White Sands of Summer

by J. H. Fletcher

  Dear God!

  Home safe again and confronting an almost empty larder, she told herself they couldn’t go on as they were. Jess was older, so didn’t need watching every minute, and she and Dad would have to muck in. Shannon simply had to find another job. She was a good worker and not stupid and Mrs Girdle would give her a top reference – she’d find something.

  Proserpine, Airlie Beach, Cannonvale: she scoured them all. She went into every shop and every office. Everywhere she got the same answer. She could be brighter than Einstein and more hard-working than Hercules and it would make no difference; there were simply no jobs to be had. She had to face it: 1938 was a hopeless time to be looking for work. She could not allow them all to starve because of her selfish pride, so eventually she did the only thing that was left for her to do. She climbed into the most revealing of her three dresses, pulled the neckline as low as it would go and went to see Mike Mulligan at the pub.

  Inevitably Mike gave her a hard time, going on about reliability and staff who left their bosses in the lurch, but Mike had always had a weakness for low-cut dresses or more particularly the young women inside the low-cut dresses, and eventually he agreed to take her on again, although at five bob a week less than she’d been getting before.

  ‘You cutting my pay? Why?’

  ‘Most wouldn’t give you a second chance but I’m too soft-hearted for my own good,’ said Mike Mulligan, soft-hearted as flint. ‘I’ll remind you, missy, that you walked out on me. A dereliction of duty, that’s what I’d call it, and derelictions of duty have to be paid for. Isn’t that so? But no one’s forcing you to take the job if you don’t want it.’

  Take it or leave it, his eyes were saying, knowing full well that if she’d had a choice she wouldn’t be talking to him at all.

  She accepted his terms and for the first few weeks he was nagging her every minute, telling her do this and do that and in general chasing her until she began to think she might have been better off starving: at least there’d have been more dignity in it. But eventually he lost interest in tormenting her and let her be.

  Her pay didn’t add up to much but they’d been almost on the bones of their backsides so even a little helped.

  Friday 20 January 1939 was a day for the record books because that was when Shannon had a letter from Hal saying he would be on his way home in March. It was the briefest of notes but diamonds and pearls to her. She read it again and again, afraid she’d somehow misunderstood what he’d said and he wasn’t coming at all, but each time the message was the same. Contrary to her worst fears, he had not died or found himself another woman or given her the push. He was coming home at last, coming home to her.

  She took the letter to bed with her that night. She kissed it and wept over it and in the morning found it so crumpled she could barely read it. She got out the iron and heated it up on the stove and ironed the letter flat once more, singeing it only slightly, and put it away in her treasure drawer.

  In March Hal would be leaving for Australia aboard a new ship, the Dominion Monarch, and would be arriving in Sydney some time in April.

  March. In England the prime minister was addressing stern words to the German chancellor, in Melbourne Queenie the elephant was celebrating her forty-fifth birthday, and Hal Maitland was embarking on a new ship at the start of a voyage that would bring him home to Australia after three years away. That was the only news that mattered to Shannon Harcourt, that Hal was coming home. Soon she would see him – a prospect that left her weak with joy and terror. He was bound to have changed; would he find she no longer interested him? A barmaid in a low-cut dress who’d been nowhere and done nothing? Would he take one look and walk away? Doubt tormented her but she would put up with it as she had put up with his three-year absence: with patience and hope undimmed. To hell with doubt.

  Shannon heard all about it later.

  On the day Dominion Monarch docked in Sydney, Hal’s father sent his new Packard limousine to meet him as he came ashore. The chauffeur drove him to the up-market hotel where Sir Stoddart was waiting in the suite he’d reserved for the occasion. As Hal told Shannon later, it was a stiff meeting; he had never found it easy to get close to his father and in this case absence had certainly not made the heart grow fonder.

  ‘Good trip?’

  ‘Very comfortable. Thank you.’

