A group of Lascar sailors staggered past, arm in arm with the women who always preyed upon the men just off a ship. We had learned of this in the Strangers’ Home, where such women were forbidden to take one step into the hallway. These women had adorned themselves in the sailors’ hats and belts, and the merry group were all – Lascars and women – extremely drunk. I stepped into the shadows to avoid them, and almost stood upon a young woman draped in rags, sitting in a sorry heap upon the ground. She held out her cupped hand to me, no doubt asking for money. The palm of her hand was black with coal dust, as though she had been crawling through the streets. The whining baby clawing at her breast was rank with its own filth.
Just days earlier we had walked through the apartments of a royal palace. I wondered if the Queen knew of these goings-on in her own capital, or if the ministers we met knew of the degraded lives so many of the English must lead. Why were so many English missionaries in New Zealand, when the work to accomplish here, in London alone, was so mountainous an undertaking? The poor souls in this city were much worse off than the poorest of the poor in New Zealand, for they had no hope.
When I returned to the Strangers’ Home that night, the first person I saw downstairs was Mrs Colenso, which was odd. She usually visited us on a morning, and had said once that she did not care to venture anywhere near Limehouse after the sun had set. She seemed flustered, another unusual circumstance, for Mrs Colenso was always calm and sensible.
‘Paratene!’ she cried when she saw me walking towards her. ‘Thank goodness. I was afraid that they’d lured you away as well.’
I had no idea what she was talking about, and told her so.
‘Have you not heard?’ she asked. ‘Wiremu Pou has left you all. He has decided to join the Maori troupe performing at the Alhambra.’
I couldn’t believe this. We had heard from Mr Ridgway that this Maori troupe were no-account fellows, and they were not invited to Marlborough House, or Osborne House, or courted by members of the aristocracy. Why would Wiremu Pou throw in his lot with them? He was angry with Jenkins, I knew, but this was a bold and reckless act.
‘Their manager, Mr Hegarty, has offered him two pounds a week,’ Mrs Colenso told me, adding that Mr Hegarty had also promised to pay his board and lodging somewhere close to the theatre which, Mrs Colenso said, was ‘sure to be disreputable’.
I doubted that Wiremu Pou would mind that, as long as he had plenty of shillings jingling in his pocket. This was not the end of the story, however, for Mrs Colenso had more to tell. When Wiremu Pou returned to the Strangers’ Home to pack his box, Hirini and Tere Pakia had learned of the offer and decided to leave as well. They would perform on the stage, ‘in a degraded fashion,’ Mrs Colenso said in despair, and would bring our whole venture into disrepute.
‘And now Hapimana and Ngahuia say they will leave as well,’ she told me, shaking her head. ‘Reverend Stack is talking to them at this very moment in the Colonel’s office, to make them see sense. This is all very, very bad.’
‘Te Taka will persuade them to stay,’ I said, though I wasn’t sure of this at all. Just the mention of money was enough to turn Ngahuia’s head, and Hapimana was a silly young fool. In the end, as I recall, it was Mrs Colenso who convinced them to stay. She said that both the Queen and the Prince of Wales would be most displeased to hear of this, and that if Ngahuia and Hapimana left to become stage performers neither of them would be admitted into the homes of the British aristocracy ever again.
By the time Mrs Colenso and Te Taka left that night, their rebellion was over. But Wiremu Pou, and Hirini and Tere Pakia, were long gone. I wasn’t sure that night, or for many nights afterwards, if we would ever see any of them again.
The Bohemian is a foreigner, I suppose, the way I was a foreigner in England. But our situations are quite different. Here he can come and go as he pleases, and he makes a living painting us Maori for one or other of his patrons. In England we had no way of making money, unless we were performing on the stage of the Alhambra at the behest of its owner Mr Wilde, or performing at schools and town halls at the behest of Jenkins. When Mr Ridgway came to see those of us still living at the Strangers’ Home, to enquire if we were happy about travelling to Bristol with Jenkins, what could we tell him? What choice did we have? How else were we to live?
The Bohemian stares at me now, dabbing at his canvas. He looks at me the way the English looked at me, intent and fascinated, consuming me with their eyes. He isn’t quite so curious, of course, and he never seems horrified. He’s seen many rangatira in his travels around New Zealand. We’re not animals from the Zoological Gardens in our own country, and certainly not a dying species, whatever the newspapers say.
This is one reason it was such a relief to return to New Zealand, and to hide myself away whenever I could on Hauturu. The Queen would live forever at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, if her courtiers would permit, and I understand that. In London people gawp at her, and sometimes they shoot at her as well. No one shoots at me on Hauturu – not any more, now we don’t have to fear taua from the south.
The island is really Hauturu-o-toi, because Toi-te-huatahi, the great explorer, named it. His grandson was lost at sea, so Toi searched for him, following the path of the stars from Hawaiki south across the ocean. He didn’t find his grandson, but he found Aotea and Hauturu, and decided to stay for a while. His grandson eventually turned up safe and sound in Hawaiki, as the young will do, oblivious to the fuss they’ve caused.
