Light the fuse

Acknowledge­ments

Contents
author Cimino
work-in-progress published 20240725

Also, it takes much longer
To get up north, the slow way.
Ian Dury, 1977

Home Alone: In fairness, I should say our  Burmesies, because while we had agreed to live cat free, a.) the farthest these cats get outdoors is the lofty deck immediately outside the windows, which Harriet and Hudson, here, are imploring to be opened; and b.) Harriet, left, acquired more recently, promptly became my most dutiful companion—to the extent that, to reach the keyboard, I am frequently obliged to perform Garth Hudsonian contortions. image Cimino

Home alone, her beloved Burmesies had dictated Sarah and I only tarry an hour or so, after Peter Skerman’s send-off. Heading northward—that much was apparent from the bearing of the sinking sun—we were only slightly disconcerted at how long Sarah’s gps was taking to reconnect us with the Hamilton expressway. The road was blissfully empty, as I recounted a succession of stories from the Te Kūiti childhood that I’d shared with many of those with which we’d spent the afternoon.

You’ve never told me that  story before!

…Sarah said, for a second time. I was incredulous I hadn’t. Then, with the well temporarily dry and Sarah driving, we sang along with Paul Simon, shining like a Nationalstrictly speaking: “like a National Guitars, guitar”, but that would have zero poetry guitar as the Hauraki Plains rolled beneath us.

I would love to say that that was when it happened. When I experienced the epiphany as to how I might contrive to contribute to the memorial of a man who whose cruel death, in what so richly deserved to have been his prime, had stopped, and only grudgingly restarted, time. I am, however, nothing if not slow—the realisation and resolve came two days later. Meanwhile, seriously disconcertingly for the navigator, Sarah’s screen was telling me that our 90-minute destination was 4½hours away.

Eight  hours! That can’t be right—at this t-intersection coming up, go left !

My wife, bless her, has never been good at math or roundabouts, and two-lane  roundabouts are about her worst nightmare—along with surprise parties. Consequently, Sarah, who was quite the motorcycle mechanic when I first met her, had expertly configured the satnav to avoid a specific expressway two-lane roundabout, somehow not appreciating that her busy little smartphone had devised a fiendishly ingenious route to the Mahurangi, whereby we didn’t get to drive so much as one motorway metre. I am still unsure as to exactly what the route entailed, but suffice to say we narrowly avoided being drafted off via MirandaPūkorokoro. A small prize is offered for the definitive source of name of the HMS Miranda, which replaced the locality’s Māori name., and hence an eternity of journeying. We would have needed even that Inn.

All this by way of acknowledging the love of a woman who, after 50 years still asks me to sing and to tell her stories—thus precipitating this one.

Hutchins and Young—I resolved after the  Winstone Road Reunion—would feature amply in the story, but they are acknowledged for their formative role in getting this project rolling. Russell Young is the lifelong, constant friend that every soul deserves, and Graham Hutchins, had taken me as their flatmate ahead of Winstone Road. I brewed a batch of bush-beer there, but it was broached prematurely and deemed a failure. Grindingly poor, and unable to afford the sly-grog prices at that year’s College Rifles Hall…

‹ Author’s note   |  Prologue ›

 Return to top of page  | Contents  | End notes