by Gee, Maurice
Ellie watched him go down the steps and cross the road into the gardens, moving with a dislocated step as though some left-side weight drew him off-centre and after a dozen paces he had to right himself. She remembered how his pallidness and dampness had put her off when he was small, and was ashamed. Babies could pick up dislike. She might have helped turn him into this lonely thirteen-year-old. There was nothing damp and pallid in him now – a dry sweetness rather, an indrawn strength, a largeness that he kept rolled into a ball.
She was pleased at how normal John seemed and praised herself for making him that way. She walked down Tinakori Road and saw him approaching in a group of boys, so kept clear. She knew how mothers embarrassed their sons – and wondered if there were things that might embarrass Derek. Wouldn’t he look at them and simply smile? It seemed to make him wiser, brighter, larger than her son. She grew jealous for John, but shook it off: he was friendly and clever and had the chance of a happy life. Derek would travel by ways where happiness might be hard to find – yet she imagined he would smile.
John’s friends dropped off, and she waited for him at the Bowen Street corner.
‘How was school?’
‘Good.’
‘Anything interesting?’
‘No.’
‘Did you eat your orange?’
‘Yep.’
So complete in himself. Yet she knew he would wrap himself around her at home as if trying to fuse himself with her, and she was overcome with love. How could she have thought him less than Derek?
‘Sit still,’ she said as he ate biscuits and drank milk, ‘I want to draw you.’
‘Come off it, Mum.’
‘Just for five minutes. I haven’t drawn you since you were a baby.’
‘Take a photo.’
‘Please, Johnnie. For me. I want …’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
She had seen again what she’d hoped not to see: Mike in his jawline, in his mouth (when satisfied), but especially in his eyes: generous and thoughtless, if eyes were the feature that signalled thought. That did not mean he wasn’t sensible. He was good at school, practical and inventive round the house, easy with people. But Mike was starting to emerge in easiness that was excessive, perhaps – how could one judge? – and energy in search of what was new, and quick boredom, laziness. She told herself that boys were like that – small boys – but suspected it wasn’t universal. She hated seeing Mike in his face.
He sat still. He let her turn his head, raise his chin. She asked him for a serious expression and he obliged with a solemn one.
‘Mum?’
‘Mm?’
‘How long are we staying here?’
‘In Wellington?’
‘In this house?’
‘You like it, don’t you?’
‘It’s all right. It’s a bit funny with him sitting under there all day.’
‘It’s his work, Johnnie. He’s writing. That’s his job.’
‘A funny job. He doesn’t make much money at it, does he?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘I heard you talking. There’s a kid at school says his father’s a millionaire.’
‘I’ll bet he’s lying. You like Neil, don’t you? He’s kind to you?’
‘He’s not bad. He’s a bit creepy sometimes.’
‘Creepy?’
‘When he pretends he’s looking at you but he’s not. It’s like he thinks of something else all the time.’
‘He’s dreamy, Johnnie. He doesn’t mean it.’
‘No, I guess. I’m meeting some kids down the cricket ground. Can I go?’
‘Use the pedestrian crossing,’ she said.
He walked in a straight line, unlike Derek – and not by back ways to a home full of prohibitions, where he would have to grow his mind secretly. She wondered what her mother would say if she offered to have Derek. What would Neil say? Ellie shivered. It worried her that John found Neil creepy, although it must mean preoccupied. He was starting his new novel – another old man, a rationalist, unlike the Presbyterian parson in his earlier book, and without a wife and children orbiting him. There were enormous problems finding the voice, finding the tone – and no, it would not help to talk about them with her. She wondered where he went, so deep inside.
Neil and John; and Derek now. Soon she must start living for herself.
Ellie found a morning job in the National Library. It helped keep the household finances in the black. Then Neil won an Arts Council scholarship and wanted her to stay at home.
‘No,’ she said. ‘If it’s just for coffee you can use some of your money for a machine.’
