by Bowes, K T
Michael sat naked on the toilet seat, the towel swathed around his neck. He stared at his groin. “She said I was big.” He smirked, vanity and lasciviousness already ingrained in his psyche like a disease. “She said it hurt.”
“I don’t wanna know,” Logan snapped.
“Didn’t stop her wanting it again.”
Logan crossed the tiny room in one long stride, gripping Michael’s face in one hand. He batted his brother’s flailing fingers away with his forearm. “I said I don’t want to know,” Logan repeated, his face channelling rage. “You make me sick!” With a spiteful twist he let go of Michael’s jaw and turned back to the sink. A weight of responsibility settled on his young shoulders and the futility of Rangi’s task felt like concrete around his neck.
Michael slipped from the bathroom, giving Logan a wide berth and wore a tee shirt and shorts by the time Miriam struggled through the door with a single packet of crackers for the three of them. Logan scrubbed the blood from the towel until the fibres threatened to come away from the material and his fingers stung red from the hot water and soap. He emptied the sink and watched the water drain away, seeing it as an analogy for the Du Roses. Rangi expected him to shepherd a family which had become out of control, each of the parts single minded and selfish. “Maybe Michael’s right,” he sighed. “There is no whānau anymore.”
Logan wrung out the fabric and hung it to dry over the tap in the shower. The blood stains looked dull and less noticeable. Logan ran a hand over his face, squeezing the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger to stave off the growing headache.
“I got crackers, son,” Miriam said, poking her face through the gap in the door. “Come and get some.”
“Take your pills, Ma,” Logan said, forcing a smile onto his lips. “And you don’t need to eat crackers. I told you, I’ve got money. We ate crackers yesterday and your tablets have to be taken with a proper meal.”
“I’m fine,” Miriam said. The foundation powder on her chin bore a smudge across the middle, her moko tattoo looking like a dirty mark instead of the proud whakapapa of her French and Māori heritage. The sight made Logan’s blood rush and he ground his teeth. One day he’d have a tattoo across his entire shoulder and he’d slap anyone who mocked it. “I’m taking my pills now, look.” Miriam held up to two white specks and threw them into her mouth, swallowing without water. The cracker packet appeared through the gap in the door, orange and garish, the contents square instead of round. “Want some?” she asked. “You must be hungry. Come fill your tia.”
“I’m good, Ma, thanks. You have mine. Maybe I’ve got the upset Michael’s had.”
Miriam nodded, her brow furrowed and she pushed the door open fully. “Is that why you’re hiding in here?” she asked, her tone tender. She laid the crackers on the sink and held her arms out to Logan. He gulped and accepted her embrace. Rare and unusual for her to show affection, she crushed him to her, stroking his back and running her hands across the nape of his neck. Already on his way to being six feet tall, Logan bent to enfold his mother. She seemed tiny in his arms, a giant, formidable personality squeezed into a slither of Māori woman. Logan felt her tremble and realised they’d always connected differently, some other kind of affection passing between them.
“I’ve got my savings,” Logan whispered. “I’ll take care of us from now on.”
Miriam’s head shake rocked their embrace. “She’ll be right,” she replied, using the familiar Kiwi expression. It formed the comforting blanket which righted mishap, accident or tragedy. “You earned that money mustering and droving for the other farmers.”
“At school,” Logan whispered. “I earned it at school too.”
“How?” Miriam pushed at his chest, peering into his grey eyes with suspicion. “How did you earn it at school?”
Logan grinned, a schoolboy expression on his man’s face. He tapped his temple with a slender, scarred finger. “Using my brain,” he said. “I do their homework, write letters home. I have skills so I use them.”
Miriam ran the backs of her fingers along Logan’s jaw line, reaching up on tip toes to perform the tender action. He winced at first, used to ducking her physical brand of discipline, but the look in her eyes stopped him. “I love you, Logan,” she whispered, her voice so low he dipped to hear. “Whatever happens in the future, believe that one thing.”
