Peter Carey - Amnesia

Don’t you even dream of going out that door at night, her mother said. She knew how to use that flex like the father used his leather belt. The flex hurt more than the belt. It left bright red stripes around the girl’s very shapely calves.

Would her mother please let Doris go if she promised never ever to dance with a black man?

No.

How about the Red Cross Service Club? Aussies go there too.

No.

Doris was a good girl. She was very quiet and docile but she was wilful to a genetic degree. She folded her arms across her bosom. She returned to her room where she made nice French scanties from parachute silk.

Her mother knew all about French scanties. She searched the room and found them and thrust them in the kitchen stove then sat down quietly with her darning. She knew what girls did in return for American stockings. She heard “the authorities” would soon require blood tests for women seeking government assistance for their American babies.

Doris purchased more parachute silk and wrapped it in brown paper and hid it underneath the house. She sat out the warm winter days between July and October, but in November she managed to buy a pattern for the dress.

Her skin was not from Brissy but the moon—translucent, glowing. Her eyes were sapphire-blue. In her room she stood up straight and pushed her chest out—she might have been American herself. She listened to songs on the wireless and danced in front of the mirror. She had wicked dreams. She sat by the front door, her head meekly bowed as she picked old socks apart for knitting wool. She was ready, or nearly ready, but when the opportunity presented itself—when her mother finally left the house to attend the Temperance—she had nothing but gravy mix to give her legs a stocking colour. She tried to draw the seam but could not get it right. It was already seven o’clock and she had to scrub everything clean with cold water. That made her skin red and raw but she had no choice. She gave her legs a second coat of Gravox and when that had dried she knocked on the door of the old poofter who worked as a window-dresser in Barry and Roberts. The joke amongst the boarders was that he wore a wig, but when he answered the door his hair was perfectly in place.

His room smelled of peppermint and dirty socks. She was embarrassed to ask him to draw her seams, but when he finally understood what she wanted he was very sweet and kind, and also fast and accurate. He told her “Mum’s the word” and she kissed him on his soapy cheek.

“Don’t get caught ducky.”

Of course she would be caught. There was no choice. She could already feel the sting of the flex whipping around her legs.

It was Thanksgiving on that balmy evening she got onto the tram, but that—if she had known—would have been of no significance at all. She had never heard of Thanksgiving. Australians did not give thanks. If you said thanks, your father would say, don’t thank me, thank Christ you got anything at all.

November was a lovely time of year in Brissy. The tram had open sides and swayed and snaked towards the city and the girl sat up straight with her hands in her lap, seemingly unaware that she was beautiful. No-one dared to speak to her.

The tram rattled across the dirty old girders of the bridge, and her silk gown glowed pearlescent above the oil-slicked water of the Brisbane River. The dress had a scooped neckline and just three buttons down the back.

The American Red Cross Service Club was on the corner of Creek Street and Adelaide Street, just opposite the American PX. She walked from the tram stop with her little handbag, a clutch, beneath her arm, afraid of the attention she was drawing, surprised by the size of the crowd, Aussies and Yanks, milling in the evening air.

She had gravy-mix legs and a parachute-silk dress. She was going to be examined like livestock in an auction and be judged by men she wouldn’t even fancy. The thick knot of uniforms pressed hard against her and she turned to go back home.

That was exactly when the most beautiful man emerged from the khaki tangle of sweat and beer. There was a brownout and the voltages were dropped but there was light enough to see him very clearly—golden hair, broad shoulders, a narrow waist and strong arms that pushed against the confines of his shirt.

“You are a songbird,” he said to her and she was astonished by the lilt of his voice as it slid upwards, tentatively, thus contradicting the assertiveness of his movement. You are a songbird question mark.

She should have been frightened but she felt relief that the auction was now over.

“Beg yours?” she said.

“You sing in the choir,” he said and she guessed his eyes would turn out to be pale and gentle like her own, as indeed they would.

“Yes.”

He beamed at her. “I can always pick a songbird.”

“You must be a clever bloke,” she said.

“Oh no, Miss,” he said. “It’s very easy to see a songbird in this crowd. You do stand out.”

She was laughing, perhaps with relief, or just the simple wonder that someone would know she had a good voice, and when the man asked her would she like to go to The Society for a meal she was very grateful that she did not have to enter the churning scrum. He held out his arm and Doris took it, and as they cut through the mob towards Queen Street the crowd parted to let them through and she smiled more, thinking it a tribute to her beauty. She did not expect to be abused, but when the spit hit her cheek she thought, of course. I’m a tart, a traitor with a Yank.

SEARCHLIGHTS CUT the empty sky and the tropical night was rank with beer and sandalwood, the latter the property of Hank, the American whose arm was now clamping Doris snug against his side, hurrying her to safety while the Australian soldiers called her tart and slut and cunt. She had a glob of slag on her cheek. She would not touch it with her hand, but in the doorway of a restaurant her rescuer produced a large white handkerchief and with it wiped her clean. In the midst of all the fear and fright there was space to know he was a lovely man.

The door swung open and she stumbled into the restaurant with a cry. It was too bright. She was exposed, embarrassed, in awe, of the flowers, the carpet, the American officers and beautiful women. She was set on by a very old head waiter in a long black coat.

“Pardon me,” she said. She knew her scanty line was showing through the silk.

“Two,” Hank said to the head waiter.

But it was at Doris the waiter looked. She was south Brissy rubbish. How dare she even breathe his air?

She smiled right in his sour old face. You are a coward, she thought, you will not turn a Yank away.

He didn’t either. He told the waitress number 23. Then Doris and her handsome fellow were led through The Society’s crowded downstairs room.

They made a strong impression. Why wouldn’t they? Doris had gravy mix on her legs, and spit-smeared makeup. She followed the waitress along the hall and up the stairs and of course it was a second-best room, with one table of Australian NCOs and, in a far corner, two plain American servicewomen in mufti, poor things, she pitied them.

Hank was not intimidated by anything. He announced they would sit by the curtained window i.e. not where they were put. He held out Doris’s chair and waited for her to be comfortable before he took his place.

“It’s lovely,” she said.

He was incredibly handsome, with full lips and straight white teeth. He sat so square and broad, a lifeguard she thought.

“I must look awful,” she said.