Luck (6 page)

These are the components of Beth’s beauty, but there’s something else, too, which she can’t quite discern for herself but which other people must be able to see; some additional aspect, some glow or compulsion that radiates her—or has radiated her—out of the ordinary world of beautiful girls into a land of tiaras, ribbons and trophies. “The sky’s the limit,” her mother said. The prizes piled up, they grew to fill an entire wall-sized, glass-fronted living-room display case. Beth’s shrine.

Childhood is whatever a child is presented with: love, tenderness, disinterest, adoration, abuse, that’s what life is and how is a child to know any different? A child’s reality is narrow and small and by and large grateful. “Where’s your family now?” Nora asked, making getting-to-know-you conversation not long after Beth came here to live.

“Gone,” Beth said, so severely Nora didn’t ask more.

Half the point of secrets is to avoid trouble.

The other half is something else.

Now along come yet more surprises and changes. Death is grim and can have undreamed-of consequences—remember poor Nora’s strained, white face!—but it has other aspects as well. Once the immediate crisis is over and the sharp event, and Philip himself, begin shifting back where they belong, into memory, there will have to be hope and fresh prospects. Beth feels quite confident—helium-hearted, twinkle-toed—about that.

Nora taps on the door. “Can I come in?” Of course she can.

Once inside, Nora begins removing her own black clothes, stripping to underwear. Beth notes the small puddle of belly-flesh, the touch of thigh-rippling. After so many hours spent attentively arranging and rendering Beth’s narrow and flexible limbs, Nora must be totally familiar with the ebbs and
minor flows of Beth’s body, but Nora’s is unknown. Beth is unconcerned with flaws—she expects anyone but herself to have something unattractive about them—but she is curious. She also wonders what, exactly, Philip meant to Nora, what range of qualities he offered that Nora will miss. She does know that what sounds angry or tired isn’t always truly angry or tired, and what sounds gentle or happy isn’t necessarily either. People can be sly and mysterious that way.

Nora is turning towards Beth’s plain little white-painted bed. Now is the moment. Or
a
moment. Beth steps sideways, intercepts, moves to fold her long, thin arms around the new widow. Slowly, slowly, she rocks the two of them back and forth, back and forth, rhythmically, comfortingly. Oh, this is nice. In Nora’s hair she detects a slight staleness; a hint of Philip left behind in the night?

Too soon, Nora pulls away. She pats Beth’s hand, she crawls under Beth’s sheet, she lets Beth lean down to tuck her in and kiss her forehead. Beth would stroke and stroke Nora’s forehead, the way she did Sophie’s hair, but Nora curls away, into herself. Her eyes close, her breathing slows, and Beth finally leaves. It’s all right. Endings are not necessarily what they seem. Beginnings take time.

Back downstairs in the kitchen they keep a little green plastic portable radio on the middle one of the three small pine shelves beside the window over the sink. The bottom shelf holds a round blue pottery dish for inconvenient jewellery such as bracelets, watches—wedding rings in the case of Nora and until last night Philip—and the top one displays Nora’s uselessly tiny, family-heirloom set of silvery salt-and-peppers. The radio on the middle shelf is rarely turned on except when they’re cooking or washing up, but Nora’s asleep, Sophie’s off organizing Philip-related events, and
Beth is, for once, restless with silence, or a little too happy for peace.

Her pageant speech wasn’t wrong. Music does save; or at least it reflects. Not necessarily “Yesterday” which is what’s playing on the oldies station she listens to. “Yesterday” is just ironic, in the circumstances. It’s followed, though, by a bouncy old Neil Diamond tune about a Kentucky woman, and Beth closes her eyes and sways slightly. She has never been to Kentucky but has met girls from there, and has a recollection of long white dresses and long white teeth and voices with soft vowels and hard tones.

She has met girls from all over the place and, except for the soft vowels, they are in memory mostly like the Kentucky ones, all long white dresses and teeth, and sharp smiles, and cool scrutiny behind warm eyes like gas fireplaces, not the real thing. In that world of women, behind-the-scenes voices were pitched high with hostility and ambition; conflicting scents of nail polishes and hairsprays and perfumes, perspiration and desire, were probably what sometimes gave Beth and her mother bad headaches. “Don’t ever forget,” her mother warned, “those girls are your competitors, not your friends. Don’t trust anyone. But always smile, and be as pleasant and nice as you can.” Not, she meant, to be an actual smiling nice person, but because “meanness shows up in the face, even if it’s not right away. You can see that already in some of the girls.” That was true. A sort of over-the-hill, lost-opportunity narrowness grew in some faces.

