Phone call from one of your children

I knew it was my boy from the moment the phone rang. It was the landline, and it had been so long since anybody called it that I tried to answer my mobile out of habit. I frowned at the blank screen for a long moment before I realised the ringing was the old rotary phone, still mounted behind the door in the kitchen with its ridiculously long extension cord dangling underneath. It was then that I knew it would be him, and the realisation left me so stunned that it was two more rings before my hands would pick up the receiver.

“Um,” he said, above the staticky chatter of the old copper line. “Hey Dad, what’s happening?” Just like he’d opened so many conversations before.

“Jude,” I managed, and leaned hard against the wall in the evening sunlight, my eyes closed, somehow hooking a chair from under the table behind me and sinking into it before my legs gave out. The thought that I had no idea what to say to him, how to even begin, loomed so large in my mind that it took me a moment to register that I was already talking and it was complete nonsense. I was just rambling away about work and cats and cricket, just like I used to, but Jude didn’t seem to mind at all.

He acted like it was only a few weeks since we’d last spoken, not eight years. He didn’t actually say much, I realised when I thought about it later, sitting in the dark. He gave me some gentle prompts when I dried up, laughed when I attempted some pathetic joke or other, and gently turned away my questions in that way that he had. It was always like that with Jude, from the day he’d found his own place; he liked his privacy, and that was that.

But there was something I needed to say, and it was rising up in me like heartburn, making my chest ache with the need of it.

“Don’t,” he said suddenly, even though I hadn’t even begun to put it into words. It was as if he had read my mind, but it was too late. There was something in me that needed to be said, and the comforting pretense of normality that we had been chatting in for the last thirty minutes was shredding and blowing away like cobwebs in a gale.

I heard myself say “Why are you calling? HOW are you calling?” and I knew they were the wrong thing to say the moment they were in the air.

There was a long silence, the clicks and the hiss on the line so loud that for a long moment I thought he had hung up. And then a sigh, and his quiet voice.

“I have to go.”

Then, in a rush, I realised what I really needed to say. The thing I hadn’t said when he left that night, when his van had been swept off the road and into the ocean by the slip.

“Son, please know - I love you.”

But it was too late. The line was dead, the evening light had failed, and my boy was gone these eight long years.

Mischievous trickster

Molly the mouse lived a happy and carefree life in the attic of 57 Primrose Drive. She lived there with her three brothers, Marcus, Maurice and Maxwell and her two sisters, Mertel and Maybelle. Her siblings would all read their books in silence in the study nook every evening, but Molly just couldn’t sit still. She didn’t like to read in the study nook like her siblings, she wanted to have adventures.

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So, every evening when her daddy was reading his newspaper and her mummy was busy in the kitchen she would scuttle out of the attic, through the crack in the roof and shimmy down the downpipe. Outside was where the magic happened. She would run through the garden, skipping around Sid the snail as he slithered slowly up the garden path, and jump up onto the white picket fence to see where her next adventure would begin. She would close her eyes and breathe in the summer evenings. Stars would twinkle in the sky and sometimes the moon sat on the horizon just through the willow trees.

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Molly spied Mr Sparrow’s cornfield. She leaped down from the white picket fence and ran as fast as her little mouse legs could carry her, into the field. She came to a halt and peered up at a tall stalk, higher and higher she looked. From the corner of her eye she thought she saw movement, but decided it was just her imagination doing overtime. She raced up the stalk and with much relish she started to nibble on one of the corn cobs. Nibble, nibble, nibble. She ate so much her little tummy nearly burst open. With a full tummy she jumped down from the stalk and slowly made her way back to the downpipe, up through the crack in the roof and back inside the attic.

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Waiting for her arrival was her none too pleased mummy and daddy. Her daddy shook his head from side to side.

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‘Molly, Molly, Molly. We don’t want to stop you from having your adventures, but one day it could be Ralph the Rat King who comes across you in the cornfield and not me’.

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‘... So it was you daddy who I saw at the corner of my eye!? You tricked me into thinking that I was seeing things.’

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‘Yes, little mischief maker it was me, but thank your lucky stars it was me. Ralph the Rat King would have been upon in an instant. Your mummy and I have decided that if you want to continue having your adventures at night time you can only do so on one condition and that’s if I follow along with you.’

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‘Oh daddy, I would love for you to come with me on my adventures. What fun we will have. I can’t wait for our adventures to begin.’

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Molly ran to her mummy and daddy and her daddy scooped her up into his little mouse paws and gave her the biggest hug that only little mouse daddies can give.

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First three paragraphs - extended

Olive sighed and went back inside her cottage, flicking the kettle on. She’d been waiting outside for the schoolbus, it’s late. She liked the kids visiting every Friday, “Conservation” was today’s trendy subject at college and she was more than happy with their help of clearing weed from the native bush. She lit a pre-rolled cigarette, taking short sharp drags and glanced at the clock. The mirror below the clock scowled back at her. She touched her chin, after ten years she still hasn’t made friends with her wrinkles. The moment the kettle started whistling, she heard the bus turning into the driveway. ‘Typical’ she sighed, but her face softened and her eyes lit up. She lifted her long grey locks and pulled them into a ponytail, securing it with a frayed black band. She noticed a small trail of blood along her arm.

