Nance felt as if the year behind her was a ragged landscape of mountains and valleys she’d trudged through, a road with no rests and no glories. She thought, I got through that. I can get through anything.
She wondered what would have happened if her parents had been unadventurous and contented with their lot. She’d have grown up in Gunnedah, left school at fourteen as they had, married a farmer, had six children. Gone to her grave without knowing how to calibrate a pipette. It would have been a happy enough life, but Meg would call it unexamined. Yes, she wanted to meet someone, get married, have children. She wanted to be happy. But she knew now that she wanted something else as well.
Over Christmas she spent one of her two weeks’ annual holiday in Tamworth. The town was quiet. Half the shops were closed. The Cally had a hangdog look. A panel of iron lace had fallen off the verandah and a rusted downpipe had left a long red stain on the side wall. The dining room had an unused musty smell and the laundry was silent. Mrs Chipp was the first to be let go, I bet, Nance thought.
Dolly had become small and sour. She mostly stayed in her room with a headache. Bert tried to be hearty but you could see the cracks. He disappeared for hours at a time. Frank was still out at Uncle Willie’s, working for board and keep. Max had left school when the Depression hit. He was helping out in the Cally now, except no help was needed.
It was Max who told Nance that their father was mixed up with some woman living up on Paradise Street. He’s, you know, head in the sand, Max said. With the Cally going downhill. She’s like an escape for him.
You reckon Mum knows, Nance said.
Reckon she does, Max said.
The woman on Paradise Street made Nance understand her mother for the first time. There’d have been other women, Nance realised now, heaven knew how many. Benni in Temora was one, but every town, every pub, would have had a woman who caught Bert’s eye. It was why Dolly was forever wanting to move. Another town, another hotel. All she could do now was retreat to her room. Perhaps Meg was right about marriage.
Nance leaned on the windowsill of her old room, looking up at the washed-out green of the hill behind the town. There was nothing for her here. Only that failing hotel, the cranky mother, the father muddled up with some other woman. If this had ever been any kind of home for her, it wasn’t one any longer.
In 1931 Nance started second year. That was Materia Medica, the nuts and bolts of being a pharmacist. From the recipe books of the British Pharmacopoeia and Martindale’s, the students learned the exact ingredients, in Latin, of any medicine a doctor might prescribe. The Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary told you exactly how to make it. The students learned about patent medicines, profitable for the pharmacist but mostly alcohol and sugar. How to know when to send the customer to a doctor. When to let them think you were one. The lecturer told them, If a customer comes in and says, Are you Doctor Jones, simply say, My name is Jones.
The male students could see the finish line in sight, their professional lives waiting for them. Every one of them was ready to look a customer in the eye and say, My name is Jones. For the women it was different. They knew that life as a female pharmacist—or pharmaciste, as one of the instructors insisted—was going to be no easier than being a female pharmacy student had been. There’d be customers who wouldn’t believe you were the pharmacist, who’d go elsewhere rather than trust a woman.
Two other women joined Nance and Mavis and Marjorie. Christina had a sad beaten look. It had taken her two years to squeak through Chemistry and Botany. You couldn’t imagine her behind the counter bossing people around. Ada was a friendly Jewish girl who had a knack for thinking up little ditties to remember the hundreds of formulas they had to learn. If you want the bowels to move to please yers, take rhubarb, ginger and both magnesers. See, Nance, Ada said. You’ll never forget that now, as long as you live.
From working in the shop, Nance already knew about macerating and decocting and the rest of it. Compared to first year, Mat Med was easy. But by the end of winter things were catching up with her. Every day it was the same: the big old alarm clock going off at half-past six, the quick wash in the bathroom down the hall, breakfast, the walk to the pharmacy. If Mr Stevens wasn’t there yet, she had to wait outside. A pharmacy couldn’t be open unless the registered pharmacist was on the premises. Unlock the door, go into the smell of the closed-up shop: privy and peppermint, and the ghosts of a hundred thousand prescriptions. By the end of the day all the spirit was leached out of her.
