Bliss | Page 8

themselves.
Sometimes, when she had fallen asleep in the daytime, she woke and
could not lift a finger, could not even turn her eyes to left or right
because THEY were there; sometimes when she went out of a room
and left it empty, she knew as she clicked the door to that THEY were
filling it. And there were times in the evenings when she was upstairs,
perhaps, and everybody else was down, when she could hardly escape
from them. Then she could not hurry, she could not hum a tune; if she
tried to say ever so carelessly--"Bother that old thimble"--THEY were
not deceived. THEY knew how frightened she was; THEY saw how
she turned her head away as she passed the mirror. What Linda always

felt was that THEY wanted something of her, and she knew that if she
gave herself up and was quiet, more than quiet, silent, motionless,
something would really happen.
"It's very quiet now," she thought. She opened her eyes wide, and she
heard the silence spinning its soft endless web. How lightly she
breathed; she scarcely had to breathe at all.
Yes, everything had come alive down to the minutest, tiniest particle,
and she did not feel her bed, she floated, held up in the air. Only she
seemed to be listening with her wide open watchful eyes, waiting for
someone to come who just did not come, watching for something to
happen that just did not happen.
6
In the kitchen at the long deal table under the two windows old Mrs.
Fairfield was washing the breakfast dishes. The kitchen window looked
out on to a big grass patch that led down to the vegetable garden and
the rhubarb beds. On one side the grass patch was bordered by the
scullery and wash-house and over this whitewashed lean-to there grew
a knotted vine. She had noticed yesterday that a few tiny corkscrew
tendrils had come right through some cracks in the scullery ceiling and
all the windows of the lean-to had a thick frill of ruffled green.
"I am very fond of a grape vine," declared Mrs. Fairfield, "but I do not
think that the grapes will ripen here. It takes Australian sun." And she
remembered how Beryl when she was a baby had been picking some
white grapes from the vine on the back veranda of the Tasmanian house
and she had been stung on the leg by a huge red ant. She saw Beryl in a
little plaid dress with red ribbon tie-ups on the shoulders screaming so
dreadfully that half the street rushed in. And how the child's leg had
swelled! "T--t--t--t!" Mrs. Fairfield caught her breath remembering.
"Poor child, how terrifying it was." And she set her lips tight and went
over to the stove for some more hot water. The water frothed up in the
big soapy bowl with pink and blue bubbles on top of the foam. Old Mrs.
Fairfield's arms were bare to the elbow and stained a bright pink. She
wore a grey foulard dress patterned with large purple pansies, a white

linen apron and a high cap shaped like a jelly mould of white muslin.
At her throat there was a silver crescent moon with five little owls
seated on it, and round her neck she wore a watch-guard made of black
beads.
It was hard to believe that she had not been in that kitchen for years;
she was so much a part of it. She put the crocks away with a sure,
precise touch, moving leisurely and ample from the stove to the dresser,
looking into the pantry and the larder as though there were not an
unfamiliar corner. When she had finished, everything in the kitchen had
become part of a series of patterns. She stood in the middle of the room
wiping her hands on a check cloth; a smile beamed on her lips; she
thought it looked very nice, very satisfactory.
"Mother! Mother! Are you there?" called Beryl.
"Yes, dear. Do you want me?"
"No. I'm coming," and Beryl rushed in, very flushed, dragging with her
two big pictures.
"Mother, whatever can I do with these awful hideous Chinese paintings
that Chung Wah gave Stanley when he went bankrupt? It's absurd to
say that they are valuable, because they were hanging in Chung Wah's
fruit shop for months before. I can't make out why Stanley wants them
kept. I'm sure he thinks them just as hideous as we do, but it's because
of the frames," she said spitefully. "I suppose he thinks the frames
might fetch something some day or other."
"Why don't you hang them in the passage?" suggested Mrs. Fairfield;
"they would not be much seen there."
"I can't. There is no room. I've hung all the