Through a tunnel the express rushes, and Wellington Harbour appears. The sea is calm with a metallic sheen. The inter-island ferry is steaming out toward the Heads, reflecting its glittering lights in the water. The train follows the railway track as it curves around the harbour. Wellington is ahead, stack upon stack of glowing lights rising upon the hills. Soon the train will rumble into the station. Once again, a thousand destinies will be set in motion.
Te tōrino haere whakamua, whakamuri.
And slowly my family rearranges the tukutuku, the weaving, for our future.
Rīpeka and Hata have decided to go ahead and give their notice to the Wauchops and come to live on the farm. Dad’s good farm management has meant he has provided us all with a stable base from which to be financially independent.
We can start working for ourselves now, Rīpeka says.
In my own case, I walk the old horse track to karakia one early morning. The mist is rising from the hills. Ka tangi te pere, I can hear the bell echoing across the valley.
I take a place along the right wall of Rongopai. Today we are gathered together in the huamata, the ritual planting of seeds from last year. I see Tamati Kota, Te Hinutohu, Nani Miro and Nani Tama sitting in the place of elders. They may not look up at me when I enter, but the tīpuna do, all those ancestor paintings and carvings around the walls.
I bow my head in contemplation. Time spirals around me, the past and present have come to karakia too.
My elders begin to weave their skeins of kōrero and hīmene around us all. Their karakia thrusts into the future. How long will they be around to keep the kāinga safe?
They are the mōrehu. Who comes after?
So it is that on the day I am due to go to Gisborne Railway Station, I have reached a measure of understanding about the future.
Time to forgive myself. I have spiralled back and forward and outward. Time to spiral back homeward. And start again.
I ask Mum, my sisters and brother to pick me up at the marae. My father had lain here not too long ago. The roof of the meeting house still holds up the sky.
I’m here to search for the place where Dad buried my pito when I was born. I’m fairly certain it’s somewhere on the left boundary of the grounds. It was my umbilical to the marae, and whenever I reached a point where it didn’t want me to go any further, or wider, it was supposed to snap me back here: Hoi! Hoki mai ki te wā kāinga.
As I am searching, the car arrives. Rīpeka sounds the horn: Hurry up, Brother, she shouts. You’ll be late.
I hear the door open as Mum gets out. She is smiling broadly as she approaches me.
You’re looking in the wrong place, she says. Your father didn’t put your pito over there.
Where then? I ask.
She walks to the centre of the gateway, shades her eyes, looks up at the gable of the meeting house. Measures out five steps. One, two, three, four …
Stops.
Here, of course, she says.
Midway between the marae and the gateway.
I wag my finger at the spot:
Start doing your job.
And suddenly the train has arrived, rolling into Wellington terminal.
I stand and reach for my coat. I walk down the aisle and step off the train into the crowd. My suitcase is in the luggage compartment. I join the people milling around it, elbow through the crowd and pick my bag up. I see Laura waiting. A blue scarf around her hair.
Hello, Tama, she greets me as we kiss and hug. I know how much you loved your dad. It wasn’t too sad for you, was it? Isn’t death …
She can’t complete the sentence. But her question, undone and unfinished, echoes in my mind:
Whatever way you choose, Dad had said to me, be kind. Yes, isn’t it, I say to Laura as we head out of the station.
It was life it was death, it was life it was death.
Ka mate, ka mate, ka ora ka ora.
It is life.