Fish of the Week

by Steve Braunias

  [June 18]

  Beef and Liberty VII

  After devoting six columns and two long feature stories to New Zealand steak, I thought I had laid the subject to rest. But this is an unexpected sequel. It concerns a serious matter. It calls into question the subject of ethics. My ethics. It immediately spells trouble, because I don’t have any ethics.

  What I do have is an honest avarice. It fuelled the six columns and the two long features. The series began last October, when I licked my chops and listed the thirty-three steakhouses across New Zealand; I followed it up a month later by asking: is New Zealand steak any good? Readers responded with fervour and passion. That debate took care of four more columns.

  Along the way, I asked for and received excellent parcels of steak from two wholesalers—Angus Pure and Hereford Prime. I was also invited to the Riverlands meatworks in Eltham, where I watched things only a man should see. When my visit ended, I said to the managing director: ‘Do you have anything for me?’ I flew home with some very nice grass-fed and grain-fed beef.

  Another invite took me to Beef Expo in Palmerston North in May, to act as a judge at the annual Steak of Origin awards. Along with my fellow judges, chef Greg Heffernan and rugby league legend Graham Lowe, I put on an apron and blind-tasted the sixteen finalists in the award that recognises New Zealand’s best steak. I felt honoured. I felt hungry. I tucked into each of the sixteen fillets and still had room for dinner, although that was a disaster. ‘To the great and lasting shame of Beef Expo,’ I wrote in The Sunday Star-Times, ‘the lump of beef served at its gala dinner was as tough as old boots.’ I learned later that the boot was a Steak of Origin semi-finalist.

  Never mind. I had a really good time that night. I met a lot of cattle farmers. They were top blokes, and so were their wives. Many thanked me for writing about New Zealand steak, for raising its image, for asking questions. I met a few steak bureaucrats. I didn’t like them very much. But I was sad that my steak trails had come to an end: it was such an enjoyable series to write; I got given so many free feeds.

  Once home, I figured a few more meals on wheels were in order. I sent emails to the beef bureau, Hereford Prime (a Steak of Origin finalist), and Angus Pure (the grand champion), wondering whether they might see fit to throw me some steaks. Hereford Prime responded immediately with a yes. Angus Pure got back to me a week later with a yes. Things were looking good. I started sharpening my steak knife. But then greed got the better of me.

  The silence from the beef bureau began to nag in my ears like an insult. I got on the keyboard, and wrote: ‘Can you email me back asap please? There’s an exciting new chapter in the story about NZ steak that I will be writing soon—it’s good news. Hope to hear back from you soon.’ This time I got a reply in seconds.

  How interesting, I thought. And so I wrote: ‘The email I sent you this morning was a fabrication. I just wanted to see whether it would chivvy you out like a stoat. It did.

  ‘I note you responded immediately, but not at all to my previous email, when I made the not unreasonable request that the bureau recognise the publicity I gave Steak of Origin by arranging a delivery of New Zealand beef. I think it’s rather shabby treatment that you failed to even respond. I am disappointed.’

  Later that day, I decide to swan around The Sunday Star-Times offices—I enjoy making occasional visits; the cafeteria does a good boiled egg—when I’m hauled into an executive’s office. They have heard from the beef bureau. The beef bureau is not amused. Neither is the executive. There is shouting. ‘Unacceptable!’ And: ‘Unprofessional!’ Also: ‘Apologise!’ Somewhere along the way I hear the word ‘backhander’. History is made: for the first time in New Zealand journalism, a backhander is identified as a steak.

  I tell my girlfriend. She is an astute woman who usually occupies the moral high ground, due to my continued absence from that enviable view. ‘You’re a greedy little pig,’ she announces, ‘who got his snout smacked.’

  I tell the head of a rival news organisation over lunch—he has bangers and mash, I choose something I assure you is not steak. He tells me to keep quiet or it will become a scandal. But I have no idea how to keep quiet about anything.

  I tell friends over dinner—pork ribs, quite delicious—and add that the promised deliveries from Angus Pure and Hereford Prime never, ever materialised. The friends tell me I have obviously been meatlisted. They say my photo will soon appear in butcher shops, with the warning: DO NOT SERVE THIS MAN.

