Owen Marshall Selected Stories (26 page)

Ruth went from the bed quietly to have her shower, and when she returned, Green was shaving. ‘I've asked for some fruit to be sent up,' he said.

‘It's time I was on my way.'

‘Me too,' he said. ‘A quick shower and then to work whatever the day.' She knew to be putting on a little make-up, out of sight in the bathroom, when room service came, and then she sat close to the window while Green made coffee. They talked of what a city had to offer in a weekend. They weren't completely at ease. She found it more difficult with an intelligent man, once the object of the exercise had been accomplished, and rarely stayed the night in any case. She had her son to consider. She half-regretted having stayed, but then it wasn't fun getting up and leaving the hotel at two or three in the morning, demeaning even. Ruth wished she had some better experience to draw on in her conversation with him. If the feeling had an outcome it was only that her comments became knowing, sharp, even at the expense of people they could see in the Saturday street, or issues of mild interest raised between them. ‘You're no fool, Ruth,' he said. She had an answer to that too, but didn't make it, just took her bag and prepared to leave.

‘Goodbye, Ruth. I'll remember your lace night-dress. Lovely.' He held out twenty dollars. For a taxi he said.

‘Oh, I can walk, I can find my own way all right.'

‘No friend of mine walks home alone from the hotel,' he said. That was the right thing to say, Ruth thought, and she didn't find any sarcasm in it. Yet behind all he said she felt some malaise, some lack of expectation. She thought of his sleep-talk in the night; the voice of a different man she had heard just that once.

On impulse she said, ‘I won't stand on ceremony then,' and Hamish Green smiled at the phrase, but there was no sign it meant anything to him. She had a last glimpse of him and 309, with the black and pinks well caught in the low morning sun, the envelope with her name on the bedside table, Green's quiet suit and the silver watchband on his wrist.

It was nice wasn't it, the Hollandia. The carpet was obsequious beneath her slingbacks, making no distinctions. Even in the mornings at the Hollandia there was a sense of ease — as if all had been paid for, and quality given for that payment. It was nice, she thought, the Hollandia, with photographs of Groningen and Emmen, Amsterdam, Hilversum and The Hague.

M
yra was using the orbital polisher in the staff cafeteria at Proudhams when she first saw the rose. She had been working for five hours, her asthma was bad again and her shoulders ached from hauling the polisher from side to side on the brown and yellow mottled lino. The first rose was in the extreme upper left of her vision, and as her head moved with the polisher, so the rose moved, skimming over the cafeteria lino, or rising up the pale walls when she lifted her eyes. At first Myra thought it just a temporary continuation of the patterned whorls on the floor, or of the enamelled manufacturer's crest on the central boss of the polisher. But it was quite clearly a small rose. The petals were flushed pink with the packed effort of escaping the green bud capsule.

Myra took one hand from the polisher to rub her eyes and then blinked several times, but although the rose blurred for a moment, it reformed perfectly. She could see the slightly crimped ends of the small petals, like a delicate, miniature clam, and the deeper tonings of colour towards the centre of the rose. She turned off the machine and opened her mouth to call out to Ruby, who was doing the executive suites not far away. As the whine of the polisher vanished down the empty night corridors, Myra thought how silly it would sound to complain of a rosebud in her eye, and how impossible to prove. She didn't know Ruby all that well, or trust her with personal things.

It was just that she was tired, Myra told herself. She would come
right after a good sleep, and at fifty-nine she had experience of the tricks that body and mind could play on you, though menopause couldn't be blamed any longer. Her knees, for example, after all that wear in commercial cleaning, rattled like dredge buckets if she had to get down on to the floor, and her left ankle on a hot day would swell over the rim of her shoe if she had to stand a lot. She had a frozen shoulder, found it an agony to have to work her right arm above the level of her head. Not that she mentioned those things to the supervisor.

But nevertheless, to see a rose was an oddity: like a transfer, or a logo, high left in her vision and superimposed on anything that she looked at there. Even in the bucket of water, milky with disinfectant, that Myra used for the urinals, the pink rose could be seen, and as Myra had a lift home with Ruby, because Wayne was out in her car, the imposition of the rose continued. ‘We'll get double time if we do the two extra hours on Sunday at the Super Doop Market,' said Ruby. As Myra looked at her to answer, the pink rosebud glowed in Ruby's straight, brown hair.

