Kiss of Death

Chapter One

I

f I’m going to have a confrontation with the police, then I insist on looking delicious while doing it. The curse of being Wellington’s only female solicitor is that the newspapers write more about how I look than what I say, but if the name Lorna McDougal can’t be synonymous with cutting courtroom advocacy then it can at least be synonymous with style. The hour it took to plaster my black bobbed hair to my scalp in flat ringlets might have been excessive when our nation’s bachelors are too busy breaching the Hindenburg Line to notice, but if I make the illustrated supplement of the local tabloid then it’ll have been time well spent.

The staging post for my intended brush with the law is the soldiers’ convalescent home at Oriental Bay, just up the hill from the beach. The nurses’ common room is now crowded with a dozen other women, all of whom are my clients. These Amazons belong to the Women’s Society of Physical Culturists; their physiques are as impressive as their commitment to calisthenics, but that doesn’t stop them fussing and fidgeting as they face the reality of what they agreed to at their last meeting.

‘Remember,’ I announce in my serious solicitor voice, ‘the goal is to ridicule a sexist bylaw, not provoke a riot.’

The charge nurse who smuggled us in here looks at me as if I’m mad, and I admit to myself that one glance at our bathing costumes would convince most onlookers that a riot is imminent. Our tight-fitting outfits are designed for exercise, not modesty; the shoulder-to-knee ensembles are little more than a thin layer of silk or cotton or tight-knitted wool, and were deliberately chosen to make a mockery of the Wellington City Council’s prudish bathing regulations.

I finish my lecture, then take one last look in my pocket mirror as we finalise our risqué attire. The current patriotic vogue would have me dressed in a floppy blue-and-white striped tunic and bathing skirt—after all, any lady who sets foot on a Wellington beach in 1918 without resembling a flap-collared sailor girl is criminally out of step with wartime fashion. Today, however, I resemble a nimble black cat, and it’s my seventeen-year-old sister, Bonnie, who’s weighed down by more dangling wool than an unshorn sheep.

‘Strewth, Sis,’ she says, watching me walk towards her. ‘With those chicken legs, you’ll have half the cocks in Wellington chasing you.’

‘Well, I am partial to a good clucking from time to time,’ I blurt out, before remembering the company I’m in. My remark generates a bout of nervous laughter which helps ease the tension. Bonnie winks at me and starts bokking like a chicken under her breath. Having raised her by myself since our parents died, I’ve only got myself to blame for her impertinence.

My little Bonbon is here under sufferance, and under strict instructions to stay out of trouble. While I’m confident we have the letter of the law on our side, the extent to which the city council and local constabulary will agree is a whole other matter. The only reason I’ve even contemplated risking her presence is because we might need someone to bring a change of clothes to the police station if something goes horribly wrong.

‘Come on, you silly moo,’ implores a striking busty blonde, strutting over to me with her hands on her hips. ‘All that preening will be worthless once you actually start swimming.’

Margot De Villiers is the most fanatical of my accomplices, and one of my best friends to boot. She stands head and shoulders above the rest of us and her outfit is the raciest of the lot, with a hint of areola visible through the sheer fabric. It’s a far cry from the uniform she wore until just three months ago, jockeying an ambulance around London for the Green Cross Corps.

‘Swimming in November?’ I exclaim, adjusting my thick woollen bathing stockings. ‘Are you mad?’

‘Darling,’ she says in a patronising tone, ‘how on earth can you protest an outdated, sexist interpretation of the bathing costume bylaws if you don’t get in the water?’

I look up at her and snort as I tie the straps of my bathing slippers around my stockinged calves. ‘Oh, silly me. I thought my purpose here was to make the police think twice about arresting us, not to practise my breaststroke.’

One of the other women looks up in alarm. ‘Arresting us? No one told me we could get arrested.’

Margot gives her an encouraging slap on the back. ‘Well, we can only hope.’

‘It’s not getting arrested that I’m worried about,’ exclaims the wife of a prominent politician, making a rude gesture with her hand next to her mouth. ‘It’s what I’ll have to promise my husband for him to bail me out!’

And now I know far more about the marriage of the Minister of Naval Affairs and Shipping than I ever needed to.

