A Time of Secrets

by Deborah Burrows

  I heard footsteps behind us, and tried to get clear of his restraining arm, to cry out for help. His arm tightened and he turned us towards the flats, showing the passers-by a couple locked in embrace. Had Eric and I looked like that to the people who walked past us on Monday night?

  The footsteps became louder, passed us by and receded. Still holding me tightly, Cole pushed me across Toorak Road, towards the darkness of Fawkner Park, where bushes were thick and shadows deep. When they’d taught us self-defence in training camp, I’d been thrilled to know that I had some protection against brutish men. Only, nothing they’d taught me had prepared me for the reality of a fight against superior strength, in the throes of an asthma attack. I tried to kick back at him, to squirm free of his stinking hold on me. Only now we’d reached the black mass of bushes, and all I’d done was exhaust what little strength I had left. I gasped and wheezed and struggled to breathe.

  A girlish voice rang out behind me. ‘Stella! Are you all right?’ It was Mary. I could hear her panting, as if she’d been running.

  ‘Mongrel bastard. Let her go.’ That deep, angry voice was Faye’s.

  My body became rigid. He’d hurt the girls. Again I tried to break free, but he simply pulled me closer. He’d hurt the girls and I could do nothing.

  I felt Cole’s body move in a rough guffaw.

  ‘Rescue party?’

  He shoved me away and I stumbled, falling onto my hands and knees on grass. I gasped and the sudden intake of cold air caused seemingly ceaseless paroxysms of coughing. I pulled in a wheezy breath whenever I could, but each gasp of chill air just seemed to make the coughing worse. Breathe in. Slowly, Stella, slowly. Pause. Breathe out. Slow breaths, Stella. Slow breaths. Use your diaphragm. Don’t cough. Every inhalation was like shards of glass in my chest.

  ‘What’s your worry, girls?’ said Cole behind me. The sound of his voice surprised me. I’d actually forgotten he existed, in my fight for air. ‘Stella and I are having a chat. That’s all.’

  ‘She looks like she’s having a grand old time.’ It was Faye’s voice again, and her tone was dry.

  Slowly, painfully, I mastered my breathing and crawled around to watch what was happening. Cole was facing off against the two girls. Faye, a tall, slim shape, moved slowly around him, her body relaxed and slightly crouched. The moonlight was so bright that I could even make out her expression of keen watchfulness. Mary was shorter, a solid little figure, jiggling on the spot, obviously terrified, but standing her ground.

  ‘Want a fight, eh? That what you want, girls?’ Cole laughed.

  ‘You just shut up,’ said Mary. ‘You – you mongrel bastard.’ Her voice was a high, frightened squeak. Faye was silent, still watching Cole unblinkingly. The girls exchanged a look.

  Mary darted behind him, jumped onto his back and held on. She was much shorter than he was, but she was a solid girl, and she clung limpet-like to his back with one arm around his neck as the other gouged at his eyes and scratched at his face. He roared in pain, shaking his head and shoulders like a bull trying to worry away a nuisance. As Mary clung on doggedly Faye moved in close. She brought her knee up hard and fast into his groin. I heard the impact, then a shriek from Cole. He doubled forwards, with Mary still clinging to his back, hands still busy, tearing at his face. Faye shoved at his chest with her shoulder and he fell heavily as Mary finally jumped clear.

  Cole was lying on his side on the ground, moaning. The girls were safe, unhurt. My fear dissipated and with it much of the tension in my body. I pulled myself up so that I was kneeling on the wet grass.

  Cole was lying on his side, obviously disorientated. Faye took a few steps back then ran at him, just as I’d seen the men do when they were about to take a free kick in the Australian rules football. Her foot, encased in its thick sensible AWAS issue leather shoes went straight into Cole’s groin. His shriek was louder this time. I thrilled to hear it.

  ‘Bastard,’ she screamed. ‘Bastard.’ And she kicked him again.

  I fell forward onto the ground, felt wet grass on my hot cheek, tasted loamy earth. Blood was roaring in my ears. Each breath rasped in my throat. The girls were with me now. Crouching over me. Soft voices, soft hands, helping me to sit up. I was cradled against a soft chest, smelled wet wool.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’

  A man’s voice. High-pitched explanations from the girls. A man kneeling in front of me. Telling me to breathe. Faye’s arms still around me, or was it Mary?

