Winning Short Story 2024
Winning Story
Running Water by Caileen Cachia
Our Judge, Sue Copsey, says: I love how it ties together the idea of nature renewing itself and the main character, Jane, starting afresh, and how travel, especially when it’s outside our comfort zone, gives us that perspective to look objectively at our lives, to see where we might have gone off track and work out how to move on. The description is beautifully done, the reader is immersed in the rainforest with its beauty and undercurrent of danger. I enjoyed how the character responded to the forest, how she sees her own life reflected back at her in nature and its cycles: ‘once it was gone you could never – no matter how much you might want to – get it back.’ All in all, an empowering story for women, full of emotion and rich description.
Running Water
Jane squeezes the trigger. Water arcs out of the spraygun in a shower of droplets. The low sun catches them, gilding everything with the alchemy of late afternoon. She doesn’t usually water this late in the day, it encourages root rot—but how else do you say goodbye to a garden?
A bold miner bird alights and enjoys a shower, then flies over the fence into the bush. It’s the drops of water flicking off the bird’s quick wings which transport Jane back to the Daintree Rainforest, where every lush article of vegetation dripped and drooping branches issued tiny downpours when touched. Even the name of the place, when Angela first announced they were going, had evoked something wet and green and fertile in Jane’s mind. Something frightening too if she was honest—which she wasn’t because Angela had already paid for the guided hiking tour as well as Jane’s flight to Cairns.
‘It’s your fiftieth, Janey, you have to celebrate,’ she’d said over the phone.
That sense of obligation was the reason Jane got into the cab when it arrived, even though Martin’s fuming resentment seemed to trail her, weighing her down as she boarded first the bus to Sydney and then the plane. But then she surrendered herself to the thrill of take-off and put Martin out of her mind. She’d do her penance when she got back.
—
Jane calculated that it had been two years since she’d left Mitchells Flat and twenty-five since she’d travelled on her own. Was it any wonder she felt dangerously untethered—at risk of floating away? But the Daintree was a vast, green cathedral and the humidity settled on her like a weighted blanket, reassuringly oppressive. At home, gardening was her escape, but hiking was truly meditative. Her steps followed one another without conscious thought, the presence of the guide and the absence of phone reception removed all other expectations and after just a few hours, Jane began to understand why Angela loved these hiking trips so much. Their guide, Samuel, took care of everything. The group of seven hikers, all women, only had to put on their daypacks and follow him.
In the afternoon of the first day, Samuel led them to an expanse of flat rock next to a fast-running stream. The women dropped their packs and sat down with relieved sighs, swigging from their water bottles and stretching out their legs.
They checked themselves and each other for leeches, which were legion on the track. Before they’d set off that morning, Samuel had shared tips on avoiding and removing them. Neither Angela, a veteran hiker, nor Jane, who often encountered them in her garden, were afraid of leeches, but among the group was a trio of loud friends who seemed terrified of them. Angela had wondered quietly in Jane’s ear why you’d go hiking in the rainforest if you were afraid of leeches. Jane smiled, realising too late that she’d smiled directly at Samuel, who was demonstrating how to tickle a leech with a twig to detach it. He smiled back.
A couple of leeches were found and dealt with. Conversations petered out; the women knew the routine already. Whenever they paused to rest, Samuel would tell them something interesting about the local environment or the culture of the local indigenous people, the Kuku Yalanji people.
Samuel raked a hand through his dark, floppy hair as the group’s attention settled on him. The three loud friends had commented on his good looks during introductions that morning. It had embarrassed Jane, but Samuel had handled it deftly, seemingly at ease in his own skin.
He pointed to the stream. ‘Rivers weren’t only a source of clean water for the Kuku Yalanji,’ he said. ‘They were also important for food preparation.’
He seemed to have a limitless store of facts which he found genuinely fascinating and his eyes lit up as he imparted each one. Jane wondered how old he was. Probably in his early thirties, technically young enough to be her son but about a decade older than her actual son. Scott was twenty-two and in the final year of the degree he’d moved to Melbourne for at eighteen. Jane’s daughter, Laura, had just finished school and was counting down the days until she too could escape.
