Short Stories

I entered the West Australian annual short story competition. I submitted three stories. I didn't win! I didn't even make the top 50. For one thing, they were too short. They also needed work. I'm going to try again next year.....

I'm posting them here for posterity. We can learn from our failures and move on!

Rain in Spain

Big fat drops begin to fall and are soon bouncing off the pavement. It wasn’t raining when I left the hotel but it is now, with a vengeance. I’m on holiday in Malaga, Spain on the Costa del Sol and this is not the weather I expected. No Sol today.

I’ve booked online to see the Picasso Museum and I have a slot between 3.00 pm and 5.00 pm. So have lots of other people, it seems. There is a long queue and everybody is getting wet. The queue moves slowly; in fact, it hardly moves at all. I’m tempted to forget the whole idea, but I’ve paid 12 Euros for a ticket and I’m still annoyed that I couldn’t work out how to get the Seniors Discount. I realise that I’ve plenty of time to wait out this shower, so I take refuge under the awning of a bar. Others crowd in too.

With nothing else to do, I start up a conversation with an American couple who are already sitting down and drinking a cafe con leche. The woman says “Where are you from, honey?” When I tell her Australia, she says “ You speak good English, doesn’t she, Joe?” I don’t know how to respond to this.

The rain gets heavier and water is now flowing down the street, threatening to engulf our improvised shelter. My feet and sandals are soaked. Two German guys join the crowd squashed under the sagging awning. One says “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain” with perfect annunciation. His partner, Gunther, says “Professor Higgins again. He’s always doing this.” The American woman asks if the Professor is an expert on Picasso. I smile conspiratorially at the Germans.

Gunther has acquired an umbrella for 5 Euros, the last in the shop apparently. He decides to re-join the queue regardless, as the rain shows no sign of abating. I ask if I can join him under the umbrella and he agrees. Helmut, his partner, will get a phone call when the queue reaches the museum entrance. As we shuffle forward under his umbrella, Gunther remarks “This would never happen in Germany. We are better at organising such things.” I think he is probably right.

As we start to inch forward, I finally think of a response to Nancy, the American woman. “Actually, I speak better English than you!”

Where There’s a Will

“We reserve the right to contest the will,” announced Phil’s e-mail. Good luck with that, I thought. I had paid good money for advice from a top lawyer in Perth and I knew that the will was watertight. Phil was just saying that to upset me. He was being totally obnoxious. With a great deal of restraint, I decided to ignore his words.

My partner JJ and I had been together for 20 years. Most of the time we’d been perfectly happy. The only flies in the ointment had been his kids who didn’t like to see their father with another woman. He should remain faithful to their mother, even after she had died of dementia. They didn’t understand that he would have been really lonely rattling around in his house by the sea. He couldn’t cook. He couldn’t do anything, except for his job as a consultant civil engineer. He needed someone like me to look after him.

I finally responded to Phil’s e-mail, asking for 3 copies of the death certificate. I needed to go to the Lands Registry to get confirmation that I was now the owner of the house by the sea. I was shocked to receive the copies. There was no mention of me in the space for a de-facto partner. I had been written out of history! How was this possible? What could I do about it?

When people are really nasty, it’s probably best to turn the other cheek. What would JJ have done? He was a mild-mannered man who would never hold a grudge. On the other hand, I am a big grudge holder. I felt like getting my revenge on Phil and plotted the best way to achieve this. Then I realized that my anger was directed at the wrong person. Phil’s sister Sheila was obviously the one behind the death certificate. She was just that sort of person.

Sheila owned a beautiful holiday home down south. JJ and I had been there only once, when we had been asked to remove our shoes before walking on the polished light oak floors. I read up on different types of scam. One involved the sewing of prawns into the seams of curtains. I liked that idea, but the stink would only be short lived. Then I read about a scam where someone sold a property that they didn’t actually own.

I secretly made friends with Sheila’s cleaning woman in order to gain access to the house. I posed as the mother-in-law and knew enough about the family to make this credible. I approached a real estate agent in Singapore that dealt with overseas properties. Slowly it all came together. The rich Singaporean buyer finally sent me a bank draft and that was it! Deal done.

I’m just about to board a plane for Brazil. I’m travelling Business Class. I don’t think there is an extradition treaty...

My Best Friend

Marg: My best friend at Primary School was Gillian. We often played together in her garden after school. She lived in a big house on the main road. Her mother was a bit of a fuss-pot though. She made Gillian take a spoonful of Scott’s Emulsion every day. This tasted revolting apparently, but Mrs Dawson seemed constantly afraid that Gillian would get sick. I never saw Mr Dawson. He owned the bakery in town and had to get up at 3.00 am to light the bread oven.

Gillian: My best friend at Primary School was Marg. I never went to her house, though. I thought maybe they hadn’t much money and she didn’t want me to see it. But she had something I really wanted: a little sister. She also had grandparents. Her grandfather was a friend of our Headmaster. One day, during exams, I saw Mr Webb pause by Marg’s desk and put his finger on her paper. I’m sure he was pointing to a mistake she had made. I was shocked! I never said a word about it to anyone.

Marg: Gillian never called Mrs Dawson ‘Mum’. She always used her first name, Muriel. I later discovered that Gillian was adopted and this explained a lot.

Gillian: When we went to High School, we were no longer in the same class. This confirmed something I had always known: Marg was cleverer than me. She and her group were reading Anna Karenina : it was the fashion at the time. I couldn’t get into the book at all.

Marg: Gillian was secretly in love with a Canadian boy who was here on exchange. At first, I thought that this was her escape route: to go back to Canada with him. But she came to realise that there was no future in it. Muriel would never let her go.

Gillian: Marg is applying to Melbourne Uni, but first she plans to have a gap year to go travelling. She will get a job at Woolies for six months to save some money. She told me she was going to the travel agents to ask about tickets on the Trans Siberian Express. ‘Come with me!’ she begged. ‘I can’t’ I replied, ‘I’ve got to take Muriel to the hairdresser.’