Standing By

By David Vernon

Thirty-one award-winning stories fill these entertaining pages. Written by Australian and international authors these stories explore Australian culture — sometimes funny, often poignant, occasionally unsettling, this anthology showcases the best of Australian contemporary short story writing.

Water slammed through the back door and roared down the hall. A foaming mass of brown filled the space and continued tumbling towards her. She turned and ran, liquid licking her heels. The water wall chased her out of the house into the front yard. She latched herself to the mango tree standing stiffly in the corner, and felt the water climb her legs with fierce intentions. The rough trunk dug into her arms as her grip tightened. The water continued climbing.
— from "Flood Day" by Tamara Lennon

My mother stood in the doorway that evening after dinner. She loomed magnificent like an oversized fertility goddess, serving to block the dim hallway light shining from the bathroom across the hall. Her faded floral nightie hung like an old ladies’ curtain over her prickly shins and clung around her sagging tummy, which was the only bodily part protruding into my bedroom sanctuary.
— from "Standing By" by E.C. Thorpe

When Jack came home from work that evening Bridie’s plan had firmed in her mind but she knew to bide her time. The leftover boiled potatoes from the night before had been cut into pieces and were now sizzling in a pan of dripping with bits of bacon rind that she’d saved from breakfast. She had boiled skinny green beans, the last few stragglers from the garden. Jack waited at the table, his knife and fork already in his hands.
“You kids come on. Your father’s waiting.”
The steak didn’t stretch to five people and so, as often happened, Bridie went without.
“No, I don’t feel like meat tonight,” she declared, fooling no-one.
— from "The Man of the House" by Gabrielle Gardner

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Vernon
• Release date: May 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311831088

David Vernon

I am a freelance writer and editor. I am father of two boys. For the last few years I have focussed my writing interest on chronicling women and men’s experience of childbirth and promoting better support for pregnant women and their partners. Recently, for a change of pace, I am writing two Australian history books. In 2014 I was elected Chair of the ACT Writers Centre.In 2010 I established the Stringybark Short Story Awards to promote the short story as a literary form.

Book preview

Standing By — thirty-one award-winning tales from the Stringybark Short Story Awards

Edited by

David Vernon

Selected by

Kerry Cameron, Kathryn Collins, Rick Williams and David Vernon

Published by Stringybark Publishing

PO Box 464, Hall, ACT 2618, Australia

http://www.stringybarkstories.net

Smashwords edition first published 2016

Copyright: This revised collection, David Vernon, 2018

Copyright: Individual stories, the authors, various.

These stories are works of fiction and those mentioned in these stories are fictional characters and do not relate to anyone living or dead.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the editor, judges and the author of these stories.

Contents

Introduction

Are You Ready? — Julie Kearney

Vignettes of Love — Darcy-Lee Tindale

The Rising Sun — Lo-arna Green

Frank's Labyrinth — Cassie Hamer

Transition — Valerie Volk

Sunday — Beejay Silcox

The True Story of Waltzing Matilda — Otto Fischer

Light — Julia Archer

Naming — Karen Comer

Duplicity — Karen Hruschka

Flood Day — Tamara Lennon

Dog of a Night — Julie Twohig

Splinters — Ashley Goldberg

Nurofen Nut Pain — Anthony Coorey

The Colour of Dreams — Pauline Cleary

Heading Home — Clare Lond-Caulk

Standing by — E.C. Thorpe

The Man of the House — Gabrielle Gardner

Ten Guitars — Kay Shacklock

One Day, Maybe — Alison McCaffrey

Fish Families — Sharmayne Riseley

A Darkling Plain — Julie Davies

Silence is Golden — Kym Iliff-Reynolds

The Three Towel Nightmare or The Full Tonk — David Bentley

We Can't Speak Spanish — Luke Thomas

Dog, Man's Worst Fiend — John Pitman

The Cloakroom — Brendan Murray

After the Rain — Holly Bruce

Harry D — Chris Hicks

A Local Newsflash — Martin Lindsay

Balance Sheet — Holly Bruce

The Stringybark Short Story Award 2015

About the Judges

Acknowledgements

Other titles by David Vernon at Smashwords.com

Introduction

— David Vernon

This is the twenty-sixth anthology of award-winning short stories from Stringybark Stories. It contains the highly commended and prize-winning stories from the Stringybark Short Story Award 2015.

