Women and War (14 page)

Tired or not she would go down to the bathroom and have a cool wash, she decided. She reached for her wrap, lying discarded across the foot of the bed, and put it on. In daylight she had thought how incongruous it looked lying there, palest blue raw silk contrasting wildly with the once-bright but now faded patchwork counterpane. Now, in the dark, she merely luxuriated in the cool smoothness of the silk against her hot damp skin. At least she had Red to thank for this!

The bathroom was downstairs at the back of the house and next door to the kitchen – for ease of plumbing she imagined. As she approached the door to the dining room a roar of laughter told her the men were still there and making a night of it and she hurried past anxious only to have her wash and get back to bed.

With the door shut safely behind her she slipped out of her wrap, filled the basin and buried her face in the water. Then she patted her cheeks dry with the cleanest of towels and began to soap her body. The cool water against her hot skin made her shiver but she only threw her head back and smiled, luxuriating in the soothing touch of her own hands. Every inch of her body she soaped, her pale thrusting breasts with the nipples pink and roused from the shock of the cold water, small taut waist, hips rounded to balance those curving breasts, legs shapely if, to her mind, a little too plump. Dark-skinned as she was Tara tanned easily and her legs, arms and shoulders were all a rich brown in contrast to the whiteness of her body.

One day I'll find somewhere I can sunbathe without a stitch of clothes on and get this brown all over, Tara promised herself.

Her wash completed, Tara put on her robe again and started back to her room. In the passageway she heard the men's voices louder than before and realized they must just be leaving. Hastily she slipped back into the kitchen. She didn't want to walk into them half dressed as she was – let them go first.

For a long while it seemed they remained in the veranda doorway while someone told a joke, perhaps, for after a little silence there was a raucous laughter. Then she heard them calling goodnight and the sound of the door slamming and the bolts being drawn. Relieved that she could now escape to bed she emerged from the kitchen to see Dimitri disappearing back into the dining room. Her heart sank. Oh, he wasn't going to expect her to help him tidy up tonight was he? Why hadn't she had the sense to stay in her bedroom out of the way!

As she passed the doorway he looked up and saw her. ‘Ah, Tara!'

‘Oh, leave it can't you, Dimitri?' she pleaded. ‘I'll get up earlier in the morning and do it then. I'm just so tired …' He did not answer. ‘There's no one staying tonight,' she went on. ‘We won't have to do breakfast so I …' Her voice tailed away.

Dimitri had not moved except to straighten up from the chair he had been repositioning but there was something about the way he was looking at her that was disconcerting – no, worse, downright unnerving. Tara had seen that look before and knew what it meant. But never before had she felt so totally paralysed as if she had no will of her own to move away from those bright intent little eyes that were mentally stripping her of every stitch of her clothing.

She stood mesmerized while those eyes moved slowly and lasciviously from the V of tanned flesh at the neck of her wrap down over the swell of her breasts to her waist, neatly defined by the tie-sash, and down over her hips, belly and legs where the silk clung to her still-damp skin. Then he jerked his head, flicking the greasy flop of hair off his forehead and the movement broke the spell. Tara raised her hand to pull the robe more tightly around her, horribly aware that beneath it she was totally naked, and backed away a step into the passage.

Still Dimitri did not move. His tongue had crept out a fraction; it curled over his lower lip pink, moist and somehow obscene. His eyes were fixed on her face now. Half hidden as they were in the folds of flesh they were nonetheless compelling. She took another step backwards and her shoulders encountered the wood panelling of the wall.

‘Tara …' His voice was thick, very foreign.

She drew herself up. ‘You have had too much to drink, Dimitri. And I am going to bed.'

She turned with a flounce of composure she was far from feeling, marched along the passage and up the stairs. Only when she was back in her own room with the door closed behind her did she crumple, her breath coming out on a sigh, her whole body shuddering with distaste.

