Witi Ihimaera - The Thrill of Falling - Stories

Died? I hadn’t known that.

And then, in a temper, Koro uttered some rather choice remarks about Dad. ‘And you … you were a no-hoper in Uawa and you’ll be a no-hoper in Wellington.’

Mum’s back went up. ‘I will not let you say those sorts of things about my husband,’ she said. ‘He’s been a good son-in-law to you, Pa.’ With that she bundled me into the car.

Wally started the engine. ‘Thank you, dear,’ he said to Mum. He was grateful to her for choosing him, but also disturbed at all the fuss. What if he didn’t make better passage in the world and we had to come back with our tails between our legs?

Koro just had time to thrust something through the window at me. ‘Take this with you,’ he said. ‘It will protect you.’

It was a red feather.

My mother’s eyes widened. I heard her mutter under her breath, ‘And maybe it’s time Little Tu had a rest from this …’

She shut her mouth before she could say the heretical words ‘mumbo jumbo’. Instead, she motioned to Dad.

‘Time to go, dear, before anybody says something they might regret.’

And that was that.

There’s a photograph of me with Mum and Dad that must have been taken fairly soon after we arrived in Wellington.

It’s a very nice picture of Mum. The camera has captured her side-on so that you don’t see that her beam has broadened a bit. And because it was taken without her putting on the usual face she liked to show to the world, she looks very pretty. The wind has blown a few strands of hair across her face and, laughing, she’s put a hand up to push them away. It’s a film star pose, and she looks good doing it.

What’s surprising about the photograph is me. I’m taller than Mum, and even taller than Dad, who was five ten. When did that happen?

Mum and Dad must have bought me a jacket. I’m wearing it, so you can’t see how skinny I really am, but the shoulders reveal that I’m filling out. Those wings of mine are folded away in there somewhere.

I’ve taken a step back and tucked my head in. I’d never thought of myself as good-looking — my hair was too bushy, my eyes were squinty, my nose was too long, my lips were too big — so didn’t like having my photograph taken. But those same squinty eyes are bright and expectant.

I won’t say that the move to Wellington was easy.

We arrived during the school break between the first and second term. Mum and Wally settled us into a small two-bedroom flat that Dad’s brothers had found for us, up zigzag steps on the slopes midway between Berhampore and Island Bay. From the south-facing windows you could see the sea.

‘Well,’ Mum said when she stood in the passageway and saw how run-down the place was, ‘we’ve made our bed and now we all have to lie in it.’ She was not only referring to us but also to Koro, because no sooner had we moved in and had the telephone connected than he started to call. In the middle of the night.

From my bedroom I would hear Mum answering the phone and talking to him. ‘Hello? Yes, Pa, I’m here. Yes, we’re fine. How are you? And how’s Ma? No Pa, we’re not coming home. Please Pa, try to understand. And Little Tu? No, I won’t wake him, he’s fast asleep but he’s fine, Pa, fine.’

We moved our furniture and the rest of our belongings in. Dad immediately went to work for the Wellington buses so that we could pay the rent. I remember watching him battling a southerly as he walked down the steps. He looked forlorn and hesitant and, partway down, he stopped, as if he was about to turn back. ‘No, Dad,’ I whispered. ‘You’ll be okay.’

He saw me at the window and waved before continuing down to the street.

My mother has always had hidden resources, a quiet but determined strength.

While Dad was working, she made me help her paint the walls of the flat — she got the rent down by telling the landlord it would increase the value of his place — and, after the paint had dried, I put my posters of Arnie on my bedroom wall. I had three now, and the one of Arnie in dark glasses, wearing a leather jacket and astride a motorbike, was my favourite. On a whim, I sellotaped Koro’s red feather to his hair; now Arnie looked like a mean Red Indian dude.

Mum was hesitant at first about what I’d done, then shrugged her shoulders. ‘Well, I guess that’s as good a place as any.’ As for Dad, when he saw the feather on his return, elated, from his first day on the job, I heard him whispering to Mum in a way I wasn’t supposed to hear, ‘At least Pa didn’t go up to the cave in the hills and get that old piece of ironwood.’

Once we had finished the painting, Mum found me a speech therapist. At the same time, she was a whirlwind, organising the house for ‘her men’, and every now and then she would don one of her smartest outfits and go looking for a job so that she could supplement Dad’s income. Success! She was put on a waiting list for nursing staff at Wellington Hospital in Newtown.

Mum also checked out the high schools in the area and took me to Wellington High to enrol because it was co-ed and multicultural. Mum filled in the paperwork, and then we were interviewed by Mr Van Dyke, one of the deans of the school. As soon as he started asking me questions, like ‘So, Tupaea, can you tell me what options you were doing in Tolaga Bay?’, Mum began, as usual, to answer on my behalf:

‘He did Maori.’

‘Is there anything else we offer that you like the look of? Food technology maybe?’

‘Japanese and classical studies could be interesting,’ Mum answered. ‘He might go to university after high school.’

University? Not that again.

Mr Van Dyke was looking at me in a quizzical manner. I started to get flustered and turned to Mum. ‘I can t-t-talk for myself, Mum,’ I said.

Her eyes widened. Obviously things were changing all around her. Then she shrugged, got up, kissed me on the cheek and said, ‘He’s all yours.’

When she left, the dean smiled at me encouragingly. ‘Mothers are like that,’ he said.

Not long after that, Mum was called in to Wellington Hospital and offered a position. One of the reasons why she was successful was because, at her interview, she looked around at the Pakeha faces on the interviewing panel and said, ‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, looks like your lucky day has just walked through the door, eh?’ She knew she had Maori skills that the hospital didn’t possess.

Koro kept ringing. It was so sad hearing Mum talk to him. ‘Hello, Pa, is that you again? Please stop doing this. We’re fine, Pa. And Little Tu has started at Wellington High. Pa, please don’t cry. You’ll only make yourself sick. Yes, I’ll tell Little Tu you called.’

Over the next months, we all began to adjust to the city. I think Mum never really became a Wellingtonian; it wasn’t Uawa, but it would have to do. After a while, though, she developed a good social circle.

Dad couldn’t have been happier. He was with Ralph and Tommy, and could go skindiving for paua on his days off or when he pretended he was sick and couldn’t come with Mum and me to church. Every now and then, he would take Mum to a local pub that was a renowned watering hole for Ngatis, as people from the East Coast were called.

After a while, the telephone calls from Koro began to diminish as he realised we weren’t coming home.

Out of sight, out of mind.

I have to confess that the God ’Oro and his emissary on earth, Tupaea, took a back seat to the excitement and challenges of a new school and a new city.

And I was determined to start Wellington High with a fresh slate. I didn’t want to be that same young kid with a stutter. My speech therapist was a lovely lady who worked hard on my plosives, and when the second term started I had the stutter under control most of the time. My greatest triumph was to introduce myself on my first day to the English class: