Fire (11 page)

‘More or less.’

Allie leaned back as the waitress set their coffees on the table. ‘Well, she won’t get to be a world-famous model if she behaves like that.’

‘Won’t she?’ Sonny said.

Allie looked at him for a second. ‘I don’t know, actually. I just thought models would have to be well behaved.’

Sonny shrugged. ‘Well, don’t ask me. All I know is that Polly’s a pain in the arse most of the time.’

‘Beautiful, though,’ Allie said, stirring her coffee to cool it down.

‘Yeah, that’s the trouble.’

They sat in companionable silence. Then Sonny said, ‘Are we still on for tomorrow night? The dancing?’

Allie nodded.

‘Shall I come and pick you up? It’ll only be in the truck.’

‘That would be nice, thank you.’

‘It won’t,’ Sonny said, ‘but I’ll have my own transport soon.’ He shovelled three teaspoons of sugar into his coffee. ‘It’s my brother’s twenty-first this weekend, on Saturday night. Do you want to come?’

Allie felt a delicious sense of anticipation steal over her. Counting tonight, that would make four dates with Sonny in one week. And that must mean that he was as interested in her as she was in him, mustn’t it? ‘Yes, I’d like that!’

‘Nothing flash. Just a party.’

‘It sounds great,’ Allie said, already thinking about what to wear. Would it be in a hall, or somewhere outdoors? She opened her mouth to ask, but then frowned and said instead, ‘What’s that noise? Like thunder. Can you hear it?’

Sonny listened. ‘Motorbikes.’

‘Sounds like a lot of them.’

The noise grew louder and louder until it peaked in a rumbling, blatting roar that made the hairs on Allie’s arms spring up. She half stood for a better view of the street outside. ‘They’re stopping here!’

Sonny turned around, had a look, then turned back again. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

But Allie was worried. She could see something like a dozen motorcycles pulling up in front of the milkbar, their riders revving loudly and backing up to the footpath before dismounting.

‘What if they come in?’ Allie said anxiously. ‘Will they come in, do you think?’

Sonny touched her hand across the table. ‘Don’t worry, drink your coffee.’

Allie obeyed, but didn’t take her eyes off the door.

They did come in, a dozen of them, some with girls trailing behind them. Their clothing was menacing, to say the least. Most of the lads wore leather flying jackets with the sheepskin collars turned up, jeans and heavy work boots. When the one at the front turned around, Allie saw that there was an image of an eagle emblazoned on the back of his jacket above the words ‘Currie’s Cowboys’.

Everyone in the milkbar stared at them in silence, and there was a sudden tension in the air. The cowboys sat down at the tables near the front while their leader sauntered up to the counter, leaned against it and propped his boot on the footrest.

‘Hokey-pokey milkshake, doll, when you’re ready,’ he said to the waitress.

The chatter started up again, and Allie breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps there wouldn’t be trouble after all. She
was vaguely concerned for her own safety, but more than that she had a horrible image in her head of the headline that would be splashed across the next morning’s
Herald—
‘DUNBAR & JONES SALESGIRL AT CENTRE OF MILKBAR BRAWL.’

The cowboy leader paid and sat down next to a very pretty girl wearing tight black capri pants, a low-cut black sweater and a pink scarf at her throat. He stuck two straws into the milkshake and they bent their heads over it, giggling.

Sonny drained his coffee, then inclined his head towards Allie’s cup. ‘Do you want a refill?’

‘No, thanks. I’d better be getting home soon. I have to get to work early tomorrow.’

‘I’ll give you a lift.’

‘OK, thanks, but I’ll go straight in this time,’ Allie said. ‘Donna and Pauline were watching us last night through the curtains and this morning they—’ She stopped.

The cowboy leader was walking towards their booth. He came to a halt in front of them and stood for a long moment, his thumbs caught in the pockets of his jeans, staring down at Sonny.

Allie tensed as Sonny pushed his cup away and slowly raised his eyes to the cowboy’s face.

Then he said, ‘G’day, Gary.’

‘Hey, Sonny. All right?’

‘Yep. Yourself?’

‘Can’t complain.’

Sonny said, ‘This is my girl, Allie.’

‘Pleased to meetcha,’ Gary said, then asked Sonny, ‘Going down the club tomorrow night?’

‘Nah, going dancing.’

‘Yeah? Whereabouts?’

‘The Peter Pan.’

‘We been banned from there,’ Gary said. ‘But, you know, I can’t dance anyway.’ He looked over at his friends, who were getting up. ‘Well, gotta go, we got some teds to beat the shit out of.’

