He’d gone off out the door, running for the cove. When he arrived at the blowhole the water was breaking through and he’d removed his shoes and socks and shorts, pushing in against the water which was sucking him into the hole and licking at him as he moved through holding his schoolbag above the splash. Through the other side he’d walked the ledge out onto the grassy slope where he’d taken off the rest of his clothes and gone into the water.
It was the beginning of winter and the water was rising, beginning to break dark and heavy over the rocks and up onto the sand. The cold of it had loosened him, unlocked his throat and his chest as he pushed in against the first wave and the next until it all became easier—making his way out, swimming and diving until he was beyond the breakers.
By then he was feeling warmer but had kept underwater as much as he could, out of the wind that was roughing the surface. A fish among rocks and weed he was, a fish among other fish—gurnard, moki, sand sharks, octopus; barracuda slinking by; jellyfish with their coloured bits of ribbon; flounder which were just shapes, like hand-prints in the sand.
Kicking his way round he’d begun exploring the near cray holes, the shellfish beds and the weed, then realising the cold was getting to him had stroked hard for the far rocks near the cove entrance. Out there he’d climbed one of the rocks and dived, getting into the waves that had taken him headlong, shoreward, and he’d felt all right, knew he’d be all right.
Using his shirt for a towel he’d dried off, rubbing and rubbing, getting warmth into himself before putting on his socks and shoes, pants and jacket, thinking that if he had matches he could’ve lit a fire. Thought of going back over the hill to Nanny Blind’s for some, but didn’t want to go there or anywhere else, or to see or talk to anyone.
By mid-afternoon the wind had died away and he’d eaten his school lunch sitting on a ledge in the cold sun. Afterwards he’d nosed about the shore rocks and shore pools for a while then decided to get into the water again. It was calmer by then and though still cold he’d climbed down and lay on the water, closed his eyes and let himself wash this way and that in the ripples. Seaweed he was.
‘That’s how dead people lay down in coffins.’
Above him on the bank, Ani Wainoa with a sword, was wearing softball breeches and a white singlet. He didn’t want her to be there because he’d found a place to come to—which wasn’t a new place. They all came there nearly every day in the summer holidays, sometimes camped there. Came in weekends throughout the year to get their fish and mussels and crays whenever the weather and tides were right—but it was new being on his own there, or anywhere on his own for that matter. On that day he’d wanted to be by himself and had found the right place for it.
By the time he dried off and put his clothes on again, Ani Wainoa had found another sword and tossed it down to him. So he’d gone up on to the ledge to face her. They’d touched sword tips and begun a careful tipping and tapping back and forth along the ship’s side which was the bank of the cove. As he warmed up he’d allowed Ani Wainoa to come at him, backing him down onto the grassy deck where there was room to move about—defend, attack, whack whack whack whack—all the time watching for the change that he knew would come, the change that had caught him out at other times during games played along the creek, along the ledges, or in and out among the trees at Nanny Blind’s.
When it came, the two-handed swipe that should’ve knocked his sword from him, he was ready for it. He’d sidestepped, ducking under the swing, unbalancing her for a moment and moving her backwards down the sloping deck until she managed to turn and run to a place above him, coming at him again. But a one-handed hack and Ani Wainoa’s sword broke in the middle. He’d pointed his sword into her chest and she’d raised her head and looked to the sky, letting her arms fall and allowing the remaining piece of stick to drop to the ground. Not that she’d fallen down dead as she should’ve. She always had been a cheat that Ani Wainoa.
Instead she’d waited, suddenly grabbing the end of his sword that he had pointed into her heart shoving it so hard that his end of it had shot back through his loosened grip and scraped his face, making a rip by his ear and causing him to fall.
Ani Wainoa, now with his stick, held the pointed end of it to his eye, not quite touching.
‘Nex’time, loser walks the plank,’ she’d said.
‘You for sure,’ he’d answered.
It was getting dark by then and the water was high in the blowhole, so he’d had to go the long way home, first of all running with Ani Wainoa up through the trees and down to Nanny Blind’s.