Hauturu is not like other islands. It’s a place of secrets and resistance. The mountain always wears a cloak of cloud. Some say that an atua lives up there, and when it descends, disguised in grey swirls of mist, no one is safe. The waves crash and the winds blow, warning us of its descent.
The island is guarded by its sheer ridges and slashed with deep gullies, which is why it was easy to defend. The streams only flow during the rains of winter. There are no beaches, and if the wind blows from the south-west, it’s impossible either to land or to leave. Toi himself couldn’t find a landing place, so he sent a slave, guarded by Toi’s beloved dog, Moi-pahu-roa, to find a suitable spot.
Perhaps the dog was reluctant to swim ashore, or perhaps the slave just wanted to escape his watch. For one reason or another, near the wet boulders near Titoki point, the slave dashed the dog’s head with a sharp rock. He’d forgotten that the dog was Toi’s property and therefore tapu. Before his eyes, the dog turned into a slab of stone. You can see it there now, lying in the water, as flat as the boulders near it are round. It’s still tapu. If anyone strikes that stone, he will die within one month.
The slave was frightened, so he ran away through the trees and disappeared up the mountain. He should have stayed and faced Toi’s punishment. Instead he was taken by the patupaiarehe – sprites, they call them in English – and held there forever. You can still hear his voice in the whistling wind when a storm lashes the island, crying out to Moi-pahu-roa for forgiveness.
When I was a small child and first heard this story, I was afraid of this voice. But when I was in England, and the only voices around me were shrill with petty complaints, I thought of Toi’s slave trapped where the tree-tops brush the clouds, and longed to hear his lament.
For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?
LUKE 9:25
It pains me to write this down, but the rebellion in London was not really over at all. No sooner had some of our party run away, than the rest were demanding money from Jenkins. We knew he was engaged in making arrangements for a tour of provincial cities, despite the absence of four of our original group, who were to be abandoned to their fates in London. Haumu was to be left behind in her asylum, and the three who had absconded, Mr Ridgway had told us, were living in lodgings near the Alhambra Theatre, in a very low-class part of town.
By this time, we were attending fewer balls and receptions, and spending more of our time earning shillings. Jenkins had arranged quite a programm
e of ‘illustrated lectures’ in the chapels and meeting rooms of London, and therefore we had observed him and his associates collecting money from the people who attended, counting up coins afterwards. Occasionally Mr Lightband, who usually took charge of the counting, looked happy, and talked of a good night, or a most beneficial afternoon. But we had no fixed idea of how much money was spent and how much was earned, and Jenkins refused to discuss these matters with us. Money was no concern of ours, he said.
But ever since that upstart Wiremu Pou had announced how much Mr Hegarty was paying him to prance upon the stage of the Alhambra with the so-called Maori Warrior Chiefs, money had become the subject of many of our conversations. Too many, I must say. These conversations grew louder when we learned that Jenkins had commissioned a large map of New Zealand. The purpose of this was to help him illustrate these illustrated lectures, for apparently we, wearing our cloaks and brandishing our weapons, were insufficient. It was at this point, I think, that everyone grew angry. When Jenkins called one morning at the Strangers’ Home, in part to discuss some private matter with Colonel Hughes, we could not wait for his meeting to end. We all crowded into the office to press our case.
‘Why should the Maori troupe be paid to walk once a night onto the stage at the Alhambra?’ Hapimana demanded. He was no longer laughing and joking all the time, and I suspect he regretted not running off when he had the chance. ‘You ask us to perform at every event we attend, and now you say we must go to Bristol, where we must perform at churches and schools and all manner of meetings. We should be paid every week, just as these Maori Warrior Chiefs are. If you don’t pay us, we will leave.’
‘You will suffer very badly if you leave,’ a grim-faced Jenkins warned him. ‘I won’t suffer, but you will. The English won’t invite you to their great houses if you’re no longer seen as a rangatira.’
‘What is the merit of visiting great houses, if we must live like paupers?’ Horomona Te Atua took a leading role in this argument, as I remember it, because he was very unhappy about his brother’s defection. Horomona told me he tried to dissuade Wiremu Pou from leaving, but his brother was stubborn, and quite determined. ‘So many of our expenses now must be paid from our own pockets, when this was never the agreement in Auckland.’
This point was quite true. I sold some land before I came away, so I would have a little money in my pocket when I was in England. But none of us had expected to be asked to give the cook money, or pay when the coal was delivered, things we had to do on several occasions before we returned to the Strangers’ Home. I think that Takarei had paid the butcher’s bill three times. We from the North didn’t care so much about this, for we had decided that Takarei had more money than any of us. I don’t know why we thought such a thing. We were always imagining things about Takarei, for he was not one of us, and spoke so little to anyone but that foolish jokester Hapimana.
The result of this meeting was much angry talk among Mr Lightband, Mr Lloyd, Mr Brent, and Jenkins, and finally, at the insistence of Wharepapa, another meeting, this time at the offices of Mr Ridgway with a lawyer present. Mr Ridgway also invited Mrs Colenso and Reverend Stack to attend, so we would not need to rely on Jenkins and his friends as interpreters.
