Loving Ways

by Gee, Maurice

  ‘You see,’ he said, and stopped. Could not explain. Drank some coffee. ‘There are all sorts of rights and wrongs,’ he said.

  ‘I hope you’ve been happy away from us.’

  He looked at her, trying to penetrate, then drew a reserve over himself. ‘I’ve had a satisfactory life.’ He seemed to hear the priggish tone of it and blinked his eyes. His ears went red. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound …’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t. Is that your main memory of me, slinking in the trees?’

  ‘Ha! It’s one.’

  ‘What are the others?’

  ‘Well – I’d be lying if I said I thought about you often. It’s only since you phoned …’

  ‘Of course. I remember you going away. I followed you up the drive, about two rows of trees back. I wanted you to look at me, at least.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t believe now …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The way I was.’

  ‘And the way you went on being?’

  His redness came back – the ears had hardly faded and now they grew quite rich in colour.

  ‘That will take a bit of sorting out,’ he said at last.

  ‘I ran away too. And never came back. What are your other memories, apart from slinking?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘You don’t have to try and please me.’ I just want, she thought, something like that first one, something that makes it available. But as he spoke – the girl at the stove, the girl washing dishes and running out into the rain to let down the prop and unpeg socks and work shirts from the line – it seemed there would be no second time. She was already in possession of what he offered. Bare feet, faded print dresses? She needed something that rushed up at her from deep down, or came through a vista, through the trees, and fastened on and hurt her but made that time manageable.

  ‘I can remember the first time I saw you. He brought you home in the car and left you sitting in it in the yard.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘He came in and said to Judith, “Go out and get her. Take a rag with you, she’s peed her pants.” So Judith had to go out. You were –’

  ‘Sitting in a puddle on the back seat. I was scared to ask the woman at Newmans for the toilet. And scared to ask Dad to stop the car.’

  ‘Judith brought you in and stood you in that old enamel basin on the lino and Dad made me go out with a bucket of soap and water and wash the seat. It was leather, that old Riley. I don’t think it ever –’

  ‘It never got rid of the smell. It soaked right in. Not the best beginning.’

  ‘It was while I was washing it I made up my mind not to be involved. And I found I could do it.’ He stood up and went to the window. Again that Duke of Edinburgh stance. ‘I haven’t forgotten you’ – he turned – ‘but I haven’t remembered you either. You’ve been like a photograph – black and white, standing at the sink or the washtubs. You didn’t move, you weren’t alive. You were frozen there. So I could look and turn the page. You didn’t start to move until you phoned me up.’

  ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘Ashamed.’

  ‘Don’t be. Don’t bother. There’s really nothing you can do for us. And we don’t need it. At least I don’t. I can’t speak for David. But me – I don’t need you. I needed you once, you could have helped.’

  ‘May – ‘

  ‘I’m not trying to get my own back. I don’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘I can go away if you like.’

  ‘No. I think you’re probably a nice man. We’ll try and forget how things used to be. Are you a Christian? Is that why you’re feeling so bad?’

  ‘I’d feel bad without that. But yes, I am.’

  ‘It doesn’t make me like you more. It’s always seemed a crime against good sense. Do you want to argue about religion?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor do I. I’m sorry, Alan. I probably seem a bit mad to you, but it’s hard to keep my mind still, someone coming back after so long. Do you pray?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘I knew a man who prayed once. I used to live with him. I caught him trying to teach Heather things. Sex, you know. She was about nine. So we all had to get down on our knees and pray the sin out, not just out of him, out of ourselves.’

  ‘Do you blame that on me too?’

  ‘I used to. You and Dad. Not any more. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I meant to be so all together and laid back. You were going to see a happy woman. I didn’t mean to come apart like this. Drink your coffee. Get yourself another cup.’

