Love in the Years of Lunacy by Mandy Sayer Read Free Book Online Page B

puff. ‘While Pearl and Nora wanted to go to Luna Park.’
    Pearl was so in awe of Martin’s effortless fibbing, she had to stop herself from slapping him on the back and bursting into laughter.
    â€˜Oh?’ said Clara. ‘And what movie did you see?’
    â€˜ Keep ’em Flying . Abbott and Costello,’ replied Martin automatically. ‘State Theatre. When the bombs started going off me and the Negro thought they were part of the show. That’s until the screen went black and the ushers herded everyone down to the basement.’ Martin casually flicked the ash from his cigarette and inhaled again. ‘We stayed there all night. Singing sea shanties.’
    He looked at Pearl pointedly and grinned. And she beamed back with gratitude. ‘And me and Nora,’ added Pearl, ‘we stayed in the Tumblebug all night. We were too scared to move until the sun came up.’
    Aub nodded and took Pearl’s hand. ‘Good idea, love. At least you’re safe.’
    Clara sighed and shook her head. ‘Well, let’s get you two in front of the fire. Before you catch your death of cold.’ She bustled the twins and Aub through the front door and into the warmth of the parlour, where their grandmother, Lulu, was dozing in a rocking chair and Mikey Michaels was drawing a picture of a burning boat.
    Aub turned on the radio for a news update. The reader’s voice was low and grim as he read the latest report: Early the night before, three Japanese midget submarines had entered the harbour. They’d been able to escape detection by the magnetic indicator loop installed on the harbour floor. For several hours they’d cruised beneath the passing ferries. No precautions had been taken to black out the city because, at the time, there was no reason to assume that Sydney was under threat. Even the naval base, Garden Island, had sat like an open target, with hundreds of arc lamps flooding the harbour until they were finally extinguished. By then, however, it was too late, as Pearl so vividly remembered.
    She realised that the Pacific war had never before edged so close to Australia’s biggest city but, as she digested the news, she felt oddly detached from the growing danger. Sure, it was a genuine threat on her city’s doorstep, but that same threat had also brought James into her life, and she knew intuitively she would never have had one without the other.
    The following day, as Pearl walked the wet streets of Kings Cross, she began to grow wary of the war again, especially when she heard the rumours which were spreading over shop counters, from open window to open window, over front gates and through paling fences. The story was that the surviving Japanese had escaped their submarines and were hiding in buildings at the lower end of Wylde Street, just around the corner from where she and her family lived. The enemy could attack at any moment.
    â€˜They’d bloody well better not!’ she said to the fruit stall owner on Macleay Street who was rushing to pack up, throwing his produce into wooden crates. She certainly didn’t want a bunch of invaders—or, indeed, anyone—interrupting her romance with Private James Washington.
    She arrived home to find her street cluttered with trucks and vans. They were loaded with furniture and clothes from flats and bedsits. Sofas were strapped to the roofs of cars; chair legs poked out of windows; pots, pans, gramophones, side tables and armoires were being thrown onto the backs of horse-drawn carts, in spite of the heavy rain. Everyone, it seemed, was intent on escaping the Japanese threat by moving to the Blue Mountains and beyond, to Lithgow, to Mudgee, even as far as Bourke.
    Clara, instead of making arrangements to move, signed up for the local chapter of the Sydney People’s Army, which gathered in the hall of Plunkett Street School, in Woolloomooloo. Around sunset, she returned home to boast that she’d