Passing Through

Te Ao Hou, June 1975, Page 4

Passing Through by Fiona Kidman And the world was a new day, the sun a golden apple hovering over the broomstick tops of the poplars. A thrush settled himself, comfortably slung in space between telegraph poles, so that he could sing sweetly to her. Fat notes dripping honey mead, morning had broken all right. Roimata lit another cigarette. The bank she was sitting on was not quite dry yet. Instinctively she pulled out one of the parcels from the heap beside her and slid it under her bottom. Mrs Allen, her mother-in-law, always said one should never sit on wet grass. Upon which thought she replaced the packet with the others. Not for her, thank you, she wasn't here to do what Mrs Allen thought she should any more. No fear, that was all over. She trickled fine blue veins of smoke out of her mouth and watched them go curling above her. She must be nearly out of smokes, she thought to herself, and reached into her jeans pocket for her tobacco. Might as well roll a couple to pass the time. Pity she hadn't changed out of her jeans, but then again, what the heck, there just hadn't been time. When the shearing gang finished up at Utiku the day before it had been one mad rush to get into Taihape before the shops closed. ‘What's your hurry mate?’ they'd asked her. ‘Plenty of time to celebrate. They don't shut till ten.’ ‘Not the pub,’ she'd told them. ‘I gotta go shopping.’ Boy, how she'd needed to go shopping, with that great roll of notes burning holes in her pocket. More money than she'd had since, oh goodness knows how far back, long before she'd married Robbie, that was for real. Get to the shops and use it for what she had planned on. Spend it before the merry night took hold and it went sliding through her fingers, the way it used to. Robbie said she was careless with money. He forgot easy how she'd picked him up when he was broke. Times his mother never knew about, his wild days, their best ones, before they loused it all up with marriage. Oh, but he was a sweet beautiful boy though, hanging tight to his dreams and hard to wake in the dawn of whatever place they happened to be, those times. A dozen different places, construction sites, farms, in a car at Waikaremoana one winter night and hadn't it been cold, cold all over they'd been, and when he did wake up, it was with never failing surprise that she was still there. When Debbie was on the way, it was then he got the call. He'd been expecting his mother to sing out that she needed him sooner or later. Being a widow and brought him up, what could he do? Couldn't let her down could he? They had gone to his home together. A-e, but it was good to be back with the shearers though. The fleeces thick and pungent, the floors of the shed heavy with oil, the noise, the laughter, the bleating of the sheep, the cussing when one got away. The money too. Tai, in the gang, was married. He knew how she felt about things, so he gave them the hurry along, so that they got down to Taihape by half past four. It wasn't too long to do shopping for two kids. The toy shops were that busy with Christmas only a couple of weeks away that it took her all her time to get served. Probably didn't think she'd be much of a customer. That's until they saw the money, more than any of the farmers' wives were handing round. They mostly said ‘Charge it’ anyway. Half of

