Jim sat in front of the window while we talked. All the while, tremendous gusts of white steam whisked past, danced and played and teased, lighter than feathers, mocking his silly tirades. It came in thick and hid the view from the window, and then it ran off and you could look out beyond Jim’s head and see the bridge where tourists threw coins to beggars.
Beyond was the city, which got on with its business while the tourists stopped and stared. Beyond was The Grumpy Mole Saloon next to the army recruitment office, and the Matariki Cultural Centre (hāngī, painted Māori, tea and coffee) next to Pizza Hut; massive Chinese radishes and bags of the world’s tastiest popcorn, Ka Pai, made by Rotorua man Carl Neville, at the Saturday markets; the one hundred and second annual Rotorua A & P show at Riverdale Park, with the headline attraction: ‘Sheep Racing!’
Beyond was the big screen at Shed Bar for live coverage of the fight in Newcastle, Australia, between All Black boxer Sonny Bill Williams and Scott Lewis. Beyond, at the supermarket, were boneless chicken breasts for $2.49.
At Kuirau Park there were shocking things going on beside the hot springs. A grandfather and his two children had seen men engaged in sex acts in broad daylight. ‘All I wanted to do was throw up and run like hell,’ Grandpa told the Daily Post. Rotorua district councillor Charles Sturt said, ‘Sexual activity seems to be rampant and needs to be stopped.’ The newspaper’s editorial said, ‘It’s a terrible look for a tourism town.’ Also at Kuirau Park were rampant, unstoppable workings of tūrutu, a flax-like plant with starry white flowers and deep blue berries that oozed an inky juice.
Rotorua, forever humid and fuming. Rotorua, drunk and stoned, hanging in as one of New Zealand’s most popular tourism attractions, with the occupancy rate of hotels and motels 53 percent, the third highest in the country behind Auckland and Queenstown. Did that make the town half full or half empty?
After I said goodbye to Jim Dennan I looked in on an outdoor concert down the road from his house. A crowd of about 300 had gathered to watch. The performers poked out their tongues and rolled their eyes. The audience roared with laughter. When the performers did it again, the laughter rose like a wave. Braying and paying tourists had reduced Māori culture to a comedy act. I looked at my watch in case time had moved backwards, to about 1950.
And then the audience was told the love story of Hinemoa and her lover Tūtānekai, how she swam across Lake Rotorua to Mokoia Island to be with him. When the story finished, a young man and a young woman sang ‘Pōkarekare Ana’. The audience went completely quiet. They were entranced by the slow beautiful song, the beautiful crystalline singing. I wept. I stood in the sunshine, wanting to rub the music and the smell of sulphur into my skin, to have it always, to keep some trace of the rare loveliness of the moment. Standing in the sunshine at dusty steamy Whakarewarewa I thought back to bubbling lakeside Ōhinemutu, to the love story of Ata and Nathan, a modern Hinemoa and Tūtānekai, swimming in alcohol, afloat.
Hauraki Plains
Country Roads
Keith Berry turned his teal-blue 1972 Ford Falcon 500 into the driveway of the dairy farm in Elstow he had worked for 38 years. The satisfying crunch of gravel, the deep breathing of the motor: it had 150,000 kilometres on the clock but was in beautiful working order, plush and polished. He had bought it brand new in Te Aroha. For 30 years it had sailed the long straight roads of Piako County and the Hauraki Plains.
On family holidays the Falcon hauled a lightweight Chevron caravan. Keith and his wife Lesley, whom he met at a table tennis club in Walton, had six children. Their eldest daughter belonged to a Baptist church, and her daughter, who was to turn sixteen in October, was going to Ethiopia to perform missionary work over Christmas.
Keith talked about the storms of late July and early August, which uprooted six native wattles on the farm. Then he told a story about his neighbour, Cliff Strange. As a boy, Cliff had planted oak trees on his farm. He was 78 during the storm of 1972, when the wind dropped off Mount Aroha, dived down, and whirled around the oak trees like a corkscrew. The trees popped out of the ground. Next day Cliff drove his Leyland tractor to have a look. Hundreds of oaks, an entire fence line, had been ripped out – a lifetime’s work destroyed. No one knows how long he sat there and surveyed the damage. He switched off the engine and died.
Keith, 74, told this story in the kitchen. He had put his car keys on the dining-room table, which was actually a round snooker table with pockets, an oddity bought at an auction in Waihī. It was a cold Friday afternoon. Lesley, 67, planned to drive next afternoon to Morrinsville with her neighbour Lyn Pendergrast, 78, so they could catch a bus to go to the National Country Music Awards at the Founders Theatre in Hamilton.
Keith said he’d rather stay home. ‘He doesn’t tie me down,’ Lesley said. She admitted to an independent streak; while raising their six kids she had always set aside time to enter baking contests at the Te Aroha A&P show. Her portfolio included scones, muffins, shortbread, melting moments, iced biscuits, sponges and fruit cakes. The results were spectacular and legendary: she won the baking trophy every year from 1975 to 2004. Rhoda Rosewell dared to win in 2005 but Lesley fought back and won in 2006, and then retired. She took her pikelet recipe from the 1961 Country
