‘I thought they told you she was killed in an air raid.’
‘That’s what they said. But how do I know it’s true?’
He took her hand. ‘I know this: the past is past. Nothing you can do about it. Life starts today. Haven’t you heard that? Not yesterday or last year – today! And as far as education goes, there’s a library, right? You know how to read. So read! You’re a looker: do the best for yourself and stop making like a widgie.’
She knew he was right. Once again it was time to move on.
She was determined to keep her cleaning job but instead of wasting her evenings took a part-time job waitressing at a café off Rundle Mall.
The customers there were a lot different from the ones she’d known in Hindley Street: office workers and arty types, two blokes always playing chess at a corner table. One night she met someone called Sean Madigan, over from Western Australia on holiday. Sean was the sort who knew how to pick them.
‘The cream of the crop, you are,’ he told her.
‘Quite the talker, aren’t you?’
‘So they tell me.’
She didn’t mind; she quite fancied him, but still talked him into buying the most expensive items on the menu. He knew what she was doing but didn’t seem to mind.
‘Anything for you, darling.’
He told her she’d have a big future in WA.
She mocked him. ‘Sandgroper country? What’s there?’
‘Big things coming. You’ll see.’
‘If I ever get there.’ Walking on the moon seemed more likely.
‘I’m serious.’
‘What would I do there?’
‘Anything you like. Try selling. You’d be good at that.’
‘Me?’
‘Why not? You got the looks, the personality…’
It was hard to believe but he seemed to mean it. ‘I talk like an ocker.’
‘So do something about it.’
Thinking about it afterwards she decided that was what had impressed her most: his being straight enough not to hide the truth. She started to listen to how the café customers talked. At night she practised in front of the mirror.
Two days later Sean was back. After that it was every night, and always wanting to talk to her.
‘You make a conquest there,’ said Costa, the café owner.
She began to think Costa was right. It could be a nuisance when she was busy but on the whole she decided she liked it.
The café had one of the new television sets. She watched it whenever she had a moment: the idea of someone performing in a studio in Sydney while their picture appeared hundreds of miles away in a café in Adelaide fascinated her.
‘How do they do it?’
Nobody seemed to know.
Johnny O’Keefe was on the box, a new medium and a new sound to get the blood and feet jumping.
‘That’s what I’d like,’ Hilary said to Sean.
‘Sing?’
‘Voice like mine? You got to be kidding.’
‘What then?’
‘To be able to watch what I like. The music, the stars. People like Johnny O’Keefe. Not this crap.’ Because the other programmes were mostly useless.
‘You’d need to own your own TV station to choose the shows.’
She thought about it but only for a moment. ‘All right then. That’s what I’ll do.’
‘Planning on being a millionaire, are we?’
‘Maybe not this week.’
She let Sean walk her home after the café closed. She wouldn’t let him through the door but he kissed her and she kissed him back, feeling electricity striking sparks through her body.
‘I like you, Hilary. Like you a lot.’
‘I like you too.’ Although all this was new territory. ‘Not much use, though, is it?’
‘How come?’
‘With you over there and me here? When you going back to Perth?’
‘Tomorrow. You could always come over yourself. I mean it. I would love to see you again.’
‘Give me your phone number,’ she said. ‘I ever get over I’ll look you up.’
‘Don’t leave it too long.’
She smiled but kept her mouth shut.
After he’d gone life went back to normal. She missed him more than she’d expected. Cleaning, waitressing, solitary walks on the beach. Solitary nights in her room. That was the point; solitary walks, solitary nights. There was only one person she wanted along and he wasn’t there. Sean’s absence confirmed his presence. But she had to fill her spare time. She had energy and the union card. She talked to two of the other waitresses and asked if they’d like to earn some extra cash.
‘That bloke comes in some evenings? The one with the red hair? He told me he worked for a printers and I got him to run off some handbills for me.’
‘How’d you manage that?’ asked Madge.
But Hilary only smiled.
‘What did the handbills say?’ asked Freda.
‘Offered to do house cleaning for a fee. I took them round to all the flats and houses in the area.’
‘And?’
‘I got half a dozen interested. So I thought, if you’d like to give me a hand…’
It was awkward to begin with, both for the team and the customers, but it didn’t take them long to get used to it. For a couple of months they were making good money. Then disaster.
The first thing Hilary knew was a young bloke turning up at the café and wanting to see her. She was out the back when Costa came looking for her. She squinted at him round the kitchen door.
‘Who is he? I never set eyes on him.’
‘Why you ask who is he?’ It never took much to set Costa off. ‘I dunno, Hilary, no more than you. But I know the type.’ He patted his hairy nose. ‘He has official stink about him. Afterwards you tell me what’s going on, OK?’
Hilary wiped her hands and went out to see the man. ‘Help you?’
Cocky face; know-all smile. ‘Anywhere we can talk?’
‘Only outside.’
‘Let’s do that, then.’
Hilary followed him out into the street busy with people. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I was going to ask you the same thing.’
He flashed his card. Detective Constable Symons. Bloody hell. Hilary’s first thought was that the home had tracked her down. After all this time? She was eighteen, for God’s sake. Would she never be rid of them?
