by Albert Wendt
Mere goes into Aaron’s impersonation of a Samoan reverend, standing up grandly as if she is in a pulpit. Face set in gleaming piety, she sermonises, ‘Ia, bruders and sistas, today it is Sunday and Sunday is for the Lord and for all real Samoan people to give – yes, give – generously to the Lord’s church!’ She pauses and coughs, dramatically. ‘If you the real Samoan, you give until it hurt in your stomach, hurt in your chest, hurt in your everything. But our Loving Fader, he going to heal that hurt by loving you and your aiga more and more and more until God he hurt in every part of his sacred body!’ The others applaud. Mere bows and, raising her glass of whiskey, toasts, ‘Aaron, wherever you are, we hope you not hurting in your everything!’
Daniel observes the others, as they drink and eat. Keith, who as usual is holding a cup of tea, hardly has any hair left, and has put on a lot of weight. He has never believed in the Tribe’s philosophy that ‘true Polynesians live off their own body fat’, reminding them he isn’t genetically Polynesian. At six foot three inches, he now describes himself as ‘bigger than the front door into Niue.’ As kids, they had often asked him why he didn’t want to find out who his biological parents were, and he’d replied, ‘I don’t want to be a honky!’ Throughout the years, they have marvelled at the fact that though Keith in physical appearance is unmistakably Pākehā, the way he talks and moves and behaves is uncannily Niuean. He’d even started learning Niuean at high school. And Langi was the eldest daughter of one of the most respected Niuean families in Auckland.
Two tempestuous weeks after they met, Keith and Langi announced their engagement, to the horror of Langi’s family, who’d raised her not to ever marry a Palagi, especially one who was ‘ugly and illegitimate’. Until that point her parents had considered Langi the ideal dutiful loving Niuean daughter, who’d even bypassed the dreaded Palagi period called adolescence, and was doing well at her studies and church and sports and everything else a Niuean daughter should be succeeding in. But Keith’s entry into her life transformed her overnight into an unrecognisable, rebellious, unreasoning creature, who, on hearing her enraged parents’ opposition – No no no, you’re not going to marry that ugly thing! – simply said nothing, packed her bag and shifted in with Keith.
Daniel and the Tribe were amazed by Langi’s unexpected rebellion too, because until then, she’d been a smiling, extremely pleasant presence in their group. ‘Must be your hypnotic charisma and sexual magnetism!’ Paul joked with Keith, who didn’t see the joke and said, ‘No, I’m bloody surprised too. She’s the one who wants us to marry, and I’m over the moon about that – I’m crazy about her.’ The Tribe, particularly Mere, reminded him it was now acceptable just to live together, but Keith insisted that whatever Langi desired, he desired too, and Langi desired marriage.
Only Langi’s older brother turned up at their wedding at the registry office. The ceremony was followed by a reception organised by the Tribe at Mere’s home, where everyone – but most of all, Langi – proceeded to enjoy Aaron’s seemingly inexhaustible generosity of alcohol, and all the Tribe’s mothers’ sumptuous cooking.
During the party, they watched, with thrilling satisfaction, as Langi shed the skin of the obedient, teetotaller, dutiful Niuean and became an incredibly sexy dancer and singer who out-drank, out-talked, and out-sang everyone. And who Keith later told Aaron and Daniel was incredible in bed, eager to try everything, because, she confessed, her strict upbringing had denied her for too long the riveting, nerve-blowing, exquisite pleasures of sex and more sex.
During the first few years of Keith’s and Langi’s marriage, their relationship swung from the extremes of utter emotional devotion and love and sexual satisfaction to periods of interminable rows, during which Langi sometimes attacked him with flailing fists and screaming language unbecoming of a Niuean daughter or wife. These periods ended with Langi storming back to her parents, vowing never to again live with that ‘fat honky’. But a few days later she’d quietly slip back into Keith’s love.
