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(Joint Judges: Drs.
1st Prize: Miss Gardens of the Ford and Thinking About Hedgehogs.
2nd Prize: Mr. November '43 and Sublunary Lovers.
3rd Prize: Mr. These Sea-Chained Islands.
(Sole Judge:
1st Prize: Mr. The Bayonet.
2nd Prize: Mr. But the sailor, etc. . . .
3rd Prize: Mr. The Dog.
Another year; another Experiment.
I am convinced that, just now, University is no more, perhaps, than a trade school one attends in the quest of a trade certificate.
Of the thousands of students on the rolls, only a handful had any 'literary' contributions to submit; a few dozen more attempted the short-cut to self-expression which is so often mis-named 'Poetry'.
The Last Lecture is a far better work. . . . I mean, better written. But, then, I found it slow, tedious, unconvincing and an odd mixture of righteous, flabby moral indignation and shallow characterisation. It is possible that there is a deep vision of life behind it, but my experience must have been too limited: I am unable to let it stimulate me.
If Mr. Bilbrough's submission had been more than the isolated brilliant flash it is, I would have thought of another placing for his Dog. The acknowledgement went to the violence of his style and the powerful quality of his description.
As somebody has said recently, "The quality of a magazine does not often depend on the qualities of the editor, but on those of its contributors".
(For my brothers: Ationo, Iosefa, Anisi, Fili, and Loi)
(i)
(ii)
(iii)
(iv)
He drifted from shadow to shadow, his bare feet scraping silently over the brittle sand. The breeze brushed his face; he smiled and kicked an empty beer can over the road. Palm trees stood on the edge of the beach like gigantic umbrellas; the sound of the waves grew louder; and the moon hovered over the horizon, grinning like an idiot. He shivered as he stopped and gazed at the leadlike sea; his nose quivered and he sucked in the woman-smell of rotting seaweed. He jumped on the beach, and laughing loudly, he ran up and down chasing the waves, and flying his sleeping sheet behind him.
After a while he stopped and stared toward the west, at the lights of the town. In the harbour floated the massive forms of three American warships, and he suddenly remembered that a war was raging somewhere over the horizon. He felt a retraction in his bowels; he turned, scurried under the shade of a sprawling talie, wrapped the sheet round his shoulders, and emptied his bowels onto the sand.
Slowly he dragged his feet up the faint path that led to the road. Patches of moonlight lay scattered on the ground like dry breadfruit leaves. A jeep stood on the side of the road. He fell forward and crawled toward it. (The area was a favourite place where the American soldiers brought their girls. He had often gone there with his friends to spy on them.)
He peered inside the jeep, saw a carton of beer, stooped down, pulled out a can, and then searched round for something to open it with. Then he saw it. The bayonet lay like a frozen snake on the front seat. His hand edged towards it, clutched the wooden handle, and drew it towards him.
He shuddered as he caressed the blade, his face flushed. He picked up two cans of beer, and clutching the bayonet, he ran across the road towards his home.
Skirting the main fale, he crept into the small fale where he slept with his mother. Once inside he arched
When he heard the purring of the jeep, he sprang up, rushed to the other side of the fale, lay down on his sleeping mat, and drew up the sheet to hide his face.
Footsteps stopped outside the fale. And in the pale moonlight he saw them kissing. He strangled his throat, and suppressed his crying.
"I wanna come in," he heard the American say to his mother.
"No. No, my son asleep. You go now," his mother said to her American. The soldier kissed her. The boy heard the sound of running footsteps, and the jeep driving away. He stuffed the edge of the sheet into his mouth.
His mother crept into the fale, and stooped down over him.
"Are you asleep, Siaki?" she asked. The boy didn't answer; he pressed his knees tight round his hands to stop them from lashing out at her face. She turned and walked to her bed, singing to herself. He heard her fall on to the bed. . . . Soon she was snoring.
The boy's body began to ache. The distorted faces of the other children blocked his vision; he tried not to hear their jeering voices: "Hey, maligi, who's your father? . . . Who's your father?" And he saw himself sneaking away into the bush. Their cries were always the same. And as always, he was unable to answer them, for he did not know who his father was. He only knew, as they knew, that his father was a white man like the American. He ached. He cursed. He cried. Then sleep rescued him. In his sleep, he saw the image of the gleaming bayonet; and a plan began to form. His bitterness focussed on one thing, one instrument of salvation: the bayonet.
Early the next morning he awoke, yawned, wiped the
The neighbours were awakening. Tui, the old man of the family, was bellowing a morning hymn, and soon other voices joined in. The boy glanced up at the breadfruit trees; he noticed that the fruit would soon be ready for picking.
The kitchen hummed with flies as he pulled up his lavalava and urinated into the grass. He picked up a stone and hurled it at a black pig rummaging in a pile of rubbish. He grinned when the pig squealed and scurried away.
He squatted down on the earthen floor of the hut, and balanced the bayonet. His eyes found a piece of copper wire in the ashes. He whooped, picked it up, brushed the ash off it, and began to coil it round the handle of the bayonet. He worked like an expert, his whole attention concentrated on his work.
When he finished, he again balanced the bayonet on his forefinger. The balance was perfect. He rose, unhitched the basket of left-overs from the rafters, picked out a piece of taro and ate it hurriedly, feeling the dry pulpy mass slide uncomfortably down his throat.
Smoke billowed from the nearby fales as he made his way into the bush.
He clambered up the high rock fence behind the village, and jumped into the silent world of green. . . . Dew melted off the trees, and trickled like tears into the ground as he ran through the thick foliage of cacao trees, the thick carpet of leaves crunching under his feet. The coconut trees cheered him on.
He kept a steady gait. The edge of his lavalava soon
He stood, poised like a knifethrower he had seen in a film, four paces away from the banana stump. The bayonet he held delicately by the blade with the handle pointing toward the ground. Placing his left foot forward, he arched his back, his right arm swinging back in one effortless motion to spring forward again and propel the bayonet swiftly towards the stump. The bayonet sank its tooth into the stump. The boy smiled. He walked over, retrieved the bayonet, and using his lavalava wiped the blade clean. Then he walked further back, stopped, poised, and threw it again. This time he missed. He got the bayonet, strolled back to his original position, turned quickly and hurled it again at the stump. It flew true.
He practised for a long while, increasing the distance as he gradually mastered the bayonet. He worked in silence, and he didn't notice the sun climb to noon. When the stump got too soft, he stopped and crumpled to the ground, where he lay and sucked in air in deep gulps. He scraped the sweat off his body with his hands, moved into the shade of low cacao trees festering scarlet fruit that hung down like wrinkled breasts, and fell asleep, oblivious of the mosquitoes which buzzed round him and bit into his flesh.
(II)
He came and sat down to face her from across the fire. The smoke between them made her image shimmer, unreal like a reflection on flowing water. He suddenly wanted to touch her, make sure she was really there. He blinked. Her image still remained hazy. She dipped her hands into a pot, pulled out some taro and placed them
"Wish you wouldn't go out all day," she remarked, wiping the sweat off her face with the end of her lavalava. "Fetai and Lima have been complaining about you not being here to do their work." Fetai and Lima were his grandparents.
"There're many others to do their work," he replied.
"But they like you specially," she said. She reached down and turned over a chicken that was roasting on the embers. The boy said nothing. He looked at the malae. The young men were beginning to play cricket.
"Who's the chicken for " he asked, knowing the answer already.
"For Jack," she replied. Jack was her American. The boy's face remained a blank; he didn't want to show his anger. "He's coming this afternon to have his meal, then we're going to the pool for a swim," she added. The boy continued to eat; he didn't taste the food. The wickets were up, and five young men stood round them waiting for the others to arrive and start the game.
"Jack is very like your father," she commented absent-mindedly. The boy started; he stopped eating; his head bowed over the plate.
"Who's . . . who's my father?" he asked her, trying to sound casual. She straightened. "Must know," he mumbled. The woman turned over the chicken.
