Adventure Divas (30 page)

“I’ve got this strange fax relationship going with her but I can’t figure out if she’ll actually see me . . . but—”

“Has she been drawing on her faxes?” Gaylene asks.

“A little bit,” I say, remembering an odd snail-like figure that appeared on one.

“Yeah, well, you know, that’s a good sign,” says Gaylene. “There’s something to be said for just showing up,” she adds, opening up the possibility of trespassing.

I leave Gaylene’s with a copy of her Keri Hulme documentary and emboldened by her tenacious commitment to bringing unorthodox heroines to the screen. To me, Hulme is the real live version of the unorthodox, subversive heroine Gaylene refers to. I imagine that Hulme, who is part Maori, lives (like Hinewehi Mohi)
rangatiratanga—
self-determination—every day, especially as it relates to her creative life.

Meeting Hulme has taken on sacred meaning. Buoyed by Gaylene’s suggestion that we just show up in Okarito, armed with some top-shelf whiskey, we pack Old Sheila onto a ferry and leave the North Island for Picton, on the South Island.

Hulme, I’ve heard, doesn’t use the telephone. Since the press has come down on her as a dilatory genius she has become even more elusive. (So she is going on eighteen years since publishing her last novel. Please, people, think Thomas Pynchon! J. D. Salinger! Henry Roth! and other such laggards.) My image of Hulme is wed to
The Bone People
’s protagonist, Kerewin, who is a bit of an outcast and seeks unlikely relationships to quiet her roiling soul.

That night I receive a disturbing message from Keri: “Chances of us hooking up are slim. But can fax.”

My spirits crash.

“Well, we got the prime minister, that was a coup,” says Michael to combat my fax-induced glumness.

“But we need Keri to anchor the show. If she’s not in, we’re fucked; no Keri, no show,” I sulk.

TO:
J
EANNIE
FROM:
H
OLLY
SUBJECT:
P
ROZAC?

Jeannie—Epic effort to get Hulme but still no confirm. Situation bad. May need to extend shoot to dig up new diva. Send Prozac.

TO:
H
OLLY
FROM:
J
EANNIE
SUBJECT:
L
AWSUIT

Hang in there, honey. We had a 6.2 earthquake here in Seattle. No major damage to HQ but we’ve been declared a disaster area (I could have told them that!) so we get an extension on our corporate taxes, thank goodness. Oh, the insurance guy wants to know if you put your clothes in the stove?—Mom

My fax relationship with Hulme has become a curious exercise in approach-avoidance behavior: I try to get Hulme to commit to see me, and she, sprinkling her writing with Maori and fishing references, avoids the issue. One evening Gaylene calls our cell phone.

“Keri called me,” says Gaylene. My heart sinks. “She used a
phone
?” I ask, knowing this must be a bad sign.

“She says her nephew is sick and she doesn’t know if she can meet you.”

“Shit. What does that mean?”

“I think she’s getting cold feet,” says Gaylene. “She needs to look you in the eye, is my guess. You can use any footage you like from my film,” Gaylene generously offers as consolation, which depresses me. I am discouraged and confused. Will she be there, or not? Will she see us, or not? The fan in me understands her elusiveness; the editor in me respects that she protects her artistic space; the producer in me is annoyed.

Teha ra ko, e Holly, Ya it’s a pity you won’t be here 5 a.m. first of September and 9 p.m. 14th of November which is the season for whitebaiting on the coast. Anyway, I’ll be heading over the hill shortly. I’ll be in touch when I get back.

—Keri

(Whitebaiting. Argh. I want to net
you,
not fish.)

We spend the day moping around the outskirts of Christchurch, shooting b-roll of seals and burning up too much 16mm film trying to get a shot of Sky Prancer landing in a gumboot.

“Time to throw yourself at her mercy,” says Michael, handing me yet another greasy packet of fish and chips. I stand in a hotel lobby early on a Tuesday, faxing off what could be the final groveling request. I pretend to know nothing of the phone call from Gaylene.

