The Story of Danny Dunn (29 page)

The voyage to San Francisco was uneventful, that is, if you discount seven hundred excited, not to say randy, war brides being on the same ship. Helen had told one of the ship's senior officers their reason for going to the States, more as a way of preventing speculation and to explain Danny's battered face than anything else. She'd simply told him Danny had been a prisoner of war and his facial scars were due to an atrocity committed by a Japanese officer. Unfortunately, the bare bones of any story need to be fleshed out, and this one, which travelled like wildfire through the ship, became more and more exaggerated with each telling. With the young war brides outnumbering the men on board approximately five to one, Danny was soon regarded as their own Errol Flynn, a war hero who had brought the Japanese whimpering to the surrender table practically single-handedly. Despite his looks, or perhaps because of them, he became an object of romantic and almost maternal interest. He couldn't leave his cabin without being swamped by excited or sentimental
females, with the result that he spent a lot of time reading on his bed. To his intense chagrin, the ship's captain ordered one of the smaller decks out of bounds to his fellow passengers so that he could catch a breath of fresh air and get some exercise.

Helen and Danny were standing on this little private deck at six in the morning as the liner sailed into San Francisco Harbour and they watched as the soaring red pillars of the Golden Gate Bridge loomed out of the morning mist. By the time they'd passed under the bridge the mist had all but cleared and the City on the Bay seemingly rose out of the sparkling harbour. ‘The city of grand promise and dire warning,' Helen observed. ‘Look to your left, darling – the rock of Alcatraz, one of the truly grim American prisons.'

‘Yeah, I've read about it. The only escape is via the harbour and that simply delivers the prisoner à la carte to the sharks, or so they say. I think I'd take my chances. I've been swimming in Sydney Harbour since I was a kid and only once saw a live shark. Mind you, with the shit that pours into the harbour from Balmain – the soap factories, chemical factory and the other effluent producers around the rim – there isn't anything for a self-respecting shark to eat on the harbour side of the Heads. It's probably the same here, if the prisoners only knew.'

The decks below them were filled with excited brides who began screaming as the liner started to dock and they caught their first glimpse of the mass of waiting husbands crowded on the passenger terminal wharf. ‘I think we might stay on board until the happy reunions are over,' Helen laughed, then turned to Danny and kissed him. ‘Well, my beautiful ugly man, we've made it this far.' Then she grew serious. ‘Oh, Danny, it's going to hurt all over again, isn't it?'

Danny laughed. ‘Yeah, probably, but there are two immediate advantages I can think of this time that were absent on the first occasion: anaesthetics and painkillers. I shall either be out like a light or drugged to the eyeballs.'

It took a good two hours before the wharf below and the customs hall beyond were reasonably clear and Helen and Danny were able to make their way onto dry land and through US customs with a minimum of fuss. The taxi took them away from the harbour, up a steep hill and past a tram, then down the other side again to Union Square, where they booked into the St Francis Hotel. The taxi driver, crew-cut and built like a pro footballer going to fat, didn't say a word throughout the entire journey, which somewhat dampened their spirits. Danny paid the fare when they arrived and added two quarters of the unfamiliar money. ‘What's this, buddy?' the driver asked.

‘A tip,' Danny answered, bemused.

The driver shook his head. ‘No, man, this ain't no tip. This is a fuckin' insult!' He tipped the two quarters onto the pavement, gunned the engine and moved off shouting something that sounded like, ‘Muthafucker!'

‘Screw you too, mate!' Danny called after him angrily.

‘Welcome to America,' Helen said quietly, then looked up to see a bellhop pushing a birdcage trolley towards them. He left it and ran to retrieve the coins from the gutter, popping up beside Helen and holding out the two silver quarters, a small dark-skinned boy with big brown eyes and a cherub's face who didn't look much older than twelve. He was dressed in the traditional maroon figure-hugging jacket with gold buttons down the front and epaulettes on the shoulders, his pillbox hat set at a jaunty angle, the strap secure about his chin.

‘Ma'am, sir, we 'pologise in da name of da St Francis Hotel,' he said earnestly. ‘Dat ain't no way foh dat taxi driver to behave, cussin' jes bee-cause yoh tip him so bad.'

