True enough, Farren thought.
‘I guess we could go’n ’ave a look through her window,’ he said, wondering if this suggestion was really all that good or proper. ‘Might be the only way we can get hold of her.’
Robbie grinned, his eyebrows roaming slyly upwards.
‘But, monsieur ’Roon, if zhe’s in ze privacy of ’er own room, who knows what zhe may be doing.’
Farren knew what Robbie was driving at. Perhaps it would be better just to forget the whole thing – but he knew what being lonely was like, and he knew that Isla had to be lonelier than most. Or he thought so.
‘Well, let’s just go round and see,’ he said. ‘And if we hear her or somethin’, then maybe we can wave a hanky on a stick or chuck some stones.’
Robbie grinned, freckles hopping. He slapped Farren’s arm.
‘A hanky on a stick? My God, Farren, you’re a bloody genius!’
Farren led the way around to the side of the hotel to where Isla’s one small, high window was. From it came the sound of coughing.
‘Well, it sounds like she’s home.’ Robbie looked doubtfully up at the window as the coughing went on. ‘But she sure doesn’t sound too good. If that’s her, which I’m presuming it is.’
‘It is.’ Farren knew it had to be. ‘She’s been crook all week. Jesus, listen to that.’ The coughing had become a drawn-out sobbing that ended in hard retching.
Robbie stepped close to the pub wall and cupped his hands.
‘Up you go, sport. If she’s that crook, maybe we might have to go and get the doctor or something. Again.’
With his knife, Farren prised open one of the Victory’s kitchen windows, climbed in, and dropped down onto the floor. The silence made his skin prickle. What was familiar seemed strange. The stove sat like a big, fat, silent judge and the saucepans hung like weird musical instruments waiting for an equally strange band. He let Robbie in and together they went out through the swing doors and into the chill stillness of the lounge. Isla’s coughing, muted by walls, sounded miles away.
Twisting and turning through the hotel, Farren led Robbie to Isla’s door, and stopped.
‘Go in.’ Robbie shrugged. ‘We’re here now.’
Farren went into the small room, the smell of sickness as much a memory to him as an odour. Carefully, almost tip-toeing, he went over to the low, narrow bed where Isla lay, eyes shut, one fist tightly held at her cheek. He touched her shoulder, feeling a moist chill, and saw that her lips were stained with blood and phlegm. She opened her eyes, her pupils wide and black.
‘Isla.’ He spoke even though he knew she couldn’t hear. ‘Um, we’re gunna get you the doctor, all right?’
‘You stay, ’Roon.’ Robbie spoke from the doorway. ‘I’ll go. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’ And he left, Farren listening to his running footsteps until the sound of Isla’s wheezy breathing was the loudest thing he could hear.
Hesitantly Farren neatened Isla’s sheet and blankets, seeing a distant, troubled look in her eyes, as if she was fighting her sickness somewhere else other than in the room.
‘Maggie said that bloody laundry job was no good for ya,’ he muttered, then pulled over the one chair to sit on. ‘Bloody wind blowin’ through there all day. Dark and damp as a bleedin’ swamp. Pongin’ birds’ nest in the bloody rafters. Johnny should’a known better.’ Feeling cold air seeping in from the freezing hallway, Farren got up and shut the door. ‘Go, Robbie,’ he muttered, sitting again. ‘You bloody fly, mate.’
Farren, hearing footsteps, turned to see Robbie come sweeping in through the door, his face flushed, bringing cold air in with him as if it was caught in the folds of his clothes.
‘Not there. Bloody doctor.’ He shook his head, his cheeks pink, and carelessly pushed at his untucked shirt. ‘Not home, ’Roony. No one. Bloody dog, that’s all. Hopeless. But anyway –’ He lifted a hand, about to go on.
‘Not there?’ Farren swore. ‘Well, so why didn’t you get your mum or someone?’ That would’ve made sense, at least. ‘God, I mean, Robbie, what are we gunna do?’ He pushed the chair out of the way, back against the wall.
‘Hey, steady on, sport.’ Robbie grinned tigerishly. ‘I might not’ve got some-one but I did get some-thing. I found this on me way through the pub.’ He pulled out a small flat bottle that Farren saw was brandy. ‘And –’ he lifted a thumb, ‘I’ve got the doc’s motor car out the back purrin’ like a beaut.’ Robbie laughed. ‘It’ll do us for an ambulance, eh? So let’s get crackin’ and get her out of here.’
