She watched as her uncle lifted the lid of the pot. Steam streamed upwards. He dropped the potatoes in and came and sat down beside her on the form taking the other cup, ‘Yah ha, drink up, Glory …’
Wake up wake up,
You sleepyhead,
Get up get up,
Get out of bed,
Sing up sing up,
Glor-oria,
Live love laugh and be happy …
Uncle, Aunty and the man called Nonny knew lots of songs which they sang on and on, joining each new song to the end of the one before. Some were in a language she didn’t understand. Sitting up late as though she was grown up.
Marshmallow fish was really a chocolate fish, but she’d picked the chocolate off bit by bit. She didn’t know whether to eat the tail first or the head. Bit the head off and chewed. Aunty had given her the whole bagful but she was too shy to take another one even though she was hungry. Her uncle went into the bedroom and came out strumming a ukelele.
You like a ukelele lady
Ukelele lady like-a you,
You like to linger where it’s shady
Ukelele lady like-a too …
He skipped and danced on the hearth and the stacked wood scattered. ‘Sit down, Bobby, or you fall in the fire,’ her aunty said.
Maybe she’ll sigh
And maybe not
Maybe she’ll cry
And maybe not
Maybe she’ll find somebody else
By and by …
Uncle’s fingers skipped on the strings of the uke and when he sat down again he hunched over it, occasionally tipping his head back to sing to the dark ceiling. The latest she’d ever been up, past midnight she thought.
They cleared the table and set it with bread and butter, salt and pepper and spoons and she was so hungry she felt sick with it as she watched her aunty put potatoes, watercress and meat on plates for them. Hoped she was going to like it. Her uncle had gone to sleep at one end of the table with his head on his arm.
He was called Bobby and her aunty was called Gloria. Aunty Gloria was her own mother’s sister. The food was good and she tried to eat it slowly.
When she went into the other room to go to bed Bubba was asleep beside Missy and there was no room for her. Aunty Gloria came in, pulled her dress off and hung it on a nail. ‘Come on, May, come and sleep with Aunty.’
Her aunty’s voice sounded drunk and she thought her aunty must be very bad.
‘Come on, my sister’s baby, come and sleep with your aunty.’
So she got into bed beside Aunty, who moved her over close and cuddled her. She was shy to be cuddled but she liked it. Aunty had a beer smell, bad, but was warm and soft, mumbling and telling her things. ‘Naughty Mummy and Daddy to leave their baby … And bloody Albert putting you in that place. Bad to my sister, Albert, only want her for a slave for him that’s all. Didn’t want any brown baby too.’
There were things for her to know which might not all be good things, but still she wanted to know. In the dark she was trying to remember her aunty’s face, her mother’s face, wanted Aunty Gloria to keep on talking. She reached out her arm, even though she wasn’t used to it and put her arm round her own aunty, her own mother. ‘Naughty sister not coming home, not bringing you. Keita …’ She tried to keep her eyes open just in case Aunty Gloria talked some more, but after a while realised her aunty had gone to sleep. In the other room her uncle had woken and was starting to sing again.
Six
She could hear bottles rattling in the other room and Aunty Gloria was talking. When she went out into the kitchen the man called Nonny was clearing bottles from the table and taking them outside. Aunty was putting wood in the stove while the kids grizzled round her. Uncle Bobby was asleep, stretched out on the form with his arms hanging backwards. ‘Anyway, only time I get a decent sleep,’ her aunty was saying. ‘When he’s full. Only time he’s not yelling and crying in the middle of the night.’
‘Off to get the spuds, Gloria,’ Nonny said.
‘Wake your mate up.’
‘No, I’ll get them.’
But her uncle was awake now too. He swung his legs and stood, staggered to the bedroom and got into bed. The kids were complaining about him. ‘We don’t like Dadda.’
‘Yes we don’t.’
‘Nincompoop.’
‘If he brought you chocolate fish and comics?’ her aunty said as she dished food out of the pot for them.
‘Where?’
‘Where?’
‘Behind the tin milk.’
Manny stood on the form and felt behind the tin of milk powder for the chocolate fish and comics. ‘Give some to your cousin,’ Aunty said. She wasn’t allowed to read comics, only scriptures and school books, but she took the comic.
