Fire

by Deborah Challinor

  Just then Sonny sauntered past their table, a food-laden tray casually balanced on one hand. He inclined his head and winked at her.

  Why was it, Allie thought, that when Sonny Manaia winked it was clean and fun and like a breath of fresh air, but when Vince Reynolds did it, it was like yesterday’s chip fat? She wanted to wink back but knew she wasn’t very good at it and would only end up pulling an ugly face, so she smiled instead, and then he was gone.

  Grinning, she confessed, ‘It’s him. Sonny Manaia.’

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’ Louise said.

  ‘I don’t know, why are you not surprised?’ Allie was laughing.

  Louise nodded. ‘Well, good for you. It’s about time you went out with someone nice. In fact, it’s time you went out, full stop. It’s not good for a girl to sit at home night after night.’

  ‘I don’t!’

  ‘Oh, stop being everyone’s mother, Lou,’ Irene admonished. ‘Come on, Allie, let’s go and get stuck into this war paint.’

  The light was quite good in the staff restrooms, because the row of handbasins and mirrors against one wall reflected the light from the high windows opposite.

  ‘It’s important, you know,’ Irene said, ‘to have the right light. You need to see every tiny imperfection.’

  ‘I’d rather not,’ Allie replied, scrutinizing her face in one of the mirrors. ‘I’m covered in freckles. Oh God, is that a pimple starting? There, on my chin?’

  Irene looked. ‘A little one, maybe. And you’re not covered in freckles, there’s only a few across your nose. They make you look…’ she struggled for an appropriate description, ‘sun-kissed!’

  ‘Sun-kissed, my bum. It’s not fair, I’m twenty years old and still getting pimples.’

  ‘Are your monthlies due?’ Irene asked.

  Allie had to think for a second, then nodded. ‘In a couple of days.’

  Irene waved her hand dismissively. ‘You’ll be all right for tomorrow night, then. Safe as houses.’

  Allie opened her mouth to ask Irene what she meant, then caught on. ‘There won’t be anything like that! It’s only the pictures and I hardly know him.’

  ‘But you’d like to, though, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I’d like to what?’

  Irene laughed at the look on Allie’s face. ‘Know him. Isn’t that why you’re going out with him?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘There you are, then.’

  Irene used one of the toilets, then came out and washed her hands. She reapplied her lipstick then eased her skirt up around her hips, hitched up her stockings and reattached them to the clasps on her suspender belt. ‘Bloody things,’ she said. ‘They’ve just about had it. Right, are we ready?’

  Allie nodded and Irene took her make-up kit out of her handbag and spread the contents across the bench.

  ‘All right, first we’ll start with foundation, then a bit of rouge and some powder, some eyeshadow, and just a touch of mascara, I think.’

  Alarmed, Allie said, ‘I don’t wear eyeshadow.’

  ‘You don’t wear anything,’ Irene replied. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t make you look like a tart.’

  And Allie didn’t think she would, either. Though Irene did habitually wear quite a lot of make-up, she always looked beautifully groomed and never overdid anything. Well, hardly ever. She never needed to—she already had lovely looks, even with no make-up on at all.

  Allie closed her eyes and let Irene do whatever she wanted.

  When she opened them again and studied her reflection in the mirror, she looked a different person. Well, no, not a different person, but certainly a noticeably more glamorous version of herself. Her freckles had disappeared and her complexion was the same colour all over, even her nose, which was often a bit pink from the sun. And her eyes looked bigger and darker, and her mouth was a pretty shade of rose.

  Irene stood back and appraised her work. ‘Not bad, but you really should do something with your eyebrows,’ she said eventually.

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Pluck them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know where to start,’ Allie admitted.

  ‘Well, I would.’ Irene rummaged in her bag. ‘Here we are,’ she said, producing a pair of tweezers. ‘I’ll just tidy them a bit for you.’

  Allie eyed the tweezers nervously. ‘Don’t make me look like Greta Garbo, though, will you? Mum will kill me.’

  ‘Well, hardly. Greta Garbo’s look is very dated. It’s all a lot more natural now. Well, a lot fuller, at any rate.’