"It's . . . it's," she paused; the chicken smelled good. "It's the white man who lives on the edge of town." The boy's hands clamped round the plate and broke it to pieces. She should not have told him.
"Oh, no," he muttered. His father a drunkard; an old man who lived in a decaying house; the man the children ridiculed every day; no, couldn't be!
"Sorry," his mother said. "Was his housegirl once." She looked at him. "Say something!" she demanded. "What's wrong? Tell me!" The boy sprang up and they knew, it would be worse; he wouldn't be able to face them. He started to howl, the vacuum filled with anger and shame.
"But why? Why?" he cried. His mother lowered her head. "I hate you! I hate you. . . . And I hate all white men!" He fell to the ground and cried into his hands. She let him; she knew what was wrong.
"You don't need to worry," she told him after a while. "Only your grandparents know who your father is." She waved a fly from her face. "Now stop howling. Jack'll be here soon." The boy ceased crying and stared coldly at her. When she looked at him, he smiled. She recoiled. His smile was cold, terrifying. He would have to change his plan slightly but it would still work. He brushed the dirt from his body, and grinned when he found that he could outstare his mother.
The roar of the jeep interrupted their silent combat. They saw it turn into their home. The woman sprang up and brushed her hair while her son watched children scrambling toward the jeep.
"Aren't you going to run out to him?" she asked him. He had always done so.
"Why do you like sleeping with white men?" he asked her. It was more of an accusation than a question. She slapped him across the face. He just smiled at her. She wheeled abruptly and ran out to meet her American. The boy squashed a mosquito on the back of his hand, and stared at the blood spot.
"Hi!" The American greeted the boy when he entered the fale, trailed by the boy's mother. The soldier was a delicate man with a sensitive face and gentle eyes. The boy didn't reply. "Here," said the American, tossing him a packet of chewing gum. The boy let it lie where it fell. His mother commanded him with her eyes to pick it up.
"Hey, marine!" the children called from outside the fale. "Gimme chew-gum, marine!" The American guffawed, and scattered packets of chewing gum among the children; the children fought for the gum.
The soldier squatted down on the mat next to the boy's mother.
"Hmm, looks nice," he commented, ogling the chicken. The woman giggled, but stopped when she noticed the frown on her son's face. "When're we eatin'?"
"Soon," she replied in English. She turned over the chicken. "Not ready yet."
"I'm hungry," sighed the American, rubbing his sagging stomach.
Siaki glanced at the soldier, wishing the American was completely bald and ugly. He picked up a sharp piece of stick and dug it in and out of the earthen floor.
Two women entered the fale and sat down cross-legged beside the boy. The boy edged away. The boy's mother glanced at the two women, and asked:
"What do you want?"
"Just came to meet your American," replied Maile, the fat woman with breadfruit-like breasts. She lisped, for she had two of her front teeth missing. Her companion giggled, and glanced shyly at the soldier, who grinned at her.
"What did she say?" the American asked the boy's mother. "Hope it wasn't rude."
"No," she replied quickly. "Dey cum to meet you."
"Oh, hi!" the American hailed the two women. The women giggled. "Here," he added, tossing them a packet of Camels. The fat one snatched at it, and mumbling thanks, she stuffed it into the eager hands of her companion.
"How are you, maligi?" the fat one asked the boy, ruffling his hair. The boy squirmed away. "Who's your father, maligi?" she joked.
"Don't say that to my son," snapped the boy's mother.
"Aw, sorry," grinned the fat woman. The boy edged away from the two women, his fists clenched, ready to hit out. The soldier smoked.
"Aren't you going to eat your gum?" the mother said to the boy.
"No," he snapped. He sprang to his feet and stamped
(III)
Another week came with a sun which withered the grass, and chased the dogs and pigs into the shade. The sea crumpled tiredly on to the beach, unable to reach the rubbish that decayed quickly in the heat; and the children screamed in the village pool, their fathers gone into the town and plantations to work. From the town came the muffled roar of traffic and bulldozers: the Americans were building roads. Life boomed in the town, especially in the brothels. The warships wallowed in the harbour, their guns protruding into the sky like the arms of preachers. Girls got pregnant, and they had to run the gauntlet of ridicule and scorn. Numerous brawls broke out between the natives and the soldiers. Swarms of children trailed the marines, calling: "Hey, Yank, you gimme cigarette? Hey, marine, you gimme bucks?" And they picked up the soldiers' discarded cigarette butts. The older boys played pimps, accosting soldiers on the streets and asking: "Hey, marine, you wanna push-push? You gimme money, I get you good push-push." Some of them befriended stray Americans, got them drunk, led them to secluded places, and robbed them of everything. The old people remained sullen, suspicious of the invaders. "Surely they have come to stay. Look what they are doing to the people," they said to one another. But they were forgotten in the dollar boom. Siaki never went to town. He continued to practise, and his hatred of white men buckled and focussed on one American soldier.
He walked up to the tree, and with the point of the bayonet drew the outline of a man on the trunk. Withdrawing ten paces, he paused, turned, and without effort hurled the bayonet. It quivered in the neck of the outline. He smiled as he strolled to the tree. As he was pulling the bayonet out of the tree trunk, he heard footsteps behind him. He whirled, the bayonet poised for flight.
"How are you, maligi?" grinned a dark muscular girl. She had a bundle of firewood strapped across her back.
"Don't ever call me that again," he threatened, advancing towards her with the bayonet flicking in his hand. She stepped back.
"Sorry," she stammered, dropping the firewood to the ground. Siaki wheeled from her and threw the bayonet. The girl froze as the bayonet whipped through the air and quivered in the centre of the head of the outline.
"You're good," she tried to applaud. Siaki didn't say anything; he ran, pulled out the bayonet, and returned to stand in front of her. She was ugly. He grinned and said:
"Can do better than that. Watch." He took another five paces, wheeled and in the same motion threw the bayonet to pierce the heart of the outline. The girl clapped. "No man can do that but me," he remarked. "I'm the only man who can do it." He had to emphasise his point, for he didn't quite believe that he was a man. "You don't believe me?" he asked. The girl giggled, and scratched her small buttocks; there was a haughty look in her eyes as she said:
"I don't believe you." She was deliberately edging him on. Siaki took another two paces, crouched as if to duck a blow, and threw. The bayonet thudded into the heart of the outline again. The girl laughed, dismissing him.
Siaki stamped to the tree, pulled out the bayonet, turned and hurled the bayonet at her. She screamed as the bayonet whipped past her head and bit into the trunk of the ifi tree behind her. He laughed when she collapsed to her knees.
"Now have I proved my point?" he chuckled.
"Maligi," she screamed. "Maligi, you're not a man. . . . You haven't got a father! . . . Aikae! Aikae!" She was hysterical. He slapped her. Spinning to the ground, she continued to hurl obscenities at him. Siaki dived on top of her and pinned back her arms.
"So, I'm not a man, eh? I'll show you!" he hissed, slapping her again. She ceased struggling when he tore off her lavalava. And she whimpered as his face filled
Blinking out of the darkness, she saw him standing above her. "I'm sorry," he apologised. She rolled on to her side and stared at the ground.
"Did it happen?" she mumbled. He shook his head. Sighing, she crossed her legs. He turned his back to her while she retied her lavalava. . . . They remained silent for a long while. Then she staggered to her feet, and said to him:
"I'd better go now, Siaki." It was the first time she had ever called him by his real name. "Won't tell anyone about what happened." She turned and lifted up the bundle of firewood.
As she walked away, he sheathed the bayonet in his lavalava, and ran after her. He took the load off her back and strapped it on to his own. He glanced at her. She smiled at him. And together they walked toward the village.
(IV)
One night Siaki awoke when his mother and the American entered the fale. They were arguing.
"Are you sure?" he heard the soldier ask his mother.
"Yeah," she replied. He heard her voice break, and she cried.
