The Story of Danny Dunn (70 page)

‘How's that?' Danny asked. ‘The Balmain Boy thing has always worked before. It's a cliché but it's effective.'

Helen grinned. ‘It didn't even occur to them to do a T-shirt that says, “100% Genuine Balmain Girl, Vote Labor”! And, by the way, that's not me making an astute observation; it comes straight from last week's soiree – the ladies shelling peas and peeling potatoes got the message loud and clear that their votes were simply taken for granted.'

‘Shit! I never thought of that.'

‘That's because you're a man,' Helen said, adding, ‘You probably haven't noticed that women are beginning to see themselves in a different light. There's a long way to go, but at least it's started.'

‘What's started?'

‘Women thinking for themselves – not letting their husbands decide what's good for them.'

‘So, tell me, why did I have to end up with the original trailblazer?' Danny laughed.

‘Ha ha. But, Danny, you must have noticed. The signs are there for all to see, and it's not just women and girls. Look at Erin's shop! Saturday mornings are a near riot, with kids swarming in from everywhere, and Billy has offered to finance her expansion into Las Vegas. Pineapple Joe's happy as a sand boy with his investment.'

‘Yeah, Joe's bought the whole change package, I have to admit. I saw him the other day while I was getting petrol. Now, instead of wearing a suit, he's wearing one of his exclusive Pineapple-brand T-shirts . . . not a pretty sight, I might add. The T-shirt was covered with Campbell's soup cans. “Gone into the soup business, Joe?” I said. “What you talkink about, Danny?” he replied, stabbing at a soup can on his chest. “This soups can's genuine Andy Wall Hole, American pops artist!” Then he gave me the drill. “Suits, finish, finito! Now I am sellink four suits, maybe, in vun month! Danny, lissen to me. Mister Bobs Dylan, he is sayink everythink that was before now is blowink in za wind and zat za times zey are a-changin – you heard zat song maybe on ze radio? Last week I'm sellink tree hundred T-shirt, bit a cotton, some paint, one pound five shilling, thank you, very much oblige, sir.” He stuck his forefinger in the air. “One T-shirt I am makink on silk screen in mine special paint, no crack, can stretch, wash like a baby bottom, ten minutes!” Then he tapped me on the chest. “One suit five pounds ten shilling, tree days I am workink finger to bones, and wool material for makink cost two pounds already. You know what is costing me T-shirt raw materials?”' Danny chuckled, wagging his finger in imitation of his old friend. ‘“Let me tell you, sonny boy . . . five shilling, paint include.”'

Helen laughed. ‘You do know he financed Erin Walsh and owns half of her Brokendown label, don't you? Remember, he's donating a thousand Tiger 13 T-shirts to your election team to wear and give away during election week.' She smiled ruefully. ‘I think it's conscience money. He said not to tell you until closer to the election because, “I got to see a mans about a dogs, because I can make new Labor T-shirt more cheaps and colourfast zen za schmuck they got makink now, who is robbink and cheatink zem mitout sight.” I think he meant robbing them blind, but, anyway, he's supplying the enemy, the old scoundrel.'

‘Maybe you're right about change,' Danny mused. ‘But who was it said the more things change, the more they stay the same?'

‘Oh, Danny, even the twins are aware of it,' Helen said. ‘Gabby and Sam are mad about the Beatles – they were so excited about the tour. And Gabby's been a Bob Dylan fan since Dallas taught her that song of his. And his latest album's called
The Times They Are a-Changin'
!'

‘Hmph,' Danny grunted. ‘I agree, it's certainly not Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington. But nothing's changed in sport, although I can't see why they awarded the bloody Japs the Olympics —'

‘You were saying?' Helen prompted gently.

‘Well, Dawnie won the 100-metres – Sam nearly burst, she was so excited – and Betty Cuthbert won the 400-metres; Emerson won Wimbledon and we won the Ashes, which only goes to prove the things that really matter haven't changed much in Australia. Elsewhere? Hard to say. Kennedy's assassination is bound to bring change, and Bob Menzies reintroducing national service looks ominous. You can be sure it won't just be military advisers he sends off to Vietnam next year. You mark my words, darling, that silly bastard's going to involve us in this stoush, along with America. It's all very well for him to say national service is character-building, good for the youth of the nation, that sort of thing, but what does he know about war? I don't remember too many men coming out of the Burma Railway better men than they went in. Character-building, my arse. More like shitting yourself in the jungle wondering how the hell someone got you into this mess in the first place! We've been fighting the communists in Malaya for how long? Ever since World War Two ended. Now we're fighting them in Borneo, even if it's on the quiet against that lunatic Sukarno. Next thing, Sir Robert Fucking Gordon Menzies will want us to start some character-building against Ho Chi Minh!'

