‘Dora’s in the kitchen,’ he said, ‘if you’re after breakfast?’
Jesse thought of the account the hotel had been happy enough to run up on Mr Rickards’ behalf last night. The drinks he had been shouted right there in the Criterion after his second telephone call with Rickards, when he could announce to the gathered crowd that the company would perform in Marumaru the next night.
All of sixteen, a month ago he’d been a schoolboy in Kai Iwi, a two-hour carriage ride from Wanganui, trying to convince his mother that another year of school would not be a waste of time. She had wanted him to find a farm-hand position, bring in some money, put those muscles to use. He did not enjoy school but knew that taking a job would leave no time for training with the troop of boys Mr Jarrett was instructing in the ways of Sandow’s System. Jarrett’s School of Physical Culture (otherwise known as the Kai Iwi school hall) was the only place where Jesse felt a sense of camaraderie and pride.
When word came that the strongman would stop in Wanganui, Jarrett made a wager with Mr Atkins at the rich boys’ school about whose cadets would impress Sandow more. Jarrett picked his six best boys and off to town they went. Jesse and the other Kai Iwi boys were spread among the Collegiate ‘Number One Squad’, who stood on the football field, topless and flexed as if under inspection by a team of pretty girls. Atkins, their instructor, wasn’t even there yet, as he was off meeting Sandow at the station. Even if the Kai Iwi boys had taken off their shirts and vests then and there, it would still have been simple to spot them among the whities.
Jesse had seen plenty of pictures of Sandow in his magazine and on posters beneath the slogans—Breathe more air and have richer blood; Deep breathing is internal exercise—that Jarrett pinned to the walls of the hall, but the strongman looked much shorter in person. Perhaps it was the three-piece suit, the starched collar, the shiny black shoes that almost came to a point.
‘Hello my boys,’ Sandow had said, claiming them as his own from the first. ‘What an impressive array of young men.’ His German accent was strong but did not obstruct his meaning.
Once Atkins and Jarrett had run the boys through a series of dumb-bell and breathing exercises, it was left to Sandow to pick out the best physical specimen. The Prussian had pulled a cigar from the internal pocket of his coat. While Atkins and Jarrett fought over who would have the pleasure of lighting it, he said to the boys, ‘I do not endorse cigars for young lungs such as yours. One or two cigarettes is perhaps all right, but none is always better. For me, one small pleasure a day is sufficient.’ He sucked as the triumphant Atkins held a match to the end of the cigar. Once the flame had caught, Sandow held the cigar aloft as if inspecting the fidelity of a gun’s barrel and said to his two disciples, ‘I find it helps me to think.’
Atkins began to shout poses for the boys to perform—The Dying Gaul, Farnese Hercules, Discobolus—and Sandow strolled among their ranks, puffing his cigar, pausing from time to time to look a boy up and down, squinting. Sometimes he would nod, sometimes tilt his head and purse his lips. After five minutes, the boys’ posing had become ragged—the Kai Iwi contingent had been making it up as they went along since the first few poses—and Atkins stopped calling out. The Collegiate boys stood at a weary kind of attention. Jesse and his friends each looked down at the circle of trodden dry grass their posing had produced and itched to move. The bet between Jarrett and Atkins meant nothing to them. A perfectly round leather football lay in the distance against a fence.
When Sandow’s cigar had halved in size he said, ‘Gentlemen, these are the best boys I have yet seen in Australasia. And the best among them? Him.’
‘Him?’ Atkins asked.
‘Him.’ Sandow pointed once more at Jesse.
‘That’s one of mine,’ said Jarrett, beaming. ‘Jesse Hikuroa. Come forward, Jesse.’
‘Excellent chest development,’ Sandow said. ‘You look as if you could run all day.’
Jesse shrugged and looked at the football.
Sandow turned to Jarrett. ‘I wonder if I could use him for my demonstration tomorrow afternoon. I understand that several doctors and other prominent citizens will be in attendance.’
Back at the Criterion’s bar, Jesse’s stomach rumbled and he remembered that he had not responded to Ed Coughlin’s question about breakfast. Coughlin must have heard the rumble, as he gave another almost-wink and called out to Dora to crack a couple of eggs.
‘You made the newspaper,’ Coughlin said. He produced a paper from behind the bar and slapped it down in front of Jesse.
The front page was devoted to advertising for department stores, hotels and passages aboard the New Zealand Shipping Company’s Royal Mail Steamers for London. Jesse opened the paper and was met with the headline stretching across two columns: SANDOW IS HERE, SANDOW IS COMING.
He was mentioned only in roundabout ways in the article. ‘Sandow’s likeness was delivered to the Marumaru Station on Wednesday morning,’ it said, without saying by whom. Later, there was mention of ‘Rickards’ associates’ and ‘an advance party’, which Jesse took to mean him and him alone. Mostly the article reproduced Rickards’ own press for the company.
Rickards was due to arrive on the 9.15 train, along with the props and stage hands, at which point Jesse would be put to work.
His eggs arrived. He continued to leaf through the paper as he ate. On page four, he was surprised to see that he was mentioned by name in the gossip column.
MISS TATTLE’S WORD OF MOUTH
Town is abuzz with the arrival of the plaster brute, Eugen Sandow. My contacts in Christchurch inform me the fleshy version is no more engaging . . . What was J—wearing on her head at the station yesterday? The most likely candidate is a dead possum . . . Young Miss M—seemed quite taken with the plaster brute’s companion, a young Maori in possession of perfect health, an acolyte of Herr Sandow no doubt . . . Miss B—was seen down the park eating a whole orange, greedily . . . J—B—’s wife is jolly fed up and beyond wrought with her husband’s affair with the bottle. J—is only getting started . . . Elsewhere in the colony, the “cursed drink” is still sending people to the asylums despite the prohibitionists. One ruined publican is the latest victim . . . Miss M—will do well to note the boy’s name is Jesse, and to keep such affections a better secret from her father . . . Absent from yesterday’s scene was C—K—, which surprised us all. F—was spotted briefly, but we understand she ran away with shame at the state of her dress . . . Those surveyed prior to this edition going to print were eager to see Donaldson’s window in action before attending the Watchnight service . . . A—has been to both the big stores and is still to find a glove that fits . . . Sandow’s feats include bending iron bars, breaking chains and bursting wire ropes. Constable T—will be in a pickle if Sandow starts having his way with the town . . . The Mayor still writes 189–from time to time, and must then cross it out. To the rest of you, welcome to the New Year. May it be prosperous, scandalous and never dull.
Getting off the train at Marumaru the previous morning had been a mistake and he expected another dressing down from Rickards when he arrived. The extra stop would still turn a profit but the town was small, smaller than any other in which the company had performed since he was asked to join as Sandow’s travelling demonstration assistant. But Marumaru was alive, different from any other place he had experienced.
His big night came back to him in a sudden wave: the booze, the bright colours, the handshakes, the gratitude, but also his own generosity. The rounds he had shouted. The toast he had announced at last call, ‘To Marumaru, the town that no one wants to visit