"Shhh, you'll wake him up," cautioned the American, leading her to the bed.
"What I going to do?" she asked, slumping on to the bed.
"Jus' have to wait and see, that's all," replied the soldier. "Now stop crying." She continued to sob. The American slapped her. Siaki jumped. No one had ever
"You marry me, Jack?" his mother pleaded.
"I can't," the American replied. The boy closed his eyes. "I'm already . . . already married," confessed the soldier.
"You lie to me. You lie!" his mother screamed. The American stood up, looked down at her, and walked out of the fale into the night. "You cum back?" she called after him. There was no reply.
The boy lay clutching his hands. The American had betrayed his mother. The outline on the tree trunk came alive and assumed the figure of a white soldier. The boy sprang up, crept over to his mother, and pulled the sheet over her. He turned, stumbled out of the fale, and ran towards the pounding waves.
The next day his mother sat in the fale and gazed at the road. The wrinkles on her face had deepened. Siaki acted as though he hadn't heard them the night before. At noon she told him she was tired. Siaki brought a mat and laid it under the breadfruit trees. She lay down on it. After watching her for a while, Siaki entered the kitchen, took the bayonet from the thatching, and sharpened it till it was angry sharp.
After sheathing it back in the thatching, he prepared the evening meal.
He nodded at the girl when she entered the kitchen.
"How's the knife-thrower?" she smiled. She sat down before the open fire. A kerosene tin full of bananas bubbled over the flames. The boy didn't answer. He stared at his mother. "Is she sick?" the girl asked with concern.
"No, Mala," he whispered. He looked at her. She was smiling; her hair smelled of coconut oil as it dropped down her back over a clean white shirt and a red lavalava.
"Why don't you go and play cricket? I'll cook for you," she suggested, thrusting more firewood into the fire.
"Never mind. I'll do it. You'll get dirty."
"What's wrong, Siaki?" she asked.
"Nothing," he snapped. "I'm sorry," he apologised. "There's something I have to do."
"Want to tell me?" she asked, knowing he wasn't going to. They remained silent. The fire spluttered tongues of flame. Then she began to sing; her voice caressed him till he felt calm, committed, the load gone.
"A man must be strong," she sang. "Strong as the palm, just as Solomon, kingly as David. A man, my man, must fight his fate and guide me to my destiny. But he must be supple, supple like the palm, and bend, bend before the storm, or he will break, break and die." She repeated the verse; then her voice faded to a whisper, and the song was lost in his words as he said:
"Thanks, Mala." She giggled, and together they laughed, contained wholly in their own world.
As the sun tipped over the heads of the palms, a wind arose to free the land of the heat. Siaki gazed out into the harbour. One of the warships had gone. He smiled.
"What are you smiling at?" she asked him.
"Oh, nothing," he replied. "Just feel good, that's all." She smiled; the flames danced on her face. Siaki wanted to caress it, but the flames separated them. A pig squealed loud and clear from the back of the village. The west was scarlet with the blood of the setting sun.
"Mala, will you fix my mother's meal?" he asked her suddenly. The girl nodded and asked:
"But where're you going?"
"Got to go into town and buy some sugar," he lied. He sprang up, ready to go.
"Will I see you tonight?"
"Don't think so," he sighed, avoiding her eyes. He ran from the kitchen. She waved to him.
He returned to the kitchen, wearing a clean lavalava and an orange shirt. "Forgot something," he mumbled, reaching up and pulling out the bayonet. He wheeled to go.
"But where're you taking that?" she asked. He paused, finding it hard to lie. She looked steadily at him.
"Going to sell it to one of the fellows in town," he
From the road, he waved to her. She waved back; then she stared into the flames. A gust of wind invaded the kitchen, churned up the fire, and scattered the ashes and embers round her feet. She didn't believe him. She shook with fear.
(V)
Two days later, as Siaki sat looking at his mother, a jeep swerved off the road and drove towards their fale. His mother jumped up in expectation.
"It's him!" she cried, running out of the fale. Siaki remained where he was and watched the approaching jeep. The jeep carried three men: one Samoan dressed in white shorts and a white shirt, and two American soldiers. The village children swarmed like flies to it only to be driven away by the stick that the Samoan guide wielded. The soldiers laughed. One of them, a tall lanky man, scattered gum among the children. The jeep shrieked to a halt, and the passengers got out. The boy's mother confronted them with disappointment.
Siaki examined the soldiers. Both wore armbands with M.P. printed on them; pistols and batons were strapped to their sides. The children milled round the soldiers while their guide, obviously trying his best to impress everyone, yelled at them and held them off with his stick. A crowd began to gather. "It's the Army Police," Siaki heard someone say. "What are they saying?" Siaki heard an old man ask. "Oh, they're just inquiring about a stolen pig," replied his companion. The crowd laughed.
The soldiers followed his mother into the fale. Siaki brought out clean mats for them to sit on; then he sat down and faced them, with his face a blank, without emotion.
The crowd pressed closer to the fale. The soldiers argued between themselves. In Samoan his mother offered them chairs to sit on. The guide got up, and was just about to make himself comfortable on a chair when someone in the crowd called: "Hey, royal friend, you must be
The boy glanced up when Mala entered the fale and sat down beside him. He began to feel uncomfortable.
"Well," the guide said to Siaki's mother, "we've come to talk to you about something."
"What else did you come for?" jeered a member of the crowd; and again the crowd roared with laughter.
"I'm interpreting for these gentlemen," the guide insisted.
"C'mon, Bill," the soldier called Hank said to the guide. "We haven't got all day. Ask her if she knew a soldier named
"I know him." The guide looked at the floor; it was his job to interpret.
"So you speak English, eh?" commented the other soldier, a chubby fellow with red cheeks covered with sweat.
"No very well," replied the woman. "I understand good." The guide was forgotten immediately.
"When was the last time you saw him," Hank inquired.
"Three day ago," she replied. "Why you ask?" The crowd was hushed. The soldiers argued softly. Then Hank nodded to his companion, coughed and said:
"He was found dead two days ago." Siaki saw his mother's hands cling desperately to the edge of the mat. He felt Mala looking at him. He didn't care. "He was killed with this," continued Hank, placing the bayonet before the woman. "It belonged to him." The crowd gasped in horror.
"It . . . it not his," Siaki's mother forced herself to say. Siaki gazed out to sea. He wasn't afraid; he just didn't care.
"It's his all right," remarked the other soldier. "The boys at camp identified it." The woman didn't bother to say anything. She had given herself completely to the
"Do you know who could have killed him?" asked Hank. Siaki's mother shook her head. "The guy who did it was pretty good with a knife," continued Hank, encouraged by the woman's emotionless response. "Jack was on guard duty. He was inside the wire fence, and no one can creep up to it without being seen. The place is floodlit." He picked up the bayonet and examined it. "The guy must have thrown it from at least ten yards out."
"Hell, he must've been good awright," chorused the other soldier, feeling uncomfortable on the hard floor. "The bayonet killed him instantly. Pierced the heart." Siaki heard Mala gasp. He looked at his mother. Her hands were tearing the edge of the mat to shreds. She wouldn't break in front of the people. He knew that. He braced himself; he would have to look after her when the people left. The crowd murmured, asking one another if they knew anyone that good with a knife. They agreed they didn't.
"I . . . I know no one . . . no one good with knife," Siaki's mother informed the soldiers.
"Okay, then. We're sorry to have bothered you, ma'am," said Hank. "Sorry 'bout Jack. We'll try and find the guy who did it." The Americans stood up, and the guide trailed them out of the fale like a pet dog.
Slowly the crowd dispersed. Mala remained next to Siaki, who wished she would leave; her presence was an accusation, and growing guilt was beginning to disturb his vacant peace.
Siaki rose to his feet and walked over to his mother. She was bent double with pain, rocking back and forth. Siaki knelt down beside her. She began to weep; her wailing mounting to a scream as she leant on to her son's arms. He let her cry on and on until she collapsed to the floor, exhausted. Mala walked over. With Siaki they lifted his mother and carried her to the bed.
