by Kaye Dobbie
In the beginning, when Kitty was in one of her moods, Faith had called her Captain Kitty and raised a laugh from her, but the second time she did it Kitty told her to shut up. There was a different captain for the Mezzanine floor. The two captains were always arguing about who ran the best bar or had the best music. Kitty said the Mezzanine was outdated and the service slow, and anyone who was under thirty wouldn’t be seen dead there.
Faith had heard from one of the other waitresses that before Kitty there had been someone else employed as captain, but when Kitty came along, Jared had sacked him and given her the job. A number of staff hadn’t been happy about it at the time, but Jared was the manager and he could do what he liked.
Faith’s shift ran from four until ten o’clock, but on Fridays and Saturdays the Angel remained open until three am, ostensibly as a cabaret venue. Alcohol could be served to the tables with food and refreshments, but even so Faith was aware that Kitty often stretched the letter of the law if it suited her. According to her, Jared had the police in his pocket. Sometimes Faith stayed on until closing time, which could be four in the morning.
Sometimes, too, the party moved up to the Penthouse, but Faith had never been invited there. It was a private area and, according to Kitty, required a different type of employee altogether. Faith wondered about that, because she’d seen Kitty murmuring to the girls near the door, and later seen them trooping up the back stairs in their high heels and tight black dresses. But she didn’t think about it too much; she was too busy enjoying her own life.
Used to rising early at home, Faith was strangely proud that these days she barely opened an eye before midday.
She’d begun to make some tentative friendships with a couple of the other waitresses, too, and several of them had gone to a Monday session at the cinema to see Age of Consent. Kitty didn’t go with them, although Faith had asked her. She’d just laughed, as if the idea was childish. Sometimes Faith was puzzled by her cousin’s attitude, and her moodiness. One minute they might be giggling together like the children they used to be, and the next Kitty would look at her with contempt, as if she was so much older and wiser.
Gaz’s warning had stayed with her, although she couldn’t see how Kitty was walking some sort of dangerous tightrope. It was true that Kitty was secretive. More often than not, when Faith finished work and went home, Kitty stayed on, and then she wouldn’t see her until well into the next day.
Once, when Kitty didn’t get home until the following afternoon, Faith had been worried enough to ask her where she’d been. Kitty had been furious. ‘Mind your own bloody business,’ she’d hissed. ‘Just because you don’t know how to have fun doesn’t mean everyone’s like you. And don’t go gossiping either. I used to be a waitress, I know how it is. Just keep your head down and do your job.’
Some of the Angel’s customers were high profile and wealthy, and it had been known for employees to take bribes from newspaper reporters to let them know when certain names would be attending the venue. If they were found out, those employees were sacked. So Faith took Kitty’s advice and kept her head down and her smile on, and minded her own business.
Probably the highlight of her new life was Ray.
Ray and his band, the Allnights, had performed the evening after she’d first met him. Kitty told her that Ray had been trying to get into some of the top Melbourne venues for a while now, but no one would take him seriously enough to give him a chance. Until Jared. Ray was very grateful. The two men seemed to have become firm friends, and she’d often see them talking, heads together over their drinks.
As he’d played, Faith had watched on, riveted by the power of his songs. She’d struggled to keep the drinks orders straight in her head, with the music blasting over her, and the bass guitar echoing her heartbeat. After his only hit single, Ray had dropped out of the music scene, but now here he was, determined to claw his way back, and she hoped he’d make it, she really did. If the crowds who came to see him were anything to go by then he was on his way.
At the moment Jared was financing an Allnights tour of the provincial cities, building on their rise in popularity, but when Ray was at the Angel he always made a point of singling Faith out. The first time he’d stopped her for a chat, he’d offered her a cigarette, and she was flattered enough to take one of his Craven As. She’d soon decided smoking wasn’t for her. Anyway, she asked herself, why did anyone need to smoke when the rooms were so thick with the stuff you could get your nicotine hit just by breathing in?
