Riders in the Chariot (74 page)

The house had been mashed pretty well down by then, the surroundings trampled hard, much of the stone carted away, leaving a desert of blond dust. Veins and arteries still quivered from the severing. Elbows of ironwork lay around amongst the shattered slates, and in a shrubbery which she had never entered before, due to a distaste for nature, the revenant came across an old, battered, black umbrella. It gave her quite a turn; at first she thought it was a person.

Now, where she had intended to stroll, and give the impression of ownership, she scuttled, rather, as if to avoid getting crushed, and the slight trembling of her head, which her friend had already begun to notice, blurred her perception. All should have been clear, yet objects loomed, and disappointments, out of the haze of Mrs Jolley's thoughts. She barked her shin on a piece of scrapped balcony, and whimpered for the blows she had sustained at various times.

The truth was: this victim's resentments had not been exorcised by the demolition of Xanadu; they had merely taken different shapes. There were the three daughters, in their bubble nylon, walking just far enough ahead; she could never reduce the distance. There were the thoughtless kiddies, pulling at catapults, thrashing the paths with their skipping-ropes, regardless of their nan. There was that tight knot, the sons-in-law, who did not appreciate relationship, but discussed among themselves dahlias, pensions, and Australian rules. In the circumstances, could she afford to reject even a friend whose friendship she already questioned?

Mrs Jolley almost tripped over a length of rusty flue, from which there rose a cloud of soot, one would have said, deliberately. Her friend!

Then, stranger, but true, at a turn in the path, where they had dumped the Diana of the broken wrist, the actual Mrs Flack was conjured up.

"Oh!" cried Mrs Jolley.

She had to hold her left side.

"Ha!" cried Mrs Flack.

Or hiccupped.

"It is you!"

"It is me!"

Their complexions also were in agreement.

"I would not of suggested," said Mrs Jolley, "in your state of health."

"No, dear," Mrs Flack replied, "but the morning was that lovely, I decided to surprise myself. And here I am."

They began slowly, though at once, to walk towards some objective, which neither, perhaps, could have specified. Mrs Flack had taken Mrs Jolley's arm. Mrs Jolley did not refuse it. So they walked, and came, Mrs Jolley discovered, to the house in Mildred Street, which they might never have left, and before the lid closed again, of the brick box, the prisoner did have time to wonder what her intention had been that morning in visiting the ruins of Xanadu.

The two women continued with their lives. At night, from under her eiderdown, each would listen to the other, clearing her throat, at a great distance, from deep down, perfectly dry.

There were the days, though, when Mrs Jolley got the upper hand. There were the evenings in particular, when she would glance through the daily paper, when she would feel brighter for reading of the deaths, and storms, and any acts of God.

There was the evening Mrs Jolley shook out the newspaper, and laughed.

"Young people are the devil," she remarked.

And her milky dimple had returned.

"What does it say?" Mrs Flack asked, but hoarse.

Her eyes were shifting, from point to point, to avoid some eventuality.

"Nothing." Mrs Jolley sighed. "I was thinking only."

And the restless paper was turned to sheets of thinnest metal.

"I was thinking," she said, "they would murder you for tuppence."

"There is always someone must get murdered," Mrs Flack replied, "and always someone to do it, independent, you might say, of age."

Mrs Flack had impressed many.

But Mrs Jolley laughed, and sighed.

"That young nephew of yours," she began again, after a decent time had elapsed, "that
Blue
_ is a caution, never looking in, never giving another thought to his auntie. Who was that good. Always buying the best fillet."

"Blue?" Mrs Flack cried, and paused.

Something could have been eating her friend: so Mrs Jolley recognized. From experience, she would almost have diagnosed a growth.

Then Mrs Flack resumed, purely conversational, "Blue is not here. He has gone away. Blue is travellin' interstate."

"For some firm?" Mrs Jolley asked.

"No," said Mrs Flack. "That is--no. Not for any particular firm."

"Ah." Mrs Jolley sighed, but laughed. "A lone wolf, sort of."

If Mrs Flack did not test the edge of her knife, it was because, temporarily, she had lost possession of it.

There were mornings when Mrs Jolley sang. Then her rather girlish voice would run off the sparkling dishes, and fall in little pearly drops.

