The Pages

by Murray Bail

  Recently, Sophie had slept with a patient – one of the ex-priests. She waved away the risk. ‘Can I say something, Erica? These men are fascinating, believe me. They are double-men. They have an entirely different take on things.’

  From the beginning to the end she enjoyed the process of meeting, then sleeping with, a man. Astride him, these chosen men, she could look down on her opaque self, and spread a flooding generosity, and for a moment, forgetfulness. Otherwise, Sophie found intimacy difficult. She couldn’t sufficiently involve herself. She could not reach out. And she enjoyed experiencing the inevitable weakness in men, of seeing the effect she had on them, from the moment she turned her special attention on them.

  She preferred the company of men to women. It didn’t stop her from having women friends. Recognising her behaviour, they looked on it kindly. As for the men, they understood at a glance she would not be trouble. Many of her affairs were with married men; and these men had made a calculation. Whatever they had murmured to Sophie, they would never bring themselves to leave their wives for her, not even the most crabby, fading wives. It wasn’t the way it worked. Sophie knew that. And with a married man any ideas of permanency could always be postponed – by the week, by the month, whenever. Now, though, something felt missing. At forty-three, Sophie was facing discomfort, uncertainty in the form of vague emptiness. The smallest thing could throw her off balance – not much, but enough to make her pensive. Erica saw this in the folded arms.

  A recurring problem for Sophie was her father (though he didn’t see any problem). To Sophie, he was in front of her and above and to the side. The solid shape of her father. Just by being there he could unsettle her. Something he said. Or when he said nothing at all. It was her father up to his tricks again. Immediately she would call Erica to discuss. She had to talk to somebody. Erica was always there. She seemed to be sympathetic. Sometimes she asked a question. If she did, Sophie would continue without answering. ‘And do you know, I think he’s basically oblivious?’ Then there was the stepmother. Sophie could hardly be in the same room as that woman; and this didn’t concern her father at all. ‘Well, I am sorry, but I find that perplexing and very hurtful’ – Sophie speaking to Erica.

  Perloff, Harold G. – where does that come from? Stopping and U-turning it went back in a faint line to a town in one of those tangled, land-locked countries in Eastern Europe, where it became dark at four in the afternoon. It might explain his mysterious limp – story there. Hemmed-in countries produce all manner of limps and missing limbs in their men. Along with a certain ironic superiority, his limp gave Harold Perloff a way of sitting in a chair, ankles crossed, and sipping an espresso from tiny gold-rimmed cups, with his little finger sticking out. Here was a large round bald head, noticeable for its warts and protuberances, bobbing up and down like one of those floating World War Two mines that wreaked havoc in the Mediterranean. The bow tie sometimes fitted on Fridays resembled a propeller below the water-line. He was playful. He was also implacable; when his daughter thought of him, which was often, he had his eyes on her.

  At Bankstown, the enormous rusty roof of Perloff ’s factory had grown into a local landmark: with an immigrant’s pride he liked to joke you could see it (the rust) from an aeroplane coming in. H. G. Perloff & Co manufactured hard hats of reinforced plastic for working men, smaller helmets in glossy blue, red or yellow for children. As Harold told it, to anyone who’d listen, it was good and proper to protect the all-important heads of construction workers, oil-rig operators, coal miners and the like; but he had real doubts about legislation which had small boys and girls strapping on one of his products the moment they stepped outside, for it diminished the thrill of being on your own in the playground, or of balancing on a bicycle. A law promoting softness, a suburban law – it would produce problems further down the track – his very words. He had a view on everything. Still, Harold Perloff understood the decency of making something and being paid for it, and churned out the hard hats by the thousands, selling them into Asia, and places like Fiji and Papua New Guinea.

  ‘I can tell you, the girl was never short of a word,’ he said to Erica, early on. ‘Now I believe she is being punished by having to sit still all day and forced to listen.’

