The Eye of the Storm

by Patrick White

  The doctor laughed low. ‘Kinky games the pair of you got up to!’ He took hold of what had been a wrist, lifted what proved to be eyelids, flourished a nonchalant stethoscope; then he flicked once or twice at the object on the bed by catapulting a forefinger off a thumb. ‘Elizabeth Hunter’s bought it all right.’

  Sister Manhood was suitably disgusted. No, she was! Hadn’t she loved, not Mrs Hunter herself, but something she stood for? Life, perhaps. She whipped you on. Like when the menstrual blood had begun to flow again, and you felt it warm and sticky on your legs, something of love and life was restored. So Flora Manhood hated Dr Gidley, because it now appeared he had hated Mrs Hunter.

  While he sat in the easiest chair to write out his certificate, she began busying herself. She must wash the body, and hoped to do so privately. But when she had fetched the basin, the doctor seemed prepared to continue sitting.

  ‘I have to wash my patient, Doctor,’ she reminded.

  ‘Why not, Sister?’ Didn’t he know by heart every inch of Elizabeth Hunter’s body?

  She would screen the bed with her back.

  ‘Expect you’ll come out of it pretty well—isn’t your name “Flora”?’

  ‘I don’t expect a thing.’ If this dirty man forced her into talking virtuous, for once she needn’t feel a hypocrite.

  ‘The meanest of the rich remember their nurses in the will. If they don’t, the solicitor reminds them. To remind them of the doctor too, would be logical, wouldn’t it? But they almost never get round to that. Sometimes, of course, the patient’s in love with the doctor. That’s different.’ He laughed his thickest.

  Dr Gidley (‘Graham’) always on the up and up, with his young (monied) wife, his two little boys at the right school, his practice desirably situated, subscriber to the opera and orchestral concerts, and member of the A.J.C., called out Flora Manhood’s bile.

  When faced with her first, real death, she should have been capable of tenderness. She would learn, though. Washing these terrible withered limbs, and the little shabby, shammy leather pouches of breasts, a kind of love began to jerk rather than flow along her straining arms. Because Elizabeth Hunter herself was apt to ward off tenderness if ever you tried it out on her, anything of that nature had always been rather clumsily implied. At least the physical strain of washing her body now helped you endure the doctor.

  ‘A very passionate woman, so they say. Well, you could tell.’

  Flora Manhood at work leaned farther over: she had to protect Her; before anything, she must sponge away the signs of her own vicious handiwork. The mask did seem to be taking on the expression of original purity, and in assuming, to assure. Elizabeth Hunter’s beauty, anyway as idea, hovered on the face of a skull to which a reality had been restored.

  She had given the mouth its last wipe with the flannel when she realized from the breathing that Dr Gidley was close behind her, or closer still: he was rubbing himself, blubbery man, against her buttocks.

  ‘Flora, eh?’ At the same time making his obscene thrust.

  ‘Dr Gidley,’ she said into his face, because now that she had turned she could not avoid any part of him: neither blond bristles sprouting from the chin, nor belly threatening to pin her against or bludgeon her over the end of the bed, ‘if you’ve forgotten your wife, I haven’t forgotten my patient. I’d like to treat her respectfully.’

  The doctor let out a sharp, whiskey sigh, and recovered a balance the nurse had almost upset. ‘All the right sentiments! Like in the textbook. But don’t you know a textbook is never for real?’

  By now he was more wind than piss. She could have thrown him out if Sister de Santis hadn’t appeared. In her street clothes. And her eyes.

  The presence of such a professional figure as the night nurse called for a return to business. ‘You’ll see, Sister,’ the doctor said, ‘we’ve had a death in the family.’ Then he laughed, perhaps for himself and little Manhood.

  Sister de Santis advanced to the bed and touched the feet. She went to change into her uniform.

  So Dr Gidley was free to leave. He winked, and cocked his head, whether at the pretty nurse, the corpse of his late patient, or a reflection of himself in the glass, it was difficult to tell; though the reflection was most likely: with its moist lips, swelling torso, and dandiacal tufts of hair frizzed out on either cheek, his was the image his mind’s eye could most agreeably entertain. While Sister Manhood was left with the vision of a pair of naked calves, or immense blond bulbs grown to bursting, before they uprooted themselves from the carpet.

