The Scent of Apples (13 page)

A chewing gum-splattered footpath greets me as the bus doors creak open. I struggle down the metal stairwell with my ridiculous suitcase. The driver stares out the front windscreen, oblivious, it seems, to the clanging noise as my bag hits each step.

The squawking of a seagull overhead announces my arrival in Whāingaroa. I drag my suitcase half off the pavement, towards a takeaway bar. The
Do Duck Inn
sign, advertising the best fish and chips in town, hangs by one hook. I use my suitcase as a seat and press my back up against the concrete wall.

The street is divided down the middle by a strip that stretches from the top part of town and leads towards the ocean and a small wharf. Bungalow palms, their fronds waving in the air, stand tall and proud in the middle of the strip.

An old-style hotel takes up most of one side of the street. Its many doors open up onto the footpath, daring me to come in. The verandas that wrap around the second floor look like they should have saloon girls, lips painted scarlet, leaning over the railings.

I'm thirsty, but I can't leave my suitcase in the middle of town or lug it around with me. I worry that if Charlie comes and doesn't see me by the bus sign, she'll think I changed my mind.

I feel guilty wondering what Mum's doing at home, all alone. When she was talking about coming and getting me from school this weekend, and started raving on about maybe getting a few of my friends like Lucy over, the lie just tumbled out of me.

‘Actually Mum, I've met Mrs Ashley's granddaughter, um, Catherine, and she's asked me to her place for the weekend.'

‘Oh, how nice! I'd better ring them.'

‘You'll probably only get the nanny, and she doesn't speak much English.'

‘Where are her parents?'

‘Europe.'

‘How lovely! You might get to meet Mrs Ashley.'

‘Yeah, maybe.'

I could picture Mum fantasising about my big debut.

‘You haven't got anything to wear, though. Maybe I could drop something off at the office for you.'

‘Nah, it's OK. Catherine said she's got a heap of stuff I can borrow.'

‘I don't know if that's a good look.'

‘It's OK, Mum. I have some clothes of my own. Will you be alright?'

‘Yes, I'll be fine. Actually, Jenny and Meryl are snooping around, so it's probably better that you don't have to deal with them. I keep telling them that your dad is away on business. I'm sure he'll be back soon.'

I feel a little piece of my heart splinter off and travel down the phone line to her. Maybe I shouldn't be such a cow and leave her alone.

‘I'm just glad to see that you're widening your circle of friends.'

I know exactly what she means by her last comment. She can stay home by herself. ‘You just need to ring the office and tell them I'll be away for the weekend. I'll text you if I need anything.'

‘Oh, OK. Well, have fun. Remember your manners.'

I couldn't believe that so many lies could come out of me at once. I don't know where the nanny or Europe thing had come from, but it worked for Mum.

*

‘Hey, who you waiting for?'

The voice that interrupts my thoughts comes from across the street. A small girl of about six or seven walks across the road on stilts made from tin cans. She pulls on a piece of string, looped like a bucket handle and attached to a can underneath each foot. I think she has a limp, until she comes closer and I see that her cans are different sizes.

She clambers up the curb and stands right in front of me.

‘Who you waiting for?'

I'm shocked into answering. ‘A friend.'

She plonks her hands on her hips.

‘So, who's your friend?'

‘Her name's Charlotte. She should be here soon.'

‘Oh, you mean Charlie. She's my cousin.'

I wonder if it's possible that there's only one Charlotte in the whole of Whāingaroa.

An old-fashioned car horn blares out from around a corner:
ooogah, ooogah
. I look towards where the sound is coming from and see Charlie waving like a lunatic from the back of a red ute.

It does a U-turn in the middle of the street and pulls in alongside me. Before it comes to a full stop, Charlie leaps over the side and lands on the pavement. She throws her arms around me, squashing my breath from my body.

‘I'm so glad you're here,' she says, beaming at me. ‘See you've met my cousin Ellen.' She nods to the girl on the tin cans.

Ellen has lost interest in me, and is talking to two small boys in the back of the ute.

‘This is my older brother Tama.' Charlie introduces me to a boy who must be at least six foot four and has shoulders like a gridiron player. His gentle eyes don't seem to match his huge body.

