A Many Coated Man (38 page)

Slaven has excelled — he knows it himself. With the rally underway he experiences a mood which has in it both relief and anticipation. A sense of something vital begun, of life in the hazard. He speaks more simply, more openly, more poetically, than at any of the earlier rallies, yet with a greater consciousness of control and effect and throughout the afternoon there grows in the swelling audience a mood close to exultation, of joy without frenzy. People are amazed and stirred that they are part of an exhibition of public will on a scale so magnificent.

See the summer sky, blue as a computer screen, and Banks Peninsula bulked in its eastern quarter. If Slaven looks for his friend’s tower house in Cashmere he can’t pick it out, but Miles from his den can see the movement which marks the rally in the park; an ant-like swarm that shimmers in the sun. See far to the west the mountains which hide Erewhon and The Garden Of Eden. See too, the planes dipping down to the airport, or climbing from it on a steeper angle, hardly a time when one or other isn’t visible in the sky. The colours of life are yellow and blue, as the failed preacher Van Gogh knew.

Even for Slaven and Kellie and Thackeray it is incongruous that this gathering, like some gargantuan gala amidst the trees and buildings, is also a deliberate exercise of political power, with calculated threat and intent. Who could possibly take exception to such open and self-assured expression of the people’s wishes.

See the cardboard boxes of braised chicken bones and the clear plastic bottles gently bob and amble on the Avon and muster for parade past the river steps of Christ’s College and past the gardens at the back of the museum. See that the people have taken common sense into their own hands and filled the cricket pitches with cars. There are great chestnuts and sycamores and oaks safely above the clasp of the crowd and so close, so much in harmony, that their leaves inosculate. Beneath the oaks, lying amidst the leaves and grasses, are old acorns — like fat, copper bullets which have never struck home. Are all manner of people here?
See the PhD from Ottawa who married a local guy and thinks she’s in at a turning point for a country she wishes to understand. A group of Thackeray Thomas acolytes shriek at the sight of his Cambrian sons, Iago and Dafydd, with their fat, poetic cheeks and the daughter of the music critic of ‘Speak Up’ finds a hedgehog to beat with a stick. See by the bridge a man with delicate features and not long back in the community, given plenty of personal distance despite his smile, because of the stains of long use around the pockets of his yellow trousers and the scurf on his pinstripe collar. And the Hoihos are playing
Glasnost
Galaxy,
ah, lovely and
After
Tiananmen
Square.

You recognise the bosomy, smiling woman whose free and easy hair has scents of clover seed? Come, come, someone of whom you have abundant information. That’s right, it’s Croad’s Blenheim babysitter and only a hundred or so away is Gebrill who turns his own gaze from the cynosure of other eyes with a downward, envious smile and he licks blood from his lip. See Roland Purcell, Anna Fivetrees, and Mr Garrity. See the Aucklander who has come from the carpark of the Burlesque Hotel for easy pickings in the south. See Alice grown old and long since parted from her Tigger.

Let
the
polar
storms
go
bowling
by,
as
long
as
we’re
still
seeing
eye
to
eye.

‘That we are here is the candid expression of our unity. And not just a common purpose, but a unity of heart. A belief in the community of our fellows; faith that collaborative concern is the best way to benefit us all. What our presence shows,’ says Slaven rather grandly, ‘is that the people of this country are now individually committed to it again and collectively prepared to take responsibility for its direction. We see the promised land and the charter marks the road to it. We are on the march.’

‘No charter, no vote. No charter, not vote,’ is the crowd’s chant and ‘All six. All six,’ as Slaven vows that the party who wishes CCP support must accept the complete charter of reform.

‘There’s no time now for wriggling on the hook,’ he says. ‘No time for evasions and half-promises, negotiations and commissions. No more time for dirty tricks — I’m not in the
Beckley-Waite Institute any longer. No more time for wait-it-out, tough-it-out policies. The election is here and we are here. We are HERE.’

‘All six. All six. All six.’ See the great multi-coloured audience like a froth over all the surface of the ground and beneath the summer foliage of the large, English trees.

‘In two hours,’ and Slaven deliberately checks his watch for the cameras and his supporters. ‘Yes, at four o’clock, if we haven’t heard from the Government that the full charter is accepted for implementation within the next Parliamentary term, then the CCP will be asking you and all those with us in spirit today, to vote for the Democratic Socialists who have already pledged support.’

