Katherine Mansfield Sparkling Prose 2024 – Commended
“The truth is friendship is every bit as sacred and eternal as marriage.”
The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: Volume IV: 1920-1921, (Clarendon Press)
Good looking bloke wasn’t he / yeah / malleable hair /
mmmm / Wayfarers / I
think he bought them
in London / were you
there / yeah / he dossed
on our couch for a
while in Hackney
down by the canal. We
used to hang out in
London Fields on
Sundays. Play hackey
/ sign of a misspent
youth / true and
that thing with the girl
/ from the band / yeah
he was their roadie. It’s
affected my pool game
he told me, the heart-
ache / but he adored
you / we were close like
sister and brother we
got each other. You
know when someone
just really gets you /
yup / even though
you’ve been apart
for ages or gone
different pathways
there’s that one
person who really knows
you / that’s rare / yeah
teaching me how to drive. We
were both home for Christmas
/ was it the Landy / yup he’d done
it up installed new bench seats
set it up so we could sleep in
the back / oh i remember that.
didn’t he paint it too and he was
so / proud / yeah, proud and
he couldn’t wait to show you
/ he was so sentimental it
was the same type of truck
his mum used to have and
he wanted to get it back
go on a roadie to the river
we used to camp by as kids.
[ smiles, sips ] / only, only
you can’t go there anymore
can you / the road’s closed
and the river’s full of didymo
/ that guy who was the guy
that bought it bought the
whole station / that billionaire
/ yeah / there’s been so much
flooding the road’s full of
slips / algae / rocksnot
yeah, but he wanted to go as
far as we could anyway and
when we got to entrance
you know near where there
used to be horses / yip
Thunder and Carmel they’d
eat apples out of our hands
/ well we get there in his
souped up Landy and there’s
this sign this sign that says NO
ACCESS — PRIVATE LAND
and Max is fuming but he
won’t say anything just
gets out all the picnic things
he’d organised, all neatly
sorted into little clik claks
and boils the billy / stirs it
with his Swiss Army knife.
can you
feel that? the wind’s getting
up look at the lake —
whitecaps / white horses
anyway
We eat his Marmite, lettuce and walnut sandwiches
then sit and sit on that
goddam gate for ages just
looking at the track all
overgrown till it’s getting
kind of dark I mean it was
the start of summer, day-
light savings and all that
must have been like nine
o’clock at night when he
jumps off the gate parks
the truck in some bushes
and goes in that way he had
Now, Frankie, there’s something
we need to find. And
I can see his eyes glowing
like sunlight on glacier ice so
I don’t say anything when he
takes my hand and we nip
through the fence / trespassing
/ yeah, fuck that predator TV
host he goes and we find the
part of the riverbank where we
had to wait for our mums as
kids while they sorted the boat
taught all her boys how to dive
/ that’s Mindy. She’s fierce. He
told me once We were so lucky,
growing up. Our mums
did so much for us. I want to
take my kids on adventures
like that, to all the places. Any
way it’s really dark now and
he’s got his head-torch on and
he starts starts putting his arms
around the tree trunks up quite
high and I figure it’s some yoga
thing he learnt on retreat but then
he just takes my hand again like
we’re Helen Keller and Anne
Sullivan or something. His hand
on mine going over and over
beech bark and I realise it’s our
initials carved in the tree, only
way up now because it’s been
25 years / wow how old were you
/ eleven and twelve. M T & F S 4
eva / you found it, it was still
there / it’s still there now. With our
initials again underneath, though
a bit smaller / more discreet /
he got out his knife and carved
the letters again, just below,
real neat. I took a photo see?
Private Property, mate, I’m going
to have to ask you to leave.
Oh yeah, yeah, we’re just heading
off anyway Max laughs. We found
what we lost. His eyes calmer now
heavy-lidded like he was really
tired or just, just content, I guess.
We walk real slow, arm in arm
like we were promenading you
know. And the security guy is right
beside us all the way back to the
Landy then following us in a matte-
black Audi, this massive four wheel
drive tailing us all the way back to the
main road.
/ no way never / on the way into town
below this iconic mountain, it’s actually
a roche moutonnée carved in the ice
age / and if a fast food joint arrives there’ll
be rubbish on the roadside, everywhere /
won’t happen. Max would’ve laid down
in front of the excavators. he did it before
helped save 1400 native West Coast snails
from extinction chaining himself to the
trees. / that’s just the way he rolled / rare
/ yeah, rare.
Annabel Wilson‘s writing has been published and performed in Aotearoa and overseas. She has a PhD in Creative Writing (Massey University, 2023). Her recent works include the chapbook dusk&us (Ghost City Press, 2024), Aspiring Daybook (Mākaro Press, 2018) and the play No Science to Goodbye (RNZ 2017).