Love and Other Battles

by Tess Woods

‘It’s only been a week.’ He laughed, scooping her up in his arms. ‘But, baby, I missed you too. What do you want to do today? Is your dad out playing golf again?’ He wiggled his eyebrows.

  She laughed. ‘You have a dirty mind, Frank Stone. He is, but not until this afternoon. I made a plan though. Funny Girl’s playing at the cinema in half an hour. I thought we could go and see that first. Some of the other girls saw it last week and they said it’s just wonderful! We could go back to the apartment afterwards. What do you say?’

  ‘Can I kiss you when they dim the lights?’ He grinned.

  ‘I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.’

  ‘Then I say, what are we waiting for, lady? Let’s go!’

  ***

  Jess was curled up in Frank’s arms under the sheets.

  ‘Is this your mum?’ he asked, reaching across her for the framed photo on the bedside table.

  She nodded.

  ‘She looks so young.’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘You never talk about your mum, Jess. What happened to her?’

  She was silent for a moment. ‘She died giving birth to me.’

  He pulled her in closer. ‘So your dad’s always been on his own with you then?’

  ‘He has. Except . . . Frank, I don’t usually tell people this. You see, my dad isn’t my biological father. He’s my uncle, my mum’s brother. He adopted me when Mum died.’

  ‘Fair dinkum?’

  ‘Mmm-hmm.’

  ‘Never heard of that before, a man adopting a baby.’

  ‘He was the only one who wanted me.’

  ‘But what about your grandparents? Or your real father’s family?’

  She let out a sad laugh. ‘My real dad wanted nothing to do with my mum anymore when he found out she was pregnant. Said he’d deny the baby was his if she told anyone. He was her piano teacher. And he was already married with his own family.’

  ‘What a bastard.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s why I’ve never tried to find him. And my grandparents, well, they weren’t much better. They were going to force my mum to adopt me out. She was only sixteen. So she had no say. They booked her into a home for unwed mothers in Mildura, nice and far away so it wouldn’t cause a scandal. They told everyone she was having an extended visit with family in Sydney. But then her brother, my dad, he went to the home to visit her and she was so desperate to get out, he couldn’t leave without her. He was twenty-one back then; he’d just moved out on his own to St Kilda to start up his business. He helped her run away from the home in the middle of the night.’

  Frank’s eyes were wide. ‘Then what?’

  ‘Well, my grandparents decided not to call the police, luckily, or she would’ve been dragged back to Mildura. But they did cut them both off. My dad never spoke to them again. They didn’t even come to my mum’s funeral. Their own daughter, can you believe that?’

  ‘I can’t. That’s low. So then your dad adopted you when your mum . . . passed away?’

  ‘He did. I was going to be made a ward of the state. My dad had to fight tooth and nail to be allowed to keep me. The hospital sent a social worker around to his apartment. When they saw that he wasn’t married, they rejected his application and I was put in an orphanage. But he hired a lawyer and he got a live-in nanny so he could prove I’d be looked after and, in the end, he won. He adopted me when I was about six months old.’

  ‘Good on him. So you’ve got no other family besides your dad?’

  ‘None. He never married so that was it, really, it’s always just been him and me.’ She gave him a wistful smile. ‘I wish I had a big family, like yours.’

  Frank kissed her forehead and gave her a tight squeeze. ‘You have got my big family now.’

  Jess placed the photo of her mother back on the bedside table. Then she saw the time and gasped. ‘Frank! Get up! We have to get dressed! My dad will be home any minute.’

  He sighed. ‘When will I ever get to meet him? I’m getting real sick of all this sneaking around, Jess. Are you ashamed of me or what?’

  ‘Of course I’m not ashamed of you!’ she said with passion.

  ‘Well then, when are you going to introduce us?’

  Jess wasn’t exactly excited about making the introductions between Frank and her father. She knew how strongly her father would disapprove of him.

