XIV. We Have No Drug Addicts
Well, it’s the happening thing
And it’s happening to you…
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Civil Defence Processing Centre AKL-04 [Mangere]
March 20, 1984
“So what were you planning to do, once you left school?”
Grace turned to face Melanie, from whom the question had come.
“Sorry?”
“What did you have lined up, you know, once you were gonna leave school?”
Grace shrugged, the loose-fitting shirt she’d stuffed into a bag a month ago now nearly falling off her shoulder as she did so. “Uni, I guess. I mean, I got Sixth Form Cert last year so…”
A sage little nod. “Fair enough, cruising along in Seventh Form this year then, huh?”
Grace shrugged again, looking around the tent as if to say ‘you call this cruising along?’ as she absently adjusted the shirt and propped herself up in the camp stretcher with an elbow.
“I guess so. Plan was to go to uni and do a BA in…well, whatever you do in a BA that actually gets you a job.”
And whatever wouldn’t prove Mum too right, her mind added tartly. “Past that –” another shrug. “Why, what about you?”
“Well, I’m in my – I mean, I guess I was in my second year at uni. Or about to be, anyway. So much for worrying about the start of lectures, huh?” Grace gave the faintest hint of a smile in response to the wry grin Melanie shot at her. “Still, fucked if we’re gonna need lawyers anymore. I mean – well, if we do need lawyers I’m fine, but yeah, otherwise? Fucked.”
In the faintly uncomfortable silence which followed, punctuated only by the faint drips of water off canvas, it slowly dawned upon Grace that saying something might be desirable.
“Law?”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you thought the Bomb was unlikable, eh?” A snort. “Yeah, I thought I’d try to be a lawyer. Apparently there are more psychopaths there than anywhere else, so I guessed an iron-arsed bitch like me” this statement delivered with a flourish of the hand “would do pretty well.” Another silence.
“Still, what can you do, eh?”
“Yeah,” replied Grace quietly, immediately thinking of all the other things you couldn’t help these days as the squelch of footsteps announced the return of the other three. “Suppose we could go out for dinner. Who knows, maybe they stopped a shipment of steaks.”
Alas, the steaks were not forthcoming. If the weather had improved even a little, the food certainly hadn’t. There were also a lot more people around, so fighting for a place in line for the twice-daily offerings at the mess tents was increasingly a fight in the literal sense. Grace – being a skinny, blonde, seventeen year-old girl – was practically disqualified from the start; even going with one or two others it was an uphill battle to avoid being buffeted about in the mad crush as the usual pack of bastards muscled their way to the front.
Not that you’d ever say no to said usual pack, not if you had any sense. For all that they were reprehensible human beings they had the muscle to back it up, or at least enough to intimidate a few teenagers. From the way they talked and carried themselves and what they wore (crudely, lewdly, and a lot of black) they were Westies of some shade (with the perhaps jaundiced view of someone who considered herself to be from the
real Auckland, Grace took that as sufficient explanation for why they acted like they did). On that note, one of them, a scrawny little man with the clinging odour of cigarette smoke and pub urinals, took the chance to brush up against Grace as he made his way towards the row of tents. It wasn’t an accident. It was never an accident. But you didn’t mention it; she’d only been here a week and you heard what happened to people who got too mouthy about liking or disliking things. She merely suppressed the urge to throw a punch or throw up and nudged Melanie, rolling her eyes as the malingering little twat – Rat-face, she’d come to think of him – caught up with his substantially bigger mates to join in on their laughing about something.
From the looks of the great aluminium vats, it was some sort of stew tonight, which for all its sins at least meant meat. As the three of them neared the long bench the sound of scraping became audible as the trusty, a man with forearms like suckling pigs and the bizarrely theatrical motions of a frustrated actor press-ganged into food service, swept the bottom of the barrel with the ladle, looking up and shaking his head at the head of the line (about ten people up from the girls).
“Twenny minutes,” he called out with a shrug, sitting back against a table (which gave a short startled squeak of protest) as he started waiting indifferently. And well he might: what were people here going to do, complain to the management?
