Above the Fold Read online

  “LUKE! Mate!” A cheerful shout was the next thing he heard. “I rang Kure, and found out you were here. We’re both a long way from the broom cupboard at 2GB.”

  “Don’t tell me you made use of the broom cupboard, Alfie.”

  “Once or twice. Sharon from the typing pool didn’t like outdoor sex.”

  “I remember Sharon. Tall, dark, big knockers. But hang on, she was nearly twice our age.”

  “I know,” he replied with a laugh, “it was lovely. I learned a lot from Sharon. Every young stud should begin life with an older woman.”

  “So what are you doing in Tokyo?”

  “I’m at the occupation cinema. Can you meet up for dinner?”

  “My last night before going back to Kure. I’m free.”

  “See you at seven,” Alfie said, and gave him the address.

  The Ikebukuro Cinema was baroque, like an American picture palace. It was a structure built after Tokyo’s great earthquake of 1927, and thus strong enough to have survived the air raids. A two-thousand-seat auditorium, it had three tiers in the florid style of early cinemas, with stalls, dress circle and an upper balcony. It also had a large penthouse apartment on the top floor above the cinema, and it was there that Luke met Alfie Metcalfe again, amazed at his luxurious dwelling and his lifestyle.

  The first surprise was discovering Alfie was the cinema manager, and after that came three surprises in the shape of three good-looking girls, who were introduced as his staff and close friends. It was soon apparent to Luke that ‘close friends’ meant something far more intimate than that.

  “All three of them?” he asked. The girls smiled. Alfie grinned rather smugly as he nodded in reply.

  “Lovely, aren’t they? Little darlings keep me warm at night. Not all at the same time though. No mass shenanigans in bed. There are six days of the week. Two nights for each darling, and on the seventh … I rest.”

  “You bugger,” Luke murmured. “Trust you to have it all sorted. Fucking from Monday to Saturday, and the Sabbath belongs to you.”

  “I knew you’d understand.” He introduced the girls. “Miki, Chika and Akiko.” They bowed and Luke bowed to each in turn.

  “Drinkies!” Alfie announced boisterously, and Miki served drinks while the other two prepared dinner.

  “You actually run the place?” Luke could not get over it. “How did you get a gig like this?”

  “I’d like to claim it was sheer brilliance,” Alfie replied, “but my dad runs a film distribution company. Handles MGM movies for BCOF. He heard they needed a manager. The rest,” he grinned happily, “is history.”

  “Sure is. What a sweet billet,” Luke declared, looking at the luxurious surroundings and accepting another vodka delivered by a smiling Miki.

  “She likes you,” Alfie said sotto voce, “quite fancies you, so she’d be more than happy if you care to stay the night in the guest bedroom.”

  “That’s a kind and tempting thought, Alfie, but …”

  “But … what?”

  “I’ve got someone back home.”

  “Being faithful?”

  “Trying.”

  “Many have tried and failed, old mate.”

  “I know. Thanks, but it’d better just be dinner.”

  “If you ever change your mind, all you have to do is call.”

  They had a sumptuous dinner, the three girls joining them at the table after serving sashimi, followed by yakitori chicken. Luke, well primed by the pre-dinner vodka, followed by sake and brandy, shook hands with Alfie, and, to the amusement of the girls, kissed each of their hands after an exchange of farewell bows. Then Miki insisted on accompanying him downstairs to await a taxi. When it arrived she put her arms around him, gave him a long and very passionate kiss, and stood there waving as the cab drove away. In the morning with a slight hangover, Luke took the morning train back to Kure.

  On his return there were letters from home. The first one he opened was the envelope with Claudia’s familiar handwriting. He looked forward eagerly to her usual amusing snippets, but this one was different, shockingly unexpected.

