The Pages

by Murray Bail

  It had been a mistake bringing Sophie along on this – just because she felt sorry for her. And typically she had preferred company to travelling alone into the interior, hundreds of miles west of Sydney. It was her timid side. What was the matter with her?

  She stood at the bedroom window.

  A return to her customary detachment was necessary. It was what she was known for.

  Stepping outside, Erica went down towards the creek. Dozens of white cockatoos flew up from the ground ahead of her. There were other birds too, smaller birds. One had a short fan-shaped tail. The very idea of birds suddenly was amazing. Even crows. The many small, well-fitted bones. And two different lizards, one laughably plump, didn’t bother to move. When she had been driving with Roger he cursed the rabbits. But here the sight of them excited her – their zigzag high speed.

  The homestead and woolshed became smaller and smaller, until they disappeared.

  Erica was stopping and sometimes squatted to examine all sorts of rocks, burrows (foxes), droppings (sheep, rabbits), animal trails, tufts of tough grass and the tiny flowers. Pale brown puddles of water reflected the clouds. A paddockful of sheep stopped and stared at her.

  What possible dent could philosophy make on the fact of existence? The philosopher suffers from a rare disease of all-knowingness. Did Wesley know how to live? His dogged personality was oppressive. He was a tomato-sauce thinker. Look at the hundreds of handwritten pages stacked and overflowing in the all-grey corrugated iron shed. What a place to compose a meaningful slant. It was a hollow centre.

  Thinking of Roger, the brother left to work the property, she saw his uncommon generosity. It was associated with his smell, which she found attractive, male sweat, dug-up earth, actual wool, possibly his hair – the last man in Australia still using hair oil?

  So Erica walked until the ground became steep and uneven, perforated with rabbit holes.

  In sight of the homestead, Sophie came out to meet her. She put an arm around Erica’s waist, which is how together they reached the veranda.

  ‘I decided to go for a little walk.’

  ‘We were beginning to wonder…’ Erica’s impulse was to consider the word ‘we’.

  ‘Have you spoken to Lindsey?’

  ‘Look, something’s done a little something on your shoulder. That’s supposed to be good luck.’

  Licking her tiny handkerchief, Sophie held Erica’s arm and rubbed it off.

  ‘Are you regarding this as a bit of a holiday?’ Sophie whispered. ‘I could almost learn to like it here, however much I’m not addicted to tea-drinking. Roger has to go into town in a minute. He’s asked me to come for the ride. I could change, but this will do. What do you make of him? I’d say he’s a hard one to read. There are men who are married to something solid, in his case it’s the earth and the fences and everything.’

  Erica had been thinking she’d better tread warily with Lindsey. She was beginning to see she was not a happy woman – didn’t know what was going on there. But now she became sharply irritated with Sophie, a woman who had always yawned at the very mention of the country. When it suited her, Sophie changed tack. She didn’t live by rules, not even the rules of psychology, if there were any. It sent Erica back to the calamity in the woolshed. And she felt a rush of coldness flow towards everyone.

  No one was in the kitchen.

  So Sophie said, ‘Listen, we have to talk.’

  Ever since they had known each other Sophie employed specialised energy-words to give her conversation, or rather the interrogations and summations, an emphatic clipped structure, never ordinary. These words included indicative and in point of fact and practically, and to offer nodding encouragement when talking to women, exactly and precisely or I agree absolutely, that’s interesting. Long ago she dropped like a hot potato any terms which had the slightest whiff of jargon, such as transference, projection and narcissism. Along with ergo and closure she left them for the amateurs, as she put it, the ‘pop-psychologists’.

  Now she turned to Erica quite softly. ‘What is it about my father? I’d like you to tell me. I suppose he made the move, though you can’t be entirely Miss Innocent. I know him better than you. I should tell you he’s incorrigible. When he plays around with a woman it’s all about him. His pathology is that of an obsessive. Of course I love him dearly. You do know that. For as long as I can remember he’s had his little flings. Saddled with my stepmother, who can blame him? Do you have the right time? Thank you. In point of fact, it’s more biological than psychological. One is the dominant aspect. This has changed our relationship to each other. That’s only natural. Since when is it you’ve been seeing each other? I don’t know why you should do this!’

