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Sport 26: Autumn 2001
Part 2
Part 2
I had a theory about loss: that other people's loss must be as difficult as one's own—because loss was intrinsically sad, and not sad as a function of self-interest. I was trying to reach the house, peeling amongst hills and headlands, where my grandfather had lived for most of his life.
I was picked up by a woman driving an old white station wagon. It was late—I had been standing for several hours, and there was not much light left for hitching. I told her I was going north, as far as possible. Her hands were small and weathered on the steering wheel, with dirt under the nails. Under the view of pine forest and farmland the dashboard was a faded, cracked brown. Shells and stones lay about against the windscreen and on the floor. Her name was Jos. She looked at me, holding out a hand for me to shake.
I said, ‘P.’
She said, ‘Nice to meet you, P.’
I said, ‘Thanks for picking me up.’
She said, ‘Maybe you'll have the opportunity to return the favour.’
She was still looking at me, and smiling. The car was travelling fast—she handled the curves between hills and bridges easily, without watching the road.
She said, ‘I love the country around here.’
I asked her if she was a local.
‘I spend my time driving up and down this coast. It is an exciting, sad place, full of change. I have a house a few hours north of here. And, I live just out of Dunedin, with some friends. I keep going from one to the other.’
page 139I said, ‘You're going to your house, now?’
She said, ‘Yes. No. It burnt down recently. Apparently. I've got to go and see what's left.’ When I said that I was sorry to hear it, she said, ‘Don't be! Things like this happen. It's part of life's journey. It'll be for the best.’
I said, ‘How?’
She said, ‘I'm not sure yet.’ She looked down at the views, across farmland and patches of gorse. Shadows were lengthening towards the sea. She said, ‘Where are you staying tonight, P?’
I said, ‘I haven't arranged anything.’
She smiled. She said, ‘You've got to pay careful attention, amongst these hills and streams, and beaches. You can go away, and come back again, and things won't be quite where they were.’
I hadn't been to see my grandfather for several years. I wondered what would have changed when I arrived, the next day or the day after that.
Layered clouds to the east reminded me of eyes and fingers seen through Venetian blinds. When the sea was visible past Jos's profile, white lines of surf formed and connected briefly, then merged suddenly into darkening sand. I relaxed into periods of silence, in between which I told Jos about my grandfather, who had lived alone in the house since the death of his wife. ‘I thought, today, that I might make it all the way to the house.’
The sun, setting behind glowing high cloud and the silhouettes of mountain ranges, was like a theatre backdrop. Then, later, it was fully dark: Jos had one working headlight.
She said, ‘I would offer you a night at my place, but…’
I said, ‘Where are you going to stay tonight?’
Jos said, ‘I don't believe in coincidence. Do you?’
I said, ‘I don't know.’
She said, ‘I think everything has a meaning.’
I said, ‘I have a tent with me. I borrowed it from my girlfriend. It will sleep two people.’
Jos said, ‘Is that an invitation?’
I said, ‘You can sleep in the tent if you want to.’
Jos looked at me and said, ‘That's very nice of you.’ She looked page 140 back at the road. ‘We could put the tent up on my front lawn. At least that's still there.’
We turned off the main road, winding our way inland on smaller sealed and unsealed roads. Soon Jos stopped the car in a driveway. There was another driveway nearby, and a house with lit windows. This was in the flat valley floor between dark concealed hills. Pasture stretched away along fencelines on either side of the road. She got out of the car.
She said, ‘Come in.’
I said, ‘In? Hasn't your house burnt down?’
She said, ‘There are friendly neighbours. The MacIntyres.’
I opened the door and stretched upwards beside her. It was difficult to see her expression in this light.
The MacIntyres were a couple in their late middle age, with hands and faces reddened from farm work. They eyed me with suspicion.
Mr MacIntyre said, ‘Friend of yours.’
It was unclear whether it was a question, a statement, an attempt at ostensive definition. He pointed at me.
Jos said, ‘This is P, a good friend of mine.’
Mrs MacIntyre said, ‘I see.’
I smiled at her. She was a short, thin woman with greying hair. She smiled back, knowingly. We went through to a large kitchen area, where we sat down at a marbled formica table. There were furnishings and utensils lined up neatly, or hanging from hooks above the kitchen bench.
Mrs MacIntyre said, ‘Terrible shame about the house, Jos…’
Mr MacIntyre said, ‘What are you going to do?’
Jos shrugged. She seemed filled with a lightness, which buoyed her limbs into large gestures, and in which the fire was a small event.
