Love in the Years of Lunacy

by Mandy Sayer

‘We’re going to have to jump!’ he shouted over the din.

  He stood up and pulled her up with him. When the train barrelled through the exit doors for the third time, he wrapped his arms around her and yelled, ‘Now!’ and before she had time to hesitate they were leaping from the carriage and sailing through the air. They hit the ground but he took the brunt of the fall with his shoulder, and when she rolled off him the only pain she felt was from grazes on her elbow and knee.

  The lights of the park had been extinguished and almost everyone had disappeared. In their absence the sound of the siren was even louder and more foreboding. Pearl grabbed James’s hand and, half running, half limping, led him around the brick wall that enclosed the ghost train ride.

  The siren reached a fever pitch and searchlights began sweeping the sky. They scooted back around the building, to the centre of the park, looking frantically for shelter. For all the talk around Sydney about an impending Japanese invasion, Pearl had never imagined this, the awful whorl of dread in her stomach, being so far away from her family. She imagined enemy warships lurking in the darkness, guns angled toward the coast, scores of invading soldiers marching through the city, the hum of a distant aeroplane about to drop a fatal bomb. She thought of crawling back into the ghost train but at that moment something exploded across the harbour, so loud and close it sounded as if the Harbour Bridge itself were being bombed.

  She screamed and staggered backwards, almost losing her footing. James grabbed her by the arm and pushed her up into a tub-shaped carriage of a ride called the Tumblebug. He crawled in after her and they huddled together on a seat shaped like a crescent moon. The carriage was suspended at the end of one of the eight metal arms that craned out from the centre of the ride. When it was operating, the arms moved up and down, circling out over the water and back, while the carriages spun in crazy circles; now, however, the carriage rocked gently in the breeze. Another explosion thundered across the harbour; a flare forked the sky like lightning, and a sob began deep in Pearl’s throat. James drew her to him and held her tenderly, as if she might break, murmuring words she could barely hear over the deafening blasts.

  The air-raid siren continued to wail. All sorts of sounds were carried across the water: shouts, car horns, barking dogs. She felt sure she would never see her family again, her friends, the house she had been raised in. She would die without ever having felt the sensation of a man inside her, without her body ever knowing what it was like to make love.

  Gunfire stuttered.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ James murmured. ‘We’re gonna be all right.’

  She suddenly turned and pressed her lips against his again. She found herself pulling at the buttons of his uniform, touching the bulge between his legs, but he grasped her wrist and pulled her hand away. She was bawling now, not caring anymore. She clambered onto his lap and sat facing him, one knee on either side of his hips, their bellies touching.

  Another explosion boomed across the harbour, and then the coughing fit of a machine gun, closer now.

  She dropped to her knees on the floor of the carriage and, squeezing herself between his thighs, pushed her face into his chest, like a child. James was trembling now, his hands on her hair, her shoulders. She found the zipper at her side and pulled at it. A moment later the dress was over her head and flung onto the ground below. She took his hands and cupped them against the lace of her brassiere. She was so dizzy for a moment she thought she might pass out. It was the same sensation that bled through her when she was about to go onstage—the warmth between her legs rising into her belly like dye seeping through a bolt of cloth. He eased his fingers inside her bra and held her right breast. As the howl of the siren rose and fell she could sense his short, sharp gasps. She went to unbuckle his belt but again he stopped her. Instead, he guided her down onto the floor of the carriage. In the flicker of a passing searchlight she saw him unzip his fly. Then he slipped off the seat and lowered himself on top of her.

  For months, for years, she’d wondered what this would be like: the weight of a man against her, his mouth on her breast. She was shaking with fear and excitement. When she looked up she could see the ink-coloured sky with stars that looked like tiny hands. Another explosion thundered through the city and their carriage shook. He didn’t remove her knickers, but merely grabbed the gusset and yanked the crotch to one side. When he nudged himself into her, it hurt a little, like a menstrual cramp widening through her groin. He must have sensed her tensing, for he slowed down then and moved into her gradually, in such small and gentle increments that she relaxed and found her breath again and it wasn’t long before her body was moving in a gentle undulation with his and something close to pleasure tingled up through her, radiating into her stomach, her breasts. The carriage began to sway back and forth until it was swinging in half-circles to the rhythm of their hips.

