From the Centre Read online

  In his time Pop had been a carpenter, a driver, a chauffeur and a tram conductor. Under his bed he had a suitcase where he kept all kinds of things of interest to my brother and me, memorably a cigarette box with a sliding lid, out of which, when opened, a parrot popped up holding a cigarette in its beak. There were haircutting scissors with hair clippers and comb, and a pair of ticket clippers from his tram-conducting days which made a hole in the shape of a horse’s head.

  The affection I held for this grandfather when I was young lessened as I grew and came to realise his deep prejudices. This came to a head for me when I overheard him talking to his brother, making derogatory remarks about my father, who had always treated him with kindness and respect. I managed to do likewise, treat him with some respect (and some avoidance).

  3.

  I’VE NEVER MET A QUIETER, LESS TALKATIVE PERSON THAN my paternal grandmother. I stayed with her often, as a child, one reason being that my father had a young sister, only three years older than me. I was company for Helen, I was told. She was like a big sister to me. To a child, Grandmother, Pohe Onepu Gunson, known to all as Gunny, often seemed morose in her silence and her seriousness, even forbidding. Yet I knew she was kind. As I grew, I came to understand this, and believed her to be a loving grandmother. In all the time I stayed with her, she never spoke much at all except to direct us in our chores and to remind us to keep away from the ripening plums and gooseberries which were needed for jam. I don’t know whether she ever spotted us crawling through the long grass on our stomachs to what were often green gooseberries and under-ripe plums. If she did, I suppose she realised we couldn’t get away with too much while trying to be invisible.

  Gunny, my paternal grandmother. FAMILY ARCHIVES

  Helen and I had many chores to do, something I was unused to at home with my parents. My brother and I always washed, dried, put away dishes and cleaned down the benches after the evening meal. I can’t remember doing much more than that except for setting the table at mealtime, which I did, walking to and fro, from kitchen to table, bearing one handful of cutlery at a time while reading a book.

  My paternal grandparents rose very early and had had breakfast by the time we got up. We’d make our bed, have breakfast, do our dishes, then we’d sweep the rooms and go over the floors with a dusting mop. Once a week, down on our knees, we scrubbed and washed the linoleum in the sitting room and kitchen, then waxed and polished. A daily task was to fetch milk from whoever was supplying it at the time. Sometimes it was from an aunty who had a cow and who would scald the day’s milk in a big tin container on her wood stove. At other times milk would be delivered to a house in Karehana Bay where, the evening before, we had left a billy with money in it (coins wrapped in a little piece of paper) hanging on the fence. We walked to and from the shop to purchase bread, butter, flour, sugar, tea, golden syrup, Weetbix and condensed milk. Gunny often made her own bread, or Helen and I would start up the outside fire and make fried bread in a large pan over the flames. We didn’t need to do the meat shopping as, once a week, the butcher would come in his van, stopping at the top of the beach and sounding his horn. People would take their meat plates down and make their purchases. Our grandfather had pets: a blue-eyed duck, a grey cat and two turkeys. These would follow him in single file as he made his way to the butcher van.

  My grandparents’ house was small, but had been even smaller while my father, his brother and five sisters lived there. When I was growing up there was one double bedroom, a tiny single bedroom, a closed-in veranda which served as a long narrow bedroom, a small sitting room and a bathroom. There was no bathroom when the house was first built. All washing of selves and clothes was done in a separate washhouse.

  New houses built in Hongoeka in the 1950s had flush toilets. The older houses, like my grandparents’ place and our old bach, had outhouses where box seats sat over huge dark pits or ‘dunny cans’. Despite all the underlying odours, there was usually a strong whiff of Jeyes Fluid. These were fascinating places. In every corner were spider webs which had either frantic, spinning, buzzing blowflies trapped in them, or wings, legs and dried-up bits and pieces of former captives. There were bits of candle on a ledge and squares of newspaper threaded on number eight wire for wipes. My grandparents’ outhouse was among trees at the end of a long path, unlike some others which were accessed via a narrow track with stinging nettles either side. When necessary, we ran the gauntlet there and back, then rubbed our legs down with handfuls of long grass to stop the itching.

