In a Fishbone Church Read online

  Gene looks around his office. The man is gone. He crouches down and checks under the desk, behind the filing cabinet.

  ‘Have you lost something?’

  ‘Did you see a man leaving just now? About forty?’

  Michelle frowns. ‘Nobody came past reception. Perhaps you’d like a cup of tea, does that sound nice?’

  Gene wanders to the dinner table that evening still wearing his reading glasses.

  ‘Bye Dad,’ says Christina, on her way past in a mist of fake Poison. ‘I’m going to Janine’s for tea.’

  ‘Mmhmm,’ nods Gene.

  ‘Are you hoping for a menu to browse through?’ says Etta when he sits down. He stares at her blankly. She reaches across and removes his glasses.

  During dinner she chats about how well the garden is doing, and how there should be new potatoes for Christmas dinner. Bridget appears at one stage and serves herself some bean salad and beetroot.

  ‘There’s corned beef too,’ says Etta, lifting a couple of slices towards her daughter’s plate.

  ‘Yes, for the moment, there is corned beef,’ says Bridget. ‘There will not always be corned beef.’ She takes her plate to her room.

  Etta sighs. ‘I think we should have a talk with her. I mean, it’s great she’s getting involved with the Youth Group and making some friends, but this food business is definitely not normal.’ Gene contemplates a boiled potato. ‘Gene? It’s not normal, is it?’

  ‘No, no,’ says Gene. ‘Very strange indeed. Quite worrying.’

  ‘All right then,’ says Etta.

  After dinner Gene retrieves the diaries from the toy cupboard and sorts them into order. There are more than he expects, and only one year is missing: 1955. He knows why, too. His mother had thrust that one at him when she and Clifford were shifting to a smaller house.

  Gene was helping his mother Violet pack some of her more fragile things. They’d worked their way through the house and were finishing the last room, her bedroom. And Clifford’s. Violet was wrapping ornaments in handkerchiefs and scarves and nylon slips and placing them in fruit crates. She took her wedding photo from the dressing table and looked at herself, twenty-eight years younger, peering out from the shadow of a low hat.

  ‘You’re a good boy, Gene,’ she said, wrapping the photo in a woollen singlet. ‘I know you’re busy enough with your own place.’

  ‘It’s hardly a place yet. We’re still clearing the section.’ Violet lifted a drawer from the dressing table and began sorting through hairclips and curved combs which had become meshed. ‘You haven’t taken on too much, have you love? I don’t know when you find the time to even see Etta, and the two of you just three months married.’

  Gene crumpled newspaper and packed it into a lidded crystal dish. ‘I have to go to night school. I can’t be a builder all my life.’

  ‘You’re a very good builder. Fred Conway wouldn’t know what to do without you, he said. His wife told me so, when she was in the shop.’

  Are there any more crates in the garage?’ said Gene. ‘These are all full.’ And he tucked some extra sheets of newspaper around the parcelled ornaments.

  A husband should spend time with his wife. Take her out. Do you still go out?’

  ‘Mum. Please.’

  Violet opened Clifford’s bedside cabinet and took from it a book bound in red. She handed it to Gene. ‘I don’t care what you do with it,’ she said. ‘I don’t want it in the new place.’

  Gene ran a finger over the date stamped in gold on the front of the book: 1955. ‘I gave Dad this. Last Christmas. Mum – ’

  But Violet had turned away and was holding one of Clifford’s singlets up to the light. ‘This’ll do for a duster now,’ she said.

  When Gene and Etta had cleared the last of the gorse and broom from their section, they piled the branches on to the trailer to take to the tip.

  ‘All that work for an empty piece of land,’ said Etta, and slouched against the car.

  ‘You don’t need to come to the tip,’ said Gene. ‘Have a rest, I’ll go.’

  But Etta said no, she wanted to come, the tip was one of her favourite places. You never knew what you’d find there.

  Gene slipped the diary on to the back of the trailer with the prickly mass of broom and gorse. It wasn’t difficult to dispose of it when they arrived; Etta was too distracted by what other people had thrown away to notice him dropping it underneath the trailer.