Helen laughed, and Danny, despite his anger of moments before, was forced to grin. ‘What's your name?' Helen asked, accepting the two quarters and immediately falling in love with the little fellow.

‘Samuel Pentecost Tucker, ma'am,' he replied, then added seriously, ‘but dey jes call me Sam, ma'am.'

‘Well, Samuel Pentecost Tucker, we're from Australia where we don't really understand tipping, so you're going to have to help us. How much should we have tipped that rude taxi driver?'

‘Well, he got hisself a grow'd up job, so he gonna get one dollar min-a-min, dat da rule. But if'n he ain't polite and he don't help wid yoh suitcases, den he don't get nuttin'. He gonna curse and holler some, dat only natural, but he gonna know why he don't get nuttin'. Yessir, ma'am, one dollar, dat da min-a-min, all things considered.'

‘And you, sir, do you get a dollar?'

‘Dee-pends, ma'am,' Samuel Pentecost Tucker said, his expression serious. ‘Yoh all got three portmanteaus, I see. Now, I ain't grow'd up so I gets a quarter foh evey one – dat seventy-five cents, ma'am.' He moved over and picked up the first suitcase using both hands. He managed to lift it and with some effort place it on the luggage trolley.

Danny lifted the other two suitcases and placed them next to the first, to the apparent consternation of Samuel Pentecost Tucker. ‘Now I ain't done yoh no full service, sir,' he protested.

‘She's right, mate. I reckon you've earned yourself the full entitlement plus a bonus.' He handed the boy a dollar. ‘Lead on, Sam, my man,' he instructed.

‘Thank you, sir, much obliged,' Samuel Pentecost Tucker said, beginning to push the luggage trolley towards reception, but then he stopped. ‘It ain't necessary yoh give ree-ception no tip, sir.'

The hotel, built just before the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, miraculously survived relatively unscathed, and was typical of turn-of-the-century architecture, twelve storeys of sandstone and brick facing onto Union Square. At reception they were told, with profuse apologies, that they would need to wait an hour because the previous occupant of their room hadn't yet checked out. They stowed their suitcases in the baggage room, checked their passports and money into the hotel safe, then, aching to use their legs on dry land, stepped outside.

First, they took the tram – or cable car, as the locals called it – down to Fisherman's Wharf. Then they spent the remainder of the day walking, doing all the touristy things, stopping for lunch in Chinatown at the Hang Ah Tea Room, famous for its dim sims, which Danny deemed no better than the ones from the chinks in Darling Street, Balmain. By the time they reached the Golden Gate Bridge, they were exhausted.

Helen, as usual, had done all her homework, and they made a late afternoon visit to Macy's in Union Square, where a sign pronounced it the largest department store outside of New York. She bought a pair of sensible walking shoes, chosen from a great variety that were cheaper than anything she could have found in Sydney, and a pair of sexy high heels with peekaboo toes, again selected from an astonishing range of styles. It was obvious that America was revelling in its success: it had won the war, it had the atom bomb and it was prosperous. Americans were excited about the future, they accounted for over half of the world's industrial wealth, and they were upbeat and generously prepared to rebuild the broken and tattered world beyond their shores. The only shortage they seemed to be experiencing were hours of the day in which to enjoy their secure and happy lives.

Australia, still on rationing, was as yet unable even to imagine post-war recovery. It was more like a small nation dusting itself off and counting itself lucky to have survived a disastrous war and escaped a Japanese invasion than one girding its loins for boom times to come. The war had left Europe in ruins, and Great Britain no longer great, exhausted and on its industrial knees, but America was different. San Francisco wasn't a big city, but the bay was wider than Sydney Harbour and the bridge was longer than the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and yet it was so redolent of Sydney that Danny and Helen felt comfortable and almost at home. It was a good place to disembark when visiting such a new country.

The hotel was pleasant without being grand, and unlike that first taxi driver, everyone was extremely friendly and polite. They spent the evening visiting two jazz joints on the Barbary Coast, back down in the wharf area. At one they ordered hamburgers for supper that had so many fillings they stood nearly six inches high, including pickled gherkins, which neither Danny nor Helen had ever tasted. By such silly and often trivial things do we remember places and events.

