A Cactus is not an Armchair.

Whangarei in the subtropical north of New Zealand is not known for its native cactus groves. But Whangarei does have a small cactus house, over the humpy red bridge from the rose gardens. And it was in this cactus house that this unfortunate tale begins.

It was one of those home school group outings that Mum usually avoided with the same level of determination that she avoided old chewing gum on the pavement.

She hated home schooling group excursions. I liked them. But then, I liked old chewing gum on pavements too. At least, I thought I did. There seemed to be a coalition of tedious adults in my life, all set on not letting me investigate this intriguing subject further.

Nevertheless, she did take us on excursions to the local cactus house.  The cactus house was attached to the city glasshouse. Our guide, a sour ancient of antediluvian age (about thirty) led us without incident past the display of South American orchids, the potted bromeliads, and a hideous array of pottery from the local ceramic club that may have been deliberately avant garde, but in all likelihood was probably just very badly done.

In fact, it wasn’t until we entered the cactus house that things got interesting. He swept us past an array of small, uninspiring succulents and a rather pathetic attempt to evoke the Midwest of America with a single cowboy boot and a wooden wheel that had obviously never taken any wagon anywhere. Then he stopped in front of a huge, round, green herbaceous pin cushion. “Echinocactus grusonii,” said the guide, pointing down at it. “Barrel cactus, from the order Caryophyllales.”

I was impressed. Furthermore, I had acquired a bit of knowledge on the subject of barrel cacti the week previously. This seemed the perfect opportunity to show it off. “Is it true,” I squawked, “that if you’re stuck in the desert, staggering around dying from the most AWFUL thirst, and you find a barrel cactus, you can take out your penknife and cut the lid off and drink it’s innards?”

The man gazed at me for a long time. It was not the look of admiration that I had been hoping for. When he did speak, it was in a horrible tone. “NO ONE will be drinking the INNARDS of THIS cactus!” He followed this comment up with a second look in my direction that suggested he had quite a lot more he would like to say on the subject, but time and all the mothers in the room restrained him.

After informing a small boy that a harmless Cephalocereus Senilis was a spitting cactus with the ability to permanently blind him, our guide ended the tour by leading us back into the main glasshouse and vanishing through a small door, half obscured by a potted banana tree.

That was the last time we ever saw him. Presumably, he told his superiors that he was a horticulturalist, not a nurse maid, and the next time a beastly collection of kids turned up to tour the gardens, he’d rather shovel manure for the ornamental cabbage display.

But it was not the final time the Whangarei Home schooling group visited the Whangarei Glass Houses. It was free, local and had an attractive indoor pond, full of fat goldfish and surrounded by wooden benches. The mothers and the very small children would congregate around the pond and the rest of us would go straight to the cactus house.

Our mothers watched us go with relief. They loved us, but they also found the continuous sight of us to be wearisome. And what harm could we get up to in the cactus house?

It’s just as well they didn’t know what was going on in that cactus house. We would immediately crowd around the barrel cactus and stare intently at it. We longed to open it with a pen knife and drink its innards. The rumour among the small fry was that cactus juice was delicious. But the memory of the cantankerous guide was a strong one and no pen knife was produced.

Then, without fail, someone would say in a breathless voice, “do you think it can be sat on?”

It was a fascinating proposition. And it wasn’t even forbidden. The guide hadn’t told us not to SIT on the barrel cactus, just not to drink its innards.

And to us humans of miniature stature, endowered with even more miniature brains, the barrel cactus looked almost……inviting. “Sit on me,” it seemed to say. “Sit on me and I shall give you rest!” But strange to say, as much as we all longed to see the barrel cactus sat on, we also all felt it would be better if the sitting was done by someone else.

Of course, sitting on the barrel cactus would be such an act of valour, it would establish the sitter as the absolute monarch of all the other children in the group.

And, without fail, some boy (it was always a boy), would turn his back to the barrel cactus, and watched by an admiring audience, he would courageously begin backing up towards Echinocactus grusonii, a set, stern look on his face and a light of battle in his eyes. We would watch, eyes goggling, breathing ceased, as the boy, the very brave boy, slowly lowered his posterior until it hovered a mere inch above the enormous needles of the barrel cactus.

Then sheer terror would kick in and he would jerk across the room, away from the spikes of the cactus. We were always sad to see this happen. But no one ever sneered at the manly boy who had a least TRIED to sit on the barrel cactus.

A few months later, I and Rachel were visiting our grandparents (Dad’s parents) in Tauranga. Tauranga is about five hours south of Whangarei. As Poppa drove us up his driveway, I noticed a vast, strong and sturdy cactus, a prickly pear, that stood like a sentinel besides my grandparents’ letterbox. And a THOUGHT came into my head. It was a secret and silent thought, so it was a nasty shock when Nana suddenly swung around and eyed balled us. “I don’t want either of you kids climbing that cactus,” she said sternly.

Back then, I was seriously creeped out. Nana appeared to have supernatural powers of brain reading. In retrospect, she was probably just fed up with the endless repetition of an event that was about to happen yet again.

Because as much as I WANTED to obey Nana, I couldn’t. There was just too much at stake. If sitting on a cactus would increase status, surely CLIMBING one would be even better. Of course, there was no audience of admiring peers to watch my escapade, but they’d know about it. Oh, I would see to that! And the cactus seemed to approve the idea. “Climb me,” it seemed to say, “climb me and I will give you glory!”

Ascending the cactus was a breeze. I was wearing shoes and it was possible to go right up without getting spiked. It was the descent where the trouble started. All the spikes faced me, and they appeared to be harbouring grudges about having been trod on, on my way up.

Having a rump full of cactus spikes effects posture. I don’t know why this is but believe me, it’s true. I had been sure that I could scale the cactus, achieve glory, sneak down and Nana would never suspect a thing. But as I hobbled up the long driveway to the house, standing up straight was becoming more and more difficult. Indeed, by the time I limped through the front door, I was beginning to resemble something from a Victor Hugo novel, and not the beauteous Esmerelda, either.

Nana sized up my hunchbacked state with an irritation diluted by years of experience with kids. “You’ve been climbing the cactus,” she remarked dispassionately. “I TOLD you not to climb the cactus.”

In the end, I was right. Climbing a cactus DID win me fame. Mum, years later, put the incident in a book. She made an awful lot up about it and when I objected to the lack of accuracy, she implied that I had simply forgotten the more salient points of the matter. Rude, considering she wasn’t even there and even if I could forget details about the cactus climbing, I would NEVER forget the sting of Detol that Nana had heartlessly applied to stop infection setting in.  But the book was published, and Mum was very attached to that particular chapter. The story never did deliver ME the glory the lying cactus had promised. Oh no, I looked like a buffoon.  

A few years ago, I revisited the cactus house, across the humpy red bridge from the rose garden. The barrel cactus was still there, but it was now a sad, geriatric affair, devoid of its olden day seductive powers. I felt no urge to sit on it. But given how much influence it had once had over me, a quotation seemed appropriate. A verse from Isaiah sprang to mind.

“Those who see you will stare; they will ponder your fate: “Is this the man who shook the earth and made the kingdoms tremble, who turned the world into a desert and destroyed its cities, who refused to let the captives return to their homes?”

Which is all to say, no lie lasts forever, but it can get you into an awfully prickly situation if you choose to get seduced by it. And even if it DOES get you fame, it’ll be the wrong sort.