Aue, page 19
‘Do you know where my mother is?’ I felt my voice shake.
‘I knew her.’
‘Knew?’
‘No idea where she is now.’
I didn’t know what to ask next. I sipped my beer and placed the glass slowly down on the bar. I strummed Blue’s guitar.
‘Your dad used to play just like that, with you on his lap. It was unbelievable, you never moved a bloody inch, was like you were hypnotised. A tiny thing like you were, never saw any kid so small stay so still so long. I always thought you seemed a thousand years older than you were.’
I kept strumming, didn’t look up. I didn’t push Blue to keep talking. I decided to sing. Blue and Jason poured themselves drink after drink from a bottle which had stopped finding its way back to the mirrored shelf behind the bar. Blue and Jason left me not wanting to talk alone. That’s what men did, I was learning. They left things alone. The two of them kept drinking, unbothered, as my mum or Nanny or any of my aunties would have been, by the open end of our conversation. I played. All I ever needed to do was play. Pluck and strum and sing. I could almost survive entirely off the energy music gave me.
It got late. I could tell, because the sun had stopped lighting a triangle at the feet of the people who opened the door. My fingers got sore, but I didn’t give a shit about them, they could bleed for all I cared and I’d keep playing.
Jason’s cell rang. ‘Megan,’ he said looking at the display. He slurred some crap into the phone, before passing it to me, ‘Here,’ he said, ‘she wants to talk to you.’
I slid the guitar down between my legs. ‘What?’
‘Taukiri?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s Megan.’
‘I know.’
‘Are you guys all right?’
‘We’re fine.’
‘Okay, sorry. It was just getting late, and I wondered if you wanted dinner. I was also worried. Because, Jason.’
I didn’t say anything.
‘Should I send Elliot? To drive you home.’
‘Sure, send him. Tell him to bring a drum. Blue’s Bar, Cuba Street.’
I hung up and handed the phone back to Jason.
I wanted to tell them a story, so I started.
‘Bones Bay,’ I said, as I plucked the strings of Blue’s guitar, ‘is a place you can only walk to. Koro used to take me and my brother there. It was a good place for him to get pāua as he didn’t have to go deep. My koro only had one leg, lost the other as a kid, about my age. Farm accident. He never told us about it really, whenever we asked he’d make something funny up.
‘Anyway, at Bones Bay he could get his own pāua, easy. My brother and I would explore the rocks. One day we went there, and found a baby whale had beached. It was dead. Stunk something wicked. Seagulls were at it. We begged Koro not to tell anyone, so we could have a secret. I was still barely young enough for secrets to be important. For a long time the whale stayed there. And it did stay our secret – and I just loved my koro for giving us that. I just thought that was amazing, you know. Adults don’t keep secrets for kids anymore. If something is exciting they want the likes.
‘After a long, long time there were just bones, picked clean by the seabirds, and after an even longer time it didn’t stink bad. There was a storm, and we worried the bones would be gone, but they weren’t. The sea had just cleaned them up. And then they dried out and Ari and I would climb into them.’
I thumbed the guitar strings and they sighed heavily at me. ‘I still can’t believe Koro gave us that. No one else would.’
‘But one day he asked us if we could share our secret. And we said yes. And we went with two other men and Mum and Dad and Nanny. They sang waiata and said karakia and one man took the jaw. My bone carving …’ I felt for it, though I knew it wasn’t there – it was in my chocolate box. ‘They took a picture of my father’s tā moko to a carver, and he made us carvings from the design. And Mum asked the carver to add us, Ari and me, together. Ari has one as well. We called ourselves the bone-carving warriors …’
Ari wouldn’t have taken his off. Not once.
‘Bones Bay,’ Jason said.
‘Bones Bay,’ I said. ‘I don’t think that little bay even had a name. No one went there except us. It was only through a road on Koro and Nanny’s land – before they moved to Gore Bay – that you could reach it. We called it Bones Bay. Just us three. Me, Koro and Ari.’
