Some Here Among Us (17 page)

At five in the afternoon the following day his parents dropped him at the station. He retrieved his bag and went out to catch his train.

Just as he was about to climb aboard he saw Morgan coming fast along the platform.

‘What are you doing here?’ said Race.

‘I came to see you off,’ said Morgan.

Race put his suitcase down. Morgan picked up the suitcase and hefted its weight.

‘All this for one weekend,’ he said.

‘I was going to a wedding, remember,’ said Race. ‘There’s a valuable wedding present in there.’

‘What?’ said Morgan.

‘Pewter,’ said Race.

‘Pewter?’ said Morgan.

‘I bought it from Panos.’

‘That Greek. He probably stole it from somewhere.’

‘Possibly,’ said Race.

There was a din of announcement. The train was about to leave.

‘That girl last night,’ said Morgan. ‘I stayed. Everyone else left and I stayed. We made love right there in front of the fire.’

‘Go, Morgan!’ said Race.

‘You should have heard the rain on the roof,’ said Morgan. ‘It was like applause.’

‘Applause?’ said Race.

‘Like thousands of people
clapping
,’ said Morgan.

‘Get outta here,’ said Race. But he was pleased and surprised that Morgan had come down to see him off and tell him this story. He looked over Morgan’s shoulder at the clock at the end of the platform with its yellow face and Arabic numerals. Then the whistle blew and Race climbed up and looked back at Morgan who was looking back at him, his eyes still shining.

‘Come down,’ said Race, tilting his head towards the front carriage where he was going to sit, and he went along to his seat, but when he got there the train had already begun to move and there was only an empty platform out the window and then they were sliding through the marshalling yards under the signal gantries and then suddenly speeding alongside the motorway and all the traffic was speeding beside them, either going as fast or faster than they were in the same direction or coming towards them faster still, and although it was not even dark yet all the cars speeding towards them had their headlights on, the sure sign of a storm ahead.

3

The three men stood under a streetlight by the steps. Three separate sets of concrete steps came down side by side from unseen houses high above The Terrace. From one of the houses you could hear the engine-thrum of a party. The three men – Morgan, Meiklejohn and Human Sanity – were arguing, though mildly, about what to do next. Morgan was rather drunk. Human Sanity was drunk as well, though not as drunk as Morgan. Meiklejohn had been drinking with them but didn’t appear to be drunk at all. He was tall and thin and had an expression of distaste on his face. He was a painter, an artist. So was Human Sanity, whose real name was Hooman Sanatay; he was from Iran. He was short and stocky, with round brown eyes, two black-furred arches of eyebrows above them.

‘Let’s go to Auckland,’ said Morgan. ‘First we find some pot, then we go to Auckland.’

‘Forget Auckland,’ said Meiklejohn.

‘We should go back to the party. Why did we leave the party?’ said Human Sanity. He pointed up one of the flights of steps.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Meiklejohn.

‘What is ridiculous?’ said Human Sanity.

‘You were. The party was.’

‘I was very happy. I met a girl there who loved me.’

‘The fat girl.’

‘Fat!’ said Human Sanity. ‘Meiklejohn doesn’t like girls,’ he said to Morgan. ‘He likes boys.’

‘It is quite normal to feel attraction for your own gender – if they are of sufficient pulchritude,’ said Meiklejohn.

‘Pulchritude,’ said Morgan.

‘I
assumed
,’ said Meiklejohn, ‘I was having a conversation with an adult.’

‘If we left now, we’d be in Auckland by morning,’ said Morgan.

‘Why, Morgan, you want to go to Auckland?’ said Human Sanity.

‘I have this feeling,’ said Morgan.

‘How could we get there?’

Morgan crossed the road and bent down at the window of a parked car. The driver rolled the window down. There was a conversation and Morgan came back across the road.

‘He won’t take us to Auckland but he will take us to Kelburn,’ he said.

‘Who is he?’ said Meiklejohn.

‘I don’t know. I never saw him before.’

