get; he'd got a Pakeha wife, not for any special reason except that she happened to have been the right girl for him, and if her parents hadn't liked it too well and there'd been the odd rough patch there, he could take it. It hadn't stopped them getting a good flat, and no one complained about them as tenants, because the rent was always paid, and Sally had a home science degree, which meant she was just about the smartest housekeeper a landlord ever had. So what about heritage! ‘It's like this,’ she'd said to him, very serious-like when they had the lights down low and they were becalmed one evening on an ocean of music and warmth, ‘It's like this, every Maori looks for his heritage sooner or later, it doesn't matter how he was brought up.’ ‘Rubbish,’ Piri said, nibbling her shoulder. ‘No, it's true,’ she said, rubbing her fingers round the base of his neck. ‘I'm denying you what you want.’ ‘What do I want,’ he'd said, mocking, as if she didn't know. But she'd rolled away in the thick pile of the carpet where they were lying. ‘It's natural for you to go back to your inherent beginnings.’ ‘I've looked them over,’ he'd replied. ‘I can take them or leave them. Anyway, who's been talking to you? Some of those guys you work with?’ So she'd told him about this chap who'd come in to talk to the Liberal Studies class, at the school where she taught home science. He'd told them all about Maoritanga, which he knew a lot about, seeing as he was a professor somewhere or other, and how the Maori race had inescapable bonds with their heritage. That darned word again. And here she was denying him of it, and expecting him to conform to Pakeha patterns of culture without giving anything in return. He'd said, ‘We'll think about it,’ because how in the world could a man get a bit of peace if he didn't agree sometimes. ‘What about some inter-cultural relations to be going on with?’ She thought that was pretty funny and they forgot about it for the night. Well he did. But Sally went off and did some homework. Next attack came on a Saturday morning. They always slept in Saturday mornings, maybe till eleven. He should have known to expect trouble when she got up and made a cup of tea at 8 o'clock. She sat on the edge of the bed clutching her cup up close to her chin, so that the steam rose and encircled her face, giving her an eerie soft look, with light falling through the upper windows, lighting the smokey face with its smoke-grey eyes and long hair tangled from sleep. ‘Come on, out with it,’ Piri said. So she told him about the opening of the church meeting hall back up where he used to live. There would be a church service first, then a hangi—the organisers said they'd have enough food for two thousand, and a football match afterwards; it was tomorrow and if they got up really early, it was only about a hundred and fifty miles away, they'd be up there in no time. ‘You might meet some of your relatives,’ she'd said on the way up, next morning. ‘Wouldn't know them from Adam,’ Piri said. ‘They wouldn't know me either. Now don't you go getting sentimental on me. You're the quizzy one, you're the one wants to have a look, not me.’ And yet—and yet, here he was striding into the crowds his head flung back, anticipation in every step. He looked back to her again, and his eyes were shining with pleasure. ‘Come on,’ he called to her, stretching out his hand. ‘Hurry.’ And as she sat with him, she watched his lips move in the remembered strains of hymns set in Maori. He dissolved amongst his people, being one of them, and she, touching close to him, shoulder to shoulder, was yet left to sit alone. After the last ‘amine’, the dedication was over and the people spilled out into the sparkling air, breathing deep the freshness of the hillside morning. The pa was high above the sea, and the waves broke below, a real fortress. Sally shivered, in spite of the light, as history seeped through her, chilling her with a melancholy of things not understood.