Happy Valley

Part I

Chapter 1: The narrator introduces us to the town of Happy Valley in the dead of winter. An outpost in New South Wales’ Southern Highlands, it is a lonely snowy run of houses inhabited by families of no particular distinction. The publican’s wife on the hill is giving birth to her first child; Dr Oliver Halliday assists. He is younger than the previous Doctor, has only been here for under a year and not everyone has taken to him. The delivery is rough and violent, it has taken all night and now the sun is up. Doctor Halliday is cast back in memories of meeting his own wife Hilda, as Mrs Steele the midwive watches sceptically, Halliday delivers the baby. The baby is stillborn. He gives his apologies to the publican as he leaves. The publican engages in small talk which Halliday has no time for. He puts on his skis and moves down to the valley below. He’s a father now, affectionate to his wife but no longer in love. He ran away to war as a young man in 1918, although by the time he got there the war was done. Those moments in Europe were nonetheless something special, vibrant, something sensational that he has never known again. Halliday is also a thwarted poet, someone who wanted to write but could never find a theme.

Chapter 2: A hawk overhead leads us on to the mail truck making its way from Moorang. Chuffy Chambers, the young man who drives the truck, is a kind of town oaf. He plays the accordion, is popular at dances, but never seems to do well with girls. Indeed he’s a virgin. He’s giving a lift to Clem Hagan who’s new in town. The two men don’t have much to say to each other but attempt to get through polite banter. Chuffy informs Hagan that very little happens out here. There’s the races. There’s a good general store, run by the Quongs; Hagan is clearly a bit unsettled that it’s run by Chinese. In his mind Hagan recalls earlier memories of life and of the women he has known, the social clout he has gained. As they pull toward town, Chuffy can’t help feeling like Hagan is mocking him in the same manner as everyone else does.

Chapter 3: Up in the township we visit the Quongs’ general store. Amy and Arthur, the siblings who run it, their father Chinese, their mother white. They are both unmarried; Amy is considered an old maid. They have a strange relationship with the town – they are outsiders by virtue of colour, yet necessary because they offer quality goods and play a crucial part in town life. We’ve realised already that everyone here is a “necessary outsider” in some way. Amy’s not especially outgoing but she’s determined to make the best of things. Arthur on the other hand is too kind, doesn’t have a natural head for business. He’s given a ribbon to Mrs Vic Moriarty, the schoolmaster’s wife, on credit, and Amy is determined to fix that matter up. Arthur Quong spends his days wherever possible in the yard or the stable with his horse or looking after a car, which they never use because they seldom go out. Amy walks down to the house of the Moriartys. Mrs M is higher up the scale than any we’ve met so far. Amy is admitted with her mackintosh and her dripping umbrella. Amy’s passion is things; she collects things from throughout her life, treasuring them, dusting them, cherishing possessions which have taken on the meaning of life to her. Mrs M is not happy to waste time on this Chinese shopwoman. Amy has come for the five pounds she is owed for the ribbon. It’s awkward. Mrs M, we learn in inner monologue, is not happy in Happy Valley. She could have lived in Sydney in a flat. Instead she is stuck here making the most of it because of her husband’s posting. Her family is not notable but she’s an upstart, she wants to beat her sister’s achievements, wants to have something in her life. Ideally, that would mean a life eating chocolates in bed and appearing in the ladies’ page of the Sydney Morning Herald. Mrs M pays part of the credit before getting into a fit that Amy’s umbrella has dripped all over the carpet. Amy rushes home, leaving Vic Moriarty to fume and deal with housework with her servant girl, Gertie. Walter Quong, the third Quong sibling, drives past the window. There are stories about him: things he’s done with women other than his wife, obscene drunkenness and lewd behaviour. One doesn’t associate with him partly because he’s Walter and partly because he’s a Quong.

Chapter 4: We are introduced to Alys Browne, who lives on the outskirts of town. (Outskirts are relative when you can walk anywhere). Alys wears mauve. Alys reads literature, or at least attempts to read literature. Alys teaches piano and makes dresses. Her father made money in the gold rush, lost it. Alys changed her spelling from Alice to be different, and went to Sydney. Here she stayed in a convent, learned piano and needlework, and read Tennyson. From there, she became companion to a Mrs Stopford-Champernowne, cultivating a reputation for herself as a mysterious sort. When her father died he left Alys too little money to do much with, and a house and land in Happy Valley. She could have gone to California, found independence, but instead she consoled herself by saying that this was what life had laid out for her. Six years have gone by. And so she teaches the piano in Happy Valley – Chopin, Beethoven, her favourite Schumann – and is independent. Although that moment in Sydney, having some (limited) role in society, is the anecdote in her memory she will always go back to, the fixed point in her life. While she is slicing onions Alys cuts her hand. She knows the Doctor’s wife will be cross with her for interrupting lunchtime and, indeed, Mrs Halliday is. Alys is permitted to wait in the Doctor’s sitting room until he returns from the case (the birth) he is on.

Chapter 5: The truck carrying Hagan and Chuffy pulls up in front of the general store. Hagan is here to work for the Furlow family. the bigwigs in town. Amy Quong tells him that his transport to the property is not here yet. He decides to wait at the pub. As he walks uphill, he recalls previous experiences with girls in Sydney, a girl named Bella with whom he drank gin. It made him feel superior to come from New England, he thinks. He’s conscious of his place and what it means to be he himself. He gets lost on the hill and runs into a woman we know as Mrs Moriarty, wearing her pink ribbon. She directs him. A moment passes between them. She’s unfulfilled. He’s lustful. She’s plump. He likes them that way. He wants someone to show off to. A woman for whom he can be a man. Of course nothing can be done. She goes inside; he walks up to the pub. It’s morning. The pub is quiet. The publican seems adrift (we know he’s just lost a child) and only two men are in there drinking. Featureless bar hoppers. Hagan and one of the drovers start out telling stories about experiences with horses. It’s a typical Australian pub chat: they’re both competitive, they’re both telling porkies, they both know they’re telling porkies. After some tense moments their relationship settles and they have an honest chat with a few drinks. Hagan eventually heads back down the hill. Walter Quong drives past in his brand new Ford, spraying mud all over Hagan, who is bitter about it. He continues down to the store where a truck is waiting to take him to the property, Glen Marsh.

Chapter 6: At the Happy Valley school, 9-year-old Rodney Halliday (the doctor’s son) is behind the toilet block with three other young boys. They are typical boys of the era, debating, chatting, competing, but Rodney knows what’s going to happen. Violent bullying inevitably ensues. The three, especially Billy Schmidt, attack him, throw him, kick him. He staggers back from recess covered in mud and blood. He can’t do anything about it. He knows he can’t play with the girls, nor can he be a loner. This is his role to play. The children watch Mr Moriarty teach mathematics on the board. Rodney’s mind wanders. He prefers geography, the map of the world on the wall which entrances him. He wants to be elsewhere. He wants to know Margaret Quong, fellow student although she’s old (13) and a girl. Mr Moriarty, meanwhile, has his own problems. He’s content with life, collecting stamps and cherishing memories of his youth when he first met wife Vic in Sydney. He knows however that she wants more. At lunchtime, Margaret invites Emily Schmidt over but Emily tells her they’re not allowed to go to Quongs. Margaret doesn’t let it show that she’s upset: she knows it’s partly her father (Walter’s) reputation and partly that they’re half-Chinese. Rodney Halliday races away from school. If he gets away quick enough to get home for lunch, the other boys won’t chase him and throw rocks. He stops by a field where a bull and a cow are copulating. Margaret, also going home, spots him watching. They walk on either side of the road, a gender divide, until he realises she is crying. He offers her a pink shell that he received once from a Frenchwoman, Madame Jacquet, who taught him French in Sydney. Margaret takes the shell, thanking him. He tells her he will be a doctor one day and will go to boarding school to learn French and Latin. They go their separate ways but not before Margaret invites him to come visit one day and see the new litter of pups.

