by Gee, Maurice
I had been waiting only ten minutes when the procession arrived. I counted the first twenty cars, then gave up. There must have been more than a hundred. An almost invisible smoke began to rise from the chimney as men in dark suits lifted the coffin from the hearse and carried it into the chapel through an avenue of children in Wadesville College uniforms. I waited a long time. Charlie had no religion, but Joyce Poole, I remembered, had been Church of England, and probably was again for this occasion. After twenty minutes the smoke from the chimney suddenly darkened. I got in my car and drove away. Like Farnon’s man who had quarrelled with his wife I simply kept going. I went through Riverhead, Silverdale, and found myself after midday at Orewa. I walked on the beach for an hour. A cold wind was blowing off the sea. A man and a girl in black rubber suits were surfing where the waves ran in towards the river mouth. The man was expert; patient with the girl, who kept falling off.
At one o’clock I had a cup of coffee in a milk bar. I started to drive south towards Takapuna. Once I stopped myself from turning the car round and chasing a green Mini. Farnon’s job. There were thousands of green Minis.
As I drove past the old church at Albany I wondered what Charlie and Joyce were going to do with Celia’s ashes.
1945–1949
My father grew Cox’s Orange and Gravenstein apples and Bon Chretien pears. For household use we had plum, lemon, grapefruit, peach and nectarine trees and a small grove of tree tomatoes (tamarillos today). My mother made jam and marmalade and bottled the tree tomatoes and nectarines. Her fowls kept us supplied with eggs whose yolks had a colour seldom seen in these days of battery production. They sometimes layed in the orchard. Andrew and I would scout through the grass and come back with our shirts full of eggs which Mother would test for freshness in a pan of water. After her death Father wanted to sell the fowls but Andrew begged to look after them himself. He began to sell eggs round the neighbourhood. The cow died and as the Flynns had left Wadesville we decided to get our milk from the milkman. I was happy to be relieved of the job of milking. I was no farmer, not really even a countryman. As Wadesville turned towards light industry in the years after the war I came to think of the orchard as no more than a suitably picturesque setting for my love affairs.
In spite of this I always seemed to be working in it. My father was an old man and he gave himself up more and more to the pleasures of talk with his Unitarian cronies (his term). We had reached an agreement that he would pay my way through university if I would work holidays in the orchard. For spending money he let me set up a week-end stall at the side of the road. I sold not only apples and pears but plums in season, tree tomatoes, nectarines and peaches, grapefruit, lemons, and eggs for Andrew (Saturdays only) on a small commission. A number of my girl-friends served in the stall but I made it clear that I couldn’t afford to pay them. One season I manoeuvred two of them in. While they competed there I swotted, i.e. read George Eliot, down by the creek.
Mrs. Philips who had nursed mother came in the afternoons to clean the house and cook for us. She still served mountains of mashed potatoes and curly kale, and either lambs fry baked into boards or boiled neck of mutton chops. I started to eat in Auckland but this upset Father. So I learned to cook. Mrs. Philips was demoted to floor-scrubber etc. Because it was summer I started with a cabbage salad. Andrew grumbled about my “arty ideas”. My father found raw cabbage hard on his teeth. I gave them potato salad the next night, using olive oil bought from the chemist. I began to buy recipe books. The kitchen became a kind of laboratory where I mixed fantastic brews. It wasn’t easy in those days of shortages; but slowly I acquired the skill that as much as any other has made it possible for me to live without a woman. My father began to enjoy his food. He had always been a rough and ready eater. Now he made a ritual of tasting. He liked foreign foods best: spaghetti, chow mein, Indian curries. They allowed him to orate on national character. He was always at his most xenophilic when I served the local red wine. The Dalmatians were wonderful people, he said, we should bring more of them in—and Russians, Italians, Greeks, Chinese. My trouble came from Andrew.
“What have we got tonight?” he would ask when he came in from his work at the bank.
“Hawaian steak.”
“Any garlic in that?”
“I left it off your bit.”
