Cold Light (9 page)

She was pleased to be admired by a smart-talking young communist. Janice was shifting before her eyes, from chambermaid, to her brother’s lover and her de facto sister-in-law, to hotel spy, to communist, to potential friend. ‘Frederick and I were out of touch for such a long time.’

‘He seems to have followed your career, one way or another. And the Party has its spies too.’ She smiled. ‘Including me – it was I who told Frederick that you were living here at the hotel.’

‘You did?’

‘After I saw the piece in the newspaper. I felt a brother should know. Leaving aside the Party line, I would see that the League was a beginning, misconceived, of another sort of internationalism. It might have met up with the brotherhood of man at some point in history. Don’t tell Fred I said that.’

Janice’s request for confidentiality reminded her of a third rule her mother had about servants: never ask them to lie for you. But here the servant was asking her employer to lie for her. In a sense. ‘You seem to take your communism lightly?’

Janice became alert. ‘Don’t be misled. I like the dedication of the Party. I like the organisation – although I have to say that it is more impressive on paper. And don’t tell Fred I said
that
. He’ll have me up before a verification committee. Some bitchy comrades say that I am not a communist, I just sleep with one. Fred thinks no one knows; they all know.’ She ran her hand through the feather duster. ‘I
am
a communist.’

‘I had better keep a list of things I shouldn’t tell Frederick. I suppose I lean more towards Fabian socialism. Or rather, a dreamy Spanish anarchism. In the meantime, I’m a pragmatic kind of democrat.’

Janice shrugged.

Edith went on, ‘I knew the anarchist leader Ascaso, just before the Spanish war began.’

‘You were in Spain during the civil war?’

‘I met him when I went down to Spain in 1936 to do a small report on something, maybe telephone systems. Oh dear, all the small reports and recommendations I have made – all now dust. A life of small reports. I went down again with the League Commission in 1938. He was dead by then. Shot.’

Janice was interested. ‘What was he like, Ascaso?’

Edith considered what to say – after all, Janice had slipped into the conversation that she was sleeping with Frederick. She dived in, ‘Ascaso was by far the most dangerous man I have slept with. It was just an
amourette
.’

‘
Amourette
. Mrs Westwood – Edith. I’ll use that –
amourette
. The word would make some of my early fumbles in the dark sound more exotic, even charming. We weren’t taught that word in French lessons at SCEGGS.’

‘I do remember wishing that he would shave more closely. And more often.’

Janice laughed loudly. ‘I sometimes wish Fred would, too. Some days he thinks some stubble is working class, other days he shaves and sees himself setting an example of hygiene and self-responsibility. As a good communist.’

She looked at Janice and risked a further revelation, feeling that this was the way forward between them. Lowering her voice, she said, ‘I also always washed Ascaso’s privates before we had sex. He seemed to be unconcerned with the duties of hygiene. I fantasised that he had just come to me, muddy from battle.’ She coloured at her candour. In for a penny, in for a pound. ‘He liked having his privates washed in warm water. And dried.’

Janice laughed and also blushed. ‘Did you meet Durruti?’

‘I would have liked to. If we are to exchange such secrets, Janice, put down that duster and make us a cup of tea – there’s some black Ceylon there, and some fresh milk that came up this morning. And you will find the last of our Belgian chocolate there somewhere – let’s finish it.’ She heard the bossiness in her voice and, in contrition, sprang up and went to help with the chocolate and tea. ‘I didn’t mean to boss you.’

‘I’m accustomed to being bossed. That is why I do this job – to get to know what most people have to put up with all their lives: being bossed.’ Janice stopped herself, as if she feared becoming preachy, and shifted the conversation. ‘You know, you’re the only guests who have ever rearranged the furniture. And you brought in some of your own furniture.’

‘We were trying to make the suite more liveable.’

The slow electric jug was becoming noisy as it approached boiling.

Edith went on. ‘At the League, I rather liked being a subaltern in administration. I suppose, though, that was the pleasure of carrying out orders while being something of a colleague. And it’s part of being young, being a trainee. That’s not really being bossed around, because the subaltern often gets to run her boss, and the boss leaves more and more to the good subaltern. But I do rather like to have an . . . ancillary role. Perhaps it has to do with being a woman – the way we are brought up – but I think not. I think there’s a type of personality that performs best at that role. The best work I did with the League was as a lieutenant, I think. Not the captain. Then in UNRRA, organising refugees, I was equivalent to the rank of major, but I still reported to a colonel.’

