Bill Manhire

The big stage and golden curtain, stars high up in the ceiling: one of the few films I think he would have seen.

The sound of violins, then darkness about the wide, white screen. I can hear the sound of my father coughing.

He sings you are my sunshine and the skies are grey, she tries to make him happy, things just turn out that way.

She’ll never know how much...

So for six days he crusadedand on the seventh he flew to Australia.

Athletic Park, April 1959: a southerly straight off Cook Strait, the microphone bandaged in gauze.

Here in Balclutha there is quiet sunshine and we sit on the grass, waiting for the voice over the landline.

Our togs are back on the bus. We have been promised a swim afterwards.

Come forward. You come.

*

Thus in the capital...

Mr Sharp gets out of the taxi. He doesn’t smoke but lights his pipe. His various friends walk up and down. ‘And this? What do you call this?’ says the driver. ‘In the land I come from,’ says Mr Sharp, ‘it is called a taxi.’ Then he waits on the quiet platform.

‘Good seats but a bad train. Don’t you think?’ Someone is speaking....

Kate Gray (1975-1991)

I start up a conversation with occasional Kate. Too late, too late, but with a big sigh she appears in the sky.

I tell her the home doesn’t forget – her mother’s lullaby step still reaches the chair where her father sits deep in the forest.

I hear myself saying please and please and please; I want to go back to the start of the Nineties.

Sleepless night,...

Hillary frowned impatiently. He’d go ahead with his own plans! Apricots, dates, biscuits and sardines: then he donned his three pairs of gloves.

He stamped around muttering feeling his heart lurch like a vehicle halfway down a crevasse. ‘If, if, if,’ he added grimly to himself.

So December came in a rush; the dog teams fanned out across the snow barking a bit at the short...