“Hi, Ma — pick up the phone. We’re back on the North Island — pick up the phone — Ma, we’re in Wellington, are you—”
“Beau, acushla, who wears a blue suit?”
“What are you talking about, Ma, a blue suit? Who wears a blue suit?”
“Oy gevalt, is there an echo on this phone? I ask you, Beau, who wears a blue suit? And all you can answer is, ‘Who wears a blue suit?’
“Sophie and Deva took me for a walk down the farm road and when we were in the native forest there with all the ferns and the nikau palms and all those gorgeous birds singing and the wood pigeons and the tui birds, Sophie and Deva chased a rabbit.
“And then I looked down through the trees, down where you and Aaron were clearing out all the dead brush, it is so beautiful now, you know, you can see right down through the forest now, it’s like a tropical paradise.
“And we saw a man standing down there under the huge kauri tree wearing a blue suit, I mean to say the man was wearing a blue suit, not the tree. Then he disappeared.”
“Who is ‘we’ ?”
“What do you mean, Beau, we saw a man, Sophie and Deva and me, we saw a man, only Sophie and Deva didn’t bark at him. I couldn’t believe it.
“And he was wearing a blue suit in the forest, standing in the forest. You know, like a jumpsuit, a bright blue jumpsuit like a parachute guy wears.”
“Ma, what were you doing on the farm? How’d you get across the bay with the dogs? Who took you?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“That was Ian, Ma.”
“What a name! Eon. Eon. Like eons ago?”
“No, Ma, Ian, I-a-n, Scottish Gaelic for John. Maddy Jane’s husband.”
“Oh, yes, I understand now. How is the Windy City?”
“Wellington is the same as the first time, Ma. Don’t change the subject. It’s the capital and everybody here dresses in black. Anyway, that was Maddy Jane’s husband, Ian.”
“Why is Wellington all dressed in black?”
“Everywhere you go, the civil servants are all dressed up, really well dressed in expensive, black outfits, head to toe, like they’re going to a rich funeral. Or like it’s a city of high-class undertakers at a convention, and they are spending hot money in the bars and restaurants like money is going out of style and they need to get rid of it quick.
“The Labour government just bought a fleet of thirty-four new BMW 730 series limos, one hundred and seventy thousand dollars each — you know the Labour government, for the working man, they bought them for the government cabinet ministers to drive around Wellington.
Well, I don’t know, Ma, Aaron and I are starting to think the government here is worse than Bush—”
“Don’t mention the name of that W. Shrub son of a whore and son of her shit-head husband, George Herbert Walker Senior Shrub.”
“Ma, for goodness’ sake. When’d you start talking like a pirate’s parrot?”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Who?”
“Who, who, who? What are you, one of those ‘morepork’ New Zealand owls? Who? Maddy Jane’s husband. In the blue overall suit.”
“Yeh, Ma. He’s dead. Four years before we moved to New Zealand. We never met him.”
“I gotta go. I love you. Bye.”
“Ma saw Ian in the forest. On the farm. Just like in Mexico when she said we had to get out of that place because she saw blood everywhere. Where I later found out they had the big battle between the Aztecs and Spaniards.”
“Did you tell her you’ve seen him too?”
“I didn’t get a chance. You know how she always ends phone conversations.”
“I gotta go. I love you. Bye. Slam.”
“Bingo.”
We were back on the North Island now, after our Rainbow Recapitulation Tour of the South Island, and we started to think they were following us. I’m talking about the Rotolonga Boys High School Golf Team.
They were the New Zealand National Secondary School Golf Champions for the second year in a row and they were staying at every lodge and super-lodge that we were staying at. Except we were paying a mint and they were staying for free.
They were invited by all these first-class lodges who wanted to show their civic commitment to the youth of New Zealand and who probably also wanted to scout for New Zealand’s best new golf pros for the future. Hungry for the next Michael Campbell.
Every time we checked into a lodge, the boy golfers arrived in their two big vans within an hour or so. There were about twenty of them, accompanied by two gentlemen from their school, a golf coach, and a distinguished headmaster with an undistinguished nickname.
All the boys called him Gutsy, or Guts. He even introduced himself to us as Gutsy.
It was cocktail hour. Beau and I were standing in the main lodge’s Verandah Room, which was serving New Zealand wines and delicious hors d’oeuvres before the evening meal and we were chatting with a woman and husband, a man and wife, from Mount Maunganui up on the Bay of Plenty.
Grant and Felicity were two pharmacists who told us they had gotten fed up with the bureaucracy of the medical system in New Zealand and had decided to retire early. We listened attentively to their complaints because the very restricted lists of medicines available in New Zealand touched a nerve.
Some medicines you couldn’t get even if you were willing to pay for them outright. Not in the “government system,” so not available. This was bad news to us.
We told them we had gotten rather overwhelmed by life in Southern California and decided to retreat as it were. The usual U.S. complaints, too many people, too many cars and freeways, air pollution, frenetic American lifestyle, everybody carrying a gun, deadly politics getting worse by the hour.
The usual litany that we had begun to recite almost mechanically as we were asked the same questions all around New Zealand.
“So you’re living in the Far North. And why are you here in Hawkes Bay? Vacation in your new country?”
“Well, it’s our twenty-fifth anniversary and we thought a trip to all the places we explored over the years when we were looking for our dream location in New Zealand—”
We didn’t mention the leukemia. That this was, perhaps, also kind of a possible farewell tour. We hadn’t even mentioned that aspect of the tour to each other. It was simply understood.
