Breaking Connections

by Albert Wendt

  For almost an hour, other people follow in this vein, and tell their stories about Aaron.

  In the tastefully decorated reception room are two long tables laden with their favourite Māori and Pacific Island food. They are seated around small tables with white tablecloths and expensive wine glasses, cutlery and crockery. Mailo Vasega has welcomed them, and Keith has said grace and thanked Mr Vasega and his family for their generous hospitality. Phillip and Cheryl and the other rangatahi are helping two uniformed waiters serve everyone.

  Sitting with Mere, Laura and Cherie, Daniel is relieved Phillip is continuing to keep his distance, but then as they eat and Laura refuses to acknowledge him in any way and he doesn’t know how to breach that, he wishes their son would intrude.

  Mere and Cherie are obviously feeling the heated palpable tension between Laura and Daniel, but pretend they aren’t aware of it by having a satirical conversation about Aaron and the innumerable women who’d come into his life, none able to stay longer than a year, though most had tried.

  ‘Remember Sherlene? The curvaceous chef Aaron loved because she made the best mince pies and sausage rolls in Kiwiland?’ Cherie interrupts Daniel’s silent preoccupation with Laura.

  ‘Now she was something – and she lasted the longest.’ Mere encourages Cherie’s recalling.

  ‘Until she took her role in Aaron’s life for granted and wanted a child,’ Cherie continues. ‘And he changed the locks in his house.’

  ‘What about Pauline whose surname I can’t remember?’ Mere says. ‘The Samoan princess with the dyed blonde hair and blue contact lenses?’

  ‘Man, she was something. But she made the error of taking him to her studio apartment, which he decribed as “the Bat Cave without the butler to clean up the stinking mess”.’

  ‘And who was that one who wanted him to invest in her new computer company?” Laura now joins in.

  ‘Maryann Porteous, originally from Whangamata,’ Mere recalls.

  ‘Yes, her. She made the deadly mistake of believing he didn’t know much about computers, and talked and talked about them as if she was a genius computer nerd,’ Laura says.

  ‘… And he hacked into her company and, discovering she had set up a pyramid scheme, immediately transferred most of the money from it into his bank accounts in Vanuatu.’

  ‘She disappeared from his life shortly after when, prompted by an anonymous phone call, the Fraud Squad investigated her accounts,’ Mere ends. By now even Daniel is laughing.

  ‘Dan, do you think your Casanova mate ever fell in genuine love with any woman?’ Laura says. The three women hold him in their unnerving scrutiny.

  ‘Remember, you’ve always accused me of not having a heart,’ he tries evading them.

  ‘But because you were closest to him – do you think he ever loved any of those women?’ Laura pursues him.

  ‘Okay, so he treated women badly …’ he starts.

  ‘That’s a bloody understatement, mate,’ Laura interrupts. The others agree.

  ‘… But I think there was one – or two,’ he continues. ‘Remember our last year at uni when he disappeared for a few months and didn’t answer his phone?’ They nod. ‘He was with a woman I never met, and whose name he never told me.’ He pauses. He is once again with Aaron in Aaron’s sitting room, late at night. ‘He’d been drinking and smoking dope heavily and was in a bloody mess: unwashed, haggard and looking haunted,’ he continues. Remembering Aaron’s disjointed, sobbing and slurred monologue, Daniel reconstructs for them the story: Aaron had met this ‘beaudiful, beaudiful woman wid da voodoo touch; da gift of gedding inta ma indestines’ and couldn’t get her out of there. He’d run into her at a P house owned by his mates Feau and Bonzy, and as soon as she’d looked straight at him, into his eyes, and he’d gazed into the green-blue depths of hers, he couldn’t escape.

  ‘Pull our other legs!’ Laura interjects. ‘Your mate was utterly, coldly rational and didn’t believe in that crap.’

  ‘… And wouldn’t fall for a druggie,’ Cherie adds.

  ‘I’m just trying to tell you what he told me,’ Daniel says. ‘He did – he became deeply infatuated with her, and they went on the road from here to Cape Reinga, stopping along the way in motels and motor camps and empty baches they broke into. They used and wrecked them, with him doped and high on her and sex and her high on P, and both getting higher and higher, leaving a trail of wreckage along the way.’ Daniel goes on to describe that the woman had completed a masters in English before she’d discovered marijuana then heroin and finally P – and Aaron’s head had told him not to fall for her, but ‘her fuckin’ vulnerabilidy an’ complede devotion to self-destruction jus fuckin’ well sucked me in!’ It was incredible how he wanted to protect her from herself, but he was soon trapped in her spiralling storm, and he couldn’t stop her. It ended with her overdosing. And with Aaron grieving for her.

