Women and War

by Janet Tanner

  ‘Oh, I’ll have to go. Thank you.’ She ran towards the house. ‘I’m sorry, I was only …’

  ‘Alys!’ Her mother’s voice was coldly furious, her face a mask of controlled anger. ‘What do you think you have been doing?’

  ‘Just looking at the car.’

  ‘You are filthy! Filthy! What on earth is the matter with you? Is it impossible for you to do as you are told just once? Get inside. Go to your room and clean yourself up at once.’

  ‘I’m sorry …’ Alys said, looking down at her dress in surprise and dismay. ‘Really I didn’t think.’

  ‘You never do. You will be the death of me, Alys.’

  She turned and swept into the house; Miserably, Alys followed. Oh no, she’d done it again. Made Mother angry with her. And she did so hate it when Mother was angry. She wouldn’t have her beaten, of course. She wouldn’t raise a finger to her. But she would treat her to a display of cold disapproval that would last perhaps for several days. And beneath the disapproval would be outraged hurt as if the incident had been a personal affront to her. It would last until Mother was satisfied she had made Alys squirm with guilt for causing her so much trouble, until Alys was ready to cry and beg her forgiveness not simply with words but with her whole heart. And she would, in the end. For Alys, at eight, nothing in the world was more important than her mother’s approval. Not even a Rolls Royce motor car.

  ACT I

  Chapter One

  The Canary Club was dim and smoky. A bar padded with red plush ran the length of one wall; above it gilt framed mirrors reflected the rest of the room – dark glass topped tables, chairs upholstered in the same red plush, curtained alcoves, softly glowing pink wall lamps in the shape of seashells. At one end of the room a softly downbeat jazz rhythm was being played on a piano, background music only to the hum of conversation, the muted laughter and the chink of glasses, though on the small square of vacant floor between the tables a few couples were dancing, their bodies pressed into intimate contact.

  The piano and a little of the dancefloor was all that Tara Kelly could see from the screened doorway where she stood waiting to make her entrance, but she could picture the rest of the club well enough, and picture it not only as it looked now to the clients who had signed in at the small makeshift desk on the landing above but as it looked during the daytime too when the light filtering down into the cellar through the pavement gratings showed up the seedy imperfections that the soft illuminations hid at night – just how threadbare the carpet really was and how worn and faded the red plush. She knew how dusty it would smell then as the cleaners beat about a bit with carpet sweeper and broom and how the stale cigarette smoke would hang in the air, impregnating the curtains and furnishings; she knew that behind the bar even these smells would pale into insignificance beside the lingering whiffs of spirits and beer, enough to turn the stomach of anyone who had drunk a little too much themselves the previous night.

  She knew all this and did not care. For her nothing could detract from the glamour of the place. For as long as she could remember the one dream she had cherished was that she would be a singer – and here the dream had become reality. The Canary Club wasn’t the Capitol, of course, but it was a beginning.

  It was two months now since she had first walked down the steep stairs where more than one drunken client had come to grief, her heart beating a nervous tattoo, her head held high in a desperate show of bravado, and she’d marched up to Ed Donelly, the owner, and announced her availability.

  How close he had been to telling her he was not interested she would never know; that morning he had felt faded and hungover, worried about paying his protection money to the Sydney racketeers and the demands his ex-wife was making on what little remained of his profits. But two days earlier his resident singer had told him she was going to marry a rich punter whose house in Vaucluse gave a dress circle view of the harbour, and something about the look of the girl in the skin tight sweater and skirt had attracted him. She was young, too young for this game, but his jaded customers liked fresh youth and the dim light showed him a heart-shaped face beneath a mass of jet-black curls, eyes sparkling blue behind a fringing of sooty lashes and a well-developed figure which the tight sweater and skirt did nothing to hide.

  ‘All right,’ he had said. ‘Let’s hear what you can do.’

