Melody & Harmony

Melody and Harmony

          Melody was a relatively tall and heavy-boned, sensitive, cultured, creative woman. Her garden was a marvel and would probably win prizes, but she believed that all gardens are wonderful and it’s wrong to compare. Her friends all admired the watercolours she painted of faeries in flowerbeds. She was a wizard with fabrics. The occult fascinated her, but only aesthetically.

          She meditated for a half an hour every morning, and did her ballet barre for an hour every afternoon, being passionately devoted to dance, and especially to avant-garde ballet, jazz dance, and interpretive expressive dance. She saw every performance she could, making budgetary adjustments and travelling considerable distances to see noteworthy ones, if that’s what was called for. She sewed her own dance costumes and was a mainstay of her feminist sewing circle and radical crochet club.

          Masculine values disgusted her, and she particularly luxuriated in making snarky comments about all sport whenever the opportunity arose, except of course for figure skating and gymnastics floor exercises and such (other than for the judging part). She found ballroom and other forms of competitive dance disturbing.

          Particularly worthy of her withering scorn were all the popular team sports, especially those involving the players slamming each other about physically; she had always considered those who love them to be atavistic and a symptom of the Problem.  

          She was particularly proud of having never seen a rugby match.

          This created a problem for her, though, as her daughter and only child, Harmony, whom she had raised according to the precepts of every child-centred parenting book that her friends had recommended to her, was mad about all sport, and particularly rugby. It seemed to Melody that Harmony thought about little else. Harmony’s pride at being the star blind-side flanker and captain of her school’s girls’ rugby team radiated from her every pore and outshone every other aspect of her life.

          Dinner conversations were difficult.

          Melody loved Harmony, of course, but she was also unwavering in regard to her values. They were her. She knew better than to row with her daughter, knowing that Harmony is who she is, no matter how different that was to what Melody had hoped when first viewing her in the midwife’s arms.

          It was bearable when Harmony’d been eight and had played Saturday netball. She’d been popular with her team, being noticeably the tallest and strongest of the tykes. Melody had even gone to one of her games at Minogue Park. It had been pissing down rain. The sight of so many hundreds of young girls pumped up in their teams’ strips had chilled her, too. She hadn’t returned to watch another.

          The rugby had snuck up on her blind eye soon afterward.

          With every passing year Melody’s agony had grown with Harmony’s love for the sport. Melody had tried to offer what maternal support she’d been able to bring herself to provide – mending heart-breakingly discoloured abrasions and contusions, rewrapping badly rolled ankles, there-there-ing tears after games that went badly – but much to her deep inner pain she’d never been able to bring herself to watch her daughter play. She knew that it would mean much to Harmony, or at least supposed that it would, but she feared with a debilitating terror how she would react to seeing her beautiful baby engage in organised violence. She feared that it would destroy her.

          Harmony’s father, Eddie, had helped to fill some of this gap. He’d crapped out of family life early in the piece, but had been generous with the financial support. He’d exercised his consequent access rights somewhat irregularly, but it had included a few stints on the sidelines at Harmony’s rugby games. He had, however, shifted to Queensland when Harmony’d been 16, and hadn’t been by to watch her play since.

          Melody could definitely feel Harmony slipping away, and sometimes screamed at the walls when she was home alone and Harmony was at training.

          When the selectors chose Harmony for the Waikato provincial senior women’s squad when she was still 17, Melody knew what she had to do. It wouldn’t be the end of her world, she thought. At the sewing circle her friend Rae assured her that it was healthy to experience new things outside her comfort zone, and ethereal Alli had put in that to take in everything on a sensory level without making culturally coloured judgements could enhance her spiritually.

          It rained, of course. A slow, steady, cold rain. Melody had dressed for the elements, glad that she’d chosen her baggy gardening khakis over the long dresses she preferred, but wishing she’d had some gumboots on her feet instead of her Docs. Her home-knitted beanie under her raincoat’s waterproof hood made her feel invisible. She felt certain that she wouldn’t run into any of her friends there, but the game was against the Bay of Plenty, and she wasn’t so sure about people she knew from the beach. She felt fortunate to discover herself standing by herself on the sidelines, having placed herself strategically near the end of the pitch on the side across from the teams. In the mud. In the rain. In the cold wind.

