by Janet Frame
Naida felt lonely, hearing the song coming loud and wild out of the machine. The baker had promised her a ring with seven diamonds, and a necklace with thirty, if she married him. But Lofty, the pig boy, was taller, like the man in the serial, Margella Lucia’s beloved. And you had to decide sometime.
‘No. I don’t like that song,’ Naida said, when ‘Walkin’ My Baby Back Home’ had finished. She puckered her face. ‘That song brings memories,’ she said.
The nurse was sympathetic; she had never heard Naida speak of her home, or of her mother and father and sisters and brothers, none of whom ever came to visit.
‘What memories, Naida? Does it remind you of your mother and father, of being at home?’
Naida looked at her seriously.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Silly. It’s memories of love.’
So they walked up and down the streets, eating ice creams, and looking in shop windows at the frozen ladies with dolly-pillow breasts and long pink legs, being dressed by smart men with flat black hair and striped suits. They watched a toy engine moving clickety-clack around and around, being waved on by a man with a green flag instead of a hand; a tall man riding nowhere on a bicycle; and, best of all, in the window of the hardware store, four puppet men who were laying bricks to build something, a house or a church or a bathing shed or a place where airplanes are left to sleep. The first man jerked forward with a brick, and the second took it from him, leaving the first man in an anguished pose, with his hands praying in the air; and it was the same with the third man, until the brick reached the fourth, where you would have thought something peaceful would happen, but oh, no. Just as the fourth puppet prepared to lay the foundation, some electric device came into play whereby the brick was sneaked back to the first man, who jerked himself to life once more, and the building began again. Naida was fascinated.
‘Except,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t build.’
Nurse looked at her watch: it was time for the interview.
‘We have to go, Naida.’
‘Once more, to watch it being built.’
‘But the same thing happens. It won’t end, unless the electricity breaks down or the battery runs out. They’ll be there forever, doing the same thing in the same place.’
The nurse waited outside. Naida sat in the room and faced the three men. Naida liked the tall, dark one immediately, because he smiled at her first, and offered her a cigarette. She took it, her fingers trembling, for the time had come that she had awaited and talked of for years, and marked on the calendar. It seemed incredible that perhaps next week she would be sitting in a luxury hotel in Hollywood or Mexico City (she and the pig boy would have to decide quite soon, so they could book tickets on the plane), eating sponge cake with four layers and drinking dry Martinis. Naida sighed with bliss and impatience.
The short, sandy-haired man leaned forward. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘What’s the sigh for, my dear?’
Naida looked at him derisively. Not much of a man there, she thought. He’s going bald and he’s got no eyebrows. I’ll stick to the tall, dark one.
‘I was thinking,’ she said. ‘Only thinking.’
‘And what exactly were you thinking about, eh?’ the other man, who was quite fat, with a looped moustache, enquired.
Not much of a man there, either, Naida thought, surveying him. I’m right in sticking to the tall, dark one.
‘Eh?’ the man with the moustache persisted.
‘Mind your own business. MYOB,’ Naida said abruptly.
‘I should think so,’ the dark man said, smiling kindly. ‘We haven’t even introduced ourselves, have we? Now, we’re three men who want to have a little chat with you and see how happy you are and what we can do for you.’
That’s fair, Naida thought.
‘This is Mr Berk, and Dr Pillet, and I am Dr Craig. And your name is —’ He hesitated. Naida was sure he knew her name, but, seeing as he was the nicest and the handsomest, she smiled her special smile at him and, tucking her ring out of sight under her sleeve, she said, ‘I’m Naida.’
‘And how old are you, Naida?’
Naida was sure he knew this, too, but she liked to oblige.
‘I’m twenty-one today,’ she said.
‘And do you know what being twenty-one means?’ the sandy-haired man, Mr Berk, asked.
‘Who doesn’t? I can get married. I’m free.’
‘And if you were free, Naida, what else would you do, besides get married?’
