askew beside a ball of grey wool and a tangled tape measure, saw it frequently, each evening when he reached out for the sherry decanter (engraved with the image of an emu) and poured out the two thimblefuls which was their 'nightcap.' He said nothing about the cards. He imagined his hostess-so disciplined in her running of the household-untroubled by them. He wisher* he had the strength of character to fling them away, but having made himself ridiculous aboard the
They did not discuss cards, but what they did not talk about gave
Happiness
their evenings a tense and tingling edge and left them both happy, yes, but wakeful in their beds. Lucinda might sneak from her own house at midnight to place a wager somewhere else, but she dared not touch the pack that lay in her own sideboad. She knew how passionate he had become about his 'weakness.' She dared not even ask him how it was he had reversed his opinions on the matter. But, oh, how she yearned to discuss it with him, how much she wished to deal a hand on a grey wool blanket. There would be no headaches then, only this sweet consummation of their comradeship.
But she said not a word. And although she might have her 'dainty' shoes tossed to the floor, have her bare toes quite visible through her stockings, have a draught of sherry in her hand, in short appear quite radical, she was too timid, she thought, too much a mouse, to reveal her gambler's heart to him. She did not like this mouselike quality. As usual, she found herself too careful, too held in.
Once she said: 'I wish I had ten sisters and a big kitchen to
laugh in.'
Her lodger frowned and dusted his knees.
She thought: He is as near to a sister as I am likely to get, but he does not understand. She would have had a woman friend so they could brush each other's hair, and just, please God, put aside this great clanking suit of ugly
armour.
She kept her glass dreams from him, even whilst she appeared to talk about them. He was an admiring listener, but she only showed him the opaque skin of her dreams-window glass, the price of transporting it, the difficulties with builders who would not pay their bills inside six months. He imagined this was her business, and of course it was, but all the things she spoke of were a fog across its landscape which was filled with such soaring mountains she would be embarrassed to lay claim to them. Her true ambition, the one she would not confess to him, was to build something Extraordinary and Fine from glass and cast-iron. A Crystal Palace, but not a Crystal Palace. A conservatory, but not a conservatory. Glass laced with steel, spun like a spider web-the idea danced around the periphery of her vision, never long enough to be clear. When she attempted to make a sketch, it became diminished, wooden, inelegant. Sometimes, in her dreams, she felt she had discovered its form, but if she had, it was like an improperly fixed photograph which fades when exposed to daylight. She was wise
•viq
Oscar and Lucinda
enough, or foolish enough, to believe this did not matter, that the form would present itself to her in the end.
Before she reached this point there were many essential matters she must attend to. The most important was to find a foundryman who would listen to her long enough to understand what it was she wanted made. She had travelled all round the shores of Darling Harbour and up the smoky lanes of Leichhardy, and on the Sunday morning when she finally knew herself happy, part of the happiness, surely, was produced by the knowledge that she had, in that sour old misogynist Mr Flood, found the man who-even if he had no God, no taste, no sense of humourcould cast the parts she required and work out how they could all be made to fit together. Indeed, he would deliver her a 'proty-type' on Tuesday.
She pointed out an ibis to Oscar as it rose from the mangroves of Snails Bay. She named it for him, but she could not bring herself to say anything of her secret. All this she would share only with the vicar of Boat Harbour.
Oscar had seen her letters to Boat Harbour. They sat on the mantel, swollen, tumescent; he imagined them love letters. She knew he thought this. It had been her intention that he think this. The misunderstanding allowed them to share the house, to be friends. But she teetered, all the time, on the brink of sharing this thing, this single most important thing with him. On the morning she knew herself happy she looked across at her companion and saw his fine heart-shaped face, the fast birdlike movements, the blazing crop of hair; she saw the way he hit out at the grass with his walking stick; she saw the right hand plunged deeply into his jacket pocket; she saw a dear friend and companion, but she also saw a slightly dangerous, excitable, even self-absorbed young man. She might give him her secret (frail, as vague as a cloud) and see him destroy it because he did not know what it was he was handling. Or he might see it perfectly, more clearly than she did, and he might wrestle it from her, usurp it with his enthusiasm. So she did not show him the bat-boned glass castle and if there were a cloud then it was a cumulus with towering columns, canyons, spiralling heights, vertiginous depths. When she thought about it, all the tendons in her hands went tight. She played her fingers now, on Longnose Point. She closed her eyes, screwed up her face. It was a delicious feeling-tense, unbearable, an itch, an ache. Sydney Harbour had a silver skin. A cormorant broke the surface, like an improbable idea tearing the membrane between dreams and life.
78 Ceremony
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On the Sunday following the Balmain Regatta, Arthur Phelps walked two miles to Whitfield's Farm. He brought his youngest boy with him. The pair of them were in their best, the little fellow in a sailor suit and Arthur in a three-piece tweed. They had carried their boots with them to save the leather and had stopped up at Birchgrove House to lace up, accept a draught of water and a fresh-pulled carrot from the garden.
Arthur had washed his beard and combed it. It was snowy white and soft like the hair of a newwashed dog. Lucinda almost did not recognize him. He looked so grand, like Mr Henry Parkes. He smelt of soap and mothballs.
She invited him in, but he would not come in. She held the door open and noticed mosquitoes entering whilst her guest wiped his boots on the treadmill of the front-door mat. She had had this
'respect' before. It always made her most uneasy.
Arthur had a speech to say. He stood up straight and tucked his 'bellows' in. His boy was being bitten by mosquitoes, but Arthur was making his speech and would not let go the lad's hand. When she heard his speech, Luanda felt her ears burst into hot flowers. Arthur not only knew Oscar's name, he was linking it with hers. He was making an assumption. This was the first thing to shock her. The second was that Arthur was inviting them both to visit the works. They were invited together, as a couple.
Of all the ways this shocked her, this is how it shocked her the most: that this man, this glass blower who would presume to order her not to attend her own works without prior notice would now, the minute he assumed her to be connected with a man — and do not mind that the connection was thought to be scandalous — would walk two miles, on the sabbath, to make sure the lord and master should inspect his new territory.
And yet she accepted. How weak she was! Because she was touched that he should walk two miles, and ashamed of the great wall of anger
307
Oscar and Lucinda
which threatened to swamp her. She did not even permit hersalf a sarcasm. She accepted. She said: 'Very well,' (you fool, you fool) and closed the door while Arthur was still saying good night. She would send a message, later, and find a prior engagement, but she put it off, and put it off, and the following Saturday saw her walking down the hill of Druitt Street towards the works. It was obvious to Oscar who walked, stick-thin and tangle-toed, beside his compact and tightly ordered friend, that she was not pleased. He thought: She is over-laced. But she was not laced at all, merely angry. The 'lacing' was in her face, which had compressed lips, diminished mouth, which could not be hidden by her wide-brimmed hat.
The hat was too wide for someone of her height. It threw her out of proportion and made her smaller still. She knew this. Twice she stopped, in a public street, to fiddle with it, but all she succeeded in doing was making herself untidy.
Oscar did not understand the emotional weather. He was just released from Mr d'Abbs's office and was not
