by Sharon Kleve
Those green eyes sparkled and danced as she corrected him and when she smiled a tiny dip, not deep as a dimple, just a dip formed at one corner of her mouth. Would it be unchivalrous to kiss an adorable woman you haven’t even had a beer with? Could he claim he was driven by the time constraints of war? The beers came as he tussled with the pros and cons.
“Here’s to the war’s end.” She lifted her bottle and clinked it to his. “What’s your opinion? Do you see an end in sight soon?”
Ron set his beer down. Rumor had it after Okinawa an Allied invasion of Japan was planned. “Yes but it will come at a dear cost for both sides. The Emperor is not going to surrender easily.”
“Then we should speak of happier days. How long are you on leave?”
“Three days, counting tonight.”
“Have you made other plans?”
He shook his head. Even if he had, he’d cancel them if she was going to offer to show him around Melbourne.
“Good. We’ll have to make the best of our time then. I guess I should ask if you have a girl waiting for you back home.” Before he could respond, she said, “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. Let’s just make the best of the time we have.”
“No and yes.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m answering you anyway. No, I don’t have a girl back home and yes, let’s have a rollicking good time. What’s first? You choose. Where’s your favorite place around Melbourne?”
“It’s not in Melbourne proper but close by. It’s a tiny spot called, Phillip Island. I know you’re thinking you’ve had your fill of islands but this is one you’ll truly love. I swear.”
At the mention of her favorite place, her face had lit up like she’d be given a box from Tiffany’s. What she said about it entered his ears as static filled broken words. He’d have gone wherever she wanted. In America, she could be a movie star and he still didn’t understand what this movie star-like woman saw in him.
“This island of yours—is anyone going to be shooting at me?”
“No.” She smiled and the tiny dip by her mouth returned.
“I like it already.”
A perspiring Johnnie and the blonde came back to the table. “We’re going to take off. Pamela here,” he tipped his head toward the blonde on his arm, “knows a club with a bigger dance floor. It’s open all night too.”
“We’re leaving shortly ourselves,” Ron said. “Charmaine, this is my buddy, Johnnie Jardine. Johnnie, I’d like you to meet Charmaine Sturgis.”
Johnnie shook her hand and introduced Pamela. He got her first name out and had to turn to her for the rest.
“Armitage, Pamela Armitage.” She shook Charmaine’s hand and Ron’s.
“I guess I’ll see you when I see you,” Ron told Johnnie.
“I’ll be right back,” Charmaine said. “I need to ask one of the Maxwell sisters to cover my spot with the band for the next two nights.” Ron just finished his beer when she returned. “Done.”
Ron and Charmaine left. “There’s a late bus we can catch if we hurry for the island.”
“Will we have trouble finding a couple of hotel rooms?” Ron wasn’t sure where the evening would lead but best to ask about two rooms.
“No worries. We’ll stay at my Aunt Melanie’s farm. There’s the bus.” She pointed to a bus approaching the intersection at the bottom or the road. “Quick we need to run.”
The bus rumbled along and Charmaine talked about why she loved the little island. Ron lost track of what she said whenever they hit a pothole. The bus was one of the oldest he’d ever ridden, if not the oldest. The seat springs were winning the war with the seat padding. He received a solid jab in the butt with every road bump.
Because of rationing, Chicago stopped using her gas buses and relied solely on either the subway or the el systems or the trolley. The trolleys were old but not butt bruising.
“Chicago is on a lake isn’t it?” Charmaine asked.
“Yes, Lake Michigan, one of the Great Lakes.”
“Is it pretty?”
“It is but treacherous. Many large ships have gone down in her waters. It’s susceptible to monster waves in bad weather and the occasional rogue wave. Rip tides are a problem with Michigan. But there’s nothing like a summer day out on the lake with the Chicago skyline in the view and blue sky above. Our skyline isn’t comparable to New York’s yet but one day we’ll surpass hers.”
“Wait until you see the beaches on Phillip. Lovely. You mention monster waves. Have you ever surfed?”
He shook his head. Nobody in Chicago surfs. “Our massive waves are usually in winter and freezing cold. They’re not the kind you look to catch but the kind you look to run from.”
