The Vivisector

by WHITE, PATRICK

  He almost put out his hands. ‘Shall I be able to touch one?’

  ‘Touch what?’ Father asked.

  ‘A sheep. The wool. It looks sort of hard—tarry. I want to feel what it feels like.’

  Father grunted, not sure whether he ought to be pleased. ‘You’ll be able to touch as many as you like.’

  ‘Make a wool classer of ’im!’ Sid Cupples laughed.

  But when they explained what it was, you were able to say with certainty: ‘No. I don’t want to be anything like that.’

  ‘A squatter like yer dad is—or was,’ Mr Cupples corrected himself. ‘That’s a real man’s life.’

  Hurtle was silent because of what he knew they wouldn’t believe.

  The house was long, dust-coloured, wooden, amongst some dark trees, beside a river. While they were approaching a dark chocolate dog ran out, followed by a yellow mangy one, each gnashing teeth and showing a long pink tongue. The dogs were followed by several men dressed in their work-clothes, one of them less rough than the others who brought Mr Spargo’s apologies: he couldn’t manage to get out of bed.

  Hurtle was no longer introduced. There were too many people, and it would have been too much trouble. Father might even be finding him a nuisance now that there were all these men. It would make it easier to sneak off alone while they were at Mumbelong. He stood about, kicking some rusted tins on which the dew still showed, like sweat on skin.

  At the same time he couldn’t help being conscious of what was going on the other side of his eyelids. He knew that the rougher-looking men felt superior to Harry Courtney because he was rich and a gentleman, while the young bloke in a clean unironed shirt whose name was Col Forster was trying to please the owner for the same reason the men despised him. Col was a jackaroo, and very anxious about how he must behave as the manager’s representative. Sid Cupples, who was leading the horse round to the stables, seemed to belong to neither side. He was too old. He knew better than everybody and was content with that.

  Hurtle too knew better than everybody, than all these anyway, Sid Cupples included; not that he could have explained what he knew: because he saw rather than thought. He often wished he could think like people think in books, but he could only see or feel his way. Again he saw in his mind the rough-looking sheep. He itched to get his fingers in their wool, for the feel of it.

  They spent several days at Mumbelong, in which time he did various things Father planned he should do. He rode an old, wide, stubborn pony, which made his thighs stiff and rough. With that rifle Harry Courtney had offered in the beginning as a toy, he shot a rabbit through the back, and watched it kick its way to death. He watched a man called Eldred kill a sheep for them to eat. Eldred hung it on a post, and skinned it, and dragged the guts out with his hands.

  The whole of the visit to Mumbelong was more dream than real life, though Father took it so seriously. Somehow the light and colour were more important than what you were doing: that was the real importance of this dream-visit.

  He also had an actual dream which remained with him very vividly. The sheep Eldred killed was hanging on the post, as in life, except that in the dream he hadn’t killed, only skinned it. Maman was there, dressed for dinner. She was wearing the spray of diamonds in her hair. She was crying horribly, while busy too. As she pulled the guts out of the sheep, the heart bleated through the open wound; the blood shot over the tails of her sables: it clotted amongst the sapphires. Where is Rhoda? she kept on calling, I am looking for Rhoda she hurts me so. Maman by now was the colour of the skinned sheep, its beautiful cave of green and blue, her blood lips opening like the heart itself. Help me Hurtle, she called. While he could only stare at the strange beauty of the scene. Crool crool cool and crool she began to shriek nasty little boy with eyes like knives. By the time she started pulling at the big cushiony bowel her lips had turned the colour of liver. I am your blood-mother. I am only helping it to die to save it from the vivisector. Her white neck all freckled with blood. I know Hurturrl you would split my head open to see what there is inside. Her hair had parted wider than the parting and the skull was beginning to split.

  When he tore himself away and awake, Father was snoring on the other bedstead. From different parts of the wooden house came cries from other sleepers. He himself was so tied by the twisted sheet, and further hampered by his sweaty nightshirt, he could hardly escape. But did. By frantic effort. He ran stumbling stubbing on the way then out through some scattering of animals and furry splinters finally in the cabbage stalks he vomited up.

