Luck

by Joan Barfoot

  Sophie and Hendrik spent the first night of their honeymoon where they were accustomed to being, in Hendrik’s—their—bed in the funeral home. Nora immediately put the house up for sale.

  Sophie tries to believe—although how could it be?—that in its way, this show and celebration tonight must be about as important to Nora as that day was to Sophie. People have different moments that glitter, and for Nora tonight must be huge. That’s why Sophie’s here: tit for tat. Anyway, it’s not every day she and Hendrik get invited to swish art show openings, is it? And if not for Nora, Sophie would not be the subject of any paintings. Now all those hours in Nora’s studio have landed up here, under the eyes of total strangers. One part of Sophie is shy, another part has an urge to lounge casually by the portraits of her in preening Yes, that’s me fashion.

  Beth must always have felt like this: an object of eyes and attention, of admiration for nothing beyond her features and shape. It’s okay for an evening, but for a whole life? No wonder Beth was vague and self-absorbed and annoying. Being looked at but never acquiring the habit of looking is bound to create a few distortions of view. “Max found her?” Sophie asks. “And you didn’t know? I wonder why he did that.”

  The night of Phil’s funeral, Max said, Beth asked to be dropped at a busy intersection downtown near his gallery, and a wave was the last he saw of her. “She said she would be fine,” he reported, “she seemed to have plans,” although he claimed not to know what they were. “She did not speak much in the car, not at all about her intentions,” he said, which may or may not be true. Max is an ethical confidant, which of course is a good thing, but it can be frustrating, too. The woman lived with them for two years, for heaven’s sake. Still, since she’s here tonight they were right not to be overly fretful—whatever she’s been up to, it didn’t involve anything drastic like throwing herself under a train.

  Beth’s vanishing, unlike Phil’s, had no power. She wasn’t especially missed; why would she be? In her absence Sophie and Nora drank a lot more wine and coffee than tea, but that was a minor change, as Beth had been, really, a minor presence. Nora did say she regretted not reacting more sensibly when Beth sprang her surprise. “A crush isn’t such a big deal. Her timing couldn’t have been worse, and the fantasy was unnerving, but I feel sort of bad. Maybe I should have known. And I could have been kinder.”

  The story of Nora and Beth’s first encounter is, as Sophie heard it, nearly romantic: Beth a vision spotted from across the room at an event much like this one, and pursued by Nora for purposes of her own inspired creation.

  Or, like a gazelle, or a giraffe, some elongated wild creature, Beth was hunted down at a party by a wilful, powerful predator, and hauled off to have her bones gnawed on and chewed over. That’s another, bloodier way of hearing the story.

  Beth doesn’t look too much like prey from this angle tonight. She doesn’t look too much like inspiration either. She looks attractive enough, but hardly spectacular. Just an ordinary art-loving opening-goer, except for the older man in the wheelchair she wears like a flash piece of jewellery.

  “Max said he wanted tonight to go back to its sources, or be circular or complete—something like that,” Nora says, “but I wasn’t really paying attention, and I didn’t know he meant Beth. I’m afraid he can be off centre sometimes these days. She looks different, doesn’t she? It’s not just that she’s put on some weight—that should make you happy, Sophie. Maybe it’s the hair, all pulled back like that.”

  “Bear in mind I never did see what you saw. I just thought she was kind of irritating and empty-headed. Like a pet, only she wasn’t affectionate, and she didn’t shed on the furniture.”

  Again, Nora and Hendrik laugh and laugh. How delightful, what fun.

  Beth is leaning over the man in the wheelchair. He looks unhappy and anxious. They may already be discussing departure, so soon after arriving. “Maybe we should go rescue them. She looks out of place, although shouldn’t she feel at home at something like this?” Sophie sets out again through the crowd, followed by Nora, followed by Hendrik. He tells Nora, “These days it’s easiest if Sophie goes first. It’s like driving behind a transport—if you can get into the slipstream, you save a whole lot of energy.” Sophie snorts.

