Dark Fires Shall Burn (31 page)

‘Where did you get yours?' She fixes a knowing eye on him.

‘I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours.'

‘Alright, then.' Dot grins. ‘I took it from Dolly's strongbox.'

‘What?' He jumps up in delighted horror as Roberta gasps at Dot's revelation. ‘But you said — you said that Lorraine set you up!'

‘I lied, didn't I? Dolly was not paying us what we were owed.'

‘But to take it — holy fucking Mary! She could've killed you. She
would
have killed you — and worse,' Templeton says admiringly.

‘I can't believe it,' says Roberta, shaking her head with approval.

‘I did not do it all in the one go.' Dot looks at his bug-eyed expression. ‘
Idiota
! I started chipping off the little bits and pieces ever since we got there.'

‘But what if someone caught you?'

‘I thought of it as a fuckwit tax. Every time Errol or Snowy or one of the punters was a fuckwit, I helped myself.'

Templeton's mouth hangs open. Dot mimes pouring gin into it and laughs. ‘Also, I knew that Lorraine would say something about me sooner or later. Theft was the easiest to pin on me, especially after that story of hers, and Dolly explodes like a volcano. But I knew Dolly would be — how do you say it? —
canny
enough to know that Lorraine was trying to set me up, so really Lorraine did me the favour. I knew she would take money herself — turns out only five pounds — and try to blame me. So I walk away with twenty and Dolly thinking I did not really take it. So she is not going to cut me, but she has to do
something
, to save face — you see what I am saying — so she kicks me out and then she is just biding her time to get Lorraine.'

‘That's … that's …' Templeton looks deep into his gin and then pulls out a broad smile, glowing with admiration. ‘That's bloody masterful.'

‘Well, I cannot say I am sorry. I took it for a rainy day. And what do you know, lovelies?' Dot laughs and takes a gulp of gin. ‘It is raining.'

‘Shall I wait with you?' Dot clasps Roberta's shoulders the next morning. It is early; the sky is only beginning to turn light.

Templeton notices that Roberta is shivering, even though she's wrapped in Dot's fur. That's not the only thing he noticed: he also observed that she spent last night in Dot's bed.

Roberta's face is pale with fear as they loiter in front of an ordinary-looking terrace on Stanley Street. A ripping southerly's blown in from the coast, tossing the branches of the skeletal trees. The row of houses, squat and seemingly endless, stretches on. He wonders if this is even the right place. But bars on the windows, green letterbox: it's the right one.

‘No. I'll be alright,' says Roberta.

‘Are you sure? I don't mind. I can stay just to be there while they — when it happens.'

‘No. I'll be fine.'

‘I'll be here when it's all over then. He said it would only take an hour.'

Dot kisses Roberta firmly on the cheek and watches as she climbs the steps and raps the lionshead knocker. After she's knocked, she crumples: Templeton can see her shoulders give way. She looks back at them with entreating eyes.

An elderly woman opens the door. Her whole body is made up of various shades of grey: hair, skin, shoes, and a grey dress girded by a white apron. ‘Who is needing the procedure?' She looks grimly at Roberta and then her eyes flicker to Dot. Even her irises are grey.

‘I do,' Roberta says, with a found strength in her voice.

‘Then you will come with me. Are you the father?' The old woman asks Templeton.

‘Uh — well … what?' He is caught off guard.

‘Hmm,' she says, eyes narrowing in disapproval, and turns away.

They follow her down the corridor and find their way to straight-backed seats in the cramped, musty parlour. The place still has the blackout paper up on the windows, Templeton notices.

‘Wait here. Ten minutes,' the woman tells Roberta, as if she is telling her what time to expect the bus. ‘The doctor will be along shortly. Do not go wandering off. If you need the lavatory, ring the bell.' She walks away, and he can hear her horrible footfalls on the old creaking floorboards.

‘Thank you?' Roberta answers after her retreating back.

The house seems to bow and sway in the grip of the gale outside.

