“They call you my garden gnome,” Sally said fearfully, which provoked me into wearing more vivid colours. I can't help who I am, I thought to myself, stroking my wide-chiselled beard. Locals couldn't handle the way I dressed and my son Blake got a fair bit of flack for wearing see-through black shirts, shaven eyebrows and stud bracelets.


We were a right combination for a small coastal rural town and I was proud of it. I was short and tubby, while Blake was lean and pale with long dark brown hair. He always wore black shirts. Mine were bright rainbow, floral and edged with beads. I hovered about the town like a faint band of iridescence, so sure of myself in the belief that my wife Sally still looked upon me with relief and hope while the local folk anguishing with conformity, grew to loathe my lyrical nature.

Over the years I'd published a fair bit of poetry and continued to edit a small local literary magazine, but poetry didn't pay much and my wife Sally was sick of being on the dole. We both worked for the same boss, me in his café and Sally out back in his kiwifruit orchard. During breaks I sat by the window writing haiku. It annoyed Graeme no end, so I slipped in a few whenever he wasn't looking, behind the till, underneath the order pad.

Sally's hours at the orchard steadily climbed while mine remained steady, spiking at three hours per week. Sally had a degree in horticulture, happiest when she was heading out the door for work. She was a slim build, taller than me with big manly hands. To me, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. The fact she was twelve years older, never altered the fact I was crazy about her. When she arrived home I'd be in a drowse of incense, sitting in my favourite captain's chair beside the little mosaic table that held my penny whistle and my cup of tea. I wished she'd join me, instead of rushing off on some mission of practical importance.

It was soon after she and Graeme became dance partners that Sally told me about the affair. Bit by bit I saw my marriage to Sally shut down, its lights dim and its doors close. “I still love you, but I can't be with you,” she said mechanically. Closing down, moving to a new partner, up-grading, I thought to myself. I stood rather blank, not knowing how to feel. It was like speaking to a machine, the kind I imagine she used at Graeme's orchard; pruning away every new shoot of hope cast in her direction, especially those weak and low on return.

Sally's family owned a dairy block on the coastal side of town. They agreed to let me live in the old cottage in exchange for shifting cows. I had a bit of money leftover from the small inheritance I got when Father died. Figured I could live off that for a year, if I was careful. The idea of shifting cows in exchange for rent of a cottage was alluring. It felt so right, red hay barn on the ridgeline, band of blue sea, gentle roll of green hill joined by seams of willow and black and white blotches gathered by the water trough. But in the land I saw a suspense, as subdivisions advanced towards the hay paddocks and a new golf-course stiffened the land. I looked over a horrible expression of triumphant over nature. In everything I tried to grasp nature, turning to the cottage as a last resort for a bygone form of living. The cottage was semi-furnished but there was no fridge or washing machine. There was a cupboard in the kitchen; I converted it to a food safe.

Enthusiastically, I rose every morning to a bowl of porridge and a trail of cowpats. I planned to lose weight this way, walking and whistling my way through seven hundred cows and twenty odd paddock rotations. In the evening I slipped into my sandals and walked the one and a half kilometres to the beach. Once at the beach, I walked bare-foot into the sea, following the coastline until I came upon a quiet secluded place among the rocks.

As the weeks passed my journeys to the beach turned into an extension of work. The idea of returning to the cottage sent me into a high gloom. I felt homeless and the demands of work and solitude were taking its toll on my body and mind. Poetry submissions dwindled and so did my motivation to rise in the morning. I went about sluggishly, taking my time about the farm in the grogginess of high summer. I kept returning to my poetry and having reached my limit, I turned to painting but the work looked plastic and amateurish. All the while my only connection to the outer world was through my work as poetry editor.

