The Hanging Garden

by Patrick White

  ‘So I hope you’ll do your stuff and impress the old cow,’ says Ally without great expectations in her voice.

  She has parked the vehicle out of sight of the school buildings. She has got herself up for the occasion in more than the usual lipstick, her bois de rose, and a pair of black glacé shoes which make her limp.

  As she limps ahead she mutters panting, ‘Punctuality gives me the gripes, but on some occasions it pays off…’

  The hem of the bois de rose is hanging. It would be unkind to tell her. Your relationship is very close this morning.

  It is hard to decide which is the more melancholy, a humming school or a deserted one. A superior maid tries to make us feel inferior and does, because we are disturbing the holidays. ‘Miss Hammersley has gone swimming,’ she says, ‘but will be back soon.’

  She shows us into the head’s study and leaves us to its silence, our breathing, and our fears.

  It is a mellow room, paintings, books—more than you have seen since coming to Australia. Photographs of men in uniform, British to the last hair of their moustaches. Less mellow the school groups—of ‘Ambleside’ girls squeezed up together, with assorted teachers, and a nurse in a cap.

  ‘That’s matron,’ says Ally. ‘She’s been here for years, doling out the castor oil. You’ll miss that because you’re only day.’

  There’s a group of girl cricketers. In the centre an elderly lady in trousers, exhibiting a bit.

  ‘That’s old Jinney in her favourite rôle.’ My aunt can’t resist a giggle. ‘I’ll laugh outright, darl, if you become a cricket star.’

  Just then the maid returns, to investigate the noise, and find out whether you are lifting some of the ornaments.

  She adjusts the blinds ‘… summer fades fabrics…’ she hisses, to make her appearance look less blatant. ‘Miss Hammersley will be here soon,’ she assures, with a sideways look at this somewhat unorthodox candidate.

  Almost immediately Miss Hammersley is.

  She is still slightly moist from her dip. Her hair has this damp frizz. Obviously Jinney doesn’t give a damn for hair. She is in a skirt today, askew round her bottom. Her large gold-rimmed spectacles radiate the superior virtues of the pure-bred Anglo-Saxon upper class. Actually, as a Pom, Jinney Hammersley has it over the pure-bred Anglo-Saxon Australians, who probably would not have it otherwise. Even Ally, for all her contempt, wears a slight cringe—along with the cracked glacé shoes and the bois de rose hem which has escaped its stitches.

  She is on about her niece adapting herself to life in Australia. You suspect that Ally, if you hadn’t been there, would have liked to represent you as a kind of Greek tragedy. But since you are present it isn’t possible. And the Hammersley is determined to make it a jollier than jolly occasion.

  She apologises for her ‘swimming togs’, wet and sandy, which she slings round the knob of a chair.

  ‘At least they smell of the sea,’ her glowing face splits as though for a discovery. ‘You, Irene,’ she pronounces the name English style as Harold does, ‘should appreciate that. Thalassa, Thalassa…’ cupping her chin and rather a dreamy smile, as she leans on this imposing desk.

  You can’t help laughing. It sprays around you. And Alison’s horror reaching out towards her Greek tragedy of a niece, to protest, to protect us. If only Gil. Gil could have handled such a situation.

  But the Hammersley has a forgiving smile. She does not appear to notice, or perhaps decides to interpret mirth as hysteria. She starts bringing out the snaps—Delphi, Olympia, Dodona, the Parthenon … ‘my tour of the ancient sites…’ and speaks some more of her hoi polloi English Greek. As she leans over you, the waves of Thalassa battle against a dew of armpits.

  ‘I don’t expect they introduced you to cricket’ she walks springily around as though making for the crease, ‘in our beloved Hellas,’ she says, ‘unless of course you have connections with Corfu. The British have left their stamp on Corfu.’

  Seated again at her splendid desk, she promises ‘We’ll try you out. Cricket plays an important part—because, you see, at Ambleside we aim to function as a Team.’ She lowers her chin, making it three, ‘I don’t encourage specific girls, however gifted, to hog the show.’

  Brief pause.

  ‘Scholastically,’ she booms, switching on her great round spectacles so that they flood the aunt with an electric glow and cause acute anxiety, ‘the curriculum aims at turning out girls with a broad humanistic view of life, through history, literature, the visual arts as well as encouraging the domestic virtues through a grounding in needlework and baking. Comprehensive in fact.’

