A Stranger in my Street

by Deborah Burrows

  ‘Well, if that doesn’t “wow” him he’s an idiot. When did you make that?’

  ‘A while ago,’ she said. ‘I haven’t had a reason to wear it before. You don’t think it’s too . . .’

  ‘No, I don’t think that at all. It’s perfect.’

  Joan smiled and carefully put the dress on her bed.

  ‘Now, Meg,’ she said in her ‘big sister’ voice, the one she used when she wanted to tell me what to do. ‘This Lieutenant Buchowski is married, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. We’ve discussed this,’ I said, trying not to sound petulant. ‘He’s not interested in me in that way.’

  Joan appeared unconvinced. ‘You’re a very pretty girl. Any man would be interested in you in that way, whether he’s married or not.’

  ‘I can look after myself, you know. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Well, if he tries to get you to “look at the view” on the way home, you tell him you’re not interested.’

  I giggled. ‘I think he’d be a bit more subtle than that.’

  She frowned at me. ‘You know what I mean. Just be careful. Harvey was perfectly safe – we know his family. But what do we know about this American? If he tries anything you have to be very firm and tell him you’re not that sort of girl.’

  I leaned across and gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘I love the black dress and Wally Yeats will, too.’ There was no point arguing with her. She meant well, but it was irritating that she thought I was still an innocent young girl. ‘I’m going to get ready now. Please stop worrying about me, I’ll be fine.’

  Chad rang our doorbell at exactly seven o’clock and when I answered he was standing there with a large bunch of roses and two boxes of chocolates, one for me and one for Ma.

  ‘You look swell,’ he said, smiling as if he really meant it.

  Chad looked pretty good himself. Annie was right; the American uniforms were smoother and fitted better than the Australian uniforms. Chad’s jacket, trousers and shirt were a light tan colour, but he had a black tie. His officer’s cap was tan and black, with gold braid around the brim.

  He spent a few minutes chatting to Ma. She suggested he and his friend Don might come to dinner one night and he said they’d be delighted. When we finally left the house, there was a taxi waiting for us.

  ‘Chad!’ I said, my eyes wide. ‘Surely it hasn’t been waiting all this time. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  He just laughed and opened the door for me. ‘I slipped him a carton of cigarettes,’ he whispered once we were in the back. ‘He’d do anything for me now. We’ve got him for the night.’

  We ate at the Adelphi again and talked as easily as we had before. Chad spoke about his wife Susan and their little dog, called Peppy, who were both waiting for him at home in Cooperstown. His father ran a drugstore there and Susan and Peppy were living in Chad’s parents’ home. Before the war, Chad had won a football scholarship to a prestigious university called Cornell, and he had done well there. He hoped to get into business when the war ended.

  After dinner we ended up at the Silver Dollar Cabaret in Hay Street, one of the new cabarets that catered primarily for the Americans. According to Annie, it had the best dance band in Perth.

  The Silver Dollar was crowded with Americans and local girls. A six-piece band was belting out a Glenn Miller hit and the dance floor was full. As Chad led me through the crowd I noticed bottles of whisky and brandy on nearly every table, despite the liquor laws forbidding alcohol being served after six o’clock.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said with a flourish. He had found an empty table and put his jacket over a chair to claim ownership. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘I’d rather dance,’ I said, raising my voice against the hubbub around us.

  He grinned and offered me his hand. ‘Let’s cut a rug then.’

  We went onto the dance floor and for a while I forgot about everything that had been bothering me in the whirl of music and movement. He danced well, and we stayed on the floor for three dances, until I begged for a break and he led me back to our table.

  As I sipped my lemonade and Chad downed a couple of beers he asked me if I had got over the shock about Doreen, and I told him I had, more or less.

  ‘I knew Doreen well,’ he said. ‘We were pretty good friends for a while there, but she got too serious about me, so it was time to cool things down a tad. But that was some months back.’ He slid me a sideways glance. ‘Then she got mighty close to Tom Lagrange.’

