by Joan Barfoot
There were worse finds, harsher materials. A few bone shards that didn’t entirely burn. Two darkened, unincinerated teeth. In the painting a blue stream, a real blue ribbon, flows across a corner, with tiny burnished blocks of wood samples along its shores. The two teeth are tucked among them, not very noticeable. The bone shards stick like rocks out of the stream.
You’d think he did nothing but fish, so much presence has she given this watery theme.
In the end, there was a morsel of ash left. She considered tossing it, as Sophie once suggested, into the actual river where he fished, or around his workshop, something like that. Instead she has kept it: a skiff of leftover Philip dusting the bottom of a very small ring box. She may yet give it to Sophie; what better place than a funeral home?
Even Sophie has not seen this piece before. She was in and out of the studio at Nora’s invitation throughout many of the pieces that are hanging in the outer galleries now, and of course she spent many hours posing herself, but when Nora finally said, “I think I’ve got the ash project more or less figured out,” Sophie drew the line there. She understood there were things she was never going to understand about Nora. She wasn’t even disgusted any more by the idea of Nora using Phil’s ashes. She just didn’t want to see it.
She also suspected not much good would come of it, and her first view supports that. “Those are remarkable likenesses, Nora,” she says. “Lively, like Phil. Nice and bold.” She does not like the piece, however. Even though it’s large enough to contain multitudes, it looks cluttered, neither one thing or another, not even one Phil or another, and none of the three Phils is Sophie’s. Not one pays special attention to his clever hands, for example. Also, not one shows him from the perspective of lying beneath him. Also, the eyes are too dark, and do not shine with anything like sympathy, or tenderness.
This is Nora’s version of him, not Sophie’s.
She looks more closely. Oh, dear God, what’s that by the stream of blue ribbon? Could those two pebbles be teeth? It’s months since Sophie’s been sick, but this could do it. She puts a hand over her mouth. The other returns to her belly, a shield. She leans back harder into Hendrik, whose hands are firm on her shoulders. Does he imagine her overcome by these views of her naked dead lover? Does he fear that, confronted by the perfections and splendours of Phil’s vanished flesh, she regrets the loss, and that in comparison to this bedecked, painted man, he himself comes up short? She takes her hand from her mouth and reaches it up to his, intending to let him know that beyond nauseating teeth and ash, bad enough, these depictions are only distressing for being all history and no hope.
Hendrik is mute, but then he didn’t know Philip. Beth says, “Wow. That’s really something. It’s big. It’s sure got a lot in it, hasn’t it?” So it does. Trust Beth for the obvious.
Look at her father, though—he is growing more agitated, making loud garbled sounds, now gibbering, now nearly howling, “Nononono,” and shaking his head violently, flinging his arms wildly. He may not know the person in the painting, and certainly he can’t know what it’s about or what it contains, but something is causing grief in his poor addled head, his poor distressed heart.
He is giving, unmistakably, a stingingly negative review.
It doesn’t help that Beth starts pat-patting his shoulders, then pushing down on them, her mouth tightening. If Philip hadn’t died so early, he might have grown into somebody demanding and feeble, he might have become a burden as well. Beth presses more firmly. She’d like to smack her father. Shut up and sit still, she is inclined to cry, as she has heard mothers cry to their children in stores. Mothers don’t get to smack their children in public without somebody interfering, though; much less can a daughter slap a distraught and disabled father.
This painting of Philip, it’s like he’s a god or something. Which he was not. Which diminishes Nora further, doesn’t it? Beth glances sideways at her. What caused her to think Nora was worthy of the life Beth was offering? Such devotion should have had an object that would hold up over time. The fact something didn’t unfold as foreseen doesn’t make it not real. Nora does that tonight, she makes it not real, with her ordinary self and with these portrayals of a corrupt and unworthy man. For once, even though he’s maddening, her noisy, frantic father makes sense. This room is too bright, the visions of Philip are disruptive and false, and the actual people turn out to be shadowy. It’s good to have come, just to know this, although it makes her a little angry, too. It’s not nice to find out you’ve wasted hopes on things that don’t measure up.
