by Tihema Baker
Nate looked at Woki with an expression of challenge. Seeing what the younger man was made of. Then he laughed; it was loud and melodic.
‘Just having you on, bro. We should rest up, eh – I’ve got another Swanni in the pack. You can use it as a blanket.’ He threw the jacket at Woki and then rolled onto his side, facing away from the others. Woki pursed his lips but said nothing. He almost felt surprised when sleep immediately pulled at his eyelids and coaxed his mind into silence.
The late afternoon sun had broken through the heavy cloud and turned Tia’s mind a burnt orange. She was in the most beautiful place, a warm, safe, good place. And then she remembered. When she cracked open her eyes, she saw the fire still going softly and Woki hunched away from the sunlight, snoring softly. Nate was nowhere to be seen. Her body was stiff and sore, but the pain was less violent than before. She got up and pushed her way into the bushes to pee. As she came back into the clearing, she saw Nate coming down from the other side of the mountain with a big fallen mānuka tree. His movement was strange, and as he came closer she saw the crimson stain of blood on the leg of his pants. He dropped the tree near the fire then came and sat down and peeled back his pants. Tia’s breath hurried into her mouth as he exposed a nasty gash on his shin.
‘What happened? Are you OK?’ She shuffled closer to him, awkwardly settling next to him.
‘I was stupid, took a step over a fallen tree and then fell down a hidden drop behind it, there were some rocks that caught my leg.
Tia picked up the water bottle and wet the bottom of her T-shirt. She moved in to clean up the wound. Her cheeks flushed; she hated that her heart was pounding in her ears. As she reached forward with the wet fabric her fingers lit up, touching his skin. She leapt back.
‘Oh, God, I’m sorry. Clutz. Man, I can’t seem to do anything helpful with this stupid fire.’
‘Wait. Tia … It felt incredible. Come back. Just hold your hands near my cut again.’
She frowned and came back, hovering her hands over the wound. The flames licked at his skin, covering over the blood and exposed tissue. They both peered at it, trying to see what was happening.
‘Does it hurt? I mean … Far out. This is weird.’
‘It feels … It feels amazing. The pain is gone completely. Let’s see, take your hands away.’
‘I can’t … I mean, it’s like a magnet; I don’t want to pull away yet.’
They sat there, entranced by this new discovery. Tia started thinking about how this was the first time the flames had appeared without her own pain. Rather, they had been a response to somebody else’s.
‘I think I understand now,’ she whispered, ‘This fire appears when any pain does, not just mine.’ She watched as the flames slowly ebbed, and her hands felt released from the hold on Nate’s leg. He let out a low whistle. Tia looked at his leg in disbelief: it was as if nothing had ever happened.
‘That is some hard-out tūmeke fire, sis,’ he smiled and looked at her softly. Then as if he had been pinched, he lurched toward her, eyes ablaze, ‘You need to do this to yourself, to heal your ribs!’
‘Do you think I can? I don’t know.’ She moved her hands toward her own chest, but the flames flickered and batted about, not settling into her pain.
‘Wait, what if I take one of your flames and try.’ He reached over and cupped his hands over one of the flames, pulling it gently. He watched it hover and dance in his palm before guiding it toward Tia’s sternum. He slowly pushed his palm to her chest, and the flame grew bigger and brighter. She gasped as the most amazing sensation spread from Nate’s hand through her chest. It was if the sun were rising there, a soft, warm, safe feeling that made quiet tears fall in rivulets down her cheeks, splashing onto Nate’s hand.
‘Should I stop? Does it hurt? I’m sorry, I thought it would help.’
She looked at him. Ashamed of her tears, but unable to stop them, she just shook her head.
They sat quietly, and after some time, her body felt light and mobile.
‘Thanks,’ she said quietly.
‘You sure?’ Nate asked doubtfully.
‘Yeah, for real. Thanks. My ribs are all better.’
‘You know what I saw when I was looking for wood?’
Tia shook her head.
‘This cool lookout. There’s a rock face that juts out, making a cave type thing that looks out toward the ocean. We should go and catch the sunset there now you’re up to moving around.’
‘Sounds cool, but let’s tell Woki too.’
