‘War or no war we must have music!’ an American marine trombonist shouted into the cheering audience, before blowing his horn to start the festivities, and holy moly, boy could they play.
There’s a photo of Billy and I together on that day before I met him. We are both stood outside St Peters Hall, he leaning on the weatherboard corner, and me nearby, besotted by the whole experience. Both of us look somewhat standoffish, a little way from the crowd of onlookers that had come to see the big American swing band playing on the footpath. Everyone was out in force, a celebration to remember, the music vibrating through our village with all the children smashing tambourines and wooden shakers given to them by the marines. Later that afternoon, I would hear Billy playing the piano long after everyone had gone and wander in to see who the last man standing was. I found out he had been in recovery over the hill, but the rhythm was beginning to rise up again in his fingers, his trembling hands dusting the keys lightly, but beautifully. It was my job to lock up the hall but I was all butterflies and nervousness, too shy to ask him to leave, so I sat on the stage fanning my face, spellbound by his songs, and mesmerized by the boy in full uniform on such a scorching day.
The Americans are celebrating an early Thanksgiving far from home and Nan is making cheese scones for the whole platoon, every able-bodied villager is. The aroma of baking from all the local houses fills our jam packed streets with comfort and kindness. Us girls deliver them down to the camps on our bikes, still soft from the oven, we have butter melting in our wicker baskets, small cubes which will be cut in half and half again, enough to feed all the ravenous doughboys. The whole town is involved, we do what we can, god willing.
At the barracks the yanks surround us with flashy white teeth smiles and rolling accents. They are all gracious and courteous, gifting us nylons and chocolate in exchange for washing and ironing their uniforms. I hardly speak but the other bolder girls are laughing and flirting wildly, tossing their ragdoll curls over their shoulders, sending big grins and girlish chortles right back.
‘Coming to the hall tonight?’ The marines all ask in unison, hoping to secure a dance card for the evening.
‘Yes yes yes!’ The girls answer with confidence, it’s all too good to be true, even if some have promised themselves to our kiwi lads, this is now and the present is all anyone has.
‘You want to get yourself one of those doughboys, Sylvie’ Nan says ‘think ahead to the future, a new life abroad!’
‘No thank you Nan, I want to stay here with you.’
‘Well you can’t sit around here waiting for an old lady to die in her sleep, you know I had an American lover once, best time of my life. Go out to a dance girl! Give those delightful young men a chance.’
It’s true they are all charming, and chomping at the bit to impress us, my neighbour Betty says they are a hoot to boot and tells me wonderful stories over the fence,
‘Sylvie they can jive and foxtrot all night!’ It seems we don’t have the same curfews they have in the city and the good old times are rolling up their sleeves in our small seaside town. Paraparaumu and Waikanae are dry, but joyously Paekākāriki has a liquor license. The rumour was those who wanted respectable relations had to head north, but those who wanted wine, women and song were to tiki tour south to us.
On the ride home from the kai delivery I bravely ask,
‘Who was the one at the back, the quiet one?’
‘Oh that’s Billy, they call him Clark Gable!’ one of the ladies says as we ride through the park with the warm late spring winds at our back.
‘Why do they call him that?’
‘Jeez Louise Sylvie look at those dreamy blue eyes, he looks like a movie star. He’s got some problems though, just out of Silverstream, hallucinations from the fever dreams.’
‘A little yellow, but I must say, still a very handsome fellow!’ says another local girl as she glides past giggling. ‘Come tonight Sylvie!’
She comes for me later in the evening with a nineteen twenties silver-fringed flapper dress of her mothers.
‘We’re going! Think of it as an act of service, these boys are so far from home!’
‘Okay okay,’ I say and put on the sequined dress, Nan hands me her rabbit fur coat and we waltz out the door in a dusting of pink face powder and patchouli perfume.
