The year of the Lucy

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

HOWELL TOOK HER home, whipping through the deserted streets with deft speed.

"I've got make-up lessons tomorrow, or rather today, and a TV recital on Sunday. May I come leer at you on Monday?"

"If you're sure you can fit it in your overcrowded schedule," said Mirelle, grinning at him.

He grinned back for a moment, then turned uncharacteristically solemn. "Remember, tomorrow morning, what you promised me, Mirelle."

"I will, Jamie."

And because it was so painful to leave him, she did it as quickly as possible, with no farewell of any sort.

The children were, as she'd known, sound asleep. Roman had lost the pillow under his broken arm. She replaced it tenderly. Nick and Tonia were burrowed deep into their covers, warm little animals.

Roman had left a note on her pillow. "Everything here okay. Hope you had a good time."

She remembered her promise to Jamie and stifled an unworthy thought. In the bathroom mirror, she took a long look at her vivid face and then scrubbed until her skin tingled. She couldn't remove that well-loved look with soap or cold cream. Again, she suppressed a fleeting thought and then smiled at her reflection. She slipped into her nightgown, still smiling, and got in between the cold sheets, regretting the warm bed she had left.

Fatigue claimed her before she had had a chance to review any of the evening's unexpected developments. She was roused the next morning by Tonia's shriek of protest from the gameroom. She heard both Nick and Roman trying to shush their sister but the shrieks turned to wails and she knew that she'd have to referee the quarrel.

She had coffee started before the phone rang.

"My God, you sound alert," Jamie Howell said, disgusted.

"I can't be. I haven't had coffee yet."

"Mirelle?" His voice turned plaintively tender.

"I'm glad you called, Jamie," she said, answering as best she could the unspoken appeal.

"Then 1 may come on Monday?"

She giggled. He sounded like a boy expecting to be deprived of a promised treat. "Yes, of course."

"Good." His voice was brisk again as he said goodbye and hung up.

Mirelle was sipping her third cup of coffee and reading the newspaper for the second time when Roman hobbled upstairs.

"Did you have a good time, Mom?"

Mirelle swallowed, remembered her promise, and said that she had.

"Concert good?"

"Yes, it was, and the paper thinks so, too. Here's the review."

Roman rejected the offer. "Did you like Mr. Howell?"

Mirelle thought for one moment that she would burst into hysterical laughter but she caught herself and altered her thoughts. "He is a superb accompanist."

"What was the singer like?"

Mirelle regarded her son thoughtfully for a moment. He was being so grown-up in his questions, so polite. She must simply ignore the other interpretations that sprang to her mind. No, it was not a guilty mind. She shouldn't read suspicion into a very natural question. Roman had wanted her to have a pleasant evening out; he had taken pains to see that she would; he was now inquiring politely for details.

"To be honest, the singer sounded a great deal like my mother, your grandmother LeBoyne. In fact, some of the songs were ones that my mother sang in the last concert she gave."

"Your mother was a singer?"

"I'm sure I've mentioned that." Mirelle was ashamed of the sharpness in her voice.

"You don't talk about your mother much," Roman said a little wistfully.

"No, I guess I haven't, have I?"

"Oh, that's all right," Roman said more briskly. "I figured it made you sad to talk about her."

"Yes, it did. But last night… well, sometimes you have to talk the sadness out." Now there was a fancy bit of rationalization, thought Mirelle.

"Sadness out? Of what?" Nick demanded, arriving just then.

"Shut up! " Roman said affably.

"Why? What did I say?" Nick regarded his brother with total innocence.

"Roman! Nick! No bickering!" Then Mirelle called Tonia upstairs and began to tell all three about the concert, the memories that it had evoked of her mother, of the tours in Germany, even of that last war-time concert. She had tears in her eyes when she finished, and Roman's uninjured hand crept into hers.

"Why'd you never tell us we had a nice grandmother?" Tonia asked into the silence that fell when Mirelle's reminiscing ceased.

"Do I slap your face the way your father did?" Mirelle asked sharply.

Tonia's hand crept to her cheek and her eyes widened with fear. She shook her head vehemently.

"Then don't say such things," Mirelle advised. "Grandmother Martin is a fine woman. And I don't know that my mother wouldn't be just as annoyed with you children. You can be selfish, mannerless creatures sometimes."

"Is my other grandfather alive?" Nick wanted to know.

"No. He died just before Roman was born."

"What was he like?"

"I never knew him."

"Why not?" Nick was shocked. Then he looked up at his mother from under his brows, his voice dropping to a whisper. "You mean, your parents were… divorced… like the Bellows kids'?"

Mirelle nodded. This small untruth was surely permissible.

"What was he like? Did you ever find out?"

"He was a portrait painter."

