Everyone has their verbal tics. Those little space fillers we use to cover the fact that we've run out of words, and are thinking of something to add to what we're in the process of trying to explain. One that I've been noticing more and more of late is "sort of". At first, I thought it was another example of our charming Kiwi diffidence: we don't want to be too definite about anything, just in case the person we're talking to thinks we're an opinionated blowhard. An example: "I was walking down this sort of path, when this huge dog sort of lunged at me. Gosh, it gave me a fright! I was really sort of startled."
That's the (ahem) sort of statement I hear from people chatting about thing. I have also noticed that TV "journalists" use it a lot, as well - especially with the current craze to "Go live to Amanda Pertbreasts in Wellington". She'll be standing there, cute as a button, outside Parliament, speaking breathlessly to camera, "The Prime Minister today sort of explained that the new tobacco taxes..."
But it's not just us. I've heard British, American, and Canadian journos using this little verbal tic. It sort of annoys me, you know what I mean? Sort of? But not really.
In the past I've worried at the question of nobility. I think I have it nailed down: always allowing the person or people you're dealing with to retain their dignity is the true expression of nobility.
READING: Still with the Val McDermid book, but am also reading and re-reading the script of the play I'm doing. Rehearsals start with a vengeance today: Yay!
LISTENING TO: The Little Bushmen. They are simply superb. Buy all their stuff, right now.
WATCHING: Dr Who, tonight. After rehearsals...
More "Paper Heroes":
Then a quick kick sends the bodies into the Bay, for the grey and white sharks to conceal his work.
The rain has stopped by the time Night completes his work. He stands, putting his hands to the small of his back, and stretches. The moon comes from behind a ragged cloud and, had there been anyone to see him, they would have admired the smooth, even planes of a classically handsome face, framed with tight red curls. His limbs, like all Folk, are long and strong, and his chest deep, accommodating a huge heart and lungs.
In fact, his chest – again, like all Folk – is unnaturally deep, and unnaturally short. His spine was humped and curved and tortured, and a constant source of pain.
The Henrys, on the other hand, were on average shorter than the Folk, but proportioned like the Men of old. They came to Sanfrisco from the East, after the Nuking. They came from the East, with their tek, and with their Whitestar.
The Nuking had happened Before, and their poisons had filled the land with death and decay. And the Henrys came from the East with their Whitestar, which would stop the poison, and heal the land.
Which, to the truthful, it had. But it had also enslaved the Folk, and the Henrys had come with their Scarabs, calling the Folk “Unders,” as though they were less than Folk. The Henrys had made the Folk wear the Scarab on their wrists, as they themselves wore it: but the Folk’s Scarabs guaranteed them a short and pain-filled life, while the Henrys’ Scarabs simply monitored their whereabouts, and kept them healthy.
And straight.
But not all Folk wear the Scarab now. Night looked at the back of his wrist in the pale moonlight. He was now the fifth Gen of his family to have escaped the Scarab. His wife, Lana, proudly carries the scar of one who had undergone the appalling pain of having Doc Ford cut her Scarab away.
Night shoulders his burden, and lopes off, keeping to the shadows, running the alleys, tapping the codes, letting all know that tonight he has relieved two Henrys of the burden of their lives.
Two Henrys dead this night. Two Scarabs taken. A good night.
Chapter Four.
9.47am, N’Yark Time, November 6th, 2386.
Gaius Andronicus Equus Gluteus Maximus adopts a PowerPose, as recommended by The Book, and stands by his window, looking out. His hands are clasped behind his back, and his weight rocks on the balls of feet. He allows himself a small smile of congratulation: it has taken him the full five years since his Ascension to get this lower office, and he wasn’t going back upstairs in a hurry. Let his minions, yes, even First Minister Fox, climb the twenty-seven sets of stairs. He was damned if he would.
Showing posts with label nobility. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nobility. Show all posts
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Monday, August 24, 2009
Nobility I
A little while ago I promised to take a series of looks at nobility, and was reminded of my promise by an exchange of emails yesterday with a man who had decided not to employ me.
He elected to write a personal email, telling me why he was turning me down for the position. I replied, thanking him for his courtesy, and making the comment that it's nice to find someone who acts in a gentlemanly way these day.
I didn't accuse him of nobility, but it was a close run thing.
Readers of my blog will know that I am vociferous in my disdain for organised religion. Actually, religion of any kind offends my sensibilities, but the organised type I find to be not only foolish, but also offensive. Be that as it may: when it comes to architecture, organised religion has made marvellous, and noble, contributions. While I have not seen the great cathedrals of Europe in the stone (as it were), I have seen a lot of footage on the Discovery, Documentary, and History Channels. I've also seen an enormous acreage of print photographs. The soaring spires and flying buttresses are marvels. In Asia, the various wats, with thier intricate carvings and mind-blowing complexities. The Buddhist temples of Japan, the Hindu concoctions of India. The South American pyramids, the Egyptian temples, the Russian onion-topped confections: I know that they are supposed to inspire one as to the glory of some god or other, but to me they sing of the nobility of the human spirit, and the astonishing thing we have that sets us apart: our imaginations, our sheer inventiveness.
I think it is impossible for any thinking person to look at the beautiful structures set in place for the Beijing Olympics (another series of cathedrals, but this time built to worship the human body and will) without being en-nobled by the magnificence of it all.
Individual, and small, acts of nobility are all too rare. That is why they are so remarkable when they happen. So let's celebrate them when they happen. What happened to me yesterday was not only gentlemanly, but also noble. Thankyou.
LISTENING TO: Bryan Ferry, "As Time Goes By". The most fun that's been put onto a record album since the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. I have to listen to this album at least once every two weeks.
READING: "White Night", by Jim Butcher. If you ever watched "The Dresden Files"on tele, Jim Butcher's books were the inspiration. Great fun.
WORD OF THE DAY: Gentlemanly. As in behaviour. Everyone can do it, man, woman, child.
MORE HENRY:
Chapter
New York, New York!
Henry doesn’t think of himself as a nervous man, and one would be hard pressed to call him cowardly. But New York terrified Henry, and he couldn’t wait to get away from there. As you’ll know, Henry’s a small town person, one who understands the Wisdom of the Woodpile, who believes implicitly in the goodness of his neighbours. This great city, reaching to the clouds, with man-made canyons deeper than the ravines that his hometown’s river has carved to make a bed in, this city with its honking and shouting and roaring and spitting and cursing and jostling and rush baffled him, made him fearful.
They went to the Guggenhiem Museum - Mary wanted to see the great collection of abstract art there, while Adam wanted to look over Frank Lloyd Wright’s stunning design. Adam was disappointed: the additions made in the 1990s diminished Wright’s soaring vision, while Mary was elated by the glory of the art within.
