Thomas Keneally - A River Town

At the same time, somewhere, at the core of the house, in an unimaginable cool place, pale and lovely Mrs. Malcolm waited for the summer to complete its course.

They had a maid, an old half-caste lady named Primrose, and she was the one who always took the deliveries. Primrose shuffled to the back door when he knocked. He asked her kindly to fetch Mr. or Mrs. Malcolm.

Old Primrose said Mr. Malcolm was already at the office. (Bloody Ernie so industrious!) She would have to go and see how Missus was.

She was gone so long that Tim thought—with some relief Kitty wouldn’t have approved of—that today he would not need after all to ask for payment, and put Ernie and his wife to any test. In daylight the urgency of the demand was mitigated… He could well wait a day or so before putting the hard word on anyone. He didn’t want people, especially an admirer of Alfred Lord Tennyson, to call him hungry , to lump him in and say, “They’ve always got their hands out, those fellows.”

But Mrs. Malcolm did all at once appear in the back area, near the kitchen and the curtained-off space where Primrose slept. Strands of her hair were coming loose from their ribbons, and though he had never imagined such a thing, it was understandable on a day like this, when any sane woman not on extreme personal display would feel entitled to let her hair stray. And yet there was something heightened about her. This was the further stage of the bewilderment she’d shown first at Bert Rochester’s funeral. He had never seen her face exactly like this though. It wasn’t a colour that could be explained by the heat.

“Tim,” she said, licking her pale lips. “Hello.”

She did not normally call him Tim. She was in fact as far out of her normal character as his father had been in the dream.

“Come into the dining room. Come! Come!”

He obeyed her, entering through the curtain she held aside and standing by her varnished table while she swayed by the hallway door.

“Would you like tea?”

Her head weaved about as if to cast up the possibility of tea.

“I don’t need any, thank you kindly,” said Tim, since he did not want to turn his shame at finding her like this into a social event.

“But Primrose,” Mrs. Malcolm called, “Mr. Shea must have at least a glass of water.”

Primrose appeared, went to the tap which came into the house from the water tanks, and poured Tim a lean tumbler of tank water. She held it up to the light.

“The wrigglers still in it, Mrs. Malcolm,” she told Mrs. Malcolm, inspecting the larvae which flickered in the water like tiny, luminous eels.

Mrs. Malcolm laughed greatly, walked up to inspect the glass, then sat at one of the chairs by the kitchen table.

“A man like Tim won’t mind those. A solid fellow and such a good batsman. You won’t mind them. Will you?”

He said not at all. He wondered aloud could he have a word. At an inexact nod from Mrs. Malcolm, Primrose disappeared out of the dining room and then through the outer door into the heat-hazed back yard and the cookhouse.

Tim reached into a pocket in his coat and brought out the Malcolm account.

“I hope you won’t mind this, Mrs. Malcolm. Your account is nearly four months overdue now. I just wondered if you could take the time to raise the matter with Mr. Malcolm. You see, it’s not me. But the Sydney business houses demand payment within three months at the latest. I’m very happy to extend good credit to you and Mr. Malcolm and I value…”

Mrs. Malcolm held up his explanations by raising her hand. She said, “ ‘I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: Borrowing only lingers it out, but the disease is incurable …’ ”

He must have been frowning and she laughed sharply. “ Henry IV . We did both Parts I and II at the Brighton Town Hall on successive nights… Rather… rather neglected in the Shakespearian repertoire.”

“Oh yes. I’ve never actually heard the quotation before. But you always surprise me, Mrs. Malcolm.”

Never more than now.

“Don’t worry. I know your clients in the Macleay play on your good nature, Tim. I see it. I have an eye for it. It’s happened to me too. But I am abashed… abashed…”

She lowered her head and swung it from side to side. This was bad to see. He was certain that this was drink. Though at the cricket she had not taken even a sip of ale.

“Ernie should be doing this,” she stated. “Hell and damnation, Tim. He’s an accountant.” She started beating the table with the palm of her hand. “He should come to account. ”

She stood up with a jerky suddenness.

“I shall get you the sum, Tim. What is it again?”

Ashamed, he read the amount of the bill.

“At once, at once,” said Mrs. Malcolm.

But she seemed hit by bewilderment or loss of memory, and so did not move. She made a whimpering, and raised her hand and put her forehead against the back of the palm.

Tim touched her elbow to get her moving, to bring her back to earth. “Please, don’t go to any trouble or be upset. I should have gone perhaps to Mr. Malcolm’s office.”

“Oh,” she said, “you don’t know what Ernie’s offices are. I, Mr. Shea, have been the object of them, and know well his offices.” She raised an index finger to her lips and let out a long sustained, theatrical shush. “I believe the petty cash is in the tea caddy. Pound notes with your name on them, so to speak. Housekeeping money. A second, Tim.”

She disappeared through the kitchen door, and he heard her stop for a while in the corridor, confused again. He could not follow her there though. “Oh well,” he heard her say.

He disliked anyhow the stillness of kitchens in the heat of summer days, when a woman had gone to count and get money, sometimes sighing as she came back with it. At these moments he felt that smallness threatened his heart. A commercial boredom drenched the air, and he felt he’d lost and betrayed the better part of his vocation in life.

It had been cleaner and more suitable when he had worked as a haulier. Everyone expected to pay hauliers.

Mrs. Malcolm tottered back with an antique tea caddy in her hands. She opened it and inspected the bank notes within. Then she selected and took out a five pound note and gave it to Tim.

“This is more than is owed,” said Tim, appalled.

Mrs. Malcolm’s head swayed again.

“No. We’ve put you to the inconvenience. We should now give you in simple decency an advance against our next account.”

“No, I’ll give you change.” He began to search in the leather bag in which he carried his delivery money. Mrs. Malcolm held out her hand, palm forward. It was pretty dramatic. Isabella telling the grandees to let Columbus have a go with his three little boats. Helen of Troy refusing to go home. Elizabeth the First rebuffing a gesture of affection from the Queen of Scots. Mrs. Malcolm uttered noises of denial too, which sounded like “Chut, chut!”

“But I didn’t ask for more than is on the bill.”

“I understand that. But I will be very offended if you try to slip the change to Primrose. That won’t be tolerated, Tim.”

“Then I’ll give you a receipt,” said Tim.

She did not object, and he got the receipt book from the pouch he carried and began to write. At the bottom of the receipt, he showed the credit of more than one pound, and underlined the sum. He tore out the page and gave it to Mrs. Malcolm.

“You will point out that receipt to your husband. A credit, see.”

“I can’t guarantee he’ll take notice,” she told Tim, an ordinary woman with the ordinary sourness she’d been forced to. “He has had a number of preoccupations.”

“I’m very grateful,” said Tim, straightening up from his work in the receipt book.