Cold Light

by Frank Moorhouse

  After they had heard the back door slam shut and Emily wheel her bicycle down the side path, Ambrose said, ‘I have two pieces of news that I will tell you after I’ve changed.’

  He then ducked upstairs to change.

  She lit the candles. The candles and Emily leaving accentuated the change of mood from their day to their evening, and softened the rawness of the world outside.

  Ambrose came back down en femme, released from his three-piece dark-blue suit and grey tie.

  She served the entrée of prawn cocktail. They had overcome their fear of buying fish too far from the sea and took advantage of the fish delivery every week.

  ‘Well,’ she inquired. ‘What is your news?’

  He poured the Sancerre. ‘Ah, my news . . .’ He twirled his hand like a magician. Every time, she was charmed by the change in his gestures and tone when he was en femme. ‘No pepper.’

  Nearly every night Emily still forgot at least one thing from the table setting. He fetched the pepper mill from the sideboard, and then sat. ‘Firstly . . .’ He paused as he lightly peppered his prawn, teasing her with delay.

  ‘This had better be stunning news.’

  ‘Firstly, Allan Thompson from the FO – now the Commonwealth Office – is coming to Canberra on a flying visit. Old friend. I seem to recall in another life, during the war, you spoke to him on the telephone from Geneva about the ghastly Jewish business.’

  She nodded. ‘I remember.’ She remembered the call vividly – to Eden about the shattering news of the disappearance of huge parts of the Jewish population in Nazi-held territories. Perhaps the most important telephone call she had ever made. It had involved talking with this Allan, who was then in Eden’s office.

  ‘He’s coming here, I suppose, to see the new Chancery and residence. And to find out how we failed to have the residence named Canberra House.’

  Through Gibson she had opposed the impertinence of the British stealing the name Canberra House, which they had given to the building where they were being housed while the new buildings were finished. Canberra House, she argued, belonged to Canberra’s first grand house – not to the new British residence. The HC had to find another name and came up with Westminster House.

  ‘He has to learn that the British no longer own Australia.’

  ‘He may correct you about that. Here is the second piece of news. It is top-secret at this point. The new Queen may visit and Allan is to brief us about it.’

  That would be something of an event, but she did not care too much about royalty. ‘I recall he was on our side on the Jewish matter back then. And as I recall, he asked to be remembered to you in a rather knowing way.’

  ‘That is the Allan in question. We used to club around together. In our younger days. He is very pretty. Was very pretty. None of us are pretty anymore. The boys, I mean.’

  ‘You have your moments – still.’

  He looked down at himself. ‘Thank you, dear. I remember he fancied the flapper look and he could dance-kick impressively. Before we all became so sedate.’

  At times, she pictured the youthful Ambrose and his friends at their fancy-dress parties, at their private clubs and country houses, engaged in their follies. He sometimes reminisced to her in a dreamy way about it. She had been at such places with Ambrose much later in their lives, and would hardly say they had in any way become sedate.

  If she had a penchant for dressing as a man, she might have been given a position in the FO. She didn’t know if the small Australian diplomatic corps yet had a similar reputation, although she knew that the Department of Trade was called The Grocers, and External Affairs was called The Fairies.

  ‘As it so happens, there is an element of coincidence about his visit, which leads me to item three.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I told you that the HC had been invited to contribute something musical or comic to the concert, which is being organised by the Legacy movement at the Albert Hall. The HC nominated me to arrange all this. Made me Master of Revels.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘It is described as a “gala” concert.’

  ‘What exactly does gala mean?’

  ‘I know, but I am not going to tell you. You will have to search it out in your Oxford. It’s a very appropriate word for what I have in mind. To return, the HC asked me to put something together and I suggested a little burlesque. There is also to be a bathing beauty contest.’

  ‘I suppose you will enter that also.’

  ‘Very likely.’

  ‘And for this gala concert you wish to perform what you call a burlesque.’

