‘Young lad, says he met you yesterday near Circular Quay. You asked him to come and see you this morning.’
‘Oh, yes,’ he cried. The boy! He’d completely forgotten that he’d arranged to meet him. Danny’s sense of relief was palpable. Now he walked to the head of the stairs from where he could see Brenda and called down to her. ‘He’s Lachlan Brannan. He tells me his old man is a regular here.’
‘Brannan?’ Brenda called back. ‘His sister must be Doreen. She’s married to Tommy O’Hearn, who wasn’t very nice to your father over the water-polo thing. He’s been climbing the union ranks while everyone else has been away fighting. He’s supposed to have flat feet . . . the only flat he’s got is flat out taking advantage! Doreen’s much too good for him.’
‘Lachlan’s a good kid, Mum. Can you send him up please?’
Danny, back at the kitchen table munching toast, heard Lachlan coming up the stairs and called out, ‘Turn right, first door on the right. Come in, mate.’
Moments later young Lachlan appeared smiling at the kitchen door in a suit that suggested its owner, or perhaps several owners, had taken a fair old belting from life. Danny couldn’t believe his eyes. The lapels were frayed and stained and the baggy trousers were cut in some fashion from the distant past. It was a suit that had never seen the interior of a dry-cleaning shop but had been the recipient of a thousand soapy sponges and countless hot flat irons applied through a sheet of brown paper, which was intended to prevent the fabric singeing or developing a shine. Or perhaps not, because Lachlan’s borrowed finery was a perfect example of the damage a hot iron can do if applied directly to ageing grey serge. The jacket was too big by half and fell almost to his knees, and the sleeves were rolled back a good six inches to reveal a mattress-ticking lining brown with age. The lapels, jacket front and two sagging pockets were stained with all manner of indelible substances that testified to the desperate though futile efforts of somebody’s wife to remove them. The trousers, equally frayed and stained, billowed in a distinctly Chaplinesque manner then pooled over his shoes, their length, Danny estimated, at least eight to ten inches longer than the wearer’s legs. Lachlan wore a white school shirt and an ancient, brown, moth-eaten knitted tie. In his hand he carried a battered brown felt hat, the crown resting against his knees so that Danny could see that it had been stuffed with newspaper to fit Lachlan’s head.
‘Come on in,’ Danny called. ‘Piece of toast?’
‘No, thanks, I already et,’ Lachlan replied, stepping towards the kitchen table.
‘Couple’a slices of toast can’t hurt, eh?’ Danny said, feeding two slices of white bread into the toaster. ‘Peanut butter? Vegemite?’
‘Can I have peanut butter please?’ Lachlan asked, obviously glad that Danny had insisted, then grinning he said, ‘Whaddaya reckon, Danny? Good, eh?’ He was obviously referring to his suit.
‘Oh . . . yeah . . . Your brother’s?’
‘Nah, Mum took his to the pawnshop. We’ll get it back when he comes home with his wages from the ship.’
‘So?’
‘We got real lucky. Old Mr Foster three doors down died last week and they was going to bury him in it . . .’
‘What? In the suit?’
‘Yeah, but luckily old Mrs Foster said, “Waste not want not, maybe it could do some good to the living. And Herb would be more comfortable in his red nightshirt that Shirley, his daughter, give him last Christmas.”’ Lachlan shrugged, causing almost no observable movement in the overlarge jacket. ‘So that’s what happened. She give it to me mum last night.’
Danny, unable to contain himself, started to chuckle and Lachlan joined him, both of them soon convulsed with laughter. He couldn’t remember when he’d last laughed – simply, deliciously laughed, unable to restrain his giggling. They didn’t hear the toaster popping or Brenda coming up the stairs and into the kitchen. ‘What’s so funny?’ she asked.
‘Nothing, Mum,’ Danny chortled, ‘it’s just that (giggle) Lachlan’s suit was rescued from a dead man!’ Both boys burst into fresh laughter.
‘What? Taken off a corpse?’ Brenda asked, aghast.
This caused fresh guffaws. ‘No, Mrs Dunn, luckily for me he liked his red nightshirt best,’ Lachlan said, milking another laugh.
