Booty-Licious

By Himali McInnes

Shah wants me to kiss her. I can tell. It’s there in the way she tilts her face towards mine. The way she half-closes her eyes and pouts her lips. Like she’s some sort of Indian Beyoncé. The Desi Destiny’s Child of Sandringham. I’ll bet she thinks of herself as being booty-licious. But Shah’s too skinny to be Beyoncé. Also, I don’t want to kiss her.  

It’s Friday night. Mum’s at work. I tidied up before Shah got here, in a half-hearted sort of way. Like, I stuffed my sister’s mess inside the cupboard. I also turned the heating on. Every time Shah has come here - which has been five times in as many days  - she complains that our place is cold. She likes it tropical, I reckon. 

There’s a framed print of native New Zealand birds on the wall. I look at it now, to avoid the disappointed look in Shah’s eyes. The poster is from the Te Papa Museum in Wellington. Mum got it for Dad two years ago, and now he’s dead, but we’ve still got the poster. I love the birds on this poster, all of them. The greedy kererū, who looks like he’s dressed for a night at the opera. The red-splashed underwing of the kaka. The blunt blue head of the kōtare, the kingfisher, he who is the sacred something-or-other of the seas. 

I remember when Dad took me to Tiritiri Matangi island. I was eleven, so it must’ve been three years ago. Wow. Head blown. So many birds! We packed lunches and binoculars. I didn’t want to leave. The air was literally looped with birdsong. All those little creatures that flitted so close to me and Dad, so completely unafraid. Dad was going to take me back there one day, but then he got sick. 

I haven’t let anyone know how much I love birds. My friends would tease me. My sister Bex would milk it for all it’s worth. Mum would be pleased that I’m keeping up with something Dad loved so much. But mum’s hardly at home these days, so it’s not like I can tell her easily. 

Shah’s my first girlfriend. We’ve been together five days, and already I want out. Not that she’s awful or anything. But I’d rather be doing other things.

Shah walks here from her place in Mt Roskill, despite the April chill. She gets me to walk her home if its dark, but always says, ‘Ok, bye, Jonny,’ real quick when we’re two or three houses away from hers. Then she runs inside. I’m not sure if she’s told her parents about her white boyfriend yet.

Every time Shah looks at me with those big brown eyes, I think of the cows in Cornwall Park. Staring at me, waiting for me to do something. And Shah really has got no butt, no boobs. Not that I mind, per se. But someone should tell her to stop pretending to be Beyoncé. It’s just not plausible. 

‘Tell me what you’re thinking, Jonny,’ Shah says. Her face pulls away as she speaks, her lower lip wobbles a bit. I didn’t kiss her, and now she’s upset. I don’t want to talk about my thoughts, either. If I tell Shah that I’m only with her because most of the other boys at school have girlfriends, she might hit me. 

Bex skips into the room. Like she doesn’t know that Shah and I are sitting on the couch and need some privacy.

‘Oh, hi Shah!’ she says. Younger sisters can be real bitches sometimes. I only think this inside my head. If Bex got even a whiff of my bad language, she’d complain to mum, and then I’d get in trouble. Typical.

Our unit is not big. It’s a squat two-bedroomed brick and tile, kind of ugly, single-storied. It's on the bendy bit of Sandringham road, near all the takeaways. It smells of curry around here all the time. In the house, in the garden, out on the street. The constant smell of food means that I always feel kind of hungry and kind of full at the same time. Bex and Mum share a room, I have my own. Mum said I’m not allowed to have girls in my room. Cool by me, I’m not ready for that icky stuff anyways. 

But the deal was that Bex would give me and Shah some space. Stick to her own room. But - surprise! - here she is, pretending she’s hungry and needs a snack, when she already had a sandwich twenty minutes ago. You can’t make any reliable deals with twelve-year-olds. 

I know Bex is spying on us. I won’t be surprised if, tomorrow, Mum knows all about what me and Shah have been up to. What I’m wearing, what Shah’s wearing, how close together we were sitting, for how long. Etcetera.

‘Hiya, Bex! Howsit, ma grrl?’ Shah slips into this weird lingo whenever she sees Bex. It’s like the two of them are building a private language that excludes me. Shah’s the same age as me - fourteen - so it surprises me how well she gets on with Bex. Given that they’ve only started hanging out five days ago. I suspect Beyoncé is the glue that binds, in this instance. 

Mum still hasn’t come home. It’s now 7 pm. She’s always at work, doing whatever she does at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research. She says she has to do it, to earn enough money to look after us, now that Dad isn’t around anymore. It kind of sucks. I understand about the money and all, but I’d rather have less money and more Mum. Technically she’s not supposed to leave me and Bex home by ourselves, because I’m not actually fourteen yet. But my birthday is only three months away. So whatevs. 

There’s a knock on the door. I pop out of the sofa at warp speed. Hooray for distractions. I leave Bex and Shah to catch up on their Sasha Fierce/ Crazy in Love/ Single Ladies chit-chat. 

I open the door. It’s Mr Mugisha from next door. He lives in unit three with Mrs Mugisha. They moved in six months ago. Some lady drove them here in a Red Cross van. Then she helped them get their furniture in. There wasn’t much. Mr Mugisha always smiles and waves whenever he sees me. 

Mr and Mrs Mugisha are real quiet neighbours. Which is more than they might say about us. Me and Bex, we have stinking loud arguments sometimes. Mainly because Bex is so terribly stubborn about everything. There are no kids at the Mugisha’s place, but a few weeks ago an elderly grey terrier appeared. I see Mr Mugisha take the dog out for walks, early in the morning or late in the evening, once it’s cool. Even the dog is pretty quiet. No yapping or anything. 

Mr Mugisha doesn’t speak much English, but he seems nice. His curly hair is turning grey at the sides. He has thick bottle-stop glasses that make his eyes look huge. His nose crinkles when he smiles. I like that. His skin reminds me of the velvet coat mum wears for special occasions. The one dad got her for her fortieth birthday.

Now Mr Mugisha holds out something towards me. It’s a tinfoil dish covered with a tea towel. His hands clasp the dish like it’s a precious thing. The backs of his hands are dark brown, cracked and wrinkled like elephant hide. 

‘You take. Igisafuria.’

He must have seen the blank look on my face, because he closes his eyes, thinks hard in concentration, then blurts out, ‘Chicken! Pot. You eat, yes?’ He mimes eating and rubs his belly. 

I take the dish from him. It smells spicy, savoury. My mouth waters in anticipation. This already smells a lot better than the macaroni cheese mum left out on the kitchen counter. Mum’s good at lots of things, but cooking isn’t one of them. 

Mr Mugisha is looking over my shoulder at the framed bird print on the wall. His big eyes get bigger, softer, and he looks delighted. It’s probably the same look I get on my face when I see birds, so I don’t mind him staring. 

I saw a kererū once. I mean, I saw a few of them that time Dad and I went to Tiritiri Matangi, but they’re not easy to catch sight of, not in the middle of Auckland. So when I saw a kererū in Sandringham, I was pretty excited. It was sitting in a puriri tree, stuffing its fat little face full of sticky berries. I stood and watched it for a long time, until some lady came out of her house to glare at me. 

I nod and smile at Mr Mugisha and close the door, because we’ve run out of things to say to each other.

Shah and Bex have drawn the curtains by the time I go back inside. The living room is transformed by muted lighting and loud music into some sort of karaoke bar. 

OMG, that screechy noise I can hear is the two of them singing. Something about bootylicious bodies not being ready for something. They look pointedly at me as they sing. Their cheeks press side by side. Their lips pout and stretch and yowl. They bump and grind their hips. Shah looks identical to Bex, except she’s a bit taller and a bit browner. But same skinny legs and all. I hurry past the two girls into the relative safety of the kitchen. 

The Pot Chicken is delicious. It’s like chicken pie, without the pastry. There’s bits of onion and capsicum in it, bits of tender chicken, some chunky starchy bits which are not potato but might be green banana, and a yummy spicy sauce. Come to think of it, I remember seeing Mrs Mugisha buying green bananas from the Indian dairy owner on the corner. At the time, I wondered why people would buy unripe fruit. Now I know. Does Shah eat green bananas? Maybe I’ll ask her sometime. Sweat beads on my nose as I shovel the food into my face. The more my tongue stings with chilli, the faster I eat. I remember, almost when it is too late, to leave some for Bex. 

‘Oi! How’s the girlfriend thing working out for ya?’ Billy slaps me on the back. Billy doesn’t have a girlfriend. He seems pretty happy with this state of affairs. I feel vaguely jealous. We’re sticking our mountain bikes on top of Billy’s mum’s car, clicking and latching them into place on the roof rack. Billy is my best mate at school. He’s got red hair and freckles. He’s also got a sweet left foot so he’s always in hot demand when we play footie. Billy’s mum is so sick. She does loads of stuff for him and his two sisters. It’s seven in the morning, on a Saturday, and here she is taking Billy and me to the mountain bike park. She’s like, an angel. 

‘Oh, how lovely that you’ve got a girlfriend, Jonathan! What’s her name? Do I know her?’ Billy’s mum asks me. Billy’s mum has lips the colour of crushed strawberries and she looks way too young to be anyone’s mum. Also, she’s really fit. She can run as fast as us boys, like she did that time we trained together for a triathlon. 

‘Umm, her name’s Shah,’ I mumble from the back seat. My cheeks flame despite my best efforts. ‘She’s in the same year as me and Billy at school.’

‘Shah the Sure thing! Bahaha!’ Billy doubles over at his own joke. I don’t laugh along with him. I think instead of the disappointed look on Shah’s face every time I don’t do what she wants me to do. Day Six of Jonny’s Relationship Blues and counting. 

‘Enjoy yourselves, boys,’ Billy’s mum trills at us as she drops us off. ‘I’ll be back in three hours, okay?’

Okay gorgeous, I think to myself, but only in my head. 

