Cold Light (45 page)

The protégé who was training to be an advisor had to do her best in argument against her mentor, knowing that in most cases she would be overwhelmed and would have to submit to his superior or more experienced mind. But the submission of the protégé was honourable and no pride was lost, and gradually there arrived the occasions when the mentor took the advice of the protégé, submitted to a better reasoning, when the protégé won. And this could be a delight for them both.

It was not because of the strength of her arguments that he was uncomfortable with her, she thought, but more that she was no longer of the age where she could play the role of his protégé. He had sensed this loss, perhaps. And this made her sad, too, in a way. Another sign of the passing of time. The seasons of mentorship had long passed, even as a game.

Or could it be seen as another season in a friendship? Was it akin to seeing the weakness in a lover or husband for the first time and realising that being in love was over? That it was now not love but an arrangement for mutual convenience, a putting up with things because on balance it was to one’s advantage to remain in cordial relationship?

No. She was now opposing her mentor outright, and on matters of serious principle and intellectual substance. Even on experience. They were now in conflict.

She admitted to herself that there was coarseness living within his logical mind. The logic of that mind had frozen, and in so doing caused its subtlety to wizen. She thought his sentences were very much like his speeches, which she had once heard described as like lumps of ice clunking in a tumbler.

And there was the other coarseness: his love of risqué stories – but stories without sensuality or human frailty – and his enjoyment of stories about men wronging women.

Something had come to an end here, and it was sadly momentous for her, but she was holding off the crash of this momentousness until she could handle it in private.

She wanted now to leave him and his conservative club colleagues, a place where, as a young woman, she had always liked to be brought, but which now seemed a somewhat unpleasant, bumptious male fortress.

It wasn’t that she was going over to the side of her brother and Janice, it was that she belonged somewhere else now, neither with them nor with Latham.

Latham’s self-certainty now led him to smother the argument by telling a story apropos of nothing, but characteristic.

He told her a story about a former New Guinea judge, Seaforth Mackenzie, who, when Latham was Attorney-General, had run up huge debts to the Commonwealth on plantations bought in New Guinea, and had been charged with forging and uttering seals of the High Court.

‘I was asked why I had let him remain in my employment in the Attorney-General’s department, and I replied that I had not removed Mackenzie from the department because his offences consisted only of, firstly, living with a woman not his wife, which might happen to anyone, and, secondly, failure to pay his creditors, which was common to the greater part of the New Guinea service.’

He laughed at his own laxness in public life and his self-indulgence. Leaving aside the question of the woman, about which she had no judgement, he seemed to think this a worldly display of his views of life, but she found it a weak sort of worldliness, a surprising display of cynicism, which he thought would be taken as sophistication.

She avoided humouring the story with a smile.

She thought that perhaps his earlier life in party politics had coarsened Latham’s sensibilities, as politics also caused some intelligent people to come to enjoy playing the debate, fudging the facts, posturing conviction where there was no conclusion and thus gradually abandoning the rigors of intellectual life.

She considered whether she would say anything. Perhaps they had tumbled about in argument long enough. No, she would say it. Tonight was the night when anything she should say to John should be said. ‘I would have preferred, John, that you would have argued that sometimes excellent minds that had become financially corrupt in the service of the public should not be dismissed and be granted amnesty, so that their exceptional skills are kept in the service of the public and not lost. A public servant who has been so exposed and shamed would return to work knowing that they would forever be under surveillance and thus kept honest.’

He gave a nod, which carried no meaning, and looked around at the other diners, as if wishing he were somewhere else.

She forced herself to wait out the one hour after the serving of poor coffee, which they took in the lounge. He ordered two cognacs and rambled on, seemingly oblivious to their estrangement. Or, perhaps, they were each too good at concealing it. He said he was retiring from the court next year, but would keep on with the board of Elizabethan Theatre Trust and the Amateur Athletic Association. ‘I will probably take up a few directorships.’

As he talked, she studied his face and remembered some verse that had been written about him:

She thought that it could well be the last time she saw that cold grey eye. She hoped that the cold grey eye would continue to make bishops quail. At least, she thought with grim humour, they both still hated God.

