The Eye of the Storm

by Patrick White

  And yet, Alfred read, she discovered: he had accumulated a whole library of unexpected books, used ones, you could tell by the stains on them and crumbs between the pages. So she had found out in the painful months at the end when they were together again at ‘Kudjeri’.

  Earlier, when he would come down and ask them to put him up at Moreton Drive, he took to film-going. Though what Dad saw in the pictures he sat through, Basil could not imagine. It made him laugh in his in-between voice (his lovely pure little treble had broken). Basil was at his most horrid, exploiting harshness under cover of his beauty: like a still-ripening plum, he would have shrivelled the mouth if you had bitten into him. But he was right about those crude films; after tagging along to one or two, you could only conclude that poor Alfred interpreted them to suit himself, laughing when there was nothing to laugh at, crying—you suspected—at a common actress in corkscrew curls bringing her illegitimate baby to be christened in the parish church patronized by the young man’s family. Admittedly, you did sniffle slightly yourself—against your better judgment. Or because Alfred was trying to get hold of your hand and press his thigh against yours. (Imagine if the lights went up and anyone you knew was at the ‘pictures’!)

  Mrs Hunter’s eyelids might have been turned to walnut-shells if tears had not started oozing from beneath them: out of old, mottled, dammed-up eyes.

  Even during the phase after the (unofficial) separation, she never withheld herself when he came down to Sydney from ‘Kudjeri’. She was determined to show her gratitude and repay him in affection for what amounted to her freedom. (He, too, must appreciate that affection is much less bumpy going than passion.) She used to make some sign, cough a shade too dramatically, or slam a drawer, or remark in an unnaturally high voice, Those Wyburds of yours—do you think she knows how to treat him? and Alfred would come to her, on bare feet, from the next room, and immediately they would drop their disguises. If he had still been alive she hoped he would remember with as much delight as she the pleasures of this calmer, therapeutic relationship.

  Not that the other hadn’t been necessary, desirable: the purposeful is necessary. And their children were purposeful. She would still dream of the barbs he had planted in her womb.

  But was Arnold Wyburd necessary?

  Scarcely saw him at first after the move to Moreton Drive. Old Keemis was too possessive: an old, reputed masher, in silk hat and thin white ribbon of a necktie pushed through what looked like a wedding ring. Married to Millicent, a person you never set eyes on: an invalid, it was said. The old man was very correct in his behaviour: sucked peppermints, for instance, to disguise his breath. She would have preferred the full blast of tobacco which lingered under the peppermint. Flowers for her birthday from Keemis: yellow roses; at Christmas the box of French liqueur chocolates. Archie Keemis was a man who made life seem everlasting: then he went and died in Pitt Street, on Cup Day, on his way to the club. Her grief for this old man who hadn’t meant all that much to her was as spontaneous as any she had experienced. Must have been the suddenness the shock, the removal of something solid and dependable. An almost solidly male funeral watched her while pretending not to. She was glad she had thought to wear a veil. They were watching to see what ‘Bill’ Hunter’s wife had meant to their solicitor. And Millicent Keemis was not there. The wife’s absence, however invalid she may have been, made your presence more calculable to men who believed in their powers of calculation. (Honest affection, she had found, often appears more dubious than outright infidelity: probably no one—well, almost no one, had guessed at her consummated flings; there had been other, unconsummated ones of course, because you can be unfaithful, mentally unfaithful, with a jewel, a house, a child, a woman—couldn’t have gone all the way with a woman, or not farther than a hand’s flirt. Who had said—some forgotten brute—Her only genuine adulteries are those she commits with herself? She must try to remember.

  Not Archie Keemis: whatever his reputation as a ladykiller, he had always been respectful. Too old. Too honourable. So was his junior, Arnold Wyburd. It was Archie who suggested she should make a will—only a couple of weeks before they picked him up dead in Pitt Street. (Dead: she used to shy away from the word, saw it as a stone; then it becomes an idea rather, hovering round the body like mist, straying through the skull in unravelled snatches of thought, but never frightening, or personal.) And here was Archie, incredibly, asking her to confess to a belief in her own death now that she had property to leave: the house in Moreton Drive was hers; her jewels; the stocks Alfred had settled on her after they married. She had never thought about it. Might have enjoyed a sense of importance if it had not been for a slight uneasiness in her stomach. The document itself was ludicrous: the laborious phrases he insisted on wrapping round her simple wishes. His serious courtliness made her smile as she sat twisting her rings, looking at everything there was to look at in that dusty office; she always enjoyed seeing what there was to see. To save her the trouble of a trip to the city—which she made every day in her little electric brougham, even when there was scarcely a pretext—he said he would bring out the draft for her approval.