The tracks are greasy today, drenched with overnight rain. ‘All good,’ I yell at Billy as I take off down a slope. The ride is exhilarating. We whizz along, up and down paths gnarled with tree roots. Water pools here and there on bits of rock. Our bikes splash through puddles so fresh they smell like oxygen. Wet ferns slap me in the face as I go past. The air is full of damp earth and green stuff. Gravel slips beneath our tyres with a satisfying crunch. Billy aces all the jumps; his bike is new, a birthday present. I ace the wall ride and the teeter-totter. ‘Dude, that route you took was dope!’ Billy yells at me. We’re covered in mud afterwards. Mud in big brown stripes down our fronts and our backs where the tyres splashed us. Mud spots on our faces. Mud in our hair. I feel great. 

Billy’s mum doesn’t bat an eyelid when she picks us up. ‘Don’t worry about the car. The seats are tough, they’ll clean up fine. I’ll get Billy on to it!’

When Billy’s mum drops me home, I strip off my clothes on the doorstep. Bex is out at Glee club practice. Mum’s not at home either; she was asleep when I left, but now she’s gone to work. There’s a note on the kitchen counter with instructions for dinner. 

I step into the shower and turn it on full blast. The water runs brown. A swirl of silt collects on the acrylic base. All of a sudden I’m sobbing. I fall on my knees and I open my mouth and scream. I beat the white walls of the shower box so hard I can see them bending. 

I stay there until the water around me clears of mud, until my skin starts to feel tight and squeaky and too clean. I dry myself with one of mum’s nicest towels. I don’t want to be in the house by myself. Bex, for all her annoying qualities, is useful in the way she fills up the place with noise. When it’s too quiet I start to think about Dad. How he died in the bedroom. How I heard Mum crying in the bathroom when she thought no-one was listening. 

I can’t call Billy for a chat. He’ll be having lunch with his gorgeous mum. So before I know what I’m doing, I’m outside and I’m knocking on the door to Unit 3.  

‘Good morning, son,’ Mrs Mugisha opens the door and smiles at me. Her voice is thick and warm like melting honey. She sounds both French and African when she speaks. She has the coolest accent I’ve ever heard. Despite myself, I suddenly think about how nice Shah’s voice is, too. At least, it is when she’s not trying to sing.

I stand there for a bit, feeling stupid. ‘Um, hi, Mrs Mugisha. I’m Jonny, from next door. I just came over to say hi, and…stuff.’

‘Lovely to meet you, Jonny. Would you care to come in?’ 

Mrs Mugisha opens the door wider, waves me in with a royal fanning of her hand. She reminds me of that African queen we studied at school. Nefertiti something or other. She has the same strong cheekbones, the same heavy-lidded eyes. Wow, her skin is smooth. I can’t tell how old she is, but if she’s Mr Mugisha’s wife she must be the same age as him. Actually, she could pass as Beyoncé’s mum, come to think of it. Yeah, that’s who she looks like.

I step inside, carried along by the smell of fried stuff. My stomach rumbles. I feel ravenous. I haven’t eaten since this morning. 

Our fridge had a loaf of bread in it and some peanut butter and jam when I last checked. I know there’s a few frozen meals in the freezer that Mum made a few weeks ago. But I didn’t feel like eating any of that after my ride. I wanted something spicy and salty and yummy. I would’ve gone and got some Indian from Paradise takeaways except I’m out of cash. I even briefly considered traipsing along to Shah’s place for some pity food, but maybe her parents aren’t too fond of white fellas. 

My gut feels so empty it’s like the feeling you get when you go OTB. Over the bars. The sudden drop as you take a slope too fast. The way time stills to a crawl, so stretched out you feel your hands being torn off the handlebars and your body somersaulting forwards. The way your stomach falls like a stone, seeking gravity. I remember the Pot Chicken thingy I ate last night and I want to ask if there’s any leftovers. 

Mr Mugisha is snoring on the settee in the living room. His glasses have fallen to the tip of his nose. His mouth is open in same O shape that Bex and Shah make when they are singing. The old grey terrier is asleep on his lap. It’s snoring too, in symphony with Mr Mugisha’s snores. 

Mr Mugisha pops his eyes open when he hears me. They are blood-shot, with dark circles under them, as if he did not sleep well last night. He jumps up with a frightened look on his face. The grey terrier falls off his lap onto the settee. The dog opens one eye to look at me, then goes back to sleep with a slip of pink tongue showing. 

‘It’s okay, Paul, it’s just the young man from next door. His name is Jonny. Sit, sit, child. Would you like something to eat?’
I nod, trying not to appear too eager, trying to be polite like Mum always reminds me to be. ‘Oh, yes please, Mrs Mugisha.’ I sink into the armchair by the window. This way I can keep an eye out if Bex comes home. I have the house key.

‘Please, call me Séraphine. That is the custom here, yes? The familiar first name. We are trying to learn Kiwi customs. You may call him Paul,’ Mrs Mugisha says, inclining her graceful head towards Mr Mugisha. 

Mr Mugisha still looks bewildered, as if he does not know where he is. His eyes are smudged with sleep. He sighs, and sits down beside the dog. He points at me and nods. ‘Jonny? You nice boy.’

Séraphine comes back with a tray of food. It’s lunchtime; I’m probably about to eat what she’s cooked for their own lunch. I feel guilty, but only for a minute; a wave of hunger wallops out of my gut and into my head and I can’t think of anything else. Séraphine puts the tray down on the coffee table. Fried green bananas. Skewers of meat threaded with capsicum, crispy and salty. A dump of white porridge-like stuff. A green mashed-up stew that I don’t like the look of, but which turns out to be pretty yum too. ‘Isombe,’ Paul says. ‘You eat, ça te rendra fort! Make you strong.’

I eat so fast I almost forget to breath. After I finish, I wipe my lips with a napkin and look around the room. The room has got that nice minimalist vibe that I like. There’s no way this room could be turned into a karaoke bar, which I feel pretty happy about. There’s only a few bits of furniture in here, the same things I saw being carted in from the Red Cross van months ago. The brown settee. A mismatched leather armchair, faded on one side from the sun. The old wooden chest doubling as a coffee table, a well-thumbed field guide to New Zealand birds sitting on top. A print of two huia birds on the wall, some cheap thing from an op shop probably, but still beautiful: the male huia with his straight short beak, the female with her gorgeous curved one, both of them with fleshy orange wattles and white-tipped tails. There are some photos on a stack of old suitcases in a corner, beside the window. Black and white photos of a boy and girl, about my age. Paul sees me looking at the photos and he looks away. I feel a stab of alarm as I see tears trickle down his cheeks. I feel stink. Did I eat too much of their lunch?

Séraphine comes and stands beside Paul. She puts her hands on his shoulders, kneads his muscles, makes soothing noises. ‘It’s ok, Jonny. Today is April the 7th, you see. A sad day for us Rwandans. It marks the start of the killings.’

I fish around in my head for information about Rwanda. An image of a gorilla pops up. Then some white lady called Dian who tried to stop the gorillas being killed but got murdered herself. Lots of misty forests. Dad showed me pictures once in his National Geographic mag. Nothing else about the country comes to mind. If Shah was here, she’d know all sorts of stuff about Rwanda, cos she’s good at that stuff. ‘I’m sorry, Séraphine, I didn’t know,’ I mumble.

‘Of course you didn’t know. You’re only a child - how old are you again?’

‘Fourteen.’

‘Fourteen. A young man, blessed to be growing up in such a safe country. You see my skin, Jonny?’ She holds her arm against the April light from the window. It is the colour of bush honey, lighter than her husband’s skin. ‘I am a Tutsi, of royal lineage, descended from the last King of Rwanda.’

I knew it! Séraphine is royalty, real royalty, not Beyoncé royalty. Woot. Not bad powers of deduction for a fourteen-year-old, I reckon. 

‘I had a good job in Kigali, working as an accounts administrator,’ she continues. ‘Paul was working in the same office. He’s a Hutu. But these differences are superficial. We fell in love. Both our families agreed to the match.’ She kisses Paul on the top of his head and sits down next to him on the settee. ‘After all, who can stand in the path of true love? Our darling twins came along quick quick. My boy was just like you, Jonathan. A kind boy. My girl was strong. She wanted to be a lawyer and help poor people. But everything changed the day the President’s plane was shot down. Everything. Neighbours turned on neighbours. Friends turned on friends.’ 

Her voice loses its regal composure and rises a little. Now it is Paul’s turn to hold his wife’s hand. He pulls out a handkerchief which Séraphine uses to wipe her nose. Paul says something in his own language, which Séraphine translates. ‘Yes, we hid ourselves under a pile of corpses until the mobs with their machetes passed by. Our Hutu friend drove us to the airport. Over dead bodies. Perhaps over the bodies of our loved ones. The chanting from those days haunts my ears, even now. Inyenzi, inyenzi, the mobs sang. Cockroach, cockroach. Come out and be killed, you Tutsi cockroaches.’

I am transfixed. It’s like the scenes she is describing are playing out on the walls of their unit in technicolour glory. I don’t remember lessons at school ever being this interesting or this horrifying. I can’t bring myself to ask what happened to the twins. The two beautiful children in the photos. OMG, the boy does look like me. 

Séraphine stops then and draws a deep breath, seems to remember where she is. ‘My goodness, forgive me, child. I should not have burdened you with our terrible memories. I am sorry.’

‘Aw, gosh, it’s ok, Mrs Mugisha, I mean Séraphine.’ I want to go over and give them a hug, but I feel awkward. I wouldn’t have minded even Bex being here right now, because she’d have filled the silence. Then I see the tears in their eyes. I get my butt out of the chair and I go and give them a hug.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Bex crossing the road towards our house. She’s arm in arm with Shah. They are sharing a pair of headphones, one earpiece each. They pump their fists in the air, they do what looks like a booty roll, they thrust their flat chests in and out as they walk. Clearly they are Beyoncé-ing across the road, which makes me mad for three reasons. Number one, those are my headphones. Number two, how many times do I have to tell Bex to watch out for traffic? Number three, it’s weird that Shah didn’t text to tell me she was coming over. I’ll have to go and let them in. Then I’ll have to entertain Shah. Bugger. I’d much rather hear more about Rwanda. 

