Riverslake Read online

  Trousers creased and stained concertina’d up his legs and hung by a miracle from his hips, and one long lean foot, blue with cold and mis-shapen with corns and horny toe-nails, was bare on the concrete floor. A stench of beer and sweat, and strangely enough of cheap perfume, wafted over to where Randolph and Murdoch stood looking at him.

  “Well, hell,” Murdoch said, pursing his lips into a low whistle, “Jerry’s nice and stung today—the third in a row. God knows how he stands up to it.”

  “God knows how he stands up at all!” Randolph said. “Jerry who?”

  “Oh, one of the rum-dums. Not such a bad sort of a poor bastard, but the grog’s got him. He’ll get hunted soon—the Bastard’s onto him.” Murdoch raised his voice. “Hey, Jerry! What do you want?”

  No one else in the kitchen had noticed the man in the doorway. Randolph swept a quick glance round the other cooks, but they and the kitchenmen were busy at their tasks, or talking to one another. Must be the usual thing, he thought with a shrug, for drunks to wander in. He turned his attention again to the man at the door. He saw the man at the sink look up quickly and then back to his work, but not before his lips curled softly in derision. Or disgust—Randolph was unable to read the fleeting expression, but he felt the red creep into his face.

  He had met the same situation countless times, wherever he had travelled amongst Australians and Balts; every time he paraded the same arguments to pacify his misgivings, but with the same results. He told himself almost in exasperation that if there were drunken Australians, all right, then—there were Latvians and Poles and Estonians just as drunken. If this bloke, this sodden wreck in the doorway, made a mess of himself in front of these strangers, then Australians travelling overseas would see the same thing in a score of countries. He repeated it all again, fiercely, but there was still the drunk, sagging in the doorway, the Australian who might be taken as type of all his race—who would be, if the look on the man at the sink were any indication. My race, Randolph thought, my country. He felt the crimson hit his cheeks again. He set his lips and turned again to the door.

  The man Jerry had raised his head and was peering round in the manner of someone blind who hears a sound and tries to identity it. His glance slid over Murdoch without identifying him. It fastened on a small, fair man who had just walked down from the mess, carrying a bucket.

  “Hey, digger!” he muttered thickly. “You—gimme s’m tucker!”

  He levered himself laboriously from the wall, swayed for a moment and then lurched towards the small man, who stood still, like a stunned rabbit. The bucket hung at his side, and he wore an expression of half-scared inquiry on his thin, anxious face.

  “Hey, digger!” the Australian repeated. He had reached the small man, and leaned over him confidentially. “Gimme a bit o’ tucker, I got———” he lowered his voice and all his ravaged features essayed a leer. His eyebrows sagged, his rolling eyes drooped and twitched and his whitened lips bunched lecherously. “I got a sheila in me room. Slip’s s’m tucker, mate!”

  “This’ll be funny,” Murdoch commented softly. “Poor little Felix don’t know what the ape’s talking about—he hardly savvies a word of English, unless you speak it slowly.”

  The Balt took a step backwards.

  “Me, no,” he muttered uncertainly. “Speak chef!”

  The Australian drew himself up raggedly and surveyed him with mean hostility that might have been funny if it had not been so ugly.

  “No understand, eh?” he jeered. “None o’ you bastards ever understand, do y’? But you savvy the bloody pay-cart, don’t y’?” His hand shot out unsteadily and fumbled at the base of the Balt’s throat. “You get me some tucker, you Balt bastard!” he snarled.

  Everybody in the kitchen had stopped work again to watch the pair by the door, the Australians faintly amused, not caring very much what happened so long as it was not too violent, the Balts scowling angrily and darting apprehensive glances towards the mess, hoping for the reappearance of Zigfeld. Randolph’s gaze was fastened on the man by the sink. He had straightened up, but was unconsciously crouched, his hot black eyes flaming in his pale face, his big hands, foul with grease and food scraps, clenched tight on the edge of the sink.

  “You ge’ me s’m tucker, you Balt bastard!” the drunk shouted, shaking the small man roughly. Murdoch stirred sharply beside Randolph, a muttered curse edging through his lips.

