a sad sort of world, everyone a little tired, uttering the old clichés. The only worthwhile aspect, for me, was the triumph it gave my sister and her family, and the admiration I and they feel for her courage and perseverance.
But—how does one escape from seeing (or thinking one sees) so clearly inside people?
Stars for relaxation, for fun, laughs. Why did John Wayne? Because he saw Mia Farrow.
In America the public toilet
is always ultra-voilet.
So far during my stay here I’m content just to stay around the place, recovering from Dunedin, I suppose. I feel very close to the other side of the Pacific, as if I’m already there. I’m going to type a few poems to send to Landfall before I leave and I’m thinking of sending some of my luggage ahead as unaccompanied baggage, at the cheap rate.
stars for apologies for inflicting boring details.
a small star for a sudden memory of Lucas, with whose story I continue to bore people. I see the glazed look come in the eye as I begin each story. The family here retaliate with stories of Tinky, who is also part Siamese, and has many of Lucas’ habits, such as running around like a young racehorse.
This time last year I think you were baking pumpkin cookies??????
Since I’ve been here I’ve baked many loaves of bread which are very quickly eaten, and one evening I made the dinner—meat loaf and stewed dates . . . not very imaginative.
The young boy next door brought in his autograph book to sign. What can one do in a country where people still write in autograph books such verses as ‘God made the little niggers, he made them in the night, he made them in a hurry and forgot to make them white?’ This was on the front page of the kid’s book next to the old timer, ‘By hook or by crook I’ll be first in this book.’
I mailed off a little parcel to you the other day. I hope you get it before you leave for Santa Fe.
This letter is itty-bitty. I’ve just been having a telephone exchange (it is a few hours later now) with Air New Zealand who told me I can’t fly to America on a Visitor’s Visa with a one-way ticket. Jay’s panic. I phoned the Vice-Consul who said I could. Air New Zealand spoke to Vice-Consul and reluctantly said I could fly thus. End of International Incident. This makes me impatient more and more to fly in case, suddenly, my visa is cancelled, as in a dream, and I remain trapped here—oh what fantasies of horror one conjours up every moment. Why, then I should have to swim across the Pacific and Ned could row his cap-sailed boat out beyond the islands of the Santa Barbara channel and, dipping his oar into the water, hoist me on to the boat. Meanwhile, back in Live Oak Inn, Bill and Paul work hard with Old Smoky, burning—not cooking—truckloads of liver so the smell and smoke may lure Ned home—his only means of navigation. Tired and wet, but happy, we steer to shore, somewhere down near Butterfly Lane.
Crazy me.
I hope and hope the preparation for the L.A. show is not too terrible. I think it will be fine, fine, and recognized as such, and ‘people will come and go
talking of B’s show’.
Forgive this naive tactless way I have. I wanner communicate and words seem so silly, at this point, I mean the Pacific’s there, not far from here, and it’s sound and colour and movement, not a word in sight. When you’re painting, and have painted and painted, does the paint become too tender to touch, as words do?
Pacific love—cool, wet, full of star fish, sunfish, and inaccessible forests.
to
B
P
N
from Jay
More soon: Plane-loads of thoughts meanwhile.
128. Auckland December
Dear B P N, lately of Live Oak Inn, now, for Christmas, of Sante Fe and Gilbride Motel,
Hello, Hi, Greetings. Thank you for the lovely Bishop. He is beautiful; his colouring too. He is sitting here on my improvised desk in the semi-basement room of Ant Lodge (a small room made downstairs, off the garage). The ants in question live both upstairs and downstairs. When I used to stay here there was some kind of control over them but now they have taken over the place and the problem is to keep all food, especially sweet stuffs, from their scent cones. I should properly call downstairs where I’m staying, Mosquito Mansion.
The early morning is grey. Everyone upstairs is asleep. There has been some turmoil in the household this week. I remember writing in my last letter that I wished I didn’t see, or think I saw, so clearly into people. The change of job, after a lifetime working in a newspaper, has been too much for my brother-in-law. He’s had to go to hospital for treatment for a week or so. I saw the breakup happening and I’m glad everyone else sees it now. He’s recovering very quickly and they will be able to go on their South Island Tour at Christmas time, when I shall be in the house with my two nephews, 21 and 19. They’re nice kids, and we get on well, though I’m inclined to act the part of crabby aunt when they turn their pop music to full volume through the huge coffin-like speakers they have installed all over the house—the speakers are about seven feet high and three feet wide.
Poor May, with that nasty review in the N.Y. Times Sunday Review. I don’t think I’ve ever cried over a nasty review. I just get a cold feeling of hopelessness and a desire to remove myself to the farthest corner of myself and never emerge again. And it’s almost as bad with good reviews, when I clearly feel my head swelling and get the idea that I’m good and that everyone knows it. I used to get that feeling when I was a kid at school and won prizes. I would walk through the streets of our one-horse town, with a glow in my heart, and a certainty that everyone, everyone was thinking, There’s J.F. (of the clever F family, you know) who won that prize.
Ah me. Stars for rain falling now, tropical rain. Everyone is up and awake. Tinky the cat is soaking wet
and has just tapped on the insect screen—her way of asking to come in. They swear she is a cross between a cat and an opossum, for she looks like both and has the same colouring as an opossum.
John Lehmann never found out about either the little native girl or (a trick I played when I first came to London) the man from the West Indies.
O Lord of the flying fish
be sleep in the pocket of my fine London suit
. . . pretty corny, really.
Auckland life, on the right.
NEWS FLASH.
The U.S. State Department has approved a Labour Certification for me, which means, I guess, that I can be employed in any aspect of writing, within the United States. I shall have to wait for several months, however, before I can make formal application for a longterm visa as there is no number available just now. So I’ll be making my application when I’m in U.S., maybe some time this coming year. The L. Certificate means that if the worst comes to the worst I can go for a few weeks to a University or some such, if they want me.
I’m looking forward to seeing that nice Christmas card, the painter’s print of his fingers and toes and what else who knows.
You should have been here a few days ago when I made the evening meal and inadvertently gave the household Soap Soup, as a sliver of washing soap found its way into the meat-pot: I had an inkling the lather was a little unusual.
You’ll have the Bee Photo by now. No matter how diminished it is, it is still a Bee, and I’m beginning to think my next title is truly ‘The Place of the Stone Bees’. It is a case of making a selection from the various hauntings, and those which stay the course, win. The other day I came across a notebook in which I had written ‘The Basket Population’. A title that died, but may be revived. I think its origin was a kind of brain cell called a basket cell, and the practice of naming soldiers who had been blown to bits but were able to be reassembled, as ‘basket cases’.
