Cousins

by Patricia Grace

  It was then that Mata had realised something else. The words at the top of the stones were names, the names of the people buried there, because she could read some of them — Sarah, Arthur, Mason, Henrietta, Bradford — in amongst other words that must have been names as well.

  Her mother had a name.

  Everything was different from what she’d thought. Other people knew that her mother had a name and that it was there on the stone — Anihera Keita Pairama — even though she couldn’t read it. ‘It’s my mother’s name,’ she’d said, pointing to the stone.

  ‘Yes.’ But Aunty Gloria hadn’t understood, had turned to go home.

  ‘Aunty Gloria, Aunty Gloria, my mother’s got a name.’

  Then Aunty Gloria had cried and cuddled her and read the name out and helped her to say it. They’d gone home after that and Aunty Gloria had cried all the way down the track. They’d washed their hands in the tin of water at the bottom of the hill, and Aunty had washed her wet face and red eyes as well.

  On the way home in the train she’d taken the photo out of her bag and held it to her chest. She’d thought about the next school holidays, when Keita would send for her, want her, tell her about her own mother and give her some of her mother’s things. She’d thought about what the things might be, wondered about cups and saucers, china ornaments, a watch, a gold ring, a heart-shaped locket that hung from a gold chain, with a tiny ruby set into it and photos inside. Thinking about the locket and the ruby had made her remember the enormous ruby, the size of an orange, that had been stolen by an ugly thief from between the eyes of a handsome king’s elephant. There was a story about it in the comic that she’d read to Missy and Chumchum while they’d waited on the station for the train.

  Missy had liked her when she read the comics and when she’d read out the stories on the newspaper walls at Aunty Gloria’s. They’d all liked her when she’d given Manny the marble. Keita had bought her a coat and given her a photo, and Aunty Gloria? Well, Aunty Gloria had cuddled her and talked to her and loved her, and told her she was their girl with her own name, belonging to them.

  But now she knew that none of it was true. She wasn’t their girl at all. She had waited every day but they hadn’t sent for her. She’d never heard from any of them, never been there again.

  So she thought it wouldn’t be true about Ada liking her either, even though Ada was often kind.

  She didn’t know who there was to like or love her, or if there would ever be someone of her own to like or love.

  She thought of the boy in the tram.

  Nine

  Ada taught her how to count paper, showing her how to grip the bottom corner of a bundle with her right hand, turn her hand so that the sheets separated out at the top edge, then thumb down by twos with her other hand until she had counted twenty-four. She learned to shift each lot to form a fan, doing her best to keep a straight edge on the stack. ‘Ha, getting the hang of it,’ Ada said, coming to look over her shoulder after she’d been at it for a morning. ‘Be counting in fours soon, then fives and sixes like me.’ Ada straightened the stack for her. ‘Like your job, do you?’

  ‘Mm,’ It was difficult to talk and count at the same time but she liked talking to Ada. She paused, thinking of something to say that would keep the conversation going. ‘Mrs Parkinson got it for me,’ she said.

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘Got me a place to board.’

  ‘You like it … your place to board?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She turned back to her work thinking about some of the things she might tell Ada at some other time when she was practised enough to talk and count at once. She might tell her about Jean, who was married to Rick; Jean, who had saved up teatowels, sheets and pillowcases in a suitcase and become engaged to Rick, who had bought her a diamond ring; Jean with red bad hair. At night-time I tidy my room and write to Jean. I don’t know if someone will like or love me.

  But she didn’t think she’d tell that last thing to Ada, or to anyone. It was Jean who used to talk about being liked and loved. Her fingers stopped counting and she said, ‘I’ve got a photo of my mother in my room, of when she was a bridesmaid at a wedding.’

  ‘Where’s your mother?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Where’s your father?’

  ‘Dead. Killed in the war in Egypt.’ She didn’t know what made her say it.

  ‘My brother too,’ Ada said.

  ‘Killed?’

