The Last of the Bonegilla Girls

by Victoria Purman

  Vasiliki sized him up. He was only slightly taller than she was, with a pleasant enough face and a strong chin. In the middle of it was a dimple. He seemed friendly. It would be good to have someone else in the milk bar to help her father and her uncle. They worked too hard as it was, and maybe soon they would hire someone else to give her mother a break from the seven days a week she too was doing.

  ‘It’s a busy place,’ Vasiliki said. ‘Lots of customers. Australian people like the sandwiches and cups of tea.’

  Stelios smiled. ‘The Americans too, but they drink coffee, not so much tea.’

  Vasiliki gave him a little smile. She’d served enough milky tea to last her a lifetime.

  Her father brought his hands together in a loud clap. ‘Vasiliki, you like him. That is good. It has all been arranged by our two families.’

  Vasiliki’s head jerked to her father. Her mother’s grip became tighter on her arm. The more Vasiliki shivered the stronger her mother’s hold became.

  And before her father even said the words, she knew. This man, Stelios, was her future. She had been living an Australian dream for almost three years but now she was Greek again and even more importantly, a Greek daughter with obligations to her family and her parents and everyone in this church and the whole community and, come to think of it, every single relative back in Greece, too.

  Her mother was whispering something in her ear. ‘He is a good man, Vasiliki. Handsome.’

  Tom is a good man, too. And he’s handsome and he loves me. She could never tell them. Not now. Their shame would be her shame, too.

  Her father pumped Stelios’s hand. ‘You will marry Vasiliki. Good. This is very good.’

  Stelios smiled at her father and then glanced at her. She tried to make sense of his face but he was becoming smaller and smaller. Then her father shrunk too and she no longer felt her mother’s fingers on her arm, digging in, pinning her to the spot. Her mother knew. Her mother knew that her daughter was fighting the instinct to run.

  She saw this strange man and her family as if through the end of a long camera lens. They were from somewhere else, from another place and another time. The words they were saying were jumbled and muffled and all she could hear was the beat of her pulse in her ears like a crashing, rhythmic cymbal.

  She was being traded like a goat. All this time in Australia had changed nothing. What had she expected? She may as well have been back in the village before the war instead of here in Melbourne in 1956.

  What young man new to Australia could resist an offer like that? Here is a job for you, young man, if you marry my daughter.

  ‘Stelios is coming to our house for lunch today,’ her father announced. There was pride and happiness in his voice at the match he and his brother had made. ‘You will have the chance to talk more together. Now, we will go.’

  Vasiliki felt dizzy and sick. She was to marry this man and had no power to disobey her father about it. All she could do was say, ‘Yes, Baba,’ but something inside her was trying to rebel. It tasted bitter in her throat and it pounded in her chest but she swallowed it down, buried it deep in the pit of her stomach.

  Her father slipped an arm around Stelios’s shoulder and the two men walked ahead with Uncle Theodorous. The men had made a deal.

  How she could she argue after all the sacrifices her parents had made for her? They had left their families and friends back in Greece and now, in Australia, they had worked hard from almost the moment they had arrived. They lived in a house with a toilet inside and running water and enough rooms for Vasiliki to have her own. They had a car and good jobs and money in the bank. Vasiliki was grateful for all of it. She was grateful to her family and would honour them. She knew in that moment that her hopes of being with Tom, living a completely different life, had been a cruel trick she had played on herself. A life with Tom would never have been possible. Her family would never have allowed it, nor would his. She would never be able to show her face in this church or any other if she married someone who wasn’t Greek Orthodox. She could never have the blessing of her family for her marriage if she wed someone they didn’t approve of. And she would need their blessing to be truly happy. She would always need her family around her, would always need to be part of her culture and her community, especially in a new country.

  In her heart of hearts, she knew. Tom was not Greek and that was it.

  Her mother slipped an arm through Vasiliki’s. She was jolted back into the moment, the cold wind at the back of her neck and the pressure of her mother’s arm on hers.

