Huia Short Stories 9

by Anahera Gildea

  Mac looked at the ground, shook his head and walked to the porch. He propped Betsy on the chair and, grumbling, walked to the cop car and got in.

  Rook jumped in behind the steering wheel, reversed the car and said ‘Whadya say, sorry mate?’ – not quite catching what Mac had said.

  Mac looked at Rook and repeated the hand signs. The old man said to Rook, ‘Why didn’t ya jus’ say that in the first place?’

  Rook had left Sarge sitting beside Danny. When he left Sarge found a crumpled leather tobacco pouch and began rolling two Port Royal cigarettes. He sparked both, lifted the visor of Danny’s helmet and placed one of the smoking cancer sticks between the boy’s lips. He suddenly felt old. He was old, he realised, but now he felt it. This wasn’t the first time that he had placed a smoke in a boy’s mouth, knowing it would be their last. But the last time had been thirty odd years ago and the head had been surrounded by a steel piss pot helmet, not a fibreglass motorbike helmet.

  ‘Didn’t know ya smoked,’ Danny said to the cop.

  ‘I don’t,’ said the sarge. ‘I quit thirty odd years ago.’

  A loose chuckle found Danny’s face.

  ‘I’m buggered, eh, mate.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  Sarge nodded. No need to BS. No time to be politically correct. ‘Yeah, you’re buggered, mate.’

  ‘Nothing you can do for me, eh.’ There was an acceptance of finality, of time that was nearing its end.

  ‘I’m supposed to say, “Hold on sir. Help is coming. You’re going to be OK. Everything is going to be all right.” But that’s all crap, Danny, and you and I both know it.’

  Danny coughed and nodded. The cigarette fell out of his mouth. Sarge picked it up and took a drag to get it going again. He placed the glowing ember of dry leaf and rice paper between the dying boy’s lips.

  ‘If I was a horse I’d be dog tucker now, and if I was a dog I’d be shot.’ Danny was ready. He knew there’d be no chopper or ambulance. Not now. Not for him.

  Sarge didn’t reply. There was nothing to say.

  ‘Can’t feel my hands or legs.’

  This was standard with this type of spinal injury. Pins and needles or numbness.

  Seeing the way that Danny’s chest was heaving in a desperate effort to draw life-giving oxygen to his failing body, Sarge knew that Danny’s ribs and chest were broken too.

  ‘Ya shoulda taken the keys,’ Danny said. It was an effort to talk.

  ‘I did,’ Sarge answered.

  ‘Ya shouldn’t have given them back,’ said Danny, and the sarge chuckled quietly, then they laughed, together. Danny didn’t blame the cop and the sarge knew it. The cop blamed the cop though, and Danny knew it.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Danny. Man talk. Don’t blame yourself. I screwed up. It was my fault, not your mistake. It’s OK. I know it’s not OK but it’ll be OK. Man talk. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘I’m cold,’ Danny said.

  Sarge took off his Swanndri and gently laid it over Danny. ‘That better mate?’

  Danny grinned and lied. ‘Yeah mate. Thanks.’ It hadn’t made one iota of difference. He was still cold to the bone.

  ‘Help coming?’ the dying man asked. He wasn’t asking if a medical evacuation was in progress. He knew better than that.

  The sarge nodded. ‘Help’ll be here soon. Real soon. You just hold on. Ya hear?’

  ‘I’ll hold on,’ Danny said, as he closed his eyes and smiled.

  Rook pulled up and a drunken Ol’ MacDonald, who happened to be a farmer, tumbled from the police vehicle.

  ‘He ain’t gonna be much help, Sarge. He’s rotten,’ Rook called across the car as he walked around the vehicle. Sarge ignored his co-worker.

  Standing in front of Mac, the senior sergeant could see that Mac hadn’t registered My Sheen lying on the ground, the broken fence or the crumpled mass covered with a Swanni in a feeble attempt to keep the dying warm.

  ‘Sergeant Macdonald,’ the older cop said, quietly.

  Thirty-year-old cobwebs started to crumble and disappear from the deepest darkest reccesses of the farmer’s mind. Slowly at first, but gaining momentum, quickly gaining momentum. But not quick enough for the cop, and definitely not fast enough for the situation.

  Sarge looked at Mac. He pulled back his shoulders and puffed out his chest, slammed his right foot into the ground and came to a parade-ground stance of attention. He said once more between gritted teeth, ‘Sergeant Daniel MacDonald.’

