Fishing for Māui

First published in 2018

© Isa Pearl Ritchie 2018

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0).

ISBN 978-0-473-43754-1 (print)

ISBN 978-0-473-43755-8 (EPUB)

ISBN 978-0-473-43756-5 (Kindle)

A catalogue record for this book is available from

the National Library of New Zealand

Typeset by Paul Stewart

Cover design by Katrina Berry

Author photo by Sabrina Grabow

Ebook conversion 2018 by meBooks

Te Rā Aroha Press

For Mum, Jane and Grandad

PART ONE

Calm

Spring 2011

Elena

Ilove the early mornings. I don’t think I’ve naturally woken up this early since I was a small child, but the hormones, combined with that sinking instability – low blood sugar from the long stretch of night with no food – leave me wide awake before first light. I lie in the stillness and listen for the first bird calls, bringing in the dawn chorus of another chilly spring morning.

Staying still feels almost unbearable. I push back the duvet, tuck it around the sleeping, snoring Malcolm, and I’m out of bed. I don’t mind the cold; my body is running on overdrive trying to sustain this new life growing inside me. It doesn’t feel real, but at this time of day nothing is.

The world is grey. I look out the kitchen window at the cluster of north-facing trees that obscure the sunlight and protect us from the world. Today something is different. I notice one of the old plum trees is leaning on a strange angle. It’s probably been dead for some time. You can’t tell in the winter because all deciduous trees look dead, but now that spring has sprung and peridot peppers their grey, licheny branches, it’s obvious which ones have been left behind for good.

When a tree falls in a dense forest the noise it makes is minimal. There might be a cracking sound as the trunk breaks away from its roots, or they might have softened to a point not much stronger than bread. It doesn’t really fall; it just leans on those around it and slowly decays. Every particle returns to the ecosystem. That’s what happens in the suburban forest around our cottage. I didn’t hear it in the night; it just leaned forward, like a sigh, surrendering its burden.

I make my cup of peppermint tea and sit by the window, nibbling at yesterday’s scones. It is a sick paradox. I am nauseous because I need to eat, and I don’t want to eat because I’m nauseous. But here, looking out at the garden, I always feel at peace. The morning sickness is fading now that my first trimester has ended and I can enjoy this personal time.

The garden next door is lush with plant life. I love the way these two properties sit, small houses with sprawling jungles, compared to the tight compartments of suburbia all around us. From where I sit it creates the illusion of more space, as if both sections combine into a wilderness and the fence is irrelevant. For me it is the illusion of freedom. I don’t know if I’ve ever been truly free. It would be terrifying to have no attachments, no restrictions – but the illusion is liberating.

I reheat some gelled porridge, presoaked and cooked yesterday. When I blog about porridge I call it oatmeal, at least in brackets, so my American readers know what I’m talking about. I have a whole blog post dedicated to explaining why people traditionally soaked their grains. Blogging is about all I have the energy for lately. Even the slight exertion of making my breakfast is taxing to the point of exhaustion.

I go back to the window and sit with my legs propped up. I sip my cooled tea. At least herbal tea is still pleasant when it’s no longer hot. I look out at the garden, in full swing now that the sun has risen. The bees dart about, busy gathering nectar, contributing to their role in the life cycle of other living things. It makes me feel lazy.

We moved here when I was almost three months pregnant, the bulge of my belly just starting to peep over my jeans, just starting to ‘show’. I thought it would be impossible to find a better home than the one I was leaving, the 1960s state house with the kitsch linoleum and my best friends in the world, Henry and Tanya. My chosen family. I resented Malcolm and his excitement; he couldn’t wait for it to be ‘just us’. I told him it would be hard to find a place I’d be happy with. I actually thought it would be impossible, but it only took a week.

The first time I saw this little cottage with its sprawling overgrown garden, so close to the university – the section so big compared to the house it could easily be in the country – I knew it was perfect.

