by Alan Duff
That piano: huge, man. Bigger’n even our school one in the assembly hall ole Mrs Tucker plays when we sing at assembly. It’s black. Like me. And boy, is it shiny; and beautiful, somehow. The shape, or the shininess, I dunno, sumpthin. Big black and beautiful. (Well I ain’t beautiful, but I’m black. Black as that sky up there. Well, not really, but I’m black even for a Maori. Hate it too. I hate it. Being black. Feeling out of it. And even my own, Maoris, callin me black. As if some of them can talk. My big brother (my hero) Nig, he’s copper brown; he only got called Nig by some uncle of Dad’s as a compliment. Man, some compliment.)
Looks like a coffin lid, that piano lid. No it doesn’t. Just me being Miss Morbid again; that’s what Mum calls me sometimes: Aee, Miss Morbid at it again. Can’t help it. How I am. Can’t run around laughing at everything when I don’t find most of it funny. We have heaps of funerals in Pine Block, or people from Pine Block dying. Being killed, more like it; they don’t die of old age in our area, or even sickness much. It’s car crashes and fights and murders, and maybe accidents at work for those who got work. Have the funeral in their houses, most ofem, even though I know other Two Lakes Maoris they have it at their village, their pa where the person’s from or his parents or even his ancestry is enough; a real traditional Maori send-off. But it’s the old Lost Tribe bit with Pine Block: most ofem don’t have no links with that tribal stuff, that’s why they have the body in the house for the couple of days the funeral lasts. Spooky too. The body lyin there in the coffin its face so cold and so still because even nontraditional Maoris they like to see what they’re mourning over, or so I heard from someone. Classical. Is that classical the person’s playing?
Grace smiled, shook her head: Classical. Glanced over her shoulder at the line-up of lights two-storeys high, and thought of how these Tramberts might be fooled into thinking of them lights as homely, meaning warmth, family warmth and love, and all that stuff. Got news for you Tramberts if you do think that.
Over the brick wall, the coarseness like sandpaper brushing against her underthigh. On the other side the grass noticeably shorter under her bare feet. Mowed, of course. And now a trespasser. I could even be a burglar. Dogs …? She cocked her ears her every senses. Didn’t seem to be. But what about sheepdogs for his sheep? But then again they’d probably be tied up somewhere away from the house, Grace figuring. Or how’d the people be able to hear that piano with dogs yapping all night? Now reaching some kind of pitch, the piano sped up, yet not sped up. Oh I dunno bout this classical stuff.
The light from the room where the piano was fell in neat blocks onto the neat lawn. Real tidy. And the trees, the shadowy shapes ofem here and there in a girl’s vision, to the side of her. The woman was tall. Oldish. Maybe Mum’s age, maybe older. Yet she doesn’t look older: something about her face. Lovely hair. So shiny. Good conditioner, no doubt. Mum hates me using her conditioner. Dad doesn’t even know what it is. Think he uses soap for his hair. I know what it is: her face don’t look like it’s ever had a man’s fist in it. Oh …? Ohh, at the person playing the piano when she lifted her head. She can’t be … she can’t be any older than me! Grace astonished. Crushed. At the girl her ability. But mostly her confidence. God, to sit there and play that stuff with those two adults standing over you watching your every move. None of the Maori shyness for you, eh kiddo? No way, Hosay. Nope, you didn’t inherit the ole Maori shyness neither. (Or have it thrust on you. Or catch it like some … like some disease. That’s how I feel about shyness sometimes: it’s a disease you catch off others. They make you like them. Or they try their damnedest to. See what these Trambert people try with their kids, eh?) Grace looking at the girl still playing and feeling more and more crushed. Massively deprived. Then she began noticing the surroundings of that big room the three were in: furniture real nice, that old stuff, antiques, and paintings up on the walls, and vases with lovely flowers inem, and objects she did not recognise. And the curtains really bright with beautiful bursts of colour, of flowers, and sorta shiny, maybe silky, I dunno, I’m jussa black girl from over the way there. The state slum. And tears were in her heart. Then they were leaking from her eyes. And when she wiped at them it seemed to be a signal for em to just pour out. She couldn’t help herself. Nor the sobs escaping from her when the girl ended her playing and stood up and the evident mother and father kissed her, gave her a little hug, and her smile so brilliant like on the toothpaste ads.
A girl felt more than crushed, she wanted to die.
