The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt (19 page)

W
e fell into a loosely linked life, Gus and I. We lived in the moment, but then everyone did; it was wartime. I never quite knew when he’d be there, when he’d be gone. I learned not to rely on his presence, just to enjoy it when I could. Uncle Valentine, too, was away more and more, doing I knew not what. Eric, though he rarely strayed far from the Pav, kept himself to himself to such an extent that he too often felt absent. Though our men were not away fighting a war, we were as often without them as if they had been. When they were there, when their presence demanded it, we lived the complex lives that men and women do, together. When they were not, we settled back into a simpler routine, we women, we girls. Each had its benefits, each its lacks. If I thought about it, I felt lucky to have both.

Grace, though; Grace was ever-present, my constant one. I kept her with me always, as my parents had not kept me with them always. We were close, intimate, connected. Grace looked at me with unblinking, unquestioning love.

We leaned upon one another, my Grace and I. Increasingly, as she passed from toddlerhood to childhood,
it was I who leaned on Grace, trusting her constancy, her dependability. She seemed older than her little handful of years, perhaps because I failed to treat her as a child, as all those who had cared for me when I was younger had done in their turn, for better or worse. I treated Grace as my equal, as Uncle Valentine had treated me; indulged, beloved, but equal.

And as Uncle Valentine had done for me, so many years before, so now I was quick to show Grace the delights of the ocean from an early age. Living so close to the sea – sleeping with the rhythm of it in our ears, the rime of it in our mouths and nostrils – how could I not? I said to her, as my uncle had to me, ‘Taste the salt, Old Briny; that’s what keeps you up, keeps you floating.’ We cupped our hands into the ocean and splashed the crisp, mineral water on our faces and into our mouths. We dipped our bodies in the water, gently at first, easing in. I taught her to respect, but not to fear, the ocean’s pull and power. Her quick confidence in the waves was a delight to me. We spent our days on the beach, in and out of the water, under the watchful gaze of the lifesaving club stalwarts.

But we were not the only ones on the beach. The crowds at summer would start arriving with the first train, milling down the streets from the station to the ocean until the beach throbbed with people. They were everywhere, on the sand and up and down the grass terraces. Flesh was exposed to the sun, skin browning to dark perfection until it was just too hot; then they’d retreat to the shade of hats and umbrellas and the dark pine trees overhead. People came to make a day of it, brought a picnic lunch in a billy
or a basket, or treated themselves to hot chips, ice-cream and ginger beer from the kiosk. Grace and I would avoid the crowds that mulled and pushed, whenever we could; and we were lucky, we could escape to the cool retreat of the Pav whenever the crowded crush on the beach became too much.

Grace loved to lie on the cool wet sand under the jetty, tucking herself up in the highest cranny, the tiny space there, where she’d draw pictures in the damp packed sand, or make up games. Although there were hundreds, even thousands of children on the beach, Grace wasn’t interested in spending time with them. I was her playmate; and when I wasn’t available, she had her dolls. She’d line them up in the cool shade of the jetty, make them castles of sand, serve tea and cakes in shells, laid out on a table of finest cuttlebone. Her favourite doll she called Sallyrags, oblivious to the incongruity of the name for the delicate china face that topped a floppy body, hand-stitched in exquisite pearl-white silk. Sallyrags was a gift from Uncle Valentine. She travelled everywhere with Grace, in sickness and in health, slept with her every night from the moment she arrived. The doll had become frail and fragile from spit and sick and sweat and cuddling. Sallyrags’ wardrobe was all that kept the doll’s fraying, mended limbs together, sewn and knitted over the years by Cath from remnants and scraps of fabric and wool. Best of all, in Grace’s eyes, were the dresses that Cath made for Sallyrags from the scraps left over from Grace’s own dresses.

She’d carry out self-important conversations with the doll, providing both voices.

‘Sallyrags is my twin sister. I’m the oldest though, by seventy thirteen hours.’

‘She’s the oldest, but I’m the cleverest. And we’re both the prettiest, because we’re twins.’

Grace liked to take Sallyrags to the beach, even though I warned her of the doll’s fragility.

‘Don’t put her in the sea, love. She’s not made to swim, not like you.’

