Women and War (51 page)

‘I'm sorry. This isn't much of a welcome for you after all this time.'

‘Don't be silly. I …'

‘I might as well tell you right away. I had some very bad news yesterday.'

She felt the falling away inside; knew what he was going to say before he said it.

‘Oh John. Not …?'

‘Yes, I'm afraid so. Stuart. He has been killed.'

‘Oh no!' Impulsively, she jumped up and ran to him, taking hold of his arm. ‘When? How?'

‘I don't know any details yet, except that he was in the islands. Killed in action, they said. Whatever that may mean. I suppose I shall get to hear more eventually. Not that it will change anything.'

‘Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't know what to say. I had no idea …'

‘Well, of course you wouldn't have.' He was matter-of-fact now. Only that flatness of tone revealed his emotions – and from time to time his eyes strayed to the framed photograph of the handsome young man.

Flora brought the tea. The kettle must be permanently on the boil for her to be able to do it so quickly, Alys thought irrelevantly. John acknowledged it but made no move; he looked oddly drained of energy, like a man in a dream. Alys dropped to her knees beside the low table, milking the cups and adding two large spoonfuls of sugar to John's.

‘Here.' She pushed it into his hand. ‘Drink this. You look as though you could do with it.'

He gulped at the scalding liquid then set the cup down.

‘God, it tastes awful.'

She sipped her own tea. Nothing wrong with it.

‘Drink it. It will do you good.'

‘No thanks.'

‘Drink it!' She pushed him down in to the chair and put the cup in his hands. He sat holding the cup but not drinking and after a moment the tears began to run down his cheeks. She dropped to her knees, taking his hands, and he laid his head against her, his body shaking with silent sobs.

‘Oh John …' She held him, knowing that nothing she could say would ease his agony, helpless in the face of his grief.

After a while he raised his head. ‘I'm sorry. I'm sorry – I just can't – oh Christ!'

Again, she was overwhelmed by helplessness. It was terrible to see him this way – such a strong man, a rock of strength with his own foundations crumbled beneath him.

‘Don't be sorry. I'm just glad I'm here, I wish there was something I could do or say. But there's nothing, is there?'

‘He was a good boy. Young and headstrong, of course, but weren't we all? I thought when this war was over and he came home he could start taking over the running of the farm. He'd find a girl, get married, there would even be children in the house again. I thought … you know, I even thought maybe he and you … Stupid, really. Told myself it was just wishful thinking, but you would have liked him, I know you would.' He was talking now more than he ever talked, letting his innermost thoughts pour out. ‘It's funny but it keeps you going, somehow, knowing there's someone to hand things on to. You don't think about it that much but it's there all the same at the back of your mind. Then one telegram. One damned telegram, just a few short words, and there's nothing left. I keep thinking of him when he was a boy, you know. The things he used to do – the things we did together. I taught him to shoot. He liked that. Used to take his guns out and bag a few bunnies. Then he'd come back, proud as you like, and say – ‘‘ There's a few less to eat your grass, Dad.'' Now he's gone. No more life in him than in one of those bunnies.' A shudder ran through him. ‘Why him, Alys? That's what I keep asking myself. Damned stupid, really. He's only one of thousands and yet I still keep asking – why him?'

‘I know.' She had seen some of the dead and maimed, all some father's sons, their pride and their hope for the future. Yet she too felt the unfairness. Why John's son? He was all he had.

‘His mother – does she know?' she asked.

He shook his head. ‘ I went out to see her this morning. I couldn't face it yesterday when the telegram came, but today I thought – well, it's got to be done. I've got to tell her. But when I got there, there was no way. She's like a child. She wouldn't understand. I think she has forgotten she ever had a son. She didn't even know me. I had to come away and leave her. For the first time in all those years I just couldn't take it.'

She nodded, understanding.

They sat for a while longer, silent sometimes, talking sometimes. There was nothing really to say, yet Alys hoped that just by being there she might be some small comfort to the man who had been such a comfort to her.

