This story was published in Overland no 32, spring 1965. For our sixtieth anniversary, Josephine Rowe has revisited this story as part of the ‘Fancy cuts’ project.

There has, in recent years, been a push to rescue various ‘lost’ writers from obscurity. And yet the short story is a literary form deeply embedded in its time.

She’d set out later than she’d meant to, the four o’clock sun already sinking at her shoulder, threatening to drop behind the mountains and plunge the world into gloaming.

When I opened the door she was so backlit by the afternoon sun that I couldn’t focus properly. In the confusion of her coming inside I think I forgot to welcome her.

Where no farmers had ploughed the trees or settled seeds to graze the soil, where the folded arms of scrub bar gullies, where the wide buttongrass plains swelter under peaks of old quartz ...

The veins on Grandpa’s legs protruded like thick tidal lines. Sam and Caleb scrambled to catch up, their toes vanishing and reappearing in the chalky sand as they trailed him homewards.

There was the feverishness of trying to piece together her actions. She could remember some things, like cornering the cashier at that little grocery store near her house and talking at her about aubergine pesto. She remembered the woman’s readiness to laugh at the word ‘aubergine’, at what she probably thought, initially, was a little comedy routine.

The vending machine was broken and had stolen my money. I tried pushing against it subtly and then not so subtly and still I was money-less and chocolate-less, and, worst of all, when I complained to my sister I was told to be quiet and have some respect.

‘Yeah I know, but I’m sad and drinking helps,’ he said, digging through the rubble on his desk – the unpaid bills, notes to his past self, a birthday card from his grandmother and useless silver coins – as he looked for his keys. ‘Are you coming with me or not?’

There was a neat click as May climbed each step of the maple staircase. She didn’t expect to find him on the rug below their bed, on his side, hands cupped into each other like he was sleeping. She sat on the bed above him, flipping off her cream shoes.

Joint runner-up: Overland Victoria University short story prize

Winner: 2013 Overland Victoria University short story prize

Joint runner-up: Overland Victoria University short story prize.

Harlem legs it from the job shop soon as the sour bitch pushes the button for security. Shoots like the fucken wind. She won’t call the coppers, he’s sure of it. Old cow’s just trying to give him a scare. As if he’d been serious anyway about that shit.

Everywhere Kate looked was saltbush and sea beneath a pan of impossible blue sky. She lifted her face and felt the white light fall on her and let it burn away the thought of Rosie sunk in the black hole of her room. Her parents were walking ahead, her mother somehow evanescent, her father as immutable as the geology around him.

We remember my mother’s birthday with red eggs. Grandma shells them with practised fingers. Her lips move, offering thanks to the small plaster Virgin Mary watching from above the sink. She looks tired, the Virgin, the paint peeling from her smock. The radio scratches out its sermons. We eat in the kitchen beside my mother’s photo.