Fire (6 page)

Terry touched her hand. ‘Are you really all right? You don’t have to keep on working, you know, not if you’re not feeling well. I can give you a bit of money until we’re married.’

Daisy felt her eyes brim with tears at his thoughtfulness. ‘That’s a lovely thing to say, but it’s only another five weeks.’ She lowered her voice, not wanting three-quarters of Dunbar & Jones’s office staff and all of the tailors, dressmakers and milliners to hear. ‘And it’s only morning sickness, it’ll go away soon.’

‘Are you sure?’

Daisy nodded, though she wasn’t.

‘Miss Button isn’t giving you a rough time, is she?’

‘No, only when I make a mistake,’ Daisy replied. ‘But she does that to everyone when they make mistakes, especially when we’re busy.’ And to be fair, Miss Button was firm, that was all, and she had to be that because it was her job.

‘We’re flat out, too,’ Terry said. ‘I’d better get back. Wait for me after work?’

As she watched him hurry off, Daisy told herself yet again what a lucky girl she was to have a boy as wonderful as Terry.

Louise got off the tram at Avondale, savouring the pleasurable anticipation she always felt when she went to pick up Susan after work. For months now Rob had been putting in long hours at the garage where he worked in Parnell, so she usually collected Susan from her parents’ home, then walked her the two blocks to the small house they were renting. But they wouldn’t be paying good money to a landlord for much longer. They couldn’t afford much, but it would be marvellous to have their own place and be able to do what they liked with it. And when Rob got the raise his boss had been hinting at lately, there might even be enough money for her to stop work and be a proper mother. She knew that Susan was well looked after during the day—despite Rob’s mother carping on about it incessantly—and she enjoyed working at Dunbar & Jones, but deep down she wanted to be at home with her daughter. It wasn’t right, bringing a child into the world then abandoning it five days a week to go out to work, but Susan deserved a proper home.

Louise opened the gate to her mother’s house and hurried down the path, calling out as she went, ‘Susan! Mummy’s here!’

There was a bang as the fly screen on the back door flew open, then the sound of little feet belting around the side of the house. Susan appeared a moment later in her
favourite pink dress with the frill around the hem and little black patent leather shoes, with her chestnut curls flying and most of her hairclips missing. In her hand was a large piece of paper, which she was waving madly.

‘Mummy! Mummy, look what I drawed!’

Louise crouched down. ‘Hello, sweetheart! What is it?’

Susan held up the paper for her mother to see. ‘It’s a horsie! There’s his legs and there’s his tail, and there’s his ears and…that other thing.’

‘His mane? Gosh, what an excellent picture! Did Grandma buy you some new crayons?’

‘Yes. I got red and green, and yellow, and…red. And…’ Susan trailed off, her finger in her mouth. ‘I forget the rest.’

‘Well, you must have got brown, because you’ve coloured the horsie in brown, haven’t you? And blue, because here’s the beach.’

‘No, it’s not the beach, it’s a lake!’ Susan pointed. ‘See? Here’s a birdie, cleaning his teeth in it.’

‘So he is!’

‘We had skibetti for lunch,’ Susan said, indicating a smear of orange down the front of her dress. ‘But I didn’t clean my teeth after.’

Louise stood up. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it, sweetheart. Twice a day is probably enough. Where’s Grandma?’

‘Inside. We done baking. She’s cleaning up.’

‘We
did
baking,’ Louise corrected. ‘What did you make?’

‘Come and have a look,’ Susan said, taking Louise’s hand. ‘We saved some for you and Daddy.’

Louise allowed her small daughter to lead her around to the rear of the house and up the back steps. Her mother’s
kitchen was cool and a little dim after the bright sunshine outside.

Marion Bourke was standing at the sink washing dishes. She wore slippers but was bare-legged, her varicose veins making fat purple worms over her ankles and pale calves.

‘Hello, love,’ she said. ‘Good day at work?’

‘Busy,’ Louise replied.

‘Cuppa?’

‘No, thanks, Mum, I need to get home and get tea on. How was madam today?’

