Katherine Mansfield Sparkling Prose 2024 – Long List
Nanny Teria was big once. There’s photos of her standing tall beside my mother and a lot wider. When I knew her, though, she was little – folded over her walking stick with thin birdy wrists and hands with bones sticking out. Her legs, you wondered how they could hold her up, scrawny little sticks poking beneath hems of dresses that were always too big.
She didn’t care much about what she wore, but she was very proud of her hair, my Nanny. When it was loose it hung in soft waves down past her waist, so that she looked like one of those little stick dolls with too much hair and not enough flesh. I used to tease her sometimes, she was so vain about it.
“It’s getting grey, Nanny.”
“No matter,” she’d say, and she’d look at me smug from the corner of her eyes. Every evening I’d unplait it for her. Winter evenings were best, sitting beside the fire. I’d brush long, smooth strokes while she closed her eyes with pleasure. She didn’t like to talk while I did this, but I knew she was happy.
Mum worked during the day because Dad took off before I was born. That’s why Nanny looked after me until I went to school, and even then I saw more of her than I did of my mum. The three of us got on pretty well, despite Nanny’s mutterings about the high-heeled shoes Mum wore to work. She didn’t like the way Mum fussed over our old car, either, but I understood why Mum was worried; without the car she couldn’t get to work, where she had several girls under her and was treated well by the boss. Usually Mum would just laugh at Nanny’s grumbles and tell her she wouldn’t get any more smokes if the money didn’t keep coming in. That kept Nanny quiet.
Things only really got strained if Mum caught Nanny talking to Daddy Matiu or the others. Some people would think it was kind of spooky, her talking to dead people, but it wasn’t that which bothered Mum.
“They no trouble,” Nanny would protest, her eyes following Mum anxiously around the room. “They tell me things,” she would whisper to me.
Her spirit people were as real for her as I was. Sometimes I could have sworn there were others in the room, too, even though I couldn’t see them. But Mum just got cross and Nanny would snort with disgust and turn her back. Then they wouldn’t speak for a few hours, just treat each other real polite, as if they hardly knew each other.
Much as I loved Mum, the best times were when Nanny and me were on our own. Every fine day after school we’d wander down the track to the beach, me making sure Nanny didn’t trip and her grumbling.
“I’m not that old, Moko.” She never called me by my proper name. “Still plenty strong in me, you silly.”
When winter came she’d take a rug and a warm scarf and we wouldn’t stay long, but in summer we’d linger until it was time for Mum to come home. I’d run in and out of the waves, or throw myself down beside her. Sometimes we’d doze off on the warm sand, lost in the vinegary smell of the beach and the suck-sip, suck-sip of the waves.
Other times, though, Nanny would sit while I brought her shells which had been smoothed satin by the sea, stroking them with her knobby fingers, or rubbing them over with her palms. Very respectful, though. Very gentle. I don’t know why, but watching her made me feel like she was stroking me in the palm of her hand, too, and I’d feel happy and so full of love for Nanny – but as if she were the child and I was the one looking after her instead of the other way round.
Once I found a big piece of driftwood, two parts of an old root twisted together. It was so heavy I had to put it down several times. I carried it to where she sat, sifting her shells, and stood it up so she could see it better.
“Aue,” she whispered, grinning her gummy grin, “two parts together are strong, see.” She meant that the sea had failed to break it apart and had instead melded the two pieces more closely together. She traced the gnarly curves with her finger, round and round, to the join. Then she smiled and indicated the two of us. “See.”
We left it by the bank where the track came down, well above the tide line so the sea couldn’t take it away, and each time we came after that we’d look over to be sure it was still there.
We shared a bedroom, Nanny Teria and me, so she knew about my dreams. I didn’t have them often, and mostly I couldn’t remember what it was that made me cry out. One night, though, I had a dream that left me shaking, a dream that stayed in my head like an echo that refused to fade. It wasn’t flickery like most dreams are. It burned an imprint into my mind so vivid I knew if I could reach into my head a tracing of it would unfold there.
In the dream there were rocks – huge, glistening rocks stretching across the sand before they plunged into deep water snaked with kelp. There were cliffs too, towering above, bare but for one lone tree high up, its branches twisted as if in torment. The roots were exposed, clinging impossibly to the rock face. Then I was sinking, down and down, cliffs and sea pressing around me. I was terribly cold and withered with fear.
