At the Big Red Rooster Page 3

  Then there was the man-building pig hunt. That got us into more of the great outdoors than I ever wanted to see. I don’t think Uncle Mick himself had ever been on a pig hunt before, and wouldn’t have gone pig hunting this time, except that his old school-mate, Bonky, had gone away for six months and had left his prize pig dog, Butch, in Uncle Mick’s care. According to Uncle Mick, it was important that Butch got to go on regular pig hunts so that he didn’t forget what they were all about.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Mick, I don’t want my boys getting into killing and blood-sports,’ Mum had said. ‘It’s horrible!’

  As if we weren’t into blood sports already! Mind you, so far the blood being spilt had generally been our own.

  ‘It’s okay, Mum,’ I sighed. Could be rather nice to see the blood of something else spilt for a change.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ Simon said. ‘We won’t catch nothing.’

  ‘What are they, Sal?’ boomed Uncle Mick. ‘Men or mice?’

  ‘Please pass the cheese, Mum,’ Simon sighed.

  ‘Been itching to have a go at that giant black and white boar out the back of the Davy’s farm for years,’ said Mick. ‘Now’s me golden opportunity.’

  ‘Not pig-hunting, Mick. Not my boys. Please.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, Mum,’ Simon said again. ‘I told you. We won’t catch nothing.’

  Simon wasn’t quite right. Mind you, it wasn’t Uncle Mick or Simon or me or Butch, the prize pig dog, that did the catching.

  * * *

  In order to be allowed to go hunting by his girlfriend, Sharleen the hairdresser, Mick had to agree to take along her pet dog, Lulu. Lulu was a nice white fluffy poodle. Lulu was only fluffy and white in some places because Sharleen, in slack times down at the salon, trimmed Lulu into the strangest of shapes and tried out new hair dyes on her.

  Now, good old Mick reckoned he loved Sharleen very much indeed and would do anything for her, but he was not happy about having to bring Lulu along. ‘Told the woman it was a hunt we was on, out in the great outdoors, not some Sunday stroll in the town gardens. Wouldn’t listen. Never does,’ he grumbled, as we trucked off in his not-too-trusty rust-bucket, an antique Toyota Landcruiser.

  Uncle Mick might have loved Sharleen to the bottom of his heart, but he sure didn’t like her dog.

  ‘Damned pussycat,’ was the nicest thing I ever heard him say about Lulu.

  Lulu, looking like a bunch of pink and white flowers crossed with a pile of piebald candyfloss, with a red bow in her top-knot, quickly sorted out Butch. A low, throaty growl, a couple of well-placed nips in Butch’s more delicate places and a beady sort of glare had poor old Butch cowering off, sulking, as far away from Lulu as he could get.

  * * *

  ‘Valley’s full of pig.’ Uncle Mick pointed down. ‘Bet we get ourselves a bundle.’ He breathed in deeply. ‘Ahhh… Just get a lungful of that fresh clean air.’ And he rolled himself a smoke. Butch didn’t look all that keen on getting started. Probably he was thoroughly enjoying his six-month holiday from a lifetime of hunting. Either that or he didn’t fancy the idea of any pig catching sight of him, Butch the champion hunter, out hunting with a thing like Lulu. On the other hand, Lulu just couldn’t wait, and she gave us no option but to get stuck right into it. On one occasion Uncle Mick yelled, ‘Pig! Pig!! Get the bugger!! Butch!! Pig!!! Pig pig pig!!’

  ‘Where?’ squealed Simon, and climbed up a tree.

  On another occasion, as I stumbled and rolled down a hill for about the hundredth time on that dreadful day, I know I landed full, four-square, right on top of a pig, a giant one. All of a sudden the ground heaved up beneath me, like a volcano, and I shot a good couple of metres up in the air. I ended up clinging to a tree branch. It must have been a pig. It felt like a pig.

  Late afternoon we lost the dogs. Well, we lost the dogs and ourselves. ‘God Almighty,’ gasped Uncle Mick as we climbed yet another hill. ‘Lose old Butch and Bonks’ll kill me when they let him out.’

  ‘Let him outa where?’ said Simon.

  ‘Sharleen’ll kill you first Uncle Mick,’ I said. ‘Lose Lulu and you’ll lose the love of your life.’

