Read Online Girl with a Monkey by Thea Astley - Free Book Online

have to go. I was so frightened last term that there was no alternative but to get a transfer somewhere a long way away. The situation—between us—had become so difficult, I really think he might harm me more than he would mean to, if I broke it off and still stayed here.”
    â€œThe bastard,” breathed Jon. “The bastard. Did he make you stop seeing me? Did he?”
    â€œYes,” lied Elsie, quickly seizing on the untruth and the first gleam of passion Jon had ever displayed. “Yes, he did.”
    She had not known real fear until a month before, easily five weeks since she had ceased to meet Jon, but she could not bring herself to hurt him again by throwing his dullness to him like a rose.
    One moonless night in mid-week, pricked by the imminence of her final university examinations, she had declined Harry’s invitation and remained at home to work. After reading for an hour she went outside into the untidy little lawn for a draught of wind-tincturedair and, standing below the guava-tree that shaded the fowl-yard, became uncomfortably aware of someone watching her. There was no sound but the wind sifting and sorting the dark leaves above her, no visible outline beyond the blurred mass of church, house, and mountain. Shivering slightly, she strained her eyes into the blackness all around and was rewarded suddenly by the glow of a cigarette-end rosily alone in the plum-coloured air above the stacked pipes a hundred yards away. She remained perfectly still, while the light blossomed and withered as the unseen smoker drew upon it. She stood thus for nearly five minutes and then, strangely disturbed, ran swiftly in and stood breathing hard by Mrs Buttling’s sewing-machine.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, Else? You look pale. Too dark outside for you?”
    â€œMrs Buttling, there’s someone watching the house from over by the diggings. I’m sure of it. Come over to the window and you’ll see the cigarette butt glowing. Quickly.”
    â€œCan’t a person have a fag without you getting suspicious? You need a cup of cocoa and a few early nights into the bargain wouldn’t do you any harm.”
    But she rose good-naturedly and joined Elsie at the window just in time to see a fiery parabola lose itself in the ground.
    â€œSee. He’s put it out.”
    â€œNo. Wait.” Elsie gripped the older woman’s arm.
    â€œHere, what’s up? You’re hurting.” The girl’s knuckles showed white against the freckled ginger of Mrs Buttling’s arm, but Elsie, unhearing, stared so tensely into the darkness that Mrs Buttling, infected by her manner, ceased resisting and watched also. The little house was very still, a box with a kernel of silence, walls so thin between the inner stillness and the outer. Behind them on the mantelshelf the clock, the heart of the dwelling, thumped noisily, and then, out on the heap of earth and pipeline, a match spurted, and the next minute a cigarette glowed steadily.
    â€œLooks as if you’re right. If they were only smoking the one they’d be gone by now. Maybe it’s Harry checking up on you. Didn’t he want to go out tonight?”
    Their eyes met in a clasp of belief and disbelief, hope that that was all there was to it, unbelief that any one sane could act in such a fashion. How the femininity of their persons throbbed, exposed within the situation, forcing them nearer to each other. Without saying a word Mrs Buttling gently slipped the bolt on the back door. Throughout the next two hours they stopped occasionally in their work and went to the window, only to see the tiny orange light flickering from the same position. But after nine thirty it was gone, and though they checked over the next half-hour it did not reappear. Its absence hung over them as certainly as its presence, and all night, in the hollows of the wind,they gathered the darkness round them for comfort.
    â€œWell, you stayed in good