What the Light Reveals Read online

  Conrad pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘No, I don’t believe it. Fergal’s way more senior in the Party than me. What have I done to arouse suspicion?’ He walked to the window, nothing out there but a blind strip of land inside their side fence, overgrown with grass weed and buckhorn and bull thistle.

  ‘Look who else they’ve called, though. Ordinary people like us. From all over the country.’ She frowned at his back. ‘Would you come and sit down, please?’

  He turned, but stayed at the window.

  ‘There are pages of interviews with the Petrovs in today’s paper. Their side of the story, if anyone would believe it,’ she said. ‘But there’s also an article about yesterday’s hearing. About some fellow from Blacktown who works for the council’s roadworks depot who they’ve accused of passing information to Russia.’ She watched his eyes pinch tight behind his thick glasses. ‘As if there’s an obvious connection between a council labourer, Australia’s military strategy and the Russian embassy in Canberra.’

  ‘That’s just the papers being a trumpet for our Prime Minster,’ Conrad said. ‘They’ve got to, because none of these files Petrov has promised have anything in them. Months and months of hearings and stories in the news about Soviet spy rings but no one sent to trial.’

  ‘Vladimir bloody Petrov! Does anyone really think a third secretary at the Russian embassy in Canberra would be some kind of spy master? A third secretary?’ She untied her apron and hung it from a hook behind the door. ‘But Connie, if they can call up an ordinary worker from Blacktown, they can do it to an engineer from Richmond. And then it’ll be your name plastered across the papers, you being slandered.’

  Conrad shook his head. ‘If they were going to serve a summons, they’d have come to the door. How were they to know I wasn’t home?’

  They did come to the door that following Monday, just as Ruby had succeeded in nursing Alex to sleep after several encores of ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’. His bedroom was at the front of the house, the sash window looking out onto the narrow wooden verandah and three neglected rose bushes squatting inside the Murphy’s low picket fence. At their loud knock she peered around the edge of the window blind and thought about not answering the door, tiptoeing down the narrow hall to the kitchen and waiting them out. But they saw her there.

  It was the shorter one who did the talking. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Murphy,’ he said, sounding cheerful. The taller man just stood there holding a yellow envelope, the Australian Government’s coat of arms printed in the corner.

  Blood pulsed in her ears. ‘Shush!’ She stepped through the door so quickly she had to stiff-arm the talker off the welcome mat to make room for herself. ‘My two-year-old is asleep, right inside this door, and if you can’t keep your voice down you’ll have to leave.’

  ‘Is Major Murphy home?’

  She harried them further off the verandah and followed them barefoot along the path. ‘Major Murphy?’ She cast an eye down the street in case they had an audience. ‘Conrad hasn’t been in the army for years.’

  ‘We’re aware he is no longer in uniform, Mrs Murphy. It was a courtesy.’ He smiled without parting his lips. ‘We need to contact him on an urgent matter.’

  ‘What urgent matter?’

  ‘We need to talk to your husband in relation to our inquiries.’

  She tucked a stray curl of hair behind her ear. ‘And you’re from ASIO?’

  ‘Mrs Murphy, we simply need to talk to your husband.’

  Ruby imitated his thin-lipped smile. ‘I heard you the first time, but what business do you have with him?’

  The tall man’s arms hung limply before him, one hand hooked over the other wrist, relaxed, like he’d heard this exchange many times before. He held the envelope by its corner, between thumb and index finger, almost delicately.

  ‘This need not concern you,’ the short man said.

  ‘Really?’

  The unlatched gate creaked, blown by a gust from the north. Ruby hoped it would pluck the summons from the ASIO agent’s fingers and whisk it away too quickly and too far for anyone to give chase, as if whatever was to come could be so easily prevented. ‘He’ll be home at half-past five,’ she said, turning back to the door. ‘Why don’t you wait in your car?’

  The men remained at the gate.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, closing the front door and crouching behind it, heart pounding.

  Within seconds they knocked again.

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ she said too loudly. Alex began to fret.

