by Alan Duff
JAKE’S LONG SHADOW
The millennium has changed but have the Hekes? Where are they now, Beth, Jake, and what of their other children? Son Abe who has rejected violence but violence finds him. Polly, as beautiful as her sister Grace, who committed suicide; is that a Heke running with the wealthy polo-playing set and growing rich herself? And the gang leader, Apeman, who killed Tania, what’s prison like, does it change a man, grow him or not? We meet another tragic female figure, Sharneeta. And Alistair Trambert, a middle-class white boy sunk into the same welfare dependency trap as the Maoris his class criticise. Meet Charlie Bennett, Beth’s husband, a fine man, and yet … And yet there’s Jake Heke, casting his long shadow over everyone. Has he really grown up?
JAKE’S LONG SHADOW
ALAN DUFF
Dedication:
First, to my editor Harriet Allan, for making sense of my ramblings.
To the real ‘Jakes’ who’d like to know another way.
To enlightenment, always, and therefore my father, Gowan.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE: HOW THE YEARS HAVE FLOWN
CHAPTER TWO: A MISSING FACE
CHAPTER THREE: IN A MOUNTAIN’S PAST (AND A MAN’S) SHADOW
CHAPTER FOUR: ‘I WAKE AND FEEL THE FELL OF DARK’ — GERARD MANLY HOPKINS
CHAPTER FIVE: A GENTLEMAN TO THE RESCUE
CHAPTER SIX: POLLY AND THE POLO PEOPLE
CHAPTER SEVEN: LIFE’S SUCH A DRAG
CHAPTER EIGHT: WHAT MEETS THE EYE
CHAPTER NINE: WORKING MEN
CHAPTER TEN: UTU’S LONG MEMORY … AND REACH
CHAPTER ELEVEN: WHO MADE JAKE (ME?) WHAT MADE ME?
CHAPTER TWELVE: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PRISON LANDING
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: PINE BLOCKSUNSHINE
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: I, I, I. ME, ME, ME.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: SLAVES OF OURSELVES
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: HE WHO HAS PATIENCE
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: MEMORIES ARE WHAT YOU MAKE THEM
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: DEGREES OF PERCEPTION
CHAPTER NINETEEN: APE SWAYS THE COMMITTEE
CHAPTER TWENTY: FOOLING EYES (FOR THE FOOL)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: VIEW FROM A HILL
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: MATERNITY, NOT MATERNAL
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: A MATERIAL WORLD
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: THE OUTCAST TRIBE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: WHEN THE HEART RULES
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: HELL IN THE GARDEN CITY
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: IS THAT THE BABY CRYING (OR YOU?)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: BACK TO THE BEGINNING
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: VOICE FROM THE TOP (LANDING)
CHAPTER THIRTY: ‘DESPAIR, NOT FEAST ON THEE’ — GERARD MANLY HOPKINS
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: TO BE ANY OTHER THAN THIS — MAORI
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: GUILTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: STOP BABY SCREAMING, THE SCREAMING IN MY HEAD
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: A BEAST AMONGST LESSER BEASTS
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: RESPONSIBILITY’S WAKE-UP CALL
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: THE DEVIL’S RANK AIR
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: IS THAT YOU, AL?
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: WRONG PLACE
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: FRIENDS IN MUTUAL NEED
CHAPTER FORTY: WHERE THERE IS GOODNESS
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: WHAT’S THE USE OF BELIEF?
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: WE ALL HAVE A CHOICE (OR DO WE?)
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: UTU DIFFERENT
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: CHARLIE’S AWAKENING
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: LOVE AT A BEDSIDE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX: GOODBYE, CRUEL (MOTHER) WORLDCHAPTER
FORTY-SEVEN: SAME PICTURE, DIFFERENT EYES
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: THE OLD/NEW COMBO
About the Author
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
HOW THE YEARS HAVE FLOWN
BETH, GLIMPSING HER reflection in the kitchen window, saw briefly a younger version, from ten — make that fifteen — years ago. Funny how time goes more quickly when life is good. I was in a marriage fifteen years ago to a man, a type, I’d not recognise nor could tolerate for a moment now. (And yet …?)