"Who could have done it? Who could have?" cried Siaki's mother as she writhed and clutched at her belly. The boy glanced up at Mala. She was crying. He grasped
"I did it, mother;" he uttered, accepting guilt which descended upon him like a curse. "I did it!" His mother's hand whipped him across the face. Then she collapsed back into the bed, sighed in relief, and was soon sleeping.
Siaki remained with his face in her pillow. He looked up when Mala's arms encircled him. Mala smiled at him through tears, as though saying: "You are a man now."
"Where the hell d'ya think ya going," the foreman roared in a voice that could have been the boss's when they attempted to drift off a few minutes early at lunch time. He stood there in an oilskin and gumboots holding a mop in his hand. He looked like injustice personified. This was the day when he cleaned out the freezers. She felt that by doing this his superior status was in some way tarnished, and so he was forced to seek recourse in the power of his voice to command respect.
The clock showed one minute to twelve; the boss came from the vat room where he was testing the mix; the sun crystallised the drops of water on the stainless steel bench and they all walked back sheepishly to their benches and tables. The foreman looked at the boss and the boss replied with a knowing look promising praise indeed. Hands pretended to work, eyes pretended to look anywhere but at the clock, and ears travelled every step the boss took away from their room. The sun was a piece of light you could hold in your arms as it came through a small side window. She watched the sun and felt as if she were suspended on the very tip of the large hand of the clock, waiting and poised in anticipation.
Then the siren sounded.
The tension vanished in an instant into the movement of legs towards the doorway. The stepping up of traffic on the street which had begun with an old pre-war car, owned by one of the apprentices, coughing rudely into life, was followed by a chorus of motorbikes. This had lulled as these first had been the more venturesome of the factory. Now the street was full of noise and bustle of feet, of engines, but not of voices. The chatter of voices was only becoming apparent as she, as usual, the last left in the wake of the other girls, now several hundred yards ahead of her, walked down the short flight of steps into the street.
She saw the other girls with the divorced woman walk rapidly waving their hands in excited conversation and at once had the desire to dash forward and catch them up. But then she caught every whisper from the many people hurrying past her; every little laugh seemed directed solely at her, at the panic of anticipation that now lived on her face.
"Why did it matter so much?" she asked herself.
"Why did it seem like going back to the house after she was converted when she was fifteen?" She felt as if she was uncovering her very mind to faces that were outside the natural circle that she was used to. The look in their eyes was that of her father when she had tried to convert him to the joy and certainty she knew in her heart. But the weather had turned cold in the afternoon and the derision that he had poured upon her had eaten her like so many indifferent teeth. She dreamt now of a comfortable flat with a large pile of rock 'n' roll records on the gram. for the frequent forgetting of herself in the dance.
All at once she was terrified of being alone with the panic she felt in her body. To be alone at the destruction of any of the dreams she had ever had. The lights then changed and she caught them half-way across the road, by straining forward, the surface of the road seeming like glass.
"Beaut party Saturday, eh," one of the girls was saying. She heard this and knew she was with the group again. The group sat on the bank of the quiet flowing river and
The sense of the grey city crowded in upon her when she swung the bag the girls carried all their lunches in, as they walked back toward the factory. Then her free arm, the only thing free in her body, smashed itself into a lamp post. Instinctively she bent to pick up the bag, being hit a moment later by the greyness that was around her.
"I'm sorry," he said. He was in dark blue jeans and a blue sweater, and she knew, for she had found out early on her arrival in the city that this is what a sailor wore. They found themselves a few yards from the kerb and he was laughing into her eyes. He had stooped and picked up her bag just as the noises of the city began around her again.
"Hard head," said the sailor, bending his legs in an awkward manner suggesting he was embarrassed to be standing holding an old felt bag. She ignored him and looked round for the other girls who had left her.
"They left me, eh," She stamped her foot and stared angrily into the boy's eyes.
"Have some lunch with me," said the boy.
"I dunno you," she said. Her head still hurt, but she looked at the boy again and said, "All right . . . where?"
He found a coffee bar after they had walked a hundred yards down the road. Inside, the sun was busy making a mess of it because it belonged more rightfully to the early morning. At the table where they sat he spent minutes hurrying grains of sugar across the surface of the table. He spoke with his voice fixed on the grain of sugar.
"Got in this morning."
"Yeah."
"On the Glouster City . . . she's a bigin."
"How long you been on them ships?"
" 'Bout three years."
"Must have been young when you were first on."
"How do you know . . . how do you know I'm not twenty-three?"
"Course you're not . . . see?"
"Well . . . how old am I then?"
"Not twenty yet."
"If I'm not twenty . . . you're not sixteen."
"I'm eighteen boy."
"Gawn . . . I don't believe it."
"Don't care . . . who're you anyway?"
They stared at the yellow wall. The touch of the boy's leg against hers was like an electric shock. She saw that it was five to one and leapt convulsively to her feet. He caught her by the door and asked her where she worked. She heard him say that he would meet her after work, to her retreating back.
Time went quickly in the afternoon because she spent her time trying to adjust her body to the movement of a machine and the questions asked by the girls beside her. The sun was an irregular mess on the concrete floor that even a broom could not sweep away. She blew on her hands that were sore from handling the cold ice cream slices and thought of the same sun cutting into her between two clouds and the phlegm from the sea. The clouds went and the storm came, but instead of the sea continually tracing thick, white outlines around the shore, there was just the road, always the road bouncing back the wind-borne rain.
"Still dreaming of sailor boy," they said. Somehow she began to link the sailor's features with the brittle sharp smell of the air after a storm at home.
"You watch sailor boy . . . he kiss and run away," they were saying. The shapeless feeling had at last meaning and was not just the tangle of driftwood above the high tide mark.
The sun went quickly and the sticky cellophane glued together more and more often, each time it became more of an effort to stop, pause, and claw desperately. But at
"We'll go somewhere and talk," he said. They found a green seat, common to all city parks, in a small park separated from the pavement by a flight of concrete steps. They looked, like the seat, towards the dingy brown factories and warehouses.
"You're from the country," he said.
"How do you know?"
"You look at things the same way I do . . . sorta different from other people. I noticed the way you looked at that flower bed back there . . ."
"Are you from the country?"
"My father owns a small farm in East Anglia."
"Is that near the sea?"
"Yes. It's on the East coast of England."
"But do you see the sea?"
"No. We're ten miles inland."
She was disappointed and they lapsed into silence for a few minutes.
"What sort of farmer is your father?" said the boy, conscious that there was a peculiarly high pitched tone in his voice.
"He works at the sawmill, boy. We run a few cows. Sometimes they run us though. One time Sam our bull got mad and run us pretty hard."
"Why did you come to the city?"
"She's crowded our home, boy . . . ten kids and another just come. Nothing to do there so we all come . . . just about all our school are here now."
"Y'likin' it?"
The question annoyed her. You could not tie happiness in a big bow to your physical surroundings. Happiness came out of your body at certain times and was not something floating in the air. Again he asked the same question.
"Why?" she snapped out.
But she warmed again to his simplicity and nodded at him. When he reached across and took her hand
It was physical to kiss and to open your mouth and feel the full pulp of the tongue. Almost spontaneously her eyes had been turned towards the boy who had leant forward and kissed her. She felt his long coarse fingers feeling her breasts, tracing and retracing them in a kind of harmony. Her flesh glowed as his hands roamed now free over her body. Then anticipation shaped itself into physical feeling. Her body slipped further down the bench until his body completely covered hers. She heard his voice incanting by her ear. This again made her conscious of her loneliness.
"No, boy," she said. He was pleading and speaking through his hands as well as his lips. Now she became a place of conflict, one part of her driving her on and the other in deep primitive fear of having another press so deeply into her. She rolled her head to and fro, torn by desire and pleasure engendered by the boy's caresses. It was as though she was on tip toe and the world had stopped. This was what her anticipation had been building up for, this was its ultimate aim.