  ‘Damned pussycat,’ Uncle Mick grunted. ‘Must be on heat and led poor Butch down a wrong path and all astray. All the fault of that fancy bitch.’

  ‘Geez, Uncle Mick,’ said Simon, ‘that’s not very nice, talkin’ about Sharleen like that. I like your Sharleen. Good haircutter.’

  ‘Her bloody dog I’m on about,’ said Uncle Mick. ‘Not Sharleen.’

  Another thousand hills and valleys and we finally got to hear the barking of the dogs again. The throaty, manly bark of old Butch and the more cultured, but still quite loud, yelping of the pussycat, Lulu. Lost we might be, but at least we’d be lost with our hunting dogs.

  ‘Come on, men,’ yelled Uncle Mick, ‘get yer arses into gear. They got us a pig.’

  We pushed and struggled on through scrub, undergrowth, fern, jungle, swamp, bog and mountain stream towards the distant sound. Finally we came out of the bush and into the very back paddock of the Davy farm, where Butch and Lulu had cornered, bailed up and held, not a pig but old Stan Davy himself, the farmer. They weren’t about to let him go in a hurry and Mr Davy, while doing his best to protect his private parts from Lulu, was screaming blue murder and going on and on about what a pity it was he hadn’t remembered to bring his shotgun.

  Lulu was quite a sight, too. In addition to being your basic pink and white poodle, she was now also brown, green, grey, black and even red – I think from dollops of blood from either poor old Butch or poor old Mr Davy.

  * * *

  ‘Just how on earth do you imagine I can afford to send the two of them skiing with you, Mick? Grow a brain,’ said Mum, a little while after the pig hunt. ‘Working every hour God sends and keeping the two of them in food’s about all I can manage, and even that’s becoming a luxury.’

  Uncle Mick, of course, never ever took no for an answer. ‘Look, Sal, not a worry,’ he began. ‘Me old school-mate, Bryce, he’s opened up this ski lodge down the mountain. Remember Bryce, Sal?’

  Mum shuddered. ‘Who could ever forget. I hope he’s –’

  ‘Won’t cost the guys a thing, Sal.’ Uncle Mick didn’t give Mum a chance. ‘Except for their beer money, that is…’

  At which Mum, as Uncle Mick knew she would, erupted and exploded and got off skiing and onto the evils of liquor and drinking and how her boys wouldn’t know one end of a beer can from the other.

  Simon, who has a private life that would give Mum nightmares, winked at me.

  We went skiing.

  Simon, who had a few more clues than me when it came to Uncle Mick, went skiing fully prepared. Not good enough for Simon were the promises from Uncle Mick that his good mate, Bryce, would not only supply ski lodge accommodation but all the skis, boots, poles, gloves, goggles, jackets and other gear that we would need. Simon conned a good mate of his own, from a richer family than ours, into lending him the very top gear needed for this very expensive sport. Simon wanted to make the right ‘statement’ on the slopes!

  ‘Skiing,’ announced Simon, who had never been on a ski-field, much less on skis, in his whole life, ‘is 90 per cent style and attitude and 10 per cent anything else.’

  I don’t think I need to add that Simon, of course, is able to look the part, any part, 90 per cent better than me. Simon, even hanging by the neck till half dead, at least looked like an abseiler and not like a life-sized yoyo. Simon could look like a better horse-rider than Mark Todd and more like a pig hunter than Barry Crump. There are quite often times when I don’t like my brother, Simon, very much at all.

  Old mate, Bryce, wasn’t quite expecting us. Indeed, he had forgotten we were coming. The ski lodge was very small. It only had one room for renting out and that had already been taken. ‘Garage is all yours, Mick,’ said Bryce. ‘Remember when…’ and he and Uncle Mick went into a long remembering of wicked wicked times when the two of them couldn’t even
find a garage to shelter in and had slept in haystacks, ditches and under the stars. All I can say is, they must have done their sleeping in warmer places than down the mountain! Bryce’s garage was like the inside of a freezer and, even in the middle of the day, had icicles dangling from the roof.

