Sowing the Seeds: Collected Stories

By Chris Leckonby

Romance, adventure, humour, intrigue, murder, quirky twists... You'll find them all and more in these collected short stories - some of them prize-winners - written by South Australian author Chris Leckonby.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Debbie Lee
• Release date: Jun 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781740279796

Book preview

Once Bitten

Dominic Pellegrino was a wide boy, a gangster with an illicit grog enterprise, who had already spent five of his thirty years in jail and was looking for more. He was swarthy, dark, sexy in a scruffy sort of way, with long ringlets almost down to his belly-button. He had a buxom blonde in tow, twenty-seven-year-old Betty ‘boom-boom’ Silvester, who had worldwide contacts in a drugs, booze and fags smuggling ring. (Her generous buttocks were the reason for the nickname, which began as ‘bum-bum’ until one bloke who called her that ended up in hospital less than a man, but she thought ‘boom-boom’ was cool.) Dominic had it made, as she was good both in bed and in business.

Dominic and Boom-boom, real name Agnes Goldsmith, were cruising around on his Harley in the sleepy hamlet of Once Bitten, where they had rented a large shed from which to conduct their nefarious goings-on. As they approached the shed, they came upon one Angus Stewart Wallace, a retired Scottish doctor out walking his golden retriever, Pistol. They gave each other a look, as best you can on a motorbike without falling off. The look said, ‘He’d better just walk on by and not go snooping or…’ Angus changed his mind about investigating the tell-tale marijuana odour emanating faintly from the shed…until another time. Dominic and Boom-boom cruised on.

Angus was staying at the Beer and Skittles until he found suitable lodgings. ‘Retired’ was a euphemism for ‘struck off’, as his skills and integrity had disintegrated since he succumbed to dope, in addition to his predilection for cigars and whisky. Booze and fags he could get at the pub, and now he was sure he’d found a source of dope. Pistol had strained embarrassingly at the leash as they walked past the shed, and he didn’t want Dom and Boom-boom smelling a rat. He walked on, and came to the pretty rose-entwined cottage of Florence Whitehead, the Sunday school teacher, pillar of sobriety, the church and the community.

Seventy-year-old Florence was a spinster, her medical-student fiancé having been killed by a drunk driver when he was twenty-one. Her cats, her garden and her church work were her life…almost.

On Florence’s garden gate was a small printed notice: ‘Bed & Breakfast for sober single or couple. No pets or children. Terms negotiable.’ Oh well, he’d see. He was good at disguising his habits. He walked up the crazy-paving path and rang the doorbell. Pistol knew better than to even look at her cats.

Florence came to the door and said ‘Yes?’ with the safety chain still fastened.

‘Good afternoon. My name is Wallace. I’m looking for lodgings.’

He could have been anybody, but, having hidden her whisky, Florence opened the door, smelling money. Wallace. That was Angus’s name! Pull yourself together, it’s a common name, he’s been dead fifty years… She nearly fainted when she saw him. It can’t be, don’t be silly. Could be his brother…

Angus left Pistol tied up on the porch and went in. Over afternoon tea, they discussed terms and conditions. Then came the paperwork. Full name…

She knew. Why had word got to her that he was dead? Had he recognised her? Of course she’d changed her name when she moved here, a new identity helping her to live with her bereavement. Her whole life since had been a lie.

Angus moved in. Two days later he returned to the shed for a snoop. Weekdays, Dom and Boom-boom were busy in the city. Casing the shed, Pistol became agitated, whining and pawing at the base of the door. Desperate for a joint by now, Angus was sorely tempted to break in, but had no idea how to do it and get away with it. There was marijuana in that shed. He went around the back, and piled up some logs to climb on to give him a look through a dirty window. No clue as to the shed’s use was visible, but, to anyone passing in the lane, he was. A second door was barricaded on the inside.

He went away to think. Next day he returned, unfortunately just as Dominic, sans Boom-boom, popped back to retrieve his camera. He’d left it there Sunday, and it was full of pornographic shots of Boom-boom. Sure he’d locked the shed, but…bloody hell, there’s that bloke with the gundog that was here Sunday…

‘What do you want?’

‘Just out walking. Who wants to know?’

‘You’re trespassing! Get out of here!’

‘OK, OK, no harm intended. What’s to get excited about? I’m going!’

Pistol didn’t like Dominic and let out a low growl until checked by Angus. He could read people better than Angus could by a country mile.

Dom got his camera, but he was flustered and preoccupied. What if… That bloke would have to go. He shadowed him back to the cottage. Aha, Florence! This was a job for Boom-boom.

Back in the city, he related his experience. What I need you to do, honey, he wheedled, is go see Florence. We know about her grog and fags. I’m sure you can bribe or blackmail her to cooperate. She’s done it before, you know.

