Newlands: A Wickedly Funny Novel

By Gary Langford

REYNOLDS UPDIKE soldier, farmer, car salesman, electrical goods manufacturer, lover, father and living treasure, reflected in the declining years of his century as a splendid cook in a womens refuge, a poet and even a dog.

Through two wars and two depressions, from the mind of Gallipoli by way of the Jazz Age to a brave new world of market forces, an unmistakable voice describes the fears and passions of this extraordinary human being. Reynolds leaves his imprint on everyone from ordinary people to royalty until he raises his glass to us all as an unburdened and unforgettable man.

Newlands is one of the outstanding novels of New Zealand literature, reflected in being broadcast by Radio New Zealand repeatedly in the nineties when it first appeared, along with chapter one being published by the Australian newspaper. This is a novel that draws on historical and personal events as intimate studies of us all.

Randy, opinionated, unscrupulous but above all loving Reynolds Updike leads us to the eve of his second one hundred years on this planet. Will he get there? Newlands is a comic tour-de-force of a beautifully written novel. Gary Langford makes it impossible for the reader not to care in this ageless work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Jul 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514497937

Gary Langford

Gary Langford is a writer painter of 34 books, including 14 in fiction, 14 in poetry, 3 textbooks and 3 drama books. His poetry CD is Gary Langford Reading From His Poems, along with being in International Poets www.poetryarchive.org His latest works are A Teacher’s Guide to Drama and The Sonnets of Gary Langford. Nearly half of his books use his paintings and graphics as illustrations. In another period of his life he ran a Sydney theatre where he wrote, directed and acted in 5 musicals. Newlands is an earthy, joyous celebration of life, written by one of the best sellers of dreams.

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Copyright © 1990, 2016 by Gary Langford.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 07/11/2016

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

Epilogue

Author’s Note

PUBLICATIONS BY GARY LANGFORD

Novels: Death of the Early Morning Hero, Players in the Ballgame, The Adventures of Dreaded Ned, Vanities, Pillbox, A Classical Pianist in a Rock’n’Roll Band, Newlands, The Politics of Dancing, Fridays Always Wanted to be Tuesday, Sohrab (Last of the Giants)

Poetry Chapbook: Café Sonnets

Poetry CD Rom: Gary Langford Reading From His Poems www.poetryarchive.org

Gary Langford International Poets www.poetryarchive.org

Poetry Collections: The Family, Four Ships, The Pest Exterminator’s Shakespeare, Bushido, Strange City, Love at the Traffic Lights, Jesus the Galilee Hitch-Hiker, Confessions of a Nude Revolutionary, Rainwoman and Snake, The Family Album, Unit 6, 3 Quake Road, Love Detective Latte, The Sonnets of Gary Langford

Short Plays: Getting On, Reversals, Lovers and Others

Short Stories: The Death of James Dean, A Library is a Place of Love, Lunch at the Storyteller’s Restaurant, Lies, Truth and Blasphemy

Textbooks: The Writer’s Dictionary, Drama in the Classroom www.artsMMADD.com

A Teacher’s Guide to Drama

To Reynolds Updike,

my daughter Kimberley,

and friends

PROLOGUE

1990 is the year I turned one hundred. It is also the year I decided to tell someone I am a murderer so it looks like I’ve selected you. Don’t worry, it’s no great burden, the murder took place seventy-five years ago so you won’t have to testify. I might add that the society of which both you and I are part of called me a hero for a time — for the same act. You don’t need me to tell you the world’s a funny place. I should also say that my family think I’ve got a few sheep missing from the top paddock, which is their alibi.

What does being one hundred mean?

It means you don’t have to apologise.

If you were to ask my family they’d tell you to take everything I say with a pinch of salt. They like to speak in clichés. Nonetheless, I am reporting to you that there are sober-minded and reliable witnesses who consider me a doubtful character. They say I wouldn’t know truth if it hit me over the head with a fencepost.

