In the Mouth of the Tiger (78 page)

‘Nonsense!' John boomed. He was young and callow but he could boom. His voice was deep and resonant, and when he said something he felt was important he could invest his tone with real authority. ‘Look, Norma, my mother likes nothing better than to put people up in her home whom she thinks need looking after. She took in two youngsters from the Vienna Boys' Choir when they were stranded in Australia by the outbreak of war.'

‘We're not exactly stranded choirboys,' I said gently.

‘I didn't mean that quite the way it came out,' John said. ‘I
know
that in your case she would love the company. All of her boys are away from home and Dad's away at work all day. Mother is not used to solitude.'

‘It is a lovely invitation,' I said. ‘If we are ever in Melbourne I'll meet your mother and we will talk it over.' In reality, I knew that the chances of us ever going to Melbourne were slim. Melbourne was two thousand miles away, and as the Government had taken control of all interstate travel in Australia, train seats for civilians were as hard to obtain as hens' teeth.

But the invitation warmed me. It warmed me during the cold, drizzly days of July and August, so that I coped even when the whole household was down with influenza and I spent my days racing from one to the other with hot lemon drinks and bowls of Friar's Balsam. I coped because I felt buoyed by kindness and support. Dr Lawrence had been right. A kick in the pants to stop me feeling sorry for myself, and kindness to bolster the heart.

It was October before I received a letter from Denis. It was a long letter, posted in Townsville, and when I first extracted the pages from the envelope my heart turned over because it was on hospital notepaper:

I have had a dose of dengue fever. Dengue is a dreadful business that saps every ounce of energy and makes one feel absolutely rotten. But I am getting over it now and looking forward to a spot of leave. Your last four letters arrived together, my darling, so I have just spent a very happy hour with my family, catching up with all your doings. I am so proud of you for the way you dealt with the unruly soldiers, but next time please ring Hutch or John Batten. They are only minutes away from you by car and I know they would pop round and put a stop to any nonsense.

He arrived out of the blue on a glorious day in mid-November, emerging from a taxi with his greatcoat over his arm and that familiar half grin on his tanned face. Our separation had been by far the longest since we had met and I had suffered a secret fear, which I hardly admitted even to myself, that we might be awkward in each other's company. I'd even had the odd ignoble thought that he might have fallen out of love with me. His letters had seemed stiff and slightly distant – I didn't know at that stage about military censorship, and the effect it had on every serviceman's correspondence. But when Denis wrapped me in his arms I knew immediately that nothing had changed. We were one again, two halves of a single entity.

Finally, he put me at arm's length and looked at me critically. ‘You look well, Norma. There are roses in your cheeks.'

‘Cornwall's Malt Extract,' I said mysteriously, then surrendered him to the whooping boys.

He had brought chocolate and lemonade from the American PX store in Townsville, and the whole family gathered in the front bedroom to feast on these rare luxuries. Frances behaved, reaching respectfully for her father's nose, the boys were more or less under control, and even Shirley remembered her manners well enough to let Denis finish his sentences. For my part, I sat back on the bedroom chair, looking from shining face to shining face and loving every minute. Occasionally, Denis would look at me across the scrum of heads around him and convey his love without uttering a word.

I didn't ask Denis what he had been doing until we were safe in bed, chatting in half-whispers in the darkness. ‘Nothing too dangerous,' he said quickly. ‘I've been more or less a taxi driver, darling. They gave me a Fairmile and I used it to pick up the odd coastwatcher when things got too hot for them on their islands.' I knew about the coastwatchers, brave men who lived for months at a time on islands deep behind Japanese lines, broadcasting information about enemy movements and impending attacks. The thought of Denis dashing to and fro in seas stiff with Japanese ships and under skies stiff with Japanese planes made me shudder.

‘Haven't you done enough?' I asked. ‘Can't they find someone else to do that sort of work? You did your share up in Singapore. For heaven's sake, you've already had one ship sunk from under you.'

