The lawyer said, “Okay. Here. Sign this.”
Four of the remaining siblings from a family of six sat in an office in Te Awamutu on the last day of January. It was a bright summer’s day, and the town trembled with heat in its little bowl in Waipa district. Milk tankers drove along the main street. Families sat at pavement tables outside bakeries and ate pies. “Peace!”, shrieked a woman at the free food stall on Anzac Green. Asked what she meant by that, she repeated the word, this time heard correctly: “Pears!” Five small, hard pears, curled up like snails, were on offer.
The lawyer took away the paper. “And that,” he announced, “officially makes you The Administrator.”
The Administrator thought it was all very sudden and that such a dramatic moment warranted a blast of music, maybe a slice of cake. The paper he had signed read, “Letter of administration to Stephen Carl Braunias of Auckland, writer brother of the deceased, artist Mark Colin Braunias, died at Hamilton on 17th December, 2024, without leaving a will. You are appointed as The Administrator of all the deceased’s estate.”
Death is final; the paperwork of death is another kind of finality, just as supernatural. The Administrator was the youngest of the siblings. He imagined his deceased brother growling: Why give it to him? How did he end up as The Administrator? And then, with a sigh, accepting the legal fact and addressing him directly: Just don’t do anything stupid.
Brothers have a unique relationship. The modern cult of bro – the word, the concept – is a weird little approximation of actual brotherhood. To call someone bro is to advertise masculine qualities, to thump the chest of bonding and loyalty.
Actual brothers go in for something deeper than that, something unspoken. There are so many codes and understandings, so much love that dare not speak its name because it’s embarrassing to tell your brother that you love him.
The Administrator was anxious to look after the affairs of his older brother, who he had always regarded with awe, as someone better, someone truly great.
The siblings left town and drove towards the coast. The countryside sometimes looked Australian, with its empty hills more yellow than green and stands of flammable gum trees. There was barely any traffic. The road rose up then wound down to sea level, late-afternoon shadows black in the heat.
That summer had glowed with death – the good December weather in Hamilton, where he died in Waikato Hospital, the beautiful Christmas weather in Mt Maunganui for his funeral, and now the stunning heat on the first day of February in the harbour town of Kawhia, where he lived for close to 30 years.
The siblings stayed overnight. They tidied up his house. Kawhia is so quiet that one person on the street is an event. They ran into kind and sensitive people who had known him well – Kit, Eddie, Dallas, Russell. “Poor old Mark,” said Eddie.
He told how his wife Leonie had found him collapsed on the pavement, and Eddie called the ambulance that took him to the rescue helicopter. He said, “Mark didn’t look like Mark.”
The Administrator invited him inside the house. There were six unfinished abstracts on paper pinned to the walls. Eddie said, again, “Poor old Mark.”
The tide filled the harbour. There were fishing boats and a dredge. The Administrator mowed the back yard and filled the bird fountain with fresh water. He thought: I wish I had visited more, before there was anything to administrate.
