The Dream Swimmer, page 46
We reached Wainui Beach. I floored the accelerator. We climbed over the hill at Makarori Beach, and there in front of us was the dark midnight sea. Very soon we passed the turnoff to Whangara, making good time to Tolaga Bay.
‘Why are they still after Raina?’ I asked. ‘What’s all this Mary, mother of God business?’
Aunt Hiraina was just about to answer when, rounding a bend, we saw a car blocking the road. I threw the wheel hard right and slammed on the brakes.
Aunt Hiraina was screaming, pulling on her seatbelt. For what seemed an eternity of shrieking tyres and shuddering metal we skidded side on toward the car in front of us. There was a moment when I thought we would roll, and I saw the ute tumbling over and over and bursting into flames. I corrected, pulling the ute hard left. With tyres smouldering we came to a lurching halt.
‘Get out,’ I yelled to Aunt Hiraina. I was already unbuckling the seat belt and reaching for the rifle. ‘Move,’ I called to her.
I had recognised the car. I had seen it down at the gang headquarters in Wellington and then again at Waituhi, the night the gang had first tried to take Raina from us.
I slammed the door open, dived and rolled as I hit the ground. I saw a shape, brought the rifle up, sighted and –
‘No, Tamatea,’ the voice called.
A man came walking into the headlights of the ute. His arms were raised high, showing he was unarmed, so I put the rifle down. He was stocky and tall, and dreadlocks were obscuring his face. The sun had burnt him a red-brown, but even so the Rastafarian symbols were vivid, alive, making of him an illuminated man.
I didn’t recognise him at first. But when I did, I raised the rifle again, pulling it with rage into my left shoulder, ready to squeeze the trigger.
Aunt Hiraina pulled the rifle from me. ‘No,’ she said.
It was Toroa.
Moths were dashing themselves against the headlights of the ute. Toroa looked at me and there was such yearning in his face. He broke his glance and nodded to us.
‘Tena koe, e Hiraina,’ Toroa greeted my aunt.
‘What do you want, Toroa?’ I asked.
Toroa returned his gaze to me. Then, ‘I know I said we would never meet again,’ he began. ‘That day, at Grandfather Ihaka’s tangi, I promised I would stay out of your way.’
‘Then why have you broken your own vow?’
Toroa was proud and did not give in. ‘By your leave, Tamatea, you allowed me to farewell Ihaka, the great man who adopted me. I wish to repay that kindness.’
Toroa went to his car and opened the back door. Raina was unconscious on the back seat. He lifted her out and held her tenderly in his arms.
‘My brothers did a great wrong in taking this girl. I have convinced them of this. She does not belong to us.’
Toroa handed Raina to Aunt Hiraina.
‘She is yours.’
That’s when it happened. Toroa watched us as we led Raina away. Aunt Hiraina and I were holding Raina between us, supporting her as we walked back to the ute. All of a sudden, Raina gave a loud gasp, blood rushed into her face and her body stiffened. She cried out and looked down at her legs.
‘Oh. I’m broken.’ She was pointing down at the earth. Water was spilling from her birth cleft.
‘The baby’s coming,’ Aunt Hiraina cried.
My blood ran cold. Aunt Hiraina called out to Toroa. I looked at her.
‘This is no time for old enmities,’ Aunt Hiraina snapped. ‘I’ll need both of you.’
Toroa came running. He gathered up an old quilt from the back of his car and laid it on the ground. We lowered Raina on to it.
‘Drive the ute closer so that we have enough light,’ Aunt Hiraina called.
She was already ripping her petticoat into long pieces of cloth. She found a small round stick which she put into Raina’s mouth. All the time she was whispering to her daughter, trying to get her to become one with the rhythm of birth and the inevitability of the time when a child is ready to be born.
‘Well, Raina darling, this is it,’ Aunt Hiraina whispered. ‘I can remember when you were born. God, I hated your father for having put me in such a predicament. If you feel like swearing, daughter, you go right ahead. If you want to swear against the man who did this to you, go right ahead. He took his pleasure and you have all the pain.’
Aunt Hiraina settled Raina as best she could. She put her into a half sitting position.
