Lengthening Shadows

by Bob Franklin

Genres: Short Stories

Synopsis

The master of creeping unease and unrelenting consequences is back.The vain and the cruel, the indifferent and the excessive, across ten tales of cut corners and grubby compromise, Bob Franklin turns his fairground mirror on contemporary Australia, with a cast of characters navigating modern life and trying to get by, get on and get away with whatever they can, whatever the cost.A gaggle of comedians exchange escalating jokes about a needy fan. A small business owner delights in making top dollar off uncomprehending customers. A widower finds solace in a new dog that gives focus and purpose to his rage and grief. In 60s London a rock band rise and rise, aided by occult forces from another place. After dinner stories in an elite gentleman’s club turn to impossible murder and skullduggery in an Australian mining company.Gleefully macabre, drily menacing, chillingly acute, Franklin spares nobody.

Release date: December 29, 2020

Publisher: Affirm Press

Print pages: 132

Sample

You Can’t Come With Us

‘Have you seen Molly Ringwald?’ Marissa asked with a mocking smile.

I knew instantly who she meant: she’d been sitting in the front row. Your average comedy patron, fearful of being picked on, tends to avoid the seats closest to the stage. But ‘Molly’ had positioned herself front and centre, probably hoping to be engaged by one of the comics. She was on her own.

Even if the seats either side of her had been occupied, she would have drawn the eye. With her 80s hairstyle and coral-coloured 60s frock; the whole arresting look was completed by blue mascara, white tights, high heels and a fur coat. Whether the fur was real or faux, it felt like an affectation, given the temperature on Norfolk Island that night was a pleasant eighteen degrees.

Perfect conditions for the island’s inaugural stand-up comedy show, and over a quarter of the total population had crammed into Rawson Hall for a blockbuster line-up: Angela Mason, Zach Xanides, Meg Barrow, Dwayne Samson and yours truly, Ross ‘Tiptoes’ Tipton. A couple of feisty dykes, a hairy wog, a blackfella and a dirty Pom, we ticked most of the right ‘diversity’ boxes you need to be mindful of these days if you want to appear properly ‘woke’.

Which the Tourism Board and its PR partners clearly did. Norfolk Island’s image needed a makeover, something to counter the prevailing view that it was a destination solely for ‘the newly wed and almost dead’. We were part of the push to groove things up and we’d been properly looked after accordingly; accommodated in a handsome homestead in the hills, shown round the island by one of The Bounty mutineers’ direct descendants, wined and dined endlessly on local produce in cozy cafes and picturesque farmhouses. And, thankfully, we’d earned our keep. Now, high on the afterglow of a wildly successful performance, we were doing the right thing, fraternising post-show with the islanders.

Marissa, one of the gaggle of PR people who’d made the trip over from Sydney to do what PR people do best – talk a lot of shite with a glass of pinot in their hand – tilted her head with a grimace by way of alerting me to the fact that Molly was currently heading our way. Upon arriving, she hovered nearby, waiting for permission to land.

Marissa complied, commenting on her unusual, coconut-shaped shoulder bag. ‘Isn’t it amazing,’ Molly enthused, swiftly stepping forward to reveal how the zip worked as if she were demonstrating some new, revolutionary device at a science convention. The impression was only strengthened by the fact that there was nothing actually inside the bag.

‘You do what you can to stand out on the island,’ she asserted.

‘Well, mission accomplished,’ I said.

‘Loved the show,’ she informed me, turning her back on Marissa, who, having opened the door, was forgotten as quickly as a limo’s chauffeur at the foot of the red carpet. I instinctively edged over to keep Marissa included. ‘I had to come over,’ Molly explained. ‘I’m like a moth to a flame when wonderful people are around. I just can’t help myself.’ I smiled graciously. ‘And I’ve always had a big crush on you.’

‘Oh,’ I said, noticing for the first time how attractive she was. I edged back a little to exclude Marissa.

‘Ever since Coppin’ It Sweet’ Molly clarified, referencing a comedy-thriller that had slipped unnoticed out the back door of the nation’s cinemas on its way to Video Ezy’s bargain bin over fifteen years ago. ‘It’s one of my favourite films ever.’ She’d probably been about fourteen at the time, which may explain why she’d enjoyed it. I am willing to concede, however, that my dim view of the movie may stem from the fact that Mickey Marsden, my oaf of a co-star, is presently living it large in Hollywood, while I’m still schlepping round glorified scout huts in a cultural wasteland at the age of fifty-four.

‘Of course, Mickey was my major crush,’ she qualified, as if she’d read my mind then decided to stick a needle through it.

‘Well, that certainly puts things in perspective,’ I opined, turning back to include Marissa again and chagrined to find her being spirited away by two PR buddies.

‘Still pretty good being a minor crush,’ Molly reckoned. Actually, not Molly, as it happened, because … ‘I’m Miranda,’ she announced. ‘And yes, as in Miranda from The Tempest,’ she confirmed with quite staggering presumption, before launching into what I suspect was her habitual addendum to the revelation: ‘O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here? How beauteous mankind is!’

‘You wouldn’t have said that if you’d seen Zach sunning himself on the lawn this morning,’ I countered.

She laughed a little too hard, a little too long. Over her fur-clad shoulder, I noticed Dwayne deep in conversation with a little blond stunner. She was probably one of those painfully right-on types that make a beeline for the black guy after every show. Look at me, everyone; I’m talking to an Aborigine. I mean, there had to be some reason she wasn’t talking to me, right? Dwayne seemed to be enjoying it, all the same. I thought I should probably mosey on over and ask him how being engaged to his childhood sweetheart was working out for him.

