Mrs Freeman crossed the newsroom to Frances and Maggie. ‘What about you two? What’s happened in general news?’
Maggie butted out her Woodbine. ‘This yarn about Ethel Livesey is only getting more interesting. So, she cancels her lavish wedding here in Sydney two weeks ago and then disappears off the face of the earth. The coppers think she might be in Adelaide and that she might know something about a certain Mrs Florence Elizabeth Ethel Gardiner, alias Anderson, alias Stevens Lockwood, who absconded from bail back in ’33 while waiting to answer charges of false pretences.’
‘Intriguing,’ Mrs Freeman murmured. ‘This Mrs Livesey … isn’t she the cotton heiress who was supposed to marry the man from the Treasury? Beech?’
‘That’s right,’ Maggie nodded excitedly. Prickles rose on the back of Tilly’s neck. She wished she’d been in a position to chase that story. It sounded like a cracker of a yarn.
‘Kitty Darling wrote it up in Talk of the Town. Five hundred guests. Something about changing the venue from Woollahra to the Australia Hotel because all the publicity had made her ill?’
‘It seems Mrs Ethel Livesey and this Gardiner Anderson Lockwood woman might be one and the same.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Mrs Freeman shook her head. ‘Poor Mr Beech.’
Mrs Freeman went to Frances’s desk. ‘Frances?’
‘I have a cracker here, Mrs Freeman. Upstairs says I’ve got page five. A fellow posed as a war correspondent …’ Frances waited for the laughter and it came heartily. Which of their male colleagues upstairs had he impersonated? ‘He proposes to this young lass and then not only does he steal her trousseau, but it turns out he has a wife and child.’
‘Vile!’ Vera shouted.
‘Off with his head!’ Maggie laughed.
‘He told the poor woman that he’d covered the war for the American Associated Press and he convinced her to sell her frock shop before they got married. So he not only gets the proceeds from that, but a diamond ring worth eighty pounds and all the furniture she moved out of her flat.’
‘What a devil,’ Tilly said to herself as she thought of Martha and her husband’s betrayal.
‘Keep at it, girls. Well done.’
Mrs Freeman returned to her office and Tilly couldn’t shake the guilty feeling she’d had a narrow escape.
Chapter Thirty-One
‘Do you think three chooks will be enough?’ Elsie stood by her kitchen table, which was groaning with the dressed birds, peeled potatoes ready for boiling, a bowl of shelled peas, and turnips and half a pumpkin ready to go in the wood stove with the chicken. ‘There’s a glut because of the coal strikes so I nabbed an extra two for cheap.’
Martha elbowed Tilly in the side. ‘Lucky there’s a strike on, hey? How many of us are there? Mum and Dad, me and the boys. That’s six.’
‘Mary and Bert and me. That’s nine.’ Tilly cleared her throat. ‘Oh, and Cooper. That makes ten.’
Martha whistled low. ‘George Cooper, hey?’
Tilly’s face heated. ‘Oh, stop.’
‘For goodness sake, Tilly. It hasn’t been half obvious. Well, at least to those of us who want to see it.’ Martha nudged her sister playfully. ‘Of course, the wilfully blind might not have noticed.’
Tilly huffed. ‘He only landed back in the country yesterday and he couldn’t get a seat on a train to Canberra to see his father—it’s hell getting a train anywhere at the moment—so I invited him here. If that’s all right with you.’ The idea of letting Cooper spend Christmas alone was unthinkable to Tilly. How could she explain to Martha how close they’d become in the past few months? Martha had had her own troubles to contend with—not to mention her boys—and hadn’t needed to be burdened with Tilly’s. Mary was struggling with Bert, and Elsie had been looking after her husband and the whole neighbourhood, from what Tilly had heard. Cooper had devoted every spare minute he had to being her confidante, her company, her refuge in the storm that had been raging all around her. With Cooper, she had felt she was in the eye of it. Safe.
Elsie exhaled and surveyed the table. ‘I don’t think we have enough plum pudding.’
Martha slipped an arm around her mother’s shoulders. ‘Of course there’s enough plum pudding, Mum. It’s going to be a feast.’
