by Baker Chris
‘I think he likes you,’ he said. ‘He’s getting all emotional.’
When they mounted the three horses and rode down the drive they heard hooves following and turned around. There was their flatulent friend, a determined look about him, clearly not about to be left behind. So they stopped and Patrick shod him too. As soon as Patrick was finished, the horse walked over and stood by Sean. Sean looked at him, took the saddle off the first horse, saddled his new friend and mounted. Sure enough, he trotted like a water-filled balloon, but it didn’t really matter.
He had a comfortable amble that suited both of them, even if they did lag behind on their way back to the school.
Sean named him Bojangles, Bojay for short. Bojay and Hamu disliked each other on sight. Bojay resented Hamu’s freedom and every chance he got he’d try to stand on Hamu. On the other hand, Hamu resented Bojay’s ability to eat anything green. Once, when he thought nobody was looking, Sean found Hamu trying to eat grass, his doggy face twisted with the bitter taste and what looked like utter disbelief.
They spent a week getting used to each other, most of the time with Bojay learning not to throw Sean when he fired his sawn-off from the saddle. Finally, Sean couldn’t put off his departure any longer. He’d never been so torn about anything. He wanted to stay with his friends, but he was getting that early spring itch when the weather warms and the plants bud. He felt suffocated, and finally it was Jim who gave him the push he needed.
‘Bugger off,’ he said. ‘But send us a postcard if it’s any good where you’re going.’
Sean knew he wouldn’t find anywhere better, but that wasn’t why he was going and everyone seemed to know that. They made him gifts of a saddle-blanket, a tarpaulin with cord and rubber ties, and a tomahawk. Ralph came shyly up to him and handed him a book; Pablo Neruda’s poems, stamped inside the front cover ‘Property of Ngahere HS Library’.
‘You can return it next time you’re passing through,’ he said, laughing and pretending not to notice Sean’s watery eyes.
The night before Sean left they had a feast in the dining hall — no drink or dak, but speeches, songs, and plenty of tears. His resolve was seriously shaken and all the questions he’d been asking himself resurfaced: Was he going too soon? Did he have to leave at all? Was a dream a good enough reason? Cally helped him through that one.
‘Yes, you do have to go,’ she told him. ‘But don’t worry. I’ll come and find you when I’m older.’
He didn’t doubt it. The next morning, when he kissed and hongi’d a line-up of about forty people, Cally and Hemi were at the end.
‘Don’t forget,’ she said. ‘We’ll find you.’
6
RIDING THROUGH WHANGAREI gave the place a very different aspect. Sean thought he’d seen it all when he’d driven through with Mike, Puru and Kevin, but high up on Bojay, and moving at his unhurried walk, everything looked completely different. It wasn’t just a better view of the old order breaking down. Sean saw the emergence of something entirely new, something very strange and scary too.
Thousands of dead bodies stunk in the spring warmth. Roadside verges were tangled masses of long grass and the lawns he passed weren’t any better. Already hedges grew out over footpaths, betraying cars parked neatly in drives and at the roadside, most of them with tyres deflating. He felt ill with the stench and a rollie burning between his lips didn’t help much. It certainly didn’t seem like an auspicious start to their journey. Bojay ambled down the centre of the road, his hooves rhythmic on the tarseal, already cracking and sprouting grass and weeds.
From the top of the Ngahere Hill — a notorious piece of road on which the local hoons had traditionally wiped themselves out, failing to negotiate its steep curves on drunken Saturday nights — Sean saw smoke from a dozen fires right across the city. Kensington Park with its rugby and hockey fields and netball courts was no longer geared for weekend sport. Now it was fenced and grazed and smoke rose from a kitchen built onto a hall once used for A&P shows. No more ‘Best of Breed’ or champion sword-dancer, Sean thought. No more rep sport or racing either, proud parents and team followers barracking from the sidelines, freezing in the driving winter rain, and punters agonising over their bets during the regular race meetings. It looked like people had occupied three of the local schools. Smoke rose from the tavern near Kensington Park where a kitchen had been constructed in the car park, and from Whangarei’s one urban marae, a home to folk from all over the north.
