Blue Smoke

by Deborah Challinor

  The dishes had eventually been washed, and she noted that the slops bucket was being emptied regularly now, but the rest of the kitchen was still a mess.

  On the sixth night she was forced awake by the oppressive heat and a vicious, dive-bombing mosquito. When she’d tracked down the offending insect and smeared it bloodily against the faded wallpaper on her bedroom wall, she noticed something else, a stifled, snorting sort of noise coming from another part of the house. At first she wondered if it was one of the dogs snuffling around with something outside, a rabbit perhaps, but the longer she listened the more human the noise became.

  Opening her bedroom door carefully so it wouldn’t creak, she walked softly down the hallway until she came to the door of the living room.

  In the pale darkness, Jack Leonard was sitting on the sofa in his vest and underpants. He had the photographs of his wife and sons held tightly against his chest, and was rocking slowly backwards and forwards and crying. It was an intensely private and personal moment, and Ana knew it. She backed away quietly and went back to her room, aware that she had just seen a side to Jack Leonard that told her more about him than she’d been able to fathom all week, a side he could probably never reveal to her even had he wanted to.

  Early in the morning of the eighth day, as they were saddling up in the growing dawn light, Leonard turned to her and said gruffly, ‘If you clean up the kitchen, you can stay on.’

  Ana tightened the girth on Mako’s saddle, giving him a gentle knee in the guts because he was belligerently holding his breath.

  ‘No, if you clean up the kitchen I won’t leave.’

  It was the first time Ana had seen him smile.

  By the end of the third week, he had mentioned, far too casually, that his wife had died four years ago from cancer, that his youngest boy, Anthony, had been killed in Greece last year, and that David, his eldest, was away fighting in North Africa.

  Ana in turn told Jack about her family, in this war and the last. Jack said he’d served in the Great War too, and what a bloody disaster that had been all round, and didn’t her family have an impressive military pedigree?

  After that they found they had a lot to say to each other, about horses and working dogs and sheep farming, and what were the best fruits and vegetables and crops to grow in the Hawke’s Bay climate, and the benefits of singeing your slaughtered pig compared with bunging it in a hot bath to get the bristles off, and about the war in general. But never, after that first time, about what losing someone so close to them meant.

  Over the weeks Ana came to like and respect Jack Leonard very much, and she was almost sad when a letter arrived to say that he would be allotted at least one more land girl within the next fortnight. On the other hand, she was relieved. There was still far too much work on the farm for only two people. They were barely keeping up at the moment; when it came to shearing time, they wouldn’t have a prayer. She sincerely hoped, though, that she and Jack wouldn’t be lumbered with a silly city girl who couldn’t lift anything heavier than a bottle of nail varnish, who didn’t like the way farms smelled and who fainted at the sight of blood.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Kenmore, March 1943

  Keely concentrated on patching a pair of Henry’s shorts. She was heartily sick and tired of the rationing, and Kenmore was almost self-sufficient, so she didn’t know how on earth people in town were getting on.

  In April of last year, books of ration coupons had arrived for everyone who lived at Kenmore, even Henry. First it had been for sugar — twelve ounces per week per person, so there went baking and sugar in her tea (except for during jam-making season, when the allowance went up) — then the damned tea had been rationed, followed by butter in October. But the butter hadn’t been a problem because she, Erin and Lucy were making their own from the house cows these days, even if it was considered slightly unpatriotic. And thank God they were; they’d dutifully tried the recipes in magazines for butter substitutes, such as dripping combined with lemon juice and bicarbonate of soda, and almost gagged at what it had done to their baking. They were making cheese, too, and there were always eggs and plenty of fruit, courtesy of James’s orchards.

  Meat was all right, because they killed their own, but it had been rumoured lately that pork might be rationed soon, and Kenmore didn’t keep pigs. However, there were pigs at Maungakakari, and as Kenmore supplied the village with the odd sheep, the arrangement was bound to be reciprocated when the time came. The government did not encourage swapping, bartering and giving away surplus produce or ration coupons, but it happened all the time, and most people turned a blind eye. And some grocers and butchers were also not averse to keeping scarce or sought-after items under the counter, in exchange for the right amount of money or perhaps a carton of smokes.

