Read Isle of Tears Online

Authors: Deborah Challinor

Tags: #Fiction

Isle of Tears (6 page)

BOOK: Isle of Tears
10.37Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Isla knew her face was betraying her apprehension.

Mere laughed. ‘Do not worry, you will learn as you go. And it will be much easier when you are able to speak our tongue.’

But Isla had seen already that she, Niel and the twins would need to master Maori.

‘Is it easy tae learn?’

‘I thought it was, but of course it was my first language,’ Mere replied, her eyes twinkling with humour. ‘English was much more difficult.’

‘Aye, I thought so, too,’ Isla agreed.

Mere’s dark eyebrows went up. ‘English is not your first tongue?’

‘Gaelic is. I didnae learn tae speak English ’til I wis five years old.’

‘Why not?’

‘Da thought we wouldnae need tae. But then me and Niel went tae the parish school and learned it, and Mam taught Jamie and Jean English
and
Gaelic, though they’re no’ so good at the Gaelic. They wisnae born on Skye.’

Mere nodded. ‘Ae, the same thing has happened here. But do all people from Scotland speak Gaelic? I am sure that Mrs Henderson did not.’

‘Henderson is a Lowland name, and Lowlanders are no’
real
Scots,’ Isla said, trying to suppress a faint sneer, which Mere nevertheless detected.

She looked amused. ‘We have similar…distinctions here. Perhaps the Scottish are not so different from Maori after all.’

Given that the village had had very little notice, the welcome feast was spectacular, in Isla’s opinion. There were pork, fowl and eel, waxy potatoes, and ruddy kumara that were gold inside, an assortment of greens, and fresh bread. And best of all, so far as Niel was concerned, no neeps. All of it except the bread had been cooked in pits in the ground and had taken some hours. The McKinnon children had been given something to eat after they’d arrived, but they were still ravenous by the time the feast was served. It was filling, tasty and slightly smoke-flavoured, and not so different from the fare her mother had prepared, Isla decided, except that Maori food seemed to be less seasoned.

‘D’ye make your own yeast?’ she asked Mere through a mouthful of warm, crusty bread. ‘Mam does, and it takes her ages.’ She stopped, then corrected herself. ‘Mam
did.’

‘Ae, it is made from potato.’

‘Aye?’ Isla was surprised.

Mere nodded. ‘I’ll show you one day.’

They were sitting on crowded mats in front of the largest of the village’s houses, the food spread out before them, and it seemed that the whole of Waikaraka had turned out to share the feast.

One person in particular captured Isla’s attention, and each time she stole a glance at him she discovered that he was staring at her, which made her blush fiercely. He was a young man, probably not much beyond boyhood judging by the sparseness of his facial hair, but already tall and solidly muscled. Thin black lines radiated
out from between his eyebrows across his temples, formed tiny swirls on the flares of his nostrils, and curved down to just above his full lower lip. His shoulder-length hair was black, as the hair of all the Ngati Pono seemed to be, and tied so that it sat at the base of his strong neck. White teeth gleamed every time he smiled, which was often, his nose was straight and strong, and his eyes twinkled under strong brows. He was very handsome indeed, and Isla suspected that he was fully aware of the fact. She felt extremely uncomfortable under his gaze, but couldn’t seem to stop herself looking at him.

Niel leaned over and grumbled, ‘That laddie’s staring at ye. Shall I tell him tae be off?’

Isla realized with a start that he was jealous. But the ‘laddie’ was almost half Niel’s size again, and she flinched inwardly at the thought of what might happen if her brother tried to assert his supposed authority as head of the McKinnon family.

Niel wasn’t the only one who had noticed the young man’s interest.

‘You have an admirer already,’ Mere commented as she nibbled a piece of meat off a bone.

Isla’s face reddened even further, but she kept silent, not at all sure what to say and wishing the young man would stop being so rude.

‘That is Tai Te Ruanuku,’ Mere said, ‘my nephew. Wira’s sister’s son. He is seventeen years old, a promising young warrior, and very popular with the girls. There, now you will not have to ask.’

‘I wisnae gonnae ask anything!’ Isla blurted, and turned so she couldn’t see Tai any more. ‘D’ye no’ think he’s a bit cheeky, doing that?’

‘Doing what?’

‘Staring like that!’

Mere considered this for a moment. ‘No. Obviously he has taken an interest in you.’

‘Well, it’s lucky ma da’s no’ here. He’d give him a good skelping.’

Appalled, Mere exclaimed, ‘He would scalp him? Cut off the top of his head?’

