narratorAUSTRALIA Volume Three

  ~~~

  Breathing in the refreshing smell of recently rained-on bush, Tara stretched her neck. She felt her body gradually relaxing. The soothing sounds of cicadas and the occasional chime from a bell bird came through the open car window.

  She was grateful for once that there was no working radio in the car to distract from nature’s symphony.

  It is amazing, she thought, as soon as you start to descend the mountain towards the coast, cares seem to dissolve. Thoughts turn to warm sunshine, azure sea, pristine sandy beaches and the enticing smell of battered fish and chips.

  Truth to tell, it would probably be overcast and cool, and Tony’s Fish Shop would be closed.

  No matter, Tara was happily anticipating this weekend with Ben and Luce in their newly-acquired holiday cottage.

  Tara glanced in the rear-view mirror at Luce and smiled tenderly. She was still sleeping soundly. Her little head had fallen to one side. Traces of white formula clung to her pink lips which were pursed into a scowl. Her hand, like a tiny clamshell, still clutched the baby bottle.

  About 20 minutes into the journey Luce had started to grizzle quietly. But just as Tara was preparing to stop and check her nappy she had suddenly dropped off to sleep.

  She really is a good baby, thought Tara. She was looking forward to taking Luce for a paddle in the surf. She had bought her a buttercup-yellow terry towelling swimsuit and matching hat.

  Ben had found a bucket and spade left by the former occupants of the cottage and had cleaned them up for Luce.

  Tara’s phone chirped on the seat beside her. She quickly looked at it and saw that it was Kate calling.

  Feeling in need of a break, she carefully pulled over onto the verge, anxious not to wake Luce. Light drops of sweet-smelling rain had begun to patter gently on the car roof.

  ‘Hi Mum, we’re nearly there,’ she said quietly.

  When Tara finally absorbed her mother’s anguished words, she dropped the phone. Almost falling out of the car she rushed to the back door.

  She lifted Luce’s lifeless body from the baby seat. Holding her precious daughter to her chest, she sank to her knees on the gravel beside the car. She let out a loud shuddering cry. Tears of grief and rain mingled and ran down her face.

  As if in condolence, the cicadas suddenly were silent.

  Thursday 30 May 2013

  The Widow

  Felicity Lynch

  Katoomba, NSW

  The woman moved slowly around the house, touching gently the photograph of herself and her husband, taken on their wedding, twenty years ago.

  The house smelt of flowers. Maggie heard her family moving around, tidying up the kitchen and the rooms where family and friends had gathered to talk and reminisce. They shouted goodbye and slammed the front door as they left.

  Maggie could still hear in her head the honking laugh of that dreadful Mrs Haypot – and see the glinting eyes full of spiteful glee, the hypocritical gushing tears and the inappropriate stories from many other guests.

  Now they were all gone. The quiet embraced her. Now at last she could think. She got herself a glass of champagne someone had brought her, to toast the memory of her husband.

  The house was so quiet – the silence broken only by the dripping tap that he had promised to fix, but of course never had.

  She hummed to herself, ‘I will survive, I will survive.’ No more phone calls from his woman friends, no more lies about where he was going, no more having to cook for him or entertain his friends, who leered at her and smirked knowingly at her, companions in his cheating ways.

  There was something about being widowed and quiet. She thought with satisfaction, ‘I did it – months of planning and feeding him small amounts of rat bait.’

  She gently patted the box holding his ashes. The death certificate was signed, sympathy given, family and friends all gushing nothings at her. She put on the TV. That program she’d seen months ago on TV that had shown her how to do it. Delicious how easy it was to do.

  Maggie swallowed her champagne. She raised her glass to her image in the mirror and toasted herself. ‘Well done,’ she thought. This lovely feeling of freedom, to be herself, and able to do whatever she wanted to. No more shouted orders.

  She turned the photograph of them on their wedding day over and thought she must go through the photos and throw or give away most of them.

  What fun she would have doing all those things she’d always wanted to do. No more disapproving looks. She poured herself another glass of champagne and resolved to make lists of what to get rid of, the furniture and everything he’d liked and she had to live with.

