Short Stories

STRANDED by Deb Hunt

‘Where were you?’
‘When?’
‘This afternoon, four o’clock. I rang.’
‘I don’t know, in a meeting probably.’
‘Your secretary said you were out.’
‘Then I was out!  Misha, please, we’re here to enjoy ourselves.’

Nick leant back in his chair and sighed with the contentment of a righteous man. At four o’clock that afternoon he had been ending his affair with Jenny. Misha had said nothing about the black curls she found clinging to his jacket, his trousers, even to his underpants.

But Jenny was a tenacious lover, not so easily spurned. Revenge clung to Nick’s sleeve like the twisted filament of a broken light bulb.

‘Ladies and Gentleman, put your hands together for tonight’s star turn!’

Misha stared at her husband’s jacket, picked up from the dry cleaners just yesterday, and now backlit by an arc of brilliant white stage light. The curl of evidence waved gleefully from his sleeve.

Misha placed her drink on the table, careful not to spill any.

‘You’ve seen her again, haven’t you? Today.’
Nick smiled, suddenly nervous. ‘What?’
‘You said it was over.’
‘Babe,’ he purred. I told you, it’s over.’

Nick turned as Misha rose and Jenny’s legacy brushed against a candle. It flared incandescent then disappeared.

‘Misha. Misha!’

——————————————————-

EASY MONEY by Deb Hunt

Joe moved his head and felt shards of gritty sand shift under his cheek. It would be dark soon. Already the shadow of the nearby hill had lengthened, trickling along the sand like a slow moving creek. When it reached him it would be a relief from the burning, tightening sunburn that had intensified all day. Nightfall would bring other dangers.

He pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth, felt them wobble as he ran his tongue over the jagged cracks, then bit down, hard, hoping to find saliva. All he tasted was the tang of blood. Jeez, how much was there left in him?

≈

‘We pick up the gear in Adelaide, drive to Broken Hill and flog it. Ten grand a piece. An’ a holiday thrown in!’ Rod was pumped, had it all planned, but Joe was nervous. You never knew who was listening on Hindley St. ‘Broken Hill won’t know what hit it,’ Rod went on. ‘You and me mate, with a trunk load of cash! We’ll build a fire in the bush on the way back, have a few beers under the stars. Waddya say?’

‘Job going down?’ a voice behind them said, quietly, so only they could hear. The guy was older, mid forties, skinny as a dingo and hair like an abandoned bird’s nest. ‘Nice town, Broken Hill,’ he said, once he knew he had their attention.

Rod was wary of the sudden interruption. ‘You know it?’

‘Uncle’s a miner. I presume you’ll get off the road before you get to Mannahill?’

Rod took a swig of beer, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and set his glass down. ‘You’d get off before Mannahill, would you?’ he said.

‘Shit yeah, unless you want to be stopped by the copper. He’ll search you soon as look at you.’

Rod nodded, like he knew that anyway, but Joe wasn’t fooled. He doubted if Rod even knew where Mannahill was.

‘If it was me, I’d cut across Mutawintji way, over to Langawirra,’ the skinny guy said.

‘I haven’t decided yet,’ said Rod. He stared at the dregs of his beer, frowning.

‘You gotta love a system that sets off fire-crackers to let people know there’s a new batch in town.’

Rod looked at the stranger, summing him up.

‘Name’s Michael, Michael Jenkins,’ the stranger said. ‘Friends call me Lizard.’ He reached out his hand and Rod took it. ‘Rod Maszanski,’ he said. Joe kicked Rod under the table, Rod kicked him back and that’s how they ended up with a third partner.

≈

Joe oescrabbled to find a rock. His bloody fingers dug in the soft sand until they closed around a sharp stone then he raised his arm. The feeble throw fell short. The wedge tail hopped to one side, opened its huge wings and settled back down. The exertion cracked the scab on Joe’s wound and he felt blood trickle down the side of his neck. Sunburn prickled his bare arm.

There was a sudden gust of wind, a muscular flap of wings and another eagle joined the one already in place, skipping sideways before settling down to wait, head cocked, black eyes fixed on the body lying on the sand.

Joe clutched at the dirt, desperately fumbling for more ammunition. His fingers found only a handful of grit so he threw it anyway and a cloud of dust drifted past his face. The coughing fit that followed was painful. He spat out a mouthful of blood and watched a buzz of blowflies settle in an ugly clump on the drying clot.

