15 minute read
Short Stories
THAT BOY A short story by J.P. Pomare Illustration by Isabelle Russell
He pokes his tongue in the gap like a worm breaking through soil, wiggling away.
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“Neat alright,” I say. “Make sure you put it under your pillow tonight.” The talk of money mopped up the last few tears quick smart. Now he’s brimming with energy again.
Jack grew bored of the bridge a few years ago, they always do. Who knows maybe he’ll get off his phone for a bit.
The last five weeks I’ve been here on the couch, grazing Netflix and scrolling on my phone. Never fully committed to either. I walk at nights, eat what my old man used to call “rabbit food” and I take the pills. It’s hard work. The boat has been begging to get on the lake. Not to mention all the Lion Reds I’ve missed at the pub. Doctors’ orders.
Ra’s back two minutes later. He’s doing that walk, the concrete feet shuffle with his chin bolted to his collar bone. Dark as an almond already and it’s not even Christmas.
He shifts his eyes to the window. “If you were at work, I’d just go back anyway. ”
Mind reader, and he’s not wrong. The boy could talk a pipi out of its shell. I can hear Angela already, And you let him go back down after losing a bloody tooth?
“Tell your mother you wiggled it out.”
He knows where this is going, and he clamps his lips but can’t quite hide the smile.
Light exercise, that’s what the doc said. “I’ll grab my togs.”
Then he shows me that big gap between his teeth again.
Towels slung over our shoulders, we walk on the grass to keep our jandals from sticking to the road. It’s only about a k. But Ra skips ahead, then waits, then skips ahead.
Soon we see them through the heat shimmer coming off the tarseal. Brown bodies laid out on the grass. As a kid we used to look out for tourist buses parked up there. It meant the spring would be full of coins, and we’d take turns diving down deep enough to bring on a headache. We’d surface with coins from around the world, but it was the New Zealand two dollar we prized above all else. Then off to the Caltex that doubled as the fish and chip shop, to warm up with a bag of blood’n’guts, extra chicken salt.
“They’re still there,” he says with a bubble of excitement bursting in his voice.
Six boys get up off the grass.
“Kia ora Mr Ruatara.”
We toss our towels down, and step from our jandals. Marching on to the bridge. There’s a crackle of anticipation, passing between them like static electricity.
Climbing up on the rail, it’s higher than I remember, and my balance is worse. Light exercise. The old ticker barely registers it at all. Then I leap. A moment of flight. Ice and pain. Na, not pain. It’s something else entirely. I hit the sandy bottom but not before the water compresses around me and surges up with that old familiar boom.
I surface to howls of chaoo. The current pulling me into the shade of the bridge. Then comes the next concussive splash, then the next as one after the other they throw themselves over the rail. Last of all, Ra hits the water. He’s the skinniest of the lot but he sends a perfect spire of water back up.
“Tu meke fullas,” I call over the train of boys crawling along the current to the shallows.
Towelling off, one boy picks up his phone.
“Go again?” he says. “I’ll chuck it on Tik Tok.”
“Tik Tok?” I say, making a face.
I catch Ra staring at the angry pink line running the length of my sternum. I realise it’s the first time he’s seen it. The others all stare.
No one says anything. “Tough scar eh?” I say.
“Ra said you had a heart attack.”
Then we’re back on the bridge, a phone pointed in my direction. I can see why Ra’s campaign to get one himself has ramped up the last couple of months.
“You first,” I say to Ra.
He climbs up, as graceful as any gymnast. The bar is wet beneath his feet, easy to see how he slipped. This time he leaps so high he seems to hover for a moment, he folds and turns then hits the water. The splash clears the rail.
“Oosh,” I say. Ra’s head pokes out of the water.
“Barely made a splash,” I call. The boys laugh, leaning out to see him drifting in the shade of the bridge.
“Naaa,” he calls.
Then quietly, to the others, I say, “Actually pretty big, eh. He’s got the gift that boy.”
“Na watch this then,” one says. They all jostle, bump shoulders, pull at each other to be the next one in and I watch on as their heads emerge one at a time to look up.
“Oh yeah,” I say. ‘Bloody big alright.”
Then I climb up, balancing on the rail with both my feet beneath me and the blue sky above and when I jump I feel for just a second like I might never come back down.
Stewart Island
Jenna and Jack quit their summer jobs and hitch-hiked around the South Island with everything in two big packs. When they got to the bottom, Jack said, “Stewart Island is the one place in New Zealand I’ve never been.”