it was gone by the time the shops shut at 5.30. Then there she was on the pavement in the middle of Taihape, strung with a giant teddy bear, dolls and toy guns, a plastic policeman's helmet perched on her head for nowhere else to put it, and trailing a tiny midget-sized trike. Absurdly, crazily happy—Look Tai, look what I've bought—just wait till my kids see this lot—. She didn't go to the party. After a couple of drinks at the hotel, a stock truck driver came in, a nice bloke. Tai chatted him up, said ‘Why don't you go up to Hamilton with this joker? He's going through that way tonight.’ Good old Tai, he knew. The truckie was okay, no nonsense, he had a girl in Hamilton. They swapped yarns and cigarettes on the way, stopped at the piecart on the way through Taupo, and set off again with the steam of coffee and hamburgers just about coming out of their ears. ‘Regular geysers,’ she joked to him as they headed across to Atiamuri. A good night, like the old days. He let her sleep in the cab when they got to Hamilton, provided she promised to be off at first light. She took a taxi out to the suburb where the family lived, when she reckoned Robbie would have left for work. She got the driver to set her down a little way off from the house. Not quite ready yet, and she needed some time to look the place over. Anyway, Mrs Allen wasn't ‘at her best’ in the mornings and the kids would take time to be dressed and fed. Daniel, the baby, would be all right. He'd always been easy going, but Debbie, three, going four now, and a year older than him, was a different box of tricks. A proper monkey, and ‘a difficult child’ as Mrs Allen would say. Roimata's face changed. Hard bitter lines shaped around her mouth. They hadn't been gone so long that they didn't come back easy when she started to think. Yes, Mrs Allen would be doing her Christian duty by the kids. Though it hadn't been obvious to Roimata at the outset that she was a woman of such principle, she'd been elevated to Christianity by her neighbours as the trials of her daughter-in-law mounted and beset her. Not that she had said much when Robbie took his wife there. Oh no, the neighbours just said, ‘Well, you are a Christian (or a Briton, depending on their persuasions), I mean mothers and daughters-in-law don't always get on, do they?’ Which was a roundabout way of saying what was in their minds, and placing the credit squarely with Mrs Allen, a stance they never forsook. That might have seemed fair enough in the light of how things turned out, but Roimata doubted it. After all, she tried for a long time too. She started wearing tweedy looking skirts and sensible flat lace-up shoes, a good quality that Mrs Allen had helped her buy during her pregnancy. Her hair was still long but worn back in a ponytail, and though she still smoked she changed to tailor-mades. Even harder, she went to Plunket instead of the District Nurse with the baby, and when the nurse suggested she join the Plunket mothers' club she went along to that too. The women were all over-effusive, but no one invited her to pop in for coffee after the meetings, like the others all did of each other. When about a year had passed, the penny dropped that Robbie didn't find her as fascinating as he once did. She guessed it was because she was no longer the old Roimata he knew, and a rather poor imitation of being anybody else. ‘Let's go live somewhere else, Robbie,’ she whispered to him in the night. ‘Get our own place. eh.’ But Daniel was on the way, places were dear to rent, and what was the point when his mother had all that space to herself. She didn't know who to be any more. The decision was made for her by the Plunket people when they sold clothes to the Maoris at a pa out of town on Family Benefit Day. Every good fund raiser knew that you had to catch the Family Benefit before it was thrown away on booze. Mind you, my dear, just close your eyes next time you're passing there, really demoralises you to see your old clothes being worn that way, even if they were ready for the jumble sale. When Roimata turned up at the meeting

house to serve behind the counter she felt ashamed. ‘You ought to be proud of yourself,’ she told herself sternly. For after all, had she not come full circle, standing here on this side of the stall? Once her mother had clothed her from just such a sale. Warm the voices in the thick air, the little fellas underfoot, the women with their baskets full, laughing in a corner, sharing a friendly smoke, glancing now and then in her direction, from under their eyelids. It was too much to bear. That day she went home for morning tea with someone. Tea and scones, and she never went home till late that night, even though Mrs Allen had an Institute meeting that afternoon. She never went back to the mothers' club. Now she knew who she was again, but Robbie didn't recognise the old Roimata in strange surroundings. Now she was no one in his company but at least she had somewhere to be herself. Some days she would go to the hotel with her mates, and that got back to the Allens. It made Roimata mad the way she saw some of the sly Pakeha matrons slipping into the private bars in the afternoon. At night they would go home and cover themselves by saying to their husbands, ‘So and so and I just slipped into the hotel today for a bit of a giggle, and on the way, would you believe, we saw that poor Mrs Allen's daughter-in-law in the public bar.’ But wouldn't they be just as flushed and loud and silly when they came out of there as anyone! Poor Mrs Allen. Maybe she was. Roimata's face softened. You couldn't blame her altogether. There were lots of times when she looked tired and grey with all that minding of the kids. It would have been hard work for her with Debbie and Daniel since she left too, but at least, she, Roimata, the great big bone of contention, was out of it. Roimata hoped her mother-in-law wasn't too tired. Soon the kids would be off her hands though, now that she was back on her feet. Time to go in now. Clumsy with all the parcels to collect, Roimata got to her feet. At the gate she hesitated, but then she heard a child's voice and she ran up the steps. Mrs Allen was having a pick-me-up cup of tea when she went into the kitchen. The cup slopped sideways in the older woman's hand. She uttered a harsh inarticulate cry. ‘What do you think you're doing here?’ she said finally. But already Roimata was on her knees gathering up her children, crying, face pressed into the curves of their necks kissing every exposed piece of honey-coloured skin. Around her lay the parcels in confusion. Shrilly Mrs Allen cried out again, ‘What do you think you're at, walking into my house?’ The children at the sound of her voice cowered away from their mother, clinging fearfully to the legs of the table. Kneeling there, Roimata looked down at her empty hands. ‘I've come back — Mother,’ she said, with the familiar difficulty over that last word, trying desperately to bridge the gap. ‘I can see that.’ As she got up off the floor, Roimata said, ‘I've brought the children their Christmas presents. Theyre early but — gee, I wanted them to have them, you know. Couldn't wait.’ ‘Presents?’ There was scorn in her mother-in-law's voice now. ‘Presents you say. Look at you, dirty and filthy, you come into my house with presents and expect me to take you back. Presents don't always make you friends.’ ‘I don't want to come back. I've come to get the children. I'm okay now. I've got plenty of money, an' somewhere to take them. It'll be all right. You can have a rest now. You'd like that, wouldn't you?’ Mrs Allen stood wondering at the girl. ‘Take them away? You can't take them away. Don't you know that?’ ‘They're mine.’ ‘No they're not. They're Robbie's.’ ‘Robbie's? Oh no you can't do that. Me, I'm their Mummy.’ ‘They're Robbie's I tell you.’ And triumphantly, ‘The Court says they're Robbie's.’ ‘Court?’ ‘Didn't you get the letter from the lawyer?’ ‘I haven't had no letters. Oh — we moved round a couple places. Probably missed me.’

