Most Anything You Please

by Trudy Morgan-Cole

  Lorraine had been going to dances for months now but this was the first time Audrey had been able to get away. She would be in trouble later—even if Ellen didn’t find out exactly where they went, she would know when she came upstairs from the shop that Audrey was out without permission. But it would be worth it.

  The doors of the Caribou Hut were crowded with girls in pink, blue, yellow, and green dresses, and young men in khaki. Uniform after uniform: it was rare to see a boy in civilian clothes at any kind of dance, but the Caribou Hut was especially for entertaining soldiers. Newfoundland boys, when you did see them, always looked underdressed and unpolished next to the Americans. It wasn’t just the crisp uniforms: the Americans had bigger, shinier teeth, and the sugary drawl of their accents made the Newfoundland boys’ voices sound like the yip of angry crackie dogs nipping at the soldiers’ heels.

  Audrey hoped she didn’t have the same look in her eyes that she saw in the eyes of Lorraine and the other girls around her. The girls looked over the soldiers like they were scanning blueberry bushes on an August afternoon, waiting for the ones ripe enough to fall into their buckets. They looked too eager, although it didn’t seem to bother the soldiers, who came over to introduce themselves and ask the girls for dances. Audrey and Lorraine went to stand with their friends, Valerie and Maxine and Cathy. They had each danced once or twice so far, the girls reported. Audrey practiced trying to look cool and bored, as though, at sixteen, she was just so tired of going to dances and meeting American soldiers.

  Maybe it worked, because here they were, a clutch of boys in uniform who looked at least nineteen or twenty. They introduced themselves: Fred, Harry, William. It was William who took Audrey’s hand and led her onto the floor as the band started playing “Don’t Fence Me In.”

  “I love this song!” Audrey said as William swung her around.

  “Really? I never thought of this as a song a girl would like.”

  Audrey wanted to ask how come? But you were supposed to ask a fellow about himself, so she said, “And where are you from, William?” That was the good thing about Americans; it was easy to make conversation because you just had to ask where they were from, and the place would be so strange and faraway there would be something to talk about for sure.

  “I’m from Ithaca, New York.”

  “Oh, New York! I got two uncles on my dad’s side, and another aunt and uncle on Mom’s side, all in New York. In Brooklyn. Is that far from Ithaca?”

  William shook his head. “It’s a whole other world. Ithaca’s upstate. It’s only a small place compared to New York City—Brooklyn’s in New York City.”

  “Oh.” A city inside another city? Audrey realized that for all the years they had been getting cards and letters and hand-me-down barrels from Brooklyn, she didn’t really know anything about the place. She didn’t even realize New York City was in a state called New York, too. New York City she knew from movies and magazines; she knew about the towering skyscrapers and beautiful rich people. Brooklyn didn’t sound like that, from the way her mother talked about it when she read Aunt Louise’s letters.

  “So what do people do in Ithaca, New York?”

  “Well, my dad worked in a factory his whole life, and I didn’t want to do that. My mom cleaned house for a university professor and his wife, and I used to come with her sometimes and look at all the stuff they had, the books and paintings and stuff, and when I was a kid I thought that’d be a pretty nice way to live, don’t ya think? But I wasn’t all that hot in school as it turned out, so I figured my best chance at seein’ the world would be joining the army. So far all I’ve seen is St. John’s, Newfoundland.”

  He laughed, not the nicest kind of laugh, so Audrey figured he wasn’t too impressed with St. John’s. And why would he be? He came from New York and he thought he was going to Europe to fight Nazis, and here he was on a rock stuck out in the ocean, a place where nothing ever happened.

  It was the time in the conversation when he should have probably said, “So, what about you?” It wasn’t as if he could say, “Where do you come from?” If he’d been here a few months and danced with a few other Newfoundland girls he knew everything he needed to know about where Audrey was from. And he could likely tell that she was only sixteen, no matter how hard she tried to look older.

