Cold Light (52 page)

The High Heeled Commissioners were the hit of the night. The clapping was sustained. Huddled in the wings, the compère, the stage manager, Amelia and she urged them to do their encore.

‘Wait till we hear the word encore,’ Ambrose said, in a high state. Allan and Mr T were peeping out at the audience through the curtains. ‘They loved us,’ Mr T said. ‘They really did.’

From within the continuing clapping there were now cries of ‘More!’ and ‘Encore!’ And with a count of one, two, three they went out onto stage, arms linked, and the stage manager, guided by Edith, put on their encore record, connected to the loud speaker: ‘I Want to Be a Prom Girl’.

At the end of the song, the three of them did perfectly synchronised curtsies and twirling waves of their painted fingers, and tripped off stage, flushed.

‘Say, we were rather good, weren’t we,’ Allan said.

‘You were, you were,’ Amelia said, giving them a hug.

Edith said, ‘Professional and quite attractive,’ and also gave them each a hug.

‘Perhaps we have a new career,’ Mr T said, glowing. Perhaps he truly hoped for a new career.

During the performances, Edith had watched the High Commissioner’s face from the wings. He had not shown amusement, but perhaps that was just the
sang froid
of rank and Britishness.

There was a party afterwards for performers and VIPs, held at the Hotel Canberra’s Blue Room next door to the hall. Only Mr T took advantage of the male clothing change that Edith, Amelia and Janice had brought along in suitcases for the boys. Allan and Ambrose instead wanted to stay
en femme
, although Allan, at least, took off his wig, make-up and earrings. Ambrose brushed off suggestions that he remove his. There among the VIPs and curious women, they all stood, the three stars laughing and talking confidently, full of high spirits.

Ambrose had requested tickets to the party for Emily and her husband, and they seemed to socialise famously, chatting to all. Edith did not have to worry about chaperoning them.

In his male clothes, Mr T was rather lost in that crowd, and apart from his own guests most didn’t realise he was one of the performers. Edith tried to stay with him and introduce him around. Once recognised, he received much praise for his performance.

Taking her out of the conversational group, Ambrose said to her that he needed to go to the toilet, but did not know to which toilet he should go.

‘We should have thought of this,’ she said. She felt vexed. ‘You should have changed. That was the plan.’

There was nothing to do about it. At the old Molly Club, the
Dames
toilets were for lady guests, performers and
en femme
customers.

‘I suppose, I could go to the gents – use a stall,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps I should go to the ladies. Less likelihood of a commotion.’

‘I suspect either may cause a commotion. You will not go to the ladies – and, anyhow, there is always a queue. Chance it in the gents, and for God’s sake, take off your wig.’

Ambrose took off the wig and gave it to her.

‘And the earrings.’ She held out her hand. He did as he was told and then swished off to the gents.

She shook her head and went back to the conversation.

Theodor joined them and was full of praise. ‘The boys were stunning as girls. I suppose that’s another product of an English public school education.’

‘I wish Ambrose would accept that the show is over,’ she said.

Theodor then recognised Mr T and said, ‘I didn’t recognise you as a male, Mr T, you danced so well. The three of you were fully professional.’

Mr T sighed. ‘Like Ambrose, I am sorry to have left the stage. I am afraid that it may be my finest hour.’

‘Oh no – we must have another show . . .
somewhere
,’ Amelia said.

The next thing of which Edith was aware was seeing Ambrose coming out of the gents holding toilet paper to his face, through which she saw the stains of blood. She rushed to him.

‘Oh God, what happened?’ She put an arm around him. ‘Show me.’

‘Nose bleed – punch.’

People were turning to look at him. Mr T came over and asked if he should find a first-aid box. She nodded. The dependable Mr T.

Then, waving at them from the door of the gents and shouting in an educated voice, a man in a dinner suit called, ‘Disgrace to manhood.’

