by JH Fletcher
She learned that Richard was four years older than she was yet washed and shaved he looked no more than twenty, dark hair in a soft fall over his forehead. He was still more bone than man but the basic framework was there, the broad shoulders, the confident poise of the head.
He had every right to be confident. They might choose not to talk about it but memories of the march stood out like islands in mist: isolated incidents set against a backdrop of pain and mind-killing exhaustion. Without Richard none of them, she least of all, would have survived.
She did not want to talk or think about it but there were two incidents that needed to be purged.
‘Ba Gyaw …’ she said.
She saw his knuckles tighten. ‘No,’ he said.
‘I must —’
‘No.’
He did not look at her, did not raise his voice. She wanted so much to tell him, to ease the burden dragging at her, yet in the face of his rejection knew she could not persist. Sister Rogan was a possibility but even as she thought it Ruth knew that, too, was out of the question. Sister Rogan would not understand. No one who had not been there would understand. I shall have to swallow it myself, she thought. She resented the necessity, hoped that the memory would indeed fade now that daylight had returned.
As for the other memory … She wanted to tell him that she had been wrong over the business of the Chinese soldiers, could see now that he had had no choice. But resolved to keep quiet about that, too.
It is war that is the criminal, she thought, not we who are involved in it. We are the victims.
In the meantime they were alive.
She had wanted him by the jungle pool all those weeks ago. She had wanted him by the fire, the night the villagers had danced for them. The next day, appalled by the deaths of the Chinese soldiers, she had rejected him. Since then she’d had no energy to think of such things but now desire had returned. Desire and, for a day or two, opportunity.
Of course he might no longer want her.
One way to find out. But gently, she counselled herself. Don’t frighten him away.
She felt no shame at wanting him or at doing what was necessary to get him. Life was indeed for the living. Life to turn back the regiments of death.
How she had changed. She had thought the war would bring change, had been prepared to welcome it because of that. There had been a feeling of adventure, too, of not wanting to be left out. She had believed the war was right, a crusade against the forces of darkness, had been proud to be a part of it.
Yes, she thought now, I really did think like that.
It was like examining an old picture. Quaint and pretty and totally unreal. She remembered how she had gone into the cathedral in Singapore, the white building with its sugar-icing spire. She had gone partly because she was homesick, fearful of the future, but mainly because she had sensed a purity of purpose in herself and the others that seemed best exemplified by the cathedral, its spire and pilastered walls pointing the way to God.
Now all such feelings were gone. In what they had been through there had been no room for pretty churches, for idealism. Again she remembered the priest skewered through hands and feet to the sacrificial tree. Anyone who’s been through what we have and still claims to act out of principle is a liar, she thought.
In the meantime, Richard.
‘Tell me again about Africa,’ she invited, like a child.
He smiled but humoured her. Again he told her of the veld, the wandering herds of bontebok, wildebeest, impala, the empty expanse of grassland flattened by the wind, the flat-topped hills rising from the plain.
‘Tell me about the diamonds.’
So he told her of them, too, how you found them where aeons ago volcanoes had thrust their magma through the earth’s crust. How some were washed down the great Orange River to the sea.
‘So they are lost?’
‘They dredge for them. And there was talk of working the sand dunes along the coast. The Skeleton Coast they call it, because of the rocks and currents. The Sperrgebied. It’s a lonely place, nothing but mists and desert, a million miles from anywhere.’
He had drawn such a picture for her. She could see it all, the vast country, the tiny figures of men, the isolation, the riches flowing out of the ground.
She smiled at him. She felt closer to him than ever because she had entered with him into the story. He had been there, they had both been there. Never mind the weeks in the forest; this had been their first real journey together and, seeing the expression on his face, Ruth knew that telling the story had drawn him closer to her, too, as she had hoped. Their relationship had returned to where it had been that night on the hilltop, before the Chinese soldiers arrived.
Face intent, he leaned towards her. They had come so far together, endured so much. Now, it seemed, they were about to make yet another journey, not like the African journey of mind and imagination only but of the body, too. She welcomed it with all her heart.
Before he could kiss her she stood, smiling. ‘Maybe we should continue this in private.’
Wished at once that she could un-say it, afraid that her boldness might drive him away even now. Saw her father, appalled, speechless, wondering if he had fathered a harlot. Her mother’s embarrassment.
Dorrie said, ‘Good on you, girl.’
She smiled at Richard again, willing him to respond. ‘Come …’
The room, white-walled and silent. Sunlight shone through the slatted shutters, lay upon the single bed.
Ruth did not know where she was going, did not care. It was not necessary that she should be going anywhere.
They lay side by side, legs entwined, sunken belly to sunken belly.
Two scarecrows, she thought. Enough to frighten the crows, certainly. In the beauty of our youth, she had read the phrase somewhere, and look at us. Staring ribs, wasted breasts, skin fish-belly white and scarred with malnutrition’s boils. Whatever else, we are certainly not beautiful.
Yet it did not matter. She smiled, arching her back as Richard’s probing tongue embraced her. Because they were beautiful. They were alive, which was beauty. Together they had come out of the valley of the shadow.
