We’d been picnicking in a secluded part of Kings Park. We were at that stage where we thought of little else but each other when we were apart, and were unable to keep our hands off each other when we were together. I’d been telling Peter how I was often plagued by my sister Joan, who could be terribly bossy. He was sympathetic, but obviously didn’t feel the same way about his older brother. Maybe it was different for boys.
‘His memory is almost photographic,’ Peter boasted. ‘He doesn’t suffer fools and he’s got a stare that would fry you at fifteen paces. Not that he uses it much. He rarely loses his temper, but when he does . . .’
I laughed. ‘I’ll try to stay in his good books, then. He sounds scary.’
‘He’ll adore you.’
I doubted it. Actually, I thought Tom sounded like a complete pill. ‘Is there anything he can’t do?’ I asked.
‘He’s not as good at rugby as I am, because I have a better build for it. And he can’t wiggle his ears. I can do that.’
He gave me a demonstration. Laughing, I laced my fingers through his and pushed him backwards onto the grass, pinning him down with my body.
‘He can’t do this either,’ I said, lowering my face to his. ‘At least, he can’t do it with me.’
I smiled briefly at the memory, and sighed.
The Mirror was on the kitchen table. Joan bought it every Saturday and read it from cover to cover. Even though it was mostly a tacky scandal rag, I sat down to leaf through it. It always reported the divorce court proceedings in great detail; the saucier the better. American servicemen loved the Mirror. According to my friend Annie, who went out with lots of Americans, the submariners based in Fremantle called it their favourite comic strip. I’d also heard that the pilots of the Catalina seaplanes, who were quartered nearby, carried it with them for light relief on their patrols over the Indian Ocean.
As usual the paper was full of tawdry tales of husbands and wives discovered in compromising situations by Perth’s foremost private investigator, Alf Sleep. The front-page headline read: YANK SAILOR SUNDAY WAS DOROTHY’S MAN FRIDAY.
Flicking through, a name I did know caught my eye in ‘Nicky’s Merry-Go-Round’, the gossip section. I wondered why it was that you wouldn’t hear a name for the longest time, and then it came up twice in one day?
Word is that Tom Lagrange and his lovely fiancée Phyllis Gregory will tie the knot pretty soon. And about time, too. Everyone in town is saying what a wonderful couple they make. Tom, who returned from the front line quite recently and is convalescing from injuries, is one of our real heroes. Phyllis is one of our real beauties. It’s a match made in heaven.
I wondered why Tom was looking for Doreen Luca if he was engaged to the lovely Phyllis Gregory. Doreen was attractive enough, but she was no beauty.
Doreen and her husband Frank had moved into the house two doors down from us a couple of years ago with their little daughter Paulette. I liked Doreen; she had been very kind to me after Peter died. She never told me to ‘get over it’, or that ‘time will heal all’ or other such stupid, hurtful things. She said that I’d probably love Peter forever, but with time I’d learn to cope. She was right.
When Frank joined the Navy early last year, Doreen got a job at the nearby military hospital. By then Frank’s Italian parents had been interned as ‘enemy aliens’ and because Doreen couldn’t look after Paulette and work full-time, she’d placed the girl into the Catholic orphanage in Subiaco.
Doreen was lonely without Paulette and Frank, and six months ago her friend Betty Barwon had moved in, for company and to help with the rent. Ever since, the comings and goings of the two women had been fodder for street gossip. In fact, the general consensus in Megalong Street was that Doreen and Betty were little more than floosies.
‘I’ve got a hard job,’ she told me once. ‘It’s so awful to see the men come into the hospital all mangled and hurt, and know that many of them will never be right again. I need to go out to forget about it. I like to have a good time. That’s no crime and it’s nobody’s business how I do it.’
It amused me how Doreen never seemed bothered about the old biddies in our street. When they tut-tutted, she’d just push back her blonde hair in that languid movie-star way of hers and thumb her nose at the neighbourhood. Maybe Tom liked that about her, too.
A slight commotion at the front door and a gust of hot air announced the return of Ma and Joan, complaining about the heat as they entered the house.
