"Spooked, I'd believe."
He wasn't quite joking, nor was he truly serious. There was a strained gaiety in his voice.
"Scared of ghosts and things in dreams… if I was proper Maori I'd…."
Into the following silence,
"You'd what?"
"Hah, I don't know." He laughed quietly. "Maybe take him to people who'd know what to do, to keep off ghosts in dreams." Laughing again, a dry unfunny sound like a cough, "See? Bloody superstitious Nga Bush? Get the Maori a bad name, eh?"
Kerewin, carefully looking into the cup,
"When I worked at Motueka in the tobacco a few years ago, I knew two girls who were really spooked. One was Pakeha, the other, city Maori. They heard things breathing on them at night, and there was no-one there. Damp patches appeared on the ceiling and the floor of their bach, and no-one spilt anything. And books and jugs would fall over when there was no wind, and no-one to touch them, eh. And then the footsteps started, and they couldn't sleep any more… the whole thing was quite stupid, but it had gathered a menacing quality from somewhere. Or something."
Joe was staring, unmoving.
"So the Maori wrote to her mother, who went into a trance, and found out an aunt of the girl didn't like her going round with another woman. She had spooked them. Makutu, nei? The mother said to go to a Catholic priest and get some holy water, and bless themselves and the bach. She was one of the people who know what to do."
"It worked?" There was tension tight in his voice.
"It worked. No more odd things happening. No more scared girls." She brought over the mugs of coffee. "Probably one pissed-off aunt though," she said, sitting down.
Joe grinned.
"Ah hell, I should've kept inside the faith. Might have helped me after all." He said it lightly. Then, slowly, "You speak Maori, and know a bit about, about things. Are you Maori by any chance?"
Kerewin, blue-eyed, brown-haired, and mushroom pale, looked back at him. "If I was in America, I'd be an octoroon." Paused. "It's
very strange, but whereas by blood, flesh and inheritance, I am but an eighth Maori, by heart, spirit, and inclination, I feel all Maori. Or," she looked down into the drink, "I used to. Now it feels like the best part of me has got lost in the way I live."
Joe was very still; so softly, that it was almost on a level with his breathing,
"That's the way I feel most of the time." More loudly, "My father's father was English so I'm not yer 100 % pure. But I'm Maori. And that's the way I feel too, the way you said, that the Maoritanga has got lost in the way I live."
He shook his head and sighed.
"God, that's funny. I never said that to anyone before, not to Piri or Marama or Wherahiko, or Ben. Not even to my wife."
"She was Maori too?"
"Tuhoe."
"Yeah."
He drank the rest of his cocoa at one swallow.
"Ho well." He slides his hands under Simon and gently lifts him, and stands in a graceful exact movement straight to his feet. The child doesn't stir.
"Kerewin…."
"Yes?"
"I don't know how to say thank you except this way." He says very formally, "Ka whakapai au kia koe mo tauatawhai."
Kerewin smiles. "Ka pai, e hoa."
Joe gives her a brilliant smile back. "We see you again?"
She considers, for all of a second,
"I'll give you a ring, eh?"
"Yes. Well," moving to the doorway, "anything you want or need, and think I can help, just give me a yell. You got friends," he smiles to her again, "one crazy kid and a mixed-up Maori. Should take you far-"
"How about this non-painting painter who's not sure whether she's
coming or going? You'll get a long way with me, too-" She's aware
that this is the first time she's said "Pax, friends," to anyone for a decade.
"Do you need a hand to carry that bag?"
He shakes his head. "Would you give us the parka out of it though? I'll bet it's still drizzling outside."
"It is."
Holding the sleeping boy with one arm, Joe adjusts the parka over his own head with the other, so the jacket forms a tent-like covering, sheltering the child as well as himself.
"You'll be OK on the bike?"
"We're used to it. I'll just park him in front and he'll probably go back to sleep before we're out of your road."
Kerewin chuckles.
"I'll believe it, unlikely and all as it sounds.'
Rich night. A promise of times to come… maybe. She sat a long time by the fire after the echo of the bike's engine had died. No sound now but winds and trees and the omnipresent sea.
Going! Going! The clock's just gone eleven.
She stretched and groaned and yawned herself awake.
"Gorecrows, gorecrows," moaning it for no good reason except it fitted the sound she wanted to make and her bloody turn of mind.
It was raining. Heavy grey clouds rimmed the horizon of the livingroom circle. A small patch of blue sky scarred with white said the day was trying to come fine.
There was a template of a drawing in her mind, spidery and shadowed, a remnant of dreams. She doodled with a fine-tip on a block of heavily textured paper, making tangles of lines, but the spider shadow was still obscure. She felt it to be worth digging out.
"You are there!" digging the tip hard into the paper, grooving it and spoiling the woven abstract patterns. "Ah to hell, come out."
Ripping the page off the block and hurling it against the wall didn't achieve anything. Hitting her closed fist on the table didn't do much either. She jammed her hands into jean pockets, breathing hard.
"Get your fishing gear, Holmes."
Funny how words echoed now, where before they sounded right, her voice for her ears.
"Calm down, o soul. Be reasonable, a serene and rational being."
Her heart belies the words, therdunk, therdunk, beating harder and harder.
I am exceedingly angry for no good reason.
"Ah shit and apricots, why'd it have to be this way?" calling loudly, anguish in her voice. "I have everything I need, but I have lost the main part."
"Damn. Damned. Damned." Thumping the handrail so it quivers, all the way downstairs. At the bottom, the flukes are shaking.
She soothes them with a finger, and then leans her head upon them.
"If the weather stays fine, I'll take a trip out past the heads. Set a pot or two, and then be with dolphins for hours. I'll use the berloody boat for a change instead of having it barnacle up at the mooring."
She pulls the door open: the blue piece of sky is shrinking. The
lowering bulbous rim has edged forward.
"Ahh, bugger it all," but she has lost her anger. She's filled with a soft woolly despair. "It'd figure," resigned, "go upstairs and sit in your big chair and twirl merrily round. Contemplate your easels. Pretend you're an artist again. Pah!" spitting.
The spit landed on a dandelion.
It was an even bet it would have. For, regardless of winter frosts, dandelions grow here all year round. They know where they're welcome. She cultivates them, doping the ground with things dandelions like, and helpfully spreading seed by blowing the clocks.
Wine. Ersatz coffee. Salad greens. A diuretic, if I need such a thing. Pickles from the roots. Dry the leaves for a green stock for soup. And tea can be made from the leaves as well… not to mention the superb aureoles glowing, a feast for the most miserly eyes. What more could you ask from a simple plant?
She apologises to the spat flower, and turns to go inside.
When round the edge of the wall, something. Steps light and limping on the grass.
"God in hell, it can't be."
God in hell, it is.
There stands the guttersnipe on top of her flowers, a grin wide and welcoming on his face.
"Haunted," she says to him, without a hello. "Trailed by ghosts."