All the Nice Girls

by Barbara Anderson

  ALL THE NICE GIRLS

  BARBARA ANDERSON

  Victoria University Press

  Contents

  Title Page

  A Sailor’s Prayer

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  ALSO BY BARBARA ANDERSON

  Copyright

  A Sailor’s Prayer

  Lord,

  Now we’re on board

  Look after all sailors at sea,

  And me.

  And remember once more

  Our folk ashore.

  Keep me out of the Ditch

  In the middle watch,

  And back from sea

  I promise I’ll be

  At Sunday church

  With a clean white front

  And polished shoes

  And no booze.

  Denis Glover

  ONE

  The clouds parted above Devonport Naval Base. The sun was fitful, that was the word, fitful. Pale shafts of light poured through the rose window at the east end of the Memorial Chapel of St Christopher, illuminating the head of the Commodore in the front pew.

  Sophie Flynn, a child on either side, watched with interest from the pew behind. She sat very still—large, calm and confused in the house of God.

  She crossed her legs, straightened her shoulders. Buck up fatso. Confusion is out. Yes.

  Commodore Edward Sand, Royal New Zealand Navy, sat by himself because his wife was dead. Leading Steward Tollerton, clothes brush in hand, normally checked his dark winter uniform for hairs each morning, leaping at him with quick ‘Excuse-me-sir’ civility. But not on Sundays. On Sundays the Commodore was on his own, twisting and turning before the mirror in the dark bedroom where he slept alone. Two missed hairs lay centre back below his collar. Sophie’s fingers twitched to remove them. It was neither the time, the place nor the gesture. Acquaintances, especially naval wives, do not remove hairs. It is the privilege of an intimate, an equal. A friend. The small bare patch on the back of the head in front gleamed round and brown, surrounded by silky grey hair. He was a well-set-up man the Commodore; a man of parts hoping for promotion next year in ’63.

  The Intake shuffled and stirred at the back of the chapel. They were all young men, boys really, aged about sixteen. They were bored, bored to distraction, bored to sobbing bitter tears. It was hard to see how they would learn faith in Christ Jesus from Church Parade. It was not what they joined for. But what could you do.

  ‘I am come that ye may have life and that ye may have it more abundantly,’ Sophie’s Sunday School attendance card had said. ‘What does “abundantly” mean?’ she asked her father as he kicked off his work boots at the back door. ‘Lots,’ he replied. ‘Packed down tight and running over. Why do you ask?’ She told him. ‘Ah,’ he said.

  Seven-year-old Kit was practising knots, his knees spread wide to hide his hands, his shoulders hunched in rejection of a navigator’s gaze from the pew behind. The navigator leaned forward, his facial tic working. He had forgotten that one.

  Kit gave up, stowed the string in his pocket, the back of his neck naked and vulnerable as a sailor’s.

  Rebecca’s clear hazel eyes stared straight ahead. Rebecca was an all-rounder. She came top of the class and was in teams. She had escorted the Lady Mayoress to her seat at the dais at the Stanley Bay Prize-Giving last year with friendly ease, whipped back to her seat and returned almost immediately to receive Swallows and Amazons for Good Work in Standard Four. Sophie was proud of Rebecca but puzzled by her. She seemed unfamiliar. This used to worry Sophie but not now. She has got used to it.

  The Memorial Chapel of St Christopher at HMNZS Philomel is beautiful and hallowed by memories of men who died too young. The curved pulpit originally adorned the quarterdeck of HMS New Zealand, a battle cruiser donated to the mother country in 1912/3 by the loyal subjects of the Dominion. Heraldic dead sheep in each quarter represent the pastoral background of the donor nation, the supporters are a helmetless Britannia and an upright moa. Battle honours and memorial plaques line the walls. Ancient flags hang high, their fabric changing and decaying throughout the years. Behind the pews and the stackable chairs of the Intake are vaulting horses, wall bars, ropes from the ceiling and large coir mats.

  Kit dragged his diagram of the life cycle of a frog from his pocket. He stabbed a finger at the tadpole. ‘When?’ he whispered.

