Huia Short Stories 9

by Anahera Gildea

  Ruth sat at the table, looked at the food, and said ‘Yuk.’

  She said that our kai came out of the ground and it was dirty. So Aunty Linda made her a jam sandwich out of Nanny’s special jam.

  ‘There’s stones in it. I’m not eating that.’

  After kai we played with our new toys that weren’t broken yet, and Josie and Ani and them asked Ruth if she wanted to play. She stood on the Hana-Koko-chair by Tōtara and chanted that she was the queen of the castle and they were dirty rascals. So Doris pushed the chair over, and Ruth fell off and landed on the ground. She skinned her hand and her dress got dirty, and we laughed at her kaka-stained bloomers.

  Uncle Richard said to Aunty Linda that they should go home now Love, but Aunty Linda said she wasn’t ready yet Love.

  ‘Okay Love,’ he said. ‘And Linda Love, please get my flask off that dark fellow, would you?’

  Uncle Richard and Ruth sat in the car and waited. Uncle Richard had more medicine out of a real glass bottle. The girls pūkana-ed at Ruth and bent over to show her their bums. She told her father on them, and he got out of the car.

  ‘Shoo,’ he said. So they pūkana-ed at him too, but they didn’t show him their bums. Then they got hōhā with that and went to play with their this-year’s dolls that still had all the parts intact.

  When the party started up over the road at Uncle Hone’s, Aunty Linda, Uncle Richard and Ruth left.

  They drove off. Back to Auckland in their flash red car.

  ‘I’m gonna get me one of those when I grow up,’ Kenny-Boy said. ‘And I’m gonna have a lady with titties like hers.’

  Head down, I charged him. Knocked him over and dropped knees first onto his chest. I bashed his face with Treasure Island. His eyes bugged out of his head. He didn’t fight back. And even though he made noises, they didn’t sound as if he was in pain. When I got so tired that I thought I couldn’t beat him any more, I gave him the last bash I had left. He moaned soft with his mouth shut. He groaned loud with his mouth open. Then he wet himself. And then he rolled over on to his puku.

  Aunty Linda, Uncle Richard and Ruth never came back for any more Christmases.

  I couldn’t wait to see her again.

  They came after lunch on Saturday.

  Seven days after that whānau hui. Three years after that Christmas.

  July.

  Aunty Linda looked like summer in her yellow dress with little white flowers growing all over it. Uncle Richard still looked sick, and sipped medicine. And Ruth didn’t look at anyone, or anything.

  She just sat on Uncle Richard and played with his tie. She took a pretend sip out of the real silver flask, burped, said pardies and giggled. She walked her fingers up and down Uncle Richard’s puku and giggled some more.

  ‘Set the table for tea please, girls.’

  Doris and Josie frowned and shrugged their shoulders.

  ‘We will have dinner soon; I want you to get the table ready,’ said Aunty Linda.

  They changed the Herald: the old one had bits of kai on it from breakfast and lunch, and pūhā stains from the night before. Bread and butter, jam, kamokamo pickle, the pot of tea, mugs, milk and sugar went on the table. And the salt. Knives and forks were bunched in a heap. The pile of plates went beside a space they’d made for the dish of kai. Aunty Linda shook her head and Ruth giggled behind her hands.

  ‘There’s newspaper on the table Daddylove; they’ve put newspaper on the table. Is that a Mari table-cloth?’

  ‘No petlove,’ Uncle Richard said. ‘I suppose that’s one way of reading the news: a good excuse for reading at the table, don’t you think Linda Love?’

  ‘Let me show you how to set the table properly, girls. It’s obvious to me you’ve never been taught properly. You are young ladies: you will be out in the world soon, and let me tell you now this … this way you are being brought up is not setting you a good example for living in the real world. Now watch. Watch and learn.’

  ‘There we are,’ she said.

  She’d replaced the newspaper with the tablecloth Nanny used when the Mormon elders came. The salt and the kamokamo pickle remained. A jug of water replaced the teapot, and some dark pink camellias from the hedge around the house sat in Nanny’s vase from the china cabinet. The flowers were nice. Pretty. The knives and forks were set out like on the marae tables: a plate-space distance apart, with a spoon above that space. One of Nanny’s flash glasses that the elders drank water out of was upside down beside each spoon.

