Red Wheelbarrow

By Terry R Barca

This is Book 3 in my short story anthology series and you are very welcome to go back and read Book 1 (Loyal and True) and book 2 (Passerby). The first story in this collection gives the book its name. The main character is a self-reliant female and you will meet a few more as you work your way through these stories. 47 stories and a total of 36,000 words. These stories are the perfect length to read on the train on the way to work, or sitting in a waiting room, or simply sitting under a favourite tree. This collection of stories, written over the period of a year, will take you from revenge to exploding Volkswagens, from a favourite bartender to a mysterious blue car. A private detective finds more than he bargained for and a lonely housewife is sure she can hear noises where noises should not be. A widow who volunteers in a Thrift shop makes a discovery while a couple of scientists make a series of unusual discoveries. Not to mention girls with record players, caravans with hidden compartments and an encounter with an unusual mirror. No two stories are alike and that's the way I like them. Short stories are my strong suit and I'll keep writing them as long as you keep enjoying them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terry R Barca
• Release date: Nov 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310146206

Terry R Barca

I’m an author who lives and works in the Dandenong Ranges, on the eastern edge of Melbourne Australia.I take one day at a time but occasionally I’m attacked by several days at once.My amazing wife and I have lived in The Hills for forty-three years.My favourite colour is green and so is my favourite car.I started my working life as a Primary School Teacher in the early 1970s.Since then I have been a stained glass craftsman, furniture restorer, restorer of Player Pianos and music rolls, author (twenty one books so far, seventeen audiobooks, another on the way), photographer, basketball trading card manufacturer, basketball coach, basketball player, basketball referee, part-time shop assistant, newspaper columnist, homeschool dad, husband, father, grandfather, and a few other bits and pieces, and not in this order.I’m fascinated by people, but I prefer the company of dogs.I’m not frightened of dying, but sometimes life scares the hell out of me.I think that birds are cool but I don’t believe that they spend any time thinking about me, even though I give them lots of stale bread, and the occasional pizza crust........ ungrateful bastards!

Book preview

Introduction

The first story in this anthology is a particular favourite of mine, and not surprisingly, it is a favourite of many of our female friends. You will understand why when you have finished reading it.

These stories cover many genres and were written over the period of a year. Many were written in our beautiful old cottage and some were written while sitting in a variety of my favourite local coffee shops.

Of all the things that I write, I would have to say that I enjoy writing short stories the best. The challenge of quickly creating a mood and telling a story while providing an adequate ending, these are enormous challenges. I hope you will agree that these selected stories grab your attention and deliver an enjoyable ride. If you arrive at the end and begin to think about what might come next then I have done my job.

This is Book 3 in the anthology series and you are very welcome to go back and read Book 1 (Loyal and True) and book 2 (Passerby).

It is my goal to keep you entertained with a constant supply of anthologies, novellas and special projects (RUFUS should be published very soon, I know you are going to like him).

I write between fifty and a hundred stories each year, so there is a lot of material to choose from. I promise to keep writing them if you keep reading them.

Keep an eye out for my second novella (The Long Weekend was my first) it’s called Keeper of Secrets. It is a strictly adults only read, so don’t say you weren’t warned.

So, that should be enough from me; sit back and make yourself comfortable and prepare yourself for strong females making their own way in the world, an ancestor who fell in love with a pirate, policemen, inventors, detectives, dreamers, travellers, lovers, wedding guests, neighbours and people with unusual jobs. They all live here just waiting for you to discover them.

So Much Depends on a Red Wheelbarrow.

"So much depends on a red wheelbarrow glazed by rainwater beside the white chickens."

William Carlos Williams.

Without it I would not have been able to move the body.

I’d always taken it for granted — the wheelbarrow, not the dead body.

It had always been there, leaning up against the shed or sitting quietly, filled with weeds or split fire-wood — just waiting for the task to be completed.

It was on special at the hardware store on the high street.

The shop went out of business not long after, but I remember the wheelbarrows all lined up outside with a huge sign saying how much they were and how much I would be saving if I bought one.

The sign had the desired effect.

I’d needed a wheelbarrow for some time and the first one in the stack was red.

The gentleman who served me was happy to make the sale but worried about how I was going to get it home.

Have you got a ‘ute’ lady?

No, why? Is it a requirement for owning a wheelbarrow?

He looked at me for a moment. I could tell that he was wondering if I was ‘winding him up’.

He decided that I was.

No, but she’s a big bugger, and she probably won’t fit across the back seat of your car.

I don’t own a car. I walked here, and I’m planning to drive her home. I’ll park her outside the supermarket and load her up with my weekly shopping, and away I go.

Fair enough, but she really is a bloody big wheelbarrow. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a smaller one? You can still give the grand-kiddies a ride in a smaller one. The one you picked is big enough to fit a large dead body in.

He must have thought that he had gone a bit too far because he looked up and gave an embarrassed smile. I wasn’t worried about the ‘dead body’ crack, but I was considering running over his foot for the grandmother comment.

