At dawn, the submarine departed and submerged, leaving over twenty men on the junk, whose marine master was lantern-jawed Rufus Mortmain. The junk was turned for Singapore and the trades filled its lateen sails.
Throughout the rest of the winter of 1944, Dotty and I were still working and living in the communal flat. We had the comfort of knowing that Foxhill would tell us what was happening if he learned anything, since he’d done that in the case of Leo’s father. I found it hard to discipline myself – not to call him every day, to check, especially since at the end of August Creed had whispered to Dotty in the office, Your husband’s on his way.
We both had a date in mind as the longest we’d have to wait. It was December 6th. Independently of each other, Rufus and Leo had told Dotty and me that by then at the latest they’d be back.
It was a rainy Melbourne winter and at night Dotty and I soothed ourselves with gin because it was hard to sleep. Dotty was writing a lot but was secretive about it all. I wrote a fair amount myself, but it was sporadic, it took many stages of concentration for me to get started. And often I’d be just started when Dotty would insist, as if our sanity depended on it and in a way it was hard to refuse, that we had to go out to the Albert Palais or one of the canteens to dance with soldiers. I thought she would be very selective about rank, being British, but while I sat on the balcony drinking a shandy, she proved that sergeants and corporals were not unworthy of her company. I could not have a good time on a dance floor, I decided. It was as if all my sensuality was bundled up with Leo, and was suspended pending his return. (Sometimes these days I fear it’s been bundled up all my life. I hope my second husband got a return on his desire and devotion.)
Anyhow, we didn’t analyse those things then – we acted them out, and as it was obvious that I was a sort of icy widow-for-the-duration on the balcony, it was obvious too that Dotty was available for comforting. Again, I didn’t blame her. I envied her the distraction.
Every day I went off to the military transport office job I had, and deadened myself with routine work and small office filing confusions. The Melbourne football Grand Final came and went as a marker between seasons, and Foxhill could tell us nothing. We found this a bad sign because we believed that however confident he insisted on sounding, there was an edge of bemusement to him too. The weather turned warm, but it was an empty, anxious warmth to Dotty and me. Captain Foxhill organised for us to attend the Members Enclosure for that year’s Melbourne Cup, and gin and expectation gave us a few hours’ respite until a horse named Sirius galloped over the line and we tore our betting tickets up and the vacuum returned.
I remembered that Jesse Creed, the American, had been involved in some way too. But Dotty assured me she had heard nothing from him. Sometimes, she said, I get the impression they’re all keeping some big secret. And I suppose the bastards are. But I think Jesse would tell me if he knew anything.
December arrived. When I felt hope it was feverish. Plain, flat, humid days set in, carrying no omens and dry of promise. Thunderstorms and dust swept down from the north onto the city. Foxhill and his wife visited us for a drink on December 2nd. I tried to gauge whether he knew anything he wasn’t telling us, but he seemed just as uncertain as us. He did not promise us quick news or mention dates. But he did say, When we hear, it will be sudden. Like a thunderclap.
Four days later, on the proposed date of their return, he was back with the news that they were missing. He stood bald-headed and genuinely saddened under the tatty, crepe Christmas streamers and Christmas bells we had hung in the flat. They’re all military personnel, he assured us, so if captured they’d be POWs, every chance of survival.
At what point of things did they go missing? I asked.
I can’t say, Foxhill claimed. I don’t know myself.
But radio messages? asked Dotty. They would have sent a radio message if they were in trouble.
No, Foxhill insisted. They haven’t. Look, for all we know they might have taken some native vessel and be on the way home as we speak.
Don’t play us for fools, Dotty warned him, her eyes blazing.
But I was rather taken with Foxhill’s scenario.
Of course, he said, he would tell us as soon as he got any more definite news. He invited us both to his place for a lunch, and I said how kind that was and that we would see if we were free, but when he left Dotty told me, with tears in her eyes, Bugger playing happy families! Did you sense this would happen? I could sense it. Bloody Rufus! I knew it!
We stayed in that night talking and comforting and sobbing and all the hopeless rest. I felt a mad urge to go out looking, as if he could be found in quiet streets running back from the Yarra. Next day we went to work, and kept our news secret. Dotty arrived home after me and cried out, To hell with staying in and moping. Let’s just go out to the Windsor for dinner.
For some reason it seemed exactly the right thing. We dressed, and made ourselves up and called a taxi.
As we walked up the stairs of the hotel we could hear the festive buzz from within the dining room. The Windsor had that pleasant young woman in black who met us at the doorway of the restaurant and told us there that sadly there was no table available until a quarter to nine. Indeed the tables seemed all taken, by military men and well-dressed women. Dotty obviously felt a primal rage at this unknowing girl, because I felt the same. Dotty told her in a voice thin as a skewer to fetch the head waiter. She fled and got him. He sailed up, a tall man, with his forced smile on his lips, and asked dubiously whether he could help us.
Dotty said in the same thinned-out, furious voice which had compelled the young woman, Our husbands have just been reported missing in action. All we want is a meal. Just get us a table. And not one in a broom cupboard somewhere. A decent table. Otherwise we’ll yell the roof in.
He looked at me for help, as the one with the less turbulent features.
We’re fed up, I confirmed. Why aren’t half these home front warriors missing in action, and not our husbands?
As I spoke I saw a change come over his face. No longer the bland bestower of tables, he nodded at me and a weariness of grief entered his own face. He too had been the receiver of frightful news. He had dead or lost children. He said he sympathised with us, and of course he would try to find us a table. Just give him a minute.
I thanked him. But I had changed. I was unabashed by Dotty’s act, and by my own. But it had taken a lot out of us. Dotty dealt with every suggestion of the elderly waiters with a high, clipped voice, whereas I wasn’t sure what anyone was saying to me. Two British naval officers seated nearby were quick to move in and ask if they could join us. The wifely primness, if that was what it was, that had sustained me up to the point of knowing Leo was actually officially missing, not merely hiding somewhere in some archipelago, seemed to have simply run out. I could not be bothered telling them to go away, not in the face of Dotty’s manic, serial-smoking, serial-drinking eagerness for the diversion they offered. They were from a British cruiser presently in Melbourne, and the elder of the two did not seem to be able to believe his luck in finding a sparkling-eyed Dotty, full of a stored energy he hoped was sexual. He wasn’t as good as the younger officer in sensing that there was really something demented about us. This time, I could tell, Dotty would find comfort in repelling and punishing him in the end. The younger one held junior rank to the other but possessed immensely more sensibility. It would count against his ever becoming an admiral, I suppose, though I doubt he ultimately wanted that anyhow. My young officer was so lacking in expectation that I was able to talk to him about real things, and it was pleasant.