  There were some tasks Gunny didn’t trust us with. At least once a week she would wipe down the wood range, apply blacking with a strong brush, then with a second brush she’d bring it to a mirror shine. She did this task with old bloomers on her head. These were made of black Italian cloth and had elastic threaded through the waist and legs. The elastic waistband fitted around Grandmother’s head and protected her long black hair from soot and smudges. But down on all fours, waxing and polishing, with hems of our dresses tucked into our own bloomer legs, the headwear gave us the giggles.

  Dusting china and glass in the little sitting room, polishing the piano, and plumping up the seat cushions of the sofa and armchairs were also jobs Gunny kept for herself. She scrubbed the bench and the back doorstep herself too, using sand soap, scrubbing brush and a bucket of water. We knew to step over this scrubbed-white step whenever we went out or came in. All of this work was done by the time the soaps came on the radio. There were mid-morning programmes such as ‘Portia Faces Life’ and ‘Dr Paul’, the latter being a ‘wonderful story of adult love’.

  A place of interest to me was the sitting room with its linoleum square, its gold, velvety lounge suite, its glass cabinet full of china and glassware, and the piano. On one wall, in two oval frames, were large hand-coloured photographs of two aunts who had died of tuberculosis during and soon after World War II. We went through the sitting room on the way to bed on the closed-in veranda, we waxed and polished the lino, Helen practised on the piano there, and Grandmother dusted and polished — apart from that we weren’t to go in there except when we filed in once a week to listen to the never-to-be-missed Lifebuoy Hit Parade. My aunt and cousins had old exercise books in which they wrote down song lyrics. The adults had songsters: small cheaply produced booklets, obtained from newsagents, containing the lyrics, quickly learned, of recent songs.

  A popular song during the war years was ‘Blue Smoke’, composed by Ruru Karaitiana of the 28th (Māori) Battalion on his way to war aboard the Aquitania in 1940, which he taught to others and was sung in on-board concerts. It was picked up and sung in the deserts of North Africa, and was part of the repertoire of the Battalion concert party and of its seventeen-member choir. Ruru was hospitalised several times during the war and was eventually returned home. ‘Blue Smoke’ preceded him, becoming a favourite party song. Back at home, Ruru formed a quintet comprising singer Pikiteora (Pixie) Williams, Jimmy Carter on lap/steel guitar, Gerry Hall rhythm guitar, George Attridge ukulele, and Johnny McNeely double bass. ‘Blue Smoke’ was recorded in 1949, becoming the first record wholly produced in New Zealand from composition to pressing. It topped New Zealand hit parades for six weeks. Another favourite by the same composer was ‘Let’s Talk It Over’, which also became a hit.

  ‘Blue Smoke’ was a favourite party song of the ’40s, ’50s and on through the decades. It is still sung in this 21st century when the guitars come out. PHOTO COURTESY OF RUMA KARAITIANA

  On one occasion my mother took my brother and me to Begg’s music store in Wellington City where Ruru Karaitiana was sitting playing a piano, I suppose as a promotion for his music. He was dressed in his soldier uniform, including the black beret, looking no different from some of my uncles who had returned from war. My father was still away at that time. The store was practically empty. We hung back, watching and listening, all, including my mother, too shy to approach him. I think he said hello, but he was shy also.

  Later there was news of a new song of his, about Wellington, called ‘Windy City’. Hearing that it was due to be played on the radio on a certain day and time, we all packed in to our grandparents’ sitting room to listen — not everyone in Hongoeka Bay had a radio. I remember the silence at the end of the song. Disappointment. The verdict was that ‘Windy City’ wasn’t as good as ‘Blue Smoke’. I don’t think it made it on to the charts, but I was thrilled that a song had been composed about my city.

  One day when Gunny was out, my cousins and I went into the sitting room and sat on the armchairs and sofa. We luxuriated, swapping places, dropping ourselves into the forbidden furniture, laughing and exclaiming until, full of guilt, we did our best at restoration and got out of there.

