Dawnie

‘THIS YEAR, IT’S GOTTA be a winner,’ announced Uncle Joe. ‘We need a local taste, local ingredients.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ agreed Marth, who was good at getting things done, and a bit of a primo cook too.

So they got out there in the kitchen, with its concrete floor, all the better for sluicing out with the hose. ‘My recipes, your cooking, can’t go wrong,’ said Uncle Joe. His problem was just to decide which recipe he was going to use. ‘It’s gotta be original,’ he said.

‘True, true,’ said Blue. ‘Me and my mates’ll go out hunting and get you a moa.’

‘I hear they’re quite stringy, meat–wise,’ said Uncle Mick.

‘We’ll experiment,’ said Uncle Joe.

Marth feathered the pastry with butter from the neighbour’s house cow, and it flaked just right. Light, golden and slightly salty. Uncle Joe’s first thought was venison with watercress, soaked chestnuts and diced pumpkin. It was nice, but the thick chunks of pumpkin tended to absorb the juices of the meat, leaving it a little dry. Uncle Joe had well and truly got the bug by now, and he started stuffing Marth’s pastries with everything he could think of.

He tried a dessert pie. Wild honey and roasted figs. Sweet, but lumpy. Kūmara, chopped onion and lashings of butter, salt and pepper. Filling, but not outstanding enough to win. Fat, round, red tomatoes from Uncle Joe’s vege garden, pureed and mixed with basil and minced seagull breast. Not bad, but the seagulls were fiddly to pluck, and Uncle Joe wasn’t sure if he liked the aftertaste.

Outside, on the step, there was always a cluster of hopeful little brown faces sitting amongst the gumboots, ready to help with the taste test. Their big eyes turned towards the shaded kitchen doorway in the way that sunflowers turn towards the sun. The biggest ones, on the very top step, because they were the oldest, were Dawnie, her sister Pipi, and their cousin Eru. When the pies came out, they held the hot slices in their bare hands, swapping them quickly from one palm to another, picking out the best bits first with their fingers. ‘Picking the eyes out,’ said Uncle Joe.

Dawnie liked to close her eyes when she ate. Everything in the pies reminded her of somewhere. When she ate the pipi and pūhā pie, she was under Uncle Joe’s white marquee with the oil stains on the roof, shelling pipi fresh out of the bucket, eating them raw and spitting out the sand. Tasting the saltiness in her mouth and feeling the salty wind blow on her cheeks across the afternoon heat. Or she might be helping lug a kete full of pipi up the sandhills, through the dark–green flax, the powdery sand sticking to her wet legs.

And when Marth brought out the eel and miro–berry pie, the eel jelly on her tongue made her think of Eru’s strong brown legs as they waded through the watercress towards the hīnaki, and his smooth hands as he checked the trap, pulling out the dark, slimy eels. Afterwards, he had bashed their heads with a rock and threaded them onto a piece of flax, stringing them across his shoulder. Dark–red eel blood had run down his thumb and congealed on his pink thumbnail where he held the flax.

‘We’re not getting anywhere here,’ said Uncle Joe to Marth. ‘And I’m buggered if I’m going to let Koro Whaitiri win the Mason Bay Pie Competition all over again. This is my year.’

‘That girl’s growing up,’ said Uncle Mick, nodding his head sideways at Dawnie. ‘She’s busting out of all of her clothes.’

‘Send Blue to get us some crayfish,’ said Marth. ‘We’ll see what we can do with those.’

‘So who’s judging it this year?’ asked Uncle Mick.

‘A cook from the Gisborne Hotel, some fella from the Trust Board, and Miss Tokomaru Bay,’ said Uncle Joe.

‘Miss Tokomaru Bay? She’s fucking beautiful. And I’m not kidding,’ said Blue.

‘I’m there,’ said Uncle Mick.

‘I need new shoes,’ said Pipi.

‘You can have Dawnie’s old ones,’ said Marth, ‘and I’ll get her some new ones.’ Pipi sulked.

Blue brought the crayfish in, waving their feelers over their black beady eyes. Bits of hard orange crayfish shell soon littered the concrete floor. ‘What do you win this year?’ he asked.

‘A pig and an outboard motor,’ said Uncle Joe.

‘I think we’ll try smoking them,’ said Marth. She tried to throw a bucket of crayfish guts away, but Uncle Mick wouldn’t let her. ‘It’s the best part,’ he said, and the men sat down with a beer and the cricket on the radio, and had a feed.

Marth got Dawnie and Pipi to get some white clay off the bank out in the road, and she wet it and rolled it around the crayfish. Then she chucked it on the fire that Blue had made to cook the mussels. ‘Save some of those for me,’ she said. Dawnie, Pipi and Eru had to wash some potatoes and wrap them in tinfoil for the kids, and Marth chucked those on the fire too. ‘Pull ’em out when the skins are burnt, and put some butter on them,’ she said.

‘Why is it my job?’ asked Dawnie.

The clay went hard in the embers and it got so dry that it cracked open. Marth pulled the crayfish out, all cooked and smoky. She put it into a creamy white sauce with a couple of finely chopped mussels, some pepper, an egg yolk and a few slices of red capsicum from Uncle Joe’s garden. The step tasters were convinced. ‘We have a winner,’ announced Uncle Joe, as they licked their fingers and their lips.

