Huia Short Stories 11 (15 page)

George rubbed his eyes, spreading the waxy residue across his lids. Giving his face a vigorous rubdown, his hands, smooth and loose like satin sheets, slipped and folded in and out of each crevice. Finishing his waking routine, he let rip a trumpet of wind to warm his bed and a belch to dispel the stale night air from his lungs.

The room flooded with light as his daughter entered and drew the curtains.

‘Oh, crap! Morning already,' he blurted out as he watched Sheila busy herself around the room, picking up his clothes from yesterday, setting out clean clothes for today. Grinning, he recalled how much like his late wife, Myrtle, she was, musing over the way they tested each other's tolerance and daily energy as they played with words, purposefully baiting each other. In the end, they would look at each other and burst out laughing, knowing it was all part of the game, part of staying connected.

Yawning wide, George rolled onto his side and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Perched like a sparrow on a wire, he stretched his arms as high as he could manage – which was not far, thanks to the arthritic joints he used to call his shoulders. Arching his spine sent a grinding pain through his mid back. Wincing, he continued. Though painful, the movement was necessary if he intended to get up today. Grimacing through the pain, George managed to move more today than he did yesterday, but less than he could manage a month ago.

George's grin widened, pushing his ears up like a naughty sprite's as he considered testing the waters with Sheila this morning.

‘Anything specific on today, girl?' He didn't wait for an answer. ‘If not, I thought I might just do a spot of fishing down by the river mouth.' Counting to three as he rocked himself forward, George pushed himself upright. Breathing heavily, he felt the pulsating headache start and grabbed at the dressing table to steady himself.

Sheila looked on, shaking her head in disbelief, caught between a sigh and a smirk. 'Let me see, Dad,' she said, her hands planted on her hips and her head held high. After a third late shift at the freezing works, Sheila was tired, but not too tired for this game. ‘You want to go fishing today.' Her voice was strong and steady with a hint of mocking, as she swept his clothes up off the floor. Changing tack she introduced a topic of her own, a pet hate to divert his conversation. ‘I see you're wearing that hole-ridden singlet and old Y-fronts again. They need to go out to the wash this morning, or better still, into the bin!' Her tired, steely, cold eyes probed the distance between them like a blowfish about to burst. George said nothing. ‘As for going down to the river, well, let's see if you get through breakfast without wheezing or needing a nap first, eh!'

George lowered his head, trying his best to hide his glee at getting the anticipated reaction.
Bites just like her mother. I miss that woman, the way we'd bait each other to keep the spark going
.

Resisting the urge to have another crack, George took a long studious look at his ageing but comfortable underwear. ‘Of course, you're probably right sweetie. It's about time for some new ones, maybe tomorrow after I wear these one more time,' he suggested, his jaw jutting to one side.

Sheila, though tired, was not silly. She knew he wanted his usual morning tug of war. They both loved a good argument, and these morning pit stops on the road to the day's reality checks had become a routine. George would make plans for the day, just to have them scuttled. That way, it wasn't his getting old stopping him from doing what he wanted, it was another family member's commitments. So Sheila made her pretence at protesting, softening the impact of his limitations.

She frowned deeply at him, but before she could counter, George was on the attack.

‘I do need to get rid of these old grots and singlet, eh. As soon as I've had a shower, we'll throw them on the fire and be done with it, OK?' George flashed a crooked smile, the one that had allowed him to get away with so many things throughout his life. It worked like an old charm, and as Sheila started rolling her eyes, his smile broadened.
I got yah
, he thought.

Sheila was no stranger to his smile and the glint in his eye, nor was she as susceptible as she'd been three years ago, when he first came to live with her after her mum's passing. She had spent the first twenty-three years of her life trying to work her way around that grin, only partially succeeding after leaving home. Now, another twenty-five years on, she was more experienced at cutting through life's bull, but still susceptible to his insidious smile.

‘Hmm, and perhaps the Green Party will get a substantial share of the votes at the next election too, Dad. I know you too well.'

George's grin remained steady as he tilted his head to the side, softening the look in his eyes as the sun danced about his face.

‘Don't even go there you old toad.' Sheila's voice started to crack, her hard line crumbling at his relentlessly smooth attack. ‘You tell me what you think I want to hear while all the time you're scheming something different.'

George remained silent, dropping one shoulder as he leant deeper into the bed.

‘Come on, Dad. We both know how this one goes. By the time you've had breakfast and a shower, I'll be curled up in bed asleep. Then you'll stash your grots and your singlet somewhere safe till I leave for work tonight.'

