Worth Fighting For

by Mary-Anne O'Connor

  It wasn’t much of a tree that he leant against but it did provide a little shade from the hot afternoon sunlight, and propped his back up enough for him to enjoy watching the view, particularly the spectacular birdlife. There were too many species to count but he’d heard there were over four hundred in Darwin and they were making a good representation of their numbers today. The sun was setting in a ball of gold, inviting a red glow to surround it, and the silhouettes of the birds turned black against the backdrop. Marlon wished he knew the names of the wide-winged water birds that hung in the air like gliders or the noisy black parrots that watched him curiously as they lumbered along the whispering casuarina trees nearby. Regardless, it was an incredible display, and he felt his spirit lift as the parrots took flight, rising before him in deafening song, suddenly graceful as they made their voyage across the harbour.

  Then he noticed another silhouette, a girl with bare feet, the hem of her dress tucked into her waist, walking slowly through the water and holding a line. Her limbs were long and thin, her hair falling forwards in twisting, tight waves that caught the gold of the sun on their ends. She looked as at home here as the birds and the trees and, to Marlon, she was even more wild and beautiful than the harbour itself.

  ‘Mary,’ he called.

  The girl stopped and he saw a brief flash of white as she smiled at him for the second time that day. Making her way over, she stood beneath him in the shallows and looked up.

  ‘Marri,’ she confessed. ‘You close enough.’

  ‘Marlon Stone, very nice to meet you,’ he replied, surprised at just how pleased he was.

  ‘We a match,’ she said, looking happy at the discovery.

  ‘Almost.’

  She cocked her head, observing him. ‘You a big fish.’

  ‘So I’m told,’ he replied. ‘What are you hunting?’

  She shrugged. ‘Whatever I find.’

  ‘Such as?’

  She seemed to consider his words then climbed the hill, remarkably quickly in Marlon’s opinion, and sat nearby, winding the line and the hook and putting it in her pocket.

  ‘Get barramundi ’round here. Good eating. My people call ’em damabila’

  ‘Damabila,’ Marlon said slowly, tasting the word. ‘Don’t you use a spear for them? I saw a man with one further down.’

  ‘Nah, men’s business.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said, nodding. ‘What else can you catch?’

  ‘Madla. Big mud crab. I want one for Uncle.’

  ‘Is that who arrived today?’

  She nodded. ‘He went down to Alice but now he back to check on me.’ Marri pulled at the grass absently.

  ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Nah, you right here,’ she said with a giggle.

  He smiled at the lovely sound of it. ‘I meant do you have family here?’

  She shrugged, serious again. ‘Some. Sister got taken away. They say she got white blood in her so she can’t live with us. Mum’s gone south with the others. She scared of them bombs but I don’ wanna leave.’

  Marlon was appalled. ‘Hold on, they took your sister away? Where?’

  ‘Somewhere,’ Marri said softly, her eyes wet. She wiped them with the back of her hand. ‘Not here. She belongs here. We been here since the Dreaming began and she one of us.’

  ‘What’s the Dreaming?’

  ‘Hard to explain.’ She shrugged. ‘The story, I guess.’

  Marlon nodded, liking that. ‘What’s the name of your tribe?’

  ‘Larrakia the big mob. Not a tribe though, we a people. The Saltwater People.’

  ‘I’m a saltwater person too.’

  She cocked her head, studying him. ‘You got black man’s blood?’

  ‘Kind of…well, brown at least.’

  She looked curious but didn’t ask any more questions. They stared out at the water as the sky blazed pink-red and she pointed at the arrival of a sea eagle. ‘Garngarn,’ she said, grinning widely with excitement. ‘Good sign from ancestors…from spirit.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  She looked thoughtful before answering. ‘How it make me feel, I s’pose.’

  Marlon watched contentment slide over her face once more. ‘Then you must be a good sign for me.’

