Nursing a black eye – black from bruising – Darcy Treadwell grinned at the teasing he received on entering the bar on the waterfront of the tiny coastal village of Kauri Bay.
The usual comment was "Cor, your wife hit you?" One variation was, "Your mother-in-law hit you?" Neither was correct, Darcy had walked into the doorway of the cabin on his fishing boat, and anyone looking closely above his eye would see that the crease of the door jam extended it line up into his hairline.
A creaming breaker had reared against the side of Lady Megan as Darcy was entering the cabin to take shelter in deteriorating weather. He rolled sideways to compensate for the lurching of the boat, over-did it a bit, and whammo: he saw stars on a rainy night!
Walking home later, Darcy smiled thinking about those comments of physical abuse. Most people knew that he'd be the last person to hit a woman because he had a reputation for working to attempt to reform wife beaters. Darcy's motto was well known around this part of the Coromandel Coast: Good Guys Don't Hit Women!
This personal crusade goes back to when he was a seven year old.
Darcy's father was a fisherman with his own boat, a heavy rowing boat.
It was easy to tell when dad had netted a big catch; he'd come home drunk with presents for their mum Megan, Darcy and his much older sister Jane. Not presents, really, just a bag of sweets for each of the kids and a box of chocolates for mum.
Dad and mum would be happy, yelling and laughing in the bedroom until his mum would scream. The screaming would subside and she'd fall asleep. That was the good part; the next part was not.
Their father would read the newspaper, perhaps answering questions from Darcy and Jane relating to school homework and then he'd say, "Where's my fucking dinner?"
He'd lurch into the bedroom and drag out their mother, nude and crying, smacking her across the head and yelling, "Get me my fucking dinner."
Darcy grew up witnessing such abuse and after Jane married when she turned seventeen and left home, Darcy used to get beaten, attempting to stand between his drunken father and hapless mother. Fortunately his father slapped, rather than punched, but nevertheless wife and son suffered cuts, bruises and bloodied noses.
One night Darcy made his mother run-away with him, to escape this brutality forever. They went from where they lived in the edge of the Manuakau Harbour into the city and slept that night on seats in a dark corner of the bus station. Next morning they went by bus, making two changes, and walked the last eleven miles, arriving at his uncle's general store in late afternoon.
Uncle Rex was most disturbed about the bruising to his sister's face, got down his shotgun and shouted he was going to shoot the bastard, but Darcy;s mother and Aunt Phil wrenched the gun from him and calmed him down.
A few days later Megan disappeared, and Aunty Phil told Darcy his mother had gone home - "She's gone back to him, dear. Some women are like that." The next day Aunt Phil drove Darcy to the bus and he went home.
Months later Darcy and his mother retraced their journey back to the Coromandel, but within three days Megan was missing her husband, missing caring for him she said, so they returned home.
When Darcy was seventeen Megan was walking across a narrow bridge and was hit and killed by the inattentive truck driver. Days after the funeral, finding that his father was interested only in fishing and drinking, Darcy left home to find a life, and that he did.
"You are so white, you need to spend time sunbathing on the beach," said Susan the young tally clerk recording weights at the scale where labourers like Darcy barrowed heavy bales of compressed wool fleeces brought in on trucks.
After weighing they would barrow their bale to a holding area. Wool classers would yell – usually something like 'Bale-ho', 'Roll one' or 'Fetch, Rover!'
Why would this girl think he needed to sunbath on a beach?
"Never done that on a beach – I only go across the beach to go fishing."
"Oh, beaches are more useful than just walking across," giggled Susan. "Look, why don't you come sunbathing with me on Saturday when we finish up here at 1:00. I'll bring something to eat and drink. You bring suntan cream and a magazine for me – something sexy."
She meant of course a women's gossip magazine with a decorative, scantily dressed woman on the cover. Not realising that, Darcy purchased a Men's Magazine that in those days came from under the counter wrapped in plain brown paper.
On Saturday Darcy was devastated; it was raining. This was going to be the first real date of his life, and now it was washed out. He smiled glumly at Susan.
"The rain? Don't worry. There's a shelter down at the beach; we can watch the rain and read. Perhaps something else would come to mind."
She said that so casually that Darcy was sure she could mean having a cuddle.
There were no seats in the shelter, so they sprawled on the sand on their towels.
Susan was somewhat surprised at Darcy's choice of magazine for her, and suggested they should read it together.
"Oh my goodness, look at the size of her breasts," Susan gasped, turning to the first feature.
"They make them much larger than that," said well-read Darcy.
Susan flushed and pointed to the shaven and very plump cunt of a blonde woman. "Look at it, will you? He hair has been trimmed, and the lips are so full."
"You would too, if you got what she gets pumped into her," Darcy countered. Darcy, a virgin, was simply repeating what his mate Trevor would say when they were reading some of Trev's mags.
To Darcy's surprise Susan moaned, rolled almost under his raised chest, pulled his head down and began kissing him hotly.
He loved it, and she made no attempt to clear away their dribble. Not only that, her hand was wiggling under him in search of his cock. Holy cow!
Darcy went home late that afternoon, no longer a virgin and absolutely amazed how soft – in manner as well as physically –that Susan had become.
Girls who he'd messed around with always seemed to be defensive, occasionally almost hostile. He still couldn't get over how Susan didn't mind his sobering kisses and even more incredibly she just lay there with his white stuff all over her lower body after she'd yelled "Take it out, now! She'd then gazed up at him, stroking his face and practically purring. Jesus!
Deciding that he'd date Susan for a couple of years until he'd saved up enough money to marry her and set up in a rented house, Dacry was amazed was she didn't see it that way. She didn't go out with him again, although still chatting to him very nicely. Darcy was confused about this until one of the new guys said he was taking that lush Susan to the beach on Saturday.
Darcy knew that he should have beaten that guy to pulp, but then that would be little different than hitting a woman. Anyway, the guy looked rather muscular.
To settle the matter without fuss, Darcy simply left the bale of wool on his barrow halfway to the temporary dump, gave the fingers sign to the wool classer who looked at him called 'Fetch, Rover' and went to the pay clerk to sign a termination notice and collect his final pay. He felt little different to those times when his mother had walked out on him in their sanctuary to return to his father.
Looking for work vacancies in the newspaper, Darcy noticed a New Zealand Navy recruitment advertisement and decided he'd like to join and fire one of those big guns at the front of warships. That meant visiting his father to sign the consent form, which he did. The old man went on and on saying he was very proud of Darcy. Darcy couldn't remember his father ever saying that to him, thought his mum had always been at it.
After basic training, which he loved, and then getting drafted, Darcy found too many of the guys wanted to fire big guns so he was placed in some wanking outfit called signals.
Actually he soon loved it and during long boring periods ashore or on a frigate waiting to go somewhere or actually sailing somewhere, the nice bunch of guys he was with taught him the theory of reading women's signals. Darcy's conclusion was women seemed to be a rather complicated lot. He told Ivan about his mother getting beaten up, rescued by Darcy but within days had gone back to the bastard.
"That's women for you, Darc; good for fucking and little else."
Darcy told Ivan it wasn't nice to talk about women like that. Ivan said "Darc, pull your head in." Darcy replied and then his lights went out and he awoke in the brig, with Ivan.
"What happened?" asked Darcy, confused.
"I don't know, mate," said an equally confused Ivan. "It's cabin fever, I think."
