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 I.”

“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” bedroom—wall 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.