‘My Dad,’ my mouth suddenly blurts out, without me giving it permission to speak. ‘He really loved birds….You like birds too, eh, Mr Mugisha? Maybe I could show you some good spots to birdwatch sometime -’

Then everything happens at once. There is a loud noise, a thwack and a crunch, so loud it sounds like it’s in the room. Séraphine shrieks and jumps off the settee, runs out the door. I turn to stare out the window. 

There’s a Land Rover Defender stopped in the middle of the road, and two men are spilling out of it. Weird, I think, why would you park in the middle of the road? Séraphine is now also running to the middle of the road. I see Shah then, standing on the road, her hands over her mouth. My head goes blank, I know what’s happened but I don’t know what’s happened. Mr Mugisha is pulling me outside now, and someone’s calling an ambulance, which turns up, and then Mr and Mrs Mugisha drag me to their car - I feel like lead, my mouth has stopped working - and Séraphine is asking me to ring Mum. Shah is somehow in the car too and she is holding my hand and crying, and for once I don’t mind.  

Matahiwi

By Nadezhda Macey

Matahiwi, the switch edge blade of your eye, glinting from the hill’s ridge. An SOS and a surrender. A pretty young thing, always there and always watching. 

To cook the damper in the embers is to have flushed cheeks like a signature of the bonfire on your face. To feel the feverish heat and believe you might combust. So we push the stick into the dirt and let the spiral of damper float above the hungry saliva and spitting of the flames and let it cook, peacefully, because we are safe. Safe like Father, who lies out of reach of the red light, flat on his back like a hidden body in the grass. A coffin shape formed by the long flattened blades. They bend and wave with the wind, playing over him and against his bare arms.

She wears a short summer dress with pink stripes. The thin straps rest on her collarbones and climb the hill of her freckled brown shoulders. Blue socks go up to her knees past the black rubber of her boots. She bends over to wash the soup cups in a bucket, the red blood of tomato soup mixing with the river water, cold with night. Her dress so short you can see her knickers. The boys and the farmers watch intently, frozen in place on the other side of the fire, as she dances her principal role in the ballet of ‘The Observed’. They are unmoving from their seats in the audience, sheepdog eyes on the lamb through the flames.

On other days Vita sleeps in the dark of the alder trees. She is my sister, on her stomach with her cheek turned to the side. The shadows of the grass play in the sunlight on her back. I wake her with the sound of my running feet, heading to the river. We go in every half hour, taking refuge from the hot day. We run down the path screaming ‘Wait for me!’ We see who can get in and out the fastest. The summer has shrunk the stream and widened the riverbed, so now you have to get down and lower yourself in, a paddle more than a swim. The bushes on the side watch, sitting in their own hot silence. We sit, in our silence, backs against the bank. When we return to the kitchen house we might wash a peach of its furry skin, or a plum of its cloudy grease, or, we might see the farmer. For now we close our eyes, the only sound the eels in the water. They push the light in ripples from side to side to side to side with the curl of their grey skin.

Dead lamb dead lamb dead lamb.

Makes me think of Tom killing the lamb in the river.

The farmer was atop his tractor, looking down at us in our summer dresses, fresh meat standing on the yellow burnt grass. ‘How long can raw meat sit out in the sun?’ He cupped my face with his left hand, holding my blushed cheeks tight in his huge old man hand. There was hunger in his body. Hunger in the ring on his finger, I felt it in the hard silver that dug into my face. His hunger burnt into my eyes, because he was standing with the sun behind him, and the sun was white hot. I had mountain dew in my veins, sparkling and fizzing, like if he cut me I would bleed glitter. The words lie heavy on my tongue. I want to say, ‘You are a sheep dog that kills’. But my teeth and tongue and my blood are all made of silver. When I try to speak my spangly plastic mouth slips down my throat and through my fingers to the edge of the river among the stones and the eels. It floats, a pool of shining. And he winks at me, like all he wants is to be a shard of shining above the water, all he wants is to catch the light. ‘You’ve got some cheek girl, better watch yourself.’

He slinks away with canine teeth and I fall into the wall, where the chipped white paint of the wood is warm. It holds me, like a hand cupping a cheek, and Vita sleeps under the trees, lulled by the many voices of Matahiwi’s spell.

This story by Nadezhda Macey (Year 13 student at Wellington High School) is the 2020 Winner of the Katherine Mansfield Short Story Award, announced on Tuesday 8 September at an event held for finalists at the National Library of New Zealand. A shortlist of 11 finalists from ten local high schools was judged by Tina Makereti, an acclaimed writer and a Senior Lecturer at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington.

Makereti said the winning story stood out thanks to its vivid prose. “From the first line, ‘Matahiwi, the switch edge blade of your eye, glinting from the hill’s ridge’, this story held me with its compelling voice. It has otherworldly elements but is also wholly familiar. I’m excited to see what this writer does next.”

Back in Tawatawa

By Vana Manasiadis ft. Tangaroa Paora (Muriwhenua)

It happened on Te Wharepōuri on the corner of Rintoul at the bustop that you’d bump into Maaka and fixate on his fuschia nails, red lips and mini-skirt with tears below the zip. Hi Maaka, you might have said, while you waited, Hello my little ginger, Maaka might have answered, My scruffy little minx. It happened on Te Wharepōuri on the corner of Adelaide that you’d walk alongside Irina, her face of rouge and chalk and outline. She might have talked to you about her lost fortunes, and cousins in the camps, before carrying on in her peeling pumps and  black coat worn daily since the war.        It happened down Te Wharepōuri on the way to Russell that you’d follow Ari after special school, or Mirza with his mum. Mirza never opened his eyes so his mum had to pull him sideways, and you were in love with Ari, his wide-green eyes that never blinked, that never saw you see him.   It happened off Te Wharepōuri that if you didn’t cross in time, the kids from SWIS would ask you for a smoke or where you lived so they could come-bash-you-up. They hung out behind the haunted bungalows at numbers 24 and 6 and were mates with wairua who coughed at you as you ran past.       It happened not far from Te Wharepōuri that gangs like Satan’s Skins got off their four-wheel bikes. You’d never ever bump into them, except one time when you went with your mum to give them koulourakia. At this time lots of white grandparents lived down Te Wharepōuri and called it Waripori, not knowing any better. 

Skylla was trying to figure out how to write this. She’d crossed out five A4 sheets of paper, five physical false starts until her head hurt. So she grabbed her woven kapa and climbed up Tawatawa to look over the park and the old tip, and on towards the protest where Maaka got his head smashed in, in 1981

on a Saturday, after the group met up: Irina in her fur stole, and Naisha, Mirza’s mum, in leathers, and small Skylla bumping into both, her dogs’ heads nipping, asking if she could go along. You come, Irina had said, knowing full-well that getting heard wouldn’t be as simple as digging in her heels, and Let’s show ‘em, said Naisha since she’d had a gutsful of slurs thrown at her boys for not managing to Kick the Fucking Ball

or Swing that Cricket Bat or Shoot ‘em in the Guts, said Maaka his black hair poofed big and powerful (his platform boots, his crop top vest, his deliberateness, his beauty). He held an electro-voice mic nicked from last night’s act and added: No way I’m staying in bed today, after last night on the booze, no way I’m not joining all my commie mates on this one in our hood. His purpose atomized the chipseal, called the river in the road

so off they stepped, a wall against the warnings to keep out, Maaka, Irina, Naisha; and Skylla trailing but still windproof, and foolproof. She didn’t know then how things could get for hybrid kids with dogs heads showing from their chests. She didn’t know how freaky that was for folks who were smooth batons instead.  Stop the Tour, she called with Naisha who folded an arm around her mongrel little trunk. Not quite normal, not quite normal, they all sang

and they marched over Berhampore Farm, occupied by Luxford in 1850-something, over the hospital built for plague in 1900, then converted into dingy flats for working poor after healing wounded soldiers. There’d been a lot that wasn’t right, a lot of Wakefield and MacAlister. There’d been a lot of rinse-repeat like the mauve rinses of The Knitters Group who didn’t care for politics, and drew blinds against wrong colours

like the pounamu of the SWIS jerseys who climbed the bank as if over a trench. They had placards saying Burp-poor Stinks and Social Studies Sucks, and a comic of the East India Company smashing Barahampur and of Prince Siraj-ud-Daulah getting shot against a wall; and of the New Zealand Company coasting on the Tory and Hunter naming the place Berhampore for his hungawai, but spelling it all wrong. Fuck, both Naisha and Maaka spat, we’ve had it up to here

and here and here, said Irina, I know how these things looks like. So Maaka picked up the pace, the others in his tracks, and by the time they’d reached the major fuss, Adelaide the road, not ship, was filled with blue and bloodied. That is, the scene was not so sporting. And Skylla was pulled into the quick. And Skylla was rolled against a curb. And Skylla’s dogs couldn’t see the sky and were hurtled to the front

which is when Maaka pushed past the helmets and the red as if Te Kakapi-o-te-rangi Te Wharepōuri back from Te Pō for a little restoration. 

Taiaha Ha
I taiaha Ha
Kia hiwa rā
I kia hiwa rā
Kia hiwa rā ki tēnei tuku
Kia hiwa rā ki tēnā tuku
Kia tū
Kia oho
Kia mataara

he smashed as he grabbed the little minx 

Waerea te rangi e tū iho nei
Waerea te papa e hore nei e
Kauparetia ki te aho matua
Whītikina ake te aka matua e
Kia māhea, kia wātea
Hui e
Tāiki e!

he stood as the club came down flat against his mouth, then arm and temple. 