The rose was still in her eye when she woke; had gained company in fact, a darker pink, larger bloom, past its best so that the full petals exposed the straw-coloured stamen of the centre — a round cluster like the cleaning brush Myra's dentist used on his drill. ‘Weird,' said Wayne, as he asked her for a loan and, without waiting for an answer, began scrabbling in her purse.

‘What do you think I should do about it?' she asked her son.

‘Does it hurt?' It didn't hurt at all, just the oddity of it concerned her, and what it might represent as a symptom or warning of something going wrong. ‘Well, I'd say just keep on normally then,' said Wayne. ‘You don't want to miss work unless you have to. Not with double time at the Super Doop coming up.'

Myra was pleased with Wayne's matter-of-fact response, but she didn't say anything to Ruby, or any of the others at work, although there was a steady growth of roses over the following weeks. They
massed to the left of her sight, roses of all colours and types, so that when she was cooking or cleaning, at home or at work, the blossoms were imposed on everything she saw. They festooned the cafeteria tables she wiped clean and softened the blatant commercialism of the Super Doop.

Myra developed a rather off-putting habit of cocking her head sideways in an effort to bring those things she wished to view into the clear area of vision that remained. ‘What on earth's got into her?' said Ruby to the supervisor.

‘You'd better see the quack,' said Wayne reluctantly at home.

‘You realise that it isn't actually the image of a rose,' said Dr Neumann. ‘Perhaps a vibratory retinal effect, but more likely organic particles in the vitreous or aqueous humour of the eyes. It is in fact quite common for some opaque cells to be there from birth, or to detach in later life from inner surfaces.'

‘Oh, they're roses all right,' said Myra.

‘Indeed. Are they “Charlotte Armstrong” then, or perhaps “Diamond Jubilee”?' Dr Neumann was not accustomed to being contradicted.

‘I don't know one from another,' she said, humbled.

‘The images don't drift you say, though. That's the difficult thing to reconcile with cells in the fluid. There's a drifting effect normally in such cases. I think that we had better make an appointment with Mr Hardie. There's nothing to worry about. He will introduce drops to dilate your pupils before the examination, but there's no discomfort.'

No discomfort, but a considerable wait, Myra found. A specialist's appointment can take months for all but the urgent cases. In the meantime the roses multiplied, white, yellow and red, until they were scrolled over much of Myra's sight, and she saw the world through an increasingly profuse floral lattice of glowing petals and frog-green small leaves. The roses obscured the urinals, and the smeared tables and walls that Myra was meant to clean. Instead of
stains and accumulated grease, scuffs and carpet fluff with blowflies, all of which had been her responsibility in life, she had a host of roses closing in.

‘But no scents at all. That's the queer thing, and a pity really,' Myra told Mr Hardie, who looked up from his examination to smile to the nurse. Myra could see one side of that smile above a cluster of yellow floribunda.

‘We'll keep a check on its progress,' he said. For all his kind intentions he could find neither cause nor cure. ‘Don't hesitate to contact me if you experience the least pain,' he told her and, later on the phone to Dr Neumann, agreed it was an unusual and rather tragic case.

‘She can't see to work anymore,' Ruby said to the supervisor. ‘I can't bear to imagine her cut off from us all. Oh, it's so sad, isn't it? And there's no operation will help, they say.'

‘We'll have to get you right on to the sickness benefit,' was Wayne's opinion, ‘and the car had better be put in my name, as you won't be able to drive anymore.'

The last roses to come were the richest — and the darkest. Though Myra sat in the sunroom with her face to the window, for her the roses were the enduring and exclusive view. The last roses fitted as if completing a cathedral window, and they bloomed so velvet, so red, downy black-red, red-black. The colour of the blood that goes back to the heart.

T
ucker Locke wasn't married until he was forty-two. A cheerful woman from the Taieri with good legs and three daughters finally decided to move north for the sun and take him in hand. Before that Tucker was one of a group of bachelor farmers so typical of the New Zealand heartland that they form a sub-species of the population.

