Cousins

by Patricia Grace

  For an hour they sat in the dark on the railway platform before they heard the station master coming. ‘Ho,’ he said as he went by them and in through the door. They could hear his noisy breathing. The station lights came on.

  Soon afterwards they heard the train coming. They saw the big light beaming on to the track as it pulled in, squealing and steaming.

  Aperehama and Wi went ahead of her into the train with the bags and pillows, and as Makareta stepped up into the carriage with Keita, Kui was beginning to cry again, her crying becoming a wail, ‘Our daughters don’t come back,’ she was calling. ‘Our children go, they never return.’

  ‘She’ll be all right,’ Wi said as he and Aperehama stowed the bags and put the pillows down. The two men hugged her quickly then left the train as the whistle sounded.

  The engine began to shoulder along, leaving behind the patch of light where, looking back, she could see Wi and Aperehama holding onto the old woman, putting a rug round her. She watched out of the window until they were out of sight and there was only the dark, passing countryside, the black paddocks and hills, the black shapes of houses and the occasional thin gleam of fence wires.

  ‘I felt bad leaving her. From the window of the train she looked so old and so small that I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t help feeling that I was doing something wrong.

  ‘She tried so hard to let me come, fussing round and getting me ready this last month — sewing all the labels on the clothes after we received the parcels from you, taking the hem up on the basketball gym so that it is now the regulation “three inches above the knees when kneeling”. I felt sorry watching her, with her old eyesight, stitching such dark cloth, but we had to let her do it. The house gym, best gym, blazer and blouses were just right, Mum, and needed no alteration.

  ‘And she decided I would need six pillows for the train journey so that I could sleep comfortably and not get my new uniform creased. (She’s very proud of the uniform. So am I, even though it’s so hot for this time of the year.) She made six new pillowslips with frills all round the edges. So we had to take six pillows with us. We were very comfortable on the train. (Also I was very glad to have the pillows for somewhere to hide my tomato eyes. Keita kept telling me not to cry, because my eyes would stick out like ripe tomatoes. They did.) But at the end of the journey we had a real struggle with our luggage. I don’t know how Keita managed the pillows on her way home.

  ‘The food that Kui packed for our journey was enough for smoko for a shearing gang. It cheered me up. At Taumarunui we had scummy railway coffee that was dark and hot and sweet. (Scummy is a new word that I’ve learned. I don’t know whether Miss Jamieson would approve of it.) I think of Miss Jamieson and Mr Davis, Mum. They were very good to me. I think of you too.’

  ‘There, Daughter,’ Keita said, nodding towards the window when she came into the carriage with the coffee. Looking out, Makareta saw a tall girl, older than herself, wearing the uniform, her short hair curling up under the brim of an old, yellowy panama. The girl was hurrying through the crowd with sandwiches and drinks, laughing at someone who was calling from a window in the next carriage.

  ‘You’ll be home at Easter, home in May and August and at Christmas time,’ Keita said as they settled themselves again. ‘And you and Kui will be bending your heads over all your new books, talking about all the new things you’ve been doing. She’ll have letters from you while you’re away and she’ll be all excited.’

  ‘She’s old now. She needs me.’

  ‘Time goes quickly when you’re old,’ Keita said, pausing and watching out of the window into the dark for a while. Then she said, ‘You have a good life when you have a good education. You marry an educated man and your life is good.’

  Makareta sat up from the pillows where she’d been resting, almost asleep. ‘Keita, I don’t want to marry anyone.’

  ‘Of course not, Daughter. Of course you don’t, you’re only a little girl.’

  The Limited shot through the dark hooping and huffing. People slept or moved about. The door clanked open at the other end of the carriage and the guard came through collecting the dishes and cutlery.

  ‘Two girls from my school spoke to us when we got off the train. (We’d seen one of them on the station at Taumarunui.) The older one was a senior student called Raiha, the other was a fourth former called Puna. (They both had their panama elastic under their hair at the back of their heads, so I did that too. It was much more comfortable than having it under the chin.) They asked us if we wanted to share a taxi with them, but we had too much luggage, Mum. The driver couldn’t take us all, so we had to get two taxis in the end.

