“Back Then, Now” (2005)
Last time I was in New Zealand, my home, I went to the West Coast of the South Island to see my last surviving granddad and a few of my uncle’s and auntie’s. On the way back to my mum and dad’s place on the East Coast, I drove through the small area called Rotomanu, a West Coast farming community.
Just around from where a small ridge reaches a river, and the road snakes through the suddenly lush bush to cross the deep, green water, I stopped. There was a long straight road reaching East, and the mountains, I had come to a stop on a small concrete bridge crossing a dry stream. Under the bridge, near where the first support reached into the water there is a deep pool. The pool, during the spring is always full of tiny, pink eel hatchlings. From where I sat, in my white Volkswagen Beetle, I could see the pool and eels as clearly in my mind as if I was standing under that bridge looking right at them.
The vision I was imagining, was a memory from my childhood, the first time I had seen the pink eels, tiny and wriggling, no longer or thicker than a child’s pencil when I had upturned a rock, no doubt looking for there mother or father. I was a hunter, a fisherman…
I was thirteen years old, standing-up to my waist in the stream that once flowed quickly under that bridge. Overturning the rocks in the deepest, slowest moving piece of water I started for the shore.
Amongst some ferns laying their fronds gently over the stream, hid a small eddy. A nearly still backwash, close enough to the bridge for protection from the birds that preyed on this area, yet exposed just enough to catch the full days sun so to keep the still water in the eddy warmer than the rest of the stream. Giving up on my eeling expedition I poked around the eddy, looking for tadpoles and fresh water crabs. From under a large rock that I dislodged swam in a tangled, blind rush for safety, a dozen or more of these baby eels.
I remember that day clearer than many. It was just a couple of days after my nana died. She was sixty-three and had breast cancer. That was the biggest loss I have ever experienced. Nana was a loving, wonderful friend, when I was young I was sure she could see right in to me. It was like she saw the hope I had for my own life.
Driving further down the road I passed an old barn, loose corrugated sheets flapping in the westerly breeze that blew warmly through the large open valley. This was the barn my family and I used to help my other granddad fill for winter feed, the barn I used to come to searching for rats, secretly always hoping not to find any, knowing I would probably scream if confronted by a leathery tailed pink eyed rodent.
The barn rested in the same paddock the milking cow would be put for the night, close to the milking shed and the house. How many times did I run out to that paddock? Five or six years old, negotiating the cow pocked entrance to the lane. I knew my way around that gateway, the hardest bits of turf, the place where I could just reach the fence post to pole-vault myself over the deepest puddle. Nearly dark still when I would go out, trying to beat my granddad to the house cow, wanting so much to do something for him. After the milking, putting the cow back in its paddock, hosing down the yard with the high-pressure hose, day dreaming about being a fireman. Then, taking the tin bucket of milk back to the house and my family.
Between the Barn paddock and the House paddock was where the "cow crush" stood, next to the milking shed, opening into the "calf paddock", where as kids my brothers and I would catch and try to ride the bobby calves that were waiting for the truck to take them away. Beyond the barn is the old pigsty, red brick and empty. Years ago there would always be a few pigs in the sty. Christmas pork and ham were a tradition in my family.
It is empty now. All of it. The sty the milking shed, even the paddocks are mostly empty, apart from a few steers mewing around a water trough. It saddened me so, to see the place of my youthful exploration go to waste. The land, so rich when my Granddad had finally relented to his own cancer and sold up for an easier pace of life in Greymouth.
When he did sell the farm I was sixteen, and had started my love affair with motorbikes. The day of the big farm sale I was to ride one of my bikes over to the farm after my nightshift at Christchurch airport. After finishing work and cleaning myself up, I was ready to head off. I didn’t go. The thought of watching a group of strangers wading through my family’s belongings, and my childhood memories was too much. Instead I went to bed, rising around midday I called my mum who was already on the farm helping out. I told her that I had to work late, not a rare occurrence in my job, and was unable to make the ride due to a lack of sleep. She told me I was missing a great day and that I should get some sleep, they would all see me when they got back to Christchurch the next day.
I still haven’t told my mother the truth about that day. I was sad, and felt a little betrayed that my place in the world was being sold out from under me. I knew that granddad was not able to continue the rigorous schedule to upkeep a farm of that size, yet I still held a hope that one of my family would feel capable of taking over the property, of course they could not.
The thought of leaving the farm again, but this time for the last time was too much. When my brothers and I were very young and travelling to and from the farm with our parents we would all cry whenever we left. As we grew older we stopped crying at the leaving, my brothers before I did. I kept on crying for a long time after they had stopped, I can remember the last time. My brothers and folks had chided me about it for a while and this time I was determined to prove how tough I was. Sitting in the middle of the back seat with my brothers either side of me I braced myself as we farewelled nana and granddad and drove down the long country driveway. So far so good…
Turning on to the road that lead home and away from the farm I knew I couldn’t turn to watch it disappear as I usually would. So sitting there trying to look interested in the conversations of my family - it was all I could do to stop the tears that were welling in my eyes from breaking and rolling down my cheeks. My brothers, and father through the rear vision mirror, watched me in my emotional struggle. I guess it was meant to be a coming of age thing for me, all it did was taught me to hide my feelings, and tears, deeper inside.
What would they think if they knew I cried for the uncertainty of life in our home? On the farm, with my grandparents near me, life had more control. The anger and frustration my father showed when he was young still strong in my mind, I noticed the power my granddad had over him, and watched as my father would run around trying to do as much for this man as he could. There were even things done on the farm that dad was not allowed to do. He didn’t have the patience for stock work and rushed too much on the tractors. So my oldest brother ploughed his first paddock on the farm before our father did. I can not remember any harsh words between the two of them. In fact my father had more respect for his father-in-law than he did for most men. Granddad taught all of us something, he showed my father what control really is… Control of the self. In the final months of his battle with the disease that stole him from his farm, and life, my father was able to repay some of the support he had received from granddad. Though unable to talk, due to a tracheotomy two years earlier I felt sure they communicated more, as dad tried desperately to prove himself the worthy son-in-law that he is.
My granddad was the first man I truly realised I was not afraid of. This happened when I turned eighteen, too late for some, for me, I think it happened just in time.
When I was working for my brother on a dairy farm in South Canterbury I was responsible for the majority of the tractor work. Many times I have sat on a tractor thinking of granddad, wishing he could have seen me, the farmer, and I would look up telling the memory of him what I was up to, asking him if I was keeping the lines straight or if those cows needed more grass. My brother became accustomed to my bursts of laughter when I would tell him to look at what we were doing… farming.