Elsie and her daughters had spent the morning cleaning the house and preparing for lunch. Martha’s boys had been warned to be on their best behaviour and had been banished upstairs to their bedroom to read quietly while all the preparations were underway. Tilly had brought her father a copy of the day before’s paper and had taken it upstairs to him when she’d arrived.
She’d tried to hide her shock at his appearance, as he lay under a knitted blanket on his bed. He’d seemed shrunken and pale yet had still managed to give her a warm smile.
‘Tilly girl. Merry Christmas.’
She’d gone to him, kissed his cheek and lingered there. ‘Hello, Dad. Thought you might like to read Chifley’s message to members of the Labor Party. Here,’ she gave him the folded newspaper. ‘Page three.’
‘Thank you. The capitalist press running a message to members of the Labor Party? Well, well, well.’
‘And I see that power restrictions have been lifted for today.’
He’d cocked an eyebrow. ‘Funny about that.’
Tilly had laughed. ‘See you downstairs for lunch. Everything’s almost done. You won’t need to lift a finger.’
‘I wouldn’t want to get in the way of my girls.’ And when he winked, Tilly saw a hint of the man he used to be, of the man he still was. And she thought of all the good men she knew, of whom he was the best of all.
By midday, the table was set, every spare chair in the house was crowded around it and Bernard, Brian and Terry were hovering, as anxious as labradors who’d sniffed out a bone. Tilly had put some finishing touches on the Christmas tree in the corner—a new angel for the very top branch—and hoped the boys would be able to resist tugging at the little wooden trains she’d bought new this year just for them and the paper lanterns she’d made from instructions in the Women’s Weekly. They didn’t have sparkling gold and silver baubles or fancy tinsel—they never had—but it didn’t matter. Under the tree, a pile of presents wrapped in brown paper and tied with string were already tempting small and curious hands and Stan had warned the boys from them more than once.
Just as Tilly checked the time, she heard Mary calling from the street. She looked up to see Mary and Bert descending the steps and she rushed to the door, quickly glancing at Bert to judge his mood. His wide smile was a relief. He held a bottle of champagne in one hand and his hat in the other.
‘Merry Christmas, Tilly!’ Mary cried and threw her arms around her friend.
‘And to you. How was Melbourne?’
‘We had a wonderful time, although we started to panic at the thought we might not get a train home. But we’re here now.’
‘Merry Christmas, Tilly.’ Bert stepped forward and kissed Tilly politely on the cheek before giving her the bottle.
‘And you, Bert. Thank you for this. Mum, look. Champagne.’
Mary stepped forward. ‘Hello, Mrs Bell. This is my husband, Bert. Bert, Mrs Bell. It’s just lovely of you to have us here for Christmas. Thank you.’
Elsie was chuffed. ‘The more the merrier, I say.’
As they hugged each other hello and shook hands, Tilly put the champagne in the icebox. There was so much commotion going on all around her, exclamations and cheerios, that when she felt a hand on her shoulder she startled.
And when she turned, the sight of Cooper made her heart swell. He was there, exactly how he’d promised he would be. Home for Christmas.
‘You made it.’
‘I wouldn’t have missed it.’ His blue eyes sparkled like the harbour.
It was so good to see him and the realisation about just how good was a surprise. His cheeks were smooth and his hair freshly cut. He looked as handsome as ever in his navy pinstripe suit and his smile was exactly what she needed
to see. And just like that, the tension eased out of her. He was safe. He was home. He was here.
‘Safe trip back?’
He nodded. ‘The Indonesians say hello, by the way.’
Tilly chuckled. ‘There’s a certain father of mine who’ll no doubt interrogate you for all the latest news from Batavia.’
‘I look forward to it.’
‘He’s upstairs at the moment. He’ll be down shortly.’
They looked at each other for the longest time, a silent understanding passing between them. They had both made it to the end of the year. He was safe and she had survived the deepest loss. In that moment, she realised that there had been no one more steadfast, after her parents and sister and Mary, than this man.
‘Well … Merry Christmas, Mrs Galloway.’
‘Merry Christmas, Cooper,’ she replied, wrapping her arms around herself to quell the almost irresistible urge to cling to him.
