Broken Down in Tolega Bay

Tia Renouf has worked as an emergency, aeromedical retrieval, and expedition physician on all seven continents; a doctor who travels and writes. She is an Associate Professor with Memorial University in Newfoundland. Her short non-fiction has been published in Annals of Emergency Medicine, Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine, and Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine. Her academic work can be found in the BMJ Open, Medical Teacher and other peer-reviewed journals.

My father always said seat belts aren’t necessary. If you lock elbows straight on the wheel, you’ll be ok. An infuriating statement to a medical student.

“Well I can see his point”, said Coach. We were an hour north of Gisborne, telling stories to pass the time, waiting for the road assistance (AA) in Tolega Bay. On the way up here, we’d suddenly lost power steering. So we called AA and headed for the pub. Little chance we’d be driving home today. Coach went up to the bar for a round, where a very lovely young Maori woman was on the taps. Her glassy black hair shimmered at her waist, a sheet of silk that swayed while she hummed. She seemed transported by some music. Had her back to the customers.

I could see in the mirror that her eyes were closed. Sensing someone behind her, she turned around, smiled at Coach and asked what he would like. In a low voice he said, involuntarily and fortunately just beneath her range of hearing, “anything you like, Darlin’.” Coach has always been a laddio, still is. Many women have marked his history. Even now his bright blue eyes and easy smile are totally charming. A colleague who knew him once said: “There’s something deep inside Coach that women can’t resist. I’d give my eye teeth to get away with half what he has.”

Coach is 82, a retired policeman. He has intimate knowledge of Tolega Bay and he tends to romanticize it. He tells of the days when locals rode their horses to the pub on High Street, tethered the reins on the railing outside, and brought their saddles in with them. Brought their guns in too. A cricket match might have been playing on the pub radio, the locals cheering as though it was live. Trophies and medals were nailed to beams around the place, celebrating rugby tennis and cricket champs. Kiwis are competitive. They are fit muscular farm boys, who also play sport. Pub fights were legendary once the grog flowed awhile. Tolega Bay seems now an impoverished, lonely one-horse town. The pub is mostly empty. Video machines replaced the radio.

“Seat belts aren’t always the answer”, said Coach, setting our round on the table and sitting down. “I remember travelling up the coast when I was young. Herd testing. I’d drive my Ute (utility vehicle) from farm to farm, carrying sulfuric acid tablets in the back. My job was to test the cow’s milk. If the milk was spoiled the acid would turn colour.”

I pictured Coach bouncing around the countryside from herd to herd, in search of a willing cow. A milk wrangler. The logistics gave me pause.

‘Wait a minute, Coach. How did you manage to get the milk out from under the cows?’

The blue eyes fixed on me. “Well I generally showed up at the farm around milking time”.

‘Oh, I thought you’d have to jump out of the Ute and get it yourself. ’

He laughed. “No I didn’t. And I’m not pulling your teats.”

“Once I was driving too fast, late to this one particular farm.”

“I won’t tell you why.”

‘What was her name?’

The eyes sparkle. They are a remarkable light blue.

He looks away and chuckles. “Anyway, I lost control and rolled the car. I’m not sure what happened next, because I was unconscious. I was thrown from the Ute. When I woke up the sulphuric acid had eaten through the driver’s seat. So wearing a seat belt might have killed me.”

I nodded in sympathy. Finishing our beer, we wandered the High Street in search of ice cream. Passed the grand old Tolega Bay Hotel, a beauty in her time. Her skirting boards lean back to rest on her foundation, a hooped skirt on a lady. There were also a couple of small food stores. The first one regrettably had only factory-made ice cream. Kiwi dairy is excellent when farm-made. The shop keep advised that the store 2 doors down had some. I ordered vanilla.

‘Vanilla, hey? Would you like to try boysenberry instead? I mean, vanilla’s ok but you want ice cream with a little bit of kick.’

Delicious.

Ice creams in hand, we spied the AA man outside. He’d driven up from Gisborne to tell us the car needed a belt, one he didn’t have. We would have to wait another hour for a tow truck.