  My darling,

  Dreadful to write and tell you this, but last week Steven was admitted to our hospital with difficulty in breathing, plus headaches, severe muscle pain and fatigue. At first it was thought this was anaemia causing the lack of energy. But after blood tests he has been diagnosed with poliomyelitis. There’s no easy way to break this news, and he sent me a message from the isolation wing that he didn’t want me to tell you, but I felt you should know. I understand his parents want him to come home if he’s discharged from the hospital, but he says he won’t go there. I’m afraid that’s something which has to be worked out in the future. At present he’s having occasional treatment in an iron lung — the real name of this contraption is a negative pressure ventilator — but he has to be taken to St Vincent’s for this, and brought back by ambulance afterwards. I’m not rostered on the isolation ward — that’s where he’ll be until the danger of transmitting it to anyone else is over — but I do look in through the glass window and wave to him as often as I can, and he keeps sending me messages via the ward nurses. I’ve been told it will be six weeks before he’s clear of any contagion or chance of passing on the infection, then he’ll be moved to the orthopaedic ward and I can visit.

  We know so little about polio, and I’ve already been reading as much as I can about it. All I know so far is that it’s important to keep patients clean and dry, with lots of careful passive exercise of the legs to avoid thrombosis. I’m going to keep studying; there must be people who’ve been cured, and I want to find out how they managed it.

  The messages from the isolation nurses say he’s confident of getting better and refuses to be depressed, which is one good thing, but the family situation is a real worry. When his parents came to see him, they weren’t allowed to risk going into the infectious ward, and his father kicked up a huge fuss. You can imagine the sort of shindig he created. As a result I heard that Steven was embarrassed and has requested the hospital not to allow Mr Pascoe to visit again. His mother and sisters can come when he’s out of isolation, but not Pascoe or any uncles in the family firm liable to provoke a row. I’ve never known such an unpleasant situation. The family is so wealthy, yet there exists this terrible schism. I’m sure a cheerful chatty letter from you would be welcome. Address it to him at my place, and that will make sure he gets it. By the time it arrives his infection period should be over, and if he’s in the orthopaedic ward I‘ll be able to sit there when I’m off-duty and read it to him.

  He’s not able to do a lot for himself at the moment, because there’s considerable muscle paralysis. I’m told that in time this can improve, and we also hear that in America they are working on a drug to treat polio, but it’s a few years away yet. Apparently there are treatments that help polio patients, but so far there is no cure.

  Sorry this letter is full of gloom, but Sue and Gordon send their love, and at last your mother seems more relaxed and content. I drop in to see her now and then, and she’s made friends with some of the neighbours and plays cards with them. That at least is some good news. Unfortunately there’s not a lot of it.

  Much love from me. It’s lonely here, and two years now seems an eternity. I’ve stopped trying to count the days, because there are too many of them. Barely six months since we said goodbye. I didn’t know time could pass as slowly as this.

  All my love, Claudia.

  SIXTEEN

  It was a sad letter, terrible news about Steven, and a moment of insight that revealed her unhappiness in those final lines. He could almost hear her say the words, expressing an opinion she had never revealed until now. It was often lonely for him, too, and he had his moments of regrets. Two years did now seem an awfully long time. Nearly eighteen more months, even if some of them might be spent in Tokyo. But that was far from certain.

  He was sitting gazing glumly at a recently framed photo of Claudia and trying not to imagine Stev
en crippled and unable to walk, when there was a tap on his door. It was Jimmy Marks bringing Luke his weekly cigarette ration. He noticed the new picture of Claudia.

  “Holy cow!” Jimmy gave a loud whistle of appreciation. “Is she your girlfriend?” When Luke nodded, the driver took a closer look. “Where is she, Luke?”

  “Back in Aussie, of course. Lives at Collaroy.”

  “Near where you used to live?”

  “A few minutes away.”

  “So what the hell are you doing here?”

  “It’s a good question, Jimmy.”

  “You must be stark raving mad.”

  “I sometimes think so.”

  “Strewth. No wonder you don’t go prospecting for a shag with the rest of us.” It was a popular off-duty pursuit, reconnoitring the ‘short-time houses’, the rash of side-street brothels that had flourished since the arrival of ten thousand lusty young soldiers. Jimmy took another close look at the photo, handed Luke the ration, and went to join his libidinous mates.