Chapter 7: Alys Browne waits alone in the Doctor’s room. She looks at the tokens of the Hallidays’ life that she sees. She wishes she could impress the Doctor: he reads Kant and Turgenev and Tolstoy. But she knows from his blue-grey cold eyes that she seems like a silly woman, she doesn’t exist to him. Rodney comes in. he has come home for lunch and wants to read a book about Columbus, but backs out when he sees a woman waiting in his father’s sitting room. In the kitchen, his mother Hilda has made lunch for he and his baby brother George. He lies to his mother about the mud and the blood, but she has figured it out, and Rodney breaks down in front of her. Hilda Halliday wants her son to be honest: she knows he is weak, delicate, not like the other boys. She wants to protect him. Hilda is almost 40; Oliver, her husband, is only 34. She tries not to feel this difference. Rodney’s tears upset his brother, so Rodney goes to his room before Dr Halliday arrives home. Oliver Halliday and his wife are in love, but it is affection, no longer intimacy. He is fond of her. It is passive. She decides not to tell him about Rodney but Oliver can tell something is wrong. He chooses not to press. When Hilda tells him that Miss Browne is waiting, Dr Halliday goes to fix up her hand with iodine and a bandage. It is an intimate moment between them, and a strange one. The meek Alys wants to tell him that she’s a person, that she’s fascinating; he seems merely vacant in her presence. Yet Oliver is yearning for human connection, and suspects there is something underneath her silly facade. After she leaves, Oliver goes back in to find Hilda contemplating shooting a sickly hen in the backyard. Hilda confesses: Rodney is beginning to realise his difference. It is time to send him to Sydney. Oliver knows a man through a colleague who wants to exchange a practice in sunny Queensland for something in the South. Between Rodney’s weakness and Hilda’s constant ailments, it seems wise to relocate the family up north and drop Rodney off at a Sydney school along the way. The couple agree on this plan but Halliday feels like he is twisting in the wind, just following his obligations as a man and husband.

Chapter 8: We now find ourselves at the Furlows’ home, Glen Marsh, more prestigious than any we have yet met. Mrs Furlow is trying to convince her beautiful teenage daughter Sidney to come out of her room and go for a horse ride. She’s already arranged Sidney’s marriage to an Englishman who works at Government House in Sydney; Mrs Furlow is very upwardly mobile. She has a tiara which she has worn at Government House and the Lord Mayor’s ball. She is a somebody, even before she married her husband; her family were pioneers. Mrs Furlow doesn’t read books, except about travel. Sidney is strikingly beautiful but her parents don’t know what to do with her. She is a teenager, she has no ambition, no interests. She doesn’t seem to care. Mrs Furlow writes to society type Mrs Blandford about her daughter’s suitable fiancee, so very English, she thinks. Mr Stan Furlow, meanwhile, sits reading the racing news and the stock tips. He lets his wife dominate the house. He lets his daughter be a thing he vaguely loves. Sidney, in her room, ponders her French lessons. She’s young, conscious of her own beauty, a more vibrant figure of a different generation. Clem Hagan, the new foreman, arrives. He and Mr Furlow have a brief unsatisfying conversation before the latter sends Hagan on to find his lodgings. As Hagan leaves, Sidney Furlow runs past him to her horse. Hagan notes her only in passing. She is slender, and thus not his type.

Chapter 9: Margaret Quong is at home with her mother, Ethel, having lunch (“dinner” as it is called in the country Australian vernacular). Ethel is a white woman. She and Walter went on a first date at Manly Beach and had sex. To Ethel’s dismay she became pregnant and thus they married. She regrets it, seeing his sin in Margaret’s face. Ethel is cruel, often unknowingly, and Margaret has chosen not to let Ethel’s bitterness rule her life. She spends time with her aunt and uncle wherever possible. Margaret heads back to school for the afternoon session, and then on to the general store where her aunt and uncle, Amy and Arthur, are closing up. She often has dinner (“tea”) with them. All three wish they could live as a family without Margaret’s actual parents but no-one ever voices that fact. You can’t do anything about it. Margaret knows she’ll work there as an adult and will be an “old maid” alongside Amy. She then heads for her evening piano lesson with Miss Browne, taking some hard candy: bull’s eyes. Margaret plays piano, wiling herself to be musical like Miss B although she is not naturally so; Margaret finds Miss B strangely beautiful. She wants to be an independent woman like this. Alys Browne sits pondering the life she left in Sydney, the life she could have had in California. An unexpected figure arrives. Dr Halliday has come to check Miss Browne’s hand. After an awkward moment, Margaret abandons the lesson, recognising – in that half-aware way of the young – that something is not right here. Alys is embarrassed when left alone with Oliver Halliday; the only reading material in the room is a magazine, and she wishes he could know she read Tolstoy. They share pleasantries. There is a tension in the room. There is a moment where he sees through her silly exterior into the core underneath. She knows that he has seen. After he leaves, Alys feels that something has happened to her. Dr Halliday returns home. It’s late. The children are in bed. He settles down to write the letter, in which they’ll move to Queensland. But it surprised him, out here in Happy Valley, where people have become just faces, that maybe he’s just met a human being.

Chapter 10: Fancy Mr Belper visiting the Moriartys. Ernest, always ill, is half asleep. Belper is trying to get Ernest to invest in some stocks. Meanehil, Vic Moriarty is privately bitter about Belper and especially his wife whom she regards as dirt common yet prone to looking down on others because of their wealth. Vic routinely has her husband write to request a school posting somewhere else, to no avail. After Belper heads home, Moriarty has several essays to mark on The Cow and Her Relationship with Man but is utterly exhausted. He needs to take his asthma powder and go to sleep. Vic helps Ernest to the bedroom, thinking of men in the past, thinking of her rare times making love with Ernest (“It’s a wonder I’m not a virgin”, she feels). Vic lies next to her husband waiting for him to fall asleep so she can remove her hand from his. Her thoughts and his drift in a sea of consciousness. All of Happy Valley is asleep except for a cat outside which reaches its paws up to touch the stars.

Part II

Chapter 11: Winter passes. Spring passes. We find ourselves in summer. If winter was too cold, too snowy, too difficult, summer here is brown, hot, unmanageable. Dr Halliday has become an established part of the community. Even his former nemesis, midwife Mrs Steele, has accepted him. He visits her now to fix her ulcer and she tells him that the publican’s wife, Mrs Chalker, is expecting again. Dr Halliday has written to his colleague to request the transfer to Brisbane; he has had no response but feels he has done his duty by Hilda, and that he’ll be sorry to leave a community he is getting to know. He visits Alys Browne on a regular basis, they’re friends. They talk, they drink tea, she plays piano for him. It’s casual, comforting, but there’s a tension there. They both want something more but don’t quite know what it is. Ernest Moriarty, meanwhile, is weak; his asthma has remained bad since winter. He has been unable to go to school for a number of days, lying desperately in bed. Vic begs the Doc to write them a letter of recommendation to encourage the board to transfer Ernest. She’s clearly sexually unfulfilled, keeping the Doctor in the house whenever she can. As Halliday gives Moriarty his latest injection, the feeble patient breaks down, confessing how he fears the children he teaches, how much he needs to get out.

