Bread

Prizewinning author Tina Makereti has released her first book of nonfiction, a collection of essays entitled This Compulsion In Us. In this excerpt, she describes events in her life from over 20 years ago, when she was a newly separated mother of two little girls.

 

At the end of things it’s just me and the girls in a motel room in Victoria, B.C., Canada: one of those rooms you can rent by the month. The room is plain, worn, dated, but basically clean. Two double beds, a TV. It doesn’t smell bad. I attune my antennae to the surroundings: don’t detect malevolent vibes beyond our door. I’ve been in worse situations. When we need to leave the room to get some fresh air and walk and play, I see that the other inhabitants are like me: not from around here, keeping to themselves, seeking only a safe and quiet place to wait until more permanent options become available. When I was 14, after my big sister left home, Dad and I lived in a hotel room for a few months, and this is better than that. Not in terms of decor, or location, but certainly in terms of personal liberty. And I have my girls. Even so, I can’t believe that I am twice as old and still, somehow, in the same situation.

It’s taken a long time to reach this point, to extricate myself from a relationship that hasn’t seemed good for any of us for years. I had needed to decant so many self-deceptions and outer illusions, work through so many layers of denial. Looking back I see how fiercely stubborn she was, this 20-something woman who would not let go or go home, even when all signs were pointing to disaster. How thrilled she found herself when she finally said goodbye to all that. She owned nothing to speak of, near the end of her third decade on earth; she’d fucked some things up, but she had those two smiling girls: all cheeks and giggles, dark eyes and thick, thick hair, bouncing on the motel beds. Relatively unscathed, she hoped. Snuggling in pyjamas and watching cartoons. That’s what she had.

After the motel we’d find a basement flat in a different neighbourhood, and after that an actual apartment. I don’t remember exactly how those things happen, but I know it’s remarkably easy. I’d read an advertisement and arrange to meet someone at the accommodation, with my 18-month-old and seven-year-old in tow, unless the latter is in school. I’d say I want it. Later, I’d give them money and sign. No real competition, no letting fees, no sideways look at my unemployed single parent status. Victoria could be a lovely place.

But this story is set before all of that happened. When we were first free. We were so free I didn’t know where the next meal was coming from. The first night we were so free I wondered what I would need to do if the girls’ father didn’t come with the food he had promised. I had residency but I was a nobody. I had no money, no friends, no connections, no status. I was as green and invisible as a person could be. All of which was very freeing.

But he was late, and while he was being late I thought about what the next steps would be. The girls would only last so long. I couldn’t go to the authorities, not that night. Maybe not ever. Whatever happened, I couldn’t put my daughters in any danger. Perhaps I could go to the motel owner and ask for food to be put on a tab. But I didn’t even know if they sold food, especially on account. I don’t know what I considered then. I still hadn’t told my parents, far away and completely uninvolved, about our predicament. There was so much I hadn’t told them, so much I didn’t want to tell them. But surely, if I needed them, they would help. Begging or sex work would have crossed my mind a couple of times, in a fleeting way, as fantasy solutions rather than realistic options, the logistics alone being too mind-boggling to deal with: how could I keep my girls safe? How could I keep myself safe? Even if I could reassure myself, how does one begin such a transaction? How long would it be before the dial on my safety dashboard moved from “staying away from strangers with ulterior motives” to “obtaining food whatever the risk”?

But luckily I was never forced to go there. He arrived, a couple of hours later than expected, and I promised myself I would never wait for him again.

The next day I went to the Mustard Seed Food Bank, the first of many trips that year. They took our details and registered us. I was allowed something like two packages a month. Just enough to tide us over when the money ran out. There were certain days we could go — or maybe that was the women’s centre, where I also obtained free food, clothes and toys. I liked the food bank more than I thought I would. We’d been poor all my life, but I hadn’t realised it, because we were the kind of poor who liked to pretend we were middle class. Dad would probably have sold everything we owned rather than set foot in a food bank, which was tantamount to begging. And besides, food banks were likely to attract dirty, drug-addled people. Dirt poor. The drug of choice in our house had been alcohol, but everyone drank alcohol and they weren’t all poor. We went without in other ways and then turned our noses up at the idea of asking for help. But now I didn’t have anything to sell. We had no choice but to live day by day, ask for help, and be thankful for it when it showed up. At the food bank we stood in line with other mums and dads and children, and yes, some drunks and druggies too. But no one was better than anyone else. Everyone waited patiently, not just because there was a behaviour code, but because we knew. Gravel-voiced grandmas and thin, lank-haired men in trucker caps engaged in polite conversation with more recent immigrants, refugees, First Nations families, anyone who needed a kai. No one had to explain anything. We knew. And the Mustard Seed provided.

Sometimes I’d detect family tensions: parents and grandparents putting on brave faces or trying to control frazzled children as we proceeded to the next room where the clothes and toys were. Some of us made a day of it, our children playing together while we searched through the piles. Canada, it seemed to me then, was an affluent place. I made a whole life out of the stuff people threw out. Nice stuff. And bread, there was always an abundance of day-old bread: danishes; white, fluffy, nutrient-free loaves; cheese buns; bagels; piles of it. I would eat this white abundance and wish for salad, but we weren’t hungry.

The pushchair became an all-terrain vehicle piled high with whatever it could hold: food, toys and clothes packed into the basket, tied to each side in plastic bags and balanced on top, my one-year-old locked safely into the centre of this bag-lady ensemble. My arms grew strong from keeping the whole wobbling tower upright. We’d alight buses awkwardly, and I learnt not to look or care what others might see.

There was a modest kitchen off to the side of the room where I could cook for us. Food parcels usually contained some beans, rice, pasta, cereal, maybe eggs or dairy or meat, and then a bunch of odd bits and pieces. When the alternative is nothing, you can find ways to make this work. Make it fun even. One night all we had left was flour, an egg and marshmallows, so I made marshmallow pancakes for dinner. The girls thought this was great, but pancakes became such a regular last-resort food I can’t stomach them at all anymore.

At the women’s centre, I found an advocate who helped me obtain welfare, and we found a school and a great community. The money was never quite enough to cover much more than rent and bills, though. I had to find more. I wanted to be at home with my own toddler, so I posted handmade flyers around the neighbourhood offering childcare. I’d done this before in New Zealand. I had a few references. It was remarkably easy to find clients. Preschool childcare was strangely scarce and inflexible in this most liberal and prosperous of places. So we did okay, in the end, for money. The food bank trips became less frequent. I don’t know how I managed it, but by the time we left that place we had everything we needed.

And we didn’t need much, not really. Most days we walked somewhere, a playground or park, the library, the sea, a petting zoo. Built universes out of sand, water, second-hand toys. We made very good friends. Went swimming. Ice-skating. Simple things. In those early years we had nothing but each other and sometimes it was very very hard and sometimes it was very very dark but we were free and I’d never been so happy.

 

Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore) is an award-winning writer of novels, essays and short fiction. Her latest novel is The Mires, and her essay collection, This Compulsion in Us, was published this year. Tina teaches a Master of Arts Creative Writing workshop at the International Institute of Modern Letters, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University.

E-Tangata, 2025