Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

We waited and waited. One hour later, the arguing was still going on in the meeting house.

‘Well, we’ve been here two hours,’ Roimata said. ‘If the local people don’t come to a decision, you’ll have to force the issue.’

That’s what I like about Roimata. She is such a dear, always implying that I have to make the decisions.

‘We’ll give them five minutes more,’ I said. ‘If we aren’t called on, we’re going on, and to hell with them. Tama tu tama ora, tama noho tama mate. If we stand, we live. If we lie down, we die.’

At that, some of the ope wanted to bolt. Not that they would have got far. I had told them to wear black, but I had forgotten to tell Jewel and Tim to leave their high heels at home.

‘Okay,’ I said to Roimata. ‘You and Auntie Pat begin the karanga. We’re going in .’

And after suggesting it herself, you know what Roimata asked?

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘We are a people. We are a tribe. We bring our dead. If tradition has to be broken, then I will break it. Nobody will stop us from burying our own among the people where they belong. The time for hiding ourselves and our dead is past. The time for burying them in some anonymous cemetery is over. ‘

Roimata went to the gateway to begin the call announcing that we were coming in no matter what.

Just then, an old woman, walking stick in her left hand, came out of the doorway of the meeting house and approached us.

‘I didn’t know Lilly was the grandmother,’ Auntie Pat said.

‘Lilly? Turei’s mother?’

Immediately, three men came running out after Lilly — and, oh no, now they were having a row with her in broad daylight. In a temper, Lilly raised her walking stick and began to hit them.

‘Get away you mongrels —’

The men backed away. One of them swore loudly at her and gave us the fingers. Lilly didn’t care and neither did we. We’d had worse.

Lilly straightened up. She looked at us. I think we probably gave her a bit of a shock. She knew we had brought Waka’s body back, but she was trying to figure out some tribal reference point. E hika, we were like no tribe she had ever seen. Ah well —

Lilly raised her right arm.

‘Haramai ki te ope tane me wahine takatapui —’

Listening to her, I thought: ‘Yes, this is only to be expected from a woman who once took an axe to her son’s coffin so she could see his face.’

‘Welcome to this marae,’ Lilly called. ‘Welcome you strange tribe I see before me! Come forward, you tribe of men who love men and women who love women! Welcome, you brave gay tribe, whom none have seen before! Come! Bring your dead who is also our dead —’

Our tribe was born that day. It was born out of a grandmother’s compulsion to take her grandchild back to her bosom. Out of a need to accept that a new tribe was coming. That day we signalled, ‘Make way, we are coming through.’

We would not be stopped.

Yes, there was still one last thing to be done, but I didn’t get a chance to do it until late that evening. By that time we had been formally welcomed, even if reluctantly, and all the speeches were over. Waka was now lying in state in the meeting house, and the anger against us had begun to dissipate as locals mixed with our new gay tribe and we got to know each other. Bedrolls were being spread in the meeting house. Dinner was over in the wharekai. If it wasn’t for the green hair, garish clothes and pierced noses and eyebrows, you wouldn’t have known that this wasn’t your usual crowd at a tangi. Or that something extraordinary had happened.

Auntie Pat had gone home early. There had been a moment, just after the welcoming ceremony, when she knew I was on to her. I had been following her, waiting for the moment to confront her. When it came, she had been talking to Lilly. I tapped her on the shoulder and she turned and beamed a smile:

‘Yes, Michael?’

For a moment I couldn’t speak. Then:

‘Cliff Harper asked me to give you a message —’

Tell Patty I forgive her.

As soon as I said the words, Auntie Pat knew she had been found out. Her eyes gleamed with sorrow.

‘Do we have to talk about this now, while I am defenceless, Michael?’ she asked. ‘Come and see me at home —’

I went to check that things were okay with Roimata. She was sitting with Waka’s family, beginning the vigil over his body that would continue until he was buried. Then I sought out Carlos, who had gone to check the toilets to make sure the kids weren’t snorting coke or doing anything else illegal in there.

‘Can you look after everybody?’ I asked. ‘There’s something I have to talk about with Auntie Pat.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘But get back soon. When I asked you if we could go to another level, this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind —’

I hopped into the car and drove away from the marae towards Auntie Pat’s place. Gisborne was bright with streetlights and, as I drove along the main road, I remembered Auntie Pat’s description of the first time she had met Cliff Harper. Was that when it had begun for her?

I loved my brother. People used to take us for girlfriend and boyfriend. Then Cliff Harper came. I had my face pressed tight against Sam’s chest and I felt and heard his heart beating. It was going der der der der der der. But when he saw Cliff it changed to der der der der der der —

My mind was whirling. No, perhaps it had all begun down at the waterhole. Sam was singing the Woody Woodpecker song, and Cliff was making mock poses, green eyes like the river, hair set on fire by the sun. Auntie Pat was with Anita and Kara, and they had wanted to take revenge on the men for stealing their clothes.

When had it begun?

I arrived at Auntie Pat’s place. All the lights were off except for the blue illumination of the television screen in the living room. She was still up, watching one of her old movies.

I walked to the open front door. I went past the poster of Till the End of Time. Auntie Pat was sitting in her favorite armchair, and her face was aglow with excitement.

‘Hello, Nephew,’ she said. ‘You’ve come just in time! There he is! There he is —’

On the screen, a young man in American uniform was getting off a bus. A young man who could have been Guy Madison or Cliff Harper. Guy Madison playing Cliff Harper. Or Cliff Harper playing Guy Madison.

I walked over to the television set and switched it off.

‘No,’ Auntie Pat pleaded.

I whirled on her and she shrank back, huddling into the armchair to get away from me. I looked at her — and at the house to which she had escaped for thirty years.

It was time to bring her out.

‘Why did you do it, Auntie? Why ?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

I grabbed her by the wrists and she fought me, striking out at me.

‘You know nothing, Michael,’ she yelled. ‘You know nothing.’

Auntie Pat has always disliked physical contact. I used to joke that maybe it all had to do with those slobbery kisses you get when you’re on the marae. But despite her screaming and raging against me, I held her tight.

‘Let me go, Michael, let me go —’

She was kicking, scratching and biting. All of a sudden she began to scream and scream. Before I knew it, the dam inside Auntie Pat burst apart.

‘They should have told me, Michael. They should have told me the truth. I thought that Sam and Cliff were just friends. That’s what Sam told me. But it wasn’t the truth. If I’d known about them I wouldn’t have —’

‘What, Auntie, what —’