The Scent of Apples

by Jacquie McRae

  I watch, fascinated, as Charlie cleans the roots and chops them into small pieces. She lays them in a pot and, after covering them with a small amount of water, puts the pot on the stove to boil.

  Kawharu’s brow is furrowed as he concentrates on the mortar and pestle in front of him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m crushing this bark into a pulp, and then we’re going to mix it with water and give it to Koro to drink.’

  ‘It tastes revolting,’ Tainui says. ‘They made me drink it when I jumped off the garage roof and sliced my leg open. It stopped it hurting though.’

  A small movement to my right makes me turn my head. I see Joe push down hard on the exposed bone, and Koro go limp on the cushions. Amelia takes bandages that have been soaking in some black liquid and lays them on the open wound. Hautai works fast to wrap the splint around the arm, and holds it while Amelia binds it together.

  Hautai holds her hand to Koro’s head and pronounces him a silly old fool.

  ‘I don’t know what an old man thinks he’s doing in a rowboat at the crack of dawn.’ She takes the bowl of crushed root from Kawharu and tips it into a pot of water. ‘I suppose I should be grateful that you weren’t all drowned.’

  ‘It was a freak accident, Mum. A broken bone that’s going to heal. No harm’s done and we’re all fine,’ Charlie says.

  Hautai pushes her way past Kawharu and plants her hands on her hips as she stands in front of her daughter.

  ‘Sometimes, young lady, you could take things a little more seriously than you do. The nonsense that you and your sidekick get up to makes me wonder how smart you really are.’

  ‘Hey, I’m still here, you know,’ Koro murmurs.

  ‘I’m not speaking to you at the moment,’ Hautai barks at him, ‘but when I do, I’ll make sure you’re fully conscious.’

  *

  All day, Koro sips on the bark liquid, and adds the occasional swig of whisky when Hautai isn’t around. He falls in and out of sleep for most of the day. Joe doesn’t move from his side until night falls.

  Tama helps Koro to the bathroom and into Hautai’s bed at night.

  ‘Because of your stupidity, I lose my bed and get an extra job as a nursemaid,’ Hautai says, as she props cushions up behind his back and lifts his arm gently onto another pillow. She picks up three photos from her bedside table, kisses each one and puts them on a tallboy.

  She places a small reading lamp on the table and checks that the on/off switch is within easy reach of her father. She kisses his forehead before she leaves the room.

  ‘Thank God, she’s gone,’ Koro whispers.

  Charlie stifles a giggle. ‘Behave yourself or she’ll kick you out, and I’m not carrying you down the hill in the dark.’

  She leans in and kisses her grandfather goodnight. I feel like a spy as I watch them together, their heads nearly touching. I remember a quote that Poppa had used about him and Nan: A single soul dwelling in two bodies. I think he stole it from Aristotle, a Greek philosopher he used to tell me about.

  Something that feels like a mixture of grief and tiredness swamps me. I gulp big breaths of air and try not to drown in whatever it is that wants to take me under.

  I flinch as Charlie puts a hand towards my face.

  ‘Are you OK, Libby?’

  I nod.

  ‘It’s been a big day, girls: you’d better get some rest,’ says Koro.

  ‘Yeah, Koro’s right,’ Charlie says. ‘Let’s get you to bed.’

  *

  Charlie pokes her head in the lounge on our way past. Hautai is curled up in a big armchair with her eyes closed. A dim light comes from a lamp across the room, and a Carole King CD is playing on the stereo.

  ‘Mum, don’t go to sleep there.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Hautai says, without opening her eyes.

  ‘Promise me you won’t?’

  ‘Oh for goodness sake, Charlie. I promise. Now goodnight.’

  Charlie takes a shawl from the back of the couch and lays it over her mum’s chest, kissing her on the cheek as she does so.

  *

  Silence hangs like a thin cobweb between our beds. A fragile link between the two of us. I know I need to be the one to cross it, but I don’t know how to take the first step.