As he finishes the line, Slaven hears the echo of his own words from the sound system, then the chanting begins again and the rush of that makes him catch his breath, as if he were high on a headland and the sea wind gusts into his face. He has learnt to play to the cameras as well as the crowd, to prolong a pose, or smile, long enough for effect, but without it becoming unnatural. Even as his skin tightens because of the great roar of the people, he leads the cameras with a sweep of his arm to pan over the crush which covers Hagley Park and spills out far beyond. He knows that the PM will be watching and Alan Warden, Fassiere and Tonkin. Dr Meelind will be appreciating it, all the politicians and advisors in fact and absent friends such as Miles and Marianne Dunne who sit together in the tower. Jocelyn Piers, his old classmate from primary school perhaps, Ayesbury, the CD Officer, from professional habit assessing any crowd risk if there is panic. The Caretaker he hopes, in the staff quarters even though it’s a Sunday, absent-mindedly reaming out his pipe as he watches the screen — debts will be paid. Slaven’s mother even, as long as there is no cricket on the all sports channel and enemies such as Pollen, Marr and Aristeed, the Director with his book and a carpet thankfully cleansed. Doctors Bliss, Eugene and Collett who are neither friends nor enemies and consider no doubt that they have done all that can be expected of them. But not Professor Hankie who has returned to Swansea, not Buffle the cartoonist who has finished his earthly portfolio at last,
not Cardew who capitalises some of his two hundred thousand in the canting of a blonde across a hand-tooled leather humpty in the window alcove of the Sydney El Dorado Motels.

Not Athol and the goose girl, for nothing of general significance can break the individual focus of hand-to-mouth, moment-to-moment, which is the nature of life there. The river flows upon the ceiling still, Athol’s nose-stud glitters, the grizzle of the pit-bull terriers at a section’s remove is almost as loud as the sounding of the Hagley crowd at a distance. Athol is cutting up a hogget, perhaps, liberated from a Lincoln College field in the previous dusk. See the deft knife-work. The goose girl is lying on her bed, perhaps, watching the Heathcote flow time as beauty on her ceiling. Her long neck rests on the pillow, her compact head tilts back with her mouth open a little as she rests and her golden beak left to legend. The pueblo carving has its colours muted by dust where dust can lie, but other surfaces are agleam with vermilion and Prussian blue. The embroidered owl still contains its wisdom and disguises function on the bedside table and the turn down of the sheet is finely-creased and gentle, free from the stiffness of any recent washing. The goose girl is comfortable in this Sabbath afternoon which is no more, or less, than any other, with her knee-length calfskin coat behind the door, the sound of Athol’s knife in the flesh, the whine of the pit-bull terriers who may yet get a share if Athol feels neighbourly.

Miles on the other hand has both the long and the short view. From his eyrie in Cashmere he sees the rally at a distance like a spawning ground, all congestion and multi-coloured intensity. On the screen however is detail enough in close-ups for him to recognise the scars on his friend’s hands, sweat on his high forehead, the veins in his throat swollen in the delivery of his beliefs. ‘Stick it to them,’ murmurs Miles. Almost he wishes that he could still care for anything as much himself.

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

See the advertising blimps tethered to strong points around the perimeter of Hagley Park. They drift in the empty
space thirty metres above the press below and each one on its sides proclaims the charter points of the CCP. And Kellie has been careful to do well from the franchises for the day. Jumbo Pies has its particular territory and so despite the sun, the hot meat and pastry is ferried in. Kiwi Juice and Freeze Throws, whole hospitality tents as Lager Bars, rosettes with Slavenisms at their centre, perspex-embalmed badge photos of Aldous and Kellie in their garden, ‘Crav’n for Slaven’ bumper stickers, cardboard bookmarks with a treated surface superficially resembling leather and embossed with the koro and cambrian motifs — and the outline of Half Moon Bay.

Is this it? The context in which decisions of our welfare should be made, judgments concerning the efficacy of political ostracism and the reduction of the Presidential term, or is this the justifiable celebration of achievement in the palm. Miles is in some pain again, but he is delighted by everything he sees in this amalgam of the admirable and derisive. In the absence of Georgina he calls aloud to Marianne to share with him a vision of the high-wire act which is democracy.