He nodded, lost for words. He noticed the tendrils of grey springing from the black hair which rebelled in the tight bun at the back of her head. Miriam Du Rose was still stunning, lithe, grey eyed and dark. Her husband worshipped the ground she trod like a lost puppy seeking approval.
“I love you too,” Logan whispered, the words sounding clunky and unfamiliar on his tongue. Their impact rocked his soul, spoken once but destined not to be uttered again for another two and a half decades. “I’ll take care of you from now on, I promise.”
“Bless you, tāne,” Miriam said, pressing her index finger to Logan’s lips. She swished from the room in her long skirt and closed the door behind her, leaving her son feeling confused and alone.
Te Kupu Kaurangi - The Promise
“Come, Logan, we need to hurry.”
“I know, Ma, I’m sorry.” Logan pulled his jacket straight, the bulging envelope in the inside pocket giving his chest a lopsided appearance. “I changed my dollars into pounds.”
“Oh, tāne! I’ll be cross if we miss the train for a few loose coins.”
Logan swallowed, the tattered brown envelope stuffed with paper money pressing on his heart and conscience. The New Zealand dollar lost a third of its value against the pound, hundreds of poems to other boys’ girlfriends used up in the unfair exchange. 1980s Britain still ruled the world in money, dominance and power and Logan felt a kindred spirit in the capitalist aura of London. He’d gone to the North Shore Grammar school with Michael as a poor kid with a scholarship for brown boys with potential - not its real title but the sentiment remained whatever the wording. Logan Du Rose intended to leave as a rich man.
“How’d you earn money again?” Miriam asked, bounding up the steps to the platform of the Docklands Light Railway station. Logan strode along next to her.
“I write better than most of them so they pay me to write to their rich parents and silly girlfriends. Most of them have more money than sense so I do their homework as well. If there’s something to be done, I do it. They look to me for leadership, so I provide it, for a fee.”
Miriam skidded to a halt on the flat and stared at Logan. A man wheeling a suitcase cursed at the abrupt blockade. “You’ll get caught,” she said, foreboding in her eyes. “They’ll throw you out. What then?”
Logan’s face lost its worried expression and a lazy smile crossed his lips. “They won’t catch me, Ma,” he said, his eyes bright and sparkling. He tapped the side of his temple and forgot himself, giving her an easy wink. “That’s what a brain’s for.”
He set off walking, realising she hadn’t followed. Her face looked stunned and her jaw hung with a slackness born of shock. Confused, Logan made the few strides back and tugged on her elbow. “Ma, what’s wrong?”
Miriam swallowed and allowed him to pull her into a walk. “Nothing,” she said, as though attempting to convince herself. “Nothing.”
“Well, something is.” Logan navigated the man with the suitcase who swore again.
“Bloody wogs!” the guy spat and Logan turned, hatred in his face.
“Yeah?” he said, his grey eyes blazing and the whites gleaming around his irises. He channelled pure rage, even though beneath the veneer he felt barely riled. “Wanna go at me?”
The middle aged white man swallowed a giant gulp and shook his head. Logan oozed the kind of danger it wasn’t worth engaging and the stranger conceded defeat and backed away.
Logan dragged Miriam on through the crowds until they reached the side of the platform, hearing the buzz of the automatic train as it navigated the final twist into the station. He bent closer to Miriam’s ear as
their train whizzed alongside and the brakes gushed it to a halt. “What’s a wog?” he asked.
“Brown person,” Miriam mouthed and Logan’s brow creased in irritation. He searched the heads of the gathered passengers looking for the name caller, spotting him a distance away, still pulling his suitcase.
“I won’t be long,” Logan said, his body stiffening.
Miriam gripped his forearm in both hands, her bag trapped between their bodies. “No!” she said. “Learn to pick your battles in life, my son. Racism is not one of them.”
Logan nodded, his head old on young, broadening shoulders. He soaked up knowledge and wisdom like a sponge, internalising and compartmentalising information he might need later.
