left as ignorant Pacific islanders, setting out into the great unknown. Now he was back as a man of the world. But it was his intention to forget the world, to find a wife and settle down and grow bananas, kumaras and cut copra. As they had come up to the island he had sniffed the rich tropical smell, a smell better than the smoke of the city. When they had first arrived in New Zealand he and his brother had worked in a gloomy, smoky shovel factory, but then they had moved to a car assembly plant, where working conditions were much pleasanter and the money better. Bolting on bumper-bars was a good job, and Tevita had never found it monotonous standing in the same place on the assembly line as the cars moved past, doing the same job day after day, week after week. There had been only one thing wrong with his home-coming at that moment on the ship, and that was that his brother wasn't with him. But his brother said he was crazy to go back home to grubbing in the kumara patch. Life was better in New Zealand. But Tevita had been home-sick and the call of the islands couldn't be resisted. His foreman had been frankly envious. ‘I wish I could go to the islands where it's always summer and lie under a coconut tree.’ Tevita had agreed, but he didn't agree now. Nothing had gone as he had expected. The welcome was warm enough, but he'd expected something somehow different. They accepted him matter-of-factly and were more interested in news of his older brother and when he was coming home. But perhaps it was his fault. He had changed, and the island hadn't. It was just as if he had never been away, even the same cracked cups were still in use in the house. And his parents still treated him as a boy instead of the man-of-the-world he was. He didn't think his father, or any of the family, really believed him when he said he helped to build motor cars. His father said they were too complicated for any Pacific islander to make. But how else did he think he had earned the money to buy the new shot gun, and the sewing machine, and the bicycle, and his guitar? They had accepted the presents as their due, and they used all his things without asking him. His father was wearing one of his good white shirts now. His father was stretched out asleep in the shade of the verandah, but he had been fishing since midnight and had only come home an hour ago, and with only a few small reef fish to show for his night's work. His mother was down the back, hoeing the kumara patch. He could see her through the coconut trees if he raised himself, but it was too hot to make the effort. He should be out in the plantation working around the banana palms now, as his sister was, but he didn't have any energy. He didn't like to admit it, but he'd much rather be back in New Zealand bolting on bumper-bars in the car factory. The family weren't really interested in his stories of life in New Zealand. They listened for a few minutes and then returned to gossiping about trivial village happenings, of babies and marriages, or if it was men, speculating on the weather and the crops. Or they talked about the new church they were going to build in the village one day. They didn't seem to care that he could tell them about the buses and the trains in New Zealand and things in the shops, much better things than the miserable display of sugar and tea and tobacco and kerosene in the little village store. His mother had shown some interest there, but then she had said she didn't have any money anyway, so she started to gossip with his aunty about the new pandanus mat she was making for the floor of their house. And all his father was interested in was fishing. Of course there wasn't much to do on the island except go fishing. He told them about the picture theatres in New Zealand with comfortable seats, but they didn't seem to think they were any better than the village picture theatre with its hard wooden seats and the scratched old films shown on an ancient projector which broke down once a reel. They were all ignorant Polynesians, he thought resentfully, and if he hadn't said he was coming home for good he would have caught the next boat back to New Zealand. But he couldn't do that without