Fish of the Week

by Steve Braunias

  His beloved wife Isabel died in 1939. Reed hit the road almost immediately. He was a kind of holy fool. He walked with Christ, towards Isabel: ‘With supreme confidence I believe in the reunion of loving hearts in the Hereafter.’ Throughout his East Cape wanderings, he hands out colour pictures of illustrated Bible scenes to every Maori child he meets. Near Te Puia, he meets ‘an aged Maori lady whose blue tattooing on both upper lip and chin detracted in no way from her native dignity’. He is amazed that she seems to know his name: ‘Are you Misser-reed?’ Later he realises—‘how absurd my conceit’—that she was asking him if he was a missionary.

  It’s a good question. When A.K. Grant sent in a manuscript containing parodies of the Bible, Reed strenuously objected to the title—The Paua and the Glory—because he said he would never be able to pray again without thinking of shellfish.

  His swag on the East Cape trek contains a hymn book. He rises most mornings at 4.30 a.m. He boils stream water in his billy to make a hot drink out of marmite. He describes the Pacific as ‘a blue carpet’. Passersby laugh at him—an old duffer strolling the backblocks with a swag on his back. What a curious sight he must have presented in 1945; bizarre to picture him now. Someone would probably notify the police.

  On he goes, caught in violent thunderstorms, taking careful note of Maori place names, calling in on old friends and complete strangers. At one house, he is astonished to be fed a feast of three fried eggs, cut bread, a large pat of butter, and golden syrup. His host quotes Sir Apirana Ngata: ‘If a stranger calls at your door, Maori or Pakeha, show him kindness.’ The next morning, Reed has an extraordinary meeting with Ngata in Ruatoria. But that night, he is most put out at the suspicious welcome he receives at the hotel in Tikitiki. It’s the only upset of his trip. He maintains a genial demeanour, whistling as he goes, a courteous, decent, singular figure.

  ‘This old gaunt giant of early hiking,’ Geoff Chapple calls him, in an admiring if curiously competitive introduction he wrote to Reed’s The Four Corners of New Zealand, republished in 2004. As the author of his own walking tour of New Zealand, the brilliant Te Araroa, Chapple chides Reed for not getting his hands dirty, for failing to do ‘the traditional Kiwi tramp’. It was more, he says, ‘the English rural walk’. A country ramble. But on the East Cape Reed avoids the road wherever he can; he gets lost, he follows sheep tracks, he holds on to tufts of tussock on high peaks; the mere thought of his long, long march is exhausting.

  Duly inspired, I also aim to walk much of the East Cape on foot. Like Reed, I have no desire to own a car, mainly on account of the fact I can’t drive. I will follow in his footsteps in Opotiki, Lottin Point, Tokomaru Bay, Tolaga Bay, Gisborne and Ohope, walking from my girlfriend’s car to each motel.

  [March 26]

  Newest Best Friend

  It was with mild interest that I read a few weeks ago about my employer, Fairfax, buying TradeMe from Sam Morgan. I vaguely recall the figure was $700 million. I might be wrong, but Morgan’s personal payout was something like $227 million. Good for him, I thought, and turned the page.

  But people seemed excited about the transaction. It was the talk of the town. They made Morgan into a cult figure. They went on and on about how he founded TradeMe in 1999 by putting $8,000 on his credit card. They breathlessly shared the information that he was thirty, the eldest of four (‘They all know I’m a doofus,’ he’d said), married to Talei and the father of their baby girl May, has Fat Freddy’s Drop on his iPod, works on a laptop, hates golf and long lunches, and is embarrassed by his sudden celebrity: ‘It’s like I’m some sort of Britney Spears.’ They said he was modest, down to earth. They said it would be hard for him to know who his friends are. And so on.

  I listened politely. I prefer to discuss art and truth and beauty. Man becomes rich: it’s not an especially profound subject. I suppose it says something about society that we supplicate ourselves before fabulous wealth, and Morgan’s success may also say something about the spirit of the age—his father, economist Gareth Morgan, told Campbell Live: ‘The great thing about Sam is that he started TradeMe on a blank sheet of paper.’ But I quickly tired of all the talk about Morgan, and the themes of envy and greed it inspired.

