by Gee, Maurice
‘About sex?’
‘Yeah, I guess. He couldn’t get girls. He couldn’t even go to dances. Because – you know.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘He quit school. He just used to walk round by himself. I don’t know if there’ll be a funeral. I hope not.’
‘Why?’
‘I reckon I might …’ He might cry.
‘I only met him once,’ Ellie said.
A Brooklyn tram was swaying up the street. She wanted it to carry her away. Yet she would climb aboard with Robert’s death and keep it with her wherever she went because, one afternoon, he had sat on an umpire’s stand watching her play. That meant she could not turn away.
‘What was his second name?’
‘Morton. Robert Morton. We never called him Bob.’
‘This is my tram.’
‘Can’t you come for a milkshake?’
‘No, I’m sorry. See you, Barry.’ She liked him because he might have cried, but did not like him because it would not last.
The tram took her up the hill to Brooklyn. She got off at her stop and walked towards home, carrying Robert Morton’s death. She could not understand such pain: despair so deep you had to throw a rope over a beam … Her father’s death had been natural, even right compared with this, although it had been an accident. She thought, I’ve got to laugh, pretty quick, or else I’m going somewhere I can’t turn back. She felt in her schoolbag and found a half-eaten sandwich wrapped in greaseproof paper. It was peanut butter and honey, which she’d left after two bites because it made her fat. She took another bite and felt the gluey texture and a lovely sweetness on her tongue. She held it there, crumpled the paper and dropped it by her feet.
‘Please don’t drop litter in our street,’ said a woman walking by. She was small and beaky and carried a knobbled walking stick as thick as her wrist.
‘If you don’t like it, pick it up yourself,’ Ellie said. She sat on the mudguard of a parked car and started to cry.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ the woman said.
Ellie swallowed the bread and honey in her mouth. ‘Someone’s died, that’s all,’ she said. She closed her mouth tight and let tears run down her cheeks, then hunted for her hanky to wipe them off.
‘I’m sorry,’ the woman said.
‘That’s all right. I didn’t mean to be rude to you.’
‘That’s my husband’s car you’re sitting on.’
Ellie stood up.
‘Do you go to church?’ the woman said.
‘I used to.’
‘I think you should talk to your minister. They’re the best when somebody has died.’
‘Thank you,’ Ellie said. She took a big breath. Crying worked better than ministers. She picked up the piece of paper and wrapped it round the rest of her sandwich. ‘It was nice of you to let me sit on your car.’
‘I think you’re a wee bit brash, my girl,’ the woman said.
Ellie shrugged. She walked home, feeling she had taken possession of Robert Morton, swallowed him – but was jolted, almost sickened by the sudden desire she had to draw him hanging on a rope. He was alive like me, she thought, looking at her hand, working her fingers. What might be allowed was to draw his face.
The telephone rang before she could start – rang as she came in the door – and she stopped outside her room, listening to her mother saying, ‘Yes … Yes, she is. Hold the line, please,’ in the switchboard voice she would probably never lose.
‘Ellie, it’s for you. Someone from school.’
‘Hello,’ Ellie said.
‘Don’t say my name. Pretend I’m someone else,’ Dolores said.
‘OK. How’s it going?’ She spoke in a calm voice although her heart beat hard and her throat swelled as though there was a breath that would not come out.
‘I was holding my nose. Did she know?’
‘No.’
‘I’m sorry I haven’t rung before. I’ve been away.’
‘Where?’
‘In Christchurch. I only came back yesterday. Now I’ve got to go again. It’s my last night, Ellie. Can you meet me in town?’
‘I suppose I can.’
‘It’ll only be an hour. Say you’re going to the pictures.’
‘Yes, I’d like to,’ Ellie said, knowing her mother was listening in the kitchen.
‘There’s a coffee shop called Man Friday in Dixon Street. Meet me there. Half past seven, is that all right?’
‘Yes, all right. Thanks for ringing.’ She hung up.
‘Who was that?’ her mother said.
‘Gail, from my class. We’re going to the pictures. I’m meeting her for some coffee first, is that all right?’