Edith did not put into words that sometimes there had also been a dreadful pull towards the silent offering of herself to superior men, a wishing to be taken over and to serve – utterly. She had always resisted that urge. Yet, paradoxically, the two men in her married life – Robert and Ambrose – had also been, oddly enough, disposed to subordinate themselves to her. And that had suited her.

‘I would think that is something else,’ Janice said as she went about making the tea. ‘The difference is that you felt yourself part of the officer class, even if junior.’

‘Tell me about Frederick.’

Janice pretended to think, finger to her forehead. ‘He is very thorough. He accounts for every penny of petty cash. He will walk miles rather than spend Party funds on transport. He does it all by bus, train and borrowed car.’ She laughed. ‘In his library he turns the unread books spine to the wall, in case people think he’s claiming them as books he’s read.’

There was something delectable in hearing details about one’s family from a stranger; it was like listening at a keyhole.

‘But you don’t live at this camp on the hill – with all the men?’

‘I have a room here. Servants’ quarters.’

Janice served the tea. ‘Sugar, ma’am?’ She parodied her servant voice, holding a sugar cube with tongs. ‘He sneaks in for nocturnal visits.’

‘One, thank you, Janice. You do the voice very well. Is Frederick scared about the banning of the Party? Are you scared?’

‘We are all scared, but we are prepared. Preparations are being made to go underground.’ Janice glanced at her uneasily.

‘I won’t tell.’

‘They may torture it out of you.’

They laughed.

And then Edith thought,
This is not a game, these are not playground secrets
. ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t tell me too much.’

‘I’m sure they know about it, even if they don’t know the where and how. The Party had a rehearsal of working underground at the start of the war – before we were all on the same side – hidden printing presses in caves and so on. Back then it was the Labor Party that was after us. Evatt was hunting us down.’

They sipped their tea.

Janice said, ‘I suppose I feel you are more or less on our side.’

‘I don’t know about that. I am a humanist. I was for disarmament. I think that could be achieved – down to the level of police forces. But no, I’m not a communist. I admire the entrepreneurial spirit.’

‘You’re a bourgeois liberal.’ She laughed. ‘I was one once. And, I suppose, so was Fred. You must come and meet some of the others in the branch; the Canberra branch is somewhat cerebral. And we have a couple of reformed bourgeois liberals.’

‘I am thinking that I will make a rule that you and Frederick may each use the word bourgeois once a month.’

Janice took a piece of the Belgian chocolate and put it in her mouth, closed her eyes and exclaimed, ‘Divine.’

There was a moment of silence while they ate their chocolate, making large eyes at each other.

Janice then asked, ‘Are you someone who eats their chocolate slowly or the person who gobbles it? I’m a gobbler. But I won’t gobble yours.’

Edith smiled. ‘I’m a gobbler who tries not to be. It’s amazing that we have any of the chocolate left. You went on to university? You must wish for a career?’

‘I did law in the lazy way, reading books not on the course, going to too many meetings, hanging out at Manning. Drinking pots and pots of tea. Eating too much raisin toast too thickly buttered.’

‘Raisin toast. I would love some raisin toast. Haven’t had it since uni. I must buy some. And you have career plans?’

‘I didn’t qualify as a solicitor, just the degree. My dad’s a lawyer. The Party wants me in this sort of job for a while – in the Miscellaneous Workers Union. I see that as my career – as an
agitator
. A miscellaneous agitator.’ Janice gave the word dramatic volume. ‘The MWU represents the lowest-paid workers of all and the most badly treated – caretakers and cleaners and waiters and servants and gatekeepers. I’ll run for a position in the union.’

‘You believe socialism will win out?’

‘It seems to be winning out in the world. And this country is dividing into two – those who get the best because they’re rich, and those who get what the rich give them. Or steal from their workplace.’ Janice giggled and stirred her tea. ‘But let’s return to you – what’s a woman with all your worldly experience in high places doing sitting in a hotel room writing letters and drinking tea with servants?’

