The Living and the Dead by Patrick White

Author:Patrick White
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781446435014
Publisher: Random House

9

You walked out of the yard and down a couple of steps into the kitchen. Here the predominating smell was one of damp tea leaves and drying cloths. Out of these closely associated and first noticeable smells, objects formed gradually, the deal table and chairs, the painted tin canister, the bundle of coupons that stuck out behind the clock. With these Mrs Barnett hoped in time to get herself a fancy tea service, with real hand-painted flowers. At least, on the coupons it said that. Julia and Mrs Barnett sometimes sat and thought about the tea things they would get. They crooked their fingers thoughtfully in the steam of strong Indian tea, that they drank from less elegant cups, bought like the canisters at Woolworth’s. The tea service even became a topic of conversation. One of the absorbing factual topics in which the Barnetts liked to indulge.

How many cups to go, Ma? asked Joe, washing his hands at the basin when he came in.

Cups, I dunno, but coupons, I do. There’s eight, said Mrs Barnett.

She heard him splashing water in the basin, water on tin, and the noise he made dipping his face. He made a noise blowing through his fingers, like a plunger rising to the surface. She heard all this without seeing. Even if she turned, which she didn’t, it was only Joe coming in from work, even if she turned she could not have seen, only his behind protruding from where the coats hung, her own with the piece of matted fox, Joe’s greatcoat, and Julia’s blue, if Julia happened to be there. It was all so much a part of custom, Joe washing his face after work, or on Sundays, only closer to tea, that Mrs Barnett went on talking to the pots that she moved mysteriously about the stove.

Yes, she said. Eighteen pieces. With pretty variegated flowers.

And who’s the mug?

She heard him throw the water.

The mug? The mug? said Mrs Barnett. Who said anything about a mug?

Somebody’s going to be the mug.

She heard him talking through the towel. It was meant to be funny, she knew, he knew, and funny it was though you didn’t let on. This was part of the Barnett technique. Privately, Mrs Barnett was given to thinking that Joe was a one.

Go on, Joe! said Mrs Barnett. You’re always ready to believe the worst.

He came out looking rather solemn, still mottled by the cold water, but pleased with his contributed repartee. Actually Mrs Barnett was wrong. Though this was also part of the technique. For Joe was frequently sold a pup, and once he was sold a literal one, the liver spaniel that became a hound, and went off finally in a fit. Joe Barnett liked to believe. He was born with a faith in faith. He liked to believe in people. He liked to smile at a face in the bus, if he liked the look of that face, but often enough he was deceived, by more than an appearance in a bus.

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