Paddy's Puzzle

by Fiona Kidman

  ‘Wanta game of cards Billy?’ says Ma Hollis.

  Billy sits with a very large doll in his lap. She doesn’t know where it came from, it just appeared one day. The doll makes her uneasy. Somehow it doesn’t seem quite natural. But then Billy has had a hard time, and his mother has been the one that’s unnatural if you really thought about it. No wonder poor little Billy needs something to cuddle to himself. He doesn’t show it to the other kids so she supposes it must be all right. Still, it seems best to take his mind off things now and then.

  ‘Play snap?’ says Billy.

  ‘What about euchre?’ she says hopefully. It has always been one of her favourites.

  ‘Snap,’ says Billy.

  There is something droll about Janice. Just looking at her can make Clara laugh, though she can’t explain why. If anything, she is beautiful. Clara would give a lot to look like Janice. She is very blonde, probably too blonde for some people’s tastes, and of course it’s not real. This of course is because Janice intends others to expect the outrageous in her, and it would be disappointing if she wasn’t peroxided. But even if the colour is hectic her hair is still cut stylishly and much shorter than the current fashion. It hugs her face tightly and just covers her ears which are decked out with huge gold hoops.

  She is twenty-six, and sometimes Clara wonders why she bothers to hang around with her.

  ‘Mind if I smoke?’

  Clara is about to say yes because it doesn’t really suit her, but then she thinks that she is being cantankerous and has got too much into the way of suiting herself, here alone in this room. Out there in the world that she has been peeping at and yearning for only minutes before, nobody would even bother to ask if she minded. Besides it’s not so long since she gave up smoking herself, and that was only because she had to. Sometimes she’s dying for a drag, let alone anything else.

  Janice heaves herself onto the end of the bed after pulling a chair closer, so that she can stretch out with her feet up. She is wearing a grey flannel skirt — a nice piece of cloth — and a bright red silky blouse. She looks lovely, Clara thinks, with her blonde hair and pale skin, and slightly tarty too, just the way she means to look.

  ‘What’s been happening then?’ Clara asks.

  ‘Happening? Whatever happens in this town?’

  ‘Everything when you’re around.’

  ‘The usual. You know.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  She takes a long pull at her cigarette and blows a fine spiral of smoke towards the ceiling. ‘I met a bloke,’ she says quietly.

  ‘You did? I thought you were looking get up and go.’

  ‘Yeah. He gave me these.’ She indicates her clothes.

  ‘All right. What else?’

  ‘Just these. I wanted to give them back but he wouldn’t have it. He had the rations, he said. Well of course he did, he’s an American.’

  ‘You like him, don’t you?’

  ‘How d’you know?’

  ‘Oh Janice … what d’you mean, how do I know?’

  Clara has to wait for an answer, but after a while Janice sighs and rolls over onto her stomach, flipping a finely silk-clad leg in the air.

  ‘He’s a padre.’

  Clara stares at her, waiting for the next line of the joke. Her friend isn’t laughing.

  ‘Tell me the one about Pat and Mike,’ Clara says at last. She is anxious in case this is serious.

  Janice flicks her cigarette ash into the saucer of Clara’s cup. It sinks in a little puddle where the milk has spilled. Janice’s fingers are rather blunt and dry and her nails are bitten right back. There are signs of wear and tear round Janice if you know where to look. Clara had seen her get undressed once and she showed her the stretch-marks on her stomach. Clara couldn’t ever remember seeing Winnie’s stomach, she kept herself covered up just like Mumma and Father used to; she wonders if her body is scarred from having children, and what her own would have been like if she had borne the child she had once conceived.

  Janice has had two children. The first one she had adopted out when she was sixteen. The second one died. She said that when she was younger she blamed her mother, because her mother couldn’t stand the shame of the first; when she had the second, to replace the one she gave away, her mother relented and looked after it and was still doing so when she died. A little boy and a little girl, a pigeon pair, both gone. Then her mother died and she stopped hating her, only it was too late for her mother to know she didn’t blame her any more. Janice even thought her mother might have died of a broken heart over things and not TB at all (which gives Clara some encouragement; she is sure she will not die of a broken heart, except maybe if Ambrose left her for another girl). She says that having the children taught her very little about love. Between men and women anyway.

