Bulibasha, p.17
Bulibasha, page 17
‘I’ve had an idea about costuming for you girls,’ Aunt Sarah announced one night at practice. ‘Floor-length cloaks – floor length, Haromi, not knee-length, not even ankle length. Huria, can you drive me to the store to get some calico?’
‘Not Mum,’ I said quickly. ‘Get somebody else.’
Aunt Sarah looked at me quizzically. ‘You’re getting uppity, boy. Can you drive the car?’
Checkmate.
‘Why, he-llo,’ Miss Zelda said as Aunt Sarah and Mum walked into the store.
‘Good morning, Zelda,’ Aunt Sarah answered. ‘We’ve come for the best calico you’ve got in the place.’ Aunt Sarah knew how to handle Miss Zelda.
‘Of course,’ Miss Zelda said. ‘Scott? Will you bring our best quality calico in for Sarah?’
Scott came in with a roll and unfurled it over the measuring table. Aunt Sarah pursed her lips. ‘I’ll take it.’
‘The whole roll?’
‘Why, yes.’
‘Cash or charge, Sarah?’
‘Cash. Your interest rate is too high for me, Zelda.’ Aunt Sarah turned to Mum. ‘Always pay in cash if you can,’ she offered.
It was a careless, innocent enough remark, but it made Mum blush with embarrassment. As my mother started the car, she saw Miss Zelda and Miss Daisy at the window. They were like eternal watchers, watching and smiling and waiting. Winter had only just begun to bite, but they knew there would come a time, soon enough, when my mother would need to go in and get herself on the tick.
Chapter 33
As if the cultural competition wasn’t enough, the Mahana women’s hockey team found itself scheduled to play Hukareka women in the Gisborne women’s senior grade section the following Saturday afternoon. Hukareka had won the last game and both teams were neck and neck in the competition.
Aunt Ruth was the Mahana women’s coach and Aunt Sarah was team chaperone. Both were veterans of the field. However, as soon as Aunt Sarah found out who our opponents were the challenge of playing Hukareka was irresistible, varicose veins notwithstanding. At the very least she wanted to go in as goalie.
‘You can’t,’ Aunt Ruth said. ‘We already have a goalie. Auntie Molly’s our goalie.’
‘I’ll be one of the fullbacks then,’ Aunt Sarah said. ‘You need me, sister, after that hiding you fellas got from Hukareka last time. Put me in as left fullback.’
Aunt Ruth bristled. ‘A draw is not a hiding, and Sephora’s already left fullback.’
‘Move her to halfback.’ When Aunt Sarah made up her mind, she could never be budged.
‘What happens if somebody takes a crack at you?’ Aunt Ruth asked. ‘Who’ll look after our haka team?’
‘Nobody’s going to take a crack at me!’ Aunt Sarah scoffed. ‘If anybody is taking a crack it will be me, and Poppaea, The Brute, will be on the receiving end. Boy, do I owe her one.’
‘Sister, dear,’ Aunt Ruth said, ‘if you go on, who’s going to be on the sideline directing the play?’
‘You are,’ Aunt Sarah answered. ‘You’re the coach.’
‘Not for this game I’m not. I’m playing right fullback.’
The two sisters paused, made up their minds and shook hands. In unison they said, ‘Let’s both play.’
Hukareka, watch out.
The day of the match was cold and wet, and the rain had made the ground mucky underneath. Four other games were on at the same time, but word soon got around: ‘Hey! Mahana women are playing Hukareka!’ Naturally, Nani Mini Tupara, who loved hockey, was there to barrack for Mahana, even if we were Mormons.
As Andrew and I made a beeline for the pavilion I saw Mohi parking the De Soto and heard Grandfather calling to me: ‘Himiona!’
I hurried Andrew on. ‘Pretend we haven’t heard,’ I said.
Aunt Ruth was huddled with the team. She had just finished karakia, calling on God’s aid in this fight against the Infidel. Aunt Miriam was centre forward. Aunt Esther and Aunt Kate – Uncle Hone’s wife – were inner right and inner left, and the wings were the youngest – Haromi on the left and Frances on the right. Playing at halfback positions were Aunt Sephora, Aunt Dottie – Uncle Ruka’s wife – and my mother Huria, who seemed to be a different person all togged up in her hockey outfit. The backs were the heavyweights, Aunt Ruth and Aunt Sarah, an impenetrable wall of solid flesh, with Aunt Molly as goalie. There she was, looking for all the world as if she was sitting on an upsidedown basin outside her cookhouse, splaying herself from one side of the goal to the other.
