Paddy's Puzzle

by Fiona Kidman

  When she told Janice she gave a sigh of relief. ‘I’m glad someone’s talked some sense into you,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ Clara told her.

  ‘Oh for Chrissake Clara,’ she snapped, with a real edge of temper.

  That was when Clara told her about the Mawsons and why she didn’t want to go back to Hamilton. She listened quietly and didn’t say anything for a while, then told her about her own babies. They went out and bought some beer and got weepy drunk. She asked Clara if she wanted to go on the game for a bit while she sorted herself out. Obviously she would have to have something to tide her over, and the Marines were nice clean boys who took their own precautions so she’d probably be all right for clap so long as she didn’t go picking up any dirty old local grubbers. She took in a few Marines herself at the weekends but she still had the devil’s own job with birth control and seeing as she fell so easily she wasn’t prepared to take the risk, except when she knew she was safe. Which brought her to the point, that she wouldn’t be responsible for anything that happened to Clara.

  What did she get out of it, Clara asked. Janice gave her a list. Cigarettes, gum, stockings, perfume. You could make the money go round, she should know that by now. She did of course. She had been selling chocolates for months in the Puzzle, largely because Janice had before her and her regulars wanted their supply kept up. For a cut she would make sure they didn’t go short now.

  Clara wanted to know why she was doing all this for her. ‘Call it soft-hearted,’ she said.

  Clara knew now that it was because she didn’t like her chances and, being Janice, she couldn’t think of anything else to do. That was the evening that Clara took the Homeopathic Vade Mecum with her and read up the symptoms of tuberculosis, though she had trouble finding it because it was listed under Phthisis Pulmonalis. She had an idea Doctor Mawson wouldn’t approve of her reference source but she kept seeing words on the page with which she identified. Thirst, plenty of that, she could outdrink any bloke these days; heightened temperature, but it was summer at the time; then she got onto the blood-streaked sputa and she knew that that was what the supervisor had seen that morning, and she couldn’t fool herself any longer.

  She got out the name of the doctor that he had written down for her and studied it. She decided that the following morning she would make an appointment.

  But it was a wet day, a sticky Auckland day, thick as a vat of chocolate, one of those close humid days with the rain pouring down, just like it was today, only hot. She ran a temperature and slept till round four. When she woke the rain had stopped and a cool clean breeze was eddying in through the window. She felt better than she had done in months, now that she was prepared to admit she hadn’t been feeling well. It seemed clear to her then that all she needed was rest. She was buoyant as she dressed, and she walked up to the village in Parnell to get a meal. There was a little dining room where you could get a roast dinner for two-and-threepence.

  It was only afterwards that she felt uneasy. In spite of the generous pay-off from the factory there wasn’t an inexhaustible supply of two-and-threepences. She cheered herself with the thought that at the rate she was going she would soon be back at work.

  On the way back to Paddy’s Puzzle she felt so faint she had to hang on to a paling fence, and when she got inside she brought up more phlegm. She decided then that she would have to be more organised about her rest and get some of the girls to shop for her for a week or two.

  That night Janice brought her Ambrose. Clara told her afterwards that she was afraid, and it was true. He looked as if he could not bear the sight of her white face and got up to turn out the light. That made her angry and she tried to stop him coming in again, but he did and they stormed their way through their lovemaking, a mutual and terrible anger about themselves; for him, she thought, the matter of blackness and whiteness; for her, her illness. When this battering was over, they were calm and quiet for a long while, then he put on the light again, so that they could study each other. She wept then, and he traced the tears on her face with his finger, as if they were comment enough for both of them.

  In the morning he stayed with her. He was her protector after that, and they treated each other gently in the dark. She took no money from him, nor from anyone else. That was good fortune. She could easily have done so, and unlike Winnie and her Albie, she didn’t claim to be better than those who had fallen from the paths they claimed were righteous. There had been a number of times when she had to admit that it would have been easier than keeping all the complicated deals she and Janice and the others had on the go. Some called it black market. She shied away from that but if she was honest that was its name. Not to admit it was as bad as slinging off at Winnie.

  For a while, after she met Ambrose, she really did seem to be better. They went out a lot, exploring Auckland like children together, as if she was a newcomer to the place. In a way she was. They rode the ferryboats round and they went to the zoo. When she got tired walking up the hills he would make her watch her feet, because that way the ground looked as if it was flat. At first she didn’t believe him but when she tried it was true and thinking she was walking on flat ground made her forget she was tired.

  Sometimes when he could get a stretch of leave they would stay in for days at a time, or she would, for he would venture out to get food and drink, and then they would talk and make love and sleep when it suited them, day and night sometimes turning into each other without them noticing.

  On other days they walked in the Domain and took picnics. Ambrose developed the same passion for roses that Clara had, and the Rose Gardens were so splendid that they could indulge themselves to their hearts’ content. She remembered Mumma’s cool cage of cyclamens, but because she was in love with the world she turned hungrily to the fat voluptuousness of the roses. She had been brought up with the clean scent of leaves and earth, and frosty petalled flowers; now she wanted them sensual and overstated, not icy and detached like Mumma’s.