I took the casserole out of the oven and started to dish up.
‘Peter’s brother turned up in the street this morning, looking for Doreen Luca,’ I said, a little later, between mouthfuls of rabbit and vegetables.
‘His older brother? The Rhodes scholar?’ Ma sounded anxious. She was always anxious when Peter’s name came up. ‘He’s in the army, isn’t he?’
I nodded and gave her a reassuring smile.
‘Tom Lagrange. He’s a captain. He was in the Middle East with the AIF when Peter . . .’ I stopped, my mind going blank for a few seconds. Ma and Joan were both looking at me. I smiled a little to show I was fine and said quickly, ‘He was wounded in New Guinea, I think. He’s lost some fingers and his face is scarred quite badly.’
‘Poor man,’ Ma said sympathetically.
‘Whatever would he want with Doreen?’ Joan said, her eyes quite lit up at the news. ‘He’s a bit posh for someone like her, isn’t he? Mind you, men seem to like that flashy, trashy look.’
No one could accuse my sister of a flashy, trashy look. But then, my sister didn’t have a boyfriend.
‘Doreen’s all right,’ I said. ‘She just knows how to have a good time. I should think you’d need that, surrounded by wounded soldiers day in and day out.’
‘She put her daughter in an orphanage, Meg, so she could fool around with Americans while her husband is away in the Navy! Why do people seem to think nurses are above propriety?’ Joan shot me a look as if I were no better.
I knew it was no good arguing with my sister when she was on her high horse, but that had never stopped me.
‘Doreen can’t work at the hospital and look after her daughter as well. If the government hadn’t decided to lock up perfectly harmless Italians who’ve lived in Australia for years, Paulette would be with her grandparents. Anyway, Doreen and Betty aren’t nurses. Betty works in the hospital pharmacy and Doreen is in administration. She practically runs the place, I’m told.’
That got me another dirty look from Joan.
‘So what? There are always men visiting them at all hours. They’re –’
‘Anyway,’ I cut in loudly, ‘Captain Lagrange seemed worried about her.’
‘Did you mention Peter to him?’ Ma asked.
She was looking at me fretfully and I flashed her another reassuring smile.
‘No. He didn’t know who I was, and I didn’t tell him.’
‘Well, Mrs Lagrange will have something to say if he takes Doreen Luca home to meet her,’ Joan said. ‘If you weren’t good enough for Peter, how’s she going to feel about Doreen and her precious Rhodes scholar, war hero, eldest son?’
‘Oh, shut up, Joan.’ I put down my knife and fork with a clatter and glared at her. ‘Why are you being so hateful? What do you care?’
She was in a particularly spiteful mood. Something must have stirred her up. Had somebody at church raised the fact that she was unmarried at thirty-one? That was guaranteed to make Joan wild.
‘Don’t speak that way to your sister, Meg,’ Ma was saying. ‘And Joan, that was uncalled for. Mrs Lagrange never said Meg wasn’t good enough for Peter. I don’t know what gets into you girls.’
‘Blame it on the heat,’ Joan said dismissively. ‘Anyway, Tom Lagrange is engaged to a society beauty. If he wants to see Doreen, it’s obviously just to fool around with her.’
‘Joan! That’s just plain nasty.’ Ma was furious.
Joan looked abashed, but she wasn’t ready to give up her argument.
‘Well,
really though. He’s from one of the best families in Perth. Doreen is a fake blonde good-time girl. Why would he be interested in her?’
‘Possibly because she’s a far nicer person than the beautiful Phyllis Gregory. Miss Gregory is the one who wrote to me after Peter died, remember?’ My voice was shaky. I stood abruptly, gathered up the dishes, and took them into the kitchen to wash up. I knew Ma would be telling Joan off for bringing it all up again. At the sink, with my hands in the warm soapy water, I could hear snatches of their whispered conversation.
‘Got to get over it.’ That was Joan, of course.
‘Give her time.’ Ma sounded anxious.
‘But she never goes out. It’s been eighteen months, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Be kind, Joan.’
