Blue Smoke (32 page)

‘
Voilà
!’ he said, and handed the rescued shoe to Kathleen with a flourish.

‘Oh, thank you so much. I really don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.’

Bonnie rolled her eyes. She had never seen her cousin behaving in such a soppy manner; it must be the Pimm’s she could smell rather strongly on her breath. ‘Hopped around for the rest of the day, I expect,’ she said tartly. ‘Thanks very much for your help, Flight Lieutenant. We’ll be off now.’

The airman, who had been staring at Kathleen, looked a little disconcerted. ‘Hang on a minute. I mean … well, is there anywhere I can escort you? Oh, I do beg your pardon, I’m Flight Lieutenant Jonathan Lawson, from Suffolk, England. I’m here on the Empire Air Training Scheme. But now I’m probably out of a job.’

‘Never mind,’ Kathleen replied gaily. ‘Something’s bound to come up.’

Jonathan Lawson looked as if he might want to say something rather risqué, but checked himself just in time. Bonnie suspected he was as tiddly as Kathleen, but somewhat more successful at hiding it.

The inebriated Kiwi soldier reappeared, and draped himself all over her.

‘Found ya, darling! Thought you’d sneak away from me, didn’t ya!’ he slurred, puckering his lips in what he clearly believed was an irresistible fashion.

‘Oh, get off!’ Bonnie exclaimed, and gave him a good hard push
that sent him staggering backwards.

‘Playing hard to get, eh?’ he said as he rebounded off someone in the crowd and lurched back again.

Jonathan jammed his cap back on his head and stepped gallantly forward. ‘I say, excuse me, I don’t think this young lady appreciates your attentions at all.’

The drunk looked him up and down and sneered, ‘What would you know, ya big Pommy poof!’

‘That’s enough, pal. You’re obviously not wanted so sling your hook.’

‘Piss off yourself, ya whingeing Limey flyboy!’

‘Oh, fuck off!’

‘Fuck off yourself, arsehole!’

Bonnie stood up. ‘Hey!
Hey
! Stop it, the pair of you. This is supposed to be a celebration, not the start of a new war.’ She hooked her arm through Jonathan’s, and dragged him off, collecting Kathleen on the way.

They marched down the centre of the street, turned into Willeston then right again into Victoria Street and through the doors of the nearest pub. Fighting their way through to the lounge bar, Bonnie shoved a pound note in Jonathan’s hand.

‘A Pimm’s, a gin and tonic, and whatever you’re having, thanks. We’ll be sitting over there.’ She pointed to a table that still had three empty seats, and Jonathan nodded and headed for the bar.

Bonnie steered Kathleen across the room and sat her down.

‘How much have you had to drink?’

Kathleen shrugged. ‘I dunno. Why?’

‘You’re acting rather strangely.’

‘Am I? Oh. He’s nice isn’t he, that Jonathan?’

‘If you like that sort of thing.’

‘Don’t you? Oooh, I do. It’s that lovely English accent.’

‘Yes, well, you be careful, all right?’

Jonathan came back, the tip of his tongue poking out as he carried the three drinks with exaggerated care.

‘Nice daffodil,’ he said, nodding at the yellow flower tucked into the lapel of Bonnie’s WAAF tunic.

‘Thank you. We pinched them from Bolton Street cemetery on the way in.’

‘Jolly nice,’ Jonathan said, then turned immediately to Kathleen. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name.’

‘Kathleen Murdoch. Very pleased to meet you.’ She held out her hand.

Jonathan shook it with inordinate reverence, then asked Bonnie, ‘And you are …?’

‘Bonnie Morgan. We’re cousins.’

‘You’re a WAAF, I take it?’

‘Mmm.’ Bonnie took a sip of her gin and tonic and grimaced. It was rather strong — the barman must be feeling generous.

‘Awful weather you have here in Wellington,’ Jonathan noted cheerfully as he swept his wet hair back off his face.

‘Can be a little windy,’ Bonnie agreed.

‘And what do you do, Kathleen?’

‘Me? Oh, I make uniforms. I was manpowered into it.’

‘Sorry? Oh, quite. We have that in England, too.’

There was a short lull in the conversation then, which they all tried to fill by speaking at once.

‘Sorry,’ Jonathan said again. ‘I was just saying that my lot’s having a bit of a do at the base tonight, in honour of the surrender and all that, and I was wondering if you girls would like to come along?’ But he was looking at Kathleen when he said it.

