Love in the Years of Lunacy Page 2

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Martin.

  Pearl saluted her. ‘Aye, aye!’

  ‘And don’t fill up your dance card, Captain,’ Martin added, touching Roma on the shoulder. ‘Later on, I plan to give you a real swing around the ballroom!’

  Roma giggled again and backed away towards the front door. Pearl followed Martin through a library hung with sepia-tinged photographs of stern men in suits. She recognised Abraham Lincoln with his distinctive beard, but the black faces were unfamiliar. The names on the brass plates at the bottom of the frames were equally obscure: W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Booker T. Washington. It was all so new to her—the portraits, her brother’s behaviour—that suddenly she wanted to turn back. She caught the sleeve of Martin’s dinner jacket and he turned towards her. Her hand dropped from his sleeve and she opened her mouth to ask him to take her home, but before Pearl could utter a word Martin linked his arm in hers and wheeled her around.

  ‘Don’t worry, Miss Willis,’ he said, bunging on his best posh British accent. ‘Your prince will accompany you to the dance.’

  She had to laugh, which relaxed her a little. They walked arm in arm through the library, her brother so close she could smell the lemony starch of his collar. Then the door to the auditorium swung open and there were crashing waves of laughter and music and she forgot that she was nervous, that her dress was streaked with mud, that she was white. Some of the windows were cracked and the stage sagged to the left—so different from the Trocadero ballroom, with its revolving stage and bevelled-glass wall panels. The light was dim, but through the coils of cigarette smoke she could make out the shapes of people gyrating on the dance floor, couples spinning away from each other and back again, a girl somersaulting over the back of a crouching man, the dip and swivel of hips. The GIs were all in uniform, though some had loosened their collars and rolled up their sleeves, and when she looked closer she could see sequins of sweat glistening against their faces.

  Each black man dancing had a black woman in his arms. She knew that Amcross had recruited scores of Aboriginal and Pacific Islander girls to serve as dance partners for the Americans, but still she was taken aback to see so many black Australian girls in one place. She noticed a few of the dancers slowing down to stare at her. Some of the girls looked hostile, as if offended by her presence. The men leaning against the walls sipping beers nudged one another and nodded in her direction, and all at once she felt as if she were an alien. Throat dry, she glanced at Martin, who smiled and winked at her in a big-brotherly kind of way, even though Pearl was actually ten minutes older.

  ‘Car’n, Burly,’ said Martin, invoking his long-time nickname for her. He cocked his head. ‘Follow my lead.’ Martin threaded his way between the dancers, head held high, and Pearl shadowed him as they made their way towards the stage. She knew the bandleader, Merv Sent, and his quartet, the Senders. In his heyday, Merv had been the first clarinettist for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, until, the rumour went, he woke up one morning after a two-day drinking binge to find himself lying on top of the Harbour Bridge, clutching a half-bottle of rum in one hand and his clarinet in the other. He had no memory of his drunken crawl along the steep arc of metal the night before. The police had to summon the fire brigade to get him down and once it got into the papers he was fired from the orchestra. For the last year he’d been touring outback army camps in an entertainment unit, but was now on leave, along with the other three musos in the band, and was picking up some extra cash during his furlough.

  The tune ended and applause rose through the hall. When it died down Pearl could hear the rhythm of the rain against the hall’s tin roof, like a loud drum roll.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Merv announced, ‘This is Merv Sent and the Senders!’

  ‘Where are you sending us, Merv?’ cried a man from the audience, his Southern drawl filling the room.

  ‘I’m sending you all completely mad!’ cried Merv. He wiped his clarinet reed with the hem of his jacket. ‘And believe me,’ he added, ‘it’s not a long trip.’

  The audience laughed and clapped.

  Merv gave the twins a quick wave, beckoning them to join the band. Martin already had his case open and was fitting his tenor sax together, but Pearl hesitated. It seemed as if everyone in the room was still staring at her, appraising her skin, her hair. She’d never felt so white, so completely naked.

  Martin leaped up the stage stairs while Pearl pieced together the old alto sax that she’d inherited from her father. Aubrey Willis had taught them the basics but since they were eight she and Martin had studied privately at the Conservatorium of Music, learning classical music, theory and composition. Everything they knew about jazz, though, had been picked up from listening to imported records and learning first-hand on gigs.