She composed her face. ‘How can I help you?’
‘We’ve had a complaint.’
‘About what?’
‘About stolen money. Know anything about it?’
At least it wasn’t the home. But relief was tempered with caution. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’
‘Of course you don’t.’ His smile said she was a liar, like all the world. ‘You been cleaning flats, right?’
‘Me and a couple of mates.’
‘We’ve had a complaint money’s gone missing.’
‘From where?’
He consulted his notebook. ‘Forty-three Windsor Lane. Mr and Mrs Thomas. Mean anything to you?’
‘That’s one of ours, yeah. They saying we nicked something?’
‘Forty quid. From a drawer in a bedside locker.’
‘Not one of mine. I think Freda does that one. Freda Gale. But she wouldn’t nick anything. Straight as a die, Freda.’
‘Of course she is. Got an address for her, have you?’
‘She works here. But she’s not on tonight.’
‘Address?’
‘No idea.’
‘How convenient. When she’s on?’
‘Tomorrow I think.’
Symons snapped his notebook shut. ‘I’ll be back.’
He nodded and walked away. Hilary went back into the café. Her foot was barely inside the door before Costa grabbed her.
‘Who was that fellow?’
‘The police. He wants to talk to Freda.’
‘What you tell him? The polic
eman?’
‘I never told him nothing. It’s a misunderstanding.’
It had better be, she thought as she went to see Freda after work. Freda, wouldn’t you know it, had her boyfriend with her and didn’t want to open the door but Hilary kept ringing the bell until she did.
‘For Pete’s sake, Hilary… I got company, OK?’
‘You’ll have more company than you want if you don’t let me in.’
Freda with a tatty robe dragged about her. Hilary guessed she had nothing on underneath. Fat lot she cared about that.
‘The boys in blue been round asking questions.’
‘What about?’
‘About you. Mr and Mrs Thomas? Forty-three Windsor Lane? They’re saying forty quid’s gone missing from a drawer.’
Freda went white. ‘Oh my God.’
‘Tell me you didn’t nick it.’
‘I was crook so I got a mate of mine to stand in. Girl called Olga. Oh my God.’
‘How well you know this Olga?’
Freda’s face said it all.
‘Any way to get hold of her?’
Freda shook her head. ‘She was moving to Queensland. I let her do it as a favour because she needed the dough.’
‘Bloody well found it too, didn’t she? And you never thought to tell me, did you?’
‘What we gunna do?’
‘I’ll tell you what we’re gunna do,’ Hilary said. Never mind la-di-da talk; for the moment, at least, ocker was back. ‘First thing tomorrow morning you and me are going to see the Thomases and tell them what happened. Hope to God they believe us. And you’d better have forty quid to give them.’
‘I don’t have forty quid.’
That’d be right. ‘Then I’ll give it to them and you can pay me back later.’
Mr Thomas was not very nice about it, going on and on about breach of trust and how disappointing it was and how they would tell all their friends what had happened.
‘I gave you the chance because I like to encourage initiative. But after this my wife wouldn’t have you inside the door.’
‘I quite understand, Mr Thomas.’ Grovelling was the only option but inside Hilary was spitting tacks.
At least Mr Thomas said he’d withdraw the complaint.
‘Beauty!’ Freda said as they walked back. ‘Off the hook.’
‘Off the hook nothing,’ Hilary said. ‘You still got to pay me my forty quid.’
‘Don’t keep on about it,’ Freda said. ‘You’ll get it.’
But next day Freda didn’t show up to work and when Hilary went and rang her bell the neighbour said she’d moved out.
‘If you see her,’ Hilary told the neighbour, ‘tell her I’ll kill her when I catch up with her. My oath I will.’
She knew it was no good but other than kick the bin as she went back down the stairs there was nothing she could do.
It made you wonder whether Freda had nicked it after all.
Nor was that the end of it. Two evenings later Detective Constable Symons was back.
‘Seems the Thomases don’t want to pursue the matter,’ he said. ‘A pity, in my opinion, but there you are. Don’t think you’re in the clear. I got my eye on you. One step out of line and I’ll have you. Got it?’
Hilary as meek as milk. ‘Yes, Mr Symons.’
But her thoughts were bloody. I’ll strangle the bitch if I ever get hold of her.
Nor was that all. She suspected Symons was the sort to check-up on her. She wasn’t sure how he could do it but she wasn’t game to risk it and she didn’t know where she stood over the business of the home or whether they could do anything about her having done a runner from the Pattinsons. As long as she was in Adelaide she would be at risk but out of sight out of mind once she was gone. If she wasn’t around she doubted Symons would bother to follow her up.
She remembered Sean Madigan. The following morning she dug out his phone number and gave him a call. Hearing his voice gave her quite a kick although he didn’t sound too pleased with her.
‘What time you call this? It’s six o’clock in the morning, for God’s sake!’
She’d forgotten about the time difference. ‘Sorry about that but I wanted you to be the first to know. I’m heading west.’
