by Gee, Maurice
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to go and lie down for a while. I’ll be on the sofa in the lounge. You can come in if you want.’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I’ll just practise a couple of serves.’
‘Throw the ball high.’ He limped away. Ailsa felt a small, contented glow. She felt it was a compliment that he would let her see him lying down.
She gathered the balls and served until the box was empty. Then she picked them up again, and remembered the one on the lawn over the fence. She put her racket and the box on the bench and ran up the steps in the rock garden; climbed the wall by the compost bin and lowered herself. She jumped off the bin on to a path made between beds of neatly raked soil. Her soles slapped, which would alert a dog. She stood still, watching the porch, watching the ball — one with worn patches, hardly worth having.
Nothing moved. The quiet, the stillness, seemed unnatural. Even the band at the Recreation Ground stopped playing, as though waiting for some event to start.
She approached the ball, walking softly. She bent down to retrieve it. A dog came out of the wash house on the back porch. It brushed by the leaning broom and sent it clattering on the floorboards. Down the steps it came, seeming lazy but moving fast — a huge Alsatian with black shoulders and yellow eyes. Ailsa stayed half bent, her hand extended to the tennis ball. She wanted to turn and run, or melt into the ground and disappear. A moaning sound came from her lips. The dog halted 10 feet away. Slowly, like a smile, it bared its teeth. Ailsa stopped the sound in her throat.
‘Easy, boy,’ she managed to say.
The dog took up her noise, a rumbling sound. Its ears went flat.
‘No, boy. I’m your friend. Would you like the ball?’
Its nose was like rubber, lifting off its teeth. She had not known teeth could be so large. They shone at the tips like a circular saw.
‘Help me,’ she tried to say, but no sound came. Who would help?
The dog took another step. Then it sank on to its stomach like a sheepdog, holding her; and every time she made the slightest move its lip curled back, showing its teeth.
‘I’ll give you a bone,’ she whispered, but the words broke into pieces, going loud then soft in her mouth.
A voice spoke from the summerhouse. It was rich and milky, like a radio voice. ‘He won’t take bones from strangers. Easy, Bruce. Keep still, Bruce.’
She flung a glance, glimpsed a man, then looked back at the dog — which rose from its crouching position and sat. Ears folded, hackles down — a dog on a lawn. She stood up straight.
‘Obedience is important in a dog,’ said the man. He was lounging in a wicker chair in the dappled shade. Smoke curled from a cigarette in his hand. A glass of pale drink stood on a table at his side. She knew instantly that he was posed, like in a play. She wondered how long he had been waiting, in a part of his garden hidden from the back fence.
‘I call him Bruce after Robert the Bruce. Because, you see, he’ll never give up. Now if I gave the order do you know what he would do?’
Ailsa nodded. She knew her voice would wobble if she spoke.
‘But you needn’t be scared. He’s under control.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Ailsa.’
‘I suppose you know you’re trespassing, Ailsa?’ He sipped his drink.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I just came over for the ball.’
‘You can have it. Go on, he won’t bite.’
She picked up the ball. The dog watched with its ears pricked.
‘Next time come in by the front gate, not over the wall.’
‘Yes. All right.’
‘But no,’ he said as she started to turn. ‘Don’t go. I want to know more about you. Strange young women don’t climb into my garden every day.’
He took a panama hat from the ground beside the chair, put it on, strolled across the lawn to her with his drink in one hand and his cigarette in the other. He thinks he’s in a movie, Ailsa thought.
‘Now, my dear, let me look at you. Mm, rather bold. I like a touch of the ethereal. A bit of soul.’
The back door opened in the house. A little hunched-up woman in a flowery dress stepped on to the porch.
‘Errol,’ she said, ‘what’s happening?’
The man lost his poise. ‘Go back in the house.’ He dropped his cigarette on the grass and ground it out.
‘Who’s that girl?’ the woman said.
‘Back inside. Do as you’re told.’
The dog was looking round, but it stayed still, more obedient than the woman, who came, stopping and starting, down the steps.
