The Telling Time : A Historical Family Saga Read online

  ‘Bex. Yeah, couldn’t forget her,’ says Tony. ‘Party girl, short blonde hair. A teacher right?’ He lowers his voice and leans in closer. ‘Have to admit I more than noticed her. Felt a bit down when I realised she was heading off. Lost opportunities and all.’ He tips his bottle and takes a long swig.

  Niamh had laughed when Luisa mentioned it, how Bex attracts so much attention. Luisa knows there’s no one at the moment, but how will Bex cope when it’s just the two of them travelling? It still niggles her how little they know one another. But then as Niamh says, It’s the perfect opportunity to get to know each other.

  ‘Refill?’ Kath reaches for Luisa’s glass. Tony turns away.

  ‘One more, then I’ll get going.’ Luisa rolls her eyes. ‘Family dinner tomorrow and Mum needs help with the prep.’

  ‘Stay put,’ says Kath, already moving off. She calls back over her shoulder, ‘All my mates are deserting me. Got to make the most of it while you’re still here.’

  ‘Go,’ Luisa mouths, swishing her hand.

  Niamh was a lifesaver suggesting Bex as a travel mate and they’ve negotiated a new plan. Bex was desperate to get to New York and see some of America. It wasn’t Luisa’s first choice, but then she’d had to convince Bex about Yugoslavia, a country Bex knew nothing about. Luisa wasn’t surprised: she’s got used to it over the years. For many Kiwis, Yugoslavia’s socialism is a step too far, and even she has to admit the history is confusing — too many broken and changing borders, too many wars won and lost. After the US they’ll spend time in Turkey and Greece before finishing with Yugoslavia. Not that Luisa’s family know anything about this last part, and Bex has been sworn to secrecy.

  Someone touches her on the shoulder and she turns.

  ‘Hey,’ says Mike.

  He looks so relaxed and he’s wearing that tie she bought. Does he even remember?

  ‘Hey.’ Her voice sounds too cheerful, like she’s happy to see him. Luisa narrows her eyes, tries to look as though she doesn’t care. Her face colours; she can feel it. It’s ridiculous he still has this effect on her.

  ‘Don’t want to harass you,’ he says. ‘It’s just . . . we haven’t spoken, since, well, you know. First time’s always the hardest. I want us to move on, be friends.’

  ‘Don’t!’ She shrugs him off when he touches her arm. ‘Leave it. I don’t want to talk.’

  Kath shoves herself back into the circle, thrusting another glass of bubbles at Luisa. ‘Hey, Mike. Sorry we won’t get to catch up — hear you’re leaving.’

  Luisa’s grateful. Kath’s the master of the one-liner. She jokes about honing her skills by having to keep her four smartarse brothers in line.

  Mike gives Luisa a resigned look and shrugs. ‘Catch ya, then.’

  Luisa watches him move off. It still baffles her that she’s lost him.

  ‘Sorry if I was a little blunt,’ says Kath. ‘Did the trick, though.’

  ‘Perfect rescuer, unlike these morons.’ Luisa points her glass towards James and Tony, who are still deep in conversation. ‘Cheers, my friend! And here’s to life getting less complicated.’ She drinks, but the wine tastes cloying now, far too sweet. ‘Hey, I think I’ll shoot off. Small steps still. Have an awesome weekend and see you Monday, eh?’ She forces a smile and squeezes Kath’s arm.

  The room and its occupants are a blur as Luisa rushes for the door. She feels her colleagues’ eyes trained on her back and imagines their comments. Mike said people don’t hold onto stuff, that gossip is a passing fancy, snippets tossed about like petals then forgotten. He was right about the talk when they first got together. People moved on quickly. Still, she’s relieved it’s not often that she’s the headline act. When the lift pings she’s grateful she doesn’t have to share the space. She can breathe again. What still baffles her is the way she let her guard down, relaxed her rules. The physical attraction helped, those eyes, that broad, toned chest, but it was also his intelligence and wit. Deep down, she admired his laissez-faire attitude — his willingness to let things happen and to hell with the consequences. Even so, she backed herself to tame him. And in a sense she had, given she was the girlfriend who lasted longest. Still feels like failure, though.

