THERE ARE MOMENTS I WILL REMEMBER FOR THE REST of my life. The beach at Worser Bay on a hot summer’s day. The rock concerts I went to at Athletic Park. The morning my father moved out. The day I married my best friend. The births of my daughters. The petals I scattered on my grandparents’ graves. A bungy jump. A car crash. The Eiffel Tower. These moments are comforting and painful and delicate and mighty. I replay them and pause them and put them away, keeping them safe like trinkets or jewels. So many moments to catalogue and remember—apart from one.
This memory I will never forget, because it is my first.
I am standing in my grandmother’s kitchen, enjoying a biscuit. Maybe I just woke up; maybe I am waiting for bed. Either way, no one will meet my eye. A commanding knock echoes through the room, and the air around me begins to hum. My father takes charge and crosses the kitchen floor. He turns the door handle. Two Big Blue Men walk into the room.
I am on the periphery, small and quiet. The Big Blue Men pass me by. They follow my father into the lounge, and my grandmother trails behind them. My memory turns hazy for a moment—my father’s arm, my mother’s tears. Then someone herds me out of the kitchen and into the darkened hallway. The door is closed behind me.
My biscuit is soggy. The shagpile carpet, usually warm and comforting, is itchy and hot against my toes. Something is up. I want my mother.
I bang on the hallway door. ‘Hey! Let me out!’
A shaft of light grows warm and strong beside me. It is coming from my grandfather’s makeshift office, banished to the unused entranceway of the house. We are forbidden to enter his office, but I still know what is inside. The old front door is barricaded with a draughtsman’s desk, while row upon row of shelving gently cradles the tools of my grandfather’s craft: pencils, paperwork, tax records. The office door is always closed, but the faint traces of cigarettes and Old Spice waft through to the hallway.
The wavy glass in the door distorts the light, which grows stronger, and soon the office door is glowing. I momentarily forget the dark hallway and my itchy toes. The light is tinged with a stark blue hue—not the close-woven fabric of the Big Blue Men, but the tightly rolled blueprints my grandfather so carefully crafted. The hallways and bedrooms of other people’s lives.
When I am much older, I will learn that this is not the first visit the Big Blue Men have paid to my grandparents’ house. They have already interviewed my grandmother. They have already recorded her statement.
They have already taken my grandfather’s personal items.
‘Go and get his brush and comb.’
They already have his dental records.
‘Someone call Blue Wallace. He only took Frank’s teeth out a few months ago.’
They have already lifted his fingerprints.
‘He put a new battery in the kitchen clock right before he left. Would that help?’
They have already asked about his war wounds, his jewellery and his scars.
But right now, I know none of this. Right now, I am in the hallway and the Big Blue Men are in the lounge and they are handing my grandmother three photographs. One shows a tie, another a shirt and the third a pair of trousers.
‘Mrs Christmas, do you recognise any of these items?’
‘The shirt and tie look like the ones he was wearing, yes. He bought the shirt in Singapore last Christmas, and that tie was Austrian.’
Her tears fall, but the Big Blue Men press on.
‘Mrs Christmas, is there anything else you have that might help to identify the body of your husband?’
Eileen swallows her pain and finds the strength to stand. On unsteady legs, she walks towards her glory box, then kneels before it. She opens the lid and pulls out her sewing kit. Hands shaking, she removes two pieces of matching fabric: the offcuts of Frank’s trouser legs she had shortened in preparation for his flight. She turns to the Big Blue Men, and their breathing quickens. The fabric matches the trousers in the photograph perfectly.
But my grandmother isn’t quite ready to hand over this last piece of her Frank. She takes a moment to say goodbye, her fingers gently caressing the weave of the cloth, pulling at the frayed ends.
‘Mrs Christmas …’
My grandmother unfurls her fingers. She releases the fabric to the Big Blue Men.
They attach it to a file labelled 15.3 / 2 / 4. Their work is almost done.
‘Mrs Christmas, we just need a JP to witness your signature, and then we’ll be on our way. Is there someone we could call?’
‘Someone … someone go and get Stan Florence from up the road.’
Stan knows why he’s been summoned. He and Frank and Eileen go way back. He finds it hard to meet her gaze.
‘Okay, Eileen, let’s have a look.’
He scans the photographs and the deposition, and his body stiffens. His jaw begins to quiver, but he catches himself and clears his throat. He has a job to do.
Stan watches as Eileen initials each photograph, confirming the clothing belongs to her husband. She reads the deposition and signs her name. Then Stan takes the pen and writes: Deposition witnessed by me and sworn at New Plymouth this 17th day of December, 1979. Stanley Florence, Justice of the Peace of New Zealand.
He passes the forms back to the Big Blue Men.
No one speaks.
Stan squeezes Eileen’s shoulder as he makes to leave. ‘All right, Chrissy?’
