Peninsula, page 20
The way things are – small-town foibles, petty irritants, stuff to take in your stride. All of this is familiar to Rachel, if not the nuances. Jack is well practised at deploying a bit of tolerance and a lot of conflict avoidance to secure an easier, less stressful life. No point taking stuff personally, no matter how personally it’s intended. How it is. Rachel wanders off to find Jack.
He’s talking to Oscar.
‘Do you play squash?’ Oscar asks her.
‘Just thought I’d tag along.’ Rachel supposes she looks as restless as she feels.
Jack digs around in the club locker for a racquet and a new ball. Rachel watches the game from above. The grey smears on the sides of the court where balls have crashed into concrete remind Rachel of insect splatter on her car windshield. It’s particularly bad at night, the impact pulverising their small bodies. Squash seems equally violent. She shuts her eyes for a moment. The muffled thud of ball on concrete, the high-pitched squeak of trainers scuffing the tired red service line. The players’ grunts as they engage in their jerky dance. Courtside, her brother owns the cramped space, patrolling it with the understated athleticism he’s had since childhood, hitting the ball with delicate precision and control. Oscar flounders round the court as if his trainers are the wrong size, using his racquet like a fly swat, connecting with the ball only intermittently. After another game they make themselves cups of tea.
‘How’s quarry life?’ Jack asks.
‘I’m on the morning shift.’
‘Ha, so we’re both getting up at the crack of dawn. I’ll remember that when you start beating me. Won’t be able to say Oscar gets more sleep.’
‘Don’t think I’ll ever be up to your standard, Jack. It’s good to get out and meet some people though, hard to do when you’re on nights.’
‘How’s Denise?’
‘Mum’s primo. Reckon she could cut back her hours but she likes looking after the new trainees straight out of school, and talking to people like Di, eh.’
Rachel imagines Di doing the rounds of the supermarket aisles. It would be an abbreviated version of her visits to the Hereford shops when Rachel was young. Dropping into the fabric shop, the butcher’s for luncheon sausage, gossiping with acquaintances in the Post Office queue. ‘It’ll only take a minute,’ she’d tell Rachel, who would accompany her. There was the popping into the chemist, the one Di approved of, not the one beside the fruit shop. And frequent stops on the street. The itinerary seemed to flow and expand like a king tide. Di knew everyone. For Rachel the anticipation and excitement of a trip off the farm ebbed away as she stood there awkwardly, gazing into space or pretending to study her shoes as she waited for Di to finish her updates and enquiries. The worst part, what really had her grinding her teeth, was when Di’s friends remarked on how much she resembled her mother. It was the comparison that killed her interest in the trips. She must have been about ten, and liked to think of herself as different.
‘Kind of like a little community over there,’ Jack says. ‘I heard Denise found Di some bags of split peas out the back they’ve stopped stocking out front. She uses them in her vege soup.’
‘Yeah, she told me. Mum doesn’t like kids quitting school for the supermarket. Reckons it’s a lure of easy money, what she calls the bright lights blinding them so they don’t think long term. They’ll get bored stacking shelves, better off sticking with school.’
‘Maybe the kids want to decide for themselves when to move on,’ Rachel says.
‘Yeah, good point,’ Oscar says.
Jack beckons some squash people over so he can introduce them to Oscar. Rachel can’t shake the image of insects hitting a windscreen. She lets the banter drift over her. The pattern is similar to how things go with her running mates. Hardly anyone talks about squash apart from a perfunctory opening line about a game. Sports administrators around the region must fulfil the role that vicars used to fill back in the day, Rachel thinks, when people were more inclined to go to church. There may not have ever been such a time, of course. There certainly weren’t many functioning churches in the district, most had been converted into housing. For as long as she can remember, the locals have worshipped at the clubrooms and sports fields.
‘Do you reckon you’ll stay once you’ve finished your training?’ she asks Oscar.
‘Probably not, the quarries round here have managers, plus I want to have a family, stop working shifts, settle in somewhere, save for a house. I mean, it’s comfy here but I need some fresh challenges. What about you, would you come back up here to live?’