He suggested that he ask the night manager to call her a taxicab, but she said that she would walk to the Windsor and take the night air.

A top-hatted doorman wearing a frock-coat held open the door for her.

She was glad that she did not have to wait with Latham for a taxicab to arrive.

Latham turned up the collar of her coat in a way that implied, she thought, some ownership of her, and, having shaken his hand and said goodnight, she walked off, turning to see him going back inside the club to drink further cognacs.

On the long train trip back to Canberra, Ambrose, Frederick and Janice as usual discussed the future of the world, while indulging in a
pique-nique en train
from a hamper of continental and other delicacies bought from the wonderful Melbourne shops and not available in Canberra. Ambrose and she had found some seasoned sausages also not available in Canberra.

Frederick had chosen the cheeses. Under tutoring from Ambrose and her, Frederick was becoming a person who cared about food as well as about the revolution.

Ambrose said that while at the Melbourne consulate, he had heard that it was not over yet for Frederick and Janice. ‘The government does not accept this setback – dramatic as it was. I hear that Menzies intends to convene a special premiers’ conference to seek from the state those powers he now needs to ban the Party. Failing that, he will go to a referendum.’

Frederick said, sententiously, ‘The struggle, then, is not over yet.’

Did that mean that the wretched Communist Party propaganda and other material would remain in their tack room? She hoped not.

The train trip back was long, the hamper was fine, and she entertained them with a comic account of the Melbourne Club argument with Latham. But under the humour, she nursed her loss of Latham. Her break with him meant she had lost an anchor, even if it were about time in her life that she let go of wise men. Perhaps she had now made the life move to being a wise woman. If only there were someone who wanted a wise woman.

She dreamily recalled the train that took her from Paris to Geneva as a young woman to take up her position with the League, and on which she had met Ambrose. On that train, her breasts had picked up the vibrations of the track against the silk of her bra, the clack of the track, and it had pleasured her. It did so now, but not as strongly as it once had.

She dozed off.

F
ormally dressed, Ambrose and she went to the ball in Parliament House to celebrate the fiftieth year of federation. Parliament House was festooned and lit from the outside. Inside, the food – suckling pigs, fowls, fish, shellfish and other delicacies – was arranged in turrets and towers in the dining room. There was a complete dance band in King’s Hall.

It was around midnight that the Prime Minister went up the steps to the band and gestured to the band leader to stop the music. The music stopped mid-dance.

Dancing couples stood as if frozen in place and looked to the Prime Minister, who seemed near to tears.

He gathered himself and said into the microphone, ‘It is my very, very sorrowful duty to tell you tonight during these celebrations that Mr Chifley, former Prime Minister, and Leader of the Opposition, is dead. I do not want to try even to talk about him, because although we were political opponents . . .’ He paused. ‘He was a friend of mine and of yours.’

He cleared his throat. ‘He was a fine Australian.’

There were some gasps of shock, but the crowd stood mostly in silence. She saw that some – including men – were now wiping away tears.

The Prime Minister spoke to the band leader, who gestured to the band and they began to pack away their instruments. The dancers stood for a while on the dance floor, whispering among themselves, and then drifted from the floor.

Ambrose and she had met Chifley at one or two small events, but she had not really known him. She had been in Europe during his career as Labor leader. She was moved by the way some of the crowd and the Prime Minister were distressed by the news.

‘Should we go?’ she asked Ambrose.

Ambrose looked around. Some of the people were going to the cloakroom for their coats, but most seemed to be staying on, moving out to the bar and the refreshments.

‘Perhaps. Perhaps we should go,’ he said, and they left.

In the days that followed, Edith observed that Chifley’s death affected many people on both sides of politics, but many had not forgiven him for trying to nationalise the banks – the first step towards a socialist Australia.

The referendum campaign began the next month.

She linked up with the campaign organised by some of the professors and others at the new National University and at the University College, including Richter, the new professor of anthropology at the university, and Clark, who was professor of history at the college. Even in these so-called non-communist groupings she detected leanings sympathetic to communism that made her uncomfortable, particularly the sort of clubby inclusion of her in these leanings by those who knew that her brother was a prominent communist.