Dogside Story

by Patricia Grace

  Later, after Arch’s retirement and after the older uncles and aunties had died, the shoes had appeared more and more often at hui at the marae. There, planted at the paepae. There, slow step, quick step, back and forth, turn, at the ends of tidy ankles, while Arch dished out his welcomes and his words to the visitors, on on on. Black, light brown, dark brown, white, blue, mix, high and low, buckled, laced, fringed, shining—quick, slow, back and forth, turn.

  A black lace-up was what he’d chosen, the one with water getting into it now. If he moved Kid would see. ‘Take ’em both,’ Arch had said. ‘You don’t have to disrespect the other leg just because half of him’s not there, just because we put him down on top of your cousin. Take your old leg a shoe too.’

  ‘Or you could give it,’ Bones had said. ‘Give it. Find somebody with only a right, a right with a foot on it, aa aa.’

  ‘No good to that old fella in the hospital with you that time Cuz, with two … two off. Gone. Right and left, e heh,’ Jase had said.

  ‘Don’t mean the old fella couldn’t have shoes,’ then Arch had started up, gone on on on, with them waiting to take unwanted shoes and get out. History of this pair, that pair, on on on for half the morning. ‘I had shoes when I was a kid, two shoes, but both the same side, both left. Woulda been good for you Rua, Son. So on’y wore them at night, in the dark when there were visitors in the house. Run up and down outside the house making a noise so visitors know I got shoes. Singing out loud so they know who it is who got shoes, then hide them under the steps ’til nex’time … And take slip-ons too, Son. Easy to get off when you go inside.’

  So he’d got out of there at last with the black lace-ups and brown slip-ons thinking he’d never wear them, not even the left ones. But now he was wearing one. All right for a night out. Two bands down the pub. Money in his pocket for the cover charge and a few rounds.

  Kid wouldn’t be roaming about if The Sisters were home. She’d be home doing dishes instead, cleaning out, making their cups of tea, running to the shops for their smokes and lollies. The Sisters were probably down the pub all done up, sitting on laps, looping themselves round dart throwers come for the tournament. Someone should do something about Kid. Someone should take her away from those two. He could hear water beginning to spill out through the blowhole.

  Tomorrow he’d have to be up and about, get himself through the hole to the cove before the tide came in, otherwise he’d have to go up the tracks and down the ridges, taking him ages and making him too late for the crays.

  Someone should.

  Kid was close up looking down on him waiting for his eyes or his foot to move. She had hold of his dog. Any minute she’d give up waiting and come out with her words.

  Arch or Wai. One of them should do something. He’d heard Aunty Wai going off at The Sisters for how they treated Kid so why didn’t she do something? Jase and Bones were bloody late. They could’ve all been down the pub half off their faces by now.

  Shouting match. Sisters had told Wai to mind her own business. ‘You had your chance, you had your chance, you all did,’ that smart Babs had said, chop chopping beans and nearly sending her fingers along with them. The day was fading on his skin, on his eyelids, on eyeballs under his eyelids, but at last he could hear the car arriving giving a toot toot.

  So … Kid.

  He rolled for his crutches and hopped up, shaking water off the black lace–up, swinging the jacket. Jase and Bones were grinning out the windows. They had … Remelda and someone.

  ‘Go home. Go on,’ he shouted at Kid as he lunged past. Blink, blink. Spiders knitting their legs.

  ‘You,’ Kid yelled after him. ‘You Rua.’

  Chapter Three

  He remembered waking as the car wove its way along the home road towards the sun, which had its forehead just up out of the water, splashing it all over red and colouring the sky at its fringes. At the end of the straight where it was meant to make a turn, the car had kept on ahead, going up over the verge of dune grass and washed-up sticks until it buried its four wheels up to halfway in sand.

  He remembered Jase slumping forward on to the steering wheel, the horn blasting, Jase sitting up then getting out and going, leaving Tina asleep clamped back against the front passenger seat with the belt adjusted for someone even skinnier than she was, her head dropped forward and gently swinging.

