Survivors

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 794, 8 October 1954, Page 8

Survivors

A Short Story

by

PHILLIP

WILSON

IHIREE miles from the aerodrome they passed a new housing development with the red clay cut of a partly-fin-ished street through it and a white sign on the corner: -Hillary Heights Road. "It must be pleasant to be a national hero,". Grant said. Gwen looked at him with a smile. "During the war you were all heroes," she said. "But that was a long time ago." He had hever thought, when he set off this morning on a brief buying trip to Auckland for the firm, that he would Tun into her like this, on a casual aeroplane trip. It had been a long separation, and although a friend had told him she had never married, he had generally speaking forgotten her, to the extent that he hadn’t consciously tried to find out what she was doing in the years Since their companionship during the war. He had resented her going off with her air force pilot, who was subsequently killed, and besides, he had been too busy trying to salvage his shattered personality from the wreckage caused by the fighting in Italy. He had been so absolutely bent on ensuring his survival in the crumbling post-war years that he hadn’t had time to think about her since he had come home to his civilian job in New Plymouth. He hadn’t married, either, though he had been tempted often enough by a soft voice and a pretty figure among the lovely Taranaki girls. There had seemed in the meantime to be something more important to do: ¢ Now he was excited at having met her again. They had sat beside each other in the plane and talked about old times, and*it started him thinking about how things had been between them in those days. "We had-a lot of fun together, didn’t we?" he said. "Yes. We were younger then." The big airways bus straddled the road like a tank. They passed a truck loaded with building timber, and went down a steep hill between the vineyards and market gardens. The vines lay bare in tht sunshine, and in a ploughed paddock he saw grey ironbark pumpkins piled like boulders under a long windbreak of pine trees. At the entrance to several farms there were boards advertising tree tomatoes for sale, and at one. place some wilted bunches of flowers stood like faded emblems in old jam pots. As they came down another hill past the Waikumete cemetery with its brick crematorium and the white slabs of gfaves extending to the edge of a scrub wilderness, the bus stopped to let a funeral procession go by. "Look," she said. "All the taxis are empty." There were six of them behind the hearse, each with a driver nonchalant at the wheel. "Six empty taxis," he said. "It’s something to remember Auckland by." "What do you mean?" "You're forgotten when you’re dead." _ "Why, that’s a crazy thing to say." On a hill near the road he could see the old site of anti-aircraft guns where he had been in camp during the early part of the war. As they came up to the Avondale crossroads he saw Tom Andrews standing at the kerb with two children beside him. He hadn’t seen him for years, either. He waved out but the

bus went past too quickly and he didn’t know whether Tom had recognised him. "Who was that?" "Tom Andrews. We used to be drinking companions. We were all in camp here once, waiting for the Japs to arrive." "But they never came." "Tom got a medal later on, at Alamein. He was a very brave soldier. Lately, I believe, he’s been in hospital with amoebic dysentery, a hangover from the war.’ "Of course, things were different in those days," she said. _ "Yes. We all thought we were going to die." "All I can remember now is Yanks. They were everywhere. They gave us a good time." Grant lit a cigarette. "Tom’s married now," he said. "Those were probably his children." "Perhaps his wife thought she was marrying a hero." "We all have to be disillusioned some time." She laughed, and he remembered how even and white her teeth were. "I could have* married anyone I liked, then," she said. "I would have married you." She started to laugh again, putting her head to one side in her amusement and looking at him from the corner of her eye. "Well, you were a sort of hero to me, I suppose.’ Grant didn’t reply, but stared serenely out of the window at the landscape and the thickening mass of buildings on both sides of the road. "What are you doing up here now?" he asked. "Tm visiting a friend." "Yes," he said. "You always had plenty of friends." He paused again, and then waved at the new white bungalows and the occasional factories with huge windows and surrounding green lawns. "The progress there’s been here the last few years is astonishing," he said. "But I don’t feel that we’re a part of it. We seem to have been left over from an earlier epoch, like tuataras." "Perhaps you are right, but what do you want to do about it?"

He began to think it was his turn to laugh. "T’ve only got a few days here," he said, "to visit one or two of these factories and place some orders for the firm. Then I go back to New Plymouth. I thought you might like to have dinner one night with me at the hotel." "T can’t," she said. "I am visiting a friend." "One evening shouldn’t hurt." She didn’t say anything for some time, and when she did speak it was about another matter. "Of course, there are just as many heroes today as there were in the war years," she said. He really did laugh now. He was feeling jubilant. "The spirit of adventure is supposed to have gone from our youth. Haven’t you read about it in the newspapers?" "Nonsense," she said. "It’s a different kind of heroism, that’s all." "You mean we don’t have to go to the South Pole or explore the Amazon

to show how good we are? Or get into uniform again?" "Exactly. Everest is only one thing. There’s enough adventure for most of us these days in getting married and raising a family." "Good," he said. "We agree on something, then." They were in the city now, and the bus turned into a side’ street to avoid the traffic. Rows of old wooden houses with elegant cornices and rusted iron roofs stood as if empty in their weedy sections. They passed through a district of warehouses and oil-stained garages and then they turned again, up past the Customs House and down the last little rise into Queen Street. Noon shoppers pushed across the corner while the bus driver waited for the lights to change. They flicked to green and he let in the clutch and moved over the street, and pulled up at the Air Centre. Grant lifted down her bag from’ the rack. She took a piece of paper from her purse, wrote a telephon@ number on it and gave it to him. "Give me a ring in a day or two and perhaps I will come." "That's, a good idea, Gwen," he replied. He watched her leave the bus ahead of him, moving with that smoothness he remembered. The jewels at her neck sparkled as she turned and smiled at him. He took down his own bag and as he paused on’ the footpath he saw a man come up and speak to her. With his broad shoulders and snappy suit he looked like’a sporting type, a footballer, or perhaps a mountaineer. . "Did you enjoy yourself?" he heard the man say. : They walked away together and Grant put the paper in his pocket. Six empty taxis, he thought, and laughed at his private joke. There were. other kinds of death, but it occurred to him that he was at last on the road to regaining his complete integrity. He picked up his suitcase and started to walk along the two blocks to his hotel. He was suddenly very pleased with the world. After all, he thought, touching the piece of paper. with his fingers, it might be true that for most men there was only one woman, but on the other hand, it wasn't everyone who had a_ second chance, either. In some things the only condition seemed to be simply what he had always within the limits of his honour ‘striven for. merely a matter of survival.