‘There are plenty of food plants in the forest,’ Samuel said. ‘But some of the most important ones are actually toxic.’ He pulled a fruit, the size of a large grape, from his pocket. He held it up, a bright spot of red vivid among all the green. Behind him, the afternoon sun fell in shafts through the trees and sparkled in the water as it splashed over rocks.
‘This is the fruit of Lepidozamia hopei, also known as the Zamia palm or, to the Kuku Yalanji—wunu. It’s a type of cycad.’ Jane nodded. They’d seen lots of cycads that morning, their circular arrays of spiky fronds easy to spot among the taller trees. They didn’t only grow in the rainforest—Jane had one in her garden. Samuel continued.
‘Inside the fruit are seeds which can be made into meal, providing a valuable source of carbohydrate energy. But to consume the seeds safely, the Kuku Yalanji had to detoxify them first. They would roast them, crush them, put them in a woven bag and place them in running water overnight to leach the toxins out.’ Samuel pointed to the stream again. ‘Somewhere like this would be ideal.’
The stream flowed through many small pools, cresting smoothly over the rocks that formed them. Jane imagined Kuku Yalanji women—she assumed it would be the women—standing on the rocks, moving in and out of patches of sun, weighing down their bags of ground seeds with stones, then standing back to let the stream take the poison away.
Samuel talked about how modern science had proven these methods effective. It was all about solution equilibrium. If the water was still, it would leach out some poison, but not enough to make the seeds safe. Running water was essential: the exact wisdom passed down through generations of Kuku Yalanji.
That night, Jane lay awake in the twin cabin she was sharing with Angela. It should have felt like luxury, having a bed to herself for the first time in decades, but as soon as the lights went out, the feeling she’d had on the plane returned, that vertiginous sense of having too much space around her body. Too much freedom. She thought about the stream, about the way the water flowed inexorably past and once it was gone you could never—no matter how much you might want to—get it back.
Laura would leave home soon. She’d won a scholarship, so not even Martin could stop her. Time was flowing around Jane, taking the things she loved and leaving the poison.
—
Jane moves the hose, directing water onto the delicate foliage of the westringia shrubs, floppy after the warm day. Towering over them, taller than the house, but too slender to provide much shade, is the lemon myrtle that was a house-warming gift from Angela twenty years ago.
Martin had just surprised her by buying the house sight unseen. Mitchells Flat was at the bottom of a valley a two-hour drive from Sydney, where land was cheap.
‘The mortgage is smaller—you won’t have to go back to work,’ he’d said and it had made a kind of sense.
‘Are you happy here, Janey?’ Angela had asked when she’d first come to visit. They were in the garden, deciding where the lemon myrtle sapling should go. Angela was looking through the skeleton of the fence Martin had begun building into the dense bush that surrounded the house.
‘I’ve always wanted a big garden,’ Jane said, hoisting baby Scott higher on her hip.
Jane didn’t blame Angela when her visits became less frequent; it was a long drive and they had no spare room for her to stay in. When Angela met Joel and moved to Victoria, the visits stopped altogether. Angela had invited Jane and Martin to visit, but they never went. She gave Angela different excuses, but the truth was Jane never asked Martin if they could go, knowing that voicing a desire to do so would ensure the answer was no.
It was hard to pinpoint when exactly she had started taking no for an answer. Harder still to remember when she’d started asking permission. Not at the start, of course. Then it had been flowers and candlelit dinners and walks on the beach and movies and planning holidays and two incomes and ‘I’ll cook, you wash up’. It had happened gradually, after the wedding. Her difficult pregnancies, the bed rest and the endless sleepless nights with colicky babies had worn Jane away until she was hardly there at all.
But, once they’d emerged from the newborn stage, Jane adored the children. She loved their dimpled little hands, their endless questions and their unpredictable, sticky hugs. She loved the way they orbited around her so that when she was with them, she felt a conviction as simple as gravity itself. When they needed her to hold them they made a little bubble with their bodies and hers that seemed to whisper, ‘We exist, we exist, we exist.’
But Scott and Laura grew up and their lives revolved around Jane less and less. The house grew quieter, smaller somehow. The garden became her sanctuary.