(Πού να βαλθούν τα δάκρυα μου για τον ξεχωρισμό σου)

What happened next? The park collapsed, the stadium and fences. The quarter acre pickets disappeared, and the streams rose to the surface. Even the tuna came swimming back, and the kōura too, since they’d never welcomed real estate or musket magic tricks. And Irina spoke Polish and Naisha didn’t worry when Mirza worshipped in plain sight

and Skylla, her heads howling, her tail brushing against the earth that covered all the streets where all the weirdos lived, grew old. It was time to come down Tawatawa and sit again with Ari who’d turned into a rimu. She unfolded her last sheet of A4 and wrote one last sentence, and it was simple it happened on Te Wharepōuri Street that Ari’s leaves staunched all the bleeding.

Kia ora ki aku kiritata o Tawatawa
ki a Kerryn Pollock
ki a Paige Pomana me Sour Heart Productions

Angela

By Annaleese Jochems.

When Herbert the handyman came to look at Angela’s doorknob she was at the stove, stirring a white sauce, and flipping five vege patties. He looked at the knob briefly, then sat down on her Lazyboy and stayed there for an hour. 

Angela talked, he listened. She made him several weak coffees, and when she noticed the time after handing over the third she got a fright. 

‘Do you charge by the hour?’ 

‘Haven’t done any work yet.’ 

That was true. It humiliated her, how much she liked talking to this short, dumpy man while he sat, and she moved around him, spraying and wiping, sweeping and dusting. He was a brilliant listener; the most passive person she’d ever spoken to. It took him about ten minutes to fix the knob, and he asked to be paid in cash. 

After he left Angela had a minor mental breakdown. The white sauce had burnt while she talked to Herbert. Then there were problems with her IBS. She was in the bathroom when he came back in through the back door, asking if she was alright. ‘Yes!’ she yelled from the bathroom. ‘Certainly!’ 

‘Knobs loose again, I’ll have another fiddle with it for free.’ 

Back in the kitchen, she scraped the pot while he messed with it. 

‘What’s the problem?’ he said, finally. 

‘I’m crying because of you!’ 

He looked confused, but patient. As if he didn’t need to understand anything in a hurry, or at all. He didn’t ask what he’d done, just gave the door knob a final pat, and sat back down in the lazy boy. He said, ‘Okay.’ 

Angela said, ‘I work all the time, on so many different projects, and you come in and sit in my chair, my best chair, the chair I never sit in.’ She sat down on the hard on the couch, right into its bones. 

Herbert looked like he might stand up, but didn’t. Angela heaved with tears. He said, ‘Maybe have a lie-down?’ 

‘I’m always lying down, because I’m always so stressed. Don’t you see that that’s just another thing I have to do? Don’t you see that you, and people like you are always making me do things?’

Herbert looked around the room, and didn’t see it. ‘Maybe lie down, for quite a while?’

‘You’re right! The only way out is death!’ 

Herbert waited. 

‘I’m a property manager,’ she said, finally. ‘I find the tenants, then I go around every now and again and check they’re cleaning up after themselves. Shouldn’t be too hard, should it?’ 

‘Uh.’ 

‘But it is! They’re all hovels, every single house. The only people who’ll live in them are animals! 

‘Hm.’ He listened to her. Before he left the second time, she made him check the door knob, and fix it again. The next day it was still wobbly, and worse, Angela felt violated. What had he done, to make her reveal so much? She gave him a bad google review, and resolved never to see him again. 

The next Saturday – Saturday was her only real day off – she opened an email. It was from a tenant, and could wait, but she flew into a rage. Mostly at herself for even looking at her phone when she already had so much to do ,but also – it just came from nowhere. She lifted her leg above her hip, and with the support of her hands under her thigh, thrust it forward and kicked the food scraps bin directly through the kitchen window. For days afterwards there were little bits of food rotting everywhere, sticking too her shoes, and to the lips of the drawers. She didn’t want to call any of the decent trades people in the area and talk to them about it, and so, with teeth gritted, she called Herbert. He didn’t have much to say to her story about a deranged bird, although in a way it was the truth. 

He put a board over the window, while she rearranged her Tupperware. She had a problem with tasks, she tried to explain to him. She was always doing them. It was the only way she could relax. If she wasn’t doing a task, she’d be thinking about every task she might be doing, which was more arduous than actually doing one, or even three of them. He said, ‘Hmm, hard to relate to.’ 

She looked at a lumpy vegetable stock on the stove, gyrating on the boil, then at his potato-ish face. After a while letting her look, Herbert looked back. He said, ‘Hey beautiful.’ 

Angela just stood there, unsure whether or not she was offended, but filled already with a sense of how much she knew that he didn’t. She wiped her mouth, although there was no moisture there. 

She said, ‘Don’t you have another job to get to?’ 

He shook his head. ‘Only calls I take are yours.’ 

Herbert the layabout. The hairy thick-thighed sloth. He set himself up on the couch, in a sleeping bag that slipped and revealed him during the night. Angela’s friends begged her to make him leave, and actually laughed at her. But for the first time she could remember, she was enjoying life. He made slow cooker puddings, which they ate together until Angela got nauseous. Then he’d put them in the fridge in enormous tups, and after a while tip them out behind a bush in the garden. He sat on the couch, supporting her while she powered away on her exercise bike, and was very compassionate when she had to stop suddenly, and make her way thunderously to the bathroom. 

Angela was absorbed into the same dreamy sleep he lived in, and they floated, passive and together, like two things in a broth. He was always warm to the touch, rosy in the cheeks. She began to see his beauty, and enjoy his roundness, and stopped spending as much time on her exercise bike. Food sat in her better, cushioned by her new contentment. She felt fed in a way she hadn’t for years. Maybe her problem had always been hunger. She felt herself softening in warm, constant feelings and thought, what is it they say about lobsters in pots? 

He came with her sometimes on property inspections. If things weren’t so bad in a house he’d reach up with his big pink fingers and brush cobwebs away, or wipe a smear from a wall with the sleeve of his sweater, so that Angela could tick every box on her inspection form, and wouldn’t have to come back later to check that anything had been done.    

He was her main problem now, and completely unsolvable. In some way she thought, smugly, she had caused him. He’d arrived from nowhere, or - like the mysterious product of a split atom - from the frantic heat of her own body. Not that Angela had ever been very sexual. There was too much trouble with her IBS - particularly with a special structured pant she liked to wear on her days off. Also, she didn’t find anyone very attractive. No, Herbert had been born like Jesus, from the honest and pure nothing of her desire; and just like Jesus had for Mary, he’d come into the world as an acknowledgement that Angela was such a woman, so much better than everyone else, and so good at multi-tasking. 

Was Herbert happy? He seemed it. He liked to ask her lazy questions, philosophical puzzles of his own devising: Would she like him better if he was black? A king? Would she stay with him if he lost everything?

‘Herbert,’ She said. ‘You don’t have anything to lose.’ But he didn’t mind, just smiled and tapped her on the bum, walking past on his way to the kitchen. She liked that; liked his easy smile, and the warm cushioned feel of his palm. It was nice to think that by doing nothing, just by being around, she could make him happy. Although tubby, he never seemed heavy. His contentment lifted her. 

Except that one day he grabbed rather than tapping, and said, ‘What about having some fun?’ 

‘What do you mean?’ Her stomach lurched. His smile was rakish, merry – his eyes deep brown and electric. She felt an imminent flare-up. 

He shrugged, smiled: ‘A trip to the zoo.’ 

They went, and everything was as Angela expected. He got an ice-cream and she licked it. At the monkeys he touched her hair interestedly, like a bonobo. She felt tickled and a little toddlerish; Herbert was taller than her by a head.

But, right at the back of the zoo a sun bear sat alone in a little hut, surrounded by an eeiry, empty, concrete moat. Looking at the bear, Angela actually started to cry. Herbert said it was just the strange, wet black skin under her eyes that made the bear look so sad, but Angela couldn’t be sure. Actually, what he said really annoyed her: How could you expect her to be happy?? Shut up in there, in such an ugly hut, and shut up again inside such a slow, obese body, opening her mouth all day long and shoving slow, effortful handfuls of grass in, chewing. Angela’s IBS had been good that day, but annoyance was a trigger, and when she touched her stomach, she felt an answering tremor. 

Herbert said, ‘Come here,’ and basically dragged her around the side of the cage to where the grass was long and you could look down at the sludge in the moat. ‘I used to come here as a teen,’ he pointed down at the long grass, jumping with bugs. ‘And fuck.’ 

Angela was filled with a kind of distanced fear, like you feel in some dreams. She felt the sharp button of her trousers, turned sideways and digging into the cheese-flesh of her stomach, and said nothing. 

The bear moaned. Now, from where they were, they looked up at the back of her head. Angela thought her hair was thinning. 

‘How are you feeling?’ Herbert asked, and flicked that back of his fingers lightly against her belly. She’d never noticed his eyebrows before. They were dark with imminent power. 

‘Fine,’ she said. They both heard the noise. Angela recognised it from once before, years ago, at a devastating work meeting. 

He laughed. ‘Want to, or nah?’ 

She thought, was there a stink or was that just the bear moat. While she thought, Herbert pounced on her, so that she fell back into the thick, rough grass. She thought, there is a stink, I have shit myself. A lock of hair fell over his eyes. He tossed his head, smiled. She also thought, yes, I want to.

Herbert saw the look in her eyes, the fear, horror, shame, and the desire. He grinned. ‘Guess there’s nothing left to worry about then.’ 

She felt his cock bulge. She heard the bear moan to itself, but forgot its sadness. It’s hard to describe what happened then, except that Angela had a sort of vison. She knew that if she accepted Herbert inside her, imperfect as he was, she could accept everything that was already inside her – her own imperfect self. She needed him. 

Although erect, he wasn’t hard in the stereotypical way. Maybe none of them are. It felt more like when you put a lot of food in your mouth – too much food, you realise too late – and there’s a moment of panic before you chew it, as if chewing may be impossible.

