Hoi Polloi (5 page)

“Put that thing away or I’ll belt you good and proper this time,” yells Winks.

T
YPICAL STAFF
. A tray of empty glasses in the phone box. Not just on one occasion but all the time recently. They won’t own up. Typical. Who else but staff would keep leaving a tray of glasses in such an odd place! Our son? They’re accusing our son? They’ve seen our son coming out of there? What on earth would he be doing with trays in the damned phone box? It’s preposterous. “And it’s the lowest thing I can imagine,” Heels juts. The lowest thing an adult can do—blame a child. An innocent child.
Her
child no less. “It’s an insult. I’ve got a good mind to sack the lot,” she sucks and scratches.

Winks asks me one night after dinner, “You don’t know anything about trays of glasses in the phone box, do you?”

“No,” I reply. I know from previous lies I’ve told that it’s best to look into people’s eyes. “Look me in the eye,” Heels and Winks say, and teachers and children at school. That way people automatically believe you. I could say, “I swear on my grandmother’s grave” which people also take as the truth but I’m not sure yet that there’s no afterlife and that my grandmother couldn’t haunt me as a punishment.

From now on Heels keeps a close watch on the comings and goings at the phone box. No more trays appear.

There is, however, another matter. Mr Atkinson has me standing opposite his dark wood desk. His pipe isn’t lit but he’s clacking the mouthpiece between his brown teeth and his office pongs of puffed tobacco. “Look me in the eye, young man.”

Young man? I’ve never been called young man before. It
sounds threatening, as if he has my measure. Have I reached an age when more will be expected of me, judgments will be harsher, punishments more severe? I’m ten now. Has Mr Atkinson started giving the strap to pakehas like he does the horis? Will he give me the strap now that I’m ten? It’s somewhere in this office, the strap. What drawer? That cupboard? He won’t give me the strap—he drinks at the Heritage Hotel and Winks serves him. Why is he calling me young man then?

“Have you or have you not been throwing stones at cars?”

I look him in the eye. “No.”

“You haven’t been?

“N-n-o.” I blink and swallow without meaning to.

Mr Atkinson isn’t treating my No as truth. Two boys have been seen just outside the school gates throwing stones at passing cars. A car’s windscreen has been broken and one driver, an elderly woman, was very shocked and upset by the impact and was taken to hospital for a lie-down. One of the boys fits my description. The other boy fits Tamoa’s description.

It’s very difficult to keep looking in his eyes because I
have
been throwing stones at cars. I
have
been trying to hit windscreens. “Why would you be involved in that sort of nonsense?”

Mr Atkinson asks.

“I d-d-don’t know,” I answer though I know very well why. I can picture it clearly, throwing the stones, aiming at the sun-smeary windscreens. The bull’s-eye. Me running for the cover of the for-climbing-up tree where Tamoa is already hiding barricaded behind the roots that arch out of the ground like rock. When the cars pull over, Minis, Zephyrs, Bedford vans, the driver performs a cursing jig, fists clenched in rage, swearing helpless, defeated by me a child—Tamoa and I mimic the driver to each other.

“You were involved, weren’t you?” says Mr Atkinson.

No, I say, looking straight into his eyes. I can’t do any more than look him straight in the eye. But I can’t keep the straight looking up. I will have to say Yes. “Yes, b-b-but …” What am I to say next? I don’t know what I’m going to say.

There’s no need to speak. Mr Atkinson leans back in his chair, lights his pipe and does the speaking for me. “I think I know what has happened here,” he nods. “Were you roped into this by Tamoa?”

Tamoa. All I have to do is answer Yes and naturally my word will be believed over Tamoa’s. “Yes,” I answer, looking Mr Atkinson in the eye. Tamoa threw the stones, I lie.

“Why would Tamoa throw stones?” Mr Atkinson asks. I shrug, sullen, silent. Mr Atkinson says he has a theory about why. Tamoa throws stones because he has a chip on his shoulder: he hates pakehas and since they own most of the cars in Heritage he’s at war with them. But you are a pakeha, are you not?, he says. And yet you two have formed a friendship it would seem. There’s the weakness in the theory. “You must be an exception to the normal pakeha,” Mr Atkinson says with a chuckle of smoke.

I like the idea of being an exception, someone not lumped in with the others. “Y-y-yes, Sir,” I say, smiling.

But Mr Atkinson wonders, “Why?” Why would Tamoa want to be friends with me, a pakeha? “Has he ever asked you to take alcohol from your father’s hotel?”

