Patrick White - The Vivisector

‘Oh yes, I know!’ her voice was moaning and grappling him to her. ‘Your limbs are still numb, but your thoughts aren’t!’ Her eyes were country eyes.

Everybody, it seemed even Maman, he remembered, had experienced the original thaw; so he fitted his mouth into Nance’s similar one, and they were throbbing together in the painfully bright light of memory.

When they had finished she showed him what she had brought: a pork pie looking as edible as a castle; a cream horn the raspberry blood had begun to stain; and a polished apple. The little girl couldn’t have exposed herself more completely under the pepper tree in the yard.

He should have thanked her, but as he was hungry he broke into the crenellation of the pork pie.

‘How is it?’ she asked humbly.

‘All right,’ he answered or munched. ‘How were the footballers? ’

‘Oh, strong!’ She pulled up a sleeve to show; then she pulled it down again, and said in short sharp tones: ‘I don’t wanter talk about men. Or sex. I do it as a business, like anything else.’

‘What about us?’

‘Isn’t that love?’

It made him feel guilty scoffing down her pork pie.

‘I want you to tell me about yer paintuns,’ she said.

‘Aren’t you trying to turn them into a business too?’

‘Well, it is in a way,’ she said, frowning it out, ‘isn’t it? But if it keeps you happy. And if I finance yer — to keep you happy — I oughter get my dollop back from the investment.’

‘Where does the love come into this?’ He looked at his watch.

She said: ‘It just does. I love you. You’ve gotter love somebody, haven’t yer?’ She was sitting on the edge of the bed, jiggling one of her heels.

‘I suppose you have. In the end,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got to think about my job.’

‘What job?’

He told her.

‘Don’t you trust me?’ She sounded genuinely dispirited.

Actually he trusted nobody, not even himself, or only that part of him which, by some special grace, might illuminate a moment of truth; but he hugged her and said: ‘Yes, I trust you, Nance. Of course.’

She should have been consoled.

They went downstairs, and up George Street, towards Martin Place. The first lights of evening were still looking too electric.

‘If you love me,’ he said, ‘would you be prepared to marry me?’

Perhaps it was subjecting her to a test more brutal than she deserved. She did harp on realism, though.

When she had thought a bit, she said: ‘No.’ It sounded final. ‘If I married you,’ she said, ‘I might become your prostitute.’

As they walked, swinging hands like a pair of lovers, he realized he was the prostitute: he was seducing Nance Lightfoot into giving him, not money, not her actual body so much as its formal vessel, from which to pour his visions of life.

On reaching the corner where they would have to part, Nance began, very heavily matter-of-fact: ‘I’m going away, Hurtle, for a day or two — professionally. The old sod gives me the gripes, but why pass up the good hay?’ She stuck her nose into her handbag, and continued more spasmodically: ‘Case you — run — short, love — better take these.’ She produced a couple of screwed-up notes.

‘What d’you think I took a job for?’

She looked puzzled.

‘The job? Of course. But this will buy any little luxuries.’ She turned it over on thick, bemused lips.

While flickering on this private situation of whore and ponce which he found so repulsive, her eyelids began to exert a fascination: the slightly scored, greasy skin had escaped the ritual powder, not that the loaded mouth looked more protected; but he remembered kissing the eyelids when it was not expected of him, and how she had fallen back, not crying but gasping, whinging, as though he had struck too deep.

‘Well,’ she said gloomily, ‘you’re gunner be late, aren’t you? For the job.’

‘I’m late already.’

They didn’t have any more to say to each other in words, or even deeds, though she floundered an instant in his direction before making up the hill towards her known pastures. He didn’t waste more time himself; the night had grown too purple and tactile: it smelled of pittosporum, and fried food, and petrol, and quenced asphalt, and women’s powdered bodies as he went quickly up the lane, and in at the staff entrance.

He would write to Nance, he decided, while she was away. It would be waiting for her on her return: to tell her what?

In fact, he didn’t write; he was too busy. By night he worked in Paccaninny Wax and Scrubb’s Ammonia; but by day he painted. It left very little time for eating, washing, defecating, let alone practical thoughts of Nance.

He put her out of his mind while his drawn-out orgasm lasted: he had already decided to call this painting ‘Electric City’. The few hours he slept were dreamless, he believed; the lumps in the kapok had become a luxury; in one sleep he may have dreamed, for he woke working out of his mouth the rather rubbery texture of nipples.

Sunday he put his painting away (if Nance could only be put away) and took the train up the line to a random destination. The fact that people did refer to it as ‘up the line’ added to its desirability, as of some lost world, or Mumbelong. He got out and walked beyond houses into the scrub, where he lay down, and re-discovered the smell of ants; but his hands, exploring stone, recovered flesh. He wondered whether he could retreat from, let alone escape, Nance.

But did he want to? The smell of crushed ants and the glare of mica convinced him finally of something they had experienced together. He would never try to tell her, however; he mightn’t be able to, and the attempt would cheapen it.

Instead he began to create a radiance of mica round the jagged rock forms. He only got up when the shade started turning cold. While Maman’s voice reminded him, he dusted himself with a handkerchief: it was about as close as Maman and Nance would ever come to meeting. Maman was probably dead, though. She must be dead. Rhoda, on the other hand, was his age: she could live for ever.

Nance was away longer than she had expected. He decided not to comment on it as he was only employed by her.

‘Were you lonely?’ she asked.

‘No. I was painting more of the daytime.’

‘But that’s alone, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Only I’m not lonely if I can paint — and am allowed to think my own thoughts.’

‘Funny,’ she said.

She had bought a bag of jelly-beans; she offered him a handful of them.

‘What do you think about?’ she asked.

‘How I can convey in paint what I see — I suppose — and feel.’

‘Then I won’t ever understand what you think about — not going by those things you paint,’ she said looking at him sadly.

They were walking hand in hand, and the light of warm late-afternoon added poignance to her remark. All the walls looked old and crumbling, except where held together by the bill-stickers’ collages.

‘Isn’t it possible for two human beings to inspire and comfort each other simply by being together?’ He wanted that; otherwise the outlook was hopeless.

‘I dunno what you mean,’ she said. ‘If you don’t know what the other person thinks, it’s like a couple of animals.’

She walked looking down.

‘For that matter,’ she added somewhat gloomily, ‘it’s still like animals when you know what the other person thinks.’

She had left off her make-up for the afternoon, and was wearing a cotton frock, inside which her easy-going figure was given full play. She had, for the moment, something of the unconscious nobility of some animals, moving intently on felted pads.

‘What do you think about?’ he asked, still very kind: this afternoon he loved the woman in the animal.