  Beth sees them coming and straightens as if they’re a firing squad aiming her way. She perceives dismay in their expressions; or puzzlement; or curiosity—it’s interesting, anyway, that with or without beauty, and despite her intentions, she can fascinate, she still has whatever it is that draws attention just by standing around. She nods slightly. “Sophie. Nora. Hello.”

  “Hendrik Anderson,” says the man who steps around Sophie. “We’ve met, but you may not remember me. I run the funeral home.” Beth flushes, she looks down—what does she recall of the funeral? Oh, everything, in awful detail. That great horrible avalanching of knowledge. Full-tilt, full-bore recognition. What she’d done. And the dismal, desperate fact that she was not loved by anybody on earth.

  That equally she didn’t love anyone. Not even Nora.

  “This is my father, Daniel. Dad, these are some people I’ve told you about. Nora’s an artist who used to paint me—this is her show. And Sophie, I’ve mentioned her, and Hendrik Anderson.”

  Hendrik reaches down to shake Beth’s father’s hand. “Or you can just call me Sophie’s husband.”

  Beth’s father. Why did they assume she either had no close relatives or had nothing to do with them? Because she said so, or suggested it; because she called no one and no one called her in two years; because she told Nora, more or less, they were gone. “I hope you’re enjoying this,” Nora says, also reaching to shake the man’s hand, which is trembly, feels frail. “I’m pleased so many people are here, but it makes it difficult to see anything.”

  “Your work,” Beth says.

  “Yes. What I’ve been doing for most of the past year.” Beth and Nora lock gazes. Each is surprised. Neither is as remembered. The room does not, of course, fall silent, just seems to for a tense second.

  “Are you pleased with it?”

  “I’m … content enough. It was the best I could do.”

  “Where did you live?”

  “In the house. Sophie stayed, too. With,” and Nora smiles, “equally obvious results.”

  “I thought you hated it there.”

  “Yes, well, that’s true, but this seemed like work that had to be done there. Then I bolted as quick as I could. Although not,” Nora goes on—carefully or carelessly?—“as fast as you did.”

  “There wasn’t anything to stay for. So I went home.” On the word home Beth looks down, touches her father’s shoulder. “I live with Dad. He has Alzheimer’s. I take care of him.”

  So that accounts for his speechlessness. And maybe for the wild rearing look in his eyes and the anxious head-tossing. “Is a crowd upsetting for him?” Nora asks.

  “In a way, but I figure colours, lights and sounds are good for him, too. It’s wonderful how many things people can do in wheelchairs these days. We can go practically everywhere, can’t we, Dad?” His head falls back and his eyes roll some more. “If he was really old we couldn’t do so much, but it’s the early-onset kind, and his body’s still strong. He used to be a transport truck mechanic, didn’t you, Dad? So it’s fine to go out and about, not that he’s been to an art gallery before, but one thing’s as good as another, isn’t it?” How bright Beth’s eyes have become, and how very chatty she suddenly is, words tumbling out as if they’ve been stored up for quite a long time.

  Also how muscled her arms are, now they see them up close. Her father’s a fair-sized man, so managing him must take strength. “Actually, he can still walk, sort of, but when we go anyplace the wheelchair’s easier because he can’t wander away and get lost.” Oh. Yes. They can see a seat belt and shoulder harness attaching him firmly. That’s unpleasant. But who are they to say, they’re not responsible for a man with Alzheimer’s, are they? For all they know, Beth is a saint, in her way. A perfe
ct daughter.

  She certainly looks as a saint might. She is plain enough now.

  “Are you,” Sophie asks gingerly, impossible to know which subjects are tender or difficult, “doing any modelling these days?”

  “No, looking after my dad’s full-time work.”

  “And where are you living?”

  “In his house. The one I grew up in. We’ve had to change things around—like Dad has a hospital bed in what used to be the living room because it’s too hard to get him upstairs. Some people think it’s like being a kid again, going back home, but it’s different being in charge. There’s a lot of responsibility, like making sure all the doors are bolted so he can’t take off, and keeping him out of the kitchen, things to do with safety like that.”

