So Far

So Far

Nineteen short stories

by

Thea Biesheuvel

Published by Stringybark Publishing,

PO Box 851, Jamison Centre, ACT 2614, Australia

http://www.stringybarkstories.net

Smashwords Edition

Copyright: Thea Biesheuvel, 2012

Copyright: Individual stories, the authors, various.

These are works of fiction and unless otherwise made clear, those mentioned in these stories are fictional characters and do not relate to anyone living or dead.

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Contents

Introduction — Thea Biesheuvel

A Dotty Old Woman

Grigor

Something's Lost

Women's Business

Boats

Natural Selection

Breakthrough

Margaret

Still Waters

Not a Romance

Grandma Guru

Backwater

All Part of the Game

Feline Fanciers

Japanese

The Backpacker

Saplings

Working Women

Survival

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Introduction

I am aware that an introduction illustrates an idea or a theme, which permeates the main work. Since this is a collection of very different short stories there is no theme. There was a time that I could not have put those words together in a sentence, or would have known what was meant had I looked it up a dictionary. It was a time when I was far from home and in a wilderness of foreign words. Gradually the world has become smaller and the words have become familiar. The idea of ‘home’ and the feelings about nationality and culture keep creeping into my stories and poems. After reading my short stories I hope you will agree that this country is now my home. Whether the culture has entirely permeated my thinking and writing is still open to debate.

This volume of work is a picture of the person I have become, mother and grandmother to Australians, in contrast to the person I once was, a bewildered Dutch teenager. In so far as it could be said there is a theme, this is it.

I feel I have come far … so far.

Thea Bieushevel

Brisbane, March 2012

A Dotty Old Woman

It is difficult to remember odd facts.

It’s easier to be nostalgic about things. Take my pencil case. It’s made of polished wood with little brass bands to hold it together. When you slide a lid halfway along, it swivels open to reveal the bottom compartment. At one end it has a small recess.

It is for those spare pen nibs you pushed into the holder, I say to a friend.

No, it was for a nib cleaner, she says. I had a pencil case just like it.

I like it very much. No-one is allowed to use it, I told my grandson once. I had no toys when I was your age, just coloured pencils and a pencil case.

I probably looked sad. I have not had to rescue that pencil case from little hands. My overworked computer has now decided that going to computer heaven is more attractive than martyrdom in my study. Screen flickers announced its intentions. It clutches documents to its dying breast. It won’t print out. I need a list. I need a ruler. Rulers, like helpful people, are never on hand when you need them. I grabbed the pencil case.

I had a sudden flash-back to the summer I was walking down a street into a junk shop, designated Country Antiques. Amongst ancient desks and slates was a pencil case. I bought it as the perfect memory of childhood.

Except that my childhood was in another country and is painfully set in a war. My brain has similar problems to my computer. The memories flicker. I checked with my big sister. Younger siblings remember only small bits of life prior to immigration.

Don’t worry, she said, you’ve been telling stories since you were six. You didn’t have a pencil case, it was mine. You didn’t bring anything with you. Good things were sold. Mum threw the rest out.

How could I have got it so wrong? I should never be a witness in a murder trial.

Then I remembered my first year of a Psychology degree. Our lecturer was halfway through her dissertation on observational techniques. Suddenly she opened a side door and said to some characters out there, Look guys, go do your buzzer trials somewhere else, will you?

Sorry, lady, one said. They tippy-toed out with stuff under their arms.

When the lecture finished she said, I’d like all of you to write down what happened.

What happened? I asked my neighbour. I wasn’t the only puzzled person. Finally I remembered the guys.’ Out of all the class no one got it right. The guys’ had purple socks or hippy sandals. We couldn’t have seen those. "The guys’ were women, one in jeans.

It makes you wonder about those stories, How I beat the odds and became a stock broker’, or My life as child-bride in India’, or even "How I overcame adversity and lived happily ever after.’ Should I relive any other memories?