  She had finished washing the dead by the time Mary de Santis returned. It was de Santis who dried the body, who plugged it (thank God) and tied the knees.

  The two nurses exchanged remarks, both practical and comforting, in subdued voices. Sister Manhood brought a fresh sheet to cover the body. After they had spread it, and smoothed it over the major peaks and ridges, Manhood trimmed the nails. But it was de Santis who laid the handkerchief over the face. As their hands touched during their work, or they bumped against each other, or rubbed shoulders in passing, Flora Manhood came closest to expressing the love she might have been too abashed to feel for Elizabeth Hunter.

  Finally Sister de Santis said, ‘Don’t you realize it’s long past your time?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll go. And never come back. Not even for the bloody uniform.’ She explained she intended to give up nursing: she had just realized.

  ‘I expect you’ll think better of it, Flora.’

  ‘Not on your life!’

  Her decision might have given her greater cause for rejoicing if St Mary had not used her Christian name. Instead she went out soberly, to guard against possible damage to a fragility she had not suspected was in her. She changed, and did not return to the bedroom. She would write to Sister de Santis, if she could summon up the spelling and the grammar, to thank her for her moral support. As for Mrs Hunter, she did not want to look at her again: not with the handkerchief over her face.

  And now turning in this narrow dark a coffin can’t be narrower than insomnia in a hard bed well you ought to be able to replace what more or less belongs to you or anyway suggest it Lottie is the only one who will want to lie and suffer to feel those tinny handles pressing cutting into her flesh the night Elizabeth Hunter. It is still this same night. O Lord.

  Again Flora Manhood almost switched the light on. But did not dare face up to the present in all its varnish and sharp corners and clutter of unwashed crockery. Better the past, however dark and humiliating some of the details.

  So you are still running down the reeling path this night of Elizabeth Hunter’s death feel the branch not cutting whipping the cheek it is still with you like the unnecessary lint a love offering for a scratch snuff the collodion right up and be grateful yes you are.

  Flora Manhood drew breath when she had pulled the gate to: it is never fixed because old Betty is too dotty, Arnold Wyburd almost gaga, and nurses enjoy bellyaching. Those furnaces refineries whatever along the Botany skyline look real scary sometimes specially the one which turns into a fiery cross if you look at it through a fly screen. Well, you need never look at it again, not through the screen at Moreton Drive.

  F-L-O-R-A spelt out makes you feel more real hard to believe you’re free at last to roam around lie on the park grass if you want not at night when they murder people who are on their own but under the sun the weight of the sun as much as the warmth is what you crave for.

  In the sun’s absence, she began walking smartly down the street. She didn’t depend on the sun, no more than on any man. And Mrs Hunter dead. You would never go back. Not for the uniform. Not for the plastic bag either. Or the box of tissues opened only this afternoon.

  She walked faster, to throw off the thought of her pretty bag. Through her dress, the air was playing on, if not between, her ribs. She shivered. She had forgotten it was winter.

  Till she was simply walking. For the sake of it. Down Anzac towards Kingsford. Within sight of the neon sign she loit
ered on the kerb before turning into Gladys Street, but doubled back along the opposite pavement on reaching Vidlers’ front divide; she could not have faced giving Vid and Viddie an account. She shot down streets she had never ever heard of Hardcastle Trent Dahlia Corella Cumberlong Dobbs re-crossing the Parade nearly at a run then shied off just short of Snow’s the blue light still spitting on its pole pointing up the tuck pointing. Received again into the Parade, she was panting for all that is hectic, to match her own hectically flickering condition.

  If you had been wise to yourself at the time you might have joined in Lottie’s dance for Mrs Hunter.

  Outside the Bellevue in a patch of light shed by a couple of milky globes a human object had been planted: a third globe, or turnip, or face of a woman who has reached the hazed phase, of coloured memories and dribbled resentments, was occupied in staring up.

  ‘Doncher know me, Florrie?’ The voice struggling to get out through the rubber hole of a mouth sloshed the self-pity around. ‘One thing nobody can ever say’s I never took the trouble to know a person who was down on ut.’