  Then they telephoned to say Mr Keemis was off-colour: he hadn’t come to the office today; Mr Wyburd would bring the draft after lunch.

  Arnold Wyburd was dressed in grey on this occasion: a great improvement on that hot black he wore for ‘Kudjeri’. When she came in he was standing looking out the window. She surprised herself thinking she would like to touch the lines of this back, to slide her arms round the waist, and up, till her hands met on the other side, knotted on his chest; to fit herself closely to this splendid, slender, still unconscious, grey form.

  Though he must have been conscious. If he did not turn immediately, she began to sense he was postponing their facing each other. She could feel herself flush, jaws clenching to prevent what was still only a warmth in her throat from gushing out as something more reprehensible. It was a warm, not a hot day, a scent of daphne from the bed outside. When he could no longer put off turning, it was not his eyes she was drawn to, it was the drops of perspiration lying in the saucer of a temple.

  They were making sounds at each other, of welcome, of apology: social sounds, by one interpretation. He was carrying the folded will, the guarantee of her eventual death. She half noticed the stiff paper was tied with a ribbon: the ribbon gave it a coquettish air.

  You mustn’t be afraid, she said; it would have sounded more surprising if it had not been part of a plan or theory, she suspected, which had started evolving already at ‘Kudjeri’ as she held his white though sinewy wrist to steady a wavering flame. She began elaborating—Mrs Hunter laughed to remember, You must realize I’m much older than you—that I married late: I was thirty-two—that there’s nothing to be afraid of. The irrelevance of it all made it sound strangely idiotic, even now. Must have decided in the beginning Arnold was a stupid young man. Herself doubtfully cool; but coolness prevailed: at least it must have impressed him more than Lal Pennecuick and the two little girls, Marjorie and Whatever. You hadn’t forgotten your own Dorothy and Basil: they were out walking in the park with Nanny. Nora—you knew her habits—would have returned to her interrupted novelette; Gertrude, by now in her basket chair, is snoring off a lunch of scones and tea.

  This was the extent of the coolness which spread also to Arnold Wyburd: never could a mouth have grown more familiar in a shorter time.

  ‘Oh dear!’ Mrs Hunter was momentarily so racked by guilt, the elderly solicitor at the bedroom window again wondered whether he should advance to the bedside and try in some way to share whatever she was suffering.

  Making love by daylight: it was the first time as far as she could remember; and yes, it must certainly be the first time Arnold Wyburd had taken off his clothes in public. It appeared easier after the shoes. Her bed felt so deliciously cold it made her shiver; it had never looked so blinding. She closed her eyes, out of modesty as well, and in this way hoped to make it easier for Arnold to find the courag
e she had promised herself to inspire in him. Only it seemed, in the end, that Arnold was not in need of inspiration. His heavy breathing exploded her theory. So she opened her eyes to his white, practically hairless, sinewy body. As he surfaced for breath, it was Arnold’s eyes which were closed. To shut her out because she wasn’t Lal? At least she could say, with eyes open or shut, he wasn’t Alfred; this was neither love, nor the more satisfactory affection. On her part it was only desire, and on Arnold’s a kind of dissolved frustration. She was so relieved she almost laughed. But he can’t have felt the least tremor: he was too deeply concentrated; and she lulled him deeper and deeper, it seemed, and deeper. At his climax, she took his head with her hands, and tried to press into his mouth the admiration with which she was running over: that he had succeeded in leaping a barrier—and with her help.