She’d have to go when Angus was out, as advertised by the presence or otherwise of Pistol chained by the front door. Florence’s cats were the only non-humans allowed in the cottage.

"Miss Whitehead, may I come in? My name’s Agnes Goldsmith and I…’ (with a self-conscious smile) ‘would like to talk business.’

Agnes was dressed down for the occasion, and Florence imagined her to be another potential B&B client.

‘I’m sorry, I just took a permanent resident. I should have taken the notice down.’

"No, it’s not that. Look, may I come in? I promise I’m not selling anything.’

Puzzled, intrigued, Florence let her in.

‘It’s about your guest that I want to see you…’ Agnes alias Boom-boom put her case.

Florence’s eyes widened, shocked, horrified…then she began to succumb to greed, and anger, heartbreak and frustration over what Angus had done to her all those years ago. She was sure he still didn’t know who she was, but of course he had not seen, and would never again see, the birthmark on her left buttock. She’d killed before and got away with it, and ten thousand pounds was not to be knocked back lightly. Besides, her reputation… If this girl really did know, and spilled the beans, Florence’s life here was over.

‘You leave me no choice,’ she told Boom-boom, after an indecently short pause for thought. ‘But…what guarantees do I have? How do I know you’re genuine?’

‘Think about it, Florence dear. If I’m for real, you gain ten thousand pounds, or lose your cred in Once Bitten. Why would I bother to come to you, a stranger, if I’m not?’

Angus returned late from his walk. He’d been to look at the shed again, and couldn’t believe what he found. Someone had been in; the door was swinging in the breeze. Had Dom been careless when retrieving his camera? Who knew or cared? Help yourself to the dope, Angus, then report it to the police and go home via the Beer and Skittles for your usual.

Florence greeted him with a smile. ‘Mr Wallace,’ she said, ‘I know you’ve been at the pub. It’s OK: I drink too, but nobody knows. If you’d like to share one with me any time, it will be just our secret.’

Something about her demeanour, her body language, a tell-tale remainder of a former accent, bothered him but he couldn’t place it at all.

That evening after dinner she got out the whisky and poured two doubles, her back to him just like in the whodunits.

‘Angus,’ she made bold, as they were not yet on first-name terms, ‘you obviously don’t know who I am.’

Angus’s turn to almost faint. His wife had divorced him when she found out about his habits, and he’d gone short in the bedroom department for many years. Maybe he could invent some story, kiss and make up, start again with Florence… He downed his potion in one gulp and hugged Florence to him. He was well on his way to seeing that birthmark again when he lost consciousness.

---

It was all too much in one day for the local police, cracking an international drug ring and having a body on their hands, the body no less of the man who had reported the marijuana.

‘He was such an old soak,’ Florence told them. ‘He had a heart attack. He came home full of grog and I could tell he’d been smoking dope, though goodness knows where he got it. He stank of cigars, would’ve smoked himself to death before long.’

Poor Florence. Angus dead, her boozy secret out, and she never got her money. But the glass was only half empty. She got away with murder.

Boot Camp

When I was a student at Mineralton Primary, it was the custom in Year 6 to study the history and geology of mining in South Australia, and if that sounds rather dry for a bunch of eleven-year-olds, well, you didn’t know our teacher. Mrs Prescott was the coolest being ever to be in charge of a classroom, and we learned by doing; her maxim was ‘When I hear, I forget. When I see, I remember. When I do, I understand’, and life was all about practical experiments, drama, excursions and artwork. The culmination was a camp at Kalaroonta, in the heart of what used to be copper-mining territory.

My best friend, Jessica Parker, had her sights on becoming Australia’s best-selling living novelist. She was adventurous, brainy, wore a hearing aid and was given to ‘romancing’. She wouldn’t hear of it being called ‘lying’, as a novelist has to exercise her imagination…

The bus trundled into the yard at Kalaroonta, sixty kids bent on fun, two teachers and five parents bent on keeping some sort of order. We sorted out the bunks, then went outside to explore until teatime. We were free within certain bounds, and had fun fossicking in the mullock heaps, getting filthy and finding blue azurite or green malachite, or sometimes a bit of native copper.

The teachers had organised a talk by a local that night, on the history of copper mining. Everyone else thought that was so b-o-r-i-n-g, but I was a tiny bit interested, as my dad had been appointed manager of the new mining operation. We’d probably have to come and live up here, which would be cool except I’d miss Jess. A world shortage, and therefore price rise, of copper, had led to the mines being opened up again. Jess was very interested, as she claimed to have an ancestor who had disappeared without trace during the early years of copper mining.

