The Turning Tide (5 page)

‘Irregular tactics?’

‘Unarmed combat, explosives, commando fieldcraft,’ said Alan. ‘Serving in small independent companies, nothing at all like the regular army.’ He too was a volunteer for the secret duties and, like Johnny, had been promoted to corporal.

‘And those natty stripes?’ I said. ‘Part of the bribe too, I bet.’

‘Nah, just sheer virtue and all-round brilliance,’ said Alan. He had curly black hair, grey eyes and white teeth, and would have been annoyingly good-looking if he hadn’t been so funny.

‘Al’s an engineer like you, Mike,’ said Johnny.

‘A tiny cog in the great machine of the Postmaster-General’s Department,’ said Alan. ‘Electrical engineer – that is, until a few months ago. What about you?’

‘Halfway through third year. Yeah, I love electronics. What’s it like as a job?’

Alan bent close to my ear. ‘Bloody amazing. There’s stuff happening I can’t even talk about, they’d have to shoot me. But that’s the place to be in the war, Mike, signals, communications.’

Johnny scoffed. ‘Signals, mate? Jesus, you sigs’ll be up the back fiddling with wires while us he-men are out in front saving your bacon.’

‘Yeah, and us sigs’ll be warning you he-men about the thugs round the next bend so you don’t waltz straight into their arms whistling “Poor Blind Nell”.’

They looked at each other laughing and Johnny punched Alan’s shoulder affectionately. It didn’t seem to bother him, but I knew from experience how much heft Johnny could put behind a jovial thump. The three of us chatted easily over the next few drinks. Alan told me more about his work and what he hoped to do in the army, teased by Johnny all the while but giving as good as he got. He was a lot of fun.

A little later Helen arrived and my heart leapt. She was with a friend, Delia, a nurse, who was my occasional date for the pictures. But Delia was as little interested in me as I was in her, and after a brief greeting she quickly turned her attention to Johnny and Alan.

‘Are you with us for long this time, Mike?’ said Helen, sitting down beside me.

‘Two weeks, then back to the grind. How’s Mrs Erikssen taking Johnny’s recruitment?’

Her dimples deepened. ‘Plates were thrown, Swedish curses cast, Mr Erikssen took to the woodshed and I think the cows stopped milking. Other than that she took it well.’

When I stopped laughing I said, ‘Hey, I managed to find that book for you in a second-hand store.’ I passed over an old leather-bound book of poetry she’d wanted. She flushed with pleasure and we had a brief argument about her paying for it and me refusing because it had cost so little.

She flipped through the pages, occasionally murmuring a line to herself, then looked at me. ‘You’re so kind, Mike. I really –’ She stopped and swallowed.

‘Helen?’ I was surprised. ‘Are you okay?’

She nodded and smiled reassuringly and moved her chair slightly to join in the general conversation. When she looked at Johnny she glowed as she always had, but I had an odd feeling there was a thread of … what? Was it yearning? But she had him, he adored her.

I watched Johnny, as did everyone else. He was compelling – handsome and electric with happiness. A real man’s man. He turned to Alan and said something quietly that made them both chuckle. Poor Helen: she must have been worried about him going away to war. I saw him grin over the table at her, reaching out his hand to stroke hers for a moment. Helen smiled, then turned the pages of her book.

Chapter 5

There’s a knock, and a grey curly head appears around my office door.

‘Alan, you old bastard! I was just thinking about you. Come in and sit down.’

I meet him halfway and we hug. He’s still handsome, grey eyes and white teeth, but he wears glasses now.

‘I’m here for a client meeting this afternoon, back to Sydney first thing tomorrow,’ he says. ‘I’ve been to see Sue already. She doesn’t stop, does she, my little girl? And dinner with Terry and the family tonight.’

‘Come on then, you’re stuck with me for lunch,’ I say, ‘I’m fed up with marking papers.’

We walk over to Lygon Street in the December humidity, not talking much because Alan’s partly deaf – lost an eardrum in an explosion – and the street’s too noisy.
Finally we’re settled with some drinks in a cool corner at my favourite Italian place.

I see he’s near exhausted and say, ‘How’s Jan?’

He looks away. ‘Mike. I don’t know. It’s spread everywhere. Liver, lungs. There’s nothing the doctors can do. It looks like it’s only a matter of time.’ He picks at the fingertips of his left hand, the ones without any nails.

