by Louis Stone
“Come in, an’ shut the door,” he said. His voice was little more than a whisper.
Clara obeyed him mechanically.
“Sit down,” he added, putting the bottle on the table.
For a while each stared at the other, too stunned to move or speak. Jonah’s world had fallen about his ears, and Clara’s dreams of wealth mocked at her and fled.
Suddenly, in the deadly silence, Jonah began to speak.
“So it was you, was it? I never thought of that. I wonder what brought yer ’ere just as I found this? They say murder will out, an’ I believe it now. If this ’appened to anybody else, ’e’d go mad. But I can stand it. I’m tough. I fought my way up from the gutter. An’ ye’re the woman that I worshipped…For God’s sake, woman, speak! Make up something that I can believe. Say yer never ’ad a ’and in this, an’ I’ll kiss the ground yer walk on. No, it wouldn’t be any use. I couldn’t believe the angel Gabriel, if he looked at me with that face. Yer paid for that bottle an’ brought it ’ere. I saw that the moment yer set eyes on it. Yer thought Ada wasn’t goin’ ter hell fast enough, an’ yer’d give ’er a shove. An’ I see now why yer did it. Yer wanted ter step into ’er shoes, an ’andle my money. It wasn’t me yer wanted. I might ’ave known that. It was the shop that yer were always talkin’ about. An’ if yer ’adn’t walked in at that door just now, I should never ’ave suspected. Screamin’ funny, ain’t it? She wasn’t much loss, but she was a thousand times better than the ladylike devil that killed her. I don’t know ’ow the law stands in a case like this. Yer may be safe from that, but yer’ve got me ter deal with first. Yer led me on with yer damned airs to believe in things I’ve never dreamt of before. An’ now yer’ve killed the best in me as sure as yer murdered my wife. Well, yer must pay for that, too.”
Clara sat on the chair like one in a trance. She understood in a numbed kind of way that something dreadful was going to happen. O God, she had never meant to do wrong! And if this was the punishment, let it come quickly. Jonah had been walking backwards and forwards with nervous steps, and she noted every detail of his person with a fixed stare. The early repugnance to his deformity returned with horror as she studied the large head, wedged between the shoulders as if a giant’s hand had pressed it down, the projecting hump, and the unnaturally long arms ending in the hard, hairy fist of the shoemaker.
She felt that he was going to kill her. She wanted to speak, to cry out that she was not so guilty as he thought, but her tongue was like a rasp. Suddenly Jonah stopped in front of her. Her stony silence had maddened him, and in a moment he was transformed into the old-time larrikin, accustomed to demand an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. He rushed at her with a cry like an animal, and caught her by the throat with his powerful hands. But the contact of his fingers with that delicate flesh that he had never dared to touch before brought him to his senses. A violent shudder shook him like ague, his fingers relaxed, and with a sobbing cry, dreadful to hear, he dragged the fainting woman to her feet and pushed her towards the door, crying “Go, go, for God’s sake!”
She walked unsteadily through the shop with a face the colour of chalk, hearing and seeing nothing. The red-letter sale was in full swing. A crowd of customers jostled one another as they passed in and out; the coins clinked merrily in the till. Miss Giltinan caught sight of her face, and wondered. Half an hour later, growing suspicious, she ran upstairs, and knocked at the door on a pretext of business. Hearing nothing, she opened the door, with her heart in her mouth, and looked in. Jonah was crouching motionless on the end of the sofa, his head buried among the cushions, like a stricken animal. Puzzled, but reassured, she closed the door gently and went downstairs.
***
Jonah never saw Clara again. He spent a week in the depths, groping blindly, hating life for its deceptions. Then one day, his passion of hatred and loathing for Clara left him suddenly, as a garrison surrenders without a blow. He took a cab to her house, and knocked at the door. A curtain moved, but the door remained unopened. A month later he learned that she had married her old love, the clerk in the Lands Department, transferred by request to Wagga, beyond the reach of Dad and his reputation. The following year Jonah married Miss Giltinan, chiefly on account of Ray, who was growing unmanageable; and on Monday morning it was one of the sights of Regent Street to see the second Mrs Jones step into her sulky to drive round and inspect the suburban branches of the Silver Shoe which Jonah had opened under her direction.
Chook and Pinkey did not need to stare at sixpence before spending it, but their fortune was long in the making. Meanwhile Chook consoled himself with the presence of a sturdy son, the image of Pinkey, with a mop of curls the colour of a new penny.
