‘Nothing wrong with you,’ Shannon said. ‘You’ll be out and about in no time. You’ll see.’
She found that lying, with love, was easier than she’d expected. In fact, he didn’t seem well at all: his face was dull red and somehow bloated, his breathing harsh and painful to hear. Shannon saw that what Alison had said was true. Dad would never work again; it would take him all his time simply to stay alive, with no guarantees he would succeed. She saw from Jess’s expression that she understood the situation, too.
Jess was watching Dad with a smiling face. Fifteen years old, Shannon thought. What a pillar of strength she had proved to be. How glad she was they had found each other, after their rough beginning.
She turned her attention back to her father. He had shrunk, physically speaking half the man he’d been, but all he could talk about was how soon he could get back to work. Shannon had thought it had been the money that had been bothering him but now she saw it was not that at all. He wanted to work to prove to himself he was the man he’d always been, the cane farmer who might be down on his luck but was still as tough as guts underneath.
Age was a sad business but it got you in the end, if you didn’t die first, and there was nothing to be done.
‘I’ve got to go and see Arthur Nimrod,’ she said. ‘You heard about his son?’
Dad claimed he didn’t know anyone of that name, nor did he know his son; like many of his age Travis was focused more on his own problems than other people’s.
This was the time to remember the good, heart-warming things. Seeing the world from Dad’s shoulders when she was little; hunting for Easter eggs around the house, the warm island that was home in its sea of sugar cane; running to meet him when he came back from town. All the shining uplands of childhood, so long ago yet as alive now as they had ever been.
‘I’ve got a plan,’ she told them.
‘What plan might that be?’
‘I’ve still got to work out the details,’ she said. ‘But you’ll see.’
‘Will I like it?’ he asked.
Smiling; half-teasing. It was the way they’d talked to each other in the long-ago days when she’d still been little.
‘Bet on it,’ she said.
The first thing Shannon did when she got back to the cottage was to have a bath and put on clean clothes. Then she sat down and wrote a long letter to Hal, leaving out most of her recent adventures since she was pretty sure the censor would not permit her to say anything about Darwin or the raid or the hundreds dead or the vessels sunk. She also said nothing about the miracle that had saved her from the Zero fighter’s guns.
A list of what she couldn’t tell him would have covered a couple of pages. Instead she said she was well and hoped he was well. She said she prayed every night for his safety and that was a lot less than true, because her every breath and action formed part of an endless prayer for Hal’s safety. Unsure whether she believed in the being to whom she spoke, she said it anyway, knowing she would go on saying it until the last breath had left her body.
When she had finished the letter, she walked to the post office and put it in the box. When she’d done that she took the bus to Airlie Beach.
The Regency had been closed since 1941 and had the forlorn look that closed buildings always had, but Arthur was still living in the small flat at the back and Shannon found him there. She’d never known him as a young man but what had happened to William had aged him; he was an old man now.
‘I heard the news,’ Shannon said. ‘I came as soon as I could.’
‘Good of you,’ Arthur Nimrod said.
It was difficult; William had been a young man full of promise, his life ahead of him. His father had had great hopes for him and the hotel that he’d hoped might be restored to its former glory when the war was over. Now William was dead, Arthur’s dreams meaningless. So much to say; nothing to say.
‘How’s Thomas?’
‘He’s good. He had a flesh wound in his right leg. Not much more than a graze, the way he tells it. Anyway, he’s fine now, thank God.’
‘Thank goodness for that.’
She’d written to Zac Petrovsky the day she got home and got his reply a week later. It was more formal than she’d expected but she hoped that might be just for the record.
The letter said she had been recommended by Lieutenant John J Gardner as someone who might be of interest to the US military in regard to the staffing of the recently acquired rest and recreation facility in Mackay, Queensland, Australia. It would therefore be appreciated if she would present herself on Wednesday March 11, 1942, at 1400 hours at the Grand Hotel Mackay for interview with a designated official.
Zac Petrovsky was a more relaxed person than his letter had suggested. He was impressed by her enthusiasm for a career in the hotel business and the fact that she had already had some experience, but made it clear there would be no job for her while she was a member of the Australian Women’s Army Service.
‘If they agree to let you go, we’ll talk again. But that comes first, OK?’
‘I’m working on it,’ Shannon said.
She went to see Doc Rigby. ‘I’m needed here. Jess is only fifteen,’ she said. ‘Dad will need someone to look after him and it’s not fair that should be her responsibility with no one around to give her a hand. I’m not even sure she’d be capable of it.’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘I want you to write to whoever handles these things in the army and recommend me for a discharge. On compassionate grounds.’
‘And what will you do for money if you leave the services?’
‘I’m working on that,’ Shannon said.
Everything happened more smoothly than Shannon had dared hope. Doc Rigby wrote to his Medic friend who did what had to be done; in the light of her father’s medical condition the service was happy to release her on compassionate grounds and in no time at all, or so it seemed, Shannon Harcourt was once again a free woman.
Brandishing her discharge papers, she went to see Zac Petrovsky.
