The Best of Fiona Kidman's Short Stories

by Fiona Kidman

  ‘I saw the women,’ she heard herself say.

  ‘The women, what women?’ mumbled the figure on the bed.

  ‘Rua’s women, I saw Rua Kenana.’

  ‘Rua, the one they called the prophet? He was a bit of a madman, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Oh, who knows. They called him a mystic man too, a messiah. You do know who I mean?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘He’d travel the land with his band of many wives, looking for work on the farms. Well, he stayed a night at my father’s farm and his wives were with him. He worked alongside my father, and at night they slept in the woolshed. All together, you understand?’

  ‘Yes, I understand,’ said Mrs Hardcastle.

  ‘They wore beautiful hats and finery. Later, I heard that he built them a house with many rooms … for all the wives … and the children … Afterwards, they captured Rua, took him away. You can understand that he would make people angry, I suppose. So many wives.’

  Mrs Hardcastle’s breath came out in a long sigh from the bed. Helena glanced at her, suddenly afraid that her companion would leave her too soon, before they were done.

  But, ‘What were the wives really like?’ Mrs Hardcastle asked.

  ‘I can’t tell you. I wasn’t allowed to go near them. Or not near enough to be sure of anything,’ Helena said.

  ‘You must have seen something.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know for sure … but I think they were happy.’

  Helena saw that the sky was now full of delicate pale light. Mrs Hardcastle mumbled something she could not understand.

  ‘What did you say?’ Helena gasped, bending close to her, for now it was imperative to know what the other woman thought about all of this. She had never told anyone before, never shared such confidences. Mrs Hardcastle mumbled again. Helena leaned nearer.

  ‘I expect Jack’ll come after the milking.’ The words were deathly quiet.

  The new day took over and possessed the room, and Helena began the last work on her shift, methodical, tidying up as she went. When she had done all there was to do, and spoken to everyone, and given comfort to the bereaved, then remembered to give Nurse Moore a month’s notice, she let herself into her room in the adjacent nurses’ home. She turned the key in her lock and sank down on the narrow bed, easing off her shoes as she did so. She was thoughtful as she pulled out the trunk beneath the bed and opened it. Inside the trunk, among her summer clothes stored away for the next season, there lay an assortment of items. They included several syringes and twenty or thirty pairs of spectacles. From her pocket she took the pair of spectacles which Mrs Hardcastle had worn, folded now in a narrow red case, and the half-empty syringe. For a moment she thought of throwing the syringe away, for what use was half a needleful to anyone? But there was so much waste around, and one never knew when any of it might come in handy. She tossed the spectacle case and the syringe in with the others, and when she had closed the trunk, lay down at last, to sleep.

  Body Searches

  ‘WELLINGTON IS LIKE A JANE AUSTEN NOVEL,’ says Alberto. He stands looking out the window with his back turned against Cushla, so that he cannot see her dressing, for which she is grateful, even while it rankles that he makes so little attempt to hide his lack of interest in her body now that they have completed the act he has so recently pursued with such determination.

  ‘You mean it’s a backwater?’ she says, struggling into her brassiere and blouse. As she had undressed she had thought how foolish it was to wear a garment with so many buttons, for what, after all, is an assignation for sex. But it occurs to her that she may have chosen the blouse with greater deliberation than she realised, as if by wearing something difficult and fussy she might still avert the inevitable. For it is like this with Alberto. She does not wish to go to bed with him but his insistence wears her down. Like other women who have had affairs and become tired of them, of the intrigue, of the fear of discovery, of the endless planning which goes into illicit relationships, she nevertheless finds the familiar difficulty in refusing, of saying no. It is something her generation has not been trained to do; no matter how many assertiveness training courses they go to, the lessons never seem to stick. It is impossible to say no to sex without giving offence and she, who administers offence with easy matter-of-factness in her regular daily life, is not capable of offending men who want to sleep with her. Well, those whom she classes as friends, at least.

  ‘Something like that, it’s certainly behind the times,’ says Alberto. He is still naked to the waist. He glances over her briefly, then turns back to the window. His dark moustache droops at the corners, giving him a sad, slightly regretful appearance. She pulls her half-slip hastily up over her hips so that she appears clad over all her parts.

  ‘You’ve spent too much time in that dreary hole of yours.’ She means London. Alberto is a television producer with whom she attended university when they were both very young. He was serious and withdrawn in those days, with an accent that still held rough traces of English spoken as a second language. Everyone was aware then, although it was not said, that sacrifices were made for him to go to university. Somebody would go without, or work even longer hours than they already did, in order that Alberto should receive a higher education. Sometimes he would have a slight odour of fish about him. He was called Albie in those days, though now of course he is known by his given name. Nobody had been able, had dared to say no to Alberto, then. It might have been construed as snobbish or discriminatory. We were all so liberal, thinks Cushla with sudden bitterness. Look what it’s done for us. For me anyway. I still can’t say no to Alberto. Thank God he only comes here once a year.

  For Alberto returns annually to spend two months with his daughters, who have long since returned to New Zealand with their mother, with whom both he and Cushla were also at university. The mother’s name is Rosemary, and Cushla hasn’t seen her in years. She has remarried, to a dentist, Cushla thinks, though she can’t be sure. Alberto was her mistake, or perhaps, like Cushla, she too had been unable to say no.