  ‘A couch!’ she called. ‘Gene, it’s perfectly good!’ She prodded a squat fridge with her toe, causing the door to fall open. She examined a gutted radiogram. Gulls were everywhere, circling, screeching.

  There were scratches on Etta’s arms after she and Gene had raked all the branches off the trailer. She rubbed at them in the car on the way back to their flat. As he was falling asleep that night Gene recalled the paleness of her skin in the stark sunlight, the whiteness of the gulls’ bellies, the red scratches, the red diary against the mud, and how yellow the gorse flowers glowed.

  Two weeks later, when Clifford discovered that 1955 was missing, he turned the new house upside down. This happened on a Sunday, when everyone was there for lunch.

  ‘It’ll show up,’ said Carnelian. ‘You haven’t even finished unpacking yet.’

  Violet set the carving knife down at Clifford’s place at the table, next to a roast swan. ‘Are you coming now, love?’ she called.

  Clifford could be heard moving things around up in the ceiling.

  ‘I’ll carve,’ said Gene.

  For the next half hour they sat at the table eating while above them were sounds of dragging and crashing. Violet chatted away, asking Etta if she would like any old kitchen things that they really didn’t have room for in the new place. She could have a mincer if she liked, good as new. At one point it sounded as if Clifford was going to crash through the ceiling, and land in the middle of the glistening swan. Eventually he appeared, dusty and red in the face.

  ‘No luck, Dad?’ asked Beryl. ‘Colin, sit up straight.’

  ‘I don’t like this,’ said Colin, spitting out a mouthful of half-chewed meat. ‘Mummy, I want some cake.’

  Clifford took his seat at the table. ‘I’ll find it.’

  ‘Colin!’ Beryl caught a piece of pumpkin before it fell to the floor. ‘Rob, do something.’

  Gene pushed swan bones to the side of his plate through a puddle of dark gravy and was silent. Violet helped Clifford to mashed potatoes and peas and roast pumpkin, saying, ‘There now.’

  ‘A diary, how interesting,’ said Etta. ‘I’d never have the patience. Do you write in it every day, Cliff, or only when something interesting happens?’

  ‘Every day, don’t you, Dad?’ said Carnelian. ‘Even if absolutely nothing’s happened.’

  Clifford stopped looking for the diary eventually, although he did still mention it from time to time, for years afterwards. ‘Make sure you keep track of everything you pack,’ he said to Etta when she and Gene finally shifted into their new house. ‘Things can go missing very easily. I lost a diary that way.’ And again, when they moved to Wellington, ‘Do all your own packing,’ he insisted. ‘I recommend making a list.’ The diary was even mentioned when Beryl’s cat was run over. ‘You have to keep an eye on things all the time,’ Clifford told her, ‘otherwise you lose them. I have never located my 1955 diary.’

  Gene thinks of it now, decomposing in the mud, slowly covered over by thirty years of refuse. He doubts that any part of it remains; paper and cloth, he imagines, would be broken down fairly rapidly, like the soft flesh of creatures without bones. They would have dissolved, Clifford’s comments and observations, his 1955 secrets, leaving behind just an imprint of themselves, a shadow in layers of mud.

  A swan

  story

  1954

  Jun 15 Tue

  Had a rotten day woke up with a stiff neck & the trots & a cough that is coming up from my boots reckon I have used six Hankies

  Jul 7 Wed

  Gene & Etta to
marry September next year but not the full church show as Gene is not a Catholic Etta’s mother is refusing to come fine by me A message to young couples remember this, money is a blasted pest if you have good health don’t worry about money. Its hard to get, its hard to keep, its hard to hide, & its hard to stop the Government knowing you’ve got it. When you are young you are inclined to think that if you could climb up a rainbow you would find a pot of gold. Take my advice don’t try to climb at all, you have better than gold you have your health & you have one another. Love & be loved & go on loving & some day that pot of gold will slide down the rainbow & save you that climb beer, yes, in moderation, smoking no, a dirty stinking expensive habit, never start, a car, yes, by all means after you have your own home. A job you must have & always be a worker but don’t be bossed around by no boss if you are doing your job well, the boss should not worry you if he does get another boss. I say to Hell with the boss with the big stick if nobody will work for him what will he be boss of well over to Cyril’s to hear the rugby

