The Italian Romance (15 page)

Lilian's train arrived at Central Station half an hour late. It was packed. She had managed to get a window seat where she had contrived to fold up her cardigan, press it against the glass and lean her head into it as if it were a pillow. It kept slipping and was almost more trouble than it was worth. Additionally, the soldier in the opposite seat, who slept like a baby, had stuck his legs out straight as a board in front of him. His boots chased her around the floor; wherever she squeezed her feet, his followed. There were two other soldiers and a sailor returning from leave in the compartment. She wouldn't have stayed in there if the sixth passenger, a woman of about fifty, had not parked herself and her tartan rug by the sliding door and spent the long night dozing and waking. Lilian tensed each time the train pulled into a station in dread of the woman whipping the rug from her legs, reaching up for her port from the wrought-iron baggage hold and disappearing out onto a dark, sleep-walking platform.

The woman passed a paper bag of boiled sweets around.

The poor young sailor beside Lilian tried desperately to keep an inch of space between them, but by the time the sun was rising, his head was straying to her shoulder. He'd wake with a start,
withdraw in embarrassment, fold his arms across his chest, lower his chin, and do it all over again. The awful intimacy of it, the thickening of the air, the dropping of the social face, and worst the blatant reposed display of the four young men, their soft bumps, made her nerves tighten.

As the train's iron wheels screeched sparks and the brakes jerked carriages forward, then back, and over-eager passengers lost their footing, Lilian jammed her knee up on her seat until they slid to a standstill. She had been trying to get down her brown case. Behind her the soldier whose boots had haunted her reached up, dislodged the case and dropped it on its side on the leather seat. She slid out from him. ‘Thanks,' she said. He put his slouch hat on his head and the chinstrap sandpapered against his unshaven jaw. He gave her a salute, and heaved his duffel bag up to his shoulder. She pretended to be busy with her handbag as the military boys filed out. She said to her gallant's back, ‘Good luck.' He turned his head and nodded as his eye slid away from her.

The older woman, who'd remained in her seat, was slowly folding up her rug. She said, when the boys had joined the packed queue of people in the corridor, ‘God bless those poor young things. I always say a prayer for them when I see them.'

‘Yeah,' Lilian said. ‘It's terrible. It must be terrible up there in the jungle and everything.'

‘You're married.'

Lilian opened her hand, palm down, and stared at her wedding ring. ‘He's arriving today. From the Middle East.'

‘Oh, good Lord,' the woman said. ‘So you come up to meet him.'

‘Yeah, I hope I'm not late. We should have been in half an hour ago.'

‘They take hours to get them off the ships, don't worry, love. Anyway, he won't go anywhere without you.'

‘I don't suppose so.' She laughed.

‘How long have you got him for?'

‘A couple of weeks.'

‘Then...' The woman jerked her thumb skywards. ‘Up North.'

‘Yes. Don't know where exactly.'

‘Oh, well, at least he'll be closer to home. Thank goodness we got a good prime minister. Told those so and sos all about it. You wouldn't have got anyone else standing up to the Poms like that. We gotta save ourselves first, bring our boys home.' She sat forward, prepared herself and stood. ‘My Barry says when we got these Japs taken care of, then we can go back over there to Germany and places and settle their account.'

Lilian was standing with her black handbag over one arm, the cardigan neatly folded under it, and the case in her other hand. She said, ‘Have you got anyone in it?'

The woman leaned over her seat. Her hips and bottom were solid. She was stuffing the rug into a string bag. ‘My boy died at Tobruk, love,' she said.

Lilian's eyes smarted with tears. She reacted like that always, too quickly, before she had a second to think. She didn't want the woman to see her. She said, ‘I'm really sorry.'

And then she eased past her flowering behind into the corridor. ‘Nice to meet you,' she said.

The woman didn't turn. ‘I'll put in a word to the Man above, for your husband.'

‘Thanks,' Lilian said. A tear plopped right on to her breast. She couldn't wipe it, her hands full, so she moved on, the corridor almost empty now, and didn't stop till she reached the step. She put the case on the floor, opened her handbag, and blew her nose on her handkerchief.