‘Coffee will keep you awake.’
‘I’m not a kid, Mum. I’m going anyway.’
‘I never said you couldn’t.’ Her mother wanted no trouble. She only wanted harmony, with George, who just lately had a new name, He.
‘He’ll take you in his taxi when he goes to work.’
‘No thanks, I’ll go by tram,’ Ellie said.
She went to her room. She could not draw Robert Morton any more – she did not understand why she had wanted to.
The Man Friday was crowded so they went to the library and found a seat in the newspaper room.
‘Where are you going?’ Ellie asked.
Dolores was as slim and sophisticated as ever but Ellie had felt a thickness when they embraced, so the baby was still there. Weight had melted from her face, that was the only obvious change. Lips as red as ever, eyes as bright – an artificial brightness, as though she had squirted drops in them – but a kind of shaving off in diameter. The plumpness that had let her use kind looks wasn’t there. Pregnant women, Ellie thought, were supposed to get fatter not thinner in their face. She could see that Dolores had been suffering.
‘Where are you going?’
‘A sea voyage,’ Dolores said. ‘I’m getting used to them.’
‘Where?’
‘Sydney. I’m going on the Wanganella, leaving in –’ she looked at her watch – ‘three-quarters of an hour.’
‘With Hollis?’
‘Who’s that? I don’t know him,’ Dolores said.
‘What’s happened?’
‘I’m three months pregnant, nearly four, that’s what. They sent me down to Christchurch on the ferry. There’s a chemist down there who does abortions.’
‘Who sent you?’
‘The bloody Primes. Mr and Mrs, not their son. He’s twenty-two and he lets them boss him like a kid. It’s a wonder he doesn’t go into the bathroom and take down his pants and wait for daddy with his razor strop.’
‘You didn’t have one though?’
‘No, I didn’t. I had no intention. But I thought I might as well have a holiday.’ Dolores grinned. It was like a display of teeth. ‘Then I rang up and told them I wasn’t going to do it. I got Mrs. “You’re a nasty underhand dishonest girl. We’ve washed our hands of you.” I told her to put on her old man.’ Dolores grinned again. ‘I could have him if I wanted.’
‘Who?’
‘Harold Prime. Of Endacott Prime. Have you seen their brass plate in Featherston Street? There’s a woman comes out with a rag and shines it every morning.’
Ellie could not keep up with her. As well as her tongue her eyes were darting.
‘Mrs knows it too.’
‘Knows what?’
‘That I could steal her hubby. But all I want is some of his dough. I’ve got it too.’
Ellie felt so close to her – her face, her smell, her hands twisting one against the other in her lap – and yet so far away from what she said. Dolores had gone years ahead, into something ugly and grown-up, and out to one side of being grown-up.
‘How much?’
‘Five hundred pounds. Five hundred, Ellie. I’m rich. And my ticket to Sydney. I told him I’d have one over there. Lots of girls do.’
‘An abortion?’
‘Yes, but I won’t. He even
found an address for me. And made an appointment. Lawyers can do all sorts of dirty stuff.’ Dolores drew her head back as if from something smelly. ‘They think they can make me kill my baby.’
‘Where will you have it? Over there?’
‘Probably. Yes.’
‘And then what?’
‘I haven’t thought that far ahead.’
‘If you could get Hollis on his own …’
‘Shut up about him, Ellie. Just shut up.’
They sat quiet for a moment. People in the reading room sent furtive looks at them. Dolores took Ellie’s hand: ‘I’m sorry. Let’s get out of here before I start bawling.’
They went out into Mercer Street.
‘Where shall we go?’ Ellie said.
‘Down to the ship. I’ve got to get on board anyway.’
‘Where’s your luggage?’
‘I’ve only got a suitcase. I took it on before I met you.’ She looked at her watch. ‘We better get going.’
They walked down to Aotea Quay. People were crossing from the station to Queens Wharf, darting in the traffic as if they were late. Dolores strode like a man, high heels or not, and Ellie had to walk fast to keep up. She did not like the way it made her feel fat. Then Dolores stepped into a doorway out of the wind. She lit a cigarette and came out and strode again.