It had belonged to an old woman, obviously. The Romanesque statuettes in the garden, the seven dwarves on the back porch and the old-fashioned ornamental plants were a testament to her.

‘She passed away – not in the house,’ the real estate agent assured us. She fidgeted nervously with her hot-pink manicured nails. I’m not ageist but she did look too old for that shade of pink. They were so long they looked dangerous as she raked them through her bleached blonde hair.

‘She was in a rest home. The family have decided not to develop the property.’ Her tone was disapproving. I could tell she thought such a large garden was a waste of space. She quickly righted herself and continued in the pseudo-positive tone that made half of me cringe, while the other half struggled not to laugh.

‘The garden is lovely. It’s fenced off so will be safe for the little ones.’ She glanced at my protruding abdomen, making me feel self-conscious. ‘As you can see, there’s lots of room to play out here.’ She gestured around as she walked us through the quarter-acre, its winter branches bare and still. Early daffodils peeked up at me and I knew it was right.

I love it here, as I knew I would. I watch the wax-eyes darting from branch to branch, knowing that this perfect morning will be over soon and I will have to face the day. The grey slowly turns to green. I hear Malcolm stir, confirming my thoughts. As soon as he is up my peace will be interrupted and once he leaves for work I will suddenly be rendered lonely, aimless, with just my blog to keep me company.

My shoulders sink into the faded pumpkin-coloured cushions of the couch, my mind comfortably blank. I’ve never in my life been able to sit still for as long as I have the last few weeks. I can spend an hour or more in the bath, not minding the cold. I can sit here and not realise the whole day has slipped by. It’s as if my body, in its all-consuming effort to produce this baby, forgets to give me time, or perhaps the baby, as it grows, is consuming more than just my energy – perhaps it is eating time. My conscious mind is deprioritised, but at least I’m never bored.

My blog is the only thing that keeps my brain ticking over; it helps me feel as if I’m still connected to the world outside this garden, this cottage, this pregnancy, outside the insular nest that Malcolm and I have created. The food that I make just disappears, but the photos last. The recipes that I type up are shared with my followers and anyone who stumbles across my blog looking for a healthier version of apple crumble (cobbler to the Americans) or instructions on how to make your own jerky. The comments I receive give me a boost. I feel like this network – this community – of other food bloggers, are my friends. Even though we’ve never met we support each other, we commiserate and joke, debate and philosophise, marvel and praise. The blog posts sit there, in cyberspace, proof that I’ve been doing something these past few months, seemingly permanent in a world where nothing seems to last.

It’s already 9am before I remember it’s Sunday. Market day. I feel a rush of excitement and then wonder briefly what my life has become with a trip to the farmers’ market being the highlight of my week. Malcolm still hasn’t stirred from his Sunday slumber so, rather than risk missing out on fresh, local produce for the week, I go it alone.

The tree-lined car park bustles with activity. A chill still clings to the morning air as I climb out of the car, guiding my slightly bulging belly through the small space allowed by my terrible parking. The man sitting in the new-looking navy blue sedan next to me glares as my door brushes his car. I smile cheerfully at him anyway.

I do my usual circuit, scoping out all the stalls before I settle on purchases. I’m excited by the first strawberries of the year and by the luscious looking asparagus. I also pick up some sourdough bread (since mine won’t be ready for another day or two), more venison salami and a jar of raw honey.

I stop by the herb stall and buy a pot of lemon thyme before heading back home to the cottage surrounded by trees, back to Malcolm and my cat and my blog.

Michael

Cold water saturates my wetsuit, the only barrier between me and the ocean. It chills a changing thermometer line up my spine. I float with my board, scratching designs in the wax while I wait for the perfect wave. Now and then I look out at the land on the other side of the harbour mouth. Sometimes I wish I could erase everything along the horizon – so there’s nothing else in sight – just me and this perfect line.

