by Alan Duff
Why’d you say, uh? Jimmy accusing now. Huh? Why’d you say, uh? He knew why Mulla said uh and so did Mulla but fucked if Mulla was gonna own up to that, fucked if he was. (I volunteered didn’t I? What does he want?) Jimmy, I gotta blade in my mattress, nice ’n’ sharp for Ape’s arse, that what you want, what you’re aksing?
In the eternity of Jimmy looking at him with those burning, always bloodshot eyes from too much dope (making him permanently paranoid, or giggling at nothing, or thinking his dancing along the landing with his mop like a mike was anything like the Negroes — a word they agreed was alright since virtually all of their music, their sounds, was by Negro artists — he saw on the teevee, let alone sing like one of ’em) it seemed to Mulla his own life flashed before his mind’s eye, jus’ like he’d heard it did people who thought they were going to die. Not that there was much life to flash by, not with sixteen inside and that wasn’t counting the borstal and the boys’ home, add anutha three for that, it was childhood which he remembered only in seemingly unconnected glimpses and smells — stenches, more like it — of pain unbearable, of this deep missing, this deep aching inside, like a fucken dirty big hole inim, like a fucken big truck up and punched a hole through him, which he’d stuffed with stolen stuff from houses and properties he broke into from a young age, when the hurting registered, when he looked down at himself and saw the hole, and masturbated several times a day every day of his damn(ed) life, and laughed with sick irony at a hole trying to be filled with thoughts of filling a hole, oh how he laughed sickly inside at that. And when they threw him into a boys’ home, a Children’s Court did, he knew even then it was the start of his life as he would ever know it, he knew this more than anything he’d known in his entire life, that his would be one of slamming and locked doors. And uthas jus’ like him. Jus’ like him. (I’m in here, aren’t I?)
Sharp, you said? Yeah, man, sharp. When Mulla really wanted to scream at the top of his voice that it wasn’t sharp it was blunter than a boxer’s broken nose, it wouldn’t cut nothing, not even budda. But he just nodded, Sharp as. And even hope was dead then.
’Member that sheila, what was her name, used to be one of us, went out with Jake’s boy, Nig? Jimmy for some reason was recalling when Mulla had expected him to give the final order. Aksing himself was this anutha of Jimmy’s elaborate traps, that was why he had the spider webs tattooed around his throat, to show people he trapped somethin’ good and terrible. Did he remember? Well, Mulla remembered everything, of his gang existence on the outside he did, it was all he had as far as memories went, the just short of two years in total of them. They were his photographs (in my mind) like utha prisoners — never Brown Fists — had in their cells to lie they had loved ones on the outside, when if they didn’t love ’emselves, how would anyone love them? He referred to them like they happened yesterday; he found he had to change the musical references, update ’em, as time went by or he’d sound like the old codger boobheads, stuck in the past of when the big gate closed on ’em, specially the ones for murder. Old men who still thought Tom Jones was top of the charts when there weren’t even charts no more, and nor Tom Jones, or not that Mulla’d heard of and he listened to the radio, to music, all the fucken time; up here in Auckland that Maori station Mai, played all the bl — the Negro music and didn’t have no ads. Put a man secretly through a range of emotions (and, uh, maybe even like inta-lectu-al thoughts, yeah).
In the gang he was a ledge for legend, all that time he’d done and being staunch throughout it, not one falter in his (external) demeanour, his swagger, his walking the talk, which was effectively walking the landings, the stairs up and down to his cell, and the exercise yard out there in the days lovely or otherwise, and walking out to freedom, three times it’d been and every time like glory to God stuff, of being so good it felt the sentence’d been worth it jus’ to experience this — this sense of ’ppreciating freedom so much, then hardly out than he was walking back in, driven through the big gate in the prison van the new sentence ringing — no, not ringing. Intoning, in whiteman, edjacated Judge’s voice, not satisfied with putting a man away again have ta givim a fucken lecture, too — and walking into reception to the same old screw, Hoppy Hopwood, not a bad old fulla for a screw, that fatface smile of his: If it ain’t our old mate, Mulla. Welcome back, Mulla! Feeling good to be greeted like an old friend, even if it was by a screw, even if it was anutha sentence. For that brief moment a man felt good bein’ back on ole familiar.
