Cousins

by Patricia Grace

  Mama went outside with the dish water and you heard the water swish across the grass, heard the bowl rattle against the side of the house as Mama leaned it. Dadda was out there too and you could hear the two of them whispering. You poked a hole in the paper that covered the wall cracks, pulled it back, put your eye to it but it was too dark to see. Mama and Dadda were out in the grass whispering and breathing, whispering and breathing, the grass whispering too. Whispering and breathing, breathing, breathing.

  Thirty-five

  You went along the bank with Manny and Chum to a place where the creek was wide but shallow, turning the stones, peering into the mud until the water cleared, picking out koura one by one. Picked them up behind the heads, holding hard into where the pinchers joined so you wouldn’t get nipped. And when the tin was full you came out of the water and tipped them on to flattened rushes in a clear place where Dadda had chopped the manuka down.

  When you had come there with him in the weekend this place had been your house. There had been a roof of trees then and you hadn’t been able to see the sky at all. ‘My house,’ you’d said, going from room to room, but Manny and Chummy hadn’t taken any notice. Instead they’d watched Dadda stoning the axe, spitting on the stone, sliding it over the silver eyebrow of the axe. Quiet house with a wet-tree smell.

  In your house you’d watched Dadda swing the axe back and down, cracking it low into the tree’s leg, jigging it out again, swinging back, then hitting again, making a red smile in the leg of the tree. Cut, cut, fast into the smile. The tree cracked and Dadda had pushed it with one hand so that it fell, swishing down through other tree branches, hitting the ground, tossing and rolling. After that when you’d looked up, there was sky. Your house with all its walls falling.

  You’d helped Dadda to drag the branches out into the clearing and he’d sent you all home with them. Returning for more, you’d passed him bringing the trunks on his shoulders. His face and clothes were wet, his neck was tight like a bundle of bull-rushes, he had bits of tree in his hair and he was lifting his eyebrows at you.

  ‘Manny, Missy, Chum,’ our mother called, and you ran along the tracks thinking of scaring May with the koura. There was something you wanted to ask Mama about Dadda.

  ‘Yaar,’ Manny shouted, poking the tin under our cousin’s nose then taking a koura and chasing her with it. Our cousin ran, leaving Bubba to cry, running to Mama in the creek holding her clothes tight round her. Mama was wild with all of you.

  Later you helped Manny to cook the koura, dropping them into the water, where they quickly turned pink. You watched as the colour deepened and when they were red enough Manny moved the tin to the edge of the fire with a stick and toppled it. There you all are, picking, cracking, tossing from hand to hand, scratching for tiny bits, huffing and blowing, looking through your eyelashes to see if May will eat, but she won’t. Soon gone, and you’re hungry still.

  ‘Mama, Mama, is it paying day?’

  Mama was picking up the water tins and starting up the hill. ‘Bring the watercress,’ she said.

  ‘Is it paying day?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Dadda coming? When …?’

  ‘How would I know?’

  You picked up the watercress and followed after her. ‘When?’

  ‘Keep quiet. Shut up about Dadda,’ she said.

  That night you all sat up in bed waiting, counting to a thousand so you wouldn’t fall asleep before bugger Dadda came home, but kept losing your way in the numbers. ‘Pinch ourself,’ Manny said. So you began pinching yourselves, and each other, to keep awake. After a while your fingers loosened, nails wouldn’t dig, eyelids dropped. You went to sleep criss-crossed over one another like a bunch of scissors.

  ‘I’m as free as the breeze,’ our father sang, dancing into the yard, but you were all eyes-down on comics, wouldn’t hear, wouldn’t see.

  I can do as I please

  What’s to stop me and why

  Open road

  Open sky.

  And as he danced chewing gum began to fly everywhere. That brought all your eyes up, brought you to your feet. You left the comics and went running about the yard picking, picking, calling don’t swallow. Don’t swallow chewing gums or they stick on your rungs.

  Ringa ringa pakia,

  Waewae takahia

  Ringa ringa i torona

  Kei waho hoki mai.

  Our father arm slicing, hip cutting, dancing on his bandy, silly legs.

