“How hard can it be?” Julian says. “You had them done. Sure. Let’s do it the Maori way.”
Even his quarrelsome, full-lipped Termagant reconsiders. “Tama, no,” Shae says. “It was a joke. You don’t need to do that.”
“We don’t need to do anything, except hunt and fight and drink, Shayma-Shayna. But the man said he wanted a moko,” Tama says. “Is a woman going to stand between a man and his desire? What say you, son of Cruz?”
“No,” Julian says, taking off his outer layers. “Nothing is going to stand between a man and his desire.”
In a special moko room, in the corner of a glowing tavern by the ocean inlet, with half a dozen people surrounding them and the kerosene lamps burning, Julian removes his shirt in the warmth, removes his quartz necklace before Tama can comment on it, and sets his forearm face up on a flat wood surface. Tama sits quietly in a lotus position, appraising Julian’s upper body. The daily sparring, the bag pummeling, the extreme Krav Maga self-defense training, and the recent masonry work have packed new mass on Julian’s chest and shoulders.
“Not bad, whiteman,” Tama says. “But no real tattoos.”
“Well, you’re going to fix that, right?”
“First you drink the shine,” Tama says, banging the tall pewter goblet on the table. “If you can’t hold your drink, I can’t ink you.” It looks like a pint of alcohol. Julian raises the mug in a salute to Shae, to Hula, to Rangi, to Tama and swallows it down.
Except for Shae, they applaud, Hula loudest of all. “Hey, you’re all right,” Tama says, pouring alcohol over Julian’s arm to clean it. “Shae, I don’t know what you’re on about. This man’s all right.”
Shae says nothing. Julian says nothing. Hula and Rangi and Tama’s young sister Tia begin a low humming chant. Tama takes off his own shirt. It’s warm in the room. Tama is conspicuously tattooed on his chest and on both his arms.
“It took many years for me to get like this,” Tama says, setting his instruments on the table. “With you, we start small, see how you do.”
Mia, Mary, Mallory, Miri, MIRABELLE in capital letters in the middle of his forearm, and two sets of dots next to Mallory’s and Miri’s names, and an unfinished set next to MIRABELLE, 33 dots, and then he stopped marking the days, too busy drinking heroin and plotting murder.
“What are those?” Tama asks, pointing to the dotted black columns.
“Timekeepers,” Julian replies, knowing that Shae is looking over his shoulder, wondering about the dots, perhaps trying to count them as her mother had suggested. He scrutinizes Tama’s tools: a thin chisel made of white bone, a mallet, and a jar of black wood ash. “What’s the bone from?” he asks the Maori. “Tiger?”
Tama roars with laughter. “What if I told you it was human bone,” he says. “Would it make a difference?”
Julian’s and Tama’s gazes lock. “No,” says Julian.
“I’m just joking with you. I don’t know where the bone’s from. Probably from a little lamb.” Tama grins. “A little newborn lamb.”
“Tama, don’t do it,” Shae says. “What if you hammer too hard and it goes through a vein? Kiritopa will kill you.”
“That kind old man. He won’t kill me.” Tama flashes his white teeth. “I’m a tohunga. I know what I’m doing. Tia, are you watching, sister?” Tia, Hula, and Rangi chant louder. “Son of Cruz, are you ready?”
“I’ve been ready for half an hour while you’ve been yakking,” Julian says.
“What name will continue the story of your life, whiteman? Shae?” Tama grins. “Or Hula?”
Hula runs up, throwing her arms around Julian. “Hula, Hula!” she says. “Ink Hula-Hoop, Tama.”
“Get back, Hula. We start now. No more disruption.”
“Mark me with ASH,” Julian says.
Julian doesn’t know why he agreed to this pissing contest. He must be trying to impress the impregnable fortress that is Shae. He must be drunk. He must be an idiot. It’s astonishingly painful. Needle tattoos are not a walk in the park either, especially on the inside of the arm. But it doesn’t compare to this. In a warm room, where no conversation is allowed, amid the Maori ritualized chanting, Tama literally hammers a white-bone spike dipped in soot into Julian’s skin. He carves the ash into Julian’s flesh with a chisel and a mallet. It’s slow and painstaking and terrible. Three measly letters take hours to tap. Julian bleeds, Tama pours moonshine over him to wash off the blood, pours moonshine into Julian’s throat, Tia, Rangi, and Hula dance and chant, Shae stands watching, and Tama, steady as he goes, continues to pound into the open wounds in Julian’s arm.