  I made a non-committal murmur and turned my head to watch the dancing. I wished people would stop talking to me about Tom and Doreen. I didn’t want to discuss Peter’s brother with Chad Buchowski or Betty Barwon or anyone.

  I danced with a few servicemen that night. It was a surprise the first time someone cut in on us. A dark-haired ensign tapped Chad on the shoulder in the middle of a dance and he surrendered me at once. The stranger told me he was Norman Zeck, a submariner from Alabama. When the dance finished he thanked me politely, turned on his heel and walked off, leaving me standing there in the middle of the floor. No Australian would have done that.

  Chad laughed when I returned to my seat, complaining about the treatment. ‘Get used to it, honey,’ he said. ‘It’ll keep happening. Pretty girl like you, well, the boys can’t resist muscling in.’

  I did get used to it. A couple of the men who cut in asked me to see them again. I wasn’t quite ready for that yet, so I politely declined.

  Around midnight we went to the coatroom to retrieve our things and I saw another side to Chad. He handed over our ticket and a pretty girl with brown curls, who couldn’t have been more than sixteen, disappeared to collect our stuff. When she returned she was carrying a black derby, an expensive fur coat and a little black hat I would have loved to own, but which was certainly not mine.

  ‘These aren’t ours,’ I said.

  ‘I’m in uniform,’ said Chad in a sharp voice. ‘I’d have a US naval cap, wouldn’t I?’

  The girl appeared confused. She put the things down and went to look at the ticket again, but dropped it and disappeared from view as she scrambled to pick it up.

  ‘Hey, little girl, we haven’t got all night.’ Chad’s fingers were doing an impatient dance on the counter and his tone was not pleasant.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, when her head appeared above the counter. She seemed near to tears. ‘I’ll try again.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s fine. There’s no rush really,’ I said to her in a conciliatory tone, earning a sharp look from Chad myself.

  By the time she reappeared he was in a foul mood. ‘Is this what you call service around here?’ he said to her. ‘I should report you to management.’

  The tears that had been threatening fell now down her cheeks, and my own cheeks burned. I thought Chad had behaved very badly. I was quiet in the taxi home.

  ‘Thanks for a lovely night,’ I said when we got to my house. I didn’t offer my cheek for a kiss.

  ‘Thank you, Meg. It was swell. I’m sorry about that coat-check girl. She just irritated me. We expect better service where I come from. You will come out with me again, won’t you? How about next Tuesday night?’

  I said I would. I had not liked his behaviour with the coat-check girl, and hoped I wouldn’t see it again. But other than that he had been good company, and I had so enjoyed just being out dancing.

  At breakfast the next morning it was clear that Joan’s evening had gone very well indeed. She was glowing.

  ‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘We had a lovely time. He took me to the Starlight Restaurant for dinner and then to the Embassy Ballroom for dancing. You were right, he loved the dress.’ Then she blushed.

  Eleven

  Tom turned up at my office at lunchtime on Monday, charmingly dealt with Annie’s attempts at flirting, and asked if I was free. I had a moment’s doubt, wondering whether Phyllis really knew about the lunches, but I decided that there was no harm in it if we ate in the gardens, which were very public. Over lun
ch my doubts vanished completely, because Tom was not in the least romantic.

  ‘The Americans seem to be close to victory on Guadalcanal,’ I remarked, wondering how Tom had managed to find chicken sandwiches. I loved chicken sandwiches.

  He inclined his head to indicate agreement, then grinned. ‘Tojo no longer calls the tune in the Pacific, thank God. It’ll be a while before victory, though. And it’ll be hard fought.’

  We spent a while discussing the war and, as before, Tom was intelligent and interesting company. I liked his dry and incisive sense of humour and he seemed genuinely interested in my views on the war, politics and life generally. We didn’t discuss Doreen’s murder much at all. Frank Luca had disappeared off the face of the earth and the police hadn’t come up with anything new. I mentioned young Jimmy’s oddly intense remarks, and Betty’s conviction that Frank was guilty, but there was little else to say. Eventually, Tom began to talk about Peter.