Marion dried her hands on a tea-towel. ‘Madam was an absolute princess, as always. Helped me with the housework and then we went for a walk to the shops, didn’t we?’ Susan nodded energetically. ‘And after lunch we did some drawing and then a bit of baking.’ Marion nodded towards the kitchen table, where a small pile of greyish, rubbery-looking pikelets sat on a plate. Raising an amused eyebrow, she said, ‘They’ve been on the floor twice, but we got most of the fluff off.’

‘They’re for you and Daddy,’ Susan said proudly.

‘Yummy,’ Louise replied enthusiastically. ‘Shall we save them for supper tonight?’

Susan nodded, but she’d lost interest in the pikelets. Eccles, the Bourkes’ cat, had slunk into the kitchen and was weaving around the legs of the table, taking care to keep well out of Susan’s reach.

‘Can I pat him?’ she asked her grandmother.

‘If he’ll let you.’

Susan made a lunge for the cat, but he saw her coming and streaked for the back door, his claws scrabbling on the worn lino.

‘Eccles doesn’t like me,’ Susan declared sadly.

Marion said, ‘Yes, he does, sweetie. He’s just being a grumpy-bum today.’

In fact, Eccles was always a grumpy-bum around Susan, who adored him but, on the rare occasions she managed to pick him up, almost squeezed the life out of him in her enthusiasm.

‘Come on, missy,’ Louise urged gently. ‘We have to go home and cook Daddy’s tea, so say goodbye to Grandma, there’s a good girl.’

Marion bent down far enough for Susan to kiss her cheek.

‘Bye-bye, Gran,’ Susan said.

‘See you tomorrow, love. Don’t forget your pikelets!’

Louise asked, ‘Will about quarter to eight be all right? I need to get in early.’

‘Shall I feed you breakfast then, madam?’ Marion said to Susan. ‘Porridge and golden syrup?’

Susan clapped her hands and charged outside, yelling ‘Podge and
syrup
, podge and
syrup!
’, and scaring the wits out of Eccles, who was hiding under the lemon tree.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ Louise said. ‘I mean it.’

Marion kissed her daughter. ‘I wouldn’t miss it, love. She keeps me young, she really does.’

That night Allie lay in bed, doing her best to get to sleep because she had a busy day tomorrow, but failing miserably. She’d had a hot cup of cocoa and a long bath to relax. She’d tried counting sheep but had given up when she’d got to a thousand. She’d imagined herself lying on the beach at Mission Bay in her togs, the sun warm on her skin, the breeze so light she could barely feel it, and the small waves
hissing in and out, in and out, in and out, lulling her closer and closer to sleep, but that hadn’t worked either. Then she’d read for half an hour, a book she’d pinched out of Donna’s satchel—Mickey Spillane’s latest,
Kiss Me, Deadly
, which had been banned by the school, so God only knew where she’d got it—but found the story quite unpleasantly violent and gave up on it.

Now she was lying in the dark, her bedroom window open and the blind up a little to let in the smell of the sea, still thinking about Sonny Manaia and her date with him the following night. She was looking forward to it, and feeling nervous about it, in roughly equal measures. When she’d said to Irene that she hardly knew him, it had been the truth: she’d never even spoken to him before Monday. He’d come into the cafeteria one morning with a group of the lads from stores and you couldn’t help noticing him. He was nice-looking and had sort of a confident air about him and seemed to have plenty of mates.

And of course he was Maori, and there weren’t many Maoris working at Dunbar & Jones. Allie tried to count them in her head. She thought there might be two blokes in stores, and there was Hori who drove one of the delivery vans. And one of the girls in the typing pool was part-Maori, she knew that. So those four, plus Sonny, made five—not many in a staff of nearly four hundred and fifty. There was the girl who had modelled in the dress department’s spring fashion show, a really beautiful young woman, but Allie didn’t count her because she wasn’t sure if she actually was Maori, or whether she was from some exotic faraway country. Somewhere foreign probably, with her stunning looks. And anyway she wasn’t a house model so she wasn’t on the Dunbar & Jones payroll.

And who was Sonny Manaia, anyway? What had he been doing before he came to work at Dunbar & Jones? Where did he come from and where did he live? She didn’t even know what age he was, though she suspected he couldn’t be that much older than she was. And why did he want to take her out? She wasn’t the sort of girl who stood out in a crowd, though sometimes she did laugh a bit loudly in the cafeteria: she couldn’t help it once she got going. What if she didn’t turn out to be what he’d been expecting?

