Rocking Horse Road (20 page)

We had glimpses of each other's faces but quickly
looked away. Something primitive and savage was
there: a look we has also seen in the faces of the men
who confronted the protesters outside the Empire.

The Molotov cocktail was improvised on the spot
(though again, who did it, we cannot say). A tin of
two-stroke petrol, intended for the lawnmower, had
been taken from the unlocked garden shed, along
with an old rag. A glass-milk bottle from next to the
letterbox. Once assembled the cocktail would have
welcomed a flame as a natural progression. It flew
through the air and into the bedroom. There was a
pause and then a pleasing whoosh. The fire spread
quickly. The black polythene covering the darkroom
window melted away, curling in on itself, and the
long flames tasted the outside air. Despite the rain the
fire quickly reached out and up into the roof, and then
the flames were flickering through the broken glass of
the other bedroom as well. Flames stalked the house,
moving quickly from room to room. We soon felt the
heat on our faces, even though our backs were chilled
and stiff. In no time, the flames had a stranglehold
on the house. We had to move back or risk being
scorched.

We stood, panting from the exertion, watching
the raging fire. Our anger had been building up since
Jase had found the photographs of Lucy. In fact, it's
probable that it had been building since Pete had
discovered her body on the beach. Now at last it was
exorcised. Nobody spoke or met anyone else's eye.

Only now did we notice that the lawn was
completely flooded. Where we had scooped sand was
under water. Water lapped at our ankles. Looking
around we saw that the road and the sections of the
nearby houses were all the same.

We didn't know what to do or what to think so
we just stood, ankle deep, watching the fire. We stood
like that for what seemed a long time. The firelight
reflected in the surface of the water. We ignored SJ. He
lay on his back, still, light and dark flickering across
him. He was no more to us now than a bag of old
clothes someone had discarded in the rising water. It
was only when the first siren sounded, still far away,
thin and whiny like a mosquito in the night, that we
were roused from our trance. One by one we turned
and walked away into the darkness of Rocking Horse
Road.

The nay-sayers' worst predictions about the Spit had
finally come true. On the night of July 6, 1981, the Spit
sank beneath the waves.

What had happened was that the huge downpour,
two hundred millimetres in less than eight hours, had
combined with an unusually high tide. The rain had
sunk down into the sand of the Spit as it usually did,
but had met the elevated water-table, until finally the
water had had nowhere left to go.

All up and down the Spit, people and animals
became confused as to where the ocean and the
estuary started and finished. As he walked home in
the darkness Jim Turner saw a school of silver herring
swimming down the middle of Rocking Horse Road.
The light from his torch flashed off their sides and
they darted left and right, away from the bow wave
Jim's feet pushed in front of him. Roy Moynahan told
us of being almost home and standing on a small
stingray that twisted and turned under his foot so that
he fell. Later he found the razor cut in his jeans where
its tail had slashed. We agreed that he was lucky not
to have been badly cut. For weeks afterwards people
living down the Spit spoke of finding dried starfish
in gutters and gardens. Hardy crabs turned up still
alive under woodpiles and in drains months later.
There was even a story going around that someone sat
on their outdoor toilet and felt something tickle their
bum. When he or she (it varies in the telling) jumped
up and peered into the bowl they found a fair-sized
octopus curled up down there.

Standing in the driveway of his parents' house Tug
Gardiner looked across the flooded road and saw the
Ashers. They were on the front step of the dairy. The
light was on in the shop so he could see them clearly. It
was the first time we could remember seeing all three
of them together since Lucy's funeral. Even though it
was the middle of the night they were all fully dressed.
Tug told us that they did not speak but just stood and
looked out at the water, which had risen up past the
second step and was moments away from spilling
over into the shop. He watched them for a long time,
and even after the water rose up and touched their
feet they did not move. 'It was impossible to tell what
they were thinking,' said Tug.

