where I’d left it and I took a good slug of it. Rosemary was holding the phone, waiting for an answer; she pointed to the Scotch bottle on the coffee table and gave me a full candlepower smile. She was a very attractive woman in a slightly sculptured way. I re-made the drink and went back to the sun porch. Dempsey’s colour wasn’t too bad, and Zelda was holding his head up to a glass of water.
‘Who’s Archie?’ I said.
She grinned at me. ‘Archie Pappas,’ she said.
‘He’s the local communist doctor. You knew the Dempseys were commos, of course?’
The wood under my feet was polished pine, the whisky in my glass was Black Label. ‘No, I didn’t know that.’
‘Sure’, she said. ‘Raving reds.’
The doctor arrived just as I was finishing the drink. He was dark and squat with a spread waist. He butted a cigarette and bustled across to the divan. After looking at the cut which was clean now and gaping open, he got a medical torch out of his bag and looked into Dempsey’s eyes.
‘He’s bleeding from his side and at the back, doctor’, I said.
‘Who’s he?’ Pappas grunted.
Rosemary glanced at me blankly as if she didn’t know the answer, then she remembered-I was the one who’d brought her husband home and stopped her tearing her hair out. ‘This is Mr Hardy’, she said. ‘He’s a sociologist.’
Pappas kept on doctoring. ‘Oh, really, what’s your field, Mr Hardy?’
‘Criminology’, I said.
Zelda gave an amused snort but the doctor didn’t seem to notice; he prepared a syringe and I got the idea that I wasn’t going to get much information out of Dempsey that night. The needle went in and the doctor cleaned up. ‘He’ll be okay’, he said. ‘I’ve stitched the cut on his head and put a dressing on the ribs. There’s no fracture; concussion, but not too bad.’
‘No hospital’, I said.
He glanced at Rosemary. ‘No, not necessary.’
I stood aside and let Rosemary escort him out. He gave me a nod and went quickly, I heard Rosemary say something to him near the door but not loudly enough to catch it.
Zelda came over and stood closer to me than she needed to. I didn’t mind, she was tall and slim and she had nice eyes. She looked as if she’d have a sense of humour.
‘Funny doctor’, I said. ‘A criminal assault and no questions asked. Are politics really so hot around here?’
‘Sometimes’, she said. ‘Bill Dempsey’s in the middle of something very hot just now. I thought that was why you’re here.’
‘No,’
‘Well, I’m curious; why are you here, Mr Hardy?’
‘Cliff. I’m sorry I can’t tell you, a family matter.’
‘You tell me and I’ll tell you why Bill got bashed.’
‘Sorry, perhaps Mrs Dempsey…’
‘Mrs Dempsey what?’ Rosemary came back into the room and leaned against the door. She looked drawn and tired and her hair definitely needed a comb.
‘I’m prying, Rosemary. I want to know all about this mystery man. Tell him to talk to me.’
‘This is Zelda Robson, Mr Hardy’, Rosemary said wearily. ‘She’s my best friend and you can talk to her. She’ll tell me everything you say anyway. I’m sorry, I don’t think we can do much about your enquiry tonight. Perhaps tomorrow.’
‘Right. I’ll check with you. Just quickly, I take it you don’t know anything about your husband’s brother?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Okay, thank you.’
‘Don’t think me rude, please. I’m washed out, but thank you very much for what you’ve done.’
‘Come on, Cliff.’ Zelda had me by the arm and moved me across to the back door. Rosemary watched us go with an expression that was hard to interpret-it might have been approving, or maybe she’d just seen the film before.
We went across some grass, a paved courtyard and through a gate in a brushwood fence. Zelda’s house seemed to be a slightly smaller version of the Dempsey’s; it boasted a lot of timber and glass and was straining a bit too hard to be natural. She held on to my arm while she gathered up a bottle of Scotch and some ice cubes in the kitchen, and ushered me through to her living room. It was carpeted, with a sofa and a couple of big chairs; these were covered with skins and furs and you could have copulated in comfort almost anywhere in the room. She made us big drinks and we sat down opposite each other, about four ion-charged feet apart.
‘Well.’ Her voice was deep, almost mannish and the bones of her face and jaw cried out for fingers to run along them.
‘Cheers.’ I took a long sip of the Scotch.
She laughed. ‘I think this is called fencing.’ She tucked one bare foot up under her; she was wearing tight black slacks and a white silk blouse. ‘Bill’s trying to save a mine and a railway line and stop a road.’
‘That sounds like fun. Who’s he up against?’
‘Do you know anything about the mines in this neck of the woods, Cliff?’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
‘They’re basic to the character of the place. Miners are terrific people. There’s a strong democratic spirit around here, the miners keep it alive and they’ve stopped this part of the world becoming a great big MacDonaldland. You know what I mean?’
‘Yeah, I noticed some of the towns coming down; they still look like people might live in them. There must be big money trying to change all that, though.’
‘That’s what the Dempseys are fighting. There’s a mine in behind here, about thirty miles in. It s small but it pays its way and the coal comes out by rail. There’s pressure on to build a road and move the coal that way.’
‘Pressure from who?’
She held up her hand and ticked off on fingers. ‘The truckies want it, people who’ll be paid for the land want it, and believe me, some of them only bought the land yesterday. The big mines want it so they can argue that all the coal here travels by road and they need a subsidy.’
‘What about the unions?’
‘Some for and some against.’
‘Charming, and Dempsey’s leading the fight?’
‘Right. He’s held public meetings, organised petitions, written to everyone who can read. He’s writing a book on the politics and economics of it, hot stuff.’
‘Shouldn’t he be teaching at the university?’
She gave a short, barking laugh. ‘He works it into his lectures, he sets essays on it. He’s had students interviewing truck drivers and mine management.’
‘That’d make him popular. It’s one of this crew that bashed him tonight?’
‘Bound to be.’
‘Where does the Communist Party fit in?’
She leaned forward to pick up her glass; I could see down inside her blouse, see the line and shape of her breasts. ‘That’s another story’, she said.
‘Now you tell me why you’re here.’
I told her; but I wasn’t far into it before she crossed the gap and we were kissing and she was touching me and I was touching her. We went through to the bedroom and she took her clothes off and my clothes off and there was a good deal of laughing while we got used to each other. It didn’t take long; she lay under me and we moved well together, and we made a very good job of it. After, I held her small, tight breasts in my hands and she held me; she wasn’t shy.
In the morning we did the usual things-drank coffee, hugged and kissed and wondered what would happen
