Gallipoli Street (4 page)

Catherine breathed it all in, humming along to the gramophone as she checked each detail. The soft strands of violin touched the night outside, inviting the languid evening indoors, as she smoothed the fine lace on the table once last time. She loved the soft white cloth, a gift from her mother as part of her trousseau. It reminded her of the elegant folds of her childhood home, such as the blankets of snow across their English lawns or the gentle meander of the river as it played with the trailing feathered branches of the willows. Cream roses spilt from the enormous cut-glass centrepiece, a wedding gift from her aunt, and the silver cutlery from her cousin's family gleamed from the polish Eileen had applied that afternoon. Her dressed dining table always reminded Catherine of the way her family had so graciously accepted her marriage to a mere farmer, and an Irish-Australian of all things. It was a shrine to their forgiveness.

Catherine O'Shay had no regrets. She was no pining English lady, wilting and faded. She was a modern success, proof that an aristocrat could marry for love and bring her gentility with her. Probably an impossibility back in Cambridge, but here, in this hopeful, strange land, such things could happen.

Not that this meant for one moment that she had forgone the rules that made such a life possible. Catherine knew that contentment could only be attained if one behaved as a lady should. Thinking upon her daughter, she wondered if she would ever truly make Veronica understand the difference between being wild and being free. Wildness placed one in danger, an unpredictable state of being that could only end with others taming you by force.

But true freedom, well that was a happiness no one else could touch.

Patting her dark chignon into place and smoothing the white silk of her dress, Catherine's eyes came to rest on her wedding photo and she smiled. She was free indeed.

The large table was full when Veronica arrived, and she wondered if she imagined a flicker of admiration from Jack as she entered the room. She certainly didn't imagine it from their guest Dan Hagan, who stumbled as he stood up and hurried to pull back her chair, bowing slightly.

‘Look out he doesn't catch any flies there, Vera Mags,' her brother Tom whispered in her ear as Dan returned to his seat to gape at her from across the table, his movements awkward but his brown eyes earnest. She slid her gaze along to see if Jack had noticed and it collided with his, which made her stomach so unsteady she felt she could have been the one swallowing flies.

‘Well now, let's have a toast then,' her father announced. ‘Here's to the heroic efforts of our boys in the First Eleven today. Well played, especially our Tom who got his first fifty of the season, and young Dan who is promising to be our best fast bowler in many years, ably supported by Mick in slips. Well done.'

‘Hear, hear,' chorused the men.

‘And to the ladies for putting on a fine spread as usual,' Kevin went on, smiling at his wife, ‘and for gracing our table with their beauty, even our little Vera here, pretty as that rose, my dear.'

Veronica blushed, touched the flower in her hair and noted a flash of annoyance pass across Rose's face. ‘And finally to young Jack, who I hear tell was quite the hero this morning, saving some girl from disaster. Nice to know our womenfolk have a quick-thinking man like you about to keep them safe. To good company!'

The crystal glasses chimed as dinner was served, conversation centring on the heroic rescue, although Veronica was grateful to note that Jack deftly avoided elaboration, stymieing all efforts to find out who had been the young lady in question. Her heart pounding with the fear of discovery, she tried to stay focused on her food and remain inconspicuous. The latter wasn't really that hard. For much of the meal it was Rose who drew all of the attention with her animated conversation, until she apparently decided to send some of it Veronica's way.

‘Do you know who the girl may have been, Veronica?' she asked. ‘Jack said he'd never met her before.'

‘I-I'm…not sure,' stammered Veronica, feeling trapped as all eyes turned towards her along the table.

‘You are probably around that age, are you not? Fifteen or so?'

‘Seventeen,' Jack corrected her.

Veronica noticed Rose didn't seem to like that.

‘Perhaps you're not being completely honest, Jack. You seem very knowledgeable about the girls in this area,' she said.

Veronica thought Jack laughed a little uneasily, but then he kissed Rose's hand and said: ‘Well, everyone knows the girls in Beecroft are the prettiest around. Look at the one I'm sitting next to.'

Rose simpered and Veronica felt like yanking her stupid ringlets, but then the redhead redirected the focus onto her once more and annoyance slipped back to nervousness. ‘Surely you have some idea who it could be, Veronica? After all, how many girls are there in this little town?'

There was nothing to fault the logic of her questions, but Veronica knew without doubt now that Rose had full knowledge it had been she on the road that morning and was steering the conversation towards humiliating exposure. Worse still, her brother Tom was kicking her under the table and grinning at her knowingly. Lord knew what he was about to say, surely finding this opportunity to tease her irresistible. Veronica shifted her desperate gaze to her father who winked in return and cleared his throat.

‘It seems to me that we have a case of a young lady who needed some fresh air and got a bit carried away, but whoever it was I think we should allow her the dignity of anonymity. I'm sure she's learnt her lesson, and we've all longed for a little taste of freedom in our day, have we not? No harm done, thanks to young Jack here…speaking of fresh air, who would like to join me on the verandah for a breather?'

Veronica breathed a sigh of relief herself but it was short lived as Catherine stood, directing raised eyebrows her daughter's way, and beckoning her to the kitchen to supervise dessert. Pattie Murphy followed her in a swish of dark pink silk.

‘A word if you will, Veronica.'

