Women and War Page 7

  ‘I had to see him.’

  Jeff grinned. ‘ Yeah, well, this is his big day and no mistake. He’s worked and sweated to get this far. You don’t know what he’s given up to be here today.’ His last words were drowned out by the roar of an engine and Jeff gesticulated wildly. ‘Here he is! Hey, Race, look who’s here?’

  Race steered the Nippy in. He was bareheaded and grinning from ear to ear, a bright turquoise scarf knotted around his neck streamed out behind and there were already grease stains on his clean white overalls. His face, too, was dirty – how dirty Alys did not realize until he removed his goggles and revealed two clean circles in the midst of the dirt.

  ‘That was great, Jeff …’ He broke off, his face lighting up still more as he saw her. ‘Alys! I never expected …’

  ‘Race.’ Suddenly, foolishly, she was close to tears. Oh, she had wanted to see him so badly and now … She caught her lip between her teeth, eyes brimming.

  ‘Alys!’ His delight changed to alarm. ‘What’s the matter? Hey, love …’

  With a massive effort she gulped back the tears, forced her lips to smile. ‘ Nothing’s the matter. I’m just pleased to see you, that’s all. It’s been so long.’

  ‘Christ, don’t I know it!’ He levered himself up and climbed out. ‘She’s doing just fine,’ he said to Jeff. ‘Just needs the fuel topping up. Can you do it while I have a breather – and a word with Alys?’

  Jeff pulled a knowing face. ‘Oh yeah, go on with you! Don’t go distracting him too much though will you?’ he warned Alys.

  ‘Want a drink, love?’ Race asked her. She nodded and he went on, ‘It’s only cold tea now before the race, but afterwards – well, it could be champagne, who knows?’

  ‘You bet!’ She could not trust herself to say more. One part of her wished she had left seeking him out until it was all over, but it was such a huge relief just to be with him that she did not think she could have waited another hour.

  He put his arm around her guiding her across to a patch of scrubby grass where a fallen tree formed a makeshift seat. ‘Here, sit down.’ He poured some cold tea from a thermos into a mug and gave it to her. She drank thirstily and when she lowered the mug she saw that he was looking at her. ‘What the hell is wrong, Alys?’

  ‘Nothing, I told you.’

  ‘Don’t give me that shit.’ Here on the track his language had degenerated to the kind she had heard him and Jeff use at the garage. ‘ You look terrible. What the hell have you been up to?’

  ‘Nothing, honestly. You don’t want to worry about me.’

  ‘Not much! You look as though you haven’t slept for a week. What is it? Have your parents been on at you?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. I’ll tell you afterwards.’

  ‘You’ll bloody well tell me now – or I swear I won’t get into that car!’

  ‘Oh Race …’ she was trembling now, torn with indecision. ‘I can’t! I didn’t mean to …’

  ‘What for Christ’s sake?’

  And suddenly she could keep it back no longer. ‘I’m going to have a baby.’

  She saw his face change, saw him turn white beneath the dirt. ‘Christ!’

  The tears were in her eyes again; angrily she blinked them away. ‘I’m sorry, Race. I didn’t mean to tell you now, honestly.’

  He was staring into space, not saying anything. She caught at his arm. ‘ Look, you don’t have to worry. It’ll all be taken care of. I’m being sent to Darwin and that will be the end of it but I just wanted you to know …’

  ‘I should bloody well think so too!’ He turned to her – she had never seen him so angry. ‘Look, I can’t think about it now, Alys. I’ve got to concentrate on this race. But afterwards we’ll sort something out. OK?’

  She was numb, too numbed to feel or think. The tears were running unchecked down her face now and she could only nod.

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me before?’ he demanded. ‘Well, never mind that now. Just make sure you’re here when I finish.’

  ‘Yes, Race.’

  ‘I’ve got to go now – it’s nearly time. But everything will be all right, you’ll see.’ He squeezed her hand, kissed her and tasted the salt of her tears. ‘I love you, Alys.’

