Love in the Years of Lunacy (3 page)

She was in such awe of him that she forgot to come in with the band; or, rather, she was too intimidated. The sensation was like stage fright, but even worse. She edged away from the other musicians, trying to be inconspicuous, but as she stepped into the shadows she lost her footing and stumbled down the stairs of the bandstand. She heard the crowd laughing, could see the smirks on the faces of passing dancers, including Roma, who had kicked off her shoes and was now dancing with a taller man.

Pearl dumped her sax against its open case and plunged into the crowd, mortified, willing herself to disappear. The band was wailing now, and above it all was the triumphant howl of that damn saxophone.

Over the music, Pearl heard her brother call her name, but she ignored him, rushing through the tobacco-coloured light towards the exit.

Outside on the covered veranda, she leaned against the wall and tried to catch her breath. She'd never felt like such an idiot—not even during her sight-reading exams at the Conservatorium, or her first professional gig with Miss Molly's Sunshine Orchestra. Even her bandleader at the Trocadero had led her to believe that she was something of a musical prodigy, but now she suspected that he'd been humouring her because she was a girl, or that she was only what her father liked to call
a big fish in a little pool.

The band finished playing ‘Bugle Call Rag' and she could hear a purr of applause from inside the dance hall. She shivered and rubbed her arms, feeling stupid for having left her alto behind; she couldn't go home without walking back inside to fetch it. Perhaps Martin would bring her sax out to her, or she could ask the woman at the desk to collect it—but then the man who'd been playing the wild solo suddenly appeared beside her, holding out her case.

Up close, he was about half a foot taller than she was, and she had to tilt her head back to look him in the face. Standing in the light pooling out from the hallway, his skin didn't seem as light as it had in the dance hall—more like the colour of wet sand. His teeth gleamed white as he smiled and she noticed he had beautiful, unnaturally long lashes framing a pair of grey-blue eyes.

‘Sunshine,' he announced, ‘you play a mean axe!' His accent—all melodious, curly diphthongs—was straight from the American South.

She reached for the sax but he grabbed hold of her wrist with his free hand.

‘Bad reed,' he told her. ‘Happens to the best.'

She wasn't sure if was joking or not, but she nodded.

He put down her saxophone, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and held it out to her.

She hesitated. She didn't smoke but, looking up into his eyes again, she felt a stab of excitement. Wanting to feel grown up and worldly, she pulled one from the pack and placed it between her lips.

He struck a match and lit first her cigarette and then his own. For a few moments they stood facing each other, Pearl taking shallow, tentative drags.

‘Where'd you learn to play like that?' Smoke leaked from her nostrils and she began to cough.

‘Blow it out through your mouth,' he suggested, smiling. ‘Otherwise you'll choke.'

She snorted and took another short drag.

‘Where I come from,' he said, glancing over the wet lawn, ‘everyone plays. Ain't nothing else much to do.'

She deliberately tapped on her cigarette, even though it didn't need ashing. ‘And where's that?' she asked.

‘Looozy-anna!' he drawled, then leaned in closer to her and whispered, ‘Home of the devil's music.' He flared his nostrils and widened his eyes and she began to laugh.

‘New Orleans?'

He shook his head. ‘Close. Grew up on a farm near the Mississippi border. But I been to New Orleans plenty of times. First time when I was seven. Went with my cousin. That was when I first heard King Oliver play.'

At the sound of those magic words, ‘King Oliver', Pearl almost stopped breathing. She'd only ever heard the great trumpeter on her bandleader's old records.

‘You heard
the
King Oliver?'

He nodded. ‘On a riverboat.'

‘The bloke who taught Louis Armstrong?'

‘The one and only.'

The cigarette smouldered in her hand, forgotten. ‘What did he sound like?'

‘Good,' he said simply. ‘He'd turn a tune upside down, inside out, slap it against the wall and then bounce it off the ceiling.'

He flicked his butt into a nearby metal tray and Pearl copied him but missed, and had to chase her butt as it rolled across the veranda.

Embarrassed, she glanced at the musician who, she could see, was trying not to laugh.

‘Sunshine,' he said, ‘what's your name?'

‘Pearl.'

‘Pearl, my name is James.' He held out his hand and she noticed how big it was, and that his palm was not the same colour as his fingers, more a musky pink, like the underside of a tongue. ‘James Washington.'

When she shook his hand it felt like a big, warm mitten around hers. ‘How long've you been in Sydney, James?'

‘Nearly a week. But they've had me stuck in camp till tonight and I ain't seen no sights or nothing.' He leaned in and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. ‘'Cept you of course. You're a pretty good sight.'

Pearl felt her face growing hot.

