| 'Angels Coming | 
| |
| Down' | by Myra Howerd, Sep 1989 | |
| Copywrite held by Claudia Klaus, P.O. Box 5102, Mackay M.C., QLD 4741, Australia |
| 'Angels Coming |
| |
| Down' | by Myra Howerd, Sep 1989 | |
|
| Copywrite held by Claudia Klaus, P.O. Box 5102, Mackay M.C., QLD 4741, Australia |
I hooked a good one just when the tide topped. I was just lighting my pipe for the third time on account of that danged wind and had the rod tucked under my arm, when wham!
Sure gave me a fright, that did, dropped me baccy and makin's down on the wet rocks too, but it was worth it. My word! Must have been twenty pounds, that snapper, took all me strength to heave 'er up the rocks when I finally did get it out of the water, and that wasn't much fun either on account of them big curlers flashing over behind me.
It's always like that on Donovan's reef, but if you want to catch fish off the south coast that's the place to be. Real mean seas down there, and the boys used to try and stop me going but I told them I was still their Dad and if I can't choose where to fish myself life's not worth the effort.
Hah! Not that they give a real damn. All piss'n wind, they are, always boozing down the pub when the boat's in and chasing skirts. Leastways, that Johnny does. Never mind that the damned boat has to be refuelled and stores got and paperwork done. If it wasn't for that Emily they'd be in a right pickle, they would.
Emily's my sister. She's been living with us at Fergusson Bay now for near on five years, ever since that foreign husband of her's went and died on her and left her broke. I got to say she's been worth having 'round. She's a champion cook, and she does keep them boys in line most times.
Not that they're home all that much, thank the Lord.
Crayfishing is a rough job that calls for a man to be out in his boat in all weathers no matter what, and then you have to get the danged things down to the freezer at the Bluff if you want to keep the Bank off your back...
Did it all myself, once. Me and Lofty Greenway owned the 'Southerner'then and we'd pots set near up to Westport. Can't do that nowadays, the Department won't let you, gotta keep in the licence area now, they reckon. Bastards.
That was years ago. Lofty's dead now, got killed in a car accident up in Christchurch and that were it. Funny, a man goes all them years in the worst weather and gets back OK countless times, then on his first trip up in the city he goes and gets himself killed. Seeing his married daughter, he was.
It's a funny old world. Yeah, you never know when the dark wind's gonna blow through yer... Look at that Hawthorne feller, just walking along the beach and he drops dead. Wonder what a feller thinks when that happens? One minute just dreaming along, mebbe thinking about some girl or what you had for brekky, then wham! and it doesn't matter any more.
Myself, I've felt that cold wind a few times when we were out in the boat. Lord, we took some chances in them days... I bet them boys still do, but there ain't much to be said to anyone about it, you just take a deep breath and another and get on with it.
Like this here fishing off the rocks. Sure it's a bit of a scramble down the bank, and sure you've got to keep your eye out for them real big waves. Seventh wave, we used to say, but we never relied on counting, I can tell you...
Mind you, there's a bit of a trick to it, you see. Take this spot where I caught that snapper this morning. Once you clamber down on to the rocks and out to where the reef splits it's pretty safe. If you keep on the cliff side and throw the line in that big hole you won't get your line around a rock when the fish does take it, either.
She's deep, that hole. Reckon it's the best fishing spot on the whole of the south coast, 'cause it's too damn rough further 'round. That's why most of them tourist anglers stay on the other side of the Point, down there in the bay itself where it's more protected.
Not too many of them willing to make the climb over the ridge either, I guess. Look at me now. Me and Francis have to carry this here fish up that there bank and then up the cliff, and then up the danged hill as well.
That's the trouble with growing old. Used to be I'd catch three or four fish and carry them all home, but now one's enough. Gotta clean it first, of course. Stupid to carry the guts and all up the hill. Besides, old Francis here likes them. Never knew any other dog do that before.
Well, now's the big climb up these danged rocks and then that there cliff. I've got me a bit of a track now, after coming here all these years. Just give it a bit of a kick here and there each time and soon she's jake.
Gotta take a rest. Damned fish cuts into my fingers, it's heavier than I figured and I have to change the rod over pretty often.
