GHENGIS KHAN by Gloria Moress

(Note: The following story was the result of a 10 minute writing exercise during our last meeting. The writer was asked to incorporate the following words: Genghis Khan, a yurt, mare's milk and yak stew.)

He leaned over his wife's motionless body and took the bundle of cloths from where the midwife had placed it in the crook of her arm. Outside the yurt, the women had taken up positions facing each of the gods, and were united in their gutteral wailing for the departed spirit. He was alone.

The yak stew bubbled on the small cooking fire, but the baby in his arms made no sound. He was encouragingly pink, although his dark crop of hair was tinged red with his mother's blood. There were no women nursing now, he'd been told, so the old woman would feed the boy mare's milk. If he lived, he would be called Ghengis.

Gloria Moress ©

TIME by Gloria Moress

The alarm didn’t go off and I woke up at quarter to seven in a bit of a panic. The kids weren’t up either, so I woke them and went into the kitchen. Then I discovered we had no milk and only the two end crusts of the bread left. I wish they’d let me know when it runs out instead of just shoving the packet back in the breadbox! I was too exhausted to shop on my way home from work last night, and I hadn’t made the lunches either. I ducked across the road to get a couple of things, but my cash card wouldn’t work and the girl had to swipe it half a dozen times. “It’ll just take a minute,” she smiled in a way that made me want to slap her. When I got back the kids were still in bed, I yelled at them then started the breakfasts and lunches.

The kids got up but mucked around in front of the TV and were so slow getting dressed, I had to go in and shout at them four times. Emma had her top on back to front, so I had to fix that up, and Matthew couldn’t find any socks. Why is it always when you’re in a hurry? It was quarter to eight when they got to the table, and the bus comes at eight! I brushed their hair while they were eating, then shoved their bags at them and pushed them out the door. I don’t think Jason brushed his teeth! God knows what the teacher will think.

I hadn’t ironed my blouse and that always takes bloody ages but I had the iron too hot and scorched the collar. The mark wouldn’t come out so I went downstairs to check for another one in the laundry. That’s when I saw the cat had been sick all over the rumpus room carpet. I couldn’t leave it, the smell was putrid, and it took me a good twenty minutes clean it up, then I went all the way back upstairs without the blasted shirt I’d been after in the first place.

The phone rang and I wasn’t going to answer it, but I thought maybe one of the kids had forgotten something in the rush. It was my mother. She started talking about which restaurant to book for Dad’s birthday and I just about hung up on her in the end.

When I got in the car the fuel light was on, so I had to go to the petrol station. The man at the bowser in front of me was just sitting in the driver’s seat going through his wallet or something, in no hurry whatsoever! I was going to toot him but I thought he might sit there longer just to spite me so I gritted my teeth. I kept looking at the clock on the car radio and I swear four minutes has never seemed so long.

When I finally got to work there were no good parks left so I had to park right down the road. It was freezing, I’d forgotten my coat of course, and I was almost forty minutes late. I knew we were having a staff meeting first thing and the last thing I felt like were everyone’s eyes on me when I walked in late. I felt half dressed and unprepared for the day. I’d done my face but a glance in the rearview mirror at the lights had shown I hadn’t blended my foundation too well, and upon closer study I discovered I’d forgotten to put mascara on my right eyelashes. I know you’re probably thinking it could only get better after such an awful start but I wasn’t in any state to think logically by then. I was almost at the lift when the woman stopped me and the doors closed right in front of my disbelieving eyes.

And that, your Honour, is the reason I hit the woman when she asked me if I had the time.

Gloria Moress ©

MY FAVOURITE PLACE by Gloria Moress

It’s the island. I suppose they are typically romantic places, but Phillip Island isn’t that type of island. It’s well and truly anchored to the mainland by a massive bridge constructed of concrete and steel, and in no danger of drifting into the mists like the legendary Avalon, another favourite place of mine. I don’t remember my first visit, I just remember always going there, it always being there, like home. And in fact it was a second home, for my grandparents had a holiday house there from the time my mother was a girl.

We knew we were almost there when we reached the last hill before the road turned east to follow the coast. The hill was so high and steep that all one could see beyond it was the sky, and as we crested it, I was convinced the car would go sailing out over the ocean with the gulls. The first thing one saw over the hill was the edge of the world, where deep blue gave to pale blue, and there was really nothing beyond, on and on, till you reached ice.

The island was a treasure box filled with all my beloved things. Low rolling hills that were always green, dotted with sheep and fat red cattle, gelati parlours, windswept surf beaches, pony rides in the summer, the best newsagents in Australia and of course, my grandparents.

I spent my childhood scrambling over rocks, under tea trees, over dunes. Poking into rock pools and throwing stones at quick, clever toadies. Collecting pussy willows and cowrie shells, looking into burrows to be looked back at by a fairy penguin, waiting for dinner. The wind so wild and cold our eyes and noses ran and fingers were pink and numb. My very thoughts seemed to be blown out of my head, half formed, my only remaining conviction: that I was happy.

To my grandparent’s house, over a hundred years old, clung the chill damp of very old stone. Everything smelled different in that still air. Onion smelled sweeter, hot water cleaner, gravy more delicious than anywhere else. Coming back from our beach walk with Grandpa, my sister and I would be ushered into the lounge to watch TV, out from under Nanna’s feet in the kitchen, and an endless parade of lollies, biscuits, chocolates and nuts, all in little bowls, would keep us quiet till dinner.

