Bittersweet

  Though it lacked a woman’s touch, this bachelor’s house was neat and clean. Like many another man, Jack Thurlow could cook, sew on buttons, take up a hem, darn socks, scrub a floor and produce whiter-than-white washing; as a child there had often been no one else to do these things, so they had fallen to him and he was proud of his domestic skills. Like the education, they were part of his secret: he was a man to whom duty called more powerfully than any other human condition, for he was a man who had done what he did out of duty, not out of love, and he knew duty for a cruel mistress. To Jack Thurlow, nothing was worse than to be exploited as a duty, and never to see a scrap of love in return. So he hid his secrets, praying he could live like this for the rest of his days, responsible to no one, owing no one a duty of any kind. That was what appealed about Edda Latimer; she would never be his duty, no matter what her life might do to her. Whereas her twin, he shrewdly suspected, was a duty to everybody she knew. He laughed. “Edda’s duty, never mine,” he said.

  When Jack pulled up outside the Corunda Town Hall at the wheel of a Daimler, Edda blinked in astonishment.

  “Nice,” she said, allowing him to open her door.

  “Tom lends it to me when I need it.”

  “We could have walked, it’s not far.”

  He grimaced. “Ungentlemanly, Edda. Why wouldn’t you let me pick you up outside the hospital?”

  “And set all the tongues wagging? No, thank you!”

  He was dressed, she noted, in the obligatory three-piece suit, and looked strangely unapproachable. Of course she had been regretting her invitation ever since tendering it; now the sight of him in his suit threw her completely off-balance, so she said nothing at all until they turned into Trelawney Way, which ran uphill from George Street in a fairly good part of town. The West End was two miles away.

  “That cream and green cottage there,” she said. Silence fell again; she let him extricate her from the car, horribly aware that curtains were furtively being drawn back in every window of every house in the vicinity. Oh, neighbours! Then Jack opened the gate in the picket fence and escorted her up the path to the front door, set in a verandah. Someone, she noticed, had been working in the garden, which wasn’t up to Corunda standards; the roses weren’t blooming as they should, had red spider as well as black spot. But then, Grace had never been a gardener. I am selfish, Edda thought, I should donate an occasional day off to helping her. Bear isn’t a gardener either, even when he’s home. Where are the azaleas and rhododendrons? The pansies and lobelias?

  Then Grace was at the open door, ushering them inside, her surprise written clearly on her face. “Edda did explain she was bringing someone, but I confess I never expected you, dear Mr. Thurlow,” Grace gushed in best Maude mode. “Sit down, please.”

  Oh, poor young woman! Jack Thurlow was thinking as he sat rather awkwardly in the wrong sort of chair. So like Edda, yet so unlike her! Very attractive, especially with her pregnant bloom suffusing her skin, yet no vitality, no zest for life. “Call me Jack,” he said, smiling at her.

  The ice was broken; soon Grace and Jack were laughing, her big grey eyes shining as he put her at her ease, carefully hiding his pity as she, no doubt terribly lonely stuck here all day, expanded under his very ordinary brand of attention.

  While the pair talked, Edda was free to assess the house as she never had before, always too immersed in Grace to spare a moment. But the house had changed! How long since her last visit here? A month? No, Edda, it’s at least three months. I always buy her lunch at the Parthenon to free her from her domestic jail, I hate coming to the Trelawneys. Now look at this! Oh, God, why haven’t I kept a more vigilant eye on Grace and her house?

  The place was furnished like a rich man’s mansion! That huge Persian rug on the floor in her lounge room. That gorgeous coromandel screen. Genuine tapestry seats on the dining chairs. Grace, Grace, what have you done?

  “Jack, content yourself with your own company,” she said as soon as seemed natural, “while Grace and I fetch tea.”

  The moment the kitchen door was closed Edda grasped her twin by the shoulder a little cruelly and shook her. “Grace, when did you buy all this furniture?”

  Grace glowed. “Isn’t it lovely, Eds? I ran into Maude and Mrs. Enid Treadby about four months ago, and they took me to this wonderful shop way out on the Melbourne road — such stunning bits and pieces! People come from Canberra to shop there.”

