The catering tent looks to her like part of a police murder inquiry. The horror of that night two years ago comes back to haunt her. A small digger rattles down the road, heaves on to the lumpy grassland and disappears into the ferns and toetoe. Tracey groans.
Tina Kingi, lugging trestles, shouts from the gate. ‘Hey Trace, can you give a hand?’
Tracey’s relieved to see her. She throws up the window and leans on the sill. ‘Manny and Sky are asleep. I’ll see if Delia or Aureole will watch them.’
Tina waves and continues on to the tent.
A large covered truck rolls up and parks at the gate. A tall man wearing earphones and face-mike jumps out. He says something into the mike, nods, takes a huge bunch of keys from the tool-belt slung around his waist and speaks into the mike again. He looks up and down the road, scratching his mop of red curls, sees her at the window and waves. It’s Tim. A moment later he’s at the door, explaining his problem.
‘I’ve got a truckload of props here that are saturated and muddy. You got a shed where I could dry them out?’
Tracey shakes her head. ‘Ours is full of wood.’
He looks over at the McAneny place. ‘Any chance they’d let me use that back porch?’
Tracey grins, diverted from her worries. ‘You could try. They’re a bit odd.’
‘You’re the catering lady, right? I’m Tim.’
‘I know. The oldest lady’s a bit of a dragon. I’d come over, but the kids are asleep.’
‘No worries. Thanks.’
Tracey watches as he drives around the bend, then re-emerges down the McAneny drive. Aureole appears on the back porch, flapping in excitement as the big back doors of the truck are opened and the props man begins to carry objects out. Manny and Sky must have been woken by Tim’s shouts — they want to see what’s going on. They all hear Aureole’s scream. Tracey gives a hand to each child and runs over. Then stops abruptly.
Lying on the grass by the porch is a dead body. Beside it a decapitated head, blood dripping from the slash. Tim has another body — a misshapen nightmare creature in chain mail — slung over his shoulder. Half of its face is shot away.
‘Oh oh oh!’ screams Aureole, thoroughly enjoying herself now that she understands. ‘The battle has come to our doorstep! Oh, the brave young warriors! Oh, how life-like!’ She sees Tracey and the children standing at a little distance, and another tiny scream escapes. ‘Cover their eyes, Tracey, quick! Oh, and another one!’ as Tim props an armless dummy against the veranda post.
Grubby flags, headless animals, sodden lumps of clothing and more muddy, bloody body parts follow. Soon the back porch resembles a gruesome war-zone in some mystical fantasyland. Tim hands Manny a fake sword and laughs to see that the boy knows how to use it. Sky hides behind Tracey, her eyes round. Tracey is oddly comforted by all the artificial carnage. Surely no one will turn a hair if some truly sinister body part is unearthed in a trench.
She calls to Manny, but he won’t come. He slices at a dead — what? could be some sort of giant insect? — and screams with laughter.
Delia, who has come out to see what the commotion is about, shakes her head at the sight.
‘Manny, go home with your mother,’ she says firmly, and leads the dragging boy away to Tracey. ‘Dear oh dear,’ she mutters, ‘what is Roe going to say? Aureole should never …’
She stands there beside Tracey, looking back at the scene; glances quickly at the girl’s pinched face and away again.
Delia’s face is grave. She lays her hand on Tracey’s shoulder, as if, Tracey thinks, she sees an illness inside her. ‘What a mess,’ the old woman says, and then adds, oddly, ‘Don’t worry, my dear, all will be well.’
They walk in silence back to Donny’s. Aureole comes running behind, her dress fluttering in the wind like a bright flag, full of the excitement of the film shoot.
‘On our back door! We can watch history being made. Tracey, is this the Great War they are filming?’
‘No,’ says Delia tartly, ‘don’t be so ridiculous, Aureole.’
‘But they’re digging trenches, I heard there would be trenches.’
Delia glances sharply at Tracey. Tracey understands, from that grim look, that Delia knows.
‘Don’t worry,’ says Delia again.
