a Breed of Women (10 page)

‘Thank you,’ whispered Harriet.

Alice was very cheerful that evening, and roasted a chicken dinner. It was a good meal, and Harriet felt her spirits lifting. At least she was employed. In a week’s time she would have three pounds eighteen of her very own, and the week after that, and the week after that. It didn’t do to dwell too long on the fact that the point of her adventure was so far contained in a job on a department store haberdashery counter, only vacated by its previous incumbent because of an unfortunate condition. The world wasn’t exactly shouting out for her talents, but it was a start.

Julie turned out to be a sallow girl with permed blonde hair. She seemed indifferent to Harriet’s presence, but considerably more methodical than Harriet had anticipated from the comments she had heard. Hooks and eyes, buttons and thread came in a variety of weights and sizes and it was no good trying to fool customers who were their own home dressmakers that they wanted anything but what they specifically asked for. If you did, eyebrows would be raised in long-suffering supplication and fingers would be drummed on the counter.

The weather in Weyville was hot and oppressive day after day. By midday, the shop was like an oven. The customers were almost all old, or mothers of querulous children, sweltering in prams or held in harness by leather reins. After the lunch break, Harriet felt as though she were suffocating. The whole weight of her loneliness had started to bear down on her afresh. It was an exhausting process.

Julie was staying on for another fortnight, but they had hardly exchanged a dozen words that did not deal with the shapes and sizes of domes and buttons or the ever-present heat. Whatever was going on in her mind, and it was obvious that there was a great deal, she didn’t seem prepared to share it.

When closing time came on the second Tuesday that Harriet was at the shop, Julie followed her into the cloakroom.

‘You want to walk along with me?’ said Julie.

Harriet looked up in surprise. ‘Yes, please,’ she said, trying to conceal her eagerness. She didn’t find her pale pregnant workmate particularly appealing, but being with anybody in the world was better than being alone.

The two girls walked along in silence. Harriet hadn’t asked where they were going, but it seemed to be in the general direction of Alice’s house. Perhaps Julie lived near there. She hadn’t thought to ask, and it wouldn’t have meant much anyway.

Near the lake that Alice had pointed out on the first day was a milk bar. Harriet had noticed it as she walked home, and, again, as on the first day, she had seen a group of young people gathered around it. She had been too shy to look up as she passed, but there had been a whistle or two. The atmosphere made her very nervous.

‘Coming in?’ said Julie.

‘You mean … into the milk bar?’

‘Why not? Don’t you like milk bars?’

‘I’ve never been in one,’ admitted Harriet.

‘What?’ Julie looked at her as if she was some strange curiosity. ‘Wait till I tell the kids!’

‘No, please don’t,’ begged Harriet. ‘No, honestly, I won’t come in if you do.’

Julie shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

As they walked in, the whistles became deafening. They drowned out the jukebox in the corner, which seemed to be fairly jumping off the floor with ‘Blue Suede Shoes.’

Harriet knew something must be expected of her. She forced herself to look around. There were about a dozen boys in the room and six or seven girls. A couple had been jiving in the corner. As Harriet looked around they stopped; the whistles died down.

The boys wore stovepipe trousers, and their hair was slicked back with grease. Some of the girls wore the huge circular skirts she had noticed before, others were in tight skirts that showed their bottoms. In spite of the warmth of the evening, most of them were wearing cardigans back to front, buttoned down their backs, sleeves pushed back to their elbows.

‘Hi, everyone,’ said Julie. ‘This is Harriet.’

‘G’day, Harriet. What’re you having?’ asked one of the boys at last.

‘Er … a milkshake, please,’ said Harriet, wondering if she was meant to pay for it. ‘Chocolate.’

‘Choc-o-late for the little lady,’ said the boy, with an imitation of what Harriet imagined was meant to be an American accent. She started scrabbling round in her purse.

‘I’ll pay for it,’ she said anxiously.

‘Oh, Ay’ll pay for it, will Ay? Say, Julie, where’d you pick up this twanky doll from? She suck a plum for lunch?’

The kids had pimples and spots, and she noticed that none of them was particularly good-looking. She felt as she had in the days at school, and yet she’d had a chance to stop it being like that. Only a year before, she’d made a stand for herself. It hadn’t won her any friends amongst authority, but she supposed that this lot didn’t stand for authority, except maybe that of the group. That’s the way it had been at school, the last years, and things had been all right then. She took a deep breath.

