Chapter 22

Settling Down, March – May, 1962

Dinner tasted as good as it smelled. So did Pauline – but that was later. In the meantime, we went back to Jax’s behavior in relation to me. I never found out the details, but it was pretty clear that Judith, and probably even more importantly, Pauline, had worked Jax over and persuaded her to try something different.

She did. Starting with an apology. “Look – you’re right about me having stepped over the line when you wouldn’t take us rabbit hunting. I’m sorry for that.”

She looked sorry, and I Hmmed and nodded to indicate I had heard (and perhaps even accepted) her apology, then I waited for the next bit.

“I’ll negotiate with you and Judith about the cleaning and housework, but I might need help with that. If I fall back into old habits, you guys can tell me.” She paused, and I was unsure whether she was relieved to have said her piece or whether there was more to come. There was. “I don’t know any men as friends – never have, so I’m not very good at it, but I’d like to try.”

I had the memory of her thighs and belly and shiny, slippery lips in the back of my consciousness, but friends was a good start. “I’m up for that. I’ll try to be really honest with you about how I’m feeling from moment to moment, rather than ignoring you when you get bossy!”

“You can be really honest about wanting to fuck me too!”

“You won’t be pissed off? Judith has been really clear that she’s not available, but she’s accepted that I’d like to rub bodies with her.”

“No – it will be sorta new for me.”

Judith was keen to provide clarification. “I can’t cope with guys coming on to me right now. I accept that lotsa men want to get sexy with me, and that David finds me attractive, but I’ve set a limit. If that changes, I’ll say so.”

Pauline didn’t hold back. “I’ll do my bit to maintain harmony in this flat by keeping his balls empty!” She got her laugh, and not too much later, she got my load.

Life settled into a fairly cruisy routine for the remainder of the first term. Relations in the flat seemed to have settled down, and even though there was no study group, I was top of a class for the first time in my High School career, narrowly in English, and easily in Biology. I worked hard at supporting Ross Orchard in his First XI captaincy, and I kept mentoring Bartlett (after a fashion). Mr Smythe noticed and expressed his appreciation quietly.

Harriet passed her first Warrant of Fitness, and the mechanic who examined her told me I had ‘got a bargain’. I worked with Frank every weekend so my savings gradually grew, and Pauline and I enjoyed each other as ‘friends who fuck’. We even had al fresco sex a couple more times in the grounds of the University.

In the last week of term, Uncle Bruce rang me directly, and asked if I would be available to work on the farm in the May School holidays while he took a holiday with Robert. That was new, and perhaps an acknowledgement of my (almost) adult status since arrangements before that had always been made through Mum.

I drove down in Harriet straight after our last game of cricket for the season, and since I figured that there would be deer or pigs or goats or something in the bush behind the neighbouring farm, I took my P14. The ‘work’ consisted of feeding the dogs, painting the shearers quarters, repairing some fences, smoothing the airstrip, and playing Euchre with Grandma Henley.

After a couple of days, I figured I was on top of my assigned tasks so I drove down the road to the neighbour whose farm backed on to the bush block where Grandma reckoned there used to be deer. I had met the Morrows before, when Grandma had made an unsuccessful attempt to set me up with their daughter. She told me It was safe to visit again since Sandra wasn’t home, and the Morrows would almost certainly give permission to cross their land to hunt the bush behind it. She was right about the permission, but wrong about Sandra.

Eighteen months before, I had checked out Sandra Morrow. She was really hard to talk to. Most of what she said was hard to decode, and felt as if it was part of a false front as though she was playing some sort of role. Relating to her had been bloody hard work and although Sandra was quite nice to look at even then, I had flagged away any idea of trying to get close to her in favour of Mrs Palmer and her daughters.

Now, Sandra was very nice to look at even in a Swandri anorak, jeans, and boots, and she seemed like a different person. She had dropped the bullshit completely. She was direct, down to earth and friendly. She was also open about the fact that she wanted to go hunting with me.

“Let’s go together. It’s pretty steep, and we could be a couple of ridges over before we see something. Bowl a decent stag and there’ll be more meat than you want to carry out on your own!”

“Sounds like you’ve done this a few times before!”