A cooling sensation at his ankle suggested the sun had dropped far enough behind the hill for the shadows to reach his foot, first his left, then his right. Sunset wasn’t far away.

The shadow of the hill crept towards his knees.

≈

‘He doesn’t know shit about Broken Hill, any more than we do. All he knows is what he’s read in the papers,’ Joe hissed. They were standing in a creek bad, the car parked beside them, and Joe was pissing on the dead branch of a mulga tree. They’d stopped the car to take a leak and Michael had walked up a rise behind them.

‘We’re lost, you do know that, don’t you?’ Joe added.

‘Will you shut up?’

‘You shouldn’t have asked him to come.’

‘We need him. He knows stuff.’

‘What stuff? And who is he anyway? For all you know he’s –

‘Is there a problem boys?’

‘Shit!’ Joe shot a look over his shoulder to see Michael standing a few paces behind them, smiling. He’d crept up on them, as quiet as a kadaitcha man. ‘Shit,’ Joe repeated. ‘Now look what you made me do.’ He zipped up and turned to face Michael, scowling at the smile on Rod’s face. ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ he growled.

‘Do what?’

‘Creep up on someone.’

‘Sometimes it pays to be as silent as a lizard, my friend.’

‘I’m not your friend and we’re lost,’ Joe grumbled.

Michael threw back his head and laughed. To Joe’s annoyance, Rod joined in. ‘I took us on a short cut, through a station. I know exactly where we are. Come on, my turn to drive.’ Michael held out his hand for the keys and Rod hesitated. It was his car and so far he’d been the only one driving. ‘Nervous passenger?’ Michael said, challenging Rod with an easy smile.

‘Nah, I’ll kip in the back. Joe, you can sit up front.’ He tossed the keys to Michael.

≈

A clump of wild flowers swayed just beyond Joe’s reach, a sentinel line of red and black. It was the weirdest thing he’d ever seen. He wondered if he was hallucinating. Maybe aliens had landed. Hah, that’d be right, he thought. He barked out a laugh, his body jerked and he spat more blood.

He clutched at the sand and blinked away the flies that crawled at the corner of his eye. One of the wedge-tails lifted its wing, pruned its feathers and settled back down to watch. And to wait.

≈

Rod had one leg inside the car when Michael gunned the engine. ‘What the fuck?’ The car spun, Rod screamed then he disappeared in a cloud of dust. Joe turned to see what was happening and the car took off, engine screaming. ‘You crazy fucker!’ Joe shouted. He tried to grab the wheel and Michael punched him in the face, hard. The crunching blow connected with bone and gristle and blood poured from Joe’s broken nose. He slumped forward, semi-conscious, clutching his face as the car skidded across the sand. ‘You can’t leave Rod there,’ he moaned. Two kilometres later Michael reached across, opened the passenger door and pushed Joe out.

≈

He must have slept, because when he woke the sun had lost its intensity and the sky had shifted from china blue to dark purple. The shadow had moved up his body like a blanket, settling him down for the night. The flies had gone, vanishing before the sun slipped below the horizon. He ran his tongue along his cracked lips and saw the dark shape of an eagle outlined against the horizon. Thorn bushes loomed like giant pieces of popcorn. In the distance something moved, a shadow. He felt the sound rather than heard it. Dthmp, dthmp, dthmp. It was the rhythmic thud of a kangaroo, hitting the ground and bouncing off again. There was something else as well, a shape, no, two shapes. He squinted. Was that Rod? The wind carried the whisper of a man’s voice.

‘Max, here boy!’

Joe opened his mouth and felt the blistered skin crack on his parted lips. There was a rusty scrape, like the sound of an iron gate creaking in the wind; it took a moment to realise the faint sound had come from him. He tried again, failed, and the shadows moved away. Tears cut through the mess of blood and sand on his face, carving a channel through the dried sweat like the hopeless dribble of a creek when not enough rain has fallen to make it flow. The tears were dry before they reached his chin. He shivered. What wouldn’t he give to be at home in bed now? A feathery touch brushed the hair from his forehead, confusing him. Mum? The shadow of the hill lengthened, darkness passed his open mouth and the eagles hopped into position.

