Public Address - Southerly (Home)

South by North | Jun 29, 2008 21:41

Long hours of darkness during winter are one of the few disadvantages of Southland. We set out from the crib at quarter-to-eight in the morning -- the sky was as black as the inside of a coffin.

Overnight, a storm had transformed Foveaux Strait into a jumble of spray and foam. Inky waves were washing onto the road outside our local dairy. The wind picked up a sheet of water, and hurled it across our windscreen. I felt as though we'd been submersed in a giant cup of espresso.

Jennifer phoned the airline to ask if they were still flying. Unbelievably, they were.

On the open road after Riverton the gusts grew even stronger. It felt dangerous to drive at more than two-thirds of the speed limit. The car twitched sideways whenever we came to a gap in the hedges. Jennifer called the airline to inform them that we might be a little late. She asked them -- hopefully -- if the flight had been cancelled. It hadn't.

At the airport it took considerable effort to open the car doors against the wind. I recalled my mother's words from our telephone conversation the previous evening: "Promise me that you won't fly if it's still stormy." She had embarked on a long story about the day that Buddy Holly died, and then enlightened me on details from the autopsy of Kathleen Kennedy. As an encore, she performed a telephonic re-enactment of the final scene from 'The Glenn Miller Story'.

"We fly in this sort of weather all the time," the pilot told us. The plane shuddered and rocked as we waited for clearance to roll onto the runway.

It was unquestionably the most alarming flight of my life. Raindrops hurtled into the windshield like bullets. The plane swerved and see-sawed; the world vanished as we careened through dense cloud. We were tossed violently around in our seats. Sometimes the plane yawed almost at right-angles to our direction of travel. Below us, Foveaux Strait looked like an uninviting place to crash-land.

Stewart Island wobbled over the horizon; plump little hills dressed in green baize. We swayed above Rimu trees and matchbox houses. I caught sight of the airstrip -- heaving like the deck of a ship. "Kathleen Kennedy's eyeballs actually exploded when her plane hit the ground," my mother had told me.

The landing was straight from a textbook -- not even the slightest bump. We rolled gently to a halt on the runway. If we'd been anyone but New Zealanders, we'd have all rushed forward to kiss the pilot. As it was, one of the passengers merely murmured: "Nice work". The rest of us grunted our agreement.

At our rented cottage, a kaka cawed loudly in the front garden. From the top of Observation Rock we could look across Paterson Inlet to Ulva Island. It was ludicrously pretty. The island might have been designed by a jeweller; the inlet by a mirror-maker. I felt as if we'd been kidnapped by photo-retouchers, and imprisoned in one of their brochures.

In the information centre at Oban, we asked about suitable activities for parents lumbered with a bad baby. "One thing I can absolutely recommend is the local bus," said the clerk. "You'll go all over Oban, and the driver will tell you everything about the history of the island. It's a really wonderful experience -- you'll love it."

My Scottish ancestry jumped for joy at the possibility of a cheap outing on a local bus. Three minutes later, and $70 poorer, we boarded the coach -- with my Scottish ancestry in medical shock. The clerk from the information centre climbed aboard, and sat in the driver's seat.

We were the sole passengers, but the clerk insisted on the full-service treatment. Despite sitting less than a metre in front of us, she delivered her monologue via the coach's loud-speaker system. "As many of you will be aware," she began, "We are in New Zealand's third-largest island..."

Early the next morning we briefly departed from our nation's third-largest bit of map; a water-taxi carried us to Ulva. It was pleasant to have an island to oneself.

The only buildings on Ulva are a couple of elderly cribs. The forest floor is surprisingly navigable -- with a thin undergrowth of knee-high ferns. Exotic-looking birds drifted through the canopy: native parakeets and Stewart Island robins. Jennifer, whose diet has been restricted since the birth of Bob-the-baby, wondered if they would taste as delicious as they looked. We ate apples in a grove of totara trees.