  No Bones. No Remelda.

  He’d got out of the car and lain down on the sand with sky bleeding across his eyeballs for a moment before he closed them again and slept.

  With the tide already sinking, Archie Shoes had driven along in his station wagon with the trailer hitched up behind and come down onto the beach, shaking him by the black lace-up, ‘Tide’s on the way,’ he’d said. ‘You lot better get going.’

  ‘My sticks,’ he’d said to Arch, and his uncle had reached into the car and handed him the crutches.

  ‘Faw, stinks in there,’ he remembered Arch saying.

  He’d propped himself against the car and dropped his head back letting his bloodied eyes fall shut again, not wanting to throw up while Arch was there.

  ‘Be around with the boat later to pick up the crays,’ Archie called as he left. ‘Ha ha, you all need a drench, you lot.’

  Now with Arch gone he removed the shoe and went down into the water, throwing the crutches back up on to the beach, launching them like spears and letting himself fall flat, hair floating, shirt shunting up under his armpits and the jean legs filling out like balloons—empty one ballooning more than the other one, as though it was the one with the leg in it. He turned the whole bundle of himself, lying face down for as long as he could before rolling again, spurting, rolling and going down.

  Under water he clawed along from stone to stone, from clump to clump of weed, surfacing and diving, surfacing and diving until he reached the flat water beyond the shore waves where he lay face up—sun eyeing down, birds eyeing down, maybe waiting for his stomach to unbolt.

  Stroking his way back to the shallow water he let the waves take him in. Tina, who had woken by then and was sitting on the shore, stood and came down swinging in his crutches. As he scrambled out she shot them to him. ‘How’m I getting home?’ she asked, but he had no answer to that, had his own problems as he reached into the car for his jacket wondering who was going to give him a hand. Saturday, and he and his two cousins were meant to be going to the cove to get crayfish for the wedding, now here he was on his own. Bones off with Remelda, Jase gone to fix himself up and asleep by now.

  But it was too late to worry about who. He had to get through to the cove now before the water got up too much, had to take his stomach, his head, his pumice mouth, his sunshot eyes through to the cove and just hope someone would turn up to help, even if it was only to hold the bag.

  Kutu? Didn’t know where his dog had got to.

  It was too late to go back to his own place for his gear so he looked along the row of houses to see who might be home to give him what he needed.

  Nobody.

  They were all down the end getting things ready for the wedding, expecting crayfish by mid-afternoon. So he made his way along to Wai’s place to look for shorts, a shirt, backpack, jandal, something to wrap round his hands.

  Just as he reached the house his dog came rushing over from next door making jagged movements and sharp noises, and he realised Kid must’ve taken him home with her after he left.

  Out in the garage were overalls, old coats and rugby jerseys hanging on a row of nails. On a row lower down were snorkels, a pair of goggles, old backpacks, sacks, life-jackets, a string of cork floats, fishing reels. He took a rugby jersey, a backpack, a bundle of sacks. No shorts there, but he found a pair on the clothesline—yellow and black Adidas—a bit too good for diving around the cove, too flash for salt water, but they’d have to do. Old singlets to wrap round his hands. No jandal.

  Sitting on the step he took off his jeans and underpants and put on the shorts, and as he was pulling off his shirt Tina came into the ya
rd asking about a phone. ‘Inside,’ he said. ‘Kitchen by the fridge.’ He heard her ring through and ask about the kids and tell about the car. Someone was going off at her at the other end.

  ‘I know, I know, someone come and get me,’ she kept saying. ‘Shut up, just come and get me.’

  He hung his wet clothes on the line and gave them a quick hose down thinking they’d be dry by the time he came back, good enough to change back into later.

  ‘Some der-brain,’ he could hear Tina saying. ‘Some dipstick, hardly said anything, just bought me drinks all night.’

  Well the clothes would be good enough for the after-wedding party once they’d cleared the tables and everyone had casualled out a bit. Two nights in a row he was going to be inked up.

