The Eye of the Storm

by Patrick White

  ACTOR. Not if it’s like your acting. No one ever loved by head alone.

  IST WIFE (shickered snicker). Oh, fuck off! I’ll love my child—when I’ve learnt how you do it. That’s something nobody—not you, not Len Bottomley—can teach me. I’ve got to work it out for myself.

  ACTOR. I’ve often wondered, Shiela, what Len has that I haven’t.

  IST WIFE. He tells me I’m good. What he means by ‘good’ is that I’m a ‘subtle actress’, in case you misunderstood me.

  ACTOR. What I don’t understand is why you don’t go off and live with Len? Why not marry him? I’d divorce you.

  IST WIFE. He may be a dear decent ordinary man—and I must say I’m deeply appreciative of ordinariness—but I couldn’t live with, let alone marry—a bad actor.

  (She drifts OFF with cup.)

  ACTOR (tilting his chair). Principles could have been her downfall—more than the booze.

  SCENE FADES into a LIMBO of half light in which the ACTOR is still visible and gradually the FIGURE OF A WOMAN. She is wearing a black kimono embroidered in silver and raw liver.

  WOMAN (approaching, putting a hand in his hair). That’s a start. But you’re still only telling the truth about other people.

  ACTOR. Give me a chance, won’t you? I’m only beginning.

  WOMAN. It ought to be easier after you’ve done the murder. It ought to flow.

  ACTOR. I’ll bring on the Second Wife. There’s no one like Enid for telling others the truth about themselves. Enid can make turnips bleed.

  WOMAN. It’s you who have to do the murder.

  ACTOR. Give a bloke a chance. I’ll ring my sister later on. It’s too early for a princess.

  WOMAN. You’re the star.

  ACTOR. I don’t think I can face it, Mitty.

  WOMAN. Nothing to it. No blood—or not that anyone will see. Only half a dozen words—spoken kindly. Oh, come, Sir Basil Hunter!

  ACTOR. First I’ve got to learn my lines. Got to rehearse them.

  WOMAN. Enid will rehearse them with you.

  ACTOR. Yes. Enid. (He is handed a magnificent robe which he slips on as ā disguise.) And as you say, there’s nothing to it. Half a dozen words … (His lungs expand.) … when I’ve got away with speeches lasting half a lifetime, and even for a fortnight the Lady Enid Bullshit herself.

  SCENE: A boudoir crammed with too many rare and incongruous bibelots. A desk at which SECOND WIFE sits writing. She is dressed in a rich stiff kaftan. Her head is that of a well-bred Borzoi.

  2ND WIFE (without turning). Basil?

  ACTOR. I hoped you mightn’t recognize me.

  2ND WIFE. Huh? (writing away). What is it, darling? You haven’t come to interrupt me, have you?

  ACTOR. What are you writing, Enid?

  2ND WIFE. My memoirs of course.

  ACTOR. Still?

  2ND WIFE (dashing away). Always! Isn’t life one long incredible memoir? All the journeys, all the friends—the husbands!

  ACTOR. I want you to hear me my lines for this play in which I’m supposed to do a murder before committing suicide.

  2ND WIFE (writing). What—again? (crosses out something with vicious pen.) In each case no doubt you’ll survive—as on the other occasions.

  ACTOR. More likely not. This is the part I’ve never played.

  2ND WIFE (glancing through what she has written, correcting). When I married an actor I thought it would mean going to bed with a different man every night. I found he always plays the same part—Himself. (She looks up, gnashing her bitch’s smile.) Rather a boring part, too.

  ACTOR. That’s how you become a star. (His nerves remind him.) Give them too much—which is what I’m proposing to do—and they may tear you to bits. Because it isn’t what they expect of you.

  2ND WIFE (yawning). It’s time I went on a journey, Basil. I think I’ll fly to the Sahara—get me a Tuareg. Besides being veiled, a Tuareg doesn’t talk. His ego is essentially physical.

  (She stretches, and the garment she is wearing is released. She is left with her long plume of a Borzoi tail, lean human breasts and thighs.)

  SCENE FADES into the LIMBO of semi-dark in which FIGURE OF A WOMAN in black silk kimono is visible.