  Merv counted in ‘St Louis Blues’ and the band plunged into the first verse.

  Pearl joined Martin under the spotlight. She sensed a slowing of the dancers again as they gazed up at her. Americans were often bemused—even amused—at the sight of an Australian girl playing jazz saxophone. To them, she was like a sideshow curiosity and, after sets at the Trocadero, she usually enjoyed being surrounded by yanks, who’d ask her where she’d learned to blow as well as she did. But she’d never performed in front of black Americans before and was unsure of how they’d react.

  Martin gave her a nudge in the ribs and she cleared her throat, parted her feet—mirroring him—and they began to play. Gazing out at the dancers, she was astonished to see so many variations of skin colour; blue-black and mahogany, milky tea and sepia, all marbling together in swirls of rising smoke. And there were none of the waltzes and cha-chas of the Trocadero ballroom. As the band hit the second chorus, women were sliding between the parted legs of their partners. Pleated skirts snapped in time with the music while maps of perspiration formed on the backs of the men’s shirts. She caught sight of Roma, dancing around the hall with a short black American, her loose dress flapping around her like a flag in a gale.

  Merv counted in ‘Bugle Call Rag’, an up-tempo tune that Pearl didn’t know very well. She wasn’t sure of the melody, and the pace was so fast she could barely keep up. Martin was already on top of the beat, blowing effortlessly into his tenor as if he’d played the song every day of his life. As she struggled to keep up she sensed the reed in her mouthpiece softening between her lips; it felt like a limp, useless piece of rubber and was ruining her tone. She tried halving the tempo, then just blowing harmony, but to her dismay a couple of wrong notes escaped the bell of her sax. The band was into the fourth chorus and next it would be Pearl’s turn to take a solo and she was wondering how on earth she’d get through it when there was a commotion down the back of the hall. A group of servicemen stood hooting and whistling and then another tenor saxophone suddenly began howling.

  Through the half-light, she couldn’t quite see who was playing it; she could only hear the runs between the registers that were fast and sharp and accenting the back beat. The sound seemed to be coming from everywhere, up through the floorboards, from the very walls themselves, even bouncing off the pressed tin ceiling. The paper streamers on the windows shook. The crowd parted and now she could see a glowing tenor gliding through the room like a beacon through fog, followed by a tall man who was blowing into it. He was playing so loudly that Pearl could hardly hear the pianist’s chord changes and finally gave up. The man swayed jauntily from side to side as if the instrument were his dance partner. As he walked up the stairs to the stage the dancers slowed and then stopped altogether to stand and watch.

  He was well over six feet, wearing standard American military trousers and shirt. Like all of the men at the club, he was clean-shaven, his black curly hair cropped short. His skin, however, was fairer than most; a pale walnut colour that shone with perspiration. Pearl stepped sideways in order to see him better as he gazed straight out into the coloured lights, a sad, pensive expression on his face.

  At the end of the next chorus, the crowd was cheering s
o enthusiastically that he went on to play another. Soon his solo was dipping and surging between registers. At one point he was making a hard staccato sound as if he were repeatedly pecking a woman on the lips, and there was something he was doing with his diaphragm—she couldn’t tell what—that allowed him to play with one long, seamless breath. Sometimes his saxophone growled, then whimpered, then soared up into a crescendo of triple-tongued high notes. Pearl had never heard anyone play like this, not even on the many American records she’d heard.

  She was in such awe of him that she forgot to come in with the band; or, rather, she was too intimidated. The sensation was like stage fright, but even worse. She edged away from the other musicians, trying to be inconspicuous, but as she stepped into the shadows she lost her footing and stumbled down the stairs of the bandstand. She heard the crowd laughing, could see the smirks on the faces of passing dancers, including Roma, who had kicked off her shoes and was now dancing with a taller man.

  Pearl dumped her sax against its open case and plunged into the crowd, mortified, willing herself to disappear. The band was wailing now, and above it all was the triumphant howl of that damn saxophone.

  Over the music, Pearl heard her brother call her name, but she ignored him, rushing through the tobacco-coloured light towards the exit.