How fine it would be to be whisked right out of here and be instantly home, tucked up in the big bedroom, in the high, wide bed her parents occupied through their marriage, the lights out, her father restrained in his own bed downstairs, their sordid night-time rituals all taken care of. Except this is not a magic world. Beth takes a deep breath. “It’s interesting, Nora,” she says, “interesting work, the whole show,” as if she has properly scrutinized the whole show, “not just this. A lot of work. I think my dad’s had enough excitement, though. I’m sorry, but I think we should leave.”
Sometimes he comes in quite handy.
“That’s too bad,” Nora says. Although it is not. “But I’m glad you were able to come.” Which is not very true either. “Will you come back, do you think, when it’s not so crowded and loud?” Not even Max, Nora expects, wishes for that.
“I’d like to, but I doubt it. It’s not so hard getting around our own neighbourhood, but it’s complicated, coming downtown. Maybe since you’re living here now, you could visit us someday at my house? You and Max both? And you two, if you’re ever in town,” Beth adds, turning to Sophie and Hendrik. She is not unaware of forms of politeness, and her circle of acquaintances is very limited. Mostly, though, if there’s one thing she knows nearly for sure it’s that you never know what can arise more or less out of the blue. “I still remember how to make a good tea. We don’t get many guests. It would be nice.”
“We’ll see, shall we? We’ll be in touch.” Although Nora cannot foresee a circumstance in which she would suddenly crave a jaunt to the suburbs to see Beth. What an awkward, mute occasion that would be! So these words are just standard courtesies. They don’t mean a thing; even though there is, in fact, something in Beth’s father’s desperate limbs, the strain of his face that cries out for transformation.
“Nononono,” he is crying, his eyes jumping from the painting of Philip to the faces of Nora and Max. As if it’s their fault he’s upset. Which maybe it is. It must be terrible to live in such constrained, baffled fashion. Max leans to place his older-man’s hand on Beth’s father’s arm. “I am sorry,” Max tells him. “You are going home now, do not be worried. Perhaps I shall see you again on some better day.”
Max’s voice does settle him down somewhat. His eyes keep darting anxiously, but his voice falls to an unhappy murmur. Although this may be only a matter of Beth turning the wheelchair away from the people and the painting towards the doors, which Max is quick to unlock and open. No one has protested, nobody has said, “Don’t go yet, Beth, please stay a while longer.” Well, they wouldn’t, would they? Nobody cares, nobody has ever asked her to stay.
“See you,” she says. “Nora. Sophie. Thanks for inviting us, Max,” and off they wheel, Beth and her fortunate, unfortunate father, his wheelchair something of a battering ram against the current of people. At the front door Beth pauses, she turns, she looks coolly back, one last, long, measuring scrutiny of each left-behind face.
Now, with the doors to this gallery opened, other people begin to drift in. “Well,” Nora says finally. “That was pretty weird, wasn’t it?”
“Of course it was,” Sophie agrees. “It was Beth. I’m surprised, though. I wouldn’t have thought of her as somebody who’d dedicate herself to anyone but herself. Well, except,” she grins, “maybe you. But isn’t it odd that she’s taken this on when she never mentioned him before and we even assumed he was dead.”
“I
t is a kind of death,” Hendrik suggests. “Very hard. It can take a long time.”
“Still, we know she’s alive and well, in her way,” Nora says. “She looks healthy enough, and she’s certainly not vain any more. Rather the opposite, by the looks of it. At least she has a home and a family of sorts, I suppose.”
Sophie shivers—all the things family can be.
On some later day they can settle in, just like old friends, to deconstruct the evening, and Beth and her father, and families, and Max, and even this portrait of Phil—conducting what Hendrik calls, perhaps because of his profession, an autopsy of the night. Sophie couldn’t do what Nora does, she wouldn’t want to be Nora, and she sure couldn’t have that painting hanging anywhere near her—ashes! Teeth! Beth isn’t the only unenviable one. Sophie thinks it would be terrible, worse, to be Nora, saddled with such capacities, but there it is, and for one unlikely reason and another they seem to have turned shared flesh into something else, so Sophie’s objections are really neither here nor there, are they? Hendrik puts one arm around her, one around Nora. “Would you mind if we left, too? It’s getting late and Sophie’s been on her feet quite a while.”