  WOMAN (to ACTOR). Better, but it’s you who must take your clothes off. (Withdrawing) It will probably come more easily after—after you’ve done the murder.

  ACTOR (mechanically). Yes.

  While he had been sitting at the desk scribbling, the light of morning had established itself so unequivocally in the hotel bedroom he saw that this must be the day when they would go out to Moreton Drive; it was in Dorothy’s interest as much as his own to face Mother with the arrangements they were making for her future. As a result of his decision his face looked younger, he thought, his nails closely pared, the skin round his fingertips more clearly defined than usual.

  He would ring Dorothy after he had drunk his coffee, as soon as he had shaved. Not that he had much respect for the princess his sister, but there were certain convenances he found it difficult not to observe. If affection were among them, it was because this morning at least he had to stress a collaboration she ought, but did not have to concede.

  ‘Who?’ Before being told, she was sharpening her tone in defence.

  ‘Basil. Your brother.’

  ‘Oh.’ She sighed; she cleared her throat; she was giving an amateurish performance as a woman woken earlier than her rule allows. ‘Oh, Basil!’ She sighed, and coughed. ‘Of course your voice is unmistakable. It’s only the suddenness. Haven’t collected my wits yet.’

  ‘… know it’s early, Dorothy. But this, I think, will be the day, darling.’

  ‘Which day?’ A tone of suspicion, not to say hostility, was darkening her delivery.

  ‘The day we tell Mother what we’ve decided for her.’

  ‘Have we? Well, I know we’ve talked about it. But nothing’s been positively arranged, has it?’

  ‘As good as. In my mind, anyway.’

  ‘You may kill her.’ Dorothy spoke with such conviction she could only have intended to make him fully responsible.

  ‘Most old people are tough,’ he heard himself repeating a lesson. ‘In case this one isn’t, I’m asking you to come along with me. As a woman, you’ll know how to soften the blow.’ Ha-ha!

  Dorothy was trying to impress him with the thought she was giving their grave situation. She sighed again, and even moaned once or twice, while in between (he recognized the technique) she was drinking her coffee.

  ‘Is it good?’ he asked.

  ‘How do you mean—is it good?’

  ‘The coffee.’

  During the pause it might have been her stomach rumbling; then she said, ‘As a matter of fact it’s the most ghastly awful stuff—not that I expected anything better.’

  They enjoyed a sympathetic laugh together.

  He said, ‘I know what neglect of the little important unimportant things does to your sensitivity, darling.’

  She could have been lashing about in the bed. ‘Are you flattering me?’ she asked.

  ‘Naturally. Haven’t you found flattery pays?’ Though it was too obvious she hadn’t: Dorothy would not have known how to flatter, least of all the opposite sex.

  She ignored his question. ‘What time do you want me?’ She made it as coldly practical as the circumstances seemed to demand; so much so, he was taken aback.

  ‘Well, this morning, I suppose—since we’re agreed.’ If she needed the moment pinned down more accurately, he was not capable of it—for the moment. ‘Should we coax the Wyburd along? As a sort of witness?’

  ‘An unwilling and disapproving one. No. Embarrassing and unnecessary. What time?’ she persisted, it sounded irritably; and as though either of them could keep an appointment.

  ‘Well,’ he hesitated, ‘towards the end of the morning—at Moreton Drive.’

  ‘Say eleven.’

  ‘If you’re there.’

  ‘I’ll be there. Then we’ll get the morning nurse. She�
��s the silliest—and under your spell, Basil, I should say.’

  ‘Sister Badgery?’ He bridled.

  ‘Whatever her name, the skinny hen. It might be unwise for us to encounter the young one. She despises us for class reasons, while probably having hopes of Mummy; and you, Basil, could easily make a fool of yourself with anyone so pretty, and doubtless ambitious.’

  He said, ‘It’s far less complicated, at any time of day or night, than you would like to think. Leave it to me.’

  Dorothy laughed. ‘That’s my intention. It’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  He was not sure. No, he didn’t; he had wanted Dorothy to take the dagger.