‘Eh? Oh, no,’ Isla replied hurriedly.
‘Skelp
him. Give him a smack.’

‘Ah.’ Mere relaxed, and inclined her head towards Tai. ‘If the behaviour is not to your liking, you could speak to Wira about it.’

But the prospect of complaining to Wira about something so trivial was too daunting, so Isla went back to her food, hoping Mere would understand that the subject was now closed.

The rest of the meal passed confusingly for the McKinnons, as people kept standing to give long speeches that the children couldn’t understand, and Mere insisted on introducing them to what seemed to be everyone in the village. Isla forgot most people’s names almost immediately, and knew her siblings would, too. She did, however, remember that the elderly, imperious-looking gentleman, whom Mere said was one of the village’s tohunga, or learned men, was called Te Katate. And that Mere’s daughter,

an attractive young woman with a small baby at her breast, was Ngahere, and her son, a hefty but heavily muscled young man with a perpetual smile on his face, Harapeta.

‘Ye must have had them when ye were verra young,’ Isla commented.

‘Not really. Ngahere and Harapeta are our two youngest. We have three other children. The first was born when I was fifteen,’ Mere replied, then laughed at the startled expression on Isla’s face. ‘Our other daughters are living with the hapu of their husbands, but they visit often. Ngahere married a man from Waikaraka, so has remained here. Harapeta has not yet taken a wife.’

The other person to have an immediate impact on Isla was the ancient woman who had led the chanting when they had first arrived. Instead of beckoning to the woman to come and meet the newcomers as she had everyone else, Mere led them to where the woman sat, not on the ground, but on a wooden ladder-backed chair placed near the head of the largest mat. Approaching the woman with considerable deference, Mere introduced her as Pikaki, Ngati Pono’s oldest living member.

She was so aged in fact that Isla had to will herself not to stare, hoping that the twins would also remember their manners, but a quick glance told her that Jean was standing with her mouth hanging unbecomingly open. She tugged discreetly on her sister’s pinafore and was relieved when Jean dropped her gaze and stared instead at the old woman’s feet, which were encased in a pristine pair of very fine men’s silk-embroidered carpet slippers.

Pikaki’s face had clearly seen the passing of many, many years.
Her dark skin was cross-hatched with myriad wrinkles, which had eliminated her natural expression lines. Both eyes were milky, though she appeared to be staring directly at Isla, and she had worn her kauae for so long that the lines marking her chin and darkening her lips had spread and faded to a deep jade that rendered the pattern almost indiscernible. The skin at her neck hung in loose folds, her twisted hands were knobbed and yellow-nailed, and her frame was as tiny and fleshless as a bird in winter. She wore a bombazine skirt and blouse that were too large for her and so old that they were turning green, heavy jade pendants in her elongated ears, and a copper bangle around one chicken-bone wrist. Her toothless gums were clamped around a clay pipe, the smoke from the bowl wafting upwards and staining her thin white plaits a bilious yellow. But despite the slippers and her obvious frailty, she had about her an air of immense dignity and, Isla realized after a moment, power. Was this woman the real head, the paramount chieftainess?

‘Whaea!’ Mere said loudly. When she had Pikaki’s attention, she said something in Maori and gestured at the McKinnon children.

Pikaki leant creakily forward in her chair. ‘Eh?’

Mere said it again and, after a moment, Pikaki beckoned to Isla.

Isla stepped forward, desperately hoping that the old woman would not touch her. There had been elderly women in the villages at home of course, but none, she was sure, quite as ancient and as wizened as this one.

But Pikaki did touch her, running her bony fingers slowly across Isla’s face in a manner that made Isla suspect that she might be blind. Her body smelled of old clothes and unwashed skin, and her breath of tobacco smoke. Her fingers lingered on Isla’s hair, then, in a rasping voice, Pikaki addressed her in Maori.

Isla darted a helpless look at Mere.

‘She says your hair is pale like the moon. She wishes to know has it always been like that?’

Isla nodded, and thought what a strange question it was—then suddenly realized that Pikaki could not be blind.

Pikaki said something else, and Mere replied at length in Maori before turning to Isla. ‘She wanted to know your whakapapa.’ She scowled as she groped for the correct English word. ‘Your family tree. But I can only tell her the little that I know. She asks that you tell her yourself one day, when you are able.’

Pikaki regarded Isla for a moment longer, then nodded at Niel, frowned at the twins, sat back and returned to puffing on her pipe.

‘How old is she?’ Isla asked when they were out of earshot. ‘If that isnae a rude question.’

‘Nobody is quite sure. But she has always said that she saw Captain Cook’s ship when it sailed down the coast of Taranaki.’

