Short story club – 4 May

Bull's Lace

by Jenny Pattrick

Vera fishes her bargain-bin specs from a grubby cardigan pocket and peers at the lovely stuff. Bull waits. Vera takes off the specs and stands back for the full picture, then goes back in to study a detail. She shakes her head and sighs.
      ‘Bull Howie, I don’t know …’
      Bull twists his massive hands and looks down.
      ‘No good this year?’
      ‘No good?’ says Vera. ‘No good? You dumb ox. This is too good for life on earth. This is more delicious than Flo’s pavlova. This lace’, she says, tucking the specs into her bra and preparing for battle, ‘is going to win first prize, and you, Bull, are going to exhibit in your own name.’
      ‘You like it then?’ says Bull. ‘What about the kotuku?’
      ‘What about it?’
      ‘Is it right?’
      ‘Bull, don’t ask me is it right, you’re the artist. Every bloody thing about that table-cloth is right, is more than right, is Art. So fold it up before we spill tea on it.’
      Bull Howie spreads his arms, thick as fence-posts, pinches the edges of the cloth, as if taking up salt, and lifts the airy thing off the table, folding it in two quick movements. It almost floats.
      Over gravy-beef with carrots, baked potatoes and Brussels sprouts (which Vera has brought down from her place ready-cooked, as she does every day of the week except Sunday, placing the dishes — the red casserole, usually, and the Pyrex pie-dish or sometimes the double-boiler if it’s cauliflower cheese — placing them in an old pram, covering the hot food with a piece of army blanket and wheeling the lot down to Bull’s at the other end of Manawa, down by the railway line, rain or hail, you could set your clock by her, though not many in Manawa bother with clocks) over this meal, Vera brings up the matter of the Easter exhibition.
      ‘No fictitious aunt of mine,’ she says, rubbing at a spot of gravy with her napkin (not lace), ‘is going to take credit for that gorgeous creation, Bull. This year you’re going to stand up and be counted.’
      ‘They’d never give it to a man,’ mumbles Bull through a full mouth. He always enjoys his food, a huge but neat eater, who rarely spills gravy or anything else on the good corduroy jacket he dons every evening, ten minutes before Vera arrives. He spears a sprout with his fork, inspects it carefully and pops it in. Chews. ‘Your sprouts have done well, Vera,’ he says. ‘Mine are weeks away yet.’
      ‘I’m serious,’ says Vera.
      Bull frowns and eats on in silence.
      ‘It’s getting ridiculous,’ says Vera, who is not one to give in once she’s started. Most people in Manawa avoid this odd little woman, who is aggressive over just about everything. ‘Last year when my old Aunt Veronica,’ — she snorts and looks sideways at Bull — ‘my sweet old auntie won for a second year running, they wanted her to come down and run a course. Demonstrate, that sort of thing. I say, “She doesn’t have a phone.” They say, “Write to her.” I say, “She doesn’t read letters.” They say, “Well how did she hear about the competition!” They know something’s fishy, Bull. Half of them think I buy your lace from some Chinese emporium up in Auckland and flog it off as my aunt’s.’
      Bull throws down his napkin. ‘Anyone with two eyes,’ he says, rising and stomping over to the bookcase, ‘any half-blind idiot can see my work’s not Chinese. Look here!’ He pulls a book out, changes his mind, goes for another, flips through its pages, stabs with his square finger. ‘Here! Nothing like! Look at it, Vera!’
      She looks.
      ‘Now look at this.’ He picks up a lace piece, delicate as snowflakes, which drifts in an irregular pattern over his oak dresser. ‘Now, Vera, tell me, does that say Chinese to you?’
      Vera grins up at him. ‘There’s my point, Bull. It’s them you’ve got to persuade, not me. Vi Masefield and the rest of them.’
      ‘Vi Masefield!’ Bull carries plates to the sink; crashes round with water. Vera packs the empty dishes away in the pram. Then Bull measures Nescaf into two cups, adds generous slugs of whisky and a dash of boiling water from a kettle on the range. Bull still uses the old wood range because the chopping keeps him fit. Plenty of sportsmen, he says, run to fat once they give up, look at the rest of his year: flabby tubs of lard if they’re not dead. Bull’s legendary frame is still well packed with muscle.
      ‘Rabbits this year,’ announces Vera. With a conjuror’s flourish, she takes from the pram a plastic box of lumpy shapes: chocolate and rice-bubble clusters. Last Easter, she made chickens that looked identical. Bull, never one to discourage artistry, mumbles praise. They sit at the kitchen table, in their usual chairs. They’ll probably play a game of Scrabble before she trudges back with the pram over the stony, empty road, arguing with herself, not even noticing the stars.
      Now, though, Vera returns to the Easter show.
      ‘Is it your rugby mates?’ she asks.
      ‘Nah. None of the fellows would come within a country mile of the Lace-makers’ Guild.’
      ‘Their wives would.’
      ‘Whatever. I don’t care about them anyway, Vera, that’s all history.’
      ‘You might think so. I saw this good-looking commentator on TV, looked about sixteen, laying down the law on some rugby thing. A record that was broken, something like that. There you were on the box! Did I tell you? Thirty years ago, it said, and could’ve been yesterday for all the change in you. Charging down the field like a bulldozer — it was Sunday afternoon, you would have missed it.’
      ‘Yes.’
      ‘You saw it?’
      ‘No, I missed it.’
      ‘Well, anyway. Look, Bull, look at it this way: think what a boost to lace-making if it came out that Bull Howie had won the regional senior open twice running. Not to mention what you’ll win with this year’s little beauty.’
      Bull runs a hand through hair, still as bristly and thick as it was thirty years ago when he rammed it regularly into the necks of opposing front-row props. He smiles the same crooked, half-apologetic smile he used when holding up the Ranfurly Shield for the fans to see. The whisky has loosened his tongue.
      ‘To be honest, Vera, it’s Vi Masefield. I can’t face a fight with that dragon.’
      Vera nods. They both sip for a while, thinking of Vi. Then Vera rallies.
      ‘When it comes down to it, Bull, what could she fight you over?’
      ‘That I’m not a woman.’
      There is another silence. Bull bites off the head — or is it the backside? — of another chocolate rabbit.
      ‘She hasn’t a leg to stand on, you know,’ says Vera, ‘Not a leg. Look at that golf competition down south. You could take it to the Human Rights Commission.’
      But they both know that won’t happen.
      Vera can see that something has taken root, though, so she leaves the argument and they get on with their Scrabble. Bull wins right at the end, changing her RAPT to RAPTURE, which puts him in a good mood.
      As Vera buttons her old oilskin against the crisp air outside, Bull clears his throat, a tentative sound from a man so large.
      ‘I’ll give it a go.’
      ‘Under your own name?’
      ‘That’s what I said.’
      ‘Oho!’ Vera laughs out loud.’ What wouldn’t I give to be a fly on the wall when Vi hears!’
      ‘Come with me then.’ It’s a plea.
      But she won’t.

