'Chris, - Pat,'
'Pat, - Chris.'
We muttered 'Hi's' and 'Hello's' and waited to survive the awkward silence as Bob cleared the debris to another table. He did this while still holding the tray as if he didn't want to contaminate his food. It was a habit that grated on me.
"That's very clever. Why not just put the tray down?'
'What?'
'Put the tray down, it would be much easier.'
'S'pose it would.'
I realised that he was unconscious of the habit and, as I seldom had the chance to carp at him, joined in.
'You always do that - clear a table before you put your own stuff down.'
'Not always!'
'Always!'
'Not always?' - she cut back in.
'Yeah, always.'
'My mum does that in coffee bars. That must be it. Want a chip?'
'Ta.'
He passed a coke and a plate of chips to the girl and slid another halfway to me.
'Pat's enrolled on this side this year and she's in my history tut.'
I feigned interest.
'Yes, I got fed up with the level of courses at T.Coll, so told them I wanted to do a full B.Ed.'
She looked like someone who'd get fed up loudly.
'Still getting paid?' I pinched some of Bob's coke.
'Mmmm, but if I fail some of that will go out the window. - You got chucked out.'
It was a statement, not a question, and I bridled. - It was still a soft spot. 'I'd rather think of it as a finely negotiated truce. I wanted out, they wanted me out, so I left.
Bob snorted.
'Do you have to pay the bond back?'
'Na, that's what I meant by a finely negotiated truce. But I still get the bursary.'
'That'll cut back the lifestyle!'
I nodded, Mmm'd, but seethed gently inside. What the hell had my lifestyle got to do with her. She was hoeing into her plate of chips and Bob had his head behind the orientation magazine. I decided to stay polite.
'Where do you come from?' - Guessing Waihi or Raglan.
'Just outside New Plymouth.'
'Never been there.'
'Don't! I spent the Christmas break there and I'd even get married to avoid going back.'
Was that a joke? You couldn't tell half the time with these T.Coll girls.
'What, - do you want a strong husband to carry you back to his folks in Tauranga?'
No reaction, maybe she was serious.
'How about you?'
'Na, I want a husband who'll do as he's told!' She laughed! A breakthrough!
'Sorry, Wellington.'
'Why sorry?'
'There's rugby piss-up on here tonight.' Bob had got to the important bit of the mag.
'Want to go?'
'Can't stand rugby do's.'
'I'm going to Romeo and Juliet, fancy that?'
'Okay, I want to see that.'
What the hell had I done? I'd chopped Bob out and ended up going to a movie I never wanted to see with a stroppy girl I'd just met. Too late to stop.
'You flatting or boarding or what?'
'Officially boarding, but it's really a flat. 6 Te Aroha St. Come for tea and we'll go from
there.' Bob's eyes closed, slowly smiling.
'I think I'll go to the pub instead.'
Pat left the table shortly after that, leaping up with a squeal over to a plump girl who'd come
in on the end of the constant chip queue. I polished off the rest of her chips.
'No women this year you said!
Work, work, work you said!'
Romeo and Juliet, ha!'
You're smitten boy and it's all over your face.'
With a smile I put my straw hat over his face, breezed out the other door and headed for the
chunder marathon.
Contrary to the administration propoganda Waikato University in 1970 was a dreary place. It
was spacey only in the sense that it took a long time to walk between buildings, and light only
when the fog and rain lifted for long enough to see the buildings. The effort required to get to a
lecture meant something of an investment so a clever student one was who timetabled their
courses to avoid long treks between the caff, halls and classroom or even, for the more serious,
the library. This inevitably led to some bizarre degrees.
By the end of the year marijuana and the more recreational chemical drugs had made an impact, so, for many the long haul up the hill became a hazy jaunt sidetracked by a duck trolling one of the lakes, the sparkling leaves of a tree, or, more commonly, a friend going the other way.
I was one of the many and, though I had seen teaching as my vocation and had enjoyed standing in front of thirty or so ten-year-olds at Huntly West School expounding bravely on the culture of ants, the Teachers College administration and the Education Department had seen my apparent inability to put pen to paper as a sheer waste of money.
After a few weeks at home being harangued by disappointed parents I re-enrolled for a B.A. with the good intention of being one of the serious.
