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My Vocation
441
it was the horse had him so bad-looking. That horse had the heart
scalded in him.
But it was only afterwards I heard all this. I thought I'd done
great work, and I went up and got the nuns, and put them into it
and off they went, with the thin one waving to me.
It was while I was still waving that I saw the horse starting his
capers.
My first thought was to run, but I thought I'd have to face them
again, so I didn't do that. Instead, I ran after the cab and shouted
to the driver to stop.
Perhaps that was what did the damage. Maybe I drove the horse
clean mad altogether, because the next thing he reared up and let
his hind legs fly. There was a dreadful crash and a sound of splin-
tering, and the next thing I knew the bottom of the cab came down
on the road with a clatter. I suppose it had got such abuse from
that animal from time to time it was on the point of giving way all
the time.
It was a miracle for them they weren't let down on the road —
the two nuns. It was a miracle for me too in another way because
if they did I'd have to go and pick them up and I'd surely be drawn
deeper into the whole thing.
But that wasn't what happened. Off went the horse, as mad as
ever down the street, rearing and leaping, but the nuns must have
got a bit of a warning and held on to the sides, because the next
thing I saw, along with the set of four feet under the horse, was
four more feet showing out under the body of the cab, and running
for dear life.
Honest to God, I started to laugh. Wasn't that awful? They could
have been killed, and I knew it, although as a matter of fact some-
one caught hold of the cab before it got to Parnell Street and they
were taken out of it and put into another cab. But once I started to
laugh I couldn't stop, and in a way - if you can understand such a
thing -1 laughed away my vocation. Wasn't that awful?
Not but that I have a great regard for nuns even to this day,
although, mind you, I sometimes think the nuns that are going
nowadays are not the same as the nuns that were going in our
Dorset Street days. I saw a terribly plain-looking one the other day
in Cabra Avenue. But all the same, they're grand women! I'm going
to make a point of sending all my kids to school with the nuns
442.
Mary Laviti
anyway, when I have them. But of course it takes a fellow with a
bit of money to educate his kids nowadays. A girl has to have an
eye to the future, as I always tell Sis - she's my girl-friend, you
remember.
Well, we're going out to Dollymount this afternoon, Sis and me,
and you'd never know who we'd pick up. So long for the present!
PATRICK WHITE • 1 9 1 2 -
Five-Twenty
Most evenings, weather permitting, the Natwicks sat on the front
veranda to watch the traffic. During the day the stream flowed, but
towards five it began to thicken, it sometimes jammed solid like:
the semi-trailers and refrigeration units, the decent old-style sedans,
the mini-cars, the bombs, the Holdens and the Holdens. She didn't
know most of the names. Royal did, he was a man, though never
ever mechanical himself. She liked him to tell her about the
vehicles, or listen to him take part in conversation with anyone who
stopped at the fence. He could hold his own, on account of he was
more educated, and an invalid has time to think.
They used to sit side by side on the tiled veranda, him in his
wheelchair she had got him after the artheritis took over, her in the
old cane. The old cane chair wasn't hardly presentable any more;
she had torn her winter cardy on a nail and laddered several pair
of stockings. You hadn't the heart to get rid of it, though. They
brought it with them from Sarsaparilla after they sold the business.
And now they could sit in comfort to watch the traffic, the big steel
insects of nowadays, which put the wind up her at times.
Royal said, 'I reckon we're a shingle short to'uv ended up on the
Parramatta Road.'
'You said we'd still see life,' she reminded, 'even if we lost the use
of our legs.'
'But look at the traffic! Worse every year. And air. Rot a man's
lungs quicker than the cigarettes. You should'uv headed me off.
You who's supposed to be practical!'
'I thought it was what you wanted,' she said, keeping it soft; she
had never been one to crow.
'Anyway, I already lost the use of me legs.'
As if she was to blame for that too. She was so shocked the chair
sort of jumped. It made her blood run cold to hear the metal feet
screak against the little draught-board tiles.
'Well, I 'aven't!' she protested. 'I got me legs, and will be able to
444
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