Jane saw Angela less frequently over the years, until only reciprocal Christmas and birthday cards remained. Then the pandemic came and Angela, stuck in interminable lockdown, discovered video calls. Martin didn’t like it, but when he tested positive for the virus and had to isolate in their bedroom for two weeks, the friends were free to talk for hours. Angela made Jane laugh and one day, in that small rectangle on the screen that framed her face, Jane recognised herself for the first time in years.
—
The second day of the hike brought rain. At breakfast, the group pulled their rain pants on and zipped gaiters over their boots, pleased to put their expensive wet weather gear to use. Jane teased Angela about it, but her friend just grinned.
‘Can’t complain about rain in a rainforest,’ she said, handing over the rainwear she’d brought for Jane to wear.
The sound of the rain on their hoods made it hard to hold conversations, so the group fell into companionable silence. Jane felt that meditative state descend again. Her repetitive, squelchy steps grounded her. ‘You exist, you exist, you exist,’ they said.
By mid-morning the weather had cleared and they stopped to shed their outer layers. Afterwards, Jane found herself walking side by side with Samuel. Their steps synchronised to the rhythmic clicking of the straps on his pack. Inexplicably nervous, Jane cast around for something to say.
‘What happens if you eat unprocessed cycad seeds?’ she asked. As soon as she said it, she worried it would seem a strange non sequitur, but Samuel replied without missing a beat, as if he had also been thinking about that very subject.
‘Ingestion causes stomach pains and upset, vomiting, liver failure at the extreme end,’ he said. ‘Continuous exposure can cause neurological symptoms. But it’s mostly a problem for dogs. People grow cycads in their gardens and their dogs get into them. It’s often fatal.’
Jane wanted to ask him what it was like to be so full of interesting facts, but instead she said, ‘I haven’t got a dog, my husband doesn’t like them.’
—
Jane lets her eyes wander over the garden. Curated layers of different shades of green, punctuated with accents of colour. Her passion project, Martin calls it.
Her consolation prize.
She turns the dial on the spray gun to mist and the air fills with fine droplets. Sometimes, at this time of day, she can get a rainbow to appear. She manages to conjure one above her cycad plant. She knows now that it’s a Macrozamia communis, called Burrawang in the Dharuk language. Its seeds are just as toxic as those of the rainforest cycads. She turns the dial back to shower and the rainbow disappears.
In the middle of the cycad’s nest of spiky leaves are two cones. They look like skinny, unripe pineapples, easy to overlook among the kaleidoscope of greens in the garden, but Jane knows that inside are nestled dozens of vividly red, jewel-like seeds.
—
On the third day; a waterfall.
They heard it first, their voices rising in competition and then collapsing into silent awe as they rounded a bend. Before them was a wide, green waterhole from which layers of rock rose in terraced formation. Higher up, the water tumbled in short, splashy cascades, but on the lowest terrace it rolled gently over smooth rock. A group of young people were taking turns sliding down the natural waterslide and posing for photos. Shouts and laughter ricocheted around the clearing.
‘Let’s go!’ shouted Lani, the loudest of the three loud friends, hurrying onwards.
‘I didn’t bring swimmers,’ Jane told Angela as they walked.
‘Why not?’ asked Angela. ‘They were on the packing list.’
Jane knew they were, but the only pair she had was at least twenty years old and, when she’d tried them on, she’d discovered the elastic had gone.
‘I’m not much of a swimmer,’ she said, which wasn’t a lie. She loved to swim, but she couldn’t remember the last time she had, although Mitchells Flat was less than an hour’s drive from the coast. Martin had let Scott take her car when he’d left for uni, which meant Martin’s big ute was now their only vehicle and he didn’t like her driving it.
The other women held towels up for each other to change behind. Jane busied herself with her backpack, trying to give them privacy, but they only laughed when they accidentally exposed naked parts of themselves.
Lani, wearing a fuchsia pink swimsuit which barely contained her, picked her way across the rocks to the top of the waterslide then slid down, shrieking all the way. She disappeared under the water for a second and then popped up, spluttering. One large, pale breast had escaped her swimsuit. Her amusement and horror as she realised what her friends were laughing at made Jane laugh too.
