SHORT STORY COUNTRY GIRL

Te Ao Hou, December 1961, Page 13

SHORT STORY COUNTRY GIRL by HIRONE WIKIRIWHI The clock on the station tower was at 7 o'clock as Tom Hirai swung his car into a parking lot in Tulle Street. He switched the motor off, and got out of the volkswagen unit that he had recently bought, making sure to collect a parcel which lay on the front seat, before slamming the door shut. The yellow car symbolized his opulence and success in a society that was foreign to the majority of his race. With the parcel tucked under his right arm he hurried on to a maternity annexe in a hospital which stood in the next street. The gifts arranged by his wife, Hine, consisted of a cuddly rug, two dozen napkins, two nylon night dresses, a box of Queen Anne chocolates and some cigarettes and matches. He was on his way to see Tirita his niece. She was eighteen. She had just come from their home village at Manina, three hundred miles north, a week ago. She was now a mother. The child was illegitimate. As Tom walked into the hospital a nurse with a tray of glasses was walking by. “Excuse me, please,” he said politely. “Why yes!” exclaimed the nurse, as she stopped and turned to look at Tom, “what is it?” For a moment Tom stood speechless. The nurse was beautiful, and he forgot his manners, he just stared. His hungry eyes scanned her from head to foot: he knew he was being rude, but he couldn't help himself. The nurse looked impatient; she flushed. “Oh! of course,” stammered Tom. “Can you please tell me how to find the maternity annexe?” he said sheepishly. Formally, and in crisp tones, the nurse pointed to a corridor, “Follow through, and keep turning left, and you can't miss it.” Then she was gone. “Much obliged!” called out Tom at the retreating figure. “Te ataahua o te nehi ra!”1 What a most beautiful nurse. thought Tom, as he went forward. His shoes appeared to run away from him on the slippery corridor floor, and the smell of medicines and food cooking assailed his nostrils. One more turn and he saw the plaque on which he read, “Maternity Annexe”. He went in at one door, and there was no need to call for attention by pressing an electric bell button, the whole place was wide open. Other visitors had preceded him. The ward he went into was full of people. Some of the mothers had dressing gowns over their nighties, and some were playing cards and chattering away excitedly. Carnations and roses were piled heavily upon a long table in the middle of the row of beds. Other men, presumably husbands, sat on chairs beside some of the beds talking to their wives. Soft lights added to the gaiety of the scene, faces beamed in adoring smiles. The place was warm, cosy, and friendly. Tom was impressed. Tirita was in the fourth bed on the right, and Tom had no difficulty in placing her. As he approached she turned away to brush the tears, unbidden but irrepressible tears which filled her eyes. This was Tom Hirai whom she knew as a little girl. Seeing him reminded her of mother and family. Yes, here was Tom, who would breeze into Manina with his wife and family, stay a few days and be off again. He always had gifts for each member of the family, simple gifts brought from a Woolworth chain store in the city in which he had lived now for more than half of his fifty summers. “Kaua e tangi, e Tiri.2 Don't cry Tirita. Don't cry, my dear, come on now. This is your old mate. Remember him! He is still the same. Those were happy days, Tiri. Remember the fat pigeons on the knoll. They oozed with the juices of the miro berry, and those trout. Ten pounders, fresh from the creek at the back of the mill. Come on now. Kaua e tangi.” He stooped down to kiss a moisture laden cheek. “That's better! Hine got these.” He put the parcel on her locker. “How is baby? Can I see her?” Tirita shook her head, as she sat up to face her uncle. She smiled bravely. “Please forgive me, I am so whakama.3 Ashamed. Baby is asleep in there.” And she pointed at a room at the far end of the ward. Tom opened the parcel. “These are for baby, and for you, your favourites … Queen Annes, and these, do you?” pushing the Craven A's toward her. Tirita shook her head again. That was one vice she had not yet adopted. “I haven't started to smoke yet. I am still the same, except for baby. Please sit down, uncle.” “Ah! that's better.” He sat down, glad to get

