Patrick White - Riders in the Chariot

Xanadu continued to crumble, when it did not crash. In the evenings when the wreckers had gone, and the long gold of evening had succumbed to cold blue, other figures would appear. They were the couples of lovers, avoiding one another, which was easy eventually, since there was enough silence for everyone, and the grass meeting in arches above the extended bodies made a world that might have been China or Peru. Else Godbold walked there with her lover Bob Tanner. They, who had experienced life, frowned on recognizing ignorance, skirted obstructions in the rather difficult terrain, stalking stiffly. Locked together precariously by the little finger, they swung hands, but gravely, and made plans for the future. As if they had actually tamed it. But once Else bent down, and picked up a scrap of paper, some old page, from some old book, only of handwriting, of a funny, educated kind, which they took the trouble to decipher, some of it at least, under a rampant elder bush. "July 20…" Else Godbold began to mumble syllables, and Bob Tanner chose that moment to approach his head."… heat oppressive as we left Florence for Fiesole, and the villa of Signora Grandi, the acquaintance of Lucy Urquhart Smith's. I hope life may become more tolerable, though Signora G. has made it clear that it will remain _exorbitant__! Bathed face, and put on my reseda Liberty. _Feeling much improved__! Norbert _indefatigable__. Italy his _spiritual home__. Only a few nights ago he embarked on a long poem on the theme of _Fia Angelico__. Doubtful, however, whether his physical condition will allow him to bring it to an altogether satisfactory conclusion. Poor fellow, the oil is a constant upset to his stomach! Now that we are in a villa of our own, hope to discover some respectable woman who will know to prepare him his mutton chop. My little girl is unhappy. She is a puzzle. Says she _wishes she were a stick__! Often wonder how M. will adapt herself. She is so _plain__! And will not learn to converse. Her statements stop a person short. Will not deny that M.'s remarks usually contain the truth. But the world, I fear, will not tolerate the truth, at least in concentrated form. A man who drinks his whisky neat quickly becomes unsociable. _As we know from personal experience__. July 21. Norbert insisted on returning to Florence for the day. Did San Marco, Santa Maria del Carmine, Santa Maria Novella, Santo Spirito etc. etc. Exhausted. Bilious. July 26. Have not written since Thursday. Too distressed. On Thursday night Norbert took too much. Threatened to open his veins. Decided against, because, he claimed, it was what Urquhart Smiths expected. Yesterday evening, as though the other were not enough, our poor M. had a kind of little "fit." Quickly over, but _dreadful__. Sat up and said she had never been so far before, that she had found _lovingkindness__ to exist at the roots of trees and plants, not to mention _hair__, provided it was not _of human variety__. Most distressing. Must consider how I may show her that _affection__, of which I _know__ I am capable. Remember in future to pray particularly. Oh dear, to see the future! Time must solve problems which prove too great a tangle at close quarters. Had always dreamt of an old age made comfortable by a daughter with cool, lovely hands. No question of a tranquil husband. Sometimes am forced to conclude only the air soothes. But where? Not at Florence….

"Waddayaknow!" It was too much for Else Godbold. But Bob Tanner had taken a blade of grass, and was inserting it strategically into the opening of his girl's ear. "Ah, Bob!" Else cried. She laughed, but down her nose, because she was interrupted in contemplation of higher things. Then he put his face almost into the angle of her neck, until there remained only a thin band of burning air to separate them. Outside, the cold air spilled down, almost to the roots of the elder bush, where it was repelled. They were warm there, nesting in the grass. Else could have cried. She crumpled up the yellow paper from which she had been reading. Then Bob took the lobe of her ear between his teeth, and could not hold his breath, but snorted hot into her ear. "Ah, Bob," she had to protest, "didn't you listen to what I was readin' out?" "All that old stuff?" She had never seen him angry. "Ah," she cried, "I would give anything to see what will become of us!" "I could tell you," Bob said. But did not attempt. The flesh, she saw, was slipping from his face, so that, with nothing to intervene, she was brought all that closer to him. They were very close now. Their mouths were melting, flowing into one. Until Else came up for breath. "I am afraid, Bob." "What of?" he asked. "I dunno," Else said, because she could not have conveyed the world of darkness. Owls were flapping through the rooms of Xanadu. Somewhere a branch cracked, and fell. "I used to think," Else said, "you could make the future what you wanted." Then Bob Tanner, who was determined to resist the future, when the present was so very palpable, blazed up, "What odds the future! I know enough. Can't you see me, Else? Look at me, Else. Eh? Else!" Then she did. "That's all right," he said. "Eh? That's all right." The present welcomed them with open arms. As they rocked together, underneath the elder bush, it did not seem likely that anything would ever withstand Bob Tanner's blunt conviction. "I will show you! I will hold you! I will give you the future!" "Ah, Bob! Bob!" Else cried. As if she had not always known that all certainty was here, and goodness must return, like grass.

