by Gee, Maurice
He went off down the garden to his house. His torch made a puddle of light, which he followed along. Mrs Redknapp opened the door and stood outlined, holding out her hands. Like a spider, I thought, as she drew him in—but then I remembered them laughing and kissing, and nothing made sense.
How did he know it was Les who left the leaflets? I went down to the road and along to his box and took out the one I’d delivered there.
Did he know my dad printed them? And would he tell?
But I trusted Mr Redknapp—and Jupiter was responsible. Jupiter, gas giant, hanging silent out among the stars. It filled my half-dreams as I went to sleep.
Chapter 2
Jimpy
Over the road from us lived Mr Raffills and next door to him were the Pikes. Back the other way, past a paddock with draughthorses in it, lived Mr Worley. I knew them all from way back—from stories I’d heard from Mum. Mr Raffills used to beat his sons with tomato stakes pulled from the garden, until one night all three ganged up on him and threw him out of the house and locked the doors. Mr Raffills roared like a bull and banged on the walls, but after a while sat down on the back steps and cried. His wife threw some blankets out the window and told him to sleep in the shed. He was still sleeping there in 1951, even though his wife had died many years before and his sons were gone. The house was full of spiders and mason bees, Mum said. Now and then she left a pot of home-made jam for Mr Raffills in his letter-box.
She never left any for the Pikes because Mrs Pike disapproved of sugar. There were meetings in their house for a strange religion called Radiant Living. They sang songs that sounded like hymns of the cheerful sort or marching songs. One I remember was called ‘Lemons in the Morning’. Maybe they were only vegetarians.
Mr Pike was a railway signalman. Once he built a giant kite, 10 feet long, and asked his neighbours into a paddock on Flynns’ farm to see it fly. The kite broke in half as soon as the wind got hold of it and Mr Pike trampled it to bits and set it on fire, which brought the Flynns running. He went home and let his budgies out and little coloured birds were flying all over Orchard Street for days until they died. After that Mr Pike built a glasshouse and grew flowers; later on he made some extra money by wiring them into wreaths for funerals.
Their son Ian was a junior in the Loomis bank with my brother Les. When he came to our house Mum tried to give him left-over stew or knuckles of mutton, ‘to fatten him up’, ‘to give the poor boy a treat’, she said, but Ian refused. He had never tasted meat in his life. He was tall and thin, with clothes-peg shoulders and grasshopper legs, clumsy and gawky except when he ran, when suddenly he was as graceful as an antelope. Ian won the junior 440 yards at the inter-secondary school sports. He played on the wing for the Loomis colts and, although he never seemed to know what was going on, he scored some good tries when his team-mates managed to put him in the clear. He ran the whole length of the field. So although he wasn’t popular no one bullied him or left him out. He was just a bit of a joke. His nickname was Bike, which came from Pike I suppose.
I won’t go through the whole of Orchard Street, 11 houses, with Mrs Cooper, who smelled of violets and flirted with men and had black eyes—from walking into the door, she said—Mrs Cooper in the first house, and the eight Collymores in an old villa at the blind end. I’ll come to the Collymores soon. Mr Worley is the one who comes next. He was Mrs Redknapp’s father. His orchard gave the street its name. Apple trees ran from the back of his house down to the creek. He sold out to a man who was a speculator in commercial building sites, but Loomis wasn’t ready for that yet. The orchard lay abandoned. The trees suffocated in blackberry, you could see their wigwam shapes underneath. Mum said it pained Mr Worley to see them die, but he had two Gravenstein trees in his back yard and looked after them beautifully. He tossed windfall apples over the fence to the draughthorses, and put overflowing boxes outside his gate with a handwritten notice: Help yourself.
I filled my shirt one day and took them home and Mum sent me back down the road with a jar of melon and lemon jam for Mr Worley. I knocked at the door and heard my dog Jimpy bark half-heartedly inside. Jimpy was going on 14, the same as me, and I’d had him for most of my life. He was a mongrel, with floppy ears and short legs. When you saw him swimming in the creek you thought he was middle-sized but when he came out he was hardly up to your knees, which made people laugh. Jimpy looked sad at that, as though he understood.
