The Story: Love, Loss and the Lives of Women: 100 Great Short Stories

by Victoria Hislop

  Following which, Clifford removed their clothes. They didn’t shiver, it was warm in front of the fire. Clifford kept switching his attention nicely from one to the other. He got out of his own clothes as well. Rose felt curious, disbelieving, hardly willing, slightly aroused and, at some level she was too sluggish to reach for, appalled and sad. Though Clifford paid preliminary homage to them both, she was the one he finally made love to, rather quickly on the nubbly hooked rug. Jocelyn seemed to hover above them making comforting noises of assent.

  The next morning Rose had to go out before Jocelyn and Clifford were awake. She had to go downtown on the subway. She found she was looking at men with that speculative hunger, that cold and hurtful need, which for a while she had been free of. She began to get very angry. She was angry at Clifford and Jocelyn. She felt that they had made a fool of her, cheated her, shown her a glaring lack, that otherwise she would not have been aware of. She resolved never to see them again and to write them a letter in which she would comment on their selfishness, obtuseness, and moral degeneracy. By the time she had the letter written to her own satisfaction, in her head, she was back in the country again and had calmed down. She decided not to write it. Sometime later she decided to go on being friends with Clifford and Jocelyn, because she needed such friends occasionally, at that stage of her life.

  Change of Face

  Elspeth Davie

  Elspeth Davie (1918–1995) was a Scottish author. Although she wrote novels, she is best known for her short stories. Davie won the Katherine Mansfield Prize in 1978.

  It was a mistake to imagine that only the vain or the good-looking offered themselves to the man on the street corner. On Fridays he drew passers-by at a pound a face, and more often than not, those who were particularly pleased with their looks walked on with only a passing glance at his work, for it was not work of high quality. He used crayon – not a lasting medium at the best of times – and he was a poor hand at it. The colours tended to be crude and the results smudgy. Yet even if he could have managed it, he was not after the subtleties of the human face. Always, his aim was to make his pound quickly and sometimes, if it was possible, to please. At any rate, he got all kinds of persons willing to pay for things other than likenesses, even if it was only a chair to rest on. Here, too, the natural clowns of the community enjoyed themselves, for by mixing pantomime with the solemn sitting they could hope to attract a crowd. They were less interested in seeing their own heads on paper.

  A few outstanding faces came his way. He almost dreaded their coming and would occasionally ask: ‘Do you really want me to draw your face?’ If they were already sitting in the chair he’d set out, they would look up, surprised. ‘Well, of course. Can’t you see – I’m all ready.’

  ‘It takes a long time. You are going to find that chair very hard.’ But there was a cushion on it, and he was perfectly capable of throwing off his mediocre sketches in a matter of minutes – fifteen at the very most.

  ‘The thing is,’ he would say, ‘I’m an amateur at the job, and as a matter of fact, you have an interesting but rather a difficult face.’ He would have been incapable of uttering anything more complimentary even if he and his sitter had been in the most private place. Certain encounters during his life had been chilled and checked by this inhibition, but there were some things he could not do or say. That was how he was made. And such sitters did not take the word ‘difficult’ too badly, though they were puzzled when he suggested they try a more skilled person for the job. ‘Someone,’ he’d say, ‘who could give you a really excellent likeness. Naturally it might take longer. It would certainly be dearer – but at the end of the day worth every bit of time and money!’ Usually, however, they sat on calmly, and calmly carried away his botched effort with a good grace.

  His difficulties were not all with the handling of crayons. He was susceptible to certain kinds of beauty in human beings. This made him uneasy, for to fall in love in the space of a few minutes at the corner of a city street with no possibility of continuing the relationship was a serious business. Yet at the same time, he felt that so private a human state could scarcely be taken seriously, surrounded as he was by hordes of fast cars, and with the grind of heavy lorries always in his ears. Busy offices clattering with typewriters leaned above him and lines of smiling placards advertising joy. He was simply aware of the occasional wildness, the piercing sorrow within his chest as some person carrying a scrawl, an unpleasing smear of crayon lines, disappeared forever from his eyes.