“Ka wani kē,” he acceded. “Alright.” Logan’s eyes took in his mother’s vulnerability in the crowded station. Too olive skinned to be white but not brown enough to be black. At home she fitted in like a hand in a glove but in London she was a fork in the spoon drawer. Misplaced.
Logan reached for her writhing fingers, dragging them free of his forearm. “I’ll take care of you, Mama. I’m here for you and Dad. It’s my life’s work. I’ll make everything right.” He squeezed the fingers, infusing love and protection into his mother’s battered soul. “Fafau atu ie,” he said. I promise.
The Girl on the Train
“Nā ka kite anō iho aku kanohi i muri i a au e makenu ana te pāwhatitanga o te huarahi o te atua whiowhio haere o te Pākehā”
(Redemption Songs 1995:277).
“My eyes will see after you, traces of the broken branches on the pathway of the travelling railway train of the Pākehā.”
The train carriage was full and Logan and Miriam stood with the other people leaving the docklands’ area of London. At Tower Gateway they left the crowd and ran across to catch the Circle Line train bound for Westminster and St Thomas’ Hospital. Logan passed through the barriers and turned left after the station, trailing Miriam behind him. He saw the small garden on the right and the imposing structure of Tower Bridge just beyond, bored now of the architectural spectacle after almost two weeks of scurrying past. He took Miriam’s arm and helped her down the steps into the underground. Her skin looked pale and unhealthy, her nerves already frayed by concern for her dying brother and anxiety about the journey home.
Logan snagged the last available seat for his mother, forcing her into it with a firm hand on her shoulder. He gripped a metal support pole and swayed with the movement of the train as it tore through the black tunnel. The train emptied out like a drain at Monument station and Logan sank onto the ruined fabric next to Miriam. The bench seat opposite bore tattered seats with the stuffing emerging past the frantic, psychedelic pattern of the cloth. “Guess they all switch to the Central Line here,” Logan sighed, squinting at the map of the underground opposite.
“Hmmmn?” Miriam turned a tired face in his direction and Logan smiled.
“Nothing, Ma. Don’t worry.” Logan sat back in his seat and stretched out his long legs, hearing the shoes squeak across the rippled metal surface. The train shuddered as the doors swished closed, beginning its never-ending, clockwise journey again.
“Excuse me.” The voice was low and gravelly and the speaker’s face browner than Logan’s.
“Sorry,” the teenager apologised and withdrew his feet, placing them at right angles to his kneecaps and feeling his foot slip inside the left one. The man looked Indian, hurling himself into the seat opposite Logan. He looked up, his gaze fixed on something to Logan’s right and the boy turned his head to see.
The woman struggled with the lurch of the train, slumping next to the Indian with little control. Her skin contrasted starkly against his, the porcelain tones against the brown jarring and unnatural. Logan stared, his eyes fixed on the soft auburn curls which tumbled around her face and stroked the bottom of her full breasts. Her eyes were a fiery green and glinted like emeralds. She turned to the Indian man in the seat next to her, laying her delicate fingers on his thigh. “Is this the most direct route?” she asked, her accent English and the tones gentle and lilting.
“No,” he replied, his voice harsher than when he asked Logan to move his legs. “But I need to see my brother first. Might as well take all the shit in one day and be done with it.” He moved his leg and the woman’s fingers slid to the seat where they found a rip and settled. She pushed her index finger into the hole as her brain disengaged and to Logan’s alarm, a single tear rolled over the crest of her lower eyelid and plunged down her cheek, bouncing from her jawline and soaking into her dress.
Logan watched her, tense and troubled as the girl tried to hide her misery. She withdrew her finger from the seat filling and brushed her arm across her cheek. Guilt and fear mixed in her expression like roiling waves of confusion and she took deep breaths to calm herself. More tears fell and she turned her back on the carriage, facing the blackened windows as she moved her body away from the Indian in a silent, unnoticed protest.