Henry, however, perplexed by the streets, was white and shaking when they arrived at the museum. The noise of the street hammered at all his senses, blurring his vision, making his mouth coppery with fear. He sat in the lobby of the great museum, insisting the others went their own way, agreeing that if they should separate they‘d leave a message at the Museum‘s reception desk. Sweat stood in great drops on his forehead, his face was ashen.
”I just need a little time to relax.” But he couldn’t. The oppressive fear beat at him, his ears thundered, and his fingers and legs trembled. The walls were crowding at him, closing him in, choking him, and he needed to see the sky so he rushed out, looking up, and the great buildings leaned over him and he fell to his knees while tens of people, hundreds of people walked by him, chattering to each other, squawking into cell-phones, shouting at cabs and street vendors, never quiet, always talking and shouting and he shouted “shut up!” he screamed “Shut up!“ and trembled. He roared “shut up,“ and the grit of the street tore at his knees, and Adam saw him, and helped him up.
“Dad?”
“I’m all right,” Henry said. “All right.” But he wasn’t. Adam took him and sat him on the stairway to the museum, and went indoors to leave a message for Mary, then went back out to find his father and take him back to their hotel, where Henry went to bed, shivering.
Fear makes a fool of us all, and it wasn’t something that Henry was accustomed to.
What is there to fear in a comfortable little town in a comfortable little country down at the bottom of the world? War and famine and political or criminal repression had played no part in Henry’s life. His had been an easy life, one of confined valley horizons and a warm home, in an environment where he was supported and strengthened by neighbours, colleagues, family, and friends.
This was Henry’s first brush with an irrational fear, and the first time that he was brought face to face with the possibility that yes, he too was vulnerable to phobias.
Many people would this of Henry: that one of his more admirable traits was his simplicity: what you saw was precisely what you got.
Others might say this: that one of his least admirable traits was his simplicity: what you saw was precisely what you got.
This isn’t to say that he didn’t have his complexities, dear me no. But he wore those badges of maturity on his sleeve for everyone to see. He had few prejudices, and was concerned by the ones he had. He liked to think that he took people at face value, and valued them for what and who they were: but he had no understanding of mental health problems, and thought of them as being easy to control.
“All these people have to do, surely, is apply a little rational thought to their fear. An agorophobic person knows, rationally, that wide open spaces can’t really hurt them. Therefore, the fear should be easily dealt with. Likewise, arachnophobes know spiders, by and large, are harmless. Nothing to it.”
But now he had been plunged into the void that a claustrophobic person fears, and come out of it badly. They left town the very next day, to Go West, young man. And they did: but not before seeing enough of America’s great cities to know that while they were grand and huge and places of marvel, they were also places with their mean and grubby sides, streets of brick tenement blocks which gave shelter to scores of hundreds of people, and allowed them no horizon at all, but that of a construct which was exactly the same as the one they sobbed their life away in. Adam too was appalled, and his camera was still: no picture could contain the trivial and crushing way these people spent their lives.
It’s not death that’s cheap here, he thought. It’s life. And so they moved on, and on New jersey’s grimy streets they found an agent who sent them way out west, to Arizona. And it was while there, in Arizona, that they found the true tyrant of Talbot Terrace.
He elected to write a personal email, telling me why he was turning me down for the position. I replied, thanking him for his courtesy, and making the comment that it's nice to find someone who acts in a gentlemanly way these day.
I didn't accuse him of nobility, but it was a close run thing.
Readers of my blog will know that I am vociferous in my disdain for organised religion. Actually, religion of any kind offends my sensibilities, but the organised type I find to be not only foolish, but also offensive. Be that as it may: when it comes to architecture, organised religion has made marvellous, and noble, contributions. While I have not seen the great cathedrals of Europe in the stone (as it were), I have seen a lot of footage on the Discovery, Documentary, and History Channels. I've also seen an enormous acreage of print photographs. The soaring spires and flying buttresses are marvels. In Asia, the various wats, with thier intricate carvings and mind-blowing complexities. The Buddhist temples of Japan, the Hindu concoctions of India. The South American pyramids, the Egyptian temples, the Russian onion-topped confections: I know that they are supposed to inspire one as to the glory of some god or other, but to me they sing of the nobility of the human spirit, and the astonishing thing we have that sets us apart: our imaginations, our sheer inventiveness.
I think it is impossible for any thinking person to look at the beautiful structures set in place for the Beijing Olympics (another series of cathedrals, but this time built to worship the human body and will) without being en-nobled by the magnificence of it all.
Individual, and small, acts of nobility are all too rare. That is why they are so remarkable when they happen. So let's celebrate them when they happen. What happened to me yesterday was not only gentlemanly, but also noble. Thankyou.
LISTENING TO: Bryan Ferry, "As Time Goes By". The most fun that's been put onto a record album since the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. I have to listen to this album at least once every two weeks.
READING: "White Night", by Jim Butcher. If you ever watched "The Dresden Files"on tele, Jim Butcher's books were the inspiration. Great fun.
WORD OF THE DAY: Gentlemanly. As in behaviour. Everyone can do it, man, woman, child.
MORE HENRY:
Chapter
New York, New York!
Henry doesn’t think of himself as a nervous man, and one would be hard pressed to call him cowardly. But New York terrified Henry, and he couldn’t wait to get away from there. As you’ll know, Henry’s a small town person, one who understands the Wisdom of the Woodpile, who believes implicitly in the goodness of his neighbours. This great city, reaching to the clouds, with man-made canyons deeper than the ravines that his hometown’s river has carved to make a bed in, this city with its honking and shouting and roaring and spitting and cursing and jostling and rush baffled him, made him fearful.
They went to the Guggenhiem Museum - Mary wanted to see the great collection of abstract art there, while Adam wanted to look over Frank Lloyd Wright’s stunning design. Adam was disappointed: the additions made in the 1990s diminished Wright’s soaring vision, while Mary was elated by the glory of the art within.
Henry, however, perplexed by the streets, was white and shaking when they arrived at the museum. The noise of the street hammered at all his senses, blurring his vision, making his mouth coppery with fear. He sat in the lobby of the great museum, insisting the others went their own way, agreeing that if they should separate they‘d leave a message at the Museum‘s reception desk. Sweat stood in great drops on his forehead, his face was ashen.
”I just need a little time to relax.” But he couldn’t. The oppressive fear beat at him, his ears thundered, and his fingers and legs trembled. The walls were crowding at him, closing him in, choking him, and he needed to see the sky so he rushed out, looking up, and the great buildings leaned over him and he fell to his knees while tens of people, hundreds of people walked by him, chattering to each other, squawking into cell-phones, shouting at cabs and street vendors, never quiet, always talking and shouting and he shouted “shut up!” he screamed “Shut up!“ and trembled. He roared “shut up,“ and the grit of the street tore at his knees, and Adam saw him, and helped him up.
“Dad?”