  Outside, the Friday night crowd bustle past. The evenings are getting cooler, but it’s nothing that a brisk walk won’t fix. She steps into the crowd and strides up Queen Street towards the town hall and her bus stop. It feels good to clear her head. There’s an electric energy and she can’t help feeling recharged. The bright yellow moon-face of the Town Hall’s clock tower glows like a beacon. She’s always imagined this historic building like a displaced ocean liner. A piece of neo-Renaissance architecture cast off from Italy and wedged in the middle of Queen Street. Soon, she thinks, she will walk the streets of countries where buildings like this are common, taking in the sights Mum so often reminisces about. Luisa smiles. It was the reason Mum insisted on the spelling of her name, Mum’s way of keeping a connection. Her older sister, Anita, was named after their Baba Ana, Mum’s mother — a name Kiwis are more familiar with — now that Luisa’s older, and past the frustrations of always having to spell out her name, she’s grateful for this nod to her European roots.

  At the post box, Luisa digs the aerogramme from her satchel. This will be her last letter to Uncle Josip before they leave. It explains that Bex is coming now and reassures him that she will send an update from Turkey. All in all they’ve been communicating for the past six months. Uncle Josip has sent his replies to her work address. Mum’s the type who visits without warning, making it her business to check the flat letterbox on her way in. She says it’s a habit of old but Luisa calls it nosiness. Either way she can’t risk Mum finding out. She holds the latest thin blue letter to her lips before dropping it through the slot. There, another secret on its way.

  A young woman, spiky bleached hair, black eyeliner, sits midway along the bus. Luisa refuses to catch her eye as she slips into the seat behind her. Across the punk’s denim jacket, the words ‘Nut Kicker from Hell!’ are emblazoned in red. Luisa stifles a laugh. Kath’s short shrift of Mike pales in comparison. There’s just a scattering of other passengers, a couple of young guys in suits up front, and a middle aged Polynesian woman sitting opposite. She wears a pristine orange hibiscus flower nestled in her thick, ropey hair. It pushes forward from her ear, a nod to her culture, the place she hails from.

  Even though Luisa was born a New Zealander and feels proud to call herself a Kiwi, she’s a Croatian Kiwi: this is her point of difference, what sets her apart. Niamh feels the same about her Irish blood. The bus turns into K’ Road, past where the Dally club used to be and along Symonds Street towards New North Road where it’s located now. Luisa wonders: if she was to total the time spent in both buildings, what it would amount to. Maybe years? As a teen she scoffed at some of the old-fashioned rituals, the traditional dances, the music and the annual club picnic which for years her parents insisted she and her siblings attend, but now she wants to deepen her understanding of her culture — which, despite all that, feels at arm’s length. She wants to live and breathe and see for herself what she’s heard so much about. It’s a special part of her, hard to describe, but she gets emotional thinking about it, what it means deep down.

  The bus meanders up to Newmarket and along Broadway, the neon shop signs blazing even though the shops have closed. Nut-kicker waits beside the driver until the bus pulls over then stalks off, her bleached hair tinged blue by the street lights. An elderly man in a hat shuffles on, behind him a woman with a toddler. The man hacks into his handkerchief, his shoulders rattling.

  Dida Stipan. It’s six years since they lost him. Baba Marta went five months earlier. At least I’ve got to know Dad’s family though. Mum’s relatives have only been introduced through photographs and penned birthday messages, or phone calls where you had to fight the static and time lapses. From the photos, Baba Ana is the one Luisa most closely resembles. Baba had the same wild crop of spiral curls and sculpted face. />
  A group of rowdy teens only just make it on before the bus pulls away. They bump and swagger past Luisa towards the rear seat. The bus trawls along Manukau Road, within striking distance of Luisa’s flat which she moved out of three weeks ago in preparation for heading away. How long will she be gone? She hopes she’ll be lucky enough to last out her two-year working visa. If she plays it right, and fits plenty of travel around her work, she might even be able to stretch her time away to three or four years. Who knows how long she’ll need to mend the rift between Mum’s family, let alone get to the bottom of what her mum’s hiding away.

