Finding, p.10
Finding, page 10
‘OK?’ my father asked, as soon as he came in. Mum nodded. ‘OK.’ I glimpsed the relief on their faces. Yeah, must be hard for them to have their family split over the tour.
The next day, we drove up to Auckland. Two carloads of us: me, Mum and Dad, Nana Florence and Grandad Matiu, Uncle Tipene and Nana Whina. Auntie Pania hugged Tipene hard before he left. ‘Be sensible! I know what you and Alan are like when you get together.’
Tipene grinned. The scar on his forehead, where he’d bashed it when he and Dad were stuck in the Waimoana, wrinkled like it often does. ‘No rivers at the rugby ground, honey.’
Pania snorted. ‘You two can find trouble whether it’s wet or dry!’ She looked at me. ‘You stay out of trouble, too. Don’t go beating up any Springboks!’
Nana Whina kissed Auntie Pania and the twins. ‘Can’t we go, too?’ Marama asked. ‘Yeah, can’t we?’ echoed Marika.
Nana Whina laughed. ‘Someone has to keep an eye on your Grandad Robert. You two make sure he behaves himself.’ The girls looked pleased.
Great-uncle Robert McDougall wanted to come with us, but someone needed to be at home just in case anything happened. So he’d agreed to stay.
Nana Whina wore the little greenstone bat around her neck. I glanced at Nana Florence and stared. The silver bracelet wasn’t on her wrist. Then I saw its plaited band and thistle clasp glinting on my mother’s. So it was her turn to wear it now. Someday it would be mine. I didn’t want to think about that; it would mean Mum was getting old.
We climbed into the cars, waved goodbye to Auntie Pania and the twins, and headed off down the valley for Auckland and the third rugby test.
Three kilometres along the road, a farm truck was parked in a driveway. A figure stood beside it, watching us come. John.
We slowed down. My brother gazed at us, shook his head, then called out. I heard ‘… careful … safe’. We waved again, drove on again. My parents smiled at each other, and I felt better, too.
We had a good time driving up. Mum and Dad checked out all the farms we passed. ‘Nice-looking heifers,’ I heard. ‘Fencing must have cost a packet … paddocks looking heavy.’ When we drove through a town, Dad looked bored; Mum tried to see into the shop windows. As soon as I can, I’m going to live in a place with lots of people and lots of things happening.
A train rumbled across a bridge on our left. My father murmured: ‘Mum still can’t bear to look at anything like that.’ I knew he was talking about how Great-uncle Angus died. I glanced through our car’s back window, at Matiu’s green car with Nana Florence, Nana Whina and Tipene, but I couldn’t make out their faces.
Nana told me once how a special funeral service was held for Great-uncle Angus on the Waimoana Marae — the ‘pa’, people used to call it — because we’ve always had so many friends there. I want to make them proud of me, I suddenly thought. I’m going to be careful, but I want my own family and my friends’ families to feel I’ve done something good up in Auckland.
Some of our cousins’ cousins’ cousins, or something like that, live a couple of hours’ drive from us. One of them brought his bagpipes across to my great-uncle’s funeral, to play a farewell. As soon as Ahorangi and the other old Maori people saw them, they started chuckling. Their ancestors thought the pipes were a monster shrieking. I don’t blame them!
A few of those Scottish rellies are driving up to the Auckland protest, too. Maybe we’ll see them. I’ve got a cousin — all right, a cousin’s cousin’s etc — about my age. I met him once; he was skinny and pretty boring.
Our Waimoana Marae is quite famous. Like I said, the panel Dad and Tipene found is kept there, and people come to learn carving and weaving and stuff. Tipene is a really good carver. He did this incredible thing with the walking stick that Great-grandad Duncan used, and that’s on the wall of my grandparents’ cottage.
The stick used to be the handle of Duncan’s axe. It helped save him after he hurt himself really badly, and Nana Florence says it saved Dad and Tipene when they got stuck in the flood that time. After he began carving, Tipene ‘borrowed’ the stick, carved it with patterns like the ones from the panel they’d found, and gave it back to our family.
There could be other things in the swamp. After Dad and Tipene found the panel, there was a lot of talk on the marae about whether to search for more. A university group got permission to dig in one part, near the river, where the panel might have come from. They didn’t find anything, and people decided they didn’t want our valley’s special place dug up any more.