Yet she still thought of him, from time to time. Though it was like entering another country, where a totally alien outlook prevailed. (Stay there in conceptual darkness, Jake Heke. Beth is never returning to that way of life, that way of thinking.)
She saw now the perfectly content wife of a good man, with a sense of gladness that her life had so changed, having escaped the world where nothing changed. Though she had heard that Jake truly was a different man; sources said she’d not recognise him, except she didn’t believe that for a moment. (Too many awful experiences, Jake. And you don’t change your spots. You’ve just got older. How did I put up with you all those years? Why was I so attracted to you in the first place?)
She remembered quite clearly when she’d made up her mind about how her adult years would be: twelve years old, out fishing with her dad and his brother, Uncle Tom. She’d decided her future then and there in the middle of a barely moving sea, in a small metal boat with an outboard motor.
The boat had been anchored and her father and uncle were into their first beer of the day, though Beth knew from other fishing times that out there the drink never turned them ugly (was it because there was no one else around to disturb their peace?). The fish bit straight away and it wasn’t long before the sound of tails thumping in the plastic crate promised a good day ahead. They’d bait a rod line for her soon enough.
She began to notice how the sea and sky blended, she started getting this insight into the future; a union, a joining. Water and air. Girl and boy. Woman and man. The puffs of clouds were frolicking children, happy, like she was. There were no dark clouds in her vision. Not of a husband who’d one day beat her up, and in whose violent shadow she and their children would live.
Her father’s drinking was different when he was fishing. The angry man stayed away. First bottles emptied and were tossed overboard. More fish came in for the freezer and to give to the relations and Dad’s friends. More beer went out from a chilly bin packed with ice. More laughter. A girl was allowed to help herself to the food goodies in another chilly bin. Drinking, but not drunk, Dad and Uncle Tom (oh, glory be) happy, big men, fiddling bait onto hooks, a swig of beer, the funny remarks never stopped flowing. Dad asked from time to time was she all right, Uncle Tom, too. Not seasick, girl? No, definitely not seasick. She never suffered it. Sick with joy and peace, yes, she could stay here until it came time to live that future so clear all around her.
She’d watch the fish being pulled from their liquid home; they had no chance against big strong men, against meat workers used to death every working day, workers paid to kill, no chance against fighter brothers. Up you come, you beaudie, silvery fighting life against fighting men’s strength and man’s higher intelligence; the fishes’ outrage at meeting with fresh air, their fury to get back into their wet element, denied by big brown hands clutching tight and fingers disappearing into gill slits (like they were rammed up a girl’s throat). Young Beth was beside herself with gladness at the catch being added to, and at how tamed the men were, how at peace with themselves. (If only they were like this all the time.)
That’s what the meaning of blended sky and sea was: a promised good union between a husband and wife. More, he would be a crude, rough man like her father and her uncle, not tamed, though, by nature, but by woman. Her. Beth the grown-up woman. The girl who when she became woman would make better the man she married. And he would improve parts of her. She had that quite clear in her twelve-year-old’s mind.
So: reality. I’m eighteen years’ young an
d oozing it in this bar when the handsomest dude walks up. Feel like a dance? Asking in that crude way, but with a dazzling smile of a confident man. And, boy, could he dance. Blinded a woman to the warrior menace eyeing other males as possible rivals, as challenges to his (idiot) manhood. She danced, talked and drank — and said no, never, not on the first date. But I gave him my phone number and he called next day, Sunday. Sure I’d love to see you again. I should have known with our date being at another bar how important drink was to him, likewise the company of other males. I guess I was the twelve year old thinking I could tame him.
Some taming, Beth. Eighteen years of nightmare. (You sure only a nightmare, Beth? So how did you keep giving him children? He hardly raped you now, did he? Not likely. Might be times when it was the other way round. Put paid to the theory that sex with someone you don’t respect is bad.) Jake knew her so well, how to reconcile so that sexual venting was an inevitability. And good it was, too. The sex side of things. (You were a charming black bastard, Jake. I’ll give you that.) It was a nightmare, on balance — no, way out of balance, stop trying to see better of it, Beth. The man was an arsehole. And likely still is.
