I almost blotted my copybook, however, on a subsequent visit. Dad had gone to collect Koro from the airport, and they were coming up the zigzag steps when Mum gave a small scream. ‘Quick,’ she said, ‘you forgot to take that red feather off your Arnie poster and put it in the wakahuia.’
She was referring to its more appropriate location in the small carved box which we kept in the sitting room on what I called ‘The Altar’, the ledge above the fireplace, where it was surrounded by family photographs.
The reason I had forgotten to remove the feather was that the poster was no longer Arnie looking like a mean Red Indian dude but Tupaea looking like Arnie. I was almost tempted to leave the feather there.
No, perhaps not. Not yet.
I was surfing after school with Horse and Bilbo when Koro arrived.
Mum had told him where to find me, and he caught a taxi to Lyall Bay where we were sitting on our surf boards, waiting for waves just beyond the causeway. The planes were soaring from the airport, close by, into the wild blue yonder. Although I was more focused on my studies, I’d never lost the wonderment of a Uawa schoolkid pressing his nose hard up against the window, except now I was watching planes, not cars and buses.
When I saw Koro get out of the taxi and pay the driver, I felt a rush of joy and told my mates, ‘I’m going in now. See ya.’ Although he was wearing a hat and three-piece suit, Koro took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his trousers. He couldn’t wait for me to come ashore and waded out to his knees. ‘Still got some leave left, I see,’ I said.
He laughed, embraced me as if we hadn’t seen each other for centuries, and then appraised me. ‘What’s happening to you? You look a different boy. Where’s my skinny mokopuna gone? Well, whoever you are, are your Maohi ancestors speaking to you today? They were riding on surf boards, too, when Cook arrived in Tahiti.’
‘Yeah,’ I said sarcastically, ‘just before Tupaea joined him and c-came to New Zealand on the Endeavour, eh Koro.’
‘And your stuttering’s not so bad now. Good boy!’ Koro followed me back to shore. ‘Anyway, Cook’s not important. He should count himself lucky that Tupaea came to New Zealand on the Endeavour. It was such a tub, and not as militarily equipped as the Dolphin. Nevertheless,’ he added enigmatically, ‘Purea and Tupaea had already let one Pakeha boat go and they weren’t about to let a second slip through their fingers.’
It was always Koro’s habit, on the first night of his visit, to take me out to a special dinner. In preparation, Mum laid out a pair of good trousers and a shirt. She couldn’t wait to get rid of us.
‘Why don’t you and Dad come with us this time?’ I asked her, as she primped and prodded and smoothed me down.
‘You know that we’re banned,’ she answered. ‘And me and your father like to have the flat to ourselves sometimes so that we can be ay-lone.’
‘Oh, Mum, puh-lease.’
Koro was such a sharp dresser and I like to think that we turned heads whenever we entered a restaurant. Our waiter asked him, ‘Would you and your son come this way?’, no doubt figuring that flattery would get him a good tip.
We took our seats and Koro gave the menu to me: if he didn’t allow me to take charge, how was I going to become a gentleman like himself in polite society? I asked the waiter about the specials, then ordered Koro’s favourite chardonnay. Because he was always channelling Tupaea — when did he ever stop? — I made a silent bet with myself that we would start talking about our ancestor before the mains were served.
I won.
‘Yes,’ he said, sipping his wine, ‘our ancestor did depart with James Cook from Tahiti. It happened five weeks after the transit had been observed. Of course Tupaea would have known that Kopu — the Maohi name for Venus — was due to make its voyage across the sun, but when Mr Green invited him to look through the main telescope, I think even he was shaken by what he saw.’
Venus, moving like a waka, bucking in the blazing eye of Rangi, its timbers smouldering and its sails bursting into flame, before it sailed into the cool universe beyond.
‘He would have cried out, “Make haste, o waka, go quickly!” and shared a telling glance with Purea. And from that look must have come Purea’s decision:
‘“Yes, great priest, when the Endeavour leaves our shores, you must go with it.”’
Let’s cut, then, to the evening before the Endeavour’s departure. Tupaea went with Purea to Mahaiatea to pray to the God ’Oro. Some people say that something staggering occurred: the God commanded Tupaea to take him from Mahaiatea.
Thus, when he and a young acolyte, Taiata, went on board the Endeavour some say they had with them not only priestly clothing, conches, drums and flutes but also a secret cargo: a large ornate chest that was immediately taken below.
‘As the ship sailed away,’ said Koro, ‘the shimmering water was alive with canoes. Tupaea climbed to the topmast head and waved farewell. From the shore, Purea and thousands of the Arioi were chanting prayers for him. He put the past behind him and set his face northward. That was where England was, and where he thought he was bound. But …’
‘But?’ I asked, my fork hovering. I never liked Koro’s buts.
‘The Transit of Venus might have been the stated purpose of James Cook’s voyage,’ Koro said, ‘but the unstated intention was to find the great southern continent — Terra Australis Incognita. Our ancestor, Tupaea, found himself hostage to the desires of the empire. Instead of sailing north, the Endeavour turned south.’
We returned from the dinner to find Mum and Dad’s bedroom door closed.
Koro gave me a look. ‘Still sleeping together and doing you-know-what at their age. Disgusting.’
In my bedroom, although I was tired, I saw that Koro was warming to his subject. I put earplugs into my ears. ‘How are you going to hear with those things blocking me out?’
‘I’ve got training at Jean-Luc’s in the morning,’ I groaned.
‘You try to go too fast,’ Jean-Luc was always complaining. ‘Slow down. Concentrate on conditioning and stretching first. Then get your basic skills into your body so that it does the work without thinking.’
However, he’d allowed me to do some floorwork — flares, dive rolls, handsprings, aerial cartwheels — and, sometimes, if I was a good boy, some work on the vaults. ‘Shows promise,’ he kept saying, knowing that I was champing at the bit and that I wanted to get back on the rings. ‘Before you go there, Tupaea, we must still build strength into your arms and mid-section. But it is not enough to attain physical perfection. There are many others who also do that. You yourself must contribute your …’
He was flailing for the right English words.
‘What sets you apart, Tupaea? What makes you different, comprends?’
‘I don’t understand,’ I answered, puzzled.
He tried again. ‘What is the essence, the personality, that makes everything you do yours? It must come from your head and heart as well as your physique. From your histoire, too, mon petit! It will give you the grace and originality to triumph, the thing that only you, Tupaea, can do!’
Koro wouldn’t be stopped. When I switched off the light, turned my back on him and closed my eyes, his voice came rolling over me, more surging waves travelling through the moonlit sea.
Ah well, may as well ride them in.
‘You know that Cook hadn’t wanted Tupaea to come on the voyage?’ Koro began. ‘It was only at the request of Joseph Banks, who paid for Tupaea’s and Taiata’s berths, that Cook agreed to have them aboard. Banks thought of Tupaea, initially, as a curiosity — like a pet lion or tiger.’