Riders in the Chariot

17

THEY HAD started to demolish Xanadu. A very short time after the wreckers went in, it seemed as though most of the secret life of the house had been exposed, and the stage set for a play of divine retribution; only the doors into the jagged rooms continued closed, the actors failed to make their entrance. Of course, the reason might have been that vengeance was fully inflicted, and the play finished, where wallpaper now twittered, and starlings plastered the cornices. Even so, people came down hopefully from Sarsaparilla to watch, to brace themselves against the impending scream of tragedy, to stroll amongst the grass while keeping a lookout for souvenirs, a jade bead perhaps, or coral claw, or the photographs that are washed up out of the yellow past. It was no more than a gleaning, because the furniture had been removed immediately it was decided to demolish and subdivide. Solicitors had presided. A young man turned up, in black, and a rustier, elderly individual. They had supervised the inventories, and were present at the arrival of the vans, on the authority of the legatee and relative, a Mr Cleugh, of the island of Jersey, U. K. All was arranged by correspondence, as the fortunate gentleman was too old to undertake the voyage-besides, he had done it once-and could have been interested only in the theory of wealth by now. So the malachite urns were removed at last from Xanadu, and the limping cedar, and the buhl table of brass hackles. Some of the inhabitants of Sarsaparilla claimed to have been informed that it all fetched a pretty penny, though there were others who heard that it went for a song. The strange part was that the old woman had thought to consult solicitors. She had, it appeared, called them in soon after the death of her mother, when some transparency of memory prompted her to dictate a will in favour of her cousin, Eustace. Not even those who invariably failed to understand motives could have interpreted the inheritance as a simple reversion, for Mary Hare was closer by blood to several Urquhart-Smiths. So, it seemed, Miss Hare had chosen. She who had lurked in the scrub, and frequently scuttled from the eyes of strangers, who had stood at a window holding the rag of a curtain over half her face, or drifted directionless through the corridors and rooms of her nominal home at Xanadu, she who was at most an animal, at least a leaf, had always chosen, people came to think, and had chosen for the last time, the night the Jew's house got burnt, to go away from Sarsaparilla, where she was never seen again. There had been a hue and cry, and speculation in the press, and two bodies offered, one from a river in the south of New South Wales, the second from the sea, off the Queensland coast. Neither corpse was recognizable. But it was decided by reasoning too devious to disentangle that Miss Hare was she who had stepped into the cold waters of the southern river, where trout had nibbled at her till the state of anonymity was reached. So it was published officially. But there were those who knew that that was not Miss Hare. Mrs Godbold knew. Several of the latter's daughters knew. Though the matter was never, never discussed amongst them, they knew that Miss Hare was somewhere closer, and would not leave those parts, perhaps in poor, crumpled, disintegrated flesh, but never more than temporarily in spirit. So the Godbolds would push the hair out of their eyes, and squint at the sun, and keep quiet, if ever the subject of Miss Hare's end crept into the conversation of the inhabitants of Sarsaparilla. It remained something of a mystery, while Xanadu itself was the broken comb from which the honey of mystery had soon all run. People listened for the next crump, from a distance, or approached close enough to enjoy the spectacle of the complicated copper bath-heater, although from that level they could not have caught sight of the tessellated Italian floor, from which time and Mrs Jolley had already half scattered the medallion depicting a black goat. Sometimes, in the absence of actors, the workmen would appear on one of the several planes of the deserted stage, and perform against the dead colours for the pleasure of the thin but enthusiastic audience. The spectators would enter right into the play, because all those workmen were regular blokes with whom they could have exchanged sentiments as well as words. Which made the act of desecration more violent and personal, adding to it, as it were, the destructive animus of banality. So the few ladies from Sarsaparilla, and handful of kiddies, and three or four stubbly pensioners, roared their heads off the morning the young chap-the wag of the bunch-stood on the landing at Xanadu with a bit of an old fan he had found, and there amongst the lazy sunlight which the trees allowed to filter onto the brown wallpaper and dustmarks, improvised a dance which celebrated the history of that place. How the young labourer became inspired enough to describe those great sweeping arcs with his moulted fan, nobody understood, nor did the artist himself realize that, for all its elasticity of grimace and swivelling impudence of bum, his creation was a creaking death dance. But the young man danced. For the audience, his lithe thighs introduced an obscenity of life into the dead house. The candid morning did not close down on his most outrageous pantomime. The people hooted, but in approval. Until at the end, suddenly, the tattered fan seemed to fly apart in the dancer's hand, the tufts of feathers blew upward in puffs of greyish-pink smoke, and the young man was left looking at a few sticks of tor-toiseshell. At once he began to feel embarrassed, and went off stage, careful to close the door upon his exit. The audience dispersed shyly.