‘Why will he take us to Kelburn?’

‘I said we were incapable of locomotion.’

‘You may be incapable of locomotion,’ said Meiklejohn.

‘Why do we want to go to Kelburn?’ said Human Sanity.

‘Pot,’ said Morgan.

‘You have smoked pot?’

‘I have smoked pot once, twice, three times,’ said Morgan.

‘It is good to make love on pot?’ said Human Sanity.

‘Tremendous,’ said Morgan, ‘by common repute.’

They crossed the road and got in the car. Morgan sat in the front, the other two in the back. The driver said his name was Clive. He had just finished work on the night-shift, he said, and was on his way to the party that they had come out of. He started the car and drove up Salamanca Road.

‘Good party?’ he asked.

‘Foul,’ said Meiklejohn.

‘Gee,’ said Clive. He glanced at Meiklejohn in the rear-view mirror. He said that one night he had gone to a party in Newtown after the night-shift, and when he got there there was a tiger in the street.

‘I remember that,’ said Meiklejohn. ‘Escaped from the zoo, right?’

‘I went into the party and I said, “There’s a tiger in the street,” and no one believed me. Then they all came to the door and saw it coming in the gate.’

‘They shot it, right?’ said Meiklejohn.

‘The cops shot it,’ said the driver.

‘No call for that,’ said Morgan thickly. ‘No need to
shoot
it.’

They drove along Upland Road and into Highbury.

‘Stop here,’ said Morgan.

‘Have a good night, fellas,’ said the driver and they stood on the pavement and watched him drive away.

‘He was a nice guy,’ said Morgan. ‘He drove us here for no known reason.’

‘Where are we?’ said Meiklejohn, looking around with distaste. Suburban roofs stood up like pyramids mildly against the sky; a little television radiance was still leaking at some window frames.

‘Friends of mine,’ said Morgan.

He pointed at one of the houses below the street. They went down a flight of steps and Morgan beat on the door.

‘Shsh,’ said Meiklejohn. ‘It’s eleven-thirty.’

Morgan laughed.

‘Bang softly,’ he said.

FitzGerald opened the door. He had a motorbike helmet in his hand. For a moment it looked as if he was going to bar the way. Then he took Morgan by the hand and pulled him indoors. He put his helmet down on a table and danced Morgan a step or two round the hall.

‘Morgy-baby,’ he said.

‘You’re going out,’ said Morgan.

‘I’m going out,’ said FitzGerald.

‘Where the hell do you think you’re going at this hour?’ said Morgan.

He picked up the helmet and put it on. Then he pulled the dark visor down and looked at himself in the mirror.

‘Nowhere much,’ said FitzGerald.

Morgan thought: ‘Candy!’

He pushed up the visor and looked at FitzGerald. He knew that on Thursday nights Candy stayed at her parents’ house in Karori. FitzGerald was going to Karori to sleep with Candy! Morgan was sure of it. But, after all, was that good or bad, or right or wrong? Sometimes, he thought, he just didn’t know anything. He took the helmet off.

‘Sell me some pot,’ he said to FitzGerald.

FitzGerald walked out of the room.

‘Stay here,’ said Morgan to Meiklejohn and Human Sanity. He followed FitzGerald into the sitting-room.

‘Oh, Morgan, I can’t sell you pot,’ said FitzGerald. ‘I don’t sell pot. If had some pot I would happily give you some but I don’t. In any case, you’re drunk. Marijuana would make you doo-lally, crazy, you’d fall down the stairs.’

There was no furniture in the big sitting-room, apart from a new brown-leather couch on an oatmeal carpet. There were no curtains on the plate-glass window. The window looked down a valley towards a high concrete viaduct, empty and all lit up in the night.

‘You’ve slept with Candy, haven’t you?’ said Morgan.

‘Yes,’ said FitzGerald. He instantly wished he had lied.

‘I thought so,’ said Morgan. He walked around the room and then looked at FitzGerald from under his brows.