Many of them are here now in the lounge-room of my home at Sumner, overlooking the estuary of the Avon and Heathcote Rivers. Along with the sewage ponds which the city is proud of, it appears Christchurch looms out of a giant tear-duct. They are all watching me as if they can’t believe their eyes. My granddaughter, Michelle, is the first to move, stepping forward out of the circle of gaping mouths and tucking my penis back in my trousers.

‘Cut, cut,’ says daughter Mary.

I hope she is referring to the TV camera.

I am being interviewed for the National News as, once upon a time, I was a figure of notoriety and it is news that I have lived longer than either my wealth or my conscience should allow. I have been a salesman of one sort or another all my life. I’ve worn different clothes, sometimes I sold machines, sometimes I sold words, always I sold. Even now I cannot resist a sale and I am selling you this story which is why I’ve told you about the murder as murders sell newspapers, advertising space on TV and, I hope, books. The very best salesmen sell dreams — they know what people want before they do. I’ve been a great salesman, I rate mention in books, even if what they say isn’t always nice.

My grandson, Morgan, is grinning at me. He has an earring in his left ear and is good with his hands, having been twice caught shoplifting, so he isn’t that good, right? He and his sister are young and abrasive. They are after something.

Their aunts and uncles say they are likely to vanish tomorrow and where will I be then? What do two budding criminals want with a geriatric like me anyway? They say I should watch my money. Why do these kids want me to live on the hills if it isn’t to throw me off the balcony?

You see, I only knew a few months ago Michelle and Morgan existed.

My family should be proud I still remember where my penis is. Mum once said there’s a devil in me and I’m bound to upset people. I’m being paraded like a poodle. The next thing they’ll be showing off about is the telegram from the Queen. ‘Dad’s got a telegram from the Queen,’ son John tells the TV reporter, whose interest has perked up since I arrived in disarray.

‘There’s nothing wonderful about being a hundred,’ I say, ‘you keep getting up in the morning and one day, God forbid, you’re a hundred.’

‘Now, Dad, you know that isn’t true,’ says Mary, who has often said it would be better all round if my pipes were closed. She has never grown out of her dislike of me. Fair enough. I wasn’t Father of the Year. But you’d think at sixty-four, she’d call it quits, wouldn’t you?

You’ve got to have an interest as you grow old. I provide my kids with an interest.

Avenge yourself. Live long enough

to be an embarrassment to your kids.

I’ve done both. This is why they are all gathered around me today. Except my youngest, Jean, who lives in Canada and has made a career out of missing family occasions. She’s a generation younger than my other kids and believes they’re part of the problem, not the solution. We love each other, but have to face the fact we’ve drifted apart, stitch by stitch, year by year. We mightn’t recognise each other in the street now. Oh, you’ve already guessed the main reason for this turnout — I’m a rich man but don’t ask me for a loan, how do you think I got rich? Do you think I’m a mug with a brain like corn mush just because you were flogged as a child, molested as a teenager and a drug addict by the time you were eighteen? If you smell the atmosphere of the world, it stinks, right? I’ve had letters from some of the unhappiest people in the country. They always want something.

Give us this day our deathly Dad.

‘They beat me, you know,’ I say to the TV camera. A sharp intake of half a dozen breaths. Reaction lets you know you’re still alive. ‘Can I have some food? I’ve eaten that mouldy leg of lamb you gave me last month.’

‘Dad,’ says daughter Emily, arranging my cushions.

‘I’m black and blue, over you … oo … oo … oo … oo … oo … . oo.’

‘Oh God, he’s singing,’ says Mary.

‘Hit him again!’ calls Morgan.

‘I’ll sue if you show any of this,’ says John, who loves litigation.

‘Nothing like a good sue, eh John?’ I ask. ‘Prefer a bad Sue myself. What can you do with your kids? They’re bound to disappoint you.’