Xanadu continued to crumble, when it did not crash. In the evenings when the wreckers had gone, and the long gold of evening had succumbed to cold blue, other figures would appear. They were the couples of lovers, avoiding one another, which was easy eventually, since there was enough silence for everyone, and the grass meeting in arches above the extended bodies made a world that might have been China or Peru. Else Godbold walked there with her lover Bob Tanner. They, who had experienced life, frowned on recognizing ignorance, skirted obstructions in the rather difficult terrain, stalking stiffly. Locked together precariously by the little finger, they swung hands, but gravely, and made plans for the future. As if they had actually tamed it. But once Else bent down, and picked up a scrap of paper, some old page, from some old book, only of handwriting, of a funny, educated kind, which they took the trouble to decipher, some of it at least, under a rampant elder bush. "July 20…" Else Godbold began to mumble syllables, and Bob Tanner chose that moment to approach his head."… heat oppressive as we left Florence for Fiesole, and the villa of Signora Grandi, the acquaintance of Lucy Urquhart Smith's. I hope life may become more tolerable, though Signora G. has made it clear that it will remain _exorbitant__! Bathed face, and put on my reseda Liberty. _Feeling much improved__! Norbert _indefatigable__. Italy his _spiritual home__. Only a few nights ago he embarked on a long poem on the theme of _Fia Angelico__. Doubtful, however, whether his physical condition will allow him to bring it to an altogether satisfactory conclusion. Poor fellow, the oil is a constant upset to his stomach! Now that we are in a villa of our own, hope to discover some respectable woman who will know to prepare him his mutton chop. My little girl is unhappy. She is a puzzle. Says she _wishes she were a stick__! Often wonder how M. will adapt herself. She is so _plain__! And will not learn to converse. Her statements stop a person short. Will not deny that M.'s remarks usually contain the truth. But the world, I fear, will not tolerate the truth, at least in concentrated form. A man who drinks his whisky neat quickly becomes unsociable. _As we know from personal experience__. July 21. Norbert insisted on returning to Florence for the day. Did San Marco, Santa Maria del Carmine, Santa Maria Novella, Santo Spirito etc. etc. Exhausted. Bilious. July 26. Have not written since Thursday. Too distressed. On Thursday night Norbert took too much. Threatened to open his veins. Decided against, because, he claimed, it was what Urquhart Smiths expected. Yesterday evening, as though the other were not enough, our poor M. had a kind of little "fit." Quickly over, but _dreadful__. Sat up and said she had never been so far before, that she had found _lovingkindness__ to exist at the roots of trees and plants, not to mention _hair__, provided it was not _of human variety__. Most distressing. Must consider how I may show her that _affection__, of which I _know__ I am capable. Remember in future to pray particularly. Oh dear, to see the future! Time must solve problems which prove too great a tangle at close quarters. Had always dreamt of an old age made comfortable by a daughter with cool, lovely hands. No question of a tranquil husband. Sometimes am forced to conclude only the air soothes. But where? Not at Florence….

"Waddayaknow!" It was too much for Else Godbold. But Bob Tanner had taken a blade of grass, and was inserting it strategically into the opening of his girl's ear. "Ah, Bob!" Else cried. She laughed, but down her nose, because she was interrupted in contemplation of higher things. Then he put his face almost into the angle of her neck, until there remained only a thin band of burning air to separate them. Outside, the cold air spilled down, almost to the roots of the elder bush, where it was repelled. They were warm there, nesting in the grass. Else could have cried. She crumpled up the yellow paper from which she had been reading. Then Bob took the lobe of her ear between his teeth, and could not hold his breath, but snorted hot into her ear. "Ah, Bob," she had to protest, "didn't you listen to what I was readin' out?" "All that old stuff?" She had never seen him angry. "Ah," she cried, "I would give anything to see what will become of us!" "I could tell you," Bob said. But did not attempt. The flesh, she saw, was slipping from his face, so that, with nothing to intervene, she was brought all that closer to him. They were very close now. Their mouths were melting, flowing into one. Until Else came up for breath. "I am afraid, Bob." "What of?" he asked. "I dunno," Else said, because she could not have conveyed the world of darkness. Owls were flapping through the rooms of Xanadu. Somewhere a branch cracked, and fell. "I used to think," Else said, "you could make the future what you wanted." Then Bob Tanner, who was determined to resist the future, when the present was so very palpable, blazed up, "What odds the future! I know enough. Can't you see me, Else? Look at me, Else. Eh? Else!" Then she did. "That's all right," he said. "Eh? That's all right." The present welcomed them with open arms. As they rocked together, underneath the elder bush, it did not seem likely that anything would ever withstand Bob Tanner's blunt conviction. "I will show you! I will hold you! I will give you the future!" "Ah, Bob! Bob!" Else cried. As if she had not always known that all certainty was here, and goodness must return, like grass.

