Southerly by David Haywood

My Grandfather was one of those atheists who don't so much disbelieve in God, as personally dislike him.

On the final day, when he lay dying in hospital, he told me how glad he was not to be tempted by any last-minute religious feelings.

"I wouldn't give God the satisfaction," he said.

By this time, the slightest movement gave him pain. I could hear blood foaming in his lungs.

He died later that same hour. His face showed neither pain, nor absence of pain, but only surprise.

At the very end, he whispered: "The room is full of swans."

Our rented crib is only a stone's throw from Foveaux Strait. On a calm day, we are soothed by the gurgle of waves and the clatter of pebbles. On a windy day, the sea roars like an angry bull-seal, and spray falls rattling onto our roof.

The weather governs our lives. The merest hint of sunshine will send us scrambling to hang out the washing -- with desperate prayers offered up to the rain-gods. A southerly storm plunges us into gloom; we huddle around the fire, as wind whistles through the gaps in the window frames, and sleety rain blotches the panes.

Since our arrival in February we've experienced the full range of climate. On our first day it was so hot that I was forced to peel down to my shorts. For the next three days we had a torrential downpour. In the subsequent months we've had sleet, hail, and three sprinklings of snow. We've recently purchased sufficient clothes-racks to dry a full load of laundry beside the fire.

Most mornings begin early for us. It's not unusual for Bob-the-baby to cry "Door! Door!" (the signal that he's ready for his morning walk) at 5.00 am. We pretend not to hear -- and sometimes he gets up and amuses himself by emptying our bedside drawers onto the floor. If we're lucky, this distracts him for another ten blissful minutes of slumber.

We have breakfast, which Bob enjoys; followed by a bath, which he barely tolerates. If it's too early we wait until dawn before setting out on our walk. Sunrise over Foveaux Strait is a chocolate-box artist's dream, but as Jennifer observes: "I've never seen any sunrise so pretty that it makes me glad to be awake this early".

Once outside, the cold is bracing. At dawn the air temperature often dips below zero -- with a half-dozen degrees of wind-chill subtracted for good measure. We wave goodbye to Jennifer, and Bob tucks his face into my armpit to keep warm.

Above: Sunrise over Foveaux Strait.

Our morning walk is protracted and meandering, but always includes a visit to Howell's Point. We let the moon decide our route. At high tide we follow a footpath cut into the low bluffs above the beach; Bob enjoys the sight of waves surging just beneath us. On some occasions, the sea becomes too lively for my tastes, sloshing up onto the path and over the top of my boots.

At low tide, we pick our way through rock pools and meadows of kelp. The Southland coast seems wildly exotic to my Cantabrian eyes. Oyster-catchers scuttle along the tide line, and vast flocks of sea-birds drift above the strait like wreaths of black smoke. I have yet to identify their species. Once, on a rare occasion when we encountered another walker -- a suitably salty-looking chap -- I asked him what they were. "Those," he replied, with the air of a man giving an explanation to an imbecile, "are a type of bird."

The sea has no shortage of surprises. Until a few days ago, our morning walk often involved the traverse of a large pool -- necessitating some awkward hopping about the rocks. Yesterday we discovered that the pool had been filled with pebbles, and the sea had conveniently thrown a raised path along our intended route. It seemed spookily convenient.

A few weeks back we experienced an exceptionally low tide. The bay emptied out like a drained bath, and Bob and I were able to walk straight across the sea-floor to Howells' Point. I felt like a deep-sea diver -- striding along the tops of the reefs, and peering into chasms where dark things slithered. We reached a patch of slurry, and I sank to my shins with each step. The tide came flooding in with unpleasant speed, faster than I've ever before seen; we clambered onward to the other side of the bay with the water licking at my heels.

At Howell's point there is a good view across to Stewart Island. If anything, our third-largest island looks colder and more windswept than Riverton. Rain clouds are usually scudding across Foveaux Strait and streaming nastily off the summit of Mount Anglem. The whole place looks as if it should be plugged into a central heating system.

Above: Bob dozes for a few minutes after a long walk.

By the time we arrive home, Bob is due for another nappy change. This is a two-person job: one parent distracts him with a book, while the other deals with the business end. In the absence of reading material, Bob will thrash his little arms and legs, and scream as if he's being murdered. The end result is rather like changing the nappy on an eel -- accompanied by the sound-track of a pig being clubbed to death.