Di Masefield stands proudly, still as a tree trunk, on her ‘mark’. She wears a cape of scarlet fur over some sort of silver-mesh body armour. On her feet, furry winged boots. Rising from her wiry grey hair are two feathery protuberances that could be antennae. Across the other side of the trench, a camera crew line up the shot. They confer, move the camera a few metres, then back.
The director makes a suggestion and the camera is moved again. Di might as well be a tree trunk for all the notice they take of her.
Lovey Kingi, kitted out in a diaphanous blue and green tunic, twigs arranged in her artfully tousled hair, comes to stand in Di Masefield’s lee.
‘It’s cold,’ she says. ‘At least you can wear a coat.’
‘Shh,’ says Di, staring straight ahead, ‘I’m working.’
‘Could I come under your coat?’
‘No,’ says Di, then, looking down at Lovey’s pinched face, she opens one flap and closes it quickly around the child.
‘Thanks.’
After a few minutes of wriggling, which Di finds rather pleasant, Lovey is ready to chat.
‘Who are you then?’
‘Ang Soo, Queen of the Nether Regions. I think she might be some sort of moth. What about you?’
‘I’m not sure, really. I have to flit between the trees when you come up.’
‘You’ll be a wood spirit then.’
Lovey tucks her cold hands into Di’s warm ones. Make-up has transformed her light brown skin to a darker, greyer shade. She looks like a joey, peering out from the folds of the cape. ‘This is a spook place,’ she says.
‘No it’s not. Just a bit of bush.’
‘There’s dead people here. We could get a curse on us.’
‘Don’t be silly. This is simply an old abandoned section. People lived here once.’
‘And died.’ Lovey shivers. ‘I don’t like it much. I wish they’d hurry up.’
Di secretly agrees. This standing around is becoming tedious, though she daren’t say so to the famous director.
As if he’s heard her, the famous director calls across. ‘Di darling, thanks for your patience. That’s marvellous. Now one last shot to line up. Take the steps down at the deep end of the trench.’
‘Certainly.’
Di ejects Lovey and moves away. She climbs gingerly, careful of the riotous antennae, down into the trench which slopes upwards and away into the trees. Lovey hops up and down, watching her eerie disappearance. Red light floods the scene.
‘Smoke now!’ calls the director. ‘Di darling, can you hear me?’
There’s a muffled assent from somewhere below Di’s headdress.
‘Marvellous. Now. Could you flick the switch on your right cuff?’
There’s a pause, and then Lovey gasps to see cold blue light flickering and snaking through Di’s hair and up the antennae. The rest of Di is hidden in the trench; there’s only the eerie blue light, the mad headdress, seen through drifting wisps of smoke.
‘Wait!’ calls the director. ‘Wait … and go! Just walk like a queen. Think regal, Di, we may use this take. What the hell, Tim, I want smoke from the underworld, not on the child! Ang Soo must emerge from the fiery mists. She must burst through the ground. Cut, cut. We’ll do it again.’
Lovey sighs and stops her flitting. Di, whose head is now well above ground, turns majestically and begins to descend again.
‘Don’t go back down,’ whispers Lovey urgently, following her. ‘Don’t do it, Mrs Masefield. It’s tapu.’
‘Your imagination is getting the better of you, child.’ But Di is a little nervous as she inches down.
‘Turn away, please, Di darling,’ says the director. ‘We don’t want your face. You’re
looking for someone. A bit agitated. We may use this shot, as Lydia is not keen on walking in the trench.’
The director waves at Lovey. ‘Back into the trees, sweetie, we just want a tiny glimpse of your flitting.’
Lovey moves behind a tree and watches, her eyes round and dark. She chants something in a quiet, unsettling sing-song. Di tries to ignore the thread of sound. She rights one of the antennae, which has slipped over her ear, and walks along the trench, looking from side to side as if searching.
‘Excellent,’ calls the director. ‘Now, one more time, please — not so much wagging your head as searching with your eyes. Feel the anxiety. Walk very, very slowly.’