She’d been out with boys before, of course, and had had a boyfriend, Derek, for six months, but it hadn’t lasted. What she’d initially taken for a reserved and cautious nature had turned out to be dullness and a distinct lack of initiative, and she’d grown tired of always being the one to decide what they were going to do on Friday and Saturday nights, so eventually she told him it wasn’t working out and that was that. So why was she so nervous about this date?

She was also worried about what she was going to wear. She knew it shouldn’t be that important, but she kept turning it over and over in her head. She’d told Irene she had decided on her grey skirt and Irene’s bright blue top, but when she’d tried them on together that night the outfit had looked a bit, well, tarty, to be honest. Well, certainly much closer to racy than…not racy. Especially with her black platform heels that made her two and a half inches taller than she actually was. Oh God, how tall was Sonny? She couldn’t remember. What if she towered over him? Perhaps she should take another pair of shoes in her bag just in case. But would they go in? Only her flats would fit in her handbag, and they wouldn’t match the rest of her outfit.

She threw her blankets off, sat up and exclaimed, ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’

Almost immediately there was a tap on her bedroom door. It was her mother.

‘Can’t sleep?’ Colleen asked.

She had on her slippers and her old chenille dressing gown, which had once been a deep apricot colour and was now so faded it was almost white, and her hair was pulled back in a plait that hung down past her shoulders. She wasn’t a particularly vain woman, but she was proud of her hair, which was still thick and lustrous and not yet showing any signs of grey. Sid, thinking he was being complimentary, had once said that grey would never show anyway in all that lovely deep gold, but Colleen had been out of sorts for days, insisting that if she did have grey hairs they
would
be visible, so obviously she didn’t have any. Sid had kept his mouth shut about her hair after that.

‘No,’ Allie said. ‘Can’t you either?’

‘Had to go to the lav.’ Colleen sat down on Allie’s bed. ‘Why can’t you sleep?’

Allie shrugged. ‘Don’t know, really.’

‘It’s that boy you’re going out with tomorrow night, isn’t it?’

After a moment, Allie said, ‘Yes.’

Colleen waited for a minute. ‘Well, what about him?’

Allie made a face. ‘I can’t decide what to wear.’

‘Is that all? Really?’

‘I don’t know. Yes, I think so.’

Colleen pulled at a loose thread on her dressing gown. ‘If it’s about what your father said last night, I wouldn’t be too worried about it. You know what he can be like.’

When Allie had told her parents that she was going to
the pictures with a Maori boy, Colleen had said ‘That’s nice, love’, and Sid had said ‘Well, make sure he pays, keep an eye on your purse and don’t stop off at the pub or you’ll never get him out’, then laughed his head off. Colleen had had a go at him and said that was a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, and Sid had said it was just a joke, and everyone knew the Maoris liked a drink and had a very communal view of money and property. Colleen had said she’d never heard anything so derogatory in her life and Sid had said what was ‘derogatory’ when it was at home and retreated behind his paper, not quite sure what he’d done wrong.

‘No, it wasn’t that,’ Allie replied. She was used to her father being tactless and saying the wrong thing. ‘It’s just that, well, I think I quite like him and I just want to get it right tomorrow night, that’s all.’

‘Look, love,’ Colleen said, ‘he’s asked
you
out, not your wardrobe. Go out and have a good time. It doesn’t matter what you wear and it doesn’t matter if he’s a Maori or from Mars, as long as you enjoy yourself. All right?’

Her mother always had such a knack for putting things in perspective. Feeling a lot better, Allie went back to bed, and this time she fell asleep straight away.

Wednesday, 16 December 1953

A
llie spent half the day with butterflies in her stomach at the thought of going out with Sonny, and the other half berating herself for feeling like a silly schoolgirl. Fortunately, she was kept extremely busy, getting garments ready for the fashion show Dunbar & Jones was presenting the next night, as well as attending to an apparently endless stream of customers.

She did, however, see Sonny at lunchtime in the cafeteria. He stopped at her table and said ‘Still on for tonight?’, which made Allie go bright red and robbed her of the ability to say anything sensible, so she only nodded while Irene, Louise and Daisy looked on with gleeful interest.

