Cold Light

by Frank Moorhouse

  She patted her desk, running her hand over it in a farewell caress, screwed up her face to stop the tears, and left, closing the door behind her. She deposited the key with the Key Clerk.

  After a few handshakes and expressions of best wishes with the tearful staff, she walked out of Parliament House with a cardboard IXL jam box and her Rolodex, choosing to exit down the front steps of Parliament House to her waiting car and Theo, now her personal driver.

  Against Theo’s objection, she placed the box on the back seat and moved herself to the front next to him – he had always insisted she ride in the back seat. He said, without looking away from the road, ‘Momentous times, Ma’am. Epoch making.’ She reached over and patted his shoulder. ‘We’ll survive, Theo.’

  They drove in silence and then he said, ‘Should we discuss future employment? At your convenience, of course.’

  ‘Time enough for that. But you will certainly not be required at 8 am tomorrow, that’s for sure. Take the week off, Theo. I will probably go on an overseas trip.’

  For the last few years she had employed the retired Theo on an irregular basis, giving him a weekly timetable of when he would be needed. She sometimes called him for additional duties if it wasn’t later than 10 pm. She had long ago decided against driving herself, fearing that after a couple of drinks she might crash. She had lent him the money to buy the HC’s Bentley, which they had retired along with Theo. In his free time he hired it out to weddings and funerals, with himself as driver in leather cap and leggings.

  Her friends were always impressed when, after dining out, she could take them home in a chauffeured Bentley, even if it were quite old. Or perhaps they laughed at her. She told them that it perplexed those senior public servants, who thought she had no right to an office in the building, let alone a Bentley, and who had never been quite sure of her status.

  She thought that she would probably let him go. She went home to ‘consider her options’, as McMahon, the outgoing Prime Minister, had said to her in his high-pitched way.

  She was out in the cold again.

  On her first day of unemployment, she sat alone in the back garden of Arthur Circle and drank a precious bottle of Puligny-Montrachet as consolation. This was, truly, without rhetorical flourish, the end of another era. She had been fortunate enough – if fortunate was the word – to live through at least six auspicious and turbulent and dangerous eras. As a child she had been very aware of the Great War, then there had been the Great Depression, the formation and collapse of the League, the Second World War, her time in the rubble of Vienna with the UNRRA, and then Post-War Reconstruction. And she had helped build ‘a city like no other’.

  She felt a panic. She had been retired against her will. She was no longer needed. She was truly redundant.

  She had finished her working life without recognition. On her leaving, there had been no presentation, no speeches, no drums, no trumpets. There was an expression being used at present – ‘the scrapheap of history’. That was where she was.

  As she sipped the beautiful wine, she felt miserable and abandoned.

  In this new historical era, she could not see any place for herself.

  She had, she suspected, run her course in the affairs of the world. She did not know the incoming senior people from the Labor Party and they did not know her. When they had been in opposition she had talked with some of those interested in uranium, but they had their own ideas and treated uranium as the Devil’s work, pushing her away with a stick.

  On what could they conceivably need her advice? By accident of history, her patrons had all been on the other side of politics. Rationalism had brought her into Latham’s life as a young woman, and back then she had not foreseen that he would go in the direction of conservative politics and, in a way, pull her in his rip current. Privately, on the level of national interest, she thought the change would be good – she liked the new government’s attitude to the UN.

  She visited her parents’ graves again, alone, driven by Theo. He leaned against the car, smoking while she moved through the tombstones engraved with the names of the pioneers, of children who had died young, of the young killed in accidents. She wallowed in morbidness. That was what she was – morbid. She was mourning herself.

  In her situation, she could see no way of falling from life that was in any way elegant or valorous. She considered suicide. She had nothing against suicide after a certain age. She said the words of her parents’ gravestone: ‘At rest – life’s journey o’er’. It sounded attractive. She pondered the Japanese idea that suicide was always meant to kill two people. To punish. She had no one to punish. She could see that her suicide might be read as a retaliation against an unappreciative world. So what? How we crave appreciation and specialness: we claim a famous relative, a successful son or daughter, an escape from serious illness; we display our wealth, our important friends, we name-drop, we seek awards and trophies. We wear badges that say we are superior, that we are special.

  She thought about her will. To whom would she leave her money? Not to Richard, who would be well looked after by his pension on retirement. Ambrose was well looked after. He would have little use for additional money. She could create a foundation in her own name for scholarship or the arts. There, that was another form of recognition-seeking. She would probably give it to a university, endow a chair. Even that made her feel exhausted. So did the search for a painless method of suicide that did not run the risk of leaving her alive and maimed. She knew that shooting oneself was a tricky business. ‘At rest – life’s journey o’er.’

  She had few friends left in Jasper’s Brush or Berry and decided against calling in on T. George at this time of her fall from grace.

  She and Theo found a sandwich and a cup of tea in Berry, and motored back to the capital in a silence broken by the occasional passing remark.

  She began to plan to flee to London to see Ambrose and her friends – without Richard – but the thought of travel also exhausted her. Travel was not a plan.

  She painted the house herself and sorted her papers. She shopped and dined alone in Melbourne.

