Something Special, Something Rare (24 page)

He stopped on the boardwalk and waited for them to catch up. The three of them stood still for a moment, soaked and helpless, unable to hear each other speak against the intensity of the rainstorm. Liam's face was pale, his teeth chattering, and Graham thought that Jenny might even be crying.

He realised then that he still had the bluetooth around his ear. As he pulled it off and shoved it into his pocket, he knew it was ruined. He might as well have had a shower fully clothed. He wiped his hands across his face to try and see more clearly. You couldn't bring cars into the wetlands; he would just have to guide them back to the Homemaker Centre at the pace they could manage. They moved slowly on, their arms wrapped around their own bodies, Graham in front, then Liam, then Jenny.

Finally, they reached the sealed path. The rain pulled back as quickly as it had started and then fell again in random, singular drops. It became strangely quiet, as if the heavens were recoiling from their own outburst. Everything around them softly ticked, like a resting engine when the ignition is cut. Graham slowed his step so the others could catch up again and he reached for Jenny's hand. With a gait so lopsided, it was hard to hold her hand while they walked and he rarely did. He reached over and put his other hand on Liam's shivering shoulder. His thumb nestled in the groove above Liam's collarbone, and with his other hand wrapped around Jenny's, he could feel the racing pulses of both his wife and his son. They are alive and real, he thought. His family is alive and real. They are flesh and bone, sinew and fat. And Graham understood then that being alive meant that one day they would die, like everything else, like all these living things here. He felt a tickle in his throat and behind his eyes, and a great burden of love for them in his chest. But Jenny was right. They should have made Sophie come too. Graham realised that he missed her. He really missed her. He'd been missing her for a couple of years. He squeezed Jenny's hand and firmed his grip on Liam's shoulder. He wished he could think of something to say, words to explain how he really felt about his family. He wanted to put this feeling into words.

What he did know was this: Liam's school could get stuffed. Troy Campbell could get stuffed. The whole world could go and get stuffed. Jenny was right. They needed to do more things as a family.

They continued walking the last stretch of the path, almost back to the Homemaker Centre. All Graham could hear now was the rasping breathlessness of his wife and son beside him, and the odd chirp of all those unknown birds as they ventured timidly back out into the open.

PUBLICATION DETAILS

R
EBEKAH
C
LARKSON'S
‘Something Special, Something Rare' appeared in
The Best Australian Stories 2014.

T
EGAN
B
ENNETT
D
AYLIGHT'S
‘J'aime Rose' appeared in
The Best Australian Stories 2013
and
Review of Australian Fiction,
vol. 6, no. 1.

G
ILLIAN
E
SSEX'S
‘One of the Girls' appeared in
The Best Australian Stories 2010.

D
ELIA
F
ALCONER'S
‘The Intimacy of the Table' appeared in
Storykeepers
(Duffy & Snellgrove, 2001),
The Best Australian Stories 2002, The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers and Other Stories
(Picador, 2006) and
The Best Australian Stories: A Ten-Year Collection.

K
ATE
G
RENVILLE'S
‘Bushfire' appeared in the
Bulletin,
vol. 118, no. 6255, and
The Best Australian Stories 2001.

S
ONYA
H
ARTNETT'S
‘Any Dog' appeared in
The Best Australian Stories 2003
and
The Best Australian Stories: A Ten-Year Collection.

K
AREN
H
ITCHCOCK'S
‘Forging Friendship' appeared in
Overland,
no. 200, and
The Best Australian Stories 2011.

C
ATE
K
ENNEDY'S
‘White Spirit' appeared in the
Big Issue
and
The Best Australian Stories 2009.

A
NNA
K
RIEN'S
‘Flicking the Flint' appeared in
The Best Australian Stories 2014.

I
SABELLE
L
I'S
‘A Chinese Affair' appeared in
What You Do and Don't Want: UTS Writers' Anthology 2007
and
The Best Australian Stories 2007.

