‘You aren’t listening,’ May said, her voice a little sharp.
‘I’m sorry,’ Dulcie said guiltily. ‘I was just taken aback by this place. It’s so lovely.’
‘Umm,’ May replied. ‘A bit boring though, I always see the same people here. Anyway, I was telling you about the new can-can petticoat I bought, it’s got about a mile of net.’
Maybe Dulcie looked blank, for May launched into telling her that net underskirts were the latest craze from America and some girls wore two or three under their dresses when they went dancing. It seemed she went dancing most Saturday nights with her friend Angelina. ‘I love jiving,’ she said rapturously. ‘Can you do it?’
Dulcie had seen jiving on the television and on the news at the cinema, but it hadn’t arrived at the Saturday dances in Esperance as far as she knew. But then she hadn’t been to one for over a year. When she told May this her sister looked appalled.
‘But what do you do then when you go out with Ross?’ she asked.
‘Mostly to the pictures, but we haven’t been out anywhere for ages because of Betty being so ill,’ Dulcie replied. ‘He’s not very keen on dancing anyway.’
May wrinkled her nose. ‘I wouldn’t marry a man who didn’t like dancing, I like to get dressed up and be seen by everyone when I’m on a date. Are you still going to get married?’
Dulcie nodded. ‘We haven’t set a date yet, but I think it will be next January or February. It depends on Bruce really.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, he keeps trying to put me off. I don’t mean in a nasty way, he isn’t like that, but I suppose he thinks I’m still a bit young.’
‘You’re nearly twenty-two, that’s old enough,’ May shrugged. ‘I expect it’s because he wants you to stay in his house looking after him. Men are selfish like that.’
‘It’s not that, he doesn’t think I’ve looked around enough yet.’
‘Well, you could do better than a stockman,’ May said bluntly. ‘I don’t understand why you’ve stayed on a farm anyway, it must be so boring.’
Dulcie didn’t want to get into an argument about that so she asked May if she had a boyfriend.
‘Two,’ May said. ‘There’s Ken who lives just up the road from the Wilberforces, and Matt, he’s an accountant with an office in the city.’
After much probing for more information about these two boyfriends, and a little astute guesswork, Dulcie established that Ken was the stand-in for when Matt wasn’t available. It crossed her mind Matt might have another girl too, for it seemed odd that he could only find time to take May out once a fortnight. Ken on the other hand sounded very nice. He was twenty and at Perth University studying mathematics, and lodging with his aunt.
‘I hope you aren’t going to give me one of those
don’t you get carried away
talks,’ May said suddenly. ‘Mrs Wilberforce did that one day, and it was so embarrassing.’
‘Do you mean getting carried away about getting married?’ Dulcie said innocently.
May burst into laughter. ‘No, of course not. I meant sex, silly. Mrs W. thinks everyone is as dumb as she was when she got married. She started trying to tell me about French letters, as if I didn’t know about them.’
Dulcie was lost now. ‘What are French letters?’ she asked.
May looked at her in astonishment, then giggled. ‘You
must
know, Dulcie. You’ve been going out with Ross for ages. Or are you such a good girl you don’t let him do anything?’
‘Of course not, we’ll wait till we’re married,’ Dulcie said indignantly. ‘I’d be scared of having a baby.’
‘That’s what French letters are for, you chump!’ She paused to look at Dulcie and perhaps saw real bewilderment. ‘Don’t tell me no one told you?’
Dulcie could hardly believe her ears as her little sister who she expected to come looking to her for advice proceeded to tell her about these rubber things men put over their penis to prevent a girl getting pregnant. But the worst of it was that May sounded as she was speaking from personal experience, not repeating something she’d just been told.
‘Have you done it then?’ Dulcie whispered.
‘Of course not,’ May said, but she didn’t sound convincing. ‘I’ll wait until I meet the right man.’
During the course of the next three days Dulcie was to discover that May not only looked far more sophisticated than she did, but she really was. Gone were the days when Dulcie had to look after her little sister and explain things to her, May appeared to know everything. From the first of her three days off work when she met Dulcie at Perth station wearing stiletto heels, her hair teased up into a beehive, and her new net petticoat under a pink and white dress with a full circular skirt and her waist pulled into a handspan with a three-inch belt, Dulcie was in awe of her.