  ‘Isn’t he handsome?’ her mother whispered. ‘And he’s been in America. His English is very good. He’s very prosperous. Your father and your uncle think that one day he can buy the milk bar. You will have a good future with him, Vasiliki. And such beautiful children.’

  The words fell automatically from her lips. ‘Yes, Mamou.’

  Her mother kissed her cheek. ‘It will be a good marriage. You’ll see.’

  It didn’t escape Vasiliki’s attention that Stelios was given the seat at the head of the table for lunch. The small green laminate table in the middle of the kitchen was simple, but the food Vasiliki’s mother had prepared was anything but. As Vasiliki helped her mother, pulling dishes from the oven, taking salad from the fridge, setting plates and serving spoons for their guest, she slipped back into her old world. Her parents’ world. Each day, she lived in Australia, talking to and serving Australians, laughing at the jokes she was beginning to understand. Each Saturday night, she was the girl with the Australian boyfriend, sitting at the pictures, free.

  But at home, and each evening, she was tugged backwards. There were no ham sandwiches at this table or steak and eggs or fish and chips. At her family’s table, there was lamb baked with garlic and oregano. Cabbage rolls stuffed with rice. Spinach and beans drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice. Olives. Fetta cheese in chunky cubes. Yoghurt. Pastries brittle and sweet and filled with crushed nuts or custard so creamy it coated your tongue when you ate it.

  Vasiliki sat down at the table and ate politely, listening to her father ask Stelios about America and the cafes there. This man was to be her husband, the handsome man with the dimple. It wasn’t his fault that she looked at him and felt nothing. He was polite with her parents. When he’d arrived, he’d brought her a bunch of flowers and some chocolates that he’d handed over complete with a compliment to her mother about her clean home. He spent lunch shooting her surreptitious glances across the table, as if he was trying to figure out if she was beautiful or not.

  Tom always made her feel beautiful.

  Vasiliki was only able to raise a polite smile when Stelios left. It was arranged. She would see him at church the next Sunday and he would come every Sunday for lunch until they were married in six weeks.

  A June wedding to a man who wasn’t Tom Burley.

  A good girl would never go against her family. A girl who did would bring shame on them. She knew that in the deepest marrow of her bones. Her family would win.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The next week passed in a blur for Vasiliki. She went to work and put on her best smile for her customers. Her feet ached the same after being on them all day. Her back continued to twinge when she lifted stacks of dishes to put away on the high shelves behind the counter. Shirley tried to make her laugh and her uncle Theodorous kept a close eye on his waitresses from the kitchen.

  But nothing else was the same. There was a clock ticking for Vasiliki and she felt each minute contract and shrink until it felt as if her life was about to disappear.

  On Monday she slipped out the back when she saw Tom push through the front doors. She simply couldn’t take his order today. It would be a sandwich and Passionfruit Special, the same as every other day. It would be too sad to pretend his world hadn’t changed too.

  Vasiliki sat on a bread crate in the storeroom at the back of the milk bar and stared at her fingernails. She kept them short and neat, scrupulously clean for her customers jus
t as her uncle had demanded. Once she was married and not working anymore, she could let them get as long as she liked. Perhaps she would even paint them red.

  The door opened. It was Shirley, curious.

  ‘What’s got your goat?’ She sidled up alongside her friend, bumping Vasiliki’s shoulder with her hip. ‘You all right, Vicki?’

  Vasiliki looked up at her friend. ‘I get married,’ she said quietly. Shirley became fuzzy and Vasiliki wiped her eyes.

  Shirley didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she kneeled down to look Vasiliki in the eye. ‘They don’t look like tears of unbridled joy, pet.’

  ‘What does that mean? I don’t understand.’

  Shirley laid a comforting hand on Vasiliki’s knee. ‘What that means is … you don’t look all that happy about it.’

  ‘My family found this man. Stelios Papadopoulos. He is coming to work here in the milk bar. We are marriage in June.’

  Shirley huffed. ‘Crikey, you don’t wait, do you? You bloody Greeks. All this arranged marriage nonsense. You’re in Australia now. You and your family and all the other bloody Greeks have to learn to do things the Australian way. Look at me. I can marry whoever I damn well please.’ Shirley thought on it a moment. ‘Well, as long as he’s not a Catholic. Or a dago.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Fathers, hey? I reckon they’re all the same, no matter where they bloody well come from.’ She leaned closer, lowered her voice. ‘You don’t want to marry this bloke, do you?’

