Potiki

by Patricia Grace

  In the meantime trucks were bringing materials in. The big machines were clearing large areas of land. The hills were being sliced away, and rock and rubble was being pushed into the sea.

  It was spring then, and the gardens, the big gardens, were soft and tender and green.

  16

  Roimata

  So we tried to turn our backs on the hills and not look up. The hills did not belong to us any more. At the same time we could not help but remember that land does not belong to people, but that people belong to the land. We could not forget that it was land who, in the beginning, held the secret, who contained our very beginnings within herself. It was land that held the seed and who kept the root hidden for a time when it would be needed. We turned our eyes away from what was happening to the hills and looked to the soil and to the sea.

  That summer of the rain the earth had plenty to give, as did the sea.

  It is not important to have meat on the plate when you are a shore-dweller. If you are a shore-dweller there are always sea gleanings to go with the root.

  At any time of the year, and in any weather, we could get paua and kina when the tide was low. On any calm day we could set the nets for butterfish, moki, shark or kahawai, although the catch was not always good. Occasionally we would pull in a snapper or a conger eel on a handline thrown from shore. If the bigger fish were not around then we could get small cod from the rocks or kelpie from the weed-beds.

  We tried not to look at the hills and we tried to ignore, just adjacent to us, the changing shoreline, and tried not to talk about the yellow mud colour of the sea.

  That summer of the rain I was the one who usually went with Hemi to collect the nets in the early evening, while the younger ones were busy with other work. I love very much the free feeling of pulling out over the water in the dinghy, and the brisk salt smell of the sea.

  At that time we were setting the nets at one of the furthermost netting places because of the mud that now coloured the more shoreward fishing spots. In this place we were still able to see the nets below the surface, and on windless days we could look down and see the catch, if there was one, gleaming along the net line.

  On the night that the rain began Hemi and I went out late to pick up the nets. It was a busy time because we had been packing and loading the first crops for the markets. The wind was coming up so we did not want to leave the nets overnight as we sometimes did.

  Some of the children, who had already had their evening meal at the wharekai, were down on the beach piling driftwood for a fire. Most of the light had gone, and the white summered sticks that they collected were pale, bonelike, in the part-dark. The children helped us carry the dinghy down to the water.

  I took up the oars while Hemi walked the boat out a short distance before stepping in over the stern. He steadied himself then moved the net crates into position.

  Even after a day of heavy work there is strength to pull a small boat out over the sea. There is joy in it. I pulled fast and hard until I was breathless, and then Hemi took over from me. The wind was slight, causing some movement on the surface of the water as I leaned over to take hold of the first net buoy. The boat spun as I grasped it and a spray of water spilled onto me, wetting face, hair and clothes, stinging and cold, but there was joy in that too after the hot, hard work of the gardens. The rain that threatened had not yet begun.

  I took the oars again to steady the boat while Hemi pulled the first net in. There was only one fish in the first net and that was a small snapper. ‘Hardly worth the ducking,’ I heard Hemi say. I swung the boat round and pulled a few strokes to where the second net was. It was dark by then.

  Back on shore was the glow of the fire that the children had lit, and where they now waited to see what the catch would be.

  To the right of them the lights of the wharekai were on. Through the light, people, as shadows, moved to and fro. In the darkness the hills, the broken hills, had become whole again.

  We were close to the second buoy before we saw it. The water had roughened and I had to turn the dinghy several times before Hemi could grasp the ball and rope. ‘Heavy,’ he said as he began to pull in. ‘Kahawai,’ I heard him say, and I could see the soft shine of them, one for every metre of net that he drew in over the stern. ‘Worth the ducking after all,’ he said. He hauled in the end buoy and lifted it into the basket. We were both wet by then as small waves slapped the boat’s sides and splashed up and in. ‘Worth a wet arse, well worth.’ Hemi took the oars from me to hurry us to shore.

  The children waiting on the beach would not have seen us in the dark, but they would have listened for, and heard, the creaking, the dip and splash sounds of the oars. As we came close they piled the wood onto the fire so that there would be light for us to come in by, enough light to enable them to see the catch of fish, and light for us to clean the fish by.

  Some of the older children were there to help carry the boat up, and they had brought knives with them, or found shells so that they could help with the scaling and cleaning.

  There was surprise about the snapper because they were rare in the bay. It was not often that we netted one, although there were other places further round where we knew we could get them. To go snapper fishing plans had to be made, the weather needed to be settled, and a day needed to be set aside. But at that time there were no spare days that could be given to line fishing, or to going to deeper grounds, so it was not often we had the tamure to eat.

  I cannot say that any of us missed it from our plates even though, generally, it is a much sought-after fish, a fish which takes the bait strongly and comes heavy on the line. The tamure has flesh that is pale and succulent. It does not bleed. The head of the tamure is a celebration, but the tamure is not a feast. It is not the life of the shore-dweller, is not the sustainer of the netters of fish whose wellbeing depends on what the nets will yield. Or at least in these parts it is not.

