In the days that followed, I thought of her alone on that pathway where I would willingly have been her companion. Or maybe she was not alone. The way could’ve been full of friends, I thought. There could’ve been singing, laughter and dancing on the journey to join the stars. That’s what we do at such times, I guess. We find comfort in any thought or imagining, or in any old-time musing, or in any way we can. The old house became dispirited after the song had gone.

Ma went to live with Malia and Ishy, taking the young ones with her.

So much death. My father, Taana, died suddenly in the same week as Ela. My mother, Dorothea, died not long after Chappy came home.

I had to leave off crying, become once more a rover, finding work that would take me across the world’s oceans, douse me in salt spray.

Salt cures.

Sea washes. It cleans.

Expanse enlivens the spirit, frees the mind.

There was no need now to work for money, and somewhere along the way I began to think about other responsibilities.

‘Go on home,’ Moonface said.

‘Take me with you,’ said my Ela, ‘now that you’ve shown me the world.’

Chapter 30

Oriwia

‘There was no explosion,’ my grandmother said. ‘Except for the one in my head.’

Oriwia returned to New Zealand while Chappy spent the next six months in Hawai‘i arranging a management partnership with Ishy and Malia’s daughter. There was also the matter of sponsorship to be organised by Oriwia at home.

By the time she arrived, Taana had finished building a kitchenette in a corner of the bakery. He’d opened up a wall to form a servery and enlarged the shop space to make room for tables. Oriwia set about painting the walls, laying linoleum on the floor and making three sets of tablecloths for each of the ten small tables.

Because her day began at three in the morning when she baked her breads and pies – which in the meantime she served to customers from a side door of the bakery with the help of Marianne – much of the work in the new tearoom was done after she had closed for the day.

‘Of flowers. Eruptions, all colours, like fireworks, Daniel. All the time while I was painting, tacking lino, sewing, shifting tables, there were spouts and blooms, stars, fountains, shooting off in my head.’

Dulcie went with her to make purchases. Dishes, teapots, jugs, a fridge – which turned out to be too big for the kitchen and had to be put out in the bakery. Oriwia decided to paint the house as well. Brown was the wrong colour to go with all the heady blooms.

Dulcie tried to persuade Oriwia not to paint the house, advised her to wait until Chappy came home, knowing that there was still so much that needed doing before the tearoom could be opened.