Samuel, who was preparing lunch, paused to see what the disturbance was. He smiled and held up his hands. ‘Nothing I haven’t seen before, ladies.’
—
After lunch, the group had the waterhole to themselves. Angela and the others decided to have another swim.
‘Sure you won’t join us, Janey?’ said Angela. ‘You only live once.’
Jane looked at the water streaming over the smooth rocks and felt a visceral longing to immerse herself in it. Surprised at her own daring, she stripped down to her sports bra and underpants, grateful both were black. She sat down on the rock and put her legs into the rushing water. To slide down, she’d have to relinquish the grip provided by the dry rock and surrender herself to the slippery surface. She didn’t know if she could do it. Then there was movement on her right and Samuel slid past headfirst, whooping. The flat arrowhead of his hands pierced the water cleanly and he swam into the middle of the waterhole. He surfaced, grinning at her.
‘Come on Jane,’ called Lani. ‘I’ll flash you again if you do it.’
Jane laughed, then pushed herself forward. Her body slid over the slick algae as swiftly as the water itself, a euphoric yelp escaping her before she plunged into the waterhole.
—
The miner bird is back. It regards Jane from the top of the fence as if it knows something.
‘You don’t know me,’ she tells it and the bird flies away.
Martin is at the kitchen window, watching her. She wonders if he’s noticed the absence of any dinner-making activity. He might have called out, but she wouldn’t have heard him over the sound of the water.
At last, she releases the trigger. Into the quiet, birdsong spills. She drinks in her garden—the weakening shafts of light falling through the smooth boughs of the crepe myrtle, the grey green of the emu bush and the bright spots of red in the flowering gum.
She reaches into the spiky nest of the cycad, twists one of the cones off and slips it into the pocket of her cardigan. It balances out the weight of Martin’s car keys in the other pocket.
It’s taken years to coax the baby’s tears to fill the spaces between the pavers on the side path. The low sun catches the translucent edges of the tiny leaves, lighting them emerald. In the shed, her suitcase waits. She can’t wheel it on the loose gravel of the driveway, so she carries it.
Martin’s ute is parked under the carport he built to protect its shiny black paint. Jane hoists the suitcase onto the passenger seat and closes the door. She climbs into the driver’s seat and adjusts the seat. She takes the cycad cone from her pocket and puts it on the dash, where it rolls to rest against the windscreen. She turns the key in the ignition and the ute roars to life. Martin appears at the front door. He takes several quick steps, drawing level with the passenger window, his expression incredulous.
Jane presses the accelerator. The tyres growl and then find purchase on the gravel. The car speeds forward. At the end of the driveway, Jane brings it to a stop. The road—a smooth, black ribbon—flows away through the valley and out of sight. Behind her, in the rear-view mirror, Martin stands in a cloud of gravel dust, one arm raised against the setting sun.
On the dashboard, the cycad cone rolls away from her as Jane turns the car onto the road.
***
Second Place
The Salute
by
Matthew Thomas
“a fascinating idea, beautifully told, riveting…”
What do I remember?
It was sweltering. There was a huge crowd, at least a hundred thousand.
Bert was raging, he kept saying, “To fuck with that.”
The newspapers got it wrong when they said we did it willingly. I suppose it let the top brass off the hook.
The one with the bowler hat came to see us before the match. Fair play to him for that, for not hiding like some I could mention. But when he insisted it was our duty, that was when it all kicked off.
Most of us had lost someone in the Great War. We knew where talk of duty could lead.
…………..
Things were going wrong from the start. Half of us were seasick on the boat to Hamburg, staggering around and heaving over the side. If the bosses hadn’t been so stingy, they would have put us on a plane. We weren’t important enough, not until that telegram arrived from London. Then it was: make yourselves heroes, Eddie, do your country proud, the whole world is watching.
Even before we walked up the gangway the first morning, there was trouble brewing. Our match with Austria had been cancelled, they told us. There was no Austria, not any more. The lads grumbled a bit – they were looking for revenge – but it was Cliff who asked the question. “How can they say that, like they’ve wiped a country off the map? And we just play along?”