  The house settled around her. It was as if it approved of her plans. Such bliss to be alone and free. Mission accomplished! The future beckoned all rosy and new.

  Friday 31 May 2013

  Therapeutic Relief

  Lauren David

  Macquarie Fields, NSW

  I saw her. From across the busy street, through the crowds of people standing at the bus stop. I immediately felt a connection, unlike anything I had felt before. She had this kind of innocence and vulnerability that was endearing, but above anything else I noticed the pain in her eyes. A pain that I was determined to rid her of. I crossed the street making my way towards her; the closer I got to her, the stronger the pull was. This was the one, I thought. I wondered if she knew; knew I was coming for her.

  Her hair shimmered in the evening sun, her waves fighting against the gentle wind. Staring at her my mind began to wonder. The bus’ screeching tires jolted me out of my daydream; I followed her onto the bus and watched her. There was something troubling her. The sorrow I knew she was feeling made me all the more excited to change her fate. The evening faded into night. We were the last stop; she made her way off the bus. I trailed not too far behind her. The air had changed from the evening wind to a nightly chill.

  The streets were alit with lamps. It was so quiet and so still with not a soul in sight. I quickened my steps behind her as she was starting to ascend the steps to her apartment. It was now or never. She started fumbling for her keys at the door as I reached the bottom of the stairs. My heart began to race. She managed to open the door and ran. I did not run after her, I knew where she lived. Apartment 3B, no roommate, no boyfriend, no one to interrupt us. I made my way to her apartment; she was at her door. I grabbed her and pushed her in. She fell to the floor with a thud. Clawing at the floor she began to crawl. This was my favourite part, the pleading and crying, the adrenaline kicking in, making them think that they were somehow in control. I laughed loudly as I saw the terror on her face. I withdrew the large hunting knife I had in my jacket. I grabbed her leg and pulled her towards me. That’s when I saw it. The pain in her eyes had turned to fear. I smiled to myself.

  I walked through the still night feeling satisfied, reminiscing on her screams. I loved it when they screamed. She begged me to stop as the knife sliced her skin. I could still smell the blood, see it dripping from the knife. As she drew her last breath, the room silent, she stared at me. Those green eyes asking me why? How could I do such a horrible thing? She should really thank me; they all should. I put them out of their misery. I help them stop the pain in their lives. I do what they are too scared to do. I end it all.

  I reach my own home and start to remove my blood stained clothes. I jump in the shower feeling all too proud, another victory, another selfless act. I will admit I find joy in what I do, but it’s my duty: I was put on this earth to help these women. Just like I helped my mother, just like I helped all those other women. I dry myself and head into my room. Above the bedside is a list, a list of women’s names. Every woman I have ever helped has their name written. I write Sarah’s name as number 32.

  I sit down to watch the news as some airhead news reporter in tight clothing rolls over the everyday news. They start to describe a man who is wanted for 31 murders. I laugh. They haven’t yet found Sarah, so little do they know. They say the police vow to catch the man who did thi
s. I laugh again.

  The next morning brought on a sunny day. I made my way down the street taking in the bustles of people too busy to notice anyone around them. I stop at a little café and order a latte. While waiting, I notice her. She is sitting at the corner table silently sobbing, talking on the phone to someone who has obviously let her down. The barista calls my name to collect my coffee. As I collect it I make my way down to the sobbing girl as she hangs up on the person who she was talking to. I gently put my hand on her shoulder asking if everything was alright. She looks up at me with eyes red from the crying, mascara running down her face.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ she quickly replies. I sit down and hand her a card that reads Dr. Angela Johnson, Psychologist. As I lean back in my seat my hair falls forward and I quickly brush it back. I smile to her saying that I can help if she wants me to. She tells me about her life and her mother and her boyfriend. As she is talking, spilling every intimate detail to a complete stranger, I think, I will help her. I will end her pain.

  Saturday 1 June 2013 4 pm

  Grey Horses Fly

  Jean Bundesen

  Woodford, NSW

  Winter gallops in

  Grey horses flying

  Silver tails and manes

  Streaming behind

  Trampling autumn

  Trees left bare, branches sobbing

  A filigree against the sky

  Golden, red, plum, brown

  Leaves scatter

  Like a Persian carpet.