Bonnie said, ‘You’re not at Rongotai, are you? I’ve not seen you there.’

‘No, Anderson Park, and only for the last couple of months.’

‘I’d love to come,’ Kathleen said. ‘Um, how old are you, Jonathan?’

‘Don’t be so rude,’ Bonnie admonished.

‘Twenty-three.’

‘Oh dear,’ Kathleen said, her pretty but pink face crumpling. ‘That makes me an older woman. I’m twenty-five.’

‘You don’t look it,’ Jonathan replied chivalrously, ‘and I don’t care. Shall I pick you up?’

‘Yes please,’ Kathleen replied, and gave him the address of her lodging house.

‘Kathleen, you don’t even know him!’

‘I do, we’ve both known him for at least half an hour.’

Bonnie leaned in to Jonathan and said quietly, ‘I’ll be around to see her first thing tomorrow morning, you know, and if you’ve treated her in anything less than a thoroughly gentlemanly manner, I’ll have you. Is that clear?’

‘Perfectly,’ Jonathan replied, smiling sweetly. ‘I take it that means you won’t be joining us?’

‘Unfortunately, no, thank you.’ Bonnie held up her left hand. ‘I’m engaged to someone who is, as we speak, probably still island hopping.’

‘A Yank?’

‘No, an American. Look after her, please. I mean it.’

Bonnie sighed. First Leila, and now Kathleen. She felt like somebody’s mother.

1946–1947

Kenmore

T
o Erin and Joseph’s great disappointment, it seemed that Robert wasn’t going to be coming home for some time. Because he’d joined the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force quite late in the war, after a lengthy stand-down in Italy, he was sent to Japan as part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in February of 1946. The first letter Erin and Joseph received from him after he arrived in Japan was full of moans and groans about terrible billets, bad weather, bloody awful food and chronic boredom, but the second contained the news that he thought he’d be coming home in July, after replacements arrived from New Zealand. So he’d see them then, and would his mother rather have a silk kimono or a genuine Japanese tea set? Erin wrote back and said she didn’t really mind, as long as he came home in one piece.

By September of 1945, almost all the New Zealanders serving in the RAF had been demobilised, including Duncan and Liam.

Liam arrived back in New Zealand two months later, in the company of two mates he’d flown with in England. They’d hitched a lift home in a series of noisy, uncomfortable RNZAF transports, and had landed at Rongotai early one November morning. He knew
Bonnie had been demobbed by then so didn’t bother looking for her. He said goodbye for now to his friends, telephoned Kenmore to say he was on his way home and went straight to the railway station. By lunchtime the next day, he found himself stepping onto the railway platform in Napier with his kit bag over his shoulder and not much else to his name. Tamar, Keely, James and Joseph were there to meet him, although everyone else had stayed at home because it would have meant bringing in two vehicles, and petrol rationing was still on.

Liam went straight up to Tamar and wrapped his arms around her. ‘Oh, Gran, I was so sorry to hear about Kepa. I really was. And I’m sorry I wasn’t here.’

Tamar hugged him tightly, blinking back hot tears. ‘I know you would have come if you could, dear. It’s all right, I’m all right now.’

He nodded and stepped back, and she gave him a watery smile and squeezed his hand.

There was plenty of backslapping from the men, and hugs from Keely, but no one said anything about Evie, including Liam himself.

By the time they arrived back at Kenmore, Tamar had worked herself into yet another state over how to tell him. Seeing him in the flesh made it even more difficult. Finally, after he’d had a cup of tea and something to eat and stowed his kit in his old bedroom, she asked him to come down to the study. He joined her a few minutes later, flopping into one of the armchairs beside the empty fireplace.

‘It’s great to be back,’ he said cheerfully, ‘although I have to admit I’m knackered. It was a long trip home with no end of stops and mucking about.’

Tamar seated herself opposite him, perched her spectacles on the end of her nose and sat back to allow herself a good, careful look at him. He was still the same Liam he’d always been, a little taller perhaps, but there was no denying he wasn’t a boy any more.
The golden curls were still there, and the merry blue eyes, but there was something wary in them now, something suggesting he’d seen things over the last few years he thought he’d never have to contemplate.

‘You look well,’ she said. ‘Tired, but well.’

He nodded. ‘You look well too, Gran. Your hair’s gone completely grey. It suits you.’

