He Called Me Son (The Blountmere Street Series Book 1) (34 page)

‘I suppose you haven’t ever seen an elderly playing housie?
 
He’s got sandy colour hair, and she’s got frizzy hair and wears a long scarf.’
 
I asked Mr Munn.
 
As usual, when I enquired about them, I clenched my hands and bit my lips together.

Mr Munn rubbed his hand over the shininess of his pate and closed his eyes in concentration.
 
‘Not that I can remember.
 
Wait a minute, though, there was once a couple who came.
 
He had sandy hair and hers was frizzy.’

I bit deeper into my lip.

‘No, no, they were hippies.
 
Your couple were older, you said?
 
No, afraid not and there’s not many who escape my attention at housie.’

Inside, I sagged with disappointment.

‘Family are they?’

‘Just a couple of acquaintances, that’s all.’
 
I was a liar as well as a hypocrite.
 
They were my family, my precious family!

Mr Munn fingered his latest cigarette lighter.
 
‘Sure you don’t want to share a pipe with me?’ he asked.

‘Not tonight, perhaps tomorrow.’
 
I couldn’t stomach a pipe tonight.

‘I have to say I’m disappointed a God-fearing young man like you should get involved in this ridiculous ban the bomb stuff.
 
Making a spectacle of yourself in front of all those people.’
 
Mrs Munn’s eyes were thinner than ever.

‘There were only about a dozen there.’

Mrs Munn ignored me.
 
‘Associating with a lot of young hot-heads and getting carried off by the police.’
 
She covered her eyes with her hands to obliterate the image.

We hadn’t actually been carried off.
 
When the police approached, we simply collected our placards, orange boxes and megaphone and sloped off.
 
Next time, we wouldn’t be so compliant.
 
We would hold our ground and wait to be carried away.
 
This had merely been a dress rehearsal, Mike said.

The next time, rain kept all but two spectators away, and the police didn’t bother to turn up.

‘It needs a march, like the Aldermarston one.
 
That’ll put the wind up Prime Minister Holyoake.
 
Who’s in for it?’
 
Mike asked during one of our pub meetings.

‘Just the five of us?’
 
Linda was scornful.

‘There’ll be a lot of students who’ll be interested if we let them know.’

‘When, where, how?’ Linda asked in a monotone.

‘We’ll stick something in the university rag, and we won’t limit our protest to the city centre.
 
We’ll make our presence felt and march round the suburbs where the people are.
 
Christchurch might not be a huge metropolis, but its voice will stretch beyond the Pacific,’ Mike declared.

Linda snorted, ‘Spare us the oratory, Churchill!
 
Anyway, if you’re not all too high and mighty for such things, who’s in for the pictures tomorrow?’

‘Great,’ Geoff replied, but Linda stared at him and mouthed the word, ‘No’.

‘Sorry, I’ve just remembered I can’t make it,’ he complied.

‘And you, Pete?’

‘Um … got a date … with an old friend.
 
Sorry.’

‘What about me?’ Mike asked.

‘You’ll be too busy organizing the march.’
 
Linda pressed into me.
 
‘Looks like it’s you and me, then.’

Linda was already outside The Savoy Picture House when I arrived.
 
She was wearing a yellow skirt that finished well up her thighs and long white boots.

‘Sorry I’m late.
 
I had to help my landlady move some furniture.
 
I hope you haven’t been waiting long.’

‘Just got here.’
 
Linda flicked her hair back over her shoulders, in the way she had, using both hands in one synchronized movement.
 
It revealed her breasts pointing from a tight black sweater.

Since I’d arrived in Christchurch, I’d resisted going to the pictures.
 
I wanted to preserve my memories of the Gang and Saturday Picture Club.
  
I wasn’t altogether certain how I came to be here now.
 
Linda had a way of arranging things so that it seemed as if it had been all my idea.
 
And I couldn’t divulge my fear that my memories would be overlaid by new images.
 
I was more than sure she wouldn’t understand.

Inside, The Savoy wasn’t much different from The Majestic, with its ceiling mouldings and dusty carpet.
 
Like The Majestic, we passed beyond a black curtain, guided by an usherette’s light and into the darkened picture house, which had always been for me both exciting and frightening.

The Gang always sat near the front so that they could throw whatever missiles they had to hand with a reasonable chance of hitting the manager.
 
He usually spoke before the films, ineffectively threatening eviction for bad behaviour.
 
Sometimes our ammunition was aimed at kids who sang or recited.
 
On occasions, we even flung things at the screen itself if the film wasn’t to our liking.
 
Now, Linda and I sat at the back.
 
Sitting any further forward, she said, gave her a migraine.

I had no need to fear my recollections of Saturday Picture Club would be marred.
 
It was difficult to concentrate on the film at all with Linda so close. Her head gradually sank on to my shoulder.
 
Her legs were tucked beneath her, so that even in the dark, I could sense her skirt had risen an inch or two.
 
Her perfumed skin touching mine was an utter distraction.
 
She was in my arms before I was aware how she got there.
 
I’d never taken so little notice of a film.
 
It wasn’t the least like Saturday Picture Club.

‘Ban the bomb and save the world!’
 
