Rocking Horse Road (14 page)

Mark and Jase could see the bar through one of the
big sash windows. They crouched down and watched
as Mr Asher sat at a table in the far corner. He was
drinking something from the top shelf, which he went
up to the bar to get. There was no one else in the place
until eleven o'clock and then only a couple of sad old
alkies. Mark and Jase were still there at lunchtime
when a group of office workers came in for lunch but
they stayed in the other room, which had a sign over
the door reading
Restaurant
.

Mark and Jase camped out over the road under the
awning of a rock shop. There were quartz crystals, two
for three dollars, advertised in the window. According
to Mark they kept a close eye on the Empire in case
Mr Asher decided to leave. Occasionally one of them
would wander across and look in the window. 'But
we needn't have bothered. Apart from getting refills,
Mr Asher didn't move from his table.' From what they
said he didn't even bother looking around the room.

By early afternoon they were bored and went into
the rock shop, where they sifted through the boxes of
loose crystals and polished stones. They were the only
people in the shop. Mark asked the lady behind the
counter to unlock a display case and she took out a
fossilised shark's tooth the size of his hand. When it
became clear that they weren't going to buy anything
the woman got snippy and told them to leave. They
went back to sitting on the footpath, staring across at
the Empire.

Mr Asher finally left at four thirty. Beyond a slight
fluidity to his walk, he didn't appear to be drunk. 'But
he must have been totally sloshed,' Jase commented
(and because of his dad, Jase would have known).
Mark and Jase watched Mr Asher get into his ute and
drive away in the direction of the Spit.

To most of the men living down New Brighton the
organisers of the anti-tour march were nothing more
than a group of stirrers. Our fathers and their friends
had a deep-seated distrust of any sort of organised
protest. On principle they didn't like speeches and
rallies. They were suspicious of boat rockers. Tug
Gardiner's dad said over a plate of mashed potato
and lamb chop that they were 'Commie dyke stirrers,
to boot. What good will a bunch of lefties marching
up and down Marine Parade do? They aren't going to
change what's going on in South Africa one little bit.
They're just going to piss people off.'

Some people even seemed to support the South
African system. Jim Turner's dad told several of us
that 'we might have come up with a similar system
here if we'd had to live with twenty million Maoris.'
Our mothers seemed to agree with most of what their
husbands were saying. Or if they didn't, they kept
their opinions to themselves.

Not everyone down the Spit was against the
march that was planned for the eighth of June. Matt
Templeton's sisters were all for it. Matt reported to
us that all five of the older ones had announced their
intention to go, even though their father had strictly
forbidden it. Matt said there had been several blazing
rows and two of his sisters were now living in the
sleep-out at the back of the section, coming inside to
eat only when their father was out of the house.

Another person who made it clear that she was
against the tour was Mrs Montgomery. She was
a widow who lived only a few doors down from
the Ashers' dairy. For reasons beyond us, she had
sellotaped a copy of the poster advertising the rally
up in her front window so that it was visible from the
road. Widow makes her sound old but actually she
was only in her early forties. Mr Montgomery had
died of a sniping stroke that hit him at the age of thirty-seven.
He had been out on the street staining his front
fence. When he was found he had lain in the pool of
spilt timber-stain long enough for his left hand and
half his face to be stained a deep brown. They kept the
casket closed at the funeral. The joke that quickly did
the rounds was that Mr Montgomery had looked like
he was a Maori. 'Or at least half Maori!'

Right up until the tour ended Mrs Montgomery
wore one of those HART badges. We knew for a
fact that on one occasion the local post-master had
refused to serve her while she had the badge on.
Mrs Montgomery had told him that in that case she
would get her stamps elsewhere. But along with the
Templeton girls, she was in the minority. Most people
in New Brighton regarded the planned march as
being outside the boundaries of what was acceptable.
We had even heard it talked about as being the act of
traitors.