Naida was carried away with excitement. It was no use; in spite of being attracted to the tall, dark Dr Craig and feeling that perhaps she and he could be friends quite soon, she could not keep her hand covered any longer. She showed the ring.
‘My engagement ring. Sapphires and one diamond. I’m getting married next week, and going by plane to Mexico City. Or to Hollywood. It isn’t decided yet.’
The dark man frowned. Naida noticed this and thought, He’s jealous — I can tell.
Feeling sorry for him, she smiled her special smile again. He looked up from his papers.
‘So it’s all arranged,’ he said slowly, and Naida detected the sadness and regret in his voice, but she knew it couldn’t be helped; you couldn’t shilly-shally all your life — you had to decide sometime. Even if the ring she was wearing did have fewer diamonds than the baker had promised, and, perhaps, fewer than the tall, dark man with his fat salary would have provided. Yes, you had to make up your mind.
‘Wouldn’t you like to go home, Naida?’ the man with the moustache asked.
Naida did not speak. Her lips trembled. She looked for comfort to the dark man, who smiled quickly, giving her all of the smile, from the beginning to the end, and then what was left over in his eyes.
The sandy-haired man, trying to put his spoke in and win favour, split his face into a smile as well. ‘Happy birthday!’ he said triumphantly.
The others joined in a murmur of ‘Happy birthday.’
‘You’re not very big for your age, are you, Naida?’ It was the sandy-haired man again. ‘How will you manage in the world?’
Naida looked defiant. ‘I’m a bastard,’ she said. ‘My mother thought me into being small — that’s why I didn’t grow and have got yellow skin, instead of pink. But I’ll manage all right. You’ll see.’
Her lips quivered. The tall man offered her another cigarette, and leaned forward with a match for her, so that their faces were quite close together, and she smelled his shaving-cream-and-tobacco smell.
‘Now we’re going to ask you a few more questions, Naida,’ he almost whispered, looking into her eyes. Her heart tumbled over and over. ‘Your name is Naida, isn’t it?’ he said.
‘I told you it was,’ Naida said, patiently.
‘Well, now. I seem to have forgotten the date. Perhaps you could tell me.’
Naida told him, reminding him also that it was her birthday.
‘Of course. Of course. And this place here where we’re having our little chat, what’s the name of this place?’
‘It’s to do with hospitals — I can tell by the smell,’ Naida said.
He smiled once more. Then the man with the moustache pounced. ‘What are seven threes?’ he said.
Naida looked at him in amazement, then she faltered, looking down at her sapphire ring.
‘I don’t know about those things. I’m not specially educated.’
‘You read the newspapers?’
‘I can’t read so well. I like the pictures.’
‘And what did you say you would do if you were free?’
‘I am free. I’m twenty-one, and getting married, and going next week to Mexico City or Hollywood, by plane.’ She was saying it now like a charm, for she felt suddenly afraid, and uncertain, as if it wouldn’t happen, as if she’d just go back to the hospital and nothing would be any different. But that couldn’t be it: she was twenty-one; next week she would be free. She felt for the key on her breast and touched its hard glitter.
‘It’s wrong to steal, isn’
t it?’ the sandy-haired man said, sidling up to her.
‘I never stole it. It’s for my birthday — it’s the key.’
‘Of course you didn’t steal it, Naida. We’re just talking to you. Why do you think it’s wrong to steal?’
Naida screwed up her face. ‘Because,’ she said.
‘Quite right,’ the dark man said. ‘Quite right. And what are you going to do when you’re married?’
Again she could feel the regret in his voice, but she knew he had to face things, so she told him.
‘Have babies, and give cocktail parties on the terrace.’
The men exchanged glances, and Dr Craig wrote something down, carefully, on a sheet of paper. He held out his hand.
‘Goodbye,’ he said.
Their hands touched and clasped; Naida trembled.
