Past Perfect

by Karen Zelas

  But the women in the photograph clearly were.

  Gazing at the picture, Sue tried to guess how old her grandmother would have been, and guesstimated her year of birth. Feeling driven, she returned to the library, seeking Ngaire’s birth certificate: she had to discover the names of Ngaire’s parents, and their parents. Two generations, she calculated; that was all that were missing now. She was determined to bridge the gap today.

  ‘How was Akaroa?’ Ben asked, when he arrived home a few minutes after Sue. ‘I thought you might have phoned last night. I tried, but your cell was switched off.’ He propped his briefcase against the sink-bench and took Sue’s face in his hands. He kissed her on the mouth, a warm, open kiss. Sue clasped wet hands behind his neck. It was so long since he had come home and kissed her like this. She could not bear to think this intimacy could again be compromised.

  ‘You missed me,’ she said. It was a statement not a question.

  Ben kissed her again. ‘What gives you that idea?’

  Sue turned back to the array of vegetables she had started to prepare.

  ‘Now that everyone’s home, I’ve got something to show you. Will you dig the kids out of their rooms while I finish these?’

  Ben hesitated, mouth open, then left the room.

  They all gathered around the kitchen table, dinner simmering gently on the gas hob.

  ‘Good smells, Mum.’ Jason plonked himself onto a chair, awkwardly arranging his lanky limbs. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Chicken provençale,’ said Sue.

  ‘No, what you’ve got to show us.’

  Ben shambled in and sat down, shrugging on a light jersey over his work shirt. ‘Well?’ he asked.

  Sue took an envelope from the top of the fridge. She withdrew the photocopy of Brigitte and her family and placed it on the table. She clutched her upper arms and held her breath. What would they choose to see in it?

  ‘Where did you find this?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘In the Akaroa Museum.’

  ‘It’s just an old photo.’ Jason got up from the table and went to the fridge.

  ‘It’s my cottage,’ said Sue.

  ‘Who are the people?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Well, judging from the age of the photo, it must be the original owners. Brigitte and Claude Dujardin.’ Charlie whistled. ‘I mean, Claude’s not in the photo but it’s their house, their family. Isn’t that exciting?’ Cautious, better-indulge-Mum-style agreement rumbled around the table. ‘Wait. I’ll get a magnifying glass.’ Sue rushed from the room. Both Charlie and Ben reached for the glass when she returned.

  ‘Who’s this Maori kid? And this man? Is he the gardener?’ Charlie peered over her father’s shoulder. ‘Dad. I want a look.’

  Ben straightened slowly in his chair and turned to Sue, the glass still clutched firmly in his hand. Their eyes met. No word passed between them.

  ‘Dad. My turn.’ Charlie took the magnifying glass. ‘Do you know the girls’ names, Mum?’

  ‘The older one is Marie Suzanne –’

  ‘Like you.’

  ‘ – and the younger is Catherine Marie. Marie was Brigitte’s mother’s name.’

  Jason was munching a chunk of cheddar, washing it down with milk.

  ‘Pretty girls,’ Charlie said, as she moved the glass over the page, ‘especially the older one.’ She paused over the Maori child and scrutinised him for some time. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Does he look like anyone you know?’ asked Sue.

  ‘No. Why would he?’ Charlie looked again. ‘I suppose he does look a little bit like old photos of me.’

  Jason spluttered into his milk. ‘Next she’ll be saying she’s a Maori princess.’

  Ben sat tight-lipped.

  ‘But so what?’ Charlie continued. ‘All kids look alike, don’t they?’ Sue had set out on this enquiry on a whim, as an antidote to boredom, she now realised, and it had developed a life of its own – more than that, it had become her life, and she was forcing her family to follow. She wondered now how they would cope with this knowledge, which challenged their sense of who they were. Particularly Jason; particularly now.

  Being a young Maori male had connotations in this family – they had been expounded so often around the dinner table. Would the news be harmful to his image of himself? she wondered. Would it be harmful to Ben’s image of his son? Sue had seen in Ben’s eyes that he understood the probable significance of the likeness between the Maori child and Charlie. And he had said nothing, as if willing it not to be so; as if willing Sue to dig no further, to let it go. Sue wondered if, in finding herself, she risked losing her husband and children. But she had come so far she had to continue.

