by Mandy Sayer
When she glimpsed the stream she rushed towards it, and as she did she was possessed by a similar rush of excitement, the promise of spending the rest of her life with the only man she’d ever love. The dog leaped ahead, barking madly, as if she too were thrilled by their reunion.
Pearl and Pup reached the bank, where they glimpsed Wanipe and the rest of the Australian unit, who were wading across from the other side. They waved and called to each other, and the dog, recognising Wanipe, began howling a greeting and dancing on her hind legs. Pearl splashed her face with the clear, freezing water and refilled the canteen.
As she waited for the others to cross the stream, she noticed through the thinning mist two or three American soldiers moving stealthily along the terrace above. She was so relieved that the reinforcements had finally arrived that she left Wanipe and the others behind and began striding back to the plane.
As she skirted around bushes, she could see the wings and tail of the supply plane glinting silver. When she squinted she could glimpse the outline of James through the cracked glass. She saw him raise his hand again and give a brief wave. She responded by jumping like an excited child and punching at the air.
Then there was a deafening boom and the mountainside exploded. She fell to the ground as dirt, shattered glass and bits of metal rained through the air. Another boom thundered. Pearl lifted her head to glance up at the clearing and what she saw seemed impossible: the plane she’d waved at only moments before no longer existed; all that remained were clouds of smoke.
She jumped to her feet but Wanipe had already reached her and was trying to hold her back. She broke away and raced up the track towards the clearing, the dog running ahead of her, barking. Seething with rage, she hugged the rifle as she rushed up the path. She was ready to kill someone, to put a bullet into the man who’d grenaded the plane. She heard a branch crack but all she saw were the tops of two steel helmets moving through the undergrowth. She caught flashes of their jungle-green uniforms as they stalked towards the remains of the plane, guns cocked.
‘Jap boy’s dead now,’ called one of them in an American accent.
She stood stock-still, unable to move, as if she’d turned to granite. Without twitching a muscle, she watched the black smoke billow up from the plane, until she heard a bloodcurdling cry echo through the valley and realised it was her own.
Acknowledgements
This novel was written with the assistance of the Literature Board of the Australia Council. Many thanks for the support.
It was also written with the support of the 2002 University of NSW Writer’s Fellowship, which provided priceless resources to further my research. In particular I’m indebted to Professor of History, Sean Brawley, whose lectures in the class ‘The Pacific War: World War II in the Asia-Pacific World War’ at UNSW were both inspiring and revelatory. Dr Brawley also gave me vital feedback during the writing of an early manuscript.
I’m also indebted to Professor Bruce Johnson, formerly of the UNSW English Department, for assisting my research into Australian jazz, and who has been an unswerving supporter of this work.
Also assisting me in my research on the history of Australian jazz: thanks to all the commentators on the Australian Dance Band discussion forum, particularly Dennis King, Bill Forrest and John Whiteoak, and saxphonist Bob Bertles for their insights and suggestions.
I’d also like to acknowledge the 2009 Scholar in Writing Program at the University of Technology, Sydney, for support during the completion of this book.
For critical feedback, thanks to Dan Conaway, John Dale, Jane Gleeson-White, and Ivor Indyk.
Special thanks to my Australian agent Gaby Naher, and my Australian publisher Jane Palfreyman, both of whom offered detailed critiques of many drafts.
Thank you to Siobhán Cantrill, a meticulous senior editor, and a joy to work with.
The definition of a great editor is one who intuits an author’s intentions and helps her realise them. Ali Lavau, you are one of the best I have ever encountered.
Excerpts from this novel first appeared in the following journals: Extempore 2: Writing/Art/Jazz/Improvisation, Miriam Zolin (ed.), Ch. One; and in HEAT, Ivor Indyk (ed.), Ch. Three.
This novel was begun on 3 July 2000, and not completed until 25 January 2011, almost the length of my entire relationship with my husband, Louis Nowra. My thanks for his critical rigour and unending patience over the years. The love in this book is a consequence of my love for him.
The following works were important to my research: All on One Good Dancing Leg, by Joan Clarke; Sweethearts of Rhythm: The Story of Australia’s All-Girl Bands and Orchestras to the End of the Second World War, by Kay Dreyfus; Black Roots White Flowers: A History of Jazz in Australia, by Andrew Bisset; A Showman’s Story: The Memoirs of Jim Davidson, by Jim Davidson; Meet Me at the Trocadero, by Joan Ford; A Yank Down Under: From America’s Heartland to Australia’s Outback, by Ray A. Wyatt; Jungle Fighters: A G.I. War Correspondent’s Experiences in the New Guinea Campaign, by Jules Archer; New Guinea Diary, by George H. Johnston; Somewhere in New Guinea, by Frank Clune.
Coda
‘Mum and Dad never found out the truth,’ says Pearl on the last tape. ‘Really, no one knows the whole story—well, not anyone who’s still alive.’ She pauses and I can hear her wheezing, as if struggling for breath. Ice tinkles in a glass. She clears her throat and takes a sip of whatever she’s drinking, probably vodka.
