by Annie Seaton
Liliana turned away and closed her eyes as the earthy odour of the river wafted up the laneway. No matter how much she pretended, the smell of the water was nothing like home. Interspersed with the stale fumes of the traffic that wound its way along the muddy Brisbane River, the damp smell pervaded the whole school in the humid summer months. Her craving for the smell of salt air and the sound of the wind gently rustling through the hoop pines of home was as physical to Liliana as hunger.
‘Lily?’ Amelia’s shaking voice interrupted her daydreaming.
‘What’s wrong?’ Liliana looked at her with a frown. ‘Are you okay?’
Amelia’s face was pinched and white. Her eyes welled with tears as she shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Don’t let those blokes upset you. They’re gone now.’ Amelia shook her head again. ‘Or are you worried about the war? It should be okay where you are in the out—’
‘Shut up, Lil. And stop being so bloody smart. I get so sick of listening to you prattle on sometimes.’
The comment was meant to hurt but Liliana shrugged it off. She was well used to what her fellow students thought of her, and it didn’t bother her.
‘I’ve missed my monthlies,’ Amelia said quietly.
‘What?’ Liliana’s eyes widened, and she drew in a sharp breath.
‘I’m scared I’m having a baby.’
‘How?’
‘How do you reckon?’
‘But you haven’t—’
‘I did.’ Amelia’s voice was glum. ‘Twice. It certainly wasn’t immaculate conception, although I’ve been thinking I could try that on Mum and Dad. They’re going to kill me.’
‘Oh no. Surely not.’
‘Kill me? They will.’
‘No, not that. I mean surely you can’t be pregnant. You’re only sixteen.’
‘Don’t be silly, Lil. For such a smart person, you can be really naïve sometimes.’
Before Liliana could think about the implications of Amelia being pregnant, Peggy came out of the café, her lips tilted in a huge smile.
Amelia leaned close and whispered, ‘Don’t say anything.’
‘I got a job. Start next week and the lady in charge is finding me somewhere to board.’ Peggy stood in front of them, smirking as she pulled her gloves off.
‘Are you sure that’s what you really want, Peg?’ Liliana was still trying to deal with the shock of Amelia’s news.
‘You bet. They’re looking for more girls too, if either of you want to stay in the city. She said there are thousands of American soldiers coming soon, and they’re all going to be in Brisbane.’ Peggy sat down on the wall beside them. ‘I’m going to find myself a rich husband and go and live in New York. No way am I going back to the red dust of Charleville. No siree! Not for me!’
‘Wait here for me.’ Amelia jumped up and crossed to the door of the café, determination in her step. ‘I’m going to stay in Brisbane too.’
‘What about you, Lil?’ Peggy opened her small purse and pulled out a cigarette and a box of matches. ‘Do you want to stay in the city too? Contribute to the war effort?’ Her cat-like eyes narrowed as she lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘Oh, silly me. I forgot you live in paradise.’
God, Peggy was a bitch. Six more days, Liliana thought again. Peggy had hated her from the first day they had met in the dormitory on the first floor of the old convent building. The girls had all shared where their families lived and when Liliana told them about growing up on Whitsunday Island, they had been envious.
‘Oh, you are so lucky. Beats our dry and boring outback hands down,’ Amelia said.
‘It’s very isolated and lonely,’ Liliana argued. ‘We get the newspapers days late. They’re dropped off at Proserpine from the mail train, and then someone has to take them to Cannon Valley by dirt road, and then if we’re lucky, the tourist launch will pick them up and drop them to us. It could be ten days before we get the news.’
‘Oh, you poor baby. Late newspapers, hey?’ Peggy’s words had dripped with sarcasm. ‘And tell us, what do you see from your windows, island girl? Dry red dust and huge emaciated beasts fighting over the scarce water that we might manage to pump if we’re lucky? Black sticky flies that get into your nose and mouth and ears as soon as you go outside?’
‘We have flies too.’ Back then, Liliana had cared what the other girls thought of her. ‘And sandflies. And dangerous creatures … like … like sharks, and jellyfish … and devil fish and moray eels.’ Her protests were ignored.
