The Truth About Lorin Jones

by Alison Lurie

  “Okay, sure.” Polly had not noticed the temperature; now she realized that a damp, freezing wind was blowing through the barn.

  How can this be happening? she thought as she followed Lorin’s husband back through the long beaten-down grass. How can I deserve it, when I didn’t do what Lorin wanted last night? But maybe she had done exactly what Lorin had wanted, or at least what she had done: shut her husband out of her room, out of her life.

  Inside, Garrett Jones cleared the dining-room table of its brass candlesticks and careful display of waxy-looking autumn fruit, and reopened the folders. There was more there than Polly had ever imagined or hoped for — not only drawings, but notes, bills, postcard reproductions of paintings —

  “Oh, wow,” she exclaimed as he leafed through the contents. “I didn’t know you had all this stuff. You never said — nobody told me —”

  “No one was interested, really. Not till you appeared.” Garrett smiled and turned over a half sheet of paper, across which was scrawled a shopping list in Lorin’s faint, spiky hand:

  zinc white

  toothpaste

  grapefruit juice

  narcissus bulbs

  “You kept everything,” she murmured.

  “I wrote and offered to send it all on to Laura, once she was settled,” Garrett defended himself, though Polly hadn’t meant it that way. “She never answered my letters. Or the lawyer’s. I used to wonder sometimes if that fellow tore them up.”

  “Fellow?”

  “That bastard Cameron. You’ve heard of him, I imagine.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Met him?”

  “Not yet. I’m hoping to interview him when I go down to Key West next month, though.”

  “Yes? Well, good luck.” Garrett’s tone implied that she would need it.

  “Tell me about him,” Polly said, shifting her attention with difficulty from the drawings.

  “About Hugh Cameron?” He almost sneered the name. “Well, I only met him a couple of times, and I didn’t pay him much attention. I didn’t imagine that he’d ever be of any importance to me, naturally.” Garrett shook his head. “He was just one of the usual crowd of rather scruffy young people at the Provincetown Arts Center that year. He wasn’t even a painter; he was a poet. Or rather, he called himself a poet, because he’d had a few nothing poems in the kind of magazines nobody reads.”

  “I see.” Polly made a mental note to look up these poems.

  “The truth was, he had the artist’s temperament without any talent to speak of. That’s not uncommon, you know. And all right, it’s a tragedy. But if you find yourself in that position, you’ve got to cut your losses, the way I did. If you don’t, pretty soon you’re just a pathetic phony.”

  Polly looked at Garrett. You wanted to be a painter yourself once too, she thought.

  “Anyhow.” Garrett cleared his throat. “The Arts Center not only houses would-be artists and writers during the off-season, they have readings, mount exhibitions. I was a member of their board at the time, and when I was on the Cape Laura and I usually went to their openings. That was how we met Hugh Cameron, sometime in October, as near as I can remember.”

  “I see. And then?”

  “And then nothing, as far as I was concerned.” Garrett shrugged. “I saw him again at another opening in April; I remember because Laura was talking to him for a while, I couldn’t imagine why. By then his time in Provincetown was almost up. They throw the fellows out on May first, you see, and rent the studios to tourists. He had no job, no money, no place to go from there.

  “The way I read it, sometime that spring he probably took a hard look at Laura. He already knew she was a successful painter, and he guessed she had a little money — more than a little by his standards, probably, because from the start I let Laura put everything she made from her painting into her own bank account. She didn’t use it except to buy art supplies; I gave her an allowance for her clothes and housekeeping, and I paid for everything else.

  “So I figure Cameron decided it’d be convenient for him to fall in love with Laura, and feed her a lot of hogwash about the integrity of the artist, and the destructiveness of the critic, and the need for truly sensitive people to abandon the conventional world and live for each other and their art. He tried to justify himself with that kind of talk afterward, to anyone who would listen.

  “If he’d been a painter Laura would have seen through him in ten minutes. Hell, her mother, Celia, if she’d been alive, she would have seen through him in five, because she knew something about poetry. And so did Laura’s brother, Lennie — he could spot a loser like Hugh at twenty paces.”

