Royce, Royce, the People's Choice

by Peter Hawes

‘Yeah,’ persisted Royce – determined, just once, to bring change to Stan’s perennial expression of benign amorality. ‘But cripes, Stan, this is personal – I mean it’s not just some big amorphous cargo: it’s me. My fish.’

  There was not a flicker of change on those pleasant, amiable features. ‘Nah, you are making a common mistake, son, of putting yourself into the entirety of the situation. You are just an aspect of it – there’s Betty’s point of view to be considered, and mine as well. This situation is not about you in particular, it’s about you in general. You see what I mean?’

  There was the faintest lilt in the last question that made Royce realise Stan was Irish. Or had been.

  ‘Not really – the situation feels pretty particular from where I stand, Stan.’

  ‘Well it would, wouldn’t it, if you’re looking at it selfishly? But let’s just look at this thing from the wider view. Now, modesty forbids me to look at it from my own perspective, but I will point out that my mistress will appreciate the cash injection of a few Yankee dollars and there’ll probably be a newfangled dishwashing machine in her kitchen which will augment the overall quality of her life. Now, if I was looking at things from your point of view, what would I see? Well, I’d see that you used someone else’s tackle on someone else’s boat to gain yourself a trip to Tokyo and half of whatever sum of money is fetched for a fish you didn’t even help to get on board. I’d acknowledge that Betty landed the fish, that she dressed the fish, that she is transporting the fish and that she knows how to sell it, and to whom, for top dollar. All things that I could not possibly have done myself. I’d quickly come to the conclusion that I am greatly privileged to be in the situation I find myself in. In fact, Royce my boy, people like me begin to wonder how you even got into the equation at all. If I were you I’d stop whinging and sit back and enjoy the ride.’ And he smiled a smile as devoid of malice as a lunatic’s.

  THERE WERE THE Onehunga silos, dead spit for the ones in Westport. Cripes, the bloody wharf was the dead spit for the one in Westport, too! Rotting, rusty, run down. He’d expected something a bit more poncy than this in Auckland. And right behind it was the grottiest bridge he’d ever seen. It was just about down to sea level – must have been driven into the mud by all the cars going over it. Right behind it was the brand new Mangere Bridge that’d had all the fuss caused over it.

  Friggin’ Mangere Bridge. They’d been a question in School Cert geography – he couldn’t remember which year – ‘Which bridge in the upper North Island has been the subject of intense union activity?’ And everyone in his class had put ‘Auckland Harbour Bridge’ – including him. He glared at the bridge that had cost him School Cert.

  Over on the right there was nice housing with lots of green and a blunt volcano with a concrete silo at the top of it. The housing on the left wasn’t so good, but much more dense. Hey, was that the grandstand of Eden Park? You could put up with a view of a mudflat and a grotty old bridge for a house close to Eden Park. A line of big electricity pylons came out from behind the new bridge, crossed the bay – which had now narrowed into a river – draped through the silos and off over to the other side. Like big giants, joined by wires, striding across this muddy harbour.

  There were a few dowdy old low sheds on the wharf, a stark pub behind them called the Manukau and a few blokes glaring up at them from the wharf as they neared. They’d be the ones that caught the hawsers and put them on the bollards. Behind the wharf was One Tree Hill again, with the tree and the pillar thing sort of making a crucifix over the pub like the one in the Catholic church on Brougham Street.

  You should have seen the mud being churned as the captain got the Buller Lion turning around. Sheesh, this Manukau was a mega Sawpit that must be throbbing with eels.

  They backed – like they had down the Buller – into the anchorage abutting the old bridge. There were people fishing on the bridge. Someone on board must have waved to them because about a dozen people waved back and about half a dozen gave the fingers.

  The slap of the cabin door opening behind him. He turned from the porthole. Stan.

  ‘Captain’s greetings. Well, you could get some captain’s greetings if you stayed here. He checks for ringbolts now and then before disembarking. He could look in here. He’s going on leave for a fortnight, and he’ll go ashore in about an hour when the paperwork is done. Meanwhile I’d like you to revisit the delights of the vege room. Here’s your smalls.’

  BEING HIDDEN AWAY down here with the onions and cabbage suddenly made the whole project seem tawdry.