  I work from home. That has its advantages, not least the peace and quiet, but company makes a change. A few days after the announcement, I felt in the mood to visit the Fairfax offices. I was chatting to a reporter in the canteen—they do a good boiled egg—when I saw some doofus tapping away on a laptop at a corner table. He was about thirty, obviously tall, with green eyes and a receding hairline. There was something familiar about him. I asked, ‘Who’s he?’ The reporter whispered, ‘That’s Sam.’

  Yes. I may have read something about Morgan making a commitment to stay with TradeMe for another year, and the CEO of Fairfax, David Kirk, saying at a press conference, ‘We welcome him as a new colleague.’

  I lingered over the boiled egg while studying my new colleague. He was intent on working. Gareth Morgan had said about his son: ‘Sam’s famous for saying there’s no such thing as an original idea. It comes down to great execution.’ Now and then he stroked his moustache. Moustache? As a method of disguise, it only made him look like his father. But I could understand his need for privacy.

  Still, I thought I should welcome him as David Kirk instructed. I walked over and said casually, ‘New here?’ He looked up and said, ‘Mmm.’ I shook his hand and said, ‘Steve.’ He said, ‘Sam.’ And then he left, saying his lunch hour was up.

  I liked him at once. Great guy. The next day, I felt in the mood to visit the Fairfax offices, and walked around for three hours until I found him—incognito, modest—at a desk in the classifieds department. I said, ‘Hi, Sam! Settling in all right?’ He said he was. ‘Know where everything is? The canteen?’ He said he did. I slapped him on the back and invited him for a beer after work. I had to repeat the invitation six times before he agreed.

  I hung around until 5 p.m. on the dot, and took him to a bar around the corner. I got in the first round. I’d read in one interview where he’d said, ‘I do most of the talking.’ But he didn’t say much. When we finished our drinks, he sighed and said, ‘Same again?’ I smiled, and said, ‘Well, you could always just buy us the bar. But another beer’ll do.’ He asked whether I had a drinking problem. I knew he’d have a sense of humour. All great guys do.

  I have felt in the mood to visit the Fairfax offices every day for the past fortnight. Sam and I have got on like a house on fire. The flames are slow, but the house is definitely burning. I bought him a rare Fat Freddy’s Drop poster. ‘Got it on TradeMe,’ I winked. I bought him food, and a new chair, and a new pram. He began to object but I shrugged, ‘What’s money?’ I said to him one day, ‘We’ve got a lot in common. I start every story on a blank piece of paper.’ He said he’d never read anything I’d written. Great guy, though.

  I felt in the mood to visit the Fairfax offices yesterday and give Sam the first option on an original idea I’d had that could make us both a lot of money. I saw him cowering in someone’s office; he was being shouted at.

  I said to the woman who sits at the desk next to him, ‘Jesus. What a way to treat Sam Morgan.’

  She said, ‘His name’s not Sam Morgan.’

  [April 2]

  Beef and Liberty V

  The people have spoken. They have spoken loudly, and at length. All up, they have spoken 5,682 words, as measured by the emails I have received since writing an infamous column seven weeks ago on the state of New Zealand steak. Infamous, because I quoted two whistle-blowers—Rick Long, a former butcher from Masterton, and Jim Shand, a former livestock farmer and now a restaurant owner in Waipukurau—who dared to say that the state of our steaks was parlous, second-rate, bad. As the messenger, I fully expected to get shot. I got shot. But the bullets flew in all directions. Now that the smoke has cleared, I must report that the majority of correspondents spoke out, and spoke out strongly, against New Zealand steak.

  The sheer volume
of correspondence confirms that meat is a subject that excites a special passion in this great, grazing country. We care about meat. We respect meat. We demand high standards and good behaviour of our meat. That’s why my steak columns have provoked such an intense response. Let other media bleat about the apparent importance of crime and health and education; the hottest topic in New Zealand right now is happening right here.

  Yes. On with the show then, beginning with Mike, who came straight to the point: ‘New Zealand beef is crap.’ He slobbered over the memory of eating delicious steak with a plastic knife in Austin, Texas, but added: ‘It was hormone-fed to hell, which probably explains why I have huge breasts.’ He avoided steak here ‘unless desperately starved and someone has taken me to a place that doesn’t do anything else—it’s that bad.’

