I Got His Blood on Me: Frontier Tales Page 4

  I turned and headed back, trying to avoid looking across the water to Kāpiti. I found it strangely intimidating, that heavy collection of triangles angling into the sea. I had an irrational fear of its gravity, the way it drew your eye. I’d loved the stories about it, though. When I first arrived I’d read heaps of them.

  I was nearly back at the carpark. I was back to missing Mary. I kicked a stray plastic bottle into the dune plants and missed her. I missed our imaginary dog.

  I got the call to collect Smith from hospital on a Friday. Apparently mine was the only phone number the hospital had. He was in a different room, but he’d still managed to find a TV and turn it to a tremendous volume. His expression didn’t change when I arrived. I stood for some moments at the foot of his bed, waving my hands to demand his attention.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming back,’ he said, at last.

  ‘I wasn’t,’ I said. ‘I’m here because of Mary. Besides, you’re leaving, aren’t you?’

  Smith continued to watch the television, the noise obliterating everything.

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘Are we going? Where’s your gear?’

  ‘Wait,’ he said.

  I sat down and tried to be patient. I could be rid of him by the end of the day, put the whole episode behind me. An old Home Improvement was on. Everybody had their shirts tucked in; they all looked well-fed and happy.

  ‘Smith?’ I said. ‘Are we going?’

  He smoothed his hair. ‘How is she?’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘Who?’

  ‘Mary,’ he said. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Mary?’

  ‘Āe. Your wāhine.’

  I laughed. ‘You’ve never asked about her before. Don’t pretend you care about Mary.’

  ‘It wasn’t my place,’ he said.

  I laughed again. ‘Right.’

  He glared. ‘I was trying not to be rude, Miller. It’s rude to ask questions like you do.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Are we going? I’d like to go soon, if that’s okay.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said.

  I smoothed my hands on my thighs and tried to keep calm.

  ‘So how is she?’ he said.

  ‘She’s not very well,’ I said. ‘She hasn’t been well for a while. I told you.’

  Mitre 10 was advertising a special on water-blasters. Apparently Smith found it absorbing—but then the Briscoes lady came on, and he gave her equal attention.

  ‘You see,’ I said, ‘you don’t care at all. Don’t play games with me, please, Smith, especially not about Mary. I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘Of course I heard you,’ he said. ‘I was waiting for you to go on.’

  I laughed. ‘You’re unbelievable.’

  ‘So go on, if you want to,’ he said. ‘Tell me about Mary.’

  ‘Can we go after that?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I smoothed my thighs again. ‘Like I told you, she’s lost her job,’ I said. ‘She can’t get another one, and she’s taking it very hard. It matters to her. She’s not very good, right now.’

  ‘What’s her trade?’ said Smith.

  ‘She’s a project manager. She works in government, mostly. She’s very good at it. She’s got an MBA. It means a lot to her. That’s why it’s so hard for her, now that she can’t get another job.’

  ‘Plus it’s less money for both of you,’ said Smith.

  I looked at him, surprised. ‘Yes. It’s less money coming in. We’ve got a mortgage, too.’

  Smith was still looking at the television. ‘She really can’t get a job,’ he said.

  ‘She’s tried everything,’ I said. ‘It’s very tough out there, Smith. No one is recruiting. Everybody has to reapply for their own jobs. That doesn’t sound too tough, not compared to real unemployment, real poverty, but it’s hard on people. It’s hard on Mary. It hasn’t been good for our relationship. Not at all.’

  Smith smoothed his hair back and tried to bunch it. It was frizzy these days and seemed to be bothering him, and I wondered whether he usually wore it in a ponytail. I tried to remember what had been customary—what I’d read was customary—but gave up. It wasn’t clear what rules applied to him anyway.

  ‘And you can’t get a job, either,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I’ve tried. There’s really nothing in my field.’

  ‘But it’s killing your marriage,’ he said.

  ‘It’s destroying it,’ I said, then stopped, remembering who I was talking to, how he might use anything against me.

