Bittersweet (29 page)

“No, only second hardest,” said Sir Otto. “The Germans are doing it the worst. Their war reparations have bankrupted them. The French want their pound of flesh.”

“Well, the French and the Germans have been snarling at each other across the Rhine for two thousand years, but what has poor Australia ever done except try to make life kinder for the working man? Not, in City of London eyes, a laudable aspiration.”

Disillusioned and depressed, Charles didn’t linger in Melbourne. Next morning in darkness he took the day train for Sydney, his mind seething with so many unpalatable facts that he hardly noticed having to change trains at Albury–Wodonga, on the state border. Victorian and New South Wales rail gauges were
different. Federation or no, the Australian colonies all behaved like autonomous nations. In fact, thought Charles, detraining at Corunda, the only way the Australian nation could have made its mark was to own a population as vast as its land area, like the United States of America. Whereas its tiny populace was jammed into six cities on a near-illimitable coast, leaving three million square miles of nothingness inside. Corunda was a very big city-town, but had only 50,000 people all told. After the six cities, one of the biggest towns in Australia.

But I am learning, he thought, finding Corunda still under a glaze of snow, and a fresh fall threatening.

“I can’t make head or tail of it,” he said to Kitty, very surprised and pleased to see him back so soon. His cabin trunk was hardly disturbed, but with him came a suave, impassive individual named Coates; Charles had hired a valet by the simple expedient of poaching one from Menzies Hotel. “Coates can have a staff cottage on Burdum Row and the use of one of the flivvers,” he went on, changing the subject. “He seemed delighted at the chance to join me.”

“I should think so, dear. It’s a private post, he’ll live like a lord,” said Kitty. “Tell me about Sir Otto Sausage-maker.”

“According to Sir Otto, Coates shouldn’t be allowed to live like a lord,” said Charles, burying his lips gratefully in his Scotch. “Sir Otto is going to insist upon absolute retrenchment at every level of government, though, since Corunda Base has its own money, no government can order me to stop building it. Nor can they cut my state funds discriminately. I’ll get whatever the other hospitals get, as health
has
to be funded.”

“But government money comes from taxes, and if no one has a job, no one’s paying taxes,” Kitty objected.

“Oh, some people will pay taxes. Retrenchment is just a way of using every single penny that comes in to send out of the country in loan repayments. Borrow too much, and you’re bankrupt. Retrenchment is a euphemism, Kitty, for bankruptcy. The people of the country won’t benefit, the foreign moneylenders will.”

“Sometimes, Charlie, you’re hard to understand.”

“Oh, I’m smarting, that’s all. I came away from Melbourne with this image in my mind of Otto and me in the Menzies dining room, sipping the finest wines and eating the finest foods, clad in black tie, waited on by obsequious servants — and I know that Otto believes with heart, intellect and soul that he deserves to live better than some little Jewish tailor sitting cross-legged on a table getting a penny a pair. No matter that they both share the blood of Abraham — class is class. Otto believes in keeping the working class down, he genuinely thinks it criminal to offer them a decent life. To him the social strata are fixed in stone. Well, I don’t believe in the rule of the proletariat because it’s devoid of individualism and encourages civil servants to think they can run anything when the truth is they can run nothing — but I’m damned if I like Sir Otto Niemeyer’s world either!”

“There must be a happy medium somewhere,” said Kitty, out of her depth. “Jack Lang won’t favour Sir Otto’s measures, will he?”

“Jack Lang is in opposition, he doesn’t have executive clout. He has no power, darling, no power. All I see is a huge increase in
suffering,” said Charles. “Here’s hoping the Scullin government isn’t completely cowed by Sir Otto.”

“Jimmy Scullin,” said Kitty scornfully, “can be cowed by a cabbage moth. He’s a shallow opportunist.”

Yes, it was balm to the soul to have an ardently supportive wife, but it couldn’t solve Charles Burdum’s political dilemma. Torn between his situation in life, which inclined him to Tory ideals, his innate conviction that the working man was a creature deserving of respect, which inclined him to Socialist views, he kept on wavering, neither one thing nor the other.

What was basically wrong with all the existing political parties, he concluded, was that they had been formulated for the Old World — for tired and war-torn, resource-exhausted Europe.

