A Time of Secrets (30 page)

‘What man?’

‘The one who stays with Violet. Not Lieutenant Ross.’ She paused, and smiled. ‘He’s just a confused boy.’ Her face folded into a frown. ‘I mean the other lieutenant.’

‘Lieutenant Cole?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Cole. He’s a bully to Violet and he trapped Dolly on the stairs yesterday. I heard him.’

‘It was me that he was horrible to yesterday, Mrs Campbell.’

‘No, it was Dolly. Yesterday evening before you got home. Terrible things he said to her. Called her vulgar names. Told her he’d tell Major Randall. Poor Dolly cried.’ Her grip on my hand tightened and she looked at me very seriously. ‘You canna show fear to a mad dog, Stella. If you do, he’ll bite. You tell that to Dolly.’

I took down the details of her solicitor and left her sitting alone among her treasures. I slowly climbed the stairs to our flat, wondering what Cole had said to Dolly and whether it had to do with Destro. But surely everything couldn’t be related to Destro.

My mind went back to Mrs Campbell. I’d have to get the inventory and then check all the contents of the display case to see if Mrs Campbell had been robbed. And if she had been robbed? What then? I had a strong feeling that if silver had gone missing, at least some of it had disappeared during the time I’d been at Avoca. Perhaps the missing spare key had been stolen. If so, by whom?

I was sure that her daily helper, Ada, would have watched any visiting tradesmen like a hawk. I couldn’t believe it was Ada who was stealing silver; she’d been looking after Mrs Campbell for twenty years. Dolly stayed as far away from Mrs Campbell as possible and never went into her flat except under sufferance. I knew that Violet had taken tea with her on a few occasions, but surely Violet wouldn’t steal silver. It was hopeless. There was no way I could know who’d visited Mrs Campbell, or who was a likely suspect.

Dolly was sitting on the couch painting her nails with liquid polish from her small and carefully conserved pre-war supply. She looked up when I entered the lounge room.

‘You look as miserable as a bandicoot.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Charming.’

‘Just improving your knowledge of Australian slang. What’s the matter?’

‘I think Mrs Campbell is being robbed.’

The hand holding the applicator jerked so that a tiny spot of vermillion landed on the back of Dolly’s hand. She frowned at it. ‘Bother. Look what you’ve made me do.’ She swept me a glance. Her eyes were cobalt blue under the standard lamp.

‘Why do you think so?’ she said. ‘Did she tell you that?’

‘No. But I checked and I do think some of her silver is missing. I’m going to write to her solicitor and ask for an inventory so I can make sure.’

Dolly went back to her nails. ‘If she thinks it’s all there, why interfere? If some silver is gone, why put her through the misery of
knowing
she’s been robbed? You’ll just upset her for nothing. She’d hate the police getting involved. Crawling over her flat. Telling her she’s too old to live alone.’

I chewed on my lip. Dolly had a point. Why worry Mrs Campbell? I knew that her money would go to four stepchildren she saw infrequently, and who were all wealthy in their own right. Would they really miss those less-expensive pieces of silver? The really valuable pieces were still there, after all.

‘But I hate the idea of someone being able to get into her flat at will,’ I argued. ‘I think her spare key’s been taken. What if she wakes in the night and catches the thief at it and he hurts her?’

Dolly held up a hand with nails of liquid red and shook it gently. I was reminded of bloody talons and felt rather revolted. ‘You can’t be sure that anything
was
taken,’ she said. ‘Get her to change the locks. Problem solved.’

Changing the locks was an excellent idea. That way I’d know exactly who had a key, and I could keep a key myself to ensure that Mrs Campbell could get out of the flat if there was a fire. I’d speak to Ada about it and see if she could arrange for new locks to be put in.

I smiled at Dolly. ‘You’re a bonzer sheila, a bit of all right, a beauty. That’s a corker of an idea.’

She laughed. ‘Yes, yes, and my blood’s worth bottling. Not too much Aussie, please. Not in your accent of cut glass. It just sounds . . .
wrong
.’

