Conrad Cooper's Last Stand ePub (11 page)

Mr Kelly drags a water drum off the back of his ute, heaving and muttering as veins pop up on his arms. He groans, drops it on the ground and says, ‘Sorry, what'd you say?'

‘Just that I've been talking to Tane about getting some fine weather, so it won't be muddy around here. I dunno if it'll work, seeing as his dad rules the sky. They don't get on too well.'

‘We don't mind mud, it's better in summer …' He blinks hard. ‘Sorry, did you say you've been
talking
to Tane?'

‘Yeah. I don't belong to any religion so I've decided to believe in him. Do you want a hand carrying that?”

Mr Kelly goes still, which is weird. He wasn't moving before, but now he doesn't blink or anything. Maybe he's holding his breath.

‘Um, Mr Kelly? You all right?'

‘I am, it's just … you can't.'

‘What?'

He wraps his arms around the drum like he's going to pick it up, but doesn't. He just stands there, hugging the barrel. ‘Look, you're only a kid. You don't get it … but you can't do stuff like that. It's not right.'

A sinking feeling grabs hold of my ribs, dragging them into my stomach. ‘You mean I
can't
talk to Tane?'

His fingertips tighten, turning red. ‘Jeez, kid, even I don't believe in Tane Mahuta. Not really, but even if he's real … he's not for you.'

‘Why?'

‘You've got to be kidding.' Mr Kelly leans over the drum and he lets one hand go, running it over his forehead. ‘Look, you're Pakeha. He doesn't belong to your culture. You've got other stuff …' I open my mouth to ask him what I have, but he gets in first. ‘Tane Mahuta belongs to Maori mythology,
our
culture, you got that, kid? Not yours. And you can't mess with stuff that doesn't belong to you.'

His words are hard but they sound far away, like the distance between us just grew wider. That's weird 'cause neither of us moved, but it feels like we're talking on either side of a huge field. Everything's gone still and quiet.

‘Oh.' I dunno what to say, except, ‘Sorry.'

‘Well.' He stares at me. ‘Do you … are you …'

Mr Kelly looks like he's lost his words, so I say, ‘Am I what?'

‘Um,' he clears his throat and then shakes his head, like he's given up on something. ‘Are you … hungry, kid?'

His words bring movement back into the world; grass moves again in the wind and campground voices bounce along the paddock, all the way down the hillside. But I shake my head. My stomach feels weird and – well, empty. It's like everything just fell out, including my appetite.

‘Ah, go on. Kids are always hungry, unless someone's offering them vegetables. I've got some baking in the ute. You'll like it.'

Still, I dunno what to say. He really wants me to eat, so I stand there while he opens the door. It squeals as if the bones of the truck ache, and he pulls out a dented tin covered in bright flowers. ‘Caramel slice, some old lady brought it up the other day. Me and the other guys couldn't get enough, but there's a few bits left.'

‘Yeah?'

Mr Kelly smiles, stretching his mouth like a rubber band. It's the kind that means he wants me to join in too, like a grinning club. So I force up the ends of my mouth, and he pulls off the lid. Bare tin shows through the worn edges and they catch the sunlight, making the painted petals glow … psychedelic.

‘Hey, that's Mrs O'Leary's tin.'

‘Eh?'

‘My neighbour, she's an old lady with a funny accent.'

‘Yeah, sounds about right. Kept talking about the Irish rebellion and saints. I couldn't follow most of it – but she's a great baker.'

‘Hmm.' I nibble the edges of my slice. ‘Mr Kelly?'

‘Yeah?'

‘If I don't talk to Tane, can I still protest? I mean, if Mrs O'Leary is allowed up here, what about me?'

He takes a bite and his smile widens. ‘Yeah, kid. You're welcome here, any time. If you bring baking, there's a bonus.' He watches me for a second, and then my face grows smaller, shrinking back into a frown.

‘What's wrong, kid?'

I open my mouth to tell him about Gaz, broken frypans, star charts and rope … but nothing comes out.

He frowns. ‘Conrad?'

