“Ah, here is the lovely Violet,” he said, his light gray eyes crinkling up with warmth.
“You’re having a late breakfast, too?”
He indicated the empty plate he had pushed to the side. “No. I’m drawing.”
He held up his sketchbook to show her his re-creation of the front of the hotel.
“That’s very good, Clive,” she said, sitting at the long wooden bench. “Why do you never draw people?”
“I do,” he said, head bent over his drawing.
Her vanity got the better of her, and she asked, “How come you never draw me?”
He put down his pencil and looked at her curiously. “Because . . .” He trailed off.
“Because?”
“Because a page is too flat and too small to capture you.”
She dropped her eyes, let herself smile even though she knew she shouldn’t.
“Now listen, Violet, do you still have that gramophone?”
“Yes, I brought it with me.”
“Some of the lads and lasses are meeting at an old abandoned house, other side of the rail line, at three this afternoon. Apparently it’s empty and the floors are good for dancing.”
This time she did not try to hide her smile. It seemed an age since Violet had danced. Back in Sydney, she would go to a tea dance on Martin Place every Saturday. Two-and-six would buy all the tea and scones she could consume, plus an orchestra that seemed to know any song she could think of to request. “You want me to bring my gramophone?”
“Yes, and your records. Invite Queenie, and whoever you see who isn’t working this afternoon. Myrtle knows where it is.”
“That sounds like fun,” she said, beaming.
“Why don’t you meet me out front at half-past two? We can walk together.”
She paused. Was he asking her to go with him as a couple? This was tricky. Had he read her questions about his drawings as flirtation? Lord knew men were always misreading her that way.
“Just to share the walk,” he added quickly. “I can carry your gramophone for you.”
“Yes, why not,” she said, relieved. “Lovely.”
After breakfast, she took a brisk walk around the grounds, pretending she wasn’t glancing up at the windows trying to guess which room was Sam’s. She knew that the men’s rooms were all on the second floor, but of course she didn’t see him. She wondered how hard it would be to find out which room he was in. Then she kicked herself. What would it matter even if she knew? She could hardly go and visit him.
No. She simply had to stop thinking about him.
Violet returned to her room and spent the day chatting with Myrtle and Queenie, and tidying up the dress she planned to wear to the dance that afternoon. It was over a year old, but she had paid the princely sum of nine shillings for it and intended to keep wearing it until it dropped off her. It was shell-pink georgette—necessitating two petticoats—with floating side panels and edges of creamy lace that had never been sewn on properly and so lifted and curled at the corners. As she sewed them down, Myrtle dug out a pair of pink satin shoes with diamanté clips that she thought might match the dress. Violet was delighted to find they fit perfectly, even if they were a little stained around the heels. She tied a cream, beaded bandeau in her hair, then pinned the brooch Sam had given her to her dress. By now, it was time to help Queenie and Myrtle dress and arrange their hair. Violet had clever hands for hair. She’d cut her own off just below her ears a few months earlier.
At two thirty, Myrtle declared it time to go. “Shall we all walk together?” she asked, pulling on her coat.
Violet hesitated. “I’m going to walk there with Clive,” she said.
Queenie eyed her jealously. “Clive Betts? Is he your boyfriend?”
“No. He just offered to carry my gramophone, that’s all.”
“He’s sweet on you, though,” Myrtle said as she fiddled with the buckle on her shoe.
“Is he?” Queenie asked in a whiny voice. “Oh, bother! I’m sweet on him.”
“You can have him,” Violet said quickly, then felt a twinge of guilt. “I mean, he’s lovely, but he’s . . .” Not Sam. He was definitely not Sam. “He’s not my type.”
“He’s my type,” Queenie said mournfully.
An awkward silence ensued, then Myrtle said, “Well, you’d best not be late for him, as he’s been so kind to offer to carry your gramophone. We’ll meet you there.”
