Pounamu Pounamu

The Other Side of the Fence

It is Sunday and the Simmons family have just arrived home from a picnic. They are all pleasantly tired. It has been a beautiful day.

Every Sunday, straight after morning church service, it is a ritual of the Simmons’ to drive into the country with a hamper of sandwiches and a picnic spread. They often used to go on picnics in England and they see no reason to discontinue the custom now that they live in New Zealand. For three years now, the street has become accustomed to the sight of the Simmons’ old car gaily trundling away from the city. Most of the neighbours are indifferent to this weekly occurrence. But in the house next door to the Simmons house, six little black heads are to be seen peering sadly after the departing car. For the Heremaia children, Sunday is a sad day because the Simmonses have gone away. All day they will be seen roaming around in lost circles, making desultory efforts to play games with one another and usually ending up picking on one another. Around the end of the afternoon, they will be seen sitting on the fence which separates their property from the Simmons house, like six little blackbirds parched by the summer. Waiting, just waiting. Waiting for the Simmonses to return home. They like the Simmonses.

But today, there are no blackbirds perched on the fence. Their house is silent and the backyard is empty. No curious cries greet the Simmons car as it turns into the driveway and stops:

‘Did you fellas have a good time?’

‘Have you got any sandwiches left over for us, Mrs Simmons?’

‘Boy! Wish we could’ve come with you fellas.’

This time there is silence.

Sally Simmons gets out of the car. The two Simmons children, Mark and Anne, scramble after her.

‘Mark, take the picnic basket indoors,’ Sally instructs. ‘Anne, bring in the rug. And Jack, don’t take too long locking the car away. I’ll make us all a nice cup of tea.’

Jack Simmons nods. He watches as his wife shepherds the children into the house. Then he drives the car into the garage. Carefully, he locks all the doors of the car. Then he pauses, chuckles to himself, and glances quickly toward the house next door.

And at a bedroom window, he sees little Jimmy Heremaia staring back at him.

Jack Simmons’ smile grows broader. He locks the garage door as well. Better to be safe than sorry. There’s no telling what those Heremaia kids might get up to next.

Satisfied now, Jack Simmons walks up the path toward his house. He takes off his shoes.

‘Sally, have I time for a shower before dinner?’

‘Yes, but come and have a cuppa first, dear.’

He goes into the kitchen. Mark and Anne are milling around the biscuit jar. Sally shoos them away. The table is set with two glasses of milk for the children and Sally is preparing a cup of tea for herself and her husband.

‘It won’t be long. Mark! Anne! To the table, please.’

The children seat themselves. After a while, Mark says:

‘I wonder where they are?’

‘Who?’ Jack Simmons asks.

‘George, Henare, Annie …’

‘Probably having their dinner,’ Sally Simmons answers.

‘And hopefully,’ Jack Simmons interrupts, ‘going straight to bed after their dinner too!’

Sally Simmons playfully nudges her husband. He winks at her. He himself knows it is too much to expect that the Heremaia children would go to bed so early. Heavens, he is lucky that the tribe has not invaded his house yet! He winces to himself. He may as well make the most of these quiet and unassailed moments.

If he were asked, Jack Simmons would never go as far as saying he disliked the Heremaia children. He rather liked them in a hesitant and cautious sort of way. Heavens, he had known very well when he was told his neighbours were Maori, that he would have to expect the worst. People had informed him so, but what the worst was, they had not told him; only that he was to expect it. In his case, the worst turned out to be the Heremaia children. Mind you, they were not always bad children and there were times when he liked them unreservedly. But at other times … he didn’t dislike them really, but he was, he’d have to admit, very wary of them. Their behaviour was so erratic and such a mystery! Sometimes they were pleasant and then unpleasant. Good and then bad. Honest, then dishonest. Generous, then mean. And even though they had received a sound Christian training, their sense of morality seemed to come and go, come and go, with the most astonishing ease. On Sunday mornings, Jack Simmons would watch them walking in single file to church, their faces scrubbed and beaming smiles in the general direction of Heaven, and he would sigh to himself. How could such apparent angels also be such proper little devils! Jack Simmons had long given up trying to understand them.

Take George, the eldest Heremaia boy: eleven years old, a handsome lad, usually courteous and very helpful. George definitely had good traits, but he also had itchy fingers and a tyrannical attitude over children smaller than himself. It was George who had master-minded the last of the raids made by the Heremaia children on Jack Simmons’ henhouse. Jack Simmons knew it was George because of the long and colourful feathers he was wearing in one of the interminable games of cowboys and Indians the children in the neighbourhood liked to play. Because George was the roughest and biggest boy in the street, the younger children always tried to get on his side when they played games. Those who weren’t, trembled in fear because when George went on the warpath, the cowboys always lost. You could never shoot George; he always refused to stay dead. If he shot you with an arrow, it was better not to argue with him. Otherwise, he’d take you captive and devise horrible tortures for you. Better to groan, clutch at your heart, fall down and suffer your hair to be pulled while George went through the motions of scalping you.

Henare, a year younger than George, possessed a similar flaw in his character. Like his brother’s, it showed itself in the games the children liked to play. Henare was known to all and sundry as The Cheat. No matter what the game, Henare could always be counted on to win it by devious and underhand methods. On one occasion he’d used a marble the size of a pingpong ball to beat Mark in a game of marbles. That was the trouble with both George and Henare: they had no notion whatsoever about fair play. Admittedly Henare had redeemed himself by returning Mark’s marbles, but that was because he’d wanted another game and nobody else would play with him. Mark, as usual, lost again.

