Cold Light (47 page)

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:

‘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.’

L
ater 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.