Patrick White - Happy Valley

Let’s make some aeroplanes, said Rodney.

They made them out of old circulars that advertised the Ford. He got up into the girders and he threw them down, so that in the half-light they fell fantastically at Margaret’s feet, or they brushed her hair, or she caught them in her hands like birds returning.

Shall we pretend it’s a war? he said.

No, she said, not a war.

All right, he said. Just as you like.

He climbed down out of the girders.

Fancy those eggs being soft, he said.

I don’t know, said Margaret. It would have been very uncomfortable if they had all been hard.

He rolled up one of the circulars, trumpetwise, and began to blow.

I wish I could play, I wish I could play a trumpet, Rodney said. I’d play in the band at the Show. But I don’t think I’m musical. Not like Father, anyway.

Margaret did not answer. He stopped blowing. It was pretty dark. Darker by silence too, by this sudden withdrawal of Margaret that he sensed, knowing why. There were so many problems enlarged by the silence in this creeping darkness. They were both conscious of these. But they did not speak. Just as they had not spoken of the incident in the school, their minds had taken it and walled it up, it was something enormous and inexplicable that you did not try to explain.

Margaret, said Rodney suddenly, I expect we shall marry each other later on.

Do you think so? she said.

Her voice smiled.

I expect so, he said.

I shan’t ever marry, she said. I don’t want ever to marry at all.

She said she said that it was so much easier the two and she might have been a nun playing that arpeggio before the hands struck on the keys could not move he looked said go on. She held her arms tightly against her breast. They had not hurt much, it was only inside, not Mr Moriarty at all, nothing to do with this.

Why? asked Rodney carefully.

What? she said.

Her voice came back out of the dark.

Why will you never marry?

You’re too young, she said. You wouldn’t understand.

As if he was a child. It was the first time she had suggested this. As if she knew a lot more. But he knew a thing or two himself that Margaret Quong knew nothing about. Resentment altered his voice.

Anyway, he said, we’re all going away soon. Mother told me it won’t be long.

Going away she felt, is not so much Rodney but someone else, but what will happen, will not be the same. You did not expect that. You got older, and that was something you knew, it would not be the same. She held her arms tightly. There was going to be a frost.

Lights had come in the houses. Men were talking politics and sheep. Rodney Halliday going home trod through fragments of light that fell from the houses on the way, brushed without hearing the chance phrase, the clattering of dishes at a kitchen door. He was going home. They were going away. His mind was large with the possibilities of this, which were greater than a momentary resentment against Margaret Quong. And what would She, when Antony had gone, standing at her door with cool arms. This was a thread his mind slit, rejecting this as something superfluous to the ideal pattern of Rodney Halliday driving to Sydney in a peal of bells.

When he got in Mother said:

You shouldn’t have stayed out so late, Rodney. I began to wonder where you were. Don’t tear up that paper, George. Do you hear what I say? George! Now run along, Rodney, and wash your hands. Then I’ll give you your tea.

I don’t want any tea, he said.

But you only had those sandwiches for lunch.

I’m not a bit hungry, he said.

Oh dear, dear, she sighed. George, you’ll knock that vase.

Rodney went out back to his room. The way people upset. He frowned.

Are you sure, Rodney? she called.

Hilda Halliday stood perplexed. She swept away a mesh of hair with her hand. Her hand was large and bony, the wedding ring a little bit loose, because she was plumper when she received it from Oliver in the church. She was gaunt and narrow-chested. The wool sometimes caught in the skin of her fingers as she knitted socks for Oliver and the boys, or jumpers for herself. Her voice was the clicking of needles knit up with the vague protective softness of wool. Often now she stood perplexed, wondering how much she ought to know, or if there was really anything to know, and this only made her more perplexed, and at night she could not sleep, she coughed and turned about. Because morality was something you took for granted, you would not come into touch with the other, which was a quality in other people, the working classes or the very rich. She had been brought up like that, Hilda Halliday. You expected to come into contact with sickness, poverty perhaps, but never immorality.

George knocked his head against a chair and began to cry.

There, she said. My poor little boy. Come and let Mother make it better, she said.

She pressed George against her. His face was red and contorted with crying, his mouth gaping with sobs. She pressed his head tightly against her. George cried a little louder then, as if encouraged in his crying, as if he felt that she wanted him to cry against her chest.

There, there, she soothed. We’ll look at this nice book. We’ll look at it together, shall we? At the picture book. Look at the horse and cart, George. Look.

Oliver came into the room. He looked at her, was going to speak, then went out to the dispensary. He looked angry, she thought, perhaps because of George. It made her cough.

Oliver, she called, she wanted to explain.

Her voice went out into the passage and came back unaccompanied. Holding George against her chest, his sobs, made her want to cough.

Look at the horse and cart, she said. That’s a piebald horse. Do you see the spots?

George calmed down now, looked at the piebald horse, his interest in outside things revived.

Why is he pieball? asked George.

Because he was born like that, said Hilda weakly. George looked at the page. She stroked his hair. It was rather pale and thin. Oliver was very kind when George was born. He leant over the bed and held her hand. Oliver lying in bed at night, asleep while she could not sleep, she wanted to touch him, she wanted to make sure of what, assuring herself by her touch that could not assure. Oliver lay in bed, but so far distant, like Queensland distant, and perhaps there was really no means of bridging this, Happy Valley was permanent. The thought of winter made her afraid. And writing letters, she said, this is no positive assurance, we shall remain. We shall remain.

Hilda Halliday lowered her eyes. She did not let herself think about her, she would not let her exist, at least in the way that made you lower your eyes. Oliver scraping his boots too long on the iron mat. Oliver coming in. Sometimes it flickered up inside her, her anger, and Oliver coming in, as if she did not know, and the children crying in their sleep fed this anger, or softened it and she felt she wanted to cry. Sometimes she cried to herself and her nose got red, only her nose. As if she did not know. And he tried to be considerate in other ways, and that made it worse, she wished she was dead.

Isn’t that a fine big pig? she said, stroking George’s hair.

If she were dead. It made her stroke his hair. Dr Bridgeman said, it’s all right, Mrs Halliday, if you take care of yourself, you must rest, and I’ll see to that, Oliver said. And now it had started again, when she moved the dresser to get at that spoon, the mahogany they bought at Beard Watson’s was heavy on clawed feet, must drag, made her sit down, her handkerchief was red. That made her afraid, put up her hand to her chest, but if she were dead would not care, would Oliver, would Rodney, would George. It made her hold on tighter to George. It made him want to get away.