The year of the Lucy

CHAPTER TEN

THE NEXT morning when Mirelle called Margaret Howell, she was told that the invalid had been very restless during the night, constantly plagued by the racking cough. The vaporizer had had little noticeable effect and Jamie claimed the cough syrup was worthless. Mirelle told Margaret to confer with Will Martin.

Then she went down to the studio and finished Sylvia's pig. On inspiration, and because Howell was much on her mind, she took down the long-covered head.

The flaws in her execution were startlingly apparent and she spent nearly an hour making minute precise alterations.

"What? Not brewing calf' s foot jelly?" was Sylvia's greeting. "Say, when did you do that?" she asked as she recognized the head. "Mirelle, how long HAVE you known James Howell?"

"I met him last May," Mirelle replied, hoping that a casual answer would inhibit Sylvia's curiosity.

"That's a mighty… ah… close study for a casual acquaintance."

"Is it?" Mirelle stared at the head as if seeing it objectively for the first time. "Not really. It's not at all finished."

"No, it isn't."

Exasperated by that droll remark, Mirelle turned on Sylvia. "What are you not saying?"

Sylvia returned the look with a sardonic expression and then, suddenly relenting, sighed, and headed for the stairs.

"Sylvia!"

"Well, it is an awfully perceptive study, until I remember that you worked the Lucy from a memory seven years dead, so forget about the sordid innuendo. Any idea how the invalid and his nurse are faring?"

"He had a restless night."

"Will she be able to cope?"

"I think so."

"Interesting type, Howell. I can see why his face caught your artistic eye."

"Go thou and make coffee."

Sylvia went with a show of alacrity. Mirelle stood back and eyed the plasticene model critically, beginning to experience some satisfaction in the result. The phone rang and Sylvia picked up the kitchen extension.

"It's Margaret," she called down to Mirelle. "He insists on beef tea and all but threw the boullion she made him in her face. Ha!"

Mirelle joined the conversation on the studio phone.

"There isn't any more beef in the house to make the tea. We can pick some up and be right over. D'you need anything else?"

"Yes, indeed, Mrs. Martin. Fruit juice. He drinks like there's no tomorrow. And Dr. Martin was calling Eckerd's to make up a new prescription for that cough. It's awful. My throat hurts just listening to him hack."

Mirelle and Sylvia entered by the kitchen door to prevent disturbing Howell. Sylvia started the beef tea while Mirelle took up the cough medicine. Margaret was sitting on her father's bed, reading letters to him. He looked, if anything, worse this morning. She still didn't have the dimensions of the forehead right. That would account for faulty positioning of the eye socket. No, she'd have to wait until he recovered from his illness. The bones in his skull were abnormally pronounced, his face drawn by fever and fatigue.

"Hi, Mrs. Martin."

Jamie opened his eyes slightly.

"There are females cackling in my kitchen again," he complained.

"Nonsense. You're hearing the rale in your chest."

"And another thing," Jamie opened one eye wider, "couldn't you at least have recommended a physician affluent enough to use sharp hypodermic needles? I've a bruise the size of a dinner plate on my butt."

"Couldn't get through the calluses on your tail bones from sitting on all those unpadded piano benches."

Margaret let out a whoop of laughter and Jamie kicked her off the bed, glaring at Mirelle.

"Will you kindly instruct this infant of mine in the proper recipe for that beef tea? She fed me a substitute, poured no doubt from last night's dishwater."

"Thy wish is our command, Effendi." Mirelle salaamed, and gave the necessary instructions.

"You see, I told you it was an essentially simple decoction," Jamie said with weary patience.

Margaret rolled her eyes expressively heavenwards. "You're saving my life."

Then Jamie caught sight of the bottle in Mirelle's hand. "Cackling females! Here I am, with a throat like a sandstorm, relief in sight," he pointed at the bottle, "and you two stand there exchanging inanities."

"Oh, dad," said Margaret contritely.

"Never mind him, Margaret. Here's the syrup and I hope it's more vile than yesterday's. I've got to go. The beef tea will be ready in half an hour. Don't forget." She gave Jamie a jaunty salute and left.

As she and Sylvia left, they could both hear Margaret upbraiding her father for resisting the new medicine "that Mrs. Martin was kind enough to collect."

"We're going to have to rescue that child," said Sylvia. "Once he's over the fever, he'll be impossible."

"Just like my Nick who was a terror," Mirelle said.

"Mirelle," began Sylvia, edging sideways into the Sprite's bucket seat, "where did you meet Howell?"