  Clara believes her when she says this, for Janice has little direction in her life and sometimes the clowning and the nonsense which is fun most of the time can get overwhelming when one is feeling ill and tired.

  But the real thing about Janice is a sort of honesty which overrides everything else. At the factory when people were at the limit of their sorrows and could go no further, they would often tell Janice. Clara used to wonder why, because some of the things she said were cruel and not what people might have wanted to be told at all. But she came to see that that was the secret. These last two or three years people they knew had been running all over the place looking for help; most often they tried religion, priests and the like, and as far as Clara could see it hadn’t worked. Not for many of them, anyway. She had seen that it didn’t help, prayer and trust in God. It didn’t make for the resurrection and the life of lovers and husbands who were dead, and it didn’t transport you onto some higher plane where you could understand it all. Not that she could see.

  She used to be scared of God and do good things to please Him, but it never seemed to change anything. She used to tempt Him too, things like stepping on the cracks in the pavement (some children said ‘step on a crack, marry a rat!’ but she didn’t, she said ‘if I step on a crack, God will strike me dead’) and walking under trees with dead branches when she’d disobeyed someone, usually Winnie or a teacher (Mumma’s instructions didn’t really count).

  God never got the upper hand and He never came to her rescue when she was in trouble either. If she thought that He would she might have turned to Him over the past months. Instead, like the other people at the factory, she chose Janice.

  She didn’t offer pious things, she talked about what was real. And she didn’t pretend to be anything better than she was, a girl who wrapped chocolates in tinfoil and a part-time hustler for the Americans. And she didn’t go on about it being the duty of New Zealand citizens to show hospitality to the ‘boys’. She was in it for a good time and easier living.

  ‘There’s hardly anyone in tonight,’ says May.

  ‘In?’ drawls the captain. ‘Now lookee here li’l lady, my friend here told me that you could fix things up real good in return for a little favour or two. Are you telling me that my friend is not a gentleman of his word?’

  May peers at his friend. She knows she needs her spectacles all the time these days, but so far she has got by without them except to read her novels. And that is a private matter, between her and the sweet romance of the young virgins who people the stories between those covers. The second man’s face is familiar. Jim, she recalls. He has been a generous ‘friend’ as she would describe him. He looks nervous and embarrassed and she has no wish to offend him. Clearly it is at his suggestion that the captain has come armed with gifts. She tries not to look too longingly at the bottle.

  ‘Well, Ai always do my best to help, as Jim knows,’ she says, mentally congratulating herself for remembering the name. ‘But you see, Ai really don’t have many friends in tonaight. Most of them seem to have gone out.’

  ‘Out?’ The captain’s voice is incredulous. ‘Say, what sort of a place is it that you run here?’

  Jim interjects. ‘Look, s
ee it’s not quite like that. Didn’t I explain? Miss Abbott, she’s just like a friend round here.’

  ‘You mean they don’t work for you?’ The captain’s voice is disbelieving.

  ‘Ai tray to help out one or two of my friends. If you see?’

  ‘For nothing?’

  ‘Ai think you misunderstand me, captain.’

  His large vulgar frame in her tiny tidy sitting-room is beginning to offend her. But her eyes are fastened on the bottle. The captain sees her look, and she knows that he understands too well.

  ‘We saw Biddy on the way,’ says Jim. ‘She’s in.’

  ‘Shee-it,’ says the captain. ‘That black-eyed cunt? Told you, Jim, I’d have to be hard up.’

  ‘We-ell.’ May hesitates. ‘Biddy has had a little accident, that’s true. Nothing serious you understand, but she’s not — quaite herself, shall we say?’