After his mother died, Tucker had done for himself, as the saying goes, and with his cooking he just about did for anybody else who called as well. He had lived in traditional rural simplicity rather than poverty. He had an average downland mixed farm worth about half a million in bad years, and camped in his own home — a tartan rug on the porch bed, a laundry that still had a copper, and yesterday's paper as a tablecloth at breakfast as he read today's.

It wasn't that Tucker was a failure as a farmer, not at all, but his financial priorities and lifestyle were congenital. Super and drench, a new post-hole digger, or drill, the best stock and certified seed, were the natural expenses of life, but to buy a new lampshade, or replace the kitchen lino for reason of colour co-ordination, would no more enter his head than to dine at the Victor Hugo restaurant in town when he had food in his own home. A four and a half thousand dollar skeet gun, on the other hand, or an irrigation mule at twenty thousand, were perfectly justifiable purchases.

The sub-species of rural bachelordom is perpetually renewed, of course, by the very process of attrition which reduces its contemporary generation. By the time he was forty even Tucker had
become aware that he was no longer typical among his acquaintances, and that there were deficiencies in a comparative sense. At the tables of his married friends he developed a taste for lasagne and apple strudel. His devotion to cold mutton, mashed potato and swede was somewhat undermined, and the sight of children forced him to consider the fact that his farm had no heir. So, advised by his friend Neville O'Doone, who had taken the plunge a few years before, Tucker began the display which indicated that he was willing as well as eligible. He appeared in the retail area of his local town, wore a woollen tie with his sportscoat and attended a few mixed gender events such as the trots and the show.

The community considered Tucker very fortunate in his marriage, and so did Tucker; nevertheless he had no knowledge of modern women, and the marriage brought changes he had not predicted. Neville O'Doone was his counsel in such things, always in the informal and off-hand way that the sub-species deals with the deepest matters of the psyche.

Tucker and Neville were travelling together to an open day on shelter belt trials at Methven when Tucker first sought advice from his friend. They had been commenting on the management and condition of the properties they passed, doubtful of the future for Romney wool, when Tucker abruptly referred to Neville's wife.

‘Margaret likes soap, I suppose,' he said.

‘Soap?'

‘Women like soaps: a variety of soaps and things,' said Tucker. ‘I counted seven along the bath last night, and all partly used, you know.' His laugh had good-humoured ease as its intention, but conveyed bewilderment instead. Neville told him that he meant shampoos. ‘Shampoos, all different colours,' agreed Tucker. ‘One oily, one normal, one dry, a body shampoo, a protein conditioner, an apricot facial scrub, one enriched with the natural oil of some sort of pretzel which grows only in the Orinoco. And soft pink soap which turns to a slush like snow, and vanishes as rapidly.'

Neville could recall Tucker's bathroom before his marriage: one block of yellow soap on which it was easier to work up a sweat than a lather, and with dirt settled into its seams as it weathered so that it was grained like a metamorphic rock. ‘It's mostly liquid stuff they buy,' said Tucker sadly. ‘It just runs away. You've no idea. It just runs away down the plughole. And women don't like to share a bath, do they? We've put in a shower as well. I could dip a mob of two-tooths in the time my girls take to shower.' In a half-hearted way Neville tried to persuade Tucker that shampoos and conditioners weren't really soaps. ‘All do soaps' job,' affirmed Tucker. ‘Can you believe seven different bottles, and others besides. Bath salts and that.'

‘Oh, yes,' said Neville, but then he'd been married some years before Tucker. He felt a little superior: the sort of superiority you feel when up to your waist in quicksand, but observing someone else in up to his neck. ‘But you wouldn't want to go back to being single again would you, Tucker?'

‘Oh, no. Hell, no,' said Tucker, but his face was pensive, as if regarding a mountain of expensive saponaceous products degrading in natural atmospheric humidity.

They were together at the gun-club when next Tucker raised his home life. Neville had commented on a flash, wine shirt his friend was wearing. ‘Pull,' said Tucker, and fired. ‘Yes, Dianne thinks I should have some new things. My clothes seem to be wearing out more rapidly these days.'

