Uncle Aaron could not stop Georgina getting a message to me though. She telephoned from a neighbour’s house just before all the guests were due to go down to the marae for the birthday feast.

  ‘I’m sorry I won’t be able to come to your birthday. I would love to, but if I do I have to come alone, and I can’t leave Makareti with … him. I rang you to wish you all the best.’

  I could hear Makareti crying down the phone.

  ‘You were right to warn me,’ Georgina said.

  The evening was lovely and warm, with just enough of a breeze to take the heat off the day. The whānau had pitched in, helping to elevate the party to one of those family occasions that would long be remembered as one of the best ever. The marae was strung with lightbulbs and the dining hall was festooned with balloons and streamers. When Mum and Dad and my friends walked through the door I was surprised to see my uncles and aunties arrayed in their evening finery preparing to give us a rousing welcome.

  ‘Karangatia rā! Karangatia rā! Pōwhiritia rā, ngā iwi o te motu!’

  Anthony turned to me, ‘Wow,’ he said, ‘what a wonderful family.’

  I am sorry to say that my cynicism had the best of me. ‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘We put on a good show.’ It was just that they caught me unawares with their obvious tribute to me, singing and dancing as if their reputation depended on it. Was I wrong about them? In all the years I was growing up in their bosom, was I the one who was dysfunctional and not them? Had I made the effort to know them, really get to know them?

  I looked at my parents. Although my father had never said he loved me, Isaac Senior was standing up tall and as proud as a soldier. My mother has always been sentimental. There she was, gripping onto Dad’s arm, looking at him as if to say, ‘See? See how the whānau honours our son?’

  The celebration proceeded. We sat down to a huge birthday feast. Tray after tray of food came out of the kitchen and Auntie Hera wobbled regularly to my side in newly purchased high-heels to ask, ‘Is the kai all right, nephew?’ The mutton, chicken and fish were brought in from the earth oven and, unaccustomed as I was to Māori gesture, I managed a fair enough thumbs-up sign to Uncle Horomona. During the dinner the usual speeches were presented: the ones from Uncle Hōhepa and Rāwiri were filled with heroic memories of myself that I couldn’t remember — perhaps they had mistaken me for somebody else. Anthony told stories of riotous evenings when we had gone on the town, proving I was just as bad a bloke as everybody else in the dining room. Mr Fox rescued my reputation by praising Mum and Dad for having a son of whom great things were expected.

  The highlight came when Dad presented me with a huge silver key with glittering ribbons tied to it. ‘Son, you are now an adult,’ he said. ‘Open the doorway to adulthood and go through.’

  All the while, in my mind I was pleading for him, ‘Say it, say it, Dad, despite my disability say that you love me.’ He never did.

  I made a suitable reply. I realised that occasions like birthdays were really opportunities to say not only ‘We want to honour you’ but also ‘We want to tell you how sorry we are for any mis-deeds between us. It’s time to move on.’ Birthdays were times of forgiveness as well as unity. I thanked Mum and Dad and the family for the occasion. I apologised for my long absences from everyone but assured them that I always knew where I belonged. I forgot all the skeletons in the family cupboard and, instead, dwelt on the good memories.

  My uncles and aunts sighed with relief at my diplomacy. For one night, at least, I could eat crow and be a good and obedient son of the whānau.

  It was just before dawn, a few hours after Mum and Dad, Felicity, Anthony, Mr Fox and I had managed to make our tipsy way home, that I was suddenly woken up by a sharp, loud sound. I was puzzled by it, listened for it again, and tried to get back to sleep. But the telephone rang and I saw the light switch on in the hallway as Dad answered it. He came to my bedroom.

  ‘Something’s happening over at Aaron’s and Georgina’s,’ he said. ‘We better get over there.’

  My heart filled with dread. Dad was already backing the car out of the garage. I dressed quickly and joined him. We sped along the road and turned in at Uncle Aaron’s driveway. As we were approaching the house, Auntie Hera appeared in the headlights — she was the one who had telephoned. She was in her dressing gown and she waved us down.

  ‘It’s Georgina,’ she said to Dad. ‘I think she’s shot our brother. She’s got his rifle and won’t let anyone in the house.’

