Schooling (25 page)

She would have thought all that color was ugly.

You’re inventing . . . brushing the air . . . Invent away.

My mother didn’t—

Doesn’t matter . . . and grumpier still . . . It’s all invention to circumvent feeling.

That’s not true. My mother would have hated those painters. Gilbert yawns.

She didn’t like a muddle—

A muddle? Muddle? . . . Gilbert’s yawn turns into a snort . . . I can’t say I’ve ever heard an American say that. Muddle!

Stop.

You’ll be as snooty as me in no time.

I said stop it.

Why, what’s wrong with sounding English?

You’re not funny for one.

Gilbert stops laughing . . . What is it? . . . he walks over, kneels next to her tiny canvas chair.

For some reason her hands cover her ears like a child cusped on tantrum. Paintbrush held in fist, sticking in her hair. Oh no oh no not now.

At her height exactly, he appraises her, eyes flecked with hazel which could be a slogan for some type of chocolate. Muddle. How could she have been so stupid.

Hold on a minute . . . Gilbert wipes her cheekbone with his thumb . . . Is this The Crying Scene?

Go to hell.

Gilbert is not taking the position he should, the sympathetic character employed hitherto. He stands, wet ovals mark his knees. Takes the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger.

Stand up.

No.

Pulling her Never to his chest Capitulate what is his white shirt like pressing to a sheet so clean a handkerchief. Gilbert wraps his arms around her.

I won’t cry for you . . . struggling . . . I’m not a Punchinello not your—

He has her so tight wrapping his arms a vice advice It’s not a betrayal to sound like us platitudes he’s platonizing her taking her up so tightly his shoulders and back prepared to bear her weight and she she no.

He is saying Your mother said you were not to cry for her, I knew it the very first time we met. And then he cries, yes yes it is Gilbert who sobs, sobs delicious in her hair, webbing it with snot and sympathy. What is he to Evans or Evans to him that he should cry for her.

13

He’s dropped her at the rearing horse, given her hand an extra squeeze and she’s up the hill toward school. Is it any accident that a word like Muddle proves distressing.

Wha
—she screams, a monstrous phoenix floats up from behind a letterbox.

The bird goggles its eyes.

Simon. Go away. Wander elsewhere. In the road for example. She increases her speed up the hill. Gilbert pressed her hand he. Simon matches her pace. She tries stopping abruptly. Skillfully, Puck dodges, avoiding collision.

Go find Owen, why don’t you.

Simon raises his beak.

She begins to run.

Mostly you try not to perform as expected.

She doesn’t have the stamina. Simon catches up.

But out it came beyond your control.

What are you talking about.

Explanations about libraries crème caramel canned vegetables how you were never supposed to eat them. Paintbrush gripped in your fist and Gilbert saying let it go let it go not about the paintbrush, not profound in his I knows because he shares a horror of unfresh beans but because once he had a sister yes fatherless they starved sharing false adagios in the parlor.

You don’t know anything about it, Simon Puck.

This is the way with sisters and mothers. They are never considerate of those they leave.

Think I listen to some beakboy.

Your mouth brutal against his neck nonsensical you’ve heard of it possession when the blabbing overtakes you couldn’t register your knees you ended at him ended with breath at his collar will end up making rude guttural noises in the scared dark verses you want if you could only remember the words.

I never mewled about my mother.

How you love his collar—

She never had the back of his neck.

Really, the boy has lost his mind.

You want into his skin bloodstream want him osmotically. What a child he must think you heavy at his shoulders soggying his shirt with your foolish sorrows.

Gilbert’s—

Your someone to talk to your epic version your vergil your anomaly. Pigeon-brain. Your head’s in the sand, ostrich.

Slung against him, a man with motivations, you thought about white spaces left when the paintings came off the wall those old letters she was always reading Dear Catherine Dear Henry Love Catherine Love Henry reading all about those separated married to other lovers. She cried didn’t she? Cried for love.

Yes.

Finally you let yourself lean amewl against his chest he murmured above he was a conch. In his chest you found the ocean.

14

Mountains. A desolate wilderness. The background contains a single tree and the sheer rock face of a cliff. They enter in stages of exhaustion. A difficult journey. Not much longer. Here is Brickie, trustworthy Athenian, a crow hooked on his arm. Another boy, a Stuart or Adam, with a magpie. Nervous first years porter luggage. Brickie is fine, eyes casting about with annoyance, projecting to his audience, straight to her it seems.

