Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  This was followed by the H line, the A line, the ballerinas, the frou-frou and the tulip skirt, all of which now came in the cheaper non-iron, drip-dry, easy-care fabrics. It was here that Mr Stan allowed Mike to innovate, though not as much as Mike would have liked. The rag trade was a conservative business and if something didn’t happen in Europe (mostly Paris), it couldn’t possibly be any good. Most of the buyers for the big department stores were cast in the same mould and too much experimentation was frowned on. It was a part of our cultural cringe, Australians couldn’t possibly do things better than they were done in Europe.

  Last year Mike came home on the Queen’s Birthday weekend, he’d been in the rag trade four years and was nineteen. He’d changed a bit and seemed more confident with people, especially females. I suppose it’s because he’s worked with them for so long, he isn’t afraid of them like Bozo and me and can charm them, twist them around his little finger. He’s also earning good money now and sends Nancy five pounds every week which means we’re in clover. The rubbish business is going well and Bozo’s branched out into general transport and that’s breaking a bit better than even. The offal days are well and truly over and Nancy doesn’t have to work so hard at the layettes. In fact, she can pick and choose what she wants to do. I’m still up at three for the rubbish truck but I’m that used to it now that I don’t suppose it’s a hardship. The winter mornings are still pretty bloody awful.

  On the weekend Mike was home, we went to see Mrs Barrington-Stone who invited us out to dinner and she asked Mike to tell her about the fashion industry. ‘Quite a mystery to those of us in the bush, my dear, another world completely, though you certainly seem to be thriving on it.’

  But, to our surprise, Mike isn’t his usual bubbling-over self about the job. ‘Things aren’t too good at the moment, what with the credit squeeze and people in the rag trade saying it’s the end of the boom-time fifties. But I disagree,’

  Mike says. Hearing him speak like this seems amazing. Mike’s never been interested in business, which has always been strictly Bozo’s department. Bozo used to say he doubted if Mike could count change.

  ‘You don’t agree, why is that?’ Mrs Barrington-Stone asks. ‘There’s certainly a recession on the way, wool prices are down again.’

  ‘It’s not just that,’ Mike says. ‘They can’t see what’s obvious, they make clothes for the ladies in Toorak, married women who are rich and fat! Then they make the cheaper versions of the same clothes for everyone else and they call it fashion and everyone’s supposed to kowtow!’

  ‘What else could they do, people follow fashion slavishly, don’t they?’ Nancy asks. It’s a funny statement coming from her, she’s still wearing her yellow-daisy dresses. I definitely know she has six that are identical, because it’s me does the washing now that Bozo’s running a business.

  ‘Times are changing, you can feel it in the air. Young office girls don’t want the same clothes as a Toorak matron. They want something different, they’re tired of wearing stockings and hats and white gloves and conservative colours. They want exciting, bright colours, something that shows their figures, you know, a dress or a skirt that’s, well, sexy, that shows off their tan. We should be making bikinis.’

  ‘Sexy? In the office? Oh, I don’t know about that,’ Mrs Barrington-Stone laughs.

  Mike tells us how he tries to persuade Mr Stan to make a new young label called ‘Frock ’n’ Roll’, a skit on the young music that’s come out of America, but he doesn’t want to listen. Mr Stan’s made quite a lot of money in the fifties which he’s put into real estate but, now, in the early sixties, with a downturn in the economy, he isn’t taking chances. A man who pisses into the wind better have a good umbrella! Old Polish proverb. ‘Mike, now is not the time, now is the time to be nice to the buyers, I want you take Miss Harris to have a nice dinner.’

  Miss Harris isn’t a dragon like some of the older female buyers, she’s in her early thirties and is already the chief buyer for a chain called Country Stores. She is no pushover as Mr Stan well knows, having tried the chocolates-andflowers routine and finally what he calls ‘A little smile in the hand, darling’, which, when translated out of rag-trade language, means a bribe. She’s been in to see the summer collection and, according to Mr Stan and Mrs P and the two models hired to show the dresses and coats, couldn’t take her eyes off Mike. She hasn’t made a decision and Mr Stan thinks a little Mike Maloney with the Italian looks might do the trick.