  ‘Burlesque, exactly.’

  She instinctively shied away from considering the idea of burlesque. She could not quite see what he was getting at, but Ambrose was obviously enthused by the idea. ‘Hold on, while I serve the main.’

  She went about getting the main dish where it was warming in the oven.

  Emily had prepared Irish stew with four boiled vegetables, a dish they both particularly liked. It was good to be reintroduced to the flavour of mutton. Edith placed the serving dish on the table, served and sat down.

  They both sniffed the dish, taking in the aroma of the mutton stew.

  Ambrose said, ‘I thought that Allan and I could do a little act – a burlesque from the Molly Club days.’

  ‘Was he ever at the Molly Club?’ She was still keeping her alarm at bay.

  As he poured the decanted claret, Ambrose said it was worth keeping Emily on just for this one dish, which she did so well. ‘You asked about Allan at the Molly Club. I think so, on one or more occasion.’

  She had no recollection of Allan visiting Geneva.

  With Ambrose, things from his past occasionally turned up, things she should have known from her years of intimacy with him, but which just, well, turned up in conversation. He was in some ways the most candid of people, yet at other times blithely revealed a further secret about himself. It was not deviousness; it was that his life, both professional and personal, was so latticed with deception. Most of it was quite understandable.

  ‘I remember that there were two nancy-boys from the FO who came with us one night to the club. I don’t remember Allan.’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember they were there on the dreadful night of the attack by the Action Civique. Two sulky bitches who turned out to be quite sound.’

  ‘That’s right, but Allan wasn’t one of them?’

  ‘They were friends of Allan and mine. He wasn’t there that night, but he passed through Geneva from time to time.’

  She had not met him. Why not?

  ‘In disguise, presumably?’

  ‘There was much disguise in those days.’

  Oh, what did it matter. The war had divided everyone’s life into two discrete parts, and all the offences and grievances of the first part were somehow without any sting now.

  She permitted the idea of Ambrose’s burlesque for the Legacy concert to confront her. ‘You do not mean by burlesque that you and Allan will sing and dance? On stage?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Something like what?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  She stared at him. She took a good drink of claret. ‘You’re intending to sing and dance – en femme?’

  ‘That’s the idea. Music-hall stuff. Allan, me – and I thought I might rope someone else in, although I doubt that any of the others at the HC would come at it. Might have to look further afield. Any ideas?’

  ‘What happened at the Molly was more than “music-hall stuff”.’

  ‘Perhaps a little more towards the burlesque.’

  ‘Let me get this clear. At the Albert Hall, in front of an audience of the general public – in front of Sir Stephen and Sonya and the diplomatic corps and other VIPs – you and Allan will sing and dance en femme?’

  ‘Yes, something like that. All very jolly.’ He waved his fork. He was feigning insouciance.

  ‘In Canberra.’

 
‘Shake things up.’

  The idea was preposterous.

  ‘The idea is preposterous. You are not in pre-war Geneva now. Nor in the 1930s. This is a new world. You are a diplomat. I am a whatever – the wife of a diplomat.’

  Which she was.

  ‘It will be fun. Let myself off the leash.’

  She stared at him. Since coming to Canberra, he had been trying in public to be very British and very correct – rather stuffy, in fact, apart from the occasional slip into poncy hand-gesturing after a few drinks among friends. Now he was intending to be outrightly outrageous.

  For all the cover of having the other two performers on stage with him, it would somehow inevitably reveal Ambrose for what he was, and at the same time reveal their marriage for what it was. A set of dominoes would tumble, revealing her for what she was – a wife with a lavender husband, and a woman with a peculiar taste in husbands; a marriage with a freakish configuration.

  ‘It’s a very dangerous idea. Impossible.’

  ‘How so?’ More feigned insouciance.

  ‘It is totally impossible.’

  He poured the claret. They had finished a bottle. Their main was finished.

