The Last of the Bonegilla Girls Read online

  ‘After all, I’ll be back in Melbourne again next week, and studying, so this might be my only chance to chaperone her.’ Under the table, he nudged Frances’s foot with his and cocked his head at her while their father was passing their mother the peas. He was looking for back-up.

  ‘I think that’s a marvellous idea,’ Frances said.

  ‘What do you think, Mavis?’ Reginald Burley sipped from his glass of water and considered his children’s plan.

  Mavis set her cutlery on her china plate and set her hands in her lap. ‘It might be a good idea, Reg. It would be nice for the children to have a night out, don’t you agree?’

  Frances looked between her mother and father. ‘I really would like to go. I’ve never been to a dance before. Well, with you and Mum at the Hume Services Club, but never on my own, as a young woman.’ Frances feared she was babbling and tried another tack. ‘And wouldn’t it be nice for the new Australians to know that the director’s children were going? It would lend an air of importance to the occasion, don’t you think?’

  ‘You do talk about the importance of showing that everyone should leave their past grievances behind them, Reg,’ Mavis said. ‘That we should all learn to live together in this new Australia?’

  ‘I’ve said it before, haven’t I, Mavis? Sometimes I feel that I’m not only the administrator at Bonegilla, but financial controller, counsellor, negotiator and Dag Hammarskjöld all at once.’

  Frances wondered if it was a shock for the new Australians to land at Bonegilla and see a man there as tall as her father. At six foot four, lean and athletic still, he’d been a handy club cricketer in his earlier days. He towered over most of the migrants.

  ‘Dag Hammarskjöld,’ Tom repeated and snickered.

  ‘The head of the United Nations deserves your respect, Tom.’ Reg’s words were stern but there was a glint in his eye.

  ‘Sorry, Dad. I just think of a sheep’s dag every time I hear his name.’

  Reginald exchanged glances with his wife and tried not to smile. ‘Not that we’ve had problems here between people, except for those Italians and all their complaining about the food.’ He chuckled. ‘But there’s nothing wrong with a reminder every now and then. We’re all learning new things from these people, including a lot of new and interesting names we have to get our tongues around. I’m doing my best. I suggest you do too, son.’

  ‘You should listen to the Mayor of Bonegilla,’ Mavis said with a proud smile.

  ‘Mayor Burley.’ Tom laughed.

  ‘That’s what people call your father, you know.’

  ‘Then that makes me the mayor’s son.’

  ‘And me the mayor’s daughter.’ Frances laughed.

  Reg looked at his family over the gold wire rims of his glasses. ‘My job is to make sure there’s no more welcoming place in the world than Bonegilla for Europe’s dispossessed and stateless.’

  ‘How lucky they are to come here and be fed, housed, and encouraged until they find work,’ Mavis said. ‘The air is fresh. Their accommodation is comfortable. They can come and go whenever they please.’

  ‘I heard some of them walk into Albury,’ Frances said. ‘That’s eleven miles, isn’t it, Dad?’

  ‘But there’s a bus to Albury,’ Mavis said, puzzled.

  ‘They’re very active, these new Australians, especially the young men,’ Reg added. ‘And the accommodation and the food is improving all the time. Remember when the pineapples arrived last summer?’

  ‘They were so sweet,’ Mavis sighed at the memory. ‘Utterly delicious.’

  ‘Direct from Queensland,’ Reg confirmed. ‘It really is very important that they learn to eat the kind of food we do, to really help them fit in to Australia.’

  Frances nodded in agreement. ‘They are very lucky indeed to be here, aren’t they, Dad?’

  ‘They are, Frances. This is the best of safe havens for them,’ Reg said. ‘You know, I was talking to an Italian chap the other day. Shocking story. When the Nazis arrived, everyone fled up into the hills and when they dared go back, six months later, their whole village had been burnt to the ground.’

  Frances couldn’t believe her ears. A whole village burnt to the ground?

  ‘Poor bloody dagoes,’ Tom said.

  Reg took off his glasses, put them slowly on the table next to his plate, and turned his full attention to this son. ‘I will not have that word used in this house.’