Anyway, we had to go to this talk, and at question time Jess put up her hand and said, ‘Excuse me, sir, my great-great-great-grandfather was a copper miner here and he was the one you told us about who disappeared.’

The speaker looked a bit stunned but made the mistake of asking for more.

‘He came over in the First Fleet because his mother was sentenced to seven years’ transportation, and as he was only a boy of fourteen without a father, he had to come too. He was a good-looking lad and the captain picked him out from all the convicts to be his cabin boy.’

Nerdy Nigel wore a look of extreme disbelief, but the others seemed to swallow it.

She went on, ‘He found all sorts of work after they arrived, farms, factories, cleaning, deckhand… Eventually he left his mother and got work on the railway, travelling to Adelaide and then up here to Kalaroonta. He got married and worked in the mines. One day he never came back from work. His wife looked for him, cried for him, the whole town did all they could, but he was never found. He had three children by this time. One of them of course was my great-great-grandfather.’

‘Really?’ said the speaker. ‘That’s all very interesting, young lady.’ He couldn’t call her a liar in front of her classmates, but Nigel would deal with her later.

Over supper Nigel said, ‘Well, that caps all your creative anachronisms so far, Jess. If you’re going to be a historical novelist, you’d better start getting your research in order.’

‘What do you mean?’ She and Nigel were the only ones in the class to know what anachronisms were, but she wanted to know what he meant by the remark.

‘Well, the last time you told that story, he’d come as a sea captain, no sign of a convict mother, and settled in Sydney, raised a family, and it was his grandson who came over here. Caught a ship from Botany Bay en route to Perth, got caught in horrendous weather in the bight, came up Spencer Gulf for a bit of shelter and kept going, curious to know what was up here, and how far the gulf extended. For a start, if he came as a convict with the First Fleet, who had built the factories? And what about the railway and trains to Adelaide and up here? Get real! And remember, South Australia didn’t have convicts!’

She and Nigel liked each other in an intellectual kind of way, but she hated him with a passion when he found her out. Pointing out her anomalies, he called it, said he was doing her a favour. She went purple and hurried off to bed.

Next day Mrs Prescott had organised an orienteering course. That was how she taught mapping, and we’d done the basics in the school yard. We had to find our way around a set course, using only a map and compass and being timed. Jess and I went off together, talking more than concentrating and running. At one control point, Jess decided to remove her jumper, simultaneously ripping off her hearing aid and sending it flying down into a gully. In a flash she was down there after it, before she lost sight of it, but being Jess, lost her footing and slid much further than she intended. She was scrambling back up when she found the boot.

‘Cass, look here.’ she yelled. ‘Help me up, quick!’

(My name is Cassandra Massey, so they call me Sassie Cassie Massey. Parents can be so thoughtless.)

The hearing aid forgotten, she scrambled to the top, complete with boot. ‘It’s got some moss and twigs in it, looks like a bird’s nest.’

I was rolling my eyes by this time, thinking ‘So what?’

She ripped out the bird’s nest then screamed and dropped the boot. ‘Oh, Cassie, look! Just look!’ she yelled.

A crumbled human foot lay mixed with soil inside the boot, a left work boot.

‘Oh, Jess… Who do you think… I know what you’re thinking! Come on, we’ve got to take it to the police station.’

‘No rush,’ answered the logical, calmer Jess. ‘He’s been there a hundred years.’

The officer hummed and hahed and took our particulars. ‘We’ll have to get forensics onto this!’

Surprise surprise. But we knew there would be no DNA identification without a match. All we needed now, to find out if it was Jess’s ancestor, was the rest of his identified body! The officer did let us take a photo of our find before plastic-bagging it and locking it away. Back at camp, our mates were furious they hadn’t given them a look first. And we got a DNF (Did Not Finish, the ultimate shame) for our orienteering.

A historical walk was scheduled for next day, involving trudging round the town looking at old cottages, churches and a school. In one cottage Jess felt she was being hugged by an unseen presence. She stood among all the memorabilia of the family who had lived here, beds and kettles, clothes, ornaments, pictures… She looked out the same back door, at the same view as…her great-great-grandmother?…awaiting the return of her husband. Adolescent imagination, or a certain realisation that here were the spirits of her ancestors?

Jess was quiet as we moved on, and she didn’t want any tea that night. Mrs Prescott had threatened certain death to anyone who teased her. We could wait!

The new mine started up, a thriving new town was built, and the boot stayed in police custody.

Only last week, fifteen years after our camp, a skeleton was discovered in a cave on the beach near Kalaroonta – minus the left foot.

Jess and I had lost touch when we went to uni. I was doing forensic science and she, of course, an arts degree, specialising in creative writing. I’d got married and moved away, but the small item in the paper flashed out at me and I just knew the skeleton was our man. Jess was still single and I tracked her down