A Dotty Old Woman was submitted for an anthology of flash fiction published by Writespot International Publishers, called Briefs and is based on actual events.

Grigor

I recognised the tall, lean build and the European raincoat even from the back. He was moving ahead of me, towards the station. If I hurried I might just catch up. His reflection in the big plate-glass window was a let-down. It wasn’t Grigor at all. Why was that such a disappointment? After all, we’d broken off our relationship a good couple of months ago. No, a bad couple of months ago, let’s face it. Where had that "oh, well, something gained, something lost,’ attitude gone? It had disappeared, like him and I missed both.

I wish I could come to town and talk to you, he’d said over the phone at the beginning of the working year.

We’d had many phone conversations about the state of the universe, life in Australia, workplace issues and even some private, family matters during the preceding year.

Yes, I’d said airily. We could have dinner or something.

You have no dinner companions?

Not often. Unless you count the cat. She’s good company but not good with the cutlery.

Yes, I know, I have a dog. A German Shepherd.

I had one of those once too, I said. Many years ago.

How many years?

When my kids were little.

They are big now?

Left home. They’re adults.

You don’t sound old enough.

Ah, the phone is not a good camera.

We’d both laughed at that and had left the rest of the conversation for another time. There had been many such times. I think we both enjoyed them. Light conversations about non-threatening topics. The kind of banter good friends could have over a glass of wine. I wasn’t flirting and he wasn’t posturing. It all felt good. Then, out of the blue, he announced he’d have lunch with me the following week.

"I have the Good Food Guide, he said, and I think we should meet at Rimini’s on Tuesday for lunch."

This Tuesday?

Sure. I have some work but lunch would be good.

I won’t know you. You don’t want me smiling at all sorts of men coming in for lunch, do you?

You will wear … what will you wear? Something green? I like green.

I do too. I have an outfit like a Granny Smith apple. I’ll wear that.

My preparations for the Tuesday lunch had generated some unexpected nerves even though I felt I knew Grigor and he me. Would we find each other ugly? Would face-to-face conversations be more difficult?

He found me before I recognised his voice. He didn’t look anything like I expected. He was tall and bronzed. I thought he looked around sixty but what the old dears call "well preserved.’ I held out my hand and he bowed his head slightly and kissed it. I hadn’t seen this done since I’d left my native country fifty years ago.

You are so young, he said.

You look so good, I said.

We had a lovely lunch and a great conversation. It was well into the afternoon when I decided I needed to come up for air, take stock, as it were.

Grigor, I have to go back to work, I said and started to formulate some farewell phrases. He held my hand between his nice strong ones. This was an older but probably fitter man than I’d ever met. He had brains too.

I do too, he said, but I’d like to see more of you.

I nearly laughed. This was a phrase, which my girlfriend and I had identified month earlier as an indication that a man might like to see, not just more, but all of you, preferably in bed.

Despite this, we arranged to go to dinner that night. We conferred over the Good Food Guide. I gave him my address, so that he could come and collect me in a taxi. Such a lovely gesture. He was being a genuine gentleman. My mother would approve, if she had lived to hear accounts of our meeting.

We had a hot romance for the whole of that week. We were like two naughty children, giggling and talking over dinner, going back to my flat, neglecting our work and spending lots of money on good food and wine. In my case that involved spending lots of his money. I’d made a feeble attempt at paying for something and had been roundly chastised for the gesture. This would never have happened if I’d been dating some of my earlier male friends, including my ex-husband.

This was to be the pattern for our affair. He’d ring to tell me he would be in town and I’d move appointments around so that we could spend the maximum time together. We always ate out and nothing but the best would do. He was generous, funny and sexy. It was clear that he had a great sense of moral duty and ethics. When he left he’d send flowers, always expressing regret about leaving me. Why couldn’t we have met twenty or thirty years ago?

Six months elapsed and life was good, except for his return trips to his hometown. He told me about his property, his dog, and his life in Europe.