Tears of the Moon - Di Morrissey [11]
Lily let down her long, thick dark hair, brushed it, touched up her lipstick and headed for the Lugger Bar. Another blast from the past, she thought with a grin.
But there was no Long Bar and not a Gin Sling in sight here. It was RSL decor, practical and familiar to every drinker in Australia. However it was quiet, with few customers, and she felt no qualms at being the only woman in the room. She ordered a glass of wine and wandered around looking at the large framed photographs on the walls. This was old Broome—luggers lined up alongside the long jetty, lying on their side in the low tide mud; Japanese divers in balloon-like suits, metal helmet held under an arm; Asian labourers sitting beside great mounds of mother-of-pearl, shelling and sorting.
Lily had an overwhelming longing to be a part of that romantic era. How she wished the Ansett flight had whisked her to the Broome of the early 1900s. Even though she’d seen nothing of the place, Lily felt a tug at her emotions simply by being here and hoped she wasn’t going to be disappointed by finding the past had been erased and that her private quest would reach a dead end.
A sun-shrivelled, grey-headed, nuggetty little man in a faded T-shirt commemorating a decade past ‘Fun Run’, swung around on his bar stool and addressed her. ‘Them were the days, girlie. This was a wild town in the twenties.’
Lily smiled slightly at being called ‘girlie’. Political correctness obviously didn’t have much currency in Broome. ‘I bet you’re a local,’ she said sweetly.
‘Yeah, I guess I sorta qualify now.’ His face fractured into a hundred wrinkles as he smiled at her.
‘Have you been here a long time?’ Lily walked to the bar past the empty mock Tudor-style tables and joined the old man.
‘Too long. Everyone comes to Broome for a season or two, they say, then never leave. I always planned to move on after I’d made enough moolah. Never did. Ended up retiring to a home in Perth a few years back. Couldn’t hack it. Rather live in a shack here. So, you on holidays?’
‘In a way. I’m doing a bit of research, looking back at the old days, the old families.’
‘Go on!’ he said with genuine surprise. ‘What for?’
Lily sipped her wine while she thought of an answer. ‘I might write something. Or uncover a family tree.’
‘More likely find a skeleton or two in the closet round these parts,’ winked the old-timer. ‘So where’re you going to start?’
‘I’m not sure. Where would you suggest?’
‘You’d be best going to the hysterical society. It’s just down the road. Never been there meself.’
Lily laughed. ‘Is it a big historical society?’
‘It’s in the old Customs House. Only a small joint, but they might have stuff you’re after. There ain’t anywhere else,’ said the man finishing his drink and looking expectantly at Lily.
She took the hint and ordered a round. ‘I’m Lily Barton.’
They shook hands.
‘Clancy. Well, me real name is Howard. But I like poetry, hence the moniker.’
‘You read poetry?’
‘Sometimes,’ he shrugged, then added with obvious enthusiasm, ‘The stuff I make up is better.’
Lily spoke quickly to divert an offer to quote his original works. ‘So tell me, are there any old-timers around I could talk to, divers or some of the old families?’
‘What’s wrong with me?’ grinned Clancy. ‘Listen, there are some old-time families around, most of them are gettin’ on and they keep to themselves. They’re a mixed bunch. Mrs Fong might yarn to you, her old man was a diver. She used ta clean houses for the rich white ladies when she was young. The Fongs are pretty successful business folk now. The working pearl people here are fairly new. I mean it depends a lot on what you’re lookin’ for.’
Lily fished in her shoulder bag for the old photograph of the man in white and showed it to Clancy. The barman and the other drinkers gathered around. ‘He