Best Australian Short Stories

by Douglas Stewart

  Lesley Rowlands

  A REALLY SPLENDID EVENING

  “HE’S just as ghastly as we thought he’d be,” the boy shouted in a hoarse whisper up the stairs, and his words reached the visitor waiting in the front room. Or enough of them for him to wonder what the boy had meant He heard he and “ghastly”, but he didn’t know what it was, didn’t hear it properly, and he thought the boy must have said “ghostly”. He glanced down at himself, sitting in the glazed chintz chair.

  He didn’t look ghostly. His hands were folded neatly in his lap, his legs quite elegantly crossed. His brown suit had been made at home and he realized now that perhaps the man who had made it had cheated him, saved a bit on the lapels, which were not quite wide enough. But his shoes more than made up for the suit. They were very light tan—almost golden, and they sparkled and twinkled in the late evening light coming through the windows. His cousin had purchased them in London, they were of the very best quality, though perhaps too narrow for his feet His socks were a very dark maroon, and he had a handkerchief, pure silk, to match, in his top pocket. He put up a hand to make sure his hair had not become in any way disarranged. It hadn’t. He really couldn’t imagine why the boy should call him ghostly. He didn’t feel like a ghost at all. He considered himself, in fact, a perfect gentleman.

  Unaware of this, they kept him waiting for half an hour. He had begun to get restive, and when they came into the room they found him giving his shoes a polish with a small piece of yellow cloth, a shoe polisher, which he always kept neatly folded in his trouser pocket for emergencies. Now he thrust it, hurriedly and clumsily, hoping they had not seen, into his coat pocket, where it made a small bulge.

  He got up quickly and plunged across the room towards the tall, elegant woman and the shorter, stoutish man. He offered them his hand, in the friendly fashion that was his custom, and pumped hers heartily up and down, making a small indentation in his own from her rings.

  “This is indeed a very happy occasion,” he said, for that is what he had decided to say, while he was waiting. It sounded even better than he had hoped, so he said it again.

  “So glad you could come,” the woman said, after her husband had introduced them, and she trailed away from him, in a bored way, to a cigarette box on a low table.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” the man said, and he, too, walked away—to a small bar in one corner of the room.

  “No, no, not at all. It is my fault, entirely.” He sat down in the middle of the room, and watched his host and hostess busying themselves on either side of him, although some distance away. He didn’t know why it was his fault. He’d arrived at six, at the time they’d asked him to come. But he said, “It was entirely my fault. I arrived early.”

  “Oh? You didn’t have any trouble finding your way ?” Marie Greenberg was standing now quite near him, an unlighted cigarette waving aimlessly from her right fingers. He jumped to his feet again, saw some matches on the mantelpiece, and, with an explosive burst of flame, lit her cigarette. She collapsed wearily on to a chair and he looked at her shoes as he said, “Not at all. In fact, quite the opposite. When I arrive in any big city I generally purchase a map. Then I have no trouble. It is not even necessary to request directions from passers-by.”

  “How clever,” she murmured, as her husband came towards them, a silver tray in his hands.

  “I’ve made martinis. That okay for you, Rao ?” The three glasses were arranged in a triangle on the tray, the pale liquid almost level with the rims.

  “Orange juice, if it is convenient,” he said The sight of Green berg with a tray in his hand had made him forget he was the host. He looked, rather round and dark, perspiring a little in the warm air, a little like a waiter, a steward.

  “Oh, pardon. If you have it? Or water? A glass of fresh, iced water, perhaps?”

  “Sorry. You don’t drink, I take it?”

  “Thank you, no. I have never in my whole life touched one single drop of alcoholic beverage.” He said this proudly, expecting exclamations of surprise and possibly incredulity to fall from their lips, but they looked rather strongly disapproving, and Greenberg called his son to get a glass of orange juice from the kitchen.

