Legacy Read online

  First published in 2018 by Huia Publishers

  39 Pipitea Street, PO Box 12280

  Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

  www.huia.co.nz

  ISBN 978-1-77550-334-7 (print)

  ISBN 978-1-77550-360-6 (EPUB)

  ISBN 978-1-77550-361-3 (Kindle)

  Copyright © Whiti Hereaka 2018

  Cover image:

  Tape recorder: courtesy of Simone Acquaroli/Unsplash.com

  Rifle: this work is a derivative of 'Winchester Model 1886’

  by Bardbom used under CC BY-SA 3.0/Wikimedia Commons

  Scarab © alslutsky/shutterstock.com

  Bullets © Kazimieras Salciunas/Shutterstock.com

  Internal pages:

  Cassette tape pp. v, 23, 87, 113, 139, 165, 185, 215, 235, 259:

  courtesy of Brian Kostiuk/Unsplash.com

  This book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of

  private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright

  Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the prior permission

  of the publisher.

  A catalogue record for this book is available

  from the National Library of New Zealand.

  Published with the assistance of

  Ebook conversion 2018 by meBooks

  CONTENTS

  1. 5 OCTOBER 1975

  2. 2 APRIL 2015

  3. 5 OCTOBER 1975

  4. 2 APRIL 1915

  5. 3 APRIL 1915

  6. 4 APRIL 1915

  7. 5 APRIL 1915

  8. 6 OCTOBER 1975

  9. 21 JUNE 1915

  10. 28 JUNE 1915

  11. 7 OCTOBER 1975

  12. 2 JULY 1915

  13. 3 JULY 1915

  14. 9 JULY 1915

  15. 13 JULY 1915

  16. 8 OCTOBER 1975

  17. 5 AUGUST 1915

  18. 6 AUGUST 1915

  19. 9 OCTOBER 1975

  20. 26 NOVEMBER 1915

  21. 28 NOVEMBER 1915

  22. 10 OCTOBER 1975

  23. 13 DECEMBER 1915

  24. 14 DECEMBER 1915

  25. 25 DECEMBER 1915

  26. 11 OCTOBER 1975

  27. 29 DECEMBER 1915

  28. 30 DECEMBER 1915

  29. 12 OCTOBER 1975

  30. 2 APRIL 1916

  31. 8 APRIL 1916

  32. 13 OCTOBER 1975

  Note On Sources

  Acknowledgements

  1

  5 OCTOBER 1975

  TRANSCRIPT:

  Cassette number 1: Te Ariki Mikaera Pūweto (interviewee, WWI veteran) and Alamein Pūweto (interviewer and grandson of Te Ariki).

  TE ARIKI We didn’t have cassette tapes when I was a kid. [Laughs] Whoo-wee! If I’d seen this when I was young I wouldn’t know what to do with it, eh? I’d be: How does it work? How does this bit of tape actually capture my voice? It’s like magic, eh? Anything that you can’t understand, anything that can’t be explained. If you live a life like mine, you’ll come across magic everywhere.

  ALAMEIN A long life, Koro?

  TE ARIKI Yes, moko. Something like that. A long life. My childhood seems very far away now.

  ALAMEIN Do you want to tell me about back then?

  TE ARIKI ‘Back then’ [laughs]. You know what I like about these tapes, boy? You can loop them so they will play continuously, things will just happen again and again like there is no beginning or end. Just my voice droning on and on about ‘back then’ [laughs].

  ALAMEIN Are you going to tell me about your childhood?

  TE ARIKI If I told you about my childhood you wouldn’t bloody believe it, boy.

  ALAMEIN Try me.

  TE ARIKI Cheeky bugger. You’ll get the story I’m willing to tell. Is it on?

  ALAMEIN It’s been on for the past five minutes …

  TE ARIKI Eh? We can’t start there. People hearing about loops and no beginnings and ends. They’ll think I’m doo-lally.

  ALAMEIN When have you cared what people think?

  [They laugh]

  TE ARIKI Just like that, eh? And it’s recording? Modern technology, eh? [Laughs] One day they’ll be small enough to fit in the palm of your hand …

  ALAMEIN Yeah, well, we’re not on the Enterprise just yet, Captain Kirk.

  [They laugh]

  ALAMEIN Do you want me to rewind it?