No need to hurry, plenty of time, sit down a minute Fred. That's another thing the boys don't cotton to, taking their time about things. With them it's always rush rush rush but they'll find out one day when it's their turn to be old and cranky, like me.
They'll have plenty of time then, if they survive.
Should be able to see them soon, it's high enough and they're working just off the Point today. Nope, too much haze I reckon, and it's getting overcast again.
Pretty normal sort of day though, plenty of wind... there'll be some rain this afternoon too.
Damn this wind! Can't light me pipe again. Must have been blowing here since Noah was a lad, look at those trees, all scrawny and leaning like they don't know how to grow, hanging on to this cliff with branches as well as roots. Not much further now and I'll be over the lip and out of the wind.
Funny the boat's not out there. Maybe they're back already... naw, they only went out three hours ago.
Maybe they went a bit north up the sounds way or something. That's not a bad place to go crayfishing, you can duck inside one of them fjords if the weather gets too rough.
I remember me and Lofty going up Milford Sound way, heaps of times. Trouble was, in those days it was a long way home with the danged crays, used to eat up all the profits. Now they got this fella Murray and his helicopter machine and can stay out for weeks if they want to. They call him up on the radio and he comes in, hovers over the boat while they hook up a load, then he takes it straight back to the truck.
Sure, it costs a lot, but Emily worked it out for them. Simple dollars and cents, she said, and she drew it all up on a big bit of paper. Anyway, she convinced that Sonny, and he's a tough nut to crack, I can tell you. Now they got old Frank Prentice into the same act, and even young Tui reckons it might work for his paua too.
This fella Murray, now there's a strange cove. He's a pretty big bloke and he flies that helicopter of his real pretty, but I reckon he's headed for trouble, that one. He just can't keep his hands off the women.
They like the glamour of him, I guess, it can't be his looks, he's got a face made like it got chopped out of rock and tattoos all over one arm. I guess it must be his smooth talking, yeah, he's a real smoothie alright.
Comes from Australia somewhere, I heard tell, somewhere over near Adelaide. He tells them women he's got this big sheep station with his brother and that he's worth a bob or two. They love it.
Personally, I reckon he's a liar or nuts or both. If I had a big station in Australia I reckon that's where I'd be, not tootlin' 'round the arse end of New Zealand in a bloody great helicopter.
Mind you, he must have a bob or two alright, them fancy machines don't come too cheap. Fella down the pub in the Bluff told me those things cost near on a hundred thousand dollars.
Jeeze, it's expensive enough keeping the old 'Southerner' going in fuel and repairs, but it sure don't hit what Wayne Murray must have to fork out each month for that fancy machine of his! Makes you wonder how he makes his money. Must be that oil rig thing I guess. He's always flying for them, and of course he does the crays, then I hear tell he rents out to them live deer people on occasion. Yeah, I guess he keeps pretty busy, and he must be making enough or he wouldn't be in it, would he?
Damn this fish! Not too far to go now though, I can see the station buildings now, and once I'm over and past them she's all downhill again.
Look at those houses. Who'd ever want to live in a windswept, bleak place like that, eh? All you've got is a bit of flat ground scraped out of the ridge and the houses perched out from it. I can remember when there were lots of people there, mostly lighthouse crew working for the government.
Used to be some real lonely women too. I remember this one, dark hair she had, and real flashing eyes. She'd come down to the house for the milk same as the kids do now, only she'd dally quite a while.
Nothing else for them to do, see, but have kids and knit or something. I used to get to wondering sometimes how many of them kids had a bit of me in them...
Now it's the other way round. Frank Prentice, he nearly goes crazy with that wife of his. Real flirt she is, catching the eye of any man. I can tell you, if I was a little younger I'd be looking a bit closer at her myself. She's real pretty too with them big earrings and those eyes.
Of course she gets real lonely with Frank away so much I guess. A woman like that shouldn't be left alone for a minute or you've got trouble on your hands. Maybe that's why he brought her out here, away from temptation or something. Look at those kids, fair haired and all, and both Frank and Marie dark as gypsies.
Makes you wonder.
Mind you, I remember a wee girl on the Chathams a while ago. Now I know for a fact that she wasn't openin' her legs for any other fella and when she finally got to having a kiddie it was fair too, even though she was as dark as Marcia Wongai and I'm not exactly a Swedish blonde. You never can tell.
