The Drover's Wife & Other Stories

by Murray Bail

‘These protuberances,’ he said, tapping the table which was another protuberance, ‘are the first to collect bullets, and are flattened during wars. The base, or the “country”, remains more or less the same.’

  101

  A persistent, private vice which must now be obvious.

  A tendency to wander. This is all right.

  A conservative view of the opposite sex.

  Add to that, deference to elders.

  You have a good listener; by all appearances submissive, though not necessarily.

  A cheery soul in the mornings.

  Blue hands, orange hair. Watch strap held together by a rubber band.

  Not a colourful character, but popular with the majority.

  A casualness with socks, food stains and money; hypnotic to some.

  He continues through force of habit.

  102

  Look at the scenery.

  103

  No wonder his legs, even his armpits, felt tired. He’d covered one and a half inches on the map. Still no sign of the.…Biv consulted the map. Was not exactly determined to get to the bottom of it but seemed to allow himself to be carried along by time and events, collective pressure from others, including the direction maps; and so forth. The optician followed at a discreet distance. ‘Where are we? What about down there?’ Biv shouted across. The optician blew his false nose and came over. He wore a pair of binoculars. ‘See for yourself.’

  The road was not twenty yards away yet it seemed to recede into the distance. Focusing, Biv saw a dusty path. Hardly a ‘road’ at all. It was dotted with limestone rocks. And skinny goats wandered between artificial thorn and olive trees.

  ‘Down there,’ said the optician, reading his mind, ‘many a traveller is struck without warning by a bright light. It’s a very odd thing. A person comes out a changed man. Certain scientists have had their Big Breakthroughs there. Inventors have been known to come running out shouting. The poet finds the right word. Sinners,’ he added on a pious note, ‘suddenly see the light.’

  ‘No one’s there now,’ Biv remarked, scanning with the binoculars. ‘And I don’t see any bright light.’

  ‘It’s there, don’t worry.’ He added, ‘And I’d get a move on.’

  104

  Biv wandering around. Another lost character. Fast losing perspective, among other things. The heel of the left shoe has worked loose and is flapping. From some angles Biv is pathetic.

  105

  There is a Library of Applied Noise: IF YOU WISH TO EMPHASISE SOMETHING TAKE ONE NOW! A sneeze for sympathy, cries of pain or alarm. Sighs of genuine misunderstanding, perhaps a click of the tongue which in certain eastern countries means ‘No’—borrow one of them. Heavy breathing. An adolescent’s belch. Angry hissing? Fright. Borrow some silence. Yes, a little more silence from now on. First, help the young woman carry out some laughter, it’s spilling out onto the street, leaking, both trying to hold it in, clutching and squashing.

  106

  On the left, a swamp. It lapped at his feet. Oh, lord. Intricate disorder ruffled the surface, inviting instant comparison. Statements floated. Some would remain unsinkable. Soggy words kept sticking to the hands and face. He tried to keep balance. It’s always hard. In the mire, half hidden, stood a complex catapulting machine, camouflaged, but obviously effective.

  Behind was a sunset; a magnificent example by any standards. A corker of a sunset, a ‘bobby dazzler’.

  ‘One of the mysterious laws of perspective,’ said his friend with a nod of the head, but keeping his eyes firmly ahead, ‘is that left indicates the past and individual characteristics, and right indicates the future. A recent discovery, though it’s more in the realm of Psychology. There is also the interesting fact that pedestrians in the Southern Hemisphere veer towards the left, while in the Northern they stick to the right. This, of course, is the effect of Coriolis forces. We also know’—continuing for Biv’s edification—’that the left and right legs of a horse consist of twenty-four consecutive triangles when the animal gallops. Therefore a leg is not always a leg, though that is more in the realm of Optical Physiology.’

  Biv frowned. They seemed to be walking in the one spot.

  ‘I’d like to know,’ he said, ‘why we close our eyes during pain, pleasure or physical effort? It often enters my head.’

  ‘That’s one for the optician,’ his friend countered. ‘Better ask him.’

  Biv turned. He saw a crowd following. One of the rat traps in his pocket went off. He began running.

