A Many Coated Man (37 page)

‘To live is like to love,’ quotes McElrie. ‘All reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.’

‘When Butler travelled from Bologne to Basel by train in 1887 it was so cold between Chalons and the Swiss frontier that snow drifted in from the windows and piled up on the window seats so that Butler, alone in the carriage, had to huddle in the middle.’ The physicist’s description gains a greater impact by its contrast with the Erewhon in which it’s told. The shimmer of heat past the helipad which makes the figures of the red deer vibrate behind the high wires fences, a hawk drifting across the blue. Yet closer to the sun are peaks of snow.

‘Samuel had no normal family instincts,’ says Mrs McElrie. ‘He particularly hated his father and continually wished him dead. Not just for the inheritance either.’

‘Is that right.’

‘But a true sense of humour,’ protests the physicist, who is a successful landscape gardener from Nelson. The sliver of his tongue works in the dry air. ‘At one meal with his two helpmates here, no one else for scores of miles, he was suddenly struck by the coincidence of their three names — Butler, Baker and Cook.’ In perfect timing the physicist and the McElries burst into laughter. It’s obviously a treasured joke amongst the enthusiasts. Slaven looks across to Mesopotamia and imagines the young Butler making his witticism there in the hut, determined perhaps that it would survive to bear repetition in just such a way.

It is noon of this week day and Slaven is here at Erewhon with the deer, the Lodge, the long valley road empty for as
much of its length as he can see, and three literary pilgrims. Well, isn’t he? Is he at the Coalition headquarters at the Chenny Centre now that they have outgrown the rooms of the Charismatic Cambrian Church, weighing up offers which have been made which involve electoral endorsement in return. Is he in the West Wing lounge of the Beckley-Waite, pitting his wits against those of Philip Mathieson for the last wine biscuit, while Neville Kingi sneaks out a fart. Has he stayed with Mr Ng and Miles in the top chalet, listening to the understatements of commercial power and glancing down the slope to the physicist and the McElries who are still mute and anonymous. Is he in his own surgery with a patient open-mouthed before him and none of the other things begun, or necessary. He uses the new medication to inhibit salivation and is a master with the laser drill, but his most innovative work is with polymers which he uses against gum-level notching. From his swivel seat at the patient’s head he can look up to see his Modigliani print and enjoy the elongated colours of the cat’s eyes again. Is he with his wife in their garden, thinking of Erewhon amidst the foliage and flowers; with the Hoihos’
Half
Moon
Bay
and Kellie’s watchful care. Is he lying in the Earl of Athlone rhododendron with the smell of sparks and something happened to his heart.

McElrie smiles. ‘Childhood and old age hold the citadels of extremes and between them stretches the low landscape of compromise.’

‘Oddly enough,’ says the physicist, ‘John Baker, who had explored the upper Rangitata with him, met up with him again by accident in a hotel in Rome, in 1892. Well, we’d better go down for the talk on The Fair Haven before lunch.’ He invites Slaven to go with them, but when he refuses the three move away, though Mrs McElrie darts back for a moment to give Slaven a last insight into Samuel’s mind.

‘He said that the three most important things a man has are his private parts, his money and his religious opinions.’ She doesn’t wait for his thanks, but follows her husband and the physicist, turning her head to say, ‘I know who you are,’ as she goes.

Slaven is content to have some time to himself. It’s the reason in fact that he’s come, the reason he argued so vehemently that his minders weren’t necessary in such an impromptu wilderness. Soon now he will face a great crowd again; will draw out of himself to feed them all. He walks up the pump creek behind the Lodge buildings and finds a flat, warm rock in the tussock to sit on. There are lichens on it, some yellow and very close-pressed, some blue-grey and offering purchase for Slaven’s fingers as he sits and thinks. He has committed himself and the movement to one last, great rally before the elections and while the parties are most susceptible. His supporters are entitled to that surely. There are paradise duck in pairs scouting up the valley and a lone person lying on a towel behind the dormitory. A Butler enthusiast with the sort of individual perversity that Samuel had himself, or one who insists on a harder political reading of the works than Professor Hankie is willing to provide.