Chapter 12: Alys visits Mrs Cissy Belper in the sitting room of the bank. Mrs Belper – who, after all, has a cousin working at Government House, as everyone reminds us constantly – is the one person in town whom Alys goes to for dress fitting, rather than expecting them to come to her. Mrs Belper raises dogs, endless fox terriers. She’s unconventional and – gasp! – may have a common background although no one would admit that. Mrs Belper is amused by Alys, although she also has a lot of thoughts on finding her a husband, on making her more traditional. Mr Joe Belper comes back from the Moriartys’. The Belpers have a quirky, humorous relationship, with each other and their neighbours. They’re odd people but they get away with everything on account of their class. Alys asks about the stocks she has invested in the Salvage Bay Pearl Company; Mr Belper is the bank manager. He promises her that the setocks are coming along just fine, just trust your uncle Joe. She sold the paddocks at Kambala her father once owned to buy the shares; she chose the romance of the pearlers over a life in California, but it is a still a possibility when she receives her profits. Alys eventually goes. She can’t stop thinking that Dr Halliday might have come by her home while she was out. After a frantic walk home, Alys finds Margaret Quong sitting on the porch. Lonely Margaret says she was just passing by, but in fact wanted to check on her older female role model. Margaret tells Alys the Doctor was here. Alys becomes frantic although she knows she can’t show it in front of the girl

Chapter 13: Mrs Furlow is tense. Roger Kemble, the man she plans for Sidney to marry, is staying with them. He’s going back tomorrow to his Vice-Regal duties, and she’s determined the proposal will happen before then. She’s arranged for the young people to going riding but Sidney is being difficult. “Original”, Mrs. F thought once, but now just difficult. Roger is pale, English, blond mustache; she’s worried he’ll peel in the sun. Sidney is quietly defiant… sometimes not so quietly. Mrs F wishes them luck on their ride, and then realises that’s awkward and could even be taken the wrong way. Privately, Roger has doubts she would ever fit in back home in Wiltshire, where he will no doubt succumb to his destiny running for conservative politics in life, needing a compliant wife by his side. Sidney knows it too. She doesn’t want this proposal. It’s stifling her. They ride through Glen Marsh, past CLlem Hagan. Sidney is intrigued by Hagan. They interacted one night at dinner, passing the salad bowl, hands touching. She thinks of sex, of Roger, of what she really wants. Roger seizes the moment, asking her to marry him. Sidney evades the question but it is clear between them it is a rejection. They ride home awkwardly. Back home, Sidney throws a fit to her mother, making it clear that she’ll never marry Roger. Mrs Furlow is left desolate.

Chapter 14: After these months, Clem Hagan is established in town. He and Vic Moriarty have passed ways, a clear attraction between them, as when she brushed up against him – accidentally – in Quong’s General Store. He has been invited to their home for dinner. He soaps himself, shaves, rides into town (leaving his horse at the home of the Schmidt family), and heads to the Moriartys’ house. When he arrives, Mr Moriarty is out at the Belpers’. A frantic Vic can’t decide whether she should be playing the piano or casually singing when he comes in the door. But then she realises the maid Gertie isn’t there – they can’t afford full-time help – so she’ll have to open the door herself. The pair have a couple of drinks, the sexual tension between them undeniable. Vic suggests they go to the pictures. Walking up the hill to the hall, owned by the Quongs, they pass Chuffy Chambers, whom they both joke about. Self-conscious Chuffy, always mocked by others, turns around and goes home rather than face another night as the butt of everyone’s jokes. Amy Quong is on the door. The movie is a Western. Vic Moriarty is happy to say that her foreman is buying her the finest seats in the house. This make her feel superior and also shades the couple in darkness. The pair sit up against one other as the lights dim. As soon as the film starts, Hagan makes the first move, kissing her neck. She barely protests and they spend the entire movie being intimate. When it is done, they walk back. He drags Vic into a laneway and initiates love-making but she pushes him away. Telling him he’s very impatient. She’s the schoolmaster’s wife. They can’t get caught. Vic returns home. The flowers she put out and the glassware are still on the table. Ernest has come home, gone to bed. Vic tells him about the movie, making up the plot she can’t remember. But he has already fallen asleep.

Chapter 15: Oliver Halliday is visiting Alys. They do this often now, although remain platonic thus far. Tonight, something is different. There’s the sound of rain on the roof. It’s late. He tells her that he loves her. It has taken Oliver this time to figure it out. They clearly both lack intimacy in their lives and want something else. The understanding has been many weeks coming. Alys goes into her dark bedroom, takes her clothes off. He joins her. They make love with the sound of rain on the roof, drifting outside their bodies, outside Alys Browne’s bedroom, outside the space that is Happy Valley. When they are done, Oliver gets up. He asks her if she regrets it. She says no. She falls asleep and Oliver wanders back to collect his things and walk back down the hill in the rain to his wife and family. He knows he should feel sorry but he has no regrets.

Chapter 16: Rodney Halliday is in school, listening to Willy Schmidt read a dull chapter about the Cavaliers and the Roundheads. Rodney’s mind wanders even more than usual through a range of images, hopes, fears, thinking about hisotry, his parents, his father Dr Halliday, the latter’s friendship with Alys Browne. There’s an implication that Rodney has been to the house to fetch his father but it doesn’t seem he saw anything, or at least nothing he could register as a child. Ernest Moriarty, the teacher, is close to falling asleep on his desk. Rodney looks across at Margaret who is concealing her own pain: her bitter mother, her sorrowful desire to be anywhere and anything else, her unrequited idol worship love of Miss Browne, who once made a passing comment that the pair of them could have a fun life in California which to this teenage girl seemed like an opening to a dream. Yet Margaret’s friendship with Rodney is complicated. She’s suspicious of Dr Halliday. She knows his relationship with Alys is less than pure, is maybe even a threat to her own relationship with the piano teacher. Moriarty, meanwhile, tells the children to keep reading the chapter out loud. He doesn’t want to be there, has no interest in these kids. He is pondering how nice it is that Hagan has been taking his wife out to dances and doing the things her husband can’t do. Moriarty falls asleep, reflecting in dreams on a story Vic told him of a woman who had an affair and abandoned her husband and children, driving with her lover on a motorbike to a new life in Melbourne. This thought sets off a series of ragged, violent, scattered dreams. The children realise their teacher has fallen asleep and start mucking around. It’s a day when Rodney has had it with the bullies. Unusually, he explodes. He throws an orange at the face of Andy Everett. The two fall into a fight. The class becomes a wrestling ring, waking Moriarty. He snaps, driven on by his complete fear and loathing of the strong, of the young. It’s a jungle here, and he must be the king, even though he cannot be so anywhere else. Moriarty grabs a ruler, hitting the children sharply. Corporal punishment of exactly what you’d expect in the 1930s. Margaret Quong takes the worst of it, despite being innocent of the fighting. Moriarty has reestablished the culture of fear he needs to rule. The children become obedient. Margaret Quong, broken and bruised, races out the door as soon as the bell rings. Moriarty is left, pondering his wife’s unhappiness, and perhaps his own.

Chapter 17: Summer is done. Sidney Furlow has received four letters from Roger Kemble, with more proposals. She walks along the property, discovering a big new colt in the stables which Hagan has been violently breaking in. Sidney doesn’t want Roger but part of herself tells her she needs someone like him. Ripping up his letters is defiance against her mother. So is riding the colt. She takes him, despite the rough challenge, but manages to stay on as she flies down the fields. The colt is broken, true, but she is also a talented rider. Hagan appears on his own horse, surprised that she has been courageous enough to try the horse. The two ride together, until they come across a snake in the grass. Hagan stops, takes out a stick and kills the snake. The way Sidney looks at him still makes Hagan feel small. He doesn’t want her, or so he tells us; a slender young thing is not quite in his line. But it’s not often that women make him feel so small. Sidney, meanwhile, wants to manipulate others, and to enjoy the feeling of being wanted. She picks up the dead snake to indicate her complete control, stroking it, petting it. Hagan freaks out, as the snake might not be dead. He grabs the carcass and tosses it down. In the moment, a passion ignites and the pair kiss. She pushes him away and rides home. Hagan watches her go. She knows she has all the control. She could tell her father and have Hagan sacked right away. She’ll keep that as an option but the fact that he knows she has control is enough. In this moment, though, he does not care. An attraction has been confirmed.

