Close to Hugh (59 page)

Another shining thing: L the lovely girl, his niece, his—you could say—protégé, coming in the front door, glass opening in the middle of glass to let in glass: her fair slightness shining in the last late low slant of sun. Her hairline speaks of peace. Behind her a giant bear rears: old Gareth, and his slighter shadow, lovely Léon. So many people are so lovely now.

Hugh goes to them, so happy he’s afraid he’ll weep. Gareth stretches out one great limb and pulls Hugh in, a little confab. “That’s what I’m doing these days,” Hugh tells him, in confidence. “Confabulating.”

Gareth nods as if this all makes sense; L is too dazed to respond at all. “I’m taking on this startling young woman,” he says. “I want to secure your blessing before I do—I know you have been integral to her education thus far.” He talks on for some little time, Hugh nodding as he thinks might be polite, smiling most of the time. No idea what Gareth is saying, or what L may be thinking. Hugh hopes she wants this, isn’t just bedazzled—

No, that’s Hugh, it’s you who is confused, contused. Ivy?

There she is. “Hugh’s got a headache,” she tells Gareth. She hugs L. “Everything working out to your satisfaction?”

L nods, not able to speak either. Hugh hopes she has not had a bump on the head. That’s what he has. He sits. There is a chair against the wall, so he sits in it.

Mighton, in front of him now, confabs with Ann. That’s not a good idea. Those two too much of two feathers. Ann says she’s got a treasure trove of clothes and Hugh says that’s just fine, he nods and then stops speaking for a while. She made off with the fine feathers of Mimi’s frantic youth, that’s good. Feed her till she’s finally full.

Mighton leans over and kisses her, what’s that about, what’s this?

The good thing is that Mighton’s leaning reveals the
Dark Gates
he’s been blocking, and Hugh can sit and stare at that beautiful, that magnificent thing, that piece of work.

Gerald sits beside him. Two chairs, who knew? Hugh knew there were more, but not where they were. Language has become a serpent slide, no longer a ladder of logic. Ivy? No, no, she’s talking to L, that’s all right, she’ll guard L.

“Gerald,” he says. He searches for something to say that will please Gerald. “I need a new car. Or no, wait. I can’t afford one. I’m afraid I’m not myself.”

“Funny thing about that,” Gerald’s mouth crooks. “Saab just went under. We knew it was coming,” he says. “Might not be able to buy Mighton’s picture after all.”

“Okay. You’ve lost everything now. They’re puncturing my head in the morning.”

“But you’ll be all right. Conrad’s here—he told me, he said you can be fixed.”

Conrad: he’s come to check on him, no doubt. You should never lie to the doctor. Hugh never will again. If you live to tell the telltale never, no. Conrad bends to look into his eyes.

“How you doing, Hugh? Time to go to bed, is it?”

A trick question? What time is it? Hugh panics for an instant but there is Ivy, she has not left him. “He’s allowed to eat until seven, the O.R. nurse said—I thought I’d give him a quick supper, I don’t think he’s eaten since last night. Then we’ll have a quiet evening.”

Conrad nods. “See you in the morning, then, Hugh. I’m on for that picture, if Newell hasn’t already beaten me to it.”

“Nothing is settled,” Hugh says. “I am unsettled.”

“You are. You will be much better tomorrow,” Conrad promises. Off he goes.

Gerald leans over. “See you tomorrow,” he says. “Day after. I’m counting on you.”

So that means Hugh can’t die. Nobody else can die.

Ivy scans the room. Things are winding down—there’s only the one piece, after all. Hurry up, go! The wine has been drunk, the canapés devoured by the pre-supper crowd. Hugh sits against the wall, staring at the
Dark Gates
. Ivy sees that the painting is good, but resists being pulled in. Not liking Mighton, although he likes her. He’s swung his searchlight onto Ann, great.

Jason’s worried. He tells Ivy that Ruth asked him to bring Hugh’s van from Mimi’s place. “There were all those blue bags of clothes in the back, but they’re gone.”