Mirelle chuckled.

"Now don't give me that bit about a flat tire. And the day that man steps into a Food Fair short of starvation…"

"To tell the truth and shame the devil…"

"By all means…"

"I won't say another word if you keep interrupting…"

"I'll behave…"

"I got tossed from a horse last spring and as I turned onto the highway, the tire blew. He saw it and played Good Samaritan."

"I wouldn't have thought that piece was in his repertoire."

Mirelle gave Sylvia a stern look and she made a show of remorse.

"I'd wrenched my ankle in the toss and he said he decided to stop because he saw me limping."

"Where did the steak juice drop in?"

"That was later, in October."

"All right, if you insist on being coy…"

"Now, look, Sylvia," Mirelle began with a touch of anger in her voice, "don't go imagining a situation when one doesn't exist."

"I'm the slave of my romantic soul. That's a lot of good man going to waste."

"Howell? I doubt he allows any waste, the way he talks."

"It's so easy to talk a good game," and Sylvia's voice took on a caustic edge, "but when the time comes to produce…" She shrugged eloquently about such failures.

Though the words were glib, Mirelle began to wonder about the basis for such a cynical retort. She was reasonably certain that G.F. Esterhazy was the sort of man to take favors whenever offered them. It occurred to Mirelle that Sylvia would retaliate by finding extra-marital solace if the mood struck her. Mirelle had good reason to regard infidelity as a minor offense.

"Have you fallen silent in respect for my shrewd insights?" Sylvia asked Mirelle as she turned the Sprite into her development.

"I'm speechless, but only because I'm trying to figure out how to turn the wrath of El Howell from doting daughter."

"Shall we throw a wake?"

"And ask the corpse to play for it? That isn't done."

"I should like to hear him perform," and Sylvia's laugh was wicked with double entendre.

"My, we have an edge to our tongue today, don't we?"

"Pay no attention. This is 'I Hate Men Week.' Join me?"

"I'm not big on causes."

"At least that one? Well, that's a relief. I'd a notion things might be sticky in that department for you."

Mirelle smiled reassuringly. "There're always times."

"Hmmm," and the monosyllable was knowing as Mirelle brought the Sprite to a halt in the driveway. "I'll finish making coffee. I've only had one quart today."

Mirelle went back to her pig work and, when Sylvia brought down the coffee tray, they both admired her efforts.

"Now," said Sylvia with a drawl, cocking her head at the pig, "if it had jowls, an unshaven appearance and a more sardonic expression…"

"The very idea!" Mirelle leapt to the storage box and extracted a wad of clay. "To help Margaret, I'll make a Howell pig to remind him of how difficult he is."

"This I gotta watch."

"I used to make little animals for the children when they were sickabed. I developed a series of beasties, usually with obnoxious expressions, and just gave them hideous colors. Nick would be a blue mule when he wouldn't take his medicine. Roman was a yellow ostrich. He always burrowed under the sheets to avoid a shot."

"Can't say as I blame him. Nor would Howell."

Mirelle laughed, remembering his complaint. "The kids would play with the animals in bed, before I broke down and permitted TV in the house."

"Are there any left?" Sylvia peered at the back of the storage shelves.

"No. They were just hardened clay and friable. In fact, the kids used to smash them in victory when they got well."

"How quickly can you work?" Sylvia asked, her eyes dancing.

"Depends…" and she lifted the pig explanatorily. "This will take only a few minutes but I used to do a lot of such things."

"Because… you know what you might do for your church booth? Turn out small busts of the children there. Could you do a rough one in say fifteen minutes?"

"Well, yes, I could," and Mirelle's admission was reluctance itself, "but that isn't the way I like to work."

"Work, schmurk," Sylvia said derisively. "You could charge… how much does the clay cost in a piece that size?"

"A few pennies only. Firing runs the price up."

"Don't fire. I'm sure you'd sell a lot. You probably wouldn't have time to pee. The previous minister at your church used to do quick charcoal sketches for a dollar a pose at the Bazaar and he could've had all the portrait work he could handle."

"Sylvia, I just don't work that way."

"I know, I know. But I was thinking that the exposure might lead to more commissions of the kind you do want. I just hate to see your light under a barrel."

Mirelle laid a light admonitory finger on Sylvia's hand.

"I appreciate your partisanship but kindly remember that I have placed sculpture in a few museums."

