Patrick White - Happy Valley

Mrs Moriarty was, in fact, not dressed, or only half. She only explained to Amy because she didn’t know what to say. She had a kind of pout that was turning from charm to fat, and you had to admit that Mrs Moriarty was fat, even if her admirers called her plump. She was little and pink, with the pink pout underneath a lace cap, and there was the ribbon she had bought from Quongs’ about a week ago. Sometimes she said she was thirty-two and sometimes thirty-three, but that is only by the way.

I’ve come about the five pounds, said Amy, looking down at the floor.

Oh, yes. Yes. Is it five pounds?

Yes, said Amy, looking at the floor.

Dear, said Mrs Moriarty, the way these things mount up!

She stood by the mantelpiece. She was wearing a skirt, and a pink jacket, a bed-jacket perhaps, for there was a swan’s-down round the neck. It was fastened across her bust with a paste brooch.

I wouldn’t’ve come, Amy said, only — only the time before…

Mrs Moriarty frowned, because having her up on the mat like this, and a Chow at that, but it was all you could expect from a place like Happy Valley, why Ernest had ever brought her there, when they could have lived in Sydney in a flat. So she pouted and frowned, and picked at a spot or two of egg that had dried in the region of the paste brooch. It was very silent in the front room, only the silly tick of a brown mahogany clock that someone had given Ernest for a wedding present, they had made it clear that the clock was for Ernest, and she hated it, she wanted a French gilt clock like her sister had, only that one wasn’t French.

Let me see now what I can do, said Mrs Moriarty, delving down apparently into the depths of her mind, and the sigh gave you to understand it was a considerable depth.

The Chow woman was saying something about small profits and quick returns, or small returns, or something, or something. It was a lie. Mrs Moriarty smouldered. The way they let Mrs Furlow and Mrs Belper and that doctor’s wife run up bills, it was humiliating, she said, just because she wasn’t one of the Upper Three, but the schoolmaster’s wife, and the way that old Belper woman ran about smelling of dogs, poking in her nose, that was what made her sick. She tapped with a finger on the mantelpiece. You couldn’t help it if your face got lines. She must remember to write to Sydney for that lotion, perhaps they would give her a bottle on trial. And the Quong woman was sitting there, and she would have to give her a pound, so perhaps the postal note was more than she could afford, or go into Moorang on Saturday, or…

Mrs Moriarty fished out her bag; it was poked down behind a pink satin cushion, not on account of burglars, but because it usually got there on its own. It hurt her to part with a whole pound.

There, she said. There is a pound.

She held it by a corner, munificently. Her little finger was crooked.

Thank you, said Amy. I shall come on Saturday for the rest.

She got up. Her yellow face was slightly pink. She took up her umbrella that was standing against the wall.

The cheek of these people.

You should have left your umbrella outside, said Mrs Moriarty sharply, looking down at the pool.

I’m sorry, said Amy.

I shall have to wipe it up.

It’s not on the carpet.

No. It’s not on the carpet. Gertie! she called. Of course she’s gone for the steak. I shall have to wipe it myself.

It was humiliating. She ought to have servants. Showing people like Amy Quong to the door, that was what Ernest had brought her to, if only he could get that job up on the North Shore. She watched Amy go down the street, treading calmly in her mackintosh, with a black bun that glistened behind her head. God, what a place it was, that street that you looked down every day and nobody ever came.

Poor Vic, you’re not very happy, said Ernest sometimes, and patted her hand, and she felt a bit warmer towards him then, because he could see, though it wasn’t a helpful remark, and it would not make her happier patting her hand. She went back into the sitting-room. There was something she ought to do. Lucy Adelon’s Almond Lotion whitens the hands, an application morning and night, perhaps if she wore gloves, if she slept in gloves, with Ernest patting her hand and wheezing, she could not sleep for hearing him wheeze. She had liked his moustache. It looked distinguished, a schoolmaster with a moustache, and Daisy marrying a grocer, and she could not live with Daisy and Fred, in Marrickville at a grocer’s shop. She had learnt to paint flowers on crêpe de chine. Ernest said she had beautiful taste, which was beautiful coming from behind his moustache that made him distinguished, that made her cultured, crêpe de chine flowers, and marrying a schoolmaster was one up on Daisy and Fred. He collected stamps. He brought his album to show, bending over and telling her the names, it was an educational hobby, he said, he believed in educational hobbies, and if she liked he would show her how he stuck them in, you licked the end of the funny tag, would she like to lick, and she had a lick, that funny taste on your tongue, and she licked a lot, she licked one that Ernest licked, oh dear, she said, going quite red and Ernest going red, he asked if she went to the pictures ever, he had seen the Shackleton film and wasn’t it an education to see what Man could do, so perhaps she would come with him one night, there was a film about Queensland aboriginals on at the Rialto all next week.

She sat down in the sitting-room. There was something she had to do. She yawned, her whole face yawned, the little golden curls quivered at the side. When she went to bed at night she took a comb and frizzed them out. Ernest said she had pretty hair. Oh dear, she said, this place isn’t good for your asthma, Ernest, she said. They don’t give you a proper screw. You’re killing yourself, she said, which was as good as saying you’re killing me. Only I’m fond of Ernest, you can’t live with anything long without feeling it’s the furniture, that suite Mrs Belper has, running up bills indeed, and if only you had money you could show them what. You could live in a flat in Sydney, you could have a cook, and a maid with a cap. If Ernest got that job up on the North Shore she would have breakfast in bed, she would join a library and read in bed. She would be in the Sydney Morning Herald on the Ladies’ Page, because of course she would play bridge, you had to play bridge, even if you hated cards, because it was a social obligation, and the paper would say: On Tuesday afternoon Mesdames Smith, Brown, Moriarty etc. etc. had bridge tables at David Jones’s, and perhaps a description of her dress, she would wear powder-blue.

She sat with a chilblain on her foot, the window letting in the rain. That was Happy Valley. God, that street. And the window was stuck. Across the way a geranium had died in Mrs Everett’s pot. And this damn window stuck, breaking your nails, and the rain.

Walter Quong drove past in a brand-new Ford. He had a round, fat yellow face that closed itself in smiles. He was waving his hand, and that was just like his cheek, as if she was one to spend her time waving from her window at Chinamen. She never waved to Walter Quong. He had tried to help her across the street, in Moorang, because it was dark, he said, and couldn’t he drive her back, as he took her by the elbow, his hand, but she said she thought she would wait. After all the stories you heard about Walter Quong, it was like his cheek, what with that Everett girl at the cemetery, and old Mrs Everett jumping out, from behind a stone, they said, and hitting him over the head with a jar that someone had taken to fill with flowers. All the same it made you laugh, Walter Quong finding old Mrs Everett instead. Then he wanted to help her across the street. Those yellow, puffy hands.