Sonny and Allie watched as Gary and his mates slouched out of the milkbar, climbed onto their motorbikes and, with a great deal of engine-revving and yelling out to one another, roared off up Queen Street.

Friday, 18 December 1953

D
aisy was still feeling sick, and tired and down in the dumps. The wedding gowns last night had been absolutely gorgeous, but she knew she wouldn’t be wearing anything remotely like that. Still, at least she could get some nice material, and her mother was good with a sewing machine.

She looked at the clock on the wall above the rows of hat blocks and saw that it was ten minutes to twelve—nearly her lunchtime. She’d just stitched a line of grosgrain ribbon onto the brim of a hat, but it looked rather odd and she wondered if she’d put it in the wrong place. Daisy put up her hand so that Miss Button would come over. She preferred the girls to do this if they wanted something—she said it was more sensible than them all queuing up in front of her and making the room untidy, and anyway she needed the exercise.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Button, but am I putting the ribbon on in the right place? I seem to be having a bit of a dozy time today.’

Beatrice Button privately thought that Daisy had a dozy
time most days, but she was never unkind enough to say so. And besides, the girl was sweet, her sewing was very neat and tidy, and she did have a certain creative flair.

‘No, dear, it should be on the outside of the brim, not next to the crown.’

Daisy’s pretty, endearing little face fell and her huge grey eyes filled with tears.

‘It’s all right,’ Beatrice said. ‘Just unpick it and put a new piece on in the right place.’

‘And I can’t seem to get this peony right either,’ Daisy complained. ‘The petals keep going funny.’

Beatrice glanced up at the clock herself. ‘Why don’t you ask me about that after lunch, Daisy? I’ve got an appointment and I really do need to go in a minute.’

Daisy nodded, feeling more despondent than ever. Everyone was doing something today at lunchtime except her. Nyla and Peg, her two best friends in the millinery workroom, had already gone, and even Terry was too busy to meet her. She supposed she would have to eat her lunch by herself. Sighing, she carefully put down the hat and stuck her needle into a pincushion so it wouldn’t get lost. Retrieving her bag from the shelf beneath the table, she went to the toilet, which she seemed to be doing a lot lately, washed her hands and put on a bit of lipstick. What now? A boring old sandwich and a cup of tea in the caf, she supposed. But when she came out again she bumped into Allie, leaning with theatrical nonchalance against the wall.

‘I thought you had something on today?’ Daisy said, trying not to sound grumpy.

‘I have,’ Allie replied, tucking her arm through Daisy’s. ‘Come on.’

‘Come on where?’

‘You’ll see.’

Allie led Daisy all the way down the stairs to the ground floor, then out onto the crowded street.

‘Where are we going?’ Daisy said again.

‘Just wait and see, will you? It’s not far.’

Mystified, Daisy allowed herself to be pulled along until they came to the Kia Ora Tearooms, not far up the street.

‘What are we doing here?’ Daisy said, now thoroughly confused.

Smiling to herself, Allie didn’t reply. Instead she led Daisy past the tables filled with lunchtime customers and through to a private room at the back of the shop.

As they entered, Daisy saw Irene, Louise, Nyla, Peg and Miss Button sitting around a table wearing silly smiles on their faces.

‘Surprise!’ Louise exclaimed. ‘We’re having your Dunbar & Jones bridal shower!’

Daisy burst into tears.

‘Oh dear,’ Beatrice said, digging for a handkerchief in her bag. ‘Have we given you a fright?’

Daisy took the handkerchief and honked into it. ‘No, I just, well, I didn’t expect this, that’s all.’

‘Well, a girl only gets married once, you know,’ Peg declared.

‘But it’s not till the end of January,’ Daisy protested.

‘We know,’ Louise said, ‘but we’ll all be off on our holidays after next week, and you’ll be busy getting everything ready for the wedding when we get back, so we thought we’d have it now. Now come and sit down, we’ve ordered a lovely lunch. But first…’ She reached behind her and produced an elegantly wrapped parcel. ‘Ta-da! Come and open your presents!’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Daisy said as she sat down.

‘Don’t say anything,’ Allie suggested. ‘Just open your presents.’

Daisy pulled hesitantly at the ribbon around the parcel.

‘Oh, just tear it off, it’s only paper!’ Irene said, giggling.

‘But it’s really pretty!’ Daisy ripped it open anyway, then gasped, ‘Louise, it’s lovely!’ She held up a beautifully embroidered damask tablecloth so everyone could see.

Allie waited for the oohs and aahs to die down before she handed Daisy her present, about which she’d thought very carefully.

Daisy opened it, and started crying again.

‘It’s a length of guipure lace,’ Allie explained. ‘For your wedding dress.’

