Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Well, I don’t like it,’ the model sniffs, pushing her nose in the air.

  ‘Darling, when I want your opinion I’ll pull the lavatory chain,’ he says. ‘I’ve been in the rag trade thirty years and that calico is a perfect fit, don’t try and tell me my job!’He turns to the chief designer, ‘Don’t you agree, Mr Charlton?’

  The slimy bastard nods, too scared to speak up. ‘Good then, let’s proceed with choosing the fabric.’ He pats me on the shoulder, ‘Good work, my son.’

  So now everyone hates me. But I don’t care. I’ve got my first design through, which I learn later is unheard of. But the tsuris, the troubles, aren’t over yet. A couple of days later the floor manager comes into the design room with the head machinist and tells Mr Charlton that my garment can’t be sewn. ‘Mrs Roberts here says it can’t be done,’ he says, nodding his head to the machinist, who doesn’t look too happy herself.

  ‘Oh dear,’ says Mr Charlton, ‘I thought this might happen.’ He turns to me and says, ‘Bad luck, Mike, we’ll have to scrap it.’

  I’ve come this far and I reckon I’ve got nothing to lose, they all hate me anyway. ‘Bullshit!’ I say.

  ‘Hey, don’t you go saying that, son,’ says the foreman. ‘If Mrs Roberts says it can’t be done, it can’t!’

  ‘Bullshit,’ I say again and Mr Charlton has gone so red in the face I think his head is going to burst like a party balloon.

  ‘And how would you know?’ he suddenly shouts at me, ‘How dare you speak to Brothers like that!’ Brothers is the name of the foreman, who in the pecking order doesn’t rate as a Mister, because he’s blue-collar.

  ‘Take me to your machine, Mrs Roberts, show me why it can’t be done.’

  ‘Are you questioning my work, sir?’ Mrs Roberts says.

  ‘Yes, madam, I bloody am! Take me to your bloody sewing machine!’ I reckon if I’m going to be fired, may as well go out with both barrels blazing.

  In England most designers can’t sew, or if they can, it’s straight up and down hem stitch, they can’t do the tricky work. So out we traipse on to the work floor. It’s like old times in Flinders Lane, machines whirring. Mrs Roberts sits down and brings my garment up and starts to talk crap about the overlocking being impossible because of the way the garment is cut. She’s trying to blind me with science. It’s a deliberate con and I lose my temper. ‘Move yer fat arse and I’ll show you how it’s done, and I push her out of the way with my bum. Then I do the overlocking and one or two other bits and pieces that might be thought hard by someone who wasn’t a skilled machinist.

  Someone’s called the boss and he’s come up and I don’t know he’s there but he’s watching me and when I’ve finished, he puts his hand on my shoulder. ‘You’re a brash kid, Mike Maloney, but it seems to me you always put your money where your mouth is. I’ve never seen a junior designer who can cut a pattern, work up a calico and sew, much less sew like that. What do you earn?’

  ‘Ten pounds a week, sir.’

  ‘As of next pay day that will be twelve pounds and ten shillings. But we don’t want the Garment Union to go on strike, so, if you don’t mind, lad, stay off the floor!’

  Next pay day he’s true to his word, there’s two pounds ten shillings extra. I take ten shillings out of my pay packet, go to the florist on the corner and buy a big bunch of red roses and have them wrapped up in cellophane, with a ribbon, the works. Then I give them to Mrs Roberts and say, ‘No hard feelings, Mrs Roberts, but we’ve all got to survive and I’m the Australian here, so I’m the expendable one.’ Well, for a moment she’s a bit mooshy round the mouth, then she smiles and relaxes and says, ‘Where’d you learn to sew like that, love?’

  I laugh and say, ‘That’s nothing, you should see me embroider!’ But I don’t think she believes me and calls me a cheeky sod and we’re friends for life. From that moment on there’s never a problem sewing my stuff.

  But, of course, now I’m public enemy number one in the design room and the models don’t think all that much of me either. A few weeks later we’re preparing to do a show for some buyers coming in from the Midlands. I’ve got two things in, a light summer suit like the one I made for Sarah at uni and a short reversible trench coat that’s a raincoat on one side and a fashion garment that can be worn at night when you reverse it. The fashion side is lightly sequinned on the sleeves and the lapels and is in a gorgeous teal blue and very pretty. The daywear cum raincoat is a light beige gaberdine with a high turn-up collar with lapel and collar stitching showing as a feature. The same model who was wearing the calico when the boss walked in that day is wearing both my garments in the show. She’s the head model and so it’s supposed to be a compliment. But she’s told Mr Charlton she doesn’t like the garments, that ‘they’re too brash and flashy, very outré, my dear.’