‘Why do you keep playing with him, Mark?’ Jack Simmons had asked.

‘Because he’s my friend!’

‘But he cheats you so.’

‘He’s still my friend. Anyway, he’ll soon get tired of playing marbles and then he’ll give them all to me. He said he would. He’s my friend!’

But these were only incidental flaws, and all the Heremaia children possessed them. Jack Simmons could tolerate them, but there were two traits he would not stand: the curiosity in the Heremaia children which led them to ‘borrowing’ and then the audacity to deny that they were responsible.

There was the time, for instance, when Jack Simmons had asked them if they knew where his missing bicycle was. He suspected them but every smile and counterfeit tear was designed to prove their innocence; every sigh and gesture expertly tailored to show that they couldn’t have done it, not they.

‘Mr Simmons, you don’t really believe we could have taken it, do you? (Sigh). Oh, Mr Simmons! (Shocked outburst, eyes wide with horror). But we didn’t take your bike, truly! (Hands pressed to breasts). Cross our hearts and hope to die if we tell a lie! (And they crossed their hearts too!)’

They were so good at it you felt you had to applaud. They used every body movement and every facial expression that they possessed in their vast and formidable repertoire: rolled eyes, sad-lidded eyes, a tear or two depending on the enormity of the accusation, a couple of long sighs and gurgles, an entreating gesture of the hand, a slight quivering of the lips, more tears if they were necessary, an occasional wail … and all accompanying the Great Explanation.

‘We couldn’t have taken your bike today, Mr Simmons, because we went to church. It isn’t Sunday? Oh, we remember now, we went down to the river for a swim. We walked all the way too, Mr Simmons, you can ask Mrs Davidson. Has Mrs Davidson really gone away for the weekend? Gosh, some people are lucky! No, it couldn’t have been her that saw us then. Well, um, it must have been Mrs Keith. Yes, we walked all the way, true! And Jimmy had a sore leg, too. Show Mr Simmons your sore leg, Jimmy. See? Come to think of it, we did see a boy with a bike like yours down at the river. That’s right, and Annie did say: “Hey, you fellas, that looks like Mr Simmons’ bike!” But we said to her: “Can’t be, because Mr Simmons always locks his bike so we can’t pinch it.” It must have been your bike, eh, Mr Simmons! If only you’d told us before that it was missing, Mr Simmons. We would have given that boy a good hiding, because you’re our best friend. No, we don’t know who he was. Never seen him before. Aren’t some people awful thieves?’

In this case, despite the grand performance, Jack Simmons’ suspicions had proved correct. He’d gone down to the river and found his bicycle together with an eye-witness who’d definitely seen George riding it. So he’d had it out with the children again.

‘But we told you we’d taken it, Mr Simmons! Didn’t we tell you? We’re sure we told you, we all heard each other. See, Mr Simmons, six against one! We’re not liars. You’re our friend. Oh, no, we didn’t steal it. We wouldn’t do such a thing. Anyway, you always said we could take your bike when we wanted it. Yes, you did. Can’t you remember? Mr Simmons, we all heard you, six against one. So we couldn’t have stolen your bike, could we? We just borrowed it and borrowing isn’t stealing, is it? No, we won’t do it again. Cross our hearts and hope to die if we tell a lie, Mr Simmons! It was only that poor Jimmy here had a sore leg. Not that leg, Stupid! Yeah, and Jimmy fell down and we thought he was crippled. That’s why we took your bike. It was an emergency, and you always said that in an emergency we could use your bike. When is Mrs Davidson coming back? Yes, cross our hearts, Mr Simmons. But wasn’t it lucky that we took your bike, because if it hadn’t been us, bet some other kids would have pinched it. You just left it lying against the fence and Annie said: “We better take Mr Simmons’ bike before a thief gets it.” That’s why we took your bike. Aren’t we good?’

Jack Simmons had since come to understand that borrowing was a common Maori trait: what’s yours is mine, what’s mine is yours. Maybe it was acceptable practice among Maori people but this city suburb was certainly not a Maori community. Things were different now. The land, its occupants and their possessions no longer belonged to them. It belonged to him, Jack Simmons. His land was like the land bought by settlers after the Treaty of Waitangi.

The sooner they understood that, the better.

Jack Simmons hears the sounds of a wire screen door twang open and slam shut. Quickly, he drains his tea. The horde is advancing. He looks out the kitchen window. No, not the horde; only Katarina. Jack Simmons watches as she runs across the backyard and climbs the fence between the two properties. He erected that fence three years ago. Come to think of it, the Heremaia children had helped him build it. Those children, they had no sense of shame whatsoever.

Jack Simmons smiles to himself. The fence might as well not exist. The Heremaia children may have conceded their territorial rights, but not their sovereignty. This they have maintained by the most cunning strategy. Whether the Simmonses like it or not, they have been adopted.

Katarina knocks on the door.

‘Come in Katarina!’ Jack Simmons yells.

The door swings open and Katarina enters.

‘Whew!’ she gasps, rolling her eyes. ‘I ran all the way and I’m puffed now.’

‘Where’ve you been?’ Mark asks her.

‘Yes, where?’ Anne asks too. ‘We thought you’d be over ages ago.’

