Jenny Rose

by Mary Anne Kelly

  “Well, everything you said suggested that homosexuality stems from abuse. As if it’s all just an indelible memory of same-sex experience from childhood. As if people take refuge in their own sex.”

  I looked at the women to see how they were taking this. “Okay.” I felt myself look embarrassed. “So I’m a jerk.”

  Jenny Rose picked up the dog and spun her ’round and ’round.

  “You didn’t have to fib, though.” I braided the back of my hair defensively and pinned it up. “I’m really just trying to piece everything together, myself. It’s pretty hard to do when you throw me a deliberate curve ball.” I must have sounded impatient.

  Bridey said, “Jenny Rose is famous for embroidering tales. What’s it about now?”

  Dierdre smacked Jenny Rose’s bottom. “You’d think she’d have grown out of it by now,” she complained. But she wasn’t angry.

  “Stop handling that dog and sit down and drink your tea!” Bridey said. “Act like a lady!” She was vexed we’d mentioned homosexuality.

  “I have a better idea.” Jenny Rose pulled me from the room, ignoring what had just happened. “I’ll set my easel up on the hill overlooking Baltimore bay and I’ll be painting a portrait of your face. There I’ll be, with the beautiful image of his own true love’s face! He’ll die of fright!”

  “His own true love, indeed.” I laughed, nervously. I wouldn’t like the aunts to hear. “What if he doesn’t remember me? He probably falls in love with women all the time,” I murmured, fearing it were true. “He’ll look at the portrait and say, ‘Hey! I knew a woman very like her once! Ten pounds thinner, though.’”

  “He’ll take one look and his heart will start to race…”

  “Very romantic. And how will you be sure he’ll come over to see what you’re painting?”

  “Everyone does. Nobody doesn’t. It’s a damned nuisance.”

  “No, Jenny Rose. I love your ideas. I do. I can see them all happening. I just can’t see them all happening to me.”

  “You’re not supposed to see them.” She raised her little valentine face at me. “You’re supposed to live them.” She climbed up on the table and held an arm up. “It’s time to let life not pass us by!”

  “I know. I just can’t. It’s the wrong time. I mean, first Dierdre dead. Only it’s really Peg.”

  Gently, she climbed down. “I should be saying that, not you. You’re just chicken.”

  “Yes.”

  A car was pulling up the gravel. Jenny Rose peered through the window. “Fuck. Inspector Mullaney. C’mon. Let’s go to my studio. Don’t tell him where we’re going,” she hissed across her shoulder.

  “I’ll just get my—” I’d been about to say camera, then changed it to “stuff.” No sense scaring her off. We snuck out the back window, Brownie alongside us, and ran over the marsh.

  Her studio was up on the cliff. We ran, our heads down to the wind, just long enough for the damp to knife through us. The green long openness came to a sharp end and went down. It was terrifying. I’d never seen a better spot. She looked under a big stone, realized she’d left the key somewhere else and pushed open the lofty door without it. Inside was the size of a factory garage and white. She had nothing cozy, no nice space where you’d cuddle up with a cup of tea. It was all work here, all art and a huge gritty window overlooking the sea. Plus, it was freezing. There was the lion-claw tub on the one side. Not an inviting spot for a bath. Jenny Rose strode across the room, clearly happy, and tore a shawl from a massive easel. “It’s not dead north, the window,” she chatted, “but almost. No matter if it’s storming”—she looked at me—“as it is half the time, you’ve got your good light no matter what.”

  The painting on the easel was of a naked man. Behind him the window, exactly as it was, filled the whole canvas. The man was on the one side, his back to the viewer. Still, you could see a great deal of him. Then there was a small table on the other side, spare and blunt. Something was on it but it was difficult to draw your attention from the man. Behind him, out the window, in a washed clear sky, a seagull lolled. It looked so real, all of it did. I think that’s when I actually knew Jenny Rose was special, that she wasn’t just, as Liam had dubbed her, another self-appointed goddess. Familiarity really does breed contempt. I knew it from my own work, when I’d just started out. No one had particularly wanted to look at my work in Manhattan, because I was from nearby Queens. I’d had to go to Europe to be “discovered.” By the same token, the photographers from Europe had to go all the way to New York to make a living. I stood in that chilly studio above the churning ocean and realized this work was awfully good and anyone who knew anything about such things would surely see it. I had, however, witnessed other artists’ works before they’d been seen and tested by the world. Some with real talent, different than this, but real as well, and that was where it had stayed, as potential, for one reason or another. One artist I remembered had died soon after he’d started. An overdose. Another had been arrested and sent to prison. Yet another had been hired away by a successful graphics design company, a fate, we’d condescendingly assured one another at the time, far worse than any other. I moved closer. The object on the table was a tool, a claw. An antique digging tool, black iron with a bird’s head.

  “Has anyone else seen this?” I said.

  “Just you.” She blew on her hands and went over to the fireplace where cuts of bog had been set to dry. She put on gloves with the fingers cut off, picked up the safety matches on the stone mantle and knelt to light the bog. It caught on swiftly, flailed, then went out. She lit it again and this time it caught.

  “You’ve got it this time,” I said.

  “Gives the mice a chance to clear off.”

  “Mice?”

  She looked at me over her shoulder. “So they don’t get their bums scorched. I don’t mind them a bit. They’re sweet. Don’t eat much.”

  “We had some at home. Just the other day. I guess they’re clearing out, the weather getting warm and all.” I plucked my skirt gingerly from the floor. “We killed them off.”

  “What, with traps?”

  “Yeah.”

  She made a face. “Why kill them if they’re clearing out?”

  “It’s an American thing.”

  “I guess it is.”

  “You can’t keep mice.”

  “They’re just two wee little fellows.”

  “Not for long. They could bring rats.”

  “Nah. They’re company for me.” She went about getting her stuff set up. She glanced at her work. “Last time I was here,” she said, “was when it all happened. That night.”

  “I’m glad I came with you then,” I said. I went closer to the canvas and touched the paint. It was dry. “What do you call it?” I said.

  Jenny Rose wiped a brush thoroughly with a rag. “I was going to call it One Man. Now I think I’ll call it Café Mozart.”

  “Café Mozart?”

  “Like in The Third Man. Remember?”

  “Jenny Rose.” I chuckled. “I can’t keep up with you.”

  She looked at me over her shoulder. “Well, I can’t very well call it The Third Man.”

  I sat down on the floor. “It really never bothered you that Dierdre and Peg were lesbians, Jenny Rose?”

  Outside it rained but the light was high and white, almost fluorescent, like in an empty department store. “I didn’t like it when I heard them at night,” she said softly. “I hated that. I don’t think Dierdre much liked it, either, to tell you the truth.” She let a moment pass. “What’s she like?” she said without looking at me.

  I knew right away who she meant. I was relieved she trusted me enough to ask. “Carmela? Talented. Recognized. She’s one of the lucky ones. Only she doesn’t know it. No, of course she does but she’s too polite to let on that she does. Not polite. Arrogant. She pretends she’s polite but it is arrogance. Takes everything as her due. She’s annoyingly arrogant. She disguises her arrogance in polite behavior. That’
s the horrible truth. I want very much to get the words right when I’m talking to you about her, but I seem to just say what I feel. Not only does she have looks and success, she has the knack of getting you to feel sorry for her, besides. It’s nuts.”

  She poured turpentine carefully from a drum into a jar. “Am I like her at all, do you think?”

  “In that your art is more important to you than people? You’re like her that way, yes. You don’t let yourself be distracted. One thing, though, you have a wacky sense of humor.”

  “She doesn’t?”

  “Well, let’s just say yours is more highly developed than most people can appreciate. Oh! Okay, I get it. The Café Mozart. Orson Welles was supposed to have been dead and then he showed up. I see the connection but I doubt many people will.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t care,” she said.

  “On second thought, you’re more like her than I thought,” I chided her. I enjoyed her defiance, though. Only the very young or the very old have that.

