by Alan Duff
TWENTY-SEVEN
THE CAR DIDN’T fit, not down that drive. Not ’nless it was here to visit one of the boys under his charge. But if so, it’d be news to him: he knew what sorta car it was. What kinda people it carried. So he watched it carefully, turning his machine straight on at it, as it came at speed down the tree-lined tarsealed road, flashing undercoat grey through the gaps, in summer sunlight, summer blue sky, air with birds, them poplar trees with birds, he’d taken the trouble to ask Mr Trambert what they were, now Trambert was friendly after all. Poplars, Jake. At first Jake thought Trambert said populars — the name he repeated — till Trambert chuckled and corrected him, so Jake’d laughed, too. Puzzled at Trambert muttering sumpthin’ about not being exactly popular in his own home. But then Jake thinking he can’t’ve heard right, like he didn’t the tree name.
He watched as it slowed down, pulled over, sat there only for a few minutes, turning his engine off in case he could pick up something, though the distance probably too far. Only enough to see it was two fullas in front, driver this side, hard lookin’ dude even from what, sixty, seventy feet, and looked like a woman the back, her arm pointing over between the fullas’ shoulders. Another fifteen feet Jake reckoned and he’d be able to get a close look, so he started his engine and went forward, which risked his being noticed because the section he was on sloped down to him so he’d be up on the slight rise. But then they wouldn’t think, even if they saw it, that a ordinary fulla on a front-end loader’d be interested in them.
(Well, I’ll be. If it ain’t …) when they did a u-ey and he got a view of the passenger fulla in the front. But he couldn’t quite pull the face, the name to go with it from memory. Damned if he could. Even long after their smudgy grey-painted mean machine’d growled back to where it came from.
He drove back in the company van that evening, makin’ out, should anyone want to know, he was checking the portable lock-up tool shed and just the site in general, the machines left overnight, like a responsible employee. Now he had the name of the one dude he recognised, Jimmy Bad Horse. (Who blew his arse when I fronted him in my bar that time. Who came to my son Nig’s funeral under police escort, the convoy of their stupid fucken cars you can spot a mile and what they do half their stupid crim business in, before the main group of mourners — fucken hundreds ofem) and so many faces of Pine Block residents he recognised, him and Cody concealed behind bushes cos he just had to go to this one’s, as he’d missed Grace’s (got so drunk I slept in and it was all over when I got the taxi to take me to the cemetery). It was Jimmy Bad Horse who himself got sent away for his part in the main street shootings and now, how the years pass, out and about and unchanged. Once a cunt always a cunt.
He hung around the site, wondered about going over to the Tramberts’, warn ’em, but what to warn about, that some Brown Fist jerks were casing his place to burgle? How’d he know they weren’t pointing out where Grace’d hung herself, seein’ Nig was one ofem. And so what if it was a burg being planned, what’s Trambert ever done for a man? Thinking about it, Jake sort of added the one of Grace hanging from Trambert’s tree (that tree with its big broad top sticking up) and the three of these lowlifes to make the four of sorta justice, in a way. In a way of a white man bein’ what he was, rich, secure, whatever else they are, and the gangies, even though they’re arseholes, bein’ what they were, Maori, poor, not secure, jus’ fuck-ups. But he did wait around a bit, in fact till the dusk was nearly done with. And he did drive right down by the Trambert gateway, saw it was open, and Trambert’s Range Rover in the forecourt, or whatever they call the driveway when it loops around a circle of lawn with a tree in the middle, house behind, and he didn’t see no gang car. So he’d done more than his bit that no one’d know about, well, maybe he’d mention it to Rita, if she still wanted to see him again, hard to tell with her, got her own mind, and that stuff about his attitude to his own children. (How can I help it?) He’d more than done his duty as a — as a what? he suddenly got to asking himself, and with a smile forming as he drove the company van back home. As a citizen. (A what?) A straight citizen clean in the police’s eyes, with a granted firearms licence, is what.