  Originally her plan had been that they would never meet. She’d thought she could keep secretly dating Frank until he left for Vietnam and then that would be that. But with every week that passed, it became clearer this was no temporary affair; Frank was here to stay, even if he went away to war. Even so, she still wasn’t ready to face her father just yet with the truth about her Catholic army boyfriend.

  There was also a tiny part of her that worried how Frank would react if he discovered the truth about her dad. There was something about Malcolm James she’d never dared speak of to anyone. Would Frank leave her if he found out what her father was really like?

  The two of them would have to meet at some stage. But not today.

  ‘You’ll meet him soon, I promise. Just give me a little more time to work out the best way to go about it,’ she bargained.

  ‘Okay. Well.’ He checked his watch. ‘Should we get something to eat? It’s tea time.’

  She handed him his shirt. ‘Yes, but come on, hurry.’

  ***

  ‘I want you — now,’ Jess said in a low voice after they’d finished ice-cream cones walking along the foreshore long after the sun had set.

  Frank looked around them and then back at her. ‘You mean now, now? Here?’

  ‘Yes now, right here,’ she murmured. ‘It’s dark, there’s nobody else around. We have the whole beach to ourselves.’

  He let out a shaky moan as she dropped her hand down the front of his jeans and caressed him. ‘Jess, we’re in public,’ he whispered between kisses, even though he was already hard under her touch. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘You mean you don’t want to?’

  ‘Of course I want to.’ He chuckled. ‘I always want to. But what about your reputation if we get caught?”

  ‘That’s mighty chivalrous of you, darling, to be so concerned with my reputation.’ She giggled. ‘We won’t get caught.’ She ran her tongue under his ear and he shuddered. ‘We’ll be discreet.’

  ‘But I haven’t got any . . . you know, on me.’ He winked. ‘Can’t have you getting pregnant now, can we, Flower Child?’

  She stuck her hand into her hemp bag and, giving him a smug smile, she produced a condom. ‘We’ll be right.’

  His eyebrows shot up. ‘How’d you manage to get your hands on a franger?’

  ‘I work in a hospital, with a pharmacy, my love.’

  ‘Did they really let you buy it there? They sell rubbers to women?’

  ‘Of course they didn’t, silly.’ She laughed.

  ‘You stole it?’

  She said nothing and grinned.

  ‘Well, what do you know? You’re a live one, Jessica James.’ He bent to kiss her again. ‘Look, if you’re that desperate to have me out here on the beach that you’d shoplift for the honour, I can’t very well say no now, can I?’ He slipped his hands up her peasant top, cupping her bare breasts.

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t, darling. You’ll just have to suffer through it, I suppose.’

  ‘Poor me.’ He breathed into her ear.

  She led him by the hand up to where the sand was dry.

  He lay on his back and she knelt down, hugging his hips with her legs. The long layers of her skirt fanned wide around them, like a canopy.

  ‘Shut your eyes, Frank. Listen to the sound of the waves and the wind.’ She loved being on top, sitting up like that. She’d never tried this position with the couple of others who’d come before him; she’d never felt comfortable or confident enough. But with Frank, everything was easier, freer.

  She tilted her neck back and looked up at the cloudless black sky while she rocked herself on him. The moon shone down
on them and the stars twinkled in their thousands. The waves lapped a few yards away from them in time with her slow pelvic dance. He moved deeply inside her. If she could have frozen this moment in time, she would have.

  ‘Jess?’ He frowned like he was hurt. The sweat glistened on his forehead and neck.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I love you.’

  She opened her mouth and sucked his words out of the air and into her body. ‘I love you too,’ she breathed.

  She’d been waiting for those words — waiting to hear them and waiting to say them. But at the same time, she’d been terrified of when they would be spoken and make it real, that of all the people on this earth it was a nasho who loved her, and she had let herself love him back and love him harder than she’d ever dared love anyone.

  The intensity of her climax when it came made her cry real tears.

  They didn’t speak for a long time afterwards. She lay in the crook of his arm, the two of them breathing in sync, looking at the stars.

  ‘Can you see the Southern Cross?’ His voice was croaky.

  ‘Mmm.’