J
OAN
L
ONDON'S
‘The New Dark Age' appeared in
The Best Australian Stories 2002, The New Dark Age
(Picador, 2004) and
The Best Australian Stories: A Ten-Year Collection.

F
IONA
M
C
F
ARLANE'S
‘The Movie People' appeared in
The Best Australian Stories 2010.

G
ILLIAN
M
EARS'S
‘La Moustiquaire' appeared in
The Best Australian Stories 2001
and
The Best Australian Stories: A Ten-Year Collection.
It became ‘Le Moustiquaire' in her collection
A Map of the Gardens
(Picador, 2002).

F
AVEL
P
ARRETT'S
‘Lebanon' appeared in
Island,
no. 133, and
The Best Australian Stories 2013.

A
LICE
P
UNG'S
‘Letter to A' appeared in
The Best Australian Stories 2007
.

P
ENNI
R
USSON'S
‘All That We Know of Dreaming' appeared in the
Big Issue
and
The Best Australian Stories 2009.

M
ANDY
S
AYER'S
‘The Meaning of Life' appeared in
Heat 19: Trappers Way
(Giramondo, 2009),
The Best Australian Stories 2009
and
The Best Australian Stories: A Ten-Year Collection.

B
RENDA
W
ALKER'S
‘That Vain Word No' appeared in
Meanjin,
vol. 66–7, no. 4–1,
New Australian Stories
(Scribe, 2009) and
The Best Australian Stories 2009.

T
ARA
J
UNE
W
INCH'S
‘Cloud Busting' appeared in
The Best Australian Stories 2005
and
The Best Australian Stories: A Ten-Year Collection.

C
HARLOTTE
W
OOD'S
‘Honeymoon' appeared in
The Best Australian Stories 2005.

CONTRIBUTORS

R
EBEKAH
C
LARKSON'S
short stories have been recognised in major awards, shortlists and independent publications in Australia and overseas. She was runner-up in the 2013
ABR
Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. She is currently completing a PhD at the University of Adelaide, where she also teaches.

T
EGAN
B
ENNETT
D
AYLIGHT
is a fiction writer and critic. Her books include the novels
Bombara, What Falls Away
and
Safety,
and she is working on a collection of short stories. She lectures in creative writing in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology, Sydney.

G
ILLIAN
E
SSEX
has won several awards for her short stories. Her poetry has appeared in
21D
and the
Friendly Street Poets
anthology. Her non-fiction articles have featured in the
Age, Green Magazine,
the
Weekly Review
and on Radio National. She teaches creative writing and is also a singer-songwriter.

D
ELIA
F
ALCONERS
is the author of two novels,
The Service of Clouds
and
The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers and Selected Stories
and the memoir
Sydney.
Her fiction and non-fiction have been widely anthologised, including in the
Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature.
She is a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of Technology, Sydney.

K
ATE
G
RENVILLE
is the author of many award-winning novels, including
The Secret River
(Christina Stead Prize),
The Idea of Perfection
(Orange Prize) and
Lilian's Story
(Australian/Vogel Literary Award).
The Secret River
was also shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and the Man Booker.

S
ONYA
H
ARTNETT'S
award-winning novels include
Of a Boy
(Commonwealth Writers' Prize,
Age
Book of the Year),
Thursday's Child (Guardian
Children's Fiction Prize) and
Surrender
(Victorian Premier's Literary Award). In 2008 she became the first Australian recipient of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

K
AREN
H
ITCHCOCK
is the author of the award-winning short-story collection
Little White Slips
and
Dear Life: On caring for the elderly
(Quarterly Essay 57) and a regular contributor to the
Monthly.
She is a staff physician in acute and general medicine at a large city public hospital, and has a PhD in English and creative writing.

