Palace of Tears

by Julian Leatherdale

  The cottage next to the hotel had fallen out of use during the war but it needed only minor repairs to make it habitable. Besides, Adam added, the cottage was more convenient to the farm, where he had decided to increase VDC training to twice a week.

  Monika saw a strange expression flit across her mother’s face, a mix of pain and sympathy.

  ‘It will only be for a little while,’ Adam assured Laura. ‘And you and the children can come up on weekends, if you like, and visit the farm. Take the horses out maybe.’ He smiled but his voice lacked any enthusiasm.

  Puzzled by this strange development, the girls both looked at their mother for an explanation but none was forthcoming. As if this was not disturbing enough, their father then dropped an even bigger bombshell. ‘I have also decided it’s not safe anymore for the girls to travel down to Glenleigh every day by train.’

  Where was this all heading? Monz and Lottie exchanged looks of alarm and Laura appeared taken by surprise. Monz could tell from the way her father refused to look at them directly that what she was about to hear wasn’t good.

  ‘I’ve enrolled them both in Osborne Ladies’ College up at Blackheath. They’ll board there during the week. It has an excellent reputation and I’m sure they’ll be perfectly happy there.’ Adam raised his hand like a traffic cop to forestall their protests. ‘And I will not hear one word of complaint or you will both be severely punished, do you understand?’ His voice was so cold and hard it froze Monika’s heart.

  Their father was right about one thing. Osborne Ladies’ College certainly came with a reputation. For lunacy. Converted from a big old rambling hotel on Paradise Hill, the college had lush grounds with sweeping views over the Kanimbla Valley, and boasted that since 1923 it had produced ‘well-educated young ladies inculcated with habits of courtesy and refinement’. But the best-known fact about Osborne was that its eccentric headmistress, Miss Violet Gibbons, modelled every aspect of her institution on the British navy. The classrooms were named after British naval vessels, such as HMS Sirius and HMS Revenge, while Miss Gibbons’ private quarters were HMS Pelican. In the main assembly room (HMS Nelson) Miss Gibbons, formally titled ‘the Admiral’, addressed her tender charges from a small stage she called ‘the bridge’. The students wore naval-inspired uniforms of small-brimmed, beribboned straw hats, white blouses with broad collars and white-piped blazers, and progressed through the ranks each year of schooling from lowly midshipmen – ‘middies’ – to lieutenants and captains.

  The college was Monika and Lottie’s idea of hell. Living conditions were spartan: every room was freezing, the beds were musty and lumpy, and the food was inedible stodge. Over the last twenty years, the Admiral had perfected a stringent regime of lessons, chores and outdoor callisthenics in all weathers that fitted the two Fox girls about as comfortably as a straitjacket. The girls implored their father to reconsider his decision but he insisted that a little discipline and hardship would be good for them. ‘Miss Gibbons is not cruel, just strict, and she takes girls’ education seriously. One day you will thank me for sending you to Osborne.’

  That day was a long way off. Monz recorded her conclusions in her diary: ‘I hate this war. I hate this school. I hate everybody. Except Mrs Wickham, my English teacher, who thinks I have a bright future as a writer. She explained to me that suffering is essential if I hope to be a novelist of any note. I hope she is right. Otherwise, I cannot see the point of it at all.’

  On Saturday, 13 March 1943, Monika and Lottie and their baby brother, Alan, were dropped off at the cottage with Adam as their mother was busy that day with her war work. Their father also had VDC training down in the valley that morning so he had called in Mrs Merewether, the wife of his erstwhile general manager, who lived nearby.

  ‘I’ll only be gone for three hours,’ Fox told the babysitter as he straightened his Sam Brown belt in the mirror and adjusted his cap. Mrs M. had brought her fifteen-year-old daughter Maggie to keep Monika and Lottie company. ‘Now, you three, be good for Mrs M. and when I get back, I’ll take you all out for a treat at the Paragon.’

  The girls cheered. Monz and Lottie had missed their father these last three months but had noticed that his pessimism and ennui had lifted a little. Work was progressing on a huge hospital complex at Herne Bay for the US Army and it looked as if the Palace would be handed back sometime later in the year. The government had also promised to compensate Fox for any damages and loss of income.