Gradually I became more conscious that I should find companionship, away from the demands of labouring in work. I was not like most men. Work felt like a violation against the sound of the sea. I could taste the salt air from the farm cottage. I wanted to watch the waves wash softly over the shells, yet all I could see was the hard and fast rules of the other world, the inhuman rotation of cows and my own productivity herded about into a dreadfully mundane existence. Meanwhile, the indomitable golf course next door spread hideously hard-edged over the husky paddocks to form a new architecture of green, joining with the dust-coloured subdivision. The cottage itched with fleas and the worn out fuzzy couch prickled my hot skin. I mostly sat in my captain's chair, the only item of furniture Sally agreed to let me take.

One morning, I was sitting with a clean white page gazing into my blank imagination. I had to get out, lose myself in the oblivion of food. I knew of a place where I could order a 'big breakfast.' So I wrenched myself away from the cottage and drove thirty kilometres out of town to a busy coastal cafe. On the way, I picked up a wad of poetry submissions waiting for me at the post-box downtown.

The café was directly across the road from the beach. The day was blue and red pohutukawa bloomed with happiness. I was between two worlds, longing to lose my grief and misery in the wisdom of flowers and the exaltations of tui and the dramatic climax of waves along the beachfront that dispersed with happiness. I took a table outside, by which time I'd become giddy with hunger. It seemed to take forever before someone finally arrived with my food. Full of sausage, bacon, eggs and baked beans I wiped my greasy fingers on a paper napkin, washed down the taste of salt and fat with a good cup of tea and began to examine each envelope in turn, choosing to open the local ones first.

About four were probably worth a second look, one had a very personal theme, written by a woman named Gabrielle. A not so popular approach, to write introspectively and there was some confusion between past and present tense, but I found it deeply moving. I warmly invited her to send in more, which she did, followed by an interesting succession of letters. The tone of her messages, suggested she might be seeking lyrical guidance. So I started off with Gabrielle, by inviting her to a reading where I was guest speaker.

My wardrobe was pretty basic. I liked bright colours, usually found in the women's section of the Sallies. On the beach I searched the shoreline for a suitable accessory, found a shell that worked in quite well with my rose silk trousers and the open shirt I planned to wear, that showed a good amount of hair on my chest. I drilled a hole through the shell, wide enough to thread an old leather boot string and wore it to the reading.

Typically there was a small gathering of wannabe poets milling about the venue, none of whom looked like the woman I envisaged writing sad introspective poems. Halfway through my reading, Gabrielle arrived. In the periphery I noticed her presence. Feeling my heart glow around the edges, I became more dramatic and exaggerated in my reading. Later, when it was someone else's turn to read and she squeezed in beside me on the couch, my heart was on fire.

In retrospect, I should have stayed to mingle and answer questions. At least I should have stayed to tidy away tables and chairs, but instead I invited Gabrielle to talk poetry over coffee. Then it occurred to me that we could end up at 'Graeme's Cafe'. There were two cafes to choose from, one of course being 'Graeme's' where Sally was probably working that day, the other, nothing more than a truck-stop. Blake would be at home working on his costume. I hated the idea of my son being left to fend for himself. I hadn't connected with him much since the break-up. I planned to help him prepare for the Wearable Arts Festival. Last year he won his category. He was hoping I'd model, but self-expression seemed so pointless.

Sally would be jealous if she saw Gabrielle, not that I wanted to hurt Sally, or did I? I wasn't sure. Before I knew it she'd come up with the idea herself:

“Does Graeme's sound alright? It's the best of the two don't you think?”

“Yeah, sure… I know the owner quite well.”

No, I won't tell her anymore, not yet anyway. What could I say? I didn't feel up to sharing such a humiliating story, so I told myself I was over Sally and Graeme. I was synapsed to the natural world at last, where the flowers are soft and delicate, where lovers in the sun undergo some kind of lover's synthesis and lovers in the moonlight undergo some kind of gravity pull. Where words to describe love are exchanged for a sharpening of the senses so that every sight and smell in the presence of a lover has brilliance. So that even the sound of our shoes treading gravel and the sight of gum on the footpath is positively beautiful.