“We have excellent surfing waters here. I’ll show you how.”
A tempting offer. He’d love to see her in a swimsuit. Honestly, he’d love to see her in much less but he couldn’t go swimming. “I can’t take a lesson much as I’d love to. I don’t have any civilian clothes with me. I only have what I’m wearing.”
She leaned in and gave his thigh a squeeze. “Not to worry. I know several coves where few folks go. No one will see what you’re wearing or not wearing.”
His cheeks warmed and he blessed the dark for hiding his blush. Her hair smelled like lilacs. He kissed the top of her head not caring that his mother would call Charmaine fast and disapprove of her forward manner. That might’ve been important three years ago. After four years of bloody battles, the gut wrenching loss of friends and the endless tide of enemies, a lady’s forward manner and fast talk was damned trivial.
#
Charmaine called her aunt from the bus station. “She’ll be here shortly,” Charmaine told him.
Aunt Melanie drove down from her farm to pick them up in an ancient black truck. When Charmaine said her aunt was a widow who owned a farm, Ron envisioned a sweet faced Marjorie Main type. In his mind, he saw a middle-aged woman in a floral cotton dress with a white apron and her hair in a bun, and maybe flour dust from a fresh baked pie on her hands. Then Aunt Melanie showed up, honking and calling out to Charmaine.
The image of Marjorie Main erased as Aunt Melanie pulled up. She was middle-aged but the likeness stopped there. She hopped out of the cab of her truck, tossing her cigarette to the ground and stepping on the lit end. Her flame-red hair pinned curled and wrapped in a red bandana, she wore a red and white checked blouse with baggy blue trousers better fit for the center for the Chicago Bears than tiny-boned Melanie. On her feet, she wore what Ron believed were the smallest men’s work boots he’d ever seen.
“Name’s Melanie, but everyone just calls me Mel. What’s your name, son?” She extended her hand.
“Ron Day.” He shook her hand.
She looked him up and down. “American eh?”
“Yes ‘mam.”
“Americans, not a bad lot. Make damn good movies. I fancy that Clark Gable myself. Shame about his lady love, Carole Lombard’s plane going down,” she said, climbing into the truck. “Load up, kids.”
“Thank you for coming to get us. I worried about calling so late. I was afraid we might be waking you,” Charmaine said.
“Oh hell no. I don’t need much sleep. Never have. I was up listening to Fibber McGee and Molly. That Fibber McGee is a funny fellow.”
The three of them in the cab made for a tight fit. Charmaine had to lay her legs across Ron’s so Mel could shift. He didn’t mind that. He was a little leery about getting dumped onto the road. The greater portion of him rested against the passenger door, which rattled unnervingly as they drove over the gravel lot. He played wide receiver in high school. The Corps turned him from a tall and strong teenager to well-built man. He suspected it had been awhile since the old truck’s door had sustained a man of his size and weight.
“Do you listen to Fibber McGee, Ron?” Mel asked, shaking a cigarette from a pack called Wild Woodbine and put it in her mouth without lighting it. She shook another part way out and reached over to Ron.
“Cigarette? Don’t worry about Charmaine, she doesn’t smoke.”
“Thank you.” Wild Woodbine, he thought it a strange name for a cigarette but he took one, struck a match, lit Mel’s and his off the same match. “No, we don’t hear the show often,” he answered after taking a long drag and blowing it out. “We mostly get Armed Forces Radio, lots of Bob Hope, who is my favorite, Jerry Colonna, Mel Blanc, comics and singers.”
“We’re just a wee island without the fun trappings of Melbourne but we have a pleasant band that plays every night in the park. We have a movie house. No new movies mind you, but they’re better than nothing and I’ve a radio with excellent reception. It’s because I’m on a hill.”
“I’m happy in Charmaine’s company. The rest is fluff,” Ron said and meant it.
#
The next morning the smell of coffee woke Ron. He dressed and went into the kitchen where Mel and Charmaine were preparing breakfast.
“Did you sleep well?” Charmaine asked. “It sounded like it from the train like noises coming from the bedroom.”
