Hostel Girl

by Gee, Maurice

  Gloria took two aspros and after a while went to sleep. Ailsa lay awake, then she slept too.

  She did not hear Ron Stock as he walked away from guarding them into the dark.

  Chapter 8

  WHO NEEDS LIMPY?

  A French test, a Latin test, and Helen Page came top in both. Ailsa did badly because she couldn’t concentrate. She caught up with Helen in the lunch hour — Helen eating sandwiches without any crusts. They looked as if they belonged on a plate at a party.

  ‘Did you tell your mother about my room-mate chucking her boyfriend?’

  ‘Why? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. Just, did you?’

  ‘I tell my mother lots of things. What of it?’ Helen said.

  ‘That was a secret. I won’t tell you anything from now on.’

  ‘Why not? Mummy thinks the Woburn Hostels are fun.’

  ‘You mean a joke?’

  Helen frowned. ‘You’ve gone all stupid since you started going round with my brother.’

  ‘I don’t any more. Who needs Limpy?’

  She went away and sat by herself, ashamed of what she’d said; and frightened of what would happen if Helen told Calum. It would make him feel terrible. He would never talk to her again. All the same, she had solved the mystery — Helen had told her mother and her mother must have told Errol Parkinson. It explained the letter; but did not make it any less frightening.

  Too many problems, Ailsa thought: Calum, Errol Parkinson and his letters, Gloria pregnant. And two more tests this afternoon. She wished she could ride to Griffin’s factory and tell her mother everything.

  She did well in the Geography test — was top by a long way. She’d sooner know about wheat and barley and rye and where they grew and who ate them than hic and haec and hoc and oui and non. Helen came tenth.

  Mrs Nimmo was pleased. When the bell rang for the end of the period Ailsa stayed behind to talk with her.

  ‘Mrs Nimmo, can I ask you a question?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘It’s private.’

  ‘It won’t go any further than me.’

  ‘Well —’ it was hard — ‘is there something you can take when you’ve missed your period?’

  ‘Oh, Ailsa. Ailsa,’ Mrs Nimmo whispered.

  ‘No, it’s not me. Truly it’s not. I promise.’

  ‘Which one of the girls?’

  ‘No one here. That’s a promise too. It’s one of the nurses at the hostel.’

  ‘Ailsa, do you mean it? It’s not you?’

  ‘No, Mrs Nimmo, I’ve never done it. I’m not going to either, for a while.’

  ‘Don’t. Please don’t.’

  ‘I don’t want to get pregnant,’ Ailsa said.

  ‘Good girl. That’s good. But — who is this other person? Why did she tell you?’

  ‘I’ve got to keep that secret. But she’s upset. And if I can tell her something to take …?’

  ‘Have you told your mother?’

  ‘No, because —’ she almost said ‘Gloria’ — ‘this girl, she’d get kicked out.’

  Mrs Nimmo swallowed like Gloria on her bed.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘how much is she late?’

  ‘Not much. Only a week.’

  ‘Tell her to wait until next month. It might be all right.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Ailsa —’ Mrs Nimmo swallowed again and ran her hands through her haystack hair — ‘I’m not supposed to talk to pupils like this. I’d get the sack.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I really would.’

  ‘I won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Go to your next class. I need time to think.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Nimmo. You can just forget it if you like. She’s a Catholic, by the way.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘I wish things could be simple,’ Ailsa said.

  She went along to English — another test. Came top again and was pleased that she would have good news for her mother that night. It didn’t seem that there would be good news for Gloria.

  Mrs Nimmo caught her in the yard after school.

  ‘Ailsa, come here.’ They stood side by side with their bikes. ‘Tell your friend — and this must go no further.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Nimmo.’

  ‘I don’t know how to get it and I don’t know how much — but tell her to try stilboestrol.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ailsa, I know nothing. And that’s all.’

  ‘How do you spell it?’

  Mrs Nimmo hissed. She leaned close. ‘S-t-i-l-b-o-e-s-t-r-o-l. I’ve got to go now. Ailsa, I’m trusting you with my job.’

