Banty the Bantam Rooster

Did I tell you about my mother’s rock gardens? I think I did.  At the big house on the beach. You will remember that Dad said he would place a rock once then shift it once, then he was done. My Mother loved rocks.

Well, the rock garden outside the backdoor had the special rocks in it. Mum was into texture and shape more than colour but got most excited about rocks that had holes in them. There was one such rock that had a mini well  in it. A very deep hole in this rock.  It curved into the stone so that when you filled it you poured a lot of water in, seeing nothing happening then suddenly it would be overflowing.  And it had been placed just right -it was a perfect watering hole. Every morning Mum would top this well up with water and this is where the wild birds drank and most especially this is where wandering Bantams drank and more importantly this is where Banty the Bantam Rooster had his drinks.  Yes I know Banty is not that original a name for a bantam but there you go.

We had chooks that lived down the backyard in the chook house of course, these were for eggs.  But the bantams just wandered the section and worked on being pretty.  They never went to the beach though, not that I remember.  Banty the  Bantam Rooster was blindingly colourful, each orange and red shiny glowing feather perfectly groomed,  and settled into place.  He held his head just so, his eye just there and he walked with all the strut of a Big Rooster.   He also liked to ride on shoulders.  This memory is so old that I am not even sure he was riding on my shoulder when the incident happened but I think he was.

Though I have to confess that my memory that far back is not reliable. I  have to tell you that I really really was Tinkerbelle in our school Christmas play when I was eight. I was Tinkerbelle. I wore her brown leather Indian Girl costume and my hair was in plaits and I stood out there in front of the whole class facing the audience at our little school on the beach and I sung the Tinkerbelle song.   Except that Tinkerbelle never wore an Indian costume, and her hair was not in braids.  I was never Tinkerbelle.  I must have been a little Indian Girl in the school play when I was eight. But my memory refuses to understand that.  It will not succomb. I wanted to be Tink so bad that I have vivid and complete memories of being Tinkerbelle but with plaits singing the Tinkerbelle song.

Anyway there is a fairly good chance that Banty was riding on my shoulder because I know for sure that I used to get in trouble for having bird poop on the back of my cardi’s and I am confident that my over-imaginative memory would not have created that unromantic detail.

There was an elderly gentleman who used to live two houses down in one of the most beautiful houses I can remember as a child. It was a wide, long, low slung house,  with green concrete paths that wove around gardens filled with cacti.  Remember we were on a beach, there was no soil, so any garden was manufactured somehow. My mother used rocks. Mr Rangi used green concrete. Oh, how I envyed him  his green concrete. The house had one enormous straight face at the front that was all dark glass. Looking straight out to sea. In the centre of these two walls of glass, was the front door.  A big brown wood door.  When you stepped through the door there was a small kitchen that had a saloon door. An incredibly exciting thing for a little girl that saloon door. Off to the right side of this central kitchen was a living area and off that living area to the back was a bedroom and bathroom. On the left side of the kitchen was another living area and through the back of there was another bedroom and bathroom. This is where  Mr Rangi and Miss Pimm lived.  Seperately.  But together. Mr Rangi was a brilliant classical guitarist  and rumour had it  he had been invited to play for Kaiser Wilhelm on the eve of the First World War. He played for the Kaiser who was a very dignified cultural man overcome by circumstance. After the recital  Mr Rangi  was spirited back out of Germany  in a plane and swapped his guitar for a gun  and rejoined the Pioneer batallion later to be known as the formidable Maori battallion and the next day was officially at war against the Kaiser.

Mr Rangi  was  very very  well dressed. Always. This man had every single item of clothing dry cleaned and his trousers were ironed to razer thin perfection. He always wore shoes that were very  shiny with proper black socks.  Right to the day he died his hair was sleek and dark  with brylcreem.

Miss Watson who lived on the other side of the divide, was a sweet quiet  little white lady. Her sister had been married to Mr Rangi back in the mists of time, there were no children and after the sister  had died they had just drifted into this  rather startling arrangement. This was in the sixties remember. My mother was convinced that this was the first ever mixed flat. Mixed in sex and race.  This was immensely satisfying for Mum. In those days it was very brave to live with a man who was not your husband, especially platonically.  But for a Maori man to live with a white woman. Well, if anyone said anything against them My Mother was swinging her handbag. Period.

Miss Watson had lost her leg somewhere along the line, which as a child I found endlessly fascinating if not a little careless.   But kids do not ask questions about stuff like that. A plastic leg became ordinary. Her leg  would be locked into place either straight or bent and to unlock it she would reach behind her knee and adjust a little lever.  Sometimes it got stuck and I would help her. There must have been an extraordinary story behind this pair of old old souls who lived in this beautiful house.  I  visited her at least twice a week after school for years and years, more so as she got older. She would make boiled eggs and toast, click her leg and sit down.  She would eat the eggs and I would eat the cold toast with lots of butter. I love cold toast.

Anyway My Rangi  smoked long thin  cigars all the time, if he was not playing his guitar he was smoking, his fingers were yellow with tar. Often he would walk down in the evening and  yarn with my father while he had his evening smoke and they would watch the sea as the light faded.

This particular evening Mr Rangi was leaning on the fence smoking and talking to Dad, and us kids were gathered about staring and half listening as kids do. Banty was sitting on my shoulder. Hunched forward, watchful. His tiny feathered head, with its droopy red comb,  right beside my eye.  The discussion trailed off and we fell into that soft evening silence. That gentle absence of words that is a conversation in itself. Soon we  realised that Banty  had become mesmerised by the glow of Mr Rangi’s cigar. Every time Mr Rangi brought the cigar to his mouth and drew on it the little orb of fire glowed hot and bright red. As the sun went down the embers got brighter and the bantam’s head went to and fro, to and fro. Like watching a tennis match.  Back and Forth. Up and Down.  Soon we were all mesmerised by the rise and fall, the hiss and glow  of the shrinking cigar. The bantam leaning closer and closer.

Then almost nonchalantly,  the bantam just leant over and neatly pecked the glowing ember off the end of Mr Rangi’s cigar.  He just pecked that hot drop of glowing ash right off. Peck. There was a terrible pause in the stillness.  We all just stopped breathing. Mr Rangi with his fireless cigar held quite still in the air.  Dads head turned to the Bantam, shaggy eyebrows raised. The bantam froze on my shoulder.  Then  poor Banty let out the most terrible shriek, flew clumsily off my shoulder to the drive and ran, flat out with that hilarious armless gait that chickens have. He ran squawking and screeching  all the way up the drive to the back door.  He made a bee line straight for the little  rock full of cold water. He leapt, wings fluttering awkwardly, from rock to rock until he reached the top and without even properly perching or preparing himself just dunked his head straight into the water. Dunk, gargle, dunk, gargle, dunk, gargle, dunk. Poor Banty.

Years later after Mr Rangi had died, Miss Watson put herself into an old folks home. To my delight I got my first job straight out of school working her wing. At breakfast time she sweetly asked for extra toast, and winked at me as I piled her plate up. She would wait until the toast was the exact right temperature then smear it with plenty of butter and marmite from her tray. Then as I went back through the wards clearing the breakfast she would secretly feed me cold toast and tea.  It was against the rules for nurses to eat on the wards of course. Miss Watson was delighted at our little bit of naughtiness each morning.

Oh and Banty recovered no worse for wear.

c

p.s. I am sorry there are no appropriate photographs today…. the sun has come up and I really must get outside and start mucking out the barn.