A Stranger in my Street

by Deborah Burrows

  ‘Of course. It would be a pleasure,’ he replied. He lifted his glass of Coke for a sip and looked away from me, back at the night.

  ‘It’s a bit mad in there,’ I said, smiling as I sat beside him.

  ‘I don’t dance, but Chad reckons it’s important to attend these things or the men will think we’re too high and mighty. He’s usually right about that sort of thing.’

  ‘Chad seems to be a good friend to you.’

  ‘The best buddy a man could have. And he’s a real hero. In August last year he rescued six American airmen from a bomber that had crashed close to enemy positions at Buna. And that’s only one of the extraordinary things he’s done. You know he was awarded the Silver Star for helping rescue those American nurses from Corregidor?’

  ‘He didn’t tell me.’ Chad never talked about what he did on duty. The Silver Star was a very high commendation and I was impressed. I realised that there was a lot I didn’t know about him. ‘It must be very dangerous for all of you.’

  Don shrugged. ‘You can’t afford to think about it. You do lots of practice flights so that you’re prepared for any eventuality, you keep up the maintenance on the plane, and you trust in the Lord. What else can you do? I’ve found that I’ve become a fatalist. If I’m going to die, then that’s what the Lord wants.’

  He took another sip of his drink. ‘I don’t want to die, though. Which is how come I owe Chad so much. He’s saved my life twice already.’

  ‘That’s funny; I’m sure he said that you’d saved his life,’ I said. ‘Saved his bacon, anyway.’

  Don looked puzzled, before his face cleared and he laughed a little.

  ‘He’s being melodramatic. I helped him out in a money crisis last year – not of his making, I can assure you – a debt his wife had run up in his absence. I was more than happy to assist, although he was most unwilling to accept anything. In fact, we’re thinking of going into business together when this is all over.’

  ‘Well, I wish you success. My mother was saying just the other day how much she likes you both.’

  That remark made his little red lips quirk up in a smile, pushing up the straight black line of his moustache.

  ‘And we think your mother is charming,’ he said, with a formal little bow of his head. ‘Chad is a very moral person. So many of the men, and the officers too, indulge in behaviour that is nothing less than debauched, simply because they are away from home and think they can’t be found out. Although, to be fair, sometimes it is not the man’s fault. I hate to say it, but Australian women can be very determined flirts.’

  I decided to change the subject, and remembered something Tom had said.

  ‘I hear you’re interested in insects.’

  It was as if I had switched on a light.

  ‘Why, yes. Entomology is a major interest of mine. You have some fascinating moths in Western Australia. I am particularly interested in the Anthelidae, which are only found in Australia and New Guinea.’

  I nodded, but Don needed no encouragement. I’d never seen him so animated. He banged on about a particular moth he had found that he was sure was a new species or sub-species. It sounded exactly like the ones that used to fly into our screen door before the blackout was introduced.

  ‘That’s great,’ I managed to say. ‘Does that mean your name will go in the books?’

  ‘Well, I’d have to find several to prove a new species, but one might do if it clearly established that it was a different sub-species. Unfortunately a cat ate the specimen I found. I’ve been searching for another in the bush around the camp every free night I have, but no luck yet.’

  I had a thought.

  ‘Were you in the bush the night Doreen Luca was killed?’

  His face changed instantly. His eyes narrowed and he looked away with his lips pursed. I watched him closely in the dim light.

  ‘Doreen Luca was immoral,’ he said with some heat. The hand that held his pipe was shaking. ‘She was always hanging around our men, despite being a married woman. Doreen Luca was a temptress. Perhaps she got what she deserved.’

  No one, no matter how lax their morals, deserved to be stabbed in the heart and left to die alone. And certainly not Doreen, who had never said a bad word about anyone in my presence. I felt the heat rise in my face, but I managed to hold back an angry retort. Instead, I made an excuse and left him to go inside to the laughter and music.

  ‘Care for a drink, ma’am?’

  It was one of the naval ratings serving behind the bar. I let him pour me a fruit punch. He was a big man, probably in his early thirties, whose bunchy muscles were running to fat. He had a brutish sort of face; he looked familiar.