  They loitered outside the door, not the slightest rasp of a dried wooden board. ‘We’ll contact him in the city then. Thank you, Mrs Murphy.’

  Footsteps retreated to the gate, its hinges giving a muted screech. An engine growled across the road before the car cruised slowly away from the house.

  Ruby ran down the hall on the balls of her feet, Alex’s crying chasing her at every step. In the kitchen she snatched up the phone. ‘They’re coming,’ she said when Conrad answered.

  There was a moment’s silence before he spoke. ‘Did they have a summons?’

  ‘They had it, but I closed the door on them. And they called you Major Murphy.’

  ‘Did they, now?’ he said. ‘I wonder …’

  But Ruby didn’t have time for his wondering. ‘Come home now,’ she said. ‘Or go for a walk. Go to the library. The pub, even. Just leave before they arrive.’

  ‘I’m not going to do that. I’ll wait.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Ruby …’

  ‘Don’t Ruby me, this is serious.’

  ‘I know it is.’

  ‘Fifteen years in prison. That’s what they told Rupert Lockwood he’d be serving. Is that what you want?’

  ‘But I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m not a journalist like Lockwood. And there’s no running from this. They’ll serve the summons sooner or later.’

  ‘They’re not going to accuse you of journalism, Conrad! They’re going to accuse you of spying for the Russians.’

  ‘Hollow threats,’ he said. ‘That’s all it was with Lockwood. Nothing more. For him or anyone else.’

  ‘But they’re snakes.’ She shuddered. ‘And when it’s you in the dock I don’t want them to decide it’s time to follow through with those threats and recommend court action.’

  Conrad didn’t reply; there was only a burst of mechanical scratches and crackles. Ruby imagined him at his desk, trying to hide behind quietly spoken words and judicious pauses, but giving himself away with the resin-dry twist of his skin against the cold bakelite as he throttled the receiver.

  ‘Since they asked for Major Murphy,’ he finally said, ‘maybe it has something to do with the war? My post to England?’

  ‘It’s started now, Connie,’ Ruby said. ‘Really started. Just come home. Please, before they get there.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m going to wait.’

  * * *

  The ASIO men knocked on Ruby’s front door for the second time late on Thursday afternoon, the day after Conrad boarded the Sydney-bound train at Spencer Street. He should have arrived at Central Station that morning, but whether or not he had she didn’t know. He hadn’t called.

  She’d been out the back with Alex, the chook house door unlatched so her three hens could high-step about and pick at the dusty ground. Katherine, Susannah and Pritch were their names, after Katherine Pritchard, who’d been a compass for Ruby ever since she could remember. Those chickens were her girls, her children, and for a long time it seemed they were the only children she’d ever have. They were reluctant to share the backyard with Alex so Ruby kept him in the pram. Even then she had to stay close because their clipped wings didn’t stop them leaping up to peck out their disapproval of Alex’s arrival in the flock.

  When the rapping of knuckles echoed down the hall she set the pram’s brake and reached inside for Alex. She recognised the hatted outlines of her two visitors through the door’s mottled glass panel.

  ‘Is Major Murphy
here?’ Again, it was the small one who did the talking. His colleague was empty-handed.

  ‘Why would he be here? You sent him to Sydney.’

  The ASIO men shot each other a glance. ‘So he’s not here?’

  Beads of sweat sprung to Ruby’s forehead. She moved Alex to her other hip. ‘No, he’s not.’

  ‘Can you tell us where he is, then? Can you explain why he hasn’t kept his appointment with his lawyer?’

  She examined the doormat beneath the men’s feet, looked past the two pairs of trousered legs to the ends of the verandah’s boards, roughened by time and weather. ‘How do you know about my husband’s private appointments?’

  The thin-lipped smile she remembered from the first visit spread across the short agent’s face.

  ‘I don’t know where he is,’ she said, closing the door. She didn’t hide from them this time and she didn’t hear the verandah boards creak or the gate swing dryly on its rusted hinges. She hugged Alex tighter as she walked down the hall. In the kitchen she put him in his playpen and picked up the phone.

