River Run

by Alexander, Nicole

  ‘Hurt like the blazes,’ he admitted, patting the bulky dressing beneath the shirt, ‘but none of my other clothes seem to be here and with all you young women about, I thought I should cover myself for decency’s sake.’ His grin revealed a cheeky dimple and white, irregular teeth. Eleanor thought of the feel of his skin beneath the washcloth, how she’d been enamoured with the hollow in the base of her throat. Her attention was instantly drawn to that very spot. It would be churlish to deny the fact that he was good-looking, in a boyish sort of way. ‘I’ll check on your clothes,’ replied Eleanor, shaking a bottle containing painkillers. There was a sweet smell in the room. A bed pan stuck out from beneath the washstand. Having not noticed or even thought about such things, she appreciated Athena’s efficiency anew. ‘If you can dress yourself, there’s no need for you to stay here any longer.’ Eleanor thought she heard the slightest of noises, something verging on a grunt.

  ‘And your sister? Where’s she?’ the man enquired, ignoring the statement.

  Eleanor, wondering how to broach the subject of Lesley, seized the opening. ‘Resting. You didn’t leave a very good impression on her. Did you say something to upset her? And what’s with this sudden decision to speak to everyone.’

  ‘Everyone?’ he frowned. ‘Your sister was upset last night. It seemed the right thing to do. Talk to her. Instead of her sitting in that chair staring into space.’

  ‘Oh.’ At her response, the patient appeared almost relieved. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to apologise. The man had been so resistant to people knowing he could speak and then that all changed when he met Lesley. On the other hand, Eleanor thought, the slightest of things could cause Lesley’s mood to alter. She’d been witness to that this morning. Of course she should have gone out in search of her sister immediately after Robbie left, but the thought of another melancholy meeting coming so soon after her brother’s departure didn’t appeal. Already a warm wind was circling through the flyscreen. The morning sky was almost white with haze. In an hour or so, Mrs Howell would be closing the curtains to block out the day’s heat.

  ‘You’re still unsure, aren’t you?’ The patient studied her, unhurriedly, from head to foot and back again. ‘I didn’t say anything to upset your sister. Why would I?’

  How was she supposed to answer? ‘She’s been through a lot.’

  ‘And you’re just being protective.’ When he didn’t receive a reply, he continued, ‘How’d the kid take the news of being schooled away from home? I gather he was sent away because of me.’

  She turned to him. ‘You must learn a lot when you pretend to be unconscious.’

  ‘I know you have a kind heart and that there was a guy named Dante.’

  ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘Hey, whether I’m awake or asleep, you obviously needed to talk to someone.’ He reached for Eleanor’s wrist, the back of his hand still bandaged from the recent drip. Encircling it, his grasp was strong. ‘You can talk to me,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m a good listener.’

  The action shocked Eleanor, and for a second she pulled against the force of his grip. She knew she should have been afraid, or at least wary, and perhaps she was, just a little. But so much had occurred since last Saturday, she doubted anything would ever shock her again. Robbie was gone, Lesley shouldn’t have returned and something was clearly going on between her uncle and Margaret Winslow. Then there was this man, young, attractive, offering help, and yet something didn’t feel right. ‘I don’t know who you are. And I don’t know if you’re still suffering from memory loss or pretending. But you’re right, Robbie was sent away because of you, among other things.’ Eleanor tried to free herself from his grasp, although she wasn’t as forceful as she could have been – he was still injured after all. ‘My sister returned to nurse you and, believe me, Lesley never should have come home.’ Her words were condemning.

  The stranger merely gave a single tilt of his chin, a sign of understanding, then released her, making a show of touching his injured shoulder.

  ‘It was only a flesh wound,’ Eleanor said dismissively. Dragging the chair a few feet away from the bed, she sat down.

  The man stared at her, a lock of hair falling across a wide, intelligent forehead. ‘Are you always so hard on people?’ The stranger sounded genuinely let down, as though he’d expected better of Eleanor. She drew back, not knowing how to respond.

  ‘I can imagine how much of an imposition it’s been having me in your home. But I can’t say I did it deliberately.’ Placing the magazine he’d been reading on the washstand, he bashed at the pillows supporting his back and shoulders before resuming a more comfortable position. ‘She sat right there,’ he pointed to the chair’s original position near the bed, ‘stared at the bedside lamp all night. Every time I woke she was there, your sister, just staring into the light.’

