The Golden years
Mainland summer was Bata Bullet sneakers, and gold studs; struggling for a place in the world while finding solace in Joy Division and Sonic Youth, writes ’80s child Vicki Anderson.
Summer, 1981
Around us on the Canterbury plains a storm rallies after midnight. In the countryside the howl of the wind makes a particular tone that you never hear in the city.
My job is to hold the light steady for dad. The beam from the bright yellow Dolphin torch is like a spotlight in the huge paddock. The rain sucks against my face and pulls my hair from the hood of my raincoat. Tendrils of wet hair lash back and forth in front of my eyes but I hold the torch as level as my 9-year-old arms can.
This is life or death.
In the spotlight of the torch’s glare the mare lies on her side, legs prone. From her nostrils faint gusts of steam rises, her chestnut flanks shiny with a mixture of sweat and rain.
When the noise of the rain eases, I can hear water in the creek nearby. The day before, according to my diary, I’d sidled up on a stoat in my Bata Bullets sneakers, fascinated, as it lay sunbathing beneath the dangling branches of a willow tree.
Dad calls the vet – a jovial man with a nose like an upside down flower bulb – using the landline phone from its place on the wall in our kitchen. Steadily he dials the numbers one by one, forefinger carefully moving back and forth between the numbers. For now, it is up to us.
Earlier that afternoon, after school I’d rushed my jobs – put the milk tokens in glass bottles and run them to the gate for the milkman – to watch Olly ‘‘stay cool till after school’’ Ohlson on TV.
On the kitchen radio Rickie Lee Jones sings Chuck E’s in Love. It’s my favourite song but there’s no time to listen.
This is the latest I’ve been allowed up. I push the wet hair from my eyes.
As the twin beams of the vet’s car appear in the driveway, the foal enters the world. The filly has tiny hooves as shiny and black as the sky above us.
The next morning I run to the paddock before school, my gumboots still wet and clammy on my bare feet. The foal walks unsteadily, like a toddler in her mum’s high heels. Mum gives me the camera and I take a photo of her with the foal.
‘‘Good as gold,’’ says Dad.
Summer, 1983
I get my ears pierced, returning home with the gold birth-stone studs in my ears feeling new.
When mum and I get home, the sun hits the lounge carpet, a swirling mass of ’70s browns, turning it into a warm amber hue.
Dad is watching cricket on TV. ‘‘You beauty,’’ Dad shouts as Lance Cairns hits six sixes in a row.
Summer, 1986
Bedroom door firmly shut, I’m listening to Joy Division. I’m 14 and it’s the middle of summer.
I have to keep increasing the volume to block out the sound of horse racing.
In the lounge the rest of my family are happily shouting encouragement at horses racing on the TV as Reon Murtha speedily calls the races at Addington or wherever.
It’s a fine line. If I increase the volume so far to hear the music over the top of Reon, Dad sticks his