It was Dad who taught me that in Māori pūrākau, mythology, the wairua or spirit-self separates at death from the tinana or physical self to embark on a splendid journey. It is a haerenga from the place where they have died, northward, heading to the point of departure that we call Te Rēinga at the top of the North Island.
My father helped me to imagine the dead travelling astrally across the mountains, shores, lakes and plains of Aotearoa to arrive one by one at the northernmost beach. There, they come to earth and move through the sand dunes with their outcrops of bleached beautiful sedge, a grass-like plant that sways in the wind. Indeed, Dad said the many wairua could be heard whispering as they followed each other through the various pathways along the sand.
All day this happens, the wairua gathering and heading for a promontory jutting into the sea at Te Rēinga called Rerengawairua. It is surmounted with a gnarled pōhutukawa tree having a root known as Akakiterēinga. The wairua descend the root to a rocky platform on the edge of the ocean.
They wait for the sun to descend, for the tree to become golden and its blossoms to catch fire with Te Rā’s setting rays. Suddenly, a deep hole appears, fringed with floating seaweed. It is the way across the sea to Hawaiki, the gathering place of spirits.
To assist those who have died later in the day, Dad told me, the earlier wairua will knot and twist the sedge so that their late-coming companions will know which way to follow before the sun goes down:
This way is faster, this way is easier.
Sometimes they plait the knot a certain way so that any relatives who die later can recognise that a whanaunga has gone before them:
Ah, Rongo has blazed the trail for us.
The sea burns. The pathway to Hawaiki appears! The waves flow out.
The wairua make the leap.
How far along the haerenga are you, Dad?
Mr Ralston brings my attention back to where I am. In his car, on the way to my flat.
Do I turn left here, Laddie?
Yes, and then right at Baldwin Street, Mr Ralston.
We are travelling along Flatbush Avenue across Brooklyn, a crowded residential area in Wellington. Every now and then the route intersects streets that arrow through the suburban sprawl. Traffic glides up the avenue, draws abreast, then rushes past in sudden blasts of noise.
The car dips down between two crowded ridges. The sky constricts, becomes a smaller patch of blue and the houses rise up to spike the skyline. We slow down. A light flickers on the dashboard, on, off, on, off as Mr Ralston makes a right turn.
Telephone poles bend past as we ascend Baldwin Street. A fantail flits between the taut wires. A dog whines at a closed gate. There, a young office worker is walking down to the bus stop.
It’s number forty-one, Mr Ralston. The house with the flight of steps.
The steps ascend between a thin stand of trees, disappear into the shadow of a small alleyway, then reappear, leading up to an old house, crushed with other houses on the side of the hill. There are many old residences in this part of Wellington. In this city, my life has been measured out by moving from one flat to another, from one old house to the next. At some point I flatted in one of the working-class houses that had once crowded Tinakori Road.
Jackson and Sefulu, my flatmates, will be at work. One Māori, one Pākehā and one Pacific Islander: your typical multicultural multicoloured combo.
I must leave them a note telling them that …
The car draws to a stop.
Do you want to come up, Mr Ralston?
I’ll wait here. Don’t forget to phone your sister and let her know what flight you’re on.
All right, I won’t be long.
The door of the car slams shut behind me. The sound echoes along the street. A slight wind blows, rippling the branches of the trees. They shiver and whisper to one another, and their shadows reach across the pavement to clutch at me with gnarled fingers. Between the shadows, the steps rise up into the deep darkness of the alleyway.
Time has caught me unawares and taken my father away. Strange really … that time should seem to pass only where you are. Everywhere else it is suspended and people there are halted too, still young, still the way you left them. Even when you’re with them again, your eyes are blinded and you see them the way they’ve always been. Then your eyes are opened. You discover that time has leapt ahead even there. You are left wandering dazed among a wake of remembered moments. And the sound of a clock ticking away the minutes penetrates your world with an insistent clamour.