One morning, Mrs Jolley put on her hat, and went down to Xanadu, to have a look. Without her friend, though, who suffered from the gallstones, and the varicose veins, to say nothing of a Heart. It was too far for Mrs Flack. So Mrs Jolley went on the quiet, and might have developed palpitations herself, such was her anxiety to arrive, and determine to what extent her resentments had been appeased. The house had been mashed pretty well down by then, the surroundings trampled hard, much of the stone carted away, leaving a desert of blond dust. Veins and arteries still quivered from the severing. Elbows of ironwork lay around amongst the shattered slates, and in a shrubbery which she had never entered before, due to a distaste for nature, the revenant came across an old, battered, black umbrella. It gave her quite a turn; at first she thought it was a person. Now, where she had intended to stroll, and give the impression of ownership, she scuttled, rather, as if to avoid getting crushed, and the slight trembling of her head, which her friend had already begun to notice, blurred her perception. All should have been clear, yet objects loomed, and disappointments, out of the haze of Mrs Jolley's thoughts. She barked her shin on a piece of scrapped balcony, and whimpered for the blows she had sustained at various times. The truth was: this victim's resentments had not been exorcised by the demolition of Xanadu; they had merely taken different shapes. There were the three daughters, in their bubble nylon, walking just far enough ahead; she could never reduce the distance. There were the thoughtless kiddies, pulling at catapults, thrashing the paths with their skipping-ropes, regardless of their nan. There was that tight knot, the sons-in-law, who did not appreciate relationship, but discussed among themselves dahlias, pensions, and Australian rules. In the circumstances, could she afford to reject even a friend whose friendship she already questioned? Mrs Jolley almost tripped over a length of rusty flue, from which there rose a cloud of soot, one would have said, deliberately. Her friend! Then, stranger, but true, at a turn in the path, where they had dumped the Diana of the broken wrist, the actual Mrs Flack was conjured up. "Oh!" cried Mrs Jolley. She had to hold her left side. "Ha!" cried Mrs Flack. Or hiccupped. "It is you!" "It is me!" Their complexions also were in agreement. "I would not of suggested," said Mrs Jolley, "in your state of health." "No, dear," Mrs Flack replied, "but the morning was that lovely, I decided to surprise myself. And here I am." They began slowly, though at once, to walk towards some objective, which neither, perhaps, could have specified. Mrs Flack had taken Mrs Jolley's arm. Mrs Jolley did not refuse it. So they walked, and came, Mrs Jolley discovered, to the house in Mildred Street, which they might never have left, and before the lid closed again, of the brick box, the prisoner did have time to wonder what her intention had been that morning in visiting the ruins of Xanadu. The two women continued with their lives. At night, from under her eiderdown, each would listen to the other, clearing her throat, at a great distance, from deep down, perfectly dry. There were the days, though, when Mrs Jolley got the upper hand. There were the evenings in particular, when she would glance through the daily paper, when she would feel brighter for reading of the deaths, and storms, and any acts of God. There was the evening Mrs Jolley shook out the newspaper, and laughed. "Young people are the devil," she remarked. And her milky dimple had returned. "What does it say?" Mrs Flack asked, but hoarse. Her eyes were shifting, from point to point, to avoid some eventuality. "Nothing." Mrs Jolley sighed. "I was thinking only." And the restless paper was turned to sheets of thinnest metal. "I was thinking," she said, "they would murder you for tuppence." "There is always someone must get murdered," Mrs Flack replied, "and always someone to do it, independent, you might say, of age." Mrs Flack had impressed many. But Mrs Jolley laughed, and sighed. "That young nephew of yours," she began again, after a decent time had elapsed, "that _Blue__ is a caution, never looking in, never giving another thought to his auntie. Who was that good. Always buying the best fillet." "Blue?" Mrs Flack cried, and paused. Something could have been eating her friend: so Mrs Jolley recognized. From experience, she would almost have diagnosed a growth. Then Mrs Flack resumed, purely conversational, "Blue is not here. He has gone away. Blue is travellin' interstate." "For some firm?" Mrs Jolley asked. "No," said Mrs Flack. "That is-no. Not for any particular firm." "Ah." Mrs Jolley sighed, but laughed. "A lone wolf, sort of." If Mrs Flack did not test the edge of her knife, it was because, temporarily, she had lost possession of it. There were mornings when Mrs Jolley sang. Then her rather girlish voice would run off the sparkling dishes, and fall in little pearly drops. There was the morning a gentleman came. Mrs Jolley flung off the water. Her milky dimple