Owls Do Cry (22 page)

So they sat till the bus, big-bellied and brazen, was ready for them, and they poured in like summer breeze and everglaze liquid; and they sat looking everywhere and afraid, and smelling the oil of the engine, and watching the ventilators, and smoothing the leather of the seats, and opening and shutting and opening the windows; and bouncing; and looking out at the other people who were not going and did not understand about going for a picnic; the patients who would have their dinner in the ward, just the same, and afternoon in the yard, and then tea, same, same, and be taken to bed, undressed, their bundle of clothes tied with the arm of a grey pullover to be put outside the door. Though perhaps there was a chance, some time in the afternoon, that a nurse would throw lollies from the window into the yard, and there would be a scramble that would end in fighting and crying, for some can grab faster, like ordinary people, and some are slow.

And while they sat there looking through the windows of the bus on to the people with no picnic, Ngaire, dressed in blue with her hair tied with a blue bow, looking very fashionable, screamed suddenly at the people having no picnic, and screamed again and again, and banged upon the
window of the bus, for she was afraid, and everything was strange, being dressed in a blue dress with a blue ribbon in her hair; and the attendant hurried purposefully along to her, and they took her out of the bus, quickly, back to the day room, where she looked out of the window, longingly, like one of the people left behind; but peaceful now with nothing unknown, no strange place to travel to and eat in under strange trees and a naked sky beside a phantom and forever flowing creek of ice.

Flora Norris, watching, and waiting to say Goodbye to the picnic party, said,

—Bother. That means an empty seat. Who will go in Ngaire’s place? Who is well enough to go?

And Sister Dulling, dressed in navy with white spots and carrying a straw sunhat and wearing sandals, looking very summery indeed, also said,

—Bother. There’s no one.

—Daphne? suggested Flora.

—Well, if you like, but, said Sister Dulling.

They fetched Daphne and dressed her and bore her from the small hut on the mountainside to the daylight and into the belly of the red and gold monster that purred as it began to move and leapt; and later, along the hills, whined and cried, on its way to a picnic. And Sister Dulling went twice up and down the bus holding out a biscuit tin filled with sweets, and saying generously,

—Take one.

Daphne took a licorice allsort, peeling the ribbed alternate night from its yellow and blue and pink day, and sucking it to nothing, while the bus moaned and sweated, and

—Picnic, picnic,

some of the patients cried out,

—Picnic. Where to?

Sister Dulling did not answer. She was not allowed to say. It was a secret, as all the picnics were a secret, in case the world found out where they were going, and followed, to stare and laugh; and perhaps even now the world was listening, so Sister Dulling did not say where.

—It’s a surprise, she said.

—But
where
?

—Somewhere, just
somewhere
.

It was a place of white manuka and a river pool of brown ice and hills of green iron; with a cloud crossing the sun, to send down a silver picnic rain like a new pin to be picked up, later, in sunlight, in the tussock, or the bald feasting-place charred with old fires and strewn with yesterday’s picnic paper and bottle and sardine tin; and

—Hurrah. Hurrah,

the dead people cried out, tasting the sun and the white manuka, and had there been any dark it was folded away and shaken out when the tablecloth, like a white laden sunlight, was spread upon the ground for all to feast from.

—But the tea, the tea! said the attendant who made the fire.

—We have forgotten to bring any tea.

He held the tin of boiling water, waiting.

It was true. They had forgotten the tea. But there was a farmhouse high on the hill, and, said Sister Dulling,

—Some of us can bathe in the river while nurse and a
patient go to buy tea from the farm. Surely they will sell us some tea.

So Nurse took Daphne, who had been quiet, and had not hit anyone or snatched any of the food before it was time, and they said goodbye – or nurse said goodbye, holding up the empty canister and saying,

—We’ll be back with it full of tea.

Sister Dulling and the attendant waved them goodbye, and looked at each other, and at the crowd of crazy people about them, and saw how they stood happy, amazed, drinking the daylight as fast as it would spill down their senseless throats; and Sister Dulling shrugged her shoulders and said,

—What wouldn’t I give for a drop of civilisation in all this mad gathering. Oh for a cup of good strong tea!