          The teams ran out in their rugby shorts. Only a few wore tights under them. Harmony was not one of these. Less than a minute after the kickoff Harmony tackled a girl who was then slow to get up. Her teammates hugged and congratulated her. People on the far sideline and the coaches cheered and yelled: ‘HARM-er! HARM’er! HARM’er!’ Melody faced into the wind and blurred her eyes. She told herself that the game would eventually end.

          Melody became aware of no longer standing by herself. A short, thin Maori woman with a face like a bird of prey materialised and began an almost non-stop stream of shouting, stuff like, ‘Pass it; don’t kick it!’ and ‘C’mon, ladies! HIT that ruck!’ and ‘FIGHT for that ball!’ and ‘Aw c’mon, Ref! She was a mile offsides!’

          Mile? Melody wondered why sport people were so fond of the old-fashioned Yank measurements – miles offside, making the hard yards, a lock forward being six feet five inches tall. Rugby isn’t exactly an American sport.

          The clumps of soggy spectators cheered loudly, breaking her from her reverie. Harmony had scored a try, knocking over a Bay of Plenty player on her way over the line. As she flopped on her belly to touch the try down another Bay of Plenty player slid on her knees through the mud for a couple of meters before slamming into Harmony’s exposed back. Melody winced.

          Harmony sprang to her feet and whirled around to face her after-the-whistle attacker, hands up, but her celebrating teammates swarmed around her and steered her away from trouble. Melody closed her eyes and shivered beneath her five layers of clothing.

           The ref blew the whistle for halftime a few moments later.

          ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you at one of the games before.’ The woman standing next to her had begun talking to her. ‘I’m Kahu. That’s short for Kahurangi. Hi.’

          She turned to face her. ‘Oh, hi. I’m Melody.’

          ‘Is that long for Mel?’ Her laugh was spontaneous but a bit suppressed.

          Melody wasn’t prepared, so instead of answering she just shrugged.

          ‘Team’s looking good for this year, eh? That new young loosie they got now – wha’d they call her, the Harmer? – she seems to be picking the whole team up after last year. She’s got more’n a bit of the mongrel in her. Just what the team’s been needing.’

          Melody almost took offense at this stranger calling her daughter a mongrel, but then caught herself and decided it was some rugby jargon, as Kahu had clearly meant it as an admiring compliment. She wondered whether she should feel complimented. ‘That’s my daughter, Harmony.’

          ‘Really? I bet you’re proud!’

          ‘Well …’

          ‘That’s my girl Riki at Number 10. It’s the same position I played back in the day.’ She smiled to herself. ‘Did you play, too? I don’t remember you.’

          ‘No, I’ve never ...’

          Kahu put a surprisingly gentle hand on Melody’s arm. ‘Well, we’re really glad you’re with us now. The way the Harmer’s playing you’re gonna be with us for a few years. We’re like whanau. You’ll love it.’

          ‘I hardly know what to say.’

          ‘We’ll talk about it at the after-match function. Wayne – he’s my husband; coaches the under-14s; used to play first-five, too, for Melville, but never got selected for the rep team – anyway, Wayne’s barbecuing about ten kilos of hogget chops he got from one of his cuzzies in Te Kuiti. He’s got this special sauce …’

          ‘Thanks, but I really have to get home after the game.’

          ‘Your husband’ll be wanting his tea, will he?’

          ‘Probably, but he’ll have to get somebody in Bongaree to make it for him …’

          ‘Good! Then it’s settled. Just stay long enough to eat a bit of kai, have a couple of beers, and meet some of the family. Oops! Halftime’s over.’ She turned and began hollering, ‘C’mon ladies! Let’s get stuck into ’em this half!’

          Melody wondered how she was going to handle this shock to her life and her place in the scheme of things; she wondered what she was going to do. The eggshell within which she’d kept her life had cracked.

          She realised that this was political.