This is an open-themed award and the experiences explored within these stories cover all aspects of human existence — from death, illness and domestic violence to love, joy and new life. The imagination and thought that goes into packing so much into a maximum of 1500 words is quite remarkable.

As usual, this collection has stories from seasoned writers who are well known to the Australian reader as well as less known writers and some who have been published for the very first time. This is what Stringybark Stories is all about: giving the opportunity to readers and writers alike to read and write new, fresh and contemporary material relating to Australia.

Happy reading!

David Vernon

Judge and Editor

Stringybark Stories

May 2016

Are You Ready?

— Julie Kearney

I sit in front of the mirror arranging the folds of my veil. Somewhere in this unfamiliar house, in one of the silent rooms, Dad is wandering about or maybe reading a book. He’s already done up in his suit, the new tie knotted over the shirt that Mum ironed with quick efficient strokes and passed to him as he stood there, wearing only a singlet over his trousers. At least it wasn’t that old singlet with the hole in it, the one he wears to bed.

The others have left the house: my mother energised and vivid in blue silk; Lynne looking absurdly young in her bridesmaid’s gown, her adolescent cheeks softly rounded under a cascade of blonde hair; Helen calling out to her husband, Hurry up, Roddy; young Billy, sweetly serious in his first long pants; my corseted grandma, iron-jawed with disapproval at the sight of the cigarette in my hand. They’ve all gone on ahead. One after another they hurried through the door to the waiting cars, crying, See you at the church! and I am alone in the house with Dad who is to drive me into town.

There is nothing left to do. My makeup is on, the something-borrowed veil pinned to my elaborate hairdo by Helen and Lynne. I wasn’t wearing the wedding dress when they did that. My sisters circled round me, pinning the netting as they alternated between fits of giggles and serious frowning concentration.

Oh Kerri! Mum said, coming into the room and seeing me with the long veil billowing round my grotty old shorts. Only you would do that. Why aren’t you dressed yet?

I couldn’t answer her, not being sure myself why I kept putting off the moment when I would have to slip into the creamy white dress, but at any rate it’s on now. I touch the lace on the sleeves and see in the mirror how well the dress follows the curves of my body. Mum spent a lot of time pinning and re-sewing it to make it fall properly.

Whatever could that woman down in Sydney be thinking of? she said, removing the pins from her mouth. Calling herself a bridal gown specialist!

But the dress is perfect now. I poke at the veil, turning my head this way and that to see if I look the way a bride should. The face in the mirror doesn’t entirely satisfy me but it will have to do. I study its fresh pinkness under the filmy veil and see a young woman pretending to be a bride. Let’s hope the people in church won’t see through my disguise to the person underneath. The one who shouldn’t be marrying because she doesn’t love the groom. Not truly. I know that now, now that the moment has come.

I’d like to go out and find Dad and sit with him, the two of us talking in an easy way. I’m not sure what we would talk about since he isn’t in the habit of talking to me, or to any of his children for that matter. On this special occasion I’d hoped… I’d thought he would make an exception for his eldest daughter. On the eve of her wedding. But apparently it isn’t to be. He avoided me an hour ago when I passed him in the hallway. I smiled at him but he only looked at me and walked past, lowering his eyes.

I stand up, take a step towards the door, stop, and go over to the window instead. Outside the ground is black, roughened into clods by the tractor Dad used to break up the soil. Soon Mum will plant a garden to make it a pleasant place. There’s a bit of grass left beside the driveway where the cars will park when they return from the church — after I am married. A shiver runs through me and I stare at the torn earth and beyond it, the cow-dotted paddocks and pale purple hills.

So far away, those purple hills…

I walked out there yesterday, on that patch of grass. Dad was there too, still in his work clothes, talking to his cattle dog. It growled and advanced on the poodle puppy I’d brought with me from Sydney, the wedding gift of a friend. Dad picked up the puppy and held it to his chest, saying: Sit, Blue. Good dog, good boy. I knew if it was me I would have shouted at the cattle dog out of fear. But apart from that day this place holds no memories for me. It’s all new, the garden in its raw beginnings, the house just built that my parents moved into only a few months ago while I was living in Sydney. There is nothing here to visit in memory while I wait Dad to drive us into town.