  She got on her bike and rode away. Ailsa felt like yelling thank you after her. She wanted to tell Mrs Nimmo that her job was safe. But she couldn’t help wondering if stilboestrol was dangerous, with a name like that.

  When she got home she telephoned Calum. He had just come in and sounded pleased to hear from her.

  ‘Calum,’ she said, ‘Helen did tell your mother about Gloria’s boyfriend. And I bet your mother told Errol Parkinson. That’s how he knew.’

  ‘I’m getting sick of this,’ Calum said.

  ‘Not as much as me. Anyhow, you don’t need to do anything. Calum?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a dance at the hostels on Saturday night. Do you want to come?’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding. Me at a dance?’

  ‘They’ve got a band. Piano and drums and a saxophone.’

  ‘Maybe you’ve forgotten about my leg?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. Listen, Calum. Today I said something to Helen. I guess she’ll tell you.’

  ‘Yeah, go on.’

  ‘She said about you and me going together and I said we weren’t. I said, “Who needs Limpy?” It just kind of slipped out.’

  ‘Limpy, eh?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Do you often call me that?’

  ‘No. Never.’

  ‘Ha,’ he said. ‘Ha ha.’

  ‘It’s true. I like you too much. I was mad at her, not you. And you called me fat once and you didn’t mean it, so I don’t mean Limpy.’

  He was quiet for a moment. ‘Fair enough,’ he said.

  ‘It’s all right, then? If I say I’m sorry?’

  ‘Sure. I’d rather people called me Limpy than Oh You Poor Thing.’

  Ailsa laughed.

  ‘But you’d better not do it again.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘So you like me, eh?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘You’re not so bad yourself. How about meeting me after school tomorrow? We’ll ride into town, eh? It doesn’t have to be Elbe’s.’

  ‘All right. At the Rec?’

  ‘Yeah. Same place. Your dance is a lousy idea though.’

  He hung up. Ailsa smiled. ‘Powder your face with sunshine,’ she sang. It was funny how a tune stuck in your mind. Then she remembered stilboestrol and frowned. Bringing that up with Gloria was going to be just as hard as confessing to Calum. She filled in time by riding to the library and borrowing some books. There was time for reading now the tests were over. She borrowed a travel book for her mother and gave it to her when she came in.

  ‘Top in English. Top in Geography,’ she said.

  Mrs McGowan was pleased. ‘You’re doing all right there, aren’t you, love? You’re not missing Hutt High too much?’

  ‘I miss the boys.’

  ‘I haven’t noticed that lately.’

  ‘Mum, is it all right if Calum comes to the dance?’

  ‘With his leg?’

  ‘We can just sort of stand in a corner and do steps.’

  ‘I doubt if he’ll like that very much.’

  ‘We’ll see. So it’s all right?’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  Ailsa heard the first nurses come in. She went to her room and waited for Gloria.

  ‘What’s this? An ambush?’ Gloria sai
d. She seemed happier than on the previous night.

  ‘Did you have some luck?’ Ailsa said.

  ‘No, I didn’t. Just forget about it, Ailsa.’

  Ailsa watched her take off her coat. She was flushed and wind-blown and out-doorsy, not the least bit like a good time girl. Her Ann Blyth pout was gone. She looked rather prim.

  ‘I talked with someone today,’ Ailsa said.

  Gloria turned sharply from the wardrobe. ‘Not about me?’

  ‘I didn’t say any names. I just said I knew a girl who was late.’

  ‘That’s stupid. People can work things out … Not your mother?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘God, if you tell her —’

  ‘I won’t. This was someone who said — stilboestrol.’

  Gloria swore. Her language was getting very bad. ‘Everyone knows that stuff. It doesn’t work. You’ll be saying gin and hot baths next.’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ Ailsa said, in a shrunken voice. On the other hand she felt large and ugly, crashing around where she should be delicate. ‘I was trying to help.’

  ‘Well, don’t.’

  ‘So … what can I do?’

  ‘Just be my friend, that’s all.’ Gloria lay down. She turned her face to the wall.