  The rage died; Edda gazed at her sister in despair. “Oh, Grace, you — you idiot! Well, there’s nothing else for it, you have to return the lot. You can’t live without some money in the bank, and you spent more than your own five hundred pounds, didn’t you? Don’t say Bear let you spend all his money too!”

  “Of course he let me, I’m his wife,” said Grace in wounded tones. “This is real furniture, it appreciates with time!”

  “There’s an old proverb, twin, that you have to cut your coat to suit your cloth,” Edda said tiredly. “You’re imitating Mrs. Enid Treadby, who’s rich enough to buy furniture that will appreciate. Oh, you fool! Stepmama led you into this, I know she did, the bitch! It wasn’t Mrs. Treadby, it was Maude.”

  By this, Grace was weeping. “I can’t return it, Edda, I bought it!” she wailed. “I love it, and Bear loves it too. He says I have the best taste in the world.”

  “Put the kettle on your fancy new gas stove, Grace, or we’ll look as if we’re neglecting our guest,” Edda said on a sigh. “In future, Grace, you come to me before you spend a single penny on anything that doesn’t belong in a pantry or ice chest, hear me?”

  Somehow the visit got itself over and done with; Edda sat in the Daimler’s front passenger seat and said not a word.

  “Something’s up,” Jack said.

  “Indeed it is.”

  “I’m a good listener.”

  “I know, but it’s family trouble, Jack. Let’s just say that I forgot how absolutely stupid Grace can be, all right?”

  “Ah, poor little Grace! I daresay she is stupid, Edda. It’s her nature, don’t you agree? The trouble with being smart and clever and efficient is that so many people aren’t smart and clever and efficient — or even one of those. But she’s a loving little thing just the same. I bet she gives her husband a lot of headaches, but he probably thinks the love she gives him is worth every pang. That’s the difficulty women like you always have, Edda. For every ounce of cleverness in your brain, you’ve had to give up at least an ounce of love.”

  The pain! It lanced through her like a needle of cold fire, but Edda Latimer would have died rather than show this Lord of Creation that his words hurt. “That is utter nonsense,” she said crushingly. “You sound like a women’s magazine.”

  “I’d rather call it an exercise in accounting. The debits have to equal the credits, it’s a law of nature. Grace’s credits are measured in love, whereas yours are measured in intellect. Oh, not entirely,” he added, his own eyes twinkling at the anger in hers, “but love would never be enough for you. Its rewards are far too ephemeral, like trying to see water evaporate.”

  “And would love be enough for you?” she asked icily.

  “No, unfortunately it wouldn’t. However, today has solved one puzzle I’ve always wrestled about twins.”

  For a moment Edda contemplated not rising to his bait, then admitted that if she didn’t, he wouldn’t tell her. Ever. “And what puzzle has been so baffling?”

  “Why twins at all?” he said. “There’s too much to pack inside one person, but spread over two, the mixture’s thin and lumpy.”

  “So a twin is a lesser kind of human being?”

  “More different than lesser.”

  “You think Grace got all the love and I the brains?”

  “Not exactly. Just that she needs some of your good sense and you need some of her compassion.”

  “I’m not sorry I got the brain. Grace is going to suffer.”

  “Not if she has a good husband.”

  Bear’s frost-fair face rose
before Edda’s internal gaze; she smiled, squeezed Jack’s hand as it lay on the steering wheel. “Then she’ll be all right. Bear Olsen is a very good man who will always look after her.” Doubt crept into her voice. “If, that is, he can stop her spending money. How odd! I never realised that she’s a spendthrift until now, when I saw all that expensive furniture. She left not a penny in the bank.”

  “I don’t suppose she’s ever had the freedom to spend.”

  “With our stepmother in control, true words. Yet it was our stepmother encouraged her to buy the furniture.” The Town Hall loomed, the car stopped. “Let me drop you at the hospital,” he pleaded. But Edda was already out of the car, and smiling brilliantly.

  “No, thank you. I’ll see you on a ride, no doubt?”

  His laughter sounded exciting. “No more rides for a while, Edda. You and I are going to spend our spare time at Grace’s, doing things in the garden. Grace is getting too swollen to tend it, and Bear’s on the road. It’s the least we can do. When are you off duty?”

  “Tomorrow,” she said numbly.

