The Whale Rider

Nine

If you ask me the name of this house, I shall tell you. It is Te Kani. And the carved figure at the apex? It is Paikea, it is Paikea. Paikea swam, hei. The sea god swam, hei. The sea monster swam, hei. And Paikea, you landed at Ahuahu. You changed into Kahutia Te Rangi, aue. You gave your embrace to the daughter of Te Whironui, aue, who sat in the stern of the canoe. Aue, aue, and now you are a carved figurehead, old man.

The sea trench, Hawaiki. The Place of the Gods. The Home of the Ancients. The whale herd hovered in the goldened sea like regal airships. Far above, the surface of the sea was afire with the sun’s plunge from day into night. Below lay the sea trench. The herd was waiting for the sign from their ancient leader that it should descend between the protective walls of the trench and flow with the thermal stream away from the island known as the Place of the Gods.

But their leader was still mourning. Two weeks earlier the herd had been feeding in the Tuamotu Archipelago when suddenly a flash of bright light had scalded the sea and giant tidal soundwaves had exerted so much pressure that internal ear canals had bled. Seven young calves had died. The ancient whale remembered this occurrence happening before; screaming a lament of condemnation, he had led them away in front of the lethal tide that he knew would come. On that pellmell, headlong and mindless escape, he had noticed more cracks in the ocean floor, hairline fractures indicating serious damage below the crust of the earth. Now, some weeks later, the leader was still unsure about the radiation level in the sea trench. He was fearful of the contamination seeping from Moruroa. He was afraid of the genetic effects of the undersea radiation on the remaining herd and calves in this place which had once, ironically, been the womb of the world.

The elderly females tried to nurse his nostalgia, but the ancient whale could not stop the rush of memories. Once this place had been crystalline clear. It had been the place of his childhood and that of his golden master too. Following that first disastrous sounding, they had ridden many times above the trench. His golden master had taught the whale to flex his muscles and sinews so that handholds in the skin would appear, enabling the rider to ascend to the whale’s head. There, further muscle contractions would provide saddle and stirrups. And when the whale sounded, he would lock his master’s ankles with strong muscles and open a small breathing chamber, just behind his spout. In the space of time, his master needed only to caress his left fin, and the whale would respond.

Suddenly, the sea trench seemed to pulsate and crackle with a lightswarm of luminescence. Sparkling like a galaxy was a net of radioactive death. For the first time in all the years of his leadership, the ancient whale deviated from his usual primeval track. The herd ascended to the surface. The decision was made to seek before time the silent waters of the Antarctic. But the elderly females pealed their anxieties to one another because the dangerous islands were also in that vicinity. Nevertheless they quickly followed their leader away from the poisoned water. They were right to worry because the ancient whale could only despair that the place of life, and the Gods, had now become a place of death. The herd thundered through the sea.

Haumi e, hui e, taiki e.

Let it be done.

Ten

The next year Kahu turned four and I decided it was about time I went out to see the world. Koro Apirana thought it was a good idea but Nanny Flowers didn’t like it at all.

‘What’s wrong with Whangara?’ she said. ‘You got the whole world right here. Nothing you can get anywhere else that you can’t get here. You must be in trouble.’

I shook my head. ‘No, I’m clean,’ I answered.

‘Then there must be a girl you’re running away from. She looked at me suspiciously, and poked me between the ribs. ‘You been up to mischief, eh?’

I denied that too. Laughing, I eased myself up from the chair and did a Clint Eastwood. ‘Let’s just say, Ma’am,’ I drawled, then went for my six-gun, ‘that there’s not enough room in this here town for the two of us.’

Over the following four months I put in double time at the Works and got my Air New Zealand ticket. The boys took up a collection and gave me a fantastic party. My darling Joyleen Carol cried buckets over me. At the airport I said to Nanny Flowers, ‘Don’t forget to look after my bike.’ ‘Don’t worry,’ she said sarcastically, ‘I’ll feed it some hay and give it water every day.’

‘Give Kahu a kiss from me.’

‘Ae,’ Nanny Flowers quivered. ‘God be with you. And don’t forget to come back, Rawiri, or else —’

She pulled a toy water-pistol from her basket.

‘Bang,’ she said.

I flew to Australia.

Unlike Kahu, my birth cord couldn’t have been put in the ground at Whangara because I didn’t return there until four years later. I discovered that everything I’d been told about Aussie was true: it was big, bold, brassy, bawdy and beautiful. When I first arrived I stayed in Sydney with my cousin, Kingi, who had an apartment in Bondi. I hadn’t realised that there were so many other Maoris over there (I thought I’d be the first) and after a while I realised why it was nicknamed ‘Kiwi Valley’. Wherever you went, the pubs, the shows, the clubs, the restaurants, the movies, the theatres, you could always count on bumping into a cousin. In some hotels, above the noise and buzz of the patrons, you were bound to hear somebody shouting to somebody else, ‘Gidday, cous!’

I was like a kid in a great big toyshop, wanting to touch everything. Whangara wasn’t as big as this, with its teeming city streets, glass skyscrapers, glitter and glitz. Nor could Friday night in the town ever compare with the action in the Cross, that part of Sydney to which people thronged, either to look or be looked at. People were selling anything and everything up the Cross and if you wanted to buy you just ‘paid the man’.

It was there that I came upon my cous Henare, who was now wearing a dress, and another cous, Reremoana, who had changed her name to Lola L’Amour and had red hair and fishnet stockings. I couldn’t understand Kingi’s attitude at all; he was always trying to cross the street whenever he saw a cous he didn’t want to be seen with. But I would just bowl along regardless and yell, ‘Gidday cous!’