‘And then?’ Jason asked.
‘I swam there. When we crashed. The sea sucked me out a way, then sort of dragged me south. I battled for shore, reached Bones Bay. And I was lucky. Lucky I was found at all. But Koro went there.’
Jason said to Blue, ‘Two shots.’
Blue poured three. ‘To Bones Bay.’
‘To Bones Bay,’ Jason said.
‘Bones Bay,’ I whispered.
Elliot arrived, and let more of the night in as he entered the bar. He had a wooden drum under his arm.
‘Far out, bro. This is a dive.’
‘Hey,’ Blue said, ‘watch your mouth.’
‘Sorry. Megan’s worried. Thought you sounded strange.’
‘Let’s jam on a stage, for a laugh.’
And I didn’t sing Dad’s or Mum’s or whoever’s song it was. I sang something that didn’t remind me of anyone dead. Or just gone.
‘You were holding back, I didn’t know your name. You were gone too long. Nothing, na-uh, nothing, will be the same …’
No one danced. No one clapped. The few people in the bar hung their heads over their glasses and stubbed out cigarettes, which Blue occasionally reminded them shouldn’t be smoked in his bar.
The place emptied. Jason pulled out goodies. A wake-up, because he had important shit to do. Needed to get woke and get woke fast.
We snorted enough to go another set. Jason left. ‘Shit to do,’ he said. ‘Talk about that job soon. You need one, right?’
‘Sure do.’
‘Lucky you found me, bro.’ And he left.
Blue locked the door and went out back for a sleep. He wasn’t into our shit.
‘Boy, Toko Te Au wouldn’t want his son snorting that crap. Do what you want though. Just can’t be part of it. Gonna get some shut-eye.’
Me and Elliot snorted some more.
I strummed and hummed. Slapped and plucked at the strings. Buzzed up, fizzing.
It was when we were ready to go home, because morning had come, that someone started thumping on the door.
I went and opened it, and there was Megan.
She pushed past me.
‘You ungrateful little bastard. You think you are awesome eh? Talk to me like that and just hang up.’
‘Settle down, psycho,’ I said.
‘Oh, good. An insult. I haven’t slept. Worried.’
‘We’ve been here the whole time.’
She walked to the bar and sat down on a bar stool and looked at me, ‘I’m trying to be your friend. You’re too good for all this shit, Tauk. And you got no one to tell you so.’
‘We were just having a jam in a bar. It was fun.’
‘Yeah. Sure.’
‘I’m sorry I was like that on the phone. It wasn’t cool, you’ve done a lot for me. But we’ve been talking. It’s been intense. Blue knew my mum.’
‘Knew?’
‘And my dad.’
‘What else?’
‘And I think I don’t know the truth about what happened to him. And I think I always knew I didn’t know the truth.’
Megan took my hand. ‘I’m sorry for you.’
I wanted so bad to kiss her.
A shining clean Blue came out from the back room. His hair was wet and tied tight back. He was wearing an ironed dark purple collared shirt. He had on a pair of reading glasses, books under his arm.
‘Jesus, go home already,’ he said.
‘Blue, this is Jason’s girlfriend, Megan,’ I said.
‘Right.’
Megan’s face hardened. ‘You know where his mum is or not?’
‘No. I don’t. I’d tell her I was sorry if I did.’
‘For what?’ Megan asked.
‘I was there the night he died. The night they killed him.’
When he said that, when he just let it out, just said it loud, not careful with his words, I felt so busted, so broken, like the moon had been plucked from the sky.
‘Who’s they?’ I asked.
‘There was one, one man who knew your mum. The other two were just a couple of animals. It was senseless. It was horrific. It was just so horrific. I can still picture your mum, fighting, howling … I’m sorry.’
‘My nanny said she was just a drug addict. Loved the gang life. Gave me up for it. Just an addict.’
‘Na, boy. No one is just anything. And on that note, I’m off.’
‘Where then?’ I asked.