The hotel they gave us was noisy and if you went downstairs there’d be someone from the papers asking you questions. Not the journalists we knew by name, writing match reports for the back pages and buying us a beer now and then, mostly decent most of the time. These men didn’t speak the same way as us or even smell the same. They wrote the big stories of the day, about the King or the Government.
“Do you think there’ll be another war, Eddie?” one of them asked me.
…………
It was easier to stay in our rooms, out of the way, but it wasn’t long before some of the boys were climbing the walls. Eventually Stan said he was going for a walk and I went with him, to look after him in case there was an incident. I was only a few years older but I felt more like his dad than his captain.
At first there was no reason to worry. The streets around our hotel were busy with shops and cafés and it was only a matter of time before someone recognised Stan and asked for his autograph. A small crowd gathered and a few remarks were made that we didn’t understand but had them all laughing – though, from the look on their faces, it was friendly, nothing unsporting. Stan was enjoying the attention and looked relaxed, signing his name and shaking hands.
I heard the shouting and the roar of motorcycles but thought nothing of it. Berlin is a big city, these things happen all the time.
Only when the crowd turned away from us and craned their necks towards the noise did I realise what was going on. Only when the motorcyclists began barking and clearing the road and I saw they were in uniform did I understand this was a parade and who was in it.
No-one was asking for Stan’s autograph now. They were still cheering and waving like a football crowd but they were watching the approaching cars. People were streaming out of the cafés and forcing their way through for a better look. A few were wearing armbands.
I couldn’t see much over the hats and flags but I could tell the procession had reached us from how the crowd were reacting. I’d seen that salute at the pictures, on Movietone News. The raised arm, straight at the elbow with the hand facing downwards. But it hadn’t seemed as real as it did now, rippling through the folk in front of me, near enough to touch, families and workmen and girls out shopping who a few minutes before had been holding out scraps of paper for Stan to sign.
The figure in the first car was returning the gesture. A woman in front us fixed me in a glare, then drew her finger slowly across her throat.
“Let’s go back,” I said.
Stan looked pale.
“I feel sick,” he said.
…………
On the team bus to the stadium, picking our way through the Berlin suburbs, I checked how the lads were feeling. Some liked to play cards or act the goat, keeping their minds on anything except kicking a ball. Others stayed quiet, thinking about our opponents, how to win the battle on the pitch.
I knew I should set an example, stay calm and keep the team cheerful but that telegram from London kept coming into my head. We were already determined to win, we didn’t need anyone to remind us. We wanted to be the best. We were playing for our home towns, for Bristol and Stoke and all the others, for the men working in the mines and the docks, who turned up on the terraces every Saturday, rain or shine, with scarves and rattles, to cheer us on. We were patriots and they were the country we played for.
Not the country of speeches and trimmed moustaches and offices with paintings on the wall. Not the Sirs and Lords who told us to stand up for England and in the next breath warned us not to cause offence. And not their friends in the newspapers who called what we did a disgrace.
…………
I looked round the faces in the dressing room. No-one could believe what they were hearing.
The one with the bowler hat kept saying “I’m sorry” and at first it sounded like an apology but later it was more like: this discussion is over. He said something about showing respect but he never got to finish because the lads drowned him out, cursing and shaking their heads and pointing their fingers.
“We’re not doing it,” shouted Stan. He had been about to pull the famous white shirt over his head but instead he hurled it at the floor, angrier than I’d ever seen him.
“Orders from the Ambassador.”
“Who the fuck’s he when he’s at home?” said Bert.
“The whole continent is on the brink. It would only take a tiny spark,” said his lordship. He had a weary tone as if this was all above our heads, as if we didn’t understand. We understood all right.
All eyes shifted from him to me.
“Tell him what he can do with his orders,” said Cliff.
“Can’t we just stand to attention?” I asked.
The bowler hat came off, as if it was time for straight talking. “We have to keep the peace,” he said.
…………
Out on the pitch in the blazing sun, I thought I would choke. The stadium was pounding us with the heat and noise of the world, making it hard to speak or breathe. I scanned the sea of flags in the crowd, none of them ours.
The national anthems were about to start. We formed a line and I cast a glance along the row of stony, furious faces. A brass band was booming out, thousands of hostile voices were joining in.