  Here, it is a fish for those who fish at leisure, who have motors heavy enough to get them quickly to the grounds and quickly home when there is a wind change.

  The kahawai though is life, or to us it is. It is a fish for the shore-liver whether it is netted or taken on the spinner. It is not necessary to have meat on the plate when there is kahawai. Here we have a closeness to it – to its leaping beauty, to its dark bleeding flesh. It has a greenstone silverness about it and its eye is small and gaudy, like the paua-shell eyes that watch unblinking round all the many edges of the night.

  Hands took the bow as the dinghy rode in, hands steadied it as we stepped out. Hands lifted the net baskets out, lifted and carried the dinghy up to the high ground.

  I stood by the fire to warm and dry myself while the nets were unravelled and the fish taken from them to be gutted and scaled. Perhaps the rain had begun earlier, but we had not noticed it while out on the sea. There were small drops, intermittent, not enough to affect the good fire that was warming me and drying out the wet clothing.

  They worked swiftly at cleaning the fish, knowing that the rain would soon be heavy, but also because we were looking forward to the evening meal which would be waiting for us in the wharekai. It was good to feel hunger and to know there was food. It was good to know that there was food for the next day. It was good to be cold and to know it would be warm in the wharekai.

  And then it was done. The children began to pick up the kahawai, wanting to be the ones to carry them, high-pitched and eager.

  ‘Carry them …’

  ‘Carry …’

  ‘I can, I …’

  ‘I want, I can …’

  ‘Me …’

  Children bending, slipping hands into the gills of the kahawai, straightening, and standing for a moment in the fire’s light, faces shadowed, blood running down their arms. The kahawai is heavy in flesh and how it bleeds. They bleed. The children ran towards the wharekai with the kahawai. Bleeding. The rain was beginning to fall heavily.

  ‘They bleed, how our children bleed …’

  The wh
arekai let us in. There was joy at the catch, and at the smell of hot food.

  ‘They do, and we don’t forget, but … there’s food for tomorrow.’

  It was still raining when we woke next morning, and steady rain fell for most of the day.

  We spent the day doing indoor work that there had been little time for. We prepared vegetables for the freezer, mended clothes, tidied sheds and sorted equipment, and painted some cupboards and ledges in the wharekai. The rain, after all the dry days we’d been having, was a relief. There had never been cause in the past for anyone to be worried by a day, or two days, or a week of rain, except that the road could become muddy and impassable.

  That evening lightning panned through the wharekai, and thunder sounded. Rain kept up its heavy beating. But there was warmth in the steady sound of it as the big dishes of fish pie were carried to the tables.

  The following morning we woke to water, surrounding our houses and entering some of them, and water spread like a lake where the gardens had been. We discovered later in the morning that one side of the urupa had begun to slide away. The rain had stopped by then and there was no sound at all.

  17

  Toko

  The stories changed. There is a story of water, but there is also a story of colours, and a story of stars.

  In the water story the gardens were ruined by rain and mud, and one side of the urupa began to slide. The sea became silted and yellow, the colour of the broken hills. The creek went in ways that it had never gone before. It was a world not thought of but only imagined.

  It was like looking out on the long-ago time when the goddess, in anger, had set the world on fire to punish her descendant for his tricks. And the uri was afraid and had to call out to hard and lasting rain to save him and save the earth. It was like looking out on that long-ago, drenched-earth time. Between them, the goddess and the uri had been able to give fire as a gift, a taonga for the people. But, if what happened to our land in the time of rain was like what happened in the long-ago time, what was the wrong that was being punished? Was there a taonga that would be gifted as a result? Was there some good that would come from what was not good?

  There had been heavier rain in other years, and more long-lasting rain. No harm had ever come of it, except that our road along the front had often become ridged and guttered, and was sometimes in bad condition for most of the winter. The road was our only worry when there had been heavy rain.

  And it was a silent world when we woke. The rain had stopped. There was no wind. There was no sound of water, not even from the sea, only the sight of water trapped over the land. On the side of the little hill of the urupa there was a bare patch showing rock. Our eyes turned there, fearing the sudden white sight of bone.

  All of this happened because of the stripping of the hills, the cutting away of the land, the dislodgement of the sea rock and the blocking of the shore, or that’s what we thought. But these were not the only reasons, as we later found.

  There was stillness. There was no sound except for the wailing of women that swells and recedes the way the sea does, the way the wind does, the way the heart does at certain times.

  We made our way through the water to the beach, then walked along the shore to the meeting-house. We had our karakia there, then the younger men went to get the dinghies while others waded to the sheds for shovels and ropes. The gear was put into the dinghies and those who were able began to make their way towards the back of the land, round the base of the hills, moving along beside the usual route of the creek, but the creek was going in ways it had never gone before. I would have been pleased to have gone with them, but there were many things by then that I could not do. I was helped over to the wharekai where Mary, Tangimoana, my aunties and I waited with the children.

