Patrick White - Happy Valley

Well then, she said.

Sometimes, he said, and he looked at her under the tilt of his hat, sometimes it’s too damn easy, isn’t worth having when you get it. That’s what I mean.

Telling her something that she knew. Because she knew that. As if she wanted the horse, would say, Father, I’m going to ride that horse, she would have it, would not want it any more. It was always like that, was Roger Kemble, made you tear up the letter, made you feel a sort of contempt for anything you could reach straight out and take. Their stirrups clinked in the silence. Riding with Roger had been like this, a clinking of stirrups as toes touched. Only this was Hagan now. He sat confidently astride his horse, rather thick in the thigh. His hands moved with the reins, were square and coarse.

Hold on a minute, he said.

He suddenly put out his hand and held her arm. She stopped. She did not understand. She felt the pressure of his hand, and the quickening of a pulse, and a confusion of bewildered thought, that wanted an explanation, to explain to her face that was red, she felt, why the pressure of this hand. But without explanation he had jumped down from his horse, was standing in the tussocks knee-deep, had taken a stick, was standing with his arm raised. Then she saw it was a snake among the tussocks, glistening and loosely curled. The colt snorted. She felt the quivering of his neck, of her own body as the snake loosened its loose coils, it was unwinding, straight and black in the yellow grass. He must get it, she felt, he must kill this snake. She leant forward in her saddle with the movement of the snake’s body, that easy rhythm of glistening flight, she could feel a cry rising in her throat, not of fear, but rather of encouragement or more than this, she was directing his arm, it was her arm, she wanted to kill that snake. Then he brought down the stick. The snake writhed like a worm in knots. He struck it again on the spine, three times. The snake was a quivering of nerves.

Good, she cried. Oh, good!

She had to jump down from the horse and see, reins looped about the fetlock, steady him, and now see, it is dead, almost quite still. She ran forward and bent over the snake. It was not the first she had seen killed, there were many others, but now a pulse in her throat made it almost the first.

I wish I’d killed it, she said.

It’s dead, whoever killed it, said Hagan, letting the stick fall,

Yes, she said, but I’ve never killed a snake. I’ve always been afraid. But I think I could have killed this one. A snake nearly bit me when I was a child.

He looked at her, rather insolent.

That can’t have been so very long ago, he said.

She looked back at him, insolent too. She laughed harshly.

A very long time ago, she said. But something apparently sticks in the mind.

This was Sidney Furlow showing off, the little bitch, if only he could take a lump of wood, treat her almost like a snake. But he looked at her and felt his throat go dry, he felt a bit small, though of course she was only showing off, and he was as good as a Furlow, would like to put her on the ground and show her a Furlow got off in the same place as anyone else.

She had turned away. She was bending over the snake, taut as her body crouched and touched the body of the snake.

It’s quite dead, she said softly.

He couldn’t stop looking at her. She made him feel very small. Often like this. Had to assert himself. There wasn’t a woman made him feel like that, only this lean bitch.

She picked up the snake. She held it by a limp tail. Her face was half exultation, half disgust.

Put it down, he said roughly.

Why?

Because it mightn’t be dead.

She shrugged her shoulders. With her other hand she slowly caressed the long body of the snake. She was fascinated by a dead snake.

Don’t be a damn fool, he said.

He knocked it out of her hand. She looked at him, putting out her jaw a little, gathering force.

Why, Hagan? she said. I shall do exactly what I like.

Looking at him made him feel small, made him, made him…

But you, you, he said, he began to stutter.

What are you trying to say?

Smiling at him that way, and a word wouldn’t come, the bitch, like swaying on that horse as much as to invite. He went at her suddenly. That thin month. He had her in his arms. He opened her mouth. She was nothing. She was no more than any of the others. Touching her he reasserted himself, was reinstated in his own esteem.

A second was a long time. She had no strength. She was opening up, her whole body, her whole life falling apart in two halves, and in the centre there was nothing, or air or languor, as she clung to his body not to fall, felt her arms put out tendrils, touched the roughness, wetness of his shirt. She closed her eyes. Helen said, no, not that, not, and she stuffed the sheet into her mouth. Her body was a shudder of disgust. She could only hear the quick clapping in her ears. She pulled herself away. Oh God, she said, and her whole mouth was twisted with disgust. She hated him, hated him. She hated him with her eyes, with her whole body that he had touched.

No, she said. No! You dirty brute!

As if the snake had not been killed by that raised stick. She could hardly find her breath. She took hold of her crop and hit him across the face, across his mouth, with a sharp hiss the crop falling, her breath, with all her strength, before she ran towards the backing horse, took and mounted him, gashed him with her spurs. She did not care if he threw her, trampled her into the ground, this at least was clean.

Hagan stood watching her or not watching, he did not know, watching some act of woman on horse, a circus turn. His mouth was numb. He put up his hand to his mouth. He found he was standing with an open mouth. He felt he must shake his head that stupor clogged, holding air in his arms, this brief moment gone. Now she would go home and tell the old man perhaps. He did not care. He was touching her again, those small breasts tightly held inside the riding-coat.

The wind is wind is water wind or water white in pockets of the eyes was once a sheep before time froze the plover call alew aloo atingle is the wire that white voice across the plain on thistle thorn the wind pricks face the licked fire the wind flame tossing out distance on a reel.

She spurred the horse on across the flat, along the riverbank, where the tussocks cut past the horse’s fetlocks and the air was clear with the cries of plover. She crouched against the colt’s neck, feeling his coarse mane against her hand. There was no viciousness in him now, he carried her without protest, he almost seemed to associate himself with the inner purpose that drove her across the flat. She must get away, she said, she must get away, not so much from him as from herself. She began to cry stupidly. It came out of her mouth, broken, without a shape, and like most sounds that are uncontrolled, a little frightening to hear. The horse quickened. She heard herself blubber, broken by the wind, listened as if to somebody else, and it might have been, she had no control over herself. She put up a hand and held the fist in her mouth, biting into her fingers to stop herself. Because something had happened that was something dirty and she had wanted something dirty to happen all the time she had ridden past Hagan hoping not to happen because she was afraid hated herself and Roger Kemble she said take me away only not that I can’t because as you see I am dirty I have always been am crying from my mouth his mouth pressed and feeling him that dead snake if only you could kill a longing for dead thoughts you have killed and buried that resurrect themselves and become tangible thought his back and I wanted to touch. The horse carried her through the wind, was wind, was power. She had got it now. She had forgotten the horse. She cried more quietly, the necessity for crying was almost extinct. And that big brute, hit him over the mouth, she had, and the way he looked she was stronger, even if he had killed the snake, killed him who had killed the snake. He had looked afraid, perhaps thinking, she will go home and tell the old man. She drew the horse down to a walk. I have him, she said, I can go into the office and say, Father, that brute, or I can say nothing, he will wait for me to say, I shall look at him waiting, both of us waiting. She felt stronger and controlled.