The Women’s Pages Read online

  Tilly heard a tsk tsk. ‘Look at that woman. Probably in her cups.’

  And then another spitting, judging voice. ‘What these young people think they can get away with these days. It’s a disgrace. The war is over. So should this excess be, this … immorality. Absolutely no decorum whatsoever. I blame the Americans, don’t you? Lord knows what she got up to with them.’

  Tilly opened her eyes and propped herself up on her elbows. Two matrons in floral spring frocks had their noses firmly turned up at her, white gloves hiding their talons and fascinators with sprays of white feathers hiding their gimlet eyes. They examined her as if she were a piece of litter in the gutter. Like an empty gin bottle or a soldier’s condom.

  ‘Have some self-respect, young lady,’ Matron Large Bosom lectured. ‘Get up off that grass.’

  Tilly sat up and returned their supercilious gazes, a fire burning in her belly all of a sudden. ‘My husband was killed in the war,’ she said. ‘That’s what I was doing during the war. Waiting for him to come home and he never did. That’s what I sacrificed. What did you? A few lunches at the Australia Hotel?’

  Matron Large Bosom clutched at her collar. The other muttered, ‘Well, I never,’ and they huffed off towards Elizabeth Street.

  Tilly got to her feet and walked south towards the Anzac Memorial. The pink stone rose up into the sky, monolithic, a temple to war and loss and sacrifice, and she took the steps to the entrance. Inside, it was cool and strangely silent, the sounds of Elizabeth and Liverpool Streets muted by the stone walls and the silent contemplation heavy in the air. In the domed sky above, thousands of gold stars twinkled in a constellation and it was only when she looked really hard that Tilly grasped how many of them there were, each one a representation of an Australian who’d died in the service of their country. Thousands and thousands and thousands of stars, thousands of men and women.

  She gripped the cool rail under her palms and looked down to the sculpture on the level below and felt herself transfixed. It comprised a naked prostrate man, his belly hollow, his head lax, his eyes unseeing. He was lying on a sword under his shoulders, like the cross a man nearly two thousand years before had been nailed to. Under his back was a shield, symbolic of the Spartan legend that a soldier should honour his calling by coming home with his shield or dying on it. The hushed voices she’d heard a moment before became silent and all she could hear was her breathing and her heart beat, a thud thud thud inside her chest.

  Underneath the dead soldier, bearing his burden, were a mother, a sister and a wife nursing an infant child.

  Archie’s mother was dead. He had no sister. He would never be father to a child. The only one left was his wife, bearing the weight of the burden alone. Tilly saw her life in that sculpture, in the darkest depths of the bronze, in the grief in the wife’s expression. And that’s when she let herself see the truth of how Archie had probably been in the months before he died. He would have been like the soldier, his protruding ribs harsh lines on his torso, taut tendons in his neck, his cheekbones gaunt. She couldn’t pretend otherwise with all she had read and all she now knew, about Bert, about the returning prisoners of war, with everything Cooper had told her.

  She had in reality been mourning Archie since his last letter to her in 1942. At least the warrior in bronze had returned. Her soldier warrior would never have a funeral or a grave. His death would never be commemorated with pomp and fanfare. He had drowned in the hull of a ship as it sank to its watery grave, torpedoed into jagged pieces.

  She felt no glory about it, just the bitter truth that Archie was dead.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Tilly woke with a shudder and bolted upright, jolted into consciousness by another dream of piercing screams and agonising shouts. Except now she was awake, and there was still screaming. She tried to get her bearings.

  From the window, the light of the moon created a thin sliver between the curtains. Outside, a car turned down Orwell Street, its throaty chugging fading into the distance as it headed towards Victoria Street. Inside the flat, another shrieking, moaning nightmare.

  Tilly swung her feet out of bed instinctively and waited. She listened for a moment, hoping the screams would stop, that Mary’s soothing might urge Bert back to sleep. Sometimes he would settle, drift away from his hell into some kind of peace; other times there had been stomping footsteps through the flat, pleading, crying.

  ‘Bert! Bert! Wake up, darling.’ Mary’s shouts sent shivers up Tilly’s spine.

