Patrick White - The Eye of the Storm

Nor Viddie Vidler. ‘Must be that, I’d say. They’ve had all the time and the money. And Sir Basil — he’s a great actor. Anyway, they made him a Sir.’

‘He’s a gorgeous man. Going a bit in places. But lush. How civilized I wouldn’t like to bet. Personally, I don’t think any man is all that civilized.’

Viddie sucked her teeth; she was picking non-existent fluff out of a broomhead. ‘What thoughts you have, Flora! You ought to settle down, dear — marry — have some kiddies.’ It was a great sadness in Viddie that she had none of her own.

‘I could do with a kid,’ Flora went so far as admitting. ‘Yes, I’d love a little child.’ She gulped so greedily at her tea she choked; the tears came into her eyes.

Again the Yorkshire rose up Viddie’s throat to unite with that sound of adenoids. ‘You wouldn’t have one without the other — would you, dear?’ she gasped.

Flora rinsed her cup and saucer. She flung the leaves from the pot, she realized too late, into the bin reserved for scraps suitable for hens; but Viddie didn’t notice that.

‘Expect I’ll be late in tonight,’ Sister Manhood told her landlady.

‘Enjoying yourself, are you, dear?’

‘I’m going on the streets.’

Viddie laughed, but grudgingly, at one of Flora’s off jokes. ‘And what shall I tell Him, if he comes, or phones?’

‘Tell who?’

‘Why, Mr Pardoe.’

‘I’m not his property, am I?’ She was so enraged.

‘Nobody is anybody’s property, dear.’

‘Not if I can help it, I won’t be!’

‘I was only asking,’ Viddie complained.

So the irritations began collecting as early as early like real fluff you can’t pick out of a broomhead what ought to be a solid permanent core the too tidy too-decent-by-half Vidlers spilt the varnish doing your nails on their old convertible moquette oh dear oh God the green the best straining at your just about every direction how would you look if you ever got preggo the genuine bloaterbella to stare at climbing on buses now it’s only greed it’s Lottie’s lunches too much of what should have been today the dreamiest Stroodle if she hadn’t burnt it only slightly bloody Badgery crooking her finger my husband as per usual a public school man of Brighton College Sussex England never accustomed his ear to the Australian twang.

When the nurses had finished their lunch, or ‘luncheon’ as Badgery called it, to copy Mother Hunter and put on extra dog, Lottie said, ‘I apologize for the Strudel, if it has burnt itself frightfully.’

‘Mmm. Didn’t notice.’ Sister Manhood scraped hard so as not to lose the merest flake.

‘It was delicious.’ Sister Badgery might have invented the word; she smiled the kind of smile which rewards, but which knows better at the same time.

‘It is burnt,’ said Mrs Lippmann with a simplicity which emphasized the tragedy. ‘I have planned this Strudel during several days, but on the morning did not reckon with the plumber.’

‘You’ve had the plumber?’

‘The cloakroom lavatory has been blocked — by somebody throwing superfluous matter down the hole.’

Sister Badgery lowered her eyes. Mrs Lippmann’s clouded expression was directed, only incidentally perhaps, at Sister Manhood.

‘Don’t look at me, Lottie! And anyway, if the plumber unblocked it.’

‘Oh, it is nothing. The plumber unblocked it.’ It was nothing and everything.

Sister Badgery hoped to put an end to the post-mortem, for herself at least. ‘After nursing several cases in the country — all of them prominent graziers — I would never dare throw anything foreign down a toilet. Septic tanks taught me my lesson.’ That was final; so Sister Badgery got up.

‘It is not the lavatory only. It is Mrs Hunter.’ The housekeeper looked visionary today.

‘As if the old girl will know about it, Lottie — not if you don’t tell her — or care if she did.’

‘She will care about what they do to her,’ Mrs Lippmann said, ‘her children.’

‘Do you think she has any idea?’ Sister Badgery was taking off her veil and folding it; her hair had thinned at the parting, and was of a neutral or sludge colour.

‘Who knows?’ Mrs Lippmann had to suffer everything herself, or so it sounded.

Much as she disliked men, Sister Manhood began to think women got on her tits as badly, anyway this afternoon. Irritations must be in her stars. She went up and found the old biddy had done it in the bed. (Bet it had happened before Badgery handed over: her so pleased with herself at lunch.)

And Lottie Lippmann and the loo.

As Sister Manhood stripped her patient’s bed, gathering together in one exasperated crumple of sheet anything ‘foreign’ (trust Badgery) the tears were as good as shooting. Perspiring too. And no spare deodorant, more than likely, in the Nurses’ Room.

When Betty Hunter said, ‘I haven’t done anything, Sister — have I? I must have been dreaming. My nurse was so unkind to me. She told me I must eat the cold mutton or spend the rest of the day in my room. Or was it Kate Nutley’s nurse? I don’t — believe — we could afford one.’

‘P’raps it wasn’t you that did it.’ What bliss to be a geriatric nut.

It was a long afternoon. Sister Manhood fetched a mag to have a read in an easy chair by Mrs Hunter’s window. She should have felt relieved her patient had withdrawn, it seemed, into sleep. But she wasn’t relieved, the magazine too full of old women displaying the fluffy toys they had made, and crochet bedspreads, and tea cosies, themselves with scone faces and enormous overstuffed cosies for bodies. Sister Manhood could feel the wrinkles prickling as they opened in her own cheeks. She went at one stage and patted her face with wych-hazel. This evening it didn’t soothe; it fed a burning which had taken possession of her skin.

Then the gate squealed, and Mr Wyburd was coming up the path. Slowly. Another geriatric: if his head was still his to use, it wouldn’t be for long; you could hear the arteries hardening in him in pauses between chosen words. Just your luck old Wyburd turning up the night you wanted off early; worse luck still, de Santis (Mary the Saint of Saints!) letting you down.

She came in at last in that same navy hat. ‘I see Mr Wyburd’s car is at the gate.’

Flora Manhood was perked up, quickly and efficaciously. ‘He’s in with Betty — having his turn,’ she snickered.

‘I expect in the end he’ll be the one who’ll have to tell her what they propose doing to her.’

‘Oh hell — yes!’ Flora Manhood felt breathless now that she was actually faced with the prospect for her evening. ‘Yes, he might. I can’t think why I — why we’ve got to worry — not personally — about what happens in a patient’s life — outside her sick life, I mean.’

Sister de Santis said, ‘But the princess and Sir Basil — it worries me when I find human beings more disappointing than I expected.’

‘I never start by expecting too much,’ Sister Manhood maintained; though she often did, of course, she knew.

Seated on the stool, her own reflection in front of her in the dressing-table mirror, she became aware that Mary de Santis was looking at her from under the awful navy hat.

Flora tried to protect herself. ‘And I never had tickets on Princess Dorothy — or Sir Basil Hunter.’

De Santis didn’t answer, but continued, probably, looking. What was she trying to winkle out?

Sister Manhood turned and said, ‘Why don’t you get yourself another hat, Sister? It’s gay colours today. And I don’t think navy suits you. Makes you look livery.’

Sister de Santis had begun to remove the offending hat. ‘I grow attached to things.’