WEBVTT
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Kiara and welcome to Writers Write, Actors Read, with well-known actors reading short stories by Arte Roa and New Zealand writers to a live audience at the Button Factory in Auckland.
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I'm Bridget Van Der Zype, the series curator, and these events are recorded by Tim Byrne and supported by Creative New Zealand.
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In this episode, Michael Hurst reads Frank Sargison's An Affair of the Heart.
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Frank Sudgeson was born in Hamilton in 1903, and as a young man, he took up residence in his parents' holiday cottage in Takapuna to focus on his writing.
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His early love of the place is very evident in the story we're about to hear.
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He became an influential figure in New Zealand writing, known for his sparse style and kiwi vernacular, focusing mostly on isolated male characters.
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He published five short story collections as well as several novels and novellas, plays, and three memoirs.
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And his home also became a hub for nurturing other writers.
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He famously invited the reclusive Janet Frame to live for a while in his garden shed while she wrote her first novel, Owls to Cry.
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Very shy.
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She spoke later about having to avert her eyes as he gardened naked.
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In 1953, he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Coronation Medal, and the cottage that he lived in on Hurstmere Road until his death in 1982 is now a historic place which can be visited.
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Actor and director Michael Hurst has enjoyed a very successful career in theatre, film, and television for almost 50 years.
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He's known for his powerful stage performances, his innovative and compelling directing style, especially in Shakespeare and the Greeks, and internationally for his much-loved role as E.O.
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in the US television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
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He is a New Zealand arts laureate.
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In 2005, he was appointed as an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to theatre and film.
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And now here's Michael.
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Nice to be here.
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This story is called An Affair of the Heart by Frank Sargison.
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At Christmas time, our family always went to the beach.
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In those days, there weren't the roads along the Gulf that there are now, so father would get a carrier to take our luggage down to the launch steps.
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And as my brother and I would always ride on the cart, that was the real beginning of our holidays.
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It was a little bay a good distance out of the harbour that we'd go to.
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And of course, the launch trip would be even more exciting than the ride on the carrier's cart.
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We'd always scare Mother beforehand by telling her it was sure to be rough.
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Each year we rented the same batch and we'd stay right until our school holidays were up.
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All except father, who used to have only a few days' holiday at Christmas.
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He'd give my brother and me the lecture about behaving ourselves and not giving mother any trouble, and then we'd go back home.
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Of course, we'd spend nearly all of our time on the beach, and mother would have no more trouble with us than most of the mothers are quite used to having.
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It's all a long time ago.
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It's hard now to understand why the things that we occupied our time over should have given us so much happiness.
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But they did.
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As I'll tell you, I was back in that bay not long ago, and for all that I'm well on in years, I was innocent enough to think that to be there again would be to experience something of that same happiness.
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Of course, I didn't experience anything of the kind, and because I didn't, I had some reflections instead that gave me the very reverse of happiness.
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But this is, by the way, I haven't come here to philosophize.
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I've set out to tell you about a woman who lived on a batch not far beyond that bay of ours, and who, an old woman now, lives there to this day.
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As you can understand, we children spend all of our time down on our little beach, and when the tide was out, we'd go for walks around the rocks, and sometimes we'd get mother to go with us.
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My brother and I would be one on each side of her, holding her hands, dragging her this way and that.
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We'd show her the wonders we'd found, some place where there were sea eggs underneath a ledge or a pool where sea and enemies grew thick.
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It was one of these times when we had mother with us that we walked further around the rocks than we'd ever been before.
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We came to a place where there was a fair sized beach, and there, down near the low water mark, was the woman I've spoken about.
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She was digging for peppies, and her children were all around her scratching at the sand too.
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Every now and then they'd pick up handfuls of peppies and run over near their mother and drop the peppies into a flax kit.
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Well, we went over to look.
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We like peppies ourselves, but there weren't many in our own little beach.
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The woman hardly took any notice of us.
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And we could have laughed at the way she was dressed.
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She had on a man's old hat and coat, and the children were sketches too.
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There were four of them, three girls and a boy.
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And the boy, besides being the smallest and skinniest, he looked the worst of all because he so badly was in need of a haircut.
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The woman asked Mother if she'd like some pippies to take home.
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She said she sold pippies and mussels.
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They made good soup, she said.
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Well mother didn't buy any, but she said she would some other day.
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So the woman slung the kit on her shoulder, and off she went towards a tumbled down batch that stood a little way back from the beach.
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The children ran all around her, and the sight, it made you think of a hen that was out with her chickens.
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Of course, going back around the rocks, we talked about the woman and her children.
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I remember we poked a bit of fun at the way they were dressed, and we wondered why the woman wanted to sell us peppies and mussels when we could easily have got some for ourselves.
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Perhaps they're poor, mother said.
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Well that made us leave off poking fun.
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We didn't know what it was to be poor.
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Father only had his wages, and sometimes when we complained about not getting enough money to spend, he asked us what we thought would happen to us if he got the sack.
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We took it as a joke, but this time there was something in what Mother said that made us feel a little frightened.
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Well, later my brother and I made lots of excursions as far as the beach, and gradually we got to know the woman and her children and saw inside the batch.
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We'd go home in great excitement to tell Mother the things we'd found out.
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The woman was Mrs.
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Crawley.
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She lived there all the year round, and the children had miles to walk to school.
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They didn't have any father, and Mrs.
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Crawley collected pippies and mussels and sold them, and as there were lots of pine trees along the cliffs, she gathered pine cones into sugar bags and sold them too.
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Another way she had of getting money was to pick up the Cory gum that you found among the seaweed at high tide mark and sell that.