Besides Hula-Hoop, Rangi is the most impressed with Julian. “You did well, whiteman,” he keeps saying, slapping Julian’s back. “Didn’t he do well, Tama? He didn’t even flinch.”
∞
“You think that’s going to sway me?” Shae says after they’ve left the train and are walking back to the Yarrow.
His arm bandaged, Julian is swooning from the drink and the pain. “Wasn’t thinking of you.”
“Yeah, sure. Maybe it’ll get infected and you’ll die, and all my problems will be solved.”
“Sounds like a win-win to me,” Julian says. “Why did you tell him about the tattoos on my arm? Were you trying to provoke me?”
“Wasn’t thinking of you,” Shae says, mocking him.
“Do you want me and Tama to fight?”
She shrugs. “Maybe you need to be put in your place.”
“Woman, you have no idea what you’re playing with.” Julian tries to stop swerving and increase his pace.
“You have no idea what you’re playing with,” Shae says darkly. “Bad things happen to people all the time. Even without you being their prophecy. Hula’s father cracked his head open two years ago. Three crayfishermen died last week when they got tangled up in their nets. One old man got hooked as he was strolling down the dock and bled to death. People die all the time.”
“What’s your point? Yes, people die. Gunshot wounds. Fires. Disease. Their cars flip over on black roads. So what?” Julian’s bandaged arm presses against his stomach.
“What fucking cars? I’m saying we should all be a little more careful, frankly.”
Julian wishes he could leave her on the street. He walks ahead of her. Now she has to hurry to catch up with him. Good.
“From now on,” Julian says when she is by his side again, “I’m going to call you Termagant, not Shae.”
“You call me that, I’ll punch you.”
“Do you want to know what it means?”
“Do I look like I want to know what it means?”
“It means a violent, overbearing, turbulent, brawling woman.”
Her fist flies out. He jerks his head away.
“Fuck you for saying I’m violent.”
“Termagant,” Julian repeats. “A shrew, a virago—”
The fist flies out again, but this time, Julian grabs it. “Don’t touch me,” he says, sounding pretty dark himself, squeezing her balled-up hand harder than he has ever allowed himself to grip a woman. After a few moments of her ineffectual struggle, he lets her go. Something red churns inside him. Is that what he wants, too? A fight with her? He’s had too much to drink, he’s not thinking clearly. He’s not feeling clearly. How far they have come from Grey Gardens, from the serene lake at Vine Cottage.
They continue walking.
Suddenly Julian draws to attention. He stops swerving. Behind Shae, on a wide empty street, he senses a moving shadow.
Shae, he whispers, but before he can say another word, a twisted-up guy jumps in front of her and gets in her face. She doesn’t recognize him, though it’s a small town and she knows almost everyone, both here and in Bluff. He’s half-Maori, half-something else.
“Look at you,” the guy says, licking his lips, his tongue darting in and out. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”
“Get away from her,” Julian says, his right arm out, in front of Shae.
The gu
y, still lewdly clucking, doesn’t glance at Julian. “Or what, whiteman? What are you gonna do?”
Julian sweeps her behind him and steps between her and the man. The assailant, wielding a strange short paddle, swings at Julian who normally would bob out of the way except he is the only thing standing between the attacker and Shae. So he can’t bob out of the way. Instead Julian blocks the blow with his bandaged left forearm, takes another hard knock as the guy backhands him with the paddle, and as he’s taking it, he lunges, catching and wrenching the guy’s arm with his right, and hammerfists him in the ear with his left. Julian is ready for more, despite his bleeding gash. He is in a stance; all his nerves are live-wire. But the fellow drops to the ground and passes out.
Julian picks up the man’s blade. It’s green, shaped like a teardrop, and made of some kind of hard smooth well-polished stone. Jade, maybe?