‘I’m not a twanky doll,’ said Harriet firmly. ‘I come from up north because there was no work up where I lived. My family are English, but I’m not, I’m a Kiwi. I can’t help sounding like I do. There weren’t that many people living near us for me to talk to besides my parents,
so it’s hardly any wonder if I talk more like them than anyone else. So either you like it or you lump it.’

The kids were listening intently.

‘And if you don’t like it okay, then I have been eating plums, but if you stand too close I might just spit the stones in your face.’

The boy who’d offered her the milkshake grinned.

‘All right, Twanky Doll. Wanta jive?’

The atmosphere had turned all right. He said ‘Twanky Doll’ in a friendly sort of way that suggested that if she wanted to stay it was as good a name for her as any, nothing malicious intended. She smiled back.

‘I can’t jive, but I don’t mind if you teach me.’

‘Well, what d’you know!’ The boy let out a whoop and a holler and grabbed her hand. ‘Come on, baby, let’s go. Hey, feed the machine, we got learning to do here this day.’

‘You going to dance with Noddy, then?’ asked one of the girls. Harriet glanced at Julie and back to the other girl.

‘Not if you don’t want me to. I only want to learn the dance.’

The girl lifted her shoulder and let it fall with a flounce. ‘Nobody’s stopping you doing that.’

The money in the jukebox fell into the slot with a jangle and the beat started. It was ‘Blueberry Hill’. Harriet felt the music in her head, her thighs, right down to her feet. Noddy took her hand, his feet slid apart, knees bending. He jerked her towards him and she half fell.

‘Not like that, Twanky Doll, lean back, that’s right, like you was fighting me, good, good, fight baby, fight, rock, that’s right, that’s right … follow me feet, beautiful …’ He let go her hand, she lurched into space and he caught her, as it seemed she must surely fall headlong into the seat beside them. ‘And around you go when I let go, twirl baby, again like this, and around, come on Larry an’ Jill, come along with us … let her see …’

Another couple got up and joined them. The rhythm inside started to make sense as she followed Jill. ‘More, more,’ shouted Noddy. ‘Stay with it, Twanky Doll, you’re coming on great.’

‘You were my thrill … on blueberry hill …’

She was exhilarated, she was flying, she was suddenly dying, as Noddy whipped her body horizontal to the floor and flung her like a dart as far as she would go back through his legs. He pulled her back up as the record ended. ‘Well how about that,’ he said, shaking his
head in wonder. ‘For a beginner, that wasn’t bad.’

‘Well, gee, thanks,’ retorted Harriet. ‘I guess you’re coming along quite good yourself.’

The others laughed and Noddy shook his head again, this time in admiration. Harriet wondered if he got his name from the number of times he waggled his head.

The proprietor of the milk bar had been watching more and more uneasily.

‘What say we have one more dance?’ suggested Noddy. ‘Really shape up.’

‘You kids made enough noise for one day,’ yelled the proprietor.

‘Ah, get knotted,’ Noddy called back.

‘I reckon I’d better be getting on, anyway,’ said Harriet. ‘The cousin I live with won’t like it much if I’m late for dinner.’

‘Yeah, come on,’ said Julie, ‘I gotta be on my way too. See you, guys.’

Everyone called back, including the girls, and Noddy called, ‘Come again, Twanky Doll.’

Outside, the air was still thick, but a slight breeze was stirring some life into the evening. At the lake, Julie stopped.

‘You have to go home yet?’

‘I guess not for a little while. But soon.’

Julie flopped wearily down on to the grass, and Harriet followed.

‘You did real good in there,’ said Julie.

‘Thanks. Are they milk-bar cowboys?’ It was an expression Harriet had heard and read in the papers up north. She thought they were supposed to have motor bikes as well, but couldn’t remember seeing any round the milk bar.

‘Milk-bar cowboys? Oh if you like. If you wanta put a label on them.’

The remark surprised Harriet. Perhaps there was more to Julie than met the eye.

‘I don’t believe in putting labels on anybody,’ she said.

‘Well, there you are. Didn’t think you would. Didn’t seem the sort.’

‘How can you tell what sort I am?’

