Patrick White - Happy Valley

Hagan was not sure of himself. This girl you had wanted, falling into your hand like a pear not yet ripe, those breasts you had scarcely touched, and it made you wonder what, made you a bit afraid. On the night of the 23rd I was at Glen Marsh, you said, and it wasn’t exactly funk, but something, twitching under your waistcoat pocket, because why should she speak up, what you could not understand, Vic and the others, but not this. So Hagan was puzzled. His hands fumbled with the buckle of a girth, or with his hat in the office, she said, Father wants to talk to you, Clem, now don’t be a fool, he won’t eat, you’ve left all the rest to me, so why won’t you leave this, we’ll go to Java, we’ll have a place up north. But sitting in the office had fumbled with his hat, watched it roll on the floor, and old Furlow speaking, you could hear his breath wheeze, it was an effort to say, well, Hagan, well, whatever happens we must think of Sidney’s happiness. Then he stopped short with the hat. They both sat and looked at the hat that was also something else. Because I want Sidney to be happy, he said, whatever she takes it into her head to do, even if I can’t quite understand, not that he said, but you saw, and you did not understand yourself, anyway it had happened, and you weren’t such a bloody fool to turn down a good thing. I know of a place up near Scone, he said, Sidney fancies the north, and yes, sir, you said, there was nothing else that you could, and the old coot, it made you feel sorry, did not want to mention anything that might, it made you feel uncomfortable sitting on your chair and listening to old Furlow speak. It’s nice country round Scone, you said. Yes, he said, good country for cattle, and I want to make Sidney happy, like a wheezy old parrot that you taught a couple of words that it couldn’t forget. It made you glad to get outside, when the door banged, and she said, she was waiting, well, it didn’t kill you, she said, and in the passage you wondered what she wanted, or wanted now.

I thought I’d come over and see what you were up to, she said.

I’m going to ride the Ferndale fence.

She stood looking at him. He could not see her face. The horse shifted its weight.

Well? he said. Anything else?

Because he felt awkward, to know what she wanted, to touch her or what.

Come here, she said.

It was queer, Sidney Furlow, and you touched her mouth, and you touched her mouth, and you wondered if this was Sidney Furlow that you really touched. But you weren’t such a bloody fool to turn down a good thing when it was put right into your hand. You had always wanted this, to kiss Sidney Furlow, to…

She felt his body. She was holding him. She felt a certain bewilderment in his mouth.

I can’t understand, he said.

What?

What you’ve done. In there at Moorang. You were crazy, he said.

She laughed. It sounded clear and remote in the stable, beating off the stones.

I always get what I want, she said.

Then he kissed her again, she made him mad, couldn’t get hold of her, only her mouth, and you wondered what she thought.

Not any more now, she said.

She watched him gather his breath.

I like the sound of the place, she said.

What?

The place that Father’s going to buy. I shall breed shorthorns, she said.

And sheep?

His voice vague.

Oh yes, and sheep. But I’m more interested in cattle, she said. It’s going to be fun having a place.

He wanted to kiss her. She saw his face preoccupied, groping, moving towards. She opened the stable door.

Mother and I are sorting things, she said.

The daughter of Mr and Mrs Stanley Furlow of Glen Marsh will leave with her husband for their honeymoon in Java before taking up residence near Scone. He watched her go across the yard, feeling she had not told him what he must do next.

Mrs Furlow had ceased to write to Mrs Blandford. Since the night of the 23rd she had forgotten to put any cream on her face before getting into bed.

Rodney went down to the store. They were going away soon. He beat the wire fence with a stick, heard a humming in the wires, stopped to listen to it running down the hill. Though perhaps the telephone wires overhead, perhaps these, he thought. But it did not matter very much, because Mother said, dear me, Rodney, how you’ve grown, we can give these shirts to Mrs Schmidt, held up a shirt to see. It was the telephone wire after all, and not the fence. He looked up at the telephone lines, followed them past a knot of birds that sat frail and bunched in the wind, followed them down the plain, his eyes picking out their progress through the tussocks, always the black line. The telephone wires were fastened to the outside world. Time and Happy Valley had given this a legendary tinge, and the telephone murmuring of far events was nothing short of oracular. Until said Mother, what do you think, we’re going, Rodney, in a voice that suggested more than Moorang and the dentist or a picnic in Kambala on Sunday afternoon. The line of the horizon moved in Hilda Halliday’s voice, moving to embrace. He felt her hair. And Mother sometimes cried. It’s nothing, Rodney, she said, because now we are going away, we shall leave you in Sydney to go to school, we shall buy you some new clothes, these will do for the Schmidts. He felt the nearness of a voice. They were very close, he and Mother, in the silence of unfolding shirts. They looked out of the window, before it became dark, and watched the line of hills slowly dissolve. Rodney Halliday drove into Sydney in a peal of bells. She put her hand on his shoulder and told him he might light the lamp.

It made him want to sing now, often he felt he must sing, or make a noise without words because these did not matter, or the words in telephone wires. Going down to Quongs’ he struck at the fence with his stick, listened to it burr, opened his mouth and sang into the wind. He wished he could play a trumpet, or like Chuffy Chambers, the accordion. The Moriartys were dead. There had been a trial. You walked past the house where they had lived, and your heart beat pretty fast, at night you wanted to run. There had been a murder. If you said it at night the shadows were big on the wall, making you sit up in bed and listen for a voice. A voice in the next room was life, was not walking in the yard telling yourself that death, some day you would die, but not now said the voice, as you slipped back against the pillow and fastened your eyes on the candle flame.

Rodney Halliday’s preoccupation with the idea of death was no more than spasmodic because — well, they were going away. This was a release from the immanent shadow on the wall, the group behind the urinal, all those fears that Happy Valley implied. These would not exist in that vague but soothing state the future, somewhere behind the hills, and to which the telephone wires were mentally attached. He went on down the hill. His mind was absorbed, not in the moment, the corner of the street, the flapping of a piece of iron on Everetts’ roof, but in a series of barely defined events that time and Rodney Halliday would form out of a fresh material.

Good evening, Rodney, said Miss Quong.

She sat in the store behind the counter, crocheting a collar for a dress. She smiled. He felt the warmth in the smile of Amy Quong.

I’ve come to see Margaret, Miss Quong, he said.

Margaret! she called. She’s out at the back, Rodney, she said. You can go through the back room.

He liked Miss Quong’s voice, like her smile that was round and soft, when you came in from school to buy some bull’s-eyes, some marbles, or else a liquorice strap. He halted behind the counter and said:

We’re going away, Miss Quong.

Yes, she said. I heard.

Her hand was busy with the crochet hook. It did not stop. It played out silk into a stitch, the weaving motion, in and out, that took no account of the departure of the Hallidays. The boards of the floor were old and rough. They had lain there many years, under the feet of old Quong who had sold laces in the mining camp, of Arthur and Amy, and Margaret, the boards were a fixture, they had the stolidity of old unpolished wood. Rodney did not know what he waited for. Only he was fascinated by the motion of Amy’s crochet hook. He felt a little bit sick in his stomach. They were going away, he had said. Farther and farther as the silk streamed, as the car. You came in from school, out of the frost, sat on a stool by the bacon machine. It was warm and safe.