The pattern, which Daniel and the Tribe feared would ultimately result in divorce, ended when Langi became pregnant with her first child, and she and Keith settled into a quiet, devoted relationship. However, not long after the birth of their second child, a daughter, Langi and the children went on a trip to Niue with her parents for a church opening, and when they returned she refused to go back to Keith, telling Mere that she wanted her kids to have a ‘true Niuean upbringing’, and that Keith, being a Palagi, wouldn’t be able to help her give them that. Plus she’d had enough of his sex-crazy demands: every day every night everywhere.
‘But you kept bragging you and Keith were having a fantastic, all-the-time, everywhere sexual intercoursing, better than anything you’d experienced before,’ Mere insisted.
‘Great fucking isn’t everything, and that’s over now – I need to concentrate on my children,’ Langi replied.
Without Langi and their children, Keith slid into a whirlpool of self-pity, blaming himself for the break-up, and trying to drink himself out of the pain. Aaron took him into his home and barred him from drinking, and with Mere as a go-between, negotiated with Langi’s parents without Langi’s knowledge. In turn, Langi’s parents persuaded her that it was best for their grandchildren if she returned to Keith, who they now considered to be a Palagi worthy of her and of being Niuean.
This time, when they reconciled, their marriage settled into a quiet, contented one. Like most marriages, theirs has what Langi describes as ‘belly-aches, heart pains, blames, and shames’. But Keith eventually became his in-laws’ most trusted son-in-law, and after his father-in-law died, Keith replaced him as a deacon and lay preacher in their family Niuean church in Newton.
‘How are Langi and the kids?’ Daniel asks Keith when Keith comes over and sits beside him.
‘Only us at home now,’ he replies, ‘so we have peace and quiet – but we miss our kids.’ He tells Daniel his son, Mikaele, is studying medicine in Otago; his daughter, Simone, is in Wellington doing journalism. ‘I rang and told them about Aaron. We all had a good cry on the phone, and they said they were coming home next week for his tangi. You know how our kids loved him …’
‘Aaron to them was just an overgrown kid: their older brother,’ Daniel says.
‘You mean, their older brother and only uncle who dared live outside our very middle-class life, Dan,’ Keith comments.
‘And who fixed anyone who dared bully them …’
‘And gave them the things we couldn’t give them,’ Keith adds. He pauses and then says, ‘Do you know what my kids called him?’ Daniel shakes his head. ‘They called him “The Prince of Freemans Bay”.’
‘He was a freeman,’ Paul interrupts, and sits down opposite them. ‘I don’t know about being the Prince though.’ Daniel glances at Keith; they both know Paul has always been jealous of Aaron’s exceptional gifts and his blithe disregard of rules.
‘Your kids considered him a Prince too,’ Keith challenges Paul. ‘Remember that time they wanted their ears pierced and you forbade them, saying they were too young …’
‘… And they told you Uncle Aaron had had his ears pierced when he was only fourteen …?’
‘… And you got absolutely mad with them …’
‘… Until their uncle danced into your home with huge pounamu pendants dangling from his defiant earlobes …’
‘And belittled me in front of my own kids.’ Paul’s voice starts quavering. ‘How do you think I felt – him challenging my authority?’
‘Now, boys, don’t let Uncle Aaron continue to cause trouble,’ Mere intervenes, putting her drink down beside Paul’s, and holding onto his left arm gently.
‘He’s not!’ Paul declares. ‘He was just bloody irresponsible – he wasn’t a good example for our kids.’
‘But you loved him, eh, Paul?’ Laura calls from across the room.
Paul turns away from her while they all hold him in thei
r gaze, and wait for his reply. Paul tries not to give one, but, then gazing pointedly at Laura, declares, ‘Okay, yes, okay, I loved him. There, is that good enough for all of you?’
Mere pats his shoulder and says, ‘We all envied his being a freeman, Paul, and we all resented him for being more intelligent and gifted than us, but we all loved him.’