There are tea rooms only a few hundred metres from our doorstep. For our big weekly excursion we pay the 'Thyme Out Tea House' a lunchtime visit. I've developed an addiction to cheese rolls (a mysterious Southland delicacy that's similar to Welsh rarebit); Jennifer favours the pumpkin soup. The proprietress, Nola, has put herself in our good books by declaring that Bob is not the worst baby she's ever seen. In my experience, shop-owners seldom say that.

Our afternoon walk often includes a side-trip to the playground at Taramea Bay. This was once a popular holiday destination, and the seafront has an open-air theatrette where 1950s artistes entertained the summer crowds. The crumbling structure appears to perform gymnastics as Bob and I take rides on the swings.

Above: The 'Thyme Out Tea House'.

Bob likes to exercise his growing vocabulary. "Dog!" is an oft-uttered word on our walks. Sometimes he turns this exclamation into a question mark: "Dog?" [pointing to a Shetland pony]; "Dog?" [in the direction of a goat]; and even "Dog?" [waving excitedly at the postman]. The problem with dogs -- as I fully agree -- is the great variety of different shapes and sizes. Who am I to say there isn't a Slovenian Mail-delivering Wolfhound that resembles our postman?

We try to synchronize our return home with the arrival of Bob's dinner on the table. Bob likes to hurl food about the room while he dines. In a feeble attempt to promote calmness, I play a couple of songs on my guitar or Jennifer strums her autoharp.

If all goes well, Bob is asleep by eight o'clock. Jennifer and I hunch over our laptops. The wind hums over the power lines and rattles the windows; the fire sends shadows across the ceiling. A trip to the lavatory is like a short visit to Antarctica.

Jennifer goes to bed at midnight. But I continue to type -- occasionally stoking the fire to warm my wife and son as they slumber on towards morning.

Above: A new morning over Foveaux Strait.

Of all the stabbings I have experienced in my life, the first stabbing is the one that I remember most fondly. Primarily because I don't remember it at all, but also because (unlike the other times) I was not the person who was stabbed.

The stabbing occurred when I was six weeks old. My mother had taken me to visit my Glaswegian grandparents. I was the first New Zealander to whom they were related, and they viewed my arrival with considerable interest. In honour of my visit, my grandmother decided to buy a new rug for their front hall.

Unfortunately for her, my grandfather was going through one of his difficult patches. As early as 1926 he had developed the habit of shouting "get a proper job" at policemen who happened to cross his field of vision. His latest crusade was the abolition of central government. He had already written an impassioned letter on this subject to his local member of parliament, and was awaiting a response.

Naturally enough, he viewed the purchase of a rug as a dangerous distraction to his revolutionary activities. My grandmother, however, had not survived the wartime air-raids on Glasgow for nothing. She was resolute in her insistence on a new rug. And so, reluctantly, my grandfather accompanied her on a shopping expedition.

At the department store, the selection process led to a certain amount of tension. My grandmother was irresistibly drawn to a fancy Persian-style carpet. My grandfather preferred another rug, which -- by complete co-incidence -- was only quarter of the price.

In the end, my grandmother's preference prevailed. When they arrived home and laid out the rug in the front hall, my grandfather conceded that it looked very nice. "And so it should -- for the amount of money it's cost us," he added.

The next day I made my triumphant arrival, and was no doubt praised by all as a thoroughly bonny six-week-old (although, to be perfectly truthful, descriptions of my loveliness are strangely absent from the accounts I've heard of these events).

By late afternoon, the initial excitement of my visit had begun to wane. My uncle -- who had recently returned from art school in London -- retired to his bedroom to play classical music. My grandfather was in the sitting room watching Crown Court. He could occasionally be heard shouting at the television set: "Of course he's innocent!" and "The police framed him, you dimwits!" My mother and grandmother were having tea and scones in the front room. I was sleeping peacefully in my bassinet.

The scene was set for a stabbing.

As she later testified in court, my mother answered the doorbell on the assumption that it was my uncle. Being artistically inclined, he'd been known to leave the house via his bedroom window, only to discover -- upon his return -- that the wind had blown it shut and he'd been locked out.