She yielded to sensation. There was a feeling of eternity in it, an affirmation of the sanctity of life. Richard’s hand soothed her gently but Ruth wanted no soothing, her body craving release. She clung to him, holding. Guiding.
There.
Waves of feeling flowed through her, belly, breast, throat. Engulfing her. Sensation ran in little electric shocks across the surface of her skin.
He paused. She opened her eyes to see him staring down at her.
He said, ‘I am afraid …’
This man who was afraid of nothing.
‘Why?’ She was panting yet managed somehow to get her tongue around the word.
‘Not the man I was.’ Smiling ruefully. But really was concerned, she saw.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Nor did it, even when he was proved right. There had been little energy, after all, and what there was was soon exhausted. Her body grew still, unsated. The waves of feeling died. Yet it truly did not matter.
There had been none of the blinding ecstasy she had hoped for. Instead there had been a sharing that meant far more than the explosion of the senses, which it had not achieved. It spoke of the future, to two people whose circumstances held no hope of any future.
What they had shared had been a celebration of life in the face of death, an act of worship that tied them to something beyond the present.
Unfinished business no longer.
A week later an Audax aircraft landed on the airstrip. It took Ruth and Richard on board and flew them out. In India, after debriefing, a hundred forms, a hundred interrogations, they parted. Ruth to return to Australia, Richard to England.
They knew they would probably never see each other again.
FOURTEEN
The day after Ruth’s telephone conversation with her editor, her grandson, Andrew
Armstrong, threw into the boot of his car the long bag containing pads, gloves, bat, boots and the bottle of scotch he’d pinched from his father’s desk and drove over the range to play cricket at the Kapunda Oval.
It was a hot day with a fair bit of moisture in the air. When he got out in the middle he could hear the hiss of the ball swinging as the pacemen chucked it down but Andrew had a good eye and reflexes and enough confidence for ten and punished the bowling as he always did. By the end of his innings he had notched up eighty-four runs. It was a good score but still he was annoyed with himself. He had flashed at a ball outside the off stump. The ball had moved away from him, he had felt it edge the bat and then it was in the keeper’s hands and keeper and bowler and slip were going up in the air, yelling like lunatics. He had stood his ground, shaking his head tolerantly and smiling down the pitch at the umpire, inviting him to share his amusement at the antics of the fielders. Sometimes it worked but this time the umpire must have heard the snick, too; the dismissive finger had gone up and that had been that.
Even then Andrew’s nature had forced him to make something out of it. He had stood there for a second, miming horror, disbelief and a slowly gathering contempt.
‘I don’t bloody believe it,’ he said to the world in general and stamped off, slashing the grass with his bat.
‘I wasn’t out,’ Andrew told the incoming batsman; said the same to the rest of the boys, sitting on the grass beneath the Scoreboard. The spectators were clapping him off the field — so they should, eighty-four was a good knock — but that wasn’t enough for Andrew. It never was.
‘I let it go, for God’s sake,’ he told them. ‘I was never out.’
Dick Branson, the captain, looked up at him, making no attempt to hide his dislike. ‘Look in the paper tomorrow I think you’ll find you were.’
It would take a better man than Dick Branson to make Andrew lose his cool. Jealous, that was Dick’s problem, and no wonder. He rested his hand lightly on Dick’s shoulder, feeling the muscle flinch involuntarily, and grinned at him. ‘And you did well, too, didn’t you?’
Dick’s face flushed angrily. Andrew was delighted. Dick the prick, he thought. Dick had scored three before being yorked by a ball he should have put over the fence. A real captain’s knock.
He went into the changing room, took off pads and box, came back outside, sat down with the others. They made room for him but no one spoke. He hadn’t expected them to. They didn’t like the way he spoke up for himself, would have dropped him if they could, but there was no chance of that. He was far and away the best batsman they’d got. He got a buzz out of knowing that they had to pick him, however much they hated it.
He sensed Jenni behind him before she spoke but did not turn his head. He had known she would be around somewhere.
‘Well done,’ she said.
‘I wasn’t out.’ Unlike his team mates, Jenni would believe him.
‘You scored a lot of runs, all the same.’
‘That’s not the point.’
She was the daughter of one of the local doctors. An airhead but so mad about him that he was willing to forgive her that. Jenni, his target for tonight.
The last wicket fell, they took their turn in the field, ran through the opposition in quick time. Halfway through the afternoon it was over.
Andrew had a shower, slipped into his casuals, slung the bag in the car, took off with Jenni without bothering to say cheers to the mates. Without his knock they would never have won but none of them had the guts to say so. Well, too bloody bad.
They were going to a concert in the city. Jenni had picked up the tickets from a mate who couldn’t go. Andrew had heard they were retailing at fifty bucks each: certainly worth a tankful of petrol. With a bit of luck he’d be able to charge the fuel to the farm account, anyway.
The stadium was jam-packed, the concert was great and he was able to give Jenni a bit of a feel while they listened to it. Afterwards they made for Hindley Street, took in a couple of clubs and by one in the morning were heading for home. Or thereabouts; home was the last place on Andrew’s itinerary. On Jenni’s, either, to judge by the way she was rubbing herself all over him.
