Thorn on the Rose

by Joy Dettman

  ‘The little girls you sew for, are they nieces?’

  ‘They’re little mistakes, Myrt. Granny has — Granny and her adopted daughter have more or less raised them.’

  ‘You said once that she’d raised you?’

  ‘Since I was fourteen.’

  ‘Is your sister still living with her?’

  ‘She’s in Melbourne with Dad’s relatives — most of the time.’

  ‘You must miss her.’ Jenny shook her head and reached for one of the pieces of fabric. ‘My brother moved to New Zealand five years ago. I still miss him,’ Myrtle said.

  ‘I don’t miss her. She’s one of the sisters in the tale of Cinderella.’ She placed two matching pieces of fabric together and began to join them, her needle flying. Jimmy wanted to climb up, to see what she was doing, so Myrtle lifted him, her heart content with that boy in her arms.

  ‘You’re the fairy godmother in the story,’ Jenny continued. ‘Mine and Jimmy’s.’

  ‘What a lovely thing to say.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘Does your aunt have her own children?’

  ‘Elsie? She’s not my aunt. And she’s got six — her four, plus two of her sister’s. Have you got children, Myrt?’

  The smell of hot biscuits saved Myrtle from replying. They were done, and Jimmy wanted one. Jenny slid two onto a plate and broke them into small pieces, waving a piece to cool it, then popping it too soon into his open mouth. Myrtle flinched, knowing it was too hot. But it wasn’t. Not for Jimmy. He wanted more.

  ‘I imagine sometimes what it must have been like for your kids growing up in this house with a fairy godmother,’ Jenny said popping a second portion of biscuit into Jimmy’s waiting mouth.

  ‘I can’t have children, Jenny,’ Myrtle said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jenny said.

  For twenty years, Myrtle had felt sorry for herself. Her brother had two sons. Her sister-in-law had five children. Friends and neighbours had children. Twenty years ago, she’d called many in this street her friends. Not now. She’d cut her ties with those who had been blessed.

  Amberley had always been her home. When she’d wed, she’d moved from her virginal room into a larger room, with a double bed, so certain that children would be born of her love for Robert.

  Such a protected life she’d led until her father had taken his life. Gone for a walk one night and hadn’t returned.

  That terrible funeral. That terrible awakening to reality.

  He’d borrowed a fortune to play the stock market, and while shares had continued to rise, he’d done well. But what goes up must come down. He’d lost his business; he’d mortgaged the house to pay his broker.

  They thought they’d lose Amberley. If not for Robert, they would have lost it. Myrtle had not been raised to work, but she’d been educated, and had applied to the education department for a teaching position. But one wage earner in the family was considered to be enough back in those bad times — and under normal circumstances Robert’s wage would have been enough.

  Their circumstances had not been normal. Richard, Myrtle’s brother, was in his second year at the university and was not prepared to give up his studies. His car had to go. The maids, the yard man had to go. Jewellery was sold for a mere fraction of its true value, as were paintings and furniture. A terrible year, 1930, and all of their economies and Robert’s wage, his meagre savings, barely keeping the bank from the door.

  It was Robert who had suggested taking in a paying guest. Miss Robertson, one of his teaching colleagues, recently arrived from England, had been seeking more genteel accommodation than that found for her by the education department. She’d moved into an upstairs room and been no trouble at all, so they’d taken in a second teacher, Mr Fitzpatrick, then a third and fourth, Mrs Collins, a widow, and her fourteen-year-old son.

  By 1934, all six of the upstairs bedrooms had been let. They’d provided full board, their paying guests eating each night with the family. Not an ideal situation, but one did what one had to do.

  In ’35, Richard followed a New Zealand girl home; they’d had a hurried little wedding and a son born too soon. Myrtle’s mother hadn’t lived to meet that tiny boy. Amberley, left jointly to the siblings, was valued, and mortgaged again to pay out Richard’s share.

  They’d borrowed again in ’37, and used that money to turn the small sunroom into a private kitchen, the study into a bathroom, while the large dining room became their private parlour, the parlour their bedroom. They had a door installed in the passage so they might close their rooms off from the rest of the house. Gave the old kitchen over to the lodgers. Two or three had not appreciated fending for themselves; they’d found alternative accommodation; their rooms had soon been let.