Dear Keri,

I’m very excited about the prospect of meeting you. Needless to say, I’d very much like to have you participate in the documentary. Maybe we could spend a little time together, talking about or doing whatever compels you most, be it discussing environmental concerns or sneaking off to go fishing. In terms of filming, I can assure you that we are low-impact, high-respect, and of course would honor any concerns you might have in terms of privacy and time. Thanks Keri.

Best, Holly

That night Hulme faxes back to the hotel.

Kia ora mi mi Holly,

Thanks for the faxes, your best chance is to catch me up on the weekends. Saturday afternoon or evening would be fine. I’m happy to talk—I’m always happy to talk—but not willing to do anything else, camera-wise. Meantime, safe travel.

Na, Keri

Yeoww! I am personally thrilled, but am professionally dismayed
No cameras?
What the hell? Is this woman just indecisive, or does she have two sides?

We bolt out of Christchurch the next morning and head west over New Zealand’s alps toward the west coast, which is flanked by the Tasman Sea. On the map, the tiny town of Okarito is a dot at the end of a squiggly coastal road that looks like it will take several hours to drive.

Old Sheila sputters to a stop in Okarito and we take in the town in a single glance. One church, one dock, one flock of white herons, and a smattering of small, private homes. Population: twenty-five; divas: one.

I prepare to make the half-mile walk to her house alone. Michael tucks a liter of Talisker whiskey under my arm. “Turn on the charm, or there’s no show,” he says, reverting to his natural pessimistic state, which I find oddly comforting.

I wonder if I’ll get the same response Kerewin gave the little boy who appeared at her home in
The Bone People:
“Well in case no-one ever told you before, people’s houses are private and sacrosanct. Even peculiar places like my tower. That means you don’t come inside unless you get invited.”

I march toward “the tower,” determined to convince Hulme to go on camera.

I am sloppy with fear and excitement, and self-flagellation: I hate myself for getting us to a point in the production where the show hangs on one conversation. I stop dead at two signs that declare:
UNLESS I KNOW YOU OR YOU HAVE CONTACTED ME FIRST, DO NOT COME IN,
and
UNKNOWN CATS AND DOGS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT.

Scared.

Ba-boom. Ba-boom. Ba-boom
. My heart thumps as I walk up a heavily wooded path to her front door. I weave my way through thick Dr. Seuss–like vines, which take the edge off the bright day. I bang the metal knocker on the yellow door.

“Who is it?” bellows a decidedly grumpy voice from the other side.

“Hol-ly Morris,” I squeak out.

The door swings open and there she is: Keri Hulme. All six foot one of her. “Heavy shouldered. Heavy hammed, heavy-haired,” goes the description of Kerewin. She wears a loose, thick green work shirt and dark sunglasses that make you almost not even notice the curly crop of brown hair that lies on her head, like a helmet.

“Come in,
kia ora,
” Keri says coolly. I enter and walk into a modest living room, anchored with books—seven thousand of them, I’ve heard—from floor to ceiling. The room is peppered with statues of snails, humorous talismans of a book deadline missed by more than a decade (and counting). Hulme gestures for me to sit in a small wooden chair as she settles into a leather high-back throne behind what (I presume from the stacks of manuscript paper) is her writing desk. She rocks back, and a little forth, in the leather chair, eyeing me; puh-puh-puffing on a small wooden pipe.

“Help yourself to coffee,” she says, gesturing subtly with the pipe. I stand and pour myself a cup.

“Would you like goat’s milk in it?” she asks.

“No, thanks,” I respond.

“Right answer,” she says.

There is a bag of coffee hanging from the ceiling, “to keep it away from the rats,” she says, “and I have a gun for them.” So I wonder what the machete is for.

The next hour passes in bits, like a dreamy blur, spliced with possibility but gloppy with tension (mine). Hulme puffs, and turns the tables, and begins to interview me with a perma-sideways glance.

K: 
What do you know of Waitangi?

H: Morally complicated, renaissance,
rangatiratanga.

K: 
You work with family? Your mother?

H: Wonderful and fraught, respect and boundaries.