  ‘And I love you.’

  ‘See you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She watched him walking back to where Jeff was still fiddling with the Nippy and it felt like a load had been lifted off her shoulders.

  Oh, there would be problems God alone knew. They had not gone away. But Race loved her. He had not been using her. The knowledge was so wonderful that she believed for a few glorious moments that now, at last, she could face anything.

  The race was half over. From the vantage point Jeff had selected for her, Alys had watched the cars hurtling past along the mile-long straight he had told her was called ‘Conrod’ and she had seen more than one come to grief – an engine exploding here, a tyre bursting there to send the car veering crazily off course, off the road and onto the surrounding waste land. But Race was still there, in and vying with the pack, though the clear leader was the bare headed Englishman, Peter Whitehead, in his B-type ERA. He was going to win, no doubt about it, his car was so far superior to anything else on the track, but if Race could only stay with the others and acquit himself well then perhaps at least someone would see his potential and be prepared to give him the backing he so desperately needed.

  Watching the cars pass in an endless roar, Alys felt the adrenalin pumping wildly through her veins. It was like being on a knife edge, she thought, minute after long minute, time suspended to mean nothing but how often the car she was watching for passed by below her. How many times had she seen the turquoise scarf flying in the slipstream as the Nippy gathered speed along the straight? She had lost count. But he should be past again at any moment now. There was the ERA, there the bunch of MGs, now …

  The first faint buzz of alarm made her muscles tauten. She craned forward straining her eyes down the straight. Was that him? Yes! – No! No, it wasn’t. Oh Lord, had something gone wrong? If he had had to pull in for some reason he would never make it up again.

  She waited, anxiety mounting. The ERA flashed past again and the MGs. Her fingers were in her mouth now, her teeth tearing at the skin around her nails. One quick began to bleed but she did not even notice. Where was he?

  Then, faintly borne on the breeze, just audible above the roar of the cars she heard what sounded like the jangle of an ambulance bell and amongst the watching crowd she heard the first excited murmurs. A crash. Someone had crashed. Her body convulsed again as she strained forward. Race, where are you? Yet again the ERA roared past and she made up her mind. She could not stay here any longer waiting. She had to find out.

  She began to run on legs that trembled, running while her breath came in harsh gasps and her heart, pounding in her throat, made her feel sick. As she ran she kept her eyes on the track, still watching, still hoping, though somehow she knew it was in vain.

  When she reached the pits there was no sign of them. No Race. No Jeff. No Nippy. Wildly she looked around, grabbing the arm of a surprised marshall and begging for information.

  ‘Race Gratton?’ She saw his face darken. ‘He’s out of it. Ran out of road up on Skyline.’

  ‘Oh God!’ Her hand was clapped to her mouth, the track seemed to spin around her. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He’ll have been taken off to hospital by now. He was hurt pretty bad.’

  She grabbed his arm. ‘Oh please, could somebody take me? Please …’

  He shook her off. ‘Look-ee here young lady, we’re all pretty busy. There’s a race going on here.’

  ‘Please!’ She was half hysterical before she remembered her own car. ‘Where is the hospital? At least tell me that!’

  A touch on her arm, a quiet voice beside her. ‘Calm down, love. You’re in no fit state to drive. There’s enough of us here looking after my pal’s car. I’ll take you.’

  She didn’t kn
ow him, never seen him before, but he was like an angel of mercy now. ‘Oh thank you, thank you!’ she wept.

  ‘Don’t thank me yet. We may be too late,’ he returned grimly.

  They were too late. By the time they reached the hospital Race was dead. As the marshall had said he had crashed on the terrifying drop called Skyline where the road falls away so steeply that the skyline is all the driver sees as he goes over it. Race had driven over it and into a patch of oil spilled by another car. He had spun off the road. The Nippy was shattered – and so was his body. He had been barely alive when they got him out and into the ambulance but he had died before reaching hospital. Jeff said he had spoken one last word on his dying breath.

  Alys.

