CHAPTER 13

Party Time

Mum, Roma and Pearl were finally ready for the Dug-Out and they were as excited as I was on Christmas Eve. They looked beautiful in their carefully done make-up and lovely clothes, home-done perms and nail polish. In fact, they looked sensational standing under the bare bulb in our kitchen, and they smelled nice. They were like visitors in our humdrum world. Important visitors and much too special to be the people I lived with.

Nana and Grandpa had been told the girls were going to a friend’s birthday party or some such lie, but they had told Betty the truth – they were going jitterbugging at the Dug-Out, and she was going to babysit me. Betty was grateful to be staying with Nana and Grandpa after being evacuated from Darwin and disliked fibbing to them, but as a mature 16-year-old she also wanted to support the girls’ excitement. ‘Goodbye,’ said Mum. ‘Be good for Betty.’ And as an afterthought: ‘If he gives any trouble, give him a good belting.’ And they were gone, only their perfume remaining.

Betty and I had fun together. She was good at drawing, and with my coloured pencils she drew a really good picture of me sitting up in bed in my striped flannel pyjamas. In the middle of the night, I woke up not knowing what time it was. I’m not sure if I could tell the time, although I had probably passed through that stage where I reported the big hand is on twelve and the little one on eight. Mum was always intent on me becoming independent as soon as possible. ‘For God’s sake, Peter, when are you going to grow up?’ Anyhow, I think it was the slam of a car door that woke me. Cars on our street were unusual, particularly the classy Chevrolet Silver Taxi cab, and never in the middle of the night.

There were bottles clinking and giggling voices. I could hear Mum saying, ‘Sssshh’ and more giggling and then the front door opening and people coming into our house. Men’s voices. Voices like in the movies. Yanks! We had Yanks in our house. I had never seen a real live Yank and I wanted to see one really bad, but not bad enough to get a belting from Mum. So, I just stayed in bed and listened. Beer bottles were opened, glasses filled, someone started playing the piano, there was laughing and music. It was like the good old days before the war, and I went back to asleep.

It hadn’t been a dream; in the morning they were still there and I could hear voices in the lounge room. The door was open a bit and I looked in. Yes, they were sitting around the empty fireplace, Mum, Roma and Pearl and two Yanks in uniform just like in the pictures.

Don’t ask me what their names were. Hank, Joe, Butch, Clem sort of names. They were just the first two of what became a ritual. Me waking up to a party of Yanks, quite often with one of them in bed with Mum and another in the second bedroom with Roma, and Pearl in the lounge room on a makeshift bed with another.

But I remember my first two Yanks the best because they were the ones that involved me telling lies to my nana. When I looked in the lounge room doorway that first morning and saw them, the situation was all sweetness and light. I was welcomed so effusively by my mum, my suspicions were aroused. ‘Hello, darling,’ she said. ‘This is my beautiful big boy, Peter, I was telling you all about. Peter, come and say hello.’

They were nice enough to me and I liked the insignia eagles on their uniforms. I soon learned they had chewing gum to give little boys like me. Not the tablet-style chewy I was used to, but stick chewing gum that was an immediate giveaway to teachers and neighbours that your mum was having it off with a Yank.

It was time for Roma and Pearl to get ready for work and my sitter, Betty, still sleeping in the second bedroom, had to be woken to attend business college where she was learning shorthand and typing. But what to do with the two Yanks? They could hardly just walk out our door in broad daylight. What would the neighbours say to two conspicuously uniformed Yanks in West Brunswick? It was decided they should spend the day undercover at our place and leave at nightfall.

Grandpa and I used to talk a lot about the war when I stayed overnight playing tiddlywinks with him. About the brave resistance fighters in occupied Europe hiding escaping airman who had been shot down behind enemy lines. I understood the role we would be required to play in secretly hiding our two Yanks. But we hadn’t reckoned on Nana. She phoned about 9 o’clock saying she was going up the street shopping and would drop in for a cuppa in about an hour.

When Grandpa told me about hiding airmen in Europe, they had attics and cellars and secret trap doors under carpets. Even cupboards with fake backs for such contingencies. It all sounded so exciting. But our two-bedroom house with my sleepout on the back verandah offered few hiding places beyond the broom cupboard which was not even a proper cupboard – just a corner with a curtain hanging in front of it near the kitchen door. ‘You two can hide there,’ Mum decided.

I could see the exciting aspect of this game, but I was concerned that my beloved Nana was cast as the baddie. We’d barely time to clean the house before Nana was due. I was to take out all the empty beer bottles. ‘And don’t make any noise,’ said Mum. Even though the Thompsons were friendly neighbours, Mum didn’t want them to think she’d been up all night drinking beer – particularly with their daughter, Pearl, our guest. As for the Yanks – don’t even think about mentioning them. I could only carry two beer bottles at a time. Nine bottles, five trips. I didn’t clink even one. ‘Just as well,’ said Mum.

From my sleep-out I had a good view of our side street, but only because it was winter when the big nectarine tree lost its leaves. I was posted as lookout. It was my job to warn Mum and the Yanks when Nana was coming. I understood the importance of my duty. I was terrified of what the repercussions would be if Nana discovered the Yanks. Not that she would do anything. Nana wasn’t the sort to make trouble. But I knew she would be disappointed in my mum for deceiving her and probably me too, which I found horrible. Nana had entrusted to Mum the care of her younger sister, Roma, who was barely 20 years old, and her teenage charge, Betty. And then there was me to consider. I liked to think that she would include me in her considerations.

‘Here she comes,’ I reported and I admit, I was excited. The Yanks were bundled into the broom cupboard. There wasn’t much room, so they were standing jammed together at attention in full uniform, even wearing their hats, which provoked more giggling.

Mum let Nana in, and put the kettle on to make a cuppa. ‘Why aren’t you at kindergarten?’ Nana asked after giving me a big hug. Mum quickly replied for me. ‘He’s a bit off colour this morning. He probably stayed up too late last night with Betty looking after him.’ I watched in amazement as Mum calmly lied to her own mother, and decided I could use this glib practice myself. Mum was amazingly calm and relaxed. There she was chatting away with my nana sitting on a chair just a few steps from the broom cupboard hiding the Yanks.

For me it was awful. I was scared stiff. War was hell on us kids. I could hardly rat on my mum, but I kept hearing little noises coming from the broom cupboard. I knew Nana was a bit deaf, but surely, she was going to hear them. Perhaps Mum realised my discomfort or more likely she just wanted to get rid of me. She said that if I was too sick to go to kindy I should go to my room and have a rest. Normally, I wouldn’t want to leave when Nana was visiting, but I gladly left.

Ultimately, Nana went home and the Yanks came out. They reckoned it had been a ‘swell caper’. However, I was ashamed to have deceived my nana.