I was common as.
He wasn’t. He smelled like peppermint, his hat sat at an angle and weren’t shiny from age.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty,” I lied. “You?”
“Twenty-two,” he said. “Not many customers.”
He picked up the gum, turned it around, set it down. His fingernails were neat, with no dirt under them.
“They’re at work, if they’ve got it, and if they don’t, they’re out looking or still asleep.”
“What kind of work?”
“Making clothes or at the brewery. No one’ll be in here for hours.”
“Fortunate for us.”
Fortunate. He was dead posh.
“You talk funny,” I said. “Like the movies. Whatcha doing here?”
He leaned forward to whisper, “I’m lost.”
I giggled.
He saluted. “Joshua P. Desmond Irving the Third. At your service.”
“The Third? You an African king, then?”
“If I am, will you kiss me?”
Me face got hot and other bits of me too. “I’ll kiss ya either way,” I said, and I did.
He tasted like vanilla and laughter. He made me heart beat so fast I was woozy.
When we walked down the street together I was dead proud. Joshua was handsomer than any of the Hills fellas.
I didn’t mind Tiny Bruce yelling at us.
Johnno O’Rourke.
Tommy Newton too.
Calling us a bunch of names I’d never heard.
They said it weren’t natural, us being together. Me Irish, him dark.
But I reckon they was jealous.
Joshua tightened his hand on mine and muttered about this godforsaken city in this godforsaken country.
He didn’t like the Hills. He didn’t like Sydney. He didn’t like Australia.
I reckoned they was all right but I’d never been nowhere else.
Three weeks after he startled me out of me daydream, he pulled me into a new one: Joshua asked me to scarper with him.
“Too right, I will.”
I kissed Ma goodbye. I thought she was gunna be filthy but all she said was, “Send us some jingle soon as youse get some.”
I weren’t gunna miss her neither. She weren’t much of a mum and we was skint. Four of us in one room: Ma, her latest fella, the new baby, me, and only me with steady work.
Her new fella was handsy. Wouldn’t miss him a bit.
I’d’ve gone anywhere with anyone. But someone as dreamy as Joshua? That were a bloody miracle.
He told me not to bring any clothes. He’d sort it.
On the boat he told me about his home, Harlem.
I’d never heard of it.
He told me about his people promenading along the avenue—Seventh Avenue, that is—in their Sunday best, wearing furs, hats, gloves, strutting and striving.
“Furs?” I asked, though I wanted to know what strutting and striving was. “Like in the movies?”
“Like in the movies.”
Everyone danced to jazz in nightclubs.
People in the Hills danced to jigs on sawdust-floored pubs, then, after six o’clock closing, out on the street.
“Is jazz like a jig?”
“A little bit,” he said, but I could tell it wasn’t. Joshua was laughing at me. I didn’t mind. He could do anything he liked long as he didn’t send me back to the Hills.
“They won’t mind me not being dark like you?”
“You’ll be black.”
I stared. I was an Irish bluey: red hair, green eyes, porridge-pale, freckle-coated skin.
“No one’s gunna believe I’m black. Look at me freckles!”
“My freckles.” He pointed at his nose and cheeks. “What are these?”
“They ain’t freckles like mine.”
“Don’t say ain’t.”
What else were I supposed to say?
“Sorry, Dulcie,” he said, kissing my cheek. “Habit. Bad habit. It’s just, well, if you don’t want to seem common, you shouldn’t talk common.”
I was common.
Irish too. I couldn’t decide to be a whole different Dulcie cause Joshua said so. Though I’d give it me best if it’d keep him from chucking me.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Being white is a state of mind.”
“Huh? White? I’m Irish. Me ma’s people are from county Cork.”
Joshua laughed. “Black Irish. People see what they want to: curly hair and sugar lips. There’s your one drop.”
One drop of what?
Joshua gave me a ring on the boat. He had a matching one for himself.
“We’re married now.” He kissed me. “Hello, Mrs. Dulcie Irving.”
I knew we wasn’t. You need a proper ceremony and government papers for that.
“That mean I’m Mrs. Dulcie Irving the Third now?”
He laughed so hard his hat fell off.
On the boat, we washed daily. Sometimes more. Heaven.
He taught me to dance fancy. Like the Castles. The dresses he bought me flared.
“This is fun,” I shouted as we twirled.
“It is, isn’t?” He was beaming. I could see my smile reflected in his eyes.
We was on that boat forever.
He give me loads of books, explaining the words I didn’t know: capitalism, audacious, angst, juxtaposition, algebra, discombobulated.
He told me how they come from the Latin! German! French! Arabic!
“Pyjamas was originally a Persian word. Or possibly Urdu. Isn’t that extraordinary?”
“Yes,” I breathed, kissing him, tasting his enthusiasm.
I’d never heard any of those languages, saving German. The Schwartzes on Devonshire talked Kraut.
Joshua had to show me on a map where all those places were, where America was and Australia too, and the giant ocean in between, holding the boat afloat.
Africa, Joshua said, pointing to it, was where black people come from. Europe was white people’s homeland. Joshua pointed to Ireland in Europe. It was tiny. Being from Ireland meant I was also from Europe, which made me white. Except that when we got to Harlem, he wanted me to be black.
I’d never been white or black before. I wanted to stay Irish.
While I tried to read, stumbling over every third word, Joshua wrote. He had a typing machine that was loud as thunder.
The noise did me head in, so I’d go out on the deck with one of his books, read a few pages. Soon I’d be watching the waves, and the book would be in me lap.
Saw a whale that way. Its tail sticking up glossy from the water.
“A whale,” he said when I told him, smiling at this impossible thing.
