Ship of Brides (37 page)

In the face of their poverty, Frances could never work out how her mother acquired the money to get as drunk as she did.

And then, one night, she disappeared – with the evening’s takings.

Frances had been taking a five-minute break, seated on a bucket in the broom cupboard, eating a couple of slices of bread and margarine that Hun Li had left for her, when she heard the commotion. She had already put down her plate and stood up when Mr Radcliffe stormed in. ‘Where is she, the thieving whore?’

Frances froze, wide-eyed. She already knew, with a familiar sinking feeling in her stomach, whom he was talking about.

‘She’s gone! And so has my bloody cash! Where is she?’

‘I – I don’t know,’ Frances had stammered.

Mr Radcliffe, normally so urbane and gentlemanly, had become an enraged, puce-faced creature, his body somehow threatening to burst out of his shirt, his huge fists balled as if in an effort to contain himself. He had stared at her for what seemed like an eternity, apparently weighing up the possibility that she was telling the truth. She had thought, briefly, that she might wet herself with fear. Then he had gone, the door slamming behind him.

They had found her two days later, unconscious, at the back of the butcher’s. There was no money, just a few empty bottles. Her shoes were missing. One evening that same week, Mr Radcliffe went round ‘to have a word with her’ then came back to the hotel to tell Frances that he and her mother had decided it might be best if she left town for a while. She was bad for business. Hardly anyone would give the Lukes credit. He had personally helped her out. ‘Just till she straightens herself out a bit,’ he said. ‘Though God only knows how long that’ll take.’

Frances had been too shocked to react. When she arrived home that evening, took in the heavy silence of the little house, the bills sitting on the kitchen table, the note that failed to explain exactly where her mother was going, she had laid her head on her arms and stayed like that until, exhausted, she slept.

It had been almost three months later that Mr Radcliffe had called her in. Her mother’s shadow had diminished; people in town had stopped murmuring to each other as she passed – some even said hello. Hun Li had been conciliatory – had made sure that there were scraps of beef and mutton in her dinner, that she had regular breaks. Once he had left her two oranges, although he later denied it and raised his cleaver in mock anger when she suggested it. The girls in the bar had asked if she was doing all right, had tweaked her plaits in a sisterly manner. One had offered her a drink when she finished her shift. She had refused, but was grateful. When another had popped her head round the kitchen door and asked her to nip up to his office, she had flinched, afraid that she was about to be accused of theft too. Like mother like daughter – that was what they said in the town. Blood would always out. But when she knocked and entered, Mr Radcliffe’s face was not angry.

‘Sit down,’ he said. The way he looked at her seemed almost sympathetic. She sat. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave your house.’

Before she could open her mouth to protest, he continued, ‘The war’s going to change things in Queensland. We’ve got troops headed up here and the town’s going to get busy. I’m told there are people coming in who can pay me a much better rent on it. Anyway, Frances, it doesn’t make sense for a young girl like you to be rattling around in it alone.’

‘I’ve kept up to date with my rent,’ said Frances. ‘I haven’t let you down once.’

‘I’m well aware of that, sweetheart, and I’m not the kind of man to turf you out on the street. You’ll move in here. You can have one of the rooms at the top, where Mo Haskins used to sleep – you know the one. And I’ll take a reduced rent for it, so you’ll have more money in your pocket. How’s that sound?’

His confidence that she would be pleased with this arrangement was so overwhelming that she found it hard to say what she felt: that the house on Ridley Street was her home. That since her mother’s departure she had started to enjoy her independence, that she no longer felt as if she was teetering on the brink of disaster. And that she did not want to be indebted to him in the way this arrangement suggested.

‘I’d really rather stay in the house, Mr Radcliffe. I – I’ll work extra shifts to make up the rent.’

Mr Radcliffe sighed. ‘I’d love to help you there, Frances, really I would. But when your mum took off with my takings she left a great big hole in my finances. A great – big – hole. A hole that I’m going to have to fill.’

He stood up, and walked over to her. His hand on her shoulder felt immensely heavy.