Today the sea is calm – a tarp of water with creases that peak as they reach me. My wetsuit chafes around my crotch, but nothing can distract me from the surf. The waves are paced so that in between each worthy one there is a rest. Sometimes I paddle out or in more, judging the best vantage point, but more often than not I just sit, half submerged, bobbing in the water like a fishing buoy. This could be my whole life right here, right now: the calm, the anticipation, the thrill of the ride and then the come down that drops back into waiting.

You can only push yourself so far – reach your peak – before you start to decline. It’s the curved graph we studied in sports psychology last trimester. I always push myself too far, too fast. The challenge is to hold back, just that little bit. Don’t paddle out too far, let go of the wave before it mashes you into the rocks, stop while you still have the energy to get back up the hill or you won’t be keen to get out of bed tomorrow. Even though I know this I still always push myself too far.

It’s time to call it a day when every muscle in my body aches and the sun is well on its way to setting. In the summer on a full moon I could stay out here all night, but spring is freezing and it will be dark in ten minutes.

I unzip the back of my wetsuit, feel the release as I pull it off my arms, chuck on a hoodie and make my way over the rocks toward the bush path that leads me home. With the canopy overhead it’s dark already, and as I reach the old karaka tree I know I’m in for a special show tonight. There they are, thousands of them, bright lights in the dark of the clay bank, randomly placed like stars. I sit on my favourite rock, roll a joint and watch them for a while.

Out of the corner of your eye glow-worms twinkle like stars too. I guess that light is supposed to bring in their dinner – what a life, eh? The sun shines out your bum and attracts tasty food. Fuck, that would be awesome. I crack up at myself. Then the laughter stops and I feel peace. Maybe it was the calm water and the workout from the surf, maybe just the weed or the glow-worms making me a light show without even trying, but this is the most relaxed I’ve ever felt – well maybe not ever – but definitely in the last month or so. Uni must have been getting to me. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother studying when my real life is here, in Whaingaroa – or Raglan if you want to use its Pākehā name – surfing and chillaxing.

Maybe if I was dropped into the middle of nowhere by chopper, I could look around and breathe it all in before Tangaroa takes me. I imagine him down below, the Māori Poseidon, with a taiaha instead of a pitchfork, ready to stab me in the backside if I step out of line. Maybe you don’t know what a taiaha is. I probably wouldn’t either if I didn’t try so hard to find my culture. But these days you can just look it up on Wikipedia and find out it’s a traditional Māori weapon, a carved wooden spear. Tangaroa is the main god of the sea and has been since the separation of the earth from the sky. He’s the boss of this whole damn ocean.

These are the buzzy thoughts that go through my mind as I walk the track up to Nan’s house. As soon as I roll through the sliding door she’s making me a Milo. Grandmas are the best.

‘How are you, boy?’ she asks, stirring the mean mug of hot chocolatey goodness.

I almost reply automatically, the way you normally do, ‘good’ or ‘fine’ or ‘sweet’, but the walk up from the surf is still with me.

‘Like I feel nothing,’ I say, trying to put my mood into words. ‘But it’s peaceful.’

Nan nods. She understands. She walks out of the kitchen, towards the deck. I can hear her wavering voice drifting back as she sings. The words wash over me: ‘Te kore, Te tīmatanga’. The nothingness, the beginning. It seems to all make perfect sense but I have to ask her.

‘What are you singing about?’ I call out.

Nan turns to face me. Her eyes wrinkle so much when she smiles you can barely see them. Her voice is slow and warm. ‘Come out here, boy. The kitchen isn’t the place for these things.’

I follow her out. This must be important. Sacred. Tapu. Not something that mixes with the kitchen.

‘It’s a song my māmā used to sing about the beginning of the world.’

I know she’s not talking about Genesis. Nan has never been religious.

‘You mean like Rangi and Papa?’

‘Yes, they came after, but in the beginning was Te Kore.’

‘Like a void.’

Nan nods again. ‘The beginning of everything, that is.’