I feel as if I’m welded to my chair, unable to move. I’m imagining the exploded plane, fire and smoke wreathing the air, and the man she’d just made love to now no more than blood and splintered bones scattered across the valley. My breathing’s so shallow I feel lightheaded, dizzy, as if I’m gazing at a street from the top of a skyscraper.
I have to force myself to concentrate as she moans softly and takes another sip of her drink.
‘Wait, darling, she murmurs, ‘there’s more.’
On the plane back to Sydney, Pearl was lectured to by Sergeant Rudolph, who wanted to get her out of the military and back into civilian life as quickly and quietly as possible.
‘It was an accident, Willis!’ he kept repeating, exasperated. ‘No American would want to kill one of his own.’
Pearl was still wearing her uniform, still pretending to be her brother; it had been only thirty-two hours since the reinforcements had blown up the crashed Japanese plane. Pearl, still in deep shock, was clutching the dog to her chest and refused to let her go. She would never believe that James’s death wasn’t deliberate, that it had all been a terrible mistake. ‘James was good enough to die protecting Australia, but not good enough to live here,’ she told Rudolph bitterly. They were the last words she ever spoke to him.
Once they landed in Sydney, Rudolph rushed through the paperwork, and within two hours Private Martin Willis had been honourably discharged from the Australian Army and was handed fifty pounds in deferred pay. Pearl promptly took a train to the Blue Mountains, turning up at the farm at sunset with her backpack and dog. After she banged on the door it swung open and Martin appeared, dressed in a pair of overalls, his hair long and matted. He took one look at Pearl and exclaimed, ‘Christ, what happened to you?’ They hugged tightly and then both burst into tears.
The next day, they switched identities again and turned up at their Potts Point home together, shocking the daylights out of Clara and Aub. And the twins kept each other’s secrets: Martin maintained that he’d been away in New Guinea for a year, while Pearl told them she’d run off to the mountains to live with Pookie and Nora Barnes. Their parents were so thrilled that the twins were both alive and healthy that they welcomed them back into the home with a lot of sobbing and open arms and untold bottles of beer.
***
‘Don’t worry, darling,’ says Pearl towards the end of tape twenty-three. ‘There’s a happy ending to this story, after all.’ I hear the tap of her glass against a table and then she sighs. ‘Seven weeks after I got back to Sydney . . .’ She clears her thro
at. ‘Seven weeks later . . . I found out I was pregnant.’
At first I think I’m hearing things. I hit the pause button and rewind for a couple of seconds, then press play again.
‘—after all . . . Seven weeks after I got back to Sydney . . . Seven weeks later . . . I found out I was pregnant. Mum hit the roof at first. But after a while she figured out a plan and packed me off to a country home to give birth. To give birth in secret.’
I hit the pause button again and pour myself a double whisky. I down it in two gulps and pour myself another. I think I know where the story is going now and I’m starting to get jittery. My hands are shaking and I can’t feel my legs. I steady myself against the desk and sit down again. As I go to press play again, my finger trembles like a divining rod.
‘When I first saw you,’ she says, ‘all I could see was your father. His beautiful blue eyes and those long black lashes. That’s why I called you Jimmy. You were the spitting image of him.’
I gulp down my second whisky.
‘It was Mum’s idea. She made me do it.’ I can hear her weeping now, her voice cracking. ‘It was the only way she’d let me keep you. Back in the forties, you know . . . People could turn a blind eye to a soldier coming back from the war with a bastard kid—even a black one. But not if . . . not if you were a woman.’
She falls silent and all I can hear are the wheels of the cassette player turning. At first, I think this is the end of the story, that she has nothing more to say. But after what seems like a long time, she coughs and sips her drink again.
‘There were so many times,’ she murmurs, ‘when I wanted to—when we both wanted to, me and Martin—to tell you the truth . . .’ She chokes up, then recovers herself. ‘We were going to tell you after Mum died. But by that time—Christ, you were at uni on an Aboriginal scholarship and it just seemed . . . I don’t know. We couldn’t bring ourselves . . .’ I can hear a catch in her throat, a soft hiccup. ‘And once you became a writer—well, things just got out of hand, I know this must come as a terrible shock, which is why I asked Brian to wait a year after my death before he, before he came looking for these tapes.’ She blows her nose, sighs. ‘But I want you to know, Jimmy, you’re my beautiful boy. I want you to understand the deep love that made you. The deep love I’ll always have for you . . .’
Her voice trails off and I’m so stunned I feel the start of a migraine pulsing at the base of my skull. Right now I don’t love Pearl back—no, not at all. My first reaction is to lurch around the house, smashing things up—her favourite vase, her set of china, Clara’s crystal champagne flutes. All those years I spent wondering about my real mother, where I came from, and why. All those years I imagined my teenage mother giving birth to me, the one with the long, black lustrous hair. The one who came from a mission outside Dubbo.
And what do I tell my own son, and my ex-wife, and all my Redfern mates? I’ve always been a bit of an outsider but this news makes me feel like a fucking alien.
What kind of family could keep a secret that long? All to protect Pearl’s future, and the Willis name.