  Other unexpected difficulties turned up in regard to his sitters. Amongst them were a few persons, men and women who had a desire, not only to discover what they looked like in the flesh, but also to know who or what they were deep in the very core of their being. They had turned to him – he with his cheap crayons, his crumbling pinks and blues and greens, had placed themselves trustfully in a pair of clumsy, inept hands. As well hold out their delicate skulls for dissection to a blunt butcher’s knife!

  The young man had rigged up a kind of shelter for wet and windy days, hardly more than a covering of canvas supported by sticks and with a scrap of curtaining in front. This also provided some privacy for those persons who wanted it, and amongst them were those who so passionately wished to know what might be seen under the skull or behind the black centre of the eye. This was an awkward problem, for these were people who talked while they sat, and however quietly they talked, they managed somehow to make themselves heard above the strident traffic in the street or the constant sound of voices and footsteps on the pavement outside. They made themselves heard even on the wildest days, as though their private storms were more important than those outside and must be listened to at all costs.

  He did listen. He listened to many strange things as he rubbed in the smooth pink cheeks, the red lips and brilliant eyes that were so much a part of his trade. It was evident that long ago they had decided that what they had to say could best be said to a stranger. And where was this stranger who had time to stop and talk in the street? This rigged-up shelter, then, came as an unexpected blessing. Yet they had to be quick about it. For the crayoner himself attempted to point out that his temporary shelter was neither a confessional, nor a fortune-teller’s booth – tried to make clear the fact that he himself was not a medium, had no psychic power or talent for divination, that his knowledge of the world was limited, that his experiences in love could never be considered either wise or comforting, that he had no advice to give, for he himself had never taken any, that patience was not his strong suit, and, finally, that pounds were important to him and therefore time was of the essence.

  Most of all he made it plain that whatever else he was, he was not a talker. On Fridays at this corner, his words had been limited to certain phrases that cropped up over and over again: ‘Please raise your eyes a little, would you lower your head, turn a fraction to the right, to the left. Would you mind putting your hair back from your face? Smiling a little, not smiling so much. You have moved, you have changed! Thank you, that is very good, that is much better. Thank you, I am glad you like it, I am sorry you don’t like it, I can’t help it if you hate it. That will be a pound. No, I cannot discuss its worth, you have seen my charge. No, it does not include a frame. I am sorry that your husband does not like it, that your wife could do better. It is the best portrait you have ever seen? Thank you very much indeed. You do not like the face? No, it is perfectly legal. You cannot call a policeman. There is a litter-bin across the street. You like the face? You think it better than your own? Oh, how could it be better? It is kind of you to say that, very agreeable and kind. You have given me the greatest pleasure. Please stop abusing me, stop threatening me! There are two policemen across the street. Thank you, I am glad you like the eyes. The mouth is too wide? I am sorry I cannot change the mouth. There is someone waiting. Thank you, it is kind of you. My face? Oh, how kind of you to say that. I did not know you were looking at it… ’

  But those who had discovered his makeshift shelter were n
ot greatly concerned with how much or how little he could talk. Their problem was time, and sometimes it was more than a problem. It could be a torment. For a whole life-story might well have to be crushed into the space of a few minutes. And though it was true they managed to make themselves heard above wheels and horns, it was not always easy to get the gist of it. Sometimes the young man had to piece it together from words and odd phrases, and while doing it would try to persuade himself that it mattered very little to him how short or scrappy their account of themselves had to be. The exchange seemed fair enough – a scrappy, half-told episode for a careless half-done sketch.

  There were days when few people were around to have their faces drawn, and at these times he tried his hand at anything that came along. The pigeons came, for it was a windy corner, scattered with seed from a derelict patch of ground behind. For a time he had a line in pigeons. He did them as quickly as possible while they were on the ground, then painstakingly from memory when they had flown. His birds did not sell. Even the most unobservant could see that he knew next to nothing about wings or flight, not even the heavy flight of pigeons, and those who looked closely at birds could see that anything approaching the iridescence of the neck was far beyond the scope of cheap crayons. He fared no better with one or two stray cats that came to sit in his corner when the sun was on it. He adjured everything about these cats from their independence to the sheen on the muscles of their thin loins. He caught nothing of this, however, and he sold nothing. For everyone knew cats or had them, and they could see that the crayon cats were miserable creatures, neither sunlit jungle beasts nor fireside pets, but unnaturally stretched on the comfortless limbo of dead white paper. People wondered, seeing he had failed so badly with fur and feathers, what he could possibly make of the vulnerable human face. He was aware of this and after a while stopped this particular line, for he saw it was no good for his trade.