It was gone two when they reached the lake, created when the Council had dammed the creek the previous year. There were trees, a place to park, even some electric barbeques. Andrew had doubted that anyone would be using them at this hour and had been right. There was no one there at all, a bonus he hadn’t expected. There were usually a few cars about on a Saturday night, everybody minding their own business.
He got out of the car, went to the boot and fished out the bottle of scotch. He yanked out the cork, had a good slug, wiped his mouth and handed the bottle to Jenni through the open passenger window.
‘Here you go.’
‘Should I?’ She giggled, a habit that could become irritating, tipped a teeny swallow.
‘Have more than that, for Christ’s sake.’
Obediently she did so, the booze went the wrong way, next thing she was coughing and spluttering, spilling whisky all over the show.
‘Don’t waste it!’
He grabbed the bottle, managed to save most of it. She coughed and coughed, red in the face, eyes streaming. He knew she wanted him to bang her on the back but, mad at her, did not. He took another slug, watching her. Eventually, not before time, she quietened down.
He pushed the cork back in the bottle, slung it in the back. Grinned at her. ‘Fancy a swim?’
She stared. ‘Here?’
No, on the railway line. ‘Of course here.’
‘I’ve got no bathers.’
‘So?’
She looked doubtful, not fancying the idea of going in without them. ‘What if someone comes?’
‘At this time of night?’ But could see she still wasn’t sure. ‘You don’t have to strip right off,’ he pointed out.
Talked her into it, eventually, as he had known he would.
She unzipped, struggled out of jeans and top. He admired her, the gleam of white flesh under the moon.
‘Nice.’
Warm night or not, she was shivering. He thought not from cold.
‘You coming in?’
‘Of course.’
He stripped down to his pants, dived into the dam, trod water while she came, more sedately, to join him. They swam up and down, Andrew keeping his distance.
‘Good?’
‘Great.’
Eventually they climbed out, stood dripping, Andrew still as good as gold.
‘There’s nothing to dry ourselves with.’
‘I’ve got a towel in the boot.’
He fetched it, stood watching as she rubbed herself. ‘Best take those things off,’ he said. ‘They’ll make your dress wet, otherwise.’ Saw she was about to refuse, said, ‘I won’t look if you don’t want me to.’
Turned his back without waiting for her reply. Watched her in the car’s side mirror, saw her step out of her things. Turned back.
‘My, my.’ Grinning appreciatively. Amazing how revealing moonlight could be.
Jenni squealed. ‘You promised —’
Using the towel as a shield. But was laughing, too, not too much offended.
Andrew stepped forward, put his arms around her, felt her shivering. Her skin was cool, very smooth. He kissed her, running his hands down her flanks and back. Her lips parted, she pushed closer. He stepped back an inch or two. The towel slipped free. She made a protesting noise in her throat but her lips were sealed by his own and he ignored it.
A flare of headlights came from the road, the sound of a speeding engine. Andrew opened the back door of the car.
‘Hop in,’ he told her. ‘In case someone comes.’
A blink of skin as she obeyed him, not wanting to be caught by anyone else. Andrew followed, pulled the door shut behind him.
There was flesh, warm and moist. He kissed her and it. No longer pretending to resist, she kissed him back. His hand travelled slowly. There. And there. She g
asped, arms tightening about his neck.
After that it was easy.
Afterwards she wanted assurance, as in Andrew’s experience they always did.
‘Are you really going to live at Coonalpyn?’
It might have been the Gobi Desert, the way she said it.
‘Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘What happens at Mindowie.’
Predictably, she didn’t understand.
‘I’m trying to talk Grandma into making it over to me. Once it’s mine there’ll be lots of things I’ll be able to do with it.’
Including sell it, but was not about to say so, even to this dumb bunny.
‘You think she might?’
‘Why not? Dad’s never been what you’d call keen on farming. Now he’ll be able to run sheep over at Coonalpyn instead. That’ll keep him out of mischief.’ He pulled her closer, kissing breasts salty with sweat. ‘Fancy the idea of living at Mindowie, do you?’
A question, not a promise, however she might choose to interpret it.
It seemed she did fancy it. Fancied one or two other things, too, as he proceeded to demonstrate.
It was almost four and half a bottle of scotch later by the time they climbed back into their clothes and drove home. He drove with one hand in her crotch, finger stroking, until she grabbed his hand, rubbing it against her.
‘Oh,’ she gasped. ‘Oh, oh, oh …’
He turned to grin at her as he pulled out into the main road. A deluge of glaring light, a bellow of air horns. Andrew swerved, too late. The speeding truck clipped them, flung them sideways.
The ministerial limousine eased its way through the crowded city streets, carrying Roberta to the latest of her report-back sessions with members of her constituency.
Sitting beside her in the back seat Jane Garland said, ‘They say there’ll be quite a mob.’
Over the years Roberta’s survival instincts had become razor-sharp. She turned at once, staring closely at her agent who, like herself, had spent a lifetime in politics. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Jane shrugged. ‘They aren’t happy.’
