Bird North and Other Stories Page 14

  The policeman smiled at the iced half of a biscuit he’d been examining.

  ‘It’s like Survivor,’ crowed someone further down Scott’s side of the table.

  ‘Are there any questions?’ said the dark-haired woman.

  ‘Can we choose you?’ smiled the Territorial.

  ‘Do ...’ said Jeff holding up both hands as the laughter faded. ‘Do the two people who travel to space have a better chance of getting the job?’ Jeff smiled at Scott and then looked back at the dark-haired woman in a way that said, I already know the answer. I’m just getting confirmation for my young friend here.

  ‘It’s really an assessment of your communication skills,’ said the dark-haired woman. Then raising her hand as if hoping to focus the group and to prevent any more questions, she looked at her watch and said, ‘You have twenty minutes. Your time starts now.’

  Nobody said anything for a few minutes. Shona coughed and then whispered to Lisa who put her handbag on the table and took out a sachet of tissues.

  ‘Seventeen minutes left,’ said the dark-haired woman.

  ‘Some of the people on this list are dead,’ said a man in a Bart Simpson tie.

  ‘Just presume they’re all alive. It’s not real life,’ said the dark-haired woman tightly.

  ‘I think I should be on the spaceship,’ announced the Territorial.

  ‘Why’s that?’ said Jeff. ‘Are you an astronaut?’

  ‘Should I write his name down?’ said Shona, holding a pen over a piece of paper.

  ‘I’ve got leadership and survival skills,’ said the Territorial. ‘And, age is on my side.’

  Jeff smiled conspiratorially at Scott, picked up the booklet and batted its end against the table as if it were an important sheaf of documents. ‘Maybe what we should be talking about,’ he said, ‘is whether we even want to be on that spaceship.’

  ‘The Russians put a monkey in space,’ said the man in the tie.

  ‘Fourteen minutes left,’ said the dark-haired woman.

  ‘We’ll definitely be taking Princess Di,’ said the Territorial.

  ‘Why would we take her?’ said Scott.

  The clock ticked noisily. Even Jeff looked at Scott in a strange way.

  ‘I suppose you want to lead the mission?’ said the Territorial.

  Scott had a liquidy feeling in his stomach. ‘It’s just –’

  The policeman had stood up and had gone behind Shona who was writing on the paper. ‘Did I do something wrong?’ she said, staring up at the policeman.

  ‘You need to start making decisions,’ said the dark-haired woman.

  ‘Here,’ said the Territorial reaching towards Shona, ‘give me the paper.’

  After lunch the policeman was all business. He stood with his hands behind his back and spoke in a loud voice. ‘The next task is what I call a live fire exercise. We want an idea of how you perform under pressure. You will be taking a mock 111 call.’

  The Territorial pumped his fist and said, ‘Shot.’

  The policeman talked on. ‘The person calling you might be upset, or angry, or aggressive. They might be in pain or afraid ... Gary.’ The policeman went over to the window.

  Gary stared at something on the far wall. ‘They might have locked themselves in the shower and be talking to you while a man with a knife goes through their house.’

  There was silence. The dark-haired woman started to say something, but then stopped. The Territorial looked about in an outraged way, then made a face and cracked his neck from one side to the other.

  ‘You have to support this person,’ continued the policeman, coming back to the table. ‘But at the same time you have to gather information – that means listening.’ He tugged at the bottom of his ear.

  ‘Can we work in pairs?’ said Shona.

  The policeman ignored her. He leaned over the table. ‘You are here to assist the caller. Not make friends. Keep your emotions out of it. Stay calm –’

  ‘Breathe,’ said Gary.

  Jeff had not come back from lunch. No one had said anything about it. Scott looked at the empty chair and then up at Gary. He was talking about a trainee who’d fainted. ‘She went bonk,’ said Gary, making a falling motion with his arm. ‘Straight onto her keyboard.’