  There was a thin moon in the sky, very beautifully carved. He began in the dim light to distinguish other things too: the patch of seeded cabbages, their stalks long, thin, ringed like stone; an iron windmill, motionless; and the solid mass of the house, with its sounds of life and dreamed-of death.

  Next morning he went round the far side of the house while the others were preparing to leave for the paddocks. Father tried calling, but soon gave up. Hurtle thought he would look for stones in the river. Then he decided to explore the house, the several rooms he hadn’t been into. One of these, which the wide veranda must have kept permanently dim, was Mr Spargo’s room: he could hear somebody lying there. Since their arrival, Father had paid several visits to the sick manager. You couldn’t feel Father liked him much, but some men seemed to find pleasure simply in being men together.

  Mr Spargo was not altogether old, and very strong. He was lying on his back blinking at the ceiling. His eyelids were thick, white compared with the rest of his face, which was a burnt red. His coarse lashes were of the same light orange as the hair which covered all the visible parts of his body, and his thick, moist-looking lips stuck out rather as he breathed. Hurtle thought that if he were ever to draw Mr Spargo he would do him with a pair of horns.

  When the manager caught sight, he heaved and said: ‘You’re Courtney’s boy, are yer?’ Mr Spargo was one of those who would never attempt your name.

  Then he tried to sound pitiful: ‘Reach me terbaccer pouch, sonny. It fell down under the bed.’

  When you had done as asked, Mr Spargo remarked: ‘Chrise, me back’s givin’ me gyp!’

  Close up, the smell of man was surprisingly strong, considering the look of bull.

  ‘Whaddayer doin’ with yerself?’ the manager gasped.

  Because it was too complicated to tell, and wouldn’t have sounded convincing, Hurtle said nothing. He knew that Mr Spargo was one of those people to whom he would never have anything to say. You were happier with furniture.

  So he began to go silently away.

  ‘Stuck-up little bastard!’ Mr Spargo mumbled from his bed.

  Like most accusations it was only half true.

  Hurtle was glad to get away. During his stay at Mumbelong he was happiest with Sid Cupples, who seemed to suit himself on all occasions because of his age, and on this one, when the others left for mustering, had stayed back, either forgetting, or remembering something better.

  Sid was sitting on the step of the hut where he slept with a horse-rug for covering. He immediately said: ‘Heard yer reachin’ last night. It’s the fat. The young feller swamps the bloody tucker in fat. I tell ’im, but it don’t do any good.’

  Because cooks said it was too lonely at Mumbelong, and they were temporarily without one, Col Forster the jackaroo had been made to take on the job. He seemed to like it, or anyway, he didn’t complain.

  Sid Cupples went on smoking. An advantage of Sid’s company was that he didn’t expect explanations, or even answers. Hurtle was content to hang around in the blue haze made by the old man’s pipe.

  Sid said: ‘Oughter move the wethers from the Five Mile. I tell ’im. I told the boss—Mr Courtney.’

  One of the man’s eyes was blueing over.

  He said: ‘Too much dirty water. That’s what’s wrong with Spargo. ’E’d carry ’is bed any time a woman up an’ showed ’im ’er monkey.’

  Mention of one animal seemed to remind him of another. He told about a pos
sum they had caught on the place during a plague; the homestead roof had been full of possums: ‘Pissin’ through the ceilin’ on to yer plate. Till we tied a bell round the neck of this ’ere animal—see? Soon as ’e run after ’is mates, the mob of possums began ter disappear. It was the blessed bell—see? It was like this possum ’ud gone off ’is nut. Put the wind up the “sane” buggers.’

  Sid laughed and laughed at his memory of the bell-possum; but Hurtle was struck cold: by a vision of himself, the last possum on earth, tinkling feebly into a darkness lit by a single milky eye.

  At night a shiver would start running through the poplars along the river. In the rooms of the homestead men were getting drunk together. Even the lips of the boss and the manager began to grow slobbery over their glasses of rum. Then they went out to piss off the edge of the dry-rotted veranda. Mr Spargo forgot his back when he had to let the water out.

