Fathers Page 6
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Jack and Wiremu were sitting on top of Jacks pony Rosy as they wandered along Ramarama Ridge Road on their way home from school. A cool southerly breeze blew down the street making the fallen dead leaves dance and pirouette in the air, like they were living things. Both were dressed for the cold winter’s afternoon with woollen jerseys and balaclavas, but still the icy wind cut through their clothing to bite their skin and gnaw at their bones. The pale sun, generating no warmth, was briefly eclipsed by the grey clouds as they scudded across the sky in front of it, darkening an already dismal day. “Gee I hate winter, Jack,” said Wiremu.
“Yeah, I reckon, it’s just about dark by five o’clock.”
“It’s the mornings I hate, having to do the chores in the dark before you go to school.”
Jack nodded. “They should just cancel school in the winter and let us sleep in a bit longer, yunno, until the sun’s come up at least. Then we could do the chores in the daylight instead of the dark.”
“Nah, just cancel school full stop! I mean what good is it going to do you and me Jack? We don’t need to know how to speak like Shakespeare, or do fractions or division to milk a cow or shear a sheep do we? I mean we’re going to be farmers eh Jack? You and me farmers. Prob’ly own this whole place, yunno cut all the trees down and run a million sheep on it. A million Jack! Imagine how much wool you’d get of those buggers eh!”
“Yeah and imagine how much money we’d get if we sold all those trees we cut down eh! Prob’ly get a thousand pounds or something!”
“Each, Jack! Easy a thousand pounds, each.”
Voices, shouting and yelling and laughing were heard from behind the church as the boys rode past. They slid off the horse and tied it to a tree and then sneaked around the side of the building and hid behind a shrub to investigate. At the back of the church Rex Roberts (Junior) was in the middle of a circle of four boys and was being shoved from one to the other. ‘The Cutters’ the gang of four called themselves, because they all carried knives and carved their initials and/or profane messages into any substance they could possibly etch with their sharp instruments. Things like buildings, trees, any painted surface, even soft stone and concrete were targeted by these vandals. They were Putumu’s taggers of the day. A stupid little bully boy gang that vandalised property and terrorised weaker kids like Rex and any one different; people like Wilhelm Rasch and his family. The gang’s ages were between ten and twelve years, their leader being the oldest, tallest and fattest. Farley Johnson was his name and he had a face like a toad and a body to match. Bug eyed, protruding jaw and a tongue that constantly flicked in out of his mouth like he was trying to catch flies. His body was round and large but his legs were two pins out of proportion with his bulk and seemingly too small to carry the weight they endured. He usually had something spilled down the front of his shirt like egg or gravy and he always wore shorts summer and winter which highlighted his disproportionate legs and body. An asthmatic, he wheezed when he spoke in his high pitched but cultured voice and being a bully he thumped anybody that dared to make fun of him. Behind his back, the kids (and some of the adults too) called him Fat Frog Farley. His cohorts were the identical twins Stan and Dan Wright and they had curly ginger hair, copious freckles on their faces and saucers for ears. They weren’t the brightest boys in the village and had nasally voices as if they wore pegs on their noses. They tended to echo each other’s words - as well as Farley’s - when they got excited. The other member of the gang was a short, skinny Maori boy called Tu Whakatuma who had a runny nose and constantly sniffed all the time. His hair was long to his shoulders and tangled and usually had something stuck in it like cobwebs, insects (alive or dead) or sticks and leaves, or any combination of these. Their fathers were gone, Farley’s killed in the war, Tu’s father killed in a logging accident and his mother died giving birth to him. He was brought up by his sister who couldn’t handle him as well as her six children. And the twin’s parents? The mother lived alone, the father a mystery to the villagers although some said it could’ve been her father. He was a despicable man, an alcoholic, who accidently drowned in the Putumu River not long after the birth of the twins.
“Got any money Wex Woberts?” Wheezed Farley as he pushed him towards the twins.
“Yeah got any money Wex Woberts?” Echoed the Twins and pushed him over and towards Tu.
Rex landed flat on his face. Tu pushed his face into the mud with his foot and held him there as Rex struggled to breathe, his mouth and nose sealed by the sticky goo. His glasses disappearing in the muck.
“Someone check his pockets while I hold him here” said Tu struggling to keep Rex’s head under his foot.
“Hey I think he’s having trouble breathing Tu, how bout I sit on him while you check,” said Farley.
“Yeah sit on him,” said Stan. “Check his pockets Tu,” said Dan.
Farley sat down on Rex’s back as Tu released his foot from his head.
Spitting out mud Rex spluttered, “Get the hell offa me you fat fwog you’re bweaking my wibs!”
With that Farley pushed his head back in the mud and held it there for a second or two. “You need to behave Wex Woberts or I might just fart in your face!”
“Fart in his face Farley, fart in his face!” Said the twins.
Tu said to Farley “I think we should just cut his pants off him. That would be easier than trying to search his pockets while you’re trying to hold him.” To the twins: “Oi! Make yourselves useful and hold his legs while I slice his pants.”
