My mother once hid a boy in our shed to save him from a beating. Fred Jones, his old man, arrived at our place after his son, breathless, red and beery. He loomed at our side gate like a beast quivering with the scent of prey. We had no trees ... READ MORE
(This is the second in a series of short stories about the lives of girls and women) Kylie Anderson tried to be good. It was who she was. That and being the first of seven kids. When her father died, she worked after school to help her mother with ... READ MORE
This is the story of cousins Ada and Heather deciding on their futures by making mistakes, like most of us do. Things become other than we imagined. Futures rest around us like mist and change is aways there. The girls have entered the drunken state when everything is funny. Things ... READ MORE
Outside this morning, magpies speak in curling tongues and the Little Ravens caw. Various dogs are positioned at gates to stop intruders with their incendiary yapping. Is the country quieter? It must be. Though maybe there are similarities, the ravens still sound sad when you’re deep in the damp of ... READ MORE
The 18th-century Englishman Samuel Johnson once wrote, ‘He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others. I read this in a piece by Susan Chenery in ‘The Guardian’ (which I subscribe to, she said dully). There are dull men and plenty of dull women ... READ MORE
‘Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost’ The other stormy night, listening to the rain that seemed to have forgotten us, I thought of Leonard Cohen, of rain, and I thought of Susan Duncan, a dearly loved friend who died a few months back. I only ... READ MORE
The things we don’t know; like how you’ll be for the rest of your life or how you’ll die, if your kids will be all right, these things occupy us like a long rolling desert within. These are our dry interiors, and we try not to think about them. There ... READ MORE
I hear cars buzzing through the dark night going somewhere, maybe heading for the midnight traffic jam or just home to bed. Still, noise swells on the tide of the night and reminds me of Leonard Cohen’s song ‘Boogie Street’. ‘I’m wanted at the traffic-jam They’re saving me a seat.’ ... READ MORE
I’m listening to ‘Texas Flood’ by Stevie Ray Vaughan, not one he wrote but one of many he made his own. He was a small boy with a violent drunk for a father and a brother who could play the guitar very well, but it must have been only a ... READ MORE
Two footballs and three frisbees relaxed on the roof of the school hall on polling day. There were many small dogs on leads, many sausages in bread devoured and much money donated to the school on this perfect autumn day. Kids played football and basketball, and the girls did cartwheels. ... READ MORE