Cold Light

by Frank Moorhouse

  ‘An Austrian writer used it in a lecture I heard in Vienna.’

  She changed the subject. ‘Do you think my bandage will work?’

  ‘I’m not a horticulturist. I could get a proper bandage from the first-aid box. The government nursery would send a man over to look at it.’

  ‘Why don’t you try to get some Scotch tape from the head clerk’s secretary? I don’t think I am entitled to it.’

  He went away and came back with some Scotch tape wound around a pencil, and she watched him gently bandage the tree up.

  She thanked him. ‘What did you say to Miss Heatherstone you needed it for?’

  ‘She didn’t ask. Maybe she knew.’

  ‘You should wear a Red Cross armband.’

  ‘Do you think it would suit me?’

  Their rescue activity and the tea had numbed her distress.

  They nibbled their biscuits. ‘I hear you have a house,’ Mr Thomas said.

  ‘Does everyone in the world know I’ve been allocated a house?’

  ‘In the world of Canberra, it’s an event for someone to get a house.’

  She caught some biscuit crumbs in her hand as she took on board this awareness. Nothing to be done about it, really. ‘You must come over for a drink one evening after work, Mr T.’

  ‘You could call me David.’

  ‘I rather like “Mr T”. It’s chummy.’

  ‘Then I will allow you to call me Mr T. I would love to come. I would be honoured.’

  Mr T came back two days later and inspected the health of the cumquat tree. Then, sitting down, he leaned forward and in a confidential tone said, ‘I have news.’

  ‘Tell.’

  ‘The villain is a nutty clerk in motor-vehicle licensing. He’s boasting about it. Most people seem to be appalled by what he did. The story is all over the Acton peninsula – further – the whole department.’

  ‘Why did he do it?’

  Mr Thomas shrugged. ‘Some people think the League of Nations was a communist plot. And you do have more books in your office than most. Some think you’re an atheist. You know how people are.’

  ‘How would they know that I’m an atheist?’

  He shrugged. ‘Never seen at church? And too many books.’

  ‘And what should we do with this man?’

  ‘That is more difficult. I think it’s the atheist thing that worried him. For him atheists are communists and vice versa.’ He pronounced it viki-versa.

  Just then, two men carrying a cumquat tree in a ceramic pot knocked, asked her name and carried it in. ‘We’re from the nursery. Where do you want it?’

  She signed for it and pointed to beside the other tree.

  One of the men said, ‘This one’s been in the wars.’ He pushed a finger in the soil and then picked a leaf, breaking it and smelling it, taking its pulse, checking its health. ‘It’ll live.’

  Looking at the delivery order, she saw that it had been ordered by Mr Thomas. She looked at him, shook her head and smiled at him.

  The other gardener said, ‘There’s another one to come in from the truck.’

  ‘Another cumquat?’

  They both nodded and left.

  Mr Thomas said, ‘I ordered only one – not two. As a companion for the sick tree. If the sick tree recovers it will have a pal.’

  She got up and came around her desk and kissed his cheek.

  ‘Who can the second be from?’ she asked.

  ‘You’ll have an orchard.’

  The gardeners arrived with the second tree. She looked at the order form when she signed again. It was from McLaren.

  ‘My gosh.’ She waved the order form at Mr T. ‘It’s from McLaren.’

  ‘That means that our motor-vehicle fellow won’t ever touch your trees again, and nor will he get a promotion,’ Mr T said. ‘You’re a protected person. I will certainly make sure the Motor Licence Man hears of the McLaren tree.’

  ‘I went to university with Mr McLaren. Briefly.’

  Mr T got up. Then he added, ‘You know that the department is pretty much split on the communist bill.’

  She guessed this was a warning to be discreet in what she said. ‘I’m for the Declaration of Human Rights – the bill infringes it. I am not pro-communist. I like your tree best,’ she said to him.

  She then picked them each a fruit from Mr T’s tree, wiped them with a clean handkerchief, and handed one to him.

  Later that week, Edith had a call from a man who said that he wanted to talk with her privately about a matter of national interest. She asked him to identify himself and he said he was from the new Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and he was calling from Melbourne.

  There was something unsettling to her to hear an Australian voice say that. And ludicrous at the same time.

  She knew about the organisation because Ambrose had something to do with setting it up – ‘teaching them how to keep secrets’.

  She thought at first, foolishly, that it might have to do with the broken cumquat tree, and realised mid-thought that the whole thing was becoming disproportionate in her life.

  ‘What would this conversation concern?’

  ‘I would prefer to explain face-to-face.’

  She said she would consider his request and call him back.

  He said, ‘I understand about your diplomatic immunity.’

  That night she mentioned the call to Ambrose. He seemed tiredly annoyed. He thought that it could be connected to her brother and her attendance at the Causeway meeting. He was irritated about the call and perhaps with her. ‘As the wife of a diplomat, you are covered by diplomatic immunity, although if something serious were alleged we would be ushered out of the country under the cloak of darkness and never heard of again.’

