A Stranger in my Street

by Deborah Burrows

  ‘Phyll,’ said Tom. ‘Allow me to introduce Miss Margaret Eaton. Miss Eaton, Miss Phyllis Gregory.’

  I smiled at Miss Phyllis Gregory and murmured, ‘It’s Meg, actually.’

  The smile she gave in return did not show her teeth and there was more than a hint of a challenge in it. I was reminded of a dog asserting its right of possession. That thought buoyed me. Phyllis did in fact remind me in many ways of what my mother would call ‘a lady dog’. I preferred that image to the lioness one. It was clear that she didn’t remember my name and I could see why Peter hadn’t liked her. He had hated any sort of pretension. I thought she was terrifying and I was not unhappy when she went back to ignoring me.

  The diamonds on Phyllis Gregory’s ring finger caught the light as she took out a gold cigarette case from her handbag. Withdrawing a pair of tiny gold tweezers shaped like fancy scissors, she extracted a cigarette. Tom and Chad vied for the honour of lighting it for her, a contest Tom won, as Phyllis held the cigarette in the little tweezers up to her mouth. She took a quick breath of smoke, throwing up her chin as she did so, just like Bette Davis in the pictures. Turning to Tom, she stroked his arm.

  ‘Darling, gin.’ It was only a few minutes to six.

  Tom looked flustered, as though he had forgotten. ‘Anything for you, Chad? Miss Eaton?’

  Chad asked for a beer. I shook my head and downed the rest of my cocktail. More delicious false courage. As Tom made his way to the bar, Chad turned to Phyllis.

  ‘How are you, Phyll? I haven’t seen you in a while.’

  She pouted, drew on her cigarette and played with the foxes’ heads. Their glass eyes shot me warnings that I was out of my depth in the company of a woman who wore dead animals around her neck, smoked like Bette Davis, and ignored me so competently.

  ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ she murmured. Her voice was high and rather breathy. I wondered if she had to practise making it sound like that. ‘Are you staying here now? I thought you were over at the university camp, close to your odd-looking planes.’

  ‘I’ve moved up in the world. The camp is a bit basic. Don and I moved yesterday for some rec leave. We’ll bunk here for a few weeks to remind ourselves of what it is to be civilised, then go back to camp.’

  ‘Well, upon my word! I’ve just realised you are here alone, Chad. That’s a first. Wherever is dear Donald? You spend so much time together, I think it must be love.’

  Chad smiled faintly. ‘He’s my buddy, and he’s saved my bacon on a number of occasions. So lay off him, Phyllis.’ He had stopped smiling and his face was flushed.

  She lifted a lazy hand. ‘Of course. Actually, I think Don is sweet. What do you think, Miss Eaton?’ Her blue eyes showed no more emotion than those of the foxes as she turned towards me.

  ‘I think he’s lovely,’ I replied without thinking. ‘So sweet.’ Chad was grinning at me.

  Phyllis raised perfectly plucked eyebrows. ‘Of course he is. Darling, thank you. It’s a lifesaver.’ She put out a hand to accept a frosty glass from Tom, who put a beer in front of Chad and a lemonade in front of me. ‘We’re all agreeing how sweet Donald Dudley is.’

  ‘Don’s all right,’ said Tom. ‘Just because he doesn’t lie down and worship you, Phyll, there’s no need to be unkind.’

  ‘Darling, I said I thought he was sweet. Miss Eaton agrees. In fact, she called him lovely.’ She was all injured innocence and wasn’t bothering to hide that it was an act. How must it be to have such confidence, I wondered.

  I was suddenly sick of all this and I stood up. Tom and Chad rose as well.

  ‘Meg, are you ready for dinner?’ Chad said.

  That was cheeky. Standing made me even more light-headed, so I smiled at him. Tom had said I should go out more. Might as well start now.

  ‘I’ll be right back. Where are we eating again?’

  ‘Why, Meg,’ Chad was grinning. ‘Here, of course.’ Tom, firmly in the grip of Phyllis, was not smiling.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘But remember I have to be home by ten. You promised.’

  ‘And you will be. Ten on the dot.’

  I wafted somewhat unsteadily through the crowds to find the ladies’ room, wondering what I had got myself into. I was at the mirror, reapplying my lipstick when Phyllis entered and sat down beside me.

