by Joy Dettman
‘I’m married,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a two-year-old son. Go away.’
‘I’m in love,’ he said, drunk enough not to care if she had six kids.
He was an eighteen-year-old kid, heading back to fight a war tomorrow, and she hated that bloody war, hated the thought of any one of those laughing, drinking, rowdy boys being dead next week. She let him kiss her, which was like being kissed by a wet fish with an elastic mouth.
‘Happy New Year,’ she said. ‘Now goodnight.’
‘You let me waste my night on you,’ he said.
‘Then don’t waste any more of it. Go away.’
She sang again, sang until one, when Wilfred shared their bounty of tips, and they left the club.
He always parked his car in a lane around the corner, a narrow lane and pitch dark, but they’d walked that way often enough to know each rut, and he held her arm. A courtly gentleman, Wilfred, he opened the car door for her, saw her seated.
The night Jenny had met him, Mavis called him a queen. Back in those days Jenny hadn’t known what she meant. Norma, from the factory, called him an old queer, then explained in common language what a queer was. Many gaps in Jenny’s education had been filled by the factory girls — who were probably right about Wilfred. He lived with his friend, Andrew, who had broken his hip and could no longer get around. She’d met him once when Wilfred forgot his house key and drove back to get it. Andy had trouble walking, and would not appreciate being roused from his bed to open the door after midnight, Wilfred had said.
He hadn’t appreciated opening it at eight. He walked with two sticks and looked old and cantankerous. Maybe he was in pain, but he didn’t look the type of friend Wilfred might have chosen to live with — more like a jealous wife who had caught her husband driving around town with another woman . . . or with another singer. Andrew had sung with the group before his accident.
Wilfred had to back the car out of that dark lane. A careful driver, he braked and checked over his shoulder before making the sweep onto the road. Jenny’s own head was turned, checking over her shoulder for traffic, when the driver’s side door flew open. Little Wilfred grunted, then disappeared.
The mind doesn’t always spring to the right conclusion, not in that first split second of time. The car was rolling and without a driver. She grabbed for the steering wheel, her foot stabbing at the brake — thought of Laurie —
‘Happy New Year, babe.’
A Yank voice in the dark. Wilfred?
Then hitting out at a large shape with her handbag, handbag heavy with coins, notes — with everything important she owned. And the bag was dragged from her hand and too late she tried to get out the passenger side door.
Another one pushing in. Pushing her back in.
That’s when she screamed, when she kept on screaming. That’s when she punched, clawed, clawed at an arm across her throat. It killed her scream.
More of them getting into the back seat. She was dead. She was dead and stuffed up a culvert. She was dead, and the car motor howling for her. Car moving. Gears grinding. Hands dragging, pushing, pulling her over the back of the seat. Screaming again. Screaming until a fist hit her in the jaw. She howled for the pain of that punch. Howled and begged those bastards then, pleading for her life, her arms pinned, legs pinned.
Hands all over her. Fighting those hands until they pinned her arms.
‘Please. Please, God. Please.’
Bottle clashing against her teeth. Choking, spitting fire.
‘Suck it down, babe. It’s party time.’
Knowing she was dead. Murdered in Sydney on her twentieth birthday. And lucky to get to twenty, Vern would say.
That’s where dreams get you. That’s where singing, where money in the bank gets you.
‘Party time. Relax and enjoy it, babe.’
Choking, swallowing so she didn’t choke. Fighting to breathe and that bottle clashing into her teeth when the car hit a bump. Liquid burning her mouth, her throat, her face.
You can’t fight two. You can’t fight two times two. You can’t.
Lightning never strikes twice in the same place, Granny used to say.
Lightning strikes when it feels like striking. Lightning strikes where it wants to strike.
‘It’s expensive stuff, babe. Get it into you.’
‘It’s your lucky night, babe.’
Lungs whooping for air enough to live, and why bother living anyway. Jim was dead. So stop fighting and die.
Jimmy.
Swallow it. Swallow or choke on it.
