Читать книгу One Life - Kate Grenville - Страница 13

FOUR

NANCE DIDN’T tell Maggie what she’d been so close to doing. Didn’t even think of telling Mrs Glendon or Wal. In that moment with eternity she’d touched the edge of something that lay beyond their world. She could be dead, and she’d chosen not to be. Her life was hers now. She was free to do whatever she chose.

She couldn’t get away from the pharmacy or the university, but she could get away from having to pretend all the time with the Glendons. Moira had told her about St Margaret’s Hostel for Women. It was around the corner from Stevens’ shop. You got a bed in a room you shared with another woman and they gave you breakfast and dinner. Twenty-five shillings a week, the same as Bert was paying Mrs Glendon. She’d save on tram fares, and get to sleep for a little longer in the morning.

Churchy, you know, Moira warned. Grace at meals, all that. And you have to go to church of a Sunday. But not bad people, do their best for you.

The gleam of polished lino and the smell of cabbage at St Margaret’s were depressing, and the rules were strict. Just the same, her only regret was that she hadn’t moved earlier. She shared a room with Meg Naughton, a girl the same age who was at the Teachers’ College. Meg had some frightening ideas. She was an atheist, she told Nance the first night. Best be straight about it, Nance, she said. They can kick me out if they have to, but I won’t be a hypocrite. And she was a socialist. Nance knew the word, sort of, and with anyone else she’d have bluffed her way through, but Meg was someone you could ask. Very simple, Meg said. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. That’s my belief. To Nance that sounded fair and sensible, especially when you looked out the window at the world.

But Meg’s ideas went in other directions that Nance couldn’t follow. Men keep women down, Meg said. Keep us uneducated, keep us poor. Far as I’m concerned, that means marriage is nothing more than legalised prostitution. Nance thought Meg was wrong, but she wondered if that was just because she’d been taken in like all those other women. Meg didn’t mind when Nance disagreed, urged her on, in fact, because she loved an argument. The unexamined life is not worth living, she’d say. What if we agreed about everything? We might as well not be alive.

With Barbara from along the hall, Meg and Nance would get the train out to the Blue Mountains or the Hawkesbury River on a Saturday for the afternoon. To get away from the city for a few hours was bliss: to see the bush tossing in a clean sea breeze, smell leaf-mould underfoot, cup your hands and drink from some swift cold creek. Always with an eye on the time, and the shop waiting again at six o’clock, but a reminder that there was a life beyond the pale-green walls of the pharmacy and the grim streets of Enmore. Meg said this was a chance to remember how small a person’s life was in nature’s big picture.

On Sundays she went to the Glendons’ for the family lunch. She knew she should invite Meg, too, her family was at Broken Hill, even further away than Nance’s. The trouble was, she knew Mrs Glendon would find Meg’s ideas shocking, and Wal wouldn’t understand a woman with such firm opinions. It would be too hard to be the go-between juggling the different parts of her life, the old and the new, around the same table.

It was common knowledge among the first years that half of them would fail. Barbara had done Chemistry the year before and helped her, but Nance was sure she’d be one of those failures. Her father’s money would have been wasted. So would her year of hell.

The results were pinned up on boards in the quad in late December 1930. At the top of the page there was a note in red ink: X denotes female student. The women were all Miss, where the men just had their initials. She supposed the men who made up the lists would say they were being polite. But she hated being singled out like that.

She’d passed. Fifty-four in Chemistry, thanks to Barbara. Fifty-eight in Botany. That was a credit. Only two of the other women had passed: Mavis Sherlock and Marjorie Hyder. Marjorie had come within one mark of topping the year in Chemistry. In Botany she was ten marks ahead of the nearest man. They had to give her dux and the Gray Prize. Marjorie was a small quiet woman with a square face that was usually hidden under her hat. Today she was flushed, had pushed her hat back as if to say, Yes, I am Marjorie Hyder!

Nance felt as if the year behind her was a ragged landscape of mountains and valleys she’d trudged through, a road with no rests and no glories. She thought, I got through that. I can get through anything.

