Witi Ihimaera - Bulibasha

‘Huria! Huria!’

We watched, laughing, as he came run-hopping on his crutches through the mud. My mother was still laughing when he pulled her from her horse. He kissed her with so much passion that she blushed –

‘ Joshua . The kids —’

After dinner that night, Aunt Miriam told me that Grandfather had been very scornful of Dad whilst we were away, saying things like, ‘So your wife has to go out and work for you, eh Joshua?’ or ‘I suppose Huria wears the pants in the family now?’

The jibes had gone deeper than Grandfather could possibly have anticipated. In his own way, Dad started to rebel. One night he even took my side in one of my verbal skirmishes with Grandfather. This time I was having him on about the vexed question: when does life begin?

‘Life begins when a baby takes its first breath,’ he said.

‘So abortion is all right then?’ I answered.

‘No, all life is sacred.’

‘But you’ve just said that —’

‘I know what I said,’ Grandfather stormed.

Out of nowhere, Dad said, ‘You don’t have to shout, Father. My son was only asking a question.’

Grandfather stared at Dad open-mouthed. So did we.

When Glory and I returned to school, Mr Johnston was gentle in his reprimand.

‘Just don’t make this a habit,’ he said.

Then Miss Dalrymple announced that she planned to take the senior school into Gisborne for a day’s visit to some of the important industries and city departments.

‘Some of you will be leaving school next year,’ she said. She looked at Mita Wharepapa and I, both fifteen. ‘You should know what possibilities await you in the big wide world.’

Ha! What possibilities could await any young Maori departing school at fifteen and without qualifications other than shearing or working on a farm?

The trip was an annual fixture, and the word was that the best tour to go on was to D.J. Barry’s, the local manufacturer of aerated drinks — you got to taste some free samples. If you couldn’t get on that tour, the one to Watties Canneries was second best. Try to avoid the visits to the abattoirs — stink, man — the Gisborne Harbour Authority or Gisborne City Council — bor- ing . At all costs, avoid the visit to the courthouse.

Guess who got picked for that?

‘Simeon,’ Miss Dalrymple said, ‘would you give the speech of thanks, on our behalf, when we leave the courthouse?’

It wasn’t a question either.

The only person who was pleased about the prospect was my mother Huria. When I told her about the speech she got it into her head that I had been singled out by sheer brilliance, and she gave the occasion more importance than it warranted.

‘Simeon needs a pair of long trousers and a blazer,’ she told Dad firmly. ‘He’s not a boy any more.’

It’s true my school pants had seen better days, and I was growing. Dad agreed, but the money for the scrubcutting was slow in coming. There was no way there’d be money for clothes unless Grandfather was approached for an advance.

‘We’ll pay you back soon, Father.’

‘It’s a waste of money,’ Grandfather answered. He was smarting over all the arguments we were having and all the corners I was pushing him into. I had developed the art of asking questions that had no answers or had not one but a number of answers. ‘The boy is getting too whakahihi. All this education is turning his head. You should take him out of school. Put him out to work like Mohi.’

‘Is that your last word, Father?’ Dad asked.

‘Don’t you start,’ Grandfather warned.

So it was that my mother made her first visit that winter to Miss Zelda. She put on her hat and gloves and stood breathing deeply before entering the store.

‘Why, hello Mrs Mahana,’ Miss Zelda greeted her. ‘Scott? Daisy? Mrs Mahana is here!’

Miss Daisy came scurrying from the back room. ‘We haven’t seen you for ages,’ she said. ‘We heard about your husband’s accident. Is he recovering well?’

Mum was swaying back and forth. Sweat beaded her forehead. Her eyes glazed over.

‘How can we help you, Mrs Mahana?’

‘I–I — I — ’

She had a piece of paper in her hands with my shoulder, waist and leg measurements written on it. Scott, noticing the paper, took it from my mother’s hands and asked, ‘Is this what you want, Mrs Mahana?’ His voice was gentle and reassuring. He was a mild man who hid his gentleness behind glasses and a bluff exterior.

‘I–I — ’ Her eyes blinked. ‘Yes. Thank — you —’

Pakeha customers came into the shop and, birdlike, Miss Zelda and Miss Daisy swooped on them.

‘You take care of Mrs Mahana,’ Miss Zelda told Scott.

‘It’s my department, anyway,’ Scott said to Mum, escorting her along to menswear. Together they chose a suitable dark jacket and long trousers.

‘Oh my,’ Miss Zelda said when Mum returned to the front counter. ‘You have such wonderful taste. Will you be paying by cash?’

‘I–I — ’

‘Mrs Mahana would like to charge her account,’ Scott said.

Miss Zelda’s manner changed. ‘Daisy?’ she called. ‘Is Mahana, Joshua, in the red?’

The Pakeha customers stopped to listen in. My mother looked down to the floor. Miss Daisy investigated.

‘No, sister.’

‘That will be all right then,’ Miss Zelda smiled. ‘It’s only when our customers are in the red, Mrs Mahana, that we cannot advance credit. You understand.’

She was firm and businesslike. She took the ledger book and entered, ‘One blazer, £21; one trousers, £6, comes to £27 exactly —’ She wet the end of a pencil and began to inscribe the amounts.

Scott coughed. ‘No, sister,’ he said, ‘the blazer is £15.’

Miss Zelda glared at him. ‘It says clearly in the stock book that —’

‘It’s my department, sister,’ Scott reminded her. ‘We have overcharged Mrs Mahana by £6.’

Miss Zelda rubbed out her pencilled amounts and changed them.

‘I wish you would run your department more efficiently, Scott. What will our customers think, eh, Mrs Mahana?’

From the moment I boarded the school bus at Patutahi for our day out in Gisborne, Haromi and Andrew kidded me mercilessly about my new mocker — not that they had any reason to worry about my eclipsing their style. They had scored the visit to D.J. Barry’s.

‘Why tempt Fate?’ Andrew was intent on rubbing salt into the wound as I fumed about having to go to the courthouse.

‘And I’m the only Maori with the group going there,’ I groaned.

Andrew shrugged his shoulders. ‘Shit happens,’ he said.

Miss Dalrymple was a stickler for being on time. We dropped the other classes off on the way to the courthouse — the bus was getting whiter and whiter — and at five to ten we were pulling up outside.

‘Should you be addressed by the judge, you must refer to him as “Your Honour”,’ Miss Dalrymple said. ‘This is the title by which he is known. Everyone else may be addressed as either “Sir” or “Madam”. Our guide while we are at the courthouse is Clerk Simpson and he may be addressed as “Sir”.’ On she went — blah blah blah yackety yack. Slowly I was aware that she was looking directly at me –

‘ No Maori is to be spoken .’

Jeez, can’t a guy even breathe?

‘I am very pleased to welcome you,’ Clerk Simpson said as we assembled outside the bus. ‘Court is in session right now, but there is so much else to see. I think we shall start in the chambers, shall we?’

We followed him dutifully around the side of the building. Just then two policemen came out with a young man handcuffed between them. He was about nineteen, and Maori. Our eyes connected. I knew him immediately. He’d been Haromi’s date on Christmas Eve.