  “Then I’ll see you here at eleven tomorrow morning. I’d be earlier, except that I have to beg, borrow or steal cuttings and plants from Hannah, Enid and whoever else to fill those vacant beds. A house in Corunda without rhododendrons and azaleas? A prunus or two? Daffodils under the grass?”

  He was still talking as he drove away, leaving Edda standing to stare after him as at a vanishing genie.

  Finally she turned and began to plod toward the hospital side gate, mind whirling. Looking back over the events, she had no idea what she had expected might happen beyond a friendly cup of tea with her twin, about whom Jack had indeed wondered from time to time. If Edda had fretted over an introduction, it was in the belief that Jack might fall for the softer sister. Instead he seemed to pity Grace — why was that more annoying?

  Then Edda grasped her unruly emotions firmly, brought them under control, and conjured up an image of Grace as she had been this afternoon. Remarkably pretty, as pregnant women tended to be, showing a seven-months tummy but not yet unwieldy, her big grey eyes filled with love for — oh, everybody! How extraordinary, that a man as unversed as Jack Thurlow had felt it too, Grace’s voracious appetite for love. She hadn’t tried in the least to captivate him, but he wasn’t proof against Grace’s brand of charm, against her air of helpless incompetence. Owning no incompetence herself, Edda despised it, and had assumed Jack would too. To find that he didn’t came as an unpleasant shock.

  Tufts was sitting in the common room surrounded by books, but of Kitty there was no sign — yes, on duty in Children’s, as per usual. Odd, that. Kitty thirsted for duty on Children’s, and Matron, it seemed, was prepared to indulge her.

  “Tufts!” Edda rapped, lighting the gas under the kettle. “Do you ever get tired of being the capable and intelligent twin?”

  “A cuppa? Oh, yes, please!” Tufts looked up, her sherry-coloured eyes brightening. “The strong twin, I think you really mean,” she said.

  “Do I?” Edda stared at her half sister, frowning. Tufts was extremely pretty too, if one saw her without Kitty there to eclipse her. The same sweet face, straight nose, enormous eyes, domed forehead. Her colouring was more uniform, less striking than Kitty’s, and her dimples rarely showed, but minus Kitty she was a stunning girl. Why does the world never see it?

  “Well, you can’t honestly mean Grace and Kitty are stupid or incapable,” Tufts said, puzzled, “because they’re not. They just burn for different things than you and I do.”

  “Things like love,” said Edda, giving “love” an unpalatable inflection. “Love! Knuckling under to some man, is what it is.”

  “I can understand why you dismiss it as that, Eds, but if nursing has taught you anything, it is surely that women and men are as differently constructed mentally as they are physically. I grow very tired of egalitarian generalisations — all men are not equal, nor are all women. Individualism should be prized.”

  “Bravo, Tufts!” Edda cried, laughing. “Getting back to love, I’d sooner die than become a slave to it.”

  “Harken back to your experiences nursing, please! Habit is what enslaves, Edda, and that can include love after it becomes a habit.” Tufts poured boiling water into the teapot. “Habits can be almost impossible to break.”

  “Oh, Tufts, you’re much wiser than I am! Dr. Finucan talks about hormones. Maybe you and I have a different concentration of them from Grace and Kitty? Or our brains developed in some different way? And what’s a habit, in a brain?”

  Edda poured milk, Tufts stirred the teapot to speed up the infusion process. Then, cups brimming with steaming tea, they sat to enjoy this panacea for all woes.

  “What brought this on?” Tufts asked, sipping.

  “I took Jack Thurlow to see Grace today — what an insane idea! He made his fishing for an introduction sound like sheer curiosity, so I thought once he’d met her, he’d forget her.” Edda gave a wry laugh. “Wrong! Now instead of meeting Jack for a lovely ride on my days off, I’m doomed to go with him to Grace’s house and act as an unpaid gardener and skivvy.”

  “That’s not why you’re so angry, Edda.”

  “Have you seen Grace’s house?”

  “Yes. Very tasteful. It surprised me.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you that she must have spent every penny Bear has in the bank as well as her own five hundred? Maude bamboozled her into furnishing her house in a style she plain can’t afford!”

  “I never thought… My mother is an awful woman,” Tufts said quietly, “we both know that. What was she out to do?”

