Lily’s War (23 page)

‘I’ll have to get one myself.’

His blue eyes fixed on her drooping mouth. ‘I’ve offered you one. No need to go looking elsewhere.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m a city girl. Besides I suspect the job you’re offering me might get me into trouble,’ she said drily.

He grinned. ‘I must admit me and you in the sack together is something I can’t get out of my mind.’

She felt inestimably weary. ‘Forget it, Mr Fraser, and drink your soup.’

His expression changed and he stretched a hand across the table to cover hers. ‘Forget him, Lily. I’ve really got a fancy for you.’

‘Fancy! Thanks for the offer but I have to refuse. I’m going to stay here a few days, then go back to Sydney by train.’ Her voice was expressionless.

‘So no Broken Hill together?’ His grip on her fingers tightened so much it hurt.

‘No. And you’re hurting me.’

He slackened his hold. ‘You’re going home to England then?’

She hesitated, and experienced a strong conviction that Matt would eventually get in touch with her and when he did she wanted to be around. ‘I’ll give it a bit longer.’

‘Then I won’t give up.’

‘You’re wasting your time.’

Rob smiled, dropped her hand and commenced to dunk bread into his soup.

He left the next day, saying he would see her in Sydney before the month was out. She told him not to bother.

Joy was really put out when Lily turned up again so soon. ‘I thought you’d be away ages. What happened?’

Lily decided that it was really none of her business. ‘I changed my mind. All this going from one place to another is tiring me out. I’m staying put for a while. That way Matt’s got a better chance of finding me.’

Joy said slowly, ‘You mean stay in this house?’

‘Definitely stay in this house,’ said Lily firmly, stretching out her legs and holding her face up to the sun. ‘It does belong to Matt and I am his wife. When he turns up it might be that we’ll settle here. He talked about being a parish priest when we were in Liverpool. He’d have to do a curacy somewhere first but perhaps he could eventually get a parish in Sydney and we could live here.’

Joy cleared her throat. ‘What if he doesn’t turn up? How long will you stay?’

Lily opened her eyes and stared at her. ‘As long as it takes. I’ll find myself a job and I’ll try not to get in your way. I think this house is big enough for both of us.’

Joy flushed. ‘You do what you want – but when the baby comes you might find it inconvenient.’

Lily smiled. ‘I shouldn’t think so. I’m quite good with babies. You might actually be glad to have me around.’ On that note she left the house and went for a walk in the Royal Botanic Gardens where she wrote a letter to her family, making out everything was wonderful.

Lily managed to land a job as a waitress in one of the harbourside cafes. It did not pay much but not having rent to pay, her wages with tips were enough for her to live on and she still had a good bit of Uncle William’s money tucked away. She was unhappy but tried not to let it show.

Her first wedding anniversary came round and she thought there just might have been something from Matt, but there wasn’t.

Joy gave birth to a son after a long drawn-out labour. Pete came home and had a fraught conversation with Lily about the Japanese getting above themselves and believing they could conquer the southern hemisphere. He told her not to say a word to Joy about it.

The days passed slowly and still there was no sign of Matt. Ben wrote telling her Herr Hitler had rung alarm bells by invading Czechoslovakia. The Prime Minister had met with him and gained an agreement to what was said to be peace in our time!!! The exclamation marks gave her cause for thought and she put the peace of Europe back on her prayer list.

Joy’s baby cried a lot and she was slow to recover after the birth. Lily felt it was ages since she had passed an undisturbed night. Still there was no news from Matt and she despaired. Christmas approached and the temperature soared. She longed for her family. Australia, despite its beauty and sunshine, had stopped being her Shangri-La. Feeling lost and lonely, she was starting to believe there was really no place like home but had not quite given up hope of Matt returning.

It was in such a mood that Rob Fraser found Lily when he arrived in the city four days into the new year of nineteen thirty-nine. After being on her feet all day she was too tired to argue when he suggested they go for a drive, look at the ocean and have a picnic. He was surprisingly silent and they reached the almost deserted Bondi Beath without either of them having said a word. He spread a rug on the sand and told her to make herself comfortable. She sat watching the surf roll in, half mesmerised by it, as he unpacked a picnic basket. She continued to gaze at the ocean as she ate cold mutton sandwiches and drank a glass of Aussie white wine.