“I used to go hunting with Dad until he broke his leg. He can still handle the hill paddocks, but ‘bush bashing’ over rough ground is too hard for him.”

“Okay. What’s the plan?”

“Come back at four. Have you got a pack?”

“No. I was planning to carry the carcase out.”

Sandra looked at me shrewdly. “Have you actually done this before?”

I bristled slightly. “I’ve only been once. I shot a couple of fallow up on Kaipara South Head.”

“And you carried out whole carcases?”

“Headed, hocked, and gutted. Fifty yards from the road”

“Carrying fallow fifty yards on the flat is one thing. A decent red stag half a mile in rough country is another.”

“I’ll try to borrow a pack.”

“We’ve got a spare. Come at half three, so I can fit you out.”

I did and she did, but as things worked out, we didn’t need them. We had climbed to the back of the farm, and started climbing the bush covered ridge behind it when the skies opened. After about fifteen minutes of very heavy rain, Sandra called a halt

“There’ll be nothing in the open in this. Let’s call it quits for the day.”

We trudged wetly back to the Morrow farmhouse, where Sandra found me some of her father’s clothes and we dried out drinking tea while he entertained us with tales of hunting after the war, when six years without hunting pressure had allowed the deer population to get out of control. The fourteen point rack of antlers over the back door proved his tales were more than hot air. He was less than impressed with Barry Crump’s stories.

“Ten percent fact, ninety bullshit!”

“He got me interested in hunting.”

“There’s that I suppose. Why don’t you stay for tea? We don’t get many visitors.”

I rang Grandma Henley to let her know I wouldn’t be home until later, and promised to feed the dogs before I came in. She seemed pleased that I was spending time at the Morrow’s, and with a grin in her voice wished me ‘luck’.

Dinner was interesting. Johnny Morrow had been sent to board at a very expensive private school and had not been particularly keen to take over the family farm, but his older brother had flown into a hill in the course of a training flight in the dying days of the war, and he had felt he had little option. He was really interested in my second-hand account of Frank’s short career in the Airforce.

Sandra’s mother Della had been a nurse, and she held forth at some length about the bullying she and other nurses suffered in the course of her training. Like Robyn Olds’ mum, she was very keen to emphasise that girls in particular should have skills and qualifications ‘to fall back on’. I had a strong sense that Sandra had heard it all before. She seemed to be keen to get me on my own, and when we eventually had a few minutes together before I drove Harriet back to the Henley’s, she wanted to talk about our interactions eighteen months previously.

“We didn’t get on the last time we met. It was pretty strange. It was like I was watching myself trying to impress you and the more you got fed up, the harder I tried. It all went downhill.”

“I certainly found our interactions hard work. I couldn’t understand where you were coming from. How come you were trying to impress me?”

“Mum built you up bigtime. Top class, top athlete, top school. I’m just a girl from the farm in the hills. I board at a girls school and I don’t know any boys, so I don’t know how to be around them.”

I had a rush of blood to the head (the big one). “Your Mum was hoping I would offer your father twenty camels for you?”

Sandra relaxed a bit more and giggled. “She was hoping for fifty, but she thinks I’m still a virgin!” I didn’t know what to say, so I Hmmed, and Sandra reached out to put her hand on my arm. I’d rather have you as a hunting buddy.”

I seized the moment. “How about tomorrow if it’s not raining.”

“You’re on. Four o’clock!”

Mrs Palmer and her daughters visited that night, but Sandra was in my head.

The weather had cleared by the next afternoon, and we retraced our steps up the ridge. Sandra was nowhere near as fit as me, but she was clearly in charge. She led the way, toiling just the tiniest bit. I didn’t find it hard to keep up, and probably spent as much time enjoying the way she moved and watching her thighs scissor as I did actually looking for deer. We were moving too fast and too noisily for bush stalking anyway, and the wind was blowing up the hill so anything on the ridge above us would get our scent and depart long before we saw it.

Eventually, Sandra stopped and motioned me up close. “There’s a side spur a hundred yards further up. From there we can look across the little valley to a couple of old slips on the other side. There’s often deer on them. They browse the Mahoe and five finger on the edges. Deer candy.”