I sprawled poetry over the table by the window, where I use to sit on my break. I encouraged Gabrielle to do the same. The place was brimming with customers. We ordered one cup of coffee each, too engrossed in our poetry and conversation to study the menu. The fact she was married didn't worry me too much. I could do the just friends thing if that's what she wanted.

Graeme was at the expresso machine frothing up cappuccinos. I could hear it squealing like a pig. I never saw Sally but I did spy her car; knew he'd be complaining to her about us taking up seats, not ordering food. I needed to prove to myself that I was over Sally and Graeme. I wondered if I should introduce Graeme to Gabrielle and then ask if Sally was in. Could come up with an excuse to have a quick word about Blake or something. It was closure after all.

It was during this momentary lapse of concentration in our conversation that Gabrielle picked up her purse and glanced at her watch.

“Better be going,' she said hesitantly.

“Had you?” I replied holding her in my gaze.

“Well, no,” she said looking away.

“Do you want to see a film?” was all I could come up with.

“I could actually. I have to go back home to see to the kids. I could meet you, say six?” she answered.

“Come to my cottage for tea?” I added, feeling emboldened by her smile.

“I suppose I could do that too,” she added as we left Graeme's café together.

As I watched her leave in her car, Sally and Graeme receded quickly from my thoughts. I had so much to live for suddenly. Comfort and companionship I kept saying to myself. That's what I decided to offer Gabrielle, aware she wasn't my woman, yet I could offer her comfort and companionship. During out talk at the café I found out she was married for the last sixteen years to a psychiatrist. A man who was never home much, out on weekends at gigs and parties. Wasn't Gabrielle's thing. She was a stay-at-home Mum. She was afraid of him. He had a temper, not a dangerous one, mainly took it out on things not people she assured me.

I kept thinking about what she said:

“I get blamed for not handling it. He thinks I'm psychotic.”

And what I said:

“Easy to say that about a poet.”

And what she said:

“He doesn't think I have the technical skill.”

And what I said:

“You're one of the truest poets I've ever met.”

He was packing his car with band gear when she got home. She told him she was off to see a film with someone from the writer's group. He had two Mercs. She'd take the little run-about he got for her and the kids. He said he didn't know when he'd be home, depending on how much he drinks, he might not be home at all. She couldn't wait to leave, noticing he'd dug into the cat's grave because it was taking up too much room on the driveway. He couldn't get his car out without backing into it. Made her feel all the more glad to be doing something for herself. They'd only buried her son's orphaned lamb a few days earlier. He was going off about something else during the ceremony. “Who left the wheelbarrow out? God damn, it's filled with rainwater. Don't you see it'll rust?” he complained as she stood with her hands on her son's shoulders, trying to think of something comforting to say. But he stole her attention away because his needs were louder and they frightened her. “There was no reasoning with him anymore,” she said.

I prepared camp oven potatoes and a trifle, filled the cottage with incense, lit candles and waited, half-suspecting she might not turn up. There was no time to think things through. I was just doing what felt right, offering her comfort and companionship, like I said I would, but in the back of my mind I knew how much I was longing for someone to love. To my relief she arrived almost on the dot at six. She was wearing a crimson dress cuffed with a band of pearls over a pair of wide-legged jeans. I never saw anyone dress that way around town. I never met a woman like her in my life. She was intensely sensitive to every speck of her surroundings.

The film was bleak, something about a lighthouse and a man in a dismal mood on a road trip. We left early, keen to get back to the cottage where the trifle waited and I was looking forward to finding out more about Gabrielle. We could hear the rats in the ceiling as we sat together on my fuzzy old couch with our hands curled around our pudding bowls.

Everything about the cottage delighted Gabrielle. She touched the faded curtains hanging loosely from a few hooks. “It's like walking into Mr Lomus' house. You don't have a fridge! And you keep chicken leftovers in a cupboard in the middle of summer, inside an icecream container. This is magic. Look at you, is your life real? And the teabags pegged to a branch of an old dead shrub outside and the grass it's allowed to be so… grassy.” She mentioned the old ragged peach tree tapping against the front window like an old tramp wanting to come inside. The cottage felt wonderful with Gabrielle there amidst its rats and the wind and the shush of sea and the scratch of trees. There was a special movement in the candle flame I'd never seen before.