  ‘In short, the cul-de-sac is determined by its entry point which is short. In short—’

  107

  She was allowing it then, she was going ahead with it. The window was wide open. Hoisting himself up and balancing he could see her dressing-table, her combs and brushes. From the next room came the click-clicking of Grey’s trains. This fence was rotten. It was covered in moss. He began vibrating to keep balance; he felt himself reddening.

  108

  Slid the set square along to the width (proportional) of the street. Sharpened the pencil. Resumed. Repeated parallel towards the blank area of the cul-de-sac…Blue Staedtler (the most beautiful pencil; ask any—) firm against the bevelled perspex. The Staedtler blue. Is it hexagonal? Five, six. Hexagonal, it is. His purple fingers on the flat, white paper. The drawing board sloped down, and there, touched his knee.

  Up front the Chief gesticulating to someone in his glass office.

  A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I,

  J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R,

  S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

  I select from these letters, pressing my fingers down. The letter (or an image of it) appears on the sheet of paper. It signifies little or nothing, I have to add more. Other letters are placed alongside until a ‘word’ is formed. And it is not always the word WORD.

  The word matches either my memory of its appearance, or a picture of the object the word denotes. TREE: I see the shape of a tree at mid-distance, and green.

  I am writing a story.

  Here, the trouble begins.

  The word ‘dog’, as William James pointed out, does not bite; and my story begins with a weeping woman. She sat at my kitchen table one afternoon and wept uncontrollably. How can words, particularly ‘wept uncontrollably’, convey her sadness (her self-pity)? Philosophers other than myself have discussed the inadequacy of words. ‘Woman’ covers women of every shape and size, whereas the one I have in mind is red-haired, has soft arms, plain face, high-heeled shoes with shining straps.

  And she was weeping.

  Her name, let us say, is Kathy Pridham.

  For the past two years she has worked as a librarian for the British Council in Karachi. She, of all the British community there, was one of the few who took the trouble to learn Urdu, the local language. She could speak it, not read it: those calligraphic loops and dots meant nothing to her, except that ‘it was a language’. Speaking it was enough. The local staff at the Council, shopkeepers, and even the cream of Karachi society (who cultivated European manners), felt that she knew them as they themselves did.

  At this point, consider the word ‘Karachi’. Not having been there myself I see clusters of white-cube buildings with the edge of a port to the left, a general slowness, a shaded verandah-ed suburb for the Burra sahibs. Perhaps, eventually, boredom—or disgust with noises and smells not understood. Kathy, who was at firstly lonely and disturbed, quickly settled in. She became fully occupied and happy; insofar as that word has any meaning. There was a surplus of men in Karachi: young English bachelors sent out from head office, and pale appraising types who worked at the embassies; but the ones who fell over themselves to be near her were Pakistanis. They were young and lazy. With her they were ardent and gay.

  Already the words Kathy and Karachi are becoming inextricably linked.

  It was not long before she too was rolling her head in slow motion during conversations, and clicking her tongue, as they did, to signify ‘no’. Her bungalow in the European quarter w
ith its lawn, verandah, two archaic servants, became a sort of salon, especially at the Sunday lunches where Kathy reigned, supervising, flitting from one group to the next. Those afternoons never seemed to end. No one wanted to leave. Sometimes she had musicians perform. And there was always plenty of liquor (imported), with wide dishes of hot food. Kathy spoke instantly and volubly on the country’s problems, its complicated politics, yet in London if she had an opinion she had rarely expressed it.

  When Kathy thought of London she often saw ‘London’—the six letters arranged in recognisable order. Then parts of an endless construction appeared, much of it badly blurred. There was the thick stone. Concentrating, she could recall a familiar bus stop, the interior of a building where she had last worked. Her street invariably appeared, strangely dead. Some men in overcoats. It was all so far away she sometimes thought it existed only when she was there. Her best friends had been two women; one a schoolteacher; the other married to a taciturn engineer. With them she went to Scotland for holidays, to the concerts at Albert Hall. Karachi was different. The word stands for something else.

