Some Here Among Us

by Peter Walker

  ‘I think it’s a good question,’ said Dinah who was reading Middlemarch in the back seat. ‘Everyone in Middlemarch goes round toying with these little silver-handled whips while they’re talking.’

  ‘Whips! What for?’ said Rosie.

  ‘To whip their horses.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Rose.

  ‘But I bet they never thought how odd that would seem one day.’

  ‘They’re not people, Dinah,’ said Rose. ‘They’re characters in a book. They don’t think things that aren’t written down.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Dinah. ‘You think things that aren’t written down.’

  ‘But I exist, darling,’ said Rosie. ‘They don’t exist.’

  ‘Of course they exist,’ said Dinah.

  ‘Not like I exist,’ said tall, brown-limbed Rosie, in her sarong and bikini top. She turned to FitzGerald, laughing.

  ‘What do you think, sweetie?’

  ‘Me? I’m lost,’ said FitzGerald, watching the road.

  Rosie leant over and kissed FitzGerald’s ear. Dinah put Middlemarch up in front of her face. ‘Bang!’ went the goblins under the car. ‘Bang, bang!’ The mood in the Chev was not good. All had gone well until the day before when, in the twinkling of an eye it seemed, everything had changed. It began with a voice calling from the road. Panos was alone on the beach when he heard it. Race was way out in the surf. Dinah had set off on a long walk along the shore with Middlemarch – every so often you saw a parasol of white gulls rise and hover, then settle again, to mark her progress. Fitzgerald and Rosie had gone off somewhere together. Then Panos heard the voice calling and saw Rod Orr on the coastal road – he could just see his sandy head bobbing along above the low dunes. Panos went up to meet him but on the way a faint noise caught his attention. He stopped and looked at the tent, which was closed. He unzipped the door and saw two naked bodies entwined. FitzGerald and Rosie were making love! The zip sang! Panos was outraged. He had been under the impression all week that Rosie had been flirting with him, which in fact she had. He marched away to greet Rod, his face like thunder. Down at the edge of the surf, Race also caught sight of Rod above the dunes. He was amazed. He had deliberately not invited Rod on this trip. He had found of late that he was uncomfortable in Rod’s presence – he hardly knew why. What was Rod doing here now? How on earth had he located them along a hundred miles of empty coast? Race went up into the dunes as well and reached the tent. Rod and Panos arrived down from the road at the same time. The tent zip sang again. Rosie emerged, tying her bikini top.

  ‘Sorry, everyone,’ she said. She laughed her husky, musical laugh. ‘We didn’t plan this, I promise. We just looked at each other and went “Wow!” ’

  ‘Yes, that’s it: “Wow!” ’ said FitzGerald lazily from the orange-tinted interior.

  ‘What a scene!’ said Rod, pretending to be joyful, the sandy-haired Cupid of the match, yet he was feeling hurt at Panos’s distracted air and by Race’s cool greeting. Within a few hours everyone found they had feelings they could not express. Dinah came back from her walk and was disapproving of her sister, and jealous as well. Panos was angry, and jealous of FitzGerald. FitzGerald and Rosie decided they would now rather be off on their own, yet that was impossible – there was only one car, and hardly any passing traffic, much less public transport, was to be seen. Race meanwhile had realised that someone had been in touch with Rod all the time, guiding him in, so to speak, by phone. Had everyone been in on the secret? Everyone adored Rod, the entertainer, the charmer – sandy-haired, wanton-eyed Rod.

  We went to the animal fair,

  The birds and the beasts were there

  Rod sang from the back seat as they drove away the next morning. Race now felt he was the outsider in his own car. And Rod, for his part, was still feeling hurt. The fact was – he loved Race! He was to be punished for that, apparently. That was why he had not been invited on the trip. And yes, it was true – Rosie had secretly kept in touch with him for the last week. She had rung from road-side phone boxes all the way, and told him exactly where they were. He had come hitch-hiking after them. And why not? They were all his friends as well. But now everyone was at odds . . .

