CATHARSIS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 552, 20 January 1950, Page 16

CATHARSIS

) Written for "The Listener" |

by

STELLA

CLARIDGE

HE young woman-her name was Phyllis-put her parcels and her shopping bag on the seat outside the bus depot, and sat down. She greeted the women waiting there, wlaom she knew well. They waited for the bus which should arrive at any" moment from the city eighty miles away; it would finish its run for the day when it took them from the town where they waited to their homes at the Heads, five miles further on. While she listened to the talk which went on round her, and now and then joined in it, while she considered the shopping she had done, and, while she enjoyed the feeling of resting quietly, Phyllis also followed in her mind the progress of the bus. The driver, Rod, was her husband. And she had gone often to the city with him, coming back the same day. At first, the bus, leaving the city depot, thrust and checked, and thrust again through the overburdened streets, and the trip was formal and businesslike. The passengers sat in the numbered seats appointed to them, and there was worry about luggage. Had it been left behind? Had the driver seen to it? Rod sat quiet ‘and impersonal behind the wheel, ignoring them all. The important thing for him was to make good time through the traffic, to cut in, to edge back, to take every chance for. speed and yet to take no chances-for mile after mile it was like that while the smooth concrete road unrolled behind him. Then the. thinning suburbs, then the open country, and Rod relaxing with an almost imperceptible lifting of the shoulders. The green, green paddocks spinning away on either side, the cropping sheep, the slow cows walking to milk. She knew just how it would be. As he came nearer home Rod’s manner would change. Passengers would leave the bus, passengers to whom he was only "Driver," and others he knew would take their placés. These others would greet him familiarly, they would sit where they pleased; and on the last twenty miles he would be .hail-fellow-well-met with the men,;on pleasant ‘friendly terms with the women. Sometimes Phyllis wondered how he could endure the long miles day after day, the unchanging routine, the strain of the traffic; but she knew he liked the job. He really liked it, and wouldn’t have changed for another. She wasn’t a clever woman, but she knew what Rod liked, and what he didn’t like. They had been married for four years. O or three children rested their school bags against the stone curbing outside the depot, and teased and chased each other in the late afternoon sunshine, showing off before the older people, who smiled indulgently at them, unless they became too rude and noisy. They were little boys, eight or nine

-_-_-_-------- 7 eeeeninments years old, who came in each morning from their homes at the Heads to ate tend the Convent school. Every now and then they stopped playing and shaded their eyes and looked impatiently along the road, each wanting to be the first to see the bus coming, and to have the importance of announcing it. It happened that Phyllis was impatient too. She was usually placid and easy going; but she had been disturbed all day by an anxiety which grew as she waited with nothing to do. Her anxiety was for Rod. She was afraid that during the day he had been disappointed in a matter he had set his heart on. But she would know as soon as she saw him. Phyllis was contented with her life; it was a reasonably happy one, and she liked her home at the Heads. She was fond of the sea, and she enjoyed’ gardening, and she had a pleasant circle of friends who made no great demands on her, but helped her to pass her time agreeably enough. She was of a type to stay happily in a groove, so long as it was a pleasant groove, lacking in herself the initiative to make a change. Rod was not so easily satisfied. For some time he had been restless. He found the evenings and the weekends, at the Heads, very dull. There was nothing doing, he complained. He wasn’t grateful for the peace and quiet after his day of incessant noise and movement. She wondered at that; she didn’t pretend to understand him, but she could sympathise with him, and she was quite willing to make any change he wanted. ° "If we could only get a house in the city," he said, again and again. "I could work the job all right; drive the outgoing bus in the morning. Fancy living in the city, instead of in this hole; if we could only get a house!" But he was level-headed, and he was considerate of her, and he knew very well that the change couldn’t and shouldn’t be made until they had somewhere comfortable to go; no sense in giving up the home they’d got, for promises, and hopes. So the difficulty of getting a place seemed to rule out any thought of a move, and he’d been more or less reconciled to waiting indefinitely, until two days before. He came home, then, elated and ex¢ited. He was on to something which really seemed to hold promise. More than promise; almost certainty.. He’d seen the place-a flat-and he’d begun negotiations. He talked. far into the night about what they’d do; he made plans as cen the flat was already theirs. ‘Don’t bank on it too much, Rod," she said at last; because she didx’t really believe — you heard of so many deals falling through-and she was afraid of disappointment, for him. She was afraid