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But it was little enough, she got, all told.
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There was a road not very far back from the beach, and about once a week she'd collect there the things she had to sell, and a man who ran a cream lorry would give her a lift into town.
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And the money she got she'd spend on things like flour and sugar and clothes that she bought in second hand shops.
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Mostly, though, all there was to eat was the soup from the pippies and mussels and vegetables out of the garden.
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There was a sandy bit of garden close by the beach.
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It was ringed around with tea tree bush to keep out the wind, and Mrs.
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Crawley grew kumara, tomatoes, drum head cabbages, and runner beans.
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But most of the runner beans she'd just let go to seed and shell for the winter.
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Oh, it was all very interesting and romantic to me and my brother.
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We were always down in the dumps when our holidays were over.
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We'd have liked to camp at our beach all year round.
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So we thought the young crawlies, who were luckier than we were, I mean certainly they were poor, lived in a tumbled-down batch with sacking nailed to the walls to keep the wind out, and slept on heaps of fern sewn into sacking.
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But we couldn't see anything wrong with that.
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We'd have done it ourselves any day.
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But we could see that Mother was upset over the things we used to tell her.
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Such things shouldn't be, she'd say.
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She'd never come to visit the Crawleys, but she was always giving us something or other that we didn't need in our batch to take around to them.
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But Mrs.
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Crawley never liked taking the things that Mother sent.
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She'd rather be independent, she said.
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And she told us that there were busybodies in this world who'd do people harm if they could.
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One thing we noticed right from the start, it was that Mrs.
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Crawley's boy Joe was her favourite.
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One time Mother gave us a big piece of Christmas cake to take around, and the children didn't happen to be about when we got there, so Mrs.
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Crawley put the cake away in a tin.
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Later, my brother let the cat out of the bag.
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He asked one of the girls how she liked the cake.
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Well, she didn't know anything about it, but you could tell by the way Joe looked that he did.
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Mrs.
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Crawley, she spoilt him sure enough.
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She'd bring him back little things from town when she never brought anything back for the girls.
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He didn't have to do as much work as any of the girls either.
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And his mother was always saying, Oh come on, Joe, come and let me nurse ya.
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Made us feel a bit uncomfortable.
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In our family, we never showed our feelings much.
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Well, year after year we took the launch to our bay and we always looked forward to seeing the crawlies.
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The children shot up the same as we did.
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The food they had had kept them growing at any rate.
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And when Joe was a lanky boy of fifteen, his mother was spoiling him worse than ever.
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She'd let him off work more and more, even though she never left off working herself for a second.
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And she was looking old and worn out by that time.
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Her back was getting bent with so much digging and picking up pine cones, and her face looked old and tired too.
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Her teeth were gone, her mouth was sucked in.
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It made her chin stick out until you thought of the toe of a boot.
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But it was queer the way she never looked old when Joe was there.
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Her face seemed to go young again, and she never took her eyes off him.
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He was nothing much to look at, we thought, but although my brother and I never spoke about it, we both somehow understood how she felt about him.
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Every day she spent digging in her garden or digging up peppies, pulling up mussels from the reefs or picking up pine cones.
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And compared to our mother, she didn't seem to have much of a life.
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But it was all for Joe.
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And so long as she had Joe, what did it matter?
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She never told us that.
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But we knew all the same.
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I don't know how much my brother understood about it because, as I said, we never said anything to each other, but I felt a little bit frightened.
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It was perhaps the first time I understood what deep things there could be in life.
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It was easy to see how mad over Joe Mrs.
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Crawley was, and evidently when you went mad over a person like that, you didn't take much account of there being nothing much to look at.
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And perhaps I felt frightened because there was a feeling in me that going mad over a person in that way could turn out to be quite a terrible thing.
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Anyhow, the next thing was our family left off going to the bay.
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My brother and I were old enough to go away camping somewhere with our coppers, and father and mother were sick of the bother of going down to the bay.
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It certainly made us a bit sorry to think that we wouldn't be seeing the Crawlies that summer, but I don't think we lost much sleep over it.
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I remember we talked about sending them a letter, but it never got beyond talk.
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What I'm gonna tell you about happened last Christmas.
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It was twenty odd years since I've been in the bay, and I happened to be passing near.
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I may as well tell you that I've not been what people call a success in life.
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Unlike my brother, who's a successful businessman with a wife and a car and a few other things that successful men have.
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I've never been able to settle down.
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Perhaps the way I'd seen the Crawleys live had an upsetting influence on me.
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It always seemed a bit comic to me to see people stay in one place all their lives and work one job.
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I like meeting different people and tackling all sorts of jobs.
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And if I've saved up a few pounds, it's always come natural to me to throw up the job and travel around a bit.
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It gets you nowhere, as people say, and it's a sore point with my mother and father who've just about ceased to own me.
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But there are lots of compensations.
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Well, last Christmas day, I was headed up north after a job I'd heard was going on a fruit farm, and as I was short of money at the time, I was hoofing it.
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I got the idea that I'd turn off the road and have a look at the bay.
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I did.
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And I had a good look.
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But it was a mistake.
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As I've said, the kick that I got was the opposite to what I was expecting.
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And I came away in a hurry.
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It's my belief that only the very toughest sort of people should ever go back to places where they've been happy.
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And then I thought of the Crawlies.
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I couldn't believe it possible they'd be living on their beach till, but I felt like having a look.
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You can see why I've never been a success in life.
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I never learned from my mistakes, even when I've just made them.
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I found that the place on the road where Mrs.
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Crawley used to wait for a lift into town had been made into a bus terminus, and there was a little shelter, a shed and a store.