So it dawned on Charles that what he had to do was create a political party engineered to meet Australia’s needs, a credo that wasn’t shackled to Old World political ideas and systems. His credo would have to see both Capital and Labour in new and different terms, and above all work to diminish artificial barriers between men. For instance, why, why,
why
had Bear Olsen thrown the public relations job in his face? What was wrong with the man’s social attitudes, that he could dismiss public relations as a swindle? What lay at the base of these inexplicable contradictions? Until he found out, he couldn’t possibly run for parliament, for he saw himself as an ignoramus and Bear Olsen as a kind of riddling oracle. Well, no more meetings and conferences! Research instead.

He thought, and he wrote. A child’s school exercise book, he discovered, was an ideal repository for his observations,
deductions and theories, especially since one could be closed like a filing cabinet, however many necessary could be used at the same time, and they stored upright on a shelf in labelled rows.

But all that was for the future. He began, was all.

“Are you with me, Kitty?” he asked on his return from Melbourne. “Will you be here for me?”

The eyes flashed violet with love and pride. “Always and forever, Charlie.”

At first, she spoke the absolute truth. Had Charles continued in the direction of hospital, orphanage and purely Corunda projects, Kitty’s “always” would have endured. But as winter blew itself out, as spring came and went in a perfumed glory of flowers, conversation at the dinner table and wherever else it happened turned more and more inexorably to one sole subject — politics. And Kitty found in herself a rapidly growing dislike of politics, politicians, and Charlie’s political aspirations.

A
t the end of October, fully seven months gone, Kitty Burdum suffered a miscarriage; the child was beautifully formed and male, but dead on birth, and had been since before contractions started.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered from her hospital bed, face and pillow drenched with tears. “Everything was perfect, I was so well! Then — this!”

Though he was deeply affected, Charles Burdum hid his own devastation better, especially from his wife; his tears, equally bitter, were shed at home, alone in the night. Had he realised it, he would have been wiser to weep with Kitty, a grieving couple united by their loss and each a witness of the other’s pain. As it was, Kitty deemed her sorrow far greater than his, and, loving him, laid what she saw as remote self-control at the door of his maleness. After all, a father had no contact with his child
in utero
, so how could he be expected to feel what she, the custodian, felt?

“It’s not unheard of,” said Dr. Ned Mason, “to lose a first baby, Kitty, though this late is unusual. Possibly you’re a wee bit anaemic, so eat plenty of spinach, even if you detest it.”

“Am I likely to miscarry again?” Kitty asked. “I’m still so shocked by the suddenness — it came out of the blue!”

“There will be plenty of babies, I do assure you.”

A verdict echoed by Tufts, very concerned. There was a new look in the lovely eyes, of bewilderment bordering on confusion. Whatever happened, Kitty
mustn’t
be let sink too far into the dumps! “Ned Mason’s right, women do lose a first child occasionally,” Tufts said firmly. “Take a good long rest, eat spinach, and try again. I guarantee you’ll sail through.”

“Ned says I may have a wee fibroid.”

“Oh, all of us have at least one of
those
.” Tufts snorted in derision. “You’re a registered nurse, Kitty, you know that’s true. Fibroids only become a dangerous nuisance much later.”

“Charlie took it philosophically.” Kitty sounded a trifle critical, even resentful.

“Charlie was broken-hearted, you goose! He just didn’t want to upset you more by showing it. Don’t sell his grief short because you can’t see past your own, Kits. He wept to me.”

“Well, he didn’t weep to
me
.”

“Then I admire his self-control. Of course he didn’t weep to you! He thinks too much of you to do that.”

“Daddy says he and Charlie gave it a name — Henry — and buried it. I wasn’t even there.”

“It” thought Tufts — oh, Kitty! Did Edda and I spare you too much as a child? No, of course we didn’t. But somehow things between you and Charlie never seem to go Charlie’s way, and it isn’t his fault, it’s yours.

She left Kitty’s bed in Maternity and walked briskly to Charles Burdum’s office, her thoughts still dwelling on Kitty. They didn’t see much of each other, and Edda was in like case, but the bond between them was no weaker for that, and she knew that Kitty would look to her and Edda for the major part of her comfort during the weeks and months to come. That note of disapproval for Charlie in her voice! This was one of those times when to be a stiff-upper-lipped, aloof Pommy was a terrible handicap.

Behind her worry for Kitty’s marriage something else nagged at her: what on earth could Charlie want to see
her
about? It wasn’t to do with Kitty; he was too punctilious to discuss his wife with her sister in the public arena of his office. What, therefore, was the matter?

He looks, Tufts thought as he took some care in seating her, like a man whose world has ended. In some ways it has; yesterday he had seen the tiny coffin of his stillborn son put into a grave, with Henry Burdum’s aunts, grandfather and father the sole mourners. And Kitty griped at his lack of tears? What a business!