With a sigh, and a comment spiked with emotional entrapment, George relented. ‘Guess I've about done my dash with them then, eh. Like me, they've outlived their usefulness. They're just another ill-fitting, worn-out pile of yesteryear's memories to dispose of, eh. Like going fishing, just a memory.' George's sigh as he flopped back down on the bed said it all.

Sheila closed her eyes and turned her head. This was the part she hated most, the last part of the ritual, when her idol and sparring partner gave in and became an old man again. Her black hair, still stuck in place from the fashionable white hairnet, a compulsory adage to the overalls and gumboots of her profession, bobbed like a stiff wig as she swung back towards him. Rather than answering, Sheila chose to stay quiet and wait it out. Bending down with one hand on his knee, she found his slipper. ‘Let me help with these you old codger.'

George placed his hand on her shoulder and grunted, before suddenly slumping forward to rest his head on her shoulder, as well. Sheila was motionless for what felt like an eternity. Looking up at George, the blood drained from her face. The only sound was her heart thumping away in her ears as the milliseconds slipped past. George's face was cold and ashen; pain and fear flashed through his eyes. One hand now gripped his chest, the other scratching away at the sheets.

Sheila leapt into action without thinking. With one fluid movement, George was lying back on the bed. Bursting into tears as she watched him struggle for each breath, Sheila grabbed her cellphone and started to dial.

‘Don't!' George wheezed, his colour slowly returning. ‘I'm okay. I just got breathless and panicked, that's all. Just a little panic attack.' Flinching, he turned to face her, endeavouring to flash a smile, unable to hide the discomfort.

‘Yeah right,' Sheila shouted, her eyes full and moist, a dam about to burst. Her voice shook and clanged like the chains at the works during a quake. ‘A little panic attack, Dad. I need to ring the ambulance. I'm scared.'

Her moist lashes gave way as the flood started, fear rampaging uncontrollably through her, tears bucketing out. With the phone set to go on speed dial, she hesitated, looked to him for some sign, some indication of what to do.

George slowed his breathing, focusing his effort on remaining calm. His body still shaking, he stretched his feeble hand out to her, his voice soft and mellow. ‘Come here darling.'

Hesitantly, Sheila took his ageing arthritic hand into the plump, soft padding of her own. They stayed that way, sitting silently, hand in hand for long seconds. George was breathing easier with each passing moment. Sheila sat searching his face through her tears, desperately wanting to see the man who got out of bed five minutes earlier. Slowly, realising he was not coming back; that he was fading, leaving a frailer older man, the tears welled up again.

Minutes passed slowly till George recovered enough to talk again. His voice, heavy with longing, pushed out the words. ‘Sheila, since your mum died, you've been my strength, my only reason to get up each day. Without you, I wouldn't have lasted a year. Yet, with every passing day, I miss your mother more and more.'

Sheila's stomach twisted as he spoke. She wanted to let him continue, but didn't want to hear what he needed to say.

‘Don't say it, Dad,' she pleaded, her voice trailing off to less than a whisper. ‘I don't want to hear it. Just stay here, just one more year, please.'

George sagged forward, exhaling as he did. ‘I'm sorry honey, but I'm so tired all the time, and I miss her so much.' George's voice was thin, wheezing through every word. Squeezing his eyes tight against the salty tears pooling about his lids, he struck a bargain. ‘Ill make you a deal, girl. Help me out to the porch, I'll have a smoke, you phone the doctor, make an appointment for this afternoon, then put the kettle on for a cuppa.'

Sheila smiled as she kissed his hand. Shite or not, she was prepared to accept any compromise. ‘Don't you go anywhere before I get back, promise me.'

He nodded as she wrapped him up in the patchwork quilt her mother had made, and helped him to the porch.

‘Okay? Warm enough, Dad?'

‘I'll be right here, kiddo.'

Sheila raced to the kitchen, returning moments later. George was sitting on the seat, where he'd said he would be. His head was cradled in his hands, his breathing shallow and quick. Tired and exhausted, his cheeks sat like a stark white shroud over his thumbs. His muscles hung like a discarded half-finished scarf on needle-thin arms, waiting for the knitter to return; his feet were balloons in shades of soft purple from toes to ankles. Sheila felt a renewed twisting in her gut at the sight.

Sliding in beside him, she slipped her trembling arms about him, a listless shrug the only response. Tenderly massaging his back with one hand while holding his hands in the other, Sheila talked him through the morning plan.

‘Kettle's on.' Her voice was quiet, filled with promise. George tried to turn his head, but didn't have the energy, settling instead for raising his eyebrow.