  So he didn’t ask her anything, and Audrey said, “Well, I hope you get to go someplace more exciting before it’s all over.”

  “So do I.” Then he kind of grimaced. “Not too exciting, though. I mean, at least it’s pretty safe here.”

  “That’s true.” She hadn’t meant to sound like she was wishing for him to go overseas and get shot, or be on a ship that got torpedoed. It was hard, this business of talking and saying the right thing, or at least trying not to say the wrong thing. So for a few steps they just danced—he wasn’t a bad dancer, but Audrey wasn’t sure yet whether she was a good dancer herself. Bing Crosby sang about wanting to straddle his old saddle and be turned loose on his cay-yoose.

  “I wonder what a cayuse is?” Audrey said.

  “I think it’s some kinda horse. You know, it’s a cowboy song, so his cayuse must be his horse, right?”

  “Is that why you think it’s a song girls wouldn’t like? Because it’s a cowboy song?”

  He thought for a moment; the effort made him miss a step and he narrowly avoided treading on her toe. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, it’s a manly thing, isn’t it? Wanting to get out there, ride under the open skies. ‘Don’t fence me in.’ I just always figure ladies are more inclined to—well, home and hearth, and all that jazz.”

  “Do you think it’s a girl he’s singing it to?” Audrey said, suddenly a lot more interested in the song’s lyrics than in William from Ithaca. “I mean, maybe he’s telling her, don’t try to make me settle down, don’t fence me in. If she wanted to get married, or something like that.”

  The song was ending now, and William grinned. “You sure do think hard about things—I don’t think I ever paid that much attention to the words of a song before. You always talk this much?”

  “I don’t know. I do think about songs a lot—I love music. And I like cowboy songs, even though I’m a girl.” And it was this statement, the one thing she had said about herself in a three-minute dance with this boy, that turned out to be her exit line. He led her off the dance floor as the song ended, nodded politely and said, “Well, it sure was nice meeting you, Angela. You enjoy those cowboy songs.”

  “He called me Angela,” Audrey said to Valerie, who was back from her dance too, flushed and giggling. Her partner hadn’t abandoned her; he went off to get her a drink. Val took cigarettes out of her purse and passed one to Audrey. Another thing Mom would kill her for if she knew, Audrey thought; Ellen didn’t approve of women smoking in the first place, much less girls who were still in school. But Audrey knew it made her look older, which was important tonight.

  “Oh, don’t mind what he called you. They can never remember your name, not after one dance.” Valerie sounded like she’d been to a dozen of these things, danced with a hundred soldiers and sailors.

  It wasn’t that he couldn’t remember her name; she could barely remember his. It was the confidence with which he said “Angela,” as though he knew more about who she was than she knew herself. Just like he knew that girls didn’t like cowboy songs, that men didn’t want to be fenced in. Like he knew that he lit out from Ithaca looking for adventure and he was here in St. John’s and hadn’t gone nearly far enough.

  He would go farther, though Audrey would never know about it. Most of the boys in this room would spend their war safe in St. John’s, or back stateside, but some of them belonged to units that would be shipped overseas. William’s unit would be sent over just in time for D-Day; he would set foot on the soil of Europe for exactly twenty-five minutes before he bled to death on Omaha Beach.

  “Now, I take exception to that,” said another
warm, drawling voice—deeper and the words stretched-out longer than the other boy’s had been. Audrey looked up to see a tall, dark-haired soldier handing a glass of punch to Valerie. Dark brown eyes glinted with mischief. “I danced with Val here, and I remember her name, and I’ll bet if you and I were to dance together I’d remember yours too. Who was this fella who called you by the wrong name?”

  Audrey looked around to see William talking to Cathy Kelly. “That’s him over there—I think his name is Walter?”

  The soldier laughed, getting the joke right away. “Yup, that Walter, he ain’t much of a gentleman. So, wanna put me to the test? Tell me your name and see can I remember it?”