"So you've told me. But you'd better start doing more. Look, Mirelle," and Sylvia warmed to her subject, "your kids are growing up. Soon they'll not see you for small potatoes unless you yourself are something. They'll go off to college and you'll be left with nothing to do in this big house. You're not an organization type like June Treadway and you're not politically oriented like me. You're an artist and you're going to have to create a market for yourself and find an outlet… Oh, God in Heaven, where's my memory?" Sylvia slapped her forehead in exasperation. "If 1 were more dense…"

"What are you talking about."

Sylvia leaned forward eagerly. "I haven't seen him for years, but Mason Galway and I were very friendly at one time. He now runs a very exclusive gallery in Philadelphia…"

"Sylvia, thanks, but there just isn't much demand for sculpture…"

"I keep telling you, you create your own demand. Make it a status symbol to own a Martin…" Sylvia noticed the change in Mirelle's expression. "What did I say now?"

"For one thing, I don't use Martin professionally."

"So?" Sylvia eyed her friend quizzically.

Mirelle got up and walked over to the window, scrubbing the adhered clay from her palms into a little scrap.

"Sylvia, one reason I don't aggressively seek commissions is because of the trouble it causes with my in-laws. Steve's parents."

"What trouble?" Sylvia's tone invited the full story, and Mirelle knew that evasions would not suffice.

"They don't understand about Ahrt, and they certainly have never understood my propensity for mucking about with kindergarten goo."

"All the more reason why a few respectable sales will make them change their tune. Nothing like money to sway the middleclass mind."

"It's not that, Sylvia. You see, I had established a little reputation as Mary Ellen LeBoyne and then my father died."

"Skeletons in your family closet?" Sylvia was delighted.

"Me."

"You?" Sylvia snorted. "You?" her tone was incredulous.

"My mother was an opera singer, Mary LeBoyne. She married a rich, if untitled, Englishman, Edward Barthan-More in 1920. She never gave up singing. In the spring of 1926, she sat for her portrait, as Tosca actually, for Lajos Neagu, an artist much in vogue in Vienna at the time. I was an unexpected bonus."

Sylvia's eyes widened dramatically in surprise at Mirelle's quiet disclosure.

"Barthan-More was terribly conscious of family honor and dignity…"

"Good old Victorian upbringing, no doubt."

"He permitted me to be raised as his child, although he never allowed Mother to have me baptised in the family church." Mirelle grimaced. Barthan-More's stricture had hurt Mary LeBoyne, a staunch Anglican. It had been one of the many mean little ways the man had had of revenging himself under the guise of magnanimity. "I was a blonde baby and there were blue eyes in the family. Unfortunately," and Mirelle tapped one cheekbone, "by the time I was six, it was painfully apparent that I was a… changeling."

Sylvia's face darkened with irritation for the unknown Barthan-More.

"In English families of his rank, no child is allowed out of the nursery so I was conveniently kept out of sight of the relatives. I was, however, permitted to accompany my mother when she sang on the Continent because it meant my Nanny had to go along." Mirelle could hear the change in her voice as she mentioned Nanny.

Sylvia caught the harshness. "How convenient to have an indispensable sort of spy."

"Yes, but despite her, Mother and I were very happy together. We could forget her at concerts and rehearsals. Nanny had no ear for music."

"A distinct handicap for an eavesdropper."

"Nothing to eavesdrop on." Mirelle shook her head sadly. "Mother never sought Neagu. Nor any other man."

"Pity!"

"I agree but I think she'd made a bargain with Barthan-More for my sake. At any rate, I never remember her speaking to anyone or of anyone. Backstage, she was known as the Untouchable, or the Icy Irishwoman."

"And all for one small fall from virtue." Sylvia let out a dramatic sigh. "Thank God I saw the light of day in enlightened times. So what happened to part the charming twosome?"

"The war," Mirelle replied with a shrug, "and me growing old enough to attend public school."

"Looking more and more Hungarrrrian?"

"Yes, and Barthan-More getting nastier and meaner. When the bombing started, my mother's dearest friend and former dresser, Mary Murphy, wrote from the States, offering to take me. Mother accepted."

"And…"

"Barthan-More bought a one-way ticket."

"He would."

Mirelle broke the clay fragment in two pieces. "Thirteen months later, Mother was killed in an air raid, singing to the wounded."

She couldn't help the tears that welled up in her eyes. Sylvia's small square hand patted hers gently.

"So you spent the rest of your childhood happily in the States?"

"Yes, with Murph. Five wonderful years."

"How come you lost your English accent?" Sylvia asked in the silence.

