BERNIE

All in a rush, he says: ‘I’ve only got the three minutes, there’s a queue all the way to Shanghai today, but I hope to be back in Rabaul early September, and I’ll confirm it then with the powers and call you again too, but plan for me to be home by Monday the second of December at the latest – I’ll just have to make that happen however I can. That date should give me enough time to get a suit, though, shouldn’t it?’

‘A suit?’ I almost ask what for, I’m so caught up in the surprise of his call, his voice. Determined. Purposeful. Caramel.

‘Yeah,’ he laughs. ‘A suit.’

A flood of desire in me: Rock in a dinner suit is – just about worth getting married for. I say: ‘Don’t worry about a new suit. The one you’ve got is fine.’

‘No, it’s not,’ he laughs again. ‘It’s got too small in the shoulders, from all the navvying.’

‘Oh.’ I’m drowning in it now. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah really. Thanks for your letter, Bernie. Geez, it was good,’ he says. ‘Really good,’ he adds, and I can almost feel his breath on my ear, his warmth. ‘You’ve got a real way with a yarn. Where’ve you been hiding that light?’

And I haven’t even told him about Eugenia yet. Slipped my mind, with all that’s been happening. It’ll keep. I tell him, and I’ve never believed in it more: ‘I can’t wait to be with you for good. Forever and ever.’

He groans, softly, then says: ‘Um, yeah …’

‘Oh yeah.’ I look over at my bodice pinned to the mannequin in the lounge, Mum’s first arabesques of tiny glass pearls curling down from her sweetheart neckline, passion flower tendrils, not like anything you’ll find in a catalogue, one of a kind, work of art, labour of love, everything she’d have wanted for herself if she and Dad could have afforded it then. The line crackles and I remember where we are now, what we’re doing, and that four days won’t be nearly long enough for the tailor. ‘You’d better send me your measurements, darling.’

‘What for?’

‘Your suit.’

‘Oh yeah.’