  When Arnold Wyburd dashed her off, disengaged himself entirely, and stubbed his toe on a caster. Never forgive myself Mrs Hunter a position of trust so many others involved. Poor man. But we don’t love each other Arnold and I am the one to blame I don’t love you but I loved it it is something which had to which you will forget and I shall remember with pleasure. Too foolish of her to suggest that they were only half-absolved. She would always remember his braces, his suspenders, trying to impress an enormity on her. Men are at their most priggish managing braces or suspenders. Ah well, better a priggish solicitor than a lecherous one, she supposed.

  She could not remember how Arnold Wyburd got away. Didn’t telephone for a cab; must have walked to the tramstop. When she went downstairs, in time for the children’s return from the park, she found the draft will. She wished it had been the final version. She drove herself in next morning, in the electric brougham, and handed over the approved draft to some young woman at Keemis & Wyburd’s office: Arnold did not appear; and poor Archie was at home preparing for his fall in Pitt Street.

  ‘Who’s for brekkie?’ Too much a clattering scratching clucking: too rude an interruption to thought and stillness.

  ‘Who are you?’ Mrs Hunter asked.

  ‘I’m your nurse—Sister Badgery. And here’s a nice coddled egg!’

  ‘I was hoping you’d be the other one—Mary. She hasn’t walked out on me—has she?’

  ‘She’s downstairs enjoying a cup of coffee. Sister’s off duty now. She only stayed on this morning in hopes of catching a glimpse of the—your daughter.’

  ‘Oh, yes. They never met. De Santis came to me that other time—just after I’d returned from some island—after Dorothy had flown back to France in one of her huffs.’

  ‘Here’s the lovely egg, dear! Open mouth, Mrs Hunter!’

  Mrs Hunter pointed her chin. ‘I haven’t been interested in breakfast—not since I married. I like a good luncheon—“dinner” they seemed to call it nowadays—nothing heavy at night.’ After which her gums closed down.

  ‘Just a tiny spoonful!’ Mrs Hunter could feel Sister Badgery’s bone spoon trying to prise her lips open. ‘I’m sure you don’t want to disappoint me. Or Mr Wyburd here. There’s no one has your interests at heart so much as Mr Wyburd.’

  ‘Oh, my solicitor. Yes. Have you met him?’

  Sister Badgery’s arrival with the hateful egg had confused Mrs Hunter: she was terrified her mind might crumble before Dorothy came, let alone Basil, who was delayed.

  ‘Oh yes, we know each other. Don’t we, Mr Wyburd?’ Sister Badgery winked, and moistened her already glistening teeth.

  He knew her too well. She had shaken her head at him on sidling into the room with the tray, reminding him of a white Leghorn: inquisitive, ostentatiously industrious, silly, easily outraged. She would look in at the office on Fridays after duty and he handed her her envelope. (This had been ordained by Mrs Hunter for all her staff, not as a nuisance to him, but to ensure personal relationships for them.) Sister Badgery would sit a while to air her pretensions, based on her training at the Royal Prince Alfred and a curtailed marriage to a retired tea planter from Ceylon.

  Over just visibly reluctant lips Mr Wyburd murmured, ‘Sister Badgery and I are old friends.’

  Mrs Hunter swallowed her third mouthful of nauseating egg, some of which, she could feel, had dribbled on to her chin, and Badgery would be too flattered by Arnold to notice. ‘Mr Wyburd,’ she succeeded in ejecting the words, ‘should be having his own breakfast. It’s been arranged. I hope it’s a man’s breakfast, Arnold. Foreign women don’t understand that a man’s strength—hinges—on his breakfast.’

  Sister Badgery laughed at the joke; the things on the tray clattered.

  ‘I don’t doubt it will be an adequate breakfast,’ Mr Wyburd said, and Sister Badgery renewed her laughter as though he too had made a joke.

  ‘I don’t know why you didn’t go sooner,’ Mrs Hunter was hectoring: foolishness in a dependent would turn her lungs to leather in an instant.

  ‘You were having such a good sleep,’ he protested; ‘I didn’t want to disturb it.’

  ‘I wasn’t sleeping—only thinking. I hope Mrs Lippmann has cooked you a chop—or a dish of devilled kidneys. Alfred used to take cold chops whenever he went mustering or drafting. Horrid! But that’s what the men like. Take him—show him, Sister!’