  A soft, velvet hush enveloped the harbour. Pearl could hear water lapping against the nearby pontoon and the flutter of seagulls. The searchlights were gone, the sirens had faded, and the city was now cloaked in darkness. Still lying on the floor of the carriage, beneath the warmth of his jacket, Pearl folded into James and they dozed for a while, occasionally shifting against one another. When she awakened fully sometime close to dawn, she was surprised to realise that not only were they both unharmed, but she felt more alive than ever.

  James kissed the base of her throat.

  ‘Now that we’re not dead,’ he murmured, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

  She tensed, wary of the note of warning in his voice. He pulled away from her and sat up on the seat of the carriage, helping her to sit up beside him. She could see the outline of his face in the moonlight and the bright whites of his eyes and teeth. She thought she knew what was coming: he was being shipped out tomorrow or maybe he had a girlfriend back in the States, or even a wife. Children, perhaps. She was preparing herself for the worst, yet she now felt closer to this near-stranger than anyone else in the world, including her brother.

  ‘This is all new for me,’ he said finally. She wondered what he was referring to—the bombs? The sex? Being in Sydney?

  He took her hand and held it as he gazed across the water. ‘And I guess it’s new for you, too.’ He bit his lip, still not looking at her. ‘So let’s keep this to ourselves, okay? At least until we know each other better.’

  She swallowed, trying to find the right words. She wasn’t as self-conscious about their lovemaking as he obviously was, which she found surprising. Was he embarrassed by her? Or even ashamed? She felt her face and neck reddening.

  He must have sensed her distress because he rested a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘Folks back home told me about Aussie girls, but I never thought I’d find myself one as gorgeous as you. Prettiest package I ever seen. And you got talent, too.’

  He rubbed the back of her neck and she began to feel calmer. Across the water, below the steel struts of the bridge, she could see a sliver of light on the horizon, the dappled surfaces of the harbour luminous and green with the early rays of dawn.

  She suddenly had a crazy idea and blurted it out before she could stop herself. ‘James, will you teach me? Teach me to play like you?’

  He said nothing, as if further embarrassed by the predicament he now found himself in. He leaned over and picked up her brassiere from the floor of the carriage.

  She remembered with shame her clumsy solo at the Booker T. Washington Club, the bum notes, the dragging tempo. She jumped from the carriage and looked around for her discarded dress. It was on the ground, over by the ride’s generator. She slipped it on and began doing up the buttons, in spite of the fact that he still held her bra. One of her shoes was over by another carriage and she shoved her foot into it, then clumped around in the half-light looking for the other.

  ‘If you want me to teach you,’ he called out to her finally, ‘we’re gonna have to go back to basics. Break some of those bad habits.’

  She paused, hardly breathing, waiting fo
r him to continue, but he didn’t speak, just fumbled in the pocket of his trousers.

  When he found what he was looking for he held it up. It was small and blond-coloured, wrapped in cellophane.

  ‘You don’t even know how to put a reed into your mouthpiece properly. Yours was too loose.’ He gave her the reed he was holding. ‘We’ll start with that.’

  They walked back to the city across the Harbour Bridge. The buildings on the other side were wreathed in mist but they all still seemed to be standing. Pearl could make out the grey dome of the Observatory on the Millers Point hill, the clock tower of the general post office, the spire of the Mariners’ Church, and the wharfie pubs opposite Circular Quay.

  She was still rattled by the bombings, could still hear explosions echoing in her ears, but as she strolled beside James she felt as if she were fuelled by some potent substance her body was manufacturing for the first time. It wasn’t just the electric lunacy of love, or lust, but something more indefinable. James had agreed to give her lessons, whenever he could secure leave passes from the camp, and it was this, coupled with everything they’d shared a few hours before, that sent a thrill through her.

  He’d been adamant about two things, though: first, that she had to practise what he taught her at least four hours a day; second, she needed a new saxophone. Her father’s old vaudeville alto was in terrible condition; James had noticed at the Booker T. Club the tarnished metal, the worn pads, the two lower keys held in place with rubber bands.

