‘For most of you – and I can’t see many Polynesians among you – this will be your introduction to Māori and other Pacific cultures …’

  ‘I like that reference, doctor, I hope your suntan goes all the way into your ihi!’ … Laura continued her pretence she was not listening to any of her neighbour’s bold challenges to their permanently suntanned lecturer, but was enjoying and savouring and admiring, fully, all of it.

  Dr Matangi, after distributing copies of the course description, a list of prescribed texts and a detailed and lengthy reading list, spent most of that session explaining that material and answering a few questions from the first-year students who were still intimidated by the indifferent, hostile, threatening atmosphere of the university. While he was doing that, the princess continued voicing her ‘hopes for and expectations of Dr Matangi of the Ngāti Whātua and his course’, skillfully and poetically. Why Laura did it and why at that junction, and with someone who obviously didn’t give a shit about her or any other unsuntanned member of their class, she was never able to figure out. But she took out her pad and, with her black ballpoint, printed a note: ‘HI, MY NAME IS LAURA + I DON’T KNOW ANYONE IN THIS COURSE,’ and pushed it, cautiously, towards her neighbour, feeling absolutely vulnerable exposing herself like that and expecting to be trampled on for doing so. She dared not look up at her possible tormenter, her ears ringing, her belly thumping. A long, slender-fingered hand with a silver ring on the middle finger eased into her view, fingers closing round her pen, which it withdrew, and, in quick circular movements, scrawled beneath her note: ‘Hi, Laura, my ingoa is Mere, and I don’t want to know anyone on this course, except you because you’re not scared of me.’ Laura’s masochistic dread drained away rapidly, to be replaced by upsurging, healing relief, and she wanted to know Mere, know her as a friend without boundaries, hesitations and conditions.

  ‘... You going to pay for the coffee?’ Mere said, voice tingling with mischief, as they hurried out of the theatre before the other students got up.

  ‘Suppose I should, since I introduced my pale self to you first,’ she replied. They laughed, on and off, as they headed for the café in the Student Union building. Blocked momentarily by a surge of students rushing towards them, Laura took another risk. ‘Mere, when you first demanded the seat next to me, I thought you’d come straight out of Europe’s dream of the Noble Savage.’

  ‘No, not savage – savageress!’ They laughed some more. ‘And I’m not going to miss a session with our handsome Ngāti Whātua doctor of the suntanned body – and heart.’

  ‘Me neither!’

  There were not many customers in the café yet, and it was overly warm, so they took off their coats and draped them over the backs of their seats before going to the counter, Laura sensing acutely – she’d acquired that extra sensitivity (or was it ESP?) while surviving in the cupboard – that Mere, who wasn’t aware of it, wore an almost visible aura of what her mother had called magical and dangerous emanations, which immediately attracted the inquisitive attention, respect and admiration of most people in her presence, and sometimes caused fear, envy, wariness and suspicion among others. For instance, at the counter, the bony young waitress, with spiked black Mohawk hair, automatically ignored Laura and, beaming as if she was fortunate to be in Mere’s presence, asked her politely what she wanted to order. ‘Flat white and a tomato and ham toasted sandwich, please,’ Mere replied.

  ‘Single latte, not too much froth, and a blueberry muffin,’ Laura added. ‘And I’m paying.’

  ‘Yeah, my Pākehā mate is paying,’ Mere said, and the young waitress thanked her, and, without looking at Laura, accepted the money from her.

  Walking back to their table, Laura reconfirmed, to herself, that it had little to do with Mere’s commanding height and physical beauty and haughty manner. She just had it and wasn’t aware of it – and that added to her ‘mystique’.

  She’d anticipated – and was anxious about it – that Mere would not be accessible but, as soon as they were seated, Mere, with elbows on the table and long woven hands bridged under her chin, gazed directly at her and admitted, ‘I was annoyed by your intrusive move because I don’t normally mix with – with other students.’

  ‘You mean, Pākehā, eh?’ Laura interrupted her, but she continued.

  ‘… but you were so open …’

  ‘You mean, rude and foolish?’

  ‘… I had to reply,’ Mere ended. ‘And you’re now paying for being so open.’ Right then their order arrived and the Mohawked waitress smiled at Mere and ignored Laura altogether. ‘Besides, I sense you’re different.’