It was the drink.
With a sigh she changed position, the better to shift her thinking away from what she couldn’t do anything about, and see her reflection closer. Not such a bad specimen for her years: middle-aged, two years off fifty. Is forty-eight old, though? Don’t I look young for my years? For the life I’ve had, married to Jake, teenage daughter committing suicide, eldest son shot dead in a gang fight, haven’t I weathered it all pretty well — on the outside? (The inside as well. You learn a deeper, more meaningful strength from tragedy.) Who’s middle-aged? Nothing that regular stretch classes and yoga doesn’t keep at bay; the body’s never been firmer or — she got a thought but wouldn’t let it become words, not even to herself. But one word did force itself to the fore-front: Jake. (Jake? Why him? He’s over ten years gone — departed, kaput. Gladly right out of my life and, I should have thought, my thoughts.)
Yet here was his image, looming as large as it ever did. As if the years hadn’t gone by. As if (you) he were yesterday. You horrible, stupid, blind man, get out of my thoughts! Is it because you’re my children’s father? Or something in your presence, some power of your mighty physical existence demands my attention, even all these — most happy — years later? This is ridiculous. You’re history, Jake. A loser. A dinosaur long past its use-by date.
Yet somewhere deep in her heart she heard her own voice say: Oh, Jake. I loved you so. The man to whom personal growth never crossed his mind. And she was now living with a man who was all personal growth. Though Jake was far from unintelligent, he often made insightful comments and would go against the mainstream thinking on the most unexpected issue — and be proven to be right.
She hadn’t so much as spotted him in the street in, what, six years now? She came across him once at the cemetery. Estranged parents visiting their children’s graves. What to say? Should they hug, shake hands, fall into each other’s arms and at least weep for our taken babies? (They’ll always be babies to their mother.) No, none of that. Ships in the night, except the broad of day exposed our pained cordial nods at each other, like mere acquaintances; not the mother and father of one who killed herself, the other murdered. A load like that needs sharing.
We could have done better. I felt guilty for weeks, as if I’d let Grace and Nig down, I could have shown more maturity, even sent a gesture of conciliation Jake’s way to show our kids hadn’t died for nothing. Did I fear his rejection? Fear that he’d get violent with me? Whatever my concerns were, I should have said something.
Outside, her daughter Polly was pulling up in her nice new car. Beautiful, supremely self-confident Polly. Yet there’s Jake again, for the child was from his (irresistible) seed. (I could hardly ever say no to him, even if he’d only the night before beaten hell out of me. I’m sorry, hon, he’d say. I love you, Bethy, as he snuggled up to me and I felt my anger turning to sexual desire. God, sometimes I’d blame myself for his beating me up, believe I’d provoked him, that I shouldn’t have talked to him like I did. Heaven forbid, sometimes I even thought I deserved it, so convincing was he at explaining why he’d belted me — again.) My Polly. Look at her the way she lights up even a sunny day.
She wondered what Polly would think to be told her father used to wake up every day wanting to punch someone. What an astounding state to be in. She had told Polly little of those dark days (I’d stand in front of the bathroom mirror, my swollen eyes barely able to look at themselves, mouth swollen, half the time cut, swelling all over my face. I’d be in so much physical pain it hurt too much even to take relief in crying).
Beth’s hand went slowly to her face without realising it, as the memories forced their way back. No way. (Surely all this thinking about Jake wasn’t a sexual stirring. It surely was. Perhaps because the sexual aspect of marriage to Charlie was, well, less than average. He just didn’t have much of a sex drive. Considerate though he tried to be of her needs, making love was just not him, not in his nature; not the measured man Charlie Bennett was to his core. Especially so considering he was Maori and we’re not supposed to be like that. Charlie was not like Jake: explosive, passionate, funny, virile, dangerous, tender, the raging lover all at once.