  From alcohol-glazed eyes, Mac studied the cop and replicated the movement. Shoulders back, chest out and a resounding smack as he too, slammed his right foot into the tarseal. Standing rigidly at attention, Mac’s right hand swung to meet his right eyebrow. Rook realised Mac had just saluted Sarge and Sarge had saluted back. Mac wasn’t drunk any more. Oh, he was intoxicated and inebriated alright, but he wasn’t drunk.

  ‘Sir,’ Mac replied to the cop.

  ‘You remember the dust, the red dust?’ the cop asked the farmer.

  ‘Yeah,’ Mac replied, then adjusted himself and re-answered. ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘The smell, the heat and the fire base?’ continued the cop.

  ‘Yes sir. And the jungles and the helicopters and the yanks,’ elaborated Mac.

  ‘What about Gideon. Gideon Palmer?’

  Mac didn’t reply, but his eyes spoke where words failed him. Fear, confusion and a memory more than thirty years old, and a lot of alcohol in the forgetting. ‘Sir?’ Mac questioned the man standing in front of him, a man in police uniform. A man who right now wasn’t a cop, but a mate, a friend, a brother, just another member of the human race trying his best to make the world a better place. ‘Hey lieutenant, everything alright sir?’ questioned Mac.

  The old lieutenant stepped aside and let the farmer view the scene that Mac had been unable to see while the cop had held his full and undivided attention. Exposed to the carnage of My Sheen, the fence and the Swanni, Mac looked at the police officer. A million questions and no answers.

  Sarge nodded. Man talk. Yeah he’s still alive. Nah, he’s not gonna make it. It’ll be rough mate, real rough.

  Sarge whispered quietly, almost reverently to Mac ‘Be gentle, mate, real gentle.’

  Mac nodded and walked over to see Danny. He sat on the dew-damp ground and gingerly picked up Danny’s head, and removed the boy’s bike helmet. Danny winced in pain as he felt bone grinding on bone, and a flash and explosion of light and pain shot through his eyes and head. Stars were simultaneously exploding and imploding, blocking out all vision.

  ‘Ya took ya time gettin’ here mate,’ Danny said to the old man.

  ‘She’ll be right, mate.’ The old man struggled to get the words out. The lump in his throat was the only thing that was stopping the flood gates from opening in his eyes.

  ‘You were a medic eh?’ Statement not question.

  The old man just nodded.

  ‘So can ya fix me?’ A rhetorical question.

  Mac shook his head. All he could do was hold Danny a little tighter, a little closer, a little longer as he waited for the coming of Hinenuitepō.

  ‘You’ll be there tomorrow, eh.’ It was a statement, not a question. There was no room for argument for argument’s sake.

  ‘You’ll be there tomorrow, eh. Both of you, and you’ll do the right thing, eh.’

  Mac looked at the senior police officer; looked at him, imploring, questioning, asking a favour. The senior sergeant locked eyes with Mac, shook his head and simply said, ‘I can’t do it. I just can’t do it mate. I don’t have it in me any more.’

  ‘One more time, sir. Just one more time please.’

  The police officer shook his head and then nodded in the direction of Rook. Mac nodded. With the formalities of who was going to represent that rural community police force over, Mac gnashed his teeth and wept, wailed and lamented.

  As the tears and mucus flowed freely and the mourning and grieving began, Sarge turned to Rook. With bloodshot eyes Sarge asked his protégé, �
�Your first?’ Rook just nodded and wiped the tears from his eyes.

  ‘It ain’t natural,’ Mac sobbed. ‘A pop ain’t s’posed to bury his boy!’ And with that Ol’ Man Mac acknowledged that his son Daniel MacDonald was no more for the land of the living.

  Monday 6 April

  With his elbows on the table, hands cradling his head, Sarge looked down at the file marked MVA Sudden Death. Motor Vehicle Accident Sudden Death. Not a rear-end bumper-to-bumper accident, but an incident involving a death, a life. A life now gone.

  ‘I’m outta here,’ Sarge announced, but made no effort or attempt to get up.

  ‘Where ya goin’?’ Rook queried.

  ‘Nah I mean I’m outta here. I quit. I’m resigning,’ the senior sergeant replied.

  ‘Wha’ for?’ Rook was puzzled by this outburst. He was concerned for his mate.