Angela didn’t feel any kind of overwhelming sensation, which was just as well – it wouldn’t have been any different from how she felt the rest of the time anyway. Instead she felt like a muffin resting after baking. She felt herself becoming independent and complete – finding self-possession. 

While she found hers, Herbert must have lost his. He relaxed into her, the way a calm afternoon falls into an evening storm. When Angela blinked her eyes open, he was gone. Maybe she’d destroyed him, but that was never how she thought of it. She believed instead that in her, he’d found a purpose – something that finally impelled him to action, and that having completed this action it was natural for him to disappear. 

Sex can be a kind of wakeful sleeping, and in her dream she’d seen him, a hairy man in a straw cap – perhaps Jesus – disappearing over a hill and out of the world. Maybe the purpose of Jesus was to give everyone else someone to feel better than and by doing so, humble us. Some men are like bread – fluffy things that you can eat. 

She picked up his floppy cap – all that was left of him – and headed home. The sun bear was not sad, she thought then, just resting. Angela felt restful too, and complete. It was only when she was halfway home that she remembered what’d happened before what’d happened. But she walked calmly. 

1993

By Dominic Hoey

We were in a punk band called Freida, and we sucked. The name was the best thing about that band. But music was a good excuse to do something other than drinking, and getting beat up for being weirdos. I played bass, Noah was on drums and Hana was the singer and guitarist. Every other weekend, we’d figure out a way to get our shitty gear to an all ages gig in some community centre in the burbs. Other times it’d be a house party, playing in the kitchen while everything broke around us.  We’d do the 5 or 6 songs Hana had written about school and heartbreak, and a cover of I Wanna Be Sedated, which we always played way too fast. Afterwards we’d get pissed and try and find a ride home. 

But then fucking Noah left his kick drum at a party out in Henderson, and we didn’t even have the band anymore. We tried to get our parents to drive us out to get it, but Noah’s mum didn’t have a car, my folks were working all the time and Hana’s showed their support in more passive ways. The worst part was we'd been offered a real gig, at a proper venue, with bands that played outside of Auckland. So we needed money for a new kickdrum, and that's how we ended up stealing the dog. 

A month after the party, Noah came marching into the common room down the back of the school. He was wearing the long sleeve Sonic Youth t-shirt he’d stolen off me last year. I’d given up asking for it back, he had even less clothes than me. Plus he’d gotten green paint all down the front of it. The common room smelled of old cat piss. There was a single poster on the cream coloured wall, with a picture of a pig looking guilty. Underneath it read “Have you got herpes?"  We were the only people that ever hung out there. Even the metal kids who killed cats and huffed butane were too good for that place.  

Me and Hana were trying to listen to the new Nas album. Her brother Kai had sent it to her from America. Kai lived over there making art and waiting tables, which made him the coolest person we knew. But Hana’s tiny boombox had run out of batteries. She sat there biting on them while Noah relayed his news.

“I figured out how we can get some money!” the ginger maniac yelled walking over to us. Hana raised her eyebrows. 

“We’re not shoplifting again.” she mumbled, the batteries still between her teeth. 

“Nah not that.” Noah said looking defensive. The fucking genius had come up with 101 moronic plans for how we were going to afford a new bass drum. One involved shoplifting makeup from the chemist, and selling it at school. But we got snapped, and had to run down Queen Street with a security guard chasing us. 

“I was in form class,” he said “and Mia was saying she’d give 150 bucks to whoever stole that dog, the one up on the corner of Arnold and Rose.”

“Bullshit!” I snapped. My head hurt. We drank a 10-dollar bottle of vodka last night, and I wasn’t in the mood for Noah’s constant lying.

“It’s true!” he said, grinning a mouth full of crooked teeth.

“That dog's got rusty stains round its ass.” I said, making Hana crack up, spitting the batteries onto the faded orange carpet.

“We should go get it.” Noah started hopping back and forth with excitement. 

“How we going to catch that dog?” I asked.

“Easy! We’ll just go and grab it.” Hana put the batteries into the boom box and pressed play. 

“If I ruled the woman,” Lauren Hill's voice came out of the speakers, “Imagine that.” 

“I'd free all my sons, I l..o..v..e ‘e…m l..o..v..e ‘e…m b..a..b..y…”  the voice slowed down and stopped altogether.   

“Fuck!” Hana said whacking the stereo. 

“Come on!” said Noah “We need to get in there before someone else does.” 

“Let's talk to Mia first”, Hana said, pressing stop. 

Mia was sitting on the field with her boyfriend Luke and the rest of the cool kids. They were way down the back, where the trees ringed the edge of the school grounds. As soon as we stepped onto the grass, everyone was staring, their eyes, lit cigarettes hovering over us. 

They were all wearing their uniform, jean jackets and flannel shirts. There was a cloud of weed smoke hanging over their heads.

“Hey,” Noah said, giving a small wave, all his energy gone, now we were standing in front of the group.

“Kia ora,” Mia said smiling, a large pair of pointy sunglasses covering her face. She was so pretty, it kind of hurt to look at her. Noah’s face turned red as his mop of hair. Everyone was staring at us as a joint was passed between them. I kept waiting for Noah to say something. But he didn’t. 

“Fuck guys,” Hana sighed eventually, “Heard ya offering money to anyone who steals that dog.” 

“Yeah, you’s keen?” Mia said, her words almost as drawn out as the Nas song. 

“Could be,” Hana said, “Where would we bring it?” 

“My house,12 Selbourne street.” Luke and a couple of the other guys were smirking at us. I tried not to look at them. Even though it was a cloudy day, sweat was running down my back. 

“Before eight tho, when dad gets home,” Mia added. 

“Can we see the money?” Noah said quietly to the ground. 

“What?” Mia asked, still smiling, but it felt mocking. Luke gave us the evils, and I was worried we might end up getting a hiding. 

“I said can we see the money?” Noah repeated slightly louder still looking at the grass. Mia nodded and laughed. 

“Sure,” she said, rifling through a small brown leather handbag. She pulled out a handful of notes and shook them in the air.

“Cool,” Noah said and then turned and started walking away. Mia took the joint and inhaled and let the smoke slowly drift out of her mouth as I looked around awkwardly.

“Bye,” I said, giving a wave that was more like a twitch. 

“See you tonight with the dog,” Hana said. 

Noah had detention for calling the science teacher, Mr Davies a pedophile. Hana and I waited for him in the common room. She was working on a song about a girl she liked. They’d kissed at a party, but now she wouldn’t talk to Hana. I thought the girl was a dick anyway, she wanted to be in the army or the police or something authoritarian. And she ate meat. 

It was just after five when Noah finally got out. We walked home through Western Springs park. The lake was so thick with slime, it looked like you could stand on it. Noah was quiet. I knew he was embarrassed. He was always having mood swings. One time he threw a chair through the window in maths class and got suspended. The teacher said we should be kind to him, that he had trouble regulating his emotions. We tried, but god it was exhausting. 

Hana walked in front making plans. 

“We need a net,” she said, as we walked down the duck shit covered paths.  

“Where are we going to get a net big enough to hold a dog?” I asked

“It’s a small dog,” Hana said clapping her hands at a flock of ducks walking past, making them scatter. 

“We can just grab it,” Noah said quietly behind us, “pick it up and run.” 

“Yeah, that could work,” Hana said. 

Hana’s parents were relaxed about everything. They let us band practice in the lounge, drink in the backyard, smoke weed on the roof. They didn’t even seem to care when we took mushrooms on Hana’s birthday, and lay around screaming with laughter while her extended family looked on. We all pretty much lived there for different reasons. Noah cos he was an only child and got lonely. His dad was locked up, so was just him and his mum. She worked night shifts cleaning offices so he was home by himself a lot. My house was the opposite. I had 6 sisters and had to share a room with the two youngest, who would stay up all night listening to Love Songs To Midnight on the clock radio, or dancing to whatever latest cassingle they'd bought. 

Hana’s room stunk of mildew and paint. Photocopied zines on animal rights, and half finished artworks covered every surface. The walls were plastered in band posters; Jawbreaker, Bikini Kill and a bootleg Fugazi one Kai sent over. I used to be so jealous of that poster.

I sat on the floor next to Noah, Hana was on her bed, her red guitar in her lap, absentmindedly playing the chords to one of our songs. 

“We should leave if we want to get it before eight,” Noah said, picking at glob of green paint on the carpet. 

“What if someone sees us?” I asked looking at my two band mates, Noah was over 6 foot with ginger spikey hair, and a face that always said, ‘I’m doing something I shouldn’t’. Hana had seven piercings and bright pink hair. I know it all sounds tame nowadays, but back then we stood out, and it made us targets for all the bullies and psychos in our neighbourhood. 

“Disguises!” Hana said, jumping off the bed. She opened her wardrobe and dragged out a large metal chest. I knew that chest well. Every time we had a gig it would come out, and Hana would try and convince us to dress up in the moth-eaten clothes inside. 

“I’m not wearing any of that shit!” I protested. 

“We’re gonna look ridiculous,” Noah moaned. 

It was just getting dark when we left. Hana wore a bright yellow floral dress that dragged behind her as she walked. Me and Noah were in ill fitting suits. Hana said they made us blend in and there was never any point arguing with her. 

It was almost 7pm when we walked through Grey Lynn park, dusk, the houses up on the hill had their lights on, guiding us towards the street. A rugby team was practicing on the muddy field.

“My ears are sore,” Noah said one of his long fingers in his ear.

“It’s cos you keep putting sticks in them,” Hana snapped.

“Whatever,” Noah said spitting on the ground.

“We’ve all seen you do it,” I said. 

“Shut up,” he said.

Two men appeared out of the dark. They were older than us, one wore a puffer vest the other had a beanie pulled down over his head almost covering his eyes. 

“Look at these faggots,” Beanie-guy said. I kept looking straight ahead, praying Hana wouldn’t say anything. Puffer vest dropped his shoulder, shoving me hard. I lost my balance and fell onto the wet concrete. Thankfully Hana bit her tongue. 