  They laugh. I sulk. My fridge and freezer are bare. Did I go too far with the email to a man I identified as a stoat? Probably. I apologised. Had I been unethical? Possibly. Have I learned a lesson?

  [July 2]

  Mangrovia

  There was a time when I seemed to live in a mangrove creek. You could find me there at dawn or dusk, daytimes and weekends, a solitary figure picking his way through the rich thick mud, lost to the usual world, absorbed in a secret. The secret was the tide shuffling in and shuffling out; the secret was the colour of the light; the secret was the silence of mangrovia.

  Tropical mangroves roadhog the waterways of Florida, wander the coasts of South America. I once stood around at a press conference Helen Clark gave in Fiji, and while she explained the way the world works I turned away to inspect a nearby stand of mangroves. New Zealand mangroves, Avicennia marina, are the most southern in the world. They are found in the North Island only, ending at Kawhia. They grow to astonishing heights in Northland, as tall and as straight as poles; they sprawl all over Auckland, hunched, squat, menacing—a sign by the motorway in Manukau reads, PEOPLE IN. MANGROVES OUT.

  Swamp things, stuck in the mud, thirsty. They drink like a fish. They lap up Kaipara Harbour, sniff out water on Tauranga beaches. Unwelcome, unwanted, uncivilised, they lay claim to an estimated 22,000 hectares in New Zealand, and I can read one or two hectares like a book. I lived on the banks of a mangrove creek for a couple of years. I was seldom in the house. I became a resident of mangrovia. Perhaps not at all curiously, it was during this time that my wife left.

  I returned to that creek the other day. I just happened to be wearing gumboots. And protective gloves. And my oldest clothes, with a rubbish bag in my pockets. For those couple of years, I took it upon myself to clean the creek of the litter that rushed in from the storm drains. It was the work of Sisyphus—you could get it spick if never span, and then rains would flood the drains and another mountain of garbage would arrive. But I also dragged out tyres, stoves, fridges, car parts including engines, sheets of corrugated iron and bastards knows what else. It was hard toil, countless hours of dirty work, and it may or may not have redeemed the creek, but it gave me an excuse, a permit to enter the dense forests of mangrovia.

  The fish jump in summer. Mullet, mostly, and the occasional flounder. I once saw a jellyfish, a scarlet grasping thing, on the high tide. It was high when I ventured into mangrovia the other day, the tide just starting to turn; soon enough it would be rush hour for the shags, the kingfishers, the herons. You never need binoculars to see herons perched in mangrovia. In that sea of grey and green, the birds raise their white faces like flags.

  I filled up the rubbish bag, emptied it into a bin, filled another, and a third. The usual: drinking straws, junk-food packets, ice-block wrappers. Beer cans, beer bottles. And the most common item of litter of the modern age—cans of energy drinks and cups of takeaway espresso coffee. A pox on the morons who litter the containers of that slop. As the wild and unsanctioned guardian of mangrovia, I once took out my rage on a kid whom I saw idly dropping an energy drink into the creek, and gave him a quick, efficient beating. People out. Mangroves in.

  The tide shuffled along, the mud popped with crabs. I walked the length of the creek, from beneath a house where a nice woman feeds giant eels with brisket once a week, to where the bay carves into the land. Away from view, inside the strange and ancient forests of mangrovia, I found my favourite places—the bank where the creek forks, the plain where the trunk of a particula
r mangrove is shaped into a quite comfortable seat. I just happened to bring my lunch. I sat and ate, then lit up a cigarette. It was a cold day, the wind sharp and brisk, but the mangroves provided a warmth. Their weak summer flowers had faded. The leaves were pockmarked with salt—its roots, or pneumato phores, suck up the salt at high tide, pass it through the branches, and spit it out like pips in the underside of the leaves.

  Nothing much else ever happens. The wind never stirs the mangroves; the noise of the wind is only in the air. Mangrovia stays motionless, silent. The water is dark green, emerald green. From a poem by C.K. Stead: ‘Full of itself the tide floods the mangroves.’ I remember an amazing summer when they said the full moon was the closest it had been to this part of the world for a hundred years, and the tides ran riot all over the country. In Auckland, in mangrovia, high tide covered the bridges, flooded the entire plain, and when it receded the creek was the darkest green, the most emerald green I had ever seen.

