Fat Man, The Read online

Although he could not see him, Colin felt the fat man grinning at his father. Leave Dad alone, he wanted to say. He heard him push his chair back and leave the table; heard him climb the stairs again. The ceiling creaked over his head and he thought he heard, far off, the sound of a laugh. Then his mother and father and Bette came into the lounge. His mother took the flannel away and studied his face, while Bette said, ‘Poor lamb,’ again, which Colin didn’t care for. He smelled her scent and felt a flake of powder from her cheek settle on his nose.

  ‘Can we go soon?’ he asked.

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Can we?’

  ‘As soon as we’ve had a cup of tea.’

  ‘Tea!’ the fat man cried, coming in. ‘We’re not drinking that stuff, not when all us old friends get together after so long. This is a celebration, Maisie.’ He showed four bottles of beer, dangling by their necks, two in each hand. Then he shouted back through the door, ‘Hey, Mrs Potter, Mr Potter, cancel that tea. Bring a bottle opener and some glasses and have a beer.’ He smiled at Laurie. ‘We could run a sly grog shop from here. Make us a few bob, eh, what do you think?’

  ‘I’d prefer tea, thank you,’ Maisie said.

  ‘Me too, Herbert,’ Bette said. ‘You know I don’t like beer.’

  ‘Gives her the wind,’ the fat man said. ‘Okay, tea for the ladies, beer for the men. Ah, glasses, Harry. You’ll have one, won’t you?’

  ‘You bet,’ Grandpa said. ‘I might have two.’

  So the men drank beer while the ladies had tea. Herbert Muskie produced three cigars from a pocket. ‘Laurie. Harry.’ They lit up and puffed, sitting in their chairs. Aromatic smoke filled the lounge.

  Colin got his flannel back and covered his eyes. He heard the fat man’s voice. ‘You know what I reckon you should have, kid? A beer.’

  ‘No,’ Maisie said sharply.

  ‘No offence. I just thought it might settle his stomach.’

  ‘He’s too young.’

  ‘We started young, eh Laurie, you and me?’

  Colin’s father laughed. He sounded easier.

  ‘Let’s have some music,’ the fat man said. He got up and went to the piano; lifted the lid, struck a note. ‘It works.’

  ‘Harry tunes it,’ Grandma said.

  ‘I got an ear,’ Grandpa said, ‘but I don’t play. No one plays now.’

  ‘Maisie?’ the fat man asked.

  ‘I never learnt.’

  ‘It looks like you then, Bette.’

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t.’

  ‘Sure you could. Bette used to sing on the stage. Musical comedy. Eh, Bette? Give us a song.’

  ‘Well, Herbert, if you insist …’

  ‘I do. I insist.’ He winked at Maisie. ‘Try and stop her.’

  Colin lifted his flannel. He saw the woman settle herself on the piano stool. She took off her rings, flexed her fingers and started to play. To Colin it seemed she played well: a tune tinkled out, with the notes going fast, and no mistakes. In a sweet tinny voice, she sang, ‘You’re the cream in my coffee …’

  ‘Hey, yey,’ Grandpa cried. The beer seemed to have gone to his head.

  Everybody clapped when she had finished. She smiled back over her shoulder and raised a little question mark with her eyebrows at the fat man.

  ‘Yeah, don’t stop,’ he said.

  She sang ‘Life is just a bowl of cherries’ and ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles’, her voice like a cracked glass, sharp and frail and a little off-key. Then she sang a slow one, ‘When I was twenty-one and you were sweet sixteen’, which wasn’t so good.

  Colin had put his flannel on the floor. He risked a look at the fat man. He was lying back in an easy chair with his feet splayed out. His hands were folded on his belly and his head rested on the back of the chair. The cigar, with an inch of ash, burned in his mouth, sending a plume of smoke at the ceiling. Without moving it, he said, ‘Happy days are here again.’ Then he took it out and smiled at Maisie. ‘My favourite.’

  Bette sang, ‘Happy days are here again, The skies are growing clear again …’

  A movement at the open door caught Colin’s eye. A girl was standing there, behind the fat man; a skinny girl with a frown on her face. She wore a pink dress and a pink and white bonnet. Brown curls hung beside her cheeks. Her mouth was twisted as though she tasted something bad. She took a step forward as the people in the room clapped Bette’s song. ‘Mum,’ she said, and at the same instant the fat man flattened his feet on the floor and straightened his legs. His chair skidded back across the floor. Without even looking, he reached over his head and grabbed the girl by the arms. ‘Gotcha,’ he said.