They left the hotel early the following morning to catch the eight o'clock Santa Fe train from Oakland Station to Union Terminal in Los Angeles. Helen had demanded that Samuel Pentecost Tucker handle their luggage and order a taxi, which he did with a twin-fingered whistle, in a manner that was surprisingly loud and sophisticated for one so young. Helen handed him a two-dollar tip and thanked him for his very grown-up service. He received it with a gracious, ‘Much obliged, ma'am, sir. Now, yoh folk come see us again soon, yoh hear? One day I'm gonna come see me some them kangaroos.' Samuel Pentecost Tucker held the back door open for Helen to enter the taxi and in a loud whisper advised Danny, ‘Oakland, dat a long ride, dat two dollars tip, sir.'

The Santa Fe Streamliner to Los Angeles was a day train, and they were shown to comfortable seats in one of the first-class carriages, or railroad cars, as the Yanks called them. Helen, having decided that this trip to America was probably going to be the only holiday they'd have for several years, insisted they do things properly wherever they could. It was their honeymoon, after all, and with the luxury of Brenda's dollars they didn't have to skimp; in fact, they seemed to be extremely well off. America was surprisingly cheap and Helen was going to make the most of it before Danny's surgery. They reached Los Angeles only just in time to join the Super Chief for the two-night journey to Kansas City.

The Super Chief, known as the train of the stars – the Hollywood variety, of course – stretched the entire length of the Union Terminal platform, and the gleaming silver and black train with its huge throbbing diesel engine seemed like something out of a Jules Verne science-fiction novel. Helen and Danny had never seen anything remotely like it except in the movies. They were glimpsing an America where everything was bigger and better, but even here this train was considered topnotch – the most modern train in the world.

The head porter who escorted them to their compartment was stout, with a wide gleaming smile that matched his immaculate white jacket and gold epaulettes. He wore a black bow tie, black trousers and shoes burnished to near perfection. Danny felt a sudden pang for Glossy Denmeade, then turned his attention to the porter who announced grandly, ‘Ma'am, sir, this is drawing room number four and it is entirely for your pleasure with the compliments of the Super Chief and staff.'

It was impressive, to say the least, and contained a gleaming modern bathroom with shower, washbasin and toilet, large fluffy monogrammed towels and perfumed soap. The compartment itself had two large comfortable seats and a central table beneath double-glazed windows fitted with venetian blinds. Two roomy bunks folded down from the walls at night. A porter named Maurice, dressed in a similar uniform to the head porter but without the epaulettes, presented himself at the touch of a buzzer. They only just had time to shower and change for dinner, served with gleaming silver and bone china on white damask at a table for two. The menu, once they'd got over the curious fact that in America the main course was referred to as the entrée, was worthy of Primo's in Sydney.

Danny, finally replete with a double helping of apple pie and ice-cream, wiped his lips and placed his napkin on the table. ‘Beats the hell out of the last dinner I had on a train, which, if I recall correctly, was a handful of cold rice that I ate standing up cheek by jowl in an open truck on the Thai–Burma Railway.'

The Super Chief pulled into Kansas City late in the morning, just over forty hours after leaving Los Angeles, having travelled across the immensity of the Great Plains. Helen was reminded that enormous herds of buffalo once roamed across these vast grasslands, the herds stretching from the southernmost tip of North America to the Canadian border, millions of these large, handsome bearded beasts with hardly a single one left to graze the sweet native pasture as humans opened up the plains for Indian corn and habitation.

Less than an hour after reaching Kansas City they were on the train to St Louis, 240 miles away, passing through several medium-sized towns, the first of which was Independence, Missouri, the home town of President Truman, the current occupant of the White House. The journey took them just short of the Illinois border, with the track following the mighty Mississippi River. To Helen and Danny, accustomed to Australian rivers that were often dry for months on end, rarely a torrent and never a vast stretch of water, the Mississippi was a seemingly never-ending expanse, beyond their wildest imaginings.