The Last of the Bonegilla Girls Read online

  ‘The Australians like it better when they can understand the waitress,’ her father had insisted.

  ‘Well, how am I ever supposed to get better at English if I don’t talk to the Australians?’ she’d argued back.

  ‘Ach,’ he’d said, finally relenting. His acquiescence was an admission of how much he now relied on his daughter. Since they’d moved to Melbourne and rented a house in Oakleigh, one street away from her uncle, she’d become a conduit to a new country for both her parents. They still struggled with English, and anything more than hello, thank you and goodbye was still beyond them. She understood how hard it had been for them, already in their forties and having to learn new words. They had the Orthodox Church, the business and their growing children. Two of her father’s cousins had come to Australia in the past year, as well as her mother’s sister and her family, which meant learning English became even less important. Melbourne wasn’t called Greece’s third biggest city for nothing. Vasiliki tried to encourage her parents to learn English, but it had been easier to become their translator and assistant, especially when it came to the doctor or the chemist or any part of government and its paperwork. It gave her a measure of power in her relationship with her parents and even her uncle. She thought back to the English lessons at Bonegilla: Frances and those silly children’s books and all the hours spent in the mess with Iliana and Elizabeta. She realised now that Frances had given her much more than a vocabulary. She’d been patient and kind. She hadn’t judged her, hadn’t assumed that her lack of English meant she was stupid. She had become her friend. She had much to thank Frances Burley for. There was no doubt about that.

  So, with her father’s grudging permission and her uncle’s wary approval, Vasiliki had begun work as a waitress at the Majestic Milk Bar in Bourke Street. She worked harder than everyone else to prove to her father and her uncle that she could be as good as the British-Australian girls. She had memorised the staff rules that everyone had to abide by while on duty. Her uncle Theodorous was very strict about his list:

  • Always wear a clean uniform with a smart apron and a cap.

  • Be civil to customers; always try to understand what they want and serve them to their satisfaction.

  • Don’t stand and talk to customers at the counter.

  • Don’t shout to other staff.

  • Don’t pass any remarks against customers or laugh at them as they may get offended.

  • Be obedient and do as you’re told. (Vasiliki didn’t believe she would have any trouble with that one—she was a Greek daughter, after all.)

  • Don’t be cheeky.

  • No chewing gum while on duty.

  • Don’t fix your hair or face in the shop.

  • Don’t loaf with your work.

  Vasiliki had quickly become the perfect employee. She smiled, she took orders, she delivered food to customers, she refrained from being cheeky and she always looked perfect. She was grateful to the Majestic for giving her such an introduction to Australian working life. And she would always be grateful that it had been the place of her lucky reunion with Tom Burley.

  It had been a busy lunchtime and Vasiliki’s new white shoes had given her a blister on her heel, which ached and stung the longer she was on her feet. Uncle Theodorous had insisted that the waitresses wear white shoes and this new pair was driving Vasiliki crazy.

  ‘They match your uniforms,’ he’d told her. ‘A white dress, a white cap. It looks clean.’

  ‘I look like a nurse,’ Vasiliki had pointed out with a teasing smile. ‘Maybe I’ll give the customers some medicine as well as a milkshake.’

  The waitresses’ uniforms were white short-sleeved dresses with a buttoned belt around the waist. Vasiliki had to admit that it was easy to keep them clean with a soak in Velvet flakes overnight, to take care of the inevitable coffee, tea and tomato sauce stains that often decorated her by the end of the day.

  On that particular day, she’d been trying not to think about her blister, but as the hours passed it rubbed and annoyed her more and more. She had slipped out the back to the small staff room, found a chair to sit on, and pushed down her stockings. She covered the throbbing bubble of skin with an adhesive bandage, thinking that the sooner this day ended the better. When she walked back out to the front counter, hobbling a little, Tom Burley had just walked in through the door. He’d taken off his hat and was smoothing down his hair as he looked around.