“No” (the truth).

“Money from the till?”

“No” (the truth).

“Cigarettes?”

“No” (the truth).

Mr Atkinson frowns, puzzled by my answers. “Well, don’t be surprised if he does,” he says, sharply. In the meantime he’ll have to put us two being pals down to opposites attracting. Neither of us makes friends easily. But I mustn’t let a desire for friends lead me to make poor choices in life. There’s nothing wrong with being curious about those who are different from you, and there are some fine Maoris about, but beware of the wrong sort.

His gentle, lowered voice soothes me. His sweet, leaf-smoke smell soothes me. He stands up from his chair and walks over to place his hand on my shoulder, breathing a pipe cloud onto my head, the embodiment for me now of kindness, wisdom, authority, mercy. I am in awe of him. I love him. I’m ashamed he had to explain my errors to me. I should have realised them myself. I should never have made those errors in the first place. Does he think less of me? What can I do to make him stop thinking less of me? “Tamoa m-m-made me th-h-throw the st-t-ones,” I lie and stare up into Mr Atkinson’s face desperate for a sign of redemption.

His hairy brown eyes slope down and pucker. “He did?”

“He said he’d b-b-beat me up if I d-d-didn’t d-d-do it.”

Mr Atkinson lets out a long, smoky sigh. He pats my shoulder, nods and smiles, satisfied.

I hurry through his waiting room back to class, passing Tamoa. I keep my head bowed, avoiding Tamoa’s face. I could turn around and admit my lie. Turn around now! I can bear the strap, the shame. No, I can’t. I don’t want to bear them. Besides, it’s too late. Mr Atkinson will have taken the strap from its special drawer. There! I can hear it snap once, twice, another time, another. Tamoa will wear the red welts like a badge of honour. Surely he will. Forget Tamoa, he’s not a fine Maori.

But I can’t forget Tamoa. Heels would forget him, Winks would too. “Don’t waste your time worrying about the likes of him,” they’d say. I’m their son. I should think as they think. Be as they would be. I should have faith in their ways. Now there is a double betrayal, of Tamoa and of Heels and Winks.

The Tamoa betrayal is the one that needs my immediate attention because he’s waiting for me when school finishes.

At first he’s silent, sulky, eyes puffy from what can only be an afternoon’s crying. As I attempt to cut across the lawn away from him he follows. When I go the other way through the front gate he follows. Across the traffic lights and over the rail-line he follows. I notice he limps slightly and tugs at his shorts as if to relieve a discomfort. Suddenly he begins a haka, screaming out hori words I don’t understand from deep in himself so that his voice rasps. He rushes up to me to unleash the chant, the slapping of his chest, shivering hands and tongue poking in-out-in-out, directly in my face. His eye corners and nose glisten with tears and snot. I flinch expecting him to throw me to the ground and hit me. If he does I’m going to let him do it and not resist or fight back. I’m terri-fied of being hurt but Tamoa seems to have a right to hurt me in this case and I’ll have to take my punishment. His revenge will make me clean again.

No, I will fight. I brace myself ready to punch and scratch and bite with everything I’m worth. Yet all he does is rant his haka and let me walk by without laying a finger on me. It’s not until I’m well up the street that he speaks English. “When I’m Prime Minister I’ll cut your fucking throat
e hoa
,” he calls out. I walk on. He calls louder. “I asked what onions are
e hoa
. When a whole lot of horis stick their cockos in a girl. My cousin says they piss on them too and pour petrol on them if they don’t like them and flick matches,
e hoa
. I’m getting my cousin to do that to your mother. The Mongrel Mob are coming to onion your mother.”

Tamoa isn’t at school the next day or the next day. I want to plead with him, give him cigarettes and a bottle of beer I’ve stolen from the Private Bar and stashed in the for-climbing-up tree. I want to be friends again and have him promise the Mongrel Mob will never onion Heels. But Mrs Quigley says, “I’m afraid he’s been wagging. Don’t you bother your head about that sorry case.”

I must warn Heels. The Mongrel Mob’s coming to onion her. But that would mean revealing why they’re coming, that I was the real stone-thrower. I must protect her. But I can’t protect her all day, when I’m at school. Some job I did protecting the stairs from
one
denim hori, let alone a whole gang.