Bob and I shared a primitive but surprisingly unsqualid flat in Old Farm Road with Malcolm Harris. Malcolm came from Te Awamutu and went home most weekends, but, for a small town boy had well-developed sophistication.
'Take a bottle of wine mate,' he counselled as one of the rugby types spewed noisily in front
of us.
'Never fails to impress. Jesus these bastards are idiots. Could still be good money on that
joker though.'
The rugby type had downed another pint and was groggily off round the lake again.
'Peurile bloody game,' I said, 'shit, look at him!'
'Na it's good fun if you get the rhythm right. Lap, chuck, drink - lap, chuck, drink.
What's 'er name anyway?'
'Pat.'
'Pat what?'
'Dunno.'
'Short reddish hair. Pretty ordinary really, comes from New Plymouth.'
'Oh yeah, - she went out with Willie from the cricket team beginning of last year - you're
wasting your time there mate!'
'What's her name then?'
'Clark? - yeah, Clark.'
'What time'll they have tea.'
'Bout six if you're going to the movies I reckon.'
Dinner (lasagne), was nice, the wine (a Government Te Kauwhata Rose), was nice, the flat (a villa), was nice, the flatmates (Liz and Jen), were nice, her room (single bed), was nice, and the cat seemed nice - but, the movie was a bit of a disaster.
Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet was a great film for its time, but the print they showed in Hamilton that night had a major flaw.
In the scene in the cathedral where R & J meet they come in from opposite doors, and slowly gathering pace move towards each other. They call 'Romeo,' 'Juliet,' and, to the sound of throbbing strings sail majestically in slow motion into each others arms. Sadly the film jumped and they appeared to fly and collide. The combination of that and the very strong joint I had smoked before going in (Pat had two tiny puffs), sent me into a hysterical gufffaw and I knocked my glasses off into the lap of the person in front.
No amount of apologies could stop my giggling and I retreated to the foyer alone. When I returned and sat quietly next to Pat with a whispered 'Sorry,' she firmly took my arm and still looking at the screen hissed, 'One more stunt like that and I'll thump you!'
It took us another month to get to bed. All the rituals were observed, we talked of our pasts, and the cosmos and all its ologies was deeply explored. She civilised the flat with meals and flowers and we diligently attended to our studies. I cut back on drugs and alcohol and neglected my friends while Pat upped on drugs and alcohol and neglected her friends. We lay in glades or on couches talking and stroking with pure intentions until we knew ('We would know,' we said) when it would be right.
This mooning went on until one late autumn afternoon when we finally took off all each others clothes, slipped under the quilt of my (double) bed, and married.
From then we never separated except to work.
'I've never seen brown nipples before.'
'Those are nipples, these are auroeles.'
'Aureoles then. You won't have to go back to New Plymouth any more.'
'Why not?'
'Cause I won't let you!'
'Good.'
She did go back to New Plymouth. In the May break we went to the farm at Kaimiro on the
edge of the aureole of Egmont. The Clarks were lovely people and two elder brothers came up
the hill for a family dinner.
Everything was going well until Pat announced during the lamb roast,
'We're going to get married!'
Her timing could have been better. As her father, (call me Mike), was downing a glass of beer, his choking and half drowning gave the occasion a sense of tragedy and volume we didn't think it deserved. Brother Pete's 'Good on ya mate.' swam lonely against the tide but soon sank leaving us to weather the storm alone.
We could have found shelter in a year or two's engagement but headed into the gale steadfastly on course for our nuptial landfall around the August holidays. As we had given my parents number when we left they were already forewarned and naturally forearmed by the time we breezed in the door. Tactically they were brilliant, frosty to me but calling Pat 'dear,' and sticking resolutely to the Taranaki line of 'When you both graduate' while we sailed on, furtively kissing and groping in all corners of the house and basement.
All the doom, gloom and wait only convinced us of our love.
I wanted Pat with all my soul. I loved everything about her, her eyes, her moods, the mole below her navel, even the smell of her periods, and she returned it all equally, my humour, myopia, even the smell of my socks.
Bravely we tried Kaimiro again on the way home but the telephone wires ran hot with the family line as we held hands and read Tom Wolfe on the train.