‘Mum’s in her mood,’ Katarina replies. ‘She got mad when we came back. We have to stay inside, but I sneaked out. I can’t stay long though.’

Mark and Anne glance at one another. Mrs Heremaia is in one of her moods.

‘Hey!’ Katarina continues. ‘Did you fellas leave any cakes for me? That’s what I’ve come for. You didn’t eat everything at your picnic did you?’

‘Yes, Katarina, we did,’ Jack Simmons replies.

‘We did not!’ Mark and Anne shout.

‘I knew you wouldn’t,’ Katarina sniffs. ‘Eeee! Mr Simmons, you’re just having me on. You fellas aren’t pigs. You’re good to me. We share and share alike, eh.’

Katarina giggles. She watches with bright eyes as Anne brings the left-over cakes to the table.

‘Boy!’ Katarina says. ‘Weren’t you fellas hungry? And are those biscuits for me too? But I can’t stay. Do you mind? I’ll take them with me. I’ll give some to Jimmy. He’s got the flu or something. Maybe that’s why Mum’s in her mood. And I’ll give some to George, Henare, Annie and Tommy too. Share and share alike, eh!’

‘Wait a moment,’ Sally says. ‘I’ll give you a box to put them in.’

‘No, it’s all right. I’ll carry them in my dress. And I promise not to eat them all myself. Gosh, I better go now. But did you fellas have a good time? Wish I could have come with you. Never mind. Anne, I’ll give you a yell tomorrow for school. Jimmy’s sick. Mum’s in her mood. See you! And don’t be late tomorrow, Anne.’

Then she is gone.

‘Well!’ Sally Simmons laughs. ‘That child! Here one minute and gone the next!’

‘It’s your own fault,’ Jack Simmons says. ‘You shouldn’t encourage her with cakes and biscuits. That’s all she comes over here for. Every Sunday without fail she comes. I should have stopped it right from the start.’

‘Aaah,’ Sally laughs. ‘But you didn’t. Anyway, I like Katarina! She’s rather sweet in her own way.’

Sweet? It was not a term that Jack Simmons would generally use to describe any of the Heremaia children. Yet, they were such comic children that you could not always be stern or angry with them. Even if you did dislike them — which Jack Simmons did not — you had to admit that they were at least amusing. Katarina for instance, now she was a comic little girl.

Katarina was affectionately known by her brothers and sisters as Pretty Girl because she was so ugly. Despite this, she had endeared herself to Sally Simmons anyway, from the very start. There had been a knock at the door and Jack Simmons had opened it to be confronted with Katarina in all her radiant ugliness.

‘My name is Katarina Makarete Erihapeti Heremaia,’ she’d whispered.

Then she’d fluttered her eyelashes and giggled.

‘But you can call me Pretty Girl,’ she’d continued.

That day, Katarina had wandered through the house as if she owned it. She was the scout among the children. After concluding her inspection she’d walked calmly to the window, put her fingers in her mouth, given an ear-shattering whistle, and the rest of the tribe had come running. They’d never, entirely, in all those three years, been ousted. Least of all, Katarina. She seemed to look upon the Simmons house as her second home.

You could forgive Katarina anything … except her infuriating curiosity. And then of course, there was the borrowing. Katarina was a veritable magpie. She loved bright things: earrings, shiny beads, little scent bottles, the blue eyes of Anne’s doll and money! But Sally had her own way of dealing with Katarina. She would forbid Katarina to come into the house until the missing objects were returned. Katarina idolised Sally. She always returned the missing bright objects. As for money, well, you soon learned not to leave loose change around when Katarina was present.

Annie, the other Heremaia girl, was also rather a character. She was the gasbag of the Heremaia family. She loved talking, and once she had started she just kept on talking … and talking and talking and talking. She talked so fast and so volubly that sometimes you could never tell where onewordfinishedandanotherword began. You never dared to go out of the house if Annie was wandering out there alone, for she would pounce upon you with great delight and her stream of chatter would issue forth. She was always being scolded about it by her brothers and sisters.

‘Who pressed your button?’ they would yell at her. ‘Who pressed your button, Annie? Who told you to open your big mouth!’

Yes, like her sister, Annie was rather an amusing child. However, there were times when she ceased being amusing and was a downright pest. In common with the other children, she possessed a penchant for borrowing. Loving talking as she did, she was a natural adept at telling long and involved ‘stories’. Worst of all, she had a total unconcern for other people’s property. The borrowing wasn’t nearly as bad as the damage, accidental or otherwise, which Annie could wreak. Branches shattered under Annie, windows tended to break when she was around and a bed of strawberries which Jack Simmons had once cultivated was positively massacred after Annie had been at it. It all seemed amusing in retrospect, but at the time, the incidents had been far from funny. Worse still, you tended to suspect the Heremaia children, because of their record, of every misdemeanour which happened. And even if it was doubtful whether they had committed it or not, you still felt they must have done it. The goldfish affair was the classic case.

In England, one of Sally Simmons’ interests had been the breeding of goldfish. She’d been quite an authority on the subject and had decided to continue her experiments in New Zealand. Jack Simmons constructed a pond for her and she selected certain strains of goldfish which she planned to cross-breed. The result, she hoped, would be a goldfish of a purple colour. Her efforts raised much interest among other breeders and she was considered something of a celebrity in the street. The Heremaia children, especially, used to ask how she was getting on, though they’d been given strict instructions never to go near the goldfish pond. Wire-netting had been stretched across it as an extra safeguard.