  But the average tide the other day held an extraordinary beauty. I mucked about for an hour or two, tidying, watching, a migrant bird of some sort, uninvited, my fat feet blundering here and there, in the way. I got out and climbed the hill. Above and around, the usual world; below and almost underground, a secret.

  [July 9]

  Death of a Ladies Man

  Poor old Mr Wilson guessed that he had woken up in Wellington. All he could see outside the window of his bedroom in the Golden Sunlight Rest Home was a thick, settled fog. He knew it often closed the airport; had he missed a flight and taken up residence in a hotel? Which one? The James Cook? The Sharella? He picked up the phone, pressed zero and asked: ‘Where am I?’ A voice said: ‘In bed. Get up.’

  The fog looked like soup. A watery soup. He reached out his hand and touched a grey lace curtain. Oh, he thought. Not fog. Not Wellington either, in that case. Fair enough. Why would he want to be in Wellington? Cold, filthy place. He lived there dur ing the war. On an island in the harbour. It was full of Germans and Italians. Worst years of his life. Probably.

  But there was no sense stewing about it. His motto was: ‘Forget the past’. Wisdom, he knew, came with age. So did an ability to forget absolutely everything. He picked up the phone, pressed zero and asked: ‘Where am I?’

  A nurse came in, beat him black and blue, called him dreadful names, and stole his box of Roses chocolates. He supposed he ought to get out of bed.

  Breakfast was being served in the dining room. That was one thing about the daily beatings at Golden Sunlight: they worked up a powerful appetite. He loaded up his plate with an egg and two slices of toast. ‘Greedy pig!’ said the cook, and took back a slice of toast.

  He took his seat next to an attractive brunette, and opposite a blonde filly. ‘Good morning, Mr Wilson,’ they said.

  ‘Oh, no need to stand on formality,’ he said. ‘Call me …’ He set out a hook for his name, but the hook sank, and his name slid past into an appalling darkness.

  He tasted his egg. ‘It’s good this morning,’ he said.

  ‘Just right,’ said his neighbour.

  ‘Firm,’ said her friend.

  ‘But not too firm.’

  ‘Soft.’

  ‘Runny.’

  ‘But it’s got a bit of bite.’

  ‘It’s got bite to it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The conversation continued in this manner for another six minutes. Mr Wilson could see they were getting on famously. He had never met them before, but his charm put them at ease. Did the brunette just brush his leg?

  ‘It’s a lovely day out.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Wilson.’

  ‘Do you feel like a walk after our repast? A trot. A hoof. A bit of a march about.’

  ‘That might be difficult.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ve lost a leg.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Well, I mean to say. It’s a bit careless. But I know how it is. I lost my teeth last week. Looked everywhere. High and low. And then the nurse came in, beat me black and blue, and told me they were in my mouth all along. Talk about laugh! How I roared.’

  ‘You’re talkative today,’ said the blonde.

  Mr Wilson eyed her up. Did her foot touch his ankle? It can’t have been the brunette—she was lacking a foot. He said, ‘It’s a lovely day out.’

  ‘You say that every morning.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘Never met you before in my life.’

  ‘You were telling me just yesterday about fighting in the jungles of Borneo during the war.’

  ‘Worst years of my life. Poison darts. Leeches. Cannibals. Shocking business. Saw a beautiful kingfisher once, though. Wasn’t all bad.’

  The matron clapped her hands and said, ‘Listen, everyone.’ She had an announcement. The local member of parliament was due in an hour. He wanted to listen to any concerns that residents might have about staff treatment. It would be confidential.

  A low murmur set up over the toast. The matron held up her hand for silence.

  ‘You’ll remember Mrs Abbott,’ she said. ‘Mrs Abbott had some concerns about staff treatment, didn’t she?’

  The room went silent.

  ‘Yes, dear little Mrs Abbott,’ said the matron. ‘Passed away quietly in her sleep not long afterwards. I’m sure she’s in your thoughts. I’m sure you’ll think of her today when the member of parliament makes his visit. I’m equally sure you’ll all make him feel welcome in the pleasant surrounds of Golden Sunlight.’

  She moved her eyes slowly around the dining room, and folded her arms. ‘Thank you for your attention,’ she said.