  Sometimes as they walked back down Cleveland Road from the Gardens, the toffee-nosed people who lived in the nice houses at the top end of the road would stare at them over their gates with hostile eyes, worse at her than at Ambrose. They wouldn’t put their trash out in the same can. The thought intrigued her. The war would make a lot of difference to the people who survived it. The whole way they talked would change. She wondered whether people would talk about rubbish tins still in ten years time, or whether they would say trash, like she did. And dates. Maybe everyone would go on dates like the girls who were going with the marines did. Perhaps Paddy’s Puzzle would have a janitor — that was a laugh — and maybe pigs would fly. She was changed. It must show. The people in Cleveland Road knew she had changed, even though they had not known her before she walked past their gates.

  Ambrose was sent away and she thought she would never see him again. For days she imagined she would die of longing for him, and then she resigned herself. She might still have been saved from herself, might have turned back towards home and a chance to get better — if such a possibility still existed — but they brought him back. The expected push into the Pacific had not begun. He need not have come back to her. She would not have known of his return unless he chose to tell her. But he did, and after that there was no turning back.

  She didn’t know why he loved her, although it seemed that he must. It was clear to her that a white woman could not tell a black man’s story, any more than he could tell hers. In time he might have difficulty in recalling it himself. She didn’t know what he had to go back to, because he didn’t tell her what it was like, and she suspected that even if he had, she would not have recognised it through his eyes. But at least it was somewhere. If he got back. If the war didn’t get him. Whatever it was, it might not include the memory of her for very long. Whereas in the clear light of each day that remained, she would know him.

  For she had an advantage. She would never forget Ambrose. In finding a love so improbable, so ce
rtain to end, she had satisfied her own requirements and those of anyone who might be interested in what became of her, of a last and ultimate love. She would not have to experience love wearing out.

  It is still raining over Paddy’s Puzzle. Outside, the gutters are overflowing with water and an accumulation of garbage.

  Janice’s voice is in the stairwell. Clara has not expected her today.

  12

  ‘There’s a stink out there,’ says Janice as she rushes in. She has rain in her hair and water drips from her mackintosh.

  ‘There’s always a stink around here,’ replies Clara. ‘You must have forgotten.’

  Janice dumps a small carton on the table. ‘A few extras.’

  ‘Extras? You mean goods?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her back is turned to Clara, as she unloads chocolate, laying it out for inspection. She shakes her blonde hair like a dog drying itself.

  ‘I can’t have that stuff here. Not now.’

  ‘Oh for Chrissake Clara,’ she snaps. ‘You can’t always have things when you want them.’

  ‘Then you’d better take them back,’ she says flatly.

  ‘All right then.’ She starts scooping the chocolate back in the carton.

  ‘Janice, what’s the matter?’

  She keeps on with what she is doing. Keeping on and on and when she has finished, rearranging the packets in meaningless patterns. ‘I’ll be going along then,’ she says, and picks up the carton.

  ‘Janice, please tell me what’s wrong.’ Clara is overwhelmed with panic.

  Janice stands as if deciding whether to go or not, but when she turns back to her, Clara sees that she has been going to stay all the time. Her face is haggard and there are deep lines around her mouth. The skin on her neck is like crepe. The rush and bustle has drained away. She puts the carton down again. It is like one of those games of drop the parcel that children play at birthday parties.

  ‘It’s Ron,’ she says, in a hard strained voice. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Gone? Back to the war?’ She feels her own lurch of fear. They are on the move again.

  But then she says no, that it isn’t it.

  ‘Then what? He can’t just go.’ Which is true. It is not exactly one of those situations where you can up and say, ‘I’m going for a holiday,’ or, ‘See you next week, I’m doing a business trip.’

  ‘They’ve sent him down south. To McKay’s Crossing near Wellington.’

  ‘Janice.’ They stare at each other. ‘I’m sorry,’ Clara says, and knows how weak it sounds. ‘Honestly. I really am. How come it was so sudden?’

  ‘It wasn’t. He knew.’

  Clara looks at her and knows that she isn’t lying or imagining it. However she has come by this information, it is true.

  ‘I was to have met him last night outside the library. He told me to wait there because I could keep warm if he was late. I waited, and I looked at all those books of paintings, you know, like we looked at before. And he didn’t come, and he didn’t. I found out, I know someone who knows someone else … Ron didn’t think I’d be able to find out. He went yesterday morning. Known for three weeks. Before he met me.’

  ‘He could have told you.’

  ‘Yes. He could have.’ She bows her head. Clara thinks then that it will always be like this for Janice. She will always arrive with hope and leave empty. She will walk around in the dark sucking on a cigarette like a drink through a straw, seeing through windows, seeing the lights. All those houses, all those lights. She will try the doors and someone will open one for her and let her in. Then, when the party is over, they will turn her out. Nobody ever asks her to stay on. And it isn’t fair because she deserves more and gets less than anybody else she can think of.

  She wonders why women bow their heads like that when they are having things taken away from them. She wonders why they don’t fight.