‘Madeleine,’ the man cried, ‘I don’t want you here.’ He put his drink on the grass and ran at her, crying over his shoulder, ‘Watch her, Bruce.’
The dog held Ailsa with his eye.
Errol took the woman by the arm and turned her round, neither rough nor gentle. ‘You’re interfering, Madeleine. She’s a visitor.’
‘But I want to know.’ She had yellow skin, as though from jaundice, and patches of rouge on her cheeks like a child’s painting. Ailsa could not tell whether she was Errol’s mother or his wife.
‘She came for her tennis ball, that’s all,’ Errol said.
The woman tugged but could not free herself. He half pushed, half lifted her up the steps.
‘Send her home. Go home, girlie,’ she cried. He led her across the porch and pushed her inside.
‘Don’t come out until I say. I’ll be cross, Madeleine.’
He closed the door, then shook himself as if to make his clothes fit again — his pale-grey belted trousers and silk shirt and green cravat. His hat had gone crooked on his head. He straightened it and came down the steps. He walked, then sauntered, over the lawn and picked up his drink. The dog lay down.
‘Now, where were we?’
‘Can I go?’ Ailsa said. She was more frightened of the man than the dog.
‘Not yet, my dear. Who are you?’
‘Ailsa McGowan.’
‘A Scotty then, with a name like that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And where do you live?’
‘In Woburn.’
‘So you’re not one of those naughty Naenae girls? Where in Woburn?’
She did not want to say. He watched her with slightly crossed chocolatey eyes. He was a plain man trying to be handsome. He was big-nosed, fat-mouthed and showed horsey teeth when he smiled. His mouth did not seem to have enough room for his tongue; or his elegant clothes for his fattish body. His hat too, a tropical hat, was wrong for his pale thinning hair. But he seemed as amused, as in command, as a movie hero — Errol Flynn.
‘Where, Ailsa? I won’t bite.’
‘By the Prince Edward.’
‘The cinema, you mean? By the railway station?’
‘Yes.’
‘And where do you live then? In the hostels?’
‘Yes.’
‘A nurse?’
‘No. My mother works there.’
‘And you’re too young, of course. You’re still at school.’
She had the feeling he had known all this. He conversed in his milky voice as though saying lines.
‘How do you come to know the Pages?’
‘From school,’ she said. ‘With Helen. Anyhow, I’m going now. If your dog bites me you’ll be in trouble. They shoot dogs that bite.’
‘Willowbank School,’ he said. ‘Well, well. And you’re a girl from over in the hostels. I should have picked that from your voice.’
‘What’s wrong with my voice?’
‘It gives you away, my dear. Vowels are like the features on your face, they can’t be changed. Yes, Ailsa, you can go. I won’t let Bruce bite you. Give my regards to Mrs Page.’
‘I don’t want this,’ she said, and tossed the ball aside.
The Alsatian made a step after it but the man said, ‘Bruce!’ The dog froze.
‘I don’t think you deserve him,�
� Ailsa said. She walked away.
‘No,’ said the man. ‘Go by the gate.’
She kept walking. She knew he would not set the dog on her.
‘You’re a cheeky girl.’
She took no notice, but climbed on the compost bin and straddled the fence. She had a look at him from there and thought he looked stupid, looked forlorn. In the house the woman held a curtain aside, mouthing something and making a fluttery motion of dismissal with one hand. They’re both loopy, Ailsa thought. She was tempted to poke out her tongue, but resisted. She wanted to be as dignified as the dog.
‘Ailsa, I don’t like you. I wouldn’t waste my time,’ said the man.
Still she did not poke out her tongue. She lowered herself into the Pages’ garden and wiped him out. But as she ran down the shallow steps the tennis ball flew over the wall and bounced along beside her. It seemed like a message and it frightened her. She ran across to the bench and picked up her racket and the hatbox, then looked over her shoulder, thinking that he might be peering over the wall. But there was nothing — a roof and a chimney, a blue sky. The band started playing again.
Ailsa went to the house and looked into the lounge. She wanted to tell Calum what had happened. It took her eyes a moment to get used to the dark, then she saw him on the sofa, asleep. She went in and sat in an armchair, close to him.