  Although he had experience enough of banks to be dismissive of the well-educated person, he was pleased with his daughter’s diplomas, her quickness, the way she dressed in bold colours. Look at the cut. She was expensive. He didn’t mind that in a woman. But he could only shake his head at how she spent her day, listening, according to him, to people moaning; she certainly wasn’t out there making anything with her hands.

  When months passed and Erica hadn’t seen her friend it usually meant Sophie had become involved with someone again. Across Macleay Street one morning they waved to each other, and Sophie phoned the next day.

  ‘I cannot think of a single irritating factor about him. You know – how it doesn’t take long before you begin to think up reasons and excuses?’

  Married with four kids, he was a lecturer in Medical Ethics. At least once a day they spoke to each other; this time Sophie was determined. They had even managed a weekend away together. According to Sophie, he was calm, and steadiness was something she valued more and more. Then she turned to the man’s intellect and achievements. ‘He’s always reading philosophy. I’ve been meaning to tell you. He keeps up with the subject. It is presumably essential for his type of work.’

  Later, she told Erica he had a valuable collection of antique corkscrews, and he wore socks and underpants always bought from the same shop in W1, London, which had a miniature hedge out the front.

  Erica never got to meet him. With little warning he too went the way of the others. When Sophie unexpectedly dropped in on a Sunday morning, wanting to talk, she began weeping.

  They were in the kitchen.

  ‘What you need,’ Erica said, slicing a lemon, ‘is to get away, and therefore remove your thoughts, as it were, from what has happened. Does that make sense?’

  Unusually for Erica, she said it firmly. At the same time she was aware of the liquid glitter squeezed between her red-brick building and the next, and the horizontal orange of a container ship sliding past.

  Tuesday she was leaving.

  Sophie laughed, and blew her nose.

  Nothing much happens in my life, Erica wanted to say. My movements are minimal; and it doesn’t always feel right to me.

  And now, a long way west of Sydney and the tyres making a reassuring humming, Sophie sat up and decided to sing, Erica joining in.

  Tear-jerkers from Verdi and Puccini were tried out, but soon they switched to the less arduous, ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’, and other chestnuts, ‘Let it Be’ and ‘Up on the Roof ’.

  After that Sophie tried the radio – nothing but static. How could anyone live out here? To Sophie, the large paddocks represented a mind emptied of variety, of life itself. Except in the occasional towns they had hardly seen anything on two legs. But the great homesteads set back and surrounded by trees were not visible from the road.

  They were bumping about along a reddish track.

  Sophie had a handkerchief pressed to her nose. ‘I’ve never been enamoured of dust. I’m going to start sneezing in a second.’

  Erica was beginning to wonder why she had agreed to the task, which required a long drive, shaking the car to pieces, and every minute leaving further behind what was familiar. She had been restless. She needed some sort of change. As they went on, the names of the places had become more and more remote; Merriwagga, Goolgowi. Where did they come from, and what did they mean? Now as they turned south on a stretch of bitumen the two women began talking again, in anticipation.

  ‘Do you have any idea where we are?’

  Erica had stopped to consult the hand-written map. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Is that handwriting his? Let me see.’

  Erica got going again. ‘He has a sister. I believe I told you that.’

  Both l
ooked at their watches. It was only four, but they didn’t want to be searching for the homestead in the dark.

  6

  AND THE AIR had taken on the golden furriness as they drove up the avenue lined with imported poplars (as if all the staff of the big house had been summoned and stood in welcome), driving slowly to avoid colliding with stray animals – dogs, sheep, et cetera, for all they knew.

  There was an unexpected garden – the greenery, roses – and to the side a flagpole, machinery, shearers’ quarters, the corrugated tank on stilts – representing labour, self-reliance – which threw shadows angular and out of kilter across the gravel, implying the presence, surely, of patterns and complexities to be traversed. The shadow of the house itself folded out flat, as if it was being wrapped in dark brown paper. There was a wide veranda and outline of windows, a screen door; a woman bent over two barking dogs on long chains, looked up.

  Sophie turned to Erica, ‘Did you say I was coming too?’