In early May Mr Templeton was still giving Jim
Turner a hard time during rugby training. Apart
from lacking the requisite killer instinct, Jim didn't
have good enough fitness levels, said his coach.
In fairness, it wasn't just Jim he was picking on.
The first XV had lost the first three games of the
season and Mr Templeton was ratcheting up the
pressure on all his players. The upcoming tour made
performing well seem even more important than in
a normal season. Jim responded by running in the
sand hills six days a week. He also started eating
a lot of eggs and bananas. He had read somewhere
that they were good for athletes who wanted to lift
their performance. And running through sand hills
is about the best exercise there is for building up
stamina. The soft sand is murder on the legs and
after a few minutes of that, guys who think they
are fit find that their thighs are on fire and they're
breathing like steam trains. It's no exaggeration that
after a month of regular running on the dunes, Jim
Turner found running around the rugby field for
eighty minutes to be a piece of piss.

It was a Saturday morning and the sea fog had laid
itself down over the Spit again. It didn't bother Jim,
though. He only needed to see as far as his next footfall.
He had run through the dunes from his parents'
place up to the playground with the swimming pool
that's close to the shopping centre. The pool still has
a concrete whale sitting in the middle. The whale is
painted blue at the start of each summer and when
there's water in the pool the blowhole is a fountain.
We all have memories of climbing the whale as kids,
and sliding down its back into the water. These days
there is a new pier close to the playground and a flash
library with two cafés and outdoor seating. But back
then there was just a slide and the whale pool and
swings over concrete.

Jim had stopped to stretch before turning back. He
was leaning against the wall of the changing rooms,
pushing against it with one leg straight behind him,
when he heard a weird sound, 'like someone drowning
and crying at the same time'. The fog was drifting in
banks that shifted and then melted back together,
creating small rooms that gave way to bigger spaces
and then closed in again.

Jim stood near the edge of the swimming pool. With
summer over, the big concrete whale was chipped and
faded. The pool had been drained but had filled up
again with rainwater that had turned green and been
fouled by the seagulls that gathered around its edges
to drink. Curious, Jim walked up the steps to the car
park. There were a few surfers' cars, parked mostly
at the front where, on a clear day, you could check
out the waves. Some people will surf in any weather
as long as the waves are good. To Jim they sounded
big as they broke but he couldn't see them through
the fog. The surfers must have all been out because
he could see no one sitting in any of the cars. It was
a large car park and the vehicles down the other end
drifted in and out of view.

And then he heard the noise again. 'The second
time it sounded to me like a hurt animal, a dog or
something. It was coming from an old dunger; a
surfer's car but with the board still strapped to the
roof-rack.'

Jim approached cautiously and peered into the
rear window. A second later he was pulling the back
door open and ripping a guy out backwards by his
hair. The guy's jeans were around his ankles and his
cock stirred the foggy air in front of him. Jim may have
lacked the killer instinct but he was still a big guy. He
was used to the push and shove, the gouge and jab
of the scrum and the maul, the sharp toe of the ruck.
Plus he had the element of surprise. The guy he was
holding by the hair was a surfer who lived up North
New Brighton. His family was Catholic and he went
to the school next to the basilica in the city, where he
was in his final year. He was not on our list. Jim let
go of the guy's hair. While he was still trying to find
his footing Jim put both hands on the guy's chest and
shoved as hard as he could, which was pretty hard.
The guy's pants were still around his ankles and he
tumbled backwards on to the concrete.

Jim told us that the surfer started to roll away, at the
same time pulling at his pants, which were prevented
from coming off by his shoes. He was yelling, pretty
generic abuse, but Jim distinctly heard him say, 'She
wanted me to. She said she liked it.'

Jim dropped his hands to his side. The guy had
time to stagger to his feet where he swayed like a
Weeble. 'Fuck off,' Jim said.

'What about my car?'

'Fuck off,' Jim said again and took a couple of steps
forward. Apparently, the guy didn't argue. He simply
pulled up his jeans and sloped off into the fog where
he could be seen sitting sullenly by the changing
rooms.