  Poor old Mr Wilson had no idea what she was talking about. Something to do with politics. But why would he have any interest in politics? Life was for living. There were pleasures to be had. That included romance.

  He leaned back in his chair, and gazed at his two companions. He knew he had charm. That never faded. He cast his mind for a pick-up line. The hook sunk, came back into view, and hung there for an instant. He reached out into the fog.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘Do I come here often?’

  [July 30]

  A Visit to Tasmania

  When I was sent on assignment recently to the gold-mining town of Beaconsfield in Tasmania, I wrote in my story: ‘It feels like home.’ And it really did, with its early morning fog and frost, its farms and vineyards, its rural traditions—the nearby riverside town of Beauty Point was named after a cow called Beauty that had drowned. Tasmania has the same latitude as Wellington, as Marlborough; we were discovered by the outside white world in the same miraculous year, when Abel Tasman swung east from the island in 1642, and took a course that led him to Westland.

  A mirror image, a replica, a kind of twin. Beaconsfield, population just over one thousand, was like any number of country towns between, say, Foxton and Hokitika. A river ran through it—actually, a saltwater tidal estuary, forming lagoons and a nearby bird sanctuary. A cold southerly blew through it— the wind carried the sharpness of snow. Trucks and dusty cars drove through it—what passed for rush hour was when workers called into the grocer and the pub as the light and the temperature fell, and Beaconsfield had that sad, exciting feel of all small towns in that hour before darkness in winter.

  It was in the heart of the Tamar Valley, which used to be covered in apple orchards. Now it was covered in grapes. There were noticeboards advertising spiritual development. There were three pubs. The talk in each was the smoking ban imposed throughout Tasmania in January—it had led to a rash of Sunday Schools, drinking parties in the garages of people’s homes, where they sat around a fire pot with cartons of Boag’s beer and lit up.

  But the talk was also about what had happened in Beacons field—the Anzac Day mining disaster. One man had been killed and two others trapped underground, presumed dead, after a massive rockfall in the mine. Their amazing rescue after two weeks had made the town famous, but the mine had clo
sed down, at least temporarily, and what was left of Beaconsfield? This was my assignment. And so I mooched around day and night, and drank Boag’s day and night, and talked to strangers day and night, during a week in winter, with chimney smoke reaching the sky day and night.

  The gold mine felt like home too. It opened in 1877; when it closed in 1914, miners left Tasmania and settled in New Zealand mining towns such as Waiuta on the West Coast. It reopened about ten years ago, right in the middle of town, next to the Grubb Shaft Gold and Heritage Museum, which allows excellent views of the mine—visitor numbers have tripled since the disaster.

  Until the rockfall, Beaconsfield’s claim to fame was the fact that it was the first town in Australia to put fluoride in its water supply. There was a plaque about that beside a dribbling tap outside the museum. It added: ‘Do not drink the water.’ It was just a small country town, with excellent pastries at the bakery, and a Chinese restaurant called Red Ruby. Its menu said: ‘Thank you for dinning with us.’

  Prime minister John Howard was due to visit. Locals said: ‘Little Johnnie can stick it up his arse.’ They were nice people. They were friendly, they wore check shirts, they waited for three days before telling sheep jokes to their visitor from New Zealand. There were people born and bred in Tasmania, and many from the main island—Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria. They said they wanted to get away from it all. They had an entire continent to get away from it all, but here they were in a cold climate, in an island covered in spring flowers and rainforests and snow-capped mountains, with sunfish in the Bass Strait.

  I was the only guest upstairs at the Exchange Hotel. At night, walking the corridors to soak in an enormous bathtub that was installed in 1890, I got the creeps looking into the open doors of dark rooms containing single beds: a barmaid at the Ophir pub used to work there, she’d seen a ghost, she’d never go back. But the rest of the time I was made to feel welcome. Pleasant town, good people, nothing extraordinary, until my last night.

  I was having a drink when I suddenly remarked that one of the reasons it felt like somewhere in the South Island was because I hadn’t seen a single black face. This set something off. ‘Tasmania is the only state that has ever successfully genocided an entire race. That’s a fact. Not that I give a fuck. Sorry? I’m not sorry.’