‘I know,’ Daisy said, wiping at her tears. ‘It’s beautiful. It must have cost you a fortune!’ She managed a giggle. ‘The queen will be so jealous!’

‘Bound to be,’ Irene said. ‘Now open mine.’

Irene’s present was a crystal salad set. She’d decided against the Indian rug, thinking that Daisy was more of a salad set sort of girl.

‘Thank you, Irene. It’s very classy and such a lovely pattern. You can come and have the first salad with it after we’re married.’

Nyla and Peg’s gift was a hand-painted Sèvres porcelain sandwich tray.

‘We chipped in together,’ Nyla explained. ‘We’re both a bit broke at the moment.’

Beatrice presented her gift last, a very pretty silver condiment set. ‘It’s from Miss Willow as well,’ she said. Then she passed over another parcel, wrapped in yellow paper.
‘This is just for you. Open it when you’re by yourself.’

‘Oh. Thank you very much.’ Not sure what else to do, Daisy slipped the parcel into her bag just as their lunch arrived.

Irene reached for a potato-topped savoury. ‘Yum, I’m starving.’ She bit into it, and laughed as a globule of hot mince squirted out and plopped onto the table top.

‘You’re in a chirpy mood today,’ Allie observed. ‘Did you win the art union?’

Irene shook her head, and swallowed. ‘No. But it’s a beautiful day and Daisy’s getting married and it’s Christmas and everything’s all right, isn’t it?’

Allie supposed it was, though she suspected there was more to Irene’s good mood than she was letting on. Something to do with Vince Reynolds, perhaps? He’d given Irene a particularly sleazy wink at morning tea.

‘We’re all going dancing tonight at the Peter Pan,’ Louise told Nyla and Peg. ‘Do you want to come?’

‘I can’t,’ Nyla replied morosely. ‘I’m babysitting my little brother. My parents are going out.’

‘Can I bring Jim?’ Peg asked, referring to her husband. ‘Or is it a girls’ night out?’

‘Rob’s coming,’ Louise said, reaching for a ham and egg sandwich.

Irene added, ‘And Allie’s bringing a man.’

‘Have you got a new man?’ Peg asked excitedly.

‘That Maori boy from stores,’ Irene said. ‘Sonny Manaia.’

‘The one with the duck’s arse hairdo and the twinkly brown eyes?’ Nyla was impressed.

Allie nodded, half proud and half embarrassed.

‘He’s nice. How long have you been going out?’ Peg said,
dissecting her sandwich and scraping the piccalilli off the ham.

Daisy was fascinated. ‘Don’t you like piccalilli?’ She couldn’t eat it herself, at the moment—the thought of any pickle, in fact, turned her stomach. On the other hand, she was getting through a jar of Marmite every week, so she supposed it evened out.

‘I hate cauliflower,’ Peg explained. ‘And sometimes they put cauliflower in piccalilli.’

‘We’ve only been out twice,’ Allie said, suddenly overwhelmed with a need to talk about Sonny. ‘The pictures on Wednesday night, and last night after the fashion show we went for a coffee.’ She paused for a deliberate second. ‘At Currie’s Milkbar.’

Nyla’s thinly plucked eyebrows went up. ‘Isn’t a bit rough there?’

‘Not really, though some cowboys did stop by when we were having our coffee.’

‘Weren’t you scared?’ Peg asked.

‘A bit,’ Allie said, and couldn’t resist adding, ‘but the leader, Gary, was a really nice sort.’

‘You met him?’ Irene asked, clearly a little miffed because, for a change, someone else had done something more daring.

‘My dad says he’ll skin me alive if he hears I’ve been anywhere near a milkbar,’ Nyla said. ‘Though I have to say I do like those motorbikes they ride. They’re so…’ She stopped, obviously searching for a suitable description.

‘Sexy,’ Irene said.

They all looked at her, uncomfortable with the bluntness of the word.

‘Well, they are, aren’t they?’ Irene protested. ‘All that
power and noise and the way the girls sit on the back with their legs around the boys. It’s sexy.’

‘Not my cup of tea, I’m afraid,’ Beatrice said lightly. ‘The closest I’ve ever been to a motorbike is the bicycle I had when I was a child. And even then I wasn’t very successful at riding it. My legs were too short, you see.’

Allie laughed as merrily as everyone else, though she was finding it slightly peculiar, having lunch with Miss Button, but Louise had said they should invite her because she was Daisy’s boss, and Daisy liked her. And she did seem to be a good sort. Like Miss Willow, really. Only Miss Button was half the height and twice as wide.