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘You know very well why it’s a dangerous idea.’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘It could reveal you – us – reveal your penchant to the world.’

  ‘You seemed to not care too much about that in Geneva, in Vienna.’

  ‘I cared about it very much. I cared about it being known by the wrong people. And they were different cities at a different time – pre-war. During the war and immediately after the war everything was mad. Back then we sang “Anything Goes”.’

  ‘Might be a good number for us to sing. Might bring those days back.’

  Ambrose began to hum and then sang:

  ‘In olden days, a glimpse of stocking

  Was looked on as something shocking.

  But now, God knows,

  Anything goes . . .’

  ‘Ambrose, darling –’ she reached across the table and took his hands – ‘these days anything does not go.’

  ‘But if I do this they will think that he can’t really be like that, otherwise he would not dare do it. It is a reverse disinformation ploy.’

  ‘I am serious, I am seriously frightened. Ye gods, what if Emily goes to the concert? Everyone who knows us will be there. McLaren and his damned musical society will be there. And no, they will not think that.’

  ‘It’s a concert – it’s a show. What if we did Shakespeare and dressed boys in the female parts? Would anyone object?’

  ‘If you tried to play the boy – yes, they would object.’

  ‘Or if I played Mother Goose?’

  She was forced to smile. ‘You can do Mother Goose. But I’d hate it.’

  Somehow, in his mind, it had been absolutely feasible, but she could see that he was beginning to consider what she was saying.

  He got up from his chair and came around to her side of the table and crouched down, putting an arm around her shoulder. ‘Dear Edith, I have never known you to be afraid. Where is the girl of caprice and whimsy? The queen of Canberra’s Bloomsbury set?’

  ‘I am afraid. I am afraid of everything. I am still afraid my brother will one day go to gaol; Janice will go to gaol. That we will be compromised. That you will be revealed. That some agents will burst in one night and find you en femme and that you will go to gaol – or worse. And I’m frightened that there will be another war soon. That atomic bombs will drop on us.’

  She looked at him, and tried to lighten her tone. ‘And I’m frightened that the lake will not happen here in Canberra. I am frightened that Parliament House will be built in the wrong place; that there will be no pantheon on the hill.’

  He held her tight. ‘You fear that it is not lawful merriment?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I will not do it, then. For your sake, I will not do it. Perhaps it is not lawful merriment.’

  She rested her head against his and against his satin gown, and said, ‘I hate myself for being afraid.’

  ‘They are fearful times.’

  ‘I am letting down the spirit of Bloomsbury, I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Hush, I won’t do it. I will think of something else. I will do bird calls. Or Mother Goose.’

  Relieved, she managed a small laugh.

  He said, ‘I’ll fetch dessert.’

  Bloomsbury on the Molonglo

  Later that week, they went to the cinema at the Capitol in Manuka with Frederick and Janice. They watched a western film called High Noon, sitting in the HC reserved seats in a loge.

  Afterwards, driving home, Frederick argued that it was not a cowboy film but a political allegory. High Noon, he argued, was all about the cold war and the Un-American Activities witch-hunt.

  Ambrose said, ‘The American show trials.’

  It was typical political banter that went on between them. Ambrose said the US was copying the Soviet Union’s phoney pre-war trials of dissidents known as the show trials. Frederick routinely claimed that the Soviet trials revealed real conspiracies against the Soviet Union while the American trials were political persecution.

  Edith privately rolled her eyes to Janice and turned around to ask Frederick, ‘Is that the line from the Cominform? Does Moscow send out instructions about which film you are supposed to see every week?’

  Frederick ignored her. She pointed out that the Cominform obviously didn’t stop Frederick and Janice accepting invitations to sit in the High Commission’s reserved seats. Ambrose had been worried about it at first, but decided that – given the Communist Party was not illegal – there could be no objection. ‘And,’ he said, ‘we sit in the dark.’ He did ask them to forgo their beliefs and stand for the Queen when the anthem was played at the beginning of the session, ‘After all, Edith forgoes her beliefs – she never wants to stand.’ And then he said, ‘As for me, it’s part of my job to stand for the Queen. I’m a courtier.’

