Dunger (2 page)

 

If I explain the system of child slave labour that operates in my mother's bookshop, you might understand why my rigid policy regarding grandparents suddenly has become flexible. I get a microscopic four dollars an hour for unpacking books and returning the out-of-date magazines. Actually, we don't return the entire magazine, just the cover, hence my job of tearing off covers to send back and putting the rest in the recycling.

Normally I'd describe my mother as a woman of good nature, but that aspect of her personality disappears where money is concerned. When I told her she was paying me less than one-third of the basic wage, she said I was an eleven-year-old getting perfectly good pocket money. I then pointed out that parents are obliged to give their children pocket money, regardless, to which she merely said, “Hard cheese!” Logic is not her strong point.

Ten days with my grandparents will not be a holiday but a prison sentence. I am prepared for that, and thanks to the predictable rotation of the earth, when ten days have passed, I'll have a brand new iPad.

Melissa still insists there is no money. When Dad assured her payment would be made, she said it was just a bribe but that she would go anyway, because it was the right thing to do. As if anyone would believe that. I'll bet she's already made a long shopping list of new clothes and shoes.

I've considered the outcome at great length, and definitely, yes, an iPad is a good investment, although if I shop wisely and get last year's model, I might also manage a second-hand skateboard. I should tell you here and now, I've never had either.

An iPad is essential for my education. With my own money, I can control my destiny. The future looks good. However, prison must come first.

As a condemned man, I made sure to eat a hearty breakfast of strawberry waffles and cream this morning, and I've packed enough milkshake lollies and biscuits to last the full sentence. I admit to a grave suspicion of food cooked without electricity by an almost-blind jailer.

Only a few hours ago, there we were at the bookshop – working, of course – with our bags in the storeroom out the back, waiting for our grandparents to arrive from Timaru. I was going through the magazines, my usual job, while Melissa showed a customer how to use the photocopier. Mum had put an orange traffic cone in the parking space outside the shop door, to save it for Grandpa's rust bucket. He's had the same car, a Vauxhall Velox, for an eternity and perhaps even longer.

I was wearing my usual Saturday gear. Melissa had painted her face to look sixteen instead of fourteen and was wearing one of those outfits that has a top and a bottom and nothing in-between, so boys will look at her. She never has to tear covers off old magazines. Mum lets her work behind the counter, which she loves because she can do her pouty lipstick smiles for the boys when Mum's not looking. It doesn't work for my mates, though. When they come in, she just gives them the dead-fish look.

The shop is long and narrow, and I was at the back putting bar code labels on writing pads when the Vauxhall ran over the traffic cone. I missed the fuss. First thing I knew, Mum was taking the label machine out of my hand and saying, “They're here, Will. You'd better get your bag.”

It's actually her bag I've borrowed, the one with wheels, and as I got it out of the storeroom, I heard my grandparents. They are deaf, but too stubborn to get hearing aids, so they're always shouting at each other.

“Silly old fool!” Grandma yelled. “I told him to stop. ‘You're going to hit it,' I said. He never listens!”

The day was warm but she was wearing a thick lumpy jumper and earrings made of peacock feathers. Her hand wobbled on the handle of her walking stick but there was no way of knowing if that was a permanent shake or just because she was angry with Grandpa.

“Oh, shut up!” he yelled back.

His clothes looked normal except that his jacket sleeves ended way above his wrists. Since he hasn't grown lately, I assume it was someone else's hand-me-down jacket, probably from an op shop. He shouted at Mum, “No shilly-shallying, Alice. Let's get them in the carriage and whip the horses. There's a long ride ahead.”

“I told him to stop!” Grandma said. “He deliberately did it!”

“Don't worry about the cone,” Mum said. “It's not important.”

Lissy gave me a nervous look as we wheeled our bags into the shop. I stepped forward. “Good morning, Grandma. Good morning Grandpa.”

They smiled but didn't move. Grandma scanned us and her gaze rested on Melissa. “Cover yourself up, girl!” she bellowed. “You'll get a death of cold in your kidneys!”

Lissy flushed red. She opened her mouth to argue, then her lips went small and round like a raspberry doughnut, and slowly made something resembling a smile. That's how I knew my sister finally believed the money was real.




 

When Grandma made me put on a T-shirt, my little-creep brother smiled from ear to ear. I was furious. I know all about the 1960s. I've seen the film
Hair
. People in communes grew more than vegetables in their organic gardens and they didn't care if they walked around naked ­– so what's the problem with a bare stomach? Kidneys, my foot! As for the smirking brother, his grin disappeared when he found out he had to sit in the front of the car with Grandpa, reading the map and yelling directions into a hairy deaf ear. William might sound as though he knows everything but he's useless at map-reading. Served him right when he mixed up left and right, and got shouted at for directing Grandpa into Christchurch airport instead of the road north out of town.