She had to climb down backwards, dragging the case after her. Before the war, a blue-coated man would have popped out of nowhere to help her. The country had run out of railway men.

The platforms at Central were teeming. Lilian had never seen so many people together. Most were in uniform, or so it seemed,
the replication impressing the eye, khaki, slouch hats, American forage caps, navy whites, air force blue. She had never met an American. She found it almost impossible to believe that they had come down from the movie screen and were here, stepping out of her way as she shyly said, ‘Excuse me', ‘Please may I get past', casting glances at her, talking loudly to each other in accents which she didn't think really existed. It excited her to her fingertips.

At the gate, a woman in a dark straight skirt and blue blouse collected the tickets. She sat on a high stool outside the wooden box, one leg crossed over the other. Her foot arched up and down. She had slim ankles. A perky peaked hat covered some of her waved hair. An American leaned a hip against the ticket box, his cap pushed right back on his head. The woman barely glanced at Lilian's ticket as she said something smart out of the corner of her mouth to the Yank. Lilian picked up her case again and walked through. The concourse was, if possible, even more crowded. She looked up for a sign to the bus stop. It was hot. Not as hot, maybe, as home, inland. But her blouse and petticoat were stuck to her back.

Someone was speaking in her ear. ‘You couldn't tell me where I'd get a cup of coffee, ma'am, could you?' She wasn't sure that the man was indeed addressing her. She looked quizzically to her side. The American's face was very near her own. ‘I sure am dry,' he said. He had big, white teeth.

She said, ‘I'm from the bush. I don't know Sydney, I'm afraid.'

‘From the bush?' he said. He smiled broadly. She felt very young.

‘I mean the country,' she said.

‘First time in the big smoke, huh?'

She knew what he meant. ‘Oh, no. I've been up a few times before. I just don't know where anything is, that's all.'

He smiled again. He had brown eyes. He said, ‘Well, I think I've just remembered a place. Why don't I buy you a coffee? Or a cup of tea, you Aussies like, don't you?'

‘Oh.' She looked at her suitcase. She realised now that he was trying to pick her up. She was shy, but her heart beat fast. ‘No,' she said to him. ‘Thank you very much. I have to go somewhere.'

‘Can't it wait?'

‘No. I would otherwise. Because I'm a reporter on the local paper at home, and it would be very interesting for the readers.'

His eyes changed. She could not read the strange expression in them. ‘Oh, but I wouldn't ask you any secrets,' she said. ‘Where you're going or anything. I'm used to that.'

He straightened up. ‘Glad to hear it,' he said. ‘I imagine a lot of Japs read your newspaper.'

‘Oh, no,' she laughed. ‘Hardly anybody reads it. Oh, well, I'd better go. Thanks for ... asking me.'

He nodded, still smiling.

‘And,' she said. ‘I hope you'll be all right.'

‘You brightened up my day,' he said to her.

‘Oh, thanks,' she said.

He touched the peak of his cap.

‘Bye,' she said and walked away, the case banging against her leg, aware of the American's gaze on her. Her scalp prickled.

She fell in with a swell of people hurrying down white-tiled steps. It felt as if they were heading somewhere. And when, at the bottom, the crowd dissipated, she was left again gazing up for signs. Liverpool Street, Bathurst Street. She turned left. The sun was shining at the end of the hall. She walked towards it, and there was the sign she'd been looking for all along. Buses. She could see the street now. On the other side beside the green park, a long row of them sat, double-deckers.

The water's smell assaulted her. She was not used to it. She liked it, though. Liked it a lot. It crept through her skin. A fat worm of seaweed was stranded on the puddled wharf; the sun glistened on it. The tide slapped at the ship's bows and she listened to its coming and going, its gurgle. She would have liked to kneel down on
the edge, lean over, and cup some of the green water in her hand. And watch it slip out, in shining drips, like it did in the cartoons.

It may have taken a few minutes, she didn't know, until she heard her name being shouted. She looked away from the light blinking and sliding on the bows, raised her eyes to the decks. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of army men streaming towards the gangway. She shielded her narrowed eyes with her hand.

