and a broken clock, with no minute-hand.
‘Jeez, Peg,’ she said, ‘did you ever see anything like this?’
‘I did,’ Lois said. ‘Herb’s folks’ place. I married beneath my station. Now I’m gonna have to take a leak, wildlife or no. Where’s Kath?’
She was outside again, standing by the station wagon, just looking at it, so downcast.
‘Is it my fault?’ she said. ‘Did I brek it?’
Kath lit the oil lamps and put more fuel on the range.
‘There,’ she said, ‘now we’re snug.’ But I reckon that yellow dog had the only warm seat in the house.
Audrey said, ‘How long have you lived here, Kath?’
‘Born here,’ she said. ‘Born in that bed.’
Lo bounced upright when she heard that. ‘Wow!’ she said. ‘You ever think of moving away?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve told John Pharaoh. We ever come up on the football pools, I should like to move up to Brakey. Be nearer the bus stop.’
Betty was having a little blub about Deana and Sherry, like she was never gonna see them again. I wished she’d stop. I didn’t like letting Crystal down neither, and I’m sure Lois was worried about Sandie too, she just never showed it, making herself at home on John and Kath’s bed.
‘Don’t you fret about your young ’uns,’ Kath said. ‘They’ll be right as ninepence. They’ll be larrikin about somewhere.’
Which, of course, was the last thing Betty wanted to hear. Whatever larrikin was, it sounded dangerous.
‘What time is it?’ she kept asking.
‘Big hand’s still on the five,’ Audrey kept answering.
‘Kath?’ Lo said. ‘You go outside to that bathroom in the middle of the night?’
‘No,’ Kath said. ‘I hold on till morning.’
We heard the toot of a horn. John Pharaoh had come back, riding in a General Post Office van, looking real proud of himself. A guy called Dennis Jex was driving, and two others, both Jexes too, had come along to give their advice or eyeball four American chicks, or maybe just to get a ride. One way or another, they seemed happy to be there. They all looked under the hood, but Dennis was the one really knew what he was doing. He jump-started us, while Audrey held the flashlight, and then he offered to escort us back to where the road was metalled, save us running off the track and disappearing into the swamp.
He said he was glad to help. He said there was no doubt in his mind, if it wasn’t for America he’d be living under the jackboot.
‘When push come to shove, you Yanks done the right thing,’ he said. ‘Even if you did take your time about it.’
Betty was in the car already, anxious for us to be on our way.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘I’ll pull round. I’ll take it nice and steady and you can follow my tail lights. And when I put my winker to go left, do you go right you’ll be set fair for the base. That’s straight on, about seven mile. You can’t go wrong.’
John Pharaoh was pacing up and down, eyes shining, like he’d had a real exciting time. Kath looked kinda sad to see us go.
I said, ‘Would you like to come out for a drive some time?’
‘Oh, I would,’ she said, ‘I’d like that very much.’
So I promised we’d do that, just as soon as the ice thawed. Then Dennis Jex moved off, and I nosed along right behind him, and Kath and John faded away into the mist.
Audrey said, ‘That was the right thing to do, Peggy. We should always try to build cordial relations with the locals.’ Audrey had the kinda enthusiasm for good works that could take a girl far at the OWC. If Lance was aiming to be a brass hat, he couldn’t have picked a better wife.
I said, ‘I didn’t do it to be right, Aud. I did it because I wanted to.’
‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Doing the right thing accidentally is better than doing the wrong thing. Now, I have an idea.’
Betty said, ‘Audrey, would you please allow Peggy to concentrate on driving? Charity begins at home, remember?’
Audrey ignored her. ‘My idea is,’ she said, ‘we could take them things. You know, we have so much and they just have nothing. They have a can of fruit there and they don’t even have an opener. And did anybody notice an icebox?’
I said, ‘I believe they’re living in it, Aud.’
She said, ‘Well, I think a food parcel is called for. Little things that I’m sure would be appreciated. And not just food. I mean, did you see the state of her pot holder? Whaddya say, girls?’
But Lois was in a world of her own, humming a little tune. And Betty wasn’t in the mood for talking.
Ed was on the doorstep when we pulled up. Didn’t matter Sherry and Deana had been just fine, getting milkshakes with Gayle and playing hospitals and helping Crystal and Sandie to eat all of Lois’s cookies. Ed Gillis had just got a mean old mood on him, I could tell. That little dint, side of his jaw, was popping in and out.
‘Time you call this?’ he said, and Betty hurried right on in, clutching her pictures of the Duke of Cornwall. She didn’t even say ‘Goodbye’.
‘Okay, girls. Here’s what I got so far.’ Audrey was getting ready to air-drop supplies for Kath and John.
‘Cheez Whizz, Sugar Pops, Campbell’s Soup, two cans of franks, can opener, Oreos, nylons, Chesterfield’s …’
I said, ‘I don’t think they use smokes. All that time we were pacing the floor there, I never seen any sign of cigarettes.’
‘Well maybe they’d like the chance to start,’ she said. ‘Jeez, Peg, I’m just trying to help. Then I got cornflakes and Pepsodent, and I thought we could throw in a fifth of Dewar’s.’
Gayle said, ‘How about cupcakes? Can they get Hostess cupcakes?’
She was real keen for us to take her out there, introduce her to Kath and John, ’cause all she’d heard from us since we got back was about them sleeping in their kitchen and having a open-air privy. Course, Gayle was from Carolina, almost into Tennessee, so she could just have been feeling homesick.
Betty was grounded. The way she told it, it was her own wish to spend more time making their quarters into a real home. She showed me some damnfool thing she’d done with a folding table, General Issue, and a mile of pink cretonne, sent her by her cousin.
‘See,’ she said, ‘I just made it up like a skirt, cover those ugly old legs, then I thumbtacked it down, with this real pretty wrapping paper to cover the top. Now if I can get my hands on a nice piece of bevelled glass, I’ll have the darlingest dressing table on the base.’
I said, ‘You okay, Betty? Ed’s not giving you a hard time?’
‘I’m just fine,’ she said. ‘Now, you give my best regards to Kath and John, and I’d like you to take them a little something from me.’ She handed me that bar of Ivory soap like it was a piece of the True Cross.
We drove out one morning, after I dropped Crystal. Betty said she’d have loved to mind Sandie,