  Even the bloody cigarettes, Luke thought, brought a memory of Steven. The pair of them had saved up to buy a packet at the age of fifteen. They’d attempted to smoke the lot before their parents caught them, managing to make themselves so violently ill they never touched tobacco again. These days he usually gave his ration to Tobias or Ben. Others, here in the occupation force, had less charitable uses for them.

  The cigarette ration came in a carton containing ten packets, a weekly quota of two hundred. Each soldier paid for them, but they paid a protected army price, while on the black market they were worth ten times as much. And everyone in the occupation force knew the price of a short-time girl; a brief encounter with a prostitute cost half a packet, just ten cigarettes.

  Luke hated hearing soldiers exult that a fuck cost so little. It was a sort of corruption, the victors enjoying such cheap access to girls, many of them too young to be on the streets, working for pimps, or to support their families who no longer had jobs. Some soldiers were also selling their food rations to the Japanese at a profit, and banking their army pay for when they became civilians again. With mathematics like that they could spend a few years here and go home comparatively well-off, while also enjoying as much cheap sex as they wished. All they had to do was avoid the British redcaps or Australian military police who patrolled the red light districts. He also hoped young Jimmy took care to avoid a dose of the clap, for in the knocking shops of Kure there was plenty of it about.

  He shrugged off such thoughts, and sat wondering how the hell to write a chatty and cheerful letter to Steven.

  It was late and the special orthopaedic ward was dimly lit and silent. Just the one figure occupying a bed. For a moment she thought he was asleep, but he smiled with pleasure as her face appeared above him.

  “Finished?” he asked.

  “Yes, end of my graveyard shift, thank goodness.”

  “Tired?”

  “A bit. Been a long day.”

  “Rest.”

  “I will, after I’ve sat and talked to you,” she said, and was rewarded with another grateful smile.

  “Good.” His sentences were truncated to save breath. It had been six days since he’d last spent any time in the iron lung, and with Claudia’s quiet encouragement he was trying to reduce his dependence on it. That was proving difficult; the hospital doctors insisting that more time in the lung was an essential. It was all they could offer in the way of treatment, and as a junior nurse she had to be careful not to voice a contrary opinion. That would not be well received. But reading case histories, and studying reports on the rare recoveries, there were times when she could hardly contain herself at the way the orthopaedics slavishly followed routine practice, and dismissed any notion of alternate therapy. And they all derided the work being done by Sister Kenny, whom Claudia thought must be doing something as they were making a film about her in Hollywood. But tonight there were other things to talk about.

  “Tomorrow Helen and Rupert want to come to see you. As I’m off duty, I said I’ll drive them.”

  “Rupert?” His face expressed surprise.

  “Alright with you?”

  “Yes. Nice.”

  “They’ve become quite good friends. I’m glad for Helen, because she gets out more. And by the way,” she said casually, “there’s this. A message from across the sea.” She grinned on producing the letter from her handbag.

  “Luke?”

  “I told him there’s more chance to get his letters if they came via me.”

  “S’true.”

  “I know it is, Steve. Have you had any more family visits?”

  “Just Mum.”

  “That’s better, isn’t it? Just her.”

  “Better. No rows.”

  She could see his eager gaze as she opened the letter and sat on the chair beside him. She switched on the bedside light and started to read, as he lay back listening to her.

  “Dear Steve, It was a hell of a shock to hear the news. All I can say is, Claudia told me of your determination to get better and it made me want to cheer out loud. Because if anyone can beat this thing, you can. I remember so many instances of your guts since we were knee-high to grasshoppers, like the time in the Under Eights when we met up with that footie team from St Marks.”

  She saw him smile about this as she paused.

  “Bet you haven’t forgotten those kids, they were so much bigger than us that they should’ve brought their birth certificates, and you just laughed and said ‘game on’, then proceeded to score three tries and flatten them.

