Beth could feel the women’s need to be listened to. They felt invisible, like her. Like her they wanted to be someone. Beth took a deep breath. A man hammered away on a typewriter in a far corner of the room. He looked over at her, nodded, and went back to his typing. She wondered what sort of women had a man working for them. What sort of man was willing to work for women?
‘He’s our secretary,’ said Clara. ‘We have many men members, more than you might imagine. Some men believe in the emancipation of women and certainly in our current goal of ending this war.’
Beth sipped her milky tea. Clara held out a case filled with gold-tipped ladies cigarettes and Beth took one to be polite. After all, this was going to be a new Beth, so why shouldn’t the new Beth smoke like any sophisticated city girl?
‘And who have you got here, Clara? A new recruit for us?’ Beth thought the woman holding out her hand was older than Clara, maybe in her late forties. She had lovely thick dark hair and even darker eyes. Beth tried to imagine her younger and thought she was probably very pretty when she was young. The woman looked like she had been a housewife all her life, someone who had brought up her family and was now a grandmother. She wasn’t the sort of woman Beth had expected to see here — she seemed too ordinary, too nice. There were no edges to her, her softness made Beth feel at home.
‘Here, dear,’ the woman put a pamphlet into her hands. Beth looked at it: The Woman Voter.
‘But don’t we have the vote?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said the woman, ‘but we have no rights. I always say that the position of women is the barometer by which a society can be measured. A society truly rises from barbarism when women have true equality. Adela, come and meet our new recruit,’ she called to a younger woman who excused herself from the two women she was talking to and came over to join them.
‘What we want now is for women to vote against conscription at all costs. We must fight for peace and stop this bloodshed of our boys. There would be no war if women ran the world. Don’t you think …?’
‘I do think and my name’s Beth,’ she said, and she thought of Theo buried in foreign dirt and she had to agree that saving the boys’ lives was something worth fighting for.
‘Where are you from?’ asked Adela, who was perhaps the same age as Clara. Adela had none of the softness the older woman had. Beth could feel her astringency, it was there in her clipped words and the way she held her shoulders back, as if she was ready to fight the world.
‘Ballarat,’ said Beth and both the other women laughed.
‘Oh, we’ve both spoken in Ballarat, haven’t we, Vida?’ Adela said to the older woman.
Vida. Beth remembered Paul writing letters in support of Vida Goldstein. This had to be the same Vida, surely.
‘I think my employer wrote letters in support of your election to Parliament. Paul Cottingham.’
‘Oh yes — he invited us to speak in Ballarat. He’s a wonderful supporter of women’s rights. It was just a shame he was the only one in Ballarat to do so. We didn’t go down too well there, did we, Adela?’ said Vida.
‘Ballarat is like that,’ said Beth, feeling traitorous as she so easily distanced herself from her home. ‘It can take a while for things to change. People are suspicious of new ideas.’
And she thought how Paul supported women’s rights but wouldn’t let Edie work. He said that wasn’t a matter of rights, it was a matter of privilege and as Edie had privilege she needed to leave jobs for women who didn’t.
‘Yes, well, you’re our first and only Ballarat recruit apart from Paul. You’d think the spirit of the Eureka Stockade would have lived on, wouldn’t you?’ said Vida.
Beth shrugged. ‘People got shot in the stockade.’
‘How long ago did you come from Ballarat?’ asked Adela.
‘I arrived an hour ago,’ said Beth, and all the women laughed and she laughed with them.
‘Goodness, child,’ said Vida, ‘where are you staying?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Beth truthfully. She hadn’t thought that far ahead.
‘She’s staying with me,’ announced Clara. ‘I have a spare room.’ She smiled so warmly at Beth that Beth heard herself say, ‘I’d love that.’
‘Are you going to join us this afternoon? Do you think you’re up to it?’ asked Adela. ‘What do you think of your new housemate, Clara? Is she up to it?’
Clara looked into her eyes and Beth thought what beautiful green eyes she had. They were like green leaves after rain.
‘What do you think, Beth? Do you think you’re up to being a protestor?’
Beth didn’t think she was, but nodded anyway. She had nothing else to be and nowhere else to go.
‘Good,’ said the women. ‘We have a demonstration on in Spring Street this afternoon. You can come.’
‘I won’t get arrested, will I?’ Beth asked.
‘Quite likely,’ said Adela. ‘It happens all the time. Do you want to subscribe to our paper, The Woman Voter?’ She nodded at the pamphlet in Beth’s hand.
‘She can read my copy,’ said Clara, saving her.
By afternoon Beth was signed up and wrapped in purple, green and white ribbons, holding a placard that said bring our boys home and marching up and down outside Parliament House on Spring Street. While the other woman protested against rising food prices and men ruling the world, Beth stood beside Clara and railed against
