From the Centre Read online

  We live by the sea, which hems and stitches the scalloped edges of the land.

  Renowned writer Patricia Grace begins her remarkable memoirs beside her beloved Hongoeka Bay. It is the place she has returned to throughout her life, and fought for, one of many battles she has faced:

  It was when I first went to school that I found out that I was a Māori girl … I found that being different meant that I could be blamed …

  As she shows, her experiences — good and bad, joyous and insightful — have fuelled what became a focus of her life:

  I had made up my mind that writing was something I would always do.

  Contents

  Awards

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Picture Section

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Follow Penguin Random House

  To the memory of

  Kerehi Waiariki Grace

  Brian Gunson

  Aunt Belle Helen Robinson née Gunson

  AWARDS

  Honorary Doctorate World Indigenous Nations University (WINU) (2016)

  New Zealand Book Awards for Children & YA, Picture Book Award [finalist] for Haka / Whiti te Rā! (2016)

  New Zealand Book Awards for Children & YA, Te Kura Pounamu Award for Haka / Whiti te Rā! (2016)

  Ockham New Zealand Book Awards for Fiction [finalist] for Chappy (2016)

  Honoured New Zealand Writer at the Auckland Writers’ Festival (2014)

  Neustadt International Prize for Literature (2008)

  Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to Literature (2007)

  Certificate of Honor from Senate State of Hawai‘i for Contributions to Literature (2006)

  Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement (2006)

  Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon Awards (2005)

  Montana New Zealand Book Awards, Deutz Medal for Fiction for Tu (2005)

  Nielson Book Data New Zealand Booksellers’ Choice Award for Tu (2005)

  Montana New Zealand Book Awards [finalist] for Dogside Story (2002)

  Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize for Dogside Story (2001)

  Booker Prize [longlist] for Dogside Story (2001)

  LiBeraturpreis in Frankfurt (1994)

  Queen’s Service Order (1988)

  Honorary DLitt, Victoria University (1989)

  New Zealand Book Award for Fiction for Potiki (1986)

  Goodman Fielder Wattie Book of the Year Award [third] for Potiki (1986)

  Victoria University Writing Fellowship (1985)

  PEN/Hubert Church Award for Best First Book of Fiction for Waiariki (1976)

  1.

  I’M SITTING BY A BIG WINDOW IN THE LOUNGE, A SPOT chosen because it’s where the sun’s coming in. I’ve always preferred to write in the living areas of the house: at the dining table, or, as now, notebook propped on my lap, pencil in hand. The pencil is ‘grip plus’, propelling, 2B lead. The notebook? Hard cover, two hundred pages, mostly used. There’s an office elsewhere in the house. It’s where I keep stuff, print out, copy, scan — but for pencil and paper, typing up, I like light, movement of trees, life going on, lawnmowers (but distant), kids, birds. I believe it gives energy and toughens concentration.

  It is August 2017. Outside the window is a pūriri tree, grown from one of four plants purchased by my daughter thirty years ago at a market day. Two of the four are growing on our marae ātea, a short walk from here, and another near where my daughter was living at the time.

  This afternoon the tree is inhabited by small birds, mainly tauhou — the newcomer — white eye rings making them easy to identify. Along with finch varieties, they angle about, dipping into and picking at the cupped, narrow pink flowers that, with rims out-turned, resemble mini champagne flutes.

  Three tūī were here this morning, on overdrive, leaping about and feeding, flying out and back, out and back before leaving altogether. They haven’t gone far. I can hear them in the pōhutukawa and tī kōuka out front of the ‘big house’, low-and-high-noting, creaking and belling. They’ll be lording it out there, warning off all non-tūī comers.

  Kererū haven’t visited for a few months. There’s nothing to attract them at present, but I notice there are bunches of green berries forming on the pūriri. When these ripen, the kererū will come, plunging through the leaves, rocking the branches, departing and returning, heavy and noisy as they fly.

