Sweet Blackberry

Te Ao Hou, 1970, Page 15

Sweet Blackberry by Fiona Kidman Mr Wellington-Crosby was working his way through the outstanding rates demands. It was February and the sun shone through the top half of the window that would not open, the part that was not painted ‘mashed-potato cream’. Light reflected from his bald patch, so that sweat ran into his eyes and fogged up his glasses. Roberts, Roberts and Robinson, through Rogers, Rogers and Ryan, on through S; Smith, Smith, Smith, Smithe and Smythe, past Thompson, Tompkins and Turner … on through the alphabet with nice safe names, and for those that did boast the occasional hyphen, they probably had a caravan, a station wagon, and a double roll-a-door, to go with it. Or so he thought. He took off his glasses to wipe them, so that the room dropped away behind myopia. And who would not exchange Wellington-Crosby for Smith, Smithe or Turner? Certainly he would, and if it had not been for his mother's dying wish, or wishes, for she pleaded near to death quite often before her final demise at the age of 83 at the TAB window one Saturday morning, he would have dropped one or the other long ago. But … she hadn't gone through trial and sorrow to educate him, that she had not, to be a common Mr Wellington, or Mr Crosby. Sighing, Mr Wellington-Crosby returned his glasses to the bottom end of his nose, and slid them thoughtfully towards his line of focus, as a large and magnificent woman sailed through the swinging glass door and under the crest of the city fathers. ‘Heremaia, Rebecca Rawinia,’ she boomed. Mr Wellington-Crosby jumped. ‘I beg your pardon?’ She repeated her name more loudly, and then, as he continued to stare at her, she pulled a crumpled piece of paper from a pocket in her muu-muu. ‘I've come about my rates,’ she said. ‘Of course,’ murmured the small man, beginning to collect himself. ‘You can't swing this lot on me,’ said Mrs Heremaia, jabbing an eloquent finger at the paper. ‘Man, I ask you, sixty-five dollars. Sixty-five dollars rates for a patch of blackberry.’ Mr Wellington-Crosby took the paper and, after studying it, opened a long, grey filing cabinet. It took him a while to find what he was looking for, and as he searched, Mrs Heremaia produced a transistor radio from her dress and turned it in to ‘The Yellow Submarine’, loud and clear. The city greybeards in their nice, straight, locally-produced picture frames twitched their whiskers and rolled their eyes. Or so it seemed. But the weather was very hot. ‘Your land is incorporated under the Maori Land Court,’ said the rates clerk, coming up for air at last. ‘That's right?’ said Mrs Heremaia. ‘You must have signed some papers once, don't you remember?’ ‘Sign this, sign that, all the same to me.’ ‘Well it must be so,’ he said, patiently. ‘So what's that to me? My old lady always paid the rates on that bit of scrub, but she died six months back. So this letter comes for her — hey, what for you send it to her after she's dead?’ Mr Wellington-Crosby made a mental protest that the heavenly records had not adjusted themselves to the rates file, and shook his head with wonder and solicitude. ‘I don't know how we came to make such a mistake,’ he said. ‘I'm very sorry.’ The music had turned mellow and soft. Mrs Heremaia shook the radio vindictively and because the music stayed as before, she switched off and repocketed it. “Anyways,’ she said, ‘I'm not paying those rates. There's a lot of fellas own that bit of land, or so my old woman used to tell it, an' now you say so, too. Perhaps she left it to us, I never bothered to find out,

