Brother Sister Soldier Cousin

by Phyllis Johnston

  “Aunty said she would give me a party. Said I could invite the class.”

  My face still felt hot. “But did she plan it with you? What she would cook? You would have had to save ration coupons for sugar and butter.”

  “She just said …” Barbara hesitated. “Aunty just said …” She smiled then, because I gave her the lilac soap and she unwrapped it slowly, relishing her present. For a few minutes I hadn’t wanted to give it to her because her birthday party was a sham, make-believe, but now I felt pleased. Barbara had had a horrible birthday and she hadn’t mentioned getting a gift from her mother or aunty.

  When I reached school again, the sun had gone. My misery matched the pale grey sky. Ginger looked over the gate and nuzzled at my neck with velvet lips as I told him what Barbara’s slimy Uncle had said. Ginger whinnied and shook his head.

  “He’s so awful, Ginger. Barbara has to live with that.”

  Ginger put both ears up in agreement, and he trotted nearly all the way home.

  I waved to Harry in the yard of the cowshed.

  “No party?” he yelled.

  I shook my head.

  Mum was rolling out pastry. She plonked the roller down and nodded when I told her what Aunty and Barbara had each said. I needn’t have told her anything; she could tell by my face that the party was a failure. I was amazed she didn’t lecture me and say, “I told you so,” and I was glad I had given Barbara her present.

  “You are Barbara’s true friend,” she said.

  When Mum and Dad went to bed, Harry and I played a game of cribbage. I told him what Barbara’s slimy “Uncle” said and how it made me feel. I couldn’t tell Mum and Dad about him, although Harry reckoned I could, but I knew they might ask if I had been forward or cheeky to Uncle, and I hadn’t.

  Harry counted up on the board, then led out with a ten of hearts. “Be ready for more of that kind of flak. You’re good-looking, nearly grown up, Luggage Tag, er, Helen,” he said. “Barbara’s uncle should not have made that kind of innuendo to you or to any woman, but there are fools like that about.”

  “It felt worse than if a strange man yelled ‘Hubba, hubba!’ at me.”

  I supposed that Uncle’s talk was like flak fired by Germans against the Allies’ aeroplanes. It had been scary and I felt sorry that Barbara had to live with him all the time.

  When the boys scoffed at the non-party and nicknamed Barbara “the no-party girl”, she sighed and told everyone, “When I’m twenty-one I’ll have a party that will beat anything you could ever have in Te Miro.”

  I looked at the floor, embarrassed for her, but she didn’t seem to care, and she ignored Standard Four looking at her and whispering about how glad they were that they hadn’t gone to her place and been thrown out. Barbara tossed her long hair back, shrugged her shoulders and quoted, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”

  I wished I could pretend unpleasant things never happened, and be as careless as Barbara. The embarrassment of the non-party, and of Uncle’s words, were in my mind for days. Though I tried to take Barbara’s side and to think of smart answers to the other kids’ scorn — telling Fred he was greedy pig because he had only wanted to eat free meringues — the wrongness of her party invitations hung in the air between us and it was hard not to let it affect our friendship. Some of the sense of sharing secrets, of pleasure in each other’s company and being the special girls in Standard Six, was gone.

  Chapter Three

  FROST, LIKE SHAVING CREAM SLATHERED ON HAIRY STUBBLE, covered the grass and fence posts. Kettle-like steam rose from the sledge of hay. The cows trotted clumsily after it, their insides sloshing like washing machines, and their breath hung like wisps of mist in the air.

  The five Te Miro men who came home from North Africa were to be honoured at a social evening on Saturday. I felt proud of Harry being one of the five, then felt guilty for the three who had been killed over there. Harry visited Mrs Bradson and told her of the battles back and forth across the desert until Monty came and they did the Germans in. On the way home, Ginger and I came across him at the Bradsons’ gate and he jumped up on Ginger’s back.

  “I won’t be the last straw and kill old Ginge?”

  Ginger twitched his left ear. No.

  “Ginger should get fed hay as well as the cows,” I said.

  “Can do.” Harry sighed. “Visiting Mrs Bradson was hard. She wanted to know exactly how Jim was killed. I was chicken. Told her I didn’t know.”