‘Nuclear armament is an abomination!’

People tending their gardens straightened and stopped to watch the group of about fifty striding along the streets, carrying our banners aloft.
 
Others stood at their front doors.
 
Children followed, aping us, chanting.

The air was heavy with the scent of spring.
 
Kowhai and magnolia vied with each other.
 
Tulips still in bud would soon open to sudden maturity, then in one last and desperate effort, they would spread their petals in a glorious death.
 
I lifted my voice and sang, “
We shall not be moved
”.
 
How could we let all this be destroyed?
 
Lifting my banner higher, I smiled at Linda.
 
It was a noble thing we were doing, marching for the future of the planet and what better place to find Fred and Lori, if they were here.

Linda grinned back and shouted, ‘Groovy, eh!’

Back in Cathedral Square, Mike made an impassioned speech calling for an end to the Cold War and for nuclear disarmament, while a contingency of three policemen listened with their arms folded.
 
Afterwards they too, like the rest of the marchers, melted away.

‘Pity it fizzled out at the end,’ Geoff observed later in the pub.

‘At least we
did
something.’
 
I defended the march, even though I hadn’t found Fred and Lori and I fought to keep the disappointment from my voice.

‘It might not have been Aldermarston or Hyde Park.’ Mike, still flushed from his oratory, set jugs of beer in front of us.
 
‘But we’ve made our voices heard.’

‘So what next?’

‘We’ll wait for our message to reach the Russians and for them to absorb it.
 
Then we’ll march again.’

‘I’m sure they’ll be quaking in their boots!’
 
Linda’s earlier euphoria had flattened like the top of her beer.
 
‘Get serious, Mike!
 
How d’you think they’re going to hear about a piddly little march on the other side of the world.
 
And, if by some miracle they do, they won’t care two figs about it.’

‘Don’t under-estimate the power of the people wherever they are.’ Mike retorted.

‘Sounds a lot of pompous rhetoric to me.
 
Anyway, who’s for an afternoon on the beach?’
 
Linda asked, glaring at each of the others in turn.

‘Sorry, we don’t seem to be able to make it,’ Pete spoke for Geoff and Mike, as well as himself.

‘Oh well, Tony, that leaves you and me.’
 
Linda flicked her hair back.
 
‘Sorry you blokes can’t come.’

The spring sunshine was warm on our faces as Linda let sand run through her fingers.
 
She was so different to Gaylene and Merrin, and, come to that, to Paula and the girls I had known in Blountmere Street.
 
Linda was intelligent and forthright, unafraid of what others thought.
 
Yet she possessed a vulnerability I found alluring.
 
She brushed her hands free of sand and traced a pattern on my face with her finger, laughing.

‘What’s funny?’

‘I was thinking that although you’ve been protesting all morning you don’t seem to be doing too much of it now.’

‘None at all.’
 
The smell of kowhai and magnolia lingered about her as I took her in my arms.

That evening after his housie session, Mr Munn and I perched on wooden boxes in his shed and rammed tobacco into our pipes.
 
He rose to select a cigarette lighter and chose a cat.
 
He flicked its tail alight and bent it towards my pipe.
 
I sucked and puffed.
 
I hadn’t had much success in mastering the art of smoking a pipe, but I knew Mr Munn looked forward to our times together in his shed when he returned from housie.
 
As for me, it was a break from my studies and somewhere to relax and mull over the day after I’d been out with Linda.

‘Not been protesting about the bomb lately?’
 
Mr Munn made smacking noises against the mouthpiece of his pipe.

‘We’re letting things settle a bit,’ I said, quoting Mike.
 
‘Anyway, with Christmas coming, there won’t be much going on.
 
Best wait until the start of the new term.’

‘I thought you might have lost interest in it now you’ve got this young woman goggle-eyed about you.
 
A man can’t concentrate on more than one thing at a time, especially when a woman starts to put the pressure on.’
 
Mr Munn took his pipe from his mouth and spluttered a laugh.
 
‘And there’s not too many women who don’t. They’re subtle about it.
 
A bloke’s hooked before he knows it.
 
Take me and Mrs Munn.
 
She was a beguiling woman if ever I saw one.
 
A bloke couldn’t resist her.
 
Got her own way at every turn.’

I gave up my attempts at sucking and held the bowl of the pipe in my palm, tapping it as I’d seen Mr Munn do.
 
I tried to imagine stick-creature Mrs Munn as an irresistible young woman and failed.

‘Linda wants me to go home with her for Christmas.’
 

‘And don’t you want to?’

‘It’s not that.
 
It’s just that the Millards and Joe will be really disappointed if I don’t go back.
 
And I know Jack can do with some help on the farm at this time of year.’

‘And your young lady’s using all her feminine wiles on you, is that it?’

‘You could say that.’
 
If cajoling, wheedling and pouting were classified as feminine wiles.

‘What do you think I should do?
 
I’ve tried writing to Peg and Joe explaining I won’t be coming this year, but I give up after the first few sentences.
 
They’ve been so good to me.
 
I wouldn’t be here without them, nor Miss Jervlin, or even Uncle Rewi and Auntie Aroha.
 
And old Murray looks forward to seeing me, especially now Fergus has gone.’