He uses her nickname in an attempt to suppress the answer no one wants to hear. She nods her head, saving him from the awkwardness of the truth.
The deposition signed by Eileen and Stan Florence on 17 December 1979.
Then the Big Blue Men stand, their uniforms uncomfortable and itchy in the heat.
The family isn’t ready for them to leave.
‘It’s been almost a month. Why has it taken so long?’
‘The newspapers said the others from New Plymouth have already been identified.’
‘Will he be home in time for Christmas?’
Someone is banging on the hallway door. The children are growing restless.
‘We’ll be in touch, Mrs Christmas,’ the Big Blue Men say. ‘Thank you for your time.’
I have another memory from that time, from that house. One week later, it is Christmas Eve 1979 and I am sitting on a chair in the corner of the dining room. I am trying very hard to be invisible. Being invisible only works if you tiptoe in the background and sit quietly and don’t ask questions or say that you’re hungry. So long as you don’t make a fuss, everyone will forget you are there. It’s better this way.
The kettle is whistling. Mum disappears into the laundry, which smells like apple shampoo, and I follow her. She is piling the wet washing into Nana’s hamper, and I watch her wheel it up the garden ramp to the washing line. Her eyes are red. She parks the hamper beside the kōwhai tree. I watch out for prickles. I want to be a good helper, so I pass Mum a peg. One by one, she hangs out the clothes: my shorts, Daddy’s T-shirt, Nana’s housecoat, which dances in the breeze like an invisible lady. If I tilt my head back far enough, I can see Taranaki watching us. I stretch my neck and look up at the sky, past the clouds, then arch my whole back, until I almost lose my balance, getting dizzy in all this whirling washing. A cheeky tūī is laughing at my trick.
I like it up here. It’s quiet and high so I can look down on Nana and Poppa’s house. I can see Nana through the kitchen window, washing the dishes. My aunty is drying them. They seem very far away.
My uncle is nowhere to be found. He took off on his bike and he won’t come home until later.
I hand Mum another peg, but the washing hamper is empty and she has disappeared.
‘Mummy!’
I hang my arms and head over the garden wall. It’s a long way down, but the wall is warm and I like hanging over the edge. The moss is soft, so I reach out and pick it off. The wind is ruffling my hair, tickling my neck.
Mum appears from Poppa’s garage. Her head bobs up the ramp before I see her body. She walks over to the veggie garden with sacks and a spade and Poppa’s digging fork, and her face is all red and her skin is shiny. She puts the sacks down on the grass like a patchwork quilt and I take a seat.
She digs the fork into Poppa’s garden, standing on it so it sinks in deeper. His plants tremble in surprise. When Poppa comes home, he’s going to be so mad at Mum for ruining his lovely rows. She keeps on digging and tugging at the green-brown stems, unearthing dirty lumps of gold stuck to the small tree in her hands. Roots and potatoes and dirt and worms. I hate worms. She shakes off the dirt, and the potatoes fall back on to the soil. Thud … thud thud. She rolls them towards the sacks on the edge of the grass. I line the potatoes up: one, two, three, four …
I’m trying so hard to be a good helper. I am counting to eleventy.
I hear Nana calling. I look towards the kitchen window. They are waiting for us to come in for lunch. I wait for Mum to hurry me along, but she doesn’t say a word. I think maybe she didn’t hear, but then Nana comes out on to the back porch, and I know Mum heard her that time.
Mum is so sad today. She keeps digging and digging, kneeling in the dirt with her hands buried up to the wrists in worms. Head down, shoulders shaking. Her hands aren’t moving any more.
I feel funny in my tummy.
I look over the wall at Nana again. I could make my way across the garden and back down the ramp all by myself, but then I’d have to sit in the kitchen and eat my lunch. I don’t like egg sandwiches and I don’t like jam, but if I don’t go then Nana will be cross …
I could be invisible instead. I could just stay here with Mum, dusting off Poppa’s potatoes and lining them up in rows of eleventy on the sacks on the grass.
I look at Mum again, then I look back down at Nana.
They seem very far away.
I see another head coming up the ramp. ‘Daddy!’
He won’t make me eat egg sandwiches. He hands me a shiny bowl with holes in it, then he talks to Mum. She looks hot. He gives her a hug. He’s the best at hugging. I scoop up some garden, and put it into the shiny bowl. Dirt falls through the holes, but it leaves behind a little pink worm, twisting and wriggling. Maybe there are worms in my tummy, wriggling their way towards the light.
Mum takes my hand, and we walk up the empty rows to the end of Poppa’s garden. She shows me how to pick his beans, opening one to show me what’s inside. It looks a bit like peas. I don’t like peas. My bowl fills up with furry green fingers, and I hope Poppa won’t get mad when he sees all his beans are gone too.