  Undaunted by the demands of Austerity, Fox had recently bought a brand-new RCA Victor phonograph and installed it in the cottage. Thanks to a friendly US officer, he had also secured a stack of 78s with the latest hits by Jimmy Dorsey and Glenn Miller. Imitating dance moves they had seen in newsreels at the Embassy, the girls wiggled and bopped to ‘Chattanooga Choo-Choo’ and ‘I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo’. The cottage was filled with the unusual sound of high-pitched laughter.

  Monz felt carefree for the first time in a long while. With the strict routine and long hours of study at Osborne, as well as the unsettling arrangements in her family life, she barely remembered what fun felt like. She dared to let a small ray of optimism pierce the gloomy chambers of her heart. Maybe things were about to change for the better.

  The music drifted through the open windows of the cottage and out into the sunny garden where a breeze gently swung the slender gum branches back and forth overhead, drumming on the old iron roof. Alan sat on the veranda playing with his toy Spitfire while Mrs M. flicked through a copy of Smith’s Weekly, whistling along to the music. A flock of rosellas added their accompaniment of chirruping calls as they arrived in a flurry of red and purple wings, looking for seedlings in the tall native grasses that had all but overwhelmed the old rockery and flowerbeds.

  ‘Keep an eye out for any snakes!’ called Mrs M., raising her hand to shade her eyes from the sun for a moment as she watched the three girls chasing each other around the big blue mountain ashes and scribbly gums and shrieking like parrots.

  ‘Can we go look at the view?’ Maggie asked her mother. ‘It’s so beautiful. Especially on a day like today.’

  Monz had to agree. The sky was a startling blue interrupted by the merest wisps of cloud. She hadn’t been into this cottage garden in years and was surprised by how truly peaceful and pretty it was, even if the gazebo was falling down and the Japanese ornamental fountain was choked with weeds and moss.

  Mrs M. looked doubtful at first but relented. ‘Only as long as you don’t go anywhere near the hospital perimeter, alright? I don’t want anyone getting hurt or into trouble.’

  ‘We promise, Mama!’ shouted Maggie, and the trio ran off through the garden, whooping and singing ‘Chattanooga Choo-Choo’.

  When they came out under the casuarinas overlooking the valley, they could see the high barbed-wire fence that surrounded the hospital, hung with metal signs: ENTRY PROHIBITED – US ARMY PERSONNEL ONLY. They stood and looked at the view for a minute or two. Maggie cupped her hands and made a funnel-shaped tannoy of her mouth.

  ‘Coo-ee!’ she called, and the sound of her voice whipped around the bowl of the valley like a stone skipping across water.

  Monz followed suit and laughed as a flock of yellow-tailed black cockatoos scattered in alarm from the canopy below. She felt as big as the sky, giddy as the wind. This place excited her, unnerved her, filled her with childhood memories of delight and terror. They had moved from Leura to Mosman when she was eight and in all the excitement and glamour of her new life there, she had shed her old skin, like a snake sloughing, leaving behind the tomboy who had spent days playing in the bush.

  Down there in the valley, her father was practising killing Japs. He owned all this land up and down the escarpment as far as she could see: the hotel, the cottage, the maze of walks zigzagging back and forth across the cliff tops and beneath them, six hundred acres of farmland, including a racecourse, stockyards, a shooting box and a farmstead. And she, Monika Fox, would one day own this magnificent place herself.


  ‘Hey, follow me. I’ve got something to show you!’ Maggie flashed them a conspiratorial grin and ducked along one of the winding paths towards the giant hedge that separated the cottage garden from the old hotel grounds. Before either Monz or Lottie could object, they saw her disappear inside its dense leafy mass. She stuck her head back out again and waved at them. ‘Come on, what are you waiting for?’

  Monz shrugged and headed inside. Lottie hung back and called out, ‘Hey, Monz, what are you doing? We’ll get into all kinds of strife! Come back!’

  When Monz showed no signs of returning, Lottie had no option but to follow. Pushing through the springy branches and glossy leaves, she soon found her sister and Maggie on their knees inside the hedge close to the fence line.

