Spiralling time takes me back to Wellington again, two weeks before, when a telephone call from Waituhi destroyed the calm of my world: Dad’s dead.
My eyes have surprised me. Me te kaiohia te roimata i ahau, like driving rain have come my tears. He puna wai kai ako kamo, the deep reservoir that held them has overflowed and they cannot be stopped. The tide of grief overwhelms me.
And guilt. Why am I still here?
Seaweed drifts upon the swelling waves, rimurimu, teretere, seaweed drifting.
And where has the small, derelict waka disappeared to? Capsized by the wind, it has gone down, down into the lamenting sea.
Auē, Rīpeka, how did it happen? I ask my sister.
She lives with Hata a few land blocks away, where they manage the Wauchop’s station.
We don’t know really, she begins. Mum got up at the usual time today, 5 am, to make Dad some breakfast. She looked out the window of the farmhouse and saw that instead of being dark the sky was glittering, and she realised snow was falling.
Te hukarere? We never get white-out in the back country.
Not often, Rīpeka answers. But the blizzard and the plummeting temperature were unseasonal enough for Dad to be worried about his ewes. And even though Mum lit the kitchen fire, it was really makariri. So, when Dad said he was going out in the weather, she replied, Kāore, e noho, stay home.
But he shook his head and told her, You know what it’s like during lambing season, Huia. Makes no difference to ewes whether it’s snowing or not. I’ve mustered them all together on the northern incline, where they have good shelter. But some are new mothers who might have multiple births. They could need my help.
And Mum replied, I’ll telephone Hata, he can go out and look after them, but Dad said no. And she laughed and said: Sometimes, Rongo, I think you love those girls more than you do me.
Then Mum said, I’ll come with you. But Dad answered, No, you better keep Hōne and Mārama home with you today and not send them to school.
The last time Mum saw Dad, around six, he had saddled up Blue Mist. The dogs were barking and leaping around him, and he was whistling at them, Settle down, Bruce! Get in behind, Peg! The dawn had risen and was reflecting off the snow like a mirror, blinding Mum. But she saw Dad give Blue Mist his head and, in a flash, he had disappeared into the storm, heading northwest.
At about eleven, she heard a jingling sound and she thought, Good, that stupid husband of mine has turned back. But it was Blue Mist out there, on his own, stamping his feet at the gate, the steam jetting fast from his nostrils.
Oh no.
She said to the kids, Look after each other.
She saddled the pinto and, pulling Blue Mist after her, went to find Dad. She forded the river, went across just below the swing-bridge, headed up the other side and over the gully onto the high flat. That’s when she heard Bruce and Peg barking.
She found Dad lying on the ground. Spangled in snow crystals.
Couldn’t you have waited, Darling, to say goodbye to me? she asked him.
How she managed to put his body on Blue Mist and bring him back to the farmhouse, Tama, I have no idea. But she rang me, telling me she had already contacted the doctor.
Me and Hata went straight out to her, to Waituhi. I’m ringing from the farmhouse. Dr Green thinks Dad had a heart attack. Apparently, only Mum and the doctor knew he had a congenital condition. The cold and the exertion of getting to the northern incline got to him. Anyway, she’s just come out of the bedroom where Dad is. I’ll put her on.
My sister’s voice breaks and, in my mind, a window glimmers. The curtains billow from it so that I can look in. I see my parents’ bedroom, soft and dim with morning light. Mum and Dad are lying together in the big bed which all us children would crawl into when winter was cold, to huddle together beneath the patchwork blankets. None of us ever wanted to get up on those cold mornings.
Hello, Son, my mother says.
How are you, Mum?
As soon as I saw Blue Mist standing there, I felt this very dark feeling like a depression and I knew your father had gone. Will you forgive me that I didn’t go with him today? He shouldn’t have rode out in this weather. And I know you and him haven’t spoken for a while …
I’ve been busy, Mum.
… and none of us could have stopped any of this happening. But, Son, can you come home?
Dad had never wanted me to leave for Wellington two years ago.
He should have asked me once more to stay in Waituhi.
Why didn’t you, e Pā? And why did I go away?