  Laughing children running

  Crunching the leaves

  Beneath their feet

  Building piles to roll in.

  Temperature plummets

  People rug up

  Looking like snow bunnies.

  Winds drops – frost appears

  High in the mountains

  Sleet and snow falls, highways blocked

  Oberon and beyond carpeted white.

  Eucalyptus trees are gleeful

  Fully clad in grey green

  Not a shiver seen,

  Cold doesn’t hurt them.

  Soon the Wattles will be

  Clothed in golden blossoms

  Brightening winter’s chill.

  Sunday 2 June 2013

  The House on the Beach

  Julie Martin

  Box Hill South, VIC

  The family who used to live here always said I had good foundations. In building terms, solid as a rock. Now, my joists ache and I’m weatherbeaten.

  Ah, but I hold all the memories. You see those pictures on my wall? That one there is of the whole family. It was taken when the children were young. They’ve grown up now of course, except for Alice. Dear little Alice.

  Who could forget that warm January morning when Charlie and his mate decided to head off to the beach together for a swim? Alice, she would have been about four years old. ‘I want to see the little white horses,’ she pleaded. ‘Wait for me, wait for me.’ She adored her big brother, followed him everywhere.

  ‘No! Alice you can’t come with us today,’ explained Charlie, then he and his mate dashed off. Oh, but Alice had made up her mind. The boys were excited, they didn’t look back. No one noticed she’d quietly wandered after them, but I did, she was so quick. Who could have imagined she’d use an upturned flower pot to scramble over the gate? It was dark in here for a while after that day.

  That one was taken on Charlie’s wedding day. The family held the ceremony down on the sand. There’s Charlie afterwards, placing a floral wreath on the water – for Alice. It was such a picturesque day, the ocean was deep sapphire and the little white horses danced all the way to shore.

  Peter was at college in this one, so handsome back then. He was a very busy man but weekends were our time. It’s been a year or so now since he passed away. Peter was only seventy. It’s not been the same since.

  Now Iris has gone to a nursing home I just sit here, empty. I don’t know what’s to become of me.

  Wait! What’s that? There’s someone at the front door.

  ‘David, it’s jammed.’

  ‘Janie, you shouldn’t. Here let me,’ he said, twisting the handle and throwing himself against the door. ‘There you go! After you.’

  ‘Oh David!’ She stepped over my threshold and walked straight through to the kitchen then peered out the sash window. ‘Look! There’s an ocean view.’

  David traipsed along after his wife. ‘Seems it’s been vacant for while,’ he said, running his hand over the dusty cabinetry.

  ‘It has a lovely little back garden and there’s a gate with access to the beach. It’s got all the room we’re going to need when the baby comes,’ she said. ‘We could open this up, work on it at the weekends. It could be so lovely.’

  ‘Janie, sweetheart, it is really very old.’

  She gazed around taking in every single detail, ‘Yes, but think about its history. If only these walls could talk.’

  ‘Well, the walls are solid enough,’ he said, knocking on the door frame with his knuckles, ‘but they need paint.’

  Janie wrapped her arms around her husband.‘David, I know we could do it.’

  ‘... but it’s going to take some work ...’

  ‘David, I think we should make an offer.’

  The midday sun shifted across the sky and its rays shone through the front doorway, heating my floorboards and spreading its sunlight. Once again, I feel warmth radiating into my rafters and the promise of new lives under my roof.

  Monday 3 June 2013

  The Flasher

  Robertas

  Drummoyne, NSW

  I’m avoiding peoples’ eyes, skimming my gaze over them into the neutral space peculiar to crowded trains.

  My eyes, busy in that space, sense a signal coming from somewhere – a strange compulsion to look my opposing passenger in the eye. Are those eyes directing mine downwards? They capture mine and flick down. Capture – flick – capture – flick. I have to look down.

  A bolt shoots through me. Genitalia! Aimed at me! Not seen by anyone else – the flasher and I are almost knee to knee. I tell myself not to look. But I am weak, and I am aroused – not to actual stiffening, it’s beyond that.

