All the Nice Girls Read online

  ‘Would you like a cup of coffee, Sophie?’ The Captain was leaning forward with his hands clasped loosely on his desk as though he was being photographed and Sophie was the camera.

  She shook her head. She could think of nothing to say except why was she here.

  The Captain took his time. He picked up a pencil. Put it down again and smiled once more.

  Sophie smiled back. It was a beautiful day outside. Someone shouted a parade ground order. A gunnery officer? The sound echoed up the hill. Sophie sat silent.

  ‘Sophie,’ continued the Captain, ‘I have a rather extraordinary request to make to you. I can’t think of anyone else I could trust with it.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The hair across the front of the Captain’s forehead was blue-black and shiny. Sleek, she thought. Harold Pickett is sleek as a hand-fed seal.

  He laughed, flung back his head as if he was having a wonderful time. If you saw him from a bus window you would think, there is a man whose laughter is uninhibited and carefree. But the Captain has many cares, though not as many as the Commodore. What about the situation in South-East Asia. The training scheme. The new Intake. The logistics involved in moving HMNZS Tamaki to the mainland next year.

  ‘You know we’re expecting a visit soon from one of the friendly Asian powers?’ He leaned forward again.

  It was all tied up. South-East Asia, escalation and despair. Sophie could feel her heart.

  ‘Yes.’

  The Captain’s face was grave. ‘I’m worried about the toilet that we will make available for his wife.’

  She gave a ridiculous yelp of relief. ‘What?’

  ‘The VIP of course, and his retinue, will use the facilities in the Captain of Philomel’s flat before lunch, but it’s his lady we’re worried about. There’s only the Ladies’ on the ground floor available.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes. And it’s pretty basic as you know.’

  He looked into her eyes. He had never noticed them before. Large brown eyes, eyes you could see into. Candid.

  ‘You know those decorative covers for the tops of lavatories?’ he continued quickly. ‘They have a matching floor-mat thing that fits round the er pedestal.’ He was becoming less happy. ‘They’re made of sort of,’ his hands moved, ‘towelling.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am right?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘In the States they have matching sets.’ The Captain sighed. ‘But you can’t get them here.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He leaned forward, his eyes anxious. ‘I wondered, Sophie. I wondered if you could make a set for me?’

  Sophie said nothing. He tried again, renewed his smile. ‘To cheer it up a bit for the friendly Asian lady.’

  Her hands clasped the arms of her chair. She stood very straight. Never, never, never. Her voice was choking, harsh. ‘Make it yourself,’ she said.

  The Captain was also on his feet, his face stiff with shock. He was around the desk, clasping her hands. She pulled them back. He grabbed them again.

  ‘I would if I could,’ he said sadly, ‘but I can’t.’

  ‘What about Celia!’

  ‘Celia!’ gasped the Captain of Philomel. ‘Oh, Celia couldn’t do anything like that.’

  The arrogant-sod assumption that some people could never be expected to know anything as insane as how to make a towelling set to tart up a lavatory, let alone do it, and that others could and would and she was one of them, enraged her further. She was sick of it. Sick to the depths of her bruised angry heart.

  ‘I thought you’d like to help,’ said the Captain of Philomel, his face puzzled, his eyes despairing.

  Sophie saw the bleak cloakroom, the friendly Asian lady’s sorrow, the yellowing tiles. Saw the pain in the face in front of her.

  ‘Oh all right,’ she said, filled with the self-loathing of the weak-kneed.

  The Captain was delighted. He clasped her hands in his yet again.

  The pattern was no problem, he explained. Someone could make a paper template.

  Who? Worse beyond worse peculiar. There seemed no end to the ludicrous aspects of the task to which she had committed herself. Sophie shook her head. ‘No, no. I can get a pattern. I have seen them in Takapuna. Butterick, I think. Yes, Butterick.’

  His hand dropped to his doeskin pocket. ‘No!’ Sweaty and unclean, Sophie blundered from the spotless office out into the room where Kate and another Wren officer worked which acted as an air lock between the Captain and the rest of the world, out into the sun and the wind and the screaming gulls of Devonport.