Chapter 18: The incident at the schoolroom has preyed on the mothers and fathers of Happy Valley. Margaret came home black and blue from her beating. Her mother Ethel is up in arms. At the same time, what good will it do to lodge a formal complaint, Aunt Amy asks? Amy sits outside the store one afternoon, greeting passersby, watching her neighbours. Oliver Halliday goes past. Old Mrs Everett and Mrs Ansell, gossips, wink at each other as he does so. Almost everyone in town has figured out what is going on with Oliver and Alys. Oliver takes his son Rodney for an afternoon of shooting at Kambala. For the boy it’s a complete drag. The pain of sitting in silence with your father on the drive, not knowing what to say, not knowing how to communicate. Whever possible, Oliver sleeps and Rodney builds a fort to put beetles in. Oliver has received a letter from Dr Garthwaite in Queensland, agreeing to trade practices come the winter. He hasn’t shown Hilda the letter. He no longer wants to leave. He wants to be a good father, though, which is why he has taken Rodney on this rabbit-hunting trip in the first place. But Alys, here in this lonely village, has given him motivation, hope, purpose, things his family do not. They drive back. Rodney gets out to visit the Quongs. He doesn’t like to go into Margaret’s house because the bitter Ethel scares him. The kids have been playing together for months now; he no longer minds being mocked by other kids for playing with a girl. The kids play in the garage, talking about the future. Rodney tells Margret he expects they’ll marry. But she tells him she won’t ever marry. He can’t understand yet; he’s a child. For the first time their four-year age difference comes between them. Rodney gets grumpy, telling her that they’re going to Sydney anyway so it doesn’t matter. Late, Rodney gets home. Everyone is in a mood. He doesn’t want dinner. Baby Georege is upset. Hilda is lamenting that she saw her husband receive the letter about the transfer, but he won’t tell her about it. She breaks down at dinner, confronting Oliver about the letter. Telling him she wishes she were dead and that she knows he feels the same way. Oliver protests but it’s meek, a mere formality. The sickly Hilda fears the onset of winter. Her coughing is now bringing up blood. Oliver resolves to accept the offer, and leave in August. He will escape for the sake of others, even if it means abandoning his own fulfilment.

Chapter 19: Ernest Moriarty visits Quongs’ to buy some peppermits. Amy can barely contain her hatred of Moriarty for what he did to Margaret. He doesn’t realise this, and moves solidly on. Amy’s anger is a rare thing to see. Only those closest to her know it when it’s happening. Clem Hagan is the next customer, buying two pounds of chocolates (for Vic). He studies this Chinese-Australian woman, largely dismissing her. Like everyone else, Amy has heard the rumours and is pretty sure she knows what the chocolates are for. She dislikes Hagan for who he is, but a part of her is delighted to know Vic is stepping out on the despicable Ernest. Hagan leaves with his chocolates, going to visit Vic. She often writes sensational adulterous letters to Hagan and he comes to her – not often enough for her pleasure but enough for his. With Ernest at school, the pair make love in the Moriartys’ marital bed. Afterward she talks… and talks…. She admires his body as Hagan gets dressed. She asks when he’ll come again. He is vague. In his thoughts, Hagan knows this won’t last forever. You’ve always got to get out of these affairs before confrontation or decay. In her mind, he’s the only thing keeping her going. Vic lies there all afternoon, thinking of Hagan, promising herself that she’s fond of her husband too.

Chapter 20: Autumn is well entrenched. Mr Furlow returns from a trip to Sydney. He disembarks the train near Moorang, climbing into his fancy Packard car with chauffeur. He’s terfified of many things: of being in Sydney, of human contact (a man on the train asked him his opinion on Mussolini, which was intimidating). His world is a small one and thus comprehensible. Home is safety. As he pulls into Glen Marsh, Mr Furlow is reminded of his little girl Sidney who would race out to ask him when he arrived home, asking what he had brought her. He still brings her things now as a young adult but he doesn’t really understand her, doesn’t want to. She is the unknown. Mrs Furlow greets her husband, clearly feeling distressed by the Roger Kemble situation. She doesn’t explicitly tells him that, as she prefers just to look martyred at the general situation. Mr Furlow gives Sidney a beautiful diamond bracelet. As an adult, Sidney has become embarrassed by this fat little man, although she tells herself she is still fond of him. She has chosen not to tell him about Hagan kissing her, because this way she can retain the secret, and refuse to admit to herself that it might have meant anything. Telling her father would acknowledged that he could have mattered at all. Mr Furlow leaves her with her present; he has done his part and can now retreat to the world he understands: his study, his newspaper. Sidney reclines with her new diamond bracelet, her mind lapsing into her French lessons, reminders of the years she spent away from Happy Valley.

Chapter 21: Autumn continues apace. Hilda is content now that they’re going away by winter. Oliver has accepted it too, realising he must do what’s best for his family. He closes his mind to the possibilities of the future. Oliver tells Alys, which hurts them both. They’ve acknowledged that what they have must be real. But he needs to make this choice. In the near-silence, Oliver and Alys share an intimate moment. She tries to disconnect from her feelings.

Chapter 22: In late Autumn comes the two day race festival, the highlight of the Happy Valley social calendar. The grand Race Week Ball – a dance held at the School of Arts on a Friday night – enlivens the entire town, and all those who live in the vicinity. Old dresses are dusted off for repurposing; drinks are poured. Chuffy Chambers plays his accordion at the ball, to the enjoyment (and amusement) of the crowd, although he scowls when he sees Hagan, a man who made him feel small many months ago. Ernest Moriarty isn’t feeling well (surprise) so he stays at home with a book while Hagan accompanies Vic. The pair dance shamelessly; almost everyone in the room knows they’re having an affair. Amy Quong prepares the supper tables in the basement. The Furlows and the Belpers are there in their best clothes, socialising, ruling the roost. Hilda Halliday too has stayed at home, not well. Sidney Furlow watches on the sidelines, the emo teenager, unimpressed. Hagan is distracted by her; Vic has become a millstone around his neck, too obsessed to be appealing; Sidney – despite his seeming hatred for her – is attractive because of how little she seems to care for him. Alys Browne crushes a rose in her hands, suffering from the sorrow of losing Oliver. But when the pair see each other, they cannot help meeting, disappearing into the night air to talk further. Gossips’ eyes are everywhere. All of our characters interact, watching, judging, doubting. Every single element of life in Happy Valley comes together here, no matter their social rank. After a few hours, Hagan builds up the courage (and the blood alcohol level) to ask Sidney to dance. She agrees, in spite of herself. He’s determined he’s going to show her his worth, and of course she delights in dancing with this inappropriate figure in front of the whole town, flaunting her individuality. A strange desire passes between them, opposites attracting. Her father doesn’t notice; he’s a solo figure, in his own head despite being at a large event. Outside, Oliver confesses that he has changed his mind: he can’t leave Alys. A significant part of his subconscious knows that he could never rationally leave his family but in the heat of the moment, Oliver chooses to ignore his doubts. Oliver has reasoned it out morally: he’ll set up Hilda with everything she needs to be secure and raise the boys. He will go away with Alys, start again, perhaps in America. Night becomes early morning. Vic Morirarty watches with jealousy as Hagan and Sidney dance, ultimately throwing a bit of a fit as she storms off. In the early morning, Happy Valley sleeps. The ball is over. Yet decisions have been made that must upend things.

