The Gilded Madonna by Garrick Jones (ebook reader for comics TXT) 📕

CHAPTER FOUR

I woke at half past five, the sun casting patterns onto the wall through the sheer curtains of my bedroom window. I’d left the window partially open during the night, and the rippling shapes on my wall moved as the material waved with the breeze. It was mesmerising for the few minutes I lay on my side while I got my mind into gear.

Baxter had forsaken my bed during the night. I guessed he’d be where he was most mornings when he wasn’t playing with my toes: curled up in the laundry basket. My cat could open the lid, even though it was secured with a peg through a cane loop.

“Morning,” I said to him as I scrunched behind his ears. He ignored me, but rolled onto his side with one paw raised. I was wary of that move—it invited not only a tummy rub but also a forearm held in place with claws if I dared retrieve my hand before due time. “Later, when I get back,” I said, and then I pulled on my swimming costume, a pair of shorts, and a clean singlet, before sitting on the end of my bed to tie up the laces of my sandshoes.

The sun was glorious at this time of the morning. Barely a few finger widths, held at arms length, above the horizon, its rays glinted over the ocean, shooting bright diamonds of refracted light from the tops of waves as they semi-crested on their rolling journey towards the beach.

There were already a few people in the water, even though the beach itself was deserted. I ran along the promenade and then up through Dunningham Reserve, peering at the entrance to Craig’s baths as I ran past, thinking I’d call in for a quick swim on my way back.

The eastern seaboard of Sydney was spectacular. I’d tried to describe the beauty of its tall sandstone cliffs rising directly out of the deep-blue Pacific Ocean to some of my fellow inmates in the camp, but only my mate, Reg Gibson, a Kiwi, had fully understood. Pietra di sabbia, I’d erroneously tried to explain in my early years before I’d learned Italian well enough to know the correct word for the golden stone from which most of Sydney’s impressive buildings had been constructed. “Ah, arenaria!” one of the Italians had exclaimed when he’d finally worked out what I’d been trying to say. It wasn’t just captured foreign fighters in the camp—there’d been gypsies, antifascists, and not a few other political dissidents. Out of the three hundred men or so I’d shared my life with for three years, perhaps a dozen of those had been Poms or Kiwis. The majority had been Italians, with a larger subgroup of captured allied fighters from North Africa. They’d suffered worse than anyone, especially after the Germans had taken over the camp.

My run took me down the path around Gordon’s Bay—which we locals had always called Thompson’s Bay, or Thommo’s Bay—along Cliffbrook Parade to Clovelly Beach. There were wooden swing scaffolds for the children, erected by Legacy ex-servicemen in the park behind the beach, so I did a couple of dozen chin-ups and got a wolf whistle from a few young ladies who walked past on their way for an early morning dip while I was doing my set of fifty push-ups.

I was almost old enough to be their father, but I threw them my brightest grin and then headed off back the way that I’d come.

*****

The young attendant recognised me and passed me through the turnstile, saying his boss was down in the water, but when I got to the sea pool, Craig was nowhere to be seen.

I stripped off, jumped in, and did a few lengths before sitting on the edge of the pool. One of the regulars offered me a smoke on his way to the change room. I took it, waited for him to light it, thanked him, and then looked out over the edge of the pool and the ocean beyond it. Small white caps were breaking around Wedding Cake Island—that meant a decent surf would be up by mid-morning, and even though it was the middle of the week, the beach would be full of people out to catch a wave.

I was almost down to the filter of my cigarette when a young man, probably in his late twenties, appeared from behind one of the large rocks on the eastern end of the swimming enclosure. He caught my eye and blushed. I’d been checking out his assets and it was obvious that he’d just been putting them to use—one learned to recognise recent activity when a man was totally naked. I watched as he busied himself with his towel at the benches behind me and then disappeared into the changing room. As he walked through the door, I noticed two red ridges across his buttocks. It meant he’d been sitting on a folded towel until a few minutes ago.

Not more than thirty seconds later, the towel in question draped over his shoulder, its also naked owner appeared from behind the same rock the man had. He grinned when he saw me wave.

“I thought you’d stopped that, Craig,” I said, slapping his shoulder as he sat down at my side.

“You were the one who stopped, Clyde,” he said. “Man has his needs. He’s an off-again, on-again regular. Works as an usher at the Boomerang Cinema. Carries a big torch—and not only in the dark while he’s showing people to their seats in the stalls.”

“So I noticed. Wanna tell me all about it?”

“Not unless you’re suddenly back on the market, my friend. I know my limits, and I know how much you like dirty talk.”

He was right on both counts. It had been Craig who’d first showed me what went where and that was way back in the 1930s when we’d both been teenagers. Until I’d met Harry, we’d continued to have a once-in-a-while physical relationship. However, as