A minute later, the woman returns to the room. ‘Ahem.' She coughs and gestures with her palm out. ‘Ten pounds.'

‘Oh! Yes, of course. I'm sorry.' Roberta takes the envelope of folded bills Dot has given her and hands it over. The woman grabs it impatiently, counts it in front of her, and walks primly back to her post down the corridor. Templeton looks about him. A clock ticks loudly on an otherwise bare wall. The only furniture is the two stark bench seats. He and Dot awkwardly occupy one, but Roberta remains standing in the middle of the room, clasping and unclasping her hands.

‘It's all going to be fine,' Templeton whispers, bright as he can muster.

Roberta smiles wanly.

‘You'll be alright. We'll be here waiting when it's over.'

‘Lucky. Just … stop talking.' Roberta looks very nervous.

Fifteen minutes pass, then twenty, and finally the woman comes wordlessly to collect Roberta and lead her down the corridor. Roberta looks at Dot and swallows. When her eyes meet Templeton's, he smiles to reassure her but she shifts her gaze away.

Dot gestures for Templeton to follow Roberta. He creeps down the corridor after her and enters a room directly opposite the one she is shown into, slotting himself behind the wooden mantle of a doorframe so as not to be seen.

When he hears the door to Roberta's room swing open, he peeks around to see a man in a waistcoat with rolled-up shirtsleeves. He's stout, with small round glasses sitting on the brink of his nose. Behind him is a younger man, taller but sparrow-chested, with a cowlick of ginger hair that refuses the pomade he has applied over-generously.

‘Alright,' the waistcoated doctor announces loudly. Templeton imagines him taking out his pocket watch to consult it; he can almost hear the punctilious ticking of the seconds. He wonders how Roberta must feel. ‘If you'll follow me, please.' He turns on his heel back into the corridor, walking down to another room.

Templeton ducks into an alcove. He can feel Roberta hesitate. ‘Do I —?'

‘You may leave your things here, it's perfectly safe,' the younger man instructs. ‘Purse, gloves, and please take off your shoes and stockings.'

She does so and shuffles barefoot into the chamber at the end of the corridor. Templeton tries to catch her eye from his hidey-hole, but her head is down, her eyes focused on the worn boards. He edges after her and finds that he can peer around the door while the men are absorbed. Looking in, he sees a stripped mattress in a room with barely space for anything but the tray of bottles and instruments that stands next to it.

‘Lie down please and remove your undergarments.'

Roberta is crying but trying to hold it in as she lies down on the bed, holding her scanties in her hands. The doctor moves between Roberta's legs and presses her abdomen, murmuring things to the younger man. Templeton averts his eyes as the doctor moves to inspect her with his fingers.

‘Jolly good. Not too far along,' he says. ‘Not too much trouble.'

Leaning back against the wall, Templeton imagines Roberta shutting her eyes and keeping them screwed closed as the doctor's fingers move and she tries to stay rigid and still. She gives a sharp cry of pain, which is quickly muffled, and he knows she has shoved a fist in her mouth. It must feel as though the doctor is coring an apple inside of her.

‘Lie still.'

After a silence, the doctor announces that he is done. Templeton peers around the doorframe and sees with shock that there is blood on the mattress, between her legs. He remembers again the sheet with the hem of blue daisies, ruined. His mother lying prostrate on the bed, the baby with its umbilical cord, purple and knotted, still attached.

‘Expect some bleeding,' he hears the doctor say briskly. ‘Nothing to be concerned about. And you may have cramps for a day or so.'

She is instructed to dress and wash up at the basin in the corner while the men absent themselves. He creeps back to the first room, making it just in time.

After waiting a few moments, Templeton looks out and sneaks into Roberta's room, knocking softly as he enters. ‘Are you okay?' he asks quietly.

Roberta is bent double, clutching her belly, her face green. ‘No. Get out of here, Lucky. They'll catch you,' she says.

