1960 - Come Easy, Go Easy Page 6

  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, stripped 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 naked 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.

  chapter five

  I

  When I walked into the lunch room at six forty-five the next morning, Lola, clad only in a yellow halter and a pair of scarlet shorts, was scrubbing down the counter.

  In that getup, she looked really something. The combination of her red hair, her green eyes and that creamy skin that goes with that colouring, plus her shape the halter and shorts scarcely concealed, had me staring.

  She paused in her work to look sulkily at me, then continued | to scrub.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Jenson,” I said. “Can I do that for you?”

  Again she paused, her green eyes hostile.

  “When I want you to do anything for me I’ll tell you,” she snapped.

  “Why, sure,” I said. “I didn’t mean any offence.”

  “If you want breakfast, get it in the kitchen.”

  She bent over the counter, using the scrub brush. I could see the deep hollow between her breasts.

  She looked up.

  “What are you staring at?”

  “I didn’t know
I was staring,” I lied, and moved around the counter and into the kitchen.

  Jenson was sitting at the table. There was a pile of money in bills and small change in front of him. By his side was a cup of coffee, a used plate and a knife and fork. He looked up, nodding at me.

  “Come on in, Jack. Do you want ham and eggs?”

  “Just coffee,” I said, and went over to the pot standing on the hot plate.

  “As soon as we’ve cleared up, Lola and me are going into Wentworth,” he said. “We’ve had the best day for years here. Those fifteen dinners put us right in front. You keep that up, Jack, and I’ll be retiring. Just to make it interesting for you, I’m going to give you five per cent on all the restaurant checks. How’s that?”

  “Why, that’s fine, Mr. Jenson. Thanks.”

  “When I’m in Wentworth, I’ll get you an overall to work in. Is there anything else you want?”

  “I need some clothes, but I guess I’d better get them myself.”

  “Yeah. You can take the car to Wentworth tomorrow and fit yourself out. I’ll give you an advance on your restaurant cut. How about a hundred bucks?”

  “That would do fine. Thanks a lot.”

  He pushed five twenties over to me.

  “So tomorrow you go to Wentworth.” He leaned back in his chair. “Do you think you could do something with that rotary cultivator? I bought it for scrap, but I have an idea it would still work with a little persuasion.”

  ‘“I’ll take a look at it.”

  “We’ll be off in an hour, but we’ll be back by midday. Do you think you can handle it on your own?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  I washed out the coffee cup, then lighting a cigarette, I went into the lunch room.

  Lola was putting pies in the glass case and arranging the labels on them. Her back was to me. I paused for a moment, feeling the blood move through me at the sight of her square shoulders, her narrow waist and her heavy hips. She must have known I was staring at her, but she didn’t look around.

  I went out into the pale sunshine, and taking a broom, I swept up around the gas pumps.

  A couple of trucks pulled in for gas. I tried to persuade the truckers to have breakfast but they were in a hurry.

  When I was through cleaning up, I went into the shed and inspected the rotary cultivator. On a shelf I found a tin of rust remover and I got to work.

  An hour later, Jenson came in.

  “We’re off now, Jack. Sure you can manage?”

  “You bet, Mr. Jenson.”

  “How’s it coming?”

  “It wants working on, but it’ll be okay.”

  He rested his heavy hand on my shoulder as he looked at the machine.

  “You get the rust off. I’ll fix it. See you around midday.”

  I moved with him to the shed door.

  Lola was coming out of the bungalow. She looked smart in a green linen dress. It was a little tight across her chest. Her bust line was something that is now accepted as standard these days, but I wasn’t movie trained. Her bust line made me stare.

  Jenson gave me a poke in the ribs.

  “She looks a real lady, doesn’t she? Plenty of style, huh?”

  “You’re right.”

  “Yeah, plenty of style. Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

  I watched them drive off in a cloud of dust.

  I lit a cigarette and stood looking around. I told myself this was just the kind of place I would like to own. The thought dropped into my mind that Lola was the woman I would like to share it with. I went back to the shed and continued to work on the cultivator. I kept thinking of her in the halter and shorts, and the picture I had of her in my mind made concentration difficulty.

  I had been working on the cultivator for an hour or so when a car pulled up right outside the shed in which I was working.