  ‘Why do you think he never stuck to one woman?’ Mere interrupts.

  ‘He just wasn’t the monogamous type,’ Cherie offers.

  ‘How many are?’ Laura scoffs, Daniel interpreting it as a deliberate stab at him. ‘Apart from Keith and Paul, how many others?’

  Now that is a killer stab – but before Paul can react, Mere says: ‘That’s not fair, Laura. I can name a few others.’

  ‘Okay then?’ Laura demands.

  Pretending to be struggling hard to recall the names, Mere finally says, ‘Our illustrious prime minister, when he comes out in favour of “family values and marriage”; Father Malony of the Ponsonby Catholic congregation, who is now awaiting trial for sexual abuse of boys; Homer in The Simpsons; Laurel and Hardy; the Three Stooges; Bill Clinton, who “didn’t have sex with that woman” …’ By then even Laura is laughing with Cherie and Mere, and Daniel sucks back his wine with enormous relief.

  ‘Our son doesn’t like me very much, does he?’ he asks Laura, when they are alone, later.

  ‘You didn’t expect anything else, did you?’ Her voice is a thin sharp blade that slides into his tongue and down his gullet. ‘You never really spent much time with him, did you?’

  ‘That is not true, Laura.’

  Holding him in her unflinching gaze, she accuses, ‘Are you sure? You were always too busy with your research and writing and being somebody. Too busy to do anything with him, and you didn’t hide the fact Cheryl was your favourite.’ He leans forward to protest, but she shushes him and adds, ‘I had to try to be what you should’ve been – a caring father to him.’

  ‘Was I that neglectful?’

  ‘Too right, mate!’ she retorts. ‘Have you ever really talked with him for more than a few minutes, about things he’s interested in? You never even went to his games. Lucky Aaron was there to encourage and help him …’ All the way from Hawai‘i, he’d dreaded facing Laura again, but that had eased the night before. Now he wishes he wasn’t being subjected to her accusation, although he knows he deserves it. ‘… But I don’t suppose you want to be reminded of how Aaron treated your son much better than you did, eh?’ she asks.

  He shakes his head and, avoiding her gaze, says, ‘You forget our marvelous Aaron was – is – a criminal who may not be a good model for our kids to follow.’

  ‘He was a criminal, but he still treated our son better than you, mate.’ Her statement is abrupt, final. ‘Try telling our rangatahi their beloved uncle isn’t a hero.’ He turns away and starts getting up. ‘So you don’t want us to discuss the baggage between us?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ he replies, feeling foolish and defenceless.

  ‘But Aaron always gets in the way, eh? So let’s put him aside – he’s bloody dead anyway. And let’s talk about us. Okay?’ He turns to her, and for the first time doesn’t feel so apprehensive about what she may confront him with.

  But before they can talk, Mere hurries over and asks, ‘Dan, have you talked to Ripeka and Mason about Aaron�
�s will?’

  He shakes his head, and says, ‘I never thought of it.’

  ‘I think they should be informed about what’s in the will,’ Mere suggests.

  ‘Do they feature in it?’ Laura asks.

  He explains, ‘If we carry out Aaron’s wishes about his funeral according to the conditions he has stipulated, we can then distribute his property to the beneficaries he has listed. Ripeka and Mason are on that list.’

  ‘Does the will stipulate what each beneficiary gets?’ Mere asks.

  Daniel hesitates and then replies, ‘I can’t tell anyone that until after the funeral and cremation.’

  ‘I hope Ripeka and Mason will be happy about it,’ Mere says. ‘Where are they staying?’

  ‘At Aaron’s home – I mean, their home,’ Laura replies.

  ‘Dan, I really think you should see them tonight, and tell them about the will. We don’t want any misunderstandings.’

  ‘No, and that doesn’t just apply to Ripeka and Mason, but to everyone in the Tribe,’ Dan sighs.

  ‘Bloody Aaron is testing the trust and aroha in our Tribe,’ Laura says.

  ‘And by making me his sole executor, he’s put me right in the middle of the shit,’ Daniel admits. ‘I’ll go and see Ripeka and Mason after this.’ Mere kisses him on the cheek, thanks him and continues circulating to the other tables.

