‘Yes, I’m just here overnight before the southern part of the tour. Didn’t I mention it?’
‘I don’t think you had the chance.’
‘Have you any plans for October 26th? That’s a Wednesday.’ She shook her head. ‘Then, if I may, I’ll come to your home at 11, assuming that is where you have your studio . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘. . . And I’ll be completely famished by twelve and you can suggest any place in town except this one for lunch afterwards as a reward for my good behavior.’
‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ she said with mock severity. ‘The 26th it is.’
‘Now, aren’t you at all interested in my fascinating experiences as a peripatetic piano player?’
Mirelle sat back, smiling, only then aware of how tense she’d been. She listened to his amusing narrative, needling him where she could, knowing from the twinkle in his eyes that he appreciated her jibes even when he ignored them. He used his hands expressively and she watched them almost as much as she did his face. More distinguished than handsome, actually. And the trouble with his jawline is that the left side is slightly longer than the right. That was the disparity.
He stopped midphrase and jabbed a finger at her. ‘I suspect the sculptor’s eye is pinioning me. There’s a glazed and calculating look on your face.’
‘Occupational hazard. Of course, yours is such a well-used face . . .’
‘Thank you, madam.’ He inclined his body in a bow.
‘They are more interesting to work with.’
‘As I was saying . . .’ and he continued his tale.
It was two-thirty before they finished lunch and she reluctantly suggested departure.
‘The school bus returns at three and I should be home when Tonia gets there. It’s not that she isn’t capable of taking care of herself,’ Mirelle added hastily, ‘it’s just that . . .’
‘You take being a mother seriously, don’t you?’ There was no barb in his words. ‘More than my ex did.’
The sunlight was blinding as they stepped out of the darkened room. It was that, Mirelle was sure, which contributed to her fall. As she stepped aside to make room for him, she caught her heel on the uneven paving and lurched backwards. He caught her arm and pulled her sharply toward him so that she fell against his chest rather than back onto the sidewalk, her head gave his jaw a crack and they both stood still, his arms around her: she with an aching ankle, he with a sore jaw. He reached up to his chin and looked disgustedly down at her.
‘Oh, Jamie, I am so sorry. The sun blinded me and this ankle of mine is not all that reliable in heels.’
‘Excuses, excuses,’ he mumbled, rubbing his jaw but grinning. ‘I retract what I said about not letting my women disgrace me.’
She stepped back, feeling the warmth of his hand at her back long after he had dropped it to his side. Someone opened the door behind them and there was a brief spate of apologies and jockeying of positions. Howell took her firmly by the arm and led her to her car.
‘I shall be glad to take the road again,’ he said drily. ‘Most of the singers of my acquaintance can keep their feet under them. I suppose I’ll have to use a different rule for sculptors.’
‘Think of us as chips off a new block,’ she suggested.
He grimaced.
‘It was a lovely lunch, Jamie. Thank you very much.’
‘’Til the 26th then.’
He gave her a lopsided grin, rubbed his jaw once again before he went around to his own car.
She hurried home, with twenty minutes to spare before Tonia’s bus came. She threw a smock over her dress, got out the plastic bucket and mixed up plaster of Paris immediately, dashing green dye in for the color coat. While the plaster was setting, she cleared the rest of the breakfast dishes, groaning as she picked up the tepid bottle of milk. She put it carefully at the back of the refrigerator. Roman hated to get warm milk.
She raced back to the studio and tested the plaster. Just right. She took one long last look at her little soldier, comparing it in her mind with Jamie and finding it true to the model. She slathered plaster over the figure, building up between the legs, working deftly so that the soldier was completely anonymous by the time Tonia came in at the door.
‘You covered him all up!’ Tonia complained. ‘Why’d you do that?’
Mirelle cocked her head at her daughter. ‘There was a very pretty little deer which I’d made for a dear of my own. It stood on this very same wheel and certain small hands wanted to see if it felt soft. I believe that was the excuse. Well it was soft, and it was pulled all out of shape by the grabby little paws.’