  It was an old, dusty Chevrolet. A tall, lean man in his middle forties got out of the car, followed by a thin, yellow dog of no particular breed that moved close to the man’s heels, it’s big, bloodshot shot eyes mournful.

  The man wore a pair of faded blue overalls, patched at the knees. Around his scraggy neck was a greasy red handkerchief knotted at his throat. At the back of his head he wore a high crowned straw hat, burned yellow by the sun.

  His face, the colour of teak, was thin and fiddle shaped. He had a long thin nose and thin hips. His eyes, under greying bushy eyebrows, were steady and piercing.

  There was something about him I didn’t like. He made me think of a cop. Those eyes were prying, suspicious and distrusting.

  We looked at each other for a long moment, then I straighten up.

  “Something I can do for you?” I said. I had to make a conscious effort to meet those prying eyes.

  He leaned against the shed door, his thumbs hooked in the arm straps of his overalls. The dog sat by him, staring fixedly at me.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe you can tell me who you are and what you are doing here. Maybe you can tell me where Carl Jensen is. Maybe you can tell me to mind my own business.”

  “Mr. Jenson is in Wentworth with Mrs. Jenson,” I said. “I’m Jack Patmore, the new hand.”

  “Is that a fact?” He shifted his position. “You mean, Carl has hired you to help out?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, well. I never thought he would do it.” He shook his head. All the time his hard little eyes were running over me, taking in my stained, crumpled trousers, my dirty shirt and my scuffed shoes. “Never thought he’d take on help, specially when that wife of his is so set against it.” He scratched the side of his face, continuing to shake his head. “I’m his brother-in-law. Ricks is the name—George Ricks.”

  I guessed he wouldn’t be Lola’s brother. He must be the late Mrs. Jenson’s brother.

  So I didn’t have to go on meeting those suspicious little eyes, I squatted down beside the rotary cultivator, my back to him.

  “You said his wife went with him to Wentworth?” Ricks asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So you’re alone here?”

  “That’s right.”

  I heard him move forward, and he began to breathe down the back of my neck as I worked on the gearbox.

  “I bet Carl bought that as scrap. I bet he got it for a song. Wouldn’t surprise me to hear someone paid him to take it away.”

  I didn’t say anything. This man was beginning to get on my nerves.

  “Carl’s a smart cookie all right,” Ricks went on. “He’ll look at a lump of rusty iron and see profit in it whereas another guy would just see rusty iron. I bet he’ll get that cultivator working again and make a big profit out of it. Yeah, he’s smart when it comes to metal, but he’s plain dumb when it comes to people.”

  I made a grunting noise as I got the gear cogs out. I put them in a petrol bath.

  “What do you think of that wife of his?”

  I was glad I was bending over the machine so he couldn’t see my face. I wasn’t expecting that one. It jolted me.

  “She’s all right,” I said.

  I reached for a screw driver and began to dismantle the clutch plates.

  “All right? Is that what you think? I bet she doesn’t want you here. She doesn’t want anyone here. She doesn’t want me here: her husband’s brother-in-law. Never thought Carl would be such an old fool as to marry a tramp like her. She walked in here one day from nowhere and going nowhere. She’s smart all right. She saw her chance and grabbed it. All she had to do was to wave her sex and her body in front of him, and the dope fell for it. You watch out. Don’t kid yourself you’ll stay here long because you won’t. She’ll talk Carl into getting rid of you. Know why?”

  By now I had fixed a dumb look on my face. I turned to stare at him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I’m just the hired help around here.”

  He grinned at me, showing big yellow teeth.

  “That’s right, you told me.” He settled himself ag
ainst the shed door. “She’s scared someone will put the bite on Carl. She’s after his money. I know. I’ve watched her. You haven’t been around here long enough to get wise to her little tricks. She’s after his money: that’s all she thinks about He’s been salting money away for years. He has always been a careful man, never spends a dime, although he’s generous when he gets the chance, but with that tramp around, watching every move, he doesn’t get a chance. Before she came I was welcomed here. There was always a meal here for me, but not now. She sulks when I come. Do you know what happens? She locks her bedroom door. When you’re an old fool like Carl, getting on in years, every day counts, and it upset him if he can’t get into the sack with her. That’s how she put the screws on him. If he does anything she doesn’t like, the bedroom door gets locked. You watch out. You won’t last long. I know her. She’ll imagine you are after her money.”