Spitfire Girls (23 page)

‘What job is this then?'

‘Something to do with a movie company – Australia's first,' she lied. ‘I could be in on the big time, and I don't even have to go to Hollywood.'

‘How long will you be away?'

Kay paused. It could be forever – what would her father do if he lost his only daughter?

‘A week, perhaps.'

‘Where would you stay? Terrible things happen in places like Brisbane, to girls on their own. Let your Dad come along.'

‘No!' exclaimed Kay decisively. ‘I'll be all right. I'll get a room somewhere.'

‘Promise us you will send a cable when you've arrived.'

‘I will, Mum. Will you lend me the money?'

‘For the cable? Of course.'

‘For the trip.'

‘Where did all your savings go?'

Kay had never revealed to her parents her true destination when she had walked the seven miles to the tiny airfield and flying club outside Townsville, making up a story about tennis lessons.

‘Those lessons – you know, the tennis.'

‘Nearly one hundred dollars – that's a year's allowance!'

Kay could see her mother's face softening, as it always did on these occasions, and she reached into her handbag.

‘This was meant to be for your Christmas present, so take the cash instead.'

‘Brilliant!' With no further thank-you, Kay had bounded down the steps of the school and disappeared before Phyllis Pelham had snapped shut the metal clasps on her handbag.

Leaping into the house and racing up the stairs to her room, Kay grabbed the bag she had already packed and stopped only to wipe the perspiration from her deeply tanned brow. In the mirror she could see why people said she looked far older than her twenty-four years, the lines around her mouth and eyes giving her a sensuous expression that inflamed more and more men with each passing season. She wanted to see her father one last time, but knew the wrench would be unbearable and, even worse, he might talk her out of her latest madness. Life would be less complicated without the constant attentions of young cowboys, the majority of whom she detested but whose physical prowess fulfilled a need that had tormented her since late childhood. Unable to control urges that overtook her in unpredictable waves that struck by day or by night, Kay had risked acquiring the reputation of neighbourhood tart. England, with its rain and fog and its odd people, whom
she regarded as sexually stagnant, might help her to temper the insatiable appetites that seemed to burn into her with the rays of the Tropic of Capricorn.

Now changed into a crisp white suit, Kay made her way to the dirt courtyard that served as a mainline bus station, trying not to think about her father in his hot office overlooking Townsville City Hall. When she did not think about him visions of her last encounter with a cowboy surged into her brain and triggered an instant throbbing down her torso. Why did other women get on with their lives while all she could ever think about was the sensation her next liaison would create between her thighs?

Other girls she knew, who had married, talked of love and contentment but the idea of having just one man for life was to Kay a massive waste, like eating porridge for breakfast every morning from cradle to grave. Two nights earlier she had crept away from home at thirty minutes past twelve to meet Buck – appropriately named, with immediate urges like her own – their hands digging into each other and his hardness thrusting so brutally she felt he would rupture her and she would break in two. Those married girls who told her of wedded unions would have struggled and called his sex rape, but if she was the rapist more often than not, how could these lust-crazed men be blamed?

So far, however, ultimate ecstasy had eluded her. And as she was violently mounted and her rampant victims grunted, she wondered what it was like to come like a total woman.

‘Been waiting long?'

A female voice pulled Kay out of her thoughts and as
she looked up from the bench a droplet of perspiration fell from the tip of her nose.

‘Oops! What a mess I am!' Kay exclaimed, reaching for a handkerchief. ‘I don't honestly remember when I got here.'

‘They tell me it could be another hour – roos crossing the roads or something.'

‘Is that so?' Kay responded, as the girl, dressed in a dainty frock and hat, sat down next to her. She smelled of soap and expensive cologne, making Kay feel unwashed.

‘Oh, well – I can't say I'll miss all this wildlife. You going a long way?' She looked at Kay with great interest.

‘It depends,' Kay replied cagily. ‘If things work out this trip may take me to Pommyland.'

‘Me too,' the girl murmured.

‘No shit!'

Her eyes widening in awe, the girl seemed to shift a few inches away from Kay to the edge of the bench.

‘What's the matter? Don't I smell as pretty as you, darling?' There was a silence. ‘What's your name? Mine's Kay – Kay Pelham. I'm local.'