After some months, it seemed that Sally Simmons would succeed. She bred a goldfish of a mauve-rose colour. But one morning, the Simmonses awoke to find the wire-netting had been tampered with and that key goldfish was missing. The first thought which came to Jack Simmons was that the Heremaia children had done this terrible thing. A bitter scene followed with Millie and Sam Heremaia. Their children denied taking the goldfish. Finally, as a matter of course, the police were notified. And as a matter of course, they questioned the Heremaia children. This divided the two families even further because Millie and Sam became convinced that Jack Simmons was out to get at their children. The police never did find the culprit. Relations between the two families were strained for a long time. And Sally Simmons was so upset about the whole affair that she gave up breeding goldfish altogether.

It was an ugly situation and a sad one too. Had the Heremaia children been responsible? They seemed the obvious suspects, the obvious ones to blame. That was the trouble: you thought them guilty even in cases like this one, and you did not give them the benefit of the doubt.

No matter now. The affair had long been over. The Heremaia children had made overtures of friendship and Jack Simmons had accepted them in the end. But the doubt and caution had still remained, dormant perhaps but still there, to feed suspicion against the children when the next crisis flared.

Jack Simmons sighs ruefully. Life next door to the Heremaias has certainly not been a calm one. For three years now, it has continued in a state of amicable warfare, each crisis separated by long periods of amity. If only the Heremaias were a little more balanced in their behaviour! Then relations between the two families wouldn’t oscillate in such an extreme manner. Right from the start it has been a series of escalations and de-escalations and treaties signed and treaties broken. All very wearing and wearying. Under the circumstances, it is most surprising that the two families have been able to get on at all. Yes, what is needed is a little more stability in the Heremaias. Take Millie now: usually calm and even-tempered, but tonight she is in one of her moods.

‘What are you thinking about, Jack?’

Jack Simmons looks up at his wife. She has poured a cup of tea for herself and sits at the table.

‘Nothing in particular,’ he answers. ‘I was wondering about the Heremaias. About Millie.’

‘Mrs Heremaia is in her mood,’ Mark whispers.

‘She’s awful when she’s in her mood,’ Anne continues.

‘That’s enough!’ Sally Simmons interrupts. ‘I’d prefer not to hear about Mrs Heremaia’s mood when I’m having a cup of tea, thank you very much!’

Millie’s mood is a legend in the street. It is probably not greater than anyone else’s raging temper except that when she has it, everybody knows about it. When she is in her mood, you can hear her shouting right at the end of the street. Yet you sometimes find it difficult to believe that she can have such a temper, for she is a small and usually docile woman.

‘I wonder why she’s in her mood tonight?’ Mark asks.

‘Who knows?’ Jack Simmons replies. ‘Mrs Heremaia has her moods for many reasons.’

‘That’s enough, Jack!’ Sally Simmons repeats firmly. ‘Or I shall be in one of my moods as well!’

Jack Simmons laughs. But he knows that Millie’s mood is no laughing matter. Heavens, he has been on the receiving end of it himself. As usual, the incident had been one involving her children. Jack Simmons had merely wanted to ask George if he’d been into the henhouse again, and he’d only touched George lightly on the arm, just lightly mind you ….

And next minute, an angry explosion had sounded from the Heremaia house, the door had almost buckled at the hinges, and Millie had steamed out to rescue her child.

‘I saw you, I saw you!’ she’d yelled. ‘You touched that kid, I saw you doing it with my own two eyes, and don’t you tell me that I’m a liar. Not me, boy! You touch him again and I’ll lay into you myself, you bully! If you want to pick on somebody, pick on me. I’ll show you.’

Jack Simmons takes a hasty sip at his tea. Millie’s tirade had kept on and on and had been heard all the way down the street. But Millie didn’t care two hoots about that. If people didn’t like it, then they shouldn’t listen. Nobody was going to lay a hand on her kids and get away with it.

That ghastly episode taught Jack Simmons a very valuable lesson. If you had any accusations to make against the Heremaia children you had to face Millie as well. If your accusations were proven right, you were safe. But Heaven help you if you were wrong. It was best if you meekly joined the queue to see Millie, bearing cap and complaint in hand. And you had to have a good case to present, for Millie had a formidable arsenal of protective motherhood to bring to bear against you.

Yes, if you won your case, you were safe. But you still left Millie in her mood. That was even worse, for Millie was ruthless in punishing her children. Sometimes you wondered whether you should have gone to her at all. Somehow, hearing her punishing her children made you wish you could retrace your steps.

Jack Simmons finishes his cup of tea.

‘Are you going to have your shower now?’ Sally asks.

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he answers. ‘I’ll have it after dinner. I’ll go down to the henhouse to make sure everything is okay.’

‘All right,’ Sally Simmons says. ‘And you just stop thinking of Millie Heremaia!’

She pushes him out of the kitchen into the passage. Jack Simmons puts on his shoes again.

Strange really, how could you reconcile the Millie Heremaia in her mood with the calm and warm-hearted woman? For that is also Millie Heremaia. Admittedly, she and her husband Sam are not always tactful. Their humour may not always be in the best taste, but it is honest and open. And to hear them laugh is to hear laughter as it really should be: punched straight from the chest with no holds barred. Absurd it may be, but you could say a lot of good about the Heremaias.