  As Erica stepped out of the car, the woman came forward. She apologised for the dogs – ‘harmless, just ravenous’. It was good of them to come out all this way. We – that’s her brother – were grateful.

  Then she stood still, as if she was trying to remember something. She doesn’t have many visitors, Erica concluded; and immediately worried they were over-dressed – two smart women, fronting up from the city.

  Expecting them, Lindsey Antill had applied a slash of lipstick, the quick dark slash tilting her mouth, enough for Sophie to wonder whether she really wanted them there.

  Before they could object she took their bags; they traversed the shadows, passed the dogs now smiling, their tongues hanging out, and entered the Antill homestead, a large house of high ceilings and many rooms. Wherever they stepped it creaked like a ship.

  Off the central corridor, their bedrooms each had a fireplace and a small desk by the window which reached to the floor.

  ‘My brother will be in later.’

  Erica sat on the edge of the bed. Taking off her watch, she lay down – heaved a sigh. Parts of the road they had been on appeared, and the petulant lips of the solicitor in Sydney, and the worn-out man on the horse. Briefly she considered her pictorial admiration of horses. As usual, her mother’s face was blurry. Was Sophie the right person to be travelling with? Better – easier – alone? Erica wondered if she had brought the right clothes. By now the brother should have turned up. First thing in the morning she would sit down and begin the task. It was a privilege to be allowed into the mind of another person, the life work of another. She was curious to see what he had thought, what he had found. Already she respected his effort. It would have been difficult to sustain across pages, the many years, the isolation, the heat, perhaps the silence.

  7

  THE DINING room had a fine English table, silver candlesticks, and heavy knives and forks set for four. Under the table was a Persian carpet of soft faded pattern as if coated in dust. Otherwise the floorboards were bare, dark jarrah. It was a long room. Maroon-striped wallpaper decorated one side, and the stripes were very nearly obliterated by rows of official photo-finishes from Randwick, Warwick Farm, Flemington, Caulfield, Eagle Farm – Australian suburbs, endowed with a more concentrated purpose. To the untrained eye the outstretched horses strung out in a line all looked the same; their names were printed underneath, back to the one bringing up the rear. The rest of the room was empty, except for a shotgun leaning in the corner.

  This matter-of-fact masculinity was modified by Lindsey coming in wearing a dark velvet dress and earrings.

  It took Sophie by surprise. ‘And I of course didn’t think to bring anything to wear. All I brought,’ she swung around to Erica, ‘is virtually what I have on. In other words, nothing.

  ’ Lindsey Antill’s smile widened and remained wide. ‘Our father and his iron laws, dressing every night for dinner being one. It’s not uncommon on the older properties. Our father took it to extremes. Even in the middle of summer he wouldn’t dream of coming in and sitting down without a coat and tie.’

  Mention of the father and Sophie would rush to collaborate. After all, her own situation was exasperating too, and cried out for description.

  ‘Oh, that’s interesting. Tell me more. Did you find you could talk to him, I mean easily? Were you close to your father? What I have noticed is they assume in their little heads they are close enough, while we – the poor confused, misunderstood daughters – may not think so at all. Don’t you find? I know with my own, who’s still alive, touch wood, he’s completely impenetrable! Do I understand him? I’m his only daughter, if you please. He keeps me at arm’s length, in every sense, which makes me want to scream. Normal intimacy is foreign to him. He resembles a lump of granite.’

  But then she smiled as she remembered how easily he made her laugh.

  Lindsey had a rectangular face, a pink shoebox with worn edges, and therefore appeared to be a practical sensible woman.

  ‘Fathers are interested in things we are not,’ she said. ‘The way he was hard on my brothers, Wesley especially. He did it without so much as blinking.’

  ‘Women like us who have a father-problem have difficulties with men.’

  ‘Do I have a father-problem?’ Lindsey frowned. ‘I don’t think so.’

  Brushing a speck of dust off her hip Sophie gave the impression she was perhaps more knowledgeable in this particular area, at least when it came to the behaviour of men.