By the time we got back Bob had rented a cottage at Tamahere and bequeathed us Malcolm
- the house was all but ours. The commuting between beds could stop, the cat would enjoy life
next to a farm and Liz and Jen said they would cover for a while when the Clarks rang. We
looked on our life and were happy!
After Philosophy one Friday afternoon, (3-5 in the back bar of the Hillcrest), (the tut was
taken by Sam Good, a benign Englishman who figured no-one could sit through two hours of
Hegel or Comparitive Religion at that time of the week without a drink, so moved the venue
from B.Block to the pub therby trebling the attendance and enjoyment of the paper), Bob took
us out to the country for a holiday.
The idea was to discuss plans for the term and wedding, but by that stage 'holiday' was his
code for acid - the rollercoaster, the buzz of buzzes, - L.S.D.
'I scored some clearlight today. Wanna go?'
'I was frying some bacon and toast, Pat was dozing, the cat, (on holiday too), on her lap.
'Not now, - tomorrow if it's a nice day.'
Pat shifted, opened her eyes, 'Let's do it now, I want to wake up.'
Bob giggled, made like a dwarf, rubbed his hands together and scuttled from the room.
'Why now? You've never wanted to before.'
'Another virginity. - Defloration should never be planned. Don't you want to?'
The kettle whistled. She stood up, and, still holding the cat took it off the coal range.
'It's nice here, different from home. C'mon sweetie or I'll lose the mood.'
'Okay, wha's fir magic cookie ,one two or three?'
'Can I have a look?' asked Pat.
'Yup. It's the real McCoy, Skulls'n'Roses, Owsley acid, best you'll ever have.'
'Three,' I said. This was the closest to Dom Perignon. I looked at Pat.
'We'll have half each.'
'Allrightee, I'll go a whole.'
'Sure?'
'With you two angels, no sweat. You do the honours?'
'No, it's your gear.
He put the ticket on the back of a plate and cut it in two with a razor, licked his finger and put one piece on the end of her tongue.
Pat had had the chance before with acid, but had shied away and, in deference, (love?), I had stayed away too.
'You never said it was like this.'
The rush was on. Not the usual strychnine kick to the spine, hair prickling, this stuff strolled through the blood to the brain.
She was walking gingerly down the hall, the cat following a human-pace behind, tail up, eyes and ears trained on Mum.
Wearing a tiny-flowered dress, black stockings from the ankle down, hair pushed back by acid hands, she was out of Botticelli.
'You never said it was like this!'
'It's not. Usually - - -'
'Are you as far away as I am?'
'You're Juliet.'
'Cat's eyes.'
The Earl of Salisbury. John Renbourn's guitar - sparkling, just added to the effect. I wondered how to do a pavan and held up my hand Tudor style.
'Look at the cat's eyes. You worried sweetie? She looks worried.'
She giggled.
'Why are you standing like that?'
'I'm trying to dance a pavan.'
'You need lots for a pavan. It's the only thing two can't do.'
She stopped, looked puzzled. Get her out of there. Never dwell on acid. "Trip lightly" was
my motto.
'Help me find find a Botticelli picture Bob? Got any Botticelli?'
'What? No, run out!'
We collapsed. Pat to the floor, me on a chair.
'What's funny?
'What's funny?!'
He was getting cross. (Trip lightly Chris). Pat was lost in the cat again.
'You just said you'd run out of Botticelli.'
'Aw. I thought you said bottles. - - - Beer, there's some wine there.'
He giggled too.
After three hours the peak was wearing off and the space coming on. Peaking you are vulnerable, your mind, churning, receiving every message in minute detail makes it's own decisions. Thinking and choosing is a luxury.
We made mulled wine, but it boiled, frothed and was forgotten. We danced a pavan, but it never worked with three either. The coal range was so hot the cooking plate glowed. Side one of American Beauty ran twice before I managed to divert the player back to Renbourn.
Pat drifted around for half an hour or so with an art book without realising this until she sat down.
'Bugger! Ooops, sorry! I'll bet Juliet never said that! It's got pictures, that's okay then.'
The cat had decided to trust us and was curled up on a couch. It appeared to be sweating.