  ‘You show her a good time, Mike, be nice to her, go along, drink some champagne, take her to Florentino’s. I phone Mr Luigi, I book the best table. An orchid, you take an orchid, the biggest, no expenses spared, compliments Style & Trend. Here, take the phone, call.’

  Well, Mike does the deed and he’s got taxi money from the cashier and picks up Miss Harris who is wearing a Hartnell cocktail dress and Charles Jourdan high heels. To his surprise, she’s not wearing a hat or the mandatory gloves and her hair is cut in a bob and, all round, she looks pretty good, even to Mike who isn’t all that taken with girls except as clothes horses. But it turns out Miss Harris is a pretty good clothes horse and Mike, who can talk the hind leg off a donkey, keeps her laughing in the taxi. She’s wearing the orchid and he’s told her how pretty she looks. He’s also confident about his table manners, having worked in a quite nice restaurant in St Kilda Road and, anyway, Mrs Barrington-Stone has shown Sarah how to eat properly and what all the knives and forks and spoons and the different glasses are for and Sarah’s taught us, so Mike knows he won’t make a fool of himself or appear to be too much of a country bumpkin.

  However, Mike’s not sure Mr Stan is getting his money’s worth because there’s no mention on the way to the restaurant about the Collection range. The head waiter at Florentino’s, Mr Luigi, greets them personally at the door and makes a fuss over Miss Harris. This is mostly because earlier in the afternoon, he’s received an envelope with ten pounds in it from Mr Stan and the instructions that no expense is to be spared and to send the bill to the factory, where it will be paid in cash. He flicks his fingers once Mike and Miss Harris have been seated and a waiter wearing what looks like a tablecloth around his waist brings a bottle of French champagne.

  ‘Compliments of Mr Stan of Style & Trend, who sends his best wishes, Miss Harris,’ Mr Luigi says, pouring the champagne.

  They order oysters and then the veal scaloppine and a bit more French champagne and they’re chatting on a treat about this and that, all the rag-trade goss. But every time Mike mentions Collection’s summer range, Miss Harris shrugs and changes the subject. He keeps trying so eventually she says, ‘Mike, I’m not at all sure, the summer range is . . . well, frankly, it’s uninspired.’ Mike doesn’t know what to say because he agrees with her. Then, halfway through the main course, she leans over and puts her hand over Mike’s. ‘Why don’t you call me Sally?’

  ‘Righto, Sally,’ Mike says, real confident, because the champagne has gone to his head a bit and he’s feeling pretty relaxed.

  ‘Now!’ Sally Harris says, ‘Tell me about the Sarah Maloney label!’

  Mike, even with the champagne in him, is completely gobsmacked. ‘Huh? Beg yours?’ He’s suddenly forgotten all his fancy language and is talking pure Maloney.

  ‘The Sarah Maloney label,’ Sally Harris repeats.

  ‘Ah . . . how’d you know about that?’ Mike says, trying to recover his dignity.

  ‘Let’s say a little bird told me.’ She smiles. ‘No, I’ve got a sister who’s a lecturer in Arts at the uni and she bought the pink and green bolero jacket and skirt, very risqué wearing it with matching bra. Pink and green though? Isn’t that a touch outré?’

  Mike is immediately on the defensive. ‘You mean, in bad taste? It was bottle-green,’ Mike says, ‘Pink lining and green jacket, like a watermelon, with a pink cummerbund tie to the green skirt. Nobody says a watermelon looks wrong, do they? You look at a watermelon and
you think it looks sexy, clean and crisp but also full of sunlight. You couldn’t grow a watermelon in the cold, could you?’

  ‘Well, it’s certainly a different approach with the short skirt as well.’

  ‘It’s time we gave up these silly notions about colour, that blue and green should never be seen, that sort of crap, it’s a load of rubbish. Most of the earth is blue and green, blue sky, green grass, God seems to have done okay using those two colours. It’s not the colours, it’s how you use them, put them together! It’s also the fabric. Does the fabric feel pink, if you know what I mean?’

  ‘And the length of the skirt, just below the knee?’

  ‘It’s summer, brown legs without stockings, open sandals with a heel, that’s what being an Australian is all about, isn’t it?’

  ‘I like that,’ Sally Harris says. ‘Tell me more, please.’