  ‘Lesley. Her name is Lesley.’ Eleanor wanted to be angry at this familiarity but at the same time she regretted her attitude. The stranger had suffered the brunt of her pent-up frustration.

  ‘Your sister, Lesley. She’s a beautiful girl,’ he told her, ‘like you.’

  ‘Where are you from?’ asked Eleanor.

  He tugged at the pillows, repositioning them again, as if he would never get comfortable. ‘Everywhere, nowhere.’

  ‘I’m serious. I’m not lying for you anymore.’ She waited for a response too long in coming. ‘If you don’t tell me everything, right now, I’ll walk straight out that door and tell everyone that you can speak. Then your game will be over.’

  The stranger poured a glass of water and took a long drink. ‘What game? Lesley knows I can talk.’

  Eleanor felt like an idiot. Frustrated, she appealed to him, ‘Please, what’s your name? Where are you from? What are you doing here?’

  The man’s features darkened. ‘What’s riled you? You sound like the Greek woman.’

  He reminded her of Dante, attractive, charming but quick to anger. Eleanor let out a sigh. ‘You’ve put me in a difficult position, making me lie for you.’

  ‘I didn’t make you do anything,’ he said gently. ‘I simply told you the truth, what I’d prefer, what I was comfortable with, considering the situation. Whether you chose to honour my request was up to you, Eleanor. It was your decision. And it doesn’t matter anymore anyway. Does it? Now Lesley knows I can talk.’

  She stood abruptly, walked around the cramped room, feeling caught, wanting to leave, but desperate to know the truth. Was this man manipulating her, as Dante had done? ‘This is ridiculous. You obviously have something to hide, otherwise you would have said who you were by now.’

  ‘And you obviously trusted me enough to give me the benefit of the doubt, Eleanor.’ Flipping back the sheet, he swung long, lean legs over the edge of the bed. Eleanor moved to the far wall, looked towards the door. He pulled at the bandage on the back of his head, the dressing coming away cleanly with only a hint of dried blood. ‘Happened in the war it did, fighting the likes of the Greek nurse.’ He probed the injury. ‘I was knocked out, you know, Eleanor. That wasn’t pretend.’

  So then, this was a beginning, she decided. ‘And your accent? I can’t pick it.’

  ‘Italian-American,’ he confided. ‘But if my mother’s around, then I’m all Italian.’ He dropped the bandage on the washstand. ‘My mother never forgave my father for dying early.’ Stretching out his injured arm, he rotated it left then right.

  Leaving the far wall, Eleanor approached the bed once again. ‘So you’re on our side.’

  He didn’t answer, instead dragging the chair closer to the bed and patting the seat.

  Eleanor ignored the gesture. ‘You’re not a communist?’

  He laughed, loud and strong. ‘I’m not bloody anything, Eleanor. I’m just a man trying to make a living, who happened to get lost and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ There it was, that dimpled cheek again. ‘Boy, was I in the wrong place.’

  ‘You’re a scab.’ Eleanor decided.

  H
is eyes widened. ‘One of those blokes who aren’t part of a union? No, I’m not one of those. And I’ve been here long enough to know that out here, in the bush, that’s an insult.’

  Eleanor folded her arms. So far he’d divulged very little. ‘Depends what side you’re on, I guess.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you that I never expected to get shot. But it’s not so bad, I’ve been shot at before, by experts.’ He probed the shoulder wound once more. ‘Guess I should be used to it by now.’

  ‘Robbie’s a good shot. You were lucky.’ Eleanor sat on the chair, crossed her legs, one socked foot moving up and down.

  His fingers gripped the thin mattress, blue veins ran the length of his arms. ‘You’re proud of the kid?’

  ‘Not for hurting you.’ It was the truth. ‘What were you doing out there, in the paddock?’

  The stranger had been looking around the room, at the planks outside the window, at the door, as if seeing everything for the first time. ‘I told you, I got lost. I was out riding, visiting a neighbouring property. Next thing, I was shot and I fell. I can’t remember much else.’

  Eleanor tilted her head with interest. ‘Who were you visiting?’