The attendant looked sly, and thought of something better to drink, he had half a mind to bring a bottle when he came on the picnic, but he knew it would cost him his job if they found out; so he agreed with Sister Dulling,

—A good cup of tea would put us right, I reckon. This gang gets on your nerves. I always think something’ll happen when they come out like this, all dressed up as if they were real people. They didn’t used to have fancy outings like this. I’ll have a smoke in the bus, away from it all.

—As long as you keep your eyes open, said Sister Dulling.

—Oh, I’ll do that all right.

So he sat in the bus, and the patients looked at him in all his glory, sitting alone and travelling nowhere; while
Sister Dulling and a few patients went behind separate bushes to put on the bathing suits they had brought, Sister having her own and not a ward one like the patients; hers smart and two-piece, not down-to-the-knees and full of moth-holes.

Gasping and trembling they tiptoed into the water, their arms held across their breasts, crosswise, as the dead lie when lilies are put in their hand.

—Oh, it’s cold, it’s cold, they called out.

It was brown ice they waded in, splashing in sudden adventure, and then under to the neck, crouched down with their feet rubbing the green slimy stones and their hair, ducked under, like weed, matted, and smelling now of old logs and sheep’s feet and earth. And Sister Dulling was the goddess. If she moved, or, not being able to swim, struck her arms through the water, the patients cried out or stared,

—Look at her! Look at her!

in a glory of wondering, for she was the goddess to be bowed down before and obeyed, on land with her white uniform and pinned medal, or in water, with her body overflowing and freckled, like a mottle of white pastry, plopping and swamping in a giant chalice of brown ice and wine.

High up, on the road leading to the farm, Daphne and the nurse stopped to rest and look down at the picnic.

—They’re swimming, nurse said. Look. And it’s raining down there.

Another picnic rain was falling, softly, as a reminder of silver blurring the view and white manuka, so that far below, the people hopping up and down and dancing in the water, seemed like drops of mercury grown to shape and
voice, yet darting and flashing to escape the final touch or death of being human.

The farm was around the corner, in the shelter of fir trees. It was a small building, scarcely a farm, with a plot of land fenced with manuka stakes that fell askew at the back where a black long-faced cow, a poll, stood chewing its cud, mechanical and unminding, as if the cud were swallowed and returned, swallowed and returned by pressure of a button, like a warm round penny dropped in a telephone slot.

—You wait here, Nurse said to Daphne. I’ll ask about the tea.

She knocked at the farmhouse door and waited.

They listened for footsteps or some sound of life – a coughing or talking or moving, but they heard no sound, only the desolate heave of despair that fir trees give, not in any wind or storm, but out of some death or loneliness inside themselves. The air was still, save for the soft trickle of misty rain, now falling on the hill as in the valley.

No one came to the door, so Nurse knocked again, waving Daphne to keep well in the shadow, in case whoever came saw her, and knew, for any fool could tell at the sight of those gaping eyes, nurse thought. So,

—Keep back, she warned Daphne.

And knocked again. Then, impatient, she turned the handle of the door and walked in.

—Come on, she said to Daphne. We can take some tea and leave the money behind. They’ll understand.

But the room was empty of furniture, and the cupboards empty, and nothing in any of the rooms, as if no one lived there.

—What a sell, Nurse exclaimed. What a rotten sell. All this way for nothing! But what about the cow, and the hens at the back, and the garden? There must be somebody living here.

She walked again through the house, opening cupboards and wardrobes.

—Strange, she said. There is no dust, it’s as if they vanished, furniture and all.

It’s a crazy happening, she thought, so perhaps a crazy person can explain it.

—What do you think, Daphne?

Daphne did not answer, but thought, If I travel a hundred miles to find treasure, I will find treasure. If I travel a hundred miles to find nothing, even if I bring money with me, to lay it down in exchange, I will find nothing.