As far as I could see, they were living the way they wanted to and no matter what changes they had made to themselves or their lives, a cous was a cous. I guess also that I didn’t feel that much different: I looked much the same as they did, with my leather jacket and pants matching their own gear with its buckles and scarves and whips. ‘What game are you into?’ they would tease. ‘What game?’ They would josh and kid and joke around and sometimes we would meet up later at some party or other. But always, in the early morning, when the sunlight was beginning to crack the midnight glamour, the memories would come seeping through. ‘How’s our Nanny? How’s our Koro? If you write to them, don’t tell them that you saw us like this.’

In the search for fame, fortune, power and success, some of my cousins had opted for the base metal and not the gold. They may have turned their lives upside down in the process, like Sydney Harbour Bridge’s reflection in the harbour, but they always craved the respect of our tribe. They weren’t embarrassed, but hiding the way they lived was one way of maintaining the respect. There was no better cloak than those starry nights under the turning Southern Cross.

Kingi and I got along fine, but when I found a mate of my own, I moved in with him. I had gotten a job working as a brickie and had also started playing League. It was through League that I met my buddy, Jeff, who told me he was looking for someone to share his flat. Jeff was a friendly, out-front guy, quick to laugh, quick to believe and quick to trust. He told me of his family in Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea, and I told him about mine in Whangara. I also told him about Kahu.

‘You’d love her,’ I said. ‘She’s a fantastic looker. Big brown eyes, wonderful figure and lips just waiting to be kissed.’

‘Yeah? Yeah?’ he asked eagerly.

‘And I can tell she’d go for you,’ I said. ‘She’s warm and cuddly, great to be with, and she just loves snuggling up close. And —’

Poor Jeff, he didn’t realise I was having him on. And as the weeks went by I embellished the story even more. I just couldn’t help it. But that’s how our friendship was; we were always kidding around or kidding each other.

I must have been in Sydney over a year when the phone call came from my brother Porourangi. Sometimes life has a habit of flooding over you and rushing you along in its overwhelming tide. Living in Aussie was like that: there was always something going on, day and night. If Jeff and I weren’t playing League we’d be out surfing (the beach at Whangara was better) or partying with buddies, or hiking out to the Blue Mountains. You could say I had begun drowning in it all, giving myself up to what Kingi would have called ‘the hedonistic life of the lotus eater’. Kingi was always one for the big words. He used to tell me that his favourite image of Australia was of Joan Sutherland singing ‘Advance Australia Fair’, a can of Fosters in one hand, and surfing supremely into Sydney Harbour like an antipodean Statue of Liberty. See what I mean? All those big words? That’s Kingi, for sure.

I was still in bed when the telephone rang, so Jeff answered. Next minute, a pillow came flying at me and Jeff yanked me out of bed saying, ‘Phone, Rawiri. And I’ll talk to you later.’

Well, the good news was that Porourangi was getting married to Ana. Nanny Flowers had been pestering both of them about it. ‘And you know what she’s like,’ Porourangi laughed. ‘Don’t bother to come home though,’ he said, ‘because the wedding is just going to be very small.’ Kahu would be the flower girl.

‘How is she?’ I asked.

‘She’s five and started school now,’ Porourangi said. ‘She’s still living with Rehua’s folks. She missed you very much last summer.’

‘Give her a kiss from me,’ I said. ‘And also kiss our Nanny. Tell everybody I love them. How’s Koro?’

‘In Nanny’s bad books as usual,’ Porourangi laughed. ‘The sooner they get a divorce the better.’

I wished Porourangi and Ana the very best with their life together. The season of bereavement had been long over for Porourangi and it was time for renewal. Then just before he hung up, he said, ‘Oh, by the way, your mate was very interested in Kahu, so I told him she was doing well with her spelling.’

Uh oh. That was the bad news. No sooner had I put the phone down than Jeff was onto me.

‘Warm and cuddly, huh?’

‘No, wait Jeff, I can explain —’

‘Big brown eyes and fantastic figure, huh?’

‘Jeff, no —’ In his hands he had a soggy apple pie.

‘Lips just waiting to be kissed?’ His eyes gleamed with vengeance.

I should count myself lucky that I had cooked dinner the night before. Had it been Jeff, that apple pie wouldn’t have been so scrumptious.

Not long after that Jeff also got a phone call, but the news wasn’t so good. His mother called from Papua New Guinea to ask him to come home.

‘Your father’s too proud to ring himself,’ she said, ‘but he’s getting on, Jeff, and he needs you to help him run the coffee plantation. He’s had a run of rotten luck with the workers this year and you know what the natives are like, always drinking.’

‘I’ll have to go,’ said Jeff. I knew he was reluctant to do so. Indeed, one of the reasons why he had come to Sydney was that it was as far from his family as he could get. He loved them deeply, but sometimes love becomes a power game between the ambitions that parents have for their children and the ambitions that children have for themselves. ‘But it looks like all my chickens are coming home to roost,’ Jeff said ruefully.

‘Family is family,’ I said.

‘Say,’ he interrupted. ‘You wouldn’t like to come with me?’

I hesitated. Ever since speaking to Porourangi I had actually been thinking of going back to Aotearoa. Instead, I said, ‘Sure, I’ve been a cowboy all my life. Let’s saddle up, partner.’ So we started to pack up ready to move on out. I rang Whangara to tell Nanny Flowers.

