Nine Days (17 page)

Along the river, not far from the Botanic Gardens, there are lots of couples walking. They all walk like us: slowly, the man slightly in front, no touching. Francis’s hands are in his pockets. In Paris couples might stroll arm in arm, but this is Melbourne.

Francis points to a seat further up the bank. ‘Let’s sit for a while.’ He charges up the hill. I follow.

On the other side of Punt Road, back across the river, I can see Richmond but here in South Yarra there are trees and birds and flowers and I imagine it’s like the country but nicer, more polite. Tonight Francis is taking me to Leggett’s, which is so posh there’s even a cloakroom. Cloaks! Imagine it! Not that I’ll need one tonight: it’s mild and fine. Tonight there are two bands and dancing until midnight. We won’t stay that long, of course. Dad usually wakes around ten. I wouldn’t want him to worry.

It’s a picture, here by the water. Same bit of river, yet it seems cleaner on this side. A shame Francis can’t sit still long enough to enjoy it. If he’s not standing to shake out the crease in his trousers, he’s resting one ankle on one knee, then stretching his legs straight out or brushing at some imaginary speck of lint.

‘What’s your dad doing with himself these days?’

‘The odd day at the tannery. Not so much work as there was.’

‘He should get into another field. We’ve never been busier at McReady’s. Another three contracts landed on my desk just yesterday. Good times and bad, people always need lawyers. To think I once thought about going for a job on the wireless. What a silly business.’

I think of the voices on the radio, so posh they sound English, so sure they know what to say next. ‘I can imagine your voice travelling through the air.’

‘It would have been a waste. My ma was right. God rest her.’

Our mothers. That’s another thing Francis and I have in common.

‘She would’ve liked you,’ he says.

I knew Mrs Westaway to look at but I don’t think I ever said two words to her and I certainly don’t think she would have liked me. Everyone said she was the grumpiest woman east of Punt Road. Everyone said hers was the smallest funeral that St Ignatius had ever seen. That wasn’t because of her manner though. That was on account of Connie.

‘I’m sure I would have liked her too.’

He raises his eyebrows, pulls at his fingers, cracking the knuckles first and then the joints. ‘Your father, he’s healthy enough. Sometimes we do old people a disservice by mollycoddling them.’

‘He’s not so well as he used to be.’

‘He’d probably do better on his own. You could still do his washing and ironing and shopping and take him round his tea.’

I nod but I don’t have the foggiest what he means. Take him round his tea? From where? And of course I’d do his washing and ironing. What else would I do with my day? I’ll always look after my dad. Not every man would’ve kept a child, especially a girl, when his wife died giving birth to her.

Francis stands in front of me. I tilt my neck to look up at him.

‘Got ya something.’

He hands me a small red velvet pouch with a tiny gold drawstring. It takes me a moment to understand what he’s said.

‘Go on, then. Open it.’

The drawstring is tight but I tease it open and empty the pouch onto my palm. It is a pendant. A purple jewel a good inch long, set in gold, hanging on a chain. The setting is heavy, the chain is fine and warm-coloured. He can’t be giving me this. Something like this could never belong to me.

‘Don’t you like it?’

‘It’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.’ I look down at it, sparkling in my palm. ‘Francis. I can’t accept it.’

‘Why not? What’s wrong with it?’

‘Not a blessed thing. But it must be worth a fortune.’

‘True.’ He grins. ‘Guess what it cost me. Guess.’

I can’t imagine. It could be worth fifty pounds. More. Where would Francis get that kind of money? I shake my head.

‘It cost me nothing. Can you believe it? Not a bean.’ He’s excited as a child, hugging himself, rocking on his heels.

He goes on to tell me a long story about how he used
to help old people in their yards when he was a boy, about the importance of respecting your elders, about a little hard work never hurting anyone. He called it his charitable works, he says, and he’d come home dirty and scratched from weeding and pruning, then be up half the night finishing his homework with Kip grumbling and growling about the light keeping him awake.

The pendant was a present from one of his old ladies. She was that grateful.
I didn’t want to take it, of course.
She pressed it upon him.
Please, Francis. You’ve been like a son to me.
He’s kept it all these years, hidden away, waiting for the right girl.

‘And I thought to myself yesterday: the time has come. I bet Annabel Crouch would like that necklace,’ he says.

The kind of boy he was. The kind of man he is. You could drive a truck between him and his and me and mine.

‘You should’ve given it to your ma.’

He laughs like I’ve made a joke. ‘It’s from Europe, the old lady said. Italy maybe. She got it off a duke or a prince or something. I’m pretty sure. Maybe a count. What are you waiting for?’

I loop it around my neck. The clasp is so delicate that for a moment I’m scared of my clumsy fingers but then it’s done. I can feel it, cool and smooth, resting at the base of my throat. From Italy, from a duke.

‘That looks fine,’ Francis says. ‘I can’t wait to show everybody.’

On the walk to the tram I feel like a different girl. I ask Francis to slow down and he does. I almost ask him to hold my hand. Inside the ballroom, there’s a crush and a half. It’s the biggest room I’ve ever seen, arches and balconies along the side. The band is playing and a few couples are dancing. Some men are standing down one end, girls at the other. Francis heads off to see his friends, most of them in the law too, all with big futures. I watch as a man hands him a silver flask from a pocket in his jacket. Francis tilts it high and drinks in one gulp, just like Dad.

Over against the wall sit Millie Mathers and Jos McCarthy. They look at me and speak to each other behind their hands. We were never what you’d call firm friends: every girl in Richmond knows every other to some degree, and for a time Jos worked in the munitions factory with me. She was in the office, of course, not on the floor.

I hold the pendant in my hand. Millie and Jos stand: they’re coming over. They say hello, smile with tight mouths.