  She was gone then, her hair sliding forwards, her long limbs running into the bush, but not before she gave him one more of those smiles. Marlon let it rest in his mind as he looked back at the burning sky. The Japanese might bomb them and the white people might steal their family but he had a feeling no-one would ever take this saltwater from her people. Not while their ancestors sent the garngarn.

  And not while they were still dreaming.

  Twenty

  May 1942

  Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

  Junie had counted on being bored but she’d obviously underestimated Eliza Chamberlain’s ability to turn on a show. There was nothing tedious about the party ‘celebrating’ Eliza’s engagement to the boorish Miles Harrington.

  Eliza had chosen to hold the event on a Sunday, an unusual enough choice in itself, but it was the risqué theme that would keep Sydney society gossiping for weeks to come: The Fall of Rome. The party was saved from scandal by being held in the daytime – Junie supposed it was the only way Eliza could get her mother to agree to it. Anyway, most guests wouldn’t understand the pun but Junie knew Eliza considered this a marriage of convenience – the joining of two extremely wealthy families by law – and the theme was a metaphor for the bride’s surrender. Secretly, Junie thought it was ridiculously decadent but she couldn’t help but relate to the sentiment.

  The magnificent garden already rather resembled something from Roman times with its statues and abundant foliage so the addition of heavily laden trestle tables along the pool, long swathes of silk curtains, and chaise longues strewn with luxurious cushions somehow didn’t look out of place. It would probably be said that the champagne fountain was a bit over the top but Junie just wished the alcohol wasn’t making her nauseous so she could drink more, especially when there were fine gold goblets being passed around to do so. Yet another drawback of pregnancy.

  Junie pulled up the toga that she’d worn over her dress, glad that the costume disguised her stomach, which had finally begun to pop out in recent weeks. By her own estimate she was over five months gone although Ernest thought it not quite three, the amount of time that had passed since their wedding night. Fortunately, she was hiding it well. Another thing to add to the list of pretences.

  Junie felt a familiar hollowness as she thought about their cold marriage bed where sex had become something she detested instead of a wondrous, sublime event. Ernest didn’t seem to notice, happy as he was to have her at last, and she’d learnt to fake enough enjoyment for him to achieve his climax.

  Seemed she was a good actress after all.

  But those performances had a terrible price. The acts were far more loathsome than she’d ever imagined because she knew what it could be when you loved rather than despised. She almost wished she’d never known Michael’s touch now that she had to bear the clammy hands of Ernest. He took her in lust, not love; in triumph, never reverence; and there were no words, only grunts. There was nothing left to say. And there was nothing left to do, save lay there and pay.

  Michael was wrong. Far better to be asked to live as an adulteress than as a whore. At least as an adulteress it would be a fall of her own choosing. At least then she would still have the sweetness of love’s touch on her body for stolen moments of her life. She could bear the penance if she were only allowed the sin.

  Ernest, of course, seemed to notice nothing at all unless it was directly affecting him and it astounded her how insensitive he was to her true feelings. Or perhaps he did know but didn’t care – she was merely an accessory to his career – although he’d been genuinely pleased about the baby. Being a family man was a political necessity. He’d decided today was the perfect occasion to tell people and she felt like one of the garden statues as
people came to pay their respects before moving on. Small acts of worship at the altar of her fertility, she mused. She wished the Braidwood girls were here to hear that little witticism, although she imagined Katie could come up with far more amusing comments about this farcical world.

  Junie was grateful for Eliza though, because, despite her sometimes snooty ways, she did make her laugh. She needed a friend, and what a friend Eliza was.

  The lady herself approached in her rather fabulous Roman gown and gold-heeled sandals. ‘Come on, cheer up,’ she whispered, coming to stand alongside. ‘If I can’t pout, neither can you. Have another champagne, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Can’t,’ Junie reminded her, pointing at her stomach. ‘It makes me feel sick.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right. How perfectly dull.’