  ‘Missing, they said, in action. Means they didn’t find him. Means he’s dead. And my husband come home with his hand blown off and a stomach full of bits and pieces … You got sisters, brothers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Grandparents, relations?’

  ‘No.’ She didn’t know why she said it but in a way it was true. Ada turned to the door to call to Jerry and he came in whistling, rolling the trolley.

  ‘You should get you a boyfriend,’ Ada said.

  There was someone ugly who waited at the tram stop every afternoon after work. He had a narrow head, a squashed neck, black lips and eyes, and a dark brown face. His shoulders were wide, his legs were shortish and as he walked he leaned from side to side as though he could be skating. He was Maori, like her, but she didn’t know if that meant that he might like her.

  In the afternoons, if she left work as soon as the bell went and hurried to the tram stop, he would be there and they’d both catch the same tram. He’d go to the middle compartment and she’d go to the front. She’d sit where she could see him, always disappointed that she had to get off the tram before he did. She didn’t know if he was a boy or a man, but thought he might be ugly enough to like or love her.

  One afternoon she decided to stay on the tram to see where the boyman got off and perhaps find out where he lived. She watched through the window to the open compartment where he sat smoking, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. As the tram neared a stop that was two stops beyond hers, he stood and and went out on to the step, holding the outside handrail. He had one foot on the step and the other foot out ready to jump and he leapt out on to the road, throwing himself into a run alongside the slowing tram. Then he changed direction, running towards the footpath as people came swarming out from the stop, grabbing the handrails, climbing the steps and rushing for places to sit, straps to hold, windows to see out of, walls to lean against. She saw him run, dodging through the crowd into a doorway.

  She didn’t think she’d tell Ada about the boyman, and anyway it was too difficult to talk, get the counting right and keep the stack tidy. ‘Got you a boyfriend yet?’ Ada asked.

  Getting better at counting, getting faster and able to keep her stack straight. She could count in fours. ‘You don’t say yes or no.’ Ada’s hands flowed down the stack counting and fanning.

  ‘There’s a boy … on the same tram as me going home.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Gives you the eye, does he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good-looking, is he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well … Well, got your eye on him, have you?’

  ‘He nearly gets run over every afternoon jumping off the tram.’

  ‘Running for the boozer?’

  ‘The Central.’

  ‘The Central hmm … Jerry … Hey, Jerry …’ The trolley trundled in and Jerry steered it in under the stack. ‘What you think, Jerry, this one here’s got her eye on a fella rides on her tram.’

  Jerry stepped on the lever to raise the skid. ‘Ho, rides on her tram, does he?’ The stack wobbled and steadied as he released the lever. ‘Well now, Mata, you better watch yourself.’ He rolled the trolley cleanly between the stacks past the staple machines. ‘Hey what do you think, Mata’s got herself a bloke rides on her tram,’ he called to the women on the staplers.

  The women smiled down on to the folded spines of notebooks as they flicked the cardboard covers on top, slid the bundles through and worked the pedals.
The staples hammered down. Some of the women stopped work and looked up, laughing. There was something she didn’t know about that made them all laugh, something she couldn’t ask. She shouldn’t have told Ada about the boyman.

  ‘You got your stack all wonky,’ Ada said.

  Ten

  ‘Are you going to the pictures?’

  He’d walked up beside her at the tram stop. His hands were in his pockets and he was looking out over the road as though he could be speaking to a car or a tram. She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or not. ‘Are you going to the pictures?’ he asked again. So she said, ‘I go with Jean. Sometimes … But she’s gone away.’

  ‘On Fridays we go for a feed after the pub and go to the pictures, or we go up home and play cards.’ She couldn’t think of anything to say. He turned suddenly and walked out on to the road. She hadn’t noticed the tram coming.

  She moved with the crowd to board the number seven, wanting to follow him to the middle compartment, but she couldn’t go in there where men go. It was for drunk people, singers and shouters, a bad place. She wasn’t allowed to sit in the middle compartment of trams.

  From where she stood she could see him sitting, leaning forward, smoke coming out of his nose.