  ‘Most of the girls know each other (of course) and there was plenty of excitement as everyone started arriving. I felt nervous and very homesick but tried not to show it. There were girls leaning over the balcony calling to friends, and much kissing and hugging and talking about the holidays, exam results, families — and whisperings about the teachers, their new clothes, hairstyles, etc. Miss Green, the headmistress, is the one who has the nicest legs! Oh Mum, they talk about such funny things.

  ‘There were girls to show us (the new ones) round, and to tell us what to do, and prefects checking clothing to see that it was all named. We are allowed to wear lisle stockings in the summer now, Mum, instead of these prickly, woollen ones. Do you think you could send me some, please? Fifth formers are now allowed to wear black nylons. I’ve been told that one or two of the girls at the end of last year drew lines (like stocking seams) down the backs of their bare legs and no one could tell that they weren’t wearing stockings. None of the teachers noticed. There was a smell of sweaty suitcases, shoe polish, floor polish and soap on that first day — and something else. Girls!

  ‘This place is so enormous that I’m having difficulty finding my way round. There’s a long corridor with a dining room at one end and bedrooms at the other — dormitories. There are twenty girls to each dorm.

  ‘In the bathroom there are three baths (with animals’ feet), three showers and fourteen wash basins. There is plenty of water here, but even so, we are only allowed six inches to bath in (twice a week). There are flush lavatories, of course, noisier than yours, Mum. I’m beginning to get used to the noise of them.

  ‘Being unable to sleep on the train, and on the first night in the dorm spending half the night thinking of you all and worrying about Kui, I was a wreck (new word) on the first morning. (I tried not to cry but there were sniffles and snuffles going on all round me, which kept setting me off.) Also there’s such a lot of light here at night-time!’

  In the mirror there was a girl with tomato eyes and awful hair. She put the mirror back into her dormitory bag, dabbed her face with her flannel and began brushing. But there was no time. Breakfast was in ten minutes, eight minutes, six minutes, the older girls kept reminding them. They’d been shown how to make their beds — mattresses flat and neat, blankets tucked and corners mitred, pillows turned so that the pillowcase openings faced away from the door.

  Two minutes. Her hair wasn’t done. It took a half an hour to do her hair — sitting on her special stool, Kui brushing down with long, slow strokes of the brush, talking on and on about the birds, the berries, babies, the relatives, the old ones, the ancestors, the kehua, the work, the walking, the dancing and singing, the sickness, the dreams, the wars, the stars, the waiting.

  ‘You’ll have to tie it back,’ Raiha said. ‘Here, give us your ribbon. Tie it back, just for breakfast. Do it properly after.’ There was a bell ringing and everyone was going towards the door.

  She hurried with Raiha along the corridor to the dining room, where they stood by their chairs waiting for grace to be said. ‘Eat everything,’ Raiha said, ‘or you’ll starve.’

  ‘The first morning’s the time you see all the red eyes at breakfast,’ the girl next to her said as they sat down. ‘You’re not the only one.’

  ‘Trouble with her hair,’ Raiha said. ‘Not enough time.’

  ‘Give
me one butter and I’ll do your hair,’ the girl said, and the others at the table laughed. ‘Eat some toast, Makareta, if you don’t want to starve.’

  When they went back to the dormitory Raiha took the comb from her and ran the tip of it down the back of her head, dividing the hair and draping half of it over one shoulder. ‘I had long hair too,’ she said as she began plaiting, ‘but not as long as yours. I got sick of it but I wasn’t allowed to get it cut. So, know what I did? I chopped it with the scissors. Just one side. Gosh, Mum gave me a good hiding. Left me like that for two days. Showed me to all my aunties, who cried, and to all my uncles, who laughed. Then she took me to town to the hairdressers to get it cut, short like this. Easy. But Mum didn’t like those hairdressers having my hair!’

