Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

‘Do you want a beer?’ I asked.

Jason nodded. There was no smile as he took the seat opposite me.

‘How much time are you able to give me?’ he asked, scarcely able to hide his sarcasm.

‘I can take a later flight,’ I answered.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t want you to do that,’ he mocked. ‘Anyhow, the shorter our conversation the better.’

I tried to look into Jason’s eyes. Once, I’d been able to see straight into his heart. Now there was a mirror there, and it deflected everything.

Jason’s beer arrived and he took a couple of gulps. Then:

‘I’ve made my decision about us,’ he said. ‘I’m calling it quits. I’m leaving you for good.’

I felt a deep sense of loss. No longer would I have this wonderful companion. A sudden memory flashed in front of me — of tussling for the Sunday paper in bed while we had breakfast — and tears welled into my eyes. But damned if I was going to let him see them.

‘So all this stuff about wanting me to be there for you when you get back. You don’t want that, is that what you’re saying?’

Jason spoke his words like spears.

‘I know I said that, but I was only saying what I thought you wanted to hear, not what I really wanted to say. You forced me to say it. Well, it’s all very clear to me now. I know now from my sessions with Margo that you haven’t been feeding me.’

The accusation flared across the table, and I flinched. I thought to myself how much I would miss making love to him. I had once assumed that in any relationship it was the top partner who held the power. Jason had never been the active partner but there was no doubt that he held the power now. Perhaps there was potency in vulnerability after all.

But where was he getting all this stuff from? Of course I had ‘fed’ him! Sometimes love that is thwarted never plays fair. I went on the offensive.

‘So who’s feeding you then?’ I asked. ‘Margo? Graham?’

Jason coloured. ‘Who told you about Graham?’

One look at Jason and I knew that Graham had become Jason’s new lover. The minder who had been conveniently provided him by Margo’s encounter classes had become the shoulder to cry on and the new fuck. My head began to spin with anger and Jason saw the signs. He put down his glass and took a few steps back.

‘I always did what you wanted me to do,’ Jason said. ‘I never did what I wanted to do. Well, now I’m going out and doing it — and Graham is helping me to explore who I am. I never really liked having sex with you, Michael. And you have to pay for what you’ve done to me.’

It sounded like a threat. It was a threat.

‘Pay? For what! For loving you? If you want to play hardball, Jason, you’re on the wrong court.’

He stood his ground.

‘I once said to you that what I’m going through had nothing to do with you. But it does. I do have to deal with you, Michael. You’ve got to be made to face up to what you’ve done to me. And you do have to pay.’

I was still very angry when I checked in for my flight. I was angry with Jason, I was angry with Margo and I was angry with Graham. Somehow I had the feeling that all this stuff with Jason had been cooked up secretly behind my back. There’s nothing worse than thinking you look like a fool. Everybody had been in on the secret that Jason was leaving me — ‘Come on, Jason, you can do it’ — and no doubt there’d be hugs and congratulations from his cheerleading team at his next therapy session.

As for me, I was left sitting in a locker room by myself. Who was on my team?

As I handed over my ticket at the check-in counter, I saw Carlos’s business card. So Jason wanted to play hardball, did he? Well, two could play the same game — and I’d already gone long enough without having sex. My brain began to fill with images of Jason and Graham together — and I was quivering with rage by the time I rang Carlos’s number. When he answered I got straight down to it:

‘How about a date?’

‘Now let me just see,’ he teased. ‘Wow, wouldn’t you know it, I’ve just had somebody ring in a cancellation! How about Saturday night?’

‘Sorry, I’m on my way to Gisborne. How about when I get back?’

He sounded disappointed. ‘I can do Tuesday —’

‘Not Monday?’

‘Okay,’ he laughed. ‘I’ll have to shift a few things around, so you better take me somewhere really good!’

A quarter of an hour into the flight to Gisborne, I was still trying to calm myself. How could I have been such a stupid fool as to hope that Jason would come back? Why hadn’t I read the signs? Ah well, so it was over. Where to from here? I settled into the seat and tried to read a magazine. But that wasn’t helping me. My eyes flicked over to a young high school boy just a few rows in front. I noticed that there were other boys with him and that they all came from my old school, Gisborne Boys’ High. And I remembered that I must have been about their age when I made my own first trip to Wellington during a similar school visit. New Zealand from the air had looked amazing. The country riffed with thousands of jagged valleys, ziggurats spilling from the backbone of the fish that Maui pulled from the sea. His brothers, growing hungry, had attacked the fish, tearing its flesh and stuffing their ravenous mouths.

On that first visit the plane flew through a rainbow, the symbol of our tribe’s protective deity, Kahukura. On the other side was Wellington, a place wrapped around with squalls and a strange luminosity compounded out of sleet and wintry light. In those days I saw Wellington as a place in another land. I saw Waituhi as some country left behind in the past.

Since that time I had flown backwards and forwards countless times. I went to Wellington to play sport. I did my university degree there, escaping the constraints of Waituhi for the seductive pleasures the city had to offer. Although I grew up in Waituhi I became a man in Wellington. I worked hard, played hard, partied hard, and had lots of sex. The longer I stayed, the more I exulted in the freedom. And Wellington offered other infinite possibilities.

Like my life .

Looking out of the plane window some ten years later, I was conscious yet again of going back, of returning through the rainbow to Waituhi. It was a transition not only from city back to country but also from present to the past where the land of being Maori was. That Maori land was the land of boyhood. Once upon a time I had been happy there. I had belonged. My valley was called the Waituhi. At one end there was a palisaded fort. In the middle stood the meeting house, Rongopai, surrounded by the villagers of Te Whanau A Kai. At the other end of the valley was Maunga Haumia, the sacred mountain. A river called the Waipaoa ran through the valley.

Once I was lucky enough to have a people and a valley to come home to.

But that was then, when I had been a dutiful son. This was now.

The flight arrived on the icy wing of a southerly. The passengers ran into the air terminal. Auntie Pat was wearing a hat, a thick overcoat with the collar turned up, a hat and, somewhat out of place, huge dark glasses that covered most of her face.

‘Are you expecting sunshine?’ I asked her.

She pushed the glasses down her nose and, looking over their rims, said, ‘I thought I’d better dress incognito, just in case somebody sees me with you.’

She laughed, took me by the arm and hurried me out to the car. ‘Dinner’s already on and we have to get back because it might be burnt.’

I put my overnight bag into the boot and, out of habit, walked around to the driver’s side.

‘I like it when you’re masterful,’ Auntie Pat sighed, giving me the keys.