Jack Simmons shakes his head, puzzled. He opens the door and goes out of the house. The afternoon is still light and the wind is cool. He looks over the fence at his neighbour’s house and is just in time to see Jimmy duck down from the bedroom window. Poor little fellow. Still, he may not have the flu. If only the other children were like Jimmy. If they were, they would cease to be a puzzlement.

If Jack Simmons were asked which of the children he preferred most, he would without hesitation choose Jimmy, the second youngest of the brood. Jimmy was different. His curiosity was not generally of the criminal kind but was instead, delightful and sensitive. If he was naughty, it was more because he was a follower of the other children and therefore an accomplice by default. Heavens, it wasn’t his fault that he was Maori. Yet, despite this natural mishap of birth, he had revealed a gentle and sympathetic mind which, Jack Simmons hoped, would help him transcend the natural leanings of his race in later life.

Unlike the other children, it had been difficult to get to know Jimmy. The others left you no choice for they intruded upon your life so much. You could say they forced themselves upon you. But even from the beginning, Jimmy had been the one who always hung back, who seemed to be waiting to be introduced. Jack Simmons liked that. He liked the solemnity in the boy, his tact and his courtesy. It was such a relief to discover that one of the children at least was equipped with manners! Mind you, all these good attributes could disappear when the six went on the rampage; but when you were alone with Jimmy, you were made aware of them through his demeanour and his diffident air.

Over the last three years, Jimmy hadn’t changed for the worse at all. It would have been quite easy for his personality to be swayed or altered by his brothers and sisters. He still remained essentially the same child who used to ask:

‘Mr Simmons, please, why are you cutting those branches off? Mr Simmons, does it hurt the trees when you cut them off? Is a macintosh really the same as a raincoat? Why is the same thing called two different names?’

Hopefully, Jimmy would grow up without acquiring too many of the Maori habits and characteristics displayed by the rest of the children. Jack Simmons held great expectations for him. The quicker Maoris adjusted to European life the better. It was no use their trying to live in their old careless manner. They had to have some regard for their neighbours, accustomed to a more private mode of living. An Englishman’s home was his castle; he preferred it that way. And Jimmy would no doubt be found most acceptable as a visitor in any such home.

A pity you couldn’t say the same of Tommy, the youngest of the six children. Four years old and already on his way to neighbourhood infamy!

Chuckling to himself, Jack Simmons walks towards the henhouse. On his way, he notices that Mark has left his bicycle leaning against the wall of the car shed. Or perhaps one of the Heremaia children has borrowed it today! His smile grows broader and he decides to put the bicycle in the shed where it belongs. He certainly has mellowed in the last three years! Previously, he would have become exceedingly angry if anyone, child or no, had borrowed something which belonged to him. Mind you, he still gets angry, but the sting of that anger has diminished now, only showing on the more unforgivable occasions. But one could not be angry for ever. There were other characteristics in the Heremaia family which redeemed them totally.

The greatest of these was their generosity. When the Simmonses had first settled in their new house they had had no furniture or cooking utensils because their household effects were still in transit from the landing port of Wellington. Sam and Millie had come to the rescue, and Millie had taken great delight in providing Maori bread along with the cutlery. Later, when the furniture arrived, Sam came around every day to help Jack Simmons move it into the house. He was a massive fellow and built like an ox. But like the children, he was also under Millie’s strict thumb. It was always, ‘Sam, do this’ or ‘Sam, do that’ or ‘Sam? Where the hell are you!’ And it had been Millie apparently, who’d told Sam to get out the scythe and cut the Simmons’ long grass when they were away on holiday one Christmas. When Jack Simmons thanked him, Sam had laughed and said he was only carrying out the boss’s orders; then he’d quipped that the grass would come in handy for feeding his sheep. He had a small country run on which he fattened sheep for sale at the local livestock sales. Sam was a character. He was always bringing sweets home for his children. Millie used to get angry at him, but he told her that the sweets wouldn’t do any harm as the children had rotten teeth already! He also brought sweets for Mark and Anne too. It wasn’t fair if everybody’s teeth weren’t rotten, he explained.

All things considered, the relationship between the two families had been a very neighbourly one. Mark and Anne often went to the beach with the Heremaias. Sometimes, Sam would bring over a leg of mutton or a sack of potatoes. Once there’d been a hangi and Sally had thought the food delicious. The sight of kina had put her off, however, and she thought that puha was a little too rough for her taste.

Jack Simmons wheels the bicycle into the shed. He locks the door and then continues toward the henhouse. Raising hens is only a recent hobby of the Simmons family, and Jack Simmons is very proud of the results. His henhouse is only a small one and he doesn’t have many hens, but Maria’s eggs should be hatching out any day now. Poor Maria, she’s suffered so much from the Heremaia children, always after her feathers.

Shaking his head, Jack Simmons reaches the henhouse. Strange, the latch isn’t properly secured. But then he had been in a hurry this morning.

The hens cluck and gather at Jack Simmons’ feet. They follow him to one corner of the coop where the grain bin is kept.

‘All right!’ Jack Simmons laughs. ‘Don’t be impatient now.’

He scoops grain from the bin and scatters it across the coop. The hens chase from one grain to the other. Jack Simmons watches them a moment. Then he goes into the henhouse where Maria is patiently sitting on her eggs.

‘How are they coming, Maria?’ Jack Simmons whispers. Maria clucks warningly at him.

‘Let me see, old girl!’ he continues. ‘Let me see.’

Maria struggles as his hands close around her. He chuckles to himself.