  Again Miss Hammersley pauses to contemplate her effects.

  While the unfortunate Mrs Lockhart produces from a crumpled envelope a report on the candidate Irene Sklavos by her recent head Mr Warren Harbord.

  Miss Hammersley’s outstretched arm, the scales of sea salt still trembling on its down, receives the document with appropriate benevolence. The spectacles are directed at it. The hand taps, the throat is cleared before tautening, the mouth is pursed, and the cheeks rather than the lips smile.

  ‘Irene is an individualist, it seems—according to Mr. Warren? Harbord. Well, we shall see. I expect she will correct our Greek.’

  Mrs Lockhart quails. ‘Ireen is a very biddable girl’ she offers her superior out of another country.

  But the principal has no time for the guardian aunt. Again elbowing the desk her spectacles are focused on what could at last be the ideal pupil inside the unpromising material.

  Never were you subjected, all at the same instant, to battery by cricket balls, blinding by the flicker of leafed dictionaries, soothed by the scent of slightly scorched Australian sponge helped from hot baking tins. You can only lower your eyes against Miss Hammersley’s dreamy inspection, and hope for the best.

  We are shown out by the snooty maid, while the principal remains behind, arranging paper-knives and blotters on her desk. Eating into a little finger is a ring with a dark green stone blotched as though with blood.

  * * *

  Several days later, Ally says with a mixture of relief and contempt, ‘Waddaya know. The old girl’s accepted you, Ireen. You must have something.’

  Harold didn’t say anything.

  Date?

  Don’t know why I have started keeping this rotten old diary again. Always too dangerous on any count. Perhaps ‘Ambleside’ has given me courage—or wearing the key on a chain round my neck. Anyone interested enough could probably fiddle at the lock with a hairpin. But the older boys are so obsessed with turning themselves into super males their imagination is leaving them. Apart from eyeing me once or twice, Harold seems to have lost interest.

  Once Miss Hammersley wondered aloud what I wore on the chain. I did not enlighten her and she did not pursue the subject. The great slogan of the parents and anyone who knows about the school, is: The girls all adore Miss Hammersley, when she is hated by many of those outside the cricketing set.

  I find her excessively—aggressively kind. The other evening when I was kept back by Miss Charteris over an essay she found ‘original, but verging on the impertinent’ Miss Hammersley called me as I was going down the steps. She put an arm around me as we walked down the gravel towards the gate. The day had been oppressive. The evening smelled of Pittosporum. Our figures cast heavy shadows in a brassy light.

  ‘Are you happy, my dear,’ she asked as though hoping the answer might be no.

  ‘Oh yes, happy enough…’ I must have sounded a breathy idiot.

  ‘I wish you the greatest happiness’ she sighed, stroking the nape of my neck.

  Then she turned. I went on towards the road. I did not look back, but my antennae told me Miss Hammersley did.

  What happiness is, I can’t find out. Silences? Being left alone? That can become loneliness. Nearest with Gil in the arms of the great tree, in the garden which hangs above the water in Cameron Street.

  Ally was right when she said people would take me up when I w
ent to this school and she would lose contact with me. I have no intention of casting off Ally, but it’s easy to drift with the current. Everything is put down to the war. War is boredom to those who are not being killed in it. Anyway, says Ally, if you’re taken up by nice people—how she spits it out—you’re not taking up with the GIs.

  No, I’m not. Though you can’t help brushing against them. Those sandy, freckled shallow-eyed boys from the Middle West. The cheeky muscular negroes. And pale molluscs of whisky-soaked officers, bulging out of their shirts and pants. You can’t say the nice people up the line, parents of ‘Ambleside’ girls who invite you to their homes, don’t see the Yanks as universal providers. You can come across a bulging officer or two delivering their cigarettes and tissues. Or some shy boy from the ranks they’ve got through an approved club and do their duty by giving him tea. But a girl, a shy schoolgirl, is less trouble, while satisfying their sense of duty.

  From being a black reffo Greek, I am told I have something exotic about me, an olive complexion, classic features. The mirror won’t let me accept these honours. I am never more than a dark blur with spots breaking out during my most difficult periods.