  ‘Our family is more Maori than French,’ she said.

  ‘Cool!’ said Charlie, bouncing on her chair.

  ‘Fuck, Mum!’ Jason pushed back his chair and turned to his father with an appealing gesture.

  ‘A high impact presentation. Just great! You should be on the lecture circuit.’ Ben’s eyes sparked.

  ‘She’s making it up, isn’t she?’ Jason said to his father, his voice pleading, and just for a moment Sue wished that were so.

  ‘No, Jase. I wouldn’t do that,’ she said quickly. She watched the alliance between husband and son growing. Did Ben, too, wish it were not so? Or was he only concerned for his son? ‘Listen. The Maori child is Waihau Tātahi, son of Brigitte and that man who looks like the gardener. His name is Tātahi, and they were married after her husband Claude died. Don’t ask me how it all came about. I only know the facts. We are descended from Brigitte and Tātahi, not Brigitte and Claude.’

  ‘Well, fuck you!’ shouted Jason, his face blotchy red.

  Sue looked at Ben, appealing, waiting for him to censure their son.

  ‘What the hell are you trying to do to this family?’ Ben’s accusation stabbed Sue in the chest, squeezing the breath from her. His expression mirrored his son’s as he paced the room, filling it with his voice. ‘The only person you think about these days is yourself!’ He stopped to tower above Sue, jaw muscles balled, fists clenched. Was he going to hit her?

  ‘Dad!’ Charlie grabbed Ben’s arm, and his hands opened, becoming once more the hands Sue knew.

  ‘That’s just part of it. Look,’ she said. She grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and started drawing a family tree. ‘I Googled Dad’s parents and found that his mother’s parents were both Maori. Her full name was Ngaire Dujardin Austen, born Tātahi. She helped found the Maori Women’s Welfare League in Christchurch. Her father was Tiaki Dujardin Tātahi and her mother was a Kahununu woman called Bessie Apeta. Tiaki was one of Waihau’s children. It’s all there.’

  ‘Are you prepared to throw away everything we have over … over a …’

  Sue slowly drew herself to her feet. ‘Over a what?’ she asked in a slow, warning tone. ‘Over what?’ she repeated, her voice rising in pitch. ‘A whim? Is that what you were going to say?’ Sue could feel herself winding tighter and tighter. This was not what she had wanted. ‘You of all people,’ she said to her husband, ‘should know how important this family is to me. I have devoted my life to this family, and not regretted a moment of it. But now it is my turn. I have a life, too. And I have a history and a family that goes beyond the people in this room. And my children share that heritage and have a right to know of it. It doesn’t change who we are, none of us. But it might alter how we feel about ourselves and how we stand in the world. Now we have the knowledge, it’s up to each of us how we choose to use it. Hopefully to enrich our lives, not to shred them or to tear each other apart.’

  The room became very still. The tick of the carriage clock reverberated. Slowly Sue reached out, letting her fingers graze the skin of Ben’s forearm. He dropped his head. Charlie started to shuffle her feet and twist her hair. Jason sat hunched in his chair, his back to the rest of the family. At least everyone had remained in the room.

  25.

  I had th
ought I’d be able to rely on your support explaining things to the children,’ Sue said to Ben later that evening. ‘I thought you’d put your feelings aside long enough to do that for me – and for them.’ She was angry and hurt and wanted to curl up into a hedgehog-ball of prickles.

  ‘This business has taken you over,’ Ben replied.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ She would make him spell it out – as punishment for him or her?

  ‘I don’t need to tell you,’ said Ben. ‘And I can’t pretend to understand why.’ He shrugged. ‘You’re not the woman I married.’

  ‘The trouble with you is that you are the man I married. You’re stuck with your head in the sand and your prejudices on your sleeve, and I’ve excused it all till now. More than that, I’ve felt it my job to pander to your self-centred eccentricities. But not any longer.’ Sue paused for breath. After all she had been through, it was coming to this. She was not going to give in.

  Ben’s mouth hung open and incomprehension veiled his eyes.

  Sue shook her head. ‘No, I’m not the woman you married. You married a woman struggling to know herself, who took refuge from anonymity in the roles of wife and mother. But that part of my life is nearly over and I am moving on and I’d expected – God knows why – that you’d understand, be pleased for me and support me as I have supported you.’