Before Ray left for his tour, he’d come over to her while she was waiting at the bar for a customer’s order. ‘Take care of yourself, luv,’ he’d said, and kissed her cheek as if she was his little sister. Faith didn’t want to be his sister, but the other girls were so jealous she’d swallowed her disappointment.
When she’d told Kitty about it—the words tripping off her tongue in her excitement—her cousin was unimpressed by her ‘schoolgirl crush’ as she called it.
‘You know he puts on that accent,’ she’d sneered, flicking ash towards the saucer on the kitchen table. ‘He’s from Auckland not Liverpool, but he thinks if he sounds like one of the Beatles he’ll get more gigs.’
‘I like it,’ Faith had said loyally.
‘You’re not a virgin, are you?’ Kitty’s eyes had narrowed through the smoke. Then, when Faith didn’t answer, ‘Please don’t tell me you’re saving yourself for Mr Right?’
Her voice was so savage it had taken Faith by surprise. She’d walked away without answering, and although Kitty didn’t raise the subject again, sometimes Faith would catch her watching with a look that was cool and speculative, and made her strangely uneasy.
After that she didn’t feel quite the same about her cousin. She had idolised her since she was a little girl, thinking she was perfect and wanting to be her. Now that the lustre was starting to dim, Faith began to pay more attention to Kitty’s faults. For instance, there were only a couple of people Kitty was friendly with and one of them was Lenny the door man.
He was a broad-shouldered bear of a man with short hair like a Sharpie and suspicious dark eyes. He seemed to enjoy his job, and once when there was a fight, she’d seen him twist a drunken man’s arm behind his back until he screamed. Lenny and Kitty often took their break together, their heads bent close in conversation. One time, in the early days, when Faith had tried to join them, she’d known at once that she wasn’t welcome. Feelings hurt, she’d wondered what Kitty could share with Lenny that she couldn’t share with her.
Lenny might be Kitty’s confidante, but he wasn’t the one she was in love with. Faith was pretty certain of that, and she wasn’t the only one who noticed that the man Kitty was angling after was Jared Shaw. Once, when they didn’t realise anyone was watching, she’d seen Kitty stretch up on her toes and kiss his lips, only to wriggle away, laughing, when he tried to grab her. Jared wasn’t the sort of man Faith found attractive—like the Angel, there was something dangerous about him, but maybe that was what Kitty liked. When Jared spoke to Kitty his voice changed, and when he watched her walking across a room … He looked like he wanted to eat her up.
Now Kitty’s late nights made sense.
Faith realised how much of an innocent she’d been before she left Willow Tree Bend. She’d thought she knew all about love and sex, even though she’d never had a proper boyfriend—most of the boys she’d known, like Joe, had been neighbours and friends. It was difficult to be intimate with someone when all your relatives were watching, but that was the reality of life in a small town.
It had been drummed into her since she was little that there were only two sorts of girls—good and bad. Bad girls slept around before marriage, good girls waited. Her mother believed marriage was the only way a girl could sleep with a boy and continue to be valued. Cherished. Despite her own unhappy experience, Lily refused to contemplate anything else.
‘Men get nearly everything they want,’ she’d say bitterly. ‘Our bodies are something we can bargain
with to get what we want.’
Of course Faith had rebelled against such old-fashioned values, laughing with her friends, but deep inside she must have believed them. Now that she was away from home and working at the Angel, she could see that not everyone went along with her mother’s rigorous stance of no sex before marriage. Women made their own choices for different reasons. The need to be loved and to belong could see them being coerced into pleasing a man by sleeping with him, despite their own doubts. And then there was money—using sex as a way of making a living. Faith could see that Lily was right, in that sex could be a powerful bargaining tool, but it was also something that could be given freely, equally, by both sides.