I sat beside her. ‘Doll, Mrs Campbell heard you and Lieutenant Cole having some sort of a fight on the stairs yesterday.’

She became very still; her hands were still outstretched like a cat about to pounce, but her face was white. ‘Did she hear what we were arguing about?’

‘No. But she heard him call you nasty names. She heard you crying. Are you all right? He caught me on the stairs yesterday morning and was horrid to me, too. Should we mention it to Captain Molloy?’

She swallowed and I saw some colour return to her cheeks. ‘It was an argument about work. He – he thinks I’ve been shirking my duties. He’s been in a foul mood ever since you were sent to work for Nick Ross.’

‘Did he want you to spy on me?’

‘That was the gist.’ Her voice was high and fast. ‘He wanted me to ask you what you’d been doing. I refused and he became very angry.’

‘I wish you didn’t have to work with the brute,’ I said.

‘Well, I do work with him. And there’s an end to it.’

*

The following Saturday, Dolly and Stanford invited a group of friends to dinner at the Athenaeum restaurant in Collins Street. By eleven o’clock they were all back at Avoca for nightcaps and the room was loud with tipsy hilarity. As usual, I was watching rather than joining in the festivities. I’d not drunk much at all, and was waiting for the party to end so I could go to sleep.

I was surprised to hear a knock at the door. Dolly went to answer it and I was even more surprised when she returned with Nick Ross. He walked into the room with his usual poise, tall, dark and broodingly good-looking in his khaki uniform. I saw the longing in Dolly’s eyes when she looked at Ross, and was worried to see Stanford watching her closely.

Ross’s smile was as sunny and unaffected as I had ever seen it.

‘I’m sorry to butt in like this,’ he said, after greetings had been exchanged. ‘I’d like a word with Stella. On the balcony?’

Dolly looked daggers at me as I followed Ross into the cold of a moonlit night. I pushed up the collar of my jacket against the chill air and breathed lightly into the material, so as not to set off the coughing. Although the moon was full, and we had streetlights again, it was hard to make out Ross’s features in the gloom. I squinted into his face.

‘Eric Lund has been found and evacuated to Brisbane,’ he said. ‘He was wounded in the field, and the wound got infected.’ His lip curled. ‘Damn tropical climate. He was cared for secretly in a native village, which is why they didn’t know where he was. The infection is clearing up fast now he’s had treatment and he’ll be back in Melbourne soon.’

Eric was alive
. He was alive and he’d be back in Melbourne soon. I felt as though I’d woken from a nightmare and I clasped my hands together tightly to stop the trembling.

‘How soon . . .?’

He seemed to be amused by my question; he said nothing. We looked at each other for a few thumping heartbeats.

‘Thank you for letting me know,’ I said.

Ross turned his head to look across the road to the dark shadows of Fawkner Park. His profile was like a Greek statue, too perfect for a real human being with real fears and hopes and desires. Perhaps that was his problem, I thought. He had always been too good-looking, too intelligent, and it had made him arrogant and self-destructive. But when I remembered what he’d said about blood and killing that terrible night when he told me Eric was missing, and I remembered the look on his face as he spoke about the failure of Kestrel, I couldn’t help wondering if the real problem was this war. It had placed Nick Ross into a situation he simply couldn’t handle, where he was in command of men, where he had to kill and where any mistake meant that people died. And he couldn’t cope with the guilt.

The silence was dragging on. I turned towards the doors into the flat. ‘Well, I’d better . . .’

He smiled into the darkness. ‘You’ve never liked me. Sensible woman.’

‘I don’t . . .’ I didn’t know what to say. He was a mystery to me, and to tell the truth, I had no idea how I felt about him, other than I was upset to think Dolly was risking losing everything because of her passion for him. I didn’t dislike Ross. In fact, the closer I worked with him the more I was growing to respect him, but I still mistrusted his easy charm.

‘You don’t dislike me?’