Suddenly I was staring at a face in my dream, the face of an old, white-haired man with deep wrinkles and leathered skin. His eyes were open, looking out to sea, but he lay so still that until his cheek flickered, the lightest of shadows, I thought he was dead.
He lay propped against the wall of a small hollow at the base of the cliffs, his arms hanging loose in a too-big jacket, his legs spread open on the sand. I could see every detail with such clarity it was as if I could reach out and touch him.
Something cried out, high and thin, behind me and above. Seagulls, perhaps – but then I knew it was me.
I woke to find Nanny holding me. I wrapped my arms around her as her hair swept around me like a shawl. When I could speak she made me describe it all, every detail, until she was satisfied. But then she looked away and said only “Brush my hair, Moko. Brush my hair. It will help us to sleep now.”
The ritual soothed us both; I hardly felt her tuck me back and I slept without fear for the rest of the night.
The following night, however, the dream returned. I knew I was dreaming, as you do sometimes, and I tried to will it away. The old man was lying as before and his eyes looked out to sea still, but this time I could see no flicker in his cheek. A thick sense of foreboding invaded my dream; filled my mouth and nose and lungs and pressed around me so strong that my breath was gone. I woke struggling and gasping, chilled by my own sweat, my heart swollen. Nanny sat on my bed, anxious to calm me.
“Hush, hush.” She held me close. “Was it the same?”
Again she listened, very still, except for her fingers twisting a strand of her hair. At last she said quietly, “Your dream came also to me this night.”
Her face was troubled. “I know this old man,” she said,” and that beach is a place of my heart.” She told me then about when she was young and a beach she remembered. There could be no mistake. It was the same. “We used to gather kai moana there,” she told me. “Our people lit cooking fires in that hollow at the base of the cliffs. Out of the wind, below the lone tree.”
“Aue,” she breathed at last, “this old man, he is a kaumatua of our people. Your mother must go. Now.” She could move fast when she wanted to, Nanny Teria. She had Mum’s bag packed into the car and her away down the road in the dark so fast I barely had time to say goodbye.
Four days we had to wait until her return. Nanny ate little enough normally, but those days she just picked at the food I gave her. I’d sit there with her, chewing each mouthful over and over, trying not to rush her. But she couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sit still, either, wandering about the rooms as if she wanted to go somewhere but didn’t know where. She wouldn’t go down to the beach anymore, and not even brushing her hair in the evening made her happy. Her bones told her she should have gone with my mother, she said, back to where they belonged. I worried, but tried to make a joke of it. “Huh, Nanny, your bones wouldn’t make it to the end of the road anyway; not enough meat on you to hold them together.”
I didn’t like to tease her too much though, because it seemed to me that her eyes had faded, and her face in the firelight at night was all bone and shadow. Only her hair, as I brushed, was unchanged. I had an uneasy notion that grew through those nights. I knew it was crazy, but I imagined that Nanny’s strength was being sapped by the hair I brushed with such care. It seemed thicker than ever, as healthy and fluid as that of a young girl, while her body grew thinner every day.
My mother returned from the long journey, but her smile faltered when she saw Nanny. “It’s all right, Mama.” Her voice thickened. “I got there in time. They found him, the old man, just as you said. He’s safe now.”
It took Nanny time to understand. At last, though, she nodded, then slept, a worn- out doll against the pillows.
Later that night Mum woke me. “Nanny wants you.” She said it gently so that I understood it was important.
She held my hand as I followed, afraid of what I might find. Nanny was propped up against her pillows, and I thought for a wild moment that she was well again, but then sensed something was wrong. In the half-lit room, I hadn’t noticed at first that one thin hand resting on the cover lay beside her favourite fishing knife, the very sharp one; and in the other was a shapeless bundle. A pain in my chest bloomed. I knew instantly what it was. I had to tear my eyes from her face, down to where the shorn hair straggled at her neck.
She raised the bundle and held it out, proffered it to me. She didn’t speak, the effort was too much, but for an instant her eyes brightened as they held mine.
Rowan Bishop has written eight cookbooks (mainly vegetarian) and one memoir. She is also a short story writer, with work published in Landfall and takahē. She has always been a horse lover and also enjoys gardening, exploring the outdoors, reading, writing and spending time with her family. She has walked, with her husband, two Camino trails in Europe after their recoveries from cancer. They have tramped all their adult lives, have four adult children and live in Wānaka with their dog, Louie.