  TE ARIKI Rewind? [Laughs] That’s what we’re doing now, isn’t it? Rewinding. Unspooling.

  ALAMEIN I guess we are. But do you want me to rewind, Koro?

  TE ARIKI Here is fine. Here is good. It’s as good a place to start as any.

  2

  2 APRIL 2015

  The last minute of Riki’s run seems to stretch for as long as the entire run itself. He pushed himself too hard at the start; the adrenaline that had pushed him faster burnt off ages ago. His pacing was thrown off and he’s paying for it now, and will again tomorrow, when his muscles will ache. Each step, each breath Riki takes brings him a second closer to finishing. He checks his watch – how can only seconds have passed? Every part of him seems to be screaming – slow down – but he can’t. Not yet.

  He’s spent the last few minutes checking off the markers spray-painted on the footpath – just past the dog park one K to go, the toilets at Hātaitai beach 800 metres to go, the little blue house with roses climbing on it 500 metres; pushing until he crests the small hill and then it’s downhill and only 200 metres until the end – the stand where the Zephyrometer used to be. Riki was at school when lightning destroyed it last year, but his mum reckoned the impact of it shook their house over a kilometre away. Riki can’t help but think of what it would have been like if he’d been running past it at that moment. Would he have been thrown off his feet? Would he have survived? The thought makes him slow down, so he grits his teeth and swings his arms faster, and his feet follow.

  Finish well. That’s what Jase would say. It is now that Riki misses training with Jase the most. Not that he’s a personal trainer or anything. Jase is not the kind of guy who would yell C’mon Rik! Just twenty seconds to go! You can do it! It was just easier to get up in the morning and train with Jase. Most of the time they trained together they didn’t even talk: if they could, they wouldn’t be training hard enough. Just Jase being there was encouragement; their steps falling in pace, their breath in and out, in and out at the same time; and because Jase carried on, Riki felt that he could too. Riki missed that time together. He regrets all those stupid arguments, when Riki would say: You’re not my real dad; but really Jase is as good as. Better, because he’s still around.

  Riki’s watch beeps and he stops completely, suddenly feeling faint. He should walk it off, cool down properly like Jase taught him to do; but he has to just catch his breath. He hoicks on the footpath and feels as if he can breathe again. In the cool of the morning, his evaporating sweat rises off him like steam.

  It seems like he’ll never get his time down. He only has a few weeks until his fitness test and he’s still struggling. The weird thing is, Riki knows he can do this. He has done this. It’s not just that he took a few weeks off, or partied a little too hard. It’s like something mental, like he’s psyched himself out. Or maybe he’s just thinking too much – running should just be fluid. Let your legs take over and just be. Instead his head’s in the past, in the future. He never seems present.

  Riki walks it off home. Home. What a joke that seems to be. Jase is working extra hours since Te Awhina decided to go back to uni full-time. The inheritance money only covers her fees, and that’s fast running out anyway. Riki’s pretty sure there won’t be any left for him once his mother’s finished her MA. God help him if she decides to do a PhD. Someone should have set it up better. Doled out the money for fees from the int
erest, not the principal. Anyone who’s taken Year Ten Economics could tell you that. Compound interest and stuff.

  His mum and Jase said they’ll figure something out for Riki. But it’s only a year away … hell, less. It’s already April. He’s been looking at the Army website on the sly. Te Awhina would hit the roof if she knew he was thinking about enlisting. Riki can hear his mother’s voice; the shrill edge it gets when she’s nervous or upset: No, son. Do you hear me? If you enlist, you are no son of mine. Although it is a family tradition: there has been a Pūweto in every armed conflict over the past one hundred years – the Great War, WWII, Korea, Vietnam. There are even some cousins in the States who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. In each generation since the great Te Ariki Mikaera volunteered for the First World War someone has served. Not that the ‘great’ old man was happy about it; he threatened to disown his son Jack after he enlisted in the legendary Māori Battalion. Te Awhina inherited Te Ariki Mikaera’s distaste for war as well as his money.

  It’s so stupid. Her whole thesis is about war. The ‘Great’ War and her great-grandfather. Or their great, or is that great-great for Riki? All the greats do his head in. Every Anzac Day for as long as Riki can remember, Te Awhina’s been dragging him out of bed to go to the dawn ceremony. She’d say that respect for what those men did is different from glorifying war. But to Riki it looks like the same thing. The Army doesn’t look too bad to Riki. Anyway, it’s not like he’d be going to war.

