Into the River (13 page)

“Poor, poor pitiful me,” said Paikea pretending to wipe her eyes. “It’s not easy being rich and privileged.”

There was a hesitation between them, as if things had been exhumed that were better left buried.

“Dr Kendall? Pacific Studies?” asked Paikea.

“Thank you, darling. I can’t wait to see what holes she picks in it this time.”

“We better fly. I reckon Te Arepa is dying to get back to civilisation.”

They moved out to the van and Jinny reached in and gave Devon’s shoulder a pat before Paikea swung the van around and they headed off.

“What’s happened to her hair?” asked Devon as they reached the main road.

“All came out with the cancer treatment.”

“Oh.”

“Remember, Te Arepa,” said Paikea after they had driven a few more miles, “I hate to be the one to tell you this … but it’s hard all over.” Her mouth tightened. “Now I suppose you’d be wanting to try your hand at the wheel again?”

The day after he returned Devon got a message to say that he had to go to the headmaster’s study at the start of prep. He tried not to panic but it niggled away at him like a fish bone stuck in his throat; perhaps Ra had become sick, or Rawinia. He asked Steph, who was always the authority in matters like this.

“Doubt it. Simmonds wouldn’t have given that sort of message
to a third former to deliver. No, this will be something else. Are you in some other sort of trouble?”

Devon couldn’t think of any, but by the time prep rolled around he was completely preoccupied by speculation.

The headmaster’s study was approached first through the huge double doors of the foyer, then the reception office, then through the headmaster’s secretary’s office. Each new passage required a higher clearance. They were normally closed by four p.m. but tonight everything was lit up or wide open. He could hear the headmaster talking to a parent on the phone from the outside office so he stood at the doorway waiting instruction.

“It may be considered normal at other schools, Mrs Wallace, but here at Barwell’s we do things differently.”

The call seemed to come to an abrupt end. Devon heard the creak of a chair being pushed back and then the headmaster peered through the two sets of doors.

“Santos? Come through now.”

Devon walked into the huge office and then waited near the door. The headmaster seemed to suddenly feel the need to write some notes on a sheet of paper, so for the next minute or so all that could be heard was the slight scratching of a fountain pen across school stationery.

The room was panelled and lined with shelves. The only windows were tall and thin with a lattice of diamond-shaped panes. Glass cabinets displayed silver cups, shields, pennants and some very old school caps. The room held a couch and chairs, a coat rack with big brass hooks, and on the wall there hung a huge photograph taken on the school’s centenary, with all the boys sitting on the sloping embankment. It was hard to believe that there could be so many boys at one school.

“They’re gone now.”

Devon jumped. The words had broken the silence without warning.

“Many are married with children. Most are leading successful
lives. They are what we do. They are our purpose, our clientele, our raison d’être.”

The headmaster was a small man and he spoke from the depths of a high padded chair which made him look even smaller. The only point of animation was his large head, which transmitted an authority and menace that made Devon’s face begin to twitch.

“Which brings us to you. Do you know why I have summoned you?”

Devon shook his head.

“Is that how you answer a man?”

“No.”

“No sir.” The headmaster’s voice was so soft now that Devon had to strain to hear what he said.

“No sir,” he repeated.

“It seems to me that you are languishing. Languishing in 3B. Do you agree?”

“I don’t know … I don’t know, sir.”

“I had you placed in 3B because I wanted to see you fight your way up into 3A. To earn a place amongst the elite by dint of your own efforts. But it hasn’t worked. You seem to be languishing. Resigned to it. Happy to coast along in the class without any particular effort. Is this the case?”

Devon thought for a while and then said, “I suppose I’ve just been getting used to Barwell’s. It is a big change from what I’ve come from. I expect that this term I’ll try to lift my grades.”

The headmaster leaned over the piece of paper in front of him and wrote on it. As he wrote he muttered the words “… a term to adjust …”

“At my old school I was always top. I never had to try. Everyone knew that. Here, it’s different. Much tougher.”

