An Angel In Australia Read Online Free PDF Page B

already heavy with his meal, and hoped that Mr Regan, a man in his late fifties, was not about to embark on a moral and military weighing of this languid, humid hour in the world’s plummet towards a resolution. In the centre of the damp-smelling air-raid shelter, amidst harsh-timbered bunks, stood a coarse-grained wooden table, and Mr Regan sat at it, inviting Frank to take a chair on the far side. The air was dimmest umber. Mr Regan uncapped the Dinner Ale and poured two glasses. Apparently, in his experience, few priests had ever rejected the offer of a drink.
    â€˜Well, Frank,’ Mr Regan reflectively stated, ‘everyone knows that if they land it will be in the Eastern Suburbs here.’ Darragh had not known that that had been established as military reality. ‘I’m sending the women to my brother-in-law’s place in Cootamundra. At least there’s room to hide out there.’ Hesighed. The chance of bloody chaos threatened the fine-sewn seams of his vest, the salt-and-pepper cloth of his pressed Sunday trousers. But he would not flee. The worst he could face was murder. What women faced was unspeakable. Besides, he was a real estate agent. As a member of St Vincent de Paul, he had frequently slotted poorer families in Christ’s name into houses and flats which awaited occupation. The Japanese might spare him for his expertise in finding them billets.
    Mr Regan took out a packet of Capstans from his vest and lit one sombrely and with a flourish, as if it would be the only cigarette he would smoke that day. ‘Did you happen to read the Telegraph today, Father Frank? The front page is all cricket and racing. People dancing on the edge of the abyss. The Australia Hotel and the Trocadero crowded with revelry. The divorce courts full to the brim. I read a piece this morning about an air force officer who went to his wife and said that he was not made for marriage. Just like that. Without any apology. And as if he hadn’t already married her. The judge ordered him to return to her within twenty-six days.’ Mr Regan shook his head. He considered the judge ultimately impotent in these matters. ‘This is the problem as I see it. That we’re a race that deserves punishment.’ He lowered his voice to a confessional hush, and the words caused him pain. ‘Myself as much as anyone. I do not exclude myself.’
    Darragh said, ‘I doubt anyone really deserves bombing, Mr Regan.’ He was embarrassed to see this man who had been one of his elders when he was a boy reduced by the times, and by Darragh’s own dignity as a priest, to adopting a confessional tone. Mr Regan admitting guilt, regret and fear of unarguable doom. This man who had always been so certain and so venerable in the eyes of the fourteen, fifteen and sixteen-year-old Frank Darragh.
    â€˜Our god is a racehorse,’ said Mr Regan, in explanation. ‘Our god is a glass of beer. Our god is a dance or worse with a pretty girl. How can we complain if the true God shows us His harsher face? How can we argue if He chooses another power as His agent?’
    Frank sipped his beer, which made him yawn. He changed the subject. ‘It’s very kind of you to have Mum and Aunt Madge in here.’
    Mr Regan gave a concessive brief smile. ‘Oh yes. But they should go to Cootamundra or some such place themselves, you know. Somewhere that’s negligible, you know. But your mother and Madge are very stubborn.’
    â€˜They intend to shelter with you. And then with the nuns, if it comes to that.’
    â€˜Well, the nuns feel bound to protect the mother of a priest. And Madge.’ Mr Regan laughed. Everyone seemed to have a wry affection for Madge. ‘Madge comes along in her wake.’
    Mr Regan himself took a mouthful of beer and peered into the mid-distance. ‘I wanted to ask you … Pray for me, Frank.’ Indeed the man had taken on what was to Darragh the now-familiar