Narrator Magazine
Central Tablelands
Spring 2011
Smashwords Edition
narrator MAGAZINE is published by MoshPit Publishing
Shop 1, 197 Great Western Highway, Hazelbrook NSW 2779
MoshPit Publishing is an imprint of Mosher’s Business Support Pty Ltd
P: 1300 644 680 ABN 48 126 885 309
http://www.moshpitpublishing.com.au/
http://www.narratormagazine.com.au/
The copyright for each item in this publication rests with the author of that piece. Please contact us at Narrator Magazine if you wish to contact any contributor featured herein.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This ebook may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other books by this publisher. Thank you for your support.
Cover: ‘Trapped’ by Aida Pottinger
I am interested in exploring images which arrest the eye, and creating drawings and paintings that are arrived at spontaneously. I work from life and landscape and also use inspirational photographs and drawings of people and landscapes, and manufactured, made and built objects as a jumping off point. I like to push the source material to capture an atmosphere or mood visually echoing memories and emotions. My work emerges out of a memory I may be working on and is a subconscious recognition of how the earth gives birth, nurtures, sustains and eventually reclaims the life on it.
Please visit me at:
http://theambiguityofhorizon.blogspot.com/
A few words from the publisher ...
Welcome to the First Edition of Narrator Magazine Central Tablelands
It’s certainly exciting being able to spread our wings beyond the Blue Mountains and we hope that this is the start of a bigger, wider audience for both Narrator and for your writing.
If you’re only just finding out about Narrator now, then you may like to join us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/narratormagazine and read more about how it all works on our website at http://www.narratormagazine.com.au/
The main aim of Narrator is to help provide an outlet for creative writing, and to help people develop their creative writing skills by competing with each other.
Cash prizes are awarded for the best three entries ($200, $100 and $50) as judged by our ‘secret judge’, who is revealed in the following issue, along with the winners and their entries. We also have a $50 People’s Choice award.
In time, we hope to bring you a ‘best of the best’ issue, where we bring the best entries from both Blue Mountains and Central Tablelands issues for the prior year.
So start writing—get those fingers on the keyboard and think about sharing all those poems, essays and short stories that have been swirling around in your head over the years!
And if you belong to a writing group, or take classes in creative writing, or know someone who does, please make sure you let them know about Narrator—the more contributors, the better the quality of the reading, and the better it will be for everyone.
So that’s it from me for this inaugural Central Tablelands issue. Time for you to start turning the pages and see what your fellow residents have contributed!
Jenny Mosher
September 2011
Caricature:
Jenny Mosher’s caricature (above) by Blue Mountains artist Todd Sharp. For more info, visit http://www.toddasharp.com/
Table of Contents
Poetry
The Little Tear - Ruth Withers
The Waiting Photograph - Jill Baggett
Short Stories
Always the Children - JE Doherty
Drifter’s Ridge - Ross Stephenson
Public Performance - Jill Baggett
The Eyes Have It - Paul Phillips
Nasma - Christine Sweeney
I was very, very excited. I had promised my friend Nasma that I would ‘drop in for a visit’ now that she had returned home to Lebanon and now I was here. As we flew in to land at the airport, I saw for the first time the Mount Lebanon Range that rises high and suddenly from the coast. The number and density that made up Beirut were startling to me as I viewed the city, nestling in the coastal plain, from the sky. Making my way with the rest of the passengers, from the plane to the tarmac and onto the bus that took us to the bullet-ridden shack of an airport, I had to stop myself from staring at the soldiers with very big guns who were standing or strolling about the place.
So why was I here? Back in Australia in 1994, I had completed a Volunteer Home Tutor certificate course run by the NSW Adult Migrant English Service (AMES). AMES had set up the program because it had identified that the free English tutoring available to Australian migrants precluded people (predominantly women) who were housebound, were mothering young children or unable to travel to get to the classes.
I joined 25 other potential tutors and we were given as much guidance and encouragement and as many teaching tips as possible. My first student was Nasma. With no experience or idea of what to expect (I reckoned that as a trained and experienced actor I could always ‘act’ my way through any sticky moments. I felt my few years as a mime artist would really come in handy). I threw myself into the unknown world of trying to teach English conversation skills.
My first lesson, I remember was pretty nerve racking for Nasma and myself. Based on the typical student profile I was expecting a 20 year old married woman, not long in Australia and pregnant with her first child. I had brought along simple anatomy and physiology illustrations on pregnancy and birth written in both English and Arabic that I found in the AMES library—I had thought myself to be sensitively and thoughtfully prepared. I don’t know what Nasma was expecting but I do recall she kept apologising for not being able to speak English.
Nasma had led me into the small salon at the front of the house in the working class industrial suburb of Botany where she lived with her husband. Her small son, Ali was nearly one and her husband or jowsik, Majed was running a Lebanese take away food shop in Kings Cross. The house was always full of people, and as we progressed with our classes I realised most of them were family members. Our classes were always interrupted. It seemed Nasma was the only one able to answer some particular question, pass on information, take a phone call or soothe Ali like only a mother can. Nasma seemed to organise everyone and keep the extended family in motion. She was bright, funny, beautiful and intelligent. Also, I think the rest of the family liked to interrupt to check me out. Who was this morrshd?
Majed’s parents Abu and Em Ali arrived in Australia with their eight children in 1975, following their eldest daughter who had migrated here in the early seventies. The family left Lebanon at a time of escalating violence with the outbreak of civil war.