  ‘Well, he didn’t, did he?’ she says and shakes herself. ‘I wanted to tell you. That’s all. I wanted to tell someone. It’s all right, you don’t have to do anything. There isn’t anything to do, is there?’

  ‘He might come back.’

  ‘He needn’t bother.’

  ‘But I thought …’

  ‘When the flame goes out, boy, it goes right off at the gas meter for this lady,’ she says. She tries a smile and it nearly works. But she looks weary as she stands up.

  ‘Leave the stuff,’ says Clara. ‘I’ll put it in a suitcase in the wardrobe. She won’t think of looking in there.’

  ‘You sure? It was just an excuse to come over really.’

  ‘Yes, of course I’m sure. Go on, you can’t go carrying it back over there.’

  As they stuff it in the suitcase Clara tells her about Winnie. Janice says that Ambrose had been in the day before to see if the coast was clear.

  ‘He’s all right then?’

  ‘Of course he’s all right. Why shouldn’t he be?’

  Until that moment Clara has not been consciously aware of being worried about him but now that she knows he is safe she realises that since the moment when he disappeared into the alleys and byways of dark Paddy’s Puzzle, the night before last, she has been afraid. But she does not say this to Janice. Instead, she says, ‘He was a bit hopeful. She only came yesterday.’

  ‘Of course he’s hopeful. I expect he’ll be back this afternoon.’ She sounds envious and Clara wishes that there could be some other way of letting him know, but only to spare Janice, not because her envy holds malice.

  ‘I don’t think she’ll go today,’ says Clara.

  ‘D’you mind?’

  ‘It was good to see her. But I’ve had enough. I’d rather Ambrose was here.’

  ‘He’s really keen to see you. Like, extra. Well that’s what I thought.’

  ‘He’ll just have to wait. Do him good.’

  ‘Some people don’t know when they’re lucky.’

  ‘Don’t they?’ For a moment there is hostility in the look they exchange, but as if on signal, they shrug it off.

  ‘Life’s a bitch,’ says Janice.

  ‘Janice.’

  ‘Yes?’ She stands at the door, the damp hair clinging to her head like a skullcap, the green-grey eyes sombre.

  ‘There’ll be someone else.’ She feels silly the moment she says it. Janice looks at her pityingly.

  ‘I don’t believe in miracles, you know.’ She shuts the door behind her, leaving Clara sitting there, watching the rain and wishing it would stop, even though she doesn’t have to go out in it.

  She thinks about Janice and what she said to her, and knows that it is true and not true at the same time. There will be someone else, like at the imaginary party in the lighted house. That isn’t the problem. It is the matter of them staying with her, or worse, allowing her to stay with them.

  She wonders why she has been let off, and thinks about Janice saying she was lucky. She had regretted saying that, yet in a way, Clara agrees that she is the one who has got off more lightly in the matter of luck. No one could say Janice has much of it.

  Like Mumma or Winnie or her niece Jeannie. Now there was one who wasn’t going to have much luck. You could pick it a mile off.

  Janice hasn’t been gone ten minutes when there is another sharp rap at the door. It opens before she can get to it so she knows immediately it is Ambrose. It’s crazy but she is overcome with relief at the sight of him. Now there can be no doubt that he is safe. He is here in the flesh when he is least supposed to be and she wants to cry with happiness.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she snarls.

  He backs off, even though he hasn’t touched her yet.

  ‘Janice said she wasn’t here. I met her outside the factory.’

  He is wet too, only the rain nests in drops in his wiry hair.

  ‘Winnie could come back any minute.’

  ‘Yo’ sure as hell still her little sister ain’t you?’ His voice is deliberately heavy and mocking.

  ‘Piss off,’ she screams. ‘Goddam you A
mbrose, I can’t take much more of you. None of you give a goddam about what happens to me.’

  He stands looking at her, a sullen mutiny in his eyes. She begins to cry, afraid that he will walk out the door and she doesn’t have the strength to ask him to stay. It is not just pride, it is worse than that. It is giving up, like Janice.

  If he goes, I really will die, she thinks. It will be easy. She need only stop breathing. She has thought about it often enough. No more effort. Just stop.

  He puts his arms around her and says, ‘Don’t you think that no more.’ His wet face is against hers and she reaches to brush it dry and sees that it is tears too, not just the rain.

  ‘You don’t know what I was thinking?’ she says.

  ‘Yes ma’am. I know what you thinking.’

  ‘I love you. Ambrose, I love you so much.’

  ‘I know. Hush little girl, hush. You don’t need to tell me.’

  ‘You’re my black man. You keep off the spirits.’

  ‘Yes, yes, Lordy, Lordy.’

  ‘You’re my love. I’ve got no other.’

  ‘Yu-uss Lordy.’

  ‘You’re my bullshit artist. The biggest in the world.’

  ‘Oh yu-uss Lordy.’ Sending himself so far up the line and her with him. The images overlap. She has not had time to learn any new language for her loving, will never have time now, yet it is serviceable in its way. She is shy because it is not original, has been said so many times before, but it is he who makes it funny for both of them when they run short of the right words; and it in no way disgraces what they are trying to say.