Читать книгу Money in the Morgue - Stella Duffy, Ngaio Marsh - Страница 9

Rosamund Farquharson had been under orders to return to duty before seven o’clock. Already she was two hours late and had not yet reached the bridge. The bus, she reflected, must be nearly in by now. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Soon there wouldn’t be any more petrol anyway. The fat bag on her lap gave her a grand feeling of independence. A hundred pounds! She could see the pay-out clerk peering at her from his window behind the totalisator. ‘You can collect from the Jockey Club’s offices tomorrow, you know.’ Not she! She wanted to feel the notes in her bag. She supposed twenty pounds would have to go to the people she’d bought the car from. And twenty-five to the dress shop. And another five to Maurice. It would be something to be able to pay back that five pounds to Maurice. She’d be very formal when she gave it to him. ‘It was awfully kind of you. I shouldn’t have let you do it. I’ve been quite worried about it. Thank you so much.’ Or would that look as though she’d noticed the change in him? Would it be better to be casually friendly? ‘Oh, by the way, Maurice, here’s your fiver. I’m rolling in wealth, did you know? Had a marvellous day.’ Let him think she was having fun without him. Hint at an exciting encounter at the races. She’d go to Military 1 as soon as she got in, still wearing the races dress. It made her feel something special and he could see it for himself. Sister Comfort would be on duty but she’d make some excuse. She’d say she’d put a few bob on for him at the races. Or would he think she was—? A feeling of the most bitter desolation came upon her. She experienced, like a physical sickness, a realisation that no matter what she did there could be no return to the old days. As though her pain was a sort of emotional toothache, she began to explore its cavities for the sheer horror of aggravating the screaming nerve. He had lent her the fiver because he was uncomfortable about her. The Johnson woman down at the Bridge pub had cut her out. He was crazy about Sukie Johnson, crazier than he had ever been for Rosamund herself, and that was because she could offer him far more than Rosamund ever could. When Rosamund met up with Maurice now, it was only because he was a patient and she a clerk here at Mount Seager. ‘He’s moved on from me,’ she thought in a crescendo of pain. And having reached a point where she could endure her self-torture no longer she began to hunt for an antidote. She would after all win him back. He’d see her tonight in this lovely frock. He’d be as excited as she was about her winnings. In less than a fortnight he’d be sent back to camp, training and up to the minute tactics and all that. He’d be shipped out again soon enough, but before then she’d see him admit to missing her, she’d borrow a studio and throw a marvellous party for him, a farewell, and a welcome of sorts, welcome back Maurice. Rosamund began to weave plans, muffling her pain with vivid dreams of reconciliation and renewed happiness. By the time she got to the end of Long Leg, the antidote had worked and she felt a kind of gaiety that almost matched the vibrance of her beautiful yellow dress.

It was quite dark when she finally reached the bridge. Her small car bumped over the rattling, uneven planks. At the far end, the road divided. It turned sharply to the left through a patch of dense native bush making a wide angle with a track that ran uphill ending at the Bridge Hotel one way or straight ahead to Mount Seager. As Rosamund drove on to the hospital, her dipped headlamps picked up six white objects that moved alongside the road, stopped, and darted back again. She pulled up short and switched on the beam.

The white objects were resolved into pyjama-clad shins, cut off at the bottom by socks and boots and at the top by army great-coats, the poor fellows must have been sweltering in them. Rosamund leaned out of the driving window.

‘And what the hell do you think you’re up to?’ she asked pleasantly.

‘That’s all right, Miss,’ said a sheepish voice. ‘On your way.’

‘Turn them lights off for Gawsake,’ cried a second voice.

Rosamund switched off the lights and produced a torch which she turned on the owner of the sheepish voice, revealing a long sallow face with a disgruntled expression and a pair of watchful eyes.

‘Private Pawcett, I see.’

‘How’re you doing, Rosie? You haven’t seen a thing now, have you?’

‘Who knows?’ said Rosamund. ‘You’re taking a chance, aren’t you? This is the third time. You’ll catch a packet this trip, Bob.’

‘Cut it out, Rosie, be a sport.’

‘We’ll see. Who are your friends?’

The circle of light shifted. A second face, darker than the first, with smart, bright eyes, blinked nervously.