  Raiha’s fingers moved swiftly down one side and then the other, then twisted the bands on and tied the ribbons. ‘Got to hurry now,’ she said. ‘Things to do. Look on your list, see what you have to bring and I’ll come back and walk with you. Put water on your eyes. Nearly bell-time, Makareta.’

  Makareta moved the little mirror from side to side. Raiha’s plaiting was tight and even. About her, everyone was busy brushing clothes, shining shoes, moving in and out of the washroom, staring at lists. At home Manny, Missy and the others would be running through the trees to school, along the track where the ferns were ticklish and cool on bare legs. And at school someone would mark the roll for the teacher, put new chalk on the ledge, inspect the duties and tick them off in the notebook as they were completed. She dabbed her eyes with her flannel. ‘Come on,’ Raiha said. ‘Got everything?’

  ‘It was so embarrassing that first morning, Mum, standing by my bed with my brush in my hand and realising that I had never once in my life done my own hair. I felt awful and it was lucky that Raiha so kindly helped me. That night I sat up in bed and practised brushing and plaiting. When the lights went out (eight o’clock for third formers) I was still practising. You should have made me do my hair myself Mum, when I came for the holidays, instead of spoiling me the way Kui does. But it’s all right, I can do it now. I get quicker each day. We get up at half-past six and only have half an hour to make our beds, tidy up and get ready for breakfast. (We have porridge and toast for breakfast, and our own bits of butter. Girls swap things for butter.)

  ‘There are points for the way your bed is made and for other duties too. At the end of the year there is a housekeeping cup. I’m in Kahikatea and have a green badge to pin on to my gym. The other houses are Puriri, Matai, Kauri and Rata. In two week’s time there are to be house sports and I’m certainly not looking forward to that. You know what I’m like when it comes to sports — very uninterested and very lazy.

  ‘Raiha is our house captain. She is also my “big sister” (every third former or new girl has an older girl to look after her) so I’m lucky.

  ‘We have all sorts of stews for tea, except for Mondays and Fridays, when we have fish. Last Thursday at lunchtime we had something green. I think it was curried peas! Have you heard of having frog’s eggs and dead man’s ears for pudding?

  ‘I’ve written to Kui twice, and I’ve had a letter from Aunty Gloria telling me that Kui is all right. She (Kui) has been over the hill visiting the other old ones so that she can show my letters to them. I can just see her walking up and down the hill tracks talking to the birds. And I can just hear the old ones, gossiping and gossiping, like old birds too. I hope that Aunty Gloria is not saying that Kui is all right just to make me happy. I’ve told Kui not to lift the water tins and that if she needs water she must use the little pot to get it out with.’

  There were things not to tell Kui.

  Makareta stoked the coppers as the water came to the boil, and Jenny and Puna came with the tub of clothes that they’d all been soaping and rubbing on the boards before rinsing and wringing. The girls began loosening the clothes and letting them into the boiling water. After this last lot had been boiled and put through a final rinse there’d be just the sanitary cloths to do. The Kui inside her was clicking her tongue.

  She went over to the big wooden tub to help Trish, who had already started tipping water from the buckets where the cloths, already rinsed under the tap by those who had used them, were now soaking. The girls turned the taps on hard then began wringing the cloths ready for the coppers. By the time they’d finished Jenny and Puna had started lifting the boiled clothes out with the copper sticks and Tahi and Raiha were coming in from the clotheslines. Laundry duty was the most unpopular of duties, but Makareta preferred it to doing dishes or tidying the grounds.

  On Saturdays they cleaned the school from top to bottom — something else she didn’t write to Kui about. She found that she enjoyed getting into overalls, being part of a team and scrubbing down tables and shelves, wet mopping and polishing floors, cleaning the ledges, washing the windows with wet newspapers. She was getting better at it and found that if she talked inside herself as she worked, the tutting and chirking would soon stop. It was easy enough to tease Kui and make her smile.

  ‘When we want clean clothes we line up at the clothing room and give our number to whoever is on duty and tell her what we need. Every afternoon we hand in our daytime ties and girdles and are given our dress ties and belts to put on. I’ve got an ordinary belt at the moment but have started making my taniko belt, which should be finished in a week or two. I’m doing a fern pattern, part of a leaf. I’m pleased with it. We have waiata practice once a week and I’ve learned some new songs and a poi.

