As he sat down the discussion was picked up, going round the house in the customary way. The talk was all in support of what Paa had said, with a few anecdotes and songs thrown in to lighten the occasion. I changed my seating position so that I could be the last speaker. I needn’t have done so as I had every right to stay silent until everyone had had a say. It was expected that I would speak for Chappy as it wasn’t protocol for him to speak for himself. I could have stood from anywhere in the house.

When my turn came, I told what I knew of family circumstances in Japan, the disintegration of a Japanese family, the annihilation of a name. I spoke of war experiences and Chappy’s fear of outrage towards his family in Aotearoa and possible injury. I told of my visit to Tokyo and meeting with a dying man.

Following that, I was able to tell of love and hope. But it wasn’t until I put all these thoughts into words that I finally realised the depth of Chappy’s fears. He wasn’t a ‘silly thing’. He was a selfless and brave man, and based on what he understood, he had done what he needed to do to protect his family.

Two or three years later, Noddy went missing and though searches went on for several weeks, he was not found. He’d gone with the mountain folk, people said.

Chapter 24

Oriwia

When the ‘marriage of local bride Daphne Dorothea Star and Arni Lars Knudsen of Denmark’ was being planned twelve months after Binnie’s wedding, dressmaker Ti was keen to make a Grace Kelly gown for the bride. It would be less elaborate than the princess’s, and made in the dressmaker’s choice of materials. Because Daphne was smaller in build than Princess Grace, and therefore in danger of being overwhelmed by fabric, the skirt would be more trim. Ti drew it up – lace bodice with long sleeves, high collar and tiny covered buttons; full-length skirt in brocade with a fitted cummerbund. The article in the local paper included a full description of it.

The dress wasn’t what Daphne had wanted, but although the plain, shin-length, sleeveless sheath she had in mind would have suited her, her mother and aunties couldn’t agree to it. It wasn’t possible to have the older sister looking skimpy as compared to a younger sister married just a year before.