  ‘When it affects the children … I have to protect the children.’

  ‘From me?’ Sue shouted, stabbing an index finger at her chest. ‘From their mother? All of a sudden you’re the one who looks after the children – now that they are nearly grown up?’

  ‘That’s not fair, Sue.’

  ‘What’s not fair? Nothing is fair. You want fair?’ She could feel flecks of spit gathering in the corners of her mouth. ‘And don’t just stand there like a lost little boy. I want to know what you think. What you really think.’ She was pacing now. ‘This isn’t going to go away, you know. We can patch things up as much as we want, but it won’t work if we don’t get to some new place down the road.’ Sue had never spoken her mind like this before. Was this progress, she wondered? But she needed Ben to stand up to her, take her on on an equal footing.

  ‘I don’t expect you to understand me. But I need you to tell me what you feel about,’ she flapped a hand, ‘all this: the French and now the Maori, instead of me trying to guess what’s going on inside you. You just look and say nothing and it drives me nuts. You’re doing it now.’

  Ben cleared his throat and undid another shirt button, as if he were choking. ‘It’s not important to me what happened generations back.’

  ‘But you obviously have feelings about it. Look at you.’

  ‘It started out a bit of a joke, I suppose.’

  Sue bit her lip. Hear him out, she told herself.

  ‘It didn’t make sense to me that you’d get all excited about finding a trickle of French blood in your veins. Who’d want to be French?’

  ‘Not you, obviously. But that’s not the point. Can’t you see? It’s about opening myself to new information, new possibilities.’ She stopped in front of him. ‘The past is about my future. It’s difficult to explain.’

  Clearly, Ben did not understand. ‘If you say so, though I can’t see what odds it makes.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose we just have to accept that’s a difference between us.’

  ‘If you accept that, you’ll support me.’

  ‘But the Maori nonsense is another thing altogether.’

  ‘Why? How?’ Anger surged again. ‘Only because of your prejudices.’

  ‘I’m not prejudiced. The facts are there. You can’t deny them.’

  ‘And you don’t want them seeping inside the four walls of your home.’ Sue dropped into an armchair. ‘Well, my facts are facts, too. You can’t deny them,’ she said, spreading her hands in a pleading rather than triumphant manner.

  ‘You are all who you are, and I love you,’ said Ben, a touch of exasperation in his voice. ‘Believe me.’ He pulled Sue up out of her chair. ‘I may not always understand you, but I love you,’ he said holding her tightly.

  ‘And Jason? The stealing.’

  Ben laughed, a harsh humourless laugh. ‘Is that how little you think of me?’

  ‘I was scared …’ Sue could not continue. She felt ashamed, foolish. ‘Perhaps it was me, my prejudice, not yours.’

  Over the next few days, Sue was pre-occupied with thoughts of Brigitte, Claude and Tama. Especially Tama. As she worked in the house and the garden, the mysteries that remained taunted her. She felt she needed someone to talk to about it, someone who would not judge her, someone who would understand the things she was trying to come to terms with. What had Aroha called herself? A brown pakeha. And yet now she seemed comfortable with her Maori self.

  ‘Hemi’s out knocking the kapa haka group into shape,’ Aroha said as she led Sue into the living room. ‘Don’t know how he does it. Says it keeps them off the streets and out of other people’s houses.’ She laughed. ‘He’s probably right. He barks, they jump. They’re good, too. They win prizes in the competitions. Like a wine?’

  Sue shook her head. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Done.’ Aroha returned with two mugs and a plate of Afghans. ‘I can’t claim responsibility for these.’

  Sue plunged into her story and Aroha listened without interruption. Sue held nothing back, even her shame. She wrung her hands. ‘I thought I had come to know who I was, but now…’ She shook her head in confusion. ‘I never thought of myself as being racially prejudiced, but I suppose it must have been there all the time, deep down,’ she admitted. ‘You’ll think I’m a cow.’

  ‘I wouldn’t insult our bovine sisters.’

  ‘What am I going to do, Aroha? What can I do? I’m going crazy.’

