Love in the Years of Lunacy by Mandy Sayer Page A

arrived, she probably wouldn’t be feeling this way.
    Pearl made an effort to be welcoming, ordering them cups of wine. She asked Roma polite questions about her family and hometown, and learned that she was the daughter of a stockman, and had been harnessing horses from the age of five. This was her first trip to Sydney.
    Pearl asked her what it was like to be a hostess at the Booker T. Washington Club, but before Roma could answer, Martin butted in, ‘You know, Pearl met her boyfriend there the other night—James, the sax player.’
    This was followed by an awkward silence. Pearl looked into her teacup and swilled the wine around in it, as if she might glimpse her future in the dregs. It was bad enough that James hadn’t turned up, but seeing Roma and Martin so happy together made her even more miserable. The piano player began packing up his sheet music and the owner called for last drinks. Had she offended James somehow? Embarrassed him? She recalled how he had pulled away from her in the tunnel in the Rocks. Maybe he thought she was too forward.
    Pearl raised her hand for the bill. Or maybe Nora’s suspicion was right.
    Since they only worked at night, Pearl and Martin spent their days helping their father build the air-raid shelter in the basement. As she helped Aub pour cement and lay bricks, Pearl mentioned that she wanted a new saxophone for her eighteenth birthday, but the request was met with a grunt and a long silence. Money was tight, she knew that, but she’d had to try at least once.
    The days passed slowly and she found James entering her thoughts repeatedly, like a recurring dream. It had been five nights since their evening at Luna Park and still she hadn’t heard from him. She’d tried ringing him at the Booker T. Washington Club from the one telephone at the Trocadero, but the receptionist always reported that he was unavailable. What if he didn’t want to see her again? What if he’d been transferred to another state and hadn’t bothered to let her know? What if he’d met another girl—someone black like him?
    As she swept up dust and mixed cement she yearned for a telegram boy to arrive with a message. Whenever she heard the doorbell’s trill echoing through the house she dropped whatever she was holding and ran up the basement stairs, only to discover another inquisitive neighbour who’d heard about the shelter she and her family were building and had come to see it for themselves. She would just have to face the fact; it was over. And it had barely even begun.

4
    B y the morning of her birthday, Pearl still hadn’t heard from him. When her father asked what time her guest was arriving she just shrugged. Days before, she’d explained to her parents that their bridge-playing friend, James, had mentioned how lonely he was—being so far from home, and that she and Martin had invited him over for a home-cooked meal.
    While Pearl’s love affair had faltered, Martin’s romance with Roma seemed to be progressing well, but Roma had made it clear that she was in no hurry to meet her beau’s parents. She’d grown up in the bush, wary of white people. ‘It’s not that I don’t like them,’ she’d explained to Martin. ‘I just don’t know how to act when I’m around them.’
    Pearl realised it was probably just as well. Their father wouldn’t say much about his son dating an Aborigine—in fact, the man was so easygoing he probably wouldn’t mind if Martin brought home Siamese twins and announced that he was in love with them both. Their mother, however, was a different matter: far more religious, and more conscious of the family’s reputation in the local community. Clara wouldn’t deliberately offend Roma, Pearl knew, but she’d probably embarrass the girl without even trying.
    Towards lunchtime, the twins’ favourite orchestra, Artie Shaw’s Navy Band, was