  The bathroom was also a bit of a ‘no go’ area. One had to be clean to enter. We washed there in the mornings and cleaned our teeth, but by evening whatever we had collected on our legs, arms, faces or any part of us had to be dealt with outside in the creek or by standing in a basin of water and washing ourselves down. Only then would we be considered okay to go into the bathroom, which had been a precious addition to the original house, or perhaps could have been a converted bedroom.

  Once or twice during the holidays Gunny would take Helen and me to Wellington. Preparations would begin the evening before, when we would iron our clothes, clean our shoes with nugget and sit them on newspaper on the hearth. We would have a bath and wash our hair. After the hair washing, Gunny would pour a bowl of cold water over our heads. I don’t know why.

  For the ‘going to town’ occasion, my grandmother would dress in her ‘costume’, the name given to the classic straight skirt and matching jacket of the time. Underneath the jacket she wore a high-collared white or cream blouse. She had a hat with a wide brim, and Red Cross shoes which she’d had s
pecially made for her because of the width of her feet and troublesome bunions. (Here, fast forward for the best part of three-quarters of a century: in present time I make good use of these broad feet of my grandmother when, at yoga classes, I am required to be a stork. I’ve discovered that keeping one’s balance is dependent on the stability and strength of the planted foot. For this purpose, I borrow the spread, slightly turned-in, bunioned foot of my grandmother and grip the floor with it. I lift the other thin, bony one and raise my wings to the sky. From there I must shift the wings down and back as instructed, and elongate the skinny-footed leg behind me to transform in to an albatross. This big-footing often works as long as I keep my mind on it.) Apart from her best pair, worn when she was going out, our grandmother seldom wore shoes.

  Wellington was a place quite familiar to me, so these excursions didn’t cause me any particular excitement. I’d rather have been out running barefoot up the creek or out in the rock pools trapping fish. However, the fact that we were going to the ‘pictures’ was something to look forward to. I particularly remember the horrors of The Picture of Dorian Gray. Sometimes we went to the continuous screening where two movies played alternately throughout the day. We could arrive halfway through, see the following film in its entirety, then watch the first half of the previous one.

  All of this with the silent grandmother. If my birthday fell on a day when I was staying with her (it usually did, because my birthday was in the August school holidays), she would press a crumpled ten-shilling note into my hand without saying a word. The first time she did it I thought she had given me a Mintie. She liked Minties and peppermints. Ten shillings was an enormous amount of money, not only for me to receive but also for her to give.

  She was named Pohe after her maternal great-great-grandmother who had been a victim in a reprisal after Ngāti Toa had taken land by conquest from other iwi. When my grandmother was older, at the time her father drowned in the Ōtaki River, the name Onepu was added in remembrance. The name refers to the spurting sand of the river crossing.

  MY FATHER’S FATHER, ARTHUR, WAS A SECOND-GENERATION New Zealander whose grandparents came from the north of England. They were a well-to-do, well-educated family from all accounts, following professions such as law and medicine. Their Uncle James was the Mayor of Auckland for a time. All this I mention because, when growing up, I heard my grandfather, known to all as Father, described as the ‘black sheep’ of the family because he had left home and married a Māori woman. Also, I suppose, because he was a basket-maker by occupation, rather than a professional man.

  He was a wonderfully engaging grandfather who enjoyed spending time with kids. We would go up into the bush with him when he cut supplejack for some of the baskets he made, or we’d hang about while he cut and prepared his willow. He had planted a long line of straight-growing basket-willows, from which he cut bundles of the pliable branches that he carried to lay in the creek for a time prior to stripping. Near to the creek he had two upright iron prongs embedded in a post. He squeezed the prongs together with one hand and pulled the lengths of willow through with the other, stripping away the soft bark. Beside supplejack and willow, he also used cane, which he purchased, keeping a supply of it in his shed. He made a variety of baskets — deep-sided for shopping, tall with shaped brims for floral decoration, doll prams, washing baskets. I don’t know where he marketed these, or if he did. Most memorable were the huge woven supplejack containers he made for shipping companies. Baskets described in my novel Chappy come from those memories:

  One was a simple carrying basket, wide and shallow, suitable for shopping. Another, tall and elegantly shaped, was meant for the display of flowers. A third, which I could see had been well used, was a baby’s cradle. I imagined the ‘long hands’, which had threaded and tied, shaped and bound these. I thought of the young mother taking up a shopping basket and stepping out, saw her at a bench arranging flowers, or in a room, placing a sleeping baby — my mother or aunt. I thought of how objects can call to us from across time.