was recurring. "No," she said. "Mrs Flack is at the Cash-and-Carry. If there is anything," she said, "I am her friend." He was a gentleman on the stout side, but she liked the big manly men. He did wonder whether. But his original intention finally opened him up. "I am Mr Theobalds," he said, "from where Blue was, previous." Mrs Jolley had grown even more infatuated. Her face made it clear she would lend every assistance. "I am the foreman, like," Mr Theobalds explained. "And me and Blue was always good mates. See? Now he drops a line to say everything is okay. Got a job with a firm in Queensland. Sent me a snap, too. Blue is fat. They turn into ripe bananas up there, from layin' in the sun." "Oh," cried Mrs Jolley, with such candour, the visitor was compelled to look right into that decent woman's face, "his auntie will be _glad__!" Mr Theobalds had to laugh. It sounded rather loose. Some of the big men, the pursy ones, could not control their flesh or laughter. "I wouldn't of thought 'is auntie would of turned a hair," Mr Theobalds replied. "Though they do say it continues to grow on 'em after the lid is screwed down." "The _lid__?" Mrs Jolley was surprised. " 'Is auntie?" "His Aunt Daise died of something, I forget what." Mr Theobalds could afford to look jovial for that which had happened long ago, and did not concern him. "But was his poor mother," Mrs Jolley insisted. "_She__ is his mum." Mr Theobalds looked out through his eyelashes, which made a gingery fringe. Mrs Jolley was confounded. "I thought everybody knew as Ada Flack was Bluey's mum," Mr Theobalds said, "but perhaps you have forgot." "_She__ is his mother!" Mrs Jolley repeated. She could never forgive. "I am not that foolish, Mr Theobalds," she protested quickly, "to forget what I was never told. Ever. I am obliged to you, incidentally, for important information." Mr Theobalds did not care for what he had started. Although the outcome would be no concern of his. "And the father?" Mrs Jolley could not resist. "No official father. Only opinions." Mrs Jolley rattled. "One thing is sure," Mr Theobalds said, "it was never Will Flack." "Who slipped off the roof." Mrs Jolley was following the progress of the doomed sand-shoe on the fatal tile. Her face had turned a chalky blue. Mr Theobalds laughed again. "Will never slipped." "Jumped?" Her informant did not answer at first. "Mr Flack was _pushed__, then?" Mrs Jolley almost screeched. It startled the visitor. "I would not care to say," Mr Theobalds said, "not in any court. Not pushed. Not with hands, anyhow. Will Flack was a weak sort of coot, but good. He could not face an ugly situation. That is the way I see it." "She as good as pushed her own husband off the roof! That is what it amounts to!" "I did not say it," Mr Theobalds said. He had gone rather soft, and his size made him look all the softer. Mrs Jolley realized she was still standing on the step. She asked, "Would you care to take somethink, Mr-er?" But her visitor did not. He was having trouble with the carby. He would probably have to take it down. Then Mrs Jolley remembered that she was partial to big men. Even the softish ones. She said, "You mechanical men! I could look inside of an engine, and not know the first thing about it." She would continue looking, though, if it would help. But her visitor had been caught once, so he went away. "I am that glad your nephew is so well and happy," Mrs Jolley kept repeating to her friend. "And that he should have thought to write, even if it was only to Mr Theobalds, though he seems a nice sort of man." Mrs Flack's lips had never looked paler. "Oh, Ernie Theobalds," she said. "He was always mates with everyone." If she had not been continually ailing, she might have complained of not feeling well, but in the circumstances, she had to think of something else. So she kept on parting the little rosettes of hair, matted above her forehead, and which were of a strangely listless brown. All things considered, Mrs Jolley would no longer have been surprised if Mrs Flack wore a wig. "Some men are to be trusted only so far," Mrs Flack remarked. And dabbed at the steely perspiration which glittered on her yellow forehead. "You are telling me!" Mrs Jolley laughed. "Not that some women," she added, "don't wear the same pants." Mrs Flack was in some distress. "Pardon me!" she said. "It is the herrings. I have not been myself since we opened that tin. I should never ever touch a herring in tomato sauce." "No, dear," Mrs Jolley agreed, "and you with a sour stomach; it is asking for resurrections." Nobody could have said that Mrs Jolley was not solicitous for her friend. She would bring her cups of red tea. She would change the water in the vases, because by now, Mrs Flack had forgotten. When Mrs Jolley poured the opaque stream of flower-water, the smell of which becomes ubiquitous, Mrs Flack would begin to walk about her brick home, and examine the ornaments, to avoid what was unthinkable. She herself had the look of pressed flowers, not exactly dead, and rustling slightly. Winter evenings were cosiest at Mildred Street, even when it