‘And you get tourists too! I would give anything to live in a place like that.’ Peggy had kept her distance for a few weeks after that conversation, but always took the opportunity to have a dig whenever she could. Liliana soon learned to shrug it off and not let it bother her, but she was looking forward to going home and never coming back to school.
The longer she was at boarding school, the more she realised she was different to the other girls, and it didn’t bother her one iota. This year in English her class had studied R.M. Ballantyne’s The Coral Island, and the teasing had raised its ugly head again.
‘That’s where Liliana comes from,’ Peggy had said to Sister Mary Catherine, throwing an innocent smile her way. ‘Paradise, just like Ralph, Jack and Peterkin.’
Liliana had smothered a grin. Peggy’s superficial acceptance of the story about an idyllic paradise was typical. She of all people should have picked up the theme of hierarchy and leadership.
The four years at the Catholic girls’ school had been difficult, but if there was one lesson she had learned, it was resilience. Those four years had strengthened her character. When the war was over, Liliana was going to get a cadetship on a newspaper, and then she would travel the world. Her life would be exciting; talking to intelligent people, perhaps working as a foreign correspondent, interviewing spies and diplomats, maybe travelling to North Africa to interview a soldier from the French Foreign legion, and hopefully being published in the Times. Dreaming about her future was one way to push aside her constant worry about the war.
Their final days at All Hallows’ flew by, and on the following Friday morning, the girls stood on the platform at Roma Street station. The Christmas crowds milled around them and it was hard to hear each other over the frequent announcements and the hiss of the steam engines. Peggy and Amelia had come to see them off. That morning, they’d both moved into a shared room in a boarding house at West End.
‘Platform five, Northern Mail, ten minutes till departure. Passengers, please board.’
Liliana put her hands to her ears as the shrill whistle sounded over the loudspeaker.
Peggy raised her hand in a careless wave. ‘Bye, island girl. I won’t have anyone to keep me on the straight and narrow anymore.’
‘Bye, Peg. Hope it all works out for you.’
‘Yep, it will. I’m still waiting to hear back from Mum and Dad.’
Amelia was quiet and pale. Liliana hugged her and whispered quietly so the others wouldn’t hear. ‘Got them yet?’
‘No. Not yet.’
‘Make sure you write to me. If things get really bad, maybe you can come and stay with us on the island.’ Liliana crossed her fingers behind her back; Mama would never agree to that.
‘I will.’ Amelia clung to her. ‘I’ll miss you, Lil.’
Liliana kissed Amelia’s cheek and hugged her back. ‘Take care, Amelia.’
She followed the other girls to platform five. Claudia and Anne were on the mail train north to Townsville with her. Liliana would be first off at Mackay, then change to the motor rail that went through Proserpine on the way to Bowen. Dad should be at Proserpine dropping off the fish catch to go south to Brisbane on the next train. If he was, she wouldn’t have to spend a couple of days waiting for him at Aunt Beatrice’s boarding house in Prossie. But Dad knew she wanted to be on the island for Christmas and he wouldn’t let her down. He’d promised and her father was a man of his word. It was going to be wonderful to go home to stay. To be there with her famil
y, no matter what happened in this blasted war.
‘Which carriage are you in, Lil?’
‘Second class sleeper.’ She patted the calico bag hanging from her shoulder. ‘I bought books for everyone at McWhirters for Christmas last Saturday morning, and I’m going to read them all before I wrap them up.’
Books were a precious commodity on Whitsunday Island. She’d also bought the early edition of the Courier Mail from the paper boy at the entrance to the station. The headline about a Japanese retreat had jumped out at her but she’d shoved it in her bag to read on the train.
‘We’ll say goodbye at Mackay then.’
Liliana hitched the bag higher on to her shoulder and headed for her carriage.
She was going home.