  Could she put it in words that Shirley would understand? ‘It is the Greek way. I must honour my family.’

  ‘What does your mum say, hey? Surely she’d want you to marry someone who floats your boat. For love, I mean.’

  ‘She didn’t know my father when they married. She says I will love this man.’

  Shirley sighed sympathetically. ‘But not like you love your Tom, hey pet?’

  Vasiliki covered her quivering lips with a hand.

  ‘Don’t worry, Vicki. You stay here. I’ll go and tell your Tom that you’ve gone home with a mighty headache. Maybe you’ll feel up to seeing him tomorrow.’

  It was a full five days before Vasiliki was able to even think about seeing Tom. He had come in at his usual time, just after midday, and taken up his regular spot at the end of a row of hungry customers waiting on their black vinyl upholstered swivel stools at the counter.

  She picked up a menu and walked to him. He was leaning over the counter, clasping his hands together, his shoulders hunched. When she was closer, she could see his lovely face was drawn and his caramel eyes were pale and unsmiling. The moment he noticed her approaching he got to his feet.

  ‘Vasiliki. Where on earth have you been? I haven’t seen you all week. I’ve been worried sick. Are you all right? Is everything okay?’ He leaned over the counter, struggling to keep his voice low.

  ‘I am good. What can I get you today?’ She struggled to keep her eyes on her notepad, so she focussed on her lead pencil poised over the white of the paper.

  ‘You can get me an explanation, that’s what.’ She looked at him. He wasn’t angry. He was sad and his eyes glistened. She had spent all week trying to think about how to tell him. He was owed an explanation at the very least. She stared at her notepad, her pencil poised above it, as if their conversation was about lunch.

  ‘Saturday. The clocks,’ she whispered. ‘Can we meet there?’

  He leaned in. ‘Of course we can. What’s the matter, Vasiliki?’

  ‘Can you get a car to drive?’

  His brow furrowed. ‘A car?’

  ‘Yes. We need to drive somewhere.’ She scribbled nonsense on the page.

  ‘You know I don’t have a car. What’s this all about?’

  She glanced around quickly, looking for the prying eyes of her father or Uncle Theodorous. ‘Please, Tom.’

  He thought on it. ‘I can perhaps borrow my friend Nigel’s.’

  ‘Pick me up on the corner of Little Bourke Street. I will wait there.’

  ‘All right,’ Tom finally answered.

  Vasiliki nodded. She couldn’t meet his eyes. Tom tossed his hat on his head and abruptly left. His spot was soon filled with another customer who’d been waiting in the queue at the end of the counter.

  She forced a smile and concentrated on her accent. ‘Good afternoon. What can I get for you today?’

  Tom pushed through the front door of the milk bar then stopped and turned and looked back at her through the gleaming front window. Something inside her pulled itself closed.

  She wasn’t Elizabeth Taylor. Her Hollywood dream of a marriage to Tom was over.

  The next evening, Tom picked up Vasiliki in Little Bourke Street, as arranged, and they drove down to St Kilda. They motored past Luna Park, ignoring the temptation to walk through Mr Moon’s mouth and see the amusements. Vasiliki had heard about the Ghost Train and had always been too scared of it to go in and ride it. Tom continued towards Brighton, and where there was a quiet spot by a park, Vasiliki asked him to pull over.

  He did as she asked and turned off the engine of his friend Nigel’s Ford.

  It was quiet, exactly how she wanted it to be. The streetlights were dim and the streets were empty of people and if she closed her eyes a little it was just her and Tom and no one else in the entire world.

  Tom had been quiet, nervous, not saying anything during their drive but now, in the cold quiet of the car, the words burst out of him. He turned to her, resting his arm behind her on the bench seat. ‘Now will you tell me what’s been going on, Vasiliki? You’ve had me damn well worried. All this cloak and dagger stuff about tonight.’