‘How come?' Neville hadn't noticed Tucker working any harder than usual.

‘I reckon my stuff is getting worn away in the washing machine,' said Tucker guardedly. ‘Women love to get the clothes from my back.'

‘Do they indeed, you old dog.'

‘I mean for washing. I've always felt myself it takes a day or two to feel comfortable in what you're wearing, but Dianne has it into the machine before I'm hardly used to it. Continual washing is bad for
the stitching, I'd say, and seems to be shrinking the waistbands, but there's no telling her. I'm getting quite a wardrobe now, you know.'

It was true. For twenty years Neville had identified Tucker off his own property by his blue checked sportsjacket, but he was becoming more difficult to spot since marriage, as his colouration varied. ‘Women have a good deal of clothes, you know,' said Tucker with some vehemence.

‘I know.'

‘My daughters have a drawer of pants each. Whole drawers of pants.' Tucker lifted his hands to emphasise the incredibility of it, then let them fall helplessly to his side. Tucker had been accustomed to maintain three pairs of underpants — one to wear, one to wash and one to change into. He couldn't comprehend the necessity of any other regime. ‘Scores of them,' he whispered absently. It was axiomatic for Tucker that clothes were used until they were worn out, the same sensible approach he took to cull ewes, or tarpaulins for the hay shed, yet he was confronted with a philosophy which discarded garments because puce was no longer in fashion, or because the pleats had a tendency to accentuate the hips. ‘Margaret buys a fair amount of clothes?' asked Tucker.

‘From time to time, yes,' said Neville. Tucker's expression lightened. If headlong expense was universal in wives, he was human enough to feel pleased that he had company in being a witness and somewhat reluctant backer.

‘You're getting to understand why women look better than men. One reason, anyway,' said Neville.

‘I guess you're right,' said Tucker. ‘I've got two suits myself now, though I can't see that people are going to die regularly enough for me to need to alternate them.'

Tucker still shot well, however, despite his financial concern, Neville noted ruefully. He has an eye like a stinking eel, Tucker has. He shot everything out of the air with almost vindictive skill and won another top gun sash and a side of hogget. Neither he nor
Neville thought to relate the cost of their day to the conversation.

Tucker and Neville met on sale days at the Dobb Hotel, the only one in town that hadn't put in a barbecue and outdoor seating. Tucker drank draught beer, but slipped in a Glenfiddich every now and again as a chaser. It was in the Dobb that Tucker confided further in Neville concerning his personal life. They had been talking about the Celtic Old Boys' game, and Neville said Ransumeen wasn't talented enough to bring on the oranges at half-time. ‘I've rather gone off fruit,' said Tucker, after a pause during which they both watched through the window Gus McPhedron trying to climb into the back of his utility for a nap. Neville found it difficult to follow Tucker's claim, for old Mrs Locke had been a great one for utilising their own orchard, and their pantry had held rows of bottled plums, peaches and quince jam. She had showed them even, in the produce section of the A & P show. There had been boxes of wrinkled autumn apples in the laundry and Tucker normally had one or two in his pocket, or the glove compartment of the truck. He had a kelpie once which liked eating them, but Tucker had shot it for biting his best ram in a costly fashion. Neville said something of all that. ‘No, no,' said Tucker. ‘You don't understand. There's bought fruit, see.' His tone was one of shocked disclosure. Fruit was nature's bounty, something that arose naturally from one's land without great attention, and with no mercenary aspects. Ah, but since his marriage, Tucker had been introduced to mandarins and melons, pawpaws and peppers, passion fruit, oranges and kiwi fruit.

‘Do you know how much a feijoa costs?'

‘Well, ah,' said Neville.

