Patrick White - The Eye of the Storm

In spite of the inverted corners of his mouth and a bitter taste, Sir Basil found reason for perking up at his still only half-shaven reflexion; snow could not have brought out the ruddiness of the skin, its morning glow, more brilliantly than the drift of lather. Then he began to laugh, and finished snorting for what he didn’t care to admit: that you were as remote in character from Lear and any of his attendant ‘forces for good’ as only the eternal bastard could be; if nobody else knew, God and yourself did. Who but Edmund, at a hint from the Guiding Spirit, would have taken plane for Sydney and Mummy’s bedside? The real, utter bastard: so much so, he nicked the lobe of an ear, the worst possible place, usually bleeds for ever, leads from fury to wretchedness and depression, unless the styptic, which had more than likely been left behind, along with the anyway useless pills against gout.

Murderously, while pitifully bleeding, Sir Basil rootled his overnight bag into worse chaos, to find an invisible styptic pencil among the lozenges, the Jermyn Street handkerchiefs, the useless and expensive tackle in leather and silver which acquaintances (the recent ones) force on you for journeys; rootling always more hopelessly amongst the crumpled notepaper, unanswered letters, and one small book.

There was this scruffy paperback of plays he had snatched off a stand at the airport, to protect himself with something familiar: Lear in fact, and in spite of bitter associations; a shield against Mitty Jacka’s last, still unanswered, for that matter, unread letter.

Here they were: in one hand a once more dogeared, smudged, pencilled Lear; in the other the latest directive in that awesomely elegant, convent-formed calligraphy from which he recoiled, hackles up; he couldn’t say he feared, when its absence from his letter-box made him resentful.

Her letters might have been love-letters, but they weren’t. There had never been a hint of love in their relationship: in his own case, perhaps the need to exorcise a dread of staleness with the dread of danger; in hers, he had not yet succeeded in deciding what.

He wouldn’t open the Jacka letter: he was already late, he realized, for the appointment with Arnold — yes, time you called the old bugger by his first name; and it wasn’t as though the letter hadn’t lain already several days ignored and crumpled in your bag.

Basil might have kept to his intention of snubbing the Guiding Spirit if he hadn’t taken another look at the glass, where he saw that the blood had started to clot, while glittering like a single jewel hooked into his left lobe. Distracted by this rather pleasing conceit, he found himself fumbling the letter out of its envelope, the parchment sheet still basically stiff and formal in spite of its martyrdom during the journey. Again he might have decided to postpone reading, if he hadn’t already begun sifting.

… those who are younger often allow themselves to be gulled by the old: by purblindness, which doesn’t necessarily prevent them seeing very clearly; or by some distressing tic they exaggerate because they have found it pays; or by a general pathos of old age. The aged are usually tougher and more calculating than the young, provided they keep enough of their wits about them. How could they have lived so long if there weren’t steel buried inside them? …

… beware of the saintly in particular: the tactics they employ are often the most subtly elastic. I believe aged saints are made through the waning of desire more than by the ripening of inherent sanctity; nor does diminished desire mean they cannot draw on a knowledge of the world they have been forced to renounce …

… dear creature, you can’t be unaware that my spirit goes with you on your flight. That you must succeed in your mission and return to collaborate in this work of ours, which will add another dimension to the art of theatre, is something I take for granted …

Hooey, of course! Still trembling, he sheathed the letter. As a young fool he had dabbled furtively in the arcane; as an old one, the possibility of controlling events normally considered uncontrollable often kept him awake at night. One of her more ribald associates had referred to the Jacka as the Witch of Beulah Hill. He had met her on a wet night, on the deserted upper deck of a bus: it could have been to compensate him for a walk-through performance in a sick contemporary play with which he had unwisely become involved. (‘They’ said he didn’t understand it, when — balls to them — he understood it so well he hesitated to convey its putrescence.)

The woman on the bus was dressed in black: woolly leotards under transparent waterproof cape; over her head, and tied beneath the chin, a scarf in colours which might have looked flaunted on someone less oblivious. The rain had brushed with as much of her hair as you could see, and freshened the long parchment-coloured face, the thin, naked lips, on which the last words spoken still seemed vibrating.

As the empty bus staggered and panted with suppressed speed, the woman’s body, her long legs and pointed shoes protruding at an angle from the seat, appeared to derive a weary and in no way voluptuous pleasure from its motion. Facing straight ahead, the half-lowered radiant eyelids and live mouth began to suggest that you might have something to say to each other, only it was up to you to confirm.

On a thumb of the hands laid together in her lap he noticed a ring, the twin of one he had sent his mother some years ago; he had often regretted parting with it, though the gesture had produced material results. As for the woman, she was aware of his interest in the ring, and could recognize a crucial moment.

‘Is it Ethiopian?’ He was pointing at the Orthodox cross in the nest of plaited gold. ‘I knew another, exactly like it — as far as I can remember.’

‘I can’t say. I haven’t asked’; and after a pause, ‘I took it from someone who didn’t appreciate what they had. It’s the only thing I ever stole — except flowers from over fences.’ The bus lulled her back into silence and a half-smile, though she appeared to take it for granted that it wasn’t the end of their conversation.

He was certainly fascinated, if also mystified by the woman across the aisle: ageless rather than old; not a whore as he had suspected at first; probably more willing to receive a stranger into her thoughts than into her still supple body.

Presently she said, ‘If I could choose, I’d lead my entire waking life at night. Well, I can choose, I suppose, and I do more or less.’ She turned towards him. ‘Don’t you feel more aware at night? Of course you must — Sir Basil Hunter!’

Recognition was common enough for him not to feel embarrassed in normal circumstances; but in this instance, a grey stare acted like blow lamps (cold ones) on any hidden flaws. ‘A lot depends on the performance,’ he mumbled while looking at his hands, at a place scarred by a forbidden jackknife; he must have been seven, or thereabout, at — at ‘Kudjeri’.

‘Day or night a lot depends on the performance,’ she agreed. ‘There are nights when I sit for hours — locked.’ She smiled at him with understanding. ‘This is where I change buses.’

Though nowhere near his destination, he got up and followed her down; they both seemed to find it natural, or at any rate she did not behave as though frightened; some women would have wanted to throw him off, star actor notwithstanding. It was simply that there was nothing sexual in their encounter; yet she was leading him, and he could feel himself more subtly possessed than he had ever possessed either Shiela Sturges or the Lady Enid, his official wives.

Her long feet reached for the damp pavement. He was standing beside her. They did not speak again till after she had chosen their bus.