A Many Coated Man (17 page)

So Western Springs, having drawn them all in since early last night, now exhales and the people surge out into the carparks, the streets, the suburbs and the watching police and camera crews marvel at the seemingly endless passage of them.

Slaven and Kellie leave the aftermath to others of the team. Together they are lifted from the heliport atop the Tizard stand in the first light of day. Below them is still a huge crowd, but the noise of the rotors covers the singing. Who doesn’t know the words?
Everybody
finds
they
have
a
neighbour,
it
they
come
back
to
Half
Moon
Bay.

‘That was some experience there tonight,’ says Kellie. ‘Was that a success, or what! But the scale of it finally was frightening, didn’t you find? I mean it’s exhilarating and it’s flattering, particularly for you, but in the end I had this feeling that something about the crowd had outgrown our reasons for being there, their reasons for coming. There was otherness freewheeling there in the dark and it wasn’t bound by any logic, or conscience, and it might do anything at all.’

‘Yes,’ says Slaven, but he is too tired and victorious to talk of it. A physical reaction is setting in. Although the sweat is still a sheen on his skin, he starts to shiver, his fingers tremble. He becomes aware of trivial discomforts such as a sore throat, a shoe that rubs and a thirst simultaneous with a desire to piss. But he recalls the Prime Minister’s voice which had a placating rather than a patronising tone, the tears and the shouts and the cheers, the passionate singing and as the helicopter banks steeply he can see in the first light the great amoeba of the crowd still breaking up beneath them. ‘But I reckon we took Western Springs all right,’ he says.

Yes, but this has been for us a sort of slip glaze of talk and action which has glibly covered things which might be pertinent if given space. See Slaven still sitting in Shafters in the sun and watching the dogs and their masters define their roles on the grass of Western Springs. Feel the blessed heat that tightens the face, hear the easy sounds of this accustomed activity. There is a clump of toi-toi on the fence line and finally the one Dalmatian disgraces its breed by succumbing to the temptation of the fragrances and deposits beneath the long, drooping leaves. The other owners display no derision, but rather a courteous sorrow at such a lapse and the Dalmatian’s owner fingers the dog’s ears in affection rather than punishment. The owner is very bald, very brown and strong, with the legs of his shorts completely filled by muscled thighs and instead of immediately rejoining the circuit with his dog, they stand together by the fence and the toi-toi enjoying the view into the park where there is a lake. And all these quiet, obedient dogs will have homes throughout the city though people never know of them and instead hear askance of a loathsome brute which menaced little Howie James. Good discipline, Slaven’s father always said, is the same thing as self-respecting pride.

A party then, after the CCP’s dramatic success at Western Springs; a celebration of the heartland over the complacent poseurs of the big city. The Auckland branch of the Coalition is turning it on in the state room of the new Burlesque
Hotel in the Waitakeres, with a view over the city, the spread, endless shimmer of the lights in the night and the black holes which mark the excursions of the sea.

It is of course a political event as well as a celebration, with some people of importance to Slaven and the CCP drawn out by the power the rally demonstrated. A certain amount of sizing up is taking place, the agreement of times for mutual talks and so on. All sorts are here — Royce Meelind of the Think Tank, as he happens to be up from Wellington, Marjorie Usser whom Slaven met at the Civil Defence seminar, Fassiere with her wonderful complexion due to the gold-rush, the Chairman of the United Association of Volunteer Unions, newly introduced to Slaven by Sheffield Spottiswoode. But not poor Norman Proctor of course, not Roland Purcell, not Birdie Watson who fell from the Cenotaph, or Buffle the famous cartoonist, not Simon Adderley, not Mrs Prothero’s canary.

Eula Fitzsimmons is showing the northerners that she too knows how to dress and her fluting vowels give a sense of panache to every view she expresses. The echo of her Rangi Ruru laugh penetrates the airing cupboard door behind which Cardew has his knee between the thighs of the hors d’oeuvres girl and his hands full of her breasts. ‘Believe me,’ he says, ‘I’ve just the filling for you.’ Thackeray Thomas relaxes from hard campaigning by recounting a Cymric dream — mists, magicians, Anglesey and the roaring ghosts of Iago, Llywelyn Fawr and Madog. He swears it is a heritage of the genes, so real is it to him.

