Cold Light

by Frank Moorhouse

  ‘You never know which shot it was that was fired and won the battle.’

  ‘They didn’t make a difference. If they had stayed out of the war, Australia would have been richer and happier and the war would have ended as it did, give or take a month.’

  ‘You think Australia could have been the Sweden of the Pacific?’

  ‘Something like that. Wicked waste.’

  Usually she worried that he had become caught up in Canberra life too much, that he was becoming staid and even pompous. Which Ambrose was this speaking? Maybe it was the Superior Englishman. She would once not even have noticed this as a position, she would have naturally gone along with it. Back in Geneva, she had tried to abandon her own nationality, tried not to think ‘Australian’, even to consider herself as one. She had described herself as an internationalist. So, she had thought, had Ambrose. He had never before let slip any vexation about their coming back. He had, she assumed, come back to Australia for her – for what seemed, from that distance, a fresh start for her – or maybe he had fancied, at some point in their conversations beside hissing gas heaters back in London, that it would be an escapade, a retreat from the bickering friction at the hub of the world, to a quieter place. A place where she could heal her wounds from being unwanted by the new United Nations Organisation, for example. That had hurt her, her applications for positions not even earning her an interview. Then, when UNRRA had ceased to be an independent agency and had been swallowed up by the UNO, no place had been found for her. Even Sweetser, who had somehow wriggled his way in, could not help her to find a place. He had let U Thant live in his mansion – his wife’s mansion – that’s how Sweetser had wriggled in. And now that America was in the UNO, they were hiring many Americans.

  Her plan had been to return and then somehow magically be swept up into the arms of Australia, and then be sent away on diplomatic missions as a representative of Australia.

  Although he had been taken back by the Foreign Office, Ambrose seemed to have little personal ambition. His only interest in life was to study with gay, dark wit the muddle-mindedness of the species. He was probably a spy as well – with nothing much upon which to spy.

  She looked at him frowning into his drink. He was more an entomologist than a spy – he studied the human insect.

  She looked again at the frown. He was pondering. He was thinking about something he was not disclosing to her. Perhaps he now wanted to be here. Perhaps he had a lover? No. Perhaps he was involved in something nefarious.

  Being married was her greatest disqualification. If how she chose to express her love mattered in the selection of diplomatic staff, the British should have appointed her to a position here in the HC, not nancy-boy entomologist Ambrose in his claret satin nightgown. Metaphorically, she wore the pants, as the saying went. And he wore her panties.

  She wanted to be part of the making of the world. She wasn’t seeking just any old Byronic desire to always feel the sensation of being flamboyantly alive, to live intensely. That had to come from involvement. She wanted to be about making the world. She wanted that very special sensation of making things happen. The microscopic study of the demented world, to which Ambrose devoted himself, was not enough. Byron had written poetry and fought for the Greeks. He had tried to be a man of action and poetry and passionate love.

  But what does one do if the world does not want one’s talents?

  She stood up and went to the bookcase – their own bookcase, which they had moved into the rooms – and pulled out her Byron from the small library of their books.

  She found the lines:

  And now I’m in the world alone

  Upon the wide, wide sea;

  But why should I for others groan,

  When none will sigh for me?

  She moved over and sat on the arm of Ambrose’s chair; put her hand in his hair. She quoted the lines aloud to Ambrose.

  Ambrose said, ‘It is not a time to be maudlin; it is a time to be disgusted.’

  He was right.

  They had been here for months now, and he, it seemed, had been stoically trying hard not to whinge, not to let it become spoken; to move from mood to spoken fact. But tonight they were now at last facing the reality that Ambrose was here for her, and – as it turned out – there was nothing here for her to be here for.

  She took his hand and put it to her cheek. ‘We came here for me to be a diplomat and more. I misjudged how much I would be needed, how much rules would be bent.’

  Ambrose, his anger dissipated, said, ‘And instead we find ourselves in a rural outpost – on the border with Afghanistan. Let us despair; let us despair awfully and enormously.’