He cocked his head at the paper bag in his arms. ‘Where can I put this?’
She’d barely registered that he was holding anything. Tilly stepped in closer, pressed her palms against his biceps and went up on tiptoes. ‘What’s in there?’
He peered inside. ‘MacRobertson’s chocolate. Some Pascall fruit bonbons and lemonade for Martha’s boys. A bottle of whisky for your father in the hope he’ll pour one for me. And … some other things.’
Tilly kept her hands on him but met his gaze. ‘Anything for me?’
Before he could answer, Mary was beside Tilly. Tilly lowered her hands and stepped back.
‘Merry Christmas, George. It’s so lovely to see you. You remember Bert?’
‘Of course I do. Merry Christmas, digger.’
Half an hour later, with the boys so ravenous they were about to gnaw off their own arms, Christmas lunch began. Stan sat at the head of the table, Elsie at the other end. Martha and her boys were along one side, and Bert, Mary, Tilly and Cooper were on the other. Tilly had strategically placed Cooper next to her father, a move that was keeping the both of them highly entertained.
Between them all, the vegetables were steaming and the roast chickens’ delectable scent filled the room.
Elsie cleared her throat. ‘Stan?’
‘Yes, love?’
‘You were going to say a few words?’
As Stan slowly rose to his feet, Tilly whispered in Mary’s ear, ‘Sorry about grace, Mary.’
Mary whispered back. ‘I prayed in church this morning. I don’t mind.’
‘Well.’ Stan looked at each of his guests in turn, respectfully and considerately, welcoming them to his table and his home and to the embrace of his family. A wink at his wife. A smile at Martha and Tilly, a salute to Bert and Mary, a lift of his chin to Cooper and a cheeky grin for his grandsons. ‘Welcome to you all and thank you for sharing our table today. We’ve had six Christmases at war. It’s hard to think about that, isn’t it? And finally we have peace.’
‘Amen,’ Mary whispered under her breath.
‘The world has come through a time of terrible darkness. Our country has made enormous sacrifices to secure victory over the Germans and the Japanese. So has our own family. Boys, your father served for four years. Bravely.’
Across the table, Bernard, Brian and Terry looked solemnly at their grandfather. Terry turned to his mother and whispered, ‘Is Daddy coming home soon, Mummy?’
‘Soon, sweetheart,’ Martha replied, biting her lip, her eyes filling with tears.
‘And, of course, Archie. We mourn our son-in-law. We will never forget him.’
Tilly breathed deep as grief rolled over her in a wave. ‘Thank you, Dad.’ Under the table, there was a hand on hers. She looked down. Cooper.
‘We thank Bert Smith for his service and for his courage in enduring the Japanese.’ Bert nodded his thanks and Mary sniffed.
‘Elsie. You’ve been a rock all these years. I couldn’t have married a better woman.’ Tilly could see by the tears welling in her mother’s eyes that she knew how much this man loved her and appreciated her. It wasn’t the first time Tilly thought how lucky she was to have been born to Stan and Elsie; how privileged she was to be their daughter, to have seen a love like theirs up close, to have been nourished and sent out into the world with the expectation of what she should strive for.
‘And let’s not forget we lost a prime minister in our John Curtin. He was the best of Labor men. He stood up to Churchill and MacArthur and was worn out by the burden of what he asked our young boys to do for their country.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Elsie said quietly.
Stan pulled back his shoulders and his voice grew louder. ‘Our losses can only make us more aware of the losses of others in this war. The Londoners during the Blitz. The millions and millions of people in Europe crushed by Nazism. Those of the Jewish faith singled out by Hitler. And yes, those killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They all made the ultimate sacrifice for warmongering men. To them we say, we will never forget.’
‘Hear, hear.’ Tilly pushed back her chair and got to her feet. All around her, the scrape of chairs and the shuffle of feet. ‘To Archie.’
‘To Archie,’ everyone called in response.
‘To my family,’ Elsie said through her sobs. ‘The most precious things in the world to me.’
‘And to friends,’ Tilly added. ‘May the new year bring you hope.’
The adults clinked their glasses and the boys spilled their lemonade as they copied the move. Martha didn’t fuss. Not today.
