A Stranger in my Street

by Deborah Burrows

  A very efficient-sounding young woman answered the phone when I was put through to the number Tom had given me. I gave my name and asked to speak to Captain Lagrange.

  ‘This is a message service. If you leave your name and contact details, I will ensure Captain Lagrange is informed.’

  ‘Could you tell Captain Lagrange that Meg Eaton needs to speak to him today, please? Tell him it’s about what we found in early January.’

  Miss Efficiency sounded snooty and rather dismissive, and as I hung up I wondered how many women telephoned her asking for Tom.

  It had become very hot again, as it often did in early March, and by lunchtime the office was stifling. I felt I needed some fresh air, so I headed out to sit in the gardens.

  I pushed open the door and gasped as I came face to face with Tom. He was slouched against the wall, his muscles slumped and his face grey and lined with fatigue. His eyes seemed unfocused, somehow empty. When I said his name he shook his head, as if he didn’t know who I was. His eyelids drifted shut and he started to slide slowly down the wall. I put a hand on each of his shoulders and shook him.

  ‘Tom! Tom, what is it?’ I shook his shoulders again. ‘Tom, wake up. What is it?’

  He moved his head aimlessly, screwing up his closed eyes as he did so.

  ‘Meg,’ he said, slurring the word like a drunkard, ‘there’s something wrong.’

  ‘I can see that. What is it? Are you drunk? Drugged? What?’

  ‘Drugged, I think.’

  He opened his eyes but he didn’t seem to see me. His speech was slow, as if he had to think about each word very carefully.

  ‘Got your message. Took the stuff twelve-thirty. Always take the stuff twelve-thirty. Made me too sleepy. Maybe sedatives, not . . .’

  His voice drifted away and he slumped against me, falling down my body and landing on the ground in a sitting position by my knees. I knelt beside him.

  ‘I feel very sleepy,’ he mumbled. ‘You wanted see me. I wanted see my Meg. Don’t hate me, Meg.’

  The grass was damp and my knees were cold. There would be a stain on my dress. I turned Tom’s head to look into his eyes. They were very dark and it was hard to make out the pupils, but they seemed to be much larger than usual.

  ‘He’s intoxicated,’ said a female voice, loud and disapproving. ‘I should call the Military Police. An officer too.’

  She was plump, dressed in purple and had a prissy little mouth.

  ‘You keep out of it, you nasty busybody.’ My voice was a loud hiss. ‘He’s ill. You just go away and mind your own business.’

  Prissy mouth left with a sniff.

  I was still holding on to Tom’s shoulders, keeping him steady, and I felt his body convulse in a laugh. ‘My Meg,’ he rasped. ‘A tigress when roused.’ He coughed a little.

  ‘Be quiet,’ I said. ‘I don’t belong to you.’

  Gradually Tom seemed to regain a degree of control over his body. He stretched his neck and sat a bit more upright.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.

  ‘Awful. My hand hurts like blazes. I think someone swapped my pain pills for strong sedatives.’ He was still speaking far too slowly. ‘Question is, who?’

  ‘You need to go to hospital.’

  He shook his head and I felt his whole body move as he did so. His shoulders were very bony under my hands. He was far too thin. What reserves would he have to fight this?

  ‘No, no hospital. I need to think,’ he said in a voice that was painfully raw. ‘Why would someone want to sedate me? There wasn’t enough to kill me, or I’d not have come out of it so easily. Though . . . maybe sedatives don’t work very well on me now.’

  He shifted his position, and I allowed him to twist around so that he was leaning against me. He was shaking his head slowly, when I felt his body flinch.

  ‘Meg.’ His voice was suddenly sharp. ‘I need to be seen. By as many people as possible.’ He coughed again. ‘What’s the time?’

  I checked my wristwatch. ‘It’s twenty past one. You’re sure you didn’t take the wrong pills by mistake?’

  ‘No. I don’t have any sedatives. Meg, I think something is going to happen. I think I’m not supposed to have an alibi.’

  ‘What will we do? How can we stop it?’

  ‘We can’t. I may be wrong, anyway. It may just be a practical joke, but I can’t take the risk.’ He sounded sharper now, more alert, although his eyes were still slightly unfocused and he looked tired.