“I’ve never been either,” Jenna said. “Or the Chatham Islands.”
Jack wasn’t sure if the Chatham Islands were officially part of New Zealand. Jenna wasn’t sure either but she thought they probably were.
They bought ferry tickets and caught the catamaran over Foveaux Strait. Jack stood up the front of the boat, watching the sea spray and talking to other passengers. Jenna lay on the deck trying very hard not to vomit. She made it. When they arrived at Halfmoon bay, she walked up and down the waterfront, trying to get the nausea to subside. It didn’t. Jack said he’d seen a lot of dolphins. Jenna felt so sick she didn’t care if she never saw a dolphin again in her life, but looked at Jack’s photos anyway.
Will and Tamsyn, who Jack had met on the boat, were doing the 10-day circuit. They were properly kitted out with expensive boots and freeze-dried food. Jenna only had sneakers and Jack was carrying a ukulele. They weren’t going to do the 10day circuit, but thought they might walk in to the first of the DoC campsites with Tamsyn and Will. Jenna walked at the back. She watched Jack’s ukulele bouncing off his pack. Sometimes when they were hiking along the highways waiting for a ride, Jack would play his ukulele and sing as they walked. He had longer legs and would often stride ahead, leaving her further and further behind, without noticing he was doing it. Jenna felt like she was starting to get sick of Jack but wasn’t sure what to do about him. She didn’t want to hitchhike home by herself, and she couldn’t afford to catch buses.
There was a dead whale on the beach that had disintegrated and washed up the creek. No other animal smells like dead whale. It is a mixture between dead cow and rotten fish. The walk had pretty much sorted out Jenna’s nausea but the whale smell brought it back. She ate a couple of water crackers and helped Jack put up the tent. Jack lit the gas stove and they cooked a pot of rice and lentils mixed together, which was what they ate every night. They threw in a few spices and some salt, but it still tasted pretty bland. The sky got dark much later down there. They sat up late into the evening sitting in the grass talking with Will and Tamsyn and a few other campers. At least, Jack did a lot of talking. Jenna mostly listened. Jenna preferred to listen. She collected other people’s stories in her head. You never knew when stories might come in useful. Will and Tamsyn talked about all the festivals they had been to and all the countries where they had travelled. Jack said he was going to save for a ticket to India, and hopefully the borders would be open when he’d saved enough.
“Where would you go, if you could go anywhere in the world?” Tamsyn asked Jenna. Jenna thought a bit and then said, “The
AChatham Islands.” No one knew what to do with short story that, so they changed Stewart Island was the subject. a dark sky sanctuary. Neither by Airini Jack was nor Jenna knew studying English much about astronomy. Jack and Jenna was studying Beautrais geography. She had never noticed patterns looking at the stars. Just a whole lot of dots, like spilled Illustration by sugar. Everyone was looking up at the sky trying Isabelle Russell to make out constellations, when Jenna farted. It came out sudden and loud. It was really obvious it was her. Jenna froze. In between deciding whether to make a joke about it or to politely apologise, she missed her window. Her face burned and she just sat there. At least there was a night wind, and the whale masked any other smell. Will came to the rescue. “Good effort,” he said. Tamsyn laughed, her tongue stud flashing in the gathering dark. Jenna smiled at the grass. It was too late to say anything now. She had definitely missed the moment. Jenna did that a lot. She would think of a comeback at two in the morning, or the next week. She wished she had one of those brains that words just came into. Later, in the tent, Jack said, “I can’t believe you farted in front of everyone and didn’t apologise. That’s so gross.” “Sorry,” said Jenna. “It honestly just slipped out.” Jack said nothing. “It’s all the lentils,” said Jenna. Jack rolled over in his sleeping bag and turned towards the wall of the tent. Rats came in the night and ate the lid off Jack’s plastic drink bottle, a hole in the tent bag, and most of their bar of soap. “I need some time by myself,” Jack said. “That’s fine with me,” said Jenna. Jack left his pack in the tent and wandered off into the bush. Jenna lay on the beach on her towel, wearing her raincoat and a whole lot of sunblock even though it was heavily overcast, and read her book. She still felt nauseous. She wondered if she was getting sick. The earth felt like it was turning underneath her, way too fast. If she concentrated on the print on the page, maybe it would stop.
Transcending language
A short story by Becky Manawatu
Illustration by Isabelle Russell
We were watching our sons kick a football across a dirt soccer pitch surrounded by brick walls and a chainlink fence when I met Lu. She was standing near and, because I thought maybe, like me, she was from somewhere other than this Italian village of Cesano, I inched closer. Small talk was all I had in my reo Italiano kete and that was fine. She spoke English to me quickly, and our friendship started.