‘It’s more than that. I like having you around.’
‘Even if I make the floorboards creak?’
She told him she might leave her job next year and do a painting course at the polytech. ‘That way you needn’t be scared I’ll fall off the roof.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You could be quite good.’
‘Thank you, Neil.’
‘In a sort of decorative way.’
‘Shit,’ she said.
‘No, wait on, you’ve got a nice eye. And a good sense of colour.’
‘Go back to work.’
‘All I’m saying is, you don’t want to get ahead of yourself.’
‘Go back to work.’
‘I can’t work when you upset me. Jesus, Ellie.’
‘Calm down. Breathe deep. OK?’
‘Stay with me. Don’t go away.’
‘I won’t …’ She kissed him. ‘All right now?’
‘Yes, I’m all right.’
‘Off you go, then. A thousand words.’
But when she was alone, ‘decorative’ angered her again. He’d insulted her. And then had asked to be comforted. She was like the woman who had parked his trailer for him. How did he pull that trick? How had she let it happen?
The phone rang. ‘Ellie? It’s Angela. Angela Abbot.’
‘Ah, how are you? How did you get my number?’
‘I remembered you went to Brooklyn and your mother married someone called Brownlee. So I tried a Brownlee up there. She gave it to me. I thought you were going to ring me, Ellie.’
‘Yes, I would have. I’ve been busy. I’ve got a job.’
‘Oh, what a pity. I was going to say morning coffee, perhaps. Somewhere downtown. I’d love to talk. What about lunch?’
‘Well, all right. I can do that. But nowhere flash. Just a roll and coffee, that sort of thing.’ She concealed that she did not work afternoons.
‘Bugger,’ she said as she put the phone down. She did not want talking, looking back; was more concerned with trying to see what was up ahead – which disturbed her when she thought about it. Where was now? When she’d come to live with Neil she had expected it; now she could be happy. Where had that consummation gone? There seemed to be no place to stand. Things fell away behind her the instant they were done. She had to keep on stepping, and adjusting her step, and looking round to see in which direction to go. She tried standing off to see the figure she made – this woman on the move – but could not make out stance or gait or even face.
Stop it, this is neurotic, she thought.
She looked out into the drizzling rain; wished it would go away so she could work in the garden. Derek passed the window and tapped on the door.
‘You’re wet,’ she said. ‘Don’t you have a coat?’
‘It was fine this morning. I think all I am is John’s uncle. Just half.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She could not understand whether she had failed to see him in that role because he did not seem old enough or because she did not want him moving close. ‘Take off your shirt. I’ll get something dry.’
‘No, I’m all right.’
‘Take it off. Mum will kill me if I send you home with pneumonia.’
She gave him one of Neil’s flannel shirts and hung his on the inside of the airing-cabinet door.
‘Bournvita? It’
s turned into a southerly out there.’
‘Bournvita, great. You’d better not tell Mum I come here.’
‘What would she do? Does your father give you hidings?’
‘No. He wants to, but I think he’s too soft hearted. Don’t get me wrong, I like Mum and Dad.’
‘So would I if they’d let me. I can’t believe it, Derek; they think I’m going to hell.’
‘Yeah. I suppose.’
‘I mean, real hell. Flames and stuff. Eternally.’
‘Don’t worry, it’ll be different from that.’
‘I’m not worried. It’s just the thought of them having muck like that in their heads.’
‘It’s all just part of …’ Derek shrugged. ‘People are like that.’
‘Not Mum. She used to enjoy life. You’d have loved her then.’
‘I love her now.’
‘She followed your father. I used to get on well with him and he liked me.’
‘They both still like you. Hey, they love you. But unless you accept Christ and He’s your Saviour and all that …’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘The milk’s boiling over.’
He talked about Heather and Andrew while he drank: Andrew in Auckland and not going to church, although elders kept turning up to save him. ‘His flatmates have to tell them he’s out.’ Derek grinned. ‘He’ll be company for you down there.’
