The Best of Fiona Kidman's Short Stories (11 page)

He smelt death, cloying in his nostrils. His nerve ends reacted to pain, the pain of exile and loss. He had his papers at home which said he was a good New Zealander. Eileen kept them safe, and he had sworn an oath to this country at the naturalisation ceremony, and he would keep it all his life.

But what about his heart? What could they do
to that? How could it be changed? Ungrateful, they'd call him, if they could see inside him now. Oh, but he'd be good, he wouldn't let them down. Heart, pain, loss. Who did you explain that to? Nobody. Not even Eileen. His son? The first one maybe, if he'd been alive. But he wasn't, and the next one wouldn't understand, and the third one wasn't even born.

Jan Palach, Jan Palach, you could have been my brother.

The Bombe Alaska was a soggy mess on the plate. Vlado stared at it. Out tumbled the words. He would tell this to the ugly, spreading pool of goo. Words, sorrow, prayers.

With shaking hands, he held the brandy above a still-burning candle and warmed it at the flame, then flung it over the defused Bombe.

He lit a match and threw it on too, and it exploded. He held his face into the flames, laughing, crying, hands held out to the heat, supplication, love. His body burned with heat, flesh and fat oozing into pools, smelling foul stenches. He screamed in agony, glory.

Leonard and Valerie had been kissing in the street. His hands were finding her warm and strong for him.

‘Let's get some wine. Come to my room. We'll make a night of it,' she whispered in his ear.

Everything was shut; all the bottle stores had closed for the night so he'd agreed to go back to the restaurant. They hadn't gone very far, so it was no hardship.

Leonard ran into the restaurant as he heard the scream inside. The flames in front of Vlado had died away, spluttered out on the wet mess in the dish.

Vlado sat at the table.

‘What is it, Vlado? Are you all right?'

His employer held out his hands dumbly in front of him. At last he said hoarsely, ‘I am burnt, look at me, my hands, my face, the flames they have burnt me.'

‘No,' said Leonard. ‘You're all right.'

‘I am burnt. I felt the flames, I felt the pain.'

‘No. No you're not,' said the waiter, torn between concern, and impatient to be with the girl again.

‘Not burnt?' said Vlado, with the beginning of comprehension.

‘No — oh — maybe your hair just a little — it's hard to tell, yes, maybe your eyebrows, it's nothing serious.'

‘Not burnt? Oh Jan Palach, Jan Palach, then what am I doing here?'

Hot tears of pain and impotency coursed down his cheeks; fell; settled on his apron.

T
HE SUN HAS UNCURLED ACROSS THE SKY
. You can tell even now at around seven-thirty, going eight, that it's going to be a brassy day. The hills, as you look down towards the desert, are that strange colour that might pass for gold at a distance, but close up are the harsh sere brown that comes after a hard summer. The trucks have been on the move since daybreak. If anyone has taken the trouble to count they will see that there are eighty-nine dead possums crushed on Highway One from Taupo down.

Inside the Roadhouse the temperature is hard to guess, but if you are to ask Clarrie, as he stands over the vats of fat, he will probably tell you a hundred, but who would blame him for exaggerating a bit, with the thunder of the trucks going past, and the number of them that are stopping too, while the drivers come in for their breakfast. It's a wonder the linings of their stomachs aren't pure solid congealed fat, the amount of hamburgers and french fry they consume. That's what some of those truckies must live on. What a life. He rubs an ankle, suddenly weary as he waits to turn a meat patty on the grill. He has a vein playing up there. A varicose vein to be exact, and there are signs that one might be coming up on the other leg too. It goes with being a bit overweight, as he is. That's the trouble, you work here all the time, and you don't feel like a feed of anything else when you get home. He supposes he has a bit in common with the truckies. Difference is, they don't look fat, and he does. No, they look solid, like brick shithouses, the way they stand, hard and unyielding. Any of them who looked like he feels wouldn't last long on the road. You made it out there or you found a job on your bum somewhere. And drink. They can spit and swear and tell about their hangover, but you can't pick it from looking at them. Whereas him, well most people know when Clarrie has a hangover. Except the girl perhaps.

He dashes an egg on the grill and the yolk splatters. He curses softly as he scoops it off and throws it in the slops bucket beside him. The girl looks at
him sideways and says nothing. Blast her to hell, he thinks, why can't she say something. But she never will, it isn't her way. He has an idea to hit her across the face just to see what she'll say. And he knows it will be nothing. Always nothing. That's Margie.

She bangs the chip basket down smartly on the steel slide.

‘Fifty cents chips?' she says, turning to the customer.