Our departure from Stewart Island was like the Prozac version of our arrival. The plane seemed to be hardly moving. We floated above Foveaux Strait as if suspended from balloons. Riverton could be seen in the hazy distance -- a homely lagoon and a cluster of fishing-boats.

Five days later we awoke to a sorrowful dawn. I loaded our possessions into the car, locked the crib for the last time, and slipped the keys under the door. "Goodbye crib," said Jennifer. "Goodbye lovely Riverton." And then later: "Goodbye Invercargill -- we liked you!"

The Catlins were our final leave-taking from Southland. Imagine a child's drawing of a landscape: hills humped in cosy catenaries; meadows dotted with sheep; green copses of lollipop trees; the occasional smoke-puffing farmhouse.

I pressed my foot onto the accelerator, and we began our journey northwards.

On Lambton Quay the verandahs were crowded with pedestrians avoiding the rain. Bob-the-baby squirmed nervously in my arms -- hiding his face in the collar of my jacket. We splashed our way across the intersection at Stout Street. The railway station was packed with commuters.

In Riverton we'd have been arriving home from our afternoon walk. The leading lights would be showing across the river mouth; fishing boats would be returning to the lagoon. I'd be stacking the night's firewood, and taking a last look across Foveaux Strait in the twilight.

It's a long way from here to there.

(25 responses)
Digg this Scoopit!

Portrait of the Author as a Young Scribbler | Jun 17, 2008 01:02

On Thursday night at 2.03 am, the Moon decided it was time to get McNulty. With a single stride it scissored the Tasman sea, and by 2.07 am it was outside McNulty's bedroom door in Grey Lynn.

"Come out, McNulty, so I can get you," hissed the Moon angrily through the keyhole, as it rattled the handle of the locked bedroom door.

McNulty lay trembling in his bed. Moonlight streamed under the door, and filled the room with a harsh silver glare. The hallway floor creaked loudly as the Moon attempted to crouch low enough to look through the keyhole.

At 4.11 am, the Moon became tired of waiting. "McNulty's out," it said to itself. And it glided back to hover over the mid-Pacific, where it should have been all night.

The next morning McNulty visited a psychiatrist.

The psychiatrist worked in a slender tower that stretched above Queen Street. He wore a stethoscope that matched the lamp on his desk. His teeth were the colour of snow.

"I know what you're thinking," he said to McNulty. "You're thinking that I've painted my teeth with typing correction fluid."

McNulty lowered his eyes.

"Let me tell you something," the psychiatrist paused, "that might help you with your paranoid lunar hallucinations."

"We're on the 30th floor here, McNulty. People say that a kitten thrown from the 30th floor will land on its feet -- and walk away completely unharmed. However, I can tell you that this is not true. I've thrown dozens of kittens out of this window, and they have all died."

"It's an illness actually. So you see we have that in common, McNulty. You have a delusion about the moon, and I have a medical condition that involves throwing kittens from windows. In fact, I can tell you candidly that I'm a much sicker man than you. My illness is not easy to live with. Nor is it cheap. "

"I obtain the kittens from animal shelters. But they become suspicious if too many are collected at once. So I've developed a network of shelters that I visit under assumed names. I have to drive enormous distances to reach them all. But that is the price I pay for having a condition like mine."

He gazed at McNulty across the shining expanse of his desk. "You see what I'm getting at, don't you? If a man as sick as me can put in a full day's work, then there's no reason someone as comparatively healthy as you should be shying away from employment. Why should the state spend money to put you in a mental hospital when it won't do the same for me?"

McNulty looked past the psychiatrist to see the moon's huge eye pressed up against the window. "I'm coming to get you, McNulty," the Moon growled, sending a deep subsonic rumble through the building.

"Run along off to work now, McNulty," said the psychiatrist. "It's best if you continue your life as normal."