  ‘A mad cow? Worse and worse.’ But her expression was serious as she said, ‘Sweetie, you don’t have to be Maori if you don’t want to. It’s not compulsory.’ Her face was lit by the long rays of evening sun creeping under the nor’west cloud, turning her skin to gold. ‘You’ve told Ben? What does he say?’

  ‘He says it doesn’t matter, but I’m not entirely convinced. It worries me more for Jason than myself.’ She told Aroha the trouble Jason had been in with the Police. ‘It’s like Ben’s research coming to life in his own home. Ben could slay Jason with a single word.’

  Aroha slapped her thighs as if to say, “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  ‘No. I suppose he wouldn’t do that,’ Sue said, reflecting on Ben’s loving yet firm direction since Jason’s offending had been revealed. How could she doubt him so?

  Patting her arm, Aroha said, ‘How’s Charlie doing?’

  ‘No problem there. She’ll probably have dreads and tatts by next week.’ The women laughed.

  Aroha took Sue’s hands. ‘Ever been on a marae?’ Sue shook her head. ‘What? In this day and age?’

  ‘The opportunity’s never arisen,’ Sue said, suddenly defensive.

  ‘Well, my girl, it’s time it did. We’ll make the opportunity.’ Sue nodded, placing herself in Aroha’s hands. She would need to learn more about Maoritanga. ‘For starters, you can come and watch Hemi’s kapa haka group next week.’ Sue nodded again. ‘Ben’s welcome, too, if he wants.’

  Sue was planting asters around the feet of the white roses by the deck a few days later, when Charlie arrived home, full of bounce.

  ‘Guess what, Mum.’

  Sue was pleased for an excuse to straighten her back and rub her knees.

  ‘Slay me,’ she said, trowel in hand.

  ‘I went to the Uni library and looked up his name.’

  ‘Whose name?’

  ‘Waihau. It’s beautiful. Waihau means water-wind. Isn’t it cool how Maori give their children names from the world around them? And Tātahi – that means by the sea, seaside.’ Sue smiled at her daughter, delighted for her – her enthusiasm, excitement. ‘I looked it up. But these days they put a little macron thingee over the first ‘a’, the dictionary says, to denote a l
ong vowel. T-ā-t-a-h-i,’ she spelt.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And do you know what else I found? This really, really neat guy. In the Maori section. Butt like – oooh. And a smile … I just …’ She gave an exaggerated shiver. ‘He helped me find what I wanted.’

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  Charlie hopped from foot to foot, grinning, sparkling. Sue marvelled at her daughter’s forthright approach to her sexuality. Nothing held back. How unlike herself. ‘I’m meeting him again tomorrow.’

  ‘What about Patrick?’ Sue did not want her daughter leaving a swathe of fallen conquests behind her.

  ‘I know. But when you find it …’ Charlie gestured wide, and Sue thought of Ben, when she had found Ben, how she had been determined not to let him go.

  ‘I thought Patrick was it,’ said Sue.

  ‘He was. But I see him every day, and he seems so … so young.’ Charlie shrugged. ‘Nothing might come of it. Ra mightn’t be interested. He’s so mature.’ She spun around and vanished indoors, leaving Sue open-mouthed, words arrested in her throat.

  As she flicked the light switch in the attic bedroom, there was a brilliant flash and then darkness.

  ‘Damn,’ Sue said.

  It was Friday night and she was at the cottage alone. She felt for the end of the bed and blindly navigated to the bedside cabinet and lamp. A sigh of relief escaped her lips, as a soft circle of light spread over the bed and the floor beside it. Should she replace the bulb now or just crawl into bed? Replacing the bulb meant going downstairs again and she was exhausted. Her back ached from digging over an area of lawn for a herb garden. With great resolve, Sue decided to do it now. She was relieved to discover there was a light over the stairs that she had not previously noticed and she descended carefully. The kitchen was in semi-darkness, moonlight falling through the window in four elongated rectangles across the bench and floor. It took her a moment to remember where she had stored the spare light bulbs. Upstairs again, she placed the dining chair in the centre of the room, removed the bulb, shook it and heard it tinkle. After inserting the replacement, she jumped down onto the wooden floorboards, landing unevenly, twisting her ankle and falling, arms outstretched, against the end of the bed.