  They sent her to Darwin and she no longer cared. If Race was dead it did not matter to her where she was. Guilt added to her grief – she should not have told him about the baby before the race. Perhaps it had made no difference but she would never know that now. She would go to her grave wondering if perhaps his concentration had been that little bit less than it should have been and, as he went over Skyline, he had had things other than driving on his mind.

  Only one hope was left to her – that perhaps when the baby was born she could find a way to keep it. For she could never give up Race’s baby, she knew that now.

  Awash in her grief she scarcely noticed one day that the ache that never left her had shifted a little, localized, become physical. It was only when it sharpened to a tearing agony that she became alarmed, and by then it was too late.

  One sweltering summer night the legacy that Race had left her slipped away, borne on a tide of scarlet pain, and Alys knew that the decision had been taken out of her hands.

  Chapter Three

  Tara came through the connecting door from the en suite bathroom into the bedroom, crossed to the dressing table and perched herself on the low stool in front of it drawing a gilt-backed brush through her curls, tangled and damp from the steam of the bath.

  In the mirror the room was reflected – a flamboyant room, as flamboyant as Red himself. For all that Tara had shared it with him for the past five years there was not a single concession to her femininity in its decor. The walls were deep red, covered in heavy flocked wallpaper, the curtains rich matching velvet. The scroll lacework at the head and foot of the kingsized bed was gold plated, the sheets were black silk and the gold coloured wall to wall carpet echoed the scroll design. Only Tara’s brush, powder bowl and perfume spray on the dressing table and her scarlet silk negligee laid out on the bed gave any indication that she, too, slept, rose and made love in this room.

  Red was already in bed lying half propped up against the pillows, arms folded behind his head as he watched her complete her toilet.

  Five years had changed him hardly at all. His face was still as hard and craggy, his body as firm and muscular without so much as a hint of a paunch. For a man who had made his money out of almost every degrading vice known to humanity he looked remarkably healthy. But Red was a keepfit fanatic and had been for twenty years. Each day he spent at least two hours swimming or running, weight training or shadow boxing and the persistence had paid off.

  It was Tara who was barely recognizable as the pathetic child of the slums who had put on her powder, paint and too-tight sweater to play at being grown up. The beauty that had promised at fourteen had been more than fulfilled – good food had filled out the skinny frame to womanly curves, regular exercise in Red’s gymnasium had ensured she remained firm and supple, and with time and money to spend Tara had acquired the clothes and the trappings of glamour to complement the charms with which nature had endowed her. Yet despite all she had, Tara still experienced pangs of restless discontent just as she had in the days when she had shared two sordid rooms in Darlo with Maggie, and her ambition to become a professional entertainer was as far from being fulfilled as it had ever been.

  When she had first come to Red, crawling on bended knees for a chance to work in the Sydney clubs he either owned or controlled, it had suited him to humour her. He had given her plum spots in each of his two best clubs and sat back to enjoy the sensation she caused there, this young and talented girl whose discovery he took credit for and who went home with him at night to his mansion in Elizabeth Bay. But before long he discovered that the green-eyed monster which dogged his life was once again rearing its ugly head.

  For Red, although he knew that no one would be foolish enough to cross him, was a jealous man – jealous of his position as king in the shady world of nightclub and bar, jealous of his reputation as the hardest, the toughest, the fittest, and jealous, most of all, of his women. To begin with he had regarded Tara and his conquest of her as an amusing diversion, but very soon he realized she was much more than that. His almost paternal desire to protect her developed into full blown possessiveness and Red found himself obsessed by her.

  She was his, this funny, fiery little Irish girl with the streak of vulnerability alongside the brashness that reminded him sometimes of a child dressing up in her mother’s high heels and lipstick. He had never before had a woman who could induce him to heights of passion on a Saturday night, responding herself with all the warmth and fire of her unfettered nature, only to leave his bed on Sunday morning because, in her words, not to go to Mass was a sin. He had never before seen a rosary jumbled in a drawer with make-up and jewellery only to be taken out and lovingly fingered when some minor catastrophe threatened. He had never known such a mixture of innocence and worldliness and it captivated him totally. Tara was his. Let anyone else lay a finger on her and they would encounter a couple of heavies waiting for them in an alleyway some dark night.

