A quarter, you said?
Yes, he said, a quarter, please.
He leaned up against the counter, steadying himself, she could hear him breathe, she could see his hand holding on to the counter’s polished edge, she could see the bones and a meandering of veins. The peppermints rattled into the scales. The brass shone against the darkness of the shop, focussing the eyes, and she was glad, because she did not want to look up.
It’ll soon be the races, he said. It ought to be good for trade.
We always do well in Race Week, she said.
His voice was tired. She did not, could not look up as she watched for the weight of the peppermints on the scales. She felt a sudden tingling of hate, a smarting. The peppermints fused in a white coagulated lump, then
resolved slowly with the waning of emotion, and she put them into a paper bag, specially stamped at Moorang with an A
RTHUR
Q
UONG.
Thanks, Miss Quong, he said. We all have our little weaknesses.
She smiled, not so much at him as at the shining scales. Then he was going out. She looked up and saw the back of Ernest Moriarty stooped in the square of light. He was putting the bag of peppermints into the pocket of his coat. He was bent and a little tired. But his physical appearance made no impression on her, intent on this sudden emotional spasm that came up out of her body after weeks of almost indifference. She saw Ernest Moriarty going down the steps. She hated him. He went on down the street towards the school, walking slowly to save his breath. She could not pity. She stood still behind the counter and felt her hatred ebb slowly away, leaving no print on her small immaculate life.
Amy Quong’s emotional life seldom came so close to the surface. Love or hate lurked, or stirred with a vague motion in the more secret depths. She was not intentionally secretive. She was not actually passionless. Emotion was just a mental state that she did not actively reveal, that anyone would sense instinctively, anyone at all close, like Arthur or Margaret, who were intimately linked up with the emotional life of Amy Quong. Arthur sensed it, in their humdrum, almost inarticulate intercourse, when she called him in from the stable through the smell of pollard and the quaking of heavy Muscovy ducks, when they sat on the verandah of a summer evening, or went leisurely over
the stock. Margaret too was conscious of a subtle emotional link, felt it as their heads bent by lamplight making up the books, felt it on the evening when she cried close against Amy’s shoulder, at once both tender and hard, with its offer of intimacy and protection peculiarly expressed. Because there was a core of hardness in Army, as in most people who are self-sufficient. She could close up. She was a piece of stone. And there is no pity in stone.
She stood by the counter in the darkness of the shop. Moriarty went outside, passed into the light. She felt the weals on Margaret’s wrists, the tears damp on the shoulder of her dress. She hated Moriarty. It was suddenly there. She could not help it. After these months, springing up at her out of this chance contact as she weighed out the peppermints. He came into the shop. She felt she had been waiting for this, some definite contact that was even more necessary than the sight of Margaret’s weals. She heard him breathe. They said he had asthma. They said his wife was carrying on. She picked up the weights one by one and laid them down at the side of the scales with the clinking sound of brass.
Afternoon, said Hagan, coming into the shop.
She looked up at him, composed behind her spectacles.
Good afternoon, she said.
Her voice was quiet and soft.
What’ve you got in the way of chocolates? he asked.
Well, she said, it depends.
No, it doesn’t. Not at all. The very best. That’s what I want. A sort of occasion. See?
She looked at him unperturbed, as if he was trying to
rattle her and it simply wouldn’t come off.
You’d better have a pound of these, she said. They’re two-and-six the pound.
Make it two, he said. It’s an occasion, after all.
He straddled across a chair, looking at her as she ladled the chocolates out of the jar, her brown hands busy in the coloured foil. A mousy, frightened little thing. He sucked his teeth with a mingled thoughtfulness and contempt. He had passed him going towards the school, exchanged nods without a tremor, because—well, you couldn’t say it was the first time, and you got used, not like that cove in Moree, meeting him at the pub and looking down into the beer, Andy Walker the name, and what’ll you have, he said, and call me Andy, he said, and she said, oh Clem, I’m potty, now don’t be afraid, dear, I told you he’s gone to Narrabri, looked down into the beer then as if that poor coot Walker might have known the way her suspenders snapped back against her leg. And Moriarty went down the street. Were two-and-six the pound. Who said a Chow didn’t profiteer, the Chows and the dagoes, and nobody putting a spoke in the bastards’ wheel, or what would she say this little brown mouse of a Chow if you did.
