The Drover's Wife & Other Stories

by Murray Bail

  People’s distrust of Masood seemed to centre around his unconventional appearance and (perhaps more than anything) his rude silences. Nobody could say they knew him, although just about everybody said he drank too much. Stories began circulating. ‘A surly bugger,’ he was called behind his back. That was common now. There were times when he cursed Kathy in public. Strange, though, the wives and other women were more ready to accept the affair. There was something about Masood, his face and manner. And they recognised the tenacity with which Kathy kept living with him. They understood her quick defence of him, often silent but always there, even when she came late to work, puff-eyed from crying and once, her cheek bruised.

  Here, the life of Kathy draws rapidly to a close.

  It was now obvious to everyone that Masood was drinking too much. At the few parties they attended he usually made a scene of some sort; and Kathy would take him home. Think of swear words. She was arriving late for work and missed whole days. The she disappeared for a week. They had argued one night and Kathy screamed at him to leave. He replied by hitting her across the mouth. She moved into a cheap hotel, but within the week he found her. ‘Syed spent all day, every day, looking for me,’ was how she later put it. ‘He needs someone.’ When she was reprimanded for her disappearance and general conduct, she burst into tears.

  In London, the woman with elbows on the table is Kathy Pridham. She has unwrapped a parcel from Karachi. Imagine: coarse screwed-up paper and string lie on the table. Masood has sent a self-portrait, oil on canvas, quite a striking resemblance. His vanity, pride and troubles are enormous. His face, leaning against the teapot, stares across at Kathy weeping.

  She cannot help thinking of him; of his appearance.

  Words. These marks on paper, and so on.

  The Partitions

  Ross is good, there is no doubt about that. Channon is better though. Strong calves and confidence. To see them soaring over the first. They set a tremendous example. The others follow clattering and adjusting like pigeons, eyes ahead, two bright patches among the dark-suits women, elbowing like Currumbin parrots, their wings clipped. These positions will not, cannot, last. The world consists of inter-reacting particles, the ever-changing pattern a cause of much bafflement. Occasionally concern.

  At the usual height of five foot five the partitions follow the perimeter of the building forming cubicles. Some cream-coloured, others green.

  Most of plywood, sanded glass, though every now and then one in imitation teak or such. Parts were rickety. On top of the partitions, dust. Dead flies there and further along someone had left drawing pins (almost calculated to puncture hands).

  It was a cracking pace.

  Channon, Ross.

  Then Purley. He was thirty-three, a three-piece suit, so he looked nothing like Christ. Besides, he wore a yellow wedding ring and two others (making three). A shade too eager. Purley wore flash shoes. The others could see the tan soles flicking back slippery.

  Beginning on the left a ‘typists’ pool’, though scarcely a glance was possible. The thing was to keep moving, the chief difficulty being simple balance. Slip, a pause, meant permanent loss of position. Girls in uniform sat rubbing and blowing their typewriters, and one who didn’t was filing and blowing her fingernails. A man slipped (noticing this). Purley, Miles, Bess who was Channon’s devoted wife, then Stubbs, Jeanette McColl, young Wozley, P. S. Spickett holding his tennis racquet, Kondratieff, a few others, and Kemp passed the first partitions OK.

  Barely settled down when this.

  Ross wore a red carnation in an attempt to associate him with, yet distinguish him from, the powerful leader Channon, who wore red elastic braces. Young Wozley pointed ahead, ‘Look, Mr Ross is losing his petals!’ They were coming back, yes, into people’s eyes, were found squashed along the tops of the partitions. Already then. Some sort of struggle up ahead. Enough to spur them on as if the petals were the first signs of blood, Purley especially, third, whose action in the new shoes became a scramble. Miles went up alongside. Easy. Passing a cubicle which had an ordinary filing cabinet and Venetian blinds. Balancing on a chair, his back to them, stood a man adjusting the hands of a clock large enough to serve a railway station (the clock).

  On all fours passing, tintinnabulation.

  At this stage already some were looking good. That is to say, holding something in reserve. People like Miles have the momentum of freight trains, watch, crashing through the gates, following the route laid down. Stubbs behind him, subtle. Therefore ambitious. Generally considered to be, yes. Apparent casualness a trademark. Unlike Miles he wore a coat, and no ballpoints protruding from his shirt. Stubbs however was glancing at Jeanette McColl. Her mannequin’s throat! Model teeth! P. S. Spickett in the middle watched them draw ahead. Little is ever known about Spickett, watch.