  A roar, a cry of ‘No, no’.

  Then, running feet and Tilly’s bedroom door swung open so hard it cracked against the wardrobe behind it.

  In her nightgown Mary looked as white as a sheet. ‘Tilly. Help me. Please. I can’t wake him this time.’

  The light was bright overhead in Mary and Bert’s bedroom and Tilly paused at the doorway, wishing she didn’t have to see this intimate scene, this devastating portrayal of what the war had done to Bert. He was naked on the floor, covered in sweat. His short hair was damp and spiked, his arms were flailing and thumping on the floor, and his face contorted in horror at a scene only he could see behind his closed eyes.

  ‘Help me shake him.’ Mary fell to her knees at his right side and Tilly took up position across from her. Mary cupped his head in her hands and Tilly grabbed a shoulder, shaking and jerking him, while Mary protected his head from smashing into the floor. A quick glance at Mary’s practised care made Tilly wonder how often she had done this behind closed doors since Bert had returned.

  ‘Wake up, Bert,’ Tilly demanded.

  Mary leant in close and whispered, ‘Bert. It’s Mary. You’re having a nightmare. This isn’t real. Open your eyes, my darling.’

  And he did, for a moment, his eyes slowly focussing. And there was blessed quiet and Mary and Tilly were able to catch their breath. Tilly sat back, aware of his nakedness, feeling embarrassed for him that he would realise she had seen him that way.

  But then Bert jerked and every limb flailed. An outstretched arm smacked Mary under the chin, a clenched fist clocking Tilly square on her left cheekbone. He roared to his feet, energy radiating from him, sweat shaking from him in droplets onto the floor, and bolted to the corner between the wardrobe and the dresser and hid there, wide-eyed, quaking.

  Tilly pressed a hot hand to her eye, already throbbing with pain. She couldn’t look at Mary. Her guilt at keeping Bert’s secret bloomed faster than the bruise under her eye.

  Mary began to sob. When Bert’s breathing calmed, when he seemed to come back to his senses, he looked at his wife and Tilly and then Mary once more and whispered, ‘Sweet Jesus. What have I done?’

  The next morning, Tilly studied her swollen face in the bathroom mirror. Her lower eyelid was puffy and tender, and blood and purple bruising were pooling under the swollen skin. When she gingerly poked her cheekbone, it hurt. She’d read somewhere once, perhaps in her own paper, that the eyes were a mirror to the soul. She stared at her own and thought how true the adage was.

  Her soul was bruised, black and blue, aching and tender. And while her left eye was worse, her other eye had dark circles underneath it too. She studied the hollows in her cheeks in the dim bathroom light. When had she got so thin?

  After she’d left Bert and Mary to console each other the night before, she’d gone back to her bed but had slept restlessly and painfully, her heavy heart like a ball of lead in her chest and her head full of dreams she didn’t want to remember. When she was woken by a shaft of morning light across her face, she heard shuffling footsteps and quiet voices in the flat and she lay still, trying not to listen, aching all over. Then, the front door closed and the flat seemed to be quiet.

  Tilly had kept his secret but it was now out in the open and all three of them shared the shame and humiliation of it. She hadn’t wanted to get in the middle of their marriage, of the secrets they’d wanted to keep about Bert, but she’d been dragged there against her will.

  She held a flannel under the tap until
it was sodden, squeezed it out, and pressed it to her eye. There were some powders in the kitchen cupboard and she decided to take two to help with the pain. With each step, it throbbed behind her eye and the beginnings of a headache made her feel dizzy.

  She turned into the living room and froze. Through her squinting good eye, she could make out a tall man in a flowing overcoat standing by the mantelpiece holding Archie’s photo. A surge of adrenaline and fear hit so fast that at first Tilly couldn’t make a sound, but when she finally screamed, loud and piercing, she scared herself even more.

  The coat turned. It was George Cooper. ‘Bloody hell. It’s only me.’

  Tilly’s heart galloped. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  Cooper’s eyes widened and his lips fell open in a question he didn’t have time to ask before he strode towards her, reached for her wrist and urged the flannel from her face. ‘What the hell happened to you?’ He leant down, peering close at the spreading bruise, and gently pressed two cool fingers to her eyelid.