‘Well, I’m glad to hear that,’ Brenda answered, mystified. From her expression, it was clear to Danny that she thought the suit belonged in the same wooden box occupied by its last owner. ‘Pineapple Joe’s arrived for your fitting, Danny. The saloon bar is empty – why not do it there?’ she suggested.
‘Your toast!’ Danny exclaimed, remembering.
‘That’s okay,’ Lachlan said. ‘I already et, like I said.’
‘Toast? Honestly, you men!’ Brenda said in feigned disgust. ‘When Danny was your age he ate like a horse. I expect you’re the same. How about a couple of fried eggs and bacon with the toast, eh?’ It was an offer simply too good for the boy to refuse. Not knowing quite what to say he grinned and nodded. ‘In the meantime, a cup of tea? Sugar?’ Brenda asked, fetching a cup and the sugar bowl and nodding to Danny with a jerk of her chin. ‘Go on downstairs, I’ll take care of Lachlan.’
‘Velcome! Velcome!’ Pineapple Joe spread his arms as Danny entered the saloon bar. ‘Za atom bomb kid, already! Mein Gott, you looks terrible, terrible, Danny,’ he said, patting Danny all over, squeezing his thin arms and shoulders.
Danny laughed. It was obvious that Pineapple Joe wasn’t referring to his face but to his general condition. ‘Yeah, lost a fair bit of weight since you last saw me.’
‘Nineteen turty-nine Tigers, ve are vinning za premiership zat day! Mein Gott, I vas so proud of you Danny, za youngest and also lock forward, strong like za bull! Zat night I am dronk, first time mein life. Stonkered! Mudderliss! Up za Tigers!’
‘As I remember we were all motherless by the end of the night.’
Pineapple Joe removed the tape measure from around his neck and whipped it expertly around Danny’s waist, reading the measurement then tut-tutting. ‘Skins and bones, skins and bones,’ he repeated, shaking his head in dismay. ‘Pliss, so tell me, Danny, how I am making American atom bomb double-breast hunnert per cent merino vool from before za war on zis body? Zat bastard Japanese, zey are makink you like za bean sticks!’
‘Beanpole?’ Danny suggested.
‘Ja, zat also,’ Pineapple Joe said.
‘What say we wait six months, eh? I’ve already put on twenty pounds. In six months I should be right as rain.’
Pineapple Joe paused to consider, then shook his head. ‘I am making already shoulder pads for za jacket and zen I am leaving plenty material for za hems. Later I take out za pads and za hems and zen we havink perfek number vun atom bomb result, no?’
Pineapple Joe only answered to three forms of address: Pineapple Joe as a business name, Pineapple as a personal name, and Mr Joe for formal occasions. Danny opted for formality. ‘Mr Joe, I wonder if you could do me a favour?’
‘Mein pleasure, Danny, for vinning za var.’
Danny chuckled. ‘Thank you, but I’m afraid my contribution to the final victory was fairly insignificant.’
‘So modest already,’ Pineapple Joe noted to himself.
While Pineapple Joe took his measurements, writing them down in a small spiral-bound notepad, Danny explained that he wanted him to make Lachlan a suit that he personally would pay for, but that it wasn’t a simple matter, because the boy and his mother were very proud; in fact, the whole family was proud, and he was fairly positive they wouldn’t accept it from him, considering it to be charity. He described the dead man’s suit and explained that he had hoped to get Lachlan several interviews in the city, but that the oversized, aged, ragged and stained suit made the boy look like a tramp. ‘You know better than most how people are judged by their appearance,’ he concluded.
‘So let me see zis boy, pliss,’ Pine
apple Joe said immediately. ‘Maybe only sixpence a veek ven he get za job.’
‘Yeah, righto, but he won’t accept it until he does . . . get a job, I mean. In the meantime he needs the suit to get the job.’ Danny shrugged. ‘Problem?’
‘No problem! Vere is zat boyz?’
‘Upstairs.’
‘Bring, bring . . . From boyz I know already.’
‘Sure, I’ll go fetch him. You will be, you know, careful?’
Pineapple Joe rocked his open hand in the air in front of him, ‘Gentle like za fezzer fallink,’ he said with a benign smile.
Several minutes later Danny and Lachlan entered the saloon bar. Danny had explained to him that Joe was making a suit for him and was happy to take up the sleeves and the trousers of old Mr Foster’s suit without charge. ‘No problems. Just a couple of minutes on his sewing machine,’ Danny said, to reassure the boy. ‘My dad gives him heaps of business,’ he explained, adding, ‘He’s an old friend of the family.’