“Fuck those guys,” Noah muttered helping me to my feet. 

The front door of the house was slightly ajar, the sound of Shortland Street drifted out onto the road. 

We stood on the footpath and stared at the empty front yard, a ripped up pink teddy bear the only sign of the dog.

“Where is it?” Noah whined “It’s always out here.” 

I tried whistling, but I was scared the people in the house would hear me. 

“What do we do?” Noah asked. 

“I guess we should forget about it,” I said, imagining all the boring weekends ahead, now we weren’t going to be a band anymore. 

“There he is,” Hana said. We followed where she was pointing. A white fluffy head was poking out the front door.

“Here boy,” Noah said. The dog didn’t move. “Come on,” he said without conviction. 

Headlights lit up the street. A mini-van drove past, the family inside staring out the windows at us. I tried to look natural, but it was hard, dressed like a failed accountant from the 70s. 

“Why the fuck did we wear these clothes,” I whined. 

Hana pulled herself up the wall and onto the lawn, the bottom of her dress covered in mud.

“What are you doing?” I said grabbing at her, but she danced away from me. Crouching, she made her way to the house. Every muscle in my body was tense watching her. I felt like I was going to piss myself. She passed under a window. Inside a bald dude in a Richmond Rovers jersey, was walking back and forth drinking a beer. 

At the front door Hana knelt down and put her hand out. The dog sniffed it. She slowly pushed the door open. 

“Fuck,” I whispered.

Hana gently picked the animal up, turned and ran back down the lawn. She leapt off the wall, hitting the footpath with a grunt. 

“Let’s go,” she hissed. 

We sat at the bus stop on Surrey Crescent catching our breath. At the takeaways across the road, a man my dad's age leant on the counter next to an arcade machine. He was wearing a gold jumpsuit, making conversation with the Chinese woman who’d worked there as long as I’d been eating chips. We all watched the man in awe, the gold shimmering beneath the fluorescent lights.  

“I want that fucking suit,” Hana said. 

“We should feed it, probably hasn’t had dinner,” I said, the dog on my lap.

“What do dogs eat?” asked Noah. He never had pets growing up. 

“My uncle's dog eats shit, actual shit,” Hana said, still watching the man in the gold suit. I looked down at the ball of fluff in my lap.

“Don't say that,” I said covering his ears, Hana cracked up. 

“And one time it puked human shit in the car,” she continued. 

“How do you know it was human shit?” asked Noah.

“You can just tell.” 

“Well we don't have any shit,” I said, “Why don't you get it some chips?” 

I dug a handful of change out of my pocket and thrust it at Hana. She screwed up her face poking her tongue out at me, then jumped up and jogged across the road. The woman behind the counter held out a bag of chips to the man in the gold suit. He took them and turned to leave just as Hana arrived. They both stared at each other. Was probably only a second, but felt like ages. The guy nodded at Hana, one weirdo acknowledging another, and then left.

I looked down at the dog. And I know it’s not possible now. Like with science and shit. But at the time I was sure he was smiling at me. Noah began drumming on his legs making the dog jump. It started shaking, its eyes bugging out of its tiny head. 

“Stop, he doesn't like it,” I said.

“What, now we gotta do what the dog wants?” Noah continued drumming.

I patted the dog.

“It’s alright, Noah just has emotional problems.” Hana ran back across the road with a small bag of chips. She stopped in the middle of the street, as a dented red honda civic to go past. 

“Fuck you bitch!” Someone screamed out the window. Hana gave them the fingers. She let out a long sigh when she reached us. 

“Losers,” she said, sitting down, “What’s wrong with you?” she asked Noah who was pouting with his arms crossed. 

“He’s jealous of the dog,” I said. 

“Fuck you guys.” Noah got up and stormed across the road. I took a chip out of the bag and broke it in half. I ate one half and gave the other to the dog.

“It’s 730. We should go give the dog to Mia,”  Hana said. 

“Yeah.” I watched the dog eat the chip. Hana looked at me. I thought she was going to say something, but then she stood up and looked across the road. Noah was pretending to play the arcade game in the takeaways even though we knew he had no coins. 

“Come on ginger nuts,” she yelled, “Let’s go get paid.” 

Mia’s house wasn’t rich, but it was better than any of our places. They had painted it nice, and there were cool statues in the front yard. A buddha, with green moss growing over his head sat by the gate. Lights were on in one of the front rooms. 

“Go knock on the window,” Hana said, giving Noah a push. He stood there, silent. 

“This was your idea,” she hissed. Noah picked up a stone and threw it at the window. It bounced off. The red curtains parted, and Mia’s pretty face was smiling out at us. I knew she was a bad person, but I still had a crush on her. I’m sure Noah did too. The curtains closed and then the door opened. But instead of Mia, Luke and one of his mates walked out. They weren’t smiling, in fact their faces were blank. Maybe some people would have trouble reading that expression, but I knew exactly what it meant. It was the look my dad had right before he lost his shit, it was the look Sione's big brother had when he gave me and Naoh a hiding for teasing his younger sibling, it was the look the prospects had when they tried to kick in the door of our practice room one night, while we hid inside. 

“Give us the dog” Luke said standing in the gate. His dopey looking friend behind him. Luke wasn’t that big, but he was a couple of years older than us. People said he got held back a year. His mate on the other hand was massive. His shoulders looked like they were going to rip through the faded black Ice Cube t-shirt he was wearing. 

“Where’s the money?” Hana said. I stepped back clutching the dog. I couldn’t see Noah anywhere. Fucking coward. 

“Just give us the dog eh,” Luke said, looking at me, “Don’t make me fuck you up.”

I could run, we weren’t too far from Hana’s place. Maybe I’d make it with the dog. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Just as I was about to take off, something flashed past my eyes. I looked up in time to see a piece of wood clock Luke in the head. He dropped like a sick of shit. His mate stood there, eyes wide fixed on Noah who was holding a fence post. 

“Run!” Noah screamed, throwing the piece of wood at him, and we bolted down Selbourne street. 

The dog ran up ahead of us as we walked back through Grey Lynn park. 

I can’t remember whose idea it was to take it back. Maybe no one needed to say it. The rugby team had gone home. Amongst the darkness of the empty park, the lights on the hill looked distant, ships out at sea. No one said nothing, but I knew we were all thinking the same thing, that we wouldn’t be getting the 150 dollars, that we’d miss out playing the show, that Luke and his mate were going to beat the shit out of us. 

Up on Arnold street there was a crowd of people with torches, walking up and down the road whistling and calling out out “Ratso!”. 

I stopped and started backing into the park, but Noah grabbed the dog from me and walked towards the group. 

“Ratso!” a small girl with no shoes on yelled running up to Noah. The group all stopped and looked over at us. 

“Found ya dog,” Noah said bending down and handing it to the girl.

“Ratso’s back!” the girl cried hugging the dog. The big bald guy I’d seen in the house, started walking towards Noah.

“Where did you find him?” he said. 

“He was in the park,” replied Noah. 

“Bullshit,” the big guy said, grabbing Noah by his suit jacket. Noah spat in the man's face, slipping out of his jacket. And then we were all running again. 

We emerged from the park, and stood on Williamson Ave pulling the cold night air into our lungs. 

“Those old bastards were fast,” Hana said, her hands on her knees. 

“Yeah,” Noah replied quietly. 

“You miss the dog?” I asked, giving him a shove.

“You think Luke’s ok?” Noah asked.

“Hopefully he’s brain damaged, and can’t remember how to fight,” I said. 

“Yeah.” 

“Let’s go back to mine, got half a bottle of red wine,” Hana said, straightening up. 

A red Honda civic sped past us.

“Fuck yous!” someone screamed out the window. 

Belief

By Laura Borrowdale

CASSANDRA

Cassandra sees snakes that no one else sees, their dry scales scratching over the stone pavers of the temple. Their green-and-yellow striped hides flash between columns as they follow her, several steps behind. When she was a child, they curled up in her bed at night, kept watch over her as she walked through the fields, a secret. 

She carries candles, throwing their flickering light up the columns as she passes by. At the altar, she replaces those that have burned down, touches a flame to those that have burned out. The snakes’ small rushes of movement flicker in and out of the light. The snakes always come when she needs them, alone in the dark. She steps back, and kneels.

She tips her dark head forward, her veil blinkering her view of the temple, of the snakes that wind up the columns like restraints. 

She shifts her weight, wedges the fabric of her tunic between her cold knees and the flagstones. Anything to take the edge off.

There is grit trapped in Cassandra’s sandal. She flexes her toes to try to dislodge it. She slips the sandal off and the arch of her foot is white against the grime of her heel.

The draft that pushes in from the edges, gathering dust and circling the columns, catches her veil. She sighs and pushes it back, the linen falling to snake down her back. 

Cassandra is alone in the dark, in the warmth, with the flickering light of candles and the hissing of snakes, and who cares if she sinks low onto the steps? If she slips an arm under her head to buffer it from the cold, if her long hair tumbles before the altar like an offering? Who cares if the snakes that only she can see creep closer, winding their bodies around hers, brushing their faces along the lines of her cheek, her jaw, whispering secrets in her ear?

CLAUDIA

Jerusalem gives Claudia a headache. The sun here hangs like an eye, with a heat that beats down against her skull and the place has been on edge for days, the air hot and dry, the people brittle. She can feel it when she walks in the garden, the red soil blowing across the ground until it’s red dust streaking the bottom of her legs, getting in her eyes. She has grit in her teeth, sees it in her spit. She sees it in her sleep.

She wakes up with a throbbing head and dreams that hang in her mind, heavy and angry, like salt in the water. She calls for wine. She knows she shouldn’t, first thing in the morning. But Pontius has already left, early in the morning, to go down to the courts in the half-light. So Claudia calls for wine.

