Rhythm and Rhyme

by Dixie Carlton

  “Margaret, what would you like, champagne?”

  “Oh, no thanks, I can’t sing on that stuff. A Scotch with water is perfect.”

  A glass appeared almost instantly in her hand and she smiled her thanks. As she tilted her head back a fraction to take a sip, she noticed the man standing next to Tim. Their eyes locked, and she thought she might know him from somewhere. He was grinning a little as he held out his hand to say hello. “You are doing a wonderful job up there and you look like you’re having a great time too”, he said. She noticed Tim was observing their exchange closely. He was a tall man, with very little hair, and what there was, was damped down by gel. Well dressed, perhaps a little too ‘refined’ for a bar like this - he might just as easily have stepped out at Ascot Races. He was definitely looking at her with a smirk, and she was baffled as to why that might be.

  “Thank you, yes I’m having a wonderful time. It’s a good crowd tonight, and the guys are doing great too.”

  “And I told you that Diana would love your curves now, didn’t I!” As he spoke the words, Solange’s face somehow crossed with this man’s and the realization that this was in fact ‘Gregory’ arrested her mind for a moment. Her mouth dropped open, as she took in this rather more masculine version of her friend standing before her.

  “Solange?”

  “Oh, this is priceless, Timmy. Just look at that beautiful face, all confused now. Mmmmn!”

  Tim just laughed at them both.

  “Well I knew you were coming tonight, but I, well, I just didn’t…” Margaret’s words trailed off. Did she really think that Solange would have been tolerated here, regardless of her friendship with Tim Bennett?

  ‘Gregory’ could see her working out the issues in her mind and coming to the right conclusions, and smiled at her. “You must always do as necessary in this world to get around. Remember that, my dear.” With that he winked at her, slowly and deliberately and turned away. She finished her drink and returned to the stage to talk to the band before resuming their act for the final set of the night.

  Exhilarated, an hour or so later, she emerged from her dressing room, looking a lot less glamorous than she had been, but tired and well-scrubbed, wearing a simple blue dress and low-heeled pumps. She stopped into the bar to have a final drink of the night before heading home, and was surprised to see Tim and Gregory sitting at a table quietly talking. She started to head over to join them but was stopped by a direct look from Gregory that seemed to somehow warn her off approaching. Unsure what to do, she looked at him for a split second longer and determined that her interruption would not be welcome at that time, so diverted to the bar, spoke a brief goodnight to Jerry, who was wiping down the glasses, and headed across the street to her rooms.

  Solange, or Gregory, as he was this night, set down his drink and looked at Tim, wondering what to say. The challenge of finding another partnership such as theirs had become was not made any easier by the current security crackdown on crime. Tim had been successfully operating a black-market tea business since the end of the war, that had started with rations of other types and finally focused on tea. It was highly illegal, but as he pointed out to Gregory when they first met, the tea trade was dead boring. Gregory had been involved in working with house keepers and maids from Malta who as part of an expanded immigration of Maltese to Australia throughout the early 20th century, had become adept at secreting away items of value in their work. Gregory was the fence by where most items ended up, before being shipped on to another in Asia. It was a tidy sideline for him, and used his considerable skills as a chameleon with a ‘messed up chaotic warehouse’ behind his store, to hide accumulating items for forwarding.

  He had however, developed a passion for gold and opals, along with a myriad of other precious stones. As there were ever-increasing numbers of European migrants arriving in Australia, many of them wealthy and with secreted wealth undeclared when they arrived, they were easily targeted for theft that would never be reported.

  Tim had been persuaded easily to move from the black-market in tea, to find also an abundance of ‘lost’ items by a handful of people who owed him favors throughout the city. Gregory’s operation of Maltese Maids, who were all well trained, extremely good at their work and therefore in high demand, but also skilled enough to know what to take and when, could be relied upon to be almost invisible to their employers. This also served to help ensure that they knew things… and information was a valuable commodity. This was where Tim was a useful asset to the game. Learning that things were happening of potential value, putting a team of men on the case meant that an occasional supply truck was easily intercepted and redirected. Tim was now saying he wanted to retire from the business and probably sell the club. He was older, and ready to head to warmer climes and enjoy the rest of his life, without having to do battle with waiters, band members, and barmen.

  Gregory had wandered carefully into creating his operation and did not rely on Tim or his boys, but was very well rewarded with a share of most heists, and was quite used to the growing reserves of cash and property he had been accumulating with it.

  Tim also knew this and was likely enjoying his moment of power as he outlined his plans to Gregory. The opportunity to buy into a small bar on a beach way up north in Darwin was currently sounding like a wonderful idea to him, after having been slapped back by yet another cute singer with a gorgeous set of breasts, pert full lips, and a come-get-me pair of blue eyes. This one might have been different, he liked to tell himself. She might have tamed him - as no one else had for 30 years. She even reminded him a lot of Gina, but well, he’d never know for sure really, as it was now two weeks since he’d seen Elly, and he was quite sure she’d not be returning anytime soon. Her mother would make sure of that, if it all came out what they’d been doing. Country girls were always the same in the end - no spirit of adventure in life.