  The further they drove, the rougher the country became. Fences were scanty or non-existent. Brown cattle wandered the road. A bull stood its ground as they approached, and shook its head. A cow and calf went lumbering ahead of the car for half a minute then crashed away into the dust-hung scrub and stood there, eyes white-rolling. The cone of white dust filled the rear window.

  ‘Stop the car!’ said Race suddenly.

  The road had turned away from the coast and they were crossing a wide inland plain. FitzGerald pulled over and stopped the car. Race got out and stood on the road.

  Far away in the back country rose a single, steep-sided, table-topped mountain; there were one or two chasms in its side, dark, faint and secretive, like the folds in ancestral clothes.

  ‘Look at that!’ said Race, but no one in the car was interested. No one, as far as he could tell, was even looking at the view. The wind hummed in power-lines above. A line of willows marked the course of the river across the plain, the willows a-shimmer, as if the water had taken aerial form just in order to dance in air. Race kept his gaze on the mountain in the back country. It reminded him of something – it was like the frontispiece of an old book, he thought, some famous book he had never read. There were tiny dots of birds flying into one of the chasms. Just then he thought of something else.

  ‘Morgan!’ he said through the car window. ‘Doesn’t he live round here somewhere?’

  ‘I think maybe he does,’ said FitzGerald.

  ‘We should go and see him,’ said Race.

  ‘We should,’ said FitzGerald.

  ‘Who’s Morgan?’ said Rosie.

  ‘Morgy-baby,’ said FitzGerald.

  ‘I don’t know who you mean,’ said Rosie.

  ‘You know Morgan,’ said FitzGerald. ‘He used to come to my rooms sometimes.’

  ‘We’d just call in,’ said Race.

  ‘We would,’ said FitzGerald.

  ‘But will I like him?’ said Rosie. ‘I might not like him.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Rod Orr. ‘I don’t like him, I don’t like him, I don’t like him – end of story.’

  ‘I do,’ said Dinah. ‘I hardly know him but I think he’s adorable. He’s just like Will Ladislaw.’

  ‘Who?’ said Rod Orr.

  ‘Someone in Middlemarch,’ said Dinah.

  ‘Oh,’ said Rod. Then he laughed a little wildly: he had heard disappointment in his own voice.

  ‘That’s it,’ said FitzGerald. ‘Three against two. Let’s go and see Morgan.’

  Race got back in the car and FitzGerald began to idle forward.

  ‘What about Panos?’ said Rosie. ‘What does Panos think?’

  ‘Panos doesn’t know Morgan,’ said Race. ‘How would he know Morgan?’

  ‘I know Morgan Tawhai,’ said Panos. ‘He was at school with us.’ For some reason he found himself speaking in a sepulchral voice.

  ‘He was at school with all of you?’ said Race. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Then he was expelled,’ Panos said.

  ‘Expelled!’ said Rosie. She looked disapproving. Rosie’s and Dinah’s father was a senior diplomat. At times, when it suited Rosie, who had lived in Paris and Washington and Rome, she liked to play the grande dame. Now, in her bikini top and sarong, she looked down from a great height at anyone who had ever been expelled from school.

  ‘But you know, he was the clever one,’ said FitzGerald. ‘He just knew more than the rest of us.’

  ‘Such as?’ said Rosie.

  ‘I don’t know—’ said FitzGerald.

  ‘What is the name of the liquor flowing in the veins of the immortal gods?’ said Panos from the back seat.

  ‘And?’ said Rosie, putting her pretty brown foot up on the dashboard.

  ‘Ichor,’ said Panos.

  ‘Ich
or?’ said FitzGerald. ‘God, I’d forgotten that. Ichor. OK. That’s it. Let’s go and see Morgan.’