  Scott was called third. Even though he’d had two cups of water his throat was dry. The dark-haired woman walked with him down a corridor and into a small cool room. There was a desk and an elaborate looking phone with a headset attached by a coiled wire. ‘That’s the phone,’ she said. This close the smell off her was strong, but still good. She put a pen and a piece of paper on the desk. ‘You get five minutes to read the instructions. When the phone rings press the button and say, ‘What is the emergency?’’

  ‘What is the emergency?’ said Scott.

  ‘That’s right,’ said the woman. Her lips glistened and made a sound when they parted.

  She left. Scott sat down and put the headset on. The chair swivelled all the way around and went up, down, forward and back. ‘This is Mission Control,’ he said quietly. He read the instructions twice and underlined some of the information. Beside the desk there was a rubbish bin with a banana in the bottom. The phone rang. He scratched his beard and looked at the phone. The large red button was glowing softly as though it had got suddenly warm. He pressed it and said what he’d been told to say.

  ‘I’m in a phone box,’ said a man doing a woman’s voice.

  Gary, thought Scott. It sounded like he’d been running. Then, before Scott had time to say anything, the woman started in. There was something about a Valiant and a man in a white hat. Then, for what seemed like half an hour, she did a lot of sobbing and screaming.

  At the end of the day each candidate went in front of the panel. A de-brief, the dark-haired woman called it. ‘A one-on-one,’ said the policeman.

  ‘With chocolate,’ countered the dark-haired woman.

  Scott was one of the last called. He sat at the end of the big table. You could have played table tennis in the space between them.

  ‘How do you think you went today, Scott?’ said the dark-haired woman.

  ‘Scott S.,’ said the policeman, looking at a piece of paper and then at Scott as if he’d never seen him before. ‘Where do you think you might be in five years?’

  Scott didn’t know about five years. Since the summer started he’d been thinking about a bag you could swim with. You’d wear a strap across your chest; there’d be a line and then the buoyant, brightly-coloured bag. It would hold your lunch, your shoes, a shirt and tie. It wouldn’t just be about fitness or commuting. It was as much about being in the sea – there you felt part of something immense, which made you feel small, but more aware of yourself and therefore somehow big. Scott didn’t have it exactly worked out, but he felt close to something crucial.

  He cleared his throat and talked about serving somewhere in the government. The enforcement agencies or the Ministry of Justice. ‘Helping people do the right thing,’ he said.

  Gary was bending to pick something off the floor. For a moment it was just his head – his chin on the table and his eyes looking down at Scott. He sat back with a yellow chocolate wrapper.

  ‘I didn’t give you your chocolate,’ said the dark-haired woman, standing up and gliding down the side of the table.

  ‘Can you hack the call centre?’ said the policeman.

  The dark-haired woman put two chocolates on the table in front of Scott. ‘We liked what we heard,’ she said.

  ‘We were impressed,’ said the policeman.

  Gary yawned and nodded at the others. ‘This guy might have what it takes,’ he said.

  Scott had decided to go for a swim. He was wearing his togs and a sweatshirt and carrying the towel he’d used after shaving. He crossed the road to the footpath overlooking the bay. A grader was shifting a pile of sand from one end of the beach to the other and out on the water a sturdy boat was motoring into the wide bite of the bay towing a pontoon. Scott sat on the low wall w
hich separated the footpath from the sand. The boat stopped. He could hear the voices of the men on board – they wore life jackets and woollen hats and as he watched they fixed the pontoon to a heavy chain, replacing a pink buoy that had been there all winter.

  The boat started up, turned and motored slowly away. In the morning light the pontoon’s geometry was sharp. Its black, rubbery front was reflected in the still surface of the harbour and it had a shiny ladder and a green surface. Scott walked down to the water. The sand was hard and crenulated where the grader had been. He dropped his towel and went into the cool familiar water. When he went under and started to swim there was the dull sound of the grader and, he thought, the fading whine of the sturdy boat’s engine, or perhaps the whine of the city itself. Ahead of him, breaking the blue curtain, was the dark blur of the pontoon. He swam around to the ladder and putting his feet on the cold bottom rung pulled himself out of the water. He climbed the ladder and went across the non-slip surface to the edge of the pontoon. He could see his flat, the narrow road down to the bay, and the road into the city that, as if a tap had been turned on, was suddenly busy with cars, bicycles and – full of faces – a yellow bus. Everyone was going in the same direction, towards the city – where the buildings basked in the golden sun – and wasting no more time Scott dove off the pontoon and swam to shore.