  Amelia and Theodor urged her to join some local committee – perhaps to run for a place on the ACT Advisory Council – but she had no heart for that. Theodor quoted Richard III to her: ‘When the fall is all that’s left, it matters a great deal how you fall.’ She wondered if that quotation had comforted him during Amelia’s affair and the fall from grace of their marriage.

  Then, one day in the first year of the new government, she received a telephone call from a Richard Victor Hall, who identified himself as calling from the new Prime Minister’s secretariat and titled himself Principal Private Secretary.

  He asked her if she were ‘Edith Campbell Berry?’

  Miss Berry. She was again Miss Berry. She decided to leave it that way and she replied, ‘Yes, I am she.’ He asked her if she had in fact served with the Irish Secretary-General, Sean Lester, and in the old League of Nations.

  She answered, ‘At the risk of showing my age, I also worked with Sir Eric and Joseph Avenol before serving Secretary-General Lester.’

  ‘And you have been on the AAEC Advisory Committee and attended IAEA General Conferences as a delegate?’

  ‘As a non-voting observer,’ she corrected. Perhaps she should have allowed his error to slip into history, but she didn’t. ‘I was sent to the IAEA-FAO special forum and to the 11th and 13th General Conferences.’ She stopped herself saying that she had been chief cook and bottle washer.

  ‘And you have ideas about this new non-proliferation treaty?’

  ‘Many. If it’s to work, we have – as always in international affairs – to practise unremitting suspicion in a diplomatic and urbane way.’

  ‘Nice expression. Very nice.’

  ‘Thank you.’ It was not altogether her own.

  He said he would like to talk to her about the new government’s relations with the IAEA and the UN and ratification of the NPT. And he thought that
she should perhaps meet The Leader, who was also interested in the League period. ‘His father, Fred, was at the Paris Peace Conference in 1946. He argued Evatt’s proposal for an international court of human rights. He was very interested in the Universal Declaration. I think he advocated freedom to change religion or belief.’ He laughed, adding, ‘But it didn’t make the final draft.’

  She said she had known many good ideas that never made the final draft.

  As he talked on, she smiled. She knew the tone of his voice.

  Her voice had once had this young man’s tone of self-importance. And he had good reason to sound important: he was important. The voices of these incoming people would all be loud and abrupt with their new power. So few people ever knew what it was to feel very important and to have power – how it changed your voice, your walk, the way you held and read a document, your way of talking to people. She found that some people new to power became arrogant, some became patronising, but, curiously, some became very patient and respectful with those who were not important. Perhaps this was a type of patronising, but it was also civilised, and it was the best you could do with the delicious sense of being important.

  She found the conversation all somewhat bewildering. Part of her, the former international civil servant, believed she was able to contribute to the making of policy regardless of politics, while remaining aware of politics. She was eager to accept that this man from the new government recognised her value, but surely he had people on his side who knew about these matters?

  She wanted badly to ask why he had decided to call her in, but something restrained her. She would let them think that it was only natural for them to have invited her, and to think that they would have been foolish not to.

  She had no hopes for this foreshadowed discussion. She decided that he was probably personally interested in history and was exercising the delicious privilege of being able to summons people to his presence. At the League she, herself, had had that privilege and had used it.

  They scheduled a meeting for a fortnight hence.

  She made a dash to Melbourne to Le Louvre and had a new business-like outfit made in the style that professional women were wearing that year. Georgina, who had taken over from her mother, had it made up as a rush order, saying, ‘I have an inkling that you have big changes in your life, Edith.’ She had replied that she hoped Georgina was talking as a soothsayer. Georgina feared the new Labor government, which she called ‘this new lot’. Edith did not tell her that she might have dealings with the new lot. Georgina also suggested, tentatively, that Edith consider a new range of brassieres, which would lift her breasts. Edith decided she would make the change and she bought some new brassieres and other matching underwear.

  While in Melbourne, she had a facial, a manicure and a body massage by an old Chinese woman recommended by Georgina.

  On the day of the meeting she debated with herself whether to wear gloves, and decided she would although the young had abandoned them. In Melbourne, she had bought a felt Robin Hood hat with a feather for the meeting, but decided against it at the last moment and wore something less dashing.

  And so she attended the office of this Richard Victor Hall. Edith Campbell Berry was in attendance on Richard Victor Hall.

  She was right: he wanted to talk about the League days. He had an historian’s interest in the League and she was able to feed his curiosity. Since the war, it was so rare to find anyone with a curiosity about the League.

  After about twenty minutes, he broke off the conversation, holding up a hand while he called the Prime Minister’s office. He spoke brusquely to the secretary, asking if The Leader had a minute to meet Miss Edith Campbell Berry. ‘Yes? Good.’ He banged the phone down. ‘We’re in.’

  He stood up and pulled out her chair. ‘The Prime Minister commands – come.’ He shepherded her down the hallway to the new part and into the Prime Minister’s room. It was not the room Prime Minister McMahon and the others had used.

  Prime Minister Whitlam half-rose, leaned across to shake her hand and said, ‘I believe you know Sam Atyeo?’

  The question disconcerted her a little. ‘Yes, I know Sam.’

