Luck (30 page)

Most of which she is entirely prepared to release into the world of blank walls over strange women’s sofas.

What do other new widows do? They weep, they flail, they collapse. Or some take cruises, or lovers. Nora, too, wept and flailed and even fell into excessive sleep for a day or two, a week or two, but there’s still the business of blood flowing, heart beating; the certain, and on the worst days dismaying, absence of death that means a person has no choice but to stand up. Nora was in no mood for cruises, or even for lovers (not yet), but that blood insists on flowing in quickening surges, the heart beats faster, there are luring ideas, pictures, notions, impulses, desires. Who knew
Life goes on
would turn out to be more than three glossy words? Life does go on, in whatever off-kilter, mutated form.

So Nora got down to work.

Not even in her sandwich-and-variety-store days had she worked so fiercely and done so much in such a short time.
Once standing, once started, she went for ten hours a day, twelve, a ferocious outpouring. She rummaged through old photographs stored in the sideboard, and through the designs and woods and fabrics and files left behind in the workshop. She considered the many ways Philip was at home in his body, confident that it would do what he wished, move as he desired it to, even only striding over the lawn—that it would not fail him. Misplaced confidence it might have been, but real enough to him, and how to catch that presumptuous grace with elliptical references of colour, shape and material?

Sometimes she worked so close to memory that she sat down and wept. There he was, in her eyes and her hands, but never quite there.

At night she mainly slept, as she once would have thought, like the dead; except for occasional dreams of Philip dropping by with, it seemed, the sole intention to seduce and enrapture, so that she woke vibrating and thrilled from better sex in his absence than they’d recently mustered energy for in his presence. Was that ironic? Pathetic, anyway. One of the paintings here tonight is a big, shiny, acrylic depiction of an all-day lollipop—they don’t, she believes, exist any more—swirly and round, a temptation so large and daunting it should last for ever, but under determined application of tongue is destined to vanish.

Something like that.

Now what?

Now, despite the edgily festive spirit of an opening, its buzz and hum, tonight is almost as thorough an ending as the morning she woke and leaped up and cried out.

Now, right this minute, there are greetings, air kisses, wine, samosas; there are people saying, “Nora! You look wonderful! It’s great to see you again! This work is fabulous!”

All those exclamations!

Of course she looks good. With the aid of an hour and a half of weights, yoga and fast-walking at the start of each day, and with the clear intention not to end up like Philip any time soon, Nora is pleased to be pared-down, muscular, pliable. If Philip could be stitched and painted and glued, she could now be stringently sculpted. Tomorrow she is to be interviewed and photographed for a national newspaper. The
hook
the writer seeks, his sad-sack, inspirational angle, has to do with a year of widowhood spent examining a beloved deceased; although even that might be of inadequate public interest if Nora hadn’t already made that big sacrilegious name for herself. Philip was right: the town did wonders for her. Now that she’s left it, she, too, can make that sort of joke. There’s still not much joking about Philip himself. The distancing that occurs when a private passion enters the public world is well under way, and she feels quite able to discuss her work and Philip in professional, articulate fashion, but there’ll be no spilling of secrets, or even privacies, and it’s most unlikely there’ll be any great comedy either.

Speaking of privacies—three of tonight’s works are of Sophie in one lush form and another. Sophie turns out to be a surprisingly frank and adjustable subject, but more difficult to explain than Philip in relation to the show’s dead-husband theme. Nora would not, for the sake of Sophie as well as herself, never mind Philip, dream of telling an interviewer, “This was our assistant for a time, and briefly my husband’s lover. You can see her appeal.” In the end, Nora thinks less of Philip for the affair, and in one or two depictions of him, although not of Sophie, this is reflected; but those are the risks a man takes, yielding to whims, breaking promises, dying.

Ah, it appears she can still be angry. Now and then.

In all three portraits Sophie is naked, depicted with unusual realism in various postures and degrees of voluptuousness. Although nowhere near as voluptuous as she is now, chugging through the crowd with Hendrik Anderson following agreeably in her billowy red wake.