There was the morning a gentleman came. Mrs Jolley flung off the water. Her milky dimple was recurring.

"No," she said. "Mrs Flack is at the Cash-and-Carry. If there is anything," she said, "I am her friend."

He was a gentleman on the stout side, but she liked the big manly men.

He did wonder whether. But his original intention finally opened him up.

"I am Mr Theobalds," he said, "from where Blue was, previous."

Mrs Jolley had grown even more infatuated. Her face made it clear she would lend every assistance.

"I am the foreman, like," Mr Theobalds explained. "And me and Blue was always good mates. See? Now he drops a line to say everything is okay. Got a job with a firm in Queensland. Sent me a snap, too. Blue is fat. They turn into ripe bananas up there, from layin' in the sun."

"Oh," cried Mrs Jolley, with such candour, the visitor was compelled to look right into that decent woman's face, "his auntie will be
glad
_!"

Mr Theobalds had to laugh. It sounded rather loose. Some of the big men, the pursy ones, could not control their flesh or laughter.

"I wouldn't of thought 'is auntie would of turned a hair," Mr Theobalds replied. "Though they do say it continues to grow on 'em after the lid is screwed down."

"The
lid
_?" Mrs Jolley was surprised. " 'Is auntie?"

"His Aunt Daise died of something, I forget what."

Mr Theobalds could afford to look jovial for that which had happened long ago, and did not concern him.

"But was his poor mother," Mrs Jolley insisted.

"
She
_ is his mum." Mr Theobalds looked out through his eyelashes, which made a gingery fringe.

Mrs Jolley was confounded.

"I thought everybody knew as Ada Flack was Bluey's mum," Mr Theobalds said, "but perhaps you have forgot."

"
She
_ is his mother!" Mrs Jolley repeated.

She could never forgive.

"I am not that foolish, Mr Theobalds," she protested quickly, "to forget what I was never told. Ever. I am obliged to you, incidentally, for important information."

Mr Theobalds did not care for what he had started. Although the outcome would be no concern of his.

"And the father?" Mrs Jolley could not resist.

"No official father. Only opinions."

Mrs Jolley rattled.

"One thing is sure," Mr Theobalds said, "it was never Will Flack."

"Who slipped off the roof."

Mrs Jolley was following the progress of the doomed sandshoe on the fatal tile. Her face had turned a chalky blue.

Mr Theobalds laughed again.

"Will never slipped."

"Jumped?"

Her informant did not answer at first.

"Mr Flack was
pushed
_, then?" Mrs Jolley almost screeched.

It startled the visitor.

"I would not care to say," Mr Theobalds said, "not in any court. Not pushed. Not with hands, anyhow. Will Flack was a weak sort of coot, but good. He could not face an ugly situation. That is the way I see it."

"She as good as pushed her own husband off the roof! That is what it amounts to!"

"I did not say it," Mr Theobalds said.

He had gone rather soft, and his size made him look all the softer.

Mrs Jolley realized she was still standing on the step. She asked, "Would you care to take somethink, Mr--er?"

But her visitor did not. He was having trouble with the carby. He would probably have to take it down.

Then Mrs Jolley remembered that she was partial to big men. Even the softish ones.

She said, "You mechanical men! I could look inside of an engine, and not know the first thing about it."

She would continue looking, though, if it would help.

But her visitor had been caught once, so he went away.

"I am that glad your nephew is so well and happy," Mrs Jolley kept repeating to her friend. "And that he should have thought to write, even if it was only to Mr Theobalds, though he seems a nice sort of man."

Mrs Flack's lips had never looked paler.

"Oh, Ernie Theobalds," she said. "He was always mates with everyone."

If she had not been continually ailing, she might have complained of not feeling well, but in the circumstances, she had to think of something else. So she kept on parting the little rosettes of hair, matted above her forehead, and which were of a strangely listless brown.

All things considered, Mrs Jolley would no longer have been surprised if Mrs Flack wore a wig.

"Some men are to be trusted only so far," Mrs Flack remarked.

And dabbed at the steely perspiration which glittered on her yellow forehead.

"You are telling me!" Mrs Jolley laughed. "Not that some women," she added, "don't wear the same pants."

Mrs Flack was in some distress.