  This is not a Beth they’re familiar with. Although when Philip died she became a Beth they weren’t familiar with either. How many Beths are there, and under what circumstances does each one arise? Of course much the same applies to each of them: new Noras and fresh Sophies have also made themselves known without a great deal of warning.

  “A lot of changes,” Nora says, her voice taking on the false, jolly tones some people use with strange children. “But I bet you’re still brewing up those teas of yours, aren’t you? I bet that isn’t different.” She is only making desperate conversation. Where is Max? A heads-up would have been helpful. Pity, if that’s what triggered his hunt for Beth, is not unambiguous. It can be cruel, as well as patronizing, as well as kind. Max must know that. Is getting Beth here another result of those little strokes? He does occasionally have odd whims. He also forgets things, and to compensate has become tidier and more precise about details. He takes care to write everything down, and forges on regardless. What could Beth have to do with any of that?

  Beth’s father is now flapping his arms. He looks panicky. Beth pats his shoulders. “No, I don’t have time for teas and that sort of thing. Anyway, I didn’t take into account before that there’s so much pollution in the air and ground and most likely the water, nothing can be totally useful and pure. It’s interesting, though, if you know what you’re doing.”

  “Yes. I guess.” They’ve all given things up. Or been given up on. “Do you not get out on your own at all, then?”

  “No.” This is said proudly, and with a toss of Beth’s skinned-back ponytailed hair—it has grown out, and not attractively. She already has a row of tiny hinted lines along her upper lip, and deeper ones alongside her mouth, exactly what Sophie always predicted would be the fate of thin women. Her make-up, too, is less than deft, seen under hard gallery lights. “No, I can’t. I didn’t know how ill he was till I phoned—that was the night Max drove me back—but when I realized he was sick and all on his own, I knew I had to take care of him. It’s fine, it’s worked out best for both of us, hasn’t it, Dad?”

  Dad makes a few garbled sounds; hard to know if he agrees. This looks hellish. Sophie in particular shivers. Not only are she and Hendrik about to have a child for whom they’ll be entirely responsible, they are about—here’s a new thought—to have a child who may someday be entirely responsible for them. Who could bind them down and wheel them willy-nilly through the world, ignore their desires, hover over them doing good in what looks like no good way at all.

  Who knows what sort of father this man has been, though? Sophie and Hendrik intend to be excellent parents. Loving, naturally, but they’ve also discussed discipline (no physical, many possible variations otherwise) and indulgence (not too many possessions, lest their child become spoiled) and hopes and ambitions (they intend to support and encourage any particular talents and gifts, but not force or push). These are splendid, hours-spinning conversations. Mutual dreams. A vast layer of cement between them.

  They are bound to stumble and make mistakes. They intend to forgive their own imperfections, hoping their child does as well but—what if she doesn’t? What if she grows up and turns on them and takes over their lives and they can do nothing but mutter and flail?

  That’s far-fetched. Soon a child’s voice will ring out in the rooms of the dead. Kiddy cars and train sets will race up and down that dusky, massive front hall. Adorable little outfits will drive out whatever lingers of shrouds. It’s just this proximity to Beth and her trussed father that gives Sophie the unpleasant sensation of hair rising on the back of her neck.

  Nora, watching Beth’s hands on her father’s shoulders, wonders how closely this scene resembles what Beth had in mind for Nora herself: to be Beth’s prisoner.

  Her new house is, in fact, eerily similar to the one Beth described for the two of them on the unfortunate day of Philip’s funeral. It is semi-detached and nearly downtown, actually a mere ten-minute cab ride from this gallery. It has a bright, separate room for Nora to work in, it is on a side street not overburdened with traffic, it is brick, it has a fireplace, it even has a low brick wall fronting the sidewalk and a little patch of garden and lawn. Unlike Beth’s vision, the furniture is not new, but Philip-built and familiar: the bed, of course, but also end tables, coffee table, a mantel, as well as two deep blue-green slip-covered sofas with extra-wide arms that were designed but unstarted when he died. Sophie, who took a matching chair for herself, explained to the customer who’d ordered them why Philip was no longer capable of fulfilling their contract. She got the name of a craftsman, no Philip but a careful man able to follow Philip’s design, from Hendrik, who knows people accustomed to doing fine work with wood.

