1982

The Official Version

Once, one of the marines
your Gran knew
during the war
visited Auckland.

There was a fat woman
in the lift whom
your grandfather joked
he'd introduce in her place.

Perhaps
she rode the lift to meet him,
part of a phalanx—
husband, son, and grandson
at the points.

She straightened her slacks,
touched her new-set hair,
stroked down her husband's arm
and took his hand.

Together, all four stepped
into the lobby to meet
her old driving instructor,
her marine.

page 100

At first
she saw only a stranger—
thick-necked, thin-haired, in a dark suit
that spoke success while he talked
too loudly for the room.

But then, the way his blue eyes drove
over her searching for the girl
she'd been. Even now, she saw
how easy desertion would be.

And maybe
in that instant my grandfather
moved forward to shake
the hand of the man who had
known his wife in the war.

He didn't thank the visitor
for the silk stockings.
Once he wouldn't
have thanked this man for anything,

except, perhaps, in exchange
for the intrigue in his wife's eyes
when he arrived home with photos
—in uniform, a girl on each arm in Trieste.

And just possibly
as the American reached out,
ruffled the grandson's black hair,
and said, 'Here's a little marine,'
my grandfather was hit

with doubt.

The boy
retreating into his father's laugh
could have been anyone's
page 101 till he reached up to take
my grandfather's dry hand,
as if to say, I am
here, ours, us, yours, hers.

Then
for just long enough she too turned
from the man who had taught her to drive,
from the husband who left and returned,
to the waiting boy
who would one day be twenty-one.

She stayed.