  Here the weight attached to her was too great for this person: wrists flopping over a bulge of knees, head tumbling on the end of a telescoped fibrous neck, the body almost rolled sideways into the gutter. But saved itself, as a headlight flashing past washed the eyelids whiter, the mouth a wetter, more slippery rubber.

  ‘Why—Snow!’ It could be the night of worst moments. ‘Is anything wrong with you?’

  ‘Chrise, Florrie, thought you was the big wake-up. Camtcher see I’m stoned blue?’

  ‘But in the gutter!’

  ‘If you can’t get yerself out of ut.’ Snow was in fact lolling worse.

  Bent over her only living relative so that the draught from behind shot up her mini, Flora Manhood could not have felt more foolish or less competent. By rights she should have got down on her knees, but she did not want to spoil her hose. The hose was no real excuse: instead of inventing pet-names (‘Butchikins’ ‘Snowlo’ ‘Pore Youse’) she could have grabbed hold of the hands from where she was, and yanked her cousin into the upright. She didn’t.

  ‘Are you on your own, Snowy?’

  ‘I’m on me own.’

  ‘What about your friend?’

  ‘Which friend? Carla?’

  ‘The one I met. Wasn’t it Alix?’

  ‘That one. Alix left.’

  ‘Carla, then?’

  ‘Not Carla. Carla went the way. Kay’s the one. Walked out on me this evenun. That’s why I got me load up.’

  Snow Tunks began, not to cry, to trickle or dribble, gin or tears. With one hand she made a swipe at the silver sickle swinging from her mouth. Or nose.

  ‘Wait on, Snowy. I’ll fetch someone,’ nurses have wrecked their backs hoisting the patient, ‘somebody to help you up.’

  ‘I can get up—if I wanter.’

  ‘Call a taxi, then—to take you to your home.’

  ‘I don’t wanter. Not alone. Florrie?’ Snow Tunks put out a hand, but only caught hold of the dark: Flora Manhood had stepped back.

  The truth was: you could not bear her to touch you; Snow might stick for ever.

  ‘The taxi’s the best shot, love. There’ll be a phone I can use in the pub. Call the Red de Luxe.’ Too high, too bright, heels too busy across the pavement.

  From where she was sitting on the kerb Snow heaved round to holler, ‘Only if you’ll come, Floie. You’re the one it should have been. I reckon I sorter realized as far back as Banana Town you an’ me couldn’t do better than shack up.’

  ‘Okay, Snow. Wait, Snowy.’

  The bar door took some opening: the fug inside must have gummed it up. Snatches of men s beery laughter seemed to make the frosted glass balloon outward against the cheek of anyone, specially a woman, pushing in.

  ‘Won’t let me down, will yer, Florrie?’ Snow was still calling from the kerb. ‘It’s you an’ me an’ bugger the rest.’

  ‘Yairs yairs.’

  Florrie (Sister Manhood!) managed to force the door open. On the other side men were standing watching an infringement of their rights. Whether pursy, beery-eyed blokes, of the type which crooks a finger at its schooner to establish this delicate relationship, or lean smoothies who show they know better by nursing a glass of pallid spirits, all were of the superior sex. Nobody ever said you can do without a woman; who can even become a permanent asset: to throw the steak on the grill, iron the shirts and keep the home nice and neat. Wives are economic like; that’s a different matter. As for this girl, showing too much of herself in the doorway, she didn’t rate much above a back-seat fuck.

  Lucky for Flora Manhood’s pride that the Bellevue stood on a corner. She could cut across this corner, jibbering apologies for the mistake she had made, and was already out the opposite door, in the other street, wiping her hands on such skirt as she could muster, to dry her embarrassment, not to say shame: for blokey men, for her drunken dyke cousin, and worst of all, HERSELF.

  She was again faced with this delirious neon nightscape her life had become since Mrs Hunter’s death. Won’t let me down will yer Florrie? Like hell. If Snow herself had more or less put the idea in your head she couldn’t complain. Any more than you explain.

