Theft Read Free Page B

like the four of them." "Really?" He was dubious. "Four?"
    "Including the pudding." "You're counting the pudding!"
    "But I like all the drawings." She finally returned the phone to the table and began to properly dry her hair. "The pudding thieves," she said, "are priceless."
    "Is that a joke you're telling?" My brother hated the pudding thieves. He was continually, loudly, passionately regretful that it was not possible for him to punch the possum on the snout.
    "It's not the characters I like"--she paused--"but the drawings-- I think they're better than any painting Lindsay ever did."
    "Oh yes," said Hugh, softening. "We saw Lindsay's bloody paintings. Bless me." Whatever urgent business had been in her mind, she put it briefly to one side. "Do you want to know my favourite person in The Magic Pudding?"
    "Yes."
    "Sam Sawnoff." "He's not a person."
    "Yes, he's a penguin, but he's very good, I think."
    And there she was--a type--one of those rare, often unlucky people who "get on with Hugh".
    "Who do you like?" she asked, smiling.
    "Barnacle Bill!" he cried exultantly. And next thing he was out of the doorway, shadowboxing, prancing round the table crying: "Mitts up, mitts up, you dirty pudding thieves!"
    Jean-Paul's little house of few possessions was, as I said, a light and whippy structure, designed with no anticipation of hulking prancing men in muddy work boots. The cups and saucers rattled on their shelves. None of this seemed to put her out at all. Hugh put his arm around my chest.
    Misunderstanding, she continued smiling. "Where's my bloody dog?" my brother hissed.
    Up close like this, his breath was really awful.
    "Later, Hugh."
    "Shut up." There was the missing front tooth and all that tartar but since Dr. Hoffman was deported, there was no dentist brave enough to tackle Hugh.
    "Later, please."
    But he was hard against my back, with his whiskery jowls against my cheek. He was a strong man of thirty-four and when he moved his huge arm around my throat I could hardly breathe.
    "Your puppy drowned."
    I saw my visitor suck in her breath. "It drowned, mate," I said.
    He let go his grip but I watched him very closely. Our Hugh could be a devious chap and I didn't want to cop that famous roundhouse punch.
    He stepped back, stricken, and that really was my prime concern, to get beyond his reach.
    "Careful of the bath heater," I said, but he had already stumbled, sat on it, cried with pain, and rushed head down into his room.
    Singed feathers, I thought, recalling the rooster in The Magic Pudding. Moaning, Hugh slammed his door. He threw himself onto his bed and as the house shook and rattled the visitor's clear blue eyes widened. How could explain? All my brother's misery was painfully present and nothing could be said in private. "Can I walk across the creek?" she asked.
    Five minutes later we were out in the storm together.
    The tractor headlights were weak and the ride very loud and rough, no more than twenty ks, but the wind was off the escarpment and the rain stung my face and doubtless hers as well. She had borrowed my oilskin coat and a pair of gum-boots but her hair would, by now, be wild and curling, her eyes slitted against the rain.
    For the first mile and a half, that is, all the way to Dozy Boylan's cattle grid, I was very aware of that slender body, the small breasts against my back. I was half mad, you see that, a dangerous male in rut, in a fury with my brother, roaring around Loop Road, the slasher swaying and rattling, the differential whining in my ears.
    As we arrived at the grid, my weak yellow lights fell upon the boiling water of Sweetwater Creek, more usually a narrow stream. Jean-Paul's big slasher--what I would call a mower-- was attached to the power takeoff and three-point hydraulics. I raised it as high as it would go, a big square raft of metal about six foot by six foot. I should have removed it, but I was a painter and in matters agricultural my judgment was bad in almost every way imaginable.