After the anger and the bluster died down, they started to talk about what it was like to be a Lez, probably because I was there. Robbo said that she’d once been married and had a couple of kids, but her husband divorced her citing a female co-respondent, and she isn’t allowed to see her children unless she can prove that she isn’t a “corrupting influence”. Two of them had been sexually assaulted by their fathers as young children, one’s mother had “sold” her to a rich old man whose preference was for anal sex with little girls. They all bore some sort of scars, physical or psychic. Jim and Bob were tame compared to the rest. All Jim had suffered was to be thrown out by her parents because she liked to wear men’s clothes. Bob’s parents, who live in the bush, have no idea that Jim is a female.

Afterwards Toby took me up to his garret and fed me coffee laced with brandy while I shivered like an old soldier with a bout of malaria.

“I didn’t know it was a crime to be a Lesbian,” I said after the hot liquid settled my stomach and steadied my thumping heart. “I know it is a crime for a man to be a homosexual, but someone told me that when the legislation arrived for her consent, Queen Victoria struck out the clauses affecting women, refused to believe women could be homosexual. But if Frankie and Olivia were arrested, it must be a crime.”

“No, you’re right,” he said, refilling my mug. “It’s not a crime to be a Lez.”

“Then how could it have happened?” I asked.

“Under the lap, Harriet. Secretly. You won’t find Frankie and Olivia on the cop shop books. Some copper big-wig obliged Olivia’s daddy. I imagine the idea was to show Olivia what a good man could do, but it got out of hand. Probably after Frankie started in on the rapists. She’s not the sort to knuckle under, even in a situation like that.”

He’s so detached, Toby. I suppose all good artists are, they watch the world looking for subjects.

I’m not an ignoramus about the more repellent side of life. No one who’s worked in a hospital for over three years can be. But you never really hear the full story, especially in disciplines like X-ray, where the patients come in for their tests and then go somewhere else, and we’re rarely unbusy enough to have the time to listen to a patient’s story. When we meet for lunch or at a party or have a moment to talk among ourselves, it’s always the hot item on the gossip grapevine that’s discussed. The horror’s in seeing what comes in, what’s been done by another human being. No, I’m not an ignoramus. But I’ve been sheltered. Until I moved up to the Cross, into The House.

Tonight has been a blinding enlightenment. I can never think the same about people again. Publicly one thing, behind closed doors something very different. Dorian Gray everywhere. I don’t know who on earth Olivia’s father is, but I’ve grown up enough tonight to think that he is at peace with himself, that he blames it all on Frankie and his daughter. And I can’t bear to think of the people who prey on little children! It is a terrible world.

Friday,

April 1st, 1960 (April Fool’s Day)

I got home fairly early tonight, and for once Pappy was at a loose end. I don’t know where she was last Monday night when Jim and Bob held their meeting—I hardly ever see her now that I’m in Cas X-ray. Toby offered to take us to Lorenzini’s, a wine bar at the end of Elizabeth Street in the City.

“They gave me two bits of news at work this arvo,” Toby said as we walked down the McElhone Stairs to Woolloomooloo, which is the shortest route to Lorenzini’s. “One good and one bad.”

I asked when Pappy didn’t. “What’s the good news?”

“I’ve been given a hefty pay rise.”

“So what’s the bad news?”

“The company accountants sat down and did some calculations,” he said, pulling a face. “The result is that from early next year I’m out of a job, along with almost everybody else. Between pay rises, strikes, shop stewards calling go-slows, and investors who want to see a big return for their money, the company’s decided to replace men with robots. The robots can tighten nuts and shove parts together twenty-four hours a day without needing meal breaks or to go to the dunny.”

“But robots cost a fortune,” I objected.

“True, but the accountants worked out that they’ll pay for themselves pretty quickly, and after that, with no human staff, it’ll be beer and skittles for the investors.”

“That’s terrible!” Pappy gasped. She was always militant about crimes against the workers. “It’s disgraceful!”

“It’s just the way of the world, Pappy, you ought to know that,” Toby lectured. “There’s a bit of right on both sides. The bosses try to exploit us, and we try to exploit the bosses. If you want to blame anyone, blame the boffins who invent robots.”

“I do!” she snapped. “Science is what’s wrong!”

I contributed my mite by saying that I thought what was really wrong were human beings, who can bungle a booze-up in a brewery.

There are always more young men at Lorenzini’s than available women, so we soon lost Pappy, who has probably slept with the entire male complement anyway. Toby found a small table with two chairs down the back, and we sat in pleasant silence watching the eddies and swirls as people table-hopped madly. Poor Toby! It must be frightful to be in love with someone like Pappy.

We hadn’t been there long when there was a stir at the door and about a dozen people entered, almost all young girls. Pappy came flying over to us, eyes wide.

“Harriet! Toby! See who’s just come in? That’s Professor Ezra Mar-mumble-mumble, the world-famous philosopher!”

I tried to make her repeat what was undoubtedly a peculiar name, but she was already gone to join the crowd around Professor Ezra Mar-supial? Yes, Marsupial sounds good. A bit long in the tooth for Lorenzini’s, I thought, when the crowd parted and the Prof emerged like the sun from behind a cloud.

He isn’t going to win any Mr. America contests, for sure. His face was ugly, he was a skinny, weedy little man, he grew his hair very long and combed it sideways to conceal his baldness, and he wore the sort of clothes you see on authors of important non-fiction books if they have their photos inside the back cover—tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, Aran sweater, corduroy trousers, a pipe in one hand. As the night was humid and hot, he must have been stewing like a casserole.

I can never work out how Pappy does it. The Prof was three-deep in female students, all at least ten years younger than Pappy, some of them as pretty as film starlets. Yet within two minutes, Pappy had managed to oust the girls and was sitting at his right hand, her adoring face turned up to his, some of her thick, glossy black hair straying over his hand. Maybe it’s the hair. She’s the only woman I know with long hair, and they do say men love it.

I sniffed. “That,” I said to Toby, waving my hand to indicate the Prof, “is the Knight of Cups reversed.”

Toby stared at me in surprise. “Are you taking lessons from the old girl?”

I said no, but she’d seen him in Pappy’s cards. “She’s an old villain, too, pretended to me that the Knight of Cups reversed is just what Pappy needs. I know the court card only reveals the person, that it’s the other cards fill the person out and show how the person relates to someone else, but Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz lied to me. She could see as clear as crystal what sort of bloke Pappy’s new man is, and she saw something else that really upset her. But she wouldn’t say a word to me about it. I don’t remember what the cards were that followed the Knight of Cups, but I went out and bought a book on the tarot and looked him up, even if I couldn’t put the whole picture together.”

“I thought the knights were young men. He’s fifty-odd.”

“Not necessarily,” I said, showing off my newfound knowledge. “They can be called knaves as well as knights.”