Story Writer's Club

Broken Case Extension

2009-11-30T10:06:00.000+11:00

Both Tristan Sender and Lindsay Ratcliffe have, due to extenuating circumstances, officially granted each other and anyone else out there an extension of one week on this story. We have only just posted our Anniversary story anyway, so that should keep any avid readers who might be out there busy.
The broken case will now be due on Monday 7th of December.
We may also if we are lucky have a couple of extra entrants who have expressed an interest in participating.

Anniversary (Lindsay Ratcliffe)

2009-11-27T14:38:00.000+11:00

Moving On

Lindsay Ratcliffe

It was Halloween 2009. I was newly single and ready to party dressed as a dark angel in a short black dress, stockings, boots, short black wig, Venetian mask and beautiful black feather wings that wouldn’t have looked out of place at Mardi Gras. I almost didn’t go to the party on account that my ex, Tristan, would be there, but I thought it would be a shame not to go having got the costume together. Plus, I looked damn hot in that outfit, even if I do say so, and there’s no better time to face an ex than when you’re feeling good?

I was on my third or fourth glass of punch, by the time Tristan made an appearance. He came as a scary clown wearing an op’ shop suit and a beautifully morbid, latex half-face mask. We both socialised in opposite ways around the party, avoiding each other for long enough to look like neither of us gave a damn anymore. Then at the inevitable meeting we couldn’t help but flirt with each other.

We were still chatting when the silly party games started. The laughter was raucous and the music got so loud it was hard to hear. I can’t remember which one of us suggested it but Tristan and I left the party and went for a walk.

There was a great vibe on the streets in Coogee. The backpackers were out in full force and there was hardly a reveller without glow-in-the-dark horns, a trident or a scary mask. We headed to the Coogee Bay Hotel, however the entry queue snaked to the end of the street, so we jumped in a cab hoping that it was too early in the season for the backpackers to have discovered the Clovelly Hotel yet.

We were singing, laughing and being annoying like only drunk people can when Tristan suddenly changed his mind about going to the ‘Cloey’.

“I’ve got a better idea! Let’s do something a bit more fitting for Halloween!”

I’d no idea what I was getting myself into but being too merry to care shrugged and agreed.

“Turn left here!”

Tristan directed the cab driver and I wasn’t as familiar with the area I was somewhat confused when he asked the driver to drop us on a quiet residential street.

“What are we doing?”

He opened up his over-sized suit jacket and extracted a bottle of vodka that he’d procured from the party.

“Where’s the perfect place to party on Halloween?”

I looked around and saw we were at the edge of Waverley cemetery.

“You’ve got to be kidding?” I was both horrified and excited at the same time, yet I still beat him scaling the wall.

We acted like idiots, hiding behind gravestones then jumping out, scaring the living daylights out of one another. Exhausted and a bit too drunk we sat on the edge of a large memorial looking out at the dark sea, swigging from the bottle.

“I can’t think of a better place that I would rather spend eternity! I love it up here looking out over the ocean!”

He passed me the bottle but didn’t let go when I put my hand to it. He raised the bottle to my lips. I took a swig but I felt his intention change and an uncomfortable feeling crept over me. Suddenly I didn’t want to be alone with Tristan.

“I think I’ve had enough.” I said pulling my arms and legs close into my body.

“You ok?”

“Yeah, just getting a bit cold.”

He removed his jacket and put it over my shoulders.

“Thanks.” I pulled the jacket lapels together to make my chill seem genuine. “I think we should head back. They’ll wonder where we’ve gone.”

“Since when did you care? Not feeling scared are you?”

I shrugged and started to walk away but he pulled me back and lunged in for a clumsy kiss. I pushed him away.

“What are you doing?”

“What do you mean? I thought…”

“What part of ‘this is over’ don’t you get?”

“The part where you continue to flirt with me and lead me on!”

I know he was right, but it was not what I wanted. The fight didn’t last long as I said some pretty harsh things and he walked off cursing me. I didn’t much relish being left alone in a cemetery in this silly outfit, but somehow it was better than what might have happened had I not stopped him.

The sea winds lashed around me again and almost took my wig. The jacket flapped around my sides and I genuinely started to feel cold, so I slipped my arms into the jacket properly and thrust my hands into the pockets. The fingers of my right hand wrapped around a folded piece of paper. I pulled it out of the pocket and saw it was an envelope. I presumed it was something of Tristan’s, but I didn’t know any ‘Mrs E Campbell’ nor did I recognise the handwriting so I figured it was something left there by the previous owner. I shuddered but fingered the envelope anyway, considering opening it. The wind whipped up again and the envelope was almost whisked out of my hands. It was enough of a reminder to know that I should be leaving. It wasn’t the auspicious night; just reasoning that being a lone female in a cemetery after dark was probably not a great idea.

I looked around, not sure which was the best way out. I became very aware of the dark. There was no street lighting nearby and thick clouds were suffocating any light that the moon might have offered. Panic rose in my chest as all I could see in any direction, which wasn’t very far in the dark, was gravestones, tombs and a headless silhouette of a stone angel. Then I remembered my iPhone. I turned until the sea-wind was blowing into my face so I knew I was facing East, then used the Map and Locate Me function to work out the quickest way out.

The wind whistling through the lines of graves unnerved me. Using my iPhone for illumination I headed south in the direction of the nearest perimeter wall. The wind changed direction and walking headlong into it was hard going. My stomach tightened, as I saw that the nearby trees were not being menaced by the wind in the same way that I was. I tried to calm and centre myself. Not an easy thing to do given the circumstances. Then I felt something brush my cheek and the shriek that tried to escape was strangled by the wind in my throat.

“Leave me alone!” I was almost in tears. I just wanted to go home.

Then I heard a whisper, which was both inside and outside my head at the same time.

“My letter…”

“Tristan I’ll freakin kill you, if I find out that’s you!”

I somehow knew it wasn’t Tristan but I felt better blaming him. I shook my head, seriously regretting having drank so much. Then the noise came at me again, only this time it was stronger and seemed to assault me from all directions at once. Instead of feeling scared, I felt strangely empowered. I figured the problem was not me, but the letter, which in my inebriated mind at that moment, gave me something to bargain with. I held the letter as if I intended to tear it in half.

“Leave me alone or I’ll do it!”

I heard what sounded like a sharp intake of breath and then a localised moan.

“Twelve years! Twelve years I’ve waited!”

In the space two metres in front of me stood a crying man. He was in essence a man but without any mass. I can’t explain how I knew that, except there was no physical energy with his presence. I didn’t feel afraid anymore, just wary.

“Is this yours?” I waved the letter at him.

“Where did you get it?”

“I found it in this old jacket.”

“So! My wife decided to get rid of the last reminders of me?”

“Is this letter to your wife?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Ha! It is if you want me to post it!”

He looked right through me and seemed to tug at my soul. I experienced a kind of pain but not one that I could identify within my physical body. Then I felt a wave of sadness and regret surge through me and the man looked away.

“The letter is to Enid, she was my first love.”

“That’s all very nice but I’m cold, starting with an early hangover and stuck in a cemetery on Halloween in an op’ shop jacket. So not wanting to sound funny or anything, but so what?”

“I wrote that letter to Enid when I knew I didn’t have long left. But I died before I could post it. I hoped you could deliver it?”

He came a little closer but I held out my hand to deter him.

“What about your wife? Does she know about Enid?”

“I wasn’t having an affair!”

“Your wife might see things differently! Did you love her?”

“I was married to her for thirty-seven years!”

“Yes, but did you love her?”

“Yes of course, but she didn’t love me, not in the same way as Enid. Enid adored me. She would do anything for me. She was my first love. You never forget that!”

“So your wife doesn’t give you enough attention and now your planning on spending your eternity hankering after some teenage crush?

“It’s not like that!”

“I won’t post it. I don’t think its fair. How would you feel if you discovered your wife pined for someone else for your whole marriage? Even if I did post it what good can it do?”

He wringed his hands together and pleaded,

“I’ve been waiting twelve years for this! It’s meant to be! Otherwise that letter would never have survived. You have to take it to Enid!”

“Nah I disagree! I think this letter was meant to find it’s way back to you to stop you being an idiot for the rest of eternity. You need to move on!”

“Please! You must!”

“How’s Enid going to feel? What if this letter stirs it all up for her again and then she discovers you’re dead? It’s so selfish!”

“It’s just such a waste to have all these feelings and not to share them.”

“How would your have wife felt if she found the letter?”

He hung his head.

“So she did love you?”

I let him talk. It was clear that he was lonely, but I felt that he’d created his own prison, in both life and beyond because of his misplaced affections and romantic ideals.

“Did you ever think that maybe your wife loved you just as much as Enid, maybe even more, she just showed it in a different way?”

He began to describe his wife and some of the nice things she used to do for him. The more he talked about his wife the less I could hear him and the less I could see him until he wasn’t there anymore.

The wind rushed around me, encircled me, whipping my legs and the jacket against my body, the wings on my back threatening to break. I opened my fingers and let the letter go to the elements. It spiralled upwards in its own private vortex then flipped and flapped, like a fish out of water, as the wind carried it away. It didn’t travel too far before the wind vanished and the envelope dropped, as heavy as a stone, just slightly off the path. There were no other sounds or sensations; the air was now still. The envelope rested on a grave. A bouquet of fresh flowers rested against a headstone.

Michael Mullen

much loved husband

Died 31 October 1997 aged 63

Anniversary (Tristan Sender)

2009-11-27T14:27:00.003+11:00

Anniversary Present

Tristan Sender

The crunch of gravel underfoot on the driveway announced James’s approach to the party. It was a year to the day that he had last been here for the wedding of his first cousin Jane to Sir John Goodham. One-year anniversary parties were a tiresome tradition in his and other upper middle class families.

James had never understood the need for such an event, surely five or ten years would be an appropriate milestone; but who was he to complain, free booze, and fine dining awaited him in the white marquee on the other side of the Cotswold stone mansion he had arrived at.

The thing was, James had slightly more reason to approach this social event with trepidation and he felt a lump in his throat as he knocked on the oak door. It opened and the butler on hire for the day ushered him through the hallway out to the picture perfect scene at the back of the house. James hesitated on the terrace, enjoying the English summers day. He inhaled the scent of freshly cut grass and listened to the chatter of happy birds. His moment didn’t last.

“James what are you doing loitering up here?” inquired his Aunt Elizabeth, host and mother of the bride.

“Hello Aunty, I was just admiring your garden.”

“Thankyou, it’s nice to see you, but I must say I’m disappointed to see you decided not to bring a companion.” she lied.

“Well you know…”

“Don’t you think its time you settled down; it’s done wonders for Jane.”

“Well I am sure I will when the right girl comes along.”

“Wives don’t just appear, you have to pursue them. Look, I think I might have found the perfect girl for you. Anne, she’s a bit younger, very attractive and from a delightful family. Anyway, can’t stop I have to check on the canapés; I’ll introduce you later. Enjoy the party.” She turned to pursue her mission inside.

