She stood with the slice of cake in her hand looking out to the sea that had taken Charlie away. The waves came in, sucked out, came in again. He was gone. She thought, If I’ve made a mistake not going with him, I’ve made it. Best stop thinking about him.
She moved to a boarding house in Maroubra to be closer to the hospital. By chance Wade Watson from the old days at Tamworth High was living there. He had a job doing something with the machines at the Sydney Morning Herald. He was sweet on Joan and came out to the hospital once a week pretending to teach her German. But he was Presbyterian, so Joan couldn’t let herself be interested in him, and anyway there was a Harry Mulhall she was keen on. Nance wasn’t interested in Wade either, not in that way, but her life seemed to be a pattern of making friends and then being separated from them. Being with someone who’d known her at school made her feel connected to the world in the way other people were.
She had something like a proper social life now. She’d met Jake Killen at university and ran into him again one day in the city. He’d become a teacher. He was a thoughtful kindly man and he was definitely interested, just waiting for a signal from her. Then there was Wal Glendon. Ever since she’d been in Sydney she’d seen him once a week at Sunday lunch. She knew how cheerful he always was, no matter what. Knew what he looked like with his mother’s apron round his waist, washing up. He’d lost his job with the trams and now he was like so many men, trying for anything that was going. He’d set out to queue for another job, the comb-marks deep in his hair, still smiling even after so many knockbacks. Now and then he got work driving a truck or loading ships’ cargo, but they laid you off as soon as they didn’t need you. He was a good man, she knew, and she caught a tender look from him now and then.
She wasn’t in love with Jake or Wal, although she knew either of them would make a good husband. She wondered if some part of her might always belong to Charlie Gledhill. There was some old wives’ tale about the first man you slept with imprinting you for the rest of your life. In that case, she thought, does it matter who I pick?
EIGHT
WHEN NANCE took the job at the Coast Hospital it was the first time anyone in her family had been employed by the government. As far back as Solomon Wiseman, it was only ever men working for themselves, thieving or farming or running pubs. At the Enmore Pharmacy she’d worked for wages, but those wages came from the profit Mr Stevens or Charlie Gledhill made. Now her pay packet came from the government, and the medicines she dispensed were given out free to the people who needed them. All of that came from tax.
If you were in business on your own account, tax was something you avoided if you could. In their palmy days Bert and Dolly were forever complaining. They’d worked for their money, why shouldn’t they keep it? Now that Nance was a servant of the public she saw it differently. If no one paid tax, there’d be no Coast Hospital. There’d be no free nurses and doctors and no pharmacists giving out free medicine. There’d have been no Currabubula Public School to give her parents just enough education to leave that failed farm. No high school to give their daughter choices and opportunities.
Looked at that way, the state wasn’t a thief taking people’s money. It was how a community worked. Everyone made a contribution so that no one missed out. It didn’t go as far as from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, but it was trying to make things fairer.
Meg’s kind of socialism had always been too radical for Nance, but she was starting to see that socialism came in different shades. Wade Watson called himself a socialist. At the same time he believed in marriage and family and went to church, a steady Tamworth boy.
On a Sunday, Wade would get a group of them together to go down to the Domain to hear the soapbox speakers. It was a great afternoon’s entertainment. There were men who shouted that the Second Coming was nigh, one wrapped in nothing but a sheet who said clothes were against nature. The famous Bea Miles would be there, a vast woman in a tennis eyeshade and an overcoat, reciting Shakespeare. Nance listened but hung back because Bea was unpredictable, could pounce on you and hold your arm while she declaimed into your face. Remember Mr Crisp, Wade? Nance would say, but Wade had never gone in much for poetry.
Wade knew a bit about the Christian Socialists. That one was a teacher, he told Nance, that one was a lawyer, and the man up on the box now was actually a church minister, though he wasn’t wearing his dog collar. Nance saw what Wade was telling her: they weren’t revolutionaries, any more than he was. They’d just lived through the last ten years.
