FIFTH OF A SERIES OF SHORT STORIES

Te Ao Hou, August 1957, Page 21

FIFTH OF A SERIES OF SHORT STORIES BY MAORI AUTHORS “Ah lovely evening, lovely evening”, he sighed, and looked about him, taking in the night. Then he drew up his shoulders and as they fell he let out his breath noisily. “Ahh-! Ahh! well”, he said after a short pause and began rubbing his hands together again. “I think I'll come for a walk with you myself,” and he cupped the back of Currani's head in his hand. The three walked on past the remaining huts Illustration by the author.

and came out onto the raw banks at the head of the pond. Here a freshly dumped heap of embers were glowering weakly in the semi-darkness. All about them lay the dead piles of yesterdays' ashes. They had been dumped there over many years and now spread right down to the edge of the pond. They had come from the giant furnace in which the steam was made to run the mill. Old Mitchell himself was the stoker of this furnace and it was he who had dumped the embers there only that afternoon. The boiler-man was what the villagers called him and it was what Currani had known him by long before he had known his name. The man stopped beside the glowing embers and put one of his boots gently into it. A film of fine white dust lifted into the air and settled on his boot. He shrugged his shoulders and grunted. It was meant to be a laugh. “Don't you get to walking on these”, he said to the boy, “They're pretty hot inisde you know”. He paused, then went on. “I remember once when young Bill Walters walked through them. It's a funny thing, that night that young fella had been in my hut and pinched a couple-a-quid. He tried sneaking away around this side of the pond, and walked right over the top of one of these”. He pushed his boot into the embers again, and again a fine spray of white dust rose around his boot. “It wouldn't have been so bad if the young fella hadn't of been wearing boots. But them ashes go inside and he couldn't get them off. You know how you young fellas tie your boots.” Something cracked in the depths of the mill. The old man looked up sharply and peered off into the inky darkness of the building. There was only the quiet hissing of steam as it leaked out from one of the pipes. He looked down at the ground and turned his head sideways to Currani, watching the boy along his shoulder. It was a way the boy would always remember him by. “You know,” he began, “I saved that young fella from getting crippled. We could hear him screaming all over the mill that night. I just happened to be standing over there”, he pointed to the deep shadows where the children knew the boiler room was. “I could see him lying on the ground, kicking and rolling and trying to get his boots off. I picked straight away what had happened and I pushed his feet into the pond”. He drew on his pipe and inclined his head sideways again. This time he looked at Tootie. “Well you know, I didn't know that young fella had pinched my money. I'd have found out anyway. But the next day he came to my hut and gave me back the fiver and told me he had pinched it. I think he was scared after those ashes got in his boots. He never came around my hut for a long time after that. Well—”, he drew in his breath and put his hand on young Currani's shoulder, “There must be some good in that young fella or he wouldn't of brought back that money. Though you wouldn't think it. I believe he pinched one old Kapoor's hens the other day. You wouldn't know anything about that now eh?” The last was said with a twisting of his mouth and a twinkle in his eye. He clapped Currani lightly on the head, and the boy heard him chuckling in the darkness. It was full night now. The three stood in the dark, an old man and two children. The embers crackled on the ground at their feet. A warmth came from them that soothed the skin on the boy's legs. He imagined Bill Walters lying in the dip at the pond's edge, thrashing and crying in the dirt. For a moment he could hear his screamings echoing through the great silent mill. Then old Mitchell gave a short grunt, that was a laugh, and said, “Look over here!” The children looked off quickly to where his bent arm was pointing. Two shadowy figures were running in a stoop from the shelter of the mill. “I'll bet that's young Dudley”. Old Mitch said, “I see him hanging around here ever since that Cribb shiela moved in. She's got a bad old man, too. Young Dudley had better watch out”. He looked down at Currani and gave him a push. “I suppose you're going to be like him too one day. Eh! He gets all the girls young Dudley”. Currani peered off after the fleeting figures of the man and the girl. Then they disappeared into the night. The boy turned away towards the road nad said. “Come on Tootie we'd better go home”. The two said goodnight to the old boiler-man and left him standing by the warm glowering embers. All the way home Currani kept seeing the fleeting figures of the man and girl as they ran for the shelter of slabs and the broom beyond the mill. Something warm and pleasing was pounding at his chest. He tried to picture his brother Dudley standing behind a stack of timber, holding the girl close to him and kissing her on the mouth, whispering to her all the passionate words that flooded up into him. He hoped that when he grew up he too would be like his brother. The light from their father's shop flickered dimly down the road. Before it the boy could still see the running, crouching figures of the girl and his brother as they crossed the clearing of the mill yard. And he knew that this fleeting picture would live with him forever. * * * Rangiteauria, Karioi's new meeting house and dining hall, was opened officially last April at a large hui. The ceremony was led by Mr Whata Karauti. The whole project is a tribute to the Karioi people and to Mr Rangi Wilson, the tribal committee chairman. Photographs have already appeared in Te Ao Hou. (Issue 14).