  Tom looked down at his dinner. He half-heartedly scooped up some peas on his fork. ‘I do apologise. It’s just that the fellows down in Melbourne at university say it all the time and—’

  ‘That’s never an excuse.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. I am sorry.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Frances piped up, sensing the conversation had been derailed, and with it her own chance of going to the dance. ‘If Tom were to spend a little more time in the company of the Bonegilla residents, seeing for himself their music and culture, what close and loving families they are, he might grow to understand how offensive that expression is to them.’

  Tom chewed his peas and tried not to grin at his sister’s ingenuity.

  Reg and Mavis exchanged glances.

  ‘That’s rather a sensible idea, Frances,’ her father said. ‘Good girl.’

  ‘Frances has made friends with some of the girls, Reg. There’s an Italian lass and a Greek girl.’ Mavis forked up some mashed potatoes and ate them elegantly.

  ‘Vasiliki’s the Greek one,’ Frances said, glancing at Tom. It didn’t escape her attention that he was blushing beetroot red.

  ‘And Elizabeta. She’s German.’

  Her parents exchanged the slightest of glances.

  ‘She’s lovely, really. I’m sure they’re all going, too. I really would love to go.’

  Frances kicked Tom under the table. She’d rescued him so the least he could do was back her up.

  ‘Ow.’

  Frances widened her eyes at her brother.

  ‘I’ll look after her, I promise. You’ve been away, Dad, and you and Mum deserve some peace and quiet.’

  ‘I must say, I would be very happy not to have to go to Canberra quite so often.’ Reg reached to his left and covered Mavis’s hand with his. At that moment, seeing her parents share such a rare and intimate gesture, Frances realised for the first time what they had given up for her father to be director of the camp. They shared their home with up to eight thousand other people at a time.

  ‘Would you like to go to the dance, Frances?’

  ‘I would. And I promise to keep an eye on Tom, too, so he doesn’t get into any trouble.’

  Tom rolled his eyes and Reg and Mavis laughed.

  Reg smiled. ‘You may go. As long as you both remember who you are and who you are representing.’

  ‘Thank you, Dad,’ Tom said.

  ‘Thank you, Mum,’ Frances added. And while she helped her mother clear the table and wash the dishes after dinner, Frances’s head spun like a whirling dervish.

  Frances only had two dresses which were the slightest bit suitable for a dance at Bonegilla and she had chosen the yellow one. It was pale, the kind of yellow found on the palest of budgerigars. It had a scooped neck and short sleeves, and was nipped in at the waist before flaring out with a skirt that hit her knees. Underneath, a permanently pleated petticoat swished too. A small white bow accentuated her waist and the yellow cardigan knitted by her mother matched her dress almost perfectly.

  She’d never been to a dance without her parents. She suddenly felt grown up. A young woman. Anything might happen tonight. She hoped it would.

  Frances twirled on the rug in her bedroom, flaring out her skirt, and as she spun she watched the colour and movement in the round mirror on her dressing table. This was the most grown-up outfit she had. With a shiver of excitement, she tugged on a pair of white socks, turning them down so they sat at her ankle, then slipped her feet into a pair of white shoes, with a flat heel and a point at her toes. She had combed her hair up and away fr
om her forehead, careful not to tease it too much, and a white headband—as well as a generous burst of Gossamer hairspray—would keep everything else in place.

  There was a knock at her door. ‘Frances?’

  She checked her reflection in the mirror. ‘Come in, Mum.’

  Mavis opened the door, took two steps into Frances’s room and stopped. She breathed deep and her eyes became wet with tears. ‘Oh, Frances.’

  ‘Is it all right?’ Frances nervously smoothed down her skirt, pressing it against her thighs, as much to soak up the sweat on her palms as anything else.

  ‘You look just lovely. And your hair? Swept away from your face like that? It’s so pretty.’

  Frances’s hand flew to her head. ‘I saw it in the Women’s Weekly and thought I’d see if I could do it myself.’

  Mavis stepped forwards. In one hand, she held a bottle of Arpege. She lifted it to Frances’s neck, squeezed the mesh atomizer attached to the nozzle and spritzed. Frances inhaled the scent, so familiar to her.