  *

  Five years later a pod of dolphins stranded themselves on that city beach. The scientists couldn’t explain it. It’s the heat, one of them said. It’s us, said another holding her hands just beneath her heart and blushing, something about what we’re doing is just not right.

  Some of the mammals were saved, cajoled into deeper water by men and women in wet suits and on kayaks. Others died on the sand, the vents in their heads drying open so that the flies could start their work that much faster. Some seemed to have been saved, but it had got into their brains and once they hit the mouth of the harbour, where fast deep currents made rivers between continents, they careened down, down, and then shot back through the surface, making long arcing runs and breathtaking flights before they gave out and fell, tumbling like knotted towels, towards the dark seat of the ocean.

  Three bikes

  Evelyn’s allowed me some beer money and I’m drinking in the old part of Oamaru. The pub is at the base of a fork in the road and is one in a block of historic cream- and sand-coloured buildings. The high sun makes dark shadows under their sills and shallow doorways. I sip the beer and then put the glass against my forehead. At the only other table three tourists, two men and a woman, are using a language I don’t understand. The woman has long legs. There’s a bracelet around her ankle that’s white against her dark skin.

  A man with a curling moustache and a bowler hat rides past on a penny farthing. The woman stares and says something. The man on the bicycle doffs his hat. A little girl runs by, following the rider as he makes a careful turn, and disappears around the end of the pub. The road down there is narrow. On the sea side there’s a bakery and low brick warehouses. The other side (a gallery, an indoor market and a shop that sells stone carvings) is made up of the backs of the buildings that front this street. The tanned woman picks up a bottle of water and follows the two men and the little girl.

  Evelyn and I got married and left Dunedin last Friday.

  ‘From now on, it’s my way or the highway,’ she’d said. And on the way up, once the baby was asleep she had more to say, ‘No shift work. No late night drinking. No cell phones.’

  The woman who served me comes out, looks at the empty table, and then walks to where she can see down the narrow road. She stands there rolling a cigarette and watching whatever is happening, then shifts the tourists’ empty glasses to the side of the table and sits down. As she’s about to light her cigarette there’s a voice from inside the pub. She holds the flame before the tip of the cigarette and looks intently through the open door. ‘Yep, I heard that,’ she says. There’s a tuft of tobacco at the end of the cigarette. It catches and is consumed as she inhales. She breathes out and looks over, but doesn’t say anything. When she’s finished she collects up the glasses and the ashtray and goes inside.

  I finish the beer and put my hand in my pocket. There’s enough for one more.

  It’s dim inside. Dust slants in sheets where the sun cuts narrow windows. When I arrived there was a big man at the bar with a sandwich. He’s still there. The woman is behind the bar, standing as if she and the man have been talking. A motorbike goes by. The woman stares past me and exchanges a shake of the head with the man.

  ‘Same again?’ she says, taking my glass. On her finger is a ring in the shape of a crouching cat.

  I take my beer outside. The road is wide and so empty you could race elephants.

  After a while the man comes out and puts his drink on the other table. He takes little steps as if getting ready to jump from a plane, then puts his hands on his hips and tips back three times. There’s a sound out of him when his bend is at its deepest.

  ‘Crook back,’ he says, looking over.

  I nod and taste my beer. He shifts a chair from the table and sits with his back to me. He lights a cigarette and flicks the match onto the road. A seagull flies down to look.

  ‘Go on,’ says the woman, making a move towards the bird. She’s come outside with her hand as a shade over her eyes. The bird goes into the middle of the road and tilts its head.

  ‘Wouldn’t stop there,’ says the man. ‘Wouldn’t stop there. Not with that Rod about.’ Any louder, his voice would echo.