‘When can you start?’
‘Give me two weeks.’ She hesitated. ‘You ever hear what happened to John Gardner?’
‘Sure. He’s OK. In the water for a while but he’s well and back in the States.’
‘I’m so pleased. Tell him I send my regards if you’re in touch.’
She had already checked out the availability of rented accommodation in Mackay and found a small cottage on the edge of town she thought would be just right for them. Given the pay the US military was offering her, they would be able to manage the rent, no worries.
All she had to do was overcome what would no doubt be Dad’s stern objections and sort out Jess’s situation.
Jess could come with them to Mackay if she wanted but Shannon wasn’t going to make her do so. Grace had forced her to leave school at fourteen and she wanted something better for Jess. If she could stay on at her present school and with her present friends it would be all to the good. She doubted it would be a problem. Far more than Shannon, Jess had always had the happy knack of making friends easily; it shouldn’t be too hard to find someone Jess could bunk with, if that was what she wanted to do, and Shannon would be able to help her with the rent.
She thought she would have a chat with her that night to find out what was best from Jess’s point of view. They could make up their minds then.
That was Jess, but Dad was a different matter. As far as he was concerned Shannon’s mind was made up; she would be moving to Mackay and, like it or not, he would be coming with her.
The two sisters had a chat that evening and agreed that during the week Jess would stay in Proserpine with her friend Karen and Karen’s parents; Shannon would pay the parents for Jess’s upkeep and each Friday evening Jess would take the bus and spend the weekend in Mackay with Shannon and their dad.
Dad was more willing than she’d expected, so two days later she and Dad moved into their new Mackay home. On the following Monday Shannon presented herself at
the Grand Hotel to begin work.
It took some getting used to: different accents, different culture, a whole new way of looking at life and the war.
None of the servicemen had any doubt who was going to win; they were full of the confidence that comes to young men who have never experienced real conflict and therefore don’t know what they’re talking about. They liked what they’d seen of Australia; they liked the fine life they were leading and never let themselves think about what might be in store for them as the war progressed. Australia was a side show, they hadn’t heard of Darwin or what had happened there, they lived for the day and had no thought for anything else. Except for Shannon: some of them thought about her a lot.
Shannon didn’t mind their thinking about her, in fact she enjoyed being, once again, one of a handful of women in what for practical purposes was a world of men, but she was less enthusiastic when some of the men decided to push the boundaries and see whether they could sweet-talk her into going on walks with them through the warm cicada-noisy nights, and maybe, maybe, doing other things with them as well. Some of them took it for granted she would let them do what they liked with her. She didn’t like that at all.
The other women working at the centre were mostly American. Many were nice but some had what Shannon thought of as military minds. Given the choice, these women would have had them doing parades, as though they were in the army. Shannon did what she could to keep a distance between herself and these military minds. The others were not like that but all of them had one thing in common: they were years older than Shannon and none of the soldiers liked them as much as they did Shannon. Some of the women didn’t care about that – they were married or preferred other women or were just not interested – but some of the others resented it very much and did what they could to make Shannon’s life difficult.
Since one or two of them were in positions of authority Shannon soon found herself doing all the dirty jobs no one else wanted: mornings spent cleaning up the various bars when the fun and games of the night before had got out of hand; kicking out the local hookers after some of the GIs had smuggled them past the entrance; trying to handle drunks without having to resort to the military police if she could avoid it. Handling drunks, amiable or fighting mad, was part of the learning process.
The general manager of the rest and recreation centre was called Henry Rankin, although he answered best to the name of Hank. He’d been a fighting man in his youth, when he had been a member of Black Jack Pershing’s expeditionary force in Europe in the latter stages of World War I. Casualties among the force had been heavy but Hank Rankin had always been a tough customer and had survived.
After the war he’d made a packet in the hotel business in various locations around the Pacific and so had been a natural to be appointed manager of Mackay’s Grand Hotel when the US government bought it for their boys. He found Shannon Harcourt interesting, not because she was an Australian in what was essentially an American outfit, but because she was keen to learn the ins and outs of the hotel trade.
‘You say she’s a hard worker who wants to learn the ropes?’ he said to Zac Petrovsky. ‘Give her to me for six months and I’ll give her enough rope to hang half the lazy bastards we got here.’
The way things had started out, Shannon had reconciled herself to the notion that she would once again be doing the type of skivvy work she remembered from the Clover Leaf and her early days at the Regency, with no prospect of learning anything about running an operation like the Grand. How could you learn anything worth a spit when your entire experience was restricted to clearing up the mess after an endless series of drunken nights, or fighting off the amorous hands of what at times seemed half the US army?
When Hank Rankin brought her into his office she couldn’t believe her luck. Hank was a slave driver like no one she had ever met. He made Mike Mulligan seem an amiable old buffer; he drove her mercilessly from dawn to dusk and often well beyond, but he taught her the things she needed to know about hotel management and for that she was prepared to forgive him anything. Another plus: Hank Rankin might have been an ogre but he was an ogre who kept his hands to himself.
