The Poisoned Tree (Lindsay Ratcliffe)

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)

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.’

‘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)

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)

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.”