  Turi whatia

  Hope whai ake

  Hei hei

  Hei ha.

  Thirty-six

  Old woman

  Rotting

  Gave an enchanted

  Bone.

  A the top you climbed on to the drum, looking down the long slope, wondering if you could. You spread your toes, gripping the drum’s curved surface, bent your knees and worked forward to the edge.

  Over.

  At first you had it, walking it down, toes through to heels, thrusting the drum, getting faster, eyeing ahead down the slope, looking out for the holes and stones and ridges, riding them, beginning to fast foot on the rocking drum. But the worst bump was coming up fast. Could you?

  You hit and flew — outwards, sideways. Smacked like a board against the hard hillside.

  It was like night and day coming and going, star time without breath or sound. There you were pulling for breath, like fighting a way up from a deep creek hole, like reaching and pulling the water surface down over you, pulling, pulling, until at last you gasped, until at last your ears caught sounds. ‘Ha ha, Missy. Sweeta like-a lolla.’ Hear it?

  When at last you sat, pulling your knees into the circle of your arms, Jacko and Manny were both spreadarmed over the drum, arguing.

  Over in Keita’s yard the aunties and uncles who had come to see Mata were passing tobacco, lighting up, laughing, talking, yack yack yack, talking Maori. ‘Missy,’ Makareta had said in the icy school playground, ‘don’t tell the teachers about Kui and me.’

  At the beginning of winter Mama had fixed a cardigan for you — darned the elbows, sewn on buttons and rolled the sleeves up. On the morning of the hard frost you’d done up the buttons and unrolled the sleeves so that they dangled, covering your hands, then you’d gone running through the stiffened grass and poroporo to the top of the bank, flapping. No hands.

  From the bank you’d seen the white paddocks and the icy banks and ridges, and across the first paddock, like a chain, were Manny’s footprints. He was running over the brittle ground with his white breath streaming. You saw him stop at the beginning of the school track, hopping from foot to foot by the creek, bending, picking up stones.

  You ran, with your own white breath pouring about you, Chumchum behind you, slapping his arms, hissing, calling out to you.

  At the creek Manny was dropping rocks on the glass ice, which shattered like windows, and you watched him pick up a large ice piece, melting, dripping, and take a bite of it, cold eyes shocked and feet dancing. Eating windows. Hotcold. You stepped red-footed onto the hotcold ice, found a jagged piece and bit. But back along the track there were others coming. Jacko and Alamein.

  You, Manny and Chum ran with your ice and hid in the hard ferns. ‘See you, Manny; see you, Missy and Chumchum,’ Jacko and Alamein said as they came. They were stepping carefully and their eyes were going from side to side, but you knew they couldn’t see you.

  When they came near, the three of you ran out, knocking Jacko and Alamein down and putting ice down their necks sweeta like-a lolla. Jacko got you too, clapped his ice onto your ear, held it there, while Manny, Alamein and Chum rolled together yelling in the iced grass and ferns. Then you all jumped up and ran to school with your knees and feet cracking, bleeding onto the white ground.

  At school the kids were jabbing their heels into the frozen puddles or skidding on the grass. The apple and plum trees were holding out hard, white branches, sills and ledges were ice crusted and kids were running their fingers along them, shouting and
licking.

  You waited by the gate for Makareta, who you could see coming with Kui Hinemate. ‘Kui, there’s ice frost,’ you said when they came near.

  ‘And naughty children have been playing in it, getting wet and cold,’ Kui said, speaking in Maori, but you knew what she was saying.

  ‘Speak English, Kui,’ Makareta whispered in English. ‘You’re not allowed …’

  ‘Your dress is wet and torn, your cardigan is muddy and your legs are bleeding. Your mama’s going to smack you, I think.’

  ‘Kui, Kui, the teacher will hear you,’ Makareta said.

  ‘We’re not in school, Daughter, not even inside the gate. I’m not coming in to school, only going to do business at the post office on a frosty morning.’

  ‘Kui Hinemate, Kui Hinemate,’ Jacko and Alamein called from the fence. ‘Kui Hinemate, there’s ice frost.’