  Junie shrugged. ‘It’s not for all that long. I’ll be done by Christmas.’ Actually, quite a bit sooner but she had to get used to the lie.

  ‘Thank God. Hopefully this ridiculous war will be over by then too,’ Eliza said, sipping her champagne and surveying the crowd, who were rather subdued considering the setting and the theme. ‘Lord, it’s all they can talk about. The battle in the Pacific this, the threat of invasion that. The bloody Nazis and the bloody Japanese. Haven’t they got anything better to do than try to take over the world?’ She pushed her stack of gold bracelets further up her arm to stop them from tinkling against her glass. ‘I’m sick to death of the gloom and doom in this city – can’t wait for summer. You simply have to come to the beach house, you know. It would be so tedious just with Miles and Cecil and their crowd.’

  Ernest and Miles’s friend Cecil Hayman had managed to escape Singapore and avoid capture along with a few other officers, something Junie found rather suspicious considering how many Australians had been taken as prisoners of war. Still, she tried to pretend to be happy to see Cecil each time he turned up, despite the sloppy kisses he always landed on her cheek, lingering just that bit too long.

  ‘I don’t think I could bear a whole month with just Eugenie for company. Why is that woman so concerned about the bloody state of the weather?’ Eliza said, nodding towards Eugenie, who was deep in conversation, pointing continually at the sky.

  Junie had to agree but changed the subject for the sake of politeness. ‘How are the wedding plans coming along?’

  ‘Disastrous. Mother has me trussed up in a nightmare of froth. I look like the bloody cake!’

  Junie giggled. Jane Chamberlain had let Eliza have her way with the engagement party but the wedding was firmly under her rigid control.

  ‘Then we have seven bridesmaids looking like stuffed pastries, and none of them you. We should give people spoons at the door.’

  Junie giggled some more. ‘I’ll probably look like a stuffed pastry by then anyway.’

  ‘Never. You’ll be one of those glowing, gorgeous types, unlike that Patricia. Honestly, she looks like an overripe tomato and only two months ahead of you!’ she whispered behind her hand. Junie tried not to smile at the sight of poor Patricia Fairfax, who was very bloated, and, with her red hair and pink complexion, an overripe tomato wasn’t an unrealistic comparison, if rather unkind.

  ‘You really are awful.’

  ‘I know. And getting nastier every day in preparation.’ She nodded over at Miles, finishing her drink. ‘Mum’s the word, lovely.’

  Watching her walk away, Junie envied her honesty. She’d grown used to being Eliza’s confidante, something that probably had quite a bit to do with her being an outsider. She only wished she could confirm Eliza’s assumption that she too had a marriage of convenience and not love, but something always stopped her from doing so. Perhaps it was pride. Perhaps it was shame.

  Wandering down to the balcony’s edge, Junie stared out at the harbour, a sparkling jewel in the May sunshine. She wondered what Michael was doing right now, whether he would ever forgive her. Whether he had moved on to love someone else. She doubted that. Katie had seen him at the movies with the others last week and said he hardly spoke a word all afternoon. The Burning Palms gang met up regularly these days and Junie ached to join them, but she couldn’t face him like this.

  The girls were sworn to secrecy regarding her pregnancy – and the truth about the child’s parentage. Junie wanted Michael to hear about the baby from her as soon as she could find the courage to do so, which didn’t feel any time soon. Maybe when they sent him to war. Maybe then. It might convince him that somehow they would always be connected, that fate would be kind and the Allies would win and they’d end up together because they truly were meant to be. That this child was a sign from God to confirm it. Maybe.

  She searched the skies, wondering what the future really had in store for her; if she would ever find true happiness again, as happy as she’d been at Burning Palms, on a stolen night on the sand, when it was just she, Michael, the great southern lady and the moon.

  It seemed hard to believe.