‘Good thing you didn't take Askin's offer and stand as a Liberal, darling,' Helen said. ‘Mr Menzies would call you a communist for talking like that!'

‘How'd we get onto all this, anyway?' Danny asked, irritated. ‘Aren't we supposed to be remembering our year, the highs and lows?'

Helen pointed to his glass. ‘You've hardly touched your champagne, darling. It'll go flat.' She held out her empty one. ‘I think I need another, please, for a toast to the new year. We're about to enter 1965, the Year of the Independent!' She rose, set her champagne glass down, then sat on Danny's lap and put her arms around him. ‘I love you, Daniel Corrib Dunn!'

‘I love you, too, darling,' Danny replied softly. ‘We've been married nearly twenty years, and you're still as gorgeous as the first day I set eyes on you.'

‘I know how we can welcome in the new year,' she giggled mischievously, standing up and wriggling out of her panties.

‘Let me guess – the twins are out for another half hour at least – Scrabble?'

Helen kissed him. ‘No, darling,' she said, working away at his belt and zipper, their kiss deepening as she pulled his trousers down over the spontaneous erection struggling to be free of his underpants.

‘I thought you said women were only
beginning
to be assertive?' he gasped. ‘So it looks like Scrabble's out, then?'

‘'Fraid so,' Helen said, straddling him and lowering herself slowly, enticingly, as she kissed him again.

‘Next time we're calling the year, we'll remember this as the moonlit New Year's Eve we spent out on the tiles!'

‘Mmm,' she murmured, lifting herself away from him. ‘How's your back, darling?'

‘Never better,' Danny whispered, gripping her to him as the car horns and fireworks marked the start of a new year.

‘Happy New Year, darling,' Helen said, gazing into his eyes.

‘Very happy,' said Danny.

Brenda dropped the twins off half an hour later, and they tumbled out onto the verandah full of stories of the fireworks they'd seen, and the great food, and the boy who told Gabby he liked her, then kissed Sam at twelve o'clock. Danny and Helen listened, their hands linked, then, as the stories faltered, and first Sam and then Gabby began to rub their eyes, Helen sent them off to bed.

‘No training tomorrow, Sam,' Danny called after them. ‘I'll give you the day off.'

Helen and Danny allowed the twins few privileges, and although they were comfortably off, in many ways they lived a similar life to most of the working-class kids at their school and in the neighbourhood. The rules were simple: mind your manners, do as you're told and don't argue, eat what's put in front of you, get out of the house and go and play on the street or in the park, be home by sunset, and never ever get into a car with a stranger. Saturday afternoons were spent at the movies, if you could wheedle a sixpence out of your dad or mum or your brother who did a paper run, and everyone went to Sunday school, then the lucky ones came home to a roast-lamb lunch, with mint sauce, roast potatoes and pumpkin, followed by apple pie or red jelly and ice-cream. Wise mothers never tamper with perfection. Despite the Sunday-school attendance, Balmain wasn't, generally speaking, big on religion, and while respectful to priests, parsons, rabbis and preachers, the church figured in their lives for the most part only in christenings, confirmations, weddings and funerals. In summer most kids were to be found at the Balmain pool, and in winter at the football, if the Tigers were playing at home.

Boys got into fights, belonged to gangs and made billycarts in which they constantly risked their lives, breaking bones, grazing knees and splitting their heads open. Girls belonged to groups and imagined themselves different and special, with secret words and hand signs and the flower of the day concealed in their knickers. They swore serious oaths to eat only a certain colour ice-cream until they met a handsome prince, who would scoop them up and ride off with them on a white horse. While there was a certain amount of snootiness in their groups, and regular quarrels, the word ‘superior' wasn't an adjective they understood. Nobody had any money, and a new and unusual ribbon in a girl's hair provided a serious, if temporary, elevation in her status among her classmates. As with their friends, most of what the twins did went largely unsupervised, apart from Sam's rigorous training sessions.