SHE TOLE HIM she wanted, since he wasn’t gonna do a armed bank job with no prospec’s, a job those fucken white cunts’d never forget. Talked like a gang memba herself now, even said aks for ask. She wanted not jus’ the cash she was without doubt in her mind certain they’d have lyin’ around like they’d have them ole paintings in fancy frames hangin’ on the walls, ’emselves prob’ly carpeted, yeah, walls carpeted tha’s how Gloria Jones had it (carpeted walls? Man, no honky’s place I ever burgled had carpet on the fucken walls.)
She wanted not jus’ the cash they’d have in their safe but for ’em to know they’d taken their money from Maoris, even rubbish Maoris like her whose families weren’t ever nothin’ in the eyes of the grander scheme of things, of genuine ones who’d been stripped of their land and too much of their dignity withit. In the ole days Gloria woulda been a slave, or a slut for the warriors to help ’emselves to. They were gonna be wearin’ masks, balaclavas, she had it all figured out, so naturally if they had masks they could, well, do jus’ about what they liked couldn’t they? Or they could if he’d been agreeable but he wasn’t. And she wouldn’t hear it about him not bein’ able to do the time. Nor when he aksed what did she have against them people to wanna do the things she was wanting to do?
Like trash the place. Kick their muthafucka white heads in, she’d snarled like she w’s the wildest patched-up memba bitch goin’, not jussa solo mum down the street used to put her smokes before her kids’ food in their bellies. You c’n fucker, the lady of the house y’ wan’, Gloria Jones said. I won’t care, I won’t be jealous — which only told him, Mulla, that she mustn’t think enough of him to care, let alone ’bout the poor woman she was wanting him to rape — long as I don’t have to like call you off, Mulla Rota, HAHAHAHAHA! He thinking her brain was becomin’ scrambled eggs from the dope she jus’ loved to smoke now near all the time.
But no, he’d decided once and f’rall, he wasn’t doin’ no crime that was carryin’ a sentence and tha’s what he tole her.
HE HAD HIS prob’ly only true friend in the gang (everyone’s got one, ain’t they? Even me) Hector The Honey Nectar James to keep his eye on ’em, Gloria, Chylo and Jimmy. Knowin’ it could costim his life if Hec had changed his loyalties. But Hec reported back on Chy and Glor as thick as thieves, those were his words, and prob’ly they’re — uh, sorry, Mulls — doin’ the bizzo together, too. Hec meaning she was prob’ly two-outin’ Chylo and Jimmy, one in each hole, cos man, Hec reported faithfully, the three ofem were thick, drinking together, smokin’ together, and dancing together, too, even Jimmy, blind to his lack of dancin’ talent out on the HQ floor with Glor. Actin’, Hector reported in disgust, like a gang slut.
An’ when Hec came up to Mulla’s room Mulla’d had turned onim like anutha prison cell, tole him it looked like Jimmy was goin’ true to form as he’d heard Chy boastin’ how he and Gloria were gonna do some bizniz together and Jimmy’d aked ’em to bringim back a trophy, some kinda prize, Mulla knew Jimmy’d done his part, sucked the uthas into thinkin’ what they were doin’ was a very good thing to do. So Mulla knew he’d picked the right face inis mind. He aksed his good friend one more favour, could he go and buy or borrow him a Stanley carpet knife?
I DUNNO WHY, but I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about it, that fucken car with fucken Jimmy Bad Horse in it. They could only’ve been, what do they call it, casing the Trambert place. I thought I should ask Trambert when he came on site the nex’ day and talked the Super 12 rugby with me, how much we enjoyed it and as for Jonah Lomu, well, what was there left to say, but we said it anyway, that rugby’d never known a man like it. And Trambert said something about the world needing heroes and role models and stars, but I didn’t quite get his point. Firs’ time I spoke to a proper Pakeha man in my life like we were better than just — wha’s the word? — acquain
tances. I think cos he loved the game and he understood it. And I’d only started playing again from my younger teenage days but I understood he’d’ve liked to have been a better player. So we were, you know, even. Me playing, he wishing he had. Both ordinary.
The same morning he came and after we’d run our talk on the Super 12 and Jonah and Zinzan Brooke and his dropkick by a forward in the test against South Africa in the World Cup Final, I wanted to ask him then if he had burglar alarms. But didn’t know how to put it without him thinking it was a suspicious question. He’s still standing there himself, as if he senses I got something to say, or so I was thinking in my not knowing what to do about the gangies casing his place. Then he said, I know who you are. You’re Grace’s father. And made my blood run cold. And my concerns for his fucken house’s welfare from them thieving arsehole Browns gonna hit ’em any day now die on the spot. And I feel he’s betrayed our, uh, acquaintance.