Clive was waiting between the two pine trees that stood sentry at either side of the entrance, dressed impeccably in a suit jacket and cuffed trousers and wearing a straw boater. He took Violet’s gramophone by the handle and held out his elbow for her to hold.
She smiled at him as she took it. He returned her smile, but didn’t say anything other than, “Come on, then.” For that she was glad.
It was too chilly an afternoon to wear the floaty georgette frock, really, but worth it when Violet saw the appreciative glances men gave her when she arrived at the party and shed her coat. About forty people were there: waitstaff and chambermaids and bellboys, and some strangers. A table had been set up with a punch bowl and cups, and several women had baked biscuits and cakes, and busied themselves offering them around. A red-faced young man with a loud voice saw Clive with Violet’s gramophone and called, “The music’s here!”
A round of cheers went up and a space was cleared. Violet wound it up and put on her favorite dance record—The Original Memphis Five—and soon they were dancing. Myrtle had smuggled some apples out of the kitchen and they used them for prizes in a spot dance. Violet let herself sink into the moment, enjoying the movement of limbs and feet and the thudding of her heart as she danced.
Later, she was exhausted, leaning on a wall, munching on a crunchy apple when a recording of Marion Harris singing “Somebody Loves Me” came on. Couples began to pair off; others drifted to the sides of the room. The day was growing dim, and there were no working lights in the house. The partygoers had already listened to all three of her records twice through. She nursed a cup of punch and drifted off into her fantasies of Sam again as she fingered his brooch, and the words wound around her still body.
Somebody loves me, I wonder who, I wonder who he can be . . .
“Violet?”
She looked up. It was Clive, smiling down at her.
“Are you having fun?” he asked.
“Yes. I haven’t danced in weeks. It’s wonderful.”
“You look a bit melancholy.”
“No. I’m fine. Just a bit homesick maybe.” She could never tell him—or anyone—the truth. I can’t stop thinking about a very rich guest at the hotel who gave me this gift and called himself mine. Clive would bleed the situation of any pleasure, telling her she was mad or imagining it or in danger of losing her job.
“Missing your mother?”
“Yes, absolutely. I should write to her.” Violet realized she was telling the truth. She had been too overwhelmed and busy to write to Mama to tell her she had arrived safely. What would her mother say if she knew Violet was nursing feelings for somebody utterly forbidden to her? Suddenly, Violet felt irritated; everyone around her was such a do-gooder.
And do you always do as you’re told?
She smiled as she remembered Sam’s words.
“There’s that smile. Much better,” Clive said.
“Clive,” Violet said, “did you know that Queenie has a terrific crush on you?”
The side of his mouth twitched in bemusement. “Queenie?”
“She’s mad for you. You should ask her to dance.”
Clive shrugged, clearly uncomfortable. His eyes found Queenie across the room. “Queenie’s not for me.” Then he looked back at Violet, and his brow creased as though he’d had an unhappy thought. “I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes sad. “I won’t . . . We’re still friends, aren’t we, Violet?”
“Nothing more, nothing less,” she said lightly.
He nodded, then turned and headed off towards the drinks table. Violet
felt sorry for him, but was relieved nonetheless that he finally seemed to have accepted that their romance—however brief and faint—was over. She studied the people in the room. Laughter and dancing feet. She hadn’t the heart for more dancing but didn’t want to ruin the party by taking her gramophone away. Nor would she leave it behind for Clive to bring back—not with her precious note from Sam in it. So instead, she shrugged back into her coat and went outside into the cool, late-afternoon air and sat on the stairs where two other girls she’d never met were smoking.
“Cigarette?” one of them said, holding out a filigree cigarette case.
“Thank you,” she said.
The other girl, the one with too much lipstick on, lit it for her, and she drew back the smoke then blew it into a narrow stream.
“That brooch is divine,” the first girl said.
“Thank you. Somebody special made it for me.”