  With her private door locked, Myrtle saw little of her lodgers. She opened the old serving hatch between the lodgers’ kitchen and her parlour each Friday, made change there, signed rent books, then closed it. She employed a woman and her daughter to clean on Monday mornings and to make up the lodgers’ beds with clean linen. A laundry van collected the soiled linen on Tuesday mornings and returned it on Fridays. She sorted the mail, took the occasional telephone message, packed the clean linen away.

  They’d applied to adopt late in ‘37, through the church and been told it would be only a matter of time before an infant was placed into her arms. Happy, hopeful years.

  Then came the war.

  Robert had seen action during the first war, and when it was over he’d spent twelve months in France and Germany. The army needed experienced men. His name had come up on some file and he hadn’t argued. She’d wanted him to argue, had begged him to argue; she’d told him that at forty he was too old to go.

  He’d considered it his duty.

  Hang duty, she’d said.

  Lonely weeks, lonely, fearful years — before Jenny and Jimmy came to fill her days. She should have encouraged that girl to return home to her family. Instead, she’d encouraged her to stay.

  A godmother, she’d said, a fairy godmother. What a lovely thing to say.

  ‘ . . . involved in the fighting, Myrt?’

  Myrtle gathered her thoughts. ‘Robert? I don’t know, pet. He writes that he has seen little action.’

  ‘I would have thought he’d be too old to be called up — not that he’s old . . .’

  ‘I attempted to convince him that he was very, very old, but to no avail. Men have this . . . this feeling that it is their duty to fight in wartime.’

  ‘They change duty to suit the situation,’ Jenny said. ‘A while ago it was a woman’s duty to stay home and look after the kids. Now it’s their duty to man the factories and equip our valiant fighting men. Keep the home fires burning, while two hearts are yearning, turn the dark clouds inside out till the boys come home . . .’ Jenny sang, then snipped a thread, and slipped it through the eye of her needle. ‘But you wait, Myrt, just wait until it’s over and we’ll be back to having a baby every year so they’ll have an army ready to die in the next war.’ She tied a knot in the thread, began to stitch. ‘I’m never, not as long as I live, ever having another baby.’

  She was a child, and a jaded old woman. There were too many facets to Jenny; they blinded the eye to the flaws that lay beneath the surface. They were there. At times Myrtle glimpsed them, but fleetingly.

  My darling Robert,

  Mr Howard has informed me that he will be moving out in July. He’s marrying a widow with three children! I would never have thought it of him. To me he has always epitomised the confirmed bachelor. He has been with us for over three years and I believed we’d have him for many more.

  Given the current housing situation, I dare say it would be selfish not to re-let his room, but I have this awful fear of allowing an unknown male the freedom of my house. How I wish you were here to advise me. I have considered moving Jenny downstairs and offering her full board. She has become to me a favourite niece. This would allow me to put a female lodger into number five. With Jimmy now spen
ding most of his nights with me, she’d manage well enough in one of the smaller rooms . . .

  When would it end? Where would it end? The Allies were making headway, so it seemed. Mussolini, Italy’s leader, had been overthrown and imprisoned. Myrtle followed the war news, in the newspaper and on the radio, but there were so few details. Perhaps the government, like Robert, believed in protecting those at home from the horror of war.

  My darling Robert,

  The world is certainly changing. Two women have been elected to the federal parliament, an Enid Lyons and a Dorothy Tangney. I dare say it was only a matter of time. With so many women, the married and unmarried, holding down important positions, I cannot help but wonder what will happen when the men come home. Shall Enid and Dorothy each be given an apron and sent back to their kitchens?

  In September, the Italian government, which had been fighting with Germany, signed a truce with the Allies. Then, on the third of October, they declared war on their old allies. There was no understanding the minds of men.

  MOSCOW TALKS MARK BIG STEP TO VICTORY the newspaper headlines howled. THE FOREIGN SECRETARIES FROM ENGLAND, AMERICA AND RUSSIA MEET.

  And while they spent twelve days sitting around talking in southern Russia, German troops abandoned their equipment in their haste to retreat.

