What If You Fly?

By Camille Booker

A page-turning epic historical adventure that starts in Australia and travels the world through the eyes of Frances, code named Funnel Web.

If you want to be a woman in a man's world, never take no for an answer.

What If You Fly? Synopsis:

For Frances Davies the war is far

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hawkeye Publishing Pty Ltd
• Release date: May 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645309928

Book preview

PART ONE

Coffee and Peaches

Prologue

Shark’s eyes

COMO

November, 1940

THE flame-haired boy flicked open his lighter and positioned it in front of the girl’s face. She did not know what to do, so she held out the cigarette like she was roasting a marshmallow on a stick. 

‘No,’ grunted the boy as he thrust the papery end into her mouth. ‘You have to suck.’

She inhaled. The fiery sensation burnt her throat. A cough escaped as she drew in breath. The boy snickered. He snatched the cigarette from her small fingers, but she stole it back and took another, smaller puff, this time not drawing all the way back. After the third drag, the smoke left a bilious feeling in her stomach and a soothing numbness in her lungs. 

‘So,’ he said, ‘you often go to the Hurstville Children’s Library?’

‘Of course not,’ she lied. ‘My grandmother made me take my little brother.’

She was thankful when the boy stubbed out his cigarette. If she inhaled any more smoke she’d vomit. She imitated him by rubbing the red-hot tip into the ground and threw the rest away before he could see how little of it she’d smoked.

When she turned back to the boy, he leant in close. He extended his hand, his thumb making little circle patterns on her cheek. The pressure of his fingers tightened on the back of her neck as he brought her face close to his own. His open mouth was less than an inch from hers. His tongue snaked against her tightly closed lips, so she parted them. It entered her mouth, like a hungry serpent searching for food, probing from side to side.

His freckled hand moved down the front of her chest, resting underneath her right breast. Her nipples hardened under his touch. She reached around to unbutton her school blouse.

The setting sun beamed through the steel lattice of the railway track and created a shadowy criss-cross pattern on her bare legs. The boy touched the flowers woven into the cotton fabric of her bra. ‘Pretty,’ he said. She smiled.

A train thundered overhead, its clickety-clack echoed until it disappeared altogether.

His clumsy fingers fiddled with the clasp at the back. A bolt of fear shot though her. His persistent fingers succeeded and her bra sprung open.

‘Better,’ he said.

She was bare from the waist up. She kept silent and let him feel her naked chest. The sandy-coloured speckles on his hands contrasted against the pale pinkness of her own skin.

The boy kneeled in front of her. ‘Lie down,’ he said.

She heard the words but didn’t understand their meaning.  

‘The dirt is hurting my knees,’ he said.

She lowered her back to the ground.

When the boy brought his mouth down to her breast, she stifled a cry. She wasn’t ready for this. She fought the threat of tears. Told herself to stop being a baby.

Her skin was saturated with saliva, cold and uncomfortable. His mouth was everywhere. He was licking her neck, chest, and ribcage, all the way to her belly button. He reached toward her dark green school shorts and tugged them down. Her legs snapped shut and she bolted upright.

‘What is it?’ he said.

She cleared her throat. ‘I don’t think I’m ready for you to do that.’

He extended his skinny, ginger-toned arm and pulled again at her waistline. ‘It’s easy,’ he said. ‘You just have to lie still.’

‘No. Please. It’s getting dark. I should go home.’

The boy’s face soured. ‘You knew what we came here to do.’

She fumbled in the fading light for her bra and school blouse.

The boy grabbed her by the arm. ‘Don’t be a prick tease,’ he said.

She twisted out of his grasp but his grip tightened and it was then that she looked squarely into the boy’s face. His expression made her recoil. His pupils enlarged and his eyes became dark and sinister, like a shark’s. His top lip curled back and he let out a small laugh, revealing a row of little yellow teeth. The waft of air that seeped from the back of his throat smelled foul.

The thunderous rattle of a train muffled the girl’s pleas as she failed to struggle out of his hold. The more she pushed him away, the more forcefully he held her. His hands closed around her throat. She couldn’t even scream. Her airways were cut off by his spindly fingers.

Lightheaded, she stared horrified into his black eyes until their darkness enveloped her.