  I pull the blankets tight around me, though the air is still warm. The moon has managed to wiggle its way into the bedroom through a small gap where the curtains don’t quite meet. I concentrate on this small shaft of light and force myself to speak.

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The darkness covering Charlie’s face is the only thing that lets me continue.

  ‘The bald spots you saw today. Well … I pull my own hair out.’

  The words come out like vomit. Blurted out into the air. As soon as I’ve said them, I want to take them back.

  ‘Have you always?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Libby, you don’t have to tell me anything, but I’m a good listener if you want to.’

  Her words travel through the darkness and unlock a secret door to the place where I store all my pain. Sadness that has been banked up comes flooding out in a torrent of tears. My breath comes in short gasps as I try and control my emotions.

  ‘It’s OK, Libby.’ I hear some rustling as Charlie pulls a blanket from her bed and wraps it around her. She comes over and sits at the foot of my bed.

  ‘I wanted to tell you at school,’ I say, ‘but I couldn’t get the words out – “Oh yeah, did I mention that I’m a crazy freak and pull my hair out?” Most of the time I don’t want to believe it’s what I do.’

  ‘Oh, Libby. It’s something you do. That’s not who you are. Our friendship isn’t based on how many hairs you have on your head. I couldn’t give a shit if you want to pull the lot out.’

  ‘That might happen.’

  ‘So what? You’re a good person. You’re kind and smart. Everyone’s got some shit to work on.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Your family seems normal.’

  ‘Who’s the judge of normal? Our family’s just as messed up as the next one. Anyway, the ones that look “normal” are probably the biggest liars. They’ll kill themselves trying to make it all look good.’

  A picture of Mum pops into my head.

  ‘Koro says that most people get lost a few times on this big trip called life. Being honest about where and who you are, is the only way to find your way home.’

  I listen, as the huddled mass at the end of my bed wraps me up in words of comfort. Generations of wisdom seem to have been infused into her fourteen-year-old brain. She’s so like her grandfather.

  ‘Your grandfather knows so much stuff.’

  ‘Yeah, but you’ve got to be careful. He makes a lot of it up. One time he told me that he knew how to catch shooting stars. He showed me a burn on his hand where he said he’d held onto one for too long. I believed him for years.’

  Charlie giggles. ‘I remember another time when I was six. Shona Riley, a kid at my school that I hadn’t invited to my birthday party, told all the kids that I had nits. No one sat by me for a whole week. I was so mad when I found out. I got home expecting sympathy from Koro or some advice on how to get even, but instead he told me I’d better deal with it. He said that it didn’t matter if I was wrong or right, but that if I held onto any part of it, a sore would grow. We have a saying, “you better go pick some plums”, which means you better forgive or let go of something.’

  ‘Why plums?’

  ‘We have a beautiful old plum tree out the back of the house. When I was younger and I was pissed off about something, I’d climb up the tree and not come down until I’d let it go. Mum threatened to cut it down one time when I wouldn’t come in for dinner. Unfortunately it’s got some fungal disease, and it looks like it might die. I feel a bit guilty about dumping and leaving all my evil thoughts up the tree.’

  ‘My poppa us
ed to tell me to work out what was making me mad and then to let it go. I miss him.’

  Charlie wriggles further up my bed.

  ‘I bet you do.’

  It seems that now my emotions have been let loose, there’s no roping them in. I sob, and Charlie rubs my back.

  ‘It’s got to come out, Libby. I still grieve for my dad every day, and it’s been over six years.’

  I swipe at some tears on my cheek.

  ‘But it’s so painful. Surely we can’t grieve forever?’

  ‘I think maybe we do. We just find a way to live with it. Sort of like when some pain-in-the-arse relative comes to stay and you know you can’t get rid of them, so you find your way around them.’

  ‘Most of the time, I feel like I’m a second away from bursting into tears or screaming. I don’t know if that’s grief or madness.’

  ‘Could be both. But it sounds like grief. I think we have the big grief and then lingering pockets of it. Some pockets are so deep that we don’t even know we have them. Sometimes at the worst possible moment, a sight or a sound can make them empty out their contents. It’s not nice, but you won’t die from it.’