I did it, I raised my arm, though it felt heavy, like someone else’s arm. I kept it straight, as I’d seen on the street near our hotel the day before, keeping my palm towards the grass.
I did it, we all did. We gave the salute.
…………
The newspapers didn’t hold back in celebrating our victory and said we’d put the enemy to the sword. We deserved a medal, every one of us. It had been a slaughter.
Then someone published that photo and the mood of triumph slipped away. Our solemn faces in a row, our arms extended. I felt a thud in my chest when I saw it. Foolish or traitors, the headlines didn’t agree about which one we were but they were united on one point. It was a dark day for the nation and we were to blame.
The one with the bowler hat gave the newspapers a statement. It said the players had voiced no objection.
…………
I must have seen the salute on a hundred front pages by now and every time there is the same line: our day of shame.
But that isn’t what I see. I see the faces of ordinary folk caught up in something bigger than they were, that they could do nothing about. I see in their grim expressions a realisation of where this would end up and who would pay the price. I see young men who lost years of their lives while the world tore itself apart.
I see many more who weren’t there that day and who just as surely had no say in what was to come. Men and women whose talents were up-ended and shattered. Who willingly did the bidding of those who called the shots and who never wanted the heroism that was heaped upon them.
I don’t feel any shame, not any more, but I sense it in others. The ones who stayed out of sight behind their desks but left us in the firing line with barely a thought for the mark that day would leave on us.
…………
I knew out of the corner of my eye that someone was striding towards me, a sixth sense I’d made the most of on the pitch. Yet this was a celebration in a swanky hotel – the kind of soiree I am invited to these days. Chandeliers and fizzy wine on trays, the hum of a hundred conversations. Stan was there too, fiddling with his bow tie, still the centre of attention.
It was the first time I’d seen his lordship since the day of the salute all those years ago. His neck was thicker and the bowler hat was gone.
As he came close he held out his hand and without thinking, I gave him mine.
We exchanged a couple of how-are-yous and for a moment sipped our drinks in silence. He said, “You know, Eddie, with the benefit of hindsight…”
But there was a lot of noise in the room and I didn’t catch what came next.
***
***
Third Place
Where the Red Dust Didn’t Settle
by
Kelly Railton
“Emotional, sombre but compelling…”
Grandma grabs the pad from Suzie’s hand, pulls open a cupboard and shoves it in with the pans and the sieves. Just as she’s slamming the door shut, Grandad shuffles into the kitchen, a sour smell following him.
“When’s dinner gonna be ready? I’ve got to be away in half hour to meet the fellas.”
Grandma brushes down her pinny, smiles, “It’ll be five minutes, Alf, the pub’ll still be there.”
“I see it’s bloody mince and dumplings again,” then winking at Suzie he says, “I’m going to start looking like a dumpling before long. It’s nee wonder your mam’s moved out again, probably fed up of the scran.”
As he shuffles back out, with his cracked heels hanging over the back of his slippers, Grandma sighs, and says quietly under her breath, “He’s got the place stinking like a brewery,” then turning to Suzie, “So then, love, do you want to help your grandma set the table?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“And take no notice about your mam, she’ll be back soon, pet…like a bad penny.”
Opening up the cutlery drawer with a bang, Suzie grabs the knives and forks and takes them, and the salt, into the living room, clattering them onto the table behind the settee. She pulls up the wings and clicks them into place, thinking all the time about the pad hidden in the cupboard and about her mam hidden somewhere that’s not here. Grandad’s watching the TV now with a glass in his hand. It’s the local news and they’re saying unemployment is at thirty eight percent in their town. They’re interviewing a man, and he says, “It’s hard to get meself out of bed in the morning.”
“Jesus Christ, as if he’s any worse off than the rest of us. He might find it easier if he lay off the booze. I tell you what our Suzie, there’s a lot to be said for a bit of pride…we’re all in the same bloody boat.”
Suzie nods, but there’s an ache that spreads right through her bones for that man crying on TV. Grandma sticks her head round the door, “Dinner’s ready.”