They dragged her out. Somewhere. A dark place. Carried her, then tossed her down like a sack of wheat on the sand. Nothing to grip. To hold onto. No reason to hold on.
Spread her legs. Kneeled on her arms. Laughing, passing the bottle and using her like a pack of male dogs. Pack of filthy laughing hyenas.
The shutting down then. The stopping of it. Or the stopping of the world.
I won’t see Jimmy grow. I wanted to watch him grow.
SINKING IN SAND
Someone was washing her face with a warm face cloth. Jenny opened her eyes and was face to face with a black labrador.
Sand in her mouth. She spat. Dark, though not quite dark. Ocean somewhere. Close. Wash-wash of water on sand.
The dog, pleased that he’d raised the dead, stood back, laughing at her.
She spat sand, lifted her head, tried to raise herself on her elbow. It sunk in sand and she fell back. She couldn’t remember what she was doing there. How she’d got there. Something was choking her. Her bra. Twisted around her neck.
She remembered then, and a howl rasping up through her raw throat she rolled to her knees, cowering, pulling her bra down to where it belonged, her eyes searching for the dog’s owner.
The dog, afraid of her howl, backed off, found something else to sniff at, something darker than sand.
Crouching to hide her nakedness, one hand feeling her throat, feeling the hopeless moan in her throat. Head, shoulder, back hurting, throat, jaw hurting. And one earring was gone. Howling then for her missing earring, for her nakedness. Helpless, hurting, hurting everywhere. As the dog moved off to explore further, she saw what he’d been sniffing at: her pretty taffeta dress. She fought her way into the frock, her shoulder screaming, sand showering her face. Her arm went through a ripped sleeve seam, and she moaned for her pretty dress and the hours she’d spent in stitching it, howled for her hurting and her earring, but she got her arm free, got it into the sleeve, got that dress pulled down. Covered, she looked again for morning walkers. Only the dog.
There was an ache in her lower back when she pushed herself to her feet. Pain when she turned her neck. Ache in her jaw, head pounding.
Limped towards the ocean. Miles of water. And one shoe lying in the sand.
Waves wash, wash, washing against the shore. Like at Frankston. But it wasn’t Frankston and she wasn’t fifteen. Where was she? She rubbed her shoulder, stretched it, stretched her neck, then walked down to the water.
And found her second shoe playing in the waves, washing in, creeping back out to swim again. She reached for it. Saw a stocking stretched like seaweed on the sand. Threw the shoe back in the direction of its mate. And the action hurt. There was something wrong with her shoulder. She stood rubbing it while a wave picked up the stocking, stretched it. Like a snake it swam back to the sand.
She brushed at the skirt of her pretty shot taffeta frock. A crumpled rag now. Ruined, like Amber’s old ball gown had been ruined. She should have known better. Should have known better than to buy the fabric. Should have known how it would end. Like her Alice Blue Gown — in the lavatory pan when she was ten.
‘Bastards,’ she howled, to Amber, to the rapists, to the twins, to God and every other bastard who had stolen her life. ‘Bastards.’
But she had her life. She wasn’t stuffed up a culvert with her throat cut, wasn’t stabbed to death like little Barbie Dobson who had never had a life, like Nelly Abbot, who had not been all
owed to grow past ten — like Jim Hooper. She had her life. Jimmy was at home with Myrtle. She had her life and she had Jimmy.
She hitched her frock high, then higher, as she waded into the waves, waded in deep enough for salty water to wash her clean. Granny had great belief in salty water. It would cure anything that a cup of tea wouldn’t. She felt the sting of its curing where they’d used her, of its cleansing, felt the heat of urine as her bladder released, burning those bastards out of her.
Time stilled as she stood in the waves while the sand cleansed her, her eyes scanning the coastline, seeking landmarks. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t know Sydney, she’d had no time to learn Sydney, other than Myrtle’s area. She’d worked. She’d worked so hard to put money in the bank. She’d done everything right in Sydney. Everything.
‘Wilfred?’ She’d forgotten little Wilfred. They hadn’t wanted him. They’d wanted her.