Tia went over to Woki, about to shake him gently, but his eyes were already open.
‘Wok, you awake?’
‘What?’ His tone was brittle.
‘Well, Nate was going to show me this cool lookout just up a bit. You should come.’
‘Thanks, I’ll come find you soon. Just, ya know, need to go wharepaku and that’
At the lookout the sun was reaching across the clouds with golden fingers. There were still dark clouds behind them and the ebbing light made the land look surreal, like a model with accentuated shadows and infused green and orange lights. It was frightening how much damage the quake had done; roads were buckled and there were more big cracks like the one near the gas plant. Tia and Nate sat side by side, the sun lapping at their skin. It seemed to awaken the feeling the fire had made, continuing to recharge them. Their arms touched lightly, making Tia feel hot. Spontaneously, her fingers ignited, making the pair burst into peals of laughter.
Woki appeared, quiet as a shadow.
‘Erhmm, hi.’
‘Hey, Wok,’ Tia called cheerily.
‘Hey, I just came up briefly, actually ’cause the weirdest thing happened. The fire went out while I was in the bushes. Just wondered if I could take a flame back down, and I’ll get going on some kai.’
‘Oh,sure,’ Tia smiled warmly at him and held out her hands for him to take a flame.
‘Thanks,’ Woki said and then turned to go. ‘See you later.’ He walked back down the path.
‘He is such a weirdo,’ Tia giggled. ‘He probably pissed on the fire or something.’
Woki moved swiftly with the flame cupped in his hand. It had been too easy, he thought. He hadn’t expected it all to flow like that – Tia already having the flames and being so distracted she had hardly noticed him. It was perfect. He skirted past the pā site and on down the hill. He would need to make good ground while there was still light. He deftly, arrogantly, started to jog. He felt like he knew exactly when to jump or dodge. Even when he had to slow to a walk and eventually a crawl to get through the debris of earth and fallen trees, he felt like he had some kind of sonar to guide him through.
He’d show them. They would see who was the one with the courage to actually do something about this fracking debacle. Nate had just turned his nose up at their project like they were silly kids.
It was dark now, but he was almost there. The flame in his hands kept a warm glow. When he got to the gas plant he climbed back through the broken window and looked around the room. He had remembered a poster on the wall of the prefab with photos of the gas plant’s staff. Something niggled at him from the moment he remembered it, so he walked over to it, holding the flame up high. He scanned the faces, saw lots of local guys who had been pulled in by the good money and regular work. Then he saw him. Nathan Robinson, Pipe Inspector. It was Nate’s face smiling back at him.
‘I knew it,’ Woki murmured.
He walked around to a sealed-off room, or it would have been if the glass wasn’t shattered. Inside was an electronic board; almost all the lights on it were dead. Just two were lit: Emergency Battery Operation and System Shut Down. Woki reached forward and pushed the button beside the System Shut Down. It flashed off red and the Basic Operation On light flashed green.
Woki made his way back to the open window where he could just make out the chasm the earthquake had created. He could hear a faint hiss from down inside it. ‘This is it,’ he thought to himself. A quiet mania set in as h
e threw Tia’s flame with all his force down into the gaping crack like The Joker’s smile. Then he ran. Up into the bushes he went and then, as the ground beneath him shook him off its back like he was a parasite, he flew, and for a moment he was filled with a zesty mix of elation and terror before everything went black.
The Birds of Heaven
Robert MacDonald
I dial the number and wait. My dad doesn’t get around so well these days.
‘Kia ora.’
‘Dad, ko Tāmati tēnei, he aitua tō tātou.’
‘Ko wai?’
‘Ko Connor.’
‘Auē,’ says Dad. ‘Oh well, you pick me up and we will go down there and bring him back to the marae.’
‘Kei te pai, Dad, you know he never wanted to go to the marae. His children are keeping him at the funeral parlour.’
‘Ae, he stayed strange to the end, that boy. Oh well, if he wants to lie all alone at the funeral parlour, then leave him there. When is the tangi?’
‘On Thursday. I’ll pick you up at 9 o’clock.’
I hang up the phone and think about Connor; how he never settled down with us, and how he took off when he was sixteen. I still have his diary somewhere. I set off to find it.
