The Vivisector Read Online Free

what Pa kept in the box, but that made the things more important, and going over them one by one. Not that there wasn’t a lot of uninteresting stuff as well: old family papers, particularly deeds.
    ‘What are deeds, Pa?’
    But Pa didn’t want to explain, only that he had never been the better off for any blooming piece of paper.
    So you didn’t bother. They were less interesting than the hair of dead people. There was the locket with the hair of Pa’s sister Clara, who died on the voyage out, and was buried at sea. There were the photographs. There was the photograph of Grannie Duffield in a cap: her hands spread out against her skirt showed off the rings she was wearing. Her hollow eyes had never known you.
    ‘When did she die?’ As if you didn’t know; but this was the Sunday game you played.
    ‘Six months after landing at Sydney. She died of the consumption, ’ Pa said, sucking on his pipe.
    ‘And you were left with Granpa.’
    Pa didn’t answer, but sucked his pipe.
    ‘Did you like her?’
    ‘Course I liked ’er. Wasn’t she me mother?’
    ‘She looks funny.’
    ‘How funny?’
    ‘Sort of different.’
    ‘Your grandmother was a lady. A clergyman’s daughter,’ Pa added, sucking on his pipe: peugh, it smelled!
    ‘Is Mumma a lady? And Mrs Burt?’
    ‘Course they’re ladies! What else would they be?’ Pa sucked so hard his Adam’s apple grew red and angry.
    Granpa Duffield was a more, perhaps the most, interesting subject. He had a big nose, sharp along the edge, like a chopper. (Mumma used to say: ‘You can tell by yer grandfather’s nose he was born a haristercrat.’) And large, rather shiny eyes. His hair was beautifully arranged, at least for the photograph, in an old fashion. On the back of the photograph someone had written in brown ink: ‘Hertel Vivian Warboys Duffield’.
    ‘That’s my name’—dreamily—as though they both didn’t know. ‘Why amn’t I “Vivian Warboys” as well?’
    Pa puffed. Then he said: ‘One name’s enough for a boy to carry around in Australia.’
    It was a good enough explanation. Of course everybody knew by now, everybody in Cox Street, but any stranger who didn’t, laughed. ‘“Hurtle”? What sort of a name is that?’ And it made you start what Mumma called sulking, because you couldn’t go on for ever explaining to every stranger that came: ‘“Hurtle” was the name of a foreign woman that married into my granpa’s family. Only it was “H-e-r-t-e-l”, not “H-u-r-t-l-e”. When I was christened the parson got the spelling wrong.’
    All these mysteries were contained in the box. And the ring. The ring had a sort of bird on it, sticking out its tongue. The bird was cut off short, below the neck. What was left, looked as though it was resting on a dish.
    ‘That was your grandfather’s ring. The police sergeant gave it to me when I went out to Ashfield to identify the body.’
    ‘After Granpa fell off the mule.’
    ‘Yairs. He died of a seizure on the Parramatta Road.’
    ‘What’s a seizure?’
    Pa didn’t answer at first. ‘Yer blood gets seized.’
    Grandpa Duffield looked more awful than before, with his arranged hair and watery eyes. You couldn’t look long enough.
    ‘What was he doing on the mule?’
    ‘Cor, Hurt, I told yer often enough! ’E borrowed the mule ter ride to the center of Australia. It was ’is dream.’ After that Pa’s pipe didn’t stop spitting.
    ‘What happened to the mule?’
    ‘I told yer! It disappeared. An’ I never stopped payin’ it off to the owner for a long time after.’
    They sat sharing the mysteries of their family. There wasn’t much else to do of a Sunday. Except slip the ring with the tongued bird on and off your biggest finger. Pa smoking, and pretending not to look.
    But as soon as Mumma squeezed through the gap in the fence, with Lena, Edgar, Will, Winnie and Flo, Pa closed the box. Secrets weren’t for everyone. Mumma started telling all she had heard next door, with the