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Sport 27: Spring 2001
Stories from the End of My Generation
Stories from the End of My Generation
Christchurch is a morning city, a city designed for and built by a sturdy, industrious class of early risers, people with places to go, jobs to do, families to provide for. I'd be prepared to wager any amount you'd care to name that the passengers of the first four ships (and indeed the passengers of the next hundred or so ships who came after them) were not prone to sleeping in. No, they would have been up with the sun, clearing away the native bush to make room for the rolling plains of Canterbury and the wide, safe, friendly streets of Christchurch. They would have been hewing and hacking away as the virgin light spread, making space for their city's squat buildings, space for its empty skies. Christchurch looks really good at about 8:30 am on a summer morning. The sunlight glints off the windscreens of cars creeping forward in long lines on increasingly insufficient roads…the bus-stops are packed out with school kids in their quaint striped uniforms…the intimidating size of the sky above is offset by its bright healthy morning blueness…It all looks so perfect, so pristine, that I'm almost wishing I was truly having breakfast instead of what for me is technically dinner, that I could be playing a part in the bustle of this waking city.
‘Okay…a long black, an orange juice, an apricot and almond muffin and a cheese salad roll…That's ten fifty.’
I hand the money to the girl behind the counter. ‘Thanks,’ I say.
‘Thank you,’ she says, then curiously raises one of her ring-binder eyebrows. ‘So where are you from?’ she asks me.
I smile. ‘Can you guess?’
‘You sound…American,’ she says, at length. ‘American…or Canadian?’
‘I'm Canadian,’ I say, ‘I'm from Toronto…’
The café-girl grins, satisfied with her act of deduction. ‘Thought it was something like that…I'm sorry I said American, I know you page 4 guys hate being mixed up with Americans…’
‘Don't worry about it,’ I say and point to a table by the window. ‘You'll bring the drinks over…?’
She nods and I go and sit down, collecting a much-thumbed glossy magazine on the way to my table. I loosen my already drooping tie and flick through to the horoscopes while I wait for Wall.
…an opportunity for romance beckons on Friday…Saturday night is a good night to get together with friends…on Sunday you will feel at a loose end…people kicking you in the head on Monday are probably up to no good…
Wall arrives before our drinks are ready. He slumps down into the seat opposite me. We stare at each other for a while, too tired to speak. Wall is wearing his work uniform, the tight black T-shirt with the little green ‘Gamesman’ logo over his left tit.
‘Phil,’ he says, ‘we've got a problem.’
‘Problem?’ I ask.
He nods sombrely. The little café-girl with the ring-binder eyebrows approaches us with our drinks on a tray.
‘Espresso?’ she inquires.
‘Here,’ Wall says.
She puts the coffee down in front of him, hands the orange juice to me and smiles at us both.
‘She's new,’ Wall says, his eyes still on her as she returns to the counter.
‘Yeah…she thought I was Canadian…’
Wall snorts with faint mirth. ‘Doesn't that Liza chick…you know, the one who works Wednesdays…doesn't she think you're a Yorkshireman?’
‘Yeah,;’ I nod, ruefully, I'm not really from Canada or from Yorkshire, I was born right here in Christchurch twenty-eight years ago, at Christchurch Women's Hospital no less, only fifteen minutes walk from this very café…I've lived in Christchurch, on and off, for maybe twenty-five of those twenty-eight years and yet almost every day, every time I meet someone new, my nationality is called into question. ‘What's that accent of yours?’ people will ask. ‘What country do you hail from, mate?’ Somehow I just come across as generically page 5 foreign, as someone who could have been born in London, in New Orleans, in Zurich, in Ghent, or on Mars but who simply can not be from round these parts. It's always been like this, even in primary school the other kids would tease me because my voice sounded ‘posh’, or ‘weird’, or ‘German’. Of late I've taken to playing along. I just pretend to be whatever variety of foreigner people take me for; it's easier than having to cope with their shocked disbelief when I reveal myself to be Christchurch born and bred.
‘Philip,’ Wall says, ‘the problem…’
‘Okay,’ I say, ‘what's our problem?’
‘Jason's bailed. Packed his bags. Gone. Kaput.’
‘Kaput?’
‘Kaput…’
I frown. ‘I don't understand. Where's he gone?’
‘Looks like he's run off to the States to seek out his Internet lover. Here, I found this taped to his door when I woke up.’ He passes me a hastily written note which reads:
Guys,
I'm off to the States to find Joni. Sorry if I'm leaving you in the lurch, but I have to see her, I'm caught up in the impulse, I can't fight it. I've just bought my tickets, emailed Joni to say I'm on my way and now I'm headed for the airport. Wish me luck. I don't know when I'll be back, maybe never.
Love you guys,
J
I look up from the note and smile. ‘She's gonna turn out to be thirteen, isn't she?’
Wall nods briskly. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘that's a given. But right now we need a new flatmate.’
Even after hearing of Jason's inconvenient departure I can't help but feel good as I walk back home. It's a great morning, the sun is everywhere, you'd have to look real hard to see a single shadow, but it hasn't got hot yet and I'm still comfortable in my tie, jacket and silly page 6 red gold-lined waistcoat. With the sun shining in my eyes, all the people who pass me by look like pale shimmers on the pavement, ethereal blurs and day-time wraiths. I'm almost bobbing my head as I walk and under my breath I'm chanting the lyrics of that great 1985 Exponents classic:
‘Christchurch
In Cashel Street I wait
And dream that we may be
Together
Together
One day
One day
Onnnneee daaaay….’
The flat that I share with Wall and (till recently) Jason is upstairs on Cashel Street. It has a large living area/kitchen, three small bedrooms and a nice little balcony overlooking the street below. This Cashel Street loft is the third flat I have shared with Wall. The first was back when we were at uni, the second after I had returned to Christchurch skint and forlorn after my brief experience of domestic bliss in the States. We fell together in this flat two years ago, upon the completion of my European sojourn. Live with Wall, work, go overseas, come back to Christchurch, live with Wall…this is the pattern of my life, a karmic cycle all of my own.