  She went to the bedroom and lay on the bed. All it is is a bit of shifting, she thought. I’m not damaged, I’m rearranged. She imagined a sliding of parts, edge moving on edge like the shutter of a camera, and a space appearing in the centre, into which fitted the girl slinking in the trees, and, yes, another bit, the child sitting in a warm puddle on the back seat of the Riley car. And more, that she had not known, but knew now: a boy with a bucket and soap, washing down the leather. It’s someone seeing me, and giving me a word, giving me ‘slinking’. And me seeing him. He was out there washing the seat. I wasn’t alone. She heard her blood throbbing, moving in her, and felt plump and energetic, whole.

  Voices came from the living room. Evan’s voice, Alan’s voice, then a laugh with that East End guttural, that sound so lovely to her, Evan’s laugh. She got up and smoothed the bed and was at the mirror tidying her hair when he looked in. She smiled at him.

  ‘I’ll be there in a minute. Oh, Evan, there’s a bottle of wine in the fridge. Open it. We’ll have it with lunch.’

  They ate and drank and Alan praised the salad and the quiche. Evan praised the wine. He told stories about growing up in Bermondsey, failing his eleven-plus, and running with a ratpack, scavenging the docklands; then about opal mining at Coober Pedy; and May could not understand where his good health came from. How had he survived the deprivation, the mud and dust, and kept his good cheer and his generosity? She had barely survived her own mud and dust; had needed him to lift her up; and now, it seemed, needed Alan too.

  ‘Sally and I can handle things,’ Evan said. ‘Take him out and show him a bit of Golden Bay.’

  ‘All right. Would you like to see Collingwood, Alan?’

  ‘That’ll take two minutes. Take him to Wharariki,’ Evan said.

  No, she thought, don’t go too fast. Keep it close to home. She did not think Alan was a man who would be pushed, and she did not want to push herself.

  When Evan had gone she took Alan up the hill to the water tank; showed him the pond with its floating ducks; showed him Woods Inlet and the sea and Farewell Spit. Felt herself expand to cover things: this was hers. She tried not to say too much about it, knowing she would say something foolish, and feeling, still, that he might draw back. He was a man who would keep part of himself in reserve. You would not fully trust him and relax as you did with Evan. They went down to her car and drove to Collingwood – cruised the main street, cruised the beach front, and it was done. ‘Come and see some swans.’ She drove around the estuary, where the swamps and mud-flats drowned in the rising tide, and under the black Burnett Hills; broke out on the coast again and found the birds in their thousands, floating in the shallows by Pakawau.

  ‘God,’ he said, ‘black ones. There can’t be so many.’

  ‘They’re an army. They came from Australia and they’ve taken over here. And out on the Spit there’s all the godwits from Siberia. There’s the Spit.’

  ‘And this just empties out?’

  ‘Thousands of acres of mud. I love the mud. You can keep your sand.’

  ‘What about Wharariki beach?’

  ‘That’s different.’

  She turned the car and drove home, but parked by the gate and said, ‘Come and have a ride in my dinghy.’ She led him on the path through the rushes. ‘Take off your shoes. Leave them here.’ He obeyed. ‘Roll up your pants.’

  She could not tell whether he cared to be bossed. Army of
ficers probably didn’t get enough of it. She felt sure enough of herself to risk his displeasure, but saw that he was interested as she launched the dinghy.

  ‘It’s not made for two.’

  ‘You won’t get wet.’

  It was not easy to row with a man sitting in the stern. She had wished to show off her skill, but his knees got in her way and she had to shorten her stroke. She took the dinghy round the western shore, under hanging trees and slabs of rock, wishing to impress him again. Went slowly over green deeps in the shade. The dinghy floated low, the upward pressure seemed increased, there was a heavier life in the water. She made little dips with the oars, not wanting to go deep. Alan faced her, a metre away. This, she thought, could get embarrassing.

  ‘Rowing is my pastime,’ she said.

  ‘You’re good at it.’

  ‘Your knees get in the way.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He angled them to one side, which shifted his weight and made the dinghy tip.

  ‘I’ve got a runabout,’ he said. ‘On the Auckland harbour.’ He looked around, then smiled at her. ‘It’s more crowded than this.’