‘Lillian – Lili for short – Villiers.'

‘Christ Almighty! Are you one of that rich Villiers mob?'

‘My father is one of
the
Villiers family, if that's what you mean. Yes.'

‘No wonder I've never come across you in my crowd.'

‘Did you say your name was Pelham? My Dad has been working with an engineer called Pelham. He's thinking of building an aircraft factory right here outside Townsville – maybe I shouldn't be telling you all this, but surely you must already know.'

‘It's news to me. How do you catch on to what goes on in your father's office, then?'

‘I'm a partner.'

‘Jesus Christ.'

‘Wherever it is you're going, will they let you swear like that?'

‘Of course! They're always swearing in the RAF.'

‘RAF?'

‘I'm auditioning for ATA.'

‘So am I!'

They looked at each other, and for the first time Kay broke into a grin, her magnificent dimpled smile framing perfect, gleaming teeth. Grunting in the distance like one of Kay's Bucks, the bus approached the platform.

‘We'll have to stick together then, won't we, mate?' Kay asked.

‘If you like.'

Swinging their bags on to the bus, the pair of girls could have been mistaken for lifelong friends, or sisters, from the ease of manner with which they chatted and laughed.

Settling into their seats for the lengthy journey south, Kay and Lili ignored the elderly couples who seemed to regard them as noisy intruders – the one reeking of perfume and the other dressed like a prostitute.

‘How many flying hours have you managed, then?' Kay asked her companion, reaching into one of her large bags for a banana. An old man seated across the aisle stared as her long fingers stripped the yellow skin down with slow caressing movements. Her mouth enveloped the ripe fruit and as her piercing, taunting brown eyes focused on the old man, he retreated back to his newspaper and pulled the
rim of his cap down over his face. She could see feeble veins pumping the blood of his twilight along a scraggy neck, and for several unsuccessful moments she tried to picture him young and virile.

‘Are you listening?' shouted Lili, as the bus pulled away from Townsville.

Kay grinned at her provocatively, munching the banana.

‘You asked me about flying hours.'

‘Tell me, then.'

‘Nineteen hundred and fourteen,' Lili declared.

‘Your year of birth, you mean?' Kay heaved the banana peel out of the coach window.

‘Those are my hours!'

‘Two thousand – my God, that's as many as Valerie Cobb's flown, and she's old enough to be our mum.'

‘I've been taking lessons since I was fourteen, and I qualified to
A
before my seventeenth birthday. Now I have
B
and
C
too. What about you?'

Kay gazed out of the window. ‘Let's hope there are some hunky men out there,' she murmured distantly.

‘Who cares?' Lili hissed. ‘Well?'

‘Well what?'

‘Hours up there.' Lili pointed skyward.

‘Several hundred. Not quite two thousand.'

‘What can you fly?'

‘Sopwith Grasshopper. Westland Wigeon. Comper Swift. You name it, I've flown it.'

‘I've never seen any of those in Queensland.'

‘You wouldn't have. They belong to one of my fellahs who's a collector. I've done hundreds of hours in them.'

‘Why have we never met at a fly-in?'

‘I hate fly-ins. They're a stupid waste of time, if you ask me.' Kay shut her eyes and feigned sleep as the bus rattled through Woodstock. As the hours passed, the heat became unbearable and the girls drifted between sleep and nausea. Coolness arrived with dusk, Lili now deep in slumber. Their driver had pulled over at Claredale but Kay did not want to disturb her companion, whose blouse had fallen away to a pink chest and breasts as white as snow. Did this girl never sunbathe? Kay pondered, staring intently. One elderly couple had ended their journey here and now they were the only females remaining on the bus. When the driver returned it was dark and when Kay removed her gaze from the other girl's large, perfectly formed bosom her neck was stiff and she let out a small cry.

Lili awoke. ‘What's happened?' she asked, her hand reaching up to cover herself.

‘Nothing. I hope you don't have to pee because you won't have another chance until midnight.'

‘I do, as a matter of fact.'

‘Too late.'

Lili looked fearful and Kay took her hand.

‘You'll survive. Just think of Amy Johnson.'

