At the Big Red Rooster Read online

  Ever had to be a pall bearer? Gone pig hunting with a desperate uncle? Had to dance with a giantess in public? Had the world’s most boring job? Been ripped off by a little old lady?

  These stories will take you places you’ll 1 never want to visit in real life- the first dance to the first funeral to the first job and the first sexual experience… well, okay, maybe that last one.

  This is a great collection of funny, sad, dramatic and sometimes frightening stories from William Taylor, one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed writers.

  Cover photograph by Reg Graham

  Cover design by Jenny Cooper

  INTRODUCTION

  During a recent lengthy absence from my home a family of rodents moved in and started to feast on the manuscripts of all the fiction I have written over the past thirty years. I am a hoarder. The rats had boxes, cupboards and drawers of the stuff to select from; the originals of thirty‑five novels, a couple of dozen short stories, a few plays and one poem. They showed little literary discernment.

  I sorted through the leftovers of the feasting before lighting a very large bonfire. Clearly my house guests had enjoyed my novels more than my short fiction – maybe more to get their teeth into! Most of my short stories were relatively intact and I set them aside. I looked at the pile and thought it was about time I produced a collection solely of my own work rather than having it scattered around numerous anthologies and miscellanies collected by other people.

  The stories in At the Big Red Rooster span a quarter century – most of my writing career. Over half have already seen the light of published day. With one exception I have selected a collection aimed at young adults. The exception is ‘The Third Day’ – one of my most universally published pieces. I think that the tale this story tells is for all ages.

  Each story here is an entity. I have not striven for any overall theme although I guess the themes I have addressed in all of my fiction apply equally here; those of relationships between people, the individual’s perception of the world around them and how we see each other and, of course, how people deal one with another.

  William Taylor

  Raurimu

  1998

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ‘At the Big Red Rooster’ was originally published in CROSSING (Mammoth/ Reed International, 1995)

  ‘Uncle Mick & The Great Outdoors’ was originally published in PERSONAL BEST (Reed for Kids/Reed International, 1997)

  ‘Tina & Sharon & Myra & Vi on a Saturday Night’ was originally published in NEARLY SEVENTEEN (Penguin 1993)

  ‘Mrs Peters’ was originally published in the NZ LISTENER October 1972

  ‘Three Women’ was originally published in LANDFALL 101 (Caxton Press 1972)

  ‘The Third Day’ was originally published in THE MAGPIES SAID (Kestrel/Penguin 1980)

  ‘The Supper Waltz’ was originally published in THE FIRST TIME (Starlight/Hodder Headline, 1996)

  William Taylor wishes to acknowledge the efforts of his good friend Tessa Duder who, as editor for several anthologies of short fiction, encouraged, coerced and bullied him into writing several of the stories in At the Big Red Rooster.

  Contents

  Title Page

  INTRODUCTION

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  At the Big Red Rooster

  Uncle Mick & The Great Outdoors

  A Man’s Estate

  Tina & Sharon & Myra & Vi on a Saturday Night

  Mrs Peters

  The Man of the (Haunted) House

  Three Women

  The Third Day

  Tradesman’s Rates

  The Gift

  The Supper Waltz

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For my niece, Rebecca Muntz-Walsh, with love.

  At the Big Red Rooster

  EVERYONE SAID they were made for each other. Lisa and Brett. Brett and Lisa. Neighbours the whole of their lives – well, only old Granny Hudson’s house separated the home of Barb and Bernie, parents of Brett, from that of Cindy and Kev, Lisa’s mum and dad.

  Almost from their moments of conception – a very hot Christmas eighteen years earlier – and most certainly from their births, just one week apart at the Marwood Maternity Annexe, Barb and Cindy had conjectured bright, rosy and joint futures for their picture-postcard little blond dots. Brett and Lisa. Lisa and Brett. The two played together in their playpens and, later, while their mums coffee-ed together, tied to either Barb’s or Cindy’s clotheslines to prevent them wandering. They kinder-gartened together, schooled together and, in the fullness of their seventeen summers, entered the workforce together – and just so lucky, everyone said, to land jobs at all in this day and age.