‘And you sound great, too,' he added. ‘You really wail on that alto.'

She didn't really believe him but appreciated the praise. Smiling to herself, she glimpsed a shadowy couple near the hedge, kissing.

Pearl started to mumble, ‘Thanks,' when James cut her off.

‘Hey, Sunshine,' he said, ‘what are you doing tomorrow night? What's say you and me go out?'

She was so surprised she didn't know what to say. If her mother found out she were planning to date a black American she'd probably have a stroke. She picked up her sax case, and stalling for time, gazed into the garden. With a start, she recognised the embracing couple. It was her brother, and his hands had disappeared under Roma's dress.

It struck her that her twin was behaving exactly as he wished, without worrying what their mother or anyone else thought. Besides, Pearl had never felt so curious about another person before. Maybe it was his accent or the way he looked into her eyes when he spoke. The way he blew his sax.

‘Do you like fish and chips?' she asked.

He tilted his head to one side and said, ‘I like 'em if you do.'

‘Do you know where Circular Quay is?'

‘Seen it on the map. Right by the harbour.'

From the corner of her eye she saw Martin pressing Roma against the trunk of a tree. ‘Let's meet at wharf five,' she said. ‘Say, six o'clock?'

‘Make it six-thirty,' he replied. ‘And don't be late.'

And then he leaned down and kissed her briefly on the top of her head. Her scalp tingled at the touch of his lips.

2

‘S
o what's with the girl?' asked Pearl, as she and her brother walked home. It was after 1 am and the rain had stopped. The streets were quiet except for the distant barking of a dog.

‘Girl?' asked Martin, swinging his sax case as they crossed Bourke Street and headed towards Taylor Square. ‘What girl?'

Pearl thumped him on the arm.

‘I can't help it if women find me irresistible,' he declared, performing a little twirling dance just ahead of her, his free arm rising and falling like a wing. A gust of wind swept up the street, causing his coat to billow. He spun around again and clicked his heels together.

‘I'm going out with that sax player tomorrow night,' she said casually. ‘
He
asked
me
.'

Martin dropped back to his regular walking pace. ‘Well, I'm going out with Roma. To the pictures.'

They rounded the corner into Oxford Street. ‘James is from the South. Near New Orleans.'

‘Yeah? Well, Roma's from the bush,' he said. ‘A mission out Dubbo way. Lives with her aunty now in Redfern.'

‘James reckons I'm pretty.'

‘Roma reckons I should be in the movies,' Martin countered.

‘What as—Tarzan's ape?'

Martin swung an arm at her but she ducked and ran across the street, laughing.

It was nearly two when they reached the Victorian terrace in Potts Point where they lived with their parents and grandmother. Their mother, Clara, and father, Aubrey, had lived in the house overlooking Sydney Harbour since 1920, which they'd bought in order to raise a family. (Clara was a drummer who also doubled as a singer/dancer in a half-man, half-woman routine; Aub was a tenor saxophonist and ukulele player who also wrote and sang his own songs.) Clara fell pregnant three years later and Aub established a taxidermy business which he operated from the basement to bring in extra money. The house was also a haven for what Aubrey had dubbed ‘Clara's strays'. Currently there was an old ventriloquist, Mr Bones, who'd come to dinner three years before and had never left. He now slept in the attic, along with his doll, and often helped Clara with the housework. Another stray was Mikey Michaels, a kid about four years old whose widowed mother, a neighbour, had to work nights at a factory to support him. Mikey spent most of his time in the Willis' kitchen and slept in a canvas cot in the parlour.

The Willis home was a crammed museum of antique furniture and ornaments, relics from every bush town and foreign country in which Clara and Aub had performed: Persian carpets, a cedar dining table, oversized velvet chairs, gloomy oil paintings, an upright walnut piano. The main room of the house—the front parlour—boasted a large marble fireplace and stained-glass windows. An avid card player, Clara had a bridge table set up in one corner. And of course there were many examples of their father's obsession with taxidermy: a stuffed six-foot emu stood frozen in the foyer like some weird, feathered bellhop; a kookaburra with a foot-long wingspan was suspended by fishing line above the piano; and in the corner a Tasmanian tiger with large glassy eyes sat hunched, baring his sharp white teeth.

Once in bed, Pearl found it hard to sleep, despite the late hour. Had she made a mistake in agreeing to go out with James? He was a wonderful musician, and certainly was friendly—but maybe those were the very reasons she was feeling confused. Why was he so interested in going out with her: a girl wearing what looked like a wet bird's nest on her head, and who couldn't get through a chorus of ‘Bugle Call Rag'? A girl who didn't even know how to smoke a cigarette? Maybe he was lonely, she reasoned. She remembered the way he'd kissed the top of her head and her scalp began to tingle again. She was turning eighteen the following week and had never been kissed by a man on the lips—not unless you counted an Indian steward on an ocean liner who'd stuck his tongue into her mouth when she was eleven. As she drifted off to sleep she decided that even though she barely knew Private James Washington, she was determined to meet up with him.