  ‘Don’t get wet, don’t get cold,’ Kui Hinemate called back, not in English.

  ‘They’ll hear you, Kui. You’re not allowed.’

  ‘Maybe that’s right for you, Daughter, but this old woman speaks her very own language wherever she is, wherever she goes. Otherwise who is she? Now goodbye, Maleme; goodbye, Makareta. Don’t be angry, Makareta.’ You said goodbye to Kui but Makareta hurried away without looking at her or speaking.

  The lawn in front of the classrooms had become a mud patch where children had been sliding, the branches of the fruit trees were hung with melting drops and the ledges were steaming. The bell was ringing and the kids were beginning to make their way through the cold, cold footbaths. ‘Missy, don’t tell the teachers,’ Makareta had said, because she knows what a tattle-tattle you are. ‘Don’t tell the teachers about Kui and me.’

  You stood, brushing the grass and sticks from your clothes and watching Manny come down the hill slope, thrusting from the knees, his eyes scooping forward seeking the rocks and bumps, his feet riding the drum and riding the space above it. Over the big bump he went, knowing it, flying away then landing again on one foot, two feet, hammering down the last slope to the bottom. You would too, next time.

  Everyone was hungry and you looked each other over to see who should go and get bread. But you all had torn clothes, you were all bleeding and knew that any one of you would be in trouble if you went anywhere near the mothers and grandmothers. After a while you saw Makareta and Mata coming and as they came near you began asking Makareta to go and get bread for you.

  Then the cousin, Mata, reached out an arm and opened her hand, and in her hand was the best marble.

  There were no words for the marble. You all stared at it, stared, stared, and after that turned back to the drum, hungry, silent, waiting for bread, each of you holding a marble in your eye.

  Makareta went back to the house and returned with bread, and when you’d finished eating you lay down in the grass, sore, wishing for more.

  Then you sat up again because something was happening. Mata was reaching out and her hand was opening. Manny was reaching out and his hand was closing. No breath or breathing, no hungry or sore. In his hand. Manny had the marble.

  Tell. You climbed up onto the fence. ‘Makareta, Makareta,’ you called. ‘She give it to Manny.’ Makareta, about to go into the house, stopped and turned. ‘Makareta, she give it to Manny. She give Manny the marble.’

  Thirty-seven

  At Little Marble Path a few small children were firing stones into the holes left by those who were more expert now and had gone on to Big Marble Path. The patch of ground was bare and hard and the trunks of the two big manuka trees were rubbed and smooth.

  Big Marble Path led in among bushes and was wide in some places, narrow in others. The way was covered with smoothed-out holes, old and new, of hundreds of games played with bottlies, teapots, chinas, steelies, stinkies and stones. Hear the rules — funks no funks, throws no throws, eye-drops no eye-drops, spans no spans, bully-toas no bully-toas, bowls no bowls, clears no clears. Ground packed hard, scooped, mounded and furrowed. Feet slapping up, down, up, down.

  Hear also — liar, thief, cheat — in one language or another.

  Bessie was the one trying to win the marble from Manny out on the longest range with the rule being No Nothings. Jacko was in charge of the start line, which was scratched in the dirt with a stick, one step further back for each game.

  Bessie had her foot on the line, long front teeth hard over her bottom lip, no nothings, no nothings. Green and white marble rested on her forefinger, thumb-flicker sitting behind it.

  Eyes. Watching for the funk, but only the thumb moved. The marble arched, dropped, shooting forward over dips and mounds and furrows halfway to the hole.

  Manny — not with the best Mata-marble, which was the one they were really playing for — but with his second-best orange and white china, flicked hard and straight.

  Followed her into the hole, then they were away, up and down Big Marble, up and down, up and down. Then off onto the narrow track, rough and stony, no clears no nothings. Until Manny dropped near enough for Bessie to try — No Funker, Far Flicker Bessie, but not so dead-eye. Nearly time for the bell. Would she? No. Away again, back and forth, back and forth until Manny dropped close again, not too close, bell ringing.

  Eyes half closed, long teeth biting, no funks no funks, flicked and missed. Manny was close enough.