She wondered what would have happened if her parents had been unadventurous and contented with their lot. She’d have grown up in Gunnedah, left school at fourteen as they had, married a farmer, had six children. Gone to her grave without knowing how to calibrate a pipette. It would have been a happy enough life, but Meg would call it unexamined. Yes, she wanted to meet someone, get married, have children. She wanted to be happy. But she knew now that she wanted something else as well.

Over Christmas she spent one of her two weeks’ annual holiday in Tamworth. The town was quiet. Half the shops were closed. The Cally had a hangdog look. A panel of iron lace had fallen off the verandah and a rusted downpipe had left a long red stain on the side wall. The dining room had an unused musty smell and the laundry was silent. Mrs Chipp was the first to be let go, I bet, Nance thought.

Dolly had become small and sour. She mostly stayed in her room with a headache. Bert tried to be hearty but you could see the cracks. He disappeared for hours at a time. Frank was still out at Uncle Willie’s, working for board and keep. Max had left school when the Depression hit. He was helping out in the Cally now, except no help was needed.

It was Max who told Nance that their father was mixed up with some woman living up on Paradise Street. He’s, you know, head in the sand, Max said. With the Cally going downhill. She’s like an escape for him.

You reckon Mum knows, Nance said.

Reckon she does, Max said.

The woman on Paradise Street made Nance understand her mother for the first time. There’d have been other women, Nance realised now, heaven knew how many. Benni in Temora was one, but every town, every pub, would have had a woman who caught Bert’s eye. It was why Dolly was forever wanting to move. Another town, another hotel. All she could do now was retreat to her room. Perhaps Meg was right about marriage.

Nance leaned on the windowsill of her old room, looking up at the washed-out green of the hill behind the town. There was nothing for her here. Only that failing hotel, the cranky mother, the father muddled up with some other woman. If this had ever been any kind of home for her, it wasn’t one any longer.

In 1931 Nance started second year. That was Materia Medica, the nuts and bolts of being a pharmacist. From the recipe books of the British Pharmacopoeia and Martindale’s, the students learned the exact ingredients, in Latin, of any medicine a doctor might prescribe. The Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary told you exactly how to make it. The students learned about patent medicines, profitable for the pharmacist but mostly alcohol and sugar. How to know when to send the customer to a doctor. When to let them think you were one. The lecturer told them, If a customer comes in and says, Are you Doctor Jones, simply say, My name is Jones.

The male students could see the finish line in sight, their professional lives waiting for them. Every one of them was ready to look a customer in the eye and say, My name is Jones. For the women it was different. They knew that life as a female pharmacist—or pharmaciste, as one of the instructors insisted—was going to be no easier than being a female pharmacy student had been. There’d be customers who wouldn’t believe you were the pharmacist, who’d go elsewhere rather than trust a woman.

Two other women joined Nance and Mavis and Marjorie. Christina had a sad beaten look. It had taken her two years to squeak through Chemistry and Botany. You couldn’t imagine her behind the counter bossing people around. Ada was a friendly Jewish girl who had a knack for thinking up little ditties to remember the hundreds of formulas they had to learn. If you want the bowels to move to please yers, take rhubarb, ginger and both magnesers. See, Nance, Ada said. You’ll never forget that now, as long as you live.

From working in the shop, Nance already knew about macerating and decocting and the rest of it. Compared to first year, Mat Med was easy. But by the end of winter things were catching up with her. Every day it was the same: the big old alarm clock going off at half-past six, the quick wash in the bathroom down the hall, breakfast, the walk to the pharmacy. If Mr Stevens wasn’t there yet, she had to wait outside. A pharmacy couldn’t be open unless the registered pharmacist was on the premises. Unlock the door, go into the smell of the closed-up shop: privy and peppermint, and the ghosts of a hundred thousand prescriptions. By the end of the day all the spirit was leached out of her.

Three weeks before the exams, the minister came from St James, as he did every Sunday, to give communion. As soon as he gave the first blessing Nance could hear what a terrible cold he had. She watched him raise the chalice and take a sip.