One morning, Mrs Jolley put on her hat, and went down to Xanadu, to have a look. Without her friend, though, who suffered from the gallstones, and the varicose veins, to say nothing of a Heart. It was too far for Mrs Flack. So Mrs Jolley went on the quiet, and might have developed palpitations herself, such was her anxiety to arrive, and determine to what extent her resentments had been appeased. 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 sand-shoe 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." Mrs Jolley did not look. She listened to hear the silence expostulate in pain. Then Mrs Flack moved, her chair was bumping on the lino, her slippers had discovered grit. For a moment Mrs Jolley suspected her friend might have revived. "I have often wondered," said Mrs Flack, "why you did not think to go, and your good home, let at a nominal rent, to a friend. And your three daughters so affectionate. And all the grand-kiddies. All the advantages. All sacrificed for poor me." So that Mrs Jolley no longer suspected, she knew that Mrs Flack was escaping, was stronger than her fate. So Mrs Jolley blew her nose. "It is not the advantages," she said. "It is the memories." It was the tune, she had remembered, on some old banjo, that made Mrs Jolley water. Mrs Flack cut the crust off her toast, and freed her fingers of the crumbs. "If you was to go, of course I would suffer," she admitted. Mrs Jolley hung her head, in gratitude, or satisfaction. She might, perhaps, have been mistaken. "I would suffer, wondering," said Mrs Flack, "how you was makin' out, down there, in that nice home, with all that family, and memories of your hubby who has passed on." Then Mrs Jolley actually cried. Remembering the hurdy-gurdy tunes of life made her more assiduous. Frequently she would jump up and scrub the scullery out at night. She wrote letters, and tore them up. She would walk to the post-office, and back. Or to the chemist's. "If someone told me you had gone away," Mrs Flack remarked, "I would believe it." "It is the weather," said Mrs Jolley. "It unsettles you." "Bad news, perhaps. There is nothing so unsettling as a letter," suggested Mrs Flack. Mrs Jolley did not answer, and Mrs Flack watched the little soft white down that moved very slightly on her friend's cheeks, with emotion, or a draught. The two women would listen to each other intolerably, but could not refrain from such a pleasure. One day, when Mrs Jolley had gone to the chemist's, Mrs Flack entered her friend's room-only, of course, it was Mrs Flack's-and began to act as though she were drowning, but might just be saved. Her hands were, in fact, frenzied, but found, for her salvation, under the handkerchief sachet which some kiddy had embroidered, a letter, perhaps _the__ letter. Mrs Flack was foolish with achievement. She held the page so close, closer than she need have. How she drank it down, in gulps of visible words: Dear Mum [Mrs Flack read, or regurgitated], I received your letter last week. You will wonder why I have not answered quicker, but was giving the matter consideration-Dot and Elma as much as me. Fred also had to be told, as you will understand, it concerns him so very closely. He is sitting here in the lounge-room with me as I write, listening to some Light Music. Well, Mum, to put it plain, none of us think it is a good idea. You know what people's nerves are when living on top of one another. Elma is particularly cramped for space, Dot and Arch are always paying something off, if not several articles at once-I wonder they ever keep track of the dockets. Well, that is how the others are placed. As for Fred, he said he would have no part of any plan to bring you to live under the same roof. He just would not, you know how stubborn Fred can be. Well, Mum, it all sounds pretty hard. I will admit that, and perhaps it is. I will admit you are our mother. We are the ungrateful daughters, anyone would say, of the mother who made the sacrifices. Yes, Mum, and I think perhaps the biggest sacrifice you ever made was Dad. Not that any blood was let. It was all done clean and quiet. Nobody read about it in the papers. But I will never forget his face the night he died of married love, which is sometimes also called coronary occlusion. There, I have said it-with my own hubby sitting in the room, waiting to read what I have wrote. I am not afraid. Because we expect the least, we have found something in each other to respect. I know that Fred would not tread on yours truly, even if he discovered I was just a slug. That is the great temptation, Mum, that you was never able to resist, you and other human beings. There you have it, then. The kids are good. I am sorry if your friend is so very awful, but perhaps she will bear further looking into. Every mirror has its double. With remembrances from Your daughter MERLE P. S. Who was driven to it, Mum. Mrs Flack had only once witnessed an indecent act. This could have been the second. On which the drawer stuck. She had shot it back crooked, but straightened it at last. When Mrs Jolley returned she noticed that her friend appeared to have solved one of the many riddles, and was not altogether pleased with the answer. But she herself could not care. She volunteered, "I am going to lay down for a while. It is those sinuses." "Yes, dear," answered Mrs Flack. "I will bring you a cup of tea." "No!" Mrs Jolley discouraged. "I will lie and sniff something up, that Mr Broad has given me." They did, in fact, from then on, bring each other endless cups of tea, for which each showed herself to be grateful. It did not, however, prevent Mrs Jolley more than once, emptying hers down the lavatory, or Mrs Flack from pouring hers, on several occasions, into the _monstera deliciosa__, after giving the matter thought. Thought was a knife they no longer hesitated to try upon themselves, whereas in the past it had almost invariably been used upon another. "That handkerchief sachet which I have, with the pansies on it, and which you must have seen, dear," Mrs Jolley once remarked. Mrs Flack coughed dry. "Yes, dear, I seem to have noticed." "That," said Mrs Jolley, "was embroidered for me by little Deedree, Elma's eldest." "I never ever owned a handkerchief sachet," Mrs Flack considered, "but for many years retained a small bottle full of first teeth." "Oh!" cried Mrs Jolley, almost in pain; she would have so loved to see. "And what became of that bottle?" "I threw it out," said Mrs Flack, "at last. But sometimes wonder whether I ought to have done." Night thoughts were cruellest, and often the two women, in their long, soft, trailing gowns, would bump against each other in the passages, or fingers encounter fingers, and they would lead each other gently back to the origins of darkness. They were desperately necessary to each other in threading the labyrinth. Without proper guidance, a soul in hell might lose itself.