‘Take him back to bed,’ says Mary.

‘Shut up, Dad,’ says John.

‘Leave him alone,’ says daughter Myra.

‘He’s all right,’ says son Walt.

Forgive and fertilise has been my philosophy.

‘Do you know why Adam came before Eve?’ I ask. A shake of heads, looks of dread. ‘Because men always do.’

Mary guesses where I got the joke from. ‘I blame you,’ she tells Michelle. ‘You promised you’d control him.’

‘I promised to look after him,’ says Michelle.

‘He was quite happy in the nursing home with people his own age.’

‘Everyone his age has carked it,’ says Morgan, who has a way with words.

‘Exactly,’ says John. My son has told a funny. I give him the thumbs up. Only I get my thumb and fingers confused. ‘Contain yourself, Dad,’ he adds with a sigh. He thinks I’m anal retentive and have become eight years old again.

Would this was so.

‘I’ve got a deadline to meet,’ says the TV reporter. ‘Are we going to do this piece or not?’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’

‘Might rain later,’ I say.

Rain has been an important subject in our family. We come from farming stock and have never lost the habit of glancing skywards when in a tight situation. In our family you might say, ‘The nuclear missiles are on their way,’ and we’d reply, ‘Well, I just hope it doesn’t rain or they mightn’t get here.’

When you reach a century you finally get an audience who will listen to you through thick and thin. ‘Dad’s marbles are scrambled,’ says Emily. I tell her this is a mixed metaphor. I fancy myself as a scholar. I left school at the start of this century and here we are at the other end.

‘I think I can speak for everyone here,’ says John, who can do no such thing, ‘when I say Dad isn’t up to all this excitement. He’s not his usual self — one of the hazards of being old.’

‘When I saw all of you I knew it was either my birthday or I was dead,’ I say. His lips harden. ‘I hope the wind doesn’t change.’

‘I’m leaving,’ says Mary. ‘I knew this would be a farce. You just can’t behave, can you?’ She appears to be looking at me. ‘Is it too much to ask that you act like a decent human being for once? Just once? And don’t think you’re going to turn around and charm me. Smooth as butter when it suits him, that’s what Mother used to say. It always worked with her, but I’m another kettle of fish. I’m not going to forgive you like she did.’ She thinks back. ‘Every family occasion you manage to ruin. I don’t know how Mother put up with you.’

‘Neither did she.’

Most of my kids leave my birthday party. Things are looking up. ‘I don’t recognise the country of being a hundred,’ I say. ‘The death cart rolls through the streets, stops outside my door, I hear feet on the stairs but nobody comes in. I’ve been forgotten. Am I getting warm?’

‘Cheer up, Dad,’ says Walt.

‘The TV,’ says Morgan, fascinated by the camera pointing at me, wondering what he’d say if it was pointed at him. ‘Give the fucking punters what they want, Granddad, no pissing around.’

‘Language! Punters, indeed!’

So:

‘How are you celebrating your birthday?’

‘With as much dignity as possible.’

‘What do you owe such a grand age to?’

‘Pure bad luck.’

‘You have some wonderful memories, given the colourful nature of your life. King of the Packard Palace, founder of Updike Electrics, poet, tilter at windmills.’

‘I made a beautiful apple strudel.’

‘You’ve seen changes that must make your head spin, some of them brought about by you.’

‘No, son, I just bought and sold in the days when being a salesman was a noble occupation, when the world still had dreams, Reynolds Updike, the housewife’s friend, some more than others if you catch my drift,’ (you can’t resist it can you?), I put sex into the ordinary things of life, made them totems, helped us to dance a little easier for a while.’

‘Great times?’

‘And bad ones. In the immortal words of the bard, such is life.’

‘Shakespeare?’

‘Ned Kelly.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘Young man,’ (this surprises a fifty-two-year-old man with stomach ulcers), ‘I may look as though I predate the wheel, but Mr Kelly had the wind squeezed from his pipes before I was born.’