“I took those,” his mother says, idling by, Mighton close beside her. “They’re all things that ought to be appraised.”

Ruth pauses at Ivy’s elbow, tugs her aside to whisper. “Ann took the bags I gave you?”

“Not those ones,” Ivy says. “There wasn’t room. The van was already full of bags, so I got the boys to put the bags you gave me into the big truck, up on the top shelf.”

Ruth laughs, a tiny explosion. “Well, doesn’t that just beat the Dutch. Those bags she took from Hugh’s van, those were poor Gerald’s wife’s old clothes. I dropped off the other bags at the Mennonite Clothes Closet. They’ll have a high old time over there when they go through them. I guess Ann will have to buy the things she wants back from them.”

“Oh no!” Ivy says. “I think Hugh was quite happy for her to have Mimi’s clothes.”

Repaying the deposit cheque of their old relationship, maybe.

Ruth nods, chuckling again, enormously amused. “Well, I’ll go explain there was a small mistake, and get them to give her a deal. But let’s wait a day or two.”

She trots happily off to the door where a delivery man is arriving. And Della and Ken, coming in around the delivery guy—what is that? Ivy goes to help. Four cartons. Ruth signs, signs, while Della and Jason and L and Ken take boxes through to the framing room. Della is signalling—They’re for
you
, Ivy.

What? She opens the first box: it’s full of other boxes, and each of those is full of shoes. Red velvet shoes, with lovely Spanish heels. 37? Yes. Another box, red suede wedges—another, another—oh, the roses shoes! Sixteen pairs of red shoes.

She looks up. Leaning in the doorway, Newell says, “I asked for all the reds.”

It makes him happy to give people things. Ivy will not get weepy again, because what if she can’t stop? Will rose red shoes stop Hugh’s head from bursting? No. But her ruined shoes, new again! “Roses fix everything,” she says, kissing Newell’s cheek.

Hugh is at the doorway too, lost without her; she shows him a rosy shoe. He nods, carefully. “Newell’s got a gift for gifts. Like the house for Della and Ken.”

There’s a silence. Ken asks, “The box? The travel box?”

“Okay, but the place. The house.”

Della looks up from examining a pair of red leather sandals. “What place?”

Newell sighs. “Bean spiller. What’s the use of a travel box without somewhere to go?”

“She left it here, upstairs,” Ken says. “I’ll get it.” He clatters up the stairs and comes back down with the mother-of-pearl box. He hands it to Della, who sets it on the framing table and opens the lid. She finds the satin ribbons, and lifts out the tray. More silver-capped jars below—and resting on top of them, a grey envelope. She pulls out paper, several pages, and a key slides out, clunking on the table. She and Ken look through the sheaf.

Ken’s blackened eye pulses, his tic made more visible by the yellowing patch above and the sharp still-black line below. He looks up, not at Newell. “This is too much.”

“I had the idea,” Newell says quietly, in the direction of the door, “that some time away might be good—kind of a sabbatical.”

Della says, to the watching people, “It’s a house in the Bahamas. A year’s lease.”

There’s a thick pause.

Newell says, “It’s not a big house, nothing fancy. I was on a wait list for it and my turn came up, but now the insurers for
Catastrophe
won’t let me go off the mainland. You’d be doing me a favour. Somebody has to use it. There’s a boat, there’s coral …”

He’s used to having presents refused, or grudgingly accepted, Ivy thinks. Good thing she’s keeping the shoes.

Ken looks at Newell, his usually anxious, drifting eyes are still. “For a couple of weeks, a month—but listen, I have to get back to work. And Della can’t be away too long. Pindar—”

“It’s vacant now, go now. Take a month,” Newell says, not pressing.

Ken straightens his back as if it’s been hurting. Lifts the tight forehead, irons the creases with his palm. “No, listen. This is—it’s the choice. That’s what’s good about it. That makes it possible to go back to work, since I can choose not to now, you see?”

Della leans her head on her husband’s arm, looking exhausted, but some variety of happy. “Thank you, Newell,” she says. “I will paint you some real boats.”

