by Judy Nunn
Refusing a dance simply to catch her breath, Caroline found Ada was doing the same. But even as Ada was catching her breath, she was with the American soldier who’d been waiting for her. She introduced him as Steve. He was in the US Marine Corps, she proudly announced, and Caroline wondered if it was Steve who’d given her the orchids.
‘This is my buddy Gene,’ Steve said. ‘Gene, this is Caroline.’
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hi. Care to dance?’ He offered his arm.
Caroline scraped her damp hair back from her face. She could feel the trickle of perspiration between her breasts. She must look a fright, she thought, but she didn’t care. ‘I was having a breather,’ she smiled and took his arm, ‘but why not?’
It was the smile that did it. Gene was smitten.
Three consecutive dances later, Caroline finally called a halt, and she and Gene joined Ada and Steve on the sidelines.
‘Thanks, Gene,’ Caroline gasped, struggling to regain her breath; the last number had been a jitterbug. ‘You’re a really beaut dancer,’ she said with genuine admiration.
‘You’re not too bad yourself.’
She gave him another of her winning smiles and turned to Ada. ‘Eleven o’clock, time I went home. You coming, Ada?’
Ada exchanged a glance with Steve who in turn exchanged a glance with Gene.
‘We thought we’d go on to the Roosevelt for supper,’ Gene said. ‘Will you join us, Caroline?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so. Thanks anyway.’ Caroline’s refusal was automatic. She’d had a wonderful, carefree evening, but if she were to accept the American’s offer she would be obliged to chat to him, to get to know him, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to do that. He was certainly handsome, just like the Americans in the pictures, tall and tanned with white teeth. She’d supposed all Americans were like that until the Yanks had arrived in Sydney. He was very courteous too, and his voice was pleasant; he was not brash and his accent was not harsh like some of the others. Perhaps he was a little too courteous, she thought, she wasn’t used to such good manners. ‘Wanna come to the pictures Saturday arvo, Caroline?’ That was the customary invitation. No, the Yank was too smooth for Caroline.
‘Goodnight, Gene,’ she said.
‘Let’s go to the powder room before we leave.’ Ada had taken her arm and was firmly leading her away. ‘Won’t be a tick,’ she called back to the men.
As they crammed themselves into a corner of the crowded powder room, Ada rummaged in her purse for her lipstick. ‘You have to come with us, Caroline,’ she begged, ‘I won’t be able to go if you don’t.’ She had to raise her voice above the surrounding babble of female voices.
‘Why?’
‘Because Brian’s home on leave and he got really snaky when Mum told him I’d been out with a Yank.’
Brian was the oldest of Ada’s three brothers. The younger two had volunteered and were serving overseas but Brian, considering himself the responsible male member of the Bird family, their father being prone to the bottle and gambling, served with the Home Defence in Brisbane and came down to Sydney on leave whenever he could. ‘With the Yanks in town now, a bloke’s got to look after his sisters,’ he told his mother.
‘He doesn’t even like me going out dancing with the girls,’ Ada said, ‘he reckons Bev and Enid are common.’
‘You keep away from girls like that, Ada, they’re loose,’ Brian had told her. ‘Floosies they are.’
‘They are not!’ She’d been outraged at such an accusation, she’d been to school with Bev, she knew her well, and both Bev and Enid had respectable jobs. ‘They’re good girls and they work for the war effort,’ she’d protested angrily, ‘Bev’s at the services canteen above Woolies and Enid’s at the munitions and you’ve got no right to talk about them like that. They’re not loose, and they’re not floosies!’
‘Well, they look it,’ he’d muttered defensively, taken aback by her explosion and aware that he’d overstepped the mark. ‘You should be going out with Caroline, she’s a cut above those other mates of yours.’ Brian Bird had always fancied Caroline O’Shea. Caroline O’Shea had class.
‘If I tell him I went to the Roosevelt with you,’ Ada said to the mirror, expertly applying her lipstick whilst she talked, ‘it’ll be OK. He won’t even mind if we’re out with a couple of Yanks, ’cos he reckons you’re real classy.’
The American jargon was contagious, Caroline thought as she combed her hair, Ada was acquiring more and more of it lately. Then a thought occurred to her.
‘When did Brian get back?’
‘Last weekend.’
