A Time of Secrets (10 page)

If Eric was reporting to Captain Molloy, either he was going to be briefed for a mission, or they wanted to interrogate him about what I’d reported yesterday. Neither alternative was good. The walls of the corridor seemed to draw in around me as I knocked on the panelled door.

‘Yes, what is it?’ The heavy wood muffled his voice.

I turned the knob and pushed it open. Captain Molloy was at his desk in the large room. Behind him was a pair of windows overlooking the front garden. He was smoking a pipe. The windows were open, but the room smelled strongly of tobacco. On the narrow space between the windows a large crucifix was hanging and on the opposite wall were the usual maps of the South Pacific Front. The captain looked up from the papers he’d been reading and frowned. Aged around forty, he was short, burly and energetic, with a big head, a fresh complexion and a thatch of black hair that was turning grey. His eyes – an unusual grey-green colour – were his most notable feature and they were scrutinising me now. I saluted.

‘Yes, Sergeant?’ He sounded impatient.

‘Sorry, sir. The phones are acting up. I’ve been asked to tell you Staff Sergeant Lund is here.’

‘Thank you. Bring him up.’

I hesitated. The captain’s expression sharpened, and I got the full force of those eyes. ‘Anything you want to tell me, Sergeant? You’ve got the look of someone who wants to divulge something.’

‘Is Staff Sergeant Lund here because of what I told Lieutenant Ross yesterday?’

‘Yes, in part. I needed to see him anyway, though.’

‘Lieutenant Ross suggested that I mentioned Staff Sergeant Lund’s name to pay him back for this.’ I held up my arm. ‘But that’s not so.’

Captain Molloy gave a humourless bark of laughter. ‘That’s right. Your dance injury.’ His expression became contemplative. ‘For the record, I don’t suspect Staff Sergeant Lund of being involved in any murder plots against Lieutenant Ross.’ He made a waving motion with his hand. ‘Send him up.’ He picked up his telephone receiver and pushed a button. That meant it was an internal call.

‘Sergeant Aldridge.’ His voice reached me before I’d fully closed the door.

I turned around. ‘Yes, sir?’

‘Phones seem to be dead. Would you tell Captain Deacon and Lieutenant Cole that Staff Sergeant Lund is here?’

The senior officers of APLO, all meeting with Eric. It must be important. I swallowed nervously. They were going to send him away somewhere, to a place where he’d need to be tough and resourceful and ruthless, just as Lieutenant Ross had described him. The thought made me want to cry. Eric was more than that, he was also a man who delighted in the beauty of an old mansion, who danced like a dream and who took the time to visit a mate’s girl to tell her the worst news imaginable.

Captain Henry Deacon looked up when I entered his room and gave me a weary smile. He was twenty-four, with a diffident, fair-haired, well-bred look about him. Dolly said he had the job only because he was socially very well connected. I thought that Dolly was unfair to say so as, despite his youth, Captain Deacon was an excellent officer. I gave him the message and walked along the corridor to Lieutenant Cole’s office.

‘Come.’ His response to my knock was brusque.

I opened the door. Lieutenant Cole had a reputation as a lady-killer, which made me wary of him. I’d had little to do with him since my arrival at Goodwood, although as he was Dolly’s superior officer, she knew him well. She liked him very much. His room overlooked the side garden, but the windows were shut. Like Captain Molloy he was smoking a pipe; in the smaller room the air was fetid and I found it hard to breathe without coughing.

‘Sir, Captain Molloy asked me to tell you that Staff Sergeant Lund is on his way up.’

‘You’re Sergeant Aldridge, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He puffed at his pipe as he gave me a long and insultingly thorough inspection. I stood easy in front of him, unsmiling. He was a handsome enough man, well built with broad shoulders, but his eyes were nothing special, a pale muddy-brown colour with rather grey-tinted whites.

‘Hurt your hand. Lund’s fault, I hear.’

White smoke hung in the air between us, like a stinking miasma. I took small, shallow breaths and willed myself not to cough.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Take it as a lesson, Sergeant, and in future only dance with officers. Want me to send the blighter somewhere his brute strength can do some good?’