  ‘Just breathe, Stella. He can’t hurt you now.’ I knew the voice. Lieutenant Ross. His hand was rubbing my back in firm, calming circles as Mary held me close. Or was it Faye?

  Ross’s voice was calm, deep, hypnotic. ‘Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. Hold.’

  I did what he said and my panic subsided. I concentrated on breathing.

  ‘Will she die?’ It was Mary’s voice, full of tears. Mary, who’d been as brave as a lion.

  I pushed myself away from the comforting arms. Ross helped me up, first to kneel and then to stand. He held me firm. Faye and Mary were standing in front of me. I managed a smile and their expressions eased from terror to sympathy.

  My voice was low, as calm as I could make it, but I couldn’t help the breathless gasps. ‘I’ll be fine. Need adrenalin. You saved me. So brave.’

  Mary’s face was awash with tears and she was emitting little hiccupping sobs.

  Faye glanced over to her right. ‘Bastard’s legged it,’ she said.

  ‘More likely he crawled away,’ said Ross. ‘After those drop kicks. Ouch.’

  Faye snorted. ‘Torpedo punts, you mean. Hope I broke his bloody –’

  ‘There’s a doctor’s surgery just up the road,’ said Ross, wincing slightly. ‘I’ll take Stella to him. You go home now, I’ll look after her. Good work, both of you.’

  Once the girls left, it was as if the nightmarish quality of Cole’s attack had suddenly become stark reality. My legs began to quiver and then they seemed to give way. I would have fallen if Ross hadn’t been holding me so tightly. I wanted to shake him off, because it reminded me of how Cole had held me, but I simply didn’t have the strength. I coughed and wheezed, trying to draw in oxygen. He opened his greatcoat and wrapped it around me. I breathed in air that was warm from his body, smelling of wool and soap. It helped.

  As he half dragged me across Toorak Road, his arms were so tight around my shoulders that they hurt me. We staggered along the footpath together at a fast pace.

  ‘This is it,’ he said, and we wheeled around to march together down a side path that led to a house.

  I heard him ring the bell. A door opened. There were voices. I was helped inside, through a hallway into a bright room. I sat on a bench. My greatcoat and jacket were removed by someone. My shirt sleeve was rolled up. I felt the injection and then, blessedly, I could breathe.

  The doctor’s voice was low and professionally reassuring. ‘I’m Doctor Hollis. I’ve given you adrenalin, but you need to get to a hospital. Do you understand?’

  I nodded. ‘I need things from home to take with me. Can I go home first?’ My voice was low and husky, but I was breathing relatively easily. The relief was almost overwhelming.

  Dr Hollis shook his head doubtfully, ignored me and addressed Ross. ‘It’d be best to get her to hospital straight away. Is her place far?’

  ‘A minute away. Very close.’

  He glared at Ross. ‘She’ll be fine for a while, fifteen minutes – half an hour, maybe, if she stays calm – but when the adrenalin starts to wear off she’ll relapse quickly. I want her in hospital with oxygen when that happens.’

  Ross nodded.

  I moved my head up and down in a parody of a nod and Ross put his arm around me, pulled me to him again. I was too exhausted to complain, and anyway, it felt good now to be held tightly. It was surprisingly reassuring. Nick Ross had been surprisingly reassur
ing in this crisis.

  ‘I just want to get some things from home,’ I said. ‘Then you can take me straight to hospital.’

  Dr Hollis’s expression made his annoyance very clear. ‘I’ll telephone the Alfred now to let them know you’re bringing her in. Get her there quickly.’

  Ross was staring at me with an odd, rigid expression. I could see the whites of his eyes and he was holding his mouth too tightly. I thought he looked afraid, which made me uncomfortable.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, smiling weakly. ‘I’m used to this. I’ll be fine.’ It was a lie. I’d only once before had an asthma attack as bad as this, and that time they’d told my parents I was unlikely to survive. The adrenalin was keeping the asthma at bay now, though, and I did want my own things with me at hospital.

  Ross nodded, but his face didn’t relax. ‘My car’s about a hundred yards away along the footpath. I was driving by when I saw the fight. Can you walk that far?’