This was my first time in Leicester Square, and it was not at all as I expected. I thought it would be an elegant and well-tended place, like so many of the squares we had seen in the west of London, with their fine railings and green lawns. Leicester Square looked more like a dry wasteland, strewn with so much rubbish it might have been a dust-heap. Its straggly bushes were good for little but offering scant shelter to a great number of mangy cats, and also to the drunk and the destitute, who lay about in great numbers, groaning or sleeping, or stretching out feeble hands to beg for coins. Men staggered from low-class eating houses and dancing saloons, some singing raucous songs, unaware of the barefoot urchins who ran among them, no doubt picking their pockets. In the centre of the square stood a statue of a man on a horse, but this statue was missing both its arms and one leg, as though someone had hacked at the figure with an axe.
Horomona Te Atua could not take his eyes off the Alhambra Theatre on the far side of the square, and I must admit that I was very taken with the sight as well. I hardly knew it was a theatre until Wharepapa told me, for with its minarets and arches and dome it looked like pictures the missionaries showed us depicting King Solomon’s palace. This was the theatre where the Maori Warrior Chiefs performed each night, and I wondered how could they make their voices heard in such a vast place. But seeing its size and beauty, I no longer wondered why Wiremu Pou had decided to join them. He had always fancied himself a prince of the realm.
Mr Ridgway’s office, up several flights in a dark building, was not large at all. We pressed against windows and walls, and there were chairs for Mrs Colenso and Hariata Pomare alone. Ngahuia pouted because of this, and stood in the corner with her arms folded.
Here we were given new contracts in English to sign, and Mrs Colenso read them over and talked each point through with us, to ensure we understood the meaning. We would continue with our tour, under Jenkins’ leadership, and the company would pay each of us one pound five shillings a week. For reasons I can’t recall, Mr Ridgway insisted on an entirely separate agreement with Ngahuia, which we all suspected gave her more money. She was quite a favourite of his, and that day they stood conspiring in the corner until she was smiling and simpering once again.
Jenkins was most unhappy about all of this, and accused us all of the blackest ingratitude.
‘We have been treating you like lords, and introducing you into the best society!’ he complained. He stood by the door to Mr Ridgway’s office, as though to bar us from escaping. ‘We show you things to instruct and improve, and as a reward for our kindness you throw every difficulty in our way, and put us to great trouble and expense. We have made great losses on this venture, and you do not seem to care at all.’
Wharepapa was offended by this speech, and made a great point of saying that he and Reihana would abide by the agreement made in Auckland. They would wait until the end of our trip, and take their share then, whatever that share might be.
‘We do not ask for money each week,’ he said, and his face was most haughty. He does this face well, Wharepapa. I’ve grown quite accustomed to it over the years. ‘If you offer it to us, if you beg us to take it, still we will turn away.’
This was all very fine, this talk, but we all knew that Wharepapa was the one who had visited Mr Ridgway to speak of these matters. Wharepapa was the one who requested the services of the lawyer, to ensure these new contracts were proper English law! As for Reihana, he might proclaim that he did not want to be given money each week, but he never hesitated to ask Jenkins for money whenever the need arose, however small that need. Reihana would ask Jenkins for money to have his coat brushed and mended, when the rest of us would find the required coins in our own pockets. We used to joke that Reihana would ask Jenkins for the money to have his shoes blacked or to buy a penny-ice. He was determined not to have money, I thought, for he liked to suffer, and to make a show of it.
I’m afraid that this is not a very Christian thought on my part, and perhaps I should not have written it down. Let me be more charitable, and conjecture that Reihana was simply a man of principle, who wished to abide by the original agreement because he could not say, in good faith, that he had misunderstood the paper he signed.
More accusations and recriminations went on for some time, to the obvious enjoyment of Mr Ridgway. From time to time he would nudge Ngahuia and then shout out warnings to Jenkins.
‘The Duke will be very interested to hear this!’ he would say. ‘The Earl of Shaftesbury will be shocked to learn of such a statement!’
Soon Mr Brent, so disheartened by the financial losses Jenkins kept mentioning, declared his intention to return to New Zealand at once, and to leave Jenkins and Lloyd and even Mr Lightband, his son-in-law, to ‘get on with it’, as he said. In New Zealand he
could earn money rather than just spend it, so home to New Zealand he would go.
This was not the only announcement. Hare and Hariata Pomare were told that it was the express wish of Her Majesty the Queen that they move as soon as possible to the house of Mrs Colenso. This lady and her daughter would take care of them until the child was born. The Queen herself would pay all their expenses in London, and their passage home. They were so happy with this news that they both cried with joy and relief. Poor Hariata Pomare was tired, I think, of traipsing here and there to parties or meetings, or to tour great buildings, for she felt unwell almost every day.
We were not much longer in London after that meeting, as I recall, but there were several important events that I must write down. I can’t remember the order of them, but I know they all occurred before we left to catch the train to Bristol, herded to the station by Mr Lightband because Jenkins had travelled ahead of us, to find us lodgings and to make arrangements for our public appearances there.