  ‘Ouch,’ she grimaced, but it felt good.

  His jaw clenched but he was restrained. ‘What’s with the shiner? You taken up boxing, Mrs Galloway?’

  The tension in the flat had been so heavy for so long that it was a relief to hear a joke. Cooper had always been able to make her laugh. And how desperately she needed to. ‘Perhaps I should, if my reaction to you just now is anything to go by. I see a strange man in my living room and all I can manage to do is scream like a schoolgirl. I should have grabbed a candlestick and clocked you over the head with it. How did you get in?’

  ‘Very glad you didn’t.’ He made a show of glancing around the room. ‘Do you even own a candlestick? I was coming when Mary was going. She said that you were in the bathroom and I should wait.’

  There was a loud pounding at the door. ‘Mrs Galloway. Is everything all right? Mrs Galloway?’

  Tilly lowered her voice. ‘It’s Mr Kleinmann from next door. Coming,’ she called and when she opened the front door, he gasped in shock. His white hair would have stood on end if he’d had more of it.

  ‘Mrs Galloway!’ he exclaimed. ‘Should I make the police come?’

  Tilly looked over her shoulder at the mise en scène. A tall man in an overcoat. A sad, thin woman with a black eye, holding a flannel to her face.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Kleinmann, but there’s no need to worry. I’ll be perfectly fine.’ If she was honest, she was still shaken from the events of the night and morning, from seeing Bert to finding Cooper in her living room, and from the pain radiating from her eye. Perfectly fine may have been overstating it, but there was nothing about this situation she wanted to share.

  ‘But … this man … is he your husband from ze war?’

  The husband you told me was already dead? She looked more closely at her neighbour. His left hand on his walking stick was shaking, giving him the appearance of someone holding a divining rod that had just discovered water.

  ‘No. He’s a colleague of mine from the newspaper.’ And then she thought she may as well tell him. He might get a thrill out of having been right all this time. ‘My husband died, Mr Kleinmann. Back in 1942, as it turns out. It’s only just been discovered.’

  The old man’s face crumpled. He reached a wrinkled hand towards Tilly before pulling it back. ‘I’m so very sorry,’ he said. ‘May you suffer no more.’

  Tears glistened in his eyes and Tilly suddenly felt ashamed of herself for her ungracious thoughts about him. ‘Thank you. That’s very kind.’

  ‘And may I wish you a long life.’ He stepped back. ‘Goodbye, Mrs Galloway.’

  Tilly closed the door, and turned to Cooper, waiting until the sound of footsteps in the hallway stopped. ‘He was our building’s air warden during the war. He used to scold me for smoking during the blackouts.’

  ‘That accent. Where’s he from?’

  Tilly wondered for a moment. ‘I don’t know. He’s lived here a long time. Did he tell me once? Seven years or was it eight? I can’t remember exactly. He’s a violinist, or used to be. He would play for hours and hours.’ She hadn’t heard his music in a long time. She thought of his walking stick, his shaking hands.

  Cooper took off his coat and tossed it on the settee. ‘Now. Are you going to tell me what happened to your eye?’ There was no more humour in his voice. He stared darkly at her.

  Tilly bit her lip to buy some time. However she said it, she knew it was going to sound awful and something other than it was. ‘I’m going to tell you but I don’t want you to overreact.’

  Cooper listened, impatient, but he waited.

  ‘It was Bert but—’

  He gripped her shoulders and his blue eyes blazed with anger. ‘You need to tell me everything, Mrs Galloway. Right now.’

  ‘Please. I need to explain. It was the middle of the night. Last night. Bert was having a terrible nightmare. They’ve been getting worse and worse since he’s been home. Mary was terrified when she couldn’t wake him and she asked me to help. He lashed out in his sleep. When he was himself again, he was horrified, honestly he was. He didn’t mean to hurt Mary. Or me.’

  ‘But he did. What about Mary? Is she all right?’

  ‘I haven’t seen her this morning. You did, when you arrived. What did you think?’