Chapter 23: Saturday dawns. Race Day. The whole town becomes the narrator. Everyone’s betting with their own theories or certainties about the Cup. Arthur Quong has entered his beloved colt; no-one expects a “Chow”‘s horse to win. Everyone descends upon the Race course, from Chuffy Chambers to the Belpers. Vic Moriarty has had a tiring morning. Her husband was in a bad mood, grumbling about a “phoney” egg on his plate. He is heading off to give a paper to the Moorang and District Philatelists’ Club. Vic convinces him to stay over in Moorang, rather than suffering through the nighttime journey back. She immediately plots to have Hagan come over that night – now more than ever, with young Sidney on the horizon, she needs to secure his affections. However Ernest Moriarty has a secret: he has received a poison pen letter, revealing the truth about Vic and Hagan. He wants to bring it up, but he can’t engage with the reality quite yet; he can’t quite accept the truth sitting obviously in front of him. After Ernest sets off for Moorang, Vic dresses in her Saturday best. At the showground, Arthur prepares his colt with excitement. His brother Walter, for all their differences, believes in him, getting drunk in celebration before the event has even happened. Mr Belper, the richest man in town, seems unsettled for some reason; he’s not in the mood for the bright aphorisms he usually spouts, fixated indeed on the horses he’s betting on. After several minor races, the Cup begins. To Arthur’s amazement, his colt wins. Belper did not bet on Arthur, tearing up his tickets and walking away in shock. Vic corners Clem, telling him that Ernest will be away all night, asking him to come over. She makes it clear that she wants a warning if he’s going to end it, pleadingly. Sidney walks past, heading home in the rain. Hagan’s eyes follow her instead, but he agrees to go to Vic’s. She’s better than empty yearning, after all. Cup Day draws to an end with a whimper, the fervent cheering giving way to the flat exhaustion of the end of the day. Happy Valley’s denizens crawl home.

Chapter 24: Vic waits impatiently for her lover. She recalls her “fondness” for Ernest in their youth, and moments they shared such as the love of a now-dead dog. Vic picks at the now-withered cyclamen in her sitting room, browning and rusting in its lustre bowl. Clem arrives after dark. She is certain that he is losing interest, and rather desperately swears that she loves him. He grabs her and they make love. After they’re done, Vic sleeps, dreaming haltingly of death. When she wakes, Clem is dressing to go. Vic tries to tell him a story, Scheherazade-style, to keep him there. Clem knows what she is doing. As he puts on the last of his clothes, they hear it: the sound of footsteps out in the sitting room…

Chapter 25: Late Saturday night, Rodney Halliday, now ten years old, sits in the yard, musing on death. An old lady, Mrs Worthington, has died. He helped his mother send flowers. It is the first time he has thought about the reality of death. He knows too that something isn’t right in the house, that his parents are in a strange, subdued war. It is strange coming to the realisation that his parents sometimes do things that children don’t do. Rodney goes in to say goodnight to his father, in the dispensary. He doesn’t know what to say but something tells Rodney that this moment matters. Oliver, unbeknownst to his son, is not packing a bag to see a patient. He’s burning his papers and preparing to flee this life forever. Oliver surrenders the family photograpohs on the wall, grabs his bag and his coat, and leaves the family home. Happy Valley is dark. Rodney Halliday lets himself give into sleep. On the side of the road, drunken Walter Quong sleeps. Alys Browne waits in her house, bag packed, also wiling to leave everything behind, walking out on half a life to embrace the possibility of a full one. Alys refuses to think about Hilda as a real person. Life elsewhere was exciting, and will be again; that’s all that matters. Oliver collects her for their journey.

Chapter 26: Hagan and Vic stand in fear in the bedroom. Ernest Moriarty is out there. Hagan sneaks out through the hall, grabbing his hat which is rather obviously stationed on the rack in the foyer. Outside, he runs into Chuffy, who is drunkenly wandering up the street. Hagan hoofs it. Inside, Moriarty is running circles in the sitting room. He gave his talk at Moorang and then went for drinks at the pub where he was to stay for the night. But something felt wrong, the letter weighed heavily on his mind. He collapsed at the pub, the Crown, after listening to men talk about murder cases in the newspaper, debating why men do violent things. Ernest shrugged off help and found someone in the bar who was heading through Happy Valley the same night. He sat in the back of the truck, pondering monomaniacally about his wife all the way. On his unexpected return home, Ernest saw the hat on the rack, heard noises in the bedroom. Something compelled him to run around the sitting room, musing that he has always run around in circles in no purposes, so why not do it in one’s own sitting room? He hears Hagan leave, and goes to the bedroom, a room that now symbolises betrayal. Vic is still naked, and fearfully covers herself with a sheet. She opens her mouth to tell him a lie about being raped. Ernest grabs her, pushes her against the wall, beating and strangling her. She collapses, dead, and he violently twists her tongue out of her mouth. Ernest stumbles into the sitting room, fondling the cyclamen before smashing the lustre bowl, leaving the flower broken and bruised. Ernest staggers into the street, and starts walking away from Happy Valley. He is now one of those men he heard about who do inexplicable violent things. In the cold night air, his heart begins to tighten. Ernest collapses and dies.

Chapter 27: Oliver and Alys drive in the pre-dawn light, a light which makes the structure of Happy Valley seem half-real. They’re both unsure but determined. They seem to hit something in the road. Oliver gets out to have a look. It’s Moriarty’s dead body, almost cold. He’s fallen in the road from a heart attack. As the town doctor, Oliver has to take him back and explain what happened. It seems like a small task, but Alys knows that the thread of fantasy has been broken; reality must intrude now upon their desires. Oliver drives back to the Moriartys’ home, leaving Alys in the car while he takes the body inside. He finds Vic lying dead in the bedroom, her face a pulp. In this moment he feels lost, small, impotent, when confronted with evil. He sees now how a completely normal life has been upended. When Oliver returns to the car, Alys is gone. In the darkness, Oliver wanders up to the police station.

Chapter 28: Sidney Furlow can’t sleep. All she can think about is Hagan. She wants him. Sidney puts on a fur coat, which her mother bought her, and strolls down the field, naked underneath the coat, to the stables. Hagan has just returned from town on his horse. She makes it clear what she wants. Hagan is in a sullen, angry mood, and tells her to go back to bed. The next morning, Mr Furlow and Sidney are having breakfast quietly – Mr Furlow’s preferred type of breakfast – when Mrs Furlow walks in with the news that both Vic and Ernest Moriarty have been found dead, the latter from a heart attack, the former murdered. Rumours in town are clear that Hagan was having an affair with Vic; which of the men killed her? Chuffy Chambers saw Hagan in the lane late at night. Mrs Furlow is horrified that their foreman might drag them into a scandal. Sidney spontaneously lies that Hagan was in her room all night, that they were making love. She goes further: she loves him, Sidney says, and is planning to marry him. The Furlows are horrified, but Sidney has stopped caring. She races down to the shed to find Hagan, expalning the situation. Hagan realises Moriarty must have killed his wife, of course, but sees that it doesn’t look good for him. Sidney knows he didn’t do it, but given that there is a witness who saw him leaving the house, he’ll be ostracised. Chuffy is known to be weak in the head, though, so why not accept Sidney’s alibi? Sidney gives him an ultimatum: she’ll save him from prison and, in exchange, she shall marry him. They’ll go away together, and Sidney Furlow can do what she wishes with her life. They’ll have a property, Sidney will have children, her husband will see to the affairs under her command.