  Audrey glanced at Valerie. If you danced with a fellow, and he went to get drinks for both of you, shouldn’t you expect that he’d stick around instead of flirting with your friend? And the dark-haired soldier was definitely flirting; she could feel the focus of his attention like he’d shone a torch at her, so different from Walter/William who didn’t even seem to see her even while dancing with her.

  “Tell you the truth, I’m parched,” Audrey said. “Would you be sweet and go get me a drink too? Me and Val’ll just sit down here, and you come join us while we finish our drinks.”

  He went off, and the girls sat down at a table. “You don’t mind?” Audrey asked Valerie.

  “What, me? No, we had one dance together, it’s not like I owns him,” Valerie laughed. “Anyway, I got my eye on that redhead over there, the one Eileen Howse is dancin’ with.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “The redhead? No clue.”

  “No, the one I was just talking to.”

  “Oh.” Valerie paused to think. “I’m not sure—that’s shockin’, isn’t it, when I just said that about the fellows not remembering names—oh, wait. Harry Something. He’s from down South—that’s why he got that accent you could cut with a knife.”

  Harry Something was back at the table then, bringing a drink for Audrey, sitting down with them. He talked to both girls, but even when Valerie was talking, his eyes drifted back to Audrey. He told them his name was Harry Pickens. “Slim pickins around here these days, I know,” he said, as if he had to make the joke before anyone else could, “but since it’s slim pickins, maybe you’ll honour me with a dance, Miss Audrey?”

  The band started playing “Besame Mucho,” and Audrey burst out, “Oh, I love this song!”

  “Then let’s dance,” said Harry, and she followed him out onto the dance floor.

  ELLEN

  “So I see Audrey is goin’ around with a Yank now, is she?” Mrs. Ryan’s groceries were paid for and bagged on the counter beside her, but she was in no rush to make for the door.

  “I wouldn’t say she’s going around with him. She’s had him into the shop to say hello. He seems like a sensible enough young fellow.” Ellen counted through the stack of tickets Mrs. Ryan had given her from her family’s ration books before putting them away in the box with the others. Taking ration tickets had come to be as much a part of her routine as taking money or writing purchases down on people’s tabs.

  “But you never knows with the Yanks, do you?”

  “No, I suppose not.” It was more of a formula than anything, now, a repeated caution without any real sense of danger behind it. Vera Allen’s daughter Brenda had married a Yank; one of the Ivany girls was engaged to one. They were a part of the landscape now, and although everyone said the war was drawing to a close, it was hard to imagine St. John’s without American soldiers in uniform. Truth be told, Ellen was far more worried about young Alf going around with Maggie Ryan’s niece Theresa, the Ryans being Catholic and all.

  Best for everyone to marry their own kind, she used to think. But Ellen had grown up in Candle Cove where everyone pretty much was the same kind: all Protestant—the Catholics lived over in St. Bridget’s—and everyone descended from people who’d fished out of Candle Cove for two hundred years. Here in Rabbittown, Catholics and Protestants lived cheek by jowl with each other. The youngsters went to different schools, but they all ran around together on the street. The boys from the Catholic schools might get into rackets with Protestant fellows, but they’d be eyeing their sisters at the same time. Bring in the Canadian and American soldiers on top of it all, and who was to say who your kind was anymore? Even in tiny Candle Cove, her own mother hadn’t thought Wes Holloway, a fisherman’s son, was good enough for a merchant’s daughter. What right did Ellen have to pass judgement?

  And here were Alf and Treese, pinging in through the front door, picking up Pepsis on their way out to the roller rink. Treese was a sweet little thing even if she was R.C., Ellen couldn’t deny that. She was always polite to her elders, which mattered a lot in a young girl. “Thank you, Mrs. Holloway,” she said now, even though it was Alf who’d gotten her drink out of the cooler. Treese was smart enough to know that every free drink or bag of chips the Holloway children took from the store cost their parents a few pennies.

  “Did you see Audrey while you were out?” Ellen asked Alf.