Di takes tiny steps. Perhaps this cameo will be the beginning of a film career. She glances around and shivers once or twice to denote anxiety. Lovey’s chant is unsettling her, though. She wants to stop and order the child away.
She does stop, but for a different reason.
‘Wait a minute,’ she says, her voice quavering. ‘There’s something down here.’
She bends down to get a better look, then straightens. Held at arm’s length, between finger and thumb, is a yellowing jawbone. The cameraman zooms in on it.
‘Don’t touch it!’ screams Lovey, too late. ‘The curse will get you!’ She runs away, out of the bush, her bare feet dancing over the tussocks, arms waving wildly. The cameraman tracks her, thinking this might be useful footage.
‘Bugger,’ says the director, taking the bone from Di and turning it in his hands. A tooth falls out. ‘Tim! Did we put body parts in the trench?’
Tim shakes his head. All the crew are silent.
‘Jesus wept,’ says the director, holding the jawbone up for them all to see. ‘We’ve got a situation here. This is real.’ He looks more closely. ‘Human. Just what we bloody need. Cut the smoke, Tim.’
Cursing, he throws the jawbone back into the trench. It hits Di on the arm and falls at her feet.
‘Get away, get away!’ she screams, kicking it as if it’s alive. No longer Queen of the Nether Regions, she scrabbles her way out of the trench, desperate to get away and up into the real world.
The director waves her and the crew into his orbit. He speaks in a low voice. ‘Look. Do you think we can keep this under wraps until the shoot is over? A couple of weeks? Three?’ He looks down into the trench, then jumps in and kicks some soil around. ‘There. No sign of the rest. Anyone uncomfortable about that?’ He looks belligerently from face to face. There’s a bit of shuffling; no one looks him in the eye. ‘We tell the officials when we’re done, eh?’ He looks up at Di. ‘Very tight schedule, darling. Producers on our back. Mum’s the word meantime?’
Di swallows. The hand that held the bone is burning. ‘I won’t go into the trench again.’
‘Understood, sweetheart. We got good footage that time anyway. Stunning. I tell you what, we’ll move the trench a little.’ He speaks to one of the crew, business-like now that the schedule seems on track again. ‘Get Claude and his digger to fill in say three metres here and we’ll film just a bit further down the line.’
Di walks slowly out to the road. Despite her warm cloak and her burning hand, she’s shivering. She tells herself that Lovey is a silly impressionable child, her head full of outdated Maori legends. But Lovey’s high-pitched scream, the threat of a curse, is taking root, overriding Di’s rational sense. She pulls up a clump of wet grass and scrubs at her hand; tosses it away again as if it’s filthy.
Back in the catering tent, she gulps down hot tea.
‘What’s up with Lovey?’ asks Tina. ‘She ran off home like a scalded cat.’
Di Masefield shrugs and walks away. She wants the costume off, the boots off, her old safe self back in control.
Mona Kingi leaves her lovely kitchen, where baking bread warms the air and all is clean and orderly. Her step is firm, her eyes bright. Whatever the new medication is, it’s working. She hasn’t felt like this for years. She smooths back her hair, which has grown out grey over the past few years but still curls and kinks around her glowing and sweaty face. She walks upright, with a little sway which her mother and grandmother have taught her. ‘Remember your royal blood, Mona,’ they would say. ‘You are of a chiefly family and must step with mana.’ Mona knows her step recently has been anything but chiefly, but today, at last, feels again the presence of her ancestors. Outside, the air is crisp, the morning sun a blessing. She smiles at nothing much, looking around for George. There he is, out in the shed, loading hay onto the tractor. Her good solid husband. She speaks to her ancestors quietly: Let this be the end of it all. Let things stay normal this time.
But despite her good mood, she has a purpose. George must hear this. She waves to him and mimes a cup of tea. He waves back, showing five fingers. He’ll be in shortly. Back in the kitchen, she makes the tea, butters fresh scones.
‘Lovey’s in a bit of a state,’ she says, when George has come in and they’re both sitting by the wood-burner. ‘I don’t think it’s good for her being an extra in the film. She gets ideas.’