Just before the house was completely razed, the bulldozers went into the scrub at Xanadu. The steel caterpillars mounted the rise, to say nothing of any sapling, or shrubby growth that stood in their way, and down went resistance. The wirier clumps might rise again, tremblingly, on their nerves, as it were, but would be fixed forever on a later run. Gashes appeared upon what had been the lawns. Gaps were grinning in the shrubberies. Most savage was the carnage in the rose garden, where the clay which Norbert Hare had had carted from somewhere else opened up in red wounds, and the screeching of metal as it ploughed and wheeled, competed with the agony of old rosewood, torn off at the roots, and dragged briefly in rough faggots. A mobile saw was introduced to deal with those of the larger trees which offered commercial possibilities. The sound of its teeth eating into timber made the silence spin, and they were sober individuals indeed, who were able to inhale the smell of destruction without experiencing a secret drunkenness. Many of those present were forced to steady themselves. Because most of the inhabitants of Sarsaparilla came down to watch the garden being cleared, just as they had felt the need to assist at the demolition of the house. In time even the indifferent, the timid, the indolent, the unaware, and the invalid had taken part. Only Mrs Godbold appeared untouched by these historic local events, but remained more or less unnoticed, as a person of little substance and no importance. Only dimly was a woman seen to emerge from a shed, and hang out the washing. The thick arms were reaching repeatedly up, and there were the loops of limp, transparent linen, hanging at first so heavy, then twitching at a corner, lifting at last, blowing, in glad, white flags. Mrs Godbold, when she was noticed at all, seemed to live for irrelevance. In the course of her life, she had developed a love and respect for common objects and trivial acts. Did they, perhaps, conceal a core, reveal a sequence? Whatever the explanation, she would go about planting a row of beans, not as though she were covering seed, rather as if she were learning a secret of immense importance, over and over. She would go amongst her pots of ferns, freeing the young crooks from the bonds of spiders. In her later years at least, she might sit for sometimes half an hour beside her ironing table, in the shed where it seemed by then she was ordained to live. Obviously, the scored surface of the yellow board, together with the various vessels and utensils of her office, could not have been housed anywhere else with due sacral dignity. So she and they remained enshrined. There she would sit, at the mercy of the sun, squinting, or it could have been smiling for such glimmers of truth as she had been allowed to glimpse. But then, Mrs Godbold was such a very simple person. Always there. Nobody could remember having seen her except in some such cotton dress, a cardigan in winter, or the perennial flared overcoat. Her massive form had never altered, except to grow more massive in its pregnancies. If she indulged herself at all in her almost vegetable existence, it was to walk a little way down the hill, before the children returned, after the breeze had got up in the south, to walk and look, it seemed incuriously, at the ground, pursued by a galloping cat. Then she might turn, and call. "Tib! Tib! Tib!" she would call, and: "Poor Tibby! Nobody was going to leave you!" And gather up her many-angled cat, into her bosom, and laugh for the joy of giving shelter, holding up her throat to the sun; it was as though a trumpet were being raised. If she had been worthy of notice, Mrs Godbold's simplicity might have become proverbial.

The farthest tables were always the most coveted. There one was in a position to view the room from the slight eminence of a platform, and never be outstared. One of those desirable tables had been reserved for the three ladies advancing down the ash-infested carpet, clinging to the chromium handrail to prevent their heels pitching them head first at their goal. But the handrail, to say nothing of their appearance, lent them a certain crazy dignity. All the cutlery on all the tables seemed to applaud their arrival. If there had been an orchestra, it would have played them down the stairs, but there was never any music at lunch, beyond the sustained pizzicato of conversation; words might ping their way without deflection into the unprotected eardrum. These were obviously three ladies of importance who had reached the safety of the floor after the dangers of the street stairs. They stood around, agreeably helpless, while waiters flew like homing swallows. From the tables, early patrons craned outrageously, which might have been disquieting to the objects of their interest if it had not been desired. For the three ladies were wearing rather amusing hats. The first, and perhaps least confident of the three, had chosen an enormous satin bon-bon, of screeching pink, swathed so excessively on one side that the head conveyed an impression of disproportion, of deformity, of bulbous growth. But the uncertain lady was palpitating with her own daring, and glanced at the closer of her two companions, fishing for a scrap of praise. Her friend would not concede it, however. For the second lady was secure in her own seasoned carapace, and would not have recognized her acquaintance except by compulsion. The second lady was wearing on her head a lacquered crab-shell. She was quite oblivious of it, of course. But there it sat, one real claw offering a diamond starfish, the other dangling a miniature conch in polished crystal. The unconscious wearer had divested herself conventionally of her gloves, and was restoring suppleness to her hands. As she tried her nails on the air, it was seen that those, by some chance, were exactly the same shade of audacious crab. How the waiters adored the three insolent ladies, but it was at the third and obviously eldest that their most Italianate smiles were directed. The third, or by now, the first lady, affected the most amusing hat of all. On her blue curls she had perched an innocent little conical felt, of a drab, an earth colour, so simple and unassuming that the owner might have been mistaken for some old, displaced clown, until it was noticed that fashion had tweaked the felt almost imperceptibly, and that smoke-yes, actual smoke-was issuing out of the ingenious cone. There she stood at the centre of the smart restaurant in her volcanic hat, her mouth crimped with pleasure, for she had reached an age of social innocence where she was again dependent on success. So she smiled, in the abstract, for the blinding bulbs of two photographers, and because she was trying to ignore the arthritis in her knees. Soon the ladies were as comfortably arranged as their clothes and their ailments would