1

The Broadcast

COMO, AUSTRALIA

November 1940

A broadcast from London crackled over the wireless radio.

‘What’s the latest from King George this morning?’ Frances Davies stumbled into the kitchen, her arms overloaded with school books.

‘Shhh,’ her mother hushed. ‘There’s been another air raid.’

‘Another? That makes fifty-seven nights in a row. The radio only offers the most depressing news. I don’t know why you listen to it.’ Frances was built like her mother, petite and angular. However, where Alda’s pallid complexion gave an almost skeletal appearance, Frances’s milky colouring radiated peaches-and-cream.

‘Be quiet, Frances,’ Alda snapped. ‘You could do with reading a bit more news, you know.’

Frances’s father, Norman, shuffled along the linoleum floor. Alda laid his breakfast and newspaper on the table, as she did every morning.

‘Your mother’s right,’ he said, flicking open the front page of The Telegraph. ‘You could be more politically aware. Those Krauts bombing Buckingham Palace again?’ 

Alda frowned at them. ‘If you two stopped your jibber-jabbering, I’ll hear the details, won’t I?’ She turned up the volume.

‘The lights are swinging over in this general direction now,’ came a voice from the other side of the world. ‘You’ll hear two explosions. There they are.’

‘He sounds like he’s right there,’ Frances said. ‘Right in the middle of it.’

‘That’s because he is,’ Alda said. ‘That’s Edward Murrow. He broadcasts from London.’

‘But it sounds like you can hear the actual planes.’

‘Because you can. He broadcasts live from Trafalgar Square. He’s right there, in the middle of it, as it’s happening.’

‘How exciting,’ Frances said.

Norman snorted. Frances turned to her father. ‘Something funny, Dad?’

Norman turned a page of the newspaper. ‘There’s nothing exciting or funny about incendiaries burning through your bedroom roof in the middle of the night,’ he said, not taking his eyes from the page. ‘Choking on smoke and dust. Shrapnel cutting you apart while you sleep.’

‘Truly, Frances,’ Alda said, ‘apart from Thomas being sent off for military training last year, it’s like the war has had no impact on you at all.’ Frances’s older brother still came home to visit most Sundays, although they seemed more infrequent lately.

Frances looked at her school shoes and listened as Murrow’s live report continued. The war has had no impact on me at all, she thought.

‘Those Krauts are brutal,’ Norman said. ‘Civilians. Women, children. The elderly. They’re dropping bombs everywhere. Six thousand killed so far. Nine thousand seriously injured.’

‘So much death and destruction,’ Frances said. ‘Why isn’t the King doing anything?’

‘The King and Queen are doing everything they can, given the circumstances. The people have shelters underground,’ Alda said.

Another grunt escaped Norman’s throat. ‘Under staircases, more likely. Or corrugated iron outhouses in their back gardens.’

‘That’s not true,’ Alda said. ‘I heard yesterday Princess Elizabeth opened another shelter in the Tube network. Green Park Station. They’re said to be quite comfortable. Some even have lavatories...’

‘Buckets behind screens.’ Norman threw the newspaper on the table.

‘Princess Margaret herself was at Marble Arch Station, offering refreshments...’

‘Cold black tea.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with black tea,’ Alda snapped.

‘Speaking of Princess Margaret,’ Frances said, ‘I’m off.’ She swiped the newspaper from the table and left her parents to bicker in the kitchen.

FRANCES WALKED ALONG the baking bitumen to the Pettyman’s, a few houses down. Mrs Pettyman opened the flyscreen door. ‘Good morning, Frances.’ Her large, tea-stained teeth protruded through her top lip. ‘Margaret’s in her bedroom.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Pettyman.’

‘Any news about the job?’

‘Not yet,’ Frances said.

‘Well, keep checking the letterbox. Sometimes it takes longer than you think to get a response. The bank must be so busy these days, with the war and what-have-you.’

Frances walked down the long hallway to her best friend’s bedroom.

‘Morning, Frankie.’ Maggie looked at Frances through the mirror’s reflection.

Frances plonked on the small ottoman next to the dresser. ‘Swim this arvo?’ she asked.