‘What about Heather?’
‘She’s got a boyfriend. He’s not in the church. She stays nights with him, so she’s a goner. You see why I’ve got to stay? I’ve got to keep pretending.’
‘You can’t keep that up all your life.’
‘We’ll see. Mum says you used to live in a commune.’
She told him about it: told him about her life, talking as though to an old friend, wondering, as she paused, about the agelessness of his demeanour, about his receptiveness that made her talk on, his sympathy, never expressed but palpable. She wondered if in some strange way he was a neuter and so able to take in everything. It seemed impossible, yet she described her life and found herself – under his influence? – moving it from sad to happy. It was not, she was not, sad. When she reached Neil she stopped: would not go there.
‘If you want to paint that much, why don’t you?’ he said.
‘I don’t know how. It’s not something you can just take up. There’s all sorts of things, technical things, you’ve got to learn. It’s like an apprenticeship. Anyhow …’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m waiting. It hasn’t happened. There’s a kind of button I’ve got to push.’
‘OK,’ he said.
‘OK what?’
‘Find the button. Push it. Is there any hurry?’
‘I’m thirty-six.’
‘Yep, that’s old.’
She thought he was joking, then saw he meant it, and he became thirteen again. She was astounded at the way she’d spoken to him, all the secrets she’d given up. How could she burden him with them? – except, she realised as she saw him yawning and laying his head on the table, it hadn’t been a burden, had just made him tired. It was as if he’d recognised that her talking was the important thing and his listening simply a window she looked through. There had been no sense in which she had asked him for help.
He went to sleep with his cheek on the tablecloth. School must exhaust him – ‘hassles’, which meant bullying, she supposed, and lessons that bored him and teachers who probably had no time. Home, when he reached it through the streets, would provide little rest, with precepts and restrictions hedging him around. She could not see where on earth he might go or what he might do. The best she could offer was to let him sleep at her table – although there was a sofa, and she woke him and led him there and settled a blanket on him – let him sleep, make him Bournvita, send him home in a dry shirt, and say, Come again, Derek, as often as you like. She must provide a place where he could talk and relax and yawn and sleep.
The next day she went to the lunch place Angela had chosen, and found a restaurant with white cloths and wine glasses on the tables and a waiter who looked sideways at the daypack of books slung on her shoulder. She should have known Angela would not be happy with coffee and rolls. The table was set for four. She sat and waited, refusing a drink and growing angry. Angela was probably bringing Willowbank girls and that meant gossip, questions, comparisons. Judgements too. Stuff it, Ellie thought, I don’t need this. She recalled that Angela had described her ambition to be a cartoonist as unreal. It had been nagging at her ever since. Why unreal? Was it something girls were not supposed to do? Or Woburn Hostel girls? Or was it deeper? Was she saying that Ellie did not have the ability? I’ll give her one more minute, Ellie thought.
A man came in the door, waved away the waiter and approached.
‘Ellie.’
Bald as an egg. ‘Barry Abbot?’ She had not known hair played such a part in identification.
‘We haven’t kept you waiting long, have we?’
‘No. I’m all right.’
‘Arriving late is an art form with Angela. How are you, Ellie? You’re looking great.’
There was no noose around him but an aura of cheerfulness. He shone with well-being; was fitted, scented, groomed with it. Ellie smiled as though at an artefact.
‘You too,’ she said. ‘You look – contented.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘And prosperous.’
‘Don’t know about that. 1958, Ellie.’ He sat down, signalled for the waiter. ‘That was the last time we met. I think I tried to proposition you, and you bolted.’
‘You told me about your friend who killed himself.’
‘Hell, did I do that?’ He ordered a bottle of wine. ‘Pretty morbid, I’d say. Not a good line.’
She was sorry to be talking so glibly about a death that stayed new, and she said, ‘You told me you were going out with Angela. Not many teenage romances make it through to marriage.’
