Patrick White - The Eye of the Storm

Basil Hunter was relieved when the traffic started moving and he was no longer forced to look at or listen to Sister de Santis. It was his own fault: he must have got her more than a little drunk.

By the time they reached the block in which she lived her face had recovered its characteristically refined expression, though her lips looked twisted, her eyelids crimped: she could have been suffering physically.

‘I do hope I never — in any way — let your mother down.’ She had to force it.

‘How would you expect to?’

‘Oh, I don’t know— by being late’ she suddenly thought up.

Already she had hunched herself, and was halfway out of the small car. He would have liked to put out his hand, to touch her; but would not risk causing further damage.

As for Sister de Santis, she made the extra effort to drag herself out through the car door, and had practically reached her full and normally impressive height, when she stumbled, and fell forward on her knees. For a moment she stayed kneeling on the pavement, her shuddering back turned towards him.

By the time he had raced round and almost reached her, she was again on her feet. ‘Don’t!’ she gasped. ‘There’s no point. It’s nothing.’

One knee had burst through its stocking. She was trembling, horrorstruck by more than her fall, when he was to blame, for the second time he was made to see: he could not have felt guiltier if he had come to his senses and found that, not even of his own will, but by malicious inspiration, under some cloud of unreason, he had denied this pale nun.

The details of their parting were not clear to him, only that she reeled away into a dark hall with its accumulated gas and cooking smells, and up a narrow stair, to bathe her face, compose herself, perhaps pray for a remission of unorthodox sins, before presenting herself as usual at her evening devotions in Moreton Drive. Blood which had risen to the surface of the unusually white flesh was left smeared across his mind’s eye.

His mechanical self drove off by jerks in the tinny car. Because he never felt at home in one, he knew he would be sitting upright, his shoulders narrowed. Pray you, undo this button. Thank you, sir. Why? Only that on his last performance as the old king he had never felt so personally bereft, so bankrupt; technique could not protect him from it. This last gasp; and the poverty of a single bone-clean button. In this you may have conveyed the truth, if in nothing else.

THOUGH HE went to bed conscious of having degraded an innocent creature, then condemned her to share in his own disgustful mortification, he woke without any feeling of guilt. In fact less than guilty: under cover of sleep, that scene at the water’s edge, searing though it was at the time, could have been sharpening his intentions, steeling his will.

He would have liked to telephone somebody, almost anyone would have done, to hear his own voice, and try out a thrust or two; but it was still too early. Instead he drew up the blinds on a green dawn, or what could be seen of it above the roofs, amongst the telly aerials and branches of defoliated plane trees. Time and light at work on the forms of man-made ugliness both chilled and exhilarated, as they had, he remembered, on the first of his visits to Mitty Jacka.

In a fit of frustration he sat down at the pretence of a desk and began doodling words on the hotel writing-paper. The Jacka might have approved: to watch the long pale worm-thing’s first attempts at uncoiling itself in non-play:

Scene: A Room. Table, chairs, a gas fire. The presence of ACTORS should make other furniture unnecessary.

ACTOR’S IST WIFE. Can’t you see, darling? What she must convey in picking up this cup is the abject humility her husband’s behaviour has driven her to, but which at the same time may be a sort of pseudo- humility— something she may eventually throw off. I mean, the gesture should not convey despair pure and simple, because there’s the possibility of re-birth.

ACTOR (undoing his collar button). Oh, come off it, darling! It’s two o’clock. If we don’t get our sleep we’ll look like a couple of silkworms at rehearsal.

IST WIFE. I’ve got to work this out. Always, Basil, always, if somebody not yourself is making a serious effort to break through, you have to kill it with flippancy. (Pours herself half a cup of whiskey.)

ACTOR. You’d break through all right, Shiela, if you’d realize it’s a paper hoop, not a stone wall.

(IST WIFE sniffs, sulks, gulps from the cup she is holding.)

IST WIFE. I’ve always understood nothing is worth anything if it hasn’t been a struggle.

ACTOR. Constipation in the theatre doesn’t pay, believe me. In some London basement perhaps, with half a dozen hand-woven devotees in front; not when you take it on the road.

(IST WIFE sits holding the cup as though she hopes to abstract some first principle from it.)

ACTOR. And don’t you know you’re drinking whiskey out of that bloody cup? A cup!

IST WIFE. Yes. A cup. Why not? A cup is so much more real than a glass.

ACTOR (grabbing the bottle). By that token, not as real as a bottle! (He swallows a good slug, then lets out a burp ending in blatant laughter.)

IST WIFE. For God’s sake! You’ll wake the child!

ACTOR. Yes, poor innocent! Find out about it the real way!

IST WIFE (guzzling whiskey). You should feel less responsible. She’s hardly yours, is she?

ACTOR. As you never stop reminding me.

(IST WIFE takes the bottle and pours herself another generous one.)

IST WIFE (warming the cup drunkenly against her cheek). I’ll love her! How I’ll love her!

ACTOR. Not if it’s like your acting. No one ever loved by head alone.

IST WIFE (shickered snicker). Oh, fuck off! I’ll love my child — when I’ve learnt how you do it. That’s something nobody — not you, not Len Bottomley — can teach me. I’ve got to work it out for myself.

ACTOR. I’ve often wondered, Shiela, what Len has that I haven’t.

IST WIFE. He tells me I’m good. What he means by ‘good’ is that I’m a ‘subtle actress’, in case you misunderstood me.

ACTOR. What I don’t understand is why you don’t go off and live with Len? Why not marry him? I’d divorce you.

IST WIFE. He may be a dear decent ordinary man — and I must say I’m deeply appreciative of ordinariness — but I couldn’t live with, let alone marry — a bad actor.

(She drifts OFF with cup.)

ACTOR (tilting his chair). Principles could have been her downfall — more than the booze.

SCENE FADES into a LIMBO of half light in which the ACTOR is still visible and gradually the FIGURE OF A WOMAN. She is wearing a black kimono embroidered in silver and raw liver.

WOMAN (approaching, putting a hand in his hair). That’s a start. But you’re still only telling the truth about other people.

ACTOR. Give me a chance, won’t you? I’m only beginning.

WOMAN. It ought to be easier after you’ve done the murder. It ought to flow.

ACTOR. I’ll bring on the Second Wife. There’s no one like Enid for telling others the truth about themselves. Enid can make turnips bleed.

WOMAN. It’s you who have to do the murder.

ACTOR. Give a bloke a chance. I’ll ring my sister later on. It’s too early for a princess.

WOMAN. You’re the star.

ACTOR. I don’t think I can face it, Mitty.

WOMAN. Nothing to it. No blood — or not that anyone will see. Only half a dozen words — spoken kindly. Oh, come, Sir Basil Hunter!