Two days later she woke up with a piercing headache. Every joint hurt, her eyes felt loose in their sockets, she shivered and sweated. People came and went, some spoke to her, but she was too sick to care. Meg sat with her and sponged her face. Matron pushed a thermometer under her tongue. A hundred and four! Nance heard her say. Best get the doctor.

A few days later she still had a sore throat and a cough and the world had a grey look, as if her eyes were too tired to see in colour, but the headache was mostly gone and her joints had stopped aching. Matron came again with the thermometer. Back to work tomorrow, Miss Russell, she said, as if promising a treat. In the morning Nance could hardly stand and Meg had to help her button her cardigan. Mr Stevens was shocked when he saw her but he didn’t send her home. Two weeks later she did the exams.

She only got forty-three in Materia Medica. She’d been too sick to study so it was no more than she deserved, but she’d hoped for a miracle. Here she was, failed, along with poor silly Christina, whose eyes were big with tears and whose lip was trembling. She’d only got twenty-two. That was a definite fail. Nance’s mark gave her another chance. She could sit the exam again in March.

She didn’t go home at Christmas. She slept and slept, and when she wasn’t sleeping she studied. Meg sneaked cups of tea and plates of biscuits up to her, though you weren’t allowed to eat or drink in the room. Made the bed for her, did Nance’s laundry for her. This is the darkest hour, Nance dear, she kept saying. Don’t let them beat you.

In February, Meg had to leave. She’d finished her teacher training and they’d sent her to Lawson in the Blue Mountains. Nance kept going with the study. Back from the pharmacy every night, have tea, get out the books. She had the room to herself. The hostel was cheap, but it was too dear for anyone who didn’t have a job. Half the rooms were empty.

At the second attempt she got fifty-eight. That was a credit. She looked at her name on the list but felt nothing, no triumph, no pleasure. Passing was the next thing she’d had to do, and she’d done it. There was no one to celebrate with. She went back to work.

In the third year of the apprenticeship, 1932, there were no more classes, only work in the shop and study for the Pharmacy Board exam at the end of the year. Easier, but lonelier. No one but herself and Mr Stevens all day and into the night. She’d keep the customers talking for the sake of their company.

Then Mr Stevens lost all his money in some wildcat scheme. Came to Nance one day and told her he’d have to sell up. Her first thought was, I’ll be out of a job. Whoever bought the business might not want the bother and expense of an apprentice. Let alone a girl. Now that would be unfair! But Mr Stevens surprised her. He’d only sell to someone who’d keep her on till she got her registration. Only right and just, he said. You’ve been a good little worker, Miss Russell.

The man who bought the business was Charles Gledhill. He didn’t mince words. He’d rather not have an apprentice. The minute she was registered, he was sorry, but she’d have to go. He was a pharmacist himself, but he was studying Medicine, so he put in Mr Bennetts to run the place. Mr Bennetts was a Methodist and the first thing he did was throw out all the FLs. She heard him giving the young men the rounds of the kitchen when they came in and asked for them. Your body is a temple, she heard from the dispensary. Mr Bennetts was a lay preacher and had a carrying sort of voice. She’d hear the shop door ping as some poor boob went out red as a beet.

Mr Gledhill came into the pharmacy every Friday night to go over the books with Mr Bennetts. One night he said, Think you could cook up a kettle on the Bunsen, Miss Russell? Parched for a cuppa. She could see Mr Bennetts was scandalised. Making tea on the dispensing equipment! Mr Gledhill was the boss, though, and in the end Mr Bennetts let himself be persuaded to have a cup too, and then Mr Gledhill brought a cup out to Nance in the shop. Mr Bennetts disapproved of that too and she drank her tea as quickly as she could, but thought, Now there’s a man with a heart.

Charlie Gledhill was a bright quick chunky fellow, only a few years older than Nance. He had a way of looking you in the eyes and listening when you spoke. A self-made man, she got that feeling, with his sights set on a life bigger than the Enmore Pharmacy.

He liked a laugh. Told her one night about the patient who brought in a script for ‘mist. ADT’. It should have been ‘mist. APF’—a mixture made up according to the Australian Pharmaceutical Formulary—so Charlie rang the doctor. Oh, the doctor said, the man’s a malingerer, I meant give him Any Damn Thing!