Love in the Years of Lunacy (14 page)

12 (cont.)

A
s Pearl headed through the pre-dawn darkness of Kings Cross and into Darlinghurst, she was relieved to be wearing Martin's uniform again, to feel the rub of twill between her thighs, to hear the steady clump of his boots against the footpath. As she walked she chanted Martin's serial number over and over to memorise it like a piece of music, or the telephone number of someone she'd recently met and whom she longed to see again. She wished she could move faster along the footpath, but the weight of the army pack, along with her brother's tenor sax case, slowed her down.

As she approached the sandstone walls of Victoria Barracks, she felt at once terrified and intensely alive. She was moving towards everything she now knew she couldn't live without: the adventures she longed to have, the jazz she yearned to play, the only man she'd ever love. As she passed through the gates, it was as if she'd stepped over some invisible line that divided her past from her future, separated one fate from another, and no matter what painful death or glorious reward was ahead, there was no turning back now.

It hadn't been easy to convince Martin that her plan would work. When she'd burst into his room six hours before and shook him awake, she'd already called Nora Barnes and had only a short time to put her scheme into action.

‘Mart,' she hissed.

He stirred and glanced at the clock. ‘I just got to sleep, Pearl.'

‘Do you still want to get out of going to Moresby?'

He rubbed his eyes. ‘What?'

‘The army,' she said, hardly able to contain herself. From the parlour she heard the grandfather clock chime ten-thirty. ‘Get up, we haven't got much time.'

‘What the fuck?' he groaned.

She quickly outlined her idea: he would dress in her clothes and assume her identity.

Martin rolled his eyes and lit a cigarette. ‘You think Mum and Dad aren't going to notice that I'm not you? And have you thought about Hector?'

Ah, Hector. It was thinking about Hector that had precipitated the whole idea. Pearl explained that she'd called Nora Barnes to confide that she was having serious doubts about her marriage, but was terrified of how her mother would react if she called off the wedding; she'd probably kick her out of the house or—even worse—have her locked up in Hector's asylum. Nora suggested that she could hide out on their farm if she wanted to disappear for a while. Now that Nora had a baby they could do with a hand.

Martin listened to Pearl's so-called solution, frowning with confusion. ‘That all sounds fine,' he said. ‘But how's it going to get me out of New Guinea?'

Pearl slapped her hand on the mattress. ‘Don't you get it? I'll dress in your army uniform and take your place!'

Martin considered this for a moment then shook his head. ‘There's no way you'd pull it off.'

‘I fooled a whole bunch of people yesterday,' Pearl reminded him. ‘Including some American MPs—even James thought I was you at first.'

Martin paced the room, trailing cigarette ash across the carpet. ‘You know bugger all about the army,' he pointed out.

‘Neither do you!' she retorted. ‘All you've been doing the last year is travelling around, playing in bands and having a good time.'

‘Not in New Guinea, for Christ's sake.' He stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Why the hell would you want to go there anyway?'

Pearl felt a blush creep up her neck. ‘James,' she said. ‘He's being shipped out there too. Mart, I have to find him—I'm in love with him! We have to be together.'

There was a long silence between them. Pearl could hear the grandfather clock ticking in the parlour, counting down the few remaining hours until Martin had to report to Victoria Barracks.

‘It's not like I'd be the first woman ever to do it. What about those women last century who dressed up as men so they could travel with their sailor husbands? And you know there are Aboriginal girls in the outback who cut their hair short and wear men's clothes to work as drover's boys. And don't forget the big Boxing Day fight down in White City.'

That particular story was legendary in the Willis family. In 1908, the first black world heavyweight boxing champion, Jack Johnson, nicknamed the Galveston Giant, was considered unbeatable, until a match was scheduled in Sydney between him and the boxer Tommy Burns. At the time, White City was the biggest stadium in Australia. It could seat over ten thousand spectators, and every ticket was sold out weeks in advance. One of these tickets was purchased by their father, Aub. The event was such an anticipated international spectacle that the
New York Herald
commissioned the American novelist Jack London to report on the bout; he happened to be in Australia at the time, accompanied by his wife, Charmaine. She was as much a sporting enthusiast as her husband, and was outraged when she found out that women were barred from attending the fight. So she dressed in one of her husband's suits, pulled a man's felt hat onto her head and bluffed her way past the ticket collectors. The reason Pearl and Martin knew this story so well was that Charmaine happened to be sitting next to Aub in the stadium, and on her other side was London himself, scribbling madly in a notebook as Johnson pummelled Burns onto the floor of the ring during the fourteenth round.