‘Yes, well, you can blame Henry for that.’

Liam lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply then let out a thin stream of blue smoke as he talked. ‘My God, he’s grown up, he was only a nipper when I left!’

‘Yes, he has, hasn’t he?’ Tamar looked down at her hands for a moment. ‘Liam, there really is no easy way for me to say this, and I’m so very sorry, but …’

Liam raised a hand. ‘Gran, if it’s about Evie, don’t worry, I already know. I’ve known for ages.’

‘About …?’

‘Yes, all of it. I know she had a baby. She gave it up for adoption, apparently. A mate from Ohakea, one of the ground crew, wrote and told me she was, well, she wasn’t exactly pining for me.’

‘Oh, Liam, I’m so sorry.’

‘I was too, for a while. And angry. I really loved her, Gran. Or at least I thought I did. Any way, I had a yarn to the CO about it, asked for leave to come home for a couple of weeks to sort it out. And do you know, he said something that really sort of put it all into perspective.’

Tamar raised her eyebrows. ‘And what was that?’

‘He said yes, I could have the leave, if I was one hundred per cent sure it was what I really wanted, but to think about it for a day or two first. So I went away and I did think about it. And I watched the chaps in my squadron busting a gut to get up there day after day — we were flying ourselves ragged at the time, bombing
all over the place — and I watched the Luftwaffe coming over in formations so massive you couldn’t see the sky through them, and one morning I decided I’d rather just stay with the squadron. Because if Evie was worth running home for, I shouldn’t
have
to run home, should I? So I wrote her a letter instead, and said outright that I knew what was going on, and what was she going to do about it? And she wrote back and said she wasn’t going to do anything about it, not while I was over there and she was stuck here bored and lonely in New Zealand, any way.’

‘At least she was honest,’ Tamar said somewhat caustically.

‘I suppose. So I thought about that for a while, too. She knew I was on the eve of going off when we married, she knew that perfectly well, so perhaps she never intended to be, well, faithful to me. And now that I look back, she wasn’t really that sort of girl at all, was she, the type to wait quietly at home?’

Tamar refrained from stating exactly what sort of girl she thought Evie was. ‘What do you think you might do about it, now that you’re back?’

‘I’ve already done it, ages ago. I wrote and said I thought the best thing to do would be to divorce, then I filed for one on the grounds of adultery. And she was pregnant by then, so she couldn’t really refute it. So I’m now single and fancy-free again.’

‘Did she ask for money?’

Liam ground his cigarette out in an ashtray. ‘She didn’t actually. And I must admit that, by then, I had expected she might. But I don’t think she was a bad girl, Gran, just an irresponsible one. I think she genuinely cared for me, but when I wasn’t there any more, she needed to find someone else. Or a series of someone elses, which I gather was actually the case.’

Poor Liam, Tamar thought. But she didn’t for one moment consider telling him she’d told him so. ‘And have you, well, have you come to terms with it all now?’

‘Oh, yes, although I still feel a bit …’ he trailed off, as if not sure whether to burden his grandmother with even more of his woes.

‘A bit hurt?’

Liam nodded. ‘It was my own fault, but it still wasn’t very nice.’

Tamar imagined that it must have been devastating. ‘Put it behind you, dear. Some lovely girl will come along soon, I’m sure of it. Don’t let your experience with Evie put you off.’

‘I’ll try not to, but I must say finding a new wife isn’t exactly at the top of my list at the moment. I think I’d just like to concentrate on getting back to normal first. It’s going to feel very strange for a while, I think, not flying every day, not trying to kill people.’

Drew had arrived home halfway through December, also via the RNZAF — preferential treatment because of his status as an ex-POW and because the journey by sea might have been detrimental to his health.

After four weeks in the military hospital in Calcutta, he and the other British survivors of Rangoon had been flown back to England for further rest and medical treatment. He’d put on weight and his malaria was more or less under control now — or least treatable when he was suffering a bout — but the terrible headaches were still going on. He’d had five or six in the hospital in England, and after the first three the doctor in charge of his case had sent a shrink to see him. Drew had asked why the hell he needed to see a shrink when he was having physical pain, and the doctor, a major from the Royal Army Medical Corps, had muttered something about the headaches perhaps being psychological. They weren’t, and Drew bloody well knew they weren’t, but he’d agreed to see a shrink any way.

