She felt as if she were trying to make her way and the entire world had turned into a herd of yapping dogs snapping at her feet, leaping on her and barking for attention. Max insisted she come to New York. She was late with some designs. He wanted them and he wanted to talk about colour and general plans. Why he needed a face-to-face was more than she could ever understand, but after a while she wasn’t real to them unless she appeared. Normally she seized on any excuse to go to New York, but it was two-thirds of the way through July, and Tyrone was here, not there. Usually she went down in September, but they were talking about big changes for next year’s fall line.
Willie announced, ‘Johnny’s coming for my opening.’
‘Who is Johnny?’ She could not stand that awful desexing nickname.
‘Siobhan,’ Willie corrected appeasingly. ‘I really look forward to seeing her. I hope the two of you can be a little easier on each other.’
‘I’m sure I at any rate will try to preserve the peace.’
After Willie had returned to his studio, she forced herself to put in time on the overdue designs. What she was drawing was beautiful but somehow heartbreaking: those lilies drooped with disappointment and frustration. Graceful arcs of sorrow. Beige and an almost neutral orange, close to rust, a bottle green, a light cream. Maybe the green should be an even darker shade, of lower value and lower chroma.
Whenever she changed colours, she gave herself licence to look out. Now they all seemed to be swimming, perhaps eight of them like playful seals bobbing in the slight languid wind. While she watched, a couple waded into the water from a little beach midway between Tyrone’s spread and the MacIvors’ house. Vaguely familiar looking. She had seen them around town. Tyrone swam rapidly toward shore. A few minutes later she saw Donald hastening along the path toward the swimmers. Tyrone hated other people using the pond. She turned back to her drawing board, as if she might be drawn into the fight simply by watching the tiny figures half a mile away.
Funny that Jimmy had no artistic bent, when even Siobhan did. Willie had said Siobhan had a show scheduled, with a sculptor. If Siobhan would only open up, as any normal daughter would with her mother, they could share that. It would be warm between them and she would feel close to Siobhan, would be able to let out her frustrated affection.
Siobhan was always pushing her away, shutting her out. It had been that way since Siobhan was in middle school and began to be interested in boys. That was a time Susan had expected they would grow closer than ever. She had imagined when Siobhan was born, so tiny, frail, intensely feminine in her arms, that they would be close as she had never been close to her own mother. Susan didn’t set herself up as a traffic cop of morals. Far from it, she cared only that Siobhan think about what she was doing and make smart choices.
She had looked forward to shopping for clothes together, to outfitting Siobhan in ways that would flatter her good features, play down her weakness. When Siobhan came home from her first parties, Susan had been as excited as if she had been going herself. No mother had ever been less judgemental or more willing to share everything in Siobhan’s life, wanting to discuss her girlfriends, the boys she whispered about. From puberty on, Siobhan had walled her out as if frustrating Susan’s desire for intimacy made her happy. Yes, there was something perverse in Siobhan. She could take more pleasure in refusing to share an experience than in having it.
Morever Siobhan simply didn’t know how to be popular, how to play boys against each other, how to attract the attention of a boy who interested her in such a way that the boy would think it had been his idea to pursue her. Not only was Siobhan ignorant of all this female lore, she would not allow Susan to teach her. She would disown a boy Susan could tell she had a crush on rather than share that admission with her mother.
She had endured overwhelming frustration all through Siobhan’s adolescence, of her daughter simply refusing to see that she, Susan, only wanted to help her, to share her excitement, to share the romance and the silliness of being a teenager again. She saw other mothers making terrible errors forcing their daughters to lie to them, constraining them to a morality in which they themselves did not believe; she saw others making fun of their children’s passions and fevers and sorrows. She never did that. She could remember suffering as acutely over Mike McDonough’s failure to invite her to his birthday party as over anything in her life since. A thirteen-year-old had almost infinite capacity for feeling rejection and pain. She never forgot that.
Susan sighed deeply, turning from her lilies to watch through binoculars Candida execute a perfect dive off the floating dock. Whenever Siobhan was supposed to arrive, she always imagined things might be different, that Siobhan might go off to her room with her as mothers and daughters did, tell her secrets, ask her advice. She knew her daughter lived with a man, but she had never met Aldo and Siobhan refused even to say whether she loved him. Susan thought of her daughter as icy cold; cold to the spine. She had raised a daughter without normal soft and tender female emotions. Even her beautiful Celtic name she had changed to a man’s name, as she had altered her auburn hair to black, tortured like a Halloween wig.
Constantly Siobhan had run to Dinah and to Willie to pour out anger against her mother. Susan knew that was the content of all those long talks Siobhan had with Dinah. Sometimes she even slept at Dinah’s, just out of perverse desire to reject Susan and cause her pain, the way Jimmy had moved across the yard. It was too damned convenient for the children, to have that surrogate mother to run to, Dinah who did not give a damn and thus was understanding, oh, endlessly understanding, because finally what did she care about but her flute and her music? As if Susan had opened a box she had laid away in a drawer and forgotten, a present laid aside for the season of its use, she drew out that anger long buried and savoured it.
