The Burnt Ones by Patrick White

Author:Patrick White
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781446435076
Publisher: Random House

2

After the evening meal of mince collops and bread pudding, the old ladies, and gentlemen too, would retire to the Chinese Room of what had been the cement millionaire’s mansion. There was still a largeness, if not actual magnificence. There were the enormous cloisonné vases, there were the remains of the Chinese rugs which the heirs had thrown in with the house. By now almost predominantly string-colour, the rugs had retained a border of embossed opulence, a skeleton of their original splendour. That particular make of rug was commonly referred to as ‘carved’, somebody had recently told the inmates – it could have been Miss Docker – and signified the extreme of luxury and wealth. The old people had derived immediate comfort from the information. They sat and stirred their coffee essence in the dusty shadow of luxury.

Miss Docker had soon adapted herself to the routine of the Sundown Home. Like all those whose lives are episodic, she ended by failing to see the joins. She came in on the second evening, into the Chinese Room, carrying the shoe-box which contained her photographic record, and at once began to gather her flock.

‘Where are the men?’ she asked. ‘There are several men, aren’t there? Where have the old boys toddled off to?’

‘To their rooms. To die. Perhaps,’ suggested Mrs Hibble from her corner.

‘What a thing to say!’ Miss Docker exclaimed. ‘And in a Church of England home. We are here by the grace of God.’

Mrs Hibble wondered whether her life she had been an agnostic without knowing.

‘When it is only ever my intention,’ Miss Docker said, ’to give a little pleasure to all and sundry. Though we might have played a game, only I was shown at the start we are not exactly a gamey lot. Still, Animal and Vegetable helps to pass. Or the Truth Game. Some object to the Truth Game. Then some do not care to face the truth.’

Mild rumbles from the tepid ladies seemed to sound agreement of a kind.

‘Seeing as there is no inclination to spend a jolly, communal evening, I fetched down my box of photos,’ Miss Docker said. ‘Maybe a few of us could look through those. Though mind you, it is not compulsory.’

As she fumbled with the shoe-box in her lap, Miss Docker noticed that Mrs Hibble depended in some way on a second lady, still shadow, seated in a state of elderly acquiescence on her right. Mrs Hibble barely turned her face. But Miss Docker saw. Or sensed. Her capable hands were fumbling with the lid. Dependence rattled Miss Docker, since she had failed to achieve anything so undesirable.

‘I will not bother you,’ she said, and tore a corner of the cardboard overlap; the box had never been so unmanageable before, ‘I don’t want to thrust a lot of pictures on people who are not acquainted with the subjects, but thought you might be amused to see what Yours Truly looked like at different stages.’

Here she hooted, and several of the photographs shot out in yellow abandon.

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