Keesing’s Contemporary Archives has this entry for August 18-24 1975, the year the Nasrallah’s came to Australia. ‘Serious fighting occurred in Beirut from mid-April 1975 between militia of the right wing, predominantly Christian Phalanges Party (Kataeb) and Palestinian guerrilla groups based in Lebanon, causing the resignation of M. Rashid Solh’s Government on 15 May. The crisis was regarded as the most serious since the 1958 civil war, it being estimated by Lebanese sources that up to early July 2300 people were killed in the fighting and over 16,000 injured. Throughout the remainder of the 20th Century Lebanon experienced extreme political turmoil. There was ongoing fighting between militia including Christian Phalanges’, Shiite Muslims, Sunni Muslims and members of the Druze community, the Iranian backed Hezbollah, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the various military including Israeli Armed Forces (IAF), the Israeli backed South Lebanese Army SLA) and the Syrian Army. The fighting led to the deployment of the UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the Multinational Forces (MNF), civilian oppression and countless deaths. I knew Majed’s family were Sunni Muslim’s and not part of any militia group or involved in militia fighting but one of the sons had been picked up on the street, ‘detained’ and tortured by Christian militia. So the family got out.
Thomas Friedman, an American Jew who had lived in Lebanon for many years and loved the place and the people, describes in detail the politics and violence of this 1975 civil war period in his 1989 book From Beirut to Jerusalem—One Man’s Middle Eastern Odyssey.
I read this book with fascination but the life Nasma used to tell me about during our late night chats was a very different one of happy domestic scenes and family fun. We got to know and like each other despite the lack of a common language and we spent lots of time hanging out, eating, looking after babies and chatting at her home. I learned about her family who were still in Lebanon and who had lived through the war—her mother Layla, father Abu Habib (younger brother to Majid’s Father) and her seven brothers and sisters—Ali, Souad, Hussein, Rudda, Widian and Khoudda. Nasma was the oldest at 22. I too had seven brothers and sisters. We decided that her Muslim upbringing and my Catholic one had lots of similarities. Religion was a major force in how our families were structured and how we behaved. Both our fathers were the ‘head of the household’ (actually her father was the head of four households, having taken four wives). The sons were feted and the daughters expected to be chaste, modest and hardworking in the home. Muslim girls took the scarf and similarly I could remember when lace mantillas were still worn in church. A seed of friendship was sown. I loved hearing about her family intrigue and drama and Nasma looked forward to the news of my life ‘outside’.
Three years and another baby later (for Nasma) I had kept my word and was mounting the stairs to her apartment in Torl just a couple of kilometres north of Nabatieh (the scene of some of the worst fighting in South Lebanon).
I had read the Lonely Planet Guide to Lebanon and had prepared a list of places I wanted to visit and things we would do together. These plans for the main part were abandoned in the wake of what was to follow. The first week, every member of the extended family visited (they visited each other incessantly anyway) to meet ‘Nasma’s friend from Australia’.
The following weeks held weddings, cooking, family visits, changing babies’ nappies, cooking, late night chats (this time with fresh Lebanese ice cream), shopping at the souk, cleaning, swapping each other’s clothes, cooking, washing, cleaning and most of all getting to know her family. I was not destined for any tourist spots (well, we did visit some, but that is another story) or souvenir shopping. Mine was an odyssey of the interior, domestic life.
Nasma’s mother Layla, and her family took to me immediately. Layla was a Christian and felt we had a bond because of this—whether it was the reason or not, I felt the same. I could see this person was where Nasma got a lot of her personality and warmth from, her fantastic cooking skills and her generosity. Towards the end of my visit Layla said, ‘Why don’t you stay here—I will look after you. You are welcome in my house as one of my daughters.’ For me this was the one statement that made me howl inside. Without words she had known I wanted what she was offering. I wanted to say ‘yes.’
I returned to Lebanon a year or so later in 1998 (this time with my own car and itinerary), met more new babies and attended more weddings and shall go again. For me the friendship I have forged with Nasma, a woman from a place very different from mine, with a life very different to mine and from a country that is very different to mine is to be treasured.
After a rare moment of disagreement, raised voices and stand-offs, Nasma and I were sitting in silence. I looked at her and said ‘Well I have to say, your English is very good.’ She replied ‘I have a good teacher.’
Questions - Alexandra Nagy
The look that’s buried behind your eyes as you tell me who is right.
As if you know what has happened’s wrong, though still putting up a fight.
Resisting tears I gulp my pride and start off with a plea.
We’re going round in circles here—don’t you know you’re hurting me?
I don’t look ashamed, embarrassed, upset as you spit out words of hate.
And looking back on generations I can’t help but think … is this my fate?
What have I done so badly?
Your exterior is so tough.
Every time I’ve apologised … isn’t this enough?
You tell me all the time about how you never cry, yet behind the yelling, screaming are you breaking down inside?
I’ll smile yesterday’s thoughts away as if they didn’t matter.
Though piece by piece as I laugh away everything begins to shatter.
I try to make some sense of it; it’s hard to let it be.
Is this making me stronger for things I’m yet to see?
I know that you’re aware yourself, like many have said is true.
Why are we making each other bleed?
Open your eyes; I’m just like you …
Always the Children - JE Doherty
I make the coffee strong though I know sleep will be hard to find even after the long drive home. The station is quiet except for occasional buzz of the radio and the tap-tap-tap of the keyboard. I pull the last of the paperwork from the printer, hurriedly scrawling my name at the bottom of the page. After a quick glance, I toss it into the filing tray for morning. I hesitate at the door, and then return to check the roster. Of late it has a habit of changing almost magically from day to day.
I should have walked out when I had the chance. The roster has changed. Tomorrow, I’m working with the Ogre. Now, not only will sleep be hard to find, but waking will be even harder.
The Ogre is a formidable woman, a sergeant who before coming here, spent her entire working life lecturing school kids on stranger danger and road safety. She had never faced an angry man, never done a real day's police work in her life and she isn't about to start now.