A lone yacht, with a gentle breeze barely stiffening its stays’l, glided towards its berth. Sean imagined people fishing the harbour and gathering shellfish, scallops and giant Pacific oysters. The Pioneer Inn, a motel block near the yacht harbour, was occupied, its barbecue facilities under cover of clearlite and canvas. While he watched, tiny people moved back and forth from gardens behind the motel units. He pictured the ornamental cacti and palms replaced with fruit trees, taro growing in the stream trickling down the hillside in a series of swampy pools, its ponderous tubers and glossy leaves a dietary revelation to people accustomed to potatoes and peas.
But, from where he sat on Bojay, the place might as well have been deserted. Almost as strong as the stink was the silence. No cars.
They moved towards the town centre and the main road south. There were more signs of new life, but the evidence of disaster was right in Sean’s face, everywhere he looked. He thought of visiting the communities he’d seen from the hill, but decided he didn’t want to take the chance of running into the men Ralph had confronted. He’d spent the past few weeks wrestling with the prospect of much strangeness and difficulty and he didn’t need to invite trouble, he decided.
In the town’s former commercial heart, wind-blown paper and seagulls were everywhere, shop windows broken and merchandise spilling out onto the footpaths. He saw a rat scuttling into a pile of rubbish. Cockroaches and other insects were feasting on the rotted remains of meat on display in butchers’ shops and delicatessens. Brightly coloured umbrellas, which had kept the sun and rain off shoppers sipping their lattes at wrought-iron tables, hung in tatters, shredded by the winter winds. The sun shone in a clear sky, but the desolation felt far worse than the suburban emptiness they’d almost come to accept in Ngahere.
Sean rode on, away from the town centre, past the deserted banks and office blocks, past the local newspaper office. The photos on display in their special window box were yellowing in the sunlight, the word EASE all that remained of a banner in front of a box of newspapers, full of a special edition pulped and congealed after four months out in the weather. He rode past the municipal rose gardens. The wishing well was about to vanish under climbing rose shoots that threaded their way across the untended mesh cover. Ducks splashed where their stream, in winter flood, had broken its banks and formed a small lake in the middle of the ornamental beds. Further up the road, a private hotel stood in the midst of herbaceous ruin. Inside the open door of the Pentecostal church next door, rain blowing in had lifted the lino, and tracts were scattered about. Outside on the glass-covered notice board ten-centimetre-high letters spelled out IT’S NOT TOO LATE.
Half a kilometre on, Sean turned left, passing the dairy factory, for years notorious for a regular discharge of protein-rich waste into the nearby stream. Periodically small boys had been photographed for the local paper staggering under the weight of a giant eel — taller than them and thick as a man’s thigh from the regular dairy food diet. Somebody had driven a milk tanker through the glass frontage of the factory office. It sat there, stainless steel glinting in the sun, looking as if it was being excreted by the building. Paper from the office leaked through the shattered wall, and inert power lines were draped across the back of the immobile machine.
Just up the road from the factory was the marae. Smoke curled thinly from the chimney as it had no doubt done for decades while meals were cooked for visitors. Sean remembered the steady stream of people uprooted from their rural havens and resettled in Whangarei so they could work in the area’s ne
w factories, making glass and cement, bagging fertiliser and tending railway rolling stock. Te Rina and Sean used to help with the annual Christmas dinner, when the marae hosted two or three hundred of Whangarei’s pensioners. Twice, cousin Joe and Sean had done a hangi, out at Pukepoto, driving the steaming baskets into town. They’d cooked chicken, pork, legs of mutton, treats like terotero, puddings, vegetables and bags of stuffing fragrant with herbs. There was kanga wai, teroi and bowls of raw fish, kina roe and marinated kutai for the old folk familiar with such delicacies. The young people had waited on the tables and entertained with song and dance. Local churches had helped with the transport and even politicians, local and national, had been permitted to make a brief appearance and escape unscathed, protected by a traditional goodwill.
