Patrick White - The Vivisector

When I cannot sleep I try to explain to myself why you almost never write, or when you do, why you tell me next to nothing. Have I done anything to make you hate me, Hurtle? Or is simply that I am your mother who. .

In Rhoda’s snapshot Maman was putting on her gloves, getting ready for church perhaps. She was wearing a smart little biplane hat, with a strap beneath the chin to safeguard against age and the ruder elements. Her smile hoped to be interpreted as proof of her indestructability.

Destroyed automatically rather than wilfully, Maman’s letter and Rhoda’s snap were trodden beyond retrieving into the prevailing mud. He would write to her of course, to them all, when he was less tired; that was the subtlest reason for his silence: he was weighed down by an excess of hardware, leather, webbing, drenched khaki, and the wristlet watch.

He tried to believe in himself, even in that part of him his family believed to exist. His failure to do so could explain why he had stopped writing to them.

At the height of the bombardment he felt he only believed in life. At its most flickery, with the smell of death around it, life alone was knowable. His ghostliness yearned after its great tawny sprawling body. He found himself praying for survival: that he might reveal through the forms his spirit understood this physical life which now appeared only by glimpses, under gunfire, or in visionary bursts, by grace of melting Very lights.

Once after the shit had been frightened out of him, he tried to visualize God, but saw instead a patient black-polled bull giving at the knees, blood gushing from spongy muzzle as he went down under the axe.

‘Your father’ had written:

… the difficulty of finding reliable hands now that we are involved in this infernal war. For this reason (and if I can make something on the deal) I have more or less decided to sell Mumbelong and Yalladookdook, to concentrate my strength at Sevenoaks. I have improved the pastures, the place is generously watered, and in a good season can become an earthly paradise. What possessed me, I wonder, never to have brought you here while you were still a boy? I could kick myself. You would have had grand sport with that rifle. The house is certainly a rambling folly, but could be brought up to date and made very comfortable and attractive if your mother would only contemplate it. (She says nothing will induce her to retire to my Valhalla: the draughts would kill her if boredom didn’t.) But you, my dear boy, will understand, I hope and believe.

I am writing to you in the office after breakfast: it is cold but dry, winter weather. I went down at sunrise and forked out their en-silage to a paddockful of sturdy young Angus bulls I am proud to think I bred. Life on the land continually offers a sense of creation, power — I hesitate to say: omnipotence. Standing on the dray under the winter sun this morning, I found myself longing for the time when you will inherit Sevenoaks and experience this for yourself.

The turn the war is taking has made everyone I meet doubtful of the outcome, but I refuse to let myself become depressed. I flatter myself I can see farther than the others. You will be back with us, my dear fellow. Those we wish to, do more often than not ‘miraculously’ survive. .

He must write to his Father of the Bland Bulls, but was mostly too exhausted to attempt even the stilted expressions of love parents gratefully accept. He himself was grateful for the truth of some of what Our Father said. He remained miraculously unscathed, at least his physical envelope did, while all those around him were dying. He listened to their sighs of relief as they gave up the ghost. He, the unrelieved ghost, must in some way give thanks for the paternal love protecting him; when Our Father wrote:

. . wondering whether to tell you something which happened last Wednesday morning, and have finally decided to. I had ridden down to inspect a stand of lucerne at the bend in the river below the house. I had just got down from my horse, when I fell in what I can only describe as a kind of ‘dizzy fit’. I don’t know how long I lay there, not very long I imagine, as the horse hadn’t strayed away from me. The poor beast was still trembling. I, too, was shaken by my experience, suffering from pins and needles, and wondering what else might be in store for me. (So much for ‘omnipotence’!) However, I am glad to report I have more or less returned to normal, although as a precaution, I am taking things very slowly. (I wouldn’t breathe a word of this to anyone else, least of all your mother. But you are my son.)

How, I wonder, can we reach that Merciful Power who alone can prevent the destruction of our world?

He must write to Our Father and tell him he loved and understood him, better even than before his fall from omnipotence. All that was needed now, in order to communicate, was a moment of total silence and light.

. . you don’t write, Hurtle. This is a black winter even at a bonfire. I get them to bring in logs and stoke up these great stone fireplaces. Then I light my lamp and I’m well enough off: progress can’t improve on lamplight. But the few men left on the place are senile or imbecile, the cook a misshapen, toothless hag. Those we gather round us usually change shape: I don’t know why I should expect more. I don’t, for the most part, since my fall. Even when you are finally free, you won’t come, and I don’t blame you. Your life is your own, regardless of parents. This stone mausoleum is fairly cracking with frost tonight. Don’t think for a moment I want to accuse you of not having faith enough in your father. .

In their dream Our Father put his black arms around him, which he shrugged off, while longing for the confirmation of grace. They stood looking at each other across the trampled sorghum, the smoke from which, rising into the frosty air, smelled of molasses. It was only this brief moment before he returned into his rain- and sweat-sodden clothes, the puttees cutting him off at the knees.

In spite of his not writing, it was Rhoda who wrote more than any of them:

… at last finished with governesses. The other girls I seldom see nowadays, though we have promised one another to meet. Some of them have become engaged, I hear. Mary Challands told me in confidence she is receiving instruction from a Roman Catholic priest. Although life at home is not so very different from what it was before, I am for the first time, you wouldn’t call it ‘free’, but other people have forgotten about me. Even Mummy doesn’t remember to tell me what I must do because she is always either too tired or too busy. If I were a man I would enlist in the Flying Corps. At great heights, in perfect isolation, I think I might at last become truly free, and would have no fear of crashing.

I don’t know why I have suddenly turned what Mummy calls ‘morbid’, when I set out to cheer you up.

On Friday we went on a small picnic with a friend you haven’t met. Julian Boileau drove us down the coast in his motor-car. It was what they describe as a ‘perfect afternoon’, but I kept wondering what you would have thought of it. I couldn’t help feeling you and Julian wouldn’t hit it off. He is so attentive to ladies they are all charmed. (He brought a bottle of champagne specially for Mummy, who is never at her best sitting on the ground.) He has rather pointed teeth and a fascinating moustache. There’s something wrong with his eyes, which is why he hasn’t joined up. Poor Julian is very kind, but treats me as though I were a little girl, whereas he is only twenty-eight himself. I think being on the short side gives me an unfair advantage over other people. When they look down at me, I am forced to look up through them. This is something I have never felt with you. I know we are not related by blood, but that isn’t necessary; blood relationship can often be a disadvantage. As I see it, we have been brought closer together by suffering from something incurable. .