  “This’s gone far enough!” he muttered, taking a step forward. As he did, Zigfeld appeared on the ramp and waddled down into the kitchen. He stood for a moment, taking in the scene.

  “All right, Jerry, you’ve had your time!” he announced ponderously. “Go on, get out of the kitchen, you bloody ape!”

  The small man had begun to whimper in a strange, strained way. His thin nose was pinched and white, and his eyes started in his chalky face. The heavy bucket hanging at the end of his arm jerked spasmodically.

  “He’ll scone that galah,” Charlesworth remarked to nobody in particular. “Look out, Jerry—he’ll do the knob any minute!”

  While he was still speaking, the Balt swung the bucket in a full arc and crashed it down on his tormentor’s head. He pushed the sagging body through the door, slammed it shut and slumped against it, panting and whimpering.

  The whole thing happened so suddenly that for a moment the men in the kitchen were numbed with surprise. The first to move was Zigfeld. He waddled over to the stove and began to stir at the stew he had been thickening when Randolph came in.

  “Throw a bucket of water over that ape if he doesn’t stop that row,” he said, indicating the Balt at the door with a nod of his head, “and you, Kerry, go out and see what’s happened to Jerry. Go on.” He bent over the pot, his long lips working.

  Randolph, with Murdoch just a step behind him, leaped to the door. He brushed the small man aside and raced out. The drunk was stretched on the concrete outside the kitchen. His face was a dirty grey, but Randolph, in a quick glance, could see no trickle of red from beneath his head. As he jumped down the steps, a strange figure darted out of the boiler-room, which was just outside the kitchen door. It was the hunchback he had seen the previous night. He stood over the prostrate man and emptied a bucket of water over his face and chest. As Randolph bent over the man on the ground, the hunchback stood away, dancing in jerky motions from one foot to the other, his eyebrows leaping and twisting. A flood of curious sounds, chuckles and grunts and half-words, tumbled from his hideous mouth.

  Jerry stirred and groaned. Murdoch joined Randolph, and between them they dragged him to a sitting position on a box. A bunch of startled faces filled the doorway.

  “How is he?” Warner demanded. “All right?”

  “He’ll do.” Randolph felt the back of the man’s skull. “That’s still whole, anyway.”

  “That’s the last thing that’d be hurt on that ape,” Condamine said maliciously, his thin face peering over Warner’s shoulder. “Struth, who doused him?”

  “The Dummy,” Murdoch replied shortly. He slewed his head over his shoulder. “For God’s sake, Dummy, shut up that flaming row in a man’s ear!” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the boiler-room, grinned ferociously and made the motions of running.

  The hunchback grinned in reply, shrugged and spread his gnarled hands. He walked over to the groaning man on the box and examined him minutely; every action was heavily pantomimed for derisive concern, and the men in the doorway laughed. The hunchback winked at them, peered into the drunk’s mottled face, cast an eloquent glance at the long, bare foot that dangled just above the ground, and hobbled into the boiler-room. There he settled on a small log and held out his hands to the red glow of the fire.

  “Come on inside!” Zigfeld’s gritty voice called from the kitchen. “That bastard was born to be hanged—he’ll be all right. Leave him there, Kerry, and get around to the crib-room—and don’t be all day!”


  “Get ——!” Murdoch said, under his breath. He grinned at Randolph.

  One by one, the faces disappeared from the doorway, the last to go being that of the dark man who had been working at the sink. He looked at the man on the box, his face dark and saturnine. He laughed shortly and spat on the swimming concrete at his feet.

  “Who’s the character in the boiler-room?” Randolph asked, jerking his thumb at the open door behind him. “Escape from a flaming circus?”

  “The Dummy,” Murdoch said, “and a damned good little bloke, too. Come on, we’ll get around to the crib-room, or Ziggy’ll be up me like a rat up a rope.”

  The fog had dropped lower, condensing on the warm roof of the kitchen and dripping from the eaves as they walked along the gravel path below. The valley was partly hidden in mist, and more bleak and desolate than it had appeared before. Only the avenues of pines stood out of the whiteness, like rows of funeral candles.