Beth’s mother intended to capture opportunities just the way Beth captured titles and prizes. Beth’s mother spoke of fashion house runways, of international competitions, even of movies in a gloriously approaching future. What luck for Beth to possess not only beauty but a mother who could
dream up couturier runways, magazine covers, travels in Europe. “You have the features,” she said, running fingers over Beth’s cheeks. “These are magazine-cover bones. You have a fortune in your face, we can go anywhere, you can accomplish anything we decide on.”
Accomplish?
The word jarred, began to sound like something vaguely hard and opposing.

That was a long time ago. Soon Beth will be thirty. Sometimes she can nearly feel her blood close to the thin surface of her skin, heating and bubbling. The first time she sat with Nora in this kitchen hearing Nora’s visions and plans she felt that, and now she feels it again. Because there will be new visions and plans, made necessary, if contrary to his desires, by Philip.

And what were Philip’s desires? Not Beth, and not death. Oh, that’s funny, that rhyme, she is clever sometimes.

She has a suspicion, however, that his desires did include Sophie. She has noticed his eyes following Sophie now and then with a particular light, and recently there’s been a straightening, some sharp alteration in Sophie when Philip came into a room. Sophie is efficient but she is not trustworthy. It is Beth’s belief that Sophie has witnessed such atrocious brutalities that her soul is toughened against more ordinary sins.

There’s some of that in herself, too.

Nora was a godsend. These sorts of miracles seem random, but also intentional. They can’t really be both, can they?

At an art show opening, Beth noticed a short dark-haired woman in black trousers and a pale blue, loose blouse, staring and staring at her. Which was fine. It’s more or less Beth’s one great
accomplishment
, what she was trained for: being noticed. The show was a sculptor’s for whom Beth had done
a little modelling with results, she was interested and pleased to see, that were reasonably unidentifiable. There was a good crowd, lots of perfumes and glittering eyelids, bald heads and beards, different shades and complexions and voices. Eventually Beth felt Nora, whom she did not know then to be Nora, angling more directly towards her. “Hello, excuse me, you’ve maybe noticed me watching you, but—are you a model, by any chance? Or”—that quick, now-familiar, lilting uptilt of Nora’s lips—“would you ever consider being one?” Beth pointed towards a looping, arced bronze the height of a man’s hand. She was at the time modelling, yes, not only for this particular sculptor but for trade shows and catalogues, for minor fashion shows, for minor art schools. She offered bendability as well as beauty, her body amenable to being twisted and flexed in many shapes and directions. She could hold difficult poses. Nora nodded and smiled and Beth saw they did not need many words.

Nora said she was a painter who incorporated other materials into her work. She said she had roughly in mind a series in which, it had struck her from across the small crowded gallery, Beth might feature perfectly. Oh, and she introduced Philip. “My husband.”

He was a large man who looked as if he might do large things. “Are you an artist as well?” Beth asked politely.

“No chance.” It was the first time Beth heard that barrelling laugh. She had no idea what he’d found funny.

That laugh of his—it was too large in the confines of this house. It wilfully, deliberately, drowned out smaller voices.

Not any more.

The music on the radio stops, news begins. People are injuring each other in several horrible ways in several parts of the world, which is unpleasant. Beth is turning the thing
off just as Sophie arrives in the kitchen looking sad and ferocious, both. “God damn it, Beth, music? Do you think that’s respectful?”

Respectful of what, death? Philip? Oh, but maybe of Nora. “You’re right, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

Without fury the air, the power, go right out of Sophie, and she’s left just looking sad. That’s interesting. Even her hair looks subdued and her eyes are shadowy. Shock affects anyone close, and just how close was Sophie to Philip? She has already thrown up. Beth steps forward, places her thin fingers on Sophie’s arm. “Can I get you something? Come on, come sit down.” Sophie flinches, but Beth tightens her grip, pulls Sophie to her chair at the table. She pats Sophie’s hair, not stroking and soothing the way she did with Nora, or when Sophie was heaving on to the floor. “I’ll make tea.”