  Next thing he knew, Betty was being hidden with the veges as well. He’d lost a lot of respect for Betty since the trip began, and when she started talking again it didn’t have the same effect. Her eyes were sort of dull as she prattled, as if she’d done it all a million times before. He noticed that her talk had the effect of a lullaby – it soothed you into a sort of trance. Royce wondered if it was a voodoo trick to hypnotise people. Maybe this is how you made zombies – you talked the livingness out of them.

  THE CREW HAD disappeared as Royce came down the gangplank. The coffin was on the back of a dull red ute by a long white warehouse on the wharf.

  ‘You coulda put it in the shade,’ muttered Betty as they got into the rust-smelling cab. Stan gave his smile and throttled the old girl into rattling life.

  Two hard-case women came down the road from the pub with bags on their backs. Both big, one with sort of blonde hair, the other dark.

  The ute thudded across the uneven panelling of the wharf to the inevitable ‘Careful!’ from Betty. Maybe she was putting all her pent-up maternal instincts into this fish? She hadn’t mentioned any other kids.

  As they passed the girls Stan gave them a wave. The rutty little road then led up past the pub and Royce took his last look at the Buller Lion. For some dumb reason he felt a pang of loss – it hadn’t been a bad trip after all, and the longest he’d ever taken in his life. The two big girls were climbing the gangway.

  Stan eased the ute into a gap on the motorway that came off the new bridge. Wow, his first motorway!

  Yeah, well that lasted about fifty yards, then they turned off and into a street that should have been ashamed of itself. It was as shabby as any of those little back streets down by the wharf in Westport, but there was a hell of a lot more of it, which made it worse. Hey, classy neighbourhood: Environmental Waste Services, Tallow Management. Yuk!

  MAF INTERNATIONAL said a sign on the tin gate they passed through to a yellow two-storey concrete-block building in an L shape. They stopped beside the office. Empty.

  ‘Well?’ snapped Betty. ‘You organised all this side.’

  ‘He’ll be here, never fear,’ said Stan, and, encouraged by his optimism, a young bloke in gumboots and white overalls came out of NUMBER THREE CHILLER.

  ‘Kevin.’

  ‘Stan, how’s it going?’ They shook hands through the ute window.

  ‘Betty, Royce – joint owners.’

  ‘Gidday.’

  ‘Can I see your accreditation to the Big Seven?’ said Betty, pushing at Royce and bundling him out the cab so she could disembark.

  ‘Well, it’s not me personally,’ frowned Kevin, who seems the tall, pale, wide-faced type that gets easily bemused. ‘I’m with the Ministry of Ag and Fish – it’s the ministry itself that’s accredited. But don’t worry, it is – this is on a government-to-government level.’

  ‘So you reckon the Japanese government owns Tsukiji, huh? Well that’s novel,’ muttered Betty, about half mollified. She was leaning on the bonnet in folded arms; he was standing there like a dweeb – an S-bend in overalls. ‘What say you tell me what you know about the Tokyo market? Who runs it?’

  Kevin was one of those types with a loose-hung jaw. Down it came. A glance of ‘what is this?’ to Stan, who of course smiled back. Then back to Betty: ‘Well, there’s the national government and the Big Seven.’

  ‘Who are?’

  ‘You mean name them?’

 
‘That’s right, Sunshine, I wanna know your certification is gonna be taken seriously at the other end.’

  ‘Well, there’s Chuo Gyorui, Sogoshokuhin …’

  ‘Are you accredited to Daito Gyorui?’

  ‘Look, I told you, we’re accredited to all of them.’

  ‘So I can confidently take this fish to Daito Gyorui and …’

  ‘You can take it to any of them,’ squeaked Kevin with a brave little burst of impatience, ‘and tell them they’re dealing with the New Zealand government.’ He stood straight, now a capital I in overalls. ‘If I certify the product, that is,’ he added provocatively. Hey, Kev was coming out fighting! … Jesus, what if he didn’t certify the product? Back off, Betty, for crissake!

  She did. ‘Okay. Okay, here’s the product.’ She walked around to the back of the ute.

  ‘I’ll get my tools.’ Kev went back to chiller number three. Betty and Stan hauled the black plastic cover and ropes off the coffin. The wide plastic hovered off across the yard in a light new wind like a big black ghost.