  ‘Go on,’ he said. Again he said this without looking at me, as if, when he did, the spell would be broken.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘Come on, Smith, we’re going.’ I didn’t stand up, though.

  ‘So she is down,’ he said.

  ‘Very down. She’s in a bad way.’

  ‘So you have to get one,’ said Smith. ‘You have to get a job. You have to do it.’

  I snorted. ‘So I can be the breadwinner, I suppose. I’m the man, after all.’

  ‘No, Miller,’ he said. ‘You idiot.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  He heaved up in his bed but I didn’t flinch, this time. Something of his old threat had gone. There was a note of negotiation behind these questions. He’d realised again that he needed me.

  ‘You have to do it,’ he said. ‘You have to be the one.’

  ‘Why me?’ I said. ‘Why should I have to get a job—from God knows where, by the way—when it’s just as hard for me? It doesn’t just have to be the man, anymore, Smith. That’s all changed.’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with being the man. Your wife’s in trouble. You need money, and you’ve haven’t got any money, so get money. Stop complaining all the time, and do something.’

  ‘She’s not my wife,’ I said. ‘And it’s not my responsibility—not just mine. Mary gets paid more than me.’

  ‘Who cares?’ he said. ‘And don’t do it because it’s your responsibility. Do it to make life nicer for your wāhine, man. For Christ’s sake. How old are you, Miller? Do I have to tell you these things?’

  I looked away from him. ‘It’s not that easy. Jobs are kind of specialised, these days, Smith. I’m kind of in a niche, you know.’

  ‘Then you’re not trying hard enough,’ he said. ‘I bet there is something you could do, if you tried. You have to adapt, Miller. You have to think more.’ He laughed and shook his head sadly. ‘You might have had a fancy job in the government once, Miller, but you’re really still a baby.’

  I stood up. ‘I think I might go.’

  Smith held his hands up, as if he had something to negotiate. In fact he had nothing to negotiate. Even so, he was smiling. ‘You can call me a rough-guts, Miller, if you want, and probably I am. I did some very bad things when I was young, back in Britain, and I know you’re just itching to know about them. But I did my time for them—I did a bit of time for them—and I’ll never tell anyone about them now.’ He eyed me. ‘Never—not anyone.’

  It was that old canny look, but I rolled my eyes, and he saw he couldn’t use that on me anymore.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘that’s not my point. The point is I’ve changed, and I know how to live quietly now. I’ve lived quietly with—with Hine for years now, ever since I arrived. And I’m good to her, Miller. That’s one thing I know. At least I look after her, and she looks after me. At least I’ve got the basic things down.’

  ‘So what about all those stories you told me? All that fighting?’

  He waved this away. ‘You enjoyed them, didn’t you? You wanted to hear them.’

  I laughed weakly and looked down. Then I brought out my car keys and rattled them, not very subtly, then realised he wouldn’t know what that signified.

  ‘You said Mary is Te Āti Awa, didn’t you,’ he said. ‘I knew some Te Āti Awa. I traded with them.’

  ‘I said that’s part of her background,’ I said. ‘There’s German as well, even some Shetland. It’s all jumbled, just
like mine.’

  ‘Except yours is Pākehā.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said.

  His reply was a long and rapid sentence in te reo that I couldn’t understand.

  ‘You know I can’t understand that,’ I said.

  ‘You said you learnt Māori.’

  I sighed. ‘I said that I’m learning, Smith. Don’t pretend. Lots of people are learning—I wasn’t boasting about that. And it’s only part-time, anyway. I told you that.’

  ‘So you’ve been learning a bit after work,’ he said.

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘For a year and a bit, on and off.’

  ‘So you’ve learnt enough to know that you don’t know anything. All you’ve learnt is how ignorant you are.’

  ‘What is this, Smith?’ I said.

  ‘Just answer my question.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Of course I barely know anything. Who cares? I’ve never claimed anything different. I never said I was fluent, Smith. Christ, I never will be. That’s not the point of learning. Will that be all, Smith?’ I said. ‘Can I go home now?’