  “So she left here with him at the end of April?”

  “Yes. On May Day.” Garrett smiled wryly. “Cameron made a lot of that later, apparently. It was the sort of cheap symbolism he liked.”

  “And you had no idea this was going to happen.”

  “Not a clue. As I said, Lorin didn’t leave a note, so at first I wasn’t concerned. I was driving down from Providence, and I hadn’t said exactly when I’d be coming. When she wasn’t here, I figured she’d gone out sketching, or maybe even up to Boston overnight on the ferry; she did that sometimes. I searched all around the place, and walked down to the inlet, because she used to go there a lot to paint. After it got dark I phoned some of our friends, but nobody’d seen her or knew anything. Then I looked in the closet, and most of her clothes seemed to be there, so I started to think about car crashes, and the weirdos who could be lurking about on the beaches or in the pine woods.”

  Over twenty years later, Polly heard in Garrett’s voice an echo of the panic of that evening. “So what did you do?”

  “Well, I was kind of wandering around the house, calling up different people and pretending to them that nothing was wrong. I went into Lorin’s studio to look for a phone number. Before I hadn’t noticed anything out of the way, but now I realized that most of her equipment was gone.”

  “You knew then that she’d left you?”

  “No, not really. It could have just been a painting excursion. I knew the next day. I discovered then that she’d cleared out not only her own bank account, but also the joint account we kept here. Nearly six thousand dollars, it was, because I’d just put the money in for a new roof.”

  “Oh, hell,” Polly murmured, wondering how she would ever justify this.

  “I don’t want you to blame Laura too much,” Garrett said, registering her tone. “I figure it was probably Cameron’s idea. Laura didn’t have any understanding of money, or any sense about it. She would have lived by barter if she could have.”

  “So you knew, or at least you suspected, that Lorin had gone off with Cameron,” she suggested.

  “Christ, no. He didn’t even cross my mind.”

  “Then you had no idea he’d fallen in love with her,” Polly said, putting it this way in an attempt at tact.

  “No. If you want to call it that. All I know is, he had a Scotsman’s instinct for where the money was. As long as Laura had funds he stuck to her like rubber cement. When the cash was used up, and her paintings weren’t selling anymore, he just peeled off.”

  “Yes, I heard — I mean, Jacky Herbert said Cameron wasn’t around when Lorin was dying.”

  “No. He was up in Maine. The goddamn creep.” Garrett’s voice roughened. “Let’s forget about him; it’s all ancient history now. Here. Take a look at this.” He pulled the old black portfolio toward him and, with some difficulty, untied its frayed and faded tapes.

  Inside there were only a few sheets of paper: three or four large drawings with pencil notations about color, evidently preliminary sketches for paintings. Underneath them, covered with a sheet of creased tissue that Garrett lifted off carefully, was a big gouache of what might have been an explosion of fireworks, or a lake in the woods in autumn, the whole scene speckled and shimmering with red and orange and gold, almost pointillist.

  “Oh!” Polly cried. “I’ve never seen — I d
idn’t know —”

  “It’s not finished, of course.”

  “Really?” It was true, there was a large irregular white area in one lower corner, streaked with a vague wash of ochre; but patches of nearly blank canvas were not uncommon in Jones’s work.

  “Well. Maybe it’s finished, in a way. Maybe that’s how Laura wanted it.”

  “It’s beautiful.” She stared for a long moment at the painting; and then up at Garrett accusingly. “You never mentioned — This could have been in the show.”

  “Yes, I suppose so. But — Well, I suppose I didn’t want it there. That little pond — You can see it’s a pond?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it’s over in the woods in Truro. Laura and I used to go there sometimes together, the first autumn we were here. I don’t like to look at it much now.”

  “I see.” It’s where they made love, Polly thought. This brilliant storm of light and color was the memorial of, the transubstantiation of, an erotic encounter.

  She stared at Garrett, but his face was averted toward the window. “You could sell it,” she suggested, feeling as she spoke that this was crass. “I’m sure the Apollo Gallery —”

  “I don’t want to sell this picture, damn it.” Garrett’s tone was rough. “I tell you what,” he added more gently. “Why don’t you take it?”