Another point. People don’t think you need to read history, you’ve lived it. I’ve been confronted by my past because I’ve lived close to its geography so I’ve stared at the giddy gap between past and present where, with mouth open, you fall through the hole of a century. The TV reporter wants me to stop myself by being controversial, asking me about my second ‘wife’, Beth Martin, (quote marks have got you wondering, haven’t they?) and when we first hit the headlines and people discussed us in bars and over meal-tables. We were ahead of our time, he tells me, did I have regrets, did I think society had at last caught us up? There is too much oil on his tongue, he wants my life in not more than ten sentences. Beth will be pleased I resist the temptation to pontificate. Today I’m a joky old man and the interview ends with me standing against the window in the lounge-room, beyond which you can see water, city, mountains. On the news I’ll appear to be floating on air. I raise my arms, flapping them back and forth like a giant bat. I seem immortal. That’s a worry.

Walt opens a bottle of champagne. We drink. I fall asleep in bubbles. When I wake up, the room is empty and it’s early evening. Lights glitter below. My grandchildren have read my books and decided I’ve something to tell the world. I go along with them as it makes them happy and they need happy in their lives. Their Aunt Jean, the intellectual in our family, says my writing is full of beans and, I might add, what beans give you. Jean is a feminist like her adopted mother, Beth Martin, so it’s also ideologically suspect. On the whole I agree with a lot she says. The world needs changing. Always has. Always will. And if women want to hold the tiller for a while, welcome.

Aggie, my first wife, died giving birth to Jean and her twin brother, Douglas. She hated me during her pregnancy. Douglas was a good emissary. I believe there are such things as embryo memories. From the moment he was born until the time he left home, dropping off the planet, he was implacable in his dislike. The look in his eyes was the same look Aggie fixed on me as she died. Except there was more to Aggie than this. Poor boy Douglas died two years ago. He told my grandchildren their only family was a spinster aunt in Canada. Their mother walked out when they were small. Two tousle-headed kids were too much for my son and they drifted into trouble. Then he died and they discovered in a letter from Jean they had a large family and, yes, one elderly grandfather who, if they hurried, might still be alive in a nursing home in Christchurch.

Now here I am with two youngsters who try to cram a family into their hip-pockets in half an hour. I’m not sure what they want but I’m glad they’re in my life. Michelle is twenty-one and has lived with a man her father’s age (she doesn’t understand why Douglas went ape over this, but I do), had an abortion, tried a variety of drugs, been fired from two waitressing jobs for throwing food over customers and stolen a car, so she’s been busy. Morgan is eighteen and wants to be a criminal. They bubble and bop. They are teaching me a new language. I adore them both.

Michelle brings me a cup of tea, saying Uncle Walt and Aunty Myra kissed me as they left, scolding me for saying my family is waiting for me to die so they can get my money. She says I’m an ungrateful deadshit and I don’t appreciate what it is to have a family. I tell her it might be nice to try and she stews. She always comes back at you, though, this I have discovered. Some days I have to sit in my chair, writing, or she won’t leave me alone. I say my story doesn’t interest me but I’m lying. The whole idea has got my juices pumping. I’m a vain old man.

The following morning I’m sitting out on the verandah with a rug around my legs. Michelle pokes her head through the door every now and then to make sure I’m still breathing. She’s dressed in a bright pink body stocking and doing aerobics which consists of twisting her body into incomprehensible positions (and I know about positions so rest easy, plenty of that anon) while grunting with joy. Walt has given her a folder of press clippings about my goings-on, she wants to know if they’re true. She’s young enough to think truth can be wrapped up, I wish she’d wrap herself up. A man can hardly be expected to remember his life when his granddaughter’s nipples protrude into his eyes. She’s over brooding about my birthday party, saying families should stick together. There’s no glue strong enough, she only has to look at growing up with her Dad. We all have limitations. Someone is a nail, someone else a piece of wood, we get driven into each other. Am I getting warm? I write some musical memories down: the trumpets of Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong, clarinets of Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller, piano of Count Basie, drums of Gene Krupa, vocals of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson, Frank Sinatra. Michelle recognises Frank Sinatra, saying, ‘Isn’t he the puffball who’s pissed all the time?’