his sixteen stone off his feet, then he unbuttoned his coat and put his hat on the foot of the bed. “Well my dear, you do look well,” and gazing round, added, “Engari, 4 But. the place is crowded.” “It is pretty full. Four Maori, ten islanders, and over thirty Pakehas, but we are a happy family.” Her eyes were brighter now, and Tom frankly admired her. Her country-air complexion remained unspoiled by her life in the city. Her skin was a clear light reddish-brown like a sunset at sea, almost. It betrayed her mixed parentage, for she was both Pakeha and Maori. Yet she was different from her three sisters, who were pale, even pallid by comparison. Sturdy of build, and medium in height, Tirita had a well formed bosom. Her hair fell in reddish curls upon her shoulders, and her mouth was full of white strong teeth. A well shaped nose, and lips that were soft and full, completed the picture of the one who was always regarded as the tom-boy of the four girls. Nothing daunted her whatsoever in the bush, and she rode a horse as well as any man. Where they went she went, down steep tracks or over windfalls, it was all the same to Tirita. She delighted in chasing the wild brumbies which roamed the flats and valleys of Manina. “It is nice here, uncle. Everything is so clean, and everyone so friendly.” “Not like the old paa eh?” Then Tom continued, “No wonder the Maori liked to talk all night. The meeting house with its coloured mats on the floor, without mattresses and sometimes no sheets, made a very hard bed to sleep on. No wonder I live in the city now. You have to be tough, when you go in to our Maori sleeping houses.” “Uncle, will you give baby a name, a nice name … please?” “Well Tirita, you are a little rebel you know. All these months, and at last you want me to help you. You have never visited us, either at home or at church; you have never come to any of our dances or socials. The Maori Club never sees you. I know that many of our people steer away from their own race. They feel ashamed of mixing. It's that Pakeha blood in you that's doing it. I wish you would follow your mother's side more. After all she can claim to be somebody, she is a chieftainess. Don't shut yourself away from your own.” “No uncle! It's not that. My work keeps me away. My best friends are the Pakehas with whom I work. True, we go to many parties. It was at one of these that I met the father of my child, Jim Hale. He is a Pakeha boy. Yesterday his mother came here to see me. I don't know how she found out that I was here. Her son will marry me when he returns with the Task Force in Malaya. But uncle, I don't want him. I thought he was everything to me, with his good looks, and his new car in which we went to many places. We lived in sin, and this is the result. He asked me to marry on his final leave. I was carrying our baby then, but I did not tell him. I may be making another mistake. But I don't want him, ever.” Tirita was weeping after she had spoken. “E Tiri kaati! 5 ‘Don't cry, Tiri.’ After all, Jim is the only one who can give your baby her right name. Do not be too hasty about it. You may for ever regret discarding Mrs Hale's offer.” “No! … my mind is made up.” “Oh cheer up, darling! it won't be as bad as all that. Hine is a good name, yes, Hine Hirai, that is your auntie's name. Or your granny's—Harata, Harata Hirai.” “Hine will be the one. Hine Harai, my daughter, Hine. Thank you, that is pretty … Hine Hirai.” “Now Tirita, the next point is this. You will come and live with us. There is plenty of room, and we are happy to have you. Your mother would like it that way too. Give Jim a chance. You could learn to love him again. That was a Maori custom. The parents arranged the marriages of their children. There was no love in it at first. That always came in later. This could happen to you and Jim. Don't you think so?” After a long pause, and it seemed that most people in that ward were by this time unconsciously trying to catch the few words that drifted from Tirita's bedside, she finally looked squarely at her uncle and in a soft voice began: “Uncle, I'm a backblock girl. Yes, just a country girl. I was hypnotized by everything I saw here. Manina was placed right out of my mind when I compared the streets with the dusty roads, pot-holed and unsealed, the shabby post office and store in one, with the buildings here. The monotony of Manina's empty spaces, with the same faces day after day, and the dullness of the days, week in and week out, is never to be compared with the changing scenes in the city, and the endless films to see, and the parties to go to. “Mother will come to take baby from me, and I will return to my job; I can always become a tram conductor. Trams fascinate me. This will always be my home. The city can swallow and hide me completely. Yes, it can hide me and my shame. Please do not think me ungrateful. I appreciate what you and Hine are doing for me. Perhaps I am being foolish. Surely I have learned my lesson.” “You sound as if your mind is already made up,” said Tom, then he paused. He was thinking rapidly too of the state at home. No Maori marae was adjusted to meet the demand of the modern Maori youth. There were no jobs at home, and organized sport and recreation consisted solely of rugby and basketball, and these were made as excuses for gargantuan drinking sprees. Young people like Tirita were tired of their elders' way of life, and so they were moving into the cities in hundreds. Good jobs in plenty were available—bus drivers, school teachers, waitresses, nurses, wharf workers, factory hands, carpenters, rubbish

