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Keri
“That poor kid,” Jess said, as we walked home. “Imagine being so terrified to open your mouth to speak. And she can sing!”
“I kind of know how she feels,” Mereana admitted. “I was a bit like that myself. Not as bad though.”
“I remember that! You were very quiet and shy.” I had a memory of Mereana in primary school. Then I had a mortifying thought. “Did I tease you?”
Mereana looked me in the eye. “Yes, you did. And Jess did too.”
“Seriously? Did we really?” Jess was unconvinced.
“Do you remember when I was wearing a wraparound skirt, and Kirsten Harrison untied the back and pulled the skirt off and you were all laughing at me, and telling the boys to come and look, and Kirsten ran away with my skirt and no one helped me?”
“OMG! Really. Was that you? I am so sorry Mereana. What were we thinking? How horrible was that!” Jess was embarrassed and I was mortified.
We stopped walking and looked at each other.
“I am so embarrassed. I can’t believe we did that. I can’t believe you’re still friends with us.” I cringed thinking about what we’d done.
“Yeah, well, you get over things. After that I went to the library every lunchtime. Mrs Singh used to talk to me a lot and suggest books to read. She helped me see where teasing can lead to bullying, and how to deal with the teasing so it didn’t get out of hand again. We’ve all grown up a bit now.”
“But still ...”
We started walking again, towards Nanny’s place.
“You know what?” Mereana said. “I’m not ready to go home yet. It’s still early. I’ll run in and tell Nanny what we’re doing and we’ll go on down to the wharf. We can get a drink and some fries and see who’s there.”
Who was there was Pani. She came out of the fish and chip shop as we got to the door, with a large parcel under her arm. She scowled when she saw us.
“You!” she aimed it at Mereana. “Don’t you think you can come in here and take over like a white Māori. We don’t want your kind here!”
“Pani!” Mereana said innocently. “I would never want to come and take over from you. Believe me.”
Pani squinted at Mereana. She looked as though she wasn’t sure if she had been disrespected or not. She stamped off down the road, turning back to look at us as she went around the corner. I heard her muttering to herself.
At the wharf there was a small crowd of kids our age lying on the grass, drinking and smoking.
“Do we really want to join them?” I asked. “I hate smoking.”
“Me, too,” Mereana said. “We’ll go over there a bit, away from them.”
“But that cute guy is over there!” Jess complained.
“Too bad. If he’s interested in you he can come over to us.”
Jess pouted, but she followed us over to a sunny spot near some moored boats. We sat down with our drinks and fries, and sure enough, several of the kids got up and came over to where we were sitting. Jess offered her tub of fries to them to share. The cute guy took some, but the others hung back.
“What’s yous fullas’ names?” a girl with blue-coloured hair asked.
“I’m Mereana, this is Keri and this is Jess.” Mereana pointed to us in turn. “What’s yous fullas’ names?”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. The others looked offended, but the girl who had asked didn’t get the joke.
“This here is Tyrone, this is Jasmine, that fulla over there is Clinton and I’m Penny. Are yous staying with Nanny Anahera?”
“Yep. She’s my nanny. Actually, she was my dad’s nanny.”
“No she’s not! She’s your dad’s auntie! She and her old man couldn’t have kids, so they gave your dad to her like her own!”
Mereana’s face went bright red. “Who gave my dad to her?”
“His real mum. Your real nana. She came back to town yesterday. The whānau are all talking about it. It’s a BIG news story, tell ya’.”
Mereana leapt to her feet and took off up the path. I was curious.
“What else, then,” I asked Penny. Jess wasn’t interested at all. She was making goggle eyes at Tyrone.
“Nuffin’. That’s it.”
“No, there’s more to this story! Why did Mereana think Anahera was her nanny and not her auntie?”
“Well, it is her nanny. Her dad’s mum. Like he was adopted by Nanny Anahera.” Jess had been listening after all.
“Oh yes, I suppose you’re right. Where is she then – the real birth mum? Where’s she staying?”
“Not around here! She got rich, so she’s staying in that posh hotel over by Kerikeri.”
“We’d better go and check out where Mereana is. This will be a shock to her,” I said to Jess.
“Do we have to?” Jess complained. “I was just getting comfortable here.”
“I can see that,” I said. “Alright, I’ll go. I’ll see you back at Nanny’s place later.”
I got up and headed up the grassy bank to the road above. I could only guess where Mereana had gone. She was nowhere in sight. I took the track we had followed a few days ago, along the river and towards the beach. But instead of turning up towards the road that Nanny’s house was on, I kept going as the river widened out to a small harbour. We hadn’t been along this part before.