Of course the girl in the car was Carolyn Asher.
By then she was sitting up in the back seat, her feet
dangling out the open door. She was naked except for
a white bra. 'What did you do that for?' she asked. Jim
said that she didn't seem angry, or even surprised. She
was just asking.

'I thought he was hurting you.'

One of Carolyn's long, pale hands went to her
neck, where fresh bruises were already rising to the
surface of her skin.

'Help me find my clothes.'

In the end Jim settled for standing awkwardly near
the car while Carolyn dressed. When he finally looked
at her, she was wearing a white dress with a frilled
hem, and a pale pink sweater. They looked to Jim like
the clothes she would have worn to go out the night
before. She asked him to help her tie her shoe and put
her leg up on the bumper of the car. 'Come on,' she
said when he had finished.

'What about him?' asked Jim. The Catholic surfer
was still standing by the changing room, staring in
their direction.

'He'll live,' was all Carolyn said. She took Jim by
the hand and walked with him towards the road.

They continued hand in hand through the fog.
Occasionally cars came by, driving slowly with their
headlights on. To the drivers Jim and Carolyn must
have looked like a young couple who, bored with
being cooped up inside, had gone for a walk in the
fog. Jim said that he didn't know what to say so he
kept quiet. He could see where the sun was supposed
to be, a yellowing in a patch of sky, but no warmth
broke through the ceiling of fog. They walked as far
as Bridge Street before Carolyn spoke. Jim had to lean
close to hear her.

'So what have you guys found out?'

'About what?'

'You're one of those guys trying to find out who
killed my sister. Come on, I'm not stupid.'

He didn't bother denying it on our behalf. 'Nothing
much.'

She shook her head. 'I don't think they're ever
going to catch him.'

There was, he said, a sadness to her; what in later
years we could have labelled as fatalism. No more was
said. They walked on through the fog until they came
to the Ashers' dairy. The closed sign was still in the
window even though it was almost mid-morning.

Carolyn was still holding Jim's hand when she
asked him his name. He told her and she repeated it,
and smiled for the first time.

'Looks like the fog might clear soon,' was all he
could find to say.

'Sure,' she said. Jim was disappointed when she
gave his hand a gentle squeeze and finally let it go.
Carolyn turned and walked through the gate.

It would be nice to say that big Jim Turner's
friendship saved Carolyn Asher, but by that time
Carolyn was probably beyond saving, by one of us
anyway.

Over the following months she continued diligently
working her way through her list, although often we
failed to see what light she hoped to throw on the
case with some of her choices. The guys seemed to
be getting older and not all of them even lived down
New Brighton. Carolyn took to wearing shirts with
high collars all the time.

Jim sat and passed his driver's licence. He would
drive Carolyn around to wherever she wanted to go.
She would call him at all hours of the night and he
would borrow his older brother's little red Suzuki and
meet her outside the dairy. Often she asked him to take
her to the flat of some guy she was seeing, though she
often didn't stay for long. Jim didn't mind waiting in
the car. There was a tape deck and he would sit and
listen to Duran Duran or Bowie over and over again.
He told us that Carolyn had started smoking, and not
just cigarettes: a guy who lived over in Linwood had
got her into it.

Carolyn apparently liked being high. She kept
seeing that guy for longer than any of the others,
possibly because he grew his own in a glasshouse out
the back of his flat and had a seemingly endless supply.
When she did stop seeing him she would ask Jim to
drive her to different places just to buy dope. Some
of them had concrete-block fences out the front and
barbed wire running around the top. Carolyn would
ring the bell and go inside. Jim waited in the car and
tried not to ask himself how she was paying.

As they drove around they would talk. Sometimes
she was high and her ideas circled slowly around the
car like the poems we were still finding blowing on
the wind. Jim told us that she liked to talk about Lucy.
'Lots of little things that she remembered from when
they were young and stuff.'