  ‘You’re not dancing,’ I said. ‘Are you on punishment duty?’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ he said, almost coyly, ‘I’m not much of a dancer. Truth is, I let my cat get too close to a moth and it was considered diplomatic to volunteer for bar service.’

  ‘Not Lieutenant Dudley’s moth?’

  His face lightened at once with a wide grin that made me smile. He had a missing tooth that gave him a goofy look, like a big kid. ‘That’s the one.’ He introduced himself as Norbert Wilder, ‘but everyone knows me as Nobbie.’

  ‘Meg Eaton,’ I said. ‘I’ve just been hearing about Lieutenant Dudley’s moths. They sound rather ordinary to me, but I’m no expert.’

  ‘It was a plain brown moth, ma’am,’ Nobbie said. ‘Poor Sugar didn’t know not to eat it, but, boy, was Lieutenant Dudley mad.’

  ‘I suppose Lieutenant Dudley is a stickler for the rules,’ I said.

  ‘And how,’ he said, wiping away imaginary sweat from his forehead. ‘I usually keep my head down.’ He pointed to the badge on his sleeve, which showed a pair of crossed keys with wings attached. ‘I’m just a storekeeper; I try to stay out of trouble. I thought Sugar was a goner when the lieutenant saw what she’d done. Commander Grant managed to get her away, but I was real worried for a while that the lieutenant’d kill her.’

  I suddenly remembered why he looked familiar.

  ‘Nobbie, I think I know your face. Have I seen you in Megalong Street?’

  ‘Well, I do visit there some. My girl lives there. Betty Barwon.’

  I felt my eyes go wide. ‘So you would have known Doreen.’

  ‘I did, but I’d rather not talk about it. It’s a party.’ He motioned to the bottles in front of him. ‘Finish up that punch, I’ve got some giggle juice here that’ll knock your socks off, Miz Eaton.’ He was right – the drink he mixed me put the Singapore sling to shame.

  At the end of the evening I was standing at the doorway with Annie waiting for Chad and Don to join us when Tom and Phyllis came over on their way out. As Tom introduced Annie to his fiancée, Phyllis flicked a cool glance over us both, subtly judgmental, leaving me with the impression that we had been found wanting.

  ‘Lovely frock, Miss Eaton,’ Phyllis drawled, on a quick exhalation of smoke. She was using her pretentious little tweezers. ‘Did you enjoy the dance?’

  ‘Very much indeed. And you?’

  ‘Personally, it was a little too loud and rowdy for my taste.’

  Tom gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t be a snob, Phyll,’ he said teasingly. ‘You only danced with the important people.’

  Phyllis gave no indication that she’d heard him. She was staring at me.

  ‘Your mother has a frock that’s very similar,’ she said to Tom, giving him a sharp look, which he returned with a shrug and a blank stare.

  She turned back to me, frowning a little. ‘Who’s your dressmaker?’

  I laughed, but I could feel that my cheeks were hot. ‘A very exclusive one,’ I said. ‘But if you’d like a copy made, I’m sure she’d be delighted to oblige.’

  She shot me a glance through her long eyelashes, threw up her chin and quickly exhaled a thin stream of white smoke. I caught a glint of something in those big blue eyes, but I didn’t know exactly what it was.

  It had been fun scoring a point off Miss
Phyllis Gregory, but no doubt I’d have to pay for it.

  Fourteen

  ‘Damn you to hell, Keith, you blasted woollen fiend.’ It was Monday lunchtime and I was alone in the typists’ room, talking to a partially completed woollen jumper. I had dropped yet another stitch. I peered at it closely. The tension was all over the place and there were small holes and lumps in it where I had dropped stitches and knotted the wool. I threw it onto the desk.

  I hated the jumper and I hated Patons Service Woollies, Speciality Knitting Book, No 153, with its instructions for knitting ‘Keith, a jumper designed for naval personnel’. I was not a good knitter and the patterns were not, in fact, easy for even the most inexperienced knitter. I was trying to help the war effort in any way I could, but this was proving beyond my meagre skills.

  ‘I think you’ve beaten it into submission, there’s no need to insult it, too. Ah, what is it, exactly?’

  When had Tom come in? ‘Whatever are you doing here?’

