Hostel Girl
Page 12
‘Hey, get back. Back, you bloody fools,’ they yelled.
Ailsa looked up the line. The unit from Waterloo hissed towards them, invisible behind its swelling light.
‘Ron,’ Ailsa screamed. ‘Errol,’ she screamed. Somehow she was over the fence, leaving Calum behind. The men grabbed Ron Stock and tried to pull him to safety. He clasped Errol’s throat and would not let go. They heaved at him, tore him away. The unit was shrieking its brakes.
Errol Parkinson held out his hands. His mouth opened, showing his bitten tongue. Ailsa could not hear him but imagined ever after that his words were, ‘Help me.’ He was acting no role; he was someone calling out for her, begging for his life; and she could not reach him.
At the last moment she turned away.
Calum helped her back to the fence and over it and they sat in the darkness under a tree, holding each other, while up on the railway line people ran along the sides of the halted unit, yelling and squatting and shining torches.
No one wanted Ailsa and Calum. After a while they went away.
It was several days before she could visit Gloria.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’ll survive,’ Gloria whispered.
‘Was that your mother out there?’
‘Yes.’ She could not talk easily through her torn mouth.
‘I’m glad she’s come. Where will you go?’
‘Auckland.’
‘With her?’
‘Yes.’
‘And have your baby?’
‘It came. My period came.’ Tears ran from Gloria’s eyes and soaked into her bandages. ‘I’m sorry for all the trouble,’ she said.
‘Some of it was my fault.’
Gloria tried to shrug but it hurt. They sat for a while, holding hands.
‘I’m sorry about the boilerman,’ Gloria said.
‘He’s all right. All he got was a broken collar bone. He’s back at work. We thought the police might charge him but he’s a hero so they won’t.’
‘Will you tell him thanks?’ Gloria said.
‘He walks around saying, “I saved her, eh?” The girls leave him chocolate biscuits in the boiler house, even if they are bad for his teeth.’
The ward sister looked in. It was time to go.
‘Was Errol … was it quick?’ Gloria said.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry about him too.’
Ailsa could find no answer to that. She could not bear to think of Errol holding out his hands. Soon she would have to, she knew; and talk about him with her mother, and maybe with Calum. Not with Gloria, not now.
She pushed a strand of hair off Gloria’s forehead. Found a patch not covered with bandages. Kissed her friend.
‘Goodbye.’
‘Hey, Ailsa.’
‘What?’
‘You can keep my lipstick. All that stuff.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But don’t use too much.’
‘I won’t.’
Calum was waiting on the hospital steps.
‘Raining again. What shall we do?’
‘Pictures?’
‘OK.’
They went down the steps hand in hand. The rain slanted cold into their faces but she walked with Calum, at his pace, along to the tram.
About the author
Maurice Gee is one of New Zealand’s best-known writers for adults and children. He has won a number of literary awards, including the Wattie Award, the Deutz Medal for Fiction, the New Zealand Fiction Award, the New Zealand Children’s Book of the Year Award and the Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement.
Maurice Gee lives in Nelson with his wife Margareta, and has two daughters and a son.