Jack's sister Pattie waited impatiently as Veronica stood in the next room being dressed down by her mother in hushed tones. The phrases ‘not a child any more' and ‘reputation to consider' came floating under the door.

Pattie sighed, absent-mindedly stirring the cream. She had arrived that afternoon hoping to spend some time with her friends. Unfortunately, she hadn't dressed for tennis, which she usually thoroughly enjoyed, and she was forced to miss out on the joys of flinging herself around the court and trading banter with the boys. Instead, with Veronica busy in the kitchen, she'd been forced to spend an interminable afternoon with Rose. After only two months in the neighbourhood, that gigantic know-it-all already seemed to fancy herself an expert on everyone and everything in it. It was almost as if Rose chose every word as part of some fiendish plan to antagonise her.

And now here she was at it again, only this time it was Veronica at the mercy of her scheming ways. A proper little viper that one, Pattie decided, and definitely not someone she wanted as a sister-in-law.

Catherine emerged, a subdued Veronica in tow, and Pattie pasted a suitably serious expression on her face, replacing it with a grin as soon as Catherine exited through to the adjoining room.

‘Don't. I don't want to talk about it.'

‘Why not? It was only Jack. And it wasn't as if you were flying along in your drawers, although Rose would have us all believing this mystery woman-child was practically nude.'

‘How did she know it was me? I mean, who saw, for goodness' sake?' Veronica hissed, looking over her shoulder to make sure her mother was busy organising dessert aperitifs with Eileen in the other room.

‘She was probably lurking in the bushes, trying to accidentally stumble across Jack so she could twirl her stupid parasol his way.' Pattie stuck out her tongue in disgust.

Veronica thumped the spoon as she assembled the desserts, adding extra cream and jam to each bowl of cake and crumble. ‘Well, she's ruined my summer. Mother will watch me like a hawk. She said I have learnt “nothing about behaving like a lady and everything about becoming a hooligan”.'

Pattie laughed. ‘Oh piffle! So what if you had a bit of ankle showing and hair flying about? It's not like I haven't horrified a few old biddies with my adventures. Trust me, she'll get over it.'

‘Your mother isn't like my mother.'

‘It's not your mother who caused the problem. That Rose really riles me up! You know, she really deserves her just desserts.' Pattie stuck her finger in the jam, tasting it. ‘Hold your horses!' she declared suddenly, clutching at Veronica's arm and pointing at the wall. ‘Let's squish that huntsman up. Put it in her jam.'

Veronica watched agog as Pattie climbed up onto the stool with a bowl and spoon to catch the spider. ‘Stop it! You'll get caught!' Veronica gasped, giggly and nervous at the same time, but Pattie was something of an expert at spider catching. Despite the impediment of her ‘blasted skirts', soon the unfortunate creature was being buried in the last of the sticky jam at the bottom of the bowl.

‘What's taking you so long?' Catherine demanded, entering the kitchen with Eileen and eyeing the desserts impatiently.

‘Just finishing adding the jam.' Pattie smiled innocently, heaping a large blob onto the final plate as Catherine marched out, telling them to hurry along.

‘This one is for
Rose
, Eileen,' Pattie instructed her carefully. ‘She said there was no possibility that your jam would taste as nice as their housekeeper's.'

Veronica watched round eyed as Eileen jutted out her chin indignantly.

‘We'll see about that, miss.'

‘You'll be fine, dear boy,' Dr Dwyer assured Tom, who was busy lamenting his loss of sleep during his final exams. ‘If you've made it this far you'll be sure to pass next year as well. Then you can join your brother and take an internship down at St Vincent's. They didn't haul me all the way from Melbourne without giving me a bit of clout! I'll take care of it for you.'

The desserts were being finished and Veronica tried not to stare as Rose lifted her fork towards the bit she'd obviously been saving: the jam.

‘You're enjoying it there, aren't you, Mick?' Dr Dwyer asked.

Mick looked to choose his words carefully. It wouldn't do to offend the chief surgeon of the hospital. ‘Of course! Although in the long term I had been considering the possibility of working locally. I've always imagined myself a rural doctor. Being able to spread myself about a bit.'

The jam perched in dark globs as it headed towards Rose's mouth.

‘Less serious city problems such as plagues and more rural problems such as spider bites?' Pattie suggested, just as Rose landed the contents firmly into her mouth and began to chew.

Pattie's father George chuckled. ‘We're hardly dealing with plagues these days, my dear.'

‘I saw a spider-bite patient just this week,' Tom piped in. ‘Head like a horse he had poor chap. Not unlike our Mick here.'

Veronica watched horrified and fascinated as Rose reloaded her fork.

‘Beastly creatures. I can't imagine what the good Lord was thinking when he made them,' Rose observed, turning to smile at Jack. ‘I'm afraid I'm quite terrified of spiders in general. They seem to be everywhere around here.'

‘Oh you'll find you'll develop a taste for them,' Pattie assured her as Rose ate another mouthful. ‘Are you quite all right there Vera?' she added innocently, her eyes dancing wickedly at a choking Veronica.

Veronica nodded, red-faced, sipping her water.

‘Perhaps we should adjourn to the parlour?' Catherine suggested, moving the party to the next room and casting an exasperated look at her daughter.

‘That was a little hairy,' Pattie whispered in Veronica's ear as she walked by.

It was some moments before Veronica could compose herself to follow.