Dancing on Coral
Glenda Adams
Introduced by Susan Wyndham
The Commandant
Jessica Anderson
Introduced by Carmen Callil
Homesickness
Murray Bail
Introduced by Peter Conrad
Sydney Bridge Upside Down
David Ballantyne
Introduced by Kate De Goldi
Bush Studies
Barbara Baynton
Introduced by Helen Garner
The Cardboard Crown
Martin Boyd
Introduced by Brenda Niall
A Difficult Young Man
Martin Boyd
Introduced by Sonya Hartnett
Outbreak of Love
Martin Boyd
Introduced by Chris Womersley
The Australian Ugliness
Robin Boyd
Introduced by Christos Tsiolkas
All the Green Year
Don Charlwood
Introduced by Michael McGirr
They Found a Cave
Nan Chauncy
Introduced by John Marsden
The Even More Complete
Book of Australian Verse
John Clarke
Diary of a Bad Year
J. M. Coetzee
Introduced by Peter Goldsworthy
Wake in Fright
Kenneth Cook
Introduced by Peter Temple
The Dying Trade
Peter Corris
Introduced by Charles Waterstreet
They’re a Weird Mob
Nino Culotta
Introduced by Jacinta Tynan
The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke
C. J. Dennis
Introduced by Jack Thompson
Careful, He Might Hear You
Sumner Locke Elliott
Introduced by Robyn Nevin
Fairyland
Sumner Locke Elliott
Introduced by Dennis Altman
Terra Australis
Matthew Flinders
Introduced by Tim Flannery
My Brilliant Career
Miles Franklin
Introduced by Jennifer Byrne
The Fringe Dwellers
Nene Gare
Introduced by Melissa Lucashenko
Cosmo Cosmolino
Helen Garner
Introduced by Ramona Koval
Dark Places
Kate Grenville
Introduced by Louise Adler
The Long Prospect
Elizabeth Harrower
Introduced by Fiona McGregor
The Watch Tower
Elizabeth Harrower
Introduced by Joan London
The Mystery of a Hansom Cab
Fergus Hume
Introduced by Simon Caterson
Jonah
David Ireland
Introduced by Peter Pierce
The Glass Canoe
David Ireland
Introduced by Nicolas Rothwell
A Woman of the Future
David Ireland
Introduced by Kate Jennings
Eat Me
Linda Jaivin
Introduced by Krissy Kneen
Julia Paradise
Rod
Jones
Introduced by Emily Maguire
The Jerilderie Letter
Ned Kelly
Introduced by Alex McDermott
Bring Larks and Heroes
Thomas Keneally
Introduced by Geordie Williamson
Strine
Afferbeck Lauder
Introduced by John Clarke
Stiff
Shane Maloney
Introduced by Lindsay Tanner
The Middle Parts of Fortune
Frederic Manning
Introduced by Simon Caterson
Selected Stories
Katherine Mansfield
Introduced by Emily Perkins
The Home Girls
Olga Masters
Introduced by Geordie Williamson
Amy’s Children
Olga Masters
Introduced by Eva Hornung
The Scarecrow
Ronald Hugh Morrieson
Introduced by Craig Sherborne
The Dig Tree
Sarah Murgatroyd
Introduced by Geoffrey Blainey
The Plains
Gerald Murnane
Introduced by Wayne Macauley
The Odd Angry Shot
William Nagle
Introduced by Paul Ham
Life and Adventures 1776–1801
John Nicol
Introduced by Tim Flannery
Death in Brunswick
Boyd Oxlade
Introduced by Shane Maloney
Swords and Crowns and Rings
Ruth Park
Introduced by Alice Pung
The Watcher in the Garden
Joan Phipson
Introduced by Margo Lanagan
Maurice Guest
Henry Handel Richardson
Introduced by Carmen Callil
The Getting of Wisdom
Henry Handel Richardson
Introduced by Germaine Greer
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
Henry Handel Richardson
Introduced by Peter Craven
Rose Boys
Peter Rose
Introduced by Brian Matthews
Hills End
Ivan Southall
Introduced by James Moloney
The Women in Black
Madeleine St John
Introduced by Bruce Beresford
The Essence of the Thing
Madeleine St John
Introduced by Helen Trinca
Jonah
Louis Stone
Introduced by Frank Moorhouse
An Iron Rose
Peter Temple
Introduced by Les Carlyon
1788
Watkin Tench
Introduced by Tim Flannery
Happy Valley
Patrick White
Introduced by Peter Craven
I Own the Racecourse!
Patricia Wrightson
Introduced by Kate Constable
textclassics.com.au