The Writing Competition
A short story with a 1,600 word limit…..
By Drew Lindsay
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © Drew Lindsay 2012
The right of Drew Lindsay as the Author of this Work has been asserted.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
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ALSO BY DREW LINDSAY
The Killing
The Cylinder
Coral Sea Affair
Black Mountain Affair
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‘We’re in with a chance here Joyce.’ Maurice Bennett peered at his wife over the top of battered wire rimmed glasses. ‘It says the motif for the story has to incorporate something to do with southern Australia and we can win five grand.’
Joyce Bennet stopped knitting and sat back in the thread bare, floral print lounge chair. ‘What on earth are you going on about this time?’
‘Something about southern Australia is the motif. We just need to write a story with ‘south’ repeated here and there and look where we live Joyce. Can’t get more south than this?’
‘What’s where we live got to do with anything?’
Maurice pulled his glasses off and dropped them onto the lifestyle glossy magazine in his lap. ‘We’ve got the last house in Cockle Creek Road. Can’t get more south in Tassie than that. Just a stroll down the track from here and you drop off the last bit of Australia and into the Southern Ocean.’
‘Please explain what that has to do with writing a story Maurice?’ Joyce rolled her eyes for the second time.
‘Look, I’m, making notes here.’ Maurice waved a biro in the air. ‘Once we get an outline, you jump on that computer of yours and write something about us being the last southern house in Australia, we send it to this magazine competition and with the prize money we can head north for a holiday.’
‘Once again you are completely out of your mind Maurice. You can’t just write about being the last house south in Australia,’
‘Then help me with ideas woman. You’ve got the gab.’
‘If I have the gab, I definitely caught it from you.’ Joyce patiently folded her knitting and laid it beside her on a timber coffee table. ‘So what are we going to write?’
‘I don’t know. Something about South Cape Bay. That’s the last bit of Australian rock before Antarctica. We had a picnic there a few months ago.’
‘Oh yes, the picnic where I nearly lost you off the rocks.’
‘I was fishing for Southern Bass Joyce. Best eating fish in the world. You don’t mind eating them.’
‘Provided you’re around to enjoy the meal with me! You’re too old to be climbing about on the southern most tip of Australia with the Southern ocean pounding over your bald head.’
‘A total exaggeration! I’m not bald.’
‘Where did you get that magazine from anyway?’ asked Joyce, popping her feet onto a cane footstool.
‘Alexandra posted it down from Canberra.’
‘Then it was for me. You don’t read magazines like that.’
‘I don’t mind the articles in this one. Lots on Tassie and we’re entering the writing competition.’
Joyce picked up her knitting again. ‘You can’t write Maurice. You have no imagination and you’ve got the potato and carrot patch to weed today. No more excuses.’
‘What about your southern apple pies?’ said Maurice, totally ignoring her. ‘You grow the best apples in the south and make the best pies as well. We could write about that.’
‘Well I must say my apple pies are second to none. Cleans up the competition at the Cockle Creek fair each year.’
‘There you go.’ Maurice began to scribble furiously on his notepad.
‘So that’s it? You’re going to tell everyone we’ve got the last house in the south of Tasmania and that you almost got swept off rocks at a picnic at South East Cape, and that my apples and the pies I make with them are the best in the world.’
‘It’s a start.’
‘Did Alexandra put a letter with that magazine?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good Lord Maurice. My own daughter sends me a letter and a magazine and you hijack the lot. Hand it over.’
Maurice groaned as he got out of the chair. He walked slowly to Joyce and handed her a folded letter.
‘And the magazine too and stop it with the back thing. There’s nothing wrong with your back.’
‘I need the magazine for the writing competition Joyce.’
‘You’re not entering any writing competition and that’s that,’ she snapped.
Maurice sat down with his notebook and began to tap the pen against the side of his head. He slipped his glasses back on and began to scribble. Joyce had been reading her daughter’s letter but was half watching her husband over the top of the page. Finally she could take no more. ‘Will you stop that. You’ve got work to do outside.’
