A Few Days in the Country

ELIZABETH HARROWER was born in Sydney in 1928. She lived in Newcastle until her family moved back to Sydney when she was eleven.

In 1951 Harrower travelled to London and began to write. Her first novel,
Down in the City
, was published there in 1957 and was followed by
The Long Prospect
a year later. In 1959 she returned to Sydney, where she worked in radio and then in publishing. Her third novel,
The Catherine Wheel
, appeared in 1960.

Harrower published
The Watch Tower
in 1966. Four years later she finished
In Certain Circles
, but withdrew it from publication at the last moment. The novel was finally published in 2014, to great acclaim.

As well as novels Harrower wrote short stories, most of which are collected in
A Few Days in the Country
. She is one of the most important postwar Australian writers. She was admired by many of her contemporaries, including Patrick White and Christina Stead, who both became lifelong friends. Her fiction is now reaching a new generation of readers and writers.

Elizabeth Harrower lives in Sydney.

ALSO BY ELIZABETH HARROWER

Down in the City

The Long Prospect

The Catherine Wheel

The Watch Tower

In Certain Circles

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Copyright © Elizabeth Harrower 2015

The moral right of Elizabeth Harrower to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

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First published in 2015 by The Text Publishing Company

Book design and jacket art by W. H. Chong

Typeset in Centaur MT by J & M Typesetting

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

ISBN: 9781925240566 (hardback)

ISBN: 9781922253330 (ebook)

Creator: Harrower, Elizabeth, 1928– author.

Title: A few days in the country : and other stories / by Elizabeth Harrower.

Dewey Number: A823.3

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the assistance of the National Library of Australia in the preparation of this edition.

Contents

1 The Fun of the Fair

2 Alice

3 The City at Night

4 Summertime

5 The North Sea

6 The Cornucopia

7 The Beautiful Climate

8 Lance Harper, His Story

9 The Cost of Things

10 English Lesson

11 It Is Margaret

12 A Few Days in the Country

Acknowledgments

1

The Fun of the Fair

And then, as if the lightning that ripped the sky apart wasn't enough, the lights round the edge of the swimming pool, and even the three big ones sunk into it on cement piles, went out.

At once the solid blackness rang with shrieks and laughter; only Janet was struck dumb to find that she had been obliterated. It was like nothing so much as that astronomical darkness into which she had been plunged last year when they took out her tonsils.

Up to her chin in water, she gave a little squeak of fear and curled her toes into the sandy floor of the pool, entreating them to hang on so that she wouldn't be washed away to the deep end, or out through the pipe that went under the rocks and into the ocean. The Pacific was just over there somewhere. Behind her.

Where
was Uncle Hector? She would
call
him.

Except that she wouldn't. He had only brought her tonight because Auntie had given him ten shillings, and because Janet had said ‘please' three times, and crossed her heart she wouldn't bother him and Leila.

Then when they met Leila he had said, ‘I know. But I had to. Mum's orders. It's for her birthday.'

For a long time—at least ten minutes—Leila said not one word.

Someone close to Janet began to giggle—a slow persistent sound like the pop-pop of an outboard motor. She listened hopefully. Surely no one would laugh like that if anything was wrong?

Just the same, under her breath she said, ‘Uncle Hector…' and she licked the salt from her crinkled lips. ‘Uncle Hector…'

The surf roared on the beach, and men's voices shouted something about fuses.

The last time Janet had seen Uncle Hector was when it began to rain. He and Leila were in the deep end—in and out of the deep end—practising diving. He called, ‘Duck under and keep dry!'

Leila laughed and so did Janet till the stinging of her shoulders made her drift into deeper water and stand with her back covered up, listening to the rain beating against her bathing cap the way it beat on the windows and roof when she was at home in bed. It was almost cosy.

Now, soundlessly and without warning, the lights came on and startled everyone. Janet saw Uncle Hector five yards away. Leila was with him.

‘Hello,' she said. ‘Where were you?'

‘Come on!' Uncle Hector spoke to Janet, but looked at Leila. Leila was nineteen. She had long dark hair, brown skin, and a red-and-white bathing costume.

‘Come on!' he said again, swimming away with Leila, making the water foam behind him.