And speaking of names . . . Fuck, that’s right . . . I’ve been named Australia’s First Indigenous Crime Writer. That title is plastered all over my backlist—over two hundred thousand copies worldwide. I’ve just picked up a Deadly Award for services to Indigenous literature.
It probably won’t be long before I’m outed as yet another literary hoaxer—joining a long list of bullshit artists, from Helen Demidenko to James Frey. Just another impostor riding the Aboriginal gravy train . . .
It’s not until I smash an antique porcelain bowl in the kitchen, not until one of the builders, Omar, grabs my arms from behind to restrain me, that I begin to calm down a little.
Omar sits me on a chair, pulls a cold beer from the fridge and hands it to me without a word. I offer him one but he shakes his head and returns to his work in the basement. After two more beers I feel as if I’m coming to my senses. I start to get some distance and can see the story from Pearl’s point of view.
I realise that if she hadn’t gone along with Clara’s ruse, she would’ve been forced to give me up for adoption—being a single mother with a black kid in the forties would mean she’d be constantly ostracised. And I imagine, given the obsessive love she had for James, there’s no way she would’ve been able to give me up. I was the only part of him that remained alive and growing.
Now, looking back on my early childhood, I see events in an entirely different light: Pearl’s insistence on bathing me every afternoon before dinner, her making up fairytales for me at night until I fell asleep, our many special outings, just she and I, when she’d take me to the beach, to the cinema, to outdoor concerts, to the football, her Eskimo nose kisses and many surprise gifts. These weren’t the actions of an attentive aunty but quiet demonstrations of a mother’s love. And now her many quarrels with Clara over the years about how I should be disciplined—or not—make much more sense. If I’d been adopted, I would have never have known Pearl, let alone the rest of the family. And she would never have known me. And I also realise that Clara would’ve held it over Pearl for all those years, like a veiled threat.
I’m beginning to believe there might be a way around the dilemma I now find myself in. It’s possible that during the whole process of my writing this book, listening to the tapes, transcribing the stories, Pearl has been subtly preparing me for the inevitable shock. It’s quite a thrill to realise now that all that show business blood runs through me, from both my mother and my father. I’m now the son of the woman who impersonated a man for a year, nephew of the man who became a woman for the same length of time, grandson of the lady who performed a half-man, half-woman routine. Why, masquerading is in my family’s cell structure, woven into our DNA. And this manuscript could sit in my filing cabinet for years, until I die, without anyone ever knowing the truth.
I pour myself a whisky and think about the possibilities. But by the time I drain my glass I’m starting to reconsider.
If my Herman Djulpajurra series continues to be well-written and compelling, I don’t see how it matters to the public and the press that my father was a black American rather than a black Australian. As the saying goes, I’ll have to face the music, but I think I might wait a few days before I turn the volume up. And when I do, I’m going to ask my American agent, Barney, to extend my next US author tour to the South, to Louisiana, to the birthplace of my father. Maybe I have family there.
Looking back on it, I can now see that all the longing Pearl still felt for James, the yearning that stayed with her for the rest of her life, she channelled into me, and what she had left over she poured into her saxophone. Clara, Aub and Martin raised me as their own, and one of them always looked after me when Pearl was rehearsing or when she worked at night. When Pup died, when I was about six years old, Pearl and I were so bereft that Aub stuffed her and replaced her eyes with tiny balls of amber glass. He then glued the dog to a small wooden platform on four wheels and tied a length of rope to the front, so I could drag Pup through the house and pretend she was still alive. She still sits on a shelf here in my study and now, as I pat her, I can imagine her as a puppy folding into the armpit of my father or leading my mother through the highlands of New Guinea. God, I’m getting teary. Better pour myself another drink.
As the years passed, I saw Pearl’s lovers come and go, but I can’t remember any one man lasting longer than six or eight months, and for the rest of her life, it seems to me, no one else was able to fill that part of her that yearned for the father of her son.
Pearl eventually got on with life, forming a band that included Martin and Nora Barnes. The ensemble toured the country well into the late fifties, playing nightclubs and concerts and sometimes winning band competitions. Her band recorded acetates after the war that, even now, in a new century, still sound startling and unique. When I listen to them now I can hear James Washington’s jazz style slipping out between her riffs, a brief musical blending of those
two human beings.
I’m trying to look on the positive side. I guess writing this book has allowed me to understand the complexities of my mother and my background better than I ever have before and, by doing so, I begin to understand myself more clearly—a person who’s never felt completely at home in either black or white society. And as I listen to her saxophone soaring through the speakers, I begin to cherish the good things she left me with—the lyrical melodic lines of her ballads, the wild dips and runs of her twelve-bar blues, the stories she has told me, which have altered me forever, and have become my own. And finally, the best thing she willed to me was the great love she had for the father I never knew, the way she conjured him up like a piece of music, created him out of nothing, and kept him alive, just as I now breathe life into her.
Table of Contents
Cover
Praise
Title
Author Bio
Imprint
Dedication
Prelude
Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Intermission
Chapter 12 cont
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Acknowledgements
Coda
