The Eye of the Storm

by Patrick White

  ‘I cannot be sure. But Mrs Hunter has her ways of knowing.’

  ‘If she doesn’t know about this, I hope none of it will go any farther.’ The solicitor spoke with the vehemence of a once upright man.

  ‘Yes, Mr Wyburd,’ Mrs Lippmann said, and went away.

  In her absence he was threatened by the not quite silent house. The light was retreating from rooms in which furniture had begun to swell and brood. At intervals ill-regulated clocks were sounding the hour. Bill Hunter, with his passion for clocks, had distributed them throughout his wife’s house at Moreton Drive as well as his own ‘Kudjeri’. For Arnold Wyburd, the clash or tinkle of the sounding clocks was the worst accusation yet: of his part betrayal of a trust.

  All the way up the stairs his feet seemed to pad dishonestly; the sickness in his stomach made it the predominant part of him; his knee was grazed by the formally tangled iron hedge which stood between himself and the hall below, but he was scarcely conscious of what in ordinary circumstances would have struck him as physical pain.

  Arrived at the landing, he wondered which of the acolytes he would have to face: better Manhood than de Santis, he decided; though it still left Mrs Hunter who, asleep or awake, would remain the irremoveable cause of his distress.

  Sister Manhood came out from what he had heard referred to as the ‘Nurses’ Retiring Room’. She might have been waiting for him. She had already changed from her uniform, which should have made her less formidable: the dresses young women were wearing gave them so little protection, or that was how he would have liked to see it at the moment. But Sister Manhood was clothed in addition with a threatening air; she was standing with her legs apart, and the legs looked aggressively youthful: she had something of the swashbuckler about her, or the principal boy from a pantomime, who, he reminded himself, is only a girl in disguise.

  ‘Good evening, Sister Manhood!’ His intended cheeriness sounded wretched to his own ears.

  Sister Manhood cleared her throat. ‘… Mr Wyburd’ was as much as he caught; the fact that she had swallowed the rest of her greeting added something ominous to it.

  He must keep in mind that the girl was surly by temperament, and clearly sulking now. ‘Getting ready to go off duty?’ He couldn’t shed the cheeriness.

  ‘If Sister de Santis remembers she’s taking over. She promised to be early tonight.’ Sister Manhood glanced at her wrist. ‘Because of something important I’m planning on doing.’

  ‘How is your patient?’ Mr Wyburd was forced to ask.

  ‘Not bad,’ the nurse answered casually. ‘In fact, pretty good—considering.’

  She looked at the solicitor, and her mouth was full of accusations; or the sulks, he hoped.

  ‘She’s sleeping now.’ Was the girl throwing him a rope?

  ‘Then I shan’t go in.’

  ‘Oh yes, do! That’s what she loves—the coming and going. That’s why she says she never sleeps. Mrs Hunter would like to be always awake—ready for a brawl.’ Sister Manhood laughed brutally.

  So he would have been forced to go in at once if the nurse hadn’t felt the need, he now realized, to play him a little longer.

  ‘Mr Wyburd,’ he heard as soon as he had passed her, ‘may I have a word with you?’

  It was impossible to refuse her, and already she was drawing him into the room behind, a place he had always avoided as a repository of the concentrated past: that row of built-in cupboards with Mrs Hunter’s dresses still hanging in them. (One day I shall surprise you Arnold I may get up and go for a drive and what should I wear if I didn’t keep a few dresses to choose from? Nowadays I’m told one can look fashionable in almost anything that’s been put away.) One of the cupboards was standing ajar, and a smell, half antiquity, half musk, but faint and stale, rubbed off on him from the shadows inside; in his present state of anguish, the shadows in the wardrobe suggested figures rather than limp, empty dresses.

  Even if he had felt the desire to let his memory fossick amongst the contents of the cupboards, he would not have been so imprudent: the Manhood girl was staring at him moodily.

  ‘I just wanted to make sure’, she said in a significantly lowered voice, ‘that Mrs Lippmann didn’t give you a wrong impression. Most of these foreigners are so hysterical at times—particularly the Jewish ones. Don’t think I have anything against Mrs Lippmann—she’s a heart of gold—but that doesn’t prevent her getting wrong ideas. I did not, Mr Wyburd, throw anything down the cloakroom toilet.’