‘You’re going where?’ she yelled. As usual she was holding the phone at arm’s length.

‘To Papua New Guinea.’

‘What!’ she said. ‘You’ll get eaten up by all them cannibals. What’s at Papua New Guinea’ — I mouthed the words along with her — ‘that you can’t get in Whangara? You should come home instead of gallivanting all over the world.’

‘I’ll be home next summer. I promise.’ There was silence at the other end. ‘Hullo?’

Koro Apirana came to the telephone. ‘Rawiri?’ he said loudly. ‘What did you say? Your Nanny is crying.’ There was a tussle at the other end and Nanny Flowers returned.

‘I can speak for myself,’ she said in a huff. Then, in a soft voice, full of longing, she added, ‘All right, boy. You go to Papua New Guinea. But don’t make promises about next summer. Otherwise I will be watching the road, and going down to the bus every day to see if you are on it.’

Tears began to mist my vision. I could just imagine my Nanny walking down the road in summer, Kahu skipping beside her, and sitting on the verge watching the cars going past, and asking the bus driver —

‘We love you,’ Nanny said.

Waiting and waiting. Then the phone clicked on the handset and she was gone.

Eleven

I was two years with Jeff in Papua New Guinea and while they were productive years, they were not always happy. Jeff’s father couldn’t come down to Port Moresby to meet us but his mother, Clara, did. Although Jeff had told her I was a Maori it was obvious that I was still too dark. As soon as I stepped off the plane I could almost hear her wondering, ‘Oh, my goodness, how am I going to explain this to the women at the Bridge Club?’ But she was polite and gracious and kept up a lively chatter on the plane to Mount Hagen.

Tom, Jeff’s father, was another story, and I liked him from the start. He was a self-made man whose confidence had not been shattered by his long and debilitating illness. But it was clear that he needed his son to help him. I can still remember the first time I saw Tom. He was standing on the verandah of the homestead, resting his weight on two callipers. He wasn’t embarrassed by his disability and when Jeff went up to greet him he simply said, ‘Gidday young fella. Glad to have you home.’

Tom had contracted Parkinson’s disease. It wasn’t until weeks later that I discovered the disease had not only struck at his limbs but also had rendered him partially blind.

The situation was clear. Jeff would have to act as an extension to his father, his arms and legs and eyes. Deskbound, Tom would run the plantation from the homestead and Jeff would translate the instructions into action. As for me, I’ve always been pretty good at hard work, so it was simply a matter of spitting on my hands and getting down to business.

Putting the plantation back on its feet was a challenge which the countryside really threw at us; I have never known a country which has fought back as hard as Papua New Guinea. I doubt if it can ever be tamed of its temperatures, soaring into sweat zones, for its terrain, so much a crucible of crusted plateaus and valleys, and its tribalism. But we tried, and I think we won some respite from the land, even if only for a short time. Man might carve his identification mark on the earth but, once he ceases to be vigilant, Nature will take back what man had once achieved to please his vanity.

Sometimes, when you yourself are living life to the full, you forget that life elsewhere also continues to change like a chameleon. For instance, I used to marvel at the nationalism sweeping Papua New Guinea and the attempts by the Government to transplant national identity and customs onto the colonial face of the land. They were doing so despite an amazing set of difficulties: first, Papua New Guinea was fractionalised into hundreds of tribal groups and their language was spoken in a thousand different tongues; second, there were so many outside influences on Papua New Guinea’s inheritance, including their neighbours across the border in Irian Jaya; and, third, the new technology demanded that the people literally had to live ‘one thousand years in one lifetime’, from loincloth to the three-piece suit and computer knowledge in a simple step.

In many respects the parallels with the Maori in New Zealand were very close, except that we didn’t have to advance as many years in one lifetime. However, our journey was possibly more difficult because it had to be undertaken within European terms of acceptability. We were a minority and much of our progress was dependent on European goodwill. And there was no doubt that in New Zealand, just as in Papua New Guinea, our nationalism was also galvanising the people to become one Maori nation.

So it was that in Australia and Papua New Guinea I grew into an understanding of myself as a Maori and, I guess, was being prepared for my date with destiny. Whether it had anything to do with Kahu’s destiny, I don’t know, but just as I was maturing in my own understanding she too was moving closer and closer to that point where she was in the right place, at the right time, with the right understanding to accomplish the task which had been assigned to her. In this respect there is no doubt in my mind that she had always been the right person.

My brother Porourangi has always been a good letter writer and he kept me in touch with the affairs of the people at home. I could tell that his chiefly prestige was growing, his spirit, and I appreciated the chiefly kindliness he felt in wanting me to know that although I was far from the family I was not forgotten. Apparently Koro Apirana had now begun a second series of schools for the young people of the Coast. Our Koro had accepted that Porourangi would be ‘the one’ in our generation to carry on the leadership of the people, but he was still looking for ‘the one’ in the present generation. ‘He wants to find a young boy,’ Porourangi jested, ‘to pull the sword out of the stone, someone who has been marked by the Gods for the task. Nobody has so far been able to satisfy him.’ Then, in one of his letters, Porourangi made my heart leap with joy. Ana had told him it was about time that Kahu came back to stay in Whangara, with her and Porourangi.

Kahu was then six years old; Rehua’s mother had agreed and so Kahu returned. ‘Well,’ Porourangi wrote, ‘you should have seen us all having a cry at the bus stop. Kahu got off the bus and she has grown so much, you wouldn’t recognise her. Her first question, after all the hugging, was ‘Where’s Paka? Is Paka here?’ Nanny Flowers said he was fishing, so she waited and waited all day down at the beach for him. When he came in, she leapt into his arms. But you know our Koro, as gruff as usual. Still, it is really good to have Kahu home.’