Templeton creeps back to the parlour and Roberta follows minutes later, huddled, moving slowly. It is as if she has somehow been crushed and reassembled, Templeton thinks.

‘You're going to be alright.' Dot rushes over and wraps her arms around her shoulders. ‘It's over now.'

Roberta says weakly, ‘If I could perhaps lie down …'

‘Let's get you home,' Dot says firmly.

They pay for the extravagance of a taxi to Tipper's. Dot is helping Roberta out when they hear a man's voice come from the side of the house, where it is dark: ‘Hello.'

‘What are you doing here?' Dot asks Bob Newham, as he steps out into the thin morning light.

‘Uh — well, I …' Bob takes off his hat and seems to knead the brim, holding it before him. He looks at Roberta almost shyly. ‘I thought I'd come and see …'

‘He's here because it's his,' Roberta blurts out.

‘What?' Templeton can't hold in his surprise. ‘You two know each other?' His eyes go to Dot, but her face is inscrutable.

‘It's his. Or it was his. It's done, Bob.'

Bob's drawn face softens in relief. He nods. ‘Good. Good then.' They stand in silence for a moment.

‘Inside,' Dot says, as she helps the weakening Roberta into her arms. ‘She needs to get inside. Templeton, help me.' She moves to block Bob from stepping in. Templeton darts to bolster her, and they take Roberta inside together.

Bob looks on helplessly, twirling his hat in his hands. ‘Righto.' He clears his throat. ‘I'm going out for a few,' he says. ‘If I'm not needed.'

On the bed, Roberta is sweating heavily. Within moments she has kicked the sheets off and twisted them around her ankles in a Gordian knot.

‘Is this normal?' Templeton asks Dot, panicked.

‘It's fine. She's going to be fine,' Dot says soothingly. ‘Look at me, Roberta. You're going to be fine.'

The mauve lampshade throws sick purple shadows across every complexion.

‘Dot?' Roberta tries to raise herself up on her elbows, grabbing for Dot's blouse.

‘Yes, I'm here. I'm right here.'

‘I didn't want to … with Bob.'

‘Alright. It's alright. Lie back.'

‘I thought about you. Most times I was thinking about you.'

‘Alright, quiet now.' Dot gently takes her wrists and tries to settle her back down against the pillows. She turns to Templeton. ‘The pain. She doesn't know what she is saying.'

‘No, of course. Shall I fetch something for her? A tonic? A glass of water?' Templeton asks.

‘Water.' Dot nods.

‘I want to take you to the baths at Coogee beach,' Roberta says, finally submitting and lying back, but still holding Dot's fingers tightly.

‘I do not swim in the ocean.' Dot smiles at her. ‘Never learnt how.'

‘Oh, you should. You will. With me. In the summertime. I'll teach you. It is beautiful … It's never rough. The waves just touch the sides. It's all made of stone — the waves can't crash in. Well, hardly ever. They just kiss the edges. On nice days it is so clear and green you can see right down to the bottom.'

A dark patch of blood is already spreading on the sheet beneath her in an angry teardrop.

‘What's wrong with her? Why is she bleeding like that? There's something wrong!' Templeton demands, becoming frantic. His body is seized in painful remembering.

‘It hurts, that's all. It hurts like hell, but just for a day or two,' Dot tells him. ‘She'll be okay. Now do as I said and go and get her some water.'

Ω‘Templeton, do not be a fool. You know what that would mean. For all of us. Go away and let me handle this.' Her tone is firm, and he slouches off to do as he is told.

‘Pull up a chair, handsome,' Tipper says to Templeton as he scuttles down to the parlour after handing Roberta's glass of water over to Dot. Tipper and Nellie are doing a jigsaw puzzle, he sees with some surprise. Only the corners and a bit of a turquoise sky with white clouds are complete.

‘I don't know. Maybe I should stay up there, in case they need me. Roberta's up there with Dot.'

‘Roberta will be alright,' Tipper says firmly. ‘Nothing they need you for.'