And Did Those Feet ... (9 page)

AFTER being on the farm a while it was like I had begun to forget there was anywhere else in the world. I did this on purpose, to stop getting homesick. Stop waiting for that call to come. I had made my world shrink to the edge of the farm. When I first arrived I was always wanting to go into the crappy little village which the locals called a town. Or maybe, for a mega thrill, to NEW PLYMOUTH. (Wow! Jostled about by the teeming millions.)

I figured it was just old habits. I had always been pretty closely connected to big cities and malls. I wasn’t like those shopaholic females; I was just used to the routine of it all. Now, I never wanted to go into town any more. What was the point? Anyway, I’d rather hang around talking to
Pimpernel
. I even began to get into my farm chores.

Sounds weird I know but I really enjoyed chopping wood. When you hit a block of wood just on the right place, it flies apart with a little squeak, like you are
freeing
it. It is a really nice action bringing the sharp blade back slowly, up over your head and then whistling down
on the block at great speed. Sometimes, especially when I was feeling a bit down, I would go out to the wood pile and split blocks until my arms were so weak I could no longer get the axe above my head. Then I would stack it up under the stand which held the rain water tank. Finally I’d wander back to the house all sweaty and throw myself on the couch in the sitting room, too tired to even take my jersey off.

Aunty Lorna would see my red face and bring me in a glass of cordial. Sometimes she would make some weak pun about how I was a chopaholic or did I fancy a chopping trip to the chopping centre. She was great. She knew it wasn’t just exercise, not even about wanting to do chores, it was the other thing, but she never said anything.

The other person I really admired was Pimpernel. Oops. Did I say person? I meant pig. That pig was sure smart. I reckon he could tell my moods. When I was
feeling
depressed (which was quite often to tell the truth), he would come over and stand next to me real close. I could feel his warm skin next to my leg. He would just stand there, snuffling and looking up at me every now and then.

Other times he liked to play. We had these games. My favourite was the pig push. I would try to push him over and he’d try to stay on his feet. Everyone thinks that pigs are fat and lazy. You know how you say to slackers, “Get off ya bum you lazy fat pig!” Well okay,
you
might not have said this, but I admit I’ve often said it to people who got on my nerves. These days I know better. Now I would
never say that about pigs because they aren’t lazy and they aren’t fat. Cows are lazy though, so I guess they will be my chosen animal of abuse from now on.

Pigs are cool.

ONE day Uncle Frank decided it was time to top up the stock numbers so he kept Iain and Jamie back from school and the four of us went to a stock auction. I had never been to an auction before so I didn’t have any idea what to
expect
. Even leaving the farm was by this time getting to be a strange new sensation. We drove for about an hour down narrow country roads where that springy brown grass grows along the margins and every second corner has a hawk
feeding
off a squashed rabbit lunch.

In this part of the world all the farms have high barberry hedges so you can’t see much, just a fleeting glimpse through gateways as you flash past. Sometimes there are loads of cows cramped in between the hedge and the road, chewing away behind electric fences. Farming the long acre, Uncle Frank calls it.

All the time we were racing along these country roads the snow-covered peak of Taranaki was rearing up on the right hand side. We lost it behind a hill for a moment or two and then “whammo!” it was there again, in the same
place, keeping up with the Landrover, no matter how fast we went. That’s weird huh? The others didn’t even seem to notice it. When I pointed it out to Jamie he just nodded and started singing “
She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain when She Comes.
” The song went on for the rest of the journey. No one seemed to notice that either.

Finally we came to a big shed surrounded by a maze of wooden railed fences, all by itself, in the middle of nowhere. We had to park the Landrover quite a distance away and walk because every country Joe for miles around, not
forgetting
his two dogs, has got there before us. The place was loaded with red utes. Red utes must be the hot thing for farmers.

I imagine the scene at the ute shop. Man shambles in (wearing Swanndri, cords and gumboots). Man behind the counter (wearing Swanndri, cords and gumboots) comes out to serve him.

“Can I help you, Sir?”

“Errrm. Forgot what I came here for.”

“Would you like a ute, Sir?”

“Why yes. Kind of you to ask.”

“Any particular colour?”

“Red would be nice, if you’ve got it.”

“I’ll just take a look.”

Disappears for a moment, then returns, triumphant.

“You’re in luck: we just happen to have seventeen red ones parked out the back.”

“Oh grouse!” (Or some such rural expression.)

We wandered around a big corral on planks nailed to the
tops of the posts. There were little herds of calves in each enclosure, quite a lot of noise and the rich smell of recent calf shit. Wouldn’t like to fall in there. Mind you there were about a hundred other guys doing the same thing, some of them real old dudes. They moved from pen to pen where the auctioneer, the guy with the mike, tried to set a new world record for fast talking.

Only problem is, you could hardly understand a word of it.