allow. All three had accepted advice to order lobster Thermidor, in spite of a heretical _gaucherie__ on the part of the Satin Bon-bon, who had to remark on the popularity of shellfish. "Dare we?" she had sniggered. "Is it tactful?" Too pleased for her provincial joke. The Crab-Shell saw that the Bon-bon had a natural gap between her centre upper teeth, which gave her an expression both vulgar and predatory. But the Volcano no longer had to notice more than she wanted, or needed to. She leaned forward, and said with an irrelevance not without its kind of tired charm, "You are two people I have been longing to bring together, because I feel that you can become an influence for good on the Committees." The Crab-Shell was incredulous, but polite. Even the speaker did not appear to believe entirely in what she had said, for she added vaguely, "What I mean to say is that friendship-the personal touch-is better able to achieve charitable objectives. And I do want the Harlequin Ball to be a great success." "Jinny is a darling. But an idealist. Isn't that pure idealism, Mrs Wolf son?" the Crab-Shell asked, turning to the Bonbon, not because she wanted to, but because it was part of a technique. Nor did she allow an answer, but went off into a studied neighing, which produced in her that infusion of redness peculiar to most hard women. The whole operation proved, moreover, that her neck was far too muscular. The Volcano put her old, soft, white hand on the Crab-Shell's stronger, brownish one. "Mrs Colquhoun and I have been friends so long, I doubt we could misunderstand each other," the Volcano said, addressing Mrs Wolfson. Trying to bring the latter in, though only succeeding in keeping her out. "Idealism again!" neighed Mrs Colquhoun, as if she would never rid her system of its mirth. She had been several years without a husband. "I am an idealist," said Mrs Wolfson carefully, "like Mrs Chalmers-Robinson. That is why I think it is so important to help these little spastic children. Mr Wolfson-who is an idealist too-has promised us a nice fat cheque over and above the takings at the Ball." "Splendid!" cried Mrs Chalmers-Robinson, paying for charity with charity. "Oh, it is most important to do good," asserted Mrs Wolfson, slowly negotiating the fillets of her lobster Thermidor. It was most laudable, but the more carefully Mrs Wolfson rounded out her words, the more Mrs Colquhoun was convinced she could detect the accents of that Dorothy Drury, from whom she, too, had taken a course in the beginning, and almost forgotten. Mrs Colquhoun felt less than ever prepared to endure her neighbour Mrs Wolfson. "Take the Church," the latter continued, "Mr Wolfson-Louis," she corrected, catching sight of Mrs Colquhoun, "my husband is all for assisting the Church. At Saint Mark's Church of England, which we attend regularly, he has given the fluorescent lighting, and although a very busy man, he is about to organize a barbecue." Mrs Chalmers-Robinson had fixed her still handsome eyes on something distant and intangible. "Lovely old church!" she intoned in traditional key. She loved star sapphires, and powder-blue. The remnants of her beauty seemed to demand tranquillity. "Then you will know Canon Ironside." Mrs Colquhoun dared Mrs Wolfson not to. Under her inquisitor's wintry eye, the latter was glad of the protection of mutation mink, and settled deeper into it. "Before my time." She coughed. It was a gift to Mrs Colquhoun. "But I am pretty certain," she calculated, "the canon did not leave for Home above, I should say, six, certainly no more than seven, months ago." Mrs Wolfson contemplated her plateful of forbidden sauce. Food had made her melancholy. "Yes, yes." The bon-bon bobbed. "We did not attend prior to that." At the wretched little impersonal table, her two friends were waiting for something of a painful, but illuminating nature to occur. "I was married in Saint Mark's Church of England," Mrs Wolfson ventured, and showed that gap which Mrs Colqu-houn so deplored, between her upper centre teeth. "And you were not done by Canon Ironside?" Mrs Colqu-houn persisted. "Sheila only recently married Louis Wolfson," Mrs Chalmers-Robinson explained. "He is her second." "Yes," sighed Mrs Wolfson, trying chords on the cutlery that remained to her. "Haïm-Harry passed on." But Mrs Colquhoun might have been unhappier than Mrs Wolfson. In all that restaurant the hour seemed to have hushed the patrons. The eyes, glancing about through their slits, began to accuse the mask of being but a dry disguise. It was too early to repair a mouth that must be destroyed afresh. So the women sat. Even Mrs Chalmers-Robinson, of certain inner resources, it had been implied, though of a fragile nature, had ceased to vibrate. For the moment she mistrusted memory, because she might have remembered men. All the women in the room could have been visited by the same thought: that the men went first, that the intolerable, but necessary virtuosi died of their virtuosity, whereas the instruments they had played upon, and left, continued from habit to twang and murmur. Momentarily the instruments were still. Although they must begin again, since silence is the death of music. So Mrs Chalmers-Robinson listened, and heard herself distantly vibrate. She had fastened on her face the fixed, blue, misty expression, which of all the disguises in her possession had won her most acclaim, and which she would have labelled Radiance. She said, "I was confirmed at Saint Mark's. I can remember the veins on the backs of the bishop's hands. I knelt on the wrong step. I was so nervous, so intense. I think I expected some kind of miracle." "I am told they can happen!" Mrs Colquhoun laughed, and looked over her shoulder at the emptying room. "My little girl was interested in miracles when she was younger," Mrs Wolf son remarked. Her companions waited for the worst. "She had a nervous breakdown," the mother informed. "_Ach__, yes, beginning and ending is difficult for women! But my Rosie is working for a florist now. Not because she has to, of course. (There is her own father's business, which the boy is managing very competently. And Louis-the soul of generosity.) But a florist is so clean. And Mr Wolf son-Louis-thought it might have some therapeutic value." All three ladies had ordered ice cream, with fruit salad, and marshmallow sauce. They were pleased they were agreed on that. "Then, you know Saint Mark's." Mrs Wolfson harked back, and smiled. It was comforting to return to a subject. She would have liked to feel at home. "I have not been for years. Except, of course, to weddings. You see, I became interested in Science," Mrs Chalmers-Robinson said. "In Science!" Now Mrs Wolfson could not believe. "_Christian__ Science, Jinny means," Mrs Colquhoun explained. Everyone listened to the word drop. Mrs Wolfson might by this time have called out: All right, all