‘Hul-lo!’ said Rosamund. ‘The pride of Military 1 on the razzle. What’s come over our Corporal Brayling? You don’t usually let yourself get mixed up in your mates’ antics, Cuth.’

An unsteady hand moved across his face.

‘He’s fed up,’ Private Pawcett explained. ‘Poor old Cuth’s fed up. Look, his missus is going to have a kid and they won’t let him off to go and see her. He’s feeling that crook about it all he had to do something. Hadn’t you, Cuth?’

‘I wouldn’t of gone to the house,’ Corporal Brayling protested. ‘I told them I wouldn’t go near her. I could’ve just sent a message. I don’t want to give her the fever. I’m OK now anyway, none of us are infectious and we’ll get discharged soon enough. Ah, it’s all no good.’

‘Tough luck,’ said Rosamund lightly.

‘We brought ’im along for a drink,’ Private Pawcett said. ‘He needed it.’

‘“We”?’ Rosamund repeated. ‘That reminds me. I haven’t met the third gentleman.’

The light dodged about a little, momentarily revealing a bank covered in wild thyme and a thicket of dark leafy scrub, before it found the third figure, coming to a stop upon the back of a sleek dark head.

‘Turn round,’ Rosamund said breathlessly.

He turned slowly.

The silence was broken by Corporal Brayling digging Private Pawcett in the ribs. ‘Come on, Bob, reckon we’d better get a move on,’ he said.

‘You’re right there, mate. OK Cheerio, Rosie!’

‘Hooray, Rosie!’

They moved away, their heavy boots crunching up the loose shingle.

‘Had a good day, Roz?’ Maurice Sanders cried.

Private Pawcett and Corporal Brayling picked up their pace a little, the better to be away from whatever their mate was about to say to the Farquharson girl. No doubt about it, she knew she had a face on her and a fair shift of a shape at that, but Sanders couldn’t half push his luck at times.

‘He needs to go easy on her, can’t play around with a girl like that and not come unstuck in the end,’ said Corporal Brayling.

‘As if you’d know,’ sniggered Private Pawcett.

‘I wouldn’t want to know, would I? Not with my Ngaire hapū and the baby coming soon enough. I’m not like you blokes.’

‘Nah sport, sure you’re not.’

‘I’m not,’ Brayling insisted, his step slowing, his voice dangerously low.

Pawcett laughed unkindly, the extra pint he’d downed before they left the pub meant he didn’t notice the change in Brayling’s tone, ‘You mean her old man’d drag you off back to the pā and go old-style Māori on you if you cheated his girl?’

Brayling stopped in his tracks and Pawcett realized he’d gone too far. In the faint spill of light from the porch of Civilian 1, the solid and strong Māori man looked as fierce as ever he’d seen him. Pawcett kicked himself, his mother had always said his mouth would get him hung one of these days.

‘Mate, I’m sorry,’ Pawcett said. ‘I didn’t mean it, not like that, but you’ve got to admit, your Ngaire’s old man is one hell of a—’

‘Rangatira? Chief? Too right he is,’ Cuthbert Brayling answered his own question. ‘And his iwi and mine go back a long way, all the way “back to the pā”, if you like. I’d never muck around with these girls like you lot. My Ngaire, she’s a queen, she’s everything to me.’

‘Cuth, mate, play the—,’ Pawcett stopped himself just in time, ‘Play the game.’

Their voices faded in the darkness. They’d served together now for almost two years, alongside their reckless mate Sanders, trusting each other with their lives, comrades and brothers, and it was only back in New Zealand that the differences between them became bigger than the bonds forged in action. They were both relieved to be alongside the hospital offices now, it meant they had to hush, it meant they had to work together. If there was one thing they’d learned in the army it was how to work together.

Brayling doubled over and started moaning, Pawcett held him up, they stumbled towards the door of Military 1, making as much noise as they could, no sneaking in, no pretending they hadn’t been out playing the wag.

Pawcett called out as they crossed the threshold, ‘Hey Nurse, Nursey! Cuth’s only been and gone sleepwalking again, we told you what a palaver it was with him over in Africa, give us a hand girlie, will you?’

The little nurse started up at his words and hurried to the porch door, shushing him as she went.

Pawcett kept up his loud recitation, well aware that none of the men in the ward would be sleeping yet and they’d enjoy the scene he was about to give them.