May took her into huge department stores and dismissed every item of clothing Dulcie wanted to buy as old-fashioned, insisting she let her choose something for her. Once Dulcie had actually tried a dress very similar to the one May was wearing, she did think her own plain shirtwaister looked a bit dowdy, but yards of net petticoat on a farm was hardly practical. May broke down her objections, saying there was no point in buying a dress that looked just like the ones available in the shop in Esperance, and besides, she’d be going out more now she hadn’t got Betty to look after.
May knew her way round the cosmetics counter too, and insisted Dulcie should buy eyeliner and pale lipstick because that was the look of the moment and Dulcie’s eyes were her best feature. She scoffed at the low-heeled shoes Dulcie wanted to buy and talked her into buying a pair of pointed-toe sling-backs with three-inch heels.
May led her into record shops where they listened to the Top Ten, and she seemed horrified Dulcie hadn’t heard ‘Till I Kissed You’ by The Everley Brothers, or ‘Poison Ivy’ by The Coasters before. ‘You’ve got to get hip,’ she exclaimed. ‘Don’t you listen to John O’Keefe’s Six O’Clock Rock? Even Mrs W. likes to hear it so she knows what’s going on.’
Dulcie thought ‘Till I Kissed You,’ was the most wonderful song she’d ever heard. She wished she had one of the Portagram record-players that May said Mr and Mrs Wilberforce had bought her for her birthday, so she could buy the record and take it home and play it to Ross. But they were £66 3s, half a year’s wages, and she couldn’t even afford to buy one of the new transistor radios May showed her, though she thought it would be lovely to lie in bed at night and listen to music.
Being with May was like entering a whole new world. They went into smart milk bars which looked like something out of American films, all shiny plastic and chrome. They sat up on high stools and had frothy coffee, and May insisted she tried a cigarette. She knew how to work the juke-box too and selected ‘Till I Kissed You’ especially for Dulcie. So many people seemed to know May too, though more men than girls, and she watched in envious amazement as her sister flirted effortlessly with them.
That first afternoon they caught a bus up to King’s Park and lay on the grass in the sun, just talking and looking at fashion magazines together. To Dulcie that was almost the best part of the day, for she felt the same closeness they’d had when they were little girls, looking at their mother’s magazines together. Later they went back to Joan’s house in Subiaco for tea, and afterwards May backcombed Dulcie’s hair and put it up in a beehive and supervised her new makeup. It was thrilling and scary going out to the dance at the Embassy later. Scary because Dulcie didn’t know how to jive, but thrilling to see how modern and even glamorous she looked in her new dress with a new hair-style.
The dances in Esperance parish hall were Old Time or ballroom style, the band could be anything from just a pianist or a pianist and drummer to almost a whole orchestra of local musicians on an important occasion, and young and old alike went to join in the Barn Dance, Pride of Erin and the Oxford Waltz.
The Embassy was quite different. Roy Jenkins’s band were seasoned professionals, slick-looking men in dinner jackets and bow-ties, and they played all kinds of dance music. The lights were low, sparkly mirrored balls hung from the ceiling, there was even a bar which served alcohol, something unheard of back home. It wasn’t so difficult to learn basic jive steps, not after she’d had a couple of port and lemons, and she and May had no shortage of enthusiastic partners.
Maybe the first day with May was the best one. It did get a little bit repetitive when they kept looking in shops, going into milk bars and sitting around while May smoked and talked about clothes. She did seem a bit obsessive about how she looked and the impression she was making on other people, and not at all grateful that she’d been so fortunate in getting sent to the Wilberforces. She said airily that she was going to work in Sydney next year, and she scoffed at Dulcie’s anxiety that maybe her new secretarial qualifications wouldn’t be enough without experience to land a good enough job to be able to keep herself. Dulcie also thought she was a bit too forward with men. But all the same it was wonderful to be with her again, becoming friends along with being sisters. She so much hoped they could build on it and put all the sadness of the past behind them.
On their last day together it was overcast and a bit chilly and they spent the whole day in shops. May suggested they went into the Criterion Hotel which she said was very swish and think about what they wanted to do that evening. It was already nearly six, and Dulcie’s feet were aching from wearing her new shoes, so she was grateful to be able to sit down somewhere warm and comfortable.
