Ballarat Writers are delighted to announce the winning entries in this year’s Southern Cross Short Story Competition, selected from a fabulous shortlist by our judge Jenny Valentish:
Winner – The Transaction, by Kit Scriven
Second Prize – We are the First, by Karen Turner
Third Prize – Seventeen, by Calliope Vale
Highly Commended – Safe Enough to Fall Apart, by Erica Duffield
Highly Commended – Deliverance, by Jodie Kewley
Highly Commended – The Scream, by David McMillan
“I can’t convey enough how hard this was to choose” says Jenny. “The quality was so high. But I loved Kit Scriven’s tale of survival – a kind of goldfields gothic. Some killer lines in here, ‘The grog is sour, not worth the price, but the cloudy brew provides an alibi for the churn in his guts’ being just one, and the whole piece has such a unique tone and rhythm.”
Kit Scriven is a short story writer from central Victoria. He studied creative writing at Bendigo TAFE and the University of Melbourne. His stories and unpublished novella focus on the complexity and wonder of rural life.
Read Kit’s winning short story in full below!
And one more thing – We had several new writers in our shortlist this year, so please don’t be shy, entering competitions is one of the best things that you can do as an emerging writer. Good luck with your writing, and a huge thank you to everyone who entered this year’s competition!
The Transaction
by Kit Scriven
The buyer puts down coin and asks for another jar. The grog is sour, not worth the price, but the cloudy brew provides an alibi for the churn in his guts. He tells himself that beginning will be the hardest. Once he’s committed, he won’t waver. And back home someone’s waiting. Yesterday, they’d persuaded themselves that there are some beginnings where everyone benefits.
He tells himself that King will honour their transaction. Because the shanty is doomed. The diggings are played out. A new strike festers on the southern side of the range. King’s customers are ants to another honey; they will never return.
Go there, the buyer almost tells Missus King. A new beginning. Open a butcher’s shop at the new strike. You could be a seller of linen, or a provider of shovels and pans.
‘Not this,’ he says.
‘What, then?’ says Missus King.
She has a language she’s invented or learned. He interprets the tilt of her head, the jut of her hip.
‘Not that,’ he says.
*
The shanty smells of sweat, home-made grog, vomit. And dog, and children. Based on her size, he estimates the girl is around eleven or twelve. Her arms and legs are sticks. Her feet are bare and rest on the mange on the flank of an extreme-jawed dog.
The girl sits in front of the empty fireplace and warms herself on memory and cur. Her voice is shrill, with most sentences constructed around a curse. Her siblings—twin boys, according to King—jostle on scraps of stained blanket. They try to repeat the last phrase of everything their sister says.
His vision shifts when he lifts the jar to his lips. Missus King is watching him. She has been watching him watching the girl. He translates her nod.
‘No,’ he says. ‘Not that.’
*
There’s not much to look at apart from Missus King, her children, the dog, the slab walls, the fireplace, the floor of stamped-down dirt. Five slices from the trunk of a sawn-down tree offer something to sit on. A shovel stands blade-up in a corner.
The buyer notes Missus King’s interest in the bag he carries with him. He turns his attention to the twins. One of the boys is smaller, and dirtier.
‘No,’ says Missus King.
*
‘McCarthy,’ he says, when Missus King asks.
Three hours he’s waited for King. McCarthy is the first name that enters his head. McCarthy, McCarthy, McCarthy, he says to himself. He rubs his forehead and wonders at its smoothness, which makes him wonder if the skin of the little boys is as smooth as their skin should be. He wonders if his skin is thick enough and whether Missus King can see through him and whether she might suddenly gather up the girl and the twins and make a run for the new diggings.
To distract her he says, ‘Heck of a dog.’
Since he’s arrived the dog has been sprawled under the feet of the girl.
‘Bloody killer,’ the girl says. ‘McCarthy.’
The girl’s feet rest on sparse fur. Mange has eroded most of the covering on the neck and thighs of the dog. The buyer wants to tell the girl that she shouldn’t warm her feet on a dog with skin disease. The need to instruct rises in him. He swallows it down and says, ‘Name?’
‘Beast.’ The girl aims the word at the empty fireplace.
His jar is empty. He bounces it on his knee, one, two, three.
The girl stretches the moment. ‘And the bastard dog is called Molly.’
The laughter of Missus King and her daughter sets the twins off. They giggle in a way that convinces the buyer they might still be real. The boys imitate the words uttered by their sister, ‘bastard-og-alled-olly.’
Which starts Missus King off again. But not the daughter. She’s watching him watching the twins.
He smiles like he appreciates the joke. The words that came out of the mouth of the smaller, dirtier twin were almost precise.
Yes. The little one.
*
The dog growls but doesn’t stir itself.
‘King,’ the girl says.
