The Love Beach Read Free

food or at her reading husband, the sour expression starting with one and finishing with the other. 'It's time we got a cook aboard who can cook,' she said.
    'Dull government business,' Conway grunted answering her first remark. Davies thought that was a lie for a start. If something was dull, Conway was the type to shine it up when it came to talking about it.
    Rice said: 'Which dull government is that for?' He was the oppressed little man who thinks of a pun once a month and hopes that everyone will laugh, is never surprised when they don't, and they don't.
    'The dull Australian one,' said Conway. 'Nothing to get excited over. The Apostles, anyway the British half, not the French, gets orders from London, but just to keep us colonists happy. the natives in one of the outer islands, St Paul's, come under Australian trusteeship. We look after the blacks there.'
    'You've never shipped with us before,' said Greta. She was now making a continuously unpleasant face at her food.
    'My first trip. I don't always wet‑nurse them. It's somebody else's job.'
    Davies said: 'You've been in Vietnam, haven't you?'
    Conway had his fork halfway to his mouth. He let it drop back. 'Where did you get that?' he asked. He stopped reacting immediately, as if he became aware of it, and pushed the ashen meat into his mouth.
    'You went on about it the other day. On deck. The first day, out of Sydney.'
    'The day we split the rum,' said Conway remembering. ,Just romancing. I was there with the Aussie army but I got invalided home. Rheumatic fever.'
    'Great place for rheumatic fever, the Apostles,' said Pollet. 'Especially now, in the wet.'
    'I won't be there too long,' said Conway. 'Not long enough to catch anything ‑ except what I want to catch.'
     
    Davies was lying on his bunk in the way a dead man is fixed in his coffin, arms across the chest, feet touching. It was a narrow bunk. Conway was moving about in the next cabin. It was three o'clock in the morning and the ship was rolling heavily in a near‑placid sea. Directly above Davies was the wheelhouse and he could hear MacAndrews banging about on his big feet. You could never hear the Melanesians because they had no shoes, and Curry, the mate, who was the only other person ever to be on the bridge, always wore basketball boots, so he was no trouble. But tonight the skipper trod heavily. They were waiting to go through the reef and into the lagoon of St Peter's Island.
    Davies heard Conway move out of his cabin. He more or less knew where Conway would be going. He was surprised when his own cabin door was pushed open. Conway put his head in, saw Davies was awake, and stepped in like a large burglar.
    'I'm going to have a chat with Mother MacAmdrews,' said Conway.
    'I thought you might be.'
    'Well, she's lonely. Christ, she's only about thirty and shegets nothing.'
    'She's been giving you the agony?'
    'No. She hardly mentioned it. But the way she looks. Well, you know, mate, it's there. She's only getting all that fat on her because she's eating too much. Compensation.'
    'While her old man's on the bridge.'
    'Yes, that's about it. She says he always goes up to see the tub through the reef. These are the sort of nudges she was giving me after dinner tonight. Wasn't that meat stuff bloody awful?'
    'Couldn't touch it,' said Davies. 'The beef I mean, not Mrs MacAndrews. So why are you telling me?' He looked cautiously at the Australian.
     
    'Help,just a little help. That's what I want,' smiled Conway. 'You can hear the old man thumping about overhead, can't you? You will also be able to hear him coming down from the bridge. Well, if he does that while I'm in there, jump across the corridor and bang on the door. It's only a few yards.'
    'God, you've got a cheek,' said Davies.
    'Old MacAndrews doesn't care,' said Conway to pacify Davies's puritanism. He was unsure whether Davies didn't like the object or the method, or both. 'As long as he's got his batting averages and all that he's happy. She's