When dawn came, it revealed an almost continuous
stretch of water right through from the estuary to the
sand dunes. Apart from the dunes and the rectangular
roofs of the houses, the Spit had sunk back into the
ocean. That was the photo on the front page of
The
Press
the following day; an aerial shot, taken from a
helicopter, in which you could see the roofs of nearly
all of our homes (The Press,
July 7. Exhibit 124
).

The flood waters only rose until the rain stopped
and the tide fell, which was just before dawn. Then the
flooding started to vanish as quickly as it had appeared.
By mid-morning the water had already soaked down
into the sand. All that was left was the damage. In our
homes the carpets were sodden and smelt of the sea,
and of the estuary. A ring of wet sand was left around
the walls just above the skirting. By lunchtime our
fathers had began to call their insurance companies
and by evening assessors were roaming our homes.
Men in suits opened silted ovens and peered into our
wardrobes where our shoes lay draped in seaweed.

Our fathers took time off work. They spent the
next week ripping up carpets and throwing ruined
furniture into piles. We helped haul sodden wool
and rubber underlay out into communal skips that
appeared on the road. Our mothers mostly remained
inside, grimly scrubbing at the walls and vacuuming
bare floorboards until we couldn't stand the noise.

Eventually the insurance companies paid out and
we ended up helping repaint all the rooms. We helped
haul in new couches and televisions. We watched
men staple new carpet over the boards. With all the
changes, we began to feel that we were living in
different homes from the ones we had grown up in.
There were different smells, the musk of new carpet
and that sharp chemistry of fresh paint. There were
unfamiliar colours everywhere.

The Springboks slipped into the country on July
19. We were too busy with the clean-up and coping
with all the changes to get excited by their arrival.

Even the beach was different after the storm. Cliffs
of sand rose up where once there had been gently
sloping dunes. Several of the landmark pines down
in the reserve had been blown over, and within weeks
they were cut up with chainsaws and the wood hauled
away by men with hungry fireplaces and an eye for a
bargain. Jim Turner's father told the insurance man
that the flooding had done considerable damage to
his garage. One whole wall apparently collapsed in
the storm. We all suspected that Mr Turner's own
efforts with a rope tied to the back of his neighbour's
car had a lot more to do with the damage than the
southerly. When Al recovered all our stuff from the
garage the morning after the storm all four walls were
still standing. Either way, the garage was demolished
and replaced with a new aluminium one, paid for by
the insurance company. The pool table was hauled off
to the dump, and although Jim's dad said he would
replace it, he never got around to finding another
one.

Our world had also changed in more subtle ways.
We now had to take our shoes off at the doors of our
homes, and hose down our feet when we came inside
from the beach. Items of furniture that had been
damaged by the water were replaced and our mothers
also seized the opportunity to rearrange the old stuff.
We now bashed our shins in our own homes when we
attempted to navigate our way in the darkness. Some
of us found ourselves sleeping on new beds, in rooms
where our rugby posters and advertising for the tour
were not allowed to be pinned back up for the sake
of the new paint. A lot of our personal stuff had been
damaged by the water; anything that had been below
knee height. Clothing, shoes and favourite tapes,
ghetto blasters and old school projects had all been
chucked on to the skips.

At first the undamaged stuff was tidied away in
cupboards, but then when it became apparent that life
had moved on, it was put into plastic rubbish bags
and left out on the footpath to be taken away. The
upshot of it all was that after the flood of '81, which
was what everyone began calling it, we started to feel
like strangers in our own homes. We awoke in the
night and didn't know where we were.

Our thoughts turned to the lives we would have
when we inevitably broke from our parents and struck
out by ourselves in the world. For the first time in our
lives, that seemed like a real possibility.

For the record, we did not kill SJ. He suffered a severe
concussion and needed twenty-three stitches to his
head (
Medical Report. Exhibit 88
). His left wrist was
broken, probably by the impact of the golf club. His
left knee was shattered and had to be reconstructed
and, the doctor's report noted, later in life he would
probably suffer from rheumatism in that joint. We are
not sure if that prophecy has come to pass. SJ also had
extensive bruising to his back and legs, which had
taken the brunt of the stones.

