Taking a Chance

by Deborah Burrows

  The next street along was Howard Street, a short street between St Georges Terrace and the Esplanade. It was one of the main legal centres with many law offices and chambers. It was also one of the prettiest streets in the city, crammed full of buildings with elegant stone facades that had been built in the early part of the century. Since the war, the pretty buildings had been defaced with garish war posters. Chancery House at number 2 had one of my least favourite: a grotesque Japanese soldier with claw-like hands was reaching out to a map of Australia on which was printed: THE WORD NOW IS MUST: SAFETY DEMANDS OBEDIENCE.

  Rob worked with Mr Williams in number 21. The Colour Patch Tea Rooms, which Rob visited for breakfast every morning and often for lunch, was at number 17. I used to joke that he kept the business going. Alma, the waitress, adored him.

  I could see that Johnny was finding it hard to keep a straight face as we entered the Colour Patch. To emphasise the name, each table was lacquered a different colour and had placemats in contrasting hues. The menus were decorated with rainbows, and bright posters adorned the walls. Alma’s uniform consisted of a green frock covered with a frilly pink apron. She wore a matching frilly pink cap. I had never seen her look particularly happy. I suspected it was because of the uniform she had to wear – or maybe she just hated seeing her beloved Rob with me.

  We found a table by the window and Alma came across to us. She scowled at Horvath as he ordered a pot of tea for two. When I suggested a plate of scones she regarded me with a look that clearly implied I was Delilah and Jezebel rolled into one.

  ‘Butter or jam,’ she said.

  I looked at her blankly.

  ‘You can have butter or jam, not both. There’s a war on, you know.’

  We ordered butter. As she stalked away, she shook her head slightly.

  Horvath looked at me inquiringly. ‘Is she always so pleasant?’

  I grimaced, embarrassed. ‘My, er, fellow lives in that big block of flats we passed on the corner and he comes in here for breakfast every morning. Alma must think I’m playing him false with you, Mr Horvath.’

  ‘Most people call me Johnny.’ Again there was the grin. ‘Unless they’re Aussies, in which case they call me Johnno.’

  ‘You’re definitely not a Johnno,’ I said, smiling. ‘Why are you in Perth, Mr Horvath?’

  I wanted to keep things formal between us, to show him that I wasn’t just some girl he could pick up in a park. And I really did want to know why he was in Perth. Lena Mitrovic had seemed to know him, or had wanted to tell him something. My reporter’s instincts were on full alert.

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Like I said, I got injured in New Caledonia.’ There was a lazy gesture towards his feet. ‘They won’t let me go back to the Pacific war front until I can make a quick escape from enemy action; I can’t be a liability for the troops. In the meantime I’ve been spending my time doing background pieces. How Australia loves the Americans, what the place is actually like.’ He pretended to yawn.

  ‘After all you’ve been through I’d have thought you’d welcome a break.’

  ‘I like Australia. But I’m a war correspondent. I want to follow the war.’

  ‘Follow the piper of death, you mean. I hate the war,’ I said, hearing the bitterness in my voice. I had a boyfriend and four cousins who were more like my brothers in the armed services and was worried sick for all of them. I tried to lighten my tone. ‘What will you do when the war is over?’

  He shrugged. ‘What I’m doing now, only I won’t be shot at quite so much, I hope. In Chicago you can never be sure of that, though.’

  I tried again. ‘So, why are you really in Perth, Mr Horvath? Surely Lena Mitrovic’s murder trial wouldn’t come under the heading of “background piece” for your readers?’

  Alma arrived with the tea and scones before he could reply. ‘How’s Mr Sinclair?’ she asked, scowling.

  ‘Lieutenant Sinclair,’ I said. ‘He’s fine. He got through his time in New Guinea without injury and is in Melbourne now.’

  She flicked a glance at Johnny and almost threw the cutlery onto the table. It landed with a clatter. I smiled at her and she turned on her heel and marched away.

  When I looked over at Johnny he was in silent paroxysms of laughter, head tucked into his chest and shoulders shaking.

  ‘She wanted to plunge that fork into you. Lieutenant Sinclair must be quite a guy. Please call me Johnny. Mr Horvath is my pop.’