‘Today, we're going to wait out here in the sun till you warm up, just the way you like to.'

George, barely able to manage a shrug, forced a response. ‘That'll be nice … bit of time before …'

His voice was lost in the sound of approaching sirens.

The sun streamed onto the porch from between the trees. Warm air sauntered about their feet while steam rose from meadow grasses. Holding George close, their faces turned to the warming sun, a haunting calm settled about them.

‘That's right, Dad,' Sheila whispered. ‘Then after your nap we'll go down to the river mouth for a spot of fishing.'

George wiped his kitchen benches and looked out the window. His neighbour, Margaret, was sweeping her concrete driveway. They rarely spoke, not that he hadn't tried. He'd offered cobs of his sweetcorn over the fence, and his prized baby kamokamo, the sweetest, but she'd kept her distance, politely refusing his offerings. He'd tried to introduce her to his smoked eel once, too.

‘No, thanks,' she'd said.

The look of distaste on her face that day made him smile. ‘You should try it. Full of Omega 3. Great for the joints.'

‘My joints are perfectly fine thanks,' Margaret said and carried on with her sweeping, leaving George leaning on the fence like an idiot.

He wondered what she did in her spare time, if she had any. She worked from dawn till dusk, gardening, mowing lawns, raking leaves and sweeping a driveway that, as far as George could see, had been swept clean already.

One day, he might show her some of his poetry, but then again, maybe he wouldn't. He'd started writing after he lost his wife, Bella, almost five years ago, and hadn't really stopped since.

The following evening, George threw his eeling gear onto the back of the ute. He waved out to Margaret, watching at her kitchen window, but she ignored him and closed her blind as he backed down the driveway.

Eeling was in George's blood. As a kid he'd swum in crystal clear river pools during the day, only to return at night to find the water teeming with slithering black eels.

‘Fish of the night,' his koro called them. ‘Mysterious creatures. Did you know they swim as far away as the Pacific to breed? Incredible.'

His koro taught him everything there was to know about eeling. The best time of the year to set the hīnaki, where to set it, what bait to use and how to clean and gut any eels they caught. ‘But only take what you need,' he said, ‘and let the big ones go. They're the females, the breeders. Those are the eels that migrate to the Pacific. Some of them would be as old as me, and if they've lived that long they deserve to be set free.'

He passed all his smoking secrets on to George too: the right type of wood to use – slow-burning for a longer, cleaner smoke – and the amount of salt, which had to be just right. ‘But what you need most,' he said as he worked, hanging eels inside the old fridge he used as a smoker, ‘is plenty of patience.'

George called in across the road to see if old Keith wanted to go for a ride, but he wasn't home. He felt for Keith. There were plenty of lonely people in the world. Margaret with her spotless house and no one visiting, and Keith with his two daughters, one in Australia and the other, living right here in Waitapu, who hardly ever visited. There were rumours. That was the thing about small towns. Everyone knew your past, and if they didn't they'd make one up for you.

George hadn't known what grief was until he lost Bella, but what had hurt most was not having the chance to say goodbye. He carried on afterwards as best he could, spending time with his whānau and indulging in his favourite pastimes – the eeling, and diving sometimes too, if the sea was right – but nothing made up for the emptiness he felt.

He'd been out eeling the night before Bella's car accident. He'd set his net and forgotten all about it until ten days after the tangi. When he finally drove out with his sons to pull it in, curled at the bottom was the largest and darkest eel he'd ever seen. Huge. He remembered what his koro said and they let it go, watching as it slithered away into the depths.

George drove on towards the stream he'd jacked up with one of the local farmers. They were more than happy for him to fish their dams and streams, as long as he gave them a sample of the finished product, the eel he smoked.

He opened and closed farm gates and drove over bumpy paddocks until he reached the edge of the stream. He stood on the bank watching long pieces of river-weed sway in the direction of the current. He tied a muslin bag of rabbit bait inside the end of his net then walked along the bank searching for the best spot to set it. On the other side of the stream he saw a deep, eddying pool. It was a dark iridescent green, the colour of pāua. He stripped down to his underwear and waded towards it, then dropped his net into the pool, letting the weight tied beneath drag it towards the bottom.

His net was nothing like the traditional hīnaki his koro had used. George's net was made up of large metal hoops, increasing in size towards a wing extension. He lined the wing up on a slight angle to the current, hoping it would do its job and guide eels into the net. He pushed a stake through holes at its end and used a large river rock to hammer it into the stream bed.