Grandad doesn’t look up, “I’ll have mine here,” and Grandma nods, but presses her lips tight together, as if she’s trying to stop something from coming out. When she’s gone again, Suzie lets out a breath, puts her hand on Grandad’s shoulder, “I’ll get you a tray, Grandad,” and he rests his rough fingers on hers for a second or two.
“He didn’t always used to be this way, Suzie, you know,” Grandma tells her as she piles the mince and dumplings on his plate, but Suzie can’t remember any different and she’s already eight.
“You go on and take that in, Suzie, I’m gonna get meself changed, I’m covered in flour.”
Once she hears Grandma’s footsteps reaching the top of the stairs, Suzie quickly opens the kitchen cupboard and grabs the pad. Tearing out the page, she folds it up and sticks it on the tray, under Grandad’s plate of dinner. When she puts the tray down in front of him, he gives her a little wink, “Thanks darlin’…hang on…what’s this now?”
He slowly opens up the piece of paper, staring at it without speaking. She thinks maybe she should talk about the class that day, about the teacher telling them about the steelworks, and how the town used to glow red with the dust. And how he explained it had shut down a couple of years ago and that lots of men had come from all over to work there, and now they didn’t have jobs. They might even be people the children know, their uncles, or even their dads, he’d said. And she wants to tell Grandad that the teacher had gone a bit quiet then, and the class were as still as musical statues until he jumped up off his desk, clapped his hands together and asked them all to paint something.
Grandad hands back the piece of paper, “It’s cracking that pet, you’ve got some talent,” but his face looks longer than before, “Eeeh, Suzie, I tell ya what though, I divven’t fancy these mince and dumplings after all…tell your grandma I had to go out, okay?”
Suzie nods as he slips out into the front hallway, taking his shoes and socks in his hands. She looks down at the picture she’d painted of him in the works uniform she’d seen hanging in the wardrobe. In the painting, his uniform has a thin red dust settled all over, a dust that spreads to his eyes, and his hands, and his fingernails, and his boots.
“Oh, for god’s sake Suzie…did I not tell ya not to show him that?”
Grandma snatches the paper out of Suzie’s hands and takes it and Grandad’s uneaten mince and dumplings into the kitchen.
Suzie blames herself. Even now, twenty years later, when, like every year, she takes a pilgrimage of sorts, driving from her flat in London to her hometown, parking at the pub where Grandad started his walk that night, and then continuing in the footsteps he must have taken to the bridge.
As Suzie follows the familiar path, with the sun dipping behind the trees, she brings along in her hand, as she always does, the painting she’d showed Grandad a couple of hours before he died. Passing other walkers coming the other way, she remembers the morning after, Grandma howling and dropping to her knees, Mam returning from wherever she’d been, grey-faced and lighting cigarette after cigarette, and Suzie sitting quietly, with the painting hidden in her cardigan pocket, never to be mentioned by any of them again.
Reaching the bridge, she stands on the edge, facing the barely-there sun, with the paper unfolded, and the breeze picking at the corner of the sheet. She thinks about choices, about blame, about guilt. And about what her therapist said about letting go of what’s not hers to carry. Holding the picture out to the elements, she loosens her pinch a little, but the wind doesn’t seem to want to take it, and so she brings it back in, folds it up and puts it in her pocket, in a way relieved, because she’d never really wanted to let it go anyway.
Grandma grabs the pad from Suzie’s hand, pulls open a cupboard and shoves it in with the pans and the sieves. Just as she’s slamming the door shut, Grandad shuffles into the kitchen, a sour smell following him.
“When’s dinner gonna be ready? I’ve got to be away in half hour to meet the fellas.”
Grandma brushes down her pinny, smiles, “It’ll be five minutes, Alf, the pub’ll still be there.”
“I see it’s bloody mince and dumplings again,” then winking at Suzie he says, “I’m going to start looking like a dumpling before long. It’s nee wonder your mam’s moved out again, probably fed up of the scran.”
As he shuffles back out, with his cracked heels hanging over the back of his slippers, Grandma sighs, and says quietly under her breath, “He’s got the place stinking like a brewery,” then turning to Suzie, “So then, love, do you want to help your grandma set the table?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“And take no notice about your mam, she’ll be back soon, pet…like a bad penny.”
