Angel

  He keeps his wife and seven kids far enough away from his place of work to negate them, and he keeps this weeny flat in the Glebe. Very handy, a weeny flat right next door to a bottomless supply of nubile young maidens. For the life of me I can’t see why the wretched man is so attractive to those idiotic girls, but obviously he’s got something, though I doubt that his dingus is as long as Dad’s garden hose. It’s the hashish and cocaine, I reckon.

  He’s just using Pappy, I know it in my bones. But why did he pick her, with all those others gazing at him with their tongues hanging out? Why, for that matter, is Pappy so desirable to so many men? When sex is uppermost on a man’s mind, the beauty of a woman’s nature isn’t what draws them. There’s a mystery here that I have to solve. I love Pappy, and I think she’s the prettiest creature in the world. But there’s more to it than that.

  Harriet Purcell, you’re a novice in the love department, what gives you the right to speculate? Hurry up, King of Pentacles number one! I need a basis of reference.

  Thursday, April 7th, 1960 Ooooo-ah! That dolt Chris Hamilton made a right mess of our busy but placid little world today. I wish the hell she’d give Demetrios a proper look-over instead of snapping at the poor chap every time he pushes a patient in.

  We nearly had a death on our hands this morning, and that is the most awful thing that can happen. A suspected fracture of the skull decided to develop acute swelling of the brain while we were Xraying him. I found myself pushed aside by an unknown registrar, who acted very promptly and had the patient off to neurosurgery theatre in a trice. But ten minutes later he was back to look at Chris and me more coldly than Matron can.

  “You bloody bitches, why didn’t you see what was happening?” he snarled.

  “That man coned because you left it too late to call for help! You stupid bloody bitches!”

  Chris put the cassettes she was holding into my hands and stalked to the door. “Kindly accompany me to Sister Toppingham’s office, Doctor,” she said in freezing tones. “I would be grateful if you repeated your remarks to her.”

  Sister Cas rushed in a minute later, eyes out on stalks. “I heard!” she cried.

  “Oh, he’s a bastard, Doctor Michael Dobkins!”

  The junior had flown off to neurosurgery theatre with the X-rays and I had no patient on my hands, so I stared at her with a few ideas germinating in my head. “They know each other, don’t they?” I asked. “Chris and Dr. Dobkins, I mean.” Since she and Chris shared digs, I figured she’d be privy to the dirt.

  “They certainly do,” she said grimly. “Eight years ago, when Dobkins was a junior resident, he and Chris were so wrapped in each other that Chris rather took it for granted they were engaged. Then he dumped her, no explanation.

  Six months later he married a physio with a company director father and a mother on the Black and White Committee. As she was still virgo intacta, Chris couldn’t even threaten to sue him for breach of promise.”

  Well, that would do it, all right.

  Chris came back with Sister Agatha and Dr. Michael Dobkins and I had to give my version of the incident, which tallied with Chris’s. As a result of my testimony, the Super, the Clinical Super and Matron appeared in that order, and I had to retell the story to three very

  disapproving faces. Chris had charged Dobkins with unprofessional conduct, namely hurling unpardonable epithets at female staff. Surgeons do it in the operating theatre all the time, but surgeons have to be allowed their little foibles. Dr. Dobkins, a mere senior registrar, is supposed to sit on his feelings.

  The worst of it is that it ought never to have happened. If Chris had kept her head and kept the tempest local-maybe hauled Dobkins into a private corner and chewed his arse off for bad manners-then Upstairs would never have got into the act. As it is, she switched on a million-watt searchlight that has hampered our work and called our integrity into question.

  By the end of the afternoon, it was Dobkins on the carpet, not us. The patient had coned-his brain had suddenly swollen until its vital centres in the brain stem were squashed against the surrounding bony ridges-but a gigantic subdural haematoma had been successfully aspirated in neurosurgery theatre and the patient had survived intact thanks to the proximity of Cas and resuscitation equipment. The judgement delivered from Upstairs and relayed to us by Sister Agatha was that we had not been derelict in our duty.

  Chris knocked off looking like Joan of Arc at the stake, left me to finish what was a rather awful day.