“I’m all right,” Henry said. “All right.” But he wasn’t. Adam took him and sat him on the stairway to the museum, and went indoors to leave a message for Mary, then went back out to find his father and take him back to their hotel, where Henry went to bed, shivering.
Fear makes a fool of us all, and it wasn’t something that Henry was accustomed to.
What is there to fear in a comfortable little town in a comfortable little country down at the bottom of the world? War and famine and political or criminal repression had played no part in Henry’s life. His had been an easy life, one of confined valley horizons and a warm home, in an environment where he was supported and strengthened by neighbours, colleagues, family, and friends.
This was Henry’s first brush with an irrational fear, and the first time that he was brought face to face with the possibility that yes, he too was vulnerable to phobias.
Many people would this of Henry: that one of his more admirable traits was his simplicity: what you saw was precisely what you got.
Others might say this: that one of his least admirable traits was his simplicity: what you saw was precisely what you got.
This isn’t to say that he didn’t have his complexities, dear me no. But he wore those badges of maturity on his sleeve for everyone to see. He had few prejudices, and was concerned by the ones he had. He liked to think that he took people at face value, and valued them for what and who they were: but he had no understanding of mental health problems, and thought of them as being easy to control.
“All these people have to do, surely, is apply a little rational thought to their fear. An agorophobic person knows, rationally, that wide open spaces can’t really hurt them. Therefore, the fear should be easily dealt with. Likewise, arachnophobes know spiders, by and large, are harmless. Nothing to it.”
But now he had been plunged into the void that a claustrophobic person fears, and come out of it badly. They left town the very next day, to Go West, young man. And they did: but not before seeing enough of America’s great cities to know that while they were grand and huge and places of marvel, they were also places with their mean and grubby sides, streets of brick tenement blocks which gave shelter to scores of hundreds of people, and allowed them no horizon at all, but that of a construct which was exactly the same as the one they sobbed their life away in. Adam too was appalled, and his camera was still: no picture could contain the trivial and crushing way these people spent their lives.
It’s not death that’s cheap here, he thought. It’s life. And so they moved on, and on New jersey’s grimy streets they found an agent who sent them way out west, to Arizona. And it was while there, in Arizona, that they found the true tyrant of Talbot Terrace.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
The Perfidy of Bill English
Yesterday, I approached a theme that I intend to revisit and examine over the course of the next few weeks: that of nobility. I was ruminating,much as the cow-pat producing creatures also mentioned in yesterday's blog do, last night on where this thought would take me, when my attention was miserably grabbed by the witterings on television.
The headline news on the broadcast was about the rorts and sticky-fingered activities of our M.Ps. I am enraged. I agree that the job is demanding, and that it is far better for the individual M.Ps to have their families nearby. This is what a just and reasonable society would expect, and be happy to pay for. But when a career politician like Bill English, who is practically guaranteed tenure in his seat, buys a house in Wellington for his family to live in full-time, then I do not think it behooves him to claim any sort of subsidy from the people of New Zealand for those living arrangements.
His is a high wage, and a deserved one. A quarter of a million dollars PA is not a mean sum. What is mean is his claiming a further $45,000-odd to live in a house he bought with the intention of living in for a long, long time. And to come on to television and congratulate himself for reducing his claim by 50% is so far beyond hypocritical as to make me want to vomit.
This man's scurrilous behavior makes my skin crawl. Let's take a look at the steps he has taken in his descent into the gutter.
1: He became an M.P, undoubtedly with the honourable intention of serving his community and country. 10 out of 10, Bill. Well done.
2: For his first term – as he was earning his stripes – he commuted back and forth to his family in Winton or Wonton or Witless, in the South island. Uprooting them at that point would be cruel, and a bit of a hard gamble. He finds out that his living costs in Wellington, while he's far from the bosom of his family, are to be met by Parliamentary Services. This is what a just and honourable society will do, and I pat myself on the back for supporting that.
3: Once he decides that he has tenure as an MP – something that MMP practically guarantees him - he buys a family home in Wellington, where he will spend the vast majority of his time, so he could have his family with him. He undoubtedly loves his wife and children, and wants to be with them. Dammit, another 10 out of a possible 10. You're on a roll, Bill.
4: He then, while in Opposition, continues claiming for living in his - now – family home. His children are going to school in Wellington, his wife has a busy medical practice in Wellington, he is an absentee MP., only occasionally visiting the people he represents in Witless. The amount he is able to claim for not living in Witless is around $24,000: he takes full, greedy, advantage of this. 2 out of 10, Sweet William: your halo has slipped.
5: When his party sweeps into power, and he becomes a Cabinet Minister, his privileges are increased. Most of this I have no problem with: as I said, it is my duty and pleasure to support that people who do make considerable sacrifices to govern. But he is now a full-time resident of Wellington. It has become his home town. Parliamentary Services says he can claim $48,000 if the place he lives in isn't his own. So he changes the title of his long-term home in Wellington to his wife's name.. and claims that extra cash Tut, Bill. Tut. 0 out of 10.
6: When this rort is disclosed, he smiles disingenuously, and says he's done nothing wrong.
But Bill - the question is this: have you done anything right? You have used the system, you have abused the system, and that means you have used and abused me. And to generously repay half of what you have ripped the system off for is to compound your ignoble actions.
Bill, you are a cur. As is everyone else in Parliament who has used this loose rule to secure thousands of extra dollars. I am sure that there are Labour, Green, Maori, and ACT members who are or who have fleeced the system just as you are continuing to do.
Noble? Nothing noble about this at all.
LISTENING TO: Carl Davis "Music from the Movies". Just heard the theme to "Lawrence of Arabia". There was someone noble. Quite mad, of course. But nobly so.
READING: Coming to the end of Connolly's book. I have to put it down occasionally, as I'm gasping for air.
WORD OF THE DAY: Perfidy.
HENRY CONTINUES...
Chapter
Money, money, money.
As it eventuated, the family wouldn’t buy the Talbot Street house. It was mutually agreed that it should be kept in a Family Trust, with disposal to be decided on Henry and Mary’s return. With their investments and savings liquidated, the couple had a little over three quarters of a million dollars in cool cash to fool around with, and the family didn’t want Mary to be left with nothing after Henry checked out.
The language they had used while talking about the problem that been evasive, and laden with heavy euphemism. The words dying, death, dead were used only by the ever-practical Henry and the ever-astonished Micah. All the others used phrases like “when you leave us,” “passed on“, “gone over“, “checked-out,” or even “gone to glory.” Henry grumbled that it was dishonest, while Mary understood the defence mechanisms that where being put into place.
The further tests that Henry underwent in Auckland confirmed the early diagnosis. Henry surprised himself by the deep feelings of defeat and depression that swept over him when the specialists told him. But the words were out, the proof there in his blood and in the pictures and in the grimly leaden faces of the medical staff of the hospital. There was nothing that could be done: not money nor hope nor prayers offered a release. Henry smiled at Mary, hiding the chill in his heart, and said “Well. We’d better try laughter, then.”