  Outside on the covered veranda, she leaned against the wall and tried to catch her breath. She’d never felt like such an idiot—not even during her sight-reading exams at the Conservatorium, or her first professional gig with Miss Molly’s Sunshine Orchestra. Even her bandleader at the Trocadero had led her to believe that she was something of a musical prodigy, but now she suspected that he’d been humouring her because she was a girl, or that she was only what her father liked to call a big fish in a little pool.

  The band finished playing ‘Bugle Call Rag’ and she could hear a purr of applause from inside the dance hall. She shivered and rubbed her arms, feeling stupid for having left her alto behind; she couldn’t go home without walking back inside to fetch it. Perhaps Martin would bring her sax out to her, or she could ask the woman at the desk to collect it—but then the man who’d been playing the wild solo suddenly appeared beside her, holding out her case.

  Up close, he was about half a foot taller than she was, and she had to tilt her head back to look him in the face. Standing in the light pooling out from the hallway, his skin didn’t seem as light as it had in the dance hall—more like the colour of wet sand. His teeth gleamed white as he smiled and she noticed he had beautiful, unnaturally long lashes framing a pair of grey-blue eyes.

  ‘Sunshine,’ he announced, ‘you play a mean axe!’ His accent—all melodious, curly diphthongs—was straight from the American South.

  She reached for the sax but he grabbed hold of her wrist with his free hand.

  ‘Bad reed,’ he told her. ‘Happens to the best.’

  She wasn’t sure if was joking or not, but she nodded.

  He put down her saxophone, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and held it out to her.

  She hesitated. She didn’t smoke but, looking up into his eyes again, she felt a stab of excitement. Wanting to feel grown up and worldly, she pulled one from the pack and placed it between her lips.

  He struck a match and lit first her cigarette and then his own. For a few moments they stood facing each other, Pearl taking shallow, tentative drags.

  ‘Where’d you learn to play like that?’ Smoke leaked from her nostrils and she began to cough.

  ‘Blow it out through your mouth,’ he suggested, smiling. ‘Otherwise you’ll choke.’

  She snorted and took another short drag.

  ‘Where I come from,’ he said, glancing over the wet lawn, ‘everyone plays. Ain’t nothing else much to do.’

  She deliberately tapped on her cigarette, even though it didn’t need ashing. ‘And where’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘Looozy-anna!’ he drawled, then leaned in closer to her and whispered, ‘Home of the devil’s music.’ He flared his nostrils and widened his eyes and she began to laugh.

  ‘New Orleans?’

  He shook his head. ‘Close. Grew up on a farm near the Mississippi border. But I been to New Orleans plenty of times. First time when I was seven. Went with my cousin. That was when I first heard King Oliver play.’

  At the sound of those magic words, ‘King Oliver’, Pearl almost stopped breathing. She’d only ever heard the great trumpeter on her bandleader’s old records.

  ‘You heard the King Oliver?’

  He nodded. ‘On a riverboat.’

  ‘The bloke who taught Louis Armstrong?’

  ‘The one and only.’

  The cigarette smouldered in her hand, forgotten. ‘What did he sound like?’

  ‘Good,’ he said simply. ‘He’d turn a tune upside down, inside out, slap it against the wall and then bounce it off the ceiling.’

  He flicked his butt into a nearby metal tray and Pearl copied him but missed, and had to chase her butt as it rolled across the veranda.

  Embarrassed, she glanced at the musician who, she could see, was trying not to laugh.

  ‘Sunshine,’ he said, ‘what’s your name?’

  ‘Pearl.’

  ‘Pearl, my name is James.’ He held out his hand and she noticed how big it was, and that his palm was not the same colour as his fingers, more a musky pink, like the underside of a tongue. ‘James Washington.’

  When she shook his hand it felt like a big, warm mitten around hers. ‘How long’ve you been in Sydney, James?’

  ‘Nearly a week. But they’ve had me stuck in camp till tonight and I ain’t seen no sights or nothing.’ He leaned in and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. ‘’Cept you of course. You’re a pretty good sight.’

  Pearl felt her face growing hot.

  ‘And you sound great, too,’ he added. ‘You really wail on that alto.’

  She didn’t really believe him but appreciated the praise. Smiling to herself, she glimpsed a shadowy couple near the hedge, kissing.