  She shrieked and tried to pull away, but he held her fast. His cigar sent smoke into her face. He looked at her upwards and said, ‘Sneaking in?’

  ‘No I wasn’t. Let me go.’

  Bette had jumped up from the piano. ‘Herbert, you’re hurting her,’ she cried.

  ‘No, I’m not. Just giving her a squeeze.’ But he let her go and the girl ran to Bette, who took her in her arms.

  ‘There, there, he didn’t mean it. He’s just a big hooligan.’

  ‘Cuddling me daughter, that’s all,’ the fat man said.

  ‘I’m not your daughter,’ the girl said from her mother’s arms.

  ‘You are if I say so,’ the fat man said. For a moment he looked discomforted, then he laughed. ‘What do you think of her bonnet, ladies and gents?’

  ‘Herbert,’ Bette warned.

  ‘And her pretty curls?’

  ‘There, love,’ Bette said. ‘Take no notice of him. Are you feeling better?’

  ‘I heard you singing,’ the girl said.

  ‘I was entertaining the company.’ She smiled around. ‘Concert’s over. This is Verna, my little girl.’

  ‘I’m not little.’

  ‘You’re sure as hell not big,’ the fat man said. ‘You wouldn’t think she was twelve, would you? If I really was her dad she’d have some beef on her.’

  ‘Herbert,’ Bette warned again. Then she said to Verna, ‘Would you like some dinner, love? Some pudding? Plums and custard?’

  ‘No plums left, I ate ’em all,’ the fat man said.

  ‘Mrs Potter kept some, so don’t be smart, Herbert,’ Bette said.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am.’ He puffed his cigar and tapped the ash into the ashtray Grandma had put on the table at his side.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ the girl said.

  ‘Just a little bit? Lovely plums … ?’

  ‘I said I’m not hungry.’

  Colin felt sympathy for Verna – adult eyes all watching her. Her bonnet was a joke though. Who’d wear that? But he watched her with a horrified interest as well – having the fat man as a father. He could see that she was what people might call pretty – eyes and nose and mouth and curls – even though she was too thin and knobbly for twelve.

  The fat man said, ‘When she goes to school, kid, she’ll probably be in your class. Old Itchy can strap the pair of you.’

  ‘I’m not going to school,’ Verna said. ‘Not here.’

  ‘Not yet, anyway,’ Bette said.

  ‘You’ll go where we put you,’ the fat man said. ‘But maybe not here. We gotta see if we’re welcome yet.’

  ‘Sure you’re welcome,’ Grandpa said, pouring more beer in his glass.

  ‘That’s enough of that, Harry,’ Grandma said.

  ‘Hey, let him drink,’ the fat man said. ‘Life’s too short. All of us might be dead tomorrow.’

  ‘What a dreadful thing to say, Herbert,’ Bette said. She still held her daughter in one arm.

  ‘You reckon it’s a bowl of cherries, eh?’ He grinned at her, then at Maisie and Laurie. ‘Well, maybe it is. There might be some nice old gent up there’ – prodding with his cigar at the ceiling – ‘smiling down. But he didn’t treat you too well, eh Vern? Scarlet fever.’

  ‘Leave her alone, Herbert,’ Bette said.

  He ignored her. ‘Come here, girl.’

  ‘No.’


  ‘Come on, I won’t hurt you.’

  ‘No.’ Verna turned her eyes up at her mother. ‘Mum?’

  ‘Just send her across here, Bette,’ the fat man said. ‘There’s a coupla things I got to say.’

  ‘Herbert …’

  He smiled at her. ‘Bette, you’re Mrs Muskie now.’ His voice had gone softer. The worm in his cheek gave a jerk.

  Underneath her powder Bette turned pale. She swallowed and managed to make a rigid smile. ‘Go on, love.’ She gave a tiny push on Verna’s shoulders. ‘Go to your father. You’ll be all right.’

  The girl crossed the space. Her legs carried her like puppet legs. The fat man smiled and laid down his cigar. He had pushed himself upright in his chair and he took her upper arms in his hands. ‘Vern,’ he said, ‘if I say you go to Loomis school, that’s where you go. Understand?’

  She managed to nod. Her eyes were fixed on him with a glazed look.