During afternoon tea she ducked down to the cosmetics department on the ground floor where Bev, the Helena Rubenstein girl, was arranging a pile of Apple Blossom perfume and talc gift packs on the counter.

‘Hi, Allie. What can I do you for?’

‘Hi, Bev. I’m after a new lipstick and some mascara.’

Bev’s eyebrows went up. ‘Big date?’

‘Could be.’

‘Any particular colour?’ Bev asked as she carefully balanced the last pack on the top of her display.

‘I’ve been told it has to be a pink one.’

‘By who?’ Bev frowned. ‘Or is it “whom”?’

‘Irene. She did my face for me yesterday and reckons the tangerine I usually wear isn’t right for my skin tone.’

‘But darling, tangerine is your signature colour!’ Bev exclaimed.

‘Cut it out,’ Allie said. ‘So what have you got in pink?’

Bev beckoned her along the counter to the display of Helena Rubenstein lipsticks. ‘Rose Mauve?’ she suggested, picking out a tester and winding the lipstick out of its case. ‘Give us your hand.’

Allie held her hand out, palm down.

‘Other way,’ Bev said. ‘Your fingertips. They’re the closest to your natural lip colour.’

Well, Allie thought, that was something she hadn’t known until today.

Bev applied a dash of the lipstick to the tip of Allie’s forefinger and studied the effect critically. She looked at Allie’s face. ‘Too deep, I reckon. What about Tender Pink?’

‘Sounds nice,’ Allie agreed, and stuck out her middle finger this time.

‘That’s a better colour for you,’ Bev said. ‘Do you want to try some on your lips?’ She retrieved a tissue from beneath the counter, gave the tip of the lipstick a good wipe, then used a tiny brush to collect some of the colour. ‘Have a seat.’

Allie climbed up onto the high wooden chair on the customer side of the counter and sat very still while Bev
came around and applied the lipstick.

‘Actually, I don’t know about that one, either,’ Bev said when she’d finished. ‘It’s too red, makes you look more like Tender Loin. What colour did Irene put on you?’

Allie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It was really pretty, though, a nice pearly pink.’

Bev tapped her teeth thoughtfully with the handle of the lipstick brush. ‘I might ask Anita what she’s got.’

She walked down to the other end of the counter and came back a moment later with Anita, who was the Elizabeth Arden girl.

‘Hi,’ Anita said, holding up a lipstick. ‘Have you tried this? It’s the new colour Elizabeth Arden put out for the coronation. It’s called Perfection Pink and there’s a rouge to go with it.’

The colour looked good on Allie, so she put it on her staff account along with a cake of mascara that had its own little brush. She didn’t buy the matching rouge, though. It cost too much.

But by the time the store closed at five o’clock she’d almost convinced herself she’d changed her mind about going out. Buying the lipstick had only made her feel even more nervous and all the way home she dithered yet again over what to wear, finally deciding at her front gate that she’d wear the grey skirt and blue top after all. She ran herself a long bath, eliciting protest from Donna and Pauline in case there wasn’t any hot water left for theirs, and sat in it for half an hour until the water had gone tepid. She washed her hair, shaved her legs with her father’s razor and pinched some of her mother’s good talc after she’d dried herself.

Tea was put on the table just as she was ducking down
the hall to her bedroom, a towel wrapped, turban style, around her wet hair.

‘I don’t want anything to eat, thanks, Mum,’ Allie called. ‘My hair will dry funny.’

‘You
will
have something to eat,’ Colleen replied. ‘You’re not going out on an empty stomach.’

So Allie sat down at the kitchen table in her dressing gown with the towel still on her hair.

Sid said, ‘Oh, look, it’s Lawrence of Arabia.’

‘Stop that, Sid,’ Colleen said as she set plates of chops, beans and potatoes on the table.

Donna and Pauline were staring at Allie.

‘Your face is bright red from the bath,’ Donna taunted.

‘Yes, and there’s a
huge
pimple on your chin,’ Pauline added gleefully.

‘Is there?’ Allie’s hand flew to her face.

‘No, there isn’t,’ Colleen said as she sat down. ‘Don’t be mean, girls. Leave your sister alone.’

Donna and Pauline smirked into their plates.

‘What’s he like then, this bloke?’ Pauline asked.

‘Fellow,’ Colleen corrected.