  ‘I feel like I have.’

  ‘You’re still breathing, so you haven’t. Think of it like being thrown in the river. At first there’s the shock of it, and then after a moment you realise that you need to swim to save yourself.’

  ‘I don’t know if I want to. I think I pull my hair out because it takes me away from this world. Like someone inside me has been screaming at me all day, and for a moment I get to silence them and shelter from the constant pain. I like that world, Charlie.’

  ‘Yeah, I get that. But it’s not a real world. You can’t live there forever. It’s like clinging to a twig on the riverbank. You know you can’t climb up it, so you’re left with two choices. You can struggle and fight the current and wish you weren’t in the river, or let go and let it take you where it will. You have to trust that you’ll end up in a better place.’

  ‘But how do I know I will?’

  ‘You don’t. You just have to believe that you will.’

  My eyelids start to droop with the immensity of all the day’s events. It feels like a long time since I opened them this morning.

  ‘You look tired, Libby. We better get some sleep.’ Charlie drags her blanket back to her own bed. ‘Sweet dreams.’

  Jack – from the Jack and the beanstalk story – marches into my dreams. He promises to sell me a magical potion that will make me stop pulling my hair out. To get it, I have to lead his cow through a maze, where he’ll be waiting by the exit with the potion. I go around and around the maze all day, failing to find the exit. Finally I give up, and slink into a corner. The cow wanders off, and around the next bend I hear Jack welcoming him home.

  *

  The twins come running into our room as the morning sunshine sneaks in. They both jump on Charlie’s bed. She whacks them with her pillow. ‘Don’t you two have anyone else to annoy?’

  ‘Nah, we don’t.’ Tainui giggles. He grabs the pillow and hits an unsuspecting Kawharu.

  ‘You’ll pay for that, you dick!’ Kawharu says as he leaps off the bed and chases his brother, who is already running up the hallway. Kawharu almost crashes into Hautai as she comes into the room carrying two cups of tea.

  ‘Morning girls.’ She places a cup beside Charlie and hands one to me, then sits down on my bed. ‘This time yesterday you two would have been treading water.’

  ‘Very funny, Mum.’

  ‘Libby, you look like you’ve got a bit of a rash. Do you feel OK?’ Hautai asks.

  ‘I think so.’

  She passes me a hand mirror. I’m used to seeing puffy eyes, but not my face covered in a rash. I pull my top up and we both see red blotches and a few small welts.

  ‘They look like jellyfish stings. Did you feel anything sting you yesterday?’

  ‘No. But I remember seeing some jellyfish in the water when I went back for the boat.’

  ‘We get them a bit at this time of year,’ Charlie says. ‘They don’t really hurt so you don’t notice the sting.’

  ‘The rash will be gone in a few days, but we can’t send you back to school like this. I’ll ring your mum, and you can either stay with us or she might want to come and pick you up.’

  ‘I’ll ring her,’ I say, too fast.

  Both of them look at me.

  ‘I told her I’d ring on Sunday, so she’ll be expecting my call. She’s real busy so it might be best if I stay here a few more days. If that’s not too much trouble?’

  Hautai looks at me. I know that she knows something is out of place, but she just taps the blankets beside me. ‘You’re no trouble, Libby. It’s the others I need to send away.’ She pushes herself up. ‘You better ring your mum this morning and let her know what’s going on. We need to check that she’s OK with you staying.’

  ‘I will,’ I say, without looking her in the eye.

  Charlie grins at the turn of events.

  ‘I might need to stay off school and help you out, Mum.’

  ‘Nice try, but I think I’ll cope.’

  *

  After breakfast I follow Charlie into her mum’s room. Koro looks like some ageing rock star as he sits in bed, his hair lose from his pony tail. His usual dark olive complexion is a funny shade of grey.

  ‘How you feeling?’ Charlie asks as she climbs onto the bed.

