Tools of War

by Dulcie M. Stone

  In the smaller laboratory, their growing friendship was becoming a target for Alice’s malice. Initially, she took no notice when Alice accused Aaron of following her around like a trained puppy. When Myrtle gently warned her that, as his supervisor, she should not grow too close to him, she was annoyed. But when Grace pointed out that she was abusing Aaron’s trust by complaining to him about Alice, she had to agree. It was true. More and more, she was unloading her unhappiness onto him. It wasn’t fair to him, and it wasn’t wise.

  In the large laboratory, as reported by Alice, staff relationships were deteriorating at an alarming rate. Gossip about Grace’s affair with Macklin had caused further divisions. Deepening resentment at Anne’s promotion, mistrust of the newcomers, absurd rumours of an affair between Anne and Aaron, warnings of forthcoming dismissals, persistent ill health – Alice’s sharp tongue wagged incessantly.

  Grieving for lost friendships, she was becoming more confused than ever. Why had she been promoted? Why was it that the hard-won improved conditions were aggravating personal antipathies and mistrust? Why, after only a few months, was she beginning to dread coming to work?

  So many things going wrong. Macklin, they rarely saw. Unless he was escorting visiting prominent motivators through the building, he stayed in his office. Almost all administration of staff was left to Grace. It was a heavy load. How did Grace stand it? Was she, too, beginning to dread coming into work? Did she, too, lay awake at night? Or suffer the same headaches? Did Grace talk to Macklin for the same reasons she talked to Aaron?

  Alighting from the tram, she braced herself against the icy headwind that whipped the freezing street. It was impossible to go any faster. Already over half an hour late, these last few yards were as frustrating as fighting uphill in a blizzard.

  The entrance to the building was a refuge from the wind, but not the cold. Shivering, she pressed the button and waited for the slow lift to descend. She’d never been late before. Exiting the lift she quickly crossed the carpeted foyer to the welcome warmth of the large laboratory. The office door was closed. The technicians at the desks, after looking up, resettled to their work. No one showed any interest in her late arrival. Without taking the time to change in the staff room, she hurried to the small laboratory and opened the door.

  “Anne!” Aaron’s face shone with relief. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “Of course she’s not all right,” Alice snapped. “Use your eyes.”

  “You look awful,” Myrtle sympathised. “You’re shivering, dear.”

  “What happened?” Aaron repeated.

  “There was some sort of hold up,” she winced against the pain of her throbbing head. “The trams didn’t move for ages.”

  “We were worried, dear.”

  “You’re to report you’re arrival to Grace,” Alice ordered.

  “I’ll do it for you.” Myrtle left the room.

  Making for her desk, fighting the headache, she started to remove hat, gloves and coat.

  “What are you doing?” Alice questioned. “You can’t leave those wet clothes in here!”

  “I have to get to work.”

  “Nonsense!” Alice scolded. “You have to get warm. Go get changed. Get a hot drink. Take your time.”

  “I have to…”

  “Are you out of your mind, girl! You can’t possibly work in your condition.”

  “That’s not nice,” Aaron protested.

  “It’s common sense, man.”

  “She is right,” Aaron agreed. “You are shivering, Anne. You’ll catch a chill. You should do as Alice says.”

  Gratefully gathering her wet clothes, she left the room.

  Grace was already hurrying from the office. “Anne! Are you all right? We were worried. You’re never late.”

  Again, she explained.

  “Take your time. Warm up before you try to work.”

  She looked at her watch. “I should be working.”

  “Have a hot drink,” Grace insisted. “Keep Lillian company. She’s resting. She’s not well.”

  The staff room was light and warm and cheerful. Lillian, covered in a blanket, was asleep on the settee. Removing her shoes, she crept across the scattered mats, made a pot of tea and sat at the central table. Lillian did not move. Finishing her drink, she quietly opened her locker and reached for her laboratory coat and shoes.

  “You don’t have to keep so quiet, Anne. I’m not asleep.” Still covered in the blanket, Lillian was watching her.

  “I’m sorry,” she flushed. “I’ve disturbed you.”

  “Sleep is not so easy.” Lillian’s eyes were shadowed.

  “You should be home in bed.”

  “Not really,” Lillian threw back the blanket. “I’m better working.”

  “I did disturb you. I’ll leave you alone.” She buttoned the white coat.

  Lillian was surprised. “You’re not leaving?”

  “I have to. I’ve taken too much time. Why?”

  “You’ve taken less than five minutes. Your teeth are chattering. You can’t work like that. What happened? You’re never late.”

  Once again she explained.

  “You should be taking your time,” Lillian was very serious.

  “I’m all right.”

  “Sit down, Anne.”

  “I have to…”

  “Sit down.”

  She obeyed.

  Leaving the settee, Lillian started to make a fresh pot of tea.

  “I can do that.” She started up.

  “So can I. I’m not completely helpless yet.” Despite the shadowed eyes and the white face, Lillian’s movements were as controlled as they’d always been.

  Placing the two cups of tea and a plate of biscuits on the table, Lillian took the opposite chair: “How’s it going with Alice?”