‘Ah, I was a baby then, Mamma.’ Tonia pouted. ‘I didn’t know any better.’
‘On the contrary, you did. Because you’d been told, as I told the boys . . .’
‘Lecture . . . Lecture . . .’
‘Yes, it is! You know how little time . . . all right, no lecture. But from then on, every time I have a piece finished, I keep it safer in plaster.’
‘Is it a model of Daddy as a soldier?’
‘No. Just a soldier.’
‘I know. You were watching Combat the other night. Is it the sergeant or Caje?’
Mirelle pretended to consider. ‘You might say Caje. He’s the tall one, no?’
‘Yes.’
Tonia settled on the stool to watch her mother work.
‘You starting on a work toot, Momma?’
She sounded so mature that Mirelle turned objective eyes on her child. The last lines of baby fat were gone from face and body. The nose was lengthening from a snubbed stump. The little child whom Mirelle had captured in the running figure had been superseded by a leggy pre-adolescent. A new beauty was emerging slowly.
‘I’ll have to do another one of you soon, hon,’ Mirelle said with a smile.
‘Then you’re on a working toot,’ Tonia said happily. ‘I’ll help with things now. I wasn’t big enough before.’
‘Why so helpful if I’m on a toot?’
‘Because,’ and Tonia’s face was contorted with the pronunciation of that invaluable conjunction.
‘Why “because”?’ Mirelle insisted.
‘You’re all different,’ and the thin shoulders shrugged as the mind made the body express words which the intellect still lacked. ‘It’s like this,’ and Tonia cocked her head, ‘you forget all the silly things . . .’
‘Like rooms being picked up and meals on time?’
‘Well . . .’
‘And you guys watching TV till you fall asleep . . .’
‘Oh, Momma, that’s NOT what I mean.’
‘Come, kiss me, hon. And watch out for the plaster on my hands.’
Tonia jumped off the stool and hugged her mother tightly about the hips. Then she skipped to the steps before she made her parting shot.
‘When you’re working, we all get presents.’
Mirelle laughed heartily at such outrageous candour and finished the plastering. She washed up and lifted the now heavy platform to a shelf, just above the toweled bust. She twitched the cover back, fiddled with the modeling on the left jaw but it still didn’t look correct. She replaced the cloth with an exasperated sigh and went upstairs to the kitchen.
5
MIRELLE THOUGHT SHE could tell how Steve’s trip had been by the way he closed the car door on his return. If the omen was bad, she’d quickly send the kids to the TV room and let him vent the first wave of dissatisfaction on her. Tonight, when she heard the door slam, she read a pleasant oracle in the sound.
‘It would’ve been a bit much if he’d come home seething today,’ she told the oven as she peeked in at the casserole.
‘Hi, honey,’ he yelled jovially, struggling in with his suitcases. ‘Roman! Nick! Give me a hand here!’
They came bouncing in to help him, Tonia on their heels.
‘Bring me anything? Whaddja bring the boys?’
‘Not gone long enough, baby,’ he said as he gave her a mighty hug. With the
delightedly squealing child in his arms, he leaned to kiss Mirelle warmly. ‘Miss me?’
‘Now that you’re home, I believe I have,’ she said, teasingly, knowing that he wouldn’t deliberately misinterpret.
‘Oh, yeah,’ and Steve ducked his head, suddenly remembering the way he had stormed out of the house three days earlier. ‘The bogeys are off my back, the stars in favorable conjunction, the weather superb, my reservations weren’t snafued and I have more than enough large orders to please the bossmen and no problems to report.’
‘Momma’s got a commission,’ Roman said.
Mirelle nodded affirmation.
‘And she made the keenest soldier last night,’ Nick added.
‘On account of she watched Combat with us,’ Tonia could always find a last word or two.
‘Oh, off on another toot?’ Steve asked, putting Tonia on her feet.
‘Guess so,’ Mirelle said, keeping her voice as neutral as possible. She could have choked Roman for starting the subject. She’d wanted to introduce it more gently in privacy to judge how Steve was really taking the news.
‘It paid the back bills last time. What’re you aiming for this time, honey?’