  ‘A friendly warning, Miss Eaton. Or may I call you Meg?’ she said. ‘You do know that Chad is married, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, we’re not serious,’ I said airily. ‘You know how it is.’

  Phyllis smiled at her reflection in the mirror, pulled out a comb and ran it through her blonde curls. She was ignoring me again.

  I got up, gave the required tip to the attendant and walked out of the room, back to where Tom and Chad were waiting.

  Seven

  The following day I woke up feeling happy. This was unusual, and I lay in bed for a while thinking about the night before. Dinner at the Adelphi with Chad had been more fun than I’d had in a long time. Since Peter, obviously. It felt good to be treated as special, like a girl, but in a way that was uncomplicated and safe. Chad was a married man, but he was enjoying a respite from the war, just as I hoped our boys could too when they were far from home.

  The meal was delicious, a great change from home cooking, and we had talked easily about all sorts of things. He was a Catalina pilot, which had made me inclined to like him from the start. We Megalong Street residents felt a certain sense of ownership of the Catalina men who were quartered so close to us, although we had very little idea about what they actually did when they flew off each morning, heading north. So, although the posters on the buses and city buildings told us to ‘Be like Dad and keep Mum’ and that ‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’, I had asked him.

  ‘What do you do when you’re on patrol? Are you allowed to tell me?’

  ‘Sure I can.’ Chad smiled. ‘I doubt you’re a spy. We do reconnaissance, anti-submarine attacks, convoy escort, search and rescue, laying mines, pamphlet drops and bombing missions. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Is it dangerous?’ As soon as I said it I felt like a fool. Of course it was dangerous.

  He shrugged. ‘There’s a war on. The Japs want to shoot us down. We try not to be shot down.’ He gave me a grin. ‘Heck, it’s dangerous crossing the street. Especially in Perth. The drivers here are terrible.’

  I made a face at him. I knew it was bravado.

  ‘I love flying,’ he said. ‘I miss home, but I sure do love this life.’

  ‘Is it a nice plane to fly? The Catalina, I mean? I . . . I used to go out with a pilot. He flew Spitfires,’ I said proudly. ‘He loved them. Said they were sweet to handle.’

  Peter had raved about his ‘kite’ in his letters to me. He wrote that I had a rival:

  Meg, it was love as soon as I climbed into the cockpit. It really does feel as if you pull on the machine and become a part of it. It’s so damn powerful, but very well balanced and a delight to manoeuvre. Whipping a Spit around the clouds is one of the greatest experiences of my life.

  Chad smiled. ‘Spits are a great little ship, I believe. I haven’t flown one. Cats are swell. They never let you down. Slow, though.’ He paused, and looked thoughtful. ‘You said “flew”. Does that mean he . . .’

  I hardly hesitated. ‘He was killed in England in July 1941. Actually, he was Peter Lagrange. Tom’s brother.’

  Chad smiled wryly. ‘So that’s why Tom ran me through the wringer when you were away earlier. I thought he might be interested in you himself.’

  I frowned. ‘What do you mean, ran you through the wringer?’

  When he had explained, I shook my head. ‘It’s not like that. I hardly know him. Anyway, he’s engaged to Phyllis Gregory.’ I was flustered and decided I would run Tom Lagrange through the wringer the next time I saw him.

  Chad laughed a little. ‘She’s a beautiful woman. He should be worried about losing her to an able-bodied man.’

  ‘Tom’s hardly an invalid.’ I was annoyed on his behalf.


  ‘You don’t know the half of it,’ he said with that same wry smile.

  And I’m not interested in finding out. I smiled, too. ‘So, tell me about where you’re from in America.’

  At the end of the evening he had asked to see me again – just as a friend, he said, because he was a happily married man.

  ‘How long do you spend in town, between combat missions?’ I asked. I wanted a moment to think. How would I have felt if Peter had asked a girl to go out with him when he was in England? There wasn’t a simple answer to that. Maybe the girl would have fallen for him, or been available in the way Annie was, and I would have hated that. But I wasn’t Annie. Chad’s wife would have nothing to fear from me.

  ‘We have two days on patrol, three days for maintenance on the plane and training, and two days to rest. I’m on patrol from tomorrow, but I’ll be free next Saturday night, if that suits you.’

  I said I would love to see him again. He said that was swell.