The next morning, when the twins appeared in the kitchen for breakfast, Clara was shelling peas into a bowl. Mr Bones was curled up and snoring on the chaise longue in the parlour while little Mikey Michaels kneeled beside him stroking the old man's shiny shoes.

‘So what the dickens were you two up to last night?' Clara asked, not glancing up from the bowl.

Pearl and Martin only had to flash each other a look over the kitchen table to agree that they should lie. Clara didn't approve of Pearl
gallivanting all over town
, as she put it, with her brother. It didn't look right—a girl her age. Her own mother, Lulu, had chaperoned her—Clara—throughout all her teenage performances and tours until she was officially engaged to Aubrey and had a ring on her finger.

‘Pearl was over at Nora's place,' said Martin automatically. Nora Barnes, the drummer of the Trocadero's girls' band, was Pearl's best friend and confidante, and lived nearby in Darlinghurst.

‘Martin was showing a Negro soldier around the Cross,' said Pearl.

Clara frowned and fixed them with a hard stare. She was a plump woman in her early fifties. Her chubby face was framed by short curls the colour of rust, but which the Miracle Hair Dye Company called Temptation Red. ‘Then why did I hear you come in together?'

Pearl and Martin locked eyes again. ‘Me and the Negro picked up Pearl from Nora's place,' explained Martin. ‘So I could walk her home.'

Clara turned her back to open the icebox, and Martin winked at Pearl.

‘And the Negro met Nora,' added Pearl. ‘They got on really well.' She glanced into the parlour and saw that Mikey was tying the laces of Mr Bones' shoes together.

Martin sipped his tea. ‘Actually, they're going out on a date tonight.'

Pearl pulled a face at Martin. ‘And they asked me and Martin to come along.'

Mr Bones stirred and rubbed his eyes.

Clara pulled some butter from the fridge and put it on the table. ‘Why would they want you two along on their date?'

‘The Negro plays bridge,' Martin explained, causing Pearl to choke on a laugh. ‘We'll be playing doubles.'

At that moment Mr Bones stood up and, as Mikey ducked to one side, he took one small step and fell to the floor. Clara rushed to his side. By the time she'd chastised Mikey, helped Mr Bones to his feet and mixed him a hot toddy to calm his nerves, the twins' tall tale was forgotten.

Pearl still felt embarrassed about her sloppy playing at the Booker T. Washington Club the night before and so she spent the afternoon in her bedroom, practising ‘Bugle Call Rag' over and over again. Later, Martin joined her and they played a few duets. By the time they noticed the sun was going down it was after six o'clock and they were both running late.

Within minutes, she and Martin were rushing out of the house and, once they were out of eyeshot of their mother, they parted ways. Martin, who was meeting Roma at the William Street tram stop, ran up Victoria Street. Pearl leapt down the stairs from Potts Point to the dockside slums of Woolloomooloo, and on into the Botanic Gardens, which ran down to Circular Quay. But when she reached the gates at the western end of the park, they were already locked.

The thin bars looked like a series of upturned spears, with razor sharp points. Desperate, she scaled them and hoisted her leg over the top, only to slip. Her dress snagged on an iron spike, tearing the skirt, and the stockings she'd sewn from an old lace curtain ripped. She felt a stab of pain as she fell and landed on the concrete path on the other side. There was now an L-shaped wound carved into her shin, beaded with blood and dirt.

When she reached wharf five she was late; the only people there were a man sitting on the ground, facing the harbour, with a scrawny, bald cockatoo on a leash, an old woman feeding bread to a screeching flock of seagulls, and a pinched-faced boy grimly holding onto a length of fishing line that had been cast over the side of the wharf. She waited five minutes . . . ten . . . The woman ran out of bread and the seagulls flew away. The boy gave up and wound in his line. The man on the ground began muttering to the cockatoo, which crawled up and perched on his knee, squawking,
Shut up! Shut up!

Pearl felt disappointment well up. It was her first real date and she'd ruined it. Panicking, she turned in a circle, willing James to appear from behind a pylon or to step out of a taxi. She realised she had no idea how to find him again. Her upswept hairstyle was falling down in a mess of bobby pins. Her dress and stockings were ruined and her left leg was throbbing. A drunk lurched up and propositioned her, so she crossed the street and, feeling hungry and sorry for herself, headed towards the Emperor, the fish and chip shop where she'd planned to take James. She walked through the door and into the tart smell of vinegar and frying batter. She gazed up at the blackboard above the oil vats, where the menu and prices were chalked. She was trying to decide whether she wanted potato scallops or a saveloy when she glanced down the back of the shop and noticed James sitting at one of the laminex tables, a teapot and cup in front of him. He was wearing his uniform and cap, the brass buttons glowing like Christmas globes, his grey eyes fixed on her.