  They drove on. A Maori farmer with a pair of round spectacles was ploughing a dusty field beside the road. His glasses flashed in the sun. There was a barn with a round roof behind him. The big baboon by the light of the moon was combing his auburn hair, sang Rod from the back seat. It was late December – midsummer in the South Pacific. That same day, on an Apollo mission halfway to the moon, the first photograph of the planet Earth was taken by a man far out in space. This was not known to those in the car. The last radio station had gone out of range two days before. Joe Cocker was singing ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ as the signal faded. They drove on north looking at the signposts – Raukokore, Gisborne, Opotiki, Tikitiki, Cape Runaway. At the next settlement they went to the pub and had a drink. Rosie slipped upstairs and took a shower in an upstairs room, without management noticing, and then descended the stairs grandly, her hair in a towel like a turban. Then they went to the post office and got directions to the Tawhai property. Sunset was reddening the sky when they crossed an old wooden bridge out of town, the planks rumbling beneath them. The red in the sky was reflected on the river and beneath the reflection you could see brown boulders on the bed as they headed into the dusk to find Morgan Tawhai.

  5

  ‘Trouser creases,’ said Rod Orr. ‘I mean why have sharp edges on the front of trousers? Why?’

  ‘No,’ said Race flatly. ‘No moral dimension. There has to be a moral dimension.’

  They were talking about the blind spots of the age again. FitzGerald was still at the wheel. Dusk had fallen. They were driving along a narrow coastal plain; sand was blowing across the road in the headlights.

  ‘How do you mean “moral”?’ said Dinah.

  ‘It has to make people think: “How could they do that?”’

  ‘Such as?’ said Dinah.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Race. ‘Child chimney-sweeps. Slavery. Ducking-stools. What do we do now like that?’

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Rosie in the front seat. ‘War. Dental caries. Eating animals.’

  ‘Trouser creases,’ said Rod Orr.

  The car made a muffled lurch and stopped. They had gone off the road.

  ‘OK,’ said FitzGerald to forestall other comment. ‘OK. OK. OK.’

  They got out and stood in the dark. The road, as far as could be seen, ran in a straight line across the narrow plain but where they were was a slight dog-leg before a low concrete bridge that crossed a creek. In the blowing sand, FitzGerald had missed the dog-leg and gone straight ahead. Both front wheels of the Chev were in a sandy depression. Water was beginning to ooze around the tyres.

  ‘OK,’ said FitzGerald, again. ‘OK.’

  ‘Will you please stop saying OK,’ said Rosie. She gave a husky, pleasant, somewhat heartless laugh. ‘If there’s one thing that this isn’t—’ she said.

  ‘OK,’ said FitzGerald. He looked at her with a glint. Rosie got back in the car, this time in the back seat.

  ‘This has nothing to do with me,’ she said. ‘Let me know when we’re ready to leave.’

  ‘It does have something to do with you,’ said FitzGerald. ‘But stay there. You’ll be useful there. You can be ballast.’

  ‘Oh, good,’ said Rosie. ‘Rod! Come and be ballast with me.’

  ‘I’d better not,’ said Rod. He looked anxious. Race and Panos were already collecting branches and stones to put under the front tyres.

  ‘No, go on, Roddy,’ said FitzGerald. ‘It’s a good idea. We’ll need the weight.’

  Rod sat in the back of the car with Rosie. Dinah reappeared out of the dark. She was carrying some white dog-roses she had found growing beside the road.

  ‘Roses,’ said Dinah. ‘There must have been a house here once.’

  There was not a light – not a star, not a candle – to be seen in any direction, along the coast, inland, or out to sea. The night wind was warm. It blew through the scrub making a caressing sound.

  ‘Imagine living here,’ said Rosie, looking out the window.

  Something white lifted and fell in the distance. It was a wave breaking out at sea, quiet as the sheet floated by a bed-maker.

  Race, Panos and Fitzgerald went to work packing stones and branches under the front tyres. Dinah sat in the driver’s seat. Then she put the car in reverse and revved the engine while the three heaved at the front bumper. In the back seat Rosie was telling Rob about a party she had been to that winter in Repulse Bay. After a while, an hour or so, the Chev came back on the road and they drove on. This time Race stood outside on the running-board on the passenger’s side to see the way ahead. Sand was still blowing across the road in the headlights. Riding outside, holding onto the top of the window frame with one hand, Race began to feel wild exhilaration. The sky had cleared and inland hills stood up like pyramids against the stars.

  ‘Whyever did they get rid of running-boards?’ Race yelled in the window.

  ‘Blind spot,’ said FitzGerald.