Expecting her brother, my mother was therefore surprised to discover a stranger at the front door. She was even more surprised when the stranger groaned and toppled forward onto the new rug in the front hall -- cinematically revealing a knife hilt sticking out of his back.

It speaks volumes for my grandfather's propensity to be difficult that both my mother and grandmother's first thoughts were not for the victim -- or even the rug -- but rather for the terrible fuss that my grandfather was bound to cause. My grandmother had visions of police inspectors arriving on the property, an altercation breaking out, and my grandfather being removed in handcuffs while shouting quotations from the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights 1689. My mother, who possesses a rather bloodthirsty imagination, even considered the possibility of a police shoot-out.

Simultaneously, they were both seized with the notion of concealing the stabbing victim from my grandfather. While my grandmother whispered words of consolation ("Try not to groan so loudly, dear, we're just going to move you,") my mother went to enlist my uncle's assistance in dragging the victim along the hall to the front room -- a location where he'd be less visible in the event that grandfather should wander through the house.

My uncle was deeply engrossed in Part 2 of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps when he became aware of my mother's presence. She stood palely at the door -- much in the manner of Lady Anne's ghost from Richard III -- gesticulating silently that he should keep quiet and follow her.

Anticipating a glimpse of a beatifically sleeping nephew, my uncle was unprepared to be led to the body of a stabbed man lying in the hall. Naturally enough, he leapt to the conclusion that either my mother or grandmother was responsible. "My God, what made you do it?" he exclaimed.

Hissing at him to be quiet, my mother and grandmother outlined the situation, and requested his help in relocating the victim. To his credit, my uncle point-blank refused to have any part in such a thing -- claiming that he'd been taught in art school never to move a stabbed person.

Sensing that my uncle would not be swayed on the matter, my grandmother hastily adopted an alternative stratagem. She retrieved a tea-towel from the linen cupboard, and draped it over the protruding knife hilt -- in the hope, she later told me, that my grandfather would thus be persuaded that the stabbing victim was actually a meter-reader. I've always wondered how she imagined this would play out.

By this time, the stabbing victim -- who had been quietly bleeding over the new rug -- had begun to babble about calling an ambulance. However, as my grandmother pointed out, this raised another thorny problem. The telephone was located in the kitchen, and the kitchen adjoined the sitting room. Any call to the emergency services would therefore be fully audible to my grandfather.

A prolonged silence greeted her observation -- eventually broken by my uncle, who cleared his throat thoughtfully before raising the obvious points:

1. Clearly, a criminally-inclined person had inserted the knife into the stabbing victim.
   
2. This unknown criminal -- who might accurately be described as a 'knife-wielding maniac' -- might, quite plausibly, still be in the vicinity.
   
And consequently, if my grandmother were about to suggest that a member of the household (for example, him) should be sent outside to borrow the neighbours' telephone, then he (my uncle) would like to register his strongest objections.

My uncle went on to explain that he wasn't concerned so much for himself, but rather for the staff of the emergency services, who -- he strongly felt -- shouldn't be burdened with more than one stabbing victim at a time.

To be fair, whenever my mother and grandmother recounted the subsequent events, their praise of my uncle was both effusive and unstinting. My mother likened his ascent of the neighbours' fence to a performance by an Olympic high-jumper. My grandmother declared that his athleticism put her in mind of a gazelle. At any rate, shortly thereafter, my uncle appeared at the neighbour's window -- waving to indicate that he'd managed to telephone the police.

As it turned out, it was fortunate that my grandmother had sent him to Mrs Chandler -- an elderly woman who had been their neighbour for many years. The neighbours on the other side were newly arrived, which meant that my grandmother had been disinclined to borrow their telephone. In fact, she hadn't even spoken to them yet, although she'd formed the impression that they were rather odd: possibly English.

And so everyone settled down to wait for the emergency services. My grandmother gave succour to the stabbing victim as he drifted in and out of consciousness. My mother watched out the window for police activity, and waved occasionally to my uncle at Mrs Chandler's house. I continued to slumber in my bassinet.

Time passed. In the sitting room, Crown Court ended, and an American comedy programme began. My mother and grandmother could hear my grandfather getting restless, and warming up to his usual speech about having to pay a television licence fee to watch bloody rubbish. Fearful that he would seek out an audience for his oratory -- as he almost always did -- my mother was dispatched to head him off.