  * * *

  Trish says her parents are mad about me. It doesn’t worry Trish because she isn’t mad about her parents, she sees them as an accident. She can make a dimple come in a blonde cheek, the right one, and usually does it when she laughs. When I began at ‘Ambleside’ Trish Fermor-Jones became my friend, the counterpart of Viva Jenkins at the old public. Different however. Poor Viva, whatever happened to her? We were going to keep up, but drifted apart, the way things happen—‘nowadays,’ Mrs Fermor-Jones would say.

  Trish told me, you know Mummy would like to adopt you. I wouldn’t give a hoot, well I mean I wouldn’t mind having you around as a sister, you’re so odd—different I mean. What about your father? She said it would be quite alright by him if it is what Phoebe wants. Daddy is only interested in money and success, he would only want you to do him credit, by being a stunning dresser and listening to his boring business friends, in Maxwell’s world a good listener is everything.

  I said I am good at listening, or rather, I can close up in my own thoughts. Trish laughed and made the dimple come. She said that isn’t the same thing, they would find out, think it queer that you have thoughts of your own, and have held it against you. I asked Trish what she is interested in. Money and success. Then you are your father’s daughter. Ah, she said I’d do different things with my money, I’d be a different kind of success. I asked her what, but she couldn’t say, or didn’t want to tell. Perhaps she didn’t know. She looked rather angry.

  I’d have thought Phoebe Fermor-Jones was interested enough in money and success. Trish said yes but Mummy has her principles, and committees and things, and comforts for the troops—and culture of course she’s a culture fiend, that’s where you come in.

  Just when I thought I was becoming uncultured enough to please my cousins and almost everyone I come across.

  Trish was looking at me very hard. I didn’t realise she was preparing to let off a bomb. She has this lovely sleek corn-coloured hair and clear skin which the sun only faintly touches, and grey rather than blue eyes. The eyes seem to make her more trustworthy in the midst of so much blazing British blue. Perhaps I am influenced by grey-eyed Athena. Or Gil—were Gil’s eyes grey or blue?

  I am trying to remember when Trish throws her bomb. What are you interested in Ireen? An ordinary enough question if it wasn’t so difficult to answer. I feel my black skin turning dark red as she continues looking at me and expecting a definite answer.

  She caught me out well and truly. I didn’t know what to answer but did. I was so nervous I let off a bomb equal to hers. ‘Well’ I said ‘love I think is what I’m most interested in.’ Trish shrieked ‘That’s not very ambitious Ireen you can have it any night of the week.’ ‘That’s different’ I said ‘surely that’s sex isn’t it?’ I could have killed myself.

  For a moment Trish looked as though she could really kill me. Her face never looked more like a sweet apple, but one I realised that had bones in it you’d find if you tried biting into the flesh. And teeth. Trish has perfect, even teeth, with transparent tips except that one, on the same side as the flashing dimple, an eye-tooth has been jostled out of place. I saw it as a fang. Phoebe is always saying we must do something about that tooth but all the good dentists are away at the war, we’ll have to wait. A solution which suited everybody. Except me, as I saw this fang taunting me.

  ‘How old fashioned you are, Ireen. Have you ever been in love?’ I didn’t know what to say, but mumbled yes and hoped she would leave it at that. Instead she kept mauling the idea—don’t know what you mean, I love boys what they do to you of course I never let them go too far, and people marry, but your kind of love is only what you see at the movies and old frumpy relatives go on about boring everyone at Sunday supper.

  It was Sunday and we were strolling at the bottom of the Fermor-Jones’s garden in our best clothes, Trish when out of uniform already the stunning dresser, and me in a present from Phoebe, that aunt of yours hasn’t a clue. All the Fermor-Jones shrubs are responding to autumn. Although it is wartime, their garden is perfectly kept, because they pay some elderly bloke to keep it in order, they always get what they want because they pay better than anyone. If the conditions had been different, not all those perfectly groomed shrubs and trees, there might have been a transcendence of light and air. Transcendence is something I am never sure about in Australia. It is a word I keep looking up in the dictionary while knowing about it from experience almost in my cradle, anyway from stubbing my toes on Greek stones, from my face whipped by pine branches, from the smell of drying wax candles in old mouldy hill-side chapels. Cleonaki’s saints—their wooden faces worm-eaten with what I see looking back as acne of a spiritual kind. Mountain snow stained with Greek blood. And the pneuma floating above, like a blue cloud in a blue sky.

  Trish and I have linked arms. ‘Go on, tell!’ She hits me in the ribs. I could be some gipsy fortune teller who has come down from the mountains with her tribe and a herd of brown goats.