  ‘It’s just like they’re that Romeo and Juliet,’ breathed Barb, as the two mums admired their offspring in the moments before the hired limo arrived to whisk the pair away to their very last Marwood High School senior ball. ‘Yeah. Romeo and Juliet all right. I seen it on the box just last week. On ice it was and that lovely German girl… can’t remember her name, anyway, she was Juliet.’

  Cindy, who in her own day had attended Marwood High for a year or so longer than her good mate, Barb, said, ‘Hope not, sweets. Them two ended up dead and all the families hated each other’s guts like poison. Not like us at all,’ she nodded. ‘Still, I know just what you mean. Just look at the two of them. Almost as good as anything you see in the daytime soaps. Better even.’

  Blond, beautiful and lightly – but not dangerously – tanned, well nourished and with perfect teeth. A sight for sore eyes indeed. A couple any parent would be proud to own. Popular. Bright enough, but not too bright. As Cindy often said to Barb, ‘You can have too many brains, you know, and nobody likes you for it. It’s best to be just ordinary in that department. Much nicer.’

  Lisa had been cheerleader captain for Marwood High for over two years – the school was big in just about everything North American. No one could hold a candle to Lisa when it came to twirling a baton or whirling a pom-pom. Not quite such great shakes when it came to things academic although a creditable second in class in her final keyboard skills exam.

  ‘Least,’ said Lisa’s mum, Cindy, ‘it’s enough so no one can say our girl’s all bod and no brain.’

  * * *

  Brett. Captain of just about every sporting thing. Rugby, swimming, softball, volleyball. Boxing, even – well, for as long as his opponents remained smaller and lighter. The day Brett faced up to one that was almost his own size he gave the sport the flick for good. With such an abundance of sporting prowess it mattered little that Brett found English a foreign language, maths a cross almost beyond bearing and science of marginal interest only if some unfortunate formerly living creature was about to be dissected.

  There were certain clearly jealous and small-minded souls who muttered that it surely wasn’t on the basis of intellect that the golden pair landed cadetships at the Big Red Rooster. ‘It’s a bloody miracle,’ said Barb to Cindy.

  ‘And only one in ten school leavers gonna get jobs round here,’ said Cindy. ‘Sure is a miracle.’

  ‘Oh, Baby Bunnikins,’ said Lisa to Brett. ‘God’s looking after us.’

  ‘Shit! D’ya reckon?’ said Brett to Lisa, taking her in his arms for a long, languid kiss in the shade of the old trees down the bottom of Granny Hudson’s garden – the one handy spot the sharp eyes of their mums could not always probe. Only once in the three years of romantic love they had enjoyed in Granny’s jungle had their passion been interrupted and then not by Cindy or Barb at all. Old Granny, whose eyesight and hearing were on their last legs, thinking she had discovered the coupling of a pair of stray and noisy dogs at the back of her yard, turned her garden hose on full blast in the direc
tion of the commotion and followed up the watery torrent with a barrage of thrown missiles of anything to which she could lay hand. Brett got quite a nasty scratch on his knee from an accurately fired half-brick. ‘Ouch!’ he squawked, and then, ‘Jesus! The mad old bat’s gonna kill me.’

  ‘Ssssshhhh! Bunnikins,’ Lisa had whispered. ‘Just shut up and she’ll go away. She doesn’t mean any harm.’

  ‘Gotcha!’ yelled Granny Hudson, firing a few more rounds. ‘Teach you dirty buggers to foul my garden.’

