Ao Toa

by Cathie Dunsford

  Mere holds both her hands. “You did well, Moana. You cannot let our tamariki be raised in such an environment. Kuini is away for a few weeks and she won’t mind you staying in her housetruck over that time. The kids will love it. There’s a tent pitched alongside for friends who visit and you can use that too. I’ll email and let her know. She’s down working with whanau in Opotiki on a new Rape Crisis Centre. She’ll be pleased that her Tainui waka is of use.”

  “Ka pae, Mere. Thanks. I need time out to consider what I want. I think Tony is losing it. He is so emotional and extreme these days. Nothing we do seems to be okay for him.”

  “You take all the time you need, Moana. And know you are free to come here day or night.”

  “I’ve been thinking for a while about going back to study. I’d like to do some healing work. Maybe massage, maybe herbal medicines, perhaps learning about those Bach flower remedies.”

  “You forget about the Bach flowers, Moana. I will teach you the plant remedies of our own people. Maori have long used herbal and medicinal remedies, and Cowrie and Irihapeti have got interested in this also. Maybe we’ll work together on it. Perhaps you could produce some remedies for the marae, and even sell some through the nursery to support yourself at a later stage?”

  Moana’s eyes sparkle as if a fire has been lit behind them. To Mere she looks like Pele with her ashen and bruised cheek but with the fire of Kiluaea in her face, pohutukawa flames flickering from her pupils, black lava running down the ridge of her cheekbone. Her hidden strength simmers in the coals, ready to be released and sent on its path over the lava slopes to the welcoming coolness of the waiting sea.

  “Gidday mate. All set for the 1080 drop tomorrow?” The Department of Conservation bloke sets his cap on the counter and wipes his sweaty brow.

  “Sure thing,” replies Raymond, his head buried deep in the large spray rig, trying to test the sprockets out.

  “Got a prob with the sprayer?”

  “Yeah. Bloody thing went haywire yesterday when we were doing a dioxin drop over Hal’s farm. Four hundred litres of poison meant to land directly on the new pasture went astray when the sprayer jammed and we had to drop it on the way back. Turns out we dusted the town of Kawakawa by mistake.”

  “Hope it didn’t land on Hundertwasser’s Creation, eh. That’s their main tourist attraction.”

  “Buggered if I care. Some bloody Euro arty-farty who made friends with all the local niggers. If the best he could do was build a bloody fancy bog for the residents, then he won’t mind if it gets a bit of our star dust.” Raymond clears the end of the sprayer and runs some water through to test it.

  “Wouldn’t get caught calling the local Maoris niggers around here if you wanna stay,” advises Dominic, placing his cap back on his head.

  “Don’t worry. I don’t do it to their faces. Even got one working for us. See out there in the office. Martha. Not a bad chick, either. She’s good for the tourists who wanna see brown faces when they book their flights. And helps us keep in with the local marae. We wouldn’t want any land claims or hassles over environmental issues, now would we?” Raymond winks.

  Dominic doesn’t much like this fella and does not bother to mention he is Nga Puhi as well as Yugoslav-Pakeha. Not worth the energy. Besides, DOC needs Flyworks for its possum-eradication programme and work in the Waipoua Forest, so he knows better than to get offside with Raymond. If he argued with every racist or sexist Kiwi bloke he met in the course of his work, his time would be soaked up educating them – to little avail. He prefers to let things be. The way God meant them to be.

  “Make sure the spray rig is fixed by tomorrow, Ray. We wouldn’t want any mistakes in the Waipoua Kauri Forest. After the Cave Creek disaster, we have daily memos to be careful about public perceptions of what we do. There are all sorts of checks and balances. Best to be on the safe side.”

  Raymond smiles. “Like you wouldn’t want us to do an Agent Orange drop over your precious forest instead of 1080 poison, eh?”

  Dominic blanches. “Yeah. That’d be a disaster.”