I could hear the sea by the time I found Mereana. She was sitting on a seat looking over the harbour entrance. She’d been crying. I put my arm around her shoulders and she put her head on my shoulder and cried some more.
“Sorry,” she said after a while.
“That’s okay. But why are you so upset?”
“Because ... well, because ... Because now I don’t know who I really am. Is Nanny Anahera my grandmother, my great-grandmother or is she my great-auntie? I never thought about who Dad’s mother was before. After he died it never occurred to me to find out. And I should have. Who are my grandparents? And why was my dad given away in the first place? I know all about whāngai, but it kind of doesn’t make sense to me, that you would give your baby to someone else.”
“Maybe she was really young and couldn’t look after the baby.”
“Yes, but if it was me, I’d stay living with my mum and we’d do it together. Not that it ever will. I don’t want that to happen. Just saying!”
“Not all families are like yours. Some just couldn’t cope. But from what I’ve seen here, there is always someone who will love and look after a child, even if it’s not theirs. It’s like all kids belong to all the families.”
Mereana sighed. “Yeah, I know. I know that. It’s what’s so good about this kind of living. Not like in a city, where sometimes you don’t even know your neighbour. Here, everyone knows everyone else, and they all look after each other.”
She sat up, dried her eyes on the bottom of her T-shirt and got up.
“Thanks Keri. You are such a good friend to me. Come on, let’s go and help Nanny with dinner and that. Where’s Jess?”
“She’s trying to impress Tyrone.”
“Oh!” Mereana giggled. “I could tell her not to bother. But I don’t think I will.” Her eyes sparkled with tears and also with mischief.
“What? Tell me,” I said.
“Not yet. Soon I will. Or you might figure it out yourself.” She giggled again.
She wouldn’t say anymore, so we walked slowly back to the house. It was really hot, and the melted tar on the road stuck to the bottom of our jandals. The toetoe that bordered the paddocks waved feathery fronds in the breeze. There was another smell too. I couldn’t figure it out.
“What is that smell? Just back there.”
Mereana turned back to have a look.
“Oh, that’s wild fennel. It’s a bit stinky, isn’t it.”
“You’re not kidding! It’s horrible.”
We walked quickly to get away from it, but there was more and more. It was everywhere.
“I guess we’ll just have to get used to it,” I said.
Jess was back at the house by the time we walked in the door. She was peeling potatoes, so we got stuck in and made a salad to go with the sausages that Nanny was frying. Nanny was very quiet. She said very little to us, just things like where the servers were, and where we could find oil for the salad.
As we finished dinner, I looked at Mereana. She was almost as quiet as Nanny.
I took a bit of a risk and said, “Nanny, some of the kids we were talking to down at the wharf said a woman had come back to the village, and that the whānau was all talking about it. It was big news, they said, and it was something to do with Mereana’s dad.”
Mereana’s head shot up, and she glared at me. Jess opened her eyes wide and gave me a little nod. We were both keen to get to the bottom of it even if Mereana wasn’t keen to open it all up.
Nanny looked at me appraisingly. “All right, girls,” she said. “You’re going to hear it from someone, so it better be me.” She sat back in her chair. “That wāhine who came back, who is no better than she ought to be, she’s your real nanny. She’s your dad’s mother. But she got her head turned by a no-gooder, who took her away to Australia. He promised her everything, but after a while he left her there, with no money, no nothing.
We didn’t hear from her for a very long time. Too ashamed. Then we heard she’d got married to a rich fulla, but she still didn’t come home. She didn’t come home to find out what happened to her family nor nothing. Then she comes back like lady muck and wants to have a big hui with the whole whānau. What for? Just to show how rich she is? We said no. She can go back where she came from.”
She turned to Mereana. “Don’t worry about what you hear, darlin’, I’m the one looked after your dad like my own. I’m still your Nanny Anahera.”
Jess opened her mouth to say something. Then she shut it quickly when she saw my face. I knew what she was going to say. That those kids had said she was the auntie, not the nanny. Enough said for now. Plenty of time to find out the whole story.
Mereana was looking shocked. We needed a diversion. Something to distract.
“Nanny, will you come for a walk around the town with us, and tell us about the history of it?” I asked.
She thought for a bit, then nodded. “Okay, let’s tidy up and we’ll go for a little look-see and a kōrero about the ancestors, the tūpuna. Good idea, girl.”