After a long time she heard movement on the step and the door handle turned. ‘Mum,’ she called.
‘Not Mum.’
‘Mum.’
‘It’s Keita, Little Daughter, and your uncle too.’
‘Keita, Keita.’ She jumped down from the chair and ran to her grandmother, telling her something in such a jumble of words that her grandmother couldn’t understand what she was saying.
‘Now, now, never mind,’ Keita said. ‘Show Keita the curtains and the light. Tell Keita where your mummy is. Show me where your clothes are so we can pack them in a bag.’
Twenty-three
I was worried about Makareta, who would be at home waiting for me. Cissie had been taken into hospital the night before and I’d come to look after the children until Elen came home from work. He’d said that he’d be home by four, but it was after five now and I realised I wouldn’t see him until after the pubs closed at six.
Makareta and I had stayed with Cissie and Ben for two months after arriving in Wellington. They were not happy days for Makareta, who kept talking about Kui Hinemate and asking to go home. She was unhappy at school too, didn’t like children she said, and didn’t want to be called Marguerita. I didn’t want her to be called Marguerita either, remembering that I had lost my own name when I first went to school, but I tried to comfort her. ‘It’s just a school name because Makareta is too difficult for the teachers to say,’ I said, ‘but you’re still Makareta.’ I had wanted her to go to a big school, where I thought there would be more for her — more children who were clever, children who spoke good English. Now she was so unhappy I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake in coming to the city to live.
But then there were Cissie and her children. They needed me. My sister’s condition was worse than I’d thought and the children were pale and always crying. I did the best I could, stretching my widow’s pension to pay for rent and food that Cissie never seemed to have money for. I used our ration coupons in the best way I could to get what was needed for ourselves and the children.
At the end of two months Cissie seemed much better and I decided I would try to find somewhere nearby to live, believing that once we had a place of our own Makareta would settle down.
But it wasn’t easy to find a place. Makareta and I went together in answer to ‘To Let’ advertisements only to find ourselves turned away. Sometimes doors would be slammed on us before I’d had time to speak. At other times we were shown sheds, cold basements, or leaking rooms without heat or water. Then we met the parrot lady.
One Saturday morning we called at a house three blocks away in answer to a notice we’d seen in the paper. I was about to knock on the door when a window opened and a man called, ‘It’s been let already,’ and banged the window down again.
I was hurrying away, pulling Makareta by the hand, when from across the road I heard a woman’s voice call, ‘Hoy, hoy,’ as though she could be calling me, but I put my head down and kept on walking. Then I heard the voice again, ‘Hoy, hoy, Maori lady with the little girl.’ So I looked up and saw a small face looking over a gate, and a pale hand above the gate, waving, ‘Hoy, hoy. Cross over. Come, cross over.’
So I crossed and looked into a little, grey, old face, and into two eyes as blue as flags. ‘Now come in, come in the gate, I’ve got a place for you,’ the woman said. ‘They don’t like a Maori woman to rent their house, but I’ve got a place for you and your little girl … And your husband. Now where’s your husband, dear?’
‘Killed overseas,’ I said.
‘They don’t like a woman with no husband, but don’t you worry. Inside, dears. Follow me.’
She led us along the path to her house, turning her head from side to side, talking back over one shoulder then the other. ‘You can have a little sit down and a rest first, and a cup of tea and shortbread. Then I’ll take you and show you the house I’ve got for you. Don’t you worry at all.’
We followed her through shrubbery and up some steps on to a verandah where there was a row of empty cages hanging from wire hooks.
‘I was just cleaning them when I saw you at the house over the road and heard what was going on,’ she said. ‘Come in now and don’t you worry. You’ll see, little girl, there’s a surprise.’
We went along a dark passage until the woman stopped by a door. She turned the handle slowly, opening the door just a little. ‘In,’ she said, and went through the gap in the partly opened door, leading us through.