It seemed we were stuck in Tolega Bay awhile, and we were getting giggly. We needed more stories. Every sad storefront hinted at a livelier past. Amid the cardboard houses, there stood some art deco buildings. I spied a stepped-square storefront that usually says, “old garage”, and crossed the street for closer examination. A lovely building, clean white with blue trim and old windows. On its crown, slightly raised white lettering read Tolega Bay Cashmere Company. An historic society plaque graced the door. I was glad this time capsule was being preserved. The building was closed, this being Sunday, so I walked the perimeter, peering inside windows, and entered another era. I saw very dated-looking factory machinery, wools hanging from the ceiling, and lovely native wood. Old-fashioned leather-bound ledgers lay open on tables.

By now the afternoon sun was ferocious and shade was limited. I left the old building and headed back inside the pub, settling in for another pint. Coach started telling stories about his days as a Police. He was once dispatched to investigate some alleged criminal activity here in Tolega Bay. He was once sent after a Clive Carruthers, a known entity who broke the law on occasion. Nothing serious, said Coach. Drunk and disorderly, things like that. Clive Carruthers spent the occasional night in the klink. Coach still upholds most of the ethical silence about the details of his cases.

Arriving at Clive Carruthers’ house, Coach did a quick visual of the surroundings. His attention was drawn to an open second floor window. There stood in the window, Clive Carruther’s horse, with its head hanging out. The horse looked noncommittally down at Coach.

‘Did you ask why and, more importantly, how, Clive took the horse to his house, and got it up two flights of stairs?’

“No I didn’t”, said Coach.

“He probably would have said don’t be asking stupid bloody questions.”

A few tall tales later, we strolled outside again, scanning for the tow truck. A horse trailer had pulled up to the curb on the High Street. Its rear door was open, showing just a horse’s tail. Its owner was tending to its fore end though the trailer’s side door. I wandered toward it. I wanted to look at the horse, an animal whose eyes always draw me in. They will either charm me or scare me, and I can’t resist discovering which it will be. I remember telling this to Neal, my colleague at the hospital, who used to own several horses on his farm in Australia. He said horses are intelligent but sneaky. If you stand alongside one awhile, it might step on your foot just because. And then you might feel it grind its hoof a little. Big fast animals, horses can cause a lot of injury to their riders: from broken feet, to collapsed lungs and major head injuries.

This horse’s owner smiled as I approached. His movements were controlled and gentle. He told me they had just finished a weekend session with the horse trainers. This horse had not been ridden before. Coach wandered up to the conversation.

“She’be ‘orrite”, said Coach after a look. He is familiar with horses, having owned several. When Coach was seventy-five, one of them ruptured his spleen as he walked too close around her rear. She drop-kicked him in the ribs and left him to die behind the paddock. Fortunately a neighbor found him and rushed him to hospital. Coach claims he has a horse shoe imprint on his ribs. He won’t show it to me, though. Said his abs would be too much of a distraction.

“Gidday” said this horse’s owner, shaking hands with Coach. Dental care missed parts of the British empire. His teeth were a black lace work of cavities, his Canadian partner’s Chicklet-white. “Yeah, we’ve just been to the horse training camp down the road from here. Teaches ya to train horses without being mean to them. Heaps better than what I was taught as a boy.”

“O yea”, said Coach. That sounds about right. Who taught the course?

“Henry Carruthers.”

“A horse trainer named Henry Carruthers? Who was his dad?”

“Henry’s Dad was Clive. He was from up around these parts.”

“Yep, I knew Clive. He had a way with horses himself.”

Finally we spied the tow truck. The day over and heading back to Gisborne, I started reminiscing about the stories we found in Tolega Bay. Soon I picked up some internet bandwidth and googled Tolega Bay Cashmere Company. Turns out they make very expensive garments from their own goats, which where not in evidence today. The company has head offices in Auckland, Australia, and South Africa. The factory is still that brilliant white, stepped-square storefront on the High Street.