She knew very well she was seeking reasons to stay angry with Dinah, because since Tyrone had withdrawn from her, in punishment for faults not hers, she was tempted to permit Dinah near her again. Dinah would create some counterfestivity, and the three of them, the family they had formed, would whirl round its own centre and fill up the afternoons and the evenings with light and sound and activity and affection acted out.
From her window she watched Dinah picking beans and cutting the big purple heads of cabbage. In a faded tee and baggy shorts, she looked shabby. Without Susan to dress her, she had no idea what to wear. Susan felt an odd pang of missing, bound with the memory of Dinah’s fleecy hair, its tight curls alive and resilient in her hands as she brushed it. Tomorrow, perhaps tomorrow she would drift downstairs, cross the yard into Dinah’s range and let a real conversation begin.
The next day she dressed softly, attractively, pinning the bodice of her loose sundress with a coral flower Dinah had given her years ago, a pin from the twenties. She looked at herself with and without various hats and finally chose a sun hat with a very broad brim and loose weave that cast flattering light shadow on her face. She looped a scarf that matched her dress around the crown. Then she watched for Dinah. But today Dinah frustrated her. Finally Susan wandered outside. Because of the pile of lumber she did not have a clear view next door. Dinah’s car was not parked where it ought to be.
Finally she went up to Willie, who had worked all morning in his studio and was spending the afternoon putting up the frame with Jimmy. Jimmy was helping him today and probably Willie would give free labour to Dinah tomorrow. Susan preferred to stay out of the arrangements, pretending she did not know that Willie was helping build Dinah’s addition.
‘Is Dinah away?’ she asked after she’d made idle conversation and stood through a boring story about the Board of Appeals and the gallery permits.
‘She’s gone into the city,’ Jimmy said. ‘To see some friend. I think the building is driving her crazy. She even took the cats.’
‘Into New York?’
‘No, Boston.’
‘When I say into the city, I always mean New York,’ she said primly. Dinah often visited a friend who played
in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It was just as well Dinah was gone. Her impulse had been of weakness.
She strolled toward the pond. Today she saw no activity at Tyrone’s. Apparently his company of the weekend had left and no new company had arrived. She had observed Candida swimming in front of her own house an hour before. Rather than waste the effect of her outfit, she would drop in there. Candida was proving useful, for she would run on endlessly about what was happening at Tyrone’s, giving Susan a window on events there. Candida was good-hearted and rather naive. She would happily repeat everything she heard.
Susan cut across Dinah’s land and walked along the path toward the MacIvors. She had not come this way in months, because she would not give Dinah the satisfaction of walking on her land. She had driven around the long way, back to the main road and in on the road that led to that house, or she had walked a mile around the pond via Tyrone’s spread, but not since February had she walked this path. Blueberries grew along it and as she ambled, she picked one berry at a time to nibble. Dinah gone was an irritant removed. Maybe Dinah would move into Boston and sell her house to Jimmy and Laurie. Now she was being as silly as Jimmy. Her step slowed and the heat pressed the energy out of her as she ran over in her head the overfamiliar catechism of questions and imperfect answers about the rupture with Tyrone.
She came out of the woods on the new lawn Candida had had put in. The sliding door was open, only the screen in place. She did not hear voices as she stood peering in calling, ‘Candida? It’s Susan!’
Candida came at once, barefoot. She wore one of those pastel rompers she favoured when she was not dressed up. ‘Come in, come in. We were just having iced coffee.’
‘Susan, hello. How wonderful to see you,’ Tyrone said warmly, as if he had only just arrived from his trip.
She felt embarrassed, fearful Tyrone might think she had dropped in to catch him, that she was pursuing him, but he did not seem to feel any such suspicion. He and Candida seemed delighted for company. ‘I must chat with Willie about getting on with the gallery. Even without the permits, we can repair the roof and paint. As it is, it’s an eyesore and totally unusable.’
‘I’ll talk to Willie at once about fixing the roof.’
He shook his head. ‘Don’t trouble yourself about it, Susan my dear, I’m just thinking out loud. That’s between your husband and myself, and I beg your pardon for alluding to it … Susan, old friend, I have a wee problem of sorts. I have a colleague arriving Friday who has married again and has two very young children. We absolutely must have a reliable sitter for this coming weekend.’
‘How old are the children?’
Tyrone cast up his eyes. ‘I don’t know. Two, three, that sort of age. Sally will know. Can you find us someone?’
‘I told Tyrone I can’t help,’ Candida said. ‘With us not having children, I never needed anyone.’
‘I’ll try!’ She felt illuminated with hope, visited with an annunciation of the return of his