  “Well, Dommy old boy. There’s not much difference between the two. Just a matter of proportion. But don’t tell all the Greenies or we’d be out of business in a day.” Raymond laughs loudly, enjoying his confession, knowing he’s safe with DOC. He goes on. “We had some fella from Hokianga Wholefoods trying to sell us some of his tofu shit the other day. Said he could supply the workers with healthy organic lunches from local gardens and it would support the growers as well as us. We convinced him we were organic Greenies and had a garden at home the size of a footy field. Truth is, once he left, we tucked into a fry-up of bacon and eggs, and little did he know it was Pinky we were eating.”

  “The same Pinky who won the Best Children’s Pig Award at the Rawene Agricultural Show?”

  “Yep. And she sure tasted sweet.” Raymond licks his lips in memory of Pinky.

  “A bit rough on your kids, Ray.”

  “They gotta get used to it, man. They can’t grow up around farms and not know this is the great Kiwi lifestyle. This means learning to be tough and eating your mates sometimes.”

  And these are the same fellas who arrogantly call Maori cannibals, thinks Dominic, but knows better than to share this thought.

  “Besides, if you cared so much you wouldn’t be zapping your precious possums with 1080, DOC Man. You know what Agent Orange did to the Vietnamese and Yanks who felt the drop. Some died, some are still ill, some went bananas. With the 1080 drops we have done for you fellas at DOC, just in the Northland region, there’s gotta be a few mean and mad and mangly muts floating about the bush, those that have not been zapped by us. And judging from the letters to the papers on this bloody GE issue, I’d say most of those bush-dwelling Greenies and niggers, oops, Maaaareees to you, have had their brains zapped by your precious 1080, so you might as well get off ya high horse now, Dommy.” Raymond’s lips curl upwards in a cruel smile, knowing he has got the better of Dominic. He’s an okay bloke, this DOC Man, but he has no idea about the power of the poisons he is ordering them to drop all over the land. Best to let him stay ignorant, thinks Raymond. But worth it just to see him squirm a bit.

  Maata knocks at the door of the workshop. “You fellas want a cuppa?”

  “That’d be lovely, thanks.” Dominic is relieved to escape from Raymond and relax with the workers a while.

  “We’ll be there in five,” mutters Raymond, adjusting the nozzles of the sprayer.

  “Shouldn’t you have gloves on for that job?” inquires Dominic.

  “Na, man. You’d be putting gloves on and off all bloody day. Besides, I’ve had two kids and fondled the wife with these strong hands, and none of them have carked it yet.” Raymond holds up his right hand and spreads out his fingers. He folds his fingers into his wrist and makes a lewd gesture by poking his middle finger up into the air. “And she likes it too, mate,” he smiles.

  Dominic looks at his finger, stained with nicotine and carcinogens from his sprays. Despite Raymond’s constant washing, he can never remove the cancerous substances he is constantly spraying over the land. They remain like a blight on his scrubbed torso, reminding any keen observer that his own poisonous practices will also remain bleached into the landscape forever despite the rain. Dominic shudders, wondering how long Ray and his wife might be so lucky. It’s like playing Russian roulette. “I’ll see ya in the lunchroom, Ray. Hanging out for that cuppa.”

  “Yeah, you go ahead. I’ll give it a miss. Too much work here and we need to get your chopper ready for tomorrow’s drop.”

  “Thanks, Ray. Much appreciated.” Dominic winces that he is always having to thank this man he dislikes so much.

  “No worries, mate. Us poison droppers need to stick together, eh?” Raymond winks at him. Dominic knows this is a veiled threat, but pretends not to notice. He walks up the stairs and down the corridor into the lunchroom, where Raymond’s wife Barbara is preparing some food while Maata makes the tea. He cannot help looki
ng at her hands as she butters her muffins, wondering how close she is to Ray during the day and if any of the poisons infect her fingers. She turns around and offers him a plate of goodies. Dominic politely refuses but accepts the steaming gumboot tea that Maata holds.

  “Ka pae, Maata. I could kill for a good brew.”

  Maata passes the cup. “How’s Roimata and her tamariki? They over that terrible flu yet?”

  “No. Seems like most of us in the Kaipara have had it bad this year. Streaming eyes, running noses, itching, skin rashes. Worst bloody flu I ever saw.”