‘Just tell him you don’t smoke,’ I suggest, causing a further bout of laughter to fill the room.

Margot unleashes a loud whistle to regain everyone’s attention. She orders our comrades into a line while I march back and forth, pretending to inspect them as if they’re soldiers on the parade ground. I nod with approval, and confirm they are indeed technically covered by the letter of the law even if they’re not covered by much else. I do insist, however, that one particular holdout dons a pair of stockings like the rest of us.

Miss Maud Devanshi Duckworth is another long-time friend and she shakes her head as she suffers the rigmarole of disrobing once more. Known as Devi among my posse of pals, she’s a popular performer in the Empire City’s theatrical scene, and is naively perplexed at how such immodesty can be risqué at the beach but de rigueur for the ballet.

‘Are you sure about this?’ the nurse asks, in the same manner in which she might ask a soldier if shooting his toe off is really such a cunning plan. ‘Don’t you think your timing might be a bit off—what with the small matter of the war?’

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ cries Margot, raising her fist. ‘We’re battling discrimination, we’re crusading for justice. No more will we suffer our gender being oppressed by double standards of dress that allow men to swim at public beaches while women cannot!’

I try not to roll my eyes at Margot’s tirade. ‘That’s right,’ I say, belatedly punching the air. ‘It would be positively unpatriotic to let the progress of the war overseas distract us from, er . . . progress at home.’

On that note, we don an eclectic array of bathrobes and kimonos, and descend the stairs to where our special escort of soldiers are waiting—every one of them a willing volunteer for this mission. With these casualties of war at our side, we can mask our protest behind a smokescreen of patriotic feminine compassion.

A minute ago, these poor fellows were quite capable of hobbling around on their peglegs, but now they couldn’t possibly descend Hay Street and cross the esplanade without each draping themselves over a willing woman. I cast my eyes about for a likely prospect. Unmarried at thirty, it behoves me to be a little flirty, and with so many men serving overseas, the walking wounded are a rare pool of possibility. A young lieutenant wraps his arm around my shoulder. He’s a baby-faced cub who’s a tad too young for me, but his intoxicating lack of self-pity earns him a little indulgence.

As we help our crippled companions hobble down the hill, I’m struck by the sheer number of battered merchant ships anchored offshore, each flying a yellow quarantine flag from its masthead. The only movement among them is a tiny tugboat spewing an ominous blanket of smoke from its stack as it ferries health inspectors back and forth.

‘Dear Lord,’ I exclaim. ‘I swear that’s more ships than yesterday. Surely they can’t all be carrying the Spanish flu?’

Devi shudders. ‘That smoke cloud gives me the shivers. It’s as though the grim reaper is lurking above, ready to strike at any moment.’

‘It just looks like smoke to me,’ says my baby-faced subaltern.

It’s been a month since the latest and more deadly wave of the influenza epidemic crashed down on Auckland, and even wartime censorship can’t hide its growing presence in the Empire City.

As we cross the esplanade, the ever-present Wellington wind caresses our faces with the faint pong of the beach. Oriental Bay is in a unique position relative to the tides to receive the bilge leaking from ships moored offshore. The indistinct smell teases the nostrils, allowing the mind to conjure thoughts of rotting seaweed and ignore the grim reality of the odour’s probable origins.

‘Perhaps it isn’t too late to take the ferry out to Eastbourne,’ I say, sniffing the air. ‘Even without a woman in sight, this beach would still give a whole new meaning to mixed bathing.’

Margot shakes her head. ‘Rubbish! We can’t do a bunk now, not when that greasy fellow from the Empire City Inquirer is already waiting for us.’

She waves at the tabloid reporter who’s leaning against the seawall and sharing a cigarette with his photographer.

‘Oi,’ I yell, with far more bravado than I actually feel. ‘Make sure you spell my name right this time.’

He taps his nose in a knowing manner as we descend the concrete steps to the sand.

The beach is crowded, even for a Sunday, and the Union Brass Band is playing in the rotunda. A few of my companions sing along to the mournful notes of Pōkarekare Ana as we scout for a suitable site for our rugs and deckchairs. The sorrowful melody makes a fitting greeting to the new arrivals marooned on their own ships.

