We That Are Left Read online

  WE THAT ARE LEFT

  LISA BIGELOW’S life revolves around story-telling. Her career as a journalist and communicator has focused on building and delivering compelling stories about people, environmental sustainability, climate change and the events that shape our lives. She recently completed a Masters Degree in Communication and aims to use her writing to illuminate important issues and make them accessible to a wide readership. Lisa has been an avid reader from age five and now as an adult she’s delighted to be adding her voice to the bookshelves. We That Are Left is her first novel.

  First published in 2017

  Copyright © Lisa Bigelow 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 9781760297008

  eISBN 9781760639310

  Internal design by Romina Panetta

  Set by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane

  Cover design: Romina Panetta

  Cover photographs: © Ilina Simeonova / Trevillion Images; © Efim Shevchenko / Trevillion Images; iStock

  CONTENTS

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTER 1

  * * *

  March 1941

  GRACE FOWLER STEPPED OFF the tram and stared for several moments at the granite façade of the newspaper building. It looked like a film set, like something from a Torchy Blane movie. The four-storey building loomed over the railway yards and a busy intersection, its bulk covering an entire block at the edge of the city. Soaring columns and huge windows added to the sense of stately grandeur above the brass entry and three garages, now swallowing a fleet of trucks returning from delivering The Gazette, the biggest-selling morning tabloid in Melbourne. In a few hours, those same trucks would emerge with the first editions of The Tribune, just in time for the lunch crowds. The final editions would be printed for people catching trains and trams home from work.

  Somewhere behind the loading bay, giant presses ran around the clock, ten or maybe twenty times the size of the press at her father’s paper in Benalla. Right now, teams of printers would be turning gigantic rolls of blank newsprint into papers and magazines. It was magic, just like the morning milk and bread deliveries; people hardly ever thought about the work that brought them to their doorstep, but they noticed if they weren’t there.

  Grace smoothed her best maroon gabardine suit and gripped her brown leather handbag extra tightly as she stepped off the footpath and crossed the road. A man in a dark green uniform doffed his cap and smiled as she entered the building.

  After signing in and pinning a visitor’s pass to her lapel, Grace stepped into the lift with half a dozen men of different ages. No one spoke but she wished they would, anything to distract her racing thoughts. Mr Barton. News Editor. Mr Barton. News Editor. She was sure of his name and title, but she worried her mind would go blank when she met him. Not that it had ever happened before, but she’d seen it in a film once—which one was it? No matter. First impressions count for everything. The teachers at secretarial college had drummed that into her.

  The lift operator slid the metal door open then pushed aside the grille, and she and most of the men exited. Grace followed the men around the corner and through the door marked Editorial to find a sea of desks covered in typewriters, paper, books, newspapers and telephones. A few near the back were occupied by older men who looked rumpled and tired, as if they’d been there all night. The air smelled of stale cigarettes and sandwiches.

  ‘Miss Fowler, I presume?’ A man looked at her across a clutter of papers on a desk twice the size of the ones in front of her. His desk was just inside the entrance, right where he could see everyone in the newsroom and, more importantly, within shouting distance, if he was anything like the news editors she’d met before. At her nod, he said, ‘Sam Barton.’

  He looked pleasant enough, more like a businessman than the dishevelled, big-bellied newsmen she’d grown up with. His neatly combed light brown hair had just a hint of grey near the temples. He looked a bit younger than her father but of a similar vintage, mid-forties or so. FATHERLY NEWS EDITOR GREETS NEW SECRETARY. Her headline for that moment.

  ‘You’ll be sitting behind me.’ Mr Barton waved to a smaller desk with several overflowing in- and out-trays, two telephones (both ringing) and a typewriter. A bank of filing cabinets lined the wall behind her desk. ‘My secretary’s on leave and we don’t know if she’ll be back. Until we can arrange something more permanent I’ll need you to handle all the usual things; answering the phone, managing my calendar, checking the wires, filing, keeping people out of my hair. You’ll get to know which people as you go along. You’ve done this before?’

  Grace nodded, trying to quell her disappointment and focus on what her new boss was saying. Of course she would have preferred a reporting role, and for just a few exciting moments, before she’d understood why he was phoning, that’s exactly what she’d thought he was offering.

  ‘Any questions?’

  She shook her head. ‘That all sounds quite straightforward, Mr Barton,’ she said, surprised that she managed to sound so professional. I can do this, she told herself as she removed her gloves and placed her handbag in her desk drawer. She sat and opened a notebook, retrieved a pencil from a holder and answered the first of the ringing telephones.

  ‘Newsroom. Miss Fowler speaking.’

