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( Chapter Fifteen: ❛ WAR WORN WOMEN ❜ ) AUGUST, 1945
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THE LEVEL OF THE CITY HAD REACHED MASS HYSTERIA ONCE AGAIN, and post-war Melbourne was nothing short of a madhouse. Men in every uniform under the sun were sweeping up Australia's golden girls and necking them in the street in celebration of V-J Day. People crammed into the Federation Square and danced in the fountains, but Ginny wasn't interested in joining in the celebrations. Yes, she was relieved that the war in the Pacific was finally over, but she spent V-J Day beside a hospital bed, her eyes sober but teary.
Bill didn't cry like she wished he would. In fact, he seemed indifferent, almost. She wished he'd show more emotion. She wished he'd act like he cared. He seemed dead behind the eyes, with his thousand-yard stare. The war had damaged him irreversibly. The quippy Bill she once knew had died in that jungle in Pavuvu. "I'm leaving Melbourne," he told her, his face stony, "and I won't be coming back."
"You can't just leave," she protested adamantly, having travelled countless hours by tram to visit him in hospital for the fourth time that week. "You only just got back."
She'd sat and read to him until her throat was hoarse, brought him cigarettes and flowers to put in the vase on his bedside table, even ushering away the tired nurses when they came in routinely to give him his sponge baths, insisting she do it herself.
"I've been hoppin' between hospitals for the best part of a year, Ginny. I've gotta life back in America . . . got people to get back to. There ain't nothin' here for me."
"I'm here for you. I waited for you. I love you."
But the glamour of the whole ordeal had glossed over. The burning spark between them had turned to ash. Things had soured.
Bill didn't know if he could stomach Ginny's burning brightness anymore. She was still so radiant and brimming with positivity, her big eyes shining like diamonds when she spoke about her plans for the future and how excited she was for the world to move on and forget the trauma that had been inflicted upon it.
The worst part was, Bill began to loathe her attitude. Her mindless chatter on top of sleepless nights and a nasty bout of pneumonia, just wanted his own time and his own space, and to be alone. He wanted time to mourn, and to be abrasive and sour, and to recover. It didn't feel right to be so happy-go-lucky, especially after the things he'd seen and been through.
Virginia Gloyne still shone like a star but he was going blind, and every moment spent with her felt like he was staring at the sun.
So he told her, through a half-smoked cigarette on a Sunday afternoon. Her hair was dark brown but her roots were beginning to show, a creamy platinum blonde sprouting from underneath the mud. She'd put her head in her hands and wept fat, ugly tears onto the pleated skirt of her pretty blue dress. When she left, she kicked over the stool at his bedside.
And that was that. Never again would he see her smile or hear her speak. Never again would he feel her porcelain skin on his. He would never hold her hand as she brought his children into the world, or rub her ageing joints when she were grey and old. She would exist now only in his memories and in his dreams.
WHEN GINNY GREW OLD, she understood. She understood what Bill did and why he did it. She understood that she'd been young, and naive, and ever so wishful. She understood that even if he had felt the same way, she would have had to leave everything she knew and sail back to America alongside him. She would have had to leave her parents and her job and everything she knew to be with a man she'd only known for a couple of months in person.
And like so many girls left behind by their American boys, she remained heart broken for a time. She remembered standing on the dock, looking up at the boat soon to depart from Melbourne. That was Bill's boat. Her sweetheart's boat. The boat he'd take back home. Back to sweet American shores. Maybe after that he'd get a train, or a car, and he'd find his way home to Loogootee, Indiana, where his mother would be waiting for him, teary-eyed and proud.
Ginny was thinking selfishly, though. She wanted nothing more than to climb the ropes tossed over the side and pull him out of the misery he was shrouded in. She wanted to throw a life ring over his torso and bring him back up to the surface, save him from his depths of despair. She could have dragged him back to the shore, back onto sweet Australian soil. But the thing was, saving someone who had no desire to be saved was a near impossible task.
She stared menacingly up at the soldiers draped over the front of the boat, blowing kisses and waving goodbye. Bill was there, propped up against the steel, wearing a helmet and a grimace. He could see her, in her blue dress with her watery eyes.
She managed to tear herself away before the boat departed, hurrying across the cobbles back towards the square. The last thing she wanted to think about was the oceans that would soon stand between them, and knew there was no point watching that silly floating graveyard sail away towards the horizon.
What had Gordon Love told her all those months ago? Those American men will break your heart, Ginny.
And there she was, alone in Federation Square, her heart crushed like a tin can.