“Made it?” Lipstick girl snorted. “Hardly. I’ve seen them for sale on the main street for ninepence. An old lady who lives down at Leura makes them for tourists. It’s a local flower, see. A rush lily petal.”
Violet’s face almost stung with mortification. “Did I say ‘made’? I meant ‘gave.’ ” They could surely tell she was lying, but they politely didn’t point it out. So, Sam hadn’t spent hours gluing and lacquering the brooch. He’d spent exactly ninepence on her.
She sat and smoked and waited for the party to finish, which it eventually did when the sun fell behind the horizon. Then she packed up her gramophone and noticed Clive was gone, so she carried it back to the Evergreen Spa, with Myrtle and Queenie for company. Queenie was in tears because Clive had rebuffed her, and when Myrtle kindly told her Clive was a cad and wasn’t worth her trouble, Violet bristled.
“Clive Betts is not a cad,” she said forcefully. “Just because he isn’t interested in her doesn’t mean he’s a bad person. He’s one of the sweetest men I know.”
Myrtle was taken aback by the heat in Violet’s voice. “Yes, but he’s rejected poor Queenie here and—”
“That’s life,” Violet said. “That happens. To everyone.” Then she forged on ahead of them, even though Myrtle’s shoes were pinching at her toes. She regretted being so beastly to Queenie, but since meeting Sam her moods had swung so wildly she felt she could no longer find their edges and pin them down.
The Evergreen Spa was a tall silhouette ahead of her now. She knew she’d have to face Queenie and Myrtle again in their shared bedroom, but she hoped by then to have had a long bath to calm herself. Lights were coming on in the hotel windows, and she looked up at the second floor again, her eyes ranging from window to window, just in case . . .
There he was. He sat by the window looking down, an expression of dreamy melancholy on his face.
She willed him to see her, wondering if she dared pick up a pebble to cast at the glass in the hope it would draw his attention.
She needn’t have worried. Something about her pale dress in the gloom must have caught his eye. His face lit up. A smile broke out on her lips in return.
He lifted his hand and waved, just once. She waved back, then stood gazing up at him gazing down on her, until she feared Myrtle and Queenie would catch her up and she reluctantly went inside.
Her heart was singing again. Somebody loves me.
* * *
The door to the coffeehouse swung inward, and Tony ushered Flora ahead of him.
“Ladies first,” he said, with the twinkle in his eye she knew so well.
She smiled and went in, and the door closed the wintry wind out behind them. The coffeehouse was outside at the rear of the ballroom, and managed by a Turkish couple and their five sons. The decor was all woven mats and gilded wall hangings and bronze ornaments. Few women ventured down here; it had become something of a men’s gathering place at the Evergreen Spa. Flora quickly checked the room and noticed with relief that she wasn’t the only woman here today.
Tony’s gang sat at a table under the back window, which looked out onto a tangle of vines. They all greeted each other roughly, greeted her less roughly, and then sat down again. The waiters came to take their orders, and Flora cringed at the nonsense the men went on with, especially Tony and Sweetie, who made jokes about their headscarves and their skin color. The waiters took the ribbing with good grace, but Flora knew they were offended by it.
“You really shouldn’t, you know,” she said to Tony once the waiters had disappeared to make their coffees.
“They love it,” Sweetie said, with a shrug of his enormous shoulders. “It makes them feel as though we’re all friends.”
“I rather think it’s cruel,” she muttered.
“Beware, you’re marrying a shrew,” Harry teased. “She’ll tell you what to do.”
Tony kissed her cheek. “Now, put it out of your head, Florrie. Sweetie’s right; they’d worry if we stopped now. Not everyone is a gentle soul who can’t take a joke, like your brother.”
A ripple of chuckles around the table. Flora didn’t respond; she was used to them noticing Sam’s difference from them. She supposed he was quite eccentric, but it did tire her to be caught in the middle of Tony and Sam’s quarrels. She tried, however, to let it all wash over her as the conversation moved on, their coffees arrived—Flora took one sip and knew she would never try coffee again—and the coffeehouse grew noisy.