When you greet the prospect of the next day's work with genuine dread, you know it’s time for a change.
***
The house is dark but I don’t turn on the light. The familiar halls prove no obstacle. A soft warm glow peeks beneath the back room's door. The hinges sigh as I creep inside. It’s strange how such a boisterous child can ware such an angel’s face in sleep. I brush aside a wisp of hair and gently touch my lips to his brow.
‘Sleep well little one.’
Clare is standing at the door when I turn. Through the net of shadows I can see her tired smile.
‘I love you,’ she whispers, kissing my cheek before returning to bed.
The room is dark enough that it doesn’t matter if my eyes are open or not. I stare at the ceiling through closed lids, waiting for sleep to come.
***
‘What have I told you about leaving the kitchen in a mess?’ The Ogre waves her arm at the unwashed coffee cups in the sink. ‘And the filing is supposed to be done before you go home.’
‘I knew I was back this morning.’ I push past her into the sanctuary of the male locker room.
Last night, I had a premonition today was going to be bad. So far nothing has happened to change my mind. Quick shifts are a drain at the best of times but with a forty five minute drive home and back … That leaves only five and a half hours to squeeze in some sleep before you are back on the job.
Rap Rap RAP! ‘We've got a job.’
I splash water on my face. Technically, we don’t even start for another fifteen minutes. Why am I always right? This is definitely going to be a bad day.
The ambulance pulls into the driveway just ahead of the patrol car. I curse my luck. With a dead'n this early in the shift and no way known-to-man to prise the Ogre's note book from her pocket, it looks like I’m in for a busy day.
As soon as I walk through the door I know. This is no ordinary deceased.
The mother is crooning to her baby, eyes red rimmed and as lifeless as the child.
Why is it always the children? I ask myself. I look hopefully at the Ogre but she stands as emotionless as ever. I fumble with my pocket and take out my note book, trying to swallow down the lump in my throat.
It is hard to offer comfort to someone when you are facing your own worst nightmare. I have never been overly religious but each night since my baby was born, I offer up the same simple prayer.
‘I do not ask for much.
Just see my baby safe tonight.'
As the ambulance officer moves to take the child, I touch her hair and her mother's hand.
‘I am truly sorry. If there is anything I can do ...’ What more can you say?
She howls animal-like, all wild eyes, leaning away and pulling the baby tight against her chest, sobbing kisses onto the tiny cold face. ‘My baby … my baby … Don’t take my baby …’
The Ogre taps her watch.
I talk softly, touching her hand, sharing some of the pain. ‘I’ll take care of her.’ I pry her fingers loose. ‘I promise’
Her arms fall away and she sinks back into the chair like she is deflating.
If they’re already dead, the ambos usually hit the road with a smug, ‘Sorry guys, job for the contractors.’ I am surprised when they take the baby from me and gently wrap her against the cold and carry her out to the ambulance.
I sit in the car, hand trembling on the steering wheel. ‘Sergeant? Can you do the PM tomorrow?’
‘It's your job.’
‘I would really prefer someone else to do it.’ I am pleading now.
‘You are doing it, and that is the end of the matter.’
***
‘Come to bed Tony,’ Clare whispers from the door.
‘I'll be in soon.’
‘You said that hours ago.’ She watches me stare into the cot but returns to her bed when I make no reply.
The rocking chair presses hard into my back but my head nods forward in a half doze. I snap awake, straining to hear my Jamie's quiet breathing, one hand seeking the comforting warmth of his body.
I wake stiff and cramped, trying to rub the twinge from my neck. The slight rise and fall of Jamie's chest makes me smile. The electric jug rumbles in the kitchen and I can hear Clare humming quietly as she waits for the water to boil. I push myself out of the rocking chair and shuffle into the hall.
Clare frowns as I walk into the kitchen. ‘You should have come to bed. Your eyes look haunted.’
Sleep wasn't going to change that.
Clare loves my eyes; she tells me they are my most striking feature, clear grey-blue, bright like diamonds. Diamond eyes, she would say. I can see it hurts her to see my fear.
***
The room basks in fluorescent brightness. White tile walls reflect chrome and shining steel. The bench and slab table are buffed to a mirror shine. Rows of refrigerated lockers line the wall through the double plastic doors. The smell of formalin is heady, almost nauseating but it can’t mask the stench of the dead.
Ted Greige, the orderly, is balding and stooped, more suited to a torture chamber than this sterile antiseptic room. Although it is very clichéd, he is known to the police as Eigor. That he enjoys his work is plain. There is always an eager glint in Eigor’s eye. After a slurp of coffee and a bite from a sandwich slathered in red jam, he smiles.
‘Slept in,’ he apologises tossing his breakfast on the bench.
The refrigerator door opens with a hiss and he carries the plastic wrapped bundle to the table. Eigor unzips the over sized body bag and places the child on the table. She looks so small and pale, like a porcelain christening doll. Her blue tinged lips are curled in a pout of sleep.
But it’s not sleep.
After another slurp of coffee, Eigor lays out the tools of his trade. They gleam bright like the room.
The Government Medical Officer sweeps through the plastic doors, absently leafing through his paperwork.
‘Occurrence pad ... P.79A Coroner's report ... identification statement ... All seems in order.’ He looks up. ‘Ah, Constable ...’ he asks brightly, noticing me for the first time. ‘Is this …’ He rifles through the papers again. ‘…Catherine Norris?’
I look at the child and draw a deep breath. I touch her icy hair again. ‘Yes.’
‘Ok Ted, let’s get started.’ The GMO looks long at the child then moves to a large whiteboard and begins to write.
External and General Appearances: Female child of stated age. Very cyanosed lips, fingernails, soles of feet, and palms. Post mortem lividity fixed to back, upper half of abdominal wall and anterior chest wall. Head circumference ...
