The name and address Tipene gave Hana caused her great consternation as she pulled up outside. She checked the GPS on her mobile phone, convinced she took a wrong turn or misread one of the directions it gave her. Hana was expecting a shop front or at least a business address for a picture framer, but the Honda pulled up outside an extremely derelict looking state house, with weeds springing from the gutter as though neglect was in residence. A gate hung off its hinges out front, the paint long since flaked and gone in the harsh climate, leaving the illusion of its having once worn a coat of white.
Hana looked down at her sleeping daughter and decided not to risk getting out of the vehicle. “I think your father will yell into next week,” she whispered. “Getting out would be pretty stupid.” The area looked poor and unloved, indicative of those low socioeconomic areas of New Zealand which tourists didn’t see in the proffered ‘100% Pure’ image. If Phoenix hadn’t been with her Hana might have chanced it, but a definite atmosphere of hostility shrouded the area and net curtains twitched along the street.
Hana looked at her baby’s peaceful face and made her decision, based on Logan’s disdain if she deliberately took his daughter into foolish circumstances as much as her own instinctive fear. Turning back to the ignition, Hana gulped in a sharp breath as a man’s face stared down at her. His brown skin was decorated across his chin in a traditional moko and his hazel eyes were shrouded by long black eyelashes. He looked in his mid-forties, with a body thick-set and powerful enough to have tossed railway sleepers for a living. His hair was shaved close to his dark head and he stood next to the driver’s door, legs slightly splayed and arms folded. Hana whimpered in intimidation.
Then unexpectedly, he smiled. His eyes crinkled and his face split in a cheeky grin and he looked completely different. Yanking the car door open, he offered Hana his giant paw. “Welcome, Mrs Du Rose.” Hana shook his hand, her own engulfed in it. Her face struggled to maintain a neutral appearance despite her rapidly beating heart and sweating palms. “I’m Jayden,” he said, stepping back so Hana could slide from the Honda. “Tipene said you needed Father’s help.”
Hana nodded as her brain tried to figure out her next move. “My baby’s asleep,” she faltered, “would your father be able to come and look at the taonga out here?”
Tipene frowned and shook his head. “No ma’am, sorry, he can’t. You take the child and I’ll carry the gear in for you.”
Hana felt powerless. That was how she ended up carrying Phoenix into the house over her shoulder, while the huge Māori lumped along behind, hefting the box of treasures on his broad shoulder. Inside, the house was clean but sparse. The floor was uncarpeted and the furniture old and neatly arranged, as though someone took great care over its placement. A tartan blanket lay over the back of a brown corduroy sofa, folded tightly into a perfect rectangle. A fire roared in a grate beneath a 1970’s tiled mantelpiece, tired but still functional. The room was open plan, a sitting area and dining room taking up the majority of the space. The dining table was a round wooden one, with curious three legged chairs pushed tidily underneath it. Hana worried Jayden might require her to straddle one of the peculiar chairs.
The man lifted the box onto the dining table with exaggerated care. “Sit, please.” His arm pointed to one of the corduroy chairs before he disappeared through a doorway into a tiny hall. Hana shifted her heavy child further over her shoulder and sat waiting, biting her lip in anxiety. Logan’s going to kill me.
The room she sat in was homely and loved. Framed photographs lined the walls and mantelpiece, depicting smiling family members, adults and children. A small table next to the fireplace contained a photograph of an elderly lady beaming into the camera lens. Balanced precariously next to it was a tiny wreath of silk flowers, bent into shape to enfold the left-hand corner of the frame. A number of sympathy cards were propped around it, making Hana feel guilty she had imposed on a grieving whānau. Noise came from the other end of the house, filtering down the narrow hallway as the dull throb of male voices. Hana continued to wait.
She wasn’t prepared for the wheelchair. The sound of the wheels passing over the floorboards made a peculiar noise and the man in it, banged his knuckles on the door frame as he hauled himself through. Hana got to her feet, contrition pinching her heart for having suggested he come outside and she hovered by her chair, unsure what to say. The man was in his late-sixties, dark haired and swarthy, very much like Tipene. He wore a white tee-shirt, exposing strong muscular biceps and a tattoo reaching from shoulder to elbow on his right arm. But his body ended above the knees, exposed stumps pointing forward and blunted. Wheeling himself over to her, the man paused and looked up at her, his face breaking into a broad, handsome smile, undimmed by age or misfortune. He held out his hand. “Will Hohaia,” he said politely, a deep voice resonating within the small room. “Tipene’s my brother. He rang and said you would come. Welcome. Kia ora.”
