Dark Palace

by Frank Moorhouse

  Thelma rolled her eyes, ‘While I was stuck in the bank counting coins.’

  Had George concealed that Thelma and he had been engaged when he’d come to Geneva? She had thought at the time that George seemed to have come to Geneva to court her.

  Although Thelma had a light, bantering softness to her complaining game, Edith felt that over the coming years the lightness would drop away and George would live a life listening to her constant complaint. Edith felt for George, ‘I have good memories of the visit,’ she said.

  Thelma continued. ‘While I was stuck back here wondering if George was ever going to return home.’

  George looked at Thelma as if speculating about her in some way, or was it with affection?

  George tried to go on reminiscing about his visit to Geneva. Edith did not want to appear to be forging private and exclusive bonds with George before the very eyes of his wife, so she steered away from the subject of George’s visit to Geneva and instead asked about old school chums. ‘What ever happened to Fay?’ and ‘What did Peter end up doing?’

  The meal dragged on to its completion, the conversation a trail of inconsequential childhood memories and district gossip.

  She feinted Thelma’s further questions about her marriage. They knew almost nothing about Ambrose and didn’t ask.

  Edith felt she had so much to tell, so many adventures—had met the greats on the world stage, had witnessed the making of history—yet she felt inhibited, concerned that any such telling would make her seem superior, boastful, snooty.

  She tried to twist the conversation back to the shared part of their lives. But they in turn seemed to feel their lives were petty and negligible and tended to trail off from their stories and in turn tried to get her to talk about Europe. But when she did she felt they were envious, and she would cut her stories short.

  ‘It’s a long time since I’ve eaten roast lamb and baked potatoes.’

  ‘Not very French, I’m afraid,’ Thelma said.

  ‘That’s why I enjoyed it.’

  They were all returning to being so frightfully formal. Oh, where was their old childhood irreverence and merriment?

  ‘Must get you to speak at Rotary. That would cause some raised eyebrows. But we did have another woman. Enid Lyons spoke to us. A surprisingly good public speaker. Good diction. Everyone could hear her quite clearly.’

  ‘I see in one of the papers that she is to be made a Dame of the British Empire. Only thirty-nine,’ Thelma said.

  ‘She deserves it. She does a lot of public speaking.’

  ‘Her husband is PM so I suppose he can give his wife an honour if he wants,’ Thelma said.

  Edith said. ‘I see that Joe Lyons wants a Pacific non-aggression treaty—USSR, China, France, Netherlands, US and Japan. Can’t see Japan being there. Can’t see why we should team up with them.’

  George seemed to have an opinion on that. ‘I was always against economic boycotts of Japan—can’t talk things out if you’re refusing to trade with a man. Trade is pretty basic to life, isn’t it?’

  ‘I rather see economic boycotts as a way of bringing a country to the discussion table,’ Edith said. ‘Which is another way of saying that trade is basic to life.’

  Thelma got up to make coffee, saying, ‘You know that Joe Lyons was thirty-five and she was only seventeen when they got together?’

  While Thelma fussed with the coffee, making it with a percolator which seemed never to have been used—it had the newness of a wedding gift—she went with George out onto the verandah.

  He offered her a cigar which she declined. ‘Thought that women on the Continent might smoke cigars these days,’ he said.

  ‘Not this woman,’ she said.

  He sat in a cane chair and smoked his cigar, looking out on the night, frogs croaking in the swamp. Green and Golden Bell frogs, if she remembered rightly.

  Standing behind him, she put a comradely hand on his shoulder. ‘You seem content, George. The factory is a fine achievement. I was impressed this afternoon. So gleaming. So polished.’

  ‘It’s hard to keep up standards. As soon as you turn your back the men let things slide. Content? I suppose so. Sales are up. The house works well. I designed this house, did I tell you?’

  ‘It seems a very … efficacious house,’ she said, again. ‘Quite large.’

  In fact, she found the rooms themselves too mean. The ceilings a little too low.

  The covered entry porch at the gate to the house was an imposing structure. An attempt at the baronial, perhaps. ‘I liked the gate entrance—a touch of drama.’

  George put down his cigar and reached back to her and took her hands, at the same time glancing into the house.

  At first she thought he did so warily, but she saw defiance in his eyes. His taking of her hands was more than comradely, but might just pass as comradely. In polite society.

  He spoke in a loud whisper and his voice was vehement, ‘Edith, I envy your life …’

  ‘Don’t think like that, George. It’s wasteful.’

  ‘Edith, you did it. You left the town and you went out there into the world. You have achieved your wildest dreams.’

  He gripped her hands tight, raising them, and, at the same time, turned around in the cane chair and put his forehead on her hand.

  Oh dear.

  ‘I had stepping stones. I did it in small jumps, George. It wasn’t heroic.’

  ‘But I lowered my sights,’ he said. ‘I lowered my sights. You shot for the moon.’

  ‘George, all your life you always said you wanted to manufacture. You said you wanted a factory. That’s what you wanted from life and you have it! And before you were thirty.’

  ‘Oh yes. Just.’ Then his voice seemed to carry with it a cry from the heart. ‘I wanted a bigger life. A much bigger life.’ His words were heartbreaking. ‘Edith. You and I know that.’