Sean wasn’t in the least surprised to find the marae occupied. It felt the same as it always had, warm and comfortable, a substantial and enduring oasis with a life of its own. To him the marae existed in its own time at its own pace, and it wasn’t any different now.
Two old women sat outside the wharenui enjoying the sun as he approached. They looked up at the sound of Bojay’s hooves.
‘Kia ora!’ Sean called out, dismounting as he approached. They both stood and the three of them hongi’d, the old women’s skin like rice paper, warm and soft and smelling of lavender when he kissed their cheeks.
‘You took your time,’ one of them said. ‘But you’re here now. Is everything alright?’ She gave Sean the sort of piercing look that he knew would leave him flayed, exposed, if he had anything to hide.
‘Everything’s fine, Auntie,’ he said. Who was she? What did she know?
‘I’m Mihi. This is my friend Sophie. And you’re Sean. Where on earth did you get a name like that, by the way?’
Sean had been around enough to know that conversations with elderly people were often like chess games, innocent remarks hiding unfathomable motives and leading to unimaginable ends. Words were often the crudest and least eloquent form of communication. So he tried to appear impassive, knowing that his involuntary reaction had probably already given her the answer to a question she hadn’t even asked yet.
‘You’ll be staying the night,’ she said to him. ‘There’s a paddock around the back for your horse.’
He wasn’t going to argue. Curiosity and the thought of a shared meal easily overcame his desire to be out on the road, travelling south, away from the stink.
‘You’ll want to be on your way. You’ve got a long journey ahead of you. But there are some things I need to say to you before you leave.’
Sean took Bojay around the back, unsaddled him and released him in a paddock with two other horses. The horse grazed unconcernedly, but Hamu wasn’t impressed when Sean tied him by the kitchen door. Inside Sean waited. For the rest of the day he drank black tea, smoked too much and wondered what Mihi had on her mind.
Around dinnertime, two young men in white AFFCO overalls started frying grated potato with chopped-up onion and celery leaves, the delicious-smelling concoction bound with beaten egg. Finally Mihi appeared.
‘Smells good,’ Sean said, as casually as he could. He’d learned over the years, mostly the hard way, that it never paid to appear disgruntled or at all put out by events. Right or wrong, any display of irritation was instantly interpreted as evidence of inflated self-importance, a serious impediment to progress in any area. Mihi laughed.
‘Bet you’re hungry by now,’ she said. ‘Come on through to the dining room.’
Sean followed her into the hall. It filled with about fifty people, many of whom he’d known in the past. Some smiled at him. Some looked surprised. Some embraced him, offering their commiserations. They had all lost children, parents, spouses, he knew, and in turn he offered his own sympathies. Mihi sat him beside her. After they’d eaten he spent the next hour talking with those around him about how they’d managed to establish themselves and who was involved with the Ngahere group.
Slowly the dining hall emptied as people left to attend to chores, or simply to sit outside for a smoke and a chat. When only Mihi and Sean were left, she patted his hand and moved her chair back.
‘Let’s get comfortable,’ she said. She waited while Sean stood and helped her with her chair, then she led the way into the wharenui.
It was already dark outside and the hall was lit with a couple of kero lamps. Tukutuku panels adorned the walls and kowhaiwhai covered the exposed beams overhead. Carved ancestors gazed out from the walls and held up two poles supporting the backbone far overhead. Flax mats softened an already well-worn floor as they padded across. Mihi indicated the end of her mattress, and Sean sat cross-legged while she piled cushions and pillows against the wall and snuggled into them with a blanket over her legs. Other people were in the house but it felt like they were alone, just the two of them. They sat in an easy quiet till finally Mihi spoke.
‘Which road are you taking south of Waikato?’
‘I haven’t thought much about it,’ Sean replied. ‘Right down the middle, through Taupo, I suppose. I’m not even sure where I’m going.’
‘Don’t! Travel through Taranaki instead.’ He was surprised when she looked at him with apprehension in her dark eyes.
‘I can’t protect you from all the dangers you’ll face but I can tell you this much. There are things abroad now that have been in hiding from man and the more terrible of his works. Do you know the story of Kurangaituku?’