Doctor Stanton wields his tape measure like a builder, cold and business like.
Eigor moves to the child. His scalpel traces a thin red line from the hollow of her throat to her pubic bone.
The wet tearing sound pulls strings in my stomach, but I’m frozen. I can’t even look away. I feel the colour draining from my face and grip the bench for support.
‘Doc, you hear about that footy player?’
‘Which one?’
‘The one up for rape.’ With clean, deft strokes, Eigor flays back her skin to expose the ribs.
‘Must have missed that one.’
‘Yeah, apparently she was all for it till he stuck it up her backwards.’ He works with a professional, grisly ease. ‘Split her open. That’s when she cried rape.’ Eigor picks up a small set of bone cutters, still too large for the work they have to do.
Snap goes the first rib.
I squeeze shut moist eyes. This is not the child, only the cloak she wore, I whisper to myself.
Snap. Snap. It’s not the child.
Snap.
But all I see is the child. Like my Jamie.
Snap.
Small and helpless.
Snap.
I promised to look after her.
At that moment I realise I could kill them both, Eigor and the doctor, but I know if I let go of the bench my legs won’t hold me. Still, I can’t keep my eyes shut, can’t look away, and that frightens me most of all.
Eigor pries out the rib cage and sets it aside to reveal the child's inner most secrets.
Heart: No congenital abnormality. Heart valves and muscle normal.
Aorta and branches: Normal.
Lungs and air passages: No foreign body in air passages. No fractured ribs. Lungs cyanosed. Otherwise normal ...
As the doctor sorts and dissects the tiny organs, Eigor turns his attention to her head, slicing the scalpel around her hair line. My eyes are drawn to the baby's face, the only part that is still the child. I clench my jaw against a nausea that threatens to choke me. As I stare, it is no longer the face of Catherine Norris. It’s my boy, my Jamie.
When Eigor peels the baby's face back to expose the skull, I stagger from the room. It’s all I can take. I shut my eyes to the horror but that death's-head mask is burnt into my brain. Nothing can scour it clean. I clutch the basin, retching as the sound of the bone saw echoes from the other room.
***
When I walk in the rear door, Clare's worry is evident. She is holding Jamie. I walk towards them but I stop. I have to look away. I can’t face my own son without seeing that raw, death's-head mask. If Clare thought my eyes were haunted this morning, what does she see now?
They feel empty. Cold.
Treasures - Rebecca Wilson
‘Where d'ya hide the suitcases?’ Her back is rubbing gently on the gritty clay and bits of rock are falling with the movement. His jeans are down and her legs are wrapped around his hips. ‘I told you already,’ he says into her neck, ‘you don't need to know.’ A loud thud bangs the ground above their heads. Twice. Three times. They look up to the edge of the steep creek bed, above the exposed tree roots and pieces of corrugated iron that hold the bank together. Roo. Just a roo. They pull away from each other. A large canvas bag sits at the foot of an old peach tree that has grown in the middle of the creek bed. She picks the bag up and throws it over her shoulder and it hits her side softly. ‘Did you put the key back?’ They both scramble to the top of the bank but he moves quickly, so she can't see his face.
‘Did you put the bloody key back?’ She wants him to turn around and look at her.
‘I couldn't remember exactly where it was s'posed to go.’
‘What?’ He stops and turns to look at her, both of them angry with each other, for different reasons. He puts his face down to hers. Her voice is quivering and her face is red as she asks him slowly, ‘So, exactly where did you put it, Jonno?’
‘Shit! Jenna, we don't have time for this now. The job's done and we need to meet that guy in half an hour. Where's the goddamn 'cruiser? And give me the keys.’
She pulls the keys from the back pocket of her jeans. Her brown crusty hands slam the keys into his as she cuts him with daggers from her eyes. ‘It's up near the old sale yards, like you friggin' told me.’
Silence. They walk separately, angrily, up the red road. Dust is picking up in the wind at the back of his heels and it blows back towards her as she storms behind him. He starts the car. The sun's reflection off the clay is alive with pink and purple that radiates indigo mist, they squint their eyes and lower their visors. He swings the 4WD around, stopping suddenly for the Eastern Greys that are heading to the empty grassy space that sits in the middle of the old mining town. They pass the pub and head out on the only road that takes anyone in or out.
He thinks carefully about where he put the key. 'They won't be onto me until at least next Tuesday anyway. Tom and Gail said they were definitely outta town 'til next Tuesday. And they won't go up to the cottage for a while, not 'til the next boofhead artist comes in anyway. They will notice the missing paintings though, it's just a matter of time.'
He looks sideways at Jenna and continues to think. 'We meet the guy, get the suitcases and make the deal. After that we're free. We'll be outta town before anyone notices a thing.' He lights a cigarette with one hand while the other holds the vehicle to the left as the sharp corner swoops and a sea of yellow and black arrows points the way around the tight bend at the top of the crest. And what about Tony? He'd better keep his end of the deal and keep his mouth shut.
‘So, how did it go?’ Jenna is calmer now, but not relaxed by any means. ‘Did you get the bloody paintings or not?’
‘Yes. They're in the suitcases.’
‘Did anyone see you?’
‘Would I be here driving the friggin' car if they had? For God's sake Jenna. I got the key, I got the paintings, they're in the suitcases and we're nearly at Sofala, so relax.’
They swing to the left in a hurry and he accelerates up the hill that looks down on the small village. He swerves off the road and behind the trees a red Mercedes waits with a pale, thin man at the wheel. Jonno walks over to the passenger seat and jumps in. They talk for a while and Jonno comes back to Jenna and whispers, ‘You've gotta get in the car with him.’
