Tools of War

by Dulcie M. Stone

  “You couldn’t hurt me.”

  “I’ve hurt you just by bringing you here. If your parents knew, they’d never let you see me again.”

  “They don’t.”

  “Let’s hope it stays that way.” He stood up. “Get your things. I’ll take you home.”

  “I don’t want to.” She did not move.

  “Stop sulking.”

  “I’m not sulking.” She straightened her clothes, collected her hat and coat.

  “Please understand,” he stroked her burning face. “Please try. I hate to deceive your parents like this.”

  “But we love each other. They don’t have to know everything. It’s okay.”

  “You read too much.” His smile was indulgent. “It’s not okay. Life’s not like that. Love? You’re too young. You’re a child.”

  Sometimes she even hated him. “I’m eighteen.”

  “And I’m too old for you.”

  “You’re only twenty-five! It’s no time!”

  “Seven years? It’s a life time.”

  “That’s silly.”

  “Not in the middle of this war, Anne. Seven minutes can be a life-time. Seven days…”

  “I don’t care!”

  “You should care, Anne. We have to talk.”

  “I hate you.”

  “I’ll take you home.”

  “Don’t bother.” She flounced from the room.

  “Anne!” He caught her at the front gate.

  “You don’t have to come with me. I can manage for myself.”

  “For God’s sake, Anne! It’s dangerous out here.” Luminous in the half-light from the rising moon, his face was a disembodied circle of fair skin and mocking eyes. “The streets aren’t safe.”

  “I can manage!” She pushed past him.

  “Who’s to say there’s not another murderer out there?”

  She stopped. American soldier serial killer, Edward Leonski, had been caught. Julian was right. Even the handsome Clark Gable solider at Flinders Street could have been another Leonski!

  “Besides,” Julian matter-of-factly folded her un-resistant arm in his. “Do you know where you are?”

  He wasn’t laughing at her, but he might have been. He was right. She was a child.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologised. She wasn’t quite sure what she was sorry for, but it would please him.

  “I’m sorry too, Anne. I shouldn’t have brought you here. Please don’t tell anyone. All right?”

  Of course it was all right.

  At the local station, whose identification had been obliterated for the war, they had to wait. When it eventually slid into the platform, the train was almost empty. No problem now taking their place in the first class carriage; there was no-one to object.

  Leaving the train and exiting the Flinders Street Terminal, they hurried through deserted after-theatre city streets before catching a late tram to the outer eastern suburbs. Too tired to talk, she leant on Julian’s shoulder and slept until he roused her a block before the tram stop.

  Alighting, they bent their heads into the freezing wind that tore down the broad main road. The moon had been obliterated by dark clouds, the war-time street lighting was murky. Almost impossible to see even as far as their own feet. It was eerie. The whole night had been eerie. Surreal.

  Julian always saw her home. If they’d been earlier, he could have caught the last tram. Now he was going to have to walk miles back to his rooms. He said he enjoyed the walk. His erratic thoughtfulness was one of the many confusing things about him. So many things about him she didn’t know.

  They turned the corner into the comparative shelter of Wilson Avenue. Immediately, the terrier started to bark.

  “Does that hound ever sleep?” Julian, as always, resented the dog.

  “He’s a good watch dog.”

  “The whole street knows you’re coming home late.”

  “Other people stay out late too,” she argued. “Quiet, Toby!”

  Hearing the familiar voice, the dog immediately obeyed.

  Julian stopped at the front gate. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  She reached for him. “Don’t go...”

  “Please…” He took her two gloved hands in his. “You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

  “I know I love you.”

  He laughed, softly.

  “You’re cruel!” She freed her hands.

  “That’s your problem, Anne,” he jibed. “You love love.”

  Why was he like this? Warm and gentle one minute, hateful the next.

  “I’m sorry.” He was immediately contrite. “You really haven’t a clue, have you?”

  About what? Why did he keep saying things like this? “I don’t understand. What’s so...?”

  “Ask your mother, Anne.”