Sean thought of the bird-headed monster, commemorated by a rock south of Tokoroa. He thought of the miles of pine trees too. He shivered when he imagined riding through them, camping among them. And Kurangaituku — he remembered Uncle Rangi laughing when he admitted to being scared riding his pushbike past an old church and graveyard on his way from Ohaeawai to the late shift at the Moerewa dairy factory.
‘You won’t see anything,’ he had said. ‘You’ll be safe from kehua.’
However Auntie Rehu hadn’t been so sure. If Sean saw anything, she’d told him when Uncle Rangi wasn’t listening, swear at it and burn some of his hair. It was good advice, he was sure, but he’d been more nervous than ever pedalling through Pakaraka in the moonlight, the old church white and spectral in the trees. He must have come close to an Olympic sprint record on nights when the moon and the writhing mist made the headstones waver and the picket fence on the roadside lean towards him.
Mihi’s words chilled him. ‘Things abroad that have been in hiding from man ...’ He knew Mihi wasn’t just telling stories. Of course things were abroad that had never found a place in the old society. And ignorance was no protection against them. Swearing and burning hair probably wouldn’t be much help either, Sean thought, especially when a two-metre nightmare, with giant weka legs and an axe-head beak, developed an appetite and went hunting through the pine forests for something warm-blooded and meaty.
‘Don’t worry, Auntie,’ he said. ‘I won’t go near that part of the country, not now.’ She gave him another long look before speaking again.
‘I’m from north Hokianga,’ she said. She named a place Sean had stayed at a few times. ‘I was a district nurse there. We did things our way too. We kept close to the earth.’ She laughed. ‘Our waka had hooves and tails and our medicines came from the forest. We’ve always known about the way things were. We have a canoe tradition, nothing like the others, and we’re not from Taiwan either, but that’s none of your business. We know there’s more to death than leaping off at Cape Reinga. That’s the other thing I want to talk to you about.’
She shifted about, made herself comfortable.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’m getting on a bit.’ She must have been well into her eighties but she didn’t look in the least frail. ‘I’m sorry about your family.’ She gazed at Sean. ‘I’m sorry about mine too, but they’re not thinking about us. They’re reborn now and not human either.’
She saw the shock on his face and laughed. ‘And I’ll bet not one of them wants to be prime minister or make a lot of money. But yo
u knew things couldn’t carry on the way they were.’
Sean could think of nothing to say.
‘That’s your work in the south,’ she continued. ‘Find somewhere to live and make a new start. It won’t be as easy as it sounds either.’ She stopped talking while Sean thought about what he’d just heard. She caught his attention again with her next words.
‘You know the Maeroero?’
‘Kati ra, kati ra,’ said Sean. Cally’s paintings danced before him.
‘That’s them. Before you can do anything you have to make peace with them.’
‘How will I do that?’
‘I’ve got no idea. Just make sure you have your wits about you when you see them. They don’t have much patience.’ Mihi looked anxious, as if she wasn’t sure if Sean was up to the task. ‘The main thing is to be confident. The taniwha gave you part of the story and I’m giving you a bit more. If you survive your journey, you’ll find out the rest on your travels.’
Rummaging under her cushions, she produced a waka huia beautifully carved with paua inlay and removed the lid, releasing an exotic, spicy smell. She lifted an object rolled in an old silk scarf and carefully unwrapped it. It was Cally’s taniwha, carved in white bone, inlaid with chips of coloured stone, with a plaited flax thong attached. Sean gasped.
‘This is Tinirau,’ she said. ‘He’ll look after you. He’s been to places and seen things you and I haven’t even dreamt of.’ She leaned forward to tie the thong around Sean’s neck. Her breath smelt of freesias and she laughed again, a rich throaty chuckle. ‘He likes to travel,’ Mihi said. ‘And he likes beautiful things, like flowers and precious stones.’ Around them the hall breathed. Sean felt very small. The manaia nestled beneath his swanny, the safety it promised feeling like a threat, and the dangers of his journey now real and focused. ‘And that’s all. You sleep well tonight and get away early.’