Living through them had changed her, too. Her parents had been on their own doing the best they could for themselves, but there was another way, where people looked out for each other. It was better, she was coming to think, to live in a world where things were shared around so everyone had enough.
One Sunday in September 1939 they all gathered around the wireless in the parlour. Menzies was going to come on and make an announcement. Everyone knew what he was going to say but you had to hear it with your own ears. Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that, in consequence of a persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her and that, as a result, Australia is also at war.
Nance had seen the little man with the moustache on the newsreels, standing at his stone pulpit, his arm pumping up and down, haranguing great crowds that seemed like machines, line after line of people in the same uniforms thrusting their arms in the air. But it was on the other side of the world and in another language. It was serious but not personal. It was Britain’s war. The man with the moustache was frightening but he was also a bit ridiculous.
Max enlisted straight away. He was twenty-four years old. He sent Nance the photo he’d had taken in his uniform, Sergeant Walter Maxwell Russell, serious and proud, going off to join what Menzies called the great family of nations. A sister’s eye could see it wasn’t really about any of that. Being a soldier promised more fun than digging potatoes on Frank’s farm. By Christmas, Max had sailed away to Europe. Everyone agreed it would all be over in a few months.
New Year’s Eve, 1939. Wal and Nance were in the middle of a mass of shouting, singing, dancing people outside the GPO in Martin Place where the big clock on the tower would mark midnight. They’d had a few drinks and now Nance wished she hadn’t, it was horrible and claustrophobic being packed tight in the crush. There was a frantic feeling, everyone on edge, as if they were waiting for something to happen. No one knew what 1940 was going to bring.
Near Wal and Nance some young men were looking for trouble. One jumped on the top of a tram and pulled the trolley pole off the overhead wires, so that blue sparks showered over everyone. Nance screamed, but Wal put himself between her and the sparks, wrapping his arms around her. He pulled her through the crowd till they could see the clock, and they roared along with everyone else, counting down the seconds till the big solemn hand swung up. Nineteen thirty-nine was over. Nance could see Wal’s mouth shaping the words of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ but all she could hear were the whistles, the trumpets and rattles, the hooting of the ferries and the ships down in the harbour, one great swell of noise.
What was the point of resisting when Wal pulled her close and kissed her, when his hand slid down into the neckline of her dress? She kissed him back, two bodies together, only their clothes keeping them apart.
He didn’t precisely say, Will you marry me, and she didn’t exactly say, Yes, I will. But it seemed that they had what people called an understanding. Next day she thought about it and wasn’t sorry. She liked him more than any other man she knew. And she could keep them both, if he wasn’t too proud. It wasn’t modest to think it, but she knew she had brains enough for both of them.
No one knew how much time they had. After a quiet start, the war was going badly. Most of Europe was in German hands. Now only France stood between Germany and England. Max had thought he’d be fighting in Europe but the war was in North Africa too, and he was there somewh
ere. Libya was the last they’d heard. The casualty lists were longer every week. Life was suddenly very short. There was a feeling of grasping what you could.
One steamy day in January she got home to the boarding house to find Wade on the doorstep waiting for her. Don’t take your coat off, he said. Bishop Moyes is on at the Trades Hall, we’ll make it if we hurry. She’d never heard of Bishop Moyes but Wade had a hand under her elbow, talking as he hustled her along to the bus. Bishop of Armidale, but a real firebrand, one of those Christian Socialists. You’ll like it, Nance, I promise.
They slipped into the last empty seats. Nance’s lap was full of handbag and scarf and she dropped her umbrella. The man next to her picked it up and handed it back. Somehow it slipped again and he picked it up but gestured that he’d hang on to it this time.
She was disappointed when Moyes came onto the platform. He had pointed ears like a pixie and leaned to one side as if not sure he was in the right place. But when he started speaking he was electrifying. Every country has its evil dream, he said. Evil dream! It was like poetry. The well-to-do will always resist change, he said. But society is unjust. The man next to her waved her umbrella and shouted, Bravo!