  Well, minutes before she has to show the first garment, which is the reversible coat, the dresser comes up to me and says the model has unfortunately caught a pocket of the coat on the dressing-room door handle and it’s ripped right down the seam and has to be withdrawn from the show. Half an hour later when the model’s about to wear the suit, same thing happens, this time she’s caught her spike heel in the hem of the skirt when she’s pulling it on and ripped out the silk lining.

  Afterwards the model comes up to me, her name is Deborah Phipps-Gordon, she’s all wide-eyed and says in her plummy accent, ‘Oh, Michael, I’m so sorry, but there’s such a fuss and to-do in there, accidents are simply bound to happen, darling!’

  It’s not too hard to see the writing is on the wall. But I’m learning heaps and the people on the factory floor like me and the boss thinks I’m just what the doctor ordered so there’s not a lot the others can do about it, except try to make me feel unwanted, a job they do very successfully.

  Meanwhile, at night I’m designing and sewing the costumes for a repertory company who are putting on a play called Back to the Future and part of the plot is set in the present and part ten years from now. There’s lots of garments to design. I don’t get paid, of course, but it’s great fun and I can indulge my imagination. The play opens in Bath, which is a town that’s got a lot of posh English people living there.

  Next thing I know I get a call from Madame Jardine, who is a famous couturière to ‘the establishment’, that means the aristocrats and the very rich. She says she happened to pop in to see the play because one of her nieces had a small part in it, she likes some of the ideas she’s seen in the garments and she offers me a job as a junior designer at twenty pounds a week.

  It takes me about ten seconds to make up my mind. Couturière, that’s where you really learn new stuff. Working at Exquizeet has been good, but it’s not all that different from Flinders Lane. What I want is to learn haute couture, that’s where all the secrets are.

  I’ve been with Madame Jardine a month and she’s a real old dragon, she calls me ‘the boy’ and pretends she’s taking no notice of what I’m saying or doing. But nobody hates me here yet and I don’t mind her being a dragon. After Flinders Lane and some of the hand-finishers there, I’m an expert on dragons and have practically got a bottoms-wiping certificate in dragon-taming.

  I know this will sound very arrogant, but already I can see, as a fashion house, we’re losing the plot. Fashion is a movable thing and Madame Jardine has stagnated. There’s a designer in the Kings Road called Mary Quant who’s killing them all. She’s taken on Chanel and Dior in Paris and us and Hartnell in London and she’s blitzing us all.

  What she’s done in London is what I always wanted to do in Melbourne, she’s created styles at the working-girl level, same as Tullo. They’re called the MODS and they’re young people who want fashion, but want it outrageous! Or what the couturiers think is outrageous anyway. The rich and famous are also buying her stuff and she’s broken down the couturier barrier. Skirts well above the knees, crazy new colours and prints, simple elegant lines, bold-as-brass
colours. She’s taken away high heels and brought back flat shoes and go-go boots and her skirts practically climb up a pretty girl’s thighs all by themselves! The girls are all wearing her clothes with dark eyes, lots of black mascara and eye liner. They’re going crazy about her work and she’s turning the fashion industry upside down. I’m going to have to get to meet her even if it kills me.

  Two nights ago I waited until everyone had gone home except the night watchman and I cut a pattern for a garment design I’d made. A little bit similar to one of the ones I’d done for Sarah but with an a la Andre Courreges/Quant pencilline mini skirt and a few other little modifications I’ve thought up, interchangeable zip-on lapels in different colours and the same for the pocket patches. I finished it at 2 a.m. and left it displayed on the cutting table for when Madame came in next morning.

  At lunchtime I’m just about to go out to get my main meal for the day at Walls when Madame’s secretary calls to me and says that Madame Jardine wants to see me in the cutting room. I go in, I’m pretty nervous. She’s got the pattern still laid out with the sketches I’ve made and left with them.