Instantly, the play and giggle of the twins stops. Missus King swabs a rag over the lump of wood that serves as a counter. The buyer gazes into his empty jar. Then he places it on the dirt and lifts his bag onto his knees. He unbuckles three straps and lifts a flap.
The dog growls again. The buyer notes the tightened strings in the girl’s calves and ankles. She presses her feet against the dog, like she’s trying to squeeze out any chance of further noise.
King enters with a dragged-foot, brittle gait.
Confirmation should not be required, but the buyer can’t help himself. ‘Right?’
King bends his head forward then back. The buyer extracts a small wad of notes from the bag and hands it over. King’s fingers click as he counts.
‘Pick,’ he says.
The buyer opens out his bag and lays it on the floor. A whisky bottle plugged with a cork sits on the wool-lined bottom of the bag. He pushes the bottle to one end.
‘Water. For the journey.’
‘No.’ The girl screams the word into the fireplace.
‘I want the littler one.’ He stops himself from explaining how sometimes everyone can benefit from a new beginning. He decides it’ll be easier if he doesn’t look. He hears King’s foot drag on the dirt, the girl’s sobs.
King’s hands are blotches of grey and pink, the colour of the bare patches on the skin of the dog. The child’s skin is dirt and white. The boy stretches as King settles him against the floor of the bag.
A calloused hand grasps at the canvas flap of the bag. The buyer can’t lift his head. The boy in the bag is beautiful. He stinks, but of himself.
‘Not our Joe.’ Missus King tugs at the bag.
Joseph. All right. Is this a crime, Joseph? Is it a crime to begin?
The boy’s lips rehearse a word, but no sound comes out. The buyer lowers his head.
‘Bastard,’ Joe says.
*
King’s laughter breaks the struggle. The buyer pulls the bag from Missus King’s grip. He remains seated, holding the bag on his knees. The boy is his.
In front of him, Missus King, the girl, and the dog sort themselves into a semi-circle facing King. His laughter is a form of palsy. He shakes and clicks until he gathers control.
‘Jeez,’ he says. He wipes at his eyes. ‘Bastard.’
‘We can’t,’ the girl says.
‘We?’
Missus King steps forward. She leans her face into King’s. ‘The money,’ she says. ‘Give it back.’
The buyer is certain King will resolve the matter. But he doesn’t want to watch. He studies his purchase. He sees himself driving the cart up to the house in the chill of evening, the muting light of dusk settling behind the oak-lined driveway, the welcome, the warmth, the glory.
Three sounds disturb his reverie. A fist striking flesh, followed by a thud and then another. Blood splats against the canvas flap of the bag. A fleck stains the upper lip of the boy. The buyer licks his thumb and rubs the red from the boy’s face and then wipes his thumb against the canvas. When he looks up, Missus King is a twist of legs and arms and torso. Blood seeps from a wound at the base of her skull. Her head has made no impression on the slab of ironbark that masquerades as a bar.
She’s dead, he decides. Or too smart to move.
‘We?’ King says again.
The girl extends her hand, palm upwards. ‘The money. Give the bloody money back. Else.’
‘Else?’ King grabs at her outstretched hand. He twists until she falls to her knees.
‘Beast,’ the girl screams. ‘Beast.’
*
The buyer holds his hands over his ears. He gazes into the face of the boy in the bag, who seems oblivious to his sister’s noise, her command of the curse—and the dog. Perhaps King thought he owned the dog, like he owned the shanty, Missus King, and the children.
Small, cold hands grasp the buyer’s wrists and pull his palms away from his ears.
‘Gunna help me?’ Her breath stinks of shanty.
‘Yes,’ he says.
The girl takes the bag from his knees and carries it to the fireplace. She lifts out the whisky bottle and then lifts the other twin and places him head to toe against Joe.
Joseph, not Joe, the buyer reminds himself. He’s mine.
‘Handy, that bag,’ she says. ‘Warm.’
‘We’ve got a fireplace in every room. And people to light them and keep them going. Joseph will never be cold again.’
‘Joseph?’
‘He’ll have his own bed, with sheets and pillowslips.’
‘Joseph?’
In the centre of the shanty, the dog laps at King’s neck. The bottom half of the man’s beard is red, and wet.
‘He’ll wear shoes.’
‘Our Joe? Shoes?’
Yes. Your Joe. My Joseph. Why didn’t he mention the shoes first up? ‘He’ll go to school. Then university.’
‘Beast.’
The dog lifts its head, and snarls. The girl pats the beaten-down earth in front of the bag. The dog moves into position, its balding haunches facing the fireplace, its sharp end aimed at the buyer.
‘Shovel,’ the girl says. ‘In the corner. Near the window.’
The only window faces west. It’s a hole in the wall. The sun is low, and slants over the body of King. Golden light bathes the dog and almost reaches the boys in the bag. The shovel rests in the north-west corner of the shanty, blade upwards.