Despite the throng of beachgoers who’ve beaten us to it, we eventually stake out a patch of sludgy sand close to three young families with sunburnt toddlers and screaming babies. There’s not a sandcastle in sight, but a pair of twin boys have dug a sawtooth pattern of ditches amid the empty beer-bottles at the highwater mark. One of them is laying a knotted fishing line across the sand while the other complains he’s doing it all wrong. My young lieutenant bum-shuffles over to lend a hand.

‘Your machine-gun nest needs a clearer field of fire in front of the barbed wire,’ he explains, pointing to the boys’ diggings. I suspect it won’t be long before they recreate the Somme among the seashells.

Down the beach from us, a surly pack of stubble-faced hansom cab drivers have parked their horse-drawn vehicles at the end of the unfinished seawall. They’ve unhitched their horses and are passing a bottle around. Clad in nothing but trunks or long johns, some of their number are already riding their mounts bareback into the surf. They’re not bathing, they’re working—or so said the Cab Proprietors’ Union at the last city council meeting.

I cringe as a big black mare pauses to unleash a furious torrent of yellow piss into the frothy surf. Another enormous brute squeezes lumps of pungent brown manure from its posterior, to be washed up the foreshore by the incoming tide. Lacking in buoyancy, the vile excretions lurk just beneath the surface like German naval mines, causing me to abandon any lingering thought of a refreshing dip.

Margot sighs. ‘I suppose even beasts of burden need a weekly bath.’

‘Indeed,’ I say. ‘And the horses, too.’

We finish arranging our deckchairs and picnic rugs, and I shed my outer garments, attracting several stares from the ladies and gentlemen strolling along the esplanade in their Sunday best. I feel exposed, but I give a cheerful wave to the treasurer of the Women’s Patriotic Society who’s promenading behind the seawall with her portly husband. She tries to block his view with her lace-gloved hand.

The couple soon forget about us when a band of naked street urchins start taunting them. The urchins weave between our deckchairs, treading a parallel path to the respectable couple above and mimicking their upright posture. Technically, the bathing bylaws only apply to those aged ten and over, although these must be some of the, er . . . largest nine-year-olds ever to grace God’s earth. The rotund husband descends the stairs and yells at the urchins to take their antics back to the Te Aro slum. They scamper out of reach and shamelessly waggle their tackle at him as he wheezes across the sand.

As the sun bakes the sewage-soaked sludge, I light up a Lucky Strike and cringe. Oriental Bay may have the best views in the city, but only if one doesn’t look too closely. The prevailing southerly winds blow the refuse from the city corporation’s yard at Clyde Quay straight into the harbour, and the fruits of last week’s gales are now washing up on the foreshore to be feasted upon by rats.

The photographer sets up his camera on a tripod, and I strike a few poses while taking a drag on my cigarette. Meanwhile, the journalist takes out his notebook and begins to question me as my clients help the soldiers shuffle into the surf.

‘Miss McDougal, can you tell us what all the fuss is about today?’

I affect my most innocent smile and breathe a puff of smoke in the reporter’s direction. ‘My good man, there’s no cause for a fuss; we’re just concerned citizens playing our part in the war effort. For too long these wounded heroes have gazed longingly out the window at the . . . er . . . most delightful beach in our great capital, unable to enjoy the healing benefits of a dip in the sea.’

Behind the photographer, Bonnie rises from our picnic rug and slowly peels off her floppy tunic to reveal a sleek bathing garment of tight-knitted wool. With a facial expression naughtier than a dancer at the Folies Bergère, she drops her heavy skirt to the ground, knowing full well I’m never going to scold her in front of the Wellington press.

‘But surely, Miss McDougal, such lewdness isn’t necessary just to take a swim?’

Bonnie blows me a kiss before skipping into the water. A surge of panic grips my stomach and I come over all dizzy. Good grief, it’s one thing for me to risk an encounter with the police, but I’m not sure I could forgive myself if Bonnie were arrested. Lord knows what the Headmistress at Wellington Girls’ High would make of it, especially when Bonnie’s in the running for dux.

‘Miss McDougal?’

