Patrick White - The Vivisector

‘Near enough,’ the other said, shifting again, and reorganizing himself inside his rather shaggy overcoat.

The grocer would have liked to assess the stranger’s status, but it wasn’t easy. Too many contradictions: good clothes, not old either, probably very good before sloppiness set in; good hat too, of an excellent felt, the band of which had been allowed to get sweaty; made-to-order brogues, with white scars in the tan, and laces tied anyhow.

‘That’s a fine overcoat you got,’ the grocer couldn’t leave alone. ‘I like to see good cloth. I’d say, at a guess, that was imported. But it’s English.’

‘Oh? It could be. Yes. I think it was.’ The stranger sounded unhappy.

‘There’s nothing like English cloth. Of course we was all English in the beginning, unless you count the Irish. My old man used to say—’e come out from the West Country: “Nobody need be ashamed if ’e brushes ’is clothes, shines ’is shoes, and ’as a decent haircut ”.’

The stranger’s hair was decent cut, even fashionable: those side pieces like the Prince of Wales’s. He had let it go, though: needed trimming.

Suddenly the grocer overflowed. He leaned along the backrest of the bench on which they were sitting, and stuck out his pulpy hand, and said: ‘My name’s Cutbush — Cecil Cutbush. It’s a funny sort of name, isn’t it? But you get used to it.’

There was a marbled moon coming up behind them almost before the sun had gone. Cutbush sighed. He didn’t understand why the stranger hadn’t completed the exchange of names like any other decent friendly bloke. He didn’t hold it against him, though. Perhaps the man had his reasons: could have been a released prisoner or something like that.

The grocer sighed again. ‘It does me good to come down ’ere. If it wasn’t for the dew I’d be tempted to sit on indefinitely. And the wife. She’d create if I didn’t come in. Says she’s afraid of murderers.’ He paused to look over his shoulder. ‘It isn’t that at all,’ he resumed. ‘Can’t satisfy ’er nowadays. Doesn’t want to leave me alone. Even during trading hours. “You’ll ’ear the bell, Cec,” she says, “and as often as not it’s only a kiddy come for a pennorth of lollies.” There’s no puttin’ ’er off. And at our age.’ He realized, and added: ‘You’re younger, of course. It’ll still come natural to yer.’

For a moment he suspected his new, desirable, but peculiarly unresponsive friend hadn’t been listening to him. Then again he could tell that he had. He was the kind that can listen and think at the same time: deep.

‘She’s a bloody awful cook,’ Mr Cutbush changed the subject, or almost. ‘But I didn’t marry ’er for ’er cookun.’ He laughed his rather throaty laugh. ‘And got what I asked for. I shouldn’t complain. ’ He remembered to inquire: ‘Does your missus do yer well? At the table, I mean.’

‘I’m not married.’

‘Go on! You don’t say! There’s time, though.’ The grocer glanced towards the other’s crutch.

Here and there on the shore of the lantana sea there was a glint from tins not yet completely rusted.

‘Perhaps you’re better off, mister. Knock up a grill at yer own convenience.’

The stranger apparently didn’t hear. He sat staring out over the lantana-filled ravine: a potential suicide perhaps?

There was a sudden outbreak of what might have been taken for murder by anyone not in the know; the grocer was: he knew it as the laughter of lovers locked together in the lantana depths.

As an antidote to possible embarrassment, he turned and said to his difficult friend: ‘Not much of a view, but a touch of nature in the middle of the city. I can see that you’re a nature lover.’

The man laughed for the first time. ‘Yes and no! I was watching the skyline. There’s a very brief pause when the houses opposite remind me of unlit gas fires.’

Obviously a nut. But an educated one. To humour him, the grocer asked: ‘D’you think the phase is on its way?’

‘I’m afraid we must have missed it — while you were talking.’

‘Well, if I made yer miss something, I can only apologize.’ The grocer flounced on their common seat.

They sat in silence for a little, while the sunken sun tightened its vice on the last of the horizon.

‘No.’ The stranger had sunk his chin: you could almost see down the rims of his eyes. ‘I don’t think I missed it after all.’ It came so long afterwards, Mr Cutbush couldn’t at first understand what it referred to. ‘Or if I did, I must have wanted to.’

He turned his first smile on the grocer, who appeared captivated by it: fatter, complacent, broody; but suddenly again, tentative and uneasy.

‘I had a peculiar experience tonight,’ Cutbush wet his lips, and decided to share it. ‘I looked in at the window, and saw a person — gentleman — standing without a stitch. Had everything to hide, too.’

Though he threw open his hairy coat, the stranger evidently wasn’t prepared to reveal more than his naked thoughts. He leaned forward, hands locked between his knees, chin thrust at the growing darkness.

‘I came here this evening,’ he said, ‘because I particularly wanted to be on my own. I don’t know why; most of the time I am alone; though I have more friends than I can cope with — or acquaintances, at least. I am not in need — of anything, or anyone.’

He challenged the darkness so aggressively, the grocer recoiled. ‘Okay, okay, mister! Good for you!’

‘When I saw this house I bought — several years ago — I said to myself: “This is the house I shall work in, and die in.” It’s not in any way an exceptional house. You can walk about in it, though. And it’s on a corner. It has entrances on two different streets — so that you can easily escape from a fire — or a visitor. Oh, it’s pleasing!’ He unlocked his hands, and immediately locked them again.

The grocer sat looking at as much as he could see of the hands. ‘If you have a house, that’s something,’ he suggested listlessly. ‘Not everybody can afford to buy their own home. Not everybody’s that successful.’

‘I can’t say I’m not successful— now —not that it means anything. ’

The grocer spat. ‘I dunno.’ The conversation was becoming too clever. ‘This house—’ he yawned, — ‘is it in this neighbourhood? ’

The stranger continued leaning forward in the dark the sun had left and the moon hadn’t yet demolished. ‘I had another house. It was burnt down. Fortunately. Yes, I think — fortunately — in the bushfires which came soon afterwards. You see, I had a friend who died.’

‘A friend, did you?’ Revived interest made the grocer shuffle his behind around on the bench. ‘And ’ow did ’e die, sir — your friend?’

‘I don’t know, and shall never know. They couldn’t decide — whether it was suicide or accidental death. Or murder. Well, of course it wasn’t murder — because I’m here. She could only have fallen over. She was drunk — and maniacal. That’s what they decided. It was too obvious.’

‘Was your friend a lady, then?’

‘I’ve been accused of loving myself. How could I? When I’ve always known too much about myself.’ He stopped so abruptly his breath made a sound like a snore. ‘I wonder why I’m telling you this?’

The grocer, too, was amazed. ‘Some people,’ he began very slowly, diffidently, ‘are driven to loving themselves — as a sort of consolation.’

‘But I’ve never been in need of consolation! I have what I know and what I can see. I have my work.’

‘Ah?’

‘Not that it’s as simple as that. Not always. Not when it’s dragged out of you, in torment and anguish, by a pair of forceps.’