It went a bit like this:

“Now next up is lot thirty-nine. ThreeGallowaysnowwhooo’
sgunnagivemeeightyforstartersno…” A pause for breath. “thatseventydoIhearsixty?
YesIhavesixtyIhavesixtyIhavesixtydollars
Ihavesixtyheythere’ssixtyfive…”

Then the bids start coming in and he gets really excited and goes faster. I look around carefully to see who is
doing
all the bidding but no one seems to be doing anything. Every now and then someone raises an eyebrow or touches the brim of their hat but that’s about it. They sure play it close to the chest, these old farmer types.

Uncle Frank let us pick out the calves we liked. I chose a blue one. I never knew there were blue cows. It was white really but Uncle Frank pointed out that some of them had a blue tinge, and others were pink. Blue for a boy, he said.

Iain chose a black one with a white stripe around its waist. It was called a Belted Galloway because it looks like it had a big wide belt. It was a good name but quite a handle to carry around. The others were more like your regular barnyard cow, a sort of golden colour with a white flash on their nose.
They are called Jerseys. I guess this is because they look like they are wearing a brown jersey. Who knows?

We got six calves in all, one for each of the kids and one for me.

Driving home, Uncle Frank met some other farmer
going
the other way and they stopped in the middle of the road for a natter. We were parked there, door to door. I kept looking around waiting for a car to come roaring up and smash into us.

The other farmer was an older guy who seemed to know the family. I was sure he wasn’t a New Jerusalem type; he was more of your standard issue Farmer Joe.

“Gidday there, Frank.”

“Gidday, Hec, off to the auction?”

“No, I’ve got plenty of stock. Hello, boys. Who’s your cobber?”

Iain answered. “Hi, Mr Gunderson, this is our cousin Sandy. He’s down from Auckland.”

“From the big smoke, boy?”

I nodded.

“Doesn’t matter, you can’t help that.” Then he laughed, I guess it was meant to be funny. He turned to Frank, “Giving the boys a day off school? Naughty, naughty …”

Uncle Frank’s mouth took on a sort of pinched look like he might have been angry. He slipped the stick into first gear and then said, “No. Not a day off school. Just a day at a different sort of school, Hec.”

“I reckon there’s only one sort of school around here.”

“Oh?”

“And I don’t think it’s a great idea to give kids extra
holidays
.”

“Do you not?” Uncle Frank paused, as if choosing his words carefully. “Well, Hec, that’s
almost
interesting. We’ll be off now. See ya.”

And then he powered off before the other farmer had a chance to get in another dig.

Iain said, “His son Ashley is the one the twins don’t like.”

“The name caller?”

“Yeah, ’specially Ewan, because he knows he won’t answer back.”

“Why don’t you have a word with him?”

“I have. So’s Jamie, but he only does it when we’re not around.”

“Or he denies it,” said Jamie.

“Well, now you see where he gets it from.”

“You should just smash him,” I said before I had a chance to hold it back.

The boys looked a bit embarrassed, as if they knew I was right.

Uncle Frank said, “We don’t deal with things that way, Sandy.”

I was sure that a lecture was on its way but I was wrong. Nothing else was said on the matter until we had driven on for a minute or so in silence.

“It’s a pity,” said Uncle Frank and we all laughed. He knew what boys were like.

One other funny thing happened on the trip. When we
got near the farm he pulled the Landrover over to the side of the road and climbed out.

“What’s happening?” said Jamie, speaking for all of us, I guess.

“Sandy’s driving from here on home.”

I laughed. He insisted the other two got out of the way so I was behind the wheel, and then he squeezed in next to me.

“I can’t drive,” I said, like I was on the receiving end of some joke.

“How do you know? Ever tried?”

I reckon that’s about the dumbest question I ever heard. But then I thought, “Why not?” so I grabbed the wheel and looked all ready.

Doing the clutch and the accelerator thing was hard and I stalled a few times but on the third go we all jerked off down the road. At first I was really nervous and gripped the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles went white, but after a while I got the hang of it and I felt really cool. King-
of-the
-worldish.

After a few more miles though I reckoned I had it sussed. I wondered why I hadn’t done this much earlier, especially with Dad being a car dealer and all. There’s a nice rhythm about driving: you sort of surge in and out of the corners.

Iain pointed out the honeycomb house in the distance. I was determined to finish with a piece of styly action. As I swooped into the gateway, I mistook the brake for the
accelerator
and there was a loud bang as I skidded into the gate at the last moment, knocking it off its hinges. Immediately all
my pride and excitement escaped and I slumped on the seat feeling like a deflated balloon.

I was all ready for a slap or at least a telling off but Uncle Frank’s not like that. He just laughed and said, “Sandy, when we talk about breaking through the gates of perception, we don’t mean it literally.”

I knew it was one of W. Blake’s teachings he was laying on me and I didn’t have a clue what it meant but I will tell you this, any teaching that avoids a half hour ear bashing gets my vote. He’s cool that way, Uncle Frank: he sees things
differently
from everyone else.

