Felicity Young - Take Out

Stevie felt Lilly stiffen beside her and made hushing sounds at the old lady. She’d just managed to shake the scissors free from her sleeve and didn’t want Lilly drawing their attention. She prayed the mother and son couldn’t see what was going on behind the chair, hear her sawing through the tough cord with the scissor’s blades.

‘Hold on, Lilly,’ she whispered as the cord snapped. Instant relief. ‘Stay still, they’ll be gone soon and then we can get away.’

In the reflection of the TV they saw The Crow punch the photo from the frame and grind it under his heel. Lilly flinched as if she too had been punched. Muttering to herself, she reached for something down the side of her chair. Stevie plucked at Lilly’s dress and tried to pull her back, but the old lady shook herself free and climbed unsteadily to her feet.

The Crow and Granger were still busy at the sideboard when Lilly crept up behind them. Stevie attempted to move, but found herself riveted to the spot with shock.

Lilly rushed at The Crow.

‘Bloody Japs!’ Lilly screamed, wielding the Samurai sword like a hockey stick. The Crow turned, but too late to save himself. Lilly slashed at his middle and a silent scream uncurled from his mouth. He dropped the shotgun, clutched at his ripped stomach, and crumpled to the floor.

Stevie and Granger lunged for the gun at the same time. Granger was closer and reached it first, but Stevie landed on top of the smaller woman, knocking the air from her. The gun went off with a deafening crash and the fuel around the armchair flared. Heat seared Stevie’s face as she struggled with the woman on the floor, at last pinning Granger’s hands behind her with the telephone cord. Any minute now the fire would ignite the bomb and the chemicals would erupt into an inferno. She risked an upward glance and saw Lilly prodding the metal tube with the sword, trying to push it away from the flames.

‘Lilly, leave it! Get out!’ she cried.

The armchair caught fire. The heat was intense. Toxic fumes scratched at Stevie’s lungs. The hem of Lilly’s dress began to smoulder. Lilly paid it no heed, her face tight with concentration as she tried to knock the tube from the spreading flames. The heavy sword began to dip in her hands as if it might drag her into the fire too. Stevie hauled herself from Granger’s back and stumbled toward Lilly.

With her last reserves of strength, Lilly gave the tube a mighty whack and sent it skittering from the fire and along the floor. The bomb might still explode, but she had bought them time.

Stevie grabbed the vase of wilted daffodils from the sideboard and threw the water over Lilly, dousing the twitching flames on the hem of her dress. Appearing unhurt, the old lady stood over a wailing Granger. With one hand on the oak sideboard to steady herself, she placed a slippered foot on the back of Granger’s neck like a hunter with a trophy.

Stevie pulled her away and pushed her out the back door. ‘Stay there, Lilly,’ she commanded, turning back into the room. The Crow lay in the deep stillness of death, one hand licked by the flames of the burning chair.

Granger moaned as Stevie hefted her toward the door. The act of shoving the woman into the fresh air sapped her remaining strength. She dropped Granger to the ground and felt herself begin to fall.

Someone in a white shirt caught her before she hit the ground.

‘Fowler—what the hell are you doing here?’

‘I came to get those books off Mrs Hardegan. Looks like I arrived just in time.’

Stevie struggled against his hold. ‘Just in time? Jesus...’

‘Where’s the old lady?’ Fowler asked.

She managed to pull away from him, her panic infusing her with the strength she thought she’d lost. She spun around. ‘Shit, she was here a minute ago.’ People from the street were beginning to spill into the back garden. She heard someone yelling out for the fire brigade.

She made a move toward the back door just as Lilly reemerged, coughing and soot-streaked, cradling something in the folds of her cardigan.

‘We couldn’t leave our feathered friend,’ Lilly said through her coughs. She held the cardigan up for Stevie to see the contents; Captain Flint, bloodied, charred and almost devoid of feathers, lay inert in his cashmere nest. Stevie felt the tears begin to well.

Mrs Hardegan chuckled at Stevie’s distress. ‘Not dead.’ She gave the parrot a poke.

The black-skinned creature opened a beady eye. Its grey blob of a tongue levered up and down for a moment, and then it croaked, very softly, ‘Bloody Japs.’ (Image 30.1)

Image 30.1

A FEW MONTHS LATER

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Stevie and Monty sat in silence on the park bench. The light was beginning to fade. Gleaming whitecaps replaced orange sequins as dusk closed in. Seagulls swooped through the balmy air and flurried around packed picnic tables, competing for tasty morsels. ‘Time for tea!’ parents called to kids still playing in the sucking tide.

‘Shark o’clock,’ Monty said.

Stevie smiled, sniffed the salty air and brushed the sand from her bare legs. It had been a good day. Reconstruction had commenced on their house and the doctor had given Monty the all-clear to return to work. They’d celebrated with a bottle of champagne and a dozen oysters, then a sunset walk along the beach with Izzy running on ahead, playing catch-me-if-you-can with the lacy fringe of the sea. Now their daughter swung on the swings, whooshing high, screaming with delight as she leapt from the seat into the air, trying each time to jump further than her last line in the sand.

Monty got up from the bench and stretched, the red worm of his scar peeping above the V-line of his Hawaiian shirt. ‘How’s Granger?’ he asked, out of the blue. It had been days since either of them had mentioned the Mamasan, and it seemed almost sacrilegious to bring up the subject on an evening like this. But ever since she’d told him the truth behind the house fire, they’d made a pledge of no more secrets. Say what you think, don’t hold back; sometimes protection causes more damage than it prevents.

‘No further suicide attempts, though she’s still being treated for depression.’

‘My heart bleeds for her.’

‘She was a victim first, you have to remember that. And she loved him.’

Monty shuddered. ‘If that’s what you call it.’

‘I got a call about Lin yesterday,’ said Stevie.

‘The young girl?’

‘She’s been offered permanent residency and she took it. Unlike Mai. She’s decided to return to Thailand now the murder charge has been dropped.’

‘Hardly surprising Mai’s enthusiasm for Australia has waned after what she’s been through,’ said Monty.

‘She visited Lilly a few times before she left.’

‘Where is she?’ said Monty.

‘With Captain Flint, at Lavender House, while the house is being fixed up.’

‘The one near the golf course?’

Stevie grinned. ‘Lilly calls it ‘Withering-on-the-Vines.’

Monty laughed.

‘She was thrilled when I took Mai to see her, clucked all over baby Niran. God knows how they were able to communicate, but they seemed to manage okay. Lilly said she was going to learn Thai once she’d re-mastered English so they can stay in touch.’ Stevie paused and gazed thoughtfully at the grey line of the horizon. ‘Those two have an interesting chemistry—I can’t figure it out.’

‘Wasn’t Lilly’s husband a prisoner of the Japanese during the war?’

‘Yes, the Samurai sword was a souvenir he brought back with him. Wish I knew more of her history. Skye once told me she served during the war in the navy too, but that’s all I know.’