Then her sobbing must’ve got away from her because the man (in the suit) rushed to the window. And Grace watched in horror at it flying open, her vision filled with the man, hearing, too: Who’s there? Grace turning. Grace fleeing. Grace hitting some unmovable object in that now coal-black night. The force tremendous. The blackness darkening. The voice from afar and yet yelling at her. Like in a dream …
Running again. Running and running. No memory. Only instinct. Though partway in her fleeing something returned of her thoughts, her awareness. For she heard another strickened sound … lots and lots of running feet …? She ran faster, yet she still could hear it. Wondered if she was going mad or had already reached that state. Diving over the fence into her own backyard. Up and running. Stop! Stop! a voice in her head telling her, you must stop now, very important. So she stopped.
Her lungs were bursting. And that damn sobbing was trying to come out at the same time. And I think I must be bleeding; she touched her forehead. Yep. Musta run into that damn brick wall. Felt the area again, pain indicating it could be deep. Sounds of a party going on inside, and anyway she could see it: kitchen full ofem. Dad and his mates. Laughter. Someone trying to get em singing. Voices loud and aggressive in that man manner. Have to go round the front door. Decided she’d sit outside a bit, wait for the bleeding to stop, clean herself up by the outside tap and go in through the kitchen, because the front door might be locked, or she might run into her father using the toilet just at that time, and if there was one thing he hated was a sneaky kid. Even just thinking the kid might be sneaky. (He thinks we’re all out to get him. To spy on him so we can go and tell lies on him. But to who? Mum? Why’d he worry about Mum? He beats her every month. Oh, I dunno.)
The stars again while she sat in the long grass; and in between them she observed the kitchen of her own house. The contrast. It didn’t seem possible. From grand piano to this. Even God wouldn’t believe it. And of course she wondered where she stood in all this, this human scheme of things.
Entering the front door, through the wash-house, into the kitchen (wow!) to a blast of sound. And smoke. And the smell of beer: in the bottle, in the glass, in the air from a thousand taken mouthfuls and a thousand breaths. Heyyy! A croaky-voiced man calling at the sight of her. It’s Grace. Hi, Bully. Come an giz your Uncle Bully a hug, girl. Grace first glancing at her father sat in his corner at the table, no signal from him either way. Not welcome either. So she went over to her father’s friend, gave her false uncle a hug, at the same time creating a babble of hellos and fairly complimentary comments on her prettiness, her good figure (if they weren’t all so drunk) and a pat on the bottom from one ofem. Then Jake asking what’d happened to her head. Oh, I fell over. He looking at her with suspicion (and is it hate?) she back at him not knowing what her face was reflecting, but hoping it wouldn’t get him wild. Where? Outside. On the footpath. Running too fast. Who from? The cops, who else? Bully came laughingly in and that set the others off. Except Jake. You sure wasn’t someone hit you? And Grace wanting — dying — to know what if someone had? (Would you rush to my defence, Daddy?) Not minding if he did, and to hell with the violence. (I just want to know I’m loved.) No, Dad. Giving him a little (crawling) smile: who’d dare hit a Heke? Now that madeim crack a little smile. And his mates going, Yeow! Ain’t no one’d mess with one a Jake Heke’s own. Even the fuckin Brown Fists. We saw it, eh Dool? With our own fuckin eyes we saw this bastard standin up to em on his fuckin jacksy. Wasn’t on his own, man, I was right there. Me too �
�� And Grace was quite forgotten as the men started up something that must’ve happened between her father and the Brown Fists. And Grace thinking: Oo, Dad. Even you shouldn’t mess with them. Goodnight. Slipping away. No one acknowledging her going, probably wouldn’t even remember she’d been in the room come morning. Too interested in their fight-talk, tough-talk, man-talk; it’s their love talk. Upstairs.
She checked the wound in the bathroom mirror. Not as bad as I thought. The relief of not being caught, actually nabbed, by none other than Mr Trambert. Knees hurt, both ofem. Scraped. Musta been that brick wall alright. Wonder what happened to me back there? Grace couldn’t figure. Not like me to bawl just at something like that; so what the girl is about my age can play the fuckin piano? Who cares. I don’t lie awake at nights wishing I could play the piano. Never even thought about stinkin pianos till I happened to be where I shouldn’t and saw her. (Yet I’m still jealous.)
Past Mum and Dad’s room and even with the door closed Grace could hear her mother’s snoring: that fag-choked in and out breathing always threatening to die on the in. Uh-uhuh-urrghhh! (God, Mum, you’re meant to be a lady.) Some lady, huh. How could she be in Pine Block?
