Heni dropped the subject but from the way she tossed her head and slapped the pans around it was clear that her sympathies did not go to the invalid. When a second month went by without Pineha coming to the hotel Heni went so far as to ask the manager if he'd heard anything about the old man. ‘Why, Heni?’ asked the manager, surprised. ‘I had an idea you didn't like the old gentleman.’ ‘Just curious, eh!’ Heni said, loftily. ‘Matter of fact,’ the manager said, ‘I was talking to the Chairman of the Board, in the bar, only this morning. He tells me Mr Harangaote is pretty sick. Can't eat. Just fading away. Pity. He's a fine old man; credit to your Maori people.’ Heni tossed her head and went back to her kitchen without further remark. A week or two later Pineha was moved from his local hospital to the Provincial Hospital where he could be under the care of a specialist. The change seemed to do him little good. He lay there, day after day, eating little, saying less. He lay with lack-lustre eyes. ‘Just fading away,’ the nurse said to the ward sister. It was Heni's husband who brought her the rumour. He was entertaining a few friends with a few flagons when Heni arrived home one night. ‘I hear Pineha Harangote he almost kamate’ he said. ‘Rongo here said he got the makutu sickness, eh?’ Heni stopped pouring her beer. She remained, flagon poised, as she looked at the men. ‘Who say he makutu'd?’ she demanded. ‘My cousin belong Ngati Manene,’ Rongo told her. ‘My cousin say Pineha told Maori Commission all Ngati Manene land should be made consolidated block. My cousin say Toraire, the tohunga, he not want his land consolidated. He say Toraire makutu Pineha.’ Heni looked at the men without speaking. She was a modern Maori and she didn't quite believe in the old witchcraft. But even modern Maoris don't like to meddle with makutu. ‘Serve him right’, Heni's husband said. ‘If it not been for him our Hoera get that scholarship, eh?’ ‘Oh! Ka ti te turituri, ehoa,’ Heni snapped She left her beer untasted and went off to bed. Next day she went to see the manager of the hotel. He listened to her and shook his head, doubtfully. When she left he rang the hospital and asked to speak to the matron. That night was visiting night at the hospital. Old Pineha lay on his bed, his wasted hands folded on his thin chest. ‘The old Maori gentleman's not too good,’ the ward sister said to the nurse. Pineha had no visitors. He wanted it that way, it seemed, for he gave them no encouragement. Many had visited him when he first came into hospital, but Pineha just lay there and seemed uninterested in them. Even the Chairman of the Board had resigned himself to a weekly token visit. Pineha took no notice of the throngs of visitors who passed his bed. He might have been miles away. He sensed, rather than saw, Heni when she came to his bedside. He recognised her but he did not smile or make any sign. Nor did Heni smile at him. She just stood there, a huge, untidy figure clutching a huge, untidy parcel. ‘Tena koe, koro,’ she said, at length. ‘Tenoa koe, Heni.’ His voice was so weak it was hardly a whisper, barely audible. ‘Kei te aha koe?’ ‘Kei te pai,’ he responded, but Heni could see that all was far from good. She put her huge, untidy, brown-paper parcel on the locker behind the old man's bed. She bent over him and put her huge, coarse hands ever so lightly on the old man's frail shoulders and pressed her nose gently to his in the hongi greeting. Tears coursed down her fat cheeks. Whether from sentiment or from sheer physical weakness tears welled from the old man's sunken eyes and mingled with hers. He lifted a wasted hand and feebly patted her massive, quivering shoulder. She straightened up, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief which seemed ludicrously small for so large a woman. ‘Enoho ra,’ she said, and turned away. ‘Haere ra.’ The old man's voice was so weak that she barely heard him. She left the ward still dabbing her eyes with that ridiculously small bit of linen. Hardly had she gone when the nurse went over to the old man. ‘Well!’ she said with professional brightness. ‘A visitor? That's nice. Oh, and a parcel too! Shall I open it?’ The old man made no reply. She thought he shook his head. ‘Come now,’ coaxed the nurse. ‘I'm curious, if you're not. Besides, it's nearly bed-time and it'll have to be unpacked and put away.’ The old man took no interest whatever as she proceeded to unpack the parcel. First she took off the brown paper. This removed, the parcel looked even more huge and ungainly