The Climate of Courage. Jon Cleary
face, the way he was smoothing his hair, the hand straightening his tie, told Jack that the girl could not be too bad. He had to take a chance, otherwise he might miss out and spend the rest of the night kicking himself.
He beat the corporal by a good two yards, without appearing to hurry, lazy and casual, the approach that had been so successful in the past. “Would you care to dance?”
She looked up at him, and he could guess at the disappointment of the corporal behind him. She was even better than he had expected, much better: with the all-out war effort, beauty standards had been raised in the leave centres. Perhaps her beauty had frightened away most of the other men, because a girl as good-looking as this must surely be booked for the night and she was just waiting for her boy-friend to arrive. Her face was an original one: nothing about it had been borrowed from film stars or cover girls or beauty salons. The bones were strong yet fine, and her skin glowed like a golden peach bursting with sun. Her mouth was heavy, but the lipstick covered only the natural outline of her lips: the passionate mouth couldn’t be wiped off with a handkerchief or a kiss. Her eyes were dark, too dark really for the colour of her hair, though the latter looked natural, and when she looked up at him they shone with a soft amused gleam under their heavy lids.
She nodded to the girl she had been talking to, and stood up. She was taller than he had expected, but not too tall; big though he was himself, he didn’t like women to look as if they could swing an axe or carry a banner at the head of an army.
The silver-haired girl was wearing a light grey jersey frock with short sleeves, and it showed off the deep tan she still retained from summer. It also showed off her body. With the blonde sleekness of her head and the deep tan he had somehow expected her to be the athletic type all the curves slim and firm and almost a little muscular. He had seen that type of girl in Russell Flint paintings and on the beaches, healthy and vital and always somehow a little disappointing, as if one knew all their passion had dried out with the exercise in the sun. But this girl was built like a woman, soft yet firm, and the sun had only kindled her passion.
“Do I pass?” She danced with a lazy sort of rhythm, as if her body was tired and she would rather be in bed.
He grinned, and they danced for a while, easily and well: they could have been old partners. “I’m Jack Savanna.”
“Silver Bendixter,” she said, and saw his eyebrows go up. “You have heard of me?”
“I used to read the Society columns in the Sunday papers in the Red Shield hut,” he said. “One read anything and everything in the Middle East.”
“Fame, fame.” She shook her head slowly and a lock of the blonde hair fell down. When she looked up again she was smiling and he was surprised at how soft and young-looking her face had become with its unexpected dimples. “Are you sure it was me you read about, or my mother or my sister?”
“It could have been all three. The Bendixters are pillars of Sydney Society, aren’t they?”
“Don’t sneer.”
“Forgive me. It’s my proletarian upbringing.” Then he said, “There was a fellow in our unit who knew you, or said he did. Tony Shelley.”
“A stinker, if ever there was one,” she said calmly. “A rat, and a friend of my sister.”
“I didn’t like him, either.” He twisted his head to look at the hand resting on his shoulder. “Are you engaged or anything?”
She held up bare fingers. “Or nothing. I’m completely unattached, if that will put your mind at rest. Were you thinking of proposing, or don’t the proletariat propose to pillars of Society?”
“Oh, we do, by all means. It’s the proletarian blood that keeps Society alive. But that wasn’t why I asked.”
She smiled. “Is something the matter, then?”
“Yes. A girl as beautiful as you shouldn’t be unattached. I’m prying into your private affairs and I’m unashamed about it, but have you lost a man in the war?”
“No. I’m just unattached, that’s all.”
There was a faint note of bitterness in her voice, but he didn’t comment on it. He decided he was going to learn all there was to know about this girl, and there would be time. He grinned down at her, liking the way her cheeks shadowed with the dimples as she smiled back, and he thanked his luck that dear dumb Rita had had a date with her “ant.”
“In The Mood” finished, then there was “Dolores.” After that a girl got up before the band and wailed that she didn’t “Wanna Set The World On Fire”; and didn’t. Songs hadn’t been particularly inspired during the war, and everyone was still waiting for something resembling the great favourites that had come out of the last war. The dance tempo had become bouncier since Jack had last danced in Sydney, and the floor quivered like the bruised back of some great beast. A sailor and a girl, both chewing gum as if gasping for air, jived in a corner, completely isolated in their own little world of twisted limbs, vibrating muscles and communion of intellect. A girl and a soldier went by, he plodding in his heavy boots as if on a route march and she doing her best to avoid being crippled. By a doorway an Australian private and an American corporal were arguing, the Australian red in the face and the American looking as if he wanted no part of the argument.
After the fourth dance she said, “We’re supposed to circulate. We girls, I mean.”
“Do you really want to dance with someone else?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Would you like to take me home, or would that spoil your evening?”
“I haven’t eaten yet. Have you?”
“Then we’ll have dinner together at home. I’ll get my coat.”
By a miracle he managed to get a cab, and twenty minutes later they drew up outside the Bendixter home in a quiet street in Darling Point. They pushed open the big iron gates and walked up the drive. A line of poplars supported the night sky and behind the house there was the dark mass of other trees. The house itself shone faintly in the starlight, white and square like some huge tomb.
“Not a bad place at all,” said Jack. “What is it, a branch of Parliament House?”
“It’s nothing much,” said Silver, “but we call it home.”
Jack stopped and looked at the house. “It’s top heavy. It looks as if someone got big ideas only after the foundations were down.”
“Are you always so critical of the homes of girls you meet?”
“The only other girl I’ve taken home lived in a tent,” he said. “She was a Bedouin I met in Gaza.”
“I must be a disappointment. Your life’s been so full of romance.”
They went up the steps to a terrace and crossed to the front door. Silver took out her key.
“No butler?” said Jack. “Not even a maid?”
“Nobody at all. We have a cook and a maid, and a gardener who doubles as chauffeur. But they’re all down at our place at Bowral at present. They’ll be back to-morrow, when my mother comes home. In the meantime, there’s just my sister and me—and God knows where she is.”
Inside the hall, with the light on, Jack looked around at the sumptuous furnishings. “All this from a few mob of sheep, eh?”
“And timber and mines and shipping and a hundred other things.” She tossed her coat on a chair and led the way out to the back of the house. “My dad was a fine man, but he couldn’t help making money. He liked making it, but he made too much. In the end we were the only ones who knew how good and kind he could be. Nobody has any time for the rich in this country.” She looked back at him as they entered a large gleaming kitchen. “Or am I offending a member of the proletariat?”
“You’re talking to an ex-rich man’s son,” he said. “Your father would have known my old man.