  Cigarettes and tobacco were not rationed, but they were usually hard to get hold of. James, however, had some sort of arrangement with a bloke he knew in town; in exchange for a case of fruit and a quarter of lamb or hogget every few weeks, he came home with several cartons of Lucky Strikes, Pall Malls or Chesterfields, and six packets of tobacco. Where the bloke got the cigarettes and tobacco from nobody knew, but James strongly suspected it had something to do with the Americans.

  Rice was also extremely hard to come by, unless you were Chinese, and so were potatoes if you didn’t grow them yourself. But Joseph did, in quantity, so that was all right. There were three large vegetable gardens at Kenmore, including James’s in which he was frequently trying something new and exotic, so fresh vegetables were never in short supply.

  But regardless of rationing, the women of New Zealand were still being urged to ‘bake for the boys’ and send parcels over seas. Keely, Lucy and Erin had all become rather skilled at producing baked goods that would reach their destinations in an edible state, but there was an art to this. You had to be careful not to use milk or nuts in anything, and you had to put the baking in tins inside a piece of linen or a washed flour sack, sewn tight to make a neat package to keep the air out. In the beginning there had been baking disasters, and much subsequent hilarity at the dinner table when the failures were served disguised with cream or custard, but Henry was usually happy to dispose of them, and if they were really awful, the farm dogs were never picky.

  But petrol had been rationed for ages and was very difficult to get; there were no regular trips into town any more. Sometimes a bit of petrol could be ‘borrowed’ from the station supply, such as it was, but fuel was now in such short supply that they were back to using horses to plough the paddocks they used to grow winter feed for the sheep. But, despite their best efforts, the army had not taken all of the horses the men relied on every day for droving and mustering, and Kepa, who bred horses at Maungakakari, had sent out three or four really good ones in the last six months, including two Clydesdales, so the station wasn’t too badly off. And really, Keely had to admit, there was not much to go into town for, these days.

  Buying decent clothes, or even the material to make them, was difficult to say the least. Some women managed to save the coupons for clothes or material, but not the money, and others, like Keely, had the money but not the coupons. And more often than not, if you had both, there was nothing in the shops any way. The daughter of a friend of Lucy’s had been married a month ago, and organising a dress for her had been a terrible job. In the end the mother had paid through the nose and under the counter for a length of écru moiré taffeta and some cream satin, and had made something rather nice from that, but Lucy’s friend had almost had a nervous breakdown during the process.

  Stockings had been rationed first, especially silk ones. They were extremely hard to get now, although the rationing was supposed to ensure that every woman over the age of sixteen could buy a pair once every three months. There were alternatives that weren’t quite so hard to find — wool and lisle, which most women under the age of fifty-five loathed, and cotton or rayon — but it wasn’t the same. Decent, flattering stockings had always been made of silk, even
if it did come from Japan. Wearing no stockings at all was becoming more acceptable, in the summer, but you needed good legs for that. You could reproduce the effect of stockings with a cream and a brown pencil down the back of the leg to create a ‘seam’, but the process was fiddly, the finish patchy and the cream came off on clothes and furniture. And then there was the problem of stopping your corset or your ‘easy’ from rolling up and causing unsightly bulges when it wasn’t anchored by stockings. Keely didn’t wear a corset but Lucy, who did, was always bemoaning the fact that hers invariably ended up under her bust before the day was out. Tamar said did it really matter — why not go without a corset in summer or wear trousers when it was cold? — but Lucy, who had been brought up very strictly, found it a little more difficult to say goodbye to her foundation garments in quite such a perfunctory manner.