  GERMANS CUT TO PIECES WHEN RUSSIANS SWOOP.

  How did anyone visualise that? How could anyone begin to imagine what it was like for those boys? Better not to think about it.

  My dear boy has been with me until tonight. Jenny had an engagement with Mr Whiteford and his band on Saturday night. We allowed her to sleep in this morning . . .

  THE YANKS

  For a month Jenny carried Gertrude’s ten-pound money order around in her handbag, and like the seeds Granny planted in the garden, it had taken root and grown. As with many raised during the depression, Jenny had rarely found two pennies to rub together. It was coming in from everywhere now.

  On three Saturday nights in a row, Wilfred and his band had parties, then two Fridays in a row the Yanks’ boats were in.

  And she was making good money at the factory. The forewoman had moved her from the bench machine to one of the big seamers. Everyone had wanted that seamer. Trina, the girl who had been on it, had made a fortune on piecework, and the seamers were always the first asked to do overtime.

  She’d paid back the ten pounds of Jim’s she’d withdrawn from the bank; now every week or two the total of her own money in there grew. At night, when she sat alone, she worked out on paper how many weeks’ rent she had in the bank, how many weeks’ food. She’d bought an account book like Norman’s, in which every purchase was listed, just as Norman had listed his purchases.

  July: New walking shoes. Repairs to old walking shoes.

  August: Grey checked double bed blanket. Buttons for the blanket overcoat.

  Everyone was wearing blanket coats. Clothing coupons were required for ready-made clothing but not for household goods. She’d borrowed the pattern for a blue blanket shortie jacket from Selma, the girl on the other seamer, and later made her own pattern for a matching coat for Jimmy. He looked so smart and grown up in it, she wasted money on a professional photographer, who took a few shots of him standing alone and one shot of mother and son together. It was the best one, or maybe she thought it was the best one because he looked the image of her around the eyes and nose and brow. Even Lila said so.

  Lila had fixed on Jenny as her bosom friend — during working hours. Jenny enjoyed her companionship — during working hours. She knew the names of most of the girls, knew some better than others. Norma was Lila’s cousin, Barbara was Norma’s best friend. Selma and Betty stuck together, as did Joan and Lois. So many girls, so many cliques, so many stories.

  Norma and Barbara liked the Yanks. They came to work on Mondays with packets of Yank chewing gum.

  ‘They’ll get more than chewing gum from them if they’re not careful,’ Lila said. ‘They’ll end up with VD.’

  A school of learning, that factory. ‘What’s VD?’

  ‘A sex disease. They go to hotels with them.’

  ‘They don’t!’

  ‘They do so. And you know Trina from the seamer? Barbara reckons she’s had a half-black baby.’

  ‘She didn’t!’

  ‘Barbara says so.’

  ‘Has she seen it?’

  ‘She didn’t keep it, you ratbag. She had it at some Salvo home and left it there.’

  The factory was full of Yank tales. A dead girl was found in a culvert out at Parramatta, and it was blamed on the Yanks.

  ‘Never let them buy you a drink. I heard about a woman who they drugged and had their way with.’

  ‘I saw two white girls getting into a taxi with half a dozen of them nigger Yanks.’

  August 1943

  Dear Granny,

  The Yanks were in on Friday. I’m enclosing ten bob for you to buy something for the girls from me and Jimmy . . .

  Dear Jenny,

  Mr Foster asked after you today and he said to tell you that he had a letter from Mary Jolly and that she asked him to pass on her regards.

  You’d remember Mrs Bryant — Nancy, I used to call her. She died suddenly last weekend. It was unexpected though maybe it shouldn’t have been. She lost her husband three months ago and those two lived for each other.

  Georgina is growing very leggy. She’s a good inch taller than Margot. I don’t need to write that they’ve forgotten who you are and I doubt it’s much use telling you to come home, or telling you that we don’t need your money. Put it in the bank . . .

  Dear Granny,

  I’m putting plenty in the bank, and it’s the best feeling I’ve had in my life. The weeks go so fast. It’s no sooner Monday than its payday again and I get no time to spend it. I made a pile last week and I haven’t had time to get near a bank. I worked from eight to eight, Monday to Thursday, and could have worked late on Friday if not for the club, which was bedlam.