  She sensed that as two couples who were technically – and passionately – opponents, they all enjoyed the frisson of sitting together in the HC seats.

  At the Arthur Circle house for coffee and drinks, they laughed about the theatre cat, which during the film had clawed its way up the curtain beside the screen.

  Frederick claimed the film was about ordinary American communists standing up against the injustice of the American system despite the desertion of their so-called friends.

  She said that the film was simpler than that. ‘It was a Greek tragedy – kill or be killed. For his own peace of mind and safety, Gary Cooper, the retired sheriff, had no option but to kill the baddies who were out to take revenge on him; otherwise, his and his wife’s lives would be under an unliveable threat. The town was right to see it as a private matter for Cooper: he was no longer the sheriff and the baddies were after him, not the town. In the code of the west, it was Cooper’s problem, not theirs – the law had collapsed; the judge had left town; the legal force of the citizen posse had collapsed; and so on. It was really Cooper’s problem. I fail to see where the House Un-American Activities Committee comes in to it.’

  She was down on Cooper’s Quaker bride, played by Grace Kelly, for deserting her husband because of her religious beliefs against violence; for not seeing there was no option for them but to use violence and that her Quaker non-violent approach was inadequate in the face of perilous reality.

  Ambrose tried to defend the Quaker wife, more for the sake of analysis, she suspected, than any belief in it. ‘As I understand it, the Quaker would argue that you used reason and goodwill to extinguish violence; if that fails, you use avoidance, you flee. Under the law in most places the citizen has a duty to avoid violence when it is offered – except in parts of America, where they feel it is a duty to defend oneself; and if that fails, you suffer the violence but do not offer violence in return. I suppose the Quakers would argue that their submitting
to the fatal outcome of the violence at least minimises the violence by limiting it to one side. Something like that.’

  ‘Duty to flee seems an endorsement of cowardice. Sometimes we stand and fight,’ said Frederick.

  ‘Or it could be seen as a higher bravery, a harder wisdom,’ she said, and then turned to Ambrose. ‘Is that the teachings of your Quaker aunt? The aunt who always wore brown? As I recall, at our wedding she wore a severely simple but attractive light-brown dress, almost ankle length, gathered at the waist.’

  In some ways, she would have liked for them to have had a simple Quaker wedding. It was the only religion she respected. She wasn’t a pacifist, but perhaps she was drifting towards that. If she was, she certainly wasn’t ready to talk about it.

  Ambrose laughed. ‘My Quaker aunt would have stared the killers down. That might be the fierce Quaker way. Or talked them down.’

  Janice came in, ‘So if the Quaker solution failed, Cooper and his Quaker wife should’ve offered themselves as sacrificial victims?’

  ‘Can’t see Gary Cooper doing that,’ Frederick said.

  ‘Would have made a more galvanising film, perhaps,’ Ambrose said. ‘I wonder if the Quakers send out instructions to their members about which films depict them. I supposed they will have quiet and gentle discussions around this film.’

  There was a knock on the door.

  Edith looked at her watch. She stood and went over to stop the record that was playing and then went to the window and looked out.

  ‘The ASIO,’ Frederick said.

  Edith glanced at Ambrose. ‘I can’t see who it is. Will I answer?’

  ‘Better,’ Ambrose said. ‘Could be Chauffeur Geoff from the HC with a cable telling us that we are at war.’

  She went to the door and opened it. It was Theodor and Amelia Richter. ‘Oh,’ she said, with some relief.

  Amelia said, ‘Didn’t mean to scare you.’

  ‘No, no, come in.’

  ‘We saw the lights on and thought we’d poke our head in. We were driving about – we’re having a free night. The kids are being looked after by the Herberts’ older girl. We saw another Anglia parked outside.’