  ‘Hush, George. Your factory means something.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be here in this town. I should be … I could be in New York … Chicago.’ He savoured the city names. ‘I backed Pacific City. But that’s not going to happen. The railway line from here to Canberra isn’t going ahead.’

  She’d forgotten the great plans for Pacific City at Jervis Bay. Following the Canberra design, Pacific City was to have had a great 200-foot-wide main boulevard with very wide streets and avenues radiating off from it. It had been laid out with designated spaces for a racecourse and a university. They had all gone out to look at the laid-out city.

  George had believed in it. Had bought land there.

  His head gestured towards the house and its creature comforts with a small grunt of baffled consternation.

  The house was the shape and size his life had taken. There was no Pacific City with which he could’ve grown.

  No Australian Chicago.

  He then raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. ‘Let’s go away together, Edith. Together we could conquer the world.’

  She was taken aback. She tried to find words to reply, words which would save his pride.

  He must be a little soused.

  At that moment Thelma backed open the screendoor, carrying a tray of coffee cups, cream, sugar, the coffee pot and a cake and biscuits. As she backed though the door, she turned to see George kissing Edith’s hand.

  Although Edith had tried to get him to let her hands go as soon as she’d heard the noise of Thelma at the door, George had held on.

  Thelma dropped the tray.

  Edith broke free from George and moved to help.

  George did not. He did not even continue to look at the mess but picked up his cigar and turned his gaze back to the croaking swamp which stretched away from the house.

  ‘Here, let me help.’ Edith stooped to pick up the things spilled from the tray.

  ‘No. Please, allow me to do it. Please leave me alone,’ Thelma said. ‘Go away.’

  Edith stood back up and wondered if ‘go away’ was a request to leave the house, the country, or
simply to leave the spilled tray be.

  Edith looked back to George who, cigar in his mouth which seemed to have gone out, was staring away, in some sort of slump.

  Thelma gathered up the coffee things and broken crockery onto the tray and backed into the house again, disappearing to the kitchen, leaving a mess of coffee, milk, and cake.

  Edith went to the door and called into the house, ‘Thelma, don’t bother with fresh coffee.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Thelma’s voice had an hysterical force.

  She turned back to George. ‘George? Shouldn’t you go in to Thelma?’

  George turned. ‘Let her be,’ he said, with great exasperation.

  She let the wiredoor close and walked to the verandah railing. Her face was flushed.

  ‘You know what I am saying, don’t you, Edith?’

  She looked at him, trying to find a response, but before she could, he said, ‘I should’ve married you.’

  Oh God.

  ‘What would you’ve done in Geneva, George?’ she laughed, trying to extinguish his seriousness.

  ‘You don’t think I would’ve been up to it?’

  ‘I don’t mean that. I mean you would’ve found it hard to get a business going there.’

  What a ridiculous conversation to be having at this moment.

  He stood up, came across to her, and tried to embrace her. ‘That was my wrong turning—not marrying you.’

  She backed off, holding him away with her outstretched hands.

  ‘George—I couldn’t give you a bigger life or whatever it is you are bemoaning. Another person can’t do that.’ He came close to her again. ‘And you’re doing just fine.’

  This time she let him hold her. He closed their bodies together, breasts, groin and hips closed together and she let it stay that way. ‘No, George,’ she whispered. ‘Let me go. Remember yourself. You’re doing just fine. You are where you should be and I am where I should be. Now let’s go in to Thelma.’

  ‘I don’t want to go in to Thelma. She drives me mad,’ he whispered with frustration. ‘I’m trapped now.’

  His body was still against hers. In panic she expected Thelma to appear again, but she did nothing about separating herself from him.

  He was right about himself—he could’ve achieved just a little more than he had. What was sad was that as a young man he’d always put himself forward as the great achiever.

  There was nothing she could do for him. The embrace was awkward. He was a handsome, virile man and his desire for her was palpable. But no.

  She released herself from the embrace, kissing him lightly on the lips, tactically avoiding the deep kiss that he wanted.

  She went inside without George.

  Thelma was leaning on the sink, transfixed.

  Edith’s flowers were on the floor.

  Edith put her hand on Thelma.

  Thelma shrugged it off.

  ‘What you saw on the verandah wasn’t what you think it was,’ she said.

  It was exactly what Thelma probably thought it was.

  ‘Please leave this house,’ Thelma said, without looking at her.

  Edith felt cold with shock.

  Again, without looking up from the sink, Thelma said, ‘You’re a snob. You’re a seductress. You fancy yourself so superior. You come prancing into our lives. I’m not going to suffer it. Please go. Go.’

  ‘That’s unfair, Thelma.’

  ‘Go.’

  Edith went out to the hall and found her things.

  She didn’t go back out to say goodnight to George, still out on the verandah. She would call in on him at the factory before she left the district.

  Outside, in the coolish night, she sat in her father’s car trembling with distress. The inside of the car was heavy with leather smell and the odour of petrol and oil. She wound down the windows.

  She yearned for the chill winter air of Geneva and the warm, gentle body and tender arms of Ambrose.