  ‘As I just said, we’re Australian, look at the light, bright sunshine, sharp colours. The shade under the trees is black, everything’s definite, red soil, acid-green gum trees, yellow wattle, blue sky, azure sea.’

  ‘Some might say we’re lacking in subtlety,’ Sally Harris suggests.

  ‘That’s just it! I never thought of it like that, but that’s precisely it. Why should clothes, I mean their colours, be subtle?’ Mike doesn’t wait for a reply because an idea occurs to him. ‘Yes, yes, that’s it all right! Grey skies, cold climate, short summer, long autumn and miserable winter, trees losing their leaves, witches’ brooms against a grey sky, wind howling, that’s Europe, ain’t it? Rug up, protect yourself. Wrap, wrap, wrap. They have to be subtle, clothes have to wrap and hide, browns and russets and greys and blacks, maybe a touch of orange, occasionally a tinge of red for a dying sunset. That’s them, and that’s okay, but it’s not us. Why must we, a people of the sun, wear what Europe decides is fashion!’

  ‘Because we’re snobs?’ Sally laughs, ‘Scared to be different.’

  ‘Maybe some of us are. For most it’s because we’re told how to behave by a bunch of people who can’t get Paris or Europe out of their minds. People who were born in Europe and, despite what’s happened to them, still think of Europe as their heartland.’ ‘You mean the Jews?’

  ‘Well, yes, but only because most of the bosses in the rag trade are Jewish and Europe’s mostly where they were born. But what gets me is this. Six million Jews died at the hands of the Germans and those that managed to escape the concentration camps still think Europe is the intellectual, emotional and aesthetic centre of the world, I mean, c’mon!’

  ‘Old ways die hard,’ Sally says.

  ‘I know, it’s not really their fault. They can’t help it. People like Mr Stan think Australians are peasants and not only in a fashion sense. They may be right, I’m a peasant, but only because I’ve never been given a choice. We’re told what’s right and what’s wrong. We’re terrified of making a mistake or appearing to be gauche. We’re wearing Europe on our backs and it’s time we stopped being copycats. Mr Stan and Hartnell and Harry Haskin and all the rest of the rag-trade bosses here make their annual pilgrimage to the Paris fashion shows and sit up and beg for scraps like Bozo’s Bitzers, and whatever they bring back becomes the fashion law for the season.’

  ‘Bozo’s Bitzers?’

  ‘Bozo’s my brother, he has five dogs that do tricks, you know, sit up and beg for scraps.’ ‘Mike, you can’t blame them.’

  ‘You’re right again, I can’t. It’s what they know, what’s safe, what they can steal and then sell to the buyers.’Mike is so carried away he forgets where he is. ‘It’s the buyers who think it’s sophisticated to genuflect at the altar of European fashion, who demand more of the same every year.’

  ‘Oops, that’s me,’ Sally Harris says, reaching for her glass of champagne.

  Mike realises what he’s just said. ‘Present company excepted, of course,’ he says, but much too late.

  Sally Harris takes a long, slow sip from her champagne glass, looking directly at Mike. She’s pretty with blue eyes and dark hair. ‘Have you been to Paris, Mike?’ she asks, probably knowing full well that he hasn’t.

  Mike laughs, colouring. ‘No, I haven’t even been to Sydney,’ he admits.

  ‘Well, I have. The Wool Board invited me to the Paris fashion shows last year. It’s hard not to be impressed with the French. They have an assurance and a sense of style that leaves you feeling you’ve got two left feet and a rubber mouth. I felt dumpy and parochial even though I was wearing a Chanel original, paid for by the firm of course, and a pair of handmade Italian alligator pumps with the sheerest nylons I could buy from Schiaparelli.’ Sally laughs. ‘I’m supposed to scrub up reasonably well, but I felt like a country bumpkin, Paris does that to you, it’s the easiest place in the world to get an inferiority complex. We’re at the launch of the Christian Dior collection and one of the hosts, the usual tall, beautifully dressed and urbane Frenchman, hands me a glass of champagne. It looks like liquid gold and comes in this tall fluted glass, like an elongated tulip. “Oh what a funny champagne glass,” I exclaim, looking up at my French host. “Is this part of the show, you know, some sort of a gimmick?” I don’t allow him to answer as I gush on, “No, don’t tell me, let me guess, it’s the shape of the year’s Dior skirts, how very clever!”