After a few minutes Tony leaned out of the conversation and spoke softly to Flora. “You don’t mind me making a bit of fun of Sam?”
“I do mind. But I’m used to it.” She smiled weakly. “I know you two don’t get on.”
“I thought I might have hurt your feelings. You’re very quiet.”
“I just worry about him.”
“He’s a man, not a little boy.”
“He is a little boy still. His mind and his heart and his soul haven’t quite caught up with his body yet.” She spread her hands helplessly. “He thinks he’s in love.”
“With whom?”
“A waitress named Violet.”
“The lass who picked up your pearls?”
“The very same. I’ve kept him away from the dining room a few days, but I can’t forever. He talks about her. Wonders aloud where she’s from, what she’s like.”
“Do you want me to have her fired?”
Flora shuddered. “Oh, no. The poor thing. It’s not her fault. I keep trying to tell him it’s not real love, that he barely knows her and he’s besotted with her appearance and can’t possibly have a future with her. He’s behaving himself for now, but I know it’s not sinking in.”
Tony furrowed his brow in thought. “Perhaps you’re approaching this all wrong. Let him be in love with her but convince him that it would be very bad for her if they were to get involved. She’d certainly lose her job.”
Flora turned this idea over in her mind. “You’re right. That could work.”
Tony winked. “Don’t say I never do anything for you.”
“I would never say that.”
Flora excused herself shortly afterwards to go upstairs to talk to Sam. The afternoons were growing short, and the sunlight had softened and burnished across the valley, its amber reflection caught in the windows in the stairwell. Flora kept her head down as she walked the corridor to Sam’s room, wary as she ever was about making eye contact with other men wandering about. She knocked, waited a moment, and reached for her key.
But she didn’t have to worry. Sam was coming down the hallway from the bathroom, dressed only in a towel, his hair wet and sticking out at strange angles.
“Sissy!” he called brightly.
She stood back and let him ahead of her to open the door. “You ought to dress before you go running about,” she said.
“There’s nobody here to offend.”
“What if a young woman was down here? Like I am.”
“Then she’ll see only what God in his good grace chose to make,” he replied, opening his arms, then quickly catching his towel before it fell off. �
��Come in and sit by the window while I dress.”
Flora followed him into the room. A quick glance around told her the opium pipe and lamp were nowhere in sight. Her heart remained cautious, however. If he were really in the throes of withdrawal, he wouldn’t be so bright and talkative. Sam dropped his towel and she averted her gaze out the window. “Really, Sam. A bit of decorum.”
“You used to bathe me,” he said. She heard him open his wardrobe door then close it again. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before. There, I’m decent now.”
She turned to see him clad in a rich red dressing gown, made of silk and embroidered with dragons. He had brought it back from China along with his opium habit. He crouched on the floor next to the bed and brought out his silver tray from beneath.
Flora leaped to her feet and stayed his hand. “Wait,” she said. “Just wait until I’ve said what I need to say. While you’re still thinking straight.”
“I always think straight, my lovely Sissy,” he said, but nonetheless he left his tray on the floor and straightened his back to look her in the eye. “Go on.”
“I’ve been thinking about Violet.”
He smiled, and the warmth that came to his eyes was achingly familiar to her; she had seen it in him since he was a little boy. It was the expression he wore when a passionate interest filled his mind. “Violet,” he said. “I’ve been thinking of her, too.”
“I know. It’s obvious. I wanted to say . . . don’t hurt her.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“If you do think well of her, remember her station. Remember that to return your interest might cost her her job.”
“Then I would look after her. I have plenty of money.”
“Sam, no—”
“If you came here to tell me whom to love, then you have wasted your time.” He scooped up the tray and sat on the bed with it, lighting a match and holding it over the wick of the lamp.
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