‘No. I like it where I am.’ She thinks about the electric bus service some entrepreneurial types have started for commuters. She’s tried it, can see its possibilities, reducing road congestion and carbon emissions. She considers Jim and Di, how they’re set to stay. Most of their peers have sold up and shifted to small, low-maintenance lives or assisted living places outside the district. ‘Hope you don’t mind me asking, where’s your father?’
‘Stroke when I was seven. Don’t really remember him, though after what happened to Des . . .’ Oscar sets down his cup of tea. ‘But you know, Dad worked in the mines, so I’m sort of following in his footsteps.’
The overhead light pools around his shaven head like a halo. It occurs to Rachel that as it gets dark mosquitoes and cicadas will come in through the open windows. She thinks about Jack carrying on the farm. ‘We need more people like you Oscar. I feel like a middle-aged grump when I’m up here. Too busy holding on to the past, resenting every little change. Your generation might get some things done.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Figure out some better ways of doing stuff.’
Oscar squints at her. She wonders if he still doesn’t understand what she’s trying to say. ‘You know the worst day at my job?’
Jack, who wandered off earlier, returns to stand beside Oscar. He has his squash bag over his shoulder, car key in his hand.
‘Worst day?’
Oscar and Jack exchange a look. Jack says, ‘Des? Bad day that.’
‘What?’ Rachel wants to go and shut the windows.
‘You know how when it’s real early before sunrise and the valley is full of fog?’
Rachel has driven at dawn. Sometimes you can’t see anything but the roads are empty. She enjoys how fog hangs low, waiting for the moment the sun crests the ridgeline. That moment when its heat evaporates the water vapour, rendering it translucent, then transparent.
‘Yeah, hard to see, even with headlights.’
‘One of my mates, mentor really, Des Richmond, do you know the Richmonds?’
The name is familiar. She looks at Jack. ‘Was his wife a Sunday school teacher? From the other end of the valley?’
‘Bingo. Des was Eileen’s husband,’ Jack says.
Oscar continues. ‘Des was taking the first load of metal for the day over the hill. On the flat near the new quarry, he would have been going real slow cos of the fog.’
She looks from Oscar to Jack.
‘Des hit a beef animal,’ Oscar says.
Jack says, ‘Poor old Des.’
‘Yeah. Had a heart attack in the cab.’ Oscar is staring at his cup.
‘Oscar was first on the scene, eh Oscar, in the next truck,’ Jack says.
‘Yeah. The animal was dead and nothing I could do for Des either. He was only sixty-seven. Still on the job part-time, company had asked him to mentor the management trainees. He agreed cos he lives locally and you know, he loved the metal. Worked it for thirty-three years, started when he was twenty-three. Wasn’t so keen on the driving anymore, hardly ever drove. That morning he was filling in for one of the young guys who didn’t show up for work. Thing is, I offered to take the first run. It should’ve been me on the road not seeing the animal, or maybe I would’ve seen it. Des’s eyesight probably not the best in poor light.’
‘Horrible.’ Rachel understands now why he doesn’t want Di walking on the road.
‘It’s been eighteen months. I still look in on Eileen. Des was my work dad.’
All Rachel can recall about Eileen is ginger hair and the owlish way she looked down her glasses when someone failed to remember their Bible reading. She has no recollection of Des.
‘Never know when something random could happen,’ Jack says. ‘Pillar of the community old Des, huge funeral, loads of speeches from the big wigs, citation from the New Zealand Institute of Quarrying.’
‘Yeah, he had a good send-off. Gotta look out for each other, eh.’
Rachel drives them home. The route they bussed twice a day for school and have driven thousands of times since. There’s more safety infrastructure these days, cats’ eyes that glow in the dark, lines indicating where corners are coming up, warning signs the colour of ladybirds. She passes the tightest bend where Willy’s mate went over and drowned in the creek. The long undulating straight where everyone used to speed now has a 30-kilometre limit on account of the undulations obscuring oncoming vehicles. Past the panel beater’s place with its dead vehicles like a herd of metallic cows. As she crosses the junction that leads to the quarry where Des would have hit a beef animal her hands tighten on the wheel. A few minutes later, almost at Jack’s turn-off, they pass their grandparents’ old mailbox where they’d celebrated the arrival of the tarseal. At Jack’s driveway, they cross the little bridge by his fruit trees, possum traps below, quarter orange moon above.