  I look – and look away – look – and away – look – away – look.

  It’s surreal; I’m in a place I’ve never been before – electrified, and horrified. I’m floating three inches above the seat, teetering on the edge of a parallel universe. What should I do? The compulsion to look is overwhelming.

  But I only have to bear it for a few minutes – my stop is coming up. I shift in my seat, signalling to the woman beside me that the next stop is mine. The flasher knows I’m getting off and gives me a special big flash. The woman beside me notices, and hmmphs her disgust.

  The train arrives at the station. I get up. The flasher gets up too.

  We’re standing side by side as the doors slide open. The flasher gives me a ‘follow me’ look. I’m tempted, but resist, telling myself I’d probably get the clap or something. Then my devil’s voice says, ‘Go on!’ and I succumb, following at a discrete distance. But ironically, another ‘follow me’ look breaks the spell. I stop, turn and walk away, feeling another look in the nape of my neck. I keep walking.

  Shaken, and still stirred, I get to my meeting with my mates. We’re planning to hitch-hike to Morocco. They are passing through London on their way back up North.

  I tell them about the flasher.

  ‘You dope,’ they say, ‘you should have gone for it.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right. She was bloody good looking.’

  Monday 3 June 2013 4 pm

  What We Speak Becomes The House We Live In

  Fayroze Lutta

  Randwick, NSW

  Dear Andréa,

  I have long wondered why I cannot write a poem of this landscape, of my homeland, and I realised it is because I am no country’s flag bearer, a symbol of ownership, of conquered kingdom come. I am a stranger in this l
andscape, like many. There is an unanswered question of sovereignty that looms on each street corner, hanging on each street name.

  The people of this land had no flags, no gun powder and no uniform or brass regalia. They had their language born of the landscape, the trees, the wood and the wind, attuned to this ancient land. They had their song, their dance, their dreaming. What restorative gesture can undo what is tantamount to cultural genocide? Once those who came from the shipyards and prisons of England struggled to survive in this hostile foreign savage landscape and now the tables have turned their songs silent.

  Those who set anchor conquered with their words, laid claim to the untruth of an uninhabited landscape. Although generations later born and bred they are immigrants themselves like me, they are strangers set in this landscape. They have built a nation state on their acts formed on dispossession. There are a few growing swollen off the red dust. They have created this seemingly endless nadascape of autosuburban realities, a skyline forged on banalities. They have given foreign names to the ears of this dispossessed landscape.

  The Persian mystic poet Hafiz wrote, ‘What we speak becomes the house we live in’. Seemingly a young sunburnt country. Yet this land is old, it is ancient, but dressed in their clothes not of animal skin and painted ochre but of bitumen, concrete and red brick.

  The language belongs to the land born of the people by the sea, the Gadigal. This land has not heard its elders speak the language of the Eora Nation for so long. The Gadigal people and their words born of the earth, the rocks and the water, the country and lands of the Boree, Garungal, Car-rang-gel, Cooroowal, Wulworrá-jeung, Turranburra, Woggan-ma-gule, Cookaroo, Yarrandabby Ku-bung hárrá, Kubungarra.

  Let the voices of the poetry of this dispossessed people’s land ring out over the tiled red rooftops. Let them reclaim this land’s song, this land’s poetry. Let it echo over the tree tops in harmony with the bird song, lost so long ago.

  Yours faithfully

  Fayroze

  Tuesday 4 June 2013

  A Certain Date

  Athena Zaknic

  West Beach, SA

  A mutual friend had told her that I was in town, so she phoned me. It must have been at least five years since we last saw each other. The last time was at a reunion dinner for the hospital pharmacy staff during the late 1960s. We had never been close. Nevertheless, I promptly accepted her invitation to lunch. In 1973 any date was exciting for a single woman, even if only with another woman. Where would one wear the new clothes we used to spend our salaries on? I carefully painted my face and stepped out in my new red trench coat.

  Angelo’s in South Yarra was quite the place to be seen in, at the time. She was waiting inside at a table by a window. She appeared a lot thinner and older than I expected. She eyed me from top to toe.

