The soldiers were the heroes of the hour and were patted on the back so often they got hand-shaped bruises up and down their spines. No shop owners argued when the soldiers told them to close up and celebrate. But the tram supervisors insisted the trams keep to schedule, though how they could when Sturt Street was blocked from one end to the other by the throng and the soldiers stepped onto the trams and took the controllers’ keys and hid them so the trams were forced to stop and the conductors happily joined the party. The police later had to negotiate the return of the keys from where they were stashed at the Soldiers Institute. Hats flew in the sky like escaping budgerigars and the brass band played ‘Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag’ and everyone sang along at the top of their lungs and then the band played ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and everyone knew the words to that one too. Then they went back to ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’.
Edie held thirteen-year-old Gracie’s hand tightly as they were bumped along in the crowd. She looked over her shoulder regularly to make sure Gracie was okay as bodies pressed against bodies in the throng and bells and whistles shrilled in her ears. Her blood rushed through her body making her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright. She couldn’t help smiling and laughing, swept up in the joy that encompassed the entire town. The happiness made Maud Blackmarsh lean over and kiss Milton Blackmarsh firmly and lingeringly smack on his lips and she hadn’t done that in a good twenty years. When she finally pulled away he went back in for another kiss. Happiness ran through the earth and into the mines making the gold nuggets sparkle and if miners had been down there they could have plucked them from the earth with their fingers. But the miners were drinking beer in the street and clinking glasses with each other and cheering the girls who gave them kisses, even if they were married. The happiness filled the trees and the sun held back its heat, making it an extremely pleasant day to spend on the streets with everyone else in town. The band started playing ‘Tiger Rag’, men grabbed whichever girl was nearest and swung them wildly, pulled them in tight and then swung them out again and people pressed back to make room for the dancers. Edie and Gracie were swept away from each other. Edie frantically looked for Gracie and caught a glimpse of her laughing as a boy twirled her in his arms.
Suddenly Edie was swung out and in and then the soldier who had danced her away took both her hands in his and his feet tripped here and there in the air and she tried to keep up. He swung her out and his fingers waved in the air, he swung her in and under his arm and out again. He pulled her to him and clasped both her hands in his, their fingers entwined. He spun her around and his chest was pressed to her back as they danced, her feet not quite touching the ground as he carried her weight.
Then she was facing him again and she could see all the happiness she had ever known caught in the blue shine of his eyes. When the music stopped they bent over, laughing. Before Edie caught her breath he pulled her to him, took her face in his hands and gently kissed her lips. She was thirty-two and had never been kissed like this and she never wanted it to stop. Without thinking she gave herself to it and when he finally pulled away, a soft sigh escaped from her heart and he heard it and smiled, as though he knew all there was to know about her.
That knowing smile pulled her to her senses and she put her hands on her hips and tried to look offended.
He didn’t apologise, he leant in and whispered in her ear, ‘You looked so beautiful,’ and he took her hand and shook it vigorously. ‘Virgil. Perhaps I should have introduced myself before I kissed you,’ and he laughed. Above the noise and music and bells, he yelled, ‘What the hell,’ and pulled her to him and kissed her again and she didn’t think another kiss could be better than the first one but it was and too soon it was over and he was standing back and she tried to steady herself. He handed her a card.
Mister Virgil Ainsworth
Lessons in Motor Vehicle Driving
Attend 305 Windermere Street
‘My new business,’ he shouted over the noise as he walked away. ‘I lose the uniform next week. I could teach you.’
Edie stood in the middle of the crowd, no longer hearing the noise or feeling the people jostling against her. It was just her, standing in the middle of nowhere, holding his card.
Suddenly Gracie, puffing and red in the cheeks, was standing in front of her and that pulled Edie back into this world.
‘What are you grinning at?’ she asked. ‘Stop it, Gracie. Stop that right now.’
But Gracie couldn’t stop giggling and smiling at Edie.
‘I saw it all,’ she said between her chuckles.
‘There was nothing to see,’ said Edie, and she took her notebook out of her skirt pocket and slipped the business card inside.
Away from the crowd, watching everything but not a part of it, Paul turned and softly kissed Lilly and she closed her eyes and shut out the rest of the world.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been kissed like this by a man. It must have been thirty-one years ago when she was thirty-three, when Theo was just twelve years old. It must have been the morning her gentle Peter, who she had married despite her parents’ protests, despite everyone telling her she would be nursing him in