  “But you did?”

  “Yep.”

  Harry talked little about the Desert War. Dad said not to ask him questions, because when war was over, soldiers wanted to forget. Harry mentioned heat, flies, and dysentery, but not how he had killed Germans or Italians, or how many. It was hard to believe my brother had killed anyone. His warmth behind me felt good, like years before when I rode behind him on the Norton motor bike.

  At afternoon tea Harry said I should learn to drive our Ford car. “Lenny is thirteen and you taught me at that age, Dad, to reverse the car from the shed and drive to the gate. I practised driving around the home paddock, too.”

  Mum and Dad looked surprised and I felt excited. Mum poured me a cup of tea and frowned. “It’ll be a few years before Helen can drive legally,” she said.

  “Practise is what Helen needs,” Harry said. “We’ll start driving lessons tomorrow, then she can help me wash the car.”

  The next day I sat in the front passenger seat and went through the gear changes with Harry. The gears felt stiff. Harry explained the car’s insides and named parts I didn’t understand. Then we changed seats and with Harry’s hands steering the wheel, I tried to ease the clutch up slowly, and back the Ford Sedan out of the car shed into the paddock. The car jerked as though it had been shot, made three jumps backwards, and we were outside the car shed door.

  “Okay,” Harry said. “We’ll practise again on Tuesday.”

  I carried buckets of water to him as he washed the car with an old towel. “I don’t want to go to the social tonight. It’s hypocritical. The men who died should be honoured.”

  “People want to thank you, too, before you go to Europe.”

  “I don’t want to go back to war, either. Mum and Dad have aged since I’ve been away. My mate Mike is not going back.”

  “He’ll go to gaol!”

  “If the military police can find him. Deep in the bush on their farm there’s a cave. His parents will take him food, or he’ll come down to the house at night. When the war ends, he’ll have to be discharged from the army.”

  I didn’t want Harry to go back to war, but I also didn’t want the police to imprison him for running away. Terms like “gaol-bird” and “deserter” came to mind. People could call him that. Harry polished dry the Ford’s headlights.

  “Mike’s schoolmate had polio as a child. He couldn’t go in the forces and now he owns a sawmill! Opportunities are everywhere. Different now, from when we went away.”

  “What do Mum and Dad think?”

  “Now I’ve signed up for Europe, the army won’t discharge me. Dad wants me to stay home, but I signed that paper.” Harry looked the car over. “Mum wants me to stay, even if I’m in gaol. What do you think, Luggage Tag?”

  “Helen. You should do what you want, Harry. Jess does what she wants. I wonder if she plans to marry the First Lieutenant?”

  Harry shrugged. “Who knows, but I’d feel like a cur dog if I didn’t go back to the war. It’s the old ‘honourable’ bit.”

  Mum had let out the four darts in the bust on my best dress, and taken the sashes off to make a belt. “You’ve got a waist now, Helen,” she said.

  That afternoon she pressed Dad’s suit and Harry’s uniform. With his campaign medal and regimental ribbon, Harry looked smart as he drove us to the hall. Mum had used a lot of our sugar and butter ration to make a Madeira cake and I was as proud of that as I was of Harry as I carried it into the supper room and put it beside the other food.
r />   Most of the Standards were there, and Mr Moore in a black, pin-striped suit was talking with the Hall Committee. Mrs Moore and Miss Cristal wore long, satin ball frocks under their overcoats. Men and women shook Harry’s hand. The seats were placed in rows across the hall for the ceremony and Barbara and I sat together.

  “Harry is so hubba-dingerish!” she said.

  “He’s teaching me to drive the Ford.”

  “Lucky you!”

  Mrs Oakley played “God Save The King” on the piano, and we stood, sang, then sat down. Mr Moore talked of courage, sacrifice, and doing one’s duty. He said how proud Te Miro was of the eight men who had gone to North Africa. We stood for a minute in silence, to remember the dead, then the five surviving men marched from the back of the stage and stood in line across it.

  Mr Walmsley called, “At ease!” People laughed. The five men grinned and stood easy. The Hall Committee chairman, Mr Oakley, asked if they would speak of their experiences in North Africa. We heard again about the heat, the dust that covered everything, the flies and the dysentery. They told of the Division moving, spread out for miles, of taking German prisoners, and themselves being captured by Italian soldiers.