McNulty was employed in a dim and primeval factory. He operated a device that inserted objects into boxes. Mr Blackburn was his manager. "If you're late one more time, McNulty, you'll be down the road before you can say 'no redundancy payout'." Mr Blackburn was calm and efficient; he had no time for dead wood in his workplace. "This will be your only warning."

Green worked next to McNulty on a conveyor belt. "Did you hear what Mr. Blackburn said?" asked Green. "He said you'll be down the road if you're late again. That means fired, McNulty. So you'd better not be late again. Or else you'll be fired. With no redundancy payout. That's what Mr Blackburn said."

As penance for his late start, McNulty worked into the evening. While he laboured, Mr. Blackburn lectured him on becoming a better employee. Mr Blackburn was a passionate orator. Tiny flecks of his spittle rained upon McNulty's face, and some landed in his mouth. "My taxes already pay for enough people like you on the dole," concluded Mr Blackburn. "Not to mention living the life of luxury in prison."

The Moon waited in the parking lot outside the factory.

McNulty finished putting his last object into a box, and removed his overalls. The building was shadowy and silent. The only noise was the hiss of the polishing machines.

As he opened the factory door, McNulty could see Mr Blackburn's legs in the moonlight. They were lying about five metres apart. There was a smear of black on the concrete that might have been blood.

"I saw everything," said Cleaner Bill from the dark shadows. "First the Moon pinched off his arms, then his legs, and then it twisted off his head. Mr Blackburn was screaming right until the end. I thought he was singing at first, but then I decided it must be screaming. I don't think singing would be normal under those circumstances."

Cleaner Bill came into the half-light and gave McNulty a hesitant grin. "Of course, the Moon's been after me for years. But I'm safe because I never go outside."

He restarted his polishing machine. "It drives the Moon mad with frustration that it can't get me," he told McNulty. "Recently it's been trying all sorts of tricks. It's started putting little television cameras inside my fruit -- even in the tomatoes, which most people would regard as a vegetable."

When Cleaner Bill had finished polishing the floor, he took McNulty to see the tunnel. "I've been working on it for years," he said. "I'm nearly all the way through."

The tunnel was illuminated by thousands of cigarette lighters. McNulty felt as if they were travelling into a gigantic birthday cake. An earthworm the size of a sofa inspected them as they clambered along. McNulty's face was brushed by dripping roots. At the far end of the tunnel a thin crack shone with daylight.

Cleaner Bill inserted a shovel into the crack. He lifted a slice of dirt. Now they had a glimpse of seashore. He took another slice. Now they could see palm trees. Another slice. Now the tunnel was illuminated with glaring tropical sunlight.

They wandered onto the sand. A salty breeze tugged at McNulty's clothing. A bear was sitting in one of the coconut groves.

Its jaws were the size of a deck-chair. McNulty caught the flash of a horrified face as the bear crunched and tore. He saw polka-dots of blood. The bear gulped down the last mouthfuls of Cleaner Bill, and galloped away to the tropical forest.

McNulty wondered if bears could swim. He waded into the water. After a while the bear padded back onto the beach.

"This is the other side of the world," said the bear in Cleaner Bill's voice. "The Moon never comes here."

McNulty sloshed back to shore, and sat down beside the bear. The sun fell below the horizon. There was no moon.

'The Moon and McNulty' was written in 1988, and unearthed (while sorting through old papers) in February 2008.

Digg this Scoopit!

Swans | Jun 01, 2008 01:31

My Grandfather was one of those atheists who don't so much disbelieve in God, as personally dislike him.

On the final day, when he lay dying in hospital, he told me how glad he was not to be tempted by any last-minute religious feelings.

"I wouldn't give God the satisfaction," he said.

By this time, the slightest movement gave him pain. I could hear blood foaming in his lungs.

He died later that same hour. His face showed neither pain, nor absence of pain, but only surprise.

At the very end, he whispered: "The room is full of swans."

(4 responses)
Digg this Scoopit!