Weird, but the words are stuck. It's like I spent so long
not
talking about Gaz, I don't know how. Mum doesn't want me talking about him, so I guess it's a secret … and telling secrets is bad, isn't it?

Sharp edges dig into my gut, like I just swallowed stones. I can't talk about Gaz and if I can't believe in Tane, who's going to sort him out? But I can't explain that to Mr Kelly. He might get mad and besides, it sounds like bad-mouthing. Still, he's a grownup and a teacher, which means he's got tons of answers, so I take another slice and ask, ‘Mr Kelly?'

‘Yeah?'

‘If people've got problems, and they don't have, um, anyone to sort it out for them … what do they do?'

He reaches into the tin and takes another piece for himself. ‘Depends. What do you mean by problems?'

‘I dunno … just stuff.'

There's no way I can tell him about Gaz, Mum wouldn't like it. But he turns his head and watches me sideways, his stubble blurring like a black cloud against his jaw. Stuffing the rest of the slice into his mouth, he shrugs. ‘You just gotta sort it out for yourself.'

‘What?'

‘If no one's going to help, you've gotta solve your own problems. That's life, kid. Just take a look around. What do you think we're doing up here?'

I'm not sure what to say, I need to think. Can I solve my own problems? Maybe, but Gaz feels too big; it's like I'm a mouse trying to move an elephant.

He must reckon my silence means I've nothing to say, 'cause he sighs and pats the drum. ‘Never mind, it's all a bit deep for ten in the morning. Come on, kid, let's get this thing indoors.'

And so we do.

When I get home, Mrs O'Leary's kitchen window is open and the smell of jam tarts makes me want to bite the air. So I head over and say hi. It's important to be neighbourly.

‘Hello, Conrad.'

She's standing in the kitchen, busy giving St Patrick a bath. Not the real one, of course. He's been dead for ages. She's washing her plastic figurines in the sink, which makes sense. Mrs O'Leary's always cleaning something.

‘Hey, Mrs O'Leary, how come you took baking up to Bastion Point?'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.' Her wrinkled fingers freeze, but only for a second.

‘But there's a baking tin –'

‘
Conrad.
' Her hands move again, reaching for the dishcloth. ‘I have not been up the hill and if I had, you couldn't possibly know.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because I'm certain you're not supposed to be up
there, either. And, seeing as you wouldn't go where you're not supposed to be, you can't possibly have seen my biscuit tin. Can you?'

She gives me a very hard look. Personally, I find it confusing so I say, ‘Okay, Mrs O'Leary,' which means I'll agree with whatever you say. Grownups like me best when I agree and I'm dead keen on having tarts.

‘Good boy. I've got the ladies' bowling club to think about, not to mention that Mrs McDonald across the road. She'd love to hear about this.'

Splash
goes the patron saint of Island.
Splatter, splish.
I don't want to say the wrong thing, so I don't say anything at all. I just watch her working, but she's still not mentioning tarts. Maybe I'd better say something nice, get her in the mood for sharing.

‘Mrs O'Leary?'

She raises one eyebrow.

‘You're always cleaning; I bet you've got the tidiest house in the street.'

‘Hmm.' She gives St Patrick a good scrub behind the ears. ‘Keeping my hands busy keeps my thoughts quiet.'

‘Are your thoughts very noisy?'

‘Oh, you know. Widows get lonely; we're alone with nothing to do but think. It's either clean, or adopt a few hundred cats.' She dunks St Patrick, adding, ‘And I hear they've been going missing lately.'

I'd better change the subject. ‘Don't you have any kids?'

‘No.'

She says the word like it's spelt, short and fast.

‘Well … you're not really lonely, are you? You've got me.'

‘True and it's just as well, seeing as I'm allergic to cats.' She holds her saint up to the light. ‘There, you won't be growing any potatoes in
that
dirt.'

Mrs O'Leary pats the statue like it's a dog. I guess if a saint could wag its tail, he would. She's always making a big deal about him, which gets me wondering. ‘Mrs O'Leary? Was St Patrick
really
famous?'

‘I doubt he signed many autographs, but yes. He's well known.'

‘It's just, I've never heard about him in school, only from you. Did he ever come to New Zealand?'

