‘No, no,’ the Richters said, almost in unison, ‘it’s going to be fun. Such a change.’
Edith said, ‘I’ll see what he’s up to. Find yourself a record and put it on. There are two long-play records in the collection.’ She left them and went upstairs.
Ambrose was at the dressing table, in female underwear and applying lipstick.
He said, ‘Just lipstick. No time for much else.’
Why not.
She inspected his light make-up; there was no time to do the eyes.
She went to her jewellery case and found a different set of earrings – more exotic – and said, ‘Take off the pearls and put on these.’
‘You’re right,’ he said, taking off the pearls. ‘Much more the vamp.’
He stood up, she helped him into his gown, and he slipped into a pair of high heels. He twirled. ‘Well?’
‘Perfect. I wish I could dress as quickly as you.’
He looked at his hands. ‘No time to do my nails.’
She took out some of his rings, slipped them on his fingers, and helped him fit his wig. She stopped. ‘Oh.’
‘What?’
‘They’ll wonder why we have a wig in the house.’
He shrugged. ‘Can’t it be yours?’
‘What would I want with a wig?’
‘I can’t go on without a wig – they won’t give it a second thought.’
She went on with fitting the wig. The whole thing was out of hand.
He said, ‘Go back down and put out the lights, except for one of the flexible table lamps – turn it upwards to be a spotlight and put on the Cole Porter record: the “Anything Goes” recording by Frances Day.’
‘Ambrose, you shouldn’t be doing this.’
‘Oh, hell, we’re living in a shell here. We’re becoming too proper.’
She went downstairs and did as asked – turned off most of the lights. ‘Stage directions from upstairs.’
She poured them stiff drinks, thinking that they may need them. ‘He’s doing a burlesque piece in costume. Fully cross-dressed, I’m afraid. Thought I should prepare you.’ She tried to laugh; her mouth was dry.
She heard his high heels on the stairs, and when he reached the bottom she put on the Frances Day song.
As ‘Anything Goes’ started up, Ambrose began mouthing the song and going into the routine, lifting hands about his head, clicking fingers, arms outstretched, knees bending, turning now left, now right, swaying to the music, holding up his skirt above the knees, and then raising it even higher, giving a glimpse of his stocking tops and garters.
In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking.
But now, God knows,
Anything goes . . .
She looked at the Richters in the half-light, and thought they were spellbound – or astounded.
Even after all these years, she was always impressed by Ambrose’s transformation; how his head and neck and lips and eyes and smile became so fluid. He had about a dozen movements of his head, each a wonderfully emphatic expression. As the diplomat, he had about four movements of his head.
The Richters both clapped him vigorously, and Edith joined in. He did look professional and rather fetching. She had forgotten how fetching he could look.
Ambrose kept dancing, but stopped singing and looked at them, allowing Frances Day’s voice to finish the last lines.
‘Bravo,’ Theodor said. ‘Bravo.’
‘Splendid,’ said Amelia. ‘We didn’t expect a nightclub. So much better than High Noon.’
Ambrose blew a kiss and curtsied. He then curtsied again, and left the room.
The needle at the end of the record rustled away like a busy mouse. Edith went across and lifted it back to its rest.
‘As you can see, Ambrose is very much a Weimar girl,’ she said, laughing nervously, trying to smooth what they had just witnessed into simply another social night in the garden suburb of Forrest. She was glad Frederick and Janice were not there. Had they been there, it would not have happened.
Theodor said, ‘I would say very Bloomsbury.’
Edith was affirmed by this, relieved somewhat. She wondered how Ambrose would return to the room – as Carla the Vamp or as Ambrose the Diplomat? She hoped for the Diplomat.
He came back in as Carla, still wearing the wig, and they all clapped him again. He poured himself a drink.
Would they clap if they knew Ambrose was now himself, transformed into Carla; that the dress was his, not hers; that the lingerie he wore under it was his; that the corsette was his; the breast forms, the stockings and shoes, all his?
