Pounamu Pounamu

The Makutu on Mrs Jones

Here I am, sitting on the couch looking at my toenails, and suddenly I’ve remembered Mrs Jones. My wife has kicked me out of the bedroom until I’ve cut my toenails. I must admit that they are long — I haven’t cut them for over two months and they’re curling over the edges of my feet. It’s a shame to cut them though. If I grow them a bit longer, I’ll be able to swing on them. But I better cut them. My wife mightn’t let me back into bed.

Mind you, it’s my own fault that I got caught out. If I hadn’t undressed so far away from the bed, she mightn’t have seen them. When her eyes grew wide with amazement, I’d thought it was a compliment. She’d backed away, a picture of typical feminine defencelessness and I’d advanced and …

‘Get away from me with those claws!’ she’d screamed. ‘Get away, get away!’

They don’t look like claws to me. Boy, anybody would think it was a crime having long toenails. But I’d better get started on them. It’s cold in this sitting room. Here goes.

As I said before, looking at my toenails has reminded me of Mrs Jones and the makutu that was put on her by Mr Hohepa. Makutu is what you would call a magic spell, and Maori people believe that if a person gets a bit of you — it might be some hair, a hanky, even a piece of toenail — he’ll be able to put a spell on you. A makutu. I’d never really believed my mother when she’d warned me always to get rid of my cut hair or toenails myself, to bury them in the garden or burn them, and make sure nobody sees, until I’d actually seen makutu at work. Remembering what happened to Mrs Jones has reminded me to make sure my toenail clippings are hidden safely away. My wife might put a big spell on me.

I was only a young boy when the makutu was put on Mrs Jones. She was a widow, and she had the contract to do the rural delivery in Waituhi. Her husband had been the rural delivery man before he died, and she took over afterwards. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Mrs Jones would get into her van and go to the Gisborne post office to collect the mail for all the farms and houses in the village and surrounding district. She’d also stop off at the bakery, the grocery and the bookshop to pick up the stores and newspapers ordered by the people on her run. Then she’d start out, stopping at one farm after another, making her deliveries. It was a long job and sometimes it was a heavy one: she often had to take bags of flour or sugar, or heavy farm machinery, to deliver to a person on her round.

But Mrs Jones was a strong woman, and she used to say it was the Irish in her that made her so strong. She was tall too, and quite able to look after herself. She’d still been in her thirties when her husband had died, and the men hadn’t even let him be dead a respectable time before they’d started making a play for her. But she wouldn’t have any of them on and, if they got too close, they’d find a fist in their way. She didn’t mind a mild flirt, but anything more really got her blood up. The trouble was that she was such a damned handsome woman and had so much spirit, that men found her irresistible. Maybe it was the combination of reckless green eyes and a throaty chuckle which did it. Especially around Pakowhai pa, she was very popular. But she’d just laugh the men off.

‘Go back to your wife, Hepa!’

‘If you weren’t boozed, I might believe you and take you on, Frank Whatu!’

‘I’d eat you for breakfast, lunch and tea, boy!’

Because of her attitude, the women weren’t at all jealous of her. They knew she wouldn’t tolerate any funny business, and saw behind her bluff and cheekiness to the lonely woman inside. Then too, they knew that her fist would always save her.

But even her fist, with all its power, couldn’t save her against Mr Hohepa.

Mr Hohepa was one of the men on her round. He was an old man, and was a tohunga in our district. When I was a child, and I’d done something wrong, I wouldn’t be threatened with some grotesque bogeyman but with Mr Hohepa.

‘Pae kare! I’ll put Mr Hohepa on you!’ Mum would say if I’d been naughty.

My sisters and I were very scared of him. He was the three in one: Dracula, Frankenstein and the Werewolf. On dark nights, we would swap stories about him: how he’d put a spell on Kararaina Baker and she’d had a baby, or how evil things happened at his house. As the night grew longer, the stories would grow wilder until one of us would begin to cry. Once one of us started, then the rest would, and Mum would come in and say:

‘Hey! What’s wrong with you kids! If you don’t go to sleep, I’ll send you to Mr Hohepa’s place!’

That always made matters worse, and we really wouldn’t be able to go to sleep then. We’d clutch each other tightly in the dark and in the end, we’d sneak into bed with Mum and Dad. Only with them, would we be safe from Mr Hohepa.