The kids sat at the table eating the chocolate fish, smiling and talking about them, ‘Uncle Nonny, Uncle Nonny, we got a chogalafish,’ Chummy said.
‘Out here, Gloria?’ Nonny called.
‘And comics.’
‘By the safe, by the tree,’ her aunty called back. He moved out of sight then returned.
‘Uncle Nonny, we got a chogalafish.’
‘Catch them in the creek did yiz?’ he said, which made the kids laugh. They began swimming their chocolate fish across the table.
‘Mine’s is a eel, mine’s is a eel. Uncle Nonny, mine’s is a eel.’
Then they bit off the heads and tails, pulled them apart and crammed their mouths full, chewing noisily. When they’d finished they began eating the food their mother had put out for them.
‘Hope Win boxes your ears,’ Aunty said to Nonny as he left, ‘Hope she puts the butcher in the door and shuts you out.’
‘Go on Gloria.’
‘Well, bring her with you next time.’
Nonny went off down the bank laughing.
Outside, the kids sat cross-legged in the yard staring at the comics and when Aunty yelled at them telling them to get and have a wash they didn’t look up or move. Uncle Bobby walked past with a towel round his neck. He spoke to them but they didn’t hear, and when he came back from the tank stand he began jumping up and down and singing while little packets flew out of his pockets and his hands, landing on the ground. It was chewing gum. The kids left their comics and began diving about laughing and shouting. ‘Ha ha, Dadda.’
‘Juicy Fruit.’
‘Spearmint, PK, Arrowmint.’
‘Give some to your cousin,’ Aunty said. So they gave her a Juicy Fruit, a Spearmint, a PK and an Arrowmint — four little packages, like four little presents, tiny parcels perfectly wrapped in waxed paper. There were four ridges in each of the parcels showing the outline of the oblongs of chewing gum inside. Paper labels fitted neatly round each packet telling which was Wrigley’s PK, Wrigley’s Spearmint, Wrigley’s Arrowmint or Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit. She undid the flap on one of the packets and thumbed a piece into her hand, little white pillow, put it into her mouth, sucking the sweet coating, wondering if she was bad.
Manny, Missy and Chumchum chewed noisily, opening their mouths wide and then cracking their teeth together, wide and crack, wide and crack. Aunty was yelling at them to go and have a wash because they were all going to Keita’s, but it took them a long time to move. ‘What about her, she haven’t,’ Missy said, pointing to her. ‘Yeh, she haven’t,’ Chumchum said, screwing up his face and jumping in the air flicking his legs up behind him.
‘Didn’t yesterday too,’ Missy said, ‘She have no wash down the creek yesterday,’ running along the path to the tank stand.
Aunty Gloria went inside and came out with a little bit of warm water in a tin, ‘Come on, May,’ she called. So then she had to go with Aunty Gloria even though she was shy of having a wash outside, didn’t like those cheeky brats pulling faces and not liking her.
She waited until the boys had gone then began to wash herself with awful water, a raggy cloth, a piece of dirty soap. Missy was combing her hair and staring — at her face, at her dress, at her feet
, ‘Makareta got sandals,’ Missy said, and just then Uncle Bobby went past calling, ‘You got any bathroom like this in that place where you live, May? Got any long-drop dunny too?’ He was on his way to the lavatory and he had a comic. He was silly.
Her grandparents’ house was a real house with a glassed-in verandah. Inside there was a real kitchen with green-painted walls, a bench with a sink and tap and a big cupboard with a door on it. Missy and Chummy had been sent to feed the chooks and look for eggs, and Manny had gone to help his father catch a sheep, but she didn’t know what for.
Through the door from the kitchen there was a sitting room with a fireplace, brown armchairs and a sofa with rugs on it. The walls were covered in a mottled yellow and brown wallpaper, and there were curtains made of patches that could have been pieces of dresses sewn together. There were photos in big frames of big, serious people who were all dressed up. On the floor there was a brown and orange mat and a rag rug curling at the corners. She carried Bubba to the sofa and put her down — runny-nosed, dribbly Bubba, asleep, sticky, floppy. Then she helped Aunty Gloria to drag the mats outside.
When they’d done that Aunty asked her to go and open the bedroom windows.
