She taught me how to research thoroughly. Perhaps I owe my later PhD to her. She taught me how to express ideas - even way out or politically sensitive ones. Because I wanted to sound intelligent to her, and because she was intelligent, I had to think straight, even in her library with that big life drawing of her naked and aroused-'painted by my husband', she said whimsically-looking down at me, above the volumes of Proust and Joyce, Frank Sargeant and Janet Frame. She was passionately anti-racist, she hated the K.KK, the subject of her Masters, the subject of her book, our research. She drove a battered two door Ford Anglia, had a rich father she didn't get along with. We drank a lot of wine, I'd roll up after Uni, not wanting to go home to Dad's sadness. The night I introduced her to my girlfriend, my soon to be defacto, the mother to be of my children, she looked, for a moment, much older than her thirty years. Physically there were many resemblances.
Trevor is having a good day. The track is slow and feathery, to our right the main ground at Eden Park is unused and empty of people--on days like this if you shout something it echoes and echoes. We're on the test match practice wickets. There is no crowd, even though it's a club premier league clash. I'm bowling to Trevor Franklin when she arrives with her husband. His name is in all the papers; he's been getting runs for New Zealand, he's tall and heavy jawed. He bats like a farmer clubs in fence posts-solid, strong, measured. He is in the process of getting a hundred against me. It's a good duel, but there's no bounce, and no cut, and just a little bit of swing. The ball comes on, after about an hour of cat and mouse the ball goes, quite frequently, for four.
She arrives before tea and sits with picnic basket, husband and friends on the boundary. I'm embarrassed but proud. Just a few more spectators and the moment would be complete. She is new to cricket and doesn't recognize Trevor, says when we walk off at tea, 'Where are all the people?' Rugby matches, after all, get a good crowd and she watched a fair bit of rugby.
I say, 'You don't get big crowds in cricket until you're in there,' I point at the main stadium, 'See that guy, do you recognize him?' She stares dumbly. Her husband remains straight-faced-does he recognize the giant called Trevor Franklin? He's not letting on.
'He's an Auckland player, and a test player.'
'Oh,' she says, staring at his huge hands and feet as he passes, 'And those two guys,' I add, pointing to Dipak Patel and John Bracewell. She doesn't recognize them either. 'The Indian-looking guy is actually an English professional, he plays for Worcestershire, the other guy is our New Zealand leg spinner.' I was thinking: They can't get this bugger out either.
The gentlemanly thing to have done, Trevor, would have been to hit me for a couple of well-timed fours after tea, then snick a ball outside off-stump--you played and missed often enough. At the very least you could have made my bouncers look ferocious, by ducking and perhaps fiddling nervously, or breathing deeply between balls. Instead you proceeded methodically to one hundred, swaying away from the short balls, making them look harmless on that Eden Park pudding of a wicket.
Even though I was never in love with her I shall now create a crowd of at least two hundred people. They will chant my name as I bowl at Trevor the giant, there is one news camera-to capture the clash, she buys drinks from one of the food stands that populate the ground during test-matches and one day games. On the nightly news it will show New Zealand's test match opener hit everyone for fours and sixes, except my good self. He will duck a series of my quicker balls, the umpires will warn me sternly. He will play and miss and I will glare-at him from down the track like Dennis Lillee. He will hit me for one four, and tell me to 'fetch it, Swerve' - we'll be great friends, afterwards we'll share a beer (we were in the Auckland squad together, after all). He was always amiable, but you have to keep the crowd entertained. He won't make a hundred like in the real world, he'll make 48 or something like that. The TV cameras will capture the delivery and slow it down for the nightly news-the way the stumps cart-wheeled out of the ground and toward the keeper. And my History teacher will be impressed.