  He looked at her with mock seriousness. ‘Have you done anything truly treacherous behind my back that I should know of? Have you traded in secrets?’

  Something then told her that it was a serious inquiry.

  ‘Only the defence of the Declaration of Universal Rights. Hardly subversion of the Australian way of life, although I can see why the present government might see it as such. I see them as the rules of human existence.’

  ‘The Security Intelligence Organisation may not be overly familiar with the Universal Declaration.’

  ‘Do I have to talk with this man?’

  Ambrose pondered this. ‘You could ask to have someone from the HC with you.’

  ‘Meaning you?’

  ‘No. Marjoribanks. Or a legal person – the HC could employ someone.’

  ‘Perhaps that would make me look guilty? I’m inclined to talk to him. I don’t want to appear to be behaving as if I’m guilty of an offence.’

  ‘The fact that you have been interviewed itself will start a file. And as I said, you can at any point ask for diplomatic immunity as my wife. Or my husband, as the mood takes you. Having a file can be a good thing. Gives you clearance. Or puts you under a cloud.’

  He laughed. ‘They may want to recruit you. Or they may want information on your brother and Janice.’

  ‘I could shop my brother.’

  Ambrose stared at her without answering and then said, ‘I hate that expression.’

  ‘Surely, they already know about my brother – he’s a paid official. He’s out and about, organising and proselytising. Agitating.’

  ‘They may want to know about me. May want the combination to the safe.’

  ‘I presume they know about Janice.’

  ‘One would think so.’

  ‘How much do you have to do with these Intelligence types? Tell me.’

  ‘It’s more that they want intelligence from us – from London. We have nothing we really need from them. The Russians are trying to find out what we tell the Australians. And what the Americans tell the Australians. Their embassy is something of a spy machine. Not to be taken lightly.’

  ‘I come back to Australia to offer my services, and not only do they not offer me a diplomatic posi
tion, but they now treat me as a traitor.’

  ‘I doubt that they see you as a traitor. They probably want to enlist your help.’

  Edith called the man and agreed to the interview. She suggested that the interview be in the Canberra Hotel lobby. While no longer her home ground, it was familiar ground. She wondered what Janice would think if she saw them together. Janice probably knew the faces of the security people.

  She decided to meet the man alone.

  After he arrived, she ordered tea and scones and forced him into some small talk. He declined the scones and tried to avoid the small talk, but he took the tea.

  For a cloak-and-dagger man, he seemed to be young, mild-mannered and even nervous. Perhaps he was nervous about talking to the wife of a British diplomat or to an older woman of unknown or rumoured influence. Or of known influence. He must know of her connections.

  He took out a notebook and said officially, ‘I know you can claim diplomatic immunity, but if you did it would have to come from the High Commission, and that might embarrass your husband.’

  ‘I doubt that he could be embarrassed. He knows of our meeting. I am curious about why you’re curious about me. I will see if diplomatic immunity comes into it.’

  He took out a photograph of her brother holding the pole of a May Day banner, and showed it to her asking, ‘Is this your brother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know he’s a paid organiser for the Communist Party of Australia?’

  ‘I do.’ Carefully, she put cream and raspberry jam on her scone. Her hands were steady.

  ‘You were seen at a rally at the Causeway Hall.’

  ‘I was there. I was protesting that the proposed legislation infringes the Universal Declaration.’

  ‘The Declaration?’

  ‘Australia signed up in 1945 in San Francisco. The UN charter.’ She would give him a history lesson. ‘I was there.’

  He wrote this down. He was taking shorthand with some words in prose.

  He went on doggedly, ‘I mean that the Declaration, as you call it, is not law here in Australia. May I ask if you see your brother often?’

  ‘You may not.’

  ‘Are you also a member of the Communist Party?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you a member of a closed branch of the Communist Party?’

  She smiled at him. ‘If I were, would I have said no?’

  He coloured.

  ‘Do you know Janice Linnett?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you see her often?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s the business of a government.’

  ‘Do you know she’s a member of the Communist Party?’

  ‘Again, what I know or don’t know about people is not your business, unless they are breaking the law. Or planning to break the law.’

  ‘This doesn’t perturb you – you as the wife of a British diplomat – mixing with these types?’

  ‘Mixing with my brother and his girlfriend? I don’t have any secrets to pass on.’

  ‘You may not know that you are passing on secrets.’

  ‘I do not know any secrets. I would know a secret if I came across it in the garden.’

  ‘You may know secrets from remarks and conversation you overhear – from your husband’s work and so forth – and not be aware of their nature and so pass them on unwittingly.’

  ‘I am not a person who does things unwittingly.’

  He blushed, but came back, ‘It’s in the nature of unwitting acts that we are unaware of them.’

  She was impressed by this retort. ‘They would be innocent acts, then, by definition.’ That was a bit lame.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘but it is also the reason for not mixing with untrustworthy people – if you are likely to be both privy to state secrets and also an unwitting person.’

  He seemed very happy with this comeback. ‘Do you know a man named Throssell?’