I turn back to the journalist and do my best to remember the question. ‘Um . . . right . . . well, I say rational dress is at the forefront of modern feminism, and whether it’s at the factory or the beach, no woman will ever be able to fully play her part in the war effort while imprisoned in impractical clothing.’

By now a crowd of beachgoers have circled around us, soaking up the free entertainment. A portly lout with a massive beer belly cups his hands to his mouth and yells in my direction. ‘Oi, Luv, you can come and play your part over ’ere with me if you like.’

‘Did you serve in the trenches?’ I call back, placing my free hand on my hip in my best impersonation of a teapot. ‘Seems to me the most dangerous thing you’ve ever charged at is a very large pie.’

I don’t want to disparage anyone’s war record, but my suspicions are confirmed when his wife clouts him on the back of his head and gives me a knowing look amid the raucous laughter.

The photographer picks up his wooden tripod and tilts it towards the ocean. ‘Can we get a picture of you in the water with the soldiers?’

I decide that if I don’t get my hair wet then a little dip probably won’t kill me. Besides, it’s the only way I’ll have a chance to tell my sister to stop her shenanigans before the police arrive.

I drum my fingers and glance nervously at Bonnie while the photographer and reporter don fishing waders. My word, these men will do anything for a story. Of course, the little vixen is nowhere near the soldiers, she’s prancing around in the shallows near a pair of boys her own age. I wince as she wobbles and gyrates in front of them with gleeful abandon.

With my press contingent finally ready, I take another drag on my cigarette and try not to think about horses as I tiptoe into the frigid brown froth. I do my best to avoid a bloated dog carcass bobbing in the swell and sidle over to Margot, who’s explaining the invigorating benefits of saltwater bathing to a pair of armless soldiers.

I wrap my free arm around the nearest of the two men and unleash an unladylike squeal as an icy rogue wave douses both of us up to our necks. So much for my cigarette. The photographer breathes a sigh of relief, having lifted his camera clear at the last minute. ‘Are you going to take the picture or not?’ I demand through chattering teeth.

He sheepishly points at my saturated torso. ‘Well, I could take the . . . er

. . . exposure if you like, Miss, but I could never print it.’

I glance at the now translucent fabric clinging to my bosom and fold my arms across my chest, trying not to blush. Perhaps one day some genius will invent a stretchy fabric that retains its concealing properties when wet, but for now that’s just a pipe dream.

‘Miss,’ says the reporter, ‘what do you say to those critics who argue that the Kellerman costume is just an excuse for immoral women to flaunt their bodies in front of men?’

I decide that if I’m in for a penny, I’m in for a pound, and drop my arms as if daring him to look. ‘Well, I say that the only people who should be shamed by the phenomenon of leering men are the leerers themselves.’

I feel a little smug when neither of them can make eye contact with me. Instead, they thank me for my time and beat a hasty retreat back to the sand. I’m about to wade over and tell Bonnie to put some clothes on when I spy a black paddy wagon clattering along the esplanade behind a crowded tram. Top-heavy and cumbersome, the Black Maria’s springs groan in agony as it lurches from pothole to pothole, pulled by an enormous Clydesdale. Why the devil would the police send a paddy wagon just to issue summonses to enforce a bylaw?

A chill colder than a Wellington wave washes over me. ‘Bonnie!’ I shriek. ‘Get back to the beach and put my kimono on. You’re seventeen, the police can try you as an adult.’

‘Sis, I am an adult,’ she shouts back, prancing over to join us.

It’s too late now. A squad of coppers and a lone police matron emerge from the paddy wagon and assemble in parade formation behind the seawall. The sergeant barks orders and they descend onto the beach, sweating and tugging at their collars as they stumble on the soft sand. Mothers clutch their children, bathers stop splashing, and anonymous wags make oinking noises.

With our big push for equality fast approaching, my accomplices converge into a gaggle. My voice pitches higher than I’d like as I grab Bonnie’s shoulders and direct her to swim out to the buoy until it’s all over.

‘Not on your life, Sis,’ she smirks, before sinking under the water and emerging in the middle of my clients’ huddle. Devi squeezes my hand and I pray for the umpteenth time that the police won’t do anything stupid. Clearly, they’re not just here to enforce a local ordinance.