With relief, Mirelle saw that he was not going to start off by resisting her work-urge. She would have troubles with him later, she always did, but once she got underway, her capacity for ignoring interruptions was unlimited. Steve had once compared her to a lady steamroller.
‘Trim on the house could stand repainting. I’d love to get rid of that hall wallpaper. You said something about a new suit and snow tires . . .’
‘All that with one commission?’
‘You know me once I get started.’
‘Tonight?’ he asked, slightly aggrieved.
‘No.’ She grinned. ‘Tonight you and I will have some time to . . . talk.’ She raised her eyebrows, rolling her eyes suggestively.
‘I’m hungry,’ he replied with a leer.
It was a happy meal. Mirelle, feeling slightly guilty over having lunched out, had cooked a complicated casserole, a family favorite, for dinner. It had always been her policy to feed Steve well when he came in from a trip. Consequently, serving her family second helpings, she felt mellow and serene, instead of rebellious and frustrated.
It would be so much nicer, she thought as Steve and she sat over their coffee in the living-room, if I could always time my work jags with successful road trips. But you can’t have everything.
‘Say, where’s the soldier Tonia mentioned?’ Steve asked suddenly.
‘Oh, him? I’ve plastered.’
‘Without my seeing him? You only did him last night.’ Steve frowned.
‘Well, you remember that marvelous deer . . .’
‘Are you never going to forget that?’
‘No,’ she replied tartly. ‘But you can scarcely blame me for wanting to avoid a repetition.’
‘No, I guess I don’t blame you. Did you really use Caje as a model?’
‘As much as anybody, I guess. It’s the posture . . . you know, the broken-legged, sore-hipped, swung from the knee walk of the infantryman?’
‘I always said,’ and Steve leaned back with a smug expression on his face, ‘you married me for that walk.’
He bent over and kissed her.
‘Why do we nag at each other, Mir?’ he asked softly. ‘I love you, hon, but you get in one of your bitchy, untouchable moods and I’m teed off with those bastards on my tail, and we wind up at each other’s throats like we hated.’
Mirelle wondered if he was reading her mind.
‘We’ve been married fifteen years, Steve. Perhaps we’re just wearing away another level of petty irritations.’
‘Before we’re deeper in the marriage rut?’
Mirelle was glad that she was serene inside or surely she would have bridled at that.
‘Rut, schmut, so long as you love your wife.’
‘Get the kids sacked out early, will you?’ he suggested, his eyes intense with desire.
‘Don’t you just know it!’
The next morning, because they had had the most satisfactory sex in months, Mirelle went through the business of tidying up the house feeling slightly like Scarlett O’Hara. She loaded Steve’s laundry into the washing machine and sorted out what had dried the previous day, before she allowed herself to pause in the studio.
The plaster cocoon on the soldier, now a formless blob, was cool under her hand. She envisioned it already cast in bronze but had no desire to finish plastering beyond the color coat. He was safe there, from curious fingers and eyes.
Idly she picked up her file of sketches, a rather awkward collection as she used whatever came to hand when she saw a face or a pose she liked. There were old deposit slips, shirt cardboards, programs, menus, even two match covers. She riffled through the file, selecting one or two for closer inspection, until she came to her original sketch for the Bronze Cat which Jamie Howell had admired.
She looked at it a long time, her mind’s eye taking her beyond the two dimensions to her vivid recall of the finished statue. She had sculpted Tasso washing a paw, his tail carefully curved around his bottom, tail tip slightly raised. He had been sitting in the sun, she remembered, and he’d remained on the windowsill for a long time, just as if he realised that he was posing for posterity. After the session, when she’d stroked him, he’d arched his back under her hand, purring roughly. They had only been in the Spartanburg house for three weeks. Nick was an impossible yearling, Roman running wild and Mirelle was violently bitter at having been uprooted from Ashland. She’d been so happy there, for she’d met Lucy Farnoll and there were few woman like Lucy anywhere.