‘No, sir. It was an accident.’

He laughed. ‘Well, he’s going away anyway. Thank you for letting me know he’s here.’

I turned towards the door. They were sending Eric away, I thought, into danger.

‘Sergeant?’

I twisted around, with one hand gripping the doorknob hard, as if it were a lifeline in a stormy sea. Lieutenant Cole was smiling at me; I disliked his smile.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Be sure to save me a dance at Sergeant Harper’s party on Wednesday.’

‘I won’t be dancing, sir.’ I held up my bandaged hand.

‘Pity.’

I collected Eric from reception. As he followed me up the stairs I wondered how much I should tell him.

‘Captain Molloy knows how I got this,’ I said, raising my bandaged hand. ‘It’s hard to keep anything secret from him.’ I was hoping he’d take it as a warning.

Eric’s voice was noncommittal. ‘I’ve met him before, and I try not to. My leave’s been cut short and I’m expecting to be sent away from Melbourne.’

It was odd how bleak the thought of him leaving Melbourne made me feel. I remembered that I’d wanted to punch him on the parade ground, and wondered why it was that my feelings towards him were going up and down like the Big Dipper ride at Luna Park.

He lifted a hand to brush his hair off his forehead. The knuckles were very red and bruised. It was obvious that he’d been in a fight.

‘What did you do when you left me on Saturday?’ I asked.

‘Acted like an idiot.’

I looked at him. He didn’t elaborate.

As we turned into the corridor, Captain Deacon was entering Captain Molloy’s office, together with Lieutenant Ross. Captain Deacon saw us and nodded. Ross and Eric shared a long, unsmiling look; Ross’s bruises seemed, if anything, worse this morning. Ross followed Deacon into the room and the door closed behind them.

Eric had stopped walking and his hand was clenched into a fist. I hated to see it, and felt my heart rate increase. Ross had said Eric Lund was a brutal fighter. I wondered what it would be like to feel that fist in my face, splintering bone, bruising flesh. I found I had crossed my good arm over my chest and was rubbing it up and down the opposite sleeve of my jacket. It was a nervous habit that I was trying to get over. I let my hand fall to my side.

‘You spend much time with him?’ Eric nodded towards the closed door. Somehow I knew he meant Ross and not Henry Deacon.

‘No. I usually work with Captain Deacon.’

There was a brief, unsmiling nod from Eric in reply. Was Eric the jealous type? I had to stop myself from clutching at my arm again. I disliked and feared jealous types.

But I let the thought slide away when I looked at him again, this time as an artist would view a subject. His eyes were a deep teal blue, a really beautiful colour. There was humour and irony etched in the lines and planes of his face. Also reticence; this was a man who would guard his emotions, hold his thoughts close. And I saw integrity, together with an underlying toughness. You’d have to earn Eric Lund’s regard.

His blue eyes were fixed on me and I wondered what he saw. A similar wariness and reserve? Perhaps a touch of fear? I could not imagine Eric Lund ever being afraid, but they said only fools were never afraid. I knew I was too often scared. Did Eric see self-loathing in my face? Did he see desire?

‘You’re going to be briefed for a mission, aren’t you?’ I clutched at his arm, staring at him stupidly, my mind now empty of coherent thoughts. Beneath the rough wool of his jacket I felt hard muscles contract under my touch and something flickered in his eyes.

‘Don’t worry about me, summer girl,’ he said. I wondered why he’d call me that, until I recalled what I’d said at the dance. It touched me that he’d remembered. ‘Concentrate on getting that hand better, and decide if you want to risk another dance when I come back.’

He reached up to brush my right hand as it gripped his arm. The feeling of skin on skin brought other feelings, just as intense. He let his hand fall away.

‘I might not have made it clear,’ he went on, ‘but I can’t forgive myself for hurting you like that, running out on you like that.’

‘Please do,’ I said. ‘I have.’

He seemed to flinch. ‘I had to help a mate. A stupid idiot who should’ve known better.’