The windows were fastened by long rods, which she undipped, lifted up and slid back through a square eye. The rods had holes that fitted nicely over little pegs to hold the windows open. There were three bedrooms, and as she was opening the windows of the third one Missy came in and opened the wardrobe doors, ‘Makareta got four dress,’ she said. ‘Two in her bag and two here.’
‘Get out of there Missy,’ her mother called. ‘Keep out your cousin’s stuff.’
‘Got slippers and shoes, a idledown and a pillow. Got a drawer with ribbon in it, long hair. Got Kui Hinemate for to wash her and for to do her hair.’
‘Come out, Missy, leave your cousin’s things. Get and bang the mats.’
Outside, her cousin skipped across the yard to a shed with a log for a step and a block swivelling on a nail that kept the door shut. Missy flicked the block and pushed the door open and inside there was a bath, two wooden tubs and a copper. Lined up against one wall were gumboots and big shoes. Baskets and old coats hung on nails high up. She and Missy banged the mats on the side of the shed and took them back in.
Aunty Gloria was rolling a big ball of dough on the table — rolling, folding and pressing — and when they went out again, Uncle Bobby, Manny and Chum were coming across the paddock. Her uncle had an animal with no head and four feetless legs on his shoulder. Chummy was dawdling behind him with the animal head and Manny was running with knives. She watched her uncle push wire through the neck of the meat animal and hang it from the branch of a tree. He took a knife from Manny and began whipping it on a steel. ‘Got any butcher shop like this where you come from, May?’ and he laughed, drawing the knife down the pinkish flesh of the animal. She hurried inside.
The ball of dough was in a pot on the table and Aunty was tipping watercress into the sink. Chummy came in behind her, poking the animal head at her. ‘Put it on the bench,’ his mother said.
Hungry, and the food smelt good. The kids were all doing something, knew what to do — getting things, setting the table, bringing in wood, stoking the fire, wiping Bubba, sometimes sulking and stamping their feet on the boards because they were hungry. As they went by they snorted down their noses at her because she was standing there doing nothing and they didn’t like her. Uncle Bobby was lighting the lamps and candles. In the yellow light he looked sad and serious.
Far away there were lights bobbing, of two torches. And going towards the two lights was another. It was Uncle Bobby with a lamp going out to help. His light jiggled as he hurried in the dark, getting closer to them — Uncle Bobby with a lamp, them with their torches. Him getting closer to them, them getting closer to him. All getting closer to each other. Then all of them together. There was a pause, then the three lights moved again, coming across the paddocks. Soon voices were heard, then footsteps and the heavy sounds of bundles, bags and shoes being put down. Aunty and the kids had gone out and left her there at the window with the candle. She was too shy to go out and thought it was silly to call grandparents Keita and Wi. Wi sounded like a bad word.
A young man and a young woman came in. The man was carrying a baby wrapped in a red blanket and he had the lantern, which he put on the bench. He was tall and thin, brown like shoes and doors. He had Aunty Gloria’s face. He put the baby down on the sofa. The woman was thin too, fawn-coloured, and her eyes stuck out. She wore her hair long, kept back from her face with clips. The woman came over and kissed her, and when the man had put the baby down he came and kissed her too. She wasn’t used to it and couldn’t look at them.
A girl went through into a bedroom without noticing her, a girl with long plaits tied with white ribbons, wearing a blue coat and a white beret.
After the girl, a small woman, wearing a black suit and a black and white headscarf came in and stood just inside the doorway. She had a dark brown, round face and black-rimmed glasses. In the light of the lamp the glasses seemed to be her eyes. Behind her was an older woman, tall and yellowy with a coloured blanket wrapped about under her armpits. Her eyes were like two burnt holes.
The women turned towards her and began calling and making high crying sounds that terrified her so that she wanted to run.
‘Come and greet your grandmothers, May,’ Aunty Gloria said coming in behind the women. ‘Your grandmothers Keita and Hinemate.’ And the little woman held on to her, crying, wetting her, making strange noises. Didn’t like it. Then the little woman let her go and the other woman took her by the shoulders and pushed her nose on to her nose, keeping it there while she wailed and cried. There were tears falling down all over her. She was wet and scared and wanted to go home.