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‘Damn blackberry.’ She wiped the blood with a teatowel, then rushed outside. Maybe they could take a break from weeding and explore the bush instead.

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From a nearby cottage Barry took a peak out of his bedroom window and groaned. ‘Those bloody

kids again.’ One boy looked his way so he quickly ducked, in the process knocking the ashtray off the windowsill. ‘Oh, bugger it.’ If being woken up from his nap wasn’t enough, he now had ash all over his right hand. He wiped it on his Swanndri vest but the hand remained grey. Humph. So the kids came back, even after the bollocking he gave them last week. Weeding the bush? Humph, an excuse to scope out his place, probably to break in later. He shuffled into the kitchen and winced at the envelopes on the table, many printed with the hostile red FINAL DEMAND. He took another look towards his neighbour who was passing around gloves. ‘Stupid woman.’ He opened the door and yelled: ‘Waste of time, just sell the bloody bush!’, slamming the door shut before she could react. He ran his hand over his chin, unaware he was turning the stubble into a dirty shade of grey. He was far too absorbed with the only opened letter, the offer to purchase the bush, thus far agreed by three of the four part-owners.

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The children followed Olive, some ran ahead, already familiar with the zigzag track. For some, stepping into the bush was akin to stepping into Narnia’s wardrobe, their eyes more used to seeing grey concrete and blue screens, then suddenly surrounded by the spectacle of brown majestic trunks shielding green furtive leaves. Olive turned around and said: ‘I’m gonna show you something pretty amazing.’ She circled around a black beech and pointed to a delicate yellow bud among sharp green foliage growing from the trunk. ‘This is a yellow mistletoe, or alepis flavida.’

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‘How the heck does that grow on the tree? Do we need to cut it off?’ Caleb stepped closer, holding up his secateurs. Olive raised her arms.

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‘No, these are wonderful. We thought it was gone, never to be seen in this bush again, but I found this yesterday. This mistletoe is parasitic, obtaining nutrients and water to grow on from the beech. Proof that our hard work is paying off. ‘Remember what the yellow boxes are for?’ She locked eyes with a freckled slim girl who had her arm raised high.

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‘So, trapping the possums brought back these special plants?’

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Olive beamed, nothing like visual conservation demonstrations. ‘Who wants to hear about the dangers of foraging?’

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All raised their hands. The peacefulness of forest was filled with a symphony of ‘wows’ for the rest of the afternoon.

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Later that evening there was a thump on the door. Any wary person would ask who was there before opening the door. Not Olive.

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‘Oh, you again, like a dog with a bone. I see you’ve got more ammunition.’ nodding at the paper in Barry’s hands.

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‘Look, Olive, my patience is wearing thin.’ Barry shivered. ‘Can I come in, it’s freezing.’

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‘If you’ve come to badger me about selling the bush then, no.’

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‘Oh, come on, we used to be best mates,’ he winked, ‘let’s be civilised.’

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‘Ok, I’ll put the kettle on.’

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In her kitchen Barry waved the sheet of paper. ‘Here’s Alpine Dairies’ latest offer, they’ve upped the price.’

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‘Makes no difference to me.’ Olive placed freshly-baked savories on the table. A pair of eager eyes

followed.

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‘Help yourself, I’m not hungry.’

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Barry licked his lips. ‘Mmmm, I smell mushroom, I love your baking.’

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‘You should try to love that magnificant bush, we should turn this area into a camping ground.’

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‘Over my dead body.’ Bellowed Barry in between mouthfuls.

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The judge was lenient. The prosecuters asked for 15 years. If it wasn’t for Caleb she may have gotten away with involuntary manslaughter. The lad had explained with gusto that Olive had enlightened them on the mushrooms’ poisonous state. Being on the witness stand in an actual courtroom was another adventure altogether and yes, he was certain Olive was aware the fungi was death cap. ‘She’s such a cool ol’ lady, teaching us about the bush.’ He had turned to Olive and murmured: ‘We haven’t checked the traps for ages. When can we come back, miss?’

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Olive would not allow cross-examination.

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Her son took her home on a crisp spring day four years later. She stumbled right past the cottage to the edge of the bush and touched the tips of a young beech sapling being strangled by relentless ivy.

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Gordon touched her shoulder. ‘Sorry mum, the new neighbours do a bit of trapping and weeding,

but the bush is in a bit of a state.’

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‘That’s fine, dear, plenty of years left in me and the school group will return.’

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‘No mum, they’re never coming back. You’re 79. You can stay with me until we’ve sorted the

retirement home.

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She stared at him for a moment before stepping over a possum-trap to the edge of the cliff. Lifting

her arms she repeated Barry’s final words.

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‘Over my dead body.’

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