Love in the Years of Lunacy (4 page)

James smiled and said that the park reminded him of Coney Island, in Brooklyn. After he'd moved to New York he'd go out there almost every weekend. Pearl told him that her mother and father had once performed at Coney Island, when they'd toured the States, before she and her brother were born. According to family legend, her mother had gone into labour with the twins while she was playing percussion in the pit orchestra of the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney. By the end of the first act of ‘The Flying Dutchman' Pearl was bursting out into the world, feet first between the bass drum and the upright piano three weeks premature. The stage manager cut the cord with a pair of scissors, and then Pearl, apparently, did the strangest thing: she didn't scream or cry with her first inhalation. Instead, she opened her mouth and laughed. The second act was postponed until Martin arrived ten minutes later, head first in the normal way.

By the time she'd finished the story, James was laughing so hard he was doubled over. ‘You're kidding me, moon girl. You're making that up.'

‘I'm not!' she insisted. ‘You can ask my mother.'

‘Sunshine, you planning on taking me home?'

‘Only if you're good,' she joked. She led him into the midway, which was decorated with Chinese lanterns and coloured flags. He paused to watch a fire-eater swallow a neon tube. When a sidekick flicked a switch the tube lit up and they could see a silvery X-ray of the man's ribs and the permutations of his upper intestine.

‘Damn,' he murmured to Pearl, ‘you wouldn't want to see what's inside me!'

Pearl patted his flat stomach. ‘Fish and chips!'

At the shooting gallery, the lines of waddling ducks had been replaced with the heads of Japanese soldiers, made out of tin and painted yellow, already pockmarked with dents and holes. James pointed the rifle and fired, and within moments he'd won Pearl a glittery kewpie doll on a cane. In the penny arcade they came across a machine that gave electric shocks. Pearl grabbed James's hand, dropped a sixpence into the slot, and with her free hand took hold of the metal handle. A bolt zigzagged through her limbs and out through her fingers and on into James and they were now conjoined and vibrating together and the sensation was so euphoric that they erupted with a kind of stuttering laughter.

As she glanced at her reflection in the door of the Mirror Maze she noticed her ripped clothing, the torn lace stockings, and when they came upon a fairy floss stand she ducked behind it, where no one could see her, and kicked off her shoes. James, curious, followed her. Winking at him, she stuck her hand up under the skirt of her dress, then unrolled the stockings and pulled them from her feet.

‘A souvenir from Sydney,' she said, pushing the balled-up pieces of lace into his hands.

He paused for a moment and regarded the gift, shaking his head, then slipped the stockings into his trouser pocket. She linked her arm through his but when a pimple-faced man selling fairy floss glared at them James pulled away from her.

They boarded the ghost train, climbing into the last carriage. The seat was so small that when they sat down their thighs rubbed against each other. Pearl's breathing grew shallow. The train roared into the tunnel and an enormous mechanical bat swooped overhead, causing her to duck and cower against James. Eerie groans leaked through walls. A skeleton appeared out of nowhere and rattled its rickety joints. The gruesome faces, the surreal, wailing voices and the banging of coffin lids made Pearl's heart hammer. In the green light shining from a werewolf's mouth, James suddenly turned and put his lips against hers, and then her tongue found his and James's hands began to follow the lines of her body. The citrus smell of his hair cream was in her throat. A vampire with bloody fangs leaped in front of them and disappeared when the carriage took a hairpin turn. James pressed his face against her breasts, traced her collarbone and neck with his fingers. His touch felt as light as breath, as sunshine.

The carriage plunged through a set of swinging exit doors and they pulled away from each other. As the train slowed Pearl was dizzy and flushed. She'd sensed there was something special about James but she hadn't expected her body to respond to him so quickly. It was as if her very being had made a decision before consulting her emotions—or maybe they were the same thing and she just hadn't realised it before. All she knew for sure was that the feeling was filling her legs, her hips, travelling up her spine—and whatever it was, she wanted more.