In his later letters Porourangi wrote about the problems he felt were facing the Maori people. He had gone with Koro Apirana to Raukawa country and had been very impressed with the way in which Raukawa was organising its youth resources to be in a position to help the people in the century beginning with the year 2000. ‘Will we be ready?’ he asked. ‘Will we have prepared the people to cope with the new challenges and the new technology? And will they still be Maori?’ I could tell that the last question was weighing heavily on his mind. In this respect we both recognised that the answer lay in Koro Apirana’s persistence with the school sessions, for he was one of the very few who could pass on the sacred knowledge, to us. Our Koro was like an old whale stranded in an alien present, but that was how it was supposed to be because he also had his role in the pattern of things, in the tides of the future.

Near the middle of our second year in Papua New Guinea Jeff and I could afford to relax a little. We took trips to Manus Island and it was there that Jeff put into words the thoughts that had been on my mind for some months.

‘You’re getting homesick, aren’t you Rawiri?’ he said.

We had been diving in the lagoon, and in that wondrous blue water, I had picked up a shining silver shell from the reef. I had taken it back to the beach and was listening to the sea whispering to me from the shell’s silver whorls.

‘A little,’ I replied. Many things were coming to a head for me on the plantation, and I wanted to avoid a collision. Jeff and I were getting along okay but his parents were pushing him ever so gently in the right direction, to consort with his own kind in the clubs and all the parties of the aggressively expatriate. On my part, this had thrown me more into the company of the ‘natives’, like Bernard who had more degrees than Clara had chins, and Joshua, who both worked on the farm. In so doing I had broken a cardinal rule and my punishment was ostracism.

‘We’ve come a long way together,’ Jeff said.

‘We sure have,’ I laughed. ‘And there’s still a way to go yet.’

Then Jeff said, ‘I want to thank you. For everything. But if you have to go, I’ll understand.’

I smiled at him, reflectively. I placed the shell back to my ear. Hoki mai, hoki mai ki te wa kainga, the sea whispered, come home.

Jeff and I returned to the plantation the next day. There was a letter waiting from Porourangi. Ana was expecting a baby, and the whole family were hoping that the child would be a son. ‘Of all of us,’ Porourangi wrote, ‘Kahu seems to be the most excited. Koro Apirana, too, is over the moon.’

The letter had the effect of making me realise how much time had passed since I had been in the company of my whanau, and I felt a sudden keenness, like pincers squeezing my heart, to hold them all in my arms. Hoki mai, hoki mai. Come home.

Then three events occurred which convinced me that I should be homeward bound. The first happened when Jeff and his parents were invited to a reception hosted in Port Moresby for a young expatriate couple who’d just been wed. At first Clara’s assumption was that I would stay back and look after the plantation, but Jeff said I was ‘one of the family’ and insisted I accompany them. Clara made it perfectly obvious that she was embarrassed by my presence and I was very saddened, at the reception, to hear her say to another guest, ‘He’s a friend of Jeff’s. You know our Jeff, always bringing home dogs and strays. But at least he’s not a native.’ Her laughter glittered like knives.

But that was only harbinger to the tragedy which took place when we returned to Mount Hagen. We had parked the station wagon at the airport and were driving home to the plantation. Jeff was at the wheel. We were all of us in a merry mood. The road was silver with moonlight. Suddenly, in front of us, I saw a man walking along the verge. I thought Jeff had seen him too and would move over to the middle of the road to pass him. But Jeff kept the station wagon pointed straight ahead.

The man turned. His arms came up, as if he was trying to defend himself. The front bumper crunched into his thighs and legs and he was catapulted into the windscreen which smashed into a thousand fragments. Jeff braked. The glass was suddenly splashed with blood. I saw a body being thrown ten metres to smash on the road. In the headlights and steam, the body moved. Clara screamed. Tom said, ‘Oh my God.’

I went to get out. Clara screamed again, ‘Oh no. No. His tribe could be on us any second. Payback, it could be payback for us. It’s only a native.’

I pushed her away. Tom yelled, ‘For God’s sake, Rawiri, try to understand. You’ve heard the stories —’

I couldn’t comprehend their fear. I looked at Jeff but he was just sitting there, stunned, staring at that broken body moving fitfully in the headlights. Then, suddenly Jeff began to whimper. He started the motor.

‘Let me out,’ I hissed. ‘Let me out. That’s no native out there. That’s Bernard.’ A cous is a cous.

I yanked the door open. Clara yelled out to Jeff, ‘Oh, I can see them.’ Shadows on the road. ‘Leave him here. Leave him.’ Her words were high-pitched, frenzied. ‘Oh. Oh. Oh.’

The station wagon careered past me. I will never forget Jeff’s white face, so pallid, so fearful.

The second event occurred after the inquest. Bernard had died on the road that night. Who’s to say that he would have lived had we taken him to hospital?

It was an accident, of course. A native walking carelessly on the side of the road. A cloud covering the moon for a moment. The native shouldn’t have been there anyway. It could have happened to anybody.

‘I don’t blame you,’ I said to Jeff. ‘You can’t help being who you are.’ But all I could think of was the waste of a young man who had come one thousand years to his death on a moonlit road, the manner in which the earth must be mourning for one of its hopes and its sons in the new world, and the sadness that a friend I thought I had would so automatically react to the assumptions of his culture. And would I be next? There was nothing further to keep me here.