‘How was it?’ Ambrose almost trilled, eyes bright, flushed from his small triumph of theatricality. His elaborate effeminate hand movements seemed natural within the confines of the act.
Theodor said, ‘You simply must to do this at the Legacy concert.’
Amelia emphatically agreed.
Edith rushed in to answer, ‘No, no! That idea has been abandoned. It was to be a trio – not just Ambrose. But the idea has been scrapped. We will dream up something else.’
Amelia said, ‘But Ambrose was marvellous. It would go over well. I can’t wait to see the face of the G-G and Menzies.’
‘It’s too flamboyant,’ Edith said. ‘Far too flamboyant.’
Theodor said, ‘Oh, come on, every decent city has a show such as this. These sorts of acts were done in every prisoner-of-war camp during the war. Do it.’
Ambrose said, ‘That’s a splendid idea – we’ll dedicate our act to the memory of the performers in those camps. That’s very much in keeping with Legacy.’
Edith saw her veto crumbling and no longer knew if she was being prudent to oppose the burlesque or just cowardly.
She thought that maybe, just maybe, the prisoner-of-war idea would be a justification for the act. But it also brought to mind what she knew from Ambrose’s stories and the gossip from the old days of the clubs in post-war Vienna – and, of course, the Molly Club in Geneva – that those female impersonator performers in the POW camps were more often than not more than just performers, sometimes offering sexual services in private after the performances and on frequent other occasions. It was usually in barter exchange for some desired goods such as thread, needles and medicines from German guards, as well as cosmetics, stockings and such like.
Theodor kept looking admiringly at Ambrose and said that Ambrose was as good as anything he remembered from his student days in London.
Amelia said she and Theodor had been at a party in the West End once years ago, where some of the men were dressed up as women. She turned to Theodor. ‘You remember that? It was rather tantalising, in a way. Shows us women how much artifice there is in being a woman.’
Still nervous, Edith babbled about an English delegate to the League, Helena Swanwick, who had opposed the wearing of cosmetics by women delegates, ‘Though she didn’t mention the wearing of cosmetics by the men.’
Amelia said she, herself, never bothered much about cosmetics. Then, perhaps sensing Edith’s nervousness, she said, ‘Have you visited Karmel’s and seen their collection of erotic art?’
Ambrose and she shook their heads.
‘You must. It’s rather, well, educational.’
Although Edith thought Amelia obviously wanted to be seen as broad-minded, she wondered what the Richters might say to people about this night. It could be passed off as a rehearsal for the Legacy fundraiser – if she let it go that far.
She moved over to sit beside Ambrose and took his hand, kissing his cheek. ‘Hadn’t you better change?’ she whispered.
He made no move to do so.
Her tenseness returned as she realised that the argument about the concert performance was not yet over. The only one way to relieve her tenseness was for the evening to end, although as she glanced around the room, no one else seemed ill at ease, even as Ambrose sat cross-legged, glass elegantly held, chattering.
Their secret, personal w
orld had now, this night, for the first time, jumped out from its box into public gaze. The bizarreness of it came home to her more here in Australia than it ever had on the Continent.
Looking at her watch, she announced, ‘My dear friends, our play is done – lovers now to bed; ’tis almost fairy time. In other words, it’s time for you dear people to scram from this our salon particulier, our salon bohème.’
Amelia looked at her watch. ‘Our babysitter will be asleep.’
Ambrose, or Carla, and she saw their guests out. Edith turned off the porch light and at the door, at last, Ambrose removed his wig.
Theodor said that it was one of the most pleasurable nights they’d had since arriving in Canberra.
‘The most stunningly pleasurable,’ Amelia said, and gave Ambrose a kiss on the cheek. ‘Thank you, Ambrose.’
Closing the door behind them, Edith took Ambrose’s arm and said, ‘The Richters were pleasured.’ She was glad that she had stopped herself from asking them to not mention Ambrose’s performance. She felt her old audacity returning.
As Ambrose and she walked together, she hugged him around the waist and said, ‘I feel much stronger.’