‘I’m sorry, old mate. That’s awful.’ There’s not much more to be said.

Alan was a great support to me when Marion died; I hope I can help him as much in return when the inevitable happens to him. In middle age, Marion forgave him for leaving her so many years before. You see, Alan was my stepchildren’s natural father.

He hadn’t been around much when they were small but later he’d helped a lot with them (and Sue was such a tearaway, I’d needed the moral support). We’d joke about the two of us adding up to one real father, but I know and he knows I’ve done a pretty good job with the family he left behind.

Our meals arrive and we don’t speak for a while. Then Alan says, ‘So you were thinking about me? What particular misdeed? And it wasn’t me, sir, it was bloody Erikssen.’

‘Funny you should say that. Found myself down at Tidal River earlier this year. Of all people, I run into Johnny’s granddaughter and, even worse, she’s a student here. And she wants me to visit her nana and won’t take no for an answer.’

‘Unthinkable. Beautiful Helen a nana? But why don’t you want to see her?’

‘No. I can’t. I don’t know. It took so long to get over those dreadful years. Marion rescued me and I don’t want to go back.’

Alan looks at me. ‘I knew you were mad for Helen, but I sometimes wondered. There was something else, wasn’t there? Something you won’t, what, forgive each other for?’

I put down my fork and can’t say anything for a while.

‘Yes. There was. And she’d be as disinclined to see me as I am to see her. And that’s all I’ll ever say.’ I take another mouthful but the flavour is cardboard.

‘Oh Mike, you were always such a drongo! Life’s too short, it really is. Whatever might have happened with Helen was so long ago. Johnny can’t care now, and he didn’t care then. Trust me, I know.’

‘It’s between her and me, not Johnny and me, Al. Sorry, look, you’re right, of course you are. But Christ, it was hard enough being at Tidal River, that bloody commando memorial. Too many memories.’

He nods. ‘Yeah. Too many.’ He thinks for a moment. ‘Do you ever go to the reunions?’

‘No. I get the newsletter but just flip through it. I don’t want to see anyone.’

‘A few years ago I went, but there was no way on earth I could talk about my life to the blokes, much as I love them. Not possible.’

I nod in agreement. ‘Yep.’

Betty Egawa wrote to me twice in 1941 after she went to Japan. The first time was a postcard after they’d arrived in April. It didn’t say anything much beyond conventional
greetings: I had the feeling she’d written it with someone looking over her shoulder, checking she wasn’t writing anything inappropriate to the Aussie boy she’d left behind.

The other, in early September, was a real letter. She told me where she was living – Hatsukaichi, on the Inland Sea. She was learning calligraphy and had a language teacher to improve her Japanese. She was sometimes bored but she liked her relatives. Ken had joined the army as he’d hoped and had been quickly promoted. His training camp was a long way away so they didn’t see him very often.

I miss speaking English, Mike. And laughing at jokes, especially with you! It’s very green and mountainous here, either misty cold or boiling hot. I miss Broome terribly too, but there’s no question of me returning. My Great-Aunt Kiyo, who’s a darling, cries if I say anything about going home. There’s so much talk here about the steel and oil embargo, they call it an act of aggression by the Americans, British, Chinese and Dutch – the ABCD encirclement! The papers talk about war all the time. Oh, how I wish I could come home.

Poor Betty, it was such a strange time of suspense. The Germans had recently attacked Russia, successfully at first, but now they were faltering and everyone hoped they’d taken on more than they could handle. But Japan was still itching for a fight and no one knew where or when – or even if – it would ever happen.

I went down to Foster in the September holidays and met Helen for a drink at the Exchange. She told me Johnny
and Alan were immersed in their training at the Prom but were due for some leave soon.

She was wearing something green and pink, I recall, and I couldn’t believe how lovely she was. But as we spoke, I started to feel an edge of concern. There were faint smudges under her eyes and she was drinking more than I remembered was usual.

‘Is everything all right, Helen?’ I asked.

‘Yes. Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?’ she said, looking out the window.

‘I’m not sure. You don’t seem very happy, gorgeous girl,’ I said in a Clark Gable growl.

Despite my best intentions, my feelings for Helen had not only refused to stay throttled, they had deepened. I took refuge in leading-man imitations. A Bogart-drawled ‘sweetheart’ or a gravelly Gable endearment were safe outlets for inadmissable yearnings.