Nick was skeptical about the merits of that occupation but Tonia perked up noticeably.

"Was he as good as Mr. Robinson?" She had been impressed by a neighbor's landscape paintings.

"Well, some of his portraits hang in European museums."

"In museums?" Nick and Tonia were awestruck.

"Gosh, Mom, how come you never told us you have famous parents?" Nick asked.

"Because our other grandmother wouldn't have liked it," replied Tonia, setting her mouth just the way that Marian Martin did when stating an unpleasant truth.

"Antonia!" Mirelle felt obliged to reprimand her but then, with three pairs of rebellious eyes on her, she had to temper that rebuke. "My parents are both dead. No one in America ever heard of them, so there didn't seem much point in… well…" Mirelle shrugged.

"You got a picture of your mother. D'you have one of your father, too?" Roman asked.

Mirelle could no longer deny the presence of that unopened package in the attic. She might as well make a clean sweep of her ghosts. Hiding them had done no good.

The package was not only dusty but exceedingly well wrapped. It took time and patience to penetrate the protective coverings. No one was more surprised than Nick when his grandfather's face was finally revealed.

"Hey, he looks just like me!"

"You mean, you look like him!" Roman corrected his brother, but he was staring at Mirelle.

The portrait wasn't large, 24" by 24", but the handsome Slavic face would have dominated any room. Nothing modest about Lajos Neagu, thought Mirelle, and nothing ordinary. He'd not flattered himself, certainly. The lines of dissipation and disillusion were carefully limned, the crook in the nose which marred its aristocratic length, the pits in the skin. But there was sardonic humor in the quirk of the lips, echoed in the intensely blue eyes, as if Lajos were amused at the notion of painting a portrait for the daughter he would never meet.

Mirelle liked the directness of that gaze, the strength of the face that overcame the dissolution. As she admired the honesty and the artistic technique, she realized that she had also forgiven her father the sin of begetting her. In fact, she experienced profound regret that she'd never met him. Deeper ran a secondary impression: Lajos Neagu with Mary LeBoyne beside him. They'd have made a magnificent couple! Why had her mother returned to colorless, autocratic, vindictive Edward Barthan-More?

"Gee, Ma, he's great," Roman said softly.

"Yeah, he sure is," Nick echoed with a shy grin.

"Can I tell people he's my other grandfather?" Tonia asked, glaring resentfully at Nick because she obviously didn't share his resemblance to this magnificent man.

Mirelle had intended to wrap the portrait up again and put it safely back in the attic. Now she knew that was impossible.

"Yes, you can, Tonia. You can say that he painted it for me, and for you, his grandchildren, to have. So you'd know what he looked like."

"I'll get the hammer and nails," Roman said.

"No, I will!" Nick was adamant. "He looks like me!"

Mirelle caught Roman's eyes and held them. He made a face but he let Nick run the errand.

"How come he didn't paint a picture of your mother?" Tonia wanted to know, eyeing her newfound grandfather thoughtfully.

"As a matter of fact, he did. But I think the painting was destroyed during the bombing in London."

"Gee whiz," Tonia was crushed. "All you got of her is just that tiny little picture on your dresser?"

"And lots of memories."

The children wanted to hang the portrait prominently between the windows in the living room. It was the best place, certainly. And she and Steve had often talked of getting a good picture for that spot. Lajos Neagu was shortly dominating the room. The rug, the drapes, the gold slip covers all seemed to take on added warmth as his personality blazed from the canvas. As it seemed unlikely to Mirelle that her parents-in-law would be gracing their home any time soon, they couldn't construe the portrait as an affront to their sensibilities. As far as friends and neighbors were concerned, Nick had innocently suggested the proper line: her parents had been divorced. No one knew about the Barthan-More part of her life, and to hell with the narrow-minded Martins.

She'd shooed the children off to pick up their rooms when the phone rang.

"How was the concert?" Sylvia asked, her words slurred.

"Just great, but where were you yesterday?"

"Your line was busy, my dear, for three hours." Sylvia was speaking slowly and her enunciation was very precise.

"Sorry about that. I had so many calls first thing that I finally took the phone off the hook. Besides, you had no intention of coming to the concert, did you?"

"Let us say, a conflict. I hoped that I'd be free in the evening. I was rather curious about Howell, the professional ivory-tickler. Tell me," and Sylvia's characteristic chuckle was remarkably unrepentant, "did he drive you home?"

Mirelle checked herself. She had been thinking only in terms of Sylvia using the concert as a cover-up for some activity of her own, not that Sylvia might be deliberately throwing her into Howell's company.

"Sylvia! You're meddling!"

"You're damned right I am. Have a little fun in life, honey," and the slurring was worse than ever, "before it's too late. Before it's much too late."

"Sylvia, what's wrong? You don't sound like yourself."