‘I propose a toast,’ Louise said, holding up her tea cup. ‘To Daisy and Terry. May they have a very successful marriage, loads of well-behaved children and a long and happy life together.’

Everyone lifted their cups and said, ‘To Daisy and Terry’, and Peg added, ‘Pity it’s not champagne. Or even sherry.’

Allie shot a glance at Miss Button, who only nodded.

‘I’m partial to a drop of good sherry myself,’ she said. ‘But we’d better not roll back to work smelling like we’ve been in a public bar all morning. Mr Beaumont would have kittens.’

Daisy snorted tea out of her nose, which made everyone else laugh. Then, disconcertingly, Daisy’s giggles turned into tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said after several moments, dabbing at her eyes with a paper serviette that had a smear of piccalilli on it. ‘I seem to be bawling all the time these days. It must be—’ She stopped, remembering that Nyla and Peg and Miss Button weren’t supposed to know about her condition. ‘I mean, I was feeling so rotten this morning—I think I
must be nervous about the wedding or something. But it’s lovely to have such good friends.’ She looked hesitantly at Allie. ‘And it will be all right, won’t it?’

Allie patted her hand. ‘Of course it will, silly.’

They were ten minutes late back to work, but as Miss Button was with them they felt they had a certain level of dispensation.

Keith Beaumont didn’t, though. Unfortunately, he was having a conversation with Ted Horrocks just as they all trooped through the front door, and he ostentatiously checked his watch.

Allie ducked her head and stared hard at a display of royal tour mementos: silk scarves patterned with images of Buckingham Palace, cups and saucers, cake plates, teapots, brooches, pens and pencils, and special folding seats you could sit on while you waited for the queen to go past. Allie wished she was sitting on one now, preferably on her own back lawn.

‘This is an unusual time for staff on the twelve-to-one lunch shift to be returning to work, isn’t it, Miss Button?’ Keith was in a very bad mood because he’d just lost yet another fifty pounds at Addington. Bloody trots—he knew he should have stuck to the gallops or the dogs. He’d never been any good at picking form for pacers.

‘Yes, I’m afraid it is, Mr Beaumont,’ Beatrice said, and sighed. ‘And as the senior staff member in the party I take full responsibility.’

‘I trust there’s a good reason for your tardiness?’

‘Of course,’ Beatrice replied. She leaned closer to Mr Beaumont, as if to impart a confidence, but barely
lowered her voice at all. ‘We were out at lunch and one of our party unfortunately suffered a slight accident.’

Mr Beaumont looked wary. ‘Accident? What sort of accident?’

‘
Women’s
problems, Mr Beaumont,’ Beatrice declared earnestly. ‘One of us is experiencing
women’s
problems and we were unforeseeably delayed.’

While Allie and the others looked on in horrified glee, Mr Beaumont’s face went the colour of a ripe tomato. He tugged at the hem of his waistcoat. ‘Yes, well…’ he said, then turned and strode off.

‘That was a bit naughty, Beatrice,’ Ted said, trying not to smirk.

‘Yes, I suppose it was, wasn’t it?’ Beatrice replied, thoroughly unrepentant. ‘But he shouldn’t be so nosy, or such a stickler for the rules. It is Christmas, after all. Come on, girls, let’s get back to work, shall we?’

When Allie apologized and explained why she was late back from lunch, Miss Willow only laughed, though she made a half-hearted effort not to.

‘Yes, well, they’ve never seen eye to eye, Miss Button and Mr Beaumont,’ she said. ‘But don’t be late again, please, Allie. We’re terribly busy.’

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ Allie said again.

By five o’clock Allie’s feet were killing her and she’d barely squeezed in ten minutes for a cuppa and a cigarette at afternoon tea. Friday afternoons were always busy, but today, the last late shopping night before Christmas, was particularly hectic. The store closed at eight o’clock; she would get a thirty-minute break at six, but there were still another two and a half hours of serving panicking women who didn’t know what they wanted, or only wanted what
they couldn’t, or shouldn’t, have. Women were the most difficult customers, Allie thought. They seemed to invest so much hope in the clothes they bought, expecting the garments alone to transform them.

And there would be no time to go home tonight before she went out, so she’d brought her clothes into work, as had Louise and Daisy, so the three of them would change in the staff loos before they headed up to the Peter Pan. Irene still didn’t know if she was coming, but she was an office girl so she could get away at five o’clock anyway.

By eight Allie was so exhausted that if she hadn’t been going out with Sonny, she might have told the others that she was just too tired, and gone home for an early night. But by the time they’d changed into their glad rags she felt a little better, and as the three of them hurried down the stairs to the side door on Wyndham Street, she realized that she was excited.