I finished the last of the dishes and stalked down the hall to my bedroom. If it had been Ma and me having the conversation she would have said: ‘Be kind, Meg. You know it’s hard for Joan. She never thought she would be unmarried and living with her mother and sister at the age she is.’
I sighed. Although she was bossy and downright irritating at times, she was my sister and we had shared a lot. I knew how scared Joan was about ending up an old maid. She had a good job managing the lingerie department at Moore’s, one of the largest department stores in town, and she had lots of friends, but she hated the fact she was single. Although I couldn’t stand her pushing me to go out more, I suspected it was because she was worried I’d end up like her. She just couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get over Peter’s death.
I looked out my window. The curtains were partly drawn across to keep out the heat, but I could make out the red brick wall of the neighbour’s house. I was only twenty-one. I had years before I was on the shelf. I’d get over Peter in my own time.
I’d read of his death in the newspaper, on 28 July 1941. We were at breakfast. My mother had the West Australian open and I saw her face become white and I saw the tears well in her eyes. I guessed it before she handed me the paper, before she came around to hold me close, as if I were still a little girl, as if she could actually help me.
Peter’s family had not thought to tell me; I had to read it in the paper, like everyone else in Perth that morning. I knew his family had always thought of me as the temporary girlfriend who would be dropped when Peter met the right girl from the right family, but I thought it was cruel of them to let me find out that way.
There were two photographs on the table by my bed. Peter in his Royal Australian Air Force uniform with his tousled blond hair and bright eyes. When that photograph was taken he had just turned twenty-one. A month later, he was dead. In the other photograph he had his arm around a young woman with light brown hair in a shoulder-length bob, pretty enough features and a happy smile. They looked happy. We had been happy.
I picked up the photo of Peter. ‘I met Tom today,’ I told him. ‘And I wasn’t very nice to him. Sorry.’
Peter smiled at me out of his wooden frame. Same smile, same tousled hair, same young enthusiastic face I saw every time I picked up the photo. He would always be young and beautiful and laughing, always twenty-one, ever unaware of what was in store for him four weeks later off the coast of England.
I lay down on my bed, as I had so often done in the past eighteen months, hugging the photograph to my chest.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.
As if I could ever forget.
About a week after he told me he was going to join the air force, we were in his car at Cottesloe Beach, kissing and touching and both longing for more, but scared of the consequences. The sound of the waves was loud in the darkness and the wind was cold, even through the car windows. Peter murmured that his parents had taken his younger brother to visit their grandparents in the country and the house was empty. I knew what he meant and I pushed away from him, my heart racing. I’d always said no before. It was a big step, an overwhelming step to take, to sleep with your boyfriend. But Peter was leaving me soon and he wouldn’t be back for a long time, maybe years. Now it seemed right to finally take that step. Or perhaps it was part of an unspoken, one-sided bargain I wanted to make with fate. Doing this would be proof of my love for Peter, and surely no one who was loved as much as I loved him could be hurt. If I just loved him enough, Peter would be safe.
We were both quiet as he drove along the highway towards his parents’ house in Peppermint Grove. Suddenly he pulled up beside a chemist’s shop.
When he returned his face was bright red and there was a sheepish smile on his face. ‘That was really embarrassing,’ he said, putting a paper bag between us on the seat. ‘I’ve never bought . . . Ah, I’ve never . . .’ He looked at me. ‘You don’t have to, Meg. I love you. That won’t change. I can wait.’
It was then I knew he had never done this before either. So I smiled at him. ‘I know that,’ I said. ‘I love you too, and I want to.’
His bedroom was messy. The shelves were full of school trophies and models of aeroplanes hung from the ceiling. The big desk under the window was covered in engineering texts and notebooks. A single bed was against the wall. There was an awkward pause. I walked across to him and put my arms around his neck and he bent down to kiss me. Then, somehow, all fear vanished in a haze of desire. We were clumsy, laughing, embarrassed, passionate and tender, and afterwards, as we lay tangled together in that narrow bed, both of us overwhelmed by what we had just done, I listened to his heart beating and I wondered if any girl anywhere in the world had ever felt as happy as I did at that moment.