Yeah, he remembered everything, so he gave anutha crooked smile, Tania was’er name. Used t’ sleep iner shades. Yeah, Jimmy nodding, so she did. ’Member that time she put herself on the block for all us fullas to fucker, she never took ’em off then neither. Yeah, Mulla remembered that, was Jimmy took his right as prez to be first, yeah he remembered that; and, if truth be known which it would never be or not from his mouth (not ’nless I meet me a nice woman I can talk to) how sad he’d felt for her but not so sad he didn’t get a horn on and take his turn ater when it came. After all.
But he did remember feeling sad for Tania that she’d done this to show her disapproval of Nig Heke (such a fine-looking specimen he was, too. Jus’ like his father, Jake. Jake The Muss, tha’s what they called him. All our bruthas admired him even though we made it out as hatred. The way he fronted the whole lot of us, on his fucken own, in that pub he ruled. Wonder where he is now? Somewhere good, I bet.) That was when Nig didn’t like the bruthas kicking the woman when they went around to the place to repossess the teevee for the Pakeha appliance shop owner in town.
Tania, tha’s it. Tania from Mangakino, I remember now. Mulla wondering what was coming next and why this talk; as well thinking Jimmy wouldn’t know something else about Tania, that story she tole him (and only me) of babysitting her kid brothers and sisters and going down to get them fish ’n’ chips and coming back and, well, the house the kids were in, it was (holy shit) fucken burning. Mulla remembered that, he’d take it to his grave withim. A grave coming sooner rather than later now Apeman was accidentally put in their midst. (If only I could figure out a way of warning the screws what they’ve done. They won’t be wanting a war. It’s only Apeman, his stupid fucken pride, and Jimmy here, his lying to cover his own cowardice he makes out is pride, that’ll make it war.) But then Mulla got a cunning idea. And so what trickled through with it was a kind of perverse courage. In a moment he was about to turn this on Jimmy Bad Horse.
What’s Tania got to do with Apeman, bro? I’m hanging out for that fucka’s blood. Jus’ gimme the order, boss, and I’m there. Glad inside at Jimmy’s confused frown, at the courage being, apparently, jus’ that.
She goes with Apeman. Tha’s his bitta twat. She changed sides. So? Mulla still couldn’t figure Jimmy’s angle, and anyway he was truly urgent with showing how he was gonna get this action down, he had it all figured out. If it could be called all, a simple screaming as he ran down the stairs brandishing the home-made knife from a stainless-steel fitting from the metal workshop machine room. To let the screws know there was gonna be some bad action and by the time he got down there, three floors, they’d have Apeman outta the way and maybe Mulla’d lose a few weeks remission for threatening behaviour, sumpthin’ like that, but leas’ it wouldn’t be anutha six years for grievous bodily harm, or his own (not quite worthless) life of unrequited love out there in the free somewhere. So Mulla was chafing at the bit to act his part. Chafing. It solved everything.
So she’s his weakness. Jimmy frowning all ovah, he hadn’t ’spected this. Now listen, Jimmy summoned Mulla closer, about to change the fucken plan on a man which Mulla wasn’t having. (Uh-uh. No you don’t, Bad Horse.) Not when he had it all figured out.
So he threw down his mop. I’ll givim weakness. And he walked off for his cell, knowing he was leaving Jimmy staring after him either incredulously or knowingly, or both, but unable to do a fucken thing about it. Not a fucken thing.