  A few other people from the village had gathered with torch lights. Among them was Uncle Horomona; he was talking to Georgina through the front door.

  ‘Go away,’ she called. ‘Don’t anybody try to come in.’

  I was out of the car in a flash. ‘Georgina? It’s me.’

  ‘Isaac?’ The door opened a little, and the muzzle of the rifle poked through.

  ‘Let’s rush her,’ Uncle Horomona said.

  ‘No,’ I answered with as much force as I could muster — and Uncle Horomona stepped back. ‘Georgina will talk to me. Don’t anybody make a move until I come back out. Is that understood?’

  I walked up to the door. Georgina opened it further, smiled, and said, ‘Isaac, I knew you would come.’ Makareti was beside her, hugging her mother around the knees. ‘Will you take Makareti out? And then return to me?’ She kissed Makareti. ‘Stop crying now, darling. Go with Uncle Isaac.’

  I took Makareti and gave her to Auntie Hera. ‘Oh, thank God that the baby is unharmed,’ she said.

  When I went back to the house, Georgina let me in, locked the door behind us, and took me to the main bedroom. She looked as if she hadn’t slept for weeks; she had dark circles under her eyes and her face was filled with fatigue. Uncle Aaron was lying in the bed, still alive, his chest bloodied from a bullet wound. He was breathing hoarsely, his eyes wide with fear.

  ‘Get help,’ he whispered. ‘Get help for me. I don’t want to die.’

  Georgina patted his hand. ‘There, there, Dad.’ Then she looked up at me. ‘Will you stay with me, Isaac?’ she asked. ‘Dad’s been interfering with Makareti, and he has to pay.’ Her eyes were burning with purpose. ‘I’m so tired, cousin, and I want to sleep. But I have to wait until he has gone from this life. Will you wait with me?’

  ‘Of course, cousin,’ I answered.

  So, we waited. Uncle Aaron tried to get out of bed; Georgina restrained him. He pleaded with her, sobbing for forgiveness, but she only nodded her head and settled him down again.

  Outside I heard more cars arriving, car doors slamming, and raised voices. ‘What’s going on? What’s happening?’ People were banging loudly on the door. They would soon break it down.

  Then Uncle Aaron stilled. I took his pulse. I nodded to Georgina, ‘He’s gone.’

  She closed her eyes and, with strange tenderness, kissed both his cheeks. She gave a deep sigh and, before I could stop her, slammed the rifle butt between her feet, bent her chest over the barrel, reached down for the trigger and pressed it. The sound was shockingly loud in the room. The smell of cordite was acrid. I heard the front door cracking open. Dad and Uncle Horomona burst into the room.

  I caught Georgina as she fell. ‘No, Georgina!’

  ‘Promise me you will look after Makareti,’ she said.

  ‘I promise.’

  There was blood everywhere, and gouts of blood were coming out of Georgina’s mouth every time she exhaled. ‘Nobody is to know the secret. Promise me.’

  She gave a huge gasp and her eyes started to flicker. ‘Oh cousin, if I go to hell will you come to get me?’

  The sun burst across the hills.

  5.

  And now Sefulu and I turn off the motorway into South Auckland.

  It’s the Māori and Pasifika part of the city. Sometimes Makareti loves to bring me and the boys here to the Ōtara Market before letting us loose at Rainbow’s End. ‘Time you had a walk on the wild side,’ she likes to tease me. ‘Get you out of Hernia Bay or Ponsnobby or Gay Lynn and among real live mean-as people.’

  Makareti forgets that I have visited quite a few dangerous neighbourhoods in my time: black shantytowns in Johannesburg, Hispanic hotspots in Los Angeles, slums in Rio de Janeiro — and to prove that I’m not colourblind, I’ve also been in the middle of white supremacists’ riots in Hamburg.

  South Auckland’s reputation is unfair, though. There are good people here.

  However, there are also people like Whaea Hera and her boys.

