Free Cold Light by Frank Moorhouse Page B

rich, and those who get what the rich give them. Or steal from their workplace.’ Janice giggled and stirred her tea. ‘But let’s return to you – what’s a woman with all your worldly experience in high places doing sitting in a hotel room writing letters and drinking tea with servants?’
    Edith had been trying not to see herself that way. ‘I’m fishing for a position with External Affairs. They won’t employ a married woman. Even married women who do not feel married . . .’ She shouldn’t have ventured that. She continued quickly, ‘And the High Commissioner is against wives of diplomats working, says that in his experience there’s never been a wife of a diplomat who wished to work. I thought I would get in under section 47 of the PS regulations – taking in people from outside the public service with special skills. I will try to get in through that window.’
    ‘What about Exempt Employment?’
    ‘As you probably know, that’s used for the hiring of cleaners, and so on, the really low positions.’ Oh, oh. ‘ Low , that is, in pay, I mean,’ she corrected.
    ‘Were there any women ambassadors at the League?’
    ‘One – a Romanian.’
    Janice tentatively returned to the remark that had obviously stuck with her and that she had probably been turning over. She raised her eyebrows and said, ‘How do you mean you “don’t feel married” ’
    Edith pondered her reply.
    ‘That is, if you don’t mind me asking?’
    Edith looked at Janice with an expression that asked for trust, wondering if she could risk trust. She then realised that she was hungry for a confidante and was drawn to making Janice her confidante. She felt she could trust a SCEGGS girl. ‘Oh, I suppose I meant a Bloomsbury marriage. Ambrose and I are married legally, so he could move comfortably in the Foreign Office and so on – socially – but we never saw our lives together as being, well, that of a conventional married couple.’
    Janice looked at her questioningly, hoping for more.
    That was enough for now.
    Janice let it go. ‘As a chambermaid, I know he sleeps in the other room sometimes. I thought it must have been because he snored.’
    Edith laughed. ‘Everyone snores a little, but we rarely sleep alone.’ Enough about that. ‘We are very close. We’re good pals.’
    Again Janice looked at her, remaining silent for a few seconds, taking it in.
    ‘I am not sure I follow,’ she said, and then laughed. ‘But I am sure that I should not ask any more questions.’
    ‘Perhaps another time.’
    ‘Next time, you must tell me about Bloomsbury.’ Janice finished her tea and stood up. ‘Fred told me you mentioned it.’ She looked at her watch. ‘You made me forget that I’m working. We communists must be good workers otherwise they’d use our politics as an excuse to get rid of us.’
    ‘You can leave this room as it is, don’t worry about finishing.’
    ‘Are you sure?’ Janice looked around. ‘I’ll empty the wastepaper bins.’
    Edith nodded.
    Janice said, ‘Will you come over to meet some Party people at the new National Uni? You’ll like them. Are you going to speak at the Peace Congress in Melbourne? You’d be a star.’
    ‘I don’t know what Party members would think of us ex-League people. We threw Russia out of the League, remember, for invading Finland.’
    ‘I think the Soviet Union forgives you, Edith.’
    Janice did tidy some things, and rinsed the cups in the bathroom sink.
    As she was leaving, she paused at the door of the suite, came back in and gave Edith a kiss on the cheek. ‘Thanks for telling me about Ascaso and the other spicy stuff.’
    ‘Say hello to Frederick. We should plan to all get together – the four of us, perhaps?’ Edith remembered Ambrose’s suggestion. ‘Ambrose and I would like that. Perhaps somewhere to live will have come up by then.’
    ‘Must be hard after all these years – to take him into your life. And remember, whatever I said about the Party and