After shaking her hand, he indicated Hana should sit again. Jayden reappeared and reached for the tartan blanket, putting it gently over Will’s scarred legs. It was a gentle, tender action, revealing much about his nature. Hana smiled in response. “Jayden,” Will said kindly, “take Mrs Du Rose’s little rangatira will you? Just so we can look at the taonga.”
The young man reached for Phoenix and Hana was forced to either appear churlish or let her sleeping child go into a stranger’s arms. With a moment’s nervous hesitation, she allowed Jayden to take her burden. To her relief, he walked over to the brown sofa and sat down, cuddling the baby into his breast and switching on the television.
“Come, let’s see what problems the wily old woman has left you with.” Will indicated with his head towards the dining table. Before Hana got there, the old man reached blindly into the battered box, pulling out the objects nearest the top. He sat in his wheelchair while Hana handed other things to him and they became engrossed in the items.
“So you know the Du Roses also, Mr Hohaia?”
“Call me Will and yes I knew Reuben Du Rose,” he chuckled. “He and Tip were inseparable. There were only ten months between us and we were a real band of brothers when he lived with Aunty Celia. They kept contact all these years too, until...well, I didn’t get to his tangi. I was having my other leg amputated.”
Hana knitted her brows and looked sorry, but Will waved her sympathy away with a practiced movement. “Nah, diabetes. It had the other leg away a few years ago and this was always on the cards. We were all damaged goods, us three boys. I had diabetes and Reub had haemophilia. Tip had polio when we were kids and has a fat leg.” He did a guttural laugh which ended in a cough. “Reub was always the one for the ladies and he had a wicked sense of humour.” Will’s whiskered face creased at his memories and he paused for a moment handling an old photograph. “Ah dear. Seems only yesterday,” he sighed.
Hana handled the familiar polished mere in her hand, smoothing her fingers over its hard surface. “Why did Reuben go to school in Hamilton?” she ventured. “The other township kids went to Auckland, from what Alfred Du Rose told me.”
Will put his head back and laughed, the sound huge in the small room. “He was expelled from there!” he chortled. “Law unto himself, that boy was. They couldn’t contain him. So his mother sent him to live in Ngaruawahia with our Whaea Celia and she fair sorted him out. Man, she whooped his arse from there to Hamilton and back again, just like his ma knew she would. It made him sullen and rebellious for a while, but eventually he saw the sense of it and ended up grateful to her.”
“I wonder what he did to get expelled,” Hana mused, almost to herself.
Will guffawed. “Probably some money making scheme that made him rich and everyone else poor. He had the best business head of anyone I ever met. He would have given Bill Gates a run for his money that’s for sure. He could sell fridges to Eskimos that boy. He bought an old motor scooter off our pāpā for a couple of dollars, pushed it home up State Highway 1 to Aunty’s house because it didn’t go. In his spare time he fixed it up real nice, changed the reggo plates, spray painted it and sold it back to our pāpā for ten times what he paid for it. Our pāpā never realised it was the same bike. When he was dying years later, Reuben swung by to pay his respects. He had half an hour with the old man and I think he told him. The old man died with a smile on his face after saying a whole string of swear words which all ended in ‘Reuben Bloody Du Rose,’ but he died happy. He liked a good joke did our pāpā.”
“That’s where Loge gets it from then,’ Hana remarked. “He’s got a really good head for finance. Yet Alfred doesn’t. It’s fascinating really because Logan had no knowledge of Reuben his whole life, but he has so many striking similarities.”
“That was a real bad business - all that stuff between those bro’s. Reub always liked that girl, Miriam. It was a mess. They were both impetuous and look where it got them. Stupid teenage mind games. Neither of them could have guessed how it would end, now could they?”
“What did they fall out over?” Hana asked. “I’ve got the bones of the story, but that’s about all.”
Will shook his head. “I sure don’t know. Maybe Tip does, but he won’t tell another man’s secrets, so no point asking. I think there was an interfering mother in there somewhere, usually is. Now then, are we looking at these taonga or not?”
Chastened, Hana went through the contents of the box until it was all neatly laid on the table. There were six small picture frames bearing black and white images of people and five larger ones. Some of them were broken, either the frames warped and snapped or the glass hanging off them in shattered curtains. Will peered at them, stroking a finger over some of the faces and nodding. “You know them?” Hana asked, her voice hopeful and he nodded. “Would you be able to fix these and possibly write something about who they are and what they did? It’ll be important to be able to display them with the correct history.”
