Above the Fold

by Peter Yeldham

  Alone at night he felt abandoned and desperately lonely, but was no fit company, even for Alfie Metcalfe, with his fluctuating moods. Lacking a reason to stay committed he found himself considering whores in the street, or the crude advertisements on message boards.

  ERECTION COMPANY SEEK MEN was one. MITCHIKO INVITES ALL COME QUICK another.

  One night he found himself at the door of a cheap brothel, but, dismayed by the unsanitary atmosphere, he blundered out, with the elderly Mama-san who owned the girls shouting abuse after him.

  In the end there seemed no option. With Christmas only weeks away his lease on the apartment was almost up. He told Doreen he’d made some arrangements of his own, rang Alfie Metcalfe and moved in the following weekend. He’d been so tenaciously faithful for a year, and now felt off the leash with no loyalty to bind him. He startled Miki with his sexual appetite. They spent the entire Christmas holiday locked in her room, and saw out the old year in bed.

  “He number one fucker,” she told the other girls, and it caused a crisis when they wanted to try it for themselves. Alfie was all of a sudden not very amused.

  “It’s like having a cuckoo in the nest,” he complained. “They all want you to shag them. This won’t work unless you can get that bird to shut up, Luke. She’s telling the others you’re a five-a-night man.”

  “Only the once,” Luke admitted.

  “Strewth!” Alfie blinked. “Five times?”

  Luke nodded. “It was the first night, after a long lay-off.”

  “Try not to use the word ‘lay’, would you,” Alfie replied, “I think I’d better see what the local chemist can offer in the way of bromide. If bloody Miki doesn’t stop talking it up as if you’re a prize stud bull, we’ll have the place inundated with sheilas.” He stopped for a moment to think of this with his customary grin. “But then I suppose worse things could happen.”

  Determined on changes in his life, Luke spoke to Harry Morton about trying to arrange a discharge from the army. He was content to remain with the Pacific Monitor for the next few years, provided Harry himself was staying on with the newspaper.

  Harry was delighted. “I’m certainly staying here, and so is Doreen,” he confided. “My wife is seeking what she calls an amicable divorce. It means she gets the house, the kids and most of our money,” he said with a shrug. “But some things are worth it. And as far as you’re concerned, I can pull strings to get you a discharge here without returning to Australia, if that’s how you want it.”

  “That’s how I want it,” Luke confirmed.

  “I’m sorry for the break-up that caused this, but I’ll gladly have you on board, so let’s sit down and sort something out.”

  He offered Luke an above-the-award rate of sixty pounds a week paid into his bank in Sydney, and an expense account so liberal that he would have no need to draw on this salary. If Luke thought it overly generous, he decided not to say so. He knew Harry would invoke the Samuel Johnson clause, and remind him that the British Commonwealth could well afford his stipend.

  A month later he was out of the army, and a civilian again with a two-year contract. He wrote a number of feature stories, including a biographic article on John Logie Baird the inventor of television, a Scotsman who had often been regarded as a dangerous eccentric. At an early age one of Baird’s inventions short-circuited the entire electrical system of Glasgow, and later he was ordered to leave his premises in London’s Soho before he blew up the building. He was derided as a wayward visionary for most of his life.

  But as Luke’s article concluded:

  In the past few years, television, as it is now being called, has begun to be shown in both Britain and America. Sadly, in 1946 when interest was increasing, John Logie Baird suffered a stroke and died. He had lived to disprove his early label of ‘the barmy inventor’, and it is predicted this new device of ‘a little box that shows pictures’ will soon be installed in people’s homes all over the world. It is prophesied that you will be able to see news on it, as well as plays and movies without leaving your house.

  Harry Morton was a shrewd operator. He sold the article to magazines and newspapers all over Europe and the United States. “You see how we can afford you?” he said to Luke. “And by the way, you’re entitled to 10 per cent of any profit we make from the sales.” He knew of his star recruit’s emotional wounds, and was determined to look after him. If Alfie Metcalfe was Luke’s extroverted after-hours mate, Harry and Doreen became his anchor and his intimate friends.