  ‘In what way different?’ Laura immediately asked.

  ‘Are you always that direct?’ Mere asked. Surprised, puzzled by Mere’s question, Laura struggled to accept Mere’s description of her. ‘See, you don’t even know you’re direct.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right. I’ve always thought of myself as being timidly diplomatic and guarded, afraid of people.’

  ‘You’re like my mother. She has no sense of diplomacy or guile, and sees into people. Scary sometimes what she comes out with.’ She paused, and then informed Laura that she was Mere Handsend and lived with her mother and brother and sister in Freeman’s Bay, labelled ‘a slum’ by the media. But where did they expect poor people to live – in Remuera? They laughed about that.

  Laura then informed her – and she’d realise later it was the first time she’d ever told anyone about her childhood – she was from New Plymouth, where she’d been raised by her grandmother and mother who, suffering from mental illness, had been driven ultimately by her relentless dragon demons into an asylum, where she’d committed suicide. Her grandmother had died two years later from lung cancer – she smoked forty a day – and Laura found herself a ‘ward of the state’, an orphan; and so began her battle to survive her many foster families.

  ‘See what I mean, Laura? I’m a stranger and you’ve just told me the secrets of your childhood.’

  ‘Yes, I wanted to; I meant to,’ Laura said. ‘You’re the first person I’ve told.’

  ‘Thank you, Laura,’ Mere said softly. For a quiet, contented while they drank and ate their food.

  The café filled quickly; a male student came over and asked Mere for the two empty seats at their table. Mere glanced at Laura and said to the student, ‘Ask my friend here: the seats are for her dragon demons.’ The puzzled, annoyed student turned to Laura.

  ‘Yes, and they’re invisible, and will be ferocious if you try to remove them from their thrones,’ Laura said, seriously, and meaning it. The student straightened up, his large frame looming threateningly over Laura. ‘If ya don’t believe me, try and take the chairs, mate.’

  ‘Just try, they’ll bite ya valuables off!’ For a burning instant, he stared down at Mere, who returned his violent gaze, then he wavered, his eyes sliding away in defeat, and he lumbered off.

  Laura held the backs of the two chairs and, through the crowd, dragged them over to the defeated student’s table, where she bowed to him and his friends, and said, ‘My dragons don’t need them any more.’

  ‘Thanks,’ the student said, relieved she’d saved his face.

  ‘You’re a tough orphan,’ Mere whispered, when she returned, and they chortled, but tried to hide that from the student and his friends.

  ‘Yeah, tougher than Oliver Twist!’ Laura said.

  They each had lectures at 11 am, so when they got out of the café, they agreed to meet at their next lecture and sit together and then have coffee afterwards.

  Laura had not had a sister, so she couldn’t say if her feelings for Mere were like those between loving sisters; she’d not had similar relations with other women before Mere, so she didn’t know what that was like; she’d had crushes on two boys at primary school and then, at high school, on her handsome maths teacher, but this was nothing like that. Beginning at high school, she’d had very sexual, sometimes unbelievably lust-filled and mind-blowing relationships with many men and a few women – she’d been celibate for the last year. But there was none of that here, though she found Mere physically the most beautiful human being she’d ever known; and, in the language of her mother, this wasn’t ‘a spell’ Mere or some trickster shaman had cast over her. This was new, exhilaratingly new, and she trusted it and would let herself go with it to wherever it led her.

  Three weeks later, after their late Thursday afternoon lecture, when she was suffering a slight cold and cough, Mere invited her to have ‘a whiskey or two to cure her cold’ with some of her friends at Shadows, the bar in the top floor of the Student Union Building, and she agreed readily. She’d been to Shadows a few times before with John, a member of her previous year’s history class, who was obviously vying for more than a drink with her. At first she’d been interested, but had, with definitive finality, ended it when he’d emailed her and, with pornographic aggression, detailed his ‘dimensions’ and how he could therefore give her the greatest multiple orgasms she’d ever had.