“Are you okay?” he says to Shae.
“Fine, but you can’t take his club,” Shae says. Her gaze zooms in on Julian, pierces, understands, hardens, frightens.
“Watch me. Let’s go. Before he comes to.”
“It’s an heirloom.”
“Is it a weapon?”
“Yes, it’s a mere club, but—”
“Then let’s go. The weapons of the vanquished go with the victor. If he wants it, he can come and get it.”
“He won’t stop until he has it.”
“How does he know who I am, or where I’m staying?” Taking her by the arm, Julian peers into her face. “Did you put him up to this?”
“Did I put up a freak to assault me on the street? Let go. There are migrant lunatics all over. You should know. You’re one of them. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Let go, I said.”
“You mean, walking back from the Bluff train, like we do three times a week?”
“Yes, like that.” Shae stares at the fallen man, but mostly she stares at Julian. “How did you hit him like that?”
“Like what? I swatted him on the ear.” He has not let go of her yet.
“What if he’s dead? Look, his ear is bleeding. And his nose, and you didn’t even hit him in the nose.”
“He has a burst ear drum. He’s not dead.”
“His arm looks broken.”
“Yes, his arm may be broken.”
“If he’s not dead, he’ll come for you. Leave the mere.”
“If he’s dead, he won’t need it,” Julian says, pulling Shae down the road. “And if he’s alive, I’ll need it.”
In full awareness, despite being drunk, Julian had clocked the guy on the ear. Three inches forward on his temple, and Julian would have killed him.
∞
At the Yarrow, Julian and Shae confront Agnes. It takes two questions for the mother to confess that she was the one who had paid the indigent to attack them. She found him wandering the streets, looking for work. So she gave him work. But before their two questions for her, she has two questions for them. “What happened to your arm, why are you bleeding?” she says to Julian and then gives Shae the coldest of glares. “Did you have Tama brand him? Are you stupid?” She throws a dishtowel to Julian to press against his wound.
“She had nothing to do with it, Agnes,” says Julian, wrapping the towel around his forearm. “I asked for it to be done.” He doesn’t want the mother to slap her again, even if she deserves it.
“Mother, don’t change the subject,” Shae says. “Did you pay a man to attack me?”
Julian thought Agnes would be sheepish or remorseful, but no, the woman blazes with self-righteous elation. All her features soften and glow. “I did,” she says proudly. “I did it to prove to all you naysayers that I am right and you are wrong, each and every one of you. Kiritopa, come here. Did you hear what happened?” she says to the Maori. “You told me Julian couldn’t protect a fish. Yet he nearly killed a man with one blow. What do you have to say about that, wise man? Maybe he won’t protect a fish. But he’ll protect her.” Agnes looks so smug, so satisfied. She is beaming.
No one is happy with Agnes, least of all Shae.
“I did it for you, child,” Agnes says, “to show you that you are safest when you are with him. No evil can come to you as long as he’s by your side. He only seems spineless, my darling. It’s his disguise. You should feel strengthened, not offended. As long as he’s with you, you’ll be all right.” The mother looks so relieved.
“But, Mother,” Shae says, “if you didn’t force him to be by my side all the damn time, you wouldn’t have needed to pay a man to assault me, and then I’d also be all right, the way I have been for twenty-six years.”
“That’s unassailable logic there, Agnes,” Julian says. Kiritopa agrees. Everyone is against Agnes this evening. She doesn’t care. Whistling, she saunters off to fill the lamps.
“The man could’ve killed us both, Mother,” Shae calls after her. “He was carrying a mere.” She gestures to Julian without addressing him by name. “Show Kiritopa. The club is dangerous, like an ice axe.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have taken that,” Kiritopa says, taking one glance at the mere.
“The vagrant hit him with it,” Shae says. “Twice.”
“And Julian is still standing?” says Kiritopa.
“He didn’t budge, as if the guy barely tapped him,” Shae says.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” says Julian. “He did barely tap me.”
Agnes returns. “I’ve set the table for you two. You must be hungry. In Bluff, all you do is drink. Sit. Eat. Break bread. There’s a lot to celebrate. Now you two can finally get married. I will let Godward know we will need just one berth on his ship.”