  Although he was affirming the decision to leave, his insouciance seemed a little forced. Again, she considered that, secretly, he wanted to stay here. But that was inconceivable.

  In their defeat, her mind wandered to another possibility for their lives. ‘We could live the life of the indolent rich and despair enormously at the same time.’

  For the first time in her life, she allowed herself to calculate whether they could live the life of the indolent rich. The stock market had been good for her, thanks to the wretched Firestone shares, and if they chose a country with a cheap currency, yes, they could. ‘We have never tried the life of the indolent rich.’

  He leaned his forehead in to her. ‘We could return to Geneva and I could work as a cigarette girl at the Molly Club. I wonder if it still exists? I wonder if Follett is still there pretending to be a dissolute old man while doing secret good works in expensive gowns and exquisite earrings. I envy his life. Must drop him a line.’

  He had not mentioned the Molly Club for some time.

  ‘That, too, my darling, we can find again. We can have that again – if that is what you’re missing. Is that what you’re missing? I think you are maybe. Perhaps I am as well. I could buy the Molly Club. You could be lead cancan dancer. A promotion from cigarette girl. Maybe Follett and I could secretly do good works, both of us in fashionable and expensive gowns.’

  ‘The three of us in fashionable, extravagant gowns.’

  ‘Of course, darling, you will have your own couturier.’

  ‘It’s the company of like damned souls I miss, more than the delightful young boy-girls from all over Europe, in their lingerie, giving themselves with laughter and wit. Not that like-souls are frequently to be found – anywhere – let alone damned souls.’

  She laughed. ‘Are you sure you do not miss the young boy-girls?’

  ‘Yes, I lied. I had to lie to myself about the boy-girls in lingerie or I would shrivel into death here in this chair.’

  ‘We never held out high hopes of finding a flourishing branch of the Molly Club here. We never had any such expectations.’

  ‘Oh, it’s here, I suspect. I suspect, if we were to stay on here, in time it would show itself somehow, would wink at me some night, show its garter belt. Always does – in whatever godforsaken country. It shyly shows itself, or not so shyly. Have not had a glimpse yet, truth be told.’

  She wondered if now was the right time to tell him a man had put his hand on her knee.

  She went to the butler’s table and poured each of them another drink.

  ‘Two nightcaps?’

  ‘In some ways one has to wash away a dinner party – all those ugly things said, all those misconceptions, all that pomposity, all those errors of fact. All like soiled napkins on the dinner table.’

  She handed him his drink and nestled beside him. ‘And I have something risqué to tell – and for the telling we need a night potion,’ she said, using her silky voice, handing him the drink and sitting down again on the arm of his chair, a hand on his neck.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘You do?’

  ‘I had a lecherous episode tonight.’

  ‘At the PM’s dinner?’ He simultaneously crossed his legs, pulled his robe across his lap, stared up at her and sipped his port. ‘You had a lecherous episode at the PM’s dinner table?’
/>
  ‘At the dinner in the PM’s dining room, a man put his hand upon my knee.’

  There was a pause and Ambrose then said, ‘Did he do it well?’

  She smiled. Oh, what a perfect reply. ‘Is there an expertise to it? I suppose there is. You have to realise, darling one, that I am not a lady who invites such gestures, nor, I would have thought, am I a lady who expects such gestures. I am now, well, a matron. On second thoughts, I don’t know how one invites such a gesture.’

  ‘You are a very desirable woman.’ His voice then became almost academic. ‘I would imagine that the hand-on-knee business requires – well, audacity for a start – and then, yes, I see that I do not quite know – even at this time of my life – what is involved in the mysteries of the hand-on-knee among men and women. I take it that I am about to learn from you. And pray tell, who is the honourable – or not – gentleman who placed his hand on your sacred knee?’

  ‘If I tell, will his name go into His Majesty’s secret files for some nefarious use at some later date?’