PASTURES NEW
1
She had thought she’d hitch a lift across the Nullarbor but in the end decided to fly. She’d been lucky with Mike but she wasn’t stupid; lots of truckies weren’t like him and there was plenty of empty space between Adelaide and Perth. Being screwed on the journey, willingly or heaven forbid unwillingly, was not part of her plan and she had already decided it paid to play the percentages. It would cost her – worked out at sixty-three quid, a fair bite out of her reserves – and she still hadn’t repaid Tim his hundred quid, but she was conscious of time passing. She was eighteen years old and so far had got nowhere in her life. No matter. Her union card said she was twenty-two and she told herself that coming to this new place would be the first step along the highway that would lead her to the heights she was determined to scale.
‘Watch me,’ she said as the tired old Dakota came limping in to land. ‘Five years and I’ll have my first million.’ God knew how but somehow she’d do it. My oath she would.
The plane doors opened.
‘Welcome to Perth,’ the steward said.
2
She came down the boarding ladder lugging the case that contained all her worldly possessions. She put one foot on the tarmac, looked around her and thought, Bloody hell. She’d known WA was the sticks but this… If she’d had the money she’d have hot-footed it straight back to Adelaide. Or Melbourne. Or Timbuktu. Anywhere. I mean, look at it, more bush than airport. Someone on the flight had told her Perth Airport had been an aerodrome in the war and by the look of it nothing had changed. Sandgroper country indeed. Mars would have been a better bet.
Worse yet, there was no sign of Sean. That’d be right. Hilary felt a surge of anger. Anger was good; anger gave her the lift she needed. So she’d flown what felt like halfway round the world to find herself stood up in what looked like a desert? Tough. She was there and it was up to her to make the best of it. She strode across the tarmac to the terminal, if that was what it was. The sun was a ball of fire in a sky white with heat. A light wind lifted plumes of sand from the endless plain and she wondered where the hell Perth was in this emptiness.
A car was coming helter-skelter, dust billowing behind it, and she heard the screech and roar of the tormented engine. Standing in the shade of the terminal building Hilary began to smile. Maybe things were going to work out after all.
The car skidded to a stop. The door banged. Sean came running.
‘I was afraid I’d miss you.’
‘You nearly did.’ It gave her a hot feeling just to see him again – yes, she thought, I was right to come – but she was careful to talk as though it hadn’t mattered either way.
She climbed aboard. The car was like an oven and a pretty beat-up oven at that but at least it got them there. After the horror start Perth was a pleasant surprise, with gracious buildings on both sides of the Swan River and a bridge that Sean told her was brand new and would be the making of the state.
‘Doesn’t look like much,’ Hilary said.
‘It’ll open up the south. Just what the place needs.’
There were two immediate problems: where she was going to stay and what she was going to do for a living.
‘Stay with me,’ Sean said.
‘You got a spare room?’
‘No need for that.’
‘Oh yes there is.’ It would have been easy to say yes but it was too soon. Back in Adelaide he’d had the attraction of the unknown; she still fancied him – even more, if anything – but she didn’t know him, did she? To move in with him would be asking for trouble.
‘You can have my bed and I’ll sleep on the couch.’
Maybe she’d risk that much. ‘Till I find my feet,’ she said.
Perhaps it was
the time difference or uncertainty over her future or her expectation that Sean would come on to her during the night, maybe all three: whatever it was, she slept badly. Sean did not come on to her but that made her even more uneasy; it might mean he was serious about her and she wasn’t ready for that, either. The next morning she dragged herself out of bed, made them some breakfast and set out to conquer the west.
It wasn’t easy.
She managed to find herself a room in a boarding house but the landlady was clearly in two minds about letting a room to an unaccompanied woman.
‘Four quid a week. Two meals a day and shared facilities. And no fun and games,’ she said. ‘Anything like that, missy, and you’re out the flaming door. OK?’
‘There won’t be nothing like that.’
‘Too right there won’t.’
Getting a job wasn’t easy either. Being from back east didn’t help but after two days she landed some shifts in a lunch bar and café in a side street off St George’s Terrace. The pay would cover the rent but not much more and she wondered whether she had been a fool not to settle for a share of Sean’s unit, with all that implied. But instinct told her she was better off as she was; she wanted no extra baggage at the start of her search for her first million.
Not that she was likely to make it in her present job. The pay was pretty ordinary and there were no tips: it might be a different part of the continent but it was still Oz. She scoured the Situations Vacant columns. Television had been around the eastern states since the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 but over west it was brand new. There were firms advertising for technicians and installers but when she applied the hairy man who ran the show gave her the old brush off and no error.
‘Employ a girl to clamber around on rooftops? In your dreams, darling.’
Laughing as he said it too, which made it ten times worse.
A foot in the door was all she needed. Finding a door that would open for a woman was a tricky business but challenges were meant to be overcome.
3
She met Sean’s parents. That was a disaster. Mrs Madigan looked at her like she was a strychnine salad: sweet tomatoes on top, poison underneath. No layabout easterner who couldn’t even speak properly was going to lay claim to her Sean.
‘You’re not Irish, are you? You don’t look Irish.’
A Woman of Courage Page 14