Three weeks before the exams, the minister came from St James, as he did every Sunday, to give communion. As soon as he gave the first blessing Nance could hear what a terrible cold he had. She watched him raise the chalice and take a sip.
Two days later she woke up with a piercing headache. Every joint hurt, her eyes felt loose in their sockets, she shivered and sweated. People came and went, some spoke to her, but she was too sick to care. Meg sat with her and sponged her face. Matron pushed a thermometer under her tongue. A hundred and four! Nance heard her say. Best get the doctor.
A few days later she still had a sore throat and a cough and the world had a grey look, as if her eyes were too tired to see in colour, but the headache was mostly gone and her joints had stopped aching. Matron came again with the thermometer. Back to work tomorrow, Miss Russell, she said, as if promising a treat. In the morning Nance could hardly stand and Meg had to help her button her cardigan. Mr Stevens was shocked when he saw her but he didn’t send her home. Two weeks later she did the exams.
She only got forty-three in Materia Medica. She’d been too sick to study so it was no more than she deserved, but she’d hoped for a miracle. Here she was, failed, along with poor silly Christina, whose eyes were big with tears and whose lip was trembling. She’d only got twenty-two. That was a definite fail. Nance’s mark gave her another chance. She could sit the exam again in March.
She didn’t go home at Christmas. She slept and slept, and when she wasn’t sleeping she studied. Meg sneaked cups of tea and plates of biscuits up to her, though you weren’t allowed to eat or drink in the room. Made the bed for her, did Nance’s laundry for her. This is the darkest hour, Nance dear, she kept saying. Don’t let them beat you.
In February, Meg had to leave. She’d finished her teacher training and they’d sent her to Lawson in the Blue Mountains. Nance kept going with the study. Back from the pharmacy every night, have tea, get out the books. She had the room to herself. The hostel was cheap, but it was too dear for anyone who didn’t have a job. Half the rooms were empty.
At the second attempt she got fifty-eight. That was a credit. She looked at her name on the list but felt nothing, no triumph, no pleasure. Passing was the next thing she’d had to do, and she’d done it. There was no one to celebrate with. She went back to work.
In the third year of the apprenticeship, 1932, there were no more classes, only work in the shop and study for the Pharmacy Board exam at the end of the year. Easier, but lonelier. No one but herself and Mr Stevens all day and into the night. She’d keep the customers talking for the sake of their company.
Then Mr Stevens lost all his money in some wildcat scheme. Came to Nance one day and told her he’d have to sell up. Her first thought was, I’ll be out of a job. Whoever bought the business might not want the bother and expense of an apprentice. Let alone a girl. Now that would be unfair! But Mr Stevens surprised her. He’d only sell to someone who’d keep her on till she got her registration. Only right and just, he said. You’ve been a good little worker, Miss Russell.
The man who bought the business was Charles Gledhill. He didn’t mince words. He’d rather not have an apprentice. The minute she was registered, he was sorry, but she’d have to go. He was a pharmacist himself, but he was studying Medicine, so he put in Mr Bennetts to run the place. Mr Bennetts was a Methodist and the first thing he did was throw out all the FLs. She heard him giving the young men the rounds of the kitchen when they came in and asked for them. Your body is a temple, she h
eard from the dispensary. Mr Bennetts was a lay preacher and had a carrying sort of voice. She’d hear the shop door ping as some poor boob went out red as a beet.
Mr Gledhill came into the pharmacy every Friday night to go over the books with Mr Bennetts. One night he said, Think you could cook up a kettle on the Bunsen, Miss Russell? Parched for a cuppa. She could see Mr Bennetts was scandalised. Making tea on the dispensing equipment! Mr Gledhill was the boss, though, and in the end Mr Bennetts let himself be persuaded to have a cup too, and then Mr Gledhill brought a cup out to Nance in the shop. Mr Bennetts disapproved of that too and she drank her tea as quickly as she could, but thought, Now there’s a man with a heart.
Charlie Gledhill was a bright quick chunky fellow, only a few years older than Nance. He had a way of looking you in the eyes and listening when you spoke. A self-made man, she got that feeling, with his sights set on a life bigger than the Enmore Pharmacy.
