‘Anyway I might die, you know, just drop dead, and you’d be left. No, you have your whole life ahead of you and need much younger company. Your mother’s right, you should complete your studies, get something solid under your belt so you can have one of these high-falutin’ careers. If you remain here, sticking with the elderly you’ll never get married.’

We stood, pulled to our feet by bird silence, a deepening brown, dense smells that mingled marsh and leaf-mould with night-scented plants.

Epilogue

Thoughts about my future were on my mind, too. What now? In all my life I’d never been as engaged as when recording the stories that somehow bound me to them. It was not only the collecting, but the life and learning that went along with it – which I haven’t recorded – which captivated me. Anyone reading what I’ve written could think that the taping and note-taking took place on consecutive days over a short period of time, whereas recording was spasmodic. I took opportunities as they arose because in between times there was a life to live.

Fortunately, the sulking boy made the decision to lift himself out of disgruntlement to listen to his mother’s advice – he learned to make a bed, sweep and clean floors, bake pies, wash out cabinets and wipe down benches.

Muck in.

The most invigorating days of all were those spent with my uncle by double adoption, when we went bush, bringing out dead wood to be cut and dried for the fire, when we fished at the river mouth, went eeling up the creek or walked over the hills shooting rabbits. Twice during my stay, I helped catch and kill a sheep, which we then hung up in a tree. The fleece had to be dragged down, the front had to be opened up and the stomach pulled out. We trimmed it, cut it up and put it all in my grandmother’s freezer.

I didn’t relish killing and butchering. It made me feel sick. Aki was aware of how I felt, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t let me off. Nor did he make it easy for me when it came to his language; he spoke to me in Māori all the time after the first day. His only concession was that he used his hands and other body language to aid my understanding. My grandmother had something to say when she found out what he was up to, but changed her mind when she discovered how interested I was. Being conversant and literate in English and Danish from my parentage, German and French from my environments and schooling, I was now becoming familiar with the rhythms and cadences of another tongue, whether this was during recording or while down at the marae where all of life went on.