‘None of your business, nosey shit.’
But he held the book up anyway.
‘Leadlight design? What the fuck?’ The windows. I looked up at them – the dolphin, the lily, the sunset, the moon, the dragonfly.
‘Ever cut glass, boy? Makes you feel magic. Smashing glass makes you feel like an animal, cutting it makes you feel magic. There was so much glass broken that night, I been making broken glass into beautiful things ever since.’
He walked to the door, opened it and stepped lightly, whistling then, out into the morning.
Jade and Toko
Toko sold his seaside house and convinced his dad to sell him the boat. Jade brought a Moses basket and cotton sheets and the softest baby blankets.
They’d marry and live on the boat. Maybe one day, they’d buy a house. But for now the boat was all they needed. They’d fallen in love and they’d made a system so they could live together without breaking things, without breaking each other.
‘Our baby will love it,’ they said to each other in the little bed in the little cabin of the little boat that they’d named Felicity.
He or she would be rocked to sleep every night as they lay there listening to the sound of the ocean.
In the evenings Jade and Toko cooked fresh fish, crayfish or black pāua meat. Sometimes they mended nets together or rewired the craypots. Sometimes he would need to put on his diving suit and mask and snorkel. The big heavy tank too. And Jade would sit on the deck, watching the water, her hands on her small round belly until he resurfaced.
She wanted to fish too, with a rod, while she waited for him. But she didn’t.
Once he took her to dive for pāua. He gave her a mask, snorkel and flippers and they leapt overboard. Together they dove underwater, and her hair spilled above her like kelp and her belly loosened from her spine. Toko pointed and took her hand. They took a deep breath in through their snorkels and swam down to a rock.
The shellfish hovered, he’d told her. You had to cut them away before they sensed danger. Once they sensed danger they’d suck against the rock and you’d need manpower. Cutting a scared pāua free was depressing, he said. On the rock she saw the shells, and they seemed stuck to it. But she looked at Toko and he nodded so she struck quick and slid the knife under it, felt it try and pull towards the rock but it was too late. She had it. The animal hadn’t sensed the danger and now she had it. Hot in her hand.
They only took the one pāua that day.
Jade had only wanted one, and Toko decided it was best if they only cooked one.
‘Then you know for sure that every mouthful, is what you brought home for us.’
Toko shucked it, and took out the hua to keep for Hēnare.
‘You don’t eat it?’ Jade asked.
‘Nah, I’m not as hearty as the old man,’ he told her.
Jade pounded the meat. She sliced it then simmered it in cream with garlic and onion. It was tender to eat, soft, sweet, because it hadn’t sensed danger.
Their system was always improving, fluid, like a tide. Only one thing was set. Only one thing was sure, only one thing made her feel more like a woman than anything else. When they’d finish dinner she’d say: ‘Now get the hell out of my galley.’
She’d clean it alone. And she loved to, because she knew no one was coming back to party, no one was coming back to drink and smoke and throw food against the walls and piss in the corner.
She sprayed and wiped, happy knowing the next person along to make a little bit of mess would be her.
On warm nights they sat above the wheelhouse, legs stretched out in front of them and dinner plates on their laps.
And Toko would say a karakia mō te kai before they ate, and she loved him for it. She loved him for so many things. He was man. She was woman.
Ranginui. Papatūānuku.
Toko’s sister Aroha was a midwife. She came and checked on Jade. She brought them things they needed and always used her visits to tell them they should come home. She told them they no longer had anything to worry about.
One day Aroha arrived early to pick up the morning’s catch and take it back to her dad, who sold the fish for Toko.
When she got out of the truck Jade saw from the wheelhouse Aroha was carrying a large box in her arms. Jade recognised it. She remembered it being carried into the House years ago by Miss Matt, who was spurred on by her good intentions. She remembered shuffling through it like it was locked-up treasure, Head teaching her to read The Little Mermaid because that was Felicity’s favourite.