  The solicitor heard himself laughing quite crazily. ‘I assure you Mrs Lippmann made no such accusation.’ He even patted the girl’s arm.

  But Sister Manhood wasn’t reassured. ‘There’s another matter I might as well mention, now that we’ve got down to talking.’

  Mr Wyburd’s wretchedness returned as sweat.

  Her eyes had grown distant, glassy, moist. ‘It’s the job,’ she said. ‘For some time now I’ve been thinking of turning it in.’

  Recurrent reprieve was becoming too much for the solicitor. ‘Then you haven’t thought it over enough,’ he gabbled. ‘What should we do without you, Sister Manhood? Aren’t you—I understand—Mrs Hunter’s favourite? You can’t possibly let her down.’ Hearty overtones were turning the situation into something incongruously schoolboyish: better that, however.

  ‘The truth is,’ she said, halfway between the giggles and a blubber, ‘I no longer know what I really want. I don’t seem to have control over myself.’

  Was she about to twitch back the curtain from some other equally distasteful problem of her own? He wanted that no more than this.

  ‘I should have thought a position like yours would have given you a sense of security: good money; at least one excellent meal a day,’ to which you aren’t entitled, he prevented himself adding; ‘and your patient’s appreciation and affection.’

  ‘Nobody’s appreciation and affection helps, Mr Wyburd, when it comes to making decisions for yourself.’ Then Sister Manhood’s voice inflated, and he was reminded of a windsock filling and tearing at its mooring, only the wind was a noisy one, at a deserted country airstrip on which they stood facing each other. ’ Anyhow, if I stay, what good will it do Mrs Hunter when you dump her at the Thorogood Village?’

  The solicitor began backing into the passage. ‘No decision has been made. That is, nobody has the intention, I’m sure, of forcing Mrs Hunter to do anything against her will.’ Desperation was fuddling him. ‘Is this another of Mrs Lippmann’s delusions?’ In asking, he felt he was wildly grabbing.

  Sister Manhood said, through swollen lips and what sounded like a blocked nose, ‘It was Sister de Santis who told me. That’s why I have to believe it.’ Then, growing panicky, ‘I don’t want to get Sister into trouble. You won’t go for her, Mr Wyburd?’

  ‘Nobody will be “got into trouble”. We must only—all of us—keep our heads.’ How could he console others, himself a ricketty thing even before the termites had gone to work?

  Sometimes Arnold Wyburd wondered whether his being surrounded in his family life by too many women had nourished a streak of weakness in him. As he escaped from Sister Manhood he was pursued by some of the sounds he most disliked hearing: the sniffs, the sighs, tissues ripped from the box, the blown (female) nose. Much as he loved and depended on his regiment of women he often regretted their sogginess. He feared rather than despised their weakness: now especially it seemed to equate»-let’s face it—with masculine duplicity.

  So he not exactly scuttled down the passage towards Elizabeth Hunter’s door, where he was brought up sharply against woman’s strength. This, perhaps, was what he feared, not the flattering demands of feminine weakness.

  And yet, when he stealthily opened the door, the concrete reason for his almost physical fear was reduced by the enormous bed to the form and the feverish innocence of a sleeping child. Not even a child, her breathing or dreams were stirring her like a hank of old grey chiffon; the cheeks, sucked in on time, were puffed out as regularly against the breathin
g; a strand of hair blew less frantically than a moth. Yes, that was how he saw her finally; because it would have been to his advantage to stoop quickly, crush the soft creature between his hands, and be saved or damned for ever: each a remote possibility, for the soft moth’s steeliness precluded her destruction.

  ‘Arnold,’ Mrs Hunter said, ‘I’ve been trying to cal—cul—ate,’ the breath of a sigh tormented her, ‘how many weeks you’ve neglected me.’

  ‘It’s only last week, Mrs Hunter—or anyway, the week before—ten days I should say,’ her whippersnapper was actually trying to tot it up. ‘Not neglect, surely?’

  ‘Not in employment. It’s hellish long in a love affair. Or a good marriage-which can be the same thing.’

  They both decided against developing the theme.

  Her eyelids had opened, but continued batting. ‘What I think I wanted you for was to show you the letter I had from Basil—our son.’