  They sat idly, waiting for this to come before they could raise their frail glasses to their lips, before the evening could get under way. She, still looking disapproving, gazed at the end of her cigarette, which she had not yet started to smoke. Harry was bad-tempered because he hadn’t yet had his first drink of the day, had been called in early from tinkering with his car to get ready for their guest, thought the guest impudent anyway to have presumed on the hour they once spent in each other’s company at New Delhi airport. Rao was quiet because he didn’t know what Australians talked about, at this hour of the day, or when visiting each other at any time. There was much he wanted to discuss, to tell them, questions he was hoping they would ask him. He thought, sadly, of visits at home—the shout of voices, the excitement, the many people coming and going.

  The boy came with the orange juice, and released them.

  “Cheers!”

  “Cheers!”

  “Cheerio!”

  A little silence fell around them like a cloak. He groped his way out of its folds.

  “You have a very nice place here. Damn fine. Everything is just so.”

  “Glad you like it. It’s handy.” Harry didn’t say to or for what. “Have a good trip?” He went on. The martini had reached his elbows. A good sign.

  “Ah, yes. The aeroplane was delaying in Singapore, but I was able to make some purchases there to send home to my wife.” “Oh, are you married, Mr Rao? I didn’t know. Harry didn’t tell me”

  “I didn’t know,” Harry said. “You weren’t married when I met you, were you?” he asked, remembering the airport, the heat, the warmish orange juice.

  “No, no. I have married recently, since we met.”

  “Well, congratulations.”

  “Many thanks.”

  “And is your wife living by herself during the time you’ll be here?”

  “Oh, no. No, no.” He was vehement enough and would have been more so if he could have imagined a house, a flat, even a room, with one person, a woman, his wife, in it alone. This was beyond his imagination. He thought perhaps they were joking.

  “She’s living with my people. My father and mother, and my sisters.”

  “And what did you buy her in Singapore?” Marie asked.

  “Oh, some jewellery, one pair of slippers. She asked for one silver bracelet, but they were too costly.”

  Harry put down his glass. “Time for another?” he began, but caught his wife’s eye. “Perhaps not. Shall we go? Don’t want to be late for our table.” He snapped off one of the lights, took his wife’s fur from a chair in the hall, and put it gently round her shoulders. He’d paid a lot of money for that fur, didn’t want it handled roughly. They stood for a few seconds at the front door, and Rao said:

  “Pardon, may I know where the lavatory is?” In the small, aston-ished silence that followed, he heard the boy’s half-muffled snort of laughter somewhere beyond the hall.

  “I have drunk many cups of tea and one glass of orange juice this afternoon, so my need is pressing,” he said, wishing to stifle their surprise with an explanation, and Harry made a gesture towards a door farther down the hall.

  “It’s certainly going to be a fascinating evening,” she said, as soon as he had left them and they had stepped, discreetly, across the threshold and out on to the porch, a little distance away from the off ending door.

  “How could I know he’d ring? Or even come to Australia for that matter? He was kind to me once, though I suppose he was under orders from Krisnam, who couldn’t come himself.”

  He remembered, again, the airport, and Rao bobbing about playing the host. He’d certainly made things easy—got drinks, though warm, made porters and stewards and airport officials scurry round and be helpful too. He’d even changed some of his Indian currency, and, fina
lly, loaded him with rather garish-looking magazines to read on the plane.

  “I can’t think how you ever came to give him your address at all.”

  “How could I know he’d ever turn up here?” he repeated, but she only looked at him, coldly, and then up at the stars. She would never give her address to anyone, anywhere in the world, she did not wish to meet again.

  “You’d better get the car,” she said, and tapped her long pointed shoe lightly on the tiles.

  The car was very large and quite black. Rao felt gay now, with relief, and told them in some detail of his recent trip—for this was the only thing they seemed to be interested in—dwelling on the food and the comfort of the aeroplane.

