'Me Offsider Here.'

With the torch switched off, Pita could, for the moment, ignore the damp press of the earth beneath his bare feet. Above him the pre-dawn sky was moon-down, cloudless, and so very black in contrast with the bright worlds that crowded it. Worlds that were just begging for exploration. The pre-dawn chill became transmuted into the cruel cold of space and Commander Pita Waru and his crew were traveling the distant reaches of the universe in search of habitable planets. The complaints of a dog chivvying its herd intruded across the still-quiet miles to summon Pita back. There could be no permanent escape. He was the child of this planet, part of its very substance. Between them lay a bond which, evading explanation, became almost tangible in these small morning hours. Soon, the dawn chorus of vacuum pumps would rise from nearby sheds and the magic that he was now sensing would steal away to hide from the approaching dawn. How many poor souls he wondered, now walled in by sleep, would live their entire lives and never know its subtle presence. But there was work to do. A cow to milk. A calf , cats, and hens to feed, and he must be home in time to eat his breakfast and catch the school bus. Lady had hurried on ahead drawn by the measure of meal in her feed box and, when Pita arrived, her long mobile tongue was striving to reach the last remnants in the corners. She was beautiful. A real lady in nature and bearing. Pita washed her teats and lubricated them with petroleum jelly from the tin on the bail-head. As always the first squirts gave a satisfying ’thunk’ on the bottom of the bucket gradually changing to a ‘squish’ as the milk level rose. Pita settled down to the automatic rhythm and turned his thoughts to George. His mother had told him that George might be a tough old rooster but that was the problem, he was getting really old. And indeed he was. With his wife long gone and pre-deceased by both of his children, at an age when any normal man would have welcomed retirement, George had sold his national waste-collection business and, unbelievably, had put part of the money into a marginal dry-stock farm in a predominately dairying area. He had then upset his critics by running it himself and doing much better with it than he had any right to do, prospering while some of the ‘real farmers’ in the immediate area were almost ready to call it quits following a series of poor seasons. Could there be any better proof that there is no justice in this world?

Bees had always been George’s consuming interest. They had let him forget the frustrations of the business world: allowed him to leave the in-fighting of human society for a community where cooperation was the norm. The task of caring for them had given him much simple pleasure. Bees had also widened his horizons. Years before, he had been impressed by an article on the wintering of hives to the extent that he had written to the author offering some of his own observations and techniques. He had done this with some trepidation since he was addressing an acknowledged expert with a string of letters after his name but had discovered a fellow enthusiast and, eventually, friend. They had kept in touch ever since. From this beginning, he had collected as diverse a range of acquaintances as one could wish for. His interests were wide-ranging and questions that perplexed him were addressed to experts who had usually gone to great lengths to provide at least some clarification. Big names but approachable. Often, his very evident enthusiasm had rekindled their own. He didn’t raise much enthusiasm locally though. By general agreement, he was a bit odd– “I mean who in this day and age needs a house cow?”– but he was always good for a donation to local causes. He had been lucky up to now, they said, but it couldn’t last. And it seemed as though they were right when that first stroke hit him. That surely should have given him the message. Pita’s parents who share-milked on the next farm and knew what it was to be outsiders, had had sympathy for the old man and had taken on the responsibility of looking after things for him while he was out of action–which meant that they had sent Pita. George had bounced back fairly quickly that first time, at least physically. He had sagged a little on one side but that did not appear to trouble him unduly. The thing that had taken time to return was his ability to read and write so that in the meantime Pita had been pressed into service reading–for the man had been a great reader–and answering letters and E-mail. Writing those letters was, for a start, a daunting task. George was on first-name terms with some well-known people and Pita, whose spelling was not his strong point, was sure that these great men would circle his mistakes as his teacher did. He need not have worried. Some proved to be worse spellers than he was and several of them had called in when passing that way and he had found them to be amazingly ordinary, and for adults, even fun. It had all started from there, three wonderful years. Pita had taken to hanging around when not needed at home and had become what George called ‘Me off-sider here’. They had built a small green-house together, performed major surgery on some of the trees in the now-aged orchard and pulled out some of the shorter-lived varieties. They had pored over catalogues to decide what would fill the vacant spaces and had hunted high and low for a Russet Apple. No modern apple came anywhere near it for crispness and flavour and the orchard would be incomplete without at least one tree. At least that’s what George said. Unsolicited cuttings and plant samples had arrived occasionally through the post. George had some generous friends. Generous, it must be admitted, with university or government property and postage. No doubt there were things that they were not supposed to have but that didn’t seem to be doing anybody any harm.