One evening, Faith had finished her shift and was fetching her coat from the staff cloak room, which was on the landing near the staff door into the Mezzanine. She caught the unmistakeable sound of Kitty’s breathless laugh. Peeping around the corner, she could see up the two flights of stairs ending in the Penthouse. She’d heard there was a private party going on up there—Kitty had told her some American celebrity had been brought in by the company that was sponsoring his Australian appearances, and Jared was told to give him a good time.
‘Jared is the man to come to for that,’ her cousin had said proudly. ‘People all over the world know about the Angel.’
Now here she was with Jared, and he had his arm around her waist, and her head was on his shoulder. He was holding her up, Faith realised with a shock, rather than cuddling her as she’d first thought. As they started up the final set of stairs, she moved so that she could see them through the banisters. The door to the Penthouse was closed, but Jared knocked and it opened with a loud burst of noise, which was muted as it was closed again behind them.
Faith was still pondering over what she’d seen when she reached her house.
‘Faith!’
She turned and her mind went blank. Joe Cantani was getting out of his car, and he seemed so out of place. It was as if she’d already left all of that behind, and now suddenly the Golden Gully milk bar had popped up in the middle of St Kilda Road.
‘Joe.’ She pulled herself together, hoping he hadn’t noticed her dismay and confusion, and went to kiss his cheek.
‘Hello, Faith.’ He held her tight, and for a moment the feel of his strong arms, even the scent of his aftershave, was twisting something deep inside her. A strange sort of ache she thought might be homesickness.
He’s like a brother, she told herself, and part of me misses him. That’s all.
Once inside she made him a cup of tea and found some biscuits that were still okay, and sat him down in the cluttered kitchen at the green formica table. At first it felt a little awkward—she could hear herself talking too much—but then the electricity went off. She was used to that happening now, but Joe started up, concerned, asking about fuse boxes.
‘Don’t worry, it happens all the time,’ she reassured him.
Faith found candles to light, setting them around the room in vegemite jars. Joe made some comment and they laughed, and just like that everything was okay again. As they chatted her housemates came and went, which was mostly, she suspected, to get a closer look at Joe. But she didn’t mind that. She was rather proud of his good looks, and that it was her he was interested in and not them.
‘How’s Hope?’ she asked, nibbling on a chocolate Golliwog biscuit.
‘Haven’t you spoken to her?’ he replied, surprised. Of course he was surprised, Faith thought with friendly scorn. The Cantanis couldn’t go without a family get-together for longer than five minutes.
‘I’m sending her a birthday present.’
‘She misses you, I think.’ He gave her a quizzical smile.
‘And your mother? And Pete?’
‘Mum’s good. Pete is starting to worry about being called up. He’s turned twenty and his name is in for the next lottery draw.’
‘They won’t pick him, why should they?’ Faith retorted.
Twice a year there was a lottery, where men who had turned twenty could be chosen to be conscripted into the army. It seemed inconceivable that Pete Cantani, with his charming smile that had been the downfall of many a Golden Gully girl, should be called up for National Service and sent to Vietnam.
‘I saw a protest the other day. People with placards, calling for us to get out of this war. Maybe the government will decide not to send any more soldiers over there.’
Joe shrugged, but she could see he was unconvinced.
‘What about you? One of your friends—’ he nodded towards the dark doorway and the rest of the house—‘said you were working at a nightclub.’
He made it sound like she was halfway to hell. Faith giggled at the thought, and then couldn’t stop. He smiled back at her, not taking it personally, and eventually she managed to control herself.
‘Sorry. It was the way you said it. I’m a … I’m a waitress. At the Angel. Serving, uh, food.’ She’d been going to say drinks, but maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. If her mother heard about it, she’d probably arrive to take her home on the grounds that she was underage and being morally corrupted. She imagined Lily storming into the Cocktail Lounge in her old tweed coat and wellington boots, and it nearly set her off again.
‘And what sort of, uh, food, do you serve?’
His eyes were warm, full of candlelight, and there was laughter in them. She realised then that he knew. Of course he did. Joe was no fool.