right, it dogs you like your shadow, but you get used to it at last, and a shadow cannot harm. Instead, she said, "You don't say!" And noted down Science in her mind, to investigate at a future date. "You should try it," suggested Mrs Colquhoun, and laughed, but it became a yawn, and she had to turn her head. "I do not believe Science ever really took on with Europeans," Mrs Chalmers-Robinson earnestly remarked. "I _adore__ Europeans," said Mrs Colquhoun, looking at the almost empty room. She did, too. She collected consuls, excepting those who were really black. It bewildered Mrs Wolfson. First she had learnt not to be, and now she must learn what she had forgot. But she would remember. Life, for her too, had been a series of disguises, which she had whisked on, and off, whether Sheila Wolfson, or Shirl Rosetree, or Shulamith Rosenbaum, as circumstances demanded. So the black, matted girl settled herself inside the perm, behind the powdered cleavage, under the mutation mink. She was reassured. "Speaking of miracles," Mrs Chalmers-Robinson said, "Mrs Colquhoun lived for some years at Sarsaparilla." The informant advanced her face over the table to the point at which confidences are afterwards exchanged. "Sarsaparilla!" exclaimed Mrs Colquhoun with some disgust. "One could not continue living at Sarsaparilla. Nobody lives at Sarsaparilla now. " "But the miracle?" Mrs Wolfson dared, in spite of her foreboding. "There was no miracle." Mrs Colquhoun frowned. She was most annoyed. Her mouth, her chin had almost disappeared. "I understood," Mrs Chalmers-Robinson murmured, her smile conveying disbelief, "something of a supernatural kind." She was too old, too charming, to allow that indiscretion on her part was indiscretion. "No question of any miracle," Mrs Colquhoun was repeating. A stream of melted ice cream threatened to spill from one corner of what had been her mouth. "Certainly," she admitted, "there was an unpleasant incident, I am told, at Barranugli. Certain drunken thugs, and ignorant, not to say hysterical, women were involved. Both there, and later at Sarsaparilla. Only, there was no miracle. Definitely no miracle!" Mrs Colquhoun was almost shouting. "It is much too unpleasant to discuss." "But the Jew they crucified," Mrs Chalmers-Robinson insisted in a voice she had divested deliberately of all charm; she might have been taking off her rings at night. "_Oÿ-yoÿ-yoÿ__!" cried Mrs Wolf son. The latter was frowning, or wrinkling up black, through all that beige powder. She was played upon again. She was rocked by those discords on bleeding catgut, which she did, did wish, and not wish, to hear. "You know about it?" Mrs Chalmers-Robinson asked. But Mrs Wolfson was racked and rocked. The cello in her groaned audibly. "Oh, no!" she moaned. "That is," she said, "I did hear somethink. Oh, yes! There was somethink!" Did she know! In herself, it seemed, she knew everything. Each of her several lives carried its burden of similar knowledge. "I warned you!" shouted Mrs Colquhoun. Although it was never established which, fortunately one of the three upset a cup of coffee into the powder-blue lap of Mrs Chalmers-Robinson. For the moment everyone was mopping and talking. "Darling, darling Jinny! How absolutely _ghastly__!" "_Waj geschrien__! The good dress! All quite spoiled! No, it is too much, Mrs Chalmers-Robinson!" Mrs Wolfson decided to absolve herself of any possible guilt by sending some fine present, something that would last, some little trinket of a semi-precious nature. She had found that such gestures paid. But a young Italian waiter had got down on his knees, and was sponging the lap of Mrs Chalmers-Robinson with fascinating hands. As she watched the movements of the hands, she knew the damage was as good as repaired. Only she could not reconcile the indestructible shape of the young waiter's perfect head with the life that was slipping from her in daily, almost hourly driblets. "Thank you," she said at last, when he stood before her, and she was looking up into his face, with that radiance of which she had once been completely mistress, but which was growing flickery. "So much for miracles!" She laughed. "I told you!" said Mrs Colquhoun. Even though Mrs Wolfson was still being tossed on her ugly wave, it was fast receding. All three began to feel guiltless, though empty. The women no longer made any effort. They were sitting with their legs apart at their table in the darkened restaurant-for the waiters were turning out the lights, between lunch and dinner, and rolling the used napkins into balls. "I used to have a maid, who married some man, and went, I believe, to live at Sarsaparilla," Mrs Chalmers-Robinson recollected. The ingenious smoke-making contrivance concealed in the crow of the little hat produced a last, desperate feather. "Not actually a maid!" Mrs Colquhoun had begun again to mutter and hate. "An excellent girl, although she would breathe down the guest's neck while handing the vegetables at luncheon. I forget her name, but have often wondered what became of such a person. She was-how shall I put it?" Mrs Chalmers-Robinson asked herself, or more, she appeared to be reaching out through the dark plain in which they were sitting. "Yes," she said, at last convinced. "You will laugh, Esmé, I know. She was a kind of saint." "A saint? My poor Jinny! A saint in the pantry! How perfectly _ghastly__ for you!" Mrs Colquhoun had gone off into uncontrollable giggles, not to say hysterics, to which the lolling claw of the crab-shell on her head beat a hollow time. "How interesting my little girl would have found this conversation. Before the nervous breakdown," Mrs Wolf son said. "In what way, Mrs Robinson, did this maid of yours show she was a saint?" Mrs Chalmers-Robinson was groping in the darkness. Her face had developed a tic, but she was determined to reach a conclusion. "It is difficult to explain-exactly," she began. "By _being__, I suppose. She was so stupid, so trusting. But her trustfulness could have been her strength," the visionary pursued drunk-enly. "She was a rock to which we clung." Then she added, without any shame at all, perhaps sensing that ultimately she would come no closer to understanding, "She was the rock of love." "On which we have all foundered!" cried Mrs Colquhoun, biting on her lipstick. "Oh, I do wish I could see her," Mrs Chalmers-Robinson murmured, craning in hopes that saving grace might just become visible in the depths of the obscure purgatory in which they sat. "If only I could find that good woman, who knows, who knew even then, I am sure, what we may expect!" The old thing had exhausted herself, Mrs Wolfson saw. At her age, it was unwise. Indeed, Mrs Chalmers-Robinson's crater was by now extinct. She continued to sit for a little, however, together with her companions, while each of the three tried to remember where she should go next.