He would reject a meal out of hand at the first sniff of garlic or taste of any unusual spice. The appearance of spaghetti made him feel sick, unless it was the sort that came out of tins. And Chinese food (“raw vegetables”), rice (“supposed to be in puddings”), oil (“dago stuff”), he refused to accept as civilized. He grumbled at the wine my father and I drank. Second glasses made him frown terribly, and if I reached out to pour a third he would lock himself in his room.
Andrew was guardian of all things that had been our mother’s, from ideas down to lace handkerchiefs. Her preserved fruit was of the middle order of relics. He doled it out at the rate of a jar a month. On Christmas Day 1948 he put the last of them on the table: pears flavoured with cloves. I had roasted a duck, and to go with it I had a bottle of champagne. (I had paid five pounds for it to Charlie Inverarity’s father, who had black market “connections”.) My father was carving the duck. I put the green bottle in front of him and stood back to watch.
“What’s this, Paul?” He peered hard through his glasses.
I had meant to be casual, but I said excitedly, “Champagne. The best wine in the world.”
“Well,” my father said. He picked up the bottle. “Is it meant to be cold like this?” He was still puritan enough to be uneasy—he was almost afraid. Champagne belonged to the world of furs and diamond tiaras, chauffeurs, courtesans, caviare. The “downtrodden poor” must also have been in his mind. “Let’s save it, shall we?”
“It’s your present, Dad. We’re going to drink it now.”
“Well.” He began slowly to be pleased.
“Can I see?” Andrew said.
My father handed the bottle to him. “Champagne, Andrew. Think of that.”
Andrew read the label, then turned the bottle round and read the serving instructions. “Where did you get it?”
“The black market. I’ve got connections.” I took the bottle from him. “The cork’s supposed to go pop, Dad.”
Andrew stood up. He had a heavy way of making points. Angry ones came as a rule at the end of a long “slow burn”. He was, I saw, slow burning now. Oh God, I thought, not today. Not after all the cooking I’ve done.
“Don’t you think,” he said, “that on this day of all days we could have some Christian feeling in the place?”
“Just let’s eat our dinner,” I said.
“What do you think she would have thought about this?” (He rarely called her “Mother”.) “Champagne. You know how she felt about drink. You know, Dad. She was hardly dead before Paul started bringing it into the house.”
“We all have to make our own decisions, Andrew,” Father said.
“That means forgetting her, doesn’t it? Pretending she never existed. I can hardly believe this is the house she lived in. Look at it. Filth.” (A blow at my university English texts lying on the sideboard: he must have looked into Ulysses.) “Nothing but dirt and filth. How do you think she would have felt? And her pantry full of garlic and foreign muck. All this muck Paul’s been cooking.”
“Sit down, Andrew,” Father said.
“And now this—this French stuff—from the black market, from criminals, on Christ’s birthday. Did you know that’s made by monks?”
“It’s not,” I said.
“It was invented by monks. And you bring it here on Christmas Day.” He made a grab for the champagne but I pulled it away. He picked up the jar of pears instead. “I’m not putting this back on the table till you get rid of that.”
“Sit down, Andrew,” my father said. “Sit down and try to behave like an adult.” From him this was a sharp rebuke.
Andrew started to cry, mostly I think with rage. “Neither
of you loved her. You didn’t understand what she was. I’m not staying here with you. I’m going. There are people who loved her. I’m going to live with them.” He rushed to the door. “You disgust me, both of you. I’ll never forgive you for what you did to her.” He went out and slammed the door so hard the crockery rattled on the table. From the window my father and I watched him run down the road, with the jar of pears tucked under his arm like a football.
“Go after him, Paul,” Father said.
“He’ll be going to the Webbers.” (Friends of Mother.)
“See if you can catch him.”
“The dinner’s going cold. I spent hours cooking that stuff.”
A short time later Claude Webber rang and told us Andrew would spend the rest of the day with them. Father was distressed when he came from the phone. “He asked what I’d done to the boy. As if I’d beaten him.”
“Come on, Dad. Let’s eat something.”
“Poor Andrew. I never knew he felt like that.”
“It’s not your fault, Dad.” I had not known either. I’d seen only his disapproval; and was guilty now at the pleasure I’d taken in provoking it. I got my father back to the table. The duck was barely warm. We decided to leave the champagne for the evening meal.