  It wasn’t Mum’s dry eyes when Dida Ante passed in 1975 that alerted her to something being amiss — it was a couple of years earlier when Baba Ana was slipping into Alzheimer’s oblivion. Baba was Mum’s conduit, and as conversations became more difficult Mum became increasingly distraught. It was then that parts of the story emerged, along with lashings of venom: how Dida Ante had sent Mum to New Zealand against her will. Luisa is certain there must have been a love interest, but knows that Mum won’t let on. She admires what Mum’s achieved, coming out here and making a new life, but her old-fashioned attitudes are frustrating. They’ve come to an unspoken agreement since Luisa left home to skirt around the important topics instead of arguing. Mum drilled into both Luisa and her sister, Wait until you’re married. Luisa suspects Anita complied but Mike took Luisa by surprise. One minute they were kissing on the balcony in full view of the other staff, and two weeks later she had joined him in bed. Even now she doesn’t regret it. It’s frustrating that Mum puts up these barriers. The supposed scandal is likely to be trivial anyway, given how strict the rules would have been then.

  After Dida Ante died things became more complicated. When Uncle Josip told Mum he was putting Baba Ana in a rest home, Mum was outraged, yelling down the phone at him, Locking Mama away, sramotno! Afterwards she refused to talk to her brother. It’s been nine years since they’ve heard from Korčula: the inevitable call to say Baba Ana had passed. Mum was inconsolable for weeks, but then she picked herself up and got on with life. Not that it changed things with Josip. Mum’s stubbornness is impressive, thinks Luisa. You have to give her that.

  The Polynesian lady’s stop is close to Mount Smart stadium. She looks a lonely figure, lugging her shopping bag along the street and Luisa hopes she doesn’t have far to go, gets home safely. It’s been three years since Luisa attended her first music festival at this stadium — the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior concert to mark the bombing. It was also perfect for celebrating Luisa’s 21st birthday: partying with her friends, singing along with Neil Young, ‘Hey, Hey, My, My’; pogoing to Split Enz, ‘I See Red’; sharing her first joint and drinking too much, then throwing up on the pavement outside — not the ideal ending, but memorable, a story she laughs about now even though it’s one she’s not keen to repeat. Niamh was delighted: You’re finally human!

  Luisa’s still smiling when they reach her stop. She has fond memories of this neighbourhood, of Ngaio Street. Many of the houses in Epsom are more salubrious, but this part of Auckland will always be special. She passes the gingerbread house with the rock wall that used to be Baba and Dida’s. It holds such special memories: Dida Stipan’s stories; the meals they all shared. Now that she has the opportunity to travel to the other side of the world, if she wasn’t to visit Yugoslavia it would feel as though she was splitting herself in two and ignoring one half. It’s like a calling. Baba and Dida made a better life for all the family by coming to New Zealand, but they never downplayed the hardships, or the sacrifices. Luisa feels it’s her duty to visit the homeland, to acknowledge their sacrifices, to pay homage. She’s still thinking about this as she lets herself through the front door.

  ‘That you, Draga?’ Mum calls from her bedroom. ‘Come quick. I need the help deciding.’

  ‘Hang on,’ says Luisa, suppressing her irritation. ‘Be there in a tick.’

  She ducks into the other front bedroom, the room she used to share with Anita, and pulls out jeans and a T-shirt. Marko, despite being the youngest, was lucky getting a room to himself and Luisa has always envied him having a space to call his own. She and Anita clashed as teenagers: her sister was messy and yet so damned compliant. She made Luisa seem rebellious, which was laughable. Marko was the one to push the boundaries but then he also had the knack of flying under Mum’s radar.

  ‘Luisa! I’m catching the cold.’

  ‘Coming!’ says Luisa. Two more weeks, she reassures herself.

  The master bedroom is strewn with clothes. Mum stands beside the bed in her underwear, arms and legs toned from all the time spent outside in the garden. Her tanned limbs are a striking contrast to the sheath of white hugging her torso — full knickers, V-necked sleeveless singlet tucked in at the waist, and a peep of lace frothing at her cleavage. There have been many times Luisa’s wished she’d been gifted even half Mum’s impressive bust. Valentina has worked her magic. Mum’s hair has been restored to jet-black and styled into soft curls. She’s a fine-looking woman, thinks Luisa, and still shapely despite middle age adding a heft to her hips. Mum’s beautiful skin has always been a joking point between Luisa and Joy — that it’s thanks to Mum applying the Nivea cream with religious fervour.

  ‘I was hoping you’d be home,’ says Mum, flinging her arm towards the pile on her bed as though everything is hopeless. ‘How can I decide?’

  Luisa picks through the pile and selects the ruby-coloured dress, the one Mum wore to Luisa’s graduation. ‘I’ve always loved you in this.’