  “I heard Kiri and Eruera’s kids had it very bad. Had to go to a specialist in Tamaki Makaurau.”

  “Where’s that? Never heard of it.” Barbara is a bit miffed that Dominic has refused her muffins.

  “Auckland,” replies Maata.

  “Well, why don’t you use the proper name?” Barbara wipes the edge of the plate with her hand, and Dominic cannot help noticing it is also stained yellow like Raymond’s fingers. He raises his eyebrows to Maata, who raises hers back. Not worth an argument over this being the correct name for the place before the British took it over. They ignore the question and move on to discuss their shared whanau and friends. Barbara is surprised he knows so much about them. She thought he was 100 per cent Pakeha, albeit with a bit of Dally blood. But nobody could be offended by the Dalmatians. At least they do something worthwhile with their land, like planting it with vineyards and providing New Zealanders with some of the best early wines in the country. Not like the Maoris, who waste the land, letting it grow back into bush and growing their horrid little purple and cream, tasteless potatoes and thinking they are special. Barbara bites into one of her special chocolate muffins, wondering why nobody else seems to want them. Dominic and Maata are thick in conversation by now. Barbara sweeps up the plate of muffins with her left hand and strides down to the workshop. At least Raymond will appreciate her hard work. The others barely notice she has left.

  Raymond looks up from his desk. He hates paperwork and is relieved she has come with a steaming plate of muffins. He grabs her and places the muffins onto the work table with a thud, stuffing one into his gob and winding his thick, hairy arms around her waist and sliding his hands over her bottom, pulling her toward him. He shuts the door behind them and raises her skirt above her pants, pulling at his zip. He is pleased to find he is hard already and thrusts himself inside her, pushing up against the door. Barbara hopes they cannot hear the noise from the lunchroom. At least she can always rely on Raymond to appreciate her, no matter what. They need each other, that’s what Ray always said, especially when her family accused him of marrying her for her money and her land for his chopper business. But he’d rescued her from her rich, boring family who expected her to marry a doctor or a lawyer or a stockbroker. If only they could see her now, fucking him like a dog on heat. How shocked they’d be.

  This thought makes Barbara enjoy the rebellion of fucking even more and she lets Raymond pound her against the wall, wrapping her long legs around his waist, enjoying the smell of his work clothes and the strange mix of chemicals that waft around him like a noxious perfume, one her family would hate and which makes her love it even more.

  “There’s going to be a hikoi to parliament organised by the Far North Organic Growers. Local iwi, hapu and the Greens are supporting us. We’ll leave from the tip of the North Island several weeks before the final government decision in response to the report from the Royal Commission on Genetic Engineering and it will be timed to arrive at parliament the day of the decision. Who can walk with us and who can lend support?” Irihapeti is delighted when a cheer comes from the local organic growers and iwi representatives at the meeting. Everyone is keen to be involved in some way, even though most of the growers exist on very little money and eke out a sustainable existence with their hard labour. Few can afford time away from the land, but all want to lend their support in some shape or form.

  “How many do they expect to start the hikoi?”

  “They’re hoping for a good turnout at the start, and for more to join the march as it progresses. Already, local growers have offered to set up food stands along the main highway south and to provide food and shelter on the journey.”

  “We’d have whanau in nearly every town if we pooled resources, and we should be able to provide shelter all the way. Let’s put a map on the table and I’ll place cockle shells on the towns where any of us have family. I’ll read them out, and if you have mates or friends or family, yell out and I’ll mark the map. Later we can collate the details and then email the results to them tomorrow.”

  “Choice idea, Hemi. I’ve got a free camping map in my wagon. I’ll get it now.”

  They pore over the map for the next hour, finding that they have friends and whanau spread all over Te Ika a Maui and they know most of them will support the hikoi. Nobody knows any tangata whenua who are in support of GE, despite the corporates and the government wanking on about this or that Maori here or there where they have managed to twist the arm of some Uncle Tom or bribed him with offers of riches or land to support their cause. The very nature of gene splicing is totally foreign to Maori and especially the mixing of animal and human genes, which interferes with traditional ancestral spiritual beliefs. Only those very alienated from their hapu, iwi or whanau could ever contemplate the idea of GE on spiritual grounds, let alone the fact that none of them wants to eat genetically altered food.

