The Paua Tower by Coral Atkinson

Stella’s parents but the thought of going back to Tiny Mulcock’s house without so much as a glimpse of her seemed too disappointing to endure.
    He slipped around to the back. He remembered Stella saying she was glad she had a view of the mountain from her window, along with the clothesline with its wooden prop. Would she be asleep? He wanted to see her sleeping, half moons of lashes on her cheeks, her hair falling around her shoulders like lemon honey.
    Carrying the sewing machine up the broken path, taking care no random footfall would betray him, made Vic think of boyhood. He was an only child and his mother had worked as a housekeeper.Vic remembered the flickering parade of houses where they lived, the frequent changes of school and the long walks home to some new place where his mother was working. The constant worry that her position would be lost, for who really wanted a housekeeper with a child in tow? Always the commands to be quiet, not to run, laugh, shout, be a bother. Vic had learned early to travel on soundless feet, to glide behind a bush or an outhouse, to blend in, disappear. The bosses were there then, just as now. Watching, grasping, exploiting.
    As a child he suffered a lot from earache. He would wake, crying with pain, and his mother would scoop him up, pour something warm and smooth onto his ear, and hold him in her bed until he slept. Vic could still feel the delicious feeling as the pain in his ear subsided, the close comfort of his mother’s body and the sweet smell of the glycerine she rubbed into her hands to make them soft.
    Vic and his mother had one constant pleasure: a gramophone. On Joy Cowan’s days off they carried it and the records with them, to sit on a bench or a rug in some park or domain. ‘Let’s hear it, Vic,’ his mother would say, and the boy would crank the handle and let the needle drop. Caruso, Melba, Galli Curci — voices no one could shush or ignore. Joy taught Vic to dance the modern crazes such as ragtime and the Charleston, along with waltzing to Strauss, and stepping up for the Gay Gordons, the Boston two-step or the gypsy tap. By the age of sixteen he could glide and sweep, sashay and shimmy with the best of them.
    Putting the sewing machine on the path, Vic moved close to a lit window and pressed his face against the glass. The curtain wasn’t quite drawn and in the crack he could see the bobbing light of a bike lamp: Stella was sitting up in bed writing.
    Vic tapped the glass. ‘Stella, Stella,’ he hissed. ‘It’s me, Vic.’
    Stella jumped; the light slithered to the floor. As she got out of bed he could see she was wearing what looked like boys’ striped pyjamas, patched on the knees.
    Stella pulled on an overcoat that hung on the back of the door and opened the window.
    ‘Vic,’ she whispered.
    ‘Hope you don’t mind,’ he said, catching her hand. ‘I wanted to see you so much. I was worried you might have forgotten me.’
    ‘Forgotten!’ said Stella. ‘I was just writing to you. Silly, of course, when I’m to see you on Saturday. What are you doing here?’
    ‘Came down sooner than I planned. I’ll explain later. Got a favour to ask.’
    Vic wanted to touch her, hold her, kiss her. He wanted to ask if he could come into her room.
    ‘Can you come outside?’ he said hopefully.
    ‘Mum or Dad might hear. They’d be wild if they found out.’ Stella glanced at the door.
    ‘Suppose,’ said Vic, looking at his feet.
    ‘What’s that you’ve got?’ said Stella seeing the shape of the sewing machine on the path.
    ‘That’s the favour,’ said Vic. ‘They’re evicting a widow tomorrow over at Horatio Street — Ena Thurlow, the sister of a man at camp. Me and the blokes are going to try and stop it. I want you to look after her sewing machine till it’s over. Don’t want the bailiff to get it — it’s all the woman has to do her dress-making .’
    ‘Course I’ll take it,’ said Stella. ‘I know Mrs Thurlow. She and her brother