  What? Ask her mother what? “I don’t understand.”

  “Your mother will explain.” He stroked her hair. “You love love, Anne. Not me. Ask your mother about that.”

  Again, she felt her nipples harden and her body ache. She pulled him close.

  “Stop it!” He pushed her away.

  “Stop what? What have I done?”

  He stepped back. “I really do care about what happens to you, Anne.”

  “Julian...?”

  “Good night, Anne.” He opened the gate. “Talk to you mother.”

  “What am I supposed to ask her?”

  “Goodnight, Anne.”

  “I’m going.” Reluctantly, she started up the side path which led around the house to the back door.

  Looking back, she saw him waiting as he always did; watching, ascertaining she was safe. As always when she came home very late, she headed for the back door. The door was unlocked, the house dark. Creeping through the kitchen, she crossed the living room by the light from the fire’s remaining coals. Opening the door to her bedroom, an addition to the original building, she switched on the light. Through the drawn blind, its dim glow would be the signal for Julian. Knowing all was well with her, he’d move off. His concern was for her safety; he did love her.

  Changing into her nightgown, she switched off the light and climbed between sheets warmed by the hot water bottle her mother had left. Unable to sleep, she relived Julian’s touch, his last kiss. When he wanted to be, he was so tender. If only...

  “Anne?” Her mother was outside her door.

  She pulled the blankets up to her chin.

  “Anne?” The door opened. The scent of her mother’s lavender talc battled with the acrid aroma of eucalyptus from the smouldering wood in the adjacent living room.

  She did not move.

  “Are you asleep, dear?”

  Feigning sleep, she deliberately steadied the rhythm of her breathing.

  Her mother’s hand, smooth from the nightly application of creams, caressed her forehead. “Goodnight, love.”

  The door re-closed. Her mother hated sleeping alone in the great big bed on the far side of the house. She hated everything about the war. She especially hated that her husband and older daughter had had to go off and leave the two of them alone. She worried too much. She worried about Julian too. Was it true, what she’d said? ‘That’s man’s far too wise in the ways of the world,’ she’d said after the very first time he’d come to the house. ‘He’s bad news for a teenager. You’ll grow up soon enough, Anne.’

  Even though June was older by only two years, she never talked like that to June. Even though she missed her terribly, her mother didn’t worry about June growing up too fast. Though she’d cried when June left, she’d never said anything about June going off into the grown up world. And she’d never criticised June’s boy friends.

  So what did her mother think was bad news about Julian? It wasn’t just that he was so much older. There was something else. Something to do with why he always treated her like a child. What was it he wanted her to ask her mother? Why was it he expected her mother to know whatever it was, when she didn’t even understand what she w
as supposed to ask? Unless he expected her to ask about loving love. How stupid that would be.

  She’d ask June. Next time she was home, she’d ask June. Except June would laugh at her, if asking about loving love was the question. Even to June she could hardly say - when Julian kisses me he suddenly stops. Why is that? Is he frightened of me?

  It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense, either, that sometimes she hated him as much as she loved him. How did that work? It wasn’t possible. Was it? She was too tired for all this. It was much easier and much more intriguing to fantasise. The world of make-believe was infinitely more enthralling than the world of reality.

  Although she’d been selected for work in the laboratory, once the war was over, which would surely be quite soon, she’d find a job she really enjoyed, maybe in a library. Working with books was a goal to aim for. First, of course, there’d be exams and interviews and probably more study. Meanwhile she could lie here in her warm winter bed and make up stories. Maybe Julian would marry her. They’d have children. After it was all settled and peaceful again, they’d....

  Chapter Two

  June 13th:

  The first Australian ration books are issued.

  The alarm woke her. She silenced it, washed, dressed, drank a glass of warm milk, and crept from the sleeping house. Pulling her woolen cap over her ears, she tucked gloved hands into the deep pockets of her overcoat. Her breath circling in small personal clouds a pace ahead, the frosty air stinging her cheeks and nipping her nose, she started for St Margaret’s. Toby, hysterically yapping, dashed from under his next-door verandah to skittle along the fence between them.