  ‘Of course. If I find he is a gentleman to whom I do not wish to give the approval of placing his hand on my consort’s knee, I may well send him to Norfolk Island for life.’

  ‘I will tell his name in due course. And I wish to say that I am unsure now, at this time of night, whether it ended with the charm that it should have – gallantly, no; discreetly, yes. Whether it ended is not in doubt. From the point of view of this lady’s pride, in the sense of a promise of things to come or of things that might have been in another lifetime, I am unsure.’

  A hand dreaming. A leg and a hand dreaming.

  ‘Even my pride was a little dented. The conclusion of the gesture lacked what one might call “shapely conclusion”. On the whole, I feel at this point of the night, and looking back on it, that it could be described as an imbroglio.’

  She could tell that he was enlivened by the account, but perhaps perplexed.

  ‘Imbroglio? How so?’ he asked.

  ‘After we rose from table, he made no further approach to me nor further acknowledgement of my presence. Or farewell. Not even a wink. True, his wife was present.’

  She put her head on one side. ‘And, of course, so was my wife present.’

  ‘What did the hand in fact do?’ He was curious, but tentatively curious.

  ‘The hand went . . . exploring . . . no, not the correct word . . . the fingers of his hand moved . . . once.’

  Ambrose raised an eyebrow. ‘Did it, now?’

  ‘His fingers touched the button of the suspenders of my stockings.’

  ‘The button.’

  ‘As you know, I wore my corselet, and, as you also know, I prefer to wear it without underpants, for reasons we have discussed some time back.’

  ‘I read that the corselet is on its way out. Sad. I feel sometimes that it braces me.’

  ‘I know precisely what you mean. A girl needs a little stiffening at times, and you, I know, at times, my darling – at times – need a little stiffening.’

  ‘And this hand . . . pushed on up your dress? To a certain degree?’

  ‘Only in my imaginings while I ate a strawberry.’

  ‘And all this without being noticed?’

  ‘As surprising as it sounds. Or I wish to believe.’

  She toyed with the idea of elaborating it all for their mutual stimulation. ‘I widened my legs and pulled my skirts ever so slightly up, and his fingers, so encouraged, then moved past the suspender to the soft, warm flesh between my stocking top . . .’

  Ambrose looked at her with eyes mock-widened. ‘The labia majora?’

  ‘Within cooee.’ She decided to stop the erotic tale. ‘His hand appeared to have lost its nerve, or perhaps its way, or perhaps he knew not what to do at that critical, shall we call it, juncture.’

  She contemplated it. ‘There may be nothing more a gentleman can do at a dinner table at that juncture.’

  She watched Ambrose consider, and then nod his head. ‘I think not.’

  She looked to his crotch and saw that he had been aroused.

  ‘Well, well. Well, well. My darling, you do take the cake. A PM’s dinner party – our first invitation to this Lodge, and our most important social appearance in this capital – and you play hanky panky under the table with a stranger? My, my, my.’

  ‘You are impressed?’

  ‘I am in thrall to you. You are naughty beyond all my highest expectations. I honour you.’ He raised his port glass, looking up at her and shaking his head. He lowered himself off the chair and settled at her feet. ‘I worship at your feet,’ he said, and kissed her painted toes.

  She observed how lithesome he was in the way he moved, the way he slipped to the floor. There was a natural femininity in the grace with which he folded his robe and nightdress under himself as he moved down to the floor and embraced her legs. Such an elegant man. Such a darling nancy-man, in his claret silk robe. ‘You are not piqued with your mistress? Your wife-mistress? Your saucy nancy-girl?’

  He took her hand and placed it on his breasts.

  His voice was becoming dreamy. ‘Not in the least. And is he the man who offered you the position?’

  ‘Strangely, no. The man on my left was the hand-on-the-knee man; the man on the right offered me the position. Has this hand-on-the-knee not occurred in your own sordid life – your life of such sordid, carnal miscellany?’