‘Hey, buddy!' James called to the attendant. ‘We'll have another go!' As the other passengers clambered from the train James tossed him a sixpence.

The man narrowed his eyes and regarded them both, smirking. ‘Sorry, mate.' He shook his head. ‘We're shutting down for the night.'

Pearl could see the fun house had already closed and couples were strolling arm in arm towards the gates.

‘He's been in New Guinea for a year,' she lied. ‘Coral Sea. It's his first day of R and R.'

The attendant sighed, glancing about.

James riffled in his pocket. He pulled out Pearl's stockings, then extracted a pound note, and slipped it into the man's hand.

The attendant's eyes bulged. He glanced at James and back at the note then cranked the metal control lever. Within moments James and Pearl were once more gliding into the funereal darkness. Again they pressed against one another. His mouth on hers was warm and wet. Pearl lost herself in the noise of ghosts and dying werewolves. The cries echoing through the tunnel increased her restlessness, causing her to crave James more. She could have spent the entire night endlessly circling through the haunted tunnel, allowing his hands to grow familiar with her body, enjoying the shivers that shimmered through her like light. But when the carriage took the hairpin turn this time, above the screams of banshees, a siren began howling through the tunnel.

James shuddered and looked about. The piercing noise rose into a crescendo before dropping for what seemed like a breath and then rising again. Skeletons and werewolves sprang from the walls. The train continued to bang and crash through the tunnel while the siren howled louder. Pearl was too breathless even to cry out. The carriage plunged through the swinging doors and back into the open air, where they saw people yelling and running for cover. The train was supposed to slow down and stop but the attendant had already abandoned his post and it continued to barrel along the rails, faster and faster. The siren rose in waves as the train hurtled back into the tunnel to repeat its race through the house of horror, crashing through swinging doors, rushing past gaunt, waxy faces dripping with blood. Pearl felt James's arms around her, holding her tight. The ghosts and monsters seemed sinister now, threatening.

‘We're going to have to jump!' he shouted over the din.

He stood up and pulled her up with him. When the train barrelled through the exit doors for the third time, he wrapped his arms around her and yelled, ‘
Now
!' and before she had time to hesitate they were leaping from the carriage and sailing through the air. They hit the ground but he took the brunt of the fall with his shoulder, and when she rolled off him the only pain she felt was from grazes on her elbow and knee.

The lights of the park had been extinguished and almost everyone had disappeared. In their absence the sound of the siren was even louder and more foreboding. Pearl grabbed James's hand and, half running, half limping, led him around the brick wall that enclosed the ghost train ride.

The siren reached a fever pitch and searchlights began sweeping the sky. They scooted back around the building, to the centre of the park, looking frantically for shelter. For all the talk around Sydney about an impending Japanese invasion, Pearl had never imagined this, the awful whorl of dread in her stomach, being so far away from her family. She imagined enemy warships lurking in the darkness, guns angled toward the coast, scores of invading soldiers marching through the city, the hum of a distant aeroplane about to drop a fatal bomb. She thought of crawling back into the ghost train but at that moment something exploded across the harbour, so loud and close it sounded as if the Harbour Bridge itself were being bombed.

She screamed and staggered backwards, almost losing her footing. James grabbed her by the arm and pushed her up into a tub-shaped carriage of a ride called the Tumblebug. He crawled in after her and they huddled together on a seat shaped like a crescent moon. The carriage was suspended at the end of one of the eight metal arms that craned out from the centre of the ride. When it was operating, the arms moved up and down, circling out over the water and back, while the carriages spun in crazy circles; now, however, the carriage rocked gently in the breeze. Another explosion thundered across the harbour; a flare forked the sky like lightning, and a sob began deep in Pearl's throat. James drew her to him and held her tenderly, as if she might break, murmuring words she could barely hear over the deafening blasts.

The air-raid siren continued to wail. All sorts of sounds were carried across the water: shouts, car horns, barking dogs. She felt sure she would never see her family again, her friends, the house she had been raised in. She would die without ever having felt the sensation of a man inside her, without her body ever knowing what it was like to make love.