“Mother, I told you, and I told him”—Shae flings her hand in Julian’s direction—”I’m not going with Godward. Or him. I’m not getting married. I love someone else.”
“Phooey. You’re not marrying Julian for love. That will come. Or not come, what do I care. You’re marrying him to save your life. And don’t mouth off to me, young lady. Even when I’m in a good mood, I won’t stand for it. Let’s see how well Julian tolerates you mouthing off to him when he is your husband. He is tough. I bet he won’t be as easygoing as me.”
Shae glares at Julian, who says nothing. He can make a joke, say the mother is right, he won’t be as easygoing. He can be earnest, say the mother is wrong, he will be. He can be suggestive and ask if Shae would like for him to be easygoing. He can be naughty and ask if she’d like for him not to be easygoing. He has many options. He chooses to say nothing.
As soon as Agnes leaves, Shae leans over Julian sitting at the table, waiting for his food. “It will never happen,” she says through clenched teeth. “Get it out of your head.”
“It’s out.”
“I’ll throw myself off the bluffs before I marry you.”
“When?” says Julian.
∞
Tama eyes Julian with renewed interest after he learns about the fight in the street.
“Oh, looky who’s here.”
Julian’s moko hasn’t healed yet. He can’t immerse his arm in water, can’t go down into the grottos. It’s sore, and he’s sore, and is in no mood to be baited.
“Hello to you, too. Kia ora. Get me a drink, will you?”
Julian was going to sit down but Tama won’t stop circling him. “So you think you’re Mr. Tough Guy?”
Julian’s hands remain in his pockets. Shae is off talking to Hula and Tia.
“What’s this I hear about you knocking out a native with one punch and taking his mere for yourself?” Tama says. “Is that true?”
“It was a sucker punch. News travels fast around here.”
“We only got four hundred people in Bluff. You give a shout; everyone hears. Sucker punch, huh? So he was distracted? He was unprepared? That doesn’t sound to me like the guy who confronted you on the street, coming at you and your girl with his mere.”
“I’m not his girl, Tama,” Shae says loudly from the next table.
“She
just gave a shout, did you hear?” Julian says. “She’s not my girl. And yesterday I got lucky. The guy fell.”
“He fell, did he?” Tama considers Julian. “So if he fell and you got lucky, how come you took your hands out of your pockets just now?”
“Well, you got so close to me, Tama, I thought you wanted to shake my hand.” Julian takes a step toward the Maori. He needs to keep silent, but he’s in ill humor. “I didn’t know if you wanted to shake my hand,” Julian says, “or kiss me.”
After a beat, Tama laughs. His handshake is strong. Julian is not surprised by this. Tama looks strong.
“Let’s have a drink, Tough Guy,” Tama says. “I got some blackcurrant moonshine for you. We have a smaller crop than usual this year, but it’s still our best and strongest.”
Tama pours. He and Julian drink.
“Good?”
“Very good.”
“You’re quiet. Not a lot to say?”
“Sometimes better to listen,” Julian replies. “What about you, you got anything to say?”
Tama gets up. For some reason, the kid decides instead of passing in front of Julian to pass behind him. Julian doesn’t enjoy unfamiliar Maori boys who fancy themselves warriors stalking him from behind. As he’s passing Julian’s chair, Tama raises his hand and makes a circle with his index finger and thumb, as if he’s about to flick Julian in the head—not to hurt him but to assert dominance. Before the Maori’s fingers can touch his temple, Julian jacks up his right arm, knocks the hand away, twists his body while rising from the chair, and rams into Tama with his left shoulder. The shove is unexpected, and Tama is unprepared for it. He is knocked down, straight on his ass.
The Noisy Orchard goes mute.
Julian thinks about giving Tama an arm to help him up but decides against it.
“Sorry, dude, what were you doing?” Julian says. “For a second, it looked as if you were about to flick me in the head.”
Tama jumps to his feet in one motion, like an acrobat. “I was passing by, minding my own business,” he says lethally quietly.
“Oh. Because your hand was at my head.”
Tama says nothing. He dusts himself off. There’s a hush in the tavern.
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