The Fountain of St. James Court; Or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  In the kitchen, Peter pulled out a chair from the table and sat down.

  Royal trotted out to the sunporch and lay on the tiles in a block of October sunlight. He was bored with their conversation. Sunshine, sunshine sinking its fingers into springy curls, that was what Royal wanted for himself. He wanted the sun to scratch him with its fingers.

  Ryn hated the way she let herself be absorbed in the pretend psyches of animals. It was as though she didn’t quite believe in herself as a human. “Did you read that mystery Rick wrote? The Ecstasy of the Animals? I always loved that title. I would have bought it from him if I could.

  “It’s about being set free,” she added, but Peter seemed absorbed in his own thoughts. She cracked and peeled the hard-boiled eggs, ran the can opener around the six-ounce tuna can, took the mayonnaise from the fridge, and mixed up the salad.

  “I don’t know that animals are all that eager to be free,” Peter said. “It’s a hard life to fend for yourself.” She noticed his lips looked dry and parched, but there was a glow about his face. Some of the fresh audacity of just dropping in to visit at lunchtime still brightened his expression.

  As she poured the soup, she was careful to give both portions equal amounts of the diced tomatoes. Because Peter enjoyed arty, handmade things, she had gotten out the bowls she had bought at the St. James Art Fair, instead of the Haviland.

  “Nice bowls,” he said with unqualified appreciation while she put the food on the place mats, woven of rich fall colors, russet and harvest gold. She didn’t like things to match overly much.

  “Actually I was thinking you’d like them,” she said. The hand-thrown bowls each swirled together a clayish russet with midnight blue. “Did you go to the fair?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to let Royal strut his stuff. It’s good for him to be admired.”

  At his name, Royal had turned his head to watch them talk about him.

  “Aren’t you afraid of making him vain?” she teased. But Royal was not vain; he was just himself. She enjoyed his proud carriage, but it was his expressive face, both intelligent and understanding, that she loved. As she sat down across from Peter, the kitchen telephone rang.

  “Go ahead and answer it,” Peter said, so she did. Almost no one called her on the house line anymore, but she kept it for the security system. Right into her ear, as though he were down the street, instead of on a rocky shore in Sweden, she heard the voice of their son.

  “Humphrey!” she exclaimed. “I was just thinking of you.” (Of course she was always just thinking about her only child; Peter had another boy from an earlier marriage, but Humphrey was her one and only.) Peter held out his hand as though to take the phone, and she nodded and smiled at him: yes, she’d hand over the phone in a moment. She asked about Edmund and about the weather, genuinely interested in both. (Fit as a fiddle and surprisingly still warm.) To know Humphrey’s context was to make him seem all the more real. It was so very pleasant to hear his voice, for him to say anything at all. All at once she both listened to him and thought of what she wanted to tell him. She would tell him that the fall colors were gorgeous, that they had walked in the park, maybe that she had seen a little girl in red plaid with a heavy load of books that reminded her of herself and how she would go walking with Laura, scuffing their feet in the leaves, and oh, that she’d finished the first draft of her new book—

  “Does Dad happen to be there?” (How full and rich, her son’s voice.)

  “Yes. Yes, he does happen to be here. Royal, too. Just a minute—” And she carried the phone around to Peter, who was positively beaming.

  “What are you working on?” Peter asked their son, for her ex took a lively interest in Humphrey’s work as a sculptor.

  Humphrey’s answer was long, and Ryn watched Peter’s expressive face responding. Feeling shortchanged, she began to eat her soup before it got cold. In his kitchen chair, Peter changed his posture, somewhat restlessly and impulsively, as he listened. Probably Peter wasn’t getting to talk as much as he would have liked.

  She would have liked to hear what Humphrey was saying, but she knew how she always cringed when anyone announced, “I’ll put you on speakerphone.” It was the old chameleon in her. What she said was carefully adjusted in subject matter, sentence style, tonal structure to her particular listener. She imagined Humphrey felt the same way she did about having a conversation over distance with more than one person. On book tours, sometimes people would ask her the audience question: “Who do you write for?” She’d known the answer since Alabama college days when she was just beginning to write stories. I write for a person just like myself who has not yet read my book, she would respond, slowly, so the listeners could follow her ready answer. Nearly always there was a slight twitter or some other expression of surprise. She supposed it sounded narcissistic, but it was true. That Peter was finally speaking into the telephone snagged her attention, and what had he said?