  “I saw her this afternoon, walking up LeMarchant Road with Harry.”

  Maggie Ryan nodded. “That’s the Yank, isn’t it?”

  “They’re only people you know, no different from us,” Alf said.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that, young Alf.”

  “What, Mrs. Ryan, you think Yanks are not people?”

  “Don’t get smart, Alf,” said Ellen, at the same time Maggie Ryan said, “They may be people but they’re different from you and me all right, you mark my words. Them American soldiers only got one thing on their minds.”

  “Not like us Newfoundland boys—we got all kinds of things on our minds.” Alf grinned at Treese, and took her hand as they walked out the door.

  “Well. Now. What are we going to do about them two, I wonder, Mrs. Holloway?”

  “What, Alf and Treese? Sure it’s only puppy love, I s’pose they’ll get over it.”

  “What are they, eighteen? I wouldn’t count on them getting over it. I was married at seventeen.”

  Ellen was twenty-one when she was married, a good respectable age for it, she’d thought at the time, and still thought now. Anyway it wasn’t as if she and Maggie Ryan, here over the counter of the store, were going to come up with any kind of magical solution that would stop Protestant boys from going out with Catholic girls. Or stop Newfoundland girls going around with American soldiers for that matter. The US Army itself had tried to ban that and what good had it done? People loved who they loved, and neither church nor state nor parents had that much to say about it in the end. She still had hopes Alf would find a nice United Church girl, and surely Audrey had more sense than to marry some fellow who would streel her off halfway across the world.

  All the same, when Audrey got home that night, Ellen asked her to stay down in the shop for a few minutes. She looked almost too pretty, that light green dress showing off red hair that swung down past her shoulder. Audrey wore it long even with the permanent wave in it; she looked a bit like Greer Garson or one of those film stars in the Hollywood magazines she was always reading.

  “What is it, Mom?” That eye-rolling voice, that assumption that if Ellen wanted to talk to her she had to be lecturing her about something. I’m almost seventeen, Mom, as if seventeen were thirty-five or something. And Ellen had never liked being called “Mom”—she missed the softness of “Mummy” on her children’s lips and if they had to graduate past that she’d have preferred the old-fashioned “Mama” or the more dignified “Mother.” But they all called her “Mom” now.

  “Just about this young fellow. This Harry.”

  “What about him?”

  “Well, tell me about him.”

  Audrey sighed, draped herself over the counter. “What’s there to tell? His name is Harry Pickens, he’s been in the army since he was eighteen, he’s twenty-one now.”
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br />   “What do you know about his people, anything? Or the place where he comes from?”

  “He’s from Louisiana. That’s down south. He says it’s pretty dull down there. His father’s a farmer—hogs, I think. He got two brothers and three sisters. That’s really about all I knows about him.”

  “And are you…is it serious?”

  “Oh, Mom. I don’t know. What’s serious? We’ve been going around together for…what, four months? And his unit might get shipped overseas, he thinks.”

  “Now? But the war’s as good as over.”

  “Yes, but Harry says the US is going to have troops occupying Germany for a long while after the war, so he figures he might be sent there. It’s just a rumour though… the men don’t know for sure. They never knows anything…he didn’t know he was coming here till the ship docked in St. John’s. And he didn’t know where Newfoundland was or nothing.”

  Ellen had only met this boy twice. She ought to have invited him in for Sunday dinner, gotten to know him. But if there was a chance he might be shipped out soon, surely there was no need. This thing with him and Audrey—it couldn’t last.

  “Are you—I mean, I know you’re a good girl, Audrey. I hope you—I hope you’ll always be a good girl.”

  Audrey smiled a slow, lazy smile, a smile Ellen had only seen on her these last months and didn’t trust at all. “You don’t need to worry, Mom. I’m a good girl, and what matters more, I’m a smart girl.”

  That didn’t give Ellen much comfort. Smart was all very well, but how quickly it could desert you when you thought you were in love. “You should be studying for your exams, not going around with soldiers.”