  After just a few weeks Nora can already move confidently through her new home in darkness without turning on lights: one measure of feeling at home. The place contains Philip’s comforts, but no history and no ghosts. She can no longer be halted by hearing a door opening and closing downstairs, causing her accidentally to think, Philip. Nor can she be startled by a half-empty closet or the bare place inside a back door where his boots used to be. She is relearning solitude and the pleasures of doing whatever she wants, even—especially—when what she wants is to do nothing at all.

  She has, for better or worse, exactly what Beth predicted: her freedom. Now it looks as if freedom would not have been Beth’s intention. Not that Nora would be helpless and ill, like this poor man; and probably he’s very lucky to be in the hands of so attentive a daughter. Still, there is a whiff of captivity here. Is it possible art bleeds into those it portrays? It would be insane if the time Beth spent impersonating a saviour mutated into a fancy she was one.

  Beth would not disagree that previously, she had some strange and terrible moments. Impulses, including a tragic and regrettable one. There’s no undoing history, though. Never mind the paintings she once posed for, she has no gift for resurrection. Apparently not only is she someone no one will love, she herself also does not love. It turns out she cannot even properly care. She is, however, able to care for, which is far more straightforward. And who knows, repetition of caring for might possibly lead to actual caring, which might eventually translate into love of one kind or another. Meanwhile, though, she is just fine. Really. Long ago people congratulated and then released her because they decided she’d achieved a more coherent sense of reality. Now she actually feels that.

  Of course, in the process of all this, she has had to undo her own beauty. Beauty is too easy, for one thing. For another, it draws the wrong kind of attention, the kind that isn’t interested in anything else. Mostly, it has led her into error and miscalculation. So now she courts plainness, and not just because of raw drudgery and the perpetual shortage of time. Plain people suffer from duty, as they deserve to. They can be invisible, too, they can disappear for as long as they need.

  Her father is disappearing as well. Does he imagine his method is better than hers, or her mother’s? Does he imagine anything at all? Beth is still imperfectly dutiful, and there are times she could knock him sharply on his head to try to dislodge knowledge and memory, things he could tell her about herself or himself or her mother, his wife. He must have had his own views of Beth, perhaps as a stranger-child f
loating through the house, out the door, returning laden with tiaras and sashes and trophies. Was he proud of her? Bemused? Resentful or disinterested? Pleased at all to see himself reflected in her left eye?

  Hard to say what goes on in that dazed, greying head, but striking it wouldn’t accomplish a thing, not any more. On this score, she has developed excellent impulse control.

  Patience, too. No ailing father is more closely looked after than hers. He can forget her name and his own, although he can still blurt out “Beryl,” which was her mother’s name. He can shit himself three times a day. He can make his muddled attempts to get away. He can do all that and much, much more, and Beth will be permanently, persistently present. Other people would buckle. Other people do buckle. But even if she can’t make him thrive, she can pay him the same close attention that once went into posture and make-up and voice; with the same discipline that kept her bent at painful angles for hours beneath Nora’s gaze, and never mind that her father, Dad as she calls him in public, really has no idea. Sometimes there are flickerings, sometimes a light in his eyes, sometimes a sad sort of struggle, like tonight, doomed to fail, but basically he has no notion of what she is doing for him.

  Which in a way makes her efforts even more noble.

  He is hers. “Aren’t you, Dad?” she asks aloud, forgetting for the moment just where she is. She often talks to him when they’re alone. She can untether words and tell him anything, a pleasing relief to be free to confide her own life, with its pageants, other girls, long journeys on highways of darkness and light, the faint, mysterious enticements of algebra, the various levels and meanings of beauty. Last impulsive, terrible moments. Nora. Men like Philip. Life, such as it was, in the big old house on the hill.