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All the way down to the beach, batches have been built, and lots of young people were about in shorts.
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And I really got the shock of my life when I saw the Crawley's batch still standing there.
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But there it was.
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And except for a fresh coat of Stockholm tar, it didn't look any different.
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Mrs.
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Crawley was in the garden.
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I hardly recognized her.
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She'd shriveled up to nothing, and she was fixed in such a bend that above the waist she walked parallel to the ground.
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Her mouth had been sucked right inside her head, so her chin stuck out like the toe of a boot more than ever.
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Naturally she didn't know me.
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I had to shout to make her hear, and her eyes were bad too.
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When I told her I was Freddie Coleman, and she'd remember who Freddie Coleman was, she ran her hands over my face as though to help her know whether or not I was telling the truth.
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Fancy you coming, she said.
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And after I'd admired the garden and asked her how many times she'd put up a fresh ring of tea tree bush, she asked me inside.
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The batch was much the same.
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The sacking was still nailed up over the places where the wind came in, but only two of the fern beds were left.
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One was Mrs.
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Crawley's and the other was Joe's.
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And both were made up.
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The table was set too, but covered over with tea towels.
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I didn't know what to say.
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It was all too much for me.
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Mrs.
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Crawley sat and watched me.
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Her hand stuck forward.
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I didn't know where to look.
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It's a good job you came early, she said.
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If you'd come late, you'd have given me a turn.
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Oh, I said.
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Yeah, she said.
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He always comes late, not till the last bus.
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Oh, I said.
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Oh, I suppose you mean Joe.
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Yes, Joe, she said.
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He never comes until the last bus.
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I asked her what had become of the girls, but she took no notice.
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She went on talking about Joe, and I couldn't follow her.
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So I got up to leave.
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She offered me a cup of tea, but I said no, thank you.
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I I wanted to get away.
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Oh, you've got Joe's Christmas dinner ready for him, I said, and I touched the table.
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Yes, she said.
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I've got him everything that he likes, and she took away the tea towels.
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It was some spread.
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Ham, fruit, cake, nuts, everything you can think of for Christmas.
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It was a shock after the old days.
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Joe was evidently making good money, and I felt a bit envious of him.
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Oh he'll enjoy that, I said.
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What line's he in, by the way?
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Oh he'll come, she said.
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I've got him everything that he likes.
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He'll come.
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It was hopeless.
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So I went.
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And then walking back to the road, I didn't really feel quite as bad.
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It all came back to me how fond of Joe Mrs.
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Crawley had been.
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She hadn't lost him at any rate.
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I thought of the batch all tidied up and the Christmas spread, and it put me in quite a glow.
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I hadn't made a success of my life and the world was in a mess, but there was something you could admire and feel thankful for.
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Mrs.
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Crawley still had her Joe.
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And I couldn't help wondering what sort of fellow Joe Crawley had turned out.
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Well, when I was back on the road again, a bus hadn't long come in.
00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:32.240
The driver was eating a sandwich, so I went up to him.
00:17:32.400 --> 00:17:33.200
Good day, I said.
00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:36.319
Can you tell me what sort of fellow Joe Crawley is?
00:17:36.640 --> 00:17:38.480
Joe Crawley, he said.
00:17:38.799 --> 00:17:40.160
Never heard of him.
00:17:40.400 --> 00:17:41.599
Oh, I said.
00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:43.920
Um you been driving here long?
00:17:44.240 --> 00:17:47.839
He told me about five years, so I jerked my thumb over towards the beach.
00:17:48.079 --> 00:17:48.960
Do you know Mrs.
00:17:49.039 --> 00:17:49.599
Crawley?
00:17:49.839 --> 00:17:50.559
I asked him.
00:17:51.200 --> 00:17:52.000
Do I what?
00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:52.799
he said.
00:17:53.039 --> 00:17:57.119
She sat in that shed waiting for the last bus every night that I can remember.
00:17:57.680 --> 00:17:59.839
He told me all he knew.
00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:04.799
Long ago, people said, Joe came several times a year.
00:18:04.960 --> 00:18:07.039
And then he'd come just at Christmas.
00:18:07.279 --> 00:18:13.519
And when he did come, he'd be always on the last bus, and then he'd be off again first thing in the morning.
00:18:13.839 --> 00:18:16.160
But for years now he hadn't come at all.
00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:18.559
No one knew for sure what he used to do.
00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:20.960
There were yarns about him being a bookmaker.
00:18:21.200 --> 00:18:25.680
Some said he'd gone to jail, others that he'd cleared off to America.
00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:31.519
As for the girls, they'd married and got scattered, though one was supposed to write now and then.
00:18:31.920 --> 00:18:35.599
Anyhow, wet or fine, summer or winter, Mrs.
00:18:35.759 --> 00:18:42.720
Crawley never missed a night sitting in that shelter shed, waiting to see if Joe would turn up on the last bus.
00:18:43.839 --> 00:18:48.319
She still collected pine cones to sell and would drag the bag for miles.
00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:53.839
And several times, pulling up mussels out on the reefs, she'd been knocked over by the sea and nearly drowned.
00:18:54.640 --> 00:18:56.480
And of course she got the pension.
00:18:56.799 --> 00:19:02.319
But people said she saved every penny of it and lived on the smell of an oily rag.
00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:09.440
And whenever she did buy anything, she always explained that she was buying it for Joe.
00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:14.079
Well, I heard him out, then I took to the road.
00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:16.799
I felt small.
00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:27.920
All the affairs of the heart that I'd had in my life and all that I had seen in other people seemed petty and mean compared to this one of Mrs.
