CHAPTER 37
We went to the Smugglers, of course, just four of us, Tom driving and promising to collect us if needed. Sod discos and stuff, we took a table in the usual bar. It had been occupied by a group of twinks, but Marlene had simply walked over and said something, quietly for once, and they had picked up their stuff and left for one of the other spaces.

She waved us over, and as we sat, she simply asked if we were her sister’s family.

Rae looked up sharply, saying, “We are in the right place, then”, and asked what malts they had behind the bar.

“Lil!”

My friend was there in seconds, Amina at her shoulder.

“These ladies want to know our malt list. Please take an order, then it is free”

I waved at Amina to join us, while Lil went off to collect four shots of Talisker.

“Amina, these are Ange’s Mum Rae, Nan Tania and sister Tihani. Ladies, Amina is a friend. When Ange and me went camping, at a women’s festival…”

Tihani interrupted with, “She said about that, how much she enjoyed it”

“Yes. Amina drove us, with Lil”

“Then both will sit with us. We need to tell my sister’s life, once to her family and once again at her funeral”

Amina rose again.

“Just having a quick word with Marlene; Ox is in the other bar, she can cover”

She returned just as Lil did, and then Marlene arrived with three more shots, so that we could all toast Angela Hinemoa Meads together. We didn’t see much more of the queen that evening, for she simply slipped behind the bar and into serving mode. What we did have was a series of people stopping by to leave their condolences, wish us well, pass us drinks, all the usual vain attempts to fasten together broken souls.

We spoke, each in turn, about her life. Her sister laughed happily as she described Ange’s attempts at playing rugby, how she could catch, tackle and run, but was utterly useless at passing or kicking.

“They’d play her at Seven, just pointing her at the half-backs. Pretty sure she was offside half the time, but who cared?”

I talked us through the French trip once again, with particular focus on the pervy cameraman, the Yanks in that restaurant, her capacity for seafood, leather-skinned women with armpit nipples and the day we had climbed to that saddle in Digne.

“So, the hills rise straight up from a sort of flood plain, and it’s a slog up zigzags to get there, but then there’s this sort of plateau. Loads of paths meet there, and the grass isn’t just grass, it’s all sorts of herbs, so the air is scented. Views out to an incredible distance, eagles and vultures soaring overhead, all sorts of little ones singing around us”

And so in love with her it hurt. That part didn’t need saying, so I gave them the incredible blue of the Annecy lake, Mayor Oobedoobedoo, and the rudeness of Parisians, that pair of bishops on the Arles cathedral frieze as well as Julienne Boucher’s kitchen rules in contrast with Mr Nice and his ‘get their money’ attitude.

That brought a laugh from Tania.

“Like being a parent. Some just want to bring them up as decent people, then let them make their way in the world. Others want to keep them at their best”

We were working through the prosecco by then, with occasional rounds of simple vodka shots, as Amina gave us her account of the camping trip, and some conversations with my lover I hadn’t known about.

“So, we’re in the loos, and she asks me, what do I think of Jen, so I tell her---”

Tania interrupted that time.

“What do you think of her, love?”

“What… Put me on the spot, aye? Can’t think of anyone better, really. Sunshine from arse, sort of thing. Sounder than a sound thing, especially at work—no, Jen! I hear what Tom says, and Mam, and I bloody well know you care. That big car crash, yeah? And… And what you did for Ange, at the end, I know, Lil knows, cause Dai Gould comes in here sometimes, and Tom spoke to Mam, so we’d know”

Rae’s voice was soft.

“What does she do, Amina?”

“Her bloody job, that’s what. I can’t imagine being called out to a thing like that and finding someone I love in the middle of it. To be able to carry on like that, that’s strength, courage, dewrder”

I remembered Dai’s words.

“We had a copper at that crash, and he had another one, three kids burned to death. Dai says he’s moved jobs. Too much of it”

Amina almost snapped at me, “Not you, though. Not my Jen!”

Rae was musing, once again.

“Tihani said it. She would run straight at something, or somebody, head up, no fear, and then she’d have to think: pass, kick?”

I realised how drunk we were getting when I told them more detail of that Nice incident, and I let slip the bit about eating her fiancée. Tania laughed out loud.

“The dirty woman!”

“Well, she later said she wasn’t sure her granddad didn’t eat people, he was that scary”

Tania grinned.

“Not going there, ey? But her Grandpa Hemara, he was my man, from the day I first saw him. I never had fear of him. Mum’s Dad, though, my Grandpa Harawira, he was a warrior. He had ta moko, tattoos, full face, ey? Those are for family, ancestry, mana. That is what we do for those we lose, daughters. We tell those around to witness who our woman was, who her family is, who her ancestors were. They will know who and what we have lost, and the spirits will know whose wairua they welcome into Hawaiki-a-Nui. This is not the way we do things, exactly, because we don’t have enough people for a proper haka…”

She trailed off, as my own drunkenness announced itself more clearly, and then Rae was giggling.

“Ey, we could do a short haka at the trial of those cunts. Think the bailiffs, ushers, whatever could be bribed?”

Marlene set yet another bottle down on our table.

“How are you getting home, Jen?”

“Tom said he’d pick us up”

“Let us know when, then. Unless you want me to shout you a taxi. It’s last orders”

“Oh…”

“No, love. That’s for paying clients. As long as I am closed to them, it doesn’t matter if I have friends sitting with me while I have a drink”

We all nodded, understanding her meaning. As the familiar calls of “That’s your lot, boys, girls and enbies” rang out, I saw a solid figure in a raincoat looking round the bar till she spotted us. Elf.

I got another crushing hug before making the introductions, and Elf pulled a chair over.

“Marlene’s given me the SP, Jen, so do you mind if I sit in? Not working till six tomorrow evening”

No disagreements found, she dumped the raincoat to reveal a full set of her biker colours and started with a toast to Ange, before smiling at our three new friends.

“Corky, in the other club, he’s from Wellington. Filled us in on how you say goodbye to brothers and sisters, so I am here to honour her and say what I saw of her life. Is that okay with you all?”

Once again there were no objections, so she gave us an account of a lovely woman, one of courage, but who preferred more feminine---

“You’re talking about me, Elf”

“Yes, I am. But you reflected Angela, or rather she, her smile, they said so much about you both. By talking about you, I tell the tale of you together. I have my own beliefs, but they’re more about being armed”

Marlene then chipped in some stories about Ange in her early days, finding her lesbian and comfortably-shod feet in the Smugglers, and her reaction on first seeing me.

“She was gone, Jen, full-on smitten, lust at first sight. I had to give her chapter and verse, and then she was pumping Lil. No, not like that; for information, I meant, and of course you and Lil, you’re two of a kind, you like women in skirts rather than Doctor Marten’s boots. So it was me that gave her the chicken fillets. For that bra. In her work clothes”

And so the night went, after a quick call to Tom to stand him down, until I was waking up amid a crowd of women squeezed into every square inch of space in what turned out to be Marlene’s own flat. My hangover was Olympian in scale.

An ambush memory surfaced as I found and used the loo: Elf leaning in to say something very, very quietly.

“The coppers found those two cars in those lock-ups, then?”

“Shit! Was it you who told them?”

“Na. Don’t really speak to coppers except at work, me. Nor does our Prez. But she knows this other woman, who likes fluffy kittens and unicorns, and she just might have spoken to a sergeant we all know”