The key, hidden under a brick. With a scratch and a grating sound, the front door is unlocked.
The house is dark, the passageway musty and silent. Go to my bedroom. Single bed and a chest of drawers. In one corner a large wardrobe and a full-length standing mirror. Mum made the quilt on this bed. There, on the bedside table, is a photograph of me with Dad.
Concentrate. Open the windows.
Wellington has become grey and windy. Part the curtains to the harbour, choppy, the waves dangerous. Look: the houses fall away like tiers of multicoloured tin tumbling down to the sea. A liner is entering the harbour, its bow thrusting through the waves and its hooter blows a mournful cry.
A pīwakawaka twitters disconsolately at the window. He reminds me that the great Māui failed in his task to conquer death and, thus, his calls to me will always be in vain.
Before I pack, I telephone Rīpeka. Hello? Is that you, Sis?
Hata here, Bro. If you want to speak to the women they’ve gone. The undertaker arrived earlier and they’ve taken Dad to the funeral home in town to prepare our taonga and lay him in his casket.
So, the doctor issued the death certificate? I thought that Dad’s death might be ruled an accident and, if so, the coroner would have been brought in, delaying the tangi.
Hata doesn’t answer, he’s probably puzzled at what I’ve just said to him.
Yes, well, he continues, Rīpeka wondered if they should bring Dad back to the farmhouse tonight and have him here. But Mum said, No, the people already know Rongo has died. They will want him to lie among them. So, he’ll be taken direct to Rongopai, and he should be arriving around four. When are you getting in?
The flight arrives at five.
Good. So, you’ll be home before dark. Me and Rīpeka will be at the airport to pick you up. Actually, you called at the right time: I’m going down to the marae to fire up the hāngī. If we want to feed people from tonight, we have to get the food cooked. Would you donate some beef and mutton from our freezer at the farm?
He’s asking me as if I’m in charge now.
Yes, I answer. Anything else you think we should take down from the property, do it.
And then Hata says: Hang on a minute. Uncle Pita’s just parked his ute in the drive. He’ll want to talk to you.
Hello, Tama? Uncle Pita begins. Auē, tō pāpā …
My uncle is one of Dad’s older brothers. Not the eldest, really, that’s Joe, the one with the brains, but the brother who, like Dad, was given a more practical role in the whānau: in Uncle’s case, his mātauranga is in organising family hui.
I wait for Uncle Pita to stop grieving. When he does, he gets straight down to business:
There’s a few decisions we need to make. First, who’s going to be on the paepae, the speakers for the tangi? I recommend Tama Mananui as the representative for Te Whānau a Kai, Hepa Walker for the marae and we need someone to speak on behalf of the family …
Would you, Uncle Pita?
Thank you, Nephew. I will brush up on my whaikōrero; I won’t let you down. Oh, yes, and Tamati Kota will be the priest for all the night services and the burial rites, kua pai?
Please tell him I am grateful. Kei te mihi ahau ki a ia.
Uncle Pita’s voice quivers. But he has to keep himself together and go through his mental checklist so that everything gets done and dusted.
Righto, next question, Tama, is that if your Dad starts lying on the marae tonight, we’ll follow tikanga and have him in a tent at the side of the meeting house? Though if this weather continues, we could move him to the porch …
We should follow tradition, Uncle Pita.
As to timing, his funeral will take place over three days; today is Thursday so we could take him up to Tawhiti Kaahu and bury him on Saturday, but … what do you think about Sunday? Gives people the option of a full weekend…
What about the strain on the iwi?
They will see the sense of it. I’ll talk to Miro, your grandaunt, she’s the boss when it comes to organising the kāinga. But I know what you mean, the extra work and expense. Let me see: that’s four dinners, though tonight’s will be small. Four breakfasts, three lunches and the poroporoaki lunch before everybody leaves. The iwi will provide most of the kai and there will be food donations. The Mahana shearing gangs have offered to do the cooking and catering. I think we’ll be okay.