Denis lifted the curls gently from my forehead in an old, familiar gesture. ‘I'm just glad I'm not one of the poor devils stuck on an island,' he said quietly. ‘I had a small dose of that sort of life, and I can tell you it's no joke. On the
qui vive
every second, just waiting for a Jap patrol to stumble on you, or for a local to give you away for a fistful of Japanese notes. No, I'm very happy to be the pick-up boat. You are out for a night or two, then home to a decent bed.'

We didn't make love that night. I think we had both expected to, and had looked forward to the moment of union with an almost physical ache. But instead we talked until dawn. About the children. About films we'd seen – silly American dramas full of music and always ending in happy tears. And we talked about Singapore and Whitelawns for the first time since the
Empire Star
. We fell asleep in each other's arms so that I woke with my left hand numb because of Denis's weight on my arm. But I didn't move. I just lay there,
wishing we could wake up like this every day for the rest of our lives.

Picnics were a popular Australian tradition in those days, and we embraced the tradition with enthusiasm during the glorious sunny days of early summer. We didn't have a car so all our picnics were within walking distance of home, but that still gave us quite a choice. We found several spots on the foreshores of the Swan River, and there were delightful glades in the bushland behind our house. Shirley and I would make a cake the night before, and then get up early to cut the sandwiches and pack the basket ready for a quick getaway.

It was on our last picnic, before he was due to return to duty, that Denis took my hand. ‘How would you like to live in Melbourne?' he asked.

I could think of nothing nicer. Mrs Batten had painted such a delightful picture of the city, with its broad streets and fine stone buildings, its parks, the Yarra River curving gracefully through its centre, that I knew I would fall in love with it immediately. ‘Is there any chance?' I asked.

‘I've been made Staff Officer Intelligence for the Torres Straits,' he said. ‘As an SOI, I report directly to the Director of Naval Intelligence in Melbourne, which makes Melbourne my home base. So how would you like to give the place a try? I have to return to duty after I meet up with Bill Reynolds, who arrives from India with the
Krait
tomorrow, and I'm afraid, after all this leave, that I won't be able to get back for Christmas.

I must have looked very crestfallen at the prospect of no Denis at Christmas, because he gave me a big hug and said, ‘But the DNI has promised me a few days off at the end of December to help you pack up and organise the children. And we'll all celebrate the New Year together, in Melbourne.'

Things happen quickly in wartime and it was less than a month later that we were pulling into Melbourne's Spencer Street station on the Transcontinental Express, the boys tired and fractious after five days of travel, Shirley wide-eyed at the grandeur of a major city.

Melbourne did not disappoint me. It was exactly as Mrs Batten had described, spacious and full of old-world charm. On our first evening, after booking into the Victoria Hotel and putting the children to bed, Denis and I went exploring. It was a Sunday night and there was hardly anyone about so that the place had a gracious, unhurried look. Virtually the only vehicles moving on the broad streets were trams, tall, archaic-looking vehicles glowing with lights which added to the air of Edwardian splendour. We strolled down
Swanston Street to the Yarra River and smoked a cigarette leaning against the parapet of Princes Bridge, the stone still warm under our arms after the heat of the day. On the far bank a band was playing, its music sweet and plaintive on the evening air.

‘I know I'm going to like Melbourne,' I said. ‘It's got a civilised feel about it. Almost European. It is so different from Perth that I don't feel I'm in Australia at all.'

‘Don't judge the whole of Australia by your experience of Perth,' Denis said. ‘This is a huge country, darling. Each of the major cities has its own unique character. Sydney is different again. It has little graciousness about it, but one can't deny its charm. Vibrant and cosmopolitan – rather like a newer, cleaner version of San Francisco.'

‘And what about Brisbane?'

Denis rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. ‘Rather gracious, but in a distinctly shabby sort of way. At the moment it's chock full of Yanks, so one can't really judge. It's awfully hot and sticky.'

When we got back to the hotel there was a message from the Battens waiting for us:

John has let the cat out of the bag and told us you have arrived. Please come for dinner tomorrow night, and bring Shirley and the children. We will be splashing out with our coupons and having roast lamb. Come early so that the children can have a play. About five? God bless you all.