The bed moved as Peter twisted up and slightly away from me, so that he could see my face. ‘Meg, you can’t ever do that with anyone else. I think I’d die if you ever did that with anyone else,’ he said, very seriously.
‘I never would,’ I said, indignant. ‘You mustn’t, either. Not with anyone else.’
‘I promise. Let’s get married now. Right away. Before I leave.’
‘We can’t,’ I said. ‘You’re not twenty-one, and your parents would never approve.’
He nodded slowly, frowning. ‘You’re right. They want me to wait until I’ve finished my degree, so I can support a wife properly.’
‘You asked them?’
His expression was cagey. ‘I mentioned it. They said I should wait.’ He frowned again. ‘Dammit. I can’t even afford to buy you a ring.’
‘I can wait,’ I had said, smiling. ‘When you get back.’
The edges of the photo frame were digging into my chest. I sat up, carefully put the photo back where it belonged and wiped my eyes. Too many tears. I had wept too many tears in the past eighteen months.
I needed to distract myself, so I decided to write to Harvey. I went into the kitchen and sat at the table. I picked up a pencil, stared at the blank piece of paper and sighed. Harvey Bradford was a thorn in my side, a problem I didn’t know how to solve. After crying every day for nine months after Peter’s death, I had allowed my mother to persuade me to go out with the son of our local butcher. Harvey had been keen on me since we had arrived in Perth in early 1939. We went out a few times. He was a decent fellow, kind and eager to please, although I was poor company. I liked him well enough, but it had not been serious, at least not for me.
When Harvey left for New Guinea with the AIF he begged me to write to him, and I agreed to do so because we were always being told it was good to write to servicemen. But the letters Harvey sent me in return had become increasingly intimate, and now after six months he assumed there was some kind of engagement between us. I knew I should write and tell him he had it wrong, but Harvey was in Buna, on the Kokoda Track, where the fighting was fierce. He was living in hell and I didn’t have the heart to destroy his illusions. But neither did I want him to think I was going to marry him.
Dear Harvey, I wrote, and put down the pencil. How could I drop someone who was fighting in New Guinea? Who might be killed or seriously injured at any moment? Who said my letters were the only bright point in his l
ife? Whose father was our family butcher and gave my mother extra meat? Harvey was coming home on leave in a few weeks and I didn’t know what to do.
Thank you for your last letter. We are all well here. I was sorry to hear that the food situation up there has not improved and that the weather is so nasty. I hope that your Christmas celebrations were enjoyable. Things are the same as ever here. Mother and Joan send their regards.
What I wanted to write was:
Dear Harvey, please do not refer to me as your dearest Meg. I am not. Please do not show my photograph to the other chaps. It does not please me to hear that when you did so, they referred to you as a lucky dog. You are not a lucky dog, because I am not, in fact, your girl. Please do not tell me that you dream about me every night, because the thought of it makes me feel strange. Sincerely, Meg.
I kept hoping he would work out that my letters were anything but those of a girlfriend. But Harvey was not the smartest fellow in the world and his letters were full of praise for my writing skills. I was well aware that the problem of Harvey would have to be addressed soon, but not today. Not when I had just treated a soldier badly.
The weather has been very hot here. I hope you got the Christmas hamper . . .
Three
By six o’clock the heat had settled like a heavy blanket around the house. I had been unable to shake a feeling of misery all afternoon. Ma was writing letters and Joan was taking a nap. I could feel the black hole looming and I was scared of getting lost in my dark thoughts. I needed to do something.
‘I’m going to pick plums,’ I called out to Ma, picking up the wicker basket we kept in the kitchen. I had an idea to make some plum jam; sugar was rationed, but there were special allowances for jam making.
A large plum tree stood at the back of our yard, but most of it overhung the laneway that ran between the houses on our side of Megalong Street and the houses that fronted Winthrop Avenue. The tree was covered with blood-red plums, but the ones on our side of the fence had been picked days ago. There was no access to the lane from our yard, so I slipped on a pair of shoes and stepped out the front door into the heat.
A Stranger in my Street Page 2