  He sighed a long sigh.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘I feel bad every time we do this. I haven’t even met your dad and here I am cavorting with his daughter out in public.’

  ‘He doesn’t own me, Frank. It’s not as if we need his permission to be together.’

  ‘It still feels wrong. If I had a daughter, I’d be pissed off if she was sneaking around with some bloke I didn’t know existed.’

  ‘Well, it feels right to me, and I’m the only one you need to worry about pleasing.’ She nuzzled into his neck.

  ‘And it’s against my religion.’

  She guffawed. ‘Oh please, don’t give me that. You’ve never seemed too worried about sinning before.’

  ‘I know I don’t act like it, but deep down it does bother me. I’ve been dragging myself off to confession every Friday since we first made love, you know.’

  ‘What rot!’

  ‘I’m not shit-stirring you, Jess. I have, I promise.’

  ‘What would you have us do then? Go back to chaste kisses? Is that what you want?’

  ‘No!’ he said adamantly. ‘That’s the last thing I want. But . . . well, I thought, if we had plans to get married, it might make it b—’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘Just hear me out. I don’t mean right away. Not until I’ve finished my service and graduated from uni. But if I knew that marriage was on the cards for us, I wouldn’t feel so bad. If I had your dad’s permission for your hand, there’d be more respect in it. Know what I mean?’

  Jess couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing. ‘His permission for my hand?’ she squealed. ‘You can’t possibly be serious? Surely?’

  ‘I’m deadly serious.’ He sounded hurt. ‘Making a commitment to each other to forsake all others, having your father’s blessing — it’s the only way to make things right, Jess.’

  She swallowed her giggles. ‘Frank, you daft man, you don’t need anyone to give you my hand. I can perfectly well give you my own hand. But, darling, I don’t want you to pledge to marry me later just so you don’t feel guilty about us being together now. When I get married, I want it to be to a man who wants to be with me forever and ever and couldn’t imagine his life without me by his side.’

  ‘Well of course I want to be with you forever and ever,’ he said.

  Her heart skipped a beat. ‘You do? We’ve only been going out for two months, not even that.’

  ‘Flower Child, there’s not a shadow of doubt in my mind that you’re the girl for me. Even though you’re a thief.’ He smirked. ‘But what about you? Would you want me as your husband one day?’

  ‘What do you think?’ She smiled.

  ‘It would mean becoming Catholic yourself if we were to be married in a church when the time comes, though.’

  ‘Hmm. And I suppose getting married in a church is what you expect?’

  He coughed. ‘My folks would be expecting me to be married by a priest. I wouldn’t want to let them down.’

  She nodded, imagining the disappointed look on little Nora’s face if she found out Frank was to be married and she couldn’t be the flower girl in church.

  ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘hypothetically speaking, what would be expected of me if I was to become a Catholic?’

  ‘You’d have to take lessons, faith lessons, that is, with the nuns. And you’d have to be baptised. It wouldn’t be a walk in the park, Jess. It takes a year, I think.’

  ‘Golly.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  She stared at the stars while he ran his fingers up and down her arm. She considered what she should say next. ‘Marriage is a long way off for us, Frank. Honestly, if it wasn’t for your blasted Catholic guilt that’s suddenly descended on us, we wouldn’t even be having a conversation like this for ages, would we? It’ll be years until you graduate, I don’t even finish my training for a year and a half yet. But let’s just say we were planning to be married, what if I didn’t agree to convert? If I said no, would you still want to marry me?’

  He answered with no hesitation. ‘Of course, I would.’

  ‘Would you really?’

  ‘Yes. I love you. I’d marry you tomorrow if you’d let me.’

  She cleared her throat. ‘Frank?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Her words came out in a small voice, barely louder than a whisper. ‘You’ve asked me to convert for you. But would you leave the army for me?’ She held her breath and waited through the silence.

  He finally whispered, ‘No.’

  She exhaled. ‘Even though you love me?’

  ‘It’s my duty. We’ve been through this before.’