  ‘I don’t mind calling in on Biddy,’ says Jim. ‘She’s a cute kid. Said to call in on her any time.’ He turns to the captain. ‘You see, that’s how it is. It’s like, well, kinda like a friendship bureau here. I mean being able to drop by any time, right, Miss Abbott?’

  May nods.

  ‘But, you see, I thought, well because you’re such a friendly sorta lady, Miss Abbott, I thought you might be able to introduce my friend here to — to another of your friends.’

  ‘Well — who knows?’ says May. She tries to remember whether Louise on the fifth floor is occupied tonight.

  Clara had tried to imagine what Winnie would have thought, if she had told her that she admired a person like Janice. Not that she cared. Well, she hadn’t realised that she did. Until now. She supposes that it could be seen as justifying herself to herself. Or trotting out the ‘old prostitute with the heart of gold’ routine. Were they prostitutes? Hoo-ers, the kids at school used to say. Meaning whores. You bloody hoo-er. Fuckin’ cunt hoo-er. The kids, and Mrs Mawson.

  It doesn’t seem like that to her. And she’s met some of the ones who pretend, with airs and graces, that they are doing some patriotic duty. They make her sick. Janice has class, some of them don’t even have style. She remembers one called Myra. It was actually Janice that introduced them one day up Queen Street, before Clara got too sick to go out. You would have thought that butter wouldn’t melt in Myra’s mouth.

  She had a very bright hard little mouth and masses of frenetic green round her eyes. Janice hadn’t seen Myra for a while, they used to usher at the Civic on weekends, before the war, and they still ran into each other now and again.

  ‘Got a boyfriend?’ Janice had asked her.

  ‘Boyfriend? Oh my dear, how could you, at a time like this? I mean, it’s not really worth it is it, you hardly get to know them and then they’re off and dead before you can turn around, you couldn’t seriously get involved with anyone, I mean could you? Besides, don’t you think we’ve got a patriotic duty to all those poor lonely Yankee boys?’

  ‘Duty?’ Janice exploded. ‘Honestly Myra, who’s doing who a good turn?’

  ‘Ah doan’t think I rightly understand you Janice,’ said Myra, her little bright mouth nipping into a tight red line, and Clara thought am I dreaming this, is it really true, that she’s trying to talk like an American? ‘You’re not suggesting for one moment that I would take anything from those poor boys in return for giving them some friendly comfort away from their own homes?

  ‘Nothing?’ said Janice, incredulous. ‘They can afford anything.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’ Myra’s voice was injured. ‘They are so lonely. Of course it makes them feel better about accepting a little ol’ fashioned hospitality if you accept something now an’ then, but of course I just make sure it’s ever such a teeny-weeny little thing. I mean to say, they would feel so bad if you didn’t. Especially when you’ve given them a meal in your very own home, because they would feel that they were taking advantage of us poor old rationed New Zealanders if you didn’t.’

  ‘You don’t say?’ Janice was breathy.

  ‘I do say. And I pray for their wives and families on Sunday. They must miss them so much.’

  And sweet Jesus Lord, Clara could see that Myra was dripping with diamonds, and that her clothes were silk.

  Afterwards, as they walked down Queen Street, Janice said, ‘Funny. How it changes people, eh. This war. I mean she was silly, but, oh I dunno. Not like that.’

  Clara had mentioned the diamonds, and how they were dripping off her face and fingers.

  Janice made a face. ‘Probably find she had a dripping undercut too.’

  They left it at that. Myra wasn’t worth talking about.

  So here is this tough beautiful little broad who is her friend, lying stretched over the end of the bed, talking about a padre and looking intense and biting away at her lip and smoking too fast, and Clara can’t think of anything to say that isn’t self-conscious or smart.

  ‘It’s so ridiculous, so crazy, I thought you’d understand.’ And because she is Janice and says what she thinks Clara sees herself, not for the first time, but as always, with a renewed shock, as being ridiculous and crazy in that she keeps company with Ambrose. Also, because this is Janice talking, she knows that there is another underlying meaning to her words which is, quite simply, impossible. An impossible relationship with no future except the possibility, if they are lucky, of tomorrow.