“Hope I didn’t keep anyone awake. Boy that real bed felt good.”
Mel filled a plate with a tomato, cheese and egg omelet and set it down in front of him, while Charmaine poured coffee. “Sit. Eat.”
Ron brought his nose within an inch of the plate and inhaled. Straightening, he reminded himself not to eat like a savage. “My God, fresh eggs. I’ve died and gone to heaven. I haven’t had fresh eggs since ‘43, the last time I was wounded.”
Less than a minute later, Mel set down a stack of toast and a jar of homemade raspberry jam. Ron had already devoured half his eggs, his will power against eating like a starving savage gone by the wayside.
“Would you like another omelet?” Mel asked.
“I don’t want to eat you out of house and home,” he said, desperately wanting another.
“I have three dozen chickens and eggs galore.” She proceeded to make another while he downed only two slices of toast. He did slather them with jam though.
“Once our food settles, we’ll go to the cove and I’ll show you how to surf,” Charmaine said.
“I haven’t a suit.”
“You can use one of my late husband’s old suits,” Mel told him. “It’ll be a bit tight,” she said, eyeing him briefly in an embarrassing manner. “But, I’m sure Charmaine won’t mind.”
Not long after they ate, he and Charmaine started walking the mile downhill to the cove. He carried both surfboards over Charmaine’s objection that she was capable of carrying her own.
At the bottom of the hill, movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned in time to see something brown and furry wiggling away from the road toward the bushes. “Did you see that?”
“What?”
“I don’t know what it was. A brown furry thing the size of a hubcap waddled from the road into the shrubs.”
“That’s a wombat. Poor things. They’re slow and get hit by vehicles a lot. Mel has a wildlife rescue on the farm for injured and orphaned animals. I’ll show you when we’re done. She gets quite a few wombats brought to her that have been hit by cars.”
Charmaine paddled out and showed him how to watch for the right moment as a wave rolled in and how to climb from a prone position to standing on the board. All this while the damned thing was moving and rocking. He managed to fall left, right, forward, backward, around and under the board. The fact he didn’t get clunked in the head by the board, he counted as a successful ride. Time and again, she and he paddled out. He had to face the fact, surfing was not his forte. The fact that he found watching Charmaine far more interesting than watching the waves probably contributed to his failure.
She wore a green suit made of a material he couldn’t name but wet it glistened like a second skin, the shiny flesh of a mythical sea creature. When she appeared on the stage her hair was curled and in a fashionable sparkly net. Today she wore it down around her shoulders. At one point, she slipped off her board and when she rose from the water he’d swear she was part mermaid. Legends always make the beautiful water nymphs dark-haired or blonde. Writers of those legends never saw the sunlight dancing off the gold and copper in a lovely redhead’s hair.
They lay on the flattest stones on the rocky cliff overlooking the cove to dry. This was the tail end of summer in Australia and the sun still beat down hot. It wouldn’t take long to dry. He wanted to take advantage of having no one around.
“For all my clumsiness, I had fun,” Ron said and rolled onto his side, leading up to kissing her.
Charmaine clutched a handful of the hair on the back of his head. After months of fighting, he’d finally gotten a haircut the morning before. Now he wished he’d kept it longer. He hoped Charmaine liked it. Her fingers in his hair were magical. He bent to kiss her but she beat him to it. She pulled him to her and kissed him tentatively at first.
Ron had no intention of letting her or the moment slip into tentative hesitation. He rolled her over onto her back and kissed her long and thoroughly. He wasn’t going to let up until she ran out of air. He kissed her like the end of the world was close at hand, because for them, it might be and he didn’t want her to forget him.
He ran his palm down her arm committing the feel of her hot skin to memory. He’d hold that memory close during the next campaign. Like all the others, Okinawa would be marching through leech filled swamps, eating, sleeping and fighting in cold mud. In the rare moments of peace, he might nod off and in his dream feel her warm flesh again. If he was lucky.
Pushing the war from his thoughts, he cradled her face and kissed her lips, her cheeks, her throat. “I wanted to do that since you walked on the stage.”