00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:28.799
Crawley's.
00:19:29.599 --> 00:19:35.359
I looked at the smart young people about in their shorts with a sort of contempt.
00:19:36.799 --> 00:19:37.599
I thought of Mrs.
00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:49.200
Crawley waiting down there in the batch with her wonderful Christmas spread, the batch swept out and tidied, and Joe's bed with the clean sheets on all made up, ready and waiting.
00:19:51.039 --> 00:20:04.640
And I thought of her all those years digging in the garden, digging for pippies, pulling up muscles and picking up cones, bending her body until it can't be straightened out again, until she looked like a a new sort of human being.
00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:06.720
All for Joe.
00:20:07.759 --> 00:20:08.480
For Joe.
00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:11.279
Who'd never been anything much to look at.
00:20:12.079 --> 00:20:21.200
And who, if he was alive now, had stayed away while his mother sat night after night waiting for him in a bus shelter shed.
00:20:23.039 --> 00:20:26.000
But mind you, I didn't feel like blaming Joe.
00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:28.799
I knew how he'd been spoiled.
00:20:29.440 --> 00:20:33.359
And I remembered how as a boy, I'd sort of understood the way Mrs.
00:20:33.440 --> 00:20:34.880
Crawley felt towards him.
00:20:35.680 --> 00:20:39.599
And how it might turn out to be quite a terrible thing.
00:20:40.880 --> 00:20:42.799
And sure enough, it had.
00:20:44.640 --> 00:21:00.880
But I never understood until last Christmas day, when I was walking northwards to do a job on a fruit farm, how anything in the world that was such a terrible thing could at the same time be so beautiful.
00:00:00.239 --> 00:00:10.480
Kiara and welcome to Writers Write, Actors Read, with well-known actors reading short stories by Arte Roa and New Zealand writers to a live audience at the Button Factory in Auckland.
00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:17.519
I'm Bridget Van Der Zype, the series curator, and these events are recorded by Tim Byrne and supported by Creative New Zealand.
00:00:17.679 --> 00:00:21.839
In this episode, Michael Hurst reads Frank Sargison's An Affair of the Heart.
00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:30.640
Frank Sudgeson was born in Hamilton in 1903, and as a young man, he took up residence in his parents' holiday cottage in Takapuna to focus on his writing.
00:00:30.800 --> 00:00:34.479
His early love of the place is very evident in the story we're about to hear.
00:00:34.719 --> 00:00:43.039
He became an influential figure in New Zealand writing, known for his sparse style and kiwi vernacular, focusing mostly on isolated male characters.
00:00:43.200 --> 00:00:48.640
He published five short story collections as well as several novels and novellas, plays, and three memoirs.
00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:51.679
And his home also became a hub for nurturing other writers.
00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:58.240
He famously invited the reclusive Janet Frame to live for a while in his garden shed while she wrote her first novel, Owls to Cry.
00:00:58.560 --> 00:00:59.280
Very shy.
00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:03.439
She spoke later about having to avert her eyes as he gardened naked.
00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:14.719
In 1953, he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Coronation Medal, and the cottage that he lived in on Hurstmere Road until his death in 1982 is now a historic place which can be visited.
00:01:15.040 --> 00:01:20.879
Actor and director Michael Hurst has enjoyed a very successful career in theatre, film, and television for almost 50 years.
00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:30.640
He's known for his powerful stage performances, his innovative and compelling directing style, especially in Shakespeare and the Greeks, and internationally for his much-loved role as E.O.
00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:34.640
in the US television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
00:01:34.879 --> 00:01:36.560
He is a New Zealand arts laureate.
00:01:36.799 --> 00:01:42.239
In 2005, he was appointed as an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to theatre and film.
00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:44.079
And now here's Michael.
00:01:50.640 --> 00:01:51.920
Nice to be here.
00:01:52.239 --> 00:01:57.840
This story is called An Affair of the Heart by Frank Sargison.
00:01:58.799 --> 00:02:03.040
At Christmas time, our family always went to the beach.
00:02:03.280 --> 00:02:11.120
In those days, there weren't the roads along the Gulf that there are now, so father would get a carrier to take our luggage down to the launch steps.
00:02:11.280 --> 00:02:17.199
And as my brother and I would always ride on the cart, that was the real beginning of our holidays.
00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:21.520
It was a little bay a good distance out of the harbour that we'd go to.
00:02:21.599 --> 00:02:26.400
And of course, the launch trip would be even more exciting than the ride on the carrier's cart.
00:02:26.639 --> 00:02:31.520
We'd always scare Mother beforehand by telling her it was sure to be rough.
00:02:32.479 --> 00:02:38.319
Each year we rented the same batch and we'd stay right until our school holidays were up.
00:02:38.479 --> 00:02:42.400
All except father, who used to have only a few days' holiday at Christmas.
00:02:42.639 --> 00:02:49.520
He'd give my brother and me the lecture about behaving ourselves and not giving mother any trouble, and then we'd go back home.
00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:57.039
Of course, we'd spend nearly all of our time on the beach, and mother would have no more trouble with us than most of the mothers are quite used to having.
00:02:57.199 --> 00:02:59.039
It's all a long time ago.
00:02:59.199 --> 00:03:05.840
It's hard now to understand why the things that we occupied our time over should have given us so much happiness.
00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:07.039
But they did.
00:03:07.759 --> 00:03:20.800
As I'll tell you, I was back in that bay not long ago, and for all that I'm well on in years, I was innocent enough to think that to be there again would be to experience something of that same happiness.