  The moment she began to sing he knew he had been right to give her a chance. She had it – that mysterious indefinable something which lifted her out of the ordinary, and her voice caught at some forgotten chord deep inside him. He glanced at Chips Magee, his talented but broken down piano player, and saw that he felt it too. There was excitement in the bloodshot eyes and a lift to the pouchy face dragged out of shape by too much whisky and too many cheap cigarettes.

  ‘When can you start?’ It was the only question he asked. Had he probed further he would have learned that Tara Kelly was only fourteen years old, younger even than either he or Chips had dreamed, but by the time he did discover how young she was he had merely sworn to himself and decided to forget it. Tara was good and she was pulling in the customers. He was not sure what the law would say if they discovered her on his premises but the law had never bothered Ed unduly.

  Tonight, as she stood behind the screen waiting to make her entrance, Tara experienced the same thrill she had experienced twice nightly for the last two months. Chips was playing that interminable slow jazz piece that would give way to her introductory music and when it did she would move out of the darkness into the beam of the spotlight. As she waited the adrenalin began to flow through her veins like a potent drug and she clenched and unclenched trembling hands, taking long steadying breaths of the smoky air and running over the opening lines of her first number: ‘My heart tells me this is just a fling / But your love to me means everything …’

  She caught herself up as the introduction began, harnessed the adrenalin and moved out into that rosy path of light, feeling it warm upon her bare shoulders and narrowing her eyes slightly against its glare.

  As soon as she was in view the sounds of chat and laughter spluttered into silence. Tara had heard it continue throughout the smutty patter of the resident comic and was always terrified that one night it might go on during her own act, but so far it never had. The moment she began to sing everyone stopped to listen and the realization of this lifted her onto a heady cloud.

  The first two numbers she sang beside the piano, for the third she was expected to move slowly between the tables singing to the customers, smiling at them, making them feel good. This was the part of the act she liked least for sometimes the men made advances to her, touching her or sometimes, if they were drunk enough, trying to pull her down onto their laps. At first this had worried her – she was afraid to risk losing her job because she had slapped some lecherous patron’s face – but she was not old or experienced enough to know how to deal tactfully with such advances. One thing she was determined about however – she was not going to put up with that sort of thing. She had seen too much of it when men came home with Maggie. She complained to Ed and soon the word had gone around. Molesting the singer was taboo and would result in instant ejection by the ex-boxers who guarded the entrance to the club. If the patrons wanted a girl for the evening one would be found but it would not be Tara Kelly.

  Tonight, as always, she made her way between the tables moving with a slinky sideways step because her ankle-length skirt was too tight to allow her to move freely. Many of the customers she recognized as regulars and she smiled at them and sang a few lines to them. But as she moved towards the discreetly lit rear of the club, she was surprised to see Ed sitting at a table with two men she had never seen before. One was completely bald; the soft spotlight following Tara caught the film of moisture covering the crown of his head, making it shine. Yet it was the other one who, in spite of being less remarkable, somehow drew and held her attention. His face was half-hidden behind a screen of cigar smoke but she was aware of a hook nose and piercing eyes; his suit
was conservative yet she gained the distinct impression of a powerful physique. Ed was smiling proudly and nodding as if to encourage her and she sang to them before moving on once more.

  She was back in her dressing-room, the tiny curtained alcove halfway up the rear fire escape when the summons came, delivered by Wenda, one of the club’s hostesses.

  ‘The boss wants you to join him at his table, Tara.’

  ‘Oh no, sure wasn’t I just about to have a steak! I’m starving!’ she complained, but she knew better than to refuse. She slipped on a bolero to cover her bare shoulders and went back into the club.

  The men were still sitting around the table. As she approached Ed pulled out a chair for her with a quick almost nervous gesture.

  ‘There she is then, our little Tara,’ he said. ‘As you can see, Red, she’s as beaut close to as she looks when she’s singing.’

  ‘Can I buy you a drink?’ the big man asked. His voice was soft yet there was a vibrancy in it that commanded, just as the look of him did.

  ‘She’ll drink champagne, won’t you, Tara?’ Ed prompted and Tara nodded. On the rare occasions when Ed allowed her back into the club to fraternize with the customers she was expected to ask for champagne – though what she actually got was a soft fizzy drink served in a champagne flute.