Donna said, ‘Is he coming to pick you up?’

‘I’m meeting him in town,’ Allie replied.

‘Bugger,’ Donna swore. ‘We wanted to see him.’

‘I beg your pardon!’ Colleen said, glaring at Donna.

‘What?’

‘You just watch your mouth, young lady. Where you get language like that from I don’t know.’

‘Jesus bloody Christ,’ Sid said as he missed his mouth with his fork and spilt beans down his front.

‘Sid!’ Colleen was losing her temper now.

Allie started laughing. And then Sid joined in, which
Donna and Pauline took as a sign to giggle hysterically themselves.

‘Honestly, sometimes I wonder about you lot,’ Colleen remonstrated, but she got up and went to the fridge in search of the butter so no one could see she was smiling.

Allie bolted a chop, a mouthful of potato and six beans, then said ‘Excuse me’ as she pushed her chair back from the table.

Colleen looked up. ‘Is that all you’re going to eat?’

‘I’m not that hungry.’ In fact, Allie’s stomach felt as though there were a hundred angry sparrows in it, all fluttering madly to get out.

‘Oh, go on then.’ Colleen said, remembering what it was like to be young and getting ready to go out on a date.

Allie went to her room, shut the door and sat down in front of her dressing table. She lit a cigarette and left it burning in the ashtray, took the towel off her hair and felt her heart sink. Hurrying into the bathroom, she ran hot water over her comb, rewet the renegade sections of her hair, then dashed back to her room and bunged in half a dozen rollers. While she waited for it to set she started on her make-up.

Though she’d been impressed with what Irene had done yesterday, the result had made her feel sort of uncomfortable and self-conscious—it just wasn’t her. So tonight she left off the eyeshadow, though she did try some of her new mascara. She had to have several goes, however, because it wasn’t as easy to put on as Irene had made it look, and she couldn’t seem to stop her hand from shaking.

When her hair had dried, she took out the rollers and brushed it until it shone, then lacquered it vigorously so
it would stay in place. After she’d changed into her going-out clothes, which included a new pair of twelve-denier stockings that had cost her ten shillings and ninepence, even with her staff discount, she applied her new rose-coloured lipstick and sprayed her wrists and throat with White Magnolia perfume.

‘You’d better be worth it, Sonny Manaia,’ she said to her reflection in the mirror. This date had cost her a fortune.

Sid whistled when she went out into the kitchen. ‘Look at our little girl, Col,’ he said. ‘All grown up.’

Colleen frowned. ‘Yes, I can see that. You don’t think that skirt’s a little on the snug side?’

‘No,’ Allie replied, resisting the urge to tug it down because she knew it wouldn’t budge. She’d be in trouble if she had to run for the bus.

‘Hasn’t he got a car?’ Pauline demanded.

‘I don’t know, I didn’t ask.’ Which wasn’t strictly true; Allie had automatically assumed Sonny didn’t own one.

‘Fancy not having a car!’ Donna said.

‘Donna, what did I say to you before?’ Colleen warned.

‘I’m just saying—’

‘Well, don’t.’

‘I’ll be off, then,’ Allie said, edging towards the door.

Colleen asked, ‘What time do you think you’ll be home?’

‘About half ten, I suppose. I’ll get the late bus.’

‘You be careful, love,’ Colleen added.

Allie knew her mother wasn’t just referring to going into town on her own. ‘I will, don’t worry.’

By the time the bus slowed at the Wellesley Street stop Allie
was convinced that Sonny wouldn’t be there. But he was, standing just outside the Civic Theatre. It was nearly dark now, but not so dark that she couldn’t see that Sonny was grinning broadly at her. It wasn’t even remotely cold but she caught herself shivering.

‘Hi,’ he said.

‘Hello.’

Sonny took his hands out of his pockets. ‘You look nice.’

‘Thank you. So do you.’

Out of his work clothes, he looked very smart, if slightly ill at ease. He was wearing grey trousers, a blue shirt without a tie, a dark grey sports coat and highly polished black shoes. He was freshly shaven and close up he smelled of something that reminded Allie of wood smoke, but sweeter. Cedar?

‘We’re twins,’ he said, nodding at her own blue and grey outfit.

‘So we are,’ Allie said.