  At breakfast, I asked Joan about Tom and Phyllis. She was always full of information about Perth’s society gossip, and for once I was interested.

  ‘Well,’ she said cosily, between bites of toast, ‘they got engaged in September 1941 when Tom was home from the Middle East. That was after –’ She broke off and looked closely at me. ‘Are you sure you’re all right hearing about this?’

  ‘Yes, I’m all right. Go on.’ And strangely it was true. I was all right.

  ‘They had a big party at the Esplanade Hotel. He gave her a beautiful ring with three diamonds that he’d ordered from Melbourne.’

  I knew none of this. I had been locked away in my grief. Still, Joan’s capacity to remember trivial details of the lives of the social set never ceased to amaze me.

  ‘There was a lot written about him in the papers. You know the stuff: Rhodes scholar and war hero. That sort of thing. You know he won the Military Cross? It was a very big deal at the time.’

  I shook my head. I really knew nothing about him, which seemed to surprise Joan.

  ‘The engagement wasn’t a shock, they’d been a couple since before he left for Oxford.’ She paused, watching me. ‘Are you really all right talking about this?’

  I nodded. ‘Why do you keep asking me that?’

  She made an impatient sound. ‘Because you weren’t all right for such a long time. We got used to not talking about Peter or his family at all.’

  I was astonished to see tears in her eyes.

  ‘Meg, you scared us so much. I thought for a while that you’d never be well, that you’d –’

  ‘What?’ I was watching her now, anxiously.

  She dabbed at her eyes with a hankie she’d extracted from her pocket. ‘Nothing. You’re better now.’

  ‘Yes. I’m fine now.’

  I was worried about the tears. Joan never cried. I realised that I hadn’t really looked at her for a long time. There were lines on her face that I hadn’t noticed before. Her hair, which had been a light brown like mine and was up in a low pompadour ready for work, was almost all a silvery-white colour now. Joan had started to go white when she was twenty-six. Ma said it was a family thing and that Aunty Millie had been the same. I hadn’t realised how little of the original brown still remained and I wondered if worry about me had been responsible to some degree.

  I had very little memory of the first months after Peter died, but I did remember that Ma and Joan were always there, trying to make me eat, taking me out, making sure I wasn’t alone. One of them always seemed to be in my room when I woke from the terrible nightmares – that I was trapped with Peter in his burning plane – that had come night after night for weeks after I learned how he died.

  If I cried now she’d think it was about Peter. It wasn’t, so I pushed back the tears and smiled. ‘I love you, Joanie,’ I said.

  Joan seemed embarrassed and made a dismissive gesture with her hand. ‘I’m just glad you’re better now. We were worried that this business about Doreen would bring it all to the surface again, but you’re coping really well.’

  She got a strange look on her face, jumped up and ran out of the room, returning with a scrapbook, which she handed to me.

  ‘I’ve been cutting out bits from the papers about Peter and his family,’ she told me. ‘When he died I saved the articles about him. Then there was one about Tom being awarded the Military Cross and Peter was mentioned, so I cut it out. Since then I’ve cut out stories about Tom, because he’s Peter’s brother. I thought you might like to read it all one day. When you were feeling better, I mean.’

  I felt a bit faint. I had no idea she’d been doing that. She was the oddest person, my big sister. One part of me saw the whole business of the scrapbook as a bit ghoulish, but I could see that she didn’t mean it that way. Joan wasn’t a demonstrative person. The scrapbook was a way for her to show love. Just as she had done by looking after me for all those months when I was too absorbed in my own misery to notice.

  I managed a shaky smile and opened the scrapbook. I went quickly past the articles that dealt with Peter’s death. PILOT-OFFICER LAGRANGE PRESUMED DEAD; PERTH PILOT’S DEATH IN ENGLAND; LAGRANGE FAMILY MOURNS LOSS OF SPITFIRE PILOT SON. I still didn’t feel able to read them. Maybe one day I would. The news items about Tom came afterwards.

  CAPTAIN T.M. LAGRANGE M.C.

  For gallantry during the Syrian campaign, Lieutenant T.M. Lagrange was awarded the Military Cross and has now been gazetted as a captain. On 9 June 1941 at the Litani River, Lieutenant Lagrange showed outstanding gallantry and initiative in forcing his way across the river, despite being wounded by an explosive bullet. His cool conduct was an inspiration to every man. His brother Peter Lagrange (dec’d) was a pilot officer with the RAAF.