  It was nearly nine o’clock when I searched South Dowling Street for a taxi.

  Not a one. So I walked. At the Cleveland Street lights, a sleek black Jaguar slid into the

  kerb beside me, the passenger’s door opened and Mr. Forsythe said, “You look very tired, Harriet. Would you like a lift home?”

  I threw caution to the winds and hopped in. “Sir, you’re a godsend!” I said, snuggling into the leather seat. He flashed me a smile, but said nothing.

  However, at the next big junction he automatically turned into Flinders Street, and I realised that he had no idea where I lived. So I had to apologise and tell him that I lived at the Potts Point end of Victoria Street. Shame on you, Harriet Purcell! What’s happened to Kings Cross? He apologised for not asking me where I lived, drove down to William Street and backtracked.

  As we purred into that visual cacophony of neons I said, “Um, I really live at Kings Cross. The Royal Australian Navy owns Potts Point whole and entire.”

  His brows rose, he grinned. “I wouldn’t have picked you as living at Kings Cross,” he said.

  “And just what sort of person does live at the Cross?” I growled.

  That startled him! He took his eyes off the road for long enough to see that I looked militant, and tried to mend his fences. “I really don’t know,” he said pacifically. “I suppose I suffer all the misconceptions of those whose only acquaintance with the Cross is via the yellow press.”

  “Well, the postie did tell me that the whores next door have their mail addressed to Potts Point, but as far as I’m concerned, sir, Victoria Street is Kings Cross from end to end!”

  Why was I so angry? It was me who mentioned Potts Point first! But he must be very well house-trained, because he didn’t try to justify himself, he just fell silent and drove to my directions.

  He pulled into the section the parking police keep reserved for august clients of 17b and 17d; the caduceus on the jag’s back bumper is protection from parking tickets absolutely anywhere.

  Then he was out and around to open my door before I could find the right handle. “Thank you for the ride,” I muttered, dying to get away as quickly as I could.

  But he stood looking as if he had no intention of moving. “Do you live here?” he asked, waving at our cul-de-sac.

  “The middle house. I have a flat.”

  “It’s charming,” he said, waving that hand about again.

  I stood beside him desperately trying to think of something to say that would tell him I appreciated his kindness but was not going to ask him in. But what came out was “Would you like a cup of coffee, sir?” “Thank you, I would.”

  Oh, Shit! Praying that no one was about, I pushed the front door open and headed down the hall, hideously conscious of him behind me taking in the scribbled walls, the tatty lino, the fly-poop on the naked lightbulbs. Things were in full swing at 17d next door as we hit the open air; the faint sounds of whores working hard were quite as audible as Madame Fugue having a screaming fight with

  Prudence in the kitchen, her subject a graphic description of what a girl had to do to please a gentleman with rather peculiar tastes.

  “Don’t fuckin’ piss before you go in when they want to be pissed on, and drink a gallon of fuckin’ water!” was the crux of the matter.

  “An interesting altercation,” he said, as I wrestled with the old mortice lock.

  “It’s a very high-class brothel, and so’s the one on the other side of us,” I said, flinging the door open. “Patroni
sed by Sydney’s highest and finest.”

  He confined his next remarks to my flat, which he called pretty, charming, homey.

  “Sit down,” I said, a little ungraciously. “How do you take your coffee?”

  “Black, no sugar, thank you.”

  At which moment came the sound of a violin playing what I now could identify as Bruch.

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “Klaus upstairs. Good, isn’t he?” “Superb.”

  When I emerged from behind my screen with two mugs of coffee, I found him sitting in an easy chair, very relaxed as he listened to Klaus. Then he looked up and took the mug with a smile of such genuine pleasure that my knees turned to water. I felt less afraid of him, could sit down with reasonable composure. Hospitals condition more lowly staff to regard H.M.O.s as beings from another planet-beings who didn’t visit the Cross 122

  unless they were patronising the Mesdames Fugue and Toccata.

  “It must be great fun living here,” he said. “Lowbrow and highbrow.”

  Well, he certainly wasn’t judgemental. “Yes, it is great fun,” I said.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Oh, really! How could I do that? Sex is behind everything that happens here, hadn’t he got that message from Madame Fugue? So I elected to tell him about the front ground floor flat.