‘Much more,' said Tucker. ‘We have bananas often in a bowl together with oranges and pears.' Tucker was half defiant, half distraught, convinced that such hubris would bring his ruin. ‘This morning I looked at the ticket on one of the bananas. They each have their own ticket, you know. It had come from Ecuador. Ec-u-a-dor!' Tucker was silent after his syllabic exclamation, which had
drawn looks from other tables. He was considering the number of chargeable exchanges and activities needed to get a banana from the plantations of Ecuador to his wooden fruit bowl in Te Tarehi. Gus McPhedron was asleep in the ute outside, the tail-gate down, the sun glinting on his tan stock boots. ‘And the thing is, see, that often fruit goes off before it's eaten and has to be thrown out.' The concept of produce purchased from the ends of the earth, and then thrown out, was arsenic to Tucker's peace of mind. Almost bitterly he downed another Glenfiddich. ‘No one bothers to eat a quince, or a plum, these days,' he told a sagely nodding Neville. ‘The whole crop lies beneath the trees in the orchard for the wasps and the birds.'

‘But what's that against all the advantages of marriage,' asked Neville.

‘Oh, you're right there,' said Tucker. ‘Of course I wouldn't change for the world.'

Yet at the Town versus Country game, in the first half, when the action was mainly down the other end, Tucker voiced further anxiety. He had picked up his family from town the night before and unfortunately been exposed to some of the prices. ‘You know how much a lipstick costs, just one?' he asked. Neville was embarrassed in case some of their mates heard, but they were too busy abusing the town ref. ‘Twenty-nine dollars thirty-nine,' said Tucker. ‘It's true. It's true. And how often do you see a tube used right up? Answer me that.'

‘You're blind and bloody half-witted with it,' shouted Neville.

‘And Sarah wanted some shoes for aerobatics,' said Tucker as the Town took their penalty.

‘You mean aerobics,' Neville said.

‘Right.'

‘You see aerobatics is —'

‘Okay,' said Tucker.

‘So she wanted sports shoes.'

‘I went in with her myself,' said Tucker. ‘Reddickers had a sale and
I found a decent pair reduced to fifty-five dollars.'

‘That's reasonable enough,' said Neville.

‘Oh, but they wouldn't do. Not enough heel cushioning for the effects of aerobics, the woman said. A lot of people did structural damage to their feet that way, she said, and Sarah said her friends had different ones. You wouldn't believe what I had to pay before I got out of that shop.'

‘Tell me,' said Neville. ‘Back up your man, Cecil, for Christ's sake. That boy's all prick.' But Tucker couldn't bear to mention the actual amount in all its grotesque enormity.

‘Six lambs at today's schedule prices,' he said, and even the sight of the Town's captain being taken off on a stretcher barely lightened his spirits. ‘Six lambs, can you credit it — and all for jumping about in.'

On their way back from the match, Neville and Tucker heard on the car radio that there was progress at the great power summit. ‘They're wanting more changes,' said Tucker pensively. Neville thought he was referring to the world leaders, but after some confusion realised that Tucker was meaning his wife and daughters. Perhaps it was just a matter of scale after all, though. ‘Interior renovations,' said Tucker, as if giving Neville a medical diagnosis of some significance.

‘So?' said Neville.

‘First grade Axminster, designer wallpaper, new drapes.' Tucker was marking them off on his fingers as he spoke, and steering with upward pressure of his knees. It seemed that Tucker's wife was determined that the good room get the works. ‘Ceiling repainted, pelmets removed, droop light fittings and new fire surround tiles of Tuscan red. We'll use the room a good deal more because of it, of course,' said Tucker to console himself, yet the car shimmied because Tucker's knees were trembling.

‘It's improving your asset, Tucker,' said Neville. ‘There's that as well.'

‘That's true,' said Tucker. Neville's considerate response encouraged
him to further revelation. ‘We all have duvets now,' he continued, his tone wavering between pride and defensiveness. ‘Yes, duvets on all the beds, and now we have a double dozen unused blankets folded in the cupboard.' Tucker had pressed past anxiety to a state almost of awe. The grandeur of the extravagance conditioned him to expect some providential punishment. All those blankets that had provided sensible warmth for generations of Lockes, now stored with good wear still in them, and duvets purchased in their bedstead. It couldn't be right in the view of a Calvinistic God. ‘Of course I'm a believer in progress,' said Tucker stoutly.

‘A lot of the improvements have been on you, haven't they?' said Neville. ‘I mean Dianne's done you up proud since you've been married.'