“You're everything Gabrielle I've dreamed about,” she said. I pictured her streamlined surroundings, the granite bench, wrap around views of the sea and the town and her husband issuing her an allowance despite his income. I pictured her languishing under a spirit of materialism and dominance while I was the epitome of docility in the nicest possible sense of the word. “I fantasise about living out my old age with a poet in a ramshackle cottage,” she said, scratching her leg. I didn't want to spoil the view she had of me, choosing to live rough in the name of poetry when she supposed I owned all this land, giving up a modern home to my wife and son because I believed in love more than money. In that one evening I was reshaping my life and she was reshaping mine.

“I don't usually go out like this, away from home, away from the kids.”

“I'm the same. It's lovely to have your company… I'm not much good on my own.”

“He does his own thing. Home at all hours - doesn't like to be hassled about that stuff.”

“You're welcome to stay. I can make up a bed for you” “Yeah, I should do that, assert my independence, just like he does. Anyway, it's one in the morning and the house is probably empty.”

We slept in our clothes, she in my bed while I took the mattress on the floor. While she closed her eyes, I lay awake gazing up at her beauty. Felt like I'd just only gone to sleep when there was a loud knock at the door. It was her husband, sneering at me like a wolf behind the frosted glass. I opened the door part way, unsure of his intentions. He stood up close, tall and direct.

“Where's Gabrielle, I want to see her?”

“I'll just check with her.”

As I closed the door, he forced his way inside, shouting “Where is she? Where is she?” Shoving me aside he shot forward towards the room at the end of the hall. He charged past the room Gabrielle occupied, into the two spare rooms next to the bathroom, followed by the kitchen screaming “Where is she, Where is she?” There was nothing I could do but stand before the doorway as he turned his attention to the room I was blocking As he came towards me, his face dark with rage, I was ready to grab him as he approached. I grabbed him around the midriff, pushing him into the lounge-room opposite. He fought back gripping the doorway of the lounge with both hands. He flung his fist at my face, “I'll hurt you…if you don't let go, I'll hurt you.” Fighting for the door handle of my bedroom, he used full body force against the door. I caught him round the midriff again, managing to bring him down on my bed close to where Gabrielle stood mute and pale in her black overcoat.

They left, she herded into his Mercedes like she was one of his patients found wandering beyond the invisible wire. I watched him like a sphere of glass and metal in the gentle break of dawn, his movement towards the car door as brutal as the sea lurching onto land - at odds with the land. Then he and his car drew away, partly afraid, they drew away and surged towards the open road, clear of traffic. My agony tired me. Why didn't she stand up to him? I pictured her in some kind of solitary confinement. What will he do? Up her meds, censor her letters, worse still her poems? I could see him sitting in a high-backed leather chair, legs crossed, an air of arrogance, disconnected from her reality. Oh why didn't she stand up to him? What had I done? Created an illusion of fulfillment, imagined I could have with Gabrielle, for we had breathed the air of a new reality together, briefly but surely. I drifted into an unreal sleep, the day matted and torn and knotted. The cottage at once fell into a dusty husk of nothingness.

It was late afternoon when I woke. Through every pore I breathed the air of a new reality once more. Peace itself had rooted itself in my surroundings. My night with Gabrielle slipped me into a new reality once more. Gabrielle stripped away everything past into a void of separation with Sally, only visible through an excess layer of reality belonging to people caught within, waiting in hope for peace to take root in a lotto ticket a new job or a new partner. How brittle and fragile their happiness looked.

I would ring my son. In new confidence I would model for him at the Wearable Art Fest. I would be as if naked in my violently-naked eccentricity. The surroundings of my cottage and my sleep and Gabrielle last night provoked me into a pitch of ecstasy, compelling me into a higher sphere that gleamed fiercely above the work traffic, the subdivision and the golf-course, arching all the way to Graeme's café.

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