  “At the moment,” I finished, “we think we’ve actually found an elderly couple who aren’t in the business.” “Too old, you mean?”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised, sir,” I said chattily. “The women on the streets are pretty decrepit. The young and beautiful ones work in established brothels-the pay’s better, they live better, and there are no pimps to beat them up.”

  His swampy green eyes held a mixture of amusement and sadness; I thought the amusement was on my account, but I wasn’t so sure about the sadness.

  Maybe, I decided, it was permanent.

  He glanced at his very expensive gold watch and rose. “I must go, Harriet.

  Thanks for the coffee and the company-and the lesson about how the other half lives. I’ve enjoyed myself.”

  “Thanks for the lift home, sir,” I said, and took him to the front door. After I shut it behind me I leaned against

  it and tried to work out what had just happened. I seem to have made a new friend. Thank God he’d made no advances to me! But I keep remembering the sadness in his eyes, and I wonder if all it is is a need to talk to someone? How strange. You don’t stop to think that maybe God the H.M.O. needs someone to talk to.

  Monday April 11th, 1960

  I saw Pappy again this morning, but this time she didn’t have to wake me up. I was lying in wait for her when she came in from her weekend rendezvous at Glebe, and dragged her into my place for a decent breakfast. She may be in love, but she’s even thinner.

  Thinner, but idyllically happy.

  “A good weekend?” I asked, handing her Eggs Benedict.

  “Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! Harriet, I can’t believe it!” she cried, threw her head back and laughed delightedly. “My Ezra wants to marry me!

  Next weekend he’s going to tell his wife.”

  Now why doesn’t that ring true? But I kept my face smiling and interested.

  “That’s marvellous news, Pappy.” She yawned, frowned at the plate and pushed it away. “Eat it!” I snapped. “You can’t live on hashish and cocaine! “

  Cowed, she pulled it back and shoved the first forkful 124

  in her mouth listlessly. Then she started to eat with enthusiasm-my lessons with Klaus are bearing fruit. I sat down opposite her and leaned forward, feeling very uncomfortable but determined to say my piece. “Um, I’m very aware that what I’m going to ask you is rude and prying, but-” I floundered, not sure where to go next. In for a penny, in for a pound, Harriet-do it!

  “Pappy, you hardly know Ezra, and he hardly knows you. In fact, I gather that neither of you is capable of much logical thought from Friday night to Monday morning. Two weekends together, and he wants to marry you? On what sort of basis? That you don’t bat an eyelid about his little pharmaceutical recreations? I can see why he’d think you’re safer to be with than his nubile young studentsyou’re very much a woman of the world. You’re not going to dob him in to the Boys in Blue, even by accident. But marriage? Isn’t that taking two weekends a bit far?”

  My scepticism didn’t offend her. I doubt it penetrated the fog. “It’s sex,” she said. “Men need sex to be truly in love.”

  “That’s begging the question,” I objected. “You’re not talking about love, you’re talking about marriage. He’s a world-famous philosopher, you say. That means he has status in his bit of the intellectual empire, so he can’t possibly have avoided all the obligations things like tenure and university seniority demand. I’m not an academic, but I do know a bit about academia, and it’s pretty stuffy. If he dumps his wife and kids for you-“

  I broke down in a mire of my own making, just looked at her helplessly.

  Her head shook back and forth slowly. “Dear Harriet, you don’t know anything,” she said. “There’s sex and there’s sex.”

  “Oh, why all this harping about sex?” I growled. “Peculiar tastes don’t go with marriage, if that’s what you mean by sex.”

  “You’re so young!”

  I did my nana, started to yell. “Oh, for Chrissake, Pappy, I’m fed up with being dismissed as an ignoramus! I’m not sitting here quizzing you because I’m eaten up with sick curiosity! I simply want to know exactly why Ezra wants to marry you rather than go on having a wonderful weekend relationship! I know you, you’re not the type to hang out for a wedding ring, so why is he? It doesn’t fit, it just doesn’t fit!”

  “Fellatio,” she said. “Fell-what?” I asked blankly.