  She recognised him instantly. He looked older, it was true, but he was still the kind of handsome that had made her blush back at Bonegilla. In that instant, she remembered every moment of the night they’d danced at the Tudor Hall, before he’d had to go back to university. She and her mother and her two younger sisters had left Bonegilla before he came back again. She hadn’t seen Tom since they’d danced that night. She shook her head to get rid of the pounding in her ears. It was her heartbeat, fast and strong.

  Tom had found himself a stool at the counter and was studying the menu with great concentration.

  ‘How’s that foot?’ Shirley, another waitress and her friend, peered down at Vasiliki’s white shoes.

  ‘It is okay. I have a bandage on there.’

  ‘Why don’t you go out the back and take a load off, pet? I’ll cover you for ten minutes.’ Shirley winked. ‘Don’t tell your uncle, and we’ve got a deal.’

  Vasiliki grabbed Shirley’s arm as she passed. ‘No, it is all right. I will take this one.’ She glanced quickly in Tom’s direction.

  Her friend looked back over her shoulder, then raised a saucy eyebrow. ‘Ooh, the handsome one, you mean?’

  Vasiliki’s cheeks heated. ‘He is … an old friend.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Shirley giggled. ‘Though judging by the look on your face, pet, you want him to be a new one as well.’

  Vasiliki wiped her sweating palms down the front of her uniform. She took a deep breath and walked to the front of the counter, where she stopped and pulled her notepad and pencil from the large pocket on the front of her dress.

  She thought hard to make it sound just right. ‘What can I help you with today, sir?’

  She held her breath. It was definitely Tom Burley. Not a teenager now but a grown-up man in a three-piece suit and a tie. His white shirt looked crisp and he looked important.

  He looked up at her. His face lit up. It was a long moment before he spoke. ‘Bonegilla,’ he said, his voice warm with delight.

  ‘Yes.’ She’d smiled, secretly thrilled that he’d remembered her after all this time. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Vasiliki.’ He said it properly, almost the way it was pronounced in Greek.

  And right there, right then, she wanted to prove to him how much she had grown and changed. How Australian she was now. ‘Tom Burley,’ she replied, slowly, deliberately. ‘It’s been a long time. How are you today?’

  ‘Well, I’m just fine, thank you very much.’ He grinned. ‘I had no idea that you were in Melbourne.’

  ‘Yes. My family went from Bonegilla … two years ago. We live in Oakleigh,’ she said as she glanced around the milk bar. ‘This is the business of my father and my uncle. I work here.’

  Tom glanced up at her cap and looked her up and down. There was a hint of colour in his cheeks. ‘The uniform is a dead giveaway.’

  English was a crazy language. She shook her head. ‘What is that? A dead giveaway?’

  ‘It means you are wearing the uniform of people who work here. It was a clue. So I imagine you work here, too.’

  Another Australian expression she had to store away and learn. A dead giveaway. She must ask Shirley about it after work.

  Tom looked around, taking in the rounded counter, the gleaming silver milkshake cups stacked on the bench along the wall. Above them were signs advertising Peach Melbas and Crushed Lemon Sodas for three shillings each.

  ‘What will you have today?’ Vasiliki asked, her pencil poised over her notebook.

  ‘Well, let’s see.’ Tom lifted the menu and studied
it. ‘It all looks rather tempting but I think I’ll have this sundae here. The Passionfruit Special.’

  Vasiliki wrote it down in Greek. ‘And something to eat?’

  ‘I think I might like an egg sandwich. Thank you very much, Vasiliki.’

  ‘You are welcome. It won’t be long.’

  Tom stared at her, as if he was only imagining she was there. He let out a little chuckle. ‘I can’t believe you’ve been in Melbourne all this time and I didn’t know. I’ve walked past the milk bar a hundred times and never come in.’

  Vasiliki tore off the page from her notepad. ‘This must be your lucky day, Mr Tom Burley.’

  He took in every detail of her face before settling on her mouth. ‘You’re deadset right about that.’