  She leaned in close, pressed a thumb against Allie’s temple so the skin there was pulled taut, clamped an errant hair with the tweezers and pulled.

  ‘Ow!’

  ‘Keep still, will you?’

  ‘That really hurt,’ Allie complained, rubbing her eyebrow and blinking back tears.

  ‘Do you want me to do this or not?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Irene sighed in exasperation. ‘Don’t be such a baby, Allie. It only stings for a second.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Irene, it’s only—’

  ‘—the pictures, I know. But you want to make a good first impression, don’t you?’

  ‘He’s already seen me with untidy eyebrows, you know. Every day at work, remember?’

  ‘Yes, but not up close.’

  Allie rolled her eyes.

  ‘Trust me,’ Irene insisted. ‘This will really make a difference.’

  So Allie suffered for another ten minutes, and when Irene had finished she had to admit that the result was quite pleasing, apart from the angry red blotches that Irene guaranteed would be gone before she knew it.

  Allie had to wash everything off again because of Dunbar & Jones’s no make-up rule, but the marks beneath her eyebrows stayed until afternoon tea.

  Fortunately, Sonny wasn’t in the cafeteria.

  Daisy felt sick again. She knew about morning sickness—from her older married sister Iris who’d had it with both her babies—and she’d certainly been getting that. But it wasn’t morning now, it was almost three o’clock. She wondered if feeling sick all day was God’s way of punishing her for falling pregnant before she was married, but decided this was stupid. God wouldn’t be that mean, surely—or that interested in Daisy Farr.

  But then she often had stupid thoughts, or so everyone in her family continually told her. Terry never did, though. Terry only laughed, but in a nice way, when she came out with one of her questions or observations. And her boss, Miss Button, definitely thought she was stupid. When Daisy had started off stitching orange and red feathers onto one side of a hat and had somehow ended up with bright blue ones on the other side, Miss Button had said, ‘No, no, Daisy! That hat is supposed to be a symphony of sunset hues, not something you might mistake for a parakeet! Get those blue feathers off as quick as you can. We’re behind already and we can’t be doing with silly mistakes like that!’

  Daisy suspected that Miss Button probably thought she was too busy dreaming about her wedding dress to pay attention to her work, but that wasn’t it at all. She was focusing all her will on not being sick, and at least she’d only sewn the wrong coloured feathers on the hat, not thrown up on it. It was a dreadful hat anyway; whoever had ordered it obviously couldn’t care less that they were going to look like their head was on fire.

  Daisy burped quietly, pressed her fingers to her mouth and swallowed bile. God, she wished this would go away. All of it, not just the morning sickness. She wished she and Terry were already married and living in their own little house somewhere all comfortable and happy. He would mow the lawns in the weekends and she’d cook delicious roasts for Sunday lunch and in the evenings they’d think up names for their baby, which would be arriving at the very earliest nine months after their wedding day, not a shameful five or six months. But instead, she was going to have to waddle down the aisle with a belly on her like a watermelon and all the world knowing what she and Terry had been doing.

  She felt a wave of
panic jostling to get past the nausea in her throat and did what Louise had suggested at lunchtime: she closed her eyes, breathed slowly in and out until she felt calmer, and told herself about all the good things.

  For a start there was Terry, whom she loved more than anything else in her entire life. And there was the baby that they both loved to death already, even if it was coming at the wrong time. And they were getting married in only five more weeks. Irene was right: she’d still only be four months pregnant then and if she chose a pattern with a high waist and an A-line skirt and wore a girdle (but not one that was too tight—she didn’t want to squash the baby) people might not even notice. So it wasn’t all bad, was it?

  Beatrice Button climbed off her stool at the head of the work table and came to peer over Daisy’s shoulder.

  Daisy knew she was there but didn’t look up from her work, terrified she would make a hole in the hat with her stitch unpicker if she didn’t pay attention. She was a funny woman, Miss Button. She was in her early fifties, Daisy guessed, very short and rather round, but her clothes always fitted her perfectly. She said that to patronize any other store would be disloyal and only ever wore clothes from Dunbar & Jones, whether they were off the peg—which wasn’t often because of her rather odd shape—or garments she’d had made by the store’s dressmakers. When she and Miss Willow arrived at work together, which they did every day because of their living arrangements, they looked more than a little bit like Laurel and Hardy, though no one dared say that to their faces.