Is the smaller wheelbarrow on special as well? I said.

No, just these huge industrial buggers that I got stuck with when I bought the business.

Well then; I have the right barrow, don’t I?

I smiled and staggered off down the footpath scattering pedestrians in my wake.

I didn’t stop to buy groceries; that was just me ‘getting carried away’ with the hardware store owner.

Every time I go past his old shop I wonder what happened to him.

His shop became a Noodle Shop, then a $2 Shop, then a Tattoo Parlour, then a Bakery, then an empty shop with a strange collection of bits and pieces lying in the middle of the tiled floor.

It looked like someone had swept up after the last tenants and never came back to throw out the collection of flotsam.

I’ve always wondered what the orange penis-shaped thing was.

I’m sure that it’s not an orange penis but there has never been anyone at the shop for me to ask; which is just as well, because I think I would be too embarrassed to make that particular enquiry.

Gardening is not my favourite pastime, but since my husband died I have had to work up the enthusiasm.

Bill was the love of my life and I miss him so very much.

He left me suddenly — an industrial accident. Everyone was very kind, especially his business partner Ambrose Kruis.

Bill and Ambrose built the business up from nothing and when Bill died Ambrose inherited the business; it was part of their partnership agreement. I understood; I wasn’t upset. They were engaged in high-risk construction and if one of the partners died it would put the whole business in jeopardy, so it was only fair that the surviving partner benefit.

It also explained the massive payout that Ambrose received as a result of the ‘partners insurance’.

He was not under any obligation, but he helped me anyway.

He knew that Bill put all his capital into the business and consequently, there wasn’t any life insurance.

I had some savings, but they were for a ‘rainy day’, as Bill used to say.

Ambrose was very generous when the roof needed replacing and when the plumbing packed it in.

I knew that I could not rely on him forever, but up until I made a surprise visit to his office he had looked after me financially.

I arrived early on a Wednesday morning and his secretary let me wait in his office. He won’t be long. He’s at a breakfast meeting with the bankers.

I decided to make the most of my time and write a couple of letters.

I do send emails, but I still prefer the personal touch of sending a letter.

I stepped behind what used to be Bill’s desk and opened the top drawer looking for note paper.

Two more drawers were opened before I found some, and that’s not all that I found.

The writing paper was not lying flat in the drawer.

There seemed to be something small and bulky under the ream of paper. I removed the paper and the sunlight coming in low through the office window reflected off the polished silver surface of an antique Victorian hip flask.

You might be wondering why I knew what it was.

I’d given this flask to my husband on our wedding night.

It belonged to my grandfather.

It was some twenty-years old when he bought it upon arriving in England in 1915 — a young Lieutenant on his way to the front.

The flask saw a lot of action and no doubt helped to dull the terror that trench warfare brought to all those involved.

I recognised the flask from the inscription and by the dent on the top corner. It was caused by a German sniper’s bullet.

After surviving at the front for all those years, one moment of lost concentration and my grandfather’s war came to an end, only months from the close of hostilities.

The notice of his death arrived on the day that the Armistice took effect.

The flask was returned to the family along with his other belongings.

Obviously, I was aware that the flask was missing from my husband’s effects, but I put it out of my mind. He had it with him on the day he died; he always had it with him.

I’m not that bright, but I didn’t need a degree in Physics to figure out that something was terribly wrong.

Ambros had murdered my husband so that he could get control of the company and collect the insurance. I wouldn't be surprised if it was all about the insurance and he probably expected to sell the failing business for the value of its component parts. But, to his surprise, the business survived, mainly because my husband had set it up well and the business had an excellent reputation. Its employees loved him and worked their arses off to keep the company going.

It helped that Ambrose was a bit of a womaniser and that he would often disappear for several days at a time when he was on a ‘bender’.

I invited him around to the house for a meal — something that I had done a dozen times.

During the desert course, I excused myself, Just need to visit the ladies room. I came back with an old shovel that my husband used to dig the veggie patch — the irony was not lost on me.

I struck Ambrose twice on the back of the head. He went down and apart from his lemon-meringue-pie landing on the floor, he did not make much of a mess.

Moving the body proved to be a bit of a chore but the trusty red wheelbarrow was up to the task.

I didn’t own a car, so Ambrose was going to have to travel in the wheelbarrow for the two-kilometre ride to the construction site that Ambrose’s business owned. There was a concrete pour scheduled for the morning.

I’m not sure what I would have said if someone had stopped me, and I’m pretty sure that I looked hilarious as I struggled along with this huge red wheelbarrow filled with an Ambrose.

I was completely exhausted when I got him there and dumped him into a pit and covered him with gravel, but I still had to get the wheelbarrow back to my house without being seen.

I was in the lap of the gods on both halves of this deadly journey but the gods smiled on me and I made it safely home.

I slept for fifteen hours straight.

I cleaned up the blood and the lemon-meringue-pie when I woke up, and waited for the police to arrive.

They never did, and