We used to avoid him. All the kids around the pa avoided him. If we saw him coming down the road, we’d back away. Anything not to see those fierce black eyes. He’d only have to look at us and we’d think: makutu … makutu … If he hadn’t been so fearsome looking, I suppose we’d have laughed off the threats of our parents. They didn’t seem to be scared of him and they even called him by his first name. We used to think they were very brave. But we’d tremble too, wondering whether Mr Hohepa would strike them down with lightning, or worse still, whether he’d change them into a kina which he would eat later.

I suppose he must have always looked old, even when he was young. Even today, he doesn’t seem to have changed in appearance. He was a tall man with an enormous nose which hung over his mouth. His lips were dark purple and were always quivering. We children used to think he was muttering spells — his lips had to be quivering for some reason! His face was very flabby and his eyes were wide and black, with the whites so white that you could tell a mile off when he was coming. One of his ears had a chewed-up look, as if he’d been in a fight during a time when he was a werewolf. From the other ear, hung a long greenstone pendant.

Although he was tall, Mr Hohepa appeared short as he had a stoop because of his bad leg. He had a carved tokotoko stick to help him walk. As children, we were always scared of that tokotoko because it was inlaid with paua which looked like the eyes of people he had possessed. And every now and then, he would mutter to the stick and bang it on the ground as if he were angry with it. Or else he would wave it round his head while he was talking to somebody flat out in Maori. We’d listen, tremble and think:

‘Here it comes. The makutu.’

Wherever he went, he always wore a feather cloak. And because he was a tohunga, he was often asked to represent our village at Pakeha functions, like when the library was opened in the nearby city. Pakehas were scared of Mr Hohepa too. The Mayor didn’t even say a word when Mr Hohepa got up at a public function and started waving his tokotoko at him because he’d put Mr Hohepa in the second row.

He wasn’t married, Mr Hohepa, and we children weren’t at all surprised. He was nearing fifty when he put the makutu on Mrs Jones.

That was about twelve years ago. I’m a grown man now, and I realise my view of Mr Hohepa was childish. At the time all I saw of him was his scary qualities. I hadn’t understood that the way he dressed, intimidated people and wielded his walking stick were also signs not of makutu but of leadership. Not only was he a tohunga, he was also a very powerful tribal leader. He was like Miro Mananui, who was a tribal leader also and, like her, he was battling to get the Government to give us back our land.

But in those days I was a know-nothing eleven-year-old. I wasn’t a very strong kid and had lost more fights than any other boy at school. I remember it was coming on to Christmas at the time, and I needed some money to buy presents for the family and a water pistol for myself. That’s why I went into Mr Anderson’s shop when I saw the notice outside:

When I saw some of my other friends waiting in the shop, I didn’t think I’d have much chance for the job. But I sat down on the stool with them. I’d nothing better to do, and if I went home, Mum would only make me work round the house.

‘What’s the job?’ I asked Winti Edwards.

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘Search me,’ he said. ‘But the notice says they want a strong fella.’

‘I’m not here for the job,’ I told him hastily, making a quick decision. I’d already had one hiding from Winti that week and didn’t want another.

‘What you here for then?’ the others asked.

‘Nothing,’ I answered. ‘I’m allowed to sit here if I want to. You fellas don’t own this seat.’

The boys eyed me ominously. Then Winti said:

‘Well, you might as well clear off, and you other fellas too, because I’m the only strong one here.’

And to prove it, he crooked his arm, making his muscles swell like growing peaches.

‘See?’ he growled at me, thrusting the peaches under my nose. ‘Have a feel of them!’

I touched them gingerly, afraid that they might hit me in the eye. But before they could do that, Mr Anderson came out of the back room of his store.

‘What’s the job, boss?’ Winti asked, in what he assumed was a manly voice.

‘Ask the lady,’ he snapped. He pointed to Mrs Jones, who’d been eyeing us all from the counter. Her eyes were twinkling and she was grinning broadly.

‘My, what a strong bunch of boys,’ she said. ‘But I can only have one of you marvellous specimens so … eeny meeny miney mo, I pick one, the others go. And the one I pick is …’ Her finger bounced from one head to the next, up and down the line, almost stopping, then returning, then moving on, wavering, and then …

‘Him,’ she announced.