  He thought about Margaret McKenzie, the new girl on stage. She was much older than he liked his girls, but he was sure she’d be a completely different type than Elly and those before her had been. For a start, she was all woman. She knew how to use her curves, and how to toss her head and look at you from the stage, in a way that most of the men in the room would know was a subtle invite, brazenly tossed out in front of every women and barely even registered by most of them. But every man would be itching tonight, of that he was sure. Yes, Margaret was certainly a good find, as singers went, but she also seemed to be very well versed in club life and therefore likely to stay for a while. He’d watch with interest to see how she settled in here.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The hardest thing about having children in the house was this constant noise. The crying was awful, and while she knew that there were perhaps things she could do to help, Sybil Cook was decidedly not inclined to do so, because quite simply she didn’t care for the child all that much. Maureen was willful, stubborn, and not even terribly pretty, so far as Sybil was concerned. After yet another tantrum over whether they might be returning to New Zealand one day - this was unlikely to happen any time soon - Maureen had stomped off hysterically, slamming doors as she went. Sybil decided to get up and close the window to try and lessen the invasive noise of her grandson’s older sister’s sobbing in the room upstairs.

  She rang the bell for Marija to come and collect her tea tray and, as usual, was startled to see the maid had already arrived to do so, slipping quietly into the room. “Good grief, girl, I can’t stand the way you appear like a ghost - must get you some squeaky shoes or something. Please tell cook I want those children to eat with Nanny tonight, Nathaniel is not home, so I don’t think we’ll need to make a grand affair out of the meal.” Marija nodded and left with the tray.

  It had been a traumatic year and Sybil was tired, missing her daughter-in-law and completely bewildered by her son. It was bad enough finding out he had a mistress, well-kept and handsomely provided for in Auckland, that he was practically living openly with, but that there were children involved - and only
one of them was his own child - was almost more than she could bear.

  “Mother, Maureen is as much my child as Lewis is and I will not have them separated. They are brother and sister, and that is that. And besides, I happen to love them both equally.”

  “Oh, my dear boy, you can’t possibly know what you are saying, she is not even a little like him. And you have no legal responsibility toward her. In fact, you have no legal responsibility toward either of them. How do you even know that Lewis is yours?”

  “Mother, I simply will not hear you say that again, and for God’s sake keep your voice down.” Nathaniel was deeply wounded by his mother’s attitude, but would only go so far against her without pulling back. After all, she held a lot of power in the family, and he was also indebted to her for stepping in as she had when disaster struck at the start of the year back in Auckland.

  He was back there now for a few days, assessing some changes to their Wellington and Auckland warehousing, but was due to return to Sydney at the end of the week. Only another three days to go then he could deal with the girl, thought Sybil. “At the very least, I expect you to discipline her properly then”, she had told him before he left. “I cannot run this household with her disrupting everything the way she does. Set some rules and ensure that she understands them, and obeys them.”

  Early in the year, it became apparent to her that something was not quite right in her son’s home. He was away a lot in Auckland but that was completely understandable given that their Auckland store was expanding and needed his input just as much as their Wellington operation did. Her husband John was perfectly happy to run things in Wellington, and still had another few years or so before he wanted to retire, but the company was now far too big for only one Cook to be in charge - a department store in Wellington, had extended to one in Auckland, before a decision was made just a few years ago to add one in Sydney. John’s father’s small general store, Cook and Son Merchants, had become ‘Cookson’s’ at the end of 1946, and was now responsible for more than 250 employees in two countries. Sybil the daughter of wealthy parents, had originally come from Australia to New Zealand, and now she relished the idea of re-settling for the most part back in her old family home. Now that she was here, she saw no point at all in returning to New Zealand unless she absolutely had to anytime in the future. She liked it here, but she’d have liked it a great deal more if she’d been here without two bastard children in tow. Her own mother would have been horrified!

  When she discovered the extent of Nathaniel’s double life, through her daughter-in-law Anthea, Sybil was horrified. But when Anthea went missing, suddenly and unexpectedly, a few weeks later, it was clear to her that the time had come to intervene in her son’s life firmly and finally. She made arrangements to travel with the two children he was playing father to with that woman, and after making it clear to Miss McKenzie that she was to stay well away, she went to collect them, and a week later the three of them were in Sydney. Nathaniel came to visit as often as possible, but this was not yet an ideal situation. Sybil would have liked nothing better than to put Maureen and Lewis into social care or school, and it was only the lack of certainty that Nathaniel might ever have another son that made her warm so much to Lewis, and backdown on her demands for arrangements to be made about Maureen.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Margaret had been in Sydney for a month, and had still barely formed a plan around visiting her children or getting them back under her care and away from Sybil Cook. Having been a suspect in a murder case at the start of the year had not helped her position at the time Sybil swooped in and uplifted Maureen and Lewis and she simply had to drop her hands and retreat, for the time being.