‘The police took this from the House. It’s being knocked down. There wasn’t much to keep. But they found this. Your name’s on it. They wondered if you’d like it.’
Jade didn’t thank Aroha. Nor did she smile. She took the heavy box below deck and shut it up in a cupboard that had a lock.
Ārama
We were going camping.
That’s what Beth said when I went to her house, because my house was so quiet and Aunty Kat was nowhere around.
‘Hi, Ari,’ she said when I walked into the lounge. ‘Dad said we’re going camping. Today. He called your aunty too. You’re allowed to come. In fact it’s for the best if you do,’ Beth said, her eyes on the TV.
That was weird. Hadn’t seen Aunty Kat when I got up, hadn’t heard her.
‘Where’s your dad?’
‘Sheds.’
On the TV, Django, Monsieur Candie and Doc were in a room sitting at a big shiny table and there were candles burning and there was a statue of a man with his naked butt out. Monsieur Candie set a skull on the table. He said it was Old Ben’s.
Then he took out a saw, like the one Tom Aiken used to cut down our Christmas tree, only smaller, and he used it to cut the skull, and the sawing sound he made sounded like our tree being cut while we stood on lookout for Tom Aiken’s old mate. And when he had the skull open, he broke off a piece of it and held it up and said he could tell Old Ben was no Isaac Newton or Galileo, whoever they were, because of three dimples in his skull.
Monsieur Candie said something I didn’t catch I was so busy looking at his yucky dark teeth.
‘Unbirded by genius,’ Beth whispered, repeating him, but it didn’t make sense. Her eyes fixed on the TV, not blinking, mouth open.
And I thought of my skull then, like a room with candles burning, and Monsieur Candie was sitting at a table, sawing Old Ben’s skull to bits.
‘I’m gonna go back home then, Beth,’ I said.
‘Yeah, and pack,’ she said. ‘I’m packed.’
Walking home on the gravel road, I felt heavy like I did all the time now. Brain felt heavy in my skull.
I’d thought one day life would just get back to normal. No more Uncle Stu and Monsieur Candie and quiet mornings where I didn’t know where anyone was.
I was starting to get it. It wouldn’t go back. It just kept running forward, like a train with no driver, and people were falling off, and it didn’t care. It had somewhere to get to.
The heaviness really started after I dreamed Taukiri had called to tell me he wasn’t coming back and then I woke up to Aunty Kat looking sorry for me and my All Blacks lunchbox I’d left open on the bench, like I used to for Mum so she could fill it up, was broken on the floor. And Uncle Stu grabbed me and looked me in my eyes and threw me to the floor, and I still couldn’t work out when it was I peed my pants. I’d told myself it was when he threw his boot but it was probably when he was finished with me, and said three words to Aunty Kat. The worst three words I’ve heard. And they flew into me and buried themselves in me and where had they gone now?
Were they still in my body, becoming something terrible?
I wanted to tell Nanny about them but Nanny didn’t answer her phone.
I didn’t really want to go camping, and that was the worst of it all. I didn’t want to.
If Mum and Dad and Taukiri were going with me, I’d have had my bags packed already. I’d be ready for the adventure and the big starry sky around us. But now, even with Uncle Stu sleeping down the hall and the bad dreams – bad dreams that were getting worse, that sometimes had men wearing white masks coming to kill me and Beth or put us in the hotbox, and Monsieur Candie setting his pack of dogs on us – my bed in Aunty Kat’s house was the only place I wanted to be.
But I’d go on the camp. I was brave. People didn’t know that about me anymore, but I was, because I’d pack my bags and I’d go.
That was brave, even if people didn’t see it.
When I got back to the house, I went into the kitchen.
Aunty Kat was stirring something in a bowl and she looked up at me.
She had a black eye.
And I just stared at it, because it gave me such a fright. Not just because it looked so ugly and so sore, but because I hadn’t heard anything last night like I usually did. Not a sound. No yelling, no things getting smashed or broken. There was no food on the floor this morning.