Maggie picked up a bottle of perfume. ‘Definitely,’ she said. ‘I can’t wait to try out my new bathing suit.’ She leaned her face back and sprayed her neck.

Frances examined the headline on the newspaper:

NIGHT RAIDERS BOMB WEST END

There was a photo of a plane above a smoky, bomb-damaged London. The Thames was a long, thin grey snake winding through the city.

‘Listen to this... As dawn broke over a ruined city, a horrific scene of destruction greeted the survivors,’ she read. ‘The air stank of burning flesh, and bodies, some mutilated beyond recognition, lay in the streets.’

‘That’s disgusting,’ Maggie said. ‘Please, don’t read any more.’

Frances ignored her. ‘Alan Taylor, a fourteen-year-old school-boy, reported spending eleven hours crouched in the corner of a bomb shelter. The atmosphere becoming ever more fetid and fearful.’

Maggie pulled at the newspaper. ‘Stop it, Frankie. I can’t bear it.’

‘Hundreds of tonnes of bombs have been dropped on the city. The overwhelmingly dominant feeling is utter helplessness.’

‘Frankie. Enough.’

‘...Too young to fight, Mr Taylor, like many teenage boys in his area, had volunteered for the Air Raid Precautions organisation. The organisation was set up to fight incendiary bombs and look after people during air raids.’

Maggie stood and collected her school books. Frances finished reading the article in silence. She lowered the newspaper. ‘That boy’s younger than us.’

‘So?’ Maggie said.

‘He’s younger than us and he’s actually doing something. He’s making a difference.’

Maggie shrugged. ‘He lives there. What else is he going to do?’

‘It says here many other British people have volunteered for service. As nurses. In the Women’s Voluntary Service and the Auxiliary Territorial Service. As car and mobile crane drivers, medical and ambulance orderlies, stretcher bearers. Utility workers. Public transport.’

‘What do you want us to do? Sail to London to become ambulance drivers?’

‘I don’t know,’ Frances said. ‘But maybe there’s something we could do to help, something to make a difference.’

‘Well, maybe we could start by graduating high school,’ Maggie said. ‘Come on, dilly-dallier. We’ll miss the train.’

2

The Centrifugal Force

COMO, AUSTRALIA

November 1940

A little boy stood barefoot at the edge of the wharf, throwing clumps of bread into the water.

‘Ciao, Leo.’

The man with dark hair slowed his pace. ‘Ciao, Teddy,’ he said.

‘Are you going fishing?’ The boy’s scrawny legs hurried to keep up.

‘Si. I am going to catch fishes,’ Leo replied in accented English. Together they sauntered along the wooden jetty.

‘Fish,’ corrected the boy. ‘Can I come?’

‘Sorry, amico,’ Leo said. He threw a fishing rod and an empty hessian sack into a wooden boat and jumped in. ‘Another time. I need to fill this bag with oysters before it gets dark.’

‘That’s alright,’ the boy said. ‘I’m meeting Sandy anyway. We’re going to poke the dead thing with a stick.’

‘You shouldn’t play with dead animals, Teddy.’ Leo looked up at the boy’s bare feet and torn clothing. ‘Where are your mamma and papa?’

‘Mum’s working at the shop,’ he said. ‘And Dad’s off fighting the Japs.’ The boy balled his two fists together and pointed his index fingers at Leo, making gunfire noises.

Leo looked sideways at him and smiled. ‘I am always learning new English words from you, amico.’ He uncoiled the rope from the wharf. ‘We’ll go fishing at the end of the week.’

‘On the weekend, you mean?’

‘Si, si. Il fine settimana: on the weekend,’ Leo repeated, imitating Teddy’s Australian accent.

With the oar, Leo pushed away from the wharf. As he paddled, he whistled a tune. The little boy waved once, then ran back toward Como Marina.

FRANCES AND MAGGIE descended the stone steps leading to the netted bathing area on the eastern side of the Georges River.

‘I can’t believe this place used to be a tourist destination,’ Maggie said. She looked ravishing in her bathing suit, and she knew it. Her full hips curved and the fabric barely covered her bulging chest. ‘Why would anyone come all the way to Como Pleasure Grounds for a holiday?’