00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:30.560
Of course, I didn't experience anything of the kind, and because I didn't, I had some reflections instead that gave me the very reverse of happiness.
00:03:30.800 --> 00:03:34.639
But this is, by the way, I haven't come here to philosophize.
00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:45.680
I've set out to tell you about a woman who lived on a batch not far beyond that bay of ours, and who, an old woman now, lives there to this day.
00:03:46.240 --> 00:03:56.960
As you can understand, we children spend all of our time down on our little beach, and when the tide was out, we'd go for walks around the rocks, and sometimes we'd get mother to go with us.
00:03:57.199 --> 00:04:02.639
My brother and I would be one on each side of her, holding her hands, dragging her this way and that.
00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:11.599
We'd show her the wonders we'd found, some place where there were sea eggs underneath a ledge or a pool where sea and enemies grew thick.
00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:19.199
It was one of these times when we had mother with us that we walked further around the rocks than we'd ever been before.
00:04:19.439 --> 00:04:27.680
We came to a place where there was a fair sized beach, and there, down near the low water mark, was the woman I've spoken about.
00:04:27.920 --> 00:04:33.360
She was digging for peppies, and her children were all around her scratching at the sand too.
00:04:33.759 --> 00:04:40.319
Every now and then they'd pick up handfuls of peppies and run over near their mother and drop the peppies into a flax kit.
00:04:40.720 --> 00:04:42.560
Well, we went over to look.
00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:46.639
We like peppies ourselves, but there weren't many in our own little beach.
00:04:47.279 --> 00:04:49.680
The woman hardly took any notice of us.
00:04:49.839 --> 00:04:52.160
And we could have laughed at the way she was dressed.
00:04:52.399 --> 00:04:57.360
She had on a man's old hat and coat, and the children were sketches too.
00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:00.720
There were four of them, three girls and a boy.
00:05:00.879 --> 00:05:08.720
And the boy, besides being the smallest and skinniest, he looked the worst of all because he so badly was in need of a haircut.
00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:13.360
The woman asked Mother if she'd like some pippies to take home.
00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:15.839
She said she sold pippies and mussels.
00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:18.079
They made good soup, she said.
00:05:18.319 --> 00:05:21.439
Well mother didn't buy any, but she said she would some other day.
00:05:21.600 --> 00:05:28.240
So the woman slung the kit on her shoulder, and off she went towards a tumbled down batch that stood a little way back from the beach.
00:05:28.800 --> 00:05:35.439
The children ran all around her, and the sight, it made you think of a hen that was out with her chickens.
00:05:35.839 --> 00:05:40.319
Of course, going back around the rocks, we talked about the woman and her children.
00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:51.199
I remember we poked a bit of fun at the way they were dressed, and we wondered why the woman wanted to sell us peppies and mussels when we could easily have got some for ourselves.
00:05:51.759 --> 00:05:54.639
Perhaps they're poor, mother said.
00:05:55.120 --> 00:05:57.439
Well that made us leave off poking fun.
00:05:57.839 --> 00:06:00.079
We didn't know what it was to be poor.
00:06:00.399 --> 00:06:10.160
Father only had his wages, and sometimes when we complained about not getting enough money to spend, he asked us what we thought would happen to us if he got the sack.
00:06:10.800 --> 00:06:18.560
We took it as a joke, but this time there was something in what Mother said that made us feel a little frightened.
00:06:19.040 --> 00:06:29.439
Well, later my brother and I made lots of excursions as far as the beach, and gradually we got to know the woman and her children and saw inside the batch.
00:06:29.759 --> 00:06:33.519
We'd go home in great excitement to tell Mother the things we'd found out.
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The woman was Mrs.
00:06:35.600 --> 00:06:36.319
Crawley.
00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:41.279
She lived there all the year round, and the children had miles to walk to school.
00:06:41.680 --> 00:06:43.759
They didn't have any father, and Mrs.
00:06:43.839 --> 00:06:52.959
Crawley collected pippies and mussels and sold them, and as there were lots of pine trees along the cliffs, she gathered pine cones into sugar bags and sold them too.
00:06:53.279 --> 00:06:59.600
Another way she had of getting money was to pick up the Cory gum that you found among the seaweed at high tide mark and sell that.
00:07:00.399 --> 00:07:04.160
But it was little enough, she got, all told.
00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:14.480
There was a road not very far back from the beach, and about once a week she'd collect there the things she had to sell, and a man who ran a cream lorry would give her a lift into town.
00:07:14.879 --> 00:07:23.199
And the money she got she'd spend on things like flour and sugar and clothes that she bought in second hand shops.
00:07:23.519 --> 00:07:30.319
Mostly, though, all there was to eat was the soup from the pippies and mussels and vegetables out of the garden.
00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:33.360
There was a sandy bit of garden close by the beach.
00:07:33.519 --> 00:07:37.040
It was ringed around with tea tree bush to keep out the wind, and Mrs.
00:07:37.199 --> 00:07:41.920
Crawley grew kumara, tomatoes, drum head cabbages, and runner beans.
00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:46.959
But most of the runner beans she'd just let go to seed and shell for the winter.
00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:51.920
Oh, it was all very interesting and romantic to me and my brother.
00:07:52.160 --> 00:07:54.639
We were always down in the dumps when our holidays were over.
00:07:54.800 --> 00:07:57.279
We'd have liked to camp at our beach all year round.
00:07:57.439 --> 00:08:10.000
So we thought the young crawlies, who were luckier than we were, I mean certainly they were poor, lived in a tumbled-down batch with sacking nailed to the walls to keep the wind out, and slept on heaps of fern sewn into sacking.