  ‘And I lost one of my crystal earrings … Nothing, he done nothing, just didn’t take me home … He’s an egg … Somewhere, some beach, how would I know. Shut up, just come and get me.’

  Hooking his arms through the straps of the backpack he went swinging along on the crutches with Kutu keeping ahead of him, down the driveway and off towards the blowhole. Half a wave to Tina who was heading back towards the car.

  Down the end there was smoke rising from the hangi fire in the marae paddock, but he was pleased he didn’t have that job today. He was a bit useless when it came to that type of work anyway, and the others didn’t like him round the pit jumping about on sticks, reckoned he might fall in, reckoned he wouldn’t taste good—or thought he could be all right salted down. How to get the crays on his own, have enough before the tide got too high?

  As he passed by the marquee that they’d put up the day before he could hear Wai and the others in there discussing tables, how many rows, how many to each row. There were more trestles to come, Archie was getting them from across the river, Cass was saying. And ferns. Once the hangi was down Jackson and Joeboy were going up the back to get ferns to decorate the entrance. ‘The sooner we get our new dining room the better,’ he could hear Wai saying.

  Kid.

  She was sneaking up behind him, which meant The Sisters weren’t home yet, The Aunties. It meant they’d scored, got lucky with dart throwers. It meant Kid had been left on her own all night with only Kutu for company. He decided to take her with him and get her to hold the bag.

  Swinging along the rough track with his sticks, over the shingle and the washed-up wood and weed he knew he could easily outpace two-legged walkers and even dogs. Kid and Kutu were puffing and panting behind him.

  They caught up to him though when he came to the narrow ledge leading to the blowhole where he had to slow down. He shifted sideways, put his back against the bank and edged round the jutting rocks and bushes before turning into the cold, salt air of the opening with its curved dark walls as smooth as skin, its floor of round, velvet-nubbed boulders with their attachments of silky orange tufts, coarse black strands, trails of beaded hair, limpets like little tattoos. In among the boulders were the fresh, shadowed pools.

  After making his way over the stones and around the pools with Kid and Kutu splashing along behind him, he came into the bowl of sun, where the water was like rubbed pots. The amount of sand at its edge showed the tide to be a full bite down.

  Gulls, rising from the grassy slopes, twanged like broken strings and herons lifted out of the trees, sweeping round high and slow over water the colour of their wings, legs trailing like rags. Pressing himself back against the rocky bank he felt the sharp edges digging into the back of his head and shoulders, felt colour leaching from his sunrise eyes, but none of that was enough to distract his stomach from unleashing.

  He leaned and threw, down into the gap the missing leg had left, while Kid dropped, flopped herself on the track, laughing, ‘Rua. You … Th th th, ahh ahh.’

  Sailing over the mess he’d made and up onto the grass where he could’ve slept if there’d been time and where Kutu had found a shady place already, he removed the sacks from the backpack. Kid followed after him loose and boneless, laughing all round the cove.

  ‘You got to get out by the near rocks,’ he said when she plonked down beside him. ‘You got to wait there in the water with the backpack. I bring the crays one at a time and you got to hold on … hold on, then we bring them back, put them in the wet sacks and go back for more. Got it?’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Give us your hair-tie, uh.’

  She took the band from her hair and passed it to him. He hooked his own hair through it and rolled down the grassy slope, over the stones and sand and into the water with Kid running after him laughing and dragging the backpack down.

  In the water they went together to the beginning of the channel where the first crayfish rocks were, then he left her there, dipped down, shooting along with herrings swarming one-legged ahead of him. The tide was right, the water was clear and he knew he’d get what he wanted as long as there was enough time, or maybe if Jase or Bones showed up soon to help, not that he expected his cousins to get down to the difficult stuff, but one of them could hold the bag for him while the other took Kid to work the easy places. He surfaced and stroked towards the far rocks. Forty big-sized crays for the tables was what was needed, and a few for the cooks if he was quick about it. A wedding without crayfish on Southside? Nah, too shame. He needed big ones so no one’d say he was robbing the nursery. It was up to him because he was the one now who knew what to do and at the same time was fit enough to do it—though he’d never had to do this on his own before.