“Oh yes. You can be sure of that. Well, let me spell out my expectations. Maybe I should have done this earlier.” He leaned forward over the desk and spoke in a more personal tone. “I stuck my neck out, offering you the scholarship. I staked my professional
reputation and judgement on you. Maybe even excluded other more worthy candidates. The school’s board of governors sees these scholarship choices as an expression of my judgement. They keep tabs on how they are going and want regular reports. My first report to them at the end of term reads …” He picked up a piece of paper. “‘… appears to be coasting. Has not really shown his capabilities …’ Which is a slightly more verbose version of the old chestnut, ‘Could do better … must try harder …’”

He stared at Devon as if reading him. “So let me speak plainly. You could do better. And you must try harder. This is a big school but you are not forgotten nor over-looked amongst its ranks. People are watching you. This is term two. The work term. The mid-course exams are coming. I expect you to show me your best in these exams. You owe it to your people and to the school.”

He flicked open a little book, picked up the phone and then looked up at Devon, as if in surprise. “Off you go now, Santos. The next time I see you I expect to be the bearer of glad tidings.” He turned slightly in his chair and squinted at the phone number he was about to call.

Devon left the office and walked out into the cool night. From the front steps he looked at the glittering harbour and its rim of lights. There was the slight rumble of cars on the motorway. He felt small, insignificant. As though he was nothing more than a piece of information in a vast computer. Something that could be deleted by a key stroke.

When he arrived back in the dorms, Steph was reading on his bed.

“What was that about?”

Devon recounted everything, including the end where he was told he owed it to his people and the school.

“It’s a wonder he didn’t say you owe it to your race. He sure gave you a truckload of the guilts.”

“Yeah. Trouble is, Steph, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m working hard. I reckon 3B is my limit. It’s great to be told
that you’re smarter than you are, but it’s another thing to carry it through.”

“You can do it.”

Devon was stunned. There was absolute certainty in Steph’s voice.

“Doubt it.”

“Sure you can. And you will. I’ll help.”

“I haven’t got the brain-power, man.”

“It’s not brain-power. It’s just technique. I’ll help. You’ll do it. You’ll see.”

Mitch and Wingnut arrived, red-faced and sweaty after playing badminton in the gym.

Mitch sat down beside him.

“Hey, Devon. What’s up? We heard that you’d been called to the headmaster’s office.”

“Jeez, everyone knows.”

“No secrets at Barwell’s.”

“He’s being groomed for academic success,” Steph quipped.

“What does that mean?” asked Mitch.

“The headmaster reckons I should be in a higher class. And if I don’t make a bigger effort to get there, well … well, I don’t know, but it won’t be good.”

“And he’s going to do it. And I’m going to help him,” said Steph, picking up his book. Then he added with fake drama, “Failure is not an option.”

They all laughed and then left it alone.

Over the next few weeks Devon did make a special effort. He focused on his areas of strength, which were English and Latin. He and Steph had those subjects in common. They rattled through the declensions. Boned up with endless detail on aspects of the Punic Wars. Steph was always clear what he would have done if he had
been ‘in Julius Caesar’s roman sandals’. Maths and science were a different matter. There were no short cuts or recreational discussion here: it was all hard graft. Devon went through endless exercises and examples for the maths until he was able to slide through layers of equations, reducing them to simpler forms, or navigate his way through formulae towards a triumphant bottom line. Science was more a matter of memorising and applying methods. It was a slow process, and often continued well past the end of prep. Devon resented the fact that the other three left him to go off to evening rec while he ploughed away through the stubborn clay of half-understood principles. After a while it became easier. It was as though he had cut pathways into an impenetrable thicket and now could find his way quickly where he had once blundered about. The teachers noticed his efforts and took time to check his progress more regularly.

Even Mr Simmonds allowed him more leeway now. His movements around Marsden House were not questioned so relentlessly. “Where are you going?” “What are you doing here?” “Why aren’t you …?” The stock questions were now aimed at other boys. People knew where Devon was going. He was off to the prep room to study. He became part of the furniture there.

The night before the mid-course exams began, Devon found himself in the happy position of not having much to do. He was able to help Mitch and Wingnut with their maths prep, and wondered why they found it so difficult. There was an anxious quiet in Marsden House as most of the boys realised that maybe they had left everything a little late.