We reached the motor camp about three o’clock. We weren’t staying in a tent: Dad had booked us a couple of cabins. I felt quite excited; I’d never slept in a cabin before.
The manager or whoever looked at us when we trooped into the office. ‘You people going on that protest nonsense?’
I saw Tipene frown and my father glare. My face went hot, and I opened my mouth. But it was Mum who spoke first. ‘Protest, yes. Nonsense, no. Looks like you’re nice and full. What a pretty campground.’
My clever mother! No wonder she’s a good teacher. You could tell that the manager didn’t know what to do. He shuffled some papers. ‘There’s a twenty-dollar damage and good behaviour bond for every person.’
‘You didn’t mention that when I phoned.’ Dad’s voice was tight.
‘Yeah, well I’ve got to think about—’
‘Are you charging tour supporters twenty dollars as well?’ Nana Whina spoke quietly.
The guy’s face went red. ‘That’s my business.’
‘It’s our business.’ Nana Whina still didn’t raise her voice. ‘Are you telling me that one group of New Zealanders don’t have the rights of another group?’
Now Nana Florence cut in. This was starting to sound like a school debate. ‘As my daughter-in-law says, you’ve got a nice place here. We’ll respect it. We’re going on the march because we believe people deserve respect. I’m sure you feel the same way.’
The guy tossed two keys on the counter. ‘Don’t use all the hot water in the shower blocks, eh? There’s other people to think of.’
Mum gave him a dazzling smile. ‘That’s exactly why we’re marching: to think of other people. Thank you so much.’
Dad and Tipene looked as if they wanted to say something else, but Nana Florence and my mother eased us outside. ‘What a lovely man!’ Mum grinned, when we were on our way back to the cars.
‘Huh,’ grunted Tipene. ‘I’d like to—’
‘“Lovely?”’ muttered Dad at the same time. ‘I wanted to—’ He and Tipene stopped, stared at each other, began to laugh.
A voice called ‘Hello! You’re here! Kia ora — welcome!’
It was Finola, Tipene’s elder sister. She lives in Auckland and teaches at the university. ‘Big sis got all the brains and I got all the good looks,’ Tipene smirked when she was down visiting one time. Finola laughed. ‘You’re half-right. I won’t say which half …’
Finola’s writing a book, too. Hers is about Maori women: the things they’ve done; the ways they’re the guardians of songs and stories. She comes to Waimoana to do research a lot; reckons she’s going to steal Grandad Robert’s best stories and put them in her book.
She told me one time about some of the women from Waimoana Marae. Areta, who came to the valley with her people when a war drove them off their lands, and who tried to heal Great-great-nana Aggie’s blindness. Her daughter Hahona, who became Aggie’s best friend. Hahona’s young sister, Ngaio, who married one of our family and taught kids at our very first school how to speak Maori.
Finola met my Great-great-aunt Jess (yeah, so many ‘greats’) when Jess was old. She lived in Auckland, too, and was really famous for campaigning about women’s rights and stuff like that. ‘It’s not just now that girls can do anything, Ailsa,’ Finola told me once. ‘Girls and women have always been able to do anything.’
Finola had rung Tipene a few days back to say she was coming on the march. ‘Not in the Patu Squad. I’ll go on the main march with you lot. You’ll get lost otherwise.’
The Patu Squad is mainly young protestors. (‘Patu’ is a type of club used by Maori warriors in the old times.) They’ve marched and demonstrated at a lot of games. Most of them wear motorbike helmets, and pad their jackets with cardboard and things like that, because they try to break into the rugby grounds, and sometimes they’ve ended up in fights with police or tour supporters. I said once at home how it must be exciting to do something like that, how I’d like to— Dad stuck his finger almost in my face and went ‘You are not joining any Patu Squad!’
In Wellington, a whole crowd of protestors tried to march into the grounds of Parliament Buildings. The police stopped them. There was shoving and punching, and the TV showed women crying, a man staggering with a big gash on his forehead, people lying crumpled on the ground. Mum feels sorry for the police; they’re just trying to do their jobs. I suppose so, but if anyone tries to shove me . . .