‘Calum,’ she whispered.
He did not wake. She felt herself shivering, it must be from shock, and screwed up her eyes to keep tears from coming out. She wasn’t sure she hadn’t peed her pants a tiny bit and sat forward so the chair wouldn’t get damp. She should go home or Calum might find out. She felt herself going red with shame, and she stood up.
Calum slept on. He had taken off his callipers, which lay by the sofa on the floor — leather straps and steel bars criss-crossed, collapsed. She thought he looked weak, he looked pathetic, but that made a kind of stupid fondness grow in her.
‘I’ll see you,’ she whispered, and went out. She clamped her racket — Calum’s racket — on the bike, threw a look at the creosoted wall (no one there), and rode along the drive to the gate. Mrs Page drove in, with Helen in the passenger seat — Helen grinning. Mrs Page wound her window down.
‘Ailsa, you’re going home?’
‘Yes. Calum’s asleep. He’s in the lounge.’
‘The living room. What happened?’
‘Nothing. He said he was tired, that’s all.’
‘He shouldn’t exert himself too much. It’s not good for him.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not Ailsa’s fault,’ Helen said. ‘Have you got a new racket?’
‘Yes.’ Helen knew very well whose it was. ‘I’ve got to go now. Thanks for having me.’
‘Where’s my husband, do you know?’ Mrs Page said.
‘He went out.’
‘Bother him.’
Ailsa felt she was being blamed. ‘Goodbye,’ she said and rode away. Damn the Pages, she said to herself. Except Calum — although he was hopeless, having polio. He seemed like more of her bad luck.
But as she approached the hostels she thought less of the Pages and more of the man called Errol, over the fence. He seemed less stupid as she went along, and more of a threat. Waiting there in his summer house for her to climb down on to his lawn. And sitting quiet with his drink, watching while the dog held her mesmerised like a sheep.
He had said he didn’t like her. That was good. She would hate to be someone that he liked.
Chapter 4
HEART’S DESIRE
Calum telephoned that night. Ailsa was keeping her mother company on the switchboard and could not talk easily with him. He apologised for going to sleep and she told him not to worry, she had done some serving, then gone home.
‘I reckon you’ll beat Helen. We just need to practise a lot more.’
Ailsa wasn’t sure she wanted to. Make him tired, face up to Mrs Page, play tennis over the fence from the man called Errol — none of that. And she wasn’t sure she liked being part of a bet any more. But she wanted to see Calum again. It was strange how in her mind he became good-looking when he really wasn’t good-looking at all. She supposed that meant she liked him. What she didn’t like was feeling sorry. She wished he didn’t have a polio leg.
‘I can’t come tomorrow,’ she said. She was going with her mother to visit friends at Eastbourne. ‘Maybe … can you ride? Have you got a bike?’
‘I haven’t tried. I’ve got my old bike.’
‘What say I come round after school? What about Monday? We can ride somewhere.’
He hesitated. ‘You’ve got to do tennis.’
‘I’ll do that another day. We can go down to the river, what do you think?’ She knew that girls weren’t supposed to take the lead like this, but she didn’t want to talk on and on with her mother listening.
‘River?’ he said. ‘No one goes there. How about Elbe’s? We can get a milkshake.’
‘There’s bodgies there,’ she said.
‘They won’t hurt you.’
‘I know that. But I promised Mum.’ (Her mother turned a page in her book as though she hadn’t heard.)
‘You would. What time? I don’t get home till four o’clock.’
‘A quarter past?’
‘OK. I’ll see you.’ He hung up and she wondered if someone was listening to him too.
‘Where did you promise me not to go?’ Mrs McGowan said.
‘Elbe’s milkbar.’
‘Who was that?’
‘Calum Page. He’s had polio. He’s got a crippled leg.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Sixteen I suppose. Is it all right if I see him?’
‘Is he the one who told you about your vowels?’
‘That was someone else.’