  I must have sounded peevish, but it seemed impossible to avoid Tom Lagrange. I’d resolved to keep him at more of a distance since the dance. I kept remembering the way I’d felt when he was holding me close on the dance floor. I had liked it too much and I couldn’t help wondering how he felt about it. These thoughts had already begun to exhaust me, and I was well aware there was no nice ending to this story if I was going to start getting romantic feelings.

  ‘What does it look like I’m doing? I’m knitting a jumper called Keith. It’s for the Navy and it’s a cow of a thing.’ Scowling, I held it up for his inspection. He nodded gravely, but his eyes told a different story.

  ‘Come to lunch?’ he said, perching on my desk.

  I knew I should say no. I knew I had to stop seeing him so often. I regarded the jumper with loathing and shoved it into the bag where it usually lived. The thought of spending another minute with Keith was simply impossible.

  ‘Lunch? What a good idea,’ I said.

  As we walked out of the building, Tom said with a teasing smile, ‘You’re much more domesticated than I realised, Meg.’

  ‘I crochet, I knit, I embroider. I have all the usual accomplishments.’

  ‘Phyllis knits,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘She’s always giving me jumpers, scarves, socks –’

  ‘How homely of her,’ I said. Phyllis was probably on very good terms with Keith and his brother woollens.

  ‘And she cooks. She did a course in French haute cuisine and she’s very good.’

  ‘All the domestic skills. Lucky you. Where are we going, by the way? You and me I mean?’

  Did I see fear in those dark eyes? I opened my eyes wide in a guileless stare. Just like Phyllis.

  ‘To lunch, Tom. Where are we going to lunch?’ I said, putting him out of his misery.

  ‘Ah. What about the Colour Patch in Howard Street?’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s fine with me.’

  We shouldered our way through the lunchtime crowds to a tearoom in a little street two blocks away from the court. The place was decorated in garish colours, presumably to live up to its name, and the table we found in a corner had been lacquered a bilious green. The surface looked sticky under bright yellow cotton placemats.

  As I sat down I realised I’d forgotten to freshen my lipstick before I left the court. I’d never be a femme fatale; there were just too many things to remember. I was willing to bet that Phyllis, goddess of domesticity, cooked up her French meals in full face paint, wearing stilettos and a slinky evening dress, knitting while she waited for the water to boil. Fishing around in my purse I finally located my lipstick and pulled it out, together with a compact. Ignoring Tom, I flipped open the compact and inspected my face. Shiny nose, a few freckles, no lipstick. I started to repair the damage.

  ‘Whatever are you doing?’ Tom sounded genuinely astonished.

  ‘I’m a mess. Who knows who I might see?’

  He shrugged in a way that suggested there was no accounting for female idiocy and I felt my face burning as I finished up.

  A middle-aged waitress arrived. She was wearing a baby-pink apron over a lime-green frock and had a frilly pink cap on her head. She was grumpy. Dressed like that, I couldn’t blame her. We gave our orders and she marched off.

  While we waited for our food I told Tom that Harvey was on his way back to Perth.

  ‘So when are you meeting the lovesick swain?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Wednesday,’ I said. ‘I’m dreading it.’

  ‘Be careful with him.’

  I shrugged. I knew Harvey, he didn’t. Then came another warning.

  ‘Annie seemed to spend a lot of time with Chad Buchowski on Saturday night. I like Annie, she’s a great girl; you might want to warn her off.’

  ‘What exactly do you know about him?’ I was growing suspicious. ‘You keep warning me about him, but you never say why.’

  Tom sent me a quick look and said, in that expressionless voice he sometimes used, ‘Can’t you just trust me?’

  The waitress arrived with our sandwiches and he flashed her a brilliant smile. Her grumpy look disappeared and she asked him – not me – if he wanted mustard. He said that he did. She turned, and without consulting the couple at the table next to us, removed their mustard pot and set it down in front of him. He smiled again and thanked her. She left us, looking happy. After spreading some mustard on his sandwiches, Tom leaned across to return the pot to the next table, murmuring his apologies.

  He turned back to me with a grin. ‘So you enjoyed the dance?’