  Stan and Betty reached over – one from each side of the ute – and tussled with the tight-fitting lid until it came off. Smoke came off the ice. Royce edged over to the ute and stood on tiptoe to look into the coffin. There – the beautiful big face, the belly, big as a barrel, bulging over the ice … there was no tail! The fish had no ending, no completeness. It simply stopped, with ugly bluntness. Part of it was missing.

  ‘You’ve cut his tail off!’ Royce wailed.

  Betty was puzzled and not very interested. ‘Course I’ve cut the tail off. Part of the process.’

  ‘But it’s … spoilt.’

  ‘Spoilt?’ She marched to the coffin, peered at the sawn meat of the fish. ‘Whadda you mean spoilt? It’s perfect. Only risk of it being spoilt was leaving the tail on so long for those dumbos in Westport.’

  ‘I mean its looks.’ Misery had sapped the energy of his voice; he was almost whispering. ‘It used to end in … feathers.’

  He’d touched them, stroked the fine fronds of the tail edge. The firm softness of feathers. ‘Something like you came out of the sea once, long ago,’ he’d said to the fish, ‘and learnt to fly.’

  Kev came back with an oblong measuring meter and a sharp tubular thing with a handle. Royce looked on, passive with anguish.

  ‘Now, you can’t stick it,’ said Betty. ‘You can’t break the surface in any way.’

  ‘I know what I can do, ma’am,’ said the New Kev. ‘I have diplomas that tell me I’m an expert in this field.’ But his gasp of surprise when he saw the fish would have blown his expert diplomas off the wall. ‘Holy hobs of hell, this is a goddamn monster!’

  ‘I thought you said …’

  ‘We deal in albacore, bigeye – we don’t get these around here. Well, they don’t come through here – Japs whisk ’em straight home. I dunno if my meter will cope.’

  Betty spat a sigh: ‘Whaddo you wanna know? Oil content? I’d say about 11.5, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, looks about right.’

  ‘Fat about five?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Now, any sign of samekui?’

  ‘… Come again?’

  ‘Shark bite. Morikizu – harpoon damage?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Any azuki bead on the surface? No? Now, any sign of seasonal deterioration? Well fed, is it?’

  Kev was getting mortified, you could see it on his face. He bent down and pushed the tubular instrument into the sawn flesh, twisted it and hauled out a core sample.

  ‘No shimi stains? Konnyaku? Miware – split meat? Huh?’

  It was a relief to hear poor old Kev grind out from clenched teeth that this was one of the fattest, fittest and well-preserved fish he’d ever seen. ‘It’s definitely an A-Grade specimen.’

  ‘As A as they come, brother. As I told you loud and clear.’

  The ‘Authorised Signatory, NZ Government’ was signed by Kev less than five minutes later. Betty signed the bit that said, ‘I certify that the fish or fish product described below is of NZ origin.’ For ‘Premises of Origin’ Kev wrote MAF INTERNATIONAL Miami Parade, Onehunga, NZ.

  So, the great big fish was officially exportable. Kev had sworn – on behalf of the government in Wellington – that ‘the consignment is fit for human consumption’. Its weight was there, also its packaging date – and it had an official number: NTU 001. But the form didn’t contain Royce’s name anywhere. Somehow, by his expression, he must have conveyed this worry to Betty, because just as she was pocketing the red top copy she looked from Kevin to him to Kevin and said, ‘Can I borrow a stapler?’ Then to Royce she said, ‘Give me the bottom copy of your FLD.’ And she stapled it to the export certificate. ‘Make you feel better?’ It did.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  SHE’D GIVEN STAN a thousand US in McManus’s pub, and said get this fish onto the plane at Auckland Airport, and left it up to him. He’d given fifty bucks each to Peety Franklin, Arch Lamont, Tony Friend and Gus Chambers, and kept the rest. After all, all they had to do was a bit of manhandling at each end of the trip.

  He’d not given anything to Kevin Sharp – you don’t bribe government officials – but he’d let him know it would be a special favour to Stan that there were no complications getting certification for the product. ‘That shouldn’t be a problem,’ Kevin had replied on the phone. Then he’d said, ‘How’s Mum?’