Uncle Pita is waiting for me to come up with my own offer. I’ll manage any unseen expenses, I tell him. And do thank Nani Miro.
Your father was her favourite nephew, Uncle Pita says. The hardest question: there’s a space next to our mum, Teria, up at the graveyard. But the ground will be difficult to dig in this weather; it will be really compact and frozen. An option would be to put Rongo on top of Mum, but that wouldn’t leave room, later, for Huia if she wants to be buried with him. Or we could start another line beginning with your father …
He is taking the responsibility off my shoulders. At the same time, he defers to me as Dad’s eldest.
I think that Mum will want to be part of the decision. And my sisters.
I hear you, Tama, we all know Huia! We’re lucky she doesn’t want to take him east to her own people’s land, there would have been hell to pay.
Okay, Uncle continues, I will leave that to you to discuss with her and your sisters. But make it quick, eh?
When wives or husbands of the deceased have tried to take them to their own home marae, sometimes the body is hijacked and brought back. And just to make sure the wife or husband can’t try to take the body again, he or she is buried quick and smart to make an end to the matter.
And then Uncle Pita gives a slight cough.
Your cousins will need a head start as the digging party. Hata, Koro and your cousin Simeon have already volunteered. Will you join them?
Kei te mihi ahau, Uncle Pita, yes.
I put down the telephone. Uncle Pita’s questions have made Dad’s death very real. There’s no going back.
Get the suitcase. Open it. Pack. What to take … The black suit. Better take the grey one too, might need it. Two white shirts. Underwear. Pair of shoes. Toilet gear. Electric shaver: a birthday present from Dad … No, don’t remember. Just keep doing something. Anything. Suitcase doesn’t seem very full. Must be something else. No. Everything needed is there. Now write a note to Jackson and Sefulu.
And then I notice a reflection in the full-length bedroom mirror revealing a man standing behind me. I would recognise him anywhere. Waiting to be noticed, awkward in his best sports jacket and hat, as if he’s dressed up for one of his meetings on the marae.
Dad the farmer, Dad the rangatira. During the week in Swanndri and gumboots, he’s ankle-deep in cow dung and sheep shit shepherding, his useless dogs barking around him. On weekends, he’s doing the same thing down at Rongopai, but better dressed, guiding the iwi toward some decision or other to be made over our land.
I dare not turn because I’m frightened that if I look at him he might not be there at all. Or that his reflection might be all that I am to be granted and, if I turn to look, the spell will be broken. And even though I love him and words of aroha should be my first greeting to him, instead, the bile in my mouth makes them bitter.
Under the circumstances, I begin with sarcasm, I can hardly say kia ora. And aren’t you way off-course? Your soul’s supposed to be on its journey from Gisborne to Te Rēinga in the north. Isn’t that the departing place of the dead from Aotearoa? What are you doing down here in the south?
People in the extremities of grief must be excused for what they say or do.
And what were you thinking, going off this morning in this weather? And don’t hold me responsible for not being there for the lambing. I’m not going to take the blame, Dad, I am just not.
He takes off his hat and bows his head. He looks so vulnerable that I can’t hold back another torrent of scalding tears.
I wipe a sleeve over my eyes. The truth is I am furious with myself, not him.
What have you come to see me for anyway? Don’t you think this is a bit late?
He gives me a plaintive smile: The lambing season … time waits for no man … and the cold snap, makariri. I’ve never known anything like it, Son, but those mothers were glad to see me.
His voice is soft, kind, forgiving. I panic: I’m not letting you go yet, Dad.
But he can’t be stopped. His āhua fades from the mirror.
I was hoping for a good lot of lambs this season, he says. There’s a few ewes who will need a hand birthing their young, Tama. Some of those mothers are first-timers, they won’t make it without help. And there’s a couple that have wandered off and down a gully. They’ll be difficult to get to, Son.
He puts his fedora back on.
You know what to do.