‘That’s where you’re going now,’ he said.

‘No it’s not,’ said FitzGerald.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To see Sandra Isbister.’

‘Sandra Isbister!’ said Morgan in wonder. ‘I saw Sandra Isbister today! I asked her to come to Auckland with me, and first she said she would and then she said she wouldn’t.’

‘When are you going to Auckland?’ said FitzGerald.

‘Now. Tonight! Hey, Fitz! Let’s go to Auckland!’

‘How?’ said FitzGerald.

‘On your bike,’ said Morgan.

‘I can’t tonight,’ said FitzGerald. ‘I have other things to do.’

‘Such as?’

‘Seeing Sandra Isbister.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ said Morgan.

‘Why?’

‘To see Sandra Isbister,’ said Morgan.

‘You can’t come with me,’ said FitzGerald. ‘You’ll fall off the bike.’

‘I need to come,’ said Morgan. ‘To check.’

‘Check what?’

‘Check it’s Sandra Isbister you’re going to see.’

‘You’ll have to trust me,’ said FitzGerald.

‘Trust you!’ said Morgan. ‘Sell me some pot.’

‘I’ll give you some pot,’ said FitzGerald. He took out a plastic bag of marijuana and rolled two joints and lit one and passed it to Morgan, who took it, and drew on it lengthily, and put the other in his pocket. Human Sanity came into the room and Morgan passed him the lit joint.

‘This is Human Sanity,’ said Morgan. ‘He won’t come to Auckland either.’

‘Why do you want to go to Auckland?’ said FitzGerald.

‘I’m going to see Race.’

‘Why do you want to see Race?’

‘I don’t want to see him. I just have this feeling I’m going to see him. I can’t see him if I’m not in Auckland, can I?’

‘Not if he is,’ said FitzGerald.

‘
Whoooo!
’ said Morgan, ducking down.

A great dark bird, an eagle, swooped low over the roof of the house – he heard the
huff
of its pinions – and it went on down through the darkness towards the lonely lit-up bridge.

‘Where did
that
come from?’ he thought.

Where-ere-ere-ere
— he heard. His voice echoed so much in his mind that he thought: ‘Well, I’ll just never get to the end of the question.’

Nev-ev-ev-ev
— he heard, fading away like the sound of pinions.

‘Maybe I’ll just never get to the end of my thoughts,’ he thought, and at that all his limbs buckled. He fell on the floor.

‘He’s fallen down!’ said Human Sanity.

FitzGerald and Human Sanity stood looking down at Morgan so primly that he began to laugh. It was hard to laugh lying down.

‘No one realises that,’ he thought. ‘Lying down’s no laughing matter.’

‘Get up,’ said FitzGerald.

Morgan tried to get up. His limbs wouldn’t obey him. This also made him laugh.

‘You can’t laugh when you’re lying down,’ he thought. ‘Yet lying down is inherently funny. And not getting up is funny too. It doesn’t add up at all.’

‘Hands and knees,’ FitzGerald advised, looking at Morgan as at a mechanical problem.

‘What’s all this?’ said Lane Tolerton, coming in the room. He was rubbing his hands and looking pleased at the sight of midnight company. He was wearing a red-and-yellow check dressing-gown. He and FitzGerald had just taken the house together, and Rod Orr had also moved in. Rod’s house in Silver Lane was being demolished for office-block development.

‘What’s Morgan doing on the floor?’ said Tolerton.

‘I don’t know what he’s up to down there,’ said FitzGerald. He knew Tolerton didn’t approve of marijuana.

Morgan was on his hands and knees. He had begun journeying on hands and knees to the couch. It was a long, long way. He thought of pyramids in the far distance. Their tops were white with eagle-droppings.

‘Of
course
,’ he thought. ‘That’s what they were
for
! For eagles to perch on.’

‘What’s the matter with him?’ said Tolerton.

‘He’s drunk,’ said FitzGerald.

‘He’d better stay the night,’ said Tolerton.