  The big window is a feature of this small house, which I moved into three months ago. It’s situated behind the ‘big house’, which is the one Dick and I built when we moved to Hongoeka Bay more than forty years ago. The eldest of our children was fourteen at the time and the youngest four.

  Hongoeka is a unique place in several ways. It is the last remnant of three Ngāti Toa reserves that still remain in Ngāti Toa hands. These reserves (10,000 acres of land) had, in the words of the Porirua Deed, 1847, been set aside ‘for the perpetual benefit of Ngāti Toa’ following the acquisition of Porirua by the Crown in that same year.

  The stony shores of Hongoeka Bay, residential area. Marae complex at far end. FAMILY ARCHIVES

  It was in 1865 that the government expunged tribal ownership of Māori lands to better facilitate Crown pickings, and it was during this era that Hongoeka titles were taken out in the names of six of our male tūpuna. Though the Porirua Deed did little to protect the reserves, and the land dwindled over time owing to dishonest dealings, tax demands, impoverishment of Māori, and new parliamentary Acts and laws, Hongoeka, at 554 acres, remains the largest area of Māori-owned land in the district of Wellington — this despite efforts by councils and different companies to obtain it for various purposes.

  Ngāti Toa’s traditional home was in Kāwhia, where the Tainui waka originally made landfall. In 1820, because of ongoing conflict, and under threat of annihilation by more numerous traditional enemies, Ngāti Toa left Kāwhia — their centuries-old home. Under the leadership of war strategist Te Rauparaha, safe passage out of Kāwhia was negotiated, and thus began an arduous, dangerous and eventful trek in search of new territories. Many lives were lost. The whole journey from Kāwhia to Te Moana o Raukawa (Cook’s Strait) was named Te Heke-mai-i-raro.

  By 1840 Ngāti Toa, by conquest, had become the dominant iwi on the Kāpiti Coast. They had also conquered territory in the South Island, and controlled large areas on both sides of Te Moana o Raukawa from their island fortress of Kāpiti. After European settlers arrived, Ngāti Toa was seen as a threat to the Crown, whose ambition was land acquisition.

  So, in 1846, by order of Governor Grey, Te Rauparaha was taken from his principal residence, which was situated a short distance — about a half kilometre — from where I live. He was held captive aboard HMS Calliope for ten months, then imprisoned in Auckland without trial for an additional eight months. It was during this period, with Te Rauparaha being held to ransom by Grey, that most of Ngāti Toa’s land was acquired by the Crown as, under duress, Ngāti Toa negotiated his release.

  HONGOEKA CONSISTS OF SIX LARGE COASTAL LAND BLOCKS, a small area of whic
h, in the bay itself, is rural/residential, taking up flat land and lower hillsides. This is bordered by bush-clad hills and looks out over a broad sweep of rugged coastline towards the landmarks Whitireia (hill feature) and Mana Island (Te Mana Nui o Kupe ki te Moana Nui a Kiwa — this name celebrating the feats of explorer Kupe as he crossed the Pacific Ocean). Beyond the island, on a clear day, the South Island is outlined, the view dominated in winter months by the snow-covered mountain known as Ngā Tapuwae o Uenuku, the sacred footsteps of the ancestor Uenuku, deity of rainbows.

  Mana Island as seen from Hongoeka Bay. South Island in distance. FAMILY ARCHIVES

  All front properties in the bay, whether residential or what we call ‘coastal’, cross the formed private road easement and continue down to mean high water. Public walking access is allowed by the generosity of landowners. Prior to the introduction of the Foreshore and Seabed Act of 2002 and the Takutai Moana Act 2011, riparian rights extended well out beyond mean high water into Te Moana o Raukawa. However, because the new Acts in 2002 and 2011 extinguished customary rights, we have found it necessary to make an application to the High Court to have these rights re-recognised, this despite the fact that our occupation and residency here have been continuous since the 1820s — that is, customary rights have been utilised continuously over eight or more generations. We see ourselves as caretakers, not only of the land and sea environments, wild life and resources, but also of family and tribal knowledge, history, traditions, values, art and language. This is all whānau land, having come to present owners through our common Ngāti Toa ancestry, with our equal connections to Ngāti Raukawa and Te Āti Awa. It has been an important fishing and food-gathering area throughout the decades, and remains so to this day.