  Margaret’s lover of many years, Nathaniel Cook, who was also Lewis’ father, had been the center of her whole life since soon after the war ended. Having fallen pregnant accidentally to a sailor she’d met and had a whirlwind romance with in 1943, she had quickly met and married an old acquaintance, Thomas Morris, who married her in name only, to save her from having to surrender her illegitimate daughter in 1946. Soon after that, Thomas disappeared back to Wellington, and she resumed her long-term love affair with Nathaniel, resulting in six blissfully happy years together in their home on the North Shore of Auckland city. Lewis had arrived in their lives in 1958 and the only thing missing then was Nathaniel’s ability to marry Margaret and legitimize their family. Unfortunately, Nathaniel had been pushed into marrying a young heiress before the war, and was still legally married to Anthea until her untimely and mysterious death at the beginning of this year.

  Margaret had found it relatively easy to discover the whereabouts of her children, and had been writing letters every week to them both, in the hope that Maureen would know that she was constantly in her thoughts. However, she had no idea whether these would have been given to Maureen or simply discarded, and when she arrived in Sydney, she concluded it best to not give away her presence here too soon via postal stamps, and stopped writing. But this actually made her miss them even more.

  She knew that Nathaniel would have never stopped loving her, and that if all the mystery surrounding Anthea’s death had not arisen, he would have been far less swayed by his parents to step back from their relationship. They had, after all, by now been together for nearly 20 years and they loved each other deeply. That had never changed. But finding him and trying to talk with him at this time also seemed impossible. She missed him dreadfully and wanted to do nothing more than have them all return to their house in Auckland and curl up together again, watching their children play, then preparing a meal before retiring to bed, to make love and reaffirm their love and commitment to each other. As she thought of that dream again for the millionth time, tears pricked the back of her eyes and her throat swelled as she stifled a sob. She’d become very good at doing that.

  Finishing the task of brushing her hair, she popped a few pins in and set a hat on her head, pulled on a light coat, and put some notes into her purse before heading out for the day. The money she’d started earning as a singer was more than enough to cover her meagre expenses, however she had spent many years before the war working, and saving her funds, until she ended up with quite a nest egg, that had remained barely touched over the past 10 years. Now, she was thinking of ways to put it to very good use.

  Finding a lawyer was not difficult, there were plenty about. Finding a good one, who would be discreet was going to require some planning and a bit of cunning. She walked down to the bottom of Fort Street, and crossed over, hesitating for just a moment before entering the darkly lit, large brownstone building.

  “I’m here to see Mr Forbes, yes I have an appointment.”

  “Please take a seat Ma’am, I’ll let him know you are here.” The secretary smiled sweetly and looked at the woman standing before her. She saw a tall, very attractive woman in her early 30s, well dressed, and almost regal in the way she stood with a straight back and long neck. Gloves hid the sign of any ring, and she didn’t look like she was terribly upset about anything but the girl wondered what Mrs McKenzie’s reasons were for being there.

  Grant Forbes appeared personally to greet Margaret and welcome her into his office. “Delighted to see you again, my dear lady. Please let me take your coat… Charlotte, a pot of tea please,” he called out to the secretary as he ushered Margaret into a small but serviceable office, packed with leather bound books and files.

  Margaret had met Grant a few nights earlier at the bar while she took a set break. He insisted upon buying her a drink, and then stayed on to the end, hoping for the chance to do that again. She was clear that she had no interest in him personally, but when he handed her his card, suggesting that maybe she’d be persuaded to change her mind, but if not and she instead ever had need of a good lawyer, to please call him. With that, she asked him to tell her about the parts of the law that he worked in and was delighted when he went to great length to describe his work.

  “I’m the lawyer people turn to when they have ru
n out of options,” he said smugly. “I get criminals off charges, or at least reduce their sentences, help people reclaim stolen or forfeited property, defend idiots who get into difficulty with others, and sometimes even do an occasional divorce or inheritance, but only if there’s an interesting angle to what they’re stuck in the middle of.”

  Intrigued, she asked him if he was any good. “Sweetheart, I’m the very best there is, and I’m paid well for the title.”

  She relaxed a bit gestured to him to take a seat, and positioned herself on the opposite side of the booth. Summing him up quickly, she assessed that he was a little short, thinning on top, not always lucky with the ladies because he was not classically good looking but confident in his role in life and that gave him the ability to take a chance and usually come up trumps when he asserted himself with the fairer sex.

  “Mr Forbes…”

  “Please call me Grant!” He tried to take her hand, and she deftly evaded his reach.

  “Grant, I wonder, if I came to see you for some advice, would you be willing to help me and keep our entire conversation discreetly between us?”

  He looked confused for a moment, as though he didn’t quite understand the question, and she wondered how sober he might be at this hour. “But of course, my dear lady, I never kiss and tell,” he grinned at that, “ever!” He sat back and tried but failed, to wink at her. She laughed at the comical picture he presented in doing so.