  Was that right? Should she give the name of the organisation first? No, these calls were all coming through the switchboard. Maybe she should answer with Mr Barton’s name? After all, that’s probably who people were calling—but they’d need her name so they knew who to address in the first place. She tried without success to remember what she’d been told at secretarial college. She took a different approach with the next call.

  ‘Good afternoon—oh, I mean m
orning, sorry. Mr Barton’s office, Grace Fowler speaking.’

  NEW SECRETARY DOESN’T EVEN KNOW THE TIME OF DAY. Take a breath, slow your speech, annunciate more clearly while callers get used to your voice, she reminded herself. Writing down the second caller’s message and preparing to answer the next call, Grace glanced across the newsroom, straight into the face of—Gary Cooper? Well, not quite the movie star, but close enough. Nodding slowly, his broad smile revealed pearly teeth and creased the corners of his sparkling eyes. He was leaning against a desk, arms folded casually across his chest. His suit jacket outlined the shoulders and torso of an athlete, perfectly triangular.

  He pushed himself away from the desk and walked towards her, his gaze fixed on hers. At least she thought it was, but perhaps he was looking at someone behind her? She quickly turned her head; no one there. As he approached, Grace blushed harder and faster than she ever had at school when Mick Foster walked past.

  ‘Phil Taylor, senior sports writer,’ he said, offering her his hand. His grip was warm and firm.

  ‘Grace Fowler,’ Grace replied, a little breathlessly.

  ‘Sam’s been looking forward to your arrival. I hope you don’t mind working long hours.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Grace said. ‘Newsrooms are my favourite place in the world.’

  ‘That’s right, he said you’d been a secretary for a country paper.’

  ‘Reporter.’

  ‘A reporter? Well, well. That’s something you don’t hear every day—a girl reporter.’

  ‘I have every intention of changing that,’ Grace said shyly. ‘Hearing about women reporters, I mean.’

  ‘I look forward to watching your progress, Miss Fowler. Meanwhile, if you need to know where anything is, just sing out.’

  Grace watched Phil walk back to his desk. He hadn’t seemed to be mocking her, but maybe she’d been a little too forthcoming. She’d dreamed of a reporting career on a city paper for most of her life, but none of these people knew that. Best to keep her ambitions to herself, at least until she’d learned to properly answer the phone.

  CHAPTER 2

  * * *

  March 1941

  THE WOODEN DOOR OF the cuckoo clock in the lounge room flipped open and the mechanical bird tweeted seven times. The maniacal cuckoo, Harry called it. Mae Parker smiled as a motorcycle approached the cottage and growled to a stop outside. Exactly on time, as though he’d waited up the street to make a grand entrance.

  Mae had spent the day cleaning and dusting the cottage from cupboard top to wooden floor. The previously overflowing bookcase in the hallway was now sorted, with extra books stashed in boxes beneath the bed in the spare room. That room would become the nursery when the baby was old enough to leave her bedside, but for the moment it was filled with Harry’s tennis racquets, golf clubs, easel, canvases and paints. Cradling her enormous belly with one arm, she waddled to the kitchen, lifted the roasting pan into the oven then glanced down to check she was wearing shoes rather than slippers. Finally she whipped off her apron and smoothed her blonde hair. Perfect.

  ‘There’s my Sunny,’ Harry said, bounding through the back door a moment later and hugging her close.

  She filled her lungs with his scent; leather riding jacket mingled with hair oil and cigarette smoke. She’d be perfectly happy to stay in exactly this configuration—lips together, his arms holding her tight against his chest—until they both shrivelled to dust, she thought.

  ‘It’s true,’ he said, loosening his hold and leaning back against the kitchen sink. ‘All those comments about a mother’s glow. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but you’ve grown even prettier than when we met.’

  ‘You’d flatter any woman cooking your favourite dinner.’

  She kissed him again and smiled, trying to appear carefree, but searching his expression for any hint of disappointment with her shape.

  ‘You’re the pin-up girl of expectant motherhood, Mrs Parker. I’m going to draw you this weekend, capture you in all your splendour.’

  ‘Now, you’re just teasing,’ Mae said, stepping away and shelling peas into a saucepan.

  He leaned over and stroked her stomach. ‘Clothes on or off, I don’t mind.’

  Mae shivered. He’d asked so many times to draw her naked, but she’d never allowed it. Once she’d let him draw her in bed, while she was naked under the sheets, yet even though she trusted him completely, she couldn’t bear the thought of him studying her body that way. Seeing all her flaws; her broad hips, her swollen ankles, her enormous bosom.

  ‘You can draw me in my new smock,’ she said. ‘I’ve given up letting things out.’

  ‘You’d look beautiful in a potato sack,’ he said, arching backwards to stretch against the sink.

  ‘Sore?’

