As El Rey turned to face the darkness, Mrs Travers felt a cool wind chilling her.
‘Will it hurt?’ she asked.
It is only life that hurts, El Rey answered.
‘But will it hurt!’ Mrs Travers asked again sharply.
Just a little bit.
The Thrill of Falling
PRELUDE
CHAPTER ONE
THE GREAT GOD, ’ORO
When I was born I was very sickly.
My mother, May, told me that I had breathing problems and for three weeks I battled for life in an incubator in Gisborne Hospital. ‘Your father and I were told that you might not live and that it was touch and go. We were very distressed.’
Of all the visitors who came to watch over me, none was as vigilant as my grandfather, Koro. He would stand watching me, my deathly pale body wrapped in tubes to keep me breathing. And I know that he prayed incessantly to the great God, ’Oro:
‘Almighty One, son of Ta’aroa and Hina-tu-a-uta, come down from the highest heaven, Te Raituitai, and look kindly upon this poor child. Forsake him not, o ’Oro.’
Not only that, but, according to Mum, Koro decided to give me the name of ’Oro’s most famous priest, Tupaea, even though that name was reserved for my Uncle Tu-Bad’s son, who was instead called Seth.
‘He thought that might help,’ Mum said.
It must have done because I survived.
Throughout our family history there has always been someone named Tupaea.
Koro’s first name, for instance, was Tupaea and he always demanded that people not shorten it.
Behind his back, however, most people called him Big Tu (a few who didn’t like his lofty manners would add ‘tae’ to his name) and me Little Tu to differentiate us — and often they called me Little Tutae in public.
No matter how many times I fought for my honour, the name stuck: Little Shit.
This is the story of the very first Tupaea, the one who came from over the sea to Aotearoa New Zealand.
He’s the one to blame for the way I turned out.
ACT ONE
CHAPTER TWO
UAWA
I struggled into boyhood, an only child with an inhaler as my constant companion.
I became the kind of snotty-nosed eleven-year-old kid with spiky hair and shirt-tail hanging out of his pants who, at our small native primary school, was always on the sideline during school sports days. And although nobody could keep me out of the haka team, I was the skinny brown boy with the big hopeful eyes they tried to hide in the back.
Was I to blame, then, that denied a chance at real life, I would develop a fantastic imagination?
During class, I took to looking out the window so often that my teachers and other classmates worked around me and left me alone to daydream. The main road between Uawa and Gisborne ran past our school, and watching the cars, trucks, motorbikes and buses zooming by kept my imagination busy. ‘Where are they going?’ I asked myself as I pressed my nose against the window. ‘What kind of people are in the buses?’
Wondering who those people were, as they sped by, and what adventures they would have when they reached their destination, was more engaging than listening to Four-Eyes Wilson drone on and on about some dead English poet.
I often fantasised that there’d been a mix-up in heaven on the day I was born and, instead of being delivered to some movie star in Hollywood, I got sent to Uawa. One of these days, though, I was going to hit that road, you wouldn’t see me for dust, and go to … America, yeah, and bang on the door of some Hollywood mansion and, when Arnie opened the door I would yell, ‘Daaaaaad!’ Nobody would see me for dust.
‘Tupaea, are you with us? On the planet?’
‘Oh, s-s-sorry, Mr Wilson.’
Mr Wilson couldn’t help himself. ‘He’s b-b-back, everyone!’
After school was over, I escaped the jeers of my schoolmates.
‘Where are you g-g-going, Little Tu?’
I pushed past them and ran out the school gates and down the road. When I got to the bridge, about half a mile away, I opened my schoolbag to look for my inhaler; I was rasping for breath. Where was it? I couldn’t find it and in despair I stopped looking for it and leapt onto the railing.
I wanted to forget who I was.
The tide was coming into the channel below as I jumped.
Later that day, I arrived at the marae.
There were over five hundred people, seated on chairs facing the meeting house. Oh no, the welcome to the Pakeha guests, sheltering under umbrellas from the hot sun, had already started. And where was Mum? Sitting in the very front, watching the proceedings with the women as usuaclass="underline" no way would I be able to sneak in unseen.
‘Why is your hair wet?’ she asked when I joined her. ‘And have you been home and changed your clothes? No wonder you’re late.’
I tried to get my words working, Come out, come out wherever you are. ‘I–I-I’m sorry, M-mum …’
She didn’t wait for me to complete my answer. ‘He’s like his koro,’ she said to Mrs Rapaki, who was sitting nearby. ‘Always wants to look his best.’
Mum was always speaking for me.
I took refuge in my own thoughts. Wouldn’t you if you had the choice of sitting in the hot sun listening to long and interminable debates on Maori land or … going to Mars like Arnie did in Total Recall? Arnold Schwarzenegger was the man.
Koro, however, had insisted that all our family, including the children, be present. The government had sent a ministerial representative today to settle long-standing tribal grievances over confiscated land. That was him, prime steak in fancy duds, trying to smile, pretending to be happy. ‘It’s important for the mokos as well as for the grown-ups,’ Koro had said. ‘After all, they will inherit the land we get back.’ But all those speeches to listen to as the elders debated whether to accept the government’s offer, man oh man! And some of those rangatira were so in love with their own voices that they droned on and on. It was all right for them, sheltering on the paepae, the talking bench of chiefs in the shade of the meeting house, but what about the poor commoners sitting in the blistering heat?
Listening with the rest of the crowd, I counted the elders. Oh, why was I ever born! There were five or six more to go and, because rangatira always spoke in ascending order of importance, Koro was last. The old people on the marae relished the debate, sure, but with my limited understanding of the language I could only understand bits and pieces of what was being said. Nevertheless I did my best to concentrate, closing my eyes and trying to follow the various arguments.
‘Te kai o te rangatira he korero,’ Mum whispered to me, jabbing me with an elbow when I gave up and started to pick my nose. ‘Speechmaking is the food of chiefs.’
The elders were outdoing each other in castigating the government for its offer. They were certainly giving the poor official his beans.
‘Sit up,’ Mum said. ‘It’s Koro’s turn now.’