  The woman weeping at the kitchen table is Kathy Pridham. It is somewhere in London (there are virtually no kitchen tables in Karachi).

  After a year or so Kathy noticed at a party a man standing apart from the others, watching her. His face was bony and fierce, and he had a thin moustache. Kathy, of course, turned away, yet at the same time tilted her chin and began acting over-earnest in conversation. For she pictured her appearance: seeing it (she thought) from his eyes.

  She noticed him at other parties, and at one where she knew the host well enough casually asked, ‘Tell me. Who is that over there?’

  They both looked at the man watching her.

  ‘If you mean him, that’s Syed Masood. Not your cup of tea, Kathy. What you would call a wild man.’ The host was a successful journalist and drew in on his cigarette. ‘Perhaps he is our best painter. I don’t know; I have my doubts.’

  Kathy lowered her eyes, confused.

  When she looked up, the man called Syed Masood had gone.

  Over the next few days, she went to the galleries around town and asked to see the paintings of Syed Masood. She was interested in local arts and crafts, and had decided that if she saw something of his she liked she would buy it. These gallery owners threw up their hands. ‘He has released nothing for two years now. What has got into him I don’t know.’

  Somehow this made Kathy smile.

  Ten or eleven days pass—in words that take only seconds to put down, even less to absorb (the discrepancy between time and language). It is one of her Sunday lunches. Kathy is only half-listening to conversations and when she breaks into laughter it is a fraction too loud. She has invited this man Masood and has one eye on the door. He arrives late. Perhaps he too is nervous.

  Their opening conversation (aural) went something like this (visual).

  ‘Do come in. I don’t think we’ve met. My name is Kathy Pridham.’

  ‘Why do you mix with all these shits?’ he replied looking around the room.

  Just then an alarm wristlet watch on one of the young men began ringing. Everyone laughed, slapping each other, except Masood.

  ‘I’ll get you something,’ said Kathy quietly. ‘You’re probably hungry.’

  She felt hot and awkward, although now that they were together he seemed to take no notice of her. Several of the European men came over, but Masood didn’t say much and they drifted back. She watched him eat and drink: the bones of his face working.

  He finally turned to her. ‘You come from—where?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘Then why have you come here?’

  She told him.

  ‘And these?’ he asked, meaning the crowd reclining on cushions.

  ‘My friends. They’re people I’ve met here.’

  Suddenly she felt like crying. But he took her by the shoulders. ‘What is this? You speak Urdu? And not at all bad? Say something more, please.’

  Before she could think of anything he said in a voice that disturbed her, ‘You are something extraordinary.’ He was so close she could feel his breath. ‘Do you know that? Of course. But do you know how extraordinary? Let me tell you something, although another man might put it differently. It begins here’—for a second one of his many hands touched her breasts; Kathy jumped—’and it emanates. Your volume fills the room. Certainly! So you are quite vast, but beautiful.’

  Then he added, watching her, ‘If you see what I mean.’

  He was standing close to her, but when he spoke again she saw him grinning. ‘Now repeat what I have just said in Urdu.’

  He made her laugh.

  Here—now—an interruption. While considering the change in Kathy’s personality I remember an incident from last Thursday, the 12th. This is an intrusion but from ‘real life’. The words in the following paragraph reconstruct the event as remembered. As accurately as possible, of course.

  A beggar came up to me in a Soho bar and asked (a hoarse whisper) if I wished to see photographs of funerals. I immediately pictured a rectangular hole, sky, men and women in coats. Without waiting for my reply he fished out from an inside pocket the wad of photographs, postcard size, each one of a burial. They were dog-eared and he had dirty fingernails. ‘Did you know these dead people?’ He shook his head. ‘Not even their names?’ He shook his head. ‘That one,’ he said, not taking his eyes off the photographs, ‘was dug yesterday. That one, in 1969.’ There was little difference. Both showed men and women standing around a dark rectangle, perplexed. I felt a sharp tap on my wrist. The beggar had his hand out. Yes, I gave him a shilling. The barman spoke: ‘Odd way to earn a living. He’s been doing that for—’

  Kathy soon saw Masood again. He arrived one night with his shirt hanging out while she was entertaining the senior British Council representative, Mr L and his wife. They were a cautious experienced pair, years in the service, yet Mrs L began talking loudly and hastily, a sign of indignation, when Masood sat away from the table, silently watching them. Mr L cleared his throat several times—another sign. It was a hot night with both ceiling fans hardly altering the sedentary air. Masood suddenly spoke to Kathy in his own language. She nodded and poured him another coffee. Mrs L caught her husband’s eye, and when they left shortly afterwards Kathy and Masood leaned forward and leaned back and laughed.