  Miss Button said, ‘You look a little green around the gills, Daisy. Are you not feeling well?’

  Alarmed, Daisy replied, ‘No, I’m all right, Miss Button, thank you.’

  Miss Button gave Daisy a look. ‘You don’t look all right. Do you need to go to the sick bay?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Daisy lied. Her nausea had suddenly worsened and her mouth was starting to water. Through clenched teeth she added, ‘I might just go and get a drink, though, if that’s all right.’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  Daisy got off her stool and hurried from the workroom, heading for the toilets. Banging into a cubicle, she knelt in front of the bowl just in time as her lunch came up in a hot, stinging gush. She waited for a minute until she was sure it was all out, spat a couple of times and wiped her mouth on a wad of toilet paper, then flushed the loo.

  In the mirror above the handbasin, she looked a fright. Her eyes were red and watery and her face was very pale, but she felt a lot better. This seemed to be the pattern her body had established—feeling sick just before breakfast then OK after she’d eaten, then sick again until lunch, then again afterwards until she finally threw up. But at least she got to enjoy her afternoon tea.

  On the way back she bumped into Terry, who was hovering in the corridor that led along to the millinery workroom. His tie was knotted crookedly, the tail of his shirt wasn’t tucked in properly, his kind brown eyes were full of concern and his usual shy smile was noticeably absent.

  ‘Are you all right? I saw you rushing into the toilets,’ he said in a loud whisper. ‘Are you feeling sick? Because if you are, I’ve got these for you.’ He handed Daisy a paper bag; she opened it and saw that it contained home-made oat biscuits. ‘Mum said they’re good for morning sickness. A bit late today, though, obviously.’

  Daisy looked up at Terry’s lovely, gentle face and wanted to kiss him, but didn’t in case she smelled of sick. Instead, she pushed back a lock of his dark brown hair that had flopped over his forehead. ‘Oh, that’s so nice of her, tell her thank you very much,’ she said, wishing her own mother were a bit more like Terry’s.

  ‘She made them this morning,’ he went on, ‘so they should last a few days. She says you’re meant to have them with a cup of tea whenever you feel squiffy.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Daisy said, not convinced that Miss Button would be too happy about her setting up her own little tea party on the workroom table.

  Terry touched her hand. ‘Are you really all right? You don’t have to keep on working, you know, not if you’re not feeling well. I can give you a bit of money until we’re married.’

  Daisy felt her eyes brim with tears at his thoughtfulness. ‘That’s a lovely thing to say, but it’s only another five weeks.’ She lowered her voice, not wanting three-quarters of Dunbar & Jones’s office staff and all of the tailors, dressmakers and milliners to hear. ‘And it’s only morning sickness, it’ll go away soon.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Daisy nodded, though she wasn’t.

  ‘Miss Button isn’t giving you a rough time, is she?’

  ‘No, only when I make a mistake,’ Daisy replied. ‘But she does that to everyone when they make mistakes, especially when we’re busy.’ And to be fair, Miss Button was firm, that was all, and she had to be that because it was her job.

  ‘We’re flat out, too,’ Terry said. ‘I’d better get back. Wait for me after work?’

  As she watched him hurry off, Daisy told herself yet again what a lucky girl she was to have a boy as wonderful as Terry.

  Louise got off the tram at Avondale, savouring the pleasurable anticipation she always felt when she went to pick up Susan after work. For months now Rob had been putting in long hours at the garage where he worked in Parnell, so she usually collected Susan from her parents’ home, then walked her the two blocks to the small house they were renting. But they wouldn’t be paying good money to a landlord for much longer. They couldn’t afford much, but it would be marvellous to have their own place and be able to do what they liked with it. And when Rob got the raise his boss had been hinting at lately, there might even be enough money for her to stop work and be a proper mother. She knew that Susan was well looked after during the day—despite Rob’s mother carping on about it incessantly—and she enjoyed working at Dunbar & Jones, but deep down she wanted to be at home with her daughter. It wasn’t right, bringing a child into the world then abandoning it five days a week to go out to work, but Susan deserved a proper home.