  Madame de Lascabanes had dressed for what looked, from behind the closed window of the club bedroom, a brisk day: the harbour waters slightly shirred, newspaper rising and flapping in gutters, the paintwork on recent buildings and a moored liner as glossy as the makers advertised. The princess was wearing one of those timeless suits designed to silence criticism of an austere figure by emphasis of its bones and angles. Daring, anyway in this department, had remained a paying investment. And this morning her thin mouth looked right: no need to invoke her eyes in defence of a face where experience had routed ugliness, at least temporarily. Yes, she was pleased with her lack of compromise, in honour of which she had renounced jewellery even of a semi-precious variety. Why should she feel naked when realism was to be not only her weapon but her shield?

  Walking down the corridor she heard the bones click once or twice from somewhere about her, and was reminded of early morning gallops on her first horse (as opposed to barrel-bellied pony) storming across the river flat in one long burst of thunder, till finally controlling her mount only by riding him, humped and groaning, at the steep of a hill. In the club corridor Dorothy Hunter’s breath came faster; her nostrils thinned; she surprised a chambermaid by smiling, then by positively whinnying at her. Realizing at once that she had gone foolishly far, the princess fell silent and sober. In the taxi she sat looking with less demonstrative pleasure at her crossed ankles.

  Some little apprehension, though only of a momentary nature, rose in her at Moreton Drive. Where a sharp wind had prevailed amongst the wharves and along the expressway, here more of a breeze, or circular languor, inspired the mops and switches of the native trees. Overcome by what should have been happy surprise, the princess almost tipped the driver twenty cents, before scotching that foolishness too: she made it ten.

  Was it morning that caused the squeal made by the hinges on the gate to sound so penetrating, yet private, and somehow melancholy? She could remember listening as a child for the sound of the gate, wondering whether this time it was announcing the arrival she had always half expected: of the person in whom beauty was united with kindliness? Would she be listening still if she had continued living in Elizabeth Hunter’s house?

  Strange that Mother should have thought to preserve, stranger still to plant, native trees in her garden: herself an exotic even down to her hypocrisies. I shan’t feel happy till I’ve tasted everything there is to taste and I don’t intend to refuse what is unpleasant—that is experience of another kind. There must have been some Australian streak still existent under the posturing, the opinions and habits borrowed from another tradition. But how can you possibly love them Mother? Scarcely trees—monotonous ugly scarecrows—ugh! When they broke your heart at times, just from thinking of them, and in another hemisphere. I can’t reason about it Dorothy only swear that it’s a true passion whether you believe me or not tell me if you can why confident responsive women are attracted to withdrawn shadowy men? or gentle girls to hairy brutes? Oh Mother—must we descend to that level? At any level Elizabeth Hunter could make you feel you had inherited some of her moral pretences, and added to them, if you were honest, a dash of priggishness all your own.

  Now the princess went warily as she climbed the path which wound amongst the contentious trees. Wary of the light too. Round the suspended terracotta dish, which the night nurse kept filled with seed, birds were hanging in fluttering clusters. Instead of the normal clash and shattering of light, here it glowed and throbbed like the drone of doves.

  She opened her bag and looked distractedly inside, without knowing, she realized, what she expected to find. She shut the bag. She wet her lips. She must forget about the light, the trees. She rang the bell, and heard her authority resound through a house, the size and misuse of which, made it redundant, if not downright immoral. (It occurred only very briefly to the Princesse de Lascabanes that she would have been horrified in other circumstances by the attitude she was forced to adopt.)

  As on a previous occasion, the bell was answered by the nurse on duty.

  ‘Oh, dear!’ Sister Badgery was sent flying several paces back. ‘I got a shock!’ she clattered.

  ‘Why—whatever shocked you?’ the princess heard a bleached voice inquire.

  ‘I expected someone else, I expect.’ Sister Badgery laughed and gawked, unlike the widow of a tea planter.

  ‘Who is expected?’

  ‘I don’t know I’m sure.’ Behind her spectacles the nurse was trying to look mysterious. ‘Not you anyway—Princess Dor—mad-dahm!’ She was bubbling up again. ‘Maybe Jehovah’s Witness!’ she shrieked.

  Neither of them could decide whether to take it as a joke or a revelation. The nurse at least was in a position to turn and lead the caller upstairs.

  Dorothy thought it prudent to avoid inquiring after her mother’s health; instead she asked with deliberate coldness, ‘Has the housekeeper broken a bridge on this occasion too?’