But fuck me if he don’t next say — before I can give him the mean eye and tellim to mind his own fucken business what would he know about it — and we know you were blamed for it unjustly.
Unjustly, he said? I just nodded, trying to keep my fucken dignity, my pride, man. I knew what I’d been, and what kinda father I hadn’t, now Rita’d told me, pointed out the, uh, error of my ways. But man I was no fucken rapist of my own kid and any man ever brought that up with me, even in declaring me innocent, better know that: Jake Heke did not do that. Had to show him the true face of innocence.
He (I) did a lot of other things, sure. (I) he did things he didn’t know no better not to do. And things he did know better but went ahead and did anyway. He knew inis heart of hearts even as it happened, even inis blindness to himself, he’d been a bad husband, a terrible husband, and just as bad a father. And he knew now from Rita’s relentless — her word, not mine — time and again occasions of late of showing a man to himself that he was partly made by what he grew up seeing and thinking of himself, that slave thing, that Heke family inheritance of being descended from lowly cowardly slaves, that made me — even with that, Rita? Yeah, even with that — only partly not responsible for the things he did. But mainly you’re at fault, Jake, because a man has to face himself no matter how hard it is. At some stage in his life he’s gotta face himself.
I did them things. I harmed my own family. I gave ’em witness they should never but never have been given. Like Rita said, I owed ’em a better birthright than witnessing ’em to their father’s violence, why not his love? Why not my love? I had it in me, even if it was for my mates, my buddies, ’emselves like me. It was there. I just never spread it. But the face I had to show Gordon Trambert when he declared the one deserving injustice I suffered, it had to be of dignity. Cos that’s all I had left worth saving of me what I’d been. The dignity of that one, single act of innocence. And even then, even then Rita never let me off the hook, Jake you got what you deserved. You were an innocent wrongly accused. Just like your child, your beautiful daughter Grace was an innocent born into your household.
I told the man thank you. Couldn’t say no more or tears’d spill. He said we must get together and have a talk, he’d like that. Yeah, and so would I, I heard coming from myself. I did manage to get that out.
I worked my machine with an eye on the Trambert drive, as I did wonder how he knew this information. Still thinking I shoulda told the man of the Brown Fist cunts. But I thought if I saw these cunts I’d warn ’em off, be another chance to show that Jimmy what a bad horse he wasn’t. I came back that night and sat in the van till two-thirty in the morning. Funny thing, all the thinking I got done passed the time as if I was needing to be there anyway. Thinking about Beth, my kids. Not that I could do anything about it.
I figured, too, that they’d not hit the place on the weekend cos these people would have friends over prob’ly. But I told the Douglas brothers leave me out of the hunting Friday. That I had a date. Which I did. Who says it’s gotta have nice legs and a skirt?
Maybe it was my way of makin’ up just a li’l bit for Grace; that tree there her shrine I had to look after. Maybe that’s why I stayed on after work on the Friday. By habit, anyway, I had my rifle in the van bein’ a Friday. Asked myself did I really want to shoot someone to make myself look like a hero or to satisfy my violence I knew’d never been cured, more eased with age. (But it’s never cured, once you got the, what-they-call-it, the virus.) Lot of my dreams’re violent. Though one thing: not once did I ever dream of raping anyone, let alone my own daughter. Jake The Muss, even when he was a Muss (and, you know, pretty blind to ’imself) wouldn’t’ve done that. Nor would Jake Heke, not in all the years of his teeth-grinding, violently landscaped waking thoughts and sleeping dreams, not even (I) he would do that.
Then I thought I been listening to this woman Rita telling me every damn thing I don’t wanna hear about myself all these months, so why not tell her about this, see what she advises?
But they showed up.