  ‘I am,’ Ailsa said. She sat on the bed, wishing she could hold Gloria’s hand. After a while she said, ‘I’ll go away if you like.’

  ‘No.’ Gloria turned her face, tear-stained. ‘You don’t understand. I’m a Catholic.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So … doing things like … taking stuff, it’s a mortal sin. I’d go to hell.’

  Ailsa felt her mind shrink. Everything she might answer went away; and even in the small part that was left she could find nothing. She stroked Gloria’s shoulder, and said in a moment, ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Until next month. Then I’ll know.’

  ‘What about the course?’

  ‘It’s only four months, so I can finish.’

  ‘After that,’ Ailsa said, ‘don’t go back to Stratford.’

  ‘God, no. I’ll never go there. I’d sooner die.’

  ‘Go to Auckland. To your sister.’

  Gloria breathed. She wiped her face. ‘Yes, I might.’

  ‘Will you come along to tea? Eat something tonight?’

  ‘In a minute. Ailsa?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m glad I told you.’

  ‘Me too,’ Ailsa said.

  No one sat near them at dinner. It was as if they knew about Gloria’s troubles. Ailsa boasted about her test results. It was something to say; and the good marks — 22 out of 25, 18 out of 20 — floated like a pair of gulls above a landscape dark and precipitous and jungly. She tried hard, but felt that she was more down there than up in the sky with them.

  It was raining when she arrived at the Recreation Ground. The thought of the windy main street and of cold milkshakes made her shiver.

  ‘I think I’ll just go home,’ she said.

  ‘Come to my place,’ Calum said. ‘I’ll make a drink and we can listen to some records. Mum’s taken Helen to her ballet.’ He made a mock pirouette, clanking his callipers, and Ailsa laughed.

  At the house he brought her a towel to dry her face. He turned on the heaters, offered biscuits, made tea. She chose some records and tried to teach him to dance.

  ‘I’m like the Tin Man,’ he said. He just wanted to stand still and kiss her, so they did that until she told him to stop.

  ‘Why? Because of my leg?’

  ‘Because I’m not going to do anything else. Not with you or anyone.’

  ‘I’d get had up anyhow until you’re 16.’

  ‘Ask me then.’

  ‘You’ll have someone else.’

  ‘So might you.’

  ‘Yeah, Gloria. If old Errol doesn’t want her any more.’

  Ailsa punched him in the chest, so hard that he cried out. ‘What was that for?’

  ‘Gloria’s not a joke. And he’s really after her. And she won’t let me tell the police.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. No evidence.’

  Ailsa looked outside through the French doors. The rain had turned to drizzle, the wire-netting round the court sparkled with drops like a necklace display.

  ‘We could get some,’ she said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘His dog’s gone. His unit doesn’t come for another hour.’

  ‘You’re mad.’

  ‘I’ll bet he leaves a key somewhere.’ Although her heart banged in her chest and her feet were hard to move, she went to the French doors and opened them.

  ‘Wait on,’ Calum cried.

  ‘Do you want to come with me or just keep watch?’

  ‘I’ll come. But Jesus, you’re crazy. Wait on, I said. I’ll have to get a box for the wall.’

  They went into the garage, where he chose a small set of steps instead of a box. She knew he was agreeing because he didn’t want to seem less brave than her. But without him she would have turned back. The walls of Errol Parkinson’s house seemed to bulge with pressure from inside.

  They climbed up on the steps and down the other side on the compost bin.

  ‘There used to be a key on a nail,’ Calum said. ‘Helen and me used to come in when they were out and play with his costumes. He caught us once.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Pretended she was Alice in Wonderland. And he was, I don’t know, the Mad Hatter.’

  The key was on a nail in the wash house. It was long and ugly, made of iron. Calum pushed it into the lock.

  ‘What if he hasn’t gone to work?’ Ailsa said.

  ‘He always goes. He never misses a day. It’s part of his civil servant act.’ He turned the key, opened the door. They stepped into a kitchen where everything was polished and in its proper place.

  ‘He’s a neat guy,’ Calum said. ‘He does the housework, not his wife. The cooking too. He lends Mum recipe books. Here’s the sitting room, nothing here. It’s old-fashioned furniture, eh?’

