What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?

by Alan Duff

  She’d rung Mulla at the HQ on the next-door’s phone, Shirley The Early Bird’s phone (fucken moaning bitch, asking me when’m I gonna get my own phone. How many times has she borrowed sumpthin’ from me and never paid it back? C’d start my own sugar factory with the ’mount a sugar she’s had off me. And what about the cupla bucks here, five bucks there, she’s borrowed and thought I’d forget it cos they’re only two-dollar coins. Nothin’ only ’bout two-dollar coins and cert’inly not a five-dollar note when you’re on the DPB. So fucker. Get my own house an’ I’ll have phones in every room ’cept the kids’, case they make toll calls, hahaha. Though dunno who they’d know outside a Two Lakes.) Wanna come ovah, hon? Puttin’ that purr on, that fuck-me iner voice. (I feel like coming.) Givim a good one. Then get the talk on his resentment at his seniority being treated like it didn’t mean nothin’; maybe givim a blowjob, then put the question: Mulla, I been thinking …

  THE LOVEMAKING WAS better’n she’d hoped and even planned. Sumpthin’ on Mulla’s mind that he’d mostly let go (released) in the sack. An’ that was alright. (Fine by me, lover boy.) Afterward: Wha’s wrong, my honey? (Dammit. Forgot to tellim how good his fucking was.) Ooo, you had some energy today, baby. But, you know, I kinda sensed sumpthin’ … (Come on now, my tattooed, lovable galoot. Talk to Glor. Talk to me.)

  As she expected, Mulla’s talk was about his lack of respect, about Jimmy Shirkey bein’ a cunt who used people, telling Gloria about the drug deals Jimmy put together onis cellphone (as if the cellphone in itself was important, as if it was part the complaint Mulla had) and how he was certain Jimmy was pocketing some of the profits ovah and above what he as a long-serving prez was ’ntitled to. Just what she wanted to hear. She almost rushed in there. But no, not yet. (Easy, girl. Easy.)

  Mulla, from the firs’ day I set eyes on that Jimmy I knew he weren’t right. And then she touched Mulla’s tattooed cheeks, the fern-curl spirals from the Maori warrior days of old, and the nose crossmarks like a ladder going up the bridge. Around the nostrils the design curled in on itself to the finest li’l hole in the centre. Was like looking into his universe (tiny that it is). Up onis forehead the lines went out from centre like rainbow rings on a wide arc, but curled sharply jus’ past the eyebrows and went down under the eyes. They mighta looked alright if it wasn’t, like, near th’ end of the 20th century (hahaha). But she was used to them and so were her kids who really liked the man behind them, no denying he was generous to them (and me) and a good listener, too.

  Let’s go for a drive, look at some a those nice new houses down the hill. An’ when we come back we c’n, you know. Flashing him a smile that came so easily cos he was good to love with; it was his caring and yet his getting right into the act itself. (Mean to say: if we’re fuckin’ we’re fuckin’, hahaha.) They went out the door and down the stairs of this shit State dwelling holdin’ hands.

  Making out she wasn’t watching his face too intently when she was. Whaddaya think, hon? Be good to live in one a them? as they sat lookin’ at one of the new houses. Or — she put on the hesitation — or maybe not, not with one a them, you know, mor’gages, eh? An’ forced herself to look out her window. Whassa mor’gage? is the firs’ thing he wanted to know. She turned: Thassa loan, hon. You get them from the banks, don’t aks me why they call it that, they jus’ do. You pay it back, thassa main thing. With interest, how they, the honky banks, make their money. Off the backs of us poor brown folk.

  Took him a while to say more. Do white poor people have them mor’gage things, too? Yeah, spose they do. Yeah, they mus’ do. They live in houses same as we do. So how come the honky banks’re makin’ money off their backs, too? Gloria had no answer for that nor cared that she didn’t. All I know, Mulla, is they’re makin’ money from people wantin’ (badly now) to live in their own houses. Mow their lawns ev’ry Sat’day morning, eh hon? Coaxing him back to the suburban dream. Would ya like that — nahh, you wouldn’t, eh? Not you mowing lawns, though I’d do them. You wouldn’t have t’ be seen mowing fucken lawns, I’d unnerstan’ that. Only thing is, ya need a deposit. Know what a deposit is, Mulls? Yeah, course I know. It’s what ya put down on sumpthin’ and never go back to pickit up cos you can’t afford the rest of the payments, HAHAHA!