James hated forced introductions and the behind the scenes meddling in his love life that was endemic in his family. He welcomed the opportunity to escape and descended into the garden to find a drink.

The party was in full flow and waiters dressed in dinner suits carried chilled champagne, whilst sweltering in the afternoon sun. James grabbed his first glass and drank it down quenching his nervous thirst. There was only a brief interlude before he was reaching for another only, to be interrupted by the booming voice of his cousin and brother of the bride, Rupert Van De Berg.

“Well! Well! The weasel returns to the crime scene. Didn’t think you’d have the stomach to show up.”

“Fuck off Rupert! I didn’t have a choice, I would have been disowned if hadn’t.”

“If it had been me…”

“Is she coming?”

“Far worse than that my old friend!”

“What could be worse?”

“Have you looked at the table plan?” Rupert laughed.

James turned heading towards the marquee with Rupert in hot pursuit. He scanned the ornately printed plan for his name.

“Table two I think.” teased Rupert.

A look at the occupants revealed the awful truth; He was seated at the same table as

Cecilia Hamilton.

“No!”

Rupert laughed, sticking his boot in further,

“It gets worse! She’s sat next to you, and there’s no way of changing the name tags, they’re sown into the table cloths!”

“Fuck!”

“Well if you will go dipping your todger in to any lassie that takes your fancy, you have to be prepared for the consequences.” Rupert goaded. “Anyway I think it should be great entertainment on an otherwise dull evening!”

“You mean you had something to do with this?”

“What can I say? Your Mother asked if I knew of any suitable ladies coming to the party. I obliged, and she was most grateful.”

“You utter wanker!” James shouted storming off.

Cecilia was a nice lady with good manners and a respectable background. She was not unattractive, but James thought that her style was more appropriate for a fifty year old, than a woman in her late twenties. James knew she was not his type, but his taste was flexible depending on how much he had to drink. This had been the case one year ago.

The wedding like today had been a tedious affair with only a scattering of single women for the men to fight over. Abandoned on his table without a dance partner he had turned his attentions to Cecilia who was in a similar predicament. As they chatted and he drank, the timid girl in front of him became increasingly attractive. Cecilia’s conservative attire left everything to his imagination, and her prim proper tone became seductive and enticing. James longed to find out what she would be like in bed, imagining a wild and passionate woman waiting to be set free. He had decided at that point to do whatever he could to win Cecilia over.

Surprisingly it hadn’t taken too much, a few glasses of wine, a bit of charm and she revealed the crush she held for him. Their kissing on the dance floor had gained a round of applause and they soon moved their display somewhere more private. The sex in the pool house had been a clumsy drunken event, but not without its charm on what would have been an otherwise uneventful night. He had woken the next morning held tightly in her embrace, and had prised himself free to escape before he was discovered. Rupert, lover of any scandal, was too clever for this and had burst in just as he was putting his underpants back on.

Rupert and his friends had been quick to publicise the whole affair, and as was so often the case Cecilia bore the brunt of the shame. Branded a desperate slut she disappeared from their social circle, while James enjoyed the strangely appealing title of ‘bastard.’

For weeks after the event he had been bombarded by calls from Cecilia, all of which he had ignored. Her messages had continued, growing in intensity and desperation for nearly a month. Then suddenly without warning they had stopped and he heard no more.

As James moved from one dull conversation to another his mind was preoccupied with one thing, ‘what was he going to say to Cecilia?’ He decided he would just have to man up, and apologise for being such a rotten cad. Ever the coward he soon changed his mind deciding to leave. He was too late and turning to leave James saw his Aunt and mother making a beeline for him with a young lady in tow.

“There you are James, I’ve been looking all over!” puffed his Aunt. “I want to introduce you to Anne Montgomery.”

“Very pleased to meet you!” said James extending his hand.

“Likewise.” Anne replied coyly.

James felt butterflies leap in his stomach as he looked into her beautiful blue eyes.

“Anne has just got back from Nigeria with her family; her father was head of the

British diplomatic service in Lagos.” His mother exclaimed.

“She hardly knows anyone, so your mother and I thought you would be the perfect person to show her the ropes.”

“I would be delighted, but think I might rather like to keep her to myself.” James half joked.

“I’m sure I will be just fine, but thanks for thinking of me.” Anne blushed.

The ladies match making was interrupted by the clang of a bell announcing dinner.

“Saved by the bell!” James replied. “I hope we get the chance to chat later.”

“Don’t worry James I have sat you together, now escort the young lady to her seat.”

James had not yet seen Cecilia and her chair was still empty when the hors d'œuvres arrived. Whatever the reason, he was grateful.

James introduced Anne to everyone sat round the table, before greedily dominating her conversation. He discovered they had a mutual love of Africa, and was able to talk in depth about his overland trip from London to Cape Town. By the time the main course arrived James had forgotten all about Cecilia, and was well into his charming stride. He made the first move testing the water by laying his hand on hers. Anne smiled leaving her hand under his, so James leaned forwards and kissed her on the lips. She moved back withdrawing her hand quickly from his, and slapped him hard round the face.

“How dare you!” she shouted. “What kind of woman do you think I am?”

Reeling from the sting and embarrassed by the silence that had descended on the table

James whispered “I am sorry I thought...”

“Maybe you should stay off the booze.” She interrupted before getting up and storming out.

He made to follow, halted only by the clinking of glasses to signal the start of the speeches. They passed in a blur of congratulations and toasts, but just when he thought they were over, he heard Jane call out from the main table “Where is Cecilia?

James she is sat next to you, what have you done with her?”

“Haven’t seen her all night!” James replied back at the top of his voice so all the guests could hear.

“How strange she is supposed to be doing a toast” Jane said sounding disappointed.

“Cecilia was most insistent, oh well I suppose we shall just have to live without…”

“Wait sorry,” a voice cried from outside. “I apologise I got caught in traffic, but I am here now.” said Cecilia as she stumbled into the marquee carrying a large brown bag.

Cecilia navigated her way round the tables to the microphone. James noticed she looked different, her long brown hair was now short and red and she wore several piercings.

“Thankyou for your patience I wouldn’t have missed today for the world.” She began.

“Commitment is something that should never be underestimated, and although Jane and her husband have only been married a year I can see the makings of a life long partnership.”

“Hear! Hear!’ agreed her audience. James sweated, praying she wouldn’t take it further.

“I have not been so lucky in love so I understand how precious this is.”

‘Please please don’t…’ prayed James frozen to his seat, but Cecilia was on a roll.

“In fact today is actually an anniversary for me in many ways. It was a year ago almost to the day that I met the love of my life. Unfortunately things just didn’t work out.” She continued.

James felt all eyes were on him and out of the corner of his eyes he saw Rupert grinning in anticipation of what she was about to reveal. He felt compelled to shout out for her to stop, but knew he had to allow her this moment of revenge.

“Now enough about me, please be upstanding in a toast to mutual love, may we all find the happiness these two have.”

Cecilia then walked away from the microphone towards her seat next to James. As she reached him she kissed him gently on the cheek.

“I can’t stay, but I thought I would thank you for your support this year. Here is a sign of my appreciation” she calmly said handing him the leather bag she was carrying.

Before he could say anything she turned running out into the night.

He wondered what was inside the bag, hoping it wasn’t a boiled rabbit or a horse’s head. James didn’t delay gratification and clicked open the brass latches peering inside. There lying on the bottom was a little baby boy with a note attached to his tiny foot. He read out loud in horror “Hello I am William your son. Today is the anniversary of my conception and my Mummy thinks she has done most of the work for the past year, so now it’s your turn.”

Anniversary (Gertrude and Alice 2009 Short Story Competition)

2009-11-27T14:21:00.000+11:00

Unfortunately neither Lindsay or I won the Gertrude and Alice Short Story Competition. Lindsay is however sure that we come close. I will post the stories now, and hope you enjoy them.

The Broken Case

2009-11-16T18:18:00.002+11:00

With our stories on the topic 'Anniversary' entered into the competition on Friday we are ready for a new subject. The story production line is relentless and stops for no man or woman. The subject for this fortnight, kindly supplied by Lindsay, is 'The Broken Case'. The due date is Monday 30th November and the only rule is that your story must be 2000 words or more.
I hope if anyone out there is reading these stories that they are providing you with a source of amusement, and perhaps even inspiration to join in and write a story.
If you do wish to write a story please let me know in the comments field below the latest post. Please include your email address and full name. I will then send you my email so you can forward me your story.
(Please note due to competition rules our 'Anniversary' stories cannot be published on the blog until the 27th of November)

Anniversary (Gertrude and Alice 2009 Short Story Competition)

2009-10-28T02:00:00.000+11:00

The short story this fortnight must include the concept 'Anniversary' either literally or metaphorically.

This is also a special story in that we will be entering them into the Gertrude and Alice 2009 short story competition. The story for this competition must be no longer than 2000 words. We also have a little longer than usual as entries must be in by the 13th of November.

The prize is $1000, with 6 consolation prizes of $150.

For full details please go to their website at www.gertrudeandalice.com.au/ and click on notice board.

The next topic will start on Monday 16th November.

Good Luck!

The Poisoned Tree (Tristan Sender)

2009-10-27T12:45:00.000+11:00

The Poisoned Tree

by Tristan Sender

The rain fell heavily washing away the earth to reveal a history of secrets.

Trafford felt a rush of tiny tingles passing through his body from his feet to his head. He understood more about himself now than ever before. Today was the first time in years that he had felt at peace with himself.

A month ago he had been sat in the economy class seat of a Cathay Pacific Boeing 747-400 on a journey from his old world to this new one. He had been full of trepidation and anxiety, calmed only by several large gin and tonics. Trafford had never left the United Kingdom; he had never really left England, except for a couple of short canoeing trips across the border into Wales.

Sydney was to be a new start for him, a place where no one knew him, or his past. He could begin again and become the person he wanted to be, and most of all forget who he had become.

Trafford had spent the first two weeks living in a backpacker’s hostel in King Cross. He had hated the lack of privacy and the constant noise of drunken Irish and English voices echoing through the dorm. He had spent most of this time visiting the various suburbs around Sydney in search of a more permanent residence. He had quite a bit of money saved, and intended to live alone for as long as he could afford.

It was sheer luck that he stumbled upon the place that was to become his new abode. Trafford had quickly realised that renting a house through a real estate agent was a competitive business. He could never compete with the barrage of people at every viewing each armed with a resume of top jobs and references to match. He had just been to a particularly busy open house in the once working class turned trendy, now posh, suburb of Balmain, and had decided to give up and find a pub. Trafford had been walking down a leafy street lined with Victorian houses on one side and an elevated view of the harbor and city on the other when he caught a glimpse of a huge old oak tree towering up above one of the slate roofs. He was at once mesmerised by the trees grand stature. Its thick branches swayed slowly in the wind and its dark green leaves seemed to hiss at him as they fluttered in the cool breeze. He must have looked strange standing in the middle of the road staring up over the roof of the old house. So strange the owner soon came out and tried to talk to Trafford.