‘Toroa,’ Aunt Hiraina instructed, ‘I want you to hold Raina from behind. When the baby starts to come, let Raina use your body as a support.’
‘It’s coming early, Hiraina,’ Toroa said.
‘Yes. As soon as the baby’s out, we must take both mother and child to hospital.’
All of a sudden, with a howl, Raina sucked in her breath.
‘Quick,’ Aunt Hiraina said.
She stood over Raina, knelt, took both legs in her arms and, tenderly, put them between her elbows. Raina howled again. Aunt Hiraina smiled at me. Her face was smeared with sweat and dirt, but eternity was in her.
‘You were always good at indoor basketball,’ she said. ‘Don’t drop the ball, will you?’ Then she said to Raina, ‘Here we go, Girl. Breathe in time with me, short breaths first and then long. Short breaths first, and then long.’
‘Raina can’t,’ my cousin whimpered. ‘Baby hurts Raina so much.’
The rhythm of childbirth is the rhythm of earth. The rhythm is made up of love and pain. Of earth, fire, air and water. Very soon, Toroa and I were also caught up in the rhythm.
Aunt Hiraina began to chant. Something in it pierced my subconscious. It took me back through time to a moment, briefly glimpsed, when a male child was being born. A woman in black veils was standing there, calling to the child to come forth.
Then Raina gave a deep, gutteral moan. Her back arched, her teeth bit into her lips, her face froze in rictus.
‘Here it comes,’ I said.
The baby’s head began to emerge from the birth canal.
‘Tamatea, titiro –’
The baby was a girl. She looked like a bloodied tekoteko. She came head first, diving gladly into the world of light. As she came she was twisting and turning, trying to get free.
One of her hands was around her throat.
Her left eye was swimming in blood. She was trying so hard to clear it so that she could see if I was there. Even before she spilled out of Raina she was trying to find me.
Oh, and I cried:
‘Haere mai e hine, ki te Ao o Tane.’
Welcome, child, to the world of man.
She was already screaming her rage at me. Her little fingers reached out for me, clawing at the space between. Her face was turning left and right, trying to find mine.
I cupped her in my hands. Cleared the mucous from her eyes. Her body was wet and slippery and warm.
I raised her wet, red skull to my lips, her black hair plastered like seaweed.
I took a breath and ‘Haa –’
Thus is given unto you, child, the first breath. My breath to you, the passing of the breath of life from one generation to the next.
Her face flooded with life as my breath swirled down through the pulsing fontanelle.
I took another breath, ‘Haa –’
I placed my mouth over her face and blew air softly through her mouth and nose.
Thus is given to you, child, the second breath, the breath that will sustain you and strengthen you in this world of the Pakeha.
Her body relaxed and her little arms reached up around my neck.
Aunt Hiraina placed a small knife in my hands. I cut the umbilical.
And the one who had come cried out and her fists beat against my chest in a temper for my not realising that she was coming.
I couldn’t help it. I roared and roared with laughter and joy. Aunt Hiraina and Toroa joined in.
All around fireflies and stars were dancing and the universe was chuckling in amusement above the dusty road.
Aunt Hiraina, Toroa and I sped Raina and her baby daughter to the Cook Hospital in Gisborne. Once, a long time ago, Riripeti had stormed in here to seek aid for her people. In one of the offices she confronted the Regional Superintendent of Health.
‘You,’ Riripeti said, ‘you who have sworn the Hippocratic oath, how dare you decide that the Pakeha must live and the Maori must die –’
The Emergency wing was peaceful until we rushed in. The nurse in charge took one look at Raina and her baby daughter and just about fainted. She punched a bell with one hand, yelled into an intercom unit and all hell broke loose. The duty doctor came running, trying to gather his wits. He began to examine both Raina and the baby, issuing orders to the nurse in charge as he did so. Meanwhile, Aunt Hiraina had run to the telephone to call Uncle Hepi and Sammy. Very soon, down the hallway orderlies came rushing, one pushing a trolley for Raina and the other an incubator for the child. All the while the doctor was asking Aunt Hiraina about Raina’s blood type and other details. When he rolled up Raina’s left sleeve to insert the drip he realised she was an addict.
‘I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be my night,’ the doctor said.
