Friday, July 5

Tasmania's Big Freeze continues.  I'm waiting for some boffin to announce that it's the coldest spell, or the most days of frost or the shortest hours of daylight or the largest number of skids on the road or some other contrived record.  In the meantime, we snuggle under our doona and turn up the heat.

The local Facebook page is full of complaints about freezing taps. Bertine from Number 5 told us the solution is to leave a kitchen tap dripping overnight.  I don't know whether this is official Taswater policy or an old wive's tale but she was overjoyed to tell us that, after doing this, she had enough water to have her first shower in three days.  We haven't had any frozen taps but Marilyn left our kitchen tap dripping last night 'just in case'.

I'm putting up the second story about someone attending his own funeral, the one I wrote on Wednesday.  I think I prefer this version.

OUTSIDER AT A FUNERAL

 

It’s supposed to be raining at a funeral: not heavy, teeming rain, but steady, persistent rain falling from dull, leaden skies. The sort of rain which sets the mood for a sad experience.  But, it was not like that on the day that I was being buried.  Instead, the sun was shining, there was a warm, gentle breeze and I could even hear birds whistling in the trees.  It was almost as if the elements were setting themselves for a day of happiness, rather than sorrow.  And I had been hoping for sorrow.  

 

I was looking forward to seeing all the guests in their dark clothes, stooped shoulders and sad expressions.  Is ‘guests’ the right word to describe people at a funeral?  Maybe spectators, attendees or, in this case, celebrants.  Because I expected there to be some element of celebration.  After all, my two brothers and their wives had been anticipating my demise for years and, now that the happy day has come, they’ll find it hard to conceal their satisfaction and yes, even delight.

 

In the distance, I could hear the sound of approaching vehicles.  A nearby gardener who was lethargically poking at some fallen leaves with his rake, lifted his head and moved slowly away from the driveway. Clearly, he had been instructed not to get in the way of grieving family members.  I had taken up a position beneath some trees some distance away from the chapel and no one who knew me would have recognised me, dressed as I was in shabby work clothes and floppy hat. It was a long way from my usual hand-tailored suits from Anthony Squires and bespoke shoes from Armani.  I didn’t want to be recognised today as my future depended on maintaining the fiction that I was dead.  It might have been better if I had kept away, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity of seeing my beloved wife forcing herself to demonstrate her sadness when, in her heart I knew she was crying with joy.  That joy would soon change, though, when it came the time for the reading of my will and she heard those words I had carefully chosen; ‘and to my beloved wife I leave the remainder of my estate which the accountants will tell you amounts to ‘bugger-all’.

 

In about an hour, when the last of the funeral cars has driven off, it will be safe for me to make my way to the airport for the flight to Bangkok where I will start my new life.  That gardener down there with the rake has agreed to drive me.  I know he won’t talk afterwards as we go back a long way and I know enough about him to make his life miserable.  That’s the benefit of being what the police call a ‘crime boss’: everybody bends over backwards to look after you.

 

The guests have all arrived now and gone into the chapel. The sound of organ music has died away and I can just about hear the solemn tones of Reg who is conducting the service.  I wonder if anyone realises that this time last month, Reg was serving time in Risdon Prison for various offences related to fraudulent bank loans.  No matter, I could think of no one better than Reg to conduct a service which was all about telling lies in a warm, comforting tone, and making the audience feel better after it.  That’s the skill of a confidence man.

 

I’ve estimated that it will be another twenty minutes before the sermon finishes, the curtain if drawn back and the coffin filled with the remains of a calf which met its fate along the highway slides from view.  I thought the calf was a nice touch and we were lucky to find it before the farmer did.  Putting bricks in a coffin is lazy and I’m glad we had an alternative.

 

Idly, I notice a couple of cars driving in through the gates.  I suppose it’s inevitable in a place like this where loved ones are laid to rest that there will be frequent visitors.  There’s something comforting about standing by the grave of a deceased loved one, or the niche in a wall where his or her ashes are supposed to be interred.  I wonder who will come to visit my ashes.  Certainly not my wife when she gets the news that I’ve left her nothing but memories. Maybe Reg will come but I suspect he will have forgotten me after the last of my final payment to him has been spent.