  Imagination is costly on the partitions. To keep moving meant a reduction in politeness, even kindness. Naturally to advance requires a number of victims.

  From Channon in front expressions of alarm suddenly appeared, face by face. The partitions here loose. To a crawl, single file, the wood creaking under the hands. To make matters worse some of the fluorescent tubes missing. Apparently a storage area hardly ever used. Cubicles there stacked with wrong plans and forecasts, discarded arrows, rulers a shade too short, at least a dozen useless chairs.

  Broken chairs. And the man adjusting the clock, back there, suddenly fell from his. A leg had snapped. His head struck the corner of the desk.

  Kemp lying last, now he must have seen this but kept quiet. He shouldn’t have been there anyway (Kemp). A good two feet shorter than Spickett, he wore a straw hat, an old bow tie. He was on tablets (man prodded along by an invisible hand), Kemp.

  The line lengthened by the half dark squashed and bulged again. The partitions improved, perhaps recently repaired. Channon chose that moment to relax, unusual for him, to glance back at his wife. Showing off? She tried to shout with her eyes. The rest gasped. Ross slipped past on the inside.

  It threw Channon. And Purley moved up almost alongside. Channon’s flabbergasted face sent murmurs down the line. The archetype now merely bad tempered, flustered. The ease!

  Swarmed past an office almost without it registering. A man there looking out a window. Wozley twisted around, he must have been imagining things. ‘Isn’t that my old man? He’s bald. Yes, it’s Dad!’ Miss McColl gave him a smile. Little he could do. Once on the partitions difficult to get off. Wozley was pushed on by the others. They were above the next cubicle, a small one spotted with postcards. The paraphernalia stuffed in the cubicles, or the way it’s arranged, shows the personality of the occupant in effect. Clicketty-clack. There a solitary typist on a swivel chair examined her breast. Oh Jesus. Her blouse unbuttoned, the soft thing spilling out of her hand, and the one who’d slipped earlier crashed right off the partitions, shaking the line. Stubbs almost lost that fine balance too. Miss McColl turned sharply away from the girl. Old Kondratieff held his tremulous half smile through this and everything. Kondratieff, who allowed himself to be carried along like a leaf on a wave.

  Clacketty-clack.

  ‘Are you all right? Are you telling me the truth?’ Mrs Channon wanted to ask her husband, eyes on him. Puffing and anxious to pass Miles and Purley she showed a profile the epitome of elegance, dust on her neck like some new cosmetic applied to emphasise loyalty, concern for the future. Worried for Channon. His head grew tomato red. They passed a cubicle filled with windows which were actually mirrors. Something wrong along here. Perhaps someone had turned the air-conditioning off? Miss McColl dropped her stilettos, all wet, while others loosened their ties. A queer invisible slope here measured by the paraplegic action of Purley, his slipping and clawing transmitted back, each one catching the disease, to Kemp, who would find this ‘slope’ difficult indeed. A drawer glided out from the filing cabinet. Trays, papers began to slide. Not long before Purley slipped like the pencil on one of the desks (due to his shoes?), tearing his suit, and this is a problem w
ith the partitions, fell into Miles and Mrs Channon, sending them against Stubbs, McColl, young muttering Wozley, into Spickett, each depending on the other, shouting, for to fall was the end, those who had managed to return were never the same.

  Relative silence as they fought to extricate.

  Stubbs set out after the leaders, soon followed by McColl, not bothering to dust herself, then the rest. Rapid recovery, resilience, rank among the prerequisites, though with her she wanted to be near Stubbs, he wore spotless underwear, was the type, no pee drops. She found this attractive in a man. The leaders fifteen, twenty yards ahead.

  Back in sixth Mrs Channon had P. S. Spickett and his tennis racquet at her elbow. P. S.’ could have been his nickname. The hissing came from asthma or breathing through his teeth. Her determined face suddenly cried out. Spickett trod on her hand without a word, magnifying his silence (which worried everybody), illustrating the situation more or less on the partitions.

  The first corner up ahead.