May ordered a pot of tea and toasted tea-cakes, and they’d hardly even poured the tea before the man at the next table started speaking to May. Within ten minutes, the man and his friend were sitting beside them, and all at once Dulcie became aware that May not only wanted their company, but she’d suggested coming in here for the sole purpose of picking someone up.
They were nice enough men, both in banking they said, mid-thirties, well-dressed and staying at the hotel while they completed their business in Perth. After the tray of tea was taken away the men insisted on buying them a drink and then asked them to have dinner with them. May agreed without even asking Dulcie if she would like it, and while the men went to the dining-room to book a table, Dulcie told her off.
‘We don’t know them, we can’t,’ she said flatly.
‘Oh, don’t be so stuffy,’ May retorted, taking her compact out of her bag to powder her nose. ‘I’m hungry and you must be too, it’s our last night together and they are nice.’
‘But I’m engaged to Ross,’ Dulcie said. ‘I don’t feel right about having dinner with another man.’ She wanted to say she’d never even been in a proper restaurant before, let alone to dinner in a smart hotel dining-room, and she was scared of showing herself up. But she couldn’t bring herself to admit that.
‘You don’t have to do anything other than eat the dinner and chat,’ May said quite calmly. ‘Do it for me, I really like the look of Mike, he’s my type.’
Dulcie had thought Mike was nice-looking, with dark hair, sharp brown eyes and olive skin, but she was sure he was married, single men didn’t have the sort of confidence he had. Yet while she was thinking how she should say this, without sounding like a kill-joy, May told her to close her eyes and hold out her hand because she had something for her.
She did as she was told and heard May rustling her shopping bag. ‘You can open your eyes now,’ May said as she put something box-like and heavy into her hand.
Dulcie gasped when she saw it was a little red transistor radio, the very one she’d looked at earlier today. ‘Oh, May,’ she exclaimed, forgetting she was cross with her.
‘Sorry I couldn’t wrap it up, but I had enough trouble buying it without you seeing me,’ May said, looking a bit anxious. ‘I hope you like it.’
‘Like it! It’s wonderful, just what I always wanted, but you shouldn’t have, it’s much too expensive.’
‘I earn more than you do,’ May laughed, the tension fading from her face. ‘I’d been saving up to buy you something special for your birthday next month, and it seemed so perfect. But it would be hard to post, so I want you to have it now.’
After that Dulcie didn’t feel able to object to anything, not even being picked up by two strangers. She had three port and lemons, and by the time they went into dinner she was too tiddly to be intimidated by the posh dining-room with its snowy tablecloths and candles. Mike and his friend James were nice, even if they did keep teasing her about living out in the bush, the steak dinner was one of the best she’d ever eaten, and she felt even more relaxed after a couple of glasses of wine too. It wasn’t until she saw it was nearly ten that she grew anxious again. ‘We must go now,’ she said to May. ‘Joan will be worried about me.’
She expected May to protest, but surprisingly she didn’t and even asked James to get her a taxi. ‘I can’t come with you, your taxi goes the wrong way,’ she said. ‘But I’ll get another one after you’ve gone.’
They said goodbye on the pavement of the hotel, Dulcie clutching her shopping bag holding the pair of tight denim jeans she’d brought that morning, and the radio, while the taxi James had paid for in advance waited. As they hugged each other, Dulcie was suddenly very aware that their time together had run out and there was no time left to say all the important things she’d planned to say tonight.
She looked out of the back window as the taxi drove off and saw May still standing there waving, looking like a model in her red sheath dress with her hair up in a beehive. Dulcie’s last thought was that she shouldn’t have left her little sister alone with two men, but the port and the wine numbed her anxiety and she was almost asleep by the time she got home.
‘How was it being with May?’ Bruce asked as they drove out of Perth three days later to return home. ‘As good as you expected, or disappointing?’
‘Different to how I expected,’ Dulcie said thoughtfully. ‘She’s all grown-up, she seems older than me now.’
‘Well, that’s good news,’ he chuckled. ‘One less person for you to worry about.’
Dulcie smiled as if in agreement, but she wasn’t so sure in her mind. During the last three days relaxing at Joan’s house, she’d had time to reflect on many things about her sister. She was worldly and very chic, confident and composed, all such admirable qualities. Yet Dulcie did feel disappointed that she hadn’t once managed to break through her sophisticated veneer and catch a glimpse of what lay beneath.