George picks straw from his jersey, is about to drop it on the floor, then notices his wife’s frown. He opens the wood-burner door and chucks in the handful. ‘When doesn’t our girlie get ideas? What’s it this time?’
‘She was over in the bush block yesterday. Says they found human bones. Says it’s tapu and they’ll all be cursed.’
George straightens. ‘Bugger.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
George won’t look at her as he speaks. ‘Bull Howie’s stirred up about that block too. Lovey maybe caught a hint from him and made up her own story. She thinks the place is spooked.’
‘She thinks it’s tapu, George. Says she saw a jawbone.’
‘It’ll be a sheep. Or a deer. Plenty of them buried around here. They’re filming again today, aren’t they? If they’d found human remains, the authorities would be all over the place.’ George watches her, anxiety in every line of his face.
‘Don’t look like that, George, I’m not going down again. But Lovey might be right. What if it is an old urupa?’
‘A what?’
‘Urupa, burial site. Who dragged you up, George Kingi?’
George grins. ‘Not your old kuia, that’s for sure. Look, if they found something, why are they still filming?’
‘They could be ignoring it. Covering up the evidence till they’re done. I think you should have a word to Stan down at the police.’
George scratches his head, picks at another straw. ‘Yeah, well. Maybe I will. Wait till Lovey’s back from school, see if her story’s still the same, eh?’ He stands and looks down at her. ‘God, you look bonza today. I could eat you along with the scones!’
She throws the tea towel at him, laughing. ‘I can see through you, George Kingi, trying to change the subject. Get on out with you!’
Mona watches him go. He doesn’t want to rock the boat, that’s clear. He won’t go to the police. But he’s uneasy — George can never hide his feelings. She considers reporting it herself but knows there will be raised eyebrows, comments behind her back, whispers about her state of mind. And Lovey has a bit of a reputation herself for over-dramatising, for seeing ghosts behind every bush. Mona decides it won’t hurt to wait until Lovey gets home.
Lovey is uncharacteristically quiet in Room One that day. Miss Piaka, though enjoying the peace, is worried. The child is pale and the shadows under her eyes darker than usual. Taking part in the movie is an unwarranted interruption in Miss Piaka’s eyes, though the older sister, Tina, had assured the head teacher that it would be for only a few days, and that learning about ancient legends and filming techniques would be a valuable cultural experience for Lovey. Three of the older children have already had bit parts. In a two-teacher school like Manawa — and one with a sinking roll — even a few kids away makes a big dent. She and Mick will be glad when the filming is over.
At interval Lovey stays inside instead of making her usual rush for the play
ground. She sits at her desk, destroying her sandwich and pushing the crumbs about.
‘Something wrong, Lovey?’ Miss Piaka suspects the mother’s health.
Lovey nods.
‘Want to talk about it?’
Lovey nods again, stirring the crumbs into patterns.
The teacher rules out the mother. Lovey never breathes a word about her mother’s ‘episodes’, which are well discussed in the community.
‘Someone bullying you?’
Lovey shakes her head. ‘I think I got a kanga on me.’ She looks up, her eyes black as tar. ‘Mrs Masefield too — even worse than me.’
‘Lovey,’ says Miss Piaka firmly, ‘no one would put a curse on you. Or Mrs Masefield,’ although she finds this more believable. ‘Who’s been telling you these silly stories?’
‘I saw the bones.’ Lovey fingers her own jaw. ‘I saw the teeth fall out. I saw Mrs Masefield hold it. It was buried, but they dug it up.’
Miss Piaka waits for more. Out it all comes, Lovey enjoying the telling now she has started.
‘The film people dug a trench over the other side, in a spook place. It’s real spooked, Miss Piaka, you can feel dead people under the ground. It’ll be our tupuna for sure, and now they’ve got stirred up and Mrs Masefield is for it ’cause she picked up the jawbone, and I might be too, and the cameraman and the director and all them watching. They’re all for it.’
Miss Piaka narrows her eyes. ‘The film crew were watching?’
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