Chapter
Of death and love.
Twenty six years ago, when Henry was 21 years old, he hopped onto the overnight express and rode the rails through the night to Hamilton, then hitched a ride home with a madman dressed in a violent yellow shirt, and driving a Vanguard. The Vanguard is probably one of the ugliest and most useless cars to ever be built in Britain, and was almost definitely the cause of that fair nation’s decline as a world power. No country with aspirations to greatness could ever have designed, made, and marketed the Vanguard. A rumour once circulated that Margaret Thatcher had been conceived in the back of a Vanguard grocery van, which could go a long way toward explaining a great many things about that precious isle, that Albion.
This, however, is a divertissement: the Vanguard features no more in Henry’s life, although he will never forget it.
The yellow-clad madman dropped Henry off in the centre of Northridge, and he walked the rest of the way home: Talbot Terrace was just a mile or so down the road, so he slung his bag across his shoulders and started jogging.
He had been drawn home by a call late in the previous day: Mary’s mother had slipped on the back step, and fallen, cracking her skull on the concrete stairs. She died, as they say, in a heartbeat - although that is somewhat oxymoronic. Fortunately, it was her neighbour who found her, and called the ambulance and police. Mary was contacted by Henry Talbot Snr., and picked up and brought home by Gussy, who called Henry Jnr. home.
Mary didn’t know whether or not she was an orphan. She had never known her father, who had hitched a ride on an island trader when the then blushing Miss Pickering had told him she was pregnant. That was the last time she saw him. The Miss was changed to Mrs, and her parents had bought the house for her in Talbot Terrace when Mary had spent a full term at a dismal school in The City. Even before the packers had arrived with her furniture, she had been to the nearby school and enrolled Mary. She had been a Talbot Terrace resident for two weeks before asking that terribly serious little boy to walk her daughter to school, as she had twisted her ankle. On such small things does the world turn.
When Henry jogged up Talbot Terrace he looked at Number Ten, with its curtains drawn and blinds pulled. He stopped and stood, panting in the early morning air, breath billowing in great white clouds. He said “Mary.” And, his throat aching with deep sorrow, he went home and let himself in, through and past the great stag at bay on the door. It was far too early for the household to be stirring, so he took his shoes, socks, and jacket off and went to the kitchen and made a brew: Amber Tips, his favourite tea. A hefty dollop of milk, a teaspoon of sugar, and he went up to his room, opening the door and dumping his bag, and setting his cup of steaming hot tea on his dresser.
His bed was not empty.
He blinked.
His bed was still not empty.
There were red curls on his pillow, a shape under the covers. “Mary,” he breathed.
His bed was occupied. “Mary,” he whispered.
He knelt by the bed, and stayed still for several lifetimes, looking at her. She had a spit-bubble at the corner of her mouth, and she hadn’t taken her make-up off before going to bed. Mascara stained her cheek where a tear bad borne it, and he had never seen anything so unutterably beautiful in all his life.
His bed. Was. Not. Empty. “Mary,” he sighed.
Her eyes opened, brilliant and green in the early morning light, and he saw the gold fleck which he always searched for, and she smiled and held her arms out and clasped him around his neck. “Mary,” he cried. “Hold me,” she wept.
Mary lay in his bed, for the first time…
He lay beside her, on top of the covers, and he felt her grief and love, and he held her as she wept for her Mother, as she wept for herself, as he promised her, “I will never leave you.” And she told him he must, that he needed to finish his degree, and her lips moved against his ear, and she wet his cheek with her tears as her lips moved to his mouth, and he kissed her gently, and she asked him to hold her, talking into his mouth, and the taste of her breath was sweet.
She was wearing his pyjamas, a pair that Gussy had characteristically saved from when he had been in his early teens, and they were still too large for her. He will never forget the moment she sat up, warm and inviting, the jacket of trains on a background of blue sliding off her warm body. He couldn’t move. He was, in so many, many ways, rigid.
Mary took one of his hands, and put it onto her left breast: he could feel her heart thudding. His own was setting up a tsunami of emotions, and he was deafened by the thunder of hope and love and fear and desire that coursed through him. She undid the buttons of his shirt, and pressed herself to him for the first time.
An eon or two passed by, various henges where built on the crossroads of time, and she moved his hands to her bottom, and she kissed him. “Mary,” he moaned. “My Henry,” she said. “My Henry.” If you were to ask him, he could never have explained what happened to encumbrances made by Wrangler and Jockey. Mary claimed him with her body, and loved him, and he moved into her and she took him for her own while he took her for his own, and from that moment on he has never, could never, would never look at or think of another woman. He was, indeed, her Henry, as she was his Mary.
Two hours later Gussy opened the bedroom door, and looked at them sleeping peacefully, in each others arms, and she smiled and thought “how right,” and picked up a cold cup of tea, Amber Tips, his favourite, and left them. Henry’s dreams that morning were his, and his alone.
Henry Snr. was to die just four weeks later: he came home from work, bent to passionately kiss Gussy hello, said “Oh, gosh” and fell to the floor. He was dead before he hit the vinyl. Henry came home again, astonishing himself by the coldness of his emotions. He didn’t weep for his father then: he couldn’t. Gussy was almost destroyed, but also buoyed up that the very last thing her Henry had done was to show, even in such a tiny way, his love for her. This was, of course, cold comfort. Occasionally, however, that’s the best we can hope for.
Henry made the arrangements for his father’s funeral. It fell on him to choose a coffin, to pay the undertaker, to sit and call everyone who mattered in his father’s life: “Mrs Johnstone? It’s Henry Talbot here - Henry and Gussy’s son. Yes, very well, thankyou, but I’m afraid I have to tell you that my Dad died yesterday afternoon. Yes. Thankyou. We’ll have the funeral on Thursday, at the Northridge Funeral Serv - yes. At 11. You’ll be there with Mr Johnstone? Good. Fine.”
No, of course it wasn’t fine. In his mind he was shrieking “Jesus Dad, Jesus Dad, how could you have done this? I hate you for this!” but he had his sisters and brother to care for, and his Mum, and Mary was strong and was always there as Henry tried to understand his feelings.
The headline news on the broadcast was about the rorts and sticky-fingered activities of our M.Ps. I am enraged. I agree that the job is demanding, and that it is far better for the individual M.Ps to have their families nearby. This is what a just and reasonable society would expect, and be happy to pay for. But when a career politician like Bill English, who is practically guaranteed tenure in his seat, buys a house in Wellington for his family to live in full-time, then I do not think it behooves him to claim any sort of subsidy from the people of New Zealand for those living arrangements.
His is a high wage, and a deserved one. A quarter of a million dollars PA is not a mean sum. What is mean is his claiming a further $45,000-odd to live in a house he bought with the intention of living in for a long, long time. And to come on to television and congratulate himself for reducing his claim by 50% is so far beyond hypocritical as to make me want to vomit.