Yar, Frank's kids are both fair. That girl Susan, now, she's going to give some man a heap of trouble one day. She's only nine or ten now and a little chubby, but she's going to be a looker, I tell you, and she's got sass. That combination's hard to beat.
Funny how you get to thinking about all the women when you're an old cuss and past it. What I'd give to be young again but knowing all I know about females now.
Helluva waste that, making a man get old just when he's getting the hang of it all. Can't even pass anything on to my sons, they reckon they know it all already, they do, laugh at me all the time.
Look at that Johnny, over six feet four he is, strong as a bull, and he doesn't have a brain in his head. Sonny... now there's a different story, he's big too, and the chest on him...
Saw them fight only once. They were about fifteen and it was young Johnny who started it, but I tell you it was Sonny who ended it. He just picked his brother up and threw him across the room. Broke his collarbone and some ribs so the doctor had to strap him up. Funny thing, Johnny was proud of it afterwards.
'My brother did this!' he used to say when people asked.
Sonny's no fool, nossir! It was him that suggested Emily stay with us when that great useless kraut husband of hers died and it was him that went on up to Christchurch to fetch her back here. I must say, it made a power of difference to the place, having a woman around that couldn't be threatened or sweet-talked and who knows which way's up. She straightened the place out real quick.
It's true we all had to make some sacrifices. Take me, for instance. Emily, she put her foot down about going out in the boat, and she cut up rough until we fixed the house up nice and got a proper generator and all. Must admit it made a helluva difference, but wouldn't be telling her that. Give a woman an inch and pretty soon you're skint!
She sorted Johnny out, too. Used to be he'd bring these skirts back from the pub on the boat and shack up for a week. 'Chicks', he called them. The first time he did that when Emily was there the two women got themselves in a huddle and all of a sudden poor old Johnno wasn't getting anything unless he pulled his socks up, and that meant some hard work.
Nearly up there now. Hullo, who's that? Ah, that's young Penny, hiding up in the grass on the bank above the old workshop. Must be waiting for her father or had a fight with that brat of a brother. Yeah, she's ducked down now, thinks she can't be seen.
She's a right little lady that one, a real Irish colleen to look at, slim with flame red hair and a lovely cream complexion. She's growing up fast now, with the beginnings of a nice figure and a real genteel way with people. You wait and see, in a few years those freckles will be gone and she'll have poise and grace and the men will be falling over themselves to get her to bed. Not that I reckon they'll have much chance, she's picky, that girl is, she's got class.
She treats me alright too, always that shy smile and a polite word, and a cuppa if I want one when I come through the station. A girl like that you have to treat right.
I remember one like her up in the North Island, must have been maybe '40 or '41, during the war, it was. I was staying in the city then because you couldn't get the fuel for the boats and the only way to make a quid was to work in the stinkin' city. Never went to the war, they wouldn't have me in the Navy on account of my eyes and the Army reckoned I had fallen arches... flat feet by any other name.
So I ended up driving 'round delivering goods for this big department store, Felwicks, I think it was. They're bust now or taken over or something, anyhow they're gone.
The point is, this delivery job had some perks, like. You see, all the menfolks was away fighting in the war and the place was fair seething with unattached women, and of course I was getting around to see them every day with my deliveries. Took me a heap of time to do my rounds, I can tell you!
Anyway, things were coming to me kind of easy then, with all this spare skirt, and then I made a delivery to this house in Ponsonby, a place I'd never been before.
It was a biggish place, the kind that used to have a gardener before the war took them all away, and the house was kind of set back off the road a bit. A real class place.
I forget what it was I was supposed to be delivering, but when I knocked on the door this girl came out and you could have knocked me eyeballs off with sticks. She had sort of greeny eyes and skin the colour of new milk, and her figure... she was wearing one of those housecoat things, a sort of wrap-around and was she well built! Not big, don't get me wrong, now. Her breasts weren't big or heavy like lots of women I've seen, more small and pointy, exactly the right proportion for the rest of her.
I remember it as if it were only yesterday. I stood there with my mouth open as she took the packets from my unresisting hands, thanked me and smiled at me before going back inside. Must have been minutes before I came out of my daze enough to walk back to the van and do the rest of my rounds.