The buyer steps around King. The dog adjusts its position.
‘Dig,’ the girl says.
The buyer slaps the blade into the earth.
‘Not there. That’s taken.’ She points at King. ‘There. Next to him. Big enough for two.’
‘Your mother. I think she’s alive.’ He is sure he can see a pulse in the rope of Missus King’s neck. ‘Should I check?’
When the girl doesn’t answer he looks across. She stands with one hand on the head of the dog. Her other hand is palm out; two fingers upthrust.
The buyer decides he shouldn’t look at her. Concentrate on the job. Get it over. King is one. Then Missus King, or him. As he digs, he assesses angles and distance and the weight of the shovel, the speed of the dog.
‘Bobby,’ the girl says.
If he misses, the dog will have him. ‘Pardon.’
‘Bobby. My first. You were gunna dig him up.’
*
The willingness of the earth to accept the shovel surprises the buyer. If he survives, he’ll buy himself a shovel and exercise it daily. And before he dies—if he survives this day—he’ll arrange to go into the ground in the crisp of morning and in a place where the people who put him down can smell dew on eucalyptus, and not the stink of shanty.
‘The twins?’ he says.
‘Mine.’
She steps away from the dog and swings a kick at the corpse of King. The sound of her foot hitting flesh isn’t what the buyer expects.
The dog, interested, sneaks forward a few steps and sniffs at King. Close enough, the buyer tells himself. He flexes his hands, like he’s shaking dirt from the end of the shovel. The dog lifts its head then retreats far enough to be out of reach, but close enough to launch.
‘Hah,’ the girl says. She takes another kick at King. ‘Their grandfather. Their father. I think.’
*
The girl wraps rags around her feet and pushes them into King’s boots. Then she shoves the money the buyer gave her father into the gap between leather and the inside of her right ankle.
She watches while he rolls King into the grave. She speaks to the dog while the buyer drags Missus King into the hole. The woman is heavier and warmer than King.
Once he’s filled the grave with bodies and dirt, the girl takes the shovel from his hands and bangs it, flat-bladed over the lumps in the floor. While she’s busy, the buyer watches the dog. The dog watches him.
The girl throws the shovel down. She drapes the dress she has stripped from her mother over the sleeping boys. She picks up the tatter of blanket on which her sons had lolled. She rubs her hands against the fabric then drops it to the dirt.
‘Outside,’ she says.
*
The girl stands near enough to gain heat from the burning shanty. The buyer sits in the dray, reins in hand. On the floor beside him the boys sleep in the bag. Behind him, the moist snout of the dog sniffs at his neck.
In front of him, firelight sheens the rump and flanks of the mare. Eager to get home, she turns her head and looks at him.
‘Not yet,’ he says.
He drives with the girl in the seat beside him and the dog’s breath in his ear.
‘Your house is warm?’
‘Yes. There’ll be a fire in every bedroom. And the library.’
He infers sky above the trees that line the track. No moon or stars assist, but he can sense something less dark.
‘I’ve seen sheets. In a shop in Maldon.’
‘Two linen cupboards. Filled with sheets and pillowslips. And blankets. We wash our blankets.’
He feels the seat move as she shifts away from him.
But we do wash our blankets. That’s what he wants to say. But doesn’t. The snout of the dog is wet against the back of his neck.
The horse walks. The girl chooses their way through several forks in the track, then a constellation of intersections.
‘Old digging’s,’ she says. ‘Finished.’
He wonders if her name is Molly. Too late to ask. She will always be the girl. Before they’d set off, he’d given her his fob watch and the rest of his money.
‘A new beginning,’ he’d told her.
He could ask her the time, get her talking. Keep her occupied and not re-thinking their transaction. Shoes, that’s what he’ll tell her. They’ll wear shoes.
By his reckoning it’s midnight, or just after. If he asks, will she be able to read the face of his watch in this light? Even if the light is adequate, does she know how to interpret the time?
‘Christ,’ he says. But we do wash our blankets.
*
When they arrive, he is certain she’s given him the directions to Hell. Tents pustule on both sides of the track, which has mutated to thick mud. The mare strains her way through. Flickers of light and flame from kerosene lamps and campfires illuminate what might be men as they stagger between the tents and across the track.
‘Kelly’s here,’ the girl says. ‘His grog sends them crazy.’
Hands reach out of the darkness and grab at her. The dog snaps and tears at them.
‘Stop,’ the girl says.
‘Here?’
He pulls on the reins. The mare gives a heavy sigh. The buyer notes the quiver in his fingers and the way the leather ribbons dance on the animal’s back.
The girl waits until backlit, flickering demons surround the dray. She reaches across and takes the reins from his palsying hands.
‘Get out, McCarthy,’ she says. ‘Else.’