Angel Read online

  “This is Flo, my landlady’s daughter. I mind her every Sunday from four to six, so if you’re in a hurry, I’m afraid all you can do with me is talk.”

  He squatted down and stroked Flo’s hair, smiling at her. “How do you do, Flo?” Orthopods were always good with children because a good proportion of their patients were children, but try though he would, he couldn’t get Flo to talk.

  “She appears to be mute,” I said, “though her mother says she talks. You may be sceptical about it, but a friend of mine and I believe that she communicates with her mother without words, by a sort of telepathy.”

  He was sceptical-well, he’s a surgeon. They don’t have any flights of fancy, at least about things like telepathy and extrasensory perception. You need a psychiatrist for that, and maybe one from Asia somewhere into the bargain.

  Harold, however, got short shrift today. Flo hadn’t been in my flat more than half an hour when Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz thundered through the door, still open.

  “Oh, there you are, angel puss!” she squeaked in an artificial voice, as if she’d been searching The House high and low. She then propped like a hammy comedian and pretended she hadn’t seen a man until that very millisecond.

  “Oho! The King of Pentacles!” she bellowed, and grabbed the bewildered Flo.

  “Come on, angel puss, don’t be a nuisance. Give ‘em some privacy, hur-hurhur.”

  I cast her a glance which informed her that it was the worst performance I’d ever seen, and said, “Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz, this is Dr. Duncan Forsythe.

  He’s one of my bosses at Queens. Sir, this is Flo’s mother and my landlady.”

  The old horror actually dropped him a curtsey. “Tickled to meet youse, sir.”

  Flo tucked under one arm, she marched out with another hur-hur-hur.

  “Ye Gods!” said Mr. Forsythe, staring at me. “Is she Flo’s biological mother?”

  “She says she is, and I believe her.”

  “She must have been menopausal when she had the little thing.”

  “Didn’t even know she was up the duff, she told me.” Which were the last words spoken for at least an hour. Oh, he is a lovely man! We fit together so well.

  “You’ll have to stop thinking of me as Mr. Forsythe and calling me sir,”

  were the first words spoken after that hour. “My name is Duncan, which you must already know. I’d like to hear it from your lips, Harriet.” “Duncan,” I said. “Duncan, Duncan, Duncan.”

  That led to another interlude, after which I heated up the lamb neck chop casserole I’d made this morning, and boiled some potatoes to go with it. He ate as if he was starving.

  “Don’t you mind my being married?” he asked as he sopped up the gravy dregs with a piece of bread.

  “No, Duncan. I realised yesterday that you’d thought it out before you arrived. It doesn’t matter a bit to me that you’re married, as long as it doesn’t matter to you.”

  But of course it does matter to him that he’s married, as he proceeded to explain to me at greater length than I honestly cared to hear. What a burden guilt can be. The truth lies in the fact that he sought me out-his wife is a cold fish, and to her, he’s a meal-ticket. That’s what a lot of doctors are to the women who marry them. I knew from listening to Chris and Sister Cas that he’d married a classmate of Sister Cas’s-the prettiest and most vivacious nurse of her year, just as the Duncan of those

  days was the most eligible and attractive bachelor registrar at Queens. Added to which, his family is quite sinfully wealthy. Old money, Sister Cas contributed, sounding awed. Old money is awesome in a country that only started yesterday, though I don’t think that the Australian definition of old money is the same as the English one.

  He and Cathy had been happy enough for the first few years, while he was establishing his specialist practice and she was having their two boys. Mark is thirteen, Geoffrey eleven. He loves them dearly, but he sees hardly anything of them, between the miles and miles his Jaguar clocks up and the long hours in operating theatres, consulting rooms, wards and Out Patients. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him why on earth they all seemed to live way up on the North Shore when so often their hospitals are at the opposite end of Sydney, and their rooms have to be in Macquarie Street, convenient neither to hospitals nor residences. The H.M.O.s at Vinnie’s Hospital, which is convenient, are mostly Catholics or Jews who sensibly live in the Eastern Suburbs.