Power has to be exercised in order to be retained, displayed to prevent its usurpation. Slaven understands that. Having made the decision not to run candidates itself, but develop electoral pressure to gain the adoption of its policies by existing parties, the CCP has to demonstrate massive voter endorsement dramatically and regularly. And once the election is over the impact of that will be lessened. Kellie and the other leaders consider that the mood and the time are right for the big one. Even Miles has said that if you have a whip then you might as well crack it.

A degree of risk has to be taken — the risk that the power of the crowd prove finally incorrigible, that the serpent aroused choose sooner or later to serve its own ends.

It’s tempting also to accept the apparent distancing that Erewhon provides by the permanence of elemental things, for Slaven to persuade himself that all human action is petty, that one more political rally before one more election will not alter the scheme of things a jot. That’s always been an easy out, hasn’t it, and there is enough cynicism in Slaven for him to feel the blandishment of the idea, but not enough for him to be convinced. That the oceans, mountains and stars maintain a set configuration isn’t proof that an
individual’s actions are futile. That the effects will be minimised, trivialised, forgotten, or taken as inevitable in any case should be no consideration either.

Slaven thinks of Athol on the cherry leather of his Harley Hog and the goose girl’s simple pleasures. He imagines the Caretaker discreetly latching the window of the room two down from the emergency ALW, or standing in the darkened courtyard late at night to smoke his pipe and plan improvements at Mahakipawa Hill, the entreaty man who is convinced marvellous things will be achieved and has told everyone so, the hundreds who besiege his office and camp at his road gate, the thousands who send letters with their lives smouldering on the page, the tens of thousands who come to his rallies, the thirty-three who have martyred themselves to date by electrocution. The CCP staff who have taken up its principles and obligations as a way of life. The personal friends who trust him — Thackeray Thomas, Eula, Sheffield, Miles, Paul Hurinui. Kellie, above all.

Slaven walks down to the chalets, careful not to slip in the burnished tussock grass. He is quite resolved that the Hagley Park rally will be his best. He can’t entirely repress a sense of pride that he alone is responsible for an event that will focus the country’s attention. The sense of potential, of latent power, is like a grip on his breathing as he walks through the peace of Erewhon towards Mr Ng’s chalet. He sees that the sunbather behind the dormitory is their pilot and not a Butler devotee after all. The forty-five of those must still be at their devotions.

Yet maybe Mrs McElrie scampers out just long enough to tell Slaven of Samuel’s tumescence in colonial Christchurch, of some comment from Mrs Boss overhead, of the last words of old Pontifex, ‘Good-bye, sun; good-bye, sun.’

Mr Ng and Miles are drinking fruit juice and reminding themselves in an understated way of past financial coups and mutual acquaintances while they wait for Slaven to return for lunch. The valet brings a quiche, some blue vein and gruyere, a local botrytised Riesling. Slaven half expects to hear chanting from the Butlerites, but there is just the flat bed on the Rangitata and the mountains of bulwarks on either side.

Mr Ng is interested in the effect the electricity has had on Slaven, but doesn’t want to pry. Is there an altered consciousness perhaps; an opportunity for new personality development. ‘In acupuncture such changes are documented,’ he says. ‘I wondered if there was any similarity, any connection even, in the way the nervous system responds.’

‘My friend Marianne Dunne’s convinced that sometimes an electric shock can open up unused neuron pathways in the brain. Like a flash-flood changes the channels in the Rangitata river-bed out there. It can also do a certain amount of damage of course. Anything from a tingle to a killing depending on the charge and the circumstances.’

‘Chuang Tzu said that lightning is beautiful to watch, but must strike somewhere.’

‘The scans showed some localised and random activity,’ says Slaven. He is comfortable talking of it with Mr Ng, for his interest is caring, yet impersonal. ‘The specialists said there were similarities with some types of epileptic patterns. I’ve had behavioural responses as well, but nothing too accentuated.’

‘Just sufficient for opponents to have him committed to the Beckley-Waite Institute,’ says Miles hoarsely.

‘Beckley-Waite?’ queries Mr Ng.

‘I’m joking.’

‘I sometimes think that the burns themselves were just as much a reason for the change in me,’ says Slaven. ‘Not being able to use my hands, when doing so had become so much tied up with my identity. Something psychological there it seems, but so much is supposition isn’t it?’

‘May I see your hands?’ asks Mr Ng. He takes each in turn within his own light, rustling grasp. The gold of his glasses catches the light as he bends forward. His fingers travel lightly over the topography of scars and grafts.