His whole body shook with the cold as he climbed out of the stream. He must be mad, eeling at this time of year. The eels were nowhere near as plentiful and the water was freezing, but every year since Bella had gone he made a point of setting the net on the eve of her anniversary. He towelled himself down and changed into dry clothes, then pulled the hood of his Swanndri up over his head. Afterwards he stood listening to the rushing sound of the river, the occasional lone bird call and the thin branches of overhanging willows rustling in the wind.

George wouldn't call himself lonely, not in the same way Keith and Margaret were. His whānau visited often, and he visited them too, his sons in Wellington and his daughter in Napier. Last time he stayed with her she'd suggested he sell up and move in permanently.

‘Think about it Dad,' she'd said. ‘The boys love having you here. So do I. It'd work both ways. I need another adult in the house and you wouldn't be on your own.'

George didn't want to tell his daughter he quite liked being on his own. Staying up late on the computer, watching movies on Sky any time of the night or day, and cooking whatever he liked: pork bones and watercress, fish-heads and occasionally terotero. He missed Bella desperately, but not her complaints about his liking for certain foods and his preoccupation with the screen. Huia would be no different. She was too much like her mother, and Waitapu was where he'd met Bella, where they'd brought up their kids. He wasn't quite ready to leave those memories behind.

He woke early, long before it was light, worrying about his net being washed away. He'd woken several times during the night to heavy rain, its sound like handfuls of shingle thrown at the roof. George made a cup of tea and took it outside to check the weather. The night sky was pitch black but it was full of stars, out in force after the heavy rainfall. Over to the north-east, he saw a single star, Takurua, and to its left Tautoru, Orion's Belt. He followed its line to the left along the horizon then up slightly, and there it was. Matariki. Clear as a bell. His koro had taught him the names of stars and where to spot the constellations.

He remembered the first time he'd seen Matariki.

‘There. See?' his koro had said. ‘Seven of them.'

George had seen a cluster of stars surrounded by a slight haze.

‘Eyes of God.'

He made himself a cup of tea and saw that Margaret's kitchen light was on. She was up early, too, or perhaps she couldn't sleep either.

The sky lightened as he drove out to the farm, his car lights picking up the occasional dead possum in the middle of the road or a rabbit darting away.

When he reached the stream he could see the floats of his net pulled well below its swollen surface. He waded in, shaking with the cold and felt around in the water for the stake he'd hammered in the day before. When he found it, he hauled at the rope attached to the net, but it was snagged and wouldn't budge. He reached further down in an attempt to loosen it, then lost his footing and felt himself sink into the hole. He tried to swim, but the rope had tangled round his legs. Somehow he managed to reach up and grasp at an overhanging branch, but it snapped and came away in his hand. George was a good swimmer and he wasn't too worried at first, but when he felt himself sink even further and the rope around his legs tighten, his arms flailed out in front of him. He tried his best to stay afloat, but the eddying water pulled at him, sucking him further down. He managed to gasp a breath of air before his head slipped below the surface. When he opened his eyes under water, George thought he saw the image of a face, a woman's face, her long black hair floating towards him like the river-weed.

Bella.

His movements slowed, and he felt a strange sense of déjà vu. How easy it would be to let himself go and float down towards her, but instead he reached out, yanking at the tangled rope and kicking his legs at the same time in a desperate bid to loosen it. Finally the rope fell away and he surfaced then swam towards the bank. He stood up in the shallows, stumbled, then slumped, shivering, on the edge of the stream.

After a while he picked himself up and waded back to the edge of the hole. He pulled at the rope, and this time it came away easily. He dragged the net in, and at its base was a single eel at least a metre and a half long. It swam backwards away from him, looking for an escape. George let it go and watched as it silently slipped back into the water.

He loaded the net onto the back of the ute and drove towards the rising sun. Its glow formed a band of light along the horizon, and a mist had settled over the paddocks. The first lines of a poem came to him and he said the words out loud to imprint them into his mind.

See there, that place …

At home he had a hot shower and put the kettle on. He sat at the table and wrote more words onto a serviette,

… on the furthest horizon …

He made himself a cup of coffee and stared at a photo of Bella on the mantelpiece.

… where the mists and rain and sun of sky, touch the earth
.

He heard a knock at the door. Margaret was standing there with a plastic container.

‘I heard you drive out this morning,' she said. ‘You were gone quite a while, longer than usual. I thought something might have happened. Here. Do you want these?' she said.

‘Margaret,' he said. ‘Come in, come in. Yes. Thanks. Shortbread. My favourite.'

For a moment George thought about showing her what he'd written, but he decided not to. He'd only ever shared his poetry with those closest to him. And he hardly knew Margaret. Not yet anyway.