Once they were all in bed that night, Steph stayed up reading an enormous book, while Mitch and Wingnut were asleep moments after lying down. Devon ran through the various conjugations of Latin verbs in his head: reciting them as a way of getting to sleep had become a habit.

“Devon?”

It was Steph.

“What?”

“You’ll be okay.”

“Think so?”

Easy for him, he thought. No Ra or headmaster breathing down his neck.

As the exams ended classes gradually reverted to normal. The boys’ exam answers were given out and gone over. Devon had done well. Top in English, in Latin, well up in all the other subjects. The only boy ahead of him was an Indian boy called
Rajendra
. He had achieved virtually perfect scores in maths and his science subjects and shortly afterwards was promoted to 3A.

A couple of nights later Mr Simmonds told Devon that he had “come within a hair’s breadth of promotion” but they had been instructed “from above” to wait and make sure this wasn’t a “flash in the pan”.

“Divine intervention, eh?” Steph said, when he heard this. “Devon, wake up. It’s not enough to do as well as the boys in 3A. You have to do better than them just to prove you’re their equal.”

“Doesn’t sound fair.”

Steph snorted. “As if fair’s got anything to do with it.”

Devon lay that night, staring at the panelled ceiling for what seemed like hours. Steph was so cynical. If you didn’t have fair, then what was left? He mulled over what Ra had told him. It all boiled down to, “Be like Diego. Find a way”.

At the end of the term, Wingnut invited Devon to go home to his farm with him during the break. Devon didn’t fancy being stuck on a farm for a couple of weeks but weighed up his other options. Ra had already told him that he would be in Wellington so Devon would have to stay with Rawinia who was now semi-permanently with the McGregors. He would miss out on the chance for more driving lessons with Paikea and he wouldn’t be seeing Wiremu, but in some ways he was quite pleased about that. Wiremu seemed a bit small-town for him now. He decided to accept Wingnut’s offer.

After Saturday morning sport the two of them sat in the back of the white Fairmont while Wingnut’s father, Graeme, drove. It was a long journey to Te Hoi, but a relief for Devon to be finally out of school. A relief not having to put on the ‘Te Arepa’ costume that Ra expected when he went home.

They arrived in the dark and were greeted by the sounds of dogs barking.

The front veranda lit up and a woman appeared carrying a small dog. Wingnut left the car and ran to her embrace. There was much clucking and kissing. Devon stood around puffing steam in the cold air and trying not to look. He couldn’t believe that they called each other “Mummy” and “little boy.” Couldn’t believe the sing-song baby tones.

After this, Wingnut’s mother turned her attention to Devon, putting her arm across his shoulders and talking close to his face. He was reminded how long it had been since any woman had last embraced him. The thought summoned up a panicky rush of emptiness, so intense that he struggled to answer any of her questions.

Wingnut had not told him much about the farm, just about his horse and his pig. The farmhouse was old and huge. It was two-storeyed with an “annexe” out the back for the farm workers. Wingnut’s room looked out onto the tennis court, and in the distance the snow-capped peak of Tongariro.

After unpacking, Devon was brought down to the sitting room for cocoa. The wood panelling and the high ceiling reminded him of the headmaster’s study. There were stuffed pig and deer heads and near the front door a coat rack made entirely of cow horns. In the sitting room a fire glowed in the grate and the light came down from a glittering chandelier. Devon had never seen anything more magnificent.

Graeme Royle came in from the hallway. “All the way from Austria. My father bought it during the bumper war years.”

“Didn’t he go to the war?” Devon asked.

“No, most of the farmers around here were regarded as essential services. Remember Napoleon’s ‘An army marches on its stomach’? Well, he helped keep those stomachs full. No glory, no medals but someone had to do it.”

Then, as if to change the subject, he added, “There are one hundred and thirty-two pieces of cut crystal. I know this because I used to clean them when I was a kid.” And then, looking at
Wingnut
, “Hmm, a good job for you boys tomorrow.”