“Can I help you?” enquired the owner. He was an old man with flashes of grey hair and bronze coloured spectacles.

When Trafford didn’t reply and just continued to stare as if in a dream that could not be broken the old man again inquired in a much louder voice “Are you OK?”

Trafford still continued to stare, not a muscle flinched, not an eyelid blinked.

Julius the owner began to worry and debated whether he should approach this strange looking man in the street, perhaps he had just escaped from a local institute, maybe he should call the police. Before he made up his mind the man in the street closed his eyes and plummeted backwards into the road hitting his head hard on the tarmac. Julius immediately ran to his aid, and as he reached the fallen body, the man opened his eyes and uttered “What happened?” Julius explained how he had been standing in the middle of the road for at least half an hour just staring up over his roof. Trafford remembered and replied “I was admiring your oak tree and then the next thing I knew I was down here.”

“How strange, maybe its dehydration, it can creep up on you and make you do the oddest things. Look why don’t you come inside for a bit and I will make you a nice cup of tea and take a look at that bump on your head.”

Julius brewed a pot of tea and the two men got chatting. Trafford explained he had recently come over from the U.K to start a new life, and that he was out looking for a place to rent. The old man told him how he had also moved over with his wife from the U.K forty years ago. They had lived together all this time in the same house until she died four years ago. He told Trafford about the history of the neighborhood and its rise from a poor working class suburb to its current fashionable status. He talked at length about the colourful local characters that had lived and died on the Balmain peninsula. They got on so well that before they knew it several hours had passed. Eventually Trafford got up to make a move and head back to his soulless noisy dorm room existence. “Thank you so much for your hospitality; I am really sorry for my strange behavior earlier”

“Oh please don’t worry the heat can do strange things when you aren’t used to it.” Julius proclaimed. “Anyway I have really enjoyed your company”

“Me too, you are the first friendly face I have seen in weeks”

“Before you go would you like to take a proper look at the tree you were so fascinated with earlier?”

“I would love too and I promise not to go all strange on you again.”

“It is quite a site! In fact its one of the oldest Trees in the neighborhood; it was here long before this house was built”

Julius gestured Trafford towards the door that led out the back of the house. The garden was small charming and perfectly formed. Julius clearly took great pride in his little oasis. There was an abundance of plant life and smells to match. The sweet odor of jasmine mixed with frangipani hung in the late afternoon air, Trafford breathed it in enjoying the matching visual festival of colour. At the centre was the large oak tree which stretched up far above the houses. Its trunk was thick and dark, the bark had deep thick gorges that flowed up into the green foliage. Trafford placed his hand on the cool wood and ran his palms over its calluses. As he began to hug the thick trunk a flock of red, green and blue parakeets descended onto the branches above chatting loudly to each other. He looked up to see the birds perched on the end of every branch like a colorful blossom. The sound of their chatting became louder and louder and Trafford began to feel dizzy. He felt almost intoxicated by the colour, noise and strong sickly scent of blooming flowers. As he continued to gaze up, the tree began to spin, faster and faster, the colour of the birds, leaves and tree blended into a circular rainbow. He could just hear Julius shouting in the background but he couldn’t make out what he was saying, and his voice soon faded to nothing.

Trafford awoke with a jolt; he was lying in bed covered tightly by a perfectly folded sheet and woolen blanket. It brought back memories of nights spent at his grandparents, long since passed. He unfastened himself from the well tucked bedding and got out of bed. He opened the blinds to reveal a perfect view of the harbor and city. He was still in Julius’s house; he must have passed out and been put to bed. He felt embarrassed and was dreading having to confront his host. His clothes had been folded and placed carefully on a chair at the end of the bed. He dressed quickly, opened the bedroom door and headed downstairs to face the music.

The narrow stairs creaked under his weight as he sheepishly descended into the living area. The small cluttered room was empty and cold, he moved through to the front room which was equally devoid of his host. Lastly he checked the kitchen to find under a set of keys a piece of paper with his name on it. The handwriting looked somehow familiar as he read the note aloud.

Dear Trafford,

I hope you slept comfortably. I enjoyed your company and conversation yesterday. I have unfortunately been called away on some errands but should be back shortly. Please make yourself at home, and feel free to stay here with me as long as you like. I have left you a set of keys so that you may come and go as you please.

Best wishes,

Julius

Trafford was relieved to hear there was no mention of any strange behavior, and pleased that he had found somewhere different from the backpackers to stay. He made himself some tea and toast before heading back to Kings Cross to collect his gear and settle his bill.

He returned several hours and a few beers later to an empty house. Julius had not come home, so he had the whole place to himself. With a bit of rummaging he managed to rustle himself up a tuna sandwich and a glass of sweet sherry, which he carried up to the first floor balcony so he could enjoy the sunset views.

He had barely finished his sandwich before he descended into a deep sleep. Some hours later he awoke in bed choking for air, he was being strangled. He fought for his life tearing at the thick limbs that encircled his neck. He soon realised that it was not arms but branches of a tree that he was fighting. The oak tree was trying to kill him. He did not have time to reason why or how, it would only be a few moments before he passed out. He flayed his arms out to the side of him in search of a weapon, anything he could hit back with. His right arm brushed against the metal base of the deco lamp on the table to the side. He summoned all the energy he had left in his weakening body, grabbed hold of the lamp and brought it crashing down on the attacking branches. The lamp smashed sending tiny shards of green glass across his body. The tree hissed and released its grip for a second. He span and shook managing to release himself from its deathly grip. Leaping from the bed he shot out the door down the stairs, through the lounge and dining area into the quiet night. He ran naked, except for his white underpants, down the middle of the street, until eventually he came to a park. There he rested on a on a park bench and took his first real breath. As the oxygen filled his lungs and made its way back to his starved brain he took stock of what had happened and where he was. The park was quiet except for the rustle of branches and whistle of the grass in the wind. He felt cold and his teeth began to chatter. As his eyes adjusted to the light he could make out a white figure lying in grass.

He decided to approach the person and see if maybe they could help him. He couldn’t really go back to the house, and he didn’t want to wander around the streets in nothing but his underpants. This person might be his only way out of the situation he found himself in. As he got closer he could see that in the grass laying face down was a tall woman with long red hair wearing a flowing white cotton dress. He didn’t want to scare her, so he quietly asked “excuse me miss please don’t be alarmed but I really need some help.” The woman didn’t stir or move. He tried again but louder. Still no movement and it dawned on him that maybe the woman was in more trouble than him. He reached down and gently touched her. He could hear strained breathing and a low deep desperate murmur coming from her lungs. He quickly turned her body over and as he did he felt a thick warm sensation; he looked down to see his hands covered in blood. The front of her dress was soaked dark red and her neck was purple and bruised. She looked at him through frightened eyes and began to scream, a piercing terrified call for help.

He awoke again in bed. He was covered in a cold thick sweat and was shivering. It had all been a dream. It was nearly midday when he rose and went downstairs. His first reaction was to head outside to check on the tree just to make sure, but he decided to take a shower and clean up first. He felt much better and made himself a cup of tea before heading outside to the garden. The tree was still standing majestically in its place as if nothing had happened. The only strange thing was a large scattering of green leaves had fallen forming a carpet underneath. He found a broom and swept them up before finishing his tea in the early afternoon sun.

He wondered what had happened to Julius, as he had been gone for some time now. He was relieved on heading inside to find another note fixed under a heavy silver bracelet by the sink. He opened it and read it aloud:

Dear Trafford,

Sorry I missed you but you were fast asleep when I returned home last night and I didn’t have the heart to wake you this morning. Please help yourself to anything you need, and we will talk again when I am back.

Best wishes,

Julius

Trafford felt a warm glow inside. It was so rare to meet someone so nice and welcoming. He decided to head out and do some shopping for the house. He thought when he got back he would make a nice meal to thank Julius for his kindness.

His specialty was roasts; he had learnt his grandmother’s secret recipe for slow roasted pork shoulder in cider and decided this would be a good choice. He spent a good few hours shopping for ingredients in the local stores. He bought a couple of expensive bottles of wine, a red and a white, as he didn’t know what Julius favored, and headed home in anticipation of a nice evening.

It was around five thirty by the time he got the meat on for its three hour stint in the oven. He found some wood in the small outside toilet turned storage room and made about starting a fire in the open Victorian fireplace in the lounge. He cracked open the red poured a glass and sat in the soft armchair to wait for Julius. He must have dozed off for he awoke to the high pitched sound of the fire alarm above his head. He leapt up and ran into the kitchen to reveal the burnt cinders of his dinner in the oven. It was nearly two in the morning and Julius had still not returned, so he cleaned up the mess and headed to bed.

That night he once again dreamed a strange dream. He was back in the park and this time he was dressed but not in his clothes. He was wearing tweed trousers and a matching blazer similar to the ones he had seen in the wardrobe in which he had placed the contents of his backpack the day before. He was sat on the same bench and could make out a figure dressed in black lying face down in the grass. As he approached he could see that she had long dark hair and was wearing a flowing cotton dress. He asked quietly “Are you OK, can I help?” There was no sound. He knelt down and could hear the woman quietly crying into the grass. He touched her and felt the now familiar feeling of warm fresh blood on her body. As he turned her over she cowered hiding her beaten face from his. He stood over her and tried to speak, but she looked at him terrified and screamed a long gurgling cry for help.

He woke up in bed. This time he was not sweating and he knew it had just been a dream. He headed downstairs to see if Julius had returned. There was no one home, he was still alone. As he headed into the kitchen to start his morning tea making ritual he noticed another note held in place by a gold ankle chain. He opened the hand written note and read it aloud.

Dear Trafford

Sorry I missed you again but I didn’t get back until very early this morning. I hope you didn’t go to any effort to make me dinner. I did attempt to wake you before I left but you wouldn’t stir. I will try to come back earlier tonight so we can catch up properly. I feel we have a lot more to discuss. Have a nice day, and please make yourself at home.

Best wishes,

Julius

P.S Please be careful when cooking not to burn the house down

Trafford did wonder what a man nearly in his seventies could be doing out so late every night, but guessed it was none of his business.

He headed into the garden to enjoy his tea in the sun, and everything outside was the same except for another even thicker carpet of leaves below the tree.

Every night that week Trafford would get home make dinner, and every night Julius did not return. The dreams continued. Each was the same except for a few things. The clothes he wore always changed, and the girls were always different. He became more confident within each one and by the end of the week they were becoming quite matter of fact. Everyday he would get up and find a new note from Julius under a different piece of jewelry. He had also become quite worried about the huge Oak tree as it was shedding more and more leaves as each night passed. Even the chatting birds had long since abandoned the great tree for a livelier meeting place.

