Each summer, we invite some of Aotearoa’s finest writers to tell us a short tale. Here is the final instalment on this year’s theme, ‘second acts’.
Ever since the conversation a few days ago, Pam had avoided Nīkau. “You know some people claim to be indigenous just to get the benefits,” Pam had said, just out of Glow’s earshot. Nīkau was used to people failing to recognise she was Māori. Pam was from WA. It was the night of the writers festival meet and greet and the culmination of the month-long residency.
When Nīkau said, “You don’t really know that, do you?” Pam fixed Nīkau with a narrow stare and said, “Oh, I know, all right.”
Nīkau and Glow took their bourbons back outside the hotel and watched a few cockatoos screech overhead, their yellow tails catching the last of the sun, their white wings stretched wide.
Shelley texted from Ōtepoti. R U near the fires e hoa?
“Are we?” Nīkau said. The silk shirt Nīkau had borrowed off Glow was already sticking to her back with sweat. Nīkau wasn’t planning on coming tonight but when Glow came out of her bathroom looking bougie and glamorous in a shimmery red pantsuit, Nīkau had closed the bank statement on her phone. Hopefully the meal was part of the gratuities. Her landlord had recently put the rent up again.
Glow shrugged. “Nah, Uncle said the weather’s cooling down.” There was always wildfire raging somewhere, Glow said. Nīkau could sleep on her sofa if need be. Glow knew how to dance through fire. But Glow was a Bundjalung woman.
There were people standing in the foyer. Everyone was dressed up, but looked settled in themselves. The air was heavy with perfume. Glow was pulled away; she was needed. Why couldn’t they leave her alone? Glow sometimes joked she was the right kind of diversity. Nīkau recognised the mayor from the event posters that were around town. Her salary had paid for Nīkau’s trip to Australia. The woman’s eyes flicked across Nīkau’s face, then away. She started scribbling notes on a piece of paper with a sparkly pen. Now didn’t seem like the time to thank her.
It should have been easy to work out who sat where, but it wasn’t. Pam sat on the sofa opposite Nīkau and Caitlin bustled her way into an armchair. Pam managed to look both wealthy and bohemian, in a silk shift dress and assortment of crystal pendants. Caitlin was in a floral dress that accentuated her large bust. They both looked like real writers. Nīkau still couldn’t quite shake the feeling someone might say they’d made a mistake giving it to her.
They had a glass of wine and looked at their phones. Over the hum of the conversation, Nīkau heard people behind them talking about the Voice referendum. She wished people would shut up about it. The arrogant stance of my right to vote on indigenous matters. She was relieved Glow wasn’t here to hear it. Nīkau texted her sister. Straya is a vibe. Yesterday, Glow said she couldn’t understand why the hell Australia couldn’t follow Jacinda’s lead and Nīkau didn’t know either. New Zealand had its own problems.
“I’ve done my ten thousand steps today, so I’m gonna order a burger.” Pam held up the menu. “Can we order?” She looked around for a waiter.
“I think we order at the bar.” Caitlin was trying to decide between the steak and the pork belly.
Pam stood up and went over to the bar.
Nīkau shrugged and ate some blue cheese. She had exactly fifty bucks until she got home to Ōtepoti. Pam hadn’t come to the Welcome to Country that morning. She sensed that Pam had no shame. Not the kind that goes deep in a depressed little Aussie town.
Caitlin leaned in, started to say something, then paused. ‘’It’s …” It was something about Pam. Caitlin was from Belfast, and talked a lot about The Troubles. It wasn’t like that in Aotearoa. Nīkau listened to the people behind them. The woman behind them had given up her precious weekend to campaign on the frontline. The kids were home from university, but she’d gone to her second home and made signs and painted them with slogans.
“Pam said she’d rather stick pins in her eyes than go to any … welcome thing.”
“Thing?”
“The Welcome to Country thing.”
Nīkau looked over at Glow, who had been sucked into another conversation. Something with the mayor. Glow looked like she was over the whole fucking thing.
The didgeridoo’s bass had thumped inside Nīkau’s rib cage at the Welcome to Country and she’d slipped off her sandals to feel the whenua beneath her feet.
Pam sat down. She cut a big wedge of camembert and put it on a cracker.
