Stories of Ourselves: "Five-Twenty" by Patrick White

After the death of her domineering husband, Ella Natwick is drawn to a man she has noticed passing her house at the same time each day.

Here are links to our lists for the short stories in Stories of Ourselves:
The Hollow of the Three Hills, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Signalman, The Happy Prince, The Yellow Wall Paper, The Son’s Veto, The Open Boat, The Moving Finger, The Door in the Wall, Sredni Vashtar, How It Happened, Her First Ball, The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection, The Fly in the Ointment, The Custody of the Pumpkin, An Englishman’s Home, The Phoenix, There Will Come Soft Rains, The Prison, The Destructors, Meteor, Billenium, The Lemon Orchard, The People Before, The Enemy, Five-Twenty, A Horse and Two Goats, Report on the Threatened City, The Rain Horse, Ming’s Biggest Prey, The Village Saint, Secrets, The Stoat, Games at Twilight, The Taste of Watermelon, Journey (Patricia Grace), The Bath, My Greatest Ambition, To Da-duh, in Memoriam, Of White Hairs and Cricket, Elephant, Sandpiper, Journey (Shirley Geok-Lin Um), The Third and Final Continent, Tyres, At Hiruharama, Real Time, On Her Knees, The Contest
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. veranda
    a porch along the outside of a building
    Most evenings, weather permitting, the Natwicks sat on the front veranda to watch the traffic.
  2. domineer
    rule or exercise power over in a cruel and autocratic manner
    ‘Perhaps his wife chose it. Perhaps he’s got a domineering wife.’
    ‘Looks the sort of coot who might like to be domineered, and if that’s what he wants, it’s none of our business, is it?’
  3. sober
    dignified and serious in manner or character
    They watched him pass, as sober as their own habits.
  4. fancy
    have a particular liking or desire for
    She often wondered how Royal had ever fancied her: such a big man, with glossy hair, black, and a nose like on someone historical.
  5. congenial
    suitable to your needs
    Old Mr Natwick had come out from Kent when a youth, and after working at several uncongenial jobs, and studying at night, had been taken on as book-keeper at ‘Bugilbar’.
  6. corrugated
    shaped into alternating parallel grooves and ridges
    At weekends her husband usually came in, and when she wasn’t needed in the shop, they lay on the bed in her upstairs room, listening to the corrugated iron and the warping whitewashed weatherboard.
  7. natty
    marked by up-to-dateness in dress and manners
    In his youth Royal was a natty dresser.
  8. prudent
    marked by sound judgment
    It appeared he had been a very prudent man.
  9. legacy
    a gift of personal property by will
    He left them a nice little legacy.
  10. amends
    something done or paid to make up for a wrong
    All their life together she had to try in some way to make amends to Royal, not only for her foolishness, but for some of the thoughts that got into her head.
  11. palpitation
    a rapid and irregular heart beat
    She got the palpitations after the scene with Mr Ogburn.
  12. nib
    the writing point of a pen
    Dr Bamforth said, looking at the nib of his fountain pen, ‘You know, don’t you, it’s sometimes the man?’
  13. peak
    a brim that projects to the front to shade the eyes
    He watched her, though. From under the peak of his cap.
  14. wiry
    lean but strong
    ‘What’s wrong, eh! While I still have me health, me strength – I was always what they call wiry – why shouldn’t I cut the grass!’
  15. listless
    marked by low spirits; showing no enthusiasm
    The way he held his hands curved listlessly around the inactive wheel reminded her of possums and monkeys she had seen in cages.
  16. scuttle
    move about or proceed hurriedly
    Guilt sent her scuttling to him, deliberately composing her eyes and mouth so as to arrive looking cheerful.
  17. reverberate
    have a long or continuing effect
    She was horrified at her reverberating dream.
  18. dainty
    delicately beautiful
    In the beginning acquaintances and neighbours brought her little presents of food: a billy-can of giblet soup, moulded veal with hard-boiled egg making a pattern in the jelly, cakes so dainty you couldn’t taste them.
  19. novelty
    originality by virtue of being refreshingly new
    But when she was no longer a novelty they left off coming.
  20. restrained
    under control
    They spoke with a restrained horror, as though she had been suffering from an incurable disease.
  21. bulbous
    rounded and bulging
    As the evenings grew longer and heavier she sat later on the front veranda watching the traffic of the Parramatta Road, its flow becoming syrupy and almost benign: big bulbous sedate buses, chrysalis cars still without a life of their own, clinging in line to the back of their host-articulator, trucks loaded for distances, empty loose-sounding jolly lorries.
  22. chrysalis
    pupa of a moth or butterfly enclosed in a cocoon
    As the evenings grew longer and heavier she sat later on the front veranda watching the traffic of the Parramatta Road, its flow becoming syrupy and almost benign: big bulbous sedate buses, chrysalis cars still without a life of their own, clinging in line to the back of their host-articulator, trucks loaded for distances, empty loose-sounding jolly lorries.
  23. shambles
    a condition of great disorder
    Take the garden. It was a shambles.
  24. heifer
    young cow
    She could only blunder at first, like a cow, or runty starved heifer, on breaking into a garden.
  25. shamble
    walk by dragging one's feet
    She shambled, snapping dead stems, uprooting.
  26. fussy
    overcrowded or cluttered with detail
    There was a feather she couldn’t remember wearing, a scarlet feather, she can’t have worn, and gloves with little fussy ruffles at the wrists, silver piping, like a snail had laid its trail round the edges.
  27. smolder
    burn slowly and without a flame
    She wouldn’t look at him now, though, just as she wouldn’t look back at the still faintly smouldering joys they had experienced together in the past.
  28. idle
    not in action or at work
    She had never been an idle woman.
  29. concession
    the act of yielding
    As a concession to the girl she tried to make it a laughing matter, but the young person was bored, she didn’t bat a silver eyelid.
  30. mauve
    of a pale to moderate grayish violet color
    ‘Never saw myself with mauve cheeks!’
  31. luxuriant
    produced or growing in extreme abundance
    The cinerarias seemed to have grown so luxuriant she had to force her way past them, down the narrow brick path.
  32. flounder
    move clumsily or struggle to move, as in mud or water
    He was far too slow, treading the slippery moss of her too shaded path. While she floundered on.
  33. loll
    hang loosely or laxly
    He said, and she could hardly recognise the faded voice, ‘There’s something – I been feeling off colour most of the day.’ His mis-shapen head was certainly lolling as he advanced.
  34. stifling
    characterized by oppressive heat and humidity
    Their sap was stifling, their bristling columns callous.
  35. callous
    emotionally hardened
    Their sap was stifling, their bristling columns callous.
Created on Thu Mar 08 10:24:35 EST 2018 (updated Tue Mar 27 14:16:24 EDT 2018)

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