CHAPTER
8
December 26, 1941
‘This is as far as I go.’ The farmer had driven Jack Rickard and two of the ground crew he’d hooked up with on base down the bumpy, dusty road from Proserpine—or Prossie, as the old fellow had called it. He called to them from the cab of the old Dodge as the truck came to a stop and they jumped down from the back and pulled their kit bags from the tray. Jack came around and held out a ten-shilling note to the man but he waved it away, his leathery face wrinkled in a grin.
‘Nah, lad, no charge. You boys are fighting for the country. Least I can do.’ He jerked a thumb towards the mangroves on the south side of the beach and winked. ‘If you want to freshen up for the ladies, there’s a freshwater spring over there between the beach and the jetty.’
Jack followed the direction of the old fellow’s thumb. A wooden launch puffing black smoke was pulling in at the end of the long stone pier on the eastern side of the bay.
‘That’s where you’ll catch the launch to go to the islands tonight,’ the farmer added. ‘Gotta go. That old tub is taking my tomatoes. Bit like carrying coals to Newcastle, taking tomatoes to Bowen, ain’t it?’ His nicotine-stained teeth appeared as he laughed at his own joke. ‘Enjoy your break, boys.’
With a loud crunch, the truck engaged into gear and lurched forward. It kicked up a cloud of dust that replaced the pungent aroma of tomatoes that had surrounded the three men for the past two hours as they’d leaned against the backboard of the truck. All the way from Proserpine to Cannon Valley, sugar cane and pineapple plantations, divided by seemingly never-ending rows of mango trees, filled the flat land beneath the Conway Range. As the truck had approached Cannon Valley Beach, a glimpse of sapphire water had beckoned. Riding on the back of that old truck had been uncomfortable. Jack had already decided they’d find a different way back to the base if they could.
‘Reckon I could live down here after the war,’ Roger Brooks said as he reached into his shirt pocket for a cigarette. ‘What do you say, boys? Bit better than Bowen, hey?’
‘Yeah. Don’t mind it at all.’ Jack cupped his hand as Roger held the match up to his cigarette. ‘I’m with you, Rog. I mightn’t even go home once this war is done.’ He kept the bitterness from his voice. There was no point going back to the Hunter Valley. If he could convince Dad to lend him some money, he might think about starting a farm of his own up here. The old bastard probably would pay to keep him away from the vineyard—the bitterness pushed in again as Jack remembered their last argument.
‘If you stopped sprouting your high-falutin’ ideas and did a bit of real work to help your brother, maybe we wouldn’t be losing money hand over fist.’ His father’s voice had been ice cold.
Jack’s stomach had churned with anger and he’d held himself so rigid, the muscles in his shoulders quivered. The three years he’d spent at university studying engineering had opened up so many possibilities for the way they could improve harvesting and production at the vineyard with the implementation of modern technology, but trying to talk to his father was like talking to a brick wall. Heck, it wasn’t even anything new that needed doing. It would simply mean bringing their production processes into the 1940s. Some of the methods his father used were the same as those his own father had used at the turn of the century.
Bloody pull my weight, he thought. I know more about the grapes and the soil than my plod-headed brother ever will. But he didn’t say what he was thinking.
Maybe the truth hurt. Dad had to wake up eventually. Jack wasn’t prepared to take the blame for the decline in the business. His father’s thinking was so bloody narrow. Jack’s great-grandfather had been one of the pioneer winemakers in the Hunter Valley, but their father was training Richard, his older brother, to take over the business, just because he’d had the luck to be the one born first. It wasn’t bloody fair.
Second son, be damned.
Jack knew he had as much right to the vineyard as Richard. His older brother had always been the golden-haired boy, literally and in their father’s eyes. Jack knew he was entitled to more than a secondary role but their father would have none of it. Since their great-grandfather had bought the land in the 1870s, the eldest son had always taken over the vineyard and their bloody father intended doing the same. It was the way things happened.
You’d think we were still in the bloody nineteenth century.
Why his father had ever sent him off to university, Jack had never been able to fathom because Dad wouldn’t listen to any suggestions that Jack made.
‘There’s no need to make change for change’s sake. There’s nothing wrong with the way we’ve always done things. You need to pull your weight and things will improve if we work together,’ was his father’s constant catch-cry.