  ‘I got my bar, my Good Conduct and Long Service Medal. I’ve done my time. It’s time. It’s over. I’ve had enough.’ A simple statement.

  Rook knew well enough to let it lie. That this conversation was over, that nothing more needed to be said.

  The cigarette had long since been extinguished and the half-drunk coffee had cooled to cold. Neither man had moved for a while when the silent reverie was broken by Rook asking, ‘Does it get any better?’

  It was a rhetorical question and both men knew it, but a question asked is a question needing an answer. With his head still in his hands, Sarge just shook his head.

  ‘Does it get any easier?’

  The sarge just shook his head again, looked at the file marked MVA Sudden Death and wept.

  ‘We’re expected at the funeral. The tangi, the wake, the works. Ya know. We’re expected to be there for the whole lot.’

  Rook nodded affirmative but still felt the need to question. ‘Wha’ for?’

  ‘We’re part of this community. Like it or not boy, we’re family. You’re a pall-bearer and ya gotta say a whaikōrero.’ To Sarge this explained everything. To Rook, it explained nothing. ‘A wha’?’ This hadn’t been taught to him in Porirua at the Police Training College. ‘A speech. A eulogy,’ Sarge elaborated.

  Rook accepted this and just nodded his head.

  ‘We gotta go soon. I’ll just get changed and you go get tidied up. Take the car and be back here in half an hour,’ Sarge told Rook as his chair scraped on the cracked linoleum floor.

  Less than thirty minutes later Rook was back at the station house. Sarge was already waiting outside. Although he had shaved, Sarge still looked haggard, worn and tired. As he stood up, he ground a cigarette underfoot and put a small leather pouch that contained Port Royal Tobacco in his jacket pocket. Rook hopped out of the car and went to Sarge. He held out his hand and opened and closed his fingers. The international sign for ‘Hand ’em over’. Sarge gave Rook the pouch and waited while Rook rolled a smoke and sat down. When he’d finished he handed the pouch back, and Sarge rolled himself another cigarette and sat down. While Rook was sitting down, he buffed and polished his boots. He looked over at Sarge and felt oddly under- and over-dressed at the same time.

  Reeking of tobacco smoke, the men jumped in the cop car and left to go to the service.

  Standing at the waharoa, the entranceway to the marae, Rook shifted uncomfortably as he adjusted his regulation head dress, his uniform hat.

  He cast a glance at Sarge dressed in black pants, white shirt, black tie and black blazer and again felt over- and under-dressed.

  Rook questioned himself. How come he was in uniform and Sarge wasn’t? It was then that Rook looked up and noticed a crown-topped fern emblem embroidered on the right pocket of the black blazer. Vietnam. Rook noticed the emblem for the first time as an old woman dressed in black with a crown of kawakawa leaves on her head cried a soulful, heartfelt, Haere mai, Haere mai, Haere maaaaaiiiiiii!

  Nē, Aroha atu mo te āwhinatanga me te maanakitanga ki a Sergeant Deidre Hemingway, mō te rōpū o Ngā Pirihimana o Te Tai.

  Art for a Price

  Dionne Norman

  It was a shopping mall just like any other, another carbon copy city expansion, under a mushrooming roof. Tucked beneath its folds lay a multitude of cafes, designer shops and department stores that invited people into luminous space, filled with artificial light. At its centre stood a rock water feature, where joyless carp of sunset hues floundered beneath a skylight, the only hint that a natural world existed beyond the pristine white marble floor and bright florescent lighting with glassed cased entrapments.

  Protected within the mushroom walls people hurried or ambled along, each distracted and oblivious to their own pace, consumed with only the need to find, to buy, to explore. Some shoppers were there for a set purpose; a mission in which the target was known and executed precisely, with little time spent loitering. Others were more leisurely, content to stall, pause and linger, drifting without ambition – a place to idle away time and therefore life. Young people chatted and giggled, while a group of girls stood coyly to one side, their gaze directed towards a teenage boy in dark denims, flicking through a skateboard magazine, unaware of the attention and admiration he was attracting.

  Immediately to the left a mother bustled by, her shiny leather boots clipping. The pram bulged with the goods of the day and the latest bargain specials, while the baby sat absorbed with his box of raisins, his fat chubby fingers forcing their way into the raisin box. Nearby a toddler wailed in protest as her mother dragged her along and away from the musical bear that offered two-dollar rides.

