The Cockatoos by Patrick White

Author:Patrick White
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448129799
Publisher: Random House

Five-Twenty

MOST EVENINGS, WEATHER permitting, the Natwicks sat on the front veranda to watch the traffic. During the day the stream flowed, but towards five it began to thicken, it sometimes jammed solid like: the semi-trailers and refrigeration units, the decent old-style sedans, the mini-cars, the bombs, the Holdens and the Holdens. She didn’t know most of the names. Royal did, he was a man, though never ever mechanical himself. She liked him to tell her about the vehicles, or listen to him take part in conversation with anyone who stopped at the fence. He could hold his own, on account of he was more educated, and an invalid has time to think.

They used to sit side by side on the tiled veranda, him in his wheelchair she had got him after the artheritis took over, her in the old cane. The old cane chair wasn’t hardly presentable any more; she had torn her winter cardy on a nail and laddered several pair of stockings. You hadn’t the heart to get rid of it, though. They brought it with them from Sarsaparilla after they sold the business. And now they could sit in comfort to watch the traffic, the big steel insects of nowadays, which put the wind up her at times.

Royal said, ‘I reckon we’re a shingle short to’uv ended up on the Parramatta Road.’

‘You said we’d still see life,’ she reminded, ‘even if we lost the use of our legs.’

‘But look at the traffic! Worse every year. And air. Rot a man’s lungs quicker than the cigarettes. You should’uv headed me off. You who’s supposed to be practical!’

‘I thought it was what you wanted,’ she said, keeping it soft; she had never been one to crow.

‘Anyway, I already lost the use of me legs.’

As if she was to blame for that too. She was so shocked the chair sort of jumped. It made her blood run cold to hear the metal feet screak against the little draught-board tiles.

‘Well, I ’aven’t!’ she protested. ‘I got me legs, and will be able to get from ’ere to anywhere and bring ’ome the shopping. While I got me strength.’

She tried never to upset him by any show of emotion, but now she was so upset herself.

They watched the traffic in the evenings, as the orange light was stacked up in thick slabs, and the neon signs were coming on.

‘See that bloke down there in the parti-coloured Holden?’

‘Which?’ she asked.

‘The one level with our own gate.’

‘The pink and brown?’ She couldn’t take all that interest tonight, only you must never stop humouring a sick man.

‘Yairs. Pink. Fancy a man in a pink car!’

‘Dusty pink is fashionable.’ She knew that for sure.

‘But a man!’

‘Perhaps his wife chose it. Perhaps he’s got a domineering wife.’

Royal laughed low. ‘Looks the sort of coot who might like to be domineered, and if that’s what he wants, it’s none of our business, is it?’

She laughed to keep him company. They were such mates, everybody said. And it was true.

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