‘Him?’ the others gasped.

‘Who?’ I gasped.

‘Him,’ Mrs Jones said again. And she waved me over and got me busy straight away taking the stores out to her van.

I couldn’t believe it! I’d got a job!

‘Anyway, who wants to work for a woman!’ Winti said as he walked out.

‘Yeah,’ the others chorused.

But I didn’t care about them. Afterwards, I asked Mrs Jones why she’d picked me.

‘I like losers,’ she answered enigmatically. ‘I’m one myself.’

I got to know Mrs Jones very well during those long delivery trips. I even fell in love with her. She was a strange woman, laughing one minute and sad the next. Sometimes bursting into a song, then swearing. She had a silent mood as well. When she was in this mood, she drove very quickly, as if trying to leave her thoughts far behind her. The dust would churn thickly behind us, and at every stop, it would catch up like her thoughts and she would be very hard on me.

‘Make it snappy, Tawhai.’

‘Tawhai, hurry up. There’s lots more deliveries to be done.’

‘Come on, boy! Move!’

Sometimes her thoughts would make her voice smoulder and she would be unapproachable. I learnt this mood well and left her alone when it came upon her. And after it had gone away, I knew she wouldn’t say she was sorry for treating me so badly. She was very proud: ‘I’m sorry’ wasn’t in her vocabulary. But I could tell, from the slow closing of her eyelids and sudden softening of her face, that she was conveying to me what she couldn’t put into words.

Otherwise, Mrs Jones was a generous and kind woman. I also thought that she was very clever and often wished I was quick enough to catch her wit. Mrs Jones was famous for her wit. She had a silver tongue, often playful, but also slightly barbed so that you sometimes couldn’t tell whether she was joking or not. The tone of her voice conveyed a thousand different meanings to every witty phrase she said. It could be mocking and teasing at the same time. Along with her fist, it was her other main defence against what she used to call ‘the wicked wiles of men’.

It was her voice and the sharp way in which she often used it, which brought her into conflict with Mr Hohepa.

Even before I was born, it was customary that all Mr Hohepa’s mail and stores were delivered right at his doorstep. From what I’ve heard, it took him a long time to establish this privilege. Usually, rural mail isn’t delivered right to the house. Farm houses are generally too far off the road to make it practicable. But Mr Hohepa was convinced he was a special case. He was a tohunga, after all. He’d written to the Postmaster-General, the Minister of Maori Affairs, the Minister of Transport, but they, courageous people, had refused his request. However, he’d got his own back, by makutu it is reputed, when that particular Government changed the next year. But even the following Government wouldn’t do anything for him, despite his helping them to power, so he’d seen the Mayor. The Mayor referred Mr Hohepa to the local County Council, who politely asked the mail contractors to ‘let the old boy have his way, just to keep him happy!’ Although they had baulked at first, the mail contractors finally accepted the polite request and that was when Mr Hohepa’s mail began to be delivered right to his door. There he would be, sitting on the verandah like a king, acknowledging the service with a grunt and one tap of his tokotoko stick on the floor. Two taps meant: Wait, there is something to be taken back to town. Three taps meant: You are now dismissed. And sometimes he would tap sharply four times if you left in seeming disrespect. So you returned and he looked you over disdainfully before tapping three times again.

Mrs Jones thought him insufferable. She said it was too much to be expected to open and close three gates to get to his place, and then open and close them again to get out. Servility was not in her character. What grated even more was the fact that Mr Hohepa made you feel so common, as if he were royalty and you were one of his lowest subjects. Mr Hohepa knew a rebel when he saw one. During the first few rounds I was with Mrs Jones, he taunted her with his silent disdain. One day, he went too far.

That particular day, Mrs Jones was in one of her moods, only this time it seemed to issue from her and create whirlwinds along the road. The trees bent, the tall grass swayed violently and the dust swept along with the van. Mrs Jones drove so fast that the bends of the road leapt at us like gloves being thrown in our faces. I couldn’t do anything fast enough that day. I did my best though, and kept silent, staring straight ahead at the unwinding road and not at Mrs Jones’ grim face. By the time we arrived at Mr Hohepa’s place, her mood was at its peak. It was unfortunate that that day Mr Hohepa had a huge carton of legal papers being delivered to him — no doubt concerning one of the court cases he and Miro Mananui had about our land — as well as his usual bag of flour, bag of sugar, other stores and his newspapers. Had it been a small delivery, nothing might have happened.