It’s true Sophie does look excessively flushed even against the flames of her dress and her hair. “She has a touch of high blood pressure we’re keeping an eye on,” he explains to Max. “But we’ll be back tomorrow for a better look-round. And you know I’m interested in those portraits of Sophie, right? Should I write you a cheque now?”
“No need, but if you are sure, I will mark them as sold. It can be useful to boost people’s sense of demand with a reminder of diminished supply.”
“I’m pleased you’ll have them,” Nora says. “I like knowing they’ve found a good home.”
Sophie has been looking forward to the hotel suite, its Jacuzzi and room service and movies in bed, but now, abruptly swamped, she longs to climb into that long, black car of theirs and drive straight home through the night. To where she and Hendrik belong, where they could get right back to the business of creating their own shifting pictures, which do not hang on walls but are real and include a whole world: the eyes and bony hands of Martha Nkume and the flat, hard knowledge of heartlessness, yes; but dreams of good hearts as well.
She could drift and dream all the way home; except Hendrik would be disappointed, he has been looking forward to this get-away, excited by his own plans, and Sophie is happy enough not to be entirely free, so of course they’ll go to the hotel. “Yes,” she tells Nora and Max, “I’m sorry, but I am tired. It’s the crowd. I’m not used to so many people. I’ll be fine once I can put my feet up.”
“Will we see you again?” Hendrik asks Nora. “Will you be here when we come back tomorrow?”
“Could be. There’s a newspaper interview that’s being done here. I’m really glad you came tonight, though. And it was … interesting to see Beth, although I still don’t quite understand what you meant by wanting things to come full circle, Max.” As he used to know and maybe still does, circles are only tidy in theory. Outside geometry, they don’t necessarily close.
“An old man’s foolishness, I expect,” he says. “It was only for me, to make things come to a better end than they began. I had not anticipated Beth as she is. I thought she would be remote and lovely, like porcelain, as I remembered her. But that is all right, too. I am glad you came, Sophie and Hendrik, the picture would have been incomplete and wrong without you. Thank you.”
“It’s been a pleasure,” Hendrik says.
“We wouldn’t have missed it,” says Sophie. “Do you expect to see Beth again, now that she’s asked you?”
“Perhaps,” says Max. “I feel for her, but more for her father. I have so much more than he. So far.”
“Well,” says Sophie, “you don’t have Beth. Hard to say if she’s a blessing or not. Will you see her, Nora?”
“I’d go to keep Max company, I guess. Probably not for myself, although I do feel bad now for abandoning her, even if she abandoned us first. But really, you know,” and Nora laughs, “I’m far too selfish to go around visiting random sick people. It’s not really in my nature.”
“Good,” Hendrik speaks up unexpectedly. “Don’t, either of you.” Why not? Hendrik isn’t usually a man who butts into other people’s lives with advice.
“Anyway,” Sophie says finally, “aside from Beth, are you happy with how tonight’s gone, Nora?”
“Oh, happy—you know, that never seems real or possible to me. Kind of like Beth, actually, those speeches beauty queens like to make about wanting to make the world happy, as if that made any sense. But a happy person wouldn’t do all this,” and Nora waves her arms to indicate everything on the walls, “so I’m not unhappy about not being happy, if you see what I mean. But as I told Beth, I might be just about content at the moment. I know that sounds small, but honestly, it’s really fairly immense.”
She has followed all this way, this whole long distance: from Philip in flesh to Philip in bone, paint and ash. That’s about as loyal as anybody can get, well beyond any Till death do us part. Nora expects Philip would like that; or he’d laugh.
“Then good,” Sophie says. So it is.
“You be well,” Nora tells her. “You take care.”
“You, too. See you soon. Maybe tomorrow.”