He liked a laugh. Told her one night about the patient who brought in a script for ‘mist. ADT’. It should have been ‘mist. APF’—a mixture made up according to the Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary—so Charlie rang the doctor. Oh, the doctor said, the man’s a malingerer, I meant give him Any Damn Thing!
One night Charlie asked if Miss Russell would like to come with him and his wife to the pictures on Saturday afternoon, his treat? Win was a pleasant young woman and the pictures were an indulgence Nance couldn’t afford often. It became a regular outing, Charlie sitting between Win and Nance, the three of them sharing the big emotions on the screen. When they came out, the harsh light of Enmore Road was an assault after the soft sentimental darkness.
He was using her, she told herself. Getting all that work out of her for sixteen shillings a week. A trip to the pictures was a cheap way to keep her sweet. She was a first-rate pharmacist now, quick and accurate with the dispensing and good with the customers. Mr Bennetts wasn’t a welcoming sort of man and all the mothers asked for Miss Russell to look at their boys’ spots.
She didn’t mind. Charlie Gledhill might be using her, but he was energetic, garrulous, cheerful: a charmer, but not the calculating kind.
The Pharmaceutical Board exam was notoriously hard. It was the last hurdle before you were allowed to start doling out medicine. At the two-hour mark, Nance recognised the trick question that invited you to dispense an overdose of cocaine hydrochloride. She wrote on the paper that the script should be checked with the doctor as the dose prescribed could be fatal. After the exam, when they were all comparing notes, it came out that five of the men had obediently made up a dose that would have killed a customer. They’d all been at the same bench during the exam. Stupid not to see the trick, she thought. Even more stupid to copy the person next to them.
When the results came out in the paper she thought there must have been a mistake. She’d come second in the state. Second! In the whole state! And first was Ada. She’d never known her other name. Ada Belinfante.
She was pleased to see that Candidates 30, 32, 34, 36 and 38 received no marks in dispensing and in consequence failed the examination.
There was a ceremony for awarding the Certificate of Registration and the prizes. Last time she’d gone on a stage for a prize she’d been fifteen, and the wife of the Tamworth mayor had been waiting with the leather-bound Keats that had travelled with Nance ever since. Nancy Isabel Russell. She set off across the yards of dusty stage separating her from the man from the Pharmaceutical Board. The steps very slow, as in a dream. Each part of the mechanism of walking suddenly strange. The knee must bend, the foot must be pulled into the air so it can be pushed forward. Each leg and each arm operating separately, Nance Russell no longer one thing, myself, but a set of parts—legs, arms, feet—with lives of their own.
There was clapping. She could hear it, but it sounded like wind or water, nothing to do with her. The man from the Pharmaceutical Board shook her right hand, put the certificate into her left, smiled his practised smile and used the handshake, like a man leading in a dance, to show her what to do next: keep walking, dear, off the stage.
Being a Registered Pharmacist was a bit of paper with some fancy lettering on it and her name spelled not quite right. More than the bit of paper, she needed a job, and there wasn’t one. A pharmacy might need an apprentice, someone who’d work seven days a week for sixteen shillings and a trip to the pictures on a Saturday afternoon. But it didn’t need two registered pharmacists. She’d just qualified herself out of a job.
FIVE
BERT MET her at Tamworth station in the old Fiat. The canvas roof had a big right-angled rip and a mudguard was missing. His waistcoat hung loose and the gold watch chain was gone. He took the suitcase, gave her the familiar scratchy father’s kiss on the cheek. Didn’t meet her eye.
Frank had written to her: Dad’s lost the Cally. She wanted to break the silence in the car, say, It’s all right, Dad, I know. Bert was looking straight ahead, gripping the big steering wheel tight. Theirs was the only car on the street. Down by the river there was a camp of unemployed, a muddle of humpies made of sacks and flattened kerosene tins. There was a queue of men alongside the wall outside the Catholic church, heads bowed in the sun, each one with a bowl or mug in his hand waiting to be filled. A few looked up as they drove past. Their faces were blank.
