That Stranger Next Door. Goldie Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ I was thinking: he wants to meet me again.

      In spite of my sore knee, I was walking on air.

      When I got home, for some reason I couldn't quite explain even to myself, I told Mamma I'd tripped over a tree root and fell.

      'Tch-tch. You are so clumsy, Ruth.' She examined my knee, then busied herself sponging it with warm water and soap, dabbing it with Mercurochrome and covering it with plaster. By now my leg was too stiff to do anything except tackle a mountain of homework.

      But first, I limped into the bathroom to wash Patrick's hankie. The blood came out, but the ink was indelible. I took it into my room where I draped it over a louver to dry.

      Back in the kitchen, and still thinking about Patrick, I helped myself to a slice of Mamma's almond cake. I pictured meeting him again. This time I was far less awkward, far more in control.

      This time I knew how to speak to a handsome boy without looking stupid.

      A few minutes later, Mamma came up from the shop. 'Ruth, Eva our new neighbour needs you to run some errands. Is your knee too sore?'

      'No, I'm fine.' I stood slowly. 'What's her surname?'

      Mamma shrugged. 'She introduced herself as Eva.'

      I limped next door and knocked. The woman called Eva undid the chain, peered out, then unlocked and opened the front door. She was in a pink woollen dressing gown and slippers. This close, I realised she was about the same age as my mamma.

      'Um…' I tried looking down the passage to see if anyone else was there. 'You've got messages you want me to do?'

      She nodded, then to my astonishment, she pulled me inside and slammed the door behind me. Her hallway was dim; no light in any room. A quick glance into her bedroom showed every blind was drawn. The sitting and dining rooms were equally dim.

      'You Ruth?'

      I nodded.

      'Ruth, me Eva. You Mamushka say you do message?'

      I nodded again. Those deep shadows under her eyes told me she was a bad sleeper.

      'You spik Russki?'

      'Ya pan-ee ma-yu-pa-rooski - very little,' I told her. 'Just a few words.'

      Openly relieved, she grabbed my hand and shoved four letters into it. A quick glance told me the addresses were in Cyrillic, a script I can't read. 'Post.' She thrust two one-pound notes into my other hand. 'Post letters.'

      I stared at the notes. 'Too much,' I said, all my Russian used up. I tried French. 'Tres… excessive.' I shook my head, gesticulated.

      She nodded as if she understood. 'You keep rest.'

      My chin dropped. 'No, no. I'm sure that's too much.'

      But Eva was already gently shoving me out the door.

      I took her letters to our post office half a block away. This late, the queue almost reached the door. When I finally got to the counter, the postmistress looked at the envelopes and then me with equal suspicion. 'New Aussie, I suppose,' this sounding more like 'bloody foreigner'. But she slowly stamped the letters and handed over the change.

      I didn't bother counting the coins until I was outside. I was left with nine shillings and threepence. I placed the coins in my pocket where they made a satisfying jingle. It was enough for a new paperback; or two second-hand ones.

      How could Eva fling money around this easily? Why did she move into the next-door flat at midnight? Who were those people that came with her? Why was her flat so dark, as if no one really lived there? Why didn't she go down the street herself? Why was she so secretive? Who really was that stranger next door?

      It was later that night, after I'd completed my homework, eaten dinner, read Thomas the Tank Engine to Leon for the umpteenth time and gone to bed myself that the answer hit me.

       This mysterious woman called 'Eva' must be Evdokia Petrov.

      She looked like the woman in that photo, the one the police dragged off the plane at the last minute in Darwin. I thought back to the photo in The Argus. Both Eva next door and Evdokia were of average height, and full breasted, even a bit plump. Both have straight light brown hair worn collar length.

      The men I had seen with Eva looked like they could be plainclothes police, though I wondered about the tall skinny woman. And my neighbour was obviously frightened of anyone knowing where she lived, otherwise why behave so secretively? To top it off, she had more than enough money to throw away in tips.

      It all added up.

      I sat up in bed and hugged my knees. We had a real-life spy novel happening next door.

      CHAPTER 5

       Ruth

      I woke this morning with two thoughts - both of them incredible. One, that our next-door neighbour was or might be Evdokia Petrov. This would normally have been exciting news in my ordinary life, but was almost insignificant compared to the other thought, which was: Patrick Sean O'Sullivan.

      Basically, I couldn't get Patrick out of my mind: how nice he was; when I could see him again to return his hankie; hoping he liked me enough to keep meeting me; and, most of all, how, because he was a St James boy, how I had to hide this from Mamma.

      I was most definitely not allowed to mix with any Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist or Methodist boys.

      I walked very slowly to and from school that day, and the next, with Patrick's clean and carefully folded hankie in my pocket and the right words on my lips, but I didn't run into him again.

      I was perfectly happy at St Margaret's Anglican College, but sometimes I wondered what my life would have been like if I'd gone to University High, with my friend Nancy.

      Maybe I wouldn't just dream about having a boyfriend. Maybe I would already know what 'making love' is all about. All the anatomy texts in our school library had certain chapters - all the ones on reproduction - carefully scissored out.

      I felt ignorant about all those things, and others like: why some women are described as loose; and why a family Nancy knew were going through 'a messy divorce'. The last time this came up, Nancy and I were talking on the telephone. She told me: 'Mum says she was having an affair and her husband put this detective onto her. It got written up in the Truth newspaper. Now she'll probably lose her kids.'

      'That's a bit harsh,' I murmured.

      'Not really.' Nancy's righteous-mother voice explained. 'I mean, she was having an affair…'

      'You know,' I confessed. 'I'm not really sure how you have an affair, like what do you do?'

      A long silence was followed by one of Nancy's loud giggles. 'The guys use their willies.'

      'How? What does they look like?'

      'Well, we know what Leon's willy looks like.'

      'Sure.' But, as I've never СКАЧАТЬ