Uncle Joe and Marth got busy baking. They needed thirteen large pies for the competition – one for the judges, twelve for the table. They put them in the back of the van on a big sheet of new corrugated iron, covered in tea towels. ‘I’ll sit next to Dawnie,’ said Uncle Mick.’

‘I want to sit up the front with Eru,’ said Dawnie.

‘In the back with Uncle Mick,’ said Marth.

‘How come she gets new shoes?’ asked Pipi.

‘I don’t want to sit with Uncle Mick,’ said Dawnie.

‘Don’t cry, Dawnie,’ said Marth. ‘There’s no call for that.

Why don’t you want to sit with Uncle Mick anyway?’

‘I just don’t,’ said Dawnie.

‘Why don’t I get new shoes?’ asked Pipi.

‘Can you tell her to shut up?’ said Dawnie.

‘Don’t cry Pipi, there’s no call for that,’ said Marth.

The road went inland a bit, but every now and then, they glimpsed the sea around a corner, shining like slivers of discarded mermaid skin. Uncle Mick put his hand on Dawnie’s knee. ‘You’re definitely growing up and filling out, cuz,’ he said.

Dawnie moved her knee. ‘Get off, my stomach hurts,’ she said.

Pipi put her hand under the tea towels and broke off a bit of pastry. ‘You’d better make sure that’s not the one that goes to the judges,’ said Blue.

‘I’m looking forward to getting my eyes on Miss Tokomaru Bay,’ said Uncle Mick. ‘I’ll eat her pie crust any day.’ He put his hand back on Dawnie’s knee.

Dawnie put her finger down her throat. ‘Uncle Joe, I’m carsick, can I swap with Eru?’ she called.

The van stopped. Uncle Mick patted Dawnie’s bum as she got out. ‘Nice arse, cuz,’ he said.

They went past the hill with the little white church in the long windswept grass with nobody there. ‘Not far now,’ said Uncle Joe. And there it was, Mason Bay Hall, painted light blue like the summer sky at midday. Inside, people were stamping back and forth, stirring up the sleepy dust lying on the dark wooden floorboards. The serving hatches were flung wide open, and people bustled in the kitchen. Dawnie went to stand by Eru.

‘I think it might rain,’ said Uncle Joe to Koro Whaitiri.

‘Wouldn’t be surprised with the way the sky’s greying over,’ Koro agreed.

The little kids ran down onto the beach to paddle while the judges deliberated. ‘What, no Miss Tokomaru Bay?’ asked Uncle Mick.

‘Double booked,’ said Marth. ‘They sent a man who writes books instead.’

‘Too bad,’ said Blue. ‘Dawnie, could you get my smokes off the car?’

‘Neh!’ said Dawnie.

‘Watch your mouth,’ said Uncle Joe.

‘There’s no call for that, Dawnie,’ said Marth. ‘Now go and get his smokes.’

Dawnie went.

Everyone gathered round while the prizewinners’ names were read out. Koro Whaitiri won again, with a special kererū pie that he’d had to get a permit for. But Uncle Joe was happy with his second–place voucher for a fried fish meal for two at the Gisborne Hotel. ‘I’ve already got an outboard motor anyway,’ he said.

‘Could have been a different story if they’d had Miss Tokomaru Bay judging,’ said Blue.

‘You’ll have to hire a suit,’ said Marth, ‘because I’m not going with you otherwise.’

The pies were set out steaming hot on long trestle tables, and everyone hopped on for a feed. It wasn’t just pies. ‘Raw fish in coconut cream!’ said Blue. Dawnie sat next to Eru. Uncle Mick offered her the chop suey, but her stomach hurt, so she shook her head. ‘Eat up,’ said Blue. ‘There’s a hāngi pie over here, chicken, stuffing and pūhā.’

‘Best feed you’ll get all year,’ said Uncle Mick. ‘Don’t waste it.’

‘I’ll leave it to Pipi. She’s the fat pig,’ said Dawnie, looking at Pipi’s overflowing plate.

‘You’re very mean today, Dawnie. It’s not like you,’ said Marth.

The heat inside the hall was getting stifling, and Dawnie could feel the sweat staining her shirt under her armpits. The air felt as if it was getting thicker. She sighed through her nose just to feel the breeze fan out across her cheeks. All around her, people were laughing and talking, and passing food backwards and forwards across the tables with lots of happy clattering noise.

Outside, she could see the clouds swelling and turning purpley–black like bruises. It made the long, dry summer grass take on a purplish tinge too, as it ran out towards the dark honey coloured sand. Then the drops started to fall, fat and warm, making the grass bow beneath their weight. For some reason, Dawnie felt like crying.

She stood up and went to the doorway. The drops began to smash onto the tin roof, enclosing them all in the shelter of the hall. Streams of rusty water raced down through the holes in the drainpipe, and onto the step. Dawnie’s undies felt wet. ‘There’s blood running down your legs,’ called Pipi. And then Dawnie cried.