  ‘If we move slowly.’

  We walked at a snail’s pace along Toorak Road, his arms tight around me, my head buried in the warmth of his jacket. It smelled good, warm, smelled of Ross. We soon got a rhythm going to our steps and moved easily together, like lovers, or close friends, or soldiers in enemy territory. We didn’t talk. The adrenalin had buoyed me, made me hyperaware of all that was around me, the semi-darkness and the night sounds of our steps on the footpath, birds twittering, wind in the trees in Fawkner Park, the occasional motor vehicle, some laughter and snatches of conversation from the few people walking past us.

  At a sedan parked on the roadside, Ross opened the passenger door and helped me into the seat. I felt cold when he removed his arm, shaky and a little lost. I hated feeling that I needed him in any way, but I took a breath – without pain or wheeze; the adrenalin was still holding – and let my annoyance drift into the night. I did need him. He had been good; he’d helped to save my life. I wondered how the girls were, and smiled to myself remembering that last, vicious kick Faye had directed at Cole’s groin. Bloodthirsty wretch that I was, it was a deeply satisfying memory.

  The car lurched as Ross settled into the driver’s seat. The door slammed shut. He pushed the starter and the car roared into life.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  His voice in reply was low and urgent. ‘I’ll put out the word to find him. Don’t worry about him any more. He won’t hurt you again.’

  I didn’t reply. There was no capacity for fear left in me. Certainly not fear of a man like Cole. My real enemy was my body, my faulty lungs. That was the only enemy I needed to fight right now, and it was one for which I needed all my strength. Someone would deal with Cole, but it wouldn’t be me.

  Ross did a U-turn across Toorak Road, drove the short distance to Avoca and parked across from the flats. He came around to open my door. He seemed oddly unsteady as he helped me out of the car and his arm was tight around me as we crossed Toorak Road. I stumbled as we stepped up onto the footpath and Ross’s arm tightened further. We stopped walking. I lifted my head in a query to find he was staring down at me.

  ‘He won’t hurt you again,’ he repeated, this time in an urgent whisper. ‘I swear it.’ Without warning he kissed me. Hard, proprietarily.

  When he broke away I took a breath to tell him not to do that again.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ I’d never heard a voice so cold.

  Eric.

  I gasped. My heart began to thump crazily. Whatever must he think? I turned towards him, prepared to explain to him that I’d been more kissed against than kissing, when I saw him clearly in the moonlight.

  Eric was in front of us, unsmiling, standing squarely and easily, shoulders back, head up. It was the same stance as he had adopted in the restaurant, and I understood why the waiter had shrunk away from him. Now his anger was directed at me, there was an almost palpable sense of menace about Eric Lund. He’d changed into something else, outside the mundane world of men and anger and annoyance. It was clear that the man in front of me knew all about death, and it was clear that at present he was considering his options.

  Ross broke in. ‘Eric, don’t –’

  ‘Are you helping me out again? Mate?’

  Eric’s voice was low, uninflected, but Ross shuddered. I could feel my chest tightening as I sucked in a breath that caught in my throat and didn’t reach my lungs.

  ‘What’s this all about, Stella?’

  I swallowed. What could I say?

  ‘No lies, Stella. No lies.’

  That cold, uninflected voice. It reminded me of Frank and I began to tremble. I had no idea what this man was capable of doing. I was afraid of Eric, of this wolf in front of me. Ross feared him, too; that was clear in the tautness of his body as he held me and the barely perceptible shiver in his muscles. How could one man standing easy in front of us cause such terror? Nevertheless, terror had me cold and shaking, and it fogged my brain. Was this the same man who’d been so gentle and so loving just the night before? How had I so misread who he really was? How had I not seen the wolf inside him?

  I pushed away from Ross to stand alone, staring at Eric. I tried for another breath.

  ‘You were bloody good,’ he said. ‘You really had me thinking –’

  Ross broke in, hesitant. ‘I swear, it’s not –’

  ‘Shut up, Nick.’ That was a growl – a wolf baring its teeth. A warning. The first and only warning.

