Why, Alys, said Mrs Belper, you’re spoiling that rose.
Yes? she said. It got crushed.
Watched the petals fall beneath somebody’s feet.
Such a pretty rose, Mrs Furlow said. Doesn’t the doctor look tired, poor man.
She spoke with the cruelty of innocence, Mrs Furlow on top of her wave. She bowed with the air of one, not stinting her benevolence, but conscious of its worth, while her hand wandered down her pearls, chaplet-wise, in gratitude for yet another social success.
Such fun, these country dances, she murmured to Mrs Belper. They always go with a swing.
Though Mrs Belper would understand, her cousin was secretary at Government House, would of course understand that a country dance was no more than a relaxation from the more ardent ritual of Mrs Furlow’s life. Mrs Belper, in the glow of being patronized, would have understood anything.
The head began to ache that heard twelve o’clock issue dimly out of the darkness and the Protestant church. It was cooler by the door. Oliver Halliday wiped his forehead and watched nothing in particular. Marking time at the training camp, the drum, before the streamers fell down into the sea and Hilda’s voice waved, said I don’t think I’ll go to the dance, Rodney has a cold, will keep warm in a thermos, in the dispensary, don’t forget when you get back, when the War stopped in Paris, and going into that church was to feel suddenly complete, like touching a face in the dark, like…He shifted his feet. They grated on the floor. These are the feet, he heard, he said, the opportunities you have not taken, that turn under the pillow with the closed hand, as turning over you reject again, and think, is to reject, is to think, and then the heart starts out on a one-two at the dancing class with powder in his gloves, pink, pink, pinking over, or red. Red. She must not crumble that rose. He wanted to shout, Don’t. He felt he would shout out something, and it would be that sensation of standing on your head in church, everyone thinking you mad, and you had to hold on to the pew to stop before you found it was a dream. He put up his hand to his head. He had to stop. He had to put up his hand against the well of music that would tumble if…He felt weak about the knees.
Go outside, she said. Into the air.
I’m all right.
Go outside.
She pushed her hand under his arm, and the stem of what had been a rose. She was leading him outside.
I thought we said…
Yes, she said. I know what we said.
He let her lead him, felt the relief of waking from a dream and reality cool upon his face.
I said it might be better if we didn’t see. Until we go.
Yes. But come outside.
Mrs Ball said to Mrs Everett said to Mrs Schmidt the doctor doesn’t look well and what’s she doing well well leading him out she knows the way you can see it isn’t the first time that somebody’s opened the door.
The music swirled in gusts, or in the intervals between the dances, the conversation, right through the body of the building that bent before the passage of sound, jostled out of its tranquillity. Because the School of Arts was seldom used, had grown dusty and complaisant with neglect, dozed the year through in cold or heat, and felt the darkness rub up softly against its scabby face. It was old. Built after the store, it had a medallion with a date over its portico that stamped it with a greater sense of permanence than the weatherboard dwelling-houses had. But there was something ironical about that date, as if somebody had thought the building would last, and now it must make an effort without very much wanting to. Still, it enjoyed a sort of sleepy importance, even if seeming to doubt the virtue of permanence. It eyed the darkness yellowly and rumbled in the basement where the supper-tables were.
Amy Quong, polishing glasses with a cloth, watched Hagan getting his breath after a glass of beer. It was cool in the basement, the coolness of beer and ham and a concrete floor. Amy Quong’s hands were cool in the belly of a moist glass that caught her small rounded face and pinched it capriciously out of shape. Her cheeks were flushed, across the brown, perhaps from the music, or perhaps from something else, though she liked to listen to the music and the feet sliding overhead. Her glance drifted over Hagan and back to her own reflection in the glass. When anyone spoke to her she started up. Her eyes rounded with surprise behind her spectacles, as if she were coming back out of her private thoughts.
Thought, flowing smoothly through Amy Quong, twisted Clem Hagan’s lip. He felt better after the beer, though not altogether satisfied, still with that bitter disappointment beer leaves in the throat. He hitched up his trousers, because he wore a belt, couldn’t stand anything but a belt, and his hand touched the surface of his wet shirt that had almost lost its shape. He frowned at the convention of a boiled shirt, at dressing up for what. And somebody wore diamonds. No wonder there was revolution, if only to rip the diamonds off a woman’s throat. His hands felt rough. Vic said, who was a good sort, put your hands here, Clem, but did not want to think about Vic, getting a kick out of hands. He felt ashamed of his hands. Diamonds made you ashamed, and if you went up and said, you had a damn good mind, you were just as good as diamonds, wouldn’t she have a dance, just for old times’ sake, yes, that was it, and she’d know, the way that whip stung, what you were smiling at. He trod a cigarette into the concrete floor. Miss Furlow, you’d say. What the hell was the use of waiting, and feel the sweat come on your hands, when you hadn’t been killed this far there was no harm in trying again. The floor was undulating overhead.
They’ve put too much stuff on that floor, Mr Belper complained.
Standing on the edge, disconsolate, rather bilious about the eyes, it was the remark a man makes to comfort himself, not really meant for anyone else, not that anyone else would have bothered to reply. Mr Belper soothed the collar eating into his neck. He had an expression of bottled-up concern increased by his environment. All he could think was, what will Cissie say, that purple lace, without daring to linger on the subject of his wife’s displeasure. Mr Belper hunched his shoulders, a man protecting himself from a cataclysm that nobody else could suffer. He had lost all desire to slap anyone’s back. He went outside to make water in the dark.
It Couldn’t be November, It Wouldn’t be December, but Some-dhay panted with persistence from the saxophone, with the crushing optimism of a saxophone, moved the foot to measure not time but boredom traced in powder on the floor. Her foot, describing an F, had smudged the S. And Mother will talk to Mrs Saunders, and Mrs Lithgow, and Mrs Bligh. She took a mirror out of her bag, noticed with some bitterness the smudge that was her mouth, and slashed it into shape again. Three hours of watching a lot of louts enjoy themselves inclines the face to wilt. I look bloody, she remarked mentally. As if it were the result of being looked at by a lot of louts, who if they weren’t louts would be worse, that mauling prerogative of men of your own class. Or someone else. The way he danced with that little tart in the blue tulle. Oh, God.
Sidney Furlow looked up quickly with a suspicion she had said something aloud. There was no indication, no quiver of Mrs Furlow’s back. Her foot slid again, sighed along the floor, on the margin of the dance. The bracelet melted into her wrist. Who was Mallarmé, some old stick, to know better how you felt than you did yourself, or what did you feel exactly, only wanted to hit out, that day at a snake, or sink down against blue tulle, those hands, they were rough, catching in the tulle perhaps, to tear. Helen said it did hurt a bit. She pressed her foot against the floor. Encountered feet.