Patrick White - Happy Valley

Go outside, she said. Into the air.

I’m all right.

Go outside.

She pushed her hand under his arm, and the stem of what had been a rose. She was leading him outside.

I thought we said…

Yes, she said. I know what we said.

He let her lead him, felt the relief of waking from a dream and reality cool upon his face.

I said it might be better if we didn’t see. Until we go.

Yes. But come outside.

Mrs Ball said to Mrs Everett said to Mrs Schmidt the doctor doesn’t look well and what’s she doing well well leading him out she knows the way you can see it isn’t the first time that somebody’s opened the door.

The music swirled in gusts, or in the intervals between the dances, the conversation, right through the body of the building that bent before the passage of sound, jostled out of its tranquillity. Because the School of Arts was seldom used, had grown dusty and complaisant with neglect, dozed the year through in cold or heat, and felt the darkness rub up softly against its scabby face. It was old. Built after the store, it had a medallion with a date over its portico that stamped it with a greater sense of permanence than the weatherboard dwelling-houses had. But there was something ironical about that date, as if somebody had thought the building would last, and now it must make an effort without very much wanting to. Still, it enjoyed a sort of sleepy importance, even if seeming to doubt the virtue of permanence. It eyed the darkness yellowly and rumbled in the basement where the supper-tables were.

Amy Quong, polishing glasses with a cloth, watched Hagan getting his breath after a glass of beer. It was cool in the basement, the coolness of beer and ham and a concrete floor. Amy Quong’s hands were cool in the belly of a moist glass that caught her small rounded face and pinched it capriciously out of shape. Her cheeks were flushed, across the brown, perhaps from the music, or perhaps from something else, though she liked to listen to the music and the feet sliding overhead. Her glance drifted over Hagan and back to her own reflection in the glass. When anyone spoke to her she started up. Her eyes rounded with surprise behind her spectacles, as if she were coming back out of her private thoughts.

Thought, flowing smoothly through Amy Quong, twisted Clem Hagan’s lip. He felt better after the beer, though not altogether satisfied, still with that bitter disappointment beer leaves in the throat. He hitched up his trousers, because he wore a belt, couldn’t stand anything but a belt, and his hand touched the surface of his wet shirt that had almost lost its shape. He frowned at the convention of a boiled shirt, at dressing up for what. And somebody wore diamonds. No wonder there was revolution, if only to rip the diamonds off a woman’s throat. His hands felt rough. Vic said, who was a good sort, put your hands here, Clem, but did not want to think about Vic, getting a kick out of hands. He felt ashamed of his hands. Diamonds made you ashamed, and if you went up and said, you had a damn good mind, you were just as good as diamonds, wouldn’t she have a dance, just for old times’ sake, yes, that was it, and she’d know, the way that whip stung, what you were smiling at. He trod a cigarette into the concrete floor. Miss Furlow, you’d say. What the hell was the use of waiting, and feel the sweat come on your hands, when you hadn’t been killed this far there was no harm in trying again. The floor was undulating overhead.

They’ve put too much stuff on that floor, Mr Belper complained.

Standing on the edge, disconsolate, rather bilious about the eyes, it was the remark a man makes to comfort himself, not really meant for anyone else, not that anyone else would have bothered to reply. Mr Belper soothed the collar eating into his neck. He had an expression of bottled-up concern increased by his environment. All he could think was, what will Cissie say, that purple lace, without daring to linger on the subject of his wife’s displeasure. Mr Belper hunched his shoulders, a man protecting himself from a cataclysm that nobody else could suffer. He had lost all desire to slap anyone’s back. He went outside to make water in the dark.

It Couldn’t be November, It Wouldn’t be December, but Some-dhay panted with persistence from the saxophone, with the crushing optimism of a saxophone, moved the foot to measure not time but boredom traced in powder on the floor. Her foot, describing an F, had smudged the S. And Mother will talk to Mrs Saunders, and Mrs Lithgow, and Mrs Bligh. She took a mirror out of her bag, noticed with some bitterness the smudge that was her mouth, and slashed it into shape again. Three hours of watching a lot of louts enjoy themselves inclines the face to wilt. I look bloody, she remarked mentally. As if it were the result of being looked at by a lot of louts, who if they weren’t louts would be worse, that mauling prerogative of men of your own class. Or someone else. The way he danced with that little tart in the blue tulle. Oh, God.

Sidney Furlow looked up quickly with a suspicion she had said something aloud. There was no indication, no quiver of Mrs Furlow’s back. Her foot slid again, sighed along the floor, on the margin of the dance. The bracelet melted into her wrist. Who was Mallarmé, some old stick, to know better how you felt than you did yourself, or what did you feel exactly, only wanted to hit out, that day at a snake, or sink down against blue tulle, those hands, they were rough, catching in the tulle perhaps, to tear. Helen said it did hurt a bit. She pressed her foot against the floor. Encountered feet.

Will you, he said, how about?

His voice began to disintegrate, as it had that day, as if it were afraid, Hagan afraid.

She looked up into Hagan’s face. She felt herself shrinking in. She felt herself shrinking right in, gathering herself to strike. And he stood there, foolishly, trying in spite of his voice to ask her to dance. She got up without speaking, looked over his shoulder, she could feel his breath on her neck as she accepted his arms.

Mrs Furlow smiled at Hagan. After all, she was conferring an honour, not Sidney but she. Then her smile slid away as her mind encountered Roger Kemble and that terrible afternoon.

They make a fine couple, Mrs Belper said.

Er, what was that? Mrs Furlow murmured faintly, though of course Mrs Belper did not mean, only a stray and rather vulgar remark, because poor Mrs Belper was slightly vulgar in spite of her cousin at Government House.

A waltz clung turgidly to the air, making Mrs Belper nod her head, heavy with the vague nostalgia of a waltz and the fumes of a late glass of beer. It was the sort of waltz that made you love a waltz, if you were that way inclined. It strayed outside where the darkness obstinately refused to produce a moon.

She was leading him anywhere, through the dust, he could feel his feet in the dust, and the peeled stem of a rose, and the fluctuating phrases of a waltz. He did not mind where she led him, was too tired, was dust, was waiting for this, to be led by Alys out of a dilemma, and all the unreal frustration that lies hidden in the banal phrasing of a waltz. Hilda loved a waltz. It made her talk about old times.

Where are we going, Alys?

I don’t know, she said.

She did not know. It was dark, and sufficient in that. We are losing ourselves, she felt, if only we could succeed and lose ourselves sufficiently, but there are the windows still, and that facade and a street, but touching his arm I am proof against all these, against all those doubts that I haven’t been able to avoid since we are going away, Alys, he said.

I’m all right now.

Rest, she said.

His hand was touching stone, or brick; he could feel the cement between the cracks, supported by Alys and a brick wall.