Read Online A Many Coated Man by Owen Marshall - Free Book Online Page B

it’s over, isn’t it, whatever held all these people in conviction. The singleness of purpose, the group identity almost all felt, yet none could adequately name, is no longer with them and despite the celebrities and the leaping fires, the media gunship overhead and the pizza stands, people are aware of the cold whisper of the drifting rain. They remember things neglected for too long — pets and children and lovers and nagging parents at home, seminar presentations and office meetings tomorrow, heaters perhaps unattended during all this winter day. So gradually the dispersal in the night begins, some in groups still singing to maintain euphoria, some couples, families, some singly, conscious that they are again alone and pleased that their state is inconspicuous in the dark. There’s been no method,or supervision, in parking and people call out, sound their horns and flash their lights in exasperation as the exodus begins. Cars circle through the long grass seeking easier ways to leave. Thackeray Thomas displays a weeping, lost child on the deck of the truck and the informal concert party sings Te Kuiti Dream . Paul Hurinui and his fellow kaumatua are waiting patiently to give a proper farewell to their land.
    Slaven watches from his car for a while, but is very tired. Has Miles reached the hotel without mishap and where has Kellie got to? He wishes she had seen his impact, his great success. He arranges the blanket around himself, damp side out, and lets down the seat back so that he can sleep comfortably. He begins to drowse, seeing the sparks dance upwards as the fire nearest to him is kicked to death. Tilted back as he is, he can see no people, not even Dafydd his protector, not even the body of the fire, just the tiger eyes of sparks gleaming in ascent. So, amidst continuing confusion, he rests.
    Kellie wakes him the next morning. She hadn’t got through until almost midnight and then only because of help from a bald-headed man, in shorts and tramping boots despite the weather, who pointed out a way against the flow. She has slept a few hours herself and while waiting for the late dawn considers the Tuamarina meeting as an exercise in organisation and finds it wanting. Sure, the numbers had grown quite beyond anything that could be expected, but there had been poor management nevertheless, too much left to chance, too few contingency plans made, too many actions taken as a response to events, rather than as an instigation of them.
    She makes her observations to Slaven as she provides him with fruit and sandwiches and coffee. She has brought a flannel and a towel. She winds down the windows for the one-way glass has misted from Slaven’s breath during the night and she wants to see the sun coming up, the sea of Cloudy Bay at a distance, the vineyards and orchards, the pasture land before Tuamarina and the hills rising behind. ‘You’ll feel dreadful,’ she says.
    ‘Not so hot. You’re right. You get stiff not being able tochange position easily I suppose.’ Slaven rubs his face. His trousers and shirt are twisted uncomfortably around him and the rug has begun to smell because of the dampness. He wants Kellie to tell him that the triumphs of the day before were as he remembered. She pats his hair down at the crown and folds his coat.
    ‘We’ll get back to the hotel and have a clean-up and a decent meal,’ she says. ‘Miles is being made a fuss of there because they know how rich he is.’
    ‘And your sister?’
    ‘A beautiful big girl. Born on the very stroke of three o’clock.’
    ‘I think something was born here too,’ says Slaven.
    ‘There was something of it on the television before I left,’ she says. ‘You were standing on the back of a truck looking like a refugee, but speaking like a man possessed. Next time I’ll be with you and hear it all for myself. God, it must have been something.’
    See the cloud has gone, but its presence during the night has kept a frost from taking hold. The