Frances laid her towel and her book next to her friend. ‘What’s so hard to believe?’ She had borrowed the newest Agatha Christie novel from the school library and was dying to start reading. ‘It’s beautiful here. And better now that it’s just a place for locals.’

‘I suppose.’ Maggie drew circles in the sand with a stick. ‘How is your brother, Frankie? Have you heard anything from him?’

‘Mum got a letter last week,’ Frances said. ‘He said his training is going well. Same old story.’ Frances flipped open the front cover of Murder Is Easy.

‘Did you hear the garden house has finally opened?’ Maggie asked.

Frances eyed her from behind the pages. ‘On top of Como Mountain?’

Maggie smiled wide. ‘There’s going to be a band playing there on Saturday evenings. Doesn’t that sound fabulous?’

‘I wonder what type of music they’ll play.’ Frances imagined the velvety notes of a jazz clarinet trickling down the slopes of the rugged Australian bush.

‘Who cares? It’s sure to attract a lot of men.’

‘All the men are overseas, fighting for their country,’ Frances said. ‘The only available members of the opposite sex that are left are boys.’

Maggie threw the stick at her. ‘Are you just going to lie there and read, Frankie, or are we going swimming?’

Frances dropped the book on the sand and undressed to her bathing suit that was once blue but had faded almost to white from too many days in the sun. She ran and leapt into the river.

Frances had a large lung capacity for a slender girl. Underwater was delightful to her. Gliding under the green surface felt like flying. Emerging once more, she saw Maggie standing motionless on the shoreline, making no indication of going further into the river.

‘What are you doing?’ she called.

‘Actually,’ Maggie said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to get wet.’

‘What did we come all the way down here for?’

Maggie did not answer. Instead, she turned and checked over her shoulder, as if she were looking for something, or someone. It was then that Frances noticed him: a teenage boy descending the stone steps. He approached Maggie from behind and she turned to greet him.

Frances breast-stroked to shore and pulled herself out of the shallow water. Dripping wet, she scurried along the riverbank with her arms crossed over her chest. She was conscious of her legs, pale and bare, as she grabbed her school dress and threw it on.

‘Frankie, this is Danny,’ Maggie said. ‘Danny Fox. His father is the head of Sutherland Police Station.’

Frances could not bring herself to look at Danny. ‘How do you do?’ she managed to say. Panic-stricken, she searched for an excuse to leave just as a pleasant-sounding melody interrupted her scattered thoughts. Someone was singing. It was a dark-haired man, in a wooden boat, rowing toward the Marina. His skin was the deep olive of someone born under the Mediterranean sun.

‘Wog scum,’ Danny said. Maggie’s eyes lit up in fascination. ‘This place has been taken over by immigrants.’ He picked up a rock the size of his fist. ‘Makes me sick all these wogs coming over here, stealing our jobs.’ He hurled the rock toward the man in the boat. ‘Stupid reffo,’ he yelled. It plunked in the water, narrowly missing the boat. The singing stopped and the man turned and looked at them. Danny rummaged the ground for more rocks, while Maggie stood and snickered.

The air was sucked out of Frances. The dark-haired man in the boat stared at her. Her eyes locked with his and her heart constricted. Looking at him was like being underwater: dreamlike, ethereal. A centrifugal force pulled her to his boat, as if he were the moon and she the obeying tide.

Maggie, laughing, threw something; a smaller rock. ‘Go back to your own country, you piece of shit,’ she said.

The next rock Danny hurled struck the boat with a loud thump. Without speaking, and without resuming his song, the man rowed away. Within a few short strokes, both Danny and Maggie grew bored.

‘Frankie?’ Maggie said. ‘Danny said he wants to show me something under the bridge. You don’t mind, do you?’

Frances saw the familiar expression on Maggie’s face. ‘Not at all,’ she said, relieved. She mouthed a silent ‘Are you sure?’ although Maggie didn’t notice. Frances collected her things. ‘See you tomorrow, Mags.’

Maggie gave her a grateful smile and left with Danny.

‘WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH your friend?’ Danny said as soon as they were alone.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, for one thing,’ he said, ‘she’s uptight. And why’s she carrying that book around?’

