The Ten-pound Ticket Read Online Free Page A

veranda wrapped around the front of the house, and was dotted with benches, upended chairs and card tables that held well-thumbed decks and empty beer bottles. It looked like the aftermath of a raucous boys’ party. Susie was soon to learn that this was a normal, nightly occurrence. Her eyes widened at the sight of two shotguns resting like weary warriors, propped against a table. She instinctively held her son tighter .
    She climbed down from the cab while Slade fetched her case, which had thankfully dried out in the hot sun, leaving only a residual tidemark where it had been submerged in the murky water. She pictured her dad’s hand on the same handle as they arrived in neat hotels on the English Riviera. She’d barely been patient enough to wait for her parents to unpack before running down to the beach with a bucket and a spade. That memory belonged to another girl, from another life.
    Slade marched around the back of house. She trotted in his wake, his boots kicking up a crimson cloud. Susie swatted her hand around the baby, trying to remove or at least distract the determined flies that buzzed around them. The things were everywhere, stamping on her arms with dirty little feet, settling wherever skin was revealed, collecting at eyes, mouth and nose: any place where they could nestle and feed. Susie opened her mouth to flick out a fly and several more landed on and around her tongue. She gagged and spat them onto the floor. Nicholas too was covered. She brushed his face and covered it with her palm. She wondered with a pang if she would ever get used to these filthy creatures. Clearly here, the profusion of bugs and flies were simply part of life.
    Slade stopped outside a low building with a sloping corrugated iron roof. The walls were sheets of plywood that had been tacked together, and the front door, transplanted from a more solidly built house and quite incongruent, didn’t fit or shut. Susie wished Slade would get a move on. What was the use in pausing outside this shed when she wanted to get to her room, to get the baby washed, changed, fed and settled? It had been a very long day and she was exhausted.
    ‘Here you go, love, home sweet home!’ Slade kicked the door with his heavy boot and watched as it swung and fell open at a strange angle.
    Susie laughed in disbelief.
    ‘Is this is where we’re staying?’ she couldn’t hide the edge of hysteria in her voice.
    ‘Yup.’ He looked abashed at her discomfort.
    ‘But, I… we…’ She felt breathless. Her head spun as she considered how she would live in the shed with her tiny baby, how would she wash his clothes, his nappies, keep him clean, cool and boil his water?
    ‘Are you sure this is where Mr Gunnerslake wants us to sleep? Is it a temporary measure?’ She tried to hide the quiver to her voice.
    ‘Temporary? Don’t think so,’ he shook his little head, ‘This not quite what you expected, love? It’s bound to be a bit different out here you know, and there’s a lot that live in worse. If you’d a come three days ago, there wasn’t even a door.’
    Susie clutched her son to her chest, ‘Why is it so horrible here? I haven’t done anything wrong and yet everything feels like a punishment!’ Susie didn’t know how she summoned the strength to find her voice.
    ‘Well, given your situation, I reckon you did do something wrong. What kind of girl comes half way around the world with her trouble? How bad is it that she can’t stay in her own country and with a little ‘un?’ he spoke fast, out of the side of his mouth, and avoided looking her in the eye.
    Susie’s bravery evaporated. Everyone knew what she had done, what she was. But she straightened her shoulders and gathered her last ounce of strength.
    ‘I want to see Mr Gunnerslake. I want to see him right now. I don’t think for one minute he can mean for us to sleep in here, surely to God. Are there no rooms in the house?’ As she pictured the state of the veranda and the guns