by Fiona Kidman
‘Yes, I was forgetting. I don’t know whether it’s new, it was kind of hard to tell, because it looked as if it had been there forever. It was in an old building down one of those little streets round Stout Street way, and the door was just a kind of hole in the wall, but when you got into the restaurant, well it could have been there forever, or the day before. If it was new it was clever because it looked like … like the Savoy … well maybe not the Savoy … you know what I mean though, established.’
Clara has a vague idea. She hasn’t watched Gloria Swanson and Greta Garbo reclining around in a touch of the old luxury often enough from the back rows of the Roxy not to guess the effect Janice is trying to describe, though she can’t quite imagine it in Auckland.
‘Crimson walls,’ she is saying. ‘And curly varnished wood, hanging plants, real good white tablecloths and silver.’
‘Honest?’
‘Cross my heart. It’s true. It wasn’t very full, but everyone there, well you could see they had money, and there were a few Americans there amongst the civvies, but they were top brass. It was different.’
Janice’s descriptive powers are waning. Her eyes are dilated and almost wild. Clara is filled with longing, and something close to envy.
‘What did you have to eat?’
She makes an effort. ‘Pate and then some ham, they were lovely, can you imagine it, real ham, and brandied peaches, and French wine. Other things. I can’t remember now.’ She shakes her head wonderingly. ‘I just can’t remember.’
Clara can’t imagine the food she is describing, and even her images of the restaurant are without real substance. She supposes that it is so long since she went anywhere, but the really vivid picture she has is of sausages and chips, or maybe a bit of roast and veg at the Karangahape Road cafe and getting her ration book clipped. She knows that is no trick of memory. She almost wonders if Janice has made it all up.
‘There was something strange about it though,’ she is saying.
‘I knew there had to be a catch.’
‘It was his clothes.’
‘Don’t tell me. He was in disguise.’
‘He wouldn’t take his coat off.’
‘A female impersonator!’
Janice pretends she hasn’t heard her. ‘Not in an obvious way. The waitress knew him. She said “Take your coat Major?” … Major … you hear … and he said, “No, no thank you very much, it’s a cold evening and I’m comfortable. If it’s all the same to you I’ll keep it on.” It should have looked funny, you know, queer, amongst all those smart people, but he did it very easily, no fuss, and he stayed wrapped up right through the meal.’
‘When did the violins start?’
‘Afterwards I was drunk. Not badly, but badly enough. It’d stopped raining and we started to walk. We walked down Queen Street, me holding his arm and trying to walk very nicely and not talk too much because I was just on that fine line when you can still say yow, steady baby, and maybe he won’t notice if I’m careful. Of course he did know, but he didn’t seem to mind. We walked down to the Ferry Terminal and I said look I beg your pardon but I’ve simply got to go to the little girl’s room. He said he was sorry too, he should have thought of that before. I looked at myself in a mirror while I was in there. I looked like hell and there were two girls having a fight on the floor. I thought one of them was going to kill the other. I didn’t know what to do. I thought of getting Ron, and it seemed an awful thing to have to do, but then one, the littler one, got free and she had some money and she took off and the big one seemed to be hurt the worse of the two. I said to her, did she take your money, shall I get the police, are you hurt bad, and she climbed up on the dunny and bawled and said she’d kill the other one some day, she was always hitting her, and went on about how much she’d done for her and all this. They were, like, you know, women who do things together, it hadn’t occurred to me. I left her sitting on the dunny and I didn’t say anything to Ron, but I was sober, I can tell you. He looked at me and he didn’t ask me anything, just said he had some tickets for the ferry.’
‘The ferry? What time was it?’
‘Gone nine. We rode over to the shore. It was cold and salty and damp but it was beaut. You know?’
‘And then you came back?’
‘And then we came back. He said he’d see me home.’
‘Had to happen didn’t it? I mean it took you long enough.’
‘I said it was a scungy place, though God knows I was glad I wasn’t still in this place. Not for him. I wouldn’t have wanted to bring him here. He said it didn’t matter and we got a taxi of course, and he walked me to the door.’
‘Was that all?’
‘No, not quite.’
‘After all that?’
‘He leaned over and kissed me and his coat opened up. He meant it to. I think everything he does he means, well almost, for he can’t have meant to meet me.’
‘Don’t tell. The Green Hornet strikes again. You went glassy-eyed round the picture gallery, ate up at a posh restaurant, rode around the ferries like a couple of loonies, and all the time he was getting ready to go zzz.’
‘No.’
‘All right, I give up.’
‘He had a dog collar.’ Suddenly she looks tired and much older than she is.
‘So that was that?’ Though Clara knows this is not so, because of the new clothes.
‘That night. He asked me if he could come back. I said how could he, and he said, that was for him to work out, I had to leave that to him because I probably didn’t have the same problems as he did. I said more likely than not, and he smiled and said it was just as well I wasn’t the sort who apologised, now how did he know that, eh? And if he could come back the next night he would, that is if it was all right by me.’
‘And he did?’
‘Four nights now.’
This surprises Clara. Janice has flown in two nights out of the last four in her usual manner without letting on anything to her.