  The woman turns towards me and says, ‘The sea’s just over there.’ She nods back to where, beyond the warehouses, there are disused rail lines, a rocky shore, then the ocean. ‘Not that you’d know it today.’

  ‘It’s hot,’ I say.

  ‘Hot as a bastard,’ she says, going into the doorway.

  ‘It’s good for the pores,’ says the man, talking up at the sky. The flesh of his neck creases and bulges.

  I sip my beer. Two gulls fly at lamppost height down the road. One of them shits. It spreads and hits the road without a sound.

  The only thing moving on the man is his drinking arm.

  Three campervans go by.

  ‘Off to see the penguins,’ says the man. ‘You ever eaten it?’

  ‘Oi,’ says the woman, coming into the sun. She slaps the man on his shoulder, and then walks over to my table. Two jade green veins track up the inside of her thigh.

  ‘You’re not a tourist,’ she says.

  ‘Shifted from Dunedin,’ I say.

  She spins around in a way that suggests there’s been a bet. ‘See. Not a tourist.’

  The man continues. ‘You need a good size drum to poach them properly.’

  There is the same motorbike noise. A black three-wheeled motorcycle comes down the middle of the road. The rider is wearing a visor-less helmet. He has bare arms and wears a gentle look of concentration like a man changing a baby.

  ‘Waaaahhhhhh,’ shouts the woman, doing the fingers with both hands.

  The big man has stood and shifted the chair back. We watch the bike depart. A chip packet plays in the back-draft.

  ‘He’ll come back,’ says the woman. ‘Just wait.’

  The big man steps unsteadily onto the road.

  ‘Errol,’ says the woman.

  He stops halfway across the first lane and braces himself as if preparing for a broken wave.

  Far down the road the bike turns. There is blue in the black of its paint job. It catches the sun like the body of a blowfly. There is its roar, the seated shape of the rider, and then it’s on us.

  ‘Why don’t ya ...’ the big man starts.

  But whatever it is is drowned as the bike goes by. The man holds his position; crouched low and squinting with his hands out like it’s him on the bike.

  The bike revs and changes gear to take the corner. The sound gradually falls.

  ‘Every bloody Saturday,’ says the woman. ‘Like there’s not enough roads round No
rth Otago.’

  Still in the middle of the road, the man is marking a long neck-height line with his forefingers. ‘One of those trip wires the Indians use,’ he says, ‘that would do it. Take his head clean off.’

  ‘Then what?’ says the woman as if considering it. ‘We’ve got a rider-less bike blatting about?’

  ‘The headless horseman,’ says the man, doing his back exercises. He comes off the road and sits down.

  The woman goes back to the doorway. The hot quiet resumes.

  ‘You want another?’ says the woman as I finish my beer.

  I shake my head. ‘No thanks.’

  ‘He’s a family man,’ says the man. ‘He can’t spend all day here.’

  ‘How would you know?’ says the woman. ‘How do you know he’s not like you?’

  ‘I saw the ring on his finger.’

  She crosses her arms over her small breasts.

  ‘I got married on Friday,’ I say.

  ‘Friday?’ bellows the man. ‘Friday gone?’

  There’s a distressed female voice out on the road.

  ‘Here’s his Missus now,’ he says. ‘Here for her honeymoon.’

  A tandem bicycle comes around the corner. A bright pannier bag is fixed over the front wheel. Three plastic water bottles are attached to different parts of the frame. The woman is on the back. ‘Please Marty,’ she says, ‘just for one damn day.’

  The man’s wearing broad tinted glasses and a cobalt helmet.

  ‘Marty?’ says the woman.

  The man doesn’t say anything. As they go past the pub the woman lifts her feet off the pedals and starts shaking from side to side.

  ‘God damn it!’ says the man still pedalling.

  They wobble this way and that down the street.

  ‘Yeah!’ says the barwoman. ‘Let the bastard have it.’

  The man manages to keep the bike upright. ‘What did I say about wobbling!’ he shouts.

  The woman stops her wobbling, but keeps her toes pointed to the heavens. Her pedals revolve uselessly.

  I stand and for some reason do the same stretch as the big man.