We can hear the thunderous heels of hundreds of marines in full swing stomping down the wooden floor and spilling out of our dance hall. Little did I know I would fall head over heels for one of the ‘handsome fellows.’ They are here in the land of milk and honey, to protect us and practise jungle marching and amphibious landings, but they end up sweeping us Kiwi lass off our feet. We are all bedazzled by their offerings of corsages, sweet oranges, and irresistible manners.
Clark Gable stands outside, drinking coffee straight out of an old olive oil can, I note his skin is indeed tinged with a very pale yellow, he no doubt sees me as an easy target floating around on the fringes.
‘Would you like to take a walk?’ That American accent made me swoon like a lady in waiting.
‘Sure thing’ stumbles off of my skittish tongue. We go to the nearby beach and gentle waves lap beside us as we walk along in near silence.
‘How do you like the chicory?’ I ask.
‘Bitter,’ he laughs, ‘but I can drink again tomorrow.’
‘You don’t like to dance?’
‘Oh I love to dance, but I’m just getting over a bout of malaria, it’s my first night out. Doc said I had to wait ten days before I do anything too…ah energetic’ he says with a smile so sparkling I am momentarily stunned.
‘Oh’ I reply, blushing. ‘Well I’m afraid village life is not quite the big city lights.’
‘Shall we go tomorrow?’
‘Where?’
‘Into the big city lights?’ those vibrant bright eyes swimming right through me inquisitively, piercing my heart like a bow and arrow.
A shy girl all my life, and having sworn off boys after a teenage crush had fizzled into nothing, I instantly felt so at home with Billy, like I had known him forever, he cracked my guarded exterior easily like a speckled birds egg straight out of the nest. In that moment all boundaries fell by the wayside, I would have said yes to anything, just to see him again but I mumbled,
‘I look after my Nan?’
‘I’ll come for you after she’s asleep, we can get the late train?’
‘Well, she will definitely want to meet you, so you better come early, for a cup of tea.’
***
‘Nau-Mai, Haere mai, Amerikana! Welcome, welcome Billy, would you like a drink?’ Billy sat down with my Nan that night and talked for three hours straight. I fell quietly in love with him as he sat on her worn out old sofa covered in crochet cushions, listening to stories of her childhood in Aōtearoa. He in turn played her old piano like a one man orchestra, she was enthralled, joining in to sing when he played Dancing Cheek to Cheek, her hand on her chest, his hands on her ivory keys. He was patient and kind and if I hadn’t dragged him out the door to catch the last train to Wellington, he would have settled in for the rest of the evening. He promised to come by the next night for a good old fashioned Kiwi meal. Nan hugged him for a long time.
‘You must be missing your Muma.’
‘Very much so ma’am.’
Wellington Station was grand. I thought it was all fabulous lit up with coloured festoon lights, and the late train was full of dashing young Americans wanting a good time, all so joyous and singing Santa Claus is coming to Town. It was total fanfare and carnival in the city, with many young ladies welcoming the good-looking doughboys to join in the fun.
By the time we got to The Majestic, the party atmosphere was in full flow as everyone let their hair down. The Majestic was magnificent, all glitter and gold, romance and glamour. Curtains and cloth lit up in all colours, big bouquets of flowers, a heaving dance floor, and elaborate chandeliers shaking and glistening like diamonds all around us, with the pound of too many jostling boots on the ground. New lover’s cosied down in periwinkle-purple velvet booths and bottles of bubbles raided from a ration warehouse popped left right and centre. The clinking of glasses, and singing drifted out onto the streets until someone closed the big arched wooden doors, and those who were in had to stay to keep the authorities at bay. Bodies pressed up against each other and the evening began to sway taking us along with it, like the waves we had swum in earlier in the day. Billy handed me a glass lemonade bottle that he had smuggled in,
‘Want a sip?’ I did. Whoosh! My chest was on fire, and I loved it.
