For most of the year I spent studying for that BA-LLB I felt sorry for myself. And I remember almost nothing about it — vague memories of the Canterbury Tales; an American lecturer talking about trusting in God and keeping your powder dry — that’s about it. But I did really well in the law papers, apparently — well enough for the lecturer to ask the class about me when I dropped out the following year. I liked the logical, analytical aspect of the law but I hated the adversarial and performative side.

In the end that bright idea in conversation with Mr Overend went nowhere. Why was I studying for a career I didn’t like the sound of?

§

There’s a clue right there as to why the wheels fell off. I was talking to an old friend recently who ended his career as a highly respected KC. I’d always assumed he went to University eyes front and set on the law. No, he said, like me he had no plans — although he was certainly driven to Succeed. He’d simply gotten impatient queuing to register for a B.A., and noticed that they were processing the law school line much faster — so he moved. Maybe like me he isn’t letting the truth get in the way of a good story, but in any case he spent his whole life in Auckland, lived at home while he studied, and joined a practice there. Socially grounded, not cut loose. Like the cream on Mum’s milk he rose to the top.

Maybe there’s another lesson. Maybe having everything go swimmingly isn’t so good for you — nothing to push back against. Maybe Georgie’s Mum didn’t just buy him pies — maybe she taught him resilience. Mookie Johnson was another tough kid.

§

I want you to know

I started writing a diary that October, a sure sign that, despite Kevin and Ruth’s best efforts, I was lonely and unhappy. It opens with me saying that I wanted the future “nebulous me” to know:

… what it’s like to be young — or bossed around — or studying — or in love for the first time at the tender age of (for me) sixteen (she was nineteen and, oh boy! I was on top of the world).

I also promised to be honest.

§

 “Oh boy!”

That phrase reminds me so strongly of my father at that age. The difference is that he’d already worked hard for a few years — on farms and down the mine — gained matriculation by correspondence and managed to get a solid, secure job in the Post Office. He was a tough, driven kid.

He was also conducting Bible Classes, having given himself to the Lord. It was a great way to meet girls, he said, especially after those lonely years on farms. That didn’t mean he was insincere, but the girls were a bonus. In a couple of years he’d meet my mother and — Oh boy! — fall hopelessly in love.

§

Farewell to all that

My diary continued:

At the beginning of 1963 I was going to be an agricultural scientist. I already had my university qualifications but I went back to Northland College to try for Dux, Head Prefect and Senior Athletic Champion. I did it, too.

Looking back, it continued, one thing “stands out like a wart” — that I’d never extended myself. Which was partly conceit, partly true, and partly acknowledgement that I’d managed to hide my limitations at school.

Rather than being in a dormitory that year, I shared a room with Sio, another Samoan, and for most of the year we studied. We studied. A 10.00pm lights-out wasn’t good enough for us, so we blacked out our windows with paper from the art department, and like tunnel-digging prisoners in Colditz studied through the night, with Sio taking the late shift and me the early.

Then two things happened — girls and, for more obscure reasons, an interest in the Diplomatic Service.

At the end of the year, armed with the excellent excuse of having spent the year on more important matters (prefect’s duties, athletics, my girlfriend) I sat the Entrance Scholarship exam in the Sciences, English and French, ending up with disgraceful marks in all but English (which result was no more than disappointing).

Maybe that’s why I opted for Diplomacy over Science, and enrolled at VUW.

§

I remember another incident, not mentioned in the diary. At the end of the year someone organised a boat trip for us senior kids (we were pupils then, not students) to Otehei Bay, Zane Grey’s base on Urupukapuka in the Bay of Islands. Someone produced a flagon of sherry and it turned into a piss-up. As a result we were assembled by the Head Master and given a serious dressing down the night before Prize Giving. If it had happened earlier in the year, he said, some of us would have been suspended and/or expelled. As it was, if it became public at this time of the year it would bring disgrace on us, and the school, to no good purpose. Prize Giving would carry on as usual.

It ended exuberantly with seven hundred unruly adolescents roaring out Now Thank We All Our God, with Joe Wellington hammering out the accompaniment on the piano.

§

No valid purpose

One of the first diary entries is worth quoting, since I can’t believe I wrote it: 

People generally spend most of their time at work. Except in war time, for the most part they see no intrinsic purpose in this, but do it to finance their leisure. But there is no purpose, rhyme, or reason to their leisure either — except in so much as it makes time pass. So what do people get out of their lives? Children? Many people find joy and purpose in raising a family, but this is no valid purpose in life either, as their children will grow up themselves into the same purposeless life.