"Alright boy . . . you're persistent."
He stroked her hair in reply.
It was completely dark when she looked over his shoulder at the thick cluster of stars grasping into the night. His hands were gentle against her neck. Then it was all pain, searing vivid red pain; red as the neons now lighting the far sky. There was no protection in his flesh when she sunk her fingers into his shoulder. She cried
When he had withdrawn she was so naked and so exposed. The stars were eyes looking down, staring at her suddenly half her size.
"I hurt you much?"
Again he was semi-coherent, but this time it had no effect on her. She skipped down the steps leading to the road, as if through movement trying to forget the pain her body had experienced.
"Would you like something to eat?"
The hand that he took awkwardly was cold. He looked at his watch.
"I must be back at the ship in ten minutes. If I get a bus from here I can just make it."
"Where does the ship go?"
"To Brazil."
"When?"
"Tomorrow."
It surprised her when she thought about it later that they sat for five minutes on a bus seat and said nothing. But what could be said when the bus finally droned towards them. They were really strangers. He squeezed her hand, turned up the collar of his coat, and disappeared up the bus's steps.
She followed the bus, her feet slouching forward. A faint breath of wind disturbed the orange street lights, now in sole charge of the street. She bent and picked a yellow daisy, growing where the concrete had chipped. Its leaves were brown, and when she put it under her nose, it had no smell. She stood looking at it for some minutes, revolving the flower between her hands and moving her body as if to some distant unheard music. Then she ran, forcing every bit of air out of her body. The street said nothing when she leant against a lamp post and cried.
Riley came out of the bush just after midday and saw the house down in the narrow valley before him. A string of smoke stood up from the roof.
When he was a hundred yards from the house, just beyond the outer sheds, a dog started barking. He saw a woman come to the back door, look at him, then go back inside. He knew she would have time to do whatever she wished. He wondered if there was a telephone.
As he passed, the dog leapt at him, straining beyond the reach of its chain. Its tail thrashed the air and its bark was shrill. But he knew it was only a brash, noisy animal. It would grant friendship to all. He thought about the warm, lean neck; how it would feel in his hands. The dog would think he was playing with it.
The woman was waiting as he came up to the back door. She greeted him easily, ignoring the rifle at his thigh.
"I thought it would be you," she said as she backed into the house before him.
His eyes swept the kitchen.
"I'm here by myself," the woman explained. "My man's gone down the valley for the day . . . help a friend pull stumps." She was anxious, her hands like heavy, nervous birds before her. Riley put the rifle down. He would give himself half an hour.
"I was almost expecting you," she continued. He looked at her. She gestured. "The radio's been talking about you all morning. . . . You must be hungry . . ."
She was a tall woman cloaked with a heavy spread of flesh. Yet her body did not droop. Her small features were gathered on a small face.
Riley stared at her. Her eyes slid away.
"Yeah," he said. "I'm hungry."
She waved at the food on the sink bench.
"There's more," she said.
Before he ate he pushed the coarse jersey away from his wrists and washed his hands carefully. Then he
"Most of them from down the flat are helping them look for you . . . my man isn't, of course. He was going to have nothing of it. He was a bit for you . . ." She hesitated. "Is it bad in there? Do you get it tough? You know . . .?"
Riley looked at her, his mouth thick with food. Her face was stupid, he thought. He nodded his head at her.
"Well, you're doing alright," she told him. "They were over behind Kimberly late this morning. That's a good six miles away."
"Yeah . . .," he managed.
She brightened. Her eyes found the rifle.
"Where did you get the gun?"
Flecks of food flew from his mouth.
"Friend's."
"Huh. Say . . ." She made a show of remembering. "I suppose you could use some liquor."
She made a move further into the house. He grabbed her arm.
"Wait," he said.
He threw the half-eaten joint of meat at the sink and followed her into the interior of the house. There was a telephone hanging on the wall of the dim passage.
She went into a large bare room and crouched down in front of a cupboard. He stood behind her as she examined the bottles, and he saw the shape of her through the taut material of the frock. She was bulky.
Then as she drew back towards him, bottle in hand, he stooped and threw her on her back like a turtle. The bottle crashed over the floor. She clawed at his face.
She tried to bite him when he was on her, but when he had spent his bigness and was easy beside her, the blood was running out from her mouth over her face. Her eyes were shut.
"I had wanted that," she said.
He laughed. She was stupid alright.
Then suddenly he lifted himself up beside her and
Clenching his hands, he bent and kneaded her breasts. His knuckles were sharp and horny, and he watched her fight the pain in her face. His knee came up into her soft, open crutch. She squealed.
Then his hands were into her neck and he was straddling the bucking body as if he was fighting a horse.
He found the bottle still intact against the wall. It was a third full of whisky. He found an old haversack in the kitchen and he stuffed it with the bottle and some food. Then he picked up the rifle and left the house.
The dog sprang at him, its body eager, eyes bright. He cursed, he had forgotten it.
Abruptly he brought the rifle to his shoulder and snapped the catch off. But the animal sprang aside as he fired.
The bullet entered its back and slammed it to the ground. Its eyes flickered, filmed, and it whimpered like a human. Its fur was splashed with blood. Riley's temper broke.
"F . . . you dog!" he screamed. "F . . . you dog!"
And with four more bullets he blasted a hole the size of a fist in the animal's head.
Then he turned and started at a run for the hills.
In the moment of absolute tranquillity which preceded the shaping of his notes into a neat oblong, the grey-haired man, together with the formidable pile of books surrounding him, composed a rather faded still-life. The picture was completed as the lengthening early evening shadows cast by the adjoining buildings encompassed the room and its contents with a grey shroud, veiling those passing few seconds with a unique timelessness. Professor
This evening, however, the bird was less amiable than it had been for some weeks. Perhaps it was too draughty on the window ledge, thought the Professor. Or perhaps it, too, in its own way, suffered that end-of-term feeling. The breeze had increased in force, yet the bird was surely accustomed to the elements by now. It seemed to enjoy itself even more when in closer contact with the outdoor world, which was why he always left the window open. Perhaps it even enjoyed music; if it did, there was always the periodic entertainment provided by an assortment of bells which could be heard tolling across the town from various carillons and clock towers throughout the day. There was the possibility of releasing the bird, considered Professor Wilhelm, but then again, freedom was often
Professor Wilhelm took another deliberate draw on his pipe. Turning his back on the parrot, he found himself once more in that familiar position of his, both elbows on the desk, head between hands, and essays to either side, neatly piled according to percentage attained. As he remained motionless, he wondered which of his senses he was most conscious of at that time; whether the steady coolness of hands on cheek, the faint aroma from the smouldering pipe, or the barely registering ticking of the ancient clock on the mantelpiece were receiving more attention than, say, the strain of his eyes focussing on the calendar at the end of the room, and that after a wearying academic year, too.
The Professor laughed. If there were any sensation he was most aware of right then, it was the bitter taste in his mouth of the interview he had just completed in the preceding hour. They had been most polite from the time he entered the office carrying the envelope and, of course, exceedingly diplomatic. What had been most surprising regarding the general aura of bonhomie was that those of the interviewers not from the immediate hierarchy of the university but representing Government interests answerable only to the Prime Minister had treated him with far more respect than he had expected. His colleagues, on the other hand, had been a little objectionable, and were it not for the fact that he wished to preserve a certain show of dignity through to the end, he would have most certainly walked out on the whole party. It had been quite unnecessary the way some of the members of other faculties, and even his own, had insinuated unsavoury behaviour on his part. Besides, many of them were considerably younger than he was, and even if they did not agree with his views, they could at least have respected his age and worthiness to hold them. But in all fairness, it had probably been a distinctly uncomfortable event for all of them, one which they had never participated in before, and this strangeness had perhaps induced certain fears which they took out on him in the form of bad manners.