  ‘Walk with me around to the front of the building,’ he said. ‘We’ll go in through the front door. Speak to the doorman, to the receptionist, to anyone you know. Make sure they see me. I need an alibi for – I don’t know, at least two hours? I can’t think. How long would sedatives put me out for, do you think?’

  I thought about it. ‘If you took the pills at twelve-thirty, and they were supposed to make you sleep, then I’d say five hours at least. Stay with me until five o’clock. I’ll think of something to tell the girls at work. Then I’ll get you home. And shall I call Phyllis?’

  ‘She’s visiting friends in Pemberton. She was picked up early this morning. Whoever did this presumably knew that, too. God, Meg. I have to think, and my brain feels like mush. How did they swap the pills? How did they know I’d be at Phyllis’s? What else?’

  I helped him to his feet. He was very shaky, but managed to stand. He took my arm and leaned on me heavily as we walked around the building. When we reached the front doors, I waved at the doorman. We walked together across the vestibule and I waved at the curly-haired receptionist. Negotiating the stairs with a half-comatose man clinging to me was a challenge and my shoulders were aching with his weight by the time we got to the Crown Law office. I pushed open the door and saw Miss Filmer, knitting at her desk.

  ‘Hullo,’ I said. ‘Have you met Captain Lagrange? Tom, this is Miss Mavis Filmer. Sit down here, and I’ll get you some water.’ I lowered him into a chair near the wall, opposite my desk.

  I flicked Miss Filmer a glance. ‘Captain Lagrange isn’t feeling well, so I’m letting him sit here for a while. I want to keep an eye on him until he feels better.’

  ‘I’m not so bad, but Meg’s worried because I’m rather wobbly on my feet,’ Tom said. ‘She’s worried people will think I’m drunk. I’m not.’

  Miss Filmer was looking at him warily, but by the time I returned with the water they were like old friends and he was calling her Mavis.

  When Annie arrived back from lunch she was clearly surprised to see Tom.

  ‘I’m not feeling so good,’ he said to her. ‘Meg and Mavis are keeping an eye on me.’

  Tom still looked pale and shaky, but his eyes were brighter than they had been in the garden. Annie was obviously intrigued.

  ‘Ask Annie what her real name is,’ I said to Tom.

  ‘Annie, what’s your real name?’ he asked obediently.

  ‘It’s Anzac,’ she said, glaring at me and smiling at Tom.

  ‘Anzac? Anzac Eccles?’ His face was relatively sober, but there was a mischievous light in his eyes. For the first time since I had met him that afternoon, I felt reasonably happy.

  Annie said, rather tartly, ‘I was born on 11 November 1918. My parents were tossing up between calling me Anzac or Armistice.’

  ‘Anzac was definitely the better choice,’ said Tom. He attempted a smile. ‘I grew up next to a girl called Dardanelles Dawson.’

  Annie’s voice was bitter. ‘If I have a daughter I’m calling her Jane, or Margaret, or something very ordinary. I wonder if there’ll be kids called Kokoda or Tobruk when this war’s over?’

  Tom spent the afternoon sitting on the chair near my desk, his head leaning against the wall. Though he became progressively more alert, as the hours passed his condition worsened. There were dark circles under his eyes and his face was pinched with pain. I was worried about his injured hand, which he was holding tucked against his body. He had said it hurt dreadfully, I remembered.

  When Miss
Filmer whispered to me that he needed to see a doctor and I should take him to the hospital, Tom overheard and shook his head violently.

  By the time Mr Goodley arrived at four o’clock, whistling cheerily because the jury had convicted, Tom was bent over in his chair, his whole body shaking and his eyes streaming. Mr Goodley took one look at him and told me to get him into his office. That was easier said than done, and in the end Mr Goodley had to help me get him there.

  ‘I think he ate something that disagreed with him,’ I said. ‘I’ll take him home as soon as I finish work.’

  ‘He needs his medication, girl.’ Mr Goodley’s expression was grim. Turning to Tom, he said, ‘You don’t want a hospital?’

  Tom shook his head.

  Mr Goodley sighed and said, ‘Tom, your father is one of my oldest friends. Obviously I can’t advise you . . . Let me send you both home in my car. Mr Matsen can drive you. You were badly wounded, weren’t you?’