  Jul 16 Fri

  I am worried about my health and have been for a while from time to time my heart misfires it is most unsettling of course I have not mentioned it to Mum she would only worry

  Jul 21 Wed

  Gave Mum £5 today for helping me in the shop. A bit of Pocket Money for her. Beryl & Rob round for tea, with little Colin. He is walking now & into everything he tried to eat some of the stones I have been polishing on the emery wheel

  Jul 24 Sat

  Carnelian is missing & has been for 2 hours she is supposed to be having a bath but I reckon she might be swimming Cook Strait

  Health Good

  Jul 25 Sun

  I did not rise early, when I did we decided to go for a 100 mile trip around the Gorges. We went through Rangiora & Loburn, across the low flat river on the road to Oxford & after 38 miles we arrived at Birch Hill. My daughter Beryl I think I have mentioned it previously is acting Matron at the Ford Milton Children’s Home there. I took a couple of good stones from the river for my Collection & Beryl took us to see the little Cemetery on the estate, where old Colonel Milton is buried there is even a monument for the horses killed in the 1914-18 War. It is such a peaceful place that the Deer from the near hills spend a lot of time there I noted droppings all over the grounds. We left the Cemetery with a feeling that here lay some real pioneers. Our next visit proved this, we had a look at the original home of these famous people. It was built of boulders evidently carried from the river. Rough but homely & very strong, a tribute to the days when men were tough I wonder how far away the nearest Doctor was. No telephone, no wireless, no lighting except the Moon, no motor cars & no roads, nothing except strong hearts & a will to live nearby was a wooden house it was very old but quite sound it was probably regarded as a very fine building in those days sometime in the late 1800’s it amused us, there was only 1 door to each room; no doors between rooms. On the walls were some good paintings, that is on the walls themselves. A Native Pigeon was the best one, there were also paintings of a Tui a Bellbird a Fantail strangely enough just outside, there were two live Native Pidgeons & they were quite tame & the colours in them very beautiful. What a contrast this wooden house from the old Boulder house. Gene you could have learnt a thing or two about building if you’d come with us supplies were evidently arriving in the country the pioneers had won their greatest battle. We went a little further & there stood the last home of these great folk. It is situated on a rise, surrounded by well laid out gardens contains something like 25 Rooms. What a difference. What a home a Dream Come True I stood outside on the spacious lawn & I looked at the Mansion here was everything that a man required. Telephone, wireless, electric light in every room (& doors), pumps electrically driven for the water, no carrying it from the river, an electric stove, an electric washing machine. In the yard were several motor cars capable of 80 Miles an hour & more & perfect roads leading to all parts of the Island even as I looked an aeroplane flew overhead, it could be in Wellington in 1 hour. But what the Bloody Hell is the good of it when you lie in that quiet little Cemetery. The Old Colonel must have been a wise old man & he did not want anybody to come & live there in comfort in a home already built he had built that Boulder Home with his blistered hands he must of wished nobody to just step in after he was gone. So what did he do he left all his property to unhappy children it is a home for them. Two other farms go with this one to support the home. What a great gesture & it means that no lazy cocky can step in & reap the profits of that great Family.

  His name was Colonel Milton

  And his wife’s Maiden name was Ford

  Hence the name of the childrens Home “Ford Milton”

  If you ever get the chance, go & see it for yourself

  Jul 29 Thur

  Gene at home for once this evening he is kept busy with his night school & his girl. Mum will miss him round the house when they are married they are to get a flat until their house is finished. It seems he does not want to stay on with us though perhaps it is Etta who is against it or her folks. He gave me a hand fixing a rod for a while, he is quite clever & will go a long way. He will have his own business in time.

  Pulse 87

  Aug 6 Fri

  Took Mum shopping in the car this afternoon I hope I am not spoiling her. Left Rob in charge of the shop & no real disasters. He fetched Beryl & Colin round for tea Colin likes the stones today he was playing with the giant fossilised crabs a good kid.