  She was just getting started.

  ‘Not now,’ Erica said, and left the kitchen.

  In the hall she turned and bumped into Lindsey.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘What does it look like?’ Erica felt like saying. In her room she closed the door.

  To think that a few days in such a place of unimaginable stillness could produce disorder, uncertainty, impatience, difficulties with herself and those around her. Erica did not usually exhibit signs of restlessness, and she knew it.

  If philosophy had any use it would calm her down. It had on other occasions. She would go back to the Greeks, possibly the Germans. Her toe-in-the-water theories on Time were not applicable here.

  She would have a shower.

  By being decisive Erica returned to something approaching her normal self. And once under the steaming water she began to see and even to feel that the clearness and firmness, which had taken her so far, had made her unattractive – muscular. A matter of changing a bit. And as she soaped her chest she saw Sophie’s father, Harold, warts-and-all. She gave a private smile. Harold Perloff who had shown a true interest in her. Erica wanted to hear the voice of experience, deep and measured. She could listen to it all day. Sitting on her sofa he draped a hand over her shoulder. She liked that. And then as she dried herself with the large towel she considered for a moment Roger. With him, she realised she waited and wondered what he would come out with next – an unusual man. She couldn’t quite believe he’d want to go into town with Sophie.

  Lindsey glanced up from the table when Erica stepped into the kitchen.

  ‘Do you mind if I use the telephone? Things are getting complicated, and I dislike complications.’

  Lindsey looked interested.

  The phone was near the door. Resting the receiver on her shoulder, Erica ran her eyes over the locally printed business cards pinned to a board on the wall. These were for shearing contractors, fertiliser people, bore-sinkers, pump and tank specialists, seed merchants, stock and station agents – a pattern of experience, of thoughts put into practice. Such activities went ahead, unknown to the city.

  ‘It’s me – speaking from back of beyond. I wanted to hear how you were.’

  Lindsey got up to go, but Erica shook her head. She didn’t mind who listened.

  ‘I’m not sure when I’ll be back. There’s more to this than I imagined. There are many pages to look at. Some of it could be interesting. The homestead, it has those wide verandas. There are flocks of sheep. My ambition is to see a fox.’

  Nodding, Erica gave a laugh. ‘I’ll be careful of snakes and other temptations.’ She whispered something into the phone, then paused.

  ‘You didn’t tell me that. When is this happening? I can’t say when I’ll be coming back. I’d like to, yes. I’m sorry, things are difficult here. Has Sophie spoken to you?’

  When Erica sat down without speaking, Lindsey said, ‘What I would suggest –’

  ‘My head examined is what I need.’

  ‘I was thinking would you like a cup of tea?’

  The modesty of it made Erica smile.

  ‘Thank you for this,’ she said.

  ‘It’s what we do here. If there’s some sort of difficulty, or if it rains, or someone’s had a baby – or when there
’s nothing happening at all – we tend to head for the teapot.’

  Erica only half-listened. She was wondering what it was that made Sophie turn her attention to Roger.

  ‘But I believe coffee has taken over Sydney. I can’t see it happening here.’

  Together they peeled the potatoes and shelled the peas.

  It became dark as Lindsey told of her long friendship with a neighbour. And it was as if she was talking to herself. ‘We just clicked,’ came her explanation. ‘And it wasn’t as if he was unhappy in his marriage. I knew Lorraine, I was her friend.’ Three years ago this month he died in one of those ludicrous agricultural accidents. He was a strong man, early forties. A branch from a Brittle Gum fell on him as he drove a tractor underneath. Waiting in her usual spot she saw it happen.

  Erica began looking at her. This would explain her immobility.

  ‘It was a terrible time. Everybody knew. I thought I was going to go mad. I couldn’t sleep. Wesley was here. I thought I was stronger than I was. I still haven’t got over it. I keep thinking about him – and he’s simply not here. For two years I went to a psychologist, whatever they’re called. Once a week I stayed overnight in Sydney. He didn’t want to know about the accident, he wanted to go way back. I took a dislike to him. He had awful ginger hair.’

