Free Kokopu Dreams by Chris Baker Page A

their stream, in winter flood, had broken its banks and formed a small lake in the middle of the ornamental beds. Further up the road, a private hotel stood in the midst of herbaceous ruin. Inside the open door of the Pentecostal church next door, rain blowing in had lifted the lino, and tracts were scattered about. Outside on the glass-covered notice board ten-centimetre-high letters spelled out IT’S NOT TOO LATE.
    Half a kilometre on, Sean turned left, passing the dairy factory, for years notorious for a regular discharge of protein-rich waste into the nearby stream. Periodically small boys had been photographed for the local paper staggering under the weight of a giant eel — taller than them and thick as a man’s thigh from the regular dairy food diet. Somebody had driven a milk tanker through the glass frontage of the factory office. It sat there, stainless steel glinting in the sun, looking as if it was being excreted by the building. Paper from the office leaked through the shattered wall, and inert power lines were draped across the back of the immobile machine.
    Just up the road from the factory was the marae. Smoke curled thinly from the chimney as it had no doubt done for decades while meals were cooked for visitors. Sean remembered the steady stream of people uprooted from their rural havens and resettled in Whangarei so they could work in the area’s new factories, making glass and cement, bagging fertiliser and tending railway rolling stock. Te Rina and Sean used to help with the annual Christmas dinner, when the marae hosted two or three hundred of Whangarei’s pensioners. Twice, cousin Joe and Sean had done a hangi, out at Pukepoto, driving the steaming baskets into town. They’d cooked chicken, pork, legs of mutton, treats like terotero, puddings, vegetables and bags of stuffing fragrant with herbs. There was kanga wai, teroi and bowls of raw fish, kina roe and marinated kutai for the old folk familiar with such delicacies. The young people had waited on the tables and entertained with song and dance. Local churches had helped with the transport and even politicians, local and national, had been permitted to make a brief appearance and escape unscathed, protected by a traditional goodwill.
    Sean wasn’t in the least surprised to find the marae occupied. It felt the same as it always had, warm and comfortable, a substantial and enduring oasis with a life of its own. To him the marae existed in its own time at its own pace, and it wasn’t any different now.
    Two old women sat outside the wharenui enjoying the sun as he approached. They looked up at the sound of Bojay’s hooves.
    â€˜Kia ora!’ Sean called out, dismounting as he approached. They both stood and the three of them hongi’d, the old women’s skin like rice paper, warm and soft and smelling of lavender when he kissed their cheeks.
    â€˜You took your time,’ one of them said. ‘But you’re here now. Is everything alright?’ She gave Sean the sort of piercing look that he knew would leave him flayed, exposed, if he had anything to hide.
    â€˜Everything’s fine, Auntie,’ he said. Who was she? What did she know?
    â€˜I’m Mihi. This is my friend Sophie. And you’re Sean. Where on earth did you get a name like that, by the way?’
    Sean had been around enough to know that conversations with elderly people were often like chess games, innocent remarks hiding unfathomable motives and leading to unimaginable ends. Words were often the crudest and least eloquent form of communication. So he tried to appear impassive, knowing that his involuntary reaction had probably already given her the answer to a question she hadn’t even asked yet.
    â€˜You’ll be staying the night,’ she said to him. ‘There’s a paddock around the back for your horse.’
    He wasn’t going to argue. Curiosity and the thought of a shared meal easily overcame his desire