Attachments, because of Oriwia, because of Chappy Star, because of an uncle by double adoption. To find these connections was one of the reasons I had come in the first place, initially with a quest to find out about my grandfather, Chappy Star.

So how successful has that been?

What I can say is that I have been able to trace fascinating aspects of Chappy Star’s adult life. I have not sat at his knee, so to speak, or drawn in close to him in the way I have been able to do with Grandmother Oriwia or Uncle Tiakiwhenua and others. I have come to understand that he was loved by his family and his community, and it was a love that was mutual. Though I have been able, many times, to glimpse his heart, Chappy Star, without being a sphinx or a Mr X, remains an enigma.

That’s all right. It’s good.

A mystery solved is no longer a mystery. Like my grandmother, I can enjoy a conundrum for its own sake. Not everything in the world has to be understood.

I’d been with Grandmother Oriwia for eighteen months. My question now was what to do next so that I wouldn’t be merely taking up space in the universe. My mother expected me to return to Switzerland in time for the next academic year, something I’d put off for twelve months already. But, home to do what? Hide in the dark and read?

Home to be what? A boy who displeased his father, who soft-shoed about after his mother whenever there was an opportunity, hoping she would play in the snow with him again, a malcontent left in the dust by a younger sister who had achievements and a social life?

I’d run out of time to be a boy. I’d run out of the desire to be one. That a man must find his own feet sooner or later doesn’t mean he stands alone. According to Aki, you have to have a people in order to know you are a person.

‘We’ll always be here,’ my grandmother said, as though she’d read this last thought. ‘Even when we’re dead, there’ll always be a place, there’ll always be someone. You can be anywhere in the world, but you have a tūrangawaewae that cannot be denied you.

‘At the same time, it doesn’t mean you have to hang around here in the company of the disintegrating. I already have a watery eye and scaly shins. No, we must share you with the whole world. What you’ve done already, putting down the stories, is a big thing for all of us. It’s your contribution, nōu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora te manuhiri.’