Seen you in town a lot this week, she said.
Yes, he said thoughtfully it came out in a lazy hiss, tilted down at the floor. Yes, he said. One thing and another, there’s been a lot to do. Can’t send in any of the men. They always hang round magging at the pub.
Her checks were dim and polished. He could not see her eyes. She was looking at him vaguely, not altogether conscious of his presence, except for what it signified. The
chocolates rustled in the paper bag. Ernest Moriarty went down the street. She felt again that odd mounting of hatred inside her, that climbed up and took her by the throat, tightening it, though without any outer visible emotion. She felt out of breath. She felt her heart. They said his wife, that pink slut, that morning with the egg dried on her bodice, was carrying on with Hagan, so Mrs Everett, so Mrs Ansell said. Amy Quong’s mind slid primly over the actual fact, the detail of adultery. As a fact it made her blush. It was too intimately connected with Walter Quong not to deal discomfiture. But she seized on the significance of adultery and Hagan and Moriarty’s wife with a kind of inner exultation. She pushed the chocolates along the counter towards his hand.
That’ll go down, Mr Hagan? she asked.
Eh? he said. Yes, you can put it down.
Put them down, but not the hard ones, Clem, she said, they stick on me plate, as she stuck her tongue up into a chocolate cream, licking out the cream like a rabbit, or snuggled up, or made yourself cosy, she said, and Clem dear, what I’d have done if you hadn’t come, or wrote, Clem dear, Friday afternoon, I love you, dear, and didn’t know what it meant to have something in my life and that night only I was afraid if someone came up the lane because I’m not really bad, Clem, and only because this is the real thing there was never any woman as happy as me so you’ll come on Friday won’t you Clem oh God it makes me crazy waiting for you and thinking that perhaps you won’t, your loving Vic. The paper smelt like violet soap.
He looked up suddenly into the spectacles of Amy
Quong, behind which, in the darkness of the store, he could not see the eyes. He got up casually off the chair.
I’ve a couple of horses being shod. I’ll have to be getting along, he said.
Hagan went out of the store, his body slabbed against the light, across the verandah and down the steps. Hagan went on up the road. Amy Quong stood in the doorway watching his casual walk and the way he tossed the paper bag in his hand. There was a sharpness about the afternoon that was not altogether autumn. Her fingers trembled. She clenched her hands in a ball. She seemed to he gathering herself into her small circumference out of which, on this autumn afternoon, a flow of unexpected passion had forced her to expand. Now, she said, now. She was a little frightened, a little unclean. She lifted up one hand and smoothed the white collar at her neck, brushing the shoulder to which clung the memory of Margaret’s tears. Then her eyes became distant again, unconcerned with the figure of Hagan taking its time up the street and losing itself at the corner as he turned.
He tossed the chocolates up and down in his hand. On Friday, won’t you, Clem. He felt he didn’t want altogether, and the way they always went on like this and didn’t know when to stop, until you said it’s got to stop, any sane person’d see it couldn’t go on for ever, though he wasn’t the man to deny any woman her fun. Then they began to cry. Well, it hadn’t come to that, not yet, though you could bet your life there’d be all that song and dance. Your loving Vic. Your hating Vic. A holy terror between the sheets Friday or Monday or whenever it was. Knew that night against the
fence that he knew her little game, had met it before. That was the trouble. It made you sick. He clicked the catch of the gate with the air of a man who knows that after all there isn’t very much left to know.
Vic Moriarty inside heard the gate click, flattened up against the door, as she waited. It made you jump. However many times you heard it, though it wasn’t really many times, it made you jump. Sometimes she said, I didn’t really mean it to be like this. Lying in bed, and night, and it was only Ernest, his snore, she said it, but without conviction, she said who’d have ever thought it was going to be like this, that morning on the road, if Daisy knew, and all those people in MarrickvilIe, that Mrs Who’s-This with the stiff leg who carried on and said things when Mrs Caulfield ran off with the bloke on the motor-bike, as if it was any concern of hers. That was the trouble, and people didn’t understand. Because I’m not real bad, Vic Moriarty told herself. She felt herself coming over in that queer way. Like opening the door to Him.