  One Friday in early spring, when he was outside, pinning a new sheet of paper to his board, it started to snow. It came very gently and sparsely at first – a few white crystals dissolving on the white paper and lying here and there amongst his crayons – but then more and more swiftly, until pavement and street were almost levelled under a thin coating. The city quickly became silent. Even the heavy lorry wheels rolled secretly and the sharpest heels sank into softness. The young man quickly closed his crayon box, put his drawing-board under his arm and was all set to go, when an elderly man came round the corner and stopped determinedly beside him. There was no doubt what he’d come for. Briskly he tapped on the closed crayon box and in a word or two indicated his intention of taking a seat in the shelter. He didn’t wait for yes or no, but quickly parted the curtain and sat himself down under the canvas covering. Nevertheless, the young man had no intention of starting up again, so there was nothing for it but to stay outside, showing – as he busied himself around the place – that if the other had come for shelter, well and good. But faces were over for the day. As soon as possible he must be off. He waited a long time. Once or twice he looked behind him through the curtain then finally, reluctantly, he stepped inside.

  The man was no longer on the edge of his chair, but sitting well back, his feet firmly planted, one hand on each knee. With head up and eyes straight before him, he was holding a pose to the manner born. The crayoner sat down with a deep sigh and studied the face in front of him. Then he opened up his box and looked at the blunt ends of pink, blue and white crayon – and he saw that this time, the task was beyond him. This face was made up as entirely of lines as a piece of old bark. The bones of the jaw were angled. There was no softness or roundness about this head. Even the hairs stood up from the crown in sharp bristling stalks, the red and grey mixed. The young man tapped his crayon box sharply as the old man had done. He confessed that he could deal only in softness and bluntness. ‘And I have no way of sharpening these,’ he said quickly, ‘so your face is not possible. If I had a pen or even a pencil perhaps… but as it is… ’ It was no use. He might as well have talked to a statue. The old man’s eyes never flickered in his direction. Stubbornly he continued to hold his pose till the other grabbed up a crayon and started to the job.

  He had not been long at it when he realised that his sitter, though he kept his head still as a rock, was going to be moving his lips and his eyes without ceasing. Even more than most, he was determined to talk and there was a lot to tell. Before long it became clear that something more than years had been the cause of lines in his face and the strange springing hair of his head – springing as though endlessly astounded. It was his son. Not that this son of his had given him any trouble in the ordinary sense of the word. No better son had lived from his account. Now there was a face, he said, any artist in the land might be proud to draw! And it was not only the face. There had been the character of the young man. There was a good deal of sweetness about his nature, he was kind-hearted. Not that he was a paragon – oh, nothing like that! He could be impatient, intolerant to a degree – hard on others and very hard on himself. He had been a graceful person, said his father, hurrying on, he had danced and he had sung. He had been clever, not in the book-learner’s way but in the seaman’s way – marvellously clever with his hands. Out of almost nothing he could make anything – model boats, miniature harbours and gardens. He could make chairs, furniture of all kinds. Given the time he could have made a house. The young man, said his father, would have gone far.

  Would have gone? The crayoner lifted his head from the paper. For that was the crux of the matter. This boy, who had given his father no trouble at all, had given him the very worst possible trouble in the world. He had got himself drowned with two other sailors like himself far out at sea. Their ages put together, his father said, wouldn’t even add up to his own, which was sixty-nine. There were times he could hardly believe he could live so long – to survive three lives so short. His son had been twenty. And where was he? Where was he? The crayoner started as he heard such a question addressed to himself.