At last the old woman released her and went towards the bedroom. Aunty Gloria came and sat her down and wiped her face. ‘Don’t worry, May,’ she said.
When Keita came back into the kitchen she seemed a different person. She had changed her clothes and uncovered her hair, which was springy and black, and she moved briskly, taking up the lamp to stare at her. ‘Huh, so they let you come … Well, Mata, not as good-looking as your mother but you got her eyes and her hair. Big like her too. Hope you’re not stubborn like your mother.’
‘Called May,’ Aunty Gloria said. ‘They call her May.’
‘Called Mata, nothing else,’ Keita said. ‘That’s just the father dipping his paddle in because he never wanted her to have her great-grandmother’s name in the first place. Huh, even though he had no family to offer. But it’s one thing my daughter was stubborn about, she gave her daughter my first mother’s name. Do you hear that, Daughter’s Daughter, it’s Mata, nothing else. He didn’t want any Maori name or any Maori daughter for that matter, or wife. Only wanted a slave for him and a prospect of land.’
Aunty Gloria was talking at the same time as Keita, in a quiet voice as though she wanted to cover what Keita was saying. ‘Your own name from your great grandmother that died when Keita was born. Your real name. It’s all right, Mata, when you get used to it.’ Then as Keita finished speaking Aunty Gloria said, ‘Help me, Mata dear, get their kai on the table.’
Uncle Bobby and a tall, wheezy man came in. ‘Daughter,’ the tall man said as Aunty Gloria went to greet him, then he said, ‘Daughter’s daughter?’
‘Yes, it’s Mata,’ her aunty said.
‘Come and kiss your grandfather, Mata Pairama.’
She didn’t want to but she went to him and he held her close to him. He had a prickly face and a rough jacket. She wasn’t used to it and wanted to pull away.
And wasn’t used to people calling her Mata. It didn’t sound like a real name at all, even though Aunty Gloria said it had already belonged to someone a long time ago. Now her grandfather had called her by a different last name as well, not Palmer. They were saying she wasn’t May Palmer but Mata Something. She seemed to be changing into someone else, not being herself
anymore, forgetting things. She hadn’t read her scriptures and couldn’t remember what she’d been told, couldn’t remember what Jean, Margaret and Colleen looked like. At the Home she would’ve been talking to Jean and helping to bath Margaret and Colleen, whose faces she couldn’t remember. She could remember something about them though — their bodies were white and shivery, and Margaret had hairy arms but Colleen didn’t. They both had veiny wrists and were veiny and shivery behind the knees.
Aunty Gloria gave her a bowl of food to put on the table and the kids came in and sat up at the table by their grandfather, who was buttering bread for them. They were looking sideways at their mother, who pulled a funny, secret face at them. All the grown-ups had begun talking to each other in a strange language.
‘Mata, your cousin Makareta,’ Aunty Gloria said. The girl was there, a little taller than herself, wide body, fat face, dark brown skin, eyes brown and round. Her plaits had been brushed out and her hair fell in waves down to the backs of her knees. Pompom slippers and a blue dressing gown. The granny came in behind her, and her old, honeyish face, set with its two black eyes, was framed by thin white hair that had been done in two short plaits that rested forward of her shoulders. The girl Makareta leaned and kissed her as they were introduced but didn’t say anything. Then the old woman turned Makareta away, talking to her in the different language. She didn’t know if the girl had a mother, or if the mother had gone away or died. Makareta ate tidily while the granny talked on and on in a low voice.
That night she slept on the floor at one end of a mattress while Missy and Chumchum slept at the other end. They didn’t want her there and they stayed awake for a time complaining.
At the Home she had a bed of her own next to Colleen, who slept under the blankets where she hid to suck her thumb. Next to Colleen was Margaret, who slept with her eyelids half open so you saw the whites of her eyes. White-eyes Margaret. There were little green birds with white rings in their eyes that came hanging and picking and flicking in the hedges sometimes, filling the hedges with tiny, white, moving eyes. Jean was in the corner bed where light came in through the cracks in the blinds — light from the street lamps, as well as sweeping light from the cars and trucks that went by. Last night Aunty Gloria had cuddled her to sleep and it was like having her own mother. She could hear Missy and Chumchum grinding their teeth in the dark.
Cousins Page 4