IT must have been nearly a month after I arrived in the country that I knew it was time to go back home. When I first arrived I struggled at everything, did everything wrong, but now I knew that I was on top of things. My stay on the farm had achieved its purpose. I was calmer, more grown up. I knew it was time for me to go back to school and I guess pick things up where I had left off. I even made
certain
mental preparations. I had worked out a cool farewell speech. Something along these lines. “
Hey, it’s been great out here in the country. I can do lots, I’ve lost my angry streak, and yes I’ve learned heaps too. You have to understand that I’m looking forward to being in my own room with my own things. Have a bit of a chat with the dad figure. You don’t need to worry about me. Everything’s sorted. It’s all cool now.
”

That sort of stuff.

I went around the place giving it a sort of private farewell. The truth is I’d grown quite attached to the farm and my Uncle Frank and his family. All the things I used to worry about were in the far distant past.

“
I’m ready to give school another go. I can’t say I am looking forward to it, but I’m over the old issues. Let bygones be bygones I say.
”

I mentioned it to Uncle Frank because I knew it must have been on his mind too, he probably just didn’t want to bring it up.

As it happens I was way wrong.

Again.

One morning after I had seen the boys off to school on the bus, Uncle Frank said he and Aunty Lorna wanted to talk to me. I thought, “Mnnn, what’s this about? Maybe it means back to Auckland.”

Aunty Lorna showed me a letter. It was from the
Education
Department. I had a look at it but it was too boring, so I just asked, “What’s this about?”

“It seems that the Education Department are saying that you should be at school and they have given us seven days to comply.”

I knew what that was about. The red-faced farmer we met on the way back from the stock auction.

“I guess this means I’ll be going back to Auckland.” I tried to sound mature about it, but part of me was pleased it had come up this way, so that I didn’t seem ungrateful.

But no, that wasn’t it.

I looked at Uncle Frank; he was staring out the window. I could tell that whatever he was going to tell me wasn’t going to be good.

“I’ve been on the phone to your father, Sandy. He told me that there have been a few financial problems. Things have
gone wrong in his business. He isn’t able to have you back for the time being.”

“The time being? What does that mean?” I was stunned.

Uncle Frank looked a bit awkward.

“He’s had to sell the house, put all the furniture into
storage
. It’s serious, Sandy. I’m sorry, you’ve been a brave boy and Lorna and I both know that you’ve been hanging out to go home.”

I sucked my lip in. I could feel the tears bulging up in my eyes. I had to call on all my strength to fight them back. The three of us sat there, no one saying a word. I began to shake a bit and Aunty Lorna put her arm across my shoulders. This made it even harder, I had to run or I’d be blubbing like a baby. I pushed her arm off and ran out the door. For a moment I stood there, not knowing where to go. It’s hard in the country because you really are in the middle of nowhere. I could see a black lump down by the bottom fence. It was Pimpernel, so I pulled on the gumboots and headed down to where he was mooching about. I half clambered, half fell over the fence and sat on the grass next to him with my arm around his neck. He gave me a look that said, “What’s this all about then?” So I told him.

Once again he listened with few comments, didn’t even look at me. When I finished he lay on the grass next to me. I guess we must have been there for some time because by the time Aunty Lorna came down my jeans were soaked through and my legs were really stiff.

Back in the kitchen I heard the rest of it. How Rufus O’Malley, Dad’s manager and drinking mate had been
sneaking money out of the books and gambling it away at the casino. How creditors were going to bankrupt Dad and none of the banks would lend him a cent so all he could do was sell the house and most of his yards. Nearly all his
employees
had gone. He was living in a motel on Great South Road, trying to work his way out of the mess.

I suppose if I heard this story about someone else’s dad I would have thought, “Poor guy. What a lot to deal with.” Or maybe even how his kids should do everything they could to make it easy for him, to give him a chance to get things together.

Yeah, but I didn’t. What I thought was how he had made such a mess of things. How if he had being doing his job properly none of this would have happened. How if he hadn’t been wandering around crying into his beer he would have noticed that Rufus O’Malley had become a big spender. I even thought that maybe if he had been looking after us a bit better instead of going away all the time then maybe Mum would still be alive.

So when Aunty Lorna told me that he was sorry that he couldn’t look after me at the moment, and really pleased that things were going so well for me here in the country, and when she also told me that he planned to get me at the end of the year, I felt my blood begin to boil all over again. I immediately thought of a string of good names to hang on his ear if I could get him on the phone. As if he ever did things for me at home anyway. He just worked, drank and went out. Just came home to snore.

What a bullshitter.

I was striding back and forth clenching and unclenching my fists. I was sure I was going to explode. Uncle Frank came back in; he seemed to have lost his laid back manner. I could tell that he was a bit worried about what I might do. He said, “Maybe you should give him a ring yourself. Hear it from the horse’s mouth.”

The phone was a sacred instrument in that house. Off limits to all the kids. I could tell that this offer was a big deal. He gave me the number of the motel. I tried to ring him but all I got was the reception. The woman at the front desk said, “I’m sorry but he’s not picking up, perhaps you could try later.”

I thought to myself, “Oh, he’s out! Typical!”