Tourmaline by Randolph Stow

Author:Randolph Stow [Stow, Randolph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: CLASSIC FICTION
ISBN: 9781922253118
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2015-07-15T04:00:00+00:00

NINE

I suppose that this day (a day of extraordinary activity for Deborah) might have ended tragically. But as it happened Kestrel was able to pick himself up before very long, and stagger off to his bed and lay himself out there, with a groan and a curse or two, to recover. And presently Bill the Dill and Pete Macaroni, coming in search of a drink, thought to look for him in the bedroom, and so became the first to hear the news of his misfortune.

It was a shock to Bill. ‘She never crowned you?’ he said, marvelling. ‘Bloody hell.’

But Pete thought it was funny.

‘You can laugh,’ said Kestrel, with his eyes closed, scowling.

‘Wait till I tell Horse,’ Pete said. ‘He’ll split himself.’

‘Why would she do that?’ Bill wanted to know. ‘Was you belting her or something?’

‘I never laid a flicking finger on her. She came up behind and dropped me with a bottle.’

‘They get like that,’ said Pete, who was married to Darleen Bogada. ‘It’s in the blood.’

‘I’d like to see Shirl try it on,’ said Bill; meaning Shirley Yandana, his wife.

‘Give me a woman with spirit,’ said Kestrel; still in some pain.

‘You try Darleen’s sister next time,’ Bill advised. ‘She took a chunk out of Charlie’s ear once.’

‘Ah, nick off,’ said Kestrel. ‘I’m a married man. Where is she?’

‘Deb?’

‘Is she in the bar?’

‘No, no one there.’

‘Hell,’ said Kestrel, putting his hands to his painful eyes, ‘she’s gone to Mary.’

‘I’ll go and get her,’ Pete offered.

‘She wouldn’t come. Tomorrow, maybe.’

‘Well, what are you going to do about your head?’

‘Sleep it off,’ Kestrel said. ‘Pub’s shut. Sorry.’

There was a sound of voices in the bar, and tramping feet advancing. Presently Horse Carson and Dicko appeared.

‘Go home,’ Kestrel groaned. ‘I’m wounded.’

‘Deb laid him out with a bottle,’ Bill explained, sympathetically.

‘Shouldn’t have done that,’ Horse said. ‘Wasting the stuff.’

‘It was empty,’ said Kestrel.

They stood by the bedside, the four of them, grinning and commiserating.

‘Has she gone for good, Kes?’ Dicko asked.

‘God,’ he said, ‘I hope not. No, she wouldn’t do that.’

‘All the same,’ said Pete, ‘looks like she ain’t too pleased with you.’

‘I’ll bring her over,’ Horse said. ‘Saw her going into the store half an hour back.’

‘Better wear your tin hat,’ said Dicko.

‘Bloody vultures,’ Kestrel said. ‘You’d be laughing if you got hit, I’ll bet.’

‘D’you want me to go over there?’

‘You can try,’ Kestrel said, with no great hope. So Horse went away, with a great smirk on his face, like a dry creekbed in the desert.

When he appeared at the back door of the store Mary and Deborah were together in the kitchen. Mary was ironing, using a rusty flat-iron of Tom’s mother’s. Its mate was heating on the stove. Deborah was sitting on a kitchen chair, silent, restored to her habitual stillness, and rather knocked over, perhaps, by the draining heat of the room. She looked up at Horse without any expression, but she knew why he had come.

‘You made a mess of Kes,’ he said.

‘He asked for it.’

‘You might have killed him.

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