‘Okay, girls?’ Aunt Ruth asked. ‘Are you all ready? Just keep to your positions.’
‘Hit the ball,’ Aunt Sarah interjected.
‘And if you can’t hit the ball –’
‘Hit the player,’ Aunt Sarah said.
Then Aunt Ruth and Aunt Sarah said in unison, ‘The Brute is ours!’
The referee called the teams on to the field. The linesmen took their places. Grandfather Tamihana came sauntering from one entrance of the field and Rupeni Poata from the other. Rupeni Poata raised his hat to Grandmother. Grandfather Tamihana flared.
Then, ‘Didn’t you hear me yelling out to you, Himiona?’
‘No.’
He wasn’t convinced. ‘I wanted you to hold the game until I got here.’
I shrugged my shoulders.
He made a motion as if to hit me. ‘You’re sailing close to the wind, boy.’
As if I cared.
The referee pushed his glasses on to the bridge of his nose. ‘Let’s have a nice clean game, ladies,’ he asked, then blew his whistle.
‘Come on the maroon,’ came the chant from the left sideline. Maroon was the colour for Mahana.
‘Come on the black,’ came the chant from the right sideline. Black was Hukareka’s colour. And boy, was their team formidable. Poppy was at centre forward until her mother, The Brute, saw she was up against the heavier Aunt Miriam.
‘Poppy!’ The Brute called. ‘Change with Auntie Anna on the right wing.’
‘No!’ Poppy answered. ‘I can beat the old bag.’
A deep rumble came from the Mahana sideline. Fighting talk and the game hadn’t even started.
‘Do as I say!’ The Brute yelled.
It was wonderful to see Poppy’s flaring temper. She stalked over to the right where, ah Heaven, Andrew and I were standing. Her opposite number was Haromi, who accidentally pushed Poppy on purpose.
‘So my auntie’s an old bag, is she?’ Haromi smiled sweetly.
Murder was in the air.
Weight for weight, the teams were evenly balanced. The Poata women were all on deck – Julia, Agnes and Helen at the back positions; Virginia, Gloria and Carla in the positions at middle field, and Poppy, Ottavia, The Brute and two other cousins of Poppy’s in the forwards. The Hukareka women were leaner and fitter. But either they had forgotten about the ruthlessness of Mahana women or else they hadn’t played sport with their brothers and men for quite a while.
‘Hockey one, hockey two, hockey three –’
The sticks blurred and Aunt Miriam, finessing Anna by not quite touching on the third click, scooped the ball past her to where Mum was waiting to push the ball past Gloria, chasing it into the clear.
‘Ref! Where’s your eyes!’ The Brute roared.
My mother took a look to see where Frances was. No, Haromi was better placed. Whang, and she hit the ball towards the right corner of the Hukareka half.
The Mahana team strategy had always been that once anybody got the ball they hit it out to the wing. The older women knew the younger girls didn’t want bruises on their beautiful legs and would therefore fly down the line, keep out of trouble and then whack the ball into the circle of the opposing team. The theory was, of course, that the older women would be there to receive the ball. Good theory.
Haromi positively streaked along the line after the ball. The Hukareka halfbacks chased after her, but not for nothing was she the last baton runner of our school track and field team.
‘Offside, ref!’ The Brute cried.
If the ref was blind, that wasn’t our fault.
Haromi picked up the ball, tapped it nicely, past the Hukareka backs. Only the goalie ahead. Now hit it into the centre where the aunties were – huh? Where were the aunties? Never mind. Haromi dashed into the circle. She pretended to hit the ball to Frances, and the Hukareka goalie turned to the left.
Gotcha!
Did I forget to tell you that Haromi had a wicked eye? Whether playing basketball, billiards – even though she wasn’t supposed to – or kicking a goal, Haromi had an inbuilt direction finder. She needed no computer to calculate the distance divided by the width of the goal minus the mass of the goalie multiplied by the probability factor to –
Up came her stick. Wham. I swear that ball caught fire, it was travelling so fast. It sizzled into the net before the goalie even knew it was there.
