Free The Voyage by Murray Bail Page B

back in Vienna, and the different disturbances it had produced across the city which had affected people’s lives in a “ripple effect,” he was with the woman from Vienna who had left Vienna to benearby, he wondered what she could see in him, the way she came on board with that smile and significantly heavy suitcases, without knowing the near future, or the distant future, let alone the merits or otherwise of a city like Sydney, if he had asked about her plans he would have become cornered, he thought; he allowed his thoughts to wander without purpose from the colossal orange ship to the pale shape of her, to the streets, palm trees that needed water, dirt, always a few single men looking on, when what he wanted was clarity, not entirely but when necessary. Some children running ahead bumped into the group, the bookseller actually tipped his hat, old school, the two sister-companions from Elwood, Melbourne, fanning themselves with colored magazines, Delage’s thoughts had already slowed to a standstill, the English couple in the lead, tall timber, the older of the short-haired sister-companions looking Elisabeth up and down whenever she could, not a happy woman, no wonder she had been discarded, it was the other one who did the talking. “Watch the handbag, it’ll get pinched.” Only a few hours before, they’d been on the ship at the one table having breakfast, now as a way to move on Delage made light of the moment, in a loud voice: “Can you recommend any monuments?” “The pyramids, I believe, are that-a-way,” the Englishman joining in. He wore a royal-blue knitted cotton shirt with buttons, and a gold watch. “That man,” Delage told Elisabeth, “has a real-estate agency in the south of England somewhere, and knows all there is to know about Gothic churches. He’s a walking Oxford dictionary on the subject. And he does his best to hide what he knows. I don’t mind himat all.” An Englishman who responded modestly and honestly to the solidarity of things, taking one step at a time, waiting before crossing the village street, a sequence which had produced strength in British engineering, medicine, law, science, the cataloguing of libraries, the design of umbrellas, as well as a pedantic tone in its literature, and art unable to shake an unhealthy obsession with the naked figure. They had been on the ship a week or so, Delage found himself glancing at her, Elisabeth, still not knowing enough about her, that was why, until he began being direct by looking direct; if she noticed, she would turn slightly, out of politeness or believing it showed her best side. The Dutchman had joined in and told them he regularly attended literary evenings, standing on one leg for hours at a time, drinking sour wine, while poets read aloud from their works, until it had ruined his health, not only his physical health, the Dutchman emphasized, had a large face and large eyes, but his psychological health as well, which was worse, he said, far worse, the result of taking in an exceptional amount of the most earnest, pointless words, very damaging, just as the body cannot be exposed to excessive X-rays, words and still more words of little or no value, even by well-known poets, who often had the worst reading voices, just as the worst poets had the best reading voices. “The poorest countries have the biggest postage stamps,” Delage chimed in. It was not only poets, the Dutchman went on, novelists and even, believe it or not, historians, biographers and journalists jump at the chance to give public readings, anything to be on stage and listened to by a live audience. It was the age ofperformance. Why anybody would go to the trouble of putting on a fresh pair of trousers, go out into the weather, take the tram or bus, find the venue, and hand across hard-earned money, in order to listen to an author was, he could see now, beyond his comprehension. “Years of my life have been wasted combing my hair, and attending festivals,