Back in the earliest 1970s, when I was trying to be a high school teacher, the PPTA Journal ran several short stories by someone called Graeme Lay. He was also a teacher in those days and his fictions dealt with staffroom or classroom relations and confrontations. They were good: authentic, compact, with some of the best climactic lines I’d come across. I recall one about a teacher meeting a flamboyant pupil out of class; another in which a different teacher deliberately falsifies a student’s exam mark for the most compassionate and laudable reasons.
Half a century later, Lay is still at it. Several of the 20 stories in this selection are published here for the first time.
His intro acknowledges the influence of Frank Sargeson. (So did his first novel, The Mentor, which can be read as a tribute, and even as a semi-apology, to the older author.) The said intro should resonate with any writer, covering sources, rejections, breakthroughs, role models, changing markets.
It also showcases the South Pacific, which has featured prominently and powerfully in Lay’s work for adults and younger readers. Here, that region means tourists and credit card machines; a concrete hotel where Australasian Acne Management (sic!) is holding its conference, and where the lunch menu concludes with “Bonna Petit”.
The sea brims and laps in the background. There’s a solitary surfie in Aotearoa, the white sand and coconut palms of Yasawa, the same island’s black, sinister coastal rocks.
They’re substantial stories, some of them 5000 words or more. Middle-aged-plus males are usually the narrators, and they may remind you of Owen Marshall’s protagonists: thoughtful, experienced, responsive, a bit proper, a bit melancholy on occasions because of chances missed. You’ll even meet Dr Ropati, who should not be confused with the Shortland Street figure.
They have their triumphs: Paul walks across an island, then puts presumptuous Deirdre in her place. They also have their challenges: meet the 56-year-old anthropologist who realises penis sheaths are out of academic fashion, or Ken, restless after 21 years on the same island.
Several acknowledge those missed chances. What if Sylvia had chosen to spend the night with charming but transient Louis? Others seize their opportunities: Will, the retiring school principal, does so in a prison cell; Moana makes sure she’s fully paid for her 12-minute dance; Miles the novelist (“well, one novel, anyway”) makes his point with a headbutt at a writing workshop. Then there are those like Nicola who understand that refusing a tempting choice is the most generous and humane decision she can make.
Dialogue carries many of the plots. Settings are rendered precisely: a classroom; a neglected old house full of letters that decide an apparently illustrious man’s legacy; friendly stalls where a cruise ship has berthed. Characters form through their words and deeds, rather than authorial intervention, which is always good.
There’s nothing experimental or avant-garde; instead we get lucid language, crafted plots developed steadily and succinctly, with characters who are worldly wise yet open to change, acknowledgement, redirection.
Come to think of it, that’s a pretty satisfying blend.
Beyond The Reef, by Graeme Lay (Hanlon Publishing, $39), is out now.
