What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? (17 page)

Gordon had too much to drink that night, and so when we got to bed, well, the performance and the promise were rather far apart. The thought that this — this child should be taking her own life when one had a sexually lifeless husband, giggling and
pretending
he was up to the task, all over me was awful.

Her bowels had emptied, the neck was a little elongated, I took in these details on instinct, knowing that if I faced it all in its gruesome reality I’d be able in turn to take my children, my husband if necessary, through it. I also felt terribly guilty at my own existence, for I could see the clothes, how shabby and out of date they were. And I knew without needing to be later told by the police that she had come from the State house area from where we had often heard the singing from what we thought were happy parties. I knew from my golf-club cronies, those with nursing
backgrounds
, and teachers, that the parties were generally anything but happy affairs. For it was nurses who saw the victims of violence, saw the drunken car-crash bodies, the stabbing victims, the
aftermath
(to my astonishment, I hadn’t even given these things a thought) of bar fights, party brawls, sexual abuse — the lot. And it was teachers amongst my friends who saw the children who came to school hungry with failure written all over them. No books, no loving parents to read to them, no structured lives with set goals
along the child’s way — Oh, I had my eyes opened all right. I found I had been living in this town of which I thought I played a fairly varied role, that I knew nothing but nothing of the lives the, uh, well the underclass lived. I knew nothing when I had assumed I was rather well-informed on life.

And now that I knew better all I had done about it — and intended to do, since I had given it deep thought — is look to my lucky stars that I was not to their manor(less) born. Since one could hardly cease being what she was born and raised as and become one of them. And nor was it likely many of them would have risen, or become, what we were. My mother, though frail, was still wise and sharp enough to tell me, if sadly, that everyone has to fight their own struggles on this earth.

I also dug around for information amongst my golfing friends, the women in my pottery class, the book club, of shop assistants; anyone anywhere and everywhere I’d find myself hinting on the subject of troubled teenagers, and then if I got a nibble I’d move it to casual reference to the Heke girl, in case I struck
someone
who knew her or knew of her. Finally I struck one who did, or she knew of the family as she lived in the same area, Pine Block — what a dreadful name. So hard and definite. Like A or B Block in a prison. Not that I know anyone who’s been in one — and so I found out that it was the father who had raped the poor child. That poor poor suffering kid.

But in my enquiries as to how long the father got sentenced to prison, it came up at the book club; Mabel Peters the retired nurse matron knew a bit more about it, she said that the police had not in fact charged the father because the semen evidence did not match the sample given by the father. And yes, a picture of a man having to masturbate to prove his innocence did very much cross one’s mind. Though Mabel said that that didn’t prove the man
innocent
except on the night in question. Which I thought was rather harshly judging and unfair of her but then typical of Mabel. She had married a traffic cop, after all. With a moustache, as we
knowing
friends used to giggle amongst us.

I did not attend the poor girl’s funeral since it was not my upbringing to go to the funerals of strangers even in these
circumstances
; I’d have felt exceedingly uncomfortable and quite out of
my place. And what would I have said to the mother — that I was sorry? That no, I had no idea of why her daughter chose our
property
. And if the mother in her distraught state had added one and one and got an affair between her child and my husband, what then? Though, of course, I was glad Gordon went since it showed, or at least I presumed it would have, that he had nothing to hide. Just as I was proud of the mother at turning down Gordon’s
insensitive
offer of money to help towards funeral expenses.

One day I was driving my golf friends on my turn for the pick-up to golf when Mabel suddenly pointed out the window, That’s him. The father. The father of whom? The girl who killed herself. Considering myself a fair person I was surprised at my ill feeling toward this strapping fellow stripped down to shorts
working
on a road gang; I who had accepted his innocence on what Mabel herself had told us.

One of the other girls commented that he was a handsome specimen and likened him to a thoroughbred horse, which I didn’t quite go along with despite his body. A thoroughbred has a certain class. This man lacked that, though handsome and well built he most certainly was. Given that it was his roadworks we were slowed and then stop-signed by, we all got a good look at him. I was reminded of white southern American women assessing a Negro slave. I felt somewhat disgusting for being one of them. I reminded myself, though, that he was innocent. But he did have a certain violent manner about him, those muscles rippling sweatingly in the sun.