Farren was stunned. Absently he took the bottle Robbie offered, took a mouthful, swallowed, and began to cough. He managed to take a breath, which felt like hot brandy-flavoured mist.
‘But where’ll we take her? I mean –’
‘Geelong hospital.’ Robbie reclaimed the bottle and hammered in the cork. ‘I’ll drive. You be nurse. C’mon, mate. No time to waste. Ally oop. Let’s get movin’.’
TWENTY-FOUR
Robbie turned to look over into the back seat, his profile lit by the big headlamps of Dr Thomas’s car.
‘Yer right there, Sister Fox? There’ll be a few bumps gettin’ outta here but from then on she should be smooth as a baby’s bum.’ Robbie worked the gear stick, the motor car barking like a dog. ‘Oopsy. Remember the clutch, Robbie-boy, remember the clutch.’ This time he drove off, in fits and starts, towards the gate. ‘And away-ay-ay we go.’
Farren said nothing. Holding Isla upright, pillows between them, blankets over her, was about as much as he could manage. Now she coughed less, but Farren was not so sure that this was a good sign. She sat, hardly blinking, allowing everything to pass her by.
‘We’re takin’ you to hospital, Isla,’ he said. ‘Orright? To the hospital.’ He glanced around the car. It was like a neat, miniature room made of leather. ‘Geez, this is a good motor car, ain’t it, Rob? How’d you learn to drive it?’ Pricey’s working of the gear stick, the steering wheel, and the pedals, amazed him.
‘From a book.’ Robbie laughed, bringing the car to a sudden stop at the crossroads, the headlamps lighting up the windows of a house opposite. ‘And from a few other slightly more illegal excursions.’ He turned out onto the Geelong road. ‘But I always put ’em back where I got ’em from, Farry, just like my mum always said to do.’
Farren felt the car speed up, the sensation of movement and acceleration thrilling. Houses, lit up by the car’s raw white lights, passed one after the other like turned playing cards until they were trumped by a wide paddock and then trees, their branches up like the arms of a cheering crowd.
‘How fast we goin’?’ To Farren it felt like the world was a flooding river running under the wheels. ‘Boy, we’re bloody flyin’! We must be doin’ a hundred miles an hour!’
‘Nah.’ Robbie consulted the dials that glowed green in the dashboard. ‘No. Just about forty-five. I mean, she’ll go faster but this road ain’t the best. Still, gimme half an hour, Mrs Nightingale, and I’ll have us at the front door.’
Isla coughed, the wet crackle of phlegm making Farren feel sick. He helped her spit into the towel before carefully rearranging her blankets.
‘D’you know where the hospital is?’ Farren spoke to the back of Robbie’s head. ‘It won’t be the same one as Danny’s in. That’s only for soldiers.’
Robbie sipped brandy, one hand on the wheel.
‘Gotta fair idea.’ He passed the bottle back without looking. ‘My aunt used to live next door. I doubt they’ve moved it.’
Farren took a sip and kept the bottle.
‘No more drinkin’.’ He figured that this made sense. ‘Until we get home. If we’re gunna have to explain somethin’, we better not be pissed. Ya got the cork?’
‘Spoil sport.’ Robbie handed it back. ‘Oi, oi, what have we got here?’ He reached across the dashboard and slapped a flat peaked cap on his head. ‘My word, it is indeed a doctor’s motoring hat. P’raps we can make a few house calls on the way home. Just to cover costs.’
Robbie drove through the dark streets, humming as he guided the car around corners, looking left and right for landmarks.
‘And around here we go,’ he muttered. ‘Past the church and the footy ground, and it should be just about –’ Robbie crested a small hill and Farren saw a building that looked like a huge house. ‘Here.’ Robbie drove into the driveway and stopped at the front double doors. ‘Brilliant, Doctor Price! Just brilliant.’ He turned to Farren. ‘And remember, ’Roony, we haven’t done anything wrong.’ He pulled on a handle. ‘Or not until we get caught.’
Farren sat on the edge of a big wooden chair and basically told Matron Plow, a woman with forearms like a sawmiller, the truth about bringing Isla from Queenscliff. He just couldn’t see any other way of getting out of it.
‘And who, may I ask, did the driving?’ The Matron, with six grey filing cabinets behind her like soldiers in reserve, looked sceptically at Farren through steel-framed glasses.