How much that sketch of Tasso evoked! Mirelle thought with a long sigh. Three weeks in a new location and already Tasso knew where the sun would be for his morning bath: where, aloof and contained, he could observe the neighborhood animals on their rounds. How she had envied that adaptable complacency. How horribly she had missed Lucy.
‘Ah, she dwelt among the untrodden ways.’ The verse popped into Mirelle’s mind. How she and Lucy had laughed about it, the winter they were snowed in and the road to Lucy’s house, set far back from the highway, had been impassable. They’d had to backpack supplies in.
Mirelle had actively hated Steve for accepting the transfer from Ashland to Spartanburg. She certainly had railed at the Company, slamming in the vilest of tempers around the little new house which Steve had bought before she’d seen it. Steve had been tolerant with her for a long time. But that was before management had begun to pressure him. He’d been so keen, so eager: he’d lived enthusiastically and completely in his work so that he’d been able to regard her disillusion with detachment and tenderness.
Life in Ashland had been full for Mirelle: in Spartanburg, it was impossibly tedious. She knew no one and had never made friends easily under the best conditions. In Spartanburg, the full brunt of her natural introversion pressed her into a masochistic reclusion, and the care of two young children had left her with no energy at all for sculpting. In Ashland, Lucy had often taken Roman and Nick off her hands for a day or an afternoon, allowing Mirelle uninterrupted time to work. Lucy had understand completely Mirelle’s compulsion to create and her conscientious devotion to her children. Lucy had talents of her own, being a poet whose work often appeared in the literary reviews as well as the slick women’s magazines. Lucy maintained that if her husband, Fred, complained about her being lost in creative trances, he never complained when the checks came in. However, Mirelle was not blind to the fact that Lucy ran an exceedingly well-organised house, kept tabs on her four children in an off-handed manner, and lived up to every duty of marriage and motherhood. She could afford to tell her husband off. Mirelle felt no such freedom.
‘I run like hell to stay in one place sometimes, cookie,’ Lucy said one day as Mirelle watched her bake three pies at once. ‘Now I freeze the other two and then, when I see the old man getting feisty, I shut off the growl at the stomach lev
el. A tip I pass on to you at absolutely no extra charge. There are ways of working the jungle we call life, but don’t you ever, ever leave off that,’ and Lucy pointed to a doughy fork in Mirelle’s hands, restlessly forming minute animals out of scraps of pie dough. ‘God gave you stewardship over your talent. It’s HIM you answer to, not that overgrown sex-addict who sleeps in your bed.’
‘God doesn’t have my bills to pay,’ replied Mirelle.
‘Ask and you shall receive but remember, the Lord also helps him who helps himself.’ Lucy paused to brush hair from her eyes, flouring her forehead liberally in the process. ‘I mean it, Mirelle. The parable of the talents can refer to creative gifts as well as old coinage.’
It was Lucy who provided a direction to her efforts when she realised that Mirelle had little time to complete any ambitious work. It was Lucy who discovered the answer in Mirelle’s creche figurines and forced Mirelle to take time from her frenzied endless housecleaning to make Christmas figures for the church bazaar. Mirelle had managed three dozen various animals, shepherds and kings before her cranky kiln broke down. She had the satisfaction of seeing every one sold the first day of the bazaar. It was Lucy, however, who insisted that she give only a percentage of the additional orders to the church. There hadn’t been much profit but there had been enough for a book on furniture refinishing which Steve had wanted, and a new sweater for herself. And the following year, she’d had to start work in October to fill orders for her creche figures.
Lucy had sought and found an answer for her, and that year Mirelle had broached her much-hated inheritance to cast a bronze figure. She’d done a woman sitting, leaning on one straightened arm, her feet drawn up under her skirt. The dreamy face was upturned as though the woman were watching something in the sky.
‘“Beside the streams of Dove”’ Lucy had said with an embarrassed laugh when Mirelle had presented it to her friend.
Mirelle had had to turn away, deeply touched, that Lucy would perceive so accurately the thought in her mind when she’d done the figurine.
‘Mirelle, it’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever owned,’ Lucy had murmured.
The Year of the Lucy Page 6