  The room for renting out had been taken by a guy from Wellington and his daughter, Careena, a real top babe of the first order. If I hadn’t been frozen stiff I think I just might have fallen in love for the very first time. Careena was the same age as me, but all she was interested in was Simon. It’s always the same in my experience. Your younger woman and older man. That first night, as we tucked into Bryce’s special venison goulash – Bryce was a hunter as well as a ski lodge keeper – and got stuck into some sort of cooked-up wine with spice in it, Careena didn’t look at me once. I know because I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

  Careena was certainly stunned next morning at the sight of Simon in his borrowed ski gear. There they stood, side by side, admiring each other and admiring themselves. But Careena looked at me quick enough when I got into the gear that Bryce sorted out for me. She took one look and couldn’t stop staring – and laughing. Simon joined in, of course.

  Ski-suits don’t fit round bodies very well. The only pants Bryce could find that would fit me round the middle were so long that the legs had to be rolled up several times. The jacket was snug round the shoulders, but it went right down to the ground. Uncle Mick solved this by folding it up sort of double and tying it round my middle with a length of rope.

  ‘You’ll be fine, man,’ he said. ‘Least you don’t look like some tourist turkey peacock.’ And he glared at Simon and Careena, who were now having hysterics.

  ‘It’s okay, Uncle Mick,’ I said. ‘But I would like to look just a bit like a skier.’

  ‘Shut up and hold your breath in,’ he said, pulling the rope tighter.

  At least my burglar balaclava was warm, even if the eye-holes did keep slipping down over my nose.

  Then I got to see the ski gear from Bryce’s rental collection. Bryce didn’t have a large stock because he was just starting out in business. Still, I felt it wasn’t going to be easy for me up the mountain, on my very first day ever of skiing, with one ski just a little bit longer than the other, two poles that had never matched and a pair of boots that even Uncle Mick reckoned Bryce had probably flogged from a ski museum. Careena and Simon laughed themselves to complete exhaustion and even Bryce and Uncle Mick made cruel little jokes they thought I couldn’t hear because they couldn’t see me under my balaclava.

  Careena’s dad decided to leave his BMW at the lodge and we all got into Uncle Mick’s Landcruiser. It might have been cold down the lodge, but it was freezing in the heaterless Land-cruiser. By the time we finally made it up that mountain, I knew just what the South Pole must be like. My nose, poking out of one of my balaclava eyeholes, froze solid and a drip coming off the very end of it really did turn to ice.

  * * *

  Uncle Mick is a great believer in do-it-yourself. He was a do-it-yourself ski instructor. Careena and her dad took off and Uncle Mick got Simon and me to the learner slope. It was jam-packed. ‘Bloody turkeys,’ muttered Uncle Mick. ‘Come on. We’ll go on up the mountain. Better up there.’

  The queue to get on the chairlift was long and I made it even longer by falling over three times and missing three chairs in a row so that they had to go up empty. People in the queue behind me were quite rude. Uncle Mick finally took my skis and poles and all I had to do was manage me, my boots and my frozen nose. ‘We got him on. Just pray hard someone else can drag him off when he gets up there,’ I heard the lift operator say to Uncle Mick, as I floated off into the frozen heavens in a chair all by myself. I wasn’t cold for a while. I was hot with embarrassment and shame. Then I was cold again. Colder than ever.

  ‘Just roll out, can’t you,’ the next lift operator yelled at me as he yanked me out of the chair. Simon was already up there, acting as if he didn’t know me. Posing, he was, in his nice good gear.

  ‘Piece of cake,’ boomed Uncle Mick, as he joined us. ‘This is the life. Let’s hit the slopes.’

  I hit the slopes all right. I hit the slopes many times. I hit the slopes big time. I knocked the slopes. I rolled over and over on the slopes. The slopes jumped up and hit me, and every time I got up, those bloody frozen slopes got up and bashed me down again.

  Uncle Mick’s ski instruction was basically very simple: ‘Stand up. Follow me. Do what I do.’

  Simon did. Simon did very well. Simon could ski in five minutes. Which was good for Simon because Uncle Mick’s ski lesson only lasted that long. Simon took off. ‘Geez, shoot! This is cool. See the babes on this mountain?’

  ‘I’m goin’ for a ski, man,’ Uncle Mick yelled down to me when I lay on the icy ground. ‘Just do what I taught you, over and over and over. Back in a couple of hours, maybe a bit longer. Just pray for a miracle, man.’

