Public Address - Southerly (Home)

The Joys of Unclehood | Aug 26, 2008 10:33

My grandfather, an anarchist from Glasgow, had mellowed considerably by the time I started school. He seldom accused policemen of being class traitors any more, and had even -- after 45 years behind the wheel -- taken the plunge and applied for a driver's licence.

It was only in the matter of diet that his anarchist tendencies went unrestrained. During our after-school visits, he would happily allow his grandchildren to fill up on golden syrup, raw jelly-crystals, and spoonfuls of condensed milk. Sometimes he would even pay us to consume chocolate against a stop-watch.

The fact that none of us have developed diabetes is a minor miracle. My sister and I had some degree of restraint, but my brother would put away sweets like a child possessed by sugar-demons. "The wee lad's got hollow legs," my grandfather would say proudly.

In the aftermath of a sucrose binge at my grandfather's house, none of us children were particularly interested in the carefully-balanced meal that awaited us at home. In fact, to the great concern of my parents, my brother would often go for weeks without anything nutritious passing his lips.

Nowadays my brother is an adult with children of his own -- and it's interesting to see how differently they've been raised. The last time Jennifer and I visited Auckland, my six-year-old niece, Cuba, asked if she could spend the day with us.

When we called to collect her, she was waiting at the front gate in a pale neatly-ironed frock. In one hand, she held a parcel containing an apple and banana. "Those are for snacks," explained my brother. "Just feed her some vegetables at lunchtime -- she's very fond of carrots and broccoli, and healthy food like that."

Cuba gazed up at me with large limpid eyes. "Vegetables are good for us," she said meekly.

Our first stop, at Cuba's request, was Cornwall Park. "Watch me roll down the hill," commanded Cuba. She scampered up the hillside until she was tiny dot against the sky. It took several minutes to tumble back down to where we waited. Upon arrival, her frock could no longer be described as neatly ironed. In fact, it had collected so many grass and mud-stains that it now resembled camouflage cloth.

"Won't your father mind that your dress is dirty?" I asked anxiously.

"Him?" said Cuba incredulously. "He likes doing laundry."

She went up the hillside for a repeat performance. After her descent, she wiped the mud from her hands and knees onto her skirt. "Now I want to climb some trees," she said. She selected a lethally-tall oak and disappeared into its branches.

A few minutes later we sighted her in the foliage at the top of the tree. "Are you being careful, Cuba?" called Jennifer.

"Do your parents let you climb such tall trees?" I asked.

"They don't care," Cuba shouted back.

We were relieved when she returned safely to earth. "You must have used lots of energy climbing that tree," said Jennifer. "I bet you're ready for some fruit from your bag now."

"No," replied Cuba. "I think I'll wait in case we have cake or ice-cream."

"But don't you prefer healthy fruit and vegetables?" I asked.

"Vegetables, hah!" said Cuba scornfully. She launched herself into a series of deft handstands.

The activities in Cornwall Park set the scene for the day. Intellectual speaking, Cuba was one step ahead of us. She was so adept at anticipating our sensible grown-up suggestions -- and so forceful in dismissing them -- that it felt embarrassing to insist.

By afternoon, we had ridden the horses on Jennifer's brother's farm, eaten cake (once), ice-creams (twice), and played at being pirates (numerous times). Actually, mostly I played at being the victim of piracy.

Cuba: You stand over there, and then I'll stab you, and now you've got to fall over dead.

Me: [cleverly extemporizing] Oh, the pain!

Cuba: Don't talk, you're dead!

Me: [silence].

Cuba: Okay, now you're feeling better -- but then Jennifer comes and chops off your head.

On our drive back home, I sensed that Cuba had a hidden agenda. "Oh, we're driving past a McDonalds," she said innocently. A little further on, she added: "Oh look, there's another McDonald's."

After a few minutes, she announced her wishes more forcefully: "I'm thirsty and I need a drink." She paused in brief contemplation. "The sort they sell at McDonald's."

Our last vestiges of self-worth as adults prevented us from wilting before these hints. We stopped at a take-away food shop that wasn't McDonald's. Cuba requested a cup of lemonade in a size called 'super-mega-jumbo', which looked to be about two litres.

"No, that's too much for you, I think," said Jennifer.