And laughing now, and splashing and looking all round, Janet followed them out.

‘I was good, Uncle Hector. You'll tell Auntie I was good?'

Leila was unpinning her hair, wringing out the short skirt of her costume and smiling.

‘Huh?' said Uncle Hector.

‘In the dark and lightning I was good—you'll tell her?'

‘Oh! Yeah! I'll tell her.' He sniffed, pushed back his hair, then stood, hands on hips, feet apart. ‘Listen, you two. I'll meet you outside the dressing sheds in five minutes. Five minutes!'

‘Bully!' said Leila, pressing her hands against her wet costume. ‘You just wait.'

‘What for?' He rocked back on his heels.

They stood looking at each other so long then, not seeming to notice that they blocked the path round the pool, that Janet, made reckless by the night, cried, ‘For us! You've got to wait for us!'

‘Oh, shut up!' said Uncle Hector indifferently.

And Janet did.

She lived with Auntie (who was Hector's mother), and she knew she was a trial. Indeed, she was so far from ideal, in spite of her intentions, that it was suggested in her defence that she'd been born rather badly behaved.

Still, today she was ten. Auntie had talked to her seriously, and said that she must turn over a new leaf and be good and grateful. And she had things to be grateful for…

When he met Janet and his girlfriend, now fully dressed, Uncle Hector said, ‘We'll go up there for a while,' and he pointed to a bluff of land where chains of coloured lights—to which were attached chairs and shrieking girls—soared out over the edge of the cliff.

Leila only said, ‘Okay,' and swung her red beach bag, but Uncle Hector seemed content.

As they climbed the steps from the swimming pool to the cliff top he remarked, as if he had arranged it, ‘It's clearing up.'

Obediently the girls looked, saw the storm clouds, spent, tearing away from the moon, racing out to sea. This had been a day of heat, humidity, and choking dust. Now the air was fresh, still warm, but clear and smelling of the sea.

They reached the top and wandered into the fair. A boy shrieked past on a flying horse, waving an arm at no one in particular. Behind him, wheeling through the night, sat a middle-aged man, neat and sedate in his navy-blue suit. You could see he wasn't on a flying horse for his own pleasure. Perhaps it was to please that girl with blonde curls beside him.

Bemused by the brassy gold, the red and white, the streaming hair and glowing faces, Uncle Hector, Leila and Janet stood with the returning crowds and watched.

The showmen looked at the sky and whistled with relief, stamping on the damp ground. With nasal confidence they cried, ‘Roll up, and see the world's greatest spectacle! Fifty years from now you'll be able to tell your grandchildren—'

From every glittering circle a song ground out, and the noisy, discordant medley rose into a night sky lit by the coloured signs of Totting's Fair. Here, where Janet stood, someone was yodelling an old song about an old cowhand…

The bulbs and neon flashed and sparkled, mesmerising the audience, but slowly, and more slowly, the horses flew. They were returning from the daring horizontal to the vertical. It seemed a pity.

Little groups began to drift away. A few people bought tickets from the lady in the red box, but Uncle Hector said, ‘We'll see the rest first,' and with Leila clinging to his arm, and Janet following, all eyes, they strolled after the others into the heart of the fair.

Dazzled, badgered and bumped, they wound past the sideshows—the wrestlers, sword swallowers, snake charmers. A woman said, emerging from the hypnotist's paper cave, ‘Yes, I saw him
eat
it, Eck, but how do we know it was a candle?'

Janet longed to hear but, before Eck could speak, she had to go chasing after Uncle Hector, wriggling in and out, looking up to see gleaming teeth bite into hamburgers, faces lost behind drifts of fairy floss. A gang of boys came singing and shouting, arms linked, down the path towards her, and she had to dodge sideways into the Jaws of Death. Uh? She tilted her face up at the name and the picture, and her mouth opened.

Swiftly she dashed out again and came on Uncle Hector almost at once. Leila's violet scent smelled very sweet, and Uncle Hector was looking at her, and laughing in a way that astonished Janet. He seemed so strange, so unlike Uncle Hector! But how lovely it was to see him laugh! And Leila, and all the people! Oh, it was a marvellous birthday night!