  ‘What did he write to you about?’ The solicitor thought that when the time came to leave the house he would never have felt so glad. (Lal and himself eating a simple meal together: that would be the ultimate in gladness; and to tell her what he had been through.)

  ‘Basil wrote to thank me for the cheque,’ Mrs Hunter said. ‘All the nurses have read it—Mrs Lippmann too—Mrs Cush—all agree it’s a sweet letter, which of course it is. Basil is a great actor, and knows how to choose words for their—marrow; he’s learnt the business thoroughly.’

  The lids stopped batting. Her stare would have been trained directly on her visitor if sightlessness and the position of the lamp had not made the eye sockets look hollow.

  ‘I would like you to read it.’ Her intense seriousness turned it into a command, while a certain invalid tone appealed for sympathy for herself rather than his approval of the letter. ‘See whether you don’t also agree it’s sweet.’

  ‘Of course I’ll read it if you show—if you’ll tell me, Mrs Hunter, where it is.’

  ‘It’s here on the bedside table so that it can be easily found.’ Waved vaguely in that direction, her hand collided with his, which at that moment could not have looked more ephemeral: under the transparent skin, bones awaiting distribution for the final game of jacks.

  He had no difficulty in unfolding the letter: it must have been read so many times.

  ‘Aloud please,’ Mrs Hunter ordered.

  My dearest Mother,

  On opening The Envelope in Mr Wyburd’s office I was moved before anything else by your kindness in devising such a stunning surprise. No, it was not surprising; you have always been the soul of generosity. Now, if I am the richer for your gift, I am also humbler for your thoughtfulness

  Mrs Hunter cleared her throat; possibly she also laughed. Because he had to continue reading to the end, the solicitor was unable to distinguish laughter with certainty.

  ‘… Soon I shall come in person to thank you. In the meantime, I send my grateful love, and leave you in the hands of those whose affectionate dedication, unexpected charms and rare skills are all that I could wish for you in your life of trials.’

  ‘You didn’t read it very well, Arnold,’ Mrs Hunter complained. ‘You sounded like some old man—trembly and addled.’

  If he had been more than temporarily relieved by the evasions of the letter, he might have rejected some of her scorn. But he did feel old, and would not grow any younger trying to guess how the fatal blow might fall.

  So he joined in the hypocrisy. ‘It’s—yes, it’s a wonderful letter.’

  ‘“Sweet” is what the others call it,’ Mrs Hunter corrected. ‘And I am inclined to think that is what it is.’ From movements of her tongue on her lips she might still have been testing the letter’s flavour.

  ‘At any rate, I expect he’s been to see you since--probably more than once,’ the solicitor ventured.

  ‘No. And I didn’t expect it. I expect nothing with absolute certainty,’ Mrs Hunter said, ‘but death.’

  It started shocked sensibility battling in Arnold Wyburd against immense physical relief.

  Somewhere in a lull of his own, he tried to offer consolation. ‘I seem to remember he did mention not wanting to tire you out with talk.’

  Then it must have been Dorothy who had dropped the rumours at Moreton Drive; a sly, vindictive woman, she couldn’t have resisted flashing her knife prematurely. ‘Well, the princess—daughters don’t forget their duty so easily. I don’t doubt you’ve had visits from Dorothy.’

  ‘She came—oh, several times. And each time I was asleep.’ Mrs Hunter was so definite about that, he had to dismiss his theory.

  ‘I don’t know whether I’m sorry,’ she continued. ‘Dorothy gives the impression she would like to start discussing money. And that’s boring. Think about it if you must, but don’t talk about it. Almost any vice is more interesting than money.’

  They languished after that, and the solicitor might have become the victim of his thoughts if the night nurse had not saved him, anyway from their lower depths. Sister de Santis was so much a presence he was not used to thinking of her as a person. Since she had begun trading in dangerous rumours, he looked at her tonight for further evidence of womanhood, but found only what pleased his old-fashioned, shy tastes.

  After she had greeted him by bowing her veiled head, Sister de Santis became too intent on her patient’s welfare to bother with any visitor. ‘Have you spent a happy day, Mrs Hunter?’ she asked as she took up the token of a wrist.

  ‘How innocent you are, Mary! Oh, yes—I suppose I have,’ Mrs Hunter was forced to admit. ‘Happy, or un-happy: by this stage there’s not much to choose between them.’ She turned to the solicitor and asked, ‘Is there any reason why I shouldn’t feel happy, Arnold?’