“You’ve got a bit of colour today!” she said, looking at Nīkau’s arms.
Nīkau watched the ceiling fans rotating on the lacquered oak ceiling. She resisted the urge to tell Pam that in Kāi Tahu, colour wasn’t a marker of identity. Why waste her energy? She’d started looking as far ahead as she could, to will herself home.
“What’s with the décor?” The room was full of heavy wooden furnishings.
“Used to be a railway town,” said Pam. “Basically a ghost town now. This is for the tourists.”
“Don’t you worry about not being able to get away from the fires?” Caitlin said. “About being trapped?” Caitlin was flying to Berlin after this, for the start of her book tour.
Pam threw her hands up. “Oh, god, you’re far more likely to die in a car crash than a bushfire.”
Glow put a tray of shots down in front of Nīkau. She looked pissed off or tired or both. Nīkau knew that look. All these people, and nobody understood. They called it progress, but really it was just power, the next thing to push people back into place.
“They want me to deliver a lecture next month.”
Pam turned, noticing Glow for the first time since the conversation started.
“Wow, what a fantastic opportunity,” she said. She turned to rummage through her Louis Vuitton bag and produced her book. Glow laughed a bit to herself.
“On the future.” Glow looked at Nīkau. Nīkau really hated some people. Like they gave a stuff about the mob’s future.
“Just don’t anyone tell me it’ll be all right. I’m not in the mood to hear that right now,” Glow shook her head. They did the shots.
Maybe it was the shots. Maybe because there were people crowded around them. Maybe because it was hot, or airless in this room. Maybe it was that Pam couldn’t see the double standards. Perhaps it was because Glow looked so exhausted on her own land among all these trespassers but the prospect of treading lightly suddenly seemed impossible.
Pam was talking about her last novel. It was set in Tokyo, where she taught English briefly. Nīkau watched the crystal pendants swinging around her neck as she talked.
“Didn’t you feel that having a Japanese protagonist might be crossing a line?” Caitlin said. “Supporting characters, maybe, but the central character?”
Poor Pam, being forced to understand things. If anything, she seemed annoyed, like some people are when a mistake they’re making was pointed out.
“Are you saying you’d never write a male character then, Caitlin?” The band started and Pam raised her voice. Her face was creased with agitation. She made it sound like they were just trying to make her feel guilty.
“I’m not all that interested in men.” Caitlin laughed carelessly. Nīkau felt that kind of still-functional-drunk that comes from drinking steadily.
“You’ll be pleased to know my latest book is set on home turf, then,” Pam said. “The protagonist is a 19th-century botanical artist from Perth. Those colonial women didn’t get half the attention they deserve.”
“Know what I think, Pam?” Nīkau said. “I think for you to be able to wake up every morning and function, you have to convince yourself of things that just aren’t true. God forbid if any of those beliefs fucking crumbled.”
Nobody said anything and there was just the noise of the waiter setting Pam’s burger down. She didn’t even wait for him to leave before she took a bite. Nīkau realised how hungry she was. Somewhere outside, a cockatoo started screeching.
Pam shuddered. “Like something from a horror movie.”
“Bloody noisy lot!” Caitlin said. Nīkau got the feeling she’d disappointed Caitlin somehow. The relief shone out from Pam’s face. “Every morning they swoop past my bedroom window, like pterodactyls or something.”
“I never know why you guys go on about the kiwi so much,” Pam said, looking straight at Nīkau. “It’s brown and can’t even fly. Look at our amazing rainbow lorikeet – plumage and personality.”
“Plumage and personality,” Nīkau laughed. She felt it in her gut, her head, her feet. They weren’t her whānau. She just had to get through another week with them. Not even with them.
Caitlin didn’t dance. Where she grew up, dancing was sinful. It wasn’t like that in Ōtepoti. “Dancing is doing standing up what you’d like to be doing lying down,” she laughed. Nīkau laughed with her. She let Glow lead her to the front of the stage, through a sea of people moving their arms, heads and legs. The speakers were these giant cubes stacked on top of each other. But when Nīkau looked closely, there was an inch of dark space between them. Like they weren’t actually touching.
Emma Hislop (Kāi Tahu) is a writer currently living in Taranaki. Her first book of short fiction, Ruin, was published in March 2023 with Te Herenga Waka University Press.