  Then in May last year the rationing of clothes had come in in general, and at first it had seemed that, unlike silk stockings, there would not be a mad rush to purchase everything in the shops before stock ran out. Some garments required rather a lot of coupons, though, and it soon added up, especially when wardrobes were limited and clothes worn frequently. At Kenmore making their own clothes was the norm, but now even material and knitting wool had been rationed. But Keely could not in all honesty say that they were hard up. The women had all had well-stocked wardrobes when the war had started — unlike many families who had still not quite found their feet after the Depression — and the men were happy to wear their work gear until it fell off them.

  Henry, however, who was extremely hard on his clothes, created more of a problem. Fence-climbing always seemed to result in a tear, eeling in the streams was mucky work and bound to require a full dip in the water, and playing with the horses meant at the very least sweat and hair-covered garments. Last week one of the Clydesdales had bitten Henry on the backside — something to do with attempting to count its teeth, apparently. His bottom had remained intact, but his shorts now had a very large hole in them. Keely had recently made him some farm clothes from an old suit of Owen’s, but while they served their purpose she had no intention of letting him be seen in them anywhere outside the station gates.

  Household linen was also rationed, and china and crockery, and so were chocolate and sweets. Many other items were in short supply. Cosmetics were not rationed, but they were becoming scarce. It was all very dreary, but Keely knew it might have been a lot worse. She’d read in the news paper recently that in England you couldn’t get any sort of fruit at all, and that there were children who did not even know what a banana was!

  And at least she had Owen, even if her daughters and her niece and nephews were away. Not that Kenmore’s menfolk had a lot of time these days to spend with their women. In fact, Keely was starting to worry about how hard Joseph, James and Owen were working. They not only had the station to look after, and the government’s demands for wool and meat, but they’d also joined the Home Guard. They weren’t young men any more, especially Joseph, and they were constantly tired, worried and overworked. But they kept on going, just as everyone in New Zealand seemed to be doing. Keely knew that the work the men did on the station, and the work she, her mother, Erin and Lucy did — feeding the men and tending the vegetable gardens and helping with the sheep, then finding the time and energy to prepare parcels for over seas and knitting and fund-raising — was all making a difference but, God, she wished it would all be over soon.

  Auckland, March 1943

  Bonnie and Leila didn’t — they were having a marvellous time. They weren’t sick of the rationing and shortages, either. As servicewomen they were fed very well, if unimaginatively, and since the Americans had arrived they’d barely gone short of anything, not even real silk stockings — or, even better, the new nylons.

  Everything had changed so much since June last year when the first of the American servicemen and women had arrived in New Zealand. There had been a mad flurry of construction as the Public Works Department had rushed to build camps from Whangarei to Wellington in time for their arrival. That had been a thrilling day in itself, with the convoy of seven huge grey ships steaming unannounced into a dull, wintry Waitemata Harbour and berthing at Princes Wharf. Crowds had flocked to the harbour the next day to see the marvellous Americans, who had no doubt come straight from Hollywood. Bands on the wharves played ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever’ and the Americans tossed oranges and cigarettes and money to the New Zealanders below. There was a welcoming parade a week later: the 37th Division of the US Army marched up Queen Street to the cheers and flag-waving of thousands of Aucklanders, and a general sigh of relief because now that the Yanks were here New Zealand would surely be safe. Throughout June thousands more arrived — the Marines, the army and the navy — and soon New Zealand had been thoroughly if benignly invaded.

  Bonnie and Leila had missed the parade because they had been on duty, but stories soon filtered back to Whenuapai of the Americans’ charm, charisma and largesse. This delighted many of the WAAFs, but left more than one New Zealand airman with a sour look on his face.

  At the first opportunity, Bonnie and Leila, together with Sheila, Peggy and Eileen, had gone into town to taste for themselves the excitement being generated by the new arrivals. From then on, they’d had an absolute ball. With their days filled with busy work at Whenuapai and their nights, when they could get leave, a whirlwind of going out and dancing, they sometimes felt completely rushed off their feet.