  Pearl started to mumble, ‘Thanks,’ when James cut her off.

  ‘Hey, Sunshine,’ he said, ‘what are you doing tomorrow night? What’s say you and me go out?’

  She was so surprised she didn’t know what to say. If her mother found out she were planning to date a black American she’d probably have a stroke. She picked up her sax case, and stalling for time, gazed into the garden. With a start, she recognised the embracing couple. It was her brother, and his hands had disappeared under Roma’s dress.

  It struck her that her twin was behaving exactly as he wished, without worrying what their mother or anyone else thought. Besides, Pearl had never felt so curious about another person before. Maybe it was his accent or the way he looked into her eyes when he spoke. The way he blew his sax.

  ‘Do you like fish and chips?’ she asked.

  He tilted his head to one side and said, ‘I like ’em if you do.’

  ‘Do you know where Circular Quay is?’

  ‘Seen it on the map. Right by the harbour.’

  From the corner of her eye she saw Martin pressing Roma against the trunk of a tree. ‘Let’s meet at wharf five,’ she said. ‘Say, six o’clock?’

  ‘Make it six-thirty,’ he replied. ‘And don’t be late.’

  And then he leaned down and kissed her briefly on the top of her head. Her scalp tingled at the touch of his lips.

  2

  ‘So what’s with the girl?’ asked Pearl, as she and her brother walked home. It was after 1 am and the rain had stopped. The streets were quiet except for the distant barking of a dog.

  ‘Girl?’ asked Martin, swinging his sax case as they crossed Bourke Street and headed towards Taylor Square. ‘What girl?’

  Pearl thumped him on the arm.

  ‘I can’t help it if women find me irresistible,’ he declared, performing a little twirling dance just ahead of her, his free arm rising and falling like a wing. A gust of wind swept up the street, causing his coat to billow. He s
pun around again and clicked his heels together.

  ‘I’m going out with that sax player tomorrow night,’ she said casually. ‘He asked me.’

  Martin dropped back to his regular walking pace. ‘Well, I’m going out with Roma. To the pictures.’

  They rounded the corner into Oxford Street. ‘James is from the South. Near New Orleans.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, Roma’s from the bush,’ he said. ‘A mission out Dubbo way. Lives with her aunty now in Redfern.’

  ‘James reckons I’m pretty.’

  ‘Roma reckons I should be in the movies,’ Martin countered.

  ‘What as—Tarzan’s ape?’

  Martin swung an arm at her but she ducked and ran across the street, laughing.

  It was nearly two when they reached the Victorian terrace in Potts Point where they lived with their parents and grandmother. Their mother, Clara, and father, Aubrey, had lived in the house overlooking Sydney Harbour since 1920, which they’d bought in order to raise a family. (Clara was a drummer who also doubled as a singer/dancer in a half-man, half-woman routine; Aub was a tenor saxophonist and ukulele player who also wrote and sang his own songs.) Clara fell pregnant three years later and Aub established a taxidermy business which he operated from the basement to bring in extra money. The house was also a haven for what Aubrey had dubbed ‘Clara’s strays’. Currently there was an old ventriloquist, Mr Bones, who’d come to dinner three years before and had never left. He now slept in the attic, along with his doll, and often helped Clara with the housework. Another stray was Mikey Michaels, a kid about four years old whose widowed mother, a neighbour, had to work nights at a factory to support him. Mikey spent most of his time in the Willis’ kitchen and slept in a canvas cot in the parlour.

  The Willis home was a crammed museum of antique furniture and ornaments, relics from every bush town and foreign country in which Clara and Aub had performed: Persian carpets, a cedar dining table, oversized velvet chairs, gloomy oil paintings, an upright walnut piano. The main room of the house—the front parlour—boasted a large marble fireplace and stained-glass windows. An avid card player, Clara had a bridge table set up in one corner. And of course there were many examples of their father’s obsession with taxidermy: a stuffed six-foot emu stood frozen in the foyer like some weird, feathered bellhop; a kookaburra with a foot-long wingspan was suspended by fishing line above the piano; and in the corner a Tasmanian tiger with large glassy eyes sat hunched, baring his sharp white teeth.