Edith had been trying not to see herself that way. ‘I’m fishing for a position with External Affairs. They won’t employ a married woman. Even married women who do not feel married . . .’ She shouldn’t have ventured that. She continued quickly, ‘And the High Commissioner is against wives of diplomats working, says that in his experience there’s never been a wife of a diplomat who wished to work. I thought I would get in under section 47 of the PS regulations – taking in people from outside the public service with special skills. I will try to get in through that window.’

‘What about Exempt Employment?’

‘As you probably know, that’s used for the hiring of cleaners, and so on, the really low positions.’ Oh, oh. ‘
Low
, that is, in pay, I mean,’ she corrected.

‘Were there any women ambassadors at the League?’

‘One – a Romanian.’

Janice tentatively returned to the remark that had obviously stuck with her and that she had probably been turning over. She raised her eyebrows and said, ‘How do you mean you “don’t feel married” ’

Edith pondered her reply.

‘That is, if you don’t mind me asking?’

Edith looked at Janice with an expression that asked for trust, wondering if she could risk trust. She then realised that she was hungry for a confidante and was drawn to making Janice her confidante. She felt she could trust a SCEGGS girl. ‘Oh, I suppose I meant a Bloomsbury marriage. Ambrose and I are married legally, so he could move comfortably in the Foreign Office and so on – socially – but we never saw our lives together as being, well, that of a conventional married couple.’

Janice looked at her questioningly, hoping for more.

That was enough for now.

Janice let it go. ‘As a chambermaid, I know he sleeps in the other room sometimes. I thought it must have been because he snored.’

Edith laughed. ‘Everyone snores a little, but we rarely sleep alone.’ Enough about that. ‘We are very close. We’re good pals.’

Again Janice looked at her, remaining silent for a few seconds, taking it in.

‘I am not sure I follow,’ she said, and then laughed. ‘But I am sure that I should not ask any more questions.’

‘Perhaps another time.’

‘Next time, you must tell me about Bloomsbury.’ Janice finished her tea and stood up. ‘Fred told me you mentioned it.’ She looked at her watch. ‘You made me forget that I’m working. We communists must be good workers otherwise they’d use our politics as an excuse to get rid of us.’

‘You can leave this room as it is, don’t worry about finishing.’

‘Are you sure?’ Janice looked around. ‘I’ll empty the wastepaper bins.’

Edith nodded.

Janice said, ‘Will you come over to meet some Party people at the new National Uni? You’ll like them. Are you going to speak at the Peace Congress in Melbourne? You’d be a star.’

‘I don’t know what Party members would think of us ex-League people. We threw Russia out of the League, remember, for invading Finland.’

‘I think the Soviet Union forgives you, Edith.’

Janice did tidy some things, and rinsed the cups in the bathroom sink.

As she was leaving, she paused at the door of the suite, came back in and gave Edith a kiss on the cheek. ‘Thanks for telling me about Ascaso and the other spicy stuff.’

‘Say hello to Frederick. We should plan to all get together – the four of us, perhaps?’ Edith remembered Ambrose’s suggestion. ‘Ambrose and I would like that. Perhaps somewhere to live will have come up by then.’

‘Must be hard after all these years – to take him into your life. And remember, whatever I said about the Party and Frederick is a secret between us?’

‘I’ll remember. What did he say about our reunion?’

Janice chose her words. ‘He was curious to meet you and, of course, pleased. But I don’t think he knows where it’s going – you and him.’

‘Nor do I.’

‘Fred has to go away to Wagga and the Snowy for a week or more. I’ll let you know when he’ll be back.’

Janice went out the door.

Edith was about to go after her to ask her to take her mail down and have it weighed and stamped, but stopped herself.

She felt vitalised by the chat and that it had rearranged things between Janice and her. It brought home to her that she did have to get out of her slump; she did need to get out and talk to people.

But it was more than that. Janice was, after all, her brother’s lover. Almost family.

She was still trying to understand the brother–sister bond, its frontiers. The brother and sister thing was not only about the heart, it had to do with alliances. Brothers and sisters were, of course, the first people we meet in our life where an alliance was possible and useful and even necessary – usually an alliance against parents or against strangers in the street or bullies in the playground. But she could see that there was nothing obligatory about it. It wasn’t genetic. One had only to look at the bad blood between siblings at times – historically or biblically – to know that it was not genetic. An emergency could bring siblings back into alliance. If an emergency overtook one or both, siblings could without hesitation turn to each other. Perhaps Frederick was right that it was a politico-economic unit.