  Tom came back for lunch every day for a month. Each day he waited at the end of the counter until Vasiliki was free to serve him and they would surreptitiously have a little chat while she took his order. Vasiliki thought he must have spent his whole salary on passionfruit sundaes and egg sandwiches, for he had made a habit of ordering the same thing every day.

  At the end of the fourth week, Tom worked up the courage to ask Vasiliki to the pictures. Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing with William Holden and Jennifer Jones was playing at the Hoyts Regent. She was so happy, she had said yes before she’d even thought through how she would lie to her parents about it.

  After their first date, they spent every Saturday night together. In secret. Shirley had agreed to cover for her, promising to do anything to secure the course of true love between a young man and a young woman.

  ‘And if he’s got a friend, make sure to invite me on a double date,’ she’d said. Vasiliki didn’t know what this double date was but she’d smiled and nodded, which seemed to make Shirley happy.

  Vasiliki had told her parents she was having a coffee and dessert after work with Shirley and a few girlfriends, and Shirley had helped her out by leaving at the same time. It was a small lie and a social concession she was able to negotiate because she worked almost every day. She wasn’t afraid of hard work—she had learned that from her parents—and was pleased to be able to hand over most of her wage to them, for household expenses and for the house they were aiming to buy. Her father worked at the milk bar every day of the week, from early morning until late, and her mother cleaned houses during the day and then came into the milk bar when it was closed to push a mop around the premises and keep it sparkling. And on top of that, her mother ran the house and cared for Vasiliki and her two brothers. On the weekends, she cooked meals for people at church. Vasiliki figured that her parents hadn’t had a day off in two years.

  She was very careful with her own money, holding back just enough to buy herself something special every now and then, a pretty new dress or perhaps some lipstick and a new scarf. When they went out on a date, Tom paid for everything. He was a good, kind man. He’d finished his university study the year before and was working in a small legal firm in the city. Vasiliki thought how lucky he was not to have to work on Saturdays or Sundays.

  Tom looked up at the clocks above Flinders Street Station.

  ‘The night is young,’ he said. ‘And I’ve an idea, Vasiliki.’ His brown-eyed gaze drifted back to her, hesitating on her eyes before drifting down to her Elizabeth Taylor–red lips. ‘Why don’t we catch the tram down to St Kilda and have a bite to eat in Acland Street?’

  ‘Yes. I like that,’ she said. Tom held out an arm to indicate she should walk with him, and they ambled slowly towards the tram stop.

  ‘Tom,’ Vasiliki said. They stopped and waited for the traffic lights to change. ‘There is something I ask you.’

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked breezily.

  ‘From today, you must call me “Vicki”.’

  Tom looked perplexed. ‘Why on earth would you want me to do that?’

  She shrugged, clutched the handle of her handbag with both hands and swung it from side to side. ‘The girls at the milk bar. They help me with my English. They are very nice. They say that Vasiliki is too hard. They call me Vicki now. I like it.’

  ‘But that’s not your real name.’

  The lights turned red, the cars stopped and they stepped off the footpath onto the street. ‘Tom is not your name,’ she answered, indignant. ‘You are Thomas but we say Tom. It’s the same.’

  He chuckled, bumped an arm against her shoulder. ‘I can’t believe your parents will think of it that way.’

  She so wanted to be brave in front of Tom. She so wanted him to think that she was free to make these decisions for herself. That there might be a future for them if they were both willing to fight for it. ‘They always want me to be Greek. They will always call me Vasiliki. But I live in Australia now.’

  How could Tom ever understand what she meant, this desire to fit in, to be something she was not. She knew a new name wouldn’t stop people staring at her hair, which became frizzy when it rained, or her olive skin, and her dark eyes and her thick eyebrows. But she could hope, couldn’t she? She had been trying so hard to be like the British-Australian girls she worked with in the milk bar. They had so many freedoms compared with her. Their families didn’t seem to care who they dated, or so it seemed to Vasiliki. Perhaps if she were more Australian, she might be the kind of girl that an Australian boy might fall in love with. An Australian boy like Tom. If she were more like an Australian girl, he would propose to her on one knee right in front of the clocks and no one would laugh or stare but applaud instead, and they would get married and live in a nice house and have children called Susan and David and she would be a good mother. Tom had a good job and she could be a good wife. She could cook and clean and would learn to prepare the kind of food Australian people liked: chops and mashed potato and corned beef. Perhaps one day, if she were Australian enough, Tom would introduce her to his parents.