It was not a moment too soon. Grandfather had already made it as far as the kitchen; and my mother was only able to lure him back to the sitting room by the cunning device of asking him to read to his new grandson.

As she knew, my grandfather was inordinately proud of his talent for reading aloud, and even liked to assume different voices for different characters (albeit all of them with Glaswegian accents). My mother told him, quite truthfully, that she'd heard that reading to a sleeping baby was helpful for its mental development.

With this in mind, my grandfather chose Orwell's Homage to Catalonia as his text. By the time he'd reached the chapter about trench warfare in Huesca, my mother was beginning to worry. Surely it shouldn't have taken the police quite this long to arrive? Gradually, but inexorably, her mind began to dwell upon my uncle's description of a "knife-wielding maniac".

At the time, his words had struck her as fanciful. After all, the maniac was no longer in possession of a knife; she'd clearly observed it sticking out of the stabbing victim. But then the obvious thought struck her -- viz. that the maniac might be the owner of two knives.

At this point, my mother began to wonder if she'd remembered to lock the front door. Her thoughts turned to the possibility of a maniac stealing into the house, and how easy it would be to silently overpower my grandmother. In fact, even now, the maniac could be crouching in the next room, about to burst forth and stab them all.

It was quite understandable, therefore, that when the sitting room door suddenly opened, my mother inadvertently screamed: "Help! It's the murderer!" In actual fact, it was only my uncle and grandmother. Fortunately my mother's cry roused me to wakefulness, and in my ensuing screaming binge, her little outburst was forgotten. This was my small -- but, I like to think, crucial -- contribution to proceedings.

My uncle and grandmother affected an air of nonchalance, but they had been enjoying themselves no end in my mother's absence. The street had been cordoned off by armed police, and they had witnessed the gratifying spectacle of their new neighbour surrendering himself at gunpoint. Subsequently, the stabbing victim had been stretchered from the front hall, and a policeman had taken their statements. "I've seldom had such an interesting afternoon," said my grandmother later.

At the time, of course, the matter could not be discussed -- although my grandmother did manage to quickly summarize the situation to my mother in the kitchen. It was only when my grandfather went to collect the newspaper that they realized their concealment had not been flawless.

"Here, where's our new rug gone?" he called from the front hall.

As it happened, the police had taken the rug as evidence for bloodstains. Given the day's events, my grandmother can be forgiven for simply saying the first thing that came into her head. "I took it into the dry-cleaners," she replied.

There followed a long and convoluted exchange as to why my grandmother would want to take a brand-new rug to the dry-cleaners -- made even more complicated by the fact that my grandfather (it transpired) had long held a theory that all dry-cleaners are fascists, and you shouldn't give them your business.

In the end, the police never did give back the new rug, and my grandmother had to say that the dry-cleaners had ruined it. With typical unpredictability, however, this news delighted my grandfather, since it fully confirmed his anti-dry-cleaner theories.

So, in a funny way, it all ended happily (except for the new neighbour who was sentenced to prison). My grandfather went to his grave without ever learning of the stabbing; my grandmother was compensated for the disappearance of the rug; my uncle discovered a hitherto undetected talent for lying, and eventually became an award-winning actor.

I wish I could report that the stabbing victim married the wife of the new neighbour; but alas, their relationship -- although very intimate -- did not survive the court case.

ACT I:

The curtain opens to show the tea rooms of a railway station in Milford, England. The year is 1936. Ian, a failed journalist, and Laura, a middle-class housewife, are sitting together at a table. Teacups are set upon the table, but no-one is drinking.

Ian: I wish I could think of something to say, darling.

Laura: It doesn't matter -- not saying anything, I mean.

Ian: Do you remember that wonderful holiday in Greece?

Laura: I've never left England, darling, remember? Fred doesn't like foreign food.

Ian: Your holiday on that wonderful Greek island? The one just north of Chios?

Laura: Whatever are you talking about, darling? You know I've never been abroad.

Ian: What was the name of the island?... yes, Lesbos, that's it. You were there on holiday with Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. Don't you remember? That glorious day when you visited the hot springs to bathe -- you took off your clothes, and you were all so naked and beautiful. Like Naiads...

