Wilson dutifully stepped back to usher her into the nearest of the building’s four lifts – two for passengers, two for cargo. Only one of the passenger lifts was currently running and they’d just started operating it from the ground floor again in recent months; previously the tenants had climbed the stairs to the first levels to conserve power. It still felt a touch luxurious to go up from the lobby. Billie stepped inside the cab and Wilson slid the outer and inner metal doors closed with his strong left hand, the grille unfolding like a wall of opening scissors. His right hand, once his dominant hand, had not survived the war, and neither had that full arm. His suit was pinned on the side – not so unusual a sight in Sydney these days. His hair was neat and short, but the hairline was uneven on one side. His face, once conventionally handsome, Billie guessed, was marked by burns, though both his eyes, his nose and most of his mouth were unscathed. For over a year now the city had filled with broken men returning from overseas. Many were shunned for the disfigurements they could not hide, and the Australian bush was filling with such men, just as it had after the Great War – men who preferred lonely solitude to the stares they were met with on city streets, the pointing of children, the constant reminders. But John had returned to a relieved family, and was already well liked by those in the building. He’d made it back, while many had not.
They rode up, the cab rattling.
‘How is June?’ Billie, as she often did, inquired after Wilson’s wife. ‘And the children?’
‘Very well. Thank you for asking,’ he said and his mouth moved into an uneven smile, his eyes crinkling warmly. He slowed the lift at the sixth floor, jogging the lever up and down a couple of times to line it up with the hallway outside. He let go of the handle too suddenly and the elevator lurched, the dead man switch kicking in. ‘Apologies, Ms Walker. Just as well we’ve got the switch to, uh, stop us, if my hand slips,’ he said, reddening slightly beneath his scars. If you didn’t keep your hands continuously on the lift control you could activate the mechanism – the actual death of the man operating it wasn’t necessary to set it off. Wilson was new to his certificate, but it happened to those with more experience, too. He pulled the grille doors open. ‘Watch your step.’
‘Always,’ Billie replied and flashed him a smile.
She walked along the hall, passing offices already humming with activity, until she arrived at a wooden door fitted with a frosted glass window, a simple title painted in black across it:
B. Walker, Private Inquiries
This was where her late father had spent so much of his life, where so many of the stories he’d told her at the dinner table had been born. She’d changed the space very little since taking over; the set-up, furniture and pictures were largely the same, but of necessity she’d sublet two of the office spaces he’d used to accommodate his employees. Hers was a smaller agency and she liked that just fine. Office spaces were at a premium, more than £7 8s per week for a single, and revenue aside, there was some considerable animosity aimed at those who didn’t do their best to make room for the returned men and their needs. Keeping more of the office space than absolutely needed would not have aided her socially or professionally and, as it was, acceptance of Billie and her work was still at best uneven. After Victory in the Pacific Day women were expected to walk out of the aviation plants and munitions factories and news offices and hospitals they’d run successfully during the war and abandon the independence of a wage to return to their kitchens, but Billie had never been one of those women, hadn’t been raised that way, and she certainly wasn’t going to bow to the pressure now.
The door was unlocked, her secretary already seated in the outer office, where clients sometimes waited. Billie unbelted her double-breasted trench coat, and cast a glance at the line of four neat walnut chairs placed before the low table she kept stocked with an assortment of respectable, somewhat bland magazines and a couple of the more fashionable women’s journals. The chairs were distinctly unoccupied. The magazines were neatly spread out, untouched. There was no one waiting today, no appointments set. Hadn’t been for over a week. This was another solid reason to sublet the two office spaces.
‘Good morning, Ms Walker. Your mail is on your desk,’ Samuel Baker informed her, standing as if at attention.
She slid out of her coat and he took it and hung it on the coat rack. She removed her round sunglasses, adjusted the hatpin in the small green topper that sat over her left ear, smoothed down the lines of her fitted, summer-weight skirt suit, thanked her secretary-cum-assistant and strode into the inner office, settling down behind her desk and leaving the communicating door open. Her office had a rust-red carpet, a couple of fading hunter-green filing cabinets, a globe of the world and a wide wooden desk, blotter, pen set and telephone that had belonged to her father and had graced the room for at least two decades. On the wall was a large map of Sydney in a slightly battered wooden frame. It had been there for as long as she’d known the office and she suspected that if it was ever moved, the wall beneath would likely be a startlingly different colour. It wasn’t a fancy space. It didn’t need to be. Clients didn’t come to her for interior decorating tips.
Her father’s ashtray sat on the far edge of Billie’s desk, positioned for clients’ convenience. Most women now smoked, but Billie had never liked it as a daily habit. There were smoking days, yes indeed, but this wasn’t one of them. The ashtray was cleaned out and empty. The daily newspapers sat on her desk – the Sydney Morning Herald, the scandal sheet the Truth and the most recently available Paris Herald Tribune – all neatly folded. It paid to know what was being said in the world. Two framed pictures faced Billie. One was a formal portrait of her mother and father on their wedding day, her father in tails with white tie and a black shining top hat tucked under his arm (probably the only time he’d ever touched one) and her mother in a glittering headpiece, a waved bob hairstyle she hadn’t changed since, and a scandalously short gown that showed her ankles above low-heeled shoes tied with glossy ribbons. Ella held a bouquet that trailed to the floor, and on her dark lips was the grin of the cat who got the cream. The other frame was smaller and held a more recent image, one of Jack Rake, taken by Billie in Vienna. It was mostly in focus and it caught him smiling that weekend before the world crashed in around them. That weekend they’d fallen in love.
Billie’s breath caught in her throat. Jack was just as he looked in those flashes that haunted her each time she closed her eyes. That smile. And the seriousness that followed. Those earnest, searching hazel eyes. ‘Blast,’ she murmured, and looked away. She needed work to keep her occupied.
Her ivory blouse had been tied in a pussy bow at her throat, but had begun to loosen, and with neatly kept, unvarnished fingers Billie fixed the knot then picked up the top envelope on her wide wooden desktop. Her eyes narrowed. It was addressed to Mr B Walker, and not for the first time. This might be mail for her late father, but well over a year after his death that was unlikely to be the case. Billie Walker was not what many people expected. Perhaps foremost, Billie was not a Mr. But then, what was the fun in doing or being what was expected? She slit open the envelope and glanced through a solicitor’s dull note about a previous case involving marital disharmony. The day’s mail brought little to be excited about and she soon turned to the newspapers, flicking through them before committing to a more thorough reading with a fresh cup of tea on the way. A shipyard lock-out was causing havoc at the Sydney docks. A series of pictures showed Chifley with the Governor-General, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester at an official function. Sydney auction houses were busy moving valuables, some of which appeared to be major estate pieces. In world news, two-piece swimming costumes were being modelled in Paris. There was a large-scale withdrawal of Russian troops from Germany. Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg agreed to repatriate German war prisoners as soon as possible. France had still not signed any agreement.