We unloaded our stuff into the cabins. I grabbed the top bunk. (Actually, Mum and Dad told me they were grabbing the bottom bunks.) We piled into our car and Finola’s car, and she took us all to a fish-and-chip shop a couple of kilometres away. It was crowded, too. A bunch of guys about John’s age watched us come in. They looked like rugby supporters (don’t ask me why I thought that), and you could tell they were wondering if we were anti-tour weirdoes. But Mum and Nana Florence started yakking to them, and one of them turned out to have an uncle just a couple of valleys away from Waimoana. We all said ‘See you’ and ‘Good luck’ to one another when we left, though I didn’t feel sure what their idea of good luck might be.
I climbed up into my bunk pretty early that night. Funny how sitting in a car seat for half a day makes you feel tired.
I heard Finola saying how there was barbed wire all around Eden Park, where the third test was going to be played, and rows of those huge steel rubbish skips were being lined up along some roads near the ground to stop anyone breaking through. Sounds like a war zone, I thought as I slid off to sleep. In some ways our little country was exactly that, as long as the tour lasted.
I felt churned-up at breakfast next morning. We’d brought eggs and stuff from the farm. (Real country people, eh?) ‘Big breakfast for a big day, love,’ Mum went as she and Nana Florence and Nana Whina cooked, and all eight of us somehow squeezed in around the table. But her face looked serious, and only a few people grinned.
‘All right, everyone,’ Grandad Matiu went when we’d finished eating. ‘We oldies have been talking about what we’re going to do. Everyone ready to hear their orders?’
We were going to leave the campground about ten o’clock. The game didn’t start until three, but Finola said the marchers would be forming up in their squads earlier. She’d meet us at a street a couple of kilometres away. ‘Best to park your cars where they’re safe,’ she told the others. I knew what she meant: after the game against Waikato was stopped by those protestors getting onto the field, some angry rugby fans smashed up cars that had STOP THE TOUR stickers.
We were going to march with the groups that didn’t intend to try and climb over fences or skips or anything. ‘We’ll only make the tour supporters angrier,’ Tipene said, and heads nodded. ‘Anyway,’ grinned Grandad Matiu, ‘it’s all I can do to climb over the stile at home these days.’ We’d do whatever the police told us to; stay polite. If any pro-tour people started an argument with us, we’d tell them how we all loved rugby (true!), but we wanted to show how we felt apartheid was wrong.
‘And I’ll tell them to be kind to an old bloke,’ went Mum. ‘Your father, I mean, Ailsa.’ Dad tried to look insulted.
We didn’t have any motorbike helmets, but we all wore thick jackets. ‘Even demonstrators can catch a cold,’ Nana Florence said.
Mum was undoing the gleaming silver bracelet from around her wrist. ‘Don’t want to lose this. Besides, if anyone grabs me, it could give a nasty cut.’ She looked across at me. ‘Here, Ailsa, love. You keep it in your pocket for me.’
Another hand reached out. Nana Whina held her glowing little pounamu bat. ‘Take this too, dear. They’ll both look after you. They’ll give you strength.’
I mumbled ‘Thanks’, or something stupid. I carefully folded up the bracelet and necklace, and pushed them deep into a front pocket of my jeans. I felt … special. Yeah, I thought again; I’m going to make them proud of me.
Nana Florence stood. ‘Right, I’m going to make a nice big thermos of tea to take with us.’ I couldn’t help grinning. Going on a protest march past cops, barbed wire, and edgy rugby fans with a nice thermos of tea. How hilarious.
Groups of people were moving out of the campground. A couple of women about the same age as my nanas were carrying signs: HALT ALL RACIST TOURS and FREEDOM FOR BLACK PEOPLE. Three young guys in what looked like rugby scarves started laughing. ‘Reckon you’ll do any good, grandma?’ one called out to the women.
‘More than you are,’ I heard myself go. ‘Why don’t you stick up for black people?’ The rugby guys said nothing; walked on. Mum shook her head at me.
The campground manager stood on the porch of his office, arms folded, staring at us as we drove off. Nana Florence and I waved to him; he didn’t wave back.
We found the side street Finola had mentioned. It was full of wooden houses with corrugated-iron roofs, just like our place back home, except the lawns were so small, not even a calf could have found enough to eat. Wonder if I’ll ever live in a place like this? I thought.