  He smiled. ‘In the old days of the Molly Club, I must admit, I did allow more hands than I should have up my skirt. There was decorum in the old Molly Club, but never restraint in those dear days. But with the absence of restrain there were niceties. And even the lewdness was, ultimately, saucily demure.’

  ‘I found it gave a sensation similar to having a man place a bracelet on one’s wrist or a necklace around your neck. It suggests that one is being . . . well . . . taken.’

  All that now having been said, she was ready for bed, if not for sleep.

  ‘We will discuss our fleeing tomorrow,’ she said, rising and pulling him up with her. ‘And more about hands-on-knees.’

  ‘Yes, more about hands-on-knees,’ he said affectionately, kissing her hand.

  She ran a hand inside his robe and his nightdress to the aroused nipples, which rose to her caress. ‘Should we then to bed, my sweet princess? You have permission to finish what the stranger’s fingers began – or suggested – before they, too, took flight. In fact, I command that you finish what this stranger’s fingers began.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ His voice had huskiness to it.

  ‘And I, too, shall steal my hand up your silky dress. You are, I suspect, overdue for a hand up your dress. Shall I fetch Jennifer?’

  He nodded, and she went to her bathroom satchel and took out the rubber dildo that they’d had now since Vienna. It had springs in it and made both of them happy on occasions.

  And there in the bed, as they played their caressings and writhing, nancy-boy and nancy-girl, she heard coming from inside her those jungle-like whimperings that she had not heard for many months.

  It had been long months since she had heard those innermost deep sounds, and as she heard them utter from her, she was ringingly glad that they were still there and that the girl who made them was there; that the girl was still capable of coming surprisingly alive within her, causing her to make such profound sounds, which joined so companionably with his moaning. So, so very glad for those gaspings of relief; the relief that flowed through her, changing into a deep, deep, relaxation. Their bodies wrapped together and she sighed soulfully for herself and for Ambrose, the sighs rising from their inseparable selves.

  They had stolen the lasciviousness from the man on her left.

  Lying there in the afterwards – one of Ambrose’s hands now locked in hers, the fingers of his other hand mostly inside her, but now still – she thought that truly the sounds of their sex play were the sounds of their usually hidden, primitive selves. Where did that person inside her, who could make such soulful noises, go
for so long? Where inside her did she crouch? What did she do for all that time she was uncalled?

  Before drifting to sleep, she reminded herself to send a bread-and-butter letter to the Prime Minister and to begin calculation of her finances for another move – a move to another life in another land, well away from this bungle.

  Mistress of the Capitolium: Spinning the World on One’s Thumb

  Over a late breakfast in the dining room at the hotel – late service being a dispensation won from the grumpy kitchen by sheer English ingratiation by Ambrose, and one of their few earned privileges as long-term guests – they reviewed their boozy decision to flee Canberra and agreed that it was best. She was feeling the effects of the nightcaps and hoped the lamb’s fry and bacon would restore her. Ambrose ordered the same.

  It was clear enough now that she was not going to be offered a position in External Affairs. She was not going to be the first woman ambassador, and that was that. If Watt had any leanings towards that idea, he would have broached it at the afternoon tea. Or hinted. Watt knew it was foremost in her mind and she had certainly planted it in his.

  She had talked with Dobson, who had managed to get somewhat into External Affairs, by back doors, but she was not optimistic about Edith or about herself. She worried about Edith’s age and, of course, her married status. And worse, that she was married to a British diplomat. The marriage to Ambrose had been a stupid and un-thought-out move, but inescapable if he were to come with her to Australia and take up the Canberra position at the HC. They hadn’t thought it through. It was her blithe, wilful arrogance, and the notion of being ‘snapped up’ – that every obstruction would be overlooked or waved away – which she had let fool her.

  Dobson said that the objections made to women in the diplomatic corps were that they could not contain their emotions, their voices became shrill in discussion, and their clothing would be disturbing to men.

  Edith said that in her time at the League she had heard some very shrill men who could not contain their emotions.