Charlie in contrast was vastly superior in his strong moral code and sober habits, though without being silly about it. He was an educated man, a reader of books, interesting — and interested. But a lover, no.)
Watching as Polly strode up the footpath, Beth saw Jake’s genes had leaked through in so many ways. His face was like a haunting, a sad face, deeply remorseful. (Too late, buster. I’m married to a good man, as fine a human being as you’ll never meet; who’s taught me so much, loved me completely. Couldn’t go back to you, Jake, not even for one night of undeniable physical pleasure.)
Beth found herself engaging in a lecture to Jake in her head: your limited conversation would bore me to death. Warriors are bores, Jake. I hope you know that now. What do you talk about? You don’t read, so you’re completely uninformed. How can you discuss the wider world, discuss anything? Why, you don’t even have the elementary tools to think. Enough of the father now, look at his (my) child, grown to the full-blown woman with her future out there like the blended sky and sea of so many years ago.
Look at my child, walking like she’s on TV.
Beth dismissed her own reflected image and settled for half her genetic offspring, in the flesh: lovely Polly with the model features and both parents’ lucky good bodies. (This was where a woman’s thoughts should be, not on the wretched past and a man too typical of too many Maori.)
Then Polly came in — arrived more like it. (My Polls.)
CHAPTER TWO
A MISSING FACE
HER VOICE WHEN she came in was like a fresh breeze on a day when you stick to yourself. Hi, Mum. Music, in just two words. How different her fate — future — was, this woman striding into adulthood with all the confidence of her biological father going into a brawl. (And why am I making that comparison? Well, Jake happens to be her father, that’s all.)
They hugged. Polly moved too quickly away for a mother’s better comfort. She liked to indulge herself every once in a while. Polly’s image moved along the windows above the sinks — top-of-the-line European taps. Same brand stainless-steel fridge and freezer, black granite bench top, double dishwasher. The child of twenty-two was mature for her age, serious, focused, had clear goals. She stopped at the last window, the light reaching in and painting one side of her face gold. Made a statement that this one belonged to herself. No man nor situation would own her unless she chose. Beth saw Jake in her now: that inner hardness, the fighter he was. Though Polly was about looking for opportunities, always talking about different businesses she could get into. She scanned the businesses-for-sale ads in the papers, was interested in money matters that her mother knew nothing about. The girl was hungry, she was ambitiou
s, and no one was going to stop her.
Beth smiled. How’s the new car?
The new car’s fine. I want to trade up, Mum. Beth wondering, does she mean just cars or everything?
I always wondered why you never put that fine body of yours to sporting use.
Like what? Polly didn’t like her mother’s direction.
Oh, netball, golf. Athletics.
Because I discovered early, Ma, I was no champion. I was good, but not good enough. And as I like winning, why would I enter a game I couldn’t compete at? So, anyway, how’s your day been, Mother dear?
Well, I’ve been to my stretch class. Gail says she could be on for golf this afternoon. Charlie’s up walking his tribal land, reconnecting with nature instead of the wretched humans his work throws at him Monday to Friday. And yours?
Nothing much so far. But it’s a Saturday, so the invites should start rolling in around five. Same old boring, heavy drinking stuff though, not —
I know it’s not you, Polls. Never has been.
Hardly never has when I’ve only been legally allowed to drink, what, four years. But you’re right, it doesn’t appear to be a behavioural pattern of Polly Bennett.
A mother smiling at her daughter proudly taking Charlie’s surname. Sounds good to me.
Now Polly was twiddling with a strand of hair darker than a good night out with stars — oh, she’s something all right, this one, with her prime sitting there like a promised long, queenly reign.
The phone rang.
That’ll be for me, this chap I met, Beth joked, immediately aware it might be a Freudian slip. (No, how could that be? I couldn’t be more happy. What chap could possibly interest me?)
Send him back to the old-folk’s home afterwards, eh, Mum?
That brought reality back, even if she was speaking from her subconscious. Middle-age. Too old for hanky-panky even if I wanted to, not even to fantasise about. After what? Beth couldn’t resist asking the question.