  ‘Oh, ne-o!’ Sister Badgery twittered, and shook her veil. ‘She’s a bit under the weather. That’s all. Her feet—and everything.’ She half turned while continuing to sidle up the stairs. ‘Between ourselves, mad-dam, many of these Continental Jewesses are more than a little neurotic.’ The nurse herself had a tic in one cheek as she turned back to give full attention to the climb, with a less crablike, more of a perching-Leghorn motion. ‘In any case, it’s no hardship for me to answer the bell. I love people.’

  ‘I’m told that’s why some women choose to work at news stalls on railway stations,’ the princess remarked. ‘But surely, with a temperament like yours, you must feel lonely in this big old unused house?’

  Looking down into the gulf of the hall which she had known intimately, Dorothy herself half-admitted to loneliness.

  But Sister Badgery was protesting out of a flurry of veil, ‘Oh, ne-o, ne-o! Mrs Hunter is such a happy—such an original soul! She makes a person see things in a different light from day to day. We all worship Mrs Hunter—your mother.’

  Dorothy was more than ever determined not to inquire after Mother’s health. ‘I’m expecting my brother at almost any moment.’ She made it a cheerful warning.

  ‘Oh, Sir Basil!’ Sister Badgery gasped. ‘Then there will be two of you,’ she added rather pointlessly; even more so, ‘I had three brothers. I could rely on each one of them for moral support.’

  The two women had reached the landing, where they were glad to draw breath a moment.

  ‘Though it amuses you to answer the bell, I’m sorry you’ve had this exhausting climb,’ the princess thought to apologize.

  ‘Oh ne-o, it’s really nothing. I love the exercise,’ Sister Badgery insisted; in between panting and smiling, she seemed to be drying the buckle of her teeth with her under lip while developing a line of thought. ‘Actually, for some people it’s a climb. Poor Mrs Lippmann has her feet. Actually, what upsets Mrs Lippmann more than anything is to think she may become so incapacitated she won’t be able to dance again for Mrs Hunter.’

  ‘Have you seen it?’ the princess was tempted to ask about what she had vaguely heard.

  ‘Only Mrs Hunter has seen.’ Sister Badgery bowed her head and led the way along the passage, lightly tossing over her shoulder, perhaps to frustrate the visitor some more, ‘In her day Mrs Lippmann was a great artiste we are told—by Mrs Lippmann.’ Standing with one hand on
the knob, head inclined against a panel of the door, the nurse might have ended by sounding vindictive if it were not for looking as though physical exertion and some demanding preoccupation had blanched the malice out of her.

  Other questions were rising to the surface of Dorothy’s mind, but there was no time to ask them: the nurse had opened the door of Mother’s room, and you would have to go inside. What made the moment more portentous, Sister Badgery was clinging to the knob, holding back, while an intensified flickering of eyelids and the directionless drift of a pallid smile implied that she personally would have no part in anything reprehensible anyone else might be plotting. The princess hesitated, to give protocol a chance. But the nurse failed to announce her; she closed the door, shutting out her own blameless figure and a last simper of apologies.

  ‘Is that you, Dorothy? I can’t see.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’ The Princesse de Lascabanes felt her nylons turn to lisle.

  The figure on the bed—her mother—continued treading the waters of recent sleep, till rising above the wave she was to some extent clothed by the myth of her former beauty.

  Alone, Dorothy was already quailing for the kind of sentimental weaknesses a raking of the past might uncover. At the Judgment, too, you stand alone: not only Basil, all other sinners will contrive to be late. Your only hope in the present lies in indignation for whatever disgusts most: from faecal whiffs, breath filtered through mucus, the sickly scent of baby powder. Thus fortified, you may hope to face the prosecution and conduct your own defence.

  Madame de Lascabanes stripped off her gloves, dumped her bag: it tumbled off the bedside table, and lay; she seized the freckled claws, and asked, ‘Do they look after you, darling?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Rub your back regularly. Change you often enough. Keep you fresh.’

  ‘Why? Do I smell?’

  ‘Of course not! I was only inquiring generally.’

  ‘They spend far too much time messing me about. But that’s what they’re paid to do, isn’t it? Poor wretches!’