God, it was hot!
'You hot?'
'Stifling,' Bob said.
'What's the time?'
'Bout one.'
'When's dawn?'
'Sevenish.'
'If it's clear we should go up the magic mountain.'
'Open the door.'
'It's cold! Close the door! - - - that was Pat.
'I've found a Botticelli. Hey, I don't look like that!'
'Y'did before.'
The space was wonderful. Once the walls stop moving and the carpets crawling an acid stone is the most rounded there is. Time is the only problem - - - there is too much, and not enough.
'How much longer?'
'About lunchtime.'
'What's the time now Bob?'
'About four. Shit it's not, it's half five! You drive? I can't.'
'Wher'e we going?' asked Pat.
'The magic mountain,' said Bob.
'Cool!' said Pat.
Pirongia, a magic mountain to the Maori too. Their legends have fairies crawling all over it but in the early 70's it's main problem was freaks.
To get to the Dragon's Roost pass the township and turn right after the redoubt. Go over the bridge, right again and next left up the hill. Once into the forest, turn a sharp left up the farm track to the gate. I drove the A40, Pat beside me wearing a peaked officer's cap. Bob and I shared the car but because he now lived in the country he wanted to buy me out.
'I'll give it to you in dope,' he said.
'Cash on the barrelhead,' said Pat.
'When do we cross the border? Bob had left the 16th century far behind.
'In a few minutes. Ven ve stop, leave the car. Walk slowly, do not look back. ---Pat was
hooked in.
She leaned over and whispered in my ear.
'Ven he reaches the barrier, shoot him!'
I looked at her, shocked.
'Vell he has all our secrets, neh?'
She curled against the door sniggering. - - - I tried not to dwell.
Park your car, climb the gate, pass the old house site, follow the cattle tracks and you will
come to the Dragon's Roost.
Good old Tolkien! How would we have got through without him!
Bob went first, a green plaid blanket over his shoulders. He turned and waved us on. His hair, beard and the blanket gave him a haunted Gaelic look. Something more than an acid flash hit. A racial memory stirred. The light was greying.
'Many years ago a dragon lived in the hollow behind us.'
I had heard this before, Pat had not. She listened intent.
'During the days she would sleep here in the sun and when waking stretch and scratch these
huge stones leaving those grooves.'
'Is that it?'
The light was yellowing.
'Is that it?'
'Yeah.'
Pat lost interest.
'Is that the sun?'
She sat on a dragon ruined boulder.
We watched the sun thinly peer through the inch or so between horizon and cloud, then
wandered around. The grey Waikato turned to a lustrous green. Bob had a booster joint while
Pat and I sat on the foundation of the old house.
'I'd love to live here. I wonder who owns it?'
I was freezing. My shoes were soaked. Apart from jeans I was only wearing a T-shirt and a Levi jacket that Rosie would claim from our wardrobe fifteen years later with a disbelieving shriek, 'Is it real?'
'I'd have the bedroom on this side.'
She lifted my head, gently bit an earlobe.
'I wonder what it's like tripping?'
Again I was shocked - - - I'd never thought of sex and acid!
We called in at Rob and Cath's on the way back. Bob drove. Pat babbled in pidgin German - he spoke fluently. I worried that the next checkpoint was my turn - - - I tried not to dwell. They welcomed us warmly. Trippers in the early days were always treated well because of their innocence and vulnerability. Kath and Pat made tea, toast and eggs while Rob and I sang our repetoire, me with baby Mat on my knee. Bob rolled joints no one smoked.
'You're clucky!'
'No I'm not! So're you!'
'No I'm not - - - not yet!'
Kath and Mat left to visit her sister in town; Rob and Bob went to collect swamp titree
firewood. Pat and I did the dishes, and, lying down in the spare room watching each other's
cartoons on the ceiling, fell innocently into deep chemical dreams.
We read our banns a week later by ringing Wellington and Kaimiro inviting them to the wedding on the 24th Novermber, (after exams).
Pat missed her next period, ('acid and stress' we said) and eventually the next eight or so.
'Feel clucky!' said Pat.
'Far out!' said Bob.
'Fuck it!' said I.
'Precisely!' said Malc.