  ‘No. No moral dimension,’ said Rosie.

  The headlights shone on the flanks of a sandy hill. The sand looked like treasure in the moving beam. The road went up the side of the hill and came round onto the face of a cliff. FitzGerald slowed down. The Chev took up the whole of the narrow cliff road. Looking down, Race saw his sandshoes on the running-board and, far below, the suds of ocean. Up ahead a beam of light swept around the sky, once, with alacrity. Then, after a long delay, it came round again. Then the road sloped down and they came to another coastal plain, and the road came to an end.

  ‘We’re here,’ said FitzGerald. He stopped the car on the verge.

  It was very quiet. About a hundred yards in from the road was a house in a stand of trees.

  ‘Jesus,’ said FitzGerald. ‘It’s the back of beyond.’

  They got out of the car.

  ‘We can’t possibly go in,’ said Rosie, looking at the house. ‘It must be past midnight.’

  ‘We don’t have to go in,’ said FitzGerald. ‘We can sleep right here.’

  It was midsummer night. The wind had dropped. Stars were out in their thousands. Ruru! an owl called loudly, quite nearby. FitzGerald and the others took their bedding, sleeping bags and pillows, out of the boot and laid the bags on the grass right there in front of the car. The grass was a strange variety, growing straight out of the sand. Race shucked off his shoes and trod on the ground experimentally. He felt the sand, cold and silken, below the blades. He went on some way into the grassy dunes, and then stopped and looked back at the car, and the distant house, and the rumpled night-land of hills and bush.

  The owl called again, quite loud. After a pause, another answered in the middle distance.

  And then, finally, another – ruru! – far, far away, like a sound formed by the midnight stars themselves.

  The Chev was of pre-war manufacture: from a distance it looked like an old upturned bathtub. Race couldn’t see the little humps of his friends any more. They had gone straight to sleep – it was as if they had disappeared into earth. He went further on, down into valleys of cold sand, and up again on the ridges. Ahead of him was a grove of trees, and in the distance a vague pallor – the sea, still out of sight. Race set off to the grove and reached it and stepped in, and then he saw that it was not a grove but a single great tree, like a house, with a star shining here and there through the joists. Standing in the house Race then, for a full minute, felt a kind of happiness, as if he had achieved something solid, true – but what was it? Just to be there, at that hour, awake? He walked out of the tree shade and saw that the sea was now in view. There was one more dark clump of trees across the dunes, just before the beach.

  ‘I’ll go as far as that,’ he thought, ‘then I’ll go back.’

  He went on over the dunes. The trees he was heading for suddenly looked lonely, a last outpost at the end of the world. Yet beyond them the whole sea was now brimming as though it knew that it was midsumme
r night as well, and was bringing in the dawn early, the waves making a kind of sizzling sound like bolts of cloth being unrolled from the horizon. But then, just before he reached the trees, Race stopped. His heart began to pound. There were people on the beach! Four or five men were in the shallows, coming forward, then idling there, silhouetted against the hollow waves.

  At the same time as he saw these figures Race believed, in point of fact, there was no one there at all. It was late – he had gone too far from the car – he was in total solitude.

  Quickly, guilty almost on account of his ontological alarm, Race turned and went back fast over the shadowy dunes, back to the Chev, the old upturned bathtub, and he got into his sleeping bag and laid his head down and almost immediately went to sleep behind the back bumper, on the grass, under the stars in their thousands.

  ‘My mother,’ said a voice, ‘is going to kill you.’

  6

  Race’s first thought was that something was on fire. Then he realised that the sun was burning the back of his head. He opened his eyes and looked straight across the road. Morgan was leaning on a five-barred gate looking back at him. The sky was deep blue. The sun must have been up for hours. Cicadas sounded like gunfire. Morgan put his finger to his lips. The others, this meant, were still asleep.

  But just then they all began to wake as well, like birds coming in to land at the same time.

  ‘Oh, oh, oh . . .’ said someone.

  ‘Ahhh.’ Someone else made a comfortable sigh.

  ‘My mother,’ said Morgan in a clear voice, ‘is going to kill you.’