Grace off to bed. Check the kids first. Spose they been wondering where I was; they got so used to me being their second mother, poor little buggers, or fuckers, as some in our world callem. Fuckers … Who but a Pine Blocker’d call their own kids fuckers? Huata fast asleep. Looking at the baby of the family, so sweet when he was asleep and pretty good awake too. Over to Poll’s top bunk: her and her doll, Sweetie, out like lights, snuggled up together as usual. G’night, Poll. Grace imagining giving her sister a peck.
Starting to undress, remembering the door, and then the curtains, you never knew who might be spyin on ya out there. Giggling to herself. It starting to occur what she’d done. Wow, I got a look at how the other half lives tonight. Remembering her reaction, the sobbing. Stripping naked, getting her nightie from under her pillow, catching a glance of her changing physical state, of hair growth down there and the view of it increasingly blocked by the twin growths above. A woman, eh? Won’t be long and I’ll be a woman. Feeling scared at that thought: a sense of loss. And yes, sorrow. (I don’t wanna change. I don’t wanna grow old.) Into bed.
… ’m I dreaming …? Must be. Grace could smell beer in the dream; beer breath. And fags. And there were all these men standing about drinking and smoking and talking how they do in real life — but she felt something on her leg. A touch. Then the cool of the blankets being off. Dizzy with sleep. Then this voice going, Shhhhhh. And the hand it was stroking her leg. (This is no dream.) Oh God, what do I do?! And totally dark. The curtains across. Door closed. And a girl in her head realising: I think I’m being, uh, molested. Then everything turning hazy, and yet clear: I can figure out what’s happening, but I can’t work out why. I’m confused and yet I’m not. I’m scared and yet I’m scared for him too, this person doing this. This man. (What if it’s my father? What if it’s not and my father comes in? What if he thinks it’s me doing it too?) So lying there. Not sure if she was rigid stiff or the opposite, playing dead.
The hand was probing at her thing. The beer stink rose up in wafts to Grace’s sense of smell. And something else. Very distinctive, despite that stench of stale beer and fags. Open a lil bit, the voice whispering. (Is it Dad?) Not knowing if she obeyed. Hearing an, Ahhh. Can’t tell who it is, only that it’s a man. Shall I call out? I know, I’ll scream. But what if Dad’s gone somewhere else, to another party, and this is someone left behind? Maybe he’s gonna murder — Grace couldn’t even complete the thought. Squeezed her eyes shut.
Finger fiddled with her most private part. And a hoarse voice whispered, ya like that, doncha? (Oh God. Oh God.)
(I know: I’ll think of something else quite different. That’s what the booklet at school said if it was happening and we couldn’t stop it.) But then Grace not sure if she’d read that particular advice or one of her (few) friends’d told her. The man grunting. Quiet as anything, but grunting. Everything so quiet. It’s stopped, the party downstairs’s stopped. Only the breathing grunting of this person, and his fingers touching her with seemingly urgency. Hurting. Rubbing her hair down there. Grunting. Saying shhhhhh, without emphasis this time. So quiet. And another funny smell.
… mmmmm! through her clenched teeth at the intrusion — the pain of something inside her. Working its way in. Roughly. The breathing quite loud now. (Oh God …) — mmmmmmm!! once more at the probing really penetrating. The man panting now. And Grace thinking: Think of something else … think of something else … I know, think of them, the Tram — no! Not them. Hurts too much. Them and this man what he’s doing to me.
Mum? She could hear the faint muffled sound of her mother’s distinctive snoring. Mum! in her mind, thinking of mental telepathy, communication between mothers and daughters in trouble without screams or words. Just come, Mum. Oh please come. But not daring to scream in case.
The night lasting on and on and on, and Oh God, it hurts so. And (why — why — is he doing this? What’ve I done to him?) And the man breathing his rotten fumes all over her, his whiskers harsh on her face, going: mmmmm, as he kissed her. And she lying there with lips shut tight but not daring to twist away, or even indicate she was awake. And that smell stronger. And kind of knowing what it was … that it was somehow self-familiar, something sexual, an off-giving, except this sensed as somehow corrupted. By him. This man. Raping her. She wanted to vomit.
Out on the street. Seems so long. Parties going. What time is it? A car growling into her hearing, and coming to a deep rumbling halt alongside her. A voice: Hey! Whatcha up to, darl? Laughter. Then another voice: Hey, man, let’s split. It’s one a Jake’s kids. Oh wow. And the car gunning off into that streetlamp-lit night. A girl crying. With hurt and physical pain, and love (or thinking it was love) at her father’s dreaded rep getting her out of (another) sticky situation. Moving on. I know where I’m going.