————————————————–

MAROONED by Deb Hunt

‘I didn’t think much of that,’ said Marian, reaching forward to switch off the radio before tucking her cushion down the side of the chair. ‘You’d soon get sick of those songs, wouldn’t you? And that luxury item of his wouldn’t last five minutes in a tropical downpour.’ She folded her arms across her warm belly and glanced at the clock. ‘What would you take?’ she said, answering the question before Colin had time to speak.  ‘A tool from that shed of yours I shouldn’t wonder.’

Colin gave it some thought and decided it would have to be a hand-held, there’d be no power on a desert island. He could feel his favourite chisel now, heavy and warm in his hand. The wooden handle would be bleached white in the intense sunlight that would surely burn all day. He wiggled his toes inside his slippers. He’d take off his shoes and socks, no more athlete’s foot for him, the salt water and hot sand would see to that. He’d roll up his trousers or maybe take them off altogether. Why not? There’d be no one there to stop him. He’d fashion some kind of silly hat from a palm leaf to keep the sun off and there’d be an island of trees to choose from, enough whittling to keep him happy for the rest of his born days.

‘Time for the off,’ he said, pulling himself up from the sofa and neatly avoiding the question. The Sunday morning car boot sale was a ritual they both enjoyed. Today’s was just down the road, hardly worth taking the car really, but Colin was hoping he’d get lucky. Hoping to find what he’d been searching for, unlike last week and the week before when he’d driven home empty handed and moody with disappointment.

Engine running, he waited in the car for Marian to finish checking every window was locked and every appliance turned off. He spent the time mulling over what he might take to. A chisel wouldn’t be much good without a mallet, although if it came to it he could always use a stone. Anyway, he’d need more than just one chisel and he couldn’t leave the whittling knife with the mother of pearl handle. Maybe he could take the whole shed? Would that count as one item?

Colin shifted in his seat and switched on the heater, enjoying the thought of transporting his entire shed and all its contents, especially that comfy chair with the green piping round the arms and the horsehair cushions; the one that formed part of the lounge suite Marian threw out five years ago. ‘Two for the price of one,’ she’d said, glancing up from the catalogue. ‘Look at that, we can get two leather sofas – brand new mind – and we only pay for one.’ Colin hadn’t wanted a new leather sofa, never mind two. He couldn’t see what was wrong with their old one. Perfectly decent lounge suite if you asked him. Not that she did.

It felt distasteful, sitting on the flesh of a dead animal. Slippery skin. He managed to salvage one of the old chairs and dragged it up to the shed. The rest were sent to the tip.

He’d never get away with that, throwing something away that Marian wanted to keep. It was obvious who wore the trousers in his house. Years ago, when he was still working at the Gas Board, he used to stop for a drink on the way home. It wasn’t like he didn’t call. His mates used to laugh because he was always on the phone to Marian; he’d call when he left work, he’d call when he got to the pub then he’d call again just as he was finishing his last drink. It didn’t matter. She still gave him the cold shoulder for days afterwards.

It was Sam who suggested he get a shed. Young Sam, who always came to work with a smile on his face, never a cross word for anyone. ‘You want to know the secret?’ Sam said one Monday morning, when Colin turned up for work feeling out of sorts after a weekend of frosty silences. ‘A man needs a shed. Never mind all this rubbish about castles, a man’s true home is his shed.’

Through the misted car windscreen Colin watched Marian step out of the house, a cushion tucked under her arm. She never went anywhere without a cushion. Even on a short trip to the supermarket, she’d pop a cushion or a pillow in the back of the car. ‘You never know,’ she’d say, frowning. He once made the mistake of asking. ‘You never know what?’ She’d turned her head away but not before he caught a glimpse of bewilderment in her eyes. Marian’s pillow was like a child’s security blanket, cushioning her against the world. A bit like Colin’s shed.

He drove the short way to the car boot in silence, remembering the fuss the shed had caused when he’d first suggested it. Marian had been dead against it. ‘What do you want a shed for? You don’t even like gardening.’ He couldn’t argue with that, he’d never done a day’s gardening in his life. He could hardly tell her he wanted a shed so he could escape, so he could live a fantasy life at the bottom of his own garden.