rained on a slant. Then the two ladies, in winter dressing gowns, would sip the steamy cups of tea. Mrs Jolley would hold her cup as though she must not lose a drop: it was so good, so absolving, such a crime not to show appreciation. But Mrs Flack, teacup in hand, might have been supporting air. One evening Mrs Jolley put down her cup, and when she had rearranged her chenille, looked up, and speculated: "I wonder what that Mr Theobalds does of an evening. There is a real man's man." Mrs Flack wet her lips, which tea had already wetted. "I would not give a thought to Ernie Theobalds," she said. "I would not." Looking right through her friend. "I would not," she said. She was looking that yellow, and somewhere in the side of her neck, a pulse. "All right! All right!" Mrs Jolley said. "I was making conversation like." She smiled so soft. She had that blue eye. She had a mother's skin. "I would not believe the tales," Mrs Flack ejaculated, "of any Ernie Theobalds." Mrs Jolley must have done some very quick thinking, for her eyes shifted in such a way. Then she sat forward in her soft blue chenille. "But I do believe," she said. "Because I am a mother." It was most extraordinary, but Mrs Flack's tongue began sticking straight out of her mouth, the tip of it curled slightly up. She dropped her teacup. She was making noises of an uncommon kind. Mrs Jolley rose, and went and slapped her friend's wrists. "There!" she said. "There is no need, you know, to create. I am one that understands. Look," she said, and stooped. "The cup! It is not broken. Isn't that just luck!" But Mrs Flack was looking right through the wall. "It is what takes hold of you," she said. "A person is not responsible for all that happens." It could have been the presence of Mrs Jolley which made her add, slower, "That is-not everybody is responsible for every think." Mrs Jolley did not like to play the role of conscience, but since it had been thrust upon her, she did her best. From beneath the pale blue eiderdown she would hear that poor, guilty soul, her friend, get up several times a night, almost as if her bladder-though that was one part of her which Mrs Flack herself had forgotten to accuse. At all events, the condemned woman would wander through her temporary abode, touching objects, trailing her dressing gown of beige. For Mrs Flack was all of a beige colour now. Worst of all, as she drifted in the dark, she would know that her conscience was stretched beneath a pale blue eiderdown, waiting to tangle with her thoughts. Left alone, she might have found refreshment by dwelling at times on the pleasures of sin, for remorse need not be all dry, even in a shrivelled sinner. And Mrs Flack was that. Indeed, her breasts would not have existed if it had not been for coming to an agreement with her vest. Which night would cancel. The knife of time descended again, and all the fumbling, bungling, exquisite agonies of fulness might only have been illusion. "If I was you," Mrs Jolley once advised at breakfast, "I would consider asking the chemist to recommend a reliable pill." "I will not drug myself," Mrs Flack replied. "You will never persuade me it is right. It is not. It is not ethical." "Oh, I will not try to _persuade__! It was only for your own good," Mrs Jolley protested. "I cannot bear to watch a human being suffer." And averted her eyes. Or watched, instead, her victim's toast. "Sometimes I wonder whether I am all that good for you," she murmured, thoughtful. Without looking up, but watching. "Not good?" Mrs Flack stirred, dry as toast. "Whether our two personalities do not click, like," Mrs Jolley explained. "I would go away if I could convince myself it was the case. Never ever did I think of going away, not even when you was unkind, dear, but would consider it now, if I thought it would be in any way beneficial to another." Mrs Jolley did not look. She listened to hear the silence expostulate in pain. Then Mrs Flack moved, her chair was bumping on the lino, her slippers had discovered grit. For a moment Mrs Jolley suspected her friend might have revived. "I have often wondered," said Mrs Flack, "why you did not think to go, and your good home, let at a nominal rent, to a friend. And your three daughters so affectionate. And all the grand-kiddies. All the advantages. All sacrificed for poor me." So that Mrs Jolley no longer suspected, she knew that Mrs Flack was escaping, was stronger than her fate. So Mrs Jolley blew her nose. "It is not the advantages," she said. "It is the memories." It was the tune, she had remembered, on some old banjo, that made Mrs Jolley water. Mrs Flack cut the crust off her toast, and freed her fingers of the crumbs. "If you was to go, of course I would suffer," she admitted. Mrs Jolley hung her head, in gratitude, or satisfaction. She might, perhaps, have been mistaken. "I would suffer, wondering," said Mrs Flack, "how you was makin' out, down there, in that nice home, with all that family, and memories of your hubby who has passed on." Then Mrs Jolley actually cried. Remembering the hurdy-gurdy tunes of life made her more assiduous. Frequently