  ‘But that was before you said you loved me and before you wanted to marry me.’

  ‘Nothing’s changed. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself as a deserter.’

  ‘Nothing’s changed?’ Her voice broke. ‘How can you say nothing’s changed?’

  ‘Jess, come on. Don’t do this.’

  ‘They’ll send you to Vietnam soon. They’ll send you away.’ The tears began to sting her eyes.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You can’t make me fall in love with you and then go to war. It’s not fair.’

  He closed his eyes. ‘Jess, please. I said don’t.’

  8 APRIL 2000

  Jamie stood next to the vegetable patch, feeling sick. Her parents had their bums in the air, heads down, weeding — working together in perfect synchronicity. They were the ultimate team, her mum and dad.

  For all her life, Jamie had felt like the third wheel in their marriage. Growing up, she knew she was loved, but it hadn’t stopped her wondering — did her parents regret having her? They’d never had any more children. Was it because of her? But then she’d found out about her mum’s miscarriages and how hard they had tried to give her siblings. And the resentment she’d once felt for them had given way to guilt.

  A fresh wave of nausea hit her and she swallowed it down. She closed her eyes and took a long breath and then another. When she opened her eyes again, her parents were hazy, almost angelic-looking in the early glow of the sun. She steadied herself against the brick wall behind her.

  Her mum looked up to the sky and grumbled. ‘Ugh, I should’ve brought out my hat. It’s so hot already.’

  Wordlessly, her dad took off his floppy faded blue hat and rested it on her head.

  He noticed Jamie then. ‘Hello, love. What are you doing up this early?’

  ‘I . . . ah . . . I had something I wanted to tell you guys.’

  Her mum, whose intuition had always astounded Jamie, stood up. ‘Are you pregnant, sweet?’

  Jamie burst into tears and her words fell out in one big breathless flurry. ‘I am. It’s okay, I’m okay. I’m actually happy about it so I don’t even know why I’m crying! It’s not like I’m young or poor, I’m almost thirty years old, for goodness
sake. And I’ve always wanted children. This might be the only chance I ever get. So it’s actually good news. Great news! But I just . . . I’m scared, I think.’

  Her parents flew out of the vegetable patch and she found herself ensconced between them. All the heartache, the fear, the worry that she’d been carrying inside, she cried it all out.

  When she ran out of tears, her dad dried her cheeks with his handkerchief. ‘Cuppa?’ he offered.

  ‘I can’t. Hot drinks make me sick.’

  And then her mum said something she never thought she’d hear. ‘Want me to go up the road and get you a Coke?’

  ‘Yes! I’d kill for a Coke. How did you know?’

  ‘I was the same. Only time in my life I’ve ever given those evil Coca-Cola monsters a penny was when I was carrying you.’

  ‘I’ll go to the milk bar and get you some,’ her dad, ever the gentleman, offered. ‘Why don’t you two head inside out of the heat?’

  They walked into the house and Jamie sank onto a papasan under the ceiling fan.

  ‘How long have you known?’ Jess sat on the floor at her feet.

  ‘Around six weeks. I wanted to wrap my head around it before telling you both. I still haven’t wrapped my head around it, but keeping it a secret made me lonely.’

  Jess nodded. ‘I can imagine. It’s a pretty big thing to keep to yourself. But I don’t understand, sweet. I thought you were on the pill?’

  ‘I stopped taking it a year ago. I was sick of the side effects. We were a bit hit and miss with contraception after that. It was an accident, obviously.’

  ‘But you broke up with Simon around six weeks ago too. Is he the father?’

  Jamie dropped her eyes to the ground and nodded.

  They sat in silence.

  Her parents did that a lot — sat still and said nothing. There were times when Jamie wanted them to speak up, when she desperately needed their advice. But they sat and waited. Or they asked questions. They never gave her answers to anything, they just offered space.

  ‘Have you told him?’ Jess asked after a while.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Oh, Jamie,’ was all her mum said, but the tone was of disapproval.

  ‘I can’t!’ Fresh, hot tears burned her eyes.