The year of the Lucy

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Between cleaning her house and finishing the figurines for the bazaar, Mirelle kept herself too busy to worry about G.F. Esterhazy. Sylvia phoned several times for a quick chat because she had 'allowed' herself to be drafted into the major Referendum opposition group.

"If I spent half as much time opposing the damned thing as I do smarming people up, it'd be defeated hands down. There is no 'popular' mandate for this stupidity," and when she realized that Mirelle's remarks were mere courtesy, "but then political action is not your long suit so I'm boring you. Goodbye."

Before Mirelle could remonstrate, Sylvia had rung off and for a long moment, Mirelle worried whether or not to phone Sylvia back and apologize. She did dial the number but the line was busy. The next day Sylvia rang at her usual time with a crudely funny joke which she'd acquired and had to share with Mirelle. Combining a shopping expedition with a visit to Jamie, she found him snappish with convalescence but slowly regaining his strength.

Determined to leave nothing to chance, Mirelle organized every detail of the in-laws' visit. She decided to precutthe small blocks of clay which she would need for modeling at the Bazaar. Most of her figures were glazed and ready, the remainder awaiting their turn in the kiln, so her mother-in-law would not see her 'wasting' so much time with her 'muck' in the studio.

The Bazaar was to run two days, Friday and Saturday, with a supper at the church on Friday night which all three generations of Martins could attend. Mother Martin fortunately was a firm believer in church work. Saturday night Steve had invited his current boss, Red Blackburn, and his wife Anne to dinner. He'd suggested that Mirelle invite G.F. and Sylvia. Mirelle had been torn between a desire for Sylvia's moral support and fear of what Sylvia might do to 'help' her. But there was a certain snobbism about inviting the Esterhazys: G.F. was a prominent lawyer, active in politics; Sylvia was Wilmington society; their presence was one way of proving to the in-laws that, despite Mirelle's background, the younger Martins were not social outcasts.

Sunday morning would be reserved for church and Sunday afternoon could be filled with a trip to the Longwood Gardens near Kennett Square. Monday, presumably, the senior Martins would depart for Florida. All should go well. Mirelle did not actually expect it to, but with so much to be done, there might not be time for the usual nastiness. And this Wilmington house was large, with several levels on which one could escape. The kids' noise from the gameroom was deadened by the acoustical tile so they wouldn't be a nuisance. Mother Martin made a special study in dominating conversations and any sound of off-stage enjoyment was promptly squelched if it interfered with her monologues.

The boys objected strenuously to camping in Tonia's room. But Mr. and Mrs. Martin did not share a bedroom in their own home and never considered sharing one when visiting either of their sons. Tripling up did not improve the kids' attitudes towards the impending visit.

"If they're going on to Florida, why don't they just go?" Nick asked sulkily. "I want to stay at the Bazaar all the time and watch you work. I could be a help instead of having to stay here and listen to Grandmother yak."

"Nicholas LeBoyne Martin, you will listen politely to your grandmother and you will be damned careful about what you say in her presence," Mirelle said repressively.

"You better, too, mother. 'Cause she don't stand for cussing."

"Doesn't, not don't, and I was emphasizing."

"You could of used 'darn'. "

"That's exactly what I mean about being polite, Nick."

"Ahhh!"

"Nick?" Mirelle issued a blanket warning with that word.

Nick pouted and made a pattern in the rug with his sneaker toe.

Roman was more rebellious. His recollections of his grandparents were considerably more acute than his young brother's but he could be counted on to hold his peace when necessary. Mirelle prayed that Tonia's physical resemblance to her grandmother might be distraction enough. Tonia had no pre-conditioned opinions and looked forward with delight to the visit. However, Tonia's perceptions were sharper than her brothers' in the area of human relationships and, as her tongue was quick, no one was ever sure what the child might say next. In most circumstances, she could be amusing but, during such a critical period, she could as easily devastate all Mirelle's careful schemes.

And there was absolutely no way to safeguard against it, Mirelle sighed to herself Tuesday morning after breakfast. Her cleaning lady was coming on Wednesday this week, having obliged by shifting Tuesday lady with Wednesday lady. Overnight the house had a chance of staying neat for the Thursday arrival.

Mirelle ranged through the house again, trying to look at it with unfamiliar eyes, hoping to spot delinquencies. When Sylvia breezed in, she made her go over the house again before they sat down to coffee.

"If you'd warned me, I'd've brought white gloves," Sylvia said after she had reassured Mirelle for the fourth time that the house looked perfect. "I couldn't find so much as a spot of dried clay in the studio."

"Not that they'd bother looking in there."

"I see you vacuumed the crawlway. Honest to God, Mirelle, it's ridiculous…"

"It may seem so to you but you don't have my mother-in-law."

"I'll trade you my mother for her any day. In fact, there's still time for her to visit you. Mother'd spot your deficiencies as a housekeeper in short and scathing order. What I find reprehensible in you, Mirelle, is that you bother to conform to her standards. You don't like, you don't really care for her opinions…"

"Sylvia! Don't YOU houseclean like crazy before your mother visits?"