  ‘If you’re serious, Pearl,’ he told her, ‘you gotta get yourself a good axe. Not some piece of shit your daddy used to play.’

  ‘Okay,’ she murmured, knowing that she’d never be able to afford one.

  As they neared the south side of the bridge, they could hear orders being shouted from the decks of naval ships. Boats zigzagged across the harbour, leaving trails of silver foam. Pearl asked James about America, about the musicians he’d heard there. ‘Have you ever heard Artie Shaw?’ she said. ‘He’s my favourite bandleader.’ James replied that he’d not only met the famous clarinettist, he’d jammed with him once in upstate New York.

  Pearl was speechless. He then told her in a nonchalant voice—oh, as casual as you like—that he’d also played with Count Basie’s band in Kansas City, along with the great saxophonist Lester Young. He’d toured the South with Benny Goodman. He’d met the great trombonist Jack Teagarden in New York and had got drunk with him in a bar in Harlem. And one day he literally ran into the famous hunchback drummer Chick Webb, who was walking with his head down through the foyer of the Apollo Theatre.

  She, in turn, told him about the first time she’d ever heard an American jazz band.

  ‘Sonny Clay’s Colored Idea,’ she recalled. ‘A ten-piece band, twenty-five singers and dancers.’

  Pearl and Martin were not even four years old when Aubrey took them to the Tivoli theatre. Pearl had a distinct memory of the moment the theatre curtain began to rise and the big, irreverent sound of the band bursting into the auditorium. And she was astonished to see the skin of all the musicians was almost as dark as the black keys on a piano. She sat holding onto the velvet armrests of her seat, mesmerised by the fast, whimsical beat of the music and the appearance of the men who made it.

  ‘It was the first Negro jazz band ever to tour Australia,’ she added. ‘And I knew on that very afternoon what I wanted to be.’

  James smiled. ‘You wanted to be coloured?’

  ‘No!’ She elbowed him. ‘I knew I wanted to be a jazz musician.’

  A few years later, she and Martin and Charlie Styles, a little boy who lived up the road and played the cornet, would pretend that they had formed their own band and would walk single file through Kings Cross, banging pots and pans and taking turns blowing into the boy’s horn.

  It began to rain. Pearl and James ran down the concrete stairs and into a tunnel that sloped towards a street in The Rocks. She stopped and pushed him against the tiled wall and kissed him. They were interrupted by the sound of footsteps and glimpsed a figure silhouetted against the other opening of the tunnel. James abruptly pushed her away. ‘Not here, baby,’ he murmured. ‘Not now.’

  She was surprised by his sudden change of mood.

  ‘Where’s the nearest train station?’ he asked.

  ‘Why?’ she asked playfully. ‘You got a date with another girl?’

  He clearly wasn’t amused by the joke. ‘I got to get back to camp.’

  They crossed the street and rounded a corner pub.

  ‘How about you meet me after my gig tomorrow night?’ she suggested. He was walking slightly ahead of her and she had to stride to catch up. ‘I know a café in the Cross that lets black people in. Some of them even play in the band!’

  As they passed a row of dirty brick terraces, James replied, ‘I’ll try.’

  Pearl felt panicky now, wondering if she’d ever see him again.

  ‘Well, what about next Sunday?’ she persisted. ‘It’s my birthday. And my brother’s. We’re having a Sunday lunch.’

  James shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Will your parents be there?’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘And my grandmother, too.’

  He merely pursed his lips, still not looking at her. ‘We’ll see,’ he said finally. ‘I’ll see if I can get away.’

  3

  It was around half past eight by the time she reached her street in Potts Point. She’d already led James to Town Hall Station, had handed him a note detailing her address and the time of her birthday lunch and the café where they were to meet the following night. They said goodbye with a handshake and, before he disappeared down the stairs to the platform, a brief wave. She desperately wanted to see him again but was still unsure about how he truly felt about her.

  Even though it had begun to rain again, she noticed some of her neighbours were moving furniture out of their flats and houses and loading them onto trucks.