The van sprang at the first gate. I opened and closed it, and then ran to the second gate where Mrs Jones had driven the van. As she went through I could feel the whirlwind whistling around me. The next gate was much further away, so Mrs Jones waited for me and I jumped on the running board. I could see her hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. At the last gate, while I was waiting for the van to go through, Mrs Jones was lighting a cigarette when I suddenly saw her eyes flash like lightning from a black cloud. She threw the cigarette away and stared straight to where Mr Hohepa was waiting, his hands folded over his lap, sitting in his rocking chair on the verandah. As I jumped back into the van, her quiet whisper exploded around me.

‘I’ll show him!’

We drove quickly up to the house. Some of Mr Hohepa’s hens, almost as proud as he was, were wandering across the track, quite sure that the van would stop and wait until they had reached the other side. They scattered and squawked loudly, and flapped away, outraged, as the van careered through their midst. Mr Hohepa saw all this, and his face stiffened. But he didn’t say a word — not then, anyway.

I jumped down from the van and opened the back. The carton wasn’t too heavy. I carried it up the steps and waited for instructions. The tokotoko made a wide sweep and ended pointing at the door. I laid the carton to one side of it and went back for the bag of sugar. This too, by royal decree, was to be placed near the door. All this time, Mr Hohepa didn’t even look my way. He was too busy disdainfully eyeing Mrs Jones.

It was while I was carrying the bag of flour up the steps that it happened. I slipped and the bag fell. I waited for Mrs Jones to tell me off. She yelled all right. But not at me.

‘Well, don’t just sit there as if you owned the world, Hohepa! Help the boy!’

Mr Hohepa’s eyebrows arched. Then he sniffed and tilted his chin a little higher in the air.

And me? Was I scared? Was I what. I’d never heard anybody call Mr Hohepa by his surname alone.

Mrs Jones got out of the van. She slammed the door. Grimly, she took one end of the bag and helped me drag it onto the verandah. Then she looked at Mr Hohepa with disgust and went back down the steps.

The tokotoko drummed on the floor. Four sharp taps. I trembled. I saw Mr Hohepa level a gaze at Mrs Jones and give a challenging smile. Then his tokotoko circled in the air and began jabbing at the door. He wanted us to take the bag of flour right into his kitchen.

Mrs Jones swore under her breath.

Again the tokotoko circled and jabbed at the door. Hurriedly, I went to do as Mr Hohepa commanded but the tokotoko motioned me away and then pointed at Mrs Jones. She was the one who was to do it. And she was to do it alone.

‘Like hell I will!’ Mrs Jones yelled and her words cracked the air. She tossed her head and took another step from the verandah.

The tokotoko banged away again. Mr Hohepa’s rage was terrible to behold. I trembled and thought: here it comes … the makutu. Fearfully I watched as Mr Hohepa and Mrs Jones fought silently and grimly for domination over the other. It seemed a battle between giants. The air was tense with hostility. They faced each other, it seemed, while decades and centuries whirled past. And then Mrs Jones smiled.

‘Take it in yourself,’ she said calmly.

She showed her back to Mr Hohepa and he stood up, shivering with anger.

‘You! Woman! You dare to …’

But he didn’t get any further, for Mrs Jones interrupted him with a hail of words. She must have been spoiling for a fight with him for a long time. Sitting up there like a king! she said. She knew, she said, she knew all about him. Thought he was just the cat’s whiskers, didn’t he! Thought he was something in this district, didn’t he! Well, she knew better. He was too big for his boots, that was his trouble. And he needn’t start swearing at her in Maori, either. She knew what he was saying. Yes, thought he was just royalty, didn’t he! Everybody knew, she said, that he was just common. He didn’t really have any authority around here. Just because his mother had been an ariki didn’t make him one. Well, she wasn’t going to kiss his common behind. And, she said, things were going to be different from now on!

I listened to them quarrelling: Mr Hohepa raging away in Maori and shaking his tokotoko in the air; Mrs Jones, barking like a small terrier. I edged away from them and sneaked into the van. Every now and then, I’d take a peep at Mr Hohepa. He was almost purple, and his voice blasted out like a trumpet.