‘It was the hands that gave her away,' Aub had always said. ‘White, smooth and manicured. No man except a surgeon or a nancy looks after his fingernails so well.'

Pearl grinned at Martin, picked up a pair of scissors from the sideboard, and began clipping at the air.

After about quarter of an hour, she looked in the mirror. The crew cut she now sported looked like a pale yellow cap against her head.

Martin then instructed her in how to perform drill, to obey commands, how to turn. She memorised the markers, looking down at her feet: ‘Check, T, L, V, Away!' Using a broom as a prop, she learned how to shoulder a rifle, then how to salute, raising her hand slowly and abruptly bringing it down. At first it felt awkward, as if she were dancing some stiff-limbed quadrille with the broom in her arms as a wordless partner. But as she marched and saluted around the room, it seemed more and more like a music rehearsal, and she found her body gradually absorbing this strange new choreography.

Pearl gave Martin a slap on the back. ‘Now all we have to do is work on you.'

Martin did a double take. ‘What d'you mean?'

‘Well, I've turned into you; now you have to turn into me.'

Martin bristled. ‘No way. I'll just look like a poofter—or a lunatic.'

‘You won't look like a lunatic,' Pearl argued. ‘You'll look like me.'

Martin gave her a withering glare.

‘Christ, Mart, I just cut off all my hair! You can't back out now. You'll only have to wear a dress and hat for a few hours, until you get to Pookie's farm.'
She softened her voice. ‘In lots of ways, it's better if you have to become a woman. Otherwise someone's sure to recognise you.'

Martin sighed heavily. ‘You don't know squat about the military.'

She was growing frustrated with his pessimism. ‘Look, I won't be at the front, fighting the Japanese. I'll be in a bloody jazz band, playing the saxophone!'

When he buried his face in his hands and didn't respond she finally lost her temper.

‘Fine then,' she said. ‘Fucking go off to New Guinea. Fucking get killed for all I care.' She stormed out of his room and up the stairs.

It wasn't until she was closing her bedroom door that he caught up with her and hissed, ‘All right. You've got the bloody swearing down pat. Let's go.'

After she and Martin had traded identity cards and clothes, she sat down to do the hardest thing of all, which was to write a letter to her parents and Hector, detailing why she was running away. In many ways the explanation she gave was true—she wanted desperately to play music professionally again, and she knew she couldn't do it while still living in the house of her parents or in the home of her husband-to-be. Other things she wrote were also true: that she cared deeply for the three of them; that she hoped they could one day forgive her. She also left a fair bit out, like where exactly she was running away to, and under what guise, and the fact that she was in love with another man.

Once she was through the gates of Victoria Barracks, she joined a line of soldiers waiting to report, fingering Martin's papers and mouthing his serial number again, his regiment, the detachment he was supposed to join. There was a hush over the city. All she heard was the soft rhythm of men reciting their names and numbers, the occasional cry of a bird. As she moved on up in the line her legs grew weak and for the first time she worried about what would happen if she were caught out. Fortunately, she didn't need to undergo a medical examination because Martin had already passed one the year before when he'd enlisted and signed up for the entertainment unit.

She was growing impatient with the slow progress of the line, half expecting to see her parents running towards her in their dressing gowns and slippers, or a police paddy wagon pulling up.

When she felt a clap on her back her heart nearly leapt out of her chest.

‘Willis!' somebody cried.

She swung around, expecting to see some burly colonel who had come to have her arrested. Instead, she found a slight, slim soldier with a dimpled chin and slanted blue eyes.

‘I saw your name on the roster. God, I thought I'd never see
you
again.'

Pearl stared at him blankly. She knew she should say something, but was afraid her voice might not come out right.