"Nothing's wrong. I'm insulated against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. I'm wrapped in cotton wool. God's in his heaven, all's right with the world. Pippa passes."

Abruptly the connection was cut. Sylvia couldn't be drunk at 10:30 in the morning, thought Mirelle, glancing at her watch. She started to dial Sylvia's number but, at that point, Nick and Tonia started some kind of a full-fledged, object-throwing brawl on the landing and what with one thing and another, she had no chance to call Sylvia back until noontime - when there was no answer. It was quite likely that Sylvia was busy with Saturday errands but Mirelle was strangely uneasy about her friend.

She did her own shopping, took the children to a movie which had been enthusiastically plugged on TV, ironed, cleaned, and cooked until the children went to bed. Then she purposefully entered the workshop.

She took down the bust of Jamie. She knew, in a glance now, where she had erred and corrected the faults with quick careful strokes. Then she sat for a long time in contemplative regard of her craftsmanship.

Yes, she had been drawn to James Howell, amused and stimulated by his quick, sardonic humor, his ruthless attitudes, and his contradictory sensitivities. She wondered if sleeping with him had been the necessary catalyst to capturing the elusive quality of the man. God, she couldn't go around sleeping with every man she wanted to sculpt. Reverend O'Dell would be shocked! She giggled at her irreverence and then wished she could tell Jamie. And that amused her further.

Was that why, she wondered, her father had been so successful a portrait painter? Certainly he had been with her mother's portrait. Was that why Edward Barthan-More had kept the portrait in his bedroom? It had too much of a hint of the bedroom to be hung with the staider family portraits. She privately didn't give her stepfather such perceptiveness but it made an interesting conundrum. Obviously Lajos Neagu had used that research technique often. But it was one thing for a man… and quite another for a woman.

Mirelle hugged her knees to her chest and rocked in a silent excess of amusement. What was the matter with her? Genetic traits making belated appearances? Well, adultery was a family custom, wasn't it? She ought to be scandalized and appalled by her behavior, by her outrageous thoughts and yet, they all seemed natural. Just as the course of events which had started the day the Sprite's tire blew was inevitable, right into Jamie Howell's bed. Were all the major changes of life heralded by such trivia? For-want-of-a-nail-the-shoe-was-lost kind of sequence?

Boots' toss had started an upheaval both subtle and violent. Well, since she was dealing in cliches, she must also believe that an ill wind blew some good.

She had, after all, done the Lucy statue; she had this very creditable bust of Howell and damn the research which provided the final insight; the little soldier. She'd caused Steve to throw off his mother's domination, and she had finally come to terms with her bastardy. (Though she reversed the cliche, the child acknowledged the father.) Well, she couldn't leave the metamorphosis half finished. As soon as the Christmas rush was over, she'd get in touch with Ty Hopkins at the bank and see about a showing. She'd even find out if Sylvia had contacted that gallery friend of hers in Philadelphia. She might even advertise her Dirty Dicks in one of those Shopping Columns in magazines.

The house was chilling off; it was past 11:00 and fatigue stiffened her muscles. She mixed a blue plaster and coated the bust. It was, to her eyes, too naked an admission of intimacy. Had her father felt that way when he gazed at his finished portrait of Mary LeBoyne? She couldn't imagine that father of hers regretting anything he'd done! God, half her adult life had been wasted in worrying about the things she hadn't done. Ye gods, the times Steve had apparently envisioned her in bed with another man! Just this once she would permit herself to stray. Just once? Like mother, like daughter? Mirelle was too weary to pursue the analogy further. In fact, she almost dared not.

That night she dreamt again of the hands, with one difference. She no longer feared them and eluded their grasping talons with ease, because the Lucy statue was running beside her, only it never seemed to change its feet, but sort of hopped along on the one toe, a technique which irritated the dreamer profoundly.

When she woke to the bright Sunday sunshine, she wondered in the drowsy borderland between sleep and wakefulness, if the hands symbolized all her vain efforts to conform to Mother Martin's notions of the proper daughter-in-law? If so, what was the Lucy figure doing, traveling in that pogo-stick fashion?

There were a few minor problems with Roman's paper-route that morning. He had found a substitute to help Nick with the heavy Sunday deliveries, but the two boys had fallen to squabbling. Mirelle finally had to bundle the invalid into the Sprite and help him check out discrepancies.

When they got back a strange car was turning in the drive. Mirelle assumed it was about the paper deliveries until she saw the yellow telegram envelope in the driver's hand. Wordlessly the messenger handed over his clipboard for her to sign. She would have preferred not to read the telegram at all because it could only be bad news. It was the phrasing of the message which rocked her.