He left her there and she’d called after him about nex’time as he ran along the long track to the beach, then home.
When he arrived he saw that his father and Uncle Archie who were already home from work, had dismantled the bed and were taking the pieces out to put on a trailer.
‘What happened?’ his father asked, seeing the blood on his face.
‘A stick.’
‘Taku and Shania been looking for you. Said you didn’t go to school.’
‘Down the cove swimming.’
‘Hold the door back for us Son, then after that go over Aunty’s for tea.’
Nex’time was two weeks later. It was on Nanny Blind’s bread day when Wai made bread that Ani Wainoa collected on her way home from school. But Ani Wainoa hadn’t been at school that day, so when he arrived home Wai had given him the bread to take.
He ran with it along the shore in the wind that was rocking the sea and whisking up sand. It was cold. Ahead of him Kutu was floating up canopies of seagulls.
Away from the beach and out of the wind, the tracks led him in under the dark trees with their black skins, their shadowy arms, their talking leaves. Kutu was ahead sniffing and pissing and it was silent behind him.
On his own he’d been able to run the wide stretches and the narrow edges in a way that he’d never been able to before—no waiting, walking slow, turning back, no gritty breathing, no one for him to be slow for. He was able to walk the side paths made by Ani Wainoa, and to stop and disturb the eels, watch them slide in the dark places of the creek; able to run up the rise and down the other side without stopping, resting, waiting or stepping carefully on the narrow path down.
At the house he’d found Ani Wainoa sitting among the books she stole, waiting, dressed in white breeches and blouse, with a black sash round her waist, a strip of curtain lace tying back her hair. For him, in a tidy pile, she had blue track pants, a long-sleeved blouse, a coloured sash and headscarf.
Down in the cove where the wind was blowing cold they’d found their own swords and begun tapping, tapping, moving back and forth watching each other, testing each step, circling the low and high parts of the grassy decks, then moving along the ridges and back, feeling their footsteps, bracing against the wind, back and forth until they could scarcely hold up their swords. He’d used his to help him down to a lower path while Ani Wainoa ran back to the slope and sat waiting in the long winter grass where he could only just see her.
Waiting until he felt the strength coming back into his arms he’d gone after her, but when he was just a little more than a sword’s length away she’d rolled a hunk of wood at his feet so that he fell. She’d placed a foot on his back, the tip of her sword touching the back of his neck. ‘The Plank,’ she’d said, as he lay there wondering how he could get the better of her.
The Plank was a piece of tree trunk growing horizontally from the bank overhanging the water and he’d jumped from there many times, as they all had. But that was in summer.
Now it was July with a wind like needles and a raw sea. He’d rolled from under the pointed sword and run down the slope and up onto the ledge. Removing the track pants, he’d walked quickly out to the tip of the side-on tree and dropped into shocking water that had shot up his bum, up his nose and rattled the bones of his head.
Down there he’d waited, waited, waited, then grabbed for the surface popping his face and going for shore where Ani Waino
a screwed her eyes into him, furious that he’d done it, wishing that she’d been the one to walk and jump—doing it exactly the way he had—straight off, dropping into icy water.
So, ana, Ani Wainoa!
His dog was barking up and down the shore.
‘I’ll do it, I’ll do it,’ Ani Wainoa said, but he’d left her there while he set off for Nanny Blind’s, knowing she wouldn’t jump without him there to see. ‘Well nex’time then, nex’time,’ she’d called, coming after him as he ran with his teeth clamped to stop them cracking together and to stop his head from aching.
Nex’time.
But it might not ever be as cold again, and by nex’time Ani Wainoa would probably have something worse thought up that they liked better, for them to do.
On his way home, Pop Henry at the gate in his balaclava and coat waiting for Marley to bring his paper, had called out to him, ‘You seen a ghose, you Rua?’
Chapter Eight
It was all set up under the plum trees—beers on a table along with a last few slugs of hard stuff, ice coolers and a couple of nearly finished chateau cardboards. Not enough to get blind unless you were nearly blind already, as she was. Eddie and Jase were rolling up extension chords and Jackson and Joeboy were tying forms and tables down on Archie’s trailer.