The other two men also shook hands with her and said goodbye, and the nurse came in, summoned by a little brass bell on the desk, to take Naida and the sheet of paper away. When they were standing in the waiting room, Naida burst into tears, her thin huddled shoulders moving with the pattern of her sobbing; her tears fell on the blue-stone ring, blurring it, so that she could not see her face or the world in it anymore, and it was secret, like the pearl. She did not know why she was crying. It was just that she had been asked the questions in a pouncing way, and that nothing seemed neat and planned anymore, as it had been; it was all muddled and unclear, with nothing sparkling and shining.
The nurse waited.
‘We’re going back now,’ she said. ‘Here, put on some lipstick. You’re twenty-one, remember. You’re not acting twenty-one, crying like that.’
Naida smiled, taking hold of the one thing that mattered. ‘Yes, I’m twenty-one, and after we’ve gone back past the hills and the gorse, and I pack my things, and get my trousseau ready, I’ll be free.’
Naida rushed into the dayroom to retrieve Margella Lucia from the care of the nun, Mary, all in black, who was sitting in the corner praying and telling her beads.
‘Has she been good?’ Naida asked, waking the doll with a kiss, so that its blue eyes popped open, flirting with the nothingness in front of them. Then, with the doll kissed and clutched in her arms, Naida sat down, preparing to tell the awed and envious patients about her wonderful journey to town, and how she would be set free next week because she was twenty-one.
In the ward office, the nurse handed to the sister the paper that the three men had signed. The wording on the paper began, ‘Registered under the Mental Defectives Act, 1928. This is to certify that Naida Wilma Tait, aged twenty-one . . .’
And so on. The same thing, over and over; brick puppetry; and gorse is not people.
The Wind Brother
It was all a great mystery. Fathers and mothers were talking about it, and the people in the streets, and the people in shops, and the teachers at school, and all the girls and boys were talking about it. ‘What can you do,’ they said, ‘if you write letters to be delivered by Air Mail, and post them in the bright red letterbox of the new post office, and the same letters fail to reach your mother or cousin or sister or brother? What can you do if they vanish completely, how or why or when or where no one knows?’
Certainly it was a great mystery.
Colly and Margaret were especially proud because they lived near the new post office. They lived around the corner, scarcely a stone’s throw away. They had watched the post office being built and painted, and from their house they could almost smell the new paint, and hear the tickety-tacking of many machines, and the chirrup-whirring of telephone bells; and the clip-clop of people walking the tiled floor. In a way they felt it was their post office. They had a share in it, a responsibility. So they decided to try to solve the mystery.
‘It is only the Air Mail letters,’ Margaret said when they were talking it over one day after school.
‘I wonder why it is only the Air Mail,’ Colly said thoughtfully.
‘Well,’ said Margaret, ‘we shall have to keep watch. I suggest we take turns at being on guard.’
So that very evening they arranged to begin their vigil outside the new post office. Margaret promised to watch first, and Colly would watch till teatime; then after tea, when it would be growing dark and the fat summer moths would be flopping and fluttering about, Margaret felt that she and Colly should be on guard together. It is sometimes lonely being all by yourself in the dark.
The first night nothing unusual happened. There was a policeman walking up and down, up and down on the footpath outside the post office. He said hello to them and they said hello back. He was very friendly and they felt safe with him walking there, and the buttons on his blue uniform glistening under the shop lights.
Not a sign did they see of any thief coming to take the Air Mail letters.
Presently it began to grow cold and a wind sprang from the direction of the sea, and Margaret and Colly, feeling tired and disappointed, went home.
‘My word, you do play out late,’ their mother said. But she did not scold them. She was too worried about the letter she had written to Aunt Lucy. She had put the blue Air Mail sticker on the envelope and dropped the letter in the box, and listened to the shuffle of it falling. But Aunt Lucy had never got the letter. Nor had Uncle Paul received his, nor Aunty Florence, nor Mr and Mrs Beatty, nor had anyone. Oh dear, their mother thought, I wish the post office had never been built; and yet I can’t help posting my letters there. The boxes are so new and bright-red and inviting.