Laura: I want to die!

Ian: Oh, don't say that darling. If you died, then you might as well be... well... dead...

Laura: Yes, you're right. It's just that I'm so tired of hearing you go on about Lesbos. You know it's a load of rot. I've never been to Greece. Why do you keep saying it?

Ian: Let's just talk about something different, shall we darling?

Laura: Yes, we could talk about electrical engineering -- oh, how I adore electricity!

Ian: All those electrical plugs and sockets, I suppose. You know, I sometimes wonder what God would think...

Laura: Let's not talk about God again, Ian, it's so embarrassing...

Ian: ...what God would think, if he saw an electrical engineer trying to join together a pair of sockets. I don't suppose he'd be very pleased.

Laura: I should think he'd have more important things to worry about.

Ian: Yes, but... well... let me put it this way: do you know that Swedish car?

Laura: The Volvo? Yes, I believe they're very safe...

Ian: Their safety is a matter of fact, Laura. It's a FACT -- not just my opinion! Please don't try to imply that it's just my opinion.

Laura: Oh, Ian, I'm so sorry. Can you forgive me, darling?

Ian: Of course I forgive you! I forgive you a thousand times! In fact, it is I who should be asking forgiveness from you, dearest Laura. It's just that... do you suppose -- however safe they are -- two Volvos might collide?

Laura: I suppose they might...

Ian: Banging into one another, over and over again, harder and harder...

Laura: Well, I don't suppose they'd do it over and over, Ian. Surely after the first accident they'd stop and exchange insurance details.

Ian: The thing is, Laura, that there's another word that's a lot like Volvo, isn't there? Is that what happened between you and Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West on that Greek island? Were your Volvos involved in a collision?

Laura: Oh, for heaven's sake, Ian! Why must you keep bringing up Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. You know I've never met them -- and I've never been to Greece either. We've been through this a thousand times.

Ian: How you twist my words, Laura! You know that I've no interest in Greece or your writer chums. I'm only making conversation to please you. You introduced the subject in the first place, Laura. You couldn't stop talking about your holidays on the Greek islands, and how close you all were.

Laura: Oh, Ian, really!

Ian: Well...

Laura: Well, I suppose this is goodbye, then?

Ian: Must we say goodbye, Laura?

Laura: Yes, darling, we must. Because... darling, you're not a well man. Oh, see a doctor, won't you, Ian? Please, for my sake.

Ian: Did I tell you that I'm planning to start my own magazine?

Laura: Oh Ian, don't start a magazine, you know you'll only write rubbish. Just see a doctor, I beg you.

Ian: I'm going to call it 'Investigate'.

Laura: No, darling, you should go to Vienna for medical treatment. The Viennese doctors will be frightfully interested in a case like yours. Goodbye, darling!

She leaves.

THE END.

In a well-known Christchurch watering-hole, I was recently served a pint of beer with ice-cubes.

The teenage barmaid, who either did not know or, perhaps, did not care that I may have an inherited heart condition, explained her actions with the following words: "We always put ice-cubes in drinks unless people ask for 'no ice'".

Personally, I have never heard of anyone, anywhere, not even Australians, who want ice-cubes in beer. A proviso that there is "no ice", seems to me as redundant as ordering beer with the proviso that there is "no decomposing rat", or "no cyanide", or "no surprise icepick through my spinal column, please".

As it happened, the barmaid replaced my contaminated beer without fuss. But even as I quaffed it down, I still found myself profoundly dissatisfied by the whole situation. How could such a terrible error occur in the first place? What is the world coming to? Why doesn't the government do something?

It's no exaggeration to say that the subject of pubs is dear to my heart. In fact, viewed from a certain perspective, it could be said that I have made them my life's study. Apart from not putting ice-cubes in beer, there are five basic ingredients for a good pub. I never thought I'd have to spell these out (they should be a matter of instinct to every publican in the land) -- but times being what they are, it is perhaps appropriate for me to provide a gentle reminder.

The first ingredient, of course, is good beer -- by which I mean proper beer from a barrel. A decent bottled beer (such as Emerson’s or Three Boys) is all very well at home; but when you're in a pub you want the real thing. It should not be fizzy (the only carbonation should be from natural fermentation), and it should definitely not be sweet. The ideal pub beer should be hand-pumped directly from the brewing barrel into your glass; and will always have a decent head (no less than 10 millimetres). The only acceptable substitute for good beer, in my opinion, is very, very cheap beer.