‘How did she pee, anyway?' Now Lili was staring at her.

‘I've never worked it out.'

‘Will we meet her over there?'

‘Probably, if we get through our auditions.' She smiled at Lili, still holding her hand. ‘You said
pee
. I bet you've never said that before in your life.'

‘I'm learning some bad habits from you already.'

In the darkness overtaking the coastal glory of North
Queensland, desert mice and bearded dragons watched as the ugly bus trundled from Gumlu to Guthalungra, its female passengers tense in anticipation of their approaching ordeal and terrified of the loneliness they might inherit from the future.

No young man of good family and education could have resisted the attraction of the excitement in Spain, and when Zack and Paul Florian had turned down their sister's offer of flying lessons in favour of a trip to the Civil War she had burst into tears. Angelique had never understood their propensity for causes at a time when the world was at peace and England could be enjoyed.

Their parents had been the cream of Armenian aristo -cracy but were still struggling to be accepted into British high society. Angelique had voiced great protestation when they had threatened to make her a debutante, giving as her excuse the obligations of a RADA production. Her real motive had been to protect her father and mother from the ultimate humiliation of being scorned by the old moneyed set. Ironically, many of the girls with whom she had shared air instruction had made their debuts and had taken up flying as a kind of rebellion against the female roles foisted upon them by tradition-bound families. Angelique, the youngest of the Florian children, had excelled as an aviatrix and had shown genius in her comprehension of aircraft engineering. Her brothers, dark and well built, had studied in the humanities and were drawn to the anti-Franco expedition despite serious love affairs with well connected ladies. Angelique had flown the boys to their folly in a rickety Airspeed Courier, and had managed to leave the Spanish airfield in one piece despite flak from a freshly arrived loyalist unit.
That had been in 1936, when she had found it all a great adventure.

In order to forget excruciating pain Zack and Paul focused their thoughts on their sister. This morning's torture session had been exceptionally harsh because a group of French freedom-fighters had tried to escape from the prison in which the two British scholars had been held for eight months. Early the night before, a rumour had got around that Germany had invaded Poland.

‘Wimbledon will surely be cancelled next year,' Zack muttered, his mouth swollen and bruised. Virtually all his teeth were missing, his gums a pale reflection of the handsome smile in the Oxford graduation photograph at which someone in England might still be gazing. His thick black hair had begun to fall away, leaving weird patches across a head that had not yet reached its twenty-fifth year.

‘Who was the last men's champion?' Paul asked, his battered body clothed only in ragged, soiled shorts.

‘I can't remember.'

Zack shut his eyes and folded his legs, grimacing at the bite of the manacles that tore into his bony wrists. He noticed that his brother, whose beard was still ginger, had gone grey on top – and he speculated on the reception their scalps would attract should the pair ever again dine at the Florian table, or make love in secret with Annabel Cobb and Sarah Truman.

Every morning at seven, both boys were taken into an interrogation room that stank unbearably of sweat, the smell emanating from the captors as well as from the victims. From what they could interpret when the guards chattered
in dialect, sex was in generous supply at the moment, provided by terrified female detainees who had arrived in Spain with ideals and virginity intact. Now, as the reeking interrogators compared notes, Zack and Paul exchanged sickened looks while a cascade of dialect described chained shadows of women near suffocation as queues of penises filled their ulcer-ridden mouths and bleeding caverns that had once been vaginas. Cramped with diarrhoea the Anglo-Saxon females were rewarded for their efforts with a finale of torture performed by one or two men still energetic enough to wield blunt sticks.

After every session one girl always died, and when Zack and Paul heard about the men's daily depravities they felt relieved only to be men on the receiving end of simple, uncomplicated brutal beatings. In the back of their minds they assumed that when all the women had died off the Spaniards would discover buggery. One night Paul had dreamed that all nine of his torturers had turned up at Ascot, dressed impeccably and welcomed into the Royal Enclosure on Derby Day, their English perfect and their political views being praised by all around them. On awakening, Paul felt as if his brain had committed a form of high treason, and for some days afterwards he had been plagued by the depression of guilt. Zack had cheered him up by reminding him that neither Chamberlain nor Churchill had acted to achieve the unfastening of their Spanish manacles.