But she could trust him, couldn’t she? Just like Lucy could trust Rob. It was too bad that her brother had to leave them, but on the other hand it was nice to have him back for a while. And he’d always loved horses, so this was perfect for him.
She wondered if he’d have time to attend the charity show. She’d be dazzling in the limelight, with thousands of sparks being reflected in the sequins of her dress, and the glittery eyeshadow that would make her look like a movie star.
She’d come up with something to let Uncle Sal show everyone that he was still Salvatore the Magnificent, and who knew, there might be a photograph of them in The Advertiser, and a paragraph about how he and Miss Francesca had stolen the show …
The whole next day she still felt as if she was floating on air. Her happiness wasn’t hurt by the fact that she saw several young men follow her with appreciative glances as she walked to work.
She used her lunch break for one of her favourite tasks, drawing up a list of pleasurable things to do. She wrote down Clara in nice big letters. Her workmate deserved a treat; whenever she'd asked Frances about her life, she'd done so without any rancour or reservations, happy enough to get a glimpse of a life beyond her own straitened circumstances. Poor Clara, she'd never be pretty with her thin, frizzy hair and pasty skin, but Frances jolly well intended to try.
She tapped at her lips with the end of the pencil. Pauline was a wiz when it came to beauty, and she'd be delighted to help. But what about a dress? Frances ran through her own restricted wardrobe in her mind, but where she tended to be curvier than the current fashion, Clara was boyish to the extreme.
She wrote down, hair and face, Pauline, dress?
What next? Of course, the variety show tickets for the O'Leary sisters who sold used clothes in their cramped shop around the corner. They were old friends, two spinsters whose kind hearts sometimes overruled their sharp minds.
Frances chuckled to herself. All she had to do was to hand them the invitations and mention Clara’s plight. They’d be sure to let her borrow a dress. Their names went next on the list. Now all she needed to sort out was Uncle Sal’s predicament.
The first lightbulb flashed. Frances pushed the list aside and returned to her duties.
When she left the telephone exchange, she found Jack waiting for her at the back door. The warm feeling inside her stomach that always appeared when she saw him spread until it reached her toes. It was an odd sensation that hadn’t lessened in the six months she had known him. She wondered if he felt the same, or if it was a girlish thing.
‘Hi kiddo,’ he said, giving her a crooked smile.
‘What a lovely surprise,’ she said, feeling her lips curl up at their own accord.
‘I’m not needed for a few hours, so I thought we’d make the most of it before I’m off. Bluey’s holding the fort for me, giving Uncle Sal the grand tour.’
He took her arm. ‘Shall I take you home, or shall we watch the latest show at the Empire? We’ve missed the first part of the double-bill, but I seem to remember that you wanted to see the main picture.’
‘Yes, please,’ she said. ‘That is, I’d like to phone up Mum first and ask her if she knows if Rob’ll be around tonight.’
‘Sure, although I doubt if he’ll have an evening off soon,’ he said, leading her to the telephone kiosk on King William Street. ‘The racing business doesn’t conform to normal office hours.’
It still gave her a thrill to dial her own phone number. At first, she’d worried about the expense of such a luxury as a telephone, but now she couldn’t imagine life without it. Apart from being indispensable to their police officer lodger, Dolores’ beau Phil, it also afforded her the freedom to stay out whenever she, or rather Jack, felt like it, without having Mum worry herself to a frazzle about where she was.
‘Mum?’ she asked. ‘Have you heard from Rob yet?’
‘No,’ said Mum. ‘He’ll be way too busy.’
‘Right-ho. I just wanted to say I’ll be to the pictures with Jack. I’ll be home for dinner.’
‘Fine. Have fun, love.’
The girl in the ticket kiosk treated Frances to a conspiratorial wink as she handed her the tickets while Jack went to the rest room. ‘I haven’t seen you two love-birds in a while,’ she said. ‘Enjoy the show. It’s ever so lovely.’
Frances smiled at her. ‘We will. Thanks.’ Funny how she no longer blushed, when someone talked about her private life. But they’d been here so often the girl was almost an old acquaintance, and anyway there had been no-one else close by.