  ‘It did wonders for my social life. I’m going out with a submarine officer called Mike Sully tonight, dancing with Petty Officer Whitey Whitman on Friday, and probably catching up with Bud Hollis, that tall jitterbugging ensign, next week. So whatever your concerns are about Chad, you can stop worrying – I’ll hardly have time to see him.’

  Now Tom was looking over towards the door. I followed his gaze, but couldn’t see what was so interesting. I wondered if it bothered him, me seeing other men.

  I hesitated, wondering if I should tell him about Don Dudley.

  ‘Tom, there was something odd that came up, about Doreen.’

  ‘Mmm?’ He was still regarding the door, or watching something outside. I went on.

  ‘When I had a break from dancing I got talking to Don Dudley. He was rattling on about moths, how his specimen got eaten by a cat and how he goes out looking for moths in the bush near the officers’ quarters every night when he’s not on patrol.’

  Tom turned back to our table and picked up a sandwich. ‘He’s a recognised amateur entomologist. I think his special interest is moths. I thought you said this was about Doreen.’

  ‘It is. I think he was in the bush on the night Doreen Luca was killed.’

  ‘Did he tell you that?’

  ‘No. When I asked him he clammed up. But he was odd about it all. If he wasn’t on patrol that night, then I think he was out in the bush near where Doreen was last seen.’

  He seemed hesitant. ‘We don’t know that he was out there.’

  ‘You could check though, couldn’t you, whether he was on patrol that night? And there was something else. He called Doreen a temptress who deserved what she got.’

  ‘He said that?’ Tom’s lips tightened and a sharp crease appeared between his eyebrows.

  I nodded. ‘Yes. He said it quite vehemently. That she got what she deserved, because she was always hanging around the men, despite her being a married woman.’

  ‘Dudley is a fool. I’ll look into it.’

  Before he could say anything else the waitress arrived with tea for me and a smile and a coffee for Tom. We sipped our drinks in silence for a while, before he lit the inevitable cigarette.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. A smile was tugging at his mouth. ‘His moth specimen got eaten by a cat?’

  I giggled. ‘By a cat called Sugar.’

  Tom spent the rest of the lunch hour teasing me mercilessly because I was going out with Mike Sully that nigh
t. He gave me tips on how to appear fascinating to an American and told me that it was always best to take it very slowly with them. I refused to rise to the bait.

  ‘Do you know what Americans call girls who kiss on the first date?’ he said.

  I eyed him sceptically. ‘What?’

  ‘First date floosies.’

  ‘Oh, that’s nonsense.’

  ‘It’s true. Never kiss an American on the first date. If you do, he’ll be sure to think you’re a loose woman.’

  I laughed before replying coolly, ‘Who knows? I may decide to risk it.’

  Tom seemed about to reply when his relaxed expression vanished and his face contracted into the still, rather shuttered expression I knew all too well. That, and a whiff of her perfume, was my only warning.

  ‘Darling, how lucky to spot you here.’ Phyllis had swooped in from behind.

  ‘Phyll,’ said Tom, rising. He kissed her cheek.

  ‘I was walking by and saw you from the street.’ She turned her cool blue gaze on me. ‘Miss Eaton.’

  ‘Hullo,’ I squeaked, meeting a look of pure, glittering dislike. For some reason I felt terribly guilty.

  She held my gaze briefly, then turned towards Tom. ‘Darling, I need to know if you are free tomorrow night for a bridge party with Moya and Charles. And what are we doing for your birthday on Thursday?’

  ‘I’m free for bridge. The parents have invited us around for my birthday,’ Tom said. He pulled out an empty chair. ‘Please join us.’

  I glanced at my watch. The café was emptying. Rising somewhat inelegantly, I pushed my chair back and stood by the table.

  ‘I hadn’t realised it was so late. I need to get back to work.’ My voice was rather high. ‘Thank you for the coffee, Tom.’ I turned to Phyllis. ‘Nice to see you again. Goodbye.’

  Phyllis slid into the chair I had vacated and started to pull off her gloves. I caught Tom’s eye over her blonde curls.

  ‘Don’t forget what I told you,’ he said, but his mouth was quirked up at the right side, a sure sign that he was teasing.