I’ll be damned if I know where we are.

Do you suppose we could find our way back home? . . . Adam stumbles . . . Hell.

That’s where we’re headed alright . . . Brickie sighs . . . That’s where we’re headed.

The seats are filled with masters, Stokes’ arms folded and smiling, casting his one good eye now and then to Bea who strums her fingers glad for an outing. Yes everyone’s here, handsome Duncan Peaks resident amnesiac, even old Araigny who has stopped knitting for once but perhaps only in order to cast Betts reproachful glances as he pets the wifely hand claiming his knee.

Onstage, lights play on Brickie’s black hair, he has them in his thrall.

Oh what a plan the race of birds could launch! Listen to me and power untold is yours.

And here is Simon Puck center stage. Beak dirty from so many days, battered but no matter for he has gold and green wings, he dances.

O Treachery O Treason to betray us so.

It will be his grandest moment.

Puck shrieks . . . These men are spies, their lives are lies, so kill without regret.

Brickie cowers but is still strong.

Neither shall the misty mountains, nor the foaming fountains save them from our beaks.

Anon, Dr. Thorpe emerges as a prophet and Spenning is a lawyer shouting, Tis wings! Tis wings I crave!

Lo let them present Fi Hammond rolling in strung up on a machine propelled by those photogenic boys from the hockey pitch. Trouser clad, they bring her forward. And descending on this marvelous contraption, no doubt she tied the knots herself, Fiona is a messenger from the gods, shaking her fist with useless petulance.

My father Zeus sent me down to say the Olympian gods desire a sacrifice.

Brickie and Adam laugh, they turn their backs on her.

Fiona tries again . . . Mankind must slaughter sheep on holy hearths, and fill their streets with smoke.

Brickie quotes . . . Men are to worship birds not gods anymore. Now, go singe some youngsters with your lechery won’t you?

Dido across the aisle laughs like a donkey. Betts turns to shush. Owen is missing, in the wings, perhaps. The play continues. A truce, a feast. Brickie splendidly gowned, newly winged reaches out his hand to the girl . . . Oh my lovely oh my sweet take my wings in your shining hands let me lift you lift you above the sky and soar beside you through the buoyant air.

Puck flies . . . Noblest of the gods on high!

Applause.

THREE

1

Here it comes, a turning comment on pennies or the radio. Outside the land flashes past the yellowgreen you will know as jonquil tinge to the upper leaves though they travel down down leaving what little they have known. And remarkably, he is silent. Not to know she has his art in her prim hands. Handkerchief. Mappula. On the way. Father said, An honor it is to be chosen. Join these classes your Mr. Gilbert holds down south. That a teacher has it you show such promise you’re to stay with his very own family. After Easter lunch, roaming to show what they could do with the Felmar potting shed, convert it to something for her delight. Painting studio. Didn’t it amaze him, Father, for her to resound so in both chemistry and art. Talents seemingly opposed in nature. Painting trees to resemble lemons hardly qualifies for an accomplished eye. Surely. Yes, surely. Yet all of a sudden, private tutorials, studios. But what does she know really, about talent. Perhaps yellow signals genius as it can signal caution. Hazard ahead. Pure hands, a triangle around his art. Give Way. Hands scored by old eczema now clearing. Hands capable of a
Déjeuner
perhaps or
Martyrdom
. After all, you can’t assume she knows a thing. Juddering to avoid a sweater in the road. Arms up as if hailing. Come back Come back. Not knowing you never can. That’s the thing about sweaters, they lack a fundamental understanding. How did it go. That old sweet song. Fingertips against hipbones. Falling into a patch of lab bench sun. Leaning to give her cream for the eczema. Refrain something like. Stay.

What’s the matter?

Pardon?

You keep checking the rearview mirror.

Do I? Careful driving. You’ll take— Why are you turning around, I said it was nothing.

Because it’s not nothing. It’s something. What is it?

It’s odd.

What is?

I swear I saw a car. First back at the petrol station. And again just now.

Why is that odd.

It’s not. You’re right. It’s not odd. A coincidence.

