narratorAUSTRALIA Volume One

  *** Editor’s Pick ***

  Killed A Man

  Emma Hall

  Canterbury, Victoria

  My husband killed a man.

  My husband killed a man and he was arrested, and charged, and brought before a group of twelve men – such unremarkable men, and yet they hold in their hands the power to take my husband’s life.

  It’s the third day of the trial now. I’m not scared. Fear is something I can’t remember feeling for a long time. Guilt, perhaps, but it is hard to recognise that emotion anymore. Sometimes I wonder if I have emotions at all, or has this life reduced me to a lifeless shell; uncaring, unfeeling.

  Certainly my love for the man who stands now at the judge’s command to ‘the defendant’ is long gone. ‘The defendant.’ The name suits him perfectly. At times it seemed his whole purpose on this earth was to defend me from what he perceived as dangers; what I saw as life. Our relationship was not of husband and wife but of overzealous parent and petulant child. I was desperate to escape, but knew I could not. Those were the early days. Soon I discovered, as every child does, ways to thwart my captor’s prison. I longed for release, but could not bear to part with what I had – security, wealth. So I brought what I needed to me. It was easy to seduce my young lovers, to bring them into my bed and use them for my own form of therapy. They were not affairs, but playthings; moments of liberation, before they were swiftly kissed goodbye.

  Or, at least, they were nothing until I saw one of them stretched naked across my bed, the look of surprise still on his face, a splatter of blood on my white sheets. His name was Steve Motram, I found out later. Before that night, it had been a long time since I’d cried. And I cried copiously, a never-ending flow of tears, of shock and fear and horror, all the more when ‘the defendant’ took me into his arms and rocked me like a baby, smelling of rage and sweat, whispering, ‘It’s going to be alright’.

  None of this is in my testament. I stand in the witness box, appropriately intimidated, and in a voice quite unlike my own I answer the questions of the grim-faced lawyers that pace the courtroom.

  My voice wavers slightly with emotion but gains the strength of true conviction as I say the words they need to hear.

  My husband is innocent.

  I am familiar with my role and I play it excellently. The supportive, dutiful wife – it is a skin I slip into as easily as I don my square-toed heels and blazer for the courtroom.

  But if I were to say those other words, they would have a different strength – the strength of the truth.

  My husband killed a man.

  I remember watching a movie once where the protagonist was asked if he agreed with what his friend had done. His friend had also killed someone. But he was provoked, he had good reason. The protagonist said, ‘I don’t condone it, but I understand it.’ I suppose this is how I feel. It is wrong to kill, wrong to murder. Everyone knows this. One who takes a human life does not deserve to live themselves. That’s what the jurors are thinking – I can see it in their eyes even as they hold their expressions of dry dispassion. But surely they can see that he had a reason. It was not an act of pure evil. He was provoked, he had good reason. I understand it.

  As soon as I was certain that he truly was dead, I knew what I was going to do. I have spent every day since then wondering if it was right.

  I’m selfish. It’s not something I have difficulty admitting to. I have always been selfish.

  Until three days ago, when they brought him into the courtroom, I hadn’t seen him since they held the top of his head and put him into the backseat. After that it was like a dream. Men took photographs and asked questions and I sat in the lounge, carefully making sure my hands shook as they clasped the cup of coffee. There was a man, a dead man, naked in my bed. I could already see the police officers looking at me. But they were men. Men like to be lied to.

  ‘Are you ready to answer questions?’ the officer asked me, and, my voice shaking as much as my manicured hands, I tearfully asked if I could first use the bathroom. They nodded, kindly.

  I went to the bathroom and took off my clothes. Wrapping my arms around myself, I ran my finger nails over the bare skin of my back. I gripped my own arm as tight as I could until I was sure it was bruising. Cupping one breast in my hands, I pushed it to my own mouth and bit down hard around the nipple. Finally, I took my toothbrush and rammed it hard up inside me. I didn’t stop until I felt blood trickle down my leg.

  I examined the welts, the bruises, the bite mark and the blood. Satisfied, I redressed and returned to the lounge. ‘Ready now, miss?’ Yes, yes I was.

  In a quiet voice I told them of how I had been home alone – my husband works late on Thursdays. I had just finished dinner when I heard the doorbell. He forced his way inside. Grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me to the bedroom. Of course I screamed, but no one heard. He threw me on the bed and pulled off my clothes and his. He… and here I break down in tears, knowing words are unnecessary. I watch cop shows, I know the drill. I’m not surprised when they insist I go to the hospital. The nurse finds the marks. No one even suggests they were self inflicted – what woman would do that to herself?

  I had convinced myself I did the right thing, the good thing. Saving my husband from a punishment that did not fit his crime. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault.

  But now, as I sit in the courtroom, I question my decision. It is not fair that the young man I scarcely knew the name of is dead, that his parents sit in the front row, aged doubly by the ordeal of burying their son. But what is more unfair is that they, that everyone in this room, do not see him as a victim. Steve Motram was more than likely a good man, but he shall be remembered as a rapist. While I – the liar, the cheater, the one with blood on her hands – I am seen as an innocent victim of this whole affair.

  And I’m not innocent. I killed a man.

   

  Friday 25 May 2012

  Gravity

  Amber Johnson

  Highgate Hill, Queensland

  As I clip the clothes to the line,

  they batter against my arms

  in a war of liberty,

  like soldiers on the front.

   

  ‘For freedom!’ they shout,

  but I am determined to pin them down.

   

  One breaks free from my oppression

  – for I am but a tyrant,

  who shields herself

  behind a battalion of cotton.

  He doesn’t roam far

  before the wind betrays him

  and sells him off

  to the slavers.

   

  Even the bravest are bound to fall;

  gravity makes fools of us all.

   

  Saturday 26 May 2012

  Fealty – Or, The Art Of Being There For One Another

  Paris Portingale

  Mt Victoria, NSW

  ‘I’ll always be there for you,’ Ronald said.

  Jasmina looked around. ‘Where?’ she said.

  ‘Just over there, or failing that, over there.’

  ‘Well, that’s good to know, although you weren’t there for me yesterday.’

  ‘Come with me for a second,’ Ronald said and led Jasmina through to his study. Pointing to the desk, he said, ‘That’s because I was there.’

  ‘Fine, but in future it might be nice if you told me exactly where you were going to be for me.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Ronald.

  ‘So, where are you going to be for me today?’

  ‘Haven’t decided yet, but I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Well, that’s very convenient – for you.’

  ‘Alright,’ Ronald said and, wandering around the apartment, pointed vaguely to a corner of the lounge room and said, ‘I’ll be over there.’

  ‘Good,’ said Jasmina. ‘I’m going out now,’ and she picked up her purse.

  ‘I’ll be here,’ Ronald said.

  ‘Over there in the
corner?’

  ‘Probably.’

  Jasmina sighed, got her keys and left.

  When she got back, Jasmina was annoyed to find Ronald was in his study, reading the paper. ‘You bastard,’ she said and slammed the door and didn’t speak to him for the rest of the evening.