Then somebody opened the door.
Hello, said Rodney, looking in.
He looked a little surprised. He stood awkwardly by the door. Then he went outside again, finding nothing further to say.
He wanted to get the book and read about Columbus after lunch, but with that Miss Browne sitting there, he would go away, he could wait, he did not want to talk to Miss Browne, talk to anyone, Margaret Quong, he was glad he had given the shell, and now he could go up to Quong’s garage and have a look at the pups. He went along the passage to the dining-room.
Rodney, called Mrs Halliday, where is George? Look at your coat! What have you done to yourself? Look at that mud!
Which was just what he knew she would say.
I fell down in the yard, he said.
Oh dear, she said, the way you ruin your clothes! Go and find George.
He’s coming, he said, sitting down.
Whether he was or not, he was hungry, even if cold mutton, he hated that. He took an onion out of the jar. Mother was standing there carving the joint.
I wish your father would come, said Mother, slicing a piece of fat. George! she called. Where is George? Rodney, you never help. Put those onions down at once.
All right, said Rodney. George’ll come.
He sat back and scratched his head. He wished he had someone older, like Margaret Quong, and the pups, but George was young, playing about in the backyard with a cart, or falling down and hurting himself.
There is great indignity attached to having a brother younger than yourself.
Mother! called George. I can’t, I can’t open the door.
Rodney, said Mother, can’t you see my hands are full? Can’t you open the door for George?
Oh, all right, he said. If only you would give me time.
But they drove him about. He would not take long over his lunch. He would get that book and read it alone in his room. Perhaps he would be an explorer, not a doctor after all. But perhaps there was nothing left to explore.
George was fat, and uncertain on his feet. He nearly fell over when Rodney opened the door.
Don’t fall over, said Rodney.
I didn’t!
Don’t tease him, said Mother. Georgie, darling, look at your nose! Be a man and give it a wipe.
I don’t want to wipe my nose.
It’ll fall in your food, Rodney said.
Don’t be disgusting! Mother said. Come here to Mother and let her wipe.
George was crying. He always cried.
Oh dear, coughed Mrs Halliday, what a pair of children I have!
She sat down to mutton and pickled onions, coughing still, even after a mouthful of water she coughed. She rested her elbows on the table, looking as if she wondered whether she had time to eat. Because that sheet that Mrs Woodhouse tore, and darning wool, there was no feed for the fowls, Oliver come, or Rodney call in at the store, his coat all mud like that, and the sick hen with the scaly eyes, Oliver take a gun, but a long way off, holding ears.
Hilda Halliday pushed back her plate of mutton and pickles and sat with one elbow on the table holding a hand to her chest. The thought of sickness, even in a hen, always made her put her hand to her chest.
Eat it up now, George. There’s a good boy, she said. Mother isn’t hungry. But you eat yours.
Hilda Halliday was almost forty. Oliver was thirtyfour. But they were happy, she said. Sitting on the seat in the Botanical Gardens, in the warm smell of Moreton Bay figs, he said he would write a poem. She was wearing a yellow hat that made her look slightly pale. And of course Rodney was pale, he took after her, not Oliver, and it was not anaemia as everyone said. Fancy falling down on his back.
You didn’t hurt yourself, dear? she asked.
Why?
Falling down on your back.
No, said Rodney.
He would make a paper aeroplane and climb up into the girders at the garage at Quong’s and let it come floating down. Margaret would stand underneath. Walter Quong gave him petrol for his lighter, which he only kept to see the flame, for of course he did not smoke.
You must be careful, Hilda said.
Oliver said it too, and that Dr Bridgeman they called in about her cough, but she had not wanted to tell Oliver, and Bridgeman advised the country, somewhere bracing, it would be all right, nothing to worry, only she must have plenty of air. Air. Hilda Halliday sat at the table and took in a good breath of air. It would be all right. And Oliver was pleased, the way she had soon picked up. Only sometimes at night she began to cough, stifled a cough so that Oliver would not wake. Sometimes at night she thought what she would not think, that Happy Valley, if only they could go to Queensland perhaps or somewhere warm, she was afraid, only it was for the boys, not for herself. She could not afford to become a drag. Oliver really must shoot that hen limping about in the yard.
Rodney, she said, you’ve hurt your hand.
He was sailing in the Yellow Sea. He had forgotten his hand. Now it came back.
Yes, he said, sullenly. I hit Arthur Ball on the face.
Then you were fighting. I thought as much. You didn’t fall down on your back. I don’t like to think that you tell untruths.
He thought it sounded silly to call it an untruth when it was a straight-out lie. He bit his lip and frowned.
Oh well, he said.
No. I like to think I can believe what you say.
It was all coming back, Andy Everett, that big cow smelling of cows, and perhaps lice, with a bullet-head, bending over your bed in a dream and twisting your arm behind the lavatory at school, and going to a boarding school Father said, away from Andy Everett, if you could go, or go to your room, and it wasn’t any good trying not to think because it only came again, was no use, was again and again.
Rodney, darling, you mustn’t cry. You’re much too big to cry, she said.
But that made him cry. He hated it all. She looked at him and made it worse. He would go to her. He would go back to school. He went and put his face against her neck and cried.
There, there, she said, patting his back with her hand.
George opened his mouth. He sat, fat and surprised, with his spoon raised and a piece of potato tumbling out of his mouth.
There, said Mother. You’ll soon be going to another school. There’ll be lots of nicer little boys.
Her neck was soft, and feeling her hair against his face he whimpered softly into her hair, wanting to stay or have her come in at night when he woke, like bronchitis, with a candle, and he felt better, there were no shadows on the wall, smoothing his hair and sitting on the bed.
What’s Rodney done? said George.
Nothing. Rodney’s done nothing. Eat up your lunch.
Rodney’s crying, said George, beginning to cry.
Oh dear, she said. Which of them did it, Rodney?
No one.
He blew his nose. He felt silly. He’d go away to his room.
Don’t you want any pudding? she said.
No. I don’t want any more. I’m going to go play in my room.
Seeing him go, she turned to George.