of what it could do to him. Or was she really afraid for herself? Of the pain to herself, througe, him? HE children. shouted gid Aleta for their bags, though there wasn’t the slightest need for hurry. More soberly among the older people there was a general standing up, and counting of parcels, A rough queue formed on the footpath, and ‘the bus drew in, swerving towards them. Phyllis stood back. She knew that the seat behind the driver would be left: for her as a matter of course. Rod picked up his papers on their metal clip, and jumped down from the bus, and went towards the office. As he passed her she looked enquiringly at him and he shook his head, very slightly, and went on. Phyllis climbed slowly up the steps of the bus. She felt depressed; although she didn’t care at all about the flat; she would just as

soon stay at the Heads, where everyone was friendly, and life was easy and jolly, not like in the City. She sat down, and one of the little boys who had been hovering in the passage way, deserting his friends. who ‘ran to the.back seats, sat quickly beside her, , Through her pre-. occupation, she smiled at him. She knew him of course, as she knew all the children at. the Heads, and she said, "Hullo, Colin"; but she didn’t understand that the child sat there, nearly always, to be near the driver. To watch his strong hands on the wheel, to admire him, perhaps to have a word from him. The boy grinned at her. "I’ve lost my ticket," he said cheerfully. "My weekly ticket. But it’s Friday, anyway." He wasn’t worried at all. The loss was nothing, here, where everyone knew him, where Rod. was his friend. She knew that, too, 4nd she smiled again, and said, "Have you, Colin? That’s hard luck," and she forgot him; through the window she watched the office door for Rod. Why was she so sad,.and afraid? In a way she knew... But she wasn’t introspective, she wasn’t given to thinking much about herself; so she didn’t really understand. She was kind and warm-hearted, and easy to get on with, She wasn’t in the least quarrelsome. She loved Rod, ‘and they got on famously together-almost always, She couldn’t bear to admit that the fault was Rod’s, when they didn’t. She was happy when he was happy--and he almost always was. There it wes -that almost. HERA F i + Sth Ae ‘ ; AFTER four years of marriage she was just beginning to see the relation between cause and effect-or rather, where Rod was concerned, to understand the

cause whichgbrought about the effect. It happened so seldom. Rod wasn’t moody -he was nearly always the same, gay, cheerful, kind-look at him now, coming out of the office; calling back cheerily to the office-girl, who was always all smiles for him; laughing, exchanging a quick aside with one of the other men, never at a loss for a word. All the men in the bus behind her ready to have a joke with him. You couldn’t call him moody. And no-one would dream that he was disappointed, now-he would hardly say anything about that even to her. But-the quarrel would come, all the same, dl That was it. Whenever he’d been thwarted, really disappointed of something he wanted very much-never any other time-sooner or later he would fall out with her. The pattern was always the same; and slowly she was beginning to understand, and slowly she was coming to dread it. The pattern, which she couldn’t alter. The high spirits, the refusal to discuss his disappointment, the pretence that it had meant nothing at all. to him, his unnatural politeness to her, replacing the loved familiar casualness, And then, no matter"how sympathetic she was-she, who would have given a piece of herself so that he might have what he wanted -no matter how she tried to show him that, whatever happened, she was still the same, still unalterably on his side, the quarrel. She gave him no occasion for it; he made one. He showed such ingenuity in making it, that it was impossible to frustrate him: He would quarrel. And there was never a reference to the real cause-his disappointment. Any cause, any cause but that. That must not be mentioned, SADLY Phyllis thought of what was to happen-what had already begun to happen. Rod’s high spirits, because he wouldn’t admit his disappointment, even to himself, his strained politeness to her, the quarrel, perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow; then the sulky silence, sometimes lasting for two or three days, the nightmare rigid nights, the intolerably unhappy days. Then-because she found it td be the only way back to normality -her floods of tears, her confession that she had been of course, of course, in the wrong all the time. Strange behaviour that should never have been hers thrust upon her to torture her. ‘Rod jumped up the steps. He had a cheery word for everyone as he went round the bus to clip the tickets. He came at last to the boy Colin next to her. And when the boy said cheerfully, che®Kily, because they were friends, "I’ve lost mine," Rod winked over his head at the others, "Well, of course," he said, "you'll have to get off. You'll have to walk home. Can’t let ariyone ride without a ticket." The boy laughed, reddening and flushing, but quite ‘happy and secure, loving the notice taken of him, although he was shy; worshipping his hero; and the grownups, sitting comfortable and relaxed, going home to tea, smiled at the fun. Rod kept it up for the few moments before the bus started, sitting at the wheel lighting a cigarette. And the boy answered him back, showing off, getting (continued on next page)