‘They’re okay now,’ says Slaven.

‘In the Analects it’s said that the final indication of a fortunate man is that he’s spared a death by fire, or water.’ says Mr Ng.

‘There’s a thousand unlucky options then all the same.’ Miles is taken with this comparative view of death. ‘Mitten
was the best futures broker in Sydney and he was killed by a shot-put at his daughter’s school sports and Hannah Devanne was thrown from her bay gelding during a Hawkes Bay hunt and broke her back on the discarded axle of a straight eight Buick.’ Mr Ng nods, but has had trouble following what Miles has said.

‘How clear the atmosphere is in your country,’ Mr Ng says. ‘Everything can be seen to the limit of one’s own eyes.’

He comes as far as the entrance to the chalet to make his farewell to Miles and Slaven. A man whose people originally came from Linping, whose grandfather began a fortune in Hong Kong and who now has a proprietary investment in companies of eleven countries. Mr Ng looks at the mountains of the Southern Alps and politely asks for some information of this Samuel Butler. ‘He was a speculator in both an economic and an intellectual sense,’ says Miles. ‘I don’t think he liked it much here, but some oddballs lay claim to him.’

‘I’m told that like any good Victorian he hated his father,’ says Slaven. He sees Cardew walking through the departure gates within the airport, bearing away two hundred thousand family dollars and a degree of malice which will gather interest long after the money has been squandered.

‘One may as well hate oneself,’ says Mr Ng.

The pilot hears their voices and gathers his things as Slaven and Miles walk down to the pad below the lodge, to the flat, dry ground before the gravel of the Rangitata, with the deer far enough away so that they won’t get spooked. Before the pilot starts the motor, Miles makes an enquiry about Slaven’s time by himself. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘did you enjoy goofing off in the sun?’

‘Just gathered some energy for the rally. I’m beginning to get quite pumped up about it; about the possibilities.’

‘I think you might as well ride the tiger all the way. It’s time for a pay-off. Another dose of what you gave them at Western Springs and I reckon the government will just about cave in.’

‘Well, it’s now or never, isn’t it.’

The helicopter begins its retching ascent. There’s no sign of any of the Samuel Butler party, just a muscular, bald-headed
man in shorts and tramping boots carrying cartons of beer to a cross-country vehicle and the deer in an otherwise empty land. As they gain height and turn again over Erewhon to swing eastwards, Miles and Slaven have a final view of the alpine valley, the desolate screes, the pristine Garden Of Eden and the clouds still banking up on the western side of the Alps.

Slaven has come a long way since the winter meeting in the drizzle at Tuamarina. The rally in Hagley Park has been almost completely set up by professional consultants commissioned by Kellie. Thackeray Thomas and Slaven joke about the truck deck at Tuamarina which had to serve as a stage. Les Croad and his Angel Hire chairs, the portable loos which overflowed, the Gay Riders’ false rendezvous, the fires in the night, the gum nuts inside the railings of the Wairau memorial.

Today Sarah is at hand to put a cramoisy scarf around Slaven’s neck whenever he is off stage, despite the sunshine of the afternoon, and accredited officials come and go in shifts. Sunday, and the park is like a Latin Fiesta. The Hoihos, direct from their Asian tour and by special invitation, as the promoters say, sing
Capetown
Races,
Remember
Greenpeace
and of course
Half
Moon
Bay.
The media are everywhere, eager for spectacle, hopeful of drama, alert to disaster. This is where the action is, isn’t it?
Baby,
baby,
come
again
and
live
with
me
upon
the
shore
of
Half
Moon
Bay
.

There’s no genie such as that which swayed at St Kilda and Western Springs, even though the technology is not daunted by a bright sun. Rather it is a decision of principle on Slaven’s part. There is already enough appeal to emotion and he wants most to advance the cause of reason. Thousands and thousands from the city, and far beyond it, cover the green of Hagley Park, those in the open ground mainly seated, others standing beneath the English trees and along the sloping banks of the Avon. The colours of the clothes, faces and arms even, are stipples and ripples, hues that from the stage seem to undulate in acquiescence when the band is playing and vibrate with the applause when it
pauses. It is difficult to hold in the mind the reality of the rally — a direct challenge to the political establishment.