‘Don’t you talk to me like that!’ he said. ‘I warn you, woman! You’re just a public servant. I’ll report you,’ he said. ‘Yes, they’ll listen to me. Coming here and disturbing my peace. Running down my hens. Yes, I saw you, woman,’ he said. ‘I saw you! And don’t you answer me back either. So much talk, your husband must have died of it!’

Mrs Jones didn’t take that lying down. She launched into the attack again.

‘Report me, go on, report me!’ she yelled. ‘See if I care! And don’t you dare talk like that about my husband. He loved me, which is more than anyone can say about you. They all laugh at you, yes, they laugh at you, sitting up here in all your pomp and splendour. You should see yourself! God, if ever I was to marry again and you were the last man on earth, I wouldn’t even look at you!’

And with that blistering remark, she turned away from him and stepped into the van. All the time, Mr Hohepa was still yelling from his verandah, banging away with his stick.

‘Pae kare, woman!’ he said. ‘I warn you, you better do as I say. This flour, you come back and take it inside. You just do as I tell you!’

And he began to mutter what seemed to be a magic spell. I looked at Mrs Jones; she was in for it now. But she just laughed, started the van, put her foot down, and we roared away from the verandah toward the first gate.

‘Leave it open!’ she yelled to me. I hesitated, and looked back to where Mr Hohepa was still yelling and jumping around.

‘Leave it open, I say!’ Mrs Jones ordered again.

So I did. That gate, the second and the third. And as we turned off down the road, Mrs Jones waved her hand and tooted her horn at Mr Hohepa.

‘That’ll show him!’ she said to me. ‘Let him shut his own gates!’

I was horrified. Didn’t Mrs Jones know that she was doing something dangerous? Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were sparkling with triumph.

‘He hasn’t seen anything yet!’ she said. Then she laughed, a long laugh which bubbled in the air. I looked at her amazed, and if I had had any doubts about whether I really loved her, they were dispelled right there and then. I’d never seen Mrs Jones look so beautiful.

That was just the beginning.

On the next round, we left Mr Hohepa’s stores at the third gate.

The round after that, his stores were left at the second gate.

On the third round, just inside the first gate.

And on the fourth, Mr Hohepa’s stores were deposited on the side of the road.

And always, Mrs Jones would wave and beep the horn at Mr Hohepa before leaving, and I would see his eyes glowing from the shadow of the verandah.

Around this time, I was thinking of resigning from my job. It was getting unhealthy. Makutu … makutu … Only my love for Mrs Jones persuaded me to stay.

Naturally, everybody soon found out what was happening. Most of them were on Mrs Jones’ side, but admitted a healthy respect for Mr Hohepa. I became one of the most popular people around. I’d be asked:

‘What happened today, Tawhai?’

And I’d have to tell them the same story: that we’d just delivered Mr Hohepa’s stores to the first gate and no farther.

‘But what happened?’ they would ask again, impatiently. ‘Surely there’s something else! You must be hiding something, that’s why you’re scared to tell us, eh. Mr Hohepa put a makutu on Mrs Jones, eh? You don’t have to hide anything. We won’t tell!’

In the end, I used to manufacture a story to satisfy them. I’d dwell at length on the fierce countenance of Mr Hohepa. How he’d come running up the road, shouting curses at Mrs Jones, and how Mrs Jones had shouted back at him. Anything, just to have some peace from all those Jack Nohis who wanted to know every little detail. I must admit that I enjoyed it, but even so I began to feel more uneasy. And in one of my more sane moments, I said to Winti Edwards:

‘Hey! Do you want my job? You can have it if you like.’

He just laughed at me.

‘You can keep your harateke job!’

Around that same time, Mrs Jones’ boss on the Council also found out what had happened. One day, when we were almost ready to set off on our round, he came to see her. He was very worried.

‘Mrs Jones,’ he said, ‘I’ve heard that you’ve been having a bit of trouble.’

‘No,’ Mrs Jones answered innocently. ‘Not as far as I know.’

The Council man coughed, embarrassed.

‘Well,’ he continued, ‘I’ve heard, only heard mind you, that you and Mr Hohepa have … well … that you haven’t been delivering his stores to his door.’