  The rain grew heavier. Pearl dashed down the block, suddenly now wanting to be home with her family and in front of the fire.

  When she walked through the front gate—her stockings gone, her clothes torn, wet, and sticking to her skin—Clara appeared in the open front doorway and cried, ‘Thank God you’re alive!’

  She rushed down the path and threw her arms around Pearl, then stepped back and looked with horror at the rip in her dress. ‘Those mongrel Japs! They did this to you? I’ll kill ’em. I’ll kill the bastards!’

  ‘No, Mum,’ said Pearl. ‘I’m all right. I’m just—’ Clara bundled her up the stairs and onto the veranda. Aub came racing up from the basement and hugged her tightly. Martin followed him onto the veranda, an unlit cigarette between his lips. He, too, was soaking wet and when he walked his damp shoes squelched.

  ‘This one just got home now, too!’ Clara nodded at Martin. ‘I’ve been worried sick.’

  Martin glanced at Pearl’s dishevelled state and joked. ‘Been out wrestling Japs, Burly?’

  ‘You don’t know the half of it!’ She blurted out about her time at Luna Park, the crushing noise of the bombs, the Tumblebug ride she’d sheltered in all night.

  ‘I thought you two were playing bridge last night,’ said Clara sharply. ‘With Nora and that Negro bloke.’

  Pearl shot Martin a panicked look. She’d forgotten about the ruse she and Martin had cooked up.

  ‘Well, we did,’ explained Martin. ‘For a while.’ He held out his cigarette to Aub, who lit it with a match. He took a couple of puffs while everyone—especially Pearl—waited for him to continue. ‘But the Negro got bored and wanted to go to the pictures—’ He took another puff. ‘While Pearl and Nora wanted to go to Luna Park.’

  Pearl was so in awe of Martin’s effortless fibbing, she had to stop herself from slapping him on the back and bursting into laughter.

  ‘Oh?’ said Clara. ‘And what movie did you see?’

  ‘Keep ’em Flying. Abbott and Costello,’ replied Martin automatically. ‘State Theatre. When the bo
mbs started going off me and the Negro thought they were part of the show. That’s until the screen went black and the ushers herded everyone down to the basement.’ Martin casually flicked the ash from his cigarette and inhaled again. ‘We stayed there all night. Singing sea shanties.’

  He looked at Pearl pointedly and grinned. And she beamed back with gratitude. ‘And me and Nora,’ added Pearl, ‘we stayed in the Tumblebug all night. We were too scared to move until the sun came up.’

  Aub nodded and took Pearl’s hand. ‘Good idea, love. At least you’re safe.’

  Clara sighed and shook her head. ‘Well, let’s get you two in front of the fire. Before you catch your death of cold.’ She bustled the twins and Aub through the front door and into the warmth of the parlour, where their grandmother, Lulu, was dozing in a rocking chair and Mikey Michaels was drawing a picture of a burning boat.

  Aub turned on the radio for a news update. The reader’s voice was low and grim as he read the latest report: Early the night before, three Japanese midget submarines had entered the harbour. They’d been able to escape detection by the magnetic indicator loop installed on the harbour floor. For several hours they’d cruised beneath the passing ferries. No precautions had been taken to black out the city because, at the time, there was no reason to assume that Sydney was under threat. Even the naval base, Garden Island, had sat like an open target, with hundreds of arc lamps flooding the harbour until they were finally extinguished. By then, however, it was too late, as Pearl so vividly remembered.

  She realised that the Pacific war had never before edged so close to Australia’s biggest city but, as she digested the news, she felt oddly detached from the growing danger. Sure, it was a genuine threat on her city’s doorstep, but that same threat had also brought James into her life, and she knew intuitively she would never have had one without the other.

  The following day, as Pearl walked the wet streets of Kings Cross, she began to grow wary of the war again, especially when she heard the rumours which were spreading over shop counters, from open window to open window, over front gates and through paling fences. The story was that the surviving Japanese had escaped their submarines and were hiding in buildings at the lower end of Wylde Street, just around the corner from where she and her family lived. The enemy could attack at any moment.