It was then that another letter came from Porourangi. The child, a girl, had been born. Naturally, Koro Apirana was disappointed and had blamed Nanny Flowers again. In the same envelope was another letter, this one from Kahu.

‘Dear Uncle Rawiri, how are you? We are well at Whangara. I have a baby sister. I like her very much. I am seven. Guess what, I am in the front row of our Maori culture group at school. I can do the poi. We are all lonesome for you. Don’t forget me, will you. Love. Kahutia Te Rangi.’

Right at the bottom of Kahu’s letter Nanny Flowers had added just one word to express her irritation with my long absence from Whangara. Bang.

I flew out of Mount Hagen the following month. Jeff and I had a fond farewell, but already I could feel the strain between us. Clara was as polite and scintillating as usual. Tom was bluff and hearty.

‘Goodbye, fella,’ Tom said. ‘You’re always welcome.’

‘Yes,’ Jeff said. ‘Always.’ Each to his own.

The plane lifted into the air. Buffetted by the winds it finally stabilised and speared through the clouds.

Ah yes, the clouds. The third event had been a strange cloud formation I had seen a month before above the mountains. The clouds looked like a surging sea and through them from far away a dark shape was approaching, slowly plunging. As it came closer and closer I saw that it was a giant whale. On its head was a sacred sign, a gleaming moko.

Haumi e, hui e, taiki e.

Let it be done.

Twelve

I wish I could say that I had a rapturous return. Instead, Nanny Flowers growled at me for taking so long getting home, saying, ‘I don’t know why you wanted to go away in the first place. After all —’

‘I know, Nanny,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing out there that I can’t get here in Whangara.’

Bang came her hand. ‘Don’t you make fun of me too,’ she said, and she glared at Koro Apirana.

‘Huh?’ Koro said. ‘I didn’t say nothing.’

‘But I can hear you thinking,’ Nanny Flowers said, ‘and I know when you’re funning me, you old paka.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Koro Apirana said. ‘Te mea te mea.’

Before Nanny Flowers could explode I gathered all of her in my arms, and there was much more of her now than there had been before, and kissed her. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t care if you’re not glad to see me, because I’m glad to see you.’

Then I handed her the present I had bought her on my stopover in Sydney. You would have thought she’d be pleased but instead, smack came her hand again.

‘You think you’re smart, don’t you,’ she said.

I couldn’t help it, but I had to laugh. ‘Well how was I to know you’d put on weight!’ My present had been a beautiful dress which was now three sizes too small.

That afternoon I was looking out the window when I saw Kahu running along the road. School had just finished.

I went to the verandah to watch her arrival. Was this the same little girl whose afterbirth had been put in the earth those many years ago? Had seven years really gone past so quickly? I felt a lump at my throat. Then she saw me.

‘Uncle Rawiri!’ she cried ‘You’re back!’

The little baby had turned into a doe-eyed, long-legged beauty with a sparkle and infectious giggle in her voice. Her hair was unruly, like an afro, but she had tamed it into two plaits today. She was wearing a white dress and sandals. She ran up the steps and put her arms around my neck.

‘Hullo,’ she breathed as she gave me a kiss.

I held her tightly and closed my eyes. I hadn’t realised how much I had missed the kid. Then Nanny Flowers came out and said to Kahu, ‘Enough of the loving. You and me are working girls! Come here! Be quick!’

‘Nanny and me are hoeing the vegetable garden,’ Kahu smiled. ‘I come very Wednesday to be her mate, when she wants a rest from Koro.’ Then she gave a little gasp and took my hand and pulled me around to the shed at the back of the house.

‘Don’t be too long, Kahu,’ Nanny Flowers shouted. ‘Those potatoes won’t wait all day.’

Kahu waved okay. As I followed her I marvelled at the stream of conversation which poured out of her. ‘I’ve got a baby sister now, Uncle, she’s a darling. Her name is Putiputi after Nanny Flowers. Did you know I was top of my class this year? And I’m the leader of the culture group too. I love singing the Maori songs. Will you teach me how to play the guitar? Oh, neat. And Daddy and Ana are coming to see you tonight once Daddy gets back from work. You bought me a present? Me? Oh where is it, where is it! You can show me later, eh. But I want you to see this first —’

She opened the door to the shed. Inside I saw a gleam of shining silver chrome. Kahu put her arms around me and kissed me again. It was my motorbike.

‘Nanny Flowers and I have been cleaning it every week,’ she said. ‘She used to cry sometimes, you know, when she was cleaning it. Then she’d get scared she might cause some rust.’

I just couldn’t help it; I felt a rush of tears to my eyes. Concerned, Kahu stroked my face.

‘Don’t cry,’ she said. ‘Don’t cry. It’s all right, Uncle Rawiri. There, there. You’re home now.’

Later that night Porourangi arrived. Among the family he was the one who seemed to have aged the most. He introduced me to Ana, for whom I felt an instant warmth, and then proudly showed me the new baby, Putiputi.

‘Another girl,’ Koro Apirana said audibly, but Porourangi took no notice of him. We were used to Koro’s growly ways.

‘Oh, be quiet,’ Nanny Flowers said. ‘Girls can do anything these days. Haven’t you heard you’re not allowed to discriminate against women any more? They should put you in the jailhouse.’

‘I don’t give a hang about women,’ Koro Apirana said. ‘You still haven’t got the power.’

It was then that Nanny Flowers surprised us all. ‘Oh, yeah yeah, you old goat,’ she said.