‘Don’t be frightened, old girl.’

And slowly, the eggs are revealed.

There are eight of them. Two of them are still intact. The shells of the other six are cracked and the chickens can be seen within them. But the chickens have not hatched. They are dead.

Jack Simmons is stunned. If he was a child, he would weep. But because he is a man, he feels anger instead, deep and raging.

The latch not properly secured … yet he definitely fastened it this morning. There seem to be scuff marks on the floor of the henhouse. Yes, here is the imprint of a small bare foot. The eggs couldn’t have been broken by Maria.

Somebody has been here during the day. Somebody has broken these eggs. Obviously, that somebody was one of the Heremaia children. Only one of them would do such a thing.

Quivering, Jack Simmons puts Maria back in her nest. She settles herself upon the eggs.

‘It’s too late, old girl,’ Jack Simmons whispers. ‘But by Heaven, those children have really asked for it now.’

Jack Simmons stalks out of the henhouse.

‘Sally? Sally!’

His wife appears at the doorway. She comes toward him.

‘What’s wrong Jack?’ she asks.

‘Those Heremaia children,’ he seethes. ‘They’ve really done it this time. I’ve told them time and time again to keep away from the henhouse. You’ve heard me tell them! I’ve warned them but, oh no, they keep coming and …’

‘Jack! What’s wrong!’

‘What’s wrong? Those kids are what’s wrong!’ he explodes. ‘They’ve been in here while we’ve been away and …’

The sharp twanging of a wire screen door interrupts him. It is Henare. He waves to Jack and Sally Simmons, and comes running toward them.

‘Hullo, Mr Simmons; hullo, Mrs Simmons! Did you have a good time today? Boy, we’ve missed you fellas.’

He grins and then begins climbing over the fence.

‘Don’t come any closer, boy!’ Jack Simmons growls.

Henare looks up, alarmed at the tone of Mr Simmons’ voice.

‘Is there something wrong, Mr Simmons?’

He watches uncomprehendingly, as Jack Simmons walks to the fence and lifts his hand and …

‘Jack!’ Sally cries. She sees Henare slowly getting down from the fence and backing away, his body quivering. She sees his hands begin to cover his face and tears springing from his eyes. She sees the shocked look in the boy’s face. And she hears her husband shout:

‘And don’t any of you set foot over this side of the fence again. You hear? You hear me?’

Sally turns to her husband.

‘You shouldn’t have done it, Jack.’

Suddenly, the Heremaia’s back door twangs open again. Millie bursts into the backyard.

‘What’s up!’ she shouts. ‘What’s happening! Hey!’

She runs towards her son and crouches beside him. The other children, attracted by the shouting, come to see what is happening.

‘You kids stay in the house!’ Millie shouts. Then she turns to Jack Simmons and her anger is dangerous.

‘Boy, you better count yourself lucky that Sam isn’t home,’ she rages.

‘Those kids have been into my hens again,’ Jack Simmons thunders. ‘They’re a damned menace around here!’

‘Which kids are you talking about?’ Millie interrupts. ‘Who are those kids you’re talking about? Who are they?’

Her voice cracks out like a whip.

‘Which kids? Who! Who!’

‘You know which kids,’ Jack Simmons answers.

Millie Heremaia laughs and it is glittering and sharp.

‘Oh yes, I know whose kids. My kids, it’s always my kids who’ve done it when something is wrong. Always my kids who are pinching your bike or breaking your windows. Nobody else’s kids, oh, no. And it’s always my kids who have been into your henhouse. That’s what you think, eh! Well, I’ll tell you something, Mr High and Mighty Simmons. They might have gone into your henhouse last time, but not this time Boy.’

‘Come off it, Millie,’ Jack Simmons yells. ‘You know your kids as well as I do. You know they’re a menace.’

‘Don’t you start telling me about my own kids!’ Millie returns. ‘Okay, so they’re not perfect, but your own kids aren’t perfect either. You go and ask that perfect son of yours what he was up to yesterday! You don’t know do you? And I’ll tell you why: it’s because we Heremaias don’t go broadcasting it around to every Tom, Dick and Harry like you do!’

‘Now you hold on a minute, Millie.’

‘It’s the truth, isn’t it? I know you, Jack Simmons! You’re always talking about us behind our backs. Don’t think I don’t know. Your Maori neighbours, that’s us, eh? Always pinching something; always lying. Well you listen to me and you better listen good. The Simmons family aren’t the only ones who go off on a Sunday. Your Maori neighbours, they sometimes go out too. Yes, that’s right, Mister. You get the message? Is it coming over loud and clear? Your Maori neighbours have been picking maize today. They only got back a little before you did. How do you like that, Mister Right? What do you think of that, eh?’

Millie Heremaia stands there, like a giant tree. Then she looks Jack straight in the eye and says the words:

‘Why don’t you go back to where you came from, Jack Simmons? You don’t belong here, none of you. We never wanted you here in the first place.’

She puts her arms around Henare. Slowly, she guides him into the house. The door swings silently behind her.

Dinner that night is a strained affair at the Simmons house. The children are sent to bed early. Sally Simmons clears away the dishes and begins to wash them. Jack Simmons picks up the tea towel and begins drying them. After a while, he sighs.

‘So I was wrong.’

‘Yes, Jack. You shouldn’t have done it.’

‘But I haven’t been wrong many times, have I Sally? You know those kids!’