Sam and Gabby had always attended the movie matinee, and had spent most of the Monday lunchbreak retelling the story to those kids who hadn't been able to go because their parents were skint. Gabby was the master storyteller, and sometimes girls who'd seen the movie sat in just to hear her version, complete with theme music sung in her sweet true voice. Sam, if she felt like it, would do the sound effects – horses galloping, dogs barking, birds in the garden, cows, goats and donkeys in the countryside, creaking doors, frightened gasps or hysterical screams, deathly groans, ghostly moans or ghoulish laughter. If a male villain featured, she'd sometimes agree to do his part, but only if he was particularly nasty.

A Monday performance by the twins, complete with background music and sound effects, had drawn a sizeable crowd, and many who'd attended the original movie had declared the twins' version decidedly the better of the two, particularly on those occasions when Gabby organised audience participation. But, popular as these movie re-creations were, the other girls their age still exhibited a certain wariness towards Sam and Gabby. It was to do with them being identical twins and therefore freaks of nature – mixed in the same milkshake blender, two brains that worked as one; naturally they were therefore thought to possess mysterious powers. Oddly enough, the movie re-creations were taken to be further evidence of this. How else could Sam possibly anticipate the sound effects, expressions and even actions that were required when Gabby didn't look at her or give any signals to cue her? At first, both went to some trouble to deny this bizarre synchronicity, but it only seemed to confirm the fact of their special power in the minds of the other kids. Any doubts were immediately erased if either twin was attacked verbally or physically. The two girls suddenly became ferocious – a single being that fought back with venom and tenacity – so that on several occasions, two, three or even four assailants were no match for Sam and Gabby in a spat or a fight.

Sam and Gabby had almost unconsciously learned to exploit their status as twins. It was irresistible – even the teachers were somewhat in awe of them. They invariably came first and second in every subject, swapping positions regularly, one never consistently brighter than the other. Even after the girls had been separated and were attending different schools, they were both put up a grade partway through their first year of secondary school, despite Sam's obsession with training and apparent indifference to her schoolwork. It was as if there were an invisible cord connecting the two of them, no matter how great the distance between them.

Curiously, they hadn't fraternised or belonged to the same groups at primary school. These all-girl tribes had secrets, rules and sworn oaths to protect their customs, and Sam and Gabby ably demonstrated that they could each be trusted to keep the dark secrets of their separate groups. These were matters involving such deeply important things as ice-cream colours and flavours, code words, future husbands, copying homework, sandwich swaps and initiation rites, the most daring of which was going an entire school day without wearing underpants.

While they were fiercely loyal to their friends, this wasn't always reciprocated. Suspicion about the power of identical twins persisted, and Sam and Gabby never felt entirely accepted. Then there was the added burden of having a father who was responsible for sending several of their classmates' fathers to Long Bay jail. While this was often perceived as just and fair, with mother and kids grateful for the respite from regular beatings, there was also great hardship as the family struggled to make do without a dad's salary. This seemed yet another manifestation of the latent power the twins exerted. The fact that they were also thought to be beautiful only compounded things.

There was yet another factor that divided Sam and Gabby from their schoolmates. By virtue of their parents' economic circumstances and education, the girls were permitted to dream larger and more exotic dreams, to have bigger plans, to live in anticipation of grander futures. While there was the example of Balmain's own Dawnie, the daughter of a working-class family, who had brought fame and glory to the suburb as well as to her country, very few girls sought to follow her example; it just seemed too far out of reach. Dawn Fraser was yet another kind of freak. For the most part the other girls lacked any sense of choice over their future. This torpor, this lack of excitement, the almost total absence of ambition or goals was already evident in primary school, so that when girls eventually reached high school, they were effectively conditioned to the prospect of leading the compliant life of a Balmain housewife. At best they'd leave school after the Intermediate Certificate, and have a go at nursing or hairdressing, but more often than not, this spark of ambition was extinguished when they found themselves with a bun in the oven from a back-seat dalliance in a hoon's souped-up Holden. Of course there were exceptions, but very few, and those girls who showed unusual ability invariably obtained a scholarship to Sydney Girls High.