I let go of his arm and looked down at the hall carpet. Its complicated Persian design was dizzyingly beautiful and I had a sudden wish to point it out to Eric, to see if we shared a common delight in such intricately elegant objects. I wanted to spend more time with Eric Lund, find out if the attraction I felt for him could be the basis of something real, or if it was simply the sort of hot and hollow passion that I’d felt for Frank, a fervent and ultimately empty ardour that would end in wretchedness for us both.

‘You serious about that American captain?’ He laughed slightly, without any humour in the sound. ‘Captain America.’

I tried not to smile at the thought of Leroy in the garish uniform worn by the hero of the comic books that the young US marines so enjoyed reading.

‘Leroy and I – we’re friends,’ I said.

‘Just friends?’

I nodded briefly, my eyes still on the rug. ‘Do you like the rug design?’ I asked, finally looking up.

There was an odd look on his face. Bemusement? ‘I think it’s gorgeous. I haven’t seen one this fine for a while. I’d like to paint it.’

‘You paint?’

‘Pen and ink, mainly. I like to concentrate on the detail. That’s probably why I turned to architecture.’

My voice was hesitant. ‘Um, before the war I trained for a while at the National Art School in Sydney, as a watercolourist mainly. And in Paris before that.’ I laughed at his obvious surprise. ‘You should see me when I don’t have to wear this horrid uniform. I’m quite the bohemian artist – scarves, slacks, peasant blouses, brightly coloured outfits – the whole thing. I’m a walking cliché.’

I had the full force of his eyes again, together with that smile, the one that seemed to light up the room. If I was painting him I’d use a deep teal blue for his eyes, and I’d add a fleck of gold, just to show how very
alive
he was.

‘Look, Stella, can I see you again? Tonight? I’ll probably be leaving tomorrow and I don’t know when I’ll get back to Melbourne.’

‘If you like. I mean . . . I’d like that.’

He pulled a little sketchpad from his trouser pocket, together with a soft pencil, the sort used for sketching.

‘Would you write down your telephone number for me?’ When I took the sketchpad from him, it was still warm from his body. ‘Feel free to look through it,’ he said. ‘I sketch whenever I’ve got a free moment; it’s a nervous habit. I’ve done it since I was a boy.’

I couldn’t imagine Eric Lund ever being nervous, but I leafed through the book, examined his sketches. They were beautiful, drawn in a spare style, where what was left out somehow conveyed more than the lines actually drawn on the page. Jungle scenes, street scenes, birds, foliage, people, all vividly portrayed in a few skilled lines. He was good – very good.

‘Is that how you see me?’ I asked, staring at the sketch of a woman with fair hair, full lips and a wary expression.

‘That was my first impression. At Leggett’s, when I asked you to dance. When you didn’t trust me.’

‘Who says I trust you now?’ I wrote Dolly’s phone number under the sketch and handed the book back to him with a smile, to show it was a joke.

We stared at each other, and the walls seemed to move in a dizzying arc around me as he leaned in closer.

‘I’ll telephone you at six thirty.’

He abruptly turned away from me, knocked at the door and went in.

I stood in the corridor, staring after him. I didn’t want this. I didn’t trust instant attraction. The little frisson of excitement that had rippled through me when I first saw Eric Lund, the trembling in my chest and my belly, such feelings were likely to lead only to misery. I’d learned
that
the hard way.

I ran down the back stairs that led to the old drawing room I shared as an office with two young clerks. Mary Massey was humming the AWAS song to herself when I came in. I’d gone through basic training with eighteen-year-old Mary, who was a chubby little brunette with a habit of giggling. She had a thrill on Jim Pope, who teased her mercilessly and otherwise tended to ignore her. His lack of interest blighted her life and she would ask me for tips on how to engage him. It amused me that she thought I’d have anything useful to tell her.

‘
Oh, the AWAS girls are happy
,’ she sang. ‘
The AWAS girls are free; the AWAS girls are happy when they are on the spree
.’ She looked up at me and grinned. I smiled back.