  And there’s the thing with Gemma. Or the non-thing with Gemma. Riki hasn’t been able to get a hold of her since the party at Jackson’s a couple of weeks ago. Emails, texts, PMs … no reply. Sometimes being at different schools sucks. He can’t just run into her. Maybe he should hang around Queen Margaret’s and see if he can catch her. Although he’d probably be arrested hanging around that end of town. Whatever. He needs to see her. To ask what the hell is going on. It seemed to be going well. And according to all the movies, it’s the guy that’s not supposed to call after.

  If he and Jase had time just to hang Riki could talk to him about Gemma. Jase would say something reassuring, like Sometimes, people need space or It’s end of term, she’s probably just busy; and then he’d say: Let’s go for a run and it wouldn’t be a big deal. Lately, Jase doesn’t seem to have enough time for Riki. He comes home tired and Te Awhina monopolises him. Riki doesn’t want to just bring the Gemma thing up – he already feels like a dick about it. So really, he’s got no one to talk to about it. He can imagine what Jackson would have to say: Get over it, pussy. Jackson’s a cool mate, but he has very little sympathy for anyone with ‘feelings’. Riki can imagine Jackson’s horrified face if he shared his ‘feelings’ – his mouth open and twisted into a grimace and his nostrils flared like he’s a cat who’s smelled something rotten. And it’s definitely something he doesn’t want to talk over with his mum. Because she’s his mum. It sucks, but Riki knows that he’s on his own in this; he has to figure it out for himself.

  He’s almost home – down the path between the Post Office and the Community Centre, past the patch of lawn and seats where the local deros sit and get drunk. Riki’s place backs on the carpark, so it’s faster to walk through the back gate home and circle around to the front door than to take the front path.

  The heat pump must be full on: the heat hits Riki as he walks through the door. Te Awhina likes to keep their house at Sahara temperatures. Just more money that Jase has to earn, which means more time away from home. Riki’s mum can be really selfish at times.

  Riki can hear the drone of his mother’s research – she’s using tapes made by her father in the seventies for an oral history project he never finished. Maybe thinking about war is a family tradition too. No, more like a family obsession. It’s kind of eerie; Te Ariki died only a month after the tapes were made. Riki’s Koro Alamein joked in Te Ariki’s eulogy that the old man had died on Armistice Day to prove a point. When Riki was little he had thought the minute’s silence on the eleventh of November was for Te Ariki alone; that’s how large he looms in this family. It’s bad enough that the portrait of Te Ariki Mikaera hangs in the hallway here. People say that Riki looks like him. Riki can see his Koro Alamein in Te Ariki’s strong shoulders, and his mum in the way he looks down at the camera. There’s a kind of joke in the family that the Pūweto gene is strong – everyone looks alike. But they all reckon that Riki looks more like Te Ariki than anyone else. Spitting image. Riki looks at the portrait now, trying to line up his reflection with the image of his tipuna. If Te Ariki Mikaera wasn’t decked out in uniform, maybe it would be like looking in a mirror.

  The way I figure it, I don’t have the time to wait to tell my story …

  Te Awhina has the tape cranked up so loud that Riki hopes he can just sneak off to the bathroom.

  ‘Hey Riki, come and listen to your namesake …’

  Awesome, Riki thinks. More of the great Te Ariki Mikaera’s stories. The man who named his mum, the man who named Riki. The reason the whānau are where they are today. The man of great foresight, the seer, the prophet. ‘The Lord Michael’. The God-damned bore.

  Te Awhina has her notes spread out on the kitchen table – there are the transcripts of the tapes she’s already worked through in a pile, the notes of things that she has to look up and fact-check stuck on other bits of paper or to the surface of the table; there are maps and photographs and, next to the ancient tape player, a pad and her pen.

  ‘The last tape, Riki. I’m almost done! Would you be able to type it up for me over the holidays?’