I was briefly visited by the ghost of my Grandfather. "If I buy it," I said, "I'll bet you five dollars you can't drink it all."

Five minutes later, and five dollars poorer, I carried Cuba from the takeaways. Approximately ten per cent of her body mass was now lemonade. "I'm sloshing," said Cuba weakly.

I put her on the footpath in the recovery position. Jennifer and I listened to her stomach. A sound -- as of a million barrels of petroleum swilling around an oil tanker -- met our ears. "Do you think someone could kill themselves from drinking too much lemonade?" I wondered.

"Maybe a child," said Jennifer uncertainly.

For the rest of the drive home, Cuba lay silently on the back seat of the car. At Titirangi township, we stopped to throw away Cuba's bag of healthy fruit -- which, by now, had taken on the quality of incriminating evidence. Cuba started showing signs of life as we approached my brother's house.

My brother was in the front garden. "What on earth's happened to your frock?" he asked Cuba.

We didn't linger. As we walked back to the car, voices from inside my brother's house drifted to our ears.

My brother: Your dinner's on the table, Cuba.

Cuba: Um, I'm not really feeling very hungry...

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Primary School for Beginners | Aug 17, 2008 22:06

In early summer, just before the cicadas had started singing, our kindergarten teacher formed us into a crocodile, and we marched over the hill to Mount Atkinson Primary School*. I hadn't previously heard of crocodile formation, and I remember being disappointed that it didn't involve actual man-eating reptiles.

There was no disappointment about the school visit itself. The Primer 1 teacher, Mrs Phelp, was so gentle and friendly that she seemed to project a golden aura of loveliness -- rather like Glinda the Good in the Wizard of Oz. She spent a few moments with each child (I was even allowed to sit on her knee), and then she played us the LP version of The Tale of Peter Rabbit. We crocodiled back to kindergarten while she waved fondly from the classroom door. I didn't want to leave.

I paid another visit to school after Christmas -- this time alone with my father. The headmaster asked if I ever wet my pants. What a disgusting question; didn't he know that I was nearly five years old? I contemplated the beauty of the coming year: the prestige of being a school-goer, the tender affections of Mrs Phelp, and endless sunny mornings of Beatrix Potter stories.

My fifth birthday fell on a Thursday. Heavy rain in the morning didn't dampen my enthusiasm -- although I did experience a twinge of panic when my mother left me in the classroom. Mrs Phelp seemed strangely distant. She led me to a large bucket and handed me a lump of clay. My classmates were busy at work-tables making snakes.

I sat down and fiddled with my clay. At another table, two boys became involved in a scuffle. Mrs Phelp strode forth and dragged them to the front of the schoolroom. I noticed that her face had become flushed and crimson. "This," she announced to the class, "is what happens to children who fight." She grasped the boys firmly by the hair, and cracked their foreheads together. They reeled backwards, wailing and clasping their brows.

It was a horrifying moment. The sound of the boys' heads knocking together was particularly nasty. I'd somehow expected a noise like ripe coconuts -- the sickening wet crunch, and the screams of the punished were infinitely more disturbing.

Mrs Phelp's temper was on a hair-trigger for the rest of the morning. There were no further physical corrections, but several times she shouted and ranted at children (over trivial matters) until they were left sobbing. By lunchtime, her resemblance to Glinda the Good had entirely evaporated. In fact, if Mrs Phelp had flown away on a broom-stick, leaving the words 'Surrender David' as a vapour trail in the sky, I wouldn't have been at all surprised. And I would have surrendered, too.

During lunch break, the six-year-old girl who lived on our street cruelly rejected my overtures of friendship, on the basis that: a) I was only five years old; and b) I was a boy. I was left to wander, spurned and friendless, around the playground. I had never before felt so alone and miserable. An older boy stopped me, and informed me of his intention to report me to the police. I protested my innocence. The boy assured me that I was guilty of "throwing a pie at a policeman" -- and that he'd seen it with his own eyes.

I now realize that this was a feeble joke. At the time, however, I ran terrified to the back of the school where -- I imagined -- the police were less likely to search for me. There was an old air-raid shelter built into the hillside near the school incinerator. The entrance to the shelter had been blocked off, but through the bars I could see a long tunnel snaking underneath Mount Atkinson.