‘But that’s what I like about you, Frances. You’re a grafter, not like your old mum. So, you’ll move in here. A girl like you shouldn’t spend the prime of her life worrying about the rent. You should be out, dressed up a bit, having fun. Besides, it’s not good for a young girl to be seen to be living on her own . . .’ He squeezed her shoulder. She felt immobilised. ‘No. You move your stuff in Saturday week and I’ll take care of everything else. I’ll send one of the boys over to give you a hand.’

Afterwards, she realised that perhaps the girls had known something she couldn’t. That their sympathy, their friendliness and, in one case, hostility stemmed not from the fact that they lived under one roof, all girls together, as she had assumed, but from what they understood about her position.

And that when Miriam, a short Jewish woman with hair that stretched to her waist, announced she would spend an afternoon helping her to smarten herself up a bit it had perhaps been the result not of girlish friendliness, but of someone else’s instruction.

Either way Frances, unschooled in friendship, had found herself too intimidated by the unfamiliar attention to protest. At the end of the day, when Miriam had set her hair, pulled tight the waistband of the deep blue dress she had altered to fit her and presented her to Mr Radcliffe, boasting about the transformation, Frances had assumed she should be grateful.

‘Well, look at you,’ Mr Radcliffe said, puffing at his cigarette. ‘Who’d have thought, eh, Miriam?’

‘Doesn’t scrub up too bad, does she?’

Frances felt her cheeks burn under their scrutiny and the makeup. She fought the urge to cover her chest with folded arms.

‘Good enough to eat. In fact, I think our little Frances has been wasted on old Hun Li, don’t you? I’m sure we can find her something more decorative to do than bottle-washing.’

‘I’m fine,’ said Frances. ‘Really. I’m very happy working with Mr Hun.’

‘Sure you are, sweetheart, and very fine work you do too. But looking at how darn pretty you’ve got, I think you’re more use to me out front. So, from now on you’ll serve drinks. Miriam here will show you the ropes.’

She felt, as she so often did, outmanoeuvred. As if, despite her supposedly adult position in the world, there were too many people who could make decisions on her behalf. And if she had caught something in Miriam’s glance that made her feel something else, something vaguely disconcerting, then even she wouldn’t have been able to articulate what exactly that was.

She should be grateful. She should be grateful that Mr Radcliffe had given her the pretty attic room at a price far cheaper than she could have afforded. She should be grateful that he was taking care of her, when neither of her parents had had the good sense to do it themselves. She should be grateful that he had paid her so much attention, that he had ordered those two good dresses for her when he discovered she hardly had an outfit to her name that wasn’t threadbare, that he took her out to dinner once a week and didn’t let anyone say anything bad about her mother in front of her, that he protected her from the attentions of the troops flooding into town. She should be grateful that someone found her as pretty as he did.

She should have paid no attention to Hun Li when he took her aside one night and hissed at her in pidgin English that she should leave. Now. She wasn’t a stupid girl, no matter what the others were saying.

So that first night when, instead of waving her off to bed, Mr Radcliffe invited her to come to his rooms after dinner, it was hard to say no. When she had pleaded tiredness, he had pulled such a sad face and said she couldn’t possibly leave him alone when he had entertained her all evening, could she? He had seemed so proud of the specially imported wine that it had been vital that she drink some too. Especially that second glass. And when he had insisted she sit on the sofa beside him instead of on the little chair, where she had been comfortable, it would have been rude to refuse.

‘You know, you’re actually a very beautiful girl, Frances,’ he had said. There had been something almost hypnotic about the way he kept murmuring it into her ear. About his broad hand, which, without her noticing, had been stroking her back, as if she were a baby. About the way her dress had slipped from her bare skin. Afterwards, when she had thought back, she knew she had hardly tried to stop him because she hadn’t realised, until it was too late, what she should have been stopping. And it hadn’t been so bad, had it? Because Mr Radcliffe cared about her. Like no one else cared. Mr Radcliffe would look after her.

She might not be sure what it was she actually felt about him. But she knew she should be grateful.