Opening up the cutlery drawer with a bang, Suzie grabs the knives and forks and takes them, and the salt, into the living room, clattering them onto the table behind the settee. She pulls up the wings and clicks them into place, thinking all the time about the pad hidden in the cupboard and about her mam hidden somewhere that’s not here. Grandad’s watching the TV now with a glass in his hand. It’s the local news and they’re saying unemployment is at thirty eight percent in their town. They’re interviewing a man, and he says, “It’s hard to get meself out of bed in the morning.”
“Jesus Christ, as if he’s any worse off than the rest of us. He might find it easier if he lay off the booze. I tell you what our Suzie, there’s a lot to be said for a bit of pride…we’re all in the same bloody boat.”
Suzie nods, but there’s an ache that spreads right through her bones for that man crying on TV. Grandma sticks her head round the door, “Dinner’s ready.”
Grandad doesn’t look up, “I’ll have mine here,” and Grandma nods, but presses her lips tight together, as if she’s trying to stop something from coming out. When she’s gone again, Suzie lets out a breath, puts her hand on Grandad’s shoulder, “I’ll get you a tray, Grandad,” and he rests his rough fingers on hers for a second or two.
“He didn’t always used to be this way, Suzie, you know,” Grandma tells her as she piles the mince and dumplings on his plate, but Suzie can’t remember any different and she’s already eight.
“You go on and take that in, Suzie, I’m gonna get meself changed, I’m covered in flour.”
Once she hears Grandma’s footsteps reaching the top of the stairs, Suzie quickly opens the kitchen cupboard and grabs the pad. Tearing out the page, she folds it up and sticks it on the tray, under Grandad’s plate of dinner. When she puts the tray down in front of him, he gives her a little wink, “Thanks darlin’…hang on…what’s this now?”
He slowly opens up the piece of paper, staring at it without speaking. She thinks maybe she should talk about the class that day, about the teacher telling them about the steelworks, and how the town used to glow red with the dust. And how he explained it had shut down a couple of years ago and that lots of men had come from all over to work there, and now they didn’t have jobs. They might even be people the children know, their uncles, or even their dads, he’d said. And she wants to tell Grandad that the teacher had gone a bit quiet then, and the class were as still as musical statues until he jumped up off his desk, clapped his hands together and asked them all to paint something.
Grandad hands back the piece of paper, “It’s cracking that pet, you’ve got some talent,” but his face looks longer than before, “Eeeh, Suzie, I tell ya what though, I divven’t fancy these mince and dumplings after all…tell your grandma I had to go out, okay?”
Suzie nods as he slips out into the front hallway, taking his shoes and socks in his hands. She looks down at the picture she’d painted of him in the works uniform she’d seen hanging in the wardrobe. In the painting, his uniform has a thin red dust settled all over, a dust that spreads to his eyes, and his hands, and his fingernails, and his boots.
“Oh, for god’s sake Suzie…did I not tell ya not to show him that?”
Grandma snatches the paper out of Suzie’s hands and takes it and Grandad’s uneaten mince and dumplings into the kitchen.
Suzie blames herself. Even now, twenty years later, when, like every year, she takes a pilgrimage of sorts, driving from her flat in London to her hometown, parking at the pub where Grandad started his walk that night, and then continuing in the footsteps he must have taken to the bridge.
As Suzie follows the familiar path, with the sun dipping behind the trees, she brings along in her hand, as she always does, the painting she’d showed Grandad a couple of hours before he died. Passing other walkers coming the other way, she remembers the morning after, Grandma howling and dropping to her knees, Mam returning from wherever she’d been, grey-faced and lighting cigarette after cigarette, and Suzie sitting quietly, with the painting hidden in her cardigan pocket, never to be mentioned by any of them again.
Reaching the bridge, she stands on the edge, facing the barely-there sun, with the paper unfolded, and the breeze picking at the corner of the sheet. She thinks about choices, about blame, about guilt. And about what her therapist said about letting go of what’s not hers to carry. Holding the picture out to the elements, she loosens her pinch a little, but the wind doesn’t seem to want to take it, and so she brings it back in, folds it up and puts it in her pocket, in a way relieved, because she’d never really wanted to let it go anyway.
***