  The bed-frame creaked as he eased his legs off it. Gingerly he put his feet on the floor, his hair falling round his face. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you my whare. I’ll let you meet my wife—I’ll let you meet Hine. But after that you have to promise not to try to find us again. You have to leave us alone. No more questions, no coming back for more. We’ll say goodbye, and then we’ll be finished, you and me.’

  ‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘You’re the boss, apparently.’

  ‘You have to promise,’ he said.

  I laughed. ‘I really don’t care where you live, Smith. Not anymore. I want to go home. Can I go home now?’

  ‘So you’ll take me?’

  ‘Yes, Smith. I said yes, didn’t I?’

  ‘Promise,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake! I just said I would take you. I don’t have to promise every five minutes, okay?’

  He smiled. ‘Good, then. That’s settled.’

  There was barely room in the passenger’s side of my car for Smith and his braced leg, his crutches, the carrier bag of tape and replacement bandages. His weapons had been returned to him, still bundled in the big brown bag, and he held them all against his chest as we travelled, the musket-barrel angling across the ceiling. Traffic was busy in the city, but freed up once we hit the motorway, and Smith seemed comfortable enough, silently taking in the landscape of cars and satellite towns that whizzed by his window. Nothing seemed to surprise him now.

  It was getting on for dusk, and we’d already hit Paekākāriki before he gave me any indication of directions, which he did with characteristic helpfulness, jabbing his thumb at the last minute towards a side-road that led into the swampland off the motorway, so I had to brake suddenly and turn. There was a gravel surface and it shushed and spat as we went through a low scrub of mānuka and harakeke, terminating at a carpark with signage for walkers and stiles leading to mown paths.

  As soon as we stopped, Smith fought his door open and lurched towards a stile with his bag of weapons, his bad leg dragging. Locking the car, I followed with his crutches in my arms and the bandages hanging from my fingers, along with two bags of Four Square food that I’d thought he might be able to use, or might function as some sort of koha from me. Naturally Smith had given me no idea of what to expect at his home, or what was expected of me.

  ‘Smith,’ I said. ‘Wait.’

  Without looking back he lifted a hand to indicate he’d heard me, but didn’t stop, lurching on with surprising speed.

  The track was dewy, sheltered on either side by high harakeke and toe-toe. A stream oozed on the right; far away, the motorway whizzed with cars. Every now and then bridges and gates led off into farmland, each gate hung with a sign forbidding entry, cows ambling behind them. It was just beyond one of these bridges that Smith pushed off the track and down into the harakeke. Angling my load of crutches and bags, I surged after him, the flax blading loudly against my ears. Through the other side there was a low bank, then the stream, which Smith sploshed directly into, mud and creek-algae smearing up the white of his bandages. Close to where he’d crossed, a thick log was laid across the stream. This, it seemed, was the usual crossing. Smith had not trusted his injured leg to the log.

  Removing my jandals, I crossed the bridge, my load balanced in my arms. Smith was out the other side now, and he didn’t wait for me, plunging into yet more harakeke, the green closing around him. This time my bags tore as I pushed through, biscuits and bread spilling out crudely.

  There seemed no end to the harakeke. Pushing blindly on I surged through it, fighting the restraining seed stalks, then tripped at last into a small clearing beneath a bank. Here a cooking fire burned, Smith standing before it. He was facing a woman who was dressed in a man’s shirt over a blanket similar to his own. Their faces were very close, and it seemed they’d just been kissing or whispering something. At my loud arrival they stepped back from each other. Smith pointed at the grass behind me—a bunch of bananas had fallen from my Four Square bags and glowed up from the grass.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, retrieving them. The load in my arms was an embarrassment now, the food either torn and strewn in the flax or squashed under my arms.

  Without speaking Smith left the woman and stooped into a whare that jutted from the bank, a makeshift A-frame roofed with raupō and two sheets of rusted tin held up by mānuka poles lashed together in threes. Further along the bank and around the clearing I could see no other buildings. Smith was all alone here with the woman tending the fire and its collection of beaten and dark pots. I assumed she was Hine.