  ‘It’s the grey house, isn’t it, Mr Tairāwhiti?’ Sefulu asks. He has turned into a cul-de-sac and is pointing at the third house in the crescent. I own the house: when Auntie Hera decided to leave the village and come to Auckland to stay with her daughter and that hopeless gang of crims her daughter supports — her tattooed freak of a husband, Bojangles, and her two sons Ace and Rooter — they had no place to stay. I bought them the house as part of my — let’s call it — lay-by arrangement to keep Hera in line on family matters. Well, she has just welshed on the deal.

  Sefulu pulls in at the kerb. For a moment I sit there, having another of my headaches, wondering about my aunt’s viciousness. What did she say to Talia?

  ‘Time for the showdown,’ I say to Sefulu. I take a deep breath, open the door of the car and step out. I see the front curtains open and Hera’s face looking out the window. I hear her yell to Ace and Rooter. Quickly I give Sefulu his instructions: ‘I want you to go to the front door. Hera will have her two boys blocking the way. But if I know her, she’ll try to get out the back. You keep the boys occupied while I deal to her.’

  Sefulu and I walk quickly to the front door. ‘What the fuck do you want?’ Rooter asks. Sefulu diverts their attention while I walk as fast as I can to the backyard. I am just in time. The door opens and Hera steps out, a lumbering antiquity, making for the garage, fumbling with the keys to her car.

  ‘Going somewhere?’ I ask her. I put out my cane and, with a yelp, she trips over it and falls on her driveway. I take my cane and give her a good hard belt on her big arse, oh, it feels so good to hear her cry out.

  ‘I want to know every venomous word you spat at my granddaughter, you disgusting old bitch.’

  ‘Talia’s never been your granddaughter,’ Hera answers with surprising spirit.

  ‘Wrong answer,’ I say to her, and I give her another whack, this time across her kidneys.

  Aunt Hera groans but this time she is not so defiant. She’s looking around for her two boys, where the fuck are they? Then, ‘I told Talia everything.’

  ‘Everything?’ Another stroke of my cane across her face keeps her in submission. ‘Did you tell her about Uncle Aaron?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And the night Georgina killed him?’

  ‘She’s heard the rumours,’ Hera spits back. ‘She’s a big girl, she can put two and two together all by herself. She doesn’t need me or anybody else to join the dots.’

  I lean against the house and watch as Hera gets up. I leave her there and walk back to the car. Seeing me, Sefulu stops belting into Ace and Rooter. Hera is not finished yet though. She has one last lot of venom to spit out, ‘That girl was always too whakahīhī,’ she yells. ‘Always showing off how educated she is. She needed to be brought down a peg or two. Somebody had to tell her that she has tainted blood. She’s not as good as the rest of us and she never will be. She’s lucky that the sin doesn’t show in her …’

  ‘The sin is yours, Hera, for not stopping Uncle Aaron from committing incest.’

  ‘She better watch out — it will come out in her own kids if she has any. Or in their kids. Sooner or later …’

  Sefulu has to restrain me from going back and killing her.

  ‘I’m giving you to the end of the week to get the fuck out of my house, Hera. You, your daughter, her husband, your grandsons, go find another rock to crawl under.’

  The mess — there was a lot of it following the night and day Georgina killed Uncle Aaron.

  Of course, she was vilified in the press. After all, hadn’t she shown her guilt by killing herself?

  There was a police inquiry of course; I delayed my trip to Canada to give evidence at the inquest. In Makareti’s interests, the incest was hushed up.

  The judge awarded custody of Makareti to my parents — Dad being the second son after Aaron. My mother soon came to delight in the task. After the whole affair had quietened down I took Makareti to visit Georgina’s grave. While we were sitting there, digging the earth so that Makareti could plant her daisies and daffodils, I kept thinking about what to do about my promises to Georgina concerning Makareti’s parentage and keeping everything secret.

  The answer was simple. I spoke to Mum and Dad and they agreed. I then spoke to my extended whānau and, although there were some voices in dissent, particularly those of Auntie Leah and Auntie Hera, the consensus ruled.

  I became Makareti’s father. In the family whakapapa, Makareti’s line shows that I am her dad and Georgina is her mother, and that my parents are her grandparents. I’ve managed to erase Uncle Aaron in the same way he had tried to erase my cousin Georgina when he took her ‘to wife’.