‘Hello! Zis is zat boyz you is tellink me about? Come, come, let me see zat suit you are wearink.’
‘Lachlan, this is Mr Joe, the best bespoke tailor in Sydney.’
‘How do you do, sir?’ Lachlan asked, extending his hand.
‘Goot! Excellent and even better zen zat,’ Pineapple Joe said, smiling and shaking Lachlan’s hand. Then he reached out and felt the lapel of the dead Herb Foster’s suit, rubbing it between his forefinger and thumb. ‘Mein Gott!’ he said, almost under his breath. ‘Zat material only for officer zey are getting special after za Boer War! English officer only getting zat material. Zat vool belong sheeps from Scotlandz.’ Pineapple Joe clasped his hands to his chest, his head to one side. ‘Pliss, for my collection I am wanting zat suit. So now we are makink a plan. Zis suit it is make a deposit, zen ven you are gettink a job, you are paying me sixpence every veek for four years, zat five pounds. For zis I am makink bran-new suit, yes?’
‘You mean you’ll make Lachlan a brand-new suit in exchange for that one plus sixpence a week for four years?’ Danny asked, smiling broadly.
‘Absoloot!’
‘You hear that, Lachlan? What do you say, mate?’
To Danny’s surprise, Lachlan didn’t answer, instead looking down at the ill-fitting, ragged old suit he was wearing. ‘You mean it’s valuable then?’ he asked, somewhat surprised.
‘For me, yes, for uzzer pipple, no.’
‘I’ll have to ask my mum, sir. She got it from old Mrs Foster. Maybe she’ll think we ain’t grateful or somethin’.’
Danny liked this; the kid wasn’t a fool. Asking if the suit was valuable showed he was thinking, then worrying about old Mrs Foster’s feelings. That was nice, but, on the other hand, he wasn’t thinking for himself.
‘No, mate. Time you made your own decisions. What’s it to be then?’
Lachlan looked up at Danny, ‘It’s not charity, is it? Me mum says when you lose your pride and start taking charity it’s like being a beggar; eventually you lose yer self-respect.’
‘No, mate, it’s not charity, you’ll be paying for it. The old suit is only a deposit.’
‘What if I can’t get a job?’ Lachlan asked.
‘In that old bag of fruit we’ve got a problem; in a new suit we’ve got every chance. Old Mr Foster’s dead-man’s suit just isn’t right, it’s like putting a fine horse into the Melbourne Cup with nothing but a tatty saddle blanket.’
‘Me mum says “neither a lender nor a borrower be”. She says debts make you somebody’s slave.’
Danny was rapidly growing weary of Lachlan’s mum’s ubiquitous influence, and her sayings. He sighed impatiently. ‘First a beggar and now a slave. You’re not easy to help, are you, kid? Let me put it to you this way. Think of the city as a concrete jungle. The enemy is anyone who is competing with you to get a job. If they get it and you don’t, then they’ve taken you out, in a sense eliminated you. If they got the job offer and you didn’t there has to be a good reason. Right?’
‘Yeah, right,’ Lachlan agreed, enjoying the military terminology.
‘Could be lots of reasons they got it – better preparation, better weapons, better knowledge of the battlefield, whatever. Do you agree so far?’
‘Yeah. I never thought of it like that,’ the boy admitted.
‘Well, remember how you told me the story about the bloke at the gate at the docks who asked you if you were a member of the wharfies union, and when you told him no, he told you to piss off?’
‘Yeah, well, I told you, they’re a bunch of commos!’
‘But you knew that all along and you still wanted the job.’
‘Yeah,’ Lachlan agreed reluctantly.
‘So you had the wrong weapons to win, didn’t you? Don’t answer. I think you get the general idea. Now say you’d gone to the union offices first and told them you wanted to join the union but didn’t have a job. There was one going at the docks, so could they give you a note or something, and if you got the job you’d pay your union fees pronto. Think about it for a moment. You even had the inside running, your sister works at Trades Hall and your brother-in-law, Tommy O’Hearn, is a union official. That’s what’s called being armed with the right weapons. The new suit is the same – you’re presenting yourself to a new employer as a recruit ready and properly armed for combat in the concrete jungle.’