“Do you really think your mother would have disapproved of this?”
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about it. “If Andrew says so. He’d know.”
Father belched lightly. He apologized. “It’s very rich food. She thought food should be plain—close to nature. Self-consecrated, in a sense. Fuel for the body, nothing more, and the body of course is the temple of the soul, God’s property. Mustn’t have it reeking of garlic.”
I laughed and he looked at me reprovingly. “Your mother had a great soul. I suppose Andrew’s got one too. They can be painful. We’ll have to try to help him, Paul.”
“How?”
Claude Webber drove Andrew home in the evening. They came inside and stood in the centre of the room, rather like client and lawyer. Claude Webber, a forthright man, said, “Andrew would like to come and board with us.”
My father looked as if he’d been struck. For a moment he said nothing. “Is that what you want, Andrew?”
Andrew was pale. (He had grown to be bigger than me, nearly six feet tall. A softness about his flesh was accentuated by his lack of colour. His pale hair, faintly tinged with red, he kept close to his head with water. Whenever I saw him behind the teller’s grille in the bank where he worked I thought of a prisoner made white and soft by bad food and lack of light and air. Yet he was physically strong, he liked being out of doors, he liked using his body. If he had been quicker he would have been formidable. But his movements seemed always to follow a pause, as though the message setting them off had trouble getting through.) He looked at my father. His eyes were red from crying.
“I don’t feel this is her house any more.”
It was part of Father’s new doctrine that decisions must be free. He said only, “You’ve thought about it?”
“I don’t feel this is her house any more.”
“All right, Andrew.”
“I’d like to lock her room.”
“All right.”
Claude Webber helped him pack. Everything he owned went into a suitcase and an apple-box. He locked our mother’s room.
“Come back as often as you can,” Father said.
“I’ll be back to feed the fowls.” He was not being cruel. He had known the things he must say and was saying them by rote.
“Good-bye, Father. Good-bye, Paul.”
When he had gone we tried to cheer ourselves up by drinking champagne. It made us light-headed and led us to easy judgements. Andrew would come to his senses. Andrew would soon be back. With our last glass we drank solemnly to the memory of my mother.
I was sitting on an apple box in my stall reading The Brothers Karamazov when a girl wearing tennis clothes and carrying a racket walked down past the vineyard. She stopped in the middle of the swing-bridge and looked at the water. I watched through a hole in the coal-sack wall; appraising. Girls were a herd I roped prize heifers from—such was my non-satiric belief—and this one looked as if she might be prize. Good legs, certainly—long and smooth. Light brown hair that shone in the sun. Meditative. That was good. Girls should not be dumb, they should be able to appreciate my cleverness. After a while, thinking no one could see her, she lifted the side of her skirt and scratched her behind. I found the act delightful. It gave me confidence she would have a pretty face.
In a moment she turned and came on. The bridge bounced lightly to her step. Fifty more yards—her face was clear. My confidence was justified. It was natural, I suppose, that at nineteen I should prefer prettiness to character, or even beauty, in a woman’s face. This one had prettiness, abundantly. She was, I remember thinking, like a grown-up Shirley Temple.
I called in a bastard accent I thought funny at the time, “You lik’a da buy da apple? Gravenstein. Fresh from da tree.”
She stopped. She looked once at me, once at the apples; ignored my jokiness. “Yes,” she said, “that’s exactly what I feel like.”
Her directness threw me out of my stride. My patter fell to Kiwi and had a stilted sound. “They’re very nice apples, these. The best early season apples. Really juicy. I can recommend them.” Meanwhile I was choosing the ripest one for her.
“How much?” She had taken a tiny brown purse from her cardigan pocket.
“No charge. On the house.”
It was foolish: her look let me see it. She put sixpence in my hand and took the apple. “You can make up the change with plums.”
“Right.” I put half a dozen in a bag. “Try one.”
“All right. Thank you.”
I had left The Brothers Karamazov where she could read the title: no harm in advertizing myself. She put her racket on it. It simply wasn’t there. I was chastened. I asked her name.
“Joyce Poole.”
“You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“We came before Christmas. My father’s the new Postmaster.”
