Dreamboat Dad Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  PART TWO CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  PART THREE CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME

  Dreamboat Dad

  Alan Duff

  Alan Duff was born in Rotorua in 1950. He has published six previous novels (Once Were Warriors, One Night Out Stealing, What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?, Both Sides of the Moon, Szabad and Jake's Long Shadow), a novella (State Ward ) and three non-fiction works (Maori: The Crisis and the Challenge, Out of the Mist and Steam and Alan Duff's Maori Heroes). Once Were Warriors won the PEN Best First Book Award for Fiction. This and What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? were made into internationally acclaimed films for which he wrote the original screenplays. He works as a full-time writer.

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 978 1869792152

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  Duff, Alan, 1950-

  Dreamboat Dad / Alan Duff.

  ISBN: 978 1869792152

  Version 1.0

  I. Title.

  NZ823.2—dc 22

  A VINTAGE BOOK

  published by

  Random House New Zealand

  18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland, New Zealand

  For more information about our titles go to www.randomhouse.co.nz

  Random House International Random House 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA, United Kingdom; Random House Australia Pty Ltd Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney 2060, Australia; Random House South Africa Pty Ltd Isle of Houghton, Corner Boundary Road and Carse O'Gowrie, Houghton 2198, South Africa; Random House Publishers India Private Ltd 301 World Trade Tower, Hotel Intercontinental Grand Complex, Barakhamba Lane, New Delhi 110 001, India

  First published 2008

  © 2008 Alan Duff

  The moral rights of the author have been asserted

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  Richard Wright's poem 'Between the World and Me' on page 251–2, and the extract on page 238, are reproduced with the kind permission of the Estate of Richard Wright, by special arrangement with Julia Wright. Abel Meeropol's poem 'Strange Fruit', on pages 125 and 130, is reproduced with the kind permission of J Albert & Son.

  Text design: Elin Bruhn Termannsen

  Cover illustration: Diving for Pennies, Whaka, Rotorua, 40456: 2007.98.15, Rotorua Museum of Art and History, Te Whare Taonga o Te Arawa

  Cover design: Matthew Trbuhovic

  In celebration of my African son, Makhosonke Ntokozo Zulu, 1982–2008, who showed us what determination is.

  This one is for Harriet Allan, my editor, friend and harshest critic, to let readers know the line is often blurred between writer and editor. So, with my huge thanks.

  Thanks to Claire Gummer, with her sharp eye and great suggestions.

  To my father Gowan for giving his children a love of the written word.

  My two youngest kids, Virginia and Rosy, who never get a mention.

  To David Moore and Bruce Plested, two friends who backed me.

  The people of Whaka whom I grew up with and will always love.

  Every African American whose sufferings gifted the world with musical genius and a whole lot more besides.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  IT TOOK A FEW TIMES and a few years before it registered what had been said about my mother, that she was a slut and why did I think my name was Yank, surely I would've figured that out? But I hadn't given it much thought, hearing comment of my mother's lowly status to do with sex and somehow linked to the only name I knew and liked.

  A kid doesn't think about his name he just is it, like Chud, Hopscotch, Lulu, Beebop, Manu, Kaipara, Heretini, Ngawai. They're just names aren't they?

  At the time of this revelation I'm a ten-year-old boy called Yank — so what? Is Boyman both a boy and a man? Honeygirl, is she a girl made from honey? My mother calls my best mate Boyboy, does that make him twins? We call him Chud, from the chewing gum we call chuddy. They're all just names. Except when I hear Chud's name, it's like a bell chiming confirmation he's a brother.

  My surname is Takahe, it's official on the school roll. A wonder Henry allowed me to use his name, unless it saved embarrassment with my sisters being his daughters. My siblings are true Takahes, the name of a native bird and a man whose house I live in but who doesn't like me, even though I have a secret liking for him. Sometimes.

  Until I was five and started school, I thought he was my real father who just happened not to like me. Even though my big sister had told me early I wasn't his son. A little kid believes what he wants to believe. How could he be my sister's father and not mine, when we shared the same mother?

  Henry hardly said a word to me, not good morning, not have something to eat, not anything — if you don't count grunts and him using sign language. I never saw his teeth revealed to me in a smile. Not once. I still would have died of joy if he had dropped all that and become a father.

  Mum promised she'd explain: when you're old enough. When five is already too old not to know the reason why. I mean, kids hurt more because they lack understanding.