The next night Colly and Margaret watched again, and again nothing unusual happened. The policeman on his beat said Hello to them, and they said Hello back to him, and the big striped moths came fluttering around the verandah lights, and the same chilly breeze began to blow from the harbour. The children walked sadly home.
Their father met them at the door. ‘You’ll turn into moreporks,’ he said, ‘out as late as this.’
But he did not scold them. He too was worried about the letter he had written to his brother, Henry, and the one to Mr Smart and Messrs Tooley and Haggitt. Oh dear, he thought, I wish the new post office had never been built. But I can’t seem to help posting my letters there. The boxes are so new and bright-red and enticing.
The next night Colly and Margaret took up their places to watch once more. And the next night. And the next. And the night after that. By this time the whole town was in a dither, for nobody seemed to be able to stop themselves from posting important Air Mail letters in the new postboxes; and every letter posted seemed to vanish almost as soon as it was dropped in the box. It was a sorry state of affairs. People began to lose their tempers and quarrel and argue, even with their best friends. Nothing seemed to go right at all.
One night when Colly and Margaret were watching as usual, and were just about to go home, for the cold wind was rising from the sea, Margaret caught hold of Colly and whispered, pointing to something in the darkness.
‘Look!’
A sombrely cloaked figure seemed to have appeared from the sky. The policeman was not noticing. He had stopped at the milkbar to talk to the proprietor. So only Colly and Margaret saw the dark figure wrapped in a misty flowing cloak like a cloud, which drifted towards the postbox marked ‘Air Mail’, and vanished right inside.
The shape was gone for a few seconds. Then it emerged without a sound. As it prepared to take off into the air once more, the cloak was blown apart by a sudden gust of wind, and Colly and Margaret saw what appeared to be hundreds and hundreds of letters concealed in deep cloudlike pockets beneath the cloak.
Margaret and Colly were so excited and curious that they nearly spoiled everything. What should they do? Should they call to the policeman and have the thief arrested? Should they cry out in loud voices, Stop Thief, Stop Thief! as the cloaked figure vanished into the sky?
Suddenly Margaret ran forward and tried to seize the figure by the cloak. Colly ran too, and before they knew what was happening or could cry out for help, they were taken into the deep cloudy pockets and lay ther
e in the dark among the letters. The figure did not stop but flew swiftly on. The children fell asleep. And still the figure flew on and on.
When the children woke they found themselves on a great white mountain that was white not because of the snowfall there, but because of the hundreds of letters spread out as far as the eye could see. Hundreds and thousands of letters. All Air Mail, piled up in great drifts. Colly and Margaret could not walk through them. When they tried to walk there was a sound of rustling and crinkling, and it seemed as if they were walking upon a white bed that was topped by an eiderdown of paper.
As soon as they could stand without losing their balance, they looked about them, and saw not far from where they had been asleep the cloaked figure itself lying fast asleep with its head on a pillow of letters. He was an old man with long grey hair. His mouth was open and he snored as if he were very, very tired.
‘Oh Colly,’ Margaret whispered, ‘I’m sure he isn’t a real thief.’
‘I don’t know,’ Colly replied, remembering his father’s words. ‘It’s a great mystery.’
‘We cannot run away,’ Margaret said. ‘There is nowhere to run to.’
‘Nor fly away,’ said her brother.
‘Nor call for help.’
‘Nor anything.’
Presently, from the stillness about them they felt a wind begin to blow, a cold wind that made them pull the lapels of their coats closely about them. The wind blew stronger and fiercer. The old man was waking up. He yawned, and was about to fall asleep again, when he noticed Margaret and Colly. He seemed about to cry out at the sight of them. He did not get up from his letter bed but lay looking at the two children.
Margaret spoke very politely, for fear of offending him.
‘You look tired,’ she said. ‘Have you had any tea?’
‘I don’t eat,’ the old man said in a soft whispering voice.