The Mahana side of the field roared with acclamation. The Hukareka side screamed and squabbled with the ref. ‘I told you girls,’ The Brute screamed, ‘to watch these Mahana women.’
Haromi trotted back to the centre of the field, looking at her fingernails as if she’d broken one.
‘Try that again,’ Poppy hissed.
Oh, they were magnificent, those Mahana women. They had skill, strategy and, if not speed, the experience of modern-day Amazons. They were like the army led by man-hating Amanda Blake in The Loves of Hajji Baba who rode standing up on their horses and lassooed the evil Caliph’s men. Directed from the back by Aunt Ruth and Aunt Sarah, they pulled every trick in the book to keep ahead.
Both aunties liked directing the referee too. Aunt Ruth, for instance, liked to have one fullback way up to the half-way mark when the play was in Hukareka’s half. That way she could often catch a Hukareka forward offside.
‘Offside, ref. Offside,’ she’d yell.
‘Yes, I know, Mrs Whatu.’
And if a Hukareka player was in the circle and about to aim at the goal, her favourite trick was to yell, ‘Sticks!’
You never knew your luck. The ref might agree with you.
The half-time whistle blew. Poppy was looking dazed, the realisation dawning that her mother was right about Mahana women. Mahana were ahead four goals to Hukareka’s (very lucky) one. Mahana’s tactic of hitting fast and regularly from the very start, getting as many goals as possible, had paid off.
However, the game was only just beginning. The real problem was that in the second half all the aunties got slower and slower. Having too many babies and standing so long at the shearing sheds had given all of them, not only Aunt Sarah, varicose veins. The Brute knew it.
Immediately after play resumed, Hukareka broke through the Mahana lines. Despite a valiant stopping attempt by Auntie Molly, Virginia managed to get a lucky hit.
‘Take that, you big black bitch,’ Virginia snarled. She started to trot back to her side.
Aunt Sarah accidentally put her hockey stick out. ‘Oh sorry, darling,’ she said as Virginia tripped over and ended up with a face full of mud. Aunt Sarah went to pull Virginia up. By the hair. Virginia screamed. ‘Only trying to help,’ Aunt Sarah said.
To make matters worse, it began to rain. The ref looked doubtful about continuing the game. He consulted the two captains. Call the game off? You’ve got to be kidding!
As the aunties began to run out of steam, the play moved relentlessly into Mahana’s half. The greater fitness of Hukareka began to show as the women made lightning strikes into Mahana territory.
The delectable Poppy scored a goal. ‘Take that!’ she screamed.
‘Lucky shot,’ Haromi yawned.
Mahana 4, Hukareka 3.
None of this fazed the Mahana team, for defensive play in the second half had always been part of the strategy. Although one by one my aunties were coming to a standstill, their hitting power was as damaging and as accurate as ever. The objective became to stop the ball or get it off Hukareka and keep hitting it to the younger and fitter wingers who could take the ball back up the field into the Hukareka half. It didn’t matter what Haromi or Frances did with the damn ball once they were up there, so long as they kept Hukareka busy while the aunties had a bit of a breather. The primary task was to guard the circle at all costs.
However, the rain made the field muddy and the ball wasn’t running as far as it would on a flat surface. To get the ball travelling, Mahana had to resort to greater strength –
‘Sticks!’ The Brute cried. Or ‘Raised ball!’
Each penalty against Mahana meant that Hukareka could begin the game closer and closer into the Mahana half. As Hukareka penetrated and pushed the Mahana defence further back, slowly but surely the aunties began a strategic retreat to guard the circle.
A cornered animal is always dangerous, and there was nothing more glorious to watch in hockey than Mahana women on the defensive. They were like tigers, roaring, screaming and yelling orders to each other. ‘Watch the left! Watch the right! Watch the centre! Protect the flank! Keep an eye on that young winger! Cover that gap! Keep together, girls! Only another quarter of an hour to go! Kia kaha!’ Mahana were wonderful, shifting and dissolving fluidly from one defensive pattern into another. The defenders stopped the ball and hit it out to the wingers. But Hukareka had them marked. Never mind. Defend again and hit beyond the wingers to the far corner. Defend again and hit.
Then Hukareka managed to get through the Waituhi defences and slam another goal home. The score drew at Mahana 4, Hukareka 4.