Keri is fully exercising her look-me-in-the-eye clause, as Gaylene foretold. I volley with my hero, traversing a delicate line of wanting to be cautious and not take conversational risks (or mispronounce Maori words) but knowing that coming off like a sycophantic fan could be just as deadly. I’m certain Keri can smell a fake. “Play it straight.” Kiwi soundwoman Jan’s last words of advice echo in my head. “One note of insincerity and you’ll be out on your can,” she had warned, aware of her compatriot’s infamous skittishness.

K: 
Each backpack holds a book in progress; we have earthquakes here. Must be able to run.

H: Mmmmm, practical.

K: 
Whitebait?

H: Translucent, magical, the high holiday of the avid angler.

K: 
Te kaihau?

H: Yes, I am a wanderer.

Knowing she is both media-shy and media-savvy, I explain that I have no agenda, am not after sound bites, and want a culturally aware, unplugged image of New Zealand to unfold in the show.

It is now or never.

I smile (though not too solicitously), squinch up my courage, and kick my foot in the door with a bit of invented courage: “It was unclear from your fax,” I say with a boldness meant to eclipse my fear, “whether or not you’re up for being interviewed.”

One hundred years of pause ensue, followed by a millennial stare.

Keri squints, as if examining my
wairua,
soul.

I stare back, careful not to avert my eyes.

“Whitebait run in September you know,” she says.

“Yes, I wish I could be here,” I respond, honestly.

She breathes deeply, glances out toward the Tasman, then back at me.

“I’ll do it,” she says, finally. “But we must do it here. I won’t go anywhere with you,” she continues, dashing my hopes of our going fishing together. But she’s agreed to go on camera and that is the most vital thing.

I excuse myself, too quickly, and sprint down the road to find the crew and get this in motion before she changes her mind. But it turns out once she makes up her mind it sticks, with grace. Playing it straight—no sycophantism, no begging, no false promises—had paid off.

“
Now, now, now,
you guys,” I say, grinning and panting. “She’s agreed, but we have to shoot inside.”

After quick introductions, Liza and Jan scramble to set up their equipment. Worried that too many people might make Hulme spook, I’ve asked Simon and Michael to wait with Old Sheila. Liza is framing up, and I start the interview, trusting that she will roll as soon as she can. I ask Keri if there is an artistic vision or flavor unique to New Zealand. Keri keeps her black-rimmed dark glasses on and, I notice, has a habit of covering her teeth when she speaks.

“I think most emphatically and firmly there is. There is sort of a pessimistic streak. It’s basically experience, I suspect. We know that bad things happen quite frequently in New Zealand. You get unexpected good; you look for the dark side of it,” Keri explains, and I think of her four earthquake-ready books in progress.

“I think one of the contributing things to, as it were, a New Zealand art, whether it be theater or filmmaking or whatever, [is that] there’s a dual cultural base, between two interacting cultures,” she says. I wonder if the discordant intersection of cultures might be the source of what we outsiders consider offbeat, or quirky, brilliance.

“The other contributing factor is just the archipelago itself. We’re a strange set of islands, and it doesn’t take long for people to be molded into being New Zealanders.”

Like Keri, New Zealand has a political and spiritual self-reliance that comes from being an island nation. It is a country where you do things your own way, rather than simply importing ideas from other places.

“One of the interesting things I find about New Zealand is that because we’re a fairly secular society, we will explore things that possibly other peoples won’t. We are still a young enough set of cultures to not be fixed in any way, young enough to feel that we can explore everything,” she says.

This, too, could contribute to New Zealand’s unconventional films; I ask her why she won’t let
The Bone People
be adapted.

“I’ve consistently refused to sell the film rights for
The Bone People.
I don’t mind it with short stories; several of my short stories have been written to films. It’s slightly different when you’re dealing with a novel. No, you can’t transplant written word into visual and auditory form without generally suffering greatly. We have a novel that is layered, that is fairly tricky in various forms of metaphor and image. You can’t easily transform that, and again you’re getting into that process which I think is the reader’s province. Some stories will reach much better inside a head than outside of it. I’ve obviated any opportunity of that happening in the next two novels because I’ve invented a set of people who are fairly impossible to film,” she says, enticingly.

“Uh . . . how did you do that?”

“They’re blue,” she says with a touch of pride.