  “God almighty!” Randolph muttered involuntarily, looking out over it.

  Murdoch’s eyes followed the direction of his gaze.

  “You get used to it in time,” he said, half apologetically, as if he felt that somehow he had to explain, almost to justify to this stranger the strange place he had come to. “You even get to like it, after.” He looked sideways at Randolph. “It even looks, well, pretty, sometimes. I think so.”

  “Yes, I suppose so.” Randolph spoke distantly. His mind had returned to the kitchen. “This Zigfeld—what goes with the ape?”

  “Ziggy? Don’t worry about him. He’s like the joint—you get used to him in time, you’ll find. Only God knows, I don’t think he’s pretty!”

  Much the same as Warner had said. Randolph said nothing, and Murdoch went on, reflectively.

  “There’s only one thing wrong with Ziggy—if manners was money, and turkeys were a bob a dozen, he couldn’t buy a tom-tit’s tail feathers.”

  Randolph laughed, genuinely amused. He felt he was going to like Murdoch.

  “I noticed that,” he said dryly. “I’ll string along. What about Warner?”

  “Good little bloke, on the ball. You know—might be chef one day.”

  “Like that, eh? And the other bloke—the one with a face like a rat looking through a hedge.”

  “Condamine’s his name.” Murdoch shrugged and drew his breath juicily between his pursed lips. “Success through suction. Crooked on the world. Don’t say too much in front of him. Slim’s the best bet in the kitchen—he’s only a boy, and he’s silly as a wheel, but he’s got it here.” He placed his hand over his heart in a strangely touching gesture. “He’s got girl trouble, too, to make things worse.”

  “Who hasn’t?” Randolph asked wryly.

  Murdoch grinned. “Slim’s different, though. He’s got a lovely little sheila and he’d get spliced like a shot, only his sheila’s old woman is all the ratbags I know rolled into one—she won’t let them.”

  “Didn’t know that counted for much these days. They don’t seem to worry about what the parents think till they want someone to sit up with the kids. They just go ahead, if they’re free, white, and twenty-one.”

  “Slim’s sheila’s not, though.”

  “What? Not white?”

  “Not twenty-one, mug. Slim reckons he’s not going to wait around for another year, but what can he do?”

  “What’s the old woman got against him?”

  “God knows. He’s not a bad sort of bloke. Drinks and horses around a bit, but what he don’t know, he’ll learn later on.” Murdoch’s eyes took on a speculative gleam. “I reckon the old crow’s jealous.”

  “What—of her own daughter?”

  “Why not? Sheilas are a funny lot, young or old. The old girl married a no-hoper who spent most of his time in the pub or racing other sorts around, and so she missed out on her share of what makes ’em happy. It makes them sour on things.”

  “You’d know,” Randolph said with mild sarcasm.

  “You bet I would,” Murdoch assured him fervently. “I read a book about it, once.”

  “Well, that just about settles it, doesn’t it?” Randolph said, grinning. “What about this chap Verity, the chef?”

  Murdoch looked down and began to pat his chest searchingly.

  “What’s the matter?” Randolph demanded. “You lost something?”

  “Just looking for the ‘Information’ sign,” Murdoch said. He laughed to take any sting out of his words. “What about you—it’s my turn to ask a few questions, isn’t it?”

  Randolph shrugged. They had turned the corner of the kitchen and were approaching a long, low building.

  “Crib-room?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m just humming around.” Randolph stared at the bare trees that flanked the path. The kitchen lay behind them, a billowing plume of steam belching from a fanlight high in one wall and disintegrating on the steely air. “I was a chalky before the war—just couldn’t settle down to it again, after.”

  “Chalky?”

  “School-teacher. My God!” Randolph’s voice took on an edge, and Murdoch glanced sideways at him, raising his eyebrows. “Damn kids and their report cards and examination papers, and their old women writing to the Head. And never getting anywhere—teaching a mob until you get to know them, and then getting another mob to knock into shape.”

  “Even so, it’s a lot to chuck up.”