  I nodded in reply, although I felt uneasy. ‘Why are you here in Perth?’ I asked again. ‘You’re a big-note war correspondent – even Churchill reads your dispatches. You know General MacArthur personally. Surely you’re too important to cover a little murder like this one. And there’s no American involvement in the case. It makes no sense.’

  He stopped laughing, straightened up and regarded me steadily. ‘Lena Mitrovic’s parents are Yugoslav. So are mine. Well, Pop’s from Dubrovnik. Mom’s Irish-American and I’m all American. The trial interested me.’

  I wasn’t sure I believed him. ‘You know Miss Mitrovic, don’t you?’ I said. ‘She was looking at you, just after she was sentenced.’

  He shrugged and glanced down at the menu.

  I tried again. ‘Who was she looking at in the public gallery?’

  ‘Beats me,’ he said. His gaze shifted suddenly to the doorway and he gave a visible start.

  thin woman with faded blonde hair and a worried expression had entered the cafe. Her hands were clutching a blue cardigan, wrapping it tightly around her chest, and she was wearing a skirt that was longer than fashion dictated. Her hat was a battered wreck of a thing perched on a thick twisted rope of pale hair. She dropped into a chair at a table near us and sat, shoulders slumped, looking at nothing. When Alma came over to her she glanced up with a fearful look and ordered coffee in an accented voice. I had seen her during the trial, making her way into the public gallery.

  I glanced at Johnny. ‘Do you think that’s Miss Mitrovic’s mother?’ I whispered.

  He was frowning. ‘I’ll find out, shall I?’

  Rising, he limped slowly across to her. She glanced up in surprise and said something in a language I assumed was Yugoslavian. Johnny replied in kind and took out his notebook. The woman was staring at him almost hungrily as she spoke to him in a low, desperate voice. Johnny nodded, listening intently, and made a few notes. My attention was pulled away from them when Alma brought the tea and scones.

  ‘Who’s your friend?’ she asked, obviously suspicious. The government had instructed us to report people having conversations in foreign languages and I wondered if she’d be calling the police when she returned to the kitchen. It was time to get her back on side.

  ‘He’s a famous American war correspondent, John Horvath. His articles have been in the West Australian and the Western Mail. He got wounded in New Caledonia. He’s here to cover the Mitrovic trial. I was there too, for the Marvel.’

  Alma sniffed and laid out the tea and scones. There were four scones, cut in half, with the merest scraping of butter on them. Before she could leave, I said quickly, ‘Mr Sinclair – Lieutenant Sinclair, I mean – asked to be remembered to you. In his last letter.’

  Red patches appeared on her cheeks, bright spots staining a sallow face. The pink frilly cap bobbed in surprise.

  ‘He did?’ Her eyes softened.

  ‘Yes. He said, “Say hello to Alma the next time you’re in the Colour Patch. Tell her that no one in Melbourne here makes coffee like she does.”’

  I wasn’t actually sure that he’d meant it as a compliment but she took it that way, wiping her hands on her apron and saying, ‘Oh, please tell him that – that we hope he’s coming home soon.’

  I nodded, embarrassed that her crush was so obvious. ‘Soon, hopefully,’ I said. ‘He’s due some leave.’

  ‘He’s such a gentleman,’ she said softly. Then she looked at me fiercely, and casting a frowning glance towards Johnny, she said, ‘Watch yourself with that one.’

  She walke
d away quickly.

  Johnny was scribbling something in his notebook. He tore out the page and handed it to the blonde woman who took it carefully, like it was a banknote. She folded it and tucked it into her handbag. There was a hot, glowering expression on the woman’s face as she watched him limp back across the room to our table. When he sat down she rose abruptly and left the cafe.

  ‘We call these biscuits in the States,’ he said, nodding towards the scones. ‘Will you pour, or shall I?’ Johnny now gestured towards the teapot. I raised an eyebrow to indicate that I was waiting for him to tell me about the woman. He looked at me, smiling slightly and stayed silent.

  ‘I thought Americans didn’t like tea,’ I said at last.

  ‘I like it better than the coffee you get here.’ The slight smile was still on his face, but the look in his eyes was a warning. ‘Actually, I’m getting to like it a lot.’ He picked up the teapot and poured tea expertly into both cups.

