Hello, said Margaret through her sweet.
Hello, he said back.
They stood together in the road, the silence lit with those random flashes of intimacy that will make a silence significant. And sometimes they talked and it had a sort of significance that was somehow not in the words, but behind, and whether talking or silent they were nearly always content.
We had duck for dinner, said Margaret.
I like duck.
I like turkey better, I think.
I like duck.
We had a turkey once for Christmas, and when Father cleaned it there were eggs inside.
He looked at her, pondering a mystery.
Were there many? he said.
Four or five. Some of them were soft.
Did you touch them?
She nodded. He paused a moment and wrinkled up his face.
Let’s go into the garage, he said.
They went inside the garage. It was impressively mysterious below the girders, the shapes and smells and the patches of green oil. You could see your face in a pool of oil, like in a bubble, a bit out of shape. The pumps in the open doorway were gaunt and tragic in the frail light. Inside the garage it was getting dark. A voice made an echo, felt its brief and muffled way along the line of drums.
Let’s make some aeroplanes, said Rodney.
They made them out of old circulars that advertised the Ford. He got up into the girders and he threw them down, so that in the half-light they fell fantastically at Margaret’s feet, or they brushed her hair, or she caught them in her hands like birds returning.
Shall we pretend it’s a war? he said.
No, she said, not a war.
All right, he said. Just as you like.
He climbed down out of the girders.
Fancy those eggs being soft, he said.
I don’t know, said Margaret. It would have been very uncomfortable if they had all been hard.
He rolled up one of the circulars, trumpetwise, and began to blow.
I wish I could play, I wish I could play a trumpet, Rodney said. I’d play in the band at the Show. But I don’t think I’m musical. Not like Father, anyway.
Margaret did not answer. He stopped blowing. It was pretty dark. Darker by silence too, by this sudden withdrawal of Margaret that he sensed, knowing why. There were so many problems enlarged by the silence in
this creeping darkness. They were both conscious of these. But they did not speak. Just as they had not spoken of the incident in the school, their minds had taken it and walled it up, it was something enormous and inexplicable that you did not try to explain.
Margaret, said Rodney suddenly, I expect we shall marry each other later on.
Do you think so? she said.
Her voice smiled.
I expect so, he said.
I shan’t ever marry, she said. I don’t want ever to marry at all.
She said she said that it was so much easier the two and she might have been a nun playing that arpeggio before the hands struck on the keys could not move he looked said go on. She held her arms tightly against her breast. They had not hurt much, it was only inside, not Mr Moriarty at all, nothing to do with this.
Why? asked Rodney carefully.
What? she said.
Her voice came back out of the dark.
Why will you never marry?
You’re too young, she said. You wouldn’t understand.
As if he was a child. It was the first time she had suggested this. As if she knew a lot more. But he knew a thing or two himself that Margaret Quong knew nothing about. Resentment altered his voice.
Anyway, he said, we’re all going away soon. Mother told me it won’t be long.
Going away she felt, is not so much Rodney but
someone else, but what will happen, will not be the same. You did not expect that. You got older, and that was something you knew, it would not be the same. She held her arms tightly. There was going to be a frost.
Lights had come in the houses. Men were talking politics and sheep. Rodney Halliday going home trod through fragments of light that fell from the houses on the way, brushed without hearing the chance phrase, the clattering of dishes at a kitchen door. He was going home. They were going away. His mind was large with the possibilities of this, which were greater than a momentary resentment against Margaret Quong. And what would She, when Antony had gone, standing at her door with cool arms. This was a thread his mind slit, rejecting this as something superfluous to the ideal pattern of Rodney Halliday driving to Sydney in a peal of bells.
When he got in Mother said:
You shouldn’t have stayed out so late, Rodney. I began to wonder where you were. Don’t tear up that paper, George. Do you hear what I say? George! Now run along, Rodney, and wash your hands. Then I’ll give you your tea.
I don’t want any tea, he said.
But you only had those sandwiches for lunch.
I’m not a bit hungry, he said.