‘You don't recognise me, do you?'

She put down her backpack, confused.

‘I lived up the road from you when we were kids. Charles. Charlie Styles.'

As soon as he said his name she recognised the little blond boy who'd played the cornet.

‘Charlie!' she cried, then, remembering she was supposed to be a man, slapped him on the back. ‘That's right,' she said as they shook hands. ‘You moved to the mountains and we never saw you again.'

‘I'm in the band too,' he said, taking the saxophone case from her. ‘Come on, you don't have to register here.'

Pearl shouldered the backpack again and followed Charlie across a car park. She couldn't believe her good luck in running into an old friend—and one who she and Martin hadn't seen in over ten years.

He led her down past a group of soldiers loading crates onto a truck and over to a group of a dozen or so men who were sitting around on drum cases or on their backpacks, smoking. They were all in uniform, but she noticed they were not as groomed as the soldiers she'd seen in line. One had his hat on backwards; another had no laces in his boots; a few had their sleeves rolled up.

‘It's about time, Willis,' declared a red-faced fiftyish man with curly hair the colour of snow.

Pearl handed him her movement papers and he glanced over them quickly.

‘First time on overseas duty?'

She nodded.

‘Well, this isn't going to be like the little picnic you had last year touring Australia with Merv Sent and his bloody Senders.'

All the men chuckled, but she could hear the underlying tension in their laughter.

‘By this time next month you'll be jumping off the stage, dodging exploding shells, living in foxholes and sleeping in your own shit—or somebody else's.'

There was more laughter. Pearl shifted the pack on her back from one shoulder to the other. She wondered when she was supposed to salute.

‘And I'll be right there,' he added, ‘making sure none of you blokes play one bum note or drop a single beat.'

For the next half hour they helped load supplies onto a truck, then the band clambered onto the back of it with their instruments. They were driven from the barracks through the empty city streets until they pulled up on a wharf at Woolloomooloo Bay.

Predawn light filtered across the harbour. A huge grey ship was anchored in the bay, engines purring, with a single tendril of smoke curling from one funnel. At the other end of the wharf men carried crates of supplies up a wide gangplank.

Pearl decided to stick close to Charlie, who obviously knew his way around. She mimicked his every movement, from the way he shouldered his backpack to the brisk steps he took as he fell in line with the others. She followed his swagger across the dock and onto the gangplank that rose sharply into the air at a forty-five-degree angle. Struggling against the weight of her pack, which was on the verge of tipping her backwards, she held the saxophone case tightly and with her free hand gripped the railing, scared that she'd topple into the harbour and her great escape would be abruptly halted before it had even begun.

At last she staggered onto the deck, relieved to be on a level plane. Every inch of the ship seemed to be painted the same dull, monochromatic grey. As she stood catching her breath, she was astonished to find herself up so high, as if she'd just scaled some enormous building. From where she stood she could see the sun rising behind Shark Island, the outline of the north shore, even the cluster of buildings at the top of William Street.

‘Come on, Willis. We're not on holidays!' The white-haired CO jostled her forward and she found herself standing in yet another line. After a few moments a supplies clerk issued her with a yellow life jacket. Further along the line another handed her a cartridge belt with a water canteen attached. And then, further along again, she was shocked to find a jowly soldier handing her a large submachine gun.

‘I won't need one of those,' she said, holding up the saxophone. ‘I'm a musician.'

‘Fartin' into that horn ain't goin' to protect you from Tojo, sonny.' The soldier thrust the gun into her free hand and ordered her to join her unit.

She struggled along the deck, trying to manage the life jacket, the cartridge belt and canteen, the saxophone and the gun which, dangling from the crook of her arm by its canvas strap, seemed more like some huge, odd, unwieldy handbag than a deadly weapon. She joined the rest of the musos, who were now lounging against the railing at the stern of the ship, smoking and trading jokes. Now that she'd safely crossed the first difficult threshold undetected she was suddenly overcome with nerves. All her moves thus far had been enacted under the veil of dawn, when it was hard to make out more than the outline of another's face or the height of the man standing next to you. But would her disguise hold up in the full light of day?