Stella Duffy - Money in the Morgue

His words stung, but Rosamund brazened it out, ‘And get into even hotter water than I am already, two hours late for my shift and Sister Comfort on the warpath? No fear. Besides, the Bridge Hotel’s lost some of its allure lately.’

‘Blimey! “Allure” is it now? There’s a phrase if ever I heard one. Picked that one up in London did you? Fair enough. I reckon a backwater boozer like the Bridge isn’t for the likes of you. Mind you, the beer’s a darn sight cheaper there than it is back in town, and some of us,’ he stepped closer, too close, but Rosamund stood her ground, ‘some of us aren’t quite as fit in the pocket as we ought to be, are we, love?’

Rosamund smiled and slowly lifted her handbag, she reached in, clicked open the clasp on her mother’s red leather purse and carefully peeled away a five pound note from the larger bundle. She planted a deep red kiss right on Captain Cook’s face on the outer note of the bundle before she put it safely back in her purse. She was glad to see the sight of the money wiped the smile off Maurice’s face, if only for a moment.

‘Didn’t you hear?’ she asked lightly.

‘Hear what?’

‘I’d have thought it’d be all round Mount Seager by now, can’t imagine the girls on the late transport would be talking about anything else, you know how they love a gossip.’

‘What would? Where’s all that money from, Roz? Who’ve you robbed blind?’

‘My horse only went and came in, Maurice. So here’s your fiver, and I’ll thank you for the loan, and that’s you and I quits, don’t you think?’

‘Ah, Roz love, come on girl, don’t give a bloke a hard time. I’ll be given my clean bill any day now and once we’re off back to camp I reckon they’ll ship us out again quick as you like. You can’t blame me for taking my chances, can you?’

Rosamund was about to answer him truthfully, to say that of course she didn’t blame him, she couldn’t imagine how horrid it must be to be lying out here in the hospital, hating being ill and then worrying even more about getting better, knowing that would mean heading back off to war and still no end in sight, things getting worse by the week if the news from England was anything to go by. The lads might bluster to each other, bluster to the nurses as well, but before Maurice had turned his lovely smile to Mrs Johnson across the bar of the Bridge Hotel, he’d confided some of the horrors to her. His worry that it had made him look soft had only made her warm to him more. She was about to give in, about to step forward, ready to turn off the torch, when a far brighter light shone on the two of them and Sister Comfort’s furious whisper saved her from herself.

‘Miss Farquharson! I shall see you in Matron’s office in five minutes. As for you, Private Sanders, you’ve had your final warning. I’m taking this to Sergeant Bix, I can promise you that.’

Rosamund shook herself and stepped back, almost glad of the trouble, and Maurice Sanders watched her walk away from him, lit by Sister Comfort’s torch. Taking in the line of the neatly-fitting yellow dress he pursed his lips to whistle and only just stopped himself.

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ he thought, ‘you’ve given the poor girl enough of a run around as it is. Let her be.’

Sarah Warne was at her desk in the Transport Office. She was trying to work out the shift rosters for the next fortnight and two of her fellow drivers had already called in sick over Christmas and Boxing Days. She didn’t blame them, she might have pulled the same trick herself if she hadn’t been in charge of the rota, or if she wasn’t well aware that Dr Luke Hughes was also working the full Christmas shift. She frowned, Luke had been distant lately, unusually so. There was something going on and Sarah was determined to get to the bottom of it.

Sarah and Luke met when she was in the West End and he in his second year of surgical studies across the river at St Thomas’s. She knew herself very fortunate to have made it into a West End cast. It wasn’t a major role and in truth, Sarah sometimes wondered if she was a major role sort of actress. She wasn’t sure she had the temperament to be a leading lady, and even though she was the right age, she certainly wasn’t an ingénue either. Hers was a steady, reliable character, useful for steady, reliable parts, those that held the story rather than the audience’s attention. She had been cast because she could do the job and do it well, she was calm and capable when others might fly up into the heights of passion or down to despair, depending on the notices on any given night. The reliable actress was not the most glamorous role in a company, but it was vital and Sarah understood theatre well enough to know she would stay in work a lot longer than some of the glossier girls from dramatic school and weekly rep.

She and Luke were introduced at a post-show drinks party that trekked from their rabbit warren of backstage rooms to the closest pub and on to the Café de Paris. Sarah recalled that she and her fellow actors had arrived, flushed with the success of that night’s show and the several drinks they’d had to celebrate. Luke was leaving when the dashing young leading man spotted him, clasped him to his breast and introduced him all around the bar as a dear old school chum. At first Sarah thought Luke Hughes was shy, not used to the noise and bustle of a group of actors, the back-slapping and kissing, at least two cocktails required to bring them down to the level of ordinary conversation. Left alone with him for a few minutes she tried to make conversation but his replies were so taciturn that she changed her mind and decided he was positively rude. She forgave him a little when he checked his watch, saw that it was gone two o’clock, announced himself exhausted from a day’s surgical assisting and, ignoring the imprecations of the theatricals, said he must leave them to their pleasures. She forgave him a little more when he leaned in to whisper an apology for his behaviour and invited her for supper to make up for his appalling manners that evening—‘Just as soon as these blasted final exams are out of the way’. She was grateful that her fellow cast members were too busy to overhear, fully engaged as they were in outdoing each other with tales of the worst digs they’d endured in provincial tours. Had they heard it, such a proposal would have provoked an inordinate amount of whistling and nudging among her peers and the rather good-looking Dr Hughes would have hightailed it out of the building as fast as his two feet could carry him, with no chance of a slipper on the stair to find him again.

A fortnight later Sarah met Luke for supper and, both keeping such odd hours, both understanding the strains of a team depending upon them—although Sarah well knew that she was not the pivot for matters of life and death that Luke was, regardless of how desperately important her fellow actors believed the theatre to be—a sincere friendship developed. The friendship was definitely edging towards romance when Sarah opened the door of her little flat to a telegram notifying her of her sister’s sudden illness and that her widowed mother needed her help. The long journey home took Sarah from soft London summer to a bitter New Zealand winter and her sister’s death, and all too soon afterwards came that awful, inevitable morning in early spring that brought the declaration of war. Mrs Warne was even happier to have Sarah home then, far from the horrors that London would surely face, even though Sarah herself would have liked nothing better than to do her bit for the city she adored.

Sarah and Luke became proficient correspondents, sending long, honest letters full of friendship and a growing understanding, letters in which Luke proved himself far more open on paper than he had often been in person. Then came a year with just a postcard or two, Luke stationed at a military hospital close to battle lines and Sarah worried for his safety as the months dragged on and the news became darker every week. Finally there was a glimmer of hope and she was understandably delighted when military efficiency determined that a British doctor serving in North Africa was better suited to accompanying a contingent of wounded New Zealand servicemen than returning to England and, while there, he should take a six month stint at a hospital now dealing with military casualties. That hospital turned out to be Mount Seager of all places.