This man's scurrilous behavior makes my skin crawl. Let's take a look at the steps he has taken in his descent into the gutter.
1: He became an M.P, undoubtedly with the honourable intention of serving his community and country. 10 out of 10, Bill. Well done.
2: For his first term – as he was earning his stripes – he commuted back and forth to his family in Winton or Wonton or Witless, in the South island. Uprooting them at that point would be cruel, and a bit of a hard gamble. He finds out that his living costs in Wellington, while he's far from the bosom of his family, are to be met by Parliamentary Services. This is what a just and honourable society will do, and I pat myself on the back for supporting that.
3: Once he decides that he has tenure as an MP – something that MMP practically guarantees him - he buys a family home in Wellington, where he will spend the vast majority of his time, so he could have his family with him. He undoubtedly loves his wife and children, and wants to be with them. Dammit, another 10 out of a possible 10. You're on a roll, Bill.
4: He then, while in Opposition, continues claiming for living in his - now – family home. His children are going to school in Wellington, his wife has a busy medical practice in Wellington, he is an absentee MP., only occasionally visiting the people he represents in Witless. The amount he is able to claim for not living in Witless is around $24,000: he takes full, greedy, advantage of this. 2 out of 10, Sweet William: your halo has slipped.
5: When his party sweeps into power, and he becomes a Cabinet Minister, his privileges are increased. Most of this I have no problem with: as I said, it is my duty and pleasure to support that people who do make considerable sacrifices to govern. But he is now a full-time resident of Wellington. It has become his home town. Parliamentary Services says he can claim $48,000 if the place he lives in isn't his own. So he changes the title of his long-term home in Wellington to his wife's name.. and claims that extra cash Tut, Bill. Tut. 0 out of 10.
6: When this rort is disclosed, he smiles disingenuously, and says he's done nothing wrong.
But Bill - the question is this: have you done anything right? You have used the system, you have abused the system, and that means you have used and abused me. And to generously repay half of what you have ripped the system off for is to compound your ignoble actions.
Bill, you are a cur. As is everyone else in Parliament who has used this loose rule to secure thousands of extra dollars. I am sure that there are Labour, Green, Maori, and ACT members who are or who have fleeced the system just as you are continuing to do.
Noble? Nothing noble about this at all.
LISTENING TO: Carl Davis "Music from the Movies". Just heard the theme to "Lawrence of Arabia". There was someone noble. Quite mad, of course. But nobly so.
READING: Coming to the end of Connolly's book. I have to put it down occasionally, as I'm gasping for air.
WORD OF THE DAY: Perfidy.
HENRY CONTINUES...
Chapter
Money, money, money.
As it eventuated, the family wouldn’t buy the Talbot Street house. It was mutually agreed that it should be kept in a Family Trust, with disposal to be decided on Henry and Mary’s return. With their investments and savings liquidated, the couple had a little over three quarters of a million dollars in cool cash to fool around with, and the family didn’t want Mary to be left with nothing after Henry checked out.
The language they had used while talking about the problem that been evasive, and laden with heavy euphemism. The words dying, death, dead were used only by the ever-practical Henry and the ever-astonished Micah. All the others used phrases like “when you leave us,” “passed on“, “gone over“, “checked-out,” or even “gone to glory.” Henry grumbled that it was dishonest, while Mary understood the defence mechanisms that where being put into place.
The further tests that Henry underwent in Auckland confirmed the early diagnosis. Henry surprised himself by the deep feelings of defeat and depression that swept over him when the specialists told him. But the words were out, the proof there in his blood and in the pictures and in the grimly leaden faces of the medical staff of the hospital. There was nothing that could be done: not money nor hope nor prayers offered a release. Henry smiled at Mary, hiding the chill in his heart, and said “Well. We’d better try laughter, then.”
Chapter
Of death and love.
Twenty six years ago, when Henry was 21 years old, he hopped onto the overnight express and rode the rails through the night to Hamilton, then hitched a ride home with a madman dressed in a violent yellow shirt, and driving a Vanguard. The Vanguard is probably one of the ugliest and most useless cars to ever be built in Britain, and was almost definitely the cause of that fair nation’s decline as a world power. No country with aspirations to greatness could ever have designed, made, and marketed the Vanguard. A rumour once circulated that Margaret Thatcher had been conceived in the back of a Vanguard grocery van, which could go a long way toward explaining a great many things about that precious isle, that Albion.
This, however, is a divertissement: the Vanguard features no more in Henry’s life, although he will never forget it.
The yellow-clad madman dropped Henry off in the centre of Northridge, and he walked the rest of the way home: Talbot Terrace was just a mile or so down the road, so he slung his bag across his shoulders and started jogging.
He had been drawn home by a call late in the previous day: Mary’s mother had slipped on the back step, and fallen, cracking her skull on the concrete stairs. She died, as they say, in a heartbeat - although that is somewhat oxymoronic. Fortunately, it was her neighbour who found her, and called the ambulance and police. Mary was contacted by Henry Talbot Snr., and picked up and brought home by Gussy, who called Henry Jnr. home.
Mary didn’t know whether or not she was an orphan. She had never known her father, who had hitched a ride on an island trader when the then blushing Miss Pickering had told him she was pregnant. That was the last time she saw him. The Miss was changed to Mrs, and her parents had bought the house for her in Talbot Terrace when Mary had spent a full term at a dismal school in The City. Even before the packers had arrived with her furniture, she had been to the nearby school and enrolled Mary. She had been a Talbot Terrace resident for two weeks before asking that terribly serious little boy to walk her daughter to school, as she had twisted her ankle. On such small things does the world turn.
When Henry jogged up Talbot Terrace he looked at Number Ten, with its curtains drawn and blinds pulled. He stopped and stood, panting in the early morning air, breath billowing in great white clouds. He said “Mary.” And, his throat aching with deep sorrow, he went home and let himself in, through and past the great stag at bay on the door. It was far too early for the household to be stirring, so he took his shoes, socks, and jacket off and went to the kitchen and made a brew: Amber Tips, his favourite tea. A hefty dollop of milk, a teaspoon of sugar, and he went up to his room, opening the door and dumping his bag, and setting his cup of steaming hot tea on his dresser.
His bed was not empty.
He blinked.
His bed was still not empty.
There were red curls on his pillow, a shape under the covers. “Mary,” he breathed.
His bed was occupied. “Mary,” he whispered.
He knelt by the bed, and stayed still for several lifetimes, looking at her. She had a spit-bubble at the corner of her mouth, and she hadn’t taken her make-up off before going to bed. Mascara stained her cheek where a tear bad borne it, and he had never seen anything so unutterably beautiful in all his life.
His bed. Was. Not. Empty. “Mary,” he sighed.