So that time of the picnic they feasted without tea, which made the nurse and attendant and bus driver and Sister Dulling very irritable; but the patients did not care, drinking sun and brown ice, even if it did taste of sheep and old logs. And they drank manuka and tussock, until the time came when the big cloth of sunlight was shaken to be rid of all crumbs, and folded up, and packed away, and the patients, toppling full of fizz and sky, climbed into the bus that sweated and whined again, going home, leaving the picnic rain and valley and hill and the black long-faced cow, melancholy now, because no one came to milk it, standing by the manuka fence, under the fir tree that heaved not in any wind or storm but out of its own sorrow.

The year of Christmas and picnic was a confused and strange time, not like any other time of Christmas or picnic; first, the colour of both was a white of death, the cottonwool of pretended birth, and the star of manuka fixed nowhere for any world to follow. And the same year, in winter-time, there was a dance, where the men from their side of the mountain were encouraged to rejoice with the women from
their
side of the mountain, while the chief and Flora Norris and Sister Dulling watched, saying,

—Dance, dance. Get up and dance. What do you think we put on a dance for if you don’t dance?

So the patients danced, being told to, and the women were dressed like real ladies in the same bright picnic frocks, though this was June, with the night set on the windowpanes before sundown, and the plaster walls of the rooms lined with drops of water, or

damp,

as Flora Norris called it.

—Look, Doctor, the rooms are damp. We must have them seen to.

And the chief nodded and replied that certainly he would have it seen to, or make a note of it, or refer it to someone who would refer it to the proper quarter.

Most certainly.

Yes, it was June that they danced, when in the world, as you know who live there, young ladies are being measured and fitted for their coming-out dresses; and choosing their long gloves; and between talk of swot and the music master, preparing to attend their first real ball, and be presented to the Bishop or the Governor-General, or the local member of parliament, or whoever has what is called dignity and standing in the community. Ah, June is a romantic time, no matter how cold the park seats or the sand dunes and the lupins, or the garden, that has no summerhouse now, but a little green gnome, giving no shade or sympathy.

Now, all day the men in the mountain world prepared for the dance of the evening. Most of them had a bath, queuing outside the bathroom and being warned not to waste the water; others were bathed by force, with the attendant hopping them in and out, quickly, to put clean clothes on them and make them smell sweeter than they smell every other day, working in the garden and on the farm with the cows and pigs, or shovelling coal, or sorting the dirty laundry. When the canteen opened at one o’clock those who could free themselves from their work were there to buy hair-oil and hair-cream, or perhaps a new tie, the cheating type that you pin on and do not have to struggle
with; or a new handkerchief, or a pen to put in their pocket, displaying it there, as if they worked in an office, and were not patients. So that when the time came for the dance that was held from six o’clock until ten o’clock, the band arrived from town, sleek, and in evening dress, sitting on the stage, waiting, whispering together, smiling, amused. And there were the women sitting on the long forms against one wall, and the men on the long forms against the other wall, with the powdered floor between, and the smell everywhere of perfume and talcum powder and hair-oil, while the nurses and Flora Norris and the bigger chiefs sat on red velvet chairs, watching and pointing.

When the first dance began, the nurses walked up and down the wall on the women’s side, and the attendants on the men’s, saying,

—Dance. Dance. Go on, get up and dance!

So they danced, being told to, like real ladies and gentlemen, except the men sweated and smelt and held too closely and the women forgot to listen to the orchestra so that people had their feet trodden on, and no one apologised but laughed instead and said,

—It serves you right.

So they danced or walked or hopped or twirled round and round in the same place, and though it was a joking time, with a fine supper afterwards, no one will deny that inside was crying and confusion. The bandsmen kept darting to the back of the stage for a drink of whisky, and returning full of laughter, to play more vigorously their tango or foxtrot, while the pianist jigged up and down at the piano, playing hot rhythm.

At ten o’clock sharp the people were stripped of their finery and thrust back into the ashes, and no woman left a pink and dainty slipper of satin or glass lying on the dance floor, for the prince to find, nor was there any prince. The room was left empty and stuffy and smelling of tobacco.