  ‘It would be. Tell me – ‘ they lowered their heads under an overhanging branch – ‘have you always been religious? I mean, we didn’t get any at home. There was a bit at school, of course. Your one too, I suppose. Did they get you there?’

  He frowned: surprised perhaps, and putting up his reserve. ‘I wouldn’t say anyone “got me”. Non-believers think there’s a conspiracy … What are you?’

  ‘Nothing. An atheist, I suppose.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I don’t think about it. It seems so remote from real life.’

  ‘Oh no. It is life.’ He put on a smile, tried to lighten things, but could not. ‘Have you heard of the Covenanters? No? I got interested in Scottish history. Because of Robert Louis Stevenson. Kidnapped, remember? Did you get that?’

  ‘Not as much as you and David. You got your names.’

  ‘Yes, Alan Breck. But I went off the Jacobites. Bonnie Prince Charlie, that seemed kid stuff. I went on to the Covenanters.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘Religious reformers. They rebelled against the church and got persecuted for it. And they did a bit of killing and burning for themselves. It’s a long story. But the point is, try telling them that religion isn’t life.’

  ‘So you’re a Presbyterian?’

  ‘No, I didn’t say that. I’m Church of England. That was what I went to in Duntroon. Church was compulsory first year. After that I got out of it and it wasn’t till years later, after the army, that I went back. And I saw it was …’

  ‘Real life?’

  He smiled at her. ‘I’m not trying to convert you, May.’

  ‘You couldn’t.’ The dinghy bumped on a rock and she pushed away with an oar. ‘What made you go back?’ She would not, she thought, ask him questions like this again. The combination of newness, their surprise in each other, and the place, the stillness, the uplifting water, the heavy buoyancy of the boat, gave her a sanction that would be withdrawn. ‘Was it something that happened?’

  ‘Yes.’ He was reluctant. ‘It was.’

  ‘Something you can’t talk about?’

  ‘No. I never have. I just got to a point – no, it wasn’t a point, it was an event. It came on me. I saw something. It could have ended me. And I had to have somewhere to stand.’ He smiled, still polite. ‘All this must be double Dutch to you.’

  ‘Was there a woman in it?’

  ‘Yes, there was. But much more too. More than a woman. I don’t think I want to talk about this, May.’

  ‘No. All right.’

  She pulled the dinghy out into water that moved, then headed along towards the Woods Inlet wharf – a few rotten piles with weeds growing on them.

  ‘I never liked Alan Breck,’ she said.

  ‘I did. I had to, with my name.’

  ‘There was just one part, where Alan Breck and this man are going to fight but instead they settle it with a bagpipe competition.’

  ‘Robin Macgregor.’

  ‘I don’t remember his name. But Alan Breck plays, and then this man plays, and he’s a master, and it says something like – his anger died, Alan Breck’s, and he could only think of the music.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘And he says, “I’m not fit to blow in the same kingdom as you.” I liked him then. He wasn’t just a silly little man waving a sword.’

  Alan laughed, a bit mystified. ‘You think it’s all sword-waving in the army? Most people do.’

  ‘I’ve never thought it was an honourable trade. I’m sorry, I’ve offended you –’ seeing him flush. ‘You’re out now, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Fifteen years,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘I have offended you. We’ve had different lives, Alan. We don’t have to agree.’

  She let the dinghy glide past the piles, then turned across the tide, letting it carry them towards the causeway.

  ‘Come and see Woods Inlet. It’s all sand, you can walk in bare feet.’

  She pulled strongly for five minutes and beached at the foot of the settlement track. Alan climbed out and helped her lift the boat clear of the water. They walked past George and Daphne’s house, where the curtains moved and a face looked out – Daphne alone. Further on, Junior Mott was sitting on his doorstep smoking a joint. He did not notice them go by.

  ‘It’s legal here. Smoking pot. We like to think,’ May said.

  ‘Do you smoke it?’

  ‘I gave it up twenty-five years ago. Artie, Heather’s father, was so zonked out on it he never knew what day of the week it was. I didn’t want my brain going soft. You all right now? I didn’t mean it as an insult.’

  ‘Forget it. Tell me about Heather. And Freda. I like them.’