Sharing the house after its population was so suddenly halved was easier than either of them could have expected. For one thing, unlike Philip, Sophie had the advantage of being alive, and of having made Nora no promises. For another, Nora discerned no particular desire in herself—indeed a reluctance—to interrogate Sophie on the how, the why, the when or most of all exactly the what of the thing. What would be the point? In what, when Philip could no longer speak for himself, lay anyone’s interest in asking? Maybe the answers, anyway, are in these portraits of Sophie: all that wide-open flesh, all that looseness and unclothed capacity.

Nora did ask, “How long?” and when Sophie said warily, or at least softly, “Only a couple of months, just this summer, hardly at all, honestly,” Nora rewound the weeks to try to pinpoint a trigger that could have ricocheted him into the space between Sophie’s thighs, but—what a clever, masked man—even hindsight provided no specific, particular moment. If he were alive, she’d have grilled him and then for all she knows killed him. As it is, there’s a sketch here of him black-masked like the Lone Ranger, standing flat-footed, legs apart, with a gun in each hand. Herself and Sophie camouflaged as Philip’s twin pistols: another private commentary, and a cartoonish joke.

That a person can apparently be wounded and unspeakably furious, but remain attached by some kind of love, is a revelation of sorts. Then again, love is a simpler matter when its object is static. All in all, Philip may be pretty lucky he’s dead.

In his wake and absence, Nora and Sophie fell into routines: drinks before dinner, a catch-up on the day, the to-and-fro of running a household—rather like marriage, that easygoing, and almost as familiar. Occasionally they also fell into memory: “Remember the look on his face the first time we found words on the fence and had to repaint it?” Or, “Remember that combination of sawdust and oils, or whatever it was? I miss that smell around the house, do you?” There was even something about knowing Sophie and Philip had been together that became, eventually, strangely attaching. That in a way they were both his remains; his relics.

Were widows not once upon a time referred to as
relics?
Nora could ask Sophie, who was always better at Scrabble.

Sophie’s not a bad person. She generally means well, give or take the odd husband: one of Nora’s, now one of her own.

Hendrik must know about Sophie and Philip, and clearly he does not care. Poor Philip: not lightly or easily abandoned, but here are Nora hanging him tidily on various walls, Sophie blooming, and Hendrik one happy man.

How did this come about?

If not slowly, at least quietly. Nora was busy for so many hours each day, and Sophie’s chores were so few—of course she found other activities, and more and more often was out of the house; seeing, she confessed finally, evidently embarrassed, or shy, Hendrik Anderson when he was free from his duties. She was hanging out at the funeral home. Or more accurately, in his quarters at the funeral home. “It’s a nice place,” she insisted. “He’s a nice man.”

“I’m sure he is. Under the right circumstances.”

When they finally invited Nora to dinner, and she saw how easy Sophie was in his kitchen and at his table, and how they regarded each other across that table, there was a
moment when she could barely breathe for the congestion of fresh sorrow; envy, too. A dollop of bitterness. She also saw what Sophie meant when she said Philip would have liked Hendrik’s place. And she thought,
Sophie would never have been so comfortable and happy otherwise.
By which she meant, without Philip.

Two months ago, on the first day of summer and shortly before Nora left town, she stood up with Sophie when she and Hendrik got married in Nora’s backyard, the funeral home having been deemed either inappropriate or too likely to be otherwise occupied. Sophie was awash in very pale green, fabric and skin, for the occasion. “Imagine at my age,” she laughed, “getting accidentally knocked up.” Obviously she was doing much more than running a household and posing for Nora and having pre-dinner drinks and long conversations with Hendrik or Nora or both. How would she have met the undertaker of her dreams had Philip not required his services? More unintended consequences. They pile up.

The townspeople will be counting the months on their fingers. Not that this will harm Hendrik’s business, these things happen and are hardly scandalous any more, and even if they were, there’s never a shortage of dead to be dealt with. Anyway, Nora has to get out of her head that vision of villagers with pitchforks and torches. Now they will just have lurid recollections to tell themselves of blasphemy and death in the house on the hill.

Of merry widows.

Of egotistical widows who appear to imagine the townspeople will think of them at all; whereas out of sight, out of mind is more like it. Back there, Nora and her household will become just a remote recollection of a few bright, sharp, injurious moments. People are only the stars of their own films,
not anyone else’s. In the long scheme of things that means that even the lunatic butcher will be reduced to a mere walk-on in Nora’s own flick.