Mum goes back to the potatoes. I spy on her from behind the beanpoles. I am invisible. Her shoulders are shaking again, and she is holding tightly to the garden fork, the steel tines tethering her in place. I feel a pull behind my belly button, and I have no choice but to leave my hiding place. I teeter down the garden slope towards her, the shiny bowl of beans balanced between my chest and arms. I am trying not to spill my treasure.
‘Look, Mummy.’
She tells me I am a good helper. She tells me to come and wash my hands under the hose. She washes the potatoes too, and a rainbow dances across the lawn. The potatoes look like treasure. My tummy is growling.
I wipe my hands on my dress and look for Taranaki again. I can feel it watching over me. Maybe this time, if I tilt my head back far enough, I will set myself upon its shining peak. I hang on to the garden wall and stretch my neck, arching my back, but all I can see is an upside-down tidemark of beans where my grandfather once stood. Beans streaming like emerald tears down the face of his beloved garden, and a legacy of golden potatoes. I can’t reach that high, I can’t dig that deep. I am too little to help.
The mountain is still watching. It seems so far away.
That same day, Christmas Eve 1979, the Big Blue Men telephoned my grandparents’ house. They gave my grandmother the news that the body of passenger P20 had been officially identified as her beloved Frank. He would, at long last, be released for burial. On 27 December, he would be carried home by the same airline that had flown him to his death one month earlier. My family could plan his funeral. It was, in Eileen’s words, her ‘Christmas miracle’.
When I think back to that time, I can still vividly recall my mother toiling away in Poppa’s garden. I can see her on her hands and knees in the dirt, the hose moving to and fro, wet potatoes glistening like golden nuggets in the sun. Dark brown clumps of dirt littering the once tidy rows, my small frame dwarfed by the pile of discarded plants, their naked roots reaching out like old-lady fingers. My little stomach churning. Picking beans.
Under the hot midday sun, Mum harvested all the potatoes her father had sown earlier in the year. He’d planted them for our Christmas lunch. This was his gift to us that Christmas. His garden bounty, his green thumb, his food filling his absence, if only for a while.
All these years later, I can still see Mum bending over the pile of washed potatoes, gathering up the four corners of a sack, scooping it into her arms, cradling her father’s legacy. Red-faced, sweaty, navigating the unruly plastic strips of the green-and-white fly curtain hanging over the back door, making her way through the apple-shampoo laundry, walking back into that house full of grief.
It doesn’t seem so far away.
One month earlier, on 28 November 1979, a DC-10 passenger jet operated by Air New Zealand had taken off from Auckland and flown south to Antarctica. It was supposed to be an eleven-hour return sightseeing flight, but shortly after midday, in broad daylight, the plane crashed into the lower slopes of Mount Erebus in Antarctica. All 237 passengers and 20 crew members were killed. My grandfather, Hugh Francis Christmas—known to us as Frank—was on board that flight. A husband, a father, a son and a brother. A builder, aged 58, from New Plymouth.
This event has become known as the Erebus Disaster. At the time, it was the world’s fourth-largest air crash and remains New Zealand’s largest peacetime disaster. The crash was a shocking tragedy for our small country—it is said that everyone knew of someone on board—and the legal and political aftermath wreaked its own trail of debris. The investigation initially conducted by the Office of Air Accidents, known as the infamous Chippindale Report, found that pilot error was the main cause of the crash. However, in direct contrast, the subsequent Royal Commission of Inquiry led by the Honourable Justice Peter Mahon found that culpability lay solely with Air New Zealand. Mahon and his team of investigators worked tirelessly on behalf of the pilots, the victims and their families to uncover the true cause of the accident, and in the process exposed what he would eventually label an ‘orchestrated litany of lies’ on the airline’s behalf. Air New Zealand, of course, appealed.
To see the courtroom drama unfold night after night on the six o’clock news retraumatised those who were already mourning their dead. It was also deeply disrespectful to the pilots, to the 257 souls who had lost their lives, and to the hundreds of men and women working so hard to recover and identify the bodies.
While the Privy Council upheld Mahon’s findings into the cause of the crash, it found Mahon had breached principles of natural justice—put in simple terms, Mahon had only been tasked with investigating and reporting on the cause of the accident, and had gone a step too far when he accused Air New Zealand of the ‘litany of lies’ without giving them an opportunity to reply. Mahon resigned from the High Court in protest, but his quote lives on to this day.
In the 40 years that have passed since the crash, the families of Erebus have sat silently in the background, waiting for our loved ones to be honoured, waiting for the magnitude of our grief to be recognised, waiting for our truth to surface, and for the names of the dead to be spoken out loud and with pride. At long last, that time has come. When the Erebus National Memorial is unveiled in 2020, we will finally see the names of our loved ones honoured in stone and steel, and my heart swells with pride at the thought. Those who died together will be remembered together. We will finally have a place to gather.