‘Tell me more.’
But she has done with it, or has gone as far as she means to. But she does smile a secret soft smile and she says, ‘I’ve got a boyfriend Clara, a real boyfriend.’
‘I’m glad, so glad,’ says her friend, touching her hand.
‘Are you?’ Janice says, and there is an acid note.
She pulls back. ‘I said I was.’
‘For what? Me getting myself in a mess?’
‘Why don’t we put the gramophone on,’ says Clara quickly. ‘And there’s some brandy in the back of the pot cupboard, we’ll have some eh?’
And they do that. The brandy is good quality, off the base, and they put on a record of ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’, Janice winding up the gramophone. She sings along with it in a curious voice, both flat and husky at the same time but appealing, and when that finishes she pulls out ‘Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining’ which Biddy had given Clara after a client left it at her place, still wrapped up in the paper from the shop where he’d bought it on the way round to see her.
They drink more brandy and start to feel patriotic and merry.
May and the captain are drinking together too. She has decided he is more of a gentleman that she first gave him credit. He pours Scotch regularly and generously for her. And he has always been a military man, understands her background. It’s a pleasure to talk with him.
Now he shakes his head and laughs. ‘Not a madam eh?’
‘Oh no, not at all.’
‘They must give you something though, eh?’ He refrains from commenting, as well as, and she thinks that he really has quite good breeding.
‘Well of course my friends look after me, see Ai don’t go without things. But really. It’s a quiet life for me. Ai’m just a little better connected, shall we say, than some of them.’
There is a tapping at the door. She opens it a fraction, recognising the knock, and a hasty conversation ensues through the crack. She closes it and looks down at the captain with real regret.
&nbs
p; ‘Ai’m afraid that Louise is — otherwise engaged this evening. Ai did warn you that it could be difficult. She has a very regular gentleman friend at the present taime.’
‘Ah shee-it, lady.’ The captain grasps the top of the whisky bottle. ‘You mean the only thing left for me is to climb in on top of old Jimmy? I thought you coulda done better than that? I mean here I’ve been sittin’ an’ waitin’ patiently while he enjoys himself, more than half an hour, screwing into this Biddy. I want me a fresh, tidy bit of snatch, not old Jimmy’s leftovers.’
She sees then that she has not drunk him under the table at all, as she had hoped. Though he is very drunk, he has come to the Puzzle to have sex. She sighs. There must be easier ways to come by a few of life’s little luxuries. She has another quick conference with the shadowy figure outside her door. When she comes back, she offers him hope, though personally she has little confidence. She stumbles, feels the age that no one knows.
‘Biddy has class. Really. She trained in opera.’
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t bring round any stuff this evening,’ Janice says.
Clara starts. She has almost forgotten that Winnie is coming tomorrow and that is partly why Janice is here. Ambrose, having missed her at the factory, had called all the way over to Newmarket to tell her what was happening, and about the panic that Clara is in.
‘It’ll be all right,’ she says.
‘No it won’t, I’ll get you some stuff in the morning if I can get over. They’re doing checks at the factory at the moment though; you know how it is.’
Clara knows all right. None of them have ever forgotten the night Annie Walmsley was walking down the stairs and the elastic in her knickers had broken just as they were all leaving the factory.
The chocolates had come cascading down round her ankles in a great shower of red and gold paper. At first they thought it was funny and there were a few hysterical giggles and then, uneasily, they’d fallen silent, not knowing what to do, wishing they could help because it could have been any of them at some time or another, and yet knowing that they compromised themselves forever if they made one move in her direction. She’d needed that job too.
‘Don’t get caught for God’s sake, Janice.’
‘Not even for you kid. But I reckon the boss’ll be out tomorrow, quite early. I heard him say. I’ll see what I can do.’
‘It’s just that she’ll smell a rat if I’m broke.’
‘At least you’re all right for food.’
‘As long as it holds out. That’s the trouble, Ambrose won’t be able to help out and then I’ll have to get some in. I’m hoping she’ll only stay a day or so.’
‘What exactly are you planning on?’
Clara explains and Janice listens as if she’s soft in the head, but she says she understands.
‘You can see how well I am tonight,’ Clara says. ‘I’ll be fine. I mean if I’m like this she’ll never guess will she?’
Janice looks at her hard. ‘Is she thick or something?’
‘You sound just like Ambrose. And you’re supposed to be making me feel good.’
‘Am I?’
‘Knowing you … I guess not.’
‘Ambrose said he’d come over and leave some stuff with me for you to sell, too, if he can’t bring it round himself. He said he thought he could get some more stockings and Camels.’
‘Good. I’ll get you a cut and you can have some Camels, or does your Ron get them for you?’
She blushes. ‘I don’t like asking him … I mean …’
‘You mean he’s a Holy Roller. I dunno what’s got into you Janice.’
‘It’d put him in an awkward situation, wouldn’t it? It’d be out of character. Well, they’d guess he was up to something,’ she says defensively.
‘You’ve got it bad haven’t you?’
‘I’d sure appreciate some of the Camels,’ she says, changing the subject.
‘Will do. I’ll just have to hope it comes together in the morning before Winnie turns up, that’s all.’