  Despite the new Acts and new definitions, life goes on as before while we await court judgments, which we know could take years. We fish, we gather pāua and kina, and though crayfish are not as plentiful as they once were, we enjoy these once in a while. We gather seaweed, the edible kind, or what we need for garden fertilisation. We collect driftwood and stones needed when making a hāngī.

  Because of this ancestral connection to the land, everyone who lives here, or who has descent lines in common, no matter where in the world they live, is either related to me or is married to a relative of mine. Being in close proximity to the city of Porirua and only 30 ks from the capital city, Wellington, means that the people of past and present generations have been able to stay on our tūrangawaewae without having to move away to find work and educational opportunities. But not all have been able to remain, as the buildable area is limited. There are thirty-seven homes in all.

  2.

  I WAS BORN EIGHTY YEARS AND ONE WEEK AGO, FROM THE time of beginning this memoir (24 August 2017), in a maternity ‘home’ in Newtown, Wellington, on a day the All Blacks played the Springboks at Athletic Park. While my mother was having considerable trouble giving birth to me, my father was at the rugby. I don’t want this to reflect badly on my father, as he was the best and most attentive father one could have wished for, but he wasn’t allowed in the door of the maternity home, being told he could return once the baby was born but only during visiting hours. He would’ve had no other expectation, as this was normal practice at the time. It was still so when I had my own children in the late 1950s and ’60s.

  I grew up amid two worlds, having close, continuous and frequent contact with each. These were two different and contrasting spheres that I inhabited, both full of life and vitality: my mother’s Pākehā family and my father’s Māori whānau.

  MY MATERNAL GRANDMOTHER WAS BORN IN NEW ZEALAND of Irish parents. Her mother had come to this country in service to an English family, while her father had emigrated from Ireland as a small boy. This grandmother was talkative and funny, with a deep wheezy laugh. As a small child, I believed she had powers, because she told me that Father Christmas was going to bring me a jigsaw puzzle depicting the nursery rhyme ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’. She described it to me: the king in his counting house, the queen with her honey sandwich, all the blackbirds flying out of the pie, and the maid at the clothesline about to have her nose snatched. Santa stockings in those days, at least for my brother, cousins and me, contained a series of small items — maybe a tennis ball, an orange, a few lollies, a colouring book and crayons, a puzzle, socks or a new singlet if needed. The present I have never forgotten from those early days was the one predicted by my magic Nanna.

  We saw a lot of her throughout childhood. She, my mother and my two aunts visited at one of our homes each week during the school terms. This would have been on Nanna’s day off from work. My mother’s two sisters and their families lived in state houses in the suburb of Strathmore, where some of the first state houses in the country were built. In each of our three houses, on a mantelpiece or windowsill among other glass, brass or china ornaments, was a version of the three monkeys: See No Evil, with monkey hands covering eyes; Speak No Evil, hands covering mouth; Hear No Evil, hands covering ears — the alter egos of these sisters, but who was who? My grandmother, mother and aunts were full of fun, mischief and good humour as they discussed this matter along with other issues important to them.

  Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. From left: Mum, Aunty Kathleen, Aunty Patricia. FAMILY ARCHIVES

  When it was my mother’s turn for Nanna’s and the aunties’ Thursday visit, we would come home from school on a Wednesday to the smell of baking and would know the next day was to be ‘Nanna day’. When our Strathmore cousins came to visit, we practised being blind, shutting our eyes and walking the unfenced areas of our section using improvised walking sticks. We took turns riding down the steep pathways scrunched on to a wooden toy truck, or walked up and down the steps and paths on stilts.