Chapter 29: The revealtion of the murder stirs up everyone in Happy Valley. It is an atmosphere of shock… but life has to go on. The Hallidays prepare their move to Queensland. Oliver knows that what he saw in the Moriartys’ bedroom was the destruction and decay of a way of life; what was left of Vic’s face reminds him of a potential end for his own story. He came home that night, and told Hilda over breakfast what had happened. Hilda had heard the car pulling out the night before, and quietly knew what Oliver was planning. But her husband came back after all, so Hilda is filled with a strange kind of hope. Oliver goes into the dispensary and, in one of the toughest moments of his life, writes to Alys that he is leaving with the family rather than choosing to create more desturction. He tells Alys he loves her, that loving her will be his primary purpose. He will be gone and they will not meet again, but their love will remain. Oliver walks to the post to send his letter. Alys ponders her past in the convent and Sydney, and her future, back within the confining walls of her Happy Valley home. When she receives Oliver’s letter, Alys tears it to shreds and breaks down crying. She has a purpose at last, but that purpose is to be loved by someone whom she can never be with.

Chapter 30: The murder case becomes a sensationalist trial. The jury hears the evidence against the late Ernest Moriarty and also against the alleged lover of the victim, Clem Hagan. They hear Chuffy’s allegation that he saw Hagan, but everyone doubts Chuffy, even his own mother. Gertie Ansell, the maid, testifies that Hagan often visited the house, but no-one can confirm – to a jury’s satisfaction – that he was having an affair with Vic. On the other hand, it is known that Ernest Moriarty was acting strange that night at his speech and at the Crown. And there is evidence that he snapped in a schoolroom once, beating the children mercilessly. The case provides much fodder for the tabloid press all across New South Wales. Hagan’s alibi is a part of that. Young Sidney Furlow confesses in open court that Hagan was in her room late at night, and … no, under the circumstances, her parents cannot verify that. Ernest Moriarty is found guilty posthumously. After the trial is done, Mr Furlow cannot enjoy his newspapers anymore. What was once the news of the world outside is now news of his own family. Furlow doesn’t understand his daughter’s choices but of course he must make her happy. He organises to buy a property near Scone, where Hagan can raise sheep and cattle. Sidney visits her prospective husband in the stables one day. He asks her why she did all this. Sidney simply tells him that she always gets what she wants: a life that she has chosen for herself. The pair’s wedding is announced with a honeymoon in Java. Mrs Furlow, we’re told, has been broken by this. Ever since the night of the murder, she’s forgotten to put cream on her face before getting into bed.

Chapter 31: Winter. Rodney Halliday is preparing to go away. Mother has told him he’ll go to school in Sydney while the family moves to Queensland. At the Quongs’, Rodney finds Margaret. It has been a year since we met these children and Margaret is now 14, all grown up, in her mind. Over the past weeks, Margaret made a choice: she defiantly told her mother that she was going to live with Aunt Amy and Uncle Arthur. Ethel was mortified but Walter Quong – focused on his colt, his cars, the girls like Gertie Ansell whom he sees on the side – didn’t put up a fight. Margaret returns home often to help her mother with chores, but she has chosen a life of her own. She will leave school as soon as she can, give up her piano lessons with Miss Browne, and work at the store. Margaret has lost her childlike adulation for Alys, sees no point now in piano lessons, in hero worship. Margaret has abandoned, too, the pain of her pre-teen years, of her mother’s bitterness and the beating by Moriarty. The schoolmaster and his wife, now dead, have no real significance for her. The other girls lust after the new schoolteacher, but Margaret is changing. And now this little boy, Rodney, wants to play one last time. She is polite to him but her mind is no longer there. Rodney realises it too. He looks at her in the twilight, knowing that Margaret doesn’t understand the things he does. Rodney has come to terms with death, with the outside world, with the infinite. Margaret, whom he was going to marry, is happy here, in this little world. Margaret briefly recalls the shell he gave her a year ago, during a moment that seemed so important to them both. Rodney had forgotten about it; Margaret had too. Sydney and Queensland await. Rodney will be an explorer, he thinks, rather than a a doctor, while Margaret Quong will become one of those women he sees around town. Their paths have diverged.

Chapter 32: Bad news greets Mr Belper. The Belpers are stony broke, as he confesses to his wife. All of their investments have crashed, partly because of the aftermath of the Great Depression – the “Crisis” – but also due to the fact that the pearling company, Salvage Bay, has gone bust. Mr Belper has faith. After all, Australia is a country of the future. They need time to recover their gains, to find more room for development. Perhaps inland. Mrs Belper considers the issue and ultimately laughs it off. They’ll let go of their servants if they have to. They’ll make do. They always find a way. Alys Browne arrives to visit. Alys has decided she must leave Happy Valley behind after all, go to California, become independent. It’s bad timing. She can’t sell her Salvage Bay shares as they’re now worthless. The Belpers rather light-heartedly tell her that it will be okay. They’re all in the same boat; after all, the Belpers can’t go to Manly this summer, what a loss! Mrs Belper is full of narrative. She “pins her faith to narrative”, finding a way to furnish her life with incidents rather than anything real. Alys accepts this shattering news well. It is part of her pragmatic approach to life, but also that she sees through Mrs Belper. She does not want a life that is merely full of meaningless incidents, and perhaps California was another of those. Perhaps it was just something to give her life meaning rather than a real aim. As she walks home in the cold winter’s day, Alys thinks of Oliver, but determines not to live in the past. She will make the most of what she has, instead.

Chapter 33: On a rainy morning, the Hallidays finish emptying the house. Rodney carves his initials into the kitchen door. Hilda packs everything neatly, moving boxes to the car. They remove the doctor’s nameplate from the door. (The new doctor arrives in the morning.) Oliver thinks of the previous night. Lying in the dark together, Hilda spoke to him honestly, told him she knew about Alys and she understood. Oliver was stunned: Hilda has discovered the confidence and openness they have never had as a couple. If she is changing, Oliver thinks, maybe he can too; perhaps they can try after all. The Hallidays pull away from their house for the last time. Rodney watches the streets of Happy Valley, seeing things he has never noticed before, yet also realising that the street no longer has meaning for him, no more meaning than any other street. His mind is fixed on the wonders that await him up north. They drive past the Quongs, who have gathered on the veranda to wave goodbye. Amy Quong watches them go, thinking about how content she is with her quiet, self-made life. She thinks too about the anonymous letter she wrote to Moriarty, knowing it would cause pain to the man who had hurt her niece. The car departs Happy Valley’s town limits. Rodney and George are excited in the back. Hilda and Oliver share a glance, acknowledging they are together. She nestles her head on her husband’s shoulder. Oliver thinks of Alys, and the way she will be a part of him for all time. The true connections we make which protect our inner self. Nothing can claim them. Death can take our outer shell, but nothing can take away the relationships we form. The car moves on, disappearing into the rain.

Editions:

• George G. Harrap, Ltd. (UK, Feb 1939, 327pp), in three printing, the final of these in the Harrap Fiction Library
• Viking (US, May 1940, 317pp)
• Gallimard (France, 1951, “Eden-Ville”, trans: Marie Viton), reprinted four times that year.
• Text Classics (AU, 2012, introduction by Peter Craven)
  Text Classics (eBook, 2012)
• Bolinda (Audiobook, 2013, read by: Peter Hosking)
• Vintage Classics (UK, 2013)
• Eesit Raamat (Estonia, 2013, “Happy Valley linnake“, trans: Urve Hanko)
• עם עובד (Israel, 2016, “עמק האושר“, trans: אברהם ין

(Left: original 1939 press sheet for the debut novel.)

