Witi Ihimaera - Pounamu Pounamu

‘Come off it, Millie,’ Jack Simmons yells. ‘You know your kids as well as I do. You know they’re a menace.’

‘Don’t you start telling me about my own kids!’ Millie returns. ‘Okay, so they’re not perfect, but your own kids aren’t perfect either. You go and ask that perfect son of yours what he was up to yesterday! You don’t know do you? And I’ll tell you why: it’s because we Heremaias don’t go broadcasting it around to every Tom, Dick and Harry like you do!’

‘Now you hold on a minute, Millie.’

‘It’s the truth, isn’t it? I know you, Jack Simmons! You’re always talking about us behind our backs. Don’t think I don’t know. Your Maori neighbours, that’s us, eh? Always pinching something; always lying. Well you listen to me and you better listen good. The Simmons family aren’t the only ones who go off on a Sunday. Your Maori neighbours, they sometimes go out too. Yes, that’s right, Mister. You get the message? Is it coming over loud and clear? Your Maori neighbours have been picking maize today. They only got back a little before you did. How do you like that, Mister Right? What do you think of that, eh?’

Millie Heremaia stands there, like a giant tree. Then she looks Jack straight in the eye and says the words:

‘Why don’t you go back to where you came from, Jack Simmons? You don’t belong here, none of you. We never wanted you here in the first place.’

She puts her arms around Henare. Slowly, she guides him into the house. The door swings silently behind her.

Dinner that night is a strained affair at the Simmons house. The children are sent to bed early. Sally Simmons clears away the dishes and begins to wash them. Jack Simmons picks up the tea towel and begins drying them. After a while, he sighs.

‘So I was wrong.’

‘Yes, Jack. You shouldn’t have done it.’

‘But I haven’t been wrong many times, have I Sally? You know those kids!’

‘It doesn’t matter about the other times, Jack. It matters about this time. And this time, you were wrong.’

‘I couldn’t help what I did, Sally. I got so angry, I just couldn’t help it.’

Silence falls between them.

‘Anyway,’ Jack Simmons continues, ‘Millie can’t keep tabs on her children all the time. One of them could easily have sneaked out after they’d gotten home.’

‘Oh, Jack,’ Sally sighs.

‘Well, blast it! Those kids were the obvious choice. You know what they’re like: always up to something.’

‘Not always.’

‘Most times then! Just whose side are you on? You know what they’re like; you know their reputation.’

‘But Jack! Their reputation doesn’t make them always the guilty ones. Can’t you see that?’

Sally Simmons turns from her husband. She sits at the table, watching him. He bunches up the towel and throws it to the floor. Then he stares moodily out the kitchen window at the Heremaia house. Damn them, damn them.

‘You’ll have to do something,’ Sally says.

‘I know.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Apologise, I suppose. Go over there and apologise.’

‘It would be best, Jack.’

‘I feel such a blasted fool,’ Jack Simmons whispers miserably.

‘Everybody makes mistakes. You, the Heremaias, everybody.’

Silence falls again. Then Jack Simmons turns from the window.

‘The sooner it’s done the better I suppose,’ he says.

He smiles at Sally.

‘If I’m not back in ten minutes,’ he continues, ‘call the ambulance.’

He goes out and shuts the door behind him. Sally walks to the window and watches him. He waves to her and she waves back. Then she sees Jimmy at his window. Will Jimmy, will Annie, will any of the children ever come to see her again? And Henare … what must he think of Jack now? Sally turns from the window. She decides to make a cup of tea for herself and for Jack. Poor Jack, he’ll probably need it.

Could the children have done it though? Could they have gone into the henhouse? No. But you couldn’t blame Jack for thinking that they had, could you? No, you couldn’t. Still, he shouldn’t have hit Henare. That was unforgivable. What a mess, what an awful mess. Every conflict with the Heremaias has been a mess. Of suspicion, of doubt, of accusations proven or unproven. If only the Heremaias weren’t so large , so obvious. They stick out like a sore thumb in the neighbourhood. They have not yet learnt the art of living with European people who may not understand their ways nor like them. They are essentially good people, but oh so tactless and troublesome at times. If only they would learn to be less obvious, and try to relinquish their obvious faults. Is it any wonder that when some accident happens in the street the Heremaia children are blamed? They bring it upon themselves, really they do!

Sally Simmons sighs helplessly. She puts the kettle on to boil. Heaven knows, she has tried to keep the crises to a minimum. She has tried to be a kind of Switzerland between her husband and the Heremaia children, an arbitrator between them. Sometimes she has been successful; other times, she has not. She knows that sometimes her husband’s suspicions have been totally unfounded. This is one of those occasions, but there have been others. Jack couldn’t seem to draw the line between judging the children on their reputation and on the facts of the matter. In doubtful issues, he just would not give the children the benefit of the doubt.

The goldfish affair had been one such doubtful case. Even now, Sally Simmons suspects, Jack still thinks that the Heremaia children were the culprits.

Then there was the time when she’d gone to the letter box and found one of the letters had been opened. Straight away, Jack had thought that the Heremaia children had been responsible. He was right too, for they had admitted opening the letter. They’d said it had been placed in their letter box and they’d opened it by mistake. The reason was plausible enough, but Jack hadn’t believed the children. He did not trust them, and with good reason! If only they would stop telling stories. By doing so, they only sustained the mistrust.

For instance, when they’d been asked if they’d been inside the Simmons house when the family had been away for a weekend, they had first said No, then Yes, then No, then Yes again. It hadn’t helped their explanation that they’d entered the house because they’d heard Silky, the Simmons’ cat, mewing and they’d thought she was locked in. Their stories had already created mistrust of them. They could have been telling the truth, but then they could have been telling a lie. That was the trouble: after a while, you ceased to believe anything they said, whether it was the truth or not.

You couldn’t trust the children. That was the main source of trouble. You judged them on their reputation. Most of all, you remembered that they were Maori. That was the most damaging evidence of all. Everybody knew what Maoris were like. You conveniently forgot the good points about the children. It wasn’t your fault. They helped you to forget.

The kettle boils. Sally Simmons takes it off the stove. It had been wrong for Millie to say that Jack and she talked about her family behind their backs. Wrong and unfair. She and Jack had tried to understand the Heremaias. Not like some of the other neighbours who talked so grandly about ‘our Maori people’ one minute and then disowned them the next. And she at least tried to keep the bad behaviour of the Heremaia children in context. They were not always bad.

Sally Simmons looks out the window again. No sign of Jack. But there is Jimmy again. Poor Jimmy. Katarina had said he had the flu or something. Would he come to see her tomorrow? Lately he has been coming every morning to ask if the chickens have arrived. Only two of them will hatch now, Jimmy.