"Why should I keep it?" Mirelle replied sourly. "I promised myself a completely new start in the new world, and I assumed my mother's name as a beginning."

"Then what's with the in-laws?" asked Sylvia exasperated.

"My father left me money."

"Father? Neagu, then, not Barthan-More. And what's wrong with money?"

"The Times which reported the terms of the will had me named as his 'natural daughter by the late opera singer, Mary LeBoyne.' "

Sylvia groaned. "Reporters! Anything to spice up copy. I can imagine how middleclass morality accepted that choice bit of news coverage."

Mirelle sighed at the memory of those distressing days of scenes and recriminations.

"Steve knew about my birth…"

"We are such idealists in the blush of love," Sylvia commented ruefully.

"There'd been no occasion to mention it to his parents."

"Until it was all over the local rag which probably elaborated on the story from the Times. So the in-laws were suitably shocked, shamed, appalled and acted in the best tradition of outraged middleclassery."

"I can't blame them. It was an awful shock to me, too. I didn't think that Neagu knew or cared about me."

"Well, he'd've known not to inquire of Barthan-More. What did Steve do?"

Mirelle flushed, not willing to discuss that.

"He didn't side with Mommie and Daddy, did he?"

"That isn't fair."

"Who to? You? His precious prude parents?" Sylvia flounced up out of the chair, furious. "And, for that kind of…" words failed her so she waved her arms about eloquently, "you've deliberately neglected your talents?"

"I haven't neglected them."

"Well, you sure haven't cultivated them."

"I don't want any notoriety, Sylvia. It makes my life too difficult."

"I'd never have taken you for a coward, Mirelle Martin." Sylvia flared up, the accusation flung out and then instantly retracted. "No, Mirelle Martin isn't but Mary LeBoyne sure isn't pushing. And I think it's downright asinine for you to stifle the contribution you could make because of an anachronistic irregularity of birth. Why must you be saddled with your parents' sin? Particularly in today's permissive society? For God's sake, as an artist, any sort of deviation is permitted. Encouraged!"

"That's part of it, too," Mirelle said, doggedly resisting.

Sylvia regarded her scornfully. "You mean, your dear in-laws are afraid that immersion in the artistic world would result in your descent into promiscuity? Hah! I got news for them. Most women don't need parental example to stray from the marital bed. It's so fashionable to be unfaithful." Sylvia fumed silently, waiting for Mirelle's response. "Well, are you going to wait until all the dear in-laws are six feet under before you walk out into the light of day? Or is it Steve you're afraid of?"

Mirelle eyed her levelly. "No, it's not Steve."

"Yourself, then? Do you fear your inherited tendencies?" Sylvia flung the sarcasm as a challenge.

Mirelle turned back to the little pig, needlessly smoothing the spine with her thumb. "No, it's a question of timing, Sylvia. I don't think this is the right time for me to start."

"Not the right time to start?" Sylvia gestured expansively from the Lucy to the Howell head and then the sick pig. "You've already started. You, inside you, is telling you to start with these! I'm disgusted with you, Mirelle. Lucy Farnoll would be, too. You don't deserve the right to sculpt her, not if that's your attitude. 'It's not the right time!' Ha!" Sylvia's acid scorn seared Mirelle.

"It's not that I wouldn't like to… particularly for Lucy," Mirelle began tentatively, "but I've children now. What if that story got repeated?"

"What story? Oh! That you're a bastard? Kids use that word so much on the playgrounds it's lost its original connotation. One of your in-laws' arguments no doubt." When Mirelle looked up troubled, Sylvia went on. "Thought so. Just what a petty narrow mind would spew out. Look, Mirelle," and Sylvia's manner changed abruptly to entreaty, "you've got a talent that I'd give my eyeteeth to possess. A genuine talent with a sensitivity and perception far superior to contemporary plaster hacks. Part of that sensitivity and perceptiveness is a result of that irregularity in birth, the drek you suffered as a child at Barthan-More's hands, even your arrival here in the States. I'll bet your father made that bequest to dare you to do something!"

"He never knew…"

Sylvia raised her eyebrows. "Want to bet on that? After all, he knew he had a daughter, and he must have known where you lived to have left you money in the will. Figure it out. And you have no right, do you understand, no right, to deny that gift. Besides, I doubt anyone in this decadent age would bother with a triviality like bastardy. If they do, make it work for you!" Sylvia chuckled maliciously, then returned to exhortations. "Look, Mirelle, I'll bug you until you do get work shown if only to get me off your back. Until you finish the Lucy and… hey, hey, what're the tears for?"