  ‘You were dinkum,’ the big man said. He was looking at her through the haze of cigar smoke, eyes narrowed. ‘How long have you been here?’

  Ed answered for her. ‘ Just a few weeks. She’s done well. Soon as she walked in here looking for a job I knew she’d be right.’

  ‘Where do you live, Tara?’ the big man asked.

  The drinks had arrived. Busy as the bar was there had been priority for the boss’s table. Tara, thirsty from her singing spot, had her glass halfway to her lips as he asked the question.

  ‘Darlo,’ she said and drank. Then her eyes widened and she pressed her fingers to her mouth as the liquid tickled unexpectedly on her tongue. That wasn’t carbonated water – it was champagne! She glanced quickly round the table thinking she must have been given the wrong drink but the men’s glasses were all whisky tumblers filled with easily recognizable amber liquid and Ed, staring at her from beneath hooded lids, was daring her to say anything.

  ‘Darlinghurst, eh? I’d say you’ll go far from Darlinghurst!’ He held his cigar clamped between his teeth and his features were craggy in the dim light. But it was his eyes she was unable to ignore – his eyes on her face, deep and speculative, looking at her in a way she knew only too well.

  She pushed back her glass and started to get up.

  ‘Thank you, but if you would excuse me …’

  Ed touched her elbow, pulling her down again. ‘It’s too early to leave, Tara.’ He was smiling but she sensed it was a forced smile with lips drawn too tightly across his teeth. ‘Mr Maloney especially wanted to meet you.’

  Mr Maloney. Red. The name meant nothing to her.

  ‘I’m feeling awful tired. I’ll be very bad company.’

  The eyes behind the cigar smoke narrowed a fraction more; they were little more than slits now.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Tara. Stay and relax for a little while and I’ll have my car drop you home afterwards. You won’t have to walk to Darlo tonight.’

  There was no escape and she sensed it. On the table in front of her the champagne sparkled invitingly. Tara raised the flute and drank and this time she enjoyed the sensation of the bubbles bursting on her tongue. When the flute was half empty Red Maloney motioned to a hostess to bring more and as he raised his hand Tara saw the solid gold cufflinks gleaming at his wrist. Interested, she took a closer look and saw that his wristwatch too was gold. Obviously a man of means. But it didn’t mean she liked him any better. For one thing he was thirty-five if he was a day; for another there was something vaguely frightening about him. Just what it was Tara was uncertain but it had to do with an instinct that told her he was very used to getting his own way, which was compounded by Ed’s attitude. Tara at fourteen had looked up to Ed as the height of successful sophistication; to see him now so ill at ease in the presence of this big powerful man was a chastening experience.

  An hour passed. The music became slower and sleepier, the couples dancing on the square of floor clung closer and the air became so thick with smoke that Tara’s eyes began to sting. But strangely she found she was caring less. If this was how champagne made you feel it was rather pleasant, she thought – even if her cheeks did feel flushed and the shell lights on the wall seemed to be moving in soft fuzzy circles. The company that had been forced upon her seemed more congenial too – even Ed had told one or two jokes that had actually made her giggle.

  She giggled again now, lifting her champagne glass and looking down into it. ‘ Oh, it’s all gone! What a pity!’

  Ed raised his hand to summon a hostess but Red Maloney stopped him.

  ‘No. I think Miss Kelly is ready to go home now.’

  No one had ever called her Miss Kelly before. She giggled again. He stood up and she saw for the first time just what a big man he was – well over six feet tall and broad with it – but a breadth that came from physical exercise, not from sloth.

  ‘Do you have a coat, Miss Kelly?’ he asked.

  She shook her head, holding her lip between her teeth because absurdly she still wanted to giggle. The bald-headed man, Jason, rose too; by the time Tara, leaning lightly against Red’s arm, reached the top of the stairs a huge black Cadillac was waiting at the kerb. Red held her back in the doorway while Jason got out and opened the rear passenger door, then he ushered her into the car and got in beside her.