And as Bert offered to carve the first chicken, as Mary passed the plates around the table and Bernard poured the gravy, Tilly finally felt a flicker of hope, of the possibility of a new beginning in the first year of peace, and a surge of love for the people in her life who had helped her through.
She felt a light shining down on her, as if she was out in the bright summer sunshine, and it warmed her heart. Her Christmas wish for everyone at the table was that it would shine just as brightly for them, too.
After lunch, Tilly took charge of washing the dishes while everyone else scattered to the four winds with satisfied appetites and Christmas cheer on their faces. The boys had raced to the tree and Martha had skipped after them. It had been a long while since Tilly had seen her sister smile so broadly. After the excitement of his speech and the dinner conversation, during which, just as Tilly had predicted, Stan had launched into a deep discussion with Cooper about Batavia and the Indonesian Independence movement, he was now resting on the couch. Mary and Bert were in the stairwell which led from the kitchen up to the street, deep in conversation, the puffs of smoke from Bert’s pipe curling up to join the clouds in the sky above. Beside her, Cooper was drying the dishes she was stacking on the draining board.
He’d offered to help her and she hadn’t brushed him off. She had wanted to have him to herself for a moment and, anyway, men could wipe as well as women, couldn’t they?
‘I think your father likes me,’ he said with a grin as he ran a tea towel over a saucepan and set it on the wood stove. His smile made the corners of his eyes crinkle and the colour shine bluer than she’d ever seen.
‘Did he ask you about the Indonesians? About Soekarno and the People’s Army?’
‘Of course he did. He has some interesting views about colonialism and the Dutch. Can’t say I disagree with him, actually. The Indonesians led the fight against the Japanese in their own country and then we expect them to welcome their colonial masters back again? Not likely.’
‘I knew he would. When are you going back?’ Tilly tried to make it sound like an innocent question. It wasn’t. She had missed Cooper and would have to steel herself against missing him again if he was heading overseas for another posting. There had been talk at the paper, according to Maggie and Frances, that the newspaper’s postings in London and Tokyo were open. The reconstruction in Japan was expected to take years and there had already been talk that a British Commonwealth Occupation Force, comprising some Australian troops, would be established i
n Hiroshima. And where the army went, a war correspondent was sure to follow.
‘I have news on that score.’
Tilly shot a look at him. Her heart sank.
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘You didn’t get London or Tokyo?’
‘I told Sinclair I didn’t want to go. I withdrew.’
‘When?’
‘Yesterday, when I got back.’
‘Why?’
‘Aunty Tilly.’ Three pairs of arms were suddenly around her waist and she turned, her hands dripping water on three blond heads.
‘Thank you for the book,’ Terry said earnestly. ‘I haven’t read The Magic Pudding.’
‘Glad to hear it. And what about you, Brian? Have you read Seven Little Australians? It’s about mischievous children. I thought it was right up your alley.’
‘I haven’t but does this mean I have to now?’ he moaned.
Tilly pretended to cuff him under the chin. ‘Yes it does. Reading makes you smart.’
Bernard sidled up to his aunt. ‘Thank you for the book about the robbers,’ he said, somewhat sullen.
She turned to Cooper. ‘Robbery Under Arms.’ And then back to Bernard. ‘I thought you might like to read about a bushranger. His name is Captain Starlight.’
‘A bushranger?’ Bernard’s eyes widened and he darted back to the Christmas tree.
‘There are presents here for you, Tilly,’ Elsie called and Tilly untied her apron. Cooper followed her into the living room and past the piles of brown paper and string covering the floor. Stan was already sniffing his bottle of whisky; Elsie was smoothing Tilly’s gift of Helena Rubinstein Pasteurised Face Cream on her neck, and Martha seemed to love her new beauty case, which Tilly had filled with powder, hand cream and a pair of sheer stockings.
Elsie passed Tilly a package. The card tied to the string said Merry Christmas. From George.
‘And here’s yours, Cooper.’
‘You first,’ he said.
‘You first.’
‘No, you.’
‘I insist, you.’
Martha interrupted. ‘Someone open a bloody present. I’m dying to see what’s inside.’
The Women’s Pages Page 28