Good thing I agree, she thought, because it’s my umbrella he’s cheering with. She caught his eye, the thought making her smile.
She and Wade stayed for the cup of tea and sandwich afterwards. The man with her umbrella came up to her. Offered her the milk jug although she already had milk, helped her to the sugar though she didn’t want any. About her own age, thin, dark, with crinkly dark hair springing back from a high forehead. After the business of the milk and the sugar, he didn’t seem to know what to do to extend the moment. A lifetime of being the new girl meant that she did.
His name was Kenneth Gee. She had to get him to say it twice. Like Moyes, he was a Christian Socialist. The Christian part was that he was a lay preacher. The socialist part was that he was secretary of the Auburn branch of the Labor Party. He was lively, witty, had a way of turning a phrase so it showed an unexpected humorous angle. Told her that he lived with his parents in a house called Banksias, but there was such a big mortgage it should be called Commercial Banksias. He kept her laughing as they stood there with their teacups tilting. He was educated and on the inside of the mysterious business of politics, living in a bigger world than she’d ever had the chance to know. She’d never met a man like him.
Wade saw which way the wind was blowing and kept away, but the tea was drunk and she knew they’d have to be getting back. She thought Ken was interested, but she got the feeling he didn’t have much experience with women. She guessed at a nice middle-class background where you beat around the bush. Well, if she wasn’t a bit bold she’d never see this fellow again, so she came straight out and said, What about I come and hear you preach one day? Ken didn’t miss a beat. Homebush Congregational Church, he said, as if it had been his idea. Sunday, five o’clock.
Up in the pulpit in his suit he looked distinguished and even handsome in an intense dark way. He spoke for half an hour without using a single note. Eloquence, she thought. This is what eloquence is. Afterwards they had tea and a bun at the station. She’d been right about the background. He was a solicitor, worked in his father’s legal practice in Auburn. It turned out he’d gone to Fort Street Boys’, like Charlie Gledhill, although ten years later. He’d got first-class honours in English at the Leaving. First-class honours!
He asked her out. Not to the pictures or the beach, but to hear him give a lecture about free speech. Apparently the government was suppressing it. Being asked to go to something serious, watching him convince everyone in the audience, revealed another layer of life. With her background—only a shallow education, and parents who didn’t know how to think beyond the next business opening—she’d never known it was there. Beyond her little daily round, there was a bigger world, where people looked at why things were the way they were, and worked out how to make them better. It was all new to her, but she was ready to learn.
After the lecture he sold copies of a pamphlet he’d published: The Threat to Democracy. Seeing his name in print was a shock. Kenneth Gee, LL.B. No one she knew had ever had their name in print, let alone with a degree after it. He gave her a copy. For Nance, with my warmest regards, Ken.
His next invitation was to go along with him to a meeting of the Auburn branch of the Labor Party. A bit boring, I’m afraid, he said. Boredom seems to be the opiate of the Labor Party. He laughed, and she laughed too, though she wasn’t sure she got the joke. You’ll have the chance to meet Lang, he said. He’s president of the branch. Even Nance had heard of Jack Lang, the famous fiery ex-premier of New South Wales.
When she shook hands with Lang he looked away over her head, but it was something to shake hands with someone so famous. The meeting went on forever, with men rising to their feet with a sheaf of closely typed pages about something called a Point of Order and droning away for half an hour at a time. Terribly dull, but exciting too, to be present at what Ken called democracy in the raw. When she wrote to Bert he wrote back, My word, Nance, you are moving in high circles!
They fell into a pattern. Ken would ring up and ask her to a meeting, or down to the Domain to listen to the speakers. A few times they went to the Trocadero. He was a good dancer, light on his feet, proud of his foxtrot.
He was definitely interested. But it was a coming-and-going-away kind of liking. There were long gaps between the phone calls, and each time they met it was as if she had to start all over again. There were many times when he could have found an excuse to touch her. She made sure of that, walked close to him, her handbag on the other arm. But he never did.