  ‘Look at the pictures,’ Ailsa said.

  There were a dozen of them, all of young women with long hair and white robes, gazing into the sky or into pools of dark still water, holding wild flowers in their hands, dreaming on garden seats, standing by Grecian columns at the side of lakes.

  ‘Who are they all?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Calum said. ‘I know I like you better.’

  ‘That one’s Ophelia.’

  ‘Yeah, getting drowned. Except she’s floating. She’s got air trapped in her dress.’

  ‘Where did he keep his costumes?’

  ‘In a bedroom down there.’

  ‘Let’s do it quick and get out.’

  They went down the hallway and Calum opened a door. Ailsa looked over his shoulder into a large room where an easy chair stood in front of a fireplace. It had blankets folded on its arms and big fluffy cushions on the seat. A single bed, neatly made, stood out from the wall between a wardrobe and a dressing table. Lace-curtained windows opened on to a veranda.

  ‘Only one bed,’ Ailsa said.

  ‘I think it’s her room. They must have slept alone because she’s sick.’

  ‘Close the door. It’s private, Calum.’

  ‘His must be the next room.’ Calum opened it. ‘More girls. He really goes for them.’

  These ones were just as pure and dreamy as the others. Ailsa felt they might float down from the walls and suffocate her.

  ‘Single bed again,’ Calum said.

  ‘I just want to find his coat and glasses,’ Ailsa said.

  ‘Hey, look at this. His wedding photo.’ Calum took it to the stronger light coming in the window. ‘He wasn’t much to look at even then. She’s OK. She’s a bit like Gloria, don’t you reckon?’

  ‘Let me see.’

  There was a resemblance: same mouth, same nose, but Gloria was not so droopy-looking. All the same the ph
oto made Ailsa go cold. What was Errol Parkinson doing? Did he think that Gloria might replace his wife?

  ‘Put it back. Let’s just find his costumes.’

  Calum opened the wardrobe. ‘Clothes. He’s got four suits. Nine pairs of shoes.’

  ‘Come on, Calum.’

  ‘Two coats.’

  She looked at them. One was a raincoat but the colour was wrong. The other wasn’t baggy enough. She started opening tallboy drawers. Shirts, underclothes, handkerchiefs, with not a wrinkle in them even though his wife was in hospital.

  ‘I think he must have got rid of them,’ Calum said. ‘I wish I could see the hunchback one. The hump was made of sponge rubber sewn inside a shirt.’ He opened the drawer in the bottom of the wardrobe.

  ‘Hey, look.’

  He lifted out a black raincoat, folded in half; let it fall open, held it up. It seemed to Ailsa that the Irishman was wrapped inside.

  ‘Is that the one?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  ‘There’s a hat in the drawer.’

  ‘Yes, it’s his.’

  Calum felt in the raincoat pockets; took a pair of glasses from one and a black wig from the other. He dropped the coat on the floor, opened the wig.

  ‘Jeez, it’s greasy. I’m not putting that on.’ He put the glasses on instead. ‘You’re right, they’re not real. I can still see.’

  ‘So it’s him,’ Ailsa said.

  ‘Yeah, what do we do?’

  ‘Put them back.’

  ‘I thought you’d want to take them to the cops.’

  ‘No.’ She felt more and more threatened in the room. The walls seemed to be closing in. All she wanted was to get outside. ‘We can’t tell them we broke in. All we can say is, have a search.’

  ‘They won’t.’

  ‘Come on, Calum. Let’s get out.’

  He put the wig and glasses in the pockets and folded the coat; laid it in the drawer; pushed it shut. It made a little sound like a cat sneeze in the silence.

  Then another sound came, as if answering: the bell on Errol Parkinson’s gate. Footsteps rang along the path, then made an even drumtap on the floorboards of the front veranda.

  ‘Calum!’

  ‘Out of here. Quick.’

  They ran into the hallway. Calum closed the door without a sound. His callipers made a metallic click. The front door opened, then closed. Distantly they heard Errol Parkinson’s voice.