  ‘Look what I found,’ said Maggie with a sly smile. The barbed-wire fence ran flush all the way along the other side of the hedge; many of the hedge’s branches were so entangled with the wire it was as if hedge and fence were becoming one – except where Maggie had found a hole. It was a crude semicircle snipped out with wire-cutters to provide access to the hospital grounds.

  ‘This is where the guys sneak out at night when they get bored. And it’s where we can sneak in.’

  Lottie’s face went as white as a sheet. ‘We can’t go in there. They have guns. It’s forbidden.’

  ‘Don’t be such a baby!’ teased Maggie. ‘They’re not going to eat you. They’re really nice.’

  ‘You mean you’ve been in here before?’ asked Monz, torn between her sister’s fear and Maggie’s boldness. She felt bad for Lottie but she also felt her heart begin to race with excitement. Men with guns. Soldiers. Americans.

  A memory surfaced briefly of her mother tucking them into bed one night, her lipstick smudged and her face a little blurry from one too many glasses of champagne. She was all dressed up for a party and she looked beautiful as always but her mouth betrayed a touch of sadness. ‘Be careful, my darlings,’ she murmured softly to them as if uttering bedtime prayers. ‘Beware of men. They are dangerous.’

  Maggie crouched down low and wriggled her way under the wire. Lottie began to tremble but Monz grabbed her hand and squeezed it hard. ‘It’ll be okay. Trust me.’ And she dragged her timid older sister after her through the gap.

  On the far side they were blinded for a moment in the sun. In the distance Monz could hear loud voices and rough laughter. There were figures moving about, up on the terrace, shouting. Soldiers. Jap-killers. Yanks.

  Maggie scurried along the inside of the fence for a few yards and then stood up. Beside her Monz could now clearly see the men in their red dressing gowns, smoking in deckchairs in the sunshine. Maggie waved and called. One of the men waved back and gave a piercing whistle. ‘Hey there, sweetheart!’

  ‘Come and meet Larry,’ Maggie said, smiling at Monika with an air of such supreme worldliness it made her feel hopelessly naive. ‘He’s from Chicago. His brother was a war hero who was killed at Pearl Harbor and got his face printed on a box of sweets. Larry’ll show you. He might even give you some chewie, if you’re really nice.’

  Monz felt her pulse throb and the blood rush into her cheeks. Their father would be furious if he knew what they were about to do. Lottie shook her head violently but Monz chided her. ‘Come on, silly. They’re not allowed to hurt us. They’re our friends.’ Lottie looked as if she was about to cry. ‘Just for a few minutes, alright?’

  The three girls dashed up the slope to the terrace, crouching behind the Italian balustrade so as not to attract attention from anyone in the building. It was obvious that Maggie was a frequent visitor and knew her way about. When they arrived on the terrace, several men hailed her with big smiles and loud, twangy voices.

  ‘Well, look who we have here!’ exclaimed a short muscular man with a shaved, bandaged head, blowing blue smoke from his nostrils. ‘What’s buzzin’, cousin? Who are these two pretty dolls – friends of yours?’ The man had shocking pink lips like the inner flesh of some peeled fruit.

  Lottie whispered urgently to her sister, ‘We should go.’

  ‘Now don’cha go looking so worried, toots,’ said another patient, a taller man with his left arm in a sling and his right forearm covered in tattoos. ‘Old chrome-dome here looks a helluva lot scarier than he is. Just a big pussycat ain’t ya, Sarge?’

  ‘Hi Larry,’ Maggie purred at the short sergeant with the bandaged head who the Fox girls then realised must be her ‘squeeze’. ‘These are my two girlfriends, Monz and Lottie.’

  ‘Well, it’s a privilege and an honour, ma’am,’ said Larry, rising from his deckchair and saluting them both with an exaggerated theatricality. Monz could not decide if he was mocking or sincere. ‘Fancy a stick of Wrigley’s?’

  The other men chuckled in a manner not altogether pleasant as the soldier fished a packet of gum out of the pocket of his gown and waggled it at the two girls like a man offering a treat to a dog.

  Monz felt light-headed. Her brain hummed with fear, excitement, curiosity. She breathed in the male odours of tobacco, sweat, aftershave and Lifebuoy soap. These creatures had the whitest teeth she had ever seen. They swaggered and rolled on the balls of their feet. Their biceps bulged impressively. Their big-knuckled hands had fired machine-guns and thrown grenades and thrust bayonets into the bellies and faces of Japs.