Many people, of course, will tell you that this is where the list begins and ends. Good (or, alternatively, very low-priced) beer, they maintain, is the only important ingredient for a pub. While this theory is appealing, it is only truly valid when you are drinking by yourself. In a social situation, the pub environment and staff also take on an element of importance.

This brings me to the second basic ingredient for a good pub -- recorded music. There shouldn't be any. If you are having a social drink then, by definition, you must have conversation. If some moron publican is playing Kylie Minogue's version of 'The Loco-Motion' at maximum volume then normal conversation is impossible. Even recorded music at so-called 'conversational levels' leads to volume-creep, with the inevitable consequence that everyone in the room ends up shouting to be heard.

The question of live music is slightly more complex. It should, in general, be restricted to dedicated 'live music pubs'. However, it can be an acceptable form of entertainment in regular pubs on an occasional basis. In this context, 'occasional' means no more than once a month -- and preferably on a Tuesday evening. Obviously, any live music should be gazetted well in advance, so that regular customers can make alternative plans, if necessary.

The third ingredient for a good pub is sport. Although I have long advocated for the reintroduction of the death penalty for publicans who install sports television or fruit machines, it is entirely acceptable for patrons to play quiet games provided that they are not too active. Pool, snooker, and skittles are all examples of games that fall into the category of excessive physical exertion. Anyone who wants to engage in these diversions should visit a pool hall or bowling alley.

Darts, on the other hand, is perhaps the ideal pub sport, being almost indistinguishable from plain straightforward drinking. A game of dominoes is another permissible activity; although, admittedly, without the frisson of danger that accompanies a darts match.

The staff of a pub are the fourth basic ingredient. There is, unfortunately, a recent fashion for friendly barmen and barmaids. This is quite unnecessary and, indeed, can seriously detract from the enjoyment of the drinker. In my opinion, there are few things more uncomfortable than having to make chit-chat with perky bar staff. Pouring beer is a serious job, and employees should have the personality to match.

Former undertakers make very good barmen or barmaids, as do people who have recently been bereaved. A friend of mine used to attend a pub that employed a deaf-mute. He said (that is: my friend said, not the deaf-mute) that this gave the pub just the right level of solemnity. Customers were required to write down their orders on a notepad, but this was only a minor inconvenience in comparison to the non-frivolous atmosphere.

The fifth and final basic ingredient for a good pub is décor. The emphasis in pubs should always be on cosiness: dark colours, comfortable chairs and tables, and understated lighting. Booths are preferable to almost any other arrangement of seating. Decoration should be restricted to a few tasteful paintings: preferably oil, and preferably of nineteenth-century factory exteriors, or similarly sombre subjects. A stuffed fish is a welcome addition to any pub.

It goes without saying that even an empty warehouse is an improvement on those hideous fake-Irish and fake-English pub interiors.

Although such basic ingredients are completely obvious and straightforward, it is shocking that almost no pubs of my acquaintance conform to these standards. In Christchurch, the New Zealand city that I know best, there are several quite good pubs; but, alas, they all have major flaws.

The Twisted Hop, in my opinion, has the best beer in Christchurch. Unfortunately, its interior décor lacks cosiness, and its chairs are instruments of torture (they really should provide an osteopath for their customers). The Dux de Lux, on the other hand, while having good beer and being somewhat cosy, commits multiple sins in terms of sports television, loud recorded music (but also, I concede, good live music) and vegetarians. The Wunderbar in Lyttleton deserves mention for its admirable cosiness, but the beer is very indifferent (the last time I paid a visit, the best they could offer was Speights!).

I'd probably rate the staff club at the University of Canterbury as the best all-round pub in Christchurch -- that is, if it were actually a pub rather than a private club. The beer is perhaps not quite up to the standard that one might hope, but the staff are suitably surly (they treat you like shit, to be perfectly frank), and the décor is excellent. The club is situated in the former home of a murderer and is decorated with appropriately gloomy art.

In fact, now that I think of it, if they got better beer it would almost be enough to tempt me back to the life of an academic.