Colin finally got what he wanted when they moved to the bungalow. He’d spotted it through the dining room window the day the owner showed them round. Marian saw it too, although she pretended not to. Afterwards, sitting at home over a cup of tea, they talked about the suitability of the bungalow, the number of kitchen units, the size of the third bedroom, the colour of the bathroom. Neither of them mentioned the shed. The bungalow was perfect, they both agreed, but Marian kept looking all the same. She even phoned agents on the other side of town, agents who didn’t really cover their area, but they had nothing. Bungalows are hard to find, they said. In the end, they settled on the first one, the one with the shed.

Colin felt like a kid in the run up to Christmas, hardly daring to believe he might get the present he’d always wanted, counting the days until the night before when he woke up at two am flooded with disappointment, convinced the previous owners would have taken the shed with them. But come the morning of the big move there it was at the end of the garden, wrapped in frost and brittle cobwebs. He left it until the weekend to explore, when Marian was at the hairdressers for her usual Saturday morning shampoo and set.

Standing in the gloomy shed, his old green anorak draped over his shoulders, feet itching inside a pair of battered deck shoes, he inhaled the dusty smell of compost and damp timber. He’d been expecting the shed to be empty but it contained the secret past of a carpenter and keen gardener; shelves held tins of paint, jars of nails, envelopes cradling dried flower heads and seed trays dribbling compost onto the floor. Old kitchen drawers were crammed with an assortment of tools and gardening implements, some of which Colin didn’t even recognise. He tugged open the drawers one by one and picked up the tools, turning them over, feeling the weight of them in his hand, astonished that anyone could have left behind such a collection.

‘They moved to a flat, no garden apparently.’

Marian’s sudden appearance in the shed took him by surprise. He’d lost track of time, immersed in his newly discovered past life, and he felt guilty, ashamed without quite knowing why.

Marian tried to help. She hammered in nails and hung up tools, drew white lines on the wall around each one and dabbed a blob of orange paint onto the handle for good measure. ‘So when any of the neighbours borrow them, you’ll know what’s missing and they’ll know who to give it back to,’ she explained, pride thickening her voice.

When it did happen (just the once) Marian put a post-it note on the empty slot, marked with the date and name of the person who’d borrowed the wire cutter. The note was still there two years later, curling at the edges, ink barely visible. That first Christmas she gave Colin a special stamp to punch the outline of letters onto metal, so he could stamp his name onto all the tools. He left the stamp in its box. He hated that sense of order and ownership. Marian stopped going into the shed after that, she didn’t even go out there to wake him the time he fell asleep and he could have died of hypothermia that night. It didn’t stop him, just made him more cautious. He never stayed out after dark any more.

He tried a bit of woodworking, even made a passable attempt at a few wooden toys but none of it made it as far as the house. In truth he’d never been much of a one for DIY. It was enough just to sit there, turning the tools over in his hands, feeling the weight of them. A bit of whittling, that was all he ever really tackled nowadays.

‘Mind!’ Colin swerved past a marshal waving them towards an empty space. ‘Sorry,’ he said. When the car was locked he stuffed a couple of carrier bags into his pocket and pressed his dry lips to Marian’s cheek. ‘See you later love.’ They had a set routine, something Colin had insisted on years ago, walking in opposite directions along the line of stalls, always within sight of each other, but never so close that Marian could see what he was buying. He watched his wife wheel her shopping trolley away, feeling the usual guilt, then he turned towards the pick ‘n mix of trinkets discarded from other people’s lives.

There was only one thing Colin wanted and he found it in the next aisle, hidden behind a pushchair that partially blocked his view. He pushed forward, clutching a pound coin. ‘Excuse me, how much for the magazines?’

The man behind the stall winked at him. ‘Nice pile there mate.’

Colin blushed. It often happened that the few on top would be decoys, hiding a collection of porn underneath. He’d look through them later when he got home, not here.

‘How much?’

‘Fiver the lot.’

He wasn’t about to argue. Fishing in his pocket he pulled out a five-pound note and handed it over, stuffing the pile of magazines into a carrier bag. Marian was up ahead, waiting at the end of the aisle.

Eager to show him what she’d found she lifted the pieces out of her shopping trolley one by one – a porcelain figure, a blue and white egg cup, a plate to match their dinner service, a china mug. Her face lit up when she found a trinket she loved. She never paid more than 50 pence for anything.

‘What did you buy?’ she said.

‘Just a few magazines.’