Finola was waiting for us. So were a man and a teenage boy. Mum exclaimed as we got out of our car; hugged the man and then the boy, who gave an embarrassed grin. He’d been staring at me until I stared at him; then we both looked away.
‘You remember Uncle Mac, Ailsa?’ Mum said to me. ‘And Robbie.’ Of course: my skinny, boring sort-of-cousin. Except he was taller and stronger-looking now.
We locked the cars, and Dad patted the bonnet of ours. ‘See you later,’ he told it. We zipped up our jackets, Tipene took the bag with our thermos of tea (shame!), and we started off, following Finola.
People streamed along the footpath. Some carried signs: protest supporters. Some carried rugs and cushions: tour supporters. The different groups looked hard at one another as they walked. There was a bit of muttering, but nothing more. Uncle Mac walked ahead, with Dad and Tipene. Not-so-skinny Robbie was behind me, while Nana Florence asked him all about what was happening to every rellie in his part of the world, poor guy. His voice sounded deeper than last time.
We turned down another street. The crowd grew thicker as we walked. I glimpsed a line of blue along one footpath. Police, in helmets and plastic face-visors, standing with hands behind backs, watching everyone who passed. From their belts hung batons nearly as long as my arm. I’d heard about those from the TV news; they were for jabbing people in the ribs if they didn’t move, whacking their hands and heads if a fight started. I decided I’d stay very polite, like Grandad Matiu had told me. There were about twelve police, plus some clowns and a bumble-bee.
Bumble-bee? I gaped. A girl, about eighteen or nineteen, wearing a striped black-and-yellow costume. She stood at one end of the police line, hands behind her back, too, a serious expression on her face, just like the police. She saw me staring, and winked.
The policeman next to her glanced down, made like he’d just noticed her, snapped to attention, and threw her a salute. The bumble-bee girl put two black-and-yellow arms around his waist and snuggled up. The crowd laughed; some clapped. I felt myself relax.
‘Good, eh?’ The throng of people had brought us to a stop, and Robbie was beside me. Suddenly I felt pleased I’d worn my new jeans. I mumbled something.
‘The main march is gonna come past here,’ Finola announced. ‘How about we wait and join it then?’ We leaned against a brick front wall, while others poured by. A couple of hundred metres away, at the end of the road, square shapes gleamed in the low winter sun. The steel rubbish skips, as big as garden sheds. Barbed wire lay coiled in front of them. Police and guys in white coats were checking tickets before they let anyone through.
‘See that?’ Robbie pointed at the next wall along. A garden gnome sat on it. No, a concrete frog, holding a sign. We eased through the crowd to read it: DON’T SIT ON THE FENCE. STOP THE TOUR.
We both laughed. ‘You been on any other marches?’ my something-cousin asked.
‘No, just this one. You?’
‘Went on one through town a couple of weeks back. Only about twenty of us. There was this woman on the footpath watching us — looked a bit like my mum. She called out “Stupid fools! You deserve a good kick!” So Dad went: “You mean like black people get in South Africa?”’
I laughed again. Then I realised Robbie had gone silent. A bunch of young guys with STAND UP FOR RUGBY badges on their jackets had stopped nearby. They’d been watching us as we’d laughed at the frog and its sign. Now one of them said something to his mates, and they started towards us. My stomach lurched. I felt my fists clench. Mum and Dad and the others were about twenty metres away. They hadn’t noticed.
Robbie spoke loudly. ‘The All Black forwards are better than theirs, eh? But we’ll have to watch those Springbok backs.’
What was he—? Then I understood, and replied ‘Yeah. We gotta keep the game tight, eh?’ The rugby guys walked off. Robbie and I both went ‘Whew!’ and laughed — quietly.
‘Better not lose the others,’ I said, and we moved back towards where the rest of our group stood. Grandad Matiu smiled at us. ‘Thought you’d gone sightseeing.’
Time passed. More rugby fans filtered through the line of white coats up ahead. Couldn’t be long until the game started now. I wouldn’t mind a cup of Nana Florence’s tea. I yawned. A small plane droned overhead, began a slow circle. TV or something? Yeah, just as well I’d worn my good jeans.