Edith suppressed the irritation she felt with Ambrose for having provoked this trouble by not changing, and she then caught the face of the High Commissioner in the crowd. He seemed far from happy, having witnessed the abusive man.

She turned to Ambrose and said, ‘Did you say anything to the man while you were in there?’

‘I may have nodded and smiled.’

‘That would have been enough.’

‘Or, perhaps, winked. I didn’t blow him a kiss.’

She didn’t laugh.

Theodor and Amelia, and a few from what she called her Bloomsbury Gang, came over to see if everything was okay. Their solid confidence and ease made her feel less distrait. Even Emily came to the rescue.

Allan, concerned, came over, glanced at Ambrose and then to the shouting man, who had gathered a few supporters around him, and said, ‘Let’s leave here now.’

She agreed, and they led Ambrose outside. Janice joined them and they made it to the cars. Mr T had been unable to find a first-aid kit, and Ambrose still held the toilet paper to his nose, now quite stained.

‘Boorish oaf,’ Ambrose said.

She wrapped Ambrose’s black fur American Galloway around him.

Back at the house, the bleeding seemed to have stopped. Ambrose momentarily slipped back into his training as a doctor and carefully felt his nose in front of the bathroom mirror, concluding that it was broken. On his instruction, she brought him some ice wrapped in a bandage. ‘Nothing much to be done with a broken nose,’ he said. ‘My looks, though, will be ruined for life.’

Amelia poured everyone drinks. One of Mr T’s friends had come with them.

For comfort, Edith decided to make them all hot chocolate. It took her back to the ugly incident in Geneva before the war with the Action Civique. They had drunk hot chocolate that night, too.

‘How bloody awful,’ Allan said, as he took his cup of hot chocolate from the tray. And then, mustering a smile, he said to Ambrose, ‘But blood-red does suit you. Try it on the nails rather than the nose.’

Ambrose stretched out his hands with their painted nails. ‘You could be right, dear.’

‘The HC was far from happy,’ Edith said.

Ambrose turned to her. ‘With the oaf – or with me?’

‘I’ll handle Sir Stephen,’ Allan said.

‘I nearly used jujitsu on the oaf,’ Ambrose said. Coming from his
en femme
self, it sounded so out of character. She had never heard him refer to jujitsu or his knowledge of it before in her life.

‘Jujitsu?’ she said, looking at him as if at a stranger on a train.

‘Jujitsu,’ he said. ‘I learned it in the army. At sniper school – First Army School of Sniping and Scouting.’ He had never mentioned the sniper school.

She raised her eyebrows at Allan. He shook his head at her.

She then said to Ambrose, ‘Are you in shock? You are sounding like you’re in shock. I thought you were with the Medical Regiment.’

‘I was in the Medical Regiment – Divisional Sanitary Section, to be precise . . .’

There was always laughter when he mentioned this. She hated him playing down his war record.

She interjected, saying, ‘He saved hundreds, maybe thousands, of lives for his work reducing trench fever and cerebro-spinal fever. Five mentions in dispatches.’

‘Yes, thank you, Edith, for blowing my trumpet. I was also at the First Army Sniping School. I had things medical to teach them, and in return they taught me unarmed combat. They have to know a bit more about medical matters than the average man in the trench – the snipers work in twos detached from their unit, well away from medical assistance. If one of them takes a wound the other has to be able to deal with it.’

‘The world should disarm and learn unarmed combat. And, of course, you should have used jujitsu in the men’s toilet. In a dress. You could have made mincemeat of them all. That would have been a fine spectacle.’ She said it kindly, humorously. ‘A lavatory brawl in a frock. Always protect your frock first.’

She wondered if Allan would handle Sir Stephen. In a few days Allan would be gone from all this, back to the important busyness of London. He would probably joke about it among his friends, would say how achingly funny the concert and their world here was.

She then said to Ambrose, ‘Did you really tell the HC what you were going to do on stage this evening?’

