XII. We Have No Sexism (Sexism; No, No)!
XII. We Have No Sexism (Sexism; No, No)!
It’s been some time now, a year or so
If you weren’t coping you’d have let me know
My friends say I do too much; I’ve got a lot on my plate
If there was something, I wouldn’t hesitate…
“The Labour Party stands for a society where people don’t feel challenged to be nasty about everyone else; where people are drawn together to work in the interests of their country. We want a country where people have a chance to be equal – we don’t say they’ll end up being equal, some will excel, some won’t make it, but all, male or female, Maori or Pakeha, have to have that chance…and I say to New Zealanders, ignore claims by others of success…”
- David Lange
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RNZAF Base Ohakea
March 3, 1984
It had been a hectic two days, thought Lange as the rest of the politicians began filing into the hangar, the only structure they’d found which would comfortably accommodate fifty-two MPs and the thirty-six delegates of those being kept informed over the phone from elsewhere.
At the head of the rough quadrilateral cleared at the side of the hangar for the proceedings, Lange and his brain trust (the fish and chip brigade rides again, eh?) sat at a table, separated from three National counterparts – MacIntyre, McLay, and Aussie Malcolm – by a chair occupied by Bruce Beetham, who hadn’t so much taken to the role of mediator as outright taken it with both hands. His face had lost the ashen pallor it had held a week earlier; a course of heart medication and the death knell for a political adversary did wonders for the old ticker, it appeared.
Eventually, when everyone had taken their seat on either side of a rough aisle, Beetham cleared his throat, drank from a glass of water, cleared his throat again, and stood.
“Right, let’s get started, shall we? We all know why we’re here, naturally,” a few glares, a few smiles hastily concealed, a few cocked eyebrows “so I’ll allow the executives of the two -” he made a noise which you couldn't quite accuse of being a sniff “-major parties to make their case, before we open the floor to nominations for a new Prime Minister. Would the Acting Prime Minister like to start?”
Duncan MacIntyre gave assent with a nod of his craggy head and stood tall over his table, hands behind his back like he was reliving his days as a brigadier, about to tell the Maori Battalion to get out there and kill Jerry.
“We’ve come through the worst time in this country’s history,” he began, “but we’re still here. We’ve lost quarter of a million people, but we’re still here. We’ve lost our leader and Prime Minister to the pressures of a situation he could not control, but we as a nation, and as a National Party, are still here.
"If we are to remember those values of democracy and freedom for which we as a party and a country have stood and fought for in three world wars now, let us remember that we are best governed by a democratically-elected government. Our national government – our National government – is still a majority within this Government, the first among equals. We are still the party of the common New Zealander, of the man struggling to feed his family in these dark times. And I would remind you that we are a party of community as well as of the individual. We are not beholden to the legacy of the Prime – of our recent Prime Minister. A National Government can still offer this country the governance it needs to get out of this crisis and build us back up.” A jeer or two from the Labour ‘benches,’ until Lange shot a glare which could cut steel in their direction. MacIntyre didn’t even blink. Instead he turned to the Labour members. “I say this to all of you. Not just blue, nor red, nor” the faintest pause, just long enough for Bruce Beetham’s eyebrows to furrow “yellow. If we can agree upon a way forward for our national, National government, it will be as a national unity government. We all have a place at the table, and I invite you to take your place alongside us in helping our nation.
“However,” now that got a response, as one or two claps started and died off abruptly “however, I am not asking you to vote for me.” Murmurs raced around the hangar, and the delegates began taking notes to be sent to the MPs they represented by phone during the next recess. “I was persuaded to remain in this government a little under two years ago after developing a serious heart condition, and two months ago stayed on as Deputy Prime Minister only through the request of my country. Though the spirit is willing, the body is weak. I am therefore compelled to nominate my honourable colleague James McLay –” and now the clamour began “who I believe has the foresight and vitality to carry this government and country forward through our reconstruction and re-emergence as a proud country which can hold its head high.”
It took a few minutes of clamour and protest from one or two of the more diehard Nats before Beetham could make himself heard, and the brouhaha died down enough to give Lange a shot at his speech. As Lange belted out a speech about the need for strong leadership after Muldoon’s heroic sacrifice of his own health and wellbeing in the interests of the country the little voice in his head, having taken a look at the crowd, whistled air through its imaginary teeth and said “it’s gonna be a long day, David my boy. A long bloody day…”
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There’s five blue figures
On a white circle
They’re making agreements
They’re keeping each other in line…
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Civil Defence Processing Centre AKL-04 [Mangere]
Ambere Park, near Mangere
March 6, 1984
Grace was hungry. She’d been hungry for some days, though at least it hadn’t gotten as bad again as the third day, when she’d eaten the last of her food and worried about whether or not she’d be able to get anything else to actually eat. That fear had fortunately been premature as she’d discovered when she was herded into a truck and driven south, processed out at the airport (that is, told to sign off her household from a phone book before being given a meal card), and sent back up here on foot to the tent city which had erupted on the wide green sports ground. They hadn’t given her a tent or anything; she got to keep the clothes and blankets she’d bundled into her duffel bag, but for anything else you were out of luck, Jack.