  Oh, you a funny man alright, Mulls. You are (you fucken jerk. Can’t you see I want a house so bad I’d near do anything for it?) You always make me laugh, Mulls, even when I’m, y’ know, down in the dumps.

  That brought him ovah. Or his hand, that is. What about, hon? But she shook her head. No, nothin’. Glor, c’mon, we c’n talk to each utha. Dumps about what? But she shook her head and played it to her manipulative max. Nah, i’s alright, honey, only a stupid dream. Letting out a most expressively long sigh. Spreading it on with jam: Jussa a stupid dream, Mulls. ’Nutha sigh. (Now tha’s enough jam, Gloria baby. Or he’ll be spittin’ it out.)

  His tattooed arm came across her vision, pointing. What, tha’ the dream? That what you want? Again she shook her head, and this time closed her eyes. Just briefly, enough to have him ask again, You talking one a them houses? And she nodded. Jus’ the once. How much the deposit? Five, it came out a li’l too quick (have to watch that). Five what — grand? Or hundred? She looked at him with a sweet li’l smile: Oh, hon, if only it was jus’ five hundred. Couldn’t bear to look at that drop in his face but saw it anyway. (So that’s it then.)

  So it’s five grand? That gets y’ in? She turned again. Gets us in, I w’s thinking. He started the car. She wasn’t pushing it any further, the rest was up to him, since the deposit was never, but never, gonna come from her. (Even if God walked into my place and said here’s your five grand to put on the house, I wouldn’t make it to where you pay it. I’d have some of it spent before I got there. I’d go round to friends and ask where the Housie was, find a card school, a fucken pardy still raging in the morning from the night before, I would I would. It’s how I am. How everyone I know is: we jus’ don’t unnerstan’ how money works and to be, you know, responsible — fuck responsible. Yet we got the same wantings as everyone else.)

  They drove over to the next new subdivision that still had houses being built. And though it was the same as what they’d a few streets away been looking at, it seemed to Gloria Jones that these were even more desirable. And look, she pointed at the sale signs, they’re the same price! And happy that Mulla was nodding at that, with a frown on th’t said he was thinking. Really thinking. Five g’s eh? he said again in quite a different tone, like it was reachable (oh, please let it be!) Yeah. Lotta money, eh? Giving her faraway look like at a rainbow that didn’t really have a potta gold at the bottom (which end anyrate?)

  They drove to the end of the cul-de-sac of the street where it was fenced farmland. A high old red-brick wall and a grey-slate roof behind the walls ahead of them ’bout a football field distant. (I could be his, fucken richman Trambert’s, neighbour.) How much t’ buy that place, Glor? Mulla grinning, mussa read her mind. Five hundred, she said — grand. He looked at her and with genuine astonishment. How do you know? Well, she didn’t. But it was easy to figure from them giveaway real-estate booklets she’d been picking up from the stands of late, that houses that size were a half million. A mind-boggling sum. Then she saw Mulla come forward on the steering wheel of this, one of the gang cars, frowning. What’s up, hon? Took him a few moments to answer.

  Tha’s the house Jake’s girl hung herself. Startled Gloria. She looked. Saw the top of a big spread of tree jus’ starting to get new leaves. (Oh yeah, tha’s right. How could anyone in Pine Block forget that? But I thought Mulla was inside then, doin’ one of his sentences.) Jake, Nig Heke’s ole man? Who else Jake, and when he turned, his face was with a kinda awe. Jake The Muss, his kid. Yeah, Gloria nodded. Grace wasser name. Bit of a li’l stuck-up. But that was a mistake: Mulla gave her a filthy look. Glor, she’s dead. Killed ’erself. Now puzzling ater. (I made a mistake. This cunt’s even more, you know, sensitive than I thought.) I never meant she was a stuck-up, not m
y words, only what people said about her. You know how they are in Pine Block, can’t say nothin’ nice ’bout no one.

  She drew in breath, annoyed at herself, her nasty slip of the tongue. Why I wannna move out to a place like this, Mull. Get away from ’em. Then she stretched a false yawn, Oh well. If only, as they say. Ran long, red-painted fingernails down his dirty jeans leg, C’mon. Le’s go home and do some more lovin’. Leas’ it don’t cost nuthin’. Givinim that smile — with interest.