  ‘I’m sure Mr Wyburd knows the way. I dare say he could show me corners of this house I never ever knew existed.’ Sister Badgery laughed some more, and Mr Wyburd went downstairs exceedingly humiliated.

  ‘Now you can put away that wretched egg. There are things you must do for me—urgently.’

  ‘Really? But the coffee. You’ve forgotten your coffee, Mrs Hunter.’

  She had too. ‘Did you put the brandy in it?’

  ‘Oh dear, yes, my life wouldn’t be worth much, would it? if I forgot the brandy.’

  Mrs Hunter groped for and took the cup, her lips feeling for the lip. She found, and strength returned in a delirious stream, through the funnel of her mouth, right down to her chilly toes.

  Sister Badgery watched this old blind puppy with approval, even affection. She did not approve of drink, only of Mrs Hunter’s brandy. She admired the rich, and enjoyed working for them because it gave her a sense of security, of connection, however vicarious. To her friends she would refer to wealthy patients always by their first names; she knew intimately strangers she had read about in gossip columns: they were no longer strangers if you read about them often enough.

  Mrs Hunter was supping her brandied coffee; soon she would grow muzzy, and sleep.

  ‘I want you to make me up, Sister,’ she spluttered through a last mouthful, ‘for my daughter’s arrival.’

  ‘Make you up? You know I can’t. In all my life nothing but good soap and water ever touched my face.’

  ‘I was afraid of that.’ She sounded more resigned than bitter. ‘If only it were little Manhood: she could do it for me.’

  ‘I don’t doubt. Sister Manhood comes of a different background.’

  ‘So what? She came off a banana farm. And you’re an engine driver’s daughter.’

  ‘My father was an engineer employed by the State Government. My three brothers are public servants, and two of them elders of the Presbyterian Church.’ Mrs Hunter did not care as much as Sister Badgery. ‘I had a very strict upbringing. Even when I started my nurse’s training at P.A., my father expected a full account of my leisure activities. As for Sister Manhood—she was out dancing around with any young resident doctor who asked her. I know that for a fact. Oh, I have nothing against Sister Manhood. Believe me! She’s a charming girl—so full of vitality, fm actually fond of Sister Manhood, and only wish she wouldn’t touch up so much; it gives strangers a wrong impression.’

  Mrs Hunter said, ‘I like to feel I have been made up. It fills me with—an illusion—of beauty. Of course I may never have been beautiful: even in my heyday I was never absolutely sure—only of what was reflected in other people’s eyes—and I can no longer see distinctly.’

  ‘Sorry, dear, I can’t be of any help when it comes to cosmetics.’ Sister Badgery
was slightly remorseful as she took the cup from the old thing’s hands. ‘Anything else I can do for you?’

  The nurse stood holding her breath: bad enough if it were the bedpan, but to hoist her patient on to the commode almost always ricked her back.

  ‘Yes. There is something,’ Mrs Hunter said. ‘My jewel case. Then I shan’t feel completely naked.’

  Sister Badgery began swishing about. The jewels played such a part in their owner’s life they increased the self-importance of any member of her household assisting at the ceremony.

  Mrs Lippmann had once ventured to suggest, ‘She shouldn’t be allowed to flash her jewels at whoever comes: at the electrician, if you please, and window cleaners!’ But the housekeeper was notoriously jealous.

  ‘Poor old soul, they’re what she’s got to show,’ Sister Badgery replied, ‘and what she loves.’

  ‘Someone might steal—or murder her for them.’

  ‘They mightn’t dare.’

  Mrs Lippmann agreed they might not.

  Now when she had brought the case Sister Badgery asked, ‘Hadn’t I better open it for you?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ The catch responded less quickly to more agile fingers: she knew its tricks. She knew every inch of the mangy, velvet-covered box.

  Her jewels.

  Sister Badgery who thought she could recognize each, or almost every jewel—that was the peculiar part: not everything had been revealed—and who knew by heart the stories attached, though again not all, for the stories would breed others, was regularly entranced at the unveiling; but this morning felt provoked that Mrs Hunter should have scrabbled through the velvet trays and got herself into half-a-dozen rings behind her back.