Shell Shock took all of my inhibitions away, and with two long swigs I had wings to fly. We danced like there was no tomorrow because for the doughboys no one knew for sure the fate of their seductive white smiles. We were all so young and filled with fear and freedom running simultaneously through our veins, like the delirious war- time morphine many of them had a taste and hankering for.
The glorious ragtime band, a sassy assortment of saxophone, piano, trombone, trumpets, and double bass drums played a fast tempo, with a lilting mix of swing-time rhythm. Swing was king but folks also did the rumba and jitterbug, jiving their hearts out to Benny Goodmans, Sing Sing Sing.
It was an orgy of jazz, fizz, fondling and kissing that stumbled and tumbled out of The Majestic in the early hours, the men in their smart disheveled uniforms and women in shiny glitzy dresses and kitten heels. Having danced our socks off until our knees gave way beneath us, and pummeled by the fresh air, we all fell about laughing, with one hand on our empty glasses, and one hand on our striking marines. Billy leaned in close to me and said ‘It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it, Robert E Lee.’
‘Never thought I’d see the day that Sylvie is hopelessly smitten.’ One of the ladies says with delight, and she would be right.
I can barely remember the walk around the wharf but I knew his warm jacket was around my shoulders and his fingers laced in mine. We marched and sang and bantered all the way around the water to the deserted station. Missing the Midnight Express by far, Billy saw an opportunity of an open train sitting duck and empty on the tracks and climbed in to take the controls, starting her up like an old pro. Everybody roared with joy, and jumped aboard.
‘Take us north Clark Gable!’
Star Spangled Banners and Chattanooga Choo Choo echoed out the windows of each carriage as we finally crawled into Paekākāriki station.
Billy yelled “Sound the whistle Sylvie!’ So I did, alongside the crow of a rooster.
No one cared as long as they got home, but Billy missed every stop apart from his own. Three hundred marines minus the locals that lived here simply wandered back to the barracks, the rest were left to walk down along the dawn coastline with a crazy tale to tell, many simply slept on the train, facing the consequences of the men in blue the next morning.
Billy and I started the trek home. He was a wild ride but also a true gentleman caller, insistent on escorting me to my door, but we never got as far as that. Watching the sun rise from the sand dunes over the giant hill of Paekākāriki, we pointed out the peachy apricot colours of the horizon, and seagulls drowning in sunshine yellow soared over us from Kāpiti Island, crying out like dying warped violins.
‘Tell me a word to describe this my beautiful bird,’ he said, laying his head down in my lap with his pen and paper ‘because it looks to me, like all the stars have landed in the sea.’
I tell him ‘Tranquility.’
Finally at home on Aperahama Street he kisses me goodnight, I whisper back ‘Good morning marine’ as he hoists me up and over the blooming Pohutukawa tree into my bedroom window. We think we have gotten away with it when a voice startles us from below.
‘Mōrena my moko, mōrena Amerikano’ Nan laughs her trademark cackle, ‘Would you like some coffee my darlings?’
‘Ma’am yes ma’am’ Billy says, doffing his hat, turning bright pink at the prospect of a drilling from my Nan.
‘You don’t have to sneak my granddaughter in young man, please use the front door in future.’
‘Yes ma’am. I’m sorry ma’am.’
‘And don’t call me ma’am, call me Nan.’
I fell asleep listening to her chewing his ear off, she always had a lot to say, but I could hear in his voice he was happy sharing tales of his childhood homeland too.
‘I like him,’ she says when I emerge for lunch later that day ‘he has a contagious smile and a mischievous nature, much like your grandfather.’
Spring merging into summer is spent that way, dancing at The Majestic or The Crows Nest in Island Bay, drinking vinegary wine and listening to leatherneck music. Billy teaches me the foxtrot until he gets into fisticuffs with the Maitre D for turning up Lord Invader’s, Rum and Coke a Cola full bore for the tenth time, his favourite song onthe turntable speakers.