  But I didn’t say any of it because my why is not the reason Duncan would give me. My why is that their wives love the upper North Shore. They cluster between Lindfield and Wahroonga, where they can drive their smart little British cars safe from the worst traffic, can congregate for bridge, solo, committee meetings and tennis. Their children go to posh private schools in the

  area and there are heaps of trees, snatches of real forest. The upper North Shore is idyllic for a wealthy wife. Anyway, Cathy Forsythe sounds like a right bitch to me, though Duncan defended her staunchly and blamed his infidelity on himself. And perhaps-entirely subconsciously!-a weeny bit on me.

  “You’re a witch, my dark darling,” he said, holding my hand across the table.

  “You’ve cast a spell on me.” How to answer that? I didn’t try.

  He carried my hand to his lips and kissed it. “You don’t know what it’s like to be too successful,” he said, “so I’ll tell you. The very last thing the people who love you understand is that you enjoy the work for the work’s sake. You’re caught up in an image which belongs to everyone but you. Even with the work, half of it consists in keeping other people happy, of not creating an adverse ripple on the big hospital pond. My uncle is Chairman of the Hospital Board, which has been a damned nuisance over the years. I was content as a junior H.M.O.-I had more time for research and more time for my patients. But as the senior on Orthopaedics, I seem to spend a disproportionate amount of my time in meetingshospital politics are like any other form of politics.”

  “That must be a terrible bog,” I said warmly, tickled that he hadn’t crawled to Unk after all. Duncan Forsythe is exactly what he appears-a thoroughly nice, decent, educated, brilliant man. “Never mind, Duncan. You’re welcome at 17c Victoria Street whenever you can spare the time.”

  That wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear, of course. He wanted me to tell him that I loved him madly, would shift mountains for him, wash his socks, give him fellatio. Well, I’d wash his socks and I’m into semifellatio, if that’s the correct term for not quite all the way. But I am not sure that I want to hand him the key to my soul. I pity him deeply and I like him enormously and I adore our lovemaking and we have an extra bond, professional companionship. But love?

  If it’s the key to my soul, not love.

  After he left about nine o’clock tonight, I sat for an hour just thinking about us, and at the end of it I still wasn’t sure that I love him madly. Because I’m darned if I’ll give up my freedom for him. It’s as I told Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz, I don’t want to live in a posh house and play Missus Doctor.

  A re-read of Saturday night’s entry tells me how quickly my attitude has changed. Then, I saw it as having to be love. Now, I see it as everything except love. What’s swung me around over a mere twenty-four hours? I think it has to be listening to him talk about his life and his wife. She wangled him the senior post!

  Monday May 30th, 1960

  He picked me up at the Cleveland Street lights tonight as I walked home in the dark, but though he gave me that melting smile and his eyes shone, I could tell at once that

  his mind wasn’t on lovemaking. Which made me feel a little better about us; clearly I was more to him than a female body he happened to fancy.

  “I don’t have very much time,” he said as he drove, “but I realised today that I’ve made no effort to care for you, Harriet.”

  What an odd thing to say! “Care for me?”

  “Yes, care for you. Or perhaps it would be better to ask how you care for yourself.”

  The p
enny dropped, the lightbulb went on. “Oh!” I said. “Oh, that! I’m afraid I haven’t given it a thought. My career as a mistress is barely off and running, you know. But I ought to be safe enough for the moment. I’m due for my period tomorrow, and I’m as regular as clockwork.”

  I could hear his sigh of relief, but having been reassured, he said nothing further until I ushered him into my flat. There he picked Marceline up and cuddled her, then put his little black bag on my table. Until he did, I hadn’t noticed him carrying it, that’s how he affects me.

  He unearthed his stethoscope and sphygmomanometer, listened to my lungs and heart, took my blood pressure, inspected my legs for varicosities, pulled my lower eyelid down, looked carefully at the tips of my fingers and the colour of my ear lobes. Then he took his prescription pad out of the bag and wrote on it rapidly, tore the top sheet off and handed it to me.