‘We could tell them all about Cockle Creek and Recherche Bay. This is God’s country. That’s why we moved here. We loved the wilderness and the richness of the land and the locals who became friends almost instantly. The place is oozing with amazing history….Aboriginal legends, sailing clippers, whalers, saw mills, convicts.’
‘And old relics like you Maurice Bennett.’
Maurice sat back in his comfortable chair. He pushed the wire rimmed glasses back on his head. ‘It’s only sixteen hundred words Joyce. We can do it.’
She dropped her daughter’s letter in her lap. ‘I’ve been trying to get you to write to our daughter for ten years now. Let me ask you Maurice. How many letters have you written to her in the last ten years?’
‘Well….’
‘Exactly! None!’
‘I ring her every fortnight.’
‘Not the same. She writes and I write. That’s what we do.’
‘That’s what you do because it’s what you and your Mum did till the day she died. My daughter and I converse with the use of a modern medium.’
‘Oh I see. But now all of a sudden you want to start writing to a perfect stranger.’
‘It’s two perfect strangers from this lifestyle magazine actually. I’m not starting up a relationship here. It’s a writing competition for God’s sake.’
‘You’re dreaming. You’re also trying to get out of tending the garden for the umpteenth time this month.’
‘OK, I’ll look at the garden tomorrow. Just give me more ‘south’ sounding ideas.’
‘I’m reading my daughter’s letter. You hatch ideas if you think you can. Perhaps if you go stand by the ocean, the southern breeze will blow something creative into your head.’
Maurice sat bolt upright. He pulled his glasses down and began to write furiously in the notebook. Joyce shook her head and let out a sigh. ‘Alright genius. I can hardly wait for this.’
‘The south wind. Hits the place like a sledge hammer from time to time when a storm blows in.’
‘And?’
‘Remember back a couple of months when that huge south wind hit the place and all your washing went everywhere?’
Joyce simply looked at her husband with her mouth open.
‘We could write about that. I’d put the washing out to dry and the south wind came up and took the whole damn lot off the line.’
Joyce laid her daughter’s letter gently on the coffee table. She sat back with her hands folded in her lap. ‘Oh yes Maurice. I vividly remember that incident. As I recall, and correct me if I’m wrong, but you, for once in your life decided to put the washing on the line.’
‘Correct.’
‘I’m not sure what possessed you to actually do that because you’d never done it before.’
‘Just trying to be helpful darling.’
‘Don’t darling me Maurice. You had stuffed something up and were trying to make amends. Mind you, I haven’t yet discovered what you did wrong, but I will.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘What wasn’t fair is that you omitted to use pegs with the washing on the line.’
‘I didn’t know you needed those.’
‘Obviously, because when the southern wind hit the place, all my sheets, pillow slips, table cloths, shirts and underwear, flew rapidly north.’
‘I was really sorry about that…’
‘Some of my underwear ended up blowing along the road into Cockle Creek.’
‘Yes well…’
‘And one of my best bed sheets ended up in the top of the tallest gum tree in the southern hemisphere, and on our neighbour’s property!’
‘We tried to get it down.’
‘Jason Johnstone is about as brainless as you can be sometimes Maurice. He was trying to bring the sheet down with a shotgun!’
‘But in fairness Joyce, it was flapping at night and making his dogs bark. That kept the chooks awake and the rooster lost it’s day and night cycle.’
‘I’m surprised he didn’t just cut the entire damn tree down to get the sheet out.’
Maurice scratched his head. ‘We never thought of that.’
Joyce closed her eyes. This was supposed to be a lazy Saturday afternoon for her.
‘Look my darling,’ pleaded Maurice, ‘if you could just get that computer of yours going for a while, we could create this thing and I’d be out of your hair.’
Joyce opened her eyelids a fraction. ‘How many words did you say this writing competition allows and how many have you got scribbled there in your notebook?’
‘The magazine says sixteen hundred.’ Maurice counted the words on one page. He then flicked through his notebook and counted the number of pages on which he had scribbled. ‘I’ve written about sixteen hundred. That’s as many words as we can write.’
Joyce closed her eyes again. ‘Good, then it’s done. Go weed the garden!’
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FOOTNOTE: The word count of this short story is 1,595, not counting the footnote.
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