Love in the Years of Lunacy (15 page)

A group of teary women stood on the wharf, waving handkerchiefs and underwear, throwing streamers, blowing kisses, and for a few minutes she longed to be one of those girls wearing woollen coats and earrings, girls who'd remain in Sydney, cutting coupons, cooking cakes without butter, working in a factory every day. She suddenly felt stifled by her brother's military uniform, weighed down by the gun in her hand, and longed for curlers in her hair, rouge on her cheeks, stays against her thighs. She wanted what Martin would now have for the duration of the war: a warm bed, a doting friend, and few responsibilities.

The ship pulled away from the dock in the early rays of the spring morning. The coloured streamers stretched and snapped, drifting onto the surface of the bay like thousands of discarded ribbons. Seagulls arced and wheeled above the deck, squawking hungrily. Pearl gripped the railing and watched sunlight glancing off the water, the first ferries chugging across the harbour, the city growing smaller. As they sailed past Garden Island, she caught a glimpse of her own house at the end of the street. The blackout shades had been removed from the windows, and she could see a figure in the front yard, leaning against the fence, though she couldn't make out if it was a man or woman. She felt a rush in her head and was scared she'd start crying, right there, in front of all those soldiers. Instead, to calm herself, she made herself repeat Martin's serial number, then raised her hand and gave a little wave to whomever it was standing in her garden.

‘Hey, Willis?' She turned to see Charlie Styles, standing with a thin private who looked as if he were in his mid-twenties. He had wiry red hair and buck teeth, and at once reminded Pearl of a starving rabbit. ‘This is my mate, Blue. Second trombone.'

She was about to nod and say, ‘Pleased to meet you,' when Blue's hand shot out. She grabbed it and shook it firmly. ‘Martin,' she declared. ‘Tenor sax.'

‘I know.' Blue scratched his head, pulled out a strand of hair, examined it briefly before dropping it. ‘I used to listen to you at the Troc. When you soloed on “Tuxedo Junction” my mother used to cry.'

‘That bad was I?'

‘No, you were that bloody good.'

The praise had the opposite effect of its intention, causing her to worry about the fact that she hadn't played in public for over a year.

‘Us three are sharing a cabin!' said Charlie brightly, waving a piece of paper. ‘The boss skipper likes to keep the brass section together.'

‘You mean the poof section together,' snarled a voice. Pearl glanced over her shoulder to see a private smirking at them. He had a thin mouth and his dark eyes were set wide apart in his head, which made him look like some kind of lizard. ‘So you can blow each others' horns,' he added, and walked away.

Charlie, ignoring the man, cocked his head and pointed with his chin to the upper deck. ‘C'mon.'

Pearl, surprised by the man's hostility, shouldered her backpack and picked up her equipment. She followed them through the crowd of soldiers. ‘Who was that?' she asked.

Charlie snorted. ‘Nigel Moss. First alto sax. Got a transfer from an artillery unit into our concert party—his father's a captain.'

As she climbed the stairs to the second deck Pearl made a mental note to steer clear of Nigel Moss.

Now that they were up even higher, she could see that they were being joined by a convoy of three other ships and were sailing between the heads of the harbour into the infinite expanse of the Pacific. From this distance the other ships looked like toy boats in a bathtub.

‘She used to be a luxury ocean liner,' announced Charlie as he opened the door to their cabin. ‘Poor old love. Now she's just a war ship.'

As they squeezed into the cabin Pearl noticed that every former fitting and feature had been stripped to make room for the three tiers of canvas hammocks that took up almost all the available space. The porthole had been painted over in compliance with blackout regulations; the only other things in the berth were a cupboard and the mahogany panelling, vestiges of the ship's former life. There was an ensuite bathroom with cracked floral tiles and tarnished brass taps out of which flowed a stream of rusty water.

They flipped a sixpence to see who'd get the bottom bunk. Blue won the toss. Charlie got the middle bunk, and Pearl the top. As she and Charlie stowed their gear into a corner of the cabin to make more room, Blue stepped into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. At first Pearl assumed that he was overly conscious of his appearance, but then she noticed he had a bald patch about the size of a penny on the crown of his head and that he was meticulously plucking his hair out one strand at a time.