  * * *

  Cadetships at the Big Red Rooster were as scarce as hens’ teeth with no more than three or four being offered by any one branch in any one year. The Big Red Rooster. The latest hyper-mart, super-mart, food-mart chain to spawn a growth that had seeded first in Palo Alto, California, and now tentacled into all major corners of the South Pacific and was about to take on Asia. The personal property of their founder, Milt J. Wassermeyer, and his family, they were the scourge and terror of every other supermarket chain in the region. The apex and epitome of modern food merchandising and each with a giant red rooster surmounting the topmost gable of the steep-pitched, slated roof – the emblem of the chain. The over-size bird crowed loud and clear marking every hour the store was open – and that was all hours of the day and a fair few of the night. A computerised creation of the highest order of technology, assembled from the very latest in acrylics and poly-vinyls, plastics and especially loomed lycra fabric feathers. The rooster became a landmark wherever he perched. The interior of each shop was a storehouse of pleasures for young and old alike – and this was before you considered the actual range of foodstuffs on offer which, to be truthful, were just about the same as foodstuffs in any supermarket anywhere.

  The Wassermeyer family sure knew what it took to drag in the crowds. At just the press of a button – and the insertion of a fifty cent coin – Lulubelle, the giant plastic cow mounted above the dairy produce, could be activated to virtual life. A plastic milkmaid would materialise, park herself near the rear end of Lulubelle and the awed onlooker could see just about real milk squirt from the cow’s udder into the milkmaid’s pail. And it was all done so tastefully and artistically. Another fifty cents and another button pressed in the meat department and a gargantuan, moustachioed, blue and white-aproned butcher, Mr Whiskas, came to miraculous life, raised a gigantic cleaver and hacked into a massive side of plastic beef. Only the over-sensitive might have spotted a degree of relationship between Lulubelle and the object of Mr Whiskas’ vigour.

  It went on and on. For the very young and young at heart, characters from great literature such as Noddy and Big Ears and Thomas the Tank Engine often entertained. Small orchestras of almost-out-of-work musicians frequently played and demonstrations of floral art, cookery and handy hints for housewives and similar care-givers were staged on a daily basis. Topdressing is meant to increase growth. If the crop of a Big Red Rooster could be measured by check-out takings, the fertilisation by Lulubelle and all the others was certainly working marvellously well.

  ‘Those two,’ Barb smiled and chuckled contentedly. ‘Born lucky. Just imagine! The Big Red Rooster!’

  ‘Some dreams deserve to come true, Barb,’ said Cindy, and the two mums conjured further into their dreams of eventual engagement for their offspring – not too soon but not too long – and then marriage, even. And where better for the nuptials than the superbly fountained, treed, shrubbed and gardened entrance foyer of the Big Red Rooster itself – without the supermarket trolleys of course. So much nicer than any of the churches round Marwood.

  * * *

  What is sauce for the goose is not necessarily sauce for the gander and, almost from their first day as Big Red Rooster cadets, Lisa and Brett mapped separate flight paths.

  ‘Isn’t it wonderful! It’s just wonderful, Bunnikins,’ said Lisa, munching into one of the nice egg and chive sandwiches prepared for that very first day by Cindy. ‘And Mr Marlon Dick is just so so helpful,’ she mentioned the name of the supervisor of cadets. He says he’s sure he can spot I’m a merchandising natural.’

  ‘Dunno,’ mumbled Brett, deep into picking the stuffing from the ham, lettuce and tomato roll prepared for his first day by Barb. ‘All I done all morning is spray old vegies with water to make ’em look like new vegies again and even then only old Granny Hudson’d think they was new.’

  ‘You’ve gotta start at the bottom, Bunnikins,’ said Lisa, shaking her beautiful blonde head.

  ‘Shoot!’ said Brett. ‘Then they’ll have me sprayin’ the loo paper next. You reckon you could stop callin’ me Bunnikins now we joined the – what they call it? – oh yeah, the workforce? ’ and he took from his pocket a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter and lit up.

  ‘Bunni – er, I mean Brett. You’re not smoking are you?’

  ‘What’s it look like?’ asked Brett.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Lisa. ‘It’s… it’s disgusting!’

  ‘Now I joined the er workforce, I can do what I like,’ said Brett.

  ‘But, but Bunnikins, your fitness! Your er body,’ and Lisa looked up and down the superb specimen reclining beside her in the sun on the grass verge of the Big Red Rooster carpark No. 2. At this very moment the animated bird atop the store flapped his lycra wings and crowed the end to their lunch break.