‘Problem is, Nurse, you lot insist we have an afternoon kip every day, but where’s the rest when we’ve to keep an eye out for Cuth? A caution he is for sleepwalking, honest. And Gawd knows where Sanders has got to. He was worried about Cuth heading over to the river, stone me if we’re not in for a flood the minute that storm hits, or worse, what if he’d got into one of those tunnels under here? The place is riddled with them. Be a love and help us out, will you?’

Sanders meanwhile, was offering Rosamund his best self-satisfied grin. Faced with his cheery good looks, his twinkling eyes and the dark curl that fell over his left eye, no matter how often he combed it back, not to mention the knowing smile that Rosamund had promised herself she would ignore, she felt her resolve melting away. The tough carapace of a girl who cared nought for his charms, a girl who was as easily distracted by other young men as Sanders was by Sukie Johnson, faded all too swiftly into that old yearning. It was a wanting made still more painful because Rosamund knew Maurice would have spent his stolen hour at the pub carrying on with Sukie over the bar, hoping that her old man was as daft as he looked. Still, she had rehearsed her lines and she knew her new yellow dress looked pretty darn good, so she gave it her best shot.

‘Oh, it’s you Maurice, I might have known you’d be out carousing with the boys.’

Sanders smiled his lop-sided grin, ‘You should have come along, Rosie, plenty of honest blokes in the saloon bar, a lovely girl like you’d have no trouble picking up a beau, ’specially not in a frock like that, showing it off for all you’re worth.’

His words stung, but Rosamund brazened it out, ‘And get into even hotter water than I am already, two hours late for my shift and Sister Comfort on the warpath? No fear. Besides, the Bridge Hotel’s lost some of its allure lately.’

‘Blimey! “Allure” is it now? There’s a phrase if ever I heard one. Picked that one up in London did you? Fair enough. I reckon a backwater boozer like the Bridge isn’t for the likes of you. Mind you, the beer’s a darn sight cheaper there than it is back in town, and some of us,’ he stepped closer, too close, but Rosamund stood her ground, ‘some of us aren’t quite as fit in the pocket as we ought to be, are we, love?’

Rosamund smiled and slowly lifted her handbag, she reached in, clicked open the clasp on her mother’s red leather purse and carefully peeled away a five pound note from the larger bundle. She planted a deep red kiss right on Captain Cook’s face on the outer note of the bundle before she put it safely back in her purse. She was glad to see the sight of the money wiped the smile off Maurice’s face, if only for a moment.

‘Didn’t you hear?’ she asked lightly.

‘Hear what?’

‘I’d have thought it’d be all round Mount Seager by now, can’t imagine the girls on the late transport would be talking about anything else, you know how they love a gossip.’

‘What would? Where’s all that money from, Roz? Who’ve you robbed blind?’

‘My horse only went and came in, Maurice. So here’s your fiver, and I’ll thank you for the loan, and that’s you and I quits, don’t you think?’

‘Ah, Roz love, come on girl, don’t give a bloke a hard time. I’ll be given my clean bill any day now and once we’re off back to camp I reckon they’ll ship us out again quick as you like. You can’t blame me for taking my chances, can you?’

Rosamund was about to answer him truthfully, to say that of course she didn’t blame him, she couldn’t imagine how horrid it must be to be lying out here in the hospital, hating being ill and then worrying even more about getting better, knowing that would mean heading back off to war and still no end in sight, things getting worse by the week if the news from England was anything to go by. The lads might bluster to each other, bluster to the nurses as well, but before Maurice had turned his lovely smile to Mrs Johnson across the bar of the Bridge Hotel, he’d confided some of the horrors to her. His worry that it had made him look soft had only made her warm to him more. She was about to give in, about to step forward, ready to turn off the torch, when a far brighter light shone on the two of them and Sister Comfort’s furious whisper saved her from herself.

‘Miss Farquharson! I shall see you in Matron’s office in five minutes. As for you, Private Sanders, you’ve had your final warning. I’m taking this to Sergeant Bix, I can promise you that.’

Rosamund shook herself and stepped back, almost glad of the trouble, and Maurice Sanders watched her walk away from him, lit by Sister Comfort’s torch. Taking in the line of the neatly-fitting yellow dress he pursed his lips to whistle and only just stopped himself.

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ he thought, ‘you’ve given the poor girl enough of a run around as it is. Let her be.’