  ‘You look terrific. Red was always your colour.’

  ‘You haven’t changed at all Linda.’ I tried to sound sincere. We hugged gently for the benefit of the swish clientele. A vague scent of what seemed like moth balls floated up past my nostrils. Surely it was not her perfume? One is never quite sure these days. I thought I hope I don’t smell like that. One can’t smell their own scent, can they?

  We perused the elegant menu which was handed to us with a flourish by a suave young Italian waiter, the soft tones of Matt Monro in the background. The well cushioned environment was designed to absorb any intrusive sounds. So unlike what we have now, where everyone speaks by gestures.

  ‘Signorina?’ A seductive smile aiming at our wallets. The food was on the expensive side, but when you are on the wrong side of thirty and single, your priorities are adjusted accordingly. I was out to enjoy myself.

  We were not disappointed. Divine food plus a bonus view of bustling Toorak Road on a Friday. What more could one ask for?

  Conversation was minimal as we didn’t have that much in common. So we contentedly shuffled in our seats taking it all in.

  ‘Have you seen Robin since you arrived?’ she inquired as she poured herself a second glass of wine and topped mine up. As I was about to reply, she continued. ‘I heard she had been quite ill recently.’

  I felt her eyes pin mine. My head turned towards the window. I replied, ‘Not recently. I will see her on Saturday.’ I thought of the embarrassing episode of Linda and Robin dating the same man back then. Robin, the smarter operator of the two, was now happily married to him. Rumours had it their marriage had not been immune to fluctuations, but then which marriage was? I tried to change the subject.

  ‘She is much better after her operation,’ I told Linda. I did not wish to elaborate, ‘And what have you been up to lately?’

  How I regretted asking that question! It was just what she was waiting for. Linda proceeded to hammer me with her health bulletin of the last five years. I nodded and listened patiently, unable to utter one word.

  Hives, reflux, shingles. She’d been through the lot, or at least she thought that she had. She even described her experiences while in hospital. How I wished for flippant light hearted chit chat! That is what is called for in situations like this one. Not ailments and hospitalisations. We came out to spend money and enjoy good food.

  I kept staring at the second empty bottle of wine. It was swaying gently. Trying to keep my eyes open in front of her relentless mouth was torture. I had an extravagant lunch and now I was paying the price. Linda kept on and on while our waiter with a smirk on his face kept topping up our water glasses.

  When eventually I felt safe to drive, I made my escape. When I got home I promptly and literally crossed Linda off my list. Whenever any of the girls suggested asking Linda to any of our outings I unconditionally vetoed the idea every time. I was not surprised when no one objected. It is now five years since our meeting. I hope her health has improved, however, I have my doubts.

  Wednesday 5 June 2013

  Madge and Ruby

  Robyn Chaffey

  Hazelbrook, NSW

  Theirs was a chance meeting.

  Neither of them belonged there.

  Fate brought them together. Curiosity, need and stubborn determination would draw them closer.

  Ruby had been a petulant child from the beginning. Her mother had done her best by her daughter after her father walked away. She had to work, though, and constant juggling her time between Ruby’s antics and her job left her exhausted. She had, to all intents and purposes, given up.

  So Ruby rambled on through life without real direction. Simply she did what seemed good to her at the time. Her hair colour and style changed like the wind. Tattoos and piercings multiplied. Marijuana and other drugs were all tested well … and then Trae came on the scene!

  It had been at Trae’s insistence that she had gone to Goolmangar. He had persuaded her that they had ‘sumfin t’gether’, but that he had to go home for a few weeks so that ‘th’ ol’ man don’t cut me off’.

  She had dared to think that he cared … persuaded herself that she could fit in. She dared to dream of starting a new life … with a new family.

  From the moment they arrived it had been horrible! Trae’s family had ignored her. It was not anger or resentment. These she would have understood and dealt with. It was not disdain either, but rather absolute indifference.

  Worse yet, from the moment they had arrived at his family home, Trae had treated her the same way!

  After two days Ruby threw her belongings into a bag and walked to the bus depot.