Bewildered by her own reaction, Mirelle felt the tears spilling onto her cheeks, her throat too tight for speech. Instantly Sylvia knelt beside her, a comforting arm across her shoulders.

"Honey, don't you see? If you were a half-baked pot thrower, it wouldn't matter. But when you can create a tribute like the Lucy, with so much love, you can't just ignore it. You can't. Not when you loved Lucy so much and when she wanted so much for you. Because that's what she said in that note to me. That she'd come across a really fine woman sculptor who needed to be cossetted and encouraged."

That made Mirelle cry harder into Sylvia's shoulder. She wept for her lonely mother, for the father she had never known, for all her early aspirations sublimated in childbearing and husband care, for all the terrible lonely hours when she had wished for success to compensate for scorn and neglect, for the emptiness and betrayal. Sylvia made no attempt to stop her crying until Mirelle looked up apologetically and saw, with amazement and surprise, that Sylvia had tears in her eyes.

"Why are you crying?"

"For you, you loon," and Sylvia smiled at Mirelle with great and fond affection, taking her by the shoulders and giving her a little shake. "And to think you've been squirming all this time on a bed of in-law nails!"

The vision projected made Mirelle laugh and she dried her eyes resolutely on a clay rag.

"You're a real sight now," was Sylvia's comment. "You wash your face and I'll hot up the coffee."

Mirelle washed her face in the laundry room, recalling that last time she'd done so.

"Confession is so good for the soul," said Sylvia, returning with the steaming pot. "I'd left the kettle on low so it didn't take long. Now, there's another minor detail which I feel I should impart to you as the ultimate in reassurances.

"As you may have noticed, G.F. is a great one for the skirts… however, we won't go into any detail today," and Sylvia took a long breath. "Suffice it to say, he is. However, tomcat though he may be, he also knows when not to press his luck with a gal. He also knows who's screwing whom, for he belongs to all the best clubs. If you think women are gossips, you should hear men!" Sylvia rolled her eyes. "It's G.F.'s informed opinion that you not only haven't, but won't. He heard all about it from Bill Townshend, Ed Eberhardt and Red Cargill."

Aghast, Mirelle stared at Sylvia. "I never told a soul…"

"Of course you didn't. But they did. When I told G.F. that you sculpted, well, guess what he said?" Dutifully Mirelle shook her head. "Well, he said, 'so that's where the fire goes?' " Sylvia's smile broadened as she watched the effect of her words on Mirelle. "Ah, honey, you got sold a lousy bill of goods. You're a big girl now. You're not minor, middleclass league. You can be big time stuff. You always were, so get with it. Show the Lucy and… show Lucy."

Mirelle listened with one sane rebuttal running like a descant around Sylvia's unexpectedly impassioned arguments.

"Sylvia, I'm never going to shake the world."

"So you're no da Vinci or Michelangelo, who cares?" Sylvia gave a massive shrug. "And the Lucy's no Pieta, just a good friend of mine, but your work is no bundle of wires tied together with perforated metal strips. It's not holey blobs of concrete that resemble tortured bookends. There's humor in that silly little pig: great love in the Lucy and in that study of Howell. There's something… I'm running out of words. At any rate, I think it's worth goosing you. And besides," she cocked her head cheerfully, "I'm fresh out of causes. You realize, Mirelle, that my only talent is causes!"

They were facing each other, Mirelle on her work stool, Sylvia on the chair she had drawn up, leaning towards Mirelle with only the work table and the half finished sickpig between them.

"Your talent is caring when others can't be bothered," Mirelle said. "You're like Lucy in that respect."

"If I were half the woman Lucy Farnoll was…" Sylvia began with a bitter edge to her voice. Then she slapped her knees to indicate a change of mood and pushed herself off the chair. "Well, promise me this, Mirelle, if Mason Galway, that gallery friend of mine, wants to exhibit your work, you'll agree?"

Mirelle decided that that was a safe enough promise. Sylvia waggled a finger in her face. "You don't fool me, Mirelle. I know what you're thinking. That he won't buy. I bet he will. So there, too. Good God, it's nearly one o'clock. Goodbye!" And she dashed for the front door, slamming it behind her.

Mirelle sat still for a long moment, looking at the closed door, Sylvia's arguments reverberating in her head. She smiled, genuinely affected by such loyalty. Then she turned back to the sickpig. That night she dreamt of the hands for the first time.