She didn’t smile at our old joke. ‘It’s not an easy time to be happy, Mike.’

‘That’s true.’ I shut up. She didn’t want to talk about herself. We changed the subject to friends. Delia had fallen hard for Alan, who wasn’t the slightest bit interested; Johnny’s other brother had joined up too and Mrs Erikssen was furious. I told her about Betty’s recent letter from Japan and my fears for her. Helen looked sympathetically at me for the first time, and suddenly the easy flow of affection between us returned.

‘Mike, I’m so sorry for being snooty,’ she said shaking her head, light glancing off the gold cross at her throat. ‘I’ve been low. And lonely. Johnny hasn’t had more than a few moments spare for me the last few months.’ She looked
at her hand with his modest engagement ring. ‘I’m not even sure he wants to get married now.’

‘Are you joking? He’s crazy about you.’

‘He was until he got me,’ she said quietly. ‘I mean, I know he loves me, but other interests, other people, are more important now. Even when we have the chance to be together he’s always with Alan, drinking, hiking, fishing –’

‘It may seem that way, Helen,’ I said, ‘but they’re training to be soldiers. They have to spend time together, learn to trust each other in all sorts of dangerous situations. The same thing happened to some people I know in Melbourne. Once Johnny settles in properly he’ll be all right again.’

‘I understand that, I really do. And I know there’s a war on and we all have to make sacrifices,’ she said bitterly, twisting a hank of hair around her beautiful long fingers. She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Dear God, I sound horrible. Can I say sorry again, Mike?’

‘Any time, sweetheart.’

She dimpled and I knew we were at ease with each other again. After a moment she looked down and said softly, ‘Can I ask you a question? I don’t have anyone else to talk to and I’m worried.’

I waited and after a few moments she said, ‘Mike, you’ve had girlfriends …’

‘Only one real one,’ I said with honesty.

She looked around. No one was near.

‘When you spent time … together …’ She put her face in her hands. ‘Oh, God, I’m so embarrassed.’

‘It’s all right. My mother was a nurse once, you know,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t imagine the things I used to hear over the dinner table.’

Helen chuckled. She took her hands away from her face and looked at me.

‘Mike, how long does it last, usually, for a man, you know?’

I thought for a moment. ‘It depends how new … being together is. A few minutes at the start. Later, ten, twenty minutes? I didn’t use a stopwatch.’

She said shyly, ‘And the woman, is she supposed to feel something … pleasant too?’

‘Well, yes, of course. I thought women – again we’re talking a very small sample here – usually enjoy it as much as men. Don’t they?’

She shook her head. ‘I want to be close to Johnny so much when we’re together, but it’s over so quickly and I’m left feeling … disappointed. I don’t understand.’

‘The two of you haven’t had a chance yet,’ I said. ‘You need more time to get used to each other. I guess that’s the point of marriage.’

‘But you weren’t married to – what was her name – Kitty?’ (I’d been indiscreet at a party a few months ago.)

‘No, true. But that was rather overwhelming.’

‘I’d like overwhelming. I don’t much like perfunctory.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t understand how fierce my feelings have become and I can hardly ask at church.’

I said gently, my heart aching, ‘Perhaps you and Johnny should wait a while before getting married.’

‘No, Mike, I love him! I don’t want to wait. He’s such a wonderful man, we’re perfect together.’ She shook her head firmly, the light catching the swing of her golden hair. ‘No. It must be the training making too many demands on him. I’m sure we’ll work it out.’

I nodded, hoping to offer her comfort. ‘It’ll be fine, Helen. Just give yourselves some time.’

A few days later I met Johnny and Alan in town on leave. They were tanned, muscular, hard. They told me tales, quietly and confidentially, of new skills: fieldcraft, stealth, silent death. They laughed about endurance marches, impossible loads, foodless days, sleepless nights; they glowed with private jokes and shared memories.

I found myself wondering if Helen – if any woman – could compete with that.

Everyone was on edge. Japanese aggression had reached the point of no return; a matter of when, not if, now. Rumours kept flying about where their great naval fleet was heading. The Philippines, Hawaii, Singapore? No one knew. All we knew was that Japan had to grab some other nation’s oil and wealth soon or it would grind to a halt.

I returned to Foster at the end of November 1941 after my third-year exams. It was glorious Gippsland weather, hot in the afternoon, brilliantly clear at night.