Ranfurly-a first take

In Ranfurly.

You know I’ve heard about people like me,
But I never made the connection.
They walk one road to set them free
And find they’ve gone the wrong direction.

But there’s no need for turning back
`cause all roads lead to where I stand.
And I believe I’ll walk them all
No matter what I may have planned.

-Don McLean

Well, I am here now.

In Ranfurly, 48 years after I left, maybe looking out the back window of our family’s trusty Humber 80, perched high upon blankets and pillows in a traveling cupboard with all the space squeezed out, and wondering whether I would ever return, remembering running round in gumboots on ground that squished; remembering the dancing shadows in the fireplace and the yellow of the house lights washing across the blue-black of the evening snow; remembering the washing frozen on the line and the lazy curl of my breath in the motionless air.

Well, as time has passed, as the years have clicked across the abacus of my life, I have circled around it like some sort of waterfowl, making passes through it more and more frequently, getting the feeling back, rubbing my mind across the weave of the place, checking the pond for snares, finally settling in to land, running in and flaring at the last moment, putting my feet tentatively to earth. And enjoying the fact that it stays pressed to my soles.

Somehow there is a timelessness about this place, a sort of pause-button-pressed feeling. Purposeful but self-absorbed. Maybe it didn’t look that different back when my parents would come down on Friday nights to buy the groceries for the week. I imagine the buildings were pretty much the same. Why waste money on unnecessary adornment?

I stand out on the street and look around; across the road before me is Foley and Jones, the butcher who cures his own bacon; his smokehouse snores contentedly all night, occasionally flicking the shirttail smell of curing bacon across my nose when I go outside for a cigarette. On another corner I see the Four Square store (are they still around?): restrained courtesy and sensible prices (let’s not give away too much here). Then the giveaway: I see the queue at the checkout backing up while the owner carries out an elderly woman’s groceries to the boot of her car. You don’t see that everyday.

Just down the road the light pours out of Forry’s, the establishment that can’t decide whether it’s a bar or a café or a bistro or an art gallery. So it does a bit of everything. Gotta cover all the bases. Oh, and the pub meals at the Red Lion? Plenty to eat, plates piled high. Value for money, money valued. The same friendly greetings, the same carefully-suppressed interest. Let’s not get too enthusiastic here. It might be rude. Good things take time.

Life here, well life here just is.

Ranfurly sits in the middle of the compass of the Maniototo, the axle for the district, the focal point, sensibly placed. All roads lead here, all roads lead away; across the hills arrayed in a protective circle along the edge of the sky. In the thin air the horizon draws close, and the bones of the land protrude through its spare, sufficient hide like the ribs of a malnourished dog. There is nothing effusive about this landscape. It is drawn in pen and ink, a Durer portrait where every line has a purpose. Only the skies give the lie to this deliberate moderateness; big brash skies with big brash attitudes and bipolar personalities; cloud-filled break-dance skies that swivel and gesture and overawe; big grand Wagnerian Valkyrie skyscapes with towering cumuli.

The poplars are green, shivering and leaning to the north. The southerly storm with its beetling grey-blue eyebrows blows up their Springskirt modesty, shaking their new-found sensibilities. The clouds to the south mope purposefully along the sides of the Old Man Range, shamble with heads down, dairy cattle coming in for milking, dropping their load in the watershed, then lifting their heads and spirits, ambling happily away across the Kakanui’s, relief on their faces. In the morning the hills will be frosted, draped in winter’s cocoon. But the cold is clear here, intense but bearable. The promise of warmth lies expectant in the soil. It is just a matter of time. The twilight is already beginning to linger, a guest hoping to overstay his welcome. When summer comes, he will remain behind; it will be an all-nighter.

As I turn my face into the wind I can feel the twitchiness beginning, the need to be out there with my camera. It’s all beginning to make sense now.

Damn, I’m starting to like this place.