Whenever Mum drove her cream 1974 Holden Kingswood into town, she would attract double takes as she rumbled around. A tiny brown lady who barely came up to my shoulder, she had to sit on a cushion to peer over the steering wheel. She looked like a child driving.
‘Chur, that’s a straight-as Holden,’ Māori fullas would say. ‘How much your old lady want for it?’
But the Holden wasn’t for sale.
I stepped off the propeller plane and the stench of the nearby sewage ponds rose to greet me. I spotted Mum’s whale of a car and went over. She got out and kissed my cheek. Clad in winter woolies and gumboots, worry clouded her face.
‘What’s wrong, Mum?’
‘It’s about time you came home. Put your suitcase in the back.’
Rabbits darted across the road that was lined with pines, their foliage horizontal strokes of yellow and green. The muddy river flowed past, sluggish and slow as if powerful forces roiled beneath its surface. Perhaps a taniwha lurked in the deep.
The past is heavy, I thought.
Only if you hold on to it, said the imaginary Buddhist monk in my mind: an Australian called Zen Ken. He was always chiming in with his two cents’.
Down the main drag, I noticed there were even more vacant shops. A couple of locals lurched past, looking like extras from The Walking Dead. I sighed. Auckland seemed very far away.
We pulled into the driveway of Mum’s place – a faded yellow villa with an overgrown garden.
‘Girl, look at this,’ Mum said and opened the boot.
A dirty bundle lay there. I flipped the folds back to reveal a sawn-off shotgun.
‘That bloody brother of yours borrowed my car yesterday. Now I hear his mate has been arrested. What should I do with this?’
‘We’d better go see him,’ I said.
We drove over the river to my brother Tāne’s house, another rundown villa. Māori carvings in varying states of completion were dotted amongst the flax bushes, and the wooden letterbox was shaped like a pātaka, the patterns drawn on with a Vivid. No one answered the front door, so we let ourselves in. Everything was upside down. Squabs had been pulled off the sofa, the contents of drawers emptied on the floor, and the furniture was strewn around in disarray.
‘Looks like the cops beat us to it.’ I opened the back door. A large black rubbish bag sat in the middle of the yard, overflowing with marijuana buds. I went over and examined them. Sticky, pungent purple heads.
Mum and I looked at each other.
‘How did the cops miss that?’ Mum said.
‘They wouldn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to leave a huge bag of weed sitting in their backyard like this.’
‘What should we do?’ Mum asked.
I picked up the bag and chucked it in the boot.
Mum said karakia, and we tucked into big plates of boil up: pork bones, pūhā, potatoes, kūmara and doughboys.
‘I’ve been craving this.’ I savoured the flavourful broth, its round richness cut by the sharp taste of the pūhā. I thickly buttered some parāoa takakau to sop up the juices.
‘You used to turn your nose up at our kai,’ Mum said.
‘I still hate fish heads!’
They were Mum’s favourite. She loved to suck the eyes out and show me the eyeballs on her tongue. Then she’d smack her lips and say they were the best part.
A local reality TV show called Road Cops was on in the background as we ate. Some teenagers had been pulled over, their faces pixelated. The driver’s voice sounded familiar.
‘Hey, that’s my car!’ Mum said.
It was Tāne’s son, Wiremu, in Mum’s Holden.
‘This is a repeat. Haven’t you seen it?’ my youngest brother, Matiu, piped up. ‘It was on ages ago.’
‘Bloody hōhā kids,’ Mum said.
‘Remember when we saw Wiremu on Crimewatch?’ I said. He’d been a grainy figure in CCTV footage of a break-in at a local pub. Mum recognised the hoodie she had given him for Christmas. I chuckled.
‘It’s not funny, girl,’ Mum said. She frowned and pushed her plate away.
‘At least Tāne didn’t get busted,’ I said.
We had since learned that a cache of guns had been stolen in a burglary. We figured that Tāne’s mate was the culprit and had given him one of the guns. Since the cops hadn’t found anything at Tāne’s house, they’d had to let him go.
‘Whatcha gonna do with that gun, Mum?’ I said.
‘E aua,’ she said, and shrugged.
Tāne came over to Mum’s the next day. Tall, with sweeping long dreads, pounamu tusks plugged in his ear lobes and intricate tā moko spiralling across his face, arms and chest, he almost looked regal, but the princely effect was spoiled by his footwear – socks worn with jandals. Bad look, bro, I thought.
‘Hey, Mum … have you got that thing?’ he said.
