The Gilded Madonna, Garrick Jones [best fiction novels txt] 📗

shower stall door. “I just got lonely.”

I angled myself behind him and rested my head on his shoulder. “You get lonely after five minutes?”

“Hungarian, huh?”

“We did a lesson at my night class once, but I could never source the ingredients. It was very tasty.”

“Would I like it?”

“Harry Jones, you like anything that’s edible.”

“True,” he said and then turned me in his arms. “You’re edible.”

“Aren’t you full?”

“You’re being dirty again, Smith.”

“Who me?” I tried my hardest to sound innocent. I always failed.

“Okay, scrub my back,” Harry said between kisses. “I’ll put in a reservation when I get out of the shower. What time?”

“Say seven? I want to write an article about the water polo match and see if the Mirror will give it a page two.”

“That newspaper sees you as their food and film reviewer, Clyde. Do you think a sports piece—”

“It won’t be about the sports, Harry. I want to write about people, ordinary people, in whom violence is hovering just below the surface. I know it finished eleven years ago, but for men like you and me, the war still rages on inside. We saw it out there at the aquatic centre. All it takes is—”

“A bit of a nudge in an excited, charged atmosphere and then—”

“The fists start flying. That’s what I want to write about, Harry. Not the new post-catastrophe age we pretend to live in, but the legacy we who served, and those of us who lost loved ones, still carry with us, deep down inside.”

“Crickey, Clyde. A lot of people won’t like to read about their buried demons. But I think you’re on the money; it needs to be said.”

“I just write about stuff I feel.”

“What are you doing down there, Clyde?”

“Feeling stuff I’d like to write about.”

“Is pornography your new calling?”

“I didn’t bring a pornograph with me,” I mumbled into his mouth.

He had the good humour to laugh, especially when I started to use both hands and the bar of soap.

My article could wait. No doubt dinner at seven would be fine, but for the next few hours I knew I’d be at the mercy of what Harry Jones wanted me to do … again.

CHAPTER TWO

“This is plush,” Harry said.

“Too right,” I replied. “How much did this cost?”

“I’m paying, Smith. It’s an early Christmas present.”

The first-class compartment of the Melbourne to Sydney Daylight Express had been updated to nineteen-fifties modern. Air-conditioning, a lot of chrome, Australian native wood panelling, and an enormous picture window with a venetian blind. I’d read the old Spirit of Progress carriages had been kept after the steam train had been retired a few years ago, but were now drawn by a diesel engine. However, that particular service ran later in the day and didn’t pull into Sydney Central station until nearly midnight.

We’d arrived at Spencer Street station at quarter past seven to find our luggage had already been delivered by the hotel. It felt faintly ridiculous being shown to our compartment by a liveried steward and then immediately asked if we’d like a pot of tea. This morning’s Melbourne newspapers were placed neatly on one of the bench seats.

“When is the dining car open for breakfast?” Harry asked, even before removing his hat.

I almost laughed. We’d had a continental breakfast delivered to the room before our taxi had arrived to bring us to the station. Harry had been in seventh heaven on our trip down from Sydney. He’d never done a long train journey on which there’d been a proper restaurant car with all the bells and whistles.

“As soon as the train leaves the station, Mr. Jones,” the steward replied. “Your table number is the same as your compartment number. Just let the carriage attendant know when you’re making your way to the dining car so he can lock the door when you leave.”

“Do you have any Sydney newspapers by chance?”

“I have yesterday’s Telegraph, the Mirror and the Sydney Morning Herald.”

“Do you think—”

“We’re already prepared for you, Mr. Smith,” the man said, reaching into a pocket in the back of the compartment door. “The concierge at the Windsor telephoned the station earlier this morning to make sure these were here for you to read. I hope you don’t mind, but I had a quick peep at the Mirror myself. Your review of The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll was fascinating to read.”

“Today’s Herald not here yet?”

“It will be available when you transfer onto the NSW service at Albury/Wodonga, sir.”

It was 1956 and travellers were still obliged to change trains as they crossed State borders. If felt vaguely ridiculous that every State not only had its own laws but still had its own rail gauge. I knew there were plans to run a unified rail link between capital cities, but even now, in the middle of our so-called post-war prosperity, the plans were still in the heads of engineers and the decisions to go ahead in the hands of Federal politicians—a guarantee that we wouldn’t see such an important thing come to pass for years.

I glanced at my watch. Half past seven—fifteen minutes before the train was due to depart.

“Hungry?”

“No, Harry. Just wondering how much time I had before you galloped down the corridor to the chaff bin.”

He’d taken off his shoes and had his feet up on the seat next to me.

“Chaff bin, Clyde?”

“Honestly, I don’t know where you put it.”

He wrinkled his nose at me and then glanced quickly into the corridor before running his stockinged foot over my calf and onwards up into my crotch for an instant. I smiled and ignored him, opening the Mirror to look for my review.

“Wow!” I said. They’d printed not only my theatre review but also my cinema review of The Man Who Never Was. It was the first time they’d published two of my reviews in the same edition. If I knew the editor, I’d find a letter from him when I got home in which he’d be angling to pay me a discount fee.

“It’s gruesome,” Harry said.

“Okay, I’ll