Place Writing

Memoirs as short stories

I feel it already but I don’t know how to put it into words. I am too busy trying to spell out the road signs phonetically. 

Pops says the journey from our new home, Wellington, to visit the Maori stronghold of Rotarua is around 450 miles and will take us several days, which is nothing after living in Australia and traveling through the burnt red and dusty yellow landscape and an endless horizon. Unlike our Australian travels where Pops is aiming to reach top speeds and get there “in good time”, he wants us to amble up the island, staying overnight in far-flung places; stopping at the village which is almost my namesake; see the glowworms in watery caves; watch waterfalls throw themselves with wild abandon over jagged rocks  - the noise reaches me before the view - and visit Waipoua forest to pay respect to the 3000-year-old Kauri trees. He excuses himself from the caves. It will trigger his memories of the Blitz, or growing up in Hackney, but that’s his reasoning for anything he doesn’t want to do. 

He was stationed here as a Salvation Army officer with my mother, right after WW11, with my brother, the General’s son, adopted by my father as his own (but by blood a half-brother). It had been happy times pretending Colonialism was not over - cricket, tennis, the middle classes having access to a lifestyle out of their reach in England because of the classism and cash required. 

Now he was here with his new girls, wanting to share the treasure that is New Zealand. On the journey, Pops informed us “the Maori were the most civilized Natives in the world” which he seemed to think was an OK thing to say. I wondered why they had given me a Maori name if they thought “natives” uncivilized as opposed to indigenous, but then remembered, it was my mother’s choice and she is dead and I’m not going to make a big thing out of it. The first thing I’m going to do when I meet a Maori is ask them about my name.

I am 11 years old and my expectations of Pop’s definition of the “magical and fantastic” do not tally with the rotten egg smell that is a sudden surrounding experience as we get nearer to Rotoroa’s thermal springs and mud pools; rising steam in the distance add some mystery. 

“A dragon be there,” says Amy Ada, my stepmom, trying to be funny. 

Have a go at saying that,” encourages Pops, pointing out the sign to the park: Tewhakarewarewatangaoteopetauaawahiao

There is a welcoming party - local Army officers and their two children - when we emerge from the car, waving hands in front of our faces “Poo! What a stink!”. 

"It's the sulphur," says the Army Officer man, bending down to meet my eyes, as if I'm the only idiot in the pack. I don't like him, instantly. 

I spot a Maori. They spot me and wink. All of a sudden I feel like a person with a sense of place and belonging. I am seen. From that moment I start to have inner thoughts and my life gets interesting.

Before me is a landscape of bubbling mud and steam wafting over the terrain like clouds. It is loud - like rushing water, and the mud bubbles and simmers like soup in a pot, now and then bursting with a plop and splashing in every direction releasing its acrid sulphur smell. I can hear birds singing above the sounds, somehow reassuring. We are being taken to a geyser that will perform for us, allegedly, and to get there we need to navigate walking on a plank of wood, that sits precariously over mud pools and hot rocks. The two kids with their Salvation Army parents are gregarious and won’t stay still for a minute. They’re off before we notice and I am glad. If I have to hear one more time how they are special because they were chosen (adopted) and given special names, more important than my silly Maori one, I’m going to be sick. When we catch up to the annoying children there is just Joseph and no little sister. He's sitting against a rock watching the mud gurgle and burp, not a single thought in his head. 

“Where is Mary?” the parents ask in unison. 

He shrugs. 

“Where is she Joseph!” the father booms. 

Again he shrugs. But then we hear it. The wailing. The fear and loathing that only extreme pain brings;  like an animal in a trap, suffering, hell incarnate. We hear running on the plank of wood that makes everyone else on it wobble dangerously and scream. In their arms, I see Mary limp and caked in mud, her skin peeling off leaving pink blotches that shine in the sunlight. 

“Oh my God!” the mother cries, in despair, taking a turn and racing after her child’s rescuer, sobbing and praying simultaneously. 

“What happened? What did you do Jospeh?” asks the Dad. 

He shrugs. 

“She slipped,” he offers matter-of-factly. 

“And you didn’t think to call out to us?” shouts the dad, broken and confused. 

When we get back to the entrance. Joseph being carried and held far too tightly, Mary has already gone in an ambulance with her mum. My Dad decided we should all pray. When all of them have their teary eyes shut, I sneak off to find out about my name and hang with the sane people.   

A week later Mary died in hospital of severe burns. I often wonder what happened to Joseph. Did she slip or was she pushed? But I know I never want to bump into him again.

I would like to take my clan there one day but all the mystery and precariousness has gone; it’s an expensive tourist spot with a gift shop and a cafe, fences and warning signs in multiple languages, and proper wooden bridges - and only Maori’s dressed up to make a buck out of the whities. We deserve it.