  It was my grandfather who taught me to fish, a lifelong interest of mine. From when I was about eight years old, he would take my aunt and me out fishing in his small dinghy. The best place for catching snapper was in what is known as Big Bay, which was about an hour away by rowboat. So it was only in the calmest of weather that Father took us there, knowing that a wind change and rough conditions could happen without a great deal of warning.

  I remember being caught out twice by the wind. The sea roughed up and the temperature dropped, but fortunately we were never too far from land. On the first occasion Father rowed shoreward and headed for home, weaving in and out among the shore rocks. When we were about halfway there, we pulled into a small bay known to us as Feeny’s. We dragged the dinghy well up on to the shore and walked the rest of the way. On the second occasion, when the wind came up, Father decided to creep homeward around the shore, rather than beach the boat and walk. It was dark when we arrived and people were waiting on the beach for us. I don’t know why we didn’t beach the dinghy that day. Perhaps it was because the catch was good and Father didn’t want to lose all his fish. I remember thinking that I had never felt so cold.

  Father would yarn to us out at the wood pile as he cut and sawed wood and prepared bundles of dried mānuka twigs for ‘morning wood’ — his fire-starters. Time for a break: with one blade of his pocket knife he cleaned out his pipe, knocking it out on a log. With the other curved blade, he cut tobacco from his Bear tobacco plug, stuffed it into his pipe bowl and lit up, sucking and blowing until it all got going.

  There was a ‘Father’ song that everyone used to sing, interspersed among Māori medleys, new hits, old songs:

  Pa and I went out one day,

  Along the country roads did stray,

  A bull rushed out of the field you see

  And the farmer shouted out to me

  Cover up everything red sir

  Cover up everything red sir

  Cover up everything red sir

  So I covered up Father’s nose.

  Father’s in the pig sty

  Father’s in the pig sty

  Father’s in the pig sty

  You can tell him by his hat-a-tat-tat.

  Even as a young girl I found the insinuation that our grandfather was a kind of renegade, and that he had ‘married down’, an insult both to himself and to our grandmother, whose whakapapa, I came to learn, was impeccable.

  MY PARENTS MET WHEN THEY LEFT HIGH SCHOOL AND went to work at a stationery manufacturer called John Dickinson’s. It’s possible they knew of each other before that, as they attended Wellington Technical College at the same time. Dad liked to tell us that work at the stationery factory wasn’t his first paid job. When he was four years old he’d earned pennies as a scarecrow, walking up and down the rows of the Chinese market gardens next door to where they lived, banging tins together to keep the birds away.

  When he was eight or nine years of age, my father’s family moved from Te Horo, where he was born, to the land here in Hongoeka Bay, next door to where I live now. Our grandmother was a shareholder in several blocks of land — including in Te Horo, Himatangi, Waikanae and Hongoeka.

  Gunny had a close friend, Camellia Violet, who though a child of Pākehā birth parents had been adopted from infancy by a Māori woman of Hongoeka. Camellia was known to us as Aunty Kami. The circumstances of the adoption were not known to us. We only knew that Aunty Kami’s first language was te reo Māori, that she had been brought up according to Māori tradition and tikanga, and had inherited land from her mother just as any birth child of her mother would have done. Her mother had given birth to another child, a boy, who died in a fall from a horse when he was a teenager. Aunty Kami grieved for her brother for the rest of her life.

  Aunty Kami told me that she and my grandmother would often meet up at gatherings between Porirua and Ōtaki, and it was when Gunny found that her friend had built a house at Hongoeka that she decided to build a house there too. My father sometimes spoke of the time when they first moved from Te Horo, and how unwell he often felt in the new environment. He was prone to headaches, also to nightmares in which bones flew in through the windows and knocked on the walls at night. The underlying cause of those bad dreams was that human remains had been exhumed from the sand dunes while they were preparing the house site.