Mrs Jones flared.

‘Did he tell you that?’

‘Oh, no,’ the Council man interrupted hastily. ‘I’ve just heard about it. I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but I’d just like to say that Mr Hohepa is a very powerful man and …’

Mrs Jones cut him short.

‘Don’t you worry about me!’ she snapped. ‘I can look after myself.’

The Council man looked at her and then nodded.

‘I suppose you can,’ he muttered. ‘But if anything happens to you, the Council disclaims any responsibility.’

Then he walked away. Mrs Jones watched him go, a thoughtful look on her face. She whispered something, meant for herself.

‘What do you know? Old Hohepa hasn’t reported me.’

Then she collected herself.

‘And that’s the way it should be,’ she said grimly. ‘This is only between him and myself.’

She drove like the Devil that day.

Christmas came and went. I saw the old year out and the new year in. I bought my water pistol. Rural deliveries were discontinued over the holidays. It was a happy time, and yet I couldn’t help feeling worried about Mrs Jones. I was sure that something would happen to her. Something to do with makutu. Something. And not even the fact that Mr Hohepa had smiled at her on Christmas Eve when they’d met in the pub, could dispel my fears.

That night, Mrs Jones had decided to have a drink before going home. One gin had led to another and she’d remained at the bar, laughing and talking with the farmers and their wives. They’d all been congratulating her about the way she’d finally gotten the best of old Hohepa, when he’d walked in.

Silence had fallen quickly. The people surrounding her had drawn away, just like they do in cowboy pictures when there’s a shoot-out. Their eyes had glistened with fear, yet also with excitement.

I’d been outside the pub at the time. But as soon as I’d seen old Hohepa go in, I’d run to the window to see what would happen. I remember it, even now.

Mr Hohepa walked slowly to the bar.

‘Two flagons of beer,’ he ordered.

The barkeeper edged away, felt under the bar and hoisted out two flagons.

Mr Hohepa paid for them. Then he turned.

His eyes locked on Mrs Jones. A queer look came into them as he surveyed her.

She looked like the beautiful saloon girl of countless western films. She was an oasis in a desert. If she had been a pool of water, she would have been drunk dry. Just looking at her made you feel thirsty. Her beauty was almost unbelievable. She was the world’s desire and she sat there, alone at the bar, swinging a foot and holding her glass to her cheek. Lucky glass, to touch the cheek of Mrs Jones!

Then she sighed, a long, languid sigh which breathed soft perfume on the air.

‘Have a drink with me, Hohepa.’

Nobody moved, but everywhere, eyebrows lifted to the ceiling.

‘Let’s have a truce over Christmas,’ she continued.

Mr Hohepa didn’t answer. He just kept looking at her, with that strange look in his eyes. Then he smiled.

That smile. It grew slowly on his lips, arching into a grin, then slowly lowering and closing.

‘A truce, Hohepa?’

Still he was silent. Then with a brief nod, he picked up his flagons and left the hotel, his tokotoko tapping softly after him.

The noise returned like an explosion. The people in the pub crowded around Mrs Jones, marvelling at her coolness.

‘That’ll show old Hohepa!’ someone laughed.

I wasn’t so sure. That smile. And that wheezy laughter. I can almost hear Mr Hohepa chuckling to himself as he did that night when he passed me in the dark.

Ah! Almost finished my toenails now. Three more to go, and then maybe I’ll be allowed back into bed. I don’t know why my wife insists on my cutting them. They protect my feet. Against hers.

Anyway, to get back to Mrs Jones and Mr Hohepa.

After New Year, the feud was resumed. We still left Mr Hohepa’s stores at his first gate; he was always watching from his verandah. Round after round, it was the same story, and I almost began to believe that Mrs Jones was safe and that Mr Hohepa would make no reprisals against her.

Then a registered letter came from the Minister of Maori Affairs, addressed to Mr Hohepa, which we’d have to take right to his house so that he could sign the receipt for it.

Mrs Jones’ fury knew no bounds. She stamped about the post office arguing with the postmaster, and would have torn out her hair if she weren’t so vain about it. Couldn’t Hohepa come to the post office to get the letter? Or couldn’t she just leave it at the gate with the rest of his stores? No, she had to deliver it into his hands. It was in the regulations.