‘It doesn’t matter about the other times, Jack. It matters about this time. And this time, you were wrong.’

‘I couldn’t help what I did, Sally. I got so angry, I just couldn’t help it.’

Silence falls between them.

‘Anyway,’ Jack Simmons continues, ‘Millie can’t keep tabs on her children all the time. One of them could easily have sneaked out after they’d gotten home.’

‘Oh, Jack,’ Sally sighs.

‘Well, blast it! Those kids were the obvious choice. You know what they’re like: always up to something.’

‘Not always.’

‘Most times then! Just whose side are you on? You know what they’re like; you know their reputation.’

‘But Jack! Their reputation doesn’t make them always the guilty ones. Can’t you see that?’

Sally Simmons turns from her husband. She sits at the table, watching him. He bunches up the towel and throws it to the floor. Then he stares moodily out the kitchen window at the Heremaia house. Damn them, damn them.

‘You’ll have to do something,’ Sally says.

‘I know.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Apologise, I suppose. Go over there and apologise.’

‘It would be best, Jack.’

‘I feel such a blasted fool,’ Jack Simmons whispers miserably.

‘Everybody makes mistakes. You, the Heremaias, everybody.’

Silence falls again. Then Jack Simmons turns from the window.

‘The sooner it’s done the better I suppose,’ he says.

He smiles at Sally.

‘If I’m not back in ten minutes,’ he continues, ‘call the ambulance.’

He goes out and shuts the door behind him. Sally walks to the window and watches him. He waves to her and she waves back. Then she sees Jimmy at his window. Will Jimmy, will Annie, will any of the children ever come to see her again? And Henare … what must he think of Jack now? Sally turns from the window. She decides to make a cup of tea for herself and for Jack. Poor Jack, he’ll probably need it.

Could the children have done it though? Could they have gone into the henhouse? No. But you couldn’t blame Jack for thinking that they had, could you? No, you couldn’t. Still, he shouldn’t have hit Henare. That was unforgivable. What a mess, what an awful mess. Every conflict with the Heremaias has been a mess. Of suspicion, of doubt, of accusations proven or unproven. If only the Heremaias weren’t so large, so obvious. They stick out like a sore thumb in the neighbourhood. They have not yet learnt the art of living with European people who may not understand their ways nor like them. They are essentially good people, but oh so tactless and troublesome at times. If only they would learn to be less obvious, and try to relinquish their obvious faults. Is it any wonder that when some accident happens in the street the Heremaia children are blamed? They bring it upon themselves, really they do!

Sally Simmons sighs helplessly. She puts the kettle on to boil. Heaven knows, she has tried to keep the crises to a minimum. She has tried to be a kind of Switzerland between her husband and the Heremaia children, an arbitrator between them. Sometimes she has been successful; other times, she has not. She knows that sometimes her husband’s suspicions have been totally unfounded. This is one of those occasions, but there have been others. Jack couldn’t seem to draw the line between judging the children on their reputation and on the facts of the matter. In doubtful issues, he just would not give the children the benefit of the doubt.

The goldfish affair had been one such doubtful case. Even now, Sally Simmons suspects, Jack still thinks that the Heremaia children were the culprits.

Then there was the time when she’d gone to the letter box and found one of the letters had been opened. Straight away, Jack had thought that the Heremaia children had been responsible. He was right too, for they had admitted opening the letter. They’d said it had been placed in their letter box and they’d opened it by mistake. The reason was plausible enough, but Jack hadn’t believed the children. He did not trust them, and with good reason! If only they would stop telling stories. By doing so, they only sustained the mistrust.

For instance, when they’d been asked if they’d been inside the Simmons house when the family had been away for a weekend, they had first said No, then Yes, then No, then Yes again. It hadn’t helped their explanation that they’d entered the house because they’d heard Silky, the Simmons’ cat, mewing and they’d thought she was locked in. Their stories had already created mistrust of them. They could have been telling the truth, but then they could have been telling a lie. That was the trouble: after a while, you ceased to believe anything they said, whether it was the truth or not.

You couldn’t trust the children. That was the main source of trouble. You judged them on their reputation. Most of all, you remembered that they were Maori. That was the most damaging evidence of all. Everybody knew what Maoris were like. You conveniently forgot the good points about the children. It wasn’t your fault. They helped you to forget.

The kettle boils. Sally Simmons takes it off the stove. It had been wrong for Millie to say that Jack and she talked about her family behind their backs. Wrong and unfair. She and Jack had tried to understand the Heremaias. Not like some of the other neighbours who talked so grandly about ‘our Maori people’ one minute and then disowned them the next. And she at least tried to keep the bad behaviour of the Heremaia children in context. They were not always bad.

Sally Simmons looks out the window again. No sign of Jack. But there is Jimmy again. Poor Jimmy. Katarina had said he had the flu or something. Would he come to see her tomorrow? Lately he has been coming every morning to ask if the chickens have arrived. Only two of them will hatch now, Jimmy.

The curtain falls across Jimmy’s window. And suddenly, Sally thinks: Could it have been Jimmy? No, it couldn’t possibly have been him. It couldn’t possibly have been any of the children! But then who could it have been? Who?

Thoughtfully, Sally Simmons prepares the tea. She hears the back door of the Heremaia house twang open. Jack is returning. Quickly, she gets two cups and saucers from the cupboard and begins to pour the tea. The door opens behind her. She turns and kisses her husband.