But perhaps… just maybe… it isn’t too late. Surely I can go and find Dad, tell him it’s all a mistake, that the wedding must be called off. But even as I think this I know it isn’t true. It is too late. Already people are getting out of their cars to go into the church, the tiered cake frosted with roses waits under gauze on the kitchen bench, the wedding gifts lie piled on a table in the living room.

And yet, couldn’t I? Shouldn’t I? Which is worse after all, a brief upset now — even a scandal — or a lifetime without love? Yes, I’ll go and find Dad and explain. He’ll understand, I’m sure, because he doesn’t like Ian. He’s never said so but I know him well enough to read the signs, the faint look of disappointment that comes on his face whenever his future son-in-law answers a question with another question. (What do you think of the weather we’ve been having lately, Ian? What do you think of it? – as if defending himself against an invasion of privacy.) Ian is a city boy and guarded in what he says, but out here in the bush we’re not used to people being secretive.

Trembling with sudden resolve I stand before the window, seeing nothing. Yes, I’ll go and find Dad and say…

What am I thinking? That’s crazy, a crazy thought. Of course I can’t tell him any such thing. It’s just last minute nerves, that’s all. Wedding jitters, isn’t that what they call it? I go back to the mirror and am studying my reflection as if seeing a stranger when I hear Dad calling in his burry country voice:

Are you ready?

I tap tap out of the bedroom in my pointy-toed high heels and see my father standing in the hallway, waiting for me.

Here I am, Dad.

We stare at each other, our faces grave. Dad looks uncomfortable in his new suit. The collar is pinching the flesh of his neck. I notice with surprise how bald he is getting. My father is getting old and I hadn’t noticed. I never, ever, want him to grow old. I love him too much.

Is it time? I say.

Yes, he says and together we walk out of the house and get in the car.

Julie Kearney is an award-winning artist and writer living in Brisbane. Her manuscript The Ballyhaise Girl was short-listed in the Queensland Literary Awards. She contributes to Griffith Review, and is published in journals and anthologies including New Asian Writing, Cleaver Magazine, ABC Arts Online and Shibboleth & Other Stories (Margaret River Press, forthcoming). www.juliekearney.com.au

Vignettes of Love

— Darcy-Lee Tindale

Daisy chains

When I was six, I’d lie amongst the white clover, pluck dandelions and blow wishes into the wind, A pony, a white one, with a silver mane and tail — real silver.

I’d tug yellow Capeweed from the ground thinking they were the most beautiful yellow daisies and make chains, lots of them. My friend called them goats’ beards and I just thought that was dumb.

We’d yank each petal from the bud, saying, He-loves-me, he-loves-me-not, he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not, over and over until our fingers were stained yellow. I felt hurt and rejected when I’d end on the last petal telling me, He-loves-me-not. I’d crush the stem in my fist and look for another flower, a kinder flower. I had no idea who this boy was, the one who ‘loved-me-not’, but I had a list of punishment for him, once I found out.

Skip rope for hearts

When I was eight, I’d skip rope with my friends. We’d sing songs that would guess the initials of the guy we would marry. The rope would whip above my head as my friends chanted, A, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p — I’d slam my leg down at p. I was so in love with Peter Beckley. We’d squeal. Then I’d skip rope to see how many kids I’d have, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 ... 46, 47, 48. We’d squeal again — 48!

I had no idea at the time that I would have to be up the duff for forty years to pop out forty-eight kids to Peter Beckley. I can’t tell you how relieved I am that we never married.

The toss of a stone

At age ten, at school during lunchtime we would pinch white pebbles from the garden bed. We’d try to find three sided stones, kind of like a squashed cone shape, but most of the time they were either double sided or four sided. With a marker we’d write on the sides of the stone, ‘yes, no, maybe’ and if it had a forth side, we’d write dumb things like ‘you-will-never-know.’ To make the writing fit, we simply wrote the acronym YWNK. We pronounced it as ‘you-wink!’ As in, it was a good thing, so good that the stone couldn’t let you know how good it would really be and would instead give you a stone wink. In year five, this all made a lot of sense to us.

Playing hopscotch we’d ask questions and toss our stones. If we completed the hopscotch, collected our stone and it did not fall out of the squares, it meant it was all