The Book of Fame (16 page)

The
London Illustrated News
compares our crusade to the outcome of the Russo–Japanese War: ‘… and even the New Zealanders’ merry victories in the mud suffer the very canker that slew the interest in the war. They are so uniformly one-sided …’

Our defeat at Cardiff Arms marking the ‘beginning of time in Wales’

‘I never saw anything like it in my life. I was reminded of Rome in the ancient days.’
A spectator from the Continent speaking to a
Western Mail
reporter the day after the Cardiff Arms Test

To become the legend of rumour—

‘…the Music Hall manager who gets the New Zealanders to walk across his stage at Drury Lane …’ And ‘… the politician who kicks off in a match in which [the New Zealanders] are beaten will be certain of a seat at the next General Election.’

The sudden feeling of elevation, a lightness underfoot, quick appreciation all around

Readiness on the part of others to laugh or smile at the slightest thing said

The suspension of judgment

Three days south of Apia the air was less sultry. Still warm, but thinner—thin enough for some of us to scent the hills and ranges over which this air had shifted.

Two days before we sighted Northland, Jimmy Hunter picked up the scent of hill country. He leant over the rail, his nose set in the direction of land, his nostrils flared—‘That’s a heifer,’ he says. ‘And that … well that’s just a sheep. A flock of them …’ And later that afternoon: ‘I believe that’s a dairy herd. Probably Jersey, if I’m not mistaken …’

At night we gathered on deck beneath the Southern Constellation. ‘Our arrangement,’ noted Mister Dixon. ‘Our sky.’

March 5, 1906, we lined the deck to stare at the distant coast—it lay almost flat to the level of the sea—and each man’s face contained his domestic situation.

The next morning we were back at the rail to watch the country slide past.

The low-slung hills.

The whiff of tidal areas wrenching from us ancient memories.

At the appearance of small houses with space around them we thought of the different kinds of knowledge we’d come into—

meeting the King at the Royal Agricultural Show and seeing the easy way he handled strangers

the private entertainment of thoughts on the faces of women when parting company with their menfolk

the things you see but can never tell about

the different ways women had of touching: the crisp gloved hand versus the brush of a bare forearm

the different colours of a woman’s face: the rose daubed on her cheek to the welling up of colour from forbidden places

the way a woman’s saying ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance’ could be a great deal less exciting than her saying nothing at all; how eyes could take over at such a moment

the things you could never talk about again

the quickening of blood that time in Montmarte when a woman stepped from a doorway and opening her coat revealed her nakedness, and how Frank G refused to act surprised, the way he closed both hands over his cigarette, its glow capturing his grin before the door closed and darkness returned

Where the coast broke the
Sonoma
took a right-hand turn and we followed the Gulf waters through to the harbour with Tyler, Gallaher and Nicholson competing to name various points in the neighbourhood.

A lightness overcame us. We felt silly as kids. Casey pinched Tyler’s hat and was about to toss it overboard when Mister Dixon caught his eye with a quick and irritable look and Casey handed Tyler his hat back.

A verse of song came to Nicholson. ‘Hall lay lewya, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallylaylewohhaohhya.’

Corbett socked a fist in the palm of his hand.

God knows why but O’Sullivan had a sudden urge to draw a line with a make-believe firearm and shoot at a big white stationary cloud. George Gillett clucked his tongue and nodded with general approval. Hunter, Deans & Co hugged the rail like it was a stock fence. Only Jimmy Duncan remained quizzical, like it might be a trick, an apparition; it might really be Tenerife with its open sewers and Spaniards. Jimmy adopted a side-on position as if desirous of the
crowd’s credentials and intentions before further committing himself.

In the near distance, we could see thousands upon thousands of people crammed on to the wharves. Others had taken advantage of the rooftops. Mister Dixon removed his hat then put it back on.

People in tiny sailing boats swarmed around us. They stood to wave, one hand on the tiller. They cried out our names. They shouted their welcome. Kia ora. The seagulls swooped and squawked. Kia ora. The green water splashed and turned white with boats. A small tug plied its way out to us. Word passed along that it was the Premier. Mister Dixon adjusted his necktie. He coughed in Corbett’s direction and nodded at the tongue of shirt hanging out the back of his trousers. Nicholson was bursting to do a haka and had to be constrained. Jimmy Duncan blinked. He tried his hands on his hips, then went back to his previous position. The tug pulled alongside and we saw Seddon, big and heavy-footed, feel his way across the gangway. He seemed to fall into Mister Dixon’s arms. Mister Dixon stood him up and clasped his arms. Seddon beamed out in all directions. He saw Gallaher and went to clasp him. Then he saw Stead and went in his direction. Then he took in Jimmy Hunter and Sully and Corbett. ‘Boys. Boys. Boys.’ He said to Deans, ‘You must be Deans.’ Eventually he reached us all. He got to the end and looked around. ‘I don’t see Billy Wallace.’ Then he began to name those who were still wending their way home. Freddy Roberts. Bill Glenn. George Seeling. Massa Johnston. Eric Harper. Mister Dixon explained the situation and the Premier nodded good-naturedly and with a twinkling of understanding in his eyes. Then he roared at us, ‘How did you like America?’ America was good, we said. Big. Vast. Busy. Full of people. Interesting landscape. Then someone had the sense to say, ‘Not as good as home,’ and the Premier roared at us and in the direction of the
thousands down at the wharf: ‘Did you hear that? Did you hear that!’