If the one purpose of human life is to propagate, we’re only animals…

Three days later my landlady came home with her third child, a baby girl, and I had a chance to observe, for the first time, a mother’s intense love and commitment to her newborn. I wonder now how she’d have reacted if I’d read her those words of mine. It might have helped cure me of “adolescent philosophising”.

By October I had more to think about than the meaning of life. My end of year examinations were looming — especially sobering since I’d lost all interest by then in diplomacy, and the law, and university in general. Still, I had to study.

§

A sickening experience

A few days later, I woke at 6.00 and looked out the window. It was a beautiful day, so I decided I’d go to the beach, and study. In my duffle bag I packed my shorts and some books and sandwiches.

On second thoughts I also took my notebook, containing character sketches, plot summaries and bits of description, self-analysis, etc. That was a mistake.

I caught the 9.00 o’clock train and was out at Paekakariki within an hour.

I got changed and went for a walk along the beach. There I met an old man carting firewood, including a plank that was obviously too heavy for him. I asked him would he like a hand? He hummed and hawed, and we started off to his place — two miles back along the beach, surely!

Well, he gave me lunch, and showed me his garden, by which time it was starting to look like rain. I headed back towards the station, stopping to get changed in a toilet, as the changing sheds were way back along the beach. The only other people (except in one or two passing cars) were two men throwing bread to the seagulls. As I was going back down the main street a car pulled up beside me. It was those same men.

They said they were police, and could they have a word with me. I got in the proffered back seat.

I can’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but it came about that they were investigating burglaries committed over the last week — at around lunch time — along the waterfront. They were watching out for strangers wandering around the place, and I was the only one. All on my lonesome.

I told them my business, and explained in answer to questions that I’d been there three times before, during the August holidays, “to read poetry and write”. Did they want to search my bag? I emptied it.

The man in charge began to browse through my notebook. One doesn’t undress in public, and I certainly didn’t enjoy watching this “stupid flat-footed detective” rifle through my … adolescent philosophising!

A voice came through the wireless. I didn’t catch the words, but one of them answered, simply — “in the car”. So another lot were looking for me!

Presently a third fellow came along and got in the car beside me. “Take a look at this,” said the man with my notebook. The newcomer looked through it with avid attention.

“Does he know what he’s here for?” he asked.

“I just said for burglaries.”

“Well this is a special type of burglary,” said the other, looking at me. “Someone has been going into women’s bedrooms and taking, very neatly,” he said, “their panties.”

He turned over a few more pages. “Some of the notes here are concerned with sex,” he said, “very much so.”

I could see them looking at me and thinking, pervert! Wondering what made me that way. In fact there were only three notes on sex, and they were anything but immoral — in reality, probably more a reflection of how I felt about people getting more sex than me.

They asked me what I’d been doing over the last week. I said swotting, apart from going out once or twice to the pictures. What pictures? they wanted to know.

Fate seemed to be playing with me. The last picture I’d seen was Electra, based on the Greek tragedy by Euripides … about a princess who murders her adulterous mother the Queen. The one before that was Bedtime Story¹. Clearly I had strange attitudes to sex.

When I told them I’d miss my train, they took my particulars, told me to go to the CID in Wellington, and reminded me that if I went home first they would know.

I did as I was told, and sat at the police station for over an hour before they arrived, after doing what I don’t know.

They said I was still the prime suspect. I started to get angry, and they said they wouldn’t be wasting their time talking shit across the table with me unless they thought it necessary — they were investigating burglaries, not passing the time.

I said, alright, alright — why don’t you come up to my flat, search it and ask my landlady questions? So they did.

They searched the place. There was nothing to find. They apologised for the inconvenience and left. Just like that.

But I was sure they still thought I was a pervert — and all this when I thought I’d just done my good deed for the year, helping that pensioner lug his firewood.

§

Truly beautiful

The incident with the cops gave me new respect for Kevin. He stood up for me, took charge of the situation and got them out of the house as quickly as possible. He knew my rights.

Another started with one of his impulses of generosity.

Kevin bought the material. £20. Ruth had it made up for £13. Total, £33. A lot of money.

The result is a ballroom frock which, on Ruth, is truly beautiful. It has a scooped neck, is fitting, and has a stiff flare from the knee to the hem, just off the floor. The material is heavy and white, and covered with a close, regular pattern of glittering, transparent plastic strips. Ruth’s warm, soft brown skin looks vibrant in it.

No one would call Ruth’s life gay or exciting, or brilliant, or even interesting at times. It’s rewarding and good — she loves caring for her husband and family — but the glamour and romance are gone. An outing charges a life that can be hard and dull with romance and glamour.

It was nearly Christmas.