  ‘Try me,’ says Clara.

  Janice lights another cigarette from the end of the first one and squashes the first out on the saucer. ‘I was in the library,’ she begins.

  ‘Why?’

  She looks pained. ‘I’m studying Shakespeare’s monumental work “Fatheads I Have Known”. Are you listening or not?’

  Clara nods, still not quite able to take her seriously, and knowing now that she must. At least she has decided that it will be a help if she keeps her mouth shut.

  ‘It was raining,’ Janice says and her face is shining, and her green-blue eyes with the thick black lashes are very soft. ‘I was going to catch a tram but it started to rain and the streets were full of people so that when I came to the library I thought I’d just go in and wait. It was nice inside, have you ever been in there?’

  ‘Only looking for the lavs.’

  ‘They’ve got a nice room full of books about old paintings and tapestries and things. Very quiet. I wanted a fag but of course you can’t in there, smoke I mean. And it struck me as being a very peaceful kind of place. Big, yes, but without people trying to fill the space up. It sort of flowed around you, all this bigness. I sat down. I did sort of try to look at the books but they didn’t mean much to me. They had some opened out on display in glass cases and I could see they were beautiful and I wished I could have understood what they were about but I couldn’t so, like I said, I just sat and let it soak in, and thought a bit. Nothing deep you understand, not all of m’past flashing before me or anything like that. Lord they’d have needed another room to put that by itself if it was written down, but just thought, you know.’

  ‘Tell me. You must know some of the things you thought.’ For now Clara really needs to know.

  ‘Oh I don’t know. What it’ll be like when this lot’s all over, will we get bombed, will we ever see the end of it, things like that.’ She glances sideways at Clara and she knows what she is thinking. Janice is the only person who’s ever come right out and asked her what she would like done about her funeral. ‘Deep enough I suppose.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘He came along. This man, Ron, his name’s Ron. I could see right away that he was an American of course. He was in uniform, but he had his coat done right up, the collar up round his face. He asked me what I thought of the collection. I said it was very nice but I didn’t understand much of it.’

  Clara can hear her saying it, without artifice, not as if she knew more than she really did.

  ‘I told him I’d just come in out of the rain but I liked it so much I wanted to stay. He said it was a bit like that wasn’t it, and he came here of
ten because it was a particularly fine collection, as good as many in the States, even though a lot of it had been taken out of Auckland and put in safekeeping somewhere in the country while the war was on, in case it all got bombed in, but it made him feel at home having such good material on hand. He said he often didn’t want to go back out into the streets again once he got in there. I said it was funny but that was how it was for me too, at least right now it was, even though this was the first time I’d been in there. So then he said they’d be closing soon and we didn’t have much choice because they’d throw us out anyway. Then all in a rush, he asked me where I’d be going next and I said, “Well I might do my cabaret number or if they aren’t busy there tonight I might pack my bag and leave for a week in London though I’ve heard the food isn’t up to much there this week, and that being the case I’ll probably settle for sixpenn’orth of fish and chips and the next bus to Newmarket.” At first his mouth just dropped open but he picked up real fast that I’m stringing him along and in a minute I could see he was just enjoying the ride. “D’you like good food?” he says. “Does a cow like hay?” I say. “It’s been a long winter,” he says, humouring me, and then he says that I’m to come with him and we’ll go to some place he knows.’

  She pauses. The cigarette has burned right down and is scorching her already nicotine-stained fingers. She is too dreamy and still for Clara to interrupt, but she notices the long ash and the stub of her cigarette anyway. She adds it to the pile in the saucer and takes another one. This time her hands are shaking slightly.

  ‘You wouldn’t know the place I suppose?’ She gives a French-sounding name.

  Clara shakes her head. ‘I’ve heard of it, it might be new, but it’s a while since we ate out now, you know.’