Derek Hansen - Sole Survivor

She reached under the bed to find her shoes, and her hand touched something cold and smooth. And round. She pulled the chamber pot out from under the bed and looked at it with an overwhelming sense of relief. Of course the old bastard would have had a pot. Sick and probably lazy, there was no way the old codger would have crawled out of a warm bed on a cold, wet night to go up the hill for a pee. Down came the jeans. She couldn’t help smiling. Excitement mixed with relief and she felt like a kid again. And it wasn’t just the novelty of squatting over a potty, she was excited about her new life and the prospects of a new beginning. She looked for her tissues. Where had she seen them and were they in reach? She blessed Bernie’s weakness and then realized she was thanking the wrong person. Red could have cleared out the pot along with Bernie’s effects, but he hadn’t. Instead he’d scrubbed it as he’d scrubbed everything else, and popped it back under the bed where he knew she’d find it. He amazed her. Both Captain Ladd and Col had been right about him. He was a decent bloke and he did have a heart of gold. It wasn’t buried very deep, either, just hidden away behind a veneer of stupidity.

As she washed and cleaned her teeth she considered the problem of emptying her chamber pot. What would Bernie have done, she wondered? She went outside and stood in the shelter of the veranda, looking for a solution. Rainwater tumbled in a torrent where the gutters returned toward the downspout fixed to the wall of the house. Clearly the downspout was blocked with leaves and probably had been for some time. Blocked gutters seemed destined to haunt her wherever she went. She looked at the torrent and saw it had gouged a gully in the soil below and run off into the bush. She tipped the contents of the potty into the gully and let the rain wash it away. Problem solved. Bernie would have been proud of her.

The episode brought home how much her life would have to change if she was to make a go of it. Everything was different. Even a simple visit to the loo was an expedition, a trip to the grocer’s an adventure currently beyond her capabilities. All along she’d imagined there would be some kind of a track through to Fitzroy. She’d pictured herself tramping through the bush, a cross between Heidi and an Outward Bounder, a rousing song on her lips and a rucksack filled with groceries on her back. The sun had shone in all her imaginings. Perhaps there was a track, but it seemed unlikely. From the moment she’d arrived in Fitzroy, the talk had been of a boat picking her up. If ensuring there was food to eat presented such a challenge, how would she manage with everything else? It was one thing to change lightbulbs, rewire plugs, change washers in taps and fix handles to cupboards, but she suspected the sort of attention the bach needed was work for tradesmen. She’d been many things, but never that.

She found the old Pye radio sitting on a water-stained veneer cabinet as she continued her inspection, and wondered what else had slipped her notice during Red’s tour. The cabinet was stuffed with old papers and magazines, but she could see the corroded chrome fittings that had once supported glass shelves and mirrors at a time when it had been a cocktail cabinet and probably a very nice one. She switched on the radio and discovered it was tuned to the national station, 1YA. News, weather and corny music, yet probably good company for an old man. Even though the signal came through laced with static from the storm, it was also welcome company for a young city woman unaccustomed to solitude. The stack of papers bothered her. Why hadn’t Red thrown them out? She was about to dismiss it as oversight when the penny dropped. At Wreck Bay, paper was precious.

She looked for matches, found a box with three in it on the shelf above the Shacklock, turned on the propane camp stove and made herself a cup of Nescafé. That was another thing. Col had given her milk powder, but there was a jug of milk already made up in the fridge. That man Red again. She couldn’t help thinking about him as she sipped her coffee, not just as his neighbor but as a psychologist and an eminent psychiatrist’s daughter. She’d seen his elsewhere look before. That dead-fish look of being in one place but living in another. As a social worker she’d counseled returned soldiers suffering from battle fatigue, shell shock, or lack of moral fiber, the diagnosis depending on the sympathies of the diagnostician. She started wondering if she could do anything to help him.

She decided to make breakfast and worry about Red and everything else later, but first she had to check out her supplies. So far, Col hadn’t missed a trick. She’d needed a torch and found one, wanted coffee and found a jar. She was curious as to what other treasures were in store for her. She found blocks of butter and packets of Chesdale cheese. Chesdale cheese, for Christ’s sake, the curse of every schoolkid’s lunch box. Cans of peas, sweet corn and baked beans. Exactly what a man would pack. Four rolls of toilet paper, packets of flypaper and a soggy parcel wrapped in white butcher’s paper. Whatever was in it had thawed. Lamb chops. A dozen of them. She wished she’d had the brains to sort through the box before going to bed. There was dinner for the next three nights, which was about as long as she figured the thawed meat would last. She found tea, flour, salt, sugar and rice. Rice? Did she look like the kind who made rice puddings? Vinegar, cornstarch, hand soap, dish soap, tomato soup, tomato soup, tomato soup. Every tin of soup the same. Soy sauce. What the hell did she need soy sauce for? Honey, raisins, sultanas, dried apricots, prunes. Tins of ham, corned beef and one of Spam. Baker’s yeast! With a recipe for baking bread on the packet. Yes! A bottle of ketchup. Spare batteries. A potato peeler and can opener. But no vegetables other than the canned corn and peas. Ah! But she had a vegetable garden. She had no idea that Col had been influenced by Red’s requirements.

She looked at the sorry assortment and wondered how she was going to survive the two-week trial before she went back to Auckland to collect her things—or not—whatever the case might be. She helped herself to one of the eggs Red had stacked in a line across one of her kitchen shelves and fried it. Ray Conniff’s chorus and orchestra were displaced by Burt Clampert’s golden trumpet playing “Oh My Papa.” “A Mother as Lovely as You” followed. She’d caught the Sunday-morning request session. If they played “You Will Never Grow Old” she resolved to throw the frying pan at the radio. A girl could only stand so much. She would have made toast but first she had to make bread. To make bread she had to fire up the Shacklock, which brought her back to Red. Would he come or wouldn’t he? That was the question.

She grew tired of the radio and switched it off. Brass Band Parade had begun, and silence was infinitely better than that. She made another cup of coffee and stared at her dirty plate. She figured she had two options. Hang around hoping Red would come, or start doing things for herself. The seeping cold left her no option. She decided to light a fire in the Shacklock and see what happened. See if she got hot water. If not, why not? She’d roll some dough and make bread so long as she didn’t have to leave the dough standing for half the day. She went and examined the packet of yeast. Leave standing for a couple of hours. No problem. It would take that long to get the oven up to temperature. And at least she’d have a chance to warm up. Fire on, bread baked, what next? Garden. Vegetables for dinner, whatever went well with lamb chops. Then what? The boat. Obviously one of the boats on the mooring went with the house and was hers. Which one? Whichever one was least looked after. Her day stretched ahead like a never-ending adventure.