‘That’s just Frankie,’ Maggie said. ‘She’s had her nose stuck inside a book since before she could read.’

‘Well, it’s making her stuck-up,’ Danny said. He pulled Maggie up the path by her hand. ‘Don’t you go getting any ideas. It ain’t right for girls to go ’round like that.’

THE SILHOUETTED FIGURE of Jonathan Herbert Wills, the owner of the Boatshed, materialised as Leo approached Como Marina. The man coiled thick ropes into piles. Without looking up, he acknowledged Leo with a dismissive wave of his hand.

‘Better get those on down to the icebox,’ he said, gesturing toward the sack of oysters. ‘Else they’ll spoil and you’ll have to go back out and find some more.’ Wills’s face was perpetually sunburned. His blistered and bulging nose reminded Leo of the mushrooms he used to forage in the forest as a boy.

Leo nodded at the old man, pulled the boat from the water onto the weather beaten wharf and refastened the rope to the horn cleat.

‘Don’t want to spend your whole weekend working, now, do you?’ Wills said. ‘Don’t your type spend Sundays in church? You lot are all Catholics, ain’t you?’

Leo reached for the hessian sack, bulging with oysters, and his fishing rod. ‘My type, Signore? You mean immigrants?’ he said. ‘Or Italians?’

‘I suppose you Italian blokes like working all weekend.’

‘Oh, si,’ Leo slung the sack over his shoulder. ‘Church and work. Work and church. It’s what life is all about, no?’

3

Sunday Lunch

COMO, AUSTRALIA

November 1940

‘WHY on earth would you want to work at the bank, Frances?’ Alda scoffed. ‘This is what’s wrong with the country these days. Women are not men and they shouldn’t try to be.’

‘Pass the peas,’ Norman said, to no one in particular.

Thomas heaped another serving of mashed potato onto his plate. ‘Ease up, Mum,’ he said.

Frances passed the peas to her father.

‘I’m serious, Thomas,’ Alda said. ‘When our boys return from the war, what kind of girls will they be coming home to? And don’t think that just because you’re visiting from Ingleburn you can speak for your sister. She’s certainly proven she’s quite capable of that lately.’

‘It’s her patriotic duty to get out of the kitchen and get into work, if that’s what she wants.’ Thomas had the same chestnut hair and hazel eyes as Frances, but his face was long, like their mother’s.

‘What do you call this?’ Norman lifted the gravy boat and inspected its contents. ‘Looks like dog turd.’

‘It’s the gravy, Norm,’ Alda said.

Norman sniffed it, dipped a finger into the lumpy brown liquid and sucked it off. ‘There’re bits floating through it. And there’s too much oil on top.’ He pushed it aside. ‘What else have you got to go with the lamb?’

‘Frances, get the mint jelly for your father.’

Frances sighed, took her plate to the sink, fetched the jar of mint jelly from the cupboard and placed it on the kitchen table.

‘Mint jelly?’ Norman said. ‘I’d rather eat a Chinaman’s dog.’

Alda reached for Thomas’s plate and pointed a finger in Norman’s face.

‘Come on,’ Thomas whispered to Frances. ‘We both know where this’ll end up. It’s a lovely day. Let’s go for a walk. We haven’t done that in ages.’

‘Quick,’ Frances said. ‘Let’s go before they get any louder.’

Outside their weatherboard house, they strolled along Warrabah Street in silence. After a while, Thomas nudged Frances. ‘Would you stop kicking rocks?’

‘Sorry. It’s just... you seem so happy, Thomas. I wish I could be as content as you.’

‘I suppose it’s because I don’t have to be around Mum and Dad all the time,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how you stand it, Frankie. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.’

Frances laughed. ‘They do start to wear on you after a while. I suppose that’s why I want a job. I need to get out more. And I can’t just sit at home and read all the time.’

They ambled up the street in the sunlit afternoon. ‘Do you really like books that much?’ Frances looked at Thomas as if he had just asked her if she loved lemon butter on toast or swimming in the river. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ he said, ‘I like to read, too. I just keep it to myself.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, I suppose it’s because people who read hide who they really are. And not everyone can have a moral compass as strong as you, kid sis.’

Frances smiled and they returned home.