Something in Logan’s heart cracked and a newness flowed out, filling his body and rendering him immobile. He sifted through its effects, recognising nothing except for the fragile thread of protection he felt for Miriam. But the nagging, persistent ache felt worse than the irritating need to keep his mother safe; it was bigger, crazier and far more terrifying. He balled and flexed his fingers into fists, imagining the feel of the Indian’s jaw bone against his knuckles and liking the sensation the more he focussed on it. As though sensing the animosity, the Indian man turned and connected with Logan. A blue bruise budded where the angular cheekbone met his eyebrow and a thick scab nestled between the fine, dark hairs. The man looked away from Logan’s gaze and ran his tongue across the inside of his lower lip and winced.
The red haired woman turned forwards again, wiping her eyes on her cardigan sleeve. She seemed oblivious to the cold air which wafted onto the train from the platforms at Cannon Street and Mansion House and the carriage began to fill again. Logan stretched his legs out, making it difficult for anyone to stand in front of him and block his view and he felt Miriam’s eyes on the side of his face. He’d seen few redheads in his small world and the woman fascinated him. The spiteful strip lights in the train’s ceiling cast shadows and highlights in her hair, making it dance and flicker as the curls moved. Her black cardigan looked neat and pulled tightly across her shoulders as though borrowed from someone smaller. It gave him kinship with her, his overlarge shoes calling out a coded signal of unanimity.
The buttercup yellow dress she wore suited the earthy tones of her hair and accentuated the perfection of her skin. Logan studied the neat, slightly pointed nose and full pink lips, her darkened eyelashes stroking the air around her cheek, glittering with salt water from her tears. She scrubbed at her cheeks, rousing colour before her hand fluttered down over breasts which pushed at the yellow fabric. Her palm rested over the neat bump of her abdomen. The green eyes grew soft as Logan covered his surprise with an awkward throat clearing and his stress tell of running a hand through his dark waves. She stroked the outline of her unborn child and her lips moved as though in prayer.
The Indian turned towards her, his brown eyes dark and accusing. “I hope yer not gonna snivel all the way there,” he whispered, condescension in his tone. “There’ll be enough when we get there.” He squinted at the map above Logan’s head, his face impassive. “If we ever get there.”
Logan shifted on his seat at the same time as his lips parted and his fists balled, an automatic reaction to the man’s cruelty. He scooted his bum forward on the seat and locked his knees, ready to stand. Miriam’s hand on his arm shocked him and halted the path his mind had set itself upon. “No,” she whispered. “Not your business.”
Logan looked at the fear in her eyes and swallowed the knot of hatred in his throat. Miriam leaned closer, her breath smelling of the last of the crackers, wheat and peppery. “You promised you’d look after me,” she hissed. “This isn’t how.”
Stung, Logan nodded, allowing his fists to
uncurl and his fingers to grip the seat. He watched the woman from under dark, thickly curled lashes, channelling his fury into creating another rip in the fabric next to his thigh. The man’s comment unpicked the last of the woman’s resolve and she sniffed, tears creating a river down her cheeks. The rise of her dress created by her baby grew damp as the back of her hand and the soaked cardigan sleeve failed to stem the flow.
When Miriam moved, Logan jumped, so fixated with staring at the pregnant woman. He gaped as his mother drew a handkerchief from her pocket and stretched out her arm across the divide. “Here, kōtiro,” she said, the New Zealand vowel sounds jarring in the hum from the train tracks beneath.
The redhead stared at the pale blue offering, the fabric neatly folded and pressed in the brown fingers. Navy kiwi birds danced around the edge in a timeless manoeuver, unconcerned for their fate.
Logan’s pupils widened, obscuring the beauty of the grey irises in his surprise. He bought his mother the handkerchiefs from a souvenir shop in Auckland on a school trip, knowing how much she loved the little rare birds and imagining the cloth shoved deep in her cavernous apron pocket as she kneaded bread at the kitchen table. He opened his mouth to protest, silencing the clamoring of brain and heart as the porcelain fingers stretched across the carriage, near enough for him to touch in the moment before they seized the handkerchief. “Thank you,” the girl said, dabbing her eyes and pressing the soft blue cloth to her face.