There was a clatter of laughter from the crowd. One of the Gregson shearers, when turning his sheep, had knocked one of the fleecos off the stand! What a hardcase.
‘Never mind about what’s happening over there,’ Uncle Hone said. ‘Let’s get on with our own job.’
‘We’ve got to increase the pace!’ Uncle Matiu said again.
‘Don’t panic,’ Uncle Hone answered. ‘Did I ever tell you about the tortoise and the hare?’
‘Change judges.’
The shearers on Stage 1 and Stage 3 were settling into their sixth, seventh and eighth sheep, and into their rhythm. Caesar Poata was fluid as oil, shearing like a dream. Uh-oh, his brother Alexander was stopping and changing his blades — they were making too many cuts, the blood spurting from the whiteness of the shorn sheep.
‘Tar!’
Our own Mahana shearers were steady and, in their steadiness, commanded respect. I felt so proud of my dad, holding the handpiece as if he had been born with it. Stroke after stroke, surely and calmly, the sheep’s fleece peeled magically away. And here was Haromi again, pulling the fleece away from Dad’s sheep. Gathering it in her arms. The suspense was awful.
‘You must be in love,’ Aunt Ruth said as yet another perfect fleece was cast.
‘Well, someone is,’ Aunt Kate interrupted. She nodded to where Miriam was waiting for Pani to finish shearing his ninth sheep. They had eyes only for each other and didn’t give a tuppenny piece whether we won or lost. Meantime, peering at the dags and getting every piece of wool that she could from her collection was Glory. The camera team shone a bright light in her direction –
‘Go away,’ she said.
The cameraman poked his camera right into her face, so she got a dag and threw it at him. The stadium ricocheted with laughter.
‘I’m doing my job,’ Glory said, ‘and it has to be the best job I’ve ever done.’
‘You tell him, Glory!’
I realised that one of the reasons why the crowd always yelled out to us was because we talked all the time we were working. Not just about shearing either, but about love, life and the whole damn universe. The trouble was that we forgot the audience was there and let out the most awful secrets.
‘Change judges!’
‘Sheepo!’ Aunt Sephora was calling. Like a hare, Peewee tore away. He jumped into the sacking to press down the neck pieces and side pieces. Mackie was helping David and Benjamin pack the fleeces into the press.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Aunt Sephora called. She went toward our pressmen. The judge followed her. ‘This fleece is all right,’ she said to Benjamin, ‘but all right is still not good enough. Leave it aside for the second-class bales.’
‘Good on you, Sephora!’ someone called, approvingly.
The judge paused to take in Aunt’s decision and scribbled something in his book.
‘Change judges!’
The competition was coming to the home straight. Goodness, we’d only just started! The Gregsons were ahead with only two sheep to go, and the Poatas were in second place with three sheep to go. We were trailing with five sheep apiece.
‘Steady does it,’ Uncle Hone kept reminding us. ‘The only competition that’s worth anything is with ourselves. As long as we better ourselves, I’ll be happy.’
Sweat was pouring down the shearers. The heat from the arc lights was stifling. Dark patches were appearing at Aunt Kate’s armpits.
‘Oh what the heck!’ Aunt Kate said. She opened up her overalls and flapped air in. How everybody laughed at that!
The Gregson and Poata shearers were quickening their pace. They were looking across from their stages and going blow for blow down one side of the sheep and then down the other. They didn’t bother to check us because we were so far behind. When shearers raced, something thrilling happened. The racing was like watching gunfighters — like Glenn Ford in The Fastest Gun Alive or Gary Cooper in High Noon. The race was a chance to say: ‘Okay, folks, this is how the top guns do it. Watch how we draw.’
Now the audience was clapping as the last of the Gregson shearers finished his sheep. They clapped again as the Poatas finished. Our shearers droned on.
‘Easy does it,’ Uncle Hone said.
The Gregsons and the Poatas finished classing their wool. Their pressmen had a mighty race — clank, clank, clank went the presses — and were in the last stages of baling their wool when our shearers came to an end. Then the Gregson head shearer raised his hand to indicate that they were finished. Applause came down from the stadium. Caesar Poata soon followed. His pressmen finished sewing their last bale. Up came Caesar Poata’s hand. More applause. Only a matter of minutes separated the Gregsons and the Poatas.
Uncle Matiu, meantime, was trembling in sheer frustration. He wanted Uncle Hone to cut corners. Uncle Hone always insisted that Mahana Four was never finished until we left the board the way we found it. So even though David and Benjamin had finished the baling, we still worked on, Aunt Sephora and the women cleaning up around them, and me and Peewee and Mackie unhooking the sacks and tidying up the work areas. We were four minutes behind the Gregsons and six minutes behind the Poatas. The stadium was absolutely silent. The moon was wan. We worked on.
Glory was the last to finish her job. Amused, Uncle Hone waited until she had nodded her head. Then he raised his hand too. In the gathering tumult, Glory did a little curtsy.
We didn’t hear or care. We had eyes only for each other.
‘We did our best,’ Uncle Hone said to us.
‘Did we what!’ Aunt Ruth answered proudly. ‘I’m changing gangs and coming over to Mahana Four. You fellas are the best.’
We were all sweating and crying like mad and couldn’t tell what was sweat and what was tears. Then we just held each other so tightly so that no cold wind could come between us. Ever. It was over.
After all that, the judges’ decision was a formality. The three teams were asked to wait on the stages. The stadium became hushed. The judges took ages. Then, just as the suspense threatened to kill all of us, the presiding judge took the microphone in front of the main stand. I cast a look at Grandfather Tamihana, sitting with Grandmother Ramona. Zebediah Whatu and Ihaka Mahana looked as if they accepted our fate; Grandfather looked as sick as a dog.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the judge began, ‘boys and girls, we have just witnessed a moment of history.’ People began to clap. ‘Ever since the beginning of our country, at least the beginning of Pakeha history, we have been a land which has been associated with agriculture. In particular, we are known as a country of two million people and six million sheep.’ Laughter rippled the crowd. ‘Thus it is fitting, ladies and gentlemen, that we should have a championship devoted to the art of shearing, for it is upon this art that we depend for our wealth, our overseas income and our economic wellbeing. On your behalf, I applaud all those in the shearing industry.’
The judge began to clap. He was joined by the thousands in the stadium.
Chapter 51
‘We’ve been away too long,’ Aunt Ruth said as the train steamed through the mountains, and the plains of Gisborne spread out to claim us. Twelve days, but it had seemed like a lifetime.