'Is this the turn-off to the mission?'
'Yes, go slowly, the road is bad.
Why do you not mention your relationship to other people?'
'Why do you ask so many questions? Perhaps I'll tell you some day.' She
was silent
a while and then softly: 'And what do you want from life - just those
things you have spoken of? Is that all you want?'
'No. Not even them.
I want nothing, expect nothing; that way I cannot be disappointed.'
Suddenly she was angry. 'You not only act like a child, you talk like
one.'
'Another thing I don't like: criticism.'
'You are young. You have brains, good looks-'
'Thank you, that's better.' and you are a fool.' :That's not so good.
But don't fret about it.' I won't, don't worry,' she flamed at him. 'You
can-' she searched for something devastating. 'You can go jump out of
the lake.'
'Don't you mean into?'
'Into, out of, backwards, sideways. I don't care!'
'Good, I'm glad we've got that settled. There's the mission, I can see a
light.' She did not answer but sat in her corner, breathing heavily,
drawing so hard on her cigarette that the glowing up lit the interior of
the Ford.
The church was in darkness, but beyond it and to one side was a long low
building. Bruce saw a shadow move across one of the windows.
'Is that the hospital?'
'Yes.' Abruptly Bruce stopped the Ford beside the small front verandah
and switched off the headlights and the ignition.
'Are you coming in?'
'No.'
'I'd like you to present me to Father
Ignatius.' For a moment she did not move, then she threw open her door
and marched up the steps of the verandah without looking back at Bruce.
He followed her through the front office, down the passage, past the
clinic and small operating theatre, into the ward.
Ah, Madame Cartier.' Father Ignatius left the bed over which he
was stooping and came towards her.
'I heard that the relief train had arrived at Port Reprieve.
I thought you would have left by now.'
'Not yet, Father. Tomorrow morning.' Ignatius was tall, six foot three
or four, Bruce estimated, and thin. The sleeve of his brown cassock had
been cut short as a concession to the climate and his exposed arms
appeared to be all bone, hairless, with the veins blue and prominent.
Big bony hands, and big bony feet in brown open sandals.
Like most tall, thin men he was round-shouldered. His face was not one
that you would remember, an ordinary face with steel-rimmed spectacles
perched on a rather shapeless nose, neither young nor old, nondescript
hair without grey in it, but there was about him that unhurried serenity
you often find in a man of God. He turned his attention to Bruce,
