PEOPLE AND NAMES

‘Old Toko went to the hoko To get Repeka some tupeka’

This was what some of the older kids used to chant. And he used to see old Toko coming down the road in his buggy ‘for the shop’, hitching his horse on the side of the road and walking very slowly with a bad stoop towards the shop. He was a very old man. Repeka was his wife and she was very old too and she had a moko on her chin. But although she must have been about as old as old Toko she looked a lot younger than he did, for he was very bent and wizened. And they said she had a bad temper and would chase any of the kids with her broom if they came near her place, for her orchard was always being raided. But Nick never saw her like this, for old Toko and Repeka lived away over on the other side of the settlement about a mile away. He never saw her much, only when she came down sometimes with old Toko in his buggy, sitting heavily in the seat beside him; and those times she looked nice enough to Nick. Try as he might, he couldn't read in her face or bearing the sort of witch that the kids from her end of the settlement said she was. She was bigger and much heavier than her husband and the buggy would have a bad lean on the side in which she sat.

At various times the boy heard all the names of the people of the settlement mentioned, and for a long time he got them all mixed up. First there was old Toko and Repeka whom they never ever called by any other name than Repeka. And then there was their son Hiki Toko, to confuse matters, for the boy never heard the old man referred to by anything other than ‘old Toko’ and thought all along that this must surely be his first name.

And across from old Toko and Repeka's, on another hill, there was Tua Wi Hepi and his family. They weren't so bad because all his children were called Wi Hepis and the father himself was often referred to as Tua Wi Hepi. But further along the same hill

on the other side of the wharepuni, there lived old Ted Mananui. His wife's name was Ngapera and never once did the boy hear her called anything else. Never Mrs Mananui or Ngapera Mananui, always just Ngapera. So that sometimes Nick wasn't sure whether she really was old Ted's wife or not.

Behind the pa and next to the graveyard was old Mrs Patea, who lived alone with her granddaughter Pera. And for some reason or other she was always referred to as ‘Mrs Patea’ so that there was no mistaking with the boy that this was her surname. But why they should call her ‘Mrs’ and not any of the others, the boy didn't know.

Old Matenga lived in the big red house closer to the boy's place, over by Yates'. The house stood back in against the hill, on which, further along was the graveyard where the boy's sister Martha was buried. For some reason or other old Matenga's children were called by different names. Some were referred to as Harrisons and some had the same name as the old man, Matenga. Joan, his daughter, was called a Harrison, and his oldest son, Boy, was also called a Harrison, while Bobby and Julie, the younger children, were referred to as Matengas. Yet sometimes he even heard the old man referred to as Matenga Harrison. It was all such a great mix-up to the boy; a mystery he couldn't hope to solve.

Then there was the Yates family themselves; some were called Yates and others Hapukes.

And there was that great mix-up of names up the hill from their place, at Reid's. One family in particular. Taiatini was the father's name, yet his children were called Wakas, And Nick was sure they weren't the children of Frank Waka, because for one thing he seemed to be too young to have children as old as Pine and Agnes and Jack. But he knew that Frank Waka was some relation although what exactly he didn't know. If he was old Taiatini's brother, why didn't people refer to him as Frank Taiatini or if Taiatini was the father's first name why did the boy never ever hear anyone refer to him as Taiatini Waka? For never once had he heard him referred to other than as ‘old Taiatini’.

And there were others up there as well whose names he got all mixed-up over. He didn't know who was who up there half the time. A lot of them kept coming and going. Which didn't help matters. After a time he even gave up trying to figure out who was who for they weren't one of their crowd anyway, but came from somewhere else. He wasn't sure where, except that for some reason he thought it might be the Waikato.

Kingi and Awa and August were brothers, this much Nick knew, and their father's name was Rewiti (that old wizened man the boy saw down at the shop sometimes). This was clear enough to the boy, except when it came to figuring out how come with one of the brothers. Awa and August were called Rewitis, yet Kingi the middle brother wasn't. He was always referred to as Kingi and his children in turn were called Kingis also. How this came about the boy was never able to learn.