When they got home it was all he could do to stop himself rushing out to the shed to browse through the crop of new titles. He forced himself to slow down, went into the kitchen to make them both a cup of tea and a sandwich. Sometimes Marian fell asleep in her chair after lunch and he could slip away without a fuss. Other times he’d be the one to nod off and he’d wake to find it was time to start peeling carrots, scrubbing potatoes or laying the table. He sighed, spread butter on four slices of wholemeal bread and cut thin slices of cheese, careful to use the white chopping board. Their house was pristine, anti-bacterial wipes placed beside every sink, hand sanitiser in the toilets, unlike his shed which was as disorganised and chaotic as if a group of rebellious children lived in it.

Last August he’d taken a cup of coffee out there and left it half finished. He waited for scum to form on top of the thickening liquid, prodding it with his fingertips as it hardened, day by day watching a layer of mould creep over the crust. Marian knew exactly where the cup was. She didn’t ask for it back. Three weeks later, when it was obvious it wasn’t going to reappear, she bought a new one at a car boot. Over the next few months he’d built up quite a collection in the shed. Marian ignored the gradual disappearance of her crockery. She took a perverse pleasure in the Sunday morning ritual of searching for replacements.

He rinsed the butter knife in the sink, a piece of silverware Marian had inherited from her great aunt. On his desert island he’d have a knife and fork whittled from a boab tree – whatever a boab tree might be. He’d look it up later in one of the National Geographics he’d picked up a few weeks ago.

‘I’d take my pillow,’ Marian called from the living room.

‘What’s that love?’

‘You’d need a pillow on a desert island to get a good night’s sleep. What would you take?’ Marian’s question trickled through his subconscious as he brought their sandwiches back into the living room.

‘Well?’

‘Oh I don’t know. I’m off up the garden for a bit.’

He left his sandwich untouched on the side table, unlocked the back door and escaped into the garden. He knew it bothered Marian that he spent so much time in the shed, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t explain either, not after all these years.

He lowered himself into the baggy green armchair and examined the contents of the bag. He knew Marian thought he read dirty magazines out there, which was understandable since there was none of that any more. He couldn’t remember the last time, must have been eight, nine years ago? He didn’t miss it, not now. Marian did, he could tell, but she was far too proud to admit it. She’d rather go the rest of her life without than have to ask. That suited him fine.

He hurled piles of porn into a box, which he’d burn later. He dumped Annals of Surgical Instruments and Model Railways Monthly too, hoping for something more suitable further down the pile. He found it in a series of Country Living and Woman’s Weekly and gathered them up to store for safekeeping in an old pram, tucking them in beside a few copies of Family Circle he hadn’t been through yet.

Colin sat back and felt down the side of the chair for his scrapbook. The pages crackled like dry leaves heaped on a bonfire as he flicked through the familiar faces, smiling when he came to his favourites. Maybe this was what he should take to his desert island. He hadn’t set out to create a family album, but that’s what it was, no question. A family of four, three girls and one boy, all of them grown up now of course, happily married with children of their own. He could trace them right back to the day they were born, the day he’d reached for the scissors and cut out that first image of a small baby, soon after Marian lost their first one. Each loss had been marked by the appearance of another child in his album. It had been painstaking work, searching for pictures of babies and toddlers, then children and teenagers, all of them fair-haired. Over the years his magazine children had survived all the usual dramas and crises of family life; he had pictures of them laughing, hugging pets, crying over cut knees, learning to walk, proudly displaying new school uniforms, kissing boyfriends, walking down the aisle, even taking holidays abroad with families of their own.

He looked back towards the house, the scrapbook open on his lap as the afternoon light faded. Marian was pottering about in the kitchen, a cushion tucked under her arm. Barren was such an ugly, cold word. He felt a sudden rush of fondness for her, seeing the girl he’d married her through a film of cobwebs and cracked glass.

Marian looked surprised when he walked back into the house, even more surprised when he sat on the sofa next to her and patted her arm. ‘Do you know what I’d take to my desert island? I’d take you. Couldn’t leave my nearest and dearest behind now could I?’ He took a deep breath and placed the album in her lap. ‘And I’d take this, it’s something I should have shown you long ago. I’ll make us a cup of tea, shall I?’

Without waiting for a reply Colin stood up, flexed his right foot and hobbled towards the kitchen.