  All the way home he kept saying, five grand, eh. And she had a picture in her mind of that fucken big house, the Trambert place; thinking of his riches and how unfair it was the start he got, the advantage of his colour(lessness) as well whatever it is about people with dough that makes those without it see red, become blind, have thoughts of anger, and even a desire to kill. But then she was jus’ a Pine Block woman, a solo mutha goin’ out witha gang member who secretly wanted to change for the bedda, who would she kill except in her dreams? It was only loving a woman an’ her man c’d have that was dreams you c’d make happen. Jus’ good ole cock and cunt, baby. Laughing after their genital joinings ater crude comment about him leaving his deposit. Oh how they laughed at that. Or they did when he promised she’d get that deposit, too. How she laughed then.

  TWENTY-ONE

  SHE’D PROMISED HERSELF she’d wait till spring, but didn’t (couldn’t). It’d kept asking at her, asking at her, exactly as though a real voice: Go on, Polly. Just so you know.

  So here she was, a trespasser on the Trambert property, eased along that high brick wall, having waited outside watching several cars go in, choosing the Friday because that was the night Grace had done what she did. (I want to know what she might’ve seen that last night.)

  Well, what this Heke girl was seeing was a large old house well lit up inside and partly out, of a size that staggered and even frightened her, as if size alone put her at an impossible disadvantage; after what she’d guessed was the last car of friends since they arrived within about twenty minutes of each other then waiting an endless time of fighting with herself about whether she should go in or just forget this obsession with a sister who wasn’t coming back, who wasn’t growing into her older even more beautiful version in the grave — she was stopped. Ceased. Kaput. Polly Heke (who’s gonna change her name to Bennett soon’s he marries Mum), she’s dead and more than six years gone and you should be gone from here.

  But she stood up from her crouch at the corner of the high wall and she walked for that open gateway, thinking only of the next step. So it was dogs she thought of. But then again even if, they’d not have them roaming the place, not with guests. A grim smile to herself: Unless they got dogs trained to recognise Maori girl trespassers.

  Along that wall, on the inside and quite another experience altogether; sliding her back along it, left and right and ahead and above at half a sky of stars, the blank rest must be cloud; left for that big shape of tree, top part making an outline against the faint glow of sky. Sliding along with no possible explanation should she be seen or should a dog smell her presence and give the alarm. Well, she could give an explanation but it would be one bizzare explaining even being true. And the embarrassment.

  As she neared the tree she fought the mental pictures of Grace, how she remembered her, how she was that frozen image in a coffin, and — please don’t — how she would have appeared hanging from this very tree. Had to stop, cup a hand over her mouth so the distress wouldn’t get out.

  Then she fought with the ridiculous notion that Grace’s ghost might be here, which made her cold all over; a thought that her dead sister might leap out shrieking for no other reason than, well, Grace’s ghost would hardly be at peace. And nor would Grace appreciate her sister going over her last night’s tracks (but why, if I love her?) Just didn’t seem that Grace would approve and yet that didn’t stop her. She was here now.

  The wind was catching up there, up where the tree cleared the brick-wall height. And it sounded quite awful; she thought she’d better call this off now. But next she was feeling for a hold above her and then she was pulling herself up. (Oh, God.)

  Above, it was making quite a deep roaring sound, coming in gusts. The light from the house spilled some way out onto a large lawn, the tree quite (thank God) a distance from the room where the people were standing as though in a movie. Real people. Holding drinks. Wine glasses. (Oo-hoo.) And white people at that. Not that the race were strangers to her like for some Maoris she knew; but still, this hoity-toity kind were sort of intimidating in the more confident manner they had. And were they dressed well, specially the ladies (the lucky bitches). Thinking she was going to marry someone with money and to hell with Charlie Bennett saying she should make her own. (My mother’s better life is from Charlie’s main income not Mum’s hospital laundry wages.) She started climbing.

  She was too scared to be wondering if this is what Grace would have seen, could hardly glance at anything but the next branch outline to grab onto; but funny thing, she did feel safer with each higher level of ascendency. And feel the new leaf growth small and soft in her hands, funny thing reminding her of a sanitary pad the softness; buds yet to burst on her fingertips, and the varying thicknesses of branches she had to test for holding her weight. Her eyes had adjusted so she could pick out quite clearly the different thicknesses against the sky. And through the criss-crossing and blotches of leaf outline that room, with some of the people lost to the climbing angle.