We had a big family dinner that night with Maori bread and crayfish and lots of wine to drink. Nanny had invited the boys over and they arrived with a roar and a rush of blue smoke and petrol fumes. It was almost as if I had never left. The guitars came out and the voices rang free to make the stars dance with joy. Nanny Flowers was in her element, playing centre stage to her family, and one of the boys got her up to do a hula.

‘Look,’ he cried with delight. ‘The Queen of Whangara!’

There was a roar of laughter at that one, and Kahu came running up to me, saying, ‘See how we love you, Uncle? We killed the fatted calf for you, just like the Bible says.’ She hugged me close and then skipped away like a songbird.

Then Porourangi was there. ‘Is it good to be home?’ he asked cautiously.

‘Yes,’ I breathed. ‘Just fantastic. How has it been?’

‘Much the same as ever,’ Porourangi said. ‘And you know our Koro. He’s still looking.’

‘What for?’

‘The one who can pull the sword,’ Porourangi laughed hollowly. ‘There are a few more young boys he’s found. One of them may be the one.’

Porourangi fell silent. I saw Koro Apirana rocking in his chair, back and forth, back and forth. Kahu came up to him and put her hand in his. He pushed her away and she dissolved into the dark. The guitars played on.

Over the following weeks it was clear to me that Koro Apirana’s search for ‘the one’ had become an obsession. Ever since the birth of Kahu’s young sister he had become more intense and brooding. Perhaps aware of his own mortality, he wanted to make sure that the succession in the present generation was done, and done well. But in doing so he was pushing away the one who had always adored him, Kahu herself.

‘You’d think the sun shone out of his —’ Nanny Flowers said rudely. Kahu had come to the homestead that morning riding a horse, with the news that she’d come first in her Maori class. Nanny Flowers had watched as Koro Apirana had dismissed the young girl. ‘I don’t know why she keeps on with him.’

‘I know why,’ I said to Nanny Flowers. ‘You remember when she bit his toe? Even then she was telling him, “Yeah, don’t think you’re going to keep me out of this!” ’

Nanny Flowers shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well, whatever it is, Kahu is sure a sucker for punishment, the poor kid. Must be my Muriwai breed. Or Mihi.’

Mihi Kotukutuku had been the mother of Ta Eruera, who had been Nanny’s cousin, and we loved the stories of Mihi’s exploits. She was a big chief, descended as she was from Apanui, after whom Nanny’s tribe was named. The story we liked best was the one telling how Mihi had stood on a sacred ground at Rotorua. ‘Sit down,’ a chief had yelled, enraged. ‘Sit down,’ because women weren’t supposed to stand up and speak on sacred ground. But Mihi had replied, ‘No you sit down! I am a senior line to yours!’ Not only that, but Mihi had then turned her back to him, bent over, lifted up her petticoats and said, ‘Anyway, here is the place where you come from!’ In this way Mihi had emphasised that all men are born of women.

We sat there on the verandah, talking about Kahu and how beautiful she was, both inside and outside. She had no guile. She had no envy. She had no jealousy. As we were talking, we saw Koro Apirana going down to the school where seven boys were waiting.

‘Them’s the contenders,’ Nanny Flowers said. ‘One of them’s going to be the Rocky of Whangara.’

Suddenly Kahu arrived, dawdling from the opposite direction. She looked so disconsolate and sad. Then she saw Koro Apirana. Her face lit up and she ran to him, crying ‘Paka! Oh! Paka!’

He turned to her quickly. ‘Go back,’ he said. ‘Go away. You are of no use to me.’

Kahu stopped in her tracks. I thought she would cry, but she knitted her eyebrows and gave him a look of such frustration that I could almost hear her saying to herself, ‘You just wait, Paka, you just wait.’ Then she skipped over to us as if nothing had happened.

I was lucky enough to get a job in town stacking timber in a timber yard and delivering orders to contractors on site. Every morning I’d beep the horn of my motorbike as I passed Porourangi’s, to remind Kahu it was time for her to get out of bed for school. I soon began to stop and wait until I saw her head poking above the window-sill to let me know she was awake. ‘Thank you, Uncle Rawiri,’ she would call as I roared off to work.

Sometimes after work I would find Kahu waiting at the highway for me. ‘I came down to welcome you home,’ she would explain. ‘Nanny doesn’t want any help today. Can I have a ride on your bike? I can? Oh, neat.’ She would clamber on behind me and hold on tight. As we negotiated the track to the village I would be swept away by her ingenuous chatter. ‘Did you have a good day, Uncle? I had a neat day except for maths, yuk, but if I want to go to university I have to learn things I don’t like. Did you go to university, Uncle? Koro says it’s a waste of time for a girl to go. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t a girl. Then Koro would love me more than he does. But I don’t mind. What’s it like being a boy, Uncle? Have you got a girlfriend? There’s a boy at school who keeps following me around. I said to him that he should try Linda. She likes boys. As for me, I’ve only got one boyfriend. No, two. No, three. Koro, Daddy and you. Did you miss me in Australia, Uncle? Did you like Papua New Guinea? Nanny Flowers thought you’d end up in a pot over a fire. She’s a hardcase, isn’t she! You didn’t forget me, Uncle, did you? You didn’t, eh? Well, thank you for the ride, Uncle Rawiri. See you tomorrow. Bye now.’ With an ill-aimed kiss and a hug, and a whirl of white dress, she would be gone.

