“Even Arnie?” Skylark asked.
But Arnie wasn’t Hoki’s target. Hoki was after revenge and she wasn’t going to divert her aim from Bella. “Do you know about the bellbird, Skylark?” She started to dish the food onto the plates.
“Its Maori name is korimako,” Bella said, oblivious of the fact that she was clearly within Hoki’s sights. “When it sings it sounds like lots of beautiful bells are ringing.”
Hoki gave her a wicked look. “I always wondered why, Sister dear, you never inherited such a beautiful voice. Your voice is so loud and raucous, especially when you’ve had a few.”
“Is that so?” Bella parried. “At least I can sing in tune.” She turned to Skylark and Arnie. “When Hoki was young people used to pay her not to sing.” She dipped her spoon into the stew and grimaced. “Sister, dear, don’t you think the stew is rather salty?”
Hoki took her place at the table, tried the stew herself and looked mystified. “No, Bella dear,” she said. She cocked her head at Arnie and Skylark. “Do you two find it salty?”
“Keep us out of this,” Arnie said. “I knew I should have gone back to Tuapa and had some nice and peaceful fish and chips.”
Hoki glared at him and then returned to her target. “I’ll give you a new plate of stew, Bella” she said, ladling the stew into a new dish. Then, not taking her eyes off her sister, she added three large spoonfuls of sugar to it. “You need all the sweetening that you can get, don’t you, Sister dear,” Hoki continued. “Now, where would you like your stew? In your stomach or over your head?”
“Time to bail out,” Arnie said. But Hoki signed to him to stay at the table. She stood up and motioned to Bella to join her in the kitchen.
“Would you two proceed with dinner and excuse us?” Hoki asked her visitors. “There’s a few things my sister and I have to sort out. For one thing she thinks I haven’t got Ee Why Ee Esses and can’t see her when she spells out Double-U Oh Are Dee Esses with her Bee Eye Gee mouth. Are you coming, sister dear?”
Bella gave an exaggerated bow. “After you, Sister dear,” she said.
Skylark heard Arnie give a dismal sigh. His day had well and truly flatlined. He folded his arms and looked up at the ceiling. “Shovel it on, Lord,” he said.
In the kitchen, a battle royal began.
Feathers were still ruffled when, a quarter of an hour later, Hoki and Bella rejoined the dinner table. Skylark didn’t know who had won but she placed her bets on Hoki; she might be younger and smaller but there was no doubt that she was a determined old woman. Besides, Bella looked somewhat subdued, as if she had finally accepted her fault.
“Well, Auntie Hoki and Auntie Bella,” Arnie said after dinner was over. “Thank you for the lovely dinner and the fun conversation. I really enjoyed myself. We must do it again.”
He managed to duck just as Bella’s hand came up to clip his ear. “You watch yourself,” Bella said.
Arnie gave a brief nod at Skylark and beat a hasty retreat out to the tow truck. Hoki went with him to see him on his way.
“You mustn’t mind us, Skylark,” Bella said as she began to clear the table. “When you have two hens and they’re pecking for the same seed there’s bound to be trouble.”
“Would you like a hand with the dishes?”
“No. You go and join Hoki. Otherwise she’ll think I’m usurping her position again.”
Skylark left the house and watched as Hoki embraced Arnie. In the darkness, Hoki looked different — so small and vulnerable, stooped there over her walking sticks. “Thank you for looking after Skylark, Arnie,” Hoki said.
Arnie saw Skylark. “Yeah, well …” he grunted. As far as he was concerned, she was just another girl on an over-populated planet. He gunned the motor and skidded off into the darkness.
“He sees too many action movies,” Hoki reproved. “It’s a wonder he isn’t brain dead.”
“So what bird is he named after?” Skylark asked.
“Actually, two birds,” Hoki answered. “His real names are Karearea Kereru, so he’s named after the falcon and, unfortunately, the wood pigeon.”
“Unfortunately?”
“For the wood pigeons, that is,” Hoki winked.
“Now I know why he prefers Arnie,” Skylark said.
Through the kitchen window Hoki saw Bella washing the dishes. What was it that Bella had said?
You’re too slow, sister. You’re dragging your leg.
“I think it’s time for us to talk again about the birds,” Hoki said. “Do you feel like a walk?”
“Yes,” Skylark said. The sooner she got to the bottom of this, the better.
Above, the stars were like a million eyes staring down from Heaven. The moon was spilling milk among them. Hoki took the track up behind the homestead. The old lady moved with surprising speed, manoeuvring her walking sticks with practised ease. The track was very narrow and, every now and then, Hoki would stop, peer at something on the pathway and then flick it away with her walking sticks.
“You have to be careful,” Hoki said to Skylark. “If you tripped on a stone you could fall.”
The path took them up the side of a cliff. The moon flashed off it like a mirror. Looking up, Skylark saw the far reaches of the cliff face cutting into the edge of the black night like an axe. Not far away was the waterfall, cascading like mercury to the stream below.
“Surely,” Skylark groaned, “we’re not going all the way to the top.”
No, halfway up the cliff was a small flat area overlooking the valley. Right at the lip was a bench. Hoki sat on it and motioned to Skylark to sit next to her. “Bella made this for me,” Hoki said. “She knows I love coming up here when I need to have time to myself.”
From the midway vantage point the view was breathtaking. The road down Manu Valley was a molten river, pouring as if from the moon. The liquid curved around the flank of the forested valley. Further away, the dark world stretched to the end of forever. Here, between Earth and Sky, you could believe that Manu Valley was where the world had been born. If you jumped, you would fall into the womb of the world. If you reached out you could feel the birth cord joining Heaven and Earth. Night birds were calling, filling the cup of the night with ecstatic song.
“Whakarongo koe ki au,” Hoki said.
She began Skylark’s Second Lesson.
“The Great Book of Birds tells us, Skylark, that the migration of the birds from the Heavens to the Earth took many days. However, it was clear to the Lord Tane, who had made the Earth, that his winged creations would need to be given different territories in order that they could live peacefully together.”
“That’s how the Great Division came about,” Skylark said. “By it, we have manu whenua, birds of the land, and manu moana, seabirds. The God of landbirds is Punaweko and the God of seabirds is Hurumanu.”
“Well done, tamahine,” Hoki said. She pulled Skylark closer and, as a hen does with its chick, used her lips like a beak to preen Skylark’s hair as if it were feathers. “The only bird that the Lord Tane didn’t bring from the Heavens was the owl. That bird, as well as the bat, was brought from the realm of the Underworld. The point is that after the Great Division a balance was struck which allowed all the birds to live in harmony. They never questioned the setting apart of their territories. The landbirds, in their confederation of iwi, maintained supremacy over the land and forest; the seabirds were the territorial overlords of coast and ocean.
“The seabirds actually thought they had the better deal, which of course they did, but they have always been voracious of nature and always seeking to expand their ownership of all things merely for the sake of possession. As for the landbirds, they accepted the ordination of the Lord Tane. They became the first inhabitants of Aotearoa. The high-flying eagle and hawk took dominion of the skies. The moa grazed the plains of the southern islands. The graceful kotuku inhabited inlets near the sea. The kaka and kea held dominion of the craggy alpine terrain to the west. But by far the largest number — countless tribes — lived in the Great Forest that the Lord Tane had made for them. On the ground the flightless birds lived in burrows and fossicked for food.