Sallyrags, though, like Grace, was drawn to the water, so there inevitably was a day when Grace came to me shamefaced, holding a bedraggled, sandy, salty and very sad-looking Sallyrags in her arms.

‘I didn’t mean her to go in the water.’ She wiped a tear from her eye, then wiped the same tear from Sallyrags’ eye. ‘She slipped in while I wasn’t looking.’

Grace helped me bath Sallyrags in warm fresh water. She cooed to her as we washed her, like a mother to a baby, bent down to her, supported her heavy head. We washed her gently with Sunlight soap, then pegged her up carefully on the line. Grace sat by the line, quietly reading, waiting for Sallyrags to dry. She’d get up and touch her, gently pat her hand, her foot, then she’d shake her head at the doll, tell her
Just a little longer, be a good girl
and settle back to her watchful reading.

When Sallyrags was finally deemed dry, Grace dressed her carefully – cooing, talking to her, making soothing noises – in a dress that matched her own.

Be careful with her, I almost told her, but how could she take more care? It was like having an invalid in the house.
Grace tiptoed everywhere with her doll, cradling her, shushing me and Cath and Eric, asking for the milky treats a sick child might want – custard sprinkled with dessicated coconut; an egg flip, flavoured with honey and nutmeg; creamy bread and butter pudding.

Within a week, though, it became apparent that her vigilant nursing had failed. Sallyrags’ stuffing started to rot and crumble – worse, to smell. Her arms and legs fell apart at the seams, the delicate fabric decaying. Even Cath couldn’t mend her. Only her chinadoll face remained intact, smooth, beautiful.

‘I’m sorry, little one,’ Cath said as she turned the foetid, fraying doll over in her hands, picked at her unravelling seams. ‘She’s beyond me, love.’ Cath offered to make Grace another doll, a replacement for Sallyrags.

‘No, thank you,’ Grace solemnly told her. ‘It wouldn’t be the same.’

I watched her put the stinking remains of the doll in an old shoebox and, that evening, she asked us all – Cath, Eric, Gus and me – to come to the beach to say goodbye. I watched her place offerings in the tattered box, treasures she’d picked up from the beach: a seagull feather, a piece of cuttlebone, a shell; a sand dollar, half a mermaid’s-purse. I saw her mouth move, although I could not hear words, as she pushed the box out on a wave, and threw a handful of sand after it. We all stood there, watching until the box bobbed out of sight. Gus picked Grace up, swung her onto his shoulders, and we walked, the five of us, back to the Pav, to have our tea.

When it was not being used for the twice-weekly dances, the dance floor – the roof of the Pav building – was women’s space, a place for Cath and Grace and me. Cath and I strung washing lines from firm hooks in the wall, to stretch right across from the road side to the beach side of the building, and we’d peg out our laundry every Monday, with plenty of time to dry by the next dance on Wednesday. Wide wooden edging framed the dance floor. On the road side of the building the edging dipped low, conveniently at belly height, at leaning-on height. We’d smoke, drink a cup of tea, watch the world go by in the street below us.

Grace loved to crawl into the rattan washing basket, even when she was far too big to fit. When she was a tiny baby, Grace had slept in the basket, and I’d pushed it across the floor with my feet to keep her in the healthy sun, in the warmth. It had stood up well to use. She’d sit in it and read a book, or sing a song, but Grace loved nothing more than to be in that washing basket, pretending it was her boat. Often, she was Ratty, poling purposefully down the river.

‘Push me, Moley!’ she demanded of me, one afternoon as I hung out the bed linen.

‘Oh Gracie, I’m busy,’ I told her, peg sticking from the side of my mouth, hands full of washing.

‘But Mama, there is nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats! You know that! Push me! Please, Mama Moley.’

I pegged out the pillowcase I was holding, then I bent down, grabbed the basket, and pushed her across the floor,
my hands on the scratchy rattan of the basket’s top edge. She squealed with delight, with movement.

‘God, Gracie, I can hardly shift you, you big fat Ratty!’ I pushed harder.

The basket stuck and scratched, and itself gave out a squeal. I looked behind us. A crisp jagged line followed accusingly from where we’d started next to the clothesline, carved into the polished jarrah of the dance floor. I looked back at Grace, and saw her mouth widen in an O to match her eyes, to match mine.