  On the last night Hurtle looked at Father, and Father didn’t seem to recognize him.

  There was a fuller moon, but not yet full. Everybody else seemed occupied, belching, and remembering for one another: dogs which had worked as dogs didn’t work nowadays; stouter-hearted horses and nobler mates. There was nothing to do but pick your nose and wander through the disconnected rooms, in which lamps were burning uneven, and men’s voices sagging beneath the weight of what they had to tell, particularly the weather, particularly the weather of long ago.

  Out in the kitchen Col Forster was writing at something. There were pages of it amongst the grey-brown potato peelings. The lamp chimney had turned black.

  ‘What are you writing?’ Hurtle asked.

  There was a breathing silence, while the insects batted round the glass chimney of the lamp, and Col held his hand to protect the paper.

  Then he answered: ‘Is it any business of yours?’

  Hardly fair, when you only wanted to know.

  Then Col thought better. He had a broad face, and spongy, gentle fingers. ‘I’m writing a book. A novel,’ he said. ‘The trouble is, I haven’t yet experienced enough.’

  ‘Can’t you simply write it out of your head?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be real.’

  It was difficult to see the point, only that the jackaroo was troubled.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ Col grunted, sucking at his bitten pen.

  Hurtle said: ‘I’m going to be a painter.’ He was certain of it for the first time; or it had been decided for him.

  Col Forster laughed: he had widely spaced, blunt teeth. ‘What sort?’ he asked between gulps of laughter. ‘A house painter?’

  ‘An artist. That paints paintings.’ Then you were tempted: ‘I’m going to be a great painter.’

  ‘Fancy yourself, don’t you?’ Col Forster couldn’t laugh enough. ‘Well, good luck to you, kid! I’m going to write the Great Australian Novel.’

  Hurtle thought it couldn’t be a very interesting book: poor Col had such a thick-looking skin, and those blunt teeth, and the kind fingers holding his chewed pen.

  That night Hurtle Duffield didn’t dream a dream. He got up early. He wanted to look at things he might never see again, not in their present shape: the moon, for instance; and the sun rising.

  When they got home the wall had been repapered. Maman never mentioned it, but he was only half glad. He picked at a join in the new paper to see whether his painting still existed underneath. But he had to stop because just then Rhoda came in.

  She told at once: ‘One of the men who papered the wall said a boy who painted a thing like that must have been born a shingle short. Or some kind of criminal.’

  ‘Bet he didn’t.’

  ‘I swear!’

  Since his visit to Mumbelong Rhoda looked even sicklier. You could see the veins in her white skin. The thin straight line of her mouth was the same colour as the thin necklace of corals they had given her to wear. Her head always trembling. Perhaps she would die, and he wouldn’t be sorry.

  ‘What did you tell the man?’ he asked as he brushed his hair.

  ‘I told him to mind his own business, and you were my brother.’

  He saw in the glass she had tightened her mouth like she did after she had told a lie, her head trembling more than ever on its green stalk of a neck. Rhoda wouldn’t die, though: her rages made her tough.

  ‘I liked the painting, Hurtle,’ she said.

  ‘You couldn’t have understood it.’

  ‘Why couldn’t I?’ she shouted.

  He didn’t bother to answer.

  ‘All right then,’ she said. ‘I didn’t like it. I only said it to be nice.’

  She might have said or done worse if Miss Gibbons hadn’t come and told them: ‘You’re both having dinner in the dining-room as a treat.’

  ‘I know that,’ babbled Rhoda. ‘There’s sweetbreads roast-chicken freshstrawberries with icecream. I know!’

  ‘You’re hysterical,’ he said.

  But instead of being angry, she shrieked laughter, started spinning round and round, and rushed out of the room.

  ‘Father’s in the nude!’ she shrieked. ‘He’s under the shower!’

  Miss Gibbons was so embarrassed she forgot to tell Rhoda off. She said in her tightest voice: ‘Did you enjoy your visit, Hurtle, to Mumbelong?’