  “Toby! Sh!” She hated waking Mr and Mrs Allen next door. They were so worried about their two sons, fighting overseas. Because she’d disturbed the dog, they’d wake early and have more hours of worry. There was nothing she could do about it. It was their dog, their choice.

  She turned the corner, into the empty main road. There were no cars, no bicycles, no pedestrians and no trams; the trams did not run on Sunday mornings. Half a mile further on, as he did every Sunday, the friendly labrador was waiting at its front gate.

  “Hullo boy.” She stroked his golden hair. “It’s too cold out here for you. Go on inside. Go in, boy!”

  The labrador trotted obediently away. One day she’d have her own dog. Not a terrier like Toby. She’d have a labrador. Did Julian like labradors?

  Hurrying on in her sensible flat heels, she ascended the gradually rising slope. At the top of the hill St Margaret’s, too, was waiting. A grand old lady standing watch over her nest of surrounding weatherboard houses, St Margaret’s Anglican Church was very old. Built of blue-stone blocks by convict labour, it was high-steepled, arch-windowed, refined and elegant. It was also starkly puritanical. The only adornment of its narrow windows was the straight lines of black lead that linked the squares of clear-glass panels. The only adornment of the oak doors was the heavy black iron hinges and handles. By reason of its age and tenacity, it was a uniquely precious relic of Australia’s penal years; an austere gem set in an oval of immaculate emerald lawn.

  Anne loved Saint Margaret’s. She loved the aura of history and the sense of tradition. She loved the feeling of past mysteries, and the pervasive presence of convict ghosts. She imagined the stories the building could tell, even at times imagined she heard its voice. She loved this early-morning loneliness. For despite, or perhaps because of, its high purpose and its tragic origins, the old church wore a dispassionate serenity which was aloof from humanity and its feverish concerns.

  St Margaret’s had witnessed the brutality of the bad times and had risen above them. Though she seriously questioned formal religion, Anne never questioned the ghostly certainty that ruled this building. Something ethereal, something heavenly and wholesome survived the evil of convict labour. Something other-earthly ensured that the work of beaten men, men in chains, was a haven of peace in a world of unprecedented conflict.

  At the gate she paused, as always, to savour the first few moments of ritual communion, then crossed the emerald swathe to pass through the open doorway. The painted walls were white, the steepled ceiling dark slabs of rough-hewn timber, the floor slate, with a single strip of deep blue carpet tracking from the entrance to a deep blue carpeted dais supporting an unpretentious altar constructed of dark timber. Her imagination saw the rough hands, gnarled and bloodied, that had fashioned this precious treasure. On the altar, centrally placed between two small candles, stood a simple wooden cross. To one side was the lectern. An obviously recent acquisition in the shape of a golden eagle, it was the single concession to religious flamboyance.

  As every Sunday, she was the first to arrive. Rolling back the lid of the organ, she pumped the foot pedals to fill the bellows with air, adjusted the stops that controlled the mixture of sound, checked the knee pads that controlled the level of sound. After preparing the music according to the list of hymns previously posted by the Vicar, she checked her watch. A quarter hour to go.

  Stripping off the thick warm gloves, she flexed her fingers, softly played the first hymn, practiced a few chords, and replaced the gloves. Exiting the body of the church through a side door, she entered the adjacent room. Built later than the original church it was a small square timber-floored, low-ceilinged room furnished with table and chairs, a cupboard which housed the altar accessories, and rows of hooks for gowns and coats. Already there, the members of the choir were pulling on their white gowns and black mortar board caps, humming in preparation for the hour ahead, or gossiping. No one took any notice of her as she changed, left, and returned to the organ.

  It was not unusual. Although she’d been accompanying them since her early teens, at eighteen Anne was still younger than the choir members. She was also, in their view, an aloof egg-head. The Vicar had reported that she was shy. The choir didn’t believe him. Composed mostly of middle aged housewives and retired tradesmen, they had long ago decided that Anne Preston wasn’t shy at all. She was just stuck up - too big for her smart-alec boots. It didn’t help that Anne made no secret of her disdain for their faith.