‘Where have you been hiding yourself?’ Jos says. ‘My mother asked after you the other day. You should drop in for tea.’

I can’t find the words to answer. I don’t know the polite way to say,
Thank you. That’s very kind. I’d love to come to your house but I must decline because there’s no way I can ever return the invitation.

‘I like your frock, Annabel,’ says Millie. ‘It’s sweet.’

‘Every time you wear it, I like it all the more,’ says Jos.

Millie and Jos work at George’s, in ladies’ wear. They have their own money and their own lives. I’d like to compliment
their dresses, but I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to describe the fabric or the trimmings. I can’t find words for the colours: one is sombre green and the other reddy-pink, colours that must have their own names. They are dresses for drinking sherry in, not pouring beer.

‘My, Annabel,’ Jos says. ‘Where did you get that pendant? It’s beautiful.’

She means it. They are both staring hard and Jos leans forward and touches my chest when she picks it up, holds it, feels its weight. I tell them it is a gift from Francis. Millie and Jos look at each other.

‘Oh,’ says Jos. She drops the pendant like it’s burned her.

‘Oh indeed,’ says Millie.

‘You two aren’t engaged, are you?’ says Jos. ‘We would have heard.’

‘No. We’re not engaged.’

They look at each other again. ‘Funny,’ says Millie. ‘Francis giving you a pendant first.’ She licks her lips. ‘Not a ring.’

‘Perhaps you shouldn’t let that pendant become common knowledge, Annabel, dear,’ says Jos. ‘You don’t want to give people the wrong impression.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Millie smiles. ‘You’re such an innocent. It’s charming.’

‘You wouldn’t want people to think it was a gift of gratitude from a man to whom you are not engaged,’ says Jos.

More couples are moving on to the floor. The dancing is awkward at first, then faster and smoother. Jos spies someone across the room. She waves her arm as if she’s drowning.

‘Mac!’ she calls out, and waves again, and he comes down
our end. It’s her brother. I haven’t seen Mac for years; he looks different in his army uniform and he’s grown tall. He’s the only boy down our end in a sea of girls; everyone stares and some of the women around us move back as if he might have something catching. Jos kisses him on the cheek and so does Millie.

‘You remember Annabel Crouch?’ she says.

He says he does and
how do you do
and shakes my hand. When he smiles, I can see the boy I knew.

‘Mac’s been over in Japan, getting the Nips sorted out,’ says Jos.

‘You look just the same, Annabel,’ says Mac. ‘Care to dance?’

I say I’d love to.

‘Well,’ says Jos. Millie’s lips disappear entirely.

‘Never realised quite how much of a soldier’s life was spent dancing,’ Mac says, above the music. ‘Every leave, every night.’

He’s right, though it’s not the kind of dancing I remember. At school, before I left for munitions work, the nuns taught us what little they knew. They were Faithful Companions of Jesus and had never been to a proper dance in their lives. Stiff waltzing, white gloves, curtsies. They’d have a fit if they saw the jitterbug.

‘My memory is: boys don’t like dancing until they grow to men.’

He laughs. ‘The year I did the merit certificate, my mother was dead keen on me learning to dance. I remember telling
her I’d broken my leg and couldn’t go. Footy training I could manage all right. The leg healed itself for that.’

‘I’m thinking your mother was on to you.’

‘I should have limped in a more, ah, convincing fashion. Old man gave me the strap for lying.’ He opens and closes the palm of his hand like it still pains him. ‘I was in strife every five minutes at home. Excellent training for the army.’

‘And you don’t hate dancing anymore?’

He smiles and goes to twirl me, then all at once he stops moving. Francis is standing beside us.

‘Saint Francis,’ says Mac. ‘What’s it been? Five years, six? What are you doing with yourself? Still riding that desk? Life must’ve been grand in a reserved occupation.’

‘Annabel. We’re leaving.’

‘We were just dancing, Francis,’ I say.

‘I’m not sure the lady’s quite ready to go,’ says Mac. ‘Tell you what. You have another drink and I’ll give you a hoy when we’re finished.’

‘She came with me and she’ll leave with me,’ Francis says.

‘Now, now, civilian,’ says Mac. ‘Don’t go overwhelming me with gratitude.’

‘Annabel.’ Francis takes me by the arm but then Mac takes hold of Francis and he lets me go.

‘I hate to argue, sunshine, but I will if I have to,’ says Mac. ‘And you know how that will go.’

I look from Francis’s face to Mac’s and back again. Everyone is waiting. Now someone comes up behind them both: a man, standing between Mac and Francis, a hand on each shoulder. For the first time since he’s been back I
notice how much he’s filled out, broadened. Army rations and army work. The first thing that strikes me are those hands. They’re nearly as big as Mac’s and you can tell they’re strong just by the look of them.

‘Mac. You’re back. Good to see you.’

Mac takes the outstretched hand and shakes it like he’s drawing water from a pump. ‘Kip Westaway. Him of the good timing: joins up when the war’s as good as won.’

‘Never fear mate, there was plenty of work to be done when I got there,’ Kip says. ‘Cleaning up after heroes like you.’

‘How’s the nose? Sorry, again.’

‘Don’t be. I’ve grown fond of it. It has a certain roguish charm, and it stops people mixing me up with my brother. And I would’ve messed yours up well and truly, if I could’ve landed a punch.’

They both laugh and throw pretend jabs at each other, ducking and weaving. Kip starts walking and steers Mac with one hand on his back, then he holds his arm out for me and says how nice it is to see me again, as if he’s about to accompany me to a royal ball. I thread my arm through his and he leads us over to the side of the hall, on account of the dancers are nearly stepping on us. Francis follows, steam coming out his ears. Millie and Jos appear then and we spread out to become a circle of six.