‘So that’s why you made me promise to come out with you tonight.’
‘I’ve been nagging you to come out with me for weeks,’ Ada said airily, ‘you know I have.’ She put her lipstick away and fluffed up her fair, curly hair with her fingers.
‘And you knew you were meeting Steve, and you knew he’d have a friend, and you knew they’d ask us on to the Roosevelt.’
‘Well, last Friday Steve sort of mentioned …’
‘You knew. And you didn’t tell me.’
Ada stopped avoiding the issue. She nodded. Then she pleaded unashamedly. ‘Just for an hour, Caroline. Please! The Roosevelt’s great, real classy, you’ll love it.’
‘All right, all right,’ Caroline gave up, ‘just for an hour. So long as you stop talking like a Yank.’
Ada squealed and hugged her, and as they walked out of the powder room Caroline asked, ‘Is Steve the one who gave you the orchids?’ She’d been longing to know.
‘Oh good heavens no. He started wanting to go too far so I told him to get lost. Sorry,’ she said, aware she’d just used another American expression.
Outside the powder room, Ada put her hand on her friend’s arm and leant her mouth close to Caroline’s ear. She had to talk loudly above the din, and she didn’t want others to hear her advice. ‘That’s the trick, Caroline, you don’t get too serious. They’ve got lots of money and they like to have a good time and they like to give you presents so you let them, but when they want to go too far you tell them you’re a nice girl and you don’t do that, and then they move on to the next one. It’s easy.’
Caroline threw back her head and gave one of her amazing silent laughs, which Ada found so stylish. It was a sort of throaty gurgle then an intake of breath. Ada had practised it often in front of the bathroom mirror, but she’d never been able to master it, so she’d given up and accepted the fact that she was a squealer and a giggler. Oh well, men seemed to like her that way, so she supposed it didn’t matter.
‘It’s true, Caroline,’ she said, encouraged by her friend’s obvious delight. ‘Bev and Enid have taught me all the tricks, they told me about selling the orchids, everybody’s doing it. The Yanks’ll give you perfume and nylons and cigarettes and liquor, you can keep them or sell them, but it all adds up.’
As they linked arms and pushed their way through the crowd, Ada thought it was astonishing that someone as classy as Caroline could be so naive, and Caroline thought it was astonishing that someone as worldly as Ada had maintained her innocence.
Caroline and Ada didn’t speak intimately any more, they hadn’t for a long time, Caroline had not encouraged it. When she and Ian had become engaged, shortly before he’d left for Europe, the girlish, giggling secrets she and Ada had shared had become meaningless. Caroline had known a man and he had known her, and to talk of their love was sacrilege. She had been aware that she’d changed, and she had known that Ada sensed it. But to her credit, Ada had never asked, and Caroline never told her. That had been nearly two years ago now, and Caroline had assumed that Ada, with her flirtatiousness and vivacity and sophisticated chatter, had succumbed to one of the men whose attentions she’d welcomed. Ada was always popular with men.
As they joined the Americans, Caroline looked fondly at her friend. ‘Only for an hour,’ Ada was saying, her dimples spontaneously working overtime, ‘but we’d love to come, would
n’t we, Caroline?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we’d love to.’
An ugly scene was taking place as they stepped out into the street.
‘What are you letting niggers in for? What kinda joint is this?’
Two American Negro servicemen, in private’s uniform, had been about to enter the Trocadero. The doorman, who had been only too willing to admit them, was being harassed by three white American soldiers.
‘Do your job, buddy,’ the ringleader insisted, ‘tell the niggers to buzz off.’ He was a big man, bull-like and pugnacious. He turned to the black American nearest him. ‘Go on, boy,’ he ordered, ‘there’s a club in Kings Cross for blacks, this is whites only.’
‘No it’s not, mate.’ Unintimidated, Clive Carter stood his ground, it was why they paidhim to work the door. He, too, was a big man, and just as bull-like and pugnacious. An ex-professional boxer, Clive was afraid of no-one. ‘Come on in, lads.’ He gave a beckoning wave to the two black Americans who stood bewildered, obviously confused as to the rules.
The big white American swaggered up to Clive. ‘You let the niggers in, me and my pals just might wreck your dance hall.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Clive folded his massive arms over his chest. ‘You won’t get inside, mate. I don’t like your sort of bloke. You step one foot in this door and I’ll chuck you out on your head.’