00:08:10.160 --> 00:08:12.240
But we couldn't see anything wrong with that.
00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:14.480
We'd have done it ourselves any day.
00:08:14.720 --> 00:08:18.800
But we could see that Mother was upset over the things we used to tell her.
00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:21.360
Such things shouldn't be, she'd say.
00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:28.480
She'd never come to visit the Crawleys, but she was always giving us something or other that we didn't need in our batch to take around to them.
00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:29.439
But Mrs.
00:08:29.600 --> 00:08:32.799
Crawley never liked taking the things that Mother sent.
00:08:33.039 --> 00:08:35.279
She'd rather be independent, she said.
00:08:35.679 --> 00:08:41.279
And she told us that there were busybodies in this world who'd do people harm if they could.
00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:46.799
One thing we noticed right from the start, it was that Mrs.
00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:49.759
Crawley's boy Joe was her favourite.
00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:56.799
One time Mother gave us a big piece of Christmas cake to take around, and the children didn't happen to be about when we got there, so Mrs.
00:08:56.879 --> 00:08:59.360
Crawley put the cake away in a tin.
00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:03.120
Later, my brother let the cat out of the bag.
00:09:03.360 --> 00:09:06.000
He asked one of the girls how she liked the cake.
00:09:06.320 --> 00:09:12.320
Well, she didn't know anything about it, but you could tell by the way Joe looked that he did.
00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:13.600
Mrs.
00:09:13.759 --> 00:09:16.320
Crawley, she spoilt him sure enough.
00:09:16.559 --> 00:09:20.960
She'd bring him back little things from town when she never brought anything back for the girls.
00:09:21.279 --> 00:09:24.240
He didn't have to do as much work as any of the girls either.
00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:29.279
And his mother was always saying, Oh come on, Joe, come and let me nurse ya.
00:09:29.919 --> 00:09:31.679
Made us feel a bit uncomfortable.
00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:35.279
In our family, we never showed our feelings much.
00:09:36.240 --> 00:09:42.159
Well, year after year we took the launch to our bay and we always looked forward to seeing the crawlies.
00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:44.639
The children shot up the same as we did.
00:09:44.879 --> 00:09:47.279
The food they had had kept them growing at any rate.
00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:53.200
And when Joe was a lanky boy of fifteen, his mother was spoiling him worse than ever.
00:09:53.519 --> 00:09:58.240
She'd let him off work more and more, even though she never left off working herself for a second.
00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:01.519
And she was looking old and worn out by that time.
00:10:01.759 --> 00:10:09.360
Her back was getting bent with so much digging and picking up pine cones, and her face looked old and tired too.
00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:13.039
Her teeth were gone, her mouth was sucked in.
00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:16.720
It made her chin stick out until you thought of the toe of a boot.
00:10:17.360 --> 00:10:20.639
But it was queer the way she never looked old when Joe was there.
00:10:20.879 --> 00:10:25.600
Her face seemed to go young again, and she never took her eyes off him.
00:10:26.080 --> 00:10:34.240
He was nothing much to look at, we thought, but although my brother and I never spoke about it, we both somehow understood how she felt about him.
00:10:35.039 --> 00:10:42.080
Every day she spent digging in her garden or digging up peppies, pulling up mussels from the reefs or picking up pine cones.
00:10:42.240 --> 00:10:45.679
And compared to our mother, she didn't seem to have much of a life.
00:10:47.039 --> 00:10:48.559
But it was all for Joe.
00:10:49.200 --> 00:10:52.240
And so long as she had Joe, what did it matter?
00:10:53.039 --> 00:10:54.320
She never told us that.
00:10:54.559 --> 00:10:56.639
But we knew all the same.
00:10:56.960 --> 00:11:05.919
I don't know how much my brother understood about it because, as I said, we never said anything to each other, but I felt a little bit frightened.
00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:12.320
It was perhaps the first time I understood what deep things there could be in life.
00:11:12.639 --> 00:11:14.960
It was easy to see how mad over Joe Mrs.
00:11:15.039 --> 00:11:22.080
Crawley was, and evidently when you went mad over a person like that, you didn't take much account of there being nothing much to look at.
00:11:22.639 --> 00:11:33.279
And perhaps I felt frightened because there was a feeling in me that going mad over a person in that way could turn out to be quite a terrible thing.
00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:38.320
Anyhow, the next thing was our family left off going to the bay.
00:11:38.559 --> 00:11:45.840
My brother and I were old enough to go away camping somewhere with our coppers, and father and mother were sick of the bother of going down to the bay.
00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:52.639
It certainly made us a bit sorry to think that we wouldn't be seeing the Crawlies that summer, but I don't think we lost much sleep over it.
00:11:53.120 --> 00:11:58.480
I remember we talked about sending them a letter, but it never got beyond talk.
00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:03.759
What I'm gonna tell you about happened last Christmas.
00:12:04.240 --> 00:12:09.360
It was twenty odd years since I've been in the bay, and I happened to be passing near.
00:12:09.679 --> 00:12:14.960
I may as well tell you that I've not been what people call a success in life.
00:12:15.279 --> 00:12:22.320
Unlike my brother, who's a successful businessman with a wife and a car and a few other things that successful men have.
00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:24.799
I've never been able to settle down.
00:12:25.039 --> 00:12:29.360
Perhaps the way I'd seen the Crawleys live had an upsetting influence on me.
00:12:29.679 --> 00:12:36.000
It always seemed a bit comic to me to see people stay in one place all their lives and work one job.
00:12:36.240 --> 00:12:39.759
I like meeting different people and tackling all sorts of jobs.
