Read Online The Delinquents by Criena Rohan - Free Book Online

work”.’
    ‘Very funny,’ said Brownie puritanically. ‘I don’t like Kath.’
    ‘Oh, Brownie, don’t be hard to get on with—we all have to live the best we can, and she’s a good friend.’
    ‘Sounds like it.’
    ‘Well, she fed me when I was sick and got the doctor when I was delirious.’
    ‘Gee, darling, I didn’t know you were that sick.’
    ‘I wasn’t too bad, sweetheart. Just I don’t seem to have any resistance to colds. Anyway, the doctor prescribed penicillin. It’s free medicine you know, and after that I got on fine.’
    ‘You’re looking skinny though, darling. Like you haven’t had anything solid to eat for a long time.’
    ‘I’ve got by all right.’
    ‘What were you going to do tonight if I hadn’t met you?’
    ‘Like Kath said—pick up a couple of guys to take us to dinner and then maybe go on to the Troc.’
    ‘And then?’
    ‘And then what?’
    ‘That’s what I’m asking you!’
    ‘Oh, Brownie darling,’ her voice was beseeching now, ‘life’s so sad most of the time, and we might as well try and enjoy ourselves while we can. If you could only know how cold and lonely and miserable and frightened I’ve been most of the time.’
    ‘Shush, darling,’ he patted her back gently, reassuring a child. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ve been no lilywhite myself. Nothing’s changed between you and me. Nothing’s changed at all. We’ll be all right now; but we must keep together from now on.’
    She began to sob with her head against his shoulder and after a while she fell asleep.
    They arranged to meet at six-thirty the next evening, after Brownie finished work. Brownie arrived on the steps of Flinders Street Station at six o’clock and at half-past six she was not there. She had not arrived by seven so he caught a taxi down to St. Kilda. He was almost sick with disappointment and apprehension. ‘If I find her and Kath drinking with a couple of Nashos it will just serve me right,’ he told himself.
    But what he found was Lola standing at the doorway arguing with her landlady. The landlady looked irate and Lola looked rueful, but when she saw Brownie she began laughing in a mixture of relief, hysteria and embarrassment and said:
    ‘Oh, Brownie, isn’t this awful? I was praying you’d come. This old vulture bailed me up just as I was going out, and she says she is going to get the police and turn me in for insufficient lawful if I don’t pay the rent. And I haven’t any money.’
    Brownie took charge of the situation.
    ‘What are you doing to my girl?’ he asked the landlady.
    ‘Your girl and everyone else’s,’ said the landlady.
    Brownie hoped he did not flinch outwardly and he went on courageously enough:
    ‘How much is owing to you?’
    ‘Four weeks at thirty shillings a week and ten shillings for gas and electricity.’
    ‘Don’t pay the old bitch a penny,’ said Lola. ‘Threatening to get me vagged! I kept trying to tell her that if she’d only let me go meet you you’d help me.’
    ‘I’ve heard that one before,’ said the landlady. She suddenly switched the attack to Brownie. ‘You look the type she’d get in tow.’
    Brownie put his hand in his pocket and brought out £2.
    ‘Here’s a couple of quid off it,’ he said. ‘Now let me have that suit-case.’
    The landlady took the money and remained where she was, arms folded. ‘Are you going to stand like Napoleon on St. Helena all night?’ asked Lola. ‘Or can we pack up in peace and get out of your bloody joint?’
    So the landlady went away and there was not very much to pack. There were two tight black skirts, both split up the side and broken at the zipper; some black lacy underwear which had been very expensive, but which now looked as though it had been made love to both hard and often; a red polo-necked sweater; the off-the-shoulder blouse and the duffle jacket she had worn the day before; a grubby brassière that smelled of perspiration, Hush and Jicki; a chocolate box containing