As we entered there was a loud screeching. Wide shadows came beating down from the ceiling and Makareta leapt up into my arms as the woman closed the door behind us. ‘Naughty girls, naughty fellows,’ she called, waving her arms.
‘Hello, hello, hoy, hoy,’ the parrots replied as they returned to perch in different parts of the room.
‘That’s better, that’s better now,’ the woman said. ‘There, little girl, you see. It’s all my naughty friends.’
Makareta lifted her head from my shoulder and looked about at the sidling parrots that eyed us from their perches, then buried her head again. ‘Come on then, mother; come on, little girl, we’ll go and have that cup of tea and the shortbread. Then I’ll show you the place.’
She opened the door, flapping her arms at the birds as they launched themselves at the gap again. We were led through to a bright kitchen, of parrot colours, where we were sat down on red chairs at a yellow, oval table.
‘Visitors,’ she said, as she made tea for us in a silver teapot. ‘This is my teapot for visitors — but I never have any visitors because people think I’m mad in the head.’ She spread an embroidered cloth on which bonneted, crinolined girls with watering cans walked along garden paths sprinkling tall flowers. ‘It’s my sister’s cloth,’ she said. ‘She was the one who did work like this. She was the embroidery one. I’m the patchwork one.’ Then she went out of the room and came back with fine china cups, saucers and plates, which she said were visitors’ things too, and she stood on a chair to take a red tin from a high, blue shelf. ‘I still make shortbread since my sister died,’ she said. ‘I have to save my butter and sugar rations until I have enough to make just a few pieces. My name’s Alma. Tell me if you have milk. Tell me your names.’
‘I’m Polly. This is Makareta. Yes, milk please.’
‘Tell me the little girl’s name again.’
‘Makareta.’
‘There you are, Polly; there you are, Makareta. Have sugar now and some shortbread. Naughty birds frightening a little girl like that, but they won’t hurt you, no.
‘Dears, my sister and I came to live in this house after the first war. We lived here for ten years together but we always quarrelled. Do you know why? Because she liked cats and I liked birds. But we solved it. We bought another house, six doors down, for my sister and her cats to live in and I stayed here with my birds.
‘Every Wednesday we had turns at visiting each other like real visitors, with silver teapots and pretty cups, and shortbread on a special plate. I’m the shortbread one. Her speciality was caraway cake. On Sundays we would have roast dinners together and we never quarrelled again. But my sister died a year ago, and now, Polly, Makareta, I have two houses. I wouldn’t let anyone else have my sister’s house. Why should I when they won’t even say good morning and they teach their children to run away from me? Why should I when they killed my sister’s cats? They don’t like a woman without a husband. They don’t like old sisters who keep cats and birds.
‘But you can have the house, you and your little girl. All the cats have gone. I went one morning to feed them and they weren’t there. I called them but they didn’t come. After a while I found them, all dead, in my sister’s slit-trench in the back yard. I don’t know who did it, but never mind that now. Have some more shortbread Makareta, I can see what a dear little girl you are.’
When we’d finished tea Alma took us along the street to a small house and showed us inside. ‘It’s rickety,’ she said, ‘but it’s got a fireplace so you can be warm,
and there’s furniture, just ordinary and plain. I’ve taken my sister’s cutlery, crockery and linen from the cupboards but I’ll put it back again. I won’t charge you too much, dear, because I’ve got so much money. Oodles. Money and cheeky parrots, that’s what I’ve got. I had canaries and budgies too, but now it’s just the parrots, naughty parrots.’ I could see that the house would be just right for Makareta and me.
I knew that I should’ve arranged for Makareta to go to Alma’s place after school instead of trusting Ben to be home in time, but Makareta didn’t like going to Alma’s. The parrots had got into her dreams. In her dreams they waited under beds and chairs or waddled about the house following her. Outside they walked the roads and footpaths along with the children who, on their way to school, spun themselves, twirling their bags, or ran one behind the other making noises like trains. I felt unhappy when Makareta told me her dreams. I didn’t know what to do except hope that things would get better soon.