  Higher. Where was the sturdy bough (poor dearest) Grace must’ve chosen at the last? Why did she come here? What did she see? What last thoughts did she have? Polly knew the visit to Boogie in a boys’ home that never transpired was one thing in Grace’s mind. Of course the rapes. (I hate him.) Looked above her. Was that it? Is that the branch she tied the rope to? Felt sick. Had to hold onto the trunk, wrap arms around it, till the nausea passed. Asked herself: Am I here to practise? (No. For God’s sake, Poll. Of course you aren’t.) But then thought she might be. She might be.

  Now she had the picture of Grace’s hands (they would have been cold, it was a cold night) fiddling as she tied the rope to that sturdy branch above. Polly looked down. Up again. Could hear the scritchy sounds of rope against wood. Then the wind picked up and replaced that with a disturbing roaring. Now Grace seemed to be everywhere. And Polly all out in goosebumps. The gust kept up for some time, had Polly wrapped around the trunk once more, till it eased to like scores of small creatures, mice, rustling up there. Then that too died, eventually it did (like my sis did). (And how did she know what kind of knot to tie?) And what had she thought as she was about to jump? She had to steady herself from a dizziness suddenly come over with being here, the enormity of it; of where the night’s last act had taken place.

  Looking the other way and there was sight of hundreds and hundreds of house and street lights out beyond the wall. Took a bit to get her bearings — quite a shock to realise the higher placed lights was her old street, Rimu Street, Pine Block; and that that spill down of single-storey lights was the subdivision carve-offs of land ole Mr (rich) Trambert had sold. Remembering back that when Grace was here — and how unbelievable this is being here on the same tree — the higher lights would have been what she saw. Then Polly turned back to the house, closing her eyes in trepidation just until she was over the worst part (of being my sister).

  They stood around drinking like that for some length of laughing, quite rigidly postured; the men in jackets, different browns and different check patterns, sort of smooth in an old-fashioned way, the women more elegantly modern, even trendy several of them, with the most beautiful of hairstylings. Each and every one of them. (I could stay here all night and probably will, or till they’re gone, just watching them.)

  She saw them leave one room and appear, or maybe half them did, in a room next door, sat down at what must be a very long and large dining table (oh, how very nace for you). But then grinning at recall of her mother’s telling of Charlie taking her for the first time to a
restaurant — when’s my turn? — and how all her preconceptions were misconceptions: everyone wasn’t looking at her. No one cared a stuff about how she used her eating utensils. The night had ended up with her and Charlie on the dance floor, and at one stage the restaurant had cheered and applauded her and Charlie doing their thing on the floor. So Polly checked herself being critical or jealous, and watched.

  She heard, as they sat down and ate and drank more wine, singing and laughter from her old residential side, but hard to pick out if from the new housing closer, or from her old street. Whatever, it was of the loud merriment kind, and the singing was surprisingly clear — she could hear that there were harmonies even if they were a bit fudgy. Came with it a certainty that Grace would have heard this and seen this, this contrast of worlds either side of her elevated vision.

  When, eventually, the party down there moved back to the first room, presumably the sitting room, or one of them in a house that large, they were differently mannered (would Grace have seen this, too?) more relaxed, more with laughter, and stereo music started up. Not that Polly recognised the music. Just that it was white, a white voice singing.

  And it was white people dancing, too — she broke out giggling — Polly’d never seen such terrible dancing, such lack of rhythm, such awkward and ugly posturing passing itself off as dancing. Then she suddenly thought it might be just a joke, that in a second the three couples she could see in and out of her vision would break off laughing at themselves and do it properly. So Polly enjoyed the joke, too, why not, as she waited for which couple would declare the joke over.

  But no couple did. Because it wasn’t a joke. Well it was — to her (me! HAHAHA!) The joke was on herself. On assuming these people to be better than they were. When this was it: they couldn’t dance. They didn’t understand the bodies they inhabited. They had no sense of rhythm or timing. No soul. No meat, therefore. And they weren’t so intimidating, such impossibly unattainable, heights of humanity after all. (Man, they’re just ordinary like some of us are. And if I danced like that, I’d be ashamed of myself.)