‘Thank you,' says the woman stiffly. There is something about her tone that warns Clarrie, he has a sudden edge down his spine. He hates
premonitions
, they're something inside him he doesn't understand, especially when they come right, which is pretty well always. He is glad the feeling doesn't come over him too often. He looks the woman over, and she is a surprising sight at this hour in the morning. The older women might stop by later in the morning or around lunchtime, if they are feeling particularly girlish and adventurous, but not this early. Usually if they are travelling early, an older woman like this one will have had a sensible breakfast ‘for the road' before she left her home, or her expensive motel in Taupo. But this one is standing here amongst the truckdrivers in the early morning, her hair in soft blue waves, her eyes like Wedgwood chinaware, and her hands well dressed in rings and pale shell-pink enamel.

He watches out of the corner of his eye as Margie wraps the chips in paper.

‘No vinegar, I said no vinegar,' says the woman.

‘No,' says Margie. ‘I don't reckon you said no vinegar.'

‘I beg your pardon,' says the woman. ‘I distinctly said no vinegar.'

‘I don't hear that you said no vinegar.' Margie's eyes have started to glaze with apprehension. No good arguing with her any more, he could tell the woman that, you might as well talk to the mountain, thinks Clarrie as he prepares to step in.

‘I heard her ask you,' he says to the woman.

‘Yes and I said I didn't want any.'

‘You said … as how you didn't much care for vinegar,' says Margie.

The woman's mouth for all its well chosen makeup has gone like a steel trap. ‘I would have thought I had made myself perfectly clear. To any normal person.'

Clarrie sighs inwardly. ‘It's all right lady,' he says, ‘we'll do you some more. They'll only take a few minutes.'

‘Thank you,' says the woman, with heavy emphasis on the ‘you'. And, oh lady, thinks Clarrie, that's no normal person, that's Margie.

The girl is filling the basket again with slivers of potato, as he assembles the hamburger he's been making and hands it over to the truckie.

He is putting the man's money into the till when the woman speaks again. ‘Surely it would be perfectly clear. Don't you think it would be perfectly clear what I said?'

‘Look,' says Clarrie, ‘I said we'd do more chips for you. What d'you want, a bloody court martial?'

The woman steps back.

‘I tell you, she dunno what you said, because I don't reckon you know what you said yourself. Now can it, eh?'

‘I see.' She stands, momentarily irresolute, as the stainless-steel flytrap door swings open and clangs shut again, and another driver comes in. The woman stands her ground.

‘Morning Clarrie.'

‘Morning.' He can feel himself starting to tremble. They shouldn't do this to him. God, how he needs a drag, just one quick drag, but the way his hands are shaking it would be his luck to drop a butt in the food. It would just be his luck, come to think of it, if Lady Muck was a health inspector. Not likely though, more like she'd know someone in that line. People like her always know someone. Why didn't she go away? You'd think she'd go, with him being rude like that. What makes her go on just standing there watching them all, waiting for her chips? You can't tell him that her type cares too much about fifty cents worth of chips, not when the service is bad. But she stands there. Just stands there and her eyes never leave either of them, flicking one way, now another, nothing pretty and sweet about them any more, sharp as little rat's eyes. Not a big rat. He's seen some big rats. It's the thing about this place. There are some big rats hiding around this town. Came out of a rough raw little place sprung up out of nowhere, people hadn't got to wrapping their rubbish no proper way … You can get some big rats, mean rats that have lived round these parts a long time and they're smart.

He remembers the time, oh it seems a long way back, but maybe it's six, eight months, it's hard to keep track of time round here, unending time, and he hadn't worked in the Roadhouse very long, and that day Margie started to scream, out the back where they kept the potato sacks, and there were some slops, stuff that hadn't been wrapped yet for taking away. He'd gone out to see what was with her, with Della Royal (the one some called Princess), the boss lady, hard on his heels, there'd just been the three of them there. And Margie had been cowering in a corner, and she'd screamed and screamed with her mouth hideous shapes in her strange lopsided face and the rat had stood its ground, deciding to attack rather than escape. The rat had been bigger than a cat, and as bald as an egg all over, with an old man's wrinkled pink skin. Clarrie had taken the cleaver to it, and it would have
bitten him too, only he was bigger and better armed and he killed it. He was sick afterwards and Margie kept on crying for hours after, in soft little whimpers, with Della standing guard over her like a worried mother hen. Margie was all right the next day but she has never let Clarrie out of sight since, not if she can help it.

The woman's eyes are like the rats'. Sharp, unwavering, cruel.

‘What'll it be, Joe?' he asks the truck driver.

‘Steakburger, make it a double and stick two eggs in.'

‘Hell, you want the Leaning Tower of Pisa in your tucker bag? Coming up.'