See dapper Raymond Boydd who teaches Art History at Elmwood High School and each night paints the great canvases of his early ambition with no recollection at all on waking. He shouts, ‘All six. All six,’ with a sudden, inexplicable fury which appalls him, then adjusts the top of his walk-socks with shaking fingers. And Steven Wybrow is here of course, having become a computer historian and a follower of Jung. Georgina Kitson has come with Sarah and her beauty is remarked upon and Vivien Castle is with us, rather than examining the Montana meadows. See Nicholas Halley whose story this may just as easily have been, and Izzy Paycock, Majorie Usser, Simon Adderley, old Ger with his lolling, gap-toothed smile is only one cunt from our view. Madeline Shields is here, with her bulk and jandals as badges of discrimination. She has saved from several weeks’ housekeeping to be able to afford a Slaven cassette and standing monolithically amongst the crowd she is certain that Slaven has caught her eye with special affirmation. See the entreaty man who glories in the fame Slaven has
established and has his own secret pride at his early recognition of such power. People expect like with like, but an ordinary person can live an extraordinary life, and an extraordinary person can live an ordinary one.

There is a place in the south, in the unfashionable south of the city where the rain-mist comes in from the harbour — a fine and silent touch on the bare legs of the students. Two young men kiss in the park and a young woman stands alone with her pockets inside out and a calculus text. The old trees ramify above the park, their tops undulate while it’s quiet beneath, as an ocean surface crests above the peaceful depths. Come past the park into the unfashionable south, where the rentals are lower, the foot traffic less intense, the premises more representative of individual enterprise, or ineptitude. The Holistic Health and Acupuncture Clinic is in the old office of Acme Dry Cleaners. It has a gilt oriental symbol on the window, an anatomy chart to show the points and meridians, it has dried flowers and joss sticks as ancillary supplies and Buddhist calmness in fine calligraphy. Don’s New and Used Sportsgoods holds promise for fresh whims and the accoutrements of those long gone. Come past the Cascade Die Casters, the Housie and Mah Jong Hall with hours for three nights of the week, the engraving service, the Power Body Gym, the Hydroponics supplies, the tool hire and The Salvation Army Clothing Shop. The Lefage Beauty Salon has all its services listed and beside each is a small, pink cupid: electrolysis, facials, depilatory waxing, red vein treatment, manicures, pedicures, skin tag removal, Danish massage, lash and brow tinting, sculptured nails, sunless tans, steam baths, cellulite protection, body wraps, colour and image consultation, lobe dedowning, bikini line clearance.

Between Morten’s Pallet Racking and the radiator repair shop is the factory showroom for gas beds. Between Trevor’s International Cornish Pasties and the water-blasting firm is Fifi’s Escort Agency with quotations from enthusiastic customers pasted to the glass of the door.

Above Controlair Systems (NZ) Ltd, who are agents for dual directional air handlers and Belissimo damper motors, are the same day couriers and Bubbelas Antiques. There’s
the Zealandia Business and Art College of course, founded you will remember by Wyeth Knox ASSW, PSN, BA. There’s the security specialists, the computer firm, the Community Legal Advice Bureau, Ducati Parts and Servicing, Equestrian Leathers, the stall of coloured transfers on glass, economy rental cars, the Baha’i Meeting Room, retirement planning, Simmon’s Marine Upholstery and the Seven Day Twenty-Four-Hour Lightning Breakdown Service with an Alsation chained to its door. And all our friends are present — some making money, some making conversation, some making just prints on the ground. In such places are our lives passed and past.

Slaven feels little fear as four o’clock nears and he’s surprised by that. Anticipation and excitement are what he’s aware of on the stage in Hagley Park. All his decisions have already been made, now the responsibility for outcomes lies with those invisible politicians that he knows are watching. The mood of the great crowd is just that balance between fervour and common sense which he has hoped for, as if they too realise that all that can be done for their beliefs is being done and done well. Soon it will be over. He feels a free sweat on his face and the base of his neck, but it’s the sweat from the energy of his performance and the afternoon sun, not anxiety. The sun glosses the scene and draws a light wind from the sea which stirs the advertising blimps at their moorings and the leaves of the chestnuts, sycamores, oaks, limes and willows. A macrocarpa even, massive and relegated to the less scenic margins of the park and generating from such bulk, reduced, careful cones for its seed. All these trees seemingly grow not from the ground, but from the dense, endless mulch of people spread amongst them in a shifting and pointillistic array of colours.