  Tom nodded. He was shaking. Mr Goodley watched him intently, before shaking his head.

  ‘It’s a shame,’ he said. ‘I hope you can beat it. Try to beat it, Tom. It’s a bad master. It’ll bring you down if you don’t.’

  Tom’s eyes and nose were streaming. He pulled out a handkerchief and shakily wiped his face. ‘I will,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I am trying.’

  I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.

  The conveyancing clerk, Mr Matsen, was a nervy man in his mid-forties. He had faded blond hair and carried weight around his middle, like a semi-inflated tyre. He was a careful driver, and appeared to dislike my exhortations to ‘Drive faster, for heaven’s sake, can’t you see he’s ill.’

  By the time we arrived at his building in Claremont, Tom was moaning softly and his body was racked with almost constant shivering. He leaned on me heavily as we made our way to the front door. I propped him against the wall while I let us in with his key and had him lean on me again as we went into the foyer.

  ‘First-floor flat,’ he muttered.

  Slowly we made our way up the stairs. I opened the door to his flat and we entered the hallway. He gestured towards his bedroom and I assisted him to the bed, where he sat, head bowed, exhausted and shivering.

  ‘Where are your painkillers? Can you have them on an empty stomach?’ I was almost frantic with worry for him.

  He shook his head aimlessly. Beads of sweat were running down his forehead.

  ‘Bathroom . . . morphine syrettes. Bring me a box.’

  I practically ran out of the room. The bathroom cabinet was filled with tubes of pills – morphine sulphate and diacetyl morphine, and a number of pale pink boxes labelled Solution of Morphine Tartrate, 5 syrettes. On the box was written: WARNING: May be habit forming. I grabbed a box and returned to Tom. His hand was shaking so much that I had to open the box for him. Five slim yellow boxes were inside, and I opened one and pulled out a small tube with a hypodermic needle attached. I handed it to him, although his hand was shaking so badly that he could hardly hold it. I put the pink box with the other syrettes next to him on the bed.

  ‘Just leave, Meg. I can do this.’ He wouldn’t look at me.

  ‘I’ll make something to eat. You need to eat. We both do.’

  He shook his head. I went to find the kitchen.

  There was an electric refrigerator. This impressed me because we only had an icebox at home. In the refrigerator were eggs and milk. That impressed me too, because eggs were rationed and hard to get. Stale bread was in the bread-box. I found salt and searched the cupboards for a bowl and a frying pan. Then I scrambled the eggs and made toast. I was so hungry I ate my eggs standing in the kitchen while I prepared a plate for Tom. It was amazing how much better I felt once I’d had some food.

  While his eggs were cooking I had a quick look around the flat. There were a lot of bookshelves, all of them overflowing. Some very good modern paintings were hanging on the rather stark white walls and they enlivened the room. Brightly coloured Turkish rugs offset the dark furniture, and there was a wonderful view of Freshwater Bay through the windows at the far side of the room. In a small room to the side he had set up gymnasium equipment.

  When I entered his bedroom with the tray of food, Tom was half lying on the bed with his eyes closed and his arms outstretched, two empty syrettes beside him. I couldn’t see the others. He was humming ‘Green Eyes’, the Tommy Dorsey hit. Much of the tension had left his face, although his scar was starkly red against his white cheek. He opened his eyes when I came in, but didn’t move. He started to sing softly.

  ‘I’ve got scrambled eggs.’ My voice was brisk.

  He raised his head to look at me. His eyes seemed a little out of focus. There was a silly smile on his face and he continued singing.

  ‘Come on, Tom, you need to eat.’

  Slowly, he pulled himself up to sit at the side of the bed. I handed him the plate and watched while he listlessly forked the scrambled eggs into his mouth. When he’d finished I thought he looked a lot better. At least there was colour in his face and the scar wasn’t so livid. I took the plate and he lay down again, humming softly. After a while he was silent and I could see he was asleep.

  I took the dishes away and washed up. Then I inspected his library. His taste was eclectic, which was no surprise. I read for a couple of hours or so, before going back to check on him. It was close to eight-thirty and the room was in semi-darkness. He didn’t seem to have moved, but he turned his head to look at me. His jaunty mood had passed. He looked tired and desperately unhappy.