  The Americans were so utterly charming and exotic. They had lovely manners and gorgeous accents like liquid honey, and they called a girl ‘ma’am’ until they got to know her, and then it became ‘sweetheart’ or ‘sugar’, which was just so exciting after years of being called ‘dear’, or at best ‘darling’, by keen New Zealand lads. Or, at worst, ‘mate’. And their olive drab uniforms were smartness personified, especially when they were out on the town. They were meticulously groomed and wore beautifully tailored and well-fitting jackets with gleaming leather belts at the waist, and trousers with creases you could cut yourself on, and smart caps and brilliantly shined boots. They even wore ties!

  On top of that they seemed so sophisticated, although Bonnie and Leila noted that many of them were actually very young. They were friendly and enthusiastic and seemed to be quite enamoured of New Zealand, even though the country was so different from their own. There were constant good-natured complaints about the scarcity of hard liquor, and the parsimony with which the two per cent beer was doled out by New Zealand bartenders — and then only between five and six in the afternoon. Then there was the terrible coffee, the lack of hotdogs and hamburgers, and the blue laws, which decreed that there were to be almost no forms of public entertainment available on Sundays.

  But the Americans were amazed at the cheap prices of everyday commodities — a large plate of steak and chips for less than half a crown, tuppenny tram rides, penny phone calls, a bottle of beer for one and six, and a shoe shine for whatever they felt like paying. And they loved the abundance of thick, creamy milk, the lamb, mutton and beef, the scenery, the opportunities to go fishing, hunting and shooting, and, most of all, the generosity of the New Zealand people themselves, many of whom were liberal with invitations to meals in their homes. Bonnie and Leila suspected that the GIs were also very keen on the fact that New Zealand seemed overpopulated by lonely, bored, unescorted girls.

  They were big spenders and bought jewellery, watches, curios and souvenirs at such a rate that shops often sold out, spent thousands of dollars on restaurants, taxis and goods from the PX to thank host families for their hospitality, and were especially generous towards the girls they went out with. Bonnie and Leila frequently received red roses or corsages delivered (somewhat thoughtlessly) to Whenuapai on the afternoon before a ‘date’, much to the sneering disgust of the men on the base who told anyone who would listen that the Americans were nothing more than overcocky, big-mouthed ‘flash Harrys’. And they were brash and loud, but their charm and generosity were irre
sistible to many women sick to death of sitting at home night after night.

  Their presence had certainly enlivened Auckland. The milk bars in Queen Street now looked as if they had been transported straight from the States, with their cosy booths and long counters, Coca-Cola and over a dozen ice cream and milkshake flavours. The Grand Hotel and the Waverly had been taken over by American officers, and the Hotel Auckland had become the American Red Cross Centre for enlisted men. The Downtown Club in Customs Street, run by the YMCA, was nearly always full of GIs, even though it was supposed to be a club for all Allied soldiers and was dry because it was next door to the YWCA, and the Peter Pan Cabaret, the Orange Hall in Newton Road, the Masonic Hall and the Crystal Palace on Mount Eden Road were all popular dance venues. And there were numerous pubs — although the Americans insisted on calling them bars — such as the Empire, the Queen’s Head and the Imperial, but women, unless they were unusually thick-skinned or ‘working’ girls, only ventured into the lounges, if they went at all.

  If you fancied somewhere a little ‘racier’ and less public, there was always the El Ray out in Hillsborough for T-bone steaks, illegal liquor and a great band that played swing tunes and Glenn Miller covers. For somewhere really sophisticated you could go to the Wintergarden Cabaret beneath the Civic Theatre to dance to an orchestra that played on a golden barge, or watch the amazing Wurlitzer organ that rose up through the floor, or ogle (or avert your eyes from, depending on your sense of modesty) the Lucky Lovelies chorus line which performed the cancan, and Freda Stark who appeared on stage naked and covered in gold paint. For posh dining there was the silver service restaurant at Milne and Choyce, or you could go to Burlington’s, or Forsyth’s in Queen Street which had a very ‘American style’ menu, but if you were desperate and it was late there was always the nearest pie cart.