It comes with the ancilla, her feet scuffing quietly along, her wraps swishing. She holds the carafe with one hand, the other carrying a platter of bread and cheese, a tumble of grapes. She sets it on the low table beside the bed, and fills the beaker. The noise grips Claudia’s head and she sits, slowly, and holds the drink in two shaking hands.

It tastes metallic, thick, bloody, but she looks down and it’s just wine. She eats bread to get rid of the taste. It sticks to the roof of her mouth and she gulps more wine to wash it down.

Claudia sits still. The linen bedding under her fingertips is fine and soft, and her fingers rub the surface as though she is trying to rub something away. She tries to hold the dreams in her mind, tries to reconsider them, but they skid away under her attention and she just has fire and hunger left.

Claudia takes another gulp, and the wine burns down her throat. If she sits still enough, she can feel it trace through her veins and spread out through her body. She stands slowly to get dressed. The world is fuzzy, dark around the edges, as though she’s spent too long under the Jerusalem sun. 

JANE

Jane (or Bri, or Hana, or Rangimarie) sits at the small square table in an otherwise empty interview room. The lights hum slightly and she looks up, finds herself looking for patterns in the small regular holes of the ceiling tiles. She’s holding a cup of tea. Someone made it for her, but the interaction has been forgotten, leaving only the tea. The cup was too hot for her to hold at first, but now it’s tepid, and too weak to be desirable. The brown glass mug is familiar and comforting. Like the ones in her staffroom (or in her student dorm, or in her mother’s kitchen).

She clutches her sweatshirt to her body (or she pulls up the shoulder of her shirt where the rip is, or she pulls the strap of her party dress back up onto her shoulder). She’s cold and suddenly, as the door clicks opens, very aware of how she looks.

Her eyes are gritty, and dry. There’s an ache in her back and she sits uncomfortably. The chair is hard. If she rocks her weight onto one side the pain is less, but only a little. 

Jane lifts the cup of tea to her lips and drinks. 

CASSANDRA

Cassandra is alone, as alone as you can be in a god’s house. And when the god wakes her up, she’s afraid. Her tangle of snakes flee, the trails of their passage visible in the dust that’s blown in with the god. He is looking at her and she must look away, look down.

Apollo slides down onto the temple steps beside her. 

‘Cass-ss-andra,’ he says, and all she hears is the hissing of snakes in the sibilance of her name, like a draught under the door, like the pouring of cold water.

Apollo looks at her: her hair catching the red light of the candles, her wet eyes like prey. The nape as she looks away, the place a blade would strike a sacrificial victim, but that’s not the kind of sacrifice he wants her to make. Apollo makes her a proposition.

On the cold temple steps Cassandra plays for time. She doesn’t like either side of the bargain. She feels the slow scaly creep of a snake returning to wind around her ankle, another at her waist. She rests her hand on the head of the nearest and it steadies her, holds her still.

Apollo leans close and the snake hisses at him, its body coiling around her until it reaches her face. It tells her the truth about the god.

When he steps closer, ready to claim his side of his one-sided deal, one hand already pulling at the front of her dress, Cassandra shrinks back. She can see it now, the greed simmering just below his beautiful skin. 

Cassandra speaks quietly, softly into the darkness of the temple.

‘No.’

CLAUDIA

The girl comes back in and does Claudia’s hair, pulling it forward, then arranging the curls high on her head. Each pin, each pull makes her wince. 

The girl leans in close. ‘There’s trouble in the city,’ she says. ‘A man, in the temple. I wonder if the prefect will have to deal with him.’

Claudia’s dreams rise up, a hot flush. She can feel sweat pricking under her arms. She feels Pontius’s absence from the house like a threat.

The girl holds Claudia’s hair in place and reaches for a pin. She continues, ‘He let out all the doves. And they all flew up the to the roof. He pushed over the stalls.’

Claudia knows the temple. She knows it by the smell of the sheep huddled on the steps, by the clicking of coins counted out. A tremor runs through her. 

‘That’s enough. You can stop,’ Claudia says. She pushes the girl away, her hair shaking loose as she stands and turns to look at the mirror. She’s pale; makeup streaks down her face like doves’ shit on the side of temple buildings. She thinks about finishing the bread but she finishes the wine instead. Her hands shake less than before.

In the atrium, the boys sit at the feet of their tutor, listening as he talks. Claudia doesn’t care what he’s saying, the monotony of the man’s voice is soothing. The dog lying in the corner lifts its head to watch her come in. Its tail lifts and thumps softly on the dusty floor, fluttering the paper the boys have left scattered about.

Claudia closes her eyes tight, trying to remember just what it was she had seen in her dream. Instead she sees her husband, walking out of the house that morning, his toga flapping behind him like broken wing. She leans and picks up a piece of paper.

She picks up a stylus and scratches against the papyrus. She writes:

‘Pontius, I am afraid. Be careful. Come home to me and …’

At the rustle of her writing, the boys turn to look at her. The tutor pauses, and then continues. She tries again:

‘My head, Pontius, my head, it breaks open and I am full of fright. I need …’

The dog looks at her from its corner with big brown eyes. Claudia can’t get this right. In the last corner of the paper, she prints:

‘Have nothing to do with that man: I have suffered many dreams today because of him.’

She can’t be any more specific than that; the dream is still drifting in and out of clarity for her. She tastes salt and the red dust of Jerusalem. She folds the paper and tucks it inside her stola to hide it from the children.

JANE

Her voice cracks when she speaks. At first she’s startled at the openness of the detectives’ questions; they allow her to speak, and she is not sure where to start. Jane has been alone in the interview room, in her thoughts, for so long she’s forgotten that anything else exists. 

She puts the cup of tea down on the table. It clicks against the Formica, sloshing in the cup, and some of the lukewarm brown liquid pools in a ring around the base of the cup. She stares at it. 

She’s not sure what to say. Or how to say what she wants to. Or whether she should. She opens her mouth: ‘I …’ and then there is nothing more. She looks down at her hands, the long fingers, the short-clipped nails (or the red polish gleaming, one long nail ripped away; or the chewed stubs of nail surrounded by picked skin). She lifts the cup to her mouth. 

The men sit loose and easy in their chairs, their legs falling open, occasionally leaning forward to make a note. They nod, and prompt when Jane’s words slow. Every once in a while, they look at each other.

CASSANDRA

Apollo rises like the flare of a temple candle flame, and she shrinks back further. His anger comes off him like smoke, and the snakes in Cassandra’s clothing and on the temple floor are startled, hissing in anger.

He comes closer and Cassandra steels herself for the blow, for the grip of his hands on her arms. She closes her eyes.

There is no blow, only the sound of Apollo spitting, the shocking wetness on her face. She opens her eyes to see his contorted face, the residual saliva flecked on his lips.

‘No one will believe you,’ he says.

Cassandra wipes her face with the corner of her veil. His spittal leaves a dark grimy patch on the white.

The god raises his arms and the candles go out. The dust and grit whirl in a flurry and Cassandra’s eyes are full of sand. Then he is gone, and she slumps to the floor.

And who cares if she stays there all night? If she prays and sleeps and prays on her knees, the cold stones cutting through? Who cares if the snakes whisper terrible truths as she cries? Who would care, even if she told them? No one believes Cassandra.

CLAUDIA

Claudia stands and hurries to the front door. The guard is there, leaning on his spear, his smiling eyes on the girl carrying water.

‘Take this to Prefect Pilate,’ Claudia says, and she takes his hand and crushes the paper into it. ‘Take it now.’

The guard looks at her blankly. ‘But Procula—’ he begins.

‘Now,’ she says, and her voice cracks. The guard looks at her and she wonders what he sees, but she’s past caring. She feels the cold wet nose of the house dog press up under her other hand. The soldier blinks, looks at the street, and then back at Claudia. He takes the paper from her hand, and smooths the creases out of it. He tucks it under his breastplate and turns, begins to walk in the direction of the courts. Claudia lets out her breath.

She watches him walk, the red of his tunic flashing between the straps of his baltea. The dog sits, leaning against Claudia’s leg. The soldier turns to look back at her and the light glints off the metal of his helmet. Claudia cannot see his face.

There is stabbing pain behind Claudia’s eyes, as though that hot Jerusalem sun has burned its way from the street through to her brain. The red grit from the street crunches beneath her feet and Claudia’s mouth is dry. Pontius will believe her. Surely. 

JANE

One detective leans forward. He’s tightened his eyebrows together into the appearance of concern. The other leans back into his chair. 

The first detective makes his voice warm, and Jane wonders if this is the voice he uses at night, when he’s reading his children a bedtime story. He repeats back to her things that Jane has just told him. He lets his voice rise at the end of the sentences. It’s a nice trick. It puts doubt into her words, even when she had none. Jane can hardly hear what he’s saying, though, and she can feel the tears gathering in the bruised wells of her eyes. 

He finishes speaking and looks over at his partner beside him. They hold eye contact, smile. One man raises his shoulders and lets them fall as he turns back to look at Jane, the now steady line of tears dribbling off her chin. They mottle her grey sweatshirt (or are hidden in the flannel of her shirt, or darken the satin of her party dress).

‘It’s not that we don’t believe you, love, but …’

Donny’s Dialogue

CONTENT ALERT: This story is adults-only and contains sexual scenes.

By Victor Rodger, 29 April 2020

Donny had a muli* on him that looked like a couple of bowls of just-set jelly, a muli that rippled when Robert smacked it, a muli that felt like dough as Robert pushed Donny’s buttocks apart before plunging his tongue into Donny’s asshole.

Donny moaned softly with pleasure in the darkness of their London hotel room.

They had met online just before Christmas when Robert had made his first hunting expedition on Grindr after landing in London from Auckland to begin a writer’s residency. He had been pleasantly surprised to recognise another Polynesian face and soon discovered that Donny was in London on holiday from Oxford University where he had won a prestigious scholarship to complete a PHD in something that Robert did not entirely understand. After meeting later that day in Robert’s hotel room, they had slept together and subsequently met up whenever their respective schedules allowed. 