  Pinged her and picked up his marble, then Bessie upended him with a kick in the ankles. Bessie picked up her marble and ran.

  You walked with Makareta, happy that Manny (which meant you, all of us) still had the marble. The others hurried past, Manny after Bessie calling, ‘Keep your stink marble,’ in the language not allowed to be spoken.

  ‘Stick it up your bum too,’ Jacko called.

  You could see Mr Davis waiting on the steps as the bell jangled. ‘Speak English, speak English,’ Makareta hissed as they went by.

  ‘Keep your stink marble,’ Manny yelled in English.

  ‘Stick it up your bum too,’ Jacko called.

  Thirty-eight

  Titama, Titama.

  On the night of the concert you went out to the tankstand and told Mama that Aperehama would be coming to get you in the truck. Mama smiled, lovely Mama, wet, shivering, wrapping the towel round herself, putting her feet into old shoes. ‘Good,’ she said.

  You stepped into the bowl, tucked your dress up under your armpits and began washing down. Hair there like Mama’s, fluffy, curly. You squeezed the cloth against your stomach and watched the water run, slicking the little curls then running down your legs. Legs blotched from old sores, ugly. But you had a pretty place between your legs, pretty to touch. Your own little titties too that you liked. You dressed, pulling at the skirt, which was too short even though you’d let the hem down as far as it would go.

  Mama was sitting in the yard with the scissors, her hair brushed and parted. ‘Cut some of these bits off, Missy,’ she said. You could hear Dadda singing across the paddocks and Wiremu and Rapata were running to meet him.

  About the two running brothers.

  Wiremu was born the year after our sister Keita called Bubba. He was named after our grandfather Wi. Rapata came two years after that and was named after Dadda. You were their little mother Missy on the days when our mother was too weak to lift or carry. The blood, the blood! Nine of us altogether, if only you could know.

  ‘I told him not to get himself rotten,’ Mama said as you began snipping at the hair, standing back every now and again to see if it was even.

  ‘What you doing?’ Dadda said. ‘Dolling up?’

  ‘I told you not to go getting yourself rotten.’

  ‘Don’t growl, my Glory.’

  ‘You can stop home, that’s what.’

  ‘What what, my Glory?’

  ‘Let him come, Mama,’ you said.

  ‘I told you. This morning I told you it’s your daughter’s break-up and don’t go getting yourself rotten.’

  ‘Leave him, Mama,’ Dawn Daughter, Dawn Daughter tying the two together. ‘Just as
silly as him, Missy; that’s what.’

  You finished cutting and began rolling the hair and pinning it up at the sides. You drew the rest back into a band, divided it and combed it round your finger to make ringlets, like Dotty Lamour’s hair in Road to Rio, a film that had made you all laugh though it was really about love.

  Everything, everything was to do with love.

  Now that there was a bus, and when there was money, you were able to go to the pictures held in the high school hall on Saturday nights. Sometimes there’d be a double feature — two long films, all about love, which was what you liked best. On most nights there’d be shorts to watch first — old newsreels, cartoons, serials, also singalongs you could all join in, following the little ball that bounced in rhythm from word to word as the lines came up on the screen. Songs about love. But it was the main picture telling its story of love you waited for — of love found, love lost, love found again. You believed in love.

  Cowboys saved townspeople from cattle thieves and death, snatched women and children from under the feet of stampeding cattle, walked into bar rooms and pulled card cheats up by their collars, threw themselves from horses onto fast moving trains to chase bad men over roofs and through carriages, between the wheels of trains. But it was to do with love.

  Sailors and pirates had battles at sea, up and down rigging with their swords clashing. Or on land, in fine clothes, swords were drawn in velvet-curtained rooms and fighting ranged up and down stairways, across balconies, round pillars and poles, because of love.

  Tap dancers and singers made their way to Broadway but nothing was more important than love. There were thieves and highway robbers saved from their bad lives by love. Even Mickey Rooney found his love. And when the picture was over and ‘The End’ scrolled on to the screen to music that was all about love, you always remained seated until there was nothing nothing more and the lights went on.