Sylvia's expression froze. "My mother lives with me. Or 'resides', to use her precise expression, when she is not bringing other relatives up to the mark." Sylvia sighed deeply but the sound was not all for effect. "She's been on an extended visit to her younger sister in Boston. Aunt Agatha is recently widowed and mother wished to be certain that she knows the new regulations of a relict. Can you imagine naming a child 'Agatha'? I'm afraid that Agatha will have learned all she needs to know very soon, unfortunately. The peace at home has been divine." Sylvia grinned impishly. "While the cat's away, the mice will play, you know." Then she leaned over and patted Mirelle's hand, smiling warmly. "So I know chapter and verse about maternal visitations, my dear. In fact, I have frequently thought of writing a book one day, 'Living With Mother' or 'Enduring In-laws'? Hmmm. Therefore I am A-Number-One qualified to appreciate, guard, defend…"

"Sylviaaaah!" Mirelle put her desperate plea into the elongation of the last syllable.

Sylvia cocked a sardonic eye at her. "All right. All right. I'll behave myself even though I'll be dying to tell the old bat off." She jumped almost as much as Mirelle when someone knocked at the door. "Expecting them today?"

Mirelle couldn't see the driveway and dashed nervously to the front door. "It's only Tuesday."

"I cannot force another morsel of pot roast down my throat and calf's foot jelly nauseates me. Lady, can you make an omelette?" It was James Howell, looking well tanned and himself again.

"Well, if that's your father-in-law…" drawled Sylvia from the dining room.

"You know perfectly well it isn't," Mirelle replied. "I don't think that you've met Sylvia Esterhazy before. This is James Howell."

"I see that the beef tea did you some good," Sylvia said, shaking hands.

"Ah ha, I was right. You were one of the cackling females in my kitchen," Jamie exclaimed in mock vindication.

"Pneumonia affected your hearing."

Mirelle brought another cup for him and noticed, as he lifted it, that the muscles in his hand were twitching. He noticed her glance. "Not weakness, my dear, from lack of a balanced diet but from a strenuous session of practise. Since Mahomet could not come to the mountain, and I do not exaggerate (he made a ballooning gesture out over his lean stomach), the mountain came to Mahomet."

Mirelle laughed, catching his reference, but Sylvia looked bewildered.

"I'm to accompany a rather famous soprano…"

"Who had best remain anonymous after that slighting description," said Mirelle.

"… In her Academy of the Arts recital, and due to my semi-convalescent state, she condescended to come to the wilds of Wilmington for a much needed rehearsal."

"When's the concert?" Sylvia asked, shooting Mirelle a glance.

"The eighteenth. By the way, Mirelle, I have tickets for you and your husband."

"The eighteenth? I think Steve has to be at a convention. Would you come with me, Sylvia?"

Sylvia professed herself to be delighted but she'd have to check with her diary as she had so many political meetings right now.

"I'm a ward-heeler," she told Jamie, "and heeling the Referendum, over, preferably."

"I thought ward-heelers had to be rotund, rotten and male."

"Not in my party. Of course, if you've only encountered Republicans, I can see where such misconceptions might arise."

Jamie laughed. "Are you all atwitter?" he asked Mirelle.

She looked at him blankly, having missed the reference.

"Your mother-in-law, he means," Sylvia said. "You don't happen to have a pair of white gloves, do you, Jamie?"

"In my pocket," and Howell reached into his coat and flashed something white.

"It may seem silly to you, Sylvia," and Mirelle was piqued by her flippancy, "and to you, Jamie," she glared at him, "but there is nothing the least bit laughable about it."

"You need to change your perspective, that's all, Mirelle," Jamie said. "If what the old bitch said and thought made no difference to you or you could convince her that it didn't, she'd have no power to affect you."

"Me, yes. My husband, no. My children, no."

"You, my dear," and Jamie waggled a finger at her, "can still control the situation."

"That's a lot easier said than done."

"Sure, 'cause she's got you on edge already."

"She can do that all right," Mirelle admitted ruefully, "ever since the day…" and then she stopped.

"Ever since the day she felt she could make you kowtow by shaming you about your birth," Jamie continued.

Mirelle glared at Sylvia whose eyebrows raised with surprised innocence.

"I have accompanied singers who knew Mary LeBoyne, and Mirelle as a little girl," Jamie told Sylvia by way of explanation. "I have also seen some of Lajos Neagu's work. Mirelle has nothing to be ashamed of in either parent."

"Keep talking," urged Sylvia, winking maliciously at Mirelle.

"Mirelle, have you ever seen any of your father's paintings?"

"Only reproductions in portrait books. His work has never been publicly exhibited here. I'd've gone," she added defiantly. "So much of his output was portraiture and little of that is available for public viewing."

"You'll never guess who was done by Neagu," Sylvia was smirking with delight.

"I won't if you don't tell me," Mirelle answered caustically.

"G.F.'s mother. But he hasn't a clue where the portrait is now."