After nearly two weeks alone Trafford had made the decision to leave the next day. The dreams whilst matter of fact, were bothering him, and they didn’t seem normal. He had thought perhaps a change of scenery might do him some good. That night he packed his bag and prepared to move on. He went to bed around eleven o’clock and lay in bed waiting for another strange dream. It never happened, he slept a long deep dreamless night and awoke surprised, happy and refreshed. He got up and headed downstairs to see what Julius had written today. There was no note so he headed outside to say good buy to the sick tree, only to find there were no more leaves furnishing its thick branches; just a skeleton of dead wood filled the sky above him. It was as if something or someone had slowly poisoned the tree dragging the life from this mighty beast. He cried deeply and genuinely for the loss of this great old man.

Trafford headed inside and got ready to leave. He sat down and scribbled out a note for Julius and then read it out to himself.

Dear Julius,

I have decided to move on up the coast and see a bit of Australia. It is a shame that we have not been able to catch up again, but it has been nice living in your house all the same. I cannot thank you enough for your hospitality; staying here has been the real highlight of my trip.

I t am also sorry to inform you that it looks like something or someone has poisoned your oak tree. I do hope this doesn’t sadden you too deeply. I only wish there was something I could have done to save it.

If I am ever in town again I will be sure to drop in and visit.

Forever in your debt,

Trafford

With that he placed the note in the kitchen by the sink under a bottle of champagne he had bought to say thank you, and headed to the front door for the last time. Before he could open it and step outside he heard a loud crash of thunder and the sky lit up with electricity. The black clouds opened up and a heavy downpour began. Trafford wasn’t a very prepared traveler and didn’t have any type of protection against such a rainstorm, so he decided to wait a bit until it stopped.

He sat in the soft chair and waited and waited but the rain never ceased. After a few hours he got bored and decided to open the champagne he had bought as a gift. He thought the old man probably wouldn’t drink it anyway. He poured it into a mug and toasted to new pastures and adventures.

Trafford was woken, mug still in hand by a loud clap of thunder, and realised it was already past midnight. He would have to stay one more night, so he headed up the now well trodden creaky stairs to his soft bed, lay down and was asleep in seconds.

Trafford was pulled suddenly from his deep slumber. The crack of breaking wood and collapsing roof deafened him. Plaster fell off the ceiling above and showered him with bricks as the roof came clean off. The wind tore in and the rain soaked him, as the huge oak tree ripped through the house like it was paper. Its final fall missed him by inches taking the wall away on the opposite side of the room. He jumped up and ran downstairs. The front door was blocked but he managed to climb out the kitchen window into the relative safety of the garden.

The dead tree had been torn clean up by its roots revealing a huge chasm in the earth around it. As he looked into the huge hole he saw something that sent shivers up his spine. Lying there was the bloated muddy disfigured body of a man. He could still make out grey wisps of hair and a pair of bronze spectacles attached to what was once Julius’s face. He screamed in horror but this time he did not wake up. As he looked in at the awful site he noticed Julius was not alone but part of a mangle of rotting dead body parts.

Trafford reeled back in shock and disbelief. He stood transfixed not knowing what to do next. Only the sound of sirens from the emergency services in the distance, and the noise of neighbors getting up broke him from his trance.

He ran and hurled himself over the six foot high fence at the back of the garden, into the muddy ally behind. From here he sprinted into the wet night. He felt he had been running for hours before he came to rest in a park. There in the middle was the bench from his dreams. Trafford sat and rested taking in what he had just witnessed. He looked over towards where he had found the women each night in his sleep and saw nothing. As he approached he noticed the grass was flattened as if someone had recently laid there. He knelt down and felt the compacted green space, it felt familiar and almost comforting. Then his mind flicked back to Julius and the dead people beneath the tree and he began to panic.

How could it be possible, the body he had seen looked as if it had been there for weeks, but Julius had been leaving him notes up until a night ago? He fumbled in his pockets looking for proof and pulled out the wedge of letters that Julius had written to him. They were real, so it couldn’t be true. He read through them one by one, until finally he came to the thank you letter he had written to Julius. He must have put it in his pocket accidently when he opened the champagne. As he read his words he noticed there was something strange about it, something similar to the other letters. Then in a moment of calm realisation it dawned on him, the handwriting on his and Julius’s letters was identical, and it was unmistakably his.

The Poisoned Tree (Lindsay Ratcliffe)

2009-10-27T12:30:00.000+11:00

So Shall Ye Reap

by Lindsay Ratcliffe

Nothing is ever really perfect. Most people grasp this concept at a fairly early stage in their lives and learn to accept it. John, my husband, on the other hand, will never accept that perfect is not achievable. He strives for it in everything he does and expects it of everyone and everything else. I don’t really believe he has ever experienced contentment or true happiness, which, speaking as his wife of eleven years, is a pretty difficult statement to make.

How can I live with his malcontent you might want to know? Well in the same way that anyone can learn to live with an affliction. You can either seek out a cure or you can try to understand it and gradually learn to live with it. I believe his condition is caused by the fact that he is an identical twin. This is not a generalisation about all pairs of identical twins, but rather a specific conclusion based on my detailed observations about my husband John and his relationship with his brother Adam.

Adam was born first, and it seems that John has never forgiven Adam, or himself, for that fact. Instead, he has spent his whole life trying to beat Adam at everything else. Knowing that this is his psychosis makes it somewhat easier to deal with because when he’s acting up I have a good reason to ignore his behaviour and focus on something more meaningful, instead of stressing about it. Oh and I should point out that this diagnosis is not one that have shared or will share with John. He believes he simply wants the best for himself and his family and that Adam has no bearing on anything he does.

In late winter we moved into a new home in the south end of Coogee and even though it’s in the South of Coogee, as John liked to emphasise, it’s not in South Coogee. Apparently an important distinction. It’s a free-standing, three-storey house with four bedrooms and only one other house between us and the ocean. Most important, due to our elevated angle on the cliff side we have uninterrupted sea views from most of the easterly facing facets of the house. We can’t quite afford it of course, but at least in John’s opinion we have a better home, with better views and in a better location than Adam does. Don’t get me wrong, it is pretty spectacular, but it feels tainted. Not pure somehow.

After settling in and doing a couple of minor modifications to personalise the house, we invited a few friends, including Adam and his wife Anna, over for a small house warming. We were lucky as it was during one of the shoulder weather weeks, where officially it’s still winter, yet the temperatures and humidity tantalise with the first taste of summer. We polished the Riedel glasses, uncorked a couple of bottles of good wine from the cellar and took delight as our guests made the appropriate ‘ooo’s and ‘ah’s as the evening light fade on the uninterrupted view of the sea from the balcony.

Everyone was suitably impressed with the house: the interior, the exterior and the view. I topped up Adam’s glass with a rather nice 2005 Shiraz Viogner. He swilled the dark viscous liquid around the crystal glass and then sipped. He nodded at me. At first I thought it was a nod of approval at the wine but moments later I realised it was a kind of warning for the goading that he was about to administer to my husband.

“Well my brother, you have come a long way! This has been a truly magnificent evening. Wonderful company, wonderful wine in a beautiful house in a fantastic location! Here’s to you, Mica and the kids!”

Everyone raised their glasses. John smiled triumphantly, yet before he had chance to seal the victory with a swig from his glass Adam added,

“Shame about that damn tree though!”

“What?”

All of a sudden, as if Mother Nature herself had just dropped by and made a surprise delivery, we all turned and glared at the naked skeleton of the tree that clung to the hillside somewhere between our house and the ocean.

“Well, when spring hits properly and that tree is in all its glory, you can say goodbye to your ocean views!”

Adam somehow managed to find the one flaw in John’s dream. John choked as if the wine had coagulated in his throat; neither of us had ever noticed the tree before. He dabbed at his nostrils with a napkin trying to hide any evidence of wine stained mucus that might betray his dismay. He cleared his throat,

“Oh that thing. I have plans for. It’s half dead anyway.”

“Plans hey? I’m sure the local council would have something to say about you hacking up the environment considering the bazillions they just forked on coastal facelift!”

I watched the candlelight play in Adam’s eyes. Finding John’s button was like hitting the Jackpot at a Vegas casino and he wasn’t about to walk away. And John, without fail, rose to the bait.

“Yeah, exactly! Why spend all that money and leave a mangy tree to spoil it? I’d be doing them a favour and saving them money!”

Sarah, a good friend of mine and the wife of John’s offsider at work chipped in,

“You can’t just go around getting rid of trees! There are laws against that.”

Closely followed by Anna, Adam’s wife,

“Not just laws, but what about ethics. The rest of the world is campaigning to save trees and you’re talking about running around cutting them down!”

John was on the back foot now, trying his best to save face as well as his views.

“Hey hey, let’s not blow this out of proportion. I’m not talking about felling an entire South American rain forest! The damn thing’s probably not even native and not even meant to be here in the first place!”

Anna pushed back her chair, stood and with both hands planted firmly on the table leant in towards John.

“You’re right. It’s not native. It’s European. It’s an Oak tree and an old one at that!”

“It can’t be that old if it’s not native?” Adam tried to deter his wife from getting too inflamed but she continued regardless:

“Oak is regarded as the King of the Forest in England! It’s even said to be the wood of Merlin’s wand. It’s sacred. All trees are sacred as they connect the earth with the sky…”

“Oh enough of your hippie bullshit! You’ll be asking us to dance naked around it next!” John tried to make light humour.

“Hmmm seeing your milky flesh ripple in abject rhythm, didn’t factor into my plan to save the tree, but whatever it takes!”

John instantly pulled back his shoulders and pulled in his fine-dined stomach. We all laughed, hoping Anna’s dry humour hadn’t soaked up what was left of the atmosphere of a good evening.

She turned her back and headed towards the house, then turned but continued to walk backwards.

“Do you believe in karma John?”

“Oh here we go!”

“In every culture John, there’s a similar philosophy: that you get back what you give out. Some even believe that you reap up to three times what you sow. For good and bad. Just keep that in mind before you decide to kill that tree John.”

She smiled, but she meant every word of what she said.

“I was joking about the fucking tree Anna! Jeeze!”

“Do what you will Adam, I’m just saying, that actions have consequences.”

“OK, OK! I get it! The tree lives!”

The evening didn’t last much longer. I tried in vain to reignite conversation about a random topic in Anna’s brief absence. When Anna returned, she just stared tranced-like past the tree, out to the milky reflection of the moon on the sea. Adam revelled in goading John, who sulked into the rest of his wine before accidently dropping one of the Reidels on the tiled floor. Needless to say, it didn’t survive intact. I was less than impressed and Anna and Adam left shortly afterwards, probably to avoid the uncomfortable domestic that was brewing.

******

Almost twelve months to the day, John and I were laying the table on the patio for lunch. I’d made quite an effort and even baked a quiche, with home-made pastry. Something I hadn’t done for years. It had cracked a little when I rolled it but seemed to have held together pretty well in the baking. I saw Anna walking up the path from the sea, closely followed by Adam. Anna waved, but I noticed a tight-lipped smile. The kind that you see before the wearer delivers uncomfortable news.