She’d felt immensely uncomfortable at first, and it was precious little consolation to find out that everyone else did, too. After an agonising afternoon she gravitated towards a group of girls from her college – God knew why they’d been moved down here from Mount Wellington, but it was at least further from the fires which had raged through the central city, where the ash and dust filtered through every shattered window and broken door and into every pore of your skin – and gradually staked out a claim on a patch of grass about five metres square and three hundred metres from the narrow metalled road which was the only link back to the city.
Not that you’d really want to walk off, she opined to Alex, a rower from the form below her, later on. The policemen who occasionally walked around to check on the perimeters of the refugee camp didn’t try to stop people from leaving (unless they’d been trying to take advantage of anarchy), but why would you leave in any case? Here you were guaranteed at least something to eat, a meal in the morning and one around six; tonight bowls of gluey rice with a few vegetables stirred in, some boiled meat of indefinite origin dropped wetly on the top, and a piece of fruit if you were particularly lucky. Not haute cuisine, but better than starving in a burnt-out shell of a house. Which, Grace recalled, a surprising number had chosen…
…Or you could take the easy way out. Like Mum. Grace remembered it, remembered it and more as she relived the scene every time she closed her eyes the dust and the screaming, panic and vomit, sirens roaring before the flash glared from every window. an eerie pause, long enough to make you wonder if it was all real – and then the flat, harsh bang and the roar of the blast, the house shaking for half a minute before it all stopped and you were left with the ringing in your ears and your knees in your own piss. Opening your eyes and laughing as you realised you were still alive, standing up and trying to pull your blanket off you as you realised your hands were shaking too much and you’d pissed yourself anyway and shaking as you stood and walking up from the garage. Broken glass where did that come from? the windows are gone the door blew in it had been closed after I ran in but it’s been blown off its hinges. Oh God is Mum safe I’m alive is there anyone else maybe it’s not so bad maybe it’s maybe –
Looking out the window – what had been the window, now just an empty frame lined with jagged shards of glass, grinning emptily – and seeing the cloud punch its way into the stratosphere like Satan’s own fist. It happened it happened it happened oh God oh God ohGodohGodohfuckGod…
Realisation dawning. Running through the house shouting for her – she hadn’t gone out as well had she? I came back as fast as I could as fast as I could…Opening the bathroom door…No. No. nonono. no.
Glass in the bath, silver fish drifting lazily in a pool as tendrils of red gently felt their way outwards from the figure sitting back at the head of the bath, chips of glass blown into her hair the hair long blonde hair she was always so careful with like her face her face a tear, a knife on the floor, her arms…
Grace sat up sharply, hyperventilating as the sweat poured off her in the tent and the other four slept around her, the sound of their breathing and the rustle of grass as whoever was on lookout turned to face the tent.
Alex’s head popped through the flap, two white eyes blinking as she mouthed a question. The only response to that and the arm stretching out over Grace’s shoulder was a shiver as hot, bitter tears started to flow.
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Are you making a difference
Out here by yourself, love?
Is it in everyone’s interest?
Is it more than a scratch?
Have you made the impression last?
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RNZAF Base Ohakea
March 4, 1984
They had been in and out all day, making votes and speeches while scurrying back and forward to attend to matters of state and reconstruction. The first ballot had been messier than Lange or McLay had hoped, considering it was meant to be the only ballot. Of the 88 MPs present, 33 had voted for McLay, one had voted for Muldoon (probably the peg-legged crank from Invercargill who was always on about a ‘homosexual conspiracy;’ he was nutty as a fruitcake), two had voted for MacIntyre regardless of his refusal to take the stand (possibly they hadn’t heard the news when they directed their delegates, or they were just stubborn), and three had abstained (Beetham was neutral, Kirk had a chip on his shoulder, and Quigley was a loose cannon loaded with the scrap iron of desperate ambition). With forty-nine votes to go, Lange had started preparing his victory speech. It was a damn good one, which made it a pity when his pen scratched so hard it ripped the page in two when he was given the news.
Thirty-one votes for Lange. The remaining eighteen, all Southerners, had thrown in their lot behind their own compromise candidate, never mind that he had voted for his own Party leader.
They talked, and talked, and talked. Phones rang here and there, deals were made and broken. Another ballot was taken, then another, then another. Votes shuffled back and forth between the three leading elements; this was not the easy path Lange had foreseen. It was complicated somewhat by the fact most of the Nats still saw him as an opportunist who’d driven Muldoon out in some sort of palace coup. Never mind that the man had been half out of his mind and frightened the wits out of them all to the very end; Lange was Labour, Labour was Lange, and either of those in the top spot meant they were out on their backsides. So the leaders of a nation talked, and talked some more. A slap was thrown, then a punch, before someone had the good sense to restrain Miss Wilde before she seriously damaged Mister Douglas’ nose, while Lange had the good sense to restrain his laughter. The latest vote; 35 for National, 32 for Labour, Beetham abstaining so thoroughly you’d think he’d taken up the priesthood, and 20 for the Great Compromiser.