It was Rob who broke the silence. ‘I went to Broken Hill.’

There was something in his voice that roused a submerged fear. ‘And?’

‘They’d been there.’

She put down the half-eaten sandwich in the sand. ‘You’re making it up!’

Instantly he was angry. ‘They stayed in Argent Street at the same hotel, for God’s sake! When are you going to accept he’s a louse?’

She felt sick to the stomach but still she refused to accept what he said. ‘When he tells me to my face he ran off with your sister, that’s when!’ she yelled.

‘And what if that’s never? Are you still going to stay true to him?’ He seized her upper arms and forced her flat on her back. ‘Lily, I want you! Forget about him and come home with me.’

‘Be your fancy woman, you mean? No thanks!’ She averted her face. ‘I made vows which I intend to keep. You still haven’t found them together.’

‘Lily, don’t be like that.’ He sounded quite desperate. ‘He’s an adulterous, betraying dingo. Think of it, Lily. He’s betrayed you and you’re staying faithful like a fool.’ He pressed kisses on her face and neck.

She felt as if an iron hand gripped her heart. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better about what you’re suggesting?’

He made no reply, his hands moving over her body. He kissed her unresponsive mouth and undid the top four buttons of the prim white blouse. She felt numb, as if none of it was really happening. Matt with that girl! Matt with that girl! The words repeated themselves over and over in her head like some dreadful manta. Rob eased the blouse off her shoulders but it was not until he dropped on to her and bit the peak of an exposed nipple that she came alive. ‘Get off me, Rob,’ she snapped. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? I didn’t ask for any of this.’

‘It’s what you need, though,’ he mumbled.

‘You’re wrong!’ She struggled to bring up her knees to force him off but he was too heavy. ‘Rob, will you get off!’ One of his hands slid up her bare leg and slapped her thigh. The surf crashed on the beach a few feet from them. ‘Our shoes’ll get wet if we don’t move!’ she said desperately. ‘Rob, will you behave yourself, please!’

He shifted and gazed down into her face. ‘How can you care about getting wet at a moment like this?’

‘What moment?’ she demanded. ‘The moment when you force me into doing something against my will? It’s not you I’m married to! If I was maybe I’d think this was real romantic, but as it is, it’s wrong. So will you move your carcase before I start screaming?’

‘You wouldn’t,’ he muttered.

‘Wouldn’t I?’ She opened her mouth wide.

Swiftly he placed a hand over it. ‘All right! But I don’t know why you should be so moral when that louse of a husband of yours has deserted you for my sister.’

She pushed away his hand. ‘Because that’s the way I am!’ There was a catch in her voice. ‘And maybe you wouldn’t fancy me so much if I was easy.’

‘Maybe I wouldn’t.’ His hand stroked her bare shoulder. ‘OK! One kiss as if
he
didn’t exist and then I’ll move.’

She stared up at him and sighed. He really did have film star looks so why couldn’t she feel more for him? Her arms went up about his neck and brought his head down. She kissed him with Matt in her thoughts. A kiss which seem to go on for ever though it was not as good as some kisses can be. She dropped her arms and pushed him away. ‘Take me home, Rob, and maybe if you behave I’ll see you tomorrow evening.’

‘Take a day off. I’ve got to go back in the afternoon.’

She shook her head and could see he was annoyed.

All the way home they were both silent. She was trying to think sensibly with a clamp on her emotions. What was the truth about Matt and his sister staying in the same hotel in Broken Hill? If it was true, she thought suddenly, it could not have been long after Matt had seen Miss Morell and told her he was married and missing Lily. What if Rob was lying about them being booked in the same hotel to gain his own way?

He drew up outside the house. ‘So I won’t see you tomorrow?’ he said stiffly, his hands gripping the steering wheel.

‘Sorry, Rob.’ She wondered if it was any use asking if he was telling the truth but decided it was not. He was a stubborn man. ‘Have a safe journey.’ She kissed his cheek.

He stared at her, that mulish expression back on his face. ‘I haven’t given up. I’ll be back.’

She smiled and shut the car door, convinced he would falsify information for his own ends, as they said on the movies. Without looking back she went into the house, having decided if Matt was not with Abby, then she would do what Miss Morell had suggested and write a letter to the Anglican Melanesian Mission.