  She wished to explain. To tell someone or something of her snivelling self-disgust, to lay it with the real worries, the tragedies, the agonies and the screams of pain. She rattled the door of the Memorial Chapel of St Christopher. It was locked. She turned away with a slight gasp. What in the name of heaven was she doing.

  The Commodore was striding back from the base tailor. ‘Sophie,’ he said, arms out, palms upward in welcome. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

  She walked into them by the Ocean Ranger figurehead. He did not leap away. He led her around the back of the Memorial Chapel of St Christopher, flung his cap on the grass and held her. He took her face in one hand and studied it. ‘What’s wrong, Sophie?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said and kissed him.

  He released her eventually. ‘Sophie.’

  ‘I love you,’ she said. The words echoed, thundered across the harbour, swept back. She was laughing. ‘What the hell,’ cried Sophie.

  Edward Sand stared down at her. His face was serious. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He picked up his cap from the grass and departed.

  Sophie, filled with the illicit heady joy of the sinner, was working out how to love her lover. John Donne had not featured in the sixth form but she had found him later.

  She walked out the main gate. The guard on duty looked at her with interest. It was some time since the office had telephoned to say she was on her way.

  She walked past the small tidy houses on the waterfront between the main gate and Devonport; past the clock on the ferry wharf and the Esplanade Hotel where the women’s lavatory was labelled ‘Mermaids only’ in brass. The seagulls were shrieking, tearing the air to pieces as they soared upwards to fling themselves around the gun emplacements on North Head, which was riddled with ammunition tunnels left over from the war.

  She would pick up a squeegee mop refill at Stirlings the hardware shop. Life must go on, thought Sophie, beaming at a defecating dog squatting by a shop front.

  One of the times Sophie had been aware of loneliness, had caught the whiff of rejection from the Ark of two by two, was when she saw naval men and their wives shopping together. It is a connubial activity, buying things for the home when you have both saved up. Before William left for the Island Cruise they had bought a heater. Similar ones lined the back of the cavernous shop. They were paraffin heaters but did not smell at all if you kept them well cleaned. Stuart the salesman had shown them how, removing the tube which shielded the flame when lit, dropping on his hot tan heels, his face anxious as he glanced up at them, his hands busy with the wick cleaner as he demonstrated on the virginal wick which had never been lit. William, she remembered, had nodded. ‘Background warmth is what we need, isn’t it, Soph?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll find the heat will permeate right through your house.’ Stuart, still anxious, was now upright.

  ‘Done.’ William, after inspection, rubbed his hands together. ‘Sold to the lady in the paper hat.’

  Stuart was pleased but not surprised. He was used to ribaldry and bonhomie at the time of purchase.

  Sophie stood at the back of the shop, her eyes on the upright paraffin heaters for background warmth and permeation. Euphoria had gone. It had melted away among the shelves and the bright shining chrome things and the nuts and bolts and the plastic kitchen utensils. Had disappeared behind the collapsible white Japanese paper lampshades shaped like
globes which had just come in. It had been replaced by quiet joy, by dazed wonder at the steady ticking of her life.

  Stuart was smiling at her side. He was a nice man, Stuart, dark and helpful with receding hair and pale hands. He wore a wide shiny wedding ring.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Flynn. How’s the Valor?’

  They both looked at the line of heaters, sturdy and reliable as keepers of the watch. She thought of William.

  ‘I haven’t used it yet.’ She was about to tell Stuart it hadn’t been cold enough but he was already nodding. He knew this, he could feel warmth all around him. There was a pause as they stared at the nearest Valor. Stuart rubbed his hand over it, his palm caressing its steel flank.

  ‘Was there something else?’ he said after a pause.

  ‘I need a replacement sponge for my squeegee.’

  In an instant his hands were full of them; hectic green, pink, yellow and turquoise replacement squeegee mops leaped from his fingers. ‘Which?’ he asked.

  He cared too much. Sophie could not tell him that she did not care. That it was irrelevant. That they were all hideous and she didn’t care and that if he knew about her he would be surprised.

  Her hand flicked, a dismissive wave.

  ‘Blue.’

  ‘Blue it is. Sold to the lady in the paper, what was it again?’