  ‘Spring,’ murmured Sophie. Tadpoles were a fact of life, part of the matrix of Devonport boyhood along with mud and mangroves, sea and sand. It was not the tadpoles she objected to but their limited shelf life. One minute they wriggled blimp-like and obscene in jars, bulging in places indicative of future legs, the next they floated belly-up enmeshed in scum. Generations had been brought home in buckets from the swamp. All had succumbed. Once the cat ate them, scooping with quick dripping paw from the Agee jar on the window sill. At least she assumed he had. There was no sign of them and Ginger lay torpid and sated in the sun. Kit was bereft, Sophie appalled, though she realised it was not Ginger’s fault and worse things had happened at sea—an expression used often by her absent husband William.

  Everyone was now standing, Sophie a little later than most as she had not been paying attention. Tadpoles, illicit love, swollen cats swarmed in her mind as she leaped to her feet. ‘Hymn 370,’ cried Padre Bell, glad and happy at the thought. ‘Eternal Father, strong to save, / Whose arm hath bound the restless wave.’ The officers and men present sang with enthusiasm. They had sung this hymn since they joined and knew it by heart. The words had not changed nor ever would. They knew this. It is a comforting hymn, especially when sung with the strong tidal surge of deep male voices like the navigator’s in the pew behind. Kit glanced at his mother who smiled. Sophie’s heart lifted with conviction. ‘Oh Trinity of love and power, / Our brethren shield in danger’s hour; / From rock and tempest, fire and foe, / Protect them wheresoe’er they go,’ she sang and thought of William.

  Padre Bell held up one hand. ‘Whoa,’ he said. The congregation lurched to a halt. The organist (Leading Sick Bay Attendant Butterworth), taken by surprise, looked blank. The organ ran down wailing. The congregation stared. Padre Bell—large, hirsute, a good pair of hands in a line-out—smiled back. ‘This is a wonderful hymn,’ he said. Sophie nodded. Nobody else did anything.

  ‘But we’re dragging!’ continued the Padre who was musical. Silence.

  Followed by sniggers from the Intake.

  ‘Watch the beat. My hand. Watch my hand.’

  Sophie watched intently. As always she felt responsible. When she and William gave a party which was seldom, she was torn between providing food and keeping an eye on things. She felt if she were not present at all times ensuring happiness her guests would lapse behind her back, would stand eating and drinking with tears of sorrow leaking from their eyes.

  Padre Bell’s hand was still poised. ‘Now!’ Leading Sick Bay Attendant Butterworth’s attack had returned, the congregation roared through ‘Eternal Father’ with hearts high; or the Commodore and the navigator and LSBA Butterworth and Padre Bell did. Sophie was not sure about those behind and the Intake behind them but Rebecca and Kit entered into the spirit of the thing. Men’s singing is stirring. You want to be part.

  ‘Much better,’ said the Padre. LSBA Butterworth also smiled. He was well respected, a loyal man. In Suva during the last Island Cruise his Captain had appeared on board at five a.m. with one hand to his neck. ‘Boils,’ he snapped at William who had the morning watch. ‘Send the LSBA to my cabin.’ Later
photographs show the Captain’s neck bandaged. Neither William nor LSBA Butterworth has ever mentioned the incident.

  The Commodore moved to the lectern. The Captain of Philomel, Harold Pickett, closed his eyes. His wife poked him. He frowned briefly, screwed his eyes tighter.

  Sophie’s eyes were on the Commodore. She was able to observe the bone structure, the ears, the way the hair grew. The fingers on the bookmark interested her, the firm voice. ‘The Lesson is taken from the Gospel According to St Matthew, Chapter 11, Verses 25-30.’ Strong words of comfort rolled over them.

  ‘Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’

  The Commodore lifted his eyes.

  ‘For my yoke is easy,’ he said, ‘and my lurden is bight.’

  Sophie’s yelping snort was echoed by the Intake, grateful for this momentary release from torpor. Tears of hopeless joy, of God-given anticlimax, ran down her face. What was she fussing about. Her shoulders shook. ‘Mum,’ whispered Rebecca, ‘Heh Mum.’

  ‘You’d better mop up,’ said Kit kindly.

  She did so. The Commodore’s face was calm. The service continued.