  Despite all her years as a student, Te Awhina has not learnt to touch-type, so she transcribes the tapes by hand and then bribes Riki with chocolate to type them for her. In the transcripts Te Ariki Mikaera doesn’t come across as great to Riki – mostly he seems to be a bitter old man. Riki wonders what he’d make of Te Awhina’s work; Te Ariki Mikaera seemed to hate anything that made him out to be a hero. What did he say? … we were just men; not comic book characters. Riki wished it was a comic – at least then maybe it wouldn’t be so boring. He doesn’t understand why his mum and his koro are so into history. Koro had tried to get Riki into it too – sending him books about WWI for every birthday or Christmas. It sucked, especially when all the other cousins got toys or other cool stuff. Those books just sat on the bookshelf, as dusty as the words within them, until Te Awhina started uni again.

  His mum turns up the volume on the tape player.

  … I’ve found a blank tape, so you needn’t worry about me recording over your research …

  ‘There,’ Te Awhina says. She’s smiling like she’s ‘discovered’ something; her eyes are wide and her mouth is set somewhere between a grin and a smirk. ‘Did you hear that? There’s another tape! You heard it, didn’t you?’

  Riki nods, and Te Awhina lines up the cassette tape covers. ‘But look. There are just five tapes. I’ve looked everywhere, but for the life of me I can’t find it.’

  ‘You should ask Koro.’

  ‘I did. But he says he gave me everything he had … that reminds me. Are you all packed up and ready to go to Koro’s? We’ll leave as soon as Jase gets home from work.’

  Riki sighs. ‘We were just up there at Christmas …’

  ‘I know. But he wants us to come and see him again.’

  ‘Can’t you just tell him no?’ Riki really doesn’t want to get behind in his training.

  ‘Look, he sounded a bit upset. He insisted we go up on Monday, but I told him it wasn’t possible with work and school. It’s only for a week. I’m a bit worried about him.’

  Koro had been strange at Christmas – a bit intense, a bit off. But if Riki tells his mum that he thinks that Koro has been acting weird too she’ll make a big deal of it, maybe insist that they stay with him for the entire term break. So he teases her instead. ‘You only want to nag him about the tape …’

  ‘He must know about it. It was his project, and it seems Te Ariki made the missing tape on the day that I was born …’<
br />
  Te Awhina was born on a historical day: the 1975 hīkoi, the land march, arrived at Parliament as she took her first breath. For the longest time, Riki had been told that Te Ariki had named his mother after Whina Cooper; but a few Christmases ago one of his old aunties had put him straight.

  ‘That was the day the old man just lost it,’ his auntie said. ‘He got hold of the baby and wouldn’t let her go. Said she had to be named “Te Awhina” after his mother. Never mind that his mother was Waereti – the old man insisted she was Te Awhina.’ His auntie looked around then, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear what she had to say next. ‘He’d gone a bit …’ she circled her finger around her ear. ‘You know how some old people get.’

  Te Ariki was stubborn; he made it clear that he would not give the baby back until she had been named as he wished. So the newborn was named as she howled in hunger and her mother cried in desperation for her child. Te Awhina was named by Te Ariki Mikaera, the rest of the whānau be damned.

  ‘Don’t tell your mother I told you,’ Riki’s auntie said.

  Riki kisses Te Awhina on the cheek – sweat dripping down his nose on to her.

  ‘Ew! Boy, get cleaned up. You stink.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  ‘Hey, don’t use up all the hot water, eh?’ Te Awhina points to the clock on the kitchen wall. ‘I’m keeping an eye on how long you’re in there for. The last power bill was through the roof …’

  Riki picks up the remote for the heat pump, and it turns off.

  ‘Hey! I’m cold.’

  He picks up the blanket on the floor and drapes it over his mother’s shoulders. He kisses her again.

  ‘You really do stink, you know.’

  As he leaves the room he hears the beep of the heat pump as it is turned on again.

  There is nothing quite like a shower after a long run to soothe your muscles and clear your mind. It feels like the hot water is washing away Riki’s worries as well as his sweat. He likes to shower under water as hot as he can stand. Jase sometimes teases Riki about his long showers; no one believes him when he says he just likes to be clean, or that he stays there to think. Jase says Riki’s arm must get tired after all that ‘thinking’, and winks at him. If he really wants to embarrass Riki he pretends to look at his watch and says: That was a quick one or: A nice long one today. That’s one bonus about Jase working all these hours, Riki supposes: he can have a shower in peace. That is, if his mum doesn’t knock down the door. If he could, Riki would stand here until the water ran cold; until he figured out all of his problems.