 

That’s funny!  Two policemen have got out of that last car to drive through the gates and are running towards me.  Something’s gone wrong!  Has Reg given me up or has my wife worked it out?  I turn to run but there are two more policemen running up behind me.  I drop to my knees, totally shattered.  My old Mum was right: crime does not pay.

Thursday, July 4

 They say you tend to repeat yourself when you get older and I'm afraid it's true for me.  I was scouring the internet yesterday looking for ideas for stories and found a site which promised 'prompts' to get writers started.  One idea was to write about being a spectator at your own funeral.  I wrote a terrific 800-word story, Outsider at a Funeral, which I had planned to publish on this site today.

However, there was a nagging thought bothering me: the idea seems familiar so I dug through the hard drive and there it was: Onlooker at a Funeral which I wrote in August 2023.  I'll put that older one up today and save the updated version for another time.

Jacob was feeling quite pleased with himself.  It was a clever move, disguising himself as a gardener; nobody ever paid any attention to the staff and, as long as he didn’t get too close to where the funeral was taking place, he was safe from discovery.  He adjusted his hat and scratched his neck; wearing a false beard was a necessity but it was no fun.

 

Some of the words being spoken by the funeral director travelled to his ears, “.. to lay to rest, the mortal remains of our dearly-beloved, Jacob ….. sadly-missed by his loving wife, Sonya  … dust to dust.  If this weren’t a solemn occasion, Jacob might have felt like throwing up.  The hypocrisy of it all!  That witch didn’t have a kind word for him while he was alive, let alone a loving one.  But now that he was presumed by all to be dead, she was all sweetness and light.   Probably she was mentally counting her anticipated legacy.  Isn’t she in for a surprise!

 

Jacob suddenly realised he was tired.  This plan to convince his parasite of a wife that he was dead seemed simple when it occurred to him but putting it into practice was much more difficult than he had anticipated.  He had no idea how many people he would have to bribe to make sure there were no holes in the plot, and he could not have imagined the number of fake documents he would have to pay for.  In the long run, though, he knew it would all be worth it.  When he and Tiffany started their new life together in their beachside villa on San Miguel Bay in the Philippines, life would be wonderful.

 

It was hard to pinpoint when everything started to go wrong with his marriage.  When he and Sonya married, he had been a struggling lawyer trying to make a living in the cut-throat world of the big city.  Sydney was a hard place to get a toe-hold in legal circles.  Universities had discovered that educating lawyers was a good way to maintain their market share: there seemed to be a never-ending stream of applicants for the available places, there was no need for expensive laboratories, nor staff to run them, and the clean-cut, private-school educated students weren’t interested in student politics so caused no disruptions on the campus.

 

The problem came at the end of their education cycle: too many young, hungry, barely-trained legal practitioners hit the job market at about the same and there were just not enough available positions for all the applicants.  Those who got ahead were often the ones who were most ready to cut corners.

 

It was a chance encounter at The Fortune of War pub in The Rocks which gave Jacob his start.  Jacob had called in for a quiet drink after another day of trudging from one meeting to another trying to pin down a job.  The fellow on the stool beside him might have been called a colourful character in a previous generation.  He had a florid face topped by a narrow-brimmed hat, a prominent beer-belly and a loud, hectoring voice.  He noticed Jacob nursing his beer.

 

“Cheer up!” he said. “You look like you’ve lost a fiver and found a threepenny-bit,” he said in a jovial voice.  Jacob, unsure of the reference, still answered politely that he had just spent another fruitless day looking for a job.  One thing led to another and Jacob found himself on the payroll of one of the best-connected crooks in downtown Sydney.

 

All that happened thirty years ago and Jacob knew that it was time to make plans for the next stage of his life.  By any measure, he was wealthy and, to the casual observer, he had a loving wife and family, and a lifestyle to be envied, but Jacob could not imagine seeing out his remaining years like this.  His children had grown up and left home so, in Jacob’s eyes, now was the time to make the move.