The picture was every bit as hilarious as Frances had hoped. ‘Palmy Days’ had been announced as one of the biggest hits of the year, with Eddie Cantor playing the patsy for a fortune-teller who planned to make off with the payroll money from a bakery.
The best part though was the dancing, with a line–up of the famous Goldwyn girls tapping and whirling their way from bakery to gymnasium in breath-taking speed. Their dresses alone beguiled Frances. She risked a sideways glance at Jack to see how he felt about all the female beauty showing off perfect legs and more cleavage than she could offer. Instead, she found him looking at her. She snuggled back against his shoulder until the curtain came down.
‘Thank you, Jack,’ she said as they left the Empire. ‘Did you enjoy it as much as I did?’
‘As long as it’s with you, I’d enjoy anything.’
She laughed. ‘Well, at least it should have given you some ideas for the variety show at the club, right?’
‘You mean I should hire the Goldwyn girls? Bit out of my league, I’m afraid, and the geography doesn’t work at all.’
She squeezed his arm. ‘Very funny, but you haven’t got a proper dance act lined up yet, do you?’
‘That’s true. What about you and Pauline? You’d make a lovely duo.’
‘Signorina Francesca is busy enough, thank you very much. Although Pauline is great on roller skates. We used to go down to the rink all the time.’
A thought formed in her head. ‘Jack?’
‘Yes?’
‘What if Uncle Sal sits on a bar stool, one that is fastened onto a small turn-table, so Uncle Sal can sit with his good leg on the ground, and someone on roller skates twirls him around when he throws the knives? That might give him the speed and the movement in his upper body he needs.’
He pulled her close and dropped a kiss on her hair. ‘That’s my girl. We’d have to ask him, but it sounds good to me. Come on, he should still be at the Top Note.’
‘Yes,’ Uncle Sal said, when she explained her idea to him in the smoke-filled back room where the props were stored.
He’d rehearsed without her today, and tiredness deepened the lines fanning out from his eyes like a spider web. But his evening clothes were as dapper as they could be, and his silver-shot black hair remained unruffled. He’d always come alive in the presence of a stage, Frances realised. They’d have to make the plan work, for his sake.
He stroked his chin. ‘The only thing is, who’ll push me around when I’m throwing my knives at you? You can’t do both, and Pauline, bless her heart, will have more than enough to do backstage, doing hair and make-up.’
They both looked at Jack. He raised his hands, palms outwards. ‘Don’t ask me,’ he said. ‘That is, unless…’
‘Yes?’
‘What about Marie? Bluey’s been feeling pretty bad about her having to stay at home with the kids and missing all the fun.’
‘That’s a bonzer idea. Shall we ask Bluey straight away?’ Jack’s right-hand man adored his headstrong wife, and so did everyone else.
‘Sure. He’ll take you two home now anyway. You can ask him then,’ Jack said. ‘And now I’ll have to leave you. I still have a few things to do.’
He blew her a kiss as he walked to the door. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘you do have Saturday off, don’t you?’
‘Yes. And Sunday.’
‘Sunday’s too late for me, because my ship departs in the wee hours, but how abou
t I take you and Uncle Sal to the races on Saturday? We won’t be able to see your brother, but at least you’ll get a feeling for his new work sphere.’
‘Good-oh,’ said Uncle Sal, rubbing his hands. ‘I’ve got a hunch I might have a light flutter if there’s a dappled grey running. They never lost me any money yet, dappled greys. But we better don’t tell Maggie. She disapproves of gambling.’
‘No worries, Uncle Sal. Haven’t you forgotten that she leaves on Saturday on the midday train?’
Uncle Sal’s eyes lit up. ‘Great. We’ll miss her, of course, but, well, there’s no denying even she does have her shortcomings, great gal that she is.’
Mum left in a flurry of last-minute instructions on who of the neighbours to look after, the number of casseroles and stews she’d prepared or had been promised by friends, and when to expect her phone call. Thanks to the fact that Rob had been able to spare her a couple of hours on Thursday morning while Frances was at work, Mum set off with a beaming smile.