  “Me?” Polly’s voice rose.

  “Yes, you.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, I mean, for God’s sake. It’s too valuable.”

  “I don’t need money,” Garrett said almost angrily. “I’d like you to have it. That is, if I could be sure you wouldn’t hang it anywhere I’d ever have to see it again, or sell it to some damned collector or museum, at least until I’m gone. I don’t want to come across it unexpectedly somewhere, you know what I mean?”

  “Yes; I understand.”

  “Good.” Garrett cleared his throat. “Now, about this other material. I expect you’d like to have copies of some of the drawings.”

  “I’d like a copy of everything, really,” Polly said eagerly. “Of course, I’ll pay —”

  “Don’t worry about it. There’s a fairly good Xerox place in P’town. I can go there after I take you to the plane. Or, if we left a little early” (he checked his watch) “they might be able to copy the stuff before your flight.”

  “That’d be fantastic,” Polly said. It came into her mind that Garrett was being generous and helpful. “You know, I’m amazed that you would go to all this trouble for my book. I mean, I really appreciate it.”

  “Thank you.” Garrett smiled. “But why should you be amazed?”

  “I just meant — uh, well, I meant,” Polly stuttered. “Some men might bear a grudge, I mean about last night.”

  “That’d be foolish, considering the circumstances.” Garrett laughed. “Actually, you know,” he added very casually, “sometimes women who love other women are surprised to find they can also enjoy men — or rather, they can enjoy a man who understands what they prefer physically.” He gave her what was surely a meaning look. “I remember when I was living in the Village, back in the thirties —”

  “I’m not like that,” Polly interrupted. She had heard before of men who prided themselves on their ability to, as they put it, “convert” homosexual women.

  “Ah. Pity.” Garrett smiled briefly, and pulled Lorin’s gouache toward him along the table. Carefully, he lowered the protective covering over it.

  The proposed gift was a bribe, Polly thought. I have just refused the implied bargain, and so it’s been withdrawn. She felt angry but relieved, for now Garrett was no longer decent and generous. He was exposed instead as a dirty old man who wanted to buy sex with his dead wife’s painting — even worse, with a painting of the place where he and she had once made love. Crass, horrible, disgusting.

  Yet as the colors dimmed under the worn tissue, Polly felt a stabbing pang of loss. She thought that she would probably never in her life see this picture again, and almost wished that she had accepted Garrett’s implied bargain.

  “Well, maybe we should pack up,” he said with a wheeze. He moved the drawings onto the table, lifted the shrouded painting, and replaced it in the old black portfolio. Slowly he retied the tapes; then he held the portfolio out toward Polly. “Right. Here you are.”

  Startled, she took a step back. “I can’t,” she exclaimed, abashed by her own thoughts. “I don’t deserve —”

  “Of course you do.” Garrett grinned at her. “You don’t know how glad I am that someone’s finally writing the truth about Laura. And how especially glad I am that it’s someone like you.” He looked at Polly with an expression at first warmly friendly, then uncertain. “Or maybe you don’t really care for this picture.”

  “Oh, no!” she cried. “It’s wonderful.”

  “Well, then.”

  Still Polly hesitated. But a soft reverberation in her ear, Lorin Jones’s voice, or her own voice — and, after all, hadn’t Garrett said they were the same? — seemed to whisper: Take it; I want you to have it. Slowly, she held out her arms.

  JANET BELLE SMITH,

  short-story writer

  Oh yes, I remember Laurie Zimmern from college. Of course, she was only at Smith for one year, my sophomore year. Then she transferred to Bennington, which was really a much better place for her. She was a strange girl, young woman, I suppose you’d say now. Even for Bennington, where it was more fashionable to be strange then; I believe it still is.