  ‘You’re not one of those people who likes everyone?’

  He smiled, with difficulty still. ‘Just those two. They seem to be battlers.’

  ‘Gutsy women. Me too?’

  In spite of the time he was taking to come back, she felt at ease. He’d sat, as they crossed the tide, with his knees cemented, while she had had her legs thrust out on either side, and it had seemed a fitting was accomplished, a sibling connection that they had not known when they were young, and they would stay together now even when their differences held them apart.

  ‘That’s lesbian alley,’ she said, pointing at the cottages and shacks at the back of the sandhills. ‘There’s a dozen of them. There’s some battlers there.’

  ‘Lesbians?’

  ‘Yes. Sally’s one. In the showroom.’

  ‘The girl? But she’s …’

  ‘Pretty? Some of them are, some are not. Just like all the rest of us.’ She wondered if the army made men monkish, disconnected them from the world. Or was it religion had done that? And the army that had given him his stillness, and the feeling that he might break into action at any time? It could be just a Macpherson trait.

  They walked on the beach and she told him about her life with Heather – up until the slap, which she left out. ‘She left home the way I left and didn’t come back. No letters, nothing like that. Typical Macpherson behaviour. I couldn’t complain. I didn’t see her again until she turned up at Dad’s, and she’d been there three months before I found out.’ She told him how she had stayed in Auckland when Heather left, sharing house with Freda; and had done two half-papers at the university; then drifted to Nelson and her polytechnic course. ‘I always did things by halves. Came across to Golden Bay. Lived in a shack. Possums and hares and eels, that’s what I ate. I was the wild woman of Woods Inlet. Then I met Evan and came right. You don’t want to know all that. Freda came to Nelson and got married to Bill Prentiss.’

  ‘Who died.’

  ‘Who died. Then our brother David came along. That little story is still going on.’

  ‘I’ve got to see David.’

  ‘Tell him to lay off her. Not that he will. It’s a p
ity you and Freda can’t get together.’

  He almost jumped. He stepped sideways and looked at her. ‘Do you always say the first thing that comes into your head?’

  ‘Not always. It just sort of presented itself. A solution. But of course it leaves David out.’

  ‘May, don’t. Don’t push too hard. All right?’

  She felt herself blushing, and felt stupid and clumsy and somehow gross. My thick fingers, she thought. It was due to euphoria, having a brother suddenly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I get silly sometimes. You’re not going to go away, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m not. But I will.’

  ‘Please stay. I was hoping you’d stay the night. And come to dinner at the Snapper Inn.’

  ‘I didn’t bring anything.’

  ‘You don’t need anything. There’s a spare toothbrush. Unused. I’ll wash your shirt and underpants overnight. Your socks too.’

  ‘Heather, though? She’s expecting me.’

  ‘I’ll phone her. You can go back in the morning. Say yes.’

  ‘All right. Yes.’

  They turned back, climbed the sandhills, walked up the road, past Junior Mott dozing in the sun with his dog sleeping across his feet, and Daphne Otway twitching her curtain; crossed the inlet, tied up the dinghy; and that night drove down the highway to the Snapper Inn, where May was delighted at Alan’s confusion in the big bare room with its manor-house tables and cats by the fireplace and children running, guitars playing, people singing, and the mugs of beer and slabs of bread and plates of food.

  ‘I’m having fish stew. Have the fish stew.’

  ‘Yes, all right.’

  ‘I’ll get some beer,’ Evan said. ‘Beer for you, Alan?’

  ‘Yes. Beer.’

  ‘Relax, Alan. Go with the flow. Can’t you feel it? It all comes together in this place. Take your jacket off.’

  She waved at Sally, sitting with the two guitarists at the lesbian table.

  ‘That one bringing beer, that’s her partner, see?’

  ‘Partner?’

  ‘Her hubby. Except that they don’t use that word.’

  Alan hung his jacket on the back of his chair. He could not, it seemed, look at Sally and Christine, but glanced at them, then looked at the blazing logs, the cats and the children, and back again.