It was a lovely evening. Charles and Roberta Batten were as nice as I thought they would be, and we got on famously from the start. Shirley and I put Frances to sleep in her cot while the boys played in a nursery upstairs, then we gathered around the mahogany dining table for an early meal.

‘It is so nice to see a family around this table again,' Roberta said after grace had been said and Charles began carving the roast. ‘We eat in the den now the boys have left – it's so empty with only the two us in here.' Then she looked at me with raised eyebrows. ‘I do hope you will come and stay with us, Norma. Denis will be off up north in a week or so, which won't give you any time to find a place of your own. It would be awful for you all to stay in an hotel, and we'd love to have you here.'

I glanced inquiringly at Denis.

‘Don't look at Denis,' Charles cut in severely. ‘It's your call, Norma. You
know it would be sensible, and it would do Roberta a power of good to have young people around the place once again.'

‘There are a lot of us and we wouldn't want to put you out at all . . .' I began, but Tony interrupted. ‘Please can we live here, Mummy?' he said. ‘There's a skeleton upstairs, and Bobby and I want to see if it comes alive in the middle of the night.'

‘Jeff is studying medicine,' Roberta put in quickly. ‘He
does
have an articulated skeleton in his room. We'll lock it up if you think it might frighten the boys. But please do come. I'd be so disappointed if you didn't.'

‘The skeleton doesn't frighten us,' Bobby said boldly. ‘If it moves we'll
smash
it. Tony said it comes alive at midlight.'

‘Midnight,' I corrected automatically. ‘And you will
not
smash it, do you hear? Even if it does move.' I turned to Roberta. ‘We would love to accept your invitation. It is very, very gracious of you to offer.'

‘If that damned skeleton moves so much as an inch I'll smash it myself,' Charles said, winking at the boys. Then he turned to Denis. ‘Sensible woman, that wife of yours. We will look after them, I promise you.'

It was arranged as easily as that, and we moved in the next day. Denis and I had the downstairs guest room, the boys shared Jeff's room on the second floor (complete with skeleton on a stand in one corner, which worried them not in the least), while Shirley slept in the large, old-fashioned nursery with little Frances.

Denis's new appointment meant a promotion to acting lieutenantcommander, and he came home that night with the extra half-ring of gold on his sleeves and a briefcase full of material about Thursday Island, where he was to establish his headquarters. ‘It looks rather exciting,' I said, trying to sound enthusiastic as I leafed through a book of photographs of the place. In fact, the settlement on Thursday Island looked small and squalid, hardly more than a collection of tin sheds on a dusty street.

‘Somerset Maugham called the place a shantytown full of dreamers and rogues,' Denis said. ‘It also has one of the largest breeds of mosquito known to man.'

‘Oh, it might surprise you,' Roberta said. ‘Thursday Island has an extraordinary history, and it's produced some of the finest pearls in the world. You know they once thought it would be the next Singapore?'

‘I won't be on the island much of the time,' Denis said. ‘They've given me a boat, the
Alvis
, and I suspect I'll spend most of my time on her.'

‘What will you be doing?' Charles asked.

Denis grimaced. ‘Not a great deal, as I understand it. We're putting a lot of supplies through the Straits at the moment, so no doubt I'll be involved controlling shipping movements, and perhaps getting to know how things tick in the area. Rather tame stuff, really. The fighting is being done further north, on New Guinea itself. TI, as I understand the locals call it, is a bit of a backwater.'

It was music to my ears. We were sitting in comfortable chairs in the Battens' lounge, surrounded by Roberta's antique furniture, and the soft, well-bred ticking of her collection of French clocks. I lifted my own glass in a silent toast: Long may Denis remain in the quiet backwater of TI.

Two days later, the Battens joined us to see Denis off at Flinders Street station, the children leaping on him for last goodbyes, the adults restrained in the face of this important-looking man in his newly tailored tropical whites, with his two-and-a-half rings gleaming on his epaulettes. I kissed him almost shyly. ‘Try and visit Quetta Cathedral,' I said, sounding prissy and banal even to my own ears. ‘I know there are some good books about TI, and I'll send them up to you if I can.' I wasn't used to this formal sort of farewell, and I remember that I gave an awkward little laugh.