  I never married. While I am attracted to women and have the occasional affair, I am really not the kind of man that women marry.

  Later.

  It is ten minutes to seven and I am back in my house, expecting Talia. I think of her grandmother, my cousin Georgina. There’s a room two inches behind the eyes where all my memories are kept. For as long as I live, Georgina will always inhabit that room, safe from the world, safe from pain.

  Showered and shaved, I am dressed in a blazer and dark trousers. I’ve spoken to Makareti again and reassured her that my meeting with Talia will go well. Makareti has asked if I want to take Huey, Dewey and Louie to Rainbow’s End this weekend. I remember a previous weekend when a man came up to me and Makareti and complimented us on the family. Huey was puzzled. ‘We’re just a normal family like everybody else, aren’t we Mum? Aren’t we, Pāpā?’

  Oh, there did come a time when Makareti was in her teens that somebody whispered to her, just like Auntie Hera has whispered to Talia — perhaps it was Hera that time also — that her family history was a lie. I can remember Makareti coming crying and wailing to me, just as Talia will be doing soon.

  When it happened, I recalled the story of Hine-tītama, Girl of the Dawn, whose mother had been made of clay. She grew up a very beautiful young woman and Tāne, her father, desired her. He made her his wife and in the fullness of time, she bore children.

  But Hine-tītama wanted to know her lineage, or whakapapa, so that she could tell her children — they represented the first tribes of humankind. She knew who her mother was but she didn’t know who her father was. When she asked Tāne, he was evasive. In the end she turned to the birds of the forest for the answer and they told her, ‘Ask the posts of the house.’

  The Māori meeting house is a world of its own. It has a head which you see when you approach from the outside and, when you enter, you are within the body of the house. You are literally within the stomach of the tribal ancestor who begat the tribe and with whom the tribe is associated. There are a number of carved posts which support the structure of the meeting house; the main ones are the poutokomanawa, the heart post, and the poutāhuhu, the ridge post. In the old days, the pou, which also included the wall posts, were said to be living, sacred, able to talk.

  When Hine-tītama entered the whare she put her question to the posts of the house: ‘Who is my father?’ The first post answered, ‘Tāne the husband is also Tāne the father.’ Hine-tītama would not believe the response so she asked the second post. Again the reply came back, ‘Tāne is both the father and the husband.’ Still she wouldn’t believe the answer. She therefore asked every post of the house, and when they all responded, ‘Tāne, Tāne, Tāne,’ she realised the truth.

  Hine-tītama was the first of all women of the world to take the blame upon herself; not the man but the woman. She was overwhelmed with shame. She was not worthy to stay in the overworld, the world of light. But she also had her children to consider. How could she save them from guilt? She resolved that she had to leave and go to the underworld, Te Pō, the world below. There, within the womb of Papa, the Earth Mother, she could find sanctuary and, possibly, prepare her children for their redemption.

  By means of a powerful karakia, Hine-tītama therefore weakened Tāne so that he would not follow her. Once he was incapacitated, she hastened to Rarohenga. At the entrance to the underworld she was confronted by the guard, Kūwatawata, who told her, ‘Turn back, turn back before it is too late. If you enter here you will never be able to return.’

  Still, Hine-tītama knew she had to go onward.

  When Tāne arose from sleep and realised what she had done, he managed to reach her just before she turned to enter the underworld. Weeping, he said, ‘Please don’t go.’

  Her words to him? They were of love and of sacrifice. ‘Haere atu, Tāne. Hāpaia ngā tamariki i te Ao. Go back, husband and father. Go back to the light and raise our children. Then, when they grow old and die, let me lovingly gather them in.’

  Hine-tītama achieved her transcendence. She became Hinenuitepō, which some have translated as ‘The Goddess of Death’. I say to you, look to the literal translation of her name: just as the full name of Tāne is Tānenuiārangi, Great Father of the Overworld, let us acknowledge Hinenuitepō’s nurturing role as Great Mother of the Underworld. Hers is the redemptive role and it is through her that we achieve forgiveness.