Two older boys were loitering near the shelter. I asked them what it was. One of them replied in a very grown-up manner -- I suppose he was eight or nine years old -- that it was where the headmaster put naughty children for punishment. And by the look of me, he said coolly, I could expect to spend a bit of time there.

It was all too much. I sat on the stairs at the back of the school and began to weep uncontrollably. Eventually my sobs diminished, and my attention was drawn to a trickle of liquid, dribbling down the steps. I wondered if a pipe were leaking in the cloakrooms. Upon further investigation, I discovered -- to my horror -- that the liquid was coming from my trousers. It was the sort of accident that hadn't happened to me in a very long time.

After lunch I sat damply in the schoolroom as the junior mistress took us for a lesson. Mrs Phelp was elsewhere -- perhaps summoning an army of winged monkeys. The class was asked to stand for a game of 'Simon says'. One of the new boys in the class, Troy, remained seated. He suffered from cerebral palsy and couldn't walk without crutches.

The junior mistress ordered Troy to stand. He was unable to explain his predicament. Several members of the class tried to give an explanation on Troy's behalf -- but made themselves incoherent by speaking at the same time. Enraged at the apparent act of rebellion, the junior mistress attempted to drag Troy to his feet; and when he collapsed on the floor, she pulled down his pants and belaboured his bare bottom.

Troy was removed from school shortly after this incident, and a year or so later it was rumoured that he had died. I've often wondered whether the rumour was true.

As a new entrant, I was allowed to go home at two o'clock. I remember the enormous sense of relief when my mother collected me. And the inconceivable thought that I would have to go back.

In time, however, I adjusted to school. I never liked the place -- but there were some mitigating features. The school grounds were surrounded by native bush. We were strictly forbidden to go beyond the playing fields, but I spent many lunchtimes illicitly climbing trees and exploring a leaf-stained creek. There was a hollow puriri tree where I used to read. Even now, if I were asked to describe a perfect afternoon, I couldn't do better than a book under a puriri tree with speckles of sunlight across the pages.

In Standard 4, presumably due to an administrative error, I was briefly appointed 'bell monitor'. I was a total failure, and once achieved the spectacular feat of keeping the entire school twenty minutes late at lunchtime while I watched an eel in the creek. Strangely, I was never punished for this enormous crime, which makes me wonder if the teachers weren't secretly grateful.

My first day as a school-goer contained all the ingredients that would characterize my subsequent school experiences: fear, bewilderment, violence, and injustice. I didn't know it then, but by Standard 4, the happiest of my school-days were behind me. From this point onward, things would begin to seriously deteriorate.

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Wedding Bells | Aug 07, 2008 22:32

Here's a list of five things that I loathe: religious ceremonies, wearing a suit, listening to stupid speeches, too many people, and dancing. Put these all together -- and you've got the average wedding.

I remember the exact moment when I realized the true awfulness of weddings. I was a teenager, and a family friend was getting married in church. A flautist had been hired to play 'Strangers in the Night' as the vows were exchanged.

My first thought was: "Surely this is an ill-advised choice of music?" Then came a second thought, bursting through my consciousness as per the enlightenment of Saint Paul on the road to Damascus: "Even if the music weren't 'Strangers in the Night'*, this whole wedding thing would still suck".

At the time, I assumed that -- deep down -- everyone must feel this way. Weddings, I guessed, must be one of those things you just have to endure in life: like having a tooth extracted, or seeing Paul Henry on television.

It wasn't until my late teens that I began to realize that some people genuinely enjoy them. This was thrown into sharp relief when I visited a friend's house one day, and spoke to his 28-year-old sister. She'd seemed perfectly normal on the previous occasions that I'd met her; but now she talked as if her brain had become decoupled from her mouth.

"I must tell you about this beautiful wedding dress I've seen," she gabbled. "It's scarlet! Can you believe it? I'd love to wear it, but I know Mum would have kittens."

I deduced that my friend's sister was about to be married.

She continued: "Mum and I have been looking at venues. We're leaning towards having a marquee at the Corban's estate in Henderson. Mum says that small weddings are better -- so we're keeping the guest list under 200 -- but we've got the seating arrangements all figured out. I'm thinking about asking Kevin if he'd let me use his Charger as the wedding car. And when I walk down the aisle, I'm going to have a choir singing: 'Up Where We Belong' or 'Islands in the Stream', I haven't decided which one yet."