Oh dear, dear, she sighed. George, you’ll knock that vase.
Rodney went out back to his room. The way people upset. He frowned.
Are you sure, Rodney? she called.
Hilda Halliday stood perplexed. She swept away a
mesh of hair with her hand. Her hand was large and bony, the wedding ring a little bit loose, because she was plumper when she received it from Oliver in the church. She was gaunt and narrow-chested. The wool sometimes caught in the skin of her fingers as she knitted socks for Oliver and the boys, or jumpers for herself. Her voice was the clicking of needles knit up with the vague protective softness of wool. Often now she stood perplexed, wondering how much she ought to know, or if there was really anything to know, and this only made her more perplexed, and at night she could not sleep, she coughed and turned about. Because morality was something you took for granted, you would not come into touch with the other, which was a quality in other people, the working classes or the very rich. She had been brought up like that, Hilda Halliday. You expected to come into contact with sickness, poverty perhaps, but never immorality.
George knocked his head against a chair and began to cry.
There, she said. My poor little boy. Come and let Mother make it better, she said.
She pressed George against her. His face was red and contorted with crying, his mouth gaping with sobs. She pressed his head tightly against her. George cried a little louder then, as if encouraged in his crying, as if he felt that she wanted him to cry against her chest.
There, there, she soothed. We’ll look at this nice book. We’ll look at it together, shall we? At the picture book. Look at the horse and cart, George. Look.
Oliver came into the room. He looked at her, was going
to speak, then went out to the dispensary. He looked angry, she thought, perhaps because of George. It made her cough.
Oliver, she called, she wanted to explain.
Her voice went out into the passage and came back unaccompanied. Holding George against her chest, his sobs, made her want to cough.
Look at the horse and cart, she said. That’s a piebald horse. Do you see the spots?
George calmed down now, looked at the piebald horse, his interest in outside things revived.
Why is he pieball? asked George.
Because he was born like that, said Hilda weakly. George looked at the page. She stroked his hair. It was rather pale and thin. Oliver was very kind when George was born. He leant over the bed and held her hand. Oliver lying in bed at night, asleep while she could not sleep, she wanted to touch him, she wanted to make sure of what, assuring herself by her touch that could not assure. Oliver lay in bed, but so far distant, like Queensland distant, and perhaps there was really no means of bridging this, Happy Valley was permanent. The thought of winter made her afraid. And writing letters, she said, this is no positive assurance, we shall remain. We shall remain.
Hilda Halliday lowered her eyes. She did not let herself think about her, she would not let her exist, at least in the way that made you lower your eyes. Oliver scraping his boots too long on the iron mat. Oliver coming in. Sometimes it flickered up inside her, her anger, and Oliver coming in, as if she did not know, and the children crying in their sleep fed this anger, or softened it and she felt she wanted
to cry. Sometimes she cried to herself and her nose got red, only her nose. As if she did not know. And he tried to be considerate in other ways, and that made it worse, she wished she was dead.
Isn’t that a fine big pig? she said, stroking George’s hair.
If she were dead. It made her stroke his hair. Dr Bridgeman said, it’s all right, Mrs Halliday, if you take care of yourself, you must rest, and I’ll see to that, Oliver said. And now it had started again, when she moved the dresser to get at that spoon, the mahogany they bought at Beard Watson’s was heavy on clawed feet, must drag, made her sit down, her handkerchief was red. That made her afraid, put up her hand to her chest, but if she were dead would not care, would Oliver, would Rodney, would George. It made her hold on tighter to George. It made him want to get away.
It’s time you went to bed, she said.
George began to cry again.
Mother’s very tired, she said.
I’m not tired, screamed George.
Oh dear, sighed Hilda Halliday. Her feet felt cold.
Oliver said they ought to light a fire. The forks clattered coldly on the plates as they ate their meal.
There’s going to be a frost, he said. We’re getting on for winter, you know.
Her feet felt cold.
Yes, she said. But the fire isn’t laid. We’ll have to leave it for to-night.