So of course it would be then that who should pass by their way but the Bastard Squad themselves? Even as Grace made to talk to Melanie, one of them – not the rat-faced one, but a bigger one covered in uneven stubble and splotches of dirt – looked her way and leered, wafting the bowl in her direction as he spoke.
“If you’re hungry,” he called across the aisle, “I’ve got some meat here for you.” Rat-face sniggered in anticipation of the joke. “Oh, and some in the bowl too, if you’re hungry afterwards.”
Grace paled and tried to shrink away
You’re a target shit you’re a target this is bad this is bad get out of the situation carefully shit what do I say…
…and then Melanie laughed and did the unthinkable. She responded.
“Fuck off mate, even the shit they give us here is more filling than your pissy little cheerio.”
That...well, if nothing else it got their attention. More than a few people around laughed at the stunned-looking man. The bloke behind the serving table gave a melodramatic little clap and made as if to doff his hat, sweeping his ladle about. Grace gave a surprised gasp of laughter herself, which quickly died in her throat as a scowl darkened the man’s face like the storm clouds which had only just passed, his finger jabbing at the two young women.
“You two,” he said, “had better fucking learn your place.” As people started to cluster around again, he took note of the situation and apparently decided to make a tactical withdrawal. “C’mon,” he snapped at his mates as he stormed off, leaving a nervous wake behind him. Rat-face shot a glance which was either confused or sympathetic at the two as he trailed along with the pack, the crowd closing back in like the Red Sea after the Israelites. Grace realised she’d stopped inhaling, and drew in a ragged breath. Melanie turned to her.
“So that may not have been my best move ever, but fuck me if it wasn’t satisfying.”
Grace could only tilt her head in assent at that one as her heart slowed back to a normal pace. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be too much of a price for either of them to pay for those fifteen seconds of fame.
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Full moon and thunder
Ribbons of blue
Ice on the windows
Ice in my heart…
From: Clark, M.,
Party Politics in New Zealand: 1890 to Now (Manukau: Auckland University Press, 2016).
“…the Coalition Government, such as it was, relocated to Christchurch almost immediately after its inception, where it would remain…
…as for Lange, his feelings of betrayal were reduced somewhat by his appointment as the Minister of Communications. A calculating move by Palmer, this placed the bellicose orator into a position where his impressive command of the English language could be best employed, with his frequent speeches over the radio (and, as time went on, television in some areas) raising the morale of New Zealanders uninspired by Palmer’s drier if more succinct manner of speaking in the early days of his Premiership…
…and as Bassett notes, while it was “
scarcely an era of good feelings,” it remains that the Coalition was able to maintain sufficient cohesion to focus entirely upon the grim task of rebuilding the country – and while this may seem obvious to the point of offense for those of the post-War generation, we must remember, as many of those alive during the period do, the titanic clash of egos which characterised New Zealand’s political arena in the 1980s…”
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Christchurch, Canterbury
March 17, 1984
Geoffrey Palmer woke to Saint Patrick’s Day with something he hadn’t permitted himself in two months: a sleep-in. The hotel the Government had commandeered (all through the proper procedures under the Emergency Powers Act, naturally) was a grand Renaissance-style building which sat across the street from the Cathedral, only slightly out of place before the modernist monstrosities which had been sprouting up in the South Island’s largest city for the last decade or so.
The Prime Minister had been given a room overlooking Cathedral Square, and he took a moment to stand and look out over it all while he thought, the steady rain outside falling in the nigh-empty streets.
They’d’ve been celebrating in Chicago come today, he thought. Imagine the University! Even some of the professors eased off if it was a weekday. And the dyeing of the river…only the Americans could think to do that.
Gone now, I suppose. Swept away. Mind you, it’s stone and brick, so maybe bits of it are…
…what about Iowa? It’s in the middle of nowhere in any case; probably it survived to be drowned in a tide of refugees. Virginia U, though…well, it’s up the wop-wops, so it’s probably not too badly-off either. Maybe I should’ve taught at Vic; seems like only my almae matres
bloody well copped it as opposed to where I taught…
The Cathedral looked lovely, anyway. Even in this weather a few people were already walking along to a prayer service, of which there had been more than a few recently.