  Smith’s voice came indistinctly from inside the whare.

  ‘Pardon?’ I said.

  ‘Come in here,’ he said.

  I came adjacent to the door, not peering in yet, looking instead for evidence that Smith had removed his shoes and left them outside. There was none, but I shucked off my jandals anyway and stooped under the door. With my burden of crutches and bags, my entry was complicated.

  It was rather dark inside, light coming from stubs of candle on a legless table made of driftwood planks on the floor. Smith sat at the far end on a bed of mats against the wall. He indicated the fire outside, the woman working there. ‘Stay for a kai,’ he said.

  Still standing with my load in my arms, I said thank you, and with my eyes tried to suggest he might introduce me to his partner before I sat down. Seeing this, he ignored me, instead laying each of his weapons out on the mat beside him, then lifted each in turn to hold it up to the light, checking for signs of damage or contamination.

  He’d begun to oil his musket when the woman came inside. She looked me full in the face this time and smiled. She did not seem at all perturbed that I was there. I dumped the crutches and bags and straightened to greet her properly. She was clearly older than Smith. Black and grey hairs snaked up from her forehead and back from her ears.

  ‘I’m David,’ I said, and blushed at my English. I’d practised my te reo greetings many times, but couldn’t trust them now.

  ‘Tēnā koe, David,’ she said. The rest of her reply was too fast for me, but I did hear her give her name as Hine, and she smiled in Smith’s direction as she did so.

  I glanced sharply at him. He had paused to watch our exchange, but his face betrayed nothing. He bent over the musket again, oiling its barrel.

  Hine smiled again, but inclusively this time, and she took my hand and leaned in. Following her lead I shaped to hongi, then kissed her cheek instead. An aroma of perfume rose from her shirt, underlaid with a smell of cooking. She gave another fast but hospitable-sounding sentence in te reo, then invited me to sit on a mat against the wall.

  I sat and she went to resume her cooking outside. I was embarrassed that I hadn’t mentioned my food, now piled with Smith’s crutches on the ground. It was obvious that there’d never be a good time to bring it up naturally.

 
Smith was no longer working on his weapons. He was looking out the door to watch Hine work over the food. He’d been away from her for many weeks now, and it showed in the reverent attention he paid to her movements above the fire. Even as I thought this he looked at me, then down at his hands, then out at Hine again. He didn’t venture any conversation, and while I sat waiting I found myself watching her too, though I tried to do it politely.

  At length she came back in with a billy of tea and poured a tin mug for me, then lowered the remnants, billy and all, to the floor beside Smith.

  I thanked her in English.

  She nodded and said, ‘Āe,’ and went back outside. The largest of the pots was causing her difficulty. It seemed that whatever was in there was in danger of sticking to the bottom, and suddenly Smith leaned forward and sent a rapid string of advice out the door in Māori, and she nodded, adding a handful of something and stirring it in, and I wondered who normally did most of the cooking in their household. Again Smith saw me looking, and his eyes passed over mine impassively.

  He waited until I had sipped my tea, then lifted his billy to his face and slurped his tea loudly, smiling to himself afterwards. He was goading me again, perhaps getting me back for his first vulnerability at the hospital. I had to say something.

  ‘So what will you do now?’ I said. ‘For work, I mean.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Maybe I could help you,’ I said. ‘Help you find something. Things have changed a bit, out there.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘There’s no use for flax anymore, you said.’

  ‘I’m sure there must be some kind of use for it,’ I said. ‘On a much smaller scale, though. Certainly there are no shiploads going to Sydney these days—not that I know of. I could find out for you.’

  Smith watched Hine moving outside. At length he said, ‘What’s your trade again? Remind me.’

  ‘Health,’ I said. ‘Communications in health.’

  He indicated the crutches lying just along from me. ‘What could I get for those?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Really they should go back to the hospital, when you’re done.’

  He shook his head. ‘Leave them here. Leave the bandages.’