  ‘All I’d ever seen are these.’ She points to the shallow and wide-brimmed champagne glass she’s holding and laughs. ‘He looked at me, I think a little amazed, not quite sure he’d heard correctly, what with my Australian accent and all.’

  She now imitates the Frenchman talking in English, ‘No, no, Mademoiselle Arass, champagne is, how you say, wine for beautiful bubools to play, they must not escape before they have danced to make za champagne.’ He stops, searching for a word, ‘Sparkling! Za glass and the champagne, they are partners, like a good model and a beautiful gown, where one begins and za other ends, who can tell this mystery?’Sally Harris looks at Mike. ‘We still have a lot to learn, but you’re right, it’s time we took a few steps out into the Australian sunlight.’

  ‘Of course we have lots to learn!’ says Mike. ‘But can’t we use their knowledge and our light? The sun is shining, the birds are chirping and what’s more, they’re rosellas, blazing with colour, the wattle is a riot of yellow blossom against an impossibly clean blue sky and our leading fashion magazine has just declared that the colour for Summer 1961 is navy and white! Navy bloody blue and white and go easy on the white! Let me quote: Navy blue is the colour this season with a soupçon of white around collars and cuff, any more than the lightest touch would be deemed vulgar. Deemed vulgar! Who does this “deeming”? Who writes this shit?’

  Sally throws back her head and laughs, ‘I think I’m falling in love with you, Michael Maloney.’

  Mike blushes. He’s accustomed to the factory girls having a bit of a go. They can be a fairly rough mob sometimes and indecent suggestions are not unknown, in fact they occur on an almost daily basis, the Greeks being the worst, closely followed by the Australians. But Sally Harris is an ex-model and, well, she’s been around and is very sophisticated and there’s no shortage of men who dream about getting into her pants. In fact, it’s almost a total preoccupation with most of the sales reps in The Lane. They’d rather have her than any of the models because they reckon she’s ‘experienced’, a woman of the world. Sally now sees Mike’s embarrassment and reaches over and places her hand over his. ‘It’s okay, Mike, I’m not going to seduce you,’ she looks up and grins, ‘not just yet anyway.’

  Mike forgets he’s supposed to be a poofter, but what he really is, is a virgin, though he’s not sure he knows the difference. He’s been that excited that someone in the fashion industry is prepared to listen to him that the other thing hasn’t even occurred to him. Someone is listening at last, someone who isn’t consumed with her own importance like most of the buyers who require truckloads of chocolates and flowers and an anthology of ego massaging, ‘D
arling, you look vunderful, the suit, sensational!’ to some fat frump with upside-down legs and an order book in her crocodile-skin handbag.

  ‘Mike, I know why we’re having dinner, it wasn’t your idea, was it? Mr Stan’s?’

  Mike nods, ‘But that doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying it, Sally. It’s the first time I’ve been able to talk to anyone in the trade about how I feel about clothes design.’

  Sally sighs. ‘I’m enjoying myself as well, but yeah, all right, you work for Mr Stan and he wants you to flog the Collection 1961 summer range to Country Stores, that’s about it, isn’t it?’

  Mike looks at Sally Harris sheepishly. ‘Yup.’ ‘So tell me, Michael Maloney, what is the major colour component of the Collection range?’

  Mike blushes violently. ‘Navy blue with a soupçon of white.’ Now they both fall about so that the entire restaurant is looking at them, but they’re so obviously enjoying themselves that Mr Luigi doesn’t come over, and most of the people in the famous restaurant don’t seem to mind. A waiter walks over and sees that the champagne bottle is empty. Mike orders another. The kid is learning fast but it may not have been the smartest thing to do.

  Sally, still chuckling, glances sideways at Mike. ‘Now, tell me about the Sarah Maloney label.’

  The Sarah Maloney label has been going for more than three years and is the reason Mike can send Nancy five pounds a week. It’s also paid for two professional Singer sewing machines, one for Sophie and one for himself, as well as for the fabrics that go into Mike’s designs. It all started after Templeton was born and Sarah got her figure back, which was always slim, with long legs and a narrow waist.