  A torrent of cigarette smoke and the heavy smell of beer and alcohol rushed against them as soon as they entered the dimly lit bar. Her eyes adjusted quickly as she followed Mere across the room, weaving their way through tables noisy with groups of students, Mere ignoring all the suggestive greetings and obvious lascivious examination of her body. They dared not touch her though, Laura noted.

  There were four of them, one giant Pākehā man and three Polynesians, at the corner of the room around a raised table. One of them, who wore the face of a young Al Pacino and a stained green corduroy shirt and worn Levi’s jeans, jumped to his feet, and bowing, greeted them, ‘Hail, Mary, Mother of Māui!’ Mere hongi-ed him.

  ‘Yeah, Mary, Mother of Māui, Mighty is thy Beauty!’ the other three chorused.

  ‘Fuck you, guys, for that blasphemy, you’re buying Laura and me some whiskey to cure our colds,’ Mere greeted them.

  ‘You got a swish looking friend there,’ the giant Pākehā said, reaching over and shaking Laura’s hand, gently. ‘Keith’s ma name.’

  ‘And her name’s Laura,’ Mere said. ‘And Laura, this silly guy is Aaron’. Laura reached forward and shook hands with the Al Pacino double. ‘Watch him all the time, Laura, he thinks he’s irresistible to women.’

  ‘Not irresistible, sis, just a harmless bachelor who just wants to hold a caring wahine’s hand!’ In one quick illuminating instant, Laura glimpsed Aaron’s scary depths of intelligence and cunning and ability to read people and situations in all their complexities and frailty – and that he was expert at disguising that, and she decided (and there was no fear) she had to be wary of him.

  Mere then introduced Paul and Daniel, who shook her hand politely and then fenced her out at the edge of their circle and talked to Mere. She was pleased when she didn’t suffer any feelings of rejection; in fact, as they joked and laughed and drank after getting her a whiskey, she preferred to stay at the edge, observing their circle, with Mere at the centre, and every time Mere pulled her into the circle she stayed until they forgot her – and that didn’t take long, and then she moved to the edge again, a position she valued after adjusting her whole self to it in order to survive her foster families and institutions. Not seen, not felt, not heard, forgotten, you were out of reach of their abusive attention, safe at the edge. And because she didn’t yet know Mere’s four male friends well, it was best to be at the edge. She knew Mere would bring her more and more into their circle when she knew it was safe, welcoming.

  As they talked and drank and then, surreptitiously, lit and passed round a joint, one of Laura’s favourite ‘relaxations’, she gathered they were all finishing bachelor’s degrees in various fields: Aaron in chemistry, Keith in education, Paul in history and Daniel in English. They also lived near one another in Freeman’s Bay, and their families had known one another since the five of them had met on their first day at primary school. Terrific achievement, she sighed, sucking the joint; how many people can maintain that length of friendship and loyalty? She had no idea what large families were like – she’d not been part of one or known any. And this was not a biological family or a group of one ethnicity; no, this was a combination of Māori, Niuean, Samoan and Pākehā, and that was also new to her.

  ‘Hey, Laura, you having a good time curing your cold?’ Aaron broke into her thoughts.

  She nodded and couldn’t stop grinning, which made them laugh.

  Mere offered her another joint; she shook her head furiously, but Mere said: ‘Don’t worry; there’s plenty more where that came from.’

  ‘Yeah, mate, Aaron’s the King of Dope in this bar.’ Daniel, for the first time, spoke to her.

  ‘And I’ll take ya home if ya get too fucked up,’ Mere whispered.

  Laura’s eyes clicked open and her panicking consciousness was again snared in the black featureless darkness of her childhood; automatically she gulped back the scream surging up from her gullet, and clenched her eyes shut, again. Don’t panic; breath slowly, in, out, in, out … All of her started feeling safe. Now, open your eyes again. The darkness, the feel and look and smell of it, was definitely not her bedroom, not her flat. The sheet and soft blanket not hers. She’d not been here before. She was wearing a white t-shirt much too big for her and one of those floral things PIs wore round their waists. Quietly she searched for the switch of the lamp on her bedside table. Click, the light rolled like a wave across the room and brought into view the bed opposite, and a sleeping face jutting above the blankets and contoured by long black hair, facing her. Mere. She realised she’d drunk and smoked too much, recalled her eyelids feeling heavier and heavier, her speech slurring against her wishes, her body disobeying her instructions, Mere catching and holding her up, then – was it Daniel? – holding her other arm. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ she kept saying as they carried her … She switched off the bedside lamp, snuggled deeper into the bedding and, facing Mere across the room, let the darkness draw her into its healing, welcoming embrace. Thank you, Mere, thank you.