Short Story (continued from previous page) loud and excited in his boasts that he wasn’t going to shift. On the tick of the hour Rod slammed the door shut, "All right, then," he said, "I won't be too hard on you. I'll let you come. But of course I can’t stop for a passenger who doesn’t pay. You'll have to come right on to the depot, past your place, and walk back." And he swung the bus easily through the small traffic of the main street, out along the coast road. ‘ The boy shouted in derision. This was huge fun. "You bet, I won't," he said again and again. All the way Rod teased the boy; a little too much, Phyllis thought, filled with her own unease, but amused too, as the .other passengers were; one or two of the men joined in the gh ge And the boy jerked up and down the seat, the soft cheek near to Phyllis flushed.and hot with laughter and excitement. They neared the Heads. The first stop Was near the boy’s gate. The cord was pulled, and Rod stopped the bus for a woman, chuckling and enjoying the fun, to alight> The boy gathered up his coat and bag and his cap, and some chips in newspaper, jeering, "See, you had to stop," and he was-in the passageway, making for the stop, when Rod’s arm

barred the way. "Oh no, you don’t," he said-but he was still smiling, and there was a wink the boy didn’t see for the grownups-"I meant it. You go right down to the depot." His arm was like an iron rod across the boy’s chest, and he started the bus. The boy was for a moment stupefied; he couldn’t think-but he knew, somehow he knew, there was no joke now. With the clanging of the door, and the starting of the bus, his little world of wild excited fun and laughter dissolved and was gone. The change in his face was startling. The mouth wide in laughter a moment before puckered to cry, and the heavy. tears stood on the instant in his blue eyes. "Beast, beast," he said shockingly, "let me out, let me out," and he pushed and thrust with his clumsy load. The parcel broke and the chips scattered to the floor. Rod, still laughing, opened the door, and stopped the bus, and the child rushed blindly out; stumbling in his hurry, dropping his cap, treading on his coat. Only Phyllis-and Rod-had seen his face. They had seen the shame of tears in it, the fear, and the tragedy of betrayal. The bus went smoothly on, stopping frequently, to the depot. At the depot, while Rod put the bus away, Phyllis stood waiting, calling out goodnights, watching her fellow travel-

lers walking away up the quiet street. Rod came up behind her and took her bag and they walked home, beside the. water in the calm, peacéiul evening. Phyllis looked up at her husband, and he smiled down at her. "Good as a play, wasn’t it," he said, "the way I put the wind up that kid. He’s a shy, timid little beggar, really." And his manner to her was warm and natural; he wasn’t acting, he wasn’t overpolite. Suddenly she felt gay and happy. He slid his arm through hers, and they walked on, and Phyllis knew there

would be no quarrel. This time. Somewhere, penne the pattern had been changed . To ae sure, she ventured a remark about the flat. If he refused to speak of it-but no: "Never mind," he answered, "forget it. There'll be other chances." She gave a sigh of happiness. She gave a fleeting thought to the child. Of course it hadn’t been Rod’s fault; he was only fooling, he hadn’t meant anything -unkind. "Little softy, crying like that at his age . . ." And she leaned more closely against her husband.