For a while he and I grew up together. Then he got old while I stayed young. He wheezed like an old man and hung his head. When I rode my bike down Orchard Street he’d run yelping after me but stop by the draught-horse paddock and lie panting in the shade. Then he went through a hole in the hedge to visit Mr Worley. Soon he was spending most of his time there. Sometimes on a still night, around seven o’clock, I’d hear Mr Worley’s English voice from his front porch: ‘Go home, Jimpy. Home, old chap.’ A couple of minutes later Jimpy would come clicking up our path and scratch on the door for his evening feed—his second feed. No wonder he grew fat. And no wonder he seemed bored with me. I was glad Mr Worley was taking over.
So I wasn’t surprised when I heard my dog barking in someone else’s house. Mr Worley came down the hall.
‘I took some apples so Mum sent you some jam,’ I said.
‘Ah, what sort?’
‘Melon and lemon.’
‘She knows my favourite. Tell her thank you.’
‘OK’—and that was that, about as much as I’d ever had to do with Mr Worley.
On my way home I met Bike Pike, in the double-breasted suit he wore for the bank. The jacket was so long it looked like a skirt.
‘What are you doing in there?’ he said.
‘I took him some jam.’ I started to run. I didn’t want to walk with Bike.
‘Hey, Dinky’—Dinky was my nickname, Dinky Dye—‘you want to see some photos?’
I stopped. ‘What sort?’
‘Wait and see. I got them yesterday.’ We came to his gate. ‘Won’t be a sec.’
I looked around furtively as I waited. I thought I was going to see women in bathing suits or maybe even with nothing on. Les sometimes brought home pictures like that but reckoned I was too young to see. Bike came back with two envelopes.
‘I wrote away for them. This is the best. Pretty, eh?’
The woman was Veronica Lake, an actress who wore her hair falling over one eye. The photo showed only her face—no bathing suit.
‘Who’s the other one?’
‘Joan Leslie. She’s not a blonde but she’s OK.’
I thought Joan Leslie was prettier, mainly because she wasn’t sulking. And although I just shrugged and said, ‘Yeah,’ I was impressed. Writing away to Hollywood and getting pictures back, that wasn’t bad.
‘I’m going to start a Joan Leslie fan club. Veronica Lake’s got one or I’d do her. You want to join?’
‘Do I have to pay?’
‘I don’t know yet. I’ll know when I’m secretary. Ask Les if he wants to join.’
‘He won’t.’ Les was after real girls now, not film stars.
I turned to go and saw Mrs Redknapp coming across the street, wearing one of her frilly young-girl dresses. The rouge on her cheeks was like a rash that needed ointment and her permed hair shone like half-inch lengths of copper pipe.
‘Boy! Dye boy!’
‘Me?’ I said.
‘What were you doing in my father’s house?’
‘I took him some jam.’
‘What jam? Where?’
‘From Mum. It was home made.’
‘Why is she doing that? What’s the meaning of it?’
‘He gave us some apples.’
‘He doesn’t need jam. He doesn’t like jam. And if he does I’ll make it for him. Tell her that. And another thing, keep your dog away. He’s always hanging round there, fouling the lawns. My father doesn’t like it.’
‘He lets him in.’
‘Don’t you contradict me, boy. If it happens again I’ll
call the pound and have him put down.’
She went away, as loose as sand inside her silly dress, and I said to Bike, ‘She’s mad.’
‘She’s as nutty as a two-bob watch,’ Bike said, getting his idioms mixed up as usual. ‘You want to join, Dinky? You can get a photo too.’
‘I’ll see,’ I said, and went home. I told Mum and Dad about Mrs Redknapp and Mum exploded.
‘That wretched woman. She’s got the meanest nature. What she’s really saying is she’s too good for us.’
‘You’d better go down and fetch him Ossie,’ Dad said.
‘No,’ Mum said. ‘Go and tell Mr Worley to keep it. And if he says no then it stays here.’
‘Keep him?’
‘You don’t want it. Him. It. Don’t pretend.’
‘Jimpy’s mine.’ But I was grinning inside. It was the perfect answer. I wouldn’t have Jimpy to worry about. And, I added piously, he’d have a good home.
‘He’d have a good home,’ I said.