I saw the lights enter the driveway then they went off. I was out of my van my ears to the night and sure enough, the progress of a vehicle coming my way. But no lights to say it was legitimate. Just stars up there. And me down here with my rifle, my manhood picking a time like this to ask what it really was. That fucken lightless car coming slowly on. Lights on at the Tramberts’, but no visitors on their list this night. Not invited ones.
TWENTY-EIGHT
THEY WERE COMING into the court room like big jugs of humans being poured, each from a different container, with the formally dressed ones, the court officials, and the lawyers, already with their permanently reserved places in Two Lakes’ newly opened High Court, but the rest of quite different flavour.
Jake telling himself to stick to Rita’s instructions now that the gang arseholes started their sunglass-wearin’ dark oozing through the side door. She’d said, give ’em an even stare, Jake, like this, not this, showing him what he looked like when he was giving the meanies. But it was hard seein’ ’em in the flesh, they riled a man instantly, made ’im want to fight the bastards, but no, an instruction is a instruction, and there was a lot more than the old-day pride at stake here. Now there was.
So he gave back a steady stare, keeping his blinks near to an eye-hurtin’ minimum. (I have to. I just have to.) But so hard to keep up the act with the way they swaggered in, fucken big galoot kids hidin’ behind their shades and numbers and bullshit reps. Fuckem. No, don’t even be thinking like that, he told himself, or it’ll be you losing it, the only thing that’ll count in this trial: dignity. And courage (guts).
Rita hadn’t arrived yet; he wondered if she was putting him to the test, of leavin’ him on his own to face this like she’d persuaded him to face all the other things. Not that he was through with that. But progress had been made.
The lawyers he thought wore wigs like you see on teevee, but these ones didn’t. He got quite a startle to see Beth when she walked in, how she’d changed, how damn good she looked, how smartly dressed she was, like the man with her, whatshisname, the welfare fulla, Bennett, that’s right. Big fulla but kinda paunchy. Had to tell himself don’t be lookin’ at the man like that: he’s the one ended up with Beth not you, and fathered your kids how they shoulda been fathered. Got even more of a start when she saw him and nodded. Ever so formally he felt. (Oh, well, what’s past is past. I don’t feel so ashamed now.) He gave a little nod back that woulda been a little smile if he didn’t have the gang cunts in front ofim.
The kids with Beth and her man, well he didn’t see them at first. And when he did as they took their seats up there in the higher public gallery he didn’t at first recognise them. Was that Polly? Why, she’d turned into a very fine-looking young woman. And talk about confident. Guilt then forced him to look at the other. Hu? Is that Huata? Kid was fucken near a man’s size now And he’d be what, twelve, thirteen, fourteen at most? Truth was, Jake didn’t know not to even a couple of years how old his kids were. They did look well, though. Someone looking like Boogie was now
here to be seen. (Hell, what if he’s died, been killed, too?)
He averted his eyes, couldn’t bear to get cold blank stares, he was lucky Beth’d even nodded his way. (Got to find my own sources of strength. Love, too.) Which is the feeling he got when he saw another file-in through the same side door as the gang cunts: it was love he felt. Kohi, Gary, Jason, Hepa, Haki Douglas, and a few others he didn’t know, a whole bunch ofem, walked in and each man giving gesture to Jake, and eyes at the gang cunts sitting with tattooed arms folded trying to look tough, wearin’ their shades inside. Oh, how the Douglas brothers and cousins were giving them arseholes the unshaded eye. And about the same as Rita had told him he should give, with not too much aggression, just with all your fearless heart, Jake Heke. Tha’s all you have to give those bastards.
So he did. He looked over at ’em and felt his head lift and he didn’t move a muscle on his face and knew the Douglas’s wouldn’t be either, hard men that they were. And he could feel that humming coming from their direction, like they were trying to send it out to him, lettim know they were withim all the way.
Then an official voice toldem all quiet please and be standing for his honour the learned judge. So they all stood, even the gangies knew to or they’d be ordered from the court-room. And this old fulla, white of course, comes in but looking very dignified but in a different way to Jake Heke’s unnerstandin’ of dignity. The judge took his seat, nodded to the beautifully timbered room of a mix of the town’s, the world’s, inhabitants, from the fullas who would’ve felled the trees to those who’d read those thick books lining the shelves behind the judge made from the trees. (It’s all kind of the same.)