The other two men stepped up beside theircompanion. ‘Let’s teach the nigger-lover a lesson, Marvin,’ one of them threatened.
‘You wanna teach me a lesson yourself, Marvin?’ Clive asked, ignoring the other two. ‘Or do you need your pals to lend a hand?’
Marvin signalled his friends to stand back, and the two big men squared up to each other.
Gene and Steve edged the girls well clear of the mob which was gathering to watch, some merely interested in the outcome, others taking sides. The Aussies started booing the Americans. ‘Go home Yank,’ they chanted. Sick of the Yanks flashing their money about, they decided that this was as good an excuse as any to pick a fight.
Goaded by the heckling, the Yanks responded. As Marvin’s jaw collected a perfect uppercut from Clive’s right fist, the argument was no longer about colour prejudice. The boys inuniform were just itching for a fight.
Elroy Brown and Jimmy J. Smith, who were resigned to segregation laws in their home country and who had had no intention of starting trouble, headed for the Booker T Club in the Cross. The Booker T had been established for the exclusive entertainment of Negro American troops. It was safer at the Booker T, they decided.
Caroline, Ada, Steve and Gene also headed for Kings Cross. Whilst Steve hurried the girls away from the Trocadero, Gene dived out into the street and hailed a taxicab. ‘The Roosevelt,’ he said, and they all piled in.
‘Rightio, the Roosevelt it is.’
The taxicab crawled off at a snail’s pace. In the enforced semi-blackout conditions, all motorists drove slowly at night. Headlights were shielded, every second streetlight turned off, and the roads were dim and gloomy. But the cabbie was driving far more slowly than usual as he peered into his side view mirror to watch the fight. It was no contest, he could see that in an instant. Big Clive Carter had a bloke pinned to the ground and was belting the hell out of him. Now who the heck’d have the nerve to take on Clive, the cabbie wondered. Then he saw that the bloke was a Yank. Poor bugger, someone should have told him. Clive ‘Killer’ Carter had never lost a fight in his heyday.
‘There’s going to be a real barney,’ Ada said, twisting around to peer through the back window. Caroline said nothing, but the ugliness of the episode had shaken her a little and, seated beside her, Gene sensed it.
‘We’re not all like that,’ he said quietly, ‘they’re from the South those guys, they’ve got strong feelings about blacks in the South.’
Caroline appreciated his concern, but she changed the subject nevertheless. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Maine. A little town called Casco, by Sabbathday Lake. Peaceful,’ he shrugged, ‘pretty, but nothing much happens.’
He smiled and she noticed that the perfect white teeth in his handsome tanned face were slightly crooked. She rather liked that.
Kings Cross was the centre of Sydney’s nightlife. Along the breadth of Darlinghurst Road flashed the gaudy lights of girlie bars and strip joints, and in Macleay Street, for the more wealthy and selective, the hotels boasted cabarets starring international celebrities. During the day, the fashionable open-air cafes of Bayswater Road were home to the bohemian society of writers and painters and poets, many of whom lived in the Cross.
The taxicab pulled up in Orwell Street outside the Roosevelt Hotel. Of all the nightclubs in Kings Cross, and there were many, the Roosevelt was the most fashionable and the most popular.
Steve and Gene protectively guided the girls through the crowds at the doors. Once inside, they led them around the periphery of the packed dance floor, amongst the potted palms and the waiters with silver trays, to the stairs which led to the upper-level balconies. They’d never get a table, surely, Caroline thought, and she wanted to say as much, but she would have had to yell to be heard above the noise of the swing band and the excited chatter of the crowd, so she obediently followed as Gene and Steve led them up the stairs.
To her astonishment, a waiter greeted them effusively and, in an instant, ushered them to a table right at the front overlooking the dance floor. How amazing, she thought. Then Steve handed the man a five-pound note. Quite openly, nothing furtive about it. Five quid! Caroline was shocked. A whole week’s wages! For her, anyway, and over half a week’s wages for the average man. Then she noticed that nearly all of the tables on the upper level were taken by American servicemen. There were several men in ‘civvies’ but not one Aussie uniform was present at the upstairs supper tables.
