One Minute Crying Time by Barbara Ewing

Author:Barbara Ewing
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Massey University Press
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

We all took a turn to ask some of these students to our homes — and sometimes the students cooked. They would arrive at our homes impeccably dressed in their best suits, but inside their neat satchels were aprons, and strange spices, and they got to work in our kitchens — and we had our very first taste of ‘foreign food’ and — cautiously at first — enjoyed it.

MONDAY 12 NOVEMBER 1956

Yippee!! ‘B’ pass in English I! Thank heavens I passed in one. If only I can pass Economics — I’m afraid it’s silly to kid myself about History. And the ‘lout’, the pool-player, got an ‘A’ pass in Greek! My friends laugh at me disapprovingly about my various ‘unsuitable’ friends — and he got a higher mark than any of us!

Then Win and I and Vanessa and Ruth all went back to work in the hotel in the Marlborough Sounds again where we were greeted fondly by the owner. And this time met a young Māori girl, Violet, who was related to Tia the Cook. She had dark eyes and curly black hair and a huge, huge smile. I think she was still fifteen when we first met her; she had left school and Tia got her the job at the hotel. Violet, I soon got to realise, was a very intelligent young girl who shouldn’t have been scrubbing pots and making beds for a living. But she first charmed me by having two radios on different stations in two rooms while she was cleaning them, so that she wouldn’t miss Elvis singing ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ or Little Richard singing ‘Tutti Frutti’ if the two songs came on together. Sometimes we all piled into Tia’s room after the pots were walloped in the evening to catch the Hit Parade on her radio. Often we went into the Guests’ Bar and drank a lot of alcohol and I flirted with the guests, as usual.

FRIDAY 16 NOVEMBER 1956

I’ve failed History. We just got a telegram: Win Pass, Barbara Fail. So I’ve been lying on my bed weeping my eyes out, even though I knew I’d failed. And Economics …?

SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER 1956

I rang home just to be sure Economics wasn’t out but Mum says I mustn’t ring, that it costs too much. True. But I’d rather ring home at a certain time than feel physically sick every single time the hotel telephone rings. I should prepare myself for the worst. But it was cheering tonight, sitting round the big kitchen table after work while Violet plays the guitar. She’s a character, and giggles a lot!

The dairies remind me how much Violet loved dancing — especially with a boy called Wally. Her cousin Hemi, a deckhand, a kind boy with a limp, seemed to look after everybody in Picton and Violet, and he would sometimes book an old wooden launch to come and get us all, including Tia the Cook; we’d speed through the pots and the dishes after dinner and jump on the arriving launch as night fell.

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