  “This is the best of the new oral contraceptives, my darling Harriet,” he said, tucking everything back inside the bag. “Start taking it the moment you finish your next period.”

  “The Pill?” I squawked.

  “That’s what they call it. You shouldn’t have any problems, you’re in the absolute pink of health, but if you get any pain in the legs, shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea, swelling of the ankles or headaches, go off the medication at once and let me know the same day,” he ordered.

  I stared down at the illegible writing, then at him. “How does an orthopod know about The Pill?” I asked, grinning.

  He laughed. “Every sort of medical man from psychiatrist to gerontologist knows about The Pill, Harriet. As every specialty sees some side of unwanted pregnancies, we’re all breathing sighs of relief at this little beauty.” He took my chin in his hand and gazed at me very seriously. “I don’t want to cause you any more trouble than I need to, my dearest love. If I can’t do more for you than prescribe the most effective contraception yet devised, I have at least done something.”

  Then he kissed me, told me he’d see me next Saturday at noon, and left.

  How lucky I am! There are single women travelling all over Sydney in search of a doctor reputed to prescribe The Pill. It’s very much with us, but only if we’re married. But my man wants to care for me properly. In some ways I do love him.

  Monday June 6th, 1960

  It had to happen sooner or later. Though Pappy knew I had a boyfriend, his identity remained a mystery until early this morning. She came in the front door around six, just as Duncan was leaving. Of course he didn’t recognise her, just smiled and stood aside courteously, but she knew exactly who he was, and came straight to my flat.

  “I don’t believe it!” she cried. “Neither do L”

  “How long has this been going on?” “Two weekends in a row.”

  “I didn’t realise you knew him.” “I hardly do know him.”

  A funny conversation for two good friends to have, I thought as I made us some breakfast.

  “Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz told me that the King of Pentacles had arrived, and Toby told me that you had acquired a lover, but I never dreamed of Mr.

  Forsythe,” she said.

  “I didn’t dream of him either. Still, it’s nice to know that The House’s grapevine isn’t as efficient as I thought it was. Toby told me I was a fool, since when I haven’t seen so much as his back going up the stairs, and Mrs.

  Delvecchio Schwartz approves after barging in to meet him,” I said, giving Marceline her top-of-the-milk.

  “Are you quite well?” Pappy asked, eyeing me doubtfully. “You sound awfully detached.”

  I sat down, hunched my shoulders and looked at my boiled egg without a shred of appetite. “I’m well, but am I good? That’s the real question. I don’t know why I did it, Pappy! I know why he did it-he’s lonely and afraid, and he’s married to a cold fish.”

  “He sounds like Ezra,” she said, gobbling up her egg. I didn’t like that comparison, but I understood why she made it, so I let it pass. Half-past six on a dark winter’s morning is no time to quarrel, especially after each of us had spent two days of illicit love with a very much married man.

  “He hasn’t done this sort of thing before, so why he picked me is a mystery.

  He’s in love with me-or he thinks he is-and when he turned up here out of the blue, I didn’t have the heart to turn him down,” I said.

  “You mean you’re not in love with him?” she asked, as if that was a worse sin than Sodom and Gomorrah had ever dreamed of.

  “How can you love someone you hardly know?” I countered, but that was the wrong thing to say to Pappy, who definitely didn’t know Ezra at all.

  “All it takes is a glance,” she said rather stiffly.

  “Does it? Or is that what my brothers call elephant love? I’ve really only got my mother and father to gauge, and they’re very much in love. But Mum says they built it, that it took years, and it keeps getting better.” I looked at her, feeling helpless. “I can look after myself, Pappy, it’s him I’m worried about.

  Did I start something he’s going to have to do all the paying for?”

  Her exquisite face went suddenly hard. “Don’t feel too sorry for him, Harriet. Men have all the advantages.” “You mean that Ezra is still dickering with his wife.” “Eternally.” She shrugged, looked at my egg. “Do you want that? Eggs are the perfect protein.”

  I shoved it across the table. “It’s all yours, you need it more than I do. You sound a bit disillusioned.”