He called for a second doctor from Paediatrics to take care of the baby. He told Aunt Hiraina that she should come with him as her blood type was the same as Raina’s.
‘Your daughter’s lost a lot of blood,’ he said.
Aunt Hiraina nodded. She looked at me. ‘You go with Eretra,’ she said.
‘Eretra?’
‘That’s the name Raina was going to give the baby if it was a girl.’
I did not think of it at the time, but Toroa was standing nearby. Neither Aunt Hiraina or I intended to exclude him but I guess that is what it looked like to him. Perhaps he also recalled that he had made a promise to me that he would never become involved in the family again. All I know is that one moment he was there, the next moment he was gone again from our lives.
I had wanted to thank him.
If there is anything worse than watching a mother fighting for her life, it is watching her child battling for survival. I ran with the orderlies down the corridors as they sped Eretra to Paediatrics. I watched as the doctor monitored Eretra’s heartbeat and pulse and hooked her on to the machines that would support her life. At one point the doctor looked up and was astonished to see me there. I remembered the story of Riripeti and how the doctors in her time had screamed to have her removed.
‘I must stay –’
The doctor looked at me. Made his decision. Nodded.
Eretra, listen to me. You are not alone. You will never be alone. You look so tiny and so fragile in your incubator but I know that you have the fighting spirit. I, Tamatea, your uncle, know this because it comes to you from my veins. And it came to me from Riripeti’s veins. And it came to her from Wi Pere’s veins.
Can you hear me, Eretra? Fight, sweetheart, fight hard.
The doctor and his team worked on. Aunt Hiraina arrived.
‘Raina’s going to be okay,’ Aunt Hiraina said. ‘How is the baby?’
The doctor gave us his prognosis. There were some massive complications due, he considered, to Raina’s drugtaking. In particular, Eretra had a heart condition. Her heart was perforated with tiny holes. Her top palate was not entirely formed and one of her lungs had collapsed. There were some abnormalities with her blood.
‘We’ll do as much for the little tyke as we can,’ the doctor said, ‘but it may be likely that we shall have to fly her down to Wellington for more specialist treatment. A heart specialist really needs to look at her. In due course, plastic surgery will sort out her palate problem, if it doesn’t sort itself out naturally.’
Aunt Hiraina thanked him.
‘She’s a little fighter,’ the doctor commented. ‘If she can get this far, she’ll make it the rest of the way.’
At that moment, Uncle Hepi and Sammy arrived. Uncle Hepi has always pretended to be strong, but where his daughter Raina is concerned, he is made weak by love of her. He looked long upon Eretra, but his main concern was for his daughter.
‘Where is Raina?’ he asked. He was swallowing hard, trying to maintain his calm, but he was on the verge of tears.
‘Come, Hepi,’ Aunt Hiraina said. ‘I’ll take you to her.’
She began to lead him away with her. Uncle Hepi stopped. He looked back at me. Then he looked at Sammy.
‘You tell Tamatea –’
Tell me? Tell me what?
Sammy’s face was grim. ‘The Prime Minister has not agreed to give us back the land. His advisers have stated that the land was not confiscated. They said they didn’t take it from us; we gave it to them. The burden of proof is ours to make.’
My body felt drained.
‘The mate is still on the family, Tamatea,’ Sammy continued. ‘How can this be?’
‘Oh, Tamatea,’ Aunt Hiraina wept. ‘Will our fight never end?’
Yes, some time, some day, it will end, Aunt Hiraina.
If not in our generation, then in the next. And if not in that generation, in the one after that.
Some day.
Raina never fully recovered from the birth of her daughter. Indeed, Eretra herself had been so greatly affected in the womb by her mother’s drug habit that doctors feared she was already irreparably damaged in body and mind. For the first day she was kept at Gisborne Hospital, but on the second it was decided she should be flown down to Wellington for closer observation at the antenatal unit. She was on life support for a month. Miraculously, Eretra rallied and began to put on weight. Regan, Bianca, Miranda and I were constantly at her side.
Meanwhile, it was clear that Raina was not capable in any way, shape or form of being an appropriate parent to Eretra. Alarmed, and without informing us, the hospital authorities initiated proceedings under the Social Welfare Act to take Eretra into their care. When they advised us, Aunt Hiraina cried out in great passion, ‘Anybody tries to take my granddaughter will have to take me first. I give due warning, it will be a fight to the death.’