  ‘Good. I’m gonna buy her a dishwasher at the end of this trip.’

  BEEN NOT A bad trip overall – coulda been boring with the new mud pilot doing all the work, but there’d been the kid to talk to. And Betty to listen to. Jeez, she’d done it all. Down in Argentina her father had been one of those dinosaur scientists. Old bones – there were a lot of dinosaurs down there but he specialised in mammals. They’d had a giant time too – mammals, like the dinosaurs, grew to the size of a bus. There was this one, she said, called a megatherium that was a sloth that had grown so big it broke the branches and fell out of the trees. So it’d stayed on the ground, and so it could feed on the leaves it pulled the trees over. Trouble was, it was too slow to get out of the way so they used to land on its head. So the megatherium grew the thickest skull of any animal ever known. There’s evolution for you, she said.

  When Betty’s father got killed by fossil poachers down in Patagonia the mother moved the family back to her island – Martin Garcia or something. Had relatives there, and a house. The island had been a prison off and on for politicals – Evita Peron’s husband had been there for a while. No one had ever escaped because – even though it was only three miles off the coast of Paraguay – the currents were too strong. But one day this guy escaped by driving a horse into the water, then hanging on to it while it swam to Paraguay. He got away but the Argentinian authorities followed the horse, took it back, gave it a court-martial and executed it for treason. Pathetic, eh?

  Jesus, she talked some crap, that woman. But the thing was, while she was talking you couldn’t stop listening and you sorta couldn’t move. She had you trapped with her voice. Bit like those guys that charm snakes – she could make you do anything with her voice. Well, almost anything. No way he was gonna give her one. Saving his seed for Kevin’s mum. Too many complicated situations when you spread it around.

  Royce was all right, too. Quite flattering when you’ve got someone wide-eyed listening to you. Must be how Betty felt. Mind you, what Stan told the kid was true. God knows what bullshit she’d hypnotised him with.

  She was a sharp operator, though, this Betty – whoever she really was. She had a power to get what she wanted – whether it was magic or not he wasn’t sure, but it wasn’t far off. And it sure as hell had the same effect. But the kid was a tenacious little bugger too – hell, he hadn’t given up on his fish. Kept his hold on his own property like a little terrier, and it’d worked. It’d got him as far as Auckland. Good going, son: better luck next time.

  STAN DROVE THEM the coupla three miles to the airport in the ol
d red cement company ute, then dropped Betty at the terminal doors and gave her a nod.

  ‘Stay with Stan,’ she said to Royce, ‘I’ll get the boarding passes and whatnot. Give me your passport.’

  Royce hauled it out of the breast pocket of his hunting shirt, gave it a little rub of pride, handed it over.

  They watched her until she’d gone in through the big glass doors and was standing at the back of this big scrum of passengers waiting to get to the counter. Stan drove off, just as some sort of airport meter maid in official Aussie hat was coming over to fine them a million dollars for bad parking. ‘Sayonara,’ said Stan to the bloke as he reached the cab window. Quite witty, he thought, then he glanced at the kid, who was looking back at Betty. Did he think sayonara applied to her?

  Stan had driven back around to the cargo bay, waved papers to the usual bouncer who came over to kick them out for trespass, then found a freightie he’d met here before. They unwrapped the coffin again and a few minutes later it was on the tines of a forklift, heading off to Qantas.

  Kid tagged along asking dumb questions like: ‘What’s Japanese for “You’ve got really nice eyes,” Stan?’

  ‘Christ, I dunno. Anyway, they haven’t, they’ve got slit eyes.’

  ‘You can have really nice slit eyes.’

  He told the kid to shut up because he didn’t want to talk about Japan any more. It was upsetting, somehow.

  Well, the fish was loaded; there was nothing for it now than to get back in the ute and head off.

  Smooth black tarmac – best he’d ever ridden on. Roundabout ahead: ‘International’, ‘Domestic’, and the road back into Auckland. He took the International road and glanced at the kid for reaction. None. Why should there be? It was the way the kid was expecting to go.

  She was good. She’d been standing in the midstream of the terminal, idly sorting her documents before heading off. When she looked up and saw them her face went from one second’s horror to two seconds’ anger to neutral, where it stayed.