"What's the matter, Mother?" Roman asked. "Grandfather Martin's had a heart attack. Your Uncle Ralph says he'll be all right but he'll have to go easy," she said slowly. She did not add the final sentence of Ralph's message: "Trust you are satisfied now."

"I must reach your father," she mumbled and raced up the stairs to the privacy of her room. She threw herself on the bed. Part of her wanted to curl into a ball while the sane observer remarked that this was ridiculous.

'Satisfied now'? How could Ralph? As if she, Mirelle, could be to blame for a heart attack that had happened a week later and eighteen hundred miles away. And yet… it had happened when she, Mirelle, had been lolling in James Howell's arms. She pushed that from her mind.

Lord, she couldn't remember which hotel Steve was staying at, or if he'd have left for Cleveland, or what? But she had to reach him. She must make him understand, too, how wickedly cruel that accusation was. The ring of the phone stabbed like a knife through her mind to her roiling stomach.

"Mirelle, Dad's had a heart attack," Steve said with no preamble.

"I know. I just got a wire from Ralph."

"Well?"

"Well what? Or do you think it's my fault, too?"

"Your fault?" Steve sounded shocked and angry. "What on earth do you mean by that, Mirelle? How could it be your fault? But you might at least act sorry."

"I AM sorry! I like your father, even if your mother and I can never see eye to eye. But let me quote you Ralph's wire." And she did.

"That's ridiculous and I hope you realize it," Steve said, his tone gentler.

"How could Ralph think I'd be satisfied that a nice old man has had a heart attack?" Mirelle was close to tears.

"Honey, don't cry. Ralph's not rational but can't you see how he'd think that? Mother and Dad were upset by what happened here."

"You think I'm not? But was it my fault? Because Roman should never have been allowed to serve papers at all. Because he might possibly hurt himself and, of course, he did. After two years without so much as a fall off his bike…"

"Mirelle, get a hold of yourself. You've never flown off the handle like this before."

"I've never been so desperate before, Steve. And I've never been so unjustly accused before."

"Mirelle, please. Get a hold of yourself," Steve sounded upset now, too.

"It's not a bad stroke, is it? Your father'll be all right, won't he? I mean, did Ralph tell you any details?"

"Yes, he did. It's not a serious seizure: more of a warning. Dad told me that he'd been advised to take it easier. Get away from the heavy winters. That's why they went south. It's just unfortunate… Well, I don't imagine Mother helped matters any on the trip down. Or at Ralph's. Now look, Dad's at the Orange Memorial Hospital in Orlando. Send flowers, will you?"

"I will. I will. I'm sorry." While Steve had talked, she'd tried to calm herself but the viciousness of Ralph's accusation rankled too deeply.

"Mirelle, honey?"

"Yes, Steve."

"It'll all work out all right, believe me? Ralph was scared. You know he's much closer to Dad than I am."

"Oh, come home, Steve. Please come home to me."

"I will, Mirelle, I will."

He'll come home, he'll come home! The words did a gavotte in Mirelle's mind. Steve had to come home. And yes, he was right that Ralph would be scared. Ralph scared easily. He didn't have the guts that Steve did. Ralph certainly couldn't have told his mother to leave, that he never wanted to see her again. Maybe Marian Martin was afraid of her, too.

The notion consoled Mirelle tremendously and she chose not to weaken the idea with any qualifiers. People are afraid of people who are different, and she was certainly different from the girl Marian Martin had intended her precious second son to marry. Nancy Randolph indeed! Mirelle Martin scares Marian Martin! Mirelle chanted it to herself. Ralph Martin is also scared stiff of Mirelle Martin.

For Arthur Martin she felt pity. She'd always liked him. She picked up the phone and called the floral service, putting her name first when she gave the donors. She intended to keep the upper hand with her mother-in-law. Then she fixed dinner for the kids.

She tried again to reach Sylvia but the line was busy. That was an improvement on no answer.

She wandered into the studio, digging her fingers aimlessly into the plasticene in its barrel. Finally she scooped out a handful and slapped it on a plywood base. At random, she worked in more and more, globs here and there, formless. Then she began to shape what she gradually realized were hands, fingers, joints, messes of hands, grubby fingered, skeletal jointed, fat palms, stiff thumbs, crooked fingers, the hands of her nightmares - masses of fingerlike snakes and jagged claw-nails.

Although she was absorbed by the process of creation, she didn't at all like what she was doing. The hands and disjointed fingers were repellent, disgusting, verging on the obscene. She raised her fist purposefully to smash this tangible form of the nightmare back into anonymity.

"You always sculpt with love," Sylvia had said.

"Not always," Mirelle said softly. And lowered her destroying hand for some obscure, perverse reason.

She covered the obscenity and shoved it up high on the shelf where the shadows would hide it. Then she went to bed. She worried about Dad Martin until she fell asleep.