“No way. Tomorrow me and Devon are going around the farm on the quads.”

“Devon and I,” his mother Ruth chimed in. “His grammar’s gone backwards.”

“Maybe we should have sent him to the local school,” said Graeme, and then with an accent he added, “Youse better hit the sack now, eh. It’s been a long one, bros.”

That night, as Devon struggled to find sleep, he was forced to revert to his strategy of rattling through his Latin verbs. Even then, Devon could hear the sound of voices, just beyond the clamour
of his recitation. It was hard to know in his last waking moments whether they were inside or outside his head; he just knew he had to drown them out.

In the morning the farm was covered with a fine, glassy frost. The puddles in the driveway had iced over and the watery yellow sun had no heat in it. Ruth made them pancakes and then after they had ‘togged up well,’ Wingnut took Devon out to meet the animals. His horse, Rags, ambled over to Wingnut’s whistle. He was elderly and had a big slump in his back. It made him excellent for bareback riding ‘because you can never slide off’, Wingnut claimed.

There were two quad bikes on the farm and even though they were battered and slow they were fun to ride. For the next few hours they wound their way up steep hills where the low gearing seemed to crank them up an impossible gradient. They forded little streams and squeezed through pathways where the gorse had taken over and they had to lean out on crazy angles to avoid being scratched.

Wingnut parked his quad near a hole in the ground big enough to drop a car into. He signalled Devon over. As soon as he got clear of the bike he began to smell it: a stench that poured out of the hole like an invisible geyser.

“What is it?”

“It’s a tomo.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a hole … like a sort of cave-in. There are heaps of tunnels under here. Some of them go for miles.”

“What’s the stink though?”

“Oh that.” As if he hadn’t noticed it. “Dead animals get thrown in here. Lambs and calves, animals that Dad doesn’t want for dog tucker. You don’t want to fall in there.” He made a move to shove Devon in.

Devon could see what must have been a dead cow at the bottom of the hole.

“I can hear water.”

“Yep, it’s a stream, comes out on the far side of the farm, about a mile in that direction.”

“All the rotten stuff goes into the water?”

Wingnut sensed the criticism. “Always has, doesn’t seem to have killed anyone. Anyway, enough of the stink, let’s go and see what Dad and Grandpop are up to.”

They traversed the ridge to the main farm road and then continued out to where the farm met the National Park. They came upon a bulldozer driven by an old man and connected to a stump by a thick chain. Graeme Royle was hacking away at the roots with a chainsaw. Both men waved when they came into view and looked pleased they had the chance to stop work.

“Look at Wade; he’s a monster,” the old man said. “We’re going to have to clamp his head to stop him from growing.”

He climbed down stiffly from the little bulldozer.

Once the old man was on his feet it was easy to see where Wingnut’s father got his size from. The grandfather was massive, with a handshake that was cold and crushed Devon’s little hand.

“Graeme tells me you’re a Santos, from the East Coast. My mother was a Williams so we all come from the same area. Have you heard of the Williams family?”

“There are some Williams’s who have a big farm not far from Whareiti.”

The grandfather turned to Wingnut’s father. “Y’hear how he said that, the real Maori way? We always called it ‘worry iti’.”

Devon felt himself blushing.

“What’s your father’s name, Devon?”

“Manu Davis.”

“So why are you called Santos?”

Suddenly Devon wished he had never agreed to come home with Wingnut. It was as though he was some specimen that could be pinned to a table and dissected in full public view.

“Santos is my mother’s maiden name. My grandfather’s name.
I was given the name when I was a baby. It’s my name.” He felt his voice begin to rise in pitch along with his sense of outrage.

“Okay, okay,” said the grandfather raising his hands and smiling. “Santos is good.”

“So what are you doing now, boys?” Graeme attempted to defuse the situation.

“We’re about to head back home, getting hungry.”

“Go on then, we won’t be far behind you.”

The two men resumed their positions and attacked the stubborn totara stump again.

At dinner that night they all sat around a large table in the dining room. The grandfather — who had “separate quarters in the annexe” — joined in for meals, and after dinner he brought out a tray of Maori artefacts. They were mostly adzes and patus. He explained to the boys what each would do in battle and how they would be used.