That did it. Defensive strategy descended into the arena of dubious play as the Mahana women began pulling every trick in the book – and some that weren’t in the book. If the ref didn’t see what you were doing, that was his problem. If he did, never mind.
If a Hukareka player is dribbling the ball and gets past you, don’t worry. Stop the player, either by tripping her up with your stick, tangling your stick with hers or, if necessary, pushing her off balance as she passes. The referee might blow his whistle – ‘Obstruction!’ – but at least that will stop play for a while and allow the aunties to regroup. If you are standing in the clear with the ball, don’t hit it straight away. Why waste a good shot? Wait until one or two Hukareka players are coming to attack you, then hit it. If there are two attacking players, you can get them both. Easy! You pretend to miss the ball on your first stroke, because that way you can whack the first player, Oops sorry. On your second stroke, that’s when you hit the ball at the second player. She shouldn’t have been in the road anyway.
Oh yes, sticks is okay if there’s a Hukareka player behind you who might cop your stick on your backswing. That way she might get carted off the field and, who knows, by the time you finish Hukareka might not have any reserves left. And if all else fails and you need to protect the ball, pretend to slip and sit on it. Nobody’s going to hit a poor defenceless old lady when she’s down.
You never do any of the above in the circle, though, or the referee will call – ‘Penalty!’ But if it’s really necessary, a penalty is better than Hukareka getting a goal.
The Mahana women trotted leisurely to their backline to prepare for a penalty goal attempt by Hukareka. Only four minutes to final whistle.
‘Hey, ref!’ The Brute yelled, ‘Tell Mahana to move their big bums. They’re wasting time.’
‘Wait your hurry,’ Auntie Molly responded.
‘Better a big bum than a black one,’ Haromi called.
‘Keep it clean,’ Aunt Ruth said.
My aunts lined up to protect the goal. Julia Poata was Hukareka’s hitter. The ball would be stopped by Agnes, and The Brute would take the attempt at the goal. Aunts Sarah and Ruth joined Auntie Molly in the goal. No way could a hockey ball get past them. The rest waited, taking deep breaths ready to –
The ball cracked out from the corner and across the circle. Agnes stopped it. The Brute steadied. Mahana women were charging out of the goal.
The Brute aimed at Aunt Esther and swung. The ball rose – and slammed Aunt Esther in the stomach. Aunt Esther collapsed.
There was shocked silence. Mahana could do that to the opposition, but they weren’t allowed to do it to Mahana – especially to the baby sister who had never hurt a fly.
Aunt Ruth helped Aunt Esther up. We were all wondering what she would do – take The Brute on herself or order a free-for-all. Aunt Ruth did neither. She smiled at the ref and smiled at The Brute and indicated that the game should continue. Her killer instinct, however, was aroused, and from the side of her mouth came the words, ‘Okay girls, kill.’
Oh they were angry! The ref ordered a free hit for Mahana. Aunt Sephora tapped the ball gently to Aunt Miriam. Adrenalin pumping, the Mahana women began to move like a juggernaut down the field. Even Auntie Molly left her goal, twirling her stick like a taiaha. She followed Aunt Ruth and Aunt Sarah as they moved out of the Mahana circle.
‘Fall back!’ The Brute screamed to her women. ‘Fall back!’
Mahana made an awesome sight as they came silently sweeping through the rain. They dribbled the ball amongst themselves. They were like Zulu warriors executing a pincer movement into enemy territory.
‘Watch out, girls!’ The Brute cried.
Mahana crossed over into Hukareka’s half. Never mind about being on the defensive. Mahana women were going to war. Where was the ball? The rain was falling so heavily you could hardly see it. Ah, there it was –
‘Gloria!’ The Brute commanded.
Uttering a banshee cry, Gloria Poata ran at the wall of Mahana women. Silently a gap opened, and Gloria hurled herself in. It closed behind her. When the juggernaut moved on, there was Gloria Poata, dazed, going round and round in circles without her hockey stick and wondering what had happened to it.
‘Helen!’ The Brute squawked.
Helen rushed at the Mahana women. A flurry of sticks followed and there was Helen Poata cartwheeling head over heels out of the pack.
Meantime, Aunt Sarah somehow staggered against the referee, knocked off his glasses and trod on them. Good, he was out of the way.
‘Back to the circle!’ The Brute ordered. She still couldn’t see the ball – only those huge solid Mahana legs like Burnham Wood come to Dunsinane.
