Though Chappy was a quietly spoken man, he wasn’t shy. All the way back to the shop, he asked about this and that, and wanted to know the word for one thing and another which he pointed out on the way. Oriwia couldn’t help laughing from time to time at how her language came out of him.

Mystery man.

Even after he became fluent in their language, the questions they put to him – Who is your mountain? Who is your river? Who are your ancestors? Who is your name? – were never answered.

A few days after her two conversations – the first with The Duke, the second with Dulcie – Oriwia went about on horseback, visiting customers, telling them of her plan to sell garden produce from the roadside if they would give her their surplus. Also, with their eggs and butter she would bake cakes for sale at the Krausses’ shop, taking account of everything they gave her. If it worked out the way she hoped, they would be able to pay their shop bills, perhaps even have a little cash left over. People were enthusiastic about the idea of being free of debt, of being able to stay on the land instead of selling land or moving away to find work. Experience had already told them there was no work. They began planning.

On the day when Oriwia first arrived to collect goods, Grandmother Nunu and Ma Girlie were sitting to one side of the gardens making loosely woven baskets suitable for carrying vegetables. There was a shortage of sacks and sugar bags since these were in demand for the making of clothing, curtains and floor mats.

Chappy was among others in the garden picking corn but stopped what he was doing to watch the women weaving using strands of leaves cut from the harakeke bushes. He didn’t know the word ‘harakeke’ then. Though he had seen the criss-crossing hands of Nunu when he pulled himself up to sit against the bird tree on the day after his arrival, he had not witnessed the whole basket-making process before.

He watched the women divide the leaves into strips and flick the green from the ends with mussel shells, leaving just the strands of fibre. He watched them plait these ends to form a base from which they began to weave upwards to make large airy baskets. After observing for some time he went off to the bamboo grove, returning with a load of trimmed canes.

The grandmothers stopped what they were doing to watch a miracle occur – to witness the long hands lay the bamboo stalks down, to see the threading, the tying, the shaping, the binding, the trimming, the finishing, and finally the placing of this new thing on the pile with the other baskets.

No, no, it could not go on the pile.