‘I think I need a flapper dress from the twenties – more beads, more tassels, more slinkiness.’
‘You looked slinky enough.’
‘I remembered the routine from the old Molly. It all came back to me. You don’t know how good it feels to be en femme and with other people who like it.’ He looked at her, taking her chin in his hands. ‘Thank you, dear Edith.’ He was teary.
‘I’m glad for you,’ she said and kissed his lips.
They gathered the glasses and bowls of nuts, biscuits and cheese, and wiped down the table. Ambrose said, ‘I take it that you’ve warmed to the idea of going ahead at the Albert Hall?’
‘We will talk some more about it.’
‘I very much want to be able to say in my London Club that I once performed as Carla the Cat in the Albert Hall.’
‘As long as the others are with you. And if the HC is happy about it,’ she said. ‘It could be passed off as a tribute to the theatrical performers in the prison camps. We will have to find a third – perhaps Mr T – and you will have to rehearse together. We shall need a ballet mistress or a maître de ballet.’
In bed, in the dark, he said to her, ‘Thank you, dear Edith, thank you.’
She turned to him and said, ‘I think this is the happiest night we’ve had in Canberra.’
‘It was,’ he said. ‘It truly was.’
They went to sleep together in a gentle, perfect embrace.
The Show Goes On – ‘My dear, I know not if that is a man or a woman, but it is the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen’
With the arrival of Allan, Ambrose became a jollier man. He was reconnected with the Good Old Days in London and with the clubby boys of waning British power; waning and financially wracked as England was since the war and with its Empire crumbling. Both Allan and Ambrose seemed to find a gallows pleasure in being at the end of the Empire, as if inhabiting a wonderful old castle and its noble ruins.
Allan stayed with them at Arthur Circle and, of course, jumped at the idea of dressing up with Ambrose again.
The search for the third dancer led them to Mr T. Edith had had a hunch he might go along with the idea of burlesque, and she had felt him out about it over G and Ts. He was more than enthusiastic about the idea, and said he had a musical ear and had sung in a choir. ‘I have always been considered musical in the other sense as well,’ he said with a twinkle. She sensed he was flattered to be associated with diplomats.
Mr T came along with two wonderful dresses and other female items, which he had mysteriously found and did not explain; did not really have to explain.
Rehearsals became extended afternoons and evenings, which went far beyond the needs of rehearsal, turning Arthur Circle into something of a small Molly Club, but without, as far as she could tell, any of the Molly Club funny business behind closed doors or in nooks and dimly lit banquets. Not that it would worry her that much if funny business had taken place – after all, girls will be girls – and she suffered no jealous suspicions about Allan and Ambrose, who had many private jokes. Allan was, after all, just visiting and would disappear from their lives very shortly. She would have been happy for Mr T to have whatever romping he liked with Allan, and perhaps they did. She comfortably involved herself as lady-in-waiting, and to a lesser extent so did Amelia. To an even lesser extent, so did Janice, as something of a theatrical producer, fancying herself a ballet mistress, having done ballet lessons when at school.
Janice let on that Frederick was very uncomfortable with the idea of Ambrose in female clothing, but was staying away from the concert for other reasons.
When Allan heard the song and singer that Ambrose had chosen as their top act, Allan said, ‘Oh, we all know about Frances Day and Eden . . . We could work that into “Anything Goes”. Everyone plays around with the words of the song.’
Edith’s hunger for gossip was piqued, and she asked him to tell more about Frances and Eden.
Allan said, ‘My lips are sealed. But perhaps after a bottle of bubbly my lips will become unstuck – as they so often do. Unstuck and even wider.’
Edith said she had worked in negotiations with Eden at the League.
Allan happily told gossip about other goings-on in high- society London, which they all lapped up. He told a story about Lord Beauchamp’s attempted visit to Canberra before the war. ‘I take it that we’ve all read Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited?’
They had.