‘Oh, Jack,’ she sighs. ‘I think it could have been Jimmy.’

‘Jimmy?’

Sally Simmons nods. ‘Who else could it have been?’

Her husband shakes his head. ‘Perhaps it was the same person who stole the goldfish.’

‘Oh no,’ Sally says. ‘Do you really think someone else is doing all this?’

‘I just don’t know what to think any more.’

Sally Simmons looks at her husband anxiously. She has always preferred to deal with certainties. The whole idea of someone else, someone unknown, being involved is too fearful to contemplate. After all, she and Jack had brought the children to New Zealand because it was, well, like home wasn’t it?

‘Oh Jack,’ Sally says. ‘The uncertainty …’

She changes the subject.

‘It must have been terrible for you over there. What happened?’

Jack Simmons tells her.

He’d knocked on the door and Annie had answered. ‘Go away, Mr Simmons,’ she’d said. ‘You’re not our friend any more.’ But he’d remained there and asked for Sam. Annie had said that he wasn’t in. Then Millie had come to the door. ‘Haven’t you done enough for one day?’ she’d asked. She’d almost slammed the door on him, but he’d prevented it from shutting. He’d told Millie he’d come to apologise. She’d answered that the harm had already been done.

‘And then what happened?’ Sally asks.

‘Well, she finally let me in,’ Jack Simmons answers. ‘So there I was, standing there, trying to find the words to say. Millie didn’t give me much of a chance. You know Millie! She really lambasted me. Her kids had been told not to go near the henhouse and they hadn’t. They knew better than to disobey her. They weren’t bad kids. Why was I always blaming them for things they hadn’t done? She just went on and on and the children just kept looking at me. Just looking … and then, as she was talking, Henare came into the passage behind her. Millie didn’t see him. But I could see him. He just stood there for a moment. The light wasn’t on in the passage. But it was on in the bedroom. And I saw his face, and the way he was looking at me and bunching his fists. It was a shock to see him like that, and I thought to myself, “Oh Jack Simmons, what have you done?”’

‘It must have been awful,’ Sally Simmons whispers.

‘Yes it was,’ Jack Simmons answers. His wife doesn’t know the half of it. The names Millie called him, the terrible truthful things she said to him about his being a Pakeha.

Sally Simmons hugs her husband. ‘Everything will be all right,’ she says. ‘If not tomorrow, then the day after that or the day following. You’ll see.’

Jack Simmons tries to smile at her.

‘For how long though, eh? Let’s hope so. It’s over now.’

He goes to the window and gazes across the fence at his neighbour’s house.

Over?

And all of a sudden he sees Millie looking back across at him through the window of her kitchen. He realises that dealing with children is one thing. Dealing with adults is another.

You don’t belong here, Jack Simmons, none of you.

Jack Simmons turns away. He and Millie will just have to work it out, whether they like it or not, want it or not.

On the other side of the fence, the lights go out in the Heremaias’ house.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE

By the time I came to the end of my year of writing, 1970, I had amassed quite a few Maori and (this might come as a surprise) Pakeha short stories. I put them into a collection — which I titled Exercises for the Left Hand because I’m a cack-hander — and schlepped them along to a number of publishers, without success. One of those publishers asked me, ‘Who will read your book?’ I said that Maori would. He answered, ‘Maori don’t read books.’ I think I had earlier suspected that this perception of me personally and my work commercially might be a problem, so that’s probably why the book was both Maori and Pakeha stories combined: have an Ace up your sleeve, just in case you have to play it and prove that actually you are a good writer, Maori or not.

Noel Hilliard came to my rescue. Jane and I were preparing to go overseas on a working holiday to the UK and Europe when Noel sent the stories to David Heap, then managing director of Heinemann Educational Publishers. Just before we left, in March 1971, David told me they would be interested in publishing a collection (I had told him I was also writing a novel, Tangi, and that interested him too), but he felt that I should concentrate on Maori stories. If I could assemble such a collection, particularly longer stories to go with the shorter ones, Heinemann would look at it; they would market it mainly to schools.

Well, at least I had half of a book, eh.

‘The Other Side of the Fence’ was one of the longer stories I wrote at David’s suggestion. From my recollection, it was the first I wrote while Jane and I were living in our one-room bedsit just off Earls Court at 67 Harcourt Terrace, South Kensington. Jane would go off to work as a teacher at Hounslow East and, while I was able to score some jobs as an office temp, most of the time I sat at home writing more Maori stories … and that novel. It was difficult to live in one reality and write in another. In this case, I was recalling the relationship between our family and the Waughs, a migrant English family who came to live next door at Haig Street. The relationship was quite tense to begin with, as two cultures with a fence between tried to come to grips with each other, and that was the symbolism that appealed to me: the story was about 1950s Maori and Pakeha relationships in a microcosm. I don’t believe I was technically sufficiently equipped to write this story at the time I did; this story and ‘The Whale’ are the only ones in the book where I write from within someone else’s head, and I didn’t have the hang of it then. I had a second go with the revised Pounamu Pounamu, the 2003 edition, and it works better there.

In the end, Gordon and Jean Waugh became second parents to my sisters and me. We called them Mummy and Daddy Waugh. And their children, David, Janet and Annette, are our brother and sisters to this day.

Jean did indeed breed a beautiful goldfish of a mauve-rose colour. I can still remember the awe as my sisters and I watched it swimming; it was the most spellbinding sight I had ever seen.