It’s lonely, though, having to carry the whole movie herself after years with Philip as co-star. Being a third at dinner, no longer part of an even number, is the least of it really.

Philip would be happy, Nora thinks, he would be genuinely pleased for Sophie and Hendrik. He would wish Sophie well, in an easy-come, easy-go way, and if he were here now might say to Nora, “Isn’t it great how things have worked out for her?” and would mean it, and would reveal nothing to Nora at all. He went to his grave with that secret; although
grave
, in this instance, is metaphorical. Philip doesn’t have one of those. She hopes he likes where he is.

Finally Nora and Sophie and Hendrik make their way through the crush to fetch up together. “My God, Nora, it’s crowded,” Sophie says. “Are you pleased? You must be.”

“Yes, Max does these things right, doesn’t he? I’m so glad you could make it. You’re well?” Because in the earliest months, Sophie threw up a lot.

“Perfectly fine now.” As pregnant women sometimes do, Sophie rubs her belly reflexively, comforting and being comforted is how it looks, as well as somewhat smug. “I was wondering how I’d feel watching people check out those portraits of me, but there’s so many people I don’t see how anybody can see anything.”

“I’ve never been to something like this.” Hendrik’s round face beams, newly balding spot likewise. “I need to talk to Max about buying one of the pictures of Sophie. Or maybe all three.”

“They’re awfully, um, lively, aren’t they? Where would you hang them?”

Hendrik operates at a higher pitch than Philip’s bass, but his laughter is just about as satisfactory. “Maybe in the foyer right at the entrance, what do you think? That’d take people’s minds off their troubles the minute they walk in the door. Plus give them something more gorgeous to talk about than flower arrangements and bodies.”

Lucky Sophie. Nora grins. “Yes, I can see that. The perfect spot. Very uplifting. How long are you two in town?”

“Till tomorrow night. Soph and I have a major hotel room and we want our money’s worth.”

“What if somebody dies?”

“Then they’ll just have to wait, won’t they?” Sophie says Hendrik’s work not only doesn’t trouble her, it’s among his appeals. Nora almost understands what she means.

Sophie leans slightly, nods leftwards. “You see who’s here?”

“Beth, yes. Max must have tracked her down, I wonder how he did that? And why. Do you know who the guy is in the wheelchair?”

“No, but I bet she’s not his nurse.” Nora and Hendrik laugh. Sophie is gratified by this recent ability of hers to amuse. It seems to have something to do with heeding Hendrik’s instruction—advice—to “lighten up on yourself now and then, okay?” Okay. She was well on her way to doing that anyway, under Phil’s tutelage, but Hendrik puts these matters in broader perspective. A man whose profession is death learns to take a longer, lighter view of anything less, Sophie supposes. If he’s smart. Which he is.

What a surprise, this monstrous, easy affection Sophie has come to feel towards Hendrik, this man whose plump hands are adept with the chemistries of transforming corpses into recognizable loved ones, deft with the tiny stitcheries that hold features and expressions in place. They treat every body,
dead or alive, with the tenderness it is due. He elides the awful distance between life and death, makes it run through his fingers like a single bright ribbon.

All that.

It wouldn’t be fair to compare him and Phil, whose concerns, at least until the last moment, were entirely weighted towards life, but it is fair to say Hendrik is a very different man to be with. Phil was enveloping, not to mention distinctly encouraging, whereas Hendrik feels simply solid. Phil cultivated carefreeness, which is different from care.

It seems she does compare them. Fair or not, dead man must lose.

Hendrik didn’t exactly court Sophie but he did, with cautious invitations to his home and gentle questions about her history, her nightmares, her pleasures—her life—demonstrate a real interest. Sometimes, naturally, he was busy. Later, although he said “I wouldn’t tell anyone else these things, only you,” he recounted funereal tales. As to the business itself, “I’m one of the few independents left, but I won’t sell out to a chain till my dad’s gone, and maybe not even then. It’s important to him that I’m the third generation.” That was good, that sounded loyal. A decent man.