In single file, we carried our hand luggage down the gangway to cheering and applause. It was a different kind of applause to that which we were used to. It was applause people did when what they really wished to do was hug you. In Europe the applause had been respectful, sharp, voluminous, but quickly over; at other times a long slow clap that bordered on fatigue at yet another trick displayed.

A huge wagon and horses were waiting for us. We climbed up on the wagon and took our seats. People reached up to shake our hands. Then as we moved off a cheer rose up Queen Street where still thousands more gathered. Ours was the only vehicle. The only wagon in Queen Street. The people cheered, and it got to where sitting was an insufficient gesture. We stood and waved our hats at the crowd. We heard our names rise and fall like a confetti loosened over the city.

That night we attended our official home-coming dinner:

Over the course of the dinner and between songs we entertained those around us with accounts of the amazing things we’d seen. They wanted to know what the King was like, were the French hospitable? clean? and the women? ‘Oh la la.’ Really? ‘Oh, la la.’ What about black people? Spaniards? Yes … No …? they’d heard … Quite nice, are they? Civil? Good. That’s good. Our audience was relieved. They sat back and patted their lips with the stiff white napkins. We described taking afternoon tea inside the ‘eye’ of the huge wooden elephant on the Coney Island shore, and skyscrapers so tall that at night stars appeared to rest on top; we talked about shooting molly-hawks from the stern of the boat off Uruguay and described the huge swimming pool at Montevideo, all enclosed, with 220 dressing rooms, and the Turkish baths and ‘hot air baths’ and douches taken at San Francisco’s Olympic Club. And from Jimmy Duncan to the game’s commissars some campaign matters: ‘Thompson broke down on three separate occasions, Abbott poisoned a leg, Smithy busted his ribs, Massa’s sick as a dog, in hospital when we last heard, Tyler did his ankle, McDonald and Casey did their shoulders, Sully broke his collarbone, Roberts lost his tonsils, Mackrell was sick from day one, for a while McDonald had his arm in a sling … and boils, don’t ask me about boils …’

Billy Stead is the last one home. Boarding the
Arawa
at Onehunga, he thinks, ‘What if, what if there is no homecoming? What if, like Odysseus, home is always on the horizon?’ Then he smiles to himself, relieved that no one heard that thought.

Sailing on to New Plymouth and Wanganui, disembarking briefly in Wellington for a banquet, speeches, toasts. Then out to sea again, sliding in and out of the country, sitting on starboard, knees crossed, grimacing back at the great folded land … close-up views, views from afar, everything in place, as remembered, cherished, everything as it should be. Plumbing a stranger’s thoughts by the way he happens to stand with a shovel against himself while rolling a smoke

or the heart of a crowd by the way the eyes pitch, sunshine at their rear, knowing fame’s ciphers

experiencing the comings and goings of insight, and all over again the thrill of noting how at a glance the mountains can suck up all knowledge and render you speechless.

On to Dunedin, another banquet. There is just this one to get through. The tributes. The expressions of gratitude. The backslapping city officials. The singing of the anthem, eyes tilted to the ceiling, followed by more toasts. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, charge your glasses and please be upstanding.’ and rising again on his sore knees with his glass in hand.

And finally, on horse and dray cantering in to a big welcome home in Invercargill; by now knowing the drill, grinning at the ground at the feet of the crowd, moving instinctively into that space cleared for him to make his way to the podium, glancing away to avoid the nervous, besotted look of the Mayor. For perhaps the hundredth time hearing ‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ He glances up and casts his eye over the crowd of faces, many of them friends, family, strangers some,
and those to the rear, figures from childhood standing with folded arms and guarded faces. He will be expected to speak. There’s no escaping that. This is why all these people are here, to see and hear him. But what to say? What can be said that adequately captures everything that needs to be said? There are so many competing thoughts, so many textures and varieties of thought. Billy settles on one face. The man is smiling back as if Billy should know him—long cheekbones like those pillars of light the clouds cast down over Tuatapere Plain. Hmm. Billy smiles and the stranger smiles back. A woman cries out—‘Say something Billy.’ There is so much to say. So much that is there in his thoughts. So much to retrieve. Suddenly his thoughts are back in the Latin Chapel in Oxford. The good people of Invercargill look up and see him smiling. Billy smiling—they are glad for that at least. But what they can’t see is what Billy is smiling at. Bob Deans is directing his attention to a magnificent stained glass window, to its ‘ship of souls journeying from the world to Heaven’. Deans’s words, his version. The restlessness of the crowd draws him back to the moment at hand. One or two call out—