John walked out polishing a Reidel glass. I glared at him. He returned the Reidel to its rightful place indoors and returned with the cheap glasses. Adam and Anna appeared on the patio. We kissed and hugged and exchanged the perfunctory greetings. John didn’t bother asking, he just handed Anna a glass of wine. She took it from him, raised her eyebrow to acknowledge the use of the cheap glass, swilled the wine around the bowl and then sipped. She seemed pleasantly placated that the wine was of much better quality than the glass led her to believe.

“Have you seen the sign?”

Both John and I quizzed each other’s faces. Neither of us knew what Anna was referring to.

“The yellow public notice board on next door’s fence?”

John walked to the limit of the patio to eye the article in question.

“What is it?”

“Looks like they’ve got permission to extend.”

My automatic reaction was to hold my breath and clench my jaw. Anna took a larger mouthful of wine than one would normally do, probably to brace herself for what she knew would follow. For a second I thought John was going to leap over the balcony. He gripped the handrail tight with both hands leaning as far over as he could, then turned on his heels and fled across the patio and down the stairs to the path. Adam, Anna and I, walked blindly to the place John had just occupied, compelled like onlookers to a car crash.

John stood by the temporary fencing, in the shadow of the north side of our neighbour’s house. It had been wrecked, beyond simple repair, when the electrical storms of late spring had felled the dying oak tree and flattened the front porch, living room and second story balcony. Since then they had done no more than make the house safe.

The muscles in John’s cheeks were clenched so tightly that we could see them from our position on the balcony. His hands were balled into fists even tighter. He stormed back towards our house.

“I guess a relaxing lunch will be out of the question now?” I murmured under my breath to Anna, who offered an apologetic smile, even though she had nothing to apologise for.

“What’s wrong darling?” I offered in the lightest tone I could muster.

“Fucking three storeys!! Three fucking storeys!! They can’t do it! It will wipe tens of thousands off our house! We’ll dwarf in comparison, we’ll be in their shade and they’ll rob us completely of our sea view! We’ll see nothing of it from here if these plans go ahead! There’s no fucking way!! Over my dead fucking body! Over my fucking DEAD body!”

Inconsolable was an understatement. Adam tried,

“Hey mate, they haven’t got full permission yet, it’s only in the planning stages. It might not be allowed to go ahead!”

This riled him further,

“He’s on the fucking council! Of course he’s gonna get permission!”

“Gosh, I guess this is after the insurance claim for the damage done by the tree? You can’t blame them in some respects, no point in just making good, you might as well make it better.”

Anna had a great habit of saying what everyone else was thinking but no-one else would dare say out loud. John was pacing. With each turn of direction his mood grew meaner. The throbbing veins on his forehead showed the strain, as he considered all his various options. I knew I needed to rescue the quiche from the oven before it burnt, not that it would probably get eaten now, but I felt rooted to the spot. I was worried that if I wasn’t there that John would do something that we would both end up regretting.

He picked up the large paperweight that had been used to stop the napkins blowing away. In my calmest but firmest voice I said,

“John, just what ever you’re thinking of doing, don’t! Just put down the paper weight John.”

He brought the paperweight up into both his hands and squeezed as hard as he could, channelling all his anger. His shoulders slumped forward and he put the paperweight back on the table.

“What the fuck anyway!”

He was defeated. Broken. He picked up his wine and drank the whole glass down without taking a breath. I gingerly placed my hand on his shoulder to comfort him and show my solidarity in his grief for what was our short-lived dream home.

“It is pretty unfair on you guys.”

Anna offered. I raised my eyebrows, John was too broken to react.

“Pretty unfair? You think?”

“Well most things happen for a reason. Actions have consequences and all that…”

“Anna come on…” Adam tried to dissuade Anna from saying too esoteric.

“Well it was an accident, a freak of nature, that the tree damaged their house. You’ve gotta ask why bad things happen to good people?”

John poured himself another glass of wine.

“Not everything has rhyme and reason, shit can just happen!”

This was exactly how I would have expected John retort, however something odd struck me about his tone. When he’s passionate, his voice is strong and he is animated. However his tone was passive, as if defeated or that he didn’t believe what he just said. It seemed that only I noticed this lack of conviction as Anna continued to try to console us with her brand of reason.

“Who could have warranted that the storm would have uprooted that Oak tree? It’s a tree known for its strength and endurance. They usually don’t just fall down. Then for their bad luck to result in a massive win for them. It’s almost like they planned it! I wonder if it’s an insurance scam?”

“Maybe it is just Karma after all.”

John finished his second glass of wine in much the same way as the first.

“John, what do you mean?”

He still spoke in the same defeated tone. I didn’t quite get where he was coming from. It seemed Anna did though. Her expression flashed from one of sympathy to one of disbelief. She rose up.

“You did something didn’t you John? That oak tree didn’t just fall because of the storm?”

John hung his head and emptied the rest of the bottle into his glass.

“John what did you do?”

I hoped he was about to deny whatever it was that Anna was intimating.

“The tree wasn’t native. It shouldn’t have been here anyway!” he said in some pathetic attempt to excuse his actions.

“John what did you do?” I repeated.

“It was in our way, blocking our view.”

“John what did you do?”

“I poisoned the tree. I poisoned the fucking tree! I was going to get on to the council to dig it up when it died! I didn’t know a freaking storm would rip it up and dump it on next doors house. I certainly didn’t know it would mean they got an insurance pay out that would mean they could replace the fucking tree with a three fucking storey extension!”

Somewhere inside the house I could hear the mechanical scream of the smoke alarm. My quiche was burning.

The Poisoned Tree (David Reid)

2009-10-27T11:45:00.000+11:00

The Poisoned Tree

by David Reid

Not so long ago I used to fantasize about having time on my hands, time to write or draw or paint or play guitar or build or read or lie in the sun, and most of all, time to think my thoughts. A year ago my wish came true: retired forever through one moment of stupidity, one ill conceived lift which damaged my spine beyond repair. And now I sit staring out the window while my wife works and fantasizes about having free time.

So I sit and stare at trees and waste weeks at a time and pray for something new to occupy my thoughts, something big and important and worrying, something compelling enough to interrupt my unhealthy introspection. I look at the empty windows next door, and think about what was, what almost was, and I wonder if I could have done things differently, and if that would have changed anything. Five years ago would have been the time to do it, to maybe throw the switch and send destiny down another track. A tree, now five years old, but somehow, I suspect, so much older.

The house next door was empty back then, but that was all about to change.

…

I looked up from my computer to see a moving van out front of the place next door. It was a Saturday and I was wrestling with a spreadsheet which absolutely refused to behave. I’d come to two conclusions at roughly the same time; first, there was something odd about the formatting of the numbers which made the equations fall apart, and second, I really needed to get a job which didn’t encroach on my allegedly spare time. My wife of some twenty odd years was making kitchen noises in the kitchen. Somehow, she managed to make similar noises regardless of what room she was in, but that’s another story.

The house had been on the market for a few months, a situation we weren’t altogether comfortable with. We’d always liked our neighbors, inasmuch as they never called the cops on our invariably late and invariably noisy parties. I had a theory about suburbs and neighbours. You could live in the most exclusive burb and be surrounded by assholes, and apart from paying inflated land rates, you’d have little to show for your investment. Or, you could live in a shitty neighbourhood with good people on either side as a buffer, and live like a king. We had the best neighbors of all, people who went their own way and did their own things – whatever they were – and basically left us the hell alone. So the arrival of new people filled us with not a little trepidation.

I called my wife over for a look.

‘I’m busy,’ she said, dropping a few dozen saucepans into the sink by way of punctuation.

‘He’s young and hot.’ We’d been married so long and knew each other’s tastes pretty well. She could have just had easily have said the same to me about a woman. ‘He’ was lugging a depressingly large carton, tendons and veins bulging through otherwise lean forearms. The denim jeans and black T-shirt didn’t give away much – tradie or roadie would have fit equally well. Sharon – my wife – came and leaned across me, slowly parting the curtain a little more for a better look.

‘He’s probably gay. Or works for the removalists,’ she said. ‘No, wait, what’s this? Hmm. Looks like your luck might have turned too.’ Sharon didn’t sound entirely happy.

Like I said, I knew her type, and she knew mine. Mine was harder to define. It wasn’t as simple as blonde or tits or ass, although they were all definitely present in our apparently new neighbour, emerging from the back of the van. It was more stature – or lack thereof – and a certain vulnerability or shyness. It’s amazing how much one can pickup in a brief glance, but both my wife and I were instantly aware that our neighbourhood was suddenly and irrevocably changed. Sharon turned quietly and walked back into the kitchen.

‘What?’ I called after her, in a slightly offended tone, knowing full well. She admired young male flesh in a respectful, almost worshipful way, secure in the knowledge that her catholic guilt would derail any improper thoughts that went much beyond a handshake. On the other hand, on a semi-regular basis some poor young girl would make the mistake of finding me funny or interesting and I would spend the next year or so obsessing about her. I continued to watch the activity next door until it became painfully clear that the young couple next door were outrageously happy.

The next day was Sunday, and I left early to check out the local market. Sharon liked to sleep late on weekends. I came back with a small tree. I shouldn’t have as I’m really clueless about such things, but I saw it in a pot and it looked like a housewarming gift and so I bought it. I didn’t ask what it was, how to look after it, or how big it grew. I woke Sharon to share my excitement at being so neighbourly. She rolled over and muttered into the pillow:

‘I suppose you’d like me to get up and bake some fucking muffins too?’

I didn’t go next door immediately. I went back to the computer and spreadsheet, and I swear that it was only seeing her husband leaving the house that reminded me I had a present for her. Sorry, them.

By this time Sharon was up.

‘I’m taking that tree over now. Sure you don’t want to come?’

‘Not really.’

‘Fine.’

Which is how and where it all started. There was no shortage of chemistry between Chris and me. True to form I obsessed over her. True to form, Sharon tolerated it, just. Chris planted the tree on the boundary, between her place and ours, so I could see it from my computer and she, coincidentally, from hers.

…

It is only with 20-20 hindsight that you ever realize the things you thought were trivial weren’t, that the things that seemed so fucking important at the time were just noise, and that the truly important things were the things that you simply didn’t think about at all. It took a few years to even suspect there was something truly odd about the tree. Not having been gifted with a green thumb, the only thought I gave to the seasons was my yearly rant at the deciduous trees dotting our yard that made mowing such a pain in the ass for a few weeks each year. Consequently, the fact that the ‘gift’ blossomed and grew according to its own bizarre timetable was lost on me for ages, and would have continued to be lost on me if I hadn’t spent so much time at that damned computer desk, staring at it.