Dolly came out as soon as she heard the car. Got to be out by Monday, she said by way of greeting. Nance had a moment to think, Whether it’s because of something big or something small, Mum’s anger sounds the same. Then she realised what her mother meant. The Cally was the nearest place to a home Nance had. Now it was finished. Not some time in the future, but next Monday.
He won’t hear the word, Dolly said. Bankrupt. She said it again, loudly. Bankrupt!
They’d managed to get a farm down south in Mittagong. It wasn’t much of a farm or they couldn’t have got it, but Bert had wangled something.
Oh, the fool of a man, Dolly said. Her thin face was screwed tight. I told him, Turn the place into a boarding house, at least there’ll be something coming in. But oh no, Mr High-and-Mighty couldn’t come at that. Always going to come good tomorrow. Now here we are, Lily Maunder offering me her old dresses! Alan Russell coming along wanting to give us a hundred pound! Never been so ashamed in my life.
She was sewing up furniture in hessian to be sent down on the train to the Mittagong place. A big cedar sideboard, two chests of drawers, some chairs. Max was tying up bundles of spoons and knives engraved with Caledonian and slipping them into the drawers. They weren’t supposed to be taking anything. Every chair and spoon in the Cally belonged to the bank now. But, with so many foreclosures, the bank was too busy to be checking on spoons.
On Monday they set off in the Fiat. Nance sat in the front next to Frank, the tall silent brother she hardly knew after so long apart. His face was expressionless. He was a man of twenty-two. Some scrubby little place at Mittagong wasn’t what he’d hoped for, but it was better than being the poor relation at Uncle Willie’s. Max sat in the back with Dolly, crammed in with a suitcase and bundles of clothes. He’d had to leave his bicycle and his dumb-bells and his pile of Boy’s Own annuals. He had the sport trophies he’d won at school, but only because he’d agreed to have them on his lap all the way to Mittagong. He was eighteen now and the cuffs of his old school blazer were halfway to his elbows.
Dolly sat like a piece of metal, holding her shame hard and cold. Everyone knew the car. Oh, there go the Russells. Bankrupt, you know. Bert stood at the door watching. His face was set in deep grooves. He was going to settle everything up and come down on the train in a week. Nance waved but he didn’t wave back.
Once they got to Mittagong she’d look for a job. Something would surely turn up for a registered pharmacist. In the crisis of the move no one had even asked to see the certificate. It hadn’t seemed the right moment to say anything about being second in the state.
She watched the paddocks of Goonoo Goonoo passing, sheep scrambling away from the car. She had to pret
end to be long-faced like everyone else. Inside she was telling it over to herself like counting out coins: Never again, never again. Never again those hated four walls, the screech of the trams, the smell of cabbage and potato on the stairs at the hostel. Rabbits weren’t so bad. They could get a milking cow and they could kill a sheep now and then. They wouldn’t go hungry the way those poor wretches outside the church were hungry. And, for the first time in years, they’d all be together.
When they got to Currabubula they didn’t stop. The school was the same, only the pepper trees were bigger and the privies had been painted. Past the Davis Hotel with the creek at the back where she’d found her best chainies. For a moment she thought to ask Frank to pull over so she could go and see if they were still under the rock. But it was comforting to think of them always there, watching the days and nights, the heat and cold, the turning of the seasons.
Then down through Quirindi. Over the river at Murrurundi, through Scone, the paddocks full of shaggy horses that had been polo champions. Someone had told her that once you put a polo pony out to grass, it would never be any good for polo again.
They were going to spend the night at Singleton. But as they came into the town there was a police car at the side of the road, and a man flagging them down. When they stopped Nance could hear him crunching towards them along the dirt. He bent to the window. The Russells, is it? he asked. No one said anything, sitting stiffly with the certainty of disaster. Bert alone amid his ruined dream.
Message for Nance, the man said. Which one’s Nance? Like a child in a classroom she put her hand up, and he gave her a piece of paper. Need to call that number, love, he said. Soon’s ever you can.
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