As she waited for an answer Lily was tormented by bad dreams. Perhaps Matt was dead, had been so all this time.

Three weeks later she received an answer from the Melanesian Mission: Matt had volunteered for missionary work in Papua months ago. He was working in a remote village from which they received little news. As far as they knew he was safe and well.

Lily could only believe Matt had changed his mind about marrying her and had gone back to following his God. Maybe he had sinned with Abby and this was the only way he could cope with his guilt? The information put a seal on what she had almost decided. With her dreams in shreds, she bought a ticket on a liner which would take her home to Liverpool.

Lily glanced up the street of redbrick houses and then at the wording thorpe’s diary on the shop window, and considered how familiar, yet strange, it looked. Her homecoming had a peculiar feel to it. She had expected grey clouds and khaki-coloured waves but the surface of the Mersey had reflected the blue sky under a warming late March sun as vessels of all shapes and sizes went about their business, just as their forerunners had for hundreds of years. She had felt a strong sense of history going along Dale Street. The towering blackened Victorian buildings, guardians of commerce, had given her the same feeling as slipping on a comfortable well-worn shoe after wearing new high heels. This was home.

As the tram rattled its way up William Brown Street, past the reference library and museum on one side and St John’s Gardens where daffodils bloomed on the other, she had experienced that inexplicable surge in her blood which she had never felt in Australia but which was somehow connected with the feel in the air of an English spring.

Until she stepped on to the landing stage she had been uncertain whether her actions had been right. As the ship surged into the northern hemisphere, she had been very conscious of turning her back on a dream New World and in so doing making it impossible to have a claim on such a dream in the future. God only knew if she and Matt would ever see each other again, and she was no longer exactly on speaking terms with God at the moment.

‘Is it really you, Lily?’

She placed her suitcase on the sandstoned front step of the dairy and turned to see Mrs Draper, a half smile on her wrinkled face.

‘Don’t say it,’ said Lily in a pleading voice, wondering if instead of Aunt Dora and Mrs Draper to give her advice, things would have been different if her mother had been there to turn to.

‘Don’t say what, my dear? It’s lovely to see you.’ She held out a hand and gripped her fingers. ‘They’ve missed you! We’ve all missed you. Always a smile for people, not like—’ She stopped abruptly, pursing her lips. ‘No, I won’t say it. You’ll find out for yourself. Maybe when you’ve got a minute you can call in for a cup of tea and tell me all about your adventures and what your dear husband is up to? Could you do that, my dear?’

‘I’ll do my best,’ said Lily, warmed by her words despite the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

‘I’ll see you later then.’ The old lady trotted off down the street.

Lily took a deep breath and pushed wide the shop door but no bell jangled and there was nobody behind the counter. She looked up and saw a piece of rag tied round the bell’s clapper. A puzzled frown creased her tanned face and getting a stool from a corner she climbed up and tugged the rag free. Then she opened and closed the door several times, setting the bell jangling.

‘Who’s messing with my bell?’ called Daisy irritably from the lobby. ‘I’ll have your life if it’s one of you kids!’

‘What’ll you do to me, miss?’ said Lily, mimicking a child’s voice as her sister came through the door.

‘Lil!’ Daisy dropped the slipper she was carrying and put her hands to her face, her eyes filling with tears.

‘I know it’s a shock,’ said Lily unsteadily. ‘But there’s no need to cry.’

‘I can’t believe it!’ She dropped her hands and clutched the front of Lily’s coat. ‘Ben never said!’

‘Ben didn’t know.’ She hugged her sister tightly. ‘I hope you’re pleased to see me and won’t ask too many questions all at once?’

‘Oh I won’t ask anything.’ Daisy stared at her. ‘You don’t know what it’s been like. I haven’t known what to do. I hate being at home. But I’ve done my best to do things the way you’d have done them.’

‘Your heart’s not in it.’ Lily scrutinised her features, realising her sister had never become again the girl she had been before the accident. There was a discontented droop to her mouth and her hair was pulled back in a loose knot in the nape of her neck. She wore a flowered overall but no make-up. Fortunately the scar left by the burn had turned white and was barely noticeable.