Craig Harrison - The Quiet Earth

‘I wanted one in lemon yellow with tan upholstery,’ he says, as we drive down the Terrace, ‘but this was all they had. Red and black. Bit crude really.’ He wrinkles his nose. ‘I’ve got good taste, you know. Where are the rich suburbs round here? That’s where they’ll have the best cars, eh? I wouldn’t mind having a go in a Jensen. Or a Rolls.’

The banter seems to go on regardless of me or the weak attempts to respond. The displaced word ‘they’ has sealed itself in a special vacuum. His joking breaks this open with a subversive mockery directed outwards at the negative force, taunting it.

The car hisses over wet roads. The rain has stopped but loaded clouds are coming in to land too low, colliding with the tops of hills and being torn to mist in a slow film. The single windscreen wiper flicks away remaining bits of rain with a few arrogant movements, then squeals to be stopped.

I walk around the wharf whilst he explores the boats and breaks into several sheds looking for equipment. There is a long building on one of the jetties with sliding doors set back about three metres from the edge of the jetty. As I stroll along by this building I feel strangely reluctant to walk directly round the far corner; as if I might bump into something. So I stop, about five metres away, and then walk out diagonally to the edge of the jetty and continue to stroll along, so that I can see round the corner from a distance before I reach the end of the building. There is nothing there. When I get to the end of the jetty I turn and look back. Apirana is standing by a boat on the slipway staring at me, unmoving. I turn and walk to the other side of the end of the jetty and look down the back of the long building. There are only a few rusting cans and a couple of lifebelts there. When I walk back into Apirana’s line of sight around the corner again he is still standing in the same attitude, gazing with catlike intensity at the corner of the building where I reappear. I stroll along back to the slipway, and look down at him. He has a spanner and an oil-stained rag in his hands.

‘What’s wrong?’ he says.

‘I don’t know. I just felt nervous about going round the corner.’

There is a pause.

We both stare back at the jetty and the long building. Water slaps on the concrete slipway and boats heave and creak against rubber tyres looped over the edge of the jetty. The water out in the bay is a sullen green, bursting open in places with curls of foam from the tops of waves; a ripped quilt with a heaving underneath.

‘You see anything?’ he asks. I turn.

‘No. Why?’

‘I just looked up. I thought something was going to happen. I saw you stop, and walk out and go round.’

‘There’s nothing there.’

‘Where’s your gun?’

‘The shotgun? Back in the car.’

He fumbles in the pockets of the waterproof windbreaker he’s wearing and produces one of his handguns, a .38 calibre revolver. His Sten gun is lying by the slipway. He holds the revolver up and puts it on the jetty at my feet.

‘You ought to carry one of these,’ he says. When I hesitate, he insists. ‘No, take it. It’s safer than the shotgun.’

I pause, then pick up the gun. It weighs heavily in my hand. I put it in my pocket. I’m wearing a parka from one of the sports shops we looted two weeks ago.

‘Alright. Might as well.’ I glance at him. ‘What did you expect to see?’

He wipes his hands on the rag, looking away.

‘Dunno. But when you went behind the building there…I wasn’t so sure you’d come back.’

The cold goes into my bones; I steady myself against shivering.

‘You were looking straight at me when I came round the corner.’

‘Yes. I knew something would come back. But I mean, I wasn’t sure what.’

‘Oh, come on. You didn’t even pick up your gun.’

‘If you’d come round the corner and found me pointing the gun at you—’

He shakes his head, leaving the possibilities, the conclusion, open. It’s murderous. The fact that we’re nervous about each other has been recognised and used; potentially deadly, but so easily and simply done.

‘Yes. I see.’ I look back at the building and then down at Apirana. ‘Something almost happened, then.’

‘Too right.’

‘I thought, it’s a kind of joke. Nothing here, though.’

‘That was the bloody joke.’

He turns away and goes on with his work, checking a large outboard motor attached to a small launch. I sit down on a bench at the side of the jetty where I can see both the building and Apirana. The breeze chops at the water, wrinkling the reflections in puddles on the level concrete path. Obviously the weather won’t let us escape for a few days yet. It will be too rough in Cook Strait.

The outboard kicks and roars to life, churning the water and defiantly biting aside the silence which has stuck like a glutinous mass round the wharf. Apirana’s teeth grin in a white line across his face and he gestures with his thumbs raised. The boat is tied to the jetty. He tests the motor; the tone and pitch of its snarl change as the propeller blades chew at the sea. Patches of dirty froth bob on the surface. The smell of oil and carbon monoxide blows around. The noise seems to clear the air with the violence of a released animal. I sense that Apirana knows this, and he brings the roar to a crescendo before cutting it silent. A few minutes later he joins me on the jetty, wiping his hands clean on a rag scented with petrol.

‘Good motor. We’ll have a few practice runs here before we take her out.’

‘Have to wait for the weather to clear. You won’t get me out in this.’

‘Should be okay in a coupla days. You get seasick?’

‘Yes.’

‘So do I. Don’t know what canoe we came on.’

He covers the engine with a tarpaulin and closes the shed door. Then, picking up his Sten gun, he says: ‘Let’s go for a drive, eh? Get away from here for a while. Show you how she goes. Up to a hundred in seven seconds.’

‘Alright. Take it easy though. The roads are wet.’

‘Yes, officer.’ He gives a mock salute.

We get in the car. The seatbelt presses the gun against my ribs. I decide not to loosen the belt. Apirana starts the car and turns it in a wide sweep, blatting the exhaust towards the wharf. Then we take off along the quayside roads and out along the Hutt motorway rising in a long curve by the bay. The mass of the city falls behind in a jumble of grey and white towers. We go faster, easily, the speed pressing us down gently in our seats. The speedometer flicks to a hundred and past. The dipping front of the car sweeps the air apart smoothly. Apirana glances at me and grins, turning the wheel to glide by the odd car and truck standing empty in the lanes. We’re not expecting anything to happen, we’ve won for today, it’s all shrinking behind us in the distance, and when the figure, the woman in a blur of white dress, darts out from a stalled car waving her arms frantically I hardly have time to shout. We jerk to the left in a vicious screech of tyres skidding on the wet road, sliding sideways, Api cursing and wrenching the wheels as he lets the brakes go then treads down again and, wham, there’s a heavy thud, the hills and sky whip around, the seatbelts wrench at us, and we slam to a stop against the dividing rail facing back towards the city.

Hit by the side of the car in the wide skid, a doll-like figure sprawls on the far lane, white dress rippling around in the wind. I scrabble at the seatbelt catch, punch it free, leap out and try to run across but the skid and shock of the crash make me stumble like a drunk. Api can’t get out. His door is jammed on the crash rail. He can’t free his seatbelt. I turn back as he shouts, but he’s clawing his way free over my seat and yelling to me to get to the woman.