Free The Vivisector by PATRICK WHITE

Dolly to show, when he knew enough from Lena and their own girls, not to say Mumma. He put away his boy’s one, which Dolly had been too frightened to touch in return.
    Because Dolly told her mother, who went to Mumma, and Mr Burgess told Mr Boothroyd, the business caused him a lot of trouble. Pa got out a strap, but was too worked up to use it. Old Beetle Boothroyd sent for Hurtle Duffield, and gave him several cuts with a stick; only pride in his tingling hand prevented him crying. Not long after that he was moved up into Lena’s class, where, said Mr Boothroyd, it would take him all his time to keep up.
    If it had not been for his own thoughts, and reading his grandmother’s Bible at home, life in the more advanced class would have been as intolerable as it was down amongst the pothooks. At high summer, the light lay brassy on the streets. On the way to school, the balls blazed over the pawnbrokers’ in Taylor Square. Returning, there was sometimes a faint tinkling of tried-out music in the piano shops of Surry Hills if he parted company from Lena and wandered round that way. He did not understand music, but the idea of it refreshed him, as the coloured notes trickled from the darkened shops into the light of day. He would arrive home pacified.
     
    Mumma had started taking in washing again while still weak from the lying in. She had started going down to Courtney’s; along with her bundle of necessaries, she lugged the new baby. May very kindly let her lay him in a clothes-basket in the servants’ hall while she was at her work. That way she could go in and feed him when he needed to be fed. Once she stood the basket in the sun beside the cannas in Courtneys’ yard, but soon took fright, thinking how Miss Rhoda’s cat might jump out and eat him. She had heard of such things. For the first time the baby began to seem real. You could imagine Mrs Courtney looking in the basket when she came out to give orders to the cook. The thought made you bite the inside of your cheek.
    When it was at last holidays he decided he would go down to Courtneys’ whatever Mumma might say. So he fetched his cap and hung around. He was determined.
    She came out carrying the baby bundle. ‘What do you think you’re up to?’ She stuck out her chin.
    ‘I can help you, can’t I? I can carry your things.’
    Mumma looked less opposed.
    ‘If we don’t make a habit of it. You could get spoilt, my boy—very easy.’
    As they started out he took the cloth bundle. Mumma and he were both happy, he could feel. At this hour the streets were empty except for a few tradesmen and carters. The baby had become a thing again, in spite of being known already by name. They had decided to call him Septimus.
    ‘Sep! Septo! Septer-mus!’ The morning made you sing, bumping the bundle in time against your knee; while Mumma kept looking to see whether there was any of those early lazy flies on the baby’s face.
    ‘D’you think we’ll have a Decimus?’
    ‘What’s that?’ she asked, suspicious.
    ‘That means “the Tenth”.’
    She turned her face away. ‘If God and your father is so unkind.’
    After that they walked rather flat slommacky down the hill, where maids had come out from the better houses to chat together shaking dusters, or sulk alone as they polished the brass.
    At one point Mumma recovered and, looking at him, said: ‘Your hair, your complexion’s a lovely colour, Hurtle.’ And smiled. ‘My colour, when I was a girl.’
    He couldn’t believe Mumma’s lumpy old damp hair had ever been any colour at all. He couldn’t believe in his own hair. But in that case, how could Mrs Courtney believe in him?
    Poor Mumma, he loved her. Because her hands were holding their new baby he hung on to her skirt for a while.
    It was a long morning: he couldn’t decide what to do. Lizzie told Mumma: ‘The old cat’s out to luncheon with Mrs Hollingrake. ’ Mumma wasn’t interested.
    At dinner he scoffed down a big dish of mutton and gravy.