So now Grandma's in the back with me, but she fell asleep almost as soon as we left the shop and since she's as deaf as Grandpa, his shouting doesn't wake her up. When the old man gets mad, his comments get a bit disconnected from reality, like when we found ourselves on the road to the airport and he bellowed, “I didn't come here for a haircut!” And then, when we had to stop at a red light and the car in front was a bit slow in moving on green, he yelled out the window, “What colour are you waiting for? Purple?”

Grandma sleeps through it all, making a breathing noise, not quite a snore, that flutters her peacock-feather earrings. Her hair is bright orange with two centimetres of grey at the scalp, and with her pillow she takes up three-quarters of the seat, which is okay because I don't need much space, just a corner to sit and text Jacquie and Herewini and tell them I'm about to make my fortune. I make sure to mention the amount for two reasons: first, so they'll stop being sorry for me having parents too poor to take me to Queenstown; and second, so they'll eat their hearts out with envy. A thousand bucks is a lot of money. But they're my best friends so I might buy them a little something afterwards like a scarf or a belt.

If I can't be with my friends, at least we can text each day. When I packed my cell phone charger, the brother-creep laughed at me. “They don't have electricity!” he said, which I already knew. But I'm sure I can easily introduce myself to Grandma's neighbours or a shop that won't mind if I plug it in. Dad says the old bach is the only house without power. Nice neighbours. Problem solved.

Grandma wakes up with a snort at Kaikoura when Grandpa brakes to avoid hitting a truck full of sheep. She swears at him, then tells him it's time for lunch so he should pull in at a teashop.

“Time for the F word,” Grandpa says cheerfully. He always says it. He means Food and he thinks it's funny. Actually, he thinks all his jokes are hilarious.

Will turns his head. “It's called a café, Grandma. They serve cups of tea in
caf
é
s
.”

“So be it, Einstein,” she says. “You find us one.”

Occasionally, Will can be practical. In seconds, he spots a place close to a free car park, and I'm helping Grandma get her swollen ankles out of the car, feet on ground, walking stick in hand. She doesn't say thanks, but that's okay, it's my job. She's awfully slow, she and Grandpa both, and they sit at the table nearest the door, puffing after the five steps up from the street.

Grandpa waves some money at us. “A pot of tea and sandwiches for us, and get what you like for yourselves.”

Will and I are looking along the glass case at sandwiches and custard tarts when I spot this awesome bit of eye-candy behind the counter. He's so very cool, with long floppy hair and eyes like wet bath mats. He reminds me a bit of Mr Leverton, our geography teacher. I think it's really pathetic the way my friends carry on about Mr Leverton. He might have a Hollywood smile, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a waste of time being a fan. He's too old, he's a teacher, and he's engaged.

“Can I help you?” the café guy says.

I flash back a smile. “Yes, please.”

I'm wearing my yellow outfit, a halter top with just a bit of padding in the bra, and a short skirt that sits neatly on my hips, but you know what? It's all buried under the extremely hideous T-shirt Grandma made me wear. Fortunately, it doesn't matter because the guy sees me – you know, really
looks
at me, as though I'm the only person in the room. He doesn't even talk to Will. When he gives me the change, he touches the palm of my hand, making a shiver go down my back. “I'll bring the tea and milkshakes over,” he says.

He does, too. He comes out from the counter, absolutely drop-dead gorgeous, holding a tray in one hand like a professional waiter. As he leans over my chair to put the tray on the table, he sort of accidentally on purpose puts his other hand on my back and leaves it there.

Grandma grabs the teapot and says, “You know she's only thirteen.”

The hand goes away.

I am furious with Grandma, “I'm not thirteen!”

“She's fourteen years, seven months and nine days,” says Will.

I turn to look at Mr Gorgeous but his face is like a window with the blind drawn down. He smiles politely at Grandma and Grandpa and says, “Enjoy your lunch.”

Back in the car, Grandma tells me how forgetful she is; how once, when unpacking the grocery order, she put the toilet rolls in the freezer and a packet of frozen chicken wings in the bathroom cupboard. I think she expects me to laugh, but I don't. I look out the window. You can't tell me she didn't know the age of her only granddaughter. But if she thinks I'm worried about it, she's got another think coming. I couldn't care less. I mean, he's not the only hot guy on the planet.

After her long sleep and lunch, Grandma's very chatty, but it's all about her, on and on. Not once does she ask me about my position in the netball A team, not even a question about school and the subjects I'll be taking next year. What I get is her varicose veins and what the eye specialist said about her sight and how she used to go fishing at the bach for huge snapper. She doesn't even talk about Dad, her own son. She is extremely self-absorbed.