‘Mister Robert Grice,’ Farren answered, prepared. ‘A mate of – a friend of mine. From Queenscliff.’
‘And where might your friend, Mister Grice, be now?’ The Matron had capped her pen, as if she’d decided the answers Farren was going to give would not be worth recording. ‘He seems to have vanished into thin air.’
‘He’s parking the motor car and he’ll be back in a few minutes.’ Farren felt no real sense of wrongdoing; he doubted the Matron would’ve asked him these types of questions if he was older. Besides, the last thing in the world he was going to do was dob himself, or Robbie, in. That’d be mad.
‘Then we shall wait.’ Matron Plow folded her hands on the desk. ‘And you can tell me as much about Isla’s health and living and working conditions as you can. She’s a very sick young woman and indeed she will be lucky to survive.’
So, sitting stiffly on the edge of a big wooden chair, Farren told the Matron that Isla was Johnny Landsowne-Murphy’s niece, that she was deaf, she used to live in Melbourne, and now she worked in the wash-house at the Victory Hotel.
‘She wears an engagement ring.’ Matron Plow stated this as if it was a fact Farren had been trying to hide. ‘Does she not? And why did you, or the infamous Mister Grice, not inform her fiance of her illness? Do you actually know to whom Isla is engaged?’
‘To Mr Derriweather, I guess,’ Farren said, ‘He’s the teacher at Queenscliff State. And we didn’t tell him about ’er because we didn’t have time.’ Farren felt strengthened by the truth. Robbie was right. They’d done nothing wrong – or not very much. ‘D’you think she’ll be all right?’
The Matron peered at Farren as if he deserved a second look.
‘It is touch and go,’ she said finally. ‘And since Mr Grice doesn’t seem to be about to make an appearance, you may go, too. But mark my words, Mr Briggingham, honesty is the best policy. And could I enquire if we might expect visitors soon for Isla? She is critically ill.’
Farren knew that the Matron had decided to let him get away. He nodded.
‘Yep, real soon. There will be.’ He stood up. ‘And thanks for lookin’ after her. She’s a real good girl. And if Johnny comes,’ he added gamely, ‘tell him she ain’t allowed to work in that bloody wash-house again. That’s dog’s work, that is. Thanks, missus. See yer.’ He went to the door, pushed it when he should’ve pulled, tried again, and went out into the dark.
Farren walked across the empty road, the football goal posts, moonlight-white, pointing to a sky slathered with stars. The motor car was parked, Robbie dimly visible inside, wearing the doctor’s cap, one white-knuckled hand on the wheel. Seeing Farren, he got out.
‘How’d you go, ’Roon? How’s she going?’
Farren let out a breath that fogged in the air. It struck him, now that he had escaped the hospital, how seriously ill Isla was. The idea that she might actually die took all his strength. He could hardly move.
‘She’s real crook,’ he said. ‘That’s what the nurse said. Real crook.’
Robbie headed around to the front of the car. ‘But she’ll be right in hospital, I reckon. Now come ’ere for a sec and I’ll show yer how to crank this thing up. It’s dead-easy. This is a real good bus. The doc should be proud.’
Farren allowed Robbie only a few small sips of brandy on the way back to Queenscliff.
‘We’re probably gunna get sprung,’ he said. ‘So it’d be better not to crash this thing and make it any worse.’
‘Why are we gunna get sprung?’ Robbie changed gears easily, his left hand unerring, his left boot working the clutch. ‘Who’s gunna know? We’ll just park the old banger and take off. And if the doc’s home, we’ll just dump it around the corner.’
‘They’ll know Isla’s in hospital, won’t they?’ Farren said. ‘And they’ll know she didn’t ride her bloody bike there. And if they ask that nurse a few questions we’re done for. Or I am. She didn’t even see you.’
Robbie had turned the doctor’s driving cap backwards, his forehead wide and white in the glow of the headlamps. He lifted a hand from the wooden steering wheel.
‘Did what we had to do, ’Roony. End of story. I couldn’t give a shit if we get caught anyway. No one else was on the case. Only you and me. The boys from the bloody bush. What are they gunna do? Put us in prison?’
Farren looked out the window. Beyond the silvery road the countryside was black.