  The dinner party had been too small—other people being there would’ve stopped it going mad. Blame it on the claret.

  She was a little soused herself.

  What was she doing back here? What was she looking for?

  Instead of driving directly home, she drove to Jamberoo, her favourite place on the coast, and she sat there looking down the dark valley to Minnamurra House which she’d once dreamed of owning one day.

  Or of being the wife of the owner?

  Although she thought that her family home was also one of the finer homes of the district.

  But Minnamurra was the oldest and had such comfortable elegance. Would have even more if she were mistress of the house.

  Norfolk pines and cabbage palm trees. Hardly any gums. Take away the cabbage palms and oddly enough it reminded her of Chateau d’Oex, back in Switzerland, favoured by the British, where she and Robert had gone occasionally to find English company, away from Geneva. It was where English prisoners of war had been interned during the War.

  Thelma was somewhat correct about her ‘prancing into our lives’. But seductress? She didn’t know about that. Given the right circumstance, though, she would have given herself to George. For a night. Partly from curiosity about them as lovers.

  Thelma was dead right about her.

  And she didn’t give a damn that Thelma was dead right.

  She still wanted in some vague way to connect with home and to be corrected by it so that her life could return to being more in tune with the conventions.

  To somehow adjust the mechanism and get back on track.

  To be back on track as a woman.

  That was partly what she was here for. And it wasn’t working.

  The natural life seemed to repel her, to push her away and hold her away. And as she sat there, she tried to think of ways to make amends to Thelma and George but she realised that there was no way to recondition their friendship. George was eaten by disappointment with his life; Thelma by a sense of distinction between them, a sense of Edith’s rank and privilege—which again, Thelma had correctly perceived. As unflaunted as it had been.

  And on top of it all, George’s stupid advances.

  She wouldn’t go to George’s factory again. She could see where that might lead.

  She had only one other obligatory dinner party—with the Hennekinnes, the French bakers who, as a child, had taught her French words and told her about France. But they had had to back Australian bread.

  And then it was back to Sydney where she had to give a talk at the University. And then on to Canberra.

  She wanted to say to Thelma and George, ‘Come on—you can both have another life. There are things of the mind you may be missing. You can have a great life here where you are. You don’t have to move. You can expand what you have.’

  For whatever reason, they couldn’t. They had a good life but failed somehow to give it due appreciation and had lost the way of expanding it.

  There were just different worlds one could inhabit, no better no worse, but absolutely different and with unmistakable borders.

  She knew this now. There was no superiority in it. Indeed, she was unsure about whether her own life was in any way on a proper course.

  Very much unsure. Perhaps she had been born into the wrong generation. Perhaps she belonged more properly with the next generation of Australians?

  She wished she were back on board ship—at the beginning of the voyage—when one was suspended from ordinary life and time seemed endless.

  She couldn’t fix George: and she couldn’t deny her difference.

  She had to let it all go.

  Tonight, life’s cogs had moved, ratchetted around a few notches, and the three of them were all in different places now.

  And her skin had been caught in the teeth of the cogs, and bruised.

  For comfort, she felt her nipples through the georgette of her dress and the silk of her brassiere. They became erect and the good feeling came, and then the good feeling moved down through her body and as she played
with her nipples she imagined them being suckled by a baby, as Ambrose had suckled her breasts from time to time, and she his. She crossed her legs and found the right position and rocked her leg and, slipping her hand into the brassiere to her breasts, she fondled them around the nipples, gently squeezing, and then uncrossing her legs and still squeezing her nipples, she put her other hand up inside her skirt and pleasured herself in a small way.

  The Crash of rebus sic stantibus

  Edith stood in the quadrangle cloisters of the university caught in a gale of recollections from her prickly student years.

  She felt again the inadequacy of that time and shivered. At least the Quad was finished now.

  She recalled the downright fear of being wrong about everything while at the same time trying to maintain an air of certainty about all things.

  A feeling of downright ineptitude which could never ever be shown and confessed.

  Each day had been a quandary, even about what to wear, about her hair—long or short, back or forward, up or down, about her make-up or absence thereof. She’d stood out as a girl who had been taught about make-up by her mother, she had dithered and bothered about her personal appearance for years. As her social group changed and her friendships firmed up or fell away, a subtle change of appearance seemed to be required, to be got right.

  Not that she’d ever aspired to be, or had any desire to be, a glamour puss. Well, for one term maybe she’d entertained strange notions of her beauty. She’d dared to varnish her nails for a time.

  As she walked about the university, she caught again the smell of the laboratory which, as a student, she’d feared would penetrate her skin and remain with her forever.

  She stood and smelled the laboratory, the formalin, the sulphur.

  And then the false release of graduation, which had not brought to her the certified competency she’d so much needed.

  In the last year of her science degree, she’d finally and consciously turned her back on any idea of a scientific career. She’d admitted to herself that she was not going to become another Madame Curie. Consequently, the degree brought to her none of the assurance of direction that it had for the other girls in her graduation year. Although the girls with science degrees had less assurance of career than then those from arts, who were nearly all destined for teaching careers.