Ugh, but he was revolting – a great fat slug – and the way he had looked at her made her feel like washing all over again. Strangely, it had never occurred to her before that she might have to be wary of him and now she cursed herself for being a fool. Just because he was married to Tina didn't mean he had no eyes for anyone else – she of all people should have known that. But circumstances had made her forget – perhaps because, drudging in the kitchen as she had been since coming to Darwin, she felt so dreadfully unattractive herself. It had not occurred to her to worry when Tina and the children had been evacuated and she was left alone with Dimitri – no, not even tonight when she had paraded in front of him wearing nothing but her robe. She had hidden in the kitchen so that the other men should not see her but she had stopped to speak to Dimitri without giving it a second thought.

With a sense of shock Tara realized how foolish she had been to forget Dimitri was a man – a man who had not seen his wife for almost two months. Well she would not forget it again. She untied the sash of her robe and began to slip out of it, then changed her mind and refastened it around her. Since coming to Darwin she had always slept nude – in the heat it was the most practical way. But tonight she did not want to. Hot or not she was going to keep her wrap on.

She turned back the single rough sheet and lay down, pulling the silk across her legs. For a moment it reminded her of the silk sheets she had used to sleep between. Something halfway between regret and nostalgia stirred a haunting chord within her and with it a rush of loathing for this room, so different from the one she had shared with Red.

What had she come to, she who had sworn that she had finished with squalor and poverty? She had drifted back to it because she had been afraid. But now … maybe the time had come to stop being afraid and to move on. She had been given the opportunity tonight by the Captain of the
Fortuna
– perhaps she should take it. Perth was a long way from Sydney just as Darwin was and possibly a good deal more pleasant. And what if Red did find her there? He could only kill her as he had threatened to do – and the life she had now was barely worth living in any case.

And yet …

I can't go without weighing it all up and I'm too tired to do that tonight, Tara thought. Already a delicious drowsiness was beginning to creep over her making her limbs leaden and entwining silly nonsensical thoughts with the coherent ones. Tomorrow she would be up early and she would think then what she would do. The
Fortuna
would not be sailing too early. Red would not let it. No – not Red – the Captain. Red was in prison so there was no need to worry about him. No – wrong. There was every reason to worry. He was in prison because of her. And a man with his influence could still find a way to reach her.

Oh Red, Red, you were power, she thought, and then she was drifting again with sleep weighing down her eyelids.

Suddenly, shockingly, she was awake once more. Someone was in the room with her. As she opened her eyes to see the bulky form between her and the light she screamed and a hand covered her mouth – a hand smelling of beer and tobacco and sweat.

‘Quiet! Do you want to wake the whole of Darwin?'

She wrenched her mouth free of the hand.

‘Dimitri! What the hell do you think you are doing?'

The bed dipped as he lowered himself onto it.

‘Come on, Tara, don't play games with me. We're on our own, both of us. And you like me, don't you? I'm not so bad!'

He rolled towards her. Heat seemed to flow from him in waves and the rank body odour turned her stomach. As his hand slipped through the opening of the loosely tied robe she rolled away across the narrow bed deftly missing the chest. He followed her but less adroitly; his leg caught the corner of the chest, rocking it, and he swore violently.

‘Argh! Bitch! Where do you think you are going? Come back here!'

He lumbered towards her, trapped between bed and wall. The pain of his barked shin had inflamed his passion still further; weeks of frustration burned in his blood and crawled on his greasy skin.

‘Keep away from me!' she warned him.

The rasp of his fevered breathing came closer and his bulky shadow blotted out the pale light filtering in through the window. He reached for her, closing in, and as he did so she brought her knee up in the time-honoured defence she had learned in the back streets of Sydney. It was a trick she had not used since those long-gone days but it had never failed then and it did not fail now. As her knee connected with his groin he caught his breath and doubled up in agony. Contemptuously she pushed past him.

‘Now get out of my room!' she ordered.

‘You bitch!' he growled, still holding himself.

‘Get out this instant unless you want Tina to know what you've tried on. Out!' she threw open the door and stood waiting for him to go.