‘I don’t care, either.’ He spoke slowly, examining the meaning of the words as he said them. ‘Stuff it. I’m glad we did it, too.’ And he was. It wasn’t going to war and being a hero like Danny, but it was trying to save someone’s life, and that was pretty good. Danny’d think so, anyway. ‘Yeah, bugger ’em.’
Robbie laughed. The trees by the road reached out to meet overhead as if they were playing Oranges and Lemons.
‘That’s the way, son!’ He tooted the horn, the abrupt, donkey-like braying making Farren laugh. ‘Now hang onto yer hat, Foxy! Because I’m gunna see how fast this old bucket can really go.’
TWENTY-FIVE
Farren set off to Julian Derriweather’s house, kept company in his head by his mother, who urged him on, and his dad and Luther who strode along close behind, as if to guarantee he would not turn back. Farren was not worried by what he felt. This was how it was; these people were dead but still he heard their voices, and he knew how they had thought.
Robbie had offered to come but Farren had sent him home; and now he pushed open a gate that scraped along as if on one knee, and walked up the path, his footsteps deadened by weeds that clung to the bricks like starfish. A lamp burned behind a curtain, illuminating a figure at a table. Farren knocked.
As he waited he thought of Isla, a small shape in a big hospital bed, her face turned sideways on the white pillow. He prayed she’d get better and get away from those heavy white sheets, because he knew they used them to cover people’s faces when they died. And he didn’t want to think about them doing that to Isla.
The door opened, Farren stepping back as Julian Derriweather appeared, holding a lamp.
‘Farren?’ The teacher lifted the lamp, Farren’s shadow retreating into the tangled garden. ‘Is everything all right?’
Farren shook his head. He had to clear this throat before speaking.
‘Ah, no, sir. It ain’t.’ He tried to remember what he’d planned to say. ‘Isla’s sick an’ she’s in the Mercy hospital in Geelong. She’s got pneumonia, and I think you better go down there fast, and see her. But I gotta go now and tell Johnny because he might think she’s gone missin’ or something’.’ Farren stepped back down onto the path.
Julian Derriweather followed, holding the lamp higher as if the light it cast was a net that would hold Farren and his elusive shadow.
‘No, don’t go, Farren. Please. I’ll come with you and you can tell me more on the way. My God, this is terrible. Now where are my cursed shoes?’
Farren stopped dead in his front yard. There was a low light on in the house and he knew, as surely as he knew his own name, tha
t he had not left one burning. A hard, bone-shaking shiver snatched his breath, turning it into a sob.
‘Oh, geezuz,’ he mumbled. ‘Oh, God.’ If that were his parents in there, what would he do?
Already his feet were trying to shuffle backwards and a sense of terror, like a cold black coat, drew in close, pressing against his skin. What if he walked up to the window and his mum and dad were sitting in their chairs? Would he go in? A second shiver shook him so hard he heard himself stutter.
‘Ohh, J-J-esus. B-b-bloody hell.’
No! It couldn’t be the ghosts of his mum and dad. It couldn’t be. No – the cemetery was miles away. Maybe it was Isla’s ghost? What if she’d died and beaten him home? And now she might be about to float out through the wall wrapped in one of them white sheets!
Then he smelt cigarette smoke, sweet and pungent, known and normal, and his fear released him as surely as if he’d ripped the fearful black jacket off and slung it away into the scrub.
Stealthily Farren went forward, peeked through the window, and saw with joy that pierced him like mid-summer sun that it was Danny, Danny-boy, sitting there in their father’s chair, staring at the unlit stove, with Hoppidy sitting calmly on his knee.
Danny, wearing a new army shirt and old army trousers, nursed the rabbit as Farren knelt at the firebox, feeding sticks in.
‘Will you get into trouble for leavin’ the hospital?’ Farren realised that Danny wasn’t wearing his eye patch, his left eye staring out at a different angle from his right, odd-looking, stiff in its socket. ‘Like, you’re not allowed to do that, are yer? Just go? Like even in cadets, unless you –’
With one hand Danny lowered the rabbit into her box.
‘Ah, well.’ He tried to grin, the left side of his face looking not nearly as amused as the right. ‘I reckon that since I’m supposed to be a bit of a mental case, Farren, I can do what I bloody like.’ He studied the room, the chairs and table, the small sideboard, and the one picture of a child with a kitten, as if he’d never been in the place before. ‘I’d had enough of that bloody joint. It was givin’ me the heebie-jeebies. Blokes screamin’ all night.’
Black Water Page 10