From then on I tried every trick in the book to get to know her, but I was up against it right from the start. After a while she seemed like a goddess to me, something I couldn't ever consider shacking up with, more someone to worship. I never did get to know her name, but I've carried her picture in my mind all these years, remembering what a real woman looks like.
This girl Penny is one of the same, I reckon. Give her time and someone will flip the same way over her green eyes and her slim waist or delicate curves...
I wonder where those boys are. I'm nearly up the top now and I'm danged if I can see 'Southerner' yet. It doesn't make sense, going all the way up the coast when they've only just brought her back from the Bluff. Maybe they've gone out towards that oil rig.
There's a reef out there that's quite good, but it always was a devil to find on account of the weather. Lofty and me, we used to line up on the mountains and sail out until we felt the change in the sea then check 'er out with a line, but it was a rare day you could do that. Of course the boys would use all this newfangled depthsounder stuff now I guess, get onto it every time no matter what the weather. Still, she's a hard slog out there, maybe thirty, forty miles, and it's outside the gazetted grounds. Not that they can prove it, after all, a crayfish can't tell anyone where he was caught, can he.
Yeah, she's rough out there. That fella Murray must have some guts to fly out that way in his bucket of bolts. Dangerous things, them helicopters. You ever sit down and figure out how many moving parts there is in one of them things, and it only needs one of them bits to get tired or something and... blooie!
Mind you, he's got a radio and one of them direction finder things, but even so it's near eighty miles from the Bluff out to that rig, and pretty much the same from here. Miles of frozen nothing between here and the next bit of land, and that bit's even colder still.
No, you can keep your helicopters and your oil rigs. I went out to this one last year and Sonny arranged that I get up on her for a good dekko. Bloody massive thing, it was. I was up there on the big platform thing they have and looked down at 'Southerner' where Sonny was holding her just off a bit and she looked like a rowing boat, I can tell you.
Then I looked up and there was this big steel derrick thing sticking up maybe another hundred feet in the air. Man, was it cold! You think it gets cold when you're bumming around in a cray boat... it's nothing compared to what the fellas on that there derrick put up with.
They were telling me that in winter there's icicles six feet long hanging sideways off each girder. Reckon I could believe that, too. Americans, most of them, pretty rough fellas.
According to Wayne Murray they've been on that one patch near eight months now, shifted there from further east. He reckons they'll be drilling around here for two more years even if they don't find anything.
Saw another interesting thing when I was out there. One fellow took me up on top of another tower they have there and pointed out to the west.
'See that, old man?' he asked. 'those are Russian boats, can you see them?' and he gave me his binoculars to look through.
Well, I'm danged if I could say they were Russian, but there was a biggish boat out there along with a couple of smaller ones, all heading slowly north. This fella explained that they came past regular as clockwork, he reckoned they were spy ships.
'Arrr, c'mon...!' I told him, but he just looked serious. Said they figured all Russian vessels to be doing two jobs, and when I asked him what were they doing in New Zealand, counting sheep? He didn't even smile. Paranoid, these Yanks.
They were the same in the war, every airplane was a Jap bomber and they'd go into a panic every time. Must have been Pearl Harbour gave em a complex or something.
When I got back to the 'Southerner' I asked the boys if they ever saw any of these Russian boats when they were out fishing, and Sonny says yes, sometimes they do.
He says they don't see the boats so much as their helicopter. Seems everyone has one of these danged things nowadays.
Then Johnny pipes up and tells me about the pilot. 'A real good looking chick' to use his words, so I asked him how come they're so close he can see her tits and his face gets all red and it's Sonny who explains that once when they were out on the deep reef I was talking about before and this Russian pilot comes in real low and takes a good dekko at 'em from only forty feet away.
I got a bit interested then, seeing how they're so far from Russia. Mebbe that Yank wasn't so crosseyed after all, but Sonny tells me it isn't just the Russians but the bloody Japs and the Taiwanese and god knows who else. Reckons it's lit up like Auckland out there some nights with these squid lamps.
Sure sounded strange to me, but I was talking to Frank Prentice and he says the same danged thing. Lights. Lots of them some nights. Seems they must be counting fish, not sheep...
Bastards won't let me go out and see for myself. That Emily's got them wrapped around her little finger and they don't even squat without a 'please' or 'yesmam'! She rules the whole bloody Bay, I reckon, even those damn White sisters change their tune around Emily.