  Ross, Channon and Miles turned right, large and close for a second, before the hypotenuse formed by Mrs Channon’s gaze rapidly lengthened. ‘Charles?’ she whispered across. ‘Be careful. And I was going to tell you.’

  She stopped. A kind of helplessness had entered his movements, and on all fours, stubbornly ignoring the crowd, somehow made it worse.

  ‘Poor thing,’ Miss McColl ventured to Stubbs.

  Stubbs put his hand inside her blouse. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I feel sorry for her too.’

  They turned the corner.

  ‘For goodness sake,’ Stubbs shouted. ‘The dirty bastard.’

  Channon banging—four blurry emissions—blowing back the skirts of his jacket. Yet all along self-control was supposed to be his specialty. The disgust! Miles directly behind shoved past, holding his nose, and surprised at how easy, or out of contempt, gave Channon a push with one foot. Flurry of limbs as he fought to stay on, while they watched (he was holding them up).

  Yet on Mrs Channon the effect was one of softening, now why is that? A matter of release. Simply the skin below her mouth sagged, she seemed to lose interest and weight at once.

  Lavatories below, one by one, and one occupied by a man, trousers down, reading the paper and sipping coffee from a Wedgwood cup. To look down certainly a temptation on the partitions. Their shadows too performed eye-catching patterns along the wall reminiscent of Japanese wrestling, contemporary dancing, perhaps even copulation. Mrs Channon tried smiling at this. Someone should have warned her, Kondratieff being the closest. The rest were watching her husband clambering, or trying to, ahead.

  Now, look, one front foot missed the wooden strip. Mrs Channon fell. She grabbed to hold and both elbows went through the glass. Sssshib, bang and crack. Her face hovered there like a child’s. With her weight pulling down, her mouth and eyes slowly opened wide. The points had converged, not a word.

  Those following stopped. Stubbs and McColl came back. Kemp took off his hat. The clatter of the three ahead seemed distant, unrelated. Obviously Channon went on not knowing who it was. Yes, some raised their hands to call out. Then Spickett was seen trying to edge past McColl, to gain a place and it triggered them off, tintinnabulation, to clatter of hail on a roof, steadying.

  Ross and Miles drew well ahead.

  Looking good, etc., as might be expected.

  These two were the first to reach the large seemingly endless cubicle.

  Cubicles within cubicles, partitions interlocking forming additional cubicles, dead ends, apparently endless patterns of partitions. Ross disappeared. Rather, kept ‘reappearing’ in it.

  In five or six seconds, if that, Miles turned to find his way back. He took a pair of pliers from his back pocket as if that’d help.

  Old Channon there came out ahead of both, Channon’s illogical state of mind suited to this. Fixing that point, avoiding Miles toward the centre, the rest found a path in effect, tail-enders swallowing up Miles (scratching his head). Now from Ross to the rest an arm’s length if that. Apparent superiority is modified by time, ‘external factors’. See that.

  Ross got past Channon again.

  This revealed to the rest the protuberant state of Channon’s head, his swelling legs. How even his fingers were incredibly red.

  ‘Where are we going? What is our position? I would like to answer that by quoting, if I may, last year’s figures. Under the most difficult conditions we managed—’

  In a carpeted cubicle a man before a mirror pulled a variety of faces. He looked like Channon before, or Ross. (He wore a red carnation.) He suddenly beamed.

  ‘Due to your continuous efforts we managed a gross INCREASE of approximately .6 per cent. A very fine effort indeed, believe me.’

  After testing a number of different smiles he went close to the mirror to examine his chin. He stood back, raising his voice.

  ‘With such application shown in the past you may well ask, where will our position lie in the future? And you have every right to ask. Which reminds me. Did you hear the one about?…’

  A cry from Ross in front. His hands had met the drawing pins. Both hands, look, studded with gold. By quickly stopping he imagined he could remove the pins, but Channon was banged into him, sending him on, waving violently for balance. Under no illusions then. The same force carried McColl over, her bare feet luckily only caressing the partitions, and was fondled airborne by Stubbs. His hand moved up her skirt.

  All eyes on Ross however.

  Some empty cubicles, and one filled with stuff like dandruff, skin from worn elbows.