  “Humphrey, it looks like I’m going to play Lear next summer at Shakespeare in the Park. Maybe you and Edmund can come back over.”

  “What?” Ryn exclaimed, surprised and smiling.

  Phone glued to his ear, Peter shook his head slightly and smiled back at her; Peter’s listener was clearly intended to be Humphrey.

  “Demented, I’ll play him as demented. Alzheimer’s. That’s what a contemporary audience can relate to . . . No, he won’t lose grandeur. Pity and terror, Greek ideas of tragedy. It will lead to that. Divesting himself of his position and power as king, that opening scene? It’s a sign of dementia. His paranoia about being loved by his daughters, that, too.”

  Yes, Ryn could see King Lear played as having Alzheimer’s or some sort of senile dementia.

  Ryn was patient; she loved it that Humphrey and Peter had special parts of themselves in common, talents that she lacked, but she was beginning to feel left out. Humphrey had called her, for God’s sake, and she’d barely gotten to say hello. She thought of the way Mark always excluded her. If he was talking to a relative on the phone, he had always gotten up and walked out of the room. He disappeared her from the scene. Yes, of course some things were private. She wondered if she should mention that Jerry was in town, had actually come out to the house looking for Humphrey.

  Peter suddenly spoke to her. “Humphrey’s running out of time. You want to talk again?”

  She held out her hand for the phone and said directly into the mouthpiece, “It would be great if you and Edmund could come back in late June, early July.” His answer was a short Maybe so, and she asked about autumn in Sweden, which turned out to be already over. Maybe Humphrey would come back for Lear, next summer. She wouldn’t urge him again, though she said, That would be great. Then she mentioned that she had finished the first draft of her new novel and taken it over to Leslie, who had moved to Louisville recently.

  “That really is great, Mom!” Humphrey’s voice swung fully open with pride and enthusiasm.

  When she asked about Humphrey’s work, he said he was making a series of foot-high clay sculptures of old-timers at work. Mixed media. The work object was represented with snippets of the actual task: a miniature piece of fishnet, a piece of shoe leather—and then he broke off to ask what was the title again of the new novel. When she said Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman, they both chuckled.

  She felt sure that they simultaneously recognized the congruence of their subject matter. “Do a little sculpture for me of an aging woman at her writing,” she said, and he said he would, one with a laptop at a desk. Suddenly she thought it could look kitschy, but she didn’t say so.

  He signed off saying, “I love you, Mom. I’m really, really proud of you for finishing the draft,” and she replied, “I love you, too.” She wouldn’t tell him about Jerry.

  Probably Jerry would come and go, and that would be that. “Well, that was a pleasant surprise,” she said to Peter. “Do you want me to heat up your soup.”

  “No, this is fine,” he answered. He began to eat rapidly. Royal came in
from the sunporch and sat sedately beside his master.

  “I’m glad he called while you were here. And Lear! Did you know that earlier?” She wondered why Peter hadn’t mentioned it when he first came in the door. They had only chatted about the trapeze artists painting.

  “On Belgravia, Royal and I were walking a little girl and Daisy back to Daisy’s house, and afterward I ran into Josh Bomhart, the director. He stopped me right outside Daisy and Dan’s house, and he offered me the role on the spot. He’ll call my agent.”

  “Terrific! You’ll be terrific. Huge congratulations.”

  “Then Humphrey called on his cell, so I told him about Lear, outside Daisy’s, but I couldn’t hear what he said. Static on the line. I told him give me time to get back to your place and then call on your landline.”