  America, America. There was new US arrival David, who said supermarket steak back home was usually five centimetres thick; here, it’s less than two centimetres, so he’s forced to buy whole fillets and cut his own. There was Paul, who raved about steakhouses in Georgia: ‘The steak fell apart like meat loaf and the flavour left me on my knees in ecstasy. I still sit and think about those steaks.’ His opinion of New Zealand steaks? ‘What you’d expect if you sampled a fresh steaming pat of cow manure.’

  Tony had better manners. It made his argument more compelling. He wrote, ‘We have a country full of beautiful green fields of well-conditioned animals, and expect to be treated with the most amazing meat dishes in our restaurants. Generally all we get is disappointment. Personally, I have not ordered a steak meal in a restaurant for years. The risk is too great. Watching others fight their way to the “tender bit” is more than enough. And now I rarely even buy steak from a butcher, as the cost is huge and the quality way below, even though I love a really good steak meal.’ He raved about eating superb steak at a hotel on the Isle of Skye in Scotland—and added, ‘Their haggis entrée is to die for.’ I bet it is. I’d rather die now than eat it.

  There were so many other complaints about New Zealand steak. Alan had a solution: ‘The only way you are going to get that dream beef is to buy your own on the hoof.’ Splendid idea, but slightly impractical: who has the kitchen space? Hunt down the best butcher you can find, suggested Patricia—‘As a former committed vegan, I am now as firmly committed to the benefits of red meat.’ Like several other readers, she recommended Angus Pure sirloins and fillets.

  ‘Steak has to age,’ said Bob, an ex-butcher, who always lets his steak sit in the fridge ‘until it loses its bloom’. Pete and Hamish both said it came down to the way meat is hung—as usual in these matters, well-hung.

  Naturally, meat professionals wanted their say. Mark A’Court, who owns a supermarket in Nelson: ‘With a team of butchers combining decades of experience, we can serve up fantastic beef, both organic and conventional.’ Trevor Johnston, CEO of Riverlands in Eltham: ‘We have spent a lot of time and money to tenderise our beef. The result is we produce beef that is tested regularly for tenderness, and rates well above the norm.’ Alan Leckie of Victoria Avenue Meats in Remuera: ‘There’s an old saying that God sent the animals and the Devil sent the cooks.’ I’ve never heard that old saying. His point was: ‘The butcher gets the blame, but a serious amount of good steaks are murdered by bad cooking practices.’ Hmm. He also wrote, ‘As a meat retailer of some forty-five years, I can say the quality of beef is now far superior … The complaints we receive about tough meat amount to zilch compared to previous years.’

  Inevitably, I heard from Peter Leitch, aka The Mad Butcher. He wrote, ‘I am lost for words.’ Actually, he wasn’t. ‘If New Zealand meat was that bad,’ he reasoned, ‘I don’t think I would have such a successful business.’ But someone called Russell argued, ‘Most meat-eaters eat anything and put up with it, and would not know a good eye fillet if they trod on it.’

  With respect, Russell, I must reply: bullshit. I know my steak. Next month, I am headed to Palmerston North as a judge of the Steak of Origin—an annual cook-out that awards New Zealand’s best steaks. Who dares to ruin my appetite?

  [April 9]

  Witness

  The truth is that I always look forward to reporting even the most odious trials at the High Court of Auckland. It’s such a lovely part of town. It’s such an English part of town—Parliament Street, Westminster Court, Windsor Towers. It has a stateliness about it, a quietness, and during a recent three-week rape trial, which was so grotesque, so tragic, so odious, I liked to linger outside the court and watch the English plane trees turn wan in the golden autumn light.

  I attended the trial every day. Every day, spectacular autumn, sleepy and still. The afternoons padded towards evening in socks. I walked ankle-deep in leaves that fell from the plane trees. Inside the court, a woman accused three men, including the assistant commissioner of police, of rape and sexually assaulting her with a police baton. It was front-page news most days, led the television news most nights, and led the radio news most hours.

  A courtroom is merely an office, untidy, tiring. A sign on the door advised: DO NOT CLEAN THIS COURT WHILE TRIAL IN PROGRESS. Over three weeks, dust gathered on the window sills, and I felt guilty about the pencil shavings I littered over the blue carpet. A raised voice is rare in court, and I enjoyed a number of brief, deep naps. One day, a cellphone woke me. I felt so outraged I wanted to press charges.