Julie picked a piece of grass, stretched it expertly between her thumbs, and blew. A piercing whistle split the air. Both girls giggled as a duck flew up from reeds at the waterside, letting out a startled and indignant trail of noise.

‘I dunno that I can tell anything any more. I’ve never been much
of a picker at things, for that matter. Took to you, though. See I’ve always had a big fat label stuck on me.’

‘You have?’

‘Yeah. No-hoper. They’re not disappointed now, are they.’

Harriet took it that she meant the baby, which Julie hadn’t mentioned to her before.

‘You’ll feel okay when you get married,’ she said.

‘Married?’ Julie laughed shortly. ‘You gotta be kidding.’

‘But … Cousin Alice said …’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know, Cousin Alice and old Elsie and my old woman and the whole darn town, they all said wah, wah, look at Julie Simmons, got herself up the duff, and I’ll bet she gets herself married in white and a veil and all, she’s just got the cheek to.’

‘They said … you said …’

Julie was quiet. Then she dropped her head forward on her knees and started to shake without sobbing, or even seeming to be crying outwardly at all.

‘Yeah,’ she said in a very low voice. ‘I did say it, too. But it’s no good, you know. I had to say something … like I couldn’t just say, yeah well, I’m going off to the home to have a baby and I don’t know whose it is for sure or nothing, could I? Not while I was here.’

Harriet sat very still. She remembered Ailsa prattling on. This seemed very different. Come to think of it, Ailsa seemed unreal, like a little girl playing out fairy stories. Only for her it seemed to have been all right. There were fairy stories after all, and she would live happily ever after. She looked at Julie’s bleak face and supposed that she was about to be admitted to some sphere of the adult world that she hadn’t seriously anticipated until now.

‘See, I got a boyfriend, well, we got on all right,’ Julie was saying. ‘Alf his name was. Not much of a name, like one of them jokes, eh, but he was a good sort. He wouldn’t set the world on fire but he was okay.’

‘Was he one of the crowd at the milk bar?’ asked Harriet.

‘Nah, not really. He used to come in sometimes, but he was older, see. That lot’s all the kids I went round with at school, most of ’em anyway, give or take a couple that come for the forestry. Mind you, that’s what Alf came here for, come up from Wellington, ’cause he likes the outdoors. Anyway, he went home over Christmas. I was mad as hell because I was looking forward to a good time then, but he said his family was kinda close. So-o I was on the loose, see. And so was Noddy.’

‘Noddy!’

‘Yeah. Nance, the girl that didn’t want you to dance with him, she got sick and couldn’t go out for a bit either. Well one night I was just mucking round the fairground … they have a fair here at Christmas, pity you missed it, it was great … and I run into Noddy. Well … I dunno, you kind of get used to it and I was missing not having a bit, so, you know … he had his brother’s car and we come down here.’

‘Right here?’

‘Yeah. Everyone comes down here to have it off. I tell you it’s something terrible in the moonlight, if it’s a bright night. A row of cars and a bare bum going for the record in every one of them. He was okay too, but I couldn’t go anywhere with Noddy. You know, not for a big deal.’

‘So you think the baby’s his?’

‘Dunno. No … that’s not true, I know darn well it is.’

‘You told him?’

‘Don’t be nuts. I haven’t told anyone. Not anyone — in the whole world. Not till you.’

‘Why me?’

‘Got to tell someone, don’t I? I mean, the whole thing’s driving me nuts. See, I told Alf, but he was too cunning. He was real careful about when we done it, and he reckons it’s a thousand to one it could be his unless I got my dates mixed up.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Mean? Well, rhythm, you know.’

‘No.’

‘Honest?’ As Harriet was obviously telling the truth, Julie elaborated. ‘You must know. You know … not having it off in the middle of the month. Alf was real good about that. He looked after me like that. That’s what he said to me too when I told him, he said, “I looked after you, Ju-Ju,” that’s what he used to call me — “and you done this to me.” Anyway, he’s buggered off now, I don’t know where he is.’

The lake stirred under chill little breezes. Harriet shivered.

‘Are you going to tell him, then?’

There was a long silence. ‘No,’ said Julie at last. ‘No, they might try and make him do something about it.’

‘You mean, get married?’

Julie nodded.

‘You wouldn’t have to,’ said Harriet.

Julie looked at her sideways. ‘Of course I would. You know that.’

There was such a simple inevitable logic about the way she said it that Harriet believed her.