  There was a minor crisis at the Forces newspaper. A cartoon had caused enormous offence at Allied Command. It depicted General MacArthur under one of his nicknames, Dugout Doug, standing astride the Pacific Ocean, with one foot on his birthplace of Little Rock, Arkansas, the other on Tokyo. He was covered in medals and decorations, hand in hand with God, who was trying to find room to pin another award. The caption was what caused the upset in Allied Headquarters. God was complaining there was no room on the front of his uniform, and he would have to pin it on the back. MacArthur’s line of dialogue told him it was impossible. The back of his uniform was made of steel to prevent knife thrusts, because he had so many advisers and friends who claimed they were right behind him.

  In poor taste, as well as being anti-Christian and unpatriotic, was the angry message from the General’s Chief of Staff, who requested an early interview with Major Morton.

  “You might as well come along,” Harry said to Luke. “Meet his new press assistant, while I get a bollocking and make the necessary humble apologies.” They were driven to MacArthur’s headquarters at the Dai-ichi insurance building, directly opposite the Emperor’s palace. After passing through security, an armed escort took them to the sixth floor.

  “Great view the General has,” Luke said, looking out the windows at the Imperial Gardens while they were waiting.

  “He didn’t choose the sixth floor entirely for the view,” Harry murmured. “This is considerably higher than the palace across the bridge, so each morning our leader can look down on Emperor Hirohito.”

  Luke stifled a laugh just in time, as a young woman approached them from the Chief of Staff’s office. Slim and long-legged, with green eyes and shoulder-length chestnut hair, she appeared surprisingly young if she was the new assistant press liaison.

  “Major Morton?” She had a New York accent, and a warm smile.

  “Are they ready for me?” Harry asked.

  “Sharpening the knives, I’m afraid, but don’t let on I said that. I’m Hannah Thompson, the new broom in the press office.”

  “Nice to meet you, Miss Thompson. This is Luke Elliott, one of my reporters. May I leave him in your capable hands while I get castigated?”

  “Sure can,” she smiled. “And the best of luck,” she murmured, but this was confided quietly to Luke, as Harry went into the room where senior officers were waiting for him.

  “Just been admiring your view, Miss Thompson.”

  “Gorgeous gardens, aren’t they? The General gets a real kick out of looking down on the Emperor each morning,” she said, another wide smile revealing perfect white teeth. “And by the way I’m Hannah.”

  “I’m Luke.”

  “Aussie?”

  He nodded, saying he’d spent time with the radio unit in Kure.

  “Did you see Hiroshima?” But before he could speak she replied to her own question. “But of course you did. Forgive me, but I’m new. You wrote that article on the Hiroshima boy.”

  “Kaito.”

  “It made me cry.”

  “He made a lot of us cry, Hannah. There’s a clinic there now, a memorial for him.”

  “Opened by Doctor Nakamura. I’m with you now. I really liked the way you revealed the good work that guy was doing. I think it’s time we made some friends with people here. Until now I get the feeling we’re just occupying the place, our own young soldiers having themselves a picnic. Sex for a packet of cigarettes.”

  “Half a packet, down south in BCOF territory.�
��

  “Spoils to the conqueror,” she said, with a wrinkle of her nose that indicated disgust, and impressed him. “Look, if they’re going to take their time giving your poor boss hell, how about we find a cup of coffee?”

  “I’d like nothing better …” he started to say, but at that moment Harry emerged escorted by a colonel. The American officer, his uniform draped with medals, looked more like a doorman getting rid of an unwanted guest. The atmosphere between them was icy.

  “Just control your staff, Major. And remember, another one like that, and the General will make an official and very personal complaint to BCOF.”

  “I get the message, loud and clear,” replied Harry, and held out his hand, but the colonel ignored it and shut the door in his face. “Execution over,” said Harry, but was clearly annoyed by the rebuff as he joined them. He managed a smile for Hannah. “Been looking after my friend, I hope, Miss Thompson.”