The end of the school year came, and the school break-up ceremony was to be held on a Friday evening. Kahu had sent invitations to the whole family and included the boys in the list. ‘You are cordially invited,’ the card read, ‘to the school prizegiving and I do hope you are able to attend. No RSVP is required. Love, Kahutia Te Rangi. P.S. No leather jackets please, as this is a formal occasion. P.P.S. Please park all motorbikes in the area provided and not in the Head- master’s parking space like last year. I do not wish to be embraced again.’

On the night of the break-up ceremony, Nanny Flowers said to me, as she was getting dressed. ‘What’s this word “embraced”?’

‘I think she means “embarrassed”,’ I said.

‘Well, how do I look?’ Nanny asked.

She was feeling very pleased with herself. She had let out the dress I had bought her and added lime-green panels to the sides. Nanny was colour blind and thought they were red. I gulped hard. ‘You look like a duchess,’ I lied.

‘Not like a queen?’ Nanny asked, offended. ‘Well, I’ll soon fix that.’ Oh no, not the hat. It must have looked wonderful in the 1930s but that was ages ago. Ever since, she had added a bit of this and a bit of that until it looked just like something out of her vegetable garden.

‘Oh,’ I swallowed, ‘you look out of this world.’

She giggled coyly. We made our way out to Porourangi’s car. Kahu’s face gleamed out at us.

‘Oh you look lovely,’ she said to Nanny, ‘but there’s something wrong with your hat.’ She made a space for Nanny and said to her, ‘Come and sit by me, darling, and I’ll fix it for you.’

Porourangi whispered to me, ‘Couldn’t you stop the old lady? Her and her blinking hat.’

I was having hysterics. In the back seat Kahu was adding some feathers and flowers and what looked like weeds. The strange thing was that in fact the additions made the hat just right.

The school hall was crowded. Kahu took us to our places and sat us down. There was an empty seat beside Nanny with ‘Reserved’ on it.

‘That’s for Koro when he comes,’ she said. ‘And don’t the boys look neat?’ At the back of the hall the boys were trying to hide behind their suit jackets.

Nanny Flowers jabbed Porourangi in the ribs. ‘Didn’t you tell that kid?’ she asked.

‘I didn’t have the heart,’ he whispered.

For the rest of that evening the seat beside Nanny Flowers remained empty, like a gap in a row of teeth. Kahu seemed to be in everything: the school choir, the skits and the gymnastics, and after every item she would skip back to us and say, ‘Isn’t Koro here yet? He’s missing the best part.’

Then the second half of the programme began. There was Kahu in her skirt and bodice, standing so proudly in front of the school cultural group. ‘Hands on hips!’ she yelled. ‘Let’s begin!’ she ordered. And as she sang, she smiled a brilliant smile at all of us. Her voice rang out with pride.

‘That young girl’s a cracker,’ I overheard someone say. But my heart was aching for her and I wanted to leave. Nanny Flowers gripped me hard and said, ‘No, we all have to sit here, like it or not.’ Her lips were quivering.

The action songs continued, one after another, and I could see that Kahu had realised that Koro Apirana was not going to arrive. The light kept dimming, gradually fading from her face, like a light bulb flickering. By the time the bracket was concluded she was staring down at the floor trying not to see us. She looked as if she was feeling ashamed, and I loved her all the more for her vulnerability.

We tried to bolster her courage by clapping loudly, and we were rewarded by a tremulous smile playing on her face. It was then that the headmaster stepped forward. He made an announcement: one of the students would read the speech which had won the East Coast primary schools contest. What was remarkable, he said, was that the student had given it entirely in her own tongue, the Maori language. He called for Kahutia Te Rangi to come forward.

‘Did you know about this?’ Nanny Flowers asked.

‘No,’ said Porourangi. ‘Come to think of it, she did mention she had a surprise. For her Koro —’

To the cheers of her schoolmates Kahu advanced to the front of the stage.

‘E nga rangatira,’ Kahu began, ‘e nga iwi,’ she looked at Koro Apirana’s empty seat, ‘tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.’ There were stars in her eyes, like sparkling tears. ‘Distinguished guests, members of the audience, my speech is a speech of love for my grandfather, Koro Apirana.’

Nanny Flowers gave a sob, and tears began to flow down her cheeks.

Kahu’s voice was clear and warm as she told of her love for her grandfather and her respect for him. Her tones rang with pride as she recited his whakapapa and ours. She conveyed how grateful she was to live in Whangara and that her main aim in life was to fulfil the wishes of her grandfather and of the tribe.

And I felt so proud of her, so proud, and so sad that Koro Apirana was not there to hear how much she loved him. And I wanted to shout, Well done, good on you, to this young girl who was not really so brave and who would have liked the support of the one person who was never there — her Koro, Apirana. At the end of the speech I leapt to my feet to do a haka of support for her. Then the boys were joining in, and Nanny Flowers was kicking off her shoes. ‘Uia mai koia, whakahuatia ake ko wai te whare nei e? Ko Te Kani —’ The sadness and the joy swept us all away in acknowledging Kahu, but we knew that her heart was aching for Koro Apirana.

In the car, later, Porourangi said, ‘Your Koro couldn’t make it tonight, darling.’

‘That’s all right, Daddy. I don’t mind.’

Nanny Flowers hugged her fiercely. ‘I tell you, Kahu, tomorrow I’m really getting a divorce. Your Koro can go his way and I’ll go mine.’

Kahu put her face against Nanny Flowers’ cheeks. Her voice was drained and defeated. ‘It’s not Paka’s fault, Nanny,’ she said, ‘that I’m a girl.’