  ‘And here.’ Mavis held out her other hand and unwrapped her fingers from her palm. Her pearls. Her mother’s perfume and now this.

  ‘Really?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, really. Turn around and hold up your hair.’

  Mavis slipped the pearls around her daughter’s neck. They were warm from her mother’s hand. Frances felt the little tug against her throat as Mavis pressed the clasp together. Her hand fluttered to her throat, and she caressed the strand, feeling the warm orbs under her fingers. In her mirror, suddenly there was a young woman looking back at her.

  Reg and Mavis waved off their children from the front door. Even though she had one of her big brothers by her side, Frances felt a new sense of freedom. As they walked, she swung her little white handbag back and forth, and looked up to the clear night sky.

  Tom moved his face near hers and sniffed dramatically. ‘You smell strange.’

  ‘It’s perfume,’ she replied, pushing his shoulder.

  ‘Are you old enough to wear that stuff?’

  Frances scoffed. ‘I am sixteen, you know.’

  Tom skipped ahead on the roadway and swung his leg, kicking a stone into the dark distance. It pinged on the roadway. ‘You seemed awfully keen to come with me tonight.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be? My friends will be there. I expect that if we lived in the city there would be dances all the time. I’m rather jealous of you being in Melbourne. You’re probably out every weekend. Dancing and drinking. And smoking.’ Frances threw him a knowing look. She had smelled it on his clothes when he’d arrived on the train from Melbourne.

  Tom adjusted his tie and then slipped his hands into the pockets of his black suit. ‘It’s not quite as glamorous as you think, you know. I do actually have to study. Universities don’t let you get away with skiving off.’

  ‘But surely there must be some time to have some fun. Perhaps meet a girl or two?’

  Tom threw her a look. She was fishing for information and he wasn’t biting. ‘You know, Frankie, I don’t think you’ve been the same since you got that whack on the head with the soccer ball. You’re still a bit … well, a bit dozey. Perhaps you did get some brain damage after all.’

  Frances sighed. ‘I can’t wait until you go back to Melbourne. Here I was beginning to get a bit sentimental about you going back. Now I remember how annoying you really are.’

  Tudor Hall was up ahead. A crowd of men was gathered off to one side, smoking. White puffs clouded around their heads, illuminated by a light fixed to the outside of the building. Young women were milling about the door, glancing over to the smokers. Frances tried to breathe. Would he be here tonight?

  ‘Shall we?’ Tom waved a hand forwards and bowed to his sister. She nodded at him. ‘Manners, Tom? I see you have learnt something at university after all.’

  When her walked ahead of him, he made sure to reach for her arm and give it a little pinch.

  Chapter Twelve

  Across the camp in her family’s hut, Vasiliki smoothed down the pleats of her floral dress and tried to see her reflection in the small mirror hanging on a hook on the wall. It had cracked on the way to Australia, a lightning bolt down its centre as if it had been stepped on with a stiletto heel, and the effect was that there were two Vasilikis staring back at her. She had learned to adapt. She moved to one side, patted down half her hair, then took a step to the right and did the other side. Her plaits had been unravelled and she wore her hair in a long ponytail over her left shoulder, a fringe feathering her forehead. She pulled her lips together tightly, then pinched each cheek between her thumb and forefinger, just as she’d seen her mother do, and waited for a blush to appear on her olive skin.

  She was excited about the dance tonight. It was all she and Iliana had been able to talk about for a week. Who knew when this chance would come again? Who knew when they would be leaving Bonegilla and where they would go?

  ‘What do you think?’ Vasiliki tugged at one of her gold earrings and turned to her mother.

  Dimitria was lying back on one of the camp beds and as she moved to prop her head on her hand, the bed squeaked. ‘You look beautiful—you take after me,’ she said, and her laughter filled the room. Her mother was right. Vasiliki had her height, or lack of it, her heavy eyebrows and dark eyes and her full lips. She couldn’t claim to have her mother’s skin—every Greek had olive skin—but she hoped she had her mother’s laugh. It was light and fun and happy.

  ‘What about Dad?’

  Dimitria sat up. ‘Ah, your father. With no sons, he is blessed to have three daughters who look just like his beautiful wife.’