Much good prayer did Wellington and Auckland, he thought with a trace of heavenward bitterness as he walked to the en suite.
Christ, you look old, Geoff, was all he could think as he looked in the mirror to shave
and how much longer are razor blades going to last?, the rasp of razor on stubble a reassuring rhythm which kept him from drifting too far from the here and now. The smell of soap was one you got with increasing rarity these days; a month after the Apocalypse many people’s’ attitude towards bathing was as fatalistic as that they held towards life. It was nice to get that though, the occasional reminder that there were still things in this world which weren’t radiation burns or casualty lists or requisition forms. Things of beauty, things of happiness.
Not that you want to get stuck in the past – well, it wasn’t even a month or two ago but to hell with me if it doesn’t feel like a lifetime.
He sighed and washed his face, the absurdly neat and tidy little sink in the neat and tidy room in the neat city an impossibly far cry from Wellington.
Wellington…what’s left? The house in Mount Vic? Gone, or burnt to shit, no doubt. The University…oh, Jesus,
the Law buildings. He shook his head mournfully as he turned to trimming his fingernails.
Biggest wooden building in the Southern Hemisphere, second-biggest in the world…another ash-heap, on the ash-heap of history. Tinakori, the University, all gone. And Auckland; nothing left between Takapuna and Parnell, they told you. Fuck. Fuck.
So much lost.
The Prime Minister sat on his bed and started putting on a pair of thick, warm socks before he started polishing his shoes to a hearty lustre. He could probably have walked into the Cabinet office in a singlet and stubbies and Swanndri and nobody would much care – what good was fashion without a media to report it or a voting public to look at it? – but you had to maintain an image these days,
pro bono publico. You kept up the form and hoped to hell that the function would follow.
David could do that, he’d thought more than once.
If anyone could ginger up the hoi polloi, it’s David. But here you are instead, Geoff Palmer from Nelson, handed the poisoned chalice because you were the least pissing offensive choice. A wryly mirthless smile crossed his face as he pressed the lid back on the Kiwi tin and packed the brush away, before stepping into a pair of trousers.
Less offensive than Rob Muldoon; that’s a low bar to vault over if ever there was one.
As he put on his shoes and a fresh shirt (now
that was a luxury) he mused on popularity. It was one thing to be Prime Minister during or immediately after a nuclear war. It was quite another to be the PM appointed as a wartime replacement. And to be the dark horse candidate voted in over his own wishes and against the leader he’d hitherto served loyally? Oh, the history books were going to have fun dissecting that one.
“History books,” you say, Geoffrey thought as he draped a red tie around his neck.
Look at you! Megalomaniacal and it’s hardly been a fortnight! Easy to see how Muldoon fell into this trap; there’s no way to express the feeling of knowing that every move you make every day is shaping history…ah-ha, there I go again, y’see? His fingers deftly tied a Windsor knot and he tightened it, the unfortunate noose motif galloping to mind like the horseman bearing bad news after the battle.
The Mirthless Cavalier or something like that, he thought with a brief but genuine smile. He actually found that one rather good, if he did say so himself.
Well, you can’t put it off forever. Time to face the music, I reckon. Palmer patted down his pockets to make sure he had everything he needed and gave a world-weary sigh, pausing abruptly as his fingers found something he hadn’t seen in years. Geoffrey extricated the pipe and held it to the light, toying with it as thoughts ran unbidden through his head, standing stock still for some time until he recalled a promise he’d made to someone very important some time ago.
Eventually he gave another, slightly sadder sigh.
You’ll see them again before too long. Even if right now, they’re just as homeless and uncertain as any refugees. David may well hate me from here on out, but at least his family have a home. And a father who can be with ‘em – a hotel’s not a home. Another smile that was not a smile.
Said the man in the posh, opulent hotel who has enough to eat and his own bed. The Prime Minister of New Zealand, quite possibly one of the most powerful men left in the developed world, shook his head and walked out into the hallway, flicking the light switch off before he swung the door shut.
