Bangalore. Roger Crook
Читать онлайн книгу.
the first time he saw her smile. He noticed that like Alice, her eyes were blue, a pale blue. He poured himself a good measure and put the bottle on a small table between two big cane armchairs. They stood looking at each other, neither knowing how to re-start their conversation.
Like Alice had said there was a ring on her engagement finger. She watched him waiting for the question and when none came she said, “Ewen and I got engaged the day before he left. We decided not to tell anyone. Ewen insisted that he wanted you to be the first to know. This is the first time I've worn the ring. We chose it at Rosendorfs. It’s an Argyle diamond.” She held out her hand for him to look.
“I’m no judge of these things, Patricia, as my ex will confirm, but it looks quite beautiful. Did you tell Michelle?”
“No.”
“I must ring his sister. She’s in Sydney, doing another degree or diploma or something. She’s a doctor, something to do with babies this time, I think. She and Ewen are very close; I think they relied on each other all through school. I was up here and their mother… well, that’s a long story. I’ll ring her in the morning. Her mother will have told her by now I would think.”
“Mr Sinclair, can I call you Angus?”
“Of course you must, I’m sorry I always forget the formalities. Do you get called Patricia or Pat?”
“Pat. Only my parents call me Patricia.”
Alice appeared at the doorway. “Angus, I’ve put your dinner out on the table in the breakfast room. It’s cooler in there. All you have to do is carve; it’s a bit of beef fillet. I brought fresh salad back from Carnarvon; what’s in the garden is just about finished. I’ve got my dinner and I’ll take it down to my cottage and leave you two in peace.”
Angus beckoned Alice forward. “Alice, this is Patricia Fawcett, known as Pat. She and Ewen are engaged and I’m sorry I haven’t introduced you before.”
Alice smiled warmly. “Welcome to Bangalore, Pat. I’m sorry about Ewen. Such a dear boy. Like us, you must be terribly worried; all we can do is wait, isn't it? I’m sure… I pray he’ll be all right.
“I’ve put towels out in the first bedroom on the right through this door. You have your own shower and toilet, so don’t worry about having to wander round this old house in the dark. I’ve also put a dressing gown on the bed; such bulky things to pack, good towelling robes, I always think. Good night Angus, Pat, God bless.”
Angus beckoned Pat to follow Alice down the long hallway to the back of the house. Just before they got to the kitchen he said, “Next on the right.” She pushed the door open into what Alice had called the breakfast room. It was quite a small room; the walls were painted a pale blue that contrasted with the clear varnish on the dark-brown skirting boards, door and polished floor. A small, what looked like very old, oak dining table that would easily seat four was in the middle of the room; on it Alice had set two places, a big bowl of salad together with a small fillet of beef on a carving plate.
“Wine, Pat?”
“Yes please.”
“Red or white? I can open both.”
“Red please.” As she was speaking she was gazing at the walls of the room that were hung with what seemed dozens of photographs. Camel trains with bales of wool. Men on horseback, many of them with fine beards and moustaches. Men wearing strange headdresses attending to camels. Men on big four-wheel drays loaded with bales of wool. Beautiful dark-haired, dark-skinned women, some wearing what looked like saris and then the same women dressed in Victorian-style clothes. Mostly the women were unsmiling, just looking at the camera, sometimes just a hint of a smile, but always beautiful.
There was a faded picture of what she recognised as the front of Bangalore homestead under construction. Men leaning on shovels, holding hammers, some of the men with pipes in their mouths. Her attention was drawn to the man at the front of the picture. Tall, slim, almost laconic in the way that he stood and looked at the camera; she thought she could see Angus in his eyes. Then she saw a picture of Ewen in uniform.
“That was taken at his passing-out parade, ten years ago, maybe more. That’s his mother and my mother. That’s my father standing at the back. I took the photograph.” The similarity, the almost unreal likeness between the grandfather, son and grandson was striking.
“Are your parents still alive?”
“My word they are. Both in their eighties, fit as fiddles, though the old man claims that his longevity is due to a lifetime of drinking whisky and smoking a foul black shag that he stuffs into his pipe. Mother is from an old English family with French origins. She has distant relatives here in WA, all from the French stock; they’ve been in WA as long as the Sinclairs.
“My mother and father met during World War Two. Dad was a pilot. Mum was a nurse. They live in Perth now, a house in Dalkeith by the river. Come and sit down. This fine fillet is nearly cold but it’ll still be the best you’ve ever had, I guarantee.”
Before he joined her at the table Angus turned down the lights that illuminated the walls; just one light was left on over the table. They sat facing each other. They helped themselves to salad and Angus passed the dish of carefully carved pink slices of fillet. He poured her a glass of red wine and one for himself. He looked at her and smiled. She saw the face in the old photograph. He raised his glass. “To Ewen, a safe return, back to you, Pat, where he belongs.”
She smiled and raised the glass to her lips. As she looked at him again she saw Ewen in the dark eyes. “This is a lovely wine.”
“Made by a bloke I went to school with. Made a packet in the eighties, most of it legal, I think. But then again, you could float a sinking ship on the Stock Exchange in those days. Anyway, he made some serious money and cashed up and went with his third wife, I think, to Margaret River.
“Happy as pigs they are down there now. He keeps me in wine and fossicks around the other wineries for anything else that he thinks I might like. He sends me far too much, but he’s seen the big cellar under this house and he insists that it must be stocked. The way I’m going, my heirs will be able to drink themselves silly and not spend a dollar.”
The mention of his heirs took the smile off her face as she thought about Ewen somewhere in the moonscape of Afghanistan. Angus saw her expression change and said softly, “He’ll be all right, Pat. We must be positive.” Scared to admit a shiver had gone down his spine as well.
She gazed into the red wine in her glass and, without looking at him, said quietly, “I know. I’ve been there. To Afghanistan…it’s such a hostile landscape to fly in…never mind the Taliban; they just make it infinitely worse. But the troops have very sophisticated communications…even personal satellite phones.”
Angus put a little more wine in his glass. “So if Ewen and his mates are out there then they, his commanders, will know?”
“Yes, they will – getting them out is the difficult part. Nobody knows where the Taliban are, not for sure anyway. They, the Taliban, have some quite sophisticated weapons and communications as well. Some left behind by the Russians, most from over the border in Pakistan, probably bought with US aid money. The other trouble is, it’s an SAS operation, so they could be anywhere, even in Pakistan.”
“If they are in Pakistan, what does that mean?”
“I’m not sure, but I gather it would save a lot of trouble if they could get back into Afghanistan. There seems to be a fine balance between the war against terrorism and invading Pakistan’s airspace and all the diplomacy that would involve. I’m only just another pilot, Angus. I can only tell you what we have been told when flying out there.”
‘What was Ewen flying?’
“Who knows? They were probably flying at night using night-vision. Low-level stuff. Not without danger at the best of times.”
A moth attracted by the light fluttered around the hot light globe. It clung