It could be disheartening trying to make a friend outside the circle I was allotted: a rugby wag. Not to be dismissive of the friendships I gained and people I met through my tane’s rugby career. An allotment of friends was fate. Meant to be. You in this club with these people at this point in time, a gift. Rugby clubs were our community. Like communities do, we ate together, we sometimes travelled together, we drank together and hid our ugliness from each other.
Maybe what I mean by disheartening is it was frightening to seek acceptance outside the people bound to you by a logo and a schedule. As a team you form an identity, there’s safety and a certain ease.
Before moving to Cesano we’d lived in Piacenza. I found a free Italian class taught by a nun in a musty church. The class was held on weekday mornings in the town’s centre. An Eritrean woman, Aster, and I started saving a seat for each other in the class, which was, for the most part, attended by people who needed to find work fast. The only language allowed in the class was Italian but the nun treated me special and spoke English, which I appreciated less than she thought I would. Most of the other students were men.
Sometimes Aster and I went for coffee after class and once I invited her over to hang at mine. I can’t remember if we ate food together but I like to think I made her food when she came over because food is the best koha but, straight up, I have huge black holes in my memory, so I don’t know.
When I was a kid, dad would get in from sea and he’d fillet up fish and send us walking to drop fresh hapuku or bluenose at every house on our street. I like to think I made Aster kai. She was important to me because neither the saved seat nor coffee with Aster were related to how or why I came to be in Italy or who I arrived with. Aster had come to Italy by boat via Egypt, for opportunity and escape.
I had come by plane, excited by how much future was still ahead of us. This was a time before cellphones, so I have nothing of Aster, only these few moth-bitten memories of us sitting in seats we saved for each other, in front of a nun and a blackboard chalked with Italian phrases; Aster and me trying those phrases out at a cafe, cups of dark coffee in front of us.
I do have photos of me and Lu together though. Lu and I eventually stretched the friendship beyond the soccer sideline to playdates for the boys at my house. Lu was Cuban, baked like a patissiere. She would bring homemade bigne filled with fresh cream and strawberries. I said they were delicious and she said one day she would teach me how to make them.
Our landlords, who lived above us, were good people with a nice pool. We could use the pool as much as we wanted, whatever time of day. Lu would bring Cesar over and he and my son would play and swim. My son’s Italian was coming easy by then, children are sponges. Lu and I would lie back in deck chairs and watch and laugh and use our bits of English and Italian to understand each other. Lu’s partner was Italian. Once we took the boys to a playground and late in a happy, sunny afternoon both our men arrived, so we were all there.
Because we were drunk on sun, Lu and I orchestrated plans for us to go on a trip together. Tim felt safest travelling on the bus, in his seat near his mates and, to be honest, this was my happier place too. But both the guys agreed. A few days later Lu and her partner picked us up in a big old campervan to make our way to the medieval city of Siena, stopping via a river natural boasting a hot spring. We camped near the river surrounded by olive and cypress trees.
Tim hadn’t loved the trip. We had no decent seat, let alone seatbelts. Both men were struggling to understand each other. Lu and I were happy enough, but happier sitting alongside the pool, not having to hold our breaths as we watched these larger, gruffer people make awkward exchanges. The tension grew and just one day in, after we woke to find our son’s bike had been stolen off the back of the camper, the men’s relationship soured. Later that day they argued on the side of a dirt road near Siena. Lu’s husband found a place he could turn the campervan around and we drove all the way back home in sulk-curdled silence, never reaching our destination.
That night in bed at home I worried: maybe I lost my friend?
Then before I fell asleep, Lu texted me, “I’ll come teach you to make bigne tomorrow?”
The next morning her partner dropped her off at the end of our drive. Tim was at training. I opened the door anxiously and there she stood smiling wide with her koha in her hands. She had a bag filled with flour, eggs, fresh strawberries and cream. She set the food on the bench and searched cupboards for tools. She pulled out a bowl, held up a whisk like she was saying, “You know what, f*** those guys.”
I took Lego out for the boys and, though it was early in the day, I opened some wine for us and she taught me to make bigne.
Later, Tim arrived home.
Lu was quick, “Ciao Bello!” she said, “Try our pastries, try?”
He said the bigne were delicious.
He took a photo of us at the table, the kids all smiling, Lu and I holding up glasses of wine, the food out in front of us like a koha to friendship.