  Half-listening to them, Erica, with no warning, had a dizzy spell. She almost keeled over. Although she sat down, she felt like limping.

  Sophie and Lindsey were smiling at something they each said.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Erica got to her feet. ‘I think I need to lie down.’

  Sophie came forward. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ She touched Erica’s forehead: it didn’t tell her much.

  All Erica wanted to do was lie down. She’d go to bed. In the country, people got up early.

  The bedroom was quiet.

  At crucial moments in her life, Erica paused; it had become something of a habit. If she happened to be advancing along a promising path, such as a line of abstract thought, she would, at the moment of possible resolution, hesitate, and remain in one spot, like a car waiting at the lights – just to be sure – an afraidness of continuing, of embracing result. If she took the next step it might all unravel, perhaps. Instead of taking one more step she took a step back. With people too, a similar story. At the moment when all the instincts nudged and whispered, continue, go forward to this person, Erica, while remaining friendly enough, held back – reluctant, just then, to allow her true feelings. It would mean opening up – to what exactly? It had happened with a number of men. By withholding she remained in an uneven state, and some days she felt incomplete.

  And now, inside a strange house which made her feel small, where for many years her designated subject, Wesley Antill, had lived hidden away, a philosopher unknown to the rest of the world, she was expected – and she had agreed! – to rifle through his papers, his life-thoughts, and cast a judgment on them, that is, on him. What she had imagined back in Sydney to be a privilege was swirling with presumption. No wonder she felt sick at the thought.

  The house was so large Erica wondered what she was doing there. It was as if she was already asleep.

  For a philosophy to be possible today it would have to begin afresh – ‘begin with nothing’. Go back to the beginning where there was no thinking, no philosophy, and from there begin again. Otherwise what was the point?

  The light angling in from one of the windows varnished the floorboards, lit up the Tasmania-shaped stain on the wallpaper and concentrated a magnesium triangle across Erica’s pillow, splitting her troubled face. At the same time a crowd of large birds she was told were white cockatoos set up a hectic overlapping racket outside.

  When she opened her eyes again Lindsey was holding out a cup of tea and buttered toast.

  ‘Don’t for a moment think you’ve got t
o get up. You’re not in a mad rush, are you?’

  ‘I don’t know what’s got into me.’ Lifting an arm took an effort. ‘What time is it?’ And Erica immediately worried that her voice sounded frail – or not frail enough.

  As for Lindsey, a childhood of sunlight, tank water and calling out across paddocks had given her an outdoor voice, steady and clear, capable of distance, and to Erica it came as no surprise later to learn she once had vague ambitions to take over from where Melba had left off. Resting back on the pillows Erica examined one of Lindsey’s eyes, then searched her face for traces, if any, of suffering, kindness, cleverness, disappointment, serenity. She knew nothing about this woman bending over whose face was rectangular and hair could have been cut with kitchen scissors.

  ‘This is Wesley’s bedroom. You’re in his bed.’

  As Lindsey went on, Erica noticed the tan rubber band tying her hair, its simple suggestion of modesty. At the same time it worried her that most people she met soon became of little interest to her.

  ‘Next door is where he had his piano. It’s still there, under wraps. He’d sit and play for hours on end. Honky-tonk, that type of thing.’ Lindsey tossed her hair back. ‘It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. At least there wasn’t any static, which is what you get out here when you turn on the wireless. He said the piano was necessary to calm his thoughts, to settle himself. When he’d come in exhausted from his work he’d spark up after a few minutes playing. Wesley was the only one of us who could play a musical instrument. Basically he was a city man – the tall buildings. It took me a while to realise. He liked the bright lights. He did not really have an agricultural calling. He didn’t take the slightest interest, not that we minded.’

  If only Erica wasn’t feeling so feeble. Now instead of turning over questions of a philosophical kind she was finding herself picking up the slightest scraps of information on Wesley Antill’s personality. Perched on the end of the bed, his sister now busily gazing out the window still hadn’t said where he actually did his work.