  “Or the day you swam out and saved that girl caught in the undertow. Even the way you’ve taken on the family and stood up for what you wanted. On that particular problem, old mate, don’t let the buggers get you down. You’re you, a pretty special kind of bloke, and don’t take any shit from them.”

  “No way,” Steve murmured, and she waited a moment then continued.

  “I hope Barry has found time to tear himself away from his new friend Mr Menzies and come to see you. Fingers crossed for you, Steve. I wish I was there to visit. My love to Claudia.”

  She paused again and said, “This is a bit embarrassing, but I’d better read it. He finishes by saying he thinks you’ve got the best looking nurse in the hospital on your side.”

  “Bewdy.” He indicated by smiling at her.

  “Flatterer. You’re as bad as him.” She felt a moment of pleasure. She wanted to give him a quick goodnight kiss, but the rules were strict. He could still be contagious, and the sister in charge of the isolation ward only allowed her to visit like this if she obeyed all the conventions. So she put the letter in the drawer of his bedside table and switched out the lamp.

  “Thanks, Claudia,” he murmured. “Dunno what I’d do without you.” It was the longest sentence he’d said since being diagnosed and, apart from the sentiment expressed, gave her a moment of hope that he might be improving. But if he was, and she had to believe it was true, that’d be the time when real trouble would begin. His family would try to claim him, force him home to be looked after by them, and Steven would be helpless to stop them.

  In the weeks following his return from Tokyo, Luke tried to reconcile himself to the rigorous broadcasting routine, but brief acquaintance with the newspaper atmosphere had unsettled him and had left him with an uneasy feeling that the two articles he’d been asked to write might be a test. If it were not for the advance payment, he’d have been tempted to abandon the task, as special interest stories about a radio unit were not easy to make entertaining or interesting. He kept worrying about the professionalism among the elite group in Tokyo, and felt concerned his work might disappoint Harry Morton.

  In the end, feeling desperately insecure, he posted both articles. He instinctively knew they were ordinary. When Harry wrote back a courteous letter, appreciating that it had been a tough ask, but saying he would use them in due course, it felt akin to a rejection — a kind one, if rejections could be kind — but Luke felt ce
rtain it was an examination that he’d failed. He tried to stop feeling defeated; it was just a job, for Christ’s sake, and thought of the way Steven’s life had been so cruelly ruined. After all, he was not confined to bed, or dependent on that machine Claudia said Steve hated. A machine to help him breathe. All he had done was waste two years of his life, and with it the promise of a bright new future.

  SEVENTEEN

  It was a bitterly cold and wet day. The studio was the warmest place to be, in front of a kerosene heater, and Luke was in the music library waiting to begin his announcing shift while using his portable typewriter on letters home. That was when Ben Warren hurried from the control room to stare out the window.

  “My God, look at that,” he said, and without waiting for a response ran towards the back door of the building.

  “Look at what?” Luke asked Tobias Langley, who was selecting Bunny Berigan classics for his jazz program that night. Receiving only a shrug in answer, he went to the window and looked out. A small ragged child was crouched beside the unit jeep, trying vainly to seek shelter from the drenching rain. The vehicle was protected by a tarpaulin cover, and all the boy could do was huddle against it as the downpour soaked his torn shirt and shabby trousers. Luke saw Ben run from the building to take him by the hand. At first the boy seemed frightened, but Ben, one of the few who could speak fluent Japanese, said something to him, then picked him up and carried him inside.

  He brought him into the library. The boy looked to be about six or seven years old. He was drenched, confused and seemed scared.

  Even Tobias was diverted from his jazz music, as Ben placed him down near the heater and spoke gently to him while they gathered around. Ted Munro, the duty announcer, came in as the station was on a news relay from Radio Australia, and so did Jim Marks. It was no day for driving jeeps, and Jim had been chatting up one of the English-speaking girls employed in the office.

  “Poor little bugger,” Tobias said. “He looks frozen.”