Then he came out of his cell charging. His scream the main … cacophonous (l
ast year’s crossword — I finished that one) echo in the prison wing. The high ceiling lights glinting off his smuggled precious bit of stainless steel. His facial tattoos jus’ like his Maori warrior ancestors of old, and if he believed enough in the acted scream maybe that, too, from them ole warrior days of fightin’, fightin’, fightin’, the necessary warrior madness. Screaming even louder when the screws looked up at him, hitting the second landing, and saw in their eyes the understanding he was coming for Apeman. By the first landing they’d formed a circle around Apeman though Ape was aping out trying to break out to meet this screaming challenge. Mulla Rota had to scream louder or he woulda laughed: for the firs’ time in his life something had worked. For the first time he’d done something right. Oh, and even in the midst, the last melodramatic moments of this act, Mulla Rota heard a song distinctive in his mind. Funny thing, it was soft. And by a black (yeah, black. Blackblackblack! Who says we can’t say or even think that word? Whadda stupid fucken rule that is.) The song was by a black singer, not actually black as in darkly brooding, unbearably sad. It jus’ meant something.
THREE
THE GRASS’D BEEN cleared away yesterday by her mother when they visited on the sixth anniversary of her death, Beth and what remained of her family; so the nameplate was clear even if the painted indentation of name, date of birth and date of death was almost bled of its white by the sun, the elements that Polly never stopped wondering if her sister could still feel, specially the rain getting in through the lid that must now be, like, rotted in or why that slump in the earth? She always came the following day for a second visit on this yearly remembering; in fact, Polly Heke came several times a year and had done for the last two, from when she herself hit the same age as Grace’d been when she, uh, when she killed herself.
Yesterday, like all of Grace’s anniversary days, they, which was Beth, Abe and Huata, had first stood over Nig’s grave. And if a girl was long used to the fact that two of her siblings of six were tragically and long dead, it was Grace she felt for not the older brother she could not remember. That he’d been shot dead in a gang rival fight didn’t help Polly’s memories; she hated the gangs, they looked, acted, and were, disgusting. And those horrible tattoos all over them, on their faces, big kids posing as olden day Maori warriors and thinking everyone was fooled. (Well, I’m not. Gangs suck.)
It seemed strange now that she should be older by two years than her older sister, her only sister (and that hurt the more). She remembered Grace more than anyone — anyone — on this whole funny, sometimes confusing, but sometimes glorious earth, and darkly and blackly sad when she thought of Grace, even though it’d been six years now. She remembered Grace’s protectiveness, even though she hardly had memories at all of who and what Grace protected her and Huata from, which was their father. Fucken Jake. Who she saw from time to time but only by chance and from a distance. A couple of times sitting in a bus. Apparently he’d made all their lives a living hell with his drinking and violence, though Mum said, as if with pride in the bastard, never against them. And she and Abe argued that just being around it was against them, from what they’d learned at school, being told about domestic violence and effects on children growing up. How Beth could sort of stick up for the man after what he’d put her through, Polly just couldn’t understand. As for what he did to Grace, and that it had been directly responsible for why she took her life — each time she took her thoughts too deep into it she heard in her mind a female cry, a distinct Oh!
Polly Heke only remembered Jake’s voice, his singing voice, which she hated to admit to herself was rather a good one, or so she recalled, even if dimly, and good stick-up-for-the-ex Mum confirming he did have a good singing voice and he could dance. (But I still hate him.) And she always would. Specially on Grace’s anniversary days; it built up like nervousness before an exam did Grace’s remembered last day on earth. Nor did Polly buy that talk of her mother’s that the letter Grace left said she thought it was Jake who was doing the bad things to her, since it was at night he, Jake The Rapist his own kids called him, did his awful business on his own daughter. He must’ve done it. Why would Grace lie?
She still plucked at the grass around the stone nameplate, as she ran her forefinger over the indented name, starting as she always did from the E and finishing at the G, for that’s what her friend Toot used to call her: G. But he could never come to her grave, nor talk about his friendship with her. When he moved in with the family he used to talk about killing Jake, if he talked at all. But he was over that now and right into his rugby. People were saying he could go far in the game, but you know with their usual, If only, tacked on. If only the boy’d train more. If only he had a more consistent attitude. How would they like it living the life he did, of actually living in a car wreck right outside his parents’ front door! Where would Toot learn discipline from having a life like that? They should leave him alone, or put him in the rep team regardless and then persuade him from there.