  “Really,” she protested. “I should be in there.”

  “You should be in here. Tell me about Alice.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “No?” Lillian’s tight smile was grim. “Then I’ll tell you about me. I’ll tell you why I’m better here than home in bed.”

  “It’s your business, Lillian. I’m not prying. I’m worried about you. You don’t look well.”

  “I’m not. Any other job and I would be home in bed.”

  “I don’t understand. If you’re that sick, you can’t do the job. We have to be…”

  “Fit and alert,” Lillian snapped.

  “I don’t understand,” she repeated.

  “What? Why I’m still at work? Or why we’re both sitting in here at work and not working?”

  She flushed. Why was Lillian being so obnoxious?

  “Let me help you, Anne. I’m still coming to work because I can still work – most of the time. My nervous system took a beating. Between them, my doctor and my mother keep me going. I’ve no children, no husband, no responsibilities. You can call me a spinster.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Of course you are. Everybody’s sorry. I’d have liked….” She paused. “The point is, I need to work.”

  “Are you sure you should be here?”

  “Forget me.” Lillian shrugged. “No one came out of that unscathed, Anne. Including you.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “What we did took its toll. It affected all of us. So – why am I holding you in here? I’ll ask again. Tell me about Alice.”

  “Do I have to? You can see what she’s like.”

  “I can’t see what she’s like behind that closed door, Anne.”

  “She’s good at the job.”

  “That’s something. She’s not good at anything else.”

  “Like what?”

  “She’s making enemies. She…” Lillian’s shadowed eyes glazed.

  “I should go. You’re not well.”

  “Stay,” Lillian refocused. “I promised if I got a chance, I’d try talk to you.”

  “Who? Who did you promise?”

  “It doesn�
��t matter. You need to know… No one likes Alice. They’re starting not to like you.”

  “I know they resent me getting the job.”

  “The job?” Lillian was scathing. “No one would touch that job with a forty foot pole. We wouldn’t do it for twice the money.”

  “I didn’t do it for the…”

  “Are you listening to me! You’ve lost your friends!”

  “I didn’t know it was that bad.”

  “You’ve lost your friends, Anne. You know that much.”

  Of course she knew that much. “Nothing’s the same any more.”

  “Exactly. So now you know why you’re still in here talking to me.”

  She was bewildered. “Honestly, I don’t. Not really.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Honestly. I really don’t. I should be at work.”

  “Dear God.” Lillian’s cup clattered to the saucer. “I’m too sick for this.”

  She was immediately alarmed. “I’m sorry. Can I get you something? Aspirin. You shouldn’t be here.”

  Lillian waved a limp hand towards the closed door.

  “I’ll get Grace…”

  “No…”

  “I have to…”

  “Leave me alone.” Staggering back to the settee, Lillian pulled the blanket around her body and closed her eyes.

  She left the room. Emerging into the large laboratory, she saw raised faces and curious eyes.

  Quickly, she crossed to Joan. “Lillian’s sick. I don’t know what to do.”

  “I’ll take care of her.” Joan set down her pen.

  At the door to the staff room, Joan turned. “Get to work, Anne. I’ll take care of her.”

  “She needs…”

  “She doesn’t need you.” Closing the door, Joan disappeared into the staff room.

  Confused and upset, she turned away.

  From her desk, Sophie called. “Go to your own room, Anne.”

  “I have to help Lillian.”

  “You’ve already done too much!” Helen cried. “Get back where you belong.”

  “That’s not fair,” Margaret hissed. “It’s not her fault.”

  “Sh!” Sophie warned. “They’ll hear you.”

  Had Grace and Macklin heard? There was no window to see through. There was no way to know if the sound of raised voice was penetrating the walls. The office door did not open. There was to be no help.

  “Go to work, Anne,” Margaret quietly advised.

  How could she?

  She felt as ill as Lillian looked. Was it true? Had the rebellion which had seen them into this grand new building actually left them all so fragile?

  Unable to move, she saw her former friends turn away, back to their work. But they weren’t working! Pretending to work, their attention remained on the closed door to the staff room. If only she could return to the staff room and rest. She couldn’t. If only she could go to the office and tell them what was happening. She couldn’t do that either. There was nowhere to go, except to the segregated small laboratory.

  Chapter Eleven

  September 12th:

  Italy unconditionally surrenders to the Allies.

  September 14th:

  Reports from Japanese occupied territory that captured Australians are dieing while working on Thai-Burma Railways.

  November 5th:

  The 500th Australian-built Beaufort bomber is handed over to the RAAF.

  “Anne - I need a result!”

  “Ask Aaron.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  Head pounding, she watched Grace leave. How much longer was she going to have to suffer this responsibility? It wasn’t working. The headaches were almost continual. Even at night, when she should be sleeping, her head pounded against the pillow. Was she following Lillian into a breakdown?

  More and more frequently, she thought about refusing to work with the three, of asking to go back with her friends. It wouldn’t help. It was too late, the damage had been done. Nothing would ever be the same again. Resenting her promotion, they’d deserted her. They were no longer her friends.