  ‘And if I say you eat your plums, you eat.’

  Again she nodded.

  ‘Say, “Yes, Dad.” ’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’ It was so soft Colin barely heard.

  ‘And if I say you don’t wear your bonnet inside, then you don’t wear it.’

  ‘Herbert,’ Bette said. She took a step forward, with her hands held like a prayer.

  ‘Stay there, Bette. And keep your trap shut. This is between me and Vern.’

  He smiled at the girl. He let her arms go.

  ‘So take it off.’

  Verna trembled, but she obeyed. Her fingers pulled the bow undone beneath her chin. The ribbons fell down, and her arms fell too, hanging loosely.

  ‘Good girl,’ the fat man said. ‘Now, nice and easy, hats off. And keep out of it, Bette,’ he added, as his wife seemed on the point of stepping forward.

  ‘Stop,’ Maisie Potter said. ‘You can’t …’ but could not finish. The fat man flicked his eyes at her and gave a smile.

  ‘Things have changed, Maisie. So stay out of it.’

  A tear slipped from Verna’s eye. The fat man put his finger out and squashed it. ‘No use crying,’ he said.

  Slowly she raised her hands and took her bonnet off. Again her arms fell to her sides. The bonnet ribbons dangled on the floor. But no one was looking at that. Verna’s curls were gone. They were sewn into the bonnet. Soft hair, not half an inch long, covered her head. She was shorn like a sheep. Colin thought she still looked all right – like a boy. But Grandma Potter said, ‘Oh, the poor little thing.’

  Bette ran forward and caught Verna in her arms. ‘I hope you’re satisfied,’ she said to the fat man.

  ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘I just don’t like hats on in the house. My mother taught me it was bad manners.’

  But Colin saw the pleasure he took from what he’d done. He found the flannel and put it over his eyes. ‘She better have her plums now,’ he heard the fat man say. ‘Lucky there’s some left’ – and heard Bette take Verna out of the room.

  The men smoked their cigars and finished the bottles of beer. Then the Potters went home.

  ‘Why’s her hair like that, Mum?’ Colin said.

  ‘The scarlet fever.’

  ‘Does it make your hair fall out?’

  ‘No, they shave it off. It’s part of the treatment.’

  ‘That hair sewn in her hat really fooled me,’ Laurie said.

  ‘I’m not surprised, the amount of beer you were drinking. Laurie, I won’t have that man in the house. And I don’t want you working for him either. There’s something wrong with him. He was cruel to that girl.’

  Yes, Dad, Colin wanted to say, keep away from him, he’s after us.

  But Laurie Potter kept quiet. He carried the Gladstone bag. The boxing cups clanked against his knee as they walked through town.

  When they got home he put them in a neat line on the mantelpiece. Then he stood back and admired them.

  Chapter 5

  Green Hair

  ‘You will if I say you will,’ Mrs Potter said, and she banged the kettle on the stove and gave the fire a poke.

  They had been arguing for half an hour and Colin had not budged her an inch. He knew she understood why he couldn’t do it – walk to school with a new girl, especially when her hair was only half an inch long – but it seemed she didn’t care. All she cared about was Verna Muskie.

  ‘The other kids, they’ll think …’ he said. She knew what they would think, but ‘Let them’ was all she said again.

  Colin decided he would run away. He’d spend the day in the bush down by Cascade Park. Or else he’d take the train to Auckland and spend the day in there. He had enough for the fare in his money tin.

  ‘All I’m asking,’ Mrs Potter said, ‘is that you call for her at Mum and Dad’s and walk to school with her. And take her to the headmaster’s office. That’s all. Just say to Mr Garvey, this is Verna Muskie and leave it at that. She’ll have a letter from her mother. You don’t have to walk home with her after school – although it would be nice if you did.’

  ‘The other kids –’

  ‘Colin! I’m not telling you again. Now go and clean your teeth. And make sure your fingernails are clean.’

  ‘Why can’t her mother take her?’ But he knew the answer to that. Because Herbert Muskie said no. The girl had to learn to stand on her own two feet. And she had to leave her hat at home.

  What the fat man said, Bette and Verna had to do. He had agreed that Colin would call for her at Bellevue House.

  Colin brushed his teeth, using salt, and got his schoolbag from his room. He put his lunch in it and thought, now for Cascade Park. But the trouble there would be and the whipping he would get. It wasn’t that which stopped him though, it was the fat man. If he hid in the bush at the park, or anywhere, the fat man would turn up in his car and hunt him out.