  ‘Have you always lived in Perth?’ he asked, handing me the plate of scones.

  My instincts told me that he knew something about the Mitrovic trial. He wouldn’t have come all this way just because Lena Mitrovic was Yugoslavian. I remembered that Lena had originally come from Melbourne, and Johnny Horvath had told me that he’d been in Melbourne also. He knew the girl; I’d lay odds on it.

  I took a scone, inwardly debating whether or not to press him on what the woman had said. I had a strong suspicion that he wouldn’t tell me anything he didn’t want to, though, and I gave myself a mental shake. It was really none of my business why he was here. I should simply enjoy having afternoon tea with one of my heroes.

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘I was born in Ireland – Eire, as they call it now. In Dublin. I came to Australia when I was six, in 1925. My parents died so I came out to join my uncle’s family.’

  He murmured something trite and conventional.

  ‘Don’t be sad for me,’ I said. ‘It was a terrible thing to lose my parents, of course, but I was very young and my aunt and uncle were wonderful to me.’

  ‘How did your parents die?’ He was looking down now, deciding on a scone.

  I took a breath. I always ended up having to explain, and it was always hard, even though I remembered nothing much about my parents, or about Ireland really.

  ‘The influenza took my mother in 1919, when I was a few months old. I don’t remember her at all, and I have only bits of memory about my father, although I was five when he died. He was a newspaperman,’ I said. ‘A reporter.’

  ‘So it’s in the blood.’ Johnny’s crooked smile was back.

  ‘Maybe. My mother, Nellie Dillon, was from a tiny village in Wexford. She left the family to go to business school in Dublin. Now that’s a tale,’ I said proudly. ‘To leave your family and all that you knew. She was utterly determined to improve herself. My Uncle Pat was ten years older than her. In 1900, he left for Western Australia to look for gold. My mother went to Dublin five years later, when her parents died. She said she’d rather be an old maid than marry an ignorant clod from the village, and being an old maid in Dublin would be more fun.’

  Johnny laughed. ‘She sounds like a character.’

  ‘She was. And smart too.’

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ he said.

  ‘Uncle Pat sent her money, and she supported herself with any work she could get until she graduated from business college. In 1914 she went to work on the Irish Times and caught the eye of a reporter, Michael Fitzgerald. They were married in 1918, when she was thirty-four and the whole family was convinced she’d be a spinster lady. I came along a year later. Of course, my parents were blissfully happy.’ My smile faded. ‘Until she died.’

  ‘Do you look like her? The other Nellie Fitzgerald?’

  ‘Don’t call me Nellie. It’s Nell or Eleanor,’ I said tartly, then realised that I sounded just like my Cousin Biddie in one of her moods. ‘Or Miss Fitzgerald, if you prefer,’ I said in a teasing tone.

  He bowed his head, and tried to appear contrite. ‘Nell, if that’s okay. Please go on.’

  ‘Apparently I do look like her. Both my parents had dark hair, but my father had hazel eyes, like me. My mother had blue eyes. I always wished I had her blue eyes.’

  ‘I would like to place it on the record that the eyes you have are gorgeous.’

  I narrowed those eyes and gave him a look.

  ‘Don’t try to flirt with me,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a steady fellow.’

  ‘Tell me about your uncle,’ he said, picking up a scone.

  ‘We should be talking about you. You can’t really be interested in my family.’

  ‘I am,’ he said, and bit into the scone. He was watching me closely.

  ‘Well, Uncle Pat arrived in Perth in 1901 intending to head straight off to Kalgoorlie and find gold. Only immediately he arrived he met my aunt and decided she was gold enough for him.’ I breathed a soft laugh. ‘That’s what he used to say, anyway. Aunty May is Australian, but had Irish parents. She was Mary O’Meara. He married her and they had six children: Bridget, Michael, Francis, Charles, Gerard and Daniel. They’re all a fair bit older – Biddie has seventeen years on me, and Danny six – but they’re a wonderful set of brothers and sister. Gerry is a priest and lives in Brisbane. The other boys are all away at the war and Aunty May prays for them night and morning. So far her prayers have been answered.’