  As for Grace, who should have helped, she seemed more interested in pleasing Macklin and supervising the outer laboratory than in helping her with these three. Despairing, she could not accept the fact that not one of her former friends cared about her increasingly frequent headaches or her profound unhappiness.

  The only one who really cared, was Aaron; and because she didn’t want to mislead him she had to be careful about that. At home she couldn’t talk to her mother, who was too busy with her volunteer duties and too worried about her father and June. Besides, what would she tell her? That she wasn’t up to the new job? That she wanted to stop collecting the huge rise in salary that went with the new job? That she, too, was abysmally lonely? Or that something was seriously wrong, but she hadn’t a clue what it was?

  She began to explore the city. Ostracised and desperate, she left the handsome new building as often as possible. Whatever the weather, she changed, collected her cut lunch, left the air-conditioned laboratory, and descended in the lift. On the fine days she walked down Swanston Street to Flinders Street, across Princes Bridge, and sat on the lawns by the Yarra to eat. On the inclement days she turned left, to circle the shops centred around Bourke Street, found a seat in one of the sheltered arcades, and watched the crowds.

  Reared in an outer suburb and familiar with single story shopping strips and mundane utility shops, she was suddenly transported into an exotic land she’d never known existed. As at St Margaret’s, the habit of people-watching and the fascination of imagining unknown lives temporarily dispelled the familiar feelings of loneliness. Who was going where, why, where from? Engrossed, she heard high heels rapping tiled mosaics and saw confident girls wearing bright butterfly colours she would never dare to wear. She saw few young men, most of them in uniform. As always, there was the waiting question - where was Julian? A face in the crowd, too often, caught her attention and stopped her heart. She wasn’t sure why. She didn’t even want to try to answer the twin questions - Did she fear that he would come back and cause more pain? Or was she missing him?

  Friday nights were the best. After work she climbed the stairs of the Swanston Street Tea Rooms, settled at a table by the window, and ate cheese rolls with her pot of tea. From here she could look down at the parade of shoppers in the street below, or watch the people in evening dress making for the Town Hall opposite. Were they off to a concert, an organ recital, a lecture, a charity ball? If they were young, girls and uniformed men, they’d probably be on their way to the dance in the Lower Town Hall. Julian didn’t like dancing; she’d never danced with him. She’d never even been to a concert with him. Or the theatre, or the movies.

  She was always alone. On these excursions it didn’t matter. It was actually a bonus. Being alone meant she could take her time, imagine what she wanted to imagine, please herself without pretending to feel what she didn’t feel, and not say what she didn’t want to say.

  What did matter were the reasons for being alone. Initially springing from resentment at her promotion, the divisions within the laboratory were escalating at an alarming rate. Alice, as tough as leather and as insensitive as lead, was polarising loyalties. The atmosphere was polluted with ill will. Joan’s biting tongue was growing more bitter. Sophie was exercising less control over her fiery temper. Sick days were still on the rise.

  Only on the long lonely walks could she ever really forget the questions which refused to go away. Would her lost friends ever relent? Would they ever forgive her for the promotion each felt they better deserved? Would Alice and Myrtle ever accept her when they knew they could do the job better themselves? Would Aaron ever become a dispassionate friend who didn’t fawn on her?

  There was a far more important question. Why was she still in charge of the small laboratory? Each time she returned to work she wondered when it would happen, when she would be sent back to the large laboratory. Because she was to
tally incapable of doing the job they’d asked her to do. She’d lost control. The undeniable boss of the small lab was Alice.

  It was not a night to be walking through the tall city canyons, but Gary’s birthday present had to be bought before the weekend. As the flaying rain-sodden wind whipped around the corner, she stepped into the street, pulled her coat collar up around her face and her beret down over her ears.

  She hadn’t even reached the first cross-road when she decided to turn back. Why was she doing this? Gary wouldn’t be expecting a present from her. Unlike Aaron, he was happy to remain a dispassionate friend who sometimes went to the movies with her. Which was precisely why she was doing it, and why she should keep going. Taking cover under an awning, she fought for breath. If she could make it across the road, she’d be in the arcades.

  “Feel like company?” Sophie had caught up with her.

  What to say?

  “I thought we might go to a café,” Sophie suggested. “Or something?”

  “I have to shop.”

  “I guess I can’t blame you.” Sophie turned away.

  “It’s true. I really do have to shop.”

  “I can’t blame you,” Sophie repeated. “You’re mad at me.”

  Not answering, she prepared to brave the driving rain.

  “I’m so sorry, Anne. We’ve given you a rough time. Lillian said you had no choice.”

  Maybe Sophie really was sorry. Maybe they all were? “How is Lillian?”

  “She’s no better. She really shouldn’t be working.”

  “That’s what Alice keeps saying.”

  “Alice!” Sophie’s scowl was lit by the shadowed street lights.

  Illogically, she came to Alice’s defense. “She’s a good worker, you know.”

  “For God’s sake, Anne! Take a break!”

  Angry, she left the shelter and escaped into the stinging sleet.

  Sophie did not follow.