‘We’ll show fancy Mrs Redknapp.’
‘But wouldn’t it be better if you went?’
‘Ossie,’ Dad said, ‘he’s your dog.’
‘Have your tea first. Then make the offer,’ Mum said. ‘And if he says no bring it straight back here and tie it up.’
I walked in the dusk to Mr Worley’s house. It was getting on for seven o’clock, when Mr Worley would send Jimpy home. I went up the path and knocked at the door. Jimpy gave a couple of yaps in the house. This time he came along the hall with Mr Worley and wriggled and whined a welcome to me.
‘Austin. What now?’ Mr Worley said.
I saw how old he looked in his cardigan and lopsided slippers. His shoulders stooped, his chest seemed shrunken and his Adam’s apple wobbled in his neck. He smiled at me, anxiously I thought, showing teeth as yellow as sweet corn.
‘Have you come for Jimpy? It’s almost time.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘He can stay.’
Mr Worley blinked several times. He looked down at Jimpy. ‘Do you mean I can keep him? He can live with me?’
‘If you want. He likes it here.’
‘Come in, Austin. Come in, Dinky,’ Mr Worley said.
We went down the hall to the sittingroom, with Jimpy doing old front-footed prances back and forth. There was a wood fire in the grate, glowing red, and two armchairs covered in worn cloth—you could see the stuffing—and a basket with shallow sides at one end of the hearth, filled with ravelled jerseys and dog hairs.
‘That’s where he sleeps. All day long,’ Mr Worley said. ‘He’s a lazy fellow, aren’t you Jimpy?’
‘He’s old,’ I said.
‘Like me. We’re a couple of old fogeys,’ Mr Worley said. He pointed at the basket. ‘In, Jimpy. In.’
Jimpy climbed in the basket and settled down. I stood by the door. I wanted to get it over and get home.
‘Would you like something to eat? A glass of ginger beer?’ Mr Worley asked.
‘No, thank you. I’ve just had tea.’
‘Well, sit down. That used to be Mrs Worley’s chair. Mrs Worley, I have to say, didn’t like dogs.’
‘No,’ I said, sitting on the edge. ‘But you can keep him if you like. Mum says it’s OK.’
‘What do you say?’
‘Well, I’m at school. And I’m doing things.’
‘And he can’t keep up?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. He can, maybe, come and visit us?’
Mr Worley laughed. ‘He will if he can sniff something to eat. Won’t you, Jimp?’ He put his foot on Jimpy and rolled his stomach and the dog made a creaking sound of contentment. He also let out a bad smell, which made me blush because he was still mine. Mr Worley didn’t seem to notice.
‘I’ll keep him,’ he said. ‘You bet I will. I’d love to keep him. I don’t know how to say thank you, Dinky.’
‘Actually, I’m Ossie now. And Austin too.’
‘Ah. Right. I’ll try to remember. What gave you and your mother the idea?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘nothing did, really.’
‘Was it Mrs Redknapp?’
‘She did say I had to stop him coming over here. So Mum said …’
‘Give him to me? All is explained.’ He frowned for a moment, then he sighed. ‘Ah well, I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. A gift dog. Tell your mother, thank you.’
‘What will Mrs Redknapp say?’
‘Probably quite a lot. But mostly to me. Mrs Redknapp gets excited.’ A look of sorrow crossed his face. ‘Don’t worry about it, Dinky. Sorry, Ossie. What can I give you in return?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a chain at home if you want to tie him up.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’ He put his foot on Jimpy again. ‘No chains, old chap. What do you say?’
‘OK,’ I said, standing up.
‘Do you read westerns? Six-shooters? Stuff like that?’
‘I go to westerns at the pictures.’
‘Well, borrow this.’ Mr Worley took a book from low down on a shelf, groaning as he bent. Higher up were other books I didn’t like the look of—Tennyson and Dickens and Thackeray—but the one he offered me was all right, by Zane Grey.
‘You might like that if you like blood and thunder. Let me know. You can have another one when you bring it back—if you’ll stay and play a game of draughts with me.’