‘OK, OK, I go. But you've been asking for this. Begging!'

‘Out, you old fool!'

He lumbered past her still groaning and she slammed the door after him leaning her weight against it. He wouldn't try anything else tonight. But there would be other times when they were alone; other nights. If she had been undecided before about whether to leave Darwin or stay, now her mind was made up. She would not spend another night under the same roof as that dirty old goat.

Tomorrow, as soon as it was light, she would pack her things, go down to the wharf and take up the offer of the passage on the
Fortuna
.

Tara was just finishing her packing when Dimitri pushed open the door and walked in.

‘Hey, come on, we have work to do …' He broke off. ‘ What do you think you are doing?'

Tara slammed down the lid of the expensive pigskin suitcase that had been a present from Red.

‘I'm leaving. I've decided to take up the offer of a berth on the
Fortuna
.'

‘Leaving! You can't! What am I supposed to do without you?'

‘I don't know, Dimitri. But if things are as bad as everyone says they are you won't have a business here much longer anyway.' Tara turned to collect her few trinkets from the small chest. ‘ Look, I'm sorry, but there it is. Tina went, didn't she? You didn't try to stop her. And I may not get a chance like this again.'

‘Of all the ungrateful …' Dimitri waved his hands expressively. ‘I have treated you like one of the family, Tara.'

‘Huh!'

‘It is true!'

‘You're over familiar with me if that's what you mean. Barging into my room without knocking for one thing – and as for that episode last night …

He coloured. ‘I had been drinking. Men do many things when they have been drinking.'

‘I don't want to hear your excuses,' she said.

‘It's not an excuse. Besides, I had every reason to think …'

‘Because you kept me working here, I suppose. For that I am supposed to fall into bed with you out of gratitude. Gratitude! For the privilege of being treated like a drudge!'

‘You can't go!' he protested. ‘I won't let you!'

She picked up her suitcase. ‘Try stopping me. And you owe me two weeks' wages, by the way.'

‘Two weeks …!' He was almost speechless. ‘ I can't pay you just like that – and I wouldn't if I could! You see – you'll have to wait. Don't go until the end of the week.'

Tara sighed. ‘If I wait until the end of the week I shall have missed the boat. No, I shall just have to let you have a forwarding address when I get wherever I'm going and trust you to send it on to me.'

‘You'll be lucky!'

‘Yes, I thought you would say that. Still there are sometimes things which are more important than money. I'm going now – if you would please get out of my way.'

‘No!' As if suddenly making up his mind he positioned himself in the doorway. ‘No, I refuse to let you pass. Soon the boat will sail and then you will have to stay.'

‘Out of my way you old fool or you'll get more of what I gave you last night!' she moved towards him purposefully and he sidestepped smartly.

‘Tara …'

‘Goodbye, Dimitri, I'm sure you'll manage without me.'

His reply was in his native language but without the help of an interpreter Tara still knew what he meant to convey and she smiled to herself as she ran down the stairs her suitcase bumping against her leg. Dimitri was not well pleased! Well, tough luck. If he had been fair with her she might have taken her chances and stayed to help him out. As it was he could look for someone else to do the cooking and washing up and share his bed. She was not going to stand for it any longer.

She let herself out of the house and into the small garden. The sky was clear as yet, the sun high and bright in defiance of the lowering clouds that would soon gather and thicken to herald the daily downpour, but the air was heavy with the bitter sweet scent of henna and Tara felt the beginnings of a headache, legacy of an almost sleepless night, throb in her left temple. She walked down the path between the crotons, garish almost in their bright autumn hues, and hibiscus, red and pink against the lush green foliage. Pawpaws overhung them in pendulous clusters and Tara reached up and picked one, biting into its delicious juicy flesh.

How long would it be before she ate again? She did not know but it was the least of her worries. She was leaving Darwin, she was leaving Dimitri, and she was leaving the threat of invasion. If she was putting herself in danger from Red once more, well, there were only so many things a person could worry about at any one time.