She glanced at Charlie, one eyebrow raised. He shook his head briefly in a kind of
I'll explain later
gesture and pulled a pouch of tobacco from a pocket in his pack.

‘We're just going out for a smoke, Blue,' he called.

The convoy of ships was now surrounded entirely by the ocean, and if it were not for Charlie and his endless chatter Pearl would have been terrified. As she strolled with him around the upper deck, Charlie told her about Blue. They'd been in the same detachment in New Guinea for most of the year before, performing for troops along the Kokoda Track. Just before the Aussies took Ioribaiwa, Blue collapsed into a foxhole, and it was later discovered he'd contracted both dysentery and malaria. He'd spent the last six months in the Blue Mountains, recuperating at the Hydro Majestic Hotel, which had been converted into a military sanatorium. ‘That's where he started pulling his hair out,' said Charlie. ‘I used to visit him whenever I got leave.' Today was Blue's first day back on duty.

Charlie, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by the cramped conditions of the ship, by what lay ahead of them when they reached their destination. He didn't walk, but rather bounced like a pogo stick, and always seemed to be bubbling over with enthusiasm.

‘I came to the Troc once, just to listen to you,' he said, the wind pasting his flaxen hair against his head. ‘But you'd already left on your tour of duty.' They were sitting on crates to the side of a volleyball court, though the net had long since been removed and the poles that had held it there were now used as mounts for artillery guns. The deck was packed with both Australian and American soldiers, some black, but mostly white. There was barely enough room to raise a rifle and many sat huddled in groups, playing cards or two-up.

‘I've lost my lip a bit,' said Pearl in a low voice, preparing Charlie for the inevitable moment when he realised she couldn't play very well at all. ‘I haven't really played or practised for ages. It's amazing how quickly it goes.'

‘Modest, too!' declared Charlie. ‘A man after my own heart. Do you dance?'

Pearl stared back at him. Was he thinking that she could perform a dance routine during the concert? ‘No,' she replied. ‘My mother's the dancer.' She went to cross her legs but stopped herself, remembering that it would seem too girlish. Instead, she raised her leg and rested an ankle on her knee.

At midday they joined a queue that snaked out of a wide doorway. The line moved forward and she and Charlie edged into the mess hall for lunch. The room was long and wide, with panels of etched glass and mirrors between the windows. A stage, framed with deep red velvet curtains, stood at the other end, but instead of a ten-piece orchestra playing light dance music, a team of men on mess duty doled out food onto a parade of upturned tin plates. A five-tiered chandelier gleamed above what had once obviously been a polished dance floor; now, long trestle tables and fold-out chairs stood against it and the wood was covered with dust.

It was when Pearl passed one of the panels of etched glass that she felt a quiver of recognition. She paused and glanced back. The glass was tinted pale pink and the figure etched into it was a woman in robes with a garland of flowers for a crown. Pearl picked up a tin plate and followed Charlie up the set of wooden stairs to the stage. From there the former ballroom looked both sad and elegant, like a palace whose king had suddenly gone bankrupt. The glass panels and mirrors glistened in the noonday light, radiant with refracted light from the chandelier, and she felt another flicker of recognition. She couldn't be certain, but she had the distinct feeling she'd been on the ship before, when she and her mother had returned from their season at the Panorama Hotel in Ceylon. Pearl even remembered some of the repertoire: ‘Shuffle Off to Buffalo', ‘Sweet Georgia Brown', ‘42nd Street'. She and Clara had worn matching gold outfits and identical red wigs.

Blue, she could see, was standing at the end of the queue; his head was bowed and he was twisting a button on his jacket. Pearl held out her plate and three ladles of brown sludge were dropped upon it. She followed Charlie down the stairs at the other side of the stage and they sat together at one of the trestle tables on the dance floor. The food was terrible—a fatty, half-warm stew—but Pearl ate it all because none of the men she knew cared what they ate and they all consumed twice as much as she did. While she chewed she gazed at the etching of the woman in the robes and had a distant recollection, more like a dream than a memory. She had been pressed against a similar panel and kissed by a man three times her age. While her mother had dozed in the library after the last of the singing guests had woven out of the room and down the red carpet to the whisky bottles in their berths, an Indian steward had put his lips on Pearl's and moved his tongue around in her mouth until she thought she would suffocate. Afterwards, she had fled, never telling a soul about it.

