Patrick White - The Hanging Garden

Snaps. Nothing of Papa, Mamma, Cleonaki, Evthymia. We left in too much of a hurry and Mamma says, ‘Photographs become in time so much sentimental trash.’ Instead a lot of silly school groups. Kids alone or in couples. Ireen, Lily and Eva having it off with the camera. Only one of ‘Gilbert Horsfall’ (signed on the back). Essie Bulpit took it with her Kodak just as he moved. Gil is standing, a silver blur, against the sea wall. Like to have a good one — or three, or four.

This snap is something, perhaps it is even more so than Gil. Because you persuaded Viva to take her father’s Brazilian jungle head from out of its inlaid box and hold it in a good light to photo. Viva does not know whether to look sideways at the head, or squint into the sun and the camera. The head is cupped against her broad white hand and not quite recognisable. If you didn’t know. If it hadn’t become your talisman.

Gil comes in.

‘Done your packing?’

‘Yes. Are you sure this accountant bloke will come tonight?’

‘That’s what she said.’

‘It’s pretty sudden.’

‘Illness can be sudden.’ Sounds too prim, prissy. ‘Anyway she’s gone to hospital. She’s pretty crook.’

‘Might die.’

‘Oh no, I don’t think she’ll die.’ When this is exactly what you are expecting and fearing another chapter ending in death.

‘What’s this?’ he asks, taking up the snap of Viva holding the shrunken head.

You tell, not all of it, now that this black object, sacred after its fashion, has become your talisman.

‘Could be a fake.’ He throws it back on the table where you have been going through the snaps.

‘Why does everything have to be a fake?’

‘A lot is.’ He is looking distracted from all that is happening. His nostrils are perfect, like one of the poems Lord Byron carved on marble.

You could whimper, but instead ‘What did you do with that brooch?’

‘Oh…’ You might have hit him the way he jumps. ‘Threw it away. What would I do with a bloody brooch?

‘Could have given it to me. I could have worn it.’

‘Well, I didn’t. See? Wouldn’t have wanted you to wear the brooch. They might think I was on with you.’

You can both have a laugh at that.

* * *

Less laughter as the evening deepens. Neither of you knows whether you want to be apart or together, in the house, or the garden. You roam around and it is mostly, at last, apart.

You would have to be the one passing by the phone when it rings.

Ally’s voice, darker and furrier than normal. ‘… still at the hospital, Irene … very sick … she has no-one … Who has?… Two big children … learn to cope with a crisis…’ Ally must have sloshed down a couple of drinks. ‘… Keep you up to date. Bye dear.’ Crump.

O my uncle — God save us!

Gil breaks in. ‘Why doesn’t this Stallybrass chap come?’ His voice has climbed back to his present physical height, out of its Australian slump and sludge, back to its pure Englishness, the tips of his teeth transparent behind his parted lips.

‘Search me . He’s held up.’

With no-one in the room to accuse, Gilbert Horsfall would like to hold me responsible. He flops down on one of Essie’s protesting chairs, his long thighs, his long hands, a face which doesn’t bear looking at, no part of him accommodated to the Australian light, air, his skin has only reached a compromise with the Australian sun. Or anyone.

Nobody thinks of whether there is anything to eat.

‘Going to lie down.’ You are soon entombed on the ottoman, amongst the junk furniture Essie has hoarded, and her own dummy, its bosom full of death murmurs.

From the sound of things, Gil must have thrown himself on the narrow bed under the slanting, blown-up portrait of the W/O.

The telephone rings, but peters out in a couple of idiotic tinkles.

I am the idiot born to die sitting upright on the edge of this tomb-bed my mouth open but paralysed.

I am running a great distance.

We bump into each other halfway there. I can feel the veins in his long arms as we hold each other in part of the immense darkness. Who is leading who in this cruel tango ?

Who who who on the honeycomb of this narrow stretcher is holding who.

I am holding his head.

Is Gil crying or are our mouths watering together as he fingers only part of me a pimple to his finger,

‘Noooh…’

‘Go on, Reenee…’

‘Noh!’

His sharp nail is at odds with his dreamy mouth.

If I gave in and had a baby it would be less than this head I am holding protecting the soft jumping in a sleeping body the very first time I have held someone asleep.

All voices Mamma Cleonaki Essie Ally are united with the warning gong of daylight. And the unknown voice.

‘Anybody there?’ Rattling the rusty catch, the whole frame of the screen door:

Mr Stallybrass the accountant?

As we brush aside the untidiness of sleep, each dazed gummy face is taking possession of itself. Sleep has bruised us.

It is Gil who is being called on to exercise authority, which he does while buttoning up, thumping first across lino, then the splintery grey boards of the back veranda, ‘Coming, mister — sir … Mr Stallybrass?’

‘Couldn’t make it last night. Early morning’s the next best thing.’

Gil grunting.

‘Fetch your traps. I’ve got the vehicle waiting.’ Must want to get away quick as possible.

From the kitchen shadows you can watch Mr Stallybrass holding the screen door open for the quick exit of his new charge. Extracting this boy from a difficult situation and his own failure to do his duty is obviously child’s play to anyone of the accountant’s experience. His hands with the well-trimmed nails, the wristwatch and the signet ring, are firm, and fairly muscular. A bald head, gold-rimmed specs, and rather large spaced teeth, help increase the gloss and confidence of his smiles. There is no evidence that he has seen you, but he must have by now.

Gil comes carrying the two overloaded ports. The weight and his attempt at haste make him less manly than he would like to appear. His shoulders are hunched, his ribs visible inside the summer shirt. Round his neck he has attached his football boots by joined strings. (‘Hate this bloody football, but if you don’t go along with it they’ll say you’re a poofter.’) The boots make an almost jeering sound as they thump his chest.

You are forced out at last from the building by wanting to do, or say something — but what?

‘A girl…’

The accountant’s murmur is too vague, little more than a sigh, to convey either censure or approval. His smile remains in position probably out of habit.

Gil only grunts as he starts the struggle up the hill to the gate. Mr Stallybrass makes a move to help with one of the ports, then thinks better of it.

You run out after them, on bare feet over the chunks of broken concrete. The others must have heard, but Gil makes no sign of knowing you are there, while every one of the few hairs left to Mr Stallybrass between his bald dome and his starched collar is bristling with hirsuteness. It makes you feel quite naked inside your cotton frock.

Confrontation is avoided by arrival of the Lockhart Chev. Aunt Alison is unfolding as she drags herself out. She looks older, thinner than the day before. The rags of her burnt face are almost purple over white. She must have run short of cigarettes.

‘Alison Lockhart,’ she explains briefly. ‘Mrs Bulpit will have mentioned…’

Faced with Mrs Lockhart, Mr Stallybrass has lost a good deal of his confidence.

‘Of course, yes.’

‘I went with her to the hospital — spent most of the night there in fact.’

‘I hope…?’