  Kid.

  Last time they were here, just the two of them, he was fourteen. Ten years ago. That’s how old Kid was now, ten. Ani Wainoa was flying away, shouting down, leaving the two of them there in water making for the shore.

  Coming to the place where the water was dark with submerged rock he made his first dive, deep down to where the cavity in the rock was large and open, and the crays were easy to see but not easy to get to, snapping their tails and backing into the hole as he came. He went after them grasping one of the large ones across the back with both hands and pulling it up against his chest on to the heavy fabric of the jersey, and turning, pushed his foot against the rock, shooting for the surface. Kid was paddling towards him and he went to put the cray into the pack.

  Leaving her to zip the bag he returned to the rock to make his next dive, aware that the water was already deepening. After several quick dives he moved to the next rock, then the next, working round the holes until the water became too deep and the crays too far back for his breath to last.

  But he was satisfied with what he’d been able to get from the deep places, knowing the next rocks would be easier. Kid helped him pull the full pack ashore where they put the crays into sacks which they tied and put into the shore water ready to be taken home. They swam out to the near rocks and here he didn’t need to dive. He crouched, bobbed down and reached under the shelves pulling the crays out by their feelers, selecting the large ones to put into the pack that Kid held open for him.

  When they’d finished he sat in the shore water with the bags, moving them higher as the tide rose. He was thinking of food and sleep, and of Kid who probably hadn’t had breakfast, maybe hadn’t had tea the night before. She was up behind him on the grass walking with his sticks, ‘Tell me. Tell me Rua,’ she said.

  ‘Uncle Archie,’ he said as he heard the boat rapping across the bay.

  ‘Who cares?’

  The motor cut down as the boat came round the island and through the rip, and soon afterwards they watched it coming towards them. Archie was bringing the boat in, at the same time swearing, ripping into him for coming there on his own, still half cut with only a kid helping. ‘I woulda come if I knew,’ he said. ‘Someone else coulda got tables and stuff from Other Side if I knew, stupid bugger.’

  He hauled the bags one by one alongside the boat where he steadied himself and edged them in over the side and, after sending his dog home, helped Kid into the boat and pushed it out, flipping himself in over the stern.

  Chapter F
our

  When these Southsiders, Inlet Crossers, Dogsiders built their first meeting house in the time of Ngarua, all the cooking for visitors was done out of doors. In bad weather, shelters and windbreaks of brush and harakeke were erected, and when the house was moved to its new site not long after the death of Ngarua, a lean-to was built where the cooking fires were under light shelter.

  In recent times a more permanent structure was put up where cooking could be done and people could sit down to eat, and though it lacked many of the conveniences of more modern wharekai around the coast, it served well enough until it was destroyed by wind and flooding a year before Blind’s dog died, Ani Wainoa left and Rua arrived wet in the wharenui with a bundle.

  At first nobody noticed too much the loss of the wharekai. Seeing the broken up pieces of it floating out with the tide was not as absorbing as other dramatic events going on during that time.

  The people had been talking for some time about the need for a new wharekai anyway, but with all else that was going on it was more than a year after the cyclone that they began planning a new one. What they had in mind was a concrete block structure on a concrete base, with a good iron roof, something that wasn’t going to blow to pieces in high wind, or float off down the inlet to be swallowed up by waves—something more substantial than the tinny Skyline buildings being put up on neighbouring marae.

  Getting money was the problem.

  They began fundraising, travelling to the early morning flea market held in the city on Saturdays, to sell their cakes and produce and crafts, but accumulation of funds was slow. They did better with the raffles and batons-up, and the sausage sizzles outside Pak’n Save, and made good profits selling hot dogs and paua fritters at Pa Wars, but Pa Wars only happened once every two years. They came to realise that the funds they were trying to build grew so slowly that they couldn’t even keep ahead of the rising costs of materials. Added to all this they’d been ripped off a couple of times by their own relations who’d lost count with raffle money or forgotten to charge for sausages—that was until Wai took charge.