[see the Press Gallery for some newspaper review clippings from 1939]

• J.D. Beresford, Manchester Guardian, 3/2/1939
• V.S. Pritchett, Bystander, 8/2/1939:
  • “If Mr White is sometimes obscure, jumpy and allusive, hates too much, and has not yet got Ulysses out of his system, these mannerisms are the surplus of a biting, adroit, and sensual talent.
• Leonora Eyles TLS 11/2/1939,
• Desmond Shawe-Taylor, New Statesman and Nation 11/2/1939
• Ralph Straus, Sunday Times – 12/2/1939:
  • “I do not suppose Happy Valley will be to the taste of the average reader, but it is an unusual and provocative piece of work. … I have said that his story is thin, but it is not unsatisfactory”.
• Pamela Hansford Johnson, Liverpool Post, 13/2/1939
• Kate O’Brien, Spectator, 17/2/1939
• Arthur J. Rees, “A Far From Happy Valley”, Melbourne Herald, 18/2/1939:
  • “It is something quite out of the ordinary. The author has invented a new form of dialogue for his tale, and weaves it in with telling effect… The novel is a reaction against all commonplace values, and in this lies its chief significance. The author has the gift of sketching a character on a thumbnail and making it live… A pervading sense of the futility of life is all very well… But the great Australian novel, in its final and ultimate justification, must…stand on higher ground.”
• Brisbane Telegraph, 1/3/1939
• Freda Barrymore, Townsville Daily Bulletin, 6/3/1939:
  • “[The book was taken on] by the publishers “in the sincere belief that Mr White will one day become a front-tank novelist of whom Australia may well be proud”… In London an eminent critic [has written] of it: “This is the most interesting novel of Australian life I can remember since D.H. Lawrence’s Kangaroo and certainly one of the most mature first novels of recent years.”
• The Times 10/3/1939
• “Novel by Australian with Ability”, Adelaide Mail, 18/3/1939:
  • “This is a remarkable novel, all the more so because it is a first. For perception, for drawing of character, for a conception of life that is only too real and straightforward, and for a style that is strong and unusual every reader should be proud that the author is an Australian… It doesn’t improve one’s opinion of his fellows, but it is extremely well done… [W]ith a country so young as Australia, surely a little hope, a little looking towards the future, might be advisable? After all, we’re not old enough to despair to any purpose.”
• G.B., “High Gloom in Australia”, Daily Telegraph, 25/3/1939:
  • “A mature novel that makes a theme of suffering.” [A heavily critical review but concluding:] “To exercise such criticism on a performance as intelligent as Happy Valley is a new pleasure for the Australian reviewer.”
• Autolycus, West Australian, 25/3/1939:
  • “It is a realistic piece of work, and the characters and incidents… are well-drawn, especially the central figure of the book, Dr. Oliver Halliday. When he has rid himself of a few minor faults and immaturities, Mr. White should have a future before him as a writer of fiction.”
• The North Queensland Register, 1/4/1939
• SA Chronicle (The Advertiser), 1/4/1939:
  • “The book has nothing but novelty to recommend it… Otherwise it is an almost unreadable book, insufferably mannered, precious, redolent of imitators of D.H. Lawrence and James Joyce… The author’s refusal to use quotation marks to distinguish dialogue from the rest of the story renders it even more incoherent than it might have been… Much of the book is revolting; its people are horrible, monstrous exaggerations. They are certainly not ordinary Australians.”
• The Home: An Australian Quarterly, 1/4/1939
  • The novel is “the result of a literary Paris-New York-London-Berlin-Sydney axis… for a first novel it is virile, and gives one a sense of suspended excitement. Like the first work of so many young novelists, it is ironic and bitter. The author kicks his characters from page to page in a manner nearing literary sadism. His characters live, and he can enter into the minds of children in a compelling manner.”
• SMH, 1/4/1939:
  • “This novel must be regarded as a definite landmark in the development of Australian fiction. Nevertheless, it is infinitely further removed from the… Great Australian novel than a number of publications… That Mr. White has a flair for characterisation and can write exceptionally well must be admitted even though one may be antagonised and exasperated by his affectations…. [O]ne questions the justice of Mr. White’s inspissate gloom – mental, moral and physical
• London Evening Standard, April 1939:
  • Listed Happy Valley as one of the 12 outstanding books of the year. “The background is superb. Mr. White writes under a number of conflicting influences, all of them bad for him; but the strength of his own individual talents shines through.”
• H. Morton, “Happy Valley is Unhappy Reading”, Wireless Weekly, 5/4/1939:
  • “There is a nasty muddle in most of these [characters’] minds, not that they are really vicious, but sadly frustrated. There is little action and little happiness, but the author shows in detail the unlovely patterns of these sordid lives.”
• The Bulletin, 19/4/1939:
  • “His story handles firmly in every way, the characters are fully imagined, events develop out of character and circumstance, there is not the slightest disposition to import false values… Happy Valley is not a book for those who think writers should work in collaboration with the Tourist Bureau, but it is a very remarkable first novel … there arises the question of how far obvious influences have dictated the selection of matter. Future work should answer that.”
• Australian Women’s Mirror, 25/4/1939:
  • “Why is it that some Australian novelists write novels which are completely un-Australian? Patrick White, a young writer who has been associated with amateur theatricals in Sydney, is the latest to reveal this fault…. Never for one moment does it… convince the reader… that it is authentic [Australian portrayal]. As an interesting piece of fiction surprisingly well written it is well worth reading… I recommend this for its unusual strength and distinctive literary style (even if he has been influenced by earlier writers), but not for its “Austrlaian” characters or atmosphere.”
• Harold J. Oliver, Australian National Review, May 1939
• Kenneth (Seaforth) Mackenzie, “Happy and Unhappy”, Desiderata May 1939 (reprinted Weekend Australian 6-7 July 1985):
  • “Patrick White’s novel should be acclaimed as it deserves,, It is good… for the one and good reason that the author is honest… [The characters] have been handled subjectively. You share or overhear their thought, and thus look through, not into, their eyes. By doing this you often catch bright glimpses of other people, but seldom at first-hand.”
• SMH, A Woman’s Library List, 15/4/1939:
  • “It is very unpleasant in parts and gloomy most of the way through. Mr White can undoubtedly write, and he employs the modern technique the stream-of-consciousness method, which sometimes leads him astray.”
• Furnley Maurice (Frank Wilmot), Bohemia June 1939 (positive review)
• West Australian, 15/7/1939:
  • “So far as form goes it is one of the most competent Australian novels yet written. There are no loose ends… There is no comment, no moralising, no attempt to explain or justify…Mr White does not abuse his method. He does not attempt everything, like Mr James Joyce, nor is his language unintelligible… Comfortable people who have the universe taped out in neat patterns will find this novel as troublesome to their paper schemes as real life. Therein lies its power. You may like or dislike his book and his characters but, if you have any sensitiveness to reality at all, you cannot remain indifferent to them. There is depth of perception and a real understanding of human values throughout. In some respects Happy Valley is the most notable of recent Australian novels. Certainly, it is an indication that the undoubted literary renaissance that is taking place in Australia today is not untouched by the main literary currents overseas.”
• Ralph Thompson, New York Times, 22/5/1940
• Jane Spence Southron, NYT Book Review, 26/5/1940
• Kirkus Reviews, May 1940:
  • “[T]here emerges a picture of frustration and hopelessness. The author has an uncanny faculty for stressing psychological nuances, undertones, and so on. It is an interesting and very perceptive first novel, but it’s not a book that will be easy selling or easy reading.”
• J.S. Mahon, New York Herald Tribune Books, 2/6/1940
• Marian Wiggin, Boston Transcript, 22/6/1940
• New Republic, 1/7/1940
• Louis B. Salomon, The Nation, 7/9/1940:
  • “This first novel…manifests an unusually mature and objective perception of the springs of personality, a startling insight into the mechanism of the mind. Using a stream-of-consciousness technique that recalls novelist Virginia Woolf at her best, White adroitly translates into words the subtle counterpoint of thought-fragment melting into thought-fragment, bits of memory and mental irritation pursuing each other like damned spirits through the never-idle brain. Of plot in the conventional sense the book has only what is furnished by the cramped lives of the inhabitants of a little town in the south of Australia.”
• H.M./ Green, Southerly 2.1 (April 1941)
• Andrew Riemer SMH 25/8/2012
• Delia Falconer, The Australian 1/9/2012
• Thomas Keneally, Guardian 19/12/2012

“I have learnt this, he felt, that it is pitiable, this Happy Valley, even in its violence that at first you thought deliberately destructive and cruel there is a human core that makes you overflow with pity for it.”