  ‘Hat.’

  ‘Hat.’ Stuart’s hand slapped his knee. His laugh turned to a cough. ‘Pardon,’ he said, one hand to his mouth. Now he was on another tack. ‘Have you got one of these, Mrs Flynn?’ The hands assembled a new refinement of the squeegee which enabled you to clean the shower after you had finished. Stuart dismantled sections, reassembled, wiped pretend walls. He glanced at her over his shoulder to see that she had got the picture.

  ‘You mean you clean the shower yourself, Stuart?’

  ‘Well, of course,’ said Stuart, his ring glistening. ‘Otherwise my wife would have to, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Clutching her wrapped sponge she farewelled him.

  Devonport was not busy. Cars lined the main street, rather old model cars on the whole, low-rumped and squatting, the sun burnishing their roofs. There were few pedestrians. Occasionally one waved, called a greeting across the road. Some of the local people were concerned lest the recent building of the Harbour Bridge would reduce Devonport to a sleepy hollow, as it was now cut off from the mainstream traffic to the North Shore by the demise of the car ferry. The phrase ‘sleepy hollow’ was heard often in 1962, and seen in the local paper. It was worrying for local shopkeepers, but Devonport was an agreeable place to live. A few artists lived nearby, a potter or two, a bearded Titan who twisted wrought iron, a man who was about to tackle stained glass. Sophie and William did not know or patronise any of these creative people but they knew they were there and were reassured. Artists thrive in sleepy hollows.

  There were other advantages. The man in the garage was kind to naval grass widows because he used to be in the Andrew himself and his wife wouldn’t know a bee from a bull’s foot once she’d lifted the bonnet. The hardware man was generous with his hire-purchase terms. The village atmosphere was enhanced in even more cosy ways. The wife of the grocer, for example, made homemade fudge which was delicious but you had to be quick on a Monday.

  A trail of children from the local kindergarten chattered past hand in hand, shepherded by an untidy blonde in yellow. The children wore bright cartoon clothes; reds, greens and squeegee pinks. Everything was cartoons now. Even colours were obvious, easy to label. There was no room for doubt, for subtlety, for the shimmer of crossweave. For camouflage.

  A line of straw hats bobbing across the chemist’s shop had not been removed though summer had long gone. A large photographed dog and cat still asked each other, ‘Will we be free of fleas this summer?’ They were too late and again Sophie did not care. The chemist waved, pristine in high-necked white. ‘Got the eye drops for Rebecca?’ he called.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Good, good.’

  And still she remembered and still and still. They were out of peanut butter. She turned into the grocer’s for a jar of crunchy. There was no fudge. ‘Those days are gone,’ Kel the owner told her. He nodded his head across the aisle to Fruit and Veges. ‘Noelle’s full time now,’ he said. Noelle, hearing her name, lifted a cabbage in greeting. She was telling a customer that their holiday at Whangamata had been lovely even though they didn’t get the weather.

  Sophie headed up the hill. Bertha, that’s who she needed, Aunty Bertha.

  The old man was panting against his letterbox.

  Sophie stared at him. ‘Mr McNally?’

  He nodded, speechless.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Of course I’m all right,’ he gasped.

  Tetchy. An odd word, tetchy. Men, even men as obviously decrepit as Mr McNally, are expected to soldier on, to pack up their troubles in their old kitbags and smile, smile, smile. To be a man. ‘I haven’t seen you for a long time,’ she said.

  He was silent, marshalling his breath. ‘Has your sister found her, her cat?’

  First William, then Chester. Absence of mind is no excuse. She shook her head. ‘No. No, she hasn’t.’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye out.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ she said to his departing back, his straightened shoulders.

  Aunty Bertha’s house had grown from an ancient cottage. A top storey plus verandah had been added and later the pepper-pot tower. Bertha had turned the house into two flats, accepting the outside staircase for her better view which, as people told her frequently, was breathtaking. The harbour and the city lay spread before her, ready for inspection twenty-four hours a day. When Bertha clambered out of bed in the middle of the night she invariably checked the view on her way back from the bathroom. On waking she told the city it wore the beauty of the morning: silent, bare.

