“I don’t think she stopped smiling the whole time”: A visit to the playground
Lorraine had cried when she was put on a horse, so she sits in a carriage with her mother, Beatrice. The carriages tip back and forth, back and forth, like scales with weight put on, then off. Lorraine waves at her father, who leans over the rail of the merry-go-round, each time they come round. Although he smiles, Beatrice thinks Errol seems more interested in the paintings that conceal the merry-go-round’s engine. Scenes of ships in rough weather; grey sea and sky, wave tops white and tall. Masts snapped. Himself a seaman. Leaving his wife and daughter for weeks at a time to deliver goods to ports up and down the east coast.
There are crowds of people. They poured out of the amphitheatre towards the rides and games, the jangling of country music still in the air. The merry-go-round stops, the children and adults clamber off, their footsteps a little wobbly from having gone round in circles for five minutes.
“I don’t think she stopped smiling the whole time,” says Beatrice.
Errol winks at Lorraine.
Rock ‘n’ roll music is playing by the octopus. The round carriages swirl on the arms of the steel sea creature. At the chair-o-plane ride an old man sits on an upturned nail box, cigarette in one hand, his other hand holding his knee as if it will take off on its own accord. Children spin around him, sitting on swings attached to the circular frame by steel chains. The kids squeal in joy while he looks bored and smokes. The swings are so close that some kids put their feet on the backsides of others and push the swing out. Parents stand around the side muttering to themselves that that sort of behaviour shouldn’t be allowed. The man in the middle is oblivious. The ride eventually slows and stops. The swings clang together and hang as listless as the old man.
At the rockets, Beatrice asks Lorraine if she wants to go on the ride by herself. An adult won’t fit in the rocket with her. She shakes her head and watches the red and blue and yellow rockets go round seemingly driven by the children holding the steering wheels.
They walk on the brown trodden-on grass through to the games area. The chocolate wheel spins. The announcer declares number 32 the winner.
“I might take a ticket.” Beatrice takes some change out of her purse.
There are lots of people hanging around the chocolate wheel with tickets in their hands, eyeing up the boxes of biscuits, chocolates, and trays of peaches and wooden boxes of apricots. When they win, they will carry the prize proudly as if their victory involved a level of skill. All the while the wheel continues to clack. Errol lifts Lorraine up so that she can see what all the fuss is about.
Their spin is next.
“Watch the spin, watch your number,” says the announcer.
Beatrice does just that. She checks that the spin number on the bottom left-hand corner of her ticket matches the number behind the announcer’s head. Numbers that are painted on metal in three rows that flick over a rung to make numbers up to the hundreds. Beatrice imagines, at the end of the night, the numbers are flicked back to one.
“Number 14, number 14, where’s the winner.” The announcer looks into the crowd, he points to the ticket waving winner, and the volunteers rush and ask what prize they would like.
“One more spin ladies and gentlemen.” The announcer really puts his back into the spin.
“Number 36, ladies and gentlemen, show me the winner.”
Beatrice looks at her ticket. The spin number matches. The winning number matches. She throws her arm into the air, moves towards the barrier and the volunteer who will award the prize. She chooses the box of chocolates. As Beatrice walks back to Errol and Lorraine, she fingers the cellophane wrapper and thinks how strong yet fragile the substance is. Errol congratulates her. After she has shown off the box of chocolates, she brings it to her face and smells the cocoa through the wrapper. She fights the urge to rip the cellophane open right then and there.
From the games area they can see the playground, kids on swings, the paddling pool, water splashing down a rock fountain. Some kids are standing in the small deep pool at the top of the fountain as if it were their own private bathing area.
“I might go and have a quick game of colours.”
Beatrice nods and grimaces a little. Colours is a little too close to gambling for it to be included at the Bay, but she doesn’t say so.
“Here, give her to me. Can you carry the chocolates?”
Errol hands Lorraine over to her mother and puts the chocolates under his arm.
“I’ll see you shortly.”
There’s a flagpole in the middle of the games area with a wooden seat built around it. Beatrice notices a spare seat and moves towards it. “Shall we watch the world go by?” she says to her daughter.
Beatrice sees Errol put his hand in his pocket to feel how much change he has left. Colours is not a complicated game though she’s never played. It's only ever men standing around the wooden banister that encloses the board and the money table. They puff on their cigarettes and mutter to each other in the corrugated iron lean-to.
On the wall is a large rectangle cork board with lines of colours running down it in thin stripes. Halfway down the board the thin stripes of colour change into another. You place a bet on which colour you think a dart will land on. The dart is thrown by a member of the public who is standing at the far end. If it lands on your colour, you win your money back with a little interest.
Errol jumps as a man appears beside him and starts talking. They shake hands. He is tall and broad, with thick black hair not cut back as tidily as it could be. A cigarette is hanging from his mouth. He expels words and smoke.
