Read Online Smithy's Cupboard by Ray Clift - Free Book Online

soon with the fluid from my wet dream flooding the sheets, smelling like a mushroom cellar. The dream was an illusion leading to a delusion. However, on the street years later, it was not an illusion as she clung tightly to my body.
    â€˜You come back, Adam.’ She dragged me towards the shop and called inside in an excited voice, ‘Look after the shop for the day.’ She led me to a door two shopfronts away and we entered. There we were in moments of raging lust tearing off our clothes with a lot oflost ground to recover. She murmured low and the lamp was glowing blue, casting an esoteric haze over the little room. It was like I never left in ’65.
    We consummated our love in seconds, which closed the gap of those years apart. We took a breather while I showed her the old snapshot. She nodded and smiled with the fine opaque skin stretched over her high cheekbones. She reached over and pulled in a shell-frame photo of her holding a child of about four years of age. The child had fair hair and skin. The penny dropped.
    â€˜My daughter.’ Nothing else would come out.
    â€˜Yes. She die when she was ten with malaria.’ Loan wiped a tear from her eyes and mine were moist.
    I didn’t ask stupid questions like ‘Why didn’t you write?’ I did not interrupt as she explained the situation. I let her talk on and by now tears were ploughing down my face with the salt invading my open mouth.
    â€˜The war, Adam. I not blame you.’
    â€˜After the war, what then?’
    â€˜Bar girls not popular because I have a fair white child with an Aussie dad, though they like you better than Americans.’
    â€˜Go on,’ I said.
    She had found a Buddhist convent. ‘They were kind. Soldiers left me alone,’ she added.
    â€˜Your brother the South Vietnamese soldier – what of him?’
    â€˜He in your country with boat people. In Melbourne…St Kilda. Got a restaurant.’
    â€˜Bloody hell, Loan, that’s in my state. I’ll look him up.’
    Loan had started cooking by then.
    I organised a transfer of money for her to draw on. I did not wish her to ever again be in poverty. She had married an older man who cared for her; he had died some years ago She would not accept my offer to immigrate to Australia but I am still trying. I made a pact with her to visit at least once a year. I boarded a plane and watched as her small hands waved goodbye.
    I knocked on the door of the restaurant in St Kilda on my return. ‘Is Fung about?’
    The man entered and we spoke. I had not met him, only seen his photo. A big smile caressed his lips and we sat while I rambled through my history and he his.
    â€˜How’s the business going?’
    â€˜Slowly,’ he said.
    I reached in my pocket, pulled out my cheque book and wrote his name on one, and entered an amount of $10,000. I gave him the cheque.
    He looked at it, incredulous. His lips started to tremble and he touched the back of his head. Then it came out. ‘Why, Adam?’
    â€˜A debt to you and to honour your family and the daughter I never knew. I love your sister.’
    I walked away.
    We spoke later on the phone and Fung kept repeating how grateful he was. In my replies I always explained my sadness at not meeting my daughter. My donation to the two folk from the war-torn land was helpful to us all.
    Smithy folded the paper and then blew his nose. He realised I also a had a love in his life which no one ever thought I would have. He knew I had something else to add.
    He spoke first. ‘Adam, it’s a beautiful love story. I am so happy for you. What’s next?’
    â€˜I’d like to marry her. She won’t leave her country but she will stay here a few months of the year. Would you have any objections?’
    â€˜As long as I can be best man… Take love while you can. Don’t I know that? Shouldn’t have been away so much.’
    â€˜Do you think it would have stopped