  ‘Did you do this, boy?’ she says, pointing. She’s got fingernails practically long as your arm and her mouth is all red lipstick and she doesn’t look that happy.

  ‘Yes, Madame Jardine.’

  ‘And what is it supposed to mean?’

  ‘It’s a summer suit for the working girl, personal secretaries and girls who want to be fashionable and a bit outrageous,’ I say.

  ‘Secretaries! Madame Jardine doesn’t design for secretaries!’

  ‘Yes, well, you see that’s at one level.’ I go over and pick up a sketch. ‘This is the same suit, only a different fabric and heavily hand-embroidered. It would be a very expensive garment for the younger rich set or the slimmer figure.’

  ‘Embroidered? Hand-embroidered! Are there still little people who do that? This is ridiculous!’

  ‘Please, Madame Jardine, let me make up both versions so you can see what I mean.’

  ‘Oh, I see, the boy will design them, cut the pattern and do the sewing? I suppose you’ll do the embroidery as well,’ she says, real sarcastic.

  ‘Yes, Madame Jardine, I will.’

  You should have seen her face! But she can’t turn back now, she’s been challenged, see. Except she says, ‘Boy! A haute couturière doesn’t cut patterns, a patternmaker does that. She, or in your case should you ever become one, he doesn’t sew, a machinist does that. He doesn’t hand-finish, an expert hand-finisher does that and he most definitely doesn’t embroider! What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘Please, Madame Jardine, let me make up a sample of each, then you can fire me if you want. I’ll do it in my own time if you’ll let me have the fabrics.’

  So that was yesterday, and tomorrow I start on the two suits. The old dragon is giving me a chance. But she’s tough as nails and if I fail I’ll be out on my ear. I can’t believe it. It’s been less than a year and I’m getting a go at something original of my own in London!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yippeee!!!!!!!!!

  Mole, this is the longest letter I’ve ever written in my whole life and it brings you up to date. One more thing. I am bloody horrified that you want to go into the army!! But there you go, you were always the steady one in the family who thinks things out. But have you suddenly gone stark staring mad or something? Wasn’t Tommy enough for you? OK, now I’ve said it.

  Let everyone read this letter and tell them I love them. Tell Mum I’ll take a photo of the suit with the embroidery and send it to her. Maybe we’ll put it in the Royal Melbourne Show next year, eh? See if the Queen likes it enough to give it a blue ribbon or Best of Show! On twenty pounds a week I’m going to see my first opera at Covent Garden soon as I’ve done the suits. You can sit in a place called The Gods and it’s not so expensive.

  With lots of love to everyone, I miss you a lot.

  Mike

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Well, here I am at Kapooka which is near Wagga Wagga in New South Wales and I’ve been going a month in the regular army. I’ve got two more months as a recruit and I’m not sure I’m going to make it.

  Blokes from the bush aren’t meant for this kind of stuff. Weapons training and such, yeah, I like that a lot, but the drill is total crap. We’ve spent two days learning to salute. I mean, how useful is that? I’m not going to spend my life saluting people, or if I am, then I’ll be seeking an early retirement. Bring the right arm by the longest way smartly to the salute position, keeping the hand in line with the arm and square to the front. I do as the drill sergeant says, then it’s ‘Number three in the front rank, you are paying a compliment to an officer of the Australian Army, NOT BLOODY WAVING TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND!’ That’s me he’s yelling at. So I do what he says, which is what I’m doing in the first place, it ain’t too hard if you can see the sense of it in the first place.

  Now, with him yelling at me, he’s put two distractions into my mind. The first is: why would I want to pay a compliment to an officer? They were the ones that did bugger-all work at Sandakan and got transferred to Kuching, where their biggest problem was boredom. There was Matthews, of course, you’d pay a bloke like that a compliment, but there weren’t too many like him around. Secondly, I ain’t got a girlfriend, which makes me think of Anna Dombrowski and I start wondering how she is and there’s a bit of a longing in me. I’ve never forgotten her, though she’s probably married to Crocodile Brown and having a baby by now. I can’t bring myself to even imagine that.

  ‘NUMBER THREE IN THE FRONT I SAID TURN RIGHT BY NUMBERS, THE OTHER “RIGHT” YOU IDIOT!’ Suddenly I’m moving in a direction away from the platoon because I’ve been thinking these things. It’s like being in Crocodile Brown’s class after garbage collection all over again.