  ‘It was an awfully long way to send a small child,’ said Johnny slowly. ‘To Australia, I mean, after your parents died. Was there no one in Ireland who could take care of you?’

  I shook my head. ‘I went to St Brigid’s Orphanage, where I stayed for six months until a letter arrived from Uncle Pat in Australia saying that I must be sent out to Perth immediately. He wrote—’

  Stupidly, my eyes filled with tears. They always filled with tears when I remembered Uncle Pat and his wild, generous nature.

  I cleared my throat and said, ‘He wrote that they were in sore need of a little girl in his house, but she had to have long dark hair and hazel eyes and only one called Nellie would do. When the nuns read me the letter, I said, “I’ll do, then, won’t I?”’

  Embarrassed, I quickly brushed away a tear. When I glanced at Johnny, he was gazing out of the window.

  ‘I came out on a ship with a couple of nuns who were joining a convent here,’ I said quickly, anxious to finish the story. I felt I was giving far too much of myself away to this American. ‘When we docked at Fremantle, there was Uncle Pat and Aunty May and my six cousins. I don’t think my feet were on the ground for a good half-hour, because I was passed around for so many cuddles.’

  I blinked away a few more tears, but smiled at the memory. I loved Uncle Pat so much, and missed him every day. The world had been a sadder place for me since his passing two and a half years ago.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve been very happy here with the Dillon family. My uncle was amazingly good to me. He allowed me to stay on at school even through the Depression, and I went to university because of him. He had a great respect for education.’

  Uncle Pat had adored my mother, his little sister, who was ‘sure and the only one with any brains in the Dillon family’. And he had been in awe of my father, who was a respected journalist and a graduate of the Catholic University. When it became clear that I loved school and was good at it, Uncle Pat did all he could to keep me there, which he’d never done for any of his own children. His pride when I won a scholarship to Modern School – the ‘high school for brains’, as my cousin Danny called it – had been humbling and so very touching. It also filled me with guilt. My school fees were paid and I received a few pounds to help me buy books, but staying on at school meant that I was unable to earn money to help with family expenses at the height of the Great Depression. None of my cousins was in full-time work and Uncle Pat was on reduced hours. Money was in very short supply and Aunty May raised the subject of my leaving school on more than one occasion, because it was easier for children under sixteen to find casual work as the
y were paid so little. She argued that at least I’d be able to bring in some money for the household. I was torn – wanting to help the family I loved, but desperate to stay on at school and go to university like my father.

  All discussion ceased on a cold June evening in 1933, when Uncle Pat stood up at the head of the dining table and thumped his big fist to make the crockery rattle.

  ‘We’ll get through this without Nellie martyring herself,’ my uncle announced, in an accent thick with Ireland and emotion. ‘A scholar’s ink lasts longer than a martyr’s blood. Our Nellie will be a scholar, just like her parents, bless them. And I’ll hear no more about it.’

  I cried, that night, when I was alone in my bed, worried that I was a burden on the family, but filled with a traitorous joy.

  Uncle Pat saw me the next morning, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep and guilt, and asked me to help him make up the fire. I stood beside him at the woodshed, shivering in my thin dressing gown, as he split kindling for the stove.

  ‘What’s the motto of that school of yours, again?’ he asked, setting a piece of wood on the block.

  ‘Savoir c’est pouvoir,’ I replied. ‘It means “Knowledge is power”.’

  He was a tall man, my uncle, and big-shouldered. I loved to watch him split wood, the way the thick muscles in his arms and shoulders bunched and shifted as he swung the axe.

  ‘They’re true words, Nellie girl,’ he said. ‘But remember, tada gan iarracht – there’s nothing gained without effort. I want you to stay in that wonderful school of yours and study hard. We’ll get by. The Dillons always get by.’

  ‘But Uncle Pat,’ I said, blinking back tears. ‘I can’t just take and take and give nothing back.’

  He lowered the axe. Leaning on it, he looked at me very seriously.

  ‘I’m that proud of you, darlin’. You’re smart as a whip and you’re a loving girl. That’s all I want from you. Your parents, God bless them, were among the best, and you’re a credit to them both.’