Even his cousins the Browns' father was never referred to as Mr Brown but always as Wanoa (never preceded by ‘Mr’). And sometimes to further add to the confusion

he even heard the children, his cousins, Tommy and Margaret and the others, referred to as Wanoas. But he had always known them as Browns and this was the name that everyone called them by usually.

THE TOY

One afternoon coming home from school, Nick found the engine of his toy was missing (the one with the man on a motor cycle inside a wheel that turned over and over when you wound it up). Someone had removed it. He was struck numb on discovering this. He had kept the toy under the spare bed in his room out of sight but knew that it could easily be found. He began to wonder who could have held a grudge against him to do a thing like that. Who had he offended? Or who had he argued with lately? His thoughts went immediately to his sisters, his playmates. One of them had done it. But surely they couldn't have done a thing like this, he thought? This was malicious, unforgivable. No, he was positive they couldn't have stooped so low.

Then he was aware that someone was standing in the doorway. The boy looked up with a start. Tears were already beginning to come into his eyes now, after the initial numbness. It was Luke. He was standing there with a half grin on his face, looking at the ravaged toy that the boy held in his hand. ‘Surely he couldn't have done it’, Nick thought, ‘and if he did, why?’ But the way his brother stood there with that half grin on his face, left no doubt in the boy's mind that he did. Already the poison was beginning to rise into the boy's brain. He was never sure what his brother was capable of doing. The boy's mind became numbed and confused and he looked at his brother with incredulity.

‘I'll put it back for you later on.’ Luke was saying. But the boy hardly heard what he had said. Finally he could contain his emotions no longer and blurted out. ‘What have you done? Why did you do it? My toy.’

I'll put it back for you later on, I promise,’ Luke said. He was trying to laugh to show the boy how silly he was for taking it so hard.

The boy was crying aloud now, holding the toy to him, no longer trying to restrain his emotions.

‘You've broken it,’ he cried, ‘you'll never fix it again.’

Luke grew a little annoyed at this. ‘Course I'll fix it,’ he said. ‘I just took it out for a little experiment. I'll put it back when I'm finished.’

‘Just for an experiment,’ the boy thought. And his toy was hardly a month old.

‘You'll never fix it again,’ he cried. And in his heart he knew that his toy would never be the same again. He hated his brother in that moment, hated him with an intensity that almost made him scream. He hated that person who could do such a callous thing and then was able to stand there and say in a calm voice, as if nothing was really the matter, that he was ‘just trying out a little experiment’, with no show of feeling whatsoever. And the toy had been almost the whole world to the boy at the time.

Luke got into a bit of a panic then. He had not expected his brother to get into such a state over it. Trying to compensate for his action, and with the silly grin still playing round his mouth, he said, ‘Come on. I'll show you what I did with it.’

The boy went with him out onto the verandah, stumbling blindly along, telling himself that nothing could make up for the loss of his beloved toy.

In one corner of the verandah, sitting on top of an empty tea chest, Luke had a truck of his own designing and make. It was a crudely made thing but quite cleverly done. And as he lifted the thing and exposed the underside, Nick saw the engine of his toy. The boy almost wailed in anguish. Luke put it down quickly. Stand-

xing there, Nick waited for his brother to start the thing up.

‘It doesn't go yet,’ Luke said. ‘I haven't finished it yet. It still wants a few things done to it. But it'll go all right.’ He sounded so self-assured.

But the thing never ever went, apart from a few lurches on the work-shop bench much later on when Luke said he finally had the thing finished and all the children gathered in there to witness it. And Nick somehow knew that the thing never ever would go. His engine wasn't made to propel as heavy an object as Luke's truck. But Luke doggedly persisted, and the engine of Nick's toy remained there for over a month, the spring getting weaker and weaker, the more Luke wound it and the more it strained to push that great weight along. Finally Luke gave up and one afternoon when Nick came home from school he found the engine of his toy back in place again. But by now the spring in it had been so weakened that it didn't go nearly as well as it had done before Luke had taken it out. On hearing this all Luke had to say was, ‘Course it does. It's just as good as it used to be. What's the matter with you boy?’

After that it didn't take much for the boy to grasp hold of as an excuse for hating his older brother.