For the first year, the new neighbours - Chris and Trevor - appeared to be fantastically happy, but not so much when we were around. We had invited them to a couple of parties, and they invited us across for dinner. Chris and I always had a blast, less so our respective spouses. Sharon didn’t appear to particularly like either of them, and this was reciprocated by Trevor. That is, until Chris got pregnant. Everyone was suddenly over the moon, and for a while things went swimmingly. We were all suddenly best of friends, no doubt due to the insurance policy Chris was now carrying in her belly. Five months in, it seemed that even the tree was getting into the mood. One day, I looked out to see it had grown a foot overnight and was peppered with red flowers. I jumped on the computer and fired up the chat client, to share this revelation with Chris, on the offchance that she was online. She was.

She had miscarried the night before.

Autumn and Winter came and went, and to Trevor’s credit he supported her throughout. They may not have been happier as such, but the relationship was definitely stronger for it. Throughout, I had a clear view into their living room, as the tree was a barren stick. With Spring, Chris appeared to get her love of life back, and in the evenings we’d often spend hours online, using thousands of dollars worth of computers and ten times that in network infrastructure to chat back and forth across a distance of a little over ten metres.

One night in particular we’d been flirting a little, probably fuelled by red wine I was in the habit of drinking in the evenings after a tough day. There was nothing unusual in this, inasmauch as it was our sordid little secret and we had our boundaries which were fairly well established. Nevertheless, we were careful to delete the histories of our respective PCs after a session. I switched off my monitor, and went to the kitchen to make a coffee, and when the kettle stopped screaming I could briefly hear raised voices and a yelp. I switched off the lights in the kitchen and slid towards the window. At first I thought their lights were off too, but then I realized that the tree was obscuring her window.

After that I had a succession of early starts and late finishes at work, and gave very little thought to the incident. But the following Saturday, as I left to get a newspaper, I looked properly at the tree. Again, it seemed to have put on a growth spurt, and was covered in red flowers. While I knew enough about trees to realize that such things tend to happen when the sun comes back out, I found it vaguely unsettling. I heard a door slam and, partially hidden behind the tree, I waited while Trevor started his car and drove off, very obviously angry.

I watched until his car disappeared, then knocked on her door. I waited, then knocked again. I could head muffled noises, so I knocked again, harder.

‘Who is it?’

‘Me.’

Silence.

‘Can I come in?’

After a moment I heard the chain drop, and the door opened. She was in a white bathrobe, wet, clearly just out of the shower. She looked away quickly, head down. She appeared to be trembling slightly. I moved through the doorway.

‘Hey. I just thought I…’ I began, but she spun around and looked up at me, close. She had a massive bruise on her cheek. I started to ask whether he had done it, but her look said it all. She threw her arms around me and it’s a measure of how thoroughly stunned I was that I completely failed to have a single inappropriate thought about the wet, naked body shuddering against me. I must have been in denial, as it didn’t even occur to me to ask if it was my fault.

…

She stayed with him for another year. Things grew increasingly cool between me and Sharon until one Thursday I left work early with a migraine, and walked through my front door only to bump into Trevor coming out the other way. Sharon was in bed, naked, and didn’t even do me the courtesy of looking embarrassed. I turned and watched Trevor leave. He went straight to his car and drove off. I sat on my porch and glanced next door. The tree was massive. I never saw Trevor again, and Sharon and I never spoke of it. I suppose on some level I felt I deserved it.

You’d be forgiven for thinking, as I’m sure Sharon and Trevor did, that I’d have capitalized on this and jumped straight into bed with Chris. Sorry if I’ve mislead you, but we weren’t like that, not at that stage anyway. I’d spent the past year trying to watch over her and protect her from the thug she’d married for some inexplicable reason. It would have been so very easy to take the opportunity to actually feel that skin and body I’d been imagining for so long, but it would have felt like an abuse of my role of protector.

On the other hand, I’m not a complete idiot. I allowed my wife to believe what ever she wished, and began spending more and more time next door. Some nights we’d just talk until the small hours, other nights we’d just lie on the couch together watching movies. The arrangement appeared to suit Sharon, perhaps balancing the books for her. All in all, we were pretty happy again – well, I was - although I couldn’t help but wonder about Chris’s future. Life was pretty normal, and one night I was sitting at the computer again, when I noticed I couldn’t see Chris’s window at all. Perhaps because I no longer needed to play voyeur, I simply hadn’t noticed how much the tree had grown.

The next day I went outside with my lopping secateurs and began trimming it back. It was late spring, and the tree was fully decked out in leaves, but no flowers. I spent a good two hours trimming it back, then went inside for a break. Sharon was watching television. I made her a coffee and kissed her on the top of the head. She smiled a contented smile. Things really were getting back to normal. I sat next to her and we watched a little TV, then went back outside to clean up the mess.

The tree not only appeared to be at least as bushy as before, but it was covered in red blooms. I sprinted to her front door and pushed it open. I raced through the house, my heart threatening to burst.

‘Chris!’

‘What!’

I pushed open the bathroom door and she stepped out of the shower, and stared at me. It’s amazing how much one can pick up in a brief glance, let alone a lingering look that screams what it is you’ve wanted to hear for as long as you can remember. I stepped towards her, and she held out her hands to me. She took a single step then her feet slid out from beneath her. I grabbed for her hands, but her head hit the edge of the bath anyway and that’s about all I remember except for the red.

…

I tried cutting it down but it grew back. I tried poisoning it but it grew back. I tried digging it out but it broke my back, and now it’s autumn again.

A Box From Bundaberg (Tristan Sender)

2009-10-13T12:45:00.000+11:00

Writers Block

by Tristan Sender

She awoke with a jolt, and sat up in her bed. She had been dreaming of a faraway place, different in so many ways from her own. As she slowly broke away from the dream and reality took hold, her mood dampened at the thought of another day at work. Tristia climbed from her bed and began her daily ritual. She surveyed herself in the full length mirror she had bought at an auction during one of her work trips into the country. She liked most of what she saw. Tristia was five foot one inches tall and had delicate features. Her hands were small and slender, but her fingers were surprisingly long. Her skin was a porcelain white contrasted only by raven black hair, and large coal colored eyes. Two other recent additions of body art also broke up the white landscape on her back. The first black tattoo at the base of her back was a crown, the type a king would wear, and the second just below her right shoulder a shield with a coat of arms, that she had designed herself.

Tristia pulled herself away from the mirror; she didn’t have time for such indulgence, and opened the blinds to reveal the day. It took a moment to register before she took a step back partly in shock but mostly in awe. The sky was not like any she had witnessed before. A thick orange engulfed the world, it was as if the sun rise had moved in and surrounded her home. The only comparison she could make was to when she was a child living in England and had pulled open the curtains to reveal a landscape covered in white snow. This time the feelings of excitement were replaced with fear. Her first reaction was to run down the stairs and open the cupboard beneath. Inside she saw the box piled high with tins of tuna, bottles of water and other necessities. Ben an associate from work who was paranoid about everything had persuaded her to go out and buy an emergency supply of survival food and water, just in case Armageddon was to one day hit her quiet Sydney suburb. She had eventually complied more to shut him up than anything else, she was pleased today that she had.

Tristia felt a little stupid standing naked under her stairs looking at a box of tinned food. She rummaged inside and found the little portable radio that was included in her doomsday survival kit. She turned it on and was relieved to hear the sound of music and voices as she scanned through the stations to find the ABC. The serious reporters soon made her feel even more silly, revealing that this mystical orange world was not the result of nuclear attack, but a dust storm that had blown in from the outback of New South Wales and Queensland. Apparently they hadn’t seen anything like it for at least 20 years, but there was no risk to anyone except the old or chronically ill. She felt a little disappointed, and then guilty for actually being excited at the prospect of Armageddon.

Tristia was a sales rep for a billboard company, but she did not sell advertising space. It was her job to find locations for new billboards and then persuade the owners to allow her company to erect one or more on their property. Her targets varied from large land owners to families excited by the prospect of a little extra income. She had previously worked for a company that erected mobile phone towers but had always felt bad about persuading families to place potentially hazardous mobile waves so close to their loved ones. They used to tell people cigarettes were good for them, and she was sure one day it would come out that having these towers in your backyard or on your roof was a health risk or worse. She didn’t particularly like her job, but she was good at it and it afforded her a lot of alone time. She had always hated the prospect of being cooped up in some open plan office, surrounded by people at every angle, with no where but the toilet cubicle to hide. Tristia was a loner who generally preferred her own company to that of others. She was not interested in the chitter chatter of office politics, or the sex lives of those that sat around her. Unfortunately this lack of interest and desire to keep her personal life personal had always intrigued people. They always wanted to know more about her than she was willing to tell, and the less she opened up the more they tried.

Today Tristia only had to make a few local calls to finalise a couple of contracts with farmers who had land backing on to the M4 motorway. Often her job would take her much further afield for several days at a time. She liked these trips into the country it gave her time to think and dream about the stories that she would one day write.

****************

Her last long trip had been about a month ago and had taken her a long way North. She had driven the nine hours to Byron Bay with only two breaks, one to eat the other to use the bathroom. Byron was not her destination, her sales focus for this trip was further up into Queensland, but it made for a lovely stop over. Her company allowed her two days to make it up to Brisbane and start making sales calls, so driving this section quickly enabled her to spend most of the next day on the beach. These little rest bites gave her a chance to do what she liked most, write. To relax some people drank, others listened to music, Tristia wrote stories. These stories mainly came straight from her dreams, both while she slept and while she drove. When she wrote it was as if the world around her disappeared and she was transported to a new reality. Recently however she had become frustrated with her writing, it was as if everything did not fit or go together in the way that she wanted it to. It was no different that day on the beach; she been trying to start a new story for over a week and had failed. She had thought a day basking in the warm sun looking out over the Pacific Ocean would change this, but it had only made things worse. Her creative energy felt stronger than before, it was as if it was building up inside, but she could not find a way to release it on to the page. She had given up early, put away her notebook and decided to continue her journey north.

Over the next couple of days she concentrated on work finding a few great locations along the A1 highway between Noosa and Bundaberg. She had spent a pleasant night in Noosa but had not felt in the mood for visiting the cafes, bars and beaches that it offered. Her writers block was bothering her, and she felt it best to just get on with the job in hand. After an uneventful night in Bundaberg she headed west. The relative greenery of the coastline had quickly been replaced by a more arid and dusty landscape. The properties grew further and further apart and the horizon seemed to stretch increasingly into the distance. The land felt expansive rugged and real, she loved it out here. After driving for several hours she came across the small village of Rolleston. There she found a little motel where she could park her car right outside the door. The place offered no facilities other than a hard bed a television and a small bathroom with a shower that produced more of a drizzle than a downpour. Tristia was hungry and decided to head out on foot to find some comfort food. She wondered what it was about being alone on the road that made you pine for the guilty pleasures of fried chicken and garlic bread followed by chocolate pudding with custard.

