Owen Marshall Selected Stories Read Free Page A

lad.’ Raymond with his broken teeth and first class honours degree, had to get his own back. I understand it betternow. Raymond hated Supper Waltz because he neither needed nor desired anything that Raymond had, and they both knew it.
    Girls knew that Supper Waltz was different too. Supper Waltz seemed old in the ways of the world. As fifth formers it wasn’t easy for most of us to be the ladies’ man. Pongo had a face as round and as innocent as a child’s. Baby Brother, the girls called him. Supper Waltz never missed out at a teenage dance; Supper Waltz was a parochial legend of our youth. He went home with sixth form girls, and some even that had left school. Girls came looking for Supper Waltz, some without knowing why and blushing because of it. Some girls hated Supper Waltz, they said — afterwards. Supper Waltz rarely danced in the early part of the evening. He’d hang around the door, smoking, talking, watching who went in and who went out. We’d nudge one another and snigger when the supper waltz was announced. I don’t think I ever saw Supper Waltz refused by a girl.
    Supper Waltz had an understanding of women all right. Like the time I wanted to go out with Alice Hume. She was at the private girls’ school. She wore a short, green skirt in the hockey games, and the inside of her thighs was flat and smooth. It used to give me a headache just watching her. Supper Waltz and I waited for her as she went to church, and I asked her to see me the next weekend. I thought she was going to say yes, but finally she went off laughing with the others without giving an answer. She had a rather longer dress on that day but I still got a headache. Supper Waltz didn’t joke about her or anything. We went into the golf course nearby and hunted for balls to sell. After a while I asked him why Alice Hume hadn’t said she’d go out with me. Supper Waltz had no trouble with the answer. ‘It’s the Fair Isle jersey,’ he said. ‘No girl will make a date with you in a Fair Isle jersey’ My mother had given me the jersey for my last birthday. I thought of it as part of my best clothes. ‘It’s a kid’s jersey, Hughie, see?’ said Supper Waltz frankly ‘Girls think a lot about that sort of thing.’ Supper Waltz was right of course. With some of my money from potato picking I bought a denim top, and Idid my hair without a part before I asked Alice Hume again. I never told Supper Waltz about her thighs and my headaches, but the day she agreed to go out with me Supper Waltz watched her walk away and said, ‘She has really good legs, you know, really good legs’, and he seemed pleased for me in a brotherly way.
    It might seem that Supper Waltz was always the leader, and that I was just tagging along all the time, but it wasn’t really like that. There were ways in which Supper Waltz depended on me. With adults, for example, Supper Waltz let me do most of the talking. Even old Raymond said on my report that I was a straightforward, sensible boy. He meant predictable, I think. I was in the cricket team by the fifth form, and bigger than most of the others. I kicked Wilderborne in the back when he picked on Supper Waltz in the baths enclosure. Both Pongo and Graeme were better than Supper Waltz at some things too; Graeme was dux in the end. We all lacked the vision of Supper Waltz though. The world was sharper, brighter for him, and the meaning always clear. Once Supper Waltz, Graeme and I went camping in the Rangitata Gorge, and came down the rapids on lilos. The water was a good deal rougher than we thought. Graeme got thrown off his lilo and smashed two teeth out on the rocks. I went on only because I couldn’t stop. I felt sure I was going to drown. Supper Waltz loved it. Each time he bobbed up from the spray and turmoil of the water, he laughed and stared about as if born anew. He wanted to go down again but Graeme and I wouldn’t.