Frances stayed at the Rest Easy Hotel for three more months. For two of those months she and Mr Radcliffe (he never invited her to use his first name) settled into a twice-weekly routine of his nocturnal ‘visits’. Sometimes he would invite her to his rooms after he had taken her out to dinner. On a few occasions he arrived, unannounced, in hers. She didn’t like those times: he was often drunk, and once he had said almost nothing to her, simply opened her door and come crashing down on her so that she had felt like some kind of receptacle and stood, for hours after, trying to wash the smell of him from her skin.

She realised pretty quickly that she did not love him, no matter what he said to her. She knew now why he employed so many female staff. She saw, with not a little curiosity, that none of them envied her position as his girlfriend, even though he favoured her – in wages, dresses, and attention – best of all.

But on the day when he suggested she ‘entertain’ his friend for a little while, she had understood everything. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, smile wavering as she looked at the two men, ‘I don’t think I heard you right.’

He laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Neville here has a proper soft spot for you, sweetheart. Do me a favour. Just make him feel better.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

His fingers tightened on her. It was a sweltering night and they slid on her skin as they gripped her. ‘I think you do, sweetheart. You’re not a stupid girl.’

She refused, flushed to the roots of her hair that he had considered her capable of such a thing. She refused again, and tried, in one outraged look, to convey her hurt at what he had suggested. She half ran towards the stairs, tears of humiliation pricking her eyes, desperate to escape to the safety of her own room, conscious of the eyes of the other girls upon her, the catcalling of the now ever-present troops. But then she heard his thunderous steps behind her. By the time she reached her room he was behind her.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he yelled at her, whipping her round to face him. His face was the same colour as it had been when he had accused her mother of stealing.

‘Get off me!’ she screamed. ‘I can’t believe you’re asking me to do such a thing!’

‘How dare you embarrass me like that! After all I’ve done for you – looking after you, forgetting all that money your mum stole off me, buying you dresses, taking you out, when everyone else in this town said I shouldn’t touch any of the Luke family with a ten-foot pole . . .’

She was seated now, her hands pressed to her face as if she could block him out. Downstairs she heard someone break into song, and an answering jeer.

‘Neville’s a good friend of mine, you understand, you silly little girl? A very good friend. And his son’s off to war and he’s blue as anything and I’m just trying to take his mind off it all – and so here we are, the three of us having a nice evening, all friends together, and you start behaving like some spoilt kid! How do you think that makes Neville feel?’

She tried to interrupt but he stopped her.

‘I thought you were better than that, Frances.’ Here his voice dropped, became conciliatory. ‘One of the things I always liked about you was that you were a caring sort of a girl. You didn’t like to see people unhappy. Well, it’s not a lot to ask in the great scheme of things, is it? Just to help someone whose son’s gone off to maybe lose his life in battle?’

‘But I—’ She didn’t know how to answer him. She began to cry, lifted a hand to her face.

He took it in one of his. ‘I’ve never forced you to do anything, have I?’

‘No.’

‘Look, sweetheart, Neville’s a nice man, isn’t he?’

A small, grey-haired moustachioed mouse of a man. He had grinned at her all night. She had thought he found her conversation entertaining.

‘And you care about me, don’t you?’

She nodded mutely.

‘It would mean such a lot to him. And to me. Come on, sweetheart, it’s not like I ask much of you, is it?’ He lifted her face to his. Forced her to open her eyes.

‘I don’t want to,’ she whispered. ‘Not that.’

‘It’s half an hour of your life. And it’s not like you don’t enjoy it, is it?’

She didn’t know how to reply. She had never been sober enough to remember.

He seemed to take her silence as acquiescence. He led her to the mirror. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘you go and straighten yourself up a bit. No one wants to see a face full of tears. I’ll have a couple of drinks brought up to you – that nice brandy you like – and then I’ll send Neville up. You two will get on fine.’ He hadn’t looked at her as he’d left the room.

After that she lost count of the number of times she did it. She knew only that each time she had been progressively more drunk – once she had been ill and the man had asked for his money back. Mr Radcliffe got crosser and crosser, and she spent as much time as she could hiding in the bathroom, scrubbing her skin until it came off in raw red patches so that the girls winced as she walked by.