  Although encounters in bed with Alberto are a recent complication in her life. An accidental meeting in the street, a cup of coffee, an invitation to call by and collect a book that he had recommended, and to meet his daughters, which, put the way he did, could not be refused. Not without giving offence. The daughters are out when she calls.

  What happens between them is a mistake, he says afterwards when she tells him that she does not have affairs. It was lovely but it won’t happen again, he swears. He understands how she feels absolutely.

  Now he calls every time he is in town. He is entirely plausible in his invitations. The daughters are always out. It is hard to be alone in one’s own hometown, he says. You are not alone, she argues every time, you still have friends here.

  But not like you, he says, and his eyes are reproachful. Just come and see me, that’s all I ask.

  ‘Wellington’s not a backwater,’ she says irritably now, ‘it’s the most interesting city in New Zealand. Look at how it’s changed.’ She hasn’t meant to say this for she does not really approve of the glass façades which have sprung up all along Lambton Quay, the glitzy malls and the enormous price one pays for a cup of coffee in the transparent galleries. At least she tells people she doesn’t because her left-wing sensibilities are offended, but she has long suspected that she is more than a little attracted to it all. No wonder she has such difficulty saying no to Alberto. She is not positive enough in her convictions.

  ‘It is not so much how it looks,’ says Alberto, ‘it is what it is. Such minor matters assume the dimensions of catastrophes.’

  Looking in the mirror, replacing her make-up, Cushla is silent. Perhaps he is right. Her own catastrophe looks back at her. She has grown deeply lined over the past year and her throat is in a state of collapse. Her perm (or body wave, as they call it now) is dried out and she needs to make an appointment for an oil treatment. She applies her make-up with the critical concern of someone attendin
g the ill.

  But the news is not all bad. You have such nice eyes, people say, such wide eyes. They are as dark blue as it is possible for eyes to be; in certain lights at night, they have an inky quality. They shine back at her from the glass, bright and mocking. She pins her silk scarf in place, and collects her leather shoulder bag.

  ‘You’ll get cold standing there,’ she says to Alberto. In fact it is warm outside but she cannot think of anything else to say to him, and she wishes he were dressed. His chest is narrow and vulnerable and she suspects that he might use this slight fragility to win her over when proposing another meeting. He makes a half-hearted gesture of pulling her towards him as she leaves, but she avoids him. His mouth is soft and his damp kisses pressed on her skin have never been part of his attraction. If she analyses it, there is nothing about him that appeals. She is shocked; she has been telling herself that there must be something, or she wouldn’t have come back a second and third time this year. But there is nothing, except for his sorriness for himself, and she is ashamed.

  ‘When will you come again?’ he says.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s difficult to get away,’ she mutters, still playing the role of the scheming lover.

  He nods sympathetically. ‘You will stay married to that fellow. I’ll call you.’

  It is winter when Cushla goes to the doctor. She has dressed carefully in a dark blue and pink dress with a paisley pattern and a ruffled bodice. She has bought new patent leather shoes, and a complete set of new underwear. Altogether, she has spent a long time wavering over the image she wishes to project, trying to strike a balance. On the one hand she feels she should look smart and worldly, but then she does not want her appearance to suggest that she is without conscience about her problem. What she has chosen seems correct for the occasion, suggesting that she is nice, and, she hopes, at the same time, that she is a serious kind of woman.

  ‘What is your occupation, Mrs Grayson?’ asks the doctor as he fills in a form, immediately giving her the opportunity to tell him that she is, indeed, a woman of intelligence and responsibility.

  ‘Deputy principal. I’m a teacher,’ she adds unnecessarily.

  He raises his eyes and looks at her over the top of his fine-rimmed spectacles, then sits back in his chair.

  Cushla looks at the floor and feels her face going crimson. Dr Gilroy seems like a nice man, which in a way is worse than if he was unpleasant or officious or very young. She has not been able to face going to her own doctor who is very young and often complains about the number of women he has to see who are middle-aged and neurotic with all the aches in the world yet rarely suffer complaints that can be diagnosed. Now she has arrived at this age herself and she lives in terror of having to tell him her ailments. Look, she wants to say to him, I am full of fear, and I know that if I had been ill for as long as I have been afraid, I would probably be dead by now, but still, what I have to tell you is important. She is especially frightened that he will find nothing wrong with her, even though she wants to live forever. But now there is nothing she wants more than that Dr Gilroy will find that she is in good health. Dr Gilroy is a specialist whose name she has found in the phone book.

  He speaks gently. ‘What is the problem, Mrs Grayson?’

  She tries to speak but she is overwhelmed by the difficulty of it all.

  After a moment or two has elapsed he tries to help her again. ‘You see,’ he says, shirting in his chair, ‘sometimes, when women like yourself come to me, it is hard for them. Women are so loyal to their husbands. Even when they do … err, perhaps?’