I thought that was a swindle. I had thought I was getting the book free. But I said thank you, and said I would. Jimpy stood up to follow me as I went out the door. Mr Worley said, ‘No, old chap, you stay here,’ and Jimpy sank down with what seemed a sigh of relief.
I thought, walking home, that Mr Worley loved that dog. I felt good about making the gift. I was pleased too not to have the trouble any more, but sad, just a little bit, as something came to an end.
‘He took him,’ I told Mum.
‘That’ll show her ladyship.’
‘Duck when you see her coming,’ Les said.
‘What’s that book?’
‘It’s The Lone Star Ranger. It’s Zane Grey.’
‘He could have given you something better than that.’
‘It’s a lend.’
‘A loan, not a lend. See that you look after it.’
‘I might have a read,’ Dad said. ‘I used to like Zane Grey.’
‘Mr Worley said Jimpy can come and visit us.’
‘As long as he knows it’s not his home,’ Mum said. ‘And no meat. Only scraps. We’ve got to be consistent.’
That was the way it turned out—scraps, no meat. Jimpy came a couple of times a week and scratched at our door, then went off down Orchard Street in his rheumatic way, home to Mr Worley.
Mrs Redknapp ignored us, all of us Dyes; but once Mr Redknapp winked at me in the street.
I read Zane Grey—and later on, after meeting Mr Redknapp in the paddock, any astronomy books I could get my hands on.
Mr Worley beat me at draughts.
Chapter 3
Collymores
My father placed his bets with Frank Collymore. They were good mates, although Frank was self-employed and had no interest in union affairs—union hoo-ha, he called it. He just liked drinking beer and going to the races and kidding with women. He used to call out to them from his truck, ‘Gidday, gorgeous’, and blow kisses and offer them rides, even when he’d never seen them before. That sort of behaviour was frowned on in the 1950s, although not as much as it is today. Some people admired Frank and said he was a dag.
Dad liked beer and the races too but he had a serious side. If he hadn’t had it Mum would never have married him, she said. She hated seeing him waste his time with Frank Collymore. I have to say about Mum that there were a lot of things Dad and I and Les never told her. She wasn’t against fun, she could laugh out loud, laugh like a barmaid, Dad said, and she was always giving us treats and surprises, but she came from a family that had more money and education than Dad’s and she believed in ‘things of the mind’. Polite behaviour, nice t
houghts. Elevated thoughts, she sometimes said. It made my growing up difficult.
One of the things she held against Frank Collymore was that he was a Catholic. We, the Dyes, didn’t have a religion. You didn’t need one, Mum said, to be a good person. ‘Say you’re nothing, if anyone asks. Say you believe in the human race.’ I had too much good sense to try that. I knew what my friends and the teachers would say. ‘We don’t go to church,’ was all I admitted. You can imagine how Mum felt when Les started going out with Eileen Collymore.
Frank owned an acre of land at the blind end of Orchard Street. A garage and a junk shed stood in a clearing hacked out of the scrub behind the house. Collymore Cartage was painted on the doors of his two trucks, but one of them hadn’t been on the road for years. Frank pirated it for parts for the one that went. Now and then he shifted a load of furniture, and he drove into Auckland twice a week and brought back bits and pieces for the local farmers and orchardists, but his real job was being a bookie.
There were six Collymore children, four girls and two boys. The boys came at the end, a blond quick wiry cunning pair never more than three feet apart. They had bonded for survival in that family of girls, Mum said. She called them the devil’s cubs but allowed them to take the shortcut through our section to the Catholic school over the farm paddocks at the back. Teresa had done that too before she started secondary school. Teresa was the youngest of the Collymore girls.
Ahead of her came Eileen, who would have been Miss Loomis if we’d had one, who would have been Miss World, we said, if only her legs weren’t short and her teeth had grown straight. Even I, three years younger, had been in love with Eileen. She worked in the local milkbar, which was next door to the billiard rooms where Les and his mates spent most of their time. Women weren’t allowed in but sometimes on a Saturday afternoon Eileen would deliver a tray of milkshakes to the players and hang around to watch Les pot a few reds. He was likely then to finish half the colours as well—and Eileen would blink, she’d give a little jump, every time a ball slammed into a pocket. Her boss had to stick his head round the door and yell at her, ‘Eileen, customers!’