bin collectors, practically every job was open to them. Tirita had a cousin with his own dental clinic, and another Manina lad was lecturing in a university. Tom quickly marshalled his thoughts in reply to his niece's thrust. “I agree, dear, that this is your world. You have everything to gain, but please remember one thing. You must have an anchor. In my family, my anchor is my church. In my church as you know, we are asked not to smoke or to drink alcohol. This has helped me more than you will ever know. Your dad as a young man was a teetotaller, but when he went into business with his taxi and store combined, he took to the bottle. It promoted his sales according to him, and his associates expected it of him. You know as well as I do, that his drinking led to his undoing. He gradually drifted away from your mother, then finally deserted her altogether. He left you for good; he fell in with another woman, to raise another family. Your elder sisters and one brother immediately left the home where they were nurtured. You have followed this movement, and your young sisters and brothers will do the same when they finish with school. The only answer we, your elders, have to this question is this: You must have an anchor, and the best anchor is a religion that will teach you and lead you to live a clean life. Without this anchor, you are like seaweed floating aimlessly on the sea. Sooner or later that seaweed will be cast upon a beach, high and dry. You are high and dry today, but I am here to take you by the hand. This city, in fact all cities are as cruel as that beach-head upon which the flotsam and the jetsam of the seas are stranded like dry seaweed, cracking and bleaching in the sun.” Clang … clang … a bell was ringing. “That is the time bell, uncle. All visitors will leave now. You make me think hard.” She stretched her hand out to put it in her uncle's hand. “I'll do my best, but this is my problem. I will not burden you and Hine with my troubles. I will find my own way out. I will see it through. You are good, and kind. I will come to you if the need arises. Please kiss me … my heart is crying, and I am lonely.” Tom whispered, “Kia kaha e hine,” 6 Be strong my girl. as he touched his lips upon her creek. Finally, in Maori, he reassured her with the words “Hei konei ra,

ka hoki mai ano ahau.” 7 ‘Till later, I am coming back.’ Her hand held his firmly. The traffic was quite heavy as Tom threaded his way home and he was feeling depressed. Tirita, Jim Hale, their baby, baby. Why didn't this pattern fall into the “Golden Triangle”—marriage, employment and a home? The Matakite 8 The foreseeing of an event. A seer. sense was strong in him, and he did not like the future for Tirita. It was far from promising. He hoped he was wrong. It was pleasant to drive into his garden home, put the car away and meet his wife standing on the front portico. “They are both well” were his first words before his wife had said, “Kei te pehea” 9 How? Hot fried bread in butter, and a cup of milo were waiting ready for his supper. “Let's shut this night air out, dear. There is quite a story. Our street is noisy tonight, what can the matter be?” “Can't you remember! Auckland beat Canterbury for the Ranfurly Shield.” Ka mutu.