‘There’s four girls in my cabin. I bet they’re going for the same reason as me.’
Ellie was jealous. She wanted to be in the cabin too, and walking on the deck with Dolores – but not in Sydney, not when the baby was born. What would happen afterwards? She was frightened to ask.
‘Will you write to me?’
‘Probably.’
‘Will you come back to Wellington when it’s over?’
‘God no. I’ve had enough of this place.’
‘I suppose you’ll never be a dental nurse now.’
‘I never wanted to be one anyway. Looking in people’s mouths.’
Ellie felt herself getting angry. Dolores had asked for her, but was behaving as if she was on the other side.
‘Have you told your parents about all this?’
‘Are you mad?’
‘What do they think, then?’
‘They think I’m in Christchurch. We don’t write letters very much.’ She threw her cigarette into the street. ‘Dad would kill me,’ she said.
They reached the station and crossed to the wharf. ‘Do you want some advice, Ellie?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Keep your legs crossed. It’s only rooting and shagging anyway.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ Ellie said.
‘They do. Men do.’
The ship stood as straight as a wall beside the wharf. Up there, high up, passengers leaned smiling, shouting, waving, on the rails. The knots of people looking up – white faces, more serious than the ones on board – seemed to be waiting to be fed.
‘I told you once I was a cow,’ Dolores said.
‘You’re not all the time.’
Dolores laughed. ‘Well, that’s something.’ She kissed Ellie. ‘I didn’t want to go all alone. I wanted to have someone waving to me.’
‘I’ll use both hands,’ Ellie said.
‘See those girls up there. One of them’s wearing a turban, see? I’ll bet she doesn’t know what’s happening. They’re my cabin mates.’
Ellie thought Dolores didn’t know what was happening.
‘I’ll go up there beside them. Will you stay?’
‘Yes, I’ll be here.’
The Wanganella gave a loud blast on its whistle. ‘Oh, shut your mouth,’ Dolores said. She hugged Ellie. ‘Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye,’ Ellie said.
She watched Dolores walk up the gangplank, neat and brisk and sure of herself. Ellie was the only one who knew it was a lie. In a few moments Dolores came out beside the girl in the turban. Ellie watched her hunt among the faces. She moved away from people and criss-crossed her arms. Dolores smiled and shouted. She was like that actress, Ann Blyth – so beautiful, but with something hidden all the time. Something sad, and cruel as well, waiting to come out. She looked excited, like a girl starting on a world tour – London and the changing of the guard. Not Sydney and a baby. Waitressing.
The gangplank went up. The ship eased out from the wharf as though something huge and silent with no moving parts was pressing inside. Dolores’ face blurred in with the others and she was gone, although her arm signalled up and down in a stately way – sophisticated now and not excited. Ellie was choked with feeling but was switched off at the same time. That was that. She waited until she was sure Dolores would not be able to pick her out.
People were turning away, unsteady some of them, a little stunned. They did not look as if they knew what to do. Ellie walked among them, swerving in and out. She passed a shadowy angle at the end of a shed, where someone with a white face spoke to her – pronounced her name softly, as though he was ashamed.
‘What do you want?’ she said.
‘How was she? Was she all right?’ Hollis Prime said.
‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’
Yet her heart was swelling again, the way it had when Dolores telephoned. A minute ago she would have said Hollis was easy to understand – randy and selfish and weak. Now he was a mystery again. She did not believe in him as a mother’s boy, with his widow’s peak and deep-set eyes and mouth fixed in a painful smile. His crooked teeth. She would have liked to see him walk, see him go up and down on his limpy foot.
‘It’s your baby. You should have married her,’ she said.
‘I would have, Ellie. I wanted to at first.’
‘So what went wrong? Mummy told you not to, I suppose.’
‘Is that what she says?’
Ellie looked at the Wanganella turning away. The passengers had gone inside, into cabins somewhere, and the ship seemed bare and cold and set in a direction. Dolores would not write, Ellie knew.
‘I don’t want to talk about you and her,’ she said.
‘We gave her plenty of money. She got a lot from Dad.’