She wondered if the churchy business made him prim. He might be too religious for her. One night she told him, You know, Ken, I’m not sure I believe in God. As she said it she had the image of one of those two-way gates they used to sort sheep. Ken might open the gate and let her go back out to the paddock, but it turned out he wasn’t sure about God either. A church full of people was a captive audience, he said. He laughed, but she wasn’t sure what sort of laugh it was. Was it because he’d fooled the kindly minister at the Homebush Congregational Church? Or was he laughing at her, for believing that he could be so cynical?
His interest was flattering and, when he turned the beam of his attention on her, he was irresistible. She was never sure where she stood with him, but she knew her own mind. For the first time since Charlie Gledhill, she was in love.
The next time she had a moment alone with Wal they were walking along the water’s edge at Bondi, a sky full of pink clouds making everything look soft. Up ahead the rocks at the end of the beach invited two people who had an understanding to take a few moments for themselves. He moved to take her hand. Look, Wal, she said, I’m not sure about this.
You’ve met someone, haven’t you, he said. He could see the answer in her face. Has he asked you to marry him?
No, she said. Taking a bit of a chance, aren’t I? But I thought I’d better tell you, because if he asks I’m going to say yes.
Wal stopped walking. All right, Nance, he said. He turned away, left her there at the edge of the foam.
The next Sunday when she came as usual for lunch at the Glendons’ he was there, because he had nowhere else to be. But he wouldn’t look at her or speak to her. Maggie and Mrs Glendon were cool. Nance was stiff with the misery of having let down people who’d been good to her. She knew, though, that marrying Wal would be a mistake. Whatever happened with Ken, she knew now that she was looking for something Wal would never be able to give her.
Ken asked her home for Sunday lunch. She knew he was anxious when he went into some detail about what to expect. He had two brothers and two sisters. The family lived in the best part of Strathfield, in Sydney’s inner west, in what Ken called Anglophile bourgeois splendour. Dad’s never been to England, he said. But when he talks about going Home, he means England. Ours is a home of the Yorkshire pudding and the stiff upper li
p.
Prosperous though they were, they’d fallen from an even higher level. Ken said they’d owned the main street of Auburn until the Depression had wiped out everything except the Strathfield house and his father’s modest legal practice.
His mother was from Braidwood, he said, a country girl. Nance soon realised she wasn’t a country girl in the same way Dolly was a country girl. Ken said that his mother claimed to be descended from Sir Richard Grenville. Nance had never heard of him, but apparently he’d fought against the Spanish Armada. Tennyson had written a poem about him. I’m afraid they’re all terrible snobs, Ken said. In fact, the original Grenville was a convict, but Mum won’t believe it.
They’ll think I’m a gold digger, Nance thought. At least I can say Dad’s a farmer. Sounds better than a publican. Then she was ashamed of the thought.
As Mrs Gee was saying the words of welcome she was glancing at Nance’s shoes and the gloves she was taking off. Nance knew she hadn’t missed the mended finger of the glove, would know to a penny what the shoes cost. She’d pictured Mr Gee as a dominating sort but he turned out to be a kindly shy man rumbling away into his chin. He was the one who made sure she had a cushion at her back. Guessed she wasn’t used to grace and gave her warning while she was unfolding her napkin, ironed on one side, she noticed. Now, if everyone’s ready, I’ll say grace. Ken’s silver napkin ring was engraved with his initials in a forest of curlicues. Hers was blank, but it was solid silver.
At the start she got Ken’s brothers mixed up, which was Peter and which was Dick? They were in their flannels, on their way to a match at King’s, where they’d gone to school. So was Ken the only one clever enough for Fort Street, she wondered, or was there some other reason why they’d economised with him? Peter and Dick were big fair handsome men, as different from dark narrow Ken as possible. It was easy to imagine the tennis parties in Strathfield and those cheerful brothers always getting the girls.
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