00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:45.600
And if I've saved up a few pounds, it's always come natural to me to throw up the job and travel around a bit.
00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:52.559
It gets you nowhere, as people say, and it's a sore point with my mother and father who've just about ceased to own me.
00:12:53.120 --> 00:12:55.039
But there are lots of compensations.
00:12:56.080 --> 00:13:06.480
Well, last Christmas day, I was headed up north after a job I'd heard was going on a fruit farm, and as I was short of money at the time, I was hoofing it.
00:13:06.720 --> 00:13:11.600
I got the idea that I'd turn off the road and have a look at the bay.
00:13:12.240 --> 00:13:12.879
I did.
00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:14.720
And I had a good look.
00:13:15.679 --> 00:13:17.279
But it was a mistake.
00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:22.320
As I've said, the kick that I got was the opposite to what I was expecting.
00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:24.240
And I came away in a hurry.
00:13:24.559 --> 00:13:31.360
It's my belief that only the very toughest sort of people should ever go back to places where they've been happy.
00:13:32.480 --> 00:13:34.559
And then I thought of the Crawlies.
00:13:34.799 --> 00:13:40.480
I couldn't believe it possible they'd be living on their beach till, but I felt like having a look.
00:13:41.679 --> 00:13:44.080
You can see why I've never been a success in life.
00:13:44.240 --> 00:13:47.360
I never learned from my mistakes, even when I've just made them.
00:13:48.559 --> 00:13:50.799
I found that the place on the road where Mrs.
00:13:50.879 --> 00:13:58.399
Crawley used to wait for a lift into town had been made into a bus terminus, and there was a little shelter, a shed and a store.
00:13:59.360 --> 00:14:04.799
All the way down to the beach, batches have been built, and lots of young people were about in shorts.
00:14:05.039 --> 00:14:09.919
And I really got the shock of my life when I saw the Crawley's batch still standing there.
00:14:10.879 --> 00:14:12.080
But there it was.
00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:16.159
And except for a fresh coat of Stockholm tar, it didn't look any different.
00:14:16.799 --> 00:14:17.120
Mrs.
00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:18.879
Crawley was in the garden.
00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:20.960
I hardly recognized her.
00:14:21.360 --> 00:14:29.600
She'd shriveled up to nothing, and she was fixed in such a bend that above the waist she walked parallel to the ground.
00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:36.159
Her mouth had been sucked right inside her head, so her chin stuck out like the toe of a boot more than ever.
00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:39.279
Naturally she didn't know me.
00:14:39.519 --> 00:14:43.360
I had to shout to make her hear, and her eyes were bad too.
00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:53.440
When I told her I was Freddie Coleman, and she'd remember who Freddie Coleman was, she ran her hands over my face as though to help her know whether or not I was telling the truth.
00:14:54.639 --> 00:14:56.879
Fancy you coming, she said.
00:14:57.120 --> 00:15:03.840
And after I'd admired the garden and asked her how many times she'd put up a fresh ring of tea tree bush, she asked me inside.
00:15:05.519 --> 00:15:07.919
The batch was much the same.
00:15:08.240 --> 00:15:14.799
The sacking was still nailed up over the places where the wind came in, but only two of the fern beds were left.
00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:15.759
One was Mrs.
00:15:15.840 --> 00:15:19.919
Crawley's and the other was Joe's.
00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:21.679
And both were made up.
00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:25.279
The table was set too, but covered over with tea towels.
00:15:26.480 --> 00:15:27.679
I didn't know what to say.
00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:29.360
It was all too much for me.
00:15:29.759 --> 00:15:30.080
Mrs.
00:15:30.240 --> 00:15:32.159
Crawley sat and watched me.
00:15:32.320 --> 00:15:33.759
Her hand stuck forward.
00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:35.840
I didn't know where to look.
00:15:36.240 --> 00:15:38.399
It's a good job you came early, she said.
00:15:38.799 --> 00:15:41.360
If you'd come late, you'd have given me a turn.
00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:43.200
Oh, I said.
00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:44.480
Yeah, she said.
00:15:44.799 --> 00:15:47.679
He always comes late, not till the last bus.
00:15:48.399 --> 00:15:49.679
Oh, I said.
00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:52.240
Oh, I suppose you mean Joe.
00:15:52.399 --> 00:15:53.840
Yes, Joe, she said.
00:15:54.159 --> 00:15:56.399
He never comes until the last bus.
00:15:57.120 --> 00:16:00.240
I asked her what had become of the girls, but she took no notice.
00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:03.679
She went on talking about Joe, and I couldn't follow her.
00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:05.440
So I got up to leave.
00:16:05.679 --> 00:16:08.240
She offered me a cup of tea, but I said no, thank you.
00:16:08.320 --> 00:16:09.919
I I wanted to get away.
00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:16.480
Oh, you've got Joe's Christmas dinner ready for him, I said, and I touched the table.
00:16:16.639 --> 00:16:17.600
Yes, she said.
00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:22.240
I've got him everything that he likes, and she took away the tea towels.
00:16:23.279 --> 00:16:24.559
It was some spread.
00:16:24.960 --> 00:16:30.159
Ham, fruit, cake, nuts, everything you can think of for Christmas.
00:16:30.720 --> 00:16:32.399
It was a shock after the old days.
00:16:32.639 --> 00:16:36.879
Joe was evidently making good money, and I felt a bit envious of him.
00:16:37.120 --> 00:16:38.960
Oh he'll enjoy that, I said.
00:16:39.600 --> 00:16:41.279
What line's he in, by the way?
00:16:41.519 --> 00:16:43.039
Oh he'll come, she said.