When Xanadu had been shaved right down to a bald, red, rudimentary hill, they began to erect the fibro homes. Two or three days, or so it seemed, and there were the combs of homes clinging to the bare earth. The rotary clotheslines had risen, together with the Iceland poppies, and after them the glads. The privies were never so private that it was not possible to listen to the drone of someone else's blowflies. The wafer-walls of the new homes would rub together at night, and sleepers might have been encouraged to enter into one another's dreams, if these had not been similar. Some times the rats of anxiety could be heard gnawing already at Bakélite, or plastic, or recalcitrant maidenhead. So that, in the circumstances, it was not unusual for people to run outside and jump into their cars. All of Sunday they would visit, or be visited, though sometimes they would cross one another, midway, while remaining unaware of it. Then, on finding nothing at the end, they would drive around, or around. They would drive and look for something to look at. Until motion became an expression of truth, the only true permanence-certainly more convincing than the sugar-cubes of homes. If the latter were not melted down by the action of time or weather, then they could only be reserved for some more terrifying catalysis, by hate, or even love. So the owners of the homes drove. They drove around. Mrs Godbold could not have counted how many years it was since the razing of Xanadu, when the fancy suddenly took her to put on her hat and go down. It was a Tuesday in June, the sky watering with cold, but fair. Mrs Godbold had not changed, not in appearance anyway, for life had dealt her an early blow, then forgotten her for other victims. All around her, change was creeping, though that side of the hill where she lived was still choked with blackberry bushes, still strewn with jagged bottles and rusty springs. It was, in fact, a crying shame, but people had stopped crying about it, since the ulterior motives of a speculator seemed in accord with some more obscure, possibly divine, plan. So, there Mrs God-bold continued to live, and had worn several tracks, to suit her habits and her needs, amongst the enamelled blackberry bushes. Now she chose the appropriate track into Montebello Avenue, and was followed, as usual, a little of the way, by that same, or perhaps another cat. "Shoo!" she cried. "Silly thing! It is too far. For once!" She laughed. "This will be a proper journey!" So that her cat was persuaded to turn, and wove its way back, velvety amongst the thorns. The cold rushed at Mrs Godbold, but her vision remained clear. She broke off a twig, and sucked it for company. "Who are you?" she asked at one of the gates along the road. "Eh?" she asked. "Who are you?" It was a joke, of course. It was her grandchild. Even better than her voice, he knew the drowsy smell of soap, and was now made silent, or reverent, by recollections of intimacy. She touched the little boy's cheek once. He submitted, but without raising his eyes. "And who is this?" Mrs Godbold asked of a second little boy, who came down the path munching, his face full of crumbs. "Bob Tanner," the elder little boy answered straight. She could have eaten him. "And you are Ruth Joyner," he shouted. "Ah," she laughed, "you are the same cheeky boy who never gets smacked by his mother!" The little boy kicked the ground. His younger brother pushed him, and showed the liveliest approval of the joke. "Well, " said the grandmother, her lips trembling, such was her own approval of all her children, "give my regards to your mum, then." "Arr, Nan!" cried the elder boy. "Come on in! There's cornflour cakes!" "Not today," said the grandmother. "I am going on a journey." And almost laughed again, but coughed. "Take me with you," begged the boy. "It is too far," she answered. "Arr, no!" he cried. "I can walk good!" But she was already slowly on her way, making the little noises of deprecation and love, which disappointment would prevent the boy from interpreting at once. Mrs Godbold continued along a road which progress had left rather neglected. Two of her girls had been given by now, and two others were promised, and the youngest pair practically in shoes. The six Godbold girls would sometimes forgather still on the trodden ground outside the shed, together with the little, strange, toy children of the eldest sisters. The girls would weave garlands in the green light-any old common flowers, morning-glory, say, and sarsaparilla, and the crumpled wild freesias. They would wear their flowers, and clown amongst themselves, and sing as one: "I will slap Any chap Who's bold enough To cheek me. The one that matters Never flatters, But hangs around When he's found. He's the one I'll kiss, And kiss, and kiss, and kiss!" Although Poppy Godbold would exclaim, "I am not gunna kiss any feller! Never, never, never!" Then she might modify her vow, and swoop, and cry, "Without I kiss young Bob Tanner!" And the little boy would shout, and protect himself from the onslaught by his silly, youngest, clumsy aunt, who was burning red above him. So Mrs Godbold had her children. She had her girls. But for how long? With two already gone. Sometimes she would continue to sit in front of the shed after all those straight girls had slipped from her into the evening, leaving in her lap their necklaces of wilted flowers. Then it would seem as though she had shot her last arrow, and was used and empty. She would feel the touch of darkness. She would sit, and attempt to rub the rheumatism out of her knuckles. Often she would recall the night her friend the Jew died, in the shed behind her. Even the youngest children, who had been sleeping at the time, remembered that night, for sleep did not seem to have prevented them participating in the event. So their eyes saw farther than those of other girls. Tempered on that night, their metal was tougher. Finally the woman sitting alone in front of the deserted shed would sense how she had shot her six arrows at the face of darkness, and halted it. And wherever her arrows struck, she saw other arrows breed. And out of those arrows, others still would split off, from the straight white shafts. So her arrows would continue to be aimed at the forms of darkness, and she herself was, in fact, the infinite quiver. "Multiplication!" Mrs Godbold loudly declared, and blushed, for the nonsense it must have sounded, there on the road to Xanadu. She looked