  ‘Harris’s place.’

  ‘Never heard of him. Where is the property?’

  ‘I’d hardly expect you to know them, Eleanor, I was riding for the good part of two days.’

  ‘Try me,’ she interrupted. ‘Firstly, you’d have to ride for a good three days at least to get on our land and, secondly, my family’s been here for a very long time. We know everyone.’

  ‘Not in this case, it seems,’ he replied brashly.

  Eleanor couldn’t decide what to make of the man opposite her. He appeared genuine enough and she certainly wasn’t immune to his easy smile and clean, country looks.

  ‘Anyway, I followed the river. At least I had water and I found some freshwater crayfish in a trap. I didn’t want to steal them but I had to eat something.’

  Eleanor could have told the man that they’d been Robbie’s, but she kept the information to herself, feeling a little more comfortable that the stranger’s story was starting to make sense. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Chad. Chad Reynolds.’ He smiled. She gave the barest in return.

  ‘You know, Eleanor, I’m a bit wary of people, always have been, I guess. And I really didn’t know where I was, or what I was doing here, when I woke up. Everything was confused. I heard people talking. People saying that I was a communist. That I had to be locked in this room. That I had to be watched. And then there was that bloody nurse and the nailing of the boards across the window.’ His eyes grew distant, thoughtful. ‘I don’t mind saying that for a while there I thought I’d lost my marbles.’ He tapped his head. ‘Or, as you Aussies say, I had a few loose in the top paddock. I was confused. I thought I was in some military hospital. And that Greek nurse, always asking questions. So I said nothing. But then my head cleared and I began to realise that I was in someone’s home and I remembered you, your voice, from the paddock. I thought I’d imagined it, then I woke and there you were.’ Their eyes met. ‘Thank you.’

  This time when he smiled, Eleanor found herself responding in kind.

  ‘But that nurse, Athena, what a corker she is. A goddamn, bleeding-heart immigrant trying to start a new life. I’m pretty sure she’s a German collaborator.’

  ‘What?’ asked Eleanor. ‘But how would you know that?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have, except for the singing and the questions she asked. If I’d ever been in Athens. What side I was on in the war. If I had been wounded in Greece. I wasn’t expecting her.’

  ‘What do you mean, her?’ quizzed Eleanor.

  Chad studied his glass, filling it with water again. ‘You know. I meant meeting someone like that here.’ Chad’s voice became softer, as if he were remembering something difficult. ‘It was the night before she left.’ The muscle in his jaw twitched. ‘I’d heard the song before, during the war, in Athens. It was in German.’

  ‘German?’ Eleanor didn’t understand. ‘But she’s Greek.’

  ‘Yes, Greek. A Greek who became a German collaborator. I’ll bet my life on it.’ His face grew strained. ‘It was in Athens,’ he began haltingly, ‘in the spring and summer of 1944, that the Security Battalions executed civilians suspected of leftist leanings. People were ordered to leave their homes and stand in the street. If you didn’t,’ he swallowed, ‘you were murdered in your own home. They rounded up entire districts and shot or hung people, Eleanor –’ He stopped mid-sentence, as if the memory was still too vivid.

  ‘But I don’t understand, Chad, what has this got to do with Athena?’

  ‘The only way a Greek woman would ask the questions she’d asked of me, would be if she’d joined the other side. If she’d turned on her own people to survive. I’d never believe anything the woman said, trust me.’

  ‘She said a similar thing about you, Chad.’

  ‘I’m sure she did. She probably guessed I was Italian.’

  ‘I didn’t.’ Eleanor didn’t understand. ‘Why are you so worried about her?’

  ‘Because if she is who I think she is, then she’s the enemy.’

  He sounded so convinced. Eleanor sighed. ‘The war’s over Chad,’ she said softly.

  Shuffling back on the bed, he pulled a sheet awkwardly around his legs. ‘Maybe for you. She probably slept with the bloody SS, received food and protection and jewels.’ Chad’s eyes widened. ‘She should be the one locked up, not me. She should be tried for treason. She should be sent back to Greece.’ His face paled with the effort of his speech.