  ‘Bellevue Guesthouse. How can I help you?’

  ‘My name is Ruby Murphy. I’d like to speak with my husband, Conrad.’

  ‘Just one moment.’ There was the sound of pages being turned, then a repetitive tapping. ‘Mrs Murphy? He was due yesterday evening, but I haven’t seen him yet.’

  ‘That’s odd,’ Ruby said. ‘Could you please ask him to call me when he arrives?’

  She paced the hallway, picked up Alex and paced some more, then laid him back in his playpen and called the railway people, who told her the train had only just arrived at Central Station, after having been delayed due to mechanical failure. After she hung up, Ruby lifted Alex from his playpen and sat with him at the table, his wide eyes staring at her as he clapped his hands.

  CONRAD

  Conrad rang the bell at the reception desk. From a back room came the sound of slippered feet hissing across linoleum, their owner arriving without looking at him. ‘Hmm?’

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ he said, short of breath after his brisk walk from the station.

  ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘You’re only just checking in, aren’t you?’ She slapped her chest. ‘Aren’t I a dolt.’ Her hand darted from place to place, searching for a pencil. ‘And me being so casual.’

  ‘It’s quite all right,’ he said. ‘I’m Conrad Murphy.’

  ‘Mr Murphy, welcome.’ She extended a clammy hand across the counter. ‘I’m Claire Lacey, but please, call me Claire.’

  Conrad took her hand and gave it a single, too brisk shake. ‘Pleased to meet you, Claire.’

  ‘We had you down for yesterday, didn’t we?’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘The train was delayed.’

  ‘Are you up on that train from Melbourne? The one with the locusts? I just heard about it on the wireless.’

  ‘Locusts it was.’ He bent a wrist to check his watch. He wanted to call the lawyer and Ruby. ‘We were stuck in the middle of nowhere.’

  ‘That’s perfectly all right, Mr Murphy. Your wife called not ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘She didn’t say.’ The landlady retrieved a key from one of the pigeonholes behind her. ‘Here we are.’ She pointed over Conrad’s shoulder to a stairwell, its carpet flattened but not worn at the centre of each run, its dark wood railing cherry red under layers of varnish. ‘You’re up the stairs, second on the left. The bathroom is directly opposite.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What brings you to Sydney, Mr Murphy?’

  Conrad hesitated. He’d never before felt the need to be untruthful about his beliefs, or to conceal them. Since the commission, though, judgements against people holding his beliefs had become institutionalised, journalised, more biased. More negative. Telling someone now that he was a communist would be like confessing to a shameful secret. A sin. Reason to be put against a wall and shot. He was resentful and confused and unprepared for these small personal interactions with such a bigoted public context. And as of the next day, he would be right in the middle of it.

  ‘Mr Menzies asked me to come,’ he said, stupidly.

  ‘Well, government business, is it?’

  Conrad lifted his feet up and down, as if standing still risked the soles of his shoes adhering to the carpet.

  ‘It’s not the royal commission?’ There was a worrying hopefulness in her voice. ‘The espionage one? In the papers?’

  Conrad cleared his tightening throat. ‘As a matter of fact, it is, yes.’

  ‘Are you involved in that?’ The landlady placed a hand either side of the ledger, spreading her weight across the counter and showing too much sun-mottled cleavage. ‘Thank goodness there are people like you who’re willing to stand up for what’s right, that’s all I’ll say.’ She slapped her hand against the counter, beaming at him.

  Conrad held on to the lip of the reception desk.

  ‘It’s an honour to have you staying here. Defending the country,’ Mrs Lacey said. ‘No less important than the fighting. Were you involved in the war, Mr Murphy?’

  ‘World War II? Yes, I was in the army. An engineer, though. Not in the trenches.’

  ‘But you were over there?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Conrad nodded. ‘In London and Birmingham for some years.’

  ‘Ah well, you were right in it, then, weren’t you?’