  He had forgotten all about Sybil Gibbons. She was a sort of forgettable person. Even living in the same house she mightn’t have been there. Like junket. Suddenly he saw her as white against white, except for the dark skin round her blurry eyes, two targets, and her belt buckle.

  He was so pleased by his discovery he said in the most bookish voice he could imitate: ‘It was quite enjoyable,’ but in case that wasn’t enough, he got hold of her hand and rubbed it slightly against his cheek.

  Sybil Gibbons took such a deep breath she might just have touched the stove. She bolted out to attend to something, perhaps at the same time to have a cry. For very little reason her eyes would start watering. She was always mooning over that bloke instead of tearing the photograph up.

  He went down, dawdling on the stairs, to feel each drop of crystal light trickle through him from the chandelier.

  To welcome them, Maman had been wearing an apron over her dress as though she had come from cooking the dinner herself, which of course she hadn’t.

  ‘Oh, Harry,’ she said, and when she came up for breath: ‘It’s been so lonely!’ In a house full of maids, and Rhoda, and Miss Gibbons.

  She looked as if she could eat Father, who actually said: ‘Got something good for dinner, Freda?’

  ‘And darling darling Hurtle!’ she remembered.

  She made him feel as shy as though they were kissing for the first time.

  Rhoda had the sulks in the beginning. She didn’t want to notice. Except Father. When he bent down to make it easy for her to kiss, she closed her eyes: you could see her lips reaching up like a blind pup searching for the tit.

  Maman took off her apron. She twirled round, so that all the gauze of her skirt filled ballooning out. She told them: ‘All my family round me again—now at last I’m deliriously happy!’

  Father smacked her on the bottom.

  At dinner it was Rhoda who appeared, if not delirious, genuinely feverish, if you hadn’t known: almost everything about Rhoda was put on.

  She told them all, while looking at him: ‘I’m probably going to write a poem.’

  ‘That’s interesting.’ Maman was only humouring her. ‘What will your poem be about?’

  Rhoda at first pursed up her mouth; then she said: ‘About love.’

  It made you blow down your nose. Father couldn’t laugh properly because his mouth was full of sweetbread; he usually stuffed it rather full. Miss Gibbons, on the other hand, was messing at her food very daintily. One of her shoulders used to droop as she ate. She could never afford to stuff her mouth because she was the governess. Now Rhoda’s announcement had turned her as white as a plate.

  Maman said: ‘Do you think you know enough about the subject, Rhoda darling, to
be able to write about it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Rhoda simply said.

  It sounded so ridiculous. When suddenly you saw she was serious. She had a fuzzy, frightened look.

  ‘You can imagine it,’ she said.

  ‘Then perhaps you’ll succeed,’ Maman said very coolly. ‘And we shall have another genius in the family.’

  He looked at Rhoda and dared her to be one.

  ‘Who’s the other?’ she asked.

  Maman looked mysterious. She was trying to turn it into a joke, but she badly wanted a genius.

  ‘Who’s the other?’ Rhoda kept harping in a tinny voice, smacking her food with her fork.

  Maman pretended the children weren’t there, and began asking Father a lot of boring questions about the management of Mumbelong, to show she was interested, though she wasn’t.

  ‘Eat up your sweetbread, dear,’ Miss Gibbons coaxed Rhoda, who wouldn’t.

  After the chicken had been served she kept on stabbing at one of the little pastry hearts May had sent in to decorate the dish.

  There was fruit cup which made you feel sick, or perhaps it was the thyme and stuff in the stuffing.

  Rhoda said: ‘I’m going to start a diary. I’m going to write in it everything I do. And thoughts and things.’ She was becoming feverish again. ‘And secret things.’

  Father said: ‘That’s risky. You’re too untidy. You’ll leave your secrets lying about. Then other people’ll read ’em.’

  ‘Secrets are more interesting if they’re not all that secret,’ Rhoda said.

  ‘I can see your point.’ Again Maman was humouring her: there was a point at which Maman was no longer amused by children.

  A silence hung. Then the sound of Father licking his fingers after the bones. Everyone but Sybil Gibbons always enjoyed picking their bones.