Each summer, we commission some of Aotearoa’s finest writers to tell us a short tale. This year’s theme is “second acts”.
Like almost every teenager, I shoplifted. And I was really good at it too. Utterly fearless. This was back in the early-90s when they didn’t have all the store security they do now. In the small provincial city where I grew up, the moral decency of people was all the policing you needed to keep your stock safe from sticky fingers.
“How much did it cost?” we used to ask each other at school as we pawed over each other’s spoils.
“Five finger discount,” we would reply, laughing at the ease with which we slipped things into our pockets. Into our bags. Five finger discount. The words harsher, rougher than we were. Girls from the nice part of town on the fringes of the vast park at its centre. Girls with adequate pocket money. Girls who never really wanted for anything. Girls with no reason to steal. After about a year, I stopped. I don’t really know why. Maybe I just instinctively understood that my luck was running out. That I was getting ever closer to that moment of being caught.
It would be another 20 years before I would begin stealing again. And there was neither rhyme nor reason for it, other than the rush of adrenalin. The giddy feeling each time I got away with it, no matter how insignificant the object. I had a good job, an extremely comfortable aspirational life. A public profile that I had worked hard to attain.
After a six-month-long investigation, Mark Lundy was arrested today for the murders of his wife Christine and daughter Amber at their family home in Palmerston North on the evening of the 29th of August last year.
It started with a book from the Warehouse. A total accident, to be honest. I was going through one of their big wooden bins that was filled with hardback remaindered books and had tucked one that I was definitely going to buy under my arm, and had forgotten it was there. I even went through the checkout paying for another three books and it wasn’t until I was halfway across the carpark that I realised I still had the book tucked under my arm. When I got home I was so mortified that I hid the book in the camphor wood chest in the lounge. It was frightening, however, how quickly I got over the guilt. How quickly things escalated even though there wasn’t even the slightest need for me to steal. Everything I ever took I could easily have paid for. My salary was not insignificant, especially by this stage of my career.
Clayton Weatherston has been sentenced today to 18 years’ minimum non-parole in prison for the murder of Sophie Elliott on January 9 last year. The sentence equates to one month for each of the 216 wounds he inflicted on the Dunedin woman.
Books were my favourite thing to steal, mainly because there was something inherently less bad, as I understood it anyway, in taking something that was for the betterment of my mind. They were also tricky to filch using my in plain sight method and so there was something very satisfying in it each time I approached the cashier with something else and paid for it, giving them every opportunity to say, “and what about that book of ours you have there under your arm?” Which would allow me to exclaim, “Oh, silly me” and pay for the book. I wasn’t entirely stupid. I nearly always left myself with an out. I had much to lose after all. But they never asked. Not once.
Ewen Macdonald has been found not guilty of the 2010 murder of his brother-in-law Scott Guy. On hearing the verdict, Guy’s widow Kylee cried out, “He killed my husband,” as she ran from the Wellington High Court where the case was being heard.
Stealing from the supermarket was much easier. Almost too easy. Really, I stole from supermarkets almost on principle. I mean, we’ve all read about just how much money supermarkets make in food. Food is almost as expensive as books are these days. So who could blame me? It was so simple to write the code number for peanuts on a bag of macadamias from the self-fill bins. The cashiers never even look at what they’re ringing up. They’re not paid enough to care. And there’s nothing to slipping a lime or two into a brown paper bag of much cheaper mandarins or navel oranges. You never used to be able to do this when all you had to put your produce in was clear plastic bags, back before they became the enemy. I’m all for helping the environment. In fact you’ve all seen me actively doing this. In the women’s magazines and on the television. Hugging kauri trees in my Greenpeace T-shirt. Smiling out at you with my perfect teeth – they cost a packet, believe me – with my perfect make-up and my perfect hair. My perfect life.
This afternoon in Christchurch a self-proclaimed “white nationalist” opened fire on worshippers at mosques in Deans Ave and Linwood, killing 50 people and wounding another 50. The Australian-born gunman used five weapons, including two semi-automatic assault rifles, in the attack.
Of course, it all had to come to an end eventually, such is the inevitability of these things. It was almost a relief, really. I realised things had got completely out of hand once all the supermarkets started making you bring your own bags and I sailed through a checkout one day without processing a rotisserie chicken that I’d placed in one of mine. The checkout girl recognised me naturally and I kept her talking and scanning. Bet she went home at the end of her shift and told, with something of a sense of wonder, whoever she shared her life with, husband, parents, siblings or beloved cat, just how nice I was. “Down to earth like a normal person.”
Human remains have been found in two suitcases at a Clendon Park address. The suitcases were bought by the occupants of the South Auckland property as part of a storage unit auction from Safe Store Papatoetoe. Police believe the family who bought the suitcases were not related to the murders.
In the end, the thing that sank me was a packet of Panadol and a lipstick from the chemist. I hadn’t even meant to steal them – honestly. But because I had my hands full of other things – I find it so hard to resist the pretty things chemist shops have – I dropped the pills in my coat pocket along with a very nice red lipstick and forgot about them when I paid for everything else. I was almost at the door when I was stopped by one of the staff and had to turn out my pockets on the counter for them. As you can imagine, I was terribly embarrassed. I mean, a woman in my position certainly doesn’t need to steal a $4.99 pack of paracetamol and a $30.45 lipstick, does she? And this is what I told the store manager. Do you not know who I am? Apparently he didn’t. And what’s more, he didn’t care.
Fortunately, my lawyer is a genius. Though she might not have been able to get the charge thrown out before it got as far as court proceedings, she did get me name suppression and we played the diversion card to avoid a conviction. The story did elicit a bit of press coverage, though, which would never have happened had I been a nobody rather than “a high-profile media identity”. There was much speculation too on social media regarding the identity of the “celebrity shoplifter” as they’ve titled me in lieu of a name. Really, the whole thing has been just tawdry. Of course, everybody claims to know who it is – actress, comedian, weather girl, reality television starlet – though of course they don’t. It would be a lie if I said it doesn’t give me a touch of frisson reading about the case from the safety of my anonymity. And I have given up stealing, mostly. Though last week at the supermarket I couldn’t resist dropping a head of garlic in my handbag as I pushed my trolley around New World on a quiet Sunday afternoon. I mean, honestly, it’s not like I killed someone; it’s close to a victimless crime after all.
Kelly Ana Morey (Ngāti Kurī, Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa) is an award-winning writer of mainly novels. She is currently completing her sixth novel and teaching herself how to write short stories.