It was only when the mantle clock chimed the half-hour that she remembered Richard would be waiting for her.

‘John, I'm going to have to go.' She got up reluctantly, not wanting to leave him.

He looked at her, half-puzzled, as if it had only just occurred to him to wonder how she had got out to Buchlyvie.

‘Richard Allingham ran me out,' she explained. ‘You remember him? We had dinner with him and his wife.'

‘Oh – yes. Give him my regards.' John was in full control of himself again; his ravaged face was now the only outward sign of his grief.

‘I will,' Alys said, afraid suddenly that if she was late at the gates Richard might come up to the house looking for her. She did not want John to have the added strain of having to face Richard. ‘And I'll be out to see you again. Tomorrow, perhaps?'

He stood up. She noticed the slight stoop now to his straight shoulders.

‘You don't have to, Alys. I shall be all right. You don't want to spend your precious leave like this. I'm not going to be much company, I'm afraid.'

‘You're insulting me now,' Alys said briskly. ‘ Suggesting I'm a fair weather friend. I shall come because I want to – if you'll let me of course.'

He smiled wanly, his mouth moving but his eyes remaining darkly shadowed.

‘Woe betide anybody who tried to stop you doing what you want to do, Alys.'

That's more like it.' She reached up and kissed his cheek. It felt slightly grizzled as if he had not been able to find it in himself to bother shaving properly that morning. ‘Bear up, John. I'll be seeing you.'

He went with her to the door and she could feel his eyes following her as she started down the drive. She turned and waved but he did not wave back, just stood, immovable as an old-established gum, framed in the doorway.

There was a great weight round her heart and she knew it was because she was sharing his grief. God, but life could be cruel! The cold blustery wind whipped her hair and roared in her ears and she wished that she too could cry because tears would be the only relief to the pressure of sadness within her.

At the end of the drive beside the white-painted mailbox she saw a flash of gleaming black. Richard was waiting for her. She glanced over her shoulder, saw the indistinct figure of John still watching her, and checked the desire to run.

Richard was leaning against the bonnet of the car. He looked somehow young and strong and invincible. As she approached he turned and smiled at her. And she could no longer keep her feet from running.

‘All right?' he greeted her.

At first, no words would come for she found her lips were trembling.

She saw his face change. ‘What's wrong?' And still she could find no coherent way to begin. ‘Oh Richard,' she said, and began to cry.

When at last her sobs began to ease she realized his arms were around her. Somehow she had told him and the sharing was beginning to lessen the weight inside her. She hoped she had done the same for John, knew she had not, and began to cry again.

Why, why, why? There was no answer. But here was comfort in the broad strength of Richard's shoulder beneath the smooth twill of his jacket. She clung to him while the words poured from her in an unthinking torrent

‘It's not fair. It's just not fair! He's a good man – a really good man. For this to happen to him …'

‘Don't, Alys. Come on, I'll take you home.'

Home. Home to her father. Another oddly pitiful figure in this world which seemed suddenly to contain nothing but suffering and pain.

‘Oh Richard.' She pulled away, shading her eyes with her hand. ‘Don't you sometimes wish you had never been born?'

He looked at her, saw a girl who had been raised with all the trappings which could have made her utterly spoiled and selfish but who had lost none of her capacity for compassion, a girl who could endure her own suffering yet cry for the grief of others. And felt something deep and powerful stir within him.

‘No, Alys,' he said truthfully. ‘Life may sometimes be hard. But no, I never have wished that.'

‘Then perhaps you are lucky,' she said.

He turned on the engine, battling suddenly with a surge of desire so strong it threatened to sweep away all reason.

‘Perhaps I am,' he said roughly.

The silence in the tent was broken only by the even breathing of five of the six occupants. Quietly, Tara set down her bunch of clubhouse keys on top of the wooden box which served as her wardrobe, picked up her kitbag and crept between the beds where the other girls lay sleeping. Then she slipped out, fastened the tent flap behind her and stood for a moment breathing deeply to steady the racing of her pulse.