Max was wrong about Philip’s voice going on and on in Nora’s head, giving advice or solace, but if Nora doesn’t actually hear him, she can picture him saying now, “Bye, Sophie. Good girl. Way to go.” At the front door Sophie and Hendrik wave, unlike Beth, wearing the smiles of people leaving something not unpleasant but still a relief to escape. Then they’re gone, back to their little two-person world, still a small astonishment to Nora, who could not begin to be someone like Sophie.
But then, she doesn’t have to be someone like Sophie, does she? “If I pay you your percentage, Max, is it okay with you if I make one of those portraits of Sophie a gift to them?”
“Yes, of course. You do realize, though, that would be a substantial gift. They are not inexpensive.”
“I know. That’s all right.” For the time being Nora is comfortably off, if not flush. Philip, of all people, turned out to have a healthy life insurance policy—who knew? Also, the house sold for a surprisingly high price that covered the cost of her much smaller new home, thanks to the tentacles of the city spreading in the direction of town—the upside of urban sprawl. And this show seems to be doing all right, and there’ll be postcards and prints, Max’s usual endeavours. Surely she can afford to be generous with one lavish nude. Not all three, her future’s not as certain as that, and not at all as certain as Sophie’s and Hendrik’s, who are sitting on something better than gold, since there’s no bottom to mining the dead.
She can call the portrait a baby gift. “Look,” she can point out to the child later on. “Look, that’s your big naked mummy up there.”
That would naturally require Nora to visit Sophie and Hendrik in that godawful town, which she supposes she’ll do. She could always turn the town into something else: rocky landscapes, gingerbread houses, little flames flickering orange here and there, stick figures and tiny torches.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, let it go. There was a moment on her last day in the old house when she stood in the bedroom doorway looking into a room empty of furniture, of Philip, of herself, of touch and turmoil and pleasure and laughter and rage, not to mention empty of death, when she almost, almost, believed herself unable to leave it behind after all. But once out on the porch she also remembered rude words on the fence, shit on the doorstep, placards and cameras, anger and injury, and decided nostalgia must be for a time, which cannot be replaced, and not for a setting, which can be.
She drove off, unlike Lot’s wife not only not looking back but untempted.
If Philip were here he might turn now to his multiple portrait, head cocked, hands on hips, and say, “You know you’re the only one keen on it, don’t you?” Yes, that’s fairly obvious. “But you kn
ow, I like not going to waste. I like the colours and textures and odd bits and pieces. It’s busier than I’d have chosen, but I like you remembering me this way. And I especially like not being sold. I’d draw the line there.”
Something like that.
Max, having gone off to fix little red-dot sold stickers to not only the Sophie portraits but several of the other works in the two larger galleries, including the acrylic lollipop and the tobogganing kiddies, returns to say, “More people are beginning to leave, Nora. Will you come to the front door with me?” Because, of course, it’s proper to shake hands and embrace and kiss cheeks and say “Glad you could come,” and “Pleased you enjoyed it,” and “Thank you,” and “Goodnight.” Nora is, naturally, glad that people have come, and pleased they’ve enjoyed and in some instances bought. “We have done well,” Max whispers.
She should be safe financially for quite a while, then. As to other kinds of safety—well, apparently there’s no counting on those. Apparently grit, the determined ability to navigate and survive any unexpected day that crops up, is a more necessary quality than she would previously have imagined. Even Beth looks as if she’s learned something about that. It’s a courage that’s different from stubbornness, anyway. Look at Max, he is bendable—he’s had to be—but more than that, he is brave.
It’ll be a while before she has a new round of ideas, much less enough work in hand for a show. It’s entirely possible this is her last opening party with him. “How about you, Max, have you had a good night?”
“I have indeed. Your work is very fine, and the night has gone well, and although you perhaps think it foolish, and perhaps you are right, your little group all attended.” Maybe what pleases him most is still having the power to make something he wants come to pass. Nora hasn’t looked at him this way before: that absent other methods, he finds his own ways to make circles and other shapes that satisfy him.
Only a dozen or so people remain. The night’s catching up. “Would it be awful if I left now, too, Max?”