The Vice-chancellor had been the most interesting of all. At the beginning of the interview he had said: "Every man has the right to believe in something, provided he is discreet and discerning." This somewhat naive remark could have been deliberately conceived as such, thought the Professor, in order to render him at first antagonistic and later, full of admiration for the philosophical statements that ensued as the interview progressed. Though the interview lasted only one hour, for the Professor it seemed more like a week. The questions were answered with patience, but instead of finishing there, they invariably seemed to open further doorways for new questions to be led into the interminable corridors of cross-examination. Professor Wilhelm remembered thinking during the coffee break (the chairman offered him sugar and cream before the other men) that the whole incident was vaguely surrealistic; but reality was quickly restored when a brief reference was made to his parrot, which slightly offended the Professor. "If it could talk, we'd learn the whole story," had muttered what looked like one of the librarians who was making notes of some kind in shorthand. Professor Wilhelm felt tempted to ask just why he was taking notes and just why he had brought "parratus cockatuus" into the conversation, but it seemed likely that little notice would be taken of him. Besides, a librarian was scarcely expected to know that this particular species of "parratus cockatuus" was incapable of mimicking language.
Before the coffee break finished, a senior lecturer (whom the Professor used to play golf with in undergraduate days) had whispered in his ear: "Don't worry, old chap, it's not you on trial, it's the system." Professor Wilhelm was about to ask what exactly was meant, and whether perhaps his nervous system was endangered, but before he could, the senior lecturer had bobbed behind a curtain of inscrutability, muttering something about his handicap being reduced to twelve. The gathering's atmosphere had almost assumed that of a cocktail party when the chairman rapped a paper knife on the table and called the meeting to order. Professor Wilhelm blinked twice and wiped the sweat from his brow with an embroidered linen handkerchief his wife had ironed that morning. It
. . . "Now where did you say you were born, Professor?"
All in all, it had been quite an extraordinary afternoon, he reflected. Immediately before the interview, one of the students he had assisted in the printing of the pamphlet had stopped him in the corridor. The student looked hot, flushed and a little excitable, for the first time without the usual calmness he had shown during the weeks of preparation of the publication. Whenever the Professor had had occasion to clarify then reinforce the more complex interpretations of their task, and this often met with conflicting opinions, especially from the more dogmatic younger people, this student, maturer than the others and one of his own class, had proved to be an excellent liaison. Although not commanding the admiration and respect of the older man, he was better suited to talking to the other students on their own terms, and was responsible for the snowballing ramifications of the movement throughout the college. What had begun largely as an experiment developed, through him, into something that had the support, directly or indirectly, of most of the undergraduates. Professor Wilhelm's lectures increased in popularity, and it was not an uncommon sight to see students sitting in the aisles during the last term. But Professor Wilhelm was perturbed that the student had stopped him so openly in the corridor to discuss the pamphlet. Already matters had gone too far in that it was now an open secret in most circles as to what was taking place. Apparently, even the impending interview was known to the students involved, for the student asked the Professor what he intended doing, and why he was carrying the envelope. The Professor looked quizzically at the student, in the same way as he had looked quizzically at students for forty years, and paused before replying. He said: "I think I shall just have to talk to them." The student had then reacted quite out of keeping with his character, the Professor recalled. He had hurried off, in the direction of the cafeteria, without another word. But it was the last day of the last term for the year and he had, more than likely, many matters to attend to. . . .
. . . "We repeat, was the university's printing press used, Professor? And if so, what authority . . ."
Professor Wilhelm could not help but suppress a quiet chuckle as the interviewers stopped to compare notes before their next barrage of questions, for he had often discussed with the students just what would take place if their activities were uncovered. In actual fact, they had never really considered the possibility that the group would be revealed, and it was rather coincidental that it had been, considered Professor Wilhelm, due to the immense loyalty all the students involved had shown him from the very beginning. That, perhaps, would be the salient feature worth remembering. It was difficult to realise that the evenings of furtive meetings in private homes and coffee bars had finished, the meetings where idealism had had to come to terms with practicality, the meetings that had climaxed with the publication of the pamphlet and the headlines in the newspapers. . . .
. . . "The names of the students, what were their names, Professor?"
And it was not until those last few minutes of the interview that Professor Wilhelm perceived how detached he had been throughout. He remembered at one stage holding up the proceedings while he searched for the notes to be delivered in his lecture at five o'clock, which would begin shortly after the interview. The chairman told him that at a time like this he should hardly be thinking of lectures, but the Vice-chancellor reminded the chairman there was a syllabus still to be completed, and that fee-payers were entitled to their full course. . . .
. . . "You realise, of course, Professor, that your appointment here could automatically . . ."
The final proposition was so curious in its presentation and Professor Wilhelm was caught so completely unawares that he evaded the eyes of his colleagues by refuelling his pipe. This operation took a length of time out of all proportion and he wondered whether perhaps the slight shaking of his hands had anything to do with it. He decided to the contrary, because he had knowledge of this trembling for at least a month, and moreover his doctor
Professor Wilhelm bore this potential jeopardy in mind as he addressed the interviewers for the last time. He explained that he finally realised his true place in relation to the university and that, for the time being, he had very little more to say. He said that everything the inquiry should know about was in the envelope, which he laid on the table in front of the Vice-chancellor, first dusting away some ash which had fallen from his pipe. In the time it took him to position the envelope and return to his seat, the Professor was overcome with an urge to address the meeting once more. He wanted to tell them that they were right, that a man's vocational status should not have to be endangered due to an extra-curricular activity indulged in probably more for the sake of a cause than anything else; he wanted to tell them this, and to point out that, as with most group actions, causes could be graded into inferior, mediocre and superior, and that the choosing of a cause was always harder to accomplish than any promulgation of the cause. Eventually, the Professor convinced himself that it was necessary to elucidate his actions. He reached for the envelope again and replaced it in his hip pocket; as he had expected, the room became suddenly silent.
"Did you . . . feel you wanted to add something, Professor Wilhelm?" asked the senior lecturer, swallowing the remains of his sentence with a flavouring of nervousness and embarrassment.
Professor Wilhelm paused. He gazed at a lone fly, obviously sent as an observer, circling and droning above the balding head of one of the Government representatives.
"No," he said, without deliberating. "I've changed my mind." In the long silence that followed, he glanced
The meeting then appeared to temporarily relapse into the informality of the coffee break. Professors of other faculties, in accordance with the traditions of any peer group, gathered around and congratulated him on his decision. The Vice-chancellor stated that as it was evident the Professor had not reached his conclusions, on what was basically an idealistic issue, without some supreme soul searching, then he could see no reason for further prolonging the inquiry. He mentioned quite affably that it was not, by any means, for this meeting to order or even recommend a suspension, but rather to aid a fellow colleague in distress. The Professor had devoted his lifetime as a servant of his students, contributing both to the social and intellectual development of a university which he was proud of, and which was proud of him. As the Vice-chancellor finished what had almost become a speech, the senior lecturer (whom the Professor used to play golf with in undergraduate days) invited Professor Wilhelm to a match in the weekend, and to bring his wife also, if he felt so inclined.
The paper-knife's scraping on the forefinger ceased.
"Well, then . . . it's only a matter of the envelope?" asked the chairman. A ripple of apologetic laughter floated around the interviewers.
"Yes, it . . . would appear so," smiled the balding Government representative. The fly circled a fraction closer.
Professor Wilhelm took the envelope from his pocket again and replaced it on the table. The interviewers took their places once more and there was instant silence apart from the heavy breathing of the librarian, who had considerably exerted himself in taking down a full, fair and accurate account of the proceedings. The first person to speak was a professor who had instructed at the same university for almost as long as Professor Wilhelm himself, provided sick leave was not taken into account, as
"I propose we carry on in committee," he said, urgently and in one breath. "Begin at the beginning." There was a murmur of assent, but the chairman intervened, ruling that a vote was necessary.