  ‘You’ve visited my parents’ house?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘So you know how close it is to the river, to Freshwater Bay. We always seemed to be at the river. Pete called it our limitless liquid backyard. Swimming in summer, of course. Prawning at night, using kerosene lanterns. Dad got us a little sailing dinghy, told me I was responsible for Pete, and left us to it. We’d go off sailing, fishing and crabbing in it. And exploring for miles into all the little bays along the river.’

  He lit a cigarette and stretched out to lie on his back with a leg bent up. He looked peaceful.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever been crabbing?’ he said.

  ‘You’re talking to a Kalgoorlie girl.’ I laughed a little. ‘I grew up drinking fresh water that had been pumped for 350 miles all the way from Perth in a big pipeline. Peter wanted to take me crabbing, but we never got to do it.’

  Tom smiled. ‘There’s nothing like eating freshly caught Blue Manna crabs. You can scoop them up from beside the banks of the river in summer, but when the weather gets cooler you need to use a boat. We’d row out to a deep channel we knew at the end of some tidal flats and tie drop-nets to the side. You should have seen the crabs we caught in that place!’ He held up his hands wide apart.

  ‘When we’d caught enough I’d make Pete row back to shore while I lounged at my ease in the boat – I told him he needed to build up his muscles.’ He laughed, but softly, and there was a note of melancholy. ‘I was the hero older brother and he used to do whatever I asked, poor kid. I was pretty hard on him sometimes, but most of the time we were good mates. Best friends.’

  Tom was silent for a while. He had his arm resting over his eyes and he was very still. When he spoke again there was a catch in his voice. ‘We would come to shore at the foot of the low limestone cliffs near our house. Those cliffs are riddled with caves and we had explored every one of them. I’d build a fire, boil water in a billy and cook the crabs. Then we’d eat them with buttered bread and lemons that Mum had given us.’

  He spoke very quietly now. ‘One night when we were on the river – Pete must have been about eleven – it was so dark and the stars were so bright we could see their reflections in the water. I was pointing out the constellations when, all of a sudden, the sky was filled with falling stars. It was magical. A meteor shower, of course. Pete said we had to make lots of wishes because with so many stars falling, at least one was sure to come true.’

  He was quiet for a long time after that, with his arm across his eyes. Which was just as well really, because by the time he raised his arm I had put away my hankie and my eyes were dry.

  Tom turned up for lunch every few days after that. I wondered if the reason he wanted to keep meeting me was because he was able to talk about Peter with someone who had also loved him. But it was hard to read Tom’s emotions, because he kept them so firmly in check. Although he could be devastatingly charming when he wanted to be, the impression he presented to the world was of cool, rather detached self-sufficiency, with sometimes more than a touch of supercilious arrogance. I had a feeling he was bored and frustrated, tucked away in Perth so far from the action.

  Or maybe it was his hand causing him pain. He couldn’t abide sympathy and yet it was so hard not to react when his face became suddenly drawn and white and I knew it was because of the hand. One lunchtime he was shaking a little, his face was pinched and he snapped at me each time I tried to make conversation. Eventually he said, ‘Let it go, Meg. Can’t we just sit here enjoying each other’s company?’

  I raised an eyebrow, and he had the grace to give me a shaky laugh. ‘Let me enjoy your company, then. You can pretend I’m not here and enjoy the afternoon.’

  I was concerned, but I simply smiled and pulled a book out of my handbag and pretended to read as he lay down on the grass with his eyes closed. I watched little beads of sweat form on his upper lip and forehead. He had never been like that before. At a few minutes to two o’clock I told him I had to go. He nodded without raising his head, and said, ‘Thanks, Meg. You have no idea how much . . . I’ll be all right. Really. Now go.’

  He was waiting for me outside the door to the gardens when I emerged at lunchtime a couple of days later.

  ‘Sorry about last time,’ he said. ‘I’m fine now.’

