Patrick White - The Vivisector

When Pa called from the table: ‘’Ere, Mother, where’s the pertater? You forgot the pertater.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ she answered, ‘because here it is.’

At once she grabbed the iron spoon. She served him out a dollop, and a dollop, from the old battered pot. Tonight the potato looked awful grey, till Pa messed it about with the gravy from the little bit of steak that was only for him. On a different occasion you might have felt hungry.

And Mother returned to her dream, though she seemed to have forgotten the chandelier.

‘And corned beef, and marmalade puddin’ for dinner, only they call it “luncheon”.’

‘Did you meet the little girl when you was seeing over the house?’

‘No, we didn’t. I expect she was out for exercise with her nurse.’

Then Mumma cleared her throat, and began smoothing very dreamy with the iron. ‘We did meet Her, though — Mrs Courtney — by mistake.’

‘Was she pretty?’

‘A real vision. A real lady. Everything about ’er floatin’—sort of.’

‘What was the colour of ’er eyes?’

‘What was the colour of ’er dress?’

‘’Ow can I remember what was the colour of anything? I could’uv fainted.’

‘Her eyes were blue. Her dress was blue.’

‘There! Hurt remembers. Had ’is wits about ’im. But a child isn’t responsible. Lizzie and me was the ones who’d get the blame. Now, Hurtle, a knife isn’t for jabbing with. Not at the furniture. Ah dear, you kids won’t leave us a stick to live with. Run out all of yez into the yard and let your father finish ’is tea in peace.’

If you didn’t obey along with everyone else it was because Pa had already finished. He sat belching and grunting for a bit: after a meal he used to say less than ever. He lit his spluttering pipe, and went across the yard to the stable.

Mumma either didn’t see you were there, or else she was admitting you to her thoughts: you were still so close to the outing you had been together.

As she came round the table to take the plate Pa had been using, she said like to herself: ‘Fancy remembering the colour of ’er eyes!’ then, out louder: ‘I think you’re right. They was blue eyes.’

She was laughing, first to herself, then for him. ‘Like yours, Hurt! Blue.’ And instead of clearing the plate from the table, she took his face in her hands, and looked close into it.

‘My eyes are grey. Sometimes they’re on the greenish side.’ But he could hardly pronounce it: she was squeezing his cheeks so tight together she was giving him a fish’s mouth.

‘Blue! Blue like Mrs Courtney’s!’ She was so glad to have discovered what she wanted to be a likeness, she couldn’t be persuaded it wasn’t the truth.

So he became ashamed of his shabby, silly mother. He became ashamed of himself for loving, yet not loving her more. Because it was Mumma he loved, not Mrs Courtney. That was different: the vision made him shiver with joy; he wished he had been in a position to touch her.

He was soon sad and hopeless with all these feelings. He was afraid Mumma, trembling with excitement and pleasure, might begin to cotton on to how he really felt inside, so he dragged his face out of her hands, and ran out to the others in the yard.

For the next day’s ironing, he didn’t dare expect. But when the following Monday came he had on his cap. He was ready standing at the street gate.

Lugging her bundle, Mumma was looking thoughtful and anxious. She hadn’t reckoned on him as well.

‘How—’ she said, ‘I didn’t mean you to come, Hurtle. Not every time. That wouldn’t be good for you.’

Because he was determined to win, he didn’t ask in what way it wouldn’t be good. He walked along. Here and there he skipped to lighten the silence.

‘I mean it,’ she said.

But he saw she was weak this morning. The baby was too heavy in her. So he took her hand. And they walked along.

When they arrived at Courtneys’ it was much the same as the first time, though they made less fuss of him because he was no longer a surprise. Perhaps Miss Keep looked more disgusted than before. Mrs Noble stared moodily through him, and didn’t offer him the thick spread of cherry jam.

‘Watch out, Master Clumsy!’ said Lizzie. ‘You just about murdered my favourite corn.’

As he wore out the morning around the yard he began to feel he had been wrong to come. Mr Thompson the gardener wouldn’t hardly speak. A grey wind was filling the empty clothes on the line.

He might have started a row with Mumma over a plug he didn’t mean to pull out, if the door hadn’t opened behind their backs and someone come into the laundry.

‘I’m looking for my kitten.’ It was a small, though bossy voice.

You wouldn’t have thought she hadn’t seen him before.

‘Well, Rhoda,’ said Mumma, ‘I haven’t noticed your kitten. But don’t expect he’s lost. Cats are independent things.’ She had too many children to take much interest in pets.

Nor was Rhoda particularly interested, it seemed. She was looking at you, her head trembling on her thin neck. Her hair was pink rather than red. On one side of her neck she had a large birthmark the colour of milk chocolate.

‘What is the kitten’s name, love?’

But Rhoda wasn’t interested in Mumma’s polite interest. She had buttoned up her mouth tight. Her head no longer trembled, but lolled on her frail neck. She probably hated him on sight. He could have hit Rhoda: except she might have died. She reminded him of the crook-necked pullet at home Mumma hadn’t the heart to kill.

‘This is my little boy. This is Hurtle, Rhoda,’ Mrs Duffield the laundress was only vaguely saying as she rubbed a garment back and forth over the ridges of the wash-board. ‘How about taking him outside — have a game — the two of you? But gentle, Hurt.’

Rhoda said: ‘No.’ All the pinkish curls shook.

She looked as though she mightn’t have known how to play. She was so clean. None of the snot of Winnie and Flo. So frail, she might have broken. But her thin lips were firm, and probably spiteful.

Mumma laughed, and said: ‘You’re right, dear. Boys like rough games.’

She bent to kiss the little thing, who ducked her head, and avoided with the whole of her body. Mumma could only stroke with her hand the white dress she must have laundered recently. It could have been her nails you heard catching in the material.

‘O — oohh!’ Rhoda complained aloud.

She was going outside, not, you felt, in search of her cat, but away. The cat had probably only ever been an excuse.

As Rhoda left he saw she had more than a crooked neck: her back was humped. It gave him a queer turn to see the hump for the first time. He didn’t mention it to Mumma. And Mumma didn’t mention it. She kept on rubbing the sudsy clothes against the board, on her mouth a tight smile, which he knew had nothing to do with her thoughts.

The damp stone laundry, smelling of Lysol and yellow soap, began to horrify him. He had heard of prisons in which they tortured men in the old days. Mumma couldn’t have escaped, she had the washing, she was used to it, but he who was cowardly and young, he was still also free. So he went quickly quietly out. It wasn’t altogether cowardly, either, to leave Mumma with the washing and their nightmare thoughts. It was necessary for him to see the Courtneys’ house again. The felted door went pff as he passed through.

And at once he was received by his other world: of silence and beauty. He touched the shiny porcelain shells. He stood looking up through the chandelier, holding his face almost flat, for the light to trickle and collect on it. The glass fruit tinkled slightly, the whole forest swaying, because of a draught from an open window.