Talk to Me Tenderly, Tell Me Lies. John Davis Gordon

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СКАЧАТЬ And on his knees, with a ribbon round its neck, was a Boxer puppy.

      Helen stared at them. At the puppy, at Ben, back at the puppy. Then her eyes began to moisten. ‘Oh Ben …’ she cried. She dashed to the table, dropped on to her haunches, grabbed the puppy.

      She held it up to her grinning face, shining-eyed. The puppy blinked at her inquisitively, unalarmed. ‘Oh Ben! And a Boxer! Where did you get him?’ She pulled it to her neck joyfully.

      Ben smiled. ‘Burraville Hotel. Jack Goodwin. You told me his bitch had a litter.’

      ‘Oh, he’s gorgeous!’ She clasped the little animal to her joyfully. ‘But I must pay for him! I bet that Jack Goodwin didn’t give him away!’

      Ben smiled. ‘No, my shout. He didn’t cost much, not with your actual Ben Sunninghill of the New York diamond market doing the bargaining. He’s not pure-bred, his mother went to a picnic – even Jack Goodwin finally admitted that under my ruthless cross-examination. His father was a dingo.’

      ‘A dingo!’ Helen held up the grunting puppy and waggled it. ‘I don’t believe it!’

      ‘But that’s what I told Jack Goodwin. Nearly threw me out. Said at worst it was Mrs Johnson’s Labrador, Fred.’

      ‘Oh, Fred’s a beautiful dog!’

      ‘Don’t bank on Fred. I went over to the schoolhouse to check him out. Black as the ace of spades, Fred is, and this guy’ – he indicated the puppy – ‘is nearly all brown. I saw half a dozen likely candidates for fatherhood as I left town.’ He added: ‘He’s not a very likeable man, Jack, is he?’

      ‘Jack? No. Has he got a name, this little feller?’

      ‘Jack called him Biggles, because of that white mark round his neck, like a scarf. Think he was trying to impress me with how well-read he was.’

      ‘Biggles?’ She looked at the grunting face doubtfully.

      ‘I thought of Hogan. After Crocodile Dundee, because he came at me with those sharp little teeth—’

      ‘I know what we’ll call him – Dundee!’

      ‘Dundee? Yeah, that’s better.’

      ‘Dundee!’ She jumped up, held the unworried puppy aloft and waltzed around with him. ‘Oh, you’re much more beautiful than Paul Hogan, even when he’s scrubbed up!’ She turned to Ben, eyes shining. ‘Oh, thank you, Ben …’ She crossed the kitchen impetuously, flung an arm around his narrow shoulders and planted a kiss on his bristly cheeks. ‘Thank you.’ She stood back, beaming at him, her eyes moist.

      Ben grinned up at her happily. ‘I’m glad. Enjoy.’ Then he glanced at his wrist-watch, banged his hands on his knees and stood up. ‘Well, I thought I’d fix those doorlocks and put an extension on to that generator switch for you, then I’d better be on my way.’

      Helen stared at him, clutching the puppy. ‘Oh, you can’t leave today, Ben!’

      Ben grinned at her. He could see she’d had a drink already and that was fine with him, he’d had a couple of beers himself in Burraville and felt in the mood for a few more. He didn’t want to leave today either. And who knew what might happen? ‘But I hate to impose,’ he said. ‘I really should leave—’

      ‘Oh, not today! And you’re not imposing! You can’t leave the day you thrust a new puppy into my arms! We’ve got to … celebrate! Welcome him!’ She shook her head: ‘Let’s have a nice lunch! I haven’t cooked you anything yet! You probably think all I do is drink!’

      ‘Isn’t it?’ he grinned.

      ‘No!’ she laughed. ‘You beast! No, no, no, I’ll have you know I’m a pillar of Australian society! I’m the lady they all talk about in reverent whispers in Burraville! I’m the After-lady in the Before and After advertisements! Have another beer?’ She sparkled at him, clutching her puppy: ‘I will if you will …’

      Dundee was waddling around the kitchen, sniffing here, sniffing there, occasionally squatting. Helen pulled some paper off the kitchen roll and dropped it on a puddle.

      ‘I’ll start teaching him tomorrow,’ she said cheerfully.

      ‘But,’ Ben said, ‘I wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye and thank you. What kind of hippy do you take me for?’

      ‘I know that now. But I didn’t this morning with a king-size hangover and a terrible case of the blues. And you’re not a hippy.’

      He gave that smile. ‘Aren’t I? What’s a hippy? Some guy who doesn’t give a shit about making money and just takes off?’

      ‘On a 1000cc Thunderbird!’

      ‘Harley-Davidson. Anyway, that makes me a hippy in the eyes of most Australians I’ve met. Or a wandering Jew, which is worse.’ He added: ‘Without the commercial instinct anymore.’

      Helen had moved on to the wine which Ben had produced from his saddle-bags. She held up her glass: ‘Here’s to the wandering Jewish hippy on his 1000cc Harley-Thunderbird then!’ She took a big sip. ‘Did you ever have it? The commercial instinct, I mean.’

      ‘You can’t spend your life in the diamond trade and not have it, baby.’ (She wished he wouldn’t call her ‘baby’.) ‘You can’t spend your life amongst Jews – even if your name’s Sunninghill – and not have it. Cash-flow,’ he rubbed his fingers together, ‘that’s what business life’s about. But,’ he shrugged, ‘no more, for Mrs Sonnenberg’s little boy.’

      She said enviously: ‘But you’ve got enough cash-flow to say to hell with it.’

      ‘Enough? Yes, if I take it easy on the fleshpots.’

      ‘And when it starts running low?’

      ‘I’ll work somewhere for a bit. I’ve got my jeweller’s tools with me; jewellers can always get a job. Anyway, what I’m going to do soon is buy a small yacht – you can always make a bit of money with a boat.’

      ‘A yacht?’ she echoed, almost indignantly. ‘I thought you were going back to Africa to do your foot-soldiering for the animals?’

      ‘I am. But when I get back to Africa I’ll need a home of some kind. So instead of paying rent I’ll buy a yacht and that’ll be my base – a mobile one. Between stints in the bush I’ll sail it here and there. In fact, when I get back to Perth I’ll buy a boat there, if I find one at the right price, stick my motorbike on the stern and sail back to Africa.’

      Helen didn’t know how much of this to believe – it all sounded too romantically macho for a little New York jeweller. ‘Single-handed?’

      Ben shrugged. ‘I’ll try to find somebody who wants to come along for the ride. But, if not – sure, single-handed.’

      She looked at him, trying to imagine him doing it. The wind in his hair, his beak-nose to the flying spray. ‘So you really are an intrepid sailor?’

      ‘It’s not such a big deal, crossing oceans. There’re СКАЧАТЬ