‘Hi,' we both say at the same time.

He flinches as he gets a dig in the ribs from someone's elbow. ‘Oh. This is my friend Stacey,' Tama says.

Stacey steps forward. Her knitted halter-neck top stretches tight across her enormous breasts.

‘Girlfriend, actually,' she says, glaring first at him and then at me.

He blushes and then grabs my suitcase and hauls it onto the back of the ute. He climbs into the driver's seat. Stacey slides in alongside him and wraps her arms around his shoulders.

Charlie flicks the tailgate down and climbs up onto the deck of the ute. She puts out her hand to pull me up. Her little brothers giggle as I hitch up my skirt and clamber onto the
tray.

‘These rude creatures are Kawharu and Tainui, and this is my not-so-rude sister Rukawai.'

I smile at all three. ‘Hi.'

‘Hi,' they say in unison.

‘The highlight of the day is getting a ride in the ute, eh Kawharu?' Charlie ruffles the smallest one's curly black hair.

‘Nah.' A cheeky grin rests on his face. ‘Mum would find me another job if I hung around home.'

Charlie checks the latches on the tailgate and then bangs her fist on top of the cab. ‘All good.'

We lurch off down the street. I'm sure it's illegal to have people rolling around in the back of a ute like this, but the kids wave out to everyone they see, like we're on a Christmas float.

Swamp reeds and toetoe grow along the banks of the estuary that meanders beside us as we make our way out of town. The bush-clad summit of Karioi stands proud in the background. Across a one-way bridge on the left-hand side are two big sewage ponds. Kawharu notices me looking at them.

‘That's where the taniwha lives. You can't swim in there, but you can swim in the estuary when the tide's in.'

‘Yeah, if you're not afraid of eels, eh Kawharu?' Rukawai teases him.

‘I'm not afraid of eels,' he yells back. ‘I told you, I got caught up in the duck weed, eh Charlie?' Kawharu looks at his big sister for support, but she just smiles at him.

Rukawai rolls her eyes and mouths
whatever
.

My knuckles turn white from gripping the sides of the ute as we wind our way up a hill. Mānuka and flax bushes scratch at the side of the vehicle as we climb. The path is so narrow and windy that I pray we don't come across another car wanting to come down.

We park the ute in some kikuyu three-quarters of the way up the hill. Sprawled out in front of me is a view of the Whāingaroa harbour. From way out at sea, waves crash across the Bar and find resting places along the vast shoreline, all the way up to the inner sanctuary of the harbour.

Charlie's house perches on a flat piece of land to my left. Another small hill stands behind the house. A well-worn track twists and turns its way to the top, where headstones, some carved from stone, stand defiant against the wind.

Charlie pulls me towards the house. A woman sits in an armchair on the porch, stripping flax. When she sees us she places it on the ground beside her. She pushes her ample frame upwards using the arms of the chair. Her lips and chin are shaded by a sprawling flat nose, but when she looks up I see her blue lips and spiral lines tattooed across her chin.

I've only ever seen a moko in a picture book.

‘Mum, this is Libby.' Charlie shows me off like I'm a new puppy.

‘Hi Mrs –' I look at Charlie, flustered that I'm gawking like an idiot, and that I can't remember Charlie's surname.

‘Don't Mrs me anything! It makes me feel old. I'm Hautai.' She takes a step towards me and kisses me on the side of my cheek.

‘Welcome. Hope you can put up with a bit of noise and a lot of mess, Libby.'

I smile, not knowing what to say.

My suitcase has made it off the back of the ute, and Tainui and Kawharu are fighting over who's going to pull it.

‘Never seen one with wheels before.' They both giggle as they pull it up the path.

‘You two quit fighting!' Hautai yells. ‘Charlie, show Libby where to put her stuff. She can sleep in Wetekia's bed, because I think she's staying in town. If the princess does come home she can bunk in with the boys.'

Charlie has spoken about her eldest sister Wetekia. She is in her second year of a hairdressing apprenticeship. She works in Rococo, one of the top salons in Hamilton, and according to Charlie took to city life like a Christian to a bible.