  Pulse 88

  Aug 22 Sun

  I went round to Cyril’s to see his new stones. He has some real beauties but wouldn’t say where he found them. We swopped a few I reckon I came out of it better off. He doesn’t have much of an idea of value that’s why he ended up with Vera. God help the whitebait this season, I don’t have to ask any boss if I can go to the river like Gene has to. He doesn’t have much free time these days they keep him at it.

  Sep 6 Mon

  No visitors tonight. Mum is asleep in her chair by the fire, she never seems to stop work I don’t know how she keeps it up

  Pulse 85

  Sep 26 Sun

  A very low tide at the Avon this morning I thought it would be a big one with the Full Moon. No luck with the whitebait, Gene either. Home by 8 a.m. & I did some gardening I planted Peas (Greenfeast) Carrots (Taranaki Strong Top) Parsnips (Student) Onions (Pukekohe) Beetroot (Derwent Globes).

  Took Mum Gene & Carnelian whitebaiting in the afternoon. Etta came too but just watched from the bank. I caught 3/4 lb. Mum made us a nice whitebait supper.

  Dec 2 Thur

  Gene fetched Etta round for supper tonight she stayed for a while when he went off to his night school & she dropped a big bomb. She told us that her & Gene were going to the Coast for Xmas with her folks & would arrive at Kai Koura later. So with Beryl & Rob at Nelson & Carnelian working on Xmas Eve it looks as though Mum & I will sit down to Xmas Dinner on our own. I could write a lot on this Subject but someday somebody might read this & get hurt.

  Pulse 93

  Dec 4 Sat

  Cyril & Vera Palmer came for the evening we listened to the cricket. After they had gone I was surprised as Mum broke down & had a good howl. It was over Xmas I think she is upset because nobody will be with us & also she was afraid I might say some unkind words to the family. As much as it hurts one to think of Xmas without any of the family I will bear it & keep it to myself

  Dec 18 Sat

  Tonight I rang up Cyril & Vera to invite them to Kai Koura for Xmas & Boxing Day. They accepted.

  I would like to mention here the fact that I offered Gene 6/-per hour for any overtime he cared to do for me in the shop the last 6 weeks before Xmas. Tax free, but he never showed up I only hope he will always be so well-off in the future. Perhaps 6/- per hour was not enough for him. I could have done with a hand & he could have learnt a few things. A lot more independent than I ever was. Health Fair.

  Dec 19 Sun

  Did up my fishing gear ready for the attack at Xmas
/>
  Xmas holidays at Kai Koura

  We had a grand drive up, called in at Mr Quinns Caravan at Goose Bay & he shouted good whisky. We arrived at our nice little house about 8 p.m. The only thing about it was it was very popular & Mum & I only slept in our bed twice in 3 weeks. The Palmers stayed with us for four nights. Cyril caught some fish for a change & was very pleased with himself. We both found some good stones I let him keep a couple of mine he doesn’t have as good an eye as me. The day they left Myra & Len Booth & 2 daughters came. Gene & Etta also arrived, & Beryl & Rob the following day. I took them all fishing & they were thrilled. We caught 60 sharks in one day. Gene & I shot nine deer & 1 pig but the most exciting thing that happened during the 3 weeks was me getting a green pea stuck in my windpipe & believe me I nearly crossed the border. Yes the house was good but boy we had some callers. It was no holiday for Mum one day she made 100 cups of tea.

  1955

  Jan 28 Fri

  Today Cyril asked me to make a couple of bamboo fishing rods for his boss Mr Drury 7 shillings a go with the possibility of further orders. I am kept busy with the shop but hell am I doing all right I always make my £30 per week & there are a lot of General Managers that don’t get that much & I’ll bet they have a lot more worry. I will get all the Family on the job things are going very well for us well tonight I go fishing for the weekend but of all the winds there are it is a South West & that will make the sea rough anyway I cannot order the wind to suit me

  Sylvia 5.30 p.m.

  Feb 19 Sat

  Cyril & Gene & I went to the Heathcote at 10 p.m. to get some eels for bait. I slipped on my bum in a drain, Cyril nearly went into the river he was suspended in mid-air for a while but Gene made no bones about it he fell in properly & got everything wet except his hat. Cyril & I had a great laugh, in fact we nearly had hysterics.

  Pulse 86