The twins held Rex’s legs as Tu produced his knife and proceeded to cut the trousers off a struggling and now blubbing Rex.
“Hold still you ugly bastard or I’ll end up cutting more than your trousers.”
“Yeah he might cut your dick off!” Sniggered Stan. “Yeah he’ll cut your dick off!” Echoed Dan.
Wiremu made a start towards the gang but Jack grabbed his shoulder and whispered, “Don’t Mu, we wouldn’t be able to fight all of them and we’d prob’ly make it worse.”
“We can’t just do nothing Jack, Frog and his gang need to be stopped, they’re getting too big for their boots.”
“I know but there’s four of them and only two of us, three if you count Rex, but he’d be useless. We have to think of a way of getting them back, one that would teach them a lesson, but so we wouldn’t get hurt.”
Jack and Wiremu looked over to see the two halves of Rex’s trousers being whipped off his body and held aloft like a war trophy by Tu. The others clapped and cheered then released Rex, leaving him lying there, crying in the mud, ashamed and embarrassed. They wandered off whooping, laughing and smacking each other on the back and arms as they held their prize. The trousers were then thrown in the air, discarded, after they searched the pockets and found nothing in them. Jack and Wiremu left the cover of the shrub and approached Rex. “You okay Rex?” Asked Jack.
“Yep,” sniffed Rex.
“C’mon get up Rex we’ll walk you home,” said Wiremu.
“What about my twousers, I can’t walk thwough the town without any twousers on!”
“I’ll get ‘em,” said Jack. “I’ll see if we can somehow attach ‘em to ya with string or something or we could go and see Mr. Rasch. He may have an idea.” He continued, “Here you’ll have to try and hold ‘em up somehow until we get the store.”
Wiremu found the glasses and wiping them placed them on Rex’s face. Rex held the pants in place with a hand in front and one behind. Walking between Jack and Wiremu he shuffled along with his head hanging, face covered in mud, tears mingling with the dirt. He sniffed a string of snot back up into his nostrils every couple of seconds or so as they made their way to the store.
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In red letters, ‘Putumu Country Store Est. 1890’ the large sign announced, and ‘proprietor Mr. W. Rasch’ was in black lett
ers below that. Painted a pale yellow, the building had a large covered veranda that sheltered the stores entrance and the roof was held up by red coloured, elaborately carved, wooden posts. A rail joined the posts together and served as a place to hitch your horse while you were inside the shop. A sign that said ‘Post and Telegraph Office’ ran along the bottom of the window. Smaller signs in the windows advertised the stores wares such as ‘Flit Fly Spray: More Deadly than Ever’ and in the small print ‘now with DDT, the most potent insect killer known. And harmless to humans!’ And ‘Roma Tea, The Dust – Freed Tea!’ Another ‘Lux Toilet Soap – 9 out of 10 Film Stars use Lux Toilet Soap’ and showed a picture of Irene Dunne an actress of the time. Another for, ‘Aspro – One Medicine with Many Uses’ among them being a cure for ‘Heat Fag’ and ‘Sleeplessness’, if you took two or three tablets before retiring for the night, the sign claimed. Next to the doorway a newspaper stand held copies of the latest ‘Weekly News’ with its latest reports on the war. A community notice board was above this with bits of paper pinned to it advertising work and goods for sale and missing cats and dogs and meetings and events and on a formal list, the missing and the dead from the war. Sacks of potatoes were lined up on the other side of the door against the wall of the building.
A bell rang as they opened the door and as the boys entered the store a large sign on the back wall of the shop screamed:
‘IT IS A NATIONAL DUTY TO AVOID WASTE: HOUSEWIVES! PLEASE BRING A BASKET WHEN SHOPPING – HELP KEEP DOWN THE COST OF LIVING!’
Inside the shop it was absolute chaos and clutter as it held almost everything imaginable. On the shelves that hugged the walls and stood in the aisles there were tins of every description. Tins of pears and peaches and peas and carrots and corn and beetroot as well as corned beef and lambs tongues and fish and toheroa soup. There were boxes and packets and bottles and tubes and jars of jams and tubs of ‘Marmite’ and honey. Lumps of lard and pounds of butter and gallons of milk and bottles of cream and blocks of cheese filled the newly acquired electric refrigerator. There was ‘Rinso’ washing powder and ‘Silver Fern’ tobacco and ‘Nugget’ shoe polish in brown and black and blue. There was ‘Ipana’ toothpaste and ‘Queen Anne Chocolates’ and stacked in a corner, shovels and picks and grubbers and axes and hoes and spades. There was rope and twine and nails and staples and wire and hooks and possum traps and chains and metal buckets stacked one inside the other so that they stood leaning precariously, ready to topple should another be added or a careless person bump into them. On the counter next to the highly polished chrome scales; jars of sweets and loaves of bread and trays of eggs sat amongst wooden toys and envelopes and writing paper and pencils and cotton and cloth and jars of buttons and pins and needles and spools of wool and reels of cotton thread. On hooks, legs of manuka smoked ham and bacon hung in a huge meat safe open to the cold air, protected by mesh on the outside and a glass door on the inside. From the rafters hung bunches of onions and strings of garlic. Books and magazines filled a central table and sacks of grain and wheat and seed were stacked on the floor underneath. A saddle was propped up in a corner, a guitar of all things in another. And almost every second item in the shop had a sign announcing ‘Special’ or ‘Bargain’ or ‘Discounted’. Willie Rasch’s shop was a menagerie of goods unattainable in most stores in New Zealand at the time. He would stock and buy or sell or trade anything. He was willing to trade anything saleable for any of his goods hence the ham and the onions and garlic brought in by the locals to trade for things like tools and fresh bread and seeds and tobacco. He had items he shouldn’t have there like eggs and butter and cream, foods that should have gone to the war effort. But he got away with it. He always said ‘I am here to serve my customers, my friends and neighbours. And, if I make a little money as vell, zen so be it, zat is nice too!’ And he meant it. Most of the stuff he stocked he would never sell, but it was there just in case, and if it wasn’t there and you needed it, well he would make every endeavour to get it for you.