‘Then what?’ I’ve never heard this version before, just the creation myths in kids’ storybooks.

‘Te hauora.’ Her voice reverberates around the room.

‘The breath of life?’ I ask.

‘Good boy.’ Her arm reaches up to pat my back. I only learnt Māori at school so it’s not the best – nothing like the fluent language Nan can speak.

She starts singing again, ‘Te atamai, te āhua.’

‘Ah … āhua – the way things are?’

‘Shape and form, you might say, but there aren’t proper words in English. English words are all in the head – not here.’ She pats her chest above the heart. Manawa. ‘They’re all about what should be but nothing about what really is.’ She shakes her head. That’s the problem. Nan is nothing like Mum. I don’t understand how Mum is even her daughter. Mum is all in the head – always right, always busy. She doesn’t understand any of this.

‘Te wā, te ātea.’

‘Time and … ātea?’

‘Space, boy, space.’

‘It sounds just like philosophy,’ I laugh. She pretends to smack me in the head and laughs too.

‘You’ve been reading too many Pākehā books, eh?’

‘Nah – not enough if you ask my uni tutors.’ I sigh and rest my hands behind my head, leaning back on the deck chair. ‘So we have time and space. When do the gods come in?’

‘That’s where the song ends.’ She lights a cigarette and inhales deeply. She never smokes in front of Mum – doctors hate smoking. I help myself to one from her pack and spark up. I want her to tell me more, I know the stories from kids’ books but I don’t know how they all fit together. I need to know how this beginning fits in with Rangi and Papa, the sky father and earth mother, and the gods that are their children. I need to know how these gods relate to the demi-god Māui. Every story Nan tells is different, every time. I want to ask but I know I have to wait for the right time.

It’s funny. My story starts with nothing, just like the creation myth. That was what I had as a child. No culture, no heritage. I was just white-bread normal. But that was the problem. I knew there was more to it. I knew my grandmother was Māori, even if Mum lives as if there’s no such thing. I always felt ripped off because Mum had the chance to know about her culture and to teach me, but she never even tried. At primary school I loved the books of Māori myths and legends, the gods, the stories of Māui and all the adventures. I wasn’t interested in reading anything else. I find it a bit sad now – that I had to learn my own culture from storybooks. I had to learn my own language at school. It wasn’t until I started to learn that I discovered Nan knew so much more, she just never said anything before.

‘I didn’t think you’d be interested, boy,’ she said.

And I know she only thought that because of Mum. Mum never cared, but I do. I need to. I guess you might not understand if you’ve never been through it. Some people don’t seem to need a cultural identity. Or maybe you already know all you want about where you come from. You’re lucky. I don’t even look Māori, but I am, I need to be. I’ve only just skimmed the surface of my culture. I don’t know if I will ever make up for what Mum lost. There are so many places and names, so many stories. It’s a whole different world, Te āo Māori, so different from Te āo Pākehā, the Western view, where everything is black and white. I can’t even begin to explain it. I wish I could. Nan tells me stories about her ancestors, their names and what they mean and I still feel like an outsider, or maybe like a traveller, lost at sea, who’s finally coming home.

Nothing is what I was taught to believe in as a child. That was what happened after death. Nothing. I don’t think I understood it at the time, it was just another meaningless adult mystery, but everything comes back to that. Mum didn’t really get into religion until Dad left; by that time it was too late for me. So I grew up knowing that at the end of all the trials I faced in life there was nothing waiting for me.

After a rough night sleeping in the hut at Nan’s I wake up knowing I’m twenty years old today. It’s my birthday and that means family obligations. Nan is already in her best dress when I get into the kitchen.

‘I’m just waiting for my chauffeur,’ she says in a posh voice.

‘You’re a cheeky one. What’s for breakfast?’

‘Excuse me, Master Michael. Who’s being cheeky now? It’s eleven o’clock already and you can make your own breakfast.’