Gunfire stuttered.

‘Don't worry,' James murmured. ‘We're gonna be all right.'

She suddenly turned and pressed her lips against his again. She found herself pulling at the buttons of his uniform, touching the bulge between his legs, but he grasped her wrist and pulled her hand away. She was bawling now, not caring anymore. She clambered onto his lap and sat facing him, one knee on either side of his hips, their bellies touching.

Another explosion boomed across the harbour, and then the coughing fit of a machine gun, closer now.

She dropped to her knees on the floor of the carriage and, squeezing herself between his thighs, pushed her face into his chest, like a child. James was trembling now, his hands on her hair, her shoulders. She found the zipper at her side and pulled at it. A moment later the dress was over her head and flung onto the ground below. She took his hands and cupped them against the lace of her brassiere. She was so dizzy for a moment she thought she might pass out. It was the same sensation that bled through her when she was about to go onstage—the warmth between her legs rising into her belly like dye seeping through a bolt of cloth. He eased his fingers inside her bra and held her right breast. As the howl of the siren rose and fell she could sense his short, sharp gasps. She went to unbuckle his belt but again he stopped her. Instead, he guided her down onto the floor of the carriage. In the flicker of a passing searchlight she saw him unzip his fly. Then he slipped off the seat and lowered himself on top of her.

For months, for years, she'd wondered what this would be like: the weight of a man against her, his mouth on her breast. She was shaking with fear and excitement. When she looked up she could see the ink-coloured sky with stars that looked like tiny hands. Another explosion thundered through the city and their carriage shook. He didn't remove her knickers, but merely grabbed the gusset and yanked the crotch to one side. When he nudged himself into her, it hurt a little, like a menstrual cramp widening through her groin. He must have sensed her tensing, for he slowed down then and moved into her gradually, in such small and gentle increments that she relaxed and found her breath again and it wasn't long before her body was moving in a gentle undulation with his and something close to pleasure tingled up through her, radiating into her stomach, her breasts. The carriage began to sway back and forth until it was swinging in half-circles to the rhythm of their hips.

A soft, velvet hush enveloped the harbour. Pearl could hear water lapping against the nearby pontoon and the flutter of seagulls. The searchlights were gone, the sirens had faded, and the city was now cloaked in darkness. Still lying on the floor of the carriage, beneath the warmth of his jacket, Pearl folded into James and they dozed for a while, occasionally shifting against one another. When she awakened fully sometime close to dawn, she was surprised to realise that not only were they both unharmed, but she felt more alive than ever.

James kissed the base of her throat.

‘Now that we're not dead,' he murmured, ‘I've got something to tell you.'

She tensed, wary of the note of warning in his voice. He pulled away from her and sat up on the seat of the carriage, helping her to sit up beside him. She could see the outline of his face in the moonlight and the bright whites of his eyes and teeth. She thought she knew what was coming: he was being shipped out tomorrow or maybe he had a girlfriend back in the States, or even a wife. Children, perhaps. She was preparing herself for the worst, yet she now felt closer to this near-stranger than anyone else in the world, including her brother.

‘This is all new for me,' he said finally. She wondered what he was referring to—the bombs? The sex? Being in Sydney?

He took her hand and held it as he gazed across the water. ‘And I guess it's new for you, too.' He bit his lip, still not looking at her. ‘So let's keep this to ourselves, okay? At least until we know each other better.'

She swallowed, trying to find the right words. She wasn't as self-conscious about their lovemaking as he obviously was, which she found surprising. Was he embarrassed by her? Or even ashamed? She felt her face and neck reddening.

He must have sensed her distress because he rested a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. ‘Folks back home told me about Aussie girls, but I never thought I'd find myself one as gorgeous as you. Prettiest package I ever seen. And you got talent, too.'

He rubbed the back of her neck and she began to feel calmer. Across the water, below the steel struts of the bridge, she could see a sliver of light on the horizon, the dappled surfaces of the harbour luminous and green with the early rays of dawn.