Coming up the hill to us was Grandmother Ramona. She had brought our stores, her sleeping gear and another slasher.
‘More hands will do the job quicker,’ she said. ‘My bees are all nice and warm inside their hives and don’t need me, and your grandfather is driving me around the bend with his being at home all the time.’
Grandmother Ramona brought kinder weather — a break in the rain. During that respite the earth warmed, the scrub dried out and became easier to cut. Although the work was hard, we established a rhythm which somehow heightened my senses to all that was happening: moments of beauty and humour as we worked together, epiphanies of illumination –
Glory, learning how to cut scrub left-handed because her right hand was swollen. Grandmother losing her footing, and laughing as she slipped and slid on her bum all the way to the bottom of the hill. My mother working ahead of us, never stopping to rest. Most of all, I remember three generations of women bending and chopping through the scrub, the steam curling off their workclothes as they ascended the hills. They wore wide-brimmed hats to stop either sun or rain from getting into their eyes, and layers of clothes to keep in their body warmth. On their legs, knee-high gumboots.
‘We’re your three women,’ Grandmother said to me one day at smoko. ‘Eh girls? We’re all Simeon’s women.’
I have never felt so proud.
Eight days after we had left Waituhi, we were finished. I put a match to the cut scrub. Whoomph and it burst into flame, bonfires of celebration. Then –
‘Me haere tatou ki te wa kainga,’ I said.
Time to go home.
Chapter 38
Mum, Glory, Grandmother and I were glad to come down from the back country and see the smoke from the chimneys of Waituhi. Grandmother, despite her earlier reassurances, was worrying about her bees and decided to detour to her land. Mum, Glory and I continued along the gully which would take us to the homestead.
‘Simeon,’ Mum said, ‘let Dad know we’re on our way home.’
I lifted the rifle to the sky and let out two shots. The sharp reports surprised the air. When we reached the bend, pulling the packhorse after us, there was the Waipaoa River in the distance — and Dad and our sisters were racing across the paddocks to meet us. Our father was waving and yelling like a madman.
‘Huria! Huria!’
We watched, laughing, as he came run-hopping on his crutches through the mud. My mother was still laughing when he pulled her from her horse. He kissed her with so much passion that she blushed –
‘Joshua. The kids —’
After dinner that night, Aunt Miriam told me that Grandfather had been very scornful of Dad whilst we were away, saying things like, ‘So your wife has to go out and work for you, eh Joshua?’ or ‘I suppose Huria wears the pants in the family now?’
The jibes had gone deeper than Grandfather could possibly have anticipated. In his own way, Dad started to rebel. One night he even took my side in one of my verbal skirmishes with Grandfather. This time I was having him on about the vexed question: when does life begin?
‘Life begins when a baby takes its first breath,’ he said.
‘So abortion is all right then?’ I answered.
‘No, all life is sacred.’
‘But you’ve just said that —’
‘I know what I said,’ Grandfather stormed.
Out of nowhere, Dad said, ‘You don’t have to shout, Father. My son was only asking a question.’
Grandfather stared at Dad open-mouthed. So did we.
When Glory and I returned to school, Mr Johnston was gentle in his reprimand.
‘Just don’t make this a habit,’ he said.
Then Miss Dalrymple announced that she planned to take the senior school into Gisborne for a day’s visit to some of the important industries and city departments.
‘Some of you will be leaving school next year,’ she said. She looked at Mita Wharepapa and I, both fifteen. ‘You should know what possibilities await you in the big wide world.’
Ha! What possibilities could await any young Maori departing school at fifteen and without qualifications other than shearing or working on a farm?
The trip was an annual fixture, and the word was that the best tour to go on was to D.J. Barry’s, the local manufacturer of aerated drinks — you got to taste some free samples. If you couldn’t get on that tour, the one to Watties Canneries was second best. Try to avoid the visits to the abattoirs — stink, man — the Gisborne Harbour Authority or Gisborne City Council — bor-ing. At all costs, avoid the visit to the courthouse.
Guess who got picked for that?
‘Simeon,’ Miss Dalrymple said, ‘would you give the speech of thanks, on our behalf, when we leave the courthouse?’
It wasn’t a question either.
The only person who was pleased about the prospect was my mother Huria. When I told her about the speech she got it into her head that I had been singled out by sheer brilliance, and she gave the occasion more importance than it warranted.
‘Simeon needs a pair of long trousers and a blazer,’ she told Dad firmly. ‘He’s not a boy any more.’
It’s true my school pants had seen better days, and I was growing. Dad agreed, but the money for the scrubcutting was slow in coming. There was no way there’d be money for clothes unless Grandfather was approached for an advance.
‘We’ll pay you back soon, Father.’
‘It’s a waste of money,’ Grandfather answered. He was smarting over all the arguments we were having and all the corners I was pushing him into. I had developed the art of asking questions that had no answers or had not one but a number of answers. ‘The boy is getting too whakahihi. All this education is turning his head. You should take him out of school. Put him out to work like Mohi.’
‘Is that your last word, Father?’ Dad asked.
‘Don’t you start,’ Grandfather warned.
So it was that my mother made her first visit that winter to Miss Zelda. She put on her hat and gloves and stood breathing deeply before entering the store.
‘Why, hello Mrs Mahana,’ Miss Zelda greeted her. ‘Scott? Daisy? Mrs Mahana is here!’
Miss Daisy came scurrying from the back room. ‘We haven’t seen you for ages,’ she said. ‘We heard about your husband’s accident. Is he recovering well?’
Mum was swaying back and forth. Sweat beaded her forehead. Her eyes glazed over.
‘How can we help you, Mrs Mahana?’
‘I–I — I — ’
She had a piece of paper in her hands with my shoulder, waist and leg measurements written on it. Scott, noticing the paper, took it from my mother’s hands and asked, ‘Is this what you want, Mrs Mahana?’ His voice was gentle and reassuring. He was a mild man who hid his gentleness behind glasses and a bluff exterior.
‘I–I — ’ Her eyes blinked. ‘Yes. Thank — you —’
Pakeha customers came into the shop and, birdlike, Miss Zelda and Miss Daisy swooped on them.
‘You take care of Mrs Mahana,’ Miss Zelda told Scott.
‘It’s my department, anyway,’ Scott said to Mum, escorting her along to menswear. Together they chose a suitable dark jacket and long trousers.
‘Oh my,’ Miss Zelda said when Mum returned to the front counter. ‘You have such wonderful taste. Will you be paying by cash?’
‘I–I — ’
‘Mrs Mahana would like to charge her account,’ Scott said.
Miss Zelda’s manner changed. ‘Daisy?’ she called. ‘Is Mahana, Joshua, in the red?’
The Pakeha customers stopped to listen in. My mother looked down to the floor. Miss Daisy investigated.