‘In the book, Lord Marchmain is based on Beauchamp. Everyone, of course, knows Waugh and Beauchamp’s son had a romantic dalliance at Oxford. “Boom” – as Beauchamp was known, as in foghorn – was said to have exquisite taste in footmen. You all probably know that, as a young man, Boom was surprised to be offered the post of Governor of New South Wales – to get him out of England, most likely – and while in New South Wales he had, of course, a penchant for the local artists and writers. Legend has it that, as Governor, his weakness was tears. He only stayed for a year or so, but he came back to Australia in the early thirties on a private visit with two companions – Bernays, then a rising man in the Liberal Party, as his secretary, and a ravishing nineteen-year-old boy named George, gathered up from his estate, where he was working grooming or with the pigs, who came as his valet. There was much gossip about late-night carry-on in Sydney during this tour, and it became perfectly clear that the young George was Boom’s lover and not a valet. Well, before a visit to Canberra, it was communicated to the party that the ravishing young George would not be welcome at the house where they were to stay as guests. It was probably because of class as much as sexual proclivities. This was all reported back in a letter to Harold Nicolson, who was Bernays’ lover, so soon the story was doing the rounds in London society and reached the King. I believe the party didn’t get to Canberra.’
‘What there was of it in the early thirties,’ Edith said.
‘Missing the visit would not have been a grave disappointment, one imagines. Perhaps there had been a shooting party planned. What does one shoot around here? Kangaroos? Wild boar?’
Curiously, Emily adored Allan and fussed over him. She even began saying ‘dinner’ instead of ‘tea’ and often hovered at the door listening to his scandalous stories.
Edith’s wardrobe and accessories were much rummaged, and Amelia brought along some accessories.
The full-length mirror played a rather large part in their rehearsals. The boys seemed always to be posing and turning before the mirror, worrying about posteriors.
One afternoon, Allan, fully en femme, twirled for the mirror and for them and said, ‘Admiral Lewis Clinton-Baker – actually, Admiral Sir Lewis Clinton-Baker – a bosom buddy, so to speak – Ambrose, you remember him – once said of me to one of my friends, “My dear, I know not if that is a man or a woman, but it is the most beautiful creature I’ve ever
seen.” That was, sadly, now some time back.’
This was said in front of Janice and Amelia, and was, inadvertently, the first direct revelation of the sort of life that Allan and, by implication, Ambrose had led in London.
Edith glanced at Janice and Amelia, but they both giggled without seeming to be taken aback. Perhaps they didn’t quite put Ambrose in the same circles as Allan.
The three boys, possibly apart from Mr T, who was the youngest, were no longer beautiful androgynous youths, except in their own eyes. But nor were they unattractive when en femme or in any way Mother-Gooseish – at least, not in dim light. They never really pretended to be women; they were always just nancy- boys.
It was now a few years since Edith had been among such people, and again she marvelled at how mercurially Ambrose became one with them, with their clever mockery of the world and of themselves, and their enjoyment of artifice: l’art de la pose. She, too, found she could readily slip back into their style of humour. Again, it crossed her mind, as it had over the years, as to whether she was at heart a lesbe. Whatever Janice’s and her affections were for each other, Janice’s communism and its puritanical rules seemed to block that. Or was she more a femme de pédé? Or was she something else for which there was no name? How lonely to have a personality for which there was no name. Or was it a form of invisibility?
During this time, a bunch of them went on picnics at the Cotter Dam and to Tharwa. Their circle included some of the more liberal couples from the university or college – the Richters, the Sawers, the Clarks, the Arndts and the Parkers, for example – although children were then involved and this changed things somewhat. Allan and Mr T, more than Ambrose, had a happy ease with children and were always willing to be interrupted, teased, tricked, booed at, given frogs and bugs, and to play cricket. After the first couple of these occasions, Ambrose thought it best not to include Frederick and Janice for fear that Allan, although a progressive of sorts, could become officially compromised.
The boys sometimes threatened to take the rehearsals to the picnic, something she always vetoed, although she was sure the children would have loved it.
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