‘I didn’t understand, Grandson. Even if I’d known what Aki talked about on that last tape, I still wouldn’t have understood. I believed my husband should have come home with me, that there was nothing we couldn’t have faced together. As for “Japan is not loved”, what was that supposed to mean? Germany was not loved either, but that didn’t deter the Krausses, even though they had difficult times at first.’

As for Ela, Oriwia had expected her to be beautiful, not so dark, not so fat, not so bushy haired. This woman, with her large upper jaw and spaced-out protruding teeth, her fleshy nose and little black eyes, had got hold of a father for her children. She’d found herself a husband fool enough to provide for her whole family. And nothing Ela said or did on Oriwia’s first visit caused her to change her mind about any of that.

Chappy did have a plan, one which he and Ishy had worked out together, but it was too drawn-out for Oriwia, who immediately dismissed it. The idea was for Chappy to gain citizenship in Hawai‘i where he had work and could save the money he would need. He would change his name and re-register as Chappy Star, then enter New Zealand as the spouse of Oriwia Star.

It would take years.

Oriwia argued that he must come with her right then and they would sort everything out once they arrived home. However, Oriwia’s time in Hawai‘i was cut short. Her stay there still had two weeks to go when she found out something that had her heading home with daughter Binnie in tow. She discovered that Binnie had fallen in love with Lani, who, before they all arrived in Hawai‘i, she had known only as one of the bad boys. Falling in love at eighteen was not on Oriwia’s agenda for her daughter, and falling for ‘some kind of green-eyed sand prince who did nothing but float about in a canoe all day’ was certainly out of the question. When she caught the two of them walking hand in hand along the beach, she snatched Binnie by the arm and hurried her home to pack. It was January, near the end of the summer holidays, and her younger daughter was soon to begin university studies at Victoria College. Her older daughter, Daphne, despite her mother’s wish that she study medicine, was in her second year of training to be a nurse; she had returned home earlier in the month.

‘Your mother could have become a doctor, you know, Grandson,’ Oriwia said to me, ‘but at least she did the right thing and married someone with ambition and a secure future.’