  The three men denied they had committed rape or sexual assault. They admitted to group sex, and described it as ‘convivial’. They were represented by five lawyers. One wore a QC’s jacket he had bought in Australia—tight, efficient, collarless, with buttons circling the cuffs. The judge looked short. His wife is a portrait artist; apparently the library in Remuera possesses one of her paintings, an especially gruesome likeness of novelist C.K. Stead. The witnesses included the most beautiful bank manager I’ve ever seen, although she may be New Zealand’s only beautiful bank manager. Other witnesses talked about driving stock trucks, bench-pressing weights, and attending a wedding in Napier where the bridesmaids wore a piece of lace at the top of their stay-up stockings; a lawyer described group sex as ‘a joint venture’.

  Courts keep gentle hours. Start at 10 a.m., finish at 5 p.m. Two tea breaks—11.30 a.m., 3.30 p.m. Lunch from 1 p.m. to 2.15 p.m. I like those hours. My heart rate slows down. Most days for lunch I ambled across the court and through the leafy university grounds to buy tuna sandwiches at the student cafeteria. Is this the best campus in New Zealand? Unlike Victoria, it’s flat; unlike Massey and Waikato, it’s close to town; unlike Otago, it’s not in Dunedin. I would eat my sandwiches in the sun, then wander to the university library and pluck out books at random— a biography of A.H. Reed, a history of Palmerston North (a pamphlet, of course), a study of New Guinea cannibals. Body and mind refreshed, I would amble back to Courtroom 12, pluck out a Warwick 3B1 notebook, and scrape Staedtler 110 HB pencil shavings on to the blue carpet.

  The woman who accused the three men said it had happened in 1985 and 1986. One of the defendants wore shoes called Winston Smith, the name of George Orwell’s hero in 1984. During the trial, that defendant’s brother, a large man who wheezed when he sat down, muttered that New Zealand was turning into Orwell’s vision—a police state. But he had been a policeman. So had his brother accused of rape, and another brother, who smoked a cigar in celebration after the jury delivered a verdict of not guilty. It had been a rare, weird case of policemen complaining that the police prosecution was too rigorous; after the verdicts, it was a rare, weird case of policemen rejoicing at the failure of a police prosecution.

  The rape charges became almost incidental to the trial; what became central was the way it was reported. A number of journalists sawed on cheap sentimental violins when they wrote accounts of the evidence given by the woman who said she had been raped. I don’t know if I’ve ever read such unbalanced journalism. The judge gave them a serve. He also gave me a serve. I wrote 6,000 words about the trial. At one point—God help me—I thought of writing a book about it. I bec
ame a trial bore, banging on about it to anyone who didn’t ask. It occupied my mind, I was a witness to such sadness, such suffering. I lost ten dollars in a wager with a lawyer about when the jury would deliver a verdict. It took them three days. By the third afternoon, I was about to put on a $10,000 wager that it would never, ever end—the waiting was intolerable, almost. I often visited a friend who lives opposite the court. We would sit and drink at her window, while I pointed out who was who in the trial when they came outside for a breather.

  But we would also sit in contented silence and admire the plane trees soothed by the golden autumn light. Finally the jury came in, and the forewoman, a young blonde, wept after calling out the verdict. It had been my life for three weeks; I felt a terrible disappointment when it finished.

  [April 16]

  All Quiet on the Eastern Front

  Dawn is something that happens to other people—farmers, nurses, babies, joggers and other lunatics—so it is with regret that I have absolutely no intention of getting up on Tuesday morning to observe this year’s Anzac Day service. But the day calls for a drink. It calls for a glass raised as a mark of respect to those who have fallen on foreign turf. It calls for a visit to one of the great institutions of New Zealand life and death: the RSA.

  By my count, there are 127 Returned Services’ Association bars up and down the country. Nearly thirty in Auckland, about half that number around Wellington; naturally, there is an RSA in the military complex of Waiouru; obliquely, there is an RSA in the Cook Islands. The drinks are cheap, and as for the meals, the plates are clean. There are membership fees, but all are welcome —please sign the visitor’s book. You could very happily make a tour of New Zealand by following a map of RSAs: north to Hikurangi, Russell, Kaitaia; south to Milton, Invercargill, Bluff. As ever, Twizel simply means you are lost.