  Watching two planes approach from the west, she thought about the Japanese. They were close now, so close they were bombing the north and said to be moving south. Many thousands of her countrymen were enslaved in prisoner of war camps and she could barely stand the thought of what the future might truly hold. Maybe Michael would be taken too. Maybe he would die. Maybe they all would, she realised, imagining the bombs raining down on this beautiful city.

  The two planes were low and they banked left and headed down the Parramatta River, causing the crowd at the party to pause. Then they gasped and pointed in wonder as the Kittyhawks flew towards them, straight under the great arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was a breath-taking sight as they passed – near enough that the guests could see the airmen wave – and everyone cheered and waved back, boats in the harbour and cars on the streets sounding their horns. In a single rash act, those two American pilots were sending Sydney a message of hope: Whatever Japan threw at them, they weren’t about to lie down and take it. This was their way of life too and they would protect it with courage and daring – no matter how many bombs were hurled from above.

  Just then the baby inside her moved for the first time in the slightest of flutters and Junie felt a rush of pure wonder. Tears sprang to her eyes as she rested her hand against her stomach, love infusing her for this little life within. Maybe it was all a divine test and she had to find courage too; courage for this tiny soul and for herself. Because life was unpredictable. Planes flew under bridges and babies moved in response and maybe one day she would find happiness once more – a place of pure contentment.

  Perhaps she would even figure out a way to stay there; to hold on to Shangri-La. Maybe.

  Twenty-one

  The ferry was minimally lit, as all vessels necessarily were now, and Michael pulled his jacket close, staring at the black and silver water.

  She hadn’t turned up. Again. He supposed he should have been relieved but, despite every piece of common sense telling him it was for the best, it had cut like a blade into his chest when the other girls had arrived without her. It made him feel desperate, as though he should just rush to her somehow, find her wherever she was and kiss all the terrible aching away. Give in to that forbidden affair and take whatever was left. But that kind of illicit love would never be enough for either of them and he wasn’t sure he could bear the thought that she felt another man’s touch.

  Manly had been cold today and barbed wire now lined the beach; vicious and stark, an abomination on the beauty of the place. All day the others had chatted and laughed, trying to forget about the war, and all day he’d fought memories, trying to forget about her. He was imprisoned by those images, as if someone had wrapped the barbed wire around his mind too, and nothing else could get in or out. Michael had battled against visions of the last time he’d been there, staring at the fortifications as if they had been placed just to remind him that Junie was now off limits.

  Everything about Manly had added to the desolation he felt: the seagulls, the Steyne Hotel, the sound of the ocean.
They all sent the same message in stark refrain: She’d known that summer’s day. She’d known she wouldn’t marry him, that it was all they would have. And she hadn’t said anything, except that she loved him. Without that memory, without those wretched words spoken from deep in her heart as he lay against her breast, perhaps he could accept losing her. But because of them he was as empty as the beach had been on this lonely, autumn day.

  Cliffy and Jake were murmuring nearby and the breeze sent the occasional waft of tobacco his way. Michael took out his pouch, intending to have one himself as they rounded Bradley’s Head, when he was surprised by the sight of searchlights. He looked back at the USS Chicago. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary there. Then he noticed the lights were focused on the approaching boom gate that marked where the nets lay beneath.

  ‘Never seen that before,’ said Jake, coming to stand next to him with Cliffy. They were all aware that an enemy plane had been spotted over the harbour the night before.

  ‘Maybe they’re just a bit nervous,’ Cliffy said.

  The ferry from Circular Quay moved through, then it was their turn and they scanned the waters closely. Suddenly Jake nudged them.

  ‘Look!’

  ‘What?’ said Cliffy.

  ‘I thought I saw a periscope.’

  ‘Where?’ Michael asked, craning to see.

  ‘Just there.’

  They all stared into the swirling black ink behind the boat.

  ‘Are you certain?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Not completely. But it bloody looked like it.’

  ‘Maybe you should tell the captain.’

  ‘Do you reckon?’ Jake asked.

  None of them were sure so he decided not to, but they continued to watch in nervous silence.