  A right angle ahead, these partitions follow the walls, remember. Its significance apparently lost on Ross, he slowed to turn. The rest accelerated, propelling him straight on, protesting, down a ‘siding’. Simultaneously Channon muddled through, a dead horse or inflatable beach toy in heavy surf.

  Channon again leader.

  So now P. S. Spickett saw his chance. Jumping the corner, normally not advisable on the partitions, he took second. Just then Stubbs and McColl were too entangled to resist. Each change in positions watched by the majority, sometimes with bitterness.

  Kemp said something.

  ‘Don’t waste your breath,’ said Kondratieff.

  The line slowed considerably, clattering merely a drumming, part shuffle, with it the difficulty of keeping balance. Not all the fault of Channon, however. Most were glancing below, each bumping into the other. On the desk a woman lay back, legs apart, receiving a man. His trousers over a chair. Her teeth and hands opening and closing in time. Why at that point did Miss McColl begin the steady weeping? Others, the laughing? The man on the desk was too hairy, the woman skinny. And in a small antechamber a crowd watched through a hole, tiptoe, hands on each other’s shoulders.

  Three, four tastefully furnished cubicles.

  Breathing spaces.

  In five a store of proven to be successful words, labelled, ready to use (ALRIGHTY, WITH KINDEST REGARDS, FUCKWIT, JESUS CHRIST, ETC., PARTITIONS).

  Some weaknesses in the legs by then. Each one still eyeing the other however.

  Channon! Spickett now shoving and poking with his tennis racquet. That Spickett all ready and grinning. The flaccid prisoner in front almost bursting asunder from the suit buttoned up at all costs.

  Scarcely noticing the long room passing. Wiry priests and lay preachers exercised over padded boxes, jumping up and down, performing superb perpendicular somersaults, some balancing on their heads. Their gymnasium by the look. The noise doubling the din in effect. Producing tinnitus in Kemp. Bang, bang, cracking jokes in the midst of spinning somersaults (repeated). Their black shapes spin interestingly against the stationary white background.

  Channon began flailing the light bulbs hanging down, blaming them, but there was something more fundamentally wrong. Either his body was at the end of its tether, or the distortions were due to frustration or rage. He should have stopped, look.

  Spickett moved to pass, everyone watching.

  Channon now fumbled
oddly, however, some buttons fell off, and like the toadfish found in St Vincent Gulf gasped and exploded. Blood, intestines and cloth flew over them, liver and bits of red nose hit the ceiling. Spickett caught the full force. His empty spot on the partitions drenched, his voice somewhere in the corridor below right. The line momentarily off balance recovered and went on, sometimes slipping, whenever possible wiping themselves with handkerchiefs.

  ‘For the phenomenon to continue a certain amount of symmetry should be absent.’ Yes, at least keep going. Understand.

  Passing a crowd in numbered chairs, backs to the partitions, who suddenly applauded. A few laughed, confused. Miss McColl touched up her hair.

  Enough to smarten them up, just like that, for the rhythm to pick up. Clacketty-clack! Each one noticing the years, but continuing. These partitions cannot go on forever. That was understood. Stubbs, look, drawing ahead. He set a tremendous example.

  Ahead all dark bar the bright patch shining, it made them blink. Chrome, stainless steel and linoleum appeared below. The table apparently set for a family. Lids happened to vibrate on a stove, the lids connected to underground pipes in effect. Hence to various saliva ducts, swichh, snap, snkk. On the wall an old calendar for Heidelberg Printing Machinery. The refrigerator electric, of 21 cu.ft. capacity (Miles noticed, he knew).

  Old Kemp began coughing.

  ‘Come on,’ said Kondratieff.

  No one could see Stubbs ahead. Night personified up ahead. Jeanette McColl called out, and all they heard was the faint applause behind like a rattle. The emptiness in effect. Each and everyone shouting. To her to pipe down, shut up. Just hurry on.

  Approaching the last.

  A faint glow to show the way, if that, this cubicle like a bedroom, almost exactly, crepuscular shafts leaking from a tin lamp above the bed. A pair were about to retire, to rejuvenate. He, facing the vast wardrobe, stroking his chin with his fingertips, fat stomach and cock hanging down. A slow body by the look but with the usual momentum. Standing on a carpet of dead (trodden on) roses. She handed him an alarm clock to wind.