Mrs MacIntyre said, ‘Well, we've made up a spare bed for you.’ She glanced at me.
Jos avoided my eyes and said, ‘P has a tent, and he's said that I can stay in that with him.’
I took a squinting interest in the fruit bowl and embroidered napkins lying on the table. There were lace curtains covering the lower half of the windows—above them only darkness was visible.
page 141Mr MacIntyre said, ‘We were in town when it happened, Jocelyn. I'm sorry, there was no one here to raise the alarm.’
Mrs MacIntyre said, ‘I can get you a sandwich or something. Tea or coffee?’
She brought bread and various fillings to the table. On the wall opposite Mr MacIntyre, and behind Jos, there was a calendar with photos of rural New Zealand. There were awkward pauses, into which Jos fixed her smile. She raised her eyebrows at me from time to time. Once Mr MarIntyre opened a conversation about whether the farm where Jos was staying, north of Dunedin, might be considered a commune.
Mrs MacIntyre said, ‘Well, that's a matter of language, isn't it?’
Jos said, ‘I might make myself a cup of coffee. Though it means I'll be awake all night.’ She said this with a smile towards me.
Later, we looked at the damp remains of her house by moonlight and the light of a torch which I fetched from my pack. It was almost completely destroyed, reduced to a rectangle of ash, scattered with the charred remains of beams and metal furniture.
Jos said, ‘Don't you love it?’
I said, ‘Excuse me?’
She said, ‘The mess…the destruction. I love it. It's so freeing.’
She stepped inside the boundary of the house, then leant down and took handfuls of ash. She walked towards me, rubbing her hands together, letting the ash slide between her fingers. I directed the torchbeam at her, and she squinted into it, a yellow figure against the blue moonlit surroundings. She reached out to smear ash on both sides of my face. I flinched backwards. I spat and wiped at my cheeks. I took a handkerchief from my pocket, leaving the torch on the ground. Her hands were cold, blackened, soft.
She laughed, then said, ‘Sorry…?’
I said, ‘It's OK.’ I stepped back further from her. She turned to the burnt house again, kicking and scratching about in the dirt. I turned the torch off, allowing my eyes to adjust to the moonlight. I watched her and tried to clean my face. She stood, then moved a few paces, staring downwards, then crouched, then stood again. She made small exclamations when she found some small object which she page 142 recognised. She approached me again and showed me a pan, mottled blue-black by the flames; an old bottle; the turned leg of a wooden table which had somehow survived; shards from pottery items which she had made herself.
She said, ‘These are some memories.’ I nodded. She frowned and said, ‘I'll help you put up that tent.’
We pitched the tent on the lawn, some distance from the remains of the house. It was a dome held up by flexible aluminium poles, with room for two people to sleep or sit up. She had a sleeping bag which she took from her car, faded green and threadbare, with broken zips. I placed my pack in the middle of the tent, between Jos and myself.
She said, ‘How are you feeling, P?’
I said, ‘Fine…’
She said, ‘You don't seem very relaxed.’
I said, ‘I don't know.’ There was silence for a minute. I said, ‘Well I'll get some sleep.’
She said, ‘All right.’
I turned around so that my head was facing away from the door to the tent.
It was an awkward manoeuvre, and I finally settled, lying on my side.
She said, ‘Is there anything you want, P?’
Her feet and ankles protruded from her sleeping bag, not far from my face.
They were pale in the dim light. She rubbed them slowly together.
I said, ‘No thank you.’ I turned over and look at the grey light through the wall of the tent.
The morning was bright, though the sun was obscured by thin high cloud. I was up early. I rolled up my sleeping bag, and packed everything away except for the tent. I sat on my pack, looking down the valley.
Finally I said, ‘Jos?’
She said, ‘Good morning, P’
I said, ‘I'll get going, soon.’
She didn't say anything. There was some movement as she page 143 extricated herself from her bag and emerged. We took the tent down in silence, shaking it to rid it of dew.
She said, ‘I don't think you'll get many rides along this road.’
I said, ‘I'll start walking. Something might come along.’
She said, ‘I'll probably go out to the coast later. I can take you to the main road if you're still walking.’
I said, ‘Thanks for everything.’
There was no visible sign of traffic, or habitation, other than the road and the nearby house. Jos was looking at the ground, as though she might find more artefacts from her past there. We hugged. She seemed tense, and gave me a sidelong look as she turned away.
When I look back, she is standing, again, amongst the ruins of her house, but this time her body is heavy and slow, and she doesn't lean down—again, I wonder what will have changed when I arrive at my grandfather's house.