Now is my chance to speak up. Heels and Winks are standing at the foot of my bed. It’s one of my growth-spurt days, almost noon. I lie beneath the blankets, sweaty, an ache in my head, ears crackling when I swallow. They want to have a word. It can’t be about the phone box—I’ve learned my lesson and always return my tray of dregs to the Private Bar sink however woozy I might be. It must be the cigarettes and bottle of beer I stole for Tamoa. There is an especially severe clench to Winks’ face. His dark, deep-set eyes have narrowed to slits. Heels’ jaw is jutting, she’s building up to her sucking and scratching stage. It’s not a good time to speak up, I sense. I sit hugging the blankets over my knees.

“You never told us you fell off your bike,” says Winks. I’m relieved. Yes, I did fall off my bike on the way to elocution at Mrs Daley’s. My cardboard case that carries my recital poems toppled from its perch between the handlebars and somehow lodged in the front wheel spokes. This jammed the bike and flipped me through the air onto the road. No harm done. The spokes were a bit bent but I straightened them.

“We understand you were very upset,” Winks continues. Yes, I suppose I was upset. I got a shock, I tell him. Just a shock that’s all.

“
That’s all
, he says,” snarls Heels.

“I’ll handle this,” snaps Winks, cutting her off. He glares at me. “Upset enough that when a perfectly decent woman, a Mrs …”

“Pritchard,” prompts Heels.

“Pritchard offers to help you to your feet and dust you off, you …” His temper is blazing in his face. “You shout at her to f …”

Heels holds up her hand to prevent him uttering the word. Winks’ cheeks swell with holding his breath until he can think of an alternative word.

“To … to … intercourse off.”

It’s true. Sprawled on the road in front of a few old ladies, embarrassed, I said it. I think about calling the old woman a liar. If this Mrs Pritchard was a hori I might get away with it, but Heels and Winks wouldn’t be so angry in the first place if she was hori. Instead I sputter that it was a spur-of-the-moment mistake and I’ll never do it again. Heels sucks and scratches that I most certainly
won’t
do it again. For half an hour she’s been on the phone to Mrs Pritchard apologising for my disgusting behaviour, behaviour that I never learned from her, a lack of manners, a foul mouth and lack of common courtesy. When she thinks of the sacrifices she and Winks have made for me, slaving their guts out in a hotel with hori animals just to give me a future, only to be rewarded like this, to be let down and disappointed like this.

She nods to Winks and he removes his belt, drawing it from his trouser hoops like a bendy sword the way he’s done in the past. But this time there’s none of his theatrical tap-tapping of the belt on his open hand as a warning. He mutters, “Jesus bloody Christ, I’ll teach you a thing or two.” His face quakes with temper like I’ve only seen it do when he and Charlie Carmichael clip the winter coats from his horses and they won’t stand still in their stall so he flogs them with the clipper cord till they snort and pant in terri-fied submission.

He claws up a fistful of blankets and flings them from me. He orders me to “roll over, roll over” and when I won’t do as he says he hooks his fingers in my pyjama-pant elastics and lifts and spins me onto my stomach, pulls the elastic down at the same time to expose my buttocks. The elastic breaks. My pyjama pants rip like paper.

I flick myself off the bed and shimmy under it for protection. The springs sag and squeak from Winks diving across to try and tackle me. Now he’s on his knees groping for a hold of me in the dusty narrowness. I shuffle away from his grasp into the open field of the room where Heels sucks and scratches for me to be still and take the medicine that’s coming to me. She snatches at my arms but I wriggle free, crying, crying how sorry I am and I’ll never swear again. Sorry’s not going to help me now, Heels juts, bear-hugging me onto the bed. I butt her breasts with the back of my head, kick backwards into her shins. I sink my teeth into her forearm. She squeals, releases her grip and bursts into tears, disowning and cursing me for fighting back. “He’s bitten me. Your son has bitten me,” she shows Winks. This sends him into a frenzy with the belt. He whips my arse and legs. He forces my face into the sheets to stop me reaching around and catching the belt mid-air. I almost jerk it away from him but all this does is work the buckle loose from inside his hand. When he starts whipping again it’s the buckle that makes contact with a rhythmic slap-clink. A sting-burn-numbness ricochets into the bottom of my spine and down to my big toes. I slide my head sideways. My eye meets Winks’ eye. His arm freezes like a man about to throw a ball. He’s heaving to catch his breath. Sweat-drops hang from his nose and top lip. His eyes water suddenly and his chin twitches. He bares his teeth and brings his arm down once, twice, three, four, five times, not hitting me, but letting off blows into the mattress beside me.