Earlier that afternoon, Robert had met Donny outside King’s Cross Station when he arrived from Oxford.  It was Valentine’s Day and they were surrounded by couples, straight, gay, or otherwise, who held flowers, chocolates, each other’s hands.

Donny was still closeted – Mormon - so instead of showing any outward affection they had walked, side by side towards the hotel in an anticipatory silence.  Robert supposed that to passers by they may have looked like cousins: two hulkingly tall, broad Samoan men – one dark skinned and one lighter – but both with thighs and mulis that stretched the fabric of their 4XL ASOS jeans to their very limit. 

Donny had caught Robert eyeing up his muli as they walked towards the hotel.

“Sole, aua.”

But Robert wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t wait to get Donny naked, which he did even before their hotel room door closed behind them.

As Robert’s tongue went deeper and deeper into Donny and Donny continued to moan, Robert hoped that this time might be different. That this time Donny would simply keep moaning.

But instead Donny was soon talking to Robert the way he eventually always did whenever they had sex, which was to say that Donny was talking to Robert as if they were in a clip on Pornhub.

“Oh yeah. You got your tongue in my hole? You got your tongue in my hole, daddy?”

Robert withdrew his tongue and looked up at Donny over Donny’s wide muli which lay in front of his face like an enormous smooth mountain made of Whittakers Creamy Milk chocolate.

“Sole: Daddy?  Really?”

In fact, Donny’s employment of the term “daddy” wasn’t the actual problem – Robert was self aware enough to know that he had left his ingénue days well behind him on a dance-floor somewhere, sometime during the last century. But Robert didn’t feel like he could be honest with Donny – not completely – without hurting his feelings. He was, relatively speaking, just a boy: twenty-five to Robert’s fifty. And in their brief time together Robert had already seen how sensitive Donny was underneath his seemingly laidback exterior, how something that Robert considered a gentle mock could wound him.

Donny craned his neck to look back at Robert over his own mountainous muli.

“Uce; what’d you stop for? You don’t like it when I say ‘daddy?’”

If there was one thing that the writer inside Robert could not abide it was bad dialogue. 

“Look … if I’m being completely honest, “ said Robert, “… it’s just … I’m not into running commentaries while I’m rimming you I guess.”

Donny frowned.

“What do you mean?”

The bad dialogue spouting porn star side of Donny had surprised Robert: not because he was Mormon – but because Donny was smart. Smarter than his  ‘fuck me daddy’ dialogue would suggest. In between sex they often talked about race and class and gender and their terrible fathers; they discussed everyone from Franz Fanon to Donny’s Mormon namesake, Donny Osmond. 

What made Donny so porny? Robert sometimes wondered.

Donny rolled over onto his back, his knees bent and legs wide open so that Robert was now directly facing his thick erect penis and his ballsack with its light coating of hair.

Donny repeated his question, this time more firmly:

“What do you mean? Just say it, uce.”

Robert knew he was entering new and dangerous territory with his smart, young lover, so approached his response with care.  

“Sex with you – it’s great.”

“Awwww gee shucks.”

“No I mean it. It’s hot. It’s really hot. You know that. “

“But…?”

Robert hesitated for a moment:

“…but when you start talking like a bad porn star it really turns me off.”

Donny’s penis immediately began to go limp.

“Like a what?”

Robert was worried that he’d gone too far but knew there was no going back now.

“So, for example when you say: ‘You got your tongue in my hole, daddy?’”  

“Yeah?”

“I mean, you gotta admit that’s kinda porn star-ish, right?”

“So?”

Robert wasn’t quite sure what to say to this. Donny straightened his legs and closed his eyes.

“Dead.”

(Donny’s generation’s shorthand for ‘you’re killing me’ as Robert had recently learned).

Donny lay still, looking indeed, as if he were dead. For a moment there was no sound in the room except for the soft whir of the air con and the vague sound of traffic below them. 

Donny suddenly opened his eyes.

“So you just want to me to be quiet when we fuck? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Well, … I mean … I don’t want to squash your self expression but, uh, yeah, that would … that would work for me.”

Donny shrugged.

“Sweet as.”

Robert felt relief.

“So I’m not cancelled?”

More youthspeak that Robert had cribbed from Donny.

Donny smiled as he rolled back over onto his stomach.

“Sole: I cancelled you a long time ago.”

Robert wasn’t entirely sure if Donny was joking or not but before he could investigate further, Donny lifted his beautiful mulii into the air.

“Take two … and action.”

Robert chuckled, squeezed two large handfuls of Donny’s buttocks and then started to work Donny’s muli again with his tongue.

Donny moaned softly.

“Mmmmmmmmm.”

And again.

“Mmmmmmmmmm, yeah.”

Robert, pleased with the restraint that Donny was showing, kept going faster and deeper, spurred on by Donny’s moans.

“Ooooh fuck yeah, daddy.”

Annoyed, Robert slapped Donny hard on his muli.

“Sorry.”  

Donny returned to simply moaning with pleasure. 

But then, just as Robert was really finding his rhythm, Donny said:

“Oh yeah, daddy, you got your tongue all up in my ass. You like that, don’t you, daddy?”

Robert immediately withdrew from Donny.

“Shit. Sorry. It just came out,” said Donny.

Donny reached behind himself to try and force Robert’s head back towards his ass but Robert batted his hand away. Instead he knelt back onto the bed and looked down at Donny. Even in the darkened room his smooth caramel skin was in stark contrast to the crisp white bedspread.

“You watch a lotta porn? I mean when you’re not hard at work on your PHD?”

Donny scoffed then shrugged.

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Who’s your favourite actor?”

Donny laughed.

“I don’t know any of their names. Why? Do you?”

“Francois Sagat. I used to like him back in the day”

“Who?”

“French. Muscly. Tattooed hairline?”

Donny looked blankly.

“What about Colby Jansen? You know him?”

“Show me.”

And so together they watched a clip of Colby Jansen on Robert’s ipad with another actor by the name of Rocco Steele. Colby Jansen was saying things like ‘It’s so fucking big’ (which it was) and ‘Use that fuckhole’ (which the other actor most certainly did).

Donny frowned.  

“So why can this guy say all that shit and you don’t say anything but when I say it, you don’t like it? I don’t get it.”

“Maybe because it sounds scripted when you say it.”

Donny looked at Robert with derision.

“Cancelled. Definitely cancelled.”

Donny rolled over onto his side, his back to Robert.

This was not the Valentine’s Day Robert had envisaged when he had first arranged to meet Donny in London. Robert looked over at Danny’s back, idly ran his index finger up and down his spine.  

“Sole? Sole?”

When Donny didn’t respond. Robert grabbed the remote control and turned on the hotel television. He was taken aback to see some familiar New Zealand faces in a murder mystery that looked like a lot of other British murder mysteries. As far as he could tell this particular mystery was something to do with a lady duck hunter who had come a cropper. He was certain the murderer would turn out to be the vaguely unhinged palagi woman with the severe bowl cut.

Eventually Donny turned back towards Robert and laid his head on Robert’s shoulder.

Robert felt relieved to feel the warmth of Donny’s skin against his again and was taken aback to realise how unsettled the tension between them had made him feel.

Robert began to stroke Donny’s coarse black hair which was already generously peppered with grey and together they watched the show.

“They’re duck hunters?” said Donny

“Uh huh,” said Robert.

It soon became clear that the woman with the severe bowl cut had indeed shot the other lady duck hunter because the lady duck hunter had been having an affair with the chicken farmer who the lady with the severe bowl cut had had a crush on.

“Palagis,” said Donny as the lady with the bowl cut was handcuffed and placed into a police car.

“Uh huh,” said Robert.

Donny raised his head from Robert’s shoulder and looked at him.

“Would you change any of their dialogue?”

“Absolutely.”

Donny seemed to consider this for a moment.

“Has anyone ever accused you of being really critical?”

“Once or twice.”

Donny wriggled further up Robert’s shoulder.

“No shit.”

Donny grabbed Robert’s hand and began to move it up and down Donny’s hair again.  

“This is nice.” Donny said sometime later.

“Yeah. It is,” said Robert.

After a while, Donny said: “Sometimes I want to rewrite your dialogue too, you know.”

Robert stopped stroking Donny’s hair.

“Like when?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Donny grabbed Robert’s hand, placed it back again and began to move it up and down Donny’s hair.  

“When?”

But Donny stayed silent.

They lay side by side in silence for sometime until finally Robert spoke into the night:

“Interior. London Hotel. Night.

Robert strokes Donny’s head on Valentine’s Day.  

Looks at him fondly. 

Neither of them speak.”

Donny remained still but hugged Robert tighter.

In the morning they were surprised to wake up in the same position, still entwined.

After they showered and dressed, Robert and Donny walked down to Kings Cross station with their bags. Robert was catching a train from St Pancras to Manchester but Donny had to get the tube back to Liverpool St and then connect with a train to Oxford.

Robert felt an uncommon surge of affection for this young man who he knew he’d hurt and wanted nothing more than to enfold him in the kind of hug he only gave Donny behind closed doors but he remembered only too well the time in own his life when he himself had been scared of showing such affection to another man in public.

“I wish I could kiss you,” said Robert into Donny’s ear as he pulled Donny in for a shoulder-to-shoulder bro hug. Robert began to pull away but Donny held him close as he whispered into Robert’s ear:

“Exterior. Kings Cross Station. Morning.

Sometime in the not too distant future.

Donny looks at Robert.  

Kisses him on the lips.  

For a long time.

A long long long time.

People watch.

And Donny doesn’t care.”

Donny released Robert’s hand, winked at Robert.

“Fa, daddy.”

Robert smiled.

“Ia, fa.”

Donny turned and began his descent into King’s Cross and Robert watched him until he disappeared from sight. Then, breathing in the crisp February air, he headed towards St Pancras, still smiling and warmed.

___

*Muli means Ass in Samoan.