  At the back of the land where the creek runs round the base of the hills the people found the rock and chunks of concrete and bitumen that had been piled in the creek bed, but even seeing it they did not think at first of anything that would have been deliberately done. They were angry about the lack of care of the road builders but did not think of intention. It took them half of the day to clear the blockage. By then much of the water had soaked into the land.

  It was while the people were away clearing the creek that we saw some men come down off the hills. The water had gone down a little by then, but they had to wade still. They walked about where the gardens had been, and then went on towards the urupa, and then we lost sight of them for a while. Later we saw them coming towards the wharekai. It was Matiu and Timoti with three others.

  They were wet and muddy and would not come inside.

  ‘Where’s Uncle?’ It was anger that caused Matiu to shout through the doorway.

  ‘Up the back,’ I said. ‘They went early, without breakfast, and haven’t come home yet.’

  No one knew why it was that Matiu was shouting into the wharekai, or why Timoti was crying, or why their three mates looked at the ground and would not look up. They turned to go.

  ‘If you’re going, could you … take food?’ my aunty asked them. They turned back and sat down on the step to wait, then Timoti said, shouting, ‘Aunty someone done this to you, to all of us. Someone from the job.’

  ‘It’s the cutting away of the hills,’ said Aunty. ‘The clearing.’

  ‘Someone done it. We’ve just seen …’

  And Tangimoana said, ‘Why? What do you mean?’

  ‘Channelling down the side …’

  ‘Rain,’ Aunty said. ‘And the clearing.’

  ‘No, someone. Cleared a place and … channelled the water to run down, to where the urupa … And the urupa starting to wash away.’

  Aunty did not speak for several moments. No one spoke. Then she said, ‘If it’s right … if people did, but I don’t think …’

  ‘Who? Who from the job?’ Tangimoana was shouting too. ‘Someone. Don’t know who, but we know they’re a crook lot, they’re dealers. We’re packing it in, that’s the finish for us … We’ll take the kai up and see what’s doing up back.’

  They turned to go, then Matiu stopped and said, ‘It was yesterday, rained off yesterday, no work. But someone was here … in the rain, doing … this mess.’

  ‘Well, if it’s right,’ Aunty said.

  ‘And there might be more too, up the creek. Because Uncle and them … What’s taking them so long? But it wouldn’t be workers that done it, it’ll be bosses …’

  ‘And no fault of yours, if it’s right. If it’s right,’ Aunty kept saying.

  Because it was difficult to believe, or at least it was difficult to believe for some people, but not for me. I was the one who had seen the rage and hate on the man’s face when he was there last. My singing mother Mary had been with me but she does not see rage and hate. My Granny was there, but she is old and bent, and was stooping, passing my sticks to me. It was only I, along with the watching house, who saw the hardened face, who watched a man stride unseeing into light, unhearing into the shouting afternoon. Even so, rage and hatred are not easily understood. It is not easy for those who do not have power, to understand the force of power.

  There were other people around by then, in boots and coats. Some were reporters, making a way to the hillside from where they could look down. There was a man with a camera standing nearby, moving from one foot to another as Matiu and Timoti started out. The man was not dressed for water.

  ‘I’ll follow you,’ Tangimoana was saying to Matiu and Timoti. ‘With the hot drink, in a sec.’

  Can he speak to the chief?

  ‘Is there anyone in particular you would like to see?’ Tangimoana asked.

  ‘The chief,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps I can help you?’

  ‘Well who’s in charge?’

  ‘Of what?’ Her replies were becoming shorter.

  ‘Of … Of. Well I haven’t got much time. And if I could go straight to the top?’

  ‘What of? A tree?’

  ‘Look, I just want to know who’s
in charge here so I can get permission. I want some photos, and I need some people …’

  ‘This is where we live. We’re all in charge.’

  ‘But you’ve got a chief. Or someone, you know, who has the say, looks after things.’

  ‘We all have the say, all of us together, all look after things.’

  ‘I um … well that’s a bit unusual isn’t it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well I mean … look all I want is a few photos. And I could just go and take them, but I actually need a few people, for the shots. If a few could get out, you know, where the water is … before it all goes down.’

  ‘Sorry. Too busy.’

  ‘Only a few minutes.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well look I’ll speak to … someone else … in authority.’

  ‘Find someone then. Or just go out there and take your photos like everyone else seems to be doing. You don’t need us out there shamming things up for you.’

  ‘Well I’ve got a tight schedule and …’

  ‘Haven’t we all? Come on Tania, we’ll get going with this.’

  The photographer put his head in the door and said, ‘Where’s the chief?’

  ‘Will I do?’ Aunty Rina asked.

  ‘I was hoping for a few people, to just … come over the way there, for a few shots.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ she said. ‘Have a look. Might be someone around out there. Can you do something for us Toko?’ she said to me. ‘Phone up Hoani. Tell him if he can come out to the urupa. We’ve got to have a karakia up there. Tell him urgent. And tell him bring some boots, or tell him might be we can find some for him here.’