  Ten years on this earth before my selective
ears will let the word take on meaning. The way the person's mouth forms is enough. Sl-ut. When no mother is supposed to be one of those. Till I woke up I truly believed Mum was Mary, the Holy Mother statue at the Catholic Church up the road. Not Lena, her real name. Not the statue. But the real Mary the statue was modelled on.

  When I was young enough to believe in ghosts and God, I would picture the Virgin Mary in my mind when thinking about my mother: with a glow-ring round her head, a presence full of promise, not a lie to her name, and really beautiful.

  Mary, who kissed me not just goodnight but good morning and hello during the day and just anytime. When she lifted me up I truly believed I played with the glow-ring above her head, that it was shiny, sparkling silver gold and was warm like a tricycle handlebar you've held on to a while.

  I'd hear the word muttered over the years, from older kids, adults. But it was like a fuzzy signal on our crackly old valve radio.

  A slut can't be a wonderful mother. I find out it's a woman who sleeps around, which means taking off her clothes and going at it with a man and his stiff cock in her vagina. Going at what? Well, down there, what every

  kid has growing but shocked awareness about. When they're saying this about your mother you want to die, or kill, or a hole to open in the steaming thermal ground and boil you and your shame away.

  A slut?

  Yeah, didn't you know that, boy?

  A slut? My mother?

  Where your name came from. She did it with a Yank.

  As bad as Chud's mother who's a pisshead and beats her kids up?

  Just as bad. Some men would rather have a drunken missus like Shirl Kohu than a slut.

  I slunk around for a bit, thinking everyone had been laughing at me all these years. Relieved when I found out only the nastier ones in our little village called her that, those with long memories or their imitators. But Mum was never Mother Mary again. Gone was her halo. Though I still adored her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SHORT OF MY MOTHER BEING confirmed to be a lifetime slut, just about nothing could ruin the joy of living here in Waiwera, Two Lakes. Not in one of the world's — the world's — most unique places. And we don't have to have visited countless places to compare. We just know there is only one village in the world sited on a thermally active area the way ours is, the river and the bridge crossing it a big introductory part, our thermal baths, the steaming landscape and fact we're the native people of this country: Maori.

  Our village is a one-off, which is why the tourists come from overseas to gape in awe at our steaming, erupting, boiling acres, and experience our Maori culture groups putting on our songs and dances in a highly professional way. Pay a fee to our women guides to tour them over our amazing landscape; guides who give a well-practised commentary on the different thermal manifestations. Tell of victims over the years who have fallen into pools and been boiled alive; inform of the tribal history and how an eruption in 1886 of a mountain twenty-five miles away brought the survivors to take up residence here, on the same fault line that the huge Tarawera eruption broke through, completely destroyed what was called the Eighth Wonder of the World, the Pink and White Terraces. A lot of the houses here have framed pictures of paintings of those stunning thermal creations created by nature and claimed by her too. What a waste. Why would God destroy what people say only He could make?

  On certain nights, when cloud has stolen the stars and ghosts are on the loose, the thermal noising can sound like someone weeping, an anguished soul crying out in pain as his flesh boils off his bones, crying out for a second chance. You might be heading for a soak in one of our built concrete bath tubs and get stopped in your tracks at a sound as if someone is being throttled, a baby strangled to death, as thermal pressure forces a way through a narrow gap. Can sound like a noisy whistle kettle too.

  Or you'll hear one of the old people singing half-note waiata and older kids tell you it's a death chant and listen out for the final death rattle. You'll know when a final blast of rotten stinking air comes out of the old person, and if you breathe it in you're either dead or you will catch a terrible disease.

  All over are different coloured little lakes, cobalt blue, emerald green, sulphur yellow, mud grey, crystal clear. I'm taking this from any of our guides' spoken commentaries; every local kid knows them off by heart: we mimic, make fun, add to them. And I've mentioned but a fraction of what is on visual offer at Waiwera.

  Now where would a slut fit in a place like this? They'd have booted her out long ago. But as I adjust to the idea I get to thinking — hoping more like it — one of those Yank tourists could be my father come back to search for me. He could be any one of those I'd shown copycat contempt, to impress the older boys. Could be rich, live in a huge mansion in — where? California somewhere. New York. He could live anywhere in that vast country . . . soon my atlas at school becomes a much studied work.

  One day I might hear a voice call out, Mark? I've come to take you home.