  So he had spoken to her. At first she hadn’t been sure if he was talking to her or not, then she knew he was. He’d asked her something about pictures but she wasn’t sure if she’d answered him, didn’t know what she should’ve said and wondered what his question really meant.

  Could’ve said you’re ugly enough to like or love me. Could’ve said every day I see you jumping out in front of cars, running, running, through a crowd, through a doorway before the tram stops. I ride two extra stops, watch you hang from the tram, drop, run, dodge through the crowd of people, disappear through a doorway into The Boozer, The Central. Why did you talk to me? Is it because you have to like me because you are like me? My name is Mata Pairama. I have a name, Mata Pairama, Mata Pairama, a name of my own.

  The tram neared his stop. He looked up from the doorway, lifted his eyebrows, smiled, hung from the handrail, leapt and ran. Do I like you because I have to like you? Will I love you, will you love me, and what was it you said standing by me at the tram stop with your hands in your pockets talking to trams and cars? Pictures. Are you going to the pictures, you said. Joe’s, down Bridge Street, having a feed, and going to the pictures after. If you like?

  But she wasn’t allowed to go to the pictures, wasn’t allowed to talk to boys or men.

  Had to go home from work and help with the meals. After dinner she’d do the dishes and scrub the benches down, sweep the floors and set the tables for next morning. After that she could go to her room where there was a bed and a stool, three coat hooks, three coat hangers, one window, a photo of her mother that leaned up against a cup on top of the stool. One day she would ask Mrs Parkinson to let her have some money from her wages so that she could get a frame for it. She wanted new shoes and another cardigan, and different hair.

  And she would like to go out in the evenings or on Saturdays, and to have time to look in the shop windows on the way home from work. Brown teeth when he smiled.

  She stepped down on to the road hurrying back along the footpath hoping she wouldn’t be late, hoping Mrs Baird wouldn’t know she’d gone two stops past.

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ Mrs Baird asked. ‘I was coming back from the shop and I saw you go past in the tram. You didn’t get off at the right stop.’

  ‘I wanted to walk back … to look in the shop windows.’

  ‘There’s work to do here. You know what Mrs Parkinson said.’

  ‘Yes.’ Then she said, ‘I’d like to go to the pictures.’

  ‘Huh. There are better things for a Christian girl to do,’ Mrs Baird said.

  Or she could just go, which is what Jean would have done. But Jean didn’t have a guardian who told her where to stay and what job to have or how much money she could have from her wages. Jean had left the Home and gone to live with an aunt and one Saturday Jean and her aunty had come to take her out. Jean’s aunt had told Matron that they were going to afternoon tea but they’d gone to the pictures instead, Jean wearing a new, green, tweed coat, her coppery hair just resting nicely on the shoulders of it. They’d loaned her a blue raincoat which had covered her Home clothes and made her feel good.

  In the carpeted foyer of the picture theatre they’d looked at all the photographs of film stars before going up the carpeted stairs leading to a wide doorway where a man tore their tickets in half and nodded them in. Inside there was red carpet in the aisles and brown padded seats to sit on. There were pillars patterned in gold vines and flowers, and pale alcoves lit with green and pink light. The ceiling was domed, and babies, dressed in clouds and flowers, held hands in a circle there. What she’d liked best of all was the gold shimmering curtain, that, as the house lights changed colour, changed colour too and was drawn upwards in fine, glistening loops and folds. There was music. One day, one night she’d go again.

  Not tonight. Tonight she would thicken the stew and turn the rice pudding down, set the table neatly and cut even slices of bread. In her room she had a photo of her mother whose name was Anihera Keita Pairama. She had her own name, Mata Pairama. Her name, her name, which couldn’t be taken away from her, couldn’t not be hers.

  And you might like or love me, that’s what I would like to know.

  Eleven

  ‘So how’s that bloke on the tram?’