‘Moved around, eh? That's what I'd have expected of you. And what if one of them had been sick? where would we have found you? Moving around somewhere. Oh no my girl, you can't buy these children back, they need love.’ Love. What was she talking about? Roimata realised quite suddenly that she was tired and the whole conversation seemed a bit silly. The beginnings of a goofy smile hovered on her lips. ‘Don't you laugh at me — you …’ Then, after words had failed for a moment, out they came, a great torrent of words lashing about them all, storms from strange seas, tides of anger out of the deeps, despair, disgust. The children crouched under the table whimpering. And at last, at long last, the fury eddying away, receding, and amongst the flotsam, the word ‘police’ tossing untidily around the room. So that was it. The police could stop her taking the children with her. It began to make some sort of sense. No matter where she went, she would be hounded. No matter who she went to, they would not be good enough for the law. No matter how her arms ached to hold her babies, they would be torn from her grasp. She collected herself together, and headed for the door. ‘I — got a tie in there for Robbie, ‘mongst that lot,’ said Roimata, pausing and nodding foolishly at the parcels. ‘A tie for Robbie? Oh God — you're hopeless. What did you expect to get from Robbie? He was always a good boy — only when you came along he got mixed up. That's over now, he's all right again. Go on, take your stuff with you. Take it.’ ‘No,’ said Roimata, suddenly firm. ‘No I won't take it. It belongs to them.’ She indicated the children. Mrs Allen picked up a parcel, and catching her roughly by the arm tried to shove it into her hands. Roimata pulled away. ‘I wouldn't do that,’ she said dangerously, then taunting her, ‘I might get the pol-eece after you for assault, mightn't I?’ She walked outside, wishing she could be proud of her parting shot, but it seemed an empty victory. Behind her in the doorway, Debbie appeared. Roimata stood at the gate watching. The child walked down the path, stooping halfway to pick a daisy from the border. She continued, clutching the flower in front of her. ‘Your present, Mummy,’ said Debbie, holding it out. For a moment mother and daughter looked at each other. Then swiftly Roimata leaned down and kissed her child. As she straightened up, she curled her fingers round the small hand. ‘It's a lovely present Debbie,’ she whispered, ‘Lovely present darling. But you must take it to Nana. You must look after Nanny now. She needs a present.’ Her daughter studied the rejected offering curiously, then slowly turned back down the path, towards her grandmother. Up above, the sun had wheeled higher. The thrush still sang praise, all praise, upon the day. The road Roimata would take swam before her. The morning had broken apart.