He moves over to the girl. Why do they call her the girl? A way they have. Something to do with looking after her he supposes. Nearly forty and it shows in the lines of her figure, thickening at the short waist, hips heavy under the flowered cotton dress, ankles thickening, just like most women that age. And the wrinkles starting to show round her eyes, stretching back to the ears adorned with huge hoop earrings. She dyes her hair jet black. He wonders if it is grey underneath.

‘Gee Margie, you're a dumb broad,' he mutters, as he splits yet another bun for his order.

‘I know, Clarrie.'

‘You wanna listen.'

‘Yes Clarrie.'

‘Yes Clarrie, no Clarrie, don't you never say nothing else?'

‘I loves you Clarrie.'

He sighs. ‘Yeah, I know. What'm I going to do about it eh?'

‘I'll wash yer apron fer ya t'night.'

‘Oh Margie.' His voice is full of grief.

‘And starch yer cap.'

‘It's not enough, don't you see.' Though Clarrie is really talking to himself.

‘Then I'll have to think of something else to do fer you, won't I?'

He shakes his head unhappily. ‘Na. It's what I should be able to do for you. And there ain't nothing. Is there?'

‘Dunno, Clarrie. Just never go away perhaps.'

‘Are you two going to talk all day?' the woman calls.

‘Coming up!' Clarrie calls. ‘She's nearly got 'em ready.'

The truck driver jangles coins, and drops one in the jukebox. The light comes on, the arm slowly picks its prey, and settles it down on the turntable. They keep some of the old ones here. Some of the old and some of the new. Round these parts they like songs they know, it's too hard to pick out the
words on all the new ones. The driver has picked an in betweener, ‘Delta Dawn'. Helen Reddy starts belting into the morning.

‘Where you heading then Joe?'

‘Over Taumaranui way. Got a full load of cattle to pick up.'

‘Done now,' calls Margie. She slaps the chips on the slide again.

‘There y'are then lady,' says Clarrie, cheerful for him. But the woman has turned on her heel and is heading for the door. ‘Hey where you going? She's got 'em ready for ya.'

‘Noise,' says the woman. ‘This place … a woman can't find a decent place to eat anywhere.'

‘What are we supposed to do with this lot then?'

‘Feed them to the pigs as far as I'm concerned. You won't have far to go.'

‘Jeez,' shrieks Clarrie, flinging himself forward past the counter, and wedging himself between the woman and the door. ‘She done more for you. I mean, Jesus.'

‘Are you going to lay hands on me?'

Only Helen Reddy doesn't hear the silence. ‘Delta Dawn, what's that flower you got on … could it be a faded rose from days gone by …?'

Clarrie stands back, sullen. ‘You rotten old bitch.'

The woman walks on out. Clarrie comes back round the counter
muttering
, a little ashamed, not that he wants to let on. ‘Jeepers, we'll never see the last of the blue-rinse brigade. You keep hoping but they still keep coming. Glad I gave her a piece of my mind. Still …' he broods. ‘Me an' my filthy temper … oughta take a cold shower in the morning.'

‘I'd forget it if I were you mate,' says Joe. ‘Old cow. Oughta put her on the cattle truck and ship her down to the yards.'

‘Expecting plenty through today then are we?'

‘Reckon there'll be a coupla dozen on the move today. Maybe more. They been on the move since daybreak.'

‘We noticed. What's on then?'

‘Sales at Taihape tomorrow. I got another lot to move after I done Taumaranui today.'

‘Desert'd be a good place to keep off.'

‘That's for sure,' Joe says. ‘Traffic'll be murder. How's m'burger coming on girlie?'

‘All right.'

‘I'm supposed to be looking after that,' says Clarrie.

‘I don't mind. I know how he likes 'em, don't I sir?'

‘That's no sir, that's Joe,' says Clarrie grinning.

‘He put my record on,' says Margie, and her face wears an unfathomable smile.

‘Ah go on with you Margie,' says Joe, humble for her. ‘We know your favourite songs.'

‘Dawn. That's what my daddy should've called me, Dawnie. I'd've kinda liked that,' she says dreamily.

The men look at each other. Joe says, ‘You're a strange one aren't you. Your daddy. You talk like he was still … I dunno, how many years is it since you had your daddy round?'

‘I dunno.' The smile still hovers round the corners of her heavy scarlet painted mouth, and in the powdery creases that run down to the fold beneath her chin. ‘He's been gone a long time now. Fifteen, twenty years, one forgets. I never remember nothing too long. 'Cept … sometimes his face. Comes hanging like the moon at the window … they say you shouldn't look through the glass at the new moon … but me, I look sometimes, an' I see his face hangin' there and I don't never get afraid. I was right not to be afraid, weren't I Clarrie, because now I got you to take care of me?'