  Mum frowns. ‘Not too flashy?’

  ‘No. It’s perfect,’ says Luisa, holding firm. She wants to avoid spending the evening toing and froing between multiple choices. Mum will be worried about looking over-dressed, or out of place, among the other Dally ladies coming to the party. It is frustrating that Mum’s so concerned about doing the right thing, that she can’t be her own person. Take Valentina. Despite Mum’s criticism of the gold dripping from her hairdresser’s wrists, makes her fortune off her own community, she refuses to go elsewhere, insisting you have to be loyal, support our own. Luisa realises this was a new country for Mum and that sometimes she struggled to fit in, but after thirty years, surely she’s earned her place? She’s made her family here. And it’s not as though she’s made any effort to hold on to her family back home. She’s never returned, despite all her talk of missing her precious homeland. Sometimes Mum is like a pack of mismatched playing cards where there’s no chance of logic. It’s Dad Luisa feels sorry for. Everyone else in his family has made the trip back, and Luisa’s certain he’d love to do the same. When she pressed him on it he brushed her off: Better things to spend our money on. He was probably protecting Mum, but who would know? He’s a man of few words and never been one to cause a scene.

  ‘What’s for dinner?’ asks Luisa. ‘You get dressed and I’ll give you a hand.’ She wants to stay on side and any offer of help is like gold to Mum.

  ‘Takeaways. Your tata’s picking up the fish and chips.’

  ‘I’ll tidy up here. You go put your feet up. Idi dalje. Go on!’ Luisa swishes with her hand. ‘Start planning tomorrow’s jobs.’

  Mum makes a show of saluting before pulling on her clothes. She pauses by the door. ‘Thanks, Draga. You know I’ll miss you.’

  Luisa shoos her off, smiling at how sentimental Mum’s been of late. She makes sure to put everything back the way Mum would expect. Maybe it’s why Luisa feels best when her own life is orderly, everything in its place with no surprises. She runs her hand over the intricate carved top of the kauri glory box, cleared now of clutter. It was a wedding present from Aunt Kate and Uncle Nick, and it’s always sat at the base of her parents’ bed. Mum’s filled it with fine linen, crockery and a few pieces of jewellery, her box of treasures with sentimental things that she plans to hand down. Luisa doesn’t care for glory boxes: Better to use things while they’re half-fashionable. Why would Mum want to hide things away, especially treasures with a c
onnection to her former life?

  Back in the small dining room that doubles as their family room, Mum’s in her La-Z-Boy, feet outstretched. The room is crammed with furniture but their family have always preferred gathering in this tight space rather than the formal lounge. That room is used only for special occasions and large gatherings, like the party they’re holding tomorrow evening.

  ‘Turn that silly man off,’ says Mum, waving her arm at Paul Holmes on the television.

  Luisa obliges then collapses into the other recliner. ‘Everything’s back to normal in there.’

  ‘I’ll be pleased when this party’s over,’ says Mum. ‘Get the whole place back to normal.’

  ‘You’ll love it once tomorrow comes,’ says Luisa, although Mum does look exhausted. ‘It’s an impressive milestone, twenty-eight years married. Perfect timing for me to see everyone, too.’

  Luisa rubs her hand over the La-Z-Boy’s arm, a comforting habit of old. The short Dralon fibres bristle as she works her fingers against the fabric’s grain. ‘Guess what,’ she says, checking Mum’s face, her fingers still stroking the upholstery. ‘I made it up to work drinks.’

  ‘Was he there? Da svinja?’ Mum’s eyes flash with something close to distaste. ‘I could thump that boy. Box his ears!’

  Luisa grins. Mum’s so black-and-white. Mike was welcomed like family when she finally introduced him, but since he dumped her Mum refers to him as ‘the swine’.

  ‘He was. And I survived. First time’s the worst.’ She can’t believe she’s resorting to Mike’s patter.

  Mum tears up. She’s been doing this a lot lately. It’s because she’s worried about Luisa heading off without Mike. ‘I’m sorry, Draga. I still can’t believe he did that to you. Things have a habit of working out, though. Just promise you’ll be careful.’

  ‘You know I will.’ Luisa reaches across and pats Mum’s arm. ‘Come on, we’ve talked about this. It’s worked out fine already. You’ve met Bex and you’ve said how much you like her. I think we’ll be a great combination.’