Now it’s my turn to brood.

‘Cover yourself,’ I say. ‘I’m your grandfather. If you need to flaunt yourself, do so down there.’ I wave my hand towards the city. A house juts against the skyline looking like a boiled lolly, it’s up for an architecture award. ‘What are you laughing for? Puffball! You pink pipsqueak, your education is seriously lacking. Polka Dots and Moonbeams, Full Moon and Empty Arms, Day by Day, he was the Voice that Thrills, he was Swoonlight Sinatra and bobbysoxers went ape over him.’

‘Who were bobbysoxers?’

‘Nothing, she knows nothing.’

‘You’re in the mood.’

‘In the Mood. You’ve heard of Glenn Miller?’

‘I’m just a pink pipsqueak.’

‘Wear a bra,’ I say as she wraps herself up.

‘You’re right, Granddad.’

‘I am?’

‘Morgan and I have missed out on crap, we had deprived childhoods, Dad disapproved of Father Christmas, he said they were alkies who would feel me up.’ I make a choking sound which she ignores. ‘Fairies were poofs, TV was full of junk we couldn’t watch. It was always do this, do that. That’s what we called Dad. Do This, Do That. He was always telling us we were useless, we were good for nothing, we took after Mum and she didn’t have enough sense to rub two sticks together. He regretted we were born and we did, too.’

I watch her, uncertain if she’s telling the truth or not. Her blue eyes stare back at me. ‘I don’t like you talking like that,’ I say, ‘this whole country is awash with self-pity and whining. I blame the family you love so much. It trains people to whine.’

‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘You’re probably right.’

‘Any food?’ asks Morgan from the doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes, ‘You two splitting the atom.’ He farts. ‘Oops. Pardon.’

We all start laughing.

I am an anal retentive.

‘Gonna upset anyone today, Gramps?’ asks Morgan.

‘GRAMPS! You young hooligan. I’m nobody’s Gramps.’ He winks at his sister. ‘What are you two up to?’

‘Us?’

‘We’re fun-loving kids.’

‘Come into a man’s life, disturbing his sleep.’

‘Love to stay and rap, man, but I’ve got things to do. Food, threads and I’m out to the squat.’

The what?’

‘He’s squatting out at Mt Thomas.’

‘The devil he is.’

‘Dad was born there, wasn’t he?’ She pauses, blowing a kiss at her brother who is making rude gestures through the window. ‘Know what we did when he died? Watched TV. With him sitting dead in the chair. Does that sound sick?’

I shake my head, sitting up in the chair.

‘Well, better get my body in shape,’ she says.

‘You’re obsessed about your body,’ I call. ‘What you need is a young man to be obsessed about it.’

Morgan says goodbye. This time I am his compadre and buddy and he struts down the steps looking like a thin black pencil. ‘Happy trails,’ he calls out from down the bottom where he’s out of sight. He knows I want to ask him about Mt Thomas, but I pretend to be disinterested. Pretending at my age, you’d think I’d know better. I wonder where he got the money to buy his four-wheel-drive from, Douglas left debts and no friends. An odd choice for a boy with a police record. A motorbike would be more his style.

Mt Thomas. When I was born at the end of the nineteenth century this was the place by which we measured ourselves. Now it is only a ruined homestead, part of Newlands where I grew up. If anything is a map of my life then it’s these farms at Okuku and how they became one. Mt Thomas, home of the Entwistles, Newlands, home of the Updikes. The Entwistles would say I’m letting the Mt Thomas mansion crumble because I hated them. They were a great family for thinking