she would jump up and scrub the scullery out at night. She wrote letters, and tore them up. She would walk to the post-office, and back. Or to the chemist's. "If someone told me you had gone away," Mrs Flack remarked, "I would believe it." "It is the weather," said Mrs Jolley. "It unsettles you." "Bad news, perhaps. There is nothing so unsettling as a letter," suggested Mrs Flack. Mrs Jolley did not answer, and Mrs Flack watched the little soft white down that moved very slightly on her friend's cheeks, with emotion, or a draught. The two women would listen to each other intolerably, but could not refrain from such a pleasure. One day, when Mrs Jolley had gone to the chemist's, Mrs Flack entered her friend's room-only, of course, it was Mrs Flack's-and began to act as though she were drowning, but might just be saved. Her hands were, in fact, frenzied, but found, for her salvation, under the handkerchief sachet which some kiddy had embroidered, a letter, perhaps _the__ letter. Mrs Flack was foolish with achievement. She held the page so close, closer than she need have. How she drank it down, in gulps of visible words: Dear Mum [Mrs Flack read, or regurgitated], I received your letter last week. You will wonder why I have not answered quicker, but was giving the matter consideration-Dot and Elma as much as me. Fred also had to be told, as you will understand, it concerns him so very closely. He is sitting here in the lounge-room with me as I write, listening to some Light Music. Well, Mum, to put it plain, none of us think it is a good idea. You know what people's nerves are when living on top of one another. Elma is particularly cramped for space, Dot and Arch are always paying something off, if not several articles at once-I wonder they ever keep track of the dockets. Well, that is how the others are placed. As for Fred, he said he would have no part of any plan to bring you to live under the same roof. He just would not, you know how stubborn Fred can be. Well, Mum, it all sounds pretty hard. I will admit that, and perhaps it is. I will admit you are our mother. We are the ungrateful daughters, anyone would say, of the mother who made the sacrifices. Yes, Mum, and I think perhaps the biggest sacrifice you ever made was Dad. Not that any blood was let. It was all done clean and quiet. Nobody read about it in the papers. But I will never forget his face the night he died of married love, which is sometimes also called coronary occlusion. There, I have said it-with my own hubby sitting in the room, waiting to read what I have wrote. I am not afraid. Because we expect the least, we have found something in each other to respect. I know that Fred would not tread on yours truly, even if he discovered I was just a slug. That is the great temptation, Mum, that you was never able to resist, you and other human beings. There you have it, then. The kids are good. I am sorry if your friend is so very awful, but perhaps she will bear further looking into. Every mirror has its double. With remembrances from Your daughter MERLE P. S. Who was driven to it, Mum. Mrs Flack had only once witnessed an indecent act. This could have been the second. On which the drawer stuck. She had shot it back crooked, but straightened it at last. When Mrs Jolley returned she noticed that her friend appeared to have solved one of the many riddles, and was not altogether pleased with the answer. But she herself could not care. She volunteered, "I am going to lay down for a while. It is those sinuses." "Yes, dear," answered Mrs Flack. "I will bring you a cup of tea." "No!" Mrs Jolley discouraged. "I will lie and sniff something up, that Mr Broad has given me." They did, in fact, from then on, bring each other endless cups of tea, for which each showed herself to be grateful. It did not, however, prevent Mrs Jolley more than once, emptying hers down the lavatory, or Mrs Flack from pouring hers, on several occasions, into the _monstera deliciosa__, after giving the matter thought. Thought was a knife they no longer hesitated to try upon themselves, whereas in the past it had almost invariably been used upon another. "That handkerchief sachet which I have, with the pansies on it, and which you must have seen, dear," Mrs Jolley once remarked. Mrs Flack coughed dry. "Yes, dear, I seem to have noticed." "That," said Mrs Jolley, "was embroidered for me by little Deedree, Elma's eldest." "I never ever owned a handkerchief sachet," Mrs Flack considered, "but for many years retained a small bottle full of first teeth." "Oh!" cried Mrs Jolley, almost in pain; she would have so loved to see. "And what became of that bottle?" "I threw it out," said Mrs Flack, "at last. But sometimes wonder whether I ought to have done." Night thoughts were cruellest, and often the two women, in their long, soft, trailing gowns, would bump against each other in the passages, or fingers encounter fingers, and they would lead each other gently back to the origins of darkness. They were desperately necessary to each other in threading the labyrinth. Without proper guidance, a soul in hell might lose itself.