Dorrigo immersed himself in life, the furious work and frenetic partying, and let everything else wash ever further away. Late one afternoon, at the bottom of a pile of stretcher requisition forms, he chanced upon Keith Mulvaney’s postcard of his beachside hotel. And the following weekend, when he had a twelve-hour leave pass and nothing better to do, Dorrigo Evans drove down the coast in a coal-fired Studebaker truck he had borrowed from his batman’s brother.
Near dusk, he arrived at a small settlement that served as a holiday village for Adelaidians. With the breeze off the ocean, and the sound of waves, the heat became not just tolerable, but something sensual and welcome. If the beach seemed as sweeping as it had been in the postcard, the King of Cornwall was both grander and more rundown than its photograph suggested, and there was about it the alchemical charm of old things fallen on hard times.
Inside was a long, dark bar in the South Australian style: high-ceilinged, and with a pleasant dimness after the brutal light of the South Australian summer. The hues of stained wood and dun colours seemed to soothe and rest the eyes after the blaze of the outdoor world. The overhead fans rhythmically brushed the low drum of drinkers’ conversation. Dorrigo went to the bar, where a barmaid was tidying some bottles on the rear shelf. Her back was turned, and he asked her if she could help him find Keith Mulvaney.
I’m Keith’s nephew, he added.
You must be Dorrigo, the barmaid said as she turned. Her blonde hair was pulled up in a chignon. I’m—
A cone of dull electric light that shone down onto the bar made her blue eyes glisten. For a moment there was something in them, then they emptied.
I am Keith’s wife, she said.
7
HIS EYES DARTED everywhere, along the top shelf of rums and whiskies, to the other drinkers, to the bar towel that read THE KING OF CORNWALL. Resting on it, a woman’s hand, holding a damp tea towel. Elegant fingers with nails painted burgundy. He was seized by a mad desire to feel them in his mouth. He felt himself shimmering, spinning before her.
Tell Keith that—
Yes.
That my leave was shortened. And I can’t stay.
And you’re—
His nephew—
Dorry?
He couldn’t remember his name but it sounded right.
You’re Dorry? Dorrigo? Isn’t that what they call you?
Well, yes. Yes.
It’s . . . unusual.
My grandfather was born there. They say he rode with Ben Hall.
Ben Hall?
The bushranger:
For just as in the days
Of Turpin and Duval
The people’s friends were outlaws
And so too was bold Ben Hall.
Do you ever use your own words? she asked.
Dorrigo’s my middle name but it— Stuck?
I guess so.
Keith’s not here. He’ll be very disappointed he missed you.
The war.
Yes. That Mr Hitler.
I’ll drop by another time.
Do, Dorry. He’ll be so sorry you couldn’t stay.
He went to leave. Deep inside him was a terrible tumult of both excitement and betrayal, as though he was hers and she had abandoned him, and coupled to this a sense that she was his and he had to take her back. At the door he turned around and took two steps towards the bar.
Haven’t we—? he said.
She pinched the top of her blouse between her thumb and forefinger—her two brightly coloured nails like a Christmas beetle splaying its wings—and tugged the blouse upwards.
The bookshop?
Yes, she said.
He walked back to the bar.
I thought, he said, that they were— Who?
He felt it, something about him and her, but he did not know what it was. There was nothing he could do about it. He did not understand it but he felt it.
Those men. That they were— That they were what?
With you. That—
Yes?
That they were—your—your admirers.
Don’t be silly. Just some friends of a friend from the officers’ club I hadn’t seen for a long time. And some of their friends. So you’re the clever young doctor?
Well, young, yes. But so are you.
Ageing. I’ll tell Keith you called.
She began wiping the bar. A drinker tilted an empty froth-rimed glass in her direction.
Coming, she said.
He left, drove the truck back to the city, found a bar and determinedly drank himself into oblivion and couldn’t remember where he had parked the Studebaker. But when he awoke there was no annihilation of the memory of her. His pounding head, the pain in every movement and act and thought, seemed to have as its cause and remedy her, and only her and only her and only her.