‘Crack you a can,’ Dion, the best man, said to him.
‘And here, throw this in you,’ Wai said to Maina pouring whisky on to a lump of melting ice. ‘Forget about him, the bugger. Hnnnn, we know him from way back … Trade him in’s my advice.’
‘Get me a trade, I’ll take it.’
The mother and grandfather of the bride, who’d left the party early the night before, had cooked up the left-overs and were bringing it on trays from under the canopy, making a space on the table for it and calling the kids to come. Kid wasn’t among them he noticed as they all came running, and Wai seeing him looking for her said she’d gone off home. ‘Her and your dog. Seen the mini coming just before you two come up out of the bushes, and off she went.’
‘Pain in the bum, her,’ he said.
‘Little thing, little Kiri. Cheeky,’ Maina said.
Archie who hadn’t been to bed yet and whose wife Cass had come to get him, was dashing at his ukelele, bundled over it and singing, ‘When I die chus bury me please …’ likely to fall forward if his feet stopped rocking toe to heel.
‘Do it yourself, bury yourself easy, you don’t watch out,’ Cass said.
‘Underneath a manuka tree …’
‘Archie’ll tell you, ay Arch?’ Wai said.
‘Mingimingi at my head and feet …’
‘Con man and a rip-off artist from way back. Married Neta. Left her when he ran off with the rugby funds, right Arch?’
‘Chus like I gone to sleep.’
‘I know, I know. Clever the way he puts himself across,’ Maina said. ‘Nice the lies he tells, the way he tells them. Thank god I already had my kids to my first husband … who was a little rat Aussie drug pusher who took himself off home to Sydney and ended up in the clink.’
‘You know how to pick ’em,’ Wai said.
‘And a pack of losers in between,’ Maina said.
‘Freitrain, freitrain, goin’ so fast …’
‘Across the lunch table at this hui where I was note-taker for the AGM and he was offering me watercress in a bowl along with waanderful advice, is where I met him,’ Maina said. ‘Nex’thing I know I’m riding off into the sunset in this unpaid-for flash car, and married to him.’
‘Off up country with the footy funds and a new woman by the time the shit hit the fan,’ Wai said. ‘Neta on her own with the kids. Good, good. Lucky for her.’
‘Don’t know why me,’ Maina said.
The fry-up was swimming about in his stomach and he didn’t want to drink any more, thought he’d wait around for the tide and get off to the cove again. Good day, good tide. He reckoned everyone would be heading for the cove later, even Archie who’d been up singing and dancing all night. Wobbly now, but he’d have a couple of hours’ sleep and come over ready for some action, no headache, nothing. How did he …? Maybe a matter of practice.
‘Ditch him why don’t you?’ Wai was saying to Maina as she poured. ‘Here, get this into you while you think about it.’
‘I got six hundred dollars off my dad when we first met you know. Lied to my father … lied that I needed the money. Bloody hell, dad sold his old car. That was the … that was … I mean … ’
‘We-e-ll. Well, your dad won’t be the first one sold a car because of him and his deals. We heard about Laundromat, Dial-a-Hangi, Car Yards, treks through the ponga forest … all shonky. The people end up with no deal, no money, ay Arch?’
‘That was, that was … the worst thing … the old man’s car …’
‘Ahh, you think he just making a sandwich and he takes off wit’ the bread?’ Arch said, singing and strumming it. ‘That’s it, ha, ha, everytime.’
The boys had returned with the trailer and Dion and Jase went to help them stack the last load of tables. When they’d gone Jase came and sat by him, holding out his hand with a phone number written on it. ‘Give it me last night, Remelda,’ he said.
‘Where are they? Bones, Remelda?’
‘Off somewhere … What you reckon? What you think Cuz?’
‘Ring it.’
‘You reckon, you reckon?’
‘Yeh ring it.’
‘You. You ring it. You like her nnn?’