  Would she ever live in a world where she could introduce Tom to hers?

  That was too much to think about. Their relationship was still a secret to everyone, even Frances. That had been the hardest thing. It felt like a betrayal of her dear friend, but Tom had insisted.

  ‘Frances will tell someone, Vasiliki. She’ll write to Iliana or Elizabeta, I know it. You all write letters to each other all the time with news and snippets of what you’re up to. Frances has told me about the photos. She won’t be able to help herself. You know how girls like to gossip. She’ll let the cat out of the bag, I know she will. And then my mother and father will find out and it will become difficult to explain. You can’t tell her.’

  Let the cat out of the bag. In Greek, people said it was to be bursting with a secret. Skao to mistiko. She didn’t want to burst her secret about Tom. She wanted to hold it—and him—in her hand and her heart and treasure every moment they had together. Once the secret was out in the open, it would have to end. If Tom knew it, he had never admitted it to her, and she had never spoken the truth of her reality to him.

  The tram rocked from side to side all the way to St Kilda. The boy she loved was smiling at her. Vasiliki didn’t care what they ate for dinner. She was with Tom. Nothing else mattered.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  One week and one day after she’d had dinner with Tom on Acland Street in St Kilda wearing her new dress and her new red lipstick, which they’d managed to smudge walking on the beach when the sun had set, it drizzled all the way to church on a cold April Sunday.

  Vasiliki collapsed her umbrella, shrugged off her coat and followed her parents inside. She kissed the icons, lit a candle for her grandparents back in the village, listened to Father Spiros, took communion and did not think about anything or anyone but Tom the entire time. Her Tom, her beloved Tom, who couldn’t seem to let go of her hand at Flinders Street Station when she had to get on the Oakleigh train. Her Tom, who had waited on the platform and waved as the carriages had pulled away.

  She had opened her heart to Tom and she wanted to hold him there forever.

  When the service ended, her mother to
ok her arm and led her outside to the bottom of the steps, where her father was talking animatedly to her uncle Theodorous and another man, a stranger to her.

  As she and her mother approached, her father turned to her with a proud expression and a puffed-up chest. ‘Ah, Vasiliki.’ He reached out for her and she went to him. She felt his protective hand in the space between her shoulderblades.

  ‘This man is Stelios Papadopoulos,’ he announced. ‘Stelios, this is my first daughter, Vasiliki.’

  The man Stelios stepped forwards and held out his hand politely. Vasiliki was wearing white gloves and was glad of them because she didn’t want to feel another man’s skin on her fingertips. Tom was still there, would always be there.

  ‘Hello. I am pleased to meet you,’ she said, in English, on purpose. Her mother jabbed her in the side with an elbow.

  ‘Stelios is the brother of your uncle Theodorous’s best friend,’ her father told her, lifting his chin. ‘He knows the family from back in the village. He has been in America working in a cafe with his cousins, in … where is it?’

  ‘Maryland. Delaware,’ Stelios replied.

  ‘Maryland, Delaware,’ her mother repeated.

  ‘Hello, Vasiliki,’ Stelios said in English. She studied his face. He looked Greek and sounded Greek. If he’d been in America, shouldn’t he sound like William Holden or Cary Grant?

  ‘Delaware. Yes,’ her father said. ‘He will come and work in the milk bar.’

  ‘Oh,’ Vasiliki said.

  ‘Vasiliki works there too,’ her father announced. ‘She is a waitress. She serves the customers. She is as good as any of those Australian girls.’

  ‘I hear it’s a good business,’ Stelios said, his attention on Vasiliki and not on her father, who had taken a step back, no doubt to observe them better.