The Payment
another ‘Eruera’ story

by E. S. Morgan

Eruera sat on the sunny back-door step whacking a tin with a stick. In the tin grew a gnarled stumpy old cactus which his mother treasured. Sometimes Eruera played with the long tough cactus spines, drawing with them in the smooth-trampled clay of the back-yard, or testing his courage by pushing one slowly into the tough skin under his big toe, until he could bear it no longer. Once a spine had snapped in his fingers, and a little black spot showed where part of it still remained in his toe. Eruera stared at that spot now, his fat brown foot clutched to his jersey.

At the sound of children's voices, Eruera dropped his foot and the stick, and ran to the gate. There were his school mates, Nino, Paul and Isaac.

‘We're going fishing Eru, you coming?’ they called. In two minutes Eruera had found his fishing-line under the verandah, and the four were on their way to the jetty. But they didn't go straight to the jetty. There were too many pleasant things to do along the way. There were walnuts to gather under the huge tree that overhung the road. There was the culvert where the taniwha answered you with long booming calls when you shouted into it. They never stayed long at the culvert, and no-one ever stopped there or shouted into it when he was by himself.

They stopped at a ricketty wooden gate and stared for a minute or two at a little white cottage.

‘There's good ginger beer in that house,’ said Isaac.

‘That's my Aunt Sophie's house. She gives me ginger beer any time,’ Eruera said grandly.

‘Go and ask her for some now,’ said Nino.

At the back door Eruera called timidly ‘Hullo, Aunt Sophie,’ but was glad there was no answer. The other boys coughed and whispered and stared around. There was a little shed there, its door open and half off its hinges. Inside was a crayfish pot, a bundle of flax, and rows of brown bottles, their corks tied down with string. There were a lot of bottles, and Aunty Sophie was kind. Eruera was sure she would want them to take a bottle. They opened it with Nino's sheath-knife.

It didn't taste as good as they had expected, and when they had passed the bottle round twice it was still only half-empty. Paul was just about to say he had had enough, when the bottle fell from his hand, and smashed on the concrete floor. They took one quick look at the glass splinters and the spreading pool, and then they were outside the ricketty gate again and heading for the jetty.

After this the boys were quiet for a long time. They swung their bare legs over the jetty edge, drawing patterns in the water with their toes. The sun was very hot on their backs. ‘Perhaps she'll think it burst itself,’ said Isaac.

They caught a lot of fish that day. Some spotties, four blue cod, and a kitful of herring. ‘We'll take her the cod,’ said Nino, threading them on to some flax.

This time, smoke was coming from the chimney of the little white cottage. Old Aunty Sophie was surprised to see them, and more surprised when they gave her the fish. ‘You the good boys,’ she said. ‘You come back Monday and I give you ginger beer. Not ready yet. Give you pain in te puku.’ She stood at the door, her old eyes soft with love in her brown wrinkled face, the bundle of fish in her thin knotted hands. ‘The good boys,’ she murmured to their departing backs, and went inside.

Eruera could see Maui's flax ropes reaching from the sky to the Piripiri hills, and all yellow in the setting sun, when he reached his own gate. He walked very slowly up the path to his house. He had caught a, lot of fish, but he wasn't very happy, and besides, his puku felt queer.

The life story of the Maori bass singer, Inia Te Wiata, will shortly be presented by the British Broadcasting Corporation in a half-hour recording of song and personal narrative.

It will be part of a series of programmes entitled “My Song Goes Round the World” and will be produced by another New Zealander, Mr Andrew Gold, formerly of Auckland, who is on the staff of the B.B.C.

Many distinguished performers from different parts of the world have already taken part in this programme. Inia Te Wiata has chosen for his half-hour the songs which he regards as particularly significant during his career, and in most cases he will sing them in chronological order.

He will open with a song ‘Aue Te Iwi E’ (‘Oh, My People’), which he first recalls having heard chanted by the elders of his village at Otaki when he was seven years old.

This article on Henare Tate, who has recently become the second Maori priest ordained into the Roman Catholic Church, comes from Father Wanders of Panguru.

He kupu whakamarama tenei mo te tamaiti nei mo Henare Tate kua whakatapungia hei pirihi.