In the room, an old pipe was left on a table and returned to the business of gathering dust.
Tobacco’s probably impossible to come by anyway, he had thought
and besides, if Lange and Muldoon are having trouble coming by medicines, who am I to abuse Prime Ministerial privileges to glue my lungs shut with tar?
Geoffrey breathed deeply as he got to the staircase. It’d be another long day.
Outside, the drizzle eased off a little, though the sun steadfastly refused to shine.
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Or is it any wonder
The streets are dark?
And is it any wonder
We fall apart?
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Dunedin, Otago
March 26, 1984
It was Anniversary Day today. Usually, he would’ve been glad for the day off from study. Not today. Not when he was stuck at home, classes cancelled indefinitely since the letter from the Uni arrived at the start of February. Not when he was stuck at home while Dad was out doing war work on the lines since the bombs fell and the week without a Government sent everyone else home to wait nervously and fidget, and definitely not when he was there with his grandparents, who couldn’t stand him or the blood in his veins.
James, about as bog-standard an English name as you got. Hemi, Mum had always called him.
Her, his grandparents had always called her. Well, beggars couldn’t be choosers, but Jim just wished he could have been the choosy beggar to get to leave and go to uni and make a go of it in the real world.
But it seemed like this was it now. Going to the shops once a week to flash your card and get it punched to say you’d received your allotment of food, two-thirds the amount for the elderly and extra milk for children (because where the hell were the farmers to send it now; primary produce restrictions were no longer a concern but neither were the EEC countries), and
…what the hell was the quote again…“a penny for a pound of wheat and a penny for three pounds of barley, and hurt thou not the oil and wine.” On its own, the corner of Jim’s mouth quirked upwards. Quoting Scripture, even tongue-in-cheek, usually helped with the grandparents. They might be gloomy old souls, but they were gloomy old
Presbyterian souls – and Jim held the lingering suspicion that his grandfather, a recalcitrant Anglican, actually got the joke.
Some things you simply couldn’t get these days, even if you waited in the interminable line at the Town Hall for requisition forms and your special dispensatory cards then made your way to the supermarket near the hospital (although even on standby the chocolate factory was a torment to walk past) with its protective little cordon of soldiers and policemen. Ciggies were drying up, pills were impossible to come by, and if you wanted insulin you were pretty much shit out of luck. Which was why Nana had been very quiet recently. Comatose, if you wanted to split hairs.
Jim’s grandfather was Irish somewhere up the line, maybe Northern. Either way, he’d been to a wake once. It was kind of like now, except there people actually talked and tried to remember the deceased.
Not here. Here, nobody really talked, nobody really displayed any emotion besides an occasional fragile expression which you got the impression would shatter at the faintest touch to spread bare that most horrifying of things – what they actually thought. So nobody really asked how anyone was anymore; no, just the usual pleasantries, a plaster smile on a plastic face and the faint odour of desperation.
The Gardens were quite full for the time of year, he noticed as he walked past, even for Anniversary Day. Full of people with no idea what to do with themselves for the last month and more; jobs were spent doing nothing much of anything for not much pay to buy a range of items even more depressingly sparse than before the War broke out, and go back home to silent televisions and asinine radio broadcasts. A man was feeding the ducks. You had to idly wonder if they hadn’t banned that as some sort of treasonous food wastage, because a slice of bread, the radio announcers seemed to believe, could feed all the refugees of Auckland. This had come as a surprise to Jim, who hadn’t known Jesus was working for the Ministry of Civil Defence.
The flats on the upper reaches of Cumberland Street were even more eerily silent than they usually were during the summer. A not insignificant number of the student body had actually come south in late January, either out of hope or ignorance towards the gathering storm half a world away. Without study to distract them – or the pubs to entertain them – they were even more lost than the people walking like lost souls through the Gardens. Here, people slouched about in dingy houses and lay on their roofs to make the most of the dimming sun (and how much longer would
that last?), though if there was one small mercy it was that they seemed to be at least willing to think openly about the immense pool of shit they’d all been dropped into. Jim would probably drop in on some of them later – it wasn’t as if he had an otherwise busy social calendar. Still, at least he was out and about.