All I have left from my life in Paparewa is my name: Connor James MacFarland. That’s from my father, who I never knew. My house, my mother, my school and my friends are all gone. And now I must make a new life with a new family, but before I do, I want to write down what happened.
On Monday morning I got to the cowshed early enough for Uncle Matt to let me help him with milking.
He isn’t really my uncle, but he is Uncle to all the kids in Paparewa.
The cows were standing placidly in the outer yard, chewing their cud and shitting where they stood. As soon as I opened the gate one moved forward and others followed to occupy the four milking stalls. Uncle Matt locked the swing gate behind each cow and tied the kick rope, and one by one he washed the teats on every udder with a dirty old rag. Then, with expertise, he folded the suction cups in his knobby hands and carefully applied them to each teat; they sucked up with a loud slurp.
Like a giant beating heart, the machine sucked, and pumped the warm milk through the arteries into the collection vat. My job was to agitate and stir the warm milk with a large plunger so that it did not clot in the separator, which poured skim milk out on one side and, on the other, a stream of smooth golden cream. As always I sneaked my hand into the cream and quickly licked away the evidence.
After Uncle Matt had released the last cow, I washed down the yard, directing the shitty water into the drain that ran directly into the river close by. This was the signal for several large eels to gather. They were waiting for the buckets of excess skim milk I would be emptying into the drain.
Uncle Matt said, ‘Kua tae mai ōku hoa. My friends have arrived.’
Most of all I loved listening to Uncle Matt’s stories, and that day he told me again about the two small hills in his paddock. They are sacred and must be avoided, because it was there that his ancestor Titoko, the great tohunga, did his mimi and tūtae. I know these words from the kids at school; it was his toilet.
‘My cousin had a mimi there,’ he said. ‘I told him what would happen. He didn’t listen. His testicles swelled up and he died.’
On the way home I stopped at mother’s orchard to check on her nectarines, which were almost ready. Mother was very protective of her orchard, never letting anyone come inside, and only begrudgingly accepting that fruit that dropped over the fence was fair game for others. She was convinced the Māoris from Mātangi would take any opportunity to raid her orchard, especially when we were away at church. On Sundays she made me get up even earlier, before milking, to gather the produce so there was nothing of value left for ‘Sunday raiders’. What fruit wasn’t eaten fresh was preserved, bottled, pickled, dried or fed to the pigs.
By the time I had cleaned up and got ready for school, breakfast was on the table; as always, a plate of porridge, toast and jam, and a glass of milk. After clearing the table, Mother conducted her routine ‘tidy check’ and offered her usual advice: ‘Just because you go to a Native School, there’s no need to look like one.’
Paparewa Native School had a role of twenty-seven, the majority of children coming from the Māori settlement of Mātangi. There were seven of us from the settlement farms.
The school day started with us all lined up outside for ‘grub inspection’ by Mrs Gainsford, who had a yard rule fused to her hand, which she used with deadly intention on dirty hands, dirty nails, dirty clothes, dirty hair, dirty anything.
While Mrs Gainsford was terrorising some juniors at the start of the line, Raima, who was standing directly behind me, leaned forward and whispered, ‘My nanny said to tell you, Kua hoki mai anō, Ngā Manu o te Rangi.’
‘What? You know I can’t talk Māori.’
Suddenly there was a swish of the yard rule, and Mrs Gainsford said, ‘Who is speaking Māori at school? I will not have Māori spoken here.’
Raima said nothing. She was looking at the ground. There was a loud thwack as the yard rule landed on her bare arm. I flinched more than Raima.
Mrs Gainsford said, ‘Raima, you will answer me or you will go to the cloakroom and Mr Gainsford will deal with you.’
Raima continued to look down, and mumbled, ‘I wasn’t talking to you; I was talking to Connor.’
Mrs Gainsford wacked her again, and told her to go to the cloakroom. We didn’t see Raima again that day. But after lunch, Raima’s father, Old Tama, arrived at the school, and we could hear him and Mr Gainsford shouting.
The next day none of the Māori kids from Mātangi turned up to school.