Sunday afternoons we go to crowded milk bars to share steak and chips, where he adds rum to my coffee, and orders luxurious waffles with decadent jam and whipped cream for dessert. Billy couldn’t get enough food (or drink) into his malnourished body. We slurp strawberry and chocolate milkshakes and watch a goodwill game of baseball at Athletic Park to promote friendship for all, and to stop the late night kerfuffles on the city streets. I spend the entire summer tipsy, and full to the brim, the other ladies as intrigued by my bedroom commando as I was with him. On his free days we swam in water so clear we could see small silver fish, and kissed above scuttling orange crabs, then sunbathed on the warm golden sand, to our hearts content.
In the evenings, in private, Billy tears my dress and I rip his shirt in haste, first base, second base, third. Home run.
Nan cooks a Christmas feast of roast lamb with mint sauce, baby potatoes from the garden and all the trimmings, her famous custard trifle for pudding. He invites his camp friends and our quiet whare and garden is suddenly full of American slang and cheeky banter. Later, Billy plays Pōkarakara Ana on the piano and Nan sings, all the boys have tears in their eyes knowing they will have to say goodbye soon, to the generous Land of the Long White Cloud.
The final day, Boxing Day, is a storm at sea, a big steel ship arrives at port into Wellington under dark grey skies, to take them all to Guadalcanal. We walk The Parade one last time anyway, and Billy tells me what the hospital was like, ‘Sylvie it was surrounded in Fir trees, and bordered by wildflowers. From our windows we could hear such gentle water from the most beautiful stream, it was truly heaven after hell. I can still hear it in my dreams.’ In reflection, I know he was trying to tell me of his addiction but chose to treasure only the precious moments we had.
Getting caught in a downpour he pulls me up the little white church steps and ushers me inside to shelter from the tumultuous weather. I was cold and shivering, my silk cream slipdress transparent and soaking, my hair drenched and dripping down my face, but we laughed and laughed and laughed. He found a towel to wrap around us, took off his wet shirt, pulled me in close to his damp salty skin, looked me up and down, and whispered,
‘Oh Sylvie.’
The sky lit up purple and thundered black through the stained glass windows as he dried me off, and I felt more protected than I ever would again.
‘Tell me here Sylvie, in front of God, that you’ll have me, it will be our wedding day today, we don’t need a priest’s seal of approval, these saints can be our holy witness.’ He lit the large white prayer candles on the altar and said, ‘Take this’ plucking a small piece of harakeke from a floral wreath, and weaving it around my finger,
‘Marry me Sylvie, say I do, I’ll say it too.’
‘I do Billy, you know I do.’
After our ceremony, he climbed the tiny back stairs and rang the church bells loud and proud, in celebration of us.
‘Now’ he said with that sensual look in his eye, ‘Let’s honeymoon in the sand dunes.’
That was Billy, spontaneous and impulsive, loving and sincere. A poet that didn’t smile all that often, but when he did it was like the sun shining right through the clouds straight into your heart, bright and beautiful, illicit and illuminating.
After our Amerikano’s left, the village was eerily quiet, deathly so. We missed the music, the madness and mayhem and fun, and the smiles of all those handsome marines dipping and diving us, glorious and oblivious on the dancefloor.
Turns out this war was too much for such a sensitive soul, my Clark Gable movie star who felt everything and wore his whole war-torn heart on his sleeve. In August that year, in the middle of a dreadfully cold winter, I received an envelope stamped with melted red wax from his Lieutenant General, a small poem found in Billy’s jacket pocket addressed simply to Sylvie of Paekākāriki.
Sylvie I’m coming home now, to the green land where people sing.
Meet me in our special place, where the stars glimmer in the sea.
You remember, it’s called Tranquility.
Mercifully, inside a lighthouse beacon of hope, after an unforgiving war, I would see Billy’s face again, flickering in my son’s deep blue ocean eyes, a small anchor of fortune on a dark shore.