‘My fingers drunk,’ Archie said handing the uke to Pare, grandmother of the bride, ‘Taking my fingers home, me.’
‘To the place I belong,’ sang Pare plucking the strings, ‘West Virginia … ’
‘That’s my man Arch,’ Cass said.
‘Won’t bother you know, to lie,’ Maina said. ‘I mean, I mean … I should go off … have an affair myself …’
‘True … You should, you should … ’
‘Except … couldn’t be bloody bothered.’
‘Come home wit’ me, me and my drunk fingers, Girl,’ Arch said.
‘I would, would too …’
‘Could rent him out,’ Cass said.
‘Won’t even lie. Expect me … expect me to find my own way home then he won’t even lie. Too full of himself to lie … like … like any other decent … adult … adulter.’
‘Mind you, he’ll be useless,’ Cass said. ‘Won’t you my Arch?’
‘Want her money back,’ Wai said.
‘… erer, adulterer. A liar any other time … but when it comes to that he don’t.’
Now Pare had handed the uke to him. He passed it to Jase who picked a few strings and put it down. ‘Why not Cuz. You ring … her, Tina … I come with you.’
‘Or I could make out I was, huhuh … Like, hide out a few days and make out I was, if … if I could think of … huh.’ She was lighting up and handing her nearly empty cigarette packet round. ‘Be a laugh. Whoosh, gone … if I could think … think where.’
Everyone was making a move to go, collecting the empties into a rubbish bag and carrying them to a trailer, talking about how they’d been lucky with the weather—no cooking in the rain—which started Wai off again wondering when and how they were going to get their new wharekai.
Before he knew he’d opened his mouth he heard words coming out of it. ‘I know where,’ he said to Maina.
‘The boys have got one more trip, taking the rubbish bags to the tip,’ Cass said to her. ‘Then I’ll have the car. Take you home, if you want.’
‘It’s OK, who bloody cares. Too shickered anyway. Have a sleep down on the sand. It’s what people do round here, sleep on beaches. Nice. Just lay down on the sand and wait down there, me. He’ll turn up later, won’t even be embarrassed … thinks he’s such a big shot. Me, I’m the one embarrassed and … And I’ll just get in the bloody car like usual, go home pay all the bills like usual, get him out of his failed … failed … enter … prises like usual … pack up and leave with him when it all goes wro
ng like usual. I should just … ’
‘When Tamarua and Renie got married was the last time we had a proper roof,’ Wai was saying. ‘Broken down but better than no roof at all … But tell you what. The army boys are leaving us the marquee ’til Monday week. Can’t come for it ’til Monday after next. So what say we use it to have a fundraiser for our wharekai next weekend? What you say? Be us lot doing all the work again?’
‘I know where … a place,’ he said to Maina.
He could see his dog returning.
Chapter Nine
It was six months later, at the beginning of the summer after his mother died, that his father had gone out one Saturday morning and returned in the late afternoon with Renie and Tommy John. His father was jittery and pale and looked as though he’d been drinking for a week and he took him and Moananui over to Wai’s place where all the people were sitting about waiting.
After his father had taken Renie and the baby round the lawn to greet everyone, he sat down on Wai’s step while Aunty Wai took Renie to sit with the aunties on a fold-out chair covered in giant flowers. He remembered how quiet it was, and that no one had growled at Taku and Shania or made them get down out of Aunty Wai’s coral tree. So he’d gone to join his two same-age cousins in the tree, waiting to see what would happen.
It was a long wait, with people talking in low voices, eyeing up this Renie that his father had brought home and wiggling their eyebrows at Tommy John.
After a time Pop Henry had begun making noises, blowing his nose, clearing his throat and getting up ready to speak—which he did on on on, stamping his feet and waving his arms about, jabbing his finger in the direction of the urupa.
He hadn’t realised at first that Pop was having a go at his father—for playing around while his wife, their niece, was sick all that time, and for coming there now, today, bringing a woman who looked like a schoolgirl with a baby already more than a year old.
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