Her eyes opened, brilliant and green in the early morning light, and he saw the gold fleck which he always searched for, and she smiled and held her arms out and clasped him around his neck. “Mary,” he cried. “Hold me,” she wept.
Mary lay in his bed, for the first time…
He lay beside her, on top of the covers, and he felt her grief and love, and he held her as she wept for her Mother, as she wept for herself, as he promised her, “I will never leave you.” And she told him he must, that he needed to finish his degree, and her lips moved against his ear, and she wet his cheek with her tears as her lips moved to his mouth, and he kissed her gently, and she asked him to hold her, talking into his mouth, and the taste of her breath was sweet.
She was wearing his pyjamas, a pair that Gussy had characteristically saved from when he had been in his early teens, and they were still too large for her. He will never forget the moment she sat up, warm and inviting, the jacket of trains on a background of blue sliding off her warm body. He couldn’t move. He was, in so many, many ways, rigid.
Mary took one of his hands, and put it onto her left breast: he could feel her heart thudding. His own was setting up a tsunami of emotions, and he was deafened by the thunder of hope and love and fear and desire that coursed through him. She undid the buttons of his shirt, and pressed herself to him for the first time.
An eon or two passed by, various henges where built on the crossroads of time, and she moved his hands to her bottom, and she kissed him. “Mary,” he moaned. “My Henry,” she said. “My Henry.” If you were to ask him, he could never have explained what happened to encumbrances made by Wrangler and Jockey. Mary claimed him with her body, and loved him, and he moved into her and she took him for her own while he took her for his own, and from that moment on he has never, could never, would never look at or think of another woman. He was, indeed, her Henry, as she was his Mary.
Two hours later Gussy opened the bedroom door, and looked at them sleeping peacefully, in each others arms, and she smiled and thought “how right,” and picked up a cold cup of tea, Amber Tips, his favourite, and left them. Henry’s dreams that morning were his, and his alone.
Henry Snr. was to die just four weeks later: he came home from work, bent to passionately kiss Gussy hello, said “Oh, gosh” and fell to the floor. He was dead before he hit the vinyl. Henry came home again, astonishing himself by the coldness of his emotions. He didn’t weep for his father then: he couldn’t. Gussy was almost destroyed, but also buoyed up that the very last thing her Henry had done was to show, even in such a tiny way, his love for her. This was, of course, cold comfort. Occasionally, however, that’s the best we can hope for.
Henry made the arrangements for his father’s funeral. It fell on him to choose a coffin, to pay the undertaker, to sit and call everyone who mattered in his father’s life: “Mrs Johnstone? It’s Henry Talbot here - Henry and Gussy’s son. Yes, very well, thankyou, but I’m afraid I have to tell you that my Dad died yesterday afternoon. Yes. Thankyou. We’ll have the funeral on Thursday, at the Northridge Funeral Serv - yes. At 11. You’ll be there with Mr Johnstone? Good. Fine.”
No, of course it wasn’t fine. In his mind he was shrieking “Jesus Dad, Jesus Dad, how could you have done this? I hate you for this!” but he had his sisters and brother to care for, and his Mum, and Mary was strong and was always there as Henry tried to understand his feelings.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Cowpats and War Comics
To be honest, I came up with my headline before I'd decided what I was going to write. I had decided to do something about war comics, but somehow the idea of cowpats also got stuck inside the scone. This is not really to be wondered at: I have been accused of spouting BS in the past, so perhaps a cowpat is merely an expression of feminine side.
Speaking of feminine sides: on "Stuff" there's a slight article about how New Zealand men make OK husbands. A blue-stocking has, it appears, quizzed over 13,000 women in a dozen Western countries about their local men, and how they stack up in the domestic bliss stakes. We Kiwis, once again, beat the Aussies. In fact, our brothers in the West Island came last in the desirable hubby stakes. It seems they hate sharing the domestic responsibilities.
They, of course, would look at the 11 countries that "beat" them, and sneer. They would, perhaps justifiably, claim that the men in those nations (which includes Norway, the USA, Great Britain, France, and NZ) are more like sheep, or domesticated cattle.
This would be cow manure, of course. The war between the sexes is still being fought in Australia, while in Norway (the First Place-getter) the armistice has been signed. Both sides won. While Norwegian men change baby's nappies, don aprons, and cook meals that include tofu and filo pastry, their female partners know about tyre pressures and two-stroke fuel.
To satisfy your curiosity- New Zealand came in at a solid 8th.
I don't know if the survey included questions on bonkability, and don't intend to enquire. While surveys of this nature have value - they do, after all,add to the total sum of human knowledge, as well as providing some insights on how societies differ - they don't actually make any personal sense to me. So, New Zealand came in at 8th. Is that good? Bad? Is it a ranking that means anything?
So, while we came in at 8th, New Zealand still seems to score pretty well when it comes to the "happiness" stakes. Surveys show we're a pretty up-beat bunch. So even though we're 8th in terms of good human husbandry - which is, let's face it, in the bottom third of the survey... we're still doing something right.
One thing we perhaps aren't doing right is this: war comics. They have really vanished from our shelves, except for the superb reprints that are being produced: collections of a dozen or so war comics from the 50s and 60s, collected under titles as stirring as "True Brit!" and "Anzacs At War!".
I own one. I found it at a second-hand bookshop in Ashburton, and paid $5 for it: a bargain. I devoured the whole thing at one sitting. It was filled with bravery and cowardice, with stories of overcoming enormous challenges, with Chermans shouting "Gott in Himmel" and "Achtung", and Japanese soldiers saying "Banzai!" as they raced to their deaths, and "Aiiee!" as they died, ignobly.
These comics are filled with societal stereotypes, racism, bigotry, class war, and tosh. They are, in fact, brilliant. From them, I learned as a lad about such things as sacrifice, as putting the next chap's welfare first, of how absurd it is to think that one type of human (if there is such a thing as a "type" of human) is better than another. And before we start into the whole glorification of war: I think that even as a child I knew that war was a pretty horrible thing. Nonetheless, it makes for good stories.
I also learned that some things are worth fighting for. I was never a good fighter, and it's only been in the past few years that I've learned to utilise that greatest of weapons, the word, to argue my case.
But mostly I started to learn about nobility. It's an outdated word, one that doesn't get bandied about at social gatherings. We might turn a lip and mutter darkly about the Ruling Classes and Aristocracy, but that's not what I'm talking about. There's often more nobility to be found in poverty than there is in wealth. Those at the bottom of society's ladder who toil on with honesty and concern for their neighbour are better human beings than many of those who have great wealth. The cow-pat is richer than the cloud.
I still have much to learn about nobility. It's not a word I could attach to myself, and I can only think of two or three of my friends who display flashes of it. I hope that one day I will have learned enough to spontaneously do something worthy of the appelation - but I'm not pushing it.
Perhaps I need to read a few more war comics.
LISTENING TO: Art Garfunkel, "Angel Clare". It's quite lovely.