  ‘Learn much while you were over there?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘More than I did. Still, it’s something we have to do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘People expect it. Now: I’ve booked a private room for a luncheon party at twelve. That suit you? Good. A small group wants to welcome you home to Australia.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Businessmen, a couple of politicians. People who’ll be useful to you down the track. One girl – Marianne Lewis – niece of a business acquaintance of mine. Charming girl; handsome. You’ll like her.’

  ‘Do I know any of them?’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so. But no time like the present, eh? Playtime is over,’ Sir Stoddart said. ‘I’m sending you to Brisbane to learn the ropes. The GM there is called Charles Rogers. Been with me twenty years. I’ve told him to take you in hand, teach you what you need to know. You’ll find he’s strict and meticulous, but fair.’

  The boy who three years earlier had left for Oxford was not the man who had come back.

  ‘I’m not sure I want to be involved in the business at all,’ Hal said.

  Shannon visualised the scene when Hal told her about it. Stoddart Maitland was built like a battering ram and behaved like one, too. He had accumulated vast wealth and the getting of it had not made him an easy adversary. Oxford graduate or not, it took a brave man to challenge him.

  Hal told her he had made every effort but it had no effect. ‘It was like arguing with a tank.’

  It was not that his father shouted him down; there was no room in Stoddart Maitland’s mentality for any opinion but his own. He did not dismiss Hal’s protests, he ignored them. The idea that his son should have the freedom to choose his own path was nonsense.

  His shoulders bunched heavy over his desk as he stared at his son. ‘You are twenty-two years old and you have no time to waste. I’ve spent my life creating a business that is in the top ten in the country. You stand to inherit it one day and it is essential that you are up to the job of running it. You will need knowledge and experience to do that successfully. Going to Brisbane will be the first step in that process. There is nothing to discuss.’

  Hal said nothing but what he did was braver than arguing. He got up without a word and walked out of the office.

  ‘Twenty-two years old and I felt like a little kid running away from home,’ Hal said. ‘The world is collapsing around our ears and all he could think of was his precious business.’

  ‘What about this Marianne Lewis?’ Shannon said.

  ‘I know nothing about her. I never set eyes on her.’

  ‘You didn’t go to the lunch?’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘That was rude,’ said Shannon, secretly delighted.

  In one sense he did run away. He told Shannon what he planned to do. She pleaded to be allowed to come with him but he said no, this was something he had to work out for himself.

  He loaded Dragon with tins of food and checked the water tanks. Two days later he headed out alone. Shannon watched him go, thinking how she had done the same thing not so long ago. Finding shelter in the empty seas: an instinct common to them both.

  He was away three weeks. He never told her where he’d been; perhaps he didn’t know himself. Storms were prowling the Pacific and when he came back Dragon looked as though she’d been through some weather, but there was a peace about Hal that Shannon sensed as soon as he came ashore. As though he’d fought a war and won, but who the enemy was he did not – perhaps could not – say.

  Shannon did not know what to make of this man who seemed to change every time she saw him. His nature flowed like
water; when she touched him she was touching the unknown.

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Father’s right. The family fortune is tied up in the business. I can’t turn my back on it.’

  ‘You’re going to Brisbane?’

  ‘It makes sense.’

  You’ve been away three years and now you’re going off again? Where does that leave us? Leave me?

  The questions were cruel but she would not let them escape into words.

  ‘I have to do it. Don’t you understand?’

  There was desperation in Hal’s voice and, looking deep into his eyes, she did indeed understand. He would join the business, go to Brisbane, do whatever was necessary, but the choice would be his own and not his father’s. His pilgrimage into the ocean’s solitude had freed him. He was no longer his father’s creature and could therefore obey him without loss of self.

  To discover freedom within yourself was a wonderful thing. It made him taller than she would have believed possible.

  ‘Of course I understand. I understand completely.’

  And would hold fast to him, whatever it took, because this, truly, was a man.

  Two days later occurred yet another event to change the pattern of her life.