Rachel parks outside Jack’s garage and opens the car door. Without the car engine the warm air is thick with the high-pitched buzz of cicadas. Although she can’t see them she knows they haven’t got long to live. Tui is right, her parents are doing okay in the valley. She doesn’t think she’ll be telling Di to stay off the road, not yet. Tomorrow she’ll head south, a strand in a web of connections that spin out from this place.
Survivor
Flash of blue and orange. Glimpse of a dagger beak. The way it perches on a fencepost, like the one that visits our garden. Heaps of times I’ve made sketches. None do it justice. Sweet colour combinations. Somehow the turquoise on the wings melts into azure, teal and a Cheezle-coloured underside. When it flies, the kōtare is a comet hurtling sky to sunset.
Here, listening to the soft plop of rain on nylon, our tent and our spirits are sagging. Water puddles all the wrinkly bits where we haven’t pulled the nylon tight. Poles are sick of standing to attention.
We’re thinking it’s okay to sleep on the back lawn when it’s dry. Soft grass, toilet and shower close by. Camp has one lousy toilet block, the only shower the rain currently rinsing the tent. There is a swampy smell, the tent probably leaks.
Yesterday when Mum and Dad were doing that thing, talking about me but not to me, Dad said the forecast was rubbish and I’d better take his raincoat. Mum went on about how weird the weather was, tropical cyclone one minute, drought the next. I wanted to say duh, its global warming. For them to get it, to realise it’s not something you just read online. What do I know? I can’t even pitch a tent.
‘Year 10 camp. Living the dream!’ Amy wriggles in her sleeping bag. The tent wriggles back.
More pork, more pork.
‘Ruru eh?’ Trish sounds scared.
‘Just a ruru.’ The word ‘morepork’ reminds me of the sausages we had for tea. Better than the ready-made coleslaw sliding out of its bag like scraps from the pig bucket. Scraps soaked in PVA. I wouldn’t mind a bit of pork, the greasy chewy crackling.
‘Saves us making up ghost stories,’ Amy says.
I open my eyes. Amy slept in her sunglasses. I fish around for mine. The ones with yellow lenses. It isn’t properly light yet. What the fuck, nobody born this century thinks sunglasses are about glare protection. The rain has packed it in so we hit the beach to see if there’s a sunrise. Sky’s grey as a school uniform. Should send Mum a picture.
‘What are those?’ Amy points to the black and white birds with bright orange beaks and long legs strutting the sand runway.
‘Oystercatchers.’ Their swagger reminds me of her.
‘You know your birds, Ellen.’
I’m surprised I know. I guess you absorb stuff without noticing. Like without looking we know there are two teachers behind us sitting on a piece of driftwood having a quiet vape.
Trish asks them if they can help us with our tent.
The teachers follow us. Our tent could pass for a half-set lime jelly. For a few minutes we watch them wrestling with it.
‘Our tent doesn’t wanna be tamed,’ Amy says.
We decide to get breakfast. As she eats her toast Amy touches her hair. ‘Oh my god!’ She inclines her head in my direction and I put down my peanut butter toast to touch her hair. It looks okay, but she’s right, it feels like bailing twine. I touch my own hair. Same coarse texture. Horrible, like my fingernails I can’t stop biting.
‘Not much we can do. Doubt I could get my brush through mine.’ Did I even bring a brush? Probably, heaps of damp gear going mouldy in the tent. I return to my toast. ‘Have you tried peanut butter and Marmite? Could be yummy.’
‘I’m gonna find my brush.’ Amy looks at the peanut butter. ‘Would not normally touch that disgusting stuff, it looks like, you know . . . but I’m starving. We’re tramping today aren’t we?’
I’m hungry too. ‘I’ll get us some Milo.’
‘Put heaps of teaspoons in.’
‘On it.’ I make two cups of brown paste. It smells amazing. We spoon it into our mouths. I chew my longest nail, the one I’ve been saving, and daydream about the world of difference colour-wise between peanut butter and Milo. I don’t want to think about my hair, how it might rain again, or the tramp.