The psychiatrist diagnosed severe stress from the prolonged incarceration in Rangoon Jail, compounded by very poor physical
health, and declared that Drew was in fact in a state of some mental disorder. But he also said he doubted that any of that was causing the headaches, although of course who could really know? In the psychiatrist’s opinion it was more likely to have been the head injuries, which backed up what McCaffrey had said in the camp. Sometimes such injuries caused lasting damage to the brain; he was sorry but in his experience all that could be done was treatment of the symptoms, rather than the cause, and that would probably require very strong painkillers. He was no neuropathologist, of course, and could refer Drew if that was what he wanted, but it could be a very long and involved investigatory process in England. Drew said he would rather go into all that when he got back to New Zealand.

He had said nothing to the psychiatrist about the other matter that was causing him to lie awake at night, and making him want to burst into tears at the oddest and most inopportune moments during the day. He never did cry, of course, because it would have been terribly unmanly, especially given that he’d been out of the camps for some months and should be getting over it by now. But, oh God, he really did feel like crying, and he was terrified that if he started he might not be able to stop.

Tim had gone, two weeks before. He had simply risen very early one morning, made his bed neatly, then walked out of the hospital and disappeared. He’d left a note, though, in the top drawer of Drew’s bedside locker. It had said:

Drew’s first reaction had been to run down the driveway of the hospital and look for Tim, but Tim was a very resourceful and capable man, and Drew knew he would be long gone by now. He also knew that Tim always meant what he said.

In a way he was grateful, because now he would not have to make any sort of decision about their friendship, and everything that went with it, but in another way he was devastated. He had come to rely on Tim so much for companionship and comfort and support that he felt quite lost without him.

But none of this was the sort of thing he could discuss with anyone else — not the psychiatrist, even though he’d seemed like a sympathetic sort of bloke, and certainly not the major who was overseeing his medical treatment. He was a reasonable doctor, but Drew suspected that the second he mentioned anything even remotely concerning homosexuality — especially after the business with the headaches, which Drew knew the major already thought were effeminate — he would be shuffled off to a solitary room so he couldn’t ‘contaminate’ any of the other patients, or even wired up to a machine designed to fry any such tendencies out of his head forever. So he’d kept it to himself.

His homecoming had been everything he’d imagined it would be during his three long years in Rangoon. They’d all been there at the Napier railway station to meet him when he’d arrived on
19 December, just in time for his first Christmas in New Zealand since 1940. Even Tamar had made the trip in, which touched Drew deeply, as he knew from his parents’ letters — although not her own, of course — that she was not keeping very good health these days.

He was quite shocked when he saw how old she was finally beginning to look, although not as shocked, he suspected, as she and the rest of his family were to see the state he was in. He knew he was still markedly underweight, that his skin was still yellow from the last malaria attack he’d had just before leaving England, and of course his hair had thinned noticeably from the malnutrition and he’d lost several of his back teeth. He was grateful, as they stood silently, gazing at him with a horror they could not hide, that they couldn’t see the deep, disfiguring scars on his legs and feet from the tropical ulcers which had now healed, but would leave their mark forever.

But his family seemed at a loss only for moments; his mother was the first to rally, enveloping him in a huge, fragrant hug that almost knocked him off his feet. His father was next, and Drew was considerably disconcerted himself to see he was weeping openly.

After a bout of vigorous nose blowing into his handkerchief, James finally managed to say, ‘Welcome home, son. It means the world to us to have you back.’

And it did. Having waited for months and then years for word of their son, James and Lucy had both been guilty of wondering from time to time whether or not he was still actually alive. James, as a veteran himself, was especially aware of the ease with which men on active service could and did vanish seemingly into thin air. In his time it had been into the greedy, grey mud of French fields, but now he supposed it could have been anywhere in the Indian Ocean, or in the hot, seething jungles of Indonesia. Neither the
Royal Navy nor the Red Cross had been able to tell them how he was, only where they assumed he had been incarcerated. But they had been able to confirm that when POWs died, the Japanese did occasionally pass this information on, and as they had received no such notification regarding Able Seaman Andrew Murdoch, it could only be assumed that he was still alive. Somewhere.

And so they had continued hoping, and praying, and Lucy had refused to let his bedroom be disturbed, not even for visitors. And it seemed to have paid off, because here he was, taller than he had been when he’d left home at the age of nineteen, certainly very much thinner and older-looking, but here all the same.