READING: War comics.
WORD OF THE DAY: Nobility.
MORE HENRY... coming right up.
Chapter Thirteen
Spot the Difference.
Henry thought his odyssey started when he told his family that he and Mary were leaving to travel.
He was wrong. Mary knew, and just about everyone in his family knew, that he had started travelling this road a number of years back, with Spot. Adam Johnstone, aka Spot, had been a loyal follower of Henry’s ever since he and Murph had rescued him from what could have been a savage beating at school. Adam, not-yet-Spot, was wearing a pair of run-down flannel shorts, a mud-green tee shirt, and a tweedy pullover sweater. His family were poor, and did the best they could by their kids, but when there are nine mouths under the age of fifteen something’s gotta give. So, it was a fact of life that Adam, N-Y-S, had to make do with pass-me-down clothes. Clothes that had come originally from the St. Martin Op-Shop to Adam’s older brother before their third incarnation as Adam’s finest.
Kids who don’t fit in are picked on. It’s as simple as that. And, to their everlasting credit Henry and Murph stepped in where others forebore to tread. It was coming to the end of the lunch break at Northridge Intermediate School, and Paul Sinclair, David Burgess, and Will Hendrickson had a ragged bundle of tears and fury bailed up against the tennis court fence. Fist where flying, jeers were taunting, taunts where being jeered, and a short, stroppy mess of pride and anger was weeping with fury.
“Hey!” roared Murph, in all his 12-year old anger. “Let ‘im go!”
The last person to tell Burgess, Sinclair, and Hendrickson what to do ended up bloodied and bruised. They were a single-minded pack, and they turned from beating Adam, to attend to this intrusion.
“So,” sneerd Burgess. “Patrick O’Flaherty himself. What’s it to you what we’re doing?”
“Leave him alone, Burgess.”
“Or?”
Patrick, or Murph to his friends, walked with Henry to stand by the scrappy, stroppy little Adam Johnstone. Make sure you pronounce the “t”. They didn’t have much, the Johnstone’s, but they did have that “t”.
“Just buzz off, Burgess,” said Henry.
“oh, it’s our big rugby hero, Henry la-de-da Talbot. Get them, boys.”
And so the battle of the Tennis court started. As schoolyard fights go, it wasn’t really an epic, but they were still talking about it a year later. Suffice to say that Henry, Murph, and Adam were never troubled by the Burgess Boys again.
And suffice also to say that Adam (the name Spot would come a little later in his life, after an adventure with a blue gingham bikini-clad girl, and a rubber glove) became a firm fixture in Henry’s life. Where one went, the other three went. And usually they went with a little red-haired bundle of energy, Mary Pickering, in tow.
Adam was a quiet, studious kid. Because he had been diagnosed with glue-ear too late as a youngster, he had a hearing problem, so he always sat up the front of the class - another strike against him for the Burgess Boys. Spot also excelled in class, and Roger, Murph, Henry, and Adam spent nearly a decade as close friends.
By the time Adam became Spot he had been awarded a scholarship to Victoria University, down in The City, Wellington. He attended with his friend Henry, and the two young men were a fixture at the Caff at lunchtime. Spot was doing an arts degree, majoring in Eng.Lit., and he entertained his friend with unlikely stories about tutors, tutorials, fried egg sandwiches, and flatmates. Spot, finally, was in his element. He could be as smart and as brazen as he wanted, and people would praise him for it. He didn’t crawl out of the quiet, studious, brown little shell that had encapsulated him for most of his life: he exploded out of it.
The biggest changes Henry noticed about his friend where in the clothing department, and in the casual comments Spot would make about other boys in the Caff. Henry’s like most men of that era: he couldn’t tell you five minutes after seeing someone what they had been wearing. But he did notice that Spot’s tweedy sweaters had given way to colours and flamboyance. Brightly coloured braces and shirts, baggy 1930s-style pants, highly polished shoes and boots, monocle - oh, yes, he hunted high and low for a monocle - Brylcreemed hair, jaunty cigarette holder, pencil-thin moustache, Spot was a statement.
Exactly what it was that Spot was stating Henry didn’t know. He became aware of the fact that he was the only person in Spot’s circle of new friends that didn’t call him Adam, or even Adamus, with the second syllable stretched lazily.
Let’s face it: naivety and gaucheness aside, Henry was totally ignorant of the sexual revolution. It never occurred to him to question his own sexuality: his awareness of homosexuality was confined to a couple of back-of-the-bike shed jokes that he hadn’t really understood.
Months after the Hazel episode, Henry and Spot were walking along Oriental Parade, discussing this, that, the future, the new Holden, New Zealand‘s most recent drubbing at cricket, or just walking in silence, enjoying the soft, warm, Wellington evening, when a large man in a heavy woollen pea-jacket and grimy corduroy pants bellowed “pansy!” as he cycled past.
Spot looked up, flashed his friend a tired grin, and said “Well, it’s not as if we need reminding, is it?”
A question that’s plagued Henry ever since, because he made a half-strangled reply, and changed the subject. That night Spot drew a warm bath, sat in it, drank the better half of a bottle of gin, and neatly slit his wrists.
Speaking of feminine sides: on "Stuff" there's a slight article about how New Zealand men make OK husbands. A blue-stocking has, it appears, quizzed over 13,000 women in a dozen Western countries about their local men, and how they stack up in the domestic bliss stakes. We Kiwis, once again, beat the Aussies. In fact, our brothers in the West Island came last in the desirable hubby stakes. It seems they hate sharing the domestic responsibilities.
They, of course, would look at the 11 countries that "beat" them, and sneer. They would, perhaps justifiably, claim that the men in those nations (which includes Norway, the USA, Great Britain, France, and NZ) are more like sheep, or domesticated cattle.
This would be cow manure, of course. The war between the sexes is still being fought in Australia, while in Norway (the First Place-getter) the armistice has been signed. Both sides won. While Norwegian men change baby's nappies, don aprons, and cook meals that include tofu and filo pastry, their female partners know about tyre pressures and two-stroke fuel.
To satisfy your curiosity- New Zealand came in at a solid 8th.
I don't know if the survey included questions on bonkability, and don't intend to enquire. While surveys of this nature have value - they do, after all,add to the total sum of human knowledge, as well as providing some insights on how societies differ - they don't actually make any personal sense to me. So, New Zealand came in at 8th. Is that good? Bad? Is it a ranking that means anything?
So, while we came in at 8th, New Zealand still seems to score pretty well when it comes to the "happiness" stakes. Surveys show we're a pretty up-beat bunch. So even though we're 8th in terms of good human husbandry - which is, let's face it, in the bottom third of the survey... we're still doing something right.
One thing we perhaps aren't doing right is this: war comics. They have really vanished from our shelves, except for the superb reprints that are being produced: collections of a dozen or so war comics from the 50s and 60s, collected under titles as stirring as "True Brit!" and "Anzacs At War!".