‘Ellen, this is genius. Oh my god, this is like Survivor!’ We laugh. In daylight and without the rain, we’re both thinking this whole camping thing is so bad, it’s good.
I offer Trish a teaspoonful of the Milo paste. She manages to get some before the teachers notice the rate at which it’s disappearing, seal the lid and hide it under the table.
Dad said the camp was an opportunity. He’s always going on about embracing the natural world. When I think about the kōtare I feel better. It will either have insects for breakfast or pop down to the beach for baby crabs. Up front the Magpie pecks away as if we’re five-year-olds. My sunglasses make everything darker when it’s overcast so all I can see is black hair, raisin eyes, sandy face.
The Magpie’s a prefect. She’s only two years older than us but if school was a forest ecosystem she’d be canopy, us saplings. Hopefully I’d be a rātā sapling since they last for like eight hundred years. Sometimes I like imagining people’s futures, and what they’ll turn out like. I wonder what will happen to the Magpie. Next year she’s leaving to do teacher training, probably make deputy principal at one of those big schools up Bay of Islands way. I reckon her heart isn’t in it though. She lasts a year, then chucks it in to organise community solar and tidal energy schemes. I can see her encouraging people to save electricity too by putting in energy-efficient lights and insulation in their houses, schools, and squash clubrooms.
Meanwhile, the Magpie practises bossing us. Each tent must pair with another tent. After my Milo hack, and with us rocking our sunglasses, our tent is sought after. We have a whispered conference. I know we’ll be pairing with Dion’s tent because Amy fancies Dion. He does have a well-pitched tent. I’m kind of hoping Dion and freckly Tim are better at tramping than they are at squash. The other guy, Mark, turned up from South Africa last term. Arriving late is his thing. He appears from the direction of the carpark just as the Magpie shuts her beak.
We have to make our lunches. After a day of camp, we’ve got this. I queue for fruit, Amy does sandwiches, Trish fills our water bottles and writes us on the whiteboard. Trish shows us the bottles, they’re traffic cone orange. The same shade as her T-shirt, which hangs loose like it’s outgrown her.
‘What the fuck?’ Amy says.
‘Some kind of cordial. You know, like Survivor. Sugar will keep us going.’
Teachers remind prefects to check daypacks.
‘My aunt gave me a first-aid kit, reckon bring it?’ I ask Amy.
‘Has your aunt like, ever needed it on a tramp?’
‘She takes it on runs.’ I imagine Aunty Rachel with her red daypack. Inside it there’s a baby running pack, also red. When she and Dad were watching me pack they definitely said stuff about first aid. ‘She does heaps of tramping, carries a bigger one for that.’
‘Fit in your bag?’ Amy looks at it again. ‘Hey, I have an idea!’
When our group assembles for checking, Amy offers the kit to Dion. ‘Can you put this in your pack? It’s important.’
Dion hesitates.
‘If you want to tramp with us, we need this kit. Drugs and stuff.’
Dion shrugs, stuffs it into his pack.
The Magpie takes a quick look in our daypacks. When she sees my raincoat she yells at everyone else, ‘If you’ve got a raincoat put it in your bag just in case.’
Amy does one of her eye rolls. ‘Do you guys have coats? Look at the sky, probably going to rain.’
Tim raises his eyebrows and his freckles move too. ‘Why are you two wearing sunglasses then?’ We ignore him. Trish doesn’t have a coat. She looks like she might cry.
Dion leads his mates back to their tent. They all have coats. Detouring past the lunch-making area he returns with a couple of large plastic bags. ‘If it rains these can be ponchos.’
Amy looks at the plastic then at me. I nod. There is way too much plastic in the world but we might need it. Amy treats Dion to one of her best smiles.
‘Good thinking Dion. You guys carry them,’ she says.
I nudge Amy. Dion’s got his sunglasses on.
That’s how we end up a group of six. Amy, Dion and me, half blind in our sunglasses, Trish in her emergency T-shirt. Freckly Tim, and the late dude, Mark. We think we know where we’re headed, we’re following an obvious trail after all.