We snuggled into our cosy beds at night with Nanna, who told us the story of The Princess and the Golden Ball. We never tired of hearing it, but Nanna must have tired of telling it, for she made our much younger cousin a tape recording of the story. Despite promising each other we’d wake up for a midnight feast a la Enid Blyton’s stories, my sister and I never failed to sleep through the night. Unsurprising, for we had exhausted ourselves playing in a land of wonder and possibility, and we planned to do it all again tomorrow.

Gloria Moress ©

HOW TO SHOW JOY by Gloria Moress

She hovered outside the toilet door. “Your mother offered to come down and help me cobweb,” she began.

“Mmmm.”

“Well, I don’t think the cobwebs are that bad.”

“They add character to the place.”

“So you think the place is dirty?”

“No!” His eyes flicked to her briefly over the Country Life. “Don’t worry about Mum, she’s just trying to help.”

“I know…but it always feels like criticism. I think I’m managing okay. Aren’t I?” Her voice rose and cracked in a bid for approval.

“You’re doing fine,” he soothed, eyes scanning the machinery for sale.

Sighing, she returned to the kitchen. Brett still opened the end drawer looking for cutlery. She had it under the sink’s draining board. He laughed about looking for a teaspoon where his mother had stored them years before, and said, “I just can’t get used to this,” but it irked her every time.

It seemed no one could get used to her “city” ways. Her mother-in-law heaved an exaggerated sigh whenever she cast her eyes at the ochre coloured kitchen walls and terracotta tiles. The old man grumbled about the water she must waste on her flowerbeds, “one rose bed out the front was good enough for mother” as he eyed the riotous perennial borders she’d planted around the house. Together they tut-tutted the disorderly and forthright manner of “kids today.” Her kids.My downfall is that I want to please everyone, she thought grimly, I want approval. Approval from her in laws meant acceptance in this tight knit, aging community where everyone you knew today had known you since you’d been born. All except her.

It was ten years since they’d moved into the house Brett’s parents had built in the fifties. The older couple had moved into town to be closer to their two daughters and other sources of support as they aged. Despite this, they often called in unannounced, walking in the back door without so much as a cursory knock.

Those ten years had been hard work, long hours for Brett on the tractor, long hours for her on her own with the boys. Now her baby, Daniel, was in grade one, and missed them terribly all day, until the bus returned them, hungry, pink-cheeked and disheveled to her kitchen table. It was the empty hours during the day that had started her thinking about entering the local show. Brett and the kids raved over her baking, and she thought she might enter a sponge. Maybe even submit a couple of roses from her David Austin collection. I’ll check the categories, then decide, she thought, excitement building at the thought of a little project of her own.

Show day simmered, hot and still, as February held its breath. As they toured the cattle, Debbie marveled again at their placid stolidity. Cattle always seemed a contented animal to her. Anything that let you lead it around by a ring through the nose would have to have a fairly peaceable nature. She envied them. Her striving to be a better something had no end: mother, wife, daughter, P & C member, cook, lover, friend, sister.

At least she had tackled this last bastion of country womanhood and entered her work into the show. As they entered the pavilion and her eyes adjusted, she saw her mother in law standing at the flower display. Tom, Will and Dan raced over, a whirlwind of gangly arms and legs, “Grandma! Did you see the dodgems?” “Will you go on the ferris wheel with me?” “Where’s Grandad?”

Joy turned, shushing them automatically, then beamed at Debbie, “First prize in the old-fashioned category! Looks like my old bushes are performing as well as ever. Well, roses are a tough plant, really.” Debbie’s return smile froze, but even as she began to turn away, she felt Brett reach for her hand. His rough palm pressed against hers, and he squeezed her fingers. “Actually, I planted that,” she said quietly.

“Oh, did you, dear? Yes, roses just about grow themselves in our climate, don’t they?”

Her eyes met Brett’s, who crossed his in vexation. They moved on to the baking display, the boys darting around them in an impromptu game of tag. Joy heaved an exaggerated sigh of disapproval, but was distracted by the cakes in the low glass cabinet. “Oh, look, dear,” she exclaimed. “You’ve come second in the sponge roll category. My old recipe is fool proof, isn’t it?”This time, Brett pinched her very hard on the bottom.

“Actually Joy, yours is a bit on the crumbly side, this is my grandmother’s recipe.” Her tongue seemed to have developed a will of its own, and with Brett’s arm around her shoulders, she felt steady, solid and sure of herself.

“You have been busy, haven’t you?” Joy said meanly. “I don’t know where you find the time with those three children of yours. They’re so demanding.”

Shrugging, Debbie moved to the patchwork. She had entered a colourwash quilt in a heart design. It had been a real labour of love that had taken almost two years to finish, and she had hand quilted it in every precious spare moment. It was a beautiful design in purples, blues and greens, and she had finished it and presented it to Brett for their tenth anniversary.

She stopped in front of the handcraft display, where her quilt, winner of the grand prize, was prominently displayed. Brett dropped a kiss on her head, “Congratulations, sweetheart.”

Beside her, Joy stared at the quilt. “I didn’t know you could sew!” she exclaimed. “That’s why I’ve been mending Brett’s work clothes all these years.”

A slow smile spread across Debbie’s face. “Yes,” she said. “That gave me time to do more interesting things.”

“Shall we tell her darling?” Brett asked sweetly.

“Yes, lets,” Debbie replied.

“We’re having another baby, Mum, due in July.”

The older woman’s raised eyebrows signaled her surprise and disapproval, “Really?”

“Yes,” Debbie added, as their beloved, boisterous sons ran over and jostled for prime position between her and Brett, “another beautiful boy.”


Gloria Moress ©Writers’ Group, Clifton