“I hoped you did. You knocked me out with that smile.”
They stayed like that, kissing, letting the sun warm them for a while longer. Ron’s growling stomach inspired them to head back to the farm.
“After lunch, I’ll show you around the farm, especially Mel’s wildlife rescue,” Charmaine told him.
“I’ll be interested in seeing it. I’ve been to the zoo but not to a wildlife rescue.”
#
By the time Ron showered and changed, lunch was ready. Charmaine came down a moment after him but with her hair combed out but still wet.
Ron finished first. While Mel and Charmaine ate, he cleared his dishes from the table. “Mind if I have another coffee?” he asked.
“Drink away,” Mel told him.
He poured a cup and rejoined them at the table, calculating as he drank how to work out getting Charmaine away without appearing rude. He estimated the length of time to smoke a cigarette was sufficient. When Mel and Charmaine were done, he took out his Chesterfields and offered Mel one.
“American cigarettes. What a treat. We haven’t had any here since the war started. I figured they’re all shipped to the troops.” Mel took the one he’d shaken from the pack, lit it, and sat back in her chair. “We just can’t get the flavor quite right. I blame the war, but truth be told, ours were nasty before the Axis started all the trouble.”
Mel chatted about her late husband and the farm while they smoked. Ron waited until she finished her cigarette before he asked Charmaine, “When did you want to show me the rescue?”
“I’m ready now.”
#
At the entry to the rescue, Ron put his arms around Charmaine and kissed her.
“What was that for?” she asked.
“Do I need a reason other than I’m happy to be alone with you.”
She kissed him and said, “Good reason.”
Just inside the gate separating the farm from the rescue sat a large oak barrel with a lid. A hook on the side held several drawstring cotton bags the size of Ron’s hand. Charmaine removed two of the bags and the barrel lid and scooped pellets into the bags.
“Here.” She handed one to Ron.
“What are these pellets made of and for what animal?”
“They’re ground grains mostly, bee
t pulp, ground corn, wheat, and oats and a few other things. The wallabies and kangaroos like them. Wombats will eat them as well.”
“Doesn’t seem like much for a big kangaroo.”
“Many of the animals are free to roam the rescue section. Mel set up numerous feeding stations with hay and grasses for them along with water troughs and the like.”
They hadn’t gotten far when a wallaby hopped over and blocked Ron’s path.
“That’s Myrtle. She’s named after my grandmother who was also short and round bottomed.” Charmaine smiled up at him. “We call her Myrt. She’s mooching. Give her a handful of food. Just know she’ll follow you every step after.”
He dug out a handful and barely had it in front of her before Myrt gobbled the pellets from his palm. “Swift little devil, isn’t she?”
They continued on with Myrt hopping next to him, brown-black eyes beseeching him for more pellets. Twice she bopped him on the hip with her small clenched front paw. If she’d been a big kangaroo, she’d have knocked him sideways.
“This is the koala forest. It’s not a real forest but that’s what Mel likes to call it because of all the eucalyptus trees. That pole over there has a covered tin. Open it and take out a handful of leaves. I’ll hold your pellet bag. Hold the leaves out and the baby will climb down and eat from your hand.”
“Is mom going to get mad, like a momma grizzly bear? We are talking koala bears.”
“No, not in the same I’m going to kill you grizzly way. She won’t get aggressive unless she thinks you’re hurting the baby.”
“I find little reassurance in that statement.”
She took his pellet bag and he did what she said with the eucalyptus leaves. The baby came down faster than he expected. He always thought them slow moving. The baby devoured the leaves and then crawled into his arms. It nestled its face into the crook of his neck and went to sleep. If only he had a camera. He’d love to show his family back home how the little koala snuggled with him.
As he stroked its furry back a warm wetness spread over his shirt. Ron jumped back and held the baby out so only his shirt got urinated on. “He peed on me.”
She covered her mouth with her hand, trying to suffocate the laughter and answer with a straight face. She failed. “They do that when they doze and are comfortable,” she choked out over more laughter. “Here comes momma koala. Just lift him up and she’ll take him.”