Witi Ihimaera - The Thrill of Falling - Stories

‘You play?’

‘Hey, I’m Maori, aren’t I?’ He laughs, oozing more charm and pretending that he’s offended. ‘I’m staying at the Sanderson on Oxford Street — pretty flash, eh?’ He takes out a pen and small notepad and writes on it. ‘It’s um — it’s a cab ride from here. I’ll be in London for a bit, taking in the scenery. It would be choice to catch up.’ He tears the page out of the notepad. ‘Till next time, eh?’

I step in his path. I’m not going to let him get away without making sure he knows I’m ready to take him on. But he looks at me as if I’m of no consequence, as if I’m not even there. ‘I’ll deal with you later,’ he says.

When he’s gone, it takes me a while to get my breath back.

‘I don’t like him,’ I tell Whero. ‘He could come between us.’

Next morning, I’m breathing easier.

Whero’s asleep, completely out to it, and Dermot appears to have forgiven her. But I’m still worried about last night: her walking off the stage and, of course, Petera.

What does he want?

I slip out of bed and, tiptoeing to the window, open it slightly. Not enough to let the whole world in, but just enough so that I can take out a ciggy and have a smoke. God, I wish we had enough dollars so that we could have our own flat. Still, we were lucky that Dermot came up with a solution.

‘Why don’t you come and stay with me and Tupou?’ he’d said. ‘We’ve got a spare room. We could split the rent. It would make it easier on all our pockets, eh?’

Earl’s fuckin’ Court. We come to London and where do we end up? The Aussies could claim it as the next Australian state. And Kiwis could do the same, raising the Tino Rangatiratanga flag. All you hear around here are the colonial accents:

‘Gidday, mate. Kia ora, cuz. Put a shrimp on the barbie. All Blacks forever.’

Yeah, you can tell I’m still in a mood, but no wonder Whero and me tried to lose our accents when we got here. However, at least you gotta say one thing about Antipodeans. When you’re on the tube and strap-holding with all those hairy armpits at nose level, it’s not the colonials who give you a whiff: Londoners stink.

And, after all, those colonials — even the ones from Canada, India, Scotland and Ireland — they’re our punters. There’s plenty of them.

The empire is ster-riking back. Chur, bro.

Just as I’m finishing my ciggy I hear Tupou coming in from his late shift at Heathrow. God, how did a Polynesian prince like him ever end up with a faggoty little Irishman? To women Dermot looks like a … well … dork, but he must have some mysterious appeal to men. Though God knows I’ve caught a glimpse of him in the shower and you can hardly see it.

I stub out the cigarette, throw it out the window and sneak over to the door to listen in to their conversation. Open the door a crack and I see that Dermot is making breakfast. ‘You gonna help me,’ Dermot asks Tupou, ‘or are you just goin’ to stand there fantasisin’ over my arse?’

Gee, he’s ever fuckin’ hopeful.

‘So? Do you want some breakfast or not? And what’s with the smile?’

Tupou is just standing there with an idiotic look on his gob. ‘I smile, Dermot, thank you for asking, because I am hot shit. Take a guess at what you’re looking at.’

‘Apparently I’m lookin’ at one Mister Tupou Ihaka,’ Dermot answers, ‘who has the uncanny ability of shootin’ lava from his arse.’ He edges around the table with two plates and ladles out baked beans.

‘Ugh,’ says Tupou. ‘I was hoping for something like spaghetti and meatballs but …’ he takes a spoonful and returns to the point ‘… not lava: sunshine!’

‘Sunshine?’

‘I got the promotion. I walked into that room, pointed my rear at Barry, bent over and music be-gan to play.’ He demonstrates, shaking his backside and shimmying. “Let the sun shine, let the sun shine in, the suuun shine iiin.” Lo and behold, team leader.’

Behind the door I’m trying to stop from laughing. I mean, shut up , sometimes Dermot and Tupou are like Saturday Night Live .

Breakfast is forgotten now. ‘Put a niggah in a suit,’ Dermot claps sardonically. ‘and he thinks he’s goin’ places.’

‘Actually — yeah,’ Tupou answers, flaring. ‘Stick with me, kid. We’ll be in New York before you know it.’

‘New York?’ Dermot asks. ‘Who wants to go to feckin’ New York! My yellow brick road leads to Sydney. From the Emerald Isles to Oz, geddit? The best shows on telly in Dublin were reruns of Aussie soap operas. And Ramsay Street and Summer Bay made me determined to click my heels together and escape the shite grey chill of a Dublin winter.’

Tupou pouts. ‘I never knew Sydney meant that much to you.’ But he’s not about to give in quite yet. ‘So you came to … er … London?’ he adds with barely concealed sarcasm.

‘At least it was the first step on the way south.’

‘Flying into Heathrow with nothing but a suitcase full of dreams,’ Tupou continues, exaggerating. He pretends to be a television interviewer: ‘Sir, have you got the balls for London?’

‘You should count yourself lucky that I stopped over,’ Dermot says. ‘If I hadn’t, we’d never have met.’

‘Yeah, right,’ Tupou says sneakily. ‘There you were, hanging in the urinals between flights. You thought I was a Polynesian prince …’

‘In your dreams.’

‘And I saw you … and, yes, Dermot, I heard music.’ He coughs, pulls Dermot up from the breakfast table and starts dancing with him. ‘“You know we belong together — you and I forever and ever.”’ It’s the theme song to Home and Away .

Dermot doesn’t find it funny. ‘Piss off.’

‘“No matter where you are,”’ Tupou continues, ‘“you’re my shining star.”’

‘I said, shove it!’ Dermot yells. ‘Don’t dump on my dreams.’

‘I’m just playing.’ Tupou knows he’s gone a bit far.

‘Well, I’ve had enough games today, from you … and Whero too. Stupid moo walked off stage last night before finishin’ her set. I busted m’ballocks getting the record label guy to come see her and the bitch does that to me.’

Tupou looks towards the bedroom door; I hide behind it. ‘You reckon she’ll be all right?’ he asks. ‘She’s been acting very weird lately. What is it with her?’

‘Maybe it has to do with her dad,’ Dermot answers. ‘And her mum too. Maybe she’s feelin’ guilty about not goin’ home to the tangi. And maybe there’s stuff about them she hasn’t dealt with yet.’

Now listen to me, Whero, you mustn’t feel guilty, bub.

You know I’ll always love you … and your mother. Have I ever told you how I met her? A thousand times eh! Well tough, I’ll tell you again .

I was at the reef, just around the bay from our marae where it fronts onto the sea. Tamanui Te Ra had risen and Tangaroa, God of the Sea, was calling — who was I to ignore his voice?

Aue, if only I’d known what Tangaroa had waiting for me, I’d have jumped out of bed, grown wings and flown to the seashore much earlier.

‘Oy, you, ya buggah.’

Who me? I had just come up the beach with a sack of paua. Shit, I thought, Tangaroa himself must be on patrol and wants me to put some back.

‘Yeah, you, ya sad buggah, nicking all the kai moana.’

But would Tangaroa talk in such bad-ass language? No. And apart from that, he must have had a sex change as the voice sounded mighty like a female. Uh oh, maybe the voice belonged to a kehua! ‘Is that … is that you … Nan?’