  “Just telling him he made me cry, Major. Lovely article he wrote about Kaito. And a fine one about the doctor.”

  “It was,” Harry agreed, “and there’s more to come. We’d better get back to the coal face,” he said.

  “Glad to have met you both,” Hannah answered. “Look forward to the next time.” A smile was directed at Luke as she left them.

  “You could do me a favour,” Harry Morton broached the subject as they drove back to the office, “by getting to know that young lady better.” He chuckled as Luke turned with a startled look. “If that sounded suggestive, I only meant you might ask her out for a meal and make friends.”

  “With what in mind, Harry?”

  “International relations. They’re at a low ebb right now.”

  “All because of the cartoon?”

  “And other things. Did you notice the lack of handshake?”

  “Couldn’t miss it.”

  “The Colonel and I are not great friends. So he relished getting stuck into me for the bloody cartoon, even though it first appeared in American newspapers. I’m temporarily persona non grata. It was a mistake. I was out of the office yesterday, and it was run without my knowledge. But, no excuses. I’m responsible for what we print, and I should’ve warned the subs MacArthur easily takes offence.”

  “I still thought it was funny,” Luke said.

  “He didn’t. So I’m not on their Christmas card list. But we need a pipeline to them, or we can’t get access to local news. I got the feeling Miss Thompson was not averse to you, so …” he shrugged. “I’m not asking you to spy, but in friendly conversation over the noodles she may be disposed to chat about what goes on with Big Noise from Little Rock.”

  “I can’t promise I’ll be much good at this.”

  “If you don’t feel inclined …”

  “I’ll give it a try,” Luke said. “It’ll be no real hardship to have a meal with her. That is, if she accepts my invitation.”

  “As a neutral observer I’d say there’s not much doubt of that,” was Harry’s reply.

  Claudia bought a second-hand wheelchair so she could take Steven for walks, and to make this possible they moved to a convenient ground floor flat beside the beach in a new area where bushland had been cleared. In doing so, she had to explain the source of money that allowed them to pay for it. One great improvement in the past few months was the relaxation of his throat muscles so he could speak more fluently, and, while she welcomed this, it did mean he now had the ability to ask questions. He knew his mother had given her a cheque after the hospital meeting, but it had only been a modest amount to avoid his father finding out. He was aware Claudia’s own family had helped as well, but he knew the move to this better flat on the beach had clearly cost more than he thought they could afford. So where had the windfall come from? She was pushing him in the chair as he asked this.

  “I wrote to Luke,” she confessed. “I didn’t ask for money, but I had to tell him the truth. I couldn’t continue with the make-believe that you were still at Manly Hospital, and I was still nursing there. Too many lies, Steven. It was getting to me. I thought I’d start making mistakes, and he’d find out. Liar, liar, pants on fire, you know the old chant. I’m not equipped to tell untruths to anyone, but especially not to Luke.”

  They came to a wooden bench on the plaza, and she sat down, turning his wheelchair towards her so they could face each other.

  “I found it impossible to pretend any longer, so I did what I’ve been trying to avoid for months. I told him we were here, that we were married … I had to tell him, Steve.”

  “Of course you did,” he said gently. She rarely called him Steve, so he realised the stress this was causing her. “I just need to be told these things, so we can share feelings. I know you still love him. I know that someday …”

  She leaned forward and put a finger to his lips to prevent him continuing the sentence. “Someday will never happen.”

  “It must.”

  “You and I agreed not to talk about someday. He cabled me that he understood, and followed it with a nice letter. A lot of it was about a clinic in Hiroshima that he’d helped to fund. They dedicated it to little Kaito. I didn’t keep the letter,” she lied, hoping he’d believe her as some of the content was too personal to show him.

  “So the money came from Luke?”

  “Yes.” She knew he was waiting to hear more. “He sent us five thousand pounds. It came through Helen.”

  “Five thousand!”

  She could see the amount was a shock.