  “It’s less than nothing,” Randolph said with deadly finality. “It never hurt anything to get out of a cage. I got the chalk out of my head while the war was on, and I didn’t want to get it back, that’s all. I learned a bit of cooking while I was waiting to get back from the Islands, and you don’t have to know much for a joint like this, or any camp, for that matter—it’s just like the army, only you’ve got no chance of getting your scone blown off. Anyway, I like to get around.”

  “It’s the shot,” Murdoch said, “at least while you’re single. You can love ’em and leave ’em, and no questions asked.”

  Yes, Randolph thought. You can love them and leave them, and you can not love them and leave them, and you can love them and they leave you. Or for a change, you can stick together, if there’s anything to stick with, and battle it out. Oh, yes. “Yeah, that’s right,” he said, aloud.

  “You spliced?”

  “No, not now.”

  “Bad luck—the wife been dead long?”

  “She’s not,” Randolph said shortly, and did not embroider the statement. Murdoch took the hint, and changed the subject.

  “Going to be here long?”

  “I don’t know,” Randolph said. “Not too long—I like to get around.”

  Murdoch shrugged. “Well, here we are,” he announced presently, stopping at a wire door. “I don’t know where Verity is, but—oh, here he comes, with the Bastard, too. I wonder what they’ve been cooking up?”

  “You didn’t tell me what he’s like,” Randolph said.

  “Verity? Oh, a good bloke.” Murdoch began to walk back to the kitchen. “One of the best. See you after.”

  “Yeah—thanks.”

  Randolph peered through the wire-mesh door at the two men approaching it from the inside.

  Carmichael, the manager, he already knew; the other, obviously, must be Verity, the chef. He was younger than Randolph had anticipated—much younger, for instance, than Zigfeld, the second. He was tall and painfully thin; in his white trousers, white coat, and with a white apron pulled tight round his lath-like hips, he looked like a white-washed bean-pole. His hands and face, the only skin visible, were surprisingly dark, even now in the depth of winter when most men had lost whatever remained of their summer tan. Touch of Malay, maybe, Randolph thought, as the two men stopped on the inside of the door. Looking through, they saw him.

  “Hullo, Randolph,” Carmichael greeted him, opening the door
. He looked at Randolph’s white trousers and apron. “Ready to go, eh? That’s the shot.”

  “Not quite,” Randolph said, shifting his gaze to the other man. “I’m looking for the chef.”

  “Then you’ve found him.” Carmichael nodded to Verity. “This is the new stove cook you’ve been on my back about, chef. Mr Randolph.”

  The thin man’s Adam’s apple bounced up and down his thin brown throat three or four times before he answered. Randolph watched it, fascinated.

  “Thank Christ you’ve come,” Verity said expressionlessly. He held out his hand, big and lean and brown. “You’ll find it a snack, if you don’t mind a bit of work—only the minimum, of course.” Randolph thought he detected a note of irony in Verity’s voice. “You cook all the usual dishes, I suppose?”

  “Hash, mash, and goulash,” Randolph nodded, smiling.

  “They don’t vary much. You met the others?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Ziggy?”

  “And how!”

  Carmichael laughed. “You’ll be all right, Randolph,” he said. “I’ll leave you two now, chef. Show him the ropes.”

  “Don’t forget about Novikowsky. I don’t want him on the sink too long,” the chef said. “He’ll go sour, and I don’t want to lose him.”

  “A bit of overtime will sweeten him up,” Carmichael laughed.

  “Don’t kid yourself,” Verity contradicted him flatly.

  On the sink, Randolph thought. That’d be the big dark joker—apparently Verity thought he was a good man. Novikowsky.

  “I’ll fix it as soon as I can,” Carmichael promised as he walked away.

  Verity and Randolph stood and watched him.

  “A very funny cove,” the chef said reflectively. “They call him the Bastard, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” Randolph said.

  His first day in the kitchen went quickly for Randolph. Although later on his knowledge of the lay-out and routine would give him plenty of time to do the work assigned to him, he was chasing every moment of his first day. Before he realized it it was tea-time and he was standing behind the shining hot press to dish out the evening meal.