Return to Harikoa Bay by Owen Marshall

Author:Owen Marshall [Marshall, Owen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143776543
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2013-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

17.

PÄ«wakawaka

Margaret, my mother-in-law, was a practical woman and of a resolute frame of mind, with all the common sense of a farmer’s wife. I got on well with her and experienced few of the exasperations popular in conventional humour concerning mothers-in-law. I came to realise, however, that like all of us, she had her own powerful and individual superstitions. Especially she feared pīwakawaka — the fantail. She’d grown up in rural Northland with Māori families among her neighbours, so maybe that’s when she learnt that this little bird, despite its nimble beauty, is considered to be of ill omen. My own experiences of the fantail are benign and come mainly from tramping in the bush. The fantail is quite common there and seems to wish to join you on the push through the ferns and trees. I’m told it’s not just a pert compatibility, but that pīwakawaka takes advantage of the insects stirred up.

My father-in-law was a convivial man, yet by the nature of his occupation had to spend most of his time working alone with stock, or driving a tractor, so in the limited leisure time he had, he liked to be with others. The saleyards, the gun club, bowls, euchre evenings, rugby matches, the racetrack and the Victorian Hotel. Margaret was also at ease with people, but preferred to spend her free time in the garden, which had gradually expanded around the wooden, red-roofed farmhouse, protected from the appetites of sheep and cattle by a wire fence. She was also an excellent cook, a skill my wife inherited. Once, when I complimented Margaret on a meal, she said matter of factly that she was a good plain cook, and my wife, Carol, explained that meant she didn’t go in for anything fancy. Carol also told me that women make a distinction between cooking and baking, which I’d never realised before.

Roses were what Margaret loved best. Like her they were hardy and could withstand the commonplace droughts of the place. She had all sorts and a name for each. Surely the rose, of all flowers, has the most individual varieties and all with their own names, many romantic, some even grandiose. ‘Blushing Lucy’ and ‘Rose d’Amour’, ‘Archiduc Joseph’ and ‘Princesse de Lamballe’. Roses exact a price for their beauty, and although Margaret wore gardening gloves, her forearms were often marked with small bruises and scabs from the thorns. She was a tall, strong woman who shirked nothing in the house, or about the farm, but I recall her best in her country garden, among her roses and dahlias with a straw hat she also wore to bowls.

I was at her house quite often before Carol and I married: less afterwards, but that was because of where we lived, not any disinclination. Thinking back, though, I can recall very few conversations just between the two of us in which any personal and meaningful connection was made. Perhaps she thought to do so would be a trespass on her daughter’s territory.

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