The Big Fellow, page 34
He had a clear vision of what their future from now on would be. For all their common interests there would always be conflict between them, deep down. They would both be conscious of the break that had driven them apart and the way she had drawn him back to her. She would never understand the sudden storms that sometimes arose in him, the blind impulses to kick to pieces the smug world in which he had become involved: she would take it as her mission to keep his blood cool and prevent him making a fool of himself. Not by argument, perhaps, but by meeting him half-way, by keeping before him an image of common sense, by repeating in her breakfast-table voice what the woman next door was saying over the back fence.
He knew where they would clash, but it did not seem to matter very much. There was a bond between him and this woman that could make light of day-to-day tensions and did not depend upon intimacies. She had not cast his affair with Neda up at him or whined about his political defeat. He could count on her standing behind him, cheerful and high-spirited, in whatever fight lay ahead.
What more could a man demand? It was all he had asked in the beginning.
He jumped up suddenly and hooked his felt hat off the back of the chair.
“How’re you going to this playground of yours, Kitty?” “It’s not five minutes away,” she told him. “I can walk.” “Walk be damned! We’ll find a taxi. I’ll go with you.” He was all vigour, like a boxer pulling himself together at the sound of the gong. But there was something spurious about it; he had the look of a man not at one with himself. He glanced vaguely at the far hills, at the street below, before following Kitty down the stairs.
As they passed the bar from which came a reek of beer and a medley of sounds, he said with sudden feeling, “Last time I had a drink in there it was with Peter’s father. Twenty years and more ago now … just before we were married. A man you’d never forget, Mahony … Dinkum all through. Never asking himself what he could get out of life, but what he could give.”
The moody remoteness of his voice jarred upon Kitty, hinting at underground caverns she did not wish to explore. She glanced at him sideways with a fond, impatient look.
“Now, Macy, isn’t that you all over? Making a lot out of people no one ever heard of and taking no credit for yourself?”
“Eh?”
“You talk of this Mahony as if he was some sort of hero. I believe all the good qualities begin at home. My notion of a hero isn’t someone who didn’t leave enough behind him to bring up his own son.”
Then seeing the darkness cloud his eyes again, feeling him draw away from her, she added quickly, “But what am I talking about! I ought to keep my trap shut. I’ve no idea what men look for in one another; I only see them through the eyes of a woman.”
Copyright
Copyright © Vance Palmer 1959
First published in 1959 by Angus & Robertson
This edition published in 2021
by Ligature Pty Limited
34 Campbell St · Balmain NSW 2041 · Australia
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e-book ISBN 978-1-922749-62-8
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The moral rights of the author are asserted throughout the world without waiver.
Vance Palmer, The Big Fellow