 

 

I admit to curiosity concerning the famous bach. Dad always talks about childhood holidays there as “twelve on a scale of one to ten”. Lissy and I have never been there. I remember there were invitations, but Mum always said she couldn't take children to a place with no electricity and an outdoor toilet. So why is she sending us there now, on our own? You have no doubt discovered, as I have, that parents can practise grand deceit, yet look extremely injured when their child tells a tiny white lie. Such is the pecking order in families. Mind you, I'm not complaining, just saying that the bach could be interesting. Unlike Melissa who only packed a cell phone charger, I have a torch with spare batteries, a compass, my Swiss Army knife, and the survival rations already mentioned.

“The chimney will be brimming with birds' nests,” Grandpa says cheerfully. “That'll be your first job. Clean it out, so's we can light the fire.”

“I thought my first job was map-reading.” I don't say it all that loud but his ear scoops it up.

“Map ain't no job.” He puts on his cowboy accent. “You gotta do better than that, pardner. Lasso the ladder! Break in the chimney!”

I keep my finger on the map because we're approaching Havelock. “I think we turn right to get on the Sounds road.”

“Chuck that thing away, pardner. From here on in, I know the way like I know my own ask-your-mother-for-sixpence. Me and the horse can go there blindfold.”

Grandma leans over and pokes me in the back. “Don't take any notice of the old fool. You hang on to that map, Will, or he'll have us up a tree. We've got to get there well before dark.”

“Why?” Melissa sounds nervous, probably thinking of werewolves and vampires or the fact that she packed a cell phone charger instead of a torch.

“I don't see too well,” Grandma says.

Grandpa turns off on the Sounds road, and I get our first view of water and green hills. Dad has told us tales of a narrow dirt road, winding into wilderness like a never-ending snake, but I think that was pure hyperbole. The road is curvy but sealed and there are houses everywhere, almost suburban.

The old folk get excited when they recognise familiar landmarks, the bay where there was a bush fire back in 1972 and the house with the jetty that once belonged to a circus lion tamer. It amuses me that Grandpa can remember all this trivia and yet forget my name. Twice, he has called me Alistair – my father's name – and for the rest of the time it's some substitute like boyo or pardner or tama, depending on which accent he's trying out.

“Are we nearly there?” Melissa asks.

“About two hours, girlie,” says Grandpa.

“Two hours!”

“One and a half,” Grandma says.

“It's two hours from here, you daft old chook,” Grandpa shouts. “You've forgotten!”

“You want a bet? One hour, thirty minutes!”

“Two! You'd forget your head if it wasn't screwed on, and mark my words, you'd be better off without it. Two hours!”

They've started one of their stupid arguments, and it goes on for about five kilometres until it's time for a toilet stop. Only there aren't any toilets, just bushes at the side of the road. Melissa is full of Dad's stories about possums and wild pigs, and she refuses to get out of the car. But she is also full of milkshake and bottles of water, so she has to get out after we've all finished. She still won't go into the trees, so she squats down on the road behind the car where we can't see her. Too bad another car comes along.

Silly Lissy! She never gets it right. She jumps into the back seat, screaming at us all for laughing, and then she opens her cell phone to text her friends and shut us out. Bet she's not texting what just happened, though.

I have to admit that Dad is right about the road. It gets much narrower and there are fewer houses, an occasional farm but mainly forest with tree ferns and manuka hanging over the edges of the dirt road in front of us. Sometimes, we glimpse the sea through a clearing. Grandpa tells me that the black lines in a bay are a mussel farm, but I don't see any boats. I get a feeling we're going nowhere. Well, the nearest thing to nowhere.

The sun shines low on the water and the trees cast long shadows on the road. If I were a poet I could write something about sunset in the Sounds, but I'm William, eleven and a half years old and just plain worried. Do they really expect me to clean a chimney in the dark?

I check my watch. One hour and forty minutes since the argument. We have now taken another turn-off and are on a track that isn't a road. Grass grows down the middle and ferns brush the car on each side. The ruts reveal how primitive the springs are in these old cars. Whoa! If I didn't have a seat belt on, I'd flatten my face on the windscreen.

The track takes us down to the edge of a bay that is half in sunlight and half in dark shadow. On the shadowed side there's a stand of old macrocarpa trees. Grandpa pulls over and stops. Neither he nor Grandma says a word.

“Are we here?” I ask.

I already know it. Inside the circle of trees is a wooden hut with a brick chimney, a verandah, a water tank and a corrugated iron garage. The grass and scrub around them have grown almost as high as the hut's windows.

This is the famous bach of my father's childhood.