Peter Carey - Illywhacker

I received this comfortless news in silence. The doctor peered at the luminous face of his watch.

"So it's vegetables," I said, "or nothing."

"There is no harm in vegetables."

I saw him to his car, shook his hand, and waited for him to turn it. As he reversed he caught me in the full glare of his lights. I had no idea whether he was looking forwards or back, but I turned my left foot sideways and stood with my hand on my hip, in such a manner that my deformity, looked at from the doctor's point of view, to all intents and purposes, disappeared.

I have made no great study of epilepsy, so I have no accurate idea as to why Horace chose the moment of the doctor's departure to have a fit. It may have been the strain of reciting Lawson's poetry, the excitements of the day, the introduction of alcohol to his overwrought system, or just plain relief that no one was going to put him on a charge. Whatever caused it, the moment the headlights of the doctor's car washed across his bulging eyes all his systems went suddenly haywire. He was a ball of elastic unravelling. He was a full balloon suddenly unstoppered. He tossed and crashed on to the floor, thrashing his arms and banging his big head. His eyes rolled dreadfully. He made shocking noises, gurgling up from the back of his throat.

Molly screamed. He heard her. He heard every sound. Every word. He heard my footsteps as I ran inside, and every syllable that followed.

"He's choking."

"It's a fit."

"Pull out his tongue."

A pause.

"Quick, Mother," helpless Horace heard me say, "get a hatpin."

It is unendurable, Phoebe wrote to Annette, and she has become quite mad. She is no longer dotty, which she always was, but mad. You would find it hard to imagine, if you can only think of her as the dear happy soul she was in Western Avenue. She has small unblinking eyes like a currawong, turning its head on one side and staring malevolently, as if she thinks I'll pull the needle from the wool and drive it between my legs into the baby's heart. I cannot talk to her. I have tried. Of course we both know what the matter is: she thinks poor Horace is my lover, God help me. Even Horace has the grace to laugh about it.

Annette, I am big and heavy like a fat bloated slug and I am so bored. The aeroplane sits where I can see it from the window. It is the only thing that keeps me sane.

No, I am not disenchanted with H. He works hard and loves me, but I am bored. You would not recognize me. I sit for hours staring out the window. I cannot even clean the house or cook. Only Horace amuses me, and how can we discuss poetry or life oranything while she sits there with her hands folded on her lap as if we will, at any moment, leap on to the table and start performing adulterous acts.

I was so ignorant. I did not even think to do anything to stop getting in this condition. I assumed it was something he would do. What a child I was. Now I feel fifty years old and sad and wizened and I look at my mother and listen to her talk about buying ataxi business and you would not believe how sad it makes me. I enclose my latest poems. Please criticize them. Tear them to shreds. Tell me. I have only Horace to show them to and he is so sweet. If I listened to him I would start to imagine myself a genius. are they any good? Am I deluding myself? Should I stop all this useless dreaming and be content with what I have? For he does love me, Annette, and I know I can make him so happy yet I did not, even for a moment, guess that what he wanted was soordinary: a fat wife with a dozen children and cabbage and stew every night.

I do not go into town. I do not go to the theatre. I sit on the back step shelling peas and trying to love the child kicking at me. I know you are busy but I beg you to visit. Please write as soon as you get this letter. There is nothing else in my life that brings the prospect of so much pleasure.

With much love,

Phoebe

It was not the ghost that made me fearful. I was already fearful before it came. It was the counterweight to my contentment and the greater my contentment grew the greater was my fear of losing it. The eucalypts I had planted now thrust out tender pink shoots that glowed in the spring sunshine like blood-filled skin. My wife's belly pushed against her dress. Her breasts swelled. Everywhere life seemed tender and exposed and I did not need a whistling ghost to make me consider the risks of both life and death.

I could not bear to hear my wife discuss aviation. This subject, which had, so short a time before, contained the juices of happiness itself, was poison in the air we breathed. My mind was filled with visions of ruptured organs and broken struts and I wished to encourage her in gentler safer pursuits. This was one of the reasons I invited Horace to stay. I built a room for him. And while Molly clucked her tongue in censure I cut new timber with my saw and inhaled the sweet sour smell of blackbutt. This was a real room, fifteen feet by fifteen feet, with shelves for books and a proper desk for poetry.

Horace was cosy and comfortable and domestic. He was as fearful as a guinea pig and his nervousness soothed me and made me feel safer. It was comforting to have him in the house, like a pet who can be relied upon to give affection. Also: he could read. I had it in mind that I would learn the knack from him so that when my ink-stained wife offered me her poetry I might have some idea what it was, that I would no longer stare dumbly at the dancing hieroglyphics, my skin prickling with suspicion while I counterfeited understanding and enthusiasm. In the meantime I could have him read the work aloud, pretending that I liked his feathery voice.

Horace was a nice man, but far too gentle. He was no match for Phoebe's will, and when she wished the subject to be aviation he could not and would not swerve her from it. When Phoebe demanded to have her knowledge of Sidwell tested it was Horace who held the tattered volume in his warty hand while I, watching from my place at the head of the uncleared table, did not know whether to be jealous that my position was usurped, pleased that my illiteracy had not yet been uncovered or delighted that I had, at last, a home, a family, a domestic hearth.

"Should the engine stop suddenly?"

"The cause will be failure of the ignition or fuel supply," said my wife, her brow untroubled by the thought of such a calam-ity.

"To cure it?" Horace turned the page with the same leisurely sweep of hand he brought to his prized edition of Rossetti.

"To cure it, test the magneto and switch off the petrol supply."

"If the engine is misfiring?"

"Ah," said Molly, replacing her fluffy pink knitting in its paper bag and standing. "You should be reading recipe books, my girl."

"If the engine is misfiring on one cylinder," Phoebe smiled at her mother, "it is a faulty plug."

"Or ironing your husband's shirts," said Molly, putting the big kettle back on the stove.

"Herbert doesn't mind. If the misfiring is accompanied by loud banging or rattling it is probably a broken valve. Anyway, Horace irons the shirts."

"If irregular or infrequent firing occurs?" asked Horace, colouring at this public mention of his housekeeping. He looked up at Molly then looked away quickly when she caught his eye.

"You spoil her," she said to me. "I'll never know why you signed that silly paper. It's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen."

The paper she spoke of was a legal document that I had signed to honour my promise to her about the aeroplane.

"It will be because the rocker arm on the magneto contact-breaker sticks occasionally," said Phoebe smiling at me. "It's only sensible," she said to Molly. "He's a liar."

"Phoebe!"