  ‘No-one has said anything about locking you up.’ For a moment it was as if he hadn’t heard her, then he lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry. I’m doing my best, Eleanor, really I am … sometimes I have moments when I’m back there and –’

  ‘It’s alright, Chad.’ Eleanor took his hand in hers. ‘I understand.’ And she did understand. Chad was clearly still suffering from his time at the front, as her father did when he was alive, as Marcus had. There were the effects of war on the body and then there were the invisible scars, the wounds to the mind that in some cases were impossible to heal. Their family knew that all too well.

  The knot within her chest loosened. Chad needed care and comfort, not keys and boarded windows. He wasn’t a communist, only a man lost in the world after the war. ‘Can I get you anything?’

  He squeezed her fingers. ‘Thank you, Eleanor, thank you.’ Chad’s words were muffled as he covered his face with an arm.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  The car travelled over a stock grid, rattled loudly, gave a shudder and started to slow. Hunched on the back seat, Robbie sat forward, straining to see what animal had caused Mr Winslow to reduce speed. Far ahead in the distance the red road flickered, weaved and spun, forming patterns as it fused with hot, white air. The optical illusion held his attention until the morning glare forced him to blink and he shut his eyes tightly, feeling the pressure of lid on eyeball. They felt itchy and dry, as if they too were in need of rain.

  On either side of the track, scattered timber and low-lying bushes sheltered birds and kangaroos. Overhead, a wedge-tailed eagle circled. There were sheep grazing in the distance, their freshly shorn skins bright against a backdrop of faded green and beige. And behind them a quarter mile, the peeling signpost that pointed to the River Run cemetery. Seven miles down a lonely track lay great-grandparents, stockmen, children and staff. Happily, Robbie realised they were still on the property. He was still home.

  Mr Winslow steered the car onto the side of the dirt road, as his wife queried what was wrong, why the vehicle had lost power. The driver did his best to explain that he had no idea. That it was probably something simple that could be fixed in a jiffy. The Studebaker rolled onwards at a crawl, gave a final shudder as if an animal dying, and stopped. They sat in silence for the merest of seconds, and then Mrs Winslow pointed out that it would have been better if her
husband had managed to get the car parked under the shade of a tree rather than leaving them in full sight of the blazing sun, on the side of the road. After all, what would happen if they were stuck here? In fact, they could be here all day before someone appeared, she challenged. Mr Winslow grunted, said that with shearing on they couldn’t expect much traffic. His wife lit a cigarette. They didn’t have any water or food. She didn’t want to have to sleep in the car and, besides, they’d boil to death in this heatwave. I could be so lucky, Mr Winslow replied.

  Robbie quickly noted that the closest tree was a good twenty yards away.

  Mr Winslow got out of the vehicle, slamming the door closed. He lifted the bonnet, walked around to the boot, popped it and walked back to the front of the vehicle carrying a spanner. The sound of metal being bashed vibrated through the air. Mrs Winslow was instructed to slide across the passenger seat and try starting the engine. The woman obeyed reluctantly, muttering something about the uselessness of bush mechanics, of husbands who had too many staff, and of godforsaken places in the middle of nowhere. The engine made a clicking sound and then died. The bashing continued, punctuated by Mrs Winslow turning the key in the ignition when she was called upon to do so. Outside, Mr Winslow called the car a useless, rotten bastard of a thing.

  Robbie waved away the cigarette smoke filling the interior of the vehicle and rested his chin on the windowsill. Tiny brown birds were darting between the branches of a bush, the air growing thick as the sun moved higher. There was a dryness in the atmosphere, a brittle scent of withering plants and gasping soil. There was also the stench of something dead. He moved across the seat to the other window, stuck his head out and looked back in the direction they’d come, and then forward. There it was. The reason the wedge-tailed eagle circled overhead: a dead kangaroo on the side of the road.

  Mr Winslow opened the driver’s side door, told his wife to move and sat at the steering wheel looking at the instrument panel. She complained about the smell and asked what it was. Her husband merely tapped the windscreen and pointed at the rotting carcass before beginning to recite all the things that may have gone wrong. Out of oil, radiator boiled, a broken belt, a burnt-out spark plug. Margaret Winslow voiced the opinion that in other words her husband had no bloody idea. Robbie said nothing. They would miss the train to Sydney. He took off his jacket and lay it on the seat.