  ‘Geez, God, and already I’d love to wring that sod’s neck,’ said Brett, getting to his feet.

  ‘Come on, bun – er Brett. Mustn’t be late. Not today. Mr Dick’s gonna talk to us now.’

  Supervisor of cadets, Mr Marlon Dick, talked on and on and on for over two very hot hours. Lisa drank in his every word and did not notice the heat. Brett bit hard into the inside of this cheeks to keep himself awake and even then did not quite win the battle. The other couple of new cadets came in sort of halfway between the two extremes.

  Marlon pointed out that they were all handpicked, the chosen, destined for great things within the empire of the Big Red Rooster and that this in itself would make up for the just about slave labour rates they, as cadets, were being paid for starters. After all this was truly continuing education of an almost tertiary nature and worth every cent of what was not in their pay packets. Of course the very cream of the cream of the cream, as he himself had once been, just might, might aspire to a scholarship to Milt J. Wassermeyer College, Santa Rosa, Northern California, in order to gain a Bachelor of Merchandising degree. And after that? No limit at all. The whole merchandising firmament would be at their feet. At which point, Brett, losing his battle, snored very loudly. ‘And,’ continued Mr Dick, pressing his already thin lips into non-existence, ‘I expect that three months, tops, with you lot will sort out the sheep from the goats and Lisa, my dear, I don’t think you need make notes of every word I speak. Just the salient, pertinent points is sufficient.’

  * * *

  Sheep from the goats? Three months? At ten weeks exactly Lisa answered the call to the office of Mr Marlon Dick. ‘You have exceeded even my very high expectations, my dear,’ said Mr Dick, in a fatherly fashion even though he was only twenty-eight years old. He patted Lisa’s shoulder. ‘Management has decided, on my recommendation of course, that in the history of this branch you are to become the youngest supervisor ever.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Dick,’ said Lisa. ‘What can I say? Supervisor of what?’

  ‘Supervisor of loose goods, my dear.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Dick.’

  ‘While naturally you’ll stay on your cadet allowance for the term of your cadetship after that you’ll get a rung one supervisor salary. Meanwhile, all the other perks of a supervisor will be at your disposal including your photo up on the wall in loose goods.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Dick. I’m not in this just for the money,’ said Lisa.

  ‘You may now call me Marlon,’ Mr Dick gave a little smile. ‘We are both supervisors now, my dear, although you’re well below me.’

  ‘Oh, er Mr er Marlon. Let me just say I’ll do my very very best for you.’

  ‘Not for me, my dear,
’ said Marlon. ‘For the Big Red Rooster,’ and the two of them stood together in silence as high above them the hour was crowed.

  It was not easy for Lisa to share her great joy with Brett who continued to be restricted to spraying old vegies with water and, very occasionally, to collecting stray trolleys careless shoppers failed to return to the trolley stations and left littering the carparks. Even this slight variation to dull routine was knocked on the head when the supervisor of trolleys discovered Brett and a mate having sort of trolley-skateboard races up and down carpark No. 3. ‘Old Dickless just doin’ it on the cheap,’ said Brett, by way of congratulation to Lisa. ‘No big deal. Loose goods is the littlest department and you only got Delyse to work in it.’

  ‘We’ll go down to Burger Palace and I’ll shout you tea, Bunnikins,’ said Lisa, not allowing the sunshine of her great joy to be in the least clouded. ‘It’ll all be on me.’

  ‘Nah,’ said Brett. ‘Not tonight. Goin’ out with the guys. All arranged.’

  Brett had discovered there was much much more to life than hard labour in the prison of the Big Red Rooster. Brett was now a fully fledged hoon – and one of the very best around Marwood. A party guy of the first order. Not only a smoker and drinker and keen viewer of porno videos but virtual leader and natural captain of the small group of his mates whose greatest joy was in racing the quiet streets of suburban Marwood in very old cars. Brett’s crowning achievement of doing a wheel-lock in a rather nice bed of pansies at the entrance to the town gardens and, later the same night, taking out a rather slow cat on the street outside the library, had earned the admiration of all his mates.