Ambrose looked up at her. ‘I told him the song we intended singing. He wasn’t too familiar with Cole Porter’s work.’

‘And?’

Ambrose again stretched his perfectly manicured hand and admired his nails. ‘In my last chat with Sir Stephen in the days before the concert, I told him that we had not
finalised
our costuming.’

‘In other words, you did not tell him you intended to sing with Allan and Mr T – David – dressed in female clothing? With painted nails and lipstick?’

He shook his head. ‘Not in so many words, no.’

‘Not in any words. What you mean is that you told him the names of the songs and allowed him to think you and Allan would sing the song on stage in your Homburgs and furled umbrellas?’

‘I did mention the word burlesque.’

‘And why didn’t you tell him what you intended to do?’

‘He would have put the kybosh on it.’

She shook her head. ‘Dear God.’

Mr T then said, ‘I didn’t tell McLaren about the act either.’ He was like a second naughty schoolboy honourably telling the truth to a headmistress. They had suggested to Mr T that he use a stage name in the printed programme. Courageously, he had said no, he would use his own name.

‘Mr T, it was not your responsibility. It was not a requirement. I doubt that McLaren or others from the department recognised you.’

She turned back to Ambrose, holding him in her gaze. ‘Hopeless,’ she said. ‘Hopeless. And, Mr T, you are recklessly brave, but brave nonetheless.’

‘I felt neither brave nor fearful when I was on stage. I feel brave now; foolishly brave. I shouldn’t have changed back for the party.’

‘You
are
brave, Mr T,’ Allan said. ‘I intend to propose you for the Queen’s Honours List.’

Mr T chuckled. ‘A queen honoured by a Queen.’

They laughed.

Edith said, ‘I’m the only coward here. I was wrong to want to veto it. I apologise. I was wrong. You are all brave, brave girls. And beautiful.’

The Richters said, ‘Hear, hear,’ and lightly clapped.

Edith said, shamefacedly, ‘And I should have let you do the can-can.’

Amelia said, ‘You are all heroes and I propose a toast.’ They clinked glasses and drank ‘to Bloomsbury on the Molonglo’.

Ambrose, head back on the sofa, sang ‘Anything Goes’.

Edith saw that she had gone from the oldest cities of the world to the newest – the smallest capital city in the world. She was inside one of the smallest nations in the world, now sitting with two men dressed as women, without their wigs, and tired make-up, one singing Cole Porter songs, reluctant to change back to their male beings, clinging to their in-between world even for these last hours. Both of these men had spent their lives using their intelligence and education in open ways and in devious ways to struggle against the coarse and indecent as best they could.

It could be Bloomsbury. Had Bloomsbury come to live in Canberra? She doubted it. This scene did not yet belong in Canberra. Perhaps now it belonged nowhere. Bloomsbury had gone with the war.

She looked across at Ambrose, momentarily caught by a mad notion that from tonight he would never change back to being the Homburg-hatted diplomat. He would stay
en femme
forever.

And she looked at Mr T, some make-up now still visible. She wondered if he was not the bravest of the three. How would he fit into the regulated public service after tonight?

Her life now seemed to be echoes of fading echoes; events resembling, but not repeating, earlier events of her life. As Bishop Butler once said, everything was what it was and was not a repetition. Everything was in some small way always unique; more a swirling, circular current coming around again. Not the same as it was when it left, not as strong as when it swirled away from her or stronger, but fearfully similar, carrying its own new debris, and then moving away along the stream, never to return.

And as she recalled the moment the man called out his abuse and Ambrose, blood-stained toilet paper to his face, came to her through the crowd, dressed as a womanly night-club singer, she saw the faces of the grim High Commissioner, the Prime Minister and the Governor-General. But she also saw the face of loyal Emily coming to their aid; she saw the defiant faces of the Richters, who had dealt with worse than this in Germany, but who, perhaps, saw that same human worst in seedling form tonight.