She saw him. He waved his arm as if he were waving a flag. ‘Oh, my goodness!' she said. She waved. ‘Come on,' she shouted. ‘Come on.' She pointed to the gangway. He heaved his duffel over his shoulder and almost ran along the deck, weaving in and out of slower men.

Lilian hid her eyes. Behind the dark privacy of her hands, she surprised herself with shyness. She was shy to meet her husband. She touched her cheeks, which were burning.

He was waving again, from the top of the gangway. They were slow coming down, all too eager, too packed in. She could not make herself move nearer. But she turned so that she would be facing him when he put foot on land.

There he was. He came towards her at a rush, and then he hesitated. Was he feeling it, too? Was he suddenly overcome with shyness in front of his wife? He came forward, but with caution on his face. Her own smile faded. He looked like a stranger.

She rang the hotel from the railway station to cancel the booking. He wanted to go home. He'd said to her, ‘Why did you do that? I don't want to stay around here. I want to go home.' He'd been upset, as if she had not thought of him at all. ‘Why would I waste two days in the bloody city?' he'd said. She'd tried to smile.

He'd pleaded with the ticket woman behind the grill at Central. ‘Where've you been?' she said. He answered, ‘North Africa.' She opened a drawer. ‘All right, you've got the last two,' she said.

Lilian had tried to smile again when he turned to her and winked. He took her elbow and steered her towards the steps she'd come down earlier in the day. His thumb pressed on a nerve. He was barely aware of her.

They had to sit on their bags in the corridor. He'd talked to the other men, soldiers, air force, around them. They'd shared smokes, and they'd laughed loudly. Lil tried to read her book, her back against the wall. The train bucked and lurched, and finally it was too dark to see the words. She closed it and held it on her lap. She shut her eyes to rest. Bernie leaned in to her and said, ‘What's wrong with you?' She'd opened her eyes, wide, and said against his cheek, ‘Nothing's wrong. Just tired.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Yeah,' she said. She wanted to tell him how much she'd missed him, that for many weeks after he'd gone she hadn't been able to lie flat in her bed because of the lump in her throat.

He looked into her eyes and raised his brows. She raised hers back. ‘Go to sleep, then,' he'd said and patted her hand, turned to the other three fellows he'd taken up with and accepted another thin, rolled cigarette.

They arrived in the lonely hour before dawn. The station chilled her, though it wasn't cold. There were no lights. He carried her case in one hand, the duffel bag over his other shoulder. She tucked her hand around his arm as they walked down the platform and in through the lobby. His mother and father were there. His mother said nothing. She opened her arms and came towards him. He put down the bags and Lilian released him. His mother's face was near her, pressed into Bernie's chest, her eyes pressed closed. Lilian looked at her. She had never known this woman, this passionate, grieving woman. She looked away.

His father came to him with his hand out. Bernie, his mother clutching at him, reached out and shook it. ‘We were glad to get your phone call, weren't we, Mother? Your mother was brokenhearted you were staying up in Sydney. Bloody mad idea.'

Lilian waited for Bernie to defend her, to take the idea on as his, too. Bernie shook his father's hand for a long time, and said, ‘Yeah, it was.'

‘Come on, I brought the buggy. Safer at night. The horse don't need lights.'

Bernie laughed, and his mother lifted her head and laughed, too. ‘I've got some chocolate cake for you at home,' she said.

Vince Malone said, ‘You should have seen her. She's been getting the stuff for it for a month.'

‘Oh, well, it's a very special occasion,' Mae said.

Vince picked up Lilian's suitcase. Bernie heaved up his duffel and held his mother tight around her shoulders. As the two of them walked off, their steps in unison, her father-in-law said to her, ‘Come on, love,' and Lilian followed them out into the dark street. Overhead, the sky was sharp with a million stars.

Their own house had been cleaned for the occasion of Bernie's brief return. Even the curtains were washed, and the sharp lines running down their lengths betrayed their pressing with a hot iron.

They woke late. Lilian was almost as tired as Bernie. He, though, had woken earlier. He was sitting up in bed, smoking. She put her hand on his hard, dark-haired thigh. He placed his hand on hers, and continued to smoke. She lay on the pillow facing him. They were silent.