  She arranged her brushes one beside the other. “People just like to think they get it, don’t you think?” she said. “Nobody really knows what goes on inside someone else’s mind. Even, maybe especially not, the people closest to them.” She lifted her dark head. “Is she happy?”

  “Happy? No, I wouldn’t describe Carmela as happy. Who’s happy?” I didn’t want to say she was one of the most self-absorbed, disdainful people I’d ever known.

  “I am.” She stood with her fists on her hips. “I’m happy when I’m working. I’m happy right now.”

  “You’re young and pretty. You should be happy.”

  “But not beautiful.” She grinned philosophically. “Not like her.”

  “It’s a funny thing about the very beautiful,” I said. “They’re attributed all sorts of magical powers. And they themselves are the only ones left wondering why. One thing about Carmela, though. She’s her own person. She doesn’t look for her identity in the form of a boyfriend, I’ll say that for her. But for all her beauty, she’s alone. Your brand of beauty is more alluring. You’ll find love and keep it. I’m sure of it.”

  She kept her head down but you could tell she was listening.

  “You don’t mind if I poke around and take some shots?”

  “You can do what you like,” she said. “I have to ask you. Your camera, what is it … a spy camera?”

  “Not really. It’s a very good German camera. Made in the twenties. I did a series of portraits once of an American general. This really old guy. We hit it off, both of us having spent time in Bavaria. When everything was going my way,” I couldn’t help adding. “He told me the story how at the end of World War Two he’d been ordered to steamroll an entire airfield of German cameras. It near broke his heart, a man reverential toward fine machinery the way he was, but he did it. Not, however, before he swiped one. Or spared one, if you like. It was this Contex”—I held it out for her to see—“this little baby you can hold in the palm of your hand, but with a depth of field in the lens that lets you photograph even in candlelight. He gave it to me because, he said, he liked my work. I don’t think he saw very well anymore at that point. His son wasn’t interested in photography. He worried it would be stuck on a shelf in an attic, I think.” I patted it fondly. “They don’t make ’em like this anymore. And I’ve got it.” I grinned. “He thought I would do it justice, he said.”

  “And have you?” She smiled politely. I realized she was really more interested in Carmela.

  I moved over and sat down uncomfortably on the divan. I had to touch it first. It was stiff with bits of paint. “No. Not yet,” I admitted. “I’ve neglected all the hopes I’ve had for it.”

  “How come?”

  “Certainly not because of raising a family. The beauty you find there is photographable. No, it’s more a mind-set. You get so numb to the familiar.”

  “You’re using it now.”

  “My eyes are fresh. Ah, the Emerald Isle. No, I’ve worked on and off for some time. When I have the time to go through all my work and assemble the best stuff, then I’ll have a show. But my masterpiece is still to come.”

  “Mine, too.”

  I noticed there was an electric hot plate. It was crusted with rust. “This thing work?”

  “I guess so,” she said.

  I poked around on the busy table for a cup I could wash. “So, uh, Jenny Rose?”

  “What?”

  “Who’s the babe?”

  “He’s, well, different parts of different people.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. See, if you look closely, you’ll see Ned’s hands, Liam’s neck, Seamus’s shoulders”—she smiled a slow, Cheshire cat smile—“and Willy’s deep inner strengths.” She frowned uncertainly, tipped her head to the side and bent down as though she were looking underneath him. “At least what I would like to think are Willy’s deep inner strengths.”

  “Heavens. A man for all seasons. You know you’re going to get in an awful amount of trouble when they see this.”

  “Yes, I know. Then maybe they’ll all leave me in peace.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “Don’t I?”

  I stopped tooling around the room and regarded Jenny Rose. There she stood.

  “What are you thinking?” she said.

  “I was just wondering if Peg was murdered.”

  “Ah. And if I’m the one that did the deed.”

  “I was just wondering if we’ll ever know the truth.”

  “It’s a wicked shame.” Jenny Rose shook her head.