“But where do they come from?” Devon asked.

“Been in the family for years. Some were dug up when we were flattening the pa site to build the barn; others came by way of deals my father or grandfather made when they first acquired the place. This greenstone one belonged to a paramount chief of Tu Wharetoa. He threw it in to sweeten the deal. He was after the muskets. The axe heads and blankets were all very well but the muskets, they gave him the upper hand.”

Devon picked it up. It was heavy and cold. He could feel its mauri running up his arm. He knew what Ra would say.

“Are you ever going to give it back?”

The grandfather was pouring himself a whisky from the side board.

“Which one?”

“This one,” said Devon picking up the greenstone patu.

There was a sudden silence. Eventually it was broken by the grandfather’s loud, dismissive laugh.

“To whom? It was an old deal. Those involved have all been in the ground seventy years or more. Return? No, this is where they belong, boy. They are all part of a deal, an agreement, and you don’t welsh on a deal.”

“Even if you’re Welsh, like the Williamses were,” Ruth added mischievously.

“What do you suggest?” the grandfather continued. “Give them back to the Maoris? No way!”

He was getting quite red in the face and Devon was beginning to feel better. Ruth promptly interceded and sent the boys off to watch TV in the other room.

“Man, Devon, you sure lit a fire under Grandpop. He loves those things. Always brings them out for visitors. Give them back? Never heard that before.”

“I was brought up that way. We were taught that some things are given to bind you together. And the person who gets them never owns them, just looks after them. It’s different, I guess, where I come from.”

“Oh well, there’s one good thing,” Wingnut paused. “It meant we didn’t get Part Two. The years of struggle. The stunted cattle, and bush sickness. The raupo cottage. Once he starts … whew!” But Devon could tell that underneath it all Wingnut was embarrassed, and there was a new awkwardness between them. He resolved to pull his horns in for the rest of the time.

On their last day Ruth took the two boys into Taupo to stock up. He had never seen so much food bought in one shop. They had a trolley each at the supermarket and they were filled to the brim. After this the boys were hungry and Ruth agreed to take them to McDonald’s “for a feed of junk food”. There was a large Maori family in a van in front of them at the drive-through. Endless cardboard containers were passed in through the window. You could see the excitement in the back as each kid got his package of food
and cup of Coke.

Ruth shook her head sadly. “Benefit day, and this is how they spend it.”

Devon had nothing much to say in the car going back. He’d thought that Ruth was different. His food was so tasteless he could hardly finish it.

The remaining hours dragged. Devon didn’t feel like doing anything; he just wanted to get back to school where he could be free of the tension he had built around him.

Wingnut suggested they play chess. A large, heavy chess set was brought out: so different from the one he and Ra used to play with. Each piece in their set had the tooth marks of a hundred agonising decisions.

Their game soon attracted the attention of the adults and so Devon, instead of beating Wingnut quickly like he always did at school, drew the game out, attempting to make a match of it. As the boys sat stooped over their game, the grandfather hovered, trying to give Wingnut hints with grunts and by clearing his throat.

After a while Devon sensed he was actually playing everyone else. The grandfather was leaning over Wingnut’s shoulder staring at the board so hard that it seemed that he would burn a hole in it. Graeme Royle hovered occasionally and then retreated. Even Ruth picked up on the strain in the room.

For a while there was a fairly even exchange, as pieces were taken down either casually or as the result of a two-move strategy. Wingnut would go to move a piece; the grandfather would explosively clear his throat, and Wingnut would stop to see which piece was under threat. When this happened, he would inevitably lose his way and the grandfather would suggest coyly that “perhaps one of the men of the cloth needed a holiday”, or that “a horse might like to canter towards the castle”.

When they had swept most of the board and had an equal balance of major pieces, Devon queened a pawn and finished things
off quickly. There was no fun in it any more. Later when he was heading up stairs, he heard the old man in the kitchen muttering to someone, “Wade could never beat that boy; he’s too open … he hasn’t got the Maori cunning.”