"Pardon me!" she said. "It is the herrings. I have not been myself since we opened that tin. I should never ever touch a herring in tomato sauce."

"No, dear," Mrs Jolley agreed, "and you with a sour stomach; it is asking for resurrections."

Nobody could have said that Mrs Jolley was not solicitous for her friend. She would bring her cups of red tea. She would change the water in the vases, because by now, Mrs Flack had forgotten. When Mrs Jolley poured the opaque stream of flower-water, the smell of which becomes ubiquitous, Mrs Flack would begin to walk about her brick home, and examine the ornaments, to avoid what was unthinkable. She herself had the look of pressed flowers, not exactly dead, and rustling slightly.

Winter evenings were cosiest at Mildred Street, even when it rained on a slant. Then the two ladies, in winter dressing gowns, would sip the steamy cups of tea. Mrs Jolley would hold her cup as though she must not lose a drop: it was so good, so absolving, such a crime not to show appreciation. But Mrs Flack, teacup in hand, might have been supporting air.

One evening Mrs Jolley put down her cup, and when she had rearranged her chenille, looked up, and speculated: "I wonder what that Mr Theobalds does of an evening. There is a real man's man."

Mrs Flack wet her lips, which tea had already wetted.

"I would not give a thought to Ernie Theobalds," she said. "I would not."

Looking right through her friend.

"I would not," she said.

She was looking that yellow, and somewhere in the side of her neck, a pulse.

"All right! All right!" Mrs Jolley said. "I was making conversation like."

She smiled so soft. She had that blue eye. She had a mother's skin.

"I would not believe the tales," Mrs Flack ejaculated, "of any Ernie Theobalds."

Mrs Jolley must have done some very quick thinking, for her eyes shifted in such a way. Then she sat forward in her soft blue chenille.

"But I do believe," she said. "Because I am a mother."

It was most extraordinary, but Mrs Flack's tongue began sticking straight out of her mouth, the tip of it curled slightly up. She dropped her teacup. She was making noises of an uncommon kind.

Mrs Jolley rose, and went and slapped her friend's wrists.

"There!" she said. "There is no need, you know, to create. I am one that understands. Look," she said, and stooped. "The cup! It is not broken. Isn't that just luck!"

But Mrs Flack was looking right through the wall.

"It is what takes hold of you," she said. "A person is not responsible for all that happens."

It could have been the presence of Mrs Jolley which made her add, slower, "That is--not everybody is responsible for every think."

Mrs Jolley did not like to play the role of conscience, but since it had been thrust upon her, she did her best. From beneath the pale blue eiderdown she would hear that poor, guilty soul, her friend, get up several times a night, almost as if her bladder--though that was one part of her which Mrs Flack herself had forgotten to accuse.

At all events, the condemned woman would wander through her temporary abode, touching objects, trailing her dressing gown of beige. For Mrs Flack was all of a beige colour now. Worst of all, as she drifted in the dark, she would know that her conscience was stretched beneath a pale blue eiderdown, waiting to tangle with her thoughts. Left alone, she might have found refreshment by dwelling at times on the pleasures of sin, for remorse need not be all dry, even in a shrivelled sinner. And Mrs Flack was that. Indeed, her breasts would not have existed if it had not been for coming to an agreement with her vest. Which night would cancel. The knife of time descended again, and all the fumbling, bungling, exquisite agonies of fulness might only have been illusion.

"If I was you," Mrs Jolley once advised at breakfast, "I would consider asking the chemist to recommend a reliable pill."

"I will not drug myself," Mrs Flack replied. "You will never persuade me it is right. It is not. It is not ethical."

"Oh, I will not try to
persuade
_! It was only for your own good," Mrs Jolley protested. "I cannot bear to watch a human being suffer."

And averted her eyes. Or watched, instead, her victim's toast.

"Sometimes I wonder whether I am all that good for you," she murmured, thoughtful.

Without looking up, but watching.

"Not good?" Mrs Flack stirred, dry as toast.

"Whether our two personalities do not click, like," Mrs Jolley explained. "I would go away if I could convince myself it was the case. Never ever did I think of going away, not even when you was unkind, dear, but would consider it now, if I thought it would be in any way beneficial to another."