‘What?'‘
‘Get in the car with him, now.’
‘What the hell is going on Jonno?’
‘Jenna, just get in the car so I can go get the suitcases.’
‘No. I'm coming with you.’ The man in the car beeps the horn.
‘Jenna, what you don't know can't hurt you. Get in his car. And don't tell him a bloody thing.’
She walks over and thumps herself into the leather seat. They nod at each other.
Jonno drives quickly back onto the road and continues until he reaches a dirt track. He follows it until he has to stop to move the branches and rocks that he'd used to deter any visitors. He makes his way through the scrub, dodging trees in his Landcruiser until he reaches a small cleared area. Out of the car, he walks behind large rocks at the base of a hill, to an old mine shaft where he shuffles down the ladder. At the bottom, he uses his torch to recover the stashed suitcases. He pulls them up to the surface one by one, sweating. He chucks them in the back of the vehicle, under a blanket.
Jenna is leaning on the Mercedes, smoking a cigarette as Jonno pulls in swiftly, streaming light across her face from the high beams. Jenna walks over to him, her heart is racing. Jonno simply tells her to get into the driver's seat and keep the car running.
Jonno shows the man the contents of the suitcases and waits for the money. The driver indicates over his shoulder, where a small box sits on the back seat. ‘Put the paintings there and take the box.’ Jonno grabs the lid off and counts the cash. ‘You do realise what scandal will eventuate when they discover these have disappeared, don't you?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘These paintings are very well known, young man. They are considered national treasures, my friend. There will be a lot of heat on this, so lay low and don't do anything 'unusual', or they'll be onto you. I am offloading these this afternoon and washing my hands of the whole thing, you never saw me ... okay? Stick to the deal.’
Jonno tips the cash into the canvas bag and throws it behind him. He swings the suitcases onto the seat. The driver watches Jonno in the mirror, his hands on the steering wheel, poised to exit, fast. Jonno doesn't close the back door. The driver turns his head away from the mirror to see for himself what this man is up to. Before he can speak, silver cuffs have encircled his wrists and he is locked to the wheel. The pale man struggles and yells. ‘What the hell do you think you are doing? What's wrong with you, boy? The deal is done! You want to keep those paintings and try to sell them again to someone else? You are a fool. Someone will find me here and I will tell the police every detail I know about you, you little cretin.’
‘Don't worry grandpa, I just need to buy a little time. My mate will be along shortly to unlock you. Just don't over react and everything will be fine.’ Jonno turns the radio on for the driver and closes the door, walking to his car with the money and the paintings. ‘Drive woman, drive!’
***
Back in the old mining town, Tom and Gail have arrived early. Gail gets the dog some food while Tom talks to the guy from Sydney. She hasn't met him before. ‘Why was Tom so insistent that he invite this horrid man, “Roland”? We weren't supposed to come back here until next Tuesday. And that bloody BMW that he adores!'’
‘Something to drink, gentlemen?’ She pours them both a beer and says she needs to unpack and freshen up.
The men stay at the table.
‘So what do you think you can get for them?’ Tom asks.
‘The problem is being able to get rid of them. They are very well known, much harder to offload.’
‘If that's the case why the hell did I bring you here?’
‘Now, now, Tom. I didn't say impossible, just a more limited market, my dear. And besides, I need to see them before anything can happen. You know how it works.’
‘Let's go there now.’
‘Gail!’ he calls out, ‘we'll be back in a while, I'm taking Roland to the cottage.’ No reply.
At the cottage, Tom picks up the rock near the concrete path. Not there. ‘Strange.’ He picks up the next rock. ‘There.’ Relief. ‘Jenna must have moved the key.’
The men make their way to the front door of the cottage with walls that whisper stories of art history. Through the old kitchen and small hallway, into the lounge. ‘Holy shit, I don't believe it!’ He runs from room to room, looking at the empty walls.
‘My dear Tom, someone has beaten you to it!’ Roland laughs arrogantly. ‘I suppose I shall just have to enjoy your hospitality for the evening and then be on my way,’ he says as Tom falls into the closest seat.
‘This is disastrous!’
‘I'll make my way back to tell your wife. Best that I'm not here when the police arrive.’
***
Gail sits on the couch in the cottage, holding her husband's hand while the constable asks a lot of questions. ‘Who has access to the cottage?’ The policeman tries to sound like he knows what he is doing.
Tom wonders to himself. Jenna? ‘Jenna knows where the key is, she cleans here every time an artist has finished their residency. But she's so sweet. Couldn't be her. She wouldn't know how to sell them anyway? No ... What was the name of that artist who stayed here last June, Gail? That man, the sculptor. You know the one that was screwing all those young wannabes?’
‘Oh … Jeffrey?! Don't be ridiculous, Tom! I think your jealousy is twisting your mind! Darling, who else knew where the key was?’ Gail asks her husband.
‘Really it's down to Jenna and any of the artists that have stayed here. But Jenna? I doubt it.’
‘Let's get her on the phone, get her over here, in case she saw anything suspicious.’
‘No answer.’ Gail sighs. ‘Try the pub, she might be up there.’ She dials and chats, hangs up. ‘No, Cara hasn't seen her since yesterday morning.’
‘Where the hell is she then? Try her mother's,’ he snaps at his wife.
Again she makes a call. ‘Rosie hasn't seen her tonight. Tom, that's not good. That's very unusual for her. I'm a bit worried now.’
***
Jenna drives flat out down the hill again. ‘Pull over. I'm gonna drive.’ Jonno gets in and heads the vehicle back to the small town from which they came.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Okay Jenna, here's the plan. We can drop these paintings back. No one will know they were ever taken and we can piss off and have a good life for a while. Start somewhere new. If we head back now, we haven't really done anything wrong. Kind of ...’