‘Frankie,’ Thomas said as they stood on their front step. ‘If you want a job, get a job. Don’t listen to those people in there. They’re stuck in the nineteenth century.’

WHEN THOMAS LEFT, FRANCES walked to the fig tree: her reading spot. It was peaceful, and the immense shade was solid and calming. Its base and trunk reminded Frances of her mother’s wrinkled neck with its loose folds of skin. She gazed out over the Georges River. Como Bridge rose out of the water, to the left of her view. The breeze blowing up from the bay tickled her skin and had an instant cooling effect.

Frances picked up her book and settled in, but her mind wandered. Growing up with an older brother certainly had an effect on her. She ran her fingers along the thin, pink scar that stretched across her knee. Years ago, she had jumped from her roof. She gathered up all the pillows and quilts from her house, lined the ground with them, and attempted to fly. She had landed with a thump and heard the snap. Only when the pain turned to shock did Thomas find her.

Thomas was smart, smarter than he realised. Frances knew he would never hurt her, but he could destroy her in an insult battle. She could talk to Thomas about anything, because he would listen. And he remembered every detail. When Thomas had found Frances lying in a crumpled heap among the blankets, their white cotton slips were soaked bright red with her blood. The cast had stayed on for six weeks and ever since, her leg ached when she ran. The feeling disappeared when she swam, which was why she loved swimming so much. She could always move freely when she was in the water. 

Back at home, Frances found her mother sitting on the sofa. A letter sat open on her lap.

‘Your brother left this behind,’ she said. ‘He’s being sent to Singapore.’

‘Where’s dad?’ Frances asked.

‘Out,’ Alda barked. Frances stared blankly at her mother. ‘He’s gone to the pub.’

Frances took the letter to her bedroom, absorbing the news. A Victor Model K electric gramophone sat on her desk. She selected a record from the pile, slipped it into place on the turntable and positioned the needle on the disc’s edge. Frances lay on her bed and, to the sounds of Ben Webster’s saxophone, she unfolded Thomas’s letter.

INGLEBURN

Thursday, 28th November 1940

Dear Mum and Dad, (and Frankie),

I have good news! I’ve met the prettiest girl and we’re in love. She’s training as a nurse at the Hospital out here at the Ingleburn Barracks. She’s from Darwin. A country girl, Dad – you’d adore her. Her name is Alice.

You wouldn’t believe what lengths I had to go through to get her to go out with me.

Me and some of the boys were having a beer at the Impy (the local boozer, the Imperial Hotel). Dazza (you know Darren, Mum, the little sparky from Melbourne), gets completely drunk and starts mouthing off to the Publican. The bloke behind the bar throws us all out onto the street. I turn around to have a go at him, and the sneaky bugger’s laughing at us through the window. A minute later the Publican recognises him and they start blueing. The fight only lasts about thirty seconds before Darren gets punched in the face. His broken nose is spewing blood everywhere so we take him up to the hospital. The loveliest little thing comes and gives him a drip to sober up and tells the rest of us to go home. So I make up some excuse about how Darren would want me there when he wakes up. Such a shame he does so quickly. I spend the entire night trying to convince Darren to act unconscious so I can stay and chat to pretty Alice. Finally, in the early hours of the morning she agrees to go to dinner. I’ll admit it was the end of her shift and she probably just wanted to get away, but my persistence paid off and we’ve been spending all of our free time together since.

Now for the exciting news. We’re being shipped O.S. (finally!). Major General Lavarack gave us the news this morning. The 2/21st Infantry Division is to be deployed to Singapore (that’s in Asia, kid sis, in case you failed your World Geography exam – how did all your exams go, by the way?). We’re to undertake essential military training, then who knows where we’ll go after that? All very exciting stuff.

Now for the bad news. M.G. told us we would each be getting 48 hours’ furlough before we depart. Now Mum, please don’t get upset, but I’ve promised Alice I would go with her to visit her uncle’s farm down in Tassie. I know you’ll understand.

We set sail from Hobart at 9 o’clock on the 5th of December. I know you all would have liked to wave your brave and loving son off to war, but I promise you, I’ll be home in no time!

Thomas

P.S. Frankie, I’m