Grace Heke had changed our lives. Yet in a way that left one only with a keener sense of appreciation of one’s better lot in life. Which of course made her memory the more poignant.

H
E SHIFTED HIS
feet when he knew the original position was exactly where the ball was gonna come (I’m a fighter, I unnerstan’ these things, arcs and flights and bodily movements, it’s like I unnerstan’ the very air bodies and objects move through — and thrown beer bottles, hahaha! from the old days) and he woulda been under it to take it at chest level, pull it into him like he and the utha locks’d
practised
the last five weeks every Tuesday and Thursday minus the one Thursday when a man’d decided to get on the piss cos it was raining and he (I) thought practice woulda been called off — no he didn’t, tha’s the excuse he gave when the boys came in after for a beer and, bugger me, they jus’ looked at him and said don’t come that, Jake. And Gary Douglas called him a wuss. When he’d thought he’d been getting along pretty well with ’em, what with the hunting trips and drinking with ’em several times a week, too. The whole fucken team ignored him that night, as if the nights he had turned up to practice didn’t count (even when I didn’t want to go and who said I have to anyrate, I’m not one a you. Not really. I only came in cos fucken Gary and Kohi talked — egged — me into it.) So he’d stood by himself feeling bad and thinking how quickly men become strangers to one another jus’ on account of a man decidin’ it’s a free fucken country — Well, fuck ’em. Won’t turn up to practice ever again.

But when he thought about it nex’ day and remembered the fullas he’d got to know, several of them honkies at that, when he’d never known a whiteman not in his whole (unknowing) life — not if he didn’t count his brief time with the McClutchy alkies, which he didn’t cos they weren’t real people, not when part of their soul was sold to the drink in a big way — surprised at them, his
teammates
, sorta the same as Maori fullas ’cept they talked a bit
different
; one fulla, the halfback, cheeky an’ funny as anything, for a whiteman he was, and kinda warm, too, if a man was gonna be honest about it, the way he, Ronnie, put his hand on a man’s
shoulder
jus’ anytime and that smile right up into a man’s face. Alright, Jake? he’d ask, like he really cared. Like if you had sumpthin’ on ya mind he’d be the one you’d go to tellim all about it. (I might jus’ do that one day, ya never know.)

It came down, he was too close, it hit him high on the chest nearly on the chin (had to snap my head outta the way like it was a sneak punch) and the fucken ref blew the whistle, Knock-on green! Scrum. Red put-in. A man hearing the Douglas mob on the sideline laughing atim. (Fuckem. I’ll showem.) But he didn’t. The other side showed, not just his opposite opponent but plenty others in the team showed him, Jake (The Muss) Heke, what another kind of muscle was about.

He was out-timed, out-jumped and nemine a man’s height in the lineouts. (Our fucken hooker’s fault, he knows I like it lofted high not those hard straight throws, I hate those. Y’ timings gotta be too right. Wouldn’t mind if it was a fight, then I’d fucken make sure the timing was there alright, don’t worry about that.) He pushed his weight in the scrums but then scrums for a lock were easy. Being a lock forward he didn’t have to make many tackles like the backs running against each other individually had to, but the times someone broke from the play and came (thundering) at him, he made the mistake of trying to use his strength and got run over the first time, the second he drove into the tackle ’cept the fulla turned his body slightly and a man went brushing past ended up on his face eatin’ fucken dirt.

When he was out of breath — and that started very early in the game — the Douglas brothers and some of the other fullas yelled atim to keep up, to
get
in there, Jake! when he was trying. But the ole lungs jus’ wouldn’t supply the muscles. The first time he got the ball — jus’ arrived in his hands from a maul — he thought, This is it! And he charged, right into a body tackle that not only winded him he lost possession of the fucken ball (oh!)

It didn’t seem right, fair, that a man who’d been a fighter all his life, who’d ruled one of the worst pubs in town, had done fistic battle with, on several occasions, three his own size and won, should not be able to play this fucken game. Yet whatever he did he messed it up or at best made hardly no impression. He was lowered in tackles by li’l guys. Pushed around, elbowed in the lineouts, sneak-punched in rucks, raked by boots on the ground, and the cunts even mouthed off atta man while waiting for the ball to be thrown into the lineout. Made him turn, What’d you sa — Shet! Distracting a man so he misses his lineout jump altogether with wanting their blood. He did
a cupla good things, had one long run and made a few sorta good tackles (they coulda been better, I know like any fighter man knows in his heart of hearts. But leas’ I made ’em.)