‘Love him, Auntie?’ Cheryl, who is pouring Laura another wine, corrects her.
‘Yes, we all love him,’ Mere says finally.
For a long while, they withdraw into their own silences to be with Aaron. Daniel observes Paul.
Poor Paul has always underestimated his abilities. His father had been a bitter, domineering man who’d bullied his wife and family: a father who’d insisted Paul become the best in everything, especially in his studies and rugby, and had even used physical violence to try to achieve that. Many times during their growing up Paul and his mother and sister had sought refuge in the homes of the other tribal members.
Once, one cold winter evening, while Paul and his family were hiding in Mere’s home, their father stormed onto the veranda and pounded furiously on the front door, demanding they come out. Mere and her mother flung open the door and confronted him. He started raising his fists to them. Mere’s mother, a small woman, pulled out a machete from behind her back, and threatened, ‘Ya don’t do that here, mate!’
‘Ya better fuck off,’ Mere shouted, ‘or Mum will cut off ya head!’
After that, the beatings lessened, until their first year at university. Then, Paul’s drunken father, during a Christmas party at Aaron’s house, accused Paul’s mother of being unfaithful to him, and moved to hit her. The members of the Tribe knew better than Paul’s father: Aaron’s home, after he’d driven his drunken father from it for good a few years before, was a zone of absolute peace, which you disturbed at your peril. Aaron simply turned to Paul and said, ‘Bro, he’s your father and he’s threatening your mother. If you don’t do anything about it, I will.’ Paul hesitated – he’d not dared confront his father before. Aaron started across the room.
‘Paul, do something!’ Mere intervened. And before they could focus, Paul was tackling his father, lifting him up on his shoulders and flinging him across the room against the wall.
As the man staggered to his feet, and Paul stood, unable to continue his breaking of the tapu that you never hit your parents, Aaron said, ‘Paul, you have to stop him, now!’ Sobbing loudly, Paul scrambled out of the room. Mere, Daniel and Keith rushed to Aaron, but they were too late. Aaron’s booted right foot was up and thumping between the man’s legs. As he collapsed screaming and clutching his genitals, Aaron’s right boot drove into his ribs. The others tackled Aaron and held him down to the floor.
A few days later, Paul’s father disappeared from Freemans Bay. The rumour was he’d taken off with another woman.
With his father gone, Paul blossomed; he went on to excel in his studies and in rugby, and was an Auckland provincial representative for four years. He could have been an All Black, but he met Cherie, an architect, who didn’t like rugby because she said it was too violent. After their first child Paul’s love of the game decreased rapidly and he decided to retire from rugby. Aaron, his biggest fan, refused to talk to him for nearly a year, and in that time tried through influential friends in the rugby union to dissuade Paul from quitting.
In hindsight, Daniel realises that Cherie has an ability – a gift? – of appearing within a group without anyone noticing, as if she’s always been there. That’s how she came into Paul’s life and into the Tribe’s. One morning while they were having coffee in the student cafeteria, Daniel suddenly saw her beside Paul in the chair opposite him, and believed she’d been in their group for a long time, and that it was appropriate she was.
Cherie was unusually captivating in appearance, but not to the extent of making her intrusive, attention-stopping. She was the only child of a doting Palagi mother and Samoan father who owned a large catering business, and was one of the few Pacific students studying architecture. After two years of a hectic social life during which her father had threatened to stop helping her financially, she was now performing exceptionally well in her studies; she became an integral member of their group before they knew it, and her place was always beside Paul.
Until then Paul had enjoyed – and intended to continue – a euphoric, vigorous life of casual female relationships. That ended when Cherie slid into the seat beside him. A few weeks later he admitted to the Tribe, with deep satisfied sighs, that Cherie was enough, absolutely enough for him.