  ‘Now you’ve seen the worst of me,’ he said.

  ‘Your worst is not so bad.’

  ‘I tell myself I’ll kick this stuff once the pain is under control, once my hand is better.’

  ‘You will.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  His face was stained with sweat.

  ‘Would a warm bath help? I could run one for you.’

  ‘You’re not my nurse, for God’s sake. Go home, Meg.’

  ‘I’ll run you a bath and then I’ll go. Once you’re in bed.’

  He stared at me fiercely. ‘You are the damnedest woman. Leave me alone. I don’t need your help. Leave me some dignity, won’t you.’

  ‘I’ll run you a bath.’

  As he was bathing I went into the lounge room again. He had an enormous number of poetry books. I was engrossed in some old favourites when he called out to me.

  ‘I’ve finished the damn bath. Could you please go home now?’

  ‘I’m coming in, so you might like to put on some pyjamas,’ I shouted back.

  Tom was in bed, wearing blue striped pyjamas. For some reason, that made me want to cry, perhaps because he looked so young, with his hair wet and his face scrubbed, dressed in his pyjamas. He seemed terribly tired, as if he could barely keep his eyes open.

  ‘Thank you, Meg. Now go home, please.’

  ‘Do you need anything else?’

  ‘No. I just want to go to sleep and forget all about today.’

  ‘I could read to you, until you fell asleep.’

  He didn’t answer immediately. Then he said, in a curious light tone, ‘What’s the book?’

  ‘Nineteenth-century poetry. I’ve been reading Peter’s book, and you were right, Robert Browning is one of my favourites.’

  He gave a mirthless sort of laugh. ‘I’m more a Coleridge man now, obviously.’ Holding my gaze he said, with weary bravado: ‘He was an opium addict, too, of course.’

  His mouth twisted self-mockingly and he closed his eyes.

  At last he looked at me again. ‘If you must stay, and knowing you, you won’t leave until you’re sure that I’m asleep, then read me some Browning. Only not “Two in the Campagna” or “In a Gondola”.’

  ‘What about “Love among the Ruins” ’

  There was a short laugh. ‘Why not? A good choice, in the circumstances.’

  I picked up the book, flicked through, found the poem and began.

  Tom smiled then, as if he
really meant it. He lay back on his pillow and was asleep before the end of the poem.

  Twenty-five

  Tom was addicted to morphine. That shouldn’t have been such a surprise because I now realised that the signs had been there all along. Mr Goodley had known it immediately. On the bus home to Megalong Street I wondered how often he used the syrettes and pills and what a normal dose was. How many syrettes had he used today? I knew little about it. Now I understood Betty’s cryptic comments. Doreen had been getting morphine for him, perhaps stealing it from the hospital. Mr Goodley had said she’d been in trouble for pilfering.

  It wasn’t Tom’s fault; even Mr Goodley could see that. Somehow I had to make Tom realise that this wasn’t going to drive me away.

  I let myself into the house quietly, but Ma was waiting up for me. She often did that.

  ‘Meg, it’s very late, I was getting worried.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum. You did get the message from the Phoenixes, didn’t you? I asked them to tell you we had a bit of an emergency. I’m really tired, can I tell you about it in the morning?’

  ‘Yes, I did get the message and of course you can. But there’s been a bit of an emergency here, too. Marie McLean was over a little while ago, asking for you. Her Jimmy hadn’t come home and she wanted to know if you knew anything. She said you’d been around there on Sunday asking for him. What was that about, Meg? Do you have any idea where he is?’

  Bed was going to have to wait. Ma put the kettle on while I went around to the McLeans’ to see if they were still up. The lights were on and Marie raced to the door the moment I knocked. She was in a terrible state. Jimmy still wasn’t home; he hadn’t been seen since lunchtime. I explained that I had no idea where he could be.

  ‘I wouldn’t normally be too concerned, because Jimmy and Stan are very independent,’ she said. ‘But Stan doesn’t know where Jimmy is either, and that is the really worrying thing. They’re usually inseparable.’ She looked anxiously at Stan, who was standing beside her in the doorway. ‘I’ll call the police tomorrow, if he’s not back in the morning.’ There was a quick look at me. ‘Do you think that’s the right thing to do?’