It takes a few minutes, but “This is for comfort and courage,” she says, placing a cup in Sophie’s hands. “It’s bitter, but if you drink it down fast, you’ll feel better.” People trust Beth on this subject at least. Sophie sips, she makes a moue of distaste, but then she does drink it right down. “Are you very sad about Philip, then?” Beth dares to ask. “Are you grieving, are you distraught?”

Those are big words. Sophie sits up straight and looks a lot more alert. Which is good. With her wits about her, Sophie can resume her duties and chores, and Beth can concentrate on being helium-hearted and hopeful. It’s amazing how a person can be jolted awake by a scream, that sound of awful distress, and a few hours later be aware of so many unforeseen and quite joyous prospects. Life is full of surprises. Beth’s mother used to say that, although generally on unfair, unhappy occasions, such as when Beth came in second or third runner-up.

“No,” Sophie says slowly. “Just tired. A lot of people to talk to.”

Beth wonders how long Nora will sleep.

Nora’s an expert in things that aren’t visible. Which must be why, despite Sophie’s bright springing-up hair and abundance of flesh, Nora has never done a painting of her. It must be why she found Beth instead: because Beth’s power is untouched and private, all under the skin, not out on the bold, uninteresting surface like Sophie’s. What Nora works with are the ways light can hit skin, textures can be molded and formed, bones can be reshaped. Which shows that even though Nora may not always know what’s going on right under her nose, she must be good at discerning the grave depths and mysteries lying beneath. And that must be what makes her an artist, and why she chose Beth: because she knows things about Beth; even though in particular ways, and this is a good thing, she really knows very little at all.

N
ora was faking with Beth, she is not sleeping. Among the many, many things on her mind is, what the hell was Beth’s lingering, swaying embrace about, not to mention that excessive stroking of Nora’s forehead? Some misplaced and transferred passion for Philip? There was something … lascivious about it, unnerving, and quite soon unpleasant.

Also surprisingly bold. Beth wafts about all skin and bones in her long floaty dresses, her only discernible interest her boring curative teas, so quiet and malleable that even Nora, who has spent many hours bending her this way and that, has to agree with Sophie that Beth’s still waters run more stagnant than deep. Life does not thrive in her depths, nor flourish at her shores.

So that was weird.

Of course, sexual responses to death are not uncommon. However clumsy, they are at least defiant, insistent gestures of life, and in fact Philip’s arms holding Nora after her mother died led slowly, then furiously, to just about the most rampageously lusty night of their lives, a wildly free and fervent display of thrusting tongues and threshing limbs and powerful assertions of one sort or another.

But still.

Wondering about Beth’s embrace is a small matter, though. What’s large, what’s heart-cracking, is Philip as Nora saw him smiling strangely beside her this morning at that cool point between existence and non-existence, still Philip but grown disengaged and remote; and, no middle life between the last and the first, his earliest face, young and broken wide open, grinning and full of interest, in Nora.

If she’d known that last night would be the end of his voice, anger, heat, tenderness, skin—if she’d known, what then? She would have said many more words, and different ones, she would have touched and stroked him, kept him awake rollicking and remembering right through the night. Like Scheherazade, she could have fended off bad ends with stubbornly wakeful tales and vivid, entertaining delights. People forget to do that. She did—him, too, she supposes—and then it’s too late. Now, no more rages and laughter, no more words and embraces, no more Philip rearing over and around her, no more of his fleshy flesh, no more shuddering and groaning and sighs. He used to say, back when they were working to fix up this house, “Come on, take a break, let’s go play in the shower.” She used to say, “Want to go find a forest to fuck in?” And sometimes they would. Now—never again? Her head spins so hard she feels drunk and sick and has to open her eyes. Even if urgencies grow less urgent in time, even if for the most part they are allowed to drift off towards some vaguely imagined, energetically passionate night in the future, they’re not supposed to drift right over the horizon, off the edge of the earth.

Philip’s body, perfectly alive and luxurious yesterday, is being mutilated today.