  He resumed his seat and opened a file on his desk, which she supposed was a file on her. God knows what was in that file. ‘Sam commends you.’

  Ye gods.

  The Prime Minister said, ‘My father knew him well.’

  She said, ‘I know them both – Sam and Moya, and then his second wife, Anne. Anne Lecoultre. I visited them at Vence many times, in the Alpes-Maritimes, on their farm. I also visited them at the legation in Paris after the war. Often. He was Second Secretary for a time. We still correspond – irregularly.’

  The Prime Minister said, ‘He was Evatt’s man at the legation.’

  She nodded and said lightly, ‘Sam must be our only artist-diplomat.’ She thought her use of the word ‘our’ was a good tactic.

  The Prime Minister seemed to run this through his head, as if looking for another example of an artist-diplomat. ‘Could well be. So, Miss Berry –’ he again looked down at her file – ‘I see you have gone under other names. Is Miss Berry acceptable?’

  ‘I think that’s best – as a professional name.’

  He then talked about his father’s interest in the Universal Rights Declaration and the UN. ‘As Crown Solicitor he took an interest in the League.’

  ‘I am aware of your father’s work. I wish I had met him.’

  The Prime Minister then looked directly at her. ‘Miss Berry, how would you like to be an eminent person?’

  She was flummoxed. She had seen the term used in the diplomatic sense in newspapers.

  She managed to say, ‘It makes me sound rather old – if not fossilised.’

  He said, ‘I should think it also makes you, well, eminent.’

  ‘Eminent by appointment.’ She thought he smiled.

  She was still unsure where this was leading. Was it some sort of compliment? Was it a position of sorts?

  ‘You could see it as an appointment of you as a special envoy,’ Whitlam said. ‘If you prefer. We rather like the new term “eminent person”.’

  She felt she should not quibble, but liked special envoy best.

  ‘What would be my duties – as an eminent person; as a special envoy?’ She wanted to keep the term ‘special envoy’ in the conversation. She liked it very much indeed.

  She was almost breathless.

  ‘To go out into the world and candidly report to me on what is happening at the IAEA and at a number of other places. France. Drop in on Israel and sniff around there. I feel we need to have a fresh but experienced set of eyes. I am sure you also know your way around the traps over there.’

  ‘A set of eyes? That sounds a little like espionage.’ She tried to stop her voice becoming wobbly.

  He laughed. ‘No – informal diplomacy. A watching brief. I want to know whether we can trust the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And we’re having trouble with the French – they’re letting off bombs in the Pacific. You’re quite familiar with the French?’

  ‘I have worked with the French. Oh yes,’ she said, picking up on his prejudice.

  Richard Victor Hall laughed.

  Whitlam looked at her. ‘Il nous faut des gens qui parler français ici.’

  She smiled. She thought it should be ‘parlent’. Whitlam then turned to Richard Victor Hall. ‘I said to Madame Berry that we can do with some fluent French speakers around the place.’

  Hall smiled weakly. She guessed that he did not speak French very well.

  Whitlam turned to her. ‘I may ask you to analyse some French documents. Can you do all this for me?’

  ‘Bien entendu. J’observerai en français et en anglais. I can. I can be a set of eyes in both French and English.’

  They both laughed and their laughter gave her confidence. ‘I wish to say that I am happy that you ratified the NPT. The government – I mean the old government – sat on it for three years.’

 
‘Find out for me what the French think they’re doing letting off atomic bombs in our backyard. We’re sending a naval ship into the testing area, with the New Zealanders – they’re sending two navy frigates, Canterbury and Otago, to Mururoa. We will send Supply.’ He coughed, as if a little embarrassed at how small his action was. ‘A fleet oiler.’ She thought it an important naval unit.

  But regardless of how small, she could see that he was enjoying moving battleships around. The prerogatives of power. Oh dear, it took her back to before the war, when Bruce had once discussed battleship diplomacy in the Mediterranean with her during the Ethiopian crisis.

  Hall said, ‘You know we have taken the French to the International Court of Justice about the tests?’

  She nodded.

  She ventured a stronger statement. ‘I thought a new government might also have questions about what the last government thought it was doing by allowing the British to let bombs off in Australia’s backyard.’

  Hall raised an eyebrow and looked at the Prime Minister.

  The Prime Minister said, ‘All in good time.’

  Then she thought she might say something about the change of government and acknowledge their difference. ‘I thought your government saw uranium as the Devil’s work.’

  ‘We do.’ His attention went back to the papers on his desk. He closed the file on her and put it in the to-be-filed tray. ‘And you –’ he looked down at his papers – ‘will be our Devil’s advocate. And being now a government, Devil’s work is now our work.’

  ‘A devil’s advocate, then, I shall be, Mr Prime Minister.’

  The Prime Minister turned his attention to other work.

  Richard Victor Hall rose and shepherded her out of the office, saying to the Prime Minister, ‘Thank you, PM.’ The Prime Minister waved a hand at him without looking up.

  Richard Victor Hall showed her out to King’s Hall, as if she would not know the way, and said, ‘There might be a place for you in the Safeguards Office when we get around to it.’