  Yes, where was he, if anywhere? the father asked. He had thought about it for a long time – it was not too much to say he’d thought of it day and night. Not that he was beside himself; for most of the time nowadays he was quite calm. He was calmly trying to work it out, or simply look at it. He had no idea if that was the way to do it. Probably not. But it was his way, though as yet no answers had come up. Perhaps there were none to come, but that never stopped him from asking: Where is he? He’d imagined him in some odd places.

  ‘Tell me,’ said the young man, who was slowly putting the blunt crayons back in their box. He did not want to hear.

  To begin with, the father explained, he had simply seen him, naturally enough, in the sea – long separated from his companions – going down with his arms above his head and his legs wide, relaxed after his ordeal, and sometimes softly swinging in the current or twirling, head down, as though peering at something in a crack of rock, or floating on his back, one arm above his head as though reaching out to the other element, or trailing a leg, disentangling a foot amongst weeds – all gentle movements, unhurried, as he saw it. And finally leaving the last glimmer of light and the shoals of fish and going down and down into the darkness. Always, when it got very dark he had lost him, the father said, and he was glad to lose him. He needed to see him whole and bright as he had been. The artist would understand.

  ‘What other places?’ said the artist. He understood, but again he did not wish to hear.

  The man was silent for a moment. ‘No doubt it will sound ridiculous, there is no rhyme or reason in it, but I have sometimes thought of him in the air, or out in the very depths of space. Sometimes he is coasting along like an astronaut, but one with a rather tender skin. He had no time to grow himself a metal surface like the rest of us. His outlines are even less distinct than his sea-farm. He is mixed with all the stuff of the sky, spinning in bright dust and dark. I have never imagined his face, can never guess his expression. That is the hardest thing – to have no idea if or w
hat he is feeling. Has he a voice? In the sea he was silent enough. It is to be hoped he has companions of some kind or another. Oh, I hope to God he is not lonely!’

  The crayoner would have much preferred not to hear this particular cry, but that was out of the question. The snow had silenced the street and he was forced to listen. He believed he knew something of loneliness himself, but even so he found nothing whatever to say. It seemed to him that his own experience would sound paltry, hardly worth mentioning beside the thing the father had in mind.

  ‘If you think he is nothing and that he is nowhere – say it, by all means,’ said the man. ‘Many people have said it with the greatest respect, believe me, and by no means the unkindest people either. Far from being angry I’m thankful for every opinion – all have gone through my head at one time or another. And hearing other views can clear the air. It gives a new line on the thing. You look again. You start again from scratch.’ The word seemed to remind him of something. ‘Have you finished that drawing?’ he said.

  ‘I’ve had to scrap it,’ said the young man. ‘I told you I hadn’t materials for a proper face.’

  ‘Do what you can,’ said the other. ‘I don’t expect a masterpiece.’

  Through the slit in the curtain they could see the snow had stopped falling. Muffled footsteps went past and once or twice a face peered in. Reluctantly the young man pinned a new sheet of paper to his board. The other, who had been sitting absolutely still and silent for a long time, at last said: ‘I will never find him, of course. And has he found himself? Maybe he will go through every sort of change, but if he is anywhere at all he will find himself sooner or later. I am happy enough with that idea. It is as good as any other.’

  The young man had given up all thought of doing a face. But he was a practised hand at the instant sketch on demand, or if there was no demand he would do anything that came into his head. Occasionally, when the faces became too much for him, he had produced fruit and plants, goldfish in bowls, stormy landscapes, lurid landscapes of purple heather, landscapes of snowy mountains. Flowers were the quickest. He had a peculiar creation of his own – a crossbreed between chrysanthemum, cactus and sunflower, and this he now started on. It had the merit that it could not be criticised by any botanist. Today’s version had a spiky head of rough red and brown petals and a staring yellow eye rimmed with hard black spots. The head was supported by a tough, green stalk, ribbed and hairy. If the old man was surprised at the sound of the crayon swishing and jagging over the paper, he showed no sign of it, except that once he smoothed his spiky, startled hair as though this might account for the dramatic change in the artist’s rhythm.