  Conrad checked his watch again. ‘I really must …’

  ‘Oh, good heavens, look at the time! And here I am going on and on. You’ll probably want to call your wife?’

  ‘If I could, please.’

  ‘Well, enough of this.’ Mrs Lacey paused for a moment. ‘Come to think of it, let me just swap that key for you, Mr Murphy.’

  Conrad handed over the key without thinking.

  ‘You’ll find this room a little more comfortable. Has its own bathroom.’

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ Conrad said. ‘I’m sure I’d be …’

  ‘But you’ll never know, will you?’ His landlady pressed the new key into his palm, closing his fingers around it. ‘Up the stairs and right to the end of the corridor. Lovely balcony overlooking the garden.’

  Conrad gave a resigned grin and Mrs Lacey let go of his hand.

  ‘The royal commission,’ she said. ‘Oh, don’t say more, I’ll understand if you can’t.’

  ‘There’s really nothing to tell.’ Conrad scanned the reception desk. ‘But I wonder if I could use your telephone?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Murphy. Just through to the left in the sitting room.’

  ‘And perhaps I could ring my lawyer too, if I may? Please, just put it on my bill.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that, Mr Murphy. Make those calls and I’ll keep on with my chores.’ The landlady swept her hand across the ledger, as if working an invisible dust cloth. ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I’ll have it up in your room for you.’

  ‘That would be lovely, thank you.’ Conrad stood at the door to the sitting room. ‘Black, please. Weak and black.’

  ‘I’ll just pop the kettle on.’

  The telephone rested on a small round-topped table between two floral armchairs. The room felt unused, like a display in a shop window. He stood, listening to the house while he collected his thoughts. The kettle’s whistle carried clearly through the wall, so anything he said would be easily heard. His lawyer had left for the evening, but the moment Ruby answered the phone her voice was loud enough to carry through bluestone.

  ‘Conrad, is that you?’ she said. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Perfectly fine. The train broke down.’

  ‘I’ve been so worried.’ There was a tremor in her voice. ‘Couldn’t you have called?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Rube. We were stuck a few hours south of Wagga. And you’ll never guess – there was a swarm of locusts!’ He waited, listening. She was breathy but silent. ‘Ruby?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she sa
id. ‘They’ve been again.’

  ‘Who’s been again?’ Conrad walked to the sitting room door, the phone cord on full stretch. ‘Our friends?’ Across the reception area he saw Mrs Lacey’s feet climbing the last steps visible below the ceiling line.

  ‘The same two. And they knew things about you.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘That you hadn’t kept your appointment with the lawyer.’

  ‘Really?’ He could hear Alex prattling and wondered if he was on her hip, inches from the phone. He returned to the armchair but stayed on his feet. ‘Maybe they think I’ve done a runner?’

  ‘But how would they know?’

  ‘Ruby,’ he whispered, ‘can you keep your voice down?’

  ‘Are there people with you?’

  ‘No, but the walls are thin.’

  ‘Conrad, how would they know such things?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, but fell quiet. ‘They gave me enough money for a plane so they could’ve found out I wasn’t on any passenger lists.’

  ‘What gives them the right …?’ The tremor had crept back into her voice.

  ‘And they’d know who the Party lawyers are. They’ve represented plenty of others before me.’ He walked back to the doorway and stooped low, in case Mrs Lacey might be lurking on the stairs, just out of sight. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But this is awful, Conrad. We can’t live like this!’

  ‘After tomorrow, hopefully, we won’t have to.’

  Ruby snorted.

  ‘Hopefully it will stop.’

  ‘Why would it?’

  The landlady’s feet appeared at the top of the stairs.

  ‘I should go. Wish me luck.’

  ‘Don’t trust them, Conrad.’

  ‘I won’t, Rube. Why would I?’

  ‘Promise me.’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘They need someone to be guilty.’

  He listened. His son was still close to the phone. ‘Give Alex a kiss from me. I love you.’

  He rested the receiver on its cradle as gently as if it were crystal, then sat in the armchair, tracing a fingertip along a raised seam in its upholstered wing.