The boys were about to call out when Willie came through the door from his attached dwelling, stood behind the counter and immediately gasped, his hands flying up to his face in a gesture of shock as he exclaimed “Oh my goodness gracious! Vat has happened to you young Master Roberts you look like somezing zee cat has been dragging in!”
“He’s been dealt to by Frog Farley and his gang. They cut the trousers right off him,” said Jack.
Willie shook his head “Zose boys are very bad indeed. Zey need to be taught a lesson I am zinking. Zey are alvays hurting peoples and annoying zem are zey not? Here let me get you a cloth so as to vipe your face.” He motioned with his hands. “Here come, come, step round zee counter boys and come with me into my home; my vife will make you all a nice cup of tea, Yar?”
The boys followed Willie behind the counter and went through the door into the kitchen and dining room that was as cluttered as the store.
“Betty! Betty! Come quickly please I need you to be helping me!”Willie called.
A large woman, head and shoulders taller than her husband and twice as wide appeared in the kitchen. She had grey and blonde streaked hair tied in plaits that hung either side of her pretty yet plump face and her eyes were blue like deep clear lakes. She wore a shopkeeper’s apron over a simple brown dress. Born in America but with German ancestry, Betty spoke with a strong southern accent having only lived in Germany for a short time before moving again to end up in New Zealand with her husband and daughter. She smiled when she saw the boys and said, “My oh my, what have we here Wilhelm, it seems one of them have been in the wars does it not?”
“Yar, Yar, is zat damn bully boy gang, you know zee ones zat are alvays stealing zings from our shop. Zis time zey have gone and cut the boys trousers off for goodness sake. Now I need to fetch a cloth for zee boys face so if you could make zem a cup of tea zat would be very nice, zankyou very much,” he said as he left the room.
Betty busied herself putting the already filled kettle on the hot coal range and getting cups out of the cupboard. “A cup of tea it is then. Take a seat at the table; don’t be shy. Now boys please introduce yourselves to me as I’m sorry, but I don’t know your names. Of course I’ve seen you in the store, but we haven’t been formally introduced have we?”
Jack spoke up. “I’m Jack Delaney, this is Wiremu Kotare and that’s Rex Roberts and he needs something to hold up his trousers, Mrs. Rasch.”
“Of course he does Jack. Are you alright there Rex? I see the tears have stopped,” she said as she walked past them back through to the shop counter.
“Mmm, sort of, just worried what my mum is going to say about my pants is all,” sniffed Rex.
Returning to the kitchen with needle and thread Betty said, “Sorry I missed that, here get those trousers off and I’ll sew them for you. Wiremu, if you look under that tea towel on the bench you will see I’ve baked a cake. ‘Stollen’ we call it in Germany, it’s a Christmas cake but I make it at this time of year because of it being winter ‘n all. It’s too hot here at Christmas and this cake is definitely a winter cake, and I know you’ll enjoy it. Bring it to the table and I’ll cut a slice for each of you to have with your tea.”
Rex sat there, red in the face, not moving, hands gripping the front of his trousers trying to hold them together.
“Alright Rex I can see this is awkward for you. Where’s my husband? Wilhelm where are you? I need a towel or blanket for young Rex here!” She shouted.
“I’m here Betty with zee cloth for zee boy’s face, nice and vet and varm too,” Willie said passing the cloth to his wife. “Now vat vere you vanting, vat vere you shouting about?”
“A blanket or towel if you please Wilhelm, so that Rex can cover himself while I sew his trousers back together. Quickly now!” She ordered.
“Jawohl! My little apple strudel!” He said as he left the room again making the boys giggle.
Betty lifted Rex’s face with her fingers under his chin and wiped the muck away from his face
as only a mother could. She reached into her apron and produced a handkerchief and asked him to blow into it which he did.
“I can make the tea,” Jack offered. “I see the kettle has boiled.”
“Thank you Jack that would be nice. You will see everything there on the bench next to it,” she replied as Willie came back into the room with a blanket.