  She didn’t want to answer because Ada would tell Jerry and Jerry would make a joke about it to the staple-machine women who would grin onto their book covers or look at her and smile. Also if she answered she’d lose her count. Her fingers could walk down in fives now — four fives and a four to make twenty-four. She could fan the bundles of twenty-four into groups of twelve and put the twelve, straight-edged, onto the stack on the skid.

  ‘Still giving him the once over are ya?’

  ‘On Friday nights he goes to the pictures.’

  ‘Ask you to go with him, did he?’

  ‘No yes.’

  ‘Did you go?’

  ‘No.’ Getting better. She’d talked to Ada without missing her count.

  Ada slapped six lots of twelves onto the stack. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I have to help at the boarding house?’

  ‘Don’t you get a night off sometimes?’

  ‘No.’

  Ada lit a cigarette because the boss had gone out. The cigarette was in one corner of her mouth, smoke puffed out of the other. It smelled good. ‘And anyway they wouldn’t let me, not at night, not with a boy.’ She hoped Ada wouldn’t tell Jerry.

  ‘Can’t say I blame them, he might be a bastard. There’s plenty of bastards around, you know.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t have money.’

  ‘Why, where’s your money?’

  ‘Mrs Parkinson looks after it for me, pays the board and just gives me my tram fare and tea money.’

  ‘She might be a bastard too. You got to keep your eye out for bastards … Isn’t that right, Jerry?’

  ‘What’s that, Ada my love?’

  ‘You got to keep your eye out for bastards.’

  ‘Sure thing … Hey look at that Ada, straight as a die. She’s doing all right you know.’

  ‘We better fold now,’ Ada said, ‘Getting ahead of ourselves.

  ‘So they don’t give you a night off, or a day off?’ Ada shouted above the noise as the folder started up. The blade rose, Ada fed the paper in and the blade came down again, snapping the pages through the slot.

  ‘Saturdays. Saturdays I get time.’

  Too much time. After the breakfasts and the cleaning up she had time until four. Time to tidy her room but it was already tidy, time to rub the floor and the windowsills but they already shone, time to clean the little window but it was clean enough. If there was a ladder in her stocking she mended it, if there was a hole in her cardigan she darned it. The cardigan was thin, nearly worn
out, but she could darn finely — slowly to pass the time. On cold days she shivered in her cold room.

  On Saturday afternoons she went out for a walk, pulling her cardigan about her and hurrying as though she was going somewhere. She didn’t look in the shop windows or watch the trams rattling by, but stepped out quickly as if there was someone to meet, somewhere to go. She’d think about the letter she was going to write to Jean and of the man whose name she didn’t know, who talked to her each day at the tram stop. She’d think about being at work with the noise, the smells, the things that people said, about counting by fives and making a neat stack, of keeping up with Ada at the back of the folding machine and of Jerry shouting, ‘That one there, she’s murder. Tell her to go easy til you get the hang of it.’ She’d think of Ada and the things she sometimes said.

  ‘What do you do then?’

  ‘I clean my room, wash my clothes, mend them, go for a walk around town.’

  She could keep up with Ada now, even with the machine on high. Could pick up a bundle of six in each hand, turn the two bundles towards each other, knock them and stack them. Nicely.

  ‘You should ask her for your money … for clothes, some new stockings, a coat for you.’

  A coat was what she wanted, but she didn’t want Ada to know about that. She had asked Mrs Baird if she could save something from her wages each week for a coat. It had taken her a long time to ask. Mrs Baird had reminded her that the money was for her board, and that what was left went to Mrs Parkinson, but had said she would speak to Mrs Parkinson.

  People in the trams had coats — fawn with fur collars, tweed, astrakhan, gaberdine, green and brown check, black and white, blue, mixed-up browns. The workers had coats, shabby and warm, which they took off in the cloakroom and hung on hooks on the wall, belts to unbuckle, buttons to undo. Some of the women had headscarves, which they took off and put in the pockets of the coats before fixing their hair, pressing their lip-sticked lips hard together in front of the narrow mirror, one peering behind the other, lips sliding. She would like an off-white jeep coat, a grey skirt, new stockings and a pink chiffon scarf.