‘Come on out,’ bellows the sergeant. ‘You’re all under arrest.’

My co-conspirators glance at one another, each motioning to the woman next to her to make the first move.

‘Come and get us!’ yells Bonnie before blowing him a kiss.

The sergeant gestures to a reluctant constable, who sheds his jacket and hat and starts rolling up his sleeves until Margot decides to save him the trouble. Every head on the beach turns as one when my tall, long-legged friend emerges dripping from the surf with calculated nonchalance. She strides towards her picnic rug, her bedraggled hair clinging to her head, and her Annette Kellerman original bathing costume clinging to her body.

The sergeant is dumbstruck, while a pair of constables stare in open admiration.

The matron shrieks. ‘Young lady, you stop right there!’

A pimply-faced constable reaches for Margot’s arm but she bats his hand away. ‘Don’t you touch me!’

He lunges towards her, but she fends him off with a shove to the face. At six foot two, she’s a head taller than the young blue-bottle and her graceful figure is deceptively strong.

The constable falls flat on his backside. As he struggles to his feet, Margot gives him a cheeky wave and lopes off down the beach. Run Margot, run.

The humiliated bobby sprints after her and the others take their cue, abandoning the convalescent soldiers and racing up the foreshore like headless chickens. The cabinet minister’s wife grabs Bonnie’s hand, charging up the beach with her before I can stop them. She probably thinks she’s doing me a favour by taking the young lady under her wing. The brass band launches into a rendition of the can-can as the policemen take off in hot pursuit. I start chasing after Bonnie, yelling at her not to resist, but then decide I’m better off going straight to the top. I take a deep breath and march up to the sergeant. ‘How dare you, sir? I’ll have you know that our bathing costumes are—’

I release an involuntary squeal as a constable wraps his arms around me from behind and lifts me into the air. My legs thrash about as if riding a bicycle. The constable spins me around and I catch sight of Margot ducking and weaving through the crowd. A cheer erupts as her pursuer tackles her into the surf with a mighty splash and wrestles with her until she’s shackled in handcuffs. When he finally hauls her to her feet, they’re both dripping wet and plastered with sand. Her screams can probably be heard at Parliament.

I twist my neck to address the sergeant and shout over the commotion. ‘I’m these women’s solicitor and I promise you I’ve got your collar number. I have every intention of laying a complaint for excessive force, and—’

The sergeant slaps me across the face with a sharp crack. When the shock subsides, I realise I’m more affronted than hurt. Any complaint for such a trifle would be laughed out of court, but I do my best to sow a little doubt, yelling at the reporter who’s scribbling furiously in his notebook. ‘Did you see that assault? You’ll be my first witness.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ says the sergeant as he finally recognises me. That’s right, Wellington has a female solicitor and you’re looking right at her.

The constable behind me slackens his grip, and I waggle my finger in the sergeant’s face until the constable slaps a handcuff on my wrist. ‘I demand to know the grounds on which my clients are being arrested.’

Only a veteran copper could produce a frown so stern. ‘You just shut yer bleedin’ cake hole,’ he yells, his cheeks turning bright red as he surveys the scene.

At least there’s no chance of a charge of resisting arrest—no self-respecting bobby would ever want to go to court to relive the humiliation of having a bunch of women literally run rings around him.

The sergeant orders his underling to throw me in the paddy wagon, and I do my best impression of a limp rag doll as the constable drags me across the sand. He pushes me into the paddy wagon’s dark, oven-like interior, and I scramble over to the barred window only to have the photographer’s magnesium flash bulb explode in my face. Thankfully, the gallon of pomade I used to plaster my ringlets in place means my coiffure is still intact.

Peering through the bars and over the seawall, I’m dismayed to see Bonnie being frogmarched towards me. My sister looks absurdly young next to the man-mountain who’s arrested her. She has the bewildered expression of a girl who’s dived into something well and truly over her head.