Not that their marriage was one of uninterrupted bliss, love and contentment. Their second child, a daughter called Phyllis, after Cherie’s mother, was three when they discovered she had a hole in her heart. Two operations failed to remedy it. The Tribe and their families were at the hospital when Phyllis died, and they saw Cherie and Paul implode with excruciating shock, despair and grief.
Their communal attempt at consoling them was futile. Cherie and Paul withdrew into the dark depths of their home, and Cherie disintegrated into what Mere, the only one Paul allowed to visit her, described as a nervous breakdown. A few weeks later, in desperation, Paul packed for her and their remaining daughter and flew them to Samoa, to the large, isolated home Cherie’s parents owned on the hills of Vailima. The members of the Tribe tried communicating with them – with no response. Daniel got his father to report back on them. ‘My friends are also keeping an eye on them,’ Daniel’s father informed them. ‘Paul must be desperate: he’s even getting Samoan taulasea to treat Cherie.’
The taulasea must have been effective in their healing, because Paul, Cherie and their daughter returned about four months later, looking as if they’d survived a concentration camp. They were emaciated, their bones rising prominently out of their bodies, the usual sparkle in Cherie’s quiet eyes replaced by an insatiable gaze of longing for her beloved daughter. The Tribe knew that Phyllis was not to be mentioned again, ever. They understood why Paul and Cherie cut themselves off from the Tribe, promising to return soon.
Cherie and Paul re-immersed themselves in their careers, and within a year seemed over the worst of their sorrow. So the disturbing news of their mutual agreement to separate hit the Tribe by surprise. When Daniel asked Paul about it, he simply nodded and confirmed it was true: they wanted time away from each other.
When Daniel saw tears in Paul’s eyes, he embraced him. ‘We have to stop accusing each other of causing Phyllis’s death,’ Paul whispered.
‘She died of heart trouble,’ Daniel tried consoling him. ‘You didn’t cause that.’
Even Mere couldn’t stop the separation.
During their separation, only Paul maintained his connections to the Tribe. Cherie and their daughter kept away; with a passionate intensity, Cherie turned her small architectural firm into a successful one. Paul did the same with his university career, and published his first major book on the history of Samoa. Everyone was joyfully surprised when Cherie and their daughter appeared at the book launch. Soon after that, Cherie and Paul were together again.
‘Here’s to Aaron, the Prince of Freemans Bay!’ Laura raises her glass. Daniel notices she is still drinking her favourite red wine.
‘The Prince who made sure all our children loved him,’ Paul adds. And they raise their glasses to Aaron’s portrait and toast him.
Before they disperse that night, they agree to hold ‘a family meeting with Aaron’ (Keith’s description) at the funeral home the next day. They will bring their spouses, children and grandchildren. They also agree on the date, place and time for Aaron’s funeral. Cheryl offers to gather her generation of the Tribe, to organise the whole funeral, including the hākari for the mourners afterwards. ‘They have come of age,’ Laura declares, hugging Cheryl, and starting to cry again. ‘Thank you, darling. And make sure you decide, with your cousins, who is going to eulogise your uncle.’
When Paul and Keith decide to leave, Mere escorts them to the door. Daniel hopes Laura is staying longer. Though she moves after the others, she does so slowly, so Daniel walks with her, unable to say anything. Just as they reach the door, she glances up at him and says, ‘I’m glad you’ve come home, Dan.’ She reaches across and grips his arm. He can’t look into her gaze.
‘I’m very happy to be home,’ he replies. But he can’t say what he really feels – he is so happy to see her, to feel her presence around him, know she is there.
‘I hope we get some time to talk about things,’ she says. For the first time he can look into her eyes and see that she means it.
But before he can say anything, Cheryl gathers him from behind and, looking over his shoulder at her mother, says, ‘Yeah, Mum, you two better have a talk.’ Laura smiles and, reaching up, kisses Cheryl over his shoulder. Her familiar Grace scent and the feel of her body against him make him want to embrace her, but he doesn’t, and senses she is disappointed he isn’t going to.