A dog barking. A big moon right there. It’d moved. Gat going nearby; where all the lights are on. A lot of houses in darkness. But a lot still lit up with noising life. Car-wreck outlines on darkened lawns. Car-wreck bodies clear in pools of light from partying kitchens, partying sitting rooms, partying open front doors spilling a kind of lonely light onto em. Grace knowing which wreck she wanted. That one, the one with the bonnet all alight from the half-open front door.
Toot? You there, Toot? Waiting. The gat going full bore in there where Toot’s pisshead mum and dad lived and Toots wasn’t allowed because, well, they didn’t like him, too cheeky, sumpthin about him, they dunno, juss that every time they look atim they get wild. So Toot, he knows when he’s not wanted, so he made the car wreck home. Why, sometimes you could see his parents come home from the pub, carrying crates of beer, staggering up their footpath having to go pastim, up to their front door, opening it, bringing light upon their own son’s cobwebbed miserable car-home: and not so much as a kiss my arse, nuthin.
Toot? It’s Grace. Wake up. Wake up.
In there withim. Toots. (My just about one and only friend.) Whassa madda, Grace? Toots. Here. Come and get under the blanket. (So nice in here. And warming.) And me and Toots, just us against this rotten fuckin world. Got anything to do, Toots? Wha’, glue or that? Anything. No glue left, Grace. Grace, you don’t do glue? Do ya? I might. Nah, Grace, it’s no good. Stay away from it. Well, you do it. Nah, it sucks, Grace. Honest. So why do you do it? I’m, uh … I’m different. Toot. Well, I ain’t got none left. Whassa madda anyway, your olds been at it again? Yeah, sumpthin like that. And staring into the semi-gloom and the silence and that funny sumpthin that only they could feel because they were, well, you know how it is, kids get to know each other. Specially sad ones.
Cunts, aren’t they? Yeah. Who needs parents, Grace? No one, Toot. Fuckem. Yeah, thas what I say: fuckem. That silence again: their own world. This is ours, this is us, ya can’t take this little bit from us. And Grace feeling something sorta dribbling o
ut of her, like her period or sumpthin, except she’d had that only about a week ago. Hey! Whatcha doin’? Sorry, Toot. Holdin hands … We’re mates. Know that, Toot. I juss felt like, you know — Sorry. Aw, nemine saying sorry. Wha’, you wanna hold hands? Nah. Not now. C’mon, I don’t mind. Yes ya do. Don’t. Ya do. Grace … Well, you pulled away from me like I got some disease or sumpthin. Well you ain’t. Here. Now hold it. Toot taking her hand, squeezing it. Grace feeling the warmth travel right up her arm, spread into her chest, go down into her tummy, down her legs, back up her spine. And finish in her head, somewhere deep down and satisfying in her head.
Toots … Wha’? I told you sumpthin, would you — Nah, G, ya know I wouldn’t. Who’ve I got to tell anyrate? Promise? I promise. Wha’, ya been stealing? Toot chuckling away beside her, she unable to see his face because he was right back in the seat, legs up over the front and covered to his chin with the blanket. Not stealing, Toot. You know I don’t steal. So whassa big secret? Well, I … I, uh, I …
And inside, hardly a stone’s throw from the car wreck, a party that’d been raging began to break up. To fuck up. People, they were starting to argue. Dunno why. No one did. Only that it was one of those things they accepted. The dream — nah, not the fuckin dream, man. We don’t call things dreams, only winning Lotto, and before that it was the Golden Kiwi. The party is over. That’s what, and that’s all it is: party’s over. Same place, same time, next week.
8. The Visit
Beth was so happy. Oh, I haven’t been like this in God knows how long. Proud of herself too, for not drinking in thirteen weeks. Not even a sneaky drop. Smilin to herself, And look what it got, feeling tingly all over as she did a last-minute check in the bathroom mirror — Yeah, yeah, yeah, at the car horn tooting on the street below. I’m coming. As she fussed at her shoulder-length hair all done up, thirty flippin bucks it cost. But worth it, I guess, but not quite sure of herself; feeling a bit self-conscious, a standout, as if people’d think she was trying to be up herself. And I ain’t; just wanna look good for my boy, that’s all. No make-up, other than lipstick, and even then she wasn’t sure if the colour suited her coppery complexion. People said she didn’t need make-up, had good smooth skin (if ya don’t mind the scars from a hundred hidings, that is. Oh, but even that was alright. Today it was.) and besides, Maori women don’t hardly suit make-up, dunno why, but they don’t. Scarlet lipstick? Smacking her lips. They’ll have to do.