Now there's a strange pair for a place like this. Look at them, both of them in their sixties and I bet neither of them have ever seen a man with his pants off.
Called by the Good Lord, they keep saying, but I reckon it's a bloody strange religion that sends you to the loneliest corner of the furthermost place to live. It's not as if they're missionaries or something, hell, there aren't even any Maoris here, excepting the Wongais, of course, never were. They've got more sense and kept up the warmer parts.
So why are they here? Dave Hurst, he told me once they've got people over in Malaya somewhere, said that Rose once mentioned Singapore and the march. You could have knocked me over with a feather! Them two acting like real people, with real blood and piss and having tropical sores and... hell, the mind boggles!
Madeline, she's the delicate one. She's like a bird, according to Emily, perched up on old cane chairs, and with fancy English china... bone china, our mum called it in her day. Yeah, they're real English-like. Not Pom, you must understand. English. There's a heap of difference.
Rose is more of a horsey type, a big woman. She fusses over Madeline all the time, and I don't reckon they get out of that house more'n two, three times a year. Well, that might be a bit of an exaggeration...
Hell, this fish is getting heavy! At least it's downhill now, and that bloody wind is broken by the Point. Bloody good thing too. Imagine what this bay would be like without the Point, with bloody great rollers like on the south coast just rolling in on to the beach.
I knew it was a corker place soon as I saw it. Me and Lofty, we were on our first trip to the Sounds, then, long before the days of the interfering bloody Department, and we found ourselves caught in a blow. We were too far out along the south coast for shelter, and still hours away from the sounds where it's always safe, so we had to find a place real quick like.
We didn't have radio in those days, either. No squawking for help to those bastards up in Wellington and nobody giving a tinker's damn for where we were...
I guess we were lucky that first time. The Point was fully manned then and they used to turn the light on pretty early when the weather was bad, so we knew where we were alright. Ol' Lofty told me then that he'd been in the pub with one of the lighthouse fellas and they'd talked about this bay. The feller reckoned it should be possible to get a biggish boat in, according to Lofty, and since we were getting a bit worried about the old engine we had we reckoned on giving it a go.
It wasn't the 'Southerner' in those days, we bought her a few years later on. Nah, that were the 'Orion' we used then. Smaller boat all 'round.
Anyway, it turned out this lighthouse fella was dead right and it was fairly easy to get in. Of course, once you're into this place it's real easy, you just pull up into the bloody creek and tie her up to the bank.
There must have been quite a few people living here once, and they all built bloody great stone houses. Probably all Scots or Scowegians or something and felt this was just like home, only warmer... Well, there was one bloke called himself McKenzie, anyway. Tightfisted bastard, he was, but over the years we got to know him fairly well since we started to use the place a bit more. He wasn't so bad when you got to know him.
Reckon I'll take another rest. Funny thing, that. Going downhill's harder work than climbing, let me tell you. Not far to go now, I can see the house roofs and smell Emily's horses.
Stinking bloody animals, don't know why she insists on having them. Well, I guess I do, really. Them kids really like them and it makes a hell of a difference to the place to have a few kids skylarking around and having their fun. I bet they've found the hot springs by now, too.
There's another funny thing. Hot springs in this part of the country. A lot of people would come here if they knew about them, I know, so I keep my trap shut most of the time. Reckon I must be one of the few who know about them springs. They're not that easy to find, either. You have to have the right sort of day and then some luck.
That fella Hawthorne found them. He must have done quite a bit of wandering around them hills, one way or another, but he had the same idea as me, reckoned it was best kept natural and without tourists throwing their bloody mess all 'round the place.
Hell, even them day trippers the Point gets leave a load of rubbish around, but luckily they usually stay in the car park. Too bloody cold for their delicate wee bodies, or no television or something... It's going to be a sad day when they fix that road up enough for tourist busses. I was talking to Kevin Masters about that last week. He told me the Council were over- extended with their budget for the upkeep of the road.
Seems it's the creeks that cause the problem, and they don't have the money to build bridges. Kevin tells me they're applying to the government for a special grant to build them, but he doesn't reckon they'll get it.
C'mon, Francis! One last stage and we're home. Don't look at me like that yer lazy mutt. Move it!