‘Don’t tell on me, will you?’ she begged him. ‘I’d hate to have to go home. Not yet, anyway,’ she added, when she caught his surprised look.
‘But you will come home eventually?’ he said, his head bent as he turned a teaspoon over and over on his saucer.
‘’Course I will.’
Later, when he left for his uncle’s place in Coburg, she gave him another hug goodbye and watched, shivering in the cold night air, as he drove off in his Valiant. It had been nice to see Joe. He knew her and she didn’t have to pretend and put on an act, or watch herself as she did now with Kitty.
But all the same he was just Joe Cantani from home.
Next week Ray would be back.
SAMANTHA
14 January 2000, Willow Tree Bend
‘When are you meeting Hope at the cottage?’
My grandmother was watching me over her teacup. She knew very well what time. I wasn’t sure why she kept asking, unless it was to make me feel guilty because Hope hadn’t invited her.
‘Gran, you can come if you want to. I’ll take you with me.’
‘I haven’t been asked,’ she retorted.
I opened my mouth to remind her that had never stopped her before, and what about the time she’d gate-crashed the local Country Women’s Scone Morning, after they cold-shouldered her over some comment she’d made about their president? But she got to her feet and moved to the sink to clean some non-existent speck of dirt. Pompom was lying on the floor, catching the breeze from the open glass doors that led out to the back deck. He looked like a dirty dish mop with ears.
‘I have a few things to do before I go,’ I said with a note of desperation. ‘I’ll see you later, okay?’
‘Of course you will. Where else would I be?’
It was already getting hot outside, but I busied myself around the property, watering and feeding my animals, making sure everything was done to my satisfaction. I’d created more shade in the chook house, and now I made sure the girls weren’t feeling too stressed. Gobble the turkey had his own area—I wasn’t sure whether it would be a good idea for him to hang out with the girls. I’d have to ask Estelle. The activity kept me from thinking, and by organising these things, I had the sense I was in control of at least a part of my life.
Mitch the kelpie stuck to my heels—probably because he refused to be in the house when Pompom was in residence. I’d had him ever since he was a pup, and he wasn’t the only stray I’d accumulated. I wasn’t sure when my property had become a refuge for abandoned animals, perhaps when that first
box of puppies got dumped inside my gate. I had arrived home and found their frightened, appealing little faces gazing up at me, and knew I wouldn’t be turning them in to the local pound unless I was sure they’d find a home. The next day I spent time I didn’t really have taking them to the vet, feeding them the recommended foods, and then finally picking up the telephone to bully my friends and acquaintances into becoming adopters. By evening I’d found a place for all of them but one, and the relief and satisfaction gave me an incredible high.
Mitch was the one I kept for myself.
After the puppies there had been a few similar incidents—coincidence I thought at first, but then people started dropping in with their unwanted animals, saying they’d heard I was opening a shelter. They didn’t want to get their pets put down, but it seemed that, for whatever reason, they didn’t want to keep them either.
I don’t know how I would have managed if it hadn’t been for Estelle.
Estelle and her husband, Doug, ran a shelter for what she called ‘animals in need’—which basically meant anything she wanted it to. She lived nearly forty miles to the south, so I rang her, not sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t the breezy, calm character Estelle turned out to be. She admitted she was swamped most of the time, and ran the place on a shoestring budget, but she was happy to help out when she could, and to offer me advice when she couldn’t.
We struck up an enduring friendship.
It was an eye-opening moment. I realised how blissfully ignorant I had been about animal welfare. There were a lot of neglectful people out there, some of them downright horrible, but there were also a lot of fantastic ones like Estelle and her volunteers. My latest guest was Gobble, who had been found abandoned in a rubbish bin. I hadn’t had much to do with turkeys before, apart from Christmas dinner, and after making the acquaintance of Gobble, I wasn’t sure I could see myself sitting down to eat his relatives in the near future.