  ‘From now on this is how you will set the table. All right girls? Good. Now go and wash your hands and faces and then we shall all have tea. Father should be home soon.’

  I went outside to the water tank where Kenny-Boy and the girls washed their hands.

  Mine were clean, so I went back inside and sat at the table and gazed at Aunty Linda. And waited for Granddad to come home.

  We showed her how clean our hands were.

  ‘Please go out and wash your hands Alan; we do not come to the table with dirty hands. We are not animals.’ I thought about Scotty and Chestnut and Billy and Daphne. They didn’t have hands and they didn’t eat at tables. A hot itch bristled in my face and down my neck. The heat wouldn’t go away, so I went outside and scrubbed and scrubbed my face and hands until I was cold and clean.

  We had rice pudding and a sausage stew that smelt like the yellow stuff Nanny puts in the kamokamo pickle. That’s the stuff I tasted once and it made me spew because it burnt my tongue and lips. And I had to drink and drink some water until I thought it would come out of my eyes.

  Granddad hadn’t returned, so Aunty Linda said we would start without him.

  Kenny-Boy picked his spoon up and was about to start.

  ‘Now Kenneth,’ Aunty Linda said. ‘We must give thanks for the food.’

  We only did that at the marae. Koro Mohi or Uncle Jimmy or one of the other grown-ups did the karakia then, but we never did it at home. Granddad said that the only one we needed to thank was him. I sat in front of that burn-mouth kai and I watched while Aunty Linda clasped her hands together and closed her eyes. She moved her lips and then she crossed her heart and hoped to die. And I wondered what she’d promised not to tell and who she’d made that promise to.

  I pushed the rice pudding as far away from that ugly stew that I could. I asked if I could have some sugar and cream for my pudding.

  ‘I’m sorry Alan; if you can’t eat what’s put in front of you, you can’t have anything else. You all must learn that money does not grow on trees. Now, scrape it out for the pigs if you don’t want it.’ I got up and scraped my plate. Josie put her fork down, pushed her chair back, stood up and scraped her plate. Doris did too. Kenny-Boy, Ruth and Uncle Richard carried on eating. I walked to the door.

  ‘You will remain at the table until you have been excused, thank you Alan.’ Though she smiled, her eyes were like slits, and dark as the bits of coal Granddad got from Huntly. Me and Josie and Doris sat down at the table. The others finished their kai. They ate their pudding of custard and Nanny’s bottled peaches.

  ‘Now you may leave the table.’

  I raced out of the house.

  The pipi shells on the path crunched beneath my feet and flicked up and hit the backs of my legs. I slammed the front gate. Shut. The whole hedge shook. Flowers dropped and landed, and I kicked those stupid camellias. I stubbed my toe. I ripped the flowers off the hedge. Stomped on them. Crushed them. Hated them. All of them. Scotty and Daphne yapped. Granddad was coming up the road. Blue smoke hung above him and the tractor. I thought I saw him wave. This was his fault. I faced the hills. I ran. When I got back home, Uncle Richard and Ruth had left.

  ‘Good,’ I said.

  Wonky came in his blue van on Thursdays.

  It had a chiller compartment to keep the meat and fish and vegetables fresh, and a freezer to keep the ice blocks hard. Every Thursday when we got home from school bacon bones that boiled on the wood range sent out water-swallowing smells that greeted us at the gat
e and pulled us into the house. Soon Nanny would start to fry the bread. After that she’d put the prickly pūhā, softened by rubbing, into the pot. Just before Granddad got home from the cowshed she’d throw doughboys into the bubbling mix, then we’d all have kai.

  But before that, and before our jobs, we always ate our ice block. The ice block at the bottom of the ice box was the hardest of them all. That’s the one Kenny-Boy got every time. We’d suck at those ice blocks that stained our fingers and made them sticky and when we’d finished, we chewed the sticks and licked our fingers. Kenny-Boy was always the last to finish, and while we sat and stared at him with our mouths full of chewed-up bits of wood, he sucked, slurped, slobbered and showed off to us. And then he went ‘Mmmmm.’ I wanted to spit the tasteless wood at him. But I spat it into the wood box instead. In four days’ time it would be Thursday. And I would be first to the fridge.

  The ice box was empty.

  Aunty Linda came out to the back porch where we sat and asked us why we weren’t doing our jobs. Kenny-Boy said that we usually have an ice block from Wonky on Thursdays.