  ‘I’m all right, Mum. I like it here. I’m in the top class and not having difficulty with any of the work. Many of the girls are scholarship holders, like me. I’m pleased to be learning written Maori because I think that if I write to Kui in Maori she’ll be able to read my letters by herself. I’ve taught her to read a little in English but I know she would find Maori easier. I’m sure Keita or Girlie will help her. Every Sunday at two o’clock is letter-writing time (compulsory), but it’s not long enough for me. I have so many letters to write and you know how I like to keep writing on and on.

  ‘Did I tell you that our English teacher has blue hair? It’s from something she puts in the rinsing water when she washes it. The girls are so funny, Mum, with some of the things they say. But I quite like the blue hair. It matches Miss McAloon’s blue eyes and goes with the clothes that she wears.’

  Twenty-eight

  The headmistress rang me in the night because she’d had a call from Keita to say that Makareta must be sent home to be with her great-grandmother, who is dying. Miss Green wanted me to persuade Keita to let Makareta stay on at school for another two days so that she could sit her last exam. The Scholarship Board wouldn’t approve of Makareta leaving before final examinations have been completed, Miss Green said. But Hinemate’s dying is not something that should be kept from Makareta, even for a day or an hour. Also I’m sure the exam subjects she has sat already will be enough to get her through.

  I have missed my daughter greatly over the four years since she started boarding school and has been unable to come to me for the holidays, but it is only right that she should have spent the time with her old people. There is time yet for me. Her letters have given me happiness.

  I moved into Alma’s house during the last months of my friend’s life so that I could care for her properly. We have lived here since, Halfmoon and I, her only beneficiaries. Ben and his new wife are in the other house, and the children share themselves between us.

  Now it is Hinemate who is going on ahead of us all. Makareta has sensed it already. Her letters during this, the last term of her school years, have been unlike other letters, as she waits, noting off the days.

  ‘Time and silence, long silence and heavy time, wax and varnish smell of floors and walls, and windows open letting in heavy air. There’s Mr Meihana in his shirt-sleeves with his tie loosened, his voice distant, low and heavy.

  ‘I go over the work again and again but nothing changes. There is no more that I can find to do to help make t
omorrow or the next day come, nothing saved that can be mixed with time, to lighten it, set it going, make it float and swirl, (except for writing to you, my mother, as I do at this moment). I think of rewena bread and ripe plums, watercress, ferns, the creek, the cool track, and birds. I think of Kui.

  ‘Brown speckles on a creamy-coloured fountain pen are the colours of the egg of piwaiwaka that follow her wherever she goes, talking. Gold nib worn down on one side to accommodate language. How many words have I written — class work, homework, tests and exams, letters? (In Stephens’ Radiant Blue, which reminds me always of Alma’s eyes.)

  ‘An exercise book, this last one before me, is filled with exercises and translations, ruled off in red. Red pencil is down to its last three inches. Other books and belongings are packed and ready.

  ‘My room at home has a wax smell too. Rag mat. Patch quilt. Faded wallpaper, a patched tear behind the door, sacking showing through. There’s a burnt smell on the cracking windowsill, on the flaking paint. Kui will have waxed the door and washed the curtains (carefully because they’re old and fragile).

  ‘I’ve had a letter from Aunty Gloria telling me of Keita and Wi’s visits up north. According to Aunty, not a word was said to anyone as to what the visits were about. I know Keita has land there, as she has in other places too, land or shares. She has land on all sides — her mother’s, her father’s, and when Kui dies there’ll be that land as well. She says that the reason she has so much land is because she’s the weed that survived the wars, the hard times and the flu epidemic. She was the one left to inherit. I’ve accompanied her on many occasions, as you know, to gatherings and court hearings, all to do with land. She’s always fought to get the land tied down hard, and I don’t suppose there’s a pinch of dirt that has ever slipped through her fingers. I know that her visits away are always something to do with land.