00:16:43.279 --> 00:16:44.879
I've got him everything that he likes.
00:16:45.039 --> 00:16:46.000
He'll come.
00:16:47.039 --> 00:16:48.399
It was hopeless.
00:16:48.720 --> 00:16:49.919
So I went.
00:16:50.720 --> 00:16:55.759
And then walking back to the road, I didn't really feel quite as bad.
00:16:56.000 --> 00:16:58.799
It all came back to me how fond of Joe Mrs.
00:16:58.879 --> 00:17:00.240
Crawley had been.
00:17:00.799 --> 00:17:03.039
She hadn't lost him at any rate.
00:17:03.279 --> 00:17:09.680
I thought of the batch all tidied up and the Christmas spread, and it put me in quite a glow.
00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:16.319
I hadn't made a success of my life and the world was in a mess, but there was something you could admire and feel thankful for.
00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:16.960
Mrs.
00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:19.519
Crawley still had her Joe.
00:17:19.759 --> 00:17:23.839
And I couldn't help wondering what sort of fellow Joe Crawley had turned out.
00:17:25.920 --> 00:17:29.920
Well, when I was back on the road again, a bus hadn't long come in.
00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:32.240
The driver was eating a sandwich, so I went up to him.
00:17:32.400 --> 00:17:33.200
Good day, I said.
00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:36.319
Can you tell me what sort of fellow Joe Crawley is?
00:17:36.640 --> 00:17:38.480
Joe Crawley, he said.
00:17:38.799 --> 00:17:40.160
Never heard of him.
00:17:40.400 --> 00:17:41.599
Oh, I said.
00:17:41.839 --> 00:17:43.920
Um you been driving here long?
00:17:44.240 --> 00:17:47.839
He told me about five years, so I jerked my thumb over towards the beach.
00:17:48.079 --> 00:17:48.960
Do you know Mrs.
00:17:49.039 --> 00:17:49.599
Crawley?
00:17:49.839 --> 00:17:50.559
I asked him.
00:17:51.200 --> 00:17:52.000
Do I what?
00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:52.799
he said.
00:17:53.039 --> 00:17:57.119
She sat in that shed waiting for the last bus every night that I can remember.
00:17:57.680 --> 00:17:59.839
He told me all he knew.
00:18:00.160 --> 00:18:04.799
Long ago, people said, Joe came several times a year.
00:18:04.960 --> 00:18:07.039
And then he'd come just at Christmas.
00:18:07.279 --> 00:18:13.519
And when he did come, he'd be always on the last bus, and then he'd be off again first thing in the morning.
00:18:13.839 --> 00:18:16.160
But for years now he hadn't come at all.
00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:18.559
No one knew for sure what he used to do.
00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:20.960
There were yarns about him being a bookmaker.
00:18:21.200 --> 00:18:25.680
Some said he'd gone to jail, others that he'd cleared off to America.
00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:31.519
As for the girls, they'd married and got scattered, though one was supposed to write now and then.
00:18:31.920 --> 00:18:35.599
Anyhow, wet or fine, summer or winter, Mrs.
00:18:35.759 --> 00:18:42.720
Crawley never missed a night sitting in that shelter shed, waiting to see if Joe would turn up on the last bus.
00:18:43.839 --> 00:18:48.319
She still collected pine cones to sell and would drag the bag for miles.
00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:53.839
And several times, pulling up mussels out on the reefs, she'd been knocked over by the sea and nearly drowned.
00:18:54.640 --> 00:18:56.480
And of course she got the pension.
00:18:56.799 --> 00:19:02.319
But people said she saved every penny of it and lived on the smell of an oily rag.
00:19:03.680 --> 00:19:09.440
And whenever she did buy anything, she always explained that she was buying it for Joe.
00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:14.079
Well, I heard him out, then I took to the road.
00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:16.799
I felt small.
00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:27.920
All the affairs of the heart that I'd had in my life and all that I had seen in other people seemed petty and mean compared to this one of Mrs.
00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:28.799
Crawley's.
00:19:29.599 --> 00:19:35.359
I looked at the smart young people about in their shorts with a sort of contempt.
00:19:36.799 --> 00:19:37.599
I thought of Mrs.
00:19:37.680 --> 00:19:49.200
Crawley waiting down there in the batch with her wonderful Christmas spread, the batch swept out and tidied, and Joe's bed with the clean sheets on all made up, ready and waiting.
00:19:51.039 --> 00:20:04.640
And I thought of her all those years digging in the garden, digging for pippies, pulling up muscles and picking up cones, bending her body until it can't be straightened out again, until she looked like a a new sort of human being.
00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:06.720
All for Joe.
00:20:07.759 --> 00:20:08.480
For Joe.
00:20:09.200 --> 00:20:11.279
Who'd never been anything much to look at.
00:20:12.079 --> 00:20:21.200
And who, if he was alive now, had stayed away while his mother sat night after night waiting for him in a bus shelter shed.
00:20:23.039 --> 00:20:26.000
But mind you, I didn't feel like blaming Joe.
00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:28.799
I knew how he'd been spoiled.
00:20:29.440 --> 00:20:33.359
And I remembered how as a boy, I'd sort of understood the way Mrs.
00:20:33.440 --> 00:20:34.880
Crawley felt towards him.
00:20:35.680 --> 00:20:39.599
And how it might turn out to be quite a terrible thing.
00:20:40.880 --> 00:20:42.799
And sure enough, it had.
00:20:44.640 --> 00:21:00.880
But I never understood until last Christmas day, when I was walking northwards to do a job on a fruit farm, how anything in the world that was such a terrible thing could at the same time be so beautiful.