  But Ross wanted to argue the point. Ross would always want to argue the point. ‘No. Listen. Eric, she’s –’

  Something flared in Eric’s eyes as he lunged at Ross. A look of pure animal fury. I swear he bared his teeth in a snarl. Had his Viking ancestors looked like that when they ravaged England, killed the peaceful monks in Lindisfarne, carelessly slaughtered men, women, children? From the wrath of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us.

  Ross or Eric, one of them, pushed me, just as Cole had pushed me aside to deal with Faye and Mary. Only this time I landed on the footpath, and the concrete tore my stockings, grazed my knee. I felt the pain, briefly, as I turned to sit on the cold, wet footpath and watch them fight.

  Their violently struggling bodies were dark opaque shadows that writhed and rose and fell in a clamour of grunts and thuds. In a moment they were both on their feet. Eric used the side of his hand in a chop at Ross’s throat, a move that was blocked by the other’s forearm. Eric hooked his leg around Ross’s knee and brought him down. Then they were locked in a heaving mass of fists and elbows and knees.

  I was feeling light-headed now, increasingly unable to breathe, but my eyes were fixed on the men in front of me. It was easy to tell which was which, because Eric’s hair was so blond. As they grappled, each trying to win the advantage, I had an image of Delacroix’s wall painting of Jacob wrestling with the angel in the Chapelle des Saints-Anges in Saint Sulpice in Paris.

  Eric had Ross on the ground now, sitting astride him, pummelling him with hard thudding blows. Eric would kill Ross. I knew it. Ross would die now, as I watched, killed by Eric’s hand. My heart thumped fast, painfully, in my chest and painful shivering rattled my teeth. The bands that had formed around my chest tightened as I tried – and failed again – to take a breath.

  ‘She’s ill . . . you fool.’ Ross’s words were a harsh gasp, almost unrecognisable. ‘Stella . . . Asthma.’

  Eric released him abruptly, then stood and turned to look at me. He had the same light watchful stance as before and his breathing was even, silent. His fists were clenched, and I thought he was trembling. Ross was behind him, on his hands and knees, sucking in fast, heaving breaths, coughing.

  Stella, you will die if you don’t get to hospital now. It was the still, small voice in the whirlwind. It was Truth. I raised my head and stared at Eric, the wolf in front of me. He was frightening, but I had another wolf inside me, one I feared more than Eric. And that wolf was howling now, increasingly
sure of the kill; I heard him in the pounding of my heart and felt him in my desperate, increasingly unfulfilled need for air.

  My voice was a mere whisper. ‘You’re like – Frank. No trust – nothing.’

  When I tried again to inhale it was a high rattling sound, shocking in the silence around us. Indecent. Eric flinched.

  He knows, I thought. Knows it’s the sound of death.

  I couldn’t breathe. There was no air.

  The world spiralled into darkness.

  Thirty-three

  They call it status asthmaticus. I fear it more than the Japanese Empire or the Nazis, more than fierce men who want to hurt me, more than fire or flood or wind or any of the terrors of this sometimes terrifying country in which I now live. It killed my grandfather, and his brother. It killed my aunt. One day it will probably kill me, but not this time.

  When I awoke I was propped up in a hospital bed, wearing an oxygen mask. My chest felt as if it had closed up entirely. My heart was galloping and I gasped and coughed and despite the oxygen there was little relief. When I turned my head to the side I saw that I was in a bed at the top of a fourteen-bed ward. Around me other fights for life were raging. The woman next to me had sunken, terrified eyes and was gasping into her oxygen mask. I turned away from her and concentrated on trying to breathe from deeper in my diaphragm, the way that my English doctor had recommended.

  Time ceased to mean anything. Every so often someone would raise my arm and inject me with adrenalin. And that would help, for a while. But the drug kept me in a jittery half-world of mixed memory and fear. Like a horror movie at the pictures, I replayed over and over again in my mind Cole’s attack and the way the girls had saved me. Nick Ross getting me to the doctor and his ridiculous kiss when we arrived at Avoca. Eric’s face, that look of hopeless desolation and its abrupt transformation into the wolf that lurked beneath his skin. Then my chest would tighten again. I’d breathe slowly, down into my stomach, using the deeper muscles to force air in, willing myself to forget. But the movie kept replaying. As long as I had the adrenalin, the movie replayed.