‘Bastards.’
Wilfred would have gone to the police. They could be out looking for her. How did anyone look for anyone in Sydney?
‘Bastards!’ she screamed across the water, and the dog, busy chewing on some titbit, looked up and smiled. ‘Scavenger hyena bastards.’
The frock’s full skirt stuck to wet buttocks, to wet legs as she walked back to where she’d tossed the second shoe. It was wet, sandy. She shook it, found the other one and emptied it of sand. With a shoe in each hand, she watched the dog mouthing something inedible. And he brought her his inedible bone, dropped it at her feet then sat, his tail spraying sand while he waited for praise.
He’d found a watch. She picked it up. The wrist band had been chewed. Its hands told her it was ten past five. She turned it over, wiped away sand and dog saliva with her thumb, and saw the engraving. Neat letters, like the jeweller had engraved inside her ring.
Billy-Bob from Mom and Dad, 7/18/43
‘Bastard,’ she howled and threw it at the ocean.
It landed short. The dog thought it was a game. He fetched it, returned it to her feet and sat waiting, tail wagging, for more.
‘Bastard,’ she said. There was no other word left in her.
But that watch was evidence. She took it down to the water, washed it clean, then walked those lapping waves, hoping they might wash in her pink pants. Gone. Washed out to sea. Or in one of the bastard’s pockets. With her earring. With her suspender belt.
Aware the game was over, the dog wandered off towards a road. He was friendly. He looked well cared for. His owner could have a telephone. She followed the dog, feeling naked beneath the full skirt of the frock, holding it down, holding it close to her knees.
She searched both sides of that road for Wilfred’s car. It wasn’t there. There were no cars about. In the distance a milkman’s horse clip-clopped about his business. She shook sand from her shoes and slipped them on, one dry, one wet and gritty. Shoes made for dancing, not for walking, but she walked in them, in the direction of the milkman.
He turned a corner and the dog disappeared down the same side street. No use leaving a main road. She had to find a police station. She had to report the rape before the rapists’ boat sailed. She had to do everything right this time.
Name?
Jenny Hooper. But I’m not really Jenny Hooper. I’m Jenny Morrison, the town slut with three kids. I’ve got a sign hanging around my neck saying Please rape me.
She couldn’t go to the police.
She knew who they were. She had that watch. And one of them had been Hank. Knew his rank Yank smell, his accent.
Party time, babe.
She had to report them.
She’d heard so many horror stories about the Yanks. Hadn’t believed half of them. They were just boys sent a long way from home.
Now she believed. Now she had her own story.
She visualised the factory lunch room. ‘There were five of them. They chipped my front tooth with their bottle.’ She could feel the chip with her tongue. Hoped it wasn’t as bad as it felt. Felt it with her fingernail. Just the corner. She felt again for her lost earring. She’d loved those earrings. Knew that one of those bastards was probably fingering it now, and laughing about his night out in good old Sydney.
She had to report them.
The light was better now. People would be about soon. She had to get to somewhere. Had no money to get anywhere even if she found a train. Her snakeskin handbag was gone. Bankbook gone. Jimmy’s photograph gone, money, cigarettes, talent quest five-pound note. Everything was gone.
Jimmy wasn’t.
Sand between her toes, cutting. She walked on, holding her skirt down.
Jenny was still in sight of the beach when a taxi drove by. She waved to it. The driver didn’t see her, or chose not to. He continued on to the corner. But he turned around, drove back.
‘Must have been some party, love,’ he said.
She opened the rear door, slid into the back seat, and gave him her address. Taxi drivers knew Sydney. He’d take her home. She had money in her room. She hadn’t locked her door. She never locked her door. There was a typewritten sign behind it, probably behind all of the doors, warning guests that no responsibility was taken for the loss of personal possessions. Miss Robertson locked her door. Maybe she had something to lose.
‘Can you pay me, love?’
‘When I get there I can.’
‘I’ve heard that one before. Out you get.’
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Here.’ And she handed him the watch.