  I couldn’t help thinking she didn’t seem to mind much. But girls her age make a business of acting cool. Molly had mentioned Peg had been cruel to her. So, why should she mind? I found myself using my mother’s words. “Have faith,” I said. “There’s nothing goes good without it.”

  She looked at me softly when I said that. Her sharp eyes changed and I imagined I saw a glimmer of love there. Then came the panic-stricken protection of embarrassment.

  “Not to change the subject”—I smiled—“but do you think Dierdre and Bridey were annoyed I went off on my own and got a room?”

  “Probably.”

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, you were just being thoughtful,” she said generously.

  “I wasn’t. I was serving my own means. I just talked myself into it by telling myself I was being thoughtful.”

  “Yes, well, they’re both of them uptight.”

  “Do they dislike me, do you think?”

  She shrugged. “They think you’re bossy.”

  “Me?!”

  “That’s just because they are. What really bothers them is that you don’t need them. Aren’t impressed with them. Don’t want to take their pictures.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  She shrugged. “Of course. You play yourself down, but to them you’re an international photographer still. They’d like to think you’d find them interesting. At least a little bit.”

  “I never even thought— What a smart girl you are, Jenny Rose.”

  “Do you think I can sell my friend here?”

  “If you can’t, I’d be very surprised.”

  “I’m just waiting for someone to tell me to put pants on him.”

  “That won’t be me.” I grinned.

  There was a floppy gray velvet cushion on the floor surrounded by jars and palettes. I went to pick it up.

  “Don’t!” she cried. “It’s Seamus’s spot. He fusses if I move it about.”

  “On the floor?”

  She lifted some sheets of colorful smearings. “He likes to snuggle up in his apron and finger paint.”

  “You could always sell them as modern.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t tried.” She laughed.

  “No luck?”

  “Nah.”

  “They’re very bright.”

  “I know. They’re pretty. I framed them and put them on consignment in a shop in
town.”

  I picked one up. “I’ve seen worse. On fancy walls, too.”

  “Yeah. And it’s a shame because he could use the money.” Her shoulders dropped. “I must try again. I’ll take them to Kinsale, next time. Throngs of tourists there. They can’t get enough original work. Anything they can smack a ‘Handcrafted in Ireland’ sticker on. You know he takes care of his mother.”

  “Seamus? But he’s—”

  “Yeah, I know. But Mrs. Wooly’s got to be close on ninety, can you believe it?”

  “How can that be?”

  “He’s thirty-something, Seamus is. I know he doesn’t look it. Mrs. Wooly had thirteen children living, at one time. And of course there were those she’d lost. She had Seamus when she was almost sixty. Yes, she was almost sixty. It was in the newspaper.” Jenny Rose sighed. “Ah, the church.”

  “Why do we bother?” I sighed.

  “I don’t like my family. Doesn’t mean I’d desert them,” she said fiercely.

  Well, well, I said to myself.

  “I mean, every family has its heartache. It’s how you deal with it tells what you’re made of. Anyway,” she went on, “they live in a cottage down the coast toward Castletown. They used to be in the big house on the water there but her arthritis was something horrible and the kids had gone off and they moved a wee bit inland, y’see. Lost a good house, there, they did. German people bought it. They fixed it up lovely, I’ll give them that. You’d have thought the children would have come back just to arrange for the house; the Woolys, I mean. The one she’s got now isn’t half the worth. Poor old woman. All those children and none of them comes to visit. Everyone a them that could moved away. Probably fearful they’ll have to take over watchin’ out for Seamus. Them gettin’ on now themselves. And here he is watchin’ out for her. I ought to go see if she needs anything, now I think of it.” Her hazel eyes glanced at me shyly. “You could come with me, if you like. Hasn’t a tooth in her old mouth. D’you know, Seamus chews her food for her.”

  “Uch.”

  She looked at me reproachfully. “I think that’s beautiful.”

  “That’s because you’re an artist and I have been poisoned with comfort and decadence. You remind me of who it is I want to still be, Jenny Rose. Do you think she’d let me take her picture?”