All up, he spent ten days in hospital, during which
the police interviewed him twice. The first time was in
regard to the attack on him. Against our expectations
SJ must have recognised at least one of us, because
the police moved quickly. We were all picked up in
the days following the storm and were questioned
separately and made to give formal statements. We
tried to explain to the interviewing officers how we
had come to know Lucy Asher, what she meant to us.
From their blank looks, it was plain that they didn't
get it. In the end we gave up and just stuck to the basic
facts, to yes and no answers. We won't deny that we
were scared, but the truth was that after the police
heard what we had to say about Lucy's diary and
the photographs, their focus quickly shifted. We had
offered them a bigger fish to fry.

During their second interview with SJ the police
wanted to talk to him exclusively about the murder
of Lucy Asher. They quickly established two things.
Firstly that he had been sleeping with Lucy. And
secondly that, during the weekend Lucy had been
killed, SJ was staying with his parents in Dunedin.
He had been best man at his older brother's wedding.
More than sixty witnesses could vouch for him on the
night Lucy was murdered.

The truth came out as easily as that. SJ had not
murdered Lucy Asher, after all. He had committed
no crime, not in a strictly legal sense. Lucy had been
of age. SJ was guilty only of an indiscretion and a
betrayal of the school's trust. He declined to press
charges against the 'unidentified youths' who had
assaulted him (The Press,
July 9, 1981. Exhibit 125
),
undoubtedly out of fear of what would be reported in
the papers about him if the case went to trial. It was a
course of action we're sure the police strongly advised
him to follow. Jase Harbidge's dad was still a cop and
had influence. Each of us got off with a strong lecture
from the police on the dangers of 'vigilante justice',
and we were passed back into the care of our parents.
They were, in most cases, less understanding than
the police had been and more drawn out with their
punishments. Several of us were forbidden to go to
the Springbok game at Lancaster Park. That was a
bitter blow.

The day he got out of hospital SJ packed his car
with what little he could salvage from the gutted shell
of the house, and left South Brighton High School
and the Spit forever. None of us was there to see him
leave. We do know that he moved to Australia about
six months later, where he taught for a while but then
gave teaching away. We last followed up on SJ a few
years ago: he was married with twin sons, then in
their teens, and living in Adelaide, where he worked
for Fuji Xerox as some type of middle manager.

Pete Marshall died on October 31 last year, only four
months after he was diagnosed with cancer. He was
forty-one, the same age as the rest of us. Pete left
instructions that he wanted his funeral service to be
held outside. 'I want it under the sky. I don't want any
fucking roof,' is what he told us from his final bed. We
passed on the sentiment, if not the exact wording, to
the Anglican minister who delivered the service. A
nice guy, even if he was a little bit overeager. Grant
Webb referred to him as 'the Labrador', and we knew
what he meant. The guy was all barely restrained
enthusiasm and bouncing good humour.

The funeral was held on the lawn out the back
of the crematorium on Linwood Ave. It is close
enough to the estuary for you to smell the mud at
low tide. The place has a smallish lawn surrounded
by a low hedge and beds of white roses, which were
long before their best on the day. Spring weather is
unpredictable and we were lucky it didn't rain. The
wind was cold and small white clouds skimmed over
the sky. People came rugged up. There weren't that
many mourners, not as many as you'd expect for a
guy as likeable as Pete. The funeral director obviously
hadn't known how many were going to come, and we
hadn't been able to tell him, so he'd put out too many
of those folding wooden chairs. It was a pity because
the empty chairs on the lawn made the group look
even smaller, as if a lot of people hadn't bothered to
show up.