It was Eric’s job to polish the jarrah floorboards. He was furious with us – well, not with Gracie, who could do no wrong in Eric’s eyes, but with me. He muttered and cursed while he sanded and buffed and shined and buffed some more. He swore you could still see the scratch, although it looked fine to me. But he liked to mutter and curse, and Eric must have forgiven us, as – after he finished his buffing and cursing – he fixed a thick old scrap of carpet securely to the bottom of the basket, before shoving it into my arms.

‘Won’t scratch next time, bloody thing.’

When Uncle Valentine was in town, we went for afternoon tea on Sunday, as always. Grace would rush to him, and he’d sweep her up in his arms, rest her on his big rich belly.

‘My graceful Grace! As delightful as ever.’

He’d kiss me on both cheeks, squeezing Grace between us, then let her down. Cath came with us, sometimes; Gus did not, although Uncle would have welcomed him.

We’d feast on freshly baked treats, neat sandwiches with fish paste or egg or tongue, all washed down with tea in fine china, and milk for Grace. There was no indication, at Uncle’s big house on a Sunday afternoon, of the austerity that was becoming apparent elsewhere in the shops and houses around us. We laughed and ate until we could eat no more, then we retired to the front room to settle in the big soft chairs there. Uncle would play his musical recordings for us, music old and new, and his first command after tea on a Sunday would be to Grace.

‘Graceful girl, give me a twirl!’ He’d take her hand, bow to her (as low as his ample figure would allow), and they’d swirl and whirl around the room, my dear uncle lifting my darling girl up onto his paunch, clutching her to him, then letting her down as he collapsed into a chair and telling her to
Give us a solo, darling
. She’d step and turn and point her toes, then shimmy her shoulders, her whole body, as she saw the submariners dance at the Pav. Then, finally tired, she’d climb onto Uncle Valentine’s knee and settle to listen to the music, my cue to change to something quieter, calmer.

‘Play your music, Mama! Play the wave music,’ she’d command, but only sometimes could I be persuaded to place the needle onto one of my own recordings, and only when it was the three of us, me, my uncle and Grace, never when Cath was there. It was difficult to listen to myself. I could only really listen by pretending it was someone else playing.

Grace would lay her head upon her great-uncle’s
shoulder, and his arm would support her, his hand gently stroke her hair. Indeed, he loved her almost as much as I did. But never did I regret my decision to move to the Pav. We lived our own lives there, in the mist of salt spray rising from the beach, and Uncle was free to live his.

W
e were tired of the war by 1944. Even the dances had lost their shine, their ability to pull us out of ourselves for the night, for even the duration of one dance. There was now a feeling of time dragging, of killing time – in all its meanings – that was too hard to shake off.

I was still playing my sets with the Strong Arm Boys; we’d developed them into quite a central part of the act. But I only played with them at the Pav. They toured around the city during the week, and sometimes toured away, playing a circuit of country towns, for weeks or months at a time. Dannyboy hadn’t come back so Gus stayed with the band, with us. We almost felt like a family, an extended family, temporally complicated: me, Grace, Cath and Eric all of the time; Uncle Valentine on Sundays; and Gus, who came and went, without comment, without discussion.

Grace started school in February. I’d walk her up the hill and down to the railway line, across and up to the school each morning, and pick her up in the afternoon. We’d take a different route each day, looking at houses, trying to see through windows and curtains and blinds to catch glimpses into other people’s lives; lives lived in houses,
not on the beach. Grace was quiet at school, her teacher told me. Her teacher, I gathered, did not quite approve of me, even less so when, on occasion, Gus would walk with us to school, Grace swinging between the two of us, lifted high, laughing. At the school gate she’d kiss us both, two cheeks each in the European way, then bounce off to the classroom.

We were tired of the war. But life went on.

In the second week of Grace’s first school holidays, not long after her sixth birthday, I woke up bleeding – just my usual monthly interruption, a morning of pain, a few days bloated, then the cycle would begin again. I hobbled to the kitchen, slightly bent to ease my cramping belly, and boiled water for tea. I ferreted in the bathroom, in the kitchen, in our room, for a bottle of Bex, to ease the cramp and ache. I found the bottle, but apart from its cotton wool plug it was empty.

Grace skipped into the kitchen. I don’t recall where Cath was, nor Eric – why can I not recall this? Why was Cath not there, as she was nearly every other day?