She would be waiting for me, frightened, and I knew I couldn’t wait any longer for Ben. I put jerseys on the children, tied some clothes and blankets into a bundle and went downstairs to ring a taxi.
It was when the taxi turned into our street that I saw Wi’s truck parked on the road outside my house and knew that they had come for Makareta. I ran into the house calling to Keita not to take her. ‘Mummy, Mummy, they’ve come,’ Makareta said as I went in. Her clothes were ready in a bag.
‘We came and found her alone,’ Keita said.
‘Cissie’s in hospital,’ I said. ‘I had to look after the children. But it’s all right now, it’ll be all right. I’ve brought the children with me.’
‘Well, Polly, you’re quite right,’ Keita said. ‘Your sister’s sick so you have to help her.’
‘Don’t take her, Keita.’
‘Of course we won’t take our granddaughter if she doesn’t want to come.’
‘Aperehama’s come in the truck,’ Makareta said. ‘Keita’s taking me home.’
Twenty-four
So I had to say goodbye to my Makareta, and when it was found that Cissie would be in hospital for a long time, I had to organise my life around caring for her children. They were fretful babies, all eyes and bones. Heni was three, Benny was two and Bonnie was nine months. I wanted to do my best for them, always having in mind our cherishing of Makareta, her happy growing, missing her, searching for her face everywhere I went.
Not long after Makareta left, Gloria wrote to me and told me that Anihera was at home dying of tuberculosis and didn’t know where her daughter was. Keita had been to Wellington looking for Mata but hadn’t found her at the school or at the home for children where Anihera thought she might be. In the letter, Gloria asked me if I would try and find her, because Anihera would be happy to die, she said, if only Mata could be found. I knew my life was all right when I compared it to what had happened to Anihera. I had my sister and her children to care for, I was strong enough to do it and my daughter was safe at home.
On most afternoons I would go out looking, taking the children with me. I went first of all to the schools that were within walking distance, then later went by tram or bus to different schools I’d found out about. But my face wasn’t welcome in the corridors or grounds of schools. Little children were not welcome either. I was told that I wasn’t allowed on school property, or that I wasn’t supposed to come into schools making enquiries. Sometimes I would wait by the school gates so that I could watch the children as they came out, but often a teacher would come with a message that I was to go away.
There was a woman I’d met called Awhina who was a trammy, and I asked her to look out for Mata for me. ‘If there’s any Maori face round town I see it,’ Awhina said. ‘Count us on a hand and a foot.’ I loved to watch Awhina clicking her clippers through the tram, swinging out on the steps and in again at the stops, getting out on the road with the crank to switch tracks, or hanging on the ropes when the trolley slipped off the overheads. I was amazed that a Maori woman could have a job like that.
If I could have, I would’ve spent every hour looking for Mata. It was Makareta’s face in my mind as I searched, but it was Anihera I felt for. My life was good compared to hers.
Three months later the war ended. When the sirens went and the bells began to ring I went out to the front gate and watched the people coming out of their houses. ‘The war’s over,’ they were calling. ‘We won the war.’ They were heading for the city, with flags and streamers, to celebrate. Later in the morning Alma came to my door. ‘We’ll go to town and dance in the streets,’ she said.
So we put Bonnie in her pram, sat Heni and Benny on the front of it and joined those already out on the footpaths. Trams went by packed with people who called from the windows and steps that the war was won, the boys would be home, there’d be no more rationing, the lights would be on again.
It was true that there was dancing in the streets. In the city people flooded on to the roads, some drivers abandoning their vehicles to join them. They danced and sang and embraced each other as we made our way along. From the verandah roofs we were showered with confetti, and people came out of the shops with cakes and lollies for the children. ‘Everything’s free,’ a man said, lifting Heni onto his shoulders and walking with us for a while.