Pete's father had died ten years earlier and his
mother sat in the middle of the front row, small and
frail like an old blackbird. Pete's ex-wife sat on the
end of the same row although her status as family had
definitely been revoked. She was wearing a woolly
hat that made her seem Russian, even though she was
originally from Timaru. She sat and looked bored and
after the service she made a point of not talking to any
of us. She didn't hang around to chat. Jim joked that
she was out of there before the coffin. On reflection, it
was probably lucky that they hadn't had any kids.

At the start of the service the minister welcomed
Pete's mother and read out a message from Pete's
older brother, Tony. It was an email that said that he
was working in the Middle East, on an oil tanker in
the Persian Gulf, and couldn't get back in time for the
funeral. He knew that Pete would've understood.

Looking around, it was clear to us that we were
the sum total of Pete's friends. There were a few of
his work colleagues, but no one we recognised, and
everyone else was family, elderly uncles and aunts
and cousins. We sat on the right-hand side of the aisle,
which divided the chairs into two groups. Everyone
else chose to sit on the left. Al Penny whispered that
if it had been a wedding we would have been the
groom's whole family. And a strange family we would
have been; a loose formation of uneasy middle-aged
guys in cheap black suits, barely managing to disguise
our shock. You could smell the fear rising off us over
the aroma of our musty jackets. As Matt Templeton
kept saying over and over again, 'He was only forty-one,
forfucksake.' If the Reaper could come knocking
at the wrong address like that, what hope was there
for the rest of us? That's what we were all thinking
as we listened to the minister welcome everyone to
Pete's funeral. It scared us shitless.

Pete's coffin was up the front on a metal gurney
and the lid was closed. In the last few weeks the cancer
had chewed away at him like a bad infestation of borer.
Eventually, he forbade any of us to visit the hospice
again. He was on strong painkillers, his conversations
moved along no track we could follow, and Pete didn't
want anyone to see him like that — not even us. In all
honesty, we were relieved. The cancer that had at first
melted away his fat, making him look younger, had
not stopped. It had carried on feeding until Pete was
as wizened as a man three times his age. It's hard to
see a friend rendered as a living stick-figure. In the
end Pete became death's caricature.

When he said he didn't want us coming around any
more we all went together to say our final goodbye.
We crammed into the small private room with its view
of the hills. Of course Pete talked about Lucy and the
case. The last thing that he said as we were going out
the door was to call him if we came up with anything
new. Nothing did come up. He died four days later.

At his funeral the minister didn't have a lectern,
and spoke standing up the front with his notes in his
hands. 'We have come together to remember before
God the life of Peter John Marshall, to commend him
to God's keeping, to commit his body to be cremated,
and to comfort those who mourn with our sympathy
and with our love, in the hope we share through the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.'
We were surprised that Pete had chosen to have
the full religious service. Apart from when he was a
kid and had attended with his family, we had never
known him to go to church. Most of us had also gone
as kids, and it was amazing how much of the services
we could recall. When the time came, the Lord's
Prayer tripped from our tongues as easily as our own
phone numbers. When we were asked to respond to
the minister's words, we knew just how to speak with
that distinctive church rhythm. We felt like children
who had been raised in a foreign country and could
still fall back into the language when the need arose.

We knew the hymns, which, because we were
outside, were sung without accompaniment. There
was just the minister leading us on in a shaky tenor
voice. We sang along with gusto. We were damned
if Pete was going to be farewelled with an apologetic
murmur.

And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

Once or twice during that particular hymn people
swivelled their heads to look at us, nervous smiles
stamped on their faces, but the minister didn't seem
worried by our braying voices.

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand . . .

After that it was the turn of anyone who wanted to get
up and speak. But how do you sum up a friendship
you've had your whole life? It didn't seem the right
time to be talking about the quest to find Lucy
Asher's killer. And so we were left holding a handful
of generalities. Those of us who did get up sat down
again afraid that we had made Pete sound like every
other nice guy whose friends can't quite believe that
he's dead.