‘We’re each of us conglomerates, aren’t we,’ he says, ‘or like onions that have all our forebears one by one a layer closer to the heart.’

Kellie is still tired from Western Springs two nights ago, but it’s now a lassitude of relaxation and achievement as well. She delights in the party which is no part of her responsibility. Even she has had enough of that. What does she care if there’s a problem in the carpark with thieves, that one of the sliding doors of the state room has jumped its track, that there aren’t quite enough girls to hand round the hors d’oeuvres. Kellie discusses with Royce Meelind the evolution of the organisational structure within the Coalition,
the special difficulties of a quasi-political party without a parliamentary wing and her envy of the ease with which people here can grow citrus fruits and great evergreen magnolias.

‘It’s an amazing achievement in so short a time,’ says Meelind in reference to organisation. ‘The only parallel this century I can think of is the Antarctic Movement.’

‘Aldous’s father served on the pickets there. He was a regular soldier.’

‘Somebody told me that.’

‘Maybe it would be better for us to be completely independent. It’s only circumstance that linked us to the Cambrians and so on, but they gave us that early help and we won’t toss them over now.’

‘I doubt if it bothers your supporters at all,’ says Meelind. ‘Everything is so focussed on Aldous. Such a direct source of energy, yet in another way inexplicable.’

‘Inexplicable?’

‘What I mean is, none of the ideas are new, but it’s his conviction that makes people want to take them up again. In some way he arouses their trust. Don’t you think?’

‘Or their hate,’ says Kellie. ‘Whenever you want to share a conviction, there’s someone hates you for it.’

‘That’s for sure. There’s only so much success available, isn’t there, especially in politics. So when one person gets more, the others see themselves as diminished.’

Kellie and Royce Meelind are sitting on the long, cushioned seat of the state room, well back from the uncarpeted area where dancers move before the huge windows and make it difficult for Kellie to see the distant city. She is slim and well dressed, isn’t she? She has brains and money and power in the CCP? Better to concentrate on all that, rather than being forty-eight years old and with a husband in emotional free-fall. ‘Western Springs was way beyond my predictions and I was more generous than most,’ Meelind is saying.

See a youngish man in a tailor-made suit and a tooled leather choker instead of a tie. See him talk to a simpering guy with unctuous, yellowed eyes and to a slightly buck-toothed woman with glasses and a creamy breast. They
stand between Kellie and the rest of the room. On the squab to her left is a solid man with creased trousers. He’s a member of the Auckland Coalition Committee and Kellie worked quite closely with him for several days before the rally. She recognises the face of course, but has let go on the name. He intones snatches of their campaign songs to himself. On the other side, beyond Royce Meelind, are two of Eula Fitzsimmons’ supporters.

‘An inexorable law, absolutely,’ says the choker. ‘It matters not a bit what one is wearing, the lint from one’s belly button is always pale blue.’

‘Ha, Ha.’

Angels
on
the
1
am
all
singing,
come
on
in
to
Welfare
Heaven.

‘What I fear is an essentially patriarchal structure, while you seem to be happy that the end justifies the means.’

‘You must be both tired and proud,’ says Meelind.

‘I never have any lint in my belly button. I am most scrupulous concerning orifices,’ says the buck-toothed woman.

‘But the proportional representation aim, the sixth point, that’s our salvation. You must give credit to Aldous Slaven there. Eula says herself that he was a supporter.’

The
best
new
century
policy,
is
the
making
of
a
glasnost
galaxy.

‘Oh, how he can talk, can’t he. It just carries you away, and I thought we were supposed to be the ones with the gift of the gab.’

‘You’re bluffing. I bet fifty that your sweet button has blue lint like all the rest of the world.’

‘Ha, ha.’

‘Pull your blouse up just high enough to prove me wrong and there’s fifty right here, right now. I tell you it’s an immutable law. No kidding.’