but you better find all them fellas and tell ‘em to pay, Sixty-five dollars, not me.’ Mr Wellington-Crosby cleared his throat to explain. ‘You've always owned this land you know. You and eight others. Which means you've always been equally liable for the rates. Only your mother's been good enough to pay for them in the past, and it's only now that she's — er — passed away — that you have to worry.’ He paused for breath and fanned himself with the rates demand. A near thing that, he had nearly said ‘dead’ for ‘passed away’, so very unkind that. Not the sort of thing a gentleman would do. Mrs Heremaia scratched her ear, with her finger, found it unsatisfactory, and produced a hairclip from her muu-muu. Maybe, thought Mr Wellington-Crosby, with fascination, maybe, if I ask for a tin of condensed milk, and two packets of tea, she will be able to produce from that supermarket-sized garment. ‘You know,’ she said leaning over the counter confidentially, ‘my mother, she swapped that land for a sweet bit of property up back of the lakes. What do you think of that?’ ‘I don't know,’ the little man muttered feverishly. ‘If you ask me, it's that fifty acres round Rotorua that we own.’ He was silent. ‘That's if you ask me.’ Silent still. ‘Ah well, looks like that's that then,’ she said. ‘It was simple. Fancy her paying all them rates on the wrong bit of land.’ Gathering herself together, Mrs Heremaia headed for the door. ‘Stop,’ cried Mr Wellington-Crosby. She turned back, a beautiful, carefully modulated swivel of large but unruffled flesh, and looked at him, long and cool, so that inside him said, ‘I'm so hot, I'm so hot,’ and outside him the crisp white shirt burst into despairing wet rivers. And this time it was she who was silent. ‘See here,’ he said. ‘I can't let you off your rates, just like that. You'd get into trouble.’ ‘Not if you told me I didn't have to pay.’ ‘Then I'd get into trouble.’ He trembled. Big lady, have mercy. She shook her head slowly. ‘What do you reckon I oughta do?’ ‘You could get in touch with the Maori Land Court.’ She nodded her agreement. It gave them both time. After she left, the rates clerk, sat down and ate a peppermint. His digestion was no good at all, and to be sure this had knocked him. It must be the heat. But the heat went on day after day, and things were no better at all when Heremaia, Rebecca Rawinia, came back to the office with Tuhoro, Albert Tai, a week later. ‘My brother-in-law, Mister,’ she said, standing at the door, and urging the man forward. It looked as if she was tickling his spine, for he twisted and wove on shiny, pointed shoes without advancing a step. A shifty character, thought Mr Wellington-Crosby. A scoundrel, you can always tell these types by their sharp ways. But he was no fool this Mr Tuhoro, Oh no. A self-respecting man was he, good at his job, both of them, a painter on his own account by day, and a dance band leader by night, quite an entrepreneur this one, and always paid his rates, and his light bill, and the phone, not to mention his income tax, caught you up this secondary employment, and why PAYE couldn't do all it promised and save a man the everlasting worry, he didn't know. In fact, you name a department, any of these outfits that were out to keep a man poor, he had owed it, paid it, and had a clean bill of health. Mrs Heremaia shrugged behind him. ‘He's always like that, Tuhoro, my brother-in-law,’ she said, approaching the counter. ‘But what he says is true. He owes nobody anything, and he works hard to make sure things stay that way. Except for this,’ and she waved the rates demand, now a tattered remnant, under his nose, ‘and this he does not want to pay.’ ‘But if he is an owner — did you get in touch with the Maori Land Court?’ Yes, and indeed, how could Mrs Heremaia forget to do what he said, taking his advice as seriously as she did? All the other owners then, bar her mother, were alive and well, the eight of them, and all, bar Tuhoro, disgruntled as they were, would pay the rates. Well no one had got in touch with Auntie but she did what she was told

these days, so there was nothing to worry about there. ‘Well then, why do you object so much to paying the rates on a perfectly good property of which you are a legal owner?’ said Mr Wellington-Crosby. ‘I didn't want this land,’ said Tuhoro. ‘Look she has this bit of land, this fifty acres up country, and she swapped it for one acre. Porangi, that ol’ woman, nuts. My wife, that is this one's sister, she say sign, it's my mother's land, you sign up, an' I do what I'm told. But I don't want that land. Hell man.’ The clerk ate a peppermint and chewed his ballpoint. ‘If you're a corporate body we can of course extract the rates from the revenue of the property.’ ‘And what revenue, man, would you take from an acre of blackberry?’ ‘You could make blackberry jam, Tuhoro brother,’ said his sister by marriage, who looked as if she did not like him overmuch. ‘Blackberries, yes blackberries. Can't have those inside the city boundaries,’ Mr Wellington-Crosby said briskly. ‘Noxious weeds you know. Definitely have to get rid of those.’ Mrs Heremaia and her brother-in-law were instantly united. She adopted her fighting stance, and he was the spokesman. ‘When would we get the time? Me, look, I keep a good section and two jobs —’ ‘All I was going to say,’ broke in the other, frantically chewing his white hot sweets, ‘was that if you cleared the blackberry, you could grow potatoes, pay the rates and all make a profit.’ Mrs Heremaia extracted cigarettes and matches from her muu-muu pocket, and lit a cigarette. She leaned her back and the tip of an elbow on the counter, shook her hair from its scarf, so that it fell down her back in a shower, and she rippled in sighs as she gazed out the door at the teeming asphalt in the February sun. He was not a man for poetry or fancy thoughts, Mr Wellington-Crosby, his digestion took care of that. But it did occur to him that the council might have been spared the great sum of money they had paid for that Lindauer to hang in the council chambers. One look at Mrs Heremaia and you had an impression to keep in your mind as long as any painting. A woman who could be loved, and he wished he had love in his soul. And oh how hot it was. ‘Council buy us the seed?’ she said, over her shoulder. ‘Oh no, you'd have to buy the seed yourselves,’ he said. ‘Council's got plenty of money.’ ‘Not that much.’ ‘Bring you a sack of spuds.’ ‘No deal.’ ‘Your missus'd be pleased.’ ‘I have no miss — I am not married.’ She drew long on the cigarette. ‘Tuhoro man.’ ‘Yes Rebecca.’ ‘We'd better think of selling that land.’ ‘Good idea that.’ ‘It was my mother's land.’ ‘It was the land of all of us, so she said. What we were to have for our own, but she swapped fifty acres for this. That is our inheritance, this land she has divided amongst us. I cannot feel for an acre of land in city streets.’ ‘Strangely said, city man,’ said his sister-in-law, still gazing down the street. ‘It may well be much more valuable than the fifty acres ever would have been,’ interjected Mr Wellington-Crosby. Mrs Heremaia nodded, and left. It was not a time for speaking. As Mr Tuhoro followed her out, the rates clerk felt himself subside with relief. It really was simple, she had brains that woman, and courage too. He would not have dared to suggest that they sell the land. The following day, he mentally added speed of action to her qualifications. She must have moved quickly amongst her relatives, for in the morning, soon after the doors had opened, she was there, this time with a tiny woman leaning half on a stick and half on her arm. ‘This is Auntie, Mrs Hatu,’ said Mrs Heremaia, indicating the tattooed bundle under the black shawl, and there was a note of weariness in her voice. He nodded gravely across the counter to her. Gravely because he appreciated that there was a new turn of events, and, like his mother had said, oh how long ago, a gentleman must always respect the feelings of others. And again he wished his name was either Mr Wellington or Mr Crosby,

for in this matter he might then be spared much responsibility. Auntie did not nod back. She did not do anything except hold her ground and peer across the counter. ‘Auntie can't write,’ said Mrs Heremaia, determined to be done with it. Mr Wellington-Crosby looked down at the enlarged peppercorn resting its chin on his high gloss counter, and was not surprised. ‘Auntie just made a mark on the title papers. Well she says she didn't actually, but somebody did.’ ‘Well if she didn't, who did?’ he implored. ‘Maybe my other auntie. That is, my great-aunties they are really. This one's sister. They can't write, none of them. So they make a mark.’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Well this one, she says it's not her mark, she knows her mark, an' it's not her mark.’ ‘But surely the Maori Land Court has a record of whose mark it is?’ ‘Oh yes.’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Yes. But that don't make any difference.’ ‘No?’ ‘No.’ ‘Oh dear.’ ‘She still says its not her mark, an’ now her sister's dead. Mister you prove it is her mark. Some fellas have a handle you'd recognize anywhere, but all she's got is a mark. What's your name?’ There she stood, five stories high, handsome, waiting for her triumph. He blushed, he stammered, and at last he said it. ‘Wellington-Crosby, Alphonsus Wellington-Crosby.’ And waited, tense, geared up, ready to go on anger. He'd got her at last. She subsided, curiously soft round the big wide mouth. ‘All I mean, mister, is that we'll have to sort this lot out before we can sell. An' that could be a long time, eh Auntie?’ Only Auntie's chin quivered with agitation. ‘So what I mean is, I dunno mister. I just dunno mister who is going to pay them rates. Do you?’ She slumped, the effort of a hard night's bargaining plain to see. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, Mrs Heremaia, I just don't know either.’ He shuffled his papers together on the counter, and checked to see that he had changed his date stamp. Through the glass he saw the familiar tormenting sun rising towards the ten o'clock sky, and he sighed again. Mrs Heremaia, and even Mrs Hatu, sighed too. At last, Mrs Heremaia gathered herself and the black bundle on sticks together, and made for the door. ‘See you man,’ she said, almost indifferently, over her shoulder. ‘See — er — see you,’ he said, and ate a peppermint. He was starting early today. Outside, Mrs Heremaia gently pushed Auntie into the battered blue Chev. With a crash and a rattle to show she was displeased, she reversed out of the council's parking lot and, accelerating fast, roared through town. ‘You ever seen this bit of scrub you and I supposed to own?’ she yelled to Auntie. Auntie shook her head. Mrs Heremaia slowed down, and looked thoughtful. More quietly she did an illegal U-turn and drove back towards the centre of town, then branched off to the most elite suburb the city could boast. She stopped the car in a neat avenue. Well — quite a neat one. Asphalt drives swept through wrought-iron gates, past well-laid lawns and flowering shrubs to big houses. Colonial styles and ranch styles, cedarwood and sundecks, and not only were they architect designed, but the architects themselves even lived in some of them. And there was this acre of land. This wild acre of land where the blackberry grew and the thistles proliferated and the puha thrived. There were clear patches in the wilderness where Protest Committees had been at work, but for the most part it was a jungle. High and low, wherever one looked, the blackberries shone, velvet, blue-black, hanging in great clusters. Auntie gave a snort. That was not all either. There were figures in this landscape. People. Bare brown legs twinkling among the bushes, quick fingers picking, picking, and small children cramming their mouths with berries till the juice squelched from the corners and ran down their Superman T-shirts. ‘Hullo there, that's Hine Ngata, my ol' man's cousin. You know her?’ Auntie nodded. ‘And her mate Molly that married

Rau, you remember?’ continued Mrs Heremaia. She cooee-ed out, and before long they were in the party. It was a good morning that they had. Auntie dozed in the car, and every now and again Mrs Heremaia would pop a really ripe blackberry into her mouth, which made her happy. After they had all gone, Mrs Heremaia stood by her car, and looked at the acre, of which she owned one-ninth piece. A woman came down one of the wide-swept driveways with her pekinese at her heels and shook her head resignedly as she looked at the Chev. She straightened her shoulders purposefully, with an air of being determined to ‘do something about it’ in her bearing and strode back to the house. Mrs Heremaia gazed thoughtfully after her. ‘I'll bring the kids an' the ol' man here tonight. Auntie nodded drowsily. ‘You know, I've a good mind to pay them rates myself.’ Auntie's eyes opened like a lizard awakening in the sun to see brightness. ‘I'll go you halves,’ she said. Mrs Heremaia chuckled softly as she got back into the Chev. She patted Auntie's arm and fed her a berry. ‘Tomorrow I'll take Mr Wellington-Crosby a billy of blackberries.’ It was noon and a hot, hot, day.