Burton steps into the doorway, surveys the little crowd. “I hate to barge in, but I’m going to miss my plane if we don’t hustle, Boy.”

That breaks the spell. Newell slips out through the crowd to get his coat while Burton, leaning in, tells Ivy that she’ll have to take over the master class. “Poor Boy has no interest in leading, you know him, but he promises he will attend and support you, as a favour to me. I suggest that you abandon directing
, per se
. Do a group project within your reach—you might manage a collective creation in the three weeks remaining. Now that you won’t be part of the performance team, I think it really
would
be good to have something the parents can come and see. Some recompense, since I won’t be there.” Catching sight of Jerry Pink, Burton swans away for a last goodbye.

Ivy goes with Newell to the door.

“You arranged that,” she says. “You’re the fixer.”

He’s got such bright clear eyes when he’s happy. “I may have made a donation. Don’t keep me, I have to get Burton to the airport. We don’t want him to miss that plane.”

Jerry Pink, seeing Ivy emerge into the gallery, says he’ll give her a call to work out the details. Newell prompts, “And to change her contract, since she’ll run the class now.”

“Collective creation, I hear you’re good at that,” Pink says.

Ivy nods, feeling very tired. It takes a lot of lift to get a collective off the ground. But Newell will be there, and Orion, back in the class, to soothe his soul. And Jason must stay in, and Nevaeh, they can work around her leg—well, there will be a lot to think about.

Newell is at Burton’s back, pushing him to the front. He tells Hugh (and Ivy, knowing she’s the fully conscious one) that he wants the Mighton. “Gareth says he’s not sure L’s installation is ready to sell? So keep an eye on that for me.”

Della tucks the pearl box under her arm, shrugging on her black coat with the brilliant lining. Ivy loves a suitable coat for the person; this one is Della all through. She still looks tragic, to Ivy’s mind; perhaps that’s not knowing her very well yet. Or that we are all so tired, and all these people loved Mimi, and mourn for her.

The door swinging, swinging: the place is almost empty, suddenly. Even Mighton has drifted off. Oh, there he is going up the street to the Ace with Ann and Lise Largely.

Ivy gives one little laugh, looking at them, and at its echo turns to see Ruth, still laughing. It is pretty funny—wonder how much of a donation Ruth will get the Clothes Closet to wangle out of Ann.

“We’ve got to feed you,” Ivy tells Hugh. “Less than an hour till seven.” Ruth, buttoning her corduroy coat, pulls a nice brown crackly hundred dollar bill out of her pocket. “I’m taking Hugh to the Duck,” she says, to Ivy’s surprise. “We have to make some lists before he goes to get that bump taken care of, what to do about the funeral and so on. I made the reservation for three, hoping you’d come along.”

She turns the sign and pulls the door to. “When I found this hundred dollars, we didn’t even know you yet! It’s like it was meant.”

(DELLA)

put him to bed                        poor man sad eye browbeaten    thirty years

a week in the Bahamas     or a month

Burton is Newell’s burden

Mimi Hugh’s

mine is Ken                                                          in my ken
    

all night

poetry in the mind going on    work death infidelity suicide work

all these years of being        more or less cheerful more or less loving

work is what we live for anyway

so work work is that it?         yes and loving

work and more of it              none of this means   I do not love him

oh my mother your boats

and Hugh & his head

and Newell

and Elle           my lovely L

all of them will leave me

fine                                of all of them

only Ken is mine

where is my Sharpie? do not wake, sleeper

under Ken’s black and sleeping eye

in tiny letters:                            m i n e 

(ORION)

He stops, brakes hissing, and looks out over the river. The moon is wading in it, washing her feet, feeling so smirched. Everybody knowing what was secret, what was pure.

Give up, give up on him. The thing is, I thought this was important. Won’t be the last mistake, a thousand huge mistakes left to make in a long, boring life.

Flying out of reach of people, beyond the city, down past the Liftlock golf course and out out out Old Norwood, going farther into darkness as fast as flight. Past the last houses onward right up to Burnham Line, fly like a man-witch from
Macbeth
.