Mrs Jones was still furious when we started off that day. She kept saying she wasn’t going to deliver it to him personally, she just wasn’t. But as we neared his place, her temper calmed and her eyes twinkled. By the time we arrived at his house she’d accepted her fate.

‘It’ll be worth it, just to see how the old boy’s standing up against the siege,’ she said.

As usual, Mr Hohepa was sitting on his verandah, like a big black cat sunning himself. He must have been startled when he saw the van coming right to his house. By the time we’d drawn up to the verandah, a big smile of satisfaction and triumph had spread across his face.

‘For you,’ Mrs Jones said, snapping out the words. ‘Sign here.’

The transaction took place in a tense atmosphere. Mr Hohepa took his time over signing for the letter. Then it was done. Mrs Jones turned to go.

The tokotoko tapped four times.

Mrs Jones looked at him swiftly, her anger brimming. But before she could say anything, Mr Hohepa opened his arms and said:

‘Woman, have a drink with me.’

I couldn’t believe it! Neither could Mrs Jones. Then the astonished look dropped away from her face.

‘Are you asking me or telling me?’ she asked angrily.

‘Asking you, woman,’ Mr Hohepa replied. ‘Come.’ He motioned to the house. ‘Come.’

Mrs Jones stood there a moment, a look of distrust on her face. Then she laughed and said:

‘I don’t mind if I do, Mr Hohepa!’

She beckoned me to follow her, but I stood my ground.

‘I’m not thirsty,’ I said. ‘I’ll just wait out here.’ I didn’t want to go inside because I was scared I might never see the daylight again. Anyway, if anything happened to Mrs Jones, I wanted to be able to get help. I didn’t like the way old Hohepa was looking at her with that funny gleam in his eye. I wanted to caution her, but she just winked at me and went in before I could say anything.

I don’t know what happened inside that house. Thinking back, I wished I had gone with Mrs Jones. Maybe I would have been able to save her. As it was, I remained in the sunlight, my fears bursting around me. I heard them talking in there, then silence, an exclamation, then a giggle. Then silence came again, and there was only the noise of the hens pecking at my feet because my toenails must have looked like maize. I felt like running in and dragging Mrs Jones away and had almost plucked up the courage to do so when she appeared. Her face was very straight, as if she were trying to hide something. She didn’t speak to me. She simply motioned me to the van. Mr Hohepa came to the doorway to watch us go, and his eyes, they were shining brilliantly. He didn’t wave; she didn’t say goodbye. She just started the car and we departed. But I knew something had happened in there. Mrs Jones, she had changed somehow.

And when she later remarked that she’d lost her hanky somewhere, my worst fears were confirmed. For, as we’d been leaving, I’d seen the tip of a hanky protruding from Mr Hohepa’s pocket. He had something belonging to Mrs Jones. All he needed to do was to cast a spell on it, and she would be in his power.

Makutu.

I tried to keep the knowledge to myself. But the days went by and Mrs Jones did begin to change. At first, the change was almost imperceptible. A slight shivering whenever we went past Mr Hohepa’s place. A sudden darting of her eyes toward that shadow on the verandah. Then, the change became more noticeable: Mrs Jones’ eyes began to be filled with a fevered look. Her laughter became more brittle, her manner more wild. Her moods kept changing so rapidly, that I could never keep up with them. And I often discovered her staring into the distance, as if at some invisible face.

Mr Hohepa was asserting his power. It was getting stronger and stronger. And Mrs Jones, she was going to the pack.

In the end, I couldn’t bear it. I had to find some way to rescue Mrs Jones! I couldn’t stand by and see the love of my life being slowly snuffed out. So I confided in Mum.

‘Mum, Mr Hohepa’s got a hanky of Mrs Jones.’

‘Aaaaa!’ Mum sighed.

‘Mum! I’ve got to do something!’ I said desperately.

‘Nothing you can do, Tawhai,’ Mum answered. ‘Nobody can do anything. Not unless you can get that hanky back. But even then, maybe it’s too late. Maybe Mrs Jones is already too much in Mr Hohepa’s power.’

Nevertheless I thought I’d try anyway. I had to do something! Even if it did mean entering Mr Hohepa’s house.