"After all, this is a democracy," agreed the Vice-chancellor, adjusting the gold pin on his wool tie.
Professor Wilhelm sensed the unanimity even before the show of hands. He would have liked to have remained while he was still under discussion, but the interviewers evidently no longer required his presence, and were emphasizing this with a stony silence. He thought it best to leave without protest, as they were obviously preoccupied, and in any case, he had that lecture to deliver in five minutes' time.
Yes, the inquiry had certainly been extremely interesting, thought the Professor, rising from behind his desk and collecting his lecture notes. Perhaps the whole matter would be put down to eccentricity, to join the parrot, the clay pipe and himself. Whatever the outcome, however, he knew that he would be able to rely on the support of the students. There were the few occasions when he had lost his temper and denounced them all in uncontrollable generalities; his wife had usually to bear the brunt of these, countering by deliberately over-boiling his breakfast eggs to channel his anger in another direction. But by the end of the day, and the end of the evening meal, the issues were forgotten, and discarded as easily as the daily newspapers are thrown aside. Oddly, he had found that as the years passed, his tolerance of the younger generations had increased. He vividly recalled his violent reaction in that first year at the university when he arrived at his lecture room to find his delivery gesticulations mimicked by a bearded youth. Actually, the caricature had been quite a clever piece of acting, and later the youth became a successful cabinet minister. My motives could be strictly selfish, wondered Professor Wilhelm. Tolerance by the ageing could conceal a certain patronisation in order to sustain their own youth, even if only in the realm of
He was about to leave his room then, when he heard the parrot uttering some barely audible, and, in their own way, quaint noises. What was it the librarian had said? "If it could talk, we'd learn the whole story." Yet as soon as Professor Wilhelm set his gaze on its beak, he noticed that its efforts were achieving very little, in spite of the concerted strain. And even if it were successful in self-expression, the Professor was doubtful whether it would ever win an appreciative audience, least of all from its own kind. But then, a bird can express itself in two ways, in song or in flight, said Professor Wilhelm, surprised to hear himself voicing his thought aloud. He opened the cage door and placed the bird on the back of his left hand, and with his right, he levered open the study window. Tentatively, he outstretched his arm until it was level with the window sill. Almost immediately, the bird struggled to rise in flight. The Professor had a preconceived notion that it would not succeed, but nevertheless, he had hoped that a better performance would be given. There was an element of futility in the way in which it beat its wings with no effect. Eventually, it was forced by the wind against the pane that protruded at right-angles to the building. Professor Wilhelm was puzzled, unsure whether to be pleased or not. Gently, he placed the parrot back in the cage.
The easterly outside the university was waning while the Professor hurried down the corridor, as fast as his ageing body would allow him. As he did so, he recollected a friend saying to him at the inquiry that he hoped the university would be able to benefit from many further years of his experience. His reply had been: "No, I will be finishing tonight." This had surprised his colleague, remembered the Professor, but now, as he walked into the lecture hall, with barely the hint of a falter in his stride and as proudly as he had first done so forty years earlier,
Professor Wilhelm put on his glasses and adjusted the notes on the reading stand. Reaching for the light switch, he laughed wryly to himself. It would have all been far more worthwhile to have seen their faces when they emptied the few grams of bird seed from tbe envelope, he thought. But still, it was a pity that "parratus cockatuus" had to go hungry tonight. Nevertheless, there were other matters to attend to, and if there were one thing the Professor was emphatic about, it was the methodical planning of his lectures. Fundamentally, he knew they were not creative, being merely contrived orations based on someone else's ideas; yet in a sense, they were true for him. He could not describe that indefinable impulse he felt swelling inside him halfway through a lecture, when he knew that what he was trying to say was winning a response. This end product was a reward in itself, but each section of the process had to be dealt with in turn, and so the Professor decided to repress everything pertaining to the interview from his mind, and to concentrate solely on the delivery of the lecture. His only hope was that the afternoon's incidents would not in any way affect this, for what value the pamphlet if it meant the failure of even one hour of his profession?
In an instant, he sensed that something was wrong. He looked up from his notes and saw, to his surprise, that the lecture hall was empty. He found this rather hard to understand, for only that afternoon, before the interview, he had spoken to the student who was in his own class. He took out his diary and checked to see whether the faculty had closed the day before, but there the entry was, pencilled in, and in his own awkward handwriting. He remembered the student had asked him what he was going to do and he had replied: "I shall just have to talk to them." There was the vague possibility that this had been misinterpreted, but it was hardly likely. He had known them all too well for there to be the remotest chance of that happening. Moreover, it was particularly unfair of him to think that, frowned the Professor; none of them was present to defend himself on such a cruel charge. was a pity that none of them, even some of the older students whom he had come to know as closely as it was academically possible, was present, for he had planned on making the last lecture his finest effort.
And he knew it was the last lecture because, straining his eyes, he could now make out the two men who had entered quietly, pausing at the back entrance to light cigarettes. The balding one coughed artificially. It would be rather naive of me to think they were here for higher learning, thought the Professor, admitting, however, that it did first briefly occur to him. They approached nearer, appearing slightly out of place in the lecture hall. Middle-aged and pleasant featured, they slowed respectfully, allowing him time to regather his notes and return the diary to his pocket.
Professor Wilhelm turned off the light switch above the reading stand: somewhere, he could hear a bell tolling.
It is 10 o'clock, Armistice Day, 1937. I am outside the sports locker rooms.
"There will be a one-minute silence. The school will stand to attention. The band will play 'God Save the King'."
The Headmaster had given this out at morning assembly with the gravity of a top diplomat telling the Christmas Islanders about the schedule for the next atomic explosion. Then he stalked off to the staffroom to go over the campaign with the rest of the top brass.
This school is a barracks where we rehearse a crude, quasi-military comic opera round the school band, the cadet corps, and the doctrine of keenness. At the blast of a prefect's whistle, hundreds of louts in short pants and
There, by a swift manipulation of masks, the masters appear in blustering khaki as majors, captains and lieutenants. The battalion sergeant-major is a barrel-bellied Boer War veteran on the permanent army staff who has advanced from the local drill hall on a khaki-painted Boer war bicycle. He calls for markers. We shamble through the obsolete rigmarole of the British Army Manual of Elementary Drill. It is a ritual derived from tactics which no doubt were successful at Waterloo, but which are going to be demonstrated before long to us uneasy cannon fodder as hopelessly inadequate to withstand the Panzer onrushes, the Stuka attacks and the blitzkrieg assaults–onslaughts which, had we but known it, the wily Hun was at that very moment devising for our further education.
But today the school band pumps and dribbles reassuringly through the Invercargill March, the right hand guides spring rapidly to attention with a clockwork click of their shining heels, the battalion falls in, numbers off, forms fours, open-order marches, and struts obediently to the commands of Imperial Authority. The officers take post at their respective company stations, and the Headmaster, a tight, Napoleonic, beribboned figure, complete with spurs and a cavalry sword, confers with his adjutant. Ten o'clock strikes. Sad whistles wail from the boilers of both the school heating system and a nearby brewery. The Head snaps the battalion to attention. The officers salute. The band wheezes into the National Anthem. The Head clanks his sword up into the general salute. All are transfixed in a respectful tableau before that shining symbol of authority and tradition. Only a few cripples propped up on their crutches outside one of the classrooms, and a
I am one of these. I look at the Head. He is glaring behind his sword. I think of Armistice Day, Anzac Day, League of Nations Day, May Day, Empire Day, Christmas Day and Mothers' Day. I can see what's wrong with this parade. It isn't so much that it's an attempt to turn Armistice Day, and whatever it might stand for, into a kind of Empire loyalty demonstration–I don't object to that–it's simply that the Head isn't doing it properly.
"The fool," I think. "He doesn't know anything about it."