  It’s the endless drill, turning, saluting, marching, eyes right, eyes left, open order march, close order march that’s bugging me. I can’t believe Tommy and his lot had to do all this shit just to get themselves killed. Rifle drill goes on for bloody ever! I can use a rifle already, it comes naturally to me. We’ve been on the range and I’m ahead of everyone, even the other bushies. All the other stuff you’ve got to do with a rifle strikes me as pointless.

  Then there’s the inspections, your dress and your gear. I’ve spent my life doing the laundry in the copper back home. No, that’s not true, but ever since Sarah went to uni I know how to keep clean and iron a shirt. Washing and ironing isn’t a problem I have. Besides they’ve got washing machines here, just throw the stuff in and out it comes washed, so that’s something you can’t complain about.

  But it’s all the spit and polish, getting your boots so you can see your face in the bootcaps, starching your greens and getting the creases in the right places. You have to laugh at some of the blokes, those who’ve never seen an iron in their lives. I reckon I could become an ironing instructor in the army, be better than some of the stupid things you do to become a soldier.

  Like, here’s a ‘for instance’, the platoon sergeant inspects my rising-sun hat badge. ‘This is the rising sun,’he says, pointing to my hat badge. ‘It’s bloody sinking from the weight of the shit all over it!’ He rips my hat off and points to the badge, far as I can see it’s polished so it practically blinds you. ‘See that, you idiot. Brasso! Brasso fucking everywhere in the rays, haven’t you ever heard of a toothbrush? You may think it’s an implement for cleaning teeth. Well, it’s fucking not! It’s for removing fucking Brasso from your rising-sun badge you idiot!’ Next thing I know I’ve had my Sunday afternoon cancelled and I’m gardening outside Company Headquarters, all because he’s seen an imaginary spot of Brasso in the rays of the rising sun.

  What I’ve just told you about was the first month. Things were pretty crook, but they get a bit better after a while. We learn how to strip and assemble the new SLRs. Even the instructors are a bit shaky on this, because the SLR has just taken over
from the .303 Lee Enfield.

  Cleaning your rifle barrel makes a bit of sense, but I already know how to do this. They give you this piece of cloth called a ‘four-by-two’. It’s tied to a piece of string with its other end tied to a small lead weight and you drop the weight down the barrel and then pull the string through with the four-by-two to clean it. The biggest crime in the army is to have a dirty barrel on your rifle. But, see what I mean, there’s even a special drill for getting your rifle in position where the officer can look down the barrel and see if you’ve cleaned it right. It’s called ‘For inspection, port arms!’

  Tommy once told me what his sergeant said about his rifle when he was training as a young bloke same age as me. Now the platoon sergeant says exactly the same thing to us. It goes like this:

  ‘You blokes probably think your family is the most important thing in the world. The dirty minds amongst you probably think it’s your girlfriend. But from now on, it’s none of those. Righto, what is it, Private Maloney?’

  ‘My rifle, Sergeant.’

  ‘That’s right. Now look after it like you love it and one day it might look after you.’

  I’ll bet some sergeant with a handlebar moustache said that to Grandpa Baloney when he went to the Boer War.

  But there’s one thing I learn in the army that’s bloody good. All my life there’s been us and the Protestants, us and the wogs or reffos or Abos or whatever, people separating themselves from each other because of something or other, skin colour, religion, language, food. Now there’s blokes from everywhere and every kind, Protestants, Catholics, a few dago blokes and one Abo. But it doesn’t mean a thing. First thing they do here is cut all your hair off. I never realised how hair has its own language and tells you who people are. But now that’s all gone, we’re wearing the same haircut, same uniform and we’re under constant attack from the same enemy, the contrary and difficult bastards in charge of us.

  Religion doesn’t count, nationality don’t, colour doesn’t. When the Abo bloke’s got his hand in yours helping you over a wooden fence in the obstacle course, you don’t think about his family living, mostly as drunks, on the edge of town, like people say they do. You learn that there’s good blokes and bad ones, even Japs, like Sergeant Major Gotunda who went down the river in a boat to get the POWs rice and a bag of vegies and who couldn’t bring himself to shoot a prisoner. It doesn’t matter what nationality a bloke’s parents are, or what religion or colour he is, it’s who he is that matters.