The town offered little more than her motel, its main attraction seemed to be a dusty racecourse on its eastern perimeter. Eventually she came across the town’s local drinking establishment, she wasn’t really a drinker but decided to explore. She realised when it was too late that this wasn’t the sort of place where lone women from the city went to for their entertainment. Inside there was about ten men propped up at the bar in various states of intoxication. The air was thick with swear words and cigarette smoke, it didn’t seem the ban on smoking had reached out here. The darts game playing out on one side of the bar seemed to stop, almost as if the darts had frozen in mid air, as she walked in. It was too late to turn back so she moved sheepishly towards the bar and ordered a beer. It tasted ice cold and refreshing and made her brain ache as she drank nervously fast. It wasn’t long before she was surrounded by four scary looking men. She finished her beer in one huge gulp; her brain pulsed in response to the cold liquid. One of the men immediately offered to buy her another and she felt refusing wouldn’t be the done thing. Acceptance had given the men the right, not that they were asking for it, to come and sit with her. They each gathered a stool and introduced themselves as Linden, Dale, Brett, and Ewen. Linden and Dale were the most outspoken and were quick to explain that they were brothers and local cattle farmers. This seemed to make sense as they were huge muscular lads with leather tanned skin, sun bleached hair, and thick fingers that looked made for working on the land. Their eyes were a deep chocolate brown and glinted with mischief. Brett the local mechanic was shorter than the other two and had dark greasy hair, a well developed beer belly, and small hands with dirty finger nails. His eyes were almost yellow in colour and looked somehow sorrowful. Ewen the smallest of the men was the landlord of the pub they were drinking in. He had curly blond hair and piercing blue eyes that peered out from a face that had seen better days. The first few minutes were a barrage of who, why, where, and, hows, the type of questions she didn’t normally like. Maybe it was the beer, or perhaps the fact that she was in such an alien environment, but she didn’t seem to mind answering. In fact she even got a couple of great leads for billboard sites from Ewen and Dale. Before she knew it she was buying rounds of drinks and had been enlisted to play a few games in their darts team. She had surprised the locals and herself with the skill with which she could throw a dart. By the time she left at around ten she felt she had made some new friends and a couple of potential billboard sites to keep her company happy. Brett who had been the most forward offered to give her a ride home, but she had refused saying she needed to find something to eat and then crash out. He had pointed her in the direction of a local pizza take away that might be open.

Tristia was most certainly merry when she walked outside into the dry hot air, and it must have taken her at least thirty minutes to walk the five hundred meters to find that the pizza place shut a good hour earlier. What was she expecting in a town in the middle of nowhere? She was about to turn around and head home when something caught her attention. It was a smell, one that she recognised but couldn’t immediately put her finger on. A deep low toned luxurious aroma filled her nostrils and intoxicated her imagination. She had to find where this was coming from. As she moved up the street past the pizza shop the smell got stronger, deeper and more complex in nature. She felt like one of the children in the story of the pied piper, except that it was a magical scent, rather than a flute, that she was compelled to follow. She had probably walked fifty meters when she came across a derelict looking old shop. The sign above its window had long since faded away, and all she could make out was the words ‘providor’ and ‘fine’. The window blinds were drawn but there was a flickering light and shadows moving behind. The door was closed and had a large red open sign hanging in it. The odor was so strong now that she knew it had to be coming from inside, but what kind of shop was open at nearly eleven in the evening?

Entering a darkened shop in a strange town in the middle of the night was not the sensible option, but Tristia had never been sensible. The events in the pub earlier and the alcohol in her veins added to her confidence that evening. Before she could change her mind she walked up to the door and knocked twice. There was no answer, so she put her ear to door, and could hear the faint clatter of tools and muffled voices. She had second thoughts but it was too late, the pressure of her face and arm on the door had pushed it open and she stumbled inside. The odor almost smacked her in the face it was deep and intense; she immediately recognised what it was. The smell was of fine leather and reminded her of childhood trips to Brighton beach in her uncle Toby’s Aston Martin, with its hand crafted hide seats and dashboard. Inside the shop there was a small wood paneled room and a large old fashioned timber and glass counter that split the space in two. Behind there were two old men, the first was leaning on the counter writing in what looked like an order book, the second sat further back tapping away on something with a small hammer like object. The room was dimly lit by three ancient looking paraffin lamps which flickered producing eerie shadows around the room. The men seemed unperturbed by their late night visitor and continued to beaver away as she approached. As she got closer she could see behind the glass in the old counter was row upon row of leather writing journals, each was slightly different, in size, colour and design, but equally beautiful as the last. When she reached the counter she could make out that each of these journals had a set of initials and a coat of arms embossed in the bottom right hand corner.

Tristia cleared her throat to make her presence known, and the closest of the men looked up over his steel rimmed glasses and stared straight at her. He had wispy white hair, friendly dark brown eyes and was smiling profusely. “We have been expecting you” he slowly said.

“What do you mean?” she answered in surprise.

“Welcome to James Hardy and Sons fine providers of Journals since 1865. I am Harold Hardy and this is my brother Gregor” he stated closing the book he was writing in with a thud. “Now what type of journal are you looking for today?”

She was bemused by his answer but decided to go with it. She pointed at the counter and remarked “these are all very beautiful, how much would one of them be?”

“Tut, tut, young lady these are not for sale” he sternly replied “each of these have been hand crafted to order. Now if you want us to help you, you will need to tell us a bit more about yourself and the type of stories you plan to write.”

She thought this was not like any conversation she had had in a shop before, perhaps it was all a dream and she had passed out in a ditch somewhere between the pub and the pizza shop. She pinched her self and didn’t wake up, so decided to play along; after all she was beginning to enjoy this dream. She smiled at the old man and replied “Ok where would you like me to start.”

“Come with me “he answered and led her round the counter through to a small office in the back of the shop. The room was piled from floor to ceiling with paperwork and was lit by a single paraffin lamp. There was a small desk in the centre with a shabby sofa on one side and a leather office chair on the other. He beckoned her towards the sofa, and once she had sat took his place opposite. He pulled a notebook from the desk draw and began to question her. She closed her eyes and let her deepest secrets flow out. She told him of the dreams she had, how writing was her only retreat, and of the frustrations she had recently getting anything out on to the page. He acknowledged each of her answers with a long understanding “mmm”. It seemed she had been talking for ages when Harold suddenly stood up cutting her conversation off mid sentence and said “I think we have everything we need, thank you. We will begin your journal immediately, and will send it out as soon as it is ready. We will however need payment in full tonight.” Tristia was at first relieved that they took credit cards, but shocked when Harold returned with the slip for her to sign. The cost was two thousand dollars nearly half a months wages, she signed hoping this was a dream. Harold then led her to the door and with a firm handshake beckoned her good night.

Tristia awoke the next morning fully clothed with a beating head and a dry mouth, her first thought was to remember why she didn’t drink, and the second was to the strange events of yesterday evening. She thought it must have been some kind of drunken dream, she couldn’t even remember how she got home. Then she felt in the pockets of the jeans she was still wearing and pulled out the receipt for two thousand dollars, how stupid could she have been. It would be beans and toast for the rest of the month. Angry with herself she quickly showered, packed up and headed on her way.

On the drive through town she passed by the pizza place and when she reached the shop she had been in the night before slowed and took an inquisitive glance. The window blinds were up and the open sign had been removed from the door. She stopped the car and decided to take a look. On further inspection through the shop window she realised that she had been well and truly had, it wasn’t just the money, she had told Harold some of her deepest secrets. The shop was empty, the antique counter with its journals, the tools, the paraffin lamps were nowhere to be seen, and in the lower corner of the window was a small to let sign.

The rest of her trip passed agonisngly slowly, all Tristia could think of was how foolish she had been.

******************

The orange dust had subsided by lunch time, and completely disappeared by the time Tristia got home. Her only reminder of such a spectacular event was a dirty car and a tickle in the back of her throat. She parked her car right outside the house, climbed out and blindly walked up the couple of stairs to the landing by her door. She was just scrambling for her keys in the bottom of her receipt filled pockets when she noticed below her in front of the door was a box. She leaned over dropping her keys to the floor and wiped the dust residue from its top. It was addressed to her and stamped “Care of Bundaberg Post Office”. It had been nearly two months since her visit to Bundaberg, and she hadn’t ordered, signed up to or bought anything there. The only item she had ordered had been on that drunken night in Rolleston several hundred miles away. She was pretty sure however that in her inebriated state she hadn’t even given Harold or whatever his name was her address. Tristia had been so upset by the whole incident she had pretty much been able to put it out of her mind, and would have completely forgotten of it by now if it hadn’t been for the fact she was still eating beans on toast for dinner.

Tristia was good at holding back gratification. She was always last to open her presents at Christmas time; the anticipation of what was inside was usually more exciting than actually finding out. Today it was difficult, but she forced herself to make a cup of tea before returning to the box from Bundaberg. After taking a couple of sips she could wait no longer and cut open the box. As she pulled open the cardboard and peered in her nostrils were filled with the deep tones of fine leather. There in the bottom was the most beautiful journal she had ever seen. It was somewhere between A4 and A3 in size, made from thick chocolaty leather, and embossed in the bottom right hand corner were her initials and something quite surprising. It was a coat of arms similar to those she had seen in the shop, but this was identical to the one she had designed and had tattooed on her back. Tristia felt bewildered and suddenly quite emotional, she began to cry slowly at first and then deeply like never before. Her big salty tears landed with a patter on top of her new journal, and the leather slowly soaked them up. After a few minutes she suddenly felt much better as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She opened up the journal to reveal several hundred cream sheets of parchment and a letter lying on top.

Dear Tristia

Thank you for your order of a lifetime supply of journals from James Hardy and Sons. Included with this purchase are a silver fountain pen, blue ink and blotting paper to get you started. When you have filled this journal please send us a letter to PO Box 49 at Bundaberg post office, outlining how your writing is going and anything you are having difficulty with, and we will create an appropriate journal for you.

Remember great writers have to be ready to share their innermost thoughts and feelings with the world. Don’t be afraid, when it is time just let go.

Best wishes and good luck,

Harold Hardy

Tristia laughed like she was a girl again, and then thought for a while before rummaging in the box and pulling out the silver pen, ink and blotting paper. The pen had her initials engraved in the side and a metal cartridge for the ink inside. She unscrewed the lid to the ink, dipped the pen into it and sucked up the thick blue liquid. She took a deep breath placed the nib of her pen onto the first page of parchment, breathed out and let go…

A Box From Bundaberg (Lindsay Ratcliffe)

2009-10-13T12:30:00.000+11:00

A Box from Bundaberg

by Lindsay Ratcliffe

Harry, my 6 week-old baby, roused just before 5am, with a pre-cry gurgle. I leapt from the blissful ignorance of sleep, conditioned to respond in whiplash time before the gurgle shattered into a ravenous, torturous cry. I carried him out of the bedroom, glaring enviously at his oblivious dead-to-the-world father, who responded to my absence by rolling over into the warmth of my space and the comfort of my duck-down pillows.