This is true. The Head got a commission in peacetime and has never seen a shot fired, let alone a cavalry charge. The only people on the staff who perhaps have, are keeping very quiet about it. When they turn up on these parades they always stand morosely in what I am one day to realise are attitudes of doubt and suppressed irritation.
"Anyway," I tell myself, "I'm not a soldier; why should I have to stand to attention?" So I don't. I lounge against the locker room door with my hands in my pockets. This is conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline. It is defiance, insurrection–a questioning of the entire
The Head sees me out of the corner of his eye. I get a caning.
"You used to be such a keen young fellow," he says. "But you've got very slack lately, very slack. It won't do."
He is quite right. During my first year at this school I build up an impressive reputation for my keenness. I fling myself into all the compulsory sports parades. I badger the masters in charge of the junior grades for sports equipment with which to play extra games on unscheduled occasions. I swot up books on rugby and on athletics and I go for training runs with the Third Fifteen. Later on I am to realise this might have been the path to a brilliant future–a good sporting record at school, a steady job with
In these simple days people still believe in Science. Sometimes they tut-tut about the likelihood of poison gas being used in warfare again, or have occasional qualms about dropping explosives on unarmed civilians; but nobody is obliged to worry about the possibility of blowing up whole cities and laying waste whole continents. People think Science can be coaxed along so that progress and happiness will be almost as automatic as the notion of social security which
I read books on economics, and on scientific method, and I join the Science Club. No more training runs and extended football practices. In between manufacturing home-made explosives and experimenting with an illegal radio transmitter which some of us are constructing in a corner of the school boiler room, we wonder why political science can't be made into a more exact discipline and why everyone is kicking up such a fuss about the depression.
Anyone who is at school during the thirties can't help knowing all about the depression. If your parents don't have some money you probably never get to a secondary school, but if you do, you find yourself trying to matriculate in three years so that you can compete for a job as an office boy, a bank clerk, or if you are extremely talented and lucky, as a cadet in the Civil Service. If you get as far as a university it is axiomatic that you are the New Zealand equivalent of a gentleman. This was soon to be no longer the case, but in the thirties, whatever the physical hardships and moral anxieties, one certainly knows one's
There are a few sons of the rural aristocracy, as well as some boys from well-to-do industrial, upper-middle-class families at this microcosm, but most of us are from lower, more insecure levels and we know it. We have arguments about Socialism, Fascism and Communism at the Science Club, and we concern ourselves with the possibility that the mild little band of opportunists who constitute the first Labour Government should institute what the newspapers are calling the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat". A club meeting ends in a fight when a faction of farmers' sons rises in revolt during a debate on "Should New Zealand Be Turned into a Collective Farm?"
It is suggested that depressions could be prevented if the Government took over agriculture. The peasantry might resist, but they could be disciplined. That starts the fight.
The Head stops me in the corridor next day and says the club had better limit itself to pure science and keep off politics: parents have been complaining about the damage done to their children by the farmers' party. These farmers' champions are hefty creatures–one of them has the distinction of being the best belcher in the school. He can reverberate his way through a whole stanza of the National Anthem, but in no disrespectful way; he is quite capable of vigorously defending tradition and the status quo when what he feels to be his real interests or his personal dignity are threatened.
The Head gives me another lecture on keenness and says it would be better for me if I concentrated on sport instead of setting myself up as a political agitator. Now in these days, Headmasters are still important people. They
So I ask myself questions. What possible relevance could the myth of team spirit have in a society which can't find enough useful work for everyone to do, and which tolerates fear and distress in God's Own Country, to say nothing of racial hatred and political oppression in Europe? It occurs to me that the Head is in the position of a king in a feudal state. But he is a bad king. Instead of warning his subjects about the Black Plague and the difficult things they will have to do to deal with it, he is telling them fairy stories. Anyone can see that the Headmaster's sword-rattling is no answer to the blitzkrieg methods which
I am ultimately to find that the impressive thing about New Zealand lies in its ability to produce, at any given moment, an impressive assortment of heretics, cranks and dissenters as well as the usual clamour of uncertainty, selfishness, panic and intrigue from the main body of citizenry. Like the larger world outside, this school has its mystique. On the one hand there are the official, invalid, discredited, inadequate myths: on the other there is the range of uncertain, imaginative, individual possibilities. Like all resourceful institutions this one has its officially sponsored subversives. One of them is an eccentric art master who fights the prevailing materialism by embracing it. In order to arouse glimmerings of interest in the reluctant prisoners before him, he is forced to talk about how Cellini actually made his big bronze castings, how Michaelangelo mixed his paints and how sculptors grappled with their blocks of marble. If we can't grasp the form of the artifact we can at least investigate the components of it. Another rugged individualist is always scurrying around the Alps on mountaineering expeditions. This makes him fitter than anyone else on the staff and enables him to referee football matches and coach the First Fifteen by vigorously intervening in the scrum himself with a curse and a thump here, and a stimulating cuff there. It also enables him to talk condescendingly about football as if it were, after all, only a game for sody pops who get puffed after running about for an hour or so, on flat ground too.
And there are dancing classes. You go to these if your parents have the money for the fees. If you are lucky and cunning you dance with the Headmaster's
Every few weeks you are herded into the school hall and mustered into the
We hand over the minute book and the funds go out of existence officially, but we continue to meet secretly in the school boiler room. The boiler room is an island of humanism in the ocean of authority. It is the only comfortable place in the school. The cripples who can't do drill or sports sit on sacks of coal and old packing cases, reading books about sex or smoking illicit cigarettes; deserters and conscientious objectors skulk among the pipes, and the Science Club continues its serious research projects in a corner which once held an electric lighting plant. When the Head liquidates the club he does not destroy its underground roots.
One afternoon we are all down there tinkering with the radio transmitter we have made in order to carry out a special exercise on Sports Day. We propose to install a secret circuit in the school amplifier system so that we can operate it by remote control through our transmitter. This, we hope, will enable us to superimpose embarrassing wisecracks on official announcements, introduce snatches of improbable music and bursts of gibberish when the Head is presenting the prizes and making speeches. We
"What we want," I say, "is something like that only a bit more crazy, a bit more violent. It wants to sound like somebody in the middle of a real balls up, yelling his head off, saying all sorts of mad things. What we want's a cross between
"And who do you think you are?" sneers one of the cripples who is listening–a pale, bitter casuist with a twisted foot. This is unexpected. I hadn't actually thought of that aspect of psychology.
"Yes, you," said the cripple. "You're busy pulling everyone's tit–what about your own?"
"I haven't got any,"I tell him coldly.
"Ha!" sneers the cripple. "That's what you think. And that's what you think because you think you're a great lady killer like
"Shut up, you rotten little twisted up bastard!" I say. "You're jealous because the Head's daughter likes me, that's all. I can't help it if women are fascinated by me. It's just one of those things.
When the laughing stops I realise that the transmitter has been running all the time. Most of this dialogue has been picked up by the old carbon granule microphone we are using, but I don't suppose it matters; we are using a dummy aerial and it won't carry beyond the school buildings.
A few nights later, after I've been to dancing class, I am kissing the Head's daughter in the back seat of his Chev. where he has left it parked in his driveway. With analytic passion my tongue is exploring the inside of her throat while I rummage elbow deep in her clothing. The door is wrenched open and her father shines a torch on us.
"The great lady killer, eh!" he hisses. "Go to my study."
He hustles the girl inside and comes after me. Obviously he's been listening in to all our doings on his own wireless set in the house. He probably just leaves it running all the time and monitors us whenever we come on the air. So that's why he always seems to be one jump ahead of us! We'll have to change our frequency or something.
"This is just one of those things," he says when the caning begins. "Personally I think there's more of the Machiavelli about me than the Napoleon, and this is fortunate for you, otherwise I should most likely expel you."
When I do escape from that school I ask the Head for a reference. He smiles an omnipotent smile and scribbles.
It reads: "He took his part in school activities."
Hutcheson, Bowman & Stewart Ltd., Wellington