  JULY–SEPTEMBER 1939

  Shannon

  Friday nights were always rowdy at the Clover Leaf. Even the wallopers came in if the sergeant wasn’t around, so no one took any notice of the six o’clock swill nonsense. Grimy blokes from the sugar mill and burly cutters reeking of sweat and fire from the cane fields, where harvesting had just begun, stood elbow to elbow at the bar. It was thirsty work in a world where embers from the burning trash got into a man’s throat and could be quenched only by beer.

  Behind the bar Shannon and the other helpers were hard pressed to keep pace with demand. The air was blue with smoke and oaths but there was plenty of laughter, too. On the whole the customers were a cheery lot, with any argy-bargies sorted out in the street, but around nine o’clock, when most were thinking of swaying home, a mongrel called Wally Parker decided he would get up close and personal with Shannon Harcourt. Wally was a big bloke with a fire-grate mouth devoid of teeth and hands like hams. He was half-wrecked with all the booze he had on board. Shannon had poured him a final pot and, when she leant across the bar to put it down, he reached out, grabbed her arm and pulled her halfway across the counter. The next thing she knew his hand was where it had no business to be, copping a feel and pinching her, too. Pinching her hard.

  ‘Lemme go, you bastard!’ Shannon wasn’t much into swearing but there were exceptions to every rule. ‘What the hell you think you’re doing?’ There was a pickle fork handy. Without thought she grabbed it and skewered Wally’s arm with it. ‘Keep your hands off me!’

  Oh dear. Wally bellowing and swearing like there was no tomorrow; Shannon glaring, hands on hips, but with the pickle fork still handy, just in case. The wallopers had gone but Wally was yelling he’d get ’em back, she’d spend the next ten years in gaol, but only after he’d smashed her face. Oh, she wouldn’t forget tonight…

  The air was red with the threat of murder and the blood was running down Wally’s arm as he tried to climb over the bar to get at her, with glasses smashing in all directions.

  Then everybody got in on the act. Luckily a couple of the blokes, less shickered than most, got hold of him. Fists were flying all over and Mike Mulligan came running, adding his ration of oaths to the rest. He was carrying a baseball bat and had been known to use it, too, so things got sorted almost as quickly as they’d started. Wally was skewered, but nothing that wouldn’t mend; Shannon had bruises in a place she wasn’t willing to show; and the only other casualties were the broken glasses.

  The fun was over and everyone, Wally included, went home. Just another Friday night, but not quite.

  ‘I’m taking the cost of the glasses off your pay,’ Mike Mulligan said.

  ‘You’re doing what?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘You see what he did to me?’

  ‘A quick feel never did no harm to anyone.’

  ‘You reckon that’s part of my job? Let him do that?’

  ‘Your job,’ Mike said, ‘is to pour the beer and keep the customers happy.’

  ‘It’s sore. I’m betting I’ll have a bruise an inch across down there.’

  ‘Let me have a dekko,’ Mike said. ‘I’ll let you know how bad it is.’ He laughed, wiping his mouth. ‘Kiss it better, if you like.’

  The bastard meant it, too. It was simple; Mike Mulligan didn’t give a damn. A question for the textbooks: how many creeps could one bar hold?

  Hal came up from Brisbane, as he did most weekends. When Shannon told him what had happened, he was horrified.

  ‘You shouldn’t have to put up with that.’

  ‘Dad told me to forget it. The nature of the job, he said.’

  ‘All respect to your father, that’s nonsense. Did you speak to your boss?’

  ‘Mike? He didn’t care. Probably planning to do the same thing himself if he ever gets me alone.’

  ‘Then you mustn’t go back there.’

  ‘We need the money.’

  ‘Leave it with me. I’ll see what I can do.’

  The following weekend he was back, complete with a car she hadn’t seen before. It was a two-seater, long, low and red.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘An Alfa Romeo 6C.’

  He was waiting for her to be suitably impressed but she had never heard of an Alfa Romeo 6C, having never understood the love affair some blokes had with motorcars. She groped for the right thing to say. ‘It looks fast.’