  ‘But you haven’t…’ It was too late. Uncle Mick had taken off. So had Simon. I was all on my own. Well, me and about three trillion others. I pulled my balaclava down over my face and had a good cry. Then I stopped feeling sorry for myself and had a look around and spotted two other people even rounder than me and twice as miserable. At least they were giving it a go and not howling their eyes out!

  I taught myself to stand up. It took a while. Finally I could do it without falling over. Then I taught myself to move just a wee wee bit and not fall over too much. Then I got on a bit of snow that had a tiny little slope to it – then I had to start all over again, mega times. I met a nice old lady who helped me to my feet and said, ‘You look as if you could do with a hand. Here.’ She held out a ski pole. ‘Hang on to this and slither along with me. Get the feel of things. Where on earth did you get this gear? Out of the Ark?’

  And then I could ski.

  Which is not quite the truth.

  The nice old lady got me enough on my feet to be able to move and then to be able to stop by pointing my skis sort of inwards… and then edging on the edges of my skis to a rope-tow thing and then, after much agony, using that rope-tow thing to pull myself up the slope and start the slither, slide and fall-down process all over again.

  I really could ski. Not like what you see on the telly, of course. More like a sort of bent-over sick crab that’s lost its balance and sense of direction and keeps ending up on its back or well and truly mixed up with other sick crabs in a jumble of arms and legs and skis and poles. My new skiing mate, the old lady, joined me from time to time with kindly words of wisdom and advice. She was an experienced skier – this was her third day of giving it a go. ‘Never too old for anything. God knows, if I can do it, you can. I’ll be forty next birthday,’ she told me, as we shared a cup of coffee from her thermos. ‘I was worse than you when I started, but at least I had decent gear. Mark my words, I’m hanging around to have a word with this uncle of yours. Come on, drink up. Let’s give it another bash. Come here. I’ll just tighten that rope round your middle again.’

  Heaven. Joy. Great bliss. I made it from top to bottom of that dangerous beginner slope and only fell over once and only knocked over two other skiers. Finally, heaven, joy and great bliss, I made it down the slope and didn’t fall over at all! Back at the top of that wicked slope and standing taller than I had stood so far that day and leaning in expert skier fashion on one pole, having a breather and ready to conquer the whole thing again, I spotted Careena, the babe, and Simon, the brother, down the bottom, having a rest and a chat. ‘Look at me!’ I screamed down at them, regardless of the crowds all around. ‘I can do it! I can do it! Hang on. Wait for me.’

  I remember the look of startled amazement on their faces as they looked up and cottoned on to who was yelling and just who that yeller was yelling at. I think I remember seeing my brother, Simon, slither off, snake-like, away to some other spot on the mountain, away from the sight and sound of me. I think I remember seeing Careena, the babe, staring up at me, all startled, as I starte
d on my way down towards her. Watch this, babe!

  I gathered speed… faster… faster than I had ever skied before. Still I was standing and all in one piece. I managed one of my new sorts of turns and seemed to gather more speed… and then more speed… and then even more speed… and I was still upright!!!

  Then it was too fast and every second was as full as a minute and every minute as full as an hour and I seemed to lift up and out and above myself and it was as if I was moving in slow motion… slow, slow, slow motion… slow poetry in slow motion… down, down, down… Too fast… too fast… can’t stop… reach the bottom… get into some sort of tumbling sort of rolling sort of desperate sort of spin… up, up and not away but heading directly for the block of toilets, the loos, just up from and out from the bottom of that learner slope.

  Didn’t make it to the gents. Couldn’t even get that right…

  A final WHHOOOSSSHHH… and a burst of energy and up the narrow snow-bound track and wham bam thank you ma’am and through the door marked Ladies in a jumble and tumble of arms and legs and skis and poles and doors… right wham bam into the gorgeous Careena, sitting down inside… (hiding?).

  Careena was lucky. She only ended up with bruises in a few unmentionable places. She made enough noise, however, for someone with far more serious injuries. I wasn’t as lucky as Careena, although I was much quieter. According to the doctor, my leg got a clean break and there is absolutely no reason why I can’t ski again next season, but I might not be fit enough for competition skiing!!