I entered the lounge, aware of an intense glow, as if the room was bathed in the light of a raging fire. I looked out of the window and where the sky should still have been the colour of the dark slumber of the last hour before the dawn, a thick blanket of red dust suffocated the world. I could see nothing of the trees, apartment blocks and city skyline that was usually the view from my third floor apartment. Instead, the little I could see, was swathed in a crimson fog that looked like it had escaped from hell itself.

Harry’s hungry cry brought my attention back to an immediately more pressing matter. I fumbled with one hand trying to connect the gaping mouth with my breast, while fingering the TV remote with the other hand to see if there was any explanation for the Mars-like atmosphere outside. The early news reported that gale-force winds had carried dust and sand from the Westerly deserts to settle in large clouds over Sydney and its sprawling suburbs. It was eagerly followed by a recommendation from the director of Environmental Health that the aged and the very young and anyone with respiratory difficulties should remain indoors.

A superstitious or religious person might have seen this as an ominous portent of a bigger catastrophe to come. However not being able to see much beyond the next couple of hours I just merely dismayed by the fact I was supposed to attend baby clinic at 10am followed by a mothers’ group lunch at midday and was now unable to. They were the only events on my calendar for the entire week and instead I was to be imprisoned in my own home by clouds of red dust.

Less than ten weeks ago I had a very different life. I was the head of public relations at a Foxtel. I had a network, I had a schedule and I had control. Ten months before that I had a wonderful life that was more than just a successful career, it was centred more on a fabulous non-work life. My weekends were booked months in advance, weeknights similarly so with friends, events, openings, shows, parties and had-to-be-seen in bars and restaurants. The rest of my life was glued together by Adam, the father of my child, my husband of 2 years and boyfriend of 7 years, who I loved, respected and above all still fancied the pants off! We had a mutual appreciation of life, which saw us both with enough time to pursue our own careers and interests and enough time together to still make the relationship work. He was also a head of, some division that changed its name as frequently as it’s product disclosure statements, in a blue-chip insurance company. We enjoyed life so much that somewhere along the track, we had silently, but mutually, agreed that children didn’t factor into our life equation.

That was, until the little window at the end of the fortune telling plastic stick revealed a blue positive symbol that heralded the growth of a baby in my belly. While we didn’t actively plan to have children neither of us could justify taking deliberate action to change the situation. We were adaptable, agile; so we shifted our schedule and decided we could fit a baby into our plans. The reality of course is that most of the shifting and changing was done by me. I swapped the tailored blouses, heels and the cocktails in of-the-moment bars for over-sized t-shirts, swollen ankles and instant hot chocolate alone in front of the TV. As my belly grew towards beached-whale size proportions, Adam was home less and less. I didn’t complain so much as drop subtle hints. However his mitigation was that he needed to give his work as much attention as he could now, so that he could spend time with us when the baby arrived.

Despite what he said, Adam took only 2 days paternity leave, which started on the Monday morning that I went into labour and ended with him returning to work on the Wednesday morning only ten hours after his son was born.

Being confined to the four walls of our Pyrmont apartment, that hadn’t intended to house children, was bad enough but knowing I would miss out on my week’s social activities was salt in my wounds. But to add insult to injury the particles of dust and sand that permeated the air was aggravating the delicate trachea and sinuses of Harry and as a consequence he spent the rest of the morning letting me know just how uncomfortable he was.

Somewhere around 11am the unexpected buzz of the intercom put a welcome stop to my tragic renditions of out-of-date and out-of-tune nursery rhymes. I had a brief altercation with the courier about whether he could make an unauthorised trip to the third floor, I pleaded ‘new-baby’ and he reluctantly relented and arrived via the lift at my door. I scrawled an illegible signature, which I was positive would not hold up in a court of law if I sued for non-delivery, onto a PDA device and took possession of my surprise package.

I set the small box on the table wanting to preserve the intrigue for as long as possible. Had I have gone out this morning as planned I wouldn’t have been home to receive the parcel. It gave me something else to focus on except being trapped indoors by the dust storm. I’d received parcels in a moderate flow over the first few weeks since the baby was born, but as far as I knew all the relatives and good friends who were likely to shower us with baby gifts had already furnished us. So this parcel was something of a mystery.

The parcel was from, a G Kelly, a name I didn’t recognise and the return address was Bundaberg. Both my husband and I are from England originally and have boomeranged between London and Sydney for the last 7 years. I was fairly certain that neither my husband nor myself knew anyone in the state of Queensland, never mind the town of Bundaberg. More intriguing was the fact that it was addressed to ‘Baby Harry Stokes’.

I was enjoying the distraction and decided to leave the parcel unopened; at least for a little while longer. However the parcel sat on the table in the middle of the lounge, like an island in the middle of a busy waterway. It was goading me but I was quite determined.

The phone rang. It was Sam, one of the other mothers from the group, calling for consolation about also being imprisoned by the storm. In my pre-baby days it was highly unlikely that Sam and I would have ever collided in the same social circle but at the moment she was the closest I had to a best friend. The changes in my post-baby life were seismic for me. The friends with whom I’d trust my darkest desires and secrets I found I no longer had anything in common with. All they wanted to talk about was either partying, social gossip or work; none of which I could relate to anymore. All I had to talk about was the latest miniscule changes in my baby, which was apparently not of the slightest bit of interest to anyone other than me.

Other than the storm, the parcel had been the most exciting event of the day so far so I told Sam about it and the fact that it was still sat unopened on the lounge-room table. She was as devoid of excitement as I was, being in the same baby-storm imprisoned situation, so goaded me to open it. I gave in. I cradled the phone between my ear and left shoulder and grabbed the parcel. As if on cue, the moment I started to pick at the clear packing tape that sealed the box, Harry started to cry.

“I’m going to have to call you back. His lordship is awake!”

“No, wait, you can’t do this to me. Just open the box! I want to know what’s in it.”

“Sorry, I need to settle him before he gets hysterical.”

I put the phone down before she could protest further.

I went into see Harry. He was grizzling but his eyes were still closed. Normally I would spend time rocking him, stroking him and singing to him to persuade him to go back to sleep. This time I decided to break my own rule and take the easy option of giving him the dummy to suck on.

With Harry resettled in the nursery I went into our bedroom, which was also now our office. I powered up the laptop and took it back to the lounge, still averse to using the computer in the bedroom. I launched the address book and searched for an entry for Kelly. The only Kelly I knew was a Kelly by first name not by surname and she lived a couple of suburbs from me in Sydney, not Bundaberg. So I launched Firefox and checked my Google mail, just on the remote chance that I had saved the name there and not synched it with my address book. However the results confirmed that I didn’t know anyone with the surname Kelly from Bundaberg.

I picked up the box again and looked at it for clues, still unsure as to why I didn’t want to open it. The box wasn’t new. It had been used before and recycled by the sender. A label had been used to cover the previous details and our address was written in quite a meticulous, probably female, handwriting.

The phone rang again. I expected it to be Sam.

“No, I haven’t opened it yet!”

“Hello to you too and what haven’t you opened?”

I laughed.

“Hey Adam, sorry I thought it was Sam. We were having a conversation before when the baby started to cry and…oh never mind. How’s your morning? Survived the trip to work in the dust storm?”

“Uurggh it’s disgusting out here, you’re better off staying indoors.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just mean it’s easy to say stay indoors when you have a choice. I was really looking forward to getting out this morning.”

“So why don’t you go then?”

He sounded distracted and impatient. I hated it when he called me when he was busy.

“They don’t recommend it for babies.”

“Oh right, well yeah I guess that makes sense. Ummm anything else exciting happened this morning?”

“As if! Oh well actually as you mention it, it did. I got a mystery parcel delivered about an hour ago.”

“Oh, who’s it from?”

“I don’t know! That’s the mystery.”

“What’s in it?”

“I haven’t opened it yet.”

“Huh? Why not? Why don’t you just open it and find out who sent it?”

I could hear someone in the background telling him the meeting was about to start.

“Well the name and address of the person who sent it is on the box, it’s just I don’t know who it is and I’ve searched the address book…”

“Listen hun, I’ve got to go…meeting…sorry.”

I knew I was clutching at straws but thought I’d try anyway.

“Do you know anyone in Bundaberg?”

“What?”

“The parcel, it’s from someone in Bundaberg.”

There was no response.

“A ‘G Kelly’. Anyone you know?”

“G Kelly?” he emphasised the G.

“Yeah. Mean anything to you?”

“Erm I gotta go. Sounds like it’s not for us.”

“But it’s addressed to Harry.”

“Maybe leave it until I get home. I’ll see you later”

With that the call ended.

I can’t tell you why but as I redirected my focus from untimely ending to the conversation with my husband and focussed back on the parcel I realised anxiety was welling in the pit of my stomach to the extent that I felt nauseous. I was also developing a headache. I knew this was crazy and that I had no reason to feel intimidated by this stupid parcel.

I picked up the box and tore at the tape, ripping the address label. The phone rang again. I let the answer machine get it. It was Sam.

“Comon! Don’t be so selfish! You know I’ve nothing to look forward to! What’s in the box?”

There was tissue paper in the box. I tore that open to expose a couple of cute baby-grows with matching bibs. I don’t know what I was expecting but I felt momentary relief to know it was just another present for Harry. Although, there was no labels on the items and I wondered briefly if they were pre-loved.

The phone rang again. Thinking it was Sam was being persistent to the extent it was almost annoying, I told her so.

“God! Won’t you give me a minute!”

“Anna, it’s me. Did you open the box yet?”

It was Adam.

“What’s with the interest around this box? I’m just doing it now…”

“Can you leave it? I’m coming home.”

“What? When.”

“Now. I’m getting in a cab. I’ll be there in 15 minutes.”

“What do you mean? Why?”

“Just promise me you’ll leave the box?”

“Erm, sure... Adam what’s this about?”

“Just promise! I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He knew me. He knew I wouldn’t wait. That’s why he was heading home.

I put the baby grows and bibs to one side. I carefully lifted out the small solid square object, still wrapped and unscathed in the remaining tissue paper. I peeled back the paper to reveal a small photo album. It’s a normal gift given the circumstances, so why then was Adam so insistent that I didn’t open it? And why the hell did I feel so apprehensive?

I flicked open the photo album and instead of blank pages I saw pictures of a baby. A baby who looked remarkably like Harry but as his mother I knew this wasn’t Harry.

I fanned the pages looking for any other clues. Every page had a different photo of this unknown infant, except the very back page, which had a message.

“Dearest Harry, the clothes no longer fit me so I thought you might be able to make some use out them while you’re still little. They were my favourites, I hope you’ll like them too. I thought I’d let you know what I look like. Hopefully we’ll be able to meet soon. Lots of coos and gurgles. Your brother, James, 14 weeks old.”