  Louise opened the gate to her mother’s house and hurried down the path, calling out as she went, ‘Susan! Mummy’s here!’

  There was a bang as the fly screen on the back door flew open, then the sound of little feet belting around the side of the house. Susan appeared a moment later in her favourite pink dress with the frill around the hem and little black patent leather shoes, with her chestnut curls flying and most of her hairclips missing. In her hand was a large piece of paper, which she was waving madly.

  ‘Mummy! Mummy, look what I drawed!’

  Louise crouched down. ‘Hello, sweetheart! What is it?’

  Susan held up the paper for her mother to see. ‘It’s a horsie! There’s his legs and there’s his tail, and there’s his ears and…that other thing.’

  ‘His mane? Gosh, what an excellent picture! Did Grandma buy you some new crayons?’

  ‘Yes. I got red and green, and yellow, and…red. And…’ Susan trailed off, her finger in her mouth. ‘I forget the rest.’

  ‘Well, you must have got brown, because you’ve coloured the horsie in brown, haven’t you? And blue, because here’s the beach.’

  ‘No, it’s not the beach, it’s a lake!’ Susan pointed. ‘See? Here’s a birdie, cleaning his teeth in it.’

  ‘So he is!’

  ‘We had skibetti for lunch,’ Susan said, indicating a smear of orange down the front of her dress. ‘But I didn’t clean my teeth after.’

  Louise stood up. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it, sweetheart. Twice a day is probably enough. Where’s Grandma?’

  ‘Inside. We done baking. She’s cleaning up.’

  ‘We did baking,’ Louise corrected. ‘What did you make?’

  ‘Come and have a look,’ Susan said, taking Louise’s hand. ‘We saved some for you and Daddy.’

  Louise allowed her small daughter to lead her around to the rear of the house and up the back steps. Her mother’s kitchen was cool and a little dim after the bright sunshine outside.
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  Marion Bourke was standing at the sink washing dishes. She wore slippers but was bare-legged, her varicose veins making fat purple worms over her ankles and pale calves.

  ‘Hello, love,’ she said. ‘Good day at work?’

  ‘Busy,’ Louise replied.

  ‘Cuppa?’

  ‘No, thanks, Mum, I need to get home and get tea on. How was madam today?’

  Marion dried her hands on a tea-towel. ‘Madam was an absolute princess, as always. Helped me with the housework and then we went for a walk to the shops, didn’t we?’ Susan nodded energetically. ‘And after lunch we did some drawing and then a bit of baking.’ Marion nodded towards the kitchen table, where a small pile of greyish, rubbery-looking pikelets sat on a plate. Raising an amused eyebrow, she said, ‘They’ve been on the floor twice, but we got most of the fluff off.’

  ‘They’re for you and Daddy,’ Susan said proudly.

  ‘Yummy,’ Louise replied enthusiastically. ‘Shall we save them for supper tonight?’

  Susan nodded, but she’d lost interest in the pikelets. Eccles, the Bourkes’ cat, had slunk into the kitchen and was weaving around the legs of the table, taking care to keep well out of Susan’s reach.

  ‘Can I pat him?’ she asked her grandmother.

  ‘If he’ll let you.’

  Susan made a lunge for the cat, but he saw her coming and streaked for the back door, his claws scrabbling on the worn lino.

  ‘Eccles doesn’t like me,’ Susan declared sadly.

  Marion said, ‘Yes, he does, sweetie. He’s just being a grumpy-bum today.’

  In fact, Eccles was always a grumpy-bum around Susan, who adored him but, on the rare occasions she managed to pick him up, almost squeezed the life out of him in her enthusiasm.

  ‘Come on, missy,’ Louise urged gently. ‘We have to go home and cook Daddy’s tea, so say goodbye to Grandma, there’s a good girl.’

  Marion bent down far enough for Susan to kiss her cheek.

  ‘Bye-bye, Gran,’ Susan said.

  ‘See you tomorrow, love. Don’t forget your pikelets!’

  Louise asked, ‘Will about quarter to eight be all right? I need to get in early.’