Hello, Lollipop, he said.
He smacked her on the behind that yielded with the soft report of complaisant flesh.
Oh, Clem, she said, not chocolates again!
No, he said. Oysters.
His hat landed neatly on an oak peg in the hall.
You’re bold, she giggled. That’s what’s the matter with you. And I’m slimming, she said. Oh dear!
Go on, he said. You can tell me something else.
Really, she said. Look. I’ve taken off quite a lot from the hips.
She pressed her hands on her flanks. There were dimples on the backs of her hands.
I suppose there’s no harm in a girl amusing herself, he said.
Then he put his arm round her waist, looked down in that way that always got them, was a sure fire, if you closed your eyes a bit you had them eating out of your hand.
Oh, Clem, Clem, she said, I’m glad you’ve come.
And why shouldn’t I’ve come? he asked.
Pressed herself up, was easy as a house on fire, with violet soap, or whatever it was, or dusting herself with powder, that big puff with a pink ribbon she had in a jar on the chest of drawers, was like a big pink puff, or two.
Eh? he asked.
I dunno.
It was only Tuesday.
You don’t realize, she said.
No. We never do.
She began to pout. The line of her lips looked wet. She had painted it in a bow.
You’re cruel, she said.
He squeezed her face.
Want to go bye-bye?
No, she said.
It made you laugh, the way they carried on, when it didn’t make you sick.
All right, he said. We’ll go on standing in the hall.
She shrugged her shoulders, stood in the silence of linoleum squares, and the smell of pickles from lunch. Hagan began to laugh.
I think you’re a swine, she said. She went down the passage in a tap-tap of yellow linoleum squares.
Yes, she yawned, I think you’re a swine.
When you turned over the bed wheezed sleepily. Lying in bed at night, sometimes you were not quite sure which was Ernest and which was bed. Poor Ernest, who was also a twinge of conscience. A fly on the ceiling scraped its wings.
What? he said.
Nothing. I meant to get this bloody mattress teased.
Had said to Ernest, and it was winter, not that night going to the pictures, and perhaps she had a cheek to write, but she couldn’t hold out any longer so had to write and say…
Did you get a surprise when I wrote? she asked.
When?
Silly! The first time, she said.
No, he said lazily.
I like that!
The bed wheezed as he turned over. Talking in the afternoon was a bit too much of a good thing, and she always had to talk, if he put up his shoulder as protection would still talk over the ridge.
You’re not very sociable, she said.
Her voice did not altogether mind. It stroked him, her hand stroked his arm, tugged at the small reddish hairs. There was an accent of voluptuous achievement in Vic Moriarty’s gesture, in the cadence of her voice.
You don’t know what it means to me, Clem, she said. That first time. I thought I’d go crazy, Clem.
The yard droned with afternoon. He thought he would like to go to sleep. The room was a blur through half-closed eyes.
You’re not going to sleep, Clem?
She put her arm under his neck, bolstered up his head in a way that could only be uncomfortable.
What do you think I am? he said. A machine?
Face looked over him sagged down, was a sag, was Vic Moriarty, a pink blur. He opened his eyes and frowned.
You needn’t speak like that, she said.
Anyway, it’s time I went. There’s those horses waiting at the blacksmith’s shop.
Have it your own way, she said.
Her breasts shook with resignation as she fell back on the bed.
And there’s Ernest, he said.
Why d’you have to say that?
There’s always Ernest, he said.
She looked at him as he got off the bed, stood with his back to her in the light quenched by the half-drawn blind. His back looked hard. She wanted to get off the bed herself, and touch him again, to make sure. Saying things like that. And he did not love her, she knew, was hard, like his body. He began to put on his pants.
You needn’t bring in Ernest, she said.
No? he said, from the depths of his shirt. All right, then, we’ll leave him out.
She turned away her head. She did not want him any
more. Talking about Ernest. Ernest’s lips were blue that night. But she felt good. He made her feel good. She rubbed her cheek against the pillow and heard him putting on his boots.