  I don’t recall how we got to be friends. I think perhaps it was because of a book of Beardsley drawings that I’d bought, and Laurie asked if she could borrow it. I remember thinking at the time that she was like a Beardsley drawing herself, all long smooth curves of black and white. She was very striking then, beautiful really, very slim, with white skin and those great dark eyes, and masses of dark hair. She wore it in a long bob with thick bangs, like some ancient Egyptian princess. It looked odd back then, when most everyone had short bouncy curls.

  If your hair didn’t curl naturally, you put it up on rollers or got a permanent wave.

  Her clothes were very odd too, by our standards. I remember the first evening of my sophomore year, going down to dinner in the dorm. There were the new freshmen in their candy-striped or madras-check dresses, or flowered skirts and blouses with Peter Pan collars, like what all the rest of us were wearing. And there was Laurie, in a long flounced red gypsy skirt and a ratty black scoop-neck cotton jersey. I felt sorry for her, but I thought she’d soon notice that her clothes were all wrong and do something about them. Only she didn’t. Then for a while I thought she must be on scholarship, and couldn’t afford to buy anything new. Well, you know, I was awfully conventional then. It was the way I’d been brought up.

  But it turned out that Laurie wasn’t poor: her parents were quite well off. She wore those sorts of clothes because she wanted to. Most of them she found in secondhand shops — of course, this was long before that became fashionable. I used to shudder sometimes at what she’d bring back from the Salvation Army. To tell you the truth, I still feel that way. I’d never buy anything used; one has no idea where it’s been or what odd diseases its owner might have had.

  Oh, no, she went to real stores sometimes. We even went shopping together once. I remember it because Laurie did this really strange thing.

  It was in New York, over spring vacation, and she took me to Klein’s on Union Square. I’d never been there before, and I was appalled by the crowds, all those people pushing and shoving. And there were these awful warnings against shoplifting posted up everywhere: a crude drawing of a woman with staring eyes looking through bars, and underneath it said in both English and Spanish, in great black capital letters: DISHONESTY MEANS PRISON — DO NOT BRING DISGRACE ON YOUR FAMILY. I felt as if I were surrounded by thieves; I clutched onto my handbag like mad the whole time I was there.

  But Laurie loved it. She found this dress on a rack �
�� it was quite nice, black cotton with a square neck trimmed in black cotton lace. And she liked it so much that she said she thought she’d buy two. I assumed she was joking, but she explained that then she’d never have to bother about what to wear, because one of the dresses would always be clean.

  Oh yes, she bought them both. And she actually did wear them when we got back to college, every single day that the weather was warm enough, for at least a month.

  Yes, that seems rather enterprising, if eccentric, now; but by our rules at the time it was really shocking, almost crazy. You were supposed to put together a different outfit every day, repeating yourself as seldom as possible. When you wore a dress again you’d be careful to have new accessories, a different belt or scarf, you know. Even today ...

  No, I think probably I was the only person at Smith who got to know Laurie at all well. You see, she didn’t really fit in, and of course she was very shy, too, and she said such odd things. Some people thought she was a hopeless neurotic; others just felt she was rather standoffish and affected. Most of my friends couldn’t see why I wanted to have anything to do with her. But I found her fascinating, really, especially at first. She was awfully well read for a freshman, for one thing. And I knew she was amazingly gifted.

  I always thought it was a shame Laurie went into abstract art, because she could draw so beautifully. I still have some sketches she made of me and a pot of English ivy. But there certainly was something strange about her, and she wasn’t putting it on. I suppose it might have been better if she had been, in a way.

  I didn’t mind Laurie’s being strange at first. I didn’t pay any attention to what my other friends said, until one evening toward the end of the year. I was writing a paper on Hawthorne, and Laurie knocked on my door and asked me to come and see what she’d done to her room. Because she was a freshman, she had one of the smallest rooms on the corridor, but she’d gradually decorated it so that somehow it looked much bigger, and not like a college dorm at all. There were a lot of little mirrors, and an Indian print spread on her bed, and heaps of embroidered pillows in bright colors, scarlet and crimson and plum, that you’d think wouldn’t go together, but they did. On the floor she had one of those big fuzzy-edged pale Indian rugs with a design of a tree full of peculiar birds. And she had strange posters, and lots of leafy tropical plants —