She told me she was eighteen. She worked as a doctor’s receptionist in Avondale, but was going to look for a job in Wadesville. Wadesville was nice, it was pretty. She liked the orchards. (I smiled complacently.) She didn’t like tennis much. She had joined the club so she could meet some people. Tennis made her ankles sore.
Simply by asking questions I won ascendancy. Joyce’s poise was learned. She put it off the instant she felt liked. Underneath she was earnest and naive. Her eyes were deep blue, and always a little troubled—she was ready for retreat to that ice-cold poise. In this she would wait anxiously for the signal to come out. Only rarely would she use it as a weapon.
I told her I had never cared for tennis. Swimming was the sport I liked. There was a swimming hole at the back of the orchard, I said. No one knew of it but me. There was even a willow tree to dive off.
“Come for a swim tomorrow afternoon. I’ll close the stall.”
“Oh no, you mustn’t do that.”
“There’s a shed here you can change in. All you need is togs and a towel.” I saw, almost with fright, that she took it as an order.
We arranged a time. Then she said good-bye, blushing lightly, drew her poise about her (it gave the impression of lightening her colour), took her fruit, and went off down the road. She had smooth brown legs and bony ankles I later thought aristocratic. Her behind had a demure action—maidenly. I let myself picture fading crescents on the warm orb she had scratched. (It was my first and, for weeks, only lascivious thought about Joyce Poole.) Her hair came down in a bright waterfall over her powder-blue cardigan. I never questioned the curls. She ate her apple delicately. In her other hand she carried racket and plums. She did not wave at the corner.
I went over the boys she would meet at tennis. I didn’t do well in free competition but liked to work in private. I consoled myself that my move was made: tomorrow at least was sure.
The next afternoon we sat side by side at the swimming hole. Things went badly. Midnight fantasy, amazingly pure, had turned Joyce Poole into Princess to my Wadesvillean Prince. I was moved by notions of duty and prerogative. So in the afternoon I was courteous, formal, witless. I was “in love”, though I had sense enough not to tell her. We swam in the murky waters of Wadesville creek. She swam badly, with childish strokes, her chin high out of the water. I churned round and round her in an agitated way. Her awkwardness marred her perfection; then became part of it.
We sat on towels and made halting conversation. To fill a silence cymbal-clashing between us I told her there were lobsters in the creek. (Good taste kept me from mentioning the eels.) She said, “Oh.” To fill a second I cried, “Look,” and ran like a monkey up the willow tree and jack-knifed into the deepest part of the pool. “Do something,” I yelled to myself under water. She filled a third by asking what my job was. I told her I was a student. She couldn’t comprehend an arts degree, even when I described the parts of it. “What do you do it for?” she wanted to know.
I had another swim. She declined—those lobsters. She never swam in Wadesville creek again. We walked in the orchard. I climbed apple trees to bring her perfect apples until she reminded me with a desperate laugh that she only had two hands. Her desperation saved us. I saw she was struggling as hard as I. She was frightened, life was hostile. As plain as a written instruction she was begging me to save her. I took the apples from the pouch of arms she had made and put them at the foot of a tree. I took her hand. We walked a little further. Then I kissed her chastely on the lips. Her response was a kind of inward collapse. She was all warmth, all trust, all surrender. And I was the passionate perfect gentleman. She trusted. I was worthy. She surrendered. I took her hand. We strolled through the orchard. From time to time we exchanged soft simple kisses. At the end of an hour we were able to say we thought we were falling in love.
Joyce gave up playing tennis. On Saturdays she worked in my fruit stall. She was brisk and business-like. On the second Saturday she brought along an old pair of post office scales. From then on I sold by weight instead of number, and saw my profits climb. She put a hand-bell in the stall. On sunny afternoons we lay out the back on a blanket, kissing all the while, purse-lipped, with varying intensity. The bell rang. She pulled on a pair of gloves and ran off to make a sale; came back with a special plum which she offered to my mouth with an ungloved hand. This was the time of rewards in our affair—a time of marvellous silliness. We explored each other from the throat up and from the elbows down. (I caressed her ankles once, but saw I had gone too far.)
