Witi Ihimaera - The Thrill of Falling - Stories

What the hell. Both sides had been talking of doing it for a while and, on the last day before our schools broke up, I thought, It’s now or never.

‘I’m going for it,’ I told Thierry, Horse and Bilbo.

Actually, Thierry was the better contender but he said, ‘My father would kill me if I did something like that. And you … well, you don’t have a father like him!’

Came the day, and I’d decided against it, but some Scots College boys arrived and … what’s a guy to do? Backing out was not an option.

‘You’ve got to jump five metres out to even clear the superstructure,’ Thierry warned, ‘and how can you guarantee you’ll make the deepest water?’

The only way to do this was to run at speed up the stairs, change into second gear when you got to the ramp leading to the fourth level and then kick into third gear so as to obtain enough propulsion to make the leap. But … if you put on too much speed, you would end up overjumping the target.

Was it my fault that the local newspaper had sent a reporter and photographer? Well, I’d developed into quite the showman, and (excuse me, Koro) was buggered if I was going to risk my life for nothing. Taking my example from those times when I jumped off the Uawa bridge, I told Thierry, Horse and Bilbo to start working the crowd for dollars and bets. ‘Yeah, we’ve got a contender here,’ they jived, ‘so put your money down!’ And Thierry showed off some backflips and double somersaults that were part of his repertoire, and the crowd oohed and aahed.

No business like show business.

I put on a show too. I made a great play of chalking my take-off point on the fourth level and seeking the advice of sightseers. ‘Hey, maybe I should move the chalk mark to the left?’ I measured out my approach, pretending to be anxious about the uneven surface. ‘If I trip, kiss me goodbye, folks!’ I encouraged some of the Scots College boys to jump with me and, getting into the act, they made a few run-ups before shaking their heads and leaving me to it.

By the time I made my final sprint I had the audience in the palm of my hand. As I ran, somebody in the crowd called, ‘Don’t do it, son!’

It was too late. My heart was thudding as I approached the take-off point. I crossed my fingers, hoping that I’d chosen the right spot. I saw the chalk mark.

Nailed it.

Took a step into space. Counted to three and prayed. Looked to my left at my arm outstretched and then to my right to the tips of my fingers.

The air rushed into my lungs.

Oh, my body flexed and for one unbelievable moment there was more than a sense of weightlessness. With great clarity I felt that defying gravity was indeed possible and …

In that moment I could find the perfection I was seeking.

Then came the thrill of falling.

There I am, in a photo on the front page of the Dominion , watched by alarmed sightseers, leaping for my life:

WELLINGTON HIGH STUDENT CELEBRATES LAST DAY AT SCHOOL WITH DAREDEVIL DIVE

Just a dive? Didn’t the photographer see the pike, half-pirouette and somersault that I executed to stop myself from overshooting and to ensure that I entered the circle of water feet first?

When I got home, my pockets brimming with dollars collected from the grateful punters, Dad patted me on the back. As for Mum, she was always on my case and she went blue in the face telling me off. ‘You could have been killed!’

To be truthful, I almost shat my pants and, soon after, the city council banned all jumping from the spot.

The photograph was published in Uawa. When Koro saw it, he sent me a brief note: ‘Still a muttonhead.’

Jean-Luc wasn’t happy either. He harangued me for at least ten minutes in front of everybody at the gym, before passion drove him to his own language.

He may have been looking for self-confidence and fearlessness — but stupidity?

No, he wasn’t looking for that.

Not long after my daredevil dive, the phone rang for Mum late in the evening. Calls that come after midnight are never good news.

It was Uncle Tu-Bad. ‘Could you come home, sis? Ma’s died. I’m with Pa right now. He’ll need all of us.’

My beloved Nan Esther had slipped away in her sleep.

Mum, Dad and I went back to Uawa immediately to support Koro. ‘Those brothers of mine,’ Mum said, ‘couldn’t organise themselves out of a paper bag.’

She was wrong. When we arrived, Uncle Tu-Bad had already taken charge. He’d sorted out the death certificate and selected a casket. The only thing he hadn’t done was to dress Nan before she was taken down to the marae. ‘I thought I should leave that to you, sis,’ he said to Mum. ‘Ma would have preferred her own daughter to put a lovely dress on her, comb her hair and make her pretty.’

Uncle had even organised the ceremonial aspects at the marae and got all the relatives on the job catering for the many visitors who were expected to arrive to farewell Nan.

‘Do you see what your eldest brother is doing?’ Koro said to Mum after she had embraced him and cried on his shoulder.

During the funeral, Koro was formal, dignified and strong. After all, he was a chief and his people — there must have been over six hundred on the marae — expected a certain restraint in the face of death. Tall, stately, his silver hair combed, he was the proud rangatira receiving everyone with immense generosity. They cried; he didn’t. They wanted comfort; he gave it. A loud sigh came from the people. ‘Yes, you can always count on Big Tu to show us all, by his example, how to rise above our grief.’

Behind the scenes, however, Koro found fault with Uncle Tu-Bad even when there was no fault, sending him and Bo and Charlie out on more expeditions to catch fish, hunt pigs and find succulent forest roots so that the visitors would have extra delicacies to praise.

‘Pa,’ Uncle Tu-Bad would say to him, ‘could you let me handle it?’ Since his return from prison he’d got involved with the community and the marae, and people were looking up to him.

Mum didn’t escape Koro’s critical gaze either. ‘Tell the women more visitors have arrived at the gateway,’ he would say to her. ‘I won’t have anybody complaining that they had to wait in the hot sun. And make sure the young girls in the kitchen have lunch ready and on time. It was late yesterday.’

As for my cousins and I, we were on constant clean-up duty: the showers, the latrines, the grounds and so on. Seth, Abe and Spade eyed my height and shoulders with some respect, but that didn’t stop them from trying to put me down. ‘You d-d-do the latrines, Little T-T-Tutae,’ they mocked. ‘That should be s-s-second nature to you.’ They laughed and laughed as if it was a great joke.

‘I wouldn’t go there if I was you,’ I said, deliberately articulating my words and squaring off. ‘You clean those latrines, because if you don’t you’ll be down them.’

They got the hint.

Yes, in public Koro presented the perfect image of a chief.

However, late at night, when everybody was asleep, I would catch him weeping on Mum’s shoulder. She was looking after the budget for the funeral, balancing the outgoings with the koha the mourners would leave to help pay for the tangihanga.

‘What will I do without your mother?’

I found these private revelations of Koro’s vulnerability surprising, almost shocking. How would he cope when we put Nan into the ground? Uncle Tu-Bad had led a crew up to the graveyard to dig the hole. ‘You boys too,’ he said to me, Seth, Abe and Spade. I was only too willing to do that for Nan; after all those times she made me breathe her herbal fumes, I owed her.