The End of the Golden Weather

Bruce Mason

• Publisher: Victoria University Press
• Year: 1961
• eBook ISBN: 9780864736895
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

The story of a young boy's extarordinary summer on a beach holiday, The End of the Golden Weather is a touchstone of the New Zealand experience.

The
Made
Man

The time sequence of The Made Man is somewhat longer than in Part I; the opening of The Made Man begins at a point of time previous to Sunday at Te Parenga and ends at a point later than Christmas at Te Parenga. Thus the narrator meets Firpo here for the first time; in Sunday at Te Parenga he already knows him.

ONE SUNDAY MORNING, I AM EARLY ON THE BEACH AND MEET the sun showing a rim above the pale sea. The breeze off the water is damp and warm. I sniff its soft, salty breath: summer is in the air.

I find my way to the rocks, push my finger in the black, daisy-faces of the sea-anemones, watch the lazy ruffs of strings tremble, shiver, then with a swift embrace, close over my finger. A flash, a glitter in the pool—a shrimp hangs still near my finger—flash, it is gone. I grab a stick and stir the water to a cauldron, waiting for him to whirl out by centrifugal force, a silver cyclist on the Wall of Death, but he's hiding. I learned “centrifugal” yesterday.

I draw a heart in the sand with my toes, put my initials in it and then—after thought—another pair. Draw a long arrow through it, mark in the V-head with a firm, big toe. Give a grimace of disgust: race for the rocks.

I bound on to a broad terrace of rock, sloping up. Beside me, a bank of clay, striped like pyjamas in brown and yellow, dives and buries itself in the sand. A geological fault, my father tells me. I see a sad-eyed giant called Geology—in pyjamas—condemned for some Grievous Fault to live with his head in the sand for ever: this is his leg.

I clamber on and now the sea is far below me, swelling and gurgling in the fissured rock. Round the corner of the cliff with care because the root you swing round on is working loose and there, ahead, hanging right down the cliff, is the green staircase. I have passed it a hundred times on my way to the king and queen at full tide; leaned on it, hung my towel on it, sat on the lowest step, seen no more than boards and planks, rusting nails and flaking green paint. But now, inexplicably, it is bathed in unholy light. It's the Beanstalk, and I am Jack and I know that I must go up, now, and explore the fabulous landscape at the top, find the castle, ask for food, trick the giantess, hide in the oven, steal the goose, kill the giant. I know the giant and giantess already: the Atkinsons, old and stinking rich. She's all right, tall and stringy with a head like a dandelion flower—I always want to blow on it and see her sparse grey hair fly off—but he's a white-haired, creaking wobbly wreck, always at Rotorua to soften up his brittle bones. Sometimes we see them on the beach in the evenings: the old man picks his way along with a stick and as you pass, you hear his old bones go click, click.

I fill my lungs with air and rush at the steps, patter up the cliff-face, sea, rocks, king and queen receding and diminishing below me, reach an old iron gate. Push and enter. Into the Giant's Demesne.

An old rock garden, writhing with weeds. A jungle of raureka and gorse, stabbing at my bare arms and legs. On and into a clearing and—there's the giant's castle, enormous and forbidding in white stonework. Take the lower path, down into a shallow gully, up again on to a flat piece scooped out of the cliff. And there, ringed in huge clumps of wild broom, a little house, an old bach, a tumbledown whare. I bang my head. I tingle.

Softly I step on to the porch. Boards are broken here and there; dirt and a mulch of soft leaves. Window, door. The window gapes at me, sightless, crossed boards nailed from the inside. Now for the door. Push, and a shuddering creak. Fearful, I look over my shoulder. Silence. Again and with a stifled, high-pitched whine of anguish, it yields and lets me in. Thick dust springs away from my feet in soft arcs.

An old tin chimney at the back, a few blackened twigs in the grate. A table and a battered chair, rimed with dust. A calendar on the wall, five years old, a pretty Chinese girl on the cover, pink, sweet and glazed as a toffee apple. A scrap of newspaper on the floor. …

'Captain Dreyfus, Officer of the French Legion of Honour and victim of the most infamous political persecution in modern history, died last week…',

The wind stirs. Grudgingly, the door opens a little more. A band of light shoots through to the chimney, flaring on the blackened twigs in the grate. Particles of dust jostle, spin and dance in the light. The swelling pods of broom outside give a little dry shiver.