‘All this trouble. I don’t know why you don’t just take the money from Ambrose. He wouldn’t mind and I guess it’d be easier on him too.’
‘You know he spends a packet here as it is. Besides, you know how it is between Ambrose and me.’
‘Yes. Well … I suppose that’s why I told you about Ron. Only this is sort of different.’ She shrugs. ‘Be more practical for you. Oh, I dunno, you’re a queer one.’
‘Maybe I am.’ Indeed, she has often wondered if that is just what she is, for so often she has wanted everything that was different from that which was expected of her. Still, she can see Janice’s point. ‘Funny how it goes isn’t it?’ she says. ‘When I thought about knocking off at the factory I believed I was going to make a packet out of the Ambroses of this world.’
‘Didn’t work did it?’
‘Nope. God was I scared when you brought him in that night.’
‘He was all I could find.’
‘I said to myself, well Clara my girl, take a look at him, he’s for your learning, if I can cope with him I can cope with anything that comes my way.’
‘Did you take money off him that night? You never did tell me.’
‘Only that once.’ Now it is her turn to withdraw. To go further will involve a review of all her history with Ambrose, and she can’t do that, not tonight anyway. She is too tired, and with the brandy she knows that she will have to go to bed soon if she is to be all right for the morning and what promises to be a busy day.
Biddy remembers that she was trained in opera. The captain has reminded her. Once she had actually got to sing a bit part in ‘New Moon’. The local reviewer had been very nice about it. Oh those were the days.
Ma is worried and distracted. The night before, Billy has put the meat skewer through his doll. He was very excited about what he had done, and swung the doll aloft over his head, still attached to the skewer. When she protested, he told her that he was practising to be a soldier just like his dad. ‘Everyone should practise for the war,’ he told her importantly. She supposed it was fair enough. All the kids played war games. But she thinks it would be better if he played cards with her and tonight she can’t get him interested for long.
‘No lead in the old pencil?’ says Biddy. She is fed up. The captain has fumbled with her for longer than she can bear, and he is chewing at her tit now in desperation. It hurts and she’s had enough.
But she has said the wrong thing to her visitor. In the next room her child stirs.
She hits a high note as he begins to attack her.
*
Janice eases her feet into her shoes.
‘Hey, if you should run into sister Winnie, would you say that we work in armaments, next door at Mason’s?’
She gapes. ‘Why?’
‘I dunno. It sounds better. People like her, they only have to hear the word chocolate and they think black market.’
‘Well some of it is and some of it isn’t. We do and we don’t.’
There is a small cold moment between them. Janice will lie and steal if it will do what she sees as good, but she doesn’t go in for what some would describe as hypocrisy, though it has never occurred to her to work it out in such terms. She doesn’t dwell on ideas like that.
‘Just to keep her off the scent,’ Clara mumbles. ‘She’d die of the shame.’
‘Keeps her legs crossed eh?’ says Janice, her words conveying more than the obvious inference.
‘All of that. People do change. I reckon she might have done some pretty crummy things in the depression to keep things going, just like Mumma did. People just forget …’
‘Okay,’ says Janice. Her manner is careless and still a bit distant but Clara knows that if she says it will be all right then it will. Anyway, the chances are against her meeting Winnie. It doesn’t seem like a good idea which is obvious to them both, so she is hardly likely to show up without checking to make sure Winnie is out.
Janice is putting
her coat on when things begin to happen. It seems that the world is flying at them in all directions.
The door opens just long enough to admit Ambrose and the rank smell of Ma Hollis’s puha and fish heads that she and Billy had for their dinner. Clara can recognise their whole meal in one whiff. She has seen them sucking the eyeballs out of the fish heads like boiled lollies and even shared them herself when times had been leaner and before her tastes had been so finicky.
Ambrose slams the door behind him and leans against it. His eyes and teeth are shining and he breathes fast. ‘There’s trouble out there,’ he says. ‘I jes’ bring you these.’
He dumps a parcel down on the table. Clara moves to open it.
‘You can do that after, ’s only soap and some cups.’
‘You came all that way just to bring me these?’
‘I got them along the way.’
There is no point in asking him where, nor does it really matter. He is jumpy and agitated and as they listen they can hear a row going on outside. It may have been going for a while. Janice and Clara have been wrapped in their own conversation and the music, and so much goes on in the Puzzle all the time, that things happening outside can often go unnoticed, unless they get really bad.
Someone outside starts pounding on the door behind Ambrose’s shoulder blades.
‘Don’t answer it,’ he says.
A voice screams: ‘Clara. Clara, let me in.’ It is Biddy Chisholm.
‘Let her in Ambrose.’
‘I tell you, they make trouble for you.’ His dark hands are splayed out nervously across the door at his sides.
‘For Chrissake Clara, let me in,’ Biddy shrieks. There is a man’s voice and a blow.
Clara tears at Ambrose, pushing him away from the door with a strength that surprises herself, and pulls the door open. Biddy collapses through it and Janice springs to close it in the face of the man who is pursuing her. Ambrose catches Biddy as she falls and rights her.
Outside, the man continues to bang.