 

As in all things, Jacob planned meticulously.  He had been transferring money overseas for many years, partly to avoid taxation but, in the back of his mind, there was always the thought that he might have to disappear in a hurry.  He had bought property in a number of other countries but he was particularly attached to his little touch of paradise in the Philippines.  In his mind, it could be a perfect bolt-hole if things came unstuck.

 

Lost in his thoughts, he failed to notice the ride-on mower coming up behind him.  Nor did he hear the driver, ear-buds in, singing along lustily to the most recent blockbuster from Korea.  The coroner said later that Jacob had stepped carelessly into the path of the mower and that it was clearly Death by Misadventure.  

 

 

Wednesday, July 3

We're having a very cold winter here in Longford. Marilyn noted it was minus 4 degrees yesterday and Bertine, the lady from Unit 5 knocked on our door in the morning to check if we had any water,  It was -5 degrees in her back yard, the water pipes had, apparently, frozen and she had no water for a shower.  In the afternoon, I noted that our bird bath was still frozen and chunks of the terracotta base had started to flake off.

Where will it end?

My story today is in response to the challenge to write a story entitled On Top of the World.  It builds on an experience I had in, I think, 1975. 

Oliver stood alone on the rough path gazing at the barren Alpine plain, and holding a bunch of flowers in his right hand.  They were looking a little wilted now as he had been carrying them for a couple of days and the weather was quite a bit hotter than he had expected.  However, he hoped that Emily would understand the significance of what was happening and, in her usual no-nonsense way, say ‘It’s the thought that counts’.

 

The last time he and Emily had been together they had had a falling-out.  In fact they had a serious row.  He accused her of being too friendly with another young man and she had flown into a temper and yelled at him, saying she never wanted to see him again.  He hadn’t had a chance to speak to her to make amends before she left with some friends for a weekend in the Snowy Mountains, but he knew she was staying at a resort in Perisher Valley and she had been excitedly talking about going up to the top of the escarpment on one of the chairlifts, getting off at the top and going for a walk along the Alpine Meadows before taking another chairlift back down to the hotels in the valley.  Oliver hoped the surprise of seeing him up here, with a bouquet of flowers, would encourage her to forgive him.

 

He waited patiently, not knowing whether she was coming or not.  He had already noticed three or four other small groups coming over the rise from the chairlifts bur Emily was not among them.  He was surprised at how summery most of the people were dressed: light shirts, shorts and some even had thongs; most weren’t even wearing hats.  Oliver had long trousers and a long-sleeved shirt and his jumper and weatherproof coat were close by in his rucksack.  He’d heard stories about the sudden changes in weather here which could happen even on the sunniest of days.

 

Oliver had spent the previous night in a cabin at Blue Lake, not far away, where he had been surprised to find  a young couple already established there.  They said they were from Glasgow University and had a grant to study the straight-backed shrimps which lived in the mountain tarns.  ‘What a life,’ thought Oliver, ‘Being paid to travel to this beautiful place to collect specimens.’  Oliver, at first, presumed they were a couple but, as the evening went on, it was clear they barely tolerated each other.  Angus was a typical dour Scotsman who was difficult to involve in conversation; Elspeth was more bubbly and Oliver had really enjoyed her company.  He imagined they would still be at the cabin tonight and that would give him someone to talk to if his hoped-for encounter with Emily went sour.

 

Oliver realised he had not thought this through.  Assuming Emily listened to his apology and fell into his arms, what then?  He couldn’t expect to travel with her back down the chairlift and gate-crash her party of friends. And, anyway, his car was parked back down on the road not far from the Blue Lake.  If all went well, the best he could hope for was that she would listen to his apology, promise that all would be well, and he would then have to leave her while he returned to last night’s cabin, collect his gear and make his own way home.

 

Would Emily laugh at him for concocting this hare-brained scheme?  Would she think him selfish for intruding on her weekend with friends?  After all, she had pointedly not invited him to come with her on the weekend.  Would she be embarrassed having to witness his childishness in front of her friends?

 

Perhaps, I had better forget all about it, he thought.  But it was too late; a young woman walking along the path called out, “Look, it’s Oliver.  I wonder what he’s doing here.”

 

Oliver took a deep breath and walked towards them.