There was no grub inspection, because there was no point. And before we went into class the school chairman turned up with Old Tama in the car, and they went into the office with Mr and Mrs Gainsford. Then, just in time for lunch, the Mātangi kids returned to school.
I sat with Raima, ready to share my lunch, but it was one of those days the Mātangi children had brought some lunch of their own – fried bread and pāua patties – so I happily traded away my jam and Marmite sandwiches, and I shared my piece of fruit cake with Raima, but we didn’t talk about what had happened.
Later, in the evening, just as we were finishing tea, the phone rang, and Mother returned to tell me I had to deliver a message to Old Tama.
‘Jack Carney wants to start shearing in the morning.’
At Old Tama’s house, a row of macrocarpa trees ran along the back, and an assortment of ancient machinery, a tractor, a truck and several ploughs took shelter underneath. Strung along one side, a washing line was propped up with long poles. It was empty of clothes, but several large eels, gutted and salted, were drying in the warm evening breeze. An octopus, dry and brittle, hung on its own.
Nearby, under a large pōhutukawa tree, the adults of Mātangi were enjoying a beer, and they greeted me loudly.
Old Tama said, ‘Come and have a drink with us. You know your father used to like drinking with us boys when he first arrived here.’
‘He liked the girls, too,’ someone said, and everyone laughed.
Raima, who must have seen me arriving, appeared with a glass of lemonade and a message: ‘When you finish here, come over to the house. Nanny Toko wants to see you.’
I told Old Tama about shearing in the morning, gulped down my lemonade and followed Raima over to the house.
Nanny Toko was a school-ground legend: the hubba hubba lady. ‘Don’t look at her. Don’t let her look at you. Don’t walk behind her. Don’t let her walk behind you.’
In Nanny Toko’s room, darkness had already gathered and the shadows were long. Her face, framed by wispy white hair, was so wrinkled I could hardly see her eyes or the tattoo on her chin. Raima beckoned me forward to sit on a chair beside the bed.
Suddenly Nanny Toko lifted her head, her black eyes glistening. She grabbed my shoulder, and looking up at the ceiling screamed angrily
, ‘Anei! Anei to pēpi ātaahua! Kei te pai ia! Ehara nāku te hē. Nā tō tāne te hē! Waiho! Waiho!’
Then she said to Raima, ‘Ki atu ki a ia! Ki atu ki a ia!’
Raima was pale, and looked frightened. Nanny Toko had slumped forward and was moaning inconsolably.
‘Please,’ Raima said. ‘Please, you have to stop your mother hurting my nanny. She says it’s not her fault. It was your father. You have to get her to stop.’
I had no idea what she was talking about, and Raima brushed off my questions as she hurried me out of the house.
‘Go home,’ she said. ‘Just get your mother to stop.’
‘Stop what? Does it have anything to do with what you were trying to tell me at school?’
‘Yes. My nan wanted you to know that Ngā Manu o te Rangi have come back again.’
‘What is Ngā Manu o te Rangi?’
‘The Birds of Heaven. Go home and ask your mother.’ And she shut the door.
Mother was at the table doing her farm accounts when I got home, and without looking up she said, ‘That was quick.’
‘Nanny Toko had a message for me,’ I replied.
After a long silence, mother lifted her head and levelled a hard stare at me. ‘What did she tell you?’
‘She said that you were hurting her.’
‘Nonsense,’ mother said harshly.
Hesitantly, I asked, ‘What is Ngā Manu o te Rangi?’
Mother replied more to herself than to me. ‘Bloody interfering woman should mind her own business.’ And definitely for me, she mumbled, ‘I think you need to go and stack the wood.’
At school, the next day, there was no grub inspection, and instead of classes, we went to the marae to put the finishing touches on the Christmas programme.
All morning, with Mrs Jackson at the piano, we practised our Christmas carols, and after lunch we had a full dress rehearsal of the nativity.
I was Joseph and Raima was Mary. We were sitting together beside the cradle of the baby Jesus, and I was admiring how the blue veil framed her face, and we were about to sing ‘Silent Night’, when Mr Gainsford walked into the room. He looked at me strangely, and Mrs Jackson stopped playing the piano.