Lady brought up a cud to chew and Pita, whose head was resting against her flank, could distinctly feel and hear the movement. What a marvelous processing plant she possessed. Biotechnology with legs. And typical George! It wasn’t enough for him just to own a cow. he had to know exactly how the inside of a cow worked and had taken Pita on a fascinating tour through her digestive system., right from sward to cowpat. When Pita had tried to repeat the exercise with his mother she had silenced him with, “Yuk! Do you mind? Not when I’m making tea.” People were funny that way. George’s only niece whom he had funded through university, had cut him off thereafter when some fool had insisted that the money had come from night-soil collection. Actually, it come in part from commercial waste-pit cleaning and the disposal of toxic chemicals but “So what?”. Nothing was really ‘yuk’. Even waste could be interesting. The world was a constant surprise and so complex that within an arm’s reach one could find enough inquiry for a hundred lifetimes. One could start on an exciting journey just by asking ‘how’ and ‘why’. Pita allowed himself a wry smile. He was sounding exactly like George which would have the locals label him as queer too. To arrive at one’s teens with an intact sense of wonder was to be almost fey while to have it intact at George’s age cast serious doubts on ones mental condition. The neighbours, unaware of their loss, characterized themselves as practical people: realists. They knew that the only value of knowledge lay in its commercial application. Yet George, who could crouch for an hour entirely engrossed in the actions of some tiny insect, was showing himself to be more successful financially than any of them.

Pita’s mother stood at the sink bench and stared out of the window at the box-thorn hedge now silhouetted black before a brightening sky. Some thoughtful person had planted that hedge across what could have been a reasonable view. Just one more thing to hem her in. She had left the milking shed early to get breakfast for the younger school children. Their lunches she had cut the night before. Although it was still hardly day, she was tired–tired and depressed. Never had she felt so trapped. “I didn’t marry a farmer,” she thought, “I married a dirty stinkin’ cowshed. Fourteen hour days, seven day weeks, and sixteen years. And what have we got to show for it? Not even our own herd. And we’ve never once been able to afford a decent holiday. And what will we ever have? Apart from a tribe of hungry kids that is?” Once, and it seemed a million years ago, a young couple had had a dream. Their own farm, reasonably close to whanau and, hopefully, to the coast and kai moana. A lush green carpet from boundary to boundary, a comfortable house, trees around it, a big vegie garden, an orchard and a horse for the kids. “Two horses! That’ll stop any fighting.” What a pair of silly fools they had been. All those big ideas. The reality had been so very different. A never-ending succession of mid-winter treks to yet another farm, another sub-standard farm cottage, another disappointment. These last four seasons had been their longest stay anywhere. And that wasn’t going to last either. Next winter, there would be a new farm in a new district, and she would have to make a new set of temporary friends. There would be all the usual social activities, apparent social cohesion, but underneath it would be the same as it had always been. The older established families would consider themselves to be the local nobility and sharemilkers, Maori or Pakeha, would be close to dropping off the bottom of the social scale. At least there would be no more babies. Not that she regretted having any of them, but after years of taking the current baby to the milking shed, she had done more than her share in that direction. Enough was enough. She felt old before her time and knew that she looked it. Maybe if she spent a little money on herself, she could still look attractive. But, even as she thought it, she knew though that she could never do that. The children came first and always would. She had always felt guilty in diverting even the smallest amount to herself and knew that her husband felt the same way. And to think that they had been going to put off having children until they were properly established. That was a laugh.

As Pita finished his chores in the still-uncertain daylight, his mind was occupied with the things that he must do to fulfill his trust. The only likely problem would be the bees. He was aware that he still had much to learn in that direction. Always, when he had worked on the hives, George had been there at his shoulder with his, “Gently now.” Pita had manipulated the frames under direction and it had been George who had played God. Increasingly, Pita had become George’s hands. With the present cold there was not much activity and little to worry about but, in the warmer months ahead, there would be the hive inspections required by law. Yesterday, Pita and his mother had visited George in the hospital and George had said that he was much better and would be out again in a few days but as they left the hospital his mother had said that it might be best not to expect to see him anytime soon. So if George was going to be away for a while, he would have to find someone who knew something about bees. “One day,” he thought, “when I have the money, I’m going to have some hives too–and a cow like Lady.” That dream was closer than he knew but not as he would have wished it. The night had brought changes that were yet to be signaled. George had responded to his final call, a call that was to bring grief and great changes to the son of his old age—-his unsuspecting heir.