  ‘Kiss,’ Mrs Potter said as he went out the door. Colin came back and kissed her cheek.

  ‘I do know how you feel,’ she said. ‘But she’s lonely and she’s frightened and she knows how funny she looks. So just be kind.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘And she’s got Herbert Muskie for a father.’

  ‘Yes,’ Colin said.

  He walked through the streets to Bellevue House. He hadn’t seen Verna Muskie in the week since they’d gone to dinner, but he knew her hair couldn’t have grown much in that time. It would still be as flat as knitting on her head.

  He walked past the station and saw Herbert Muskie’s car nose out from Bellevue House and turn towards him. It was a Buick, painted dark green, with the headlights and door handles and grille shining silver. Colin had no time to duck into the station. The fat man slowed down and stopped. He sat looking at Colin. Grandpa Potter grinned beside him.

  ‘Morning, kid. How’s your stomach now?’ the fat man said.

  ‘I’m all right,’ Colin said.

  ‘You don’t need a dose of castor oil?’

  ‘Ha ha,’ Grandpa laughed. Colin felt cold and small. He had them, the fat man, he had Colin’s father and grandpa eating out of his hand.

  ‘You look after my little girl and I’ll have a shilling for you,’ the fat man said. He winked at Colin. ‘Chin up, kid.’ He drove away. The Buick left a haze of blue exhaust in the air.

  The fat man had owned it for a week. On the Monday after the Potters’ dinner at Bellevue House he had caught the morning train into Auckland, and had turned up again before midday, driving into Station Road and into the boarding-house yard. He honked the horn, bringing Bette and Grandma and Grandpa running out. (Verna watched from an upstairs window.) They oohed and aahed at the car, stroked it, tried the horn, and Grandpa, who was good at all mechanical things, looked under the bonnet and rubbed his hands. The fat man took them for a ride through Loomis and then for a mile or two along the Great North Road. He wound the Buick up to sixty miles an hour. And everyone in Loomis knew what had happened later in the day. Some of them had seen it. It was, Mrs Sargent said, the loveliest thing she’d ever seen, it had made h
er cry. It went like this:

  Herbert Muskie and Grandpa Potter drove out to Sunnyvale Station – just a little hut it was on the near side of the creek, with Sunnyvale painted over the door – and Herbert Muskie waited there while Grandpa drove the Buick back to Loomis. Mrs Muskie came into town not long after that, keeping to her timetable – grocer, butcher, station – and when the three o’clock train pulled in from Auckland she stood up as she always did and watched to see who stepped down from the carriages. When it was Herbert Muskie, grinning, easy, with a cigarette in his mouth and his hat tipped on the back of his head, she let out a shriek. She almost fell over – did a sideways stagger and held herself up against a goods trolley standing there.

  Herbert Muskie ground his cigarette out with the toe of his shoe and went up to her and said, ‘Here I am, Mum. I’ve come home,’ and he took her in his arms (Mrs Sargent wipes her eye) and kissed her so her hat tipped backwards at the same angle as his. Then he led her down the ramp to his waiting car and put her in the back seat like the Queen, and Grandpa got out and he got in and drove her through Loomis, across the bridge she’d wheezed over half an hour before, to the two-storeyed falling-down house by the creek.

  ‘What a wonderful son,’ Mrs Sargent said.

  ‘It’s not true,’ Colin had wanted to yell when he heard it, ‘can’t you see he’s fooling everyone.’ But no one would have listened. They’d all gone loopy over the fat man, they couldn’t get enough of him. Later in the day Muskie drove back to Bellevue House and took Bette and Verna to meet his mother. No one knew how that had turned out, but they all had dinner at Bellevue House that night and Bette sang songs that made the old lady cry. She still lived by herself in the house by the creek. Herbert and his family weren’t shifting in until it was done up, they’d stay at Bellevue House until Laurie Potter had finished the repairs. Yes, Laurie was to do it. What good luck for the Potters, getting a job like that when times were so hard.

  As for Clyde Muskie, poor old Clyde, Herbert had shaken hands with him and patted him on the shoulder. He had gone to see the sawmill and given Clyde a cigar and left it at that. He had given Laurie Potter another cigar too, as they looked at what needed doing to Mrs Muskie’s house. Laurie came home with half of it stuck behind his ear for later on.