She leant over the railing and peered down at the dance floor, sensing the antagonism in the Aussie servicemen dancing and milling about below, and she couldn’t help feeling guilty, sitting up there with the Yanks.
Ada drank Coca-Cola, she’d discovered a passion for Coke, it was addictive she said, particularly with a dash of bourbon. And Caroline, who’d never tasted bourbon and Coke, had to agree.
Steve offered his packet of Lucky Strikes to Ada and, to Caroline’s amazement, she accepted one. She posed elegantly as he leaned close to light it for her and then, to Caroline’s further amazement, inhaled like an expert. Since when had Ada smoked?
‘No thank you.’ Gene was offering her his packet of Camels, and it appeared, a little suspiciously to Caroline, as if a cigarette was something shared between ‘couples’. ‘I don’t smoke.’ She smiled apologetically as she said it, not wanting to seem rude.
‘But you have to try,’ Ada brightly insisted, ‘it’s the fashionable thing to do. Besides,’ she added, hoping the men hadn’t noticed her kick Caroline none too gently under the table, ‘you’ll enjoy it, it’s very relaxing.’
Caroline gathered there was a hidden agenda which Ada would later explain and accepted a Camel, careful not to inhale as Gene lit it for her. She puffed tentatively, hating the taste, ‘thank you,’ she said.
The supper was excellent. The girls had salmon, the men steaks and each of them followed up with the Roosevelt speciality, a rich dessert made with full cream. The chef obviously had an ‘in’ with the black market, Caroline thought. The government was already announcing the imminent issue of ration books.
It was late when the men escorted them home, for Caroline anyway, after two o’clock in the morning, and she hoped her grandmother was not worried.
‘We can walk from here,’ she insisted outside the Roosevelt as Gene raised his arm to hail a taxicab. By now Caroline feltthoroughly guilty about the money they’d spent. ‘We only live in the Loo.’
Gene and Steve exchanged a glance of amusement. They’d heard the Pommie soldiers refer to lavatories as loos, and they’d found it difficult to come to terms with the fact that the dockland suburb where their ships were
berthed was known as ‘the Loo’. No pun appeared intentional from the Sydneysiders however, so they didn’t openly mock the name.
‘OK, let’s walk,’ Gene agreed.
The four of them parted company at the corner of Bourke and Plunkett Streets, Steve walking Ada home and Gene accompanying Caroline.
Outside Kathleen’s house, Caroline shook his hand. ‘Thank you very much,’ she said as formally as she could, praying that he wouldn’t try to kiss her. ‘It’s been a lovely evening.’ Americans might be gentlemen as Ada professed them to be, but they were still men when all was said and done, and Caroline had fought off the unwelcome attentions of many a suitor in the past.
‘It sure has, Caroline.’ His returning handshake was warm and unthreatening. ‘May I call on you? Tomorrow maybe? We could go out and dine.’
‘Oh.’ She wasn’t sure what to say. She’d felt self-conscious walking back from the Cross with a Yank, but Ada’s lack of inhibition had made it seem acceptable. She didn’t want to go out with Gene on her own. She wished Ada was with them now.
He sensed her reluctance, and felt he knew why. ‘Perhaps we could repeat tonight,’ he said. ‘We could go to the Trocadero with Ada and Steve.’ His suggestion sounded casual, but Gene was desperate. Don’t let her say no, he was inwardly praying. Please don’t let her say no.
‘Two nights in a row’d be a bit much for me,’ she said, and she meant it, three Coca-Colas laced with bourbon had gone to her head, she wasn’t used to hard liquor. She wasn’t even used to Coca-Cola.
‘Next Friday then?’ Please, he was begging, please.
‘All right,’ she said after a moment’s hesitation. Then she smiled, not wishing to appear ungracious. ‘I’d love that. Like I said, you’re a beaut dancer.’
Gene laughed out loud. She delighted him. She looked like a film star and yet she was guileless. Most beautiful women played games, he’d found, he’d never met anyone quite like Caroline O’Shea.
‘I’ll come by and pick you up in a cab. Say, seven o’clock, or eight maybe?’
‘No. No, I’ll meet you outside the Troc.’ She had that wary look in her eyes again, he noticed. ‘Do you mind?’ she asked.