When a man of my age
marries a woman as young as she is, he has to have a lot of patience. She’ll
sulk now for a couple of days, but she’ll do her job. One of the great things
about her is the way she works: I’ve never seen anyone work like her.”
A car came out of the desert in a whirl of dust and pulled up by the gas pumps. That broke up our conversation. I went out and served my first
customer. I gave him gas and oil. I checked his tyres, washed his windshield,
and while I worked I was aware Jenson had come to the door of the shed and
was watching me.
The guy in the car was fat and elderly. He sat picking his teeth with a match
while I worked over his car. I thought I would try a little salesmanship on
him.
“Are you going to Tropica Springs, mister?” I asked as I polished his
windshield.
“Yeah.”
“It’ll take you best part of three hours. You won’t get in before ten. Aren’t
you hungry? We serve the best beef hash in the district.”
He blinked at me.
“Beef hash?” He looked at his watch. “No, I guess I haven’t the time. I’m in a
hurry.”
“It’s ready,” I said. “Take you ten minutes, and we do a fruit pie that’s really
something. I’ve just had a slice: best pie I’ve ever tasted.”
“Is that right?” He looked interested. “Well, okay. I’ll give it a try if it’s
ready.” He got out of the car. “Where do I go?”
I pointed to the lunch room.
“Did you spot the tappet?” I said as he moved off. “It should be fixed. I can
do it while you’re eating if it’s okay with you.”
“Sure. I should have had it fixed weeks ago. Thanks.”
He went into the lunch room and Jenson, grinning from ear to ear came over.
“Nice work, Jack. That’s what I call salesmanship. I’ll give you a hand with
the tappet.”
While we were working on the car, a black Cadillac slid up to the pumps. I
left Jenson to get on with the tappet and went over to the Caddy to serve gas.
There was a man and a woman in the car. They looked hot and dusty.
“Can we get a wash here?” the man asked, getting out of the car.
“Sure thing. Round the back to your left. If you’re hungry there’s veal steaks
and spaghetti all ready and waiting. Italian cooking: nothing to touch it, even
in Tropica Springs.”
The man cocked his eyebrows at me.
“I bet it’s old horse and rope.”
“I’ve just had it. I didn’t notice any rope in the spaghetti,” I said cheerfully.
“It was just a suggestion. You won’t get to Tropica Springs until past ten. I
thought maybe you were hungry.”
“I’m starving,” the woman said, getting out of the car. “Why not eat here,
honey? It can’t poison us.”
“Okay, if you want to. I could do with something myself.”
Ten minutes later, two big Buick Station wagons rolled up with a party of
ten. While I was servicing the cars I suggested they might like to eat here and
I gave them a lyrical description of the fried chicken. They fell for it.
Jenson had fixed the tappet by now and he went inside to help out with the rush.
A couple of trucks pulled in. The two truckers went into the lunch room for
ham and eggs. Then a Jaguar came in with a boy and girl. I told them about
the spaghetti and the veal steaks and reminded them how long it would be
before they would get a meal unless they eat here. They fell for it too.
Jenson came out, looking worried.
“Jack, the steaks are off and we’ve only one chicken left,” he said. “Go easy
on the sales talk.”
I stared, at him.
“You mean you’ve run out of food?”
“That’s a fact. We don’t usually serve more than three or four dinners a night.
Usually it’s snacks or hamburgers: stuff like that, but with your line of high
pressure salesmanship we’ve got fifteen dinners in there.”
“Don’t you want them?”
He tapped me on the chest.
“You bet I want them, only I wasn’t expecting someone like you to be selling
my food. I’ll be ready for you tomorrow. Lola and me will go into Wentworth and stock up.” He grinned delightedly at me. “There’s still plenty
of ham and eggs left. See what you can do with those.”
He went back into the lunch room.
The truckers started to come in for gas now and the private car trade fell off. I
didn’t have to sell the truckers food. They knew what they wanted.
Finally, around ten o’clock, the traffic quieted down, and after waiting
around for twenty minutes and seeing no headlights coming out of the desert,
I went into the lunch room.
There were a couple of truckers eating pie at the counter. Jenson was clearing
up and stacking dishes. Someone had fed a coin in the jukebox which was blaring swing.
There was no sign of Lola, but I could hear her clattering dishes in the kitchen.
“Anything I can do?”
Jenson shook his head.
“It’s okay. We can manage. You get off to bed. It’s my shift tonight. Yours
tomorrow.” He jerked his head towards the kitchen door and grimaced.
“She’s still sulking, but she’ll get over it. You start tomorrow at eight
o’clock. Okay?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Come in here for breakfast. And say, Jack, I hope you’re as pleased with the
job as I am with you.”
“I like it a lot,” I said, “and I’m glad you’re pleased. Well, if I can’t do
anything, I guess I’ll hit the hay.”
I went across to the cabin, str!pped off and got into bed. I was pretty tired, but
my mind was too active for sleep. I kept thinking of Jenson’s wife, knowing I
shouldn’t, but finding it impossible to keep her out of my mind.
The bed was right by the window, and from where I lay, I could look directly
across the highway at the bungalow.
I was still trying to sleep an hour later when I saw a light go up in one of the
bungalow windows.
I saw her standing in the middle of the room. She was smoking a cigarette,
and for some moments she just stood there, letting smoke drift from between
her lips. Then moving languidly, she stubbed out the cigarette, dropping the butt on the floor. She pulled out a hairpin and the thick mass of red hair came
tumbling down to her waist.
By now I was sitting up, leaning forward and staring; my heart thumping and
my breathing was fast. She wasn’t more than thirty yards from me.
She sat on a chair in front of the dressing table mirror and began to brush her
hair. She spent nearly five minutes stroking the red mass with the brush, then
putting the brush down, she crossed over to the bed and turned down the
cover.
She moved to the window and began to unfasten her overall. As the overall
swung open, she reached out and pulled down the blind. With the light behind her, her shadow was sharp etched against the blind.
She took off the overall, letting it drop to the floor. Her n@ked silhouette
against the blind turned my mouth dry.
Long after she had turned off the light, I still sat at the window, looking
across at the bungalow.
It was only when a truck pulled up at the pumps and I saw Jenson come out
of the bungalow that I lay down on the bed.
I didn’t sleep much that night.
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