  “No, I’m not disillusioned,” she sighed, dipping a finger of toast in the runny yolk as if it interested her far more than the subject of our conversation did. “I suppose I just assumed that Ezra would be able to start committing himself to me utterly. I love him so much! I’ll be thirty-four in October-oh, it would be so nice to be married!”

  I hadn’t realised she was quite that old, but middle thirties accounted for it, all right. Pappy is suffering from the Old Maid Syndrome. Going from many men to the only man hasn’t rewarded her with the safety and security she craves. Oh, please, please, God, don’t let the Old Maid Syndrome happen to me!

  Thursday June 23rd, 1960

  This evening when I walked upstairs to the bathroom to have my shower, I decided that it isn’t a sort of hopeful attack of imagination, it’s real. Ever since Duncan entered my life, Harold has given up stalking me. The light in the hall is always on, and he’s nowhere to be seen. I don’t hear the sound of socked feet whispering on the stairs behind me, nor is he outside the door when I leave Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz’s living room. In fact, the last time I encountered him was that day he called me a whore. Is that what it takes to discourage these psychopathic types? The advent of a powerful man?

  Tuesday July 5th, 1960

  I am neglecting my exercise book. This is number three, but it isn’t filling very fast since Duncan entered my life. I never understood how much of one’s time a man can occupy, even if he’s only part-time. He’s worked out how to see the most of me. On Saturdays I’m a golf game that extends late enough to incorporate a “drink with the boys” in the club house after eighteen holes. On Sundays he comes in the morning and stays until Flo comes down-yes, she does cramp his style a bit, but I refuse to put his needs ahead of Flo’s. I’m a session catching up with his records for a part of that, and then I’m either an emergency operation or some sort of meeting.

  I can’t believe that his wife doesn’t smell a rat, but he assures me that she’s completely unaware anything unusual is going on. Her own schedule, it seems, is fairly hectic. She’s a bridge fanatic, and Duncan loathes the game, won’t play it. I daresay when your other half is

  seemingly considerate of your own interests, it’s easy to lull your suspicions. But she can’t be very bright, his Cathy. Or maybe she’s just terribly selfish? There have been some illuminating confidences, like the separate bedrooms (so he doesn’t wake her up when he’s called out in the middle of the night) and the fact that she’s relegated him to what she calls the “boys’ bathroom
”. He hates “her” bathroom, which is attached to “her” bedroomwall to wall mirrors. Apparently she’s one of Sydney’s best-dressed women, and now she’s pushing forty, she keeps an eye on everything from crow’s feet around the eyes to any thickening in her waist. She’s almost as addicted to tennis as she is to bridge because it keeps her figure trim.

  And if her photo is in the weekend society pages of one of the newspapers, she’s in seventh heaven. That’s why he can’t be with me on Saturday evenings-she needs him to squire her out to some black-tie function or other, preferably one where the photographers and journalists who feed the society pages are hovering.

  What an empty life. But that’s only me talking. To her, it is exactly the life she dreamed of living since her schooldays, I imagine. Heaps of money, two handsome sons who sound as if she’s kept them very young for their ages, a divine house way out in the Wahroonga backblocks, where the ground covers two acres, there’s a swimming pool, and she can’t see the neighbours. She has a gardener, a slushie to scrub the floors, vacuum, wash and iron, a woman who comes in to cook on the evenings she expects Duncan home, a Hillman Minx car, and unlimited

  accounts at the best department stores and Sydney’s two fashion salons. How do I know all this? Not from Duncan, but from Chris and Sister Cas, who admire Cathy Forsythe with heart and soul. She’s got what women yearn for.

  As for me, I suppose you might say that I’m happy to take Cathy Forsythe’s leavings. The part of Duncan she most definitely doesn’t want is the part of him that I appreciate. We do a lot of talking, he and I, about everything from his fascination with sarcoma to the private secretary in his Macquarie Street rooms, Miss Augustine. She’s into her fifties, another old maid, and she treats Duncan like her only begotten son. A model of efficiency, tact, enthusiasm, you name it.