  “It’s too much,” he said. “We can’t keep it.”

  “Darling, we have to keep it.”

  “Have to?”

  “It was money from his father’s estate, and he gave me no choice. If we didn’t accept it, then the five grand was to go instead to Barry.”

  “Barry? I don’t understand. Why Barry?”

  “Not to him personally. It was to be finance for his branch of the new Liberal Party.”

  “Oh Christ!” Steven said. “The crafty bugger.”

  “I know.” She could see his eyes were moist. She wasn’t sure if he was going to laugh or cry.

  “What a tricky customer!”

  “I know,” she said again. “He is.”

  “Always was. You definitely had no choice.”

  “None. Absolutely!”

  “Bazza, Oh-mi-God! He’d have been a hero of the extreme right.”

  “He would’ve.”

  “Trust that bloody Luke,” Steven said, and he was laughing while tears streamed down his face.

  Now that Steven knew, and accepted the gift because there was no possible way to reject it, Claudia suggested they trade in her car. The Ford Prefect known as Mossy was showing its age. There was no room in it for the wheelchair, and its occasional breakdowns were alarming with Steven unable to walk. Twice now, he’d had to sit and swelter in the car while they waited for road service, and that was a serious health hazard in a Queensland summer. Added to which, there was no way they could break the monotony of his life by risking a drive to places like Buderim or up to the hinterland. She wanted to take him on trips like this, as a change from spending so much of his time in bed or on the cane lounge in their sunroom.

  The nearest car yard was at distant Caloundra, too far away in case something went wrong with Mossy, so Claudia drove there alone.

  “You’ll get cheated,” he warned, “without me there to bargain for you. I may not be able to walk, but I can argue with second-hand car salesmen.”

  She refused to take the risk, and arrived home in a two-year-old Morris Traveller that she’d beaten the dealer down to six hundred pounds as a trade in.

  “Just as well I didn’t come with you,” he said admiringly, “I’d have paid a thousand. So what are we going to call this one?”

  “Moss Two,” Claudia said with a grin, “and if the rumour is true and he gets a knighthood, then it’ll be Sir Stirling.”

  “Daft girl,” he said fondly, and she felt a moment of such deep affection that she knelt beside
the chair to kiss him, a long emotional kiss that surprised them both. She kept her arm tightly around him feeling comforted by their joint warmth, and acutely aware of the accelerated beating of his heart.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “If someone had told me I’d be sitting here enjoying raw fish, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Hannah said. “I don’t think it’s on any American menus.” They were in a tiny restaurant near the Ginza, and it was the second time they’d met that week.

  “Same with me,” Luke said. “We’re still fairly anti-Japanese in Aussie, because of the POWs in Changi and the Burma railroad. Our immigration program welcomes the British, even some Europeans, but no Asians because of the White Australia policy.”

  “White Australia? I had no idea,” she said.

  “It’s been in force since Federation. I don’t think restaurateurs would be game to introduce a Japanese speciality. We love fish in Australia, but eating it raw would turn people off, or make them chunder.”

  “What’s chunder?” she asked. Luke put a hand on his chest, and leant forward in a good imitation of a man throwing up. “You Aussies,” she said, “have a language all your own.”

  “Of course. We also have the Aboriginal language.”

  “Can you speak it?”

  “I know a few words.”

  “Go on, speak it.”

  “Turramurra, Warrawee, Wahroonga,” he said, and she smiled.

  “Sounds weird. What does it mean, Luke?”

  “Haven’t a clue. They’re the names of three railway stations.”

  Her laughter was a joyous sound that turned heads in the restaurant and made other people smile. It was like the rest of her personality. She was gregarious, with a bright and open nature. He already knew a lot about her. A year older than him, born in Poughkeepsie in the State of New York, she’d been a graduate of Vassar where she had edited the college journal in her final year. After college she’d worked as a journalist in Boston, and eventually moved to the national capital where, for three years, she became a reporter then a sub-editor for The Washington Post.