We are all invited to another party, this one up at the nurses’ quarters, once again the entire bank johnny contingent. What are we now, party guests for people with no friends? Invitations are received, dress code included and we are asked to bring our own alcohol. I wear my grey suit and carry a bottle of vodka. I am in a vodka mood and, besides, Banda Beer is shit.
The nurses must be desperate to invite all of us, I mean, half of us are of no value, are not interested, no fun, don’t drink, and have no idea how to behave around women. How do I know this? Franky told me.
We walk to the hospital quarters because, for once, it isn’t raining. Every so often the nights are warm and balmy and dry. This is such a night and we are all in good spirits. Even Higgs is with us. We don’t know why. His chances of finding a nurse to discuss the Holden HK Monaro are remote, or even the wonders of the Holden EH with its seven-bearing crankshaft and hydraulic valve lifters. Every so often we can’t stop him and he lets loose over the pork and sweet potato. One night Paterson made a big mistake and asked him why the HD was such a disaster. Three hours later when I came downstairs for a cup of Milo, Higgs was still droning on about disc brakes, camshafts and bucket seats.
We are greeted at the nurses’ quarters by a senior looking lady and shown into a room. The room is empty, except for a few chairs, a table with white tablecloth and a fridge in one corner. It looks like a training room.
The girls are on their way, says the senior lady.
Someone says, Thank you.
You can put your drinks in the fridge, she says.
We put them in, then take them out. We think we are thirsty after the hard morning at the bank.
We hear a door open and a new voice says, Hello.
We all turn. She is black. And beautiful.
Oh, hello, too many of us say at the same time.
I’m Margaret Baker, she says. I’m not a nurse, but some of my friends are. They invited me here tonight.
I can’t speak. I want to speak, but I can’t. There is a sound deep inside me trying to get out but I won’t let it because it might sound like a wild animal on heat and that would not be a good look in front of Margaret Baker with her small neat breasts pushing against a blouse, arms with form and the unmistakeable outline of muscle, legs showing under a dress and clearly built for running up and down sandhills.
My voice returns.
Hello, I say. I’m Jack Muir. I’m not a nurse either.
Margaret Baker laughs. I hear music. I try not to stare at her beauty, to gawk, to remove my clothes, to remove hers, to run naked with her then lie in an exhausted tangle with our limbs and sweat mixing and merging. I stand very still. Some of the others still gawk. There is an awkward group-gawk moment. It is relieved by a noise behind her. The music stops. The door opens and before anyone can say Dave Clark Five the room is full of nurses, white nurses, in coloured dresses. Even when they gather around her and she turns towards them, she does not disappear among them, not because she is black and they are white but because she is beautiful and articulate and striking and I think I could love her because, there seems no doubt, she is the princess of my dreams.
The senior nurse, the one we met earlier, begins introducing herself and the others. I meet them all, including Franky’s favourite, the South Australian, who is nice, plain, probably a churchgoer and maybe even a coalminer’s daughter. I remember none of their names, except Margaret Baker’s. And Jenny’s, and I only remember Jenny’s because I have heard it a thousand times from Franky.
The night seems over before it starts. I think I’m pissed. Maybe it is the five rum and cokes I had before I arrived. Maybe I should have used more orange juice with the vodka. I know I want to take Margaret Baker away with me to love and hold until death rips us apart, but when I go looking for her she is gone. I can’t believe I let her out of my sight. I had to let her out of my sight, to save us both the embarrassment of my gawking.
Where’s Margaret Baker? I ask Jenny.
Her father collected her about ten minutes ago, she says. She’s still in school, you know, and her father doesn’t let Margaret out for long. You can probably see why.
Jenny smiles and I smile and then the red rushes to my face. I make a noise that I hope sounds like a laugh and bend down to retie my shoelaces and Jenny laughs, probably because she can see the red at the back of my neck.
Yes, I say. Does she live out of town?
Her father runs a coffee plantation a few miles out, says Jenny. He was a district officer for many years, fell in love with a local woman, they got married and had two kids who both go to exclusive schools in Sydney.
Right, I think, that cuts me out. She’s too good for me.
Margaret reminds me of Penelope Bickford, a girl from Genoralup, not because Penelope is black – she’s whiter than me – but because she is destined for great things. Penelope left high school, went to university and the last letter from home carried the news that she is finishing her degree at George Washington University and has a holiday job at the United Nations in New York. Whenever Mum writes, there is always mention of Penelope this or Penelope that, alongside news of my older brother, Thomas, of course, the big-shot lawyer in Perth.
I go to the fridge, grab a bottle of something, rum I think, not sure, don’t care, drink it like it is lemonade, head back to the bank mess in the rain that arrives late and is making up for it, plummeting down in great bundles of wet. I don’t run, sort of stumble, my head on fire, get to my room, swallow the salt shaker, throw myself on the floor, get up, throw my clothes on the floor, fall onto the bed, cough up a salt shaker, watch the room spin, life spin, get out of bed, too late, throw everything on the floor. I wake up with my face stuck in a pool of bile still trickling out one corner of my mouth.