Jenna sits silently. ‘You've stuffed it all up. It's not what we planned, Jonno. We planned to sell them and skip. That guy will track us down or give us up to the cops and we'll be screwed.’
‘Jenna, if we go back now, put the paintings back up, no one will know. Tom and Gail won't be back yet. We can take this cash, it's heaps of money and we can disappear. What's that guy gonna say to the police? “Sir, they took the money I was using to buy stolen paintings?”’ Jenna sighs and silently nods her head.
***
The young constable of the town is quite excited by the case. ‘Things like this just don't happen ‘round here. This is a big case. This could be promotion material.’ The policeman bids goodnight to Tom and Gail. He gets in his car and drives out of town but slowly heads off the road and lowers his lights. He can see Tom and Gail's place from where he is placed. He will wait and watch.
The ambitious policeman sees the couple make their way up the drive and head into the house. ‘Who is the third person at the table through the window?’ He calls in the vehicle plates. ‘Dodgy. Roland Fischer. Never convicted but well known for “handling” things people need to “get rid of”. Surely that is too obvious, to call me in before he has even left with the goods. Possible, but so risky.’ The constable decides to stake the house out for the night. ‘These snobs from Sydney won't take the Mickey out of me. A bust like this could be very good for my career, very good.’
***
The town is covered in a blanket of black, there is no moon. At the cottage, in the dark, Jenna can’t find the key.’ It’s bloody gone Jonno, where the hell did you put it?’
‘Under that bloody rock is where I put it … shit! We’ll have to break in.’ Standing in the darkness he holds his jacket over the window and cracks it with a shifter. The glass makes high pitched clinks and he puts his hand through the window to open the lock. He jumps through the window and asks Jenna to pass the suitcases. ‘Shit! I don’t remember where any of these go, do you?’
‘God, Jonno, you and your bloody ideas! Let me in, you’ll have to turn the lights on so we can figure this mess out.’
‘No Jenna, someone will notice.’
‘Jonno, how the hell am I gonna put them back up in the dark?’
‘Ok, but just a lamp!’ They light a small lamp in the corner of the room and unpack the ‘treasures’.
***
The constable outside Tom and Gail’s is snoring in the driver’s seat. Tom creeps slowly around to the back of the vehicle and puts nails into the tyres. Well and truly drunk by now, Tom is outraged that the policeman has been watching him. ‘Son … bitch. Treat me .... criminal, bastard … teach him ...’
After committing his deed of revenge, Tom walks alone, stumbling over rocks and bumping into fences, lost in the dark, towards the cottage. Sobbing to himself, grieving over the money he intended to make, to get him out if the trouble he’s in. Bouncing through the back fence, he thinks he sees a light. And now a shadow, two shadows, moving in the cottage.
‘What the hell is this?’ He shuffles drunkenly to the verandah and tries to see through the window, not too close, he’s having trouble staying upright. He can’t make out who it is but decides that he must act quickly. But do what? Run back to the policeman whose vehicle is now defunct? ‘Shit! What have I done?’ As he stands in the cold, panicking, he can hear footsteps. He flops down just below the verandah and watches a man come around the corner to the window. The man has a balaclava over his head and he stands very close to the window, calling out someone’s name. Tom’s not sure what he said.
From inside the dimly lit cottage Jonno exclaims, ‘Shit! Tony! What the hell are you doing here?’
‘That goddamn guy you left in the car is dead.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me, man, dead.’
‘How did you find me?’
‘Your car is across the road, idiot!’
‘Awright, smardarse ...’
‘Man, I went to uncuff him just like you asked. You musta gave ‘im a heart attack. I’m not dealin’ with that on me own.’
‘So where is he?’
‘In his car, mate, where d’ya reckon?’
‘Jesus Christ!’
Tom is terrified. He must get help. He is moving as quickly as he can but he is like a blind kangaroo, knocking into things, grunting and puffing. His head is swirling with alcohol and fear. Back to the sleeping constable he tries to find his way. Tom can’t see. His pulse is galloping, he thinks his heart will explode. He trips on rocks and his jacket gets caught on fence wire. He struggles, he’s rushing. He pulls himself out of his jacket and it hangs, lonely on the wire, ripped and abandoned. He feels that he has gone off course, he can’t get his bearings. He falls over and stays down. Tom is crawling now, so he can feel his way across the gravel, dirt and rocks.
***
Jenna, Jonno and Tony speed away from the cottage. The pictures are up on the walls. ‘Maybe not how they were, but close enough.’ Jenna thinks. They pull up at the red Mercedes. The two men pull and push the driver into the passenger’s seat and Jonno takes the wheel. Jenna follows behind.
Out through the winding roads and along steep cliff edges they weave their way. They pull over at a clearing where the road ahead has a sheer drop that no vehicle could return from. The body is strapped back into the driver’s seat, a heavy rock is placed on the accelerator. Jonno turns the key, releasing the brake as fast as he can and jumping away from the vehicle. The three of them watch as the car flies off the edge of the road and plummets through the air. They watch it destroy itself against the rocks until it ignites and booms.
***
The sleeping constable is nowhere to be found as Tom, on hands and knees, feels the earth disappear from underneath him. The missing ground is a shaft. He sails and bounces from edge to edge, too fast to even utter a whimper. The rock floor greets his body and the last air from his lungs is pushed with force and exits from the back of his throat with a grunting gush.
***
Gail is desperately worried about Tom. Lying in their bed, she knows he was drunk when he left but he should’ve been back by now. Looking out the window she can see part of the police vehicle from behind the trees. ‘He is still there, for goodness sake! What on earth does that young upstart think?’
***
Jenna and Jonno drop Tony back to his car. ‘Not a bloody word mate, to anyone, or we are all in deep shit.’
