Thomas Keneally - The Daughters of Mars

Maybe you should call into the pay depot this afternoon, he suggested, winking.

When had winks joined his repertoire?

A man came with a board of special dishes but they ordered the soup and then the pork with cider. A specialty of Normandy, the waiter assured them.

The Normandy beyond the windowpanes today looked as though it totally lacked specialty.

Would you like wine? Kiernan asked. I am afflicted with teetotalism.

I believe I can get through lunch without Bordeaux, she said.

They ordered Vichy water. The waiter left.

I was delighted to meet your sister in London, Kiernan told her. Because you have been on my mind since I left the hospital ship in Melbourne. That article you wrote remained with me. It showed…

He gestured, looking for a definition.

It showed a spirit, he decided. A humane wisdom.

And then you went and got it published in the Herald , she complained.

And the Age. But that wasn’t me. Maybe it was one of the chaplains.

But you know I hate praise.

I do. You always say, “I’m a cow-cocky’s daughter!” As if it gives you an exemption or something.

It ought to, she assured him. So before we get on to all the flattery men seem to think a meal in a restaurant requires, let me warn you off. It’s obvious to me that you are an educated man. You are far above me in every aspect. I am—apart from nursing—untutored. “Humane wisdom.” My God! Please, don’t you start on all that stuff.

She was halfway joking—or being serious in a way that sounded falsely stern. She both meant what she said and feared driving him off. There was a kind of flattery she wanted. But she couldn’t define or imagine what it was.

He spotted the emphasis in “don’t you start.”

Other people have started on what you call “all that stuff” then?

Not many. But you ought to know better. I can see you’re still working yourself up to the usual stuff men go on with at the sight of a menu. And I don’t want you to. That’s straight. You are a friend. Be a friend and don’t carry on.

I am a Friend, he said. With a capital F . Lady Tarlton’s family—the Hennings—were Quakers too. Did you know that? What she’s doing is typical Quaker work.

I’m not sure she’s Quaker anymore. I’ve seen she likes gin.

I speak of a tradition, he said. The Society of Friends is a very broad church and sometimes it takes in gin. But—getting back to the start—you must face that what you wrote about the Archimedes gave honor to those who drowned. Apart from that, I know you are a good nurse. These things are not nothing. They are not a vacancy. And I know you don’t like it, but there is reserve. It is a reserve of temperament, I know. But it also comes from experience. So that’s about it. You can start chastising me again.

She smiled—delighted with what he said—and shook her head.

About Robbie Shaw… I seem to have been maneuvered into saying half yeses to him. I’ve been weak about it. If a person could remain engaged forever and satisfy a fellow, that’s what I’d do—as a pure favor. Of course, when he’s present—and he has a strong presence—it all comes close to making sense. But overall it makes no sense at all.

Their meal arrived—served with a certain incomprehension on the waiter’s part that anyone would eat such a dish without accompanying wine. But Boulogne was used—as a Channel port—to dealing with eccentric and wrongheaded British behavior. They ate with a winter ravenousness and went on to sauce anglaise and then had coffee. Outside, the day drew in haggardly upon itself. Carling would be coming soon.

Naomi tried to get to Boulogne to see Lieutenant Kiernan every two or three days during the next ten while he and his medical unit remained there. Since she didn’t want anyone remarking on her journeys, she would often wait at the gate by the road of frozen mud for a French farmer driving his wagon of produce into the city.

Allez-vous à Boulogne, Monsieur? she would ask. She did not even know if she had the phrase right. On the last of her three visits she was given a lift by two Tommies, who appeared out of the mist driving a khaki tractor. Glowing with anticipation in the freezing air, she arrived in town standing on part of its superstructure.

During their meetings thus far they had not touched each other except to shake hands. At this farewell meeting she agreed to walk with him in weather still not suited to it. For privacy’s sake they stayed outdoors and spent an hour and a half standing at the sea wall above the high tide, listening to the waves slap and rattle the shingle below them. Utter craziness—to stand and talk in such a grim bowl of half light above a grim ocean. Yet it was also perfect. They had the opaqueness and the cold to themselves. Their shoulders in overcoats touched—there was a degree too of half-intended pressure involved on both their parts. When contact with a man was managed at such a pace—a shadow of a quarter-inch at a time—it seemed it would take a lifetime before there was anything like an honest holding. Things must be moved along, she concluded for the first time in her life. Kiernan could not be trusted to do it at the pace the times demanded.

Before she could he gave her further motive. He said he was unsure—as everyone was—about future leaves. But—though it was not his business—he would come back and find out how she stood with her prospective fiancé.

I’ll be posting a letter on that matter, she said.

To me? he asked with all the teasing leisure of the implicitly chosen man.

If I’m to write to you, I’ll need your address.

“Third Australian Casualty Clearing Station” would find me, he assured her. Oh, and you’d better add “France.” Though we might be in Belgium for all I know.

I’ll be telling Robbie Shaw, said Naomi out into the fog, that I’ve decided I can’t condemn him or me to all that misery and disappointment just because of some sense of honor.

Ah, he murmured—and coughed.

Stuck for words are you? she said. Usually you fellows want to make all the declarations and use all the adjectives.

There are many adjectives I’d like to use. But you’ve warned me off.

Well, then, I’ll do the job. You are a noble soul, Kiernan. I would in fact go nearly anywhere for you. I don’t mean where you’re going now. I mean generally and for good.

He coughed. Good gracious, he said. Give me a moment. I’m outflanked and flustered.

He kissed her cheek and she turned and kissed his—a kiss far more rationed on both their parts than she would have preferred.

Gosh, he said. We’ve still got time to have champagne.

This is enough, she told him. Anyone could have champagne!

They listened for traffic on the promenade. Since there was none, they crossed it clamped close by held elbows. They came again to the apartments, hotels, restaurants, and shops along the front. He kissed her on the point of the cheek and at greater length.

It is quite a changed world indeed, he told her, in which women have the courage to say what must be said.

She had to return to duty. He signaled a cab that emerged from mist. They traveled together through its opaque grayness to Château Baincthun. The cab would need to take Kiernan back to town, and she told its driver to stop at the gate. Kiernan seemed to understand she did not want to take him further. She wanted him to be secret yet. She chose to arrive alone at the château—she knew mist would protect her as she approached it up the frozen driveway under the enhanced murk of the elms. He went a few steps with her and kissed her again in a way she considered more satisfactory and which promised less cautious experiments eventually. He murmured, There is nothing a person can say at a moment like this.