What bothered Polly, too, was how could she be older than someone who was born before her? In her mind Grace was always older. She wasn’t the — the thing down there, height of Polly herself since she was tall like her father, beneath the weight of earth, the girl aged thirteen when she put herself to sleep, she was growing into a beautiful woman as her kid sister Polly hoped she in turn would grow into. Though in her heart of hearts, she knew she was now older than the suspended forever-in-time sister; Grace was thirteen. She’d stopped existing at that age. But then she hadn’t: she existed in Polly’s mind, dwelled in her (virgin) womb, floated in the liquid (tears) of her (loving, sisterly) existence. She was a girl who’d put a rope around her (gracefully long and slender) neck, tied to a branch on a tree at the Trambert property (why the Trambert place?) and jumped. That’s what she was. Polly Heke, your big sister is a was.
No! You’re not a was.
She was not a photograph that looked natural because no one in the Heke house at that time had a camera and the ones Mum had had done were from the class photograph when Grace was in form 3, which the photographer separated out from the classmates (as if Grace was born to be alone even when she’d been in a group photograph). She’d put aside her own suffering for as long as she could to give her younger siblings comfort, till that — Polly every time had to wipe at her eyes to stop the crying, six years this’d been burning and tearing at her, the more as she got older and began to contemplate the enormity of it — till that visit to Boogie in the rental car which she did remember, the car she did, the smell of newness and the luxury of the back seating, the visit that never happened. Poor Boogie waiting in a boys’ home, poor Mum’d saved and saved to hire the rental car, slaved to make a big feast of a picnic to eat with Boogie at his court-imposed Riverton residence, and they never got there. (We never got there.) Which she couldn’t remember. Only the terrible fuss next day of Grace being identified down at the hospital morgue. It was that night.
So she wiped at her eyes, she was sick of crying, it didn’t change a thing, and she walked past the line of pine trees, avoiding Nig’s grave (one is more than enough, sorry, Nig) and got a recall that that day had been quite cool, though this day was warm, and there was wonderful mass singing. But she dismissed that, too, as meaningless after the event, blaming most people in her mind for allowing a girl’s life, her potential, to be self-extinguished like that. And she sat in the bus shelter and got thought of her father, a man in his forties without a car, and how life had not only left him behind but he probably also missed his share of buses, too, from being hungover. The black bastard. Dirty, raping, incestuous, drunken black bastard.
THIS IS WHERE she would have walked — or run. Polly Heke very much hoped her sister had run (swiftly) to her self-taken death. Though now it was three more streets wide with new urban development where in Grace’s day it had been a paddock. Their State house had backed onto it, Polly remembered that place more than anything, the two-storey grimness of it, the neighbour through the wall next door, the st
reets she couldn’t now imagine she had been born and raised in, not now they were in Charlie Bennett’s house (wonder when she’s gonna marry him?); it was scary coming back here like this, and confusing to start with because the new suburb stretched out hundreds of little boxes from their old place. Not that she was now living in ritzville, it was just a couple of steps up from this.
The looks she got; though there was one girl who in the middle of about to say something nasty had suddenly recognised her (I recognised you, too, Lena) so put a hand to her mouth, mumbled Polly’s name and pulled her two girlfriends away. Polly thought she heard Lena say, leave her. She’s cool. But not cool enough for Lena to linger and talk, say an old friend’s name.
The strip of paddock she found was about half a width of a football field. Back on the rise of her old street she was able to see over the high brick wall (I don’t remember it being that high) the Trambert house already with lights on when dusk was still coming down. And she could see the tree, a huge one it was, a towering spread losing to autumn coming on. Found her heart hammering. And her thoughts running parallel with the gathering dark. (Or my sister.) Trying to imagine what Grace must have been thinking. And why the Trambert place? Why there?