‘To have an abortion. I suppose you think that’s easy?’
He looked at people passing, and wet his lips. ‘Ellie,’ he whispered, ‘what it was, I didn’t like her enough.’
‘She was just good enough to go to bed with, do you mean?’
‘She was the one who started that. I’m not a ratbag, Ellie. I came down to see she got on the ship all right.’
‘So you could get rid of her.’
‘To see if she was happy, if you want to know.’
‘And do you think she is? Why didn’t you go and talk to her?’
‘You were there. Anyway, she wouldn’t want me … You don’t know how tough she is. Mum thinks she’ll keep on asking for more money.’
The harder beating of her heart had stopped. Now she felt only rage. He was so bent and twisted, so shifty in his eyes and mean in his mouth, and ugly inside.
‘Ellie, I’ve got my car. I can give you a ride.’
It should have been him hanging, not Robert Morton, she thought.
‘What do you say?’
She turned away, walked away, but spun around, lifting her shoulders, stretching her throat. She shouted at Hollis Prime: ‘You should get a girlfriend with a limp to go with yours. Then you could have limpy kids.’ She ran across by the front of the station to the tramstop. A Brooklyn tram was leaving and she jumped on board, ignoring the motorman’s shout. She walked to the other end and sat down. That’s finished Hollis Prime, she thought. But she felt sick and did not know whether it was from anger or from Hollis himself, leaning close to her, or from losing Dolores and knowing all the things she had to go through. Things she had to go through herself? ‘No I won’t,’ she said out loud.
‘You stick to that, girlie,’ the conductor said.
She bought a ticket. The tram took her up the hill to Brooklyn. She got off before it ran down to the shops, and scrambled up the ba
nk over the road from Central Park. The Wanganella was turning out of sight round Point Jerningham. It was the only moving thing. The half moon shone on the water, turning it white.
Ellie saw where she lived – the whole wide high place where she lived: city, harbour, mountains, sky – and suddenly it seemed natural, Dolores going away, and everything that happened, natural, held between water and sky like things in a bowl. People shifted, rearranged themselves, then changed again, making different patterns and different stories, and everything that happened to them, love and death and babies, was there to be looked at and understood, even if some of it was cruel.
She did not know what she had discovered, it was too quick and went away; but did not leave her empty, just shifting between happy and sad. It was as though she had eaten but was hungry; so she watched a while longer, until the ship was gone.
Waving would be childish. She smiled instead, then pulled her coat around her and started up the hill, trying to remember, then forgetting. She pushed her hands deep into her pockets to keep warm.
With George at work her mother would change into Mrs Crowther when Ellie came in and want to know why she was home before the pictures came out. It would be easy to lie; but why not tell the truth and see what happened?
Ellie missed good talks with her mother.
Between times
1959. Ellie returns to Wellington Girls’ College after passing her School Certificate examination. She welcomes the birth of her half-brother Andrew in mid-year, and surrenders her bedroom gladly for the new sunporch, where she paints the walls yellow to encourage the sun. Her schoolwork fails to improve. There is no Mrs Nimmo to excite her and she decides not to go to university, which relieves her mother, who worries about money more and more. Ellie applies for Teachers’ College but is advised to spend another year at school. She is perhaps a little immature, her form mistress says. It annoys Ellie, who believes she knows a good deal more than most of the girls who get in.
1960 is hard and full of quarrels. Mrs Brownlee is pregnant again. Andrew wakes often in the night, and Ellie has to help with him because she has the knack of calming him down. It is not a job she wants, except at times when love for Andrew chokes her. George’s Presbyterianism revives and he believes Ellie should be made to go to church, which she argues against and will not do. She leaves school halfway through the year and gets a job in a library, which she comes to enjoy. Her mother refuses to let her go flatting, but Ellie gets her way a month before the baby is born. It’s a girl, Heather. Ellie, in a flat in Thorndon with three girls older than her, finds it less easy than living in a hostel. The house clogs up with boys, some of them hers, and everyone seems irresponsible. She sometimes seems to be the most mature one there, although she can be the noisiest.