“Twenty-five years! Congratulations! Chin-chin!” the pharmacists said in unison.
“Who’s been married for twenty-five years? Bloody hell! You two blokes!”
He pushed his way into our little group. His face was red already and scowling and he was drinking a pink gin. Obviously not his first of the happy hour.
We braced ourselves.
“Twenty-five years! Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! That is just fantastic! Congratulations, mates! By the way, I’m Gutsy, most of the boys just call me Old Guts.
“I’m unofficial headmaster and official something-or-other at Rotolonga Boys High School, oldest school in Rotolonga and best in the country, but you won’t believe me because I admit I am prejudiced.
“Now, when the boys come down to dine, I’m going to make sure they do our school haka for you two in honor of your anniversary. Nobody stays together for twenty-five years these days! Good on ya, mates! Do you know how lucky and downright blessed you are?”
Twenty minutes later, his Rotolonga Boys High School calling card was sitting on the white linen tablecloth in front of the four of us — the pharmacist couple had insisted we dine with them to celebrate our special occasion and we happily complied, they were so charming and such happy people.
They poured Champagne for us and raised another toast. Everyone in the lodge’s elegant dining room drank to our health and long life together.
Long life together. Aaron do you know you have—
Then Beau and I were honored with the school haka.
If you are at all familiar with the haka, it is probably because you have seen the New Zealand rugby team, the All Blacks. They perform their haka before every game and this leads most people to assume that all haka are war haka and it is true they are so energetic, exuberant, and full of stamping of the feet and slapping of hands against the body, full of facial contortions, eye rolling,and eye popping grimaces, the poking out of the tongue and tongue wagging, so full of grunts and groans and loud cries that all of them do seem martial.
The haka that the boys performed for us and the other guests of the lodge was indeed violent, war-like, blood-curdling, exhilarating. In spite of the fact that the boy golfers were dressed up in their black trousers and dark blue blazers with the school insignia over the breast pocket, and their red and blue and green striped school ties. Hair neatly combed or carefully messed up in today’s style.
It was amazing, and a little frightening to see these elegant, civilized, polite gentlemen suddenly turn into creatures of war, right before our eyes in the fine Dining Room of the Great Lodge.
The entire haka, of course, is done in Te Reo, The Language.
Māori, that is:
Ko te aitanga o…
Raukura I te rangi e. I A HAHA!
Ka tut e ihi, ka tut e wana
Ka whao te puha o taku tupuna
Ki roto I ahau, e tu ake nei. I A HAHA!
E air a te titiro
Ki nga marae tapu
E takoto nei. I AI HAHA!
Ka tu mai te toa
Ka hupeke ki runga
Kit e whenua e. I AI HAHA!
Whiua ki runga
Whiua ki raro
[My strong attachment to Raukura
Moves me beyond the skies.
My fierce inner power soars as I feel the presence of my ancestors
I remember the many sacred marae that we are all part of
And the warrior in me is aroused.
I stamp my mark upon this ground
Cast it to Rangi
Cast it to Papatuanuku.]
**Raukura is an albatross feather, worn by people of rank as a symbol of leadership, pride and inner strength, a sign of mana, the stuff of which magic is formed and of which souls are made.
**A marae is a sacred place that served religious and social purposes in Polynesia. In New Zealand, the marae is still a vital part of Māori life, a place where the culture is celebrated, the Language is spoken, where tribal and intertribal obligations are met, a place where visitors are welcomed and the dead are farewelled.
The marae is wahi tapu, a sacred place of great importance, and consists of a meeting house or houses and the grounds around them.
**Rangi – or Ranginui — and Papatuanuku are the primal couple in Māori Genesis. Respectively, Father Sky and Mother Earth — yes, Papatuanuku is Mother Earth.
Interestingly, all the boys were very Pakeha-looking Pakehas except for one Māori boy, who led the haka, and two Korean boys, who were more energetic and violent in their haka than the British-looking golf boys and the Māori boy combined.
The energy level of the room and of everyone within it rose to thermonuclear levels and Beau and I, in spite of being confirmed pacifists, were both ready to go out and do battle for any cause someone might suggest, or for no cause at all. Or to play the most violent game of rugby imaginable.
Instead we joined everyone else in the establishment’s gourmet four-course meal, paired with the appropriate wines as chosen by the French chef. And then another bottle of Champagne sent to our table by our new friend, Gutsy.
There is only one way to experience the haka and that is live, in person, in New Zealand. You may view the haka on YouTube, of course. But, remember, the only real way to experience it is in person, in New Zealand, face to face with Māori haka, with the energy blasting through you.
It was hard to imagine after all this that these boy golfers would eventually return docilely to the hallowed halls of their boys’ high school, would return to their resident houses, Nelson, Drake, Frobisher, Raleigh. Would continue to study the arts and sciences, to perform the haka. And to play golf.
END OF CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Wait for the next chapter on Substack or buy the whole book on Amazon
IF YOU LIKED THIS, PLEASE GIVE MY HEART A LITTLE TAP AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST
Aaron Allbright’s novel in five parts will be published soon.
IN A DESERT OR A CITY
BOOK I
‘PRINCE CARTIER’ or HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE BEING GAY WITH MY SAUDI PRINCE AND TO START WORRYING
BOOK II
MONSIEUR LE PRINCE, PARIS
BOOK III
THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS
BOOK IV
TYROMANCY AND LUCIFER
BOOK V
WHY WAIT FOR THE LIGHT?