Pip Desmond - Trust: A True Story of Women & Gangs

Labour Weekend, 2007

Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! taunts Nayda as she does a sensual, snaky dance around Janes cramped kitchen. Head tipped back triumphantly, eyes half-shut, she weaves her small, sturdy body in and out of the other women, the pinky and thumb of both hands raised and quivering in the Mob salute. Part show, part menace, itd go down a treat at the Whanganui pad where shes the pres missus, but here, at the second Aroha Trust reunion, it simply triggers Ginis old Nomad loyalties.

The two sides of Gini battle it out. Im going to smash her, the gang girl Gini tells Annie. Then the God-fearing Gini steps in. I dont need to do that, do I?

No, you dont, says Annie firmly.

Nayda circles Amelia, once her best friend. Her hip nudges Amelias once, twice, three times as she breathes into her ear. Am I too close?

Amelias thinner than the last time I saw her and all day her fingers have fluttered shyly around her face like butterflies. But she doesnt live in Black Power Lane in Kaitaia for nothing. Why? Do you want to be? she says, narrowing her eyes.

Nayda laughs and spins away, cranking the music up another notch as she shimmies past. Its midnight and the wine that was meant to last all weekends nearly gone, but thats all right cos the beers holding. The stereos pumping hits from the 1970s that reinforce the time warp. Everyones talking and laughing and crying, and the more pissed they get, the more the wounds of the past ooze.

Nayda bails me up. We all have our own pain, she says while shes still making sense. But youre the storyteller. You hold all our pain, our mamae and thats very hard for you.

Im grateful to her. Its been a tough day and tomorrows not looking any easier. Being the soberest person in the room doesnt help. But Im on the outer anyway the women want to talk to each other, not the honky whos let the genie out of the bottle.

The energys getting blacker by the minute. Raised voices. Rough laughter. Tales that make me want to weep. I put on a bright, false smile and feel my separateness like a brand on my forehead. I also feel responsible. Many of these women havent had a drink forever. But if they decide to get off their faces and defend gang straitjackets we disregarded when we were young, theres no way my 48 kg are going to stop them.

Amelia and Tasi, Ginis younger sister, arent into the booze, at least for tonight. Sick of the nonsense, they head for the sleep-out across the lawn. A bit later, I escape to the bedroom Im sharing with Annie, just off the kitchen.

I lie in the dark, listening to Young Hearts Run Free thumping through the floorboards, and try to make sense of whats happening. It was the t-shirts that clinched it, I reckon. They were in the kete that Jane handed each of us at the end of the day: blue; screenprinted with a slasher and shovel in the middle of a gourd, their long handles crossed; two hands clasped together at the top; the words Aroha Trust curved around the bottom. A replica of the ones we wore so proudly when we lived and worked together back in the day. A one-way ticket to the past. Put them on and, hey presto, 30 years of hard-earned wisdom guaranteed to disappear in the blink of an eye.

There were other things in the kete too: chocolates; a painted khatu, a cool, smooth rock with the word aroha scrawled across it; a copy of the book. Ah, the book! Thats the real catalyst for the circus on the other side of the door.

Its been nine years since I asked the women at the first Aroha Trust reunion if I could write a book about their lives and about the trust, the work co-op we set up for girls in the gang scene in Wellington in 1977. When they said yes, I travelled round the country visiting as many of them as I could track down, recording their lives and memories on tape. I promised Id show them what Id written, knowing that its one thing to talk in private, another to see the words on the page. Now its judgement day. Eight of the 11 who are in the book have come to Janes bach at Kwhia, an hour from Hamilton, to read the draft. Without their blessing, theres no going on.