  Quickly Ryn stuffed down any disappointment, just as she always had throughout their marriage. Then Humphrey hadn’t really been spontaneously phoning her up. So Peter had saved the big news about the Lear role for Humphrey, even though she had been wishing it for Peter just that morning. Just this morning, with all the autumn leaves floating around them, in the park, while they walked the paved pathways, the idea of Peter playing Lear had come to her like an inspiration, out of the blue. And she had shared it, immediately. But what did the sequence of events matter; Peter was going to get to play Lear in the park. Yes, it would be a triumphant moment in Peter’s career. And he would be splendid (if only he didn’t fall into that low-key conversational mumble). Who knew who might come to the performance, what it might lead to?

  “I’m really happy you get to do the part,” she said again to Peter. And she was.

  When Peter was almost out the massive front door, he paused, looked back over his shoulder, and gave Ryn a wink. Did Royal give out a throaty little arf at the same moment, or did she imagine it? At any rate, it was clear Peter was feeling good about himself.

  STANDING IN THE ENTRY HALL of her Belgravia home, Daisy hung up the phone and said to the tearstained little face, “Your mother will be here to get you just as soon as she can. It won’t take long. Come sit on the sofa with me while we wait.”

  Such a pretty child, she thought, so much suffering so young. Daisy’s gray-and-white long-haired cat came rubbing against the girl’s ankles.

  “You can pick her up,” Daisy said. “She’s a special kind of cat, a rag-doll cat. When you pick her up, she’s as limp and flexible as a rag doll.”

  “Really?” the girl asked, but she hesitated to stoop down.

  “When we sit on the sofa, Lillian will come over to us.” Knowledgeable about the ways of both cats and traumatized little girls, Daisy took the girl’s hand and led her from the entry hall to the living room. They paused to watch through the French doors a golden shower of ginkgo leaves raining down onto the grassy median. The girl’s gaze shifted to the silver tea service on the coffee table and back to the gold fluttering just outside.

  “Are those windows or doors?” she asked.

  “They’re windows, and we don’t walk through them,” Daisy explained, “but they do open all the way down to the floor, like doors. And we call them French doors. It’s confusing. Would you like me to open the French doors?”

  The girl looked up at Daisy and whispered, “Maybe the leaves will blow in, if we open them.” She smiled slightly. Quickly, she added politely, “If you don’t mind.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice?” Daisy said, and she opened both French doors to their widest extent. “When Daniel and I first moved here—Daniel’s my husband—the first thing we did was open the French doors. Then we sat on the sofa and had a glass of wine, and people said hello to us as they walked by on Belgravia Court.”

  Daisy spoke in a warm, confiding tone to the child, but she watched her closely, highly aware that she stood between the little girl and her sense of desolation. Daisy was grateful that she had her home to offer as a temporary refuge. In the absence of cars, Belgravia being a walking court, this place felt more timeless, intimate, and comforting than St. James.

  “We live on Fourth Street, but sometimes we walk over here. I like the goldfish pond in front of the house down there.” She pointed. “Once we looked at a house for sale on Belgravia that my daddy really loved, but my mother said we’d better stay put.”

  “Here’s Lillian,” Daisy said quickly. She swooped down and put her hand under the cat’s belly. When she lifted her, the cat drooped down on both sides. “She’s ve-e-ery limber,” Daisy said slowly, arranging the cat against the girl’s chest.

  “She’s so soft and deep,” the girl said, holding her close with one arm and petting her head. “She already loves me, yes she does.” She arranged the cat onto the other side. “Is this more comfortable, kitty Lillian?” Then she arranged the cat again so she was right in the center.

  “Now she’s comfortable,” Daisy said.

  “I like her best right here. Right against my heart, aren’t you, Lillian kitty?”

  Daisy smiled and said nothing. When Lillian began to purr, Daisy felt softly pleased with the cat.

  “My daddy would love Lillian,” the girl said, and repeated herself in a kind of crooning while she stroked the cat. “Yes, he would. My daddy loves Lillian. He loves her so much.” She stopped petting the cat and looked directly into Daisy’s eyes, while the tears streamed down her cheeks. Her rosy lips parted a little, and Daisy could see the slightly scalloped edges of her teeth. A small wail like the tearing of silk came from the girl’s mouth.