Every pub was full to its windows with noisy, singing people. Barrels had been rolled out to the kerbsides and the beer was flowing. As we made our way back, there were broken bottles and patches of vomit to step round, but nothing mattered. In the doorways people kissed and laughed or cried.
The end of the war and Rere was not returning. Children to look after but no Makareta, yet it was a happy day. It was good not to be alone on such a day, to be out in the streets with the crowds and to have a friend with me.
Early the following year the Dominion Monarch came in bringing the 28th Battalion home and we went down to Aotea Wharf, where the ceremonies would be held. It was summer but there was a dark sky and a wind that chopped across the breadth of the harbour, flipping up the white edges of the waves. As the ship came round the point we heard the men’s voices coming to us across the water, and as it came nearer we could see the men on the upper decks and on the high points, clinging to the masts and about the funnels. They were singing their Maori Battalion song.
Alma decided to take the children home after the ship berthed. There would be a long wait while the men disembarked and reassembled for the march down the street. I knew by the size of the waiting crowd that the ceremonies would be prolonged. ‘You stay,’ she said. ‘Seeing the boat come in and hearing the soldiers singing was extraordinary. That was enough for me. But for you? You should stay.’
So I stayed, feeling very much alone after she’d gone. When Rere died, the grief and sorrow that I’d felt had belonged to all of us. I’d had a place, belonged in that grief and was part of something. The loss I’d felt when Keita took Makareta was because of a decision I’d had to make for myself that wasn’t right for my daughter. I’d known my part in it and had known who I was. I was, and always would be, her mother.
But at that time on the crowded wharf I had no belonging, no part in any ceremony, no place in the customs to do with receiving the dead home. I was not a wife, a widow or a bereaved daughter-in-law, but an onlooker, and I realised then that I should’ve returned to be with Keita and the families to receive the deaths of Rere and Hori according to the custom.
As the soldiers came towards the gateway the crying and calling began, the challenger sprang forward to place the baton and the haka groups came stepping and stamping forward while the soldiers came on to the gathering place. Haul home the canoe, the words of the haka said, Haul home the canoe to its beaching place and let it remain here. What a large canoe it was. The hundreds of soldiers came through the gateway and settled themselves for the rituals that would free them from the spirit of war — to be followed by the ceremonies that would welcome them home. I climbed up on to the roof of a small shed where several others were already
gathered and from there was able to see all that took place.
There were iwi there from all over the country, all with their speakers, their chants, their dances and songs. There were trucks coming and going and workers carrying goods into the big wharf sheds where the welcome home feast was being prepared. Trains, which would later take the soldiers to their different destinations, were already lined up on the rails by the wharf side.
I could see Nonny’s family there waiting for him. In the morning they would take him back, bearing the deaths of Rere and Hori home, but I would not be there.
I turned my thoughts back to Cissie in hospital and to the children who would be waiting for me, and began making my way out through the crowd. I thought, as always, of Makareta. She would be down at the wharenui with the grandmothers while the preparations were going on for the homecoming, chatting with the elders in her own serious way, or watching other children play. She would have new clothes for the ceremonies.
Twenty-five
Makareta watched the men light the fire in the pig paddock. Two of the pigs had been shot and Bobby and Aperehama had stuck them between the front legs, letting the blood squirt out into the buckets.
After the pigs had been bled they were put on the fire and turned and rolled from side to side so that the hair burned off, and every so often the men dragged them out of the flames and scraped them with their knives until they were whitish, smoky-looking and clean. Big kids were waiting for the footballs.
She watched the men lift the pigs onto the sheets of corrugated iron where they slit and trimmed them right down, pulling the insides out and cutting away the parts that they wanted and tossing them into a bucket. Wi and Bobby squeezed the mimi out of the bladders and threw them to the kids, who blew them up with straws, tied them with flax strings and ran away to play, the dogs chasing after them. After that the pigs were taken to hang in the shed. It was getting dark.
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