  ‘Oh no,’ says Cushla quickly. Too quickly. Good God, she thinks, who says men are to blame for everything? She cannot avoid the truth any longer. ‘It’s me that’s erred,’ she says humbly. ‘I … it was just the once. Well, once or twice. I …’ Her voice trails away. It would perhaps have been easier to go to the clinic after all. She cannot imagine what it would really be like but, in her mind’s eye, she is sure that there are rows of institutional chairs, and brown walls, and that the inhabitants of such a waiting room are transvestites and girls from the massage parlours. She has considered herself to be above all that. But now, looking at the kindly grey-haired man, she thinks that she should have stuck amongst her own kind, that the clinic would more properly have been the place for her to go. If she is going to be pulled down a peg or two she really ought to go along with everyone else who has erred. At least these people of her imagination had purpose in the act which inspired their condition. Money, companionship, who knew, even desire. Whereas she was paying for no more than a failure of will, and an inability to relinquish a slight frivolousness in her nature.

  ‘Well, that’s no great harm done, surely,’ says Dr Gilroy.

  ‘It would be if I … well, if I had a disease.’

  ‘What makes you think you have a venereal disease?’

  She thinks back to the summer when they have all been to the beach, a week or two after the last time with Alberto. The cottage that she and her sister and their husbands have taken each year, for as long as they can remember, was bursting with people. Their children (six between the two families), who rarely came together now except for the annual holiday, had appeared with even more hangers-on than in the past, as if their independence from home meant that they felt free to inflict more people on their parents each time they saw them. The bunkhouse was full and there were tents pitched all round the cottage. At one stage Cushla and Margaret had counted sixteen people at breakfast. Cooking sufficient fish over the coal range to fill them all had taken until ten o’clock. ‘Whoever said it was a holiday?’ Margaret remarked as they both climbed into bathing suits, and started smoothing suntan lotion on their shoulders.

  ‘Was it ever? Did we ever really believe it?’ Cushla had replied. It was then, as she eased her bathing suit around her crotch, that she noticed the lump. It was smooth and hard like a long flat pebble. Her fingers stopped at it, silently querying its presence.

  She had spent a lot of time in the sea over the next few days, floating on her back with her eyes closed. She was uncertain what the lump might be, and thought more of cancer than of anything else. That was what one thought when alien lumps appeared. She composed obituaries for herself, and wondered whether the school would hold a memorial service for her.

  After the holiday she returned to school early to help with the timetable, and when the school year began the lump had disappeared.

  ‘And that was all?’ probes Dr Gilroy.

  ‘He said, the man said, that it was me. You know, that I had given it. To him. It wasn’t possible. Truly.’

  When Alberto had rung it was four o’clock in the morning. Philip had lifted the phone with weary impatience, assuming a wrong number, while she had fretted on the other side of the bed, imagining one of the children was hurt.

  ‘It’s for you. London,’ Philip said as he passed her the phone. He was wide awake, looking at her with a sharp question in his expression.

  ‘So thanks a lot,’ Alberto was screaming on the other end of the line. ‘Thanks for the dose of pox, lady.’

  ‘You got the times wrong, Alberto,’ Cushla had said brightly. ‘It’s four o’clock here. Four in the morning.’

  ‘I don’t care what goddamn time it is, why the fuck should I care what time it is, I tell you I got a mother fuckin’ disease.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ Cushla said, ‘really great news, but why don’t you call me about it later when I can think straight?’

  ‘Jesus, woman, don’t you hear what I say?’

  ‘Have a glass of champagne for me, clever boy.’

  She had put the phone down and rolled over in bed. ‘Sorry,’ she had said to Philip. ‘It was Alberto, the fool doesn’t seem to know what time it is.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He’s just landed some big contract. I couldn’t follow him.’

  ‘Why did he ring you?’

  ‘He’s drunk. Go back to sleep.’

 
; ‘You’ve got funny friends.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ Dr Gilroy asks.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’ He looks pained, for the first time.

  ‘I knew I couldn’t have. I mean, I really knew. What happened to me, it was an accident. You must believe me.’

  He nods. ‘I do believe you. And, Mrs Grayson, even if I didn’t, I’m not here to judge you, you know.’

  ‘No. Thank you. I can see that. But what I did, it was very foolish.’ Looking at her hands she notices how freckled they have become, and how the skin collects in folds around the knuckles. It is our hands that give us away, she thinks. She flexes them in her lap, bony hands with fingertips which curve upwards slightly when she stretches them. She played the piano when she was younger, talks often of playing it again. ‘After a while I began to think, well, if he’s sick now, perhaps he was when I saw him. I couldn’t get rid of the thought. Later, I came out in a rash. Oh I know what you’re thinking, but it was months after. Just a blotchy raised rash. On my arms and legs. I thought, maybe something I’d eaten.’

  ‘Was it true?’ she had asked Alberto on the phone. ‘Did you really have a disease?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t, pet,’ he had murmured. ‘You didn’t believe that, did you?’

  ‘Then why did you say so, Alberto, why, it’s been tearing me apart, what if I had it? What if you had given it to me, or if I had given it to Philip?’

  ‘But my love,’ and he sounded easier and more accomplished in his manner than he ever did in Wellington, ‘I didn’t.’