  ‘Not bad,’ he smiles, but it’s easy to see that he’s still in a lot of pain. ‘The whisky has worn off. Don’t suppose you know where another bottle is?’

  ‘No, and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. Guess what?’

  He raises his eyebrows in mock excitement.

  ‘Libby got stung by some jellyfish and probably has to stay longer.’

  ‘I don’t know if you’re meant to be so excited about your friend getting stung.’ He turns to look at me. I hope the rash on my face covers the blush that comes to my cheeks. I remember that he’s seen my bald spots.

  ‘Sorry you got stung, but it’ll be nice to have you round a little longer. Hautai will have you fetching and carrying like the others in no time. She would have made a great drill sergeant.’

  ‘I heard that, you ungrateful old goat,’ Hautai says, coming into the room. She passes him a cup of something that smells like nettles. ‘Drink this up, it’s for the pain.’ She keeps one hand under the cup to help him tip it to his lips. ‘I need you girls to run down the hill and get some stuff for Koro.’

  ‘Grab a pen and paper, Charlie, and I’ll make a list,’ Koro says. ‘You’ll find most of the stuff labelled and in the spare room. I want you to pick some fresh kawakawa leaves and bring some of the vine growing over that old tractor near the bush. Libby will need that for her rash.’

  We leave with a list that looks like someone’s planning to make a new garden. The toothbrush and bathrobe are an afterthought at the bottom of the page.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The spare room turns out to be more like a potting shed with carpet. Sunlight floods in, and a door opens out into the back garden. Wires are strung across the ceiling, and hanging from them are plants in various stages of decomposition. Newspapers scattered on the floor catch the seeds and petals when they drop.

  A battered wooden bench stretches along one wall. Elephant garlic lies half-plaited among bunches of dried flowers on the bench. The other walls are lined with bookshelves crammed with books, stacked on top of each other where the shelf is full.

  Rows of jars containing dried plant matter sit on shelves away from direct sunlight. My senses are assaulted by so many smells at once: ginger and fennel mingle with garlic and mint.

  ‘What is this place?’

  ‘Just Koro’s garden shed. He stores his veggies in here, because it’s cool and dry. He collects the seeds from plants to sow again the next season. It looks pretty crazy, but he knows exactly where everything is.’

  She takes a wooden ladder from the corner of the room and le
ans it on one of the bookcases. Climbing to the top, she takes some gourd pots from the highest shelf.

  ‘He wants the one that looks like a fish.’ She holds them out at arm’s length and tilts her head several ways, before deciding on one and returning the others.

  ‘I’ll get the plants from the garden. Can you find him these books?’ She passes me the note, which has the titles written on them. As she disappears out the door I wonder, as I look at the hundreds of books stacked every way possible, where to start.

  My fingertips brush lightly along the spines, like a torch light on a search boat, scanning across the water. The spine on one of the books is so faded I have to squint to make out the letters. I’m glad I do, as it reveals a myths and legends book he wants. Another, a history book, is further along the same shelf.

  I nearly give up on finding a brown ring binder, when I spot it sticking out from under some red chillies that are drying in the sun.

  I sit in an old armchair by the window. The weight of my body squashes more scents out from the chair. Spice smells hover in the air, too varied and too many for my brain to separate and name.

  The ring binder, like a fat lady in clothes a size too small, bulges at the seams. I open the front cover and struggle to contain the contents. Stapled to the left-hand side of the first page, a flower is encased in a small bag. To the right of this, there is an intricate pencil drawing of what I presume to be the plant that the flower came from. It is so finely detailed. Notes below have been written with a delicate nib and a gentle hand.

  Kōwhai

  Flowers of bright yellow droop from the tree in spring. The flowers grow in little clusters and then a unique seed pod forms. Both a large- and a short-leaf type is found in New Zealand.

  They like to live on the edge of the forests and riverbeds. The rocks in the river may help to break the hard seed shell, which needs to happen before they can germinate. They can be found on the coast and inland.

  All parts of the plant can be used for rongoa, but as the tree has toxic alkaloids, careful preparation of rongoa must be observed.