“She seemed to have caught on to the thread of the inevitable again” (9)

“There was something vicious about letting your mind run on like that.” (13)

“He felt far younger than he had ever felt copying Great Thoughts into a notebook at home, but it was a fresh sensation, he appreciated it, walking about the streets in Paris and everyone else preoccupied. But he was worried because everyone was old and when he went out of the city into the country, to Saint Germain or the forest at Fontainebleau, the country was young. That was the strange part. It was stranger because at home everything was reversed. The people were young, adolescent, almost embryonic. When he got back from Europe he looked at them and there was nothing there. Life was a toy, you rattled it. But the country was old, older than the forest at Fontainebleau, there was an underlying bitterness that had been scored deep and deep by time, with a furrow here and there and pockmarks in the face of black stone. Over everything there was a hot air of dormant passion, of inner war, that nobody seemed to be conscious of. In Sydney you went to parties. In Happy Valley you fornicated or drank. You swung the rattle for all you were worth. You did not know you were sitting on a volcano that might not be extinct.” (15)

“But the country, it made you sick, just to look at, not a blade of grass, though they said it was the country for sheep. Still, you always said that once you’d landed yourself in a mess just to make the best of things.” (22)

“Anyone who stares long enough into the distance is bound to be mistaken for a philosopher or mystic in the end.” (24)

“Because somebody once built a house, I think it was probably old Quong, and someone else come along and built another, some little way off, just far enough to show that there was no love lost in the act. And it went on like that, just building here and there, without cooperation. There never was co-operation in Happy Valley, not even in the matter of living, or you might even say less in the matter of living. In Happy Valley the people existed in spite of each other (27)

“Because, after Arthur, you might say that Amy’s passion was things; she would have called them things herself, and she had a number of things, the lids of scallop-shells, and a Chinese dressing gown that she bought at a shop near the Central Station in Sydney. She lived in a kind of mystical attachment to her things; she lived with them in the cocoon of custom that led her to dust them, to take them up and put them down. And she wanted more; she was always anxious to add a thread to the soft and necessary structure of the cocoon.” (33)

“God, what a place it was, that street that you looked down every day and nobody ever came. ” (37)

“But the other was an old man, one of those static old men you see in country bars, who seem to have no significance at all, except as recipients of drinks that they pour in through the meshes of a yellowish moustache, just standing and nodding, willing to listen to a story, but never giving much in return. They are generally called Abe or Joe. Though this one was called Barney, as a matter of fact. ” (54)

“Hilda tried not to see this, or would not, was afraid to see. She built herself a raft of superficialities and floated down the stream. She tried to drag him on to her raft, and when he almost upset it she did not complain. I must be nice to Hilda, he said. I am growing morose and introspective. It’s the climate, or age.” (85)

‘Mr Furlow hadn’t a mind, only a mutual understanding between a number of almost dormant instincts. ” (97)

“But the fact is I’m a failure, Moriarty said. I can’t cope with them. All those children. Sitting there. You don’t know, doctor, how children can hate. Half their life is pure hate. They hate you when they know you’re weak. They hate you when they know you’re strong, because they’re afraid, they think you’re going to make use of your strength. And d’you know, doctor, I- I’m afraid of them, I think.” (148)

“I dare say most of us are afraid, he said. Not of the same things perhaps. We start off being afraid of the dark. Then your fear probably moves its centre to something more tangible. And most of it rises out of a feeling of being alone. Being alone is being afraid. Perhaps one day we’ll all wake up to the fact that we’re all alone, that we’re all afraid, and then it’ll just be too damn silly to go on being afraid.” (149)

“It was a dangerous theme, success. ” (149)

“He must send medicine to Moriarty, though more, he could not give him more, he wanted to give him more, he wanted to give so many people the impossible through the existing wall that somehow the human personality seems to erect. ” (151)

“Mrs Belper is very unconventional, said Mrs Furlow once upon a time, unwilling to launch a suspicion that Mrs Belper was common, ” (153)

“Australia, the land of plagues” (176)

Oliver: “I have never spoken to Hilda using anything but the outer convention of words.” (195)

“This is the world. This is Happy Valley. This is also not the world. ” (200)

“A wilderness of hours lay between lunch and tea.” (218)

“During the summer you looked at things with your eyes half closed, and the landscape was almost impressionist, colour and forms broken by the heat. But with the recession of the hot weather a line no longer wavered, was unequivocal. That sweep of the hill behind the town that had shimmered all summer was now static, classical, had the firmness of a Poussin in the afternoon. Late in the afternoon the sky, clarified by the early frosts, was a suave enamel blue. Autumn waited for winter with no storm of transition, only a peaceful air of anticipation was abroad to mark the change, this pause between two dominant seasons. You hardly took autumn into account. So little happened, apart from the steadying of outline and molten colour cooling off. ” (227)

“The beetle dug its way out of a tower of crumbling earth. We shall be here all day, Rodney felt, I know that, but better at least if he sleeps, if I had brought a book, and perhaps I shall not be a doctor or even an explorer, I shall write books, only about what, that is where it gets hard, or about love, only you didn’t know, and books were mostly about love, there was always an Antony and Cleopatra, even in the Bible that sort of thing, a concubine, or perhaps you could write a travel book, like Columbus, about a voyage, where there needn’t be any love, if you had ever been for a voyage, but I shall go to Sydney soon. He looked at Oliver stretched out on the ground. A whip-bird called in the bush. We shall go to Sydney, Mother said. She sighed. But somehow there had to be love or it wasn’t a book, that is, a proper book, not those ones about Red Indians that were being put away for George, those were for children, and I am growing up, I suppose I shall have to marry, perhaps Margaret Quong, only she is Chinese, but that might be sort of Cleopatra, I am Antony, and Father Antony, she was a concubine. He dug a little hole in the ground. He put the beetle inside and watched it try to climb out.” (231)

“You know how much to expect from fire or flood. You can’t say the same of your fellow-men outwardly united in a small community. ” (233)

“You got older, and that was something you knew, it would not be the same. ” (239)

Sidney, regarding her father: “He is a succession of incidents, she felt. ” (265)

“Because the School of Arts was seldom used, had grown dusty and complaisant with neglect, dozed the year through in cold or heat, and felt the darkness rub up softly against its scabby face. It was old. Built after the store, it had a medallion with a date over its portico that stamped it with a greater sense of permanence than the weatherboard dwelling-houses had. But there was something ironical about that date, as if somebody had thought the building would last, and now it must make an effort without very much wanting to. Still, it enjoyed a sort of sleepy importance, even if seeming to doubt the virtue of permanence. It eyed the darkness yellowly and rumbled in the basement where the supper-tables were.” (283)

Moriarty’s death: “He began to cough. It tightened up, his chest, his life that strangled out over years, as if someone had pulled the reel, and with a jerk, was at least a purpose, to feel this. He was walking. He was walking. Feet sounded on the metal, told him he was there, and the thin crackle of ice. Then he stopped and he was not there. There was no evidence that Ernest Moriarty was even a name until he walked. Out of his eyes water ran, not tears. For tears are personal. Walking or not, he was the dark. That slow darkness. His hand felt towards ice, did not try to reject what it became.” (337)

“The telephone wires were fastened to the outside world. Time and Happy Valley had given this a legendary tinge, and the telephone murmuring of far events was nothing short of oracular.” (381)

Alys’ conclusion: “I shall not hurry, she said, I shall shape time with what I have already got.” (400)