  You know how a plague of grasshoppers will go for anything green? Well the Yanks swarm off their boats and go after anything wearing a skirt, and they don’t care if she’s already with a bloke. Most of them can dance so a lot of the girls like dancing with them. The Aussie blokes who can’t, or won’t, dance take offence, then it’s on for young and old. The MPs dragged a dozen blokes out of the club last Friday but we made a fortune in tips. We always do when the Yanks are in.

  It’s sad about Mrs Bryant. I liked her. She always spoke to me in town. She used to bring in cream and things when I was a kid. Say hello to Mr Foster for me and ask . . .

  Ask him for Mary’s address?

  She chewed at the end of her pen, imagined writing again to Mary Jolly, receiving letters from her addressed to Cara Jeanette Paris. She’d loved the pretence of her childhood pseudonym, had loved weaving Cara’s fictional life for Mary. It had been like reading a never-ending book. She could do it again. She could tell her she’d married and was living with her in-laws in a Sydney harbourside mansion. She could tell Mary to address her letters to Mrs Jim Hooper.

  No. She wasn’t a kid, living in a pretend world — and she wasn’t going to use Jim’s name in some childish game either. One day, one fine day when the war was over, when Jim . . . when the world got back on track, then she’d get Mary’s address and knock on her door.

  . . . ask Mr Foster to pass on my regards to Mary. Tell him to tell her that I think about her often.

  I’m sending you a photograph of me and Jimmy and one of Jimmy you can give to Maisy to give to Margaret Hooper, and ask Maisy to ask her if they’ve heard anything at all about Jim because I don’t trust Vern . . .

  In November, Jenny bought three yards of the prettiest shot taffeta. It was blue, but with a green and purple sheen to it. It reminded her of the colour of the old ball gown. She made it up to wear to Barbara’s twenty-first birthday party. Everyone was dressing up for it.

  Dear Jenny,

  I ran into Sissy in town today. S
he told me she was home for Christmas. I don’t suppose we can expect you home . . .

  Dear Granny,

  Coming home would mean two days of travelling to get there and two days to get back, and I’m singing over Christmas and New Year anyway. I’m posting a few things for the girls. Tell them they are from Santa Claus . . .

  She shouted herself a haircut for her twentieth birthday and watched every snip of the scissors, directing the hairdresser to cut her hair the way Granny had cut it, short, like a boy’s, at the sides and back, but full on top.

  Twenty had seemed much older when she was fifteen. Now that she was there, it still seemed too young. Maybe next year, when she was twenty-one, she’d feel older.

  Jimmy, grown from baby to little boy in Sydney, had never had a boy’s haircut. She sat him in the chair when her hair was done, and Jimmy had his first professional trim. It made him look older, less like her, but more like Jim.

  Her birthday fell on a Friday, on club night. Needing to mark it in some way, she wore her shot taffeta with her pearl-in-a-cage earrings and new black high-heeled shoes. She powdered her nose, painted her mouth, lengthened her eyebrows just a little. Wilfred told her she looked as pretty as a picture.

  It was the wrong night to dress up. The Yanks were in, packs of them in naval uniforms. They were from a different planet; they spoke a different breed of English, had names no self-respecting Australian would tolerate: Hank, Joe Junior, Billy-Bob, Whit-worth , Chuck, Link. Most of them looked like kids, many younger than she. She sang their requests, jitterbugged twice with Billy-Bob, a baby-faced kid who looked sixteen. His mates said he could sing. So she sang a song with him — which was a mistake. She couldn’t get rid him.

  ‘That’s my little boy,’ she said, flashing her photographs when her wedding ring didn’t work. He wasn’t interested in photographs of two-year-old boys. He told her his boat was leaving in the morning, that he had to get back to it tonight.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. And just to get rid of Billy-Bob, she danced with Hank, who was more dangerous. The short hairs on the back of her neck told her so — and told her not to drink the lemon squash he bought for her. It was still sitting on the piano at midnight when Billy-Bob wanted a kiss for the New Year.