FOR HALLOWEEN BUY HER A TRUMPET AND FOR CHRISTMAS GIVE HER A DRUM
Exams went well! Pat was very confident, though I was unsure.
She was a superb plodder. Facts were received, processed, stored then regurgitated, pitched perfectly at the needs of essay and exam marker. Bob was at the other end of the scale. His increasingly acknowledged brilliance allowed him to hand material in right up to exam time, and giving texts a lick and a promise swan into the exam room with an evangelical belief in an A+.
I was somewhere in the middle - - - neither a plodder nor a genius would I be. John Donne I could dissect with skill pushing the sensual boundaries of "The Flea,' but the relationship between the German philosophers and the Franco-Prussian wars was boggy ground inhabited by hard nosed mosquitoes whose drone sounded a decidedly doleful 'C.' !
At 3pm on Saturday 24th November 1971 Pat Clark and Chris Spender were married in God and Law by the minister of St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Hamilton East.
The families were camped in the Commercial Hotel so the reception was held there instead of at our house. Everything was conventional but Pat, though radiantly happy, was still miffed. We had made a stand but had bent and succumbed to a line of least resistance. Though the first battle, 'after graduation,' had been won, the pregnancy was taken as a tactical blunder and all others had been lost.
Even more unfairly, Pat thought, the cat had been excluded from church and pub and would never, dressed in her best red silk bow, grace dining room let alone vestry. Our guests, (20) were on their best behaviour, Sam and Eve good keeping chats between relatives and students away from the seamier side of university life. Jen and Bob, bridesmaid and best man, burying their famous antipathy, piloted and nudged our voyage to it's berth.
Christmas was ten days to spare from holiday jobs.
We winkled the car from Bob, packed it with a tent, sleeping, cooking gear, clothes and the
car, (a seasoned traveller), and went north.
The plan was to get to Russell then visit Liz at her parents' house at Kerikeri. Pat wanted to
get the feel of Northland before her history paper the next term, one I had done and was hoping
to remember enough of to be of some help.
The first night was spent with Bob's family in Takapuna, a major landmark celebrated by
cheering the car over the hump of the bridge and, by the second, we had pitched the tent at
Whananaki. It was Christmas Eve.
'You packed the fucking thing, don't yell at me!'
'I'm not yelling!'
'Are too, - - - where's the cat?'
'Stuff the cat!'
'I never wanted the bring the bloody thing in the first place. You're too comfort loving
anyway.'
'I was thinking of you. You can't sleep on the ground in that condition.'
'Oh, it's a condition is it? Look, we've been sleeping on the ground for millions of bloody
years in this condition!'
'Jesus!'
No lilo plug! Bright idea the lilo. Sleep at night, frolic in the water during the day.
'Pack the food?'
'Don't start. There's bound to be something in the boot.'
'Aw, look at the cat, she's brought something for us.'
I wished I hadn't. By the back door the cat had dropped her first Northland victim, - a headless fantail. I could see us for the rest of the trip, snapping, sleepless and sore, our cat decimating the nation's birdlife heritage. the notion of her stalking kiwi while we peered at giant kauri appalled.
'We'll have to get a leash.'
'Don't be ridiculous!'
Young love and a bolt to plug the lilo worked wonders.
'Want the pressies now?'
I opened the car. The cat leapt out, headed for a shrub, squatted then dove into the bush. I hoped word had got round the local fauna by now.
'Shall we wait?'
'Go on.'
She opened the square package.
'A drum! You're mad!'
A big hug.
'Open yours.'
I did, long and thin, - - - a recorder.
'We should start a band!' Dinner was bacon and eggs cooked on an open fire by the tent.
The days and nights were spent swimming reading and re-mooning and, when we left for the Bay of Islands, we stopped at Hikurangi, restocked and went back to the campfire and did it all again.
'The car's getting tired.'
'Mmmm.'
'We should ring?'
'Mmmm.'
'God, I love the way you can do that.'
'What?'
'Mmmm!'
'Pass the juice. Where's the cat?'
'Killing some wildlife somewhere. Did I wake you up?'
'Mmmm.'
At Auckland with the sand and dusk of Whananaki still on our sneakers we saw McCahon's Northland panels for the first time and thought we knew it all.