  ‘Oh, you mean that little Chinaman? He tried to sell me some meat; I shooed him away. As for ice blocks: no, no, no, you’ll spoil your appetites. Good food is going out to the pigs. You children must eat what’s put in front of you before you can have treats. Now get on with your chores, and we’ll have tea as soon as Father gets home.’

  We went down the orchard and had a feed of sour apples.

  And that night, the pig bucket got filled with macaroni cheese and mock whitebait fritters.

  On Monday, Granddad wasn’t home for tea again.

  Sausages with red skins called saveloys and mixed raw vegetables called coleslaw got scraped into the pig bucket. And the pudding too.

  Then I ran.

  Aunty Linda called me back.

  I ran.

  At Uncle Jimmy and Aunty Jessie’s I played with Lily under the tree in the backyard. Ducks came up from the awa. We played with them.

  At kai time, I stuffed myself with brisket and watercress, doughboys and purple rīwai, and kamokamo and corn pickle. Then I had rewena bread with Nanny’s jam and a big mug of sweet milky tea. Aunty Jessie said I had a good appetite, and Uncle Jimmy agreed. Aunty Linda had brought ugly kai and rules into our house. I wanted her to go back to Auckland, and take them with her.

  I hated her.

  Granddad came over; he booted my arse all the way home. I hated Aunty Linda some more.

  That night me, Josie and Doris went down to the rock pools. Kenny-Boy said he had better things to do than play the ‘when we grow up’ game.

  ‘I already know what I’m gonna do,’ he said.

  We lay on our backs so we could see the stars, and Josie went first.

  ‘When I grow up I’m going to be a nurse. I’m gonna look after sick people and make them better. Then I’m gonna get married and have two kids and a big flash house like the ones in the Woman’s Weekly.’

  ‘Can I come and stay with you?’ Doris said.

  ‘Only if my Pākehā husband says yes.’

  ‘Thanks Josie. When I grow up, I’m gonna work in the shop in Hamilton that sells Christmas presents. At Christmas I’ll bring presents home for everyone.’

  ‘I’m staying right here,’ I said.

  We played join the dots with the stars.

  Josie made a house shape. Doris made a Christmas tree: a real one, she said, not tōtara. I made Granddad’s tractor.

  Down there by the pools I felt that I could almost touch those things we’d made.

  ‘Hey! Let’s go to washing rock; I got this neat idea.’

  The hollowed-out rock basin was full. I peered into the water. ‘Look, there’s the stars.’ They looked into the water. Their big eyes shone.

  ‘They look real,’ Doris said.

  ‘And close,’ Josie said.

  I put my hand on the surface of the water.

  Waiwhetū.

  ‘Make your hand flat,’ I said. ‘The water will carry the stars to your hand and soon your hand will be full. Careful, or they’ll go away.’

  Josie went first.

  Then Doris.

  And soon all three of us were touching the stars.

  ‘Now, make a wish.’

  ‘What do they feel like to you?’

  ‘Cold and wet,’ Doris said.

  ‘Like magic,’ Josie said.

  ‘Can’t touch magic, you stupid fools.’ Kenny-Boy had arrived.

  ‘Can,’ Josie said.

  ‘Magic my arse. Here, feel this.’ Kenny-boy stood above washing rock and mimi-ed into the water. The stars broke up into splotches of light, fell out of our hands and floated away.

  On our way home, Kenny-Boy called us names. I didn’t care. I’d touched the stars. We all slept in the same bed that night except for Kenny-Boy, who called us sooks and babies. Before we went to sleep, we played ‘I wish’. Josie wished that Kenny-Boy would go and live somewhere else; Doris wished that Kenny-Boy hadn’t spoiled our game; I wished that Aunty would go away. And we wished to each other that Nanny would come home.

  Doris and Josie sat in the cab with Granddad.

  Me and Kenny-Boy sat at the back on a mattress with blankets on us. When we got to Hamilton Kenny-Boy threw the blankets on me. I waved out to people in the streets; they waved back. Kenny-Boy told me to stop making fucken people stare at us.

  Doris and Josie sat at the back with us on our way home.

  Aunty Linda wasn’t there when we got back. I tried to feel happy but I felt sad too. But not for long. The Aunties brought big pots of kai over. The Uncles brought some beers. Doris and Josie made a bed up for Nanny in the sitting room so we could see her and she could see us and we could all be together again. Aunty Jessie put Lily in with Nanny. We were happy again, and whatever Aunty Linda had brought into our house was gone.