‘On my birthday?’ I pretend to be offended. Not that it matters. Nan pulls a plate out of the oven loaded with fried potatoes and sausages.

‘Happy birthday, my darling boy.’

I give her a kiss on the cheek and stuff myself full with the delicious salty goodness.

On the way into town we swing by Dave’s to pick him up. He’s one of the boyz and probably my best mate. He’s always keen for a free feed and Mum will be cranking my favourite lamb roast. She’s a good cook even if she won’t touch the gravy herself. I guess she had to be a good cook with Nan for a mother.

It’s 12:15 when I pull into Dave’s driveway and toot the horn. I’d be running late if Nan wasn’t on my case. She’s been sitting like a queen in the passenger seat the whole way in from Raglan.

‘How’s it, Gov?’ Dave asks as he dives into the back seat with his longboard.

‘Pretty sweet, eh.’

‘Good afternoon, Nan,’ Dave’s a sweet talker. I bet he checked the car clock to make sure it was actually afternoon.

As soon as we open the door at Mum’s all I can smell is delicious roasted lamb. Evie won’t be impressed.

Mum comes out of the kitchen. She’s actually wearing an apron. It looks strange. She hugs me. Evie smiles at me from the couch where she’s watching TV with Malcolm. He’s Elena’s partner and a bit of a twat, but he’s alright compared to all the other weird boyfriends she’s had.

Elena comes out from the kitchen all smiles and gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I guess that’s okay now that we’re adults but a few years ago it would have been weird. Elena is older than me by a few years and she’s pregnant. I put my hand on her belly and say hi to the baby. Elena hands me an envelope.

‘Happy birthday,’ she says. It’s a subscription to a surfing mag.

‘Thanks.’ That was pretty nice of her but I guess she wouldn’t know what else to get me. We’ve always been pretty different.

‘Michael!’ Rosa rips down the stairs and jumps on me. My kid sister is awesome.

‘Hey, smelly. How are ya?’ I pat her head.

‘I just had a bath,’ she argues. ‘I’m not smelly – you are!’ I let her chase me around the lounge for a bit while Malcolm looks annoyed. I bet he’s gonna be a crap dad.

I grab a couple of beers from the fridge, pass one to Dave and sit down in an armchair. The TV shows fields of corn and some old guy talking. It’s probably about peak oil or something. I grab the remote and change the channel to the Sunday fishing show. Malcolm doesn’t say anything.

Malcolm is blond and Elena has dark hair, the way Nan does in the photos of when she was younger. I wonder who the baby will look more like.

John comes down the stairs looking like he just woke up.

‘I didn’t know you were here, little bro.’

He grunts the way teenagers do, sits down and watches the fishing. Mum comes in and glances at the TV.

‘You didn’t invite your father, did you?’ I’m about to reply when she sees John has joined the party.

‘About time you got up,’ she says. ‘Give us a hand and set the table.’ John doesn’t move so Evie sets the table.

We could be a perfect normal family. That’s if you don’t look too hard. If you do you’ll see Evie glaring at the roast and Elena glaring at Evie. I don’t really know why they don’t get on. They both care too much about food.

‘Have you had the tests yet?’ Mum asks Elena casually.

‘What?’ Elena almost chokes on her lamb.

‘For Down syndrome.’ She says something else but it’s probably some kind of technical medical thing.

‘I’m not going to,’ Elena says. That’s the voice she always used to use before she had a big tantrum.

The next thing I know the phone rings, and Mum has to leave on a call-out. Elena has left the table and gone to the computer room anyway. John goes back to the TV, Dave’s bailed out the door with his board and Nan is taking Rosa to the park.

So it’s just me and Evie with her plate of asparagus without butter. No cake. No celebration. Some birthday.

Evie smiles at me and I stop feeling sorry for myself. I’d rather be here with her than the rest of them put together.

Evie

Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

Pythagoras was vegetarian, so was Saint Francis of Assisi. So many enlightened individuals have come to the obvious realisation that harming