Patrick White - The Solid Mandala

“Mind you,” she said to Mrs Dun, “I wouldn’t want to live up here, though it’s nice and bright. You can live your own life down there.”

“It’s snug down Terminus Road.” Mrs Dun wriggled on the lumpy seat.

The eyes of the two women followed the tunnel which led inward, through the ragged greenery and sudden stench of crushed weeds. You could hide behind a bush if necessary.

“It must have been a comfort, though, when Mr Dun retired from the railways.”

“Yairs,” Mrs Dun admitted, and would have made it higher if some phlegm had allowed. When she was again free, she blurted: “It took getting used to at the start. Then it was a comfort. Hearin’ ’is boots. Before that I used to think: they could come and murder you in broad daylight. Often do, too.”

It was long-winded for Mrs Dun. Mrs Poulter was surprised. She was surprised at the substance of it. But she did not comment. Her lips were slightly open, as when she listened to the dahlias and heard nothing except the thick green silence.

When the bus jolted her back to the surface of her normally bright nature — you could always rely on the bus — she said: “With us, there’s the neighbours. There’s the Mister Browns opposite.”

“Who?”

“The two brothers. Two twins.”

“Oh,” said Mrs Dun, suspicious.

“Two retired gentlemen. Like Mr Dun.”

“Never ’eard of ’em,” said Mrs Dun, as though she were cranky, or a man.

“But I told you. Or didn’t I?” said Mrs Poulter.

Mrs Dun might have got crankier if the easement of confidences had not stretched before them through the flannelly atmosphere of the bus. The private lives of other parties act as the cement of friendship. The Brothers Brown could be about to set the friendship of the friends.

“You’ll see,” said Mrs Poulter, “when you come down to my place. Though their hedge has grown thick by now. That’s for privacy like.”

“A ’edge is all very well,” said Mrs Dun. “You can’t be seen. But praps there are times when you’ll wanter be. When someone’s got you by the throat.”

Mrs Poulter decided not to bother.

“The Mister Browns have got a veranda,” she said, and sighed. “Only it’s sort of different.”

“How?”

“It sort of comes up to a peak.”

“Oh?”

Mrs Dun could not believe.

“Mr Brown senior — that was the father, they was there before we come — Mr Brown told me the front was in the classical style.”

“Waddayaknow!” said Mrs Dun.

Words made her that nervous.

“Of course I don’t know,” Mrs Poulter said, “but that’s what the father told me. He had their weatherboard home built with a veranda sort of rising to a peak. He was an educated man, they say. One of the white-collar workers,” Mrs Poulter added, not without sucking in her lips.

“A what collar?”

“He was at one of the banks, and read books in ’is spare time.”

Mrs Dun shrivelled somewhat.

“They come out from Home,” Mrs Poulter said, “when the boys were only bits of kids.”

Mrs Dun was partly pacified.

“All these foreigners,” she said, “we are letting in nowadays. I admit the English is different.”

“Oh, Mr Brown senior was a gentleman,” Mrs Poulter said. “But not any better than us.”

She came as close as she would ever come to tossing her head.

“Once Mr Brown give me an old raincoat for Bill. Mr Brown was sick, and you couldn’t refuse, but Bill took the coat and threw it down the gully.”

Mrs Poulter could feel that Mrs Dun was vibrating approval.

“But Mr Brown was a good man. Now Mrs Brown — that was the mother of the two boys — she was always doing a favour. Even to her own husband. She was good too, mind you, but she never stopped letting you see she had thrown herself away.”

“How?”

“I can’t tell you exactly how. She was the lady. You never saw such beautiful lace insertion. Some of it she dipped in tea, for variety like.”

“You don’t say!” Mrs Dun was entranced.

The bus was jolting only softly now, bowling along like your own thoughts. Because Mrs Poulter was growing misty with the past her friend felt it at last her duty to direct her.

“What became of them?” she asked. “The parents of those two boys?”

“Passed on,” said Mrs Poulter, mastering something. “Mr Brown was the first. His wife took her time. The boys looked after her, and saw their mother was comfortable.”

“Appreciate a mother,” Mrs Dun murmured.

And Mrs Poulter lightly touched the white chrysanths she was protecting on her lap.

“What did they die of?” Mrs Dun asked, suddenly, feverish.

Mrs Poulter had hoped to avoid it.

“Mrs Brown died of something incurable,” she said, looking out the window at the solid homes. “Mr Brown, so they say, was disappointed in his sons. Anyways, Arthur. Arthur had been his favourite.”

Mrs Dun sucked the warm air, past her plastic gums, down the extended webbing of her throat. She waited, though.

“Arthur is not all that bright,” Mrs Poulter confessed; she could have been protecting Arthur.

“But must of done somethink. To retire from.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Poulter. “They put Arthur with Mr Allwright. He was there all ’is working life. He was clever with figures — in spite of all. He knew where everything was on the shelves. He knew what people wanted, sometimes even better than the customers themselves. Arthur mightn’t of retired if Allwright hadn’t died and ’is widow sold the business. Though she carried on for a bit with ’er sister, Mrs Mutton.”

Mrs Dun waited, but could not wait long enough.

“What’s the other one called?” she asked at last.

“Waldo,” said Mrs Poulter.

Mrs Dun’s teeth snapped. Shut. She made a slight worrying sound.

Then she said: “What sort of a name is that?”

“I dunno!” Mrs Poulter sighed before laughing. “One of the names people think of. The father was only George, but I expect Mrs Brown wanted to go one better, at least for one of the twins. It was all those books. Mrs Brown used to read, too. Like ’er husband. You’d see ’er with ’er crochet, or a bowl of peas. They put Waldo to the books. Waldo was at the Library.”

Mrs Dun hissed. She was terrified. In the circumstances it did not occur to her to ask which ever library. Then she remembered, and announced rather primly:

“Mr Dun was in the Information. He was good at the timetables.”

“Well now, you see,” said Mrs Poulter, impressed by the logic of it, “he would have something in common with the Browns!”

She turned to investigate her friend’s seamed and yellow cheek, but Mrs Dun was too discreet to cash in on anyone’s approval.

Mrs Poulter was a pigeon-coloured woman, whose swelling forms, of a softish stuff, seemed to invite the experimental pin. Often got it, too. Mrs Poulter was sometimes moved to smile at strangers, until they started frowning back. She professed to Love All Flowers, and grew a few as a side line, lugging them to Barranugli to a florist, though usually only when there was a glut.

“They’re taking you down !” Bill used to shout.

“But what can a person do?” she answered. “When they need them for the wreaths.”

Her husband would have spat if it didn’t normally happen indoors.

“You’re simple,” he said instead.

“That is how I was born,” she replied.

“You ought to move in with that pair of poofteroos across the road.”

“There’s more in the Brothers Brown than meets the eye,” she would defend them.

“I bet there is!” her husband said, doing things with his tongue to the tooth which was always with him.