She clutched her train ticket in a gloved hand while Frances searched for the reserved seat in the second-class coach. She’d insisted on leaving the packed sandwiches that her mother had intended for her dinner, at home.
‘Do you see that?’ Frances pointed to a carriage with red velvet curtains draping the windows. ‘It’s the dining car, and I’ve made a reservation for you for the 6.30 dinner.’
‘But that must be horrifically expensive,’ Mum said, her brows divided by a big crease.
‘It’s already paid for, and everything is included.’ Frances opened the door to Mum’s carriage and ushered her inside. Two of the four seats were already taken, by an elderly priest and a woman who looked similar enough to be his sister. She peered at Mum with short-sighted eyes, her hands smoothing her skirt.
‘Good day,’ said Mum as she sat down.
Frances stored the suitcase on the overhead rack and bent down to kiss Mum’s cheek. ‘Bye, darling mother, and don’t forget to enjoy yourself. This is your holiday, remember? And give my love to Uncle Fred and Aunt Milly.’
She dashed off after one last fond look at her mother. Half an hour to get home and get ready for the races! She hadn’t mentioned that trip to her mother at all, although her conscience gave her a brief prick.
Uncle Sal waited at the station exit. ‘Well, love,’ he said as they boarded the tram, ‘now it’s just the two of us. We’ll be fine, eh?’
‘Absolutely,’ she said, although it did feel funny to have a whole month ahead, without Mum fussing over them. Phil must have felt the same, because he’d offered to move out while Mum was away, to keep propriety. Silly, but sweet. As if anybody could get the wrong idea, with Uncle Sal around.
‘Should we ask Phil if he wants to come along too, with Dolores?’ she asked.
Uncle Sal snorted. ‘Better not. You don’t turn up at the racecourse with the police in tow, love. People get funny ideas, and you don’t want them to get the wrong impression about Rob, in case someone makes the connection?’
Her cheeks grew warm. ‘But he isn’t doing anything wrong.’
‘Of course not. But you know, some people get kind of nervous when there’s police around. Especially where money flows.’ The tram swerved, and Uncle Sal nearly lost his balance. His jaw clenched as he grabbed the leather strap dangling from the ceiling.
Sometimes he walked painlessly, with barely a limp, but today the air had the soggy feel of a sweaty towel, and that caused him problems.
‘What should I wear?’ she asked as they entered the house.
‘Something pretty but not fancy,’ he said. ‘It can be a mite dusty, and there’s bound to be a throng at the grand-stand.’
‘Right-ho,’ she said, as she rushed upstairs, taking two steps at once.
Jack rang at the door two minutes after she’d come down, freshly powdered and with a slick of lipstick on her mouth. Her yellow jumper and emerald skirt had seen better days, but the colours suited her.
Uncle Sal took off his hat like he always did as she entered the room. ‘Shall we, Signorina Francesca?’
She slid her arm through his. ‘With the greatest pleasure, gentlemen.’
The crowd and the noise at Morphettville were much bigger than she’d expected. Nattily dressed men rubbed shoulders with veterans in ill-fitting suits, urchins running errands, housewives on the search for a thrill and heavily made-up girls who tried to keep the attention of their male friends over the attractions of the bookies.
Jack nodded left and right as he secured them a way to the seats on the covered stand. ‘You two stay here,’ he said after they’d sat down. ‘I’ll get a racing programme and refreshments. Lemonade for you, kiddo, and beer for us, Uncle Sal?’
Uncle Sal chuckled as he watched Frances open astonishment. ‘This isn’t busy, love, just a nice turn-out. Nothing wrong with it, if you keep your head and don’t get carried away. Now my Dad, he always swore he’d inherited his horse-sense from his grandfather, an Italian grandee. Blow me if he didn’t fall for every three-legged mare that ever set its hooves on the turf. He reckoned if they did come in, they’d come in big.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Never ever believe that a horse will make your luck, and you’ll be fine. Especially if it’s a dappled grey you’re betting on.’
Frances leant forward, watching the line-up of horses who got ready for the next race. ‘I like the black one,’ she said, ‘with the gold and green colours.’