 

“Are you looking for Emily?” one of them asked. “She’s not with us.  She was very upset after your argument, but she got talking to another guest at the chalet last night and she’s spending today with him.”

 

Oliver was surprised at how he felt about this news.  Instead of being devastated, in fact, he felt that a load had been lifted from his shoulders. With his head filled with a vision of a pretty girl with red hair and a soft Scottish accent, and with his heart singing, Oliver turned on his heel and hurried back to Blue Lake, calling out “Thanks!” as he ran.  He was still carrying the flowers.

 

Tuesday, July 2

I've spent the last few days scouring through various corners of my computer(s) to winkle out the stories I have written over the last five ears.  I joined the writing group in 2019 and I've used various computers over that time so there are a number of corners I need to look in and I had to call on Jamie for assistance.  There's something called 'The Cloud' where stuff lives and I had no idea how to access that.  I don't suppose I've found everything I've written but I have enough to go on with.  Until I think of a better process, I'll just post them at random, so today's offering is called Faces in the Street.

Evolutionists tell us that the most successful members of the animal kingdom are those who can live and work together cooperatively.  Animals which can work as a team in hunting their prey bring home more food for their young.  Huge swarms of fish might attract predators but the very size of the shoal and the sheer number of individuals in their group means there is a better chance that an individual fish will live to swim another day.  Even something as simple as animals being able to huddle together for warmth in cold weather might mean the difference between life and death.

 

Historians tell us that it is our innate abilty to live cooperatively which has made the human race so successful in populating the world.  We are able to work together to solve problems, create innovation, plan huge development projects and, of course wage wars. There is no doubt, we are very good at working together with colleagues to get things done.  But what about the others, the ones we don’t know intimately or even casually, the strangers, the men and women behind the faces in the street?

 

We hardly notice them, do we, those faces in the street, as we walk along?  We keep our own faces looking vaguely downward, our gaze averted, our eyes hooded as if we are fearful of being recognised.  Are we frightened to draw attention to ourselves?   Is there safety in anonymity?  

 

Why are we like this, so ashamed to look our fellow-citizens in the eye?  Our mothers warned us not to talk to strangers, but is that enough to explain our antipathy to those who are not part of our circle of friendship?  Is shyness a factor or is it the result of the stress of living in our high-powered, dog-eat-dog society?

 

Maybe we’re frightened that the infection which stalks the streets of the US will come to us here in our little city on the edge of the world - 197 gun deaths in St Louis, Missouri last year.  What effect would something like that have here in Launceston?  I remember the movie quote, “You talkin’ to me?”, fair warning that to make eye contact, let alone initiate a conversation can have dire consequences.  It certainly doesn’t pay to take chances.

 

We’ve all met those well-meaning individuals who go out of their way to be friends with everyone, the ones who have unrealistic expectations that a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet, who actually say things like that and are surprised when you look at them as if they are mad.

 

I’ve occasionally thought that I should institute a new approach to co-existing with my fellow-man.  No longer would I hide myself in a cloak of anonymity, afraid to make eye contact in case someone takes my fleeting glance as an invitation to start a conversation.  I’d be ready to embrace new friendships, believing that most people are basically good and kind, and anxious to become another part of my friendship circle.

 

But, of course, that’s not how the world works.  Man is a co-operative animal, it’s true, but he’s also a tribal one.  Innately, we believe in ‘them’ and ‘us’.  ‘Us’ are the people in our family and immediate circle, ‘them’ is everybody else, the faces in the street, if you like.  Behind their blank expressions, we can’t know what anxieties and fears and distresses they are dealing with.  When talking about serial killers after they have been found out, their neighbours always say, “He seemed such a nice man – quiet, kept to himself but the sort who wouldn’t hurt a fly.” But, they didn’t know him; he wasn’t one of ‘us’.

 

I think evolution has served us well.  We have evolved from the basic family group of hunter-gatherers to small bands of cave dwellers to clans and tribes, still linked by family and customs, to village-dwellers and townsfolk, to city dwellers.  Through all of this, we have kept our innate suspicion of the stranger, the unknown face in the street.  This reserved attitude has served us well and we would be foolish to abandon it too quickly