  “What are the likely effects if genetically altered fish get into our kai moana?” asks Ramiri.

  “Yeah, we saw those Frankenfish the Greens made models of on the telly. Bloody gory too. Fish with two heads and fins coming out of their eye sockets and no tails.”

  “We’ve got them already around Moruroa and Faungatuofa and all the Tahitian Islands after decades of French nuclear testing. We were there on the peace flotilla a few years back on board Manawa Toa, and we saw all kinds of strange fishy mutations. Not only that, but there were also photos of severely mutated humans – they’re known as jellyfish babies – with two or more heads, distorted limbs or none at all, and bodies that looked like blobby jelly. It was devastating.” Tears tug the edges of Cowrie’s eyes.

  “So do the nuclear chemicals have the same reaction as some of these GE experiments?”

  “It’s a different process, but yes, some of the results are similar. Already, it’s been reported that one salmon company in the Marlborough Sounds has been experimenting with GE, trying to grow salmon twice as fast and twice as large. They were forced to pull out of the experiment when it became known that their salmon were being born with two heads and enlarged, distorted bodies as well as twisted tails. Some could not even swim properly, and others drowned with the weight of their own bodies.”

  “Yuck! Gross! How could anybody even contemplate taking a risk like this and letting field trials go ahead where just one of these monsters could infect our entire food chain?”

  “I heard that some wankers are planning a fin fish farm at Peach Cove, Whangarei Heads. Kingi said it’d ruin the local resource and pump tons of chemicals and raw sewage into the harbour.”

  “I doubt that the Labour Government under Helen Clark, with the Alliance and the Greens against GE, would dare endorse any of this, let alone a GM report that recommended going ahead – so I think we are safe on that score.” Irihapeti tries to reassure them.

  “But what about the vast amount of pressure and the spin doctors that the big corporates who pay the scientists to do their Nazi experiments will put onto them? You can bet that will be huge.” Piripi pauses. “Despite the fact that 92 per cent of Kiwis put in submissions against GE, I’ll bet that their 8 per cent of funded puppets will dominate the media debates because they own the media and also have the power to get their opinions known. They’ll do the usual discrediting of any alternative opinions as the ‘looney left’ or the ‘wild greens’ or ecoactivist groups who are never taken seriously by the media or the public.”

  “Yeah
, but Clark has always been pretty socialist. There’s no way she’d sell out on this issue. She needs the left-wing vote and also the Maori vote. She knows all feminists, liberals, Maori and most of the educated people in the country are against GE. Only a very small group with a vested interested are for it. And she knows that, despite their money, it’s the majority who votes Labour in or out.”

  “Let’s bloody hope so. But we can never trust the main parties. We have learned this in the past. The only party which has not compromised on this issue is the Greens. Jeanette and Nandor and Sue get my vote anytime.”

  “Kia ora. Hemi’s right. Let’s all sign up. It’s only five dollars, and we can donate some money from the slush fund to make sure every family is committed to Mana Motuhake or the Greens or any group or individual who is categorically against GE. We might not all like the system, but it’s the only way we will get our say.”

  “Until we have our own sovereignty – let’s hear it for tino rangatiratanga!” yells out one of the tamariki. But not all the elders agree. They know it is not that easy. Though they want to have their sovereign power returned, they know that it must come with wisdom or it will be open to the same abuses as the systems that already exist. Besides, they are now getting used to the idea of partnership, and many believe it can work if there is trust on both sides, Maori and Pakeha.

  After their korero, a feast of freshly dug cockles, pipis and tuatua is laid out on groaning trestle tables and they offer karakia for the safety and protection of their ancestral food supplies. Now, more than ever, they appreciate their guardianship of this sacred kai moana. They cannot let it fall into the hands of people who are so greedy they would grow ika with two heads and bodies so large that they sink. It is against the laws of nature. It is against the spirit of tangata whenua.