Witi Ihimaera - Bulibasha

‘Be quiet !’ the management boomed.

Flashlights stabbed the darkness, which was great because then we had targets to squirt at or pelt with jelly beans — the management and Saul, Tight Arse and Poppy.

‘Five six seven o’clock, eight o’clock rock !’

‘Any further rowdiness will not be tolerated!’ The flashlights flashed on again.

Squirt squirt and kapow with the jelly beans.

By this time Saul was looking around to see who had thrown the chocolate ice cream at him. Bill Haley sang on.

This time, when the flashlights went on, a very brave girl threw her panties. Everybody whistled and stamped. The management gave up.

At the movie’s end, Andrew pretended he had lost something. He asked every girl who came out of the theatre to bend over and help him find it. A sweet voice said to him, ‘I think I’ve found what you’re looking for.’

He looked up to see Poppy — and got a faceful of ice cream.

The next morning, Christmas Day, we were all five minutes late at the homestead.

Sorry Bulibashabasha sorrysorry orry.

At church, the congregation was subdued. People were recovering from the excesses of the night before. Haromi was as ever the film star, hiding behind dark glasses and a scarf wound around her neck.

‘Don’t even breathe on me,’ she winced as I approached. Her breath smelt of beer and tobacco. Aunt Sarah was muttering and glaring at me as if it was, as usual, all my fault.

Guess who was up for organ duty again. Except that I was so busy thinking about Poppy — that trick with the ice cream had only confirmed my admiration of her — I had no idea of what I was meant to be doing, and when. Dimly, I heard coughing from the congregation. My mother was making flapping motions with her handkerchief. Bulibasha had that look of contempt on his face: daydreaming on the job again.

‘Simeon,’ the pastor hissed. ‘Page twenty-three, Hymn —’

Not ‘Whakaaria Mai’ again . Ah well, let’s have some fun and games.

I brought the organ up to full volume and let it all hang out. The choir were murdering me with their eyes as they sought to sing over the volume.

‘Whakaaria mai —’ (and now, an octave higher, One two three o’clock, four o’clock rock ).

The congregation were holding their heads, and not in ecstasy either.

‘To ripeka ki au —’ (and now, fortissimo, five six seven o’clock, eight o’clock rock ).

By this time Andrew and Haromi were awake to what I was doing. Haromi had forgotten her hangover and was stuffing a handkerchief in her mouth to stop her from laughing too much.

‘Hei konei au —’ (letting it rip with the pedals, nine ten eleven o’clock, twelve o’clock rock ).

‘Ra roto i te po!’ (all together now, everybody join in, We’re gonna rock around the clock tonight!)

With a triumphant flourish, the walls of Jericho came tumbling down.

Take that , Lord.

Naturally, come rain hail sunshine or Christmas, the Poatas were ready to race us over the red bridge. We were way ahead of them and would have won if it hadn’t been for Grandfather’s car getting a puncture. The De Soto slewed off the road and down a bank. We ran down to see if he and Grandmother were all right.

Through the dust the Poatas emerged like ghosts. Then Rupeni Poata’s Buick, driven by Caesar, stopped; the engine purred like a sleeping tiger. The other Poata cars came to a halt also. The dust drifted across the road and cleared sufficiently for me to see Rupeni Poata’s face. Encased behind the closed back window, Rupeni was looking down through the glass at Grandfather’s car. Poppy was next to him and he seemed to be asking her a question. When she saw Grandfather and Grandmother climbing out of the De Soto, she drew Rupeni’s attention to them. He closed his eyes, leaned back and tapped Caesar to drive on.

Rupeni never saw me watching. I thought he had stopped to gloat, and I hated him. Perhaps he had hoped they’d been killed. Maybe he was relieved that they hadn’t been killed so that the vendetta could continue. Who knows? At that moment I realised I had never actually exchanged any words — other than abuse — with a member of the Poata family. I had been brought up in the knowledge that they were in the wrong and we were in the right. My picture of the Poata family as our nemesis was so complete that I didn’t need to know any more about them.

Christmas dinner was an affair of state with family after family presenting their family gift to Grandfather Tamihana. The procession reminded me of the story my mother wept over whenever she heard it on radio — Loretta Young’s tale of the littlest angel. In the story, all the angels in Heaven, aware of the impending birth of the Christ child, give Him fabulous and expensive presents. But the littlest angel is too busy playing and being a ruffian. When the time comes for the presents to be displayed, his present is something like a shanghai, a couple of stones, and eggs that have fallen out of a bird’s nest. The finger of God moves along the presents. It stops at the littlest angel’s. The littlest angel expects to go splat, but instead of getting a reprimand he is surprised to find that it is his gift which is selected for Jesus, being a boyish gift for the boy Christ.

Grandfather Tamihana obviously had never heard that story. His finger paused over our family contribution. He poked into its depths and asked, ‘What’s this?’ When he picked up my gift he thought it was real. He dropped it quickly, as if stung. It was a plastic paperweight with a bumble bee in it. I thought Grandfather would get the joke. Anyway, there had only been two choices in paperweights — either the bumble bee or a tarantula.

‘Get your hair cut, Simeon,’ Grandfather said.

Our family presents to each other waited until we were back in our quarters. My father had bought our mother new gloves and she gave him a shirt. They had bought us all the same gift — watches, so we would get to the homestead on time for Sunday morning prayers.

The turn came for my sisters and I to give our gifts to Mum and Dad and to each other. My mother’s eyes lit up at every gift. Not for her any choosing which was better but, in my opinion, the best was Glory’s: a small wall plaque with bluebirds and butterflies around it which said home sweet home. Glory was always a sucker for sentimentality.

We returned to Williamson station the day after Christmas. Rain prevented fast progress and, by New Year, we hadn’t been able to cut out as planned. The unseasonal rain made the work heavier and heavier.

Just after New Year, Geordie asked me if I would like to come up to Amberleigh. Whenever he’d asked before, I had always answered ‘No’, knowing that this is what my parents would want me to say. This time I accepted. I did not tell Mum or Dad. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

I knocked on the front door. Maria, Geordie’s Maori maid, tapped on the window and motioned with her feather duster that I should use the side entrance.

‘It’s all right, Maria,’ Geordie said, amused. As I followed him, Maria tried to swat me with her duster. In some way I had transgressed her protocol.

‘Who was that at the door, darling?’ a woman’s voice called from the dining room.

‘Simeon, mother.’

His mother was taking tea with a friend. She made a vague gesture of welcome. ‘One of the Maori boys from Mahana Four,’ she explained. ‘You know what Geordie’s like. Picks up strays and orphans.’ Her laughter glittered in the air.

‘Don’t mind her,’ Geordie said.

We went upstairs, past the master’s study, to — the head of a deer with huge branching antlers hung on the wall to Geordie’s bedroom. Geordie’s gifts at Christmas had been expensive and sophisticated. They included a tie from Harrods and some shirts from George’s of London. I stared, and paused over the 3-D hand toy and 3-D discs.