Gilbert’s forward cranes and squinting herald spectacles in two years. Neck, a hooked concentration to phrases of oil, dashboard warnings of kidney-shaped lights, road waltzing car, ONE two three four, who leads whom. Hurtle toward our destination. Note quantities of gasoline, conditions of weather, overtaking escorts, their blinds flapped against a weak sun. Soon to be asked A penny for them for which a lie will be composed to avoid the obvious Why it is your trousers don’t hit your shoes. Nearly as bad as You Smell Nice. Which we have seen earlier won’t do at all. Hands folded on lap in a way to set Maggone agurgle with delight. Lapped, hands clasp portable art, a Gilbert original on her heavy skirt. A sober value, an unknown fiber. Flannel? Wool? Father insisted on good impressions, not jeans. Breeding. Overtheknee socks gripped by elastic matron garters which will imbed. Not good girl tights. That sag between thighs. Not knee socks. Father says they are for Catholics. At the wrists of handkerchief-held hands, her new red cardigan’s ribbed cuffs. At wristbone. Patiently awaiting a delicate wedge of tissue or art. Should the need for nose care or art appreciation ar
iii
se. A sleeve not impolitely accordioned halfway to forearm, the result of an overheated harassment by dangerous escorts. Not like some we could mention. No. Here’s a lady, says Miss Maggone. Indeed, a marchioness, replies Madame Araigny. Although it is generally accepted in these circles that Miss Maggone would not know a lady if a lady bit her on the forehead. But a generous Marxist allows the proles their opinions. The anomaly in this case are the shoes, they must be addressed if we are doing a complete survey which it seems we are. She mentioned that Brickie once equated her shoes with Monstead’s excellence at Squashing, in the hopes that Gilbert might have some light to shed on this peculiar analogy. Ignoring her plea for illumination, he looked shoeward to comment, Those are quite a pair. Where’s the lad you robbed them from? Did you have to kill him? And, It looks like you could do some squashing of your own with those. The conversation rapidly deteriorated from there, without her once resorting to what would have been a fair, one might say provoked, comment in the comeback department along the lines of certain inadequacies in ratio: trouser cuff to socks. And was that something found only in Marxists because she has seen the misguided on streets, both in Chittock Leigh and Oxbow and if this is a way to recognize that breed she’d like to know about it. On the other hand it remains equally likely that the lopsided ratio is a gene born in British men of all types, dormant or recessive, Marxist or otherwise.

2

Car horns, pauses, unheard replies to misunderstood questions. She wakes with donkey’s ears, dreaming she is dreaming.

3

You’re awake. Were you warm enough?

Is this yours?

You wore that once before, don’t you remember? The day I ran away.

You came out from the bushes like a maligned Puck. You let me sleep then too.

Yes and I loaned you that. It was snowing. Here it is April, not much warmer.

This is how it is with best friends tearing away from school, from it all. They ask amusing questions to make each other laugh. For example. Who is the woman in his blue paintings? But this makes Gilbert stop laughing. What bolt of clarity struck her while she slept, hum? He becomes peevish, Aren’t I here with you? It took some finagling to extricate myself from France. Then, relenting or inventing, one or the other, he admits, The paintings are a composite. I signed up for a course, painted from the model. She was—a girl from town. Then he wonders, Is this harangue actually retribution for his library absence? If so, she has forgotten the second half of the forgiving principle. That could be true. Forgetting is something at which she excels. She prepares to list things forgotten, the woman who watched her sleep, a library fit for dying. This exchange.

Does my coat need a wash?

What?

You appear to be sniffing it rather suspiciously.

It smells like you.

That’s alarming. Should I be alarmed? What’s that like?

It’s like. Chemistry.

What a relief. And here, I feared I might smell like Physics or heaven forbid the dreaded English.

I told you that once, that you smelled nice. The day we painted mud. You gave me a horrible look.

Did I? Perhaps I didn’t hear you correctly. Perhaps I thought you said, You have lice. Or, You suffice. Although I quite like that. Yes. You suffice.

Are you saying that to me?

No. You more than suffice. You. Saturate.

Sugar water.

Yes, delicious.

And you. Are anomalous.

Thank you very much.

That was pretty funny about the sugar H two O. You can go up to an eighty-six for that, Mr. Gilbert.

Most generous.