Jonno stares into Tony's eyes, Tony looks down, echoing his words, ‘… deep shit ...’
Jenna is at the wheel. ‘Jonno, let's get the hell outta here. C'mon, let's go.’
Jonno hands Tony a big wad of cash, ‘Tony, not a word mate.’
He nods. ‘Not a word, Jonno. Not a word.’
Rebecca Wilson
The Portrait - Vickie Walker
I started visiting the elderly at Springvale Lodge. An article in my local paper stated its desperate need for volunteers and as my only child had just started at school I was at a loose end. At thirty I was also beginning to feel that I wanted to contribute to my community in some way.
At first I worked with several other volunteers and we ran craft sessions and played cards with the residents. Most seemed to enjoy our activities and I had a good time also. Most of the residents I came in contact with had physical difficulties moving around but mentally they were as sharp as ever. Each of the residents seemed to have a particular favourite among the volunteers, but I kept my distance. I didn’t think it was a good idea to get attached. After all they were old and some were sick. Often we’d come in to find one had died. I didn’t need or want the grief of becoming too close to any one there.
Then a new patient named Helen entered Springvale. I met her on my next visit. The nurse had advised me that the woman had dementia, my first encounter with such a condition. Her family had cared for her for a couple of years but it had got to the stage she needed medical care.
I saw Helen every week. Usually she just sat and stared into space; she didn’t join our craft groups or play cards. Her communication was limited, usually an occasional vague murmur that made little sense. The nurses had to watch her constantly; she wandered off to the gardens sometimes and couldn't remember how to get back. They fed her because she forgot to eat. Helen didn’t appear to notice anything people did for her, a fact which I found disturbing.
Her family came to visit regularly I was told. I never saw them as they came on weekends when I could not come in. She didn’t even recognise them according to the nurses. To me, she was a pathetic woman. Being thirty and healthy, I didn’t even bother with the fact that she might once have been different. I kept my distance and just involved myself with the practicalities.
One day however she took me to her room. She had never allowed any volunteers in there before, so I felt odd. She handed me a portrait. It was of an elegantly dressed old woman seated in a comfy chair. She wore a tweed skirt, soft white sweater and knitted vest. The face was lined but full of character, the hands gnarled with age. In her eyes was the alertness, the brightness of a much younger person.
I looked at Helen and then at the portrait. It was her—only a few years ago, no more. The faded blue eyes of the dementia sufferer stared into mine. Behind the blankness I sensed her trying to reach back, to tell me something. It was too hard for her and she replaced the portrait on the bedside table.
Over the next week the portrait kept popping into my head. The woman had a past life; I needed to find out more about her. I arranged to visit Helen on the weekend, when I knew family would be there. The nurses introduced me to Anne, Helen’s niece.
After chatting for a while in Helen’s room, I mentioned the portrait and how Helen had shown it to me. Anne picked it up from the bedside table and sighed softly.
‘Aunt Helen had this done a few years ago; she was eighty and wanted it for her birthday. It used to sit in her lounge room until she had to move out.’
‘There must be something about it—she tried to tell me, but the fog’s too much,’ I told Anne.
‘She was so alert then, such a wonderful person, full of go. Eighty was the last birthday before dementia set in.’
‘It’s a beautiful likeness, showed me a side of Helen I didn’t even think of, a past.’
‘Aunt has a past all right—a life of tragedy and happiness, of great warmth. In the War she was a nurse and worked near the front lines. She saw horrendous things. She married a pilot—the love of her life—he was shot down and killed.’ Anne’s eyes misted over. ‘You’d think that’d knock most people off their feet but she stayed and finished her job. After the War she nursed all over the world, in countries where she felt she was needed most—Africa, India. With the poorest people.’
‘You’d never know to look at her now,’ I said, patting Helen’s hand. She sat on the bed gazing fixedly out the window, appearing to pay no attention to us at all.
‘Aunt retired when she was sixty and came home.’
‘Did she ever marry again?’
Anne shook her head, ‘No, after she lost Peter I think no one ever measured up. She had her nieces and nephews, her sister and brother, friends. And when she came home she took an active interest in her town. Charity work, stacks of volunteer stuff. She was a caring, unselfish person, warm.’
It was difficult to imagine the Aunt Helen Anne had known when all I could see was the vague lost soul of dementia.
‘She’s only eighty three,’ was my comment.
‘Yes, she had a terrific eightieth birthday, cake, party, the lot. The portrait was done, probably her only self-indulgence in her whole life. It was my, so wonderful, Aunt Helen. Over the next year her mind slipped. She forgot simple things, didn’t eat. It got to the stage she came to live with me. She and I had always been close and I had the time to care for her. But it got worse; she was a danger to herself so we had to arrange for her to come to Springvale. I felt so awful.’
‘I’m not sure she understands much of what’s around her anyway,’ I comforted Anne.
‘I don’t know,’ the reply came rather sadly. ‘She doesn’t recognise me anymore. Maybe there is something from the past—she did show you the portrait. Maybe she was trying to show you something.’
‘Maybe,’ I said. I went home that day with some compassion in my heart for Helen.
Over the next months I spent a lot of time with Helen. She didn’t change, never spoke much or indicated she knew me. The portrait remained in her room. I often glanced at it to remind myself of the person who used to be.
I began to care for this woman and felt useless to help her. Medical science couldn’t lift the fog from her mind—what could I do? I sat with her, talked, rubbed her hands, made her eat and drink. Such small things. She didn’t seem happy or sad so I wasn’t sure if I was doing anything to comfort her. But I kept visiting.
Anne phoned me one night at home. Helen had died that afternoon in her sleep. In her hands they had found the portrait, clasped to her chest.