I own one. I found it at a second-hand bookshop in Ashburton, and paid $5 for it: a bargain. I devoured the whole thing at one sitting. It was filled with bravery and cowardice, with stories of overcoming enormous challenges, with Chermans shouting "Gott in Himmel" and "Achtung", and Japanese soldiers saying "Banzai!" as they raced to their deaths, and "Aiiee!" as they died, ignobly.
These comics are filled with societal stereotypes, racism, bigotry, class war, and tosh. They are, in fact, brilliant. From them, I learned as a lad about such things as sacrifice, as putting the next chap's welfare first, of how absurd it is to think that one type of human (if there is such a thing as a "type" of human) is better than another. And before we start into the whole glorification of war: I think that even as a child I knew that war was a pretty horrible thing. Nonetheless, it makes for good stories.
I also learned that some things are worth fighting for. I was never a good fighter, and it's only been in the past few years that I've learned to utilise that greatest of weapons, the word, to argue my case.
But mostly I started to learn about nobility. It's an outdated word, one that doesn't get bandied about at social gatherings. We might turn a lip and mutter darkly about the Ruling Classes and Aristocracy, but that's not what I'm talking about. There's often more nobility to be found in poverty than there is in wealth. Those at the bottom of society's ladder who toil on with honesty and concern for their neighbour are better human beings than many of those who have great wealth. The cow-pat is richer than the cloud.
I still have much to learn about nobility. It's not a word I could attach to myself, and I can only think of two or three of my friends who display flashes of it. I hope that one day I will have learned enough to spontaneously do something worthy of the appelation - but I'm not pushing it.
Perhaps I need to read a few more war comics.
LISTENING TO: Art Garfunkel, "Angel Clare". It's quite lovely.
READING: War comics.
WORD OF THE DAY: Nobility.
MORE HENRY... coming right up.
Chapter Thirteen
Spot the Difference.
Henry thought his odyssey started when he told his family that he and Mary were leaving to travel.
He was wrong. Mary knew, and just about everyone in his family knew, that he had started travelling this road a number of years back, with Spot. Adam Johnstone, aka Spot, had been a loyal follower of Henry’s ever since he and Murph had rescued him from what could have been a savage beating at school. Adam, not-yet-Spot, was wearing a pair of run-down flannel shorts, a mud-green tee shirt, and a tweedy pullover sweater. His family were poor, and did the best they could by their kids, but when there are nine mouths under the age of fifteen something’s gotta give. So, it was a fact of life that Adam, N-Y-S, had to make do with pass-me-down clothes. Clothes that had come originally from the St. Martin Op-Shop to Adam’s older brother before their third incarnation as Adam’s finest.
Kids who don’t fit in are picked on. It’s as simple as that. And, to their everlasting credit Henry and Murph stepped in where others forebore to tread. It was coming to the end of the lunch break at Northridge Intermediate School, and Paul Sinclair, David Burgess, and Will Hendrickson had a ragged bundle of tears and fury bailed up against the tennis court fence. Fist where flying, jeers were taunting, taunts where being jeered, and a short, stroppy mess of pride and anger was weeping with fury.
“Hey!” roared Murph, in all his 12-year old anger. “Let ‘im go!”
The last person to tell Burgess, Sinclair, and Hendrickson what to do ended up bloodied and bruised. They were a single-minded pack, and they turned from beating Adam, to attend to this intrusion.
“So,” sneerd Burgess. “Patrick O’Flaherty himself. What’s it to you what we’re doing?”
“Leave him alone, Burgess.”
“Or?”
Patrick, or Murph to his friends, walked with Henry to stand by the scrappy, stroppy little Adam Johnstone. Make sure you pronounce the “t”. They didn’t have much, the Johnstone’s, but they did have that “t”.
“Just buzz off, Burgess,” said Henry.
“oh, it’s our big rugby hero, Henry la-de-da Talbot. Get them, boys.”
And so the battle of the Tennis court started. As schoolyard fights go, it wasn’t really an epic, but they were still talking about it a year later. Suffice to say that Henry, Murph, and Adam were never troubled by the Burgess Boys again.
And suffice also to say that Adam (the name Spot would come a little later in his life, after an adventure with a blue gingham bikini-clad girl, and a rubber glove) became a firm fixture in Henry’s life. Where one went, the other three went. And usually they went with a little red-haired bundle of energy, Mary Pickering, in tow.
Adam was a quiet, studious kid. Because he had been diagnosed with glue-ear too late as a youngster, he had a hearing problem, so he always sat up the front of the class - another strike against him for the Burgess Boys. Spot also excelled in class, and Roger, Murph, Henry, and Adam spent nearly a decade as close friends.
By the time Adam became Spot he had been awarded a scholarship to Victoria University, down in The City, Wellington. He attended with his friend Henry, and the two young men were a fixture at the Caff at lunchtime. Spot was doing an arts degree, majoring in Eng.Lit., and he entertained his friend with unlikely stories about tutors, tutorials, fried egg sandwiches, and flatmates. Spot, finally, was in his element. He could be as smart and as brazen as he wanted, and people would praise him for it. He didn’t crawl out of the quiet, studious, brown little shell that had encapsulated him for most of his life: he exploded out of it.
The biggest changes Henry noticed about his friend where in the clothing department, and in the casual comments Spot would make about other boys in the Caff. Henry’s like most men of that era: he couldn’t tell you five minutes after seeing someone what they had been wearing. But he did notice that Spot’s tweedy sweaters had given way to colours and flamboyance. Brightly coloured braces and shirts, baggy 1930s-style pants, highly polished shoes and boots, monocle - oh, yes, he hunted high and low for a monocle - Brylcreemed hair, jaunty cigarette holder, pencil-thin moustache, Spot was a statement.
Exactly what it was that Spot was stating Henry didn’t know. He became aware of the fact that he was the only person in Spot’s circle of new friends that didn’t call him Adam, or even Adamus, with the second syllable stretched lazily.
Let’s face it: naivety and gaucheness aside, Henry was totally ignorant of the sexual revolution. It never occurred to him to question his own sexuality: his awareness of homosexuality was confined to a couple of back-of-the-bike shed jokes that he hadn’t really understood.
Months after the Hazel episode, Henry and Spot were walking along Oriental Parade, discussing this, that, the future, the new Holden, New Zealand‘s most recent drubbing at cricket, or just walking in silence, enjoying the soft, warm, Wellington evening, when a large man in a heavy woollen pea-jacket and grimy corduroy pants bellowed “pansy!” as he cycled past.
Spot looked up, flashed his friend a tired grin, and said “Well, it’s not as if we need reminding, is it?”
A question that’s plagued Henry ever since, because he made a half-strangled reply, and changed the subject. That night Spot drew a warm bath, sat in it, drank the better half of a bottle of gin, and neatly slit his wrists.
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