  ‘Not that I know—unless you know of one yourself.’ He had staved her off, he hoped, and would not expose himself to further danger. ‘I’ll go now, Mrs Hunter, if you’ll excuse me.’

  She had lost interest.

  Sister de Santis seemed to be trying to apologize for her patient’s lapse. The immaculate lips were smiling at him, though the lamp was so placed, he could not judge the expression of her eyes. Probably she was on his side, but even if he had dared ask for confirmation, he suspected her discretion of being as great as his.

  So he went down through the house, its silence alive with clocks, suggestions of subterfuge, the blatant echoes of downright lies, together with hints of the exasperating, unknowable truth.

  The house in which he lived (judicious Georgian borrowings by a once fashionable, now forgotten architect) was making a last stand against a Central European pincer movement in yellow brick. He let himself in, and at once Lal, in an apron, was coming towards him across the hall. ‘I’ve done us some haddock,’ she said, ‘with a couple of poached eggs.’

  As they sat down to enjoy their simple nursery food, it relieved him to find life still as he hoped it might be the other side of the hectic shimmer of apprehension: they were free to masticate the requisite number of times in silence, or mumble about grandchildren’s ailments, and discuss the price of things.

  Over the bottled pears (Lal was for making a religion out of the country virtues) he thought to mention, ‘I paid Her a visit this evening.’ In masticating, he didn’t pretend to emulate Gladstone, but managed a ritual twelve to fifteen chews.

  ‘How was it?’ He only faintly heard above his absorption.

  Lal’s face was inclined over the brown and leathery, but healthful pears. Their friends must always have seen his wife as plain, he imagined; he too, at times: some species of modest, monochrome bird, her low, and uniformly agreeable call unexpectedly punctuated by an ironic note or two. Now he surprised himself thinking Lal looked downright ugly; he was repelled in particular by that single pockmark on one cheek beside the nose, which he must have noticed every day of their life together. Disloyalty to this loyal wife made Arnold Wyburd swallow a mouthful of unmasticated pear.

  And Lal was repeating in a louder, slightly reproachful voice
, ‘How was the visit?

  Suddenly he was leaning forward. ‘It was awful!’ he ejaculated with such force that some of his mouthful of pear shot on to the surface of the mahogany table; some of the juice must have spurted as far as his wife’s bare arm: from the way she jerked it back against her side she might have been spattered with acid.

  But the account of his discoveries at Moreton Drive had to come pouring out on Lal. Wasn’t she the only recipient for what might otherwise have eaten him away? With age, the half hour of mutual confession had practically replaced their sexual life, after which, in normal times, they fell deliciously asleep.

  ‘On top of the children’s criminal intentions, to find a houseful of half-informed, speculating nurses! The housekeeper too. Even the cleaning woman, I gather, is in the know.’ If he had been able to restrain himself till later, it might have sounded less reprehensible after the light was turned out. ‘How far it has gone, I couldn’t tell, but suspect.’ Is there any reason why I shouldn’t feel happy Arnold? he was stabbed by a voice which memory made appeal and accuse more pointedly. ‘Or how the leak occurred.’ It was torn out of him in what, for Arnold Wyburd, was almost a tortured shout.

  Lal had finished her pears; she laid her spoon and fork together, her behaviour the more seemly for his display of dry passion.

  She looked at him and said, ‘It was I who told, Arnold.’

  ‘You!’ Who was this woman he hadn’t got to know in a lifetime of intimate exchange? Because of his faith in her, a greater criminal perhaps than Basil and Dorothy Hunter themselves.

  ‘After what you told me, I had to tell someone. I rang Sister de Santis. That is all,’ Lal was saying. ‘I was so upset,’ she continued with more difficulty, ‘not that I ever greatly cared for Mrs Hunter, I may as well admit; she was always too selfish, greedy, in spite of being over endowed—with everything. And cruel,’ she gasped. ‘But I suppose I also looked up to her as somebody beautiful, brilliant—occasionally inspired.’

  He couldn’t help approving of the way his wife was choosing her words to express his own feelings; but her treachery came back at him; the dishonesty which had lurked behind her homely virtues increased her physical ugliness.