  Bertha had been an artiste, a solo artiste. She had danced the whole world over and had photographs to prove it. Large black-and-white ones from the thirties lined the walls of the overcrowded room: Bertha as a fan dancer in three-inch heels manhandling two enormous ostrich fans with decorum; Bertha in top hat, tails and shiny black shoes, leaning on a malacca cane and/or tap-dancing with widespread flying arms. One of the largest showed a virtually naked belly dancer from the casbah. A more sober Dutch girl in winged cap and phoney clogs had an unexpected cleavage.

  Bertha had had many faces but all of them were aloof. Unsmiling as a figurehead, her face was pickled in the cool chic of her period. She was slim as a bean.

  The decor of the flat was mixed. The living room was equipped with large Edwardian cabinets with carved excrescences and a three-piece suite in pale blue which bounced.

  The verandah (now enclosed) was hung about with faded sun hats and baskets. Straw hats and floral hats, shapeless hats and an ancient solar topee were piled on a cluster of pegs. Rough baskets of rope-like strands lay on the floor beside ones woven from threads of raw silk. There were three Maori kits. Bertha Boniface’s catchment area had been wide. ‘My baskets,’ she said, ‘are the story of my life.’ Plus her assegais and her carved prow figure from a Solomon Island canoe and her Nigerian toy tractor made from tin cans and her Algerian scarves. Bertha had been a woman of the world.

  She greeted Sophie with enthusiasm, her vast form heaving as she slapped her hands about searching for her smokes. She was fond of her nieces and showed it, enfolding them in her arms and kissing them on the mouth with damp enthusiasm. Her denim trousers came from a menswear shop in Karangahape Road. Thank God, said Bertha frequently, for fat men.

  ‘It’s high time we went fishing, Soph,’ she said. ‘Plenty of kahawai at Devonport wharf at the moment. We’ll take a sandwich.’ She lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sophie, soothed as always by Bertha’s views of the essentials of life. She fished all the time now, had done for years. There was nothing like it in her opinion.

&n
bsp; There was no way to tell her. Not at the moment. How would you start. ‘Bertha, the thing is Bertha …’ Bertha would understand. Who better than this loving woman of the world. But not at the moment.

  ‘Bertha,’ she said after a pause. ‘You know Mrs Featherston, don’t you?’

  ‘Lettie? Of course. We crouched in her basement clutching each other night after night in the Blitz. Whole streets disappeared! Beds left hanging,’ laughed Bertha, her eyes bright with the pride of the survivor, the ex-combatant. ‘Lionel was at sea.’

  Captain and Mrs Featherston were well known in naval circles. The Captain was a retired Royal Navy man, immensely old and regarded with affectionate admiration by all, especially since the present Commodore had arrived. The Captain had saved Lieutenant Sand’s life during the war though Sophie had not heard how. The Featherstons had come to live in New Zealand after their only daughter Rose married a young New Zealand naval officer on Scheme B. Both Rose and her baby died in childbirth which was virtually unheard of, but this tragedy had not sent her grieving parents home to Southsea as expected. ‘The sun helps,’ the Captain had said, ‘and Bertha Boniface is a good friend to Lettie.’

  ‘What is she like? Really?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’ve been invited to have a meal with them. With the Commodore.’

  Bertha’s face was thoughtful. ‘Lettie is very fond of the Commodore.’ She sniffed, banged her wrists. ‘Never there when you want them, handkerchiefs.’ She flicked her nose on her wrist. ‘Yes. She loves him.’

  Sophie leaned forward. ‘But what’s she like?’

  Bertha stubbed out her cigarette, grinding it to extinction in a large Dewars Whisky ashtray. ‘I was Rose’s godmother,’ she said. ‘Sad. Very sad.’

  FOUR

  Celia’s voice fluted down the hall. She stopped at the door, brought up all standing by Sophie on her knees surrounded by a flood of orange towelling. Her mouth was full of pins, one hand flapped a tissue-thin pattern. She nodded in welcome, her eyebrows working in support, attempted some comment from the side of her mouth, gave up, spat the pins into the palm of her hand and sat back.