The night was balmy, the stars very bright in the soft velvet tropical sky. Beyond the tent lines the breeze stirred gently in the palms, reminding her briefly of another night when the undergrowth had whispered, disturbed not only by the forces of nature but by a human intruder. She shivered, then hoisted her kitbag onto her shoulder, pushing the thought away. If she dwelled on it she would run straight back to the safety of the tent and that certainly did not fit in with her plans.

The shiver became a tremor of excitement. She left the tent lines, walking quickly across the open patch of ground which separated them from the clubhouse. Dotted with tables and chairs which during the hot days and warm evenings were crowded with relaxing service personnel it was deserted now, the light of the moon showing it in soft relief. Tara glanced about her, ears cocked for the distinctive engine hum of an approaching ute. There was no sound but the everlasting chirping of the grasshoppers and crickets and she was aware of a twinge of misgiving.

Perhaps they would not come for her. Perhaps something unexpected had cropped up to prevent them. Perhaps the whole thing had been a joke from start to finish – a practical joke played by bored US air crew and they had never had the slightest intention of doing what they had promised. It was after all, a crazy idea, hopping over to Queensland to see Richard without telling anyone what she was doing, without permission from her superiors, without anything but the clothes she stood up in and what she could carry in her kitbag. But when she had got talking to the crew of the US transport plane in the club that evening and heard they were flying out, empty, in a few hours, it had seemed like the answer to a prayer.

She had to see Richard. Whatever the consequences. It might mean the end of her career as manager of the AAMWS club – it probably would. But if she could not get to Australia soon to see him she was terribly afraid it would be the end of her marriage. And when it came to weighing one against the other there was scarcely a decision to be made.

Why, of all possible postings, had Alys Peterson had to be sent to Queensland? Tara wondered, quickening her step to take her across the stretch of open ground. When she had joined the AWAS the authorities could have chosen to send her anywhere in the whole wide continent of Australia. But by some quirk of fate she had been sent to the very place where she was in contact with Richard. And not only in contact with him but very friendly from the tone of his letters. Tara had registered alarm bells the moment she had heard about it, back in the New Year. She did not like the way Richard looked at Alys, liked even less the fact that they had so much in common, which she and Richard did not. And when he had written to say that he and Alys were taking leave together to go to Melbourne it had been the last straw.

How could he do it? It was so long since they had been together and her own requests for leave had been constantly parried. But what was there to have stopped Richard hitching a lift to New Guinea to see her if he had really wanted to? Instead, he had chosen to go to Melbourne – with
her
(Tara could scarcely bring herself to think of Alys's name, let alone speak it aloud) – travelling all that way, and seeing as much as he could of her while they were there, no doubt. Oh, keeping it all very proper, knowing him, but being with her, talking about things that she, Tara, would never understand, carrying her bag for her, solicitously making certain she was comfortable – and admiring, maybe even desiring, her. Jealousy so strong it outweighed every other emotion had coursed through her and for the first time Tara felt something akin, to understanding for Red. I'd kill
her
if I could, Tara thought. I'd like nothing better than to stick a knife in her and twist and twist. But there was no danger of that. Alys was too far away on the other side of the Torres Strait. With Richard.

Alongside the jealousy helplessness had burned. There was nothing she could do – nothing. She was stuck here in New Guinea, unable to fight Alys for her husband, tied hand and foot by a job which had at first seemed like a godsend. She had enjoyed every moment of running the club and thought she had done it well, but her very success had created the ties which kept her here.

If I was still cleaning latrines and washing bandages I'll bet they would have authorized my leave, Tara thought, surprised by her own bitterness. As it is I have to sit here, organizing recreation for a lot of other women, while
she
steals my husband from under my nose!

And then, this evening, the US air crew had come out to the club.