12

Two days later, at lunchtime, when Mere and Laura hurried towards him in the cafeteria, Daniel recognised – and for a moment was dismayed by it – that Laura’s feelings for him were in shut-down mode: the inviting, unconditional open-to-his-attention vibes were gone.

She kissed him hurriedly on the cheek, winding her heady scent round him, but that was all: she was back to being a friend, and he dreaded that the situation would deteriorate into her being a sister, and therefore tapu. But he did his best not to show his cutting disappointment as he went to the counter and got them their coffee. Mere made him sit beside Laura. He pretended he was listening to their conversation, but his head and heart and belly were alive with the pain.

‘Anything wrong, Dan?’ Laura had to intervene, unable any more to suppress her awareness of his pain. He shook his head and smiled.

‘Dan, you don’t look well today,’ Mere said, saving Laura from again opening up to Daniel.

Daniel stood up and acknowledged Aaron and Paul and the tall woman they were with, when they entered.

‘Laura, this is Cherie,’ Paul introduced the woman, and it was obvious to Laura that Paul was very fond of her. ‘She’s taking architecture.’ Laura got up and embraced Cherie.

‘Cherie’s gonna one day design my ideal house, eh?’ Aaron said. Cherie smiled but ignored his signifying. ‘Who’s shouting lunch today?’ Aaron asked, sitting down beside Daniel. ‘Why are you so glum, mate?’ he asked him. Daniel squirmed away from him, and Laura wished Aaron wasn’t so intrusive.

‘I’ll shout,’ Laura saved Daniel. ‘Five bucks each – that’s all I can afford.’

‘Trust Pākehā, man, they always look after their cents,’ Aaron scoffed.

This time Laura wasn’t going to be imtimidated. ‘Take it or leave it,’ she demanded, and Aaron grinned and put out his hand. She fished notes out of her purse and, while she distributed five-dollar notes into their upturned palms and they joked about Pākehā being mingy in their koha, she observed Daniel, surreptitiously, and wanted to reach out and caress his pain away.

After they’d bought their food from the cafeteria food counter they sat down round three tables they’d pushed together. Laura noticed that the seating seemed predetermined: she, Mere and Cherie were at the head of the group of tables, Aaron was at the bottom, facing Mere, and the other members of the whānau, along with friends who kept arriving quickly, took the rest of the seats. Daniel sat on Aaron’s right, as far away from her as he could, and she understood his hurt – resentment – at her exiling him.

She took her plastic fork and was going to start eating when she felt a disapproving silence focus on her. She stopped and bowed her head. Daniel caught her faux pas, and felt good about it: yes, she was too Palagi for him to be so attracted to her! He bowed his head as Mere said a short karakia blessing their food, fellowship and whānau. He glanced up at Laura, but she refused to look at him as she started eating. Good.

Laura, as usual, said little, but listened to the various conversations around the table. Most of the people were Polynesian and weren’t considered whānau, but, through friendship, they could join the circle. Laura noticed more and more of them over the next few months. Wherever they went, the whānau as a unit was like a magnet, attracting the curiosity and attention of many young people. She also noticed that the power repelled many, mainly Pākehā, who kept their distance but maintained surveillance of the whānau, as if they were afraid of it. Much of it, she now saw, was the racism she had grown up with and, because it permeated everything, hadn’t recognised. Now, as she got to know the whānau and their families, it angered her; filled her with guilty remorse, humiliation and the need to erase it.

‘You asked her out yet?’ Daniel heard Aaron asking. He hesitated, resenting Aaron for intruding into his privacy. He hesitated and then shook his head. ‘She’s Palagi, remember?’ he reiterated the unwritten rule.

‘There’s a clause to the rule, bro, and you know it because you’ve taken many a Pākehā woman to bed, so to speak like Will Shakespeare’.

Annoyed, cornered, Daniel challenged him. ‘So sex is allowed but not commitment and alofa?’ Grinning, Aaron nodded once, twice, three times. ‘Fuck you!’ Daniel muttered. ‘What about Mere’s edict that we allow Laura into our circle?’

‘What if Mere wants her in for other reasons?’

‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’ Daniel demanded, and earned almost everyone’s attention. Alarmed because Daniel was on his feet and shaking, Laura looked at Mere for her intervention. ‘C’mon, twisted Aaron, what’s that supposed to mean?’ Laura clutched Mere’s sleeve when she saw Aaron rise to his feet, refusing to back off.

‘That’s it, guys!’ Mere ordered. ‘Thank Laura for your lunch. Now.’ There was an expectant silence. They waited, waited, then Aaron’s body relaxed and he reached over and, grasping Daniel’s trembling hand, stilled it. There was an audible collective sigh of relief, and Laura pressed Mere’s arm in gratitude.

‘Sorry, bro,’ Aaron whispered. Daniel jabbed him playfully in the chest, and they continued eating as if nothing had happened. It was the first time Laura had witnessed what would become, over the years, a familiar and frightening contradiction in Aaron’s personality. As Mere described it, ‘He will love you full speed, unconditionally, and to the death, yet some devil inside him will, at times, drive him to hurt you.’