He would retreat into a world that existed only in his mind. Physically, whenever he was really stressed out, he would repeat various actions, like turning around and around, and talking to himself. The lying came later, and I suppose he did this to sustain the stories he told me.
In the end, Mum and Dad were arguing so much with Kotare that I decided we had to move out with you, bub. So we came into the city and found a flat. At first Kotare was fine, and he managed to find a job at Westfield meatworks. He loved the idea that it was close to the sea. He used to talk about the kids downstairs — we lived in the upstairs part of the house — which bothered me a bit, but I let it go. Meanwhile, I found a part-time job at a local greengrocer where the owner, Mr Chattopadhyay, from Bengal, didn’t mind having a baby behind the counter.
Kotare was very good at giving me his pay packet. But, about five weeks after he took the meatworks job, he told me that his pay wasn’t coming in until the next week.
That’s when the lying began. When that week came around, Kotare said he lost the money on the way home. So we had to start budgeting and watching our money, and that distressed him — especially when he thought you were hungry, bub, and crying because of this. I now know that he was beginning to feel guilty about not being a good provider. Whenever I mentioned our money worries, he took my comments personally.
The following week he should have come home with money in his pocket. Instead, he brought fish ’n’ chips. It was always fish ’n’ chips whenever things were going wrong inside him.
He started to snap at both of us. He would never have meant to hurt you and me, and he never raised a hand … but after a while we were shouting at each other, and I knew it was only a matter of time. It wasn’t his fault. He just didn’t want to tell me what was really happening to him.
I found out in the end. He’d been fired in his fifth week for what they said was erratic emotional behaviour. But what had he been doing during the day? I telephoned one of the men I knew worked with him, and he told me that my darling liked to go to the beach close to the meatworks. One afternoon, in desperation, I put you in your pushchair and we went out to Manukau Harbour on the bus.
I saw him. He was sitting with his head in his hands. I could hear him talking to himself. ‘How am I going to tell my angel about my job? She’s already got enough trouble looking after baby.’
I sat down beside him. I touched him. He was shocked to see us. ‘What are you doing here?’ he cried.
He was so confused and upset. Next moment he got up and started to run away, flapping his hands like a mad man. I watched him while the wind sighed over the beach and the water lapped against the shore.
I wheeled the pushchair after him. He was standing in the mud, staring dully over the mudflats. He was making strange scratching movements and saying something:
‘I can smell the fucking rotten smell of the meatworks. It’s poisoning the sea.’
‘Kotare,’ I asked him, ‘is this where you’ve been spending your days? The whole time?’
‘Yup,’ he answered. ‘Playing hide ’n’ seek. You and baby want to play with me? You go and hide and I’ll find you.’ Then his head snapped up. ‘Can’t work for the abattoir any more. They poison the ocean. Won’t do that. Tangaroa doesn’t like it. Auckland’s not the place for us, angel.’
I hugged him. ‘Kotare, what are we gonna do? Bub’s gotta eat. We gotta pay the rent too.’
He was all over the place. ‘There’s five kids living below us. I hear them playing their music. Sometimes I go down and visit them.’
‘I guess I could see if I could make my job full-time?’
He nodded vigorously. ‘Thelma works in a sewing factory, Rose is getting a job at Mr Chips down the road, Sambo works in a bakery, sing a song of sixpence a pocketful of rye, four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.’
‘Thelma? Rose?’
‘And Koro and Johnny Mack. But they don’t have jobs. They keep wanting to come fishing with me, but I told them you can’t do that any more because there’s a sign gone up, and they laughed and laughed. Five hundred bucks the kids are paying Mr Papadopoulos for a flat smaller than ours. We got us a good deal, angel.’
You started to cry, Whero.
As for Kotare, he was frightening me. I didn’t want him to talk about the kids downstairs any more, but he wouldn’t stop.
‘They got no furniture, just mattresses,’ he went on. ‘Thelma reckons she can spruce it up. She’ll nick some material from the sewing factory, make them some new curtains. They’re pretty hard case … when they’re not too pissed. They get angry when I talk about the ocean.’ He was shaking his head so hard I thought it might snap off.
‘Kotare!’ I shouted to get his attention. ‘Listen to me — promise me …’ In desperation, I bent down to the water, cupped some in my hands and flicked the water over his face. ‘Do you love me? Do you love me, hon?’
‘I would do anything for my Anahera.’ He was wiping the sea water away from his eyes, weeping, and his nose was running.
‘Don’t visit the kids downstairs any more. Don’t visit them. Promise me, hon?’
He thought this through, frowning at first. Then he gave a giggle. ‘What if they visit me?’
And this time I was really frightened. ‘Then don’t let them in … Lock the door, Kotare … shut them out.’
I wake up with a start. I see that Whero has dozed off.
I feel much, much better! ‘Hey-ee, matey,’ I say as I shake her awake, ‘time to get up and play.’
‘Fuck off, Red,’ she moans.
I’m insistent, but before I can get anything more out of her, there’s a knock at the door. Uh oh, it’s Tupou, and I don’t want him to see me like this, still all bruised and bashed up from Petera’s assault. Better find a place to hide away. After all, a girl has some pride.
Tupou sticks his head around the door. ‘Whero?’ he asks.
She sits up. ‘God,’ she tells him, ‘I feel as if somebody’s done my head in.’
Tupou is still hesitant.
‘You gonna come in?’ Whero asks. ‘And where’s Red gone?’
‘Red? I dunno.’ He mutters something under his breath. Something like, ‘Damn you, Dermot.’ Then edges into the room and sits on the bed, stroking Whero’s hair. ‘God,’ he shudders, ‘I can still remember how awful it was when I came home and found you … Did you know I had to call the doctor?’
‘You did what?’
‘When I came back from the pub,’ Tupou explains. ‘Dermot stayed on with some friends but I wish he’d been with me as I’ve never been so scared in my life. I really freaked out when I saw you … lying on the floor … comatose. I thought you’d OD’d — but I’d seen enough ODs to know it wasn’t that — and then I thought you’d had a heart attack or been assaulted or something. I called the doctor and, shit, then I realised that if I called the cops, they might find some of the drugs and stuff in the flat … Anyway when the doctor came you called him Petera and you were screaming and yelling your head off … but he gave you something and, thank God, you calmed down. Went out like a light.’