  ‘So you’d better go and talk to them,’ Laura suggests.

  ‘What about our talk?’

  ‘Why don’t you come round tomorrow morning for coffee?’ she asks. He reaches out to touch her, but she says, ‘No. It’s not that easy.’ She pushes back her seat and gets up.

  31

  As he follows Ripeka and Mason up the well-lit front steps, Daniel realises that he hasn’t been in Aaron’s home since the death of his mother, Mabel. Until then, Mabel had insisted that the members of the Tribe use her home as part of the Tribe’s network of homes: she and her family hosted many of the Tribe’s functions, and, as children, Daniel and the others had treated it as if it was their own home; sometimes for days they would live there and attend school. Over the years, the happiness that that brought Daniel allowed him to leave aside that terrible memory of Feau and Bonzy and Aaron abusing Arthur and Martha.

  After their mother died and Ripeka and Mason shifted North, whenever it was Aaron’s turn to host a function, he held it at a restaurant or café, or simply asked one of the other members to host it, and he paid for everything. At those times, Daniel now recalls, it was Mere who usually obliged.

  ‘Come in,’ Mason invites him. He follows Ripeka into the corridor, into the familiar smell he has always associated with that house: an easy muskiness tinged with the scent of incense, which Aaron usually burned in his study. That odour and the protective atmosphere of the house make him feel he is again with Aaron. He is relieved that that particular memory isn’t there, in the room.

  Unlike the other members of the Tribe, Aaron, as he prospered, hadn’t renovated his villa: he didn’t alter the basic villa structure or enlarge the house. However, he cleaned and repaired it, modernising everything, and simplifying the colours of the walls and ceilings to an off-cream with Pacific blue window frames and linings. Every feature and furnishing and decoration added up to what Laura once described as ‘minimalist and Zen,’ an elegant simplicity that made you feel as if you were wrapped up in a second skin that healed your fears and allowed you to be.

  He accepts a beer from Mason as he sits opposite Ripeka in the sitting room under the large portrait of their mother: the only photograph in that room. ‘I haven’t seen you and Mason for years now,’ he says.

  ‘This is our first visit to Auckland since …’ She stops and glances at Mason.

  ‘… Since Mum died,’ Mason finishes her statement.

  ‘Yeah, since Mum passed away,’ she says. Daniel has always felt an elusive impermanence associated with Ripeka: she is there, but not there, and you can never reach out and catch her.

  ‘How’s Hawai‘i?’ Mason asks. ‘Must be great there, eh.’ He and Ripeka laugh softly.

  For a while they chat about that, Daniel doing most of the talking, trying to feel at ease with them. The young Mason he’d known well years before now seems a different person to this bony, untidy man with the ill-matching clothes, the badly nicotined teeth and the eyes that never seem to want to focus on you. When he catches Mason fiddling nervously with his glass and gazing up at his mother’s portrait, Daniel realises, with surprise, that there is nothing about Mason that reminds him of Aaron. Nothing; not even his aura, his presence.

  ‘So are you going to stay in Hawai‘i much longer?’ Ripeka asks.

  ‘Yeah, Dan, are you home for good now?’ Mason echoes her.

  ‘No, I’ve got another semester on my contract there,’ he replies.

  ‘And another woman, bro?’ Mason suggests, looking slyly at Daniel from under his thick eyebrows.

  ‘Dan, you were always the one for the wimmin,’ Ripeka says.

  Though uncomfortable and annoyed that they are deliberately attacking him, Daniel decides to play along. ‘Hawaiian women are something.’

  ‘Aaron was always jealous of your ways with wimmin, Dan,’ Ripeka continues.

  ‘Too right, bro; Aaron couldn’t stop talking about it to us.’ This time, when Mason laughs and flecks of spittle spray through the light, Daniel ends their attack.

  ‘Do you know much about how Aaron – how your brother – died?’ he tests them. Surprised, they look at each other, and then, in unison, shake their heads. ‘Do you want to know more?’ He is glad he is not hesitating in his attack. They look at each other again, and then Ripeka shakes her head once.

  ‘We know enough,’ Mason says. ‘Besides, our brother didn’t come to see us often.’

  ‘We weren’t that close,’ Ripeka murmurs.

  ‘Yeah, he looked down on us,’ Mason claims, looking at her.

  ‘That’s not true, Mason,’ she says. ‘Not true. Besides, he was very different from us.’

