Witi Ihimaera - Sky Dancer

Arnie tried to calm her, but Skylark wouldn’t be stopped. “I was the little girl who, whenever we had games at school, would say, ‘Pick me! Pick me!’, but I was always the last chosen. So excuse me if I don’t like the world I live in, but I’ve always had to face it myself — and in my own way. For instance, I must have been around eight, I was walking home from school and I saw a man beating his dog. He was trying to make the dog jump up onto the back of a truck —”

The memory was as vivid as yesterday. The dog was a big, yellow mangy brute. No matter how hard the man pulled on its lead and yelled at it to jump, it dug in its heels. The man had a red face and fierce eyes, and he wrapped a belt around his fist and began to whip the dog with the buckle end. The dog yelped at the pain. Men and women passing by steered a wide berth. None came to the rescue. It was none of their business. And the man looked mean. But Skylark knew that what he was doing was wrong.

“After a while, I pulled at the man’s trousers for his attention and I said to him, ‘You’re not allowed to beat dogs.’ The words just came out of me. Well, he swore at me and continued to beat the dog, and it was whining and trying to get away from him by crawling underneath the truck —”

Why hadn’t anybody stopped the man? Skylark wondered. He was reaching underneath the truck, trying to pull the dog back out. And all the time he was swearing, “Come out, you bloody brute. You’d better come out or it will be the worse for you.” He yanked really hard, the dog squealed, and when it poked its head into the light, the man laid into it again.

“I said to the man, ‘If you continue to beat the dog I’ll report you to the SPCA.’ He got really angry at me for saying that but he didn’t take any notice. So I got my school pad out of my satchel —”

Skylark had walked around to the front of the truck and started to write its number plate in her pad. The man saw her. “Just what do you think you’re doing, you little bitch?” He started to walk towards her, his fist raised in the air. Skylark stood her ground.

“I said to him, ‘And you’re not allowed to hit little children either. So if you hit me , I’ll report you to the police.’”

By that time, a crowd had gathered. When the man saw it he left the dog in the street, jumped into his truck and drove away. Skylark took the dog home, cleaned it up and, when Cora arrived, demanded that they keep it. But its wounds were so grievous that it died within the week.

“Why are you telling me this?” Arnie asked.

“If you want to know what I’m like, this is what I’m like. I’ve always had to make up my own mind about what to do because I can’t trust other people to do what they should. I’ve always relied on myself, and I can get myself out of any problems that come my way. If I don’t, tough, I’m the only one who gets hurt. I do what I do and I don’t need anybody to help me, so the sooner you bail out the better because I don’t need you. I’m perfectly capable of handling things myself.”

Arnie was stumped. How could he get through or around Skylark’s defences? “I don’t get you, Skylark,” he began. “You think you’re on one side and you put everybody else on the opposite side. You seem to forget that I’m here, with you, in this ute, and we’re on this journey together. If I’d been there when that man was beating the dog, I would have stood up for you. I wouldn’t have let you face that man alone.”

“It’s a matter of trust,” Skylark answered.

“You don’t trust me?”

“I don’t know.”

Arnie started the engine. “Skylark, you’re so walled up you’re like a fortress. One of these days you’re going to have to let somebody, anybody, in.”

That same afternoon it was Bella’s turn to keep her and Hoki’s promise to Skylark that they would visit Cora every day. Just before she left Hoki on guard, she saw that their ammunition was running low. “While I’m down in Tuapa I’ll stock up,” she said to Hoki. “Are you sure you’ll be able to manage while I’m away?”

“Of course,” Hoki answered. “I may be hopeless but I’m not entirely useless.”

“I’ll only be a few hours,” Bella said.

She walked quickly down the cliff path. She grabbed her purse and flax kit from the house, pulled a comb through her thick hair, and went out to her car. A few moments later, she was roaring down Manu Valley towards Tuapa. The seabirds climbed past her, flying on the rising thermals in the opposite direction.

In that moment of vulnerability, Bella thought of her eldest sister, Agnes, six years older than Bella, eight years older than Hoki. She was as clear as day: Agnes, the beauty of the family, laughing, full of life.

From the beginning, Agnes had the world in her pocket. Mum and Dad adored her, she excelled at hockey and tennis, and had been dux of Tuapa College. “Is Agnes really your sister?” people asked the younger girls. Then, everything changed. Agnes fell in love with Darren, a Pakeha boy. “He’s just heavenly,” Agnes had told Bella and Hoki. “When we’re together my heart goes flip flop and I can’t help myself.” She used to make Bella and Hoki laugh as she pulled all the pillows off the bed and hugged them. The trouble was that although Darren may have made Agnes’s heart do gymnastics, he made no impression on Mum and Dad.

As she drove, Bella tried to recall Darren in her memory. All she could remember was that he had been a high school rugby player with a disarming grin and an easy smile, tucking Agnes under his arm as easily as if she had been a rugby ball. What she recalled most was Agnes’ insistence: “I love Darren and we want to be together and we don’t care what anybody else says.” They had been so young, so awfully young.

One night, Bella and Hoki were woken up by Agnes. “Sshhhh,” she said. “I don’t want to wake Mum and Dad up. Darren is waiting in the car. We’re running away together.” Agnes’ face was lit with love, so much love that it seemed to be giving her pain. “Isn’t that romantic? I’m sorry you won’t be able to be bridesmaids. Will you forgive me? I’ve come to say goodbye. I love you both. Don’t worry, though. One day I’ll be back.’

The next day, Dad had set out after the runaways. He found them in Christchurch, but Agnes refused to come back with him. The months drifted by. Rumours came back to Tuapa that Agnes was “in the family way”, then that Darren had taken off before the baby was born, and then that the baby had died at birth. “Come back to Tuapa, Agnes,” Mum had pleaded. But Agnes had said, “No.” Maybe she had been ashamed to come back. Or perhaps she had grown used to Christchurch. But whenever she spoke on the telephone to Bella and Hoki she would always say, “One day, my sisters, one day I’ll be back.”

It never happened. A year later, lovely, smiling Agnes had been killed in a car accident.

“Oh Agnes,” Bella said to herself. “If only you were home now. We really need you.”

In Tuapa, Bella bought two cases of ammunition from Harry Summers at the farming supplies store.

“Planning a war?” Harry quipped.

Bella looked at her watch. She was running late, but a promise was a promise. She swerved into the carpark, parked in a “Doctors Only” space and hurried into the hospital. When she reached Cora’s room she was surprised to find Lucas sitting by the bed, holding Cora’s hand. He looked up as Bella arrived.

“Do you think she’ll wake up?”

Bella didn’t know what to say. Cora was lying as still as death. Her face was waxen. She had an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, and tubes coming out of the sleeve of her left arm.