‘I’ve made up me mind,’ Lachlan announced. ‘I’ll take it. Even if I only do odd jobs I could find sixpence a week, I reckon.’
Pineapple Joe was called down to measure Lachlan and obligingly left with old Mr Foster’s suit, which he promptly deposited in the nearest rubbish bin. Later he would tell Danny, ‘Oi vey! Ven pipple zey seeink me mit zat terrible schmutter I’m goink broken already!’
‘Going broke,’ Danny corrected without thinking.
‘Broke? No, no, dat only one piz. I am broken, many, many pizzes ven pipple seeink me wid dat Grice Brudder suit. Like zat dumpty humpty ven he is fallink off zat wall and all zoze soldiers and zoze horses belongink ze king zey cannot fixink him . . . no vey, José!’
Danny knew it was time to give up. Pineapple Joe had managed splendidly with his own peculiar syntax for almost fifteen years; who was he to argue? Half the peninsula tried unsuccessfully to imitate him, but Half Dunn was one of the few who’d managed to do so, it being an essential part of spinning any yarn that included the little tailor.
Lachlan was sent out to buy the Herald and they spent the morning going through the situations vacant columns. By lunchtime they’d made over twenty phone calls and secured three appointments for two days hence, sufficient time for Pineapple Joe to make the suit and a couple of white business shirts. Lachlan knew of an afternoon shift job going at a dockside packing shed and left after having first managed a pub lunch consisting of a lemonade and six sausage rolls pressed on him by an insistent Brenda, who seemed to have taken a liking to him.
Danny had decided to go in to Sydney University to see about completing his Arts degree. It would be, he hoped, a little good news to give Brenda. The Grace Brothers Emporium was almost opposite the university and he planned to go in and buy a pair of grey flannels and a couple of shirts so he’d look half decent for his interview, and he’d select a tie as a gift for Lachlan. He’d thought about getting a brown trilby and trying to persuade Lachlan he’d bought it for himself and later decided he didn’t like it. He’d think of a reason why it just happened to be two sizes too small for him, if the kid noticed.
He was about to leave when the kitchen phone rang. Half Dunn was having his afternoon nap and Danny, thinking it must be for him, answered. ‘Danny, it’s Helen. Please don’t hang up,’ she said quickly.
‘Oh!’ was all Danny, shocked beyond words, could say.
‘Danny, please can we meet?’ Helen asked. ‘I’ve waited nearly five years!’
‘Did my mother put you up to this?’ he
demanded, recovering from his initial shock and instinctively going on the attack.
‘Yes . . . yes, as a matter of fact she did.’
Danny had expected her to deny that the two women had colluded, but he’d forgotten that Helen didn’t play those games. ‘She told me that you didn’t want to see me. Didn’t want me to welcome you home.’
‘Yeah, well . . .’
‘Danny, please. I’ve thought of very little else these past four years, wondering whether you were still alive, whether I’d ever see you again. Surely you can give me five minutes.’
‘Oh? What was it you said? Ah yes, I recall: “Don’t expect me to play that silly game, to think of you as a hero, doing your bit for king and country! The ever-faithful sweetheart, waiting at her candlelit bedroom window for her soldier boy to return. Because I won’t be!”’ Danny quoted her verbatim, then added, ‘What? So you’re telling me you have been the ever-faithful sweetheart waiting for your soldier boy to come home?’ Danny hated himself, he knew he was being a dickhead, but told himself he had to find a way to reject her.
To his surprise he heard Helen giggle on the end of the line. ‘Well, whatever they’ve done to you it doesn’t seem to have affected your memory, and you’re still an arrogant prick, Danny Dunn.’
‘Hmmph,’ Danny said, amused despite himself. ‘Same old charming Helen. And what does that mean, in particular?’
‘It means that I am now in a position to make a comparison and you’re still the best fuck I’ve ever had, but apart from that purely incidental detail, I’ve never stopped loving you, Danny.’
Danny’s heart started to pound. ‘Helen, I’m not the same . . . it’s not the same. I’ve changed . . . I’m not me any more.’ He hesitated. ‘You won’t like . . . what I’ve become.’ It was a pathetic thing to say and the moment the words were out he felt ashamed and braced himself for her reply.
The Story of Danny Dunn Page 17