  Farther up, a police car was slowing down to take a squint. No hope of explaining to the Great Dane police boy you were only running away from your shickered cousin you were not the pross he would have liked you to be you were not even any longer identifiable as a nurse you were nothing but a woman of no fixed intention recognized capabilities or positive hopes.

  But the car cruised on.

  It was not till the sidestreets, up to your ankles in sand, that you started running back, out of this dead end. The sand was what handicapped: all the streets on this side were deep in it. As you squelched and lumbered you were sandpapered.

  It seemed to Flora Manhood she would never get there: the paling fences, the shifting sands of the cross streets, were against it. Once she had lost a shoe running to catch a bus. She would lose a shoe now for sure, and the police car pick up Snow. You would have let down practically everybody you could think of.

  Lying in this narrow bed knowing every spring and non-spring like you know the bumps the boobs the grain the tufts the funnels and tunnels the whinges of your own body what would you have done if you found the car pulled up door open alongside the Bellevue it wasn’t but could have come and gone Snow had gone like everybody you are the one who is left and Elizabeth Hunter she has leaked out in a brown stream from under the handkerchief the sheet to mingle with the dark around you are a twit because E. Hunter is well and truly laid not a loophole left the cotton wool won’t allow it.

  Crossing the Parade, probably for the fifteenth time, Flora Manhood heard the traffic screech. Elizabeth Hunter herself, determined that nothing should prevent her having her way, could not have stalled it more effectively. Flora tripped, lurched against the plate glass, which at first buckled, but settled down by tremors against her flattened nose. Mrs Hunter’s fingers always trembled if she won; if she didn’t, they stiffened into claws. Considering the dead woman was not present even in a spirit nightie, only a nut would believe there was any question of influence.

  Tonight the pharmacy window was divided between proprietary skin foods and OUR NATIONAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE HOUSE FLY. His window dressing had never been bang on; he hadn’t the time to give it thought, but left it to Bev Sills who was a doll, though he didn’t seem to notice. Now it was late and of course the dispensary shut. So she went along the side and up the stairs to the residence. The same yellow asparagus fern was drooping out of a slit in the brawn surrounds. The smell of gas was still there, and of burning chops when he opened the door.

  He said, ‘I’ve got some chops going.’

  She went in, past him, into the kitchen, pulled out the grill to take a look. The fat flared up. The smoke started her eyes smarting.

  ‘They’re just about done,’ he said, as though everything he had ever
intended was coming to pass.

  There was nothing much you could do about the chops. She turned off the gas.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table. She had never wanted so much to sit down and stay sitting.

  Col said, ‘What do I owe the honour to?’

  ‘Mrs Hunter’s dead. She went this evening. I reckon that’s my last case.’

  ‘Don’t tell me! What had this Mrs Hunter got?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’d lived it up, I suppose. You felt that if you zombied around long enough you might find out what you can expect.’

  ‘And did she let you in on it?’ Col had twitched back one corner of his mouth which made him look as though that side had never recovered from an accident; it was an expression she had never liked to see, because soon after, they usually started exchanging abuse.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t know,’ she modified it; but felt incurably ignorant.

  Amongst the dishes on the table, bacon rind set in waves of fat, lettuce leaves wilted by vinegar dregs, one of Col’s books was lying: Thus Spake Zarathustra, whoever he was to sound so certain. She who was plumb ignorant would probably remain so for ever.

  ‘If you come expecting answers here, you know the only one you’ll get.’

  ‘I don’t expect anything,’ she said.

  The smoke from the burnt chops was making her eyes worse than smart; they were running.

  The other side of the fluctuations Col was still hammering away. ‘From what you told me, you always hated that old woman.’

  ‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘No—I didn’t hate! She understood me better than anybody ever. I only always didn’t like what she dug up out of me.’

  ‘I understand you, Flo.’ He had got down beside her. ‘What you are. And you are it.’

  ‘I’m nothing.’

  He was kissing her thighs. He kissed between them, and she, the awkward bleeding goof, was holding his head against her belly. It would embarrass her to tell him she had the painters in and there was nothing doing.

  He saved her the trouble by going to fetch something which would make her sleep, and a dressing for what he called her ‘wound’, where the branch had scratched her cheek.