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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Special Extravaganza Programme Issue [1953]

Short Story . . . — The Professional Touch

page 14

Short Story . . .

The Professional Touch

It was the other Friday that I met him—this man from Auckland I mean. The fellow sat down at my table.

"May I rest here and partake of Home victuals with you?" he said, flopping, with a benevolent sort of air, into the chair opposite before I could make any sort of protest.

I became scathing: "Yes. but would you mind removing my hat drat!" He guffawed horribly, like a dinosaur choking on a tough cave man.

"Oh most original eh: Oh very good!" I began to dislike the man "Humour is one of the features which you Wellington tans (he stumbled with the word) have so much more of than us. Haw-haw-ha. . . ." Crash! and he disappeared over the back of the chair. I helped him to his feet. The hat looked very weary.

"Hurt yourself?" hopefully.

"No. no. No—don't worry old man we Aucklanders are always falling down about something." I began to suspect him as well. "My name is Wetherby. Roger Wetherby. Come from Auckland." That was quite obvious. With a name like that as well he was impossible. No-one can call me a one-eyed. parochialist, but there are limits to what I will stand from an Aucklander—especially one who sits on hats. His unused hand dropped back—one must have a little self-respect after all!

"I think it must be your climate that gives you people a surface of gay jocularity." I could see the magistrate giving me three months. "Those light, purifying zephyrs from the cool south sweep the mental soot away. While the odd showers give the keen Wellington minds scope for eveready banter on Arks and the Weather office."

I looked at him sharply: he seemed serious.

The waitress came and went with our order. He remarked on the beauty of the Wellington girls: somehow he related it to the pure minerals in our soils. We heeded one of the finer things at another table and he developed the subject further, Later he spoke earnestly on our smart dressing.

"You did say Auckland was your home town, didn't you?" For a moment I thought he might have said Orkney or something.

"Ah . . . yes, I must; admit It." He sighed sadly. I felt a bond rise between us. "Bad luck Wetherby." A brave little smile faultered below his moustache.

The steaks came. He spoke on their excellence, then on the excellence of our food in general. I began to feel like a proud father. The finer thing left, with our eyes on a short leash; he compared Wellington men with fifty million Frenchmen. We won easily.

"Men here learn the basic quantities of a woman from their youth." I sprang to the defence. "I will admit they pick things up quickly, but all the. . . ." He had collapsed Into laughter again, burbling into his coffee about "that sense of humour." "that instant appreciation of subtleties." Noel Coward appeared to have something on me. At the door he insisted on paving both bills.

We stepped out, the strong and the weak, into the light, pure southerly. Some wretched woman's hat bounced towards us; I put my foot on it. As she bent to pick it up. Wetherby looked at me admiringly. "Such a thing would never happen in Queen Street. And hear how nicely she thanks you in her native tongue.

"Nothing Roger, nothing at all. Any Wellington man would do the same." I strode recklessly towards James Smiths, knocking old ladies and cripple! to either side with characteristic abandon, across "Death Valley." mockingly tempting a three ton truck, and so, on down to Courtenay Place with Wetherby fighting a sort of relaying action in the rear. The man seemed to be having some trouble with his mouth; it Kept twitching into a leering grin. I put it down to the place I'd set.

We flat watching the happy scene. People playing a sort of tag with the cavalier drivers, using the white-crossings as the danger areas; listening to the gay taunts of the tram-men as the odd person fell out; smiling as the schoolboys bunged potatoes into exhaust pipes with shrill erica of Joy—as "Nark it Snowy—the coppers are comin'." Reading the romances in the tram-shelters "Mabel loves Joe" or "Roll on the Revolution;" watching the odd student going fearfully [unclear: a] his shrine.

"What such haven has my city. murmured Wetherby. I could see he was touched.

A dog with bent ears and a thoughtful mouth drooled towards us. "Dogs are not allowed to walk our streets," he said wistfully, "here they are equals." What perception the man had. He patted the animal's head; it bit him quite severely. On behalf of the city I apologised, but he waved it aside.

"So typical of the spirit of the place," he explained, showing once again his clear mind. "Besides the beast is allowed one bite."

His mood had become somewhat grimmer during the last few lines, but he brightened again suddenly.

"Let me take you for a ride . . . I mean a drive." he said. As we passed through Te Aro he remarked on the ancient atmosphere of the place. I could see it affected him deeply. "Ah but remember you have Freeman's Bay.'"

This cheered him a little. "Yes, we have our pale imitations."

At Newtown he commented on the eminently suitable climate we had for polar bears, and of the difficulty they had keeping theirs cool. From Victoria Heights Somes Island received lavish praise for "its fine, sensitive lines" at the expense of Rangltoto—"a monotonous, practical Joke of Nature!" One Tree Hill fell before the "unsullied Nature on Tinakori Hill;" the museum reminded him of the Parthenon; the diagonal crossing at Manners Street was a "remarkable innovation" tit was new to me; also, it seemed, to some delirious traffic-officers). Several times I found myself defending Auckland. Once I praised the Ferry Service—a fanatical flame came into his eyes, but he said nothing. On the Petone road he got a speed ticket.

"Most efficient fellows—very scientific. Quite nice about the thing weren't they?" I saw them in a new light. At Petone" he foresaw a glowing future for "the Ruhr of Wellington," speaking of it as the industrial capital. I mentioned Penrose, he gave a hollow laugh. Passing Parliament, he said what a wise chap Grey had been.

Back in Courtenay Place he parked the car. It was obvious that he was thinking deeply; now and then that leer twitched back.

"I say old man this is hardly the thing I know—but would you lend me a fiver?" he said.

"But of course, Roger old chap," I had no hesitation. "Sure you wouldn't rather have a tenner?"

Once again he fell into the ghastly laughter. "Haw, haw. No ... I want more than that . . . I'm going to use the same line, haw, haw, haw ... on your city council . . . and get a loan for our bridge! We've planned it all out. ... I was testing it on you ... if it worked on one of you .... it will work on the whole town . . haw, haw . . . you're all the same . . . we're wizards at borrowing . . . haw, haw, . . have been for years ... so you could say ... we have the 'professional touch'."

J. Esam.