  Tom Baker spoke of the Banghazi Sweepstakes. Barbara and I thought that was a horse race, then realised he meant a place where the battle raged back and forth. Harry told of being herded into a truck and held prisoners for ten days. There was not enough water to drink and no food. Some prisoners ate the sour grass that grew in clumps. How glad they were to see Australian soldiers ride into the Italian camp to free them, and capture the Italians.

  “Harry never told us he was captured and starved!” I said.

  Barbara shrugged her shoulders. “Grown-ups never tell everything.”

  Mr Oakley said each soldier’s rank, name and number, shook their hands, and gave them each five pounds. Everyone clapped each man.

  The seats were pushed to the wall and dancing began. Mrs Oakley played the piano and Bob Black the accordion. Harry walked over to Miss Cristal and asked her for the first dance, a waltz. Throughout the evening the five returned men danced in turn with her. Dad had one dance with Mum and did the Valeta with me. We had practised that at home but after a a few minutes his leg pained him so he sat down.

  Mum went to help serve supper.

  Harry taught me a foxtrot, then Barbara and I danced the supper waltz together. The Wormy boys were talking to Timmie and Bob Brown.

  “Looks as though FJC is meeting,” I said.

  “I’ll die if they ask me to dance,” Barbara said. “I’ll say no.”

  I wondered if Barbara would really say no. She wanted a boyfriend and had asked me if I wanted one. I didn’t want one of the boys at school for a boyfriend. “I wish I was old enough for a Marine.”

  “I want a boyfriend now,” Barbara said. “The men in this hall are too young or too old. When I live in the city I’ll have boyfriends.” Barbara talked a lot of the city and her mother. She didn’t like the country quiet, or animals, or that there were no picture theatres. I hoped she lasted out a year at high school with me.

  Driving home from the dance, we were silent, as though no one dared to speak.

  Finally Dad cleared his throat. “Didn’t know you were caught by the Ities, son.”

  “The other blokes there tonight were prisoners, too. We pulled straws on what we were going to say. Didn’t want to repeat ourselves.”

  “Ten days! You had no food for ten days!” Mum burst out. “Did you eat grass?”

  “No. I’m here now. It’s okay.”

  Mum and Dad didn’t say any more. I wanted to question Harry about hunger and thirst and killing but knew it was taboo, and he wouldn’t speak of it, anyway. He had lived a hard, killing life. I wanted to yell to the world that Harry had every right to stay in New Zealand and not go back to war.

  The next day, with Harry in the passenger seat, I went through the five gears on the Ford again. I practised letting out the clutch slowly and, with Harry helping steer the wheel, reversed jerkily out of the car shed. We drove in a circle around the paddock, changing gears up to second, down to first, then driving the car back into the shed. It gave me a sense of power, holding the wheel, changing gear. Knowing how to drive a car, I could go anywhere.

  On Monday I rode Ginger home in the rain then hung my raincoat in the wash-house and took a towel to dry my hair. Dad cut me a slice of bread and I spread it thickly with honey. Mum poured me a cup of tea.

  Harry was talking on the phone. “Okay. Yes. See you in a week, Mike.” He hung up the receiver. “In a week I’ll have the boundary fence mended. Then it’s Te Kuiti and hunting pigs with Mike. Be good to get in the bush again.”

  “It’s grand to get that fence done,” Dad said. “When I fence, my leg gives me gyp.”

  “You need help on the farm,” Harry said.

  Mum and Dad stared at the tablecloth. Farm help was hard to find. They needed Harry at home, not in the war in Europe.

  “Jessica phoned this morning, Helen,” Mum said. “She’s coming on the weekend, staying Saturday night and bringing a friend: First Lieutenant Herman Newland.”

  “We’re giving hospitality to an American Marine,” Dad said dryly. “As requested by the New Zealand government.”

  They were worried that Jess might marry and go to another country. Though she was bossy, I didn’t want to not see Jess again. Auckland or Wellington were far enough away, but the United States of America?