And so they stood there, awkwardly saying nothing as people walked around them heading into the theatre.

Sonny looked at his watch. ‘Film starts in ten minutes. You want to go in?’

As Sonny paid for their tickets, Allie thought take that, Dad, you narrow-minded old bugger.

She loved the Civic Theatre with its exotic Moorish-themed foyer and perpetual promise of fantasy and excitement. She was staring up at the domed, ornately decorated ceiling when she realized that Sonny was talking to her.

‘Pardon?’

Sonny nodded towards the refreshments counter. ‘Do
you fancy an ice cream or chocolates or anything?’

‘No, thanks,’ Allie said. ‘We had a big tea.’ Untrue, but she was far too nervous to eat anything now.

‘We’ll find our seats, then, eh?’

Allie waited while their tickets were torn in half, then followed Sonny up the carpeted stairs into the auditorium, marvelling as she always did at the lofty midnight-blue ceiling sprinkled with hundreds of glittering stars.

Apologizing and squeezing their way past people, they found their seats and sat down, looking down at a stage that seemed to be miles below them.

‘Hope there isn’t a fire,’ Sonny remarked, ‘we’d never get out.’

Allie laughed.

There was another short silence, then they both spoke at once.

‘Sorry,’ Sonny said, ‘go on.’

‘I was just going to say, do you like cowboy films?’

‘Yeah, they’re OK. Do you?’

‘They’re OK,’ Allie echoed. She cast about for something else to say. ‘What about war films, do you like those?’

‘Not really. Load of rubbish, most of them.’

Allie wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Normally she was good at conversation, even with people she didn’t know, but she was making very heavy weather of it at the moment. Eventually she said, ‘Busy at work?’

‘Flat out. Everybody wanting things for Christmas and for the queen so there’s lots of stuff coming in and going out. What about you?’

‘The same.’ She waited a beat before she went on. ‘So when did you start at Dunbar & Jones?’

‘Beginning of October.’

Allie nodded with satisfaction. ‘Yes, that’s about when I first noticed you.’

Sonny turned to her, looking very pleased with himself. ‘Ah, so you’d already noticed me, had you?’

Wishing that the lights had already gone down so he couldn’t see the blood rushing to her face, Allie said, ‘The first time I saw you, I mean. In the caf’

‘I noticed you the day I started, sitting there with your friends with that beautiful big smile of yours and that lovely hair.’

Allie was so startled she could only stare at him.

Sonny laughed. ‘What? It’s true. You’ve got fantastic hair.’

‘Well, um, thank you,’ Allie said, thoroughly unused to such compliments, particularly from men. ‘I get it from my mother, even though she’s Irish. Most people think Irish women have dark hair, but my mother’s really fair. Or she was—it’s fading a bit now she’s getting older.’

Aware she was prattling, Allie stopped, though Sonny seemed to be quite absorbed by what she was saying. This close she could see he had a line of small, pink scars marking the brown skin of his face, going from the outside of his right cheekbone and disappearing under his jaw. It looked as though he’d run into a particularly nasty length of barbed wire.

‘Got any brothers or sisters?’ he asked. Clearly he was struggling for things to say as well.

‘Two younger sisters, fifteen and fourteen.’

He nodded. ‘Both your parents still alive?’

‘Yes,’ Allie said, slightly shocked. ‘Aren’t yours?’

‘Mum is. My old man died a couple of years ago.’

Allie felt awful. ‘God, I’m sorry.’

Sonny shrugged. ‘He wasn’t much to write home about. Sometimes I think we’re better off.’

‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’ Allie asked, unnerved by Sonny’s response and deliberately changing the subject.

‘Five older brothers and sisters, and five younger ones.’

‘There’s
eleven
of you?’

Sonny smiled. ‘We don’t all live at home. There’s no room since we moved, anyway. I’m the oldest still there, and I’ll be shifting out as soon as I get set up.’ He must have seen the question in her face because he added, ‘I’m twenty-three.’

‘Oh. I’m—’

‘Twenty, I know.’

Allie frowned.

‘I asked Terry at work,’ Sonny said. ‘She’s hapu, his girlfriend, isn’t she?’

‘Pardon?’

‘That girl he goes with. She’s…’ he held his hands out over his stomach, ‘…having a baby.’