I wept. I wept for the woman who, maybe at her last, remembered something of who she had been. I wept for myself, for I had lost a precious gift, a woman who had taught me never to take people at face value.
Vickie Walker
The Waiting Photograph - Jill Baggett
The photo hangs in the big old hall
In pride of place on the northern wall
A wedding group from days of yore
Stand resplendent near a door.
The bride is smiling, proudly beaming
The groom looks worried, nerves are telling.
The bridesmaids happy, pretty maids
The groomsmen cheerful, likely knaves.
Dresses flowing, flowers trailing
Morning suits with tails regaling
In the thirties it must be
For clothes like these we never see.
A story strange I now must tell
About the bride who fell unwell
She passed away not long ago
Leaving family full of woe.
But strangest thing her daughter told
A mystery will now unfold
A puzzling thing, a scary tale
The smiling bride is looking pale.
Each day she fades a little more
The others stay same as before
Must she go from us completely
Body, soul and photo neatly?
Her daughter tells me every day
Her image seems to fade away
Whatever can be causing it?
With normal sense it does not fit.
I think it’s sad that go she must
But to a place that’s good I trust
Will she come back to see us all?
The photo waits upon the wall. m
Bidding War - Alexandra Nagy
I sit up on the metal bars, my number in my hand.
Watching the lines enter the pens.
Some are silent.
Some demand.
Lines littered with pasts forgotten.
Potential thrown away.
Mindfulness disregarded here in this place that loyalty’s frayed.
Sunken spirits haunt the bars.
The cages holding in,
The faded thoughts of humanity.
The goodness from within.
People drift and not a glance,
The frightened and confused;
Hide away in agony,
Until what they think—we prove.
Numbed in preparation for the unsightly of affairs.
Looking back at others.
Shaking with despair.
The naive they curl up to the hungry.
The tormented run walls scared.
The brighter follow all the eyes,
Hoping to be spared.
The innocent stand bunched together,
The first time on these tracks.
And the older walk in silence.
Hoping never to come back.
With one hand in my pocket,
Stroking greens and reds and gold’s.
Wishing I could tell them all, something they haven’t many times been told.
The ruckus starts, the bidding flows.
The subtlety of nods.
I sit up on the metal bars.
Impossibly playing God.
Re-Kindled Love - DJ Peters
It was a hectic Christmas and New Year period in the James’ house. Mandy, a forty-five year old mother of three, had played host to the family gathering with her husband Barry, a forty-eight year old computer technician at a genealogy research lab in the city.
When the extended family had gone home, only Mandy, Barry and their youngest daughter Anna were left. It was finally time for Anna to pack up and head off to Uni. Anna had received excellent results and was heading down the coast to study Marine Biology.
Mandy drove down to the uni campus with her daughter to find accommodation before ‘O-Week’. It was a pleasant three hour drive along the coast.
Anna found suitable accommodation in a large dorm. She had a single room with a bed, a desk and a small fridge. She would have to share cooking facilities, but that was no different to living at home.
The last weeks of the summer holidays were disappearing quickly. Mandy dreaded the thought of her little baby girl going off into the big bad world. Her children were her whole life. She warned Anna about the dangers out there, as she helped her to pack her bags.
Mandy slumped down onto the bed after zipping up Anna’s last bag.
‘What am I going to do?’ she asked rhetorically.
‘What do you mean?’ Anna enquired of her mother.
‘What am I going to do with my time?’ Mandy rubbed her forehead as she thought aloud. ‘Your father’s off at work or out in his shed all the time. The others all have lives of their own! You’re leaving now!’ She waved her hands in exasperation, ‘I’ll just be left with the house!’ She sounded downtrodden and disappointed.
‘Why don’t you get a job like you used to have? You said you loved working at the research lab before you had us!’
Mandy thought about it for two seconds before deciding to do it.
Anna left that afternoon. Mandy was in tears, but looking forward to finding a new life for herself. She was proud of her children and all of their accomplishments.
When Mandy told Barry later that night about going back to work he said that there was a lab assistant’s job where he worked that she would be perfect for. They could go to work together.
Mandy woke early Monday morning to prepare for the phone call that would change her whole life. Barry had a quick breakfast with her and wished her good luck before giving her a quick peck on the cheek and heading off to the train station down the road to go to work.
Mandy picked up the receiver and placed it to her ear, dialled the number to the genealogy research lab were Barry worked. It rang once before she began to wonder if she was doing the right thing or if she would even get the job.
It rang a second time. Mandy’s heart began to beat faster. This is what she had decided to do. It would be a new challenge in her life. She had to do it.
The phone rang a third time. Mandy had just changed her mind and was about to give up, she began to move the receiver from her ear when a woman’s voice could be heard.
‘GeneTech Genealogy Research Laboratory, Sydney administration. How can I help you?’ The woman’s voice woke Mandy from her daze and she brought the receiver back to her ear.
‘Ah. Hi … umm … my name is Mandy and I was told you have a lab assistant’s position available,’ Mandy almost choked as her throat was so dry. She couldn’t believe how unconfident she felt. It was like her very first job interview. A disaster.
‘I’ll put you through to Human Resources. Please hold.’ Music played as she waited.
Mandy emailed her resume through to the Human Resources Co-ordinator before lunch. It took her most of the morning to type it up as all of her qualifications were more than twenty years old and she hadn’t had to have one since she left work all those years ago.
She sat down on the couch to watch the midday movie with a tuna salad sandwich for lunch. Before the movie finished the phone rang. It was the administration women’s voice from the lab.
‘Hi. Mandy?’
‘Speaking.’
‘George at Human Resources was wondering if you would be available for an interview this week?’ Mandy finished the conversation by saying that she’d be there by four pm.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-28 show above.)