One dark night, I went out there. The moreporks were hooting and circling around the house. The clouds were dark demons hovering in the sky. I prayed to God and tried to still my heart.

The lights were shining in the sitting room. Mr Hohepa was still up. I made my way round to the back door. It wasn’t locked. But I kicked something.

‘Who’s out there?’ a voice yelled.

‘Miiaaow,’ I answered.

No footsteps came. But I clung to the shadows for a long time, not daring to move. Then I sneaked inside.

I’m not a brave person in any circumstances. As I said before, I was always getting a hiding. So I must have really been in love with Mrs Jones to do what I did that night!

First, I looked in Mr Hohepa’s bedroom. My heart sank at the sight of it: there was so much junk in the room that it would be impossible to find one handkerchief. But, I reasoned, it must be somewhere obvious, probably in some kind of sacred place where he cast his spells. All I had to do was look for a place which looked sacred.

There seemed none in the bedroom. So I crept back along the corridor. It was then that the door to the sitting room opened. I had just enough time to hide before Mr Hohepa came out. He stood at the door and then his voice rang out:

‘Stay!’

But he wasn’t addressing me. He was addressing the person who was with him. It was Mrs Jones, sitting in a chair, a dazed look upon her face.

I had come too late.

Soon after that, school started again, and I had to quit my job. It was a relief in a way as I couldn’t bear to see Mrs Jones changing so much. She became thinner, and her personality seemed subdued. She hardly laughed. And once, when somebody said something against Mr Hohepa, she sprang to his defence like a cat spitting and snarling.

I never saw her much after that. I avoided her if I could, mostly because I had failed her. By then, everybody knew what was happening; that the makutu had been put on Mrs Jones, so no matter where I went, I always heard the latest about her. And at each report, she seemed to be getting worse, until finally she was broken.

Well, that’s my toenails done. Now I better gather them up and hide them. There’s great power in makutu.

Yes, Mr Hohepa got his own way in the end. He won against Mrs Jones. She began delivering his mail to his doorstep as before and she continued to do so until she retired. Old Hohepa, he made sure that Mrs Jones would always be under his will. He was sure cunning, that old fella, I’ll have to say that for him. I suppose, because I was in love with Mrs Jones, it’s no wonder I was the last to guess that she and Mr Hohepa would get married.

Once I had decided to try writing short stories, the ambition kicked in. I had written plot outlines and short paragraphs on the wall of our farm when I was younger. When I was at Gisborne Boys’ High, Mr Grono, our English teacher, had awarded me the prize for best short story. And Nani Mini must have told some of her mates that I was writing because I overheard Mrs Waitaiki say to another kuia, ‘We’d better stop talking, here comes Witi-Boy Walton.’

Having an interest in writing and being serious about it, however, are two different matters. I realised that I had to get some technical know-how, so in 1970 I enrolled in a short story course run by Barry Mitcalfe in Wellington and, following that, I made it my goal to write one short story a month and try to get them published. Lo and behold, ‘The Liar’ was accepted by the New Zealand Listener on the very day my wife Jane and I were married, 9 May. One of the subeditors there was author Noel Hilliard who, before they accepted a second story, ‘The Child’, asked if I would meet him. When I walked into his office he looked at me and gave this huge grin, ‘I knew you had to be Maori but, mate, I wanted to make absolutely sure.’ He and his wife Kiriwai became great friends and mentors. Kiri worked in Post Office Headquarters sorting mail, and sometimes I would find her handwriting scribbled over my letters, ‘Kia ora Witi! Writing?’

‘The Makutu on Mrs Jones’ truly did begin when Jane kicked me out of bed because my toenails were too long — a story many of her students found dismaying. Of course I shouldn’t have had the main character cutting his toenails at night, as my mother, Julia, pointed out to me crossly, because that’s a cultural no-no; when the book came out, she was also irritated at some of the linguistic errors, which she said I should have known about. She also didn’t like the way I was satirising the concept of makutu.

Mum was one of the people who thought I was writing about the great Te Kani Te Ua, because there was a story circulating at the time concerning an altercation he was having with the Post Office and the delivery of his mail. The story is about him … and it isn’t.

Larry Parr made a short film of the story, with Annie Whittle playing the postmistress and Sonny Waru as Mr Hohepa.