‘He did not. It was terribly far, see? He had his hands full in Ireland, getting rid of snakes and converting heathens.' She nods at the statue. ‘You know, St Patrick brought the true religion into Ireland.'

‘Does that mean your people had different gods, before St Patrick came and sorted out your insect problems?'

‘I suppose they did … and a snake is not an insect. What on earth are they teaching you in that school?'

‘Mostly handwriting.'

‘Well, that'll come in handy. You'll all have lovely signatures on your dole cheques.'

She dries her hands on a flower-patterned apron, flings open the oven door and pulls out a tray covered
in unfinished baking. She's punching holes in a piece of dough, and I'm thinking about gods … oh, that's it.

Maybe I should've picked an Irish god. My Nana's half Irish and half Scottish. They might listen to a part Irish boy, whereas maybe Jasper and Mr Kelly were right. You're not interested in helping a white kid. If you were, my problems would be sorted by now, seeing as I've been breaking my back with goodness. But I'm not Maori, so you don't care about me.

Do you?

‘Mrs O'Leary, tell me about the Irish gods.'

She looks up from her dough, blinking. ‘You must be joking? I don't know a thing, no one's believed in them for a thousand years.' Mrs O'Leary watches my face. ‘Ah, but I've got something for you. Sure I do.'

She tells me a story about Finn McCool, the fighting giant. It's a great story, maybe even a grand one. Basically this huge giant wants to fight a smaller giant called Finn. Thing is, Finn's smarter. He dresses as a baby and when the other guy sees him he freaks out. After all, if this is Finn's son, what size is his dad? Then the bad guy runs away to Scotland and doesn't come back,
ever.

I wonder, how big is my real dad?

When she's done talking I ask, ‘Did Finn ever come here, Mrs O'Leary? To New Zealand?'

‘Not that I know of, no.'

‘Why?'

‘I don't know. I expect he couldn't fit in a plane.'

‘They didn't have planes in those days.'

‘Ah, silly me.'

Now I'm not stupid, I know there's no such thing as giants. But there might've been, years ago. Perhaps the giants became extinct like dinosaurs. I mean, if a meteor hit the earth and wiped out the T-Rex, it would be pretty hard to miss heaps of giants.

‘Mrs O'Leary, he could've swum. He was big, so it wouldn't take Finn long. The Auckland Harbour would've been like a paddling pool to him, right?'

‘True, but perhaps he didn't know the way. Didn't have maps in those days … all the local giants used to take their holidays in London.'

‘Why?'

‘I expect they liked the feel of Englishmen under their feet, oozing through the gaps like toe jam.'

‘You're not serious, are you? My real dad's English.'

‘Ah … well. Would you fancy a tart, Conrad? I've got a batch in the cupboard, freshly baked …'

My body sits up straighter. ‘Yes! I mean, yes please.'

‘I had a feeling you might.'

Watching her pull tarts off their paper, my brain gets time to think. I push out a few more questions, before I jam up my mouth with tarts.

‘Mrs O'Leary, Irish people have leprechauns and Irish dancing. What about the English?'

‘Morris dancers, but let's not get into it. They're a weird bunch.'

‘The Scottish?'

‘Selkies – mythical seal people, although I prefer the Cornish knockers, little people who live in the mines. As for the Welsh, they've got it best of all.'

‘What?'

‘They've got dragons.' She puts her hands up like claws. I try to smile, but the corners of my mouth keep dropping, and so do her hands. She says, ‘What's up with you, lad?'

‘Nothing … it's just all the cool things got left behind. We don't have magic or anything, not here in New Zealand.'

‘Ah, well …' Mrs O'Leary drops a plate in front of me and steam rises up, touching my nose with smoky fingers. ‘Maybe it's just a different kind of magic. Here, we're on the opposite side of the earth and everything is upside down.'

‘So?'

‘It's a place where endings become beginnings, and people who were last get the chance to become first … Goodness me, have you already finished that?'

I can't open my mouth, it's full of pastry and my lips only just manage to close. She doesn't seem to need an answer anyway, just smiles.