A swish of grass, a step on the porch. I rush to the door. I am staring at the thinnest man I have ever seen, dressed in dirty jeans and the top half of a tattered woollen bathing suit, button gone on the shoulder. The face. Long, whitish, with two bulbs of eyes that stare not at me but restlessly about, grey bristly hair, a mouth full of broken teeth.

“Gidday, boy. Who are you?”

I tell him my name. “Who are you?”

He shivers. His head flicks upwards.

“Firpo's the name.”

“Firpo what?”

“Just… Firpo.”

He stands frozen, as if his name, spoken, makes him the centre of a magic field. Then he grabs my shoulder, forces me in.

“Are you a good boy? A kind boy?”

I shrug, think a moment.

“Oh, yeh. Suppose so.”

“How old are you?”

“Twelve and a bit.”

He recoils from me, mutters darkly.

“Double figures. Don't like double figures.”

“Why?”

“They laugh. Double figures laugh. Nine, seven, eight, six: they just look: they don't care. … Do you laugh much?”

What is he at? Uneasiness stirs in me.

“Oh, yeh. Quite a bit.”

His eyes shift, look upwards.

“World's full of it. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Takes your skin off. Leaves ya all bare. … Would you laugh at Firpo?”

I look at him closely, Is he loopy? The long white face, the eyes bulging, seeking shelter.

“No I don't think I would.”

He stares at me a moment and his face softens. Then he turns away, seems to see the bach and its squalors for the first time. He lurches to the the table, bangs his hand on it: dust leaps upwards.

“She's sent me down here. Like an old dog.”

“She has? Who?” I ask eagerly, sensing that the rough places will now be made plain. But he doesn't answer. He has seen the calendar on the wall, rushes to it and drags it down—the Chinese girl skims across the bach and disappears out the door. He takes a large piece of newspaper from his pocket and pushes it carefully over the nail. Suddenly he is all animation and excitement.

“Here, boy. C’m here. See? Cut it out yesterday. That's Jesse Cabot. Come to live at Te Parenga! Yeh, him. Heavyweight wrestling champ of the British Empire! Look at him, will ya? Look at that chest on him; look at those arms on him! One day, boy, I'll be like that. I'll wipe those smiles off. No more ha ha ha. Respect! Respect. Watch. Watch! Are you watching? On the hands, down!”

He buckles like a spring, his legs shoot out behind him, arms straight. He bends and unbends, trembling. Veins and ridges spring into his arms in livid welts, vanish, a shadow of blood behind them. A voice outside.

“Tim. Tim! Are you there, Tim?”

Firpo collapses, scrambles to his feet. One hand comes slowly forward, as if to repel something.

A thin elderly woman stands in the doorway, hair like an old mop, eyes mild but imploring: where have I seen this face before? Yes. It's the face of Firpo, transposed.

She advances. I recoil towards the chimney, my eyes on the thin froth of petticoat lace below her skirt.

“Well, Tim, Getting settled in? Not so bad, is it?” Her eye swivels, flicks open: me. “Bless my soul! Who's this?”

“Good morning, Mrs Atkinson,” I say, nervously.

“Oh, you know me, do you.” She comes closer, peers at me. “Yes I know you, too. Live along the beach, don't you? That's right: I know your mother. What are you doing here?”

“Exploring, Mrs Atkinson.”

“Exploring, are you?” She gives a tinny cackle. “Trespassing's the word, my lad. All right: just a minute.” She turns away from me. “Tim, I've got the stretcher out. It's quite sound. Needs a dust, that's all. I'm giving you three blankets. That should be enough. Come and get them later, will you? And you, young man. You can do something for me. Pay for your exploring. Come up to the house, will you? Tim, I've brought you a broom. It's on the porch. Start sweeping the place out, will you?”

Firpo stands as if in trance, his face stone-white, no breath moving the thin rib-cage. Mrs Atkinson looks at him a moment, uneasy, then her eyes blink, her hands shake.

“Oh, Tim. Tim! Don't look at me like that, dear! It's all for the best. Really, it is. All for the best,” and she moves slowly towards the door, suddenly turns there.

“And remember one thing, Tim. Wherever you are, big house or tiny bach, it doesn't mat...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Sunday at Te Parenga
• The night of the riots
• Christmas at Te Parenga
• The made man
• Back Cover