She rides to town with him, though, crammed into the front seat of George Kingi’s ute. The lace, wrapped in spotless tissue, entry form filled in, rests on Bull’s massive knee. The selection committee is, as usual, Vi Masefield and deaf old Mrs Stonycroft, who won third prize in a Scottish award in 1943. They drop Bull off at the dark doorway of the hall and head for the New World. Vera storms down the aisles with her trolley, thinking only of Bull, left alone to face Vi Masefield.
      He’s waiting on the road when they return. Looks away, pretending not to see Vera’s raised eyebrow.
      ‘We’ve got a battle on our hands,’ mutters Vera.
      But half-way home, he says, looking straight ahead through the windscreen, ‘They accepted it.’
      ‘No fuss?’
      ‘No fuss.’
      Then he says, ‘I think I’ll walk from here, George. It’ll do me good.’ He’s out and walking ahead before she can get another word in. As they drive past, she calls out, ‘See you at tea-time?’ He raises one of his great beefy hands in acknowledgment, that’s all, before he disappears behind, walking steadily, head down as if into a gale, not a gentle autumn breeze.

Vera’s own house is ramshackle and untidy: two unused bedrooms at the front, toilet on the back porch, but a proper electric stove in the kitchen. Not like Bull’s old wood-burner, which couldn’t cook a sausage in Vera’s opinion. She stuffs a chicken (on special today at the New World), and roasts kumara and potatoes around it. All the time, she’s wondering what’s up with Bull. Vi must have had a go at him. As soon as the peas and carrots are done, she whips them into the heated bowl and tucks them down in the pram with the roast. On wet nights like this, she covers the blanket with a square of black polythene. For some reason she’s dressed up a bit. To celebrate the entry, perhaps, or cheer Bull up, if he needs cheering. Vera wears her mother’s garnet earrings, and shoes instead of the usual gumboots.