  WAR HERO ENGAGED

  Captain Thomas M. Lagrange M.C., one of Perth’s war heroes, yesterday announced his engagement to Miss Phyllis Gregory. Miss Gregory, a slim, attractive blonde, is well known in Perth and Melbourne social circles.

  ENGAGEMENT COCKTAIL PARTY

  Green palms and huge bowls of flowers decorated the balcony of the Esplanade Hotel on Friday when Captain Thomas Lagrange M.C. entertained about ninety friends at a five o’clock cocktail party in honour of his fiancée, Miss Phyllis Gregory. There was a happy air of informality, as guests came and went, stopping to offer best wishes to Captain Lagrange and the guest of honour, and to chat awhile with the many friends they found gathered there. Miss Gregory chose a charming gown of palest mist blue, the bodice of which was latticed with gold sequins, and a picture hat of matching satin straw softened with tulle, which was a perfect foil for her blonde beauty.

  According to the newspapers, Tom had been ‘mentioned in despatches’ (whatever that meant!) twice after receiving the Military Cross. He’d returned to Perth three months ago, after being severely wounded while on active service. There were no details given about how he’d been injured or the extent of his injuries. I assumed they were serious, otherwise he’d be in Brisbane with the Pacific High Command. I shut the book and turned to Joan.

  ‘Thanks. It was really thoughtful of you. I’ll look at it more closely later.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ she said, obviously pleased. ‘Mum thought it would just upset you, but I knew you’d be interested once you felt better. We’re so glad you went out last night. Um –’

  Joan looked cagey and tried to hide a smile. ‘By the way, you’re not the only one who went out last night.’

  This was interesting. Joan seemed to be almost humming with excitement. ‘Who did you go out with?’ I asked.

  She actually blushed. ‘Well, it might be nothing, but I met a very nice man on Monday night when I was at the Lawlors’ bridge party. He’s a major in the regular army and his name is Walter Yeats – Wally. He telephoned me at work yesterday and asked if I was free for dinner. We went to the Esplanade.’

  ‘And you like him?’

  ‘I think so. He’s quite a bit older than me – in his forties and a widower. No children.’ She shrugged. �
��As I said, it might be nothing. We’re going out again on Saturday, though.’

  I grinned at her. ‘Good luck. And however nice he is, he doesn’t deserve you, because you’re the best.’

  She rolled her eyes and made a sound indicating that I was being silly, but I could tell that she was happy I’d said it.

  Eight

  At one o’clock I was putting the cover on my typewriter when Tom Lagrange sauntered through the door carrying his khaki jacket over his left hand, hiding the missing fingers. His right hand held two brown paper bags. Miss Filmer and Annie raised their heads. Annie’s eyes went wide and Miss Filmer looked stunned. Tom was undeniably handsome, in that Irish way with his black hair and dark eyes. I thought of his brother’s blond, scruffy charm and sighed.

  Annie threw him her brightest smile. ‘Can I help you?’

  He smiled in return, shook his head and turned to me.

  ‘Hullo, Meg,’ he said, holding up the bags. ‘Are you free for lunch? I’ve got sandwiches.’

  I gave him a cool look. Whatever was he doing, turning up like this? I hoped he wasn’t going to start pushing me to go out again because I did not want to be his charity project.

  ‘I’m free,’ I said, without enthusiasm. I ignored Annie’s enquiring look, giving her and Miss Filmer a little wave as we left the room.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, as he opened the back door for me.

  ‘It’s not too hot today, so I thought we could have a picnic,’ he said. ‘We can have tea or coffee somewhere later.’

  Somewhat sulkily, I followed him through the botanical gardens behind the Supreme Court building to an unoccupied patch of grass under the shade of a large Moreton Bay fig. The gardens were crowded and most bits of shade were occupied by office workers or servicemen. It was a clear, hot day but the sea breeze was starting to come in.

  He had picked a spot close to Riverside Drive, across the road from the thick stands of cotton palms near Barrack Street jetty. They were obscuring the wooden yacht club buildings, now being used as social clubs for the American Navy and the Red Cross. Beyond the jetty lay Perth Water, the wide stretch of river in front of the city. Today it was rippling with sharp little waves. On Riverside Drive, dull-coloured military trucks and jeeps were the only traffic.