  The congregation rose to their feet after the Padre’s peremptory blessing. It was only a matter of asking for it in his opinion. The Padre knew that his Redeemer lived.

  The sun had disappeared, the air was crisp as the congregation left the chapel to its folding doors, its East/West polarity of body and soul, its weekly metamorphosis into a gymnasium.

  The Intake marched off.

  The Commodore’s hand scrubbed Kit’s crew cut. ‘Hullo, Sophie,’ he said.

  There had been a song in her youth, ‘The sailor with the navy blue eyes’. Her sister Mary had sung it, roaring the ‘Yo ho ho ho ho, ho’ when she first sighted her sister’s minuscule engagement ring. Girls, Sophie remembered, had lined up.

  ‘Hullo,’ she said.

  William’s eyes are brown.

  ‘Coming up to Wardroom, lad? It’s a bun fight for the new Padre,’ said the Commodore. ‘Tea and stickies.’

  Kit laughed. He was an odd-looking child, Kit: toothy grin, skinny legs, impossible hair. He had a delight in the workings of things, an enthusiasm, a tendency to yarn. Sophie couldn’t think where Kit came from either. He delighted her.

  Rebecca was kicking the scoria rocks surrounding the beds of pansies beside the figurehead from Ocean Ranger, a bearded Ralph Rackstraw in a straw hat of wood. Ships’ figureheads, however different in form, are all equally unimpressed by the turbulent seas through which they pass. Sophie had never seen a smiling one. The Royal New Zealand Navy was lucky to have Ocean Ranger, shaky though he was. His contemporaries had rotted to pieces.

  ‘Stop kicking those stupid rocks, Rebecca,’ she said.

  Rebecca gave another quick testing-the-water kick. The few pansies already in flower lifted their faces to the non-existent sun.

  ‘Stop that, Becca,’ said Liz Kelson. Rebecca stopped.

  Liz Kelson strode through life as though through a newly opened Self Help, the plan of which she had sussed out in an instant. She never fumbled. She tossed what she needed or desired into her basket with a clear eye and a sure hand. She knew the price of everything, what it was worth to her and what she was prepared to pay for it. Sophie admired her quick certainty, her attack.

  She had been an actress originally. ‘I was useless, but you do get the chance to ponce around a bit. It was fun.’ About her days as an air hostess she was less enthusiastic. ‘Dead low water. I was either rushed off my feet or terrified.’ Her fingers stroked her throat in remembrance. ‘Still, it was better when we landed. There were opportunities. And I liked the different men. It was fun. Though of course those days are over.’

  Sophie nodded. Her own past seemed unabundant. Not much of it.

  Liz’s mid-winter legs were still brown. Her thick straight hair was held back by plastic tortoiseshell and swung free. Her husband, Paul Kelson (Commander, Royal Navy, on exchange to New Zealand) loved his New Zealand wife and the country itself. He would willingly have stayed for ever, but Paul is a submariner, the RNZN don’t have any, and they are his life. Apart from Liz.

  ‘Ready, darling?’ he said, handing her into a station wagon with a vast yellow dog panting behind bars in the back. Sophie watched Paul’s archaic gesture. He really handed her in. He opened her door, put his hand beneath hers and gave a slight heave as though assisting a frail form into a carriage. Like in Agnes Grey when the curate handed Agnes in after church rather than the rich lady and Sophie, hidden behind the apple grader in Greytown, knew it would end up all right.

  Celia Pickett, the Captain’s wife, stumped around the pansies in her boat-like suedes to greet them which was kind of her. Husbands at sea tend to make wives invisible.

  ‘Any disasters yet?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘There will be,’ said Celia.

  She propped her left suede on a rock to retie it. ‘Never believe, darlink,’ she said, ‘that the navy is not a man’s world.’ Sophie, who was watching the Commodore who was talking to Harold Pickett who was watching the Kelsons’ car disappear up the hill to the Wardroom, nodded. What did Celia expect.

  ‘Come on,’ called Harold Pickett. His hand tapped a leg to indicate impatience. Celia looked at him in silence and moved to their car. There was no handing up.

  ‘Want a lift?’ called Celia. The speed of the tapping hand increased.

