Patrick White - The Solid Mandala
‘There’s more life up this end,’ Mrs Poulter said.
‘Yairs,’ said Mrs Dun. Then, because never let it be hinted that she did not make her contribution, she added: ‘Yairs.’
‘It’s the shops that gives it life,’ Mrs Poulter said. ‘There’s nothing like shops.’
‘It’s the shops all right.’
‘These days a woman could do the whole of ’er shoppin’ in Sarsaparilla. But it isn’t the same.’
‘It isn’t the same.’
‘Not like you catch the bus to Barranugli and spend the mornin’ muckin’ around. Mind you, it isn’t the ha’penny. There’s some women will spend a shillun to save the odd ha’penny.’
Mrs Dun sucked her teeth.
‘But it makes a change in a person’s life, muckin’ around the big shops,’ said Mrs Poulter. ‘With a friend,’ she said.
‘Yairs,’ agreed Mrs Dun. ‘Yairs.’
She was looking straight ahead, past the mounds of hair. A young lady couldn’t squeeze a hat on nowadays even if she wanted to. Mrs Dun was fascinated by the ha’penny. If what Mrs Poulter said was true, some women lost one-and-eleven on the round trip!
‘You can muck around on your own, of course,’ Mrs Poulter was saying, ‘but a friend is what makes the difference.’
‘A friend,’ said Mrs Dun. ‘Yairs.’
Each of the ladies sat rather careful, because they had not known each other all that long, and the situation had not been proved unbreakable.
‘If I hadn’t of spoke to you in the bus that morning,’ Mrs Poulter said, ‘we mighn’t of got to know each other’…