  A shopping mall just like any other; or was it? On one side of the mall, there stood a glass casement, and yet this one was different. It was sparse and sparingly outfitted. The colour of the furnishings was white, all white. Shoppers could easily be forgiven for walking by and paying this particular display no special attention; for the most part it looked empty, or maybe even unfinished. Perhaps a vacancy, a shop waiting to be leased? Indeed, to the ignorant eye it could easily have been missed, unless you knew what you were looking for or if you happened by chance to pause long enough to look beyond the modernistic thick white tables offset by flat-topped white stools and chrome silver legs and saw that directly from the white ceiling and polished white floor sprouted strong wires that dutifully suspended the canvas of an artist.

  As many as three to five artists would come each day, and quietly, unobtrusively, they would resume their creative work on their canvas. Each defining their space, with the paints and brushes they chose to use. Taking position upon a white stool under the white lights, for hours they would create. Pausing to reflect, critique and examine before once again returning to the canvas.

  One artist, however, never paused. He never took the time to examine his work. He did not step away from the canvas to view and critique the image before him. Again and again he would raise his brush, working with fervour that could barely be seen, but could most definitely be felt. Those who took the time to watch him were bewildered by the artist’s driven instinct. Somehow he knew that what he was creating – the mixture of colours, shades, textures, depth and proportion – worked, and there seemed to be no apparent need for him to evaluate his own work. It was a masterpiece in creation, although no one knew that deep within, he critiqued constantly. A torrid and brutal self-critical disclaim of his own life and misgivings, which spoke of another time when he again chose not to reflect, not to live in the moment, not to enjoy life and love those closest to him.

  His way of life had in fact cost him dearly. His creative instinct may have worked for the canvas, and yet he had failed to heed his natural creative instinct for the importance and promise of his own life and those within it. His detachment to those he loved and the fuel he burned for his art had come at a high price. A deficit he would forever pay, time and time again, on the canvas. The artist turned, picked up a second brush, dabbed it in colour and once again focused on his creation.

  Time went by and you would scarcely notice that a woman stood discreetly on the outside looking in. Her long
dark hair framed the sides of her face and her green eyes intently watched the artist. Nervously she played with the pounamu stone that hung obediently at her neck. Her oversized brown leather bag seemed to dwarf her slender frame, but buried within the burrows there lay a hidden treasure. Her drawings in pencil and charcoal, an artful array of animals, plants and landscapes. A tūī nestled on a kōwhai tree, his feathers reflecting the warmth of the sun, and a waterfall thundering over shadowed rocks in the Hawke’s Bay, at Maraetōtara, were among her collection. She possessed a budding talent, a natural gift that needed tuition. Tuition that had long been overdue, teaching that she had waited for her entire life. She knew that to develop as a credible artist in her own right, she needed direction, guidance and instruction. A mentor who would be willing to encourage her talent further, a teacher who would help her artistic talent to make the transition beyond the boundaries of her sketchpad and onto the canvas. Her hand reached down to claim her prize, and clutching her sketchpad to her chest she walked into the glass room.

  He neither raised his head nor spoke. She stood patiently at his side and waited. Moments passed. The artist continued with his work, never once acknowledging her presence. And still she waited. ‘Excuse me, I have been watching you paint for some time and I really admire your work.’ The artist ignored her.

  It was if she had never spoken. His dark silver head stayed bent towards his work. She tried again. ‘I just wondered if you would mind looking at some of my drawings and sketches, um I have a few here that I could show you? It won’t take much of your time, perhaps a minute or two?’ Her courage quickly fading, she fumbled to open her sketchpad, rapidly skipping the pages to her favourite pieces, the ones she considered her best artistic expression. Her cheeks were beginning to redden, her pride and self-confidence bruising like fragrant rose petals bitten by a frost that has come too soon. ‘Please, if you would just look at my work?’

  The artist did not pause, and as he stroked and caressed the canvas with his brush he calmly spoke. ‘Why should I bother to take the time to look at what you have done, when you have little respect for your own work?’ Stunned, her eyes wide, she listened as he continued. ‘You have asked only for a minute or two of my time and yet, if you thought you had something of significance, if you thought your work was worthy of remembrance, then surely you would have more pride and respect for your own creations; surely you would believe that they would warrant more of my time then a mere sixty seconds?’ With clear disdain in his tone he continued, ‘Do not continue to bother me girl, I have not the time, nor the patience to waste on the pitiful meanderings of an insecure woman claiming to be an artist!’