The Woman at the Store

An adaptation of Katherine Mansfield’s 1912 short story with reference to The Urewera Notebook (1907). This script places a precocious version of Mansfield in the role of the narrator. Nineteen year old Kathleen is on a camping trip around Te Urewera with extended family and friends. A disappointed tourist in her ‘own’ land, she has convinced guide, Joe, and her cousin, Jim, to take her on an isolated detour from the rest of the party. On a particularly hot day, Joe leads them to a homestead with a store for them to spend the night and stock up on provisions however, the store and its owner, Ivy, are not how he remembers from four years previous.