  “Oh darling,” Daisy said, “come here and let me hold you.” Lillian leapt away as the girl put her arms around Daisy’s neck and snuggled herself against Daisy’s breasts. She sobbed and sobbed. “There now, there now,” Daisy said. “You’re going to be all right, Juliette. I know how you miss him.” Nothing in Daisy’s calm strong voice echoed the fact that her own mother was dying perceptibly, day by week by month, of Alzheimer’s.

  While she soothed the child, murmuring to her and rubbing her back, Daisy watched Lillian move to a chunk of sunshine and wash the long white fur on her bib. For a moment, Daisy closed her eyes and remembered her own girlish glee over the wet sandpaper tongue of a cat licking her neck. She wondered if her mother would enjoy holding Lillian-kitty. Probably not.

  The girl lifted her head suddenly from Daisy’s chest at the sound of high heels on the sidewalk and said, “That’s Mommy.” She sat up and began wiping her cheeks with her fingers.

  “You can go in the bathroom and wash your face, if you like,” Daisy said. “It’s just beyond the dining room, off the little hall to the kitchen.” The girl hurried off in a purposeful way.

  When Daisy greeted the mother, a pretty, professional woman in a fall suit with a lace collar and brown patent-leather pumps, Daisy said that the child had been pretty confused and upset, but when the little girl came back in the room, her face refreshed and her hair neatly in place, she seemed the picture of composure. She had pulled herself together for her mother.

  “Mommy, I’m so sad about Daddy,” she said. Almost ritualistically she went to her mother and hugged her. “Let’s go home now,” she said.

  The mother was full of thanks to Daisy and flustered concern for her daughter. Daisy saw gusts of the woman’s own grief sweep over her, but she was the mother and a capable adult, and she clung to her role. Before Juliette turned away at the door, she spoke to Daisy with the same kind of poise Daisy herself often used in facing an uncertain world. “Thank you so much for helping me. And Mr. Peter, too.”

  “I’ll tell him for you, Juliette,” Daisy reassured. To the mother, Daisy added in her richly timbred, rather formal voice, “Let us know if we can be of further help.” Then she closed the door firmly.

  Daisy felt drained. She looked around her lovely home, was grateful for it, and took a deep breath. There was a lot to do. Daniel was packing to go to Nairobi with his brother; the brothers were the sons of medical missionaries, and Daniel had not been back to Africa since he was nineteen. When Daisy pick
ed up Lillian from the floor, she marveled again at the animal’s pliancy and the fineness of her gray-and-white fur. After she kissed the cat’s pink nose, she said, “Well, Lillian, you were a good girl,” and put her back down on the rug. Daisy remembered that the bananas, waiting in the blue fruit bowl on the kitchen table, were now perfectly ripe, and she went to fetch one to take to her mother.

  The clock struck one, or was it twelve thirty? Or even one thirty? Daisy sighed. She’d better stop by the bathroom before she drove to the nursing home. She hated using their facilities; it almost seemed that she belonged there when she used their toilet and washed her hands at their sink. She supposed she would belong there someday. A lot of people would unless there was more money for more research for Alzheimer’s. Ryn’s mother had it, too, but Ryn seemed to be going strong; she was nearly seventy, six or eight years older than Daisy. When the disease was undeniable, Ryn’s mother had been about eighty-four, like Daisy’s mother. Her own eighties were a long way off, Daisy thought.

  In the tiny powder room, Daisy discovered the little girl had picked up a lipstick from the shelf over the diminutive sink to draw a picture on the mirror. Outlined in red, with waxy pellets adhering in places, Juliette had drawn the face of a girl crying. The tear shapes were colored in completely and resembled drops of blood streaming from the child’s round eyes.

  It was a startling picture, vaguely African. Daisy stooped a little so that her own face was congruent with the red drawing. Now her own eyes appeared to be weeping blood.

  She decided not to clean the lipstick off the glass for a while. She would show it to her husband. As soon as he saw it, Daniel would say, “Well, obviously, she’s hurting for her daddy.” While Daisy was agreeing with Daniel’s interpretation, some of the terror in the drawing would dissipate. Probably Daniel would go on to say, “Here, let me just wipe this off for you,” and very efficiently—would he use soap, shampoo, tissue?—the lines would blear under Daniel’s moving hand, then fade to a mere smear, then disappear.