Duff also stalks the pages to a greater degree than many writers allow.
And, in Paremoremo, Apeman, who has lost none of his terror, plots revenge against Abe for testifying against him, ensuring he received a life sentence for murdering Tania. His depressed quarter-Maori flatmate Sharneeta, drawn to men who treat her bad, is unable to love or care for her baby, the product of a rape. Duff's cast of characters has expanded to include the welfare-dependent inmates of a grotty flat: Pakeha Alistair Trambert, son of the Hekes' former wealthy neighbour, whose life is a haze of self-pity and laziness. And in the Pine Block wasteland life is as grim as ever. "Let them rot," she says of those Pine Block types who couldn't be bothered to lift themselves up. All life was a money opportunity, she discovers. She is on her way to becoming a millionaire. Polly teams up with her Pakeha lover Simon to form Integrated Properties Ltd and starts buying up properties in Pine Block. There's Abe, about to be promoted to foreman at Busby sheetmetal workshop and who has broken the curse of being a violent Heke, though he may be unable to escape the violence that comes looking for him. Boogie is in Wellington practising as a lawyer and seeking intellectual challenge Huata (who doesn't appear in the story) is the only one not excelling, but at least he's not violent. The Hekes, while splintered as a family, are mostly, and beyond all expectation, making a pretty good go of their lives. With the same skill that he demonstrated in Broken Hearted, Duff weaves together a multitude of storylines and voices so we see all sides of this fractured community. Perhaps most symbolic of the change these two have been through - and the country has also experienced - is that when they do bump into each other in the street they contemplate meeting for a coffee. Not to anyone." He has accepted responsibility for the destruction of his family. He still enjoys a beer, but he's become contemplative, finds his action out in the bush, hunting with his good mates.
We learn that Jake Heke, the man who has never travelled more than 100km from Pine Block, has been on his own journey towards "a fulfilment of sorts". She tells herself she couldn't go back: "Warriors are bores, Jake" - but from the beginning we have a strong sense that she is lying to herself. Her thoughts turn repeatedly to Jake, whom she hasn't seen for 10 years. It opens with Beth, now a legal secretary and ruminating over her marriage to the kind, intelligent but not sexually charged Charlie Bennett. By MARGIE THOMSON Twelve years since Once Were Warriors socked into our consciousness, and six since What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?, Duff winds up his trilogy with this volume which, while it contains passages of mellowness and peace, for the most part bristles and lacerates with the same fury that shocked us all in the first two.
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