      Seeing the roast chicken, Bull opens a bottle of wine. The whisky-coffee at the end of the meal is not really needed, but they have it anyway.
      Vera’s cheeks are pink, she can feel them. ‘Come on, Bull,’ she says. Her voice comes out too girly. ‘What did the old dragon say? I know it was something.’
      Bull leans back, unbuttons his jacket, much more at ease. ‘She did say something. I’ve been thinking about it.’
      Vera waits. Push Bull too fast and you can forget about hearing a word.
      ‘I walked into the hall,’ says Bull at last. ‘The two crones are right at the stage end facing you, it’s like walking up to a firing squad. You can bet Vi Masefield planned it that way. Anyway, I stump over the bare boards towards them, and they lean back a bit, you know? Surprised. “My entry!” I say. I unwrap the tissue, spread the cloth and wait. Old       Stonycroft twitters and chirps over the lace, as well she might: her stuff has never been worth a prize anywhere in the world, she must have invented that …’
      ‘Don’t get stuck on lace now, Bull, you’re telling a story.’
      ‘Well. Vi sits like a stunned mullet reading my entry form, or staring at it anyway. That witch would turn the All Blacks to stone at fifty paces. Good thing I’m battle hardened, Vera. She turns those whitey eyes full on me, and I’ll swear the hairs on her head were standing straight out like the Gorgon’s snakes.’
      ‘It’s just vigorous hair, you know that, always has been.’
      ‘Vigorous is right. Sell it for barbed wire. So.’
      Bull pours more whisky into his coffee, which is unusual; he’s generally a moderate man. He takes a breath.
      ‘So. She looks at me down the barrel and says in a voice that could be rat poison: “Not you, too!” I don’t know what she’s talking about; no other lace-making men in the district as far as I know. Me, too, what? I say. “You’re queer,” she says, “Bent, homo-sexual!”’
      Vera clears her throat.
      Bull charges on. The expression on his great weathered slab of a face is more puzzled than anything.
      ‘I still couldn’t see what she was getting at. “What do you mean? Are you gay then?” I say, and she rises slowly. I get ready to run, it looks like she’s finally gone over the edge. You’ve always said she would, Vera.’
      ‘Oh, my God,’ says Vera.
      ‘She shouts at me. Screams that she’s a married woman with three damned children. That her daughter has been a dirty lesbian since age fourteen, one son in the priesthood — everyone knows these days what that means — and now her last son has announced to the whole world he’s gay. That’s her grandchildren down the drain, she screams, and now they’re taking over lace-making! Then she stops abruptly, complete change of tone, slaps my form down on the table and says my entry is accepted! Just like that! I hopped it fast.’
      ‘She’s mad,’ says Vera.
      ‘I suppose so,’ says Bull. ‘But it’s got me thinking. Do you think I’m gay, Vera?’
      ‘Well, don’t ask me,’ says Vera. She fiddles with an earring.
      Bull picks up a bobbin he’s been carving: cow-bone, tiny and boat-shaped, with a Celtic knot engraved at one end. Every one of his eighty-four bobbins has a different pattern so his fingers know.
      ‘Maybe she’s right,’ says Bull, ‘How would you tell?’
      ‘Bull,’ says Vera, all patience, ‘have you been with a man?’
      ‘Come off it, Vera, what do you take me for?’
      ‘Well, do you fancy them then? Their bodies?’
      Bull thinks for a bit. ‘I like to see a good fit body on the field. Man who keeps himself in trim. You know.’
      ‘Well, so does everyone. So do I.’
      ‘You’re a woman,’ says Bull.
      Vera tops up her whisky, too. ‘Well have you been with women, then?’
      ‘Once, I did,’ says Bull. ‘It wasn’t much good.’
      ‘But do you think about them?’ says Vera, looking him in the eye, ‘Have you ever, well, fancied me, for example?’
      Bull laughs. ‘Of course I do, Vera.’
      ‘But I mean — you know … in that other way?’
      Bull taps the table with his bobbin, tap, tap, tap, the little bone incongruous in the meaty fist. ‘Listen to us!’ he says at last. ‘You’d think we were teenagers!’ And he laughs. ‘All that stuff.’
      Vera grunts. The sound could mean anything. She lets go the earring and rises. ‘Yes, well. I suppose. I’ll be off then.’
      At the door, she turns to Bull, who is still sitting there with his bobbin. Her nod is friendly enough.
      ‘All that stuff,’ she says. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow then, Bull.’
      And wheels the rattling pram home.