  ‘If ever I catch anyone messing with you, Tara, I’ll have him killed,’ he said and the calm cold tone of his voice convinced her it was no idle threat.

  The problem was that when she was singing at the club, Tara was a magnet for every man who came through the doors. At first Red managed the situation by insisting that each night after she had performed Tara should return to his table, and when business decreed that he could not be there himself he ensured two of his henchmen were there to do the job for him. But as his possessive jealousy increased he began to feel he could not even trust his henchmen. There was only one thing to be done and that was to reduce Tara’s spots at the club from nightly to twice-weekly and then to special occasions only. He was sorry as Ed had been for Tara was good. But she was more to him now than just a pretty and talented singer. She was his woman. He had even thought once or twice about marrying her but conscious of his image he had decided against it. Better to keep things as they were and the black-haired colleen with the wicked dimples on his arm where she belonged. He bought her rings with diamonds, emeralds and sapphires ‘ to match your eyes’, but they were for every finger but the fourth finger of her left hand.

  Tara did not know whether to be glad or sorry about the change in her status and eventually settled for an emotion midway between the two. She missed singing but she enjoyed the advantages of being Red’s woman too. That was like playing a part in a way for she had to walk right, talk right, behave as he expected in a variety of situations. It was, she thought, almost as much fun as performing on stage – and a great deal more lucrative!

  As for her place in Red’s bed, that had never been as bad as she had expected from her observations of Maggie’s life – not even that first time when he took her to his scarlet and gold bedroom dressed just as he was in the monogrammed towelling robe with his hair still wet from the sauna. Red, who held most of the hardest men in Sydney in a grip of fear, was a tender and generous lover – and the luxury of those black silk sheets and a tub of scented water to relax in afterwards removed all feeling of having been used.

  She enjoyed, too, the schemes she could weave in order to get her own way. It was a sport to find ways of winding Red around her little finger and she liked the feeling of power when she scored a small victory.

  Tonight, however, as she sat at the dressing table t
he thoughts that occupied her were too serious for any game. There was a certain subject she wished to broach and she was unsure of the best time to do so – before making love or afterwards. Red was impatient for her. She could tell from the way he watched her every move as he sat propped against the pillows. If he was impatient he might cut her short whilst afterwards there would be all the time in the world and if she worked at making it good for him he would be in a rosy glowing mood, able to refuse her nothing. On the other hand, he might simply go to sleep before she finished telling him what she wanted whilst now he might agree to anything in his eagerness to have her.

  She drew the brush through her curls again, raising her arms so that her breasts thrust enticingly against the silk wrap and watching his reaction in the mirror.

  ‘Oh Red, it’s so lucky I am! Sometimes I just can’t believe anyone can be as lucky as me.’

  ‘And what brought that on?’ He sounded amused but she knew he was pleased.

  ‘It’s when I get reminded of how I used to live – when I see friends deep in trouble and think it might be me.’

  ‘And what has reminded you just now?’

  She avoided the question. She was not quite ready for it yet.

  ‘I just wish with all my heart that I could do something to help. Just a little thing to ease the suffering …’

  She was watching his reflection from beneath her lashes and was not altogether pleased to see one corner of his mouth twist upwards.

  ‘Come on, Tara, what is it you want? Out with it and then perhaps you’ll be ready to come to bed.’

  She put down the brush and ran over to plump down on the edge of the bed, resting a hand on his chest. ‘It’s Maggie. I saw her today and …’

  She felt him stiffen and knew she had chosen the wrong moment.

  ‘You know I don’t like you seeing Maggie,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Oh Red, please don’t be angry!’ she begged. ‘She’s my friend – she practically brought me up after Mammy ran off and left me – she’s been more like a mother to me ever since. And she’s ill Red, really ill!’