Thomas Keneally - The Daughters of Mars

I think I’ll stay on board, said Sally, and have the stew.

On the other hand, said Naomi, it’s a distraction. And if I’m willing to be distracted then you should be too.

Yes, all right. But do you think going out to cafés will help us the next time a crowd comes on board?

Maybe not. But that’s not its job. Its job is to make us feel that for now everything’s A-one. Just for an hour or two. I don’t mind being distracted, I’ve decided. You’re the one of sterner stuff, Sal. You’re like Papa. You’re the one to reckon with.

They ordered their tea from earnest young waiters in crisp jackets and jalabiyas. It arrived very quickly. Sally found it strange that though there was nothing like this—the trolleys with cakes and the waiters with their murmuring politeness or the musicians in tarbooshes—anywhere in their history before the war, she and Naomi behaved as if this was their lot and they were as used to it as to the Archimedes . And cars at eight to take nurses to “dinner”—not tea, but “dinner,” tea here being this serious afternoon ritual. To “dinner” along the Corniche, and a stroll along the Mediterranean to finish things off—to see if anyone in uniform was worth talking to. The coming evening and its foreignness were the silken hours, and for enjoying them young men were willing to then be shipped to Gallipoli and give up their brains and limbs and hearts. And yet Sally could still not see how she could be enhanced by these hours.

I reckon I’ll stick with the stew, she reiterated.

Fair enough.

The band had taken on its formal posture again and had begun playing something that sounded Scottish and drippy—the-only-lassie-for-me sort of stuff.

You were in the theatre this trip? reiterated Naomi. Giving anesthetics?

Our first patient died of shock, Sally admitted. But that didn’t stop Fellowes and Freud getting on with things. It’s peculiar what you’ll accept as normal. But that red-headed lieutenant—Hookes—he can’t take it on.

I don’t think the poor fellow should be despised for that.

Though it’s a pretty basic thing, to cut the femoral.

Well, the wounds are quite a mess, aren’t they? They’re not like an illustration in a book.

They both took a spoonful of cake.

I wanted to let you know, said Naomi then, I’m back to my normal self. The first night was what you’d call a jolt.

We were all jolted, Sally told her.

Yes, none of us are quite the same. But it isn’t a jaunt anymore, is it? I mean, you go for a ride to the pyramids with a soldier and end up carrying around his watch for the rest of your life.

You don’t have to carry it round, said Sally. Where is it now, anyhow?

It’s in my bag. I keep it wound up for some reason. I think if I’d known him well, I would have found it easier to get rid of it. I’m sorry to carry on like this. I don’t normally carry on. You know that story about the man whose clock becomes like his heart…

Edgar Allan Poe? And the body under the floorboards?

That’s right. The body… I think he isn’t dead if I keep the thing going. Dad’s book, wasn’t it? That watch-on-the-dead-body story?

Yes, Adam Lindsay Gordon and Poe. They were his two. And the Bible for show.

Not bad taste, Naomi decided. When you think about it. He wanted to keep us out of the milking shed, remember. He’d employ people he couldn’t afford, just to get the milking done and keep us out of the shed. I’d see some of the Sorleys and Coulthards coming in to milk for him and I’d look away.

Naomi had her gray gloves off and her right hand reached across the table to take Sally’s wrist. I planned to have this afternoon tea to ask you something. It sounds strange. But I’ve got an idea you’ll understand exactly what I mean.

Sally’s body tensed while waiting for some unguessed-at demand.

Will you be my friend? And don’t say that of course you will be, you’re my sister. That’s not the issue. Will you be my friend ?

They both knew it was something they hadn’t thought of asking before this—and would not have without the Archimedes .

Understanding what Naomi had done, taken the morphine into her hands and along with it the burden of bringing their mother to that mortal quietness, Sally had not been able to say such simple things herself. To utter thanks to Naomi—so Sally thought—would have brought the heavens crashing down. What Naomi asked was something humbler than gratitude.

I know very well, said Naomi, that I shouldn’t have dumped you at the farm. I don’t know why I wanted so badly to get away. Why can a person hate a place where every love and every kindness has been shown to her? It’s a great flaw of character.

No, said Sally. Or else I’ve got the same flaw.

Anyhow, you stayed there. I didn’t give you a choice. Tell me to sling my hook if you want. Because it’s easier to sound wise now—after the manner of the Archimedes . The Archimedes is like a telescope that makes you see far-off things in their right proportion. But I was a pretender to do that to you. I knew it, and I couldn’t—or didn’t—stop myself. That gives you plenty of grounds not to be my friend.

They listened to the teatime music for a while. Sweet scrapings. It was not momentous to them and mimicked conversation.

What I want, Naomi ventured further, if you’ll be good enough, is that we talk like friends. You don’t have to like me as much as Freud or Honora. But if we talked somewhere along those lines… That if we had to share a cabin, it wouldn’t be a hopeless cause. If we could talk woman to woman. I would love that. I hope you’d be able to imagine it.

Sally wondered if it could be done. Between such great love and great dread, something simple and little and comfortable as friendship. But she was not ready for the largest subject of all.

She said, For one thing, I was cranky about the clearing-off thing you did. But I was proud too. To have this swish sister. And you were the pretty one.

Don’t be ridiculous. You . All the girls say so.

Well, are we going to argue about that? And I don’t see the men in this room having too many arguments over it. But I ought to warn you. I’m a cold cow. I have a cold heart.

The same with me, said Naomi with an excitement—as if they were comparing birthmarks. Friendship isn’t easy with people like us. Ellis Hoyle misread me by some means. Our cold hearts are what we inherited. That’s not to blame Mama and Papa.

Sally shook her head. I wouldn’t like to blame them, she agreed.

Naomi still had her hand. Sally studied this meeting of flesh.

I can’t bubble away with conversation, that’s the problem.

Yes, said Naomi. I envy the gift to do it.

So do I, said Sally.

But if we could find friendship beyond that. If we could talk. About things held close. Secrets, even.

Is she preparing, Sally wondered, for the subject of subjects?

The cake trolley had come and they both took one more French pastry off it—winged capsules of cream.

I’ve told you about Ellis and his damned watch, said Naomi with a sort of pride. I have told you things I could not have said a year back.

Yes, said Sally. Now her hand, having been the limp object of affection, grasped Naomi’s as the band played “Rose of Tralee” and at a nearby table four officers of the Scots Guards were overtaken by gales of laughter at some folly of an absent colleague.

The women of the Archimedes visited Sacré Coeur to see Carradine and her husband. His wound was healing, but he was not yet ready for shipping to an English hospital. Apart from the wards full of long-term patients such as Lieutenant Carradine, they always found the place in partial chaos. In the lush, palmy gardens of the Beau Rivage, where the orchestra of Egyptians played sweet English ballads and lullabies and unexacting twiddly-dee pieces as tea was served, they would sometimes encounter an Australian or British girl who—utterly outnumbered by orderlies—worked alone or with one companion on these echoing troopships on which young men sang jolly songs on the way towards the great heap of debris, of rock and barrenness named Gallipoli, and swallowed down their dread. On the way back… well, they knew what was what by then.