WRITING GALLERY - JULY 2025

FIRST LOVES
by Malcolm W

I first fell in when I was five years old. Linda and I used to play together when I visited my grandmother, and my heart was broken when her family moved to Canada. I told mum and dad I was going to move to Canada to marry her when I was old enough; but they broke it to me gently that it would not happen because one was not allowed by law to marry their cousin. It was not until I was fourteen years old; and beginning to realise there was more to life than sport and music, that I lost my heart to another girl. I attended a boy’s only high school and apart from my one sister, and some female cousins, had little contact with young females. I was not sure how to act around, or speak to, girls of my own age.

Susan lived down the road from me, but I could only admire her from afar. From the few awkward conversations we did have I knew that her tastes in music were much the same as my own. This led to me playing my Manfred Mann, Rolling Stone or Beach Boy songs at

high volume with the bedroom window open to impress her if I saw her passing our house. It was a strategy that made me no friends amongst the nearest neighbours and produced threats from my father to confiscate my record player.

I did finally strike up a friendship with her; but never managed to pluck up the courage to ask Susan out on a date, despite encouragement from her mother to do so. Her mum thought I was a nice lad I was told; even her dad didn’t seem to dislike me. Her little brother, who could not pronounce my name and always called me Milkman, even treated me like a big brother.

I blame the system that put many of us into schools where the genders were kept apart. My friends who went to mixed sex schools never seemed to have any trouble chatting to the girls. On the downside, It seemed to me that some of them tended to develop a much less respectful attitude to the opposite sex, or was it just a figment of my over-active imagination?

My family moved to the other side of town when I was fifteen, and I left school and got an apprenticeship. It was only five years later that I bumped into Susan and her mother in town. Susan, who was now married, already had one child and another on the way at the tender age of twenty. As the eldest of five children, and someone who often looked after several younger cousins, I have always been fond of children. However, at the time I couldn’t help but think

my shyness had saved me from making a big mistake.

EVERLASTING LOVE
by Valda R

Charlie pulled his battered akubra further down as he sank into the old squatters chair on his porch. He gazed out west where the sun would soon drop below the range of hills. It was then he would make his way to the Pub to meet his cobbers and have a few beers.

As he dozed he remembered the time he returned from fencing out along the Roper, well cashed up after months away. He heard the blokes talking about this Esme, a good looking Kiwi sheila who was the new barmaid, and made it his business to check her out; she was a corker. He was a good looking bloke then too.

They married, and he built the cottage he was still living in. Esme grew their vegies and planted the front with flowers; she had chickens and an old sow in a pen out the back. They had a son Johnno, and what a horseman and sharp shooter he was. He became the top camp drafter in the Territory and was Esma’s pride and joy. Then the silly young buggar went and joined the army to see the world. He only made it to Vietnam to fight the American war which was a bloody disaster, as he never returned. The day the telegram arrived, Esme’s life changed forever. The garden slowly died, the chooks flew off, and the sow went to the local butcher. Too much sorrow for her to bear. She passed away a broken woman and was buried in the local cemetery. Charlie visited her daily, picking a bunch of roadside daisies to place on her grave. He would sit there with old Red by his side, sucking on his pipe with memories of the love of his life.

Awake now, he brushed his hair, pulled on a clean shirt and jumped in his old Ute. He hoped that young copper from Katherine wasn’t cruising around today as the old Sarg had told him he shouldn’t be driving an unregistered rust bucket, especially as he had no drivers licence.

He sat in his favourite chair at the bar, surrounded by his mates listening to the young ringers who had come in from Fitzroy Station; one on his guitar and the other on a mouth organ, playing Slim’s songs. The whole bar joined in singing, and what a bonza night it was. When he and his mates were called into the dining room, the cook announced ‘steak and kidney pie’ which was Charlie’s favourite. So much to tell Esme in the morning when he and Red made their morning visit.

Charlie didn’t make it to visit Esme the next morning.

Three days later he was laid to rest beside the love of his life, when the whole community turned out to mourn one of their own. The pub put on a remembrance party which they knew Charlie would have loved. It was now just Red who made his way to the cemetery each morning, to sit on Charlie’s grave where he would howl before making his way back to his new home behind the pub, where the Cook would give him tasty leftovers.

DANCING AND ROMANCING
by Trevor S

EVER AFTER
by Paul G

They’re both waiting.

I hadn’t realised it would be this hard. The two words they’re waiting for are locked behind my clenched teeth. It had been so easy to imagine saying them a month, a week— a day ago. Even now with Pamela’s “I do” still hovering between us, I can visualise my parroted response squeezing its way through the determined line of my lips to seal our “ever after” marriage contract. Contract, sounds so binding, maybe because it has no end date. As a child I used to wonder what happened in the “after” of stories that stopped at “happy ever after”. How did they know they were ever after happy? How can I know? And how long does “after” last, anyway?

Alice and Debbie’s only ran for three years. Connie and Hope, less than two. Bonnie at least managed to salvage a daughter from hers before Natalie had an affair with the nanny.

Dribbles of perspiration run from my scalp, and across my cheek. I imagine them scoring channels through my makeup. My internal thermostat malfunctions under stress making me sweat. Pamela calls them my almost tears, joking that they’re as close as I can come to making the real thing. Or perhaps it’s simply hotter today. I often suspect Pamela enjoys watching me sweat, because she never offers to share the shade of her parasol. Perhaps that’s what’s stopping me. Pamela is always only for Pamela.

Across the harbour the real world rolls past, like a backdrop to this drama: disembodied shouts from sailing dinghies, the regular slap and wash of small waves against the shingles, small children’s squeals of delight all combine to create the rhythm of the day. But here, on the esplanade, we three remain suspended. Waiting.

For me.

I sense Pamela’s impatience. Her glasses have slipped to the end of her nose and she stares, pointedly, at me over the top of her frames. The celebrant clears her throat and repeats the vow, her words solemn and measured, as if I might not have heard them the first time, or perhaps she suspects I am somehow slow.

The wait begins again. The parasol quivers as Pamela shuffles closer to jab me with her elbow, her smile tight. A breeze puffs up off the water, cooling me, and finally I my jaw releases. I test the air, lizard like, with the tip of my tongue before running it across my dry lips. I turn to face them. The celebrant smiles expectantly, nodding her encouragement. Pamela’s left nostril widens lifting the corner of her mouth, millimetres away from her full payback sneer, which will play out later tonight through a lengthy, chilly, silence until I find myself apologising just to end it. Apologising for being not quite enough. For being me. My gaze tracks back to the harbour, where “ever after” lasts only a sun-filled moment, and I find myself saying, “I can’t” before leaving them and walking down to the beach.

A FINE ROMANCE OR NOT
by Julie S