Errol turns back to see the progress the volunteers are making while his companion reaches into his pocket for some change. He leans through a few men and gives the money to a volunteer.
Beatrice can see how lit up Errol’s face is, as bright as the multi-coloured lightbulbs attached to wires that come from each corner of the games area and join at the top of the flagpole she sits beneath.
The man nods his head in the direction of the chocolates in Errol’s hand and Beatrice wishes she had kept them with her.
The operator of colours holds out a dart towards Errol. He is taken aback but doesn’t refuse the offer. He hands the box of chocolates to his companion who takes them and puts his other hand on Errol’s shoulder, pushing him gently into the dart throwing position.
Errol throws the dart as if it were an insect to be flicked. The dart misses the board entirely. The men in the crowd barely suppress their groans while the volunteer pulls the dart out of the wooden frame and hands it back to Errol.
Errol’s friend leans into his ear and says something. Whatever it is, it makes his shoulders relax.
He brings the dart up to eye level, swings his arm back and forth, back and forth like the merry-go-round’s carriages, extends his arm and releases the dart. It thuds into the board.
Errol’s friend collects his winnings and they both walk away from the game. He is still holding the chocolates, this stranger.
Beatrice goes to wave, to call them over, but they don’t look over her way no matter how much her eyes bore into them, willing them to turn around.
The afternoon air is cooling. People are walking away from the Bay. The last game of housie is called. Beatrice turns and watches the operator push a wooden trolley into which he throws ping pong balls that land on a number which he calls out. Soon enough someone yells, “line.” The remaining players sigh in defeat. There is one player, an old man, who sits alone on a stool. Beside him are stacked boxes of biscuits and chocolates that he has won. He must have been there all day.
She turns back to the men. Errol reaches out and takes the chocolates before they both walk away from the games. Beatrice stands, holding Lorraine to her hip to see where they’re going. She walks slowly, keeping her distance, but close enough to see the back of their shirts and how Errol’s sticks to his shoulder blades with sweat.
They walk past the hall where the volunteers drink in-between the afternoon and evening carnival sessions and towards the toilet block. Errol walks in, while the man turns around and looks behind him, before following him in.
Lorraine starts wriggling in her mother’s arms. Beatrice lets her down and holds her hand as they walk through the games area – over the flurry of pink tickets left lying on the ground. Some have been ripped in half in disgust over the loss. She tsks at the sight of them especially when there’s forty-gallon drums positioned around the area for rubbish. Lorraine kicks through them and giggles like she’s rushing through autumn leaves.
They walk to the paddling pool on the edge of the playground and sit on a wooden seat that has a white painted timber trellis up around it. Red roses crawl up. Lorraine jiggles and points at the pool. Beatrice didn’t bring togs, but as other kids are splashing about wearing nothing, or just their underwear, she decides Lorraine can do the same.
She screams with delight when she’s lowered into the cool water. Beatrice hovers at the edge, her hand in the water going back and forth like she’s testing the temperature of a bath while Lorraine smacks both hands in and out of the water. Beatrice can only manage the barest of smiles in response. She moves back to the seat, while keeping an eye on her daughter.
Beatrice crosses her legs and arms as the water has suddenly chilled her.
She turns around as Errol approaches. He’s smiling. There’s a lightness to his feet which isn’t from rushing to see them. While she’s relieved to see him, she doesn’t smile or show it in any way, her body and face stay wrapped up.
“Come on Lorraine dear, time to go,” Beatrice says.
Lorraine starts to grizzle.
“I didn’t bring a towel. I didn’t think she’d have time to paddle.”
Errol collects Lorraine’s damp little body and wraps her up in the cardigan Beatrice hands him.
“Did you have a good little swim,” Errol says to Lorraine as he picks her up.
His daughter clamps both palms to either side of her father’s face and laughs as Errol yelps at the chill of her hands.
They set off on their walk home. Lorraine nestles into her father’s chest and closes her eyes.
Beatrice is looking forward to a cup of tea and a chocolate. She turns towards Errol looking for the box.
“Where are the chocolates?”
Errol stops in his tracks momentarily before he restarts his footsteps.
“I must have left them at the colours. I had to put them down to throw the dart.”
She knows that’s not where he left them. They must be in the toilet block. Did the man eat some? Did he rip off the cellophane and open the lid and pick one, not even bothering to check the card to see what flavour he’d prefer. Flavours that were meant for her, not him. It was her prize.
Beatrice looks out towards the beach where a few swimmers are lingering in the water. She imagines the waves whipped up and thinks it would be easy enough to slip below the surface. Next week's short story is Taranaki writer Steph Matuku, taken with permission from the 2022 anthology of 38 Oceania women writers. Vā: Stories from Women of the Moana edited by Sisilia Eteuati and Lani Young (Dalia Malaeulu, $35) , available in bookstores nationwide.