  ‘Just tired from hunching over the handlebars. Nothing to slow me down.’

  Mae eased her hips forward to stretch her own back. Harry watched her carefully, his expression serious. It was exactly the look she’d been dreading—the look that always accompanied news about a new posting. The first time she’d seen it they moved to Sydney; the last time they’d moved back to Melbourne.

  ‘Darling, did you hear that Jim’s ship is home?’ he asked slowly.

  Mae held her breath for a moment before answering. ‘I saw it on the newsreel with Et. Alice wrote that she expects him any day now.’

  ‘They’re all pretty exhausted, I hear, after all that action in the Mediterranean.’

  ‘Alice says he thrived on it,’ said Mae, turning to rinse the peas under the tap. ‘A real Boy’s Own adventure, he called it.’

  ‘Well, the Italians certainly won’t forget the ship that sunk one of their best. And that crew—a real red-hot bunch.’ Harry plunged on. ‘But some of the more experienced men are leaving. The new fellows in the engine room need training.’

  In the six years they’d been married and their two years courting he’d had three sea postings. Last time he was at sea she’d lost their baby. She’d lost two more before that one. Each time she’d only been a few months along but it had still been devastating. This pregnancy she’d been much happier having Harry training engineers at the naval college about seventy-five miles away, well clear of battles on the other side of the world.

  Mae carefully sliced the carrots and potatoes and arranged them flat edge down in the roasting pan. Harry loved his roast vegetables slightly burned on one side only; he said they reminded him of toffee apples. The smell of lamb filled the kitchen while a jug of mint sauce steeped on the freshly wiped windowsill. Dinner was still an hour away.

  ‘I—I received my orders. I’m heading to Perth to get the blokes up to speed. Just for six months. A year at the most.’

  Mae started washing dishes. ‘When are you leaving?’ she asked without looking at him.

  ‘There’s a train on Monday night.’

  She stopped washing and let her head drop forward. ‘Europe or Africa?’

  ‘Neither…for the moment, anyway. The ship copped a bit of damage overseas. They’re fixing her up then we’ll do some escort work up the coast and into Singapore.’

  Moving in behind her, Harry pulled Mae towards him so that her head nestled under his collarbone. ‘You know this posting is a dream come true for me,’ he said softly. ‘It could lead to promotions and a wonderful life for all of us.’

  Mae turned to face him and tilted her head to look at his straight black hair, his sea blue eyes. She forced her lips into a smile. ‘They’ll be lucky to have you aboard.’

  ‘Now we have three things to celebrate,’ he said. ‘My posting, our anniversary and our lovely daughter.’

  ‘I thought you wanted a boy,’ Mae said, trying to sound bright.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind. Do you think it’s too late to put in an order for a girl? Of course I don’t really care, but if we do have a girl, we could call her Myrna, after Myrna Loy in the films. I think Myrna’s a lovely name, don’t you?’

  ‘Didn’t we agree on R
onald for a boy and Katherine for a girl?’

  She tried to relax as he ran his fingers slowly up and down her spine.

  ‘Well, since you’re doing all the hard work, you should choose any name you want, although I’d prefer we didn’t call our son Gareth. There was a dreadful bully at my school with that name.’

  ‘I don’t think all Gareths are bullies.’

  ‘Can’t risk it. Look at that Hitler fellow. How many nice Adolfs do you know?’

  ‘I’m not sure you’ve proved your point but I promise not Gareth—oh! He just kicked me. I think he’s upset.’

  ‘Maybe he’s tired,’ Harry whispered in her ear. ‘Perhaps we should lie down while dinner’s cooking.’

  Later that night Mae sat on the bed with Harry’s head in her lap. As she stroked his hair, she tried not to think about him leaving.

  He traced his finger across her stomach.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll both be all right?’

  The clock seemed to tick more loudly than usual in the lounge room. She silently reminded herself never to criticise or make him feel guilty, to make sure he always had every reason to come home. ‘We’ll be fine,’ she said, sealing her words with a reassuring smile.

  ‘Et wrote that the family’s terribly worried about you being here on your own,’ he said. ‘You must promise you’ll stay with them after I leave.’

  ‘Claire’s just up the street. She knows much more about having babies than Et does. She’s expecting another, in September.’

  ‘Even so, I’d rather you were with your family,’ he insisted.

  ‘All right, in a few more weeks,’ Mae said. ‘But we need to get a cot and a pram organised for when we come home.’

  ‘Goodo. Let’s go into town tomorrow. We can order the cot and pram in the morning, then we’ll go to a matinee. What do you want to see, Sunny? Anything you like.’

  ‘There’s a new production of Madame Butterfly at the Regent. The paper described it as witty and colourful.’