  The fresh air had sobered her little; she looked around surprised to find herself surrounded by such luxuries as smoked glass windows and leather upholstery. Red touched a button and when a cocktail cabinet slid out at knee level, he poured himself a Scotch.

  ‘Want one?’ he asked her.

  ‘I don’t know … Can I taste?’

  He held the glass to her lips and the wafting smell reminded her so sharply of Mammy that she almost sobbed aloud. Then the fiery liquid was burning her throat, making her cough, and she forgot Mammy again.

  The car swept past Tooheys Brewery and began climbing the steep rise into Surrey Hills. Tara looked out at the pretty terraced cottages they were passing, three tiered and decorated with wrought iron lacework like an everlasting wedding cake. She loved these houses and had always dreamed that one day she might live in one of them instead of the squalid Darlo apartment she shared with Maggie. Now, in the cocooned luxury of the Cadillac, she found herself almost believing for a moment that one of the pretty cottages was hers already.

  Darlinghurst was a maze of small sloping streets and tall squalid houses. When Tara pointed down an alleyway the Cadillac slid to a stop. Red Maloney closed up his bar but made no move to open the door for Tara to get out.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Sure wouldn’t Maggie have a fit if she was to go by now and see me in a grand car like this one!’

  His eyes were on her again.

  ‘I have a proposition to put to you, Tara. If you say yes you would be able to ride in a car like this all the time.’

  His words sobered her even more than the fresh air had done. Did he mean what she thought he meant?

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t Mr Maloney, thank you kindly all the same. It’s against all the laws of God’s church …’

  He laughed aloud. ‘I was going to ask you if you would sing in one of my clubs. What did you think I was going to say?’ she flushed and he went on: ‘ I have two clubs, both of them bigger and better than the Canary. The one is in …’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘But you haven’t given me a chance to tell you …’

  ‘Sure what is there to tell? I couldn’t leave the Canary Club. What would Ed do?’

  ‘He’ll find someone else.’ His hand covered hers and as he moved towards her she smelled again the whisky smell on his breath that reminded her so of Mammy
.

  ‘No thank you, Mr Maloney.’ She fumbled for the door catch, without success. The Cadillac was a prison of leather and chrome. ‘Let me get out of here!’ she said in panic.

  ‘Tara!’ he reproached. He caught her chin turning it towards him and at first she was too startled by the vice-like grip even to struggle. So strong were his fingers it seemed to her that if he wished he could crack her jaw like a walnut. Then, still holding her face steady he bent his head to hers. She found herself looking up mesmerized into that craggy face, all lines and shadows in the half-light. Then his mouth was on hers, pressing and seeking so fiercely that she could scarcely breathe. For a moment she remained motionless then as his tongue violated her mouth she began to fight, trying to free herself. Useless. How could any man be that strong? As he raised his lips she gulped thankfully for air then, still trapped, expelled it all as a scream. At once his other hand clamped over her mouth and with the panic now making her desperate she bit at it and tasted blood.

  Red swore violently and released her to suck the blood from his injured hand. Tara knew a moment’s triumph that changed swiftly to fear as he lunged towards her once more, pinning her into the corner of the seat like a butterfly.

  ‘Try that again and you’ll be sorry!’

  Her sob of fear turned to defiance. ‘ You bully!’ she screamed at him. ‘You’ll rot in hell, so you will!’

  As suddenly as he had grabbed her he let her go, leaning back with an explosive roar of laughter.

  ‘What is there to laugh at?’ she cried, mortified and not knowing why.

  He shook his head, reached into his pocket and extracted a fat cigar.

  ‘What do you want with me?’ she cried in fury. ‘Just get on with it, can’t you, if you’re going to! Don’t keep tormenting me like this!’

  ‘Oh no, Tara.’ She saw the glint of a gold lighter as he lit his cigar and instantly the car was perfumed by the pungent smoke. ‘You have it wrong. I don’t rape little girls in the back seats of motor cars.’