  ‘No. But I suppose I could have come across him at receptions. Should I?’

  He closed his notebook and put away the photograph of Frederick.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘For now.’ He tried to give it the sound of authority, and perhaps to suggest that labyrinthine considerations were in progress.

  She gathered her things and ate the last scone as some sort of display of bravado.

  He then said, ‘Oh, one other thing.’

  She looked to him.

  He had opened his notebook again and appeared to be referring to it. ‘You are opposed to religion?’

  ‘I fail to see the relevance.’

  He looked again at his notebook. ‘It appears that your father had a non-religious funeral.’

  How would he know that? Probably from the obituary in the Rationalist magazine.

  ‘He had a Rationalist funeral. I wasn’t there.’

  ‘Rationalist, anti-religion, same thing. I take it that in your position you would not proclaim yourself as against religion?’

  ‘I thought that since the French revolution, or whatever, we are not held responsible for the crimes of our relatives, if being a Rationalist is a crime.’

  ‘I find it curious you did not attend either your mother’s or father’s funeral.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Most people do.’

  ‘My mother wished me to stay at my post with the League of Nations rather than make the trip home. My father died during the war and I couldn’t find transport to Australia. And seeing that you are so keen about the matter of death, Rationalists do not place the same emphasis on it as, say, religious people.’

  He wrote in his notebook.

  ‘What do you do with the answers I have given to you?’

  ‘Put them in my report.’

  ‘And who sees your report.’

  ‘Those authorised to see it.’

  ‘The PM?’

  ‘If he wishes to see it.’

  ‘Good day, then.’

  She stood up and extended her hand. He stood up and shook it.

  ‘I am far from happy about this,’ she said.

  He became pompous. ‘You should avoid contact with either of them. One is not required to keep the company of a brother, especially if he poses a risk.’

  This riled her, but she did not show it. ‘Wouldn’t it be more just and a more civilised course of action if I continue seeing my brother and Janice Linnett as I wish, and that you desist from contacting me until you have evidence that I am engaged in activities with them that threaten the security of the nation – wittingly or unwittingly – and when those actions constitute a crime you can then legally arrest me?’

  ‘This is not an argument over politics. This is a polite interview to alert you to risk.’

  He then seemed to think before he spoke, and said, ‘Look, we know you’re dinky-di. Would you be prepared to tell us anything you pick up that could be of interest?’

  She sensed that this was the real purpose of the meeting and that the questions were a way of revealing to her that they knew much about her.

  She found that she had not asked this question of herself. She had read recently that an American writer, Lillian Hellman, had told an American committee inquiry into communism – called HUAC – that ‘to hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonourable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.’

  She wondered if that were her position. It wasn’t her position during the war. Anyone with any information that would help the war effort was passed to the authorities. But this was not a war. Yet. Although the government was terming it a war.

  She looked at him. ‘I will take that under consideration.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She looked over at him. He looked back and held her gaze for an instant. It was not hostile. How odd. What was she to make of that? Was it amorous? She decided to make no reading of its meaning. Too much ambiguity.

  She sat back do
wn, unsettled, thinking, I must lay off the scones and cream. She then gestured to the waiter and when he came she ordered a large Scotch.

  Was this the ASIO humiliating her? Was it testing her?

  That evening, Edith reported it all to Ambrose. ‘I have been warned not to see my brother and Janice.’

  ‘Would that be a great social penalty?’

  ‘I like Janice and I am beginning to like my brother, even if we do not share politics. Who knows, they may come around to a different way of thinking through mixing with us. And I can tell you liked them, for whatever perverse reason.’

  He looked at her over his drink. ‘Do you like her enough to bring about an international incident and have us returned to foggy England in irons?’

  ‘I will get Latham to put a stop to this.’

  ‘Be careful about talking to a High Court judge about it. That, too, could have its consequences.’

  ‘Be damned if my personal life will be dictated by a government agent. He asked me about a man called Throssell. Do you know him?’

  ‘External Affairs.’ Ambrose laughed. ‘I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but it seems that he is on their books because he failed to wear a black tie mourning the death of Queen Mary.’

  ‘Dear God. I’m sure your files and their files are full of failures to wear black ties at the deaths of kings and queens.’

  ‘There’s a little more to it than that.’

  ‘Of course. I am sure there are other sartorial offences.’

  ‘Oh, I suspect that the ASIO was playing some sort of game – maybe tweaking the lion’s tail.’

  If he knew, why didn’t he tell her? She found herself angry with him, but she was more unsettled by not having an answer to the agent’s question about passing on information that concerned national security.

  The following day, Edith stopped by Mr T’s office and asked him to come and chat with her. She had felt bad about not revealing Frederick was her brother. Somehow, Mr T had the right to know that, but she had not known when to reveal it. She did not want to be sneaky with Mr T.

  She told him about the Security Intelligence Organisation man and said, ‘I think you know my brother – he works for the Communist Party and you have talked with him.’

  Mr T nodded.

  ‘Did you know he was my brother?’