It sounded like a nightmare to me -- but to be polite, I asked when the wedding was timetabled to occur.

It was here that her brother interjected. "Ha!" he said. "Never, if you ask me." He went on to explain with typical brotherly candour: "She and mum are planning her wedding, and she doesn't even have a boyfriend."

Frankly, the whole situation was a real eye-opener. Here was someone who not only didn't find weddings utterly appalling -- but, on the contrary, loved them so much that she was spending all her time making plans. And this despite the fact that she had a large groom-sized blank space to fill.

Happily, I can report that she managed to tie the knot about 18 months later -- although, according to her brother, the groom still remained something of a blank space.

Over the years most of my friends have got hitched. I was happy to see them married, but the weddings were excruciating. Each celebrant seemed more insincere than the last; each father-in-law more rambling and incoherent; and each posse of line-dancing bridesmaids another dagger in my heart.

I began to feel sad and twisted. What was wrong with me? Why didn't I enjoy weddings? I wondered if I was the only person in the world who felt this way.

But then I met Jennifer. During our first conversation, she described a bride of her acquaintance as resembling "a giant sobbing brain-dead meringue". And that was when I knew that Jennifer was the woman I would marry.

The drawback, however, is that a mutual detestation of weddings does not make the nuptial process very easy. In New Zealand, the law requires that an authorized officiant must perform the ceremony. Both Jennifer and I agreed that a marriage celebrant was an appalling idea (speaking for myself, I don't even like the word 'celebrant'). And even a Registry Office wedding requires vows and a ceremony.

The answer was Chicago. Jennifer had lived there for nearly five years, and one of her friends was Reverend Scott, a mail-order vicar who'd paid fourteen cents for his religious qualifications. Under American law, all we needed was his signature on a State of Illinois marriage licence.

We flew to Chicago.

At the Cook County Clerk's Office, the marriage licence queue was supervised by a policeman with a gun. Behind us, a young Hispanic woman was weeping from either joy or misery. Her husband-to-be whispered: "It's okay, baby, stop crying. It's gonna be okay."

In front of us, a women yelled into her cell-phone: "Look I don't care what you have to do to get her to the wedding. Now are you gonna act like a man? Or do I have to come over there and bitch-slap some sense into that 'ho' myself".

The queue moved at glacial speed. Just before the clerk's desk, a line was painted onto the floor. "Keep behind the line, please, sir," the cop told me. A few minutes later I inadvertently stepped over the line again.

"Sir, can you please keep behind the marked line." American policemen have developed a technique of saying 'sir', but conveying the word 'dickhead'.

I apologized, and then accidentally stepped across the line a third time. The cop came over, and put his face next to mine: "Sir, if I have to tell you one more time not to step over the line, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

When we reached the counter, the clerk was brusque and efficient: "Okay, I need to see a driver licence from both of you."

She squinted at our licences, transferred our names onto a form, and then handed it to Jennifer. "Congratulations. You gotta three day cooling-off period, and then you can hold your wedding. Next please."

Three days was perfect.

It transpired that Reverend Scott's niece was cooking dinner the night our cooling-off period expired. She was a trainee chef -- which seemed highly promising for a surprise wedding. On the downside, however, it turned out that it was only her first day at chef school. Dinner consisted of lettuce and imitation bacon made from soy-beans. I found it strangely delicious.

After dinner, we presented Reverend Scott with our marriage licence. He was clearly very surprised, but quickly regained his composure. "Well," he said. "I guess this calls for a round of my special extra-dry vodka Martinis."

He made the drinks, and then signed the licence. We were married.

It grew dark. We sat on the balcony and watched fireflies. The Martinis tasted like petrol. Reverend Scott talked about his religious convictions.

"I'd have to describe myself as agnostic rather than atheist," he mused, "because of the Burt Reynolds analogy." He paused to let this statement sink in.

"Now take our bedroom closet. What if you told me that Burt Reynolds was in that closet right now? Well, that'd be very unlikely -- the probability would be approaching zero. But I couldn't actually prove that it's completely impossible."

He took another sip of his Martini. "If you see what I'm getting at," he added.

It was -- and I'm entirely serious when I say this -- the loveliest wedding I could imagine.

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