  I went to help Dad with the four cows in milk while Harry went on splitting battens for the fence. I was good at putting on the teat cups. I bailed the four cows on my own, then stripped from their udders the milk that the cups hadn’t taken. Dad fed the pigs, changed the yearling cows to the back paddock and Winston our black Hereford bull to another.

  The Alfa-Laval engine chugged on as I ran water through the pipes. I scrubbed the teat cups’ rubber linings with hot water, and Dad helped me scrape the cow muck and shovel it out to the midden. We sluiced buckets of water around the yard and with big bristled brooms swept it clean.

  “I could milk the herd on my own.”

  “Not ninety cows, Lenny. Four cows are child’s play.”

  I let the Lenny go. I couldn’t be at Dad all the time about my nickname.

  “What do you think Herman’s like?” I asked.

  Dad looked grim. “He’ll be the same as any young man.”

  I felt uneasy as I carried the billy of milk to the house. Mum and Dad were not happy about Herman and the visit could be embarrassing. In the twilight, the sparrows and blackbirds chirped like an orchestra as they settled for the night in the lawsoniana trees. The sky was the colour of dirty whey and the wind icy cold.

  Harry was in the porch untying his boots. “Met Rory Mullins at the boundary fence. He thinks I’m a ‘bleddy’ fool,” Harry said. “Chancing my life for the King of England.” He shook tiny splinters out of his socks. “I told him we were keeping him safe, but he reckons it’s England’s war, not ours. Silly old codger.”

  The Mullinses were the neighbours on our boundary fence nearest Milton. Shaun Mullins was fifteen and had gone to Milton School.

  Mum pulled a face. “He’s insensitive. Fancy saying that to a returned serviceman.”

  On Saturday morning Mum baked scones and a chocolate cake. I polished the linoleum in the living room and passage, set the open fire, cut hand-sized pieces of newspaper for the long-drop and scrubbed the wooden seat with sand soap. I cleaned the knife blades with sand soap, while Mum unfolded the best white table cloth and ironed out the folds in the serviettes. She changed into her second-best dress and wore lipstick. I put on my best dress which was tighter across my chest than it had been.

  “There are two darts to let out,” Mum said, as a Baby Austin 10 car bounced across the home paddock and stopped near the car shed.

  Jess wore a beige and white linen suit, beige and white wedge-heeled shoes and nylon stockings. She could not take her eyes off Herman a
nd neither could I. He was as tall as Jess and as handsome as Errol Flynn with his thin moustache and tailored uniform. Hubba ding, I nearly said aloud. Hubba ding! No wonder Jess was ready to toss her cap over the windmill, as Mum said to Harry later.

  Mum was charmed by Herman and smiled every time he called her ma’am. The midday war news was forgotten and at lunch he cut the sliced cold hogget on his plate, laid his knife to the side, and ate vegetables and meat with his fork. I tried not to stare. He was so handsome and foreign and he chatted easily through lunch about the farm, and Dad was interested in his parents’ apple orchard in Upper New York State.

  I told him we had an apple thief at school and his blue eyes looked at me so intently I looked down at my plate.

  “Really? Is that a fact?” he drawled.

  Jess frowned across the table at me to be quiet. So I just answered, “Yes,” and didn’t tell him about the government’s free apples to schools. Bother Jess, surely apples were adult conversation. I did have a right to speak. I was nearly fourteen.

  Herman wanted to walk around the farm. He changed into Harry’s clothes and Dad’s spare gumboots and they walked off, chatting like old friends.

  Mum watched them cross the home paddock. “Well, Jessica, he certainly is a charming man,”

  “We want to be married. Immediately.”

  Mum went white. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure! Wait until the war is over. He is a foreigner to us.”

  “His company has rested and retrained long enough. In ten days they leave for somewhere in the Pacific. Herman can get a special licence for us to be married.”

  Mum slapped the table and faced Jess. “No, Jessica. I can’t accept a hasty marriage. How long have you known him? We know nothing about him, or his family.”

  Jess looked at Mum scornfully. “We met a month ago. We feel we’ve known each other forever.”

  “A month!” Mum was appalled.

  “Wake up, Mum! War has changed the old rules. We have no time to wait. Herman and I want to be happy now. Even a week is better than nothing.”