It was Errol, who stayed in her mind no matter how hard she tried to push him out — and grew more sinister the way Calum got better-looking. She wondered what was wrong with him, play-acting like that, and what was wrong with his yellow-faced wife. She was sad, she was pathetic — while he should be a joke, dressed in those phoney clothes and talking in a voice like the Governor-General’s. Yet he had controlled the Alsatian with just a flick of his finger, just a word. It wasn’t the dog, though, or the man and the dog, that frightened her — it was the creepiness of the way he had played a game of watching her.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ her mother said.
‘Nothing.’ She should have asked Calum about Errol. He had sounded as if he knew the Pages.
She sat with her mother until 10 o’clock. Only a couple of calls came through. They read their books side by side — hers by Dennis Wheatley (a dumb thing trying to be spooky) and her mother’s a travel book by Joy Packer. She thought it was sad how hungrily her mother travelled in books when she’d hardly been further than Wellington in her life. She’d love to send her to Rome or Canada or up the Amazon in a canoe. She could see her mother paddling, see her laughing, while piranhas swam in the water and anacondas hung from trees. But she would probably work in Lower Hutt all her life. That was what widows had to do.
‘I’m going to bed,’ she said.
‘All right, love. Sleep well,’ her mother said. The switchboard did not close until half past 10.
Ailsa left the dining block and walked along the footpath to House 4. Residents, some of them nurses, were streaming back to the hostel from the Prince Edward.
‘What was it like?’ Ailsa asked.
‘Stupid.’
‘A waste of time.’
‘I thought it was dreamy when he kissed her,’ someone said.
Ron Stock went by, heading for the station. He must have been at the pictures too. A folded comic book stuck from his hip pocket.
‘Ron, Ron, I’ll be your girl,’ a secretary cried. The others laughed.
Ron strode on, taking no notice.
Ailsa went quickly to her room, then to the bathroom, beating the rush. She lay in bed reading for a while, hoping Glo
ria would come home before she went to sleep. She liked watching how Gloria did things — put her make-up on or took it off, arranged her hair, shaved her legs: how she made herself beautiful, and then turned ordinary for the night, a girl you wouldn’t look at twice. Ailsa supposed that even actresses were plain with their make-up off and their freckles showing, and maybe a pimple on their chin. She turned the light off, grinning, then lay thinking about Calum Page — how she liked him but wasn’t sure she wanted him as more than a friend. It wouldn’t be much fun going to the pictures with someone who clanked his callipers when he walked. And what about dancing? He couldn’t do that. Bike-riding should be all right. She thought that if he wanted to she would let him kiss her. She hoped he would.
The laughing and flushing and stair-climbing grew less. House 4 settled down for the night. There were still late nurses to come in but Ailsa hoped that none would break the curfew. She hoped especially that Gloria wouldn’t or her mother might use it as an excuse to shift Ailsa out of her room. She arranged the curtain so the street light wouldn’t shine on her face. She hadn’t put the window peg in but that was all right, no one was going to climb in — although she thought nervously of the man on the bike, and thought of dressed-up Errol too. Then she remembered Calum Page and went to sleep …
… and woke when a car pulled up outside House 4. The engine had a buttery sound, like Errol’s voice, and it didn’t switch off. Ailsa came fully awake. After a while she got out of bed and spied from behind the curtain. A Jaguar. Yes, it would be her, waking everyone up. Two heads in the car joined together — a long kiss. Gloria Woodn’t, Ailsa thought. She giggled. Gloria had told her that the safest thing was to make your boyfriend park underneath a street lamp.
The man, Bevan, the footy player, got out of the car and walked around to open the passenger door — and Ailsa admired the way Gloria just sat there, making him do everything right. She stepped out with a fling of her shawl, in a kind of shimmer, and let him put his arm around her walking to the door. Bevan had jug ears, which made Ailsa grin. They shone as red as tomatoes in the street lamp. She went back to bed and lay down, pretending to sleep. The Jaguar still gargled at the kerb, and kept it up for five minutes more, which annoyed Ailsa. It made some loud horn toots driving away, which annoyed her more. Everyone in House 4 would be awake. Perhaps that was what Gloria wanted: heads out of the window like grubs coming out of a honeycomb.