‘We did. We were pretty solid from the start.’
She wondered if he’d ever fucked anyone but Angela, and thought not. He was a simple person with a gift for contentment, and she smiled at him with liking but somehow not approval. There did not seem enough of him to grasp for an assessment.
‘Three daughters. Congratulations,’ she said.
‘Thanks. But what about you, Ellie? Married? Kids? All that?’
‘I’ve had what they call a chequered career. Here’s Angela. Who’s she got?’
Hollis Prime, with still face and widow’s peak and walking stick.
Damn, Ellie thought. A burning, as though of sickness, rose in her throat.
Angela, pumped-up in her cheeks, coloured that glorious violet in her eyes, cried as though triumphant, ‘Ellie, I’m sorry we’re late but I knew Barry would look after you. You remember Hollis?’
‘How are you, Hollis?’
‘I’m well, thanks. It’s good to see you, Ellie.’
He and Angela sat down. He leaned his stick against the wall. The waiter arrived with wine and filled their glasses, which gave Ellie time to calm her anger at Angela and her dislike of this man and make herself social. She would say nothing more than she had to. But she found herself the focus, with Barry and Angela leaning at her and Hollis leaning back with his arm stretched out to his glass on the table edge. He looked as if he was measuring her.
‘Your mother wouldn’t give me any news about you, Ellie. I asked your married name, all that. I wasn’t being nosey,’ Angela said.
‘Mum gets embarrassed. I haven’t got a married name.’
‘But you’ve got a son. You told me.’
‘I’ve got John. He’s ten years old. The man I live with isn’t his father.’
Let’s see how they handle that, she thought.
‘So, you were married to John’s father?’ Angela said.
‘It’s none of our business, Angie,’ Hollis said.
‘I don’t mind,’ Ellie said. ‘No, I wasn’t. He was a guy I lived wi
th on a commune.’ She felt she was throwing facts, hard, like cricket balls, at Hollis Prime.
He took a sip of his wine and gave a smile of apology.
‘Where was that?’ Angela said.
‘In Golden Bay.’
The waiter came for their orders. Ellie chose chicken salad, the cheapest thing. She was determined to pay for herself. Angela dithered, which was interesting. She had always been decisive, but now, had she settled into a part? Did she bolster Barry, try to make him substantial, by playing the little woman and letting him decide? Ellie would be willing to bet they didn’t go on like that at home.
She glanced at Hollis and found him with his eyes closed as though he was bored. Her antagonism increased. I didn’t want to meet you either, buster, she thought.
He opened his eyes and smiled at her.
‘You look as if you’re doing sums,’ she said.
‘Just calculating how long since we met.’
‘Twenty-two years,’ Barry said. ‘I already worked that out.’ He rolled his lips together as if he had fed on the years and was satisfied. Angela had developed a matching, a connubial fulness in her face. Hollis Prime, on the other hand, looked as if he fed on scraps. In spite of his tie, his suit, his immaculate cuffs, he had crouched beside a fire, gnawing on bones, while eyes watched from the darkness all around. She found herself glad that his life had not been easy; and was disturbed that she should find him wolfish still.
‘That’s more than half our lives,’ Angela said. ‘Ellie, I was devastated when you left Willowbank. You were the only one there I wanted as my friend.’
‘Me?’
‘I just wanted to be like you. You seemed so free. I fantasised about living in a hostel.’
‘I don’t think you’d have liked it.’
‘I used to ride past on my bicycle and see all the girls going in and out, and hear the piano playing and the singing, and all the boyfriends in their cars waiting outside. It was another world. I used to think you were a kind of princess in there, with all sorts of magical things going on.’
‘I remember you asked me about it,’ Ellie said. She did not believe Angela. It was embroidery. Yet that mother, that self-communing father and crippled brother …? She looked at him and found him impassive. He sipped his wine.