His voice was scarcely audible, and I wondered if he wanted an answer. As I didn’t know what to say to him, I stayed quiet. After another painful moment of silence, I again turned to go back inside. His hand on my arm stopped me. I froze. And, totally unexpectedly, he bent towards me and put his mouth on mine. His lips were soft and skilled, but it was the trembling hesitation that made me respond, against my will and reason. When he pulled away my mouth felt cold.

Even in the gloom I could see the triumph in his eyes. ‘I think you do like me, after all.’

I was shaking with fury. ‘Practising,’ I said, almost spitting out the word. ‘I was practising for when Eric gets back.’ I pulled my arm free. ‘And you were right. I really don’t like you.
Sir
.’

Head high and face burning, I went back into the warmth of our lounge room. The phonograph was playing ‘Swinging on a Star’ and the others were singing along. I joined in with gusto. I didn’t see Ross leave.

Twenty-seven

T
he following week had a nightmarish quality, although I tried my best to concentrate on finding the traitor before the Indigo team left for Timor. The problem was that Lieutenant Ross appeared to think that something had changed between us with the ridiculous kiss on the balcony, but it was unclear what he thought that change was. His moods were entirely unpredictable. One day he’d be charming, slip into my office with a cup of tea and settle in for a chat. The next day he’d be surly, brusque and almost rude. I was unsure how to handle him, as I felt as if I was walking on eggshells.

I wished I hadn’t responded to Ross’s kiss, but I knew myself well enough to know why I hadn’t pushed him away like an outraged virgin in a melodrama. I’d enjoyed kissing him. For a brief moment I’d reverted to Stella-before-Frank, the young woman who’d loved romance, excitement and easy charm. Young Stella had enjoyed kissing attractive men like Nick Ross; Stella-after-Frank was entirely different. So I maintained an air of distant politeness whenever Ross appeared that week, and hoped he’d take the hint.

Anyway, my mind was taken up with wondering about Eric: when would he return to Melbourne, when would he contact me? But as the days slipped by with no word from him, I couldn’t help but remember Ross’s question in the kitchen after Dolly’s bridge party:
Just how serious is it between you two?

How could it be serious? I’d only met Eric Lund three times, and although I’d written to him twice a week since he’d left, I’d never had a reply. By Saturday afternoon I was firmly convinced that for Eric at least, I had been merely a flirtation, a distraction in the short time before he departed for another dangerous mission.

So much for romance, I thought, as I walked home that evening.

Leroy telephoned early on Sunday morning to say that he’d just returned from a two-week posting to Townsville. He asked if I was free that night and I was glad to accept his invitation to dinner followed by dancing. I spent the day sketching by the river, returning just in time to get ready for my night out.

*

Leroy had a firm hold of my arm as we walked along Nicholson Street. We were on our way to the Palais Royale
in the eastern annexe of the Exhibition Building, which was one of three ballrooms that had recently begun opening on Sunday nights for the troops’ entertainment. The ornate and rather lovely Royal Exhibition Building itself was being used for temporary RAAF troop accommodation and training. Huts had been erected on the oval behind the ballroom and the troops used the Great Hall as a mess hall.

I got some cold glances from people who passed us, which surprised me, because I was older than most of the girls who dated Yanks, and Leroy was an officer. The Americans had been given a riotously ecstatic welcome when they first arrived in early 1942 – two hundred thousand gathered in Melbourne to greet them – but now things were changing. Dolly had shrieked with laughter when she told me the latest joke that was doing the rounds.

‘Oh, Stella,’ she’d said, ‘it goes like this. In China the custom is to throw baby girls to the sharks, but in Australia we raise them to the age of seventeen or eighteen and throw them to the Yanks.’

We passed the young men in light blue RAAF uniforms who were hanging around outside the ballroom’s arched entrance and went through into the lobby.

‘I can’t get past the child labour you have in this country,’ said Leroy, when the very young girl in the cloakroom had taken our coats and hats.

‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘All of those kids you’ve got working when they’re only fourteen or fifteen, even thirteen, some of them. They’d still be at high school in the States.’ Leroy shook his head. ‘Maybe that’s why your Aussie males are so hopeless when it comes to the girls.’