back once more, however, at the two little boys, who were swinging the gate enough to break it. Mrs Godbold meandered along past the raggedy wattles. She remembered the winter Miss Hare had been laid up, how she had gone down to nurse the poor thing, and how they had been together in the silent house, and spoken of the Chariot. Well, everybody saw things different. There was Miss Hare, who, they said, was mad. For that reason. Miss Hare had seen the chariot of fire. Mrs Godbold, who would never have contradicted her superior in any of her opinions, especially when the latter was sick, knew different too. She had her own vision of the Chariot. Even now, at the thought of it, her very centre was touched by the wings of love and charity. So that she closed her eyes for a moment as she walked, and put her arms around her own body, tight, for fear that the melting marrow might spill out of it. When she opened her eyes again, there, already, was the new settlement of Xanadu, which they had built on the land Mr Cleugh, the relative, had sold. Mrs Godbold could not help admiring the houses for their signs of life: for the children coming home from school, for a row of young cauliflowers, for a convalescent woman, who had stepped outside in her dressing gown to gather a late rose. "It is too cold, though! Too cold!" Mrs Godbold called, wrapping up her own throat, to illustrate. "Eh?" mumbled the woman, as she stood tearing at the stalk of the resistant rose. "You will catch cold!" Mrs Godbold insisted. She could have offered more love than was acceptable. The woman in the dressing gown stood, apparently not wishing to hear, and went inside presently, after she had succeeded in twisting off the rose. Children stared at the stranger in passing, and decided she was probably a loop. "You will be glad to be home at last," she said. "Nah," the boys answered. Some of the girls snickered. But Mrs Godbold was satisfied simply to stand and observe Xanadu. On subsequent occasions people got to know her, and would look for her again, not only those whom she had healed of some anxiety, but those who suspected her of possessing an enviable secret; they would watch for the unchanging woman in her black prototype of a hat. There in particular, on the spot where she had sat with her sick friend in the old, disintegrating house, there where the new homes rocked and shouted with life, the edifice of memory would also rise in all its structural diversity, its whirling, involuted detail, and perhaps most moving, the unfinished archways, opening on to distances and mist. Mrs Godbold would build. Or restore. She would lay the stones methodically, in years, almost in days that she had lived. But sometimes the columns of trees would intervene. The black trunks of oak and elm, and ghostlier gums which Mr Norbert Hare had overlooked, would rise again out of the suburban lots, and obscure the present, as they struggled to meet at last in nave or chancel. Light would have its part, and music. The grey light from off the fens in winter would search the paving in shafts from opening doors, branches of the whitest light flower upon the Easter Table, smouldering jewels of evening pour through the tracery of twigs and stone. With such riches of the spirit, she could not resist the secular touch, but had to drag in the green, slippery urns, of reflective, worshipful magnificence, of which she had been shy at first, in the hall at Xanadu. There was some peculiar gentleman, too, who had talked to her about the music, she could not remember clearly, but recalled him as a truthful presence. The music itself she would remember frequently, and again allow its scaffolding to shine, as it climbed always higher inside the accommodating spire. Sometimes, though, the grey pipes blew blasts that made her shudder. And there was that intolerable, hovering note, which rounded out her brother's head, crushed by the wheel, and blood still in the sockets of the eyes. Mrs Godbold grew cold at times for the Gothic profusion of her vision. The stone figures she had laid upon their tombs would struggle inside the armour of eternity. Then she would try to free, at least for a moment, as many of them as she could remember: Miss Hare in a fever of words, the earth still caking her freckled hands; that abo fellow, with whom she had celebrated a mystery the night she went to fetch Tom from Mrs Khalil's. Time had broken into a mosaic much that had seemed complete, obsessive, actual, painful. Now she could approach her work of living, as an artist, after an interval, will approach and judge his work of art. So, at last, the figure of her Lord and Saviour would stand before her in the chancel, looking down at her from beneath the yellow eyelids, along the strong, but gentle beak of a nose. She was content to leave then, since all converged finally upon the Risen Christ, and her own eyes had confirmed that the wounds were healed. On that first occasion of her revisiting the altered Xanadu, Mrs Godbold did not think she could bear to go there again, in spite of her pleasure in many present, lively matters. But did, of course. On that first occasion of her venturesome walk and momentous achievement, she was so jostled and shaken by the past she tore off a little sapling to lean on. She was holding her handkerchief to her mouth as she returned towards her home at Sarsaparilla. Even at the height of her experience, it was true there had been much that she had only darkly sensed. Even though it was her habit to tread straight, she would remain a plodding simpleton. From behind, her great beam, under the stretchy cardigan, might have appeared something of a joke, except to the few who happened to perceive that she also wore the crown. That evening, as she walked along the road, it was the hour at which the other gold sank its furrows in the softer sky. The lids of her eyes, flickering beneath its glow, were gilded with an identical splendour. But for all its weight, it lay lightly, lifted her, in fact, to where she remained an instant in the company of the Living Creatures she had known, and many others she had not. All was ratified again by hands. If, on further visits to Xanadu, she experienced nothing comparable, it was probably because Mrs Godbold's feet were still planted firmly on the earth. She would lower her eyes to avoid the dazzle, and walk on, breathing heavy, for it was a stiff pull up the hill, to the shed in which she continued to live.

The End