Kinder
hearts
are
waiting,
baby,
amongst
old
friends
at
Half
Moon
Bay.

‘I’ve heard things, you know, about the son. Things about Cardew Slaven.’

Kellie can see Slaven, between the young man with the tooled choker and his friend with jaundice showing in his
eyes and a ready, empty laugh. Slaven, glimpsed a distance away, amongst others and with the glassed view of the lights of the city spread against the dark pelt of the night. Slaven rocks on the balls of his feet the way he does when bored in the presence of fellows and unable to escape. He is the centre of attention for a good many people and they wait to have their say, each with a personal agenda which has little in common with that of the Coalition. Slaven hasn’t acquired the skill of sloughing off the concerns of other people while still preserving a solicitous demeanour.

‘And another is the indication of libido provided by the ear lobes. Absolutely. Now yours are fleshy to a marked degree.’

‘Ha, ha.’

‘When you come to think of it, though, why should quantitative gender representation be the last charter point? Oh, I know there’s supposedly no hierarchy in the order, but many will make assumptions.’

‘It should be looked at.’

‘It should.’

Foveaux
storms
are
Jading,
baby,
within
the
calm
of
Half
Moon
Bay.

The elegant woman is feeling her ear lobes. In the concentration of the moment her mouth opens a little more and her white, slightly buck teeth emphasise the sheen of her lipstick. Slaven at a distance is dancing, more as an escape, Kellie thinks, than from positive inclination. She glimpses something fugitive of his younger self and it causes her a brief, sharp pang. She tells herself that she’s feeling down because of the anti-climax after Western Springs. That’s what it is all right, she tells herself.

Royce Meelind is a man to whom ideas are more important than anecdote, yet even his professionalism allows for a measure of curiosity. He has sat with Kellie for some time without further comment, listening to the conversation around them, following Kellie’s gaze through the shifting figures of the party. Slaven is a fair dancer and Meelind is reminded of the story told by his cousin, Eric Tydeman, who as a second year commerce student took evening dancing lessons in the bare room of the Langar Dance
Academy above the Suzuki Agency. The dance instructor was a Polish woman of great vivacity and charm, and one warm March night she excused herself in the middle of a modern bracket, opened the old sash window and did a header onto the pavement next to the display of Suzuki tourers.

‘How is he in himself,’ says Meelind. ‘How is he bearing up under the strain of recuperation and heading a national organisation that at present gets more attention than the Government almost?’

‘Hah. Hah. You see. You see.’

‘That’s Kellie Slaven just two along from us. We should introduce ourselves.’

‘He’s been buoyed up by the success of it, swept along,’ says Kellie. ‘He’s only recently beginning to think of the consequences of failure, or of losing control of the public feeling he’s aroused.’

Everything
around
you
seems
to
say,
remember
Greenpeace.

‘Personal leadership’s like that. The emotional demands can be appalling.’

‘People don’t make allowances, or put themselves in his shoes,’ says Kellie. ‘They’ll distract him with personal pleas only moments before he has to speak to thousands. They’ll walk right into the house if they can, sit down at the meal table without a blink and start on their life story, the things they want from him. I’m just realising how selfish need is.’

Some people who are implacable in withstanding all the forces of the working day, or week, are quickly collapsed by relaxation and a little fun. Sheffield Spottiswoode proves himself to be one of these and after a supper of cannelloni, giant prawns, and cherry gateaux the bubbly goes straight to his heart. He supplants the creased campaigner as the source of protest songs and Thackeray Thomas as the leader in a range of toasts to CCP success.

Thackeray can not normally be so easily deposed, but he has been smitten with a sudden Celtic melancholy and gone out into the night beyond the state room to wrestle with his demons.

Some considerable time after Slaven’s speech, he and
Kellie find time to slip away, knowing that the younger ones will party the harder for their absence. Les Croad drives them back into the city and boasts of his part in dealing with a gang who were rifling cars in the Hotel Burlesque park. ‘Have a go then, I says to them. Have a bloody go. Chance your arm if you feel lucky.’