“I want to talk to you about your future career,” Charles said.

Surprised, Tufts blinked. “What is there to talk about? I have eight trainees to care for, next April five more will bring the number up to thirteen, and the year after, if statistics go on as they’re heading, will see as many as ten fresh trainees. That means that by 1934, or thereabouts, the Corunda School of Nursing will be significant, with unqualified women being
phased out forever. It’s the Depression, of course,” she went on, “allied to the lack of young men — we are still feeling the effects of the Great War, and jobless young men can’t marry. As Sister Tutor, I’m only going to get busier and busier.”

“True, but naturally you will have the aid of efficient and Tufts-chosen assistant Sisters Tutor,” Charles said mildly.

“I shouldn’t need any assistant until the figures go above fifty,” said Tufts crisply.

“And in the truth of that statement lies one of the main reasons why I want to deflect your career somewhat.”

Tufts stiffened, seizing unerringly on one word. “
Deflect?
”

“Your emotional attachment to Corunda Base makes you very suitable for what I want, but it’s also you yourself — who you are, what you are — and who and what you could become.”

Her eyes held his sternly. “This sounds ominous.”

“It isn’t. I have no intention of harming your career, far from it. In fact, I want to enhance it.” His private sorrow had vanished from eyes and face, and the film star appeal came out of nowhere; Tufts could feel his charm engulf her. “In spite of the Depression, things are looking up for Corunda Base,” Charles said, his assault prepared. “I know that hospitals used to be where sick people went while God made up His mind whether to take life from them or let them keep it. Of treatment there was precious little. But that is changing rapidly. These days we can actually intervene and save many patients who even ten years ago would have died. We can X-ray broken limbs, remove certain diseased organs from the abdomen — why, even routine transfusion of blood from one person to another is just around
the corner! I see a modern hospital as a place where people go not only to have their lives saved, but their health preserved. And, Tufts, I know you feel the same way.”

“Doesn’t everybody?” she asked. “Come on, Charlie, spit it out! You don’t need to woo me with patriotic speeches, you’re preaching to the already converted.”

His face grew brighter, his eyes intense. “Tufts, I need a deputy superintendent, and I want that person to be you.
You!
”

The chair fell over as Tufts scrambled to her feet, shocked; he was there at once, righting the chair, reseating her.

“Charlie Burdum, you’re insane! I’m not even qualified as a matron, let alone a superintendent of anything other than nurse studies and hospital domestics,” she said, mouth dry, eloquent because eloquence was the only way to shut this steamroller of a man down. “You’re utterly deluded!”

“Anything but,” he said, back behind his desk. “Consider it, please. You know as well as any other member of our family that I have political aspirations. It’s my intention to seek election to the federal parliament as member for Corunda, but not until at least 1933 or 1934, which gives me time. Entry into parliament means I’ll have to give up the hospital. Like any other crafty man, I’ll be able to preserve my fortune and commercial interests intact if I go about it the right way, but I can’t hold two jobs.”

“Qualified men are to be found everywhere,” she said harshly. “Pick one now and train him up.”

“I am picking one now — you. At this moment, and, I predict, for many years to come, there are no academic qualifications stipulated for a person superintending a general hospital — or
any other kind of hospital, for that matter. Most of us have a medical degree because we soon learned after graduating that our skills were not directed at healing people, but at juggling money, functions and staff. Like your skills, Tufts, for all that you were also, apparently, a brilliant hands-on nurse. You will join me immediately as my deputy superintendent, and I’ll guarantee to teach you everything I know. I add that you will be able to carry on as Sister Tutor provided you have at least one assistant.”

Tufts threw her hands in the air, at a complete loss — how did one reason with a closed mind? “Charlie, I beg you, listen to me! First and foremost, I’m a woman. Apart from Matron, by tradition a woman, women do not administer any kind of organisation, from business to health. The opposition will be huge! My sex will be used against me in the corridors of power both in Sydney and in Canberra, with the unelected civil servants my worst and most obdurate enemies. I have no university degrees of any sort —
none
! The state government will dismiss me.”

He had listened, yet clearly didn’t hear. “Tufts, believe me, I’m well ahead of everyone concerned. I agree that you need tertiary qualifications, so I’ve arranged with my very good friend Professor Sawley Hartford-Smythe of the Faculty of Science to make sure you obtain those qualifications. You will undergo an intense and compressed course in medico-scientific subjects and graduate two years from when university goes up next February. That’s 1931, to graduate in November of 1933. You will also undergo intensive schooling in accountancy, which will equip
you better for this job than a degree in Medicine, as you well know. I am
loading
you with work, but it isn’t as bad as it seems because much of what you have to learn is already learned. You’ll breeze through the science! Accountancy will be more foreign, therefore harder. You, Heather Scobie-Latimer, are my investment for the future.”