  Rebecca ran to the Snipe, the toe plates of her scuffed white shoes clicking. She was pleased to avoid the hill and liked the smell of real leather.

  ‘Where would we be without our friends?’ naval wives say to one another. They tell one another how lucky they are which they already know. Think of unmarried mothers, they say.

  They help one another when the men are at sea. They are competent. ‘We have to be,’ wives say, touching their marcasite naval crowns as they answer themselves. ‘We certainly do!’ However some are better at coping than others. Sophie’s neighbour Nancy Ogilvie is one of the former and thus admired by all. Great emphasis is put on coping. Some wives don’t cope at all. Some run amuck completely.

  Celia does not have to cope. Her daughters are at boarding school, she has private means and HMNZS Philomel is a shore establishment. The Captain does not go to sea..

  He shoved the car into low gear and headed up the hill. A few midshipmen from Church Parade strode manfully up the steep curve. The Commodore was ahead of them all.

  ‘Shouldn’t we offer him a lift?’ said Celia.

  Harold’s eyes flicked from the road ahead. ‘Why on earth?’

  Celia shrugged. Sophie watched the Commodore’s back view. The Snipe was on his heels. The Commodore, forced to walk even more manfully, lengthened his stride. Rebecca giggled. ‘Pass him,’ said Celia.

  ‘It won’t kill him.’

  After a few moments he relented, pulled out and gave the man a wide berth.

  The Commodore, his face scarlet, lifted a hand.

  The Wardroom was cool, high ceilinged, a large room with a dining area down one end. The carpet was heavy-duty ultramarine. Rebecca gave a quick decisive sniff. ‘Curry,’ she said.

  A table covered with a stiff white cloth bore plates of white plasterwork meringues, chocolate eclairs and club sandwiches in honour of the new Padre. Kit stood in front of the polished teapot hoping to see himself upside down. ‘That’s spoons dummy,’ said Rebecca.

  She ran to get first go at a pair of outsized spoils-of-war binoculars mounted at the window overlooking the harbour. She stood tiptoe, her face anxious. Last week Kit had seen a man land a fish across the harbour. Rebecca needed two. There were occasional jokes in the Wardroom about the Japanese binoculars. Half-dressed maidens on cruise ships, things of that nature. Mild jokes suitable for the restraints of mixed company. The presence of women changed things.

  Last year on board an RN destroyer Sophie had retreated to the lavatory in boredom. Followed by the astonishing roar of th
e ship’s flushing mechanism, she edged past the dining space to rejoin the other women in the Captain’s day cabin. The atmosphere behind the curtain was convivial. She heard the lack of enthusiasm in the languid query, ‘Shall we join the ladies?’

  Thérèse, a visitor from Tahiti, couldn’t understand it. ‘Why are they in there,’ she demanded, ‘while we are here? We could talk with them in there, why not?’

  ‘It is the custom,’ explained the Captain’s wife.

  ‘Why?’

  Celia lifted a hand in defeat. A diamond as big as a pea blinked on her finger.

  ‘Let us go. Leave. To a nightclub why not?’ Thérèse was excited, scrabbling for her black satin bag, leaping to her feet as the men entered to dispose themselves in hopeful gaps between seated females.

  ‘It is too late,’ cried Thérèse, her face pink, her bag clutched to her décolletage. ‘We are going to a nightclub. All the ladies. Now.’

  The men laughed. They knew she was joking.

  There were more people in the Wardroom than was usual after church. People wished to show willing, to welcome the new Padre who stood benign and happy beside his wife Carol. Carol’s auburn hair was plaited, her smile shy. She hoped life would be better now Peter was in the navy. The parish had been a killer. She smiled at the navigator. ‘You have a beautiful voice,’ she told him. His tic worked harder, winking and leering at her in pleased confusion. ‘I used to belong to a choral group in Torbay but my wife Lorraine … Well, it’s different isn’t it, when you own your own house.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Carol gently.

  The Commodore had still not arrived. The spread for the new Padre lay untouched. Steward Benson stood relaxed and at ease in his high-necked white uniform, his arms hanging. During the visit of Admiral Mountbatten, Sophie had wondered if his collar was too tight but it must have been awe.