  “They had every single thing in that aeroplane,” he said. “Every old thing.” He caught a waft of Marie’s perfume and tried to find the knob for winding down the window.

  He was not an easy man to entertain, and, heaven knew, they were used to entertaining all sorts of people, Marie thought, as she emerged from the powder room and found them waiting for her. Not even handsome, she mused bitterly, as she followed the waiter down the avenue of tables. She nodded her head slightly, on its long stalk of neck, at several acquaintances, furious with Harry that he’d chosen this place to have dinner with an Indian who so obviously was not a prince.

  Ordering the meal was an ordeal they all wanted to forget as quickly as possible. Rao had never seen such large menus—whilst they were reading them they became quite isolated from each other, like people suddenly retiring into monasteries. And he did not understand French, so that they had to explain it to him, because of course he must know what every single thing was, in case he missed something he wanted to try. In the end he ordered plain roast chicken. Marie found this particularly irritating. Harry ordered some more martinis and orange juice while they were waiting.

  “And how long have you been in Australia?” Marie asked, when the drinks arrived. She could hardly have cared less about the reply, which didn’t answer her question.

  “I have seen a number of beautiful places. Although I have only visited this State. Australia is a fine place. We all love Australia, in my country.”

  “Really?” said Harry.

  “Yes, yes. We love the U.K. best, naturally. But next to the U.K. we love your country. And we love your Mr Casey like any old thing.” He pronounced the name Casee, for almost every single syllable he uttered bore the wrong stress.

  “Really?” Harry said again; and Marie said, “And what exactly are you doing here, Mr Rao?”

  “I am here to study deckniks,” he replied, and, seeing her questioning eyebrows, repeated, “Deckniks. I am a decknician.”

  “Deckniks?” she asked.

  “Yes, yes. I have come here for the purpose of studying deckniks. My firm is a management decknik firm. Deckniks…”

  “Oh,” she said. “Yes. Deckniks. How interesting.” For she thought she was a lady to the tips of her pointed shoes, which she never had to have heeled.

  When the food arrived there was more trouble. Several waiters were needed to bring it, and some of them wheeled little trolleys with things cooking on them. It looked like a bazaar, but the smell was different. He tried to help himself, but the condescending waiter pushed his hands aside, without actually touching them, and served the food himself. There were too many knives and forks and spoons to know for sure which would be the right ones, so he tried to remember the stories his cousin had told him of dining out in London. When he began, at last, to eat, he had taken up the wrong knife, but he did not notice this himself, and called loudly for the waiter. He called so loudly that Marie and Harry, heads over food, jumped, and the waiter, four feet away, waited just five seconds before coming to bend over Harry.

  “You wanted something, sir?”

  “I…”

  “Some iced water,” Rao commanded.

  “Iced water, sir?” Harry knew the insult was not meant for him, but he flushed as if it had been.

  “You’d like some iced water, Rao? Yes, please, waiter.”

  Marie stared up at the chandeliers and decided that tonight would be a good time to re-open the question of her new car.

  “It’s strange, in a restaurant such as this one—it has every damn thing, but no iced water,” Rao said gaily. “I always insist on water on my table. Everywhere I go.”

  “Really, Mr Rao? And I expect you have travelled widely ?” she asked.

  “In my country I travel many times a year. I make many journeys for my firm. Usually I travel to many interesting places.”

  “And abroad?” she probed.

  “This is my first journey abroad. But my father, R. K. Rao, has been many times in the U.K. And my cousin.”

  “How fascinating,” she breathed. “Next time you must bring your wife.”

  He glanced at her. She certainly had funny ideas about wives. “My wife would not wish to come,” he said. “She has her work. She is a teacher,” he finished, proudly.

  Marie couldn’t think of anything more boring than a teacher. She was glad when the waiter appeared, tardily, with the iced water. Mr Rao had dropped a large piece of chicken onto the tablecloth, and the headwaiter, a man they knew well, hurried over with a big white table napkin, and placed it over the off ending stain, practically re-setting the table. It was very humiliating.