Only Devi is still standing in the ocean, and I’m starting to think she’s lost her bottle when she abruptly strolls up the foreshore, waving to her theatre-going admirers who instantly recognise her. Apparently, she was just waiting to make her entrance. Changing her step to a comedic tiptoe, she feigns sneaking behind the constables’ backs and then reclines in her deckchair with a come and get me expression on her face.

Through the bars, I watch as the sergeant jabs his ruler in her direction and yells over the laughter at the dripping blue-bottle who’s just deposited Margot alongside me. ‘Arrest the Māori one, too.’

In fact, Devi isn’t Māori, she’s Indian—the half-caste daughter of a Scottish civil engineer who earned his spurs on the subcontinent. She hardly has time to lament the recurring misunderstanding before the pimply-faced constable descends on her. Her treacherous deckchair collapses and she topples to the ground beneath him.

Devi wriggles from the constable’s grip, and it takes two more to subdue her. Forget the Parisian cabarets she spent half the war performing in, she’ll never get a more enthusiastic audience than the one she has right now. She has a distinct twinkle in her eye as the constables clap her in handcuffs, and she somehow manages an elaborate bow as they push her into the paddy wagon with the rest of us.

The wooden bench in the back of the paddy wagon is carved with decades of graffiti and it’s splintered and scratchy beneath the thin silk covering my posterior. I wince as I sit down. ‘What the devil were you thinking?’ I wail at Bonnie as she squeezes herself onto the bench next to me.

It doesn’t take long for the excitement of the chase to die down, and we’re left with nothing to do but contemplate the thick wooden walls while the policemen wade into the water to extract the crippled soldiers we abandoned. One of them is already being carried up the hill on a burly constable’s back. I swear we would’ve gone back for them if we weren’t locked up.

Dear God, so this is what the inside of a paddy wagon looks like. Dripping wet, I yell out the window, begging the reporter to retrieve our clothes and promising another interview in the process.

‘Well, that went well,’ exclaims Margot, with a satisfied grin.

As far as she’s concerned, everything has played out as expected. At last the women’s progressive movement will get the fight it’s been spoiling for.

She has no idea.

§

An hour later, the sergeant escorts us all into the charge room at the Taranaki Street police station. I feel naked and vulnerable as I stand wet and shivering in my translucent sodden silk. Half a dozen sniggering policemen toy with their batons and look me up and down while the sergeant takes my fingerprints. You’d think they could’ve at least offered us some blankets.

It takes all my powers of self-control not to slap the sergeant while he plods through the standard form charge sheet. Instead, I stand as tall as my five-foot-six-and-a-quarter frame allows, and pour scorn into my voice.

‘Oh please, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’

The sergeant pokes out his belly and furrows his brow. ‘I ain’t changing my mind, luv. We’re not chargin’ you under the council bylaw. We’re chargin’ you with obscene exposure.’

The clang of a cell door closing in the distance fills the stunned silence. I’ve a fair poker face, but there’s no hiding my realisation of impending calamity.

The blood drains from Devi’s face. ‘Obscene exposure! My God, Lorna, what’s going to happen to us?’

The sergeant offers her a wry smile. ‘Nothing . . .’

She breathes a sigh of relief.

‘. . . unless you’re convicted. Then the magistrate’ll pack yer off to gaol soon as look at yer.’

Her eyes widen. ‘Gaol?’

‘It’s not going to come to that,’ I say, racking my brains to recall the precise elements of the offence. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to bring my sister along today.

The coppers chuckle as Devi demands to know the maximum sentence. I pat her on the shoulder and try to project more confidence than I feel. ‘Don’t worry. Even if we’re convicted, I can probably convince the Magistrate to stay the sentence pending an app—’

‘Lorna McDougal,’ says Devi with her hands on her hips. ‘I’m asking you what the maximum sentence is.’

I wince as the words leave my mouth. ‘Twelve months.’

The sergeant grins. ‘With hard labour.’

‘Don’t listen to him.’

‘Twelve months!’ squeals Bonnie. I reach over and squeeze her hand, feeling guiltier than ever. She squeezes back, crushing my digits as if it’s a matter of life and death.

The sergeant takes our surety and bails us to appear in court two days hence. The matron then escorts us to a room where we can change into the clothes that the reporter, thank goodness, delivered from the beach. Bonnie and I are among