  A brown paper parcel was under his arm. It was soft, and it didn’t look heavy. After we had finished our sandwiches and were sitting in the shade enjoying the cool sea breeze, Tom picked up the parcel. He held it loosely and turned it over and over.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘A wigwam for a goose’s bridle.’

  I laughed. ‘My granny used to say that.’

  ‘So did mine.’

  He had a surprisingly furtive look. ‘Ah, I asked my mother if she had any spare dresses that could be remade into the sort of frock a smart girl could wear to dances. She gave me these.’

  He handed me the parcel. It was a remarkably thoughtful gesture. Girls all over Perth were raiding the closets of their mothers, grandmothers and maiden aunts for old dresses that could be made into wearable outfits suitable for the evening. The clothing coupons never seemed to stretch to evening wear.

  I thanked him profusely, but there was more.

  ‘There’s a dance at the Nedlands Tennis Club on the thirteenth of February, the Saturday after next. An American Red Cross affair, celebrating Aussie–US friendship. I’ve got two tickets for you. You might want to take your friend Annie.’ He reached into his breast pocket and took out an envelope, which he handed to me.

  Annie and I opened the parcel at my desk. Even Miss Filmer came over to look. There were two dresses inside. A dark blue crepe de chine with a wonderfully full skirt that could easily be made up into a pretty frock. The other was my favourite. It was made of soft green embroidered silk and I was already imagining how I would look in it. I would wear it to the Red Cross dance.

  As well as lunching with Tom, I was dining and dancing with Chad, who asked me to go out at least twice a week. Wrapped up in my lonely grief since Peter’s death, I had forgotten how much I enjoyed the company of men. It was so nice to dress up for a night out, to be regarded with admiration, to be given compliments. So enjoyable to be held in strong arms on a dance floor, in a dizzying whirl of sound and movement, enveloped by the smell of tobacco, sweat and hair oil. And it was exciting to engage in conversations that challenged my perceptions of men, the war and the world outside my city. I had carefully read the newspapers. I knew where all the battle fronts were and I could talk about strategies and campaigns. Yet, apart from Peter’s death, I had little idea of the human cost of the conflict that was raging throughout the world. Now I was meeting the men who were a part of it.

  True to his word, Chad introduced me to a number of American servicemen. Most were little more than boys who had never left their small home towns before. One even admitted to me, red with embarrassment, that he had been surprised to find we spoke English in Australia. They were invariably polite and almost overwhelmed by the welcome they had recei
ved in Perth. They seemed to have an amazing number of interests, these young men with their bright, white smiles, and yet every one of them had lost someone close to them in the war, and if I looked deeply into their eyes I caught a hint of some private grief or horror. I tried to get them to tell me about their wartime experiences, but few did. Which was probably just as well, because the little I did learn haunted me long after the dance music had stopped.

  ‘I think it was the saddest day of my life when I buried John.’ Lyle was a twenty-year-old soldier who was chugging a beer after we’d shared a frenetic dance. ‘We’d been buddies since grade school. His grave is close to the beach, in a coconut grove on Tulagi. It’s real pretty there and he’s near some of our guys who died in the same action, so he’s not lonely. They say they’ll take him home to America after the war, but I sort of like to think of him lying there, listening to the waves.’ His eyes were wet as he smiled and asked me for another dance.

  Vernon, a skinny kid with a shock of white-blond hair, had ended up in Perth after his plane crashed in the ocean. At first they didn’t know if they could save his sight and he lay in a field hospital, blindfolded, for some days before he was evacuated.

  ‘It wasn’t the pain – heck, they gave me enough morphine to send me off to la-la land – it was the smell of that place I’ll never forget. That stench of rotting wounds. I doubt I’ll ever get rid of it.’

  Chad never spoke about his wartime experiences. He preferred to try to make me laugh. He was confident and energetic, but he had a quick temper, which seemed to explode out of nowhere and disappear in a whirl of apologies and a contrite grin. I liked him, but he wasn’t relaxing company. And it wasn’t long before I found myself too often having to shrug off Chad’s unwanted arm around my shoulder. It probably meant nothing, but after Harvey I wasn’t taking any chances.