  Vasiliki laughed too and her two younger sisters, Eleni and Constantina, sitting on the floor with their backs propped against their mother’s bed, giggled behind their hands. Three girls. One father already gone to work in Melbourne. One older sister to mother the two younger ones. This was her family.

  ‘Well.’ She spun around and her skirt twirled up a little. She watched the flowers on the fabric blur. Nervously, she patted down her ponytail. Vasiliki had also inherited her mother’s hair. Wiry and thick, uncontrollable. ‘I should go. Iliana will be waiting for me at the hall.’

  ‘You look so pretty, Vasiliki,’ Eleni said with a little-girl sigh.

  ‘Are you going to kiss a boy?’ Constantina asked and then the two young girls laughed.

  Dimitria raised her eyebrows and clicked her tongue. ‘Shoosh, you two cheeky ones. Now, listen here, my grown-up daughter. You stay with your friend, that Italian girl, and watch out. Especially with those Latvians. They’re way too handsome. All that blond hair.’

  ‘Mama,’ Vasiliki sighed, turning back to the mirror. She needn’t have tried to manufacture a blush in her cheeks. They were burning now.

  ‘And if you see Nikolas Longinidis, you dance with him. Or some of his friends. Find out if they have family in Melbourne, where your father is.’

  Vasiliki got the message loud and clear. A Greek boy. A good Greek boy.

  ‘There’s no point in falling in love at Bonegilla, Vasiliki. Those boys will be going one way and we will be going another. Wait until we get to where we’re going. Then you can find a good Greek husband.’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’ Vasiliki forced a smile and sighed, took the six steps to the bed and leaned down to kiss her mother on both cheeks. She patted each of her sisters on the head and then stepped out into the evening. Full of an excitement she couldn’t name in English—or in Greek—she walked the path between the huts, past row after row of pale green wooden buildings, past the toilet block and the laundry, pale hanging lights leaching into the darkness of the night, to the light shining in the distance in the hall next to the mess hall.

  The music pulsed in the distance and, when she was close enough, she walked past the men smoking outside, and stopped to peer through the steamy windows. Inside, there were colourful shapes, people milling about, laughing, happy. The music couldn’t be contained by the thin walls and it drew her inside, into
the crowd of people and the music and the laughter, and something shimmered inside her at the freedom of this moment.

  The room was big but the ceiling was low, with dark wooden beams that crossed from one wall to the other. On one wall, there were big painted pictures of kings and queens, in petticoats and puffy velvet sleeves and long hair in ringlets and sashes across their breasts. Red, white and blue decorations were strung underneath the portraits and at the top of the hall, behind the stage filled with musicians, was a portrait of a young lady with a crown on her head. That was the queen. Vasiliki knew that much. She turned to the front of the hall where the band was playing from a low stage. On the dance floor, couples were arm in arm, and the throb of the music seemed to echo in her chest. She couldn’t help a foot from tapping in time to the song.

  She loved to dance. She’d grown up with it. With almost any excuse—and sometimes none—people in her village back in Greece would dance. If there was food and retsina and then music, the men would roll up their sleeves and link together, arm to shoulder to arm, and begin to dance to the bouzouki. And then everyone else would join in, from the oldest yiayias and papous to their grandchildren learning the steps for the first time.

  She closed her eyes to hold the memories close. She missed the blue sky and the blue ocean and the heat and white-washed buildings and goats and her yiayia’s soup and olives and the fig tree next to her family’s house. Her grandparents were still in the village, and there were aunties and uncles and cousins, too. They had all waved goodbye when Vasiliki and her family had left the village.

  A hand on her shoulder. It was Iliana. They smiled at each other and linked arms, then moved to the edge of the dance floor so they could more closely watch the couples in their new suits and their best shoes, shuffling as the band played music from every nation represented at the camp.

  ‘There’s Elizabeta,’ Iliana said. She was on the other side of the dance floor, watching the couples, too. Her head moved in time with the music and there was even a smile in her eyes. Vasiliki hadn’t seen her smile much lately. Some people weren’t happy to have left home and come to Australia. She couldn’t be sure if Elizabeta’s family was happy to be here in Australia or not.