  “And what have you been doing since you arrived?” she asked. Harry had withdrawn completely from them, and she felt that something must be said between now and the remote time when, they would be able to get up and leave.

  “I have been very busy, generally, with my work,” Rao replied. “And in my free time I have visited some scenic spots. I have been to the mountains, where many foreign tourists are rushing at the week-end. It was cold at the mountain resort but I was well muffled up. I purchased a muffler specially for the journey.”

  Marie, waving to friends, only heard half of this—something about a muffler, and wondered vaguely what it was: a word she knew well, and couldn’t be bothered placing.

  “How terribly embarrassing for you,” she said, “to have a muffler,” for she had decided, at last, that it might be some kind of silencer —for a gun?—though it was hard to understand why he should have to carry a gun, and at the mountains. It would be too tiresome to try to find out.

  For his part, Rao could not understand why a muffler was embarrassing. Perhaps it was not done to wear one or had he made some other kind of mistake while he was speaking to her? He couldn’t for his very life think what it might be. He wondered when he would be able to stop exchanging inanities with this tall, superior woman, when Greenberg would start talking to him about interesting topics—politics, business management, the international situation—when they would be able to bang on the table, glare at each other, shout. But Harry, his head down, was immersed in his food. He hardly seemed to be there at all. Mr Rao put his head down too, and became immersed in his own rather tasteless meal.

  He did not spill anything else on the tablecloth, and he only once more used the wrong knife, but the dinner, far from getting better, trailed feebly to a dismal cup of coffee.

  “It’s a very funny thing,” he said, and he threw back his head and laughed quite loudly, for he did think it a very funny thing, “you are white and you take black coffee and I am black, but I like my coffee to be white.”

  “Very, very amusing,” she said.

  They dropped him at his hotel, a shabby little one they took some time to find. As he put his head in her window to say good night they caught each other’s smell. She sank back a little, overpowered by oil on hair, by something she had never encountered, which was not the odour of his body, and yet was. And he caught, again, her perfume, which sickened him, and her wine-breath, and the sweetness emanating from her fur and her dress. They retreated from each other, while Harry drummed his fingers on the wheel and eased his foot on the brake.

  “…a really splendid evening. I am most grateful,” he said, thinking of the lon
g silences there had been in the restaurant, and wondering why he was grateful. At least the dinner had cost him nothing. Not one single farthing.

  “Not at all. A pleasure. Nice to see you again,” Harry said, clenching and unclenching his leg muscle.

  “Now. One evening perhaps I may offer you some hospitality? Would you like to come to see me? Perhaps I can give you some snacks?”

  “That would be nice. Harry and I are going away for a month, but when we return…”

  “Before you go? Tomorrow ?” He didn’t mean any of this, and actually allowed his eyes to follow a couple along the dark street while he was speaking.

  “Oh, no. We’re…we’re dining out tomorrow. When we come back…you ring us, that’s the best thing.”

  “Oh, sure,” he said, “sure, sure. Pardon?”

  “You ring us,” she repeated, grimly, between her closed teeth, and Harry at length, transferred his foot to the accelerator. It was a powerful car, and as it jumped off it brushed him a little to one side. He watched the red tail-lights winking at him from the comer and then they disappeared.

  As he went into the hotel he knew that he would never see either of them again, but he thought he’d wait until the morning before deciding whether or not to pretend to himself that he would.

  Douglas Stewart

  THE THREE JOLLY FOXES

  AT the hour of seven on a fine June morning, two handsome glossy foxes are hurrying towards the store and teashop on Fat Chow Creek. The one who is closest is carrying no rabbit in his mouth; and that is a pity, for the great red fellow, trotting from the tea-tree to the golden rushes by the creek, ears up, plumy brush waving— a rabbit in his mouth would make him the perfect picture of a fox on the hunt in the morning.