‘Well, perhaps you'd fancy a Popsicle? You'll be needing
something for after.' She opens the freezer and her face disappears in a cloud of white frost, like she's poking her head into Antarctica, and her voice sounds far away. ‘You know, New Zealand's got plenty of advantages compared to, say, England. There, people get judged by their accents, and not just the Irish ones. A cockney accent won't open too many doors in parliament, that's for sure. Here, everyone ends up sounding the same and the children of old enemies become friends … There you go.'

She peels back the layer of paper and hands me a lemonade Popsicle, the cool freezer like a breath of fresh air in our faces.

‘Mrs O'Leary, do you mean you and me? Seeing as my dad's English and you're Irish?'

‘Uh … well, perhaps. You'd better eat that outside, I don't want it melting on my nice clean floors. It's been said you could eat off them, but I don't care to find out. Now off you go, I've got polishing to finish. Come back in when you're done.'

So I do.

Outside, I'm sitting on her back steps, watching lines of ants march across the cracked concrete, sucking and thinking … I'd love to have dragons. Imagine that! A dragon curled up inside Rangitoto, sleeping, but ready to blast through the crater at any second. How cool would that be?

But in the end, you've got to wonder. Whose idea was it to keep all those gods, fairies and giants on the other side of the world? Why not here? Worse, if we're not allowed to share the Maori gods, then we've got nothing in New Zealand for us white kids.

Nothing at all.

When I get home, Gaz isn't there. He could be working the late shift, but I don't ask. I want to pretend he's gone and halfway to Canterbury. Even if Tane's not helping me any more, it's nice to be hopeful.

Over dinner I ask, ‘Mum, did Gaz get any letters in the mail?'

‘Letters?'

‘I dunno … maybe a job offer or something?'

‘To do what?'

‘Um, he could rescue kiwis in the South Island. Build them new homes and fight off predators, that sort of thing.'

Mum's eyes wrinkle as she laughs. ‘Why would he want to do that?'

‘No reason.' I swallow down my beans and carrots.

Hours disappear and the front door stays shut. I'm in bed by eight o'clock, and still Gaz isn't home. Maybe this is it. My fingers tighten on the sheets, pulling them close.

Yes.

Could Mr Kelly be wrong? Tane, have you been listening to me all along? If Gaz has left, maybe you've finally come through. I bet it's taken time; moving cities takes heaps of planning. I mean, Gaz's got to catch a plane, buy warmer clothes and find a house in the bush, so he can start work on a giant weta rehousing programme … or something like that.

At least I hope so.

Maybe Gaz is just late.

Please Tane, if you ignore the colour of my skin and find Gaz a new home, I'll build you two forests. I'll spend my life planting trees, feeding birds and stomping out bush fires with my own feet. That's a good deal, right?

What do you say?

Gaz doesn't come home. I know this 'cause no one wakes me up at exactly 7.05, telling me to shape up or ship out. Instead my Star Wars clock glows in the corner of my room, pointing at numbers with lightsabers. I lie there staring up at my bookcase and listen. Feet walk around the house, but they pad lightly instead of slapping against the floorboards. I don't hear Gaz, anywhere.

I can't wait any more, I've gotta see for myself.

Jumping out of bed, I head for the kitchen. Mum's wearing her tracksuit pants, which is another clue. Gaz always screws up his nose and says, ‘They look all right, if you're hanging out in a dole queue.' So she only pulls
them on when he's not around. In other words,
he's not here.

Mum smiles and pours milk over my Weet-Bix. ‘Hey there, sleepyhead.'

‘Mum, where's Gaz?'

‘Oh, don't worry about him.' She smiles and I hold my breath. ‘He stayed out overnight, today's the big day. They've got cops coming from all over the country, needing help with coordination.'

I rub my eyes, disappointment kicking my gut. My heart shrinks like a punctured balloon, but I manage to act interested and mumble, ‘What big day?'

‘They're taking the protestors off Bastion Point today.' She rolls her eyes at the tablecloth. ‘Gaz's over the moon. Conrad … what's wrong?'

My spoon drops, clattering against the bowl like a ringing bell. Oh man, this is it. Poor Mr Kelly, he's in serious trouble. Unless … I can help him.