Dick Seddon's Great Dive and Other Stories by Ian Wedde

Author:Ian Wedde
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Victoria University Press
Published: 2022-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

‘I mean, what changes?’

It goes on, in the old familiar way. In a sense it’s beautiful.

Here she was today thinking and looking out her window, her world-section waving its gentle edges out there where the ragwort in the hill paddocks is waving its yellow banners for the end of summer . . . she’s changing, the procession is passing, she’s entering upon the rigours of another season . . . everything is waving to her. . . .

She was thinking about Kaikōura. She was dying for a long fuck in the sunshine. She was thinking that Ingrid’s okay and the baby’s lovely but Curtis is a drag—oh, he’s kind, he’s terrific, but he’s a pissoff!

‘Chink, you were never unctuous, thank god for that, nor was dear Beck.’

And she was thinking, ‘When I’ve finished this I’ll get a relief teaching job and save some money and go and see Janie in Canberra. She’s nearly six!’

‘If I could only see you again Chink. You poor old bastard.’

Then in came Curtis. When their eyes met she must’ve had fuck written all over her face. He’d brought her a cup of tea. There he stood with it. It dawned on her that he’d been dying to make it with her for weeks. He was obviously right there now. She stood up before he could put the tea on the table, went past him out the door.

‘Must go to the grot.’

She sat for some minutes, shaking.

Because that leap’s dumped her without her will and without her having thought of it, down, just less than three years after that trip through Kaikōura.

It was winter, the last of Chink’s life, and the worst. He’d been away for months. She was living in Dunedin. She had a barmaid’s job at the Gardens. She’d made up her mind that Chink had gone for good this time. No one had heard of him since he’d left. The job was lousy, it was cold. She was on the verge of pissing off north to the Bay of Islands.

Then Chink came back. This time he had a car and plenty of money. He’d changed. His face was pudgy, he’d turned into a real lush, and he had a collection of fancy gear: some O-tincture, some coke all got up in caps, likewise smack, prescription ritalin . . . and three cases of Ribena black currant concentrate. The car was a second-hand ’69 Jaguar. It had a cassette player in it.

She was behind the lounge bar thinking, ‘Fuck this, I’ll go tomorrow, I’ll fly.’ She bent down to take some glasses out of the rack. When she looked up Chink was sitting at the bar in front of her.

‘I’ll have a helicopter. . . .’ The old hardness of his eyes was dimmed by the plumpness surrounding them, the violet lush’s bags. Some humour had gone too.

She left that night. But after a day or two it wasn’t much use. Sometimes Chink didn’t even stay with her. He was getting around with a neat character called Stu, a photographer.

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