  It was an unfortunate, bordering on scandalous, state of affairs when the church organist wasn’t a practicing Christian. Nevertheless, as the Vicar regularly pointed out, beggars can’t be choosers. Even half-way skilled organists were thin on the ground, more particularly these days when all the talent was off fighting The War. Meanwhile Anne Preston had proved herself to be not only extremely adept but eminently reliable. A treasure. So long as she stuck to the organ.

  Although Anne knew little of this, she guessed it. Though it caused a degree of discomfort, the experience was not new. These middle-aged warblers were little different from her fellows at school who’d resented her academic expertise. What was important was that the job as organist had paid pocket money during her final school years and that now, when she was working full time, she was reluctant to call it quits. The mixed blessings of St Margaret’s, like her dreams, provided another avenue of escape from reality.

  Returning to the church, she found a few people kneeling in the straight-backed wooden pews. Again she stroked the frigid keys to life; the Old Lady should be gently roused. Gradually, taking her cue from the spirit of the building, she built the sound to prepare it for the hour to come.

  At precisely one minute to ten the members of the choir filed in to take their places in front of her. The choir master nodded, and raised his baton. She completed the passage of Bach she’d been playing, set the music to one side, blinked acceptance at the little man in the white robe and black cap, then began the introduction to the first hymn.

  The baton moved, the organ swelled, and the tenors, baritones, sopranos and contraltos of the choir led the congregation, including a couple of discordant tone-deaf songsters, into the studied reverence of ‘Rock of Ages’. Memory of the enthusiasm of last night’s rousing ‘Internationale’ struck unhappily with the formal monotony of the tedious ritual. It was farcical. Last night Marx
and Lenin and exhilaration, today Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost and tired ritual.

  If only they knew.

  As the hymn entered its concluding verse the Vicar entered. Inspired by Saint Margaret’s sedate detachment, the tall scholarly grey-haired man carried himself with the same stolid demeanour of indestructible history. Clothed in his long white robe and green stole he seemed to be not quite human; a kind of defused Moses, aloof and without passion.

  The link between them all - the Vicar, the choir, the congregation, herself - was more the spirit of the building itself than the spirit of the Holy Ghost. The link was history, tradition, upbringing, social expectations and, she cynically suspected - habit.

  In all the years she’d been their organist Anne had perceived very little depth of belief, or generosity or humanity, or even of what she’d understood to be religion itself. The interaction between the Vicar and his flock consisted of formalised ceremonies as cold as St Margaret’s in winter. As for the choir members; from them she’d heard unsubstantiated gossip, intolerance, bigotry, smug self satisfaction and sharp tongues that knew how to be merciless. Wasn’t religion supposed to be warmth and love and tolerance and reaching out to other human beings?

  If only these frozen people in this freezing church could show the same enthusiasm she’d witnessed last night. The intrusive comparison undermined concentration. Playing automatically, she relived the memory of Inga’s passionate eyes and Julian’s warm touch.

  Following ‘Rock of Ages’ the liturgy meandered sleepily on until, briefly roused, she re-pumped the organ and introduced the long-practiced Choral Anthem. Following a last high, joyous and resounding chord from organ, baritones, tenors, and altos, it peaked on a stirring peal from the sopranos. And ended.

  In the disconcerting vacuum that followed the disillusioned choir’s lonesome un-lauded weekly recital Anne, as she almost always did, had the heretical notion that one day someone might actually applaud. Applause within these hallowed walls? Poor dear St Margaret, she’d turn over in her grave; and the Vicar would probably have a stroke.

  The ensuing lethargy, thrice as enervating following the anticlimactic silence, predictably obliged the Vicar to launch his sermon with studied thunder and lightning. His somnolent congregation stirred, wriggled freezing bottoms on hard seats, suffered his equally predictable decline into the habitual drizzle of exhausted biblical clichés, and fought to remain awake.