He squinted at it, shrugged. ‘Not much use to me.’
‘I’ll change it for money when I get there.’
He put the car into gear. She sat staring out the window. They were somewhere south of the city. She knew that much. He knew his city and, with no traffic about, it didn’t seem long before he turned into Myrtle’s street. Maybe her mind had been wandering.
She asked him to stop on the far side of the road. She said she’d be a couple of minutes. He got out of the car and followed her across the road.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Just wait. Please.’
‘I’ll be in after you if you don’t come back, love.’
Crept barefoot inside, crept up the stairs — and met Mrs Collins on her way to the WC, Mrs Collins not wearing her glasses, not wanting to be seen without her false teeth. She hurried on her way.
Jenny’s emergency money was in a cigarette packet in her bottom drawer. Like Granny she always kept emergency money in her bottom drawer. Her underwear was in the top drawer. She stepped into a pair of pants, then, money in hand, she returned barefoot to the taxi driver. He took her money and handed her the watch.
Back upstairs, she dropped the thing into her bottom drawer and picked up her towel, her once-lime green frock, underwear, soap, the last of Jim’s lavender water and a bottle of coconut oil shampoo. She’d get herself clean, then she’d think. Then she’d be able to think.
Washed her hair three times, got the stink of them out of her hair but not out of her head.
She was alive. That’s what she had to keep telling herself. She wasn’t dead and stuffed up some culvert to rot. She was alive and Jimmy was safe and that’s all that mattered. It was over. They’d be on their boat now, maybe gone already.
Leave them to the Japs —
Or talk to Myrtle. Ask her what to do.
She’d be the last person in the world to talk to.
Speak to Wilfred — if he wasn’t dead. Such a little man, little leprechaun with magic fingers. Speak to Wilfred. He’d lost his car. He would have gone to the police.
THE DOCTOR
She took two aspros, and for an hour tried to close down her mind in sleep. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t lie still. She started cleaning, tidying her drawers, dusting the window frame with one of Jimmy’s napkins, polishing the glass with old newspapers. She was wiping dust from the top of the wardrobe when Myrtle knocked at the door.
Jenny wasn’t ready to face her.
‘Mr Whiteford is on the telephone, pet.
Will I ask him to call back?’
‘I’m coming,’ Jenny said, and she followed Myrtle downstairs.
‘Thank God you got home safely,’ he said.
‘Thank God.’ Why do we say thank God when we no longer believe there is a God?
What else was there to say?
‘I have your handbag, dear.’
‘Thank God.’ Or thank the laws of gravity. He’d been snatched from a moving car and flung. He’d landed. The bag had been snatched from the same moving car and flung. It had landed. He’d picked himself up. He’d picked up the bag.
The first night she’d met him he’d chased her out to the street with that snakeskin handbag. More in it now than then.
‘I’ll come up and get it,’ she said.
‘Did they . . . harm you?’
‘I’ll come up now,’ she said. The telephone was in the parlour. Myrtle and Jimmy were in the kitchen.
‘I have to get my handbag,’ she told Myrtle. ‘Can Jimmy . . .’ But Jimmy wanted to go for a ride, and maybe the normalcy of pushing his stroller up that hill, of being forced to respond to him, would be good for her head.
Walking in comfortable shoes was good, the placing of one foot after the other helped unwind her brain.
Wilfred was out on the street, looking for her, his cheek and brow gravel-scraped, his nose swollen, but he was standing. He told his story while she opened her bag, found her cigarettes and a peppermint to silence Jimmy.
Three cigarettes in the packet. She lit one, and then there were two. Everything else was there. That bag, unlike its owner, led a charmed life. She slid its worn strap over her shoulder.
‘Have you been to the police, Mr Whiteford?’ He shook his head and she sucked smoke. ‘I know who they were.’ He looked at the boy sucking the hot peppermint, maybe not enjoying it, but not prepared to discard it. ‘One of them was that baby-faced kid who sang with me. I found his watch.’
‘Who have you got out there?’ a voice grizzled from the doorway.