I organised a top family court lawyer to defend our case. There was some talk that Regan and I should adopt Eretra, and we would both have gladly done this, except that I was still travelling overseas extensively. In the end, our lawyer recommended that we make application for Eretra to be given into the custody of her maternal grandparents, Aunt Hiraina and Uncle Hepi. Social Welfare supported this application and the judge duly awarded the application.
Aunt Hiraina and Uncle Hepi took Raina and Eretra home to Waituhi.
There, Eretra began to blossom. Raina, however, began her slow descent unto death. Despite all efforts, her addictive ways could not be turned.
One afternoon, while Uncle Hepi was at work and Aunt Hiraina was napping, a young man tapped at Raina’s window. A few minutes later Aunt Hiraina woke with a start and saw the young man running across the back paddock. Sensing that something was amiss, she ran to Raina’s bedroom. Raina was crooning to Eretra, feeding her. When she turned around, Aunt Hiraina saw a hypodermic needle stuck in Raina’s tongue.
‘Me and Eretra,’ Raina giggled, ‘both having a little drink.’
Was it the gang again, pursuing its vendetta? To this day, Aunt Hiraina believes it was. ‘The bastards,’ she cried. The all too familiar nightmare was about to begin again.
From that day on, Aunt Hiraina and Uncle Hepi kept a strict watch on the house. But somehow, whenever they took Raina and Eretra into Gisborne for hospital treatment, there was always some young man who bumped into Raina or who managed to slip her more of the white death. In desperation, Aunt Hiraina took Raina into Rongopai, hoping that the healing powers of the house would restore Raina’s health. But she was already too far gone. There she was, in a corner, pissing where she sat.
This time, the hospital was adamant about Raina’s condition. Raina had to be sent to the drug rehabilitation unit in Palmerston North immediately. Raina didn’t seem to mind being separated from Eretra. A month later, at Easter, however, she rang:
‘Can I come home for the holidays, Mum?’
The first day back, Raina was happy and spent most of the day with Eretra. The next morning, Aunt Hiraina and Uncle Hepi planned to take Raina and Eretra to church.
‘You go,’ Raina said. ‘Take Eretra. I’m tired.’
Raina blew a kiss to her parents and Eretra as they left.
It was a sunlit day, but when the family returned from church Aunt Hiraina knew. The front door was open, the radio was blaring in the sitting room and the curtains were fluttering in the breeze. At the gate, Aunt Hiraina with Eretra in her arms smiled at Uncle Hepi and said:
‘Dad, I left my purse at the church. Can you go back for it?’
Aunt Hiraina knew that Uncle Hepi loved Raina, and she wanted to spare him this.
‘Come on, darling,’ Aunt Hiraina whispered to Eretra. Already her eyes were streaming and her throat was working as if ready to expel her heart.
Humming to Eretra, Aunt Hiraina walked into the house. She closed the front door. She turned off the radio. She walked to Raina’s room. She saw shadows like a blackbird’s wings pinioned to the wall.
‘Oh, your mother was so pretty,’ Aunt Hiraina whispered to the baby. ‘When she was your age, little one, she was the prettiest little thing –’
Raina was standing, leaning against the bedroom door. Her eyes were wide open and her mouth was shaped with a surprised, Oh. In one hand she held a needle. The thumb of her other hand was still on the plunger. Her sleeve was rolled up and rubber was twisted to pop the veins. The needle was deep in a vein. Dried flecks of blood, like rust, ringed the crater made by the needle.
Aunt Hiraina put Eretra in her cot. Then she returned to Raina. She realised that Raina had died standing. It must have taken only a few seconds for the pure white death to storm through her heart and close it.
Shut. Oh.
Just like that.
‘Kua mutu, Raina,’ Aunt Hiraina said to her dead daughter. ‘It’s all over now. You can rest, darling.’
Aunt Hiraina washed and prepared Raina. When Uncle Hepi returned to the house, Raina was placed on the bed. She was like her father had remembered her.
She looked, for all the world, as if she was only sleeping.