  She took a step towards the grinning sergeant and accepted the stick of gum with a formal ‘Thank you, sir’. A step closer and she was inside the cloud of blue smoke from his cigarette. He was as smooth as a bar of soap, no hairs on his arms or hands, and she could see every curve of muscle under his skin.

  ‘You girls come over here to party?’ said a man with an oily leer and pockmarked cheeks. ‘We like to party, don’t we, boys? It’s kinda boring here all day.’

  Maggie did not seem concerned by the fact that more and more men were joining them on the terrace, one or two hobbling on crutches, others trailing IV drips on mobile stands. She was too busy laughing at one of Larry’s jokes and fiddling with her hair. She even took a drag on his Lucky Strike and blew smoke out of her nose. What a show-off. What would Mrs M. say if she could see this!

  ‘You ever met a Yank before?’ asked the leering man, flashing his white teeth at the two Fox girls. Monz shook her head. ‘Well, we’re not so different to your Diggers – ’cept we’re better looking and better paid!’

  ‘That’s right!’ laughed the man with the sling. ‘And we’re here to protect you, ain’t we, Sarge? You Australian dolls have nothing to fear now the Yanks are here.’

  Monz’s face flushed. She might have been disappointed in the less-than-martial bearing of the Australian soldiers she had seen honeymooning at the Palace, but she was incensed by this kind of talk. Men she knew from Meadow Springs were fighting in New Guinea right now or languishing in Changi, like Maggie’s brother Roger. For all his admiration of Americans, even her father snorted derisively whenever Jack Davey’s song ‘Mister Doughboy’ came on the radio praising the ‘Stars and Stripes’ for helping save the ‘Union Jack’.

  Last year Monika had seen the newsreel Kokoda Front Line! at the Embassy. She had felt proud and moved by the images of Australian soldiers slogging up jungle tracks, still managing a smile and wave at the camera despite the exhaustion etched in their gaunt faces after weeks of combat.

  ‘We don’t need your protection, thank you,’ said Monz fiercely, her face burning as she fumbled with the packet of gum, wondering how the bandaged soldier would react if she handed it back.

  Maggie rolled her eyes and swore. ‘Christ Almighty, Monz! There’s no need to be so bloody rude!’

  ‘Aw, now look what you’ve gone and done,’ said Larry, wagging his finger at his fellow patient. ‘Say you’re sorry, fat-head, before I bust your lip!’

  Monz could tell the soldiers were making fun of her. She hated them for it. It was not just her patriotism that made her angry. The real reason was that these men excited and frightened her at the same time. She felt dizzy in their presence. Her p
rissiness was a pathetic attempt to resist their spell. Lottie tugged at her hand impatiently. Monz was just about to retreat when she saw something over Larry’s shoulder that rooted her to the spot.

  At the far end of the terrace, near what had once been the hydrotherapy clinic, was a half-open door. Monz had a clear view of the stairwell inside leading to one of the wards. She could see a woman talking to a tall man in uniform, probably one of the medical officers from the hospital. He was handsome, that was obvious even from this distance. Broad brow, square shoulders, blue eyes and short, fair hair. The woman stood close to him and touched him on the arm in a manner that spoke of intimacy and ease. A slim, off-white rectangle of paper, probably an envelope, passed from her hand to his. She wore the sky-blue uniform of a VAD nurse and her laughter was as clear and throaty as the call of a currawong. Monika knew that laugh.

  It was Laura.

  Monz knew at once that something was dreadfully wrong. Beware of men. They are dangerous. That’s what her mother had said. But she did not look afraid of this man. Quite the opposite.

  Monz glanced back at Lottie and hoped that her sister was too distracted to notice. Her own throat had gone dry and she realised her greatest fear was that Papa could arrive at any moment and see his beautiful young wife laughing and smiling and touching this other man so intimately. An American.

  That must not happen. It would be the end of her father. The end of their family. The end of everything.

  ‘Thanks for the gum. We have to go now,’ said Monz and began walking away quickly towards the hedge with Lottie in tow, ignoring Maggie’s protests.