  When she woke again, she sensed it was mid-morning, and Mere wasn’t there – her bed was remade neatly – but she’d left her a towel and flannel, a clean black sweatshirt and sports trousers, which she put on; she had to roll up the sleeves and trouser legs but she felt at home in them, in Mere’s clothes; their shape and odour and friendship. Cold and damp in the mildewed corridor as she hurried to the bathroom, she switched on the cold shower, shoved her head under the hard punishing water and held it there until the fuzziness was shocked out of her head. She wrapped the towel round her wet hair and, with toothpaste and cold water, loudly gargled the stench out of her mouth, promising herself she’d never again consume so much whiskey and dope.

  She opened the kitchen door, shyly, and was immediately swamped by the smell of fried bacon and eggs, toast and coffee. ‘Kia ora,’ the woman at the stove, with her back to her, greeted her.

  ‘Good morning,’ she replied.

  ‘Come in and take a seat,’ the woman said, and turned, smiling. ‘Mere’s at her waitressing job: been gone for a couple of hours. I’m her mum.’ About fifty, hair streaked with grey, deep wrinkles round her sad, inquisitive eyes, which were hard to hide from, solid body that anchored her firmly to the earth.

  Laura slipped into the nearest seat. ‘I’m Laura,’ she said hesitantly.

  Mere’s mother came over and, tonging strips of bacon onto her plate, said, ‘You two were really plastered when you came home last night. Dan had to help both of you into the house.’ Nothing judgmental in her remarks. She scooped two fried eggs onto Laura’s plate, then some fried tomatoes. ‘It’s good Mere doesn’t get hangovers. Do you?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Laura replied. ‘Not this morning though.’

  ‘Lucky, eh?’ Mere’s mother said. ‘I’ve given up the booze because my poor head can’t take any more of the hangovers. I get awful migraines too.’ She put some food onto her plate and sat down opposite Laura. ‘By the way, my name’s Mahina, but all Mere’s friends call me Hina or Auntie. You choose which one. Okay?’ Laura nodded eagerly. ‘I don’t believe in the Christian bullshit but, in my whānau, we still say karakia.’ She stopped and looked quizzically, amused, at Laura.

  ‘Yes, I’m an atheist,’ Laura admitted for the first time to anyone.

  Mahina closed her eyes and, in a measured, mellifluous and dramatic way, said the karakia in Māori, then opened her eyes and invited Laura to eat. ‘Mere didn’t know where you live so she – or should I say, Dan – brought you (and her) here.’

  ‘Mere and I met only a few weeks ago; we take anthropology together.’

  ‘I thought so,’ Mahina said. ‘I know all her other friends.’ Paused. ‘My choosy daughter doesn’t have many friends.’

  ‘Last night I met Keith and Daniel and …’ She couldn’t remember the others.

  ‘Paul and Aaron,’ Mahina filled in. ‘Yes, they’re joined by the hip, all of them. And through them we, their lucky parents, are joined hip to hip.’

  So for Laura began an utterly open confessional exchange of information about their lives, and when they finished eating, Laura washed the dishes and Mahina dried them, while they continued that exchange, and then Laura put on the huge laundry, following Mahina’s instructions about the quirks and idiosyncrasies of the ancient washing machine, and helped her host clean the kitchen, the bedrooms and bathroom. They were happily cleaning the sitting room when Mere returned with their lunch of restaurant food. As if Laura had always been a member of their whānau, they lunched and continued the captivating, thrilling exchange of information, and Laura listened in on the latest gossip about the neighbourhood, which Mahina referred to affectionately as their ‘tūrangawaewae’. It was late afternoon when Mere reminded her mother of the time.

  ‘Gotta go to work,’ Mahina sighed. She hugged Laura and said, ‘You come any time. No good living on your own all the time, Laura.’ She left for her cleaning job.