C
ATE
K
ENNEDY
is the author of the short-story collections
Dark Roots
and
Like a House on Fire,
and the novel
The World Beneath,
as well as several poetry collections and a travel memoir. Her work has appeared in many publications and anthologies, including the
Harvard Review
and the
New Yorker.
She edited
The Best Australian Stories 2010
and
2011,
and
Australian Love Stories.

A
NNA
K
RIEN
is the author of
Night Games: Sex, power and sport,
which won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award,
Into the Woods: The battle for Tasmania's forests
and
Us and Them: On the importance of animals
(Quarterly Essay 45). Anna's work has been published in the
Monthly,
the
Age,
the
Big Issue, The Best Australian Essays, Griffith REVIEW, Voiceworks, Going Down Swinging, Colors, Frankie
and
Dazed & Confused.

I
SABELLE
L
I'S
work has appeared in
Southerly, Sleepers Almanac, UTS Writers' Anthology
,
New Australian Stories
,
The Trouble with Flying
and
Cha.
Her script ‘Mooncake and Crab' was made into a short film, which premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Isabelle has translated a collection of poems,
Almost Everything I Know,
into Chinese. She is completing a Doctor of Creative Arts at the University of Western Sydney.

J
OAN
L
ONDON
is the author of two prize-winning collections of stories,
Sister Ships
and
Letter to Constantine
(published together as
The New Dark Age).
Her first novel,
Gilgamesh,
was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, won the
Age
Fiction Book of the Year, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize and the Dublin Impac Award. Her second,
The Good Parents,
won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction. In 2014 she published
The Golden Age.

F
IONA
M
C
F
ARLANE
has been published in
Zoetrope: All-Story, Southerly
and the
New Yorker. The Night Guest,
her debut novel, won the Voss Literary Prize and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2014.

G
ILLIAN
M
EARS'S
most recent novel,
Foal's Bread,
won the Prime Minister's Literary Award in 2012. Her fable
The Cat with the Coloured Tail
will be published by Walker Books in September 2015.

F
AVEL PARRETT
's first novel,
Past the Shallows,
was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. She was awarded the Antarctic Arts Fellowship, allowing her to travel to Antarctica to complete research for her next novel,
When the Night Comes.

A
LICE
P
UNG
is the author of
Unpolished Gem, Her Father's Daughter
and
Laurinda,
and the editor of the anthology
Growing Up Asian in Australia.
Alice's work has appeared in the
Monthly, Good Weekend,
the
Age
and
Meanjin.

P
ENNI
R
USSON
writes, edits and teaches creative writing. She is the author of several novels for young adults, including the
Undine
trilogy and
Only Ever Always,
which won the Ethel Turner Prize, the Aurealis Award (Young Adult) and the WA Premier's Literary Award (Young Adult).

M
ANDY
S
AYER
has published twelve books of non-fiction and fiction. Her awards include the
Australian
/Vogel Award (for
Mood Indigo),
the National Biography Award (
Dreamtime Alice),
the
Age
Non-fiction Book of the Year
(Velocity)
and the Davitt Award for Young Adult Fiction
(The Night has a Thousand Eyes).
‘The Meaning of Life' is excerpted from her forthcoming novel
Rules for Camping.

B
RENDA
W
ALKER
has written four novels, including
The Wing of the Night,
which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and won the Nita B. Kibble Award in 2006 and the Asher Award in 2007. She is Winthrop Professor in English and cultural studies at the University of Western Australia.

T
ARA
J
UNE
W
INCH
is the author of award-winning novel
Swallow the Air.
Her short stories and essays have appeared in many publications, including
McSweeney's
and
Vogue.
Her body of work was awarded the Inernational Rolex Mentor and Protégé Award.

C
HARLOTTE
W
OOD
is the author of four acclaimed novels:
Animal People, The Children, The Submerged Cathedral
and
Pieces of a Girl,
and the non-fiction collection of writings on the meaning of cooking,
Love & Hunger.
Her fifth novel will be published in late 2015.