  Sometimes on a Friday, the sisters would meet in Wellington and try on hats, or that’s my impression of what they did on the occasions I was with them.

  Nanna worked at various times as a live-in employee at hotels in Wellington. Once when we visited her, she was in the big hotel kitchen making multiple fish cakes, forming them with floury hands, talking all the while, placing them to cook on a large skillet heating on a wide stovetop. These hotels all had interesting staircases with polished wooden hand rails, and my brother, cousins and I looked for opportunities, when no one was around, to slide down the bannisters. Mostly, however, we were confined to a small lounge with Nanna, our mother, two aunts and one or two cousins, while the adults downed a gin or two and we were treated to raspberry and lemonade. A main topic of conversation was horses: the geegees. All were keen betters and race goers. They studied the form and enjoyed a ‘flutter’.

  Nanna became a close friend of the licensee of one of the hotels, Miss Quinn, and went with her when the older woman retired and moved to Quinn’s Post Tavern in Upper Hutt. Nanna was employed there as a companion and accompanied her employer when she travelled.

  OUR MATERNAL GRANDFATHER, WHOSE MOTHER EMIGRATED from the Shetland Islands and married a French–Canadian seaman who jumped ship in Nelson, lived with us for several years. He arrived in a rectangular green car to visit for a few days but stayed on. He had long since left my grandmother and the family. Pop could turn his hand to any practical task to do with building, fixing, constructing, mending shoes, and while our father was away at war he made patchwork concrete-slab pathways and trellis fences up and down our fit-for-goats, wind-bashed section. His hobbies went from jewellery making (shaping and polishing pennies and halfpennies to be worn as pendants, and cutting out and decorating hearts and other shapes from Perspex to be worn as brooches) to fixing clocks.

  He worked for the city council and had access to rubbish trucks from which he retrieved discarded mantelpiece clocks, or had the collectors put them aside for him. These were chiming clocks with a pendulum, the casements intricately carved, the faces numbered, usually in Roman numerals. He brought them home and got them going. The mechanics were very simple, it seemed. Most of the restoration effort went into repairin
g the carved cases, restoring the woodwork and numerals, and repainting the designs on the glass. He did this in our basement workshop. Each clock had a different-sounding chime, but because these were not synchronised they’d begin binging and bonging one after the other, or over the top of each other. The most I remember counting in the middle of the day or night was thirty-two o’clock.

  We looked forward, once a week, to when Pop would bring home a bundle of comics telling of the day-to-day goings-on of characters such as Ernie Entwhistle, Billy Bunter, Deed-a-Day Danny, and orphans Todd and Annie. This reading material could last my brother and me a whole week as we read, re-enacted the stories, and practised the dialogue and vocabulary: Tee hee, Bah! What a swiz, What’s for tea, Ma? Eeee, daft I call it. Ding dong, ding dong tra la fi fi represented the sounds of the village clock before it sounded out the hours.

  We liked the idea of being orphans, and, as we shared a bedroom (which we did until I was about eleven, even though there was a spare bedroom in the house), I would read to my brother and sometimes he would read to me, but once the light went out we played games based on comics or movies. One of our favourite games was to pretend we were orphans Todd and Annie, walking the highways, sleeping under bridges, hedges or overturned carts, and foraging for food. The trouble was that my brother would fall asleep partway through these never-ending sagas, even though I did my best to keep him engaged. I’d throw my pillow at him but it made no difference, so I’d keep myself going for a while, then I’d have to get out of bed and retrieve my pillow. Other games, spilling over into daytime hours, would have included pirates, Tarzan, fairgrounds, kidnappers, invisibility and living underground. When, at eleven or twelve, I asked if I could have a room of my own and my parents agreed, I felt like a traitor. My brother was now of an age where he could stay awake and have lots to contribute to our night-time theatricals, and I had deserted him.