Patrick White - Happy Valley

He lit the lamp and sat down to write to Birkett. He would not think about a face that was in no way remarkable. Only that she had leant against the fireplace and looking into her face had been to look into an avenue that made him feel suddenly unfulfilled and cold.

Mr Belper had just said that Australia was the country of the future, he said it as if it were a fact that had not struck anyone before, the discovery was his. He sat there in his chair, a kind of Captain Cook of platitude, only the natives made no stir, Moriarty was almost asleep, his wife was a plaintive yawn. Mr Belper loved to talk about things in a general way, things like natural resources, the national physique, and the canalization of surplus energy. Moriarty half woke up and drew his attention to the irrigation area round Mildura, but Belper coughed, and pretended he had not heard, anyway Moriarty was half asleep. Mrs Moriarty dug her finger-nails into the sofa and yawned. She was past the stage of putting up a hand. And take industry, Mr Belper said, now that new industries were opening up, which by the way reminded him of the Salvage Bay Pearl Fisheries and that was something he could recommend if Moriarty should think of a flutter, with 640,000 5s. shares issue at par, on application 1s. on allotment 4, a very attractive speculative enterprise that he could recommend to anyone, he was in touch with the company, was interested himself, and he’d bring along a prospectus and let Moriarty have a look, because he did not believe in pushing a man in a direction he didn’t want to go.

But what can a man do on a miserable screw like mine? Moriarty said, sitting up with a fretful wheeze.

His lips were thin and blue. There was a suggestion of dry mucous in the corners of his mouth.

Now if I could get that post up on the North Shore, he said. I write. I’ve written how many times.

Yes, said his wife, it’s a crying shame. And Ernest’s health. Look, Mr Belper, he writes and writes, and what does the Board do?

For Mrs Moriarty the attitude of the Board of Education was a case of personal animosity, and she was the martyr, living here in Happy Valley listening to Mr Belper talk, if only he would go away.

You might be a lot worse off, Mr Belper said, his voice very comfortable and rich with phlegm.

Mrs Moriarty pouted and looked away. It was all very well. A great swollen gas-bag like that living in a brick house, it was all very well for the bank manager to talk, because he had a position, not a penance, and the schoolmaster was nothing at all, did not count, and she was as good as anyone, whatever that Mrs Belper might say with her red face and her coming-it-over-you ways, that told you about her cousin who was secretary at Government House, if you liked to believe that, she didn’t for one.

Why should I be ignored? Moriarty said.

He shuffled with his slippers on the floor, his hands restive and complaining in his lap.

Don’t you worry, Ernest. Mark me, she said, there’ll come a change.

Though what the change would be, meaningful as it might sound, she really did not know. She wouldn’t let Belper get away with it though.

Mr Belper knocked out his pipe, leaning forward red and apoplectic, deciding it was time to leave. He had said what he wanted to say on the future of the country, the national physique, and the canalization of energy. It bored him when the conversation grew particular and people began to grouse. He did not like people who groused. He and Cissie never did that, removed as they were from all source of complaint. They were large and red and comfortable. They lived at the bank. And everyone called them Good Sorts. This, like most reputations, required some keeping up, though none perhaps to the same extent as the spirit of the paper cap. It became a lifelong enterprise, being a Good Sort.

You’re not going, Mr Belper? said Mrs Moriarty, surprised.

Yes, he said. The old woman. She’ll be wondering what I’m at.

Dear Mrs Belper! Mrs Moriarty sighed. She spoils you, really she does.

Bursting out of his clothes, and that woman, dirtcommon, in silk jumpers swaying about, a wonder she had the nerve, if it wasn’t to put a stamp on a letter, and Ernest was clever, he had a mind if you drew it out, not like Joe Belper, coming and talking for hours on end till you didn’t know if your head, without a cachet in the house, she fancied herself of course because that cousin at Government House, well, if you liked to, and Joe if you like, but she didn’t, not in a public-house, and then come to the back door with her, oh, Mrs Moriarty, I’m collecting things for the church bazaar, as if you was a working woman where front doors don’t exist.

Night, Moriarty, Belper said. Keep the flag flying, eh? You’ll have to try the Board again. But what’ll we do without him? That’s what I say to the wife. Who’ll keep them up to it at the school?

Moriarty did not answer that. The Inspector told him that the standard of intelligence at Happy Valley was the lowest in the state. He wondered if Belper knew.

He sat slumped down in his chair when Belper had gone, alone in the room with the ticking of the brown mahogany clock that the Smiths had given him when he married Vic. He was going to have an attack. At night he usually had an attack, and that powder he burned made him sick, the fumes, as he leant over the tin and the smoke went into his lungs and he dropped back exhausted on the bed. He would burn a powder now if he had the strength to drag as far as the cupboard where it was kept. But Vic would come. He closed his eyes, intent on a series of previous attacks, that time in the bus, or at geography, or the party at the Chubbs’ when everybody gathered round and it was almost a distinction to be asthmatic, with Vic holding his hand and saying, it’s always like this, Mrs Chubb, it’ll pass if only you give it time.

Well, said Mrs Moriarty, that man has a blooming cheek. Dropping ash all over the carpet too. He might as well spend his evenings in a public-house.

She had come back into the room and was moving about in a formal attempt to restore an order that she liked to think Mr Belper had dispelled.

Oh dear, she said, you’re not going to have an attack?

He nodded his head, his eyes closed, waiting for sympathy.

She looked at him and frowned, as if it was too bad, and it always came at night, and she couldn’t put up with it, she was human after all. She looked at Ernest and her whole life was a series of attacks. She looked at him in his chair, the man she had married; who was so distinguished behind his moustache, licking stamps at Daisy and Fred’s. But she hadn’t bargained for this. It’s a wonder I’m not a virgin, she felt, and distinction is all very well. But he’s thin, with that moustache getting into the tea, and those long pants he wears, says he feels cold, and fancy a man with pants showing above his socks. She punched at a cushion and frowned.

It’s too bad, she frowned.

But I can’t help it, Vic.

No, of course you can’t.

The cyclamen in its lustre bowl sprawled in wide, voluptuous curves and brushed the nap of the tablecloth. She saw her face in the bowl, looking out of shape, and pink like the flower of a cyclamen. It was funny that yesterday the cyclamen had stuck up straight, always changing, sometimes as straight as a poker and tight in the mouth, almost spinsterly, and now it lolled, couldn’t hold up its head, it looked sort of abandoned with its droopy leaves.

Ernest said:

I’ll be getting to bed.

He began to pull himself out of the chair. He sat on the edge, his mouth open, the breath harsh on his moving lips.

Vic Moriarty looked at her husband in an access of compassion. You could see he was sick, and it made you ashamed sometimes the way your thoughts, but you could not help your thoughts lolling, those droopy leaves, wanting something else and wasn’t you human but nobody had ever called you bad, except perhaps that Mrs Enderby next to Daisy’s because the postman, he had a drooping lip, and the door closed and you stood behind it with the letters, you were all right, then Ernest came and you were all right, till the day I die, only sometimes something happened and that bloody plant drooping all over the table, you must get Ernest to bed, his poor face, and that powder, you would not sleep for hours, the smell, and he must sleep with window shut.