It was going to be a very long night indeed.
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Memorial Park, Lower Hutt
Near Civil Defence Processing Centre WEL-03 [Petone]
March 5, 1984
When the rain finally came, it was with the wind, a wind from the west which had roared in and forced the people of the Hutt Valley and those still living in Wellington’s eastern suburbs to retreat indoors as the Geiger counter at the airport clicked and popped disconcertingly, the radio announcer grimly repeating in a flatly authoritative tone the same platitudes. Stay indoors. If you must go out, do not carry any dust indoors with you. Conserve your batteries by turning off your radio now. And so on, and so forth, ad bloody nauseam.
But when the rain finally came, it was a torrent. An autumn storm had muscled its way in, shattering the high-pressure system and the eerie stillness which had come with it. The cremated, irradiated remains of central Wellington and those who had been caught therein were washed at last off roofs and down hills, through abandoned gardens and condemned houses, into the harbour and if not out of mind at least out of sight.
Which left space for other, equally unpleasant things to be dealt with. Mainly by refugees rounded up and promised their daily crust in return for a bit of work. Open plots of land from graveyards to rugby fields were turned over by hungry men with shovels before other refugees (who no matter else what you could say for them would at least never go hungry again) were interred with varying degrees of decorum into the increasingly muddy earth. If they were lucky.
The Lance Corporal was seriously reconsidering his career choices at this point, as rain slicked through the seam where his hood met the heavy raincoat and slid down his back. Unfortunately, that was not the reason he had a chill creeping along his spine. He’d never seen a dead body before the airport, not unless you counted Pop’s funeral when he was twelve; it was an inexperience he shared with most of the civilians he was guarding (for want of a better word). They had all gotten over the culture shock remarkably quickly, as if there was a choice. Mind you, the Lance Corporal wasn’t actually expected to do any digging. Not so much for mercy’s sake as the fact that two of the men from the Endeavour Flight had already been found dead by their own hand; it probably followed in the bizarre logic of Those In Charge that it was therefore a correct balance to only make them supervise the manhandling of the carcasses and spare them actually touching the bodies. You couldn’t help but wonder why the holes were necessary if the faint smell of smoke and petrol and burning flesh drifting from Petone was anything to go by, but if they were going to the effort of getting a priest to walk along the muddying ground past the neatly laid-out rows of people then you had to make at least a half-hearted attempt at maintaining the other niceties. Besides, it meant the ashes all stayed in one place.
The Lance Corporal shivered and adjusted the rifle slung across his shoulder, drawing a variety of glances from the Ava Amateur Gravediggers’ Association which ranged from fear to indifference to hostility, before all except one returned to the task at hand. An enormous Maori bloke was the sole dissenter, staring emotionlessly at him from behind a nose like a tomato that had been hit with a sledgehammer. He held his gaze while shifting to lean on his shovel before he called out to the underofficer.
“Oi, mate! Any idea when we go on break? ‘S fuckin’ freezin’ out here.”
The man had a black jacket on which had had until very recently a patch on the back, and the general air of someone who came home on Saturday night with other people’s blood on his clothes; it took some thought and the persistent weight of the gun to remind the Lance Corporal which one of them technically had the power here. He blinked and swallowed before responding.
“Ah…don’t know. Youse just keep at it and I’ll let you know when I’m told. I reckon…fifteen more minutes?”
The man stared at him for a few seconds which stretched on endlessly, impassively black and unblinking eyes looking into the soldier before he looked to the man beside him, gave a shrug, and returned to the task at hand as the Lance Corporal gave an inward sigh of relief and walked on.
Neither man gave any notice to the rows of bodies in the near distance, nor the smell on the shifting wind; if their eyes saw things then their minds told them they weren’t what they were. You couldn’t afford to see things where they actually were these days. All things considered, it was safer to think about smoko.
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I took pride in my even hand
When I took control, I thought you’d understand
If all things were equal I could be your friend, I could
Turn around and take it again…
Christchurch, Canterbury
March 7, 1984
The planes had roared into Christchurch Airport this morning, the first flights in nearly a week and as important as that rarity would indicate. The Members inside and outside the Cabinet had disembarked and made their way to the Army trucks, to be driven into the centre of the new capital of New Zealand.
The Prime Minister was not amongst them.
Rather, he was waiting for them already in the Council building where he had been since soon after the bombs had fallen, watching and waiting and coordinating rescues and hospital beds and reading an incomprehensible number of reports.
So when David Lange and Jim McLay arrived at the Council building, the newly-appointed Prime Minister had given a couple of glances at the alliteratively-named duo who’d landed this job on top of him like a ton of bricks. Bruce Beetham and Hamish Hay merely stood and looked dignified right back at the Prime Minister as the two Party leaders came in.
Geoffrey Palmer had not expected any of this.
And I want you
To be happy
But I’d rather
That you were still with me
Perhaps we can arrange something
Arrange something…
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