  Vasiliki didn’t know what he meant by coats and daggers but she was too sick with nerves to ask for an explanation of yet another strange expression. She didn’t want to feel stupid tonight, any more than she did already. Her fingers twisted the handle of her black velvet handbag. ‘There is something to tell you.’

  Tom stiffened. ‘Oh, heavens, Vasiliki. You didn’t spill the beans to Frances, did you?’

  ‘No, no. I do not tell Frances.’ There was so much to say and it was important, now more than ever, to find the right words, the words that wouldn’t hurt Tom or shock him. ‘My family have a man I must marry.’

  The silence felt long and empty. Vasiliki’s breath clouded in the cold air.

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  She breathed deep. ‘It is a man. He is Greek.’

  Tom stared past the dash and through the front window into the dark distance. ‘Hold on just a minute. Are you telling me you have another boyfriend?’

  ‘No, it’s not like that.’ She put a hand on his thigh, felt the muscles tense under her touch. ‘Last weekend, Sunday. At church. My father told me this man is the one I will marry. Only one week, Tom. I don’t know him.’

  ‘Is this one of those … proxy marriages?’

  ‘I must do what my family wants me to do.’

  ‘But this is Australia, not Greece.’

  ‘But I am Greek. My family is Greek.’

  Tom took his arm from the back of the seat and began to fidget, his leg dancing up and down under her hand. ‘You can’t be auctioned off to some bloke you’ve never met just because he’s Greek. What do these things matter these days? It’s 1956. Things are different now, Vasiliki. Your family can’t do this to you. You’ve got to tell them you can’t marry him.’

  ‘I cannot say no to my family.’

  ‘You bloody well can say no.’ He twisted towards her, gripped her fingers in his. ‘I’ll come with you to talk to your parents. I’ll tell them they can’t do this.’

  ‘No, Tom, no.’ Vasiliki turned away to the window.

  ‘I’ve been so stupid too. Thinking this is something we should hide. Why don’t we run away to Sydney? I’m sure I could get work up there. There must be hundreds of jobs for a junior lawyer. You could come and …’ He turned to her, cupping her cheeks with his hands and looking lovingly into her eyes. ‘We can get married, Vasiliki.
No family. Just you and me. We can make a life together.’

  Vasiliki squeezed her eyes closed. Tom would never understand the bonds of her family, of honour and tradition. She could no more go against the wishes of her mother and father than she could fly to the moon. And it seemed he couldn’t either. They had both been big on words and promises but neither of them were brave enough to break the rules.

  ‘No.’ It was all she could say.

  He took his hands away. There was silence in the car. A man in a flat cap rode past on an old bicycle, so slowly Vasiliki wondered how he hadn’t fallen over already, his shoulders dipping from side to side with every revolution of the pedals. She didn’t know what else to say to help Tom understand.

  He slammed his hand on the steering wheel and grunted. ‘This is all my fault. I should never have asked you to hide what we have. I was only thinking of me and what my father would say. For all his talk at Bonegilla, I didn’t think … damn it, Vasiliki. I should have been brave and told them. Especially Frances. I should be the one to marry you. I should have been the one to ask you, hang the consequences. I love you, Vasiliki.’

  She hadn’t heard the words from him before but she heard the truth in them. ‘And I love you, Tom.’

  He let out a laugh, but it was angry. ‘I’ve loved you since the first time I met you, at Bonegilla, when Frances came home from hospital, after she was stupid enough to get hit on the head during that soccer game. You and your girlfriends came with flowers.’

  ‘Yes. I remember.’ Vasiliki’s eyes filled with tears. Tom passed her the handkerchief from the pocket inside his suit. She looked down at it. The initials T.B. were embroidered in one corner in navy.

  ‘Your parents, just off the boat. They were never going to accept a chap like me, were they?’

  ‘You are not Greek. And your parents, they would not like a Greek girl.’

  Tom shook his head. ‘They don’t even want me to marry a Catholic. That’s been obvious since I can remember. But if it didn’t matter, if your family didn’t matter and mine didn’t either, would you have said yes, Vasiliki?’