‘That’s good to hear,’ Jack said, reappearing with a rolled-up paper under his arm and two pitchers. Cups were in his pockets. ‘I’ve put a guinea on that mare.’ He put the pitchers down in front of them.
‘I didn’t expect you so soon,’ said Uncle Sal as he took the paper and opened it. ‘You must have run into lots of mates, eh?’
‘Some,’ Jack said. ‘Anyway, whoever wants to talk to me knows where to find me. Most people asked about our show and Dolores.’
Frances fanned her face. The sun bleached the sky almost white. A shot rang out, and the crowd roared as the horses streaked out of their starting gates. Her heart pounded in her ears as the black mare inched her way from second to last to runner-up position.
‘Come on,’ she yelled in unison with Uncle Sal, gripped by a feverish desire to see the horse win.
The mare stretched her neck longer, as if she’d heard Frances, throwing up a cloud of dust with every step.
The jockey in the lead began to whip the neck of his horse in a frantic rhythm.
The black mare strained so hard that white foam dripped from her mouth. Half a length separated her from the number one, a quarter length, now they were neck to neck …
‘Oh, yes,’ Frances said, her mouth dry with excitement. Less than a hand was between the leading horses as the mare made a final effort and crossed the finish.
Jack pressed a filled cup into her hand.
‘She deserved to win.’
‘She sure did, kiddo. That was a great race.’ He tapped the pocket with his ticket. ‘A win of six shillings for us. Who shall we put that money on?’
Two hours later, Jack and Frances had pocketed six pounds between them, and Uncle Sal’s fondness of greys had netted him a handsome tenner.
Frances sighed as they made their way to the exit. She’d have liked to stay longer, but Jack needed to get home. She shaded her eyes to get one last good look at the horses, as the winner of the last race, a nondescript brown horse, was led to the blacksmith because it had lost a shoe when it came off the track.
The blacksmith signalled a slight boy of about fourteen to hold the horse while he lifted the hoof.
‘Bloody hell!’ he said, his mouth gaping wide. He let go of the horse’s leg. ‘I know this gelding, and if he’s a novice racer, I’m the bloody queen of the fairies.’
‘Damn,’ Jack said, steering Frances and Uncle Sal towards the exit as fast as he could.
A throng of men surrounded the blacksmith, who backed against the wall of the stable building, squaring his shoulders.
‘What’s going on?’ said Frances as soon as they’d reached the car. She heard shouts from outside, although she couldn’t make out the words.
‘Trouble,’ said Jack. ‘A hell of a lot of trouble. But nothing to do with Rob, if that’s what you’re afraid of.’
Chapter Three
‘What would you like to do now?’ Jack asked as he turned the car in the direction of the city centre. ‘I’ve got a couple of urgent things to attend to, so if you don’t want to come along, I’ll drop you off at home. Otherwise Bluey will do that later.’
‘I’d love to come,’ Frances said, intent on spending as much time with Jack as she could before he left. ‘What about you, Uncle Sal?’
‘What kind of a silly question is that?’ he said, smoothing the pencil-thin moustache he’d grown for his stage comeback. ‘Don’t forget I’m your chaperon. Where you go, I go, especially when there’s music and champagne involved.’
Frances caught the exchange of a quick glance between Jack and Uncle Sal in the rear-view mirror. Something was out of kilter here. Or maybe it just felt like that, because of Jack’s leaving and Uncle Sal’s taking charge.
‘Don’t forget, my boy, tonight I’m paying,’ Uncle Sal said. He patted the pocket that held his winnings. ‘Do we know how to pick them, eh?’
‘Do you know if Phil’s going to be around tonight?’ Jack said after a moment’s pause. ‘I haven’t seen him in a while. It’d be nice to say good-bye.’
‘Phil? Oh, right. Yeah, I think he mentioned something. He’s been pretty busy lately.’
‘That’s true. Mum practically had to waylay him so she could introduce him to Rob, and even then, he was off again after a few minutes,’ Frances said. ‘But you could always ring him up.’ She turned her head to face Uncle Sal. ‘When does Mum’s train arrive in Melbourne? We’d better be home when she phones us.’
Murder at the Races Page 3