The Golden Age

Most of the children go home for Christmas, but Meyer and Ida volunteer to serve lunch to those staying at the Golden Age so the nurses can have the day off. Frank is worried that his parents will embarrass him by acting foreign or criticizing Australia. He wishes Elsa could stay, but her father picks her up in the morning. Frank watches Jack hovering over her and knows that she must be frustrated by his pity.

Even though Warren Barrett finds it hard to understand why the Golds don’t celebrate Christmas, the lunch goes off well. Meyer entertains everyone by exaggerating his own accent and Ida plays Christmas carols on the piano. Meyer finds this new and unusual celebration strange, but not unpleasant.

Sister Penny has Christmas lunch with Elizabeth Ann at the house of her friend, Gillian. Sister Penny has never seen her daughter so happy and confident, but she feels left out by the family jokes she doesn’t understand and the general indifference to her presence. Sister Penny immediately recognizes that Elizabeth Ann is in love with Gillian’s older brother, Tim. Saying she’s needed at the hospital, Sister Penny leaves early.

Returning to the Golden Age, Sister Penny is inexplicably pleased to see Meyer. She feels that he’s much like here and that “nothing escapes him.” Ida plays Mozart before bed to general delight. Frank is relieved to see his mother on the piano, because for once she’s relaxed, in command, and not paying attention to him. When she plays piano it doesn’t seem to matter that they are a family of refugees in a foreign country.

Sister Penny, who rarely rests or listens to music, is struck by Ida’s excellence, which reminds her of her own instinctive skills as a nurse. She immediately decides that Ida must be persuaded to do a benefit concert for the hospital.

Like most of the children returning in the evening, Elsa is exhausted and incommunicative. When the children go home they’re reminded that family life has gone on without them, that their siblings are playing with their toys or sleeping in their rooms. Some are frustrated by their parents’ unconcealed pity, while Malcolm Poole is overwhelmed by his father’s insistence that he should be walking by now. Only Albert Sutton, the coddled youngest of six children, is reluctant to leave his family. When he cries, his oldest sister picks him up and dances him around the ward until he calms down.

At night, Frank goes to visit Elsa. By now he’s unused to spending a day without her; he has no one else with whom to share his feelings, or with whom he feels truly at home. Frank sits on Elsa’s bed and she tells him that he’s lucky not to have siblings. When he asks why, Elsa tells her onset story.

Before polio, Elsa had tennis lessons; her sister Sally was annoyed by this, because she wanted to play tennis too but instead had to watch baby Jane. During one lesson, Elsa felt sick and trudged home; when she reached the driveway, she collapsed on top of her bike. Sally came over and shouted that Elsa was late and that it was her turn to watch Jane. Enraged that Elsa didn’t respond, Sally kicked her over and over, until the neighbor, Mrs. Hoffman, pulled her away and saw that something was seriously wrong.

After Elsa tells her story, she and Frank sit in silence. Suddenly, Frank kisses her. Then, he returns to the Boys ward and starts writing in his prescription pad. Even though he’s devoted to Elsa, he feels some sympathy for Sally, whom he sees as “the unfavorite,” just like he often is.

When Meyer and Ida return home, Ida asks what he thinks of Sister Penny. Meyer equivocates, not wanting to admit that he feels drawn to her. Even though he loves and is faithful to Ida, he’s fundamentally private about his feelings and feels its within his purview to be attracted to other women. Ida is depressed that they celebrated Christmas in a polio hospital, but Meyer insists it was a good day.