‘She thinks she's a bit posh for us now, but we're hoping she'll grow out of it.'

I follow Charlie through a large kitchen, where two Formica tables are pushed together in the middle of the room. Family photographs line the walls of the hallway. A computer-made sign stuck to a door announces that
Trespassers and Boys will be shot.

This room turns out to be the girls' bedroom. Four beds are separated by chests of drawers, small tables and a large bamboo screen. The screen has clothes strewn over the top of it, like in a dancer's dressing room.

The walls are covered in posters of Justin Bieber, Hollie Smith, Snoop Dogg and Katchafire. Plastered on any spare wallpaper are Calf Club ribbons and school certificates.

‘I have to apologise for the Bieber poster. That's Rukawai's.' Charlie pushes aside some coats and dresses hanging in a wardrobe.

‘You can hang stuff here if you want, and take my bed under the window. In the morning you get to see what the tide's doing.'

‘Thanks.'

The head of the bed has been propped up with telephone books to make the best of the view. I try sliding my suitcase under it, but it only goes halfway in. I use it as a step to get onto the bed.

‘Are you sure that your mum doesn't mind having me? It looks like she's got heaps to do already.'

‘She loves having people here. She wanted ten children but only got six. It's our duty to make sure the noise level doesn't drop below a certain decibel. You're doing her a favour.'

I smile at Charlie's crazy theory.

‘Come on. There's not much daylight left, and I want to take you to meet Koro. We have to climb over a couple of fences, so you might want to put some jeans on.'

I look down at my long skirt, which I'd chosen to make a good impression. I take it off and pull on my faded brown cords or, as Mum calls them, my orchard clothes.

*

We go through the kitchen on our way out of the house. Hautai sits at the table, barely visible under a mountain of books, an overflowing fruit bowl and a jug of wild flowers. More petals lie on the table than are on the stems.

‘What mischief are you girls up to?'

‘I'm taking Libby to meet Koro, but we'll be back soon.'

‘Can we come?' two voices ask in unison. By the door, Tainui and Kawharu plead with their eyes. Tainui's jeans look way too big for him, but he's rolled up the bottom of them and walks with his legs apart to keep them up.

‘I have got some parsnip seedlings that need to go down to Dad, but I don't know if you boys can be trusted to get them there without ruining them.'

‘We can, we promise!' Kawharu says.

‘Well, you can grab me some wood before you go then.'

‘And you better hurry or we'll go without you,' Charlie yells at them. They scurry outside and reappear a minute later with an armload of wood each. They dump it by a potbelly stove in the corner of the kitchen.

The fire is going even though it's summer. Something that looks like onion skins but is a beetroot colour bubbles away in a tall metal pot on the top of it.

‘The seedlings are in a cardboard box at the side of the garage. Be careful with them, and no showing off!' Hautai shouts out to the boys, as they disappear out the door.

Charlie closes the ranch slider behind us. She points to a grey weatherboard house, halfway down the valley.

‘That's where Koro lives.'

The boys roly poly past us. After a few tumbles they race back up the hill and grab the box with the seedlings in.

‘I'd bet money that those plants don't get there in one piece.' Charlie shakes her head.

I watch every one of my steps on the uneven ground.

‘It must be great growing up in a big family.'

‘Yeah, most of the time. But it can drive you nuts. You can't even fart in our house without everyone wanting to join in.'

We come to a fence that's being suffocated by blackberry bushes. An old door has been plonked on top to act as a stile, and wooden planks do the same on the other side.

‘Watch out for the barbs,' Charlie instructs me as she walks up the door.

I imitate her outstretched arms and walk tentatively over. We wade through the dense kikuyu grass, and I'm glad that I changed into my cords as they get snagged on a gorse bush.

I bend down to pull some bracken from my shoe, and hear a horse charging towards me. I turn and see Tainui sitting like a king on top of it. Kawharu, red-faced and panting, comes running up behind them.

‘You cheat!' Kawharu yells at his brother.

‘You're just a sore loser.' Tainui's smile stretches right across his face. He leans forward and slides off one side of the horse.