  “Get Grace into trouble with Bear, I imagine. Whenever she splurges on furniture for the Rectory, our gentle father grows less gentle, and makes it impossible for her to keep the item — she’s obliged to return it. She assumed that Bear, a lower class than Father, would make Grace’s life very unhappy if she overspent.” Edda shrugged. “Well, Maude miscalculated. Bear would forgive Grace anything.”

  “And thank God for it!” said Tufts roundly. “Her influence on Kitty has waned, of course, so she’s thirsting for revenge as well as other avenues of mischief-making. Grace and Bear is just a practice run, I think. Beware, Edda, you’re Mama’s main target, I’m convinced of it.”

  “I’m inclined to agree, sweetheart, except that I’ve thrown off Maude’s authority over my life, such as it was. How can she hurt me, Tufts?”

  “Once Grace tells her about Jack Thurlow, through him, is my guess. She’ll try to smear you.”

  Edda laughed. “Well, if they start talking about me and Jack, they’ll stop gossiping about you and the doctors.”

  Poor Edda! Tufts thought as she made her way down the ramp to Pathology, one of the larger shedlike buildings because it also housed the library and the new X-ray facility, a huge piece of equipment so heavy that it had had to be installed on specially strong foundations. As the more ordinary half of her set of twins, Heather/Tufts had escaped much that Kitty had suffered, and the same could be said for Grace in relation to Edda, who killed snakes with a chair leg and dared anything as well as being both glamourous and alluring. Yet it was Grace had found love, Tufts reflected: genuine love, the kind that lasted, the kind that forgave all sins, contained no condemnation. No matter how many mistakes poor, silly Grace made, Bear would be there to pick up the pieces. Now, it seemed, when Bear wasn’t there to pick up the pieces, other men would volunteer, for the purest of reasons. Hooked on Edda’s line Jack Thurlow might be, but his alacrity in going to Grace’s rescue told Tufts that he wished Edda had need of him, wished Edda were just a little helpless.

  Of course Edda didn’t see that; she didn’t want to see it. Edda prized her independence, her ability to take care of herself. Which ought not to make her less deserving of love, yet did. Some women were far more difficult to love. Poor Edda!

  Only the night lights were on as Tufts let herself in to walk down the long internal hallway with doors opening off it to left and to righ
t; all the way to the far end, where the hall finished at a red-painted door leading to Dr. Liam Finucan’s lair, his office. It too was dark; the pathologist had gone home for the night, the experiments were all hers. Well, not actually experiments… Tissue culture dishes, a lump of mammary tissue embedded in paraffin for sectioning, various histological stains to prepare… The routine stuff like urinalysis had been done by Liam’s one technician; that he managed to exist without a second technician was due to her, Tufts Scobie, who loved the exactitude of this kind of work and did it far better than the young man officially employed for the purpose.

  Without turning on the lights she let herself through a side door in the office and emerged into the laboratory, where she threw some switches and blazed the room into glaring yellow relief. They had an automatic microtome blade sharpener, very precious, and the blade on it was ready for use; Tufts went about the task of fixing the chunk of paraffin in place on the microtome base, prepared her stains, and settled to slicing, sliding and mounting the transparent sections of what had once been a woman’s breast, so absorbed that she neither saw nor heard anything in her vicinity.

  “Thanks for that, Heather,” said Dr. Finucan’s voice.

  She jumped, then beamed at him. “They’ll be ready on time.”

  “I’d be willing to bet it’s a carcinoma,” he said.

  “Oh, poor woman! She can’t be much past thirty, her children aren’t at school yet.”

  Tufts slid off the tall stool and went back to the office, there to wait until the pathologist locked up the lab.

  Like his surgeon confreres, Liam Finucan was a genuine asset to Corunda Base; like them, he could easily have carved a Sydney or Melbourne career with great success. However, his wife was a Corunda girl, and he had loved the place at first sight: its Old Country feel, the green of its grass, its rich European shrubs and flowers. Born and bred in Ulster of Protestant stock, he had taken medical degrees in London sufficiently good to earn him a post as a pathologist anywhere. He had worked with Sir Bernard Spilsbury! For someone who’d grown up in the religious wars of Ulster, Corunda was paradise.