  ‘She looked a little out of sorts, I thought. She hurried past me and left.’ His gaze shifted to her cheek, her bruise, her pale face. ‘You’re going to need more than this. Sit down.’ He took the flannel from her and walked to the kitchen.

  Tilly lowered herself on the settee and leant back. Her faint headache was now hammering in her temples. She lifted Cooper’s coat and covered herself with it like a blanket. It smelt of his Woodbines. She heard the fridge door open and close. The tink of ice hitting the metal sink. Then Cooper was back and the ice-cold flannel stung as he held it gently to her eye.

  ‘I couldn’t find a steak,’ he muttered.

  ‘Not in this kitchen,’ she replied.

  She felt him sit next to her. He rearranged the coat so it covered her. A hand was on her knee. ‘I need you to tell me the truth now. Do you think Bert is a danger to Mary or you?’

  ‘No,’ Tilly replied quickly. Too quickly perhaps. In the hours it had taken her to fall back to sleep the night before, she’d gone over and over the same thing. He may not have meant to hurt her but the evidence was that he had, twice now. The truth of it was that last night’s episode had rocked her. That had been more than a drunk man lashing out. How could she be certain that he wasn’t dangerous? Her trouble was that, even if she believed he was, what could she do about it? She loved Mary and Mary loved Bert so what choice did she have but to trust him?

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It’s malaria, Cooper. The night sweats and the fevers. And the nightmares. That’s what happened this morning. It’s as if he’s fighting someone. His dreams are torturing him.’

  He lifted the flannel and checked her eye. ‘His real life tortured him.’

  ‘I can handle the nightmares. But they fight. And then he drinks. Mary is trying to believe that everything will be all right. She’s down on her knees every night praying for Bert to get better. She talks to God more than she will to me.’ Tilly opened her good eye and looked at him. ‘I remember what you said about those soldiers you saw in Singapore. I saw his back, Cooper.’

  His stricken expression revealed he knew what she was going to describe.

  ‘The scars … I didn’t mean to. I opened the bathroom door, not knowing he was in there and he had his shirt off and he took one look at me and … he came at me.’

  ‘Are you telling me this is the second time he’s hurt you?’

  Tilly laid her hand on his and he dropped his gaze to the spot where they were skin to skin.

  ‘I don’t quite know how to explain it, but it’s as if Bert’s not there when this thing takes hold of him. His whole face changes, contorts, and his eyes are empty. And then, he snaps back and comes to, like he’s
woken from an anaesthetic. And he’s so embarrassed and ashamed. The first time, he said it was because I’d snuck up on him. He looked at me like I was … his enemy.’

  ‘Like you were one of his Japanese guards,’ Cooper said quietly.

  ‘I’ve tried not to, but I’ve been reading that damn stupid Name Your War Criminal column of yours. You’ve been putting all the horrible details right there in the paper for everyone to see.’

  ‘Not all of them,’ Cooper added roughly.

  ‘I think I need another powder for this headache.’

  Cooper didn’t move. Her hand was still on his and she didn’t want to let go. She’d had to be so strong for so long that letting someone take care of her felt like shedding a weight, sharing a burden.

  ‘I’ll get one. Where are they?’ But he didn’t move. He sat by her side, his hand still under hers and she wondered what he would do if she linked her fingers in his.

  ‘In a minute,’ she said. ‘The ice feels good.’

  ‘You’ll still get a bruise but the swelling won’t hurt so much.’

  She liked being cared for.

  ‘I’m sorry, Cooper.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘When we were at Burt’s. I was angry.’

  ‘You have every right to be. But I don’t want you to hate because of what happened to Archie. That’s what I was trying to tell you, I think. Somewhat clumsily. Your heart’s too big and too kind to be filled with it.’

  She didn’t want to hate. It was exhausting. But it was stubborn and tenacious, this resentment and fury and rage.

  He paused. ‘What are we going to do about Bert?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  They sat in silence while Tilly pulled the words together so she could get it right. ‘I’m sorry for walking out on you, at Burt’s. It was petulant.’

  She heard Cooper’s soft chuckle. ‘You’ve always liked a fight.’

  She wouldn’t tell him that she feared the fight had gone out of her for good.