  ‘You can spell my name four different ways,’ Masood declared in the morning, ‘but I am still the one person! Ah,’ he said laughing. ‘I am in a good mood. This is an auspicious day.’

  ‘I have to go to work,’ said Kathy.

  ‘Look up “auspicious” when you get to the library. See what it says in one of your English dictionaries.’

  She bent over to fit her brassiere. Her body was marmoreal, the opposite to his: bony and nervy.

  ‘Instead of thinking of me during the day,’ he went on, ‘think of an exclamation mark! It amounts to the same thing. I would see you, I think, as a colour. Yes, I think more than likely pink, or something soft like yellow.’

  ‘You can talk,’ said Kathy laughing.

  But she liked hearing him talk. Perhaps there’ll be further examples of why she enjoyed hearing him talk.

  That night Masood took her into his studio. It was in the inner part of the city where Europeans rarely ventured, and as Masood strode ahead Kathy avoided, but not always successfully, the stares of women in doorways, the fingers of beggars, and rows of sleeping bodies. She noticed how some men deliberately dawdled or bumped into her; striding ahead, Masood seemed to enjoy having her there. In an alleyway he unbolted a powder-blue door as a curious crowd gathered. He suddenly clapped his hands to move them. Then Kathy was inside: a fluorescent room, dirty whitewashed walls. In the corner was a wooden bed called a ‘charpoy’, some clothes over a chair. There were brushes in jars, and tins of paint.

  ‘Syed, are these your pictures?’

  ‘Leave them,’ he said sharply. ‘Come here. I would like to
see you.’

  Through the door she could feel the crowd in the alleyway. She was perspiring still and now he was undoing her blouse.

  ‘Syed, let’s go?’

  He stepped back.

  ‘What is the matter? The natives are too dirty tonight. Is that it? Yes, the walls; the disgusting size of the place. All this stench. It must be affecting your nostrils? Rub your nose in it. Lie in my shit and muck. If you wait around you might see a rat. You could dirty your memsahib’s hands for a change.’ Then he kicked his foot through one of the canvases by the door. ‘The pretty paintings you came to see.’

  As she began crying she wondered why. (He was only a person who used certain words.)

  I will continue with further words.

  Kathy made room for Masood in her house, in her bed as well as the spare room which she made his studio. Her friends noticed a change. At work, they heard the pronoun ‘we’ constantly. She told them of parties they went to, the trips they planned to take, how she supervised his meals; she even confessed (laughing) he snored and possessed a violent temper. At parties, she took to sitting on the floor. She began wearing ‘kurtas’ instead of ‘blouses’, ‘lungis’ rather than ‘dresses’, even though with her large body she looked clumsy. To the Europeans she somehow became, or seemed, untidy. They no longer understood her, and so they felt sorry for her. It was about then that Kathy’s luncheon parties stopped, and she and Masood, who were always together, went out less frequently. Most people saw Masood behind this—he had never disguised his contempt for her friends—but others connected it with an incident at the office. Kathy arrived one morning wearing a sari and was told by the chief librarian it was inappropriate; she couldn’t serve at the counter wearing that. Then Mr L himself, rapidly consulting his wife, spoke to her. He spelt out the British Council’s function in Karachi, underlining the word British. ‘Kathy, are you happy?’ he suddenly asked. Like others, he was concerned. He wanted to say, ‘Do you know what you are doing?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ Kathy replied. ‘With this chap, I mean,’ he said, waving his hand. And Kathy left the room.