THE AWAKENING

Te Ao Hou, 1970, Page 20

THE AWAKENING Carolyn climbed up onto the sofa beneath the window and began jumping up and down in rhythm with her chanting. The dust from the sofa rose thickly from beneath her feet. The early morning sunlight streamed in through the open window of the kitchen forming two huge beams of light, one a little larger and brighter than the other, that slanted down and rested on the floor and part of the wall. The dust from the sofa and the smoke from the frying fat in the pan on the stove intermingled in the beams, moving and shuffling. They were like little live beings, never still. Nick sliced his arm through the beam of light, and the particles of dust swirled madly for a second, then gradually settled down again. The boy sliced his arm back through it, watching the things swirl madly again, this time in the opposite direction. Violet and Louise were lined back against the wall waiting for the beams to settle down. You could not see the dust and smoke in the rest of the room where they were not caught in the light, unless you looked very closely, then when you saw them you began to see more and more and you wondered why you had never seen them before. ‘Now!’ Violet cried, and the two girls shot from the wall and sliced through the light. They seemed a little surprised when they reached the other side. So thick and impenetrable the beams seemed that they looked solid and the children were always surprised to be able to pass through them. The girls turned and waited till the dust and smoke settled down. They leaned slightly forward from the wall, like race-horses straining at the barrier, ready to plunge back through the light again. ‘Right!’ Violet cried, and the two shot off their marks again and went squealing through the light to the other side of the room. Nick walked through the shafts of light, slowly, fascinated when the big yellow beams parted to let him through. He stood in the middle of the strongest beam letting it engulf him up to the waist. The light streamed around him swirling and shuffling. And standing there the boy experienced a very real sensation of being in something tangible, like water, although he could not actually feel the light about him. ‘Come on you children,’ their mother called. ‘Sit down while your porridge is hot.’ The room was full of the wonderful aroma of frying eggs and bacon. The children made a few more quick passes through the beams of light then one by one took their places at the table, wading through their porridge, impatient to get at the eggs and bacon that followed. Afterwards their mother gave Luke the big lunch bag with all their lunches and the children trooped out the door into the glorious morning sunshine, on their way to school. Nick went with his brothers and sisters as far as the gate. He tried not to think of all that time when they would be gone. He played with the rest as though he were one of them, but when they came to the gate he knew he wasn't. The rest carried on, through the gate and out onto the patch of grass, but he stopped — partly from habit and partly because he feared going any further anyway. For he was not yet of school age. So the others set off down the roadway, moving slowly further and further away. The boy stood a long time watching them, his heart sinking. A great loneliness came

into him and he began already to long for the others' return. ‘Goodbye Nicky,’ Violet called, looking back over her shoulder at him. ‘Goodbye Nicky — Goodbye,’ the others took up the call. ‘O half past eight, We'll be late. Half past eight —,’ Carolyn chanted. ‘O never mind, It's ten to nine, We'll be on time,’ Violet and Arthur chorused in. And Luke walked on a little ahead of the others, somewhat aloof. Once he called back a farewell to Nick in his deep self-conscious voice. At the bend in the road the sun was cut off by the row of pine-trees that lined the embankment. Here the children halted, hesitating before they plunged into the thick cold shadows. They pranced up and down slapping their hands under their arm-pits, blowing into their cupped hands and then blowing the tips of their fingers; taking deep breaths and trying to summon up the courage to make that plunge. Then one by one they dived into the shadows and Nick heard their cries as they did so. The children disappeared around the bend in the road but Nick knew that they would reappear later further down, where the road curved back into view, down by the first mill turn-off. He always waited to catch this last glimpse of his brothers and sisters before he turned to go back inside. ‘Half past eight, We'll be late. Half past eight —,’ he heard the high-pitched chanting of his brothers and sisters. Then Violet called, ‘Goodbye Nicky. See you this afternoon.’ The girl tasted that last sentence. Then she said it again, ‘See you this afternoon.’ It was what the grown-ups said and it was quite strange and fascinating to say really. He saw them for a brief minute away down where the road curved back into view, and they were only specks now. But Nick thought he could pick out who they were, especially Luke who towered above the rest. They were straggled out now. The boy could still hear them, but now there was an added chorus as some of the other children of the settlement called their greetings on their way to school. Nick heard some voices calling away off to his right, beyond the scrub-covered hill and knew that it was the Yates kids and possibly some of the kids from up at Reid's place. They would often come down through the short cut past the Yates' house if they were running late for school or wanted a change of scenery. Otherwise they came down the road past the boy's house and he would see them, about a dozen of them, picking their way down the hill in their bare feet, over the rutted road-way, with their glowing faces and their cheerful calls. A dog began to bark on the hill over by the Yates' house and another started up away off past the pine trees over by Mr Taylor's house, the owner of the mill. Nick could barely hear it. The morning winter sunlight flooded over the earth and brilliantly lit up the scrub-covered hill to the front of the shop. A rooster was crowing away off in the distance, its tone muffled and soft. Now Nick heard the children no more, but he strained to hear still. Once he heard a faint noise that he thought might be them. But strain as he might he heard nothing. The dogs continued barking for a while then they too ceased. Now only the noises of the mill could be heard, with now and then occasional sounds of the settlement; the sudden rush of steam from the winch, splitting the air; the heavy hollow metallic sound as the lever was released. A dull thump as an extra heavy log was dropped onto the skids from the trailer of the logging truck, accompanied by a small jolting tremor of the earth. The screaming of the saws; the high-pitched screaming of the ‘bench saw’, whining incessantly in the background like a drone of bees, and the louder lower-pitched spasmodic screaming of the breaking-down saws; a door slamming, or a woman's high-pitched voice calling to a child or a dog and the hollow husky sound of a bulldozer working away off in the bush. Sometimes the noise of the tractor came to the boy clearly as it was brought in on a rise of wind, then when the wind dropped the sound would be cut off and he would hear only that high-pitched con-

stant swishing sound again, like wind caught in the branches of some trees a long way off. And all the while the frogs kept up their monotonous croaking down at the mill pond, stopping all at once and then beginning again all together, as if at some given signal. His sister Louise joined him, and the two swung on the gate for a while, until they heard the voices of some children coming from the front of the shop. They rushed around to greet them. Pine Waka and his sister Agnes and one or two others from up at Reid's place came down the roadway cheerfully calling and waving. Nick decided that they must have split into two gangs this morning, some — the ones Nick heard calling earlier — going down the short cut past the Yates' house. The children greeted one another and the school-bound children went on their way, treading carefully down the frost-hardened road with their sore bare feet and their chilblains. Nick envied them as they continued on their way to school, for it seemed to him they knew so much more than he, and he ached for the time when it would be his turn and he would be one of those going to school. Not long after that the school bus came past and Nick and Louise watched the children waving at the windows. Some of them were shouting and pulling faces. They couldn't hear the noise and could see only the children's mouths opening and shutting. The bus roared on down the roadway bumping over the rutted surface. Close on its heels came Tommy and Margaret Brown, the children's cousins, who lived about five miles further up the road, galloping madly on their horses, yahooing, and trying to keep up with the bus. Margaret's hair was flying behind her. Now with the sun well clear of the pine trees that grew across the road from their house, and picking up intensity, flooding over the yard and orchard, everything began to thaw out after the heavy overnight frost. In the run the hens were wide awake and bustling about making a great racket. A hen was clucking furiously, announcing that she had just laid an egg. Slowly, with somewhat heavy hearts, the children turned to go back into the house.