Who could blame a man if he went off to town sometimes when his father demanded his presence for the physical work? What was the point in making an effort when he could be at the horse races or in the cool of the pub? Richard would reap the benefits. Jack was bloody cheap labour, that’s all they wanted him there for.
But the vineyard was Jack’s life; he’d been out in the vines since the day he could walk. He loved the whole process, watching the grapes ripen on the vine and knowing exactly when to harvest; picking up the fine red volcanic soil and letting it filter through his fingers. He had a feel for the land that his father—and his brother— didn’t have or understand. Even before his teenage years, he’d gone out to check the grapes as soon as he came home from school each afternoon.
‘Have you ever considered the fact that our sales are down because of the blasted depression and the war?’ Jack managed to keep his voice calm but the expletive had slipped out before he could stop it.
‘Don’t show disrespect in my house, boy.’ Finally, his father’s voice rose and satisfaction curled in Jack’s chest. As his father had stared him down and Richard smirked, Jack gave in to the red hot anger that was simmering in his chest.
‘It’s bloody feudal, that’s what it is.’ He’d ducked when his father had raised his hand before launching into the familiar lecture on the rule of primogeniture.
Bloody primogeniture. Dad was an arse and Richard wasn’t much better. It wasn’t fair that Richard would get the farm. On that cold night, his father had yelled long and loud, and Mum had scurried off to the kitchen. Jack knew his mother was sympathetic to the way he felt, but she did whatever the old man said; there was no support coming from that quarter. That was the way it was, and the way it would always be.
‘There will be no more discussion. My word is final.’ Dad stood beside the dining room table, shaking the newspaper that he’d been reading before the argument had started.
‘Well, Dad, you know what? I’ve had it up to here.’ Jack sliced his hand in a chopping motion to his neck. ‘You can stuff your grapevines where the sun don’t shine. Fuck you and fuck Richard. I’m out of here. For good.’
Richard’s mouth had been set in a firm line, but Jack knew he hadn’t imagined the glint of satisfaction in his brother’s eyes when he’d shoved past him into the kitchen and grabbed the keys to Dad’s truck from the hook near the back door. Mum’s eyes had widened; she knew him so well. One hand went to her bosom and she held the
other out to him.
‘Jack, don’t be silly. Please.’ Her voice tore at him, but he kept going. ‘I’m sure you and Dad can work something out.’
‘Where do you think you’re going in my truck?’ Dad had bellowed behind him. The door slammed with a satisfying crash and Jack took off for the pub in Cessnock, rage pushing his foot hard on the accelerator. The back tyres of the truck slewed around in the loose dirt at the end of the driveway and the truck rammed sideways into the gate post. Not only did it push the post sideways, the loud scrape as he drove forward indicated that Dad’s pride and joy would need some panel-beating. Jack hit the brake and shoved the gear stick into reverse before deliberately backing into the fence post near the mailbox. Mum’s white rose bushes in the small garden were collateral damage but he was too angry to care.
By the time he’d driven the fifteen miles to town, his breath was coming in short and choppy pants. Anger sat in his chest like a hard stone. The first thing he saw in town was the poster on the community board outside the post office.
Join the RAAF. It’s a man’s job.
He’d been thinking about enlisting since he’d left university last December. His final exam marks had been top class—not that Dad had ever asked—and Jack had toyed with the idea of joining up. A few of his mates from Sydney Uni had applied for officer entry but Jack had been itching to get back to the vineyard.
His wallet and his bank book were in his back pocket. Jack parked the truck in the middle of the main street, left the keys in the ignition and walked to the railway station.
Two weeks later, he arrived in Melbourne at the No 1 RAAF recruiting centre, took the Oath, and was enlisted and sent to Ascot Vale School of Engineering for three months before being sent to the Air Observers School in Cootamundra.
And only seven months later, here he was in the RAAF. When Japan had entered the war the same week he’d been posted to the Catalina squadrons at Rathmines, and then up to the base at Port Moresby, Jack knew he’d made the right decision. The men he worked with already treated him with more respect than his father ever had. He was a man here, not a second son.