They were out of pretty much everything at the pharmacy, as an exhausted-looking man in a white coat kept explaining to the crowd. One of the men ahead of Jim, a greasy-haired man with a poorly-maintained handlebar moustache, didn’t take it too well.
“What the fuck d’youse
mean, you’ve not got any repeats left?” he barked at the pharmacist. “I was told, I was led to believe, that my mum would be able to get her pills, and –”
“Well, she can’t, because we haven’t got any in for the last fortnight,” explained the white-coated doctor
who probably looked young once, but sure as hell not in the last few weeks, “and we really weren’t aware of what wouldn’t be availab–”
“Bullshit! You had enough for the last three fellas; do youse want me mum to die or something? She’ll die if she doesn’t get her medicine and you lot’ll be the ones responsible; it’ll be…”
As the pharmacist continued trying to reason with the distressed man, a policeman walked over and, pardoning himself as he edged past Jim, gently placed a hand on the unsatisfied customer’s shoulder and the numbers 5024 briefly flashed past Jim’s eyes.
“I think you should go, sir,” he said in a soft but steady voice, meeting the bewildered gaze of the man – who looked like he had plenty of arguing left in him – and holding it. After a long moment, he scowled, shook off the hand and stormed over to the doorway, turning to give a parting shot as he opened the glass door onto Great King Street.
“I’ll be back,” he snapped angrily. “I’m gonna get you lot. I’ll blow youse away.”
Jim blinked and looked at the policeman, who was suddenly the centre of attention, who exhaled slowly and looked at the door as he spoke.
“Not even on duty at the moment,” he said. “Looks like I’m back on now, eh?”
Aren’t we all, mate; aren’t we all…
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All these feelings that
Seem so wrong
Remember, we
Were so strong…
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James had come back empty-handed, so Alf had found himself at a loss. Norma had become noticeably tired a couple of days after the insulin ran out – not that she ever complained about it; she was a battler, that kiddo – and the only real problems she’d let on about were that she was thirsty quite often, before she had fallen asleep while reading in bed. Even then, he’d chalked it up to stress.
They hadn’t been able to get a doctor out to her in the last two days.
All busy, they’d said.
Patients from Blenheim; the fallout from Wellington got to them, they'd said. So Alf had sat and waited by her side, watching the woman he had loved for fifty years fall into an unescapable sleep.
He’d always imagined himself going first. He wasn’t sure why; he’d never thought about it in Libya or Korea, or even during that heart scare of his a few years ago, but he’d always assumed he’d die first. This was not the way he had imagined he would be proven wrong.
Alf held her hand, shaking off the hope that she’d ever squeeze back as he felt the limp pulse in her cool palm. An idea slowly crystallised over the next couple of hours in his mind, and he went off to read the Bible, before returning to Norma to clean her filth away from her and change her sheets. Amidst this process, as he poured bleach with an unsteady hand into the washbasin and placed the sheets in the water, he realised what he had to do.
After dressing Norma in a clean white nightgown, he sent the boy out to the church with a letter for the vicar. That should give him enough time, he thought as the words rang out in his head.
-
He said unto me again “Stand, I pray thee, upon me, and slay me: for anguish is come upon me, because my life is yet whole in me.”
Alf made a cup of tea the way Norma had always liked it, sweet and milky, and as he poured her a sip from the cup and dabbed at the sides of her mouth with a flannel he realised it was time.
-
And I stood upon him, and slew him, because I was sure that he could not live after that he was fallen.
He leant over slowly and kissed his wife, brushing her cheek with his thumb as he turned for a pillow. The vicar shouldn’t be too long; he’d dealt with that nasty business over at that farm before the bombs fell so he’d presumably seen a dead body before. The letter would get him moving anyway.
-
And I took the crown that was upon his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm, and have brought them hither unto my Lord.
God forgive me.
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But it’s been raining
For so long
It’s been raining
I can’t go on…