In his pocket the letter that Garthwaite had written lay warm, should tell her this that she was waiting to be told,
that they would go away, but not yet, he could not tell her, go away yet. He hated himself. Hilda’s face was hollow and tired as she turned up the wick of the lamp, the softness of the light hardening the contour of her face. It made him want to give way to pity, but pity was suicide. If I start pitying Hilda, that is to kill myself, he felt, the person that Alys has made, that is me, and now I must sacrifice it, I must pity Hilda, must go away. So he sat there hating himself.
Yes, she said. But it’ll be warm up there.
What? he said.
In Queensland.
She was breathing rather fast, he saw. His hands tightened on the knife and fork.
We don’t know yet, he said.
You haven’t had a letter?
No.
As if she knew, she knew he had the letter he was hiding from her.
You didn’t get a letter yesterday? she asked.
Why all this cross-questioning?
No, Oliver, she said, and her voice went softer, and he thought she was going to cry. No, I shouldn’t, she said.
She looked away. He hated himself.
We’ll go in time, he said.
The way you clung on, tightened up in opposition to Hilda, made yourself, as if there could be no reason for going, and Rodney and Hilda just incidental, or…He pushed back his plate.
What’s the matter? he said.
I don’t feel very well, said Hilda.
Her face was pale and bony in the circle of light, flushed on the bones, or perhaps it was the light. The lids of her eyes were heavy with shadow. She drooped.
Hilda, dear. Wait just a little longer, he said.
He stood behind her chair, felt her tremble as he touched her shoulders that were frail. If not as frail as the will, because you were weak, clinging on like this, there was no other word for it.
Why? she said, leadenly.
It fell into silence that there was no need for either of them to break. They knew the reason for silence. Then she began to cough, leaning with her elbows on the table and putting up her handkerchief.
Hiding from him something, this, that he knew, he knew it as she knew what she would not say, say to Alys, we are going away, Alys, because Hilda is very ill, she has been ill for a long time, or I am ill, the will, that is no will, sometimes it breaks or you give it to someone else, as I have given myself to you, and you have made me into something superior to myself, but which I must throw away, because of the world I must throw away because Hilda is the world, poor, sick, and there is no forsaking it.
I wish I were dead, Hilda said. Oh yes, I do. There’s no use your opening your mouth to contradict me. I know it’s best. We all know it’s best. Then you could make something of your life. You and the boys. I’m only a drag.
There was a grey, hammering tone about her voice. He did not want to listen to it. But he was held there by necessity. He had to listen. And he would protest against her saying what she knew he knew to be true.
Then she began to cough again. She turned away. She put her handkerchief up against her mouth to stifle the coughing. He could not bear to see her cough.
Hilda, darling, he said, you mustn’t talk like this.
He knew it sounded trite. He put his arm round her shoulder to try to atone for it. But she got up and went away, and he was touching air. There was a flush of red on her handkerchief. She went out of the room, still coughing, trying to hide the blood from him as she had done once before.
And it was no good. It would be better if she died. Just as she said. And Alys was up there, he loved her, he wanted her, there was something strong and productive about loving Alys. Loving Alys was not just existing, it made him believe in something more.
It began to grow hot in the cold room. His thoughts were hot, his head. Flapping its soft, plushy wings, that moth beat up against the lamp, pressing out of a dark sea towards a yellow island of light. Alys stood in a circle of light, the wave bent, the shore crumbled musically. What time was it by candlelight, she said, when the wax fell on her arm. He put his hand to his forehead, holding it there in a fist. He could not think clearly. He must not think like this, because he was undergoing some kind of moral disintegration. It was a matter of time and Happy Valley, their subtle corrosion of the will. It was wrong to love Alys. It was rotten and disintegrating, his love for her, and he was making her part of his own moral collapse. As Hilda saw, who was will to escape, unswerving in this. She also loved him.
That gramophone playing down the road dissolved. A still, soft playing, the stillness playing like insects, or a moth. He must go away. They must all go away. He went into the dispensary to write to Garthwaite, to say that in August he would be ready to leave.