‘You don’t want to get involved with any of these young tykes,’ he told her. ‘This is a rest and recreation centre and I have no doubt some of them have got you down as part of the recreation. Nothing I can do about it; it’s the way a lot of guys are. What you do on your own time is your business, but have a care. A whole heap of them will be dead before this war is over, in any case; they think it’s going to be a pushover but I know the Japs from way back and when it comes to fighting I’d as soon tangle with a mess of rattlesnakes. I give you my word, things in this theatre haven’t begun to heat up yet. Now,’ he said, ‘enough chit-chat. Let’s get to work.’
With Hank Rankin work meant work. The attention she was getting did not make her popular with the other women but Shannon revelled in it. Over the months Hank introduced her to the financial records, the bookings and general administration of running a hotel. It was particularly helpful that he related everything he taught her to how things worked in peacetime.
‘This is nothing,’ he said. ‘You got a captive audience here, but in peacetime that isn’t so. In peacetime the customers get to pick and choose. Your job is to make sure they pick you. But remember, that’s only the start of the battle. You’ve got one opportunity to make a good first impression but you’ve got to keep them happy during their stay with you. No; correct that. You’ve got to make them ecstatic about the place. Everything gotta be the best. Reception, room service, cleanliness, décor, meals, value for money. Everyone smiling, everyone helpful. All of it counts. Remember: one frown and you’ve lost a customer. Damned hard work, no getting away from it, but you want to get rich, it’s the only way. Service, service, service. Pay the best to get the best; train them, pass on what I’ve taught you. Don’t tolerate passengers, but give incentives to the ones doing the best work. More pay, more prospects of promotion. Service is the key that’ll make customers want to come back. And here we got the same objectives. Whether these boys know it or not, they’re putting their lives on the line. The least we can do is give them the best send-off we can.’
Shannon had heard that story before from GIs who pretended to believe that it was her duty to sleep with them because they might not be coming back. She had never been persuaded by that argument but the service provided at the Grand Hotel was a different matter and she was certainly willing to pull out all the stops to make it as good as possible.
It was exhausting work and she still had to look after Dad on top of it. There was no escaping it: he was fading a little more every day and neither of them was under any delusions.
‘I doubt I’ll see the year out,’ Dad said.
He said it often and Shannon as often denied it but, in her heart, feared that he was right. Always when she came home – and, as autumn turned to winter, it was regularly well after dark – there was the nagging worry of how she’d find him.
So far he’d been, if not good, then at least sort of OK, and when she came home late one night in the first week of August she found a surprise waiting for her. It had been a tough few days, even by the centre’s standards, and she was weary to her bones when she opened the front door to hear the unfamiliar sound of men’s voices.
Later it seemed to her that she’d known before she’d known, because at once her heart leapt in her chest. Holding her breath, she took two quick steps to the living room door and threw it open.
It was Hal, as she had known by the sound of the voices it had to be. She would never forget the sound of his voice or the way he smiled. He was smiling as he turned to look at her and the smile lit up the room. It lit up Shannon too; she felt its heat flow through her so that her spirit as well as her body expanded with delight.
Hal Maitland there in Mackay. Hal Maitland talking to her father. Hal Maitland smiling at her. It was all she could do not to touch him to make sure he was real, to run her hand
s over him to confirm that it was indeed Hal, and that the heat she now felt was the result of his being there in the flesh and not in her imagination. She had thought of this moment so often, had lain in bed at night and felt his hands on her, had ached for his touch, and now it had arrived was finding it a moment even more intense and wonderful than she had anticipated.
‘Is the war over?’ she said. ‘Is it over and no one thought to tell me?’
‘Alas,’ Hal said.
He was standing now and holding her hands with his hands, her eyes with his, and at his touch she felt her skin tingle and her breath grow tight in her throat.
‘We’re back,’ he said, ‘but it won’t be for long.’
‘You were in the Middle East?’
‘We were. But it’s not something we should talk about.’
‘And where will you be going next?’
‘I don’t know for sure. But that is definitely not something we should talk about.’
She tightened her grip on his fingers as though to hold him by her forever. ‘What was it like? Assuming you can talk about that?’
‘Hot and sandy. Flies, bad water, bad food. General Sherman was right.’
‘General Sherman?’
‘American Civil War. He said war was hell. He was right.’
‘And you don’t want to talk about it,’ she said.
‘And I don’t want to talk about it.’
It was as though Dad, sitting quietly in his chair, his broken-knuckled hands heavy on its arms, was not there at all. No one and nothing was there, only the miracle that was Hal Maitland returned from the Middle East. Now Dad’s voice recalled her to the reality of the room where they were.
‘He was telling me about some parade they got in Melbourne.’
‘Just a welcome home parade,’ Hal said. ‘Nothing important.’
‘Of course it’s important!’
‘Seems silly when we’ll be off again almost at once. But if it keeps the Lord Mayor happy…’
‘How long have we got?’
That was what mattered; that and nothing else.
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