Out of all of us Roy Moynahan did the best. These
days he is a freelance journalist specialising in feature
articles, mainly for
North and South
but occasionally
for other publications if the money is good. As a writer
Roy knew that the details carried the most weight. He
spoke about an incident that happened when Pete
was in his early thirties, something that most of us
had forgotten.

The story went that Pete had been to the movies
in town with the woman he was seeing at the time,
shortly after he split from his wife, when he saw a guy
being attacked on the street.

'The guy was down on the ground and two blokes
were laying into him with their fists, and then their
feet. So Pete tells the woman he's with to wait where
she is. He pulls out a twenty-dollar note from his
wallet and hurries over to the two guys. They stop and
turn around, ready to take the fight further afield if
they have to. Obviously they're thinking that Pete's a
friend of the guy on the ground and that he's going to
start swinging. But Pete simply holds out the twenty to
the nearest guy and says, "I think you dropped this."
Pete asks them if they can remember losing the note.
One of the guys is quicker than the other and says,
sure, he can remember dropping it, "just over there".
He points to the ground in the opposite direction to
where Pete has come from. "Fair enough," says Pete
and hands over the twenty.

'Meanwhile the guy on the ground has seen which
way the wind is blowing. He's staggered up, looking
no worse for wear than a guy who's been at the bottom
of a ruck, although a pretty vigorous one. Quick as,
he's limped away and popped into the nearest bar.
The two guys had noticed, of course, but didn't seem
to care any more. Whatever their issue with him was,
it seemed to have been forgotten. They walked away
in the opposite direction, laughing.'

As acts of heroism went it didn't seem much,
but we were grateful that Roy had resurrected the
story and that he had told it well. It struck a tone for
remembering Pete that we thought was about right.

Roy finished with a quote from Robert Louis
Stevenson. 'Home is the sailor, home from sea / And
the hunter home from the hill.' With the cold easterly
blustering across the sky and the scream of the gulls
clearly audible, we thought that too was about right.
'Goodbye, Pete,' said Roy. 'I hope you know more
than us now.' Most of the other people there looked
confused but we knew what Roy was on about. He
walked back to his seat which, like ours, had begun to
sink into the soft spring grass.

After the ceremony, six of us carried the coffin
inside and set it down in a mock chapel inside the
crematorium. Then we trooped out again, leaving a
trail of grass clippings from the damp lawn on the
polished wooden floor. There was a final viewing for
the immediate family, which, in the absence of Tony,
meant his mother.

We stood around in the crematorium's foyer, amid
the giant flower arrangements and the soft orchestral
music that drifted down on to us from hidden speakers.
We talked among ourselves and finished off the last
of the sausage rolls and cucumber sandwiches. We
knew that at any moment a curtain was going to open
behind Pete and the coffin was going to begin its slow
journey to the flames. We tried not to think about it.

At first, we didn't recognise the woman who
approached Jim. She was no longer skinny but had
filled out, as people tend to do in their thirties and
forties, although she still had her mother's pale skin
and the freckles across the bridge of her nose. Carolyn
Asher and Jim each took a glass of juice and went and
stood over by the tall windows to talk.

He told us later that she is married now, with three
kids, and that her husband is an air-traffic controller
out at the airport. Jim showed us a business card.
Carolyn owns some type of online company selling
merino wool gloves and scarves. Apparently business
is good. We agreed with Jim that she looked happy
and healthy and all the rest. In fact it had been hard to
reconcile our memory of her with the woman standing
in the intermittent sunlight coming through the big
windows. We had lost track of her when she moved
to Auckland at nineteen. By then Carolyn had a police
record — she had been heavily into the local drug
scene — and the worst reputation of any girl down
New Brighton. But, watching her talking to Jim, we
had to admit all that was a long time ago. Somehow
Carolyn had succeeded in moving on. We wondered
how she had done it. What was her secret? When she
left, she kissed Jim on the cheek and promised to keep
in touch.