During the afternoon, she and Charlie walked circuits around the ship, while others cleaned and polished rifles, arm wrestled or did push-ups. The ship was so crowded there was not enough room to perform military drills. Pearl considered this a blessing, as she wasn't confident about performing drill. She simply hoped that, when the time came, she could fake it by mimicking the others.

Everywhere was the smell of the sea and the stench of vomit, as one soldier after another bowed over the railing and puked into the Pacific. It was the only thing that was allowed into the water, as any discarded garbage might form a trail the enemy could follow. Some men speculated on the probability of being sunk by a Jap torpedo or bomb. They were mostly short odds.

When twilight edged into the horizon, an announcement made over the loudspeakers ordered all on deck to extinguish every light, match and cigarette until further notice the following morning. There was so little room onboard that many soldiers had to sleep on the deck itself, or on the dance floor of the ballroom. One unit bedded down on the tiled bottom of the drained pool.

After dinner, Charlie and Pearl joined Blue in the tiny cabin. They found him in his underwear, already asleep in the bottom hammock. Charlie yawned, stripped down to his underpants and singlets, and crawled into the middle one. Pearl locked herself in the bathroom. The sight of her clipped hair in the mirror was still a shock—she did almost look identical to her brother. She cleaned her teeth, removed her boots and gaiters, and then—what the hell, she thought—unbuckled the belt and lowered her trousers. Fortunately, the tails of Martin's shirt covered her crotch and would make it difficult to detect what she lacked down there.

She returned to the cabin and flipped off the light. She'd made it through the first day undetected, but she knew whatever lay ahead would be much more challenging and hazardous. She tried to comfort herself by thinking that she was only a little behind James in their separate journeys to New Guinea.

‘Night,' she said gruffly to Charlie, as she climbed into her swaying hammock.

On the second day, the concert party CO, Art Rudolph, marched the unit of musicians onto the deck for an Abandon Ship Drill, while the crew lowered grey lifeboats. They were told that under no conditions should any man jump directly into the water. In case of an emergency, they were to abandon the ship by way of knotted ropes that were tied between the upper and lower decks. The first time she tried it, Pearl lost her grip, and found herself dropping onto the broad shoulders of the band's drummer, which sent them both tumbling onto the deck below.

In her spare time she walked around the crowded deck with Charlie and Blue, trading jokes and looking for enemy submarines. One afternoon they saw a big black shape rising out of a swell about two hundred yards away. The alarm was raised, torpedoes were aimed, anti-aircraft artillery was held in position. After a few minutes, however, the big black shape emerged on a wave and the tail of a whale forked up and flipped in the air, before sinking back into the ocean's depths.

Art Rudolph scheduled the first concert for the afternoon of the third day at sea. There was a hasty rehearsal in the dining room, during which he mostly talked them through the arrangements. The musicians filed out onto the lower deck and set up in the shade of one of the ship's huge chimneys. Pearl pegged the music to her stand so it wouldn't blow away. So far, she'd managed to look, talk and behave like her brother: earlier that morning, she'd slipped the blade from Martin's razor, soaped up her face and, with the cabin's bathroom door ajar, pretended to shave herself; when she rolled a smoke she let the cigarette paper dangle from her bottom lip, pasted by a slick of saliva as she kneaded the tobacco between her fingers; she often sat with her elbows resting upon her widespread knees as she played two-up with anti-aircraft gunners; and of course she swore as loudly and broadly as the best of them. But she hadn't played jazz in any serious way for almost a year now. Compared to the lightness of her old alto, Martin's tenor saxophone was heavy in her hands, with wider spaces between the keys, a slightly bigger mouthpiece. And she'd never grown used to playing outside, preferring instead the perfect acoustics of the Trocadero or the dining rooms of posh hotels. Still, it was a relief to be part of a band again and, as the musos tuned up and quietly ran through bits of music to themselves, a quiet thrill rippled through her.