Thirteen

Two weeks after the school break-up ceremony, Koro Apirana took the young boys from the school onto the sea. It was early morning as he put them in his boat and headed out past the bay where the water suddenly turned dark green.

When the sun tipped the sea, Koro Apirana began a prayer. He had a carved stone in his hand and suddenly he threw it into the ocean. The boys watched until they could see it no longer.

‘One of you must bring that stone back to me,’ Koro Apirana said. ‘Go now.’

The boys were eager to prove themselves but the stone had gone too deep. Some were afraid of the darkness. Others were unable to dive so far down. Despite valiant attempts they could not do it.

Koro Apirana’s face sagged. ‘Okay, boys, you’ve done well. Let’s get you all home.’

When he got back to the homestead, Koro Apirana shut himself in the bedroom. Slowly, he began to weep.

‘What’s wrong with my Koro?’ Kahu asked. She was sitting with me on the verandah. ‘Is it because of the stone?’

‘How did you know about that?’ I asked, astonished.

‘One of the boys told me,’ Kahu said. ‘I wish I could make Paka happy again.’ Her eyes held a hint of gravity.

The next morning I was up early, intending to go out onto the sea in my dinghy. To my surprise, Kahu was waiting at the door in her white dress and sandals. There were white ribbons in her pigtails.

‘Can I come for a ride, Uncle Rawiri?’ she asked.

I couldn’t really say no, so I nodded my head. Just as we were ready to leave, Nanny Flowers yelled out, ‘Hoi, wait for me!’ She had decided to join us. ‘I can’t stand to hear the old paka feeling sorry for himself. Mmmm, what a beautiful day! The sun is shining.’

We rowed out past the bay and Kahu asked again about the stone.

‘What stone!’ Nanny Flowers said.

So I told her, and Nanny wanted to be shown where it had been dropped into the water. We went out into the ocean where it suddenly turned indigo.

‘Goodness,’ Nanny said. ‘No wonder those boys couldn’t get it. This is deep.’

‘Does Koro Apirana really want it back?’ Kahu asked.

‘Yeah, I suppose he must,’ Nanny Flowers said, ‘the old paka. Well, serve him right for —’

Kahu said simply, ‘I’ll get it.’

Before we could stop her she stood up and dived overboard. Until that moment I had never even known she could swim.

Nanny’s mouth made a big O. Then the breath rushed into her lungs and she screamed, ‘Oh no!’ She jabbed me hard and said, ‘Go after her, Rawiri. Go.’ She virtually pushed me over the side of the rowboat.

‘Give me the diving mask,’ I yelled. Nanny Flowers threw it at me and quickly I put it on. I took three deep breaths and did a duck dive.

I couldn’t see her. The sea looked empty. There was only a small stingray flapping down towards the reef.

Then I got a big fright because the stingray turned around and, smiling, waved at me. It was Kahu in her white dress and sandals, dog-paddling down to the sea floor, her braids floating around her head.

I gasped and swallowed sea water. I came to the surface coughing and spluttering.

‘Where is she!’ Nanny Flowers screamed. ‘Has she drowned? Oh no, my Kahu.’ And before I could stop her she jumped in beside me, just about emptying the whole ocean. She didn’t even give me a chance to explain as she grabbed the mask off me and put it on. Then she tried to swim underwater, but her dress was so filled with air that no matter how hard she tried she remained on the surface like a balloon with legs kicking out of it. I doubt if she could have gotten deeper anyway because she was so fat she couldn’t sink.

‘Oh Kahu,’ Nanny Flowers cried again. But this time I told her to take a deep breath and, when she was looking underwater, to watch where I would point.

We went beneath the surface. Suddenly I pointed down. Kahu was searching the reef, drifting around the coral. Nanny Flowers’ eyes widened with disbelief.

Whatever it was Kahu was searching for, she was having difficulty finding it. But just then white shapes came speeding out of the dark towards her. I thought they were sharks, and Nanny Flowers began to blow bubbles of terror.

They were dolphins. They circled around Kahu and seemed to be talking to her. She nodded and grabbed one around its body. As quick as a flash, the dolphins sped her to another area of the reef and stopped. Kahu seemed to say, ‘Down here?’ and the dolphins made a nodding motion.

Suddenly Kahu made a quick, darting gesture. She picked something up, inspected it, appeared satisfied with it, and went back to the dolphins. Slowly the girl and the dolphins rose towards us. But just as they were midway, Kahu stopped again. She kissed the dolphins goodbye and gave Nanny Flowers a heart attack by returning to the reef. She picked up a crayfish and resumed her upward journey. The dolphins were like silver dreams as they disappeared.

Nanny Flowers and I were treading water when Kahu appeared between us, smoothing her hair back from her face and blinking away the sea water. Nanny Flowers, sobbing, hugged her close in the water.

‘I’m all right, Nanny,’ Kahu laughed.

She showed the crayfish to us. ‘This is for Paka’s tea,’ she said. ‘And you can give him back his stone.’

She placed the stone in Nanny Flowers’ hands. Nanny Flowers looked at me quickly. As we were pulling ourselves back into the dinghy she said, ‘Not a word about this to Koro Apirana.’

I nodded. I looked back landward and in the distance saw the carving of Paikea on his whale like a portent.

As we got to the beach, Nanny Flowers said again, ‘Not a word, Rawiri. Not a word about the stone or our Kahu.’ She looked up at Paikea.

‘He’s not ready yet,’ she said.

The sea seemed to be trembling with anticipation.

Haumi e, hui e, taiki e.

Let it be done.