‘Grace, love, I need you to pop up to the shop and buy me some medicine. You’re a big girl now; I can trust you to do that for me.’

She looked at me with wide eyes. ‘The shop on John Street?’

I nodded. ‘I can pin a note to your dress, so Mrs Watson’ll know it’s all right. You can pop the money in your pocket. Come on, big girl.’

Grace looked at her feet, scuffed one against the other with a sliding, scratching sound.

‘Do I have to?’

My belly lurched then, a cramp that made my eyes water, light dance behind my eyes. I swallowed hard, screwed up my eyes against it.

‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Grace.’ I rustled in my pocket for money, counted coins and pressed them into her reluctant hand, scribbled a note and pinned it – taking a pin from the cracked teacup on the windowsill by Cath’s sewing basket – to Grace’s dress. The dress was winter-weight cotton, patterned with blue and white vertical stripes. She wore a navy blue cardigan over it, with only the top button done up. Her short hair was bunched at the back in a patch, where she had slept on it, grinding her head on the pillow. ‘I was put on the ship on my own from Singapore when I was four years old; I think you can go to the jolly shop for me.’

She turned to me at the door. I waved her away.

‘Go on! And come straight back, love.’ She looked unsure. ‘Go on, darling, straight there and straight back. Careful on the road. I’ll make us toast and honey when you get back and we’ll take it back to bed.’

Another wave of cramping passed over me, and I grimaced as she closed the heavy door behind her.

It should have taken Grace no more than fifteen minutes to walk to the shop and back, even if she dawdled – it was only around the corner. When Cath arrived home half an hour later, shopping spilling from her bag, Grace had not
yet returned. Cath yelled for Eric, who raced off as fast as his gammy leg could carry him. He quickly reported back that Grace had at least reached the shop; Mrs Watson had exchanged the bottle of pills for the coins in Grace’s pocket, sent her on her way back home. Eric had checked at Uncle Valentine’s house; my uncle was at work, but Mr Anderson in the garden, Mrs Anderson in the kitchen, neither of them had seen Grace.

I ran to the boarding house where Gus was staying, hauled him out of bed. The three of them – Gus and Cath and Eric – prowled the streets, circling out, while I stayed in the kitchen at the Pav, waiting for her to come home. Someone must have called the police; uniforms appeared on the street, men from the submariners’ hostel – my friends, men I’d danced with, had played music for – spread through the streets of our little community by the sea.

I sat at the kitchen table at the Pav, drinking cups of tea. A cold, hard pain knotted in my belly.

It was late in the afternoon when they brought her home. Cath pushed open the door and ran to me, held me,
oh Princess,
she said,
our little darling.

Gus carried her. He walked through the doorway into the kitchen and he held her, her little dark head lolled against his shoulder. Tears streamed down his face. Her hair was darker where his tears dripped down, matting it together. I stood and moved towards them. I touched her bed-matted hair, the back of her head. There were leaves in her hair, stuck to her cardigan, tiny leaves from a ti-tree; I picked one from her hair, crushed it, smelled the
sharp medicinal smell of it. I reached out my arms and Gus folded me into them, into him and Grace who was no longer Grace. I could not believe the terrible lifelessness I felt in her body.

A man in a dark uniform and a woman in a nurse’s frock came. They stood by the kitchen door, his head bowed, hers upright, waiting. I held Grace, Gus held us both; Cath cried at the table. I brushed the hair from her eyes with my hand, kissed her on both cheeks, in the European way, then kissed her cold lips. Then – too soon – they took her away, my darling. I did not understand what had happened. As they carried her away, I turned to Gus and fell into his arms; we gathered Cath in, and the three of us stood, shaking, trembling, as the sun dropped lower in the sky through the window behind us.

Then I broke away – burst through the kitchen door to the street, watched as the ambulance and the police car pulled away slowly. A sound came from me, a sound I had never heard and have never heard since; a low keening, not of this life.

I turned away from the ocean and faced the land, the dying light of the day at my back. I saw the lines of the streets marked by the rising tips of the tall dark pine trees, black-green triangles above the houses, their branches reaching down in curves towards the ground. I walked away from the ocean, towards the land, the trees. The arms of the pines stretched out to me.