Will smiled. “I can fix the pictures in the workshop out back. It’s my hobby really. Jayden can help with some writing for you. He’s got one of them computer things.”
Hana nodded with pleasure at the man next to her. Together they handled the rest of the contents of the box, the jade pieces and some wooden plaques with engraved pictures of tribal leaders. Age had dulled and chipped them and Will assured her he could bring them back to life. Jayden wandered over to look at the stash with Phoenix was wide awake in his arms. She was unconcerned, rubbing the palms of her hands over his stubbled face like she did to Logan and Tama and giggling to herself. She looked at the objects on the table and pointed a tiny finger at them. “Da?”
“Yes little mokopuna,” Will said, sounding wistful, “this all belongs to you.”
The little girl studied him for a moment with frightening perception before her face degenerated back into its baby self. Will shivered and it made Hana uncomfortable. Phoenix was just a child, a baby. There was nothing spiritual about her, other than the innocence Jesus attributed to all children. It made Hana feel threatened as the two cultures clanged together once again, electrifying the atmosphere and leaving her worn out.
“Photograph all the artifacts of your phone,” Jayden insisted. “Then you know what my pāpā has.”
“Please can you do it?” she asked, handing over the expensive phone. “I suffer from camera shake on this. We won’t recognise anything if it’s left up to me.”
“Now, lots of things you need to think about,” Will said, turning his chair to meet Hana. “Everything needs to be properly digitally photographed and a record kept somewhere safe, once it’s all restored.”
“Oh, then I fell at the first hurdle.” Hana’s face dropped in sadness. “I had no idea it would involve all that.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Will patted her hand, his face downcast, the brown eyes dulled by sadness. “It’s not like I’ve anything else in my life.”
Jayden shot Hana a look of alarm as he photographed a broken picture frame and Phoenix stopped stroking her mother’s cheek and stared at the old man. She burbled something in baby talk and Hana made her decision. “There’re another six boxes back at the hotel, and I’m told there are heaps more in the attic.”
Will’s eyes seemed to brighten with interest and his weathered face cracked in a smile. “Really?”
Hana nodded. “Yes. There’s heaps apparently but these were the ones Phoenix hid.” She turned to Jayden. “Can you put your number in my phone when you’re finished with the photographs and I’ll stay in touch with you? I will need an estimate of cost though, because I’m paying for it myself.”
The dark man smiled at her and nodded, keying numbers into her phone. As she left, Hana turned to Will, the crumpled body in the wheelchair seeming to have regained some of its dignity. “I hope you’re in for the long haul. It might keep you busy for the next twenty years.”
Will gave her the benefit of his beatific smile and looked pleased with the idea. “I don’t got twenty years, kōtiro, so we best get on with it.”
Phoenix gave a regal little wrist wave as her mother carried her back down the steps to the car. “How does he know how to look after all this?” Hana asked Jayden as he walked her to the Honda.
“He used to be the custodian for Tainui,” Jayden replied. “He took care of all the gifts in Mahairangi and all the artifacts. The Waikato tribes were fearsome and showed no mercy in the old days. They avenged wrongs through utu, plundering those who did them wrong in order to put the situation right and restore their mana or honour. There are many precious objects in that building and my father used to take care of them all, cataloguing them long hand. He could tell you everything in there up to about four years ago. When he lost his first leg, he carried on for a while with a prosthetic but he’s had other health problems since and had to retire. The tribe has been kind to him, but he struggles to make ends meet. He’s lost a lot of his confidence and mana since the other amputation. This will give him purpose. He’ll enjoy himself.”
Jayden leaned forward towards Phoenix and the little girl bobbed her head, accidentally nutting him on the nose instead of performing a decent hongi. To make matters worse she laughed. “Practice required little one,” Jayden said graciously rubbing his nose. To Hana, he said, “My sister works at the photographic shop in town. When Father has finished with the pieces, I’ll take them to her for digital copying. She’ll put them on a disk for you to keep safe. They’ve survived this far - we owe it to their custodians to honour their struggle. Phoenix Du Rose must have had good reason for hiding them at the marae.”
Hana nodded in agreement. “I just wish I knew what it was.”
She strapped Phoenix into her seat and travelled back to the school site, where she fed her daughter mushed up casserole and gave her a breast feed. They crawled around downstairs for a while, playing chase until Hana’s knees were sore and then both of them curled up on the double bed in the upstairs classroom and dozed off to sleep.