The Vivisector by PATRICK WHITE Page A

Septimus also slept.
    This was where Pa accused her of being honest, and Mumma shouted back: ‘What are you, Jim, if not honest? That’s what I married yer for. Nothun else that I can think of.’
    Then she raised her voice higher still, told him not to shove her. She was crying as they got into the jingling bed. You could imagine their rough skins together.
    The house was full of sleeping children. Only the bed with Mumma and Pa continued creaking, sniffling, sighing.
    The dripping was the lovely brown kind.
    Mumma said: ‘There’s rats again, Jim, I swear. I seen the droppings on the scullery shelf.’
    Pa coughed once above the jingle jingle of the loose brass. He let Mumma do the talking.
    On she went. ‘Jim? DidnItellyer? There’s rats? We oughter lay the baits. Eh? But nothun is ever. Without I do it. With me own hand.’
    It was always safer to cut and run before the bedstead quietened down, but now the voices in the next room wouldn’t let you go.
    The bed gave one last ring, like a bicycle almost on top of you. Pa sighing. He had had a hard day’s work.
    ‘Arr dear,’ Mumma complained, ‘when it comes to pleasure, you men are all the same—the decent ones, or the ones that knock yer teeth in.’
    Pa was coughing up some phlegm. ‘Never got nothing out of it yerself?’ Unusual for Pa. ‘Did yer? Now did yer?’
    ‘I got seven kiddies—that the father forgets when it suits ’im to.’
    You could hear the toenails scraping on the sheet.
    ‘Pity the children—what they’re born to if they’re out of luck! That little girl of Mrs Courtney’s with the funny back, at least she’ll never suffer this part.’
    Pa was yawning. He farted once.
    ‘You know, Jim, I pray—every night—for a better life—for ours.’
    There was a rancid bit in the dripping. What if it was true what Mumma said? She had seen the droppings on the shelf.
    ‘All the children.” Mumma sounded wide awake. ‘Hurtle in particular.’
    Pa grunted.
    ‘Hurtle’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘’S ’air’s a lovely bright.’
    ‘The boy’s a boy.’
    ‘A boy can be beautiful too. To anyone with eyes. Mrs Courtney’s taken with Hurtle. Says ’e’s adorable. And clever. Could be some sort of genius. I could’uv told ’er that if I ’adn’t been the mother. Mr Courtney will want to see ’im. You should see Mr Courtney, Jim. Every one of ’is suits made to measure in London—so the girls was telling. Boots too. ’As ’is own last—in the shop—in London.’
    Pa snoring.
    In the end it wasn’t so interesting: you got what Mrs Courtney would have called ‘bored’, and the dripping lying a bit bilious.
    Then Mumma said, very distinct: ‘I would give away any of my children, provided the opportunities were there. Blood is all very well. Money counts. I would give—I would give Hurtle.’
    Pa’s snore came roaring back up his throat. ‘Give away yer children?’
    Mumma laughed a rattling sort of laugh. ‘Plenty more where they come from.’
    ‘That’s all very well for the mother. It’s the father they blame. What’ud they say? Can’t support ’is own kids!’
    ‘The father!’
    ‘Wouldn’t be ethical, anyway.’
    ‘Ethical’s a parson’s word.’
    ‘What if the boy could ’ear ’is mum and dad entertainin’ such an idea!’
    Got out after that. Sand between your toes across the yard. The little, sharp, scratchy pebbles. Will was flopping around in the bed like a paralysed fowl. White eyelids. Glad of your brother to stop the shivers. Mothers and fathers, whoever they were, really didn’t matter: it was between you and Death or something.
    And now Mumma was combing out the dandruff because Courtneys had asked for him. Well, he would swallow down what he had overheard. His bumping heart would wait and accept whatever was offered or decided.
    After they had passed Taylor Square, after they had got far enough on, Mumma walked with scarcely a word. Because of their important business they had left Sep