‘It was easier when we had packhorses,’ Grandfather Tamihana said.
My mother never liked travelling at night. We had a four-hour drive ahead to the Williamson station and ‘Amberleigh’ at the back of Tolaga Bay.
‘As long as we get there by midnight,’ she said.
Like many Maori, Mum believed that kehua — ghosts — were abroad at night; humans were therefore taking their lives into their hands when they traversed the kehua’s domain. She was calm enough for the first part of our journey across the red suspension bridge and through Gisborne, but when we left Wainui Beach she started to get nervous. The darkness fell very quickly and the only lights were those from farms floating away like ships on a dark sea. Even the moonlight on the road was intermittent. Dark clouds boiled up from the south. To cap it off, it began to rain.
‘E koe,’ Mum said, nodding her head. ‘I knew this would happen.’
The rain didn’t last long — luckily, as we didn’t have a tarpaulin for the hens on top of the car — but then there was a bang and Pani’s car skidded to a halt. A burst back tyre.
‘E koe,’ Mum said again. All her fears were being confirmed. ‘The kehuas want us to go outside so they can jump from the scrub and eat us.’
Dad scoffed at her. He positioned our car close behind Pani’s and, in the light of the headlights, they jacked the car and began changing the tyre. No sooner had the engine stopped than we heard the noises of the bush, alive with bird calls, wild pigs rooting in the scrub, the sounds of the hunter and the hunted.
I got out to help. Glory wanted to come with me, but, ‘You stay in the car,’ Mum said to her. ‘You’re just the right size to be taken by a flying kehua to its nest of hungry chicks.’
We arrived at Tolaga Bay at around eleven that night. Half an hour out of Tolaga, just as Pani’s car got to the top of a precipitous road, its radiator boiled over.
‘E koe,’ our mother said between compressed lips. ‘We’re never going to get to Amberleigh by midnight.’
That meant that we would all be eaten up by kehua. Ah well, nothing else to do except have our last feed on this earth. So out came the food basket, and we ate and drank as if it was the final supper — Maori bread buttered with margarine and golden syrup, washed down with raspberry cordial.
Out of the darkness, Aunt Ruth began to tell a story about the family. There were always stories during the shearing; they leavened our work with fun, excitement and a sense of history. The stories recounted the life of the family, our travails and triumphs, defeats and victories. But this was a story I had not heard before, telling the reason why the Mahana and Poata families were always fighting. It had nothing to do with religion at all.
Grandmother Ramona was sixteen and Grandfather was nineteen when they met, just before the Great War, in 1914.
‘Your grandfather tried to enlist,’ Aunt Ruth said. I already knew this; Grandfather carried a grudge against the army when he was refused. ‘It wasn’t his fault. His parents wouldn’t have let him go anyway. Why should they let him go to fight a white man’s war? We’d only just finished one against him!’
Grandfather was visiting Grandmother’s village. They took one look at each other, and it was love at first sight.
‘They were struck by the lightning rod of God,’ Aunt Ruth said. ‘If that lightning strikes, you’re the dead duck.’ Poor Aunt Ruth — the Lord hadn’t pronged her and Uncle Albie with his divine sign, that’s for sure. ‘The trouble was, Mother Ramona was already engaged to be married to a soldier who had just joined the Pioneer Battalion in the First World War.’
You guessed it: Rupeni Poata.
‘It was all jacked up between Mother Ramona’s family and Rupeni’s family,’ Aunt Ruth said, ‘but Mum never loved Rupeni. However, her people told her, “Poor Rupeni, he could get killed and have no children”, or “This is a great sacrifice Rupeni is doing, so can’t you make his last days in our village happy?” Despite her love for our father, she agreed to marry Rupeni. Of course Dad was heartbroken. He tried to dissuade her. She said it was too late. She had to honour her family’s wishes and marry Rupeni. Our mother was supposed to be the innocent sacrifice to Rupeni’s lustful desires.’
‘What’s lustful desires?’ Glory asked.
‘Ask your brother,’ Aunt Ruth answered, casting me a murderous glance. Why me?
‘The day of the wedding came,’ Aunt Ruth continued. ‘Our father rode his white horse over to Mum’s village to ask her once more not to go through with the wedding. He arrived just as she was setting off to the church. She was wearing a beautiful long wedding dress, the one she has to this day locked in her memory chest. She was on the verandah with her father and family. Her father was outraged to see our father and got his old rifle. He didn’t want any young buck from another village, especially Waituhi, to soil his goods. But our mother restrained him from shooting our father —’
I’ve mentioned before the two photographs of Grandmother Ramona and Grandfather when they were young. Although badly hand-tinted (Grandfather had been given green eyes and curly brown hair) the coloration cannot disguise my grandmother’s innocent beauty or my grandfather’s handsome pride. As Aunt Ruth was talking I imagined a scene straight out of a silent movie.
Ramona is on the verandah of an old house. Her paramour, Tamihana, stands in the stirrups of his white horse and, tears streaming from his green eyes, cups her chin in his hands and kisses her.
Tamihana E Ramona, kaua koe e haere ki to marena.
(Subtitles: Ramona, I beg of you, do not do this.)
Ramona Aue, e Bulibasha, tenei taku whakamutunga.
(Subtitles: Alas, my love, this is my destiny.)
Tamihana Engari, kahore koe e aroha ana ki a ia.
(Subtitles: But you do not love him.)
Ramona Ae engari, ko hoatu te honore ki toku papa.
(Subtitles: That is true, but I do this for the honour of my father and because it is his wish. And Rupeni has only a week before he must journey to the war.)
Tamihana (closeup, in desperation) Ka pehea atu ki au?
(Subtitles: What about me?)
Ramona (with proud resolution) Ahakoa taku aroha ki a koe, ake, ake, kaore he aroha mo maua. Haere atu.
(Subtitles: Although I will love you for ever and for all eternity our love can never be. Go.)
Tamihana (with an agonising cry) Ramon-aaaaaa –
(Subtitles: Ramon-aaaaaa —)
‘Your grandmother and grandfather had one last sweet kiss,’ Aunt Ruth said. Hupe was dribbling from her nose — she was such a romantic. ‘Then your grandmother pulled the veil over her face. She was never more lovely. “Although another man may own my body,” Ramona said to our father, “you will always possess my heart.” A single tear trickled like a falling star down her left cheek.’
Meanwhile, Rupeni had arrived at the church. He was an ugly, squat young man with a big bulbous nose, huge fleshy lips and legs so short he looked like he was walking on his knees. He was at least three inches shorter than Grandmother. Whoever heard of a hero who was shorter than the heroine?
‘Did you know there was a song named after your grandmother?’ Aunt Ruth asked. ‘Well, a small trio outside the church — a violinist, pianist and bass player — started to play that song:
“Ramona, I hear the mission bells above, Ramona —”
‘The guests were mainly Rupeni’s family and all those he had managed to fool. Huh! He was as heroic as my bum! Everybody knows he didn’t lob that grenade at the Turks, it was somebody else. Just as he was going through the door with his groomsmen he heard the karanga. He turned and saw his bride coming —’