  “Fellatio. I suck his penis until he ejaculates in my mouth. That’s every ordinarily sexed man’s dream,” she said, “yet few women are keen on doing it.

  Especially wives, who-just like you, really-don’t know about it until the husband asks for it. Then they’re outraged, think he’s some sort of pervert.

  Whereas I love fellating Ezra. His penis is perfect for me, small and always a little flaccid. And that’s why he wants to marry me. If I’m his wife, he can have fellatio every single day.” She sighed. “Oh Harriet, it would be lovely to be married to Ezra!”

  My lower jaw was on the table, but I managed to grin. “Well, I daresay it’s an efficient method of birth control,” I said.

  “Oh, we do it the accepted ways too,” said Pappy. So there you have it.

  The recipe for married bliss.

  Tuesday April 12th, 1960

  Chris is pursuing a vendetta against Dr. Michael Dobkins, aided and abetted by Sister Cas. Turns out he’s the new senior registrar in Cas, but did Upstairs remove him after the kerfuffle with us? No! The fur flies regularly, and I predict that Dr. Dobkins is shortly going to decide that he’d be much happier at Hornsby Hospital, a lot closer to his home in Pymble than Queens is. I’d say Royal North Shore, posh and suitably huge, but it sticks to its own. Fellatio aside, men who irritate women in positions of power are stupid. Dobkins wasn’t wrong about our being bloody bitches, but stupid? He’s the stupid one.

  Chris ticked me off in front of the junior because I was nice to Demetrios. I saw red and rounded on her, claws out.

  “Listen, you bigoted bloody bitch, that’s a darned decent man with a brain in his head and a bright future! He fancies you, only God knows why, but you wouldn’t even spit on him simply because he porters patients and he’s a Wog! If I want to treat Demetrios like a human being, I will, and nothing you or Sister Agatha can say will stop me! What you need, Christine Leigh Hamilton, is a good fuck!”

  I said it, I said it! The junior almost fainted, then fled to the darkroom voluntarily, and Chris stood gaping at me as if she’d been savaged by a guinea pig.

  I waited for her to march me off to Sister Agatha, but this time she decided discretion was the better part of valo
ur, said not a word, even to me. However, the next time Demetrios brought us a patient, Chris stared at him as if the scales had fallen from her eyes. She even gave him a smile. I’ll bet that tomorrow he gets offered a cuppa and a bikky.

  Just call me Cupid.

  Monday April 25th, 1960 (Anzac Day)

  Almost two weeks, and my exercise book hasn’t been pulled out of my dillybag. We had to work today despite the public holiday, but there wasn’t much to do, and I knocked off on time.

  When I came in my door I could still smell the spicesmace, turmeric, cardamom, fenugreek, cumin. Such exotic words. So I sat down at the table, had a bit of a weep at the silence and those smells, then dug out my book.

  The Friday after Pappy gave me her theory on happy marriage and I told Chris Hamilton that she needed a good fuck was Good Friday, but up at the Cross Good Friday isn’t very different from any other Friday. Business as usual.

  Toby, Pappy and I went to the Apollyon, a basement coffee lounge. It’s too intellectual for my taste-everybody seems to sit there playing chess-but Pappy loves it and Toby thought his friend Martin might turn up there. Rosaleen Norton came down the stairs with her poet friend, Gavin Greenlees-the first time I’d seen the Witch of the Cross. Nothing much to frighten a person there, is my conclusion. She does herself up to look satanicpeaked black brows, scarlet lipstick, black hair and eyes and stark white make-up-but I don’t feel any satanic emanations, as Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz might put it.

  Then Martin arrived arm-in-arm with this stunner of a bloke. Even the most ardent chess players stopped to stare at him, so did Rosaleen Norton and Gavin Greenlees. I was riveted, and tickled to death when the newcomers moved toward our humble table.

  “Mind if we sit with you?” Martin lisped.

  Mind? I couldn’t shuffle my chair to make room quickly enough. Though Martin is an unabashed and vociferous member of the Cross’s homosexual contingent, he doesn’t lisp because he’s poofterish. He lisps because he has no teeth. One of those peculiar people who refuse to darken a dentist’s door.