  We didn’t see them again.

  That day Aunty Linda and Ruth were killed in a car crash on their way back to Auckland. Nanny and Granddad and the Aunties and Uncles went to Auckland the next day to bring Aunty Linda and Ruth home so they could go up the urupā. But I had destroyed all the flowers; they would have none. I made some out of coloured paper so they could have some.

  On their graves.

  When we got back from school, they weren’t home, and that night Uncle Jimmy rang up and said they’d be back in two days. Two days later when we got home from school, they were back, and Nanny looked sick again. Uncle Richard hadn’t let the whānau bring Aunty Linda and Ruth back, so they were buried up in Auckland in a Pākehā urupā. Nanny had a photo of Aunty Linda and Ruth. It was a big one. A portrait. Just like the ones that hung on the wall in the wharenui. The Aunties got tea ready. They spoke softly. They moved slowly. They reminded me of Aunty Linda the first time I saw her.

  They looked beautiful.

  Then Nanny said ‘Come here,’ so I went.

  She was crying. She rubbed my hair, my face, down my arms, my hands and my face again. She gave me a glass-covered and framed photo. I saw a Pākehā man and Aunty Linda. Aunty Linda held a baby. The man wasn’t Uncle Richard. I thought I knew him; had seen him before. Aunty Linda wore the Japanese oyster earrings. She had pink-coloured lips like that Christmas day, and I wondered what she smelt like.

  I looked at Aunty Linda and I looked into my light brown eyes with green flecks. Her hair was the same ginger colour as mine.

  I loved her: I hated her.

  Loved: hated.

  Love. Hate.

  We sat at the table for kai. I sat by Nanny. I crossed my heart and I hoped.

  To die. They’d lied.

  Path of a Healer

  Hira Hunapo

  Home is where the heart is, and Ana’s Piha home has become her private sanctuary. Her moko’s playground and whānau’s retreat. Adorned with stunning pieces of Māori artworks and ceramics, collected over the years, it has also become a marae for many visitors, and a meeting place where important discussions on lo
cal, national and international issues have taken place. Piha’s ocean air purifies, and gives way to an exquisite aroma of gardenia, jasmine and lavender growing around Ana’s veranda. Nestled high into the Waitākere ranges, and surrounded by native bush, the house is a grand homestead. Bordered to the west by spectacular ocean views and illuminated at dusk by beautiful sunsets that soothe and heal the soul, one would think they’ve finally reached heaven on arriving, and most don’t want to leave. Ana’s home is welcoming, peaceful and tranquil; the peace broken only by the distant sound of waves crashing along the shoreline, the song of bird life and, of course … that intrusive phone ringing.

  Releasing a gentle sigh, Ana pauses before answering the phone. She ‘sees’ him and thinks ‘Ahh … it’s Josh Daniels.’ ‘Kia ora Ana … it’s Josh. I’m so glad I caught you at home … just letting you know we’ve got someone who wants to see you.’ Josh works for the mental health services, and his team and others often take people to see Ana, or she travels to meet with people in their homes. ‘We should be there at two, if that’s OK? Sorry about the short notice,’ he says, with genuine regret.

  It’s always OK. Life has taught Ana that her life is not her own and, with humility, she accepted that long ago. In her teens in fact. Ana relaxes back into the veranda sofa, and soon notices and acknowledges a hawk circling above her. She smiles and has that distant look in her eyes. She journeys back into significant parts of her childhood.

  A beautiful and very sensitive child, Ana was loving, and constantly surrounded by wounded or abandoned animals. They were her whāngai. She was able to communicate with them on a level that didn’t need words. She was a very observant and inquisitive child, totally fascinated by life. Sitting for ages examining the animals’ eyes and ears, and the many colours and shapes of their feathers and fur. Gently lifting their legs and arms, observing how each moved, and giving cuddles to thank each of them for the examination. Some, like the hawk she named Manea, were her constant companions. Days were spent carefully hand-feeding, mending broken wings and paws and then finally releasing them once they were healed. The ones that kept coming back, she would lecture. ‘Get going … before I cook you in a hāngi!’ That was her dad’s favourite outburst when he was watching the rugby and his players weren’t doing too well.