BOOK COVER REVEAL: The Five Lives of Ms Bennett

The Five Lives of Ms Bennett is a novel that I wrote for my Masters in Writing, way back in 2006. Under a different title the manuscript has remained as they say "in the bottom drawer". In 2022, I spent time in a Fellowship at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre (Greenmount WA) changing all the mixed tenses to all 'present' tense.  I have submitted the novel to various publishers (one rejection received), also applied to a 2023 Westerly Mid-Career Fellowship, sending part of the narrative on the 1st life of Alice Bennett, however I doubt my chances as there are so many better writers out there than me. Anyway, here is an excerpt from the novel & the one I sent to Westerly.

Grandma’s Chocolate Tin

Story 1:           Stories from the olden days 

Gran shuffles the old photos in her chocolate tin. When she draws a cracked photo from underneath the pile, the old woman withdraws into other corridors. Three men in full uniform, double-breasted velvet jackets and high boots, have their heads bowed. Particleboard lies beneath their feet. Steps lead to battered doors; in a side annex, minor scorching. One man is smoking a rollie. The rest look pitiful, shoulders and mouths drooped. Her granddaughter thinks the burnt building resembles the black-stick house near the beach.

Alice waits for Gran to call her nickname; twirls her three bangles, watching for signs that Gran’s eyelids have lifted. She has come to know this scene, the charcoal in the grate sparking a new flame with just a little prod. She counts her grandmother’s stitches, the number of times the right forefinger loops the wool, clicking her heels and tapping her leather shoes on the concrete path. In this place together, they are apart. Alice bumps her grandmother, making her drop stitches. In the silence, she plucks blades of buffalo grass, crisscrosses them like a paddle-pop raft. An old straw hat balances on the geraniums. She thinks Grandpa might soon jump back into the picture. 

‘Is this where you had the pump?’ asks Alice, pointing to the old tank-stand. More clacking, the scrunching sound of wool escaping as Edith unwinds the ball from her knitting bag. ‘I used to play under there, Gran. Look here, Gran.’ Alice taps the tank stand with a long piece of doweling. ‘With matchsticks. I lit one.’

‘You didn’t want to start a fire, did you?’ Edith raises her eyes over the rims of her glasses.

‘Nah. Not really.’ Alice sprawls close to her grandmother and snips clover with the scissors. ‘Did you ever see a really big fire with Grandpa in that fire engine?’

‘No, women weren’t allowed.’

‘Oh.’

‘It was bad luck in those days.’

‘Why?’

‘There was always bad luck.’

‘I like firing matches. Whoosh!’ she giggles, imitating the strike.

‘Don’t you dare, Alice, or I’ll tell your father.’

Alice twirls her pink hoop until it catches on her cardigan. She leans back on the top step, placing herself inside the plastic toy.

‘I made ‘em plenty of cups of tea in my day,’ says Edith, resting her skeins. ‘They was always awake because of me.’

‘Was this your house, Gran?’ says Alice, holding the photo.

‘Yep. See those roses out the front, every colour of the rainbow. I loved that old house and garden. Trouble was it was too far from the beach.’ Edith wrestles an aching foot and straightens. ‘Fire Station used to be an old barn till they renovated it. Your grandfather spent long hours in there, checking and re-checking the equipment, tuning the pumps and making the truck ready, just in case.  It was one problem after the other.’

‘Did he burn his fingers?’

‘He got his whiskers singed plenty of times. I remember the big one. It was a miserable job. Half the Spit Junction was burning. Like a wood-yard, your grandfather said, full of timber ready to go.’

Alice imagines a bush fire like the logs that tumble and fall in the lounge-room grate. She likes the sound of snapping wood that sends sparks up the chimney. She is glad, too, that Gran is still making scones and cups of tea for her, that everything is much the same; except they don’t have a fire engine to climb on, or a garden of roses.

‘I don’t know why, but he kept these journals.’ Edith lifts the book from the bottom of the suitcase, dog-eared pages falling from stitches. ‘Here’s a good story,’ she says, balancing the large book across both their knees. ‘It’ll help you understand your grandfather.’

 

Warringah: Griffin Road, 1934. Minor property damage.

When we got there the hill along Griffin Road was yellow and smoky. Left Laurie and Bill in charge of the hose checked out the back of the sheds. The fire was already frisky in the button grass. Luckily the lantana and eucalypts further in hadn’t gone up yet. A lad from the factory rolled up with his truck to help the owner remove some crates from a big stores shed. A few fences needed to be soaked. I got the volunteers onto that one. A strong nor-westerly blowing didn’t help things much. The stacked drums, full of petrol, kerosene and turpentine was our biggest worry. We could hear the petrol simmering inside, the drums swelling with the heated pressure. All the boys and I could do was try and keep the drums cool. We were under control as the other men outside and further up in the long grass begun to get onto the fire and we won the fight.

‘Oh, goody, they won.’

‘Yep. They won that day, but the next week there was all hell to play. The storekeeper, old Snowy, came skidding up on his motorbike in front of the house while I was in the yard. Well, he rang the bell and woke the men. The fire started down at the Surf Club where they kept all the surfboats and boards. There was a fish and chip shop, a tackle shop. The whole lot might have gone up.’

Alice waits, as Gran wipes the ridges of her eyes. 

‘There were people everywhere, sirens wailing, women, old fellas, boys outside the double doors. Of course, they weren’t allowed in. They just ran with the fire truck all the way up Evans Street, dogs yapping at the tyres. I noticed your grandfather was having trouble with his pants and belt, but didn’t take any notice. The men soon found he wasn’t well. He was slumped over his office chair; coat half off, ledger books all over the floor. In the panic of it all, they took him to the doctor’s first. Had to wake him up. Doc kept shaking their hands. The boys said he was pleased it wasn’t his place going up.’