  What would I say? How would he know me, would my mother point me out swimming in the river, bring him to me lolling about in one of the hot pools? Would he recognise me instantly? Do I look like him? Is he kind? Will he ever turn on me, let me down? Will he love me no matter what I do?

  Unlike my sisters' grandmother whose house I go past every day, to her dirty look if she's outside on the veranda, in her vege garden. Old bat never comes to our house because of me and she gives lollies and food to my sisters, Mata and Wiki, and especially my little Manu — her real grandson — right in front of me. Says hello, gives them a kiss, not one word or treat my way. Just like her ignorant son. How will my father make up for suffering that?

  Takes a little while longer before everything falls into place: a couple of years pass. It's like a series of curtains being pulled back — if you are born of a mind to pull them open. Must be from my father to have this curious mind wanting answers, even enlightenment. Not that I know of the word then.

  Old Merita, one of our oldest residents and respected villagers with time for anyone. Not a kid in the village who hasn't taken a morning newspaper up to her house up on the ridge, nor any who hasn't confided in her, or just listened.

  With tattooed lips and chin etched and chiselled in the old way, Merita yet has a keen interest in the wider, modern world. Older people say if she had been a man she would be the chief of our village, maybe the whole sub-tribe. Women have different rights and status to men, though in a kids' world we seem about the same — if it wasn't for the sexual interest boys spill over with and girls don't.

  Merita loves the newspapers, morning and evening editions; wants to discuss what she's read. Kids don't get most things, but I have an ear for words as I do music, how they're both like dough you can shape in your hands. Early on I made the discovery of letting go with music and, funny thing, it was by watching Henry sing, how he just gets glazed eyes and launches his voice. Same way I learned to dive off the bridge top rail — just let go. I'm one of the best dancers in the village too, age regardless.

  So while not understanding most of what she's saying, I do learn things. When I was little she'd take me up and let me run fingers in her chin tattoo done in the old style and she'd say, feels like a corn cob, eh? Sometimes she'd be cuddling me pretending to be passive then suddenly break out with a scary noise. Give a cackling laugh and her thermal-bath warm eyes and say, orrr, you're a scaredy-cat.

  Her view looks down on the main tourist area. House has a dirt floor that's warm from the thermal underneath. Like every house the furnishings are basic. Framed photographs adorn every Waiwera house wall, as do prints of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, and some of her father, King George. British royalty doesn't mean the same to us kids. Though at the picture theatres we have to stand up for God Save the Queen or get chucked out, or get a whack from an usher's torch.

  Merita sweeps her dirt floor with a manuka broom, can break off a bit from a tree right out her back door when the old switch wears out. Her husband died before he could
install a proper wooden floor, but he lives on in her memory as a good husband and good father to their eleven children, all but two moved to other towns at her encouragement. Same as she encourages me: move away when you're old enough, learn how beautiful the wider world and yet how lovely this place too. Open your mind up, closed if you stay here.

  She tells me, I miss the old times, Yank. Everyone knew their place. We had order, a structure in which our society and culture was strong. Sure, we had the tourists to help give us a living. Our male elders who only thought they ran the place when, behind the scenes, it has always been us women. But we held together. I worry it won't hold for much longer, not unless we have strong leadership like Henry. You won't understand me saying this, not now, but you will.

  . . . What you here for this time, boy? Your mother? Well, for starters, don't be listening to this nonsense your mother is that word. She's not. Just some people are cruel because that's how they are. Because we're in a village and all related doesn't mean we're pure as milk and sweet as honey. Your mother is a good woman and you make sure you always respect her. She's the one going to give you strength.

  CHAPTER THREE

  HERE HE COMES, THE YOUNG man who left as a private and returned with an officer's prouder posture. He's hardly looking at the throngs of adoring, joyful villagers, not like his fellow returned servicemen breaking out in smiles and shaking heads in disbelief that the five-plus years' ordeal is over; it didn't feel that long, now they are back walking on home territory.

  Fingers and arms of steam rise up from the thermal ground like tossed white streamers. Great billows of steam from a pool surging with activity like a regular, slow-pulse puffing of the Earth's heart. Cauldrons of mud simmer and bubbles burst releasing pungent sculpture and gas smell, and look there, the mighty Potaka Geyser blasts welcome up on the nearby rise, a hundred feet and more high, and all around voices have risen in song and call and crying in joy and grief.