In the clubroom bar after the game, he would’ve drank
elsewhere
if they hadn’t snubbed him so totally that night he missed practice (it hurt), so ashamed did he feel of playing exactly like Gary’s original facial expression’d said, like a wuss, man jus’ wanted to leave. But for some reason he likened it to Beth: if he walked then he was never gonna see these people, not as friends or
teammates
or even to say hello to, ever again. So he downed his beers — or tha’s how he started out till Kohi tole him, Hey man, slow down, slow down, we got all night, brutha. And when Jake looked (deeply) into Kohi’s eyes (yeah, he’d played well for a fulla with a fat gut) looking for any smartarse meaning he only saw goodwill. And a fighter knows goodwill like he knows badwill. Like he knows bodily movement, of objects, too, and so he shrugged, and slowed his drinking to his team-mates’ pace, as was the done thing. (You’re a team aren’t yas?)

When the coach came ovah to their stand-up elbow-lean table, Jake Heke got guarded (Gwon, tell me how bad I played. But don’t go on about it, Joe. A man knows when he hasn’t done well, at anything physical he does.) Good game, Jake. (What!) Timing a bit out in the lineouts, but that’ll come. Few more games. Jake astonished — shocked to his shallower core — that not only was he not being hauled out for how bad he played but — Coach, I hear right? What, it takes, like, a few games? And even his own sentence, the way he’d structured the question, surprised himself. It actually meant exactly what he wanted: did he have a few games to come right? (Tha’s all I’m asking, coachie.)

Sure. What, you expect to go out there and play All Black rugby? In a third-grade senior team meant to be enjoying
themselves
? At, what, forty-three? Jake, come on. Hey! Forty-two. Jake trying not to break out smiling cos it’d be the relief he was smiling at as well knowing coach was teasing the year onto his age. Well, you played like forty-bloody-six, mate, Joe in that whiteman way of talking, more sure of ’emselves, less mumbled. And with the eyes right at a man. When in Jake’s world, direct eye contact meant
challenge
. Meaning fighting talk even when it was silent.

At some time during the body-tired but heart-singing — and voice-singing, when the Douglas brothers produced a gat — night, Jake got ’n idea. Of asking Cody to join the team, it wasn’t so
serious
a level Cody would feel out of his depth, not with a coach let you have a few games to settle in. In fact, his head swam with lots of ideas, on his own game and where he could improve. On ways he could get fitter so at least he’d enjoy the game better. (Double up on my daily press-ups.) And where he could show his team-mates (buddies) his social contribution. Remembering his days at McClutchy’s where he ruled, at fighting and singing. This feeling of tired elation about the same as after a day out hunting (now I got experience). He wanted to sing to, you know, express that elation; now he was jus’ drunk enough not to feel, you know, too
embarrassed
. Got a thought then of why: why would a man be
embarrassed
at jus’ hearin’ his own voice singing a fucken song when he knew he could sing it, not as if it’d be like a man’s firs’ rugby game in twenny-five years, this was sumpthin’ a man’d never missed a practice at — (Haha! a practice) — not one fucken week, of doing his (drunk) singing thing at the pub, at pardies all ovah — all OVAH — this town in, what, nearly the same twenny-five years.

He (I) had sung with the best. The pub an’ pardy best anyrate. So he went to Gary on the gat, Hey Ga, you know ‘Tennessee Waltz’? Holding his breath cos the younger players, which was mosta them, would go, Ohh, not a fucken oldie numba! Put a man off, make ’im feel stink about himself. When in the ole days they’d a only said it from a safe distance that it was a oldie song. ’Cept no one said anything. ’N fact they all went, Yeah! Jake’s gonna sing us a song.

So (you know) he took a breath and sang. And no one said a word or laughed, they only joined him in the chorus: …
to
the
beautiful
Tennessee
Waltz
. He hadn’t felt this good in — oh, a long long time. (And wait’ll I play football better. And wait’ll you hear my best songs. Wait, wait, jus’ you good people wait: Jakey’ll show you.) In this life — not the fucken next — he’d showem.