  ‘It is. Very.’

  ‘How did you get hold of it?’

  ‘My father gave it to me as a reward for passing my exams at Oxford.’ He grinned savagely. ‘And because he thinks it may help to keep me in line.’

  ‘And will it?’

  ‘You know me better than that.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘You’ll see. Now: hop in.’

  Hop in was right. The only way to get into the car was over the low-cut side panel but she managed it without drama.

  ‘Tricky in a high wind,’ she said.

  ‘We live in hopes,’ he said.

  The roar of the engine rattled the windows of the houses on either side of the narrow street as they drove away, heading for Airlie Beach.

  Shannon had seen the Regency Hotel a hundred times yet never really seen it at all. She had always taken it for granted that such places were not for the likes of her. It stood high on a hill with its face to the Coral Sea and from a distance looked grander than grand. It was approached up a long drive lined with palm trees that nudged and whispered to each other as the Alfa roared up the slope. From the bitumen-covered parking area at the head of the drive there was a two-hundred-degree view of the town and the open waters of the sea, blue as heaven and studded with the green shapes of islands muted by haze.

  Hal parked; the engine noise died; the voice of the warm wind took its place. That was the only sound.

  Shannon looked at Hal. ‘What are we doing here?’

  ‘Getting you a job away from that damned Mulligan,’ he said. ‘Or hoping to. Best behaviour, eh? Arthur Nimrod is the owner’s name. We’ve a meeting with him.’

  Side by side they went into the Regency Hotel.

  Close up it wasn’t as smart as it had looked from a distance. Glancing about her while trying not to be too obvious about it, Shannon saw that it was more than a little run down, with a hint of dust. It had obviously been grand in its day but now needed money spent on it.

  There was no one at the reception desk but there was a hand bell that Hal rang. A young woman came, plainly dressed but with eyes that didn’t miss much. The way she looked at Shannon, she might have been reading her fingerprints.

  ‘Mr Arthur Nimrod,’ Hal said. ‘He’s expecting us.’

  ‘What name shall I say?’

  ‘H
al Maitland.’

  The woman led the way to an office with a glass-panelled door.

  ‘In there,’ she said. And left them to it.

  The office was small with a plain wooden desk, a filing cabinet and a leather-covered chair with a high back. In front of the desk two small chairs stood side by side. What little space remained was occupied by the owner. Arthur Nimrod was a lot older than Shannon had expected, overweight and short of breath, with grey hair and shrewd brown eyes that peeled her to the bone. He seemed friendly, though, and stood to shake first Hal’s hand and then hers.

  ‘Shannon Harcourt is the friend I mentioned,’ Hal said. ‘She is in employment in Proserpine. She has no experience in the hotel business but is eager to learn and I think she would be very useful to you.’

  Arthur Nimrod’s brown eyes were warm and friendly as he smiled at Shannon. ‘Well, Miss Harcourt, how do you see yourself being useful to me? If, as Mr Maitland says, you have no experience in the hotel trade?’

  Arthur spoke in an old-fashioned, formal way, as though quoting a statute from colonial times. Looking at the grey-haired man Shannon had the oddest feeling, a conviction that this man represented the doorway into a future she had never previously imagined, a door that would open if she were willing to press it hard enough. To this belief was allied the determination that she must not let the opportunity slip away.

  ‘I will do anything,’ she said. ‘Anything or everything. Whatever you feel I am able to do.’

  ‘Scrub the floors? Make the beds?’

  ‘Anything,’ Shannon repeated.

  ‘Know anything about book-keeping?’

  ‘Nothing. But I will learn,’ Shannon said fiercely. ‘If you have anyone who can show me, I will learn.’

  ‘Well…’ Arthur Nimrod nodded approvingly and leant back in his chair. ‘People say being willing to learn is half the battle.’ He smiled at Hal. ‘I like this young woman. And when would she be willing to start?’