Witi Ihimaera - The Thrill of Falling - Stories

He started on her. Smash, smash, smash, crunch.

Oh God. The pain. But, far away, there was the sound of sirens. The cops. Yeah, big man, keep on hitting me, that’s it, because every time you hit me will mean another year on your sentence when they send you to fuckin’ prison, arsehole, arsehole, arse …

Today was going to be a good day?

‘Are you feeling better now, darling?’

Still dazed, Maggie Dawn was bandaged up and on painkillers, waiting with Gran in outpatients for a taxi to take her home. The doctor had managed to patch her up pretty well with a few stitches to some cuts above her left eyebrow and her lips where Dave’s fists had split them. But Dave was going to go down, big time. The cops had told her after she’d made her statement.

All in all, being beat up was worth it except for two scary moments. The first was when the cops said that Mum might also be up on a charge for having drugs at the house. And the second was when the social welfare lady at the hospital started to talk about putting Maggie Dawn and the kids into care. Meantime, however, they would be looked after by Gran.

‘Evelyn’s bound to lose the house, you know,’ Gran said when the taxi arrived. ‘If Housing throws her out, I don’t know what we’re going to do. I can’t look after all of you.’

‘We’ll think of something,’ Maggie Dawn answered.

At Gran’s, Chantelle, Roxanne Adorata and Zoltan rushed out onto the street to meet them, clinging to Maggie Dawn and not wanting to let her go. ‘Can I have a bandage on my head too?’ Zoltan asked. Chantelle and Roxanne Adorata would sleep on the small couch in the sitting room, and Zoltan with Maggie Dawn in her bed.

‘A lady from Social Welfare will be coming tomorrow,’ Gran said. ‘I don’t think she’s going to like the flat. It’s too small.’

‘I’m not going to let anybody take the kids, Gran,’ Maggie Dawn replied. ‘I’m just not.’

She remembered something that might make Gran stop worrying. ‘Here’s your scratch ticket, and I found you a nice scarf. You can wear it next time you go to the casino.’ Maybe then people wouldn’t notice her awful wig. ‘And Gran, you mustn’t let those Social Welfare people take us away, okay?’

Shaking her head, Gran went to join the kids in the sitting room where they had settled down to watch television. She must have bought fish ’n’ chips for their tea, good old Gran.

Maggie Dawn sat for a while, and then cleared away the wrapping the fish ’n’ chips had come in. She limped through the kitchen and out the back where the rubbish bin was. As she was putting on the lid, she looked up at the night sky:

‘Are you trying to mess with me?’ she asked.

She gave a deep, deep sigh, went back inside, turned off the television and told the girls to go to bed. She settled Zoltan, but he sat up and suddenly began to brandish the scissors like secateurs. Then he kissed Maggie Dawn. ‘We’re safe now.’

Maggie Dawn helped Gran to her bedroom.

‘I didn’t win anything on the scratch,’ Gran said.

‘Is that you, Will?’ asked the voice on the phone. ‘It’s Cousin Lamarr, ringing from Tauranga.’

‘How did you know I was back in Gisborne?’

‘I have spies among all the trolley dollies on the international airlines,’ Lamarr chuckled. ‘I’ve been tracking you ever since you left Canada. What are you doing in the old home town?’

‘Visiting my sister,’ I answered. ‘Her husband died and she rang me in Toronto to let me know. His tangi was last week.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Lamarr answered. ‘Well, look, cousin, I’ve had this brilliant idea.’

Uh oh, that sounded like trouble.

‘When you’re on your way back to Auckland, could you possibly do me a favour and bring Mother up?’ Lamarr was close to tears. ‘The old people’s home doesn’t want her any longer. She’s being … difficult. So I’ll have her stay with me for a while and surround her life with a little glam and fabulosity.’

That explanation changed the situation. ‘Okay, I’ll alter my air tickets and fly back to Auckland via Tauranga and drop her off.’

‘Will, watch your common language! Mother on pub lic transport?’ Lamarr’s voice had gone up a few decibels. ‘No. You will bring her in the Bentley.’

I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘You still have the Bentley?’

‘Mother may have sold everything else when Father died, but she always kept the Bentley. I’ve telephoned Joe at his garage where it’s stored and he’s promised to get it ready for you. You know Mother. One must …’

‘… always have a Bentley,’ I said.

He whispered, as if confidentially, ‘The usual emergency kit is in the glove box.’

‘Aunt Lulu?’ my sister Kataraina said when I told her what Lamarr wanted me to do. ‘Now there was a woman! One of the last of the taniwha ladies of the coast, eh. Isn’t she in her nineties now?’ Then she leant into me and whispered, ‘I hear she’s gone gaga.’

Aunt Lulu’s real name was Ruru-i-te-marama, Owl of the Moon, but the Maori pronunciation of the ‘r’ sounded like an ‘l’ to unaware Pakeha, so Lulu she became. She and my father, Monty, had been brought up by their dowager spinster grand-aunt Wairangi, who, not having any children of her own, picked Dad from one litter and Lulu from another. Their respective parents didn’t seem to mind; in those days before birth control Maori had twelve to fifteen children and one less ankle-biter must have been easier on the legs.

When she was young Aunt Lulu had been a devastatingly beautiful girl — I’ve seen the photographs — tall, thin, café au lait skin, honey-coloured eyes and hair that was dark red, probably the legacy of a Spaniard whose caravel had been blown off course — way off course. My dad was younger than Lulu and, though they may not have been blood siblings, they looked out for each other. From the sounds of it, Dad had his work cut out because Aunt Lulu was the kind of woman about whom men would say, ‘If you think Lulu’s beautiful now, man, you should have seen her in those days.’

By all accounts Aunt Lulu was virginal, but she looked like a voluptuary. The consequence was that young men mixed up the signals and Dad often had to protect her.

When I turned up at the home in the Bentley I was puzzled that I had to sign so many papers for Aunt Lulu’s release.

‘What is this?’ I asked, irritated. ‘A jail?’ I felt like a marshal come to take custody of some saloon girl who was being run out of town, like Claire Trevor in Stagecoach .

‘Mrs Harrington has serious mental problems,’ the matron said. ‘Not to mention her medical issues. She’s being discharged permanently. We can’t keep her here when she’s a danger to our other clients.’

Other clients? ‘Don’t worry,’ I answered, and not in a civil way. ‘Obviously, she’s better out of here.’