Patrick White - The Solid Mandala

“I dunno which you think,” Holmes continued, “but I could do with a slice of Bill Poulter’s missus meself. Not that she’d come at me. Seems to got pretty funny ideas.”

“Ah?” His companion was again only formally interested.

The man Holmes, rocking on his heels, had lowered his chin to resist the intensity of an experience.

“Seen ’er making through the scrub with that bluey nut Arthur Brown.”

“Go on !” said the other, soaring to astonishment.

“Even in the street. Seen ’er ’olding ’im by the hand.”

The little beady person had whipped his head around, the better to visualize a situation, or actually to watch it happening on the screen of Holmes’s face.

“Mind you,” said Holmes, “for all they say, that Arthur Brown, I don’t think, could do more harm than a cut cat.”

The little one nearly peed himself.

“You can’t be all that sure,” he said, “the knife ’as done its job. Sometimes they slip up on it, eh?”

“Yer might be right,” Holmes answered. “And a woman like that, married to such a sawney bastard, she wouldn’t wait for ’em to put the acid on ’er.”

Then he looked round, and stopped, not because he noticed, let alone recognized Waldo Brown, but because his story was finished except in his thoughts.

All the way in the Sarsaparilla bus Waldo could have thrown up. And at tea. He pushed his knife and fork to the side. The pickled onions had never smelt more metallic.

Later on, he decided to have it out with Arthur, though he couldn’t think how he would put it.

Arthur was in the kitchen mixing dough for a batch of bread. His shoulders rounded over the bowl. His hair alight. The tatters of dough with which his hands were hung made them look dreadful — webbed, or leprous.

Then it all came out of Waldo, not in vomit, but in words.

“I want to talk to you,” he gasped. “This woman, this Mrs Poulter business, if you knew what you were up to, but it’s us, it’s us too, ought to be considered, if you did you wouldn’t traipse through the scrub, or in the street, the street , holding hands with Mrs Poulter!”

Arthur had never looked emptier. His face was as clear as spring-water.

“She takes my hand,” he said, “if I’m having difficulty. If I can’t keep up, for instance. If I tire.”

The bread, which was his vocation, had begun to grow difficult. The long, stringy dough was knotting at the ends of his fingers.

“Then,” he added, “Mrs Poulter is my friend.”

Waldo laughed out loud through the sweat which was bouncing off his face.

“Oh yes!” he laughed. “So they’re saying! That’s the point. Whatever the truth, that’s beside it. Don’t you see? And you’re degrading us ! Even if you’re too thickwitted to be hurt by what other people think and say.”

When suddenly the bread grew simpler. Arthur had freed his fingers.

“Mrs Poulter,” he said, “says we mustn’t go together any more. Her husband got offended.”

If you could believe that people were so simple, and Waldo couldn’t quite, but hoped. Dignity is too hard won, and lost too easily.

“Well, if you’ve decided it like that, between yourselves,” he said, “I congratulate you, Arthur.”

It made him feel like Arthur’s elder brother, which in fact he had become.

While Arthur’s overgrown-boy’s face was consoled by this simple arrangement. He went on simply to fill the greased tins with dough.

Not long after, Waldo overheard in the bus that Mrs Feinstein had died. It was a shock to him, not because he had felt particularly close to Mrs Feinstein, but the unexpectedness of her death found him abominably unprepared. (He would have felt equally put out if Mrs Feinstein, if anyone, Arthur even, opened the bedroom door without warning and caught him in a state of nakedness examining a secret.) At first he felt he didn’t want to overhear any more of the rumour the bus was throwing out at him. Then he decided to listen, and perhaps turn it to practical account.

To be precise, Mrs Feinstein had died several weeks ago, the informant was continuing, and old Feinstein and the daughter had now come to sort out their things before disposing of the house, it was only understandable, what would a man a widower want with one house in the city and another at Sarsaparilla.

The bus ran on.

Waldo was relieved Arthur hadn’t found out about Mrs Feinstein’s death. He couldn’t have. He would have announced it immediately.

So Waldo kept quiet. He would have to write, he supposed, although, when you came to consider, he had barely known the woman. Even so, Waldo composed several letters, none of which was suitable, one being too literary, another too matter of fact, almost bordering on the banal, a third, though addressed to the father, suggested by its tone that it was intended for the daughter.

So Waldo decided to walk over to O’Halloran Road quietly one week-end. It was a Sunday, as it turned out, which made his decision more discreet, formal in a way. As he walked, it even began to appear momentous. Could it be that this was one of the crucial points in his life? His mouth grew dry at the idea. He had, if he wanted to be truthful with himself, thought vaguely, though only vaguely, once or twice, that in the end he might decide to marry Dulcie Feinstein. Now her mother’s death was helping a decision crystallize by introducing a certain emotional compulsion and inevitability. It was obvious they had both been waiting for some such occasion to drop their defences and accept an arrangement which could only turn out best for themselves.

As he walked along the roadside, thoughtfully decapitating the weeds, Waldo went over the ways in which he would benefit by marriage with Dulcie. On the financial side they might have to skimp a bit at first, because he would refuse to touch anything Dulcie brought with her until he had proved himself as a husband. Nobody would be in a position to say theirs was not an idealistic marriage. The ring — they would decide on something in the semiprecious line, of course, though he would not suggest an opal, as some women were foolish enough to believe opals bring bad luck. Then, the home. Undoubtedly he would benefit by having a home of his own. A bed to himself. And the meals Dulcie would prepare, rather dainty, foreign-tasting dishes, more digestible, more imaginative and spontaneously conceived. Because food to Mother was something you couldn’t avoid, and which she had always offered with a sigh. But it was his work, his real work, which would benefit most. The atmosphere in which to evolve a style. The novel of psychological relationships in a family, based on his own experience, for truth, illuminated by what his imagination would infuse. One of the first things he intended to do was buy a filing cabinet to instal in his study.

It was all so exhilarating. He wondered whether Dulcie would affect surprise. More than probably. He doubted whether any woman, faced with that particular situation, ever came out of it completely honest.

When he arrived at the house Waldo was surprised to find it didn’t look any different. He had feared it might be wearing an oppressive air. As it wasn’t he felt relieved, though he couldn’t help wondering a bit about the Feinsteins. They had seemed very fond of the old girl.

He went up, and into the long room in which his relationship with the family had grown. Now there was a smell of dust, of furniture disturbed, of new, glaring packing-cases. Waldo almost protected his eyes. And heard his breath snore backwards down his throat on discovering his brother Arthur seated with Dulcie on the sofa. They were facing each other, their knees touching. Waldo couldn’t help noticing Dulcie’s, because her skirt was drawn up higher than usual, exposing the coarse calves which filled her black stockings. For at least she wore mourning.