"Where's the infamous one he did of your mother, Mirelle?" Jamie asked her.

"I don't know. It was, after all, Barthan-More's. It used to hang in his bedroom but whether it survived the war or not…" Mirelle shrugged. She was less indifferent to the portrait's fate than she appeared, for her mother, as Tosca, vibrant, anguished, beautiful, in a brilliant blue costume with jewels and egret feathers in her elaborately dressed hair, had enchanted her the few times she had crept into the forbidden apartment to peek at it. "However, my father's fame is really not at issue."

"Just yours," said Sylvia pointedly.

"No, nor mine because it only points up what the Martins want to forget about their daughter-in-law."

James Howell snorted his contempt.

"So only your Dirty Dicks will go to the Bazaar?" Sylvia asked suddenly.

"The what?" Jamie demanded.

Mirelle explained.

"Are they on a par with my sickpig?"

"More or less."

"Tell me, Mirelle," Jamie began with an all too innocent expression on his face, "have you ever concocted a sickpig of your mother-in-law?"

Sylvia exploded with mirth and even Mirelle, gasping a denial, gave way to paroxysms of laughter.

"If we could but see ourselves as Mirelle sees us," Jamie said with unctuous solemnity.

"No," Sylvia said, wiping laugh tears from her eyes, "Mirelle couldn't do that woman. She sculpts with too much love. She's never done anything hateful. Even those Dirty Dicks and the sickpigs are done with tenderness and great affection."

"You wouldn't say that if you'd seen the face she put on that pig she gave me," Jamie said, affecting an injured expression, but his eyes were intent on Mirelle.

"I not only saw it, I encouraged her," Sylvia said. "Men who are never sick are incredible ogres when they finally succumb to physical discomfort."

Jamie waved his hands in defeat.

"Seriously, Mirelle, aren't you going to exhibit the soldier, or the horse, or even the Running Child? Or better yet, the Lucy."

"The Lucy's not finished and the others aren't for sale."

"Sale, schmale," Sylvia said in exasperation, "display them. Mark them sold or vacant but at least exhibit the quality of the real work you can do."

"That ought to be obvious in the…"

"Skeered of what your mother-in-law will say?" Jamie asked, one eyebrow raised challengingly.

Mirelle shut her mouth angrily, looking from Jamie's too bland face to Sylvia's earnest and determined expression.

"Not the Lucy," she said and to herself she sounded sullen.

"Now, then," Jamie said, briskly rubbing his hands together, "I'm a poor sick invalid who hasn't had…"

"Anything but delicious pot roast," Mirelle interrupted.

"… Nine days old," he finished, spacing the words with disgust.

"Do you think he deserves our culinary efforts?" Mirelle asked Sylvia.

"Hmmm," and Sylvia thoughtfully considered. "I'm a bit hungry myself."

The unscheduled luncheon successfully kept Mirelle from dwelling on Thursday's problems. The kind of remarks that passed between Jamie and Sylvia kept her laughing. She was delighted that her two friends liked each other.

"It's rude to eat and run," Sylvia said, consulting her watch.

"… Only for poisoners…" Jamie said.

"… but I've got to ward-heel," Sylvia continued. "It's evident from the number of Republicans voting in the primary that some returned from graves that had been their only residence for the past twenty years. I have endless records to check. After all, I only dropped in for a cup of coffee."

"It's been a pleasure, Sylvia," Jamie said, giving her a Continental click of the heels and a bow.

"Indeed!" Sylvia swirled out the door with a coquettish wink.

"You owe the beef tea to her," Mirelle said.

"Sensible as well as intelligent. How refreshing," and for once his banter annoyed Mirelle.

"Why are you always so… so…"

"Snide?" he suggested, overly helpful. "To hide a tender heart," and he placed one hand dramatically over his chest.

"Oh, you're never serious."

"It can be a disease." Then he dropped all pose, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her a little to make her look him in the eyes. "If you accept Sylvia's breeziness, as you seem to, you must accept my sarcasm, too. We're covering up something. Sylvia's a deeply troubled woman beneath that caustic wit. You, Mirelle, with your long silences and deep thoughts. Me with my rapier-like wit, my unfailing and devastating humor. We're all lonely people, Mirelle. I'll give that as a mutual bond. I'd also venture to say that it's because all three of us are out of step with our status in life. No, be quiet," and he put his finger to her lips to stop her protest. "Why are women so goddamned subjective? You were going to say, 'but I'm not out of step, I'm a happy housewife and mother'…" He had lightened his tone to a falsetto but there was nothing light about the expression in his eyes. "Bullshit, Mirelle. Bullshit. I've seen a change in you, a good one. You were beginning to sound like a functioning human being instead of a zombie. I don't want to see you lose the progress you've made." Then his eyebrow twitched and rose sardonically as he grinned with pure malice. "Not that either the Esterhazy woman or I will let you. In spite of the virago, Madame Martin."

"Between the two of you, my peace is destroyed," Mirelle exclaimed passionately.

"I intend to destroy it more thoroughly one of these days," Jamie said with quiet intent and left.