Isla nodded politely. Then asked, ‘Who wis Captain Cook?’

‘An early Pakeha visitor to this land. He came in 1770.’

Isla counted backward: so Pikaki was over ninety years old, which wasn’t
extraordinarily
ancient, in Isla’s experience. ‘Wis she a wee girl?’

‘Oh no,’ Mere replied. ‘She was a grown woman, already with five children.’

Isla blinked. But that would make Pikaki at least a hundred and ten. ‘Are ye sure? She hasnae, er, muddled things in her old age?’

‘I do not think so,’ Mere said as she sat back down at their place on the mat. Her voice changed so that it had a sing-song quality to it. ‘Being from the same part of Taranaki, my great-great-grandmother Turotowaenga, who was Ngati Maru-whara-nui, knew Pikaki when they were both young girls, before the Pakeha arrived. Her daughter Pokekohu, my great-grandmother, also knew Pikaki. That friendship was passed to my grandmother, Awhero, although Pikaki was an old woman by then, her own children grown and passed away. My mother, Uhumanea, was also befriended by Pikaki, and it was Pikaki who arranged my marriage to Wira twenty-six years ago, to form an alliance between Ngati Pono and Ngati Maru-whara-nui. Wira is Pikaki’s great-great-grandson.’ Mere’s voice returned to normal. ‘Pikaki is the matriarch of Ngati Pono. Most of us in this part of Taranaki are related to her in some way, through blood or marriage.’

Amazed that one woman could generate such a spider’s web of kin, Isla asked, ‘But is she the head o’ Ngati Pono? The chieftainess?’

‘No, she is too old, and she does sometimes become “muddled”, as you say. Wira is rangatira. But we all take counsel from Pikaki. She is our oldest living ancestor. Would you care for some more bread?’

The feast went on for several hours, and by the time the women began to clear the dishes, trays and baskets from the mats, the sun had almost set. Isla wanted nothing more than to lie down somewhere and go to sleep, and was relieved when Mere showed her to a hut with a low doorway.

Ushering her into the dim interior, lit only by a single oil lamp set on the ground in the centre of the hut, she said, ‘This is the whare where the women rest when they have the mate marama and cannot share sleeping places with the men. There will be a handful of other women sleeping here tonight.’

Isla glanced at the rushes spread across the packed-earth floor and the mats arranged over them. ‘Where will Jean and ma brothers sleep?’

‘In the whare moe of my family.’

‘Your hoose?’

‘Aye, where we sleep.’

Imagining the twins waking in the night and not being able to find her, Isla asked, ‘What if they become frightened?’

‘Then I will wake you,’ Mere assured her. ‘You will also sleep in our whare when you are able. There is plenty of room. Only Harapeta lives with us now—Ngahere lives in the house of her husband’s family.’ She indicated a mat with a neatly folded blanket at one end. ‘You may sleep there.’ Before she turned to leave, she touched Isla’s hand. ‘You may call for me if you need me, Isla. I understand how it must be for you. Sleep well.’

Isla thanked her, and lay down on the mat with the blanket beneath her head. Then she sat up and removed her boots,

wrinkling her nose as she set them neatly beside the mat: they needed a good airing.

She lay down again, but was unable to relax, and presently two women entered the hut and set about preparing for sleep. One of them stripped to her chemise and lay down, while the other, who was not wearing anything beneath her skirt and bodice, settled herself on her mat naked. Embarrassed, Isla kept her eyes averted, although she’d seen little more in the lamplight than the shadowed hollows and curves of the woman’s rounded body and the mass of her hair as it fell around her face.

The women talked and giggled among themselves before they settled to sleep. Isla listened to the slowing rhythms of their breathing, but still could not fall asleep herself: her mind was too crowded with images of her dead parents, of their lovely home left to be ransacked by passing travellers, and of Tulloch, the man with blood in his beard.

Some time later, two more women arrived, waking the others. A lively conversation began and, feeling excluded but not wanting to join in, Isla turned her back to them. At her movement, the women shushed each other and lay down on their mats. Isla tried valiantly not to, but after a few minutes she began to cry, as soundlessly as she could manage.

BOOK: Isle of Tears
10.37Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Facing the Light by Adèle Geras
A Short History of the World by Christopher Lascelles
Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison
Trust the Saint by Leslie Charteris
Happily Ever After by Tanya Anne Crosby
Fighting Fate by Ryan, Carrie Ann
Bouquet for Iris by Diane T. Ashley
An Unacceptable Arrangement by Victoria Winters
The Wicked Flea by Conant, Susan