Her breath had gone; Tufts stared at her brother-in-law in wonder. Could it possibly work? And why did this eminently well qualified and practical man assume it
would
work? Even though the core of him was raw and bleeding from the loss of his child, he was forging onward, always toiling for Corunda and its welfare. A university degree! She, a woman, would own a Bachelor’s degree in Science and a Charter in Accountancy! Attend conferences as a hospital executive. The joys of tutoring nurses were many, but Tufts had to admit that the vast challenge Charlie was throwing at her was infinitely more alluring.

“Charlie, have you honestly thought this through?”

“I’ve crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s, Tufts, you have my word on it,” he said. “Come, do it!” He chortled at a private vision. “Imagine being Liam’s boss!”

“Old stick-in-the-mud that he is. He’d be more suitable.”

“Were he, I’d have given him the job. No, m’dear, Liam is twenty years too old. I need someone young.”

“I see that. Liam doesn’t like live patients, that’s why he chose pathology.” She gave a gasp and held out her hand to Charles across the desk. “Very well, Charlie. If you’re so set on a woman deputy, I’ll accept. You won’t desert me too soon, will you?”

“I’ll never desert you, Tufts.”

She raced back down the ramp to Pathology and burst into Liam Finucan’s office to find him immersed in a set of huge blueprints that outlined his new department, a building two storeys high. Charles’s scheme of things saw the ancillary medical services as more important than, for instance, rebuilding the wards or starting the new operating theatre block, simply because their current position in Corunda was very much an afterthought, yet their importance as diagnostic tools and treatments was exploding.

So the new radiology department had gone up first; its carefully chosen chief, Dr. Edison Malvie, had gone on the staff before a single brick earmarked for radiology had been laid and the most modern diagnostic X-ray apparatus purchased, together with the latest ideas on lead shielding. Gone were the days of fuzzy films or uncertain readings; when all was up and running, Dr. Malvie vowed, neurosurgeons as august as those at Queens Square would perform no radiological tests Corunda Base did not.

Which led to the bliss of a whole building entirely devoted to pathology, broken into its various disciplines. If Dr. Malvie was happy, his content was as nothing compared to Liam Finucan’s. The transfusion of blood from patient to patient, so very close, pointed the way to haematology as a segment of significant size — in fact, every segment of pathology was growing larger and more important. Hence his poring over blueprints for the new Pathology Department, and his blindness to what would ordinarily be so obvious: Tufts was bursting with news. However,
she forced herself to listen to today’s bright ideas until he ran down, puzzled at Tufts’s rather lukewarm reaction.

Once she told him her news, Liam sat back in his chair, the plans forgotten, and gazed at her. “Charlie’s trouble,” he said then, “is that he can never leave things alone. Status quo is an alien concept to him.”

“Does that mean you think I should refuse?” she asked.

“No! You can’t possibly refuse, the opportunity is genuinely ground-breaking — you did accept, I hope?”

“Yes, but I can always change my mind. I
am
a woman!”

“Are you still enamoured of a lifetime career in hospital work, Heather? You don’t plan on marriage?” he asked.

“Definitely not,” said Tufts firmly. “Every time I see Grace or Kitty, I realise all over again that marriage would not suit me. And every time I see Edda I realise that I am not cut out for love affairs either. Too perilous, especially for a superintendent.”

“Then you have two choices, Heather. To stick in the well-known mud of Sister Tutor, or jump into the utterly unknown mire of senior hospital administration. Your mind is very high quality — too high for Sister Tutor, I think, but I’m not you, and I do not presume to advise you,” Liam Finucan said, oddly formal.

His thoughts were very different. What, he wondered, looking at her sweet face, might have happened had Gertie Newdigate not stuck her oar in, and I not had a wife to shed? Sixteen months of separation, right as the seed was germinating. Oh, Heather, we missed our chance!

Not thoughts Tufts experienced as she stared at him, though a part of her did understand Matron Newdigate’s untimeliness.
But, never having known any kind of intimacy with Liam before the long divorce exile, she had no idea what might have eventuated had there been no Eris Finucan. They were best friends, and they were also colleagues. In moving her qualifications up, Tufts was moving further into Liam’s world. And that was a lovely thought, no more.