  Just then, Phoebe started calling from the house, ‘Where have you girls got to? There are young men here waiting to be entertained.’

  We went up to the chicken à la king and fruit salad with ice cream for the shy GI’s on leave who had been hand-picked for her by the club. Trish kept looking at me as though wanting to share a secret we didn’t have. I must have looked as blank as any of the hand-picked GI’s. Phoebe noticed it at last. ‘Go on Ireen,’ she sounded rather angry. ‘You’ve got a card trick or something up your sleeve.’

  I heard her discussing me one evening with Maxwell, who was grumbling back through his cigar. ‘She’s no responsibility of mine. She’s Trish’s friend and your performing monkey. It’s too bad if you didn’t pick a winner.’ He was sloshing the ice around at the bottom of his gin sling and I couldn’t hear too distinctly after that. I only knew Maxwell had dismissed me from a life which revolved round a protected job which he shares with similar men. He had handed me over to women who wear attractive clothes, take lessons in French and Italian, and read library books …

  * * *

  Your families—your would-be adoptive one at Wahroonga, and your real Lockhart one at ramshackle old Neutral Bay. If anything is real in these years when we are shooting in all directions—or wrinkling and drying up. Phoebe asks, while putting on the moisturiser, ‘What is that aunt of yours doing down there?’ Ally at the ironing board only refers to ‘Those people…’ voice tilted upwards, expecting information. At least the Fermor-Joneses haven’t access to the diary. If the Lockharts haven’t either, they know about it, their eyes bore through locked drawers, it is a family joke.

  Shan’t write any more diary. My memory is more vivid and safer. Trish says she doesn’t remember much of what happened before the age of eight. I can’t believe it. Sometimes I think I remember Mamma throwing me out of her womb
. Much of what sticks in my mind is trivial, some of it beautiful—that kingfisher clinging to the giant sunflower, weighing it down, that will stay with me for ever like some enamelled plaque. But nastiness clings to the mind more easily than beauty—those corpses of little grey mice a cat spewed on the veranda board. Bruce’s hairy arm brushing mine. At least I can honestly say Bruce’s arm reminds me of Gil’s. Then my shudder needn’t be one of disgust. Or is that dishonest? Do I wait for it to happen again? All these trivial memories are in a way more real than for instance the night the Jap submarine came inside the Harbour. Like a not too bad dream. The greatest part of it old Mrs Hetherington down the street woken by the noise falling off her bed and breaking her hip.

  Phoebe sometimes puts on her religious voice to talk about historic occasions like ‘… the Jap submarines inside the Harbour, and the Battle of the Coral Sea. I hope you girls will remember what you’ve lived through!’ After the Battle of the Coral Sea she gives us corals to make sure. Mine is a necklet of little dark red jagged teeth, but Trish got a string of smooth beads almost white. I heard Trish complaining to her mother that they hardly looked like coral at all and Phoebe said, ‘You shouldn’t complain white corals are more distinguished—more valuable.’ Then she added, ‘I don’t advise you to tell Irene. She’s perfectly happy with that little necklet.’ Trish has never exactly told though she did once let out that dark corals are considered somewhat common—something for tourists. Perhaps that is what I am. I don’t feel I shall ever belong anywhere.

  * * *

  No more diary, even when my fingers itch. Thinking is bad enough without perving on what you’ve written down.

  You are feeling virtuous this afternoon. Miss Babington has given you an Alpha for the History essay. The only other Alpha is Jinny Forster. In the beginning she wanted to be your friend. But Trish appealed, with her blonde hair and clear skin. Jinny is thin and dark, bites her nails, has spots. Angela Fallon said you were both so clever, did you use the same crib? Jinny thinks we are twin minds. You shouldn’t shudder but do. At least you don’t bite your nails. Trish is up against it today. She hasn’t produced a history essay. Old Babs is cutting up rough, asks what her excuse is this time. Her parents insisted she go to visit friends across the Bridge. Babs’s moustache has never looked spikier. Telling Trish she isn’t interested in the social life of spoilt young women. She is here to educate them. Patricia will report to the head when school is out. Patricia looks more beautiful than ever, but the bones are visible inside the apple. She sits beside you slightly smiling, lids lowered. She has the confidence in her own worth you will always lack. On your other side, Jinny is muttering and fuming biting farther into her nails from hate and disapproval. You are caught between two opposite climates.