  ‘Why?’ Mason asks. ‘Because he had a different father?’ Daniel gasps almost audibly. ‘That’s true, Dan,’ Mason continues. ‘He never wanted any of you to know.’

  ‘Aaron always got what he wanted from Mum – and us,’ she whispers.

  ‘Always, he had our aroha and loyalty,’ Mason remarks, and the slight twist of sarcasm in his claim heightens Daniel’s surprise.

  ‘Why do you think he didn’t want us to know?’ Daniel has to ask. Mason glances at Ripeka, who nods once.

  ‘Because he was ashamed he was a bastard,’ he replies, trapping Daniel in his gaze. ‘And guess what, Dan?’ Daniel is feeling profoundly threatened by Mason’s and Ripeka’s revelations. ‘Our Aaron made our mum promise that she would never tell him (or us) who his father was. And as you well know, no one dared break a promise to our loving Aaron. No one.’

  ‘He could be so – so cruel,’ Ripeka says, hunching her thin body more tightly.

  ‘Dan, you guys don’t know much about the real Aaron.’ Mason pauses, withdrawing into himself, and then adds, ‘Like you, we loved him – yeah, we did – but we were also shit-scared of him.’

  In silence they continue drinking their beers. The healing Zen atmosphere of the house is gone, and a bold chill grips Daniel. That particular memory is starting to clog even his breathing, and he needs to leave.

  ‘Aaron left a will,’ Daniel starts cautiously. ‘His lawyer, Katherine Mills, has it, and I can arrange for you to go and see her.’

  Ripeka straightens and, avoiding his eyes, asks – and he can barely hear her – ‘Don’t you know yet what’s in it?’

  He is suddenly feeling exposed, but knows he has to go through with it. ‘Yes, his lawyer sent for me and read the will to me.’

  Mason is direct, unflinching. ‘Why you, Dan?’

  ‘I don’t
know why,’ he replies, guilt gripping the core of his belly. ‘But he has also made me the sole executor.’ The guilt grips him with more tenacity. Mason glances at Ripeka, who is armoured with suspicious silence, but she says nothing. ‘I’ll ring Mrs Mills tomorrow morning, and she’ll ring you and you can go and talk with her.’

  ‘He always loved you guys more than us,’ Mason murmurs.

  ‘It was to be expected, Mason,’ Ripeka intrudes. ‘I mean, he wasn’t really our brother. He was too good for us, and his loving Tribe was his whānau. Yeah. Dan and Mere and Paul and Keith and Laura.’ Daniel gazes at her and is caught in her penetrating, ironical gaze.

  ‘We’ll go and see his lawyer tomorrow, Dan,’ Mason says.

  ‘I bet ya he hasn’t even left us our home,’ Ripeka says. ‘Bet ya.’

  A short while later, Daniel tells them he is tired, and is escorted by Mason to the front door. ‘See ya later,’ Mason says. Daniel nods once and hurries down the front path, with that particular memory now filling every pore of his attention, and Mason watching him.

  32

  Another bright Auckland summer’s morning. But with dark clouds hanging over the Waitakere and the humidity mounting quickly, Daniel anticipates rain in the afternoon. ‘Don’t worry, Dad, it’ll be okay.’ Cheryl tries to ease his anxiety when she drops him off to see Laura at his former home.

  He’d woken at dawn, tangled helplessly in the accusing memories of his infidelities. His life with Laura was an incredibly rich emotional, spiritual and sexual one – no reservations, limitless exploration; and they had wanted it to continue forever. Other women didn’t attract him after he met Laura, and their love – a four-letter word he’d avoided using before he met Laura because he considered it sentimental, unreal, true only in bad Hollywood films – was the most fulfilling one he’d ever experienced. Yet four years into their marriage, while Laura was pregnant with Phillip, Beth Hammity, a specialist in Pacific history, who he’d met on the Arts Faculty Appointments Committee and who he was attracted to, rang to consult him about her research. He can still recall in guilty detail the topic – ‘Mana and Sex: Nafanua as a God’. He’d just published a sequence of poems about the goddess Nafanua, who’d ruled Samoa during the three hundred years prior to the arrival of the Papālagi missionaries. He can still hear (and feel) Beth’s voice as she said, ‘I love the sequence: so powerful and lucid and authentic – and the most insightful satire I’ve read in a long time.’ He’d connected to the praise, and was sucked into the centre of her request for help when she said, ‘Dan, you’re the only one who can help me with this part of my research.’