Pearl's heart hammered hard as she approached him. He was as handsome as she remembered him, and under the electric light he seemed as calm and dignified as a statue of a saint. Before she could blurt out an apology, he rocked back in his chair, smiling, and surveyed her torn dress.

She tensed, feeling ridiculous. ‘Sorry,' she said. ‘I tried to take a short cut and got locked in the gardens.'

He took a serviette from the table and, with a nod at her leg, said, ‘Looks like a long cut to me.' He licked the serviette and dabbed the gash on her shin.

The gesture further embarrassed her. To change the subject she said, ‘I was going to introduce you to fish and chips. Do you still want some?'

He tried to look serious but she could see that he was amused. ‘Yes, ma'am.'

Pearl backed away from him, leaving him holding the white serviette speckled with blood. ‘Two fish and chips with salt and vinegar, please,' she called to the Chinese man behind the counter.

Within minutes their dinners arrived, wrapped with an inner lining of butchers' paper and then pages of old newspaper. Pearl tore a hole in the top of the package. James did the same and steam escaped from inside. He reached into the parcel. ‘Chips, huh?' he said. ‘At home we call these fries.'

They left the shop, carrying the fish and chips, and strolled down to the quay. A ferry blasted its horn, and on the spur of the moment Pearl said, ‘Let's catch it!' They bought tickets and sat on the deck watching seagulls dip and glide across the harbour as they ate their food. To the east they could see the lights strung above troop ships docked at Garden Island. The ferry creaked and rocked. Suddenly a wave lurched over the deck and they laughed as they were sprayed with water.

‘Maybe we should've done this during the day,' she said, ‘so you could've seen more of the city.'

‘I can see you all right,' he said. ‘That's the main thing.'

The ferry began turning to the left, heading towards the Harbour Bridge. James put his package of chips to one side and rubbed his hands, then leaned back and gazed at the lights glancing off the harbour. ‘Right now, in the States, it's the middle of the day. Actually, it's the middle of yesterday. Funny, huh?'

She sensed he was probably homesick and touched his sleeve. ‘Well, they're just living in the past.'

He put his hand on hers. ‘That's right, Sunshine. Now, we're in the month of May, ain't we?'

She nodded.

‘And right now it's fall—I mean autumn—right?'

‘Tomorrow's the first day of winter.'

‘Back home, it'll be summer,' he said, shivering. ‘Lightning bugs. Town parades. Sleeping on the back porch to catch a breeze from the river.'

When Pearl had been eleven she'd sailed to Ceylon with her mother in an all girls' band. It was the depths of the Depression—1935—and for a year the band was the family's only source of income. The travel had taught her that there were several time zones around the world, but she'd never contemplated the idea of opposite seasons. It was odd to think that, at this very moment, in America, people were eating lunch and probably fanning themselves against the afternoon heat.

‘Here summer means the beach, the cricket and lots of cold beer.' She squeezed his hand. ‘You'll love it.'

As the ferry chugged on towards the Milsons Point wharf, the gate of Luna Park amusement park loomed ahead, a giant grinning clown's face flanked by towers. The facade was as tall as a seven-storey building and had once pulsed with neon lights, but since the Japanese had bombed Darwin in February, the bulbous eyes no longer flashed and the eyebrows never moved. From where they were sitting, Pearl could see the sprawling wooden skeleton of the Big Dipper rollercoaster with its wide, feminine curves, and the Arabian minaret on top of the fun house, draped in a necklace of muted yellow electric bulbs.

‘How long does it take to sail to Australia?'

James groaned and crossed his legs. ‘Put it this way,' he replied, ‘when I left San Francisco I was still in kindergarten.'

She nudged him playfully. ‘No, seriously. How long?'

He pursed his lips. ‘Little over five weeks. Like sailing to the moon. 'Cept when you get off the boat all the moon people speak English in a funny accent and drink lots of tea.'

The ferry slowed down and bobbed against the wharf. Pearl jumped to her feet. ‘Well, us moon people like to have fun, too!' She led James down the ferry plank and they walked over to the gate of Luna Park, entering beneath the clown's upper denture made from plaster of Paris. It was growing late but there were still a lot of people milling about, mostly American servicemen and local girls. A big structure called Noah's Ark creaked from side to side.