Baby No-eyes by Patricia Grace

Author:Patricia Grace
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742288147
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2013-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

‘Up to my ears,’ Mahaki said one night. ‘We’re overloaded at the office. Just can’t find enough time for the real stuff.’

Three or four times a year Mahaki had been going to visit his grandfather to make tape recordings of the old man’s stories. This was the ‘real stuff’. It was because of what he had learned during these recording sessions that Mahaki decided something needed to be done about an area of land in his home territory, known as Anapuke.

‘Gone on long enough,’ he said, pacing as he does, frowning as he does, curls falling round his big face. He was rolling his hands like Annabelle. ‘Old man’s agitated, got it on his mind. And what’s the use of me being a bloody lawyer if I can’t do something, waste of bloody time … Anyway, tapes.’ He stopped pacing and sat down opposite me. ‘They need transcribing, big backlog, wanted to do it myself …’

‘Give them to me …’

‘Max had a go but it needs someone with a knowledge of the language, someone used to the old people’s voices and the way they speak – in whichever language.’

‘I’ll have a go …’

‘The old man switches from one to the other.’

‘Bring me one of your machines, and a transcriber with a foot control.’

‘I’m pushing for a meeting with the Town Council, well, pushing for the Council chiefs to come and meet with the people.’ He was up pacing again. ‘But they’re just being bloody-minded, insisting that we send a delegation down to their offices instead. The people are fed up with that, going there with delegations. It’s time that lot had a bomb up them … Mightn’t need to do all the tapes, just certain ones, or certain parts …’

‘I’ll do them all. Otherwise what’s the use of me being a bloody office girl if I can’t do something, waste of bloody time.’

He stopped pacing and his grooved forehead smoothed itself. He laughed. ‘I’ll bring the tapes tomorrow, and the equipment. Outdated, not what you’re used to …’

‘Or as Gran Kura would say, why was I pushed out of house and home, why did I see a notice on the board of a supermarket, why did I walk out in the rain, etcetera, etcetera?’

‘I get it.’ Then he said, ‘It’s all becoming one.’

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