Back in la-la land, Miranda was telling me how fortuitous it was to have seen me perform tonight, animating the conversation with strange, flamboyant gestures that seemed to bear no relation to the words. ‘Because I’m playing an English lady in the next NATS show.’ NATS was the local am-dram company, apparently, gearing up to knock out one of those classic British farces called All Joking Aside, I Fucking Hate My Wife or some such.

It felt like an age before our tour manager Carly rescued me, swinging past to announce the impending departure of the comedy people mover. I wished Miranda all the best with her show, thinking that her fellow cast members would probably need it more than her, and slipped away.

When the full complement of clowns was on board, Carly steered the car out of the car park to head for the hills. As we passed the front of Rawson Hall, the last stragglers were still spilling out, clotting into little groups on the steps outside. I noticed Miranda exit, fiddling with the zip of her coconut-shaped bag while being roundly ignored by what passed for the cool kids on Norfolk.

She didn’t have to wait long before taking centre stage in our gang though, albeit only in the form of a conversational piñata. We’d barely swung onto the main drag through Burnt Pine before Meg advanced to deliver the first lusty blow to the target, hoping to rip it asunder and shower herself in sweet, sweet laughs.

‘What about that appalling fucking creature, Miranda?’ she railed to a chorus of support from all the others.

‘Did she take you through every pissy part she’s played at the fucking Ferny Lane Theatre?’ Zach responded to Meg’s introductory broadside.

‘Don’t forget the annual comedy revue,’ Angela reminded.

That brought Meg back into the fray. ‘Oh, yeah, the ‘comedy revue’. Like she’s on the same page as us ’cos she’s done some skits with Beryl from the fancy soap shop.’

‘You’d kill to work with Beryl from the fancy soap shop,’ Dwayne interjected.

‘Over working with you I would,’ Meg bit back. ‘Then she started hitting on me. Just blatantly flirting. It was outrageous.’

‘Yeah, Meg,’ I contributed, ‘’Cos everyone in the world wants a piece of your pallid ginger arse.’

‘Oh,’ she spluttered, flapping around like a fish on the riverbank, ‘Oh, I suppose she’d prefer some of your sixty-year-old pencil dick.’

‘You know it,’ I confirmed.

‘To be fair,’ Angela rallied on Meg’s behalf, ‘Miranda had a crack at me too.’

‘Copy that,’ Zach chipped in.

‘I’d probably have considered it,’ Angela continued, ‘If it weren’t for the whole, you know, crazy stalker thing she had going on as well.’

‘Copy that too,’ said Zach.

‘I think she had a go at everyone,’ Dwayne ventured.

‘Yeah, even Si,’ Zach agreed. ‘I tell you, you’re one sad loser if you want a piece of showbiz so bad you’re even willing to fuck the tech.’

Si, our technician, was a thoughtful, sensitive type, who had been disapprovingly sitting out the pile-on. No surprise his Thai fisherman’s pants were in a twist. He’d arced up earlier in the day when Carly had sounded the car horn a little too harshly to persuade one of Norfolk’s free-roaming cows to move off the road.

‘She didn’t come on to me,’ Si corrected, breaking his silence without taking his attention from the thickening dark outside the van. ‘She only had eyes for you five heroes.’

‘So she did have standards,’ Zach mused.

‘I can’t be sure, but I think I detected a note of sarcasm in Si’s last sentence,’ Angela remarked.

‘And bitterness,’ Meg offered.

‘Carly, when we get back to the homestead,’ Dwayne suggested, ‘I think you should confiscate Si’s complimentary chocolate cows.’

‘There’ll be no chocolate cows for anyone if this bickering continues,’ Carly reprimanded.

‘Si started it,’ Meg grumbled.

‘Yeah,’ Zach agreed, ‘Just cos that nutbag Miranda blew him off.’

And so it went on. On and on, as the last of the township’s lights disappeared behind us and the clown mobile was swallowed up by the stygian night, pooling in the meadows and paddocks all around.

* * *

Sunday was a free day before flights off the island resumed on Monday. We gathered at a leisurely pace in the morning to gorge on more free produce – locally made milk, yoghurt, eggs, goat’s cheese, bread and preserves – while lazing on the deck, with its spectacular views of the wooded pastures rolling down to Cascade Bay.

All we had to do was occupy ourselves until we could get our hands on more free stuff at 4pm, when we’d been cordially invited to drinks at the governor’s house; the sort of invitation that no comedian has ever turned down in the whole history of comedy.

We opted to trek through the national park, where Si was hoping to catch a glimpse of the extremely rare Norfolk Green Parrot. He’d reckoned, however, without the constant jabber that accompanied the walking, a din that would have sent the most complacent of species running for cover, never mind one facing extinction, and the search proved fruitless.

There was some consolation for the frustrated twitcher when we relocated to scenic Emily Bay; submerging himself in the sea, he was clearly happy to drown us all out for a moment.

Rested, refreshed and thirsty, our party was knocking down the door of Government House on the stroke of four. The governor, Derek, greeted us personally; surprisingly young, he projected the air of a schoolteacher who just wanted to be thought of as one of the lads. As long as he was picking up the tab for the booze, he was welcome to project any air he wished, as far as we were concerned. Particularly given that the drinks cart set up in the hallway was proudly flourishing an impressive crop of handcrafted ales and fine whiskies.

At one point, as the afternoon went on, I thought Derek, or Del, as he professed to prefer, was going to really ice the cake by offering me a line or two in the bathroom. Sadly it turned out that the conspiratorial manner in which he sidled up to me in the drawing room only evinced his furtive desire to share a racist joke. I really should have told him he was a fucking disgrace and stormed out. Instead, I laughed heartily and headed back to the dri. . .