‘What thing?’ she said, giving him the stink eye.
Tāne managed to look sheepish and defiant at the same time.
‘We’ve got your dope,’ Mum said. ‘Lucky for you, the cops didn’t find it!’
‘Nah … not that. Hold on to it for me though. I left something in your car …’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tāne! Now get your black arse outside and mow my lawns!’
Tāne glowered. ‘Gis my gun back!’
‘Make yourself useful or fuck off home!’ Mum growled. Boy, could she turn vicious. Like a pit bull.
Tāne slammed the front door on his way out and made the whole house shudder.
‘Have you been to see your girl yet?’ Mum asked. I shook my head.
‘Jump in the car.’
James K Baxter’s slow, brown god slid past like an eel under the expansive blue sky.
Waka were racing on the awa. One canoe shot ahead and kept pace with us as we drove to the urupā.
We stopped by the graves of people we knew. We admired Meha’s unusual headstone, flat and portal-like. Mum touched Sam’s faded photo. Hello, Blue, old friend.
‘She’s not alone,’ Mum said.
The oak tree at the northern edge of the cemetery lay ahead. I steeled myself. The miniature roses we planted five years ago had grown wild, obscuring the headstone. Mum clipped them back while I sat on the grave. Chunks of dark, streaky pounamu and carved black river stone had been left for her. Offerings from Tāne. It was a good spot here, under the tree and by the river.
‘Which side is ours?’ I asked.
Mum pointed to the plot on the right. Whoever goes first will be buried deeper.
I was riding a giant golden bird when Zen Ken popped up alongside me on a mare’s tail cloud. Socked feet in jandals peeked out from under his orange robes.
‘Why hold on to the coffins of dead moments?’ he said. A horde of zombies swarmed in the town below us. ‘She’ll be right, mate,’ he whispered, and struck a gong that had materialised in mid-air: BANG, BANG, BANG. It took me a minute to realise someone was pounding on the front door. I dragged myself out of bed, swearing.
A large figure loomed behind the frosted glass, and I could hear the low, throbbing sound of a V8 idling outside. The shadow banged on the door again, and I flung it open. A huge Māori with a tattoo of a skull on his cheek was standing there. He didn’t look happy.
‘I want my fucken drugs,’ he said, glaring down at me. He had a gold tooth that glinted in the moonlight like a fang.
‘Don’t have them.’
‘Tāne said they’re here.’
‘Dunno where they are!’ The truth is, I didn’t. I had no idea what Mum had done with the sack of buds.
‘Stop mucking me around.’
I started to sweat.
‘I … I just need to …’
‘HURRY UP THEN!’ he roared, and kicked the doorframe.
‘Move out the way, girl,’ I heard Mum say.
Five foot nothing in her slippers and dressing gown, Mum was standing there with the sawn-off shotgun pointed up at the chest of our visitor. He stepped back, eyes wide and hands up.
‘Go get his stuff, girl. In my wardrobe.’
I did what I was told, and dumped the bag at his feet.
‘Coming to this house in the middle of the night, making enough noise to wake the dead! I’m an old lady!’ she said, eyes blazing, before a flicker of recognition crossed her face.
‘Hey, wait a minute …’
The man shuffled uneasily and looked down.
‘I used to teach you at the kura. Tūmanako, is that you?’
The man nodded, shamefaced.
‘Āe, Whaea … it’s me.’
Mum lowered the gun.
‘Bloody hell!’
‘Sorry to wake yous, Whaea. I didn’t know this was your house.’ He bowed his head, chastened.
‘You used to be such a good kid at school. So bright! How’s your mother?’
‘She’s all goods. Sorry again, Whaea.’
‘Nemmind. Go home eh, it’s bloody late!’
‘Yes, Whaea. Geez, you’re still scary. Nearly shit myself.’
Mum gave him a look.
‘Aroha mai. Pō Mārie,’ Tūmanako said. He gathered up his weed and gave me a nod.
‘Pō Mārie, Tūmanako,’ Mum said.
It was my last night in town. We were heading over to Tāne’s place for a hāngī. He had put it down especially. I was looking forward to a beautiful kai, but I couldn’t wait to get back to the city. A week was plenty with my whānau.
‘Just gotta get some gas,’ Mum said and pulled into a petrol station. A trio of patched gang members were on the forecourt scoffing pies, leaning against a muscle car. The biggest, meanest-looking one raised his eyebrows in greeting. It was Tūmanako.
‘Nice Holden!’ he said, and winked.