â only twenty â and passing into his keeping. If marriage was going to be like this, with Ellie at his shoulder, exhausted by honesty and, despite her parents, sure of the way to happiness, then he could manage. He could flourish, in fact, and win; the threadbare carpet and the watercolours could no longer laugh at him. He moved his mouth amid her dark hair and said, âMy Ellie, my sweet girl.â
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
Henryâs mother returned from Victoria on the arm of a man named Arthur. Arthur was short and fox-coloured, with freckles and a muddled smile under a neat red moustache. Like Henry, he was in the âinsurance gameâ; he also liked to spend his âbit of moneyâ on a Friday night and was disappointed to learn that Henry no longer went to the dogs. He had a habit of jogging his shoulders up and down as he talked. Henry viewed him with suspicion and had to know everything. His mother offered it all up: how they had met (on the train to Melbourne), where he lived (in Sydneyâs west), what he expected of her and she of him (she couldnât say â not yet). There was no question she wouldnât answer; there were also some she answered that he hadnât asked. There had been no intercourse. She told Henry everything and then went away and told the telling of it to Arthur, so that Arthur sat Henry down one Sunday afternoon while Henryâs mother produced a purposeful clatter in the kitchen and said, âWhat you want to know is, am I on the make?â
Henry liked Arthurâs candour; he liked straightforward talk. It showed a respect, he thought, for all parties. So the two men talked it all out in the shuttered light of the Sunday house: Arthurâs wages, his savings, what he knew of Henryâs motherâs winnings, what he knew her to have promised Henry.
âNever an actual sum,â Henry said. âBut itâs understood. She wants to see me set up in life.â
âLike any good mother,â Arthur said, lifting and dropping his shoulders, âwho has the means to do so.â
Henry approved of Arthur after this discussion, and, when Ellie expressed doubts, came to his defence. She was jumpy in Arthurâs presence, and her refusal to respond to his mild flirtations made her seem prudish and ill-humoured. Henry could see that his mother was happy and that happiness suited her; that she was made for contentment, for padded hips, for the kind vulgarity of a man like Arthur (that was how Henry saw him â clearly, he thought, through Ellieâs eyes as well as his own). When Ellie kept away from the house and from Henryâs mother, Henry accused her of being a snob, which made her wrinkle her nose. He knew she was afraid of snobbery (afraid of having caught it from her parents). Arthur made jokes about Ellieâs art appreciation and Henry laughed at them without feeling disloyal. As the summer faded, he felt an increased impatience with the sanctity of Ellieâs Friday nights.
One Thursday evening in mid-March, Ellie and Henry walked together in Hyde Park. Whenever Ellie made movements toward St James station he held her by the hand and wouldnât let her go. The fig trees swung with bats and somewhere in the park a possum cried out. The water in the fountain threw light over the green legs of Apollo, who was otherwise lost in darkness. Here Henry pleaded with Ellie in a low, shameful voice to give him her Friday nights, to give him everything, to love him and only him, and he told her other things which before tonight he could never have predicted he might feel, let alone say, about his need and his loneliness and all the ways in which she had changed him. She was angry and wouldnât promise; she said to him, hurt and soft, âI canât believe you would even ask,â and when he began to defend himself she raised her voice to say, âI didnât know you doubted me.â
And then, without