  Erica sat listening. ‘I haven’t had what has happened to you. I was young when my father died. You will never get over it. It is now a part of you.’

  Out of sympathy, Erica began telling her about Harold, without revealing he was Sophie’s father. Almost old enough to be her own father. Therefore he was a solid figure of a man, crammed with knowledge he didn’t bother letting out, all sorts of stuff, and with experience, difficult European experience. He was in business, a manufacturer. They could only manage to see each other every few weeks. It had been going on for almost a year now. Erica heard herself talking rapidly.

  Lindsey nodded. It only reminded her of the nearby one she no longer had.

  After a while she asked, ‘Do you think something worthwhile can be found in Wesley’s papers? Roger and I would like to think so.’ She glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Where are those two? They might have gone rabbit shooting. Just joking! It’s what the young men do for fun around here, except no one’s exactly saying Roger’s young.’

  At eight o’clock Erica and Lindsey tucked into the roast which was by then over-done, and a fine bottle of South Australian shiraz. Lindsey found some cigarettes. They washed the dishes, and left the table set for two. Forgetting the idea of coffee they vowed to continue their conversation at breakfast, that is, their friendship, as only two women know how.

  25

  AND JUST as the major and minor religions have their disciples who can quote chapter and verse, and are determined to hold onto and hold aloft the core of the thing, there on the page, to suffer no deviance, often with formidable learning and courtesy, and others impatient, cold, ‘brooking no argument’, so too psychoanalysis has its disciples anxious to preserve its fundamentals, the way the original measurement of the metre is displayed in a glass case (somewhere in Paris). Much energy and refinement are spent correcting, or bringing back into the fold, heretics who veer off to form alternative schools, alternative readings, seen as interesting, certainly, but a watering-down or misinterpretation, at worst a travesty of the basic tenets; and as a consequence there have been scuffles, threats, committee-coups, proselytising publications and law-suits throughout Europe and North America, in turn producing various forms of psychological stress, some of which require treatment. Where more and more followers become involved, the purity of an idea is hard to preserve.

  One difficulty is psychoanalysis cannot be ‘proven’, something a number of philosophers have pointed to. Meanwhile, those in analysis continue to attend their twice or more weekly sessions unaware of the turmoil at the centre. After all, what is of concern to them is the Self.

  Other movements such as Surrealism back in the nineteen twenties have had their purges. Those who didn’t fit or follow the Manifesto were turfed out without ceremony. Another place to look are political movements, Marxism above all, the feminist movement more recently, or sporting associations, university departments, where rebels or independent thinkers have been ostracised, expelled, and in many cases exterminated (not in the feminist movement or sporting associations).

  Beware of women who are or have been in analysis, even if only for a year or two. Surrendering themselves to a most intimate and self-revealing way of thinking aloud, of allowing layers to be lifted in order to reach and recognise the difficult Self, afterwards recognising the strange sense of well-being, of achievement even, as if cleansed, or beginning to be cleansed – lightened – can produce a quiet condescension towards anyone else who hasn’t undergone the same treatment (you would have no idea how hard work it is, and the layered benefits, the glimpse of clarity). Time spent in analysis is more intimate than believing in a religion; virtually no condescension quiet or otherwise is to be found amongst religious converts. Tread warily with those who have sisters in analysis or the earnest sister practising as an analyst in Chicago or Manhattan, Newcastle or Sydney, and who attends conferences elsewhere, for this filial connection exerts a double anxiety, double loyalty, on the already committed remaining sister. It can be seen to produce further competitive confusion between them, or a bristling defence against non-believers, occasionally obscured by a jokey manner to the subject in general, or rather, their own adoption of psychoanalysis in particular. Interesting, when one sister goes into therapy the other sisters often follow.

  26

  AGAIN, ERICA was woken early. Imagine her dismay when she arrived in the kitchen to find the two places still set, and on the stove the peas and potatoes cold in their saucepans. Either Roger Antill and Sophie had stumbled in so late they didn’t feel like eating, or they hadn’t yet come back (from where?). Quickly she made some toast. She had trouble swallowing. It was behaviour typical of Sophie. Where two people are thrown together in travel, small annoyances grow into unbearable personality disorders.

  In the shed all was quiet, in shadow. Erica took a deep breath. She picked up the ruined pages and placed them to one side on the floor. She arranged the desk. Papers everywhere. Sitting in the philosopher’s chair she assumed a look of concentrated determination as she reached for a pile and began reading. Some pages consisted of nothing but a single sentence. When any of these statements stopped her in her tracks Erica marked them. Other pages were filled with Wesley’s hectic blue handwriting. Here and there sentences and entire paragraphs were crossed out. ‘Pig-headed’ was a word she saw, but couldn’t find again. After several hours a thread, or a suggestion of a thread, a story-journey, emerged. Then it petered out; it appeared to stop altogether. Later it would start up again.

  What had gone on in this man’s life? He seemed to be tearing his hair out. More than most he suffered from the common intrusions of everyday life.

  He also revealed an anxiety towards time.

  Taking a breather, Erica went to the window and surveyed the bare ground. She tried to picture it before the single-minded philosopher cut the trees down, a grove of slender gums, strips of bark on the ground, the usual Australian mess. What extremes people take to gain clarity.

  Erica went back to reading.

  At ten o’clock, Sophie clattered in. Immediately the corrugated shed echoed another woman’s restlessness.

  Without turning Erica said, ‘Try not to spill anything on these pages, please.’

  ‘I’m going back to Sydney. I’d like to leave this morning, if possible.’

  Erica glanced up. Without noticing, Sophie had her feet on some of the pages.

  ‘It doesn’t look as if you’ve had much sleep.’

  ‘I’ve made a decision.’

  Noticing Erica’s frown, she hurried on. ‘I’ve just been talking to him. I’ve gone through the issues.’ As Sophie began pacing, Erica wondered who she could be talking about. ‘The wife
is an irrelevance. She does him no good. My idea is that he becomes one of my clients. I consider that a brainwave. I would see him regularly. Which is why I want to leave immediately, but of course there’s no train.’

  Erica couldn’t help her. ‘Look at all this. There’s three or four days solid reading, at least.’

  ‘What I was thinking was, there’s your car. If it’s not being used.’

  Erica looked at her. Loosely draped around her throat was the scarf from last night. Erica glanced at the pages waiting to be appraised. She could feel the task becoming interesting. It was like panning for gold. Framed by the window was a small part of the sky. Everything was closer to silence here. The sunset last night! And tonight Erica looked forward to a repeat, the sky down the end screaming out heat and immensity, the great cycle of day turning into night, cockatoo-grey feathery, and pink-tinted, until gradually, then suddenly, closing down. She wondered whether Lindsey might be a drinker. And what was Roger – Mr Roger Antill, if you please – going to say about Sophie leaving?

  ‘Do be careful,’ she handed Sophie the keys. ‘That’s seven hours on that road by yourself. Are you sure you should be doing this?’

  At the door Sophie paused, ‘You didn’t ask about last night. He spent practically the whole evening wanting to know about you. How had you become an “expert”? I told him the most lurid things I could think of, and more.’

  Below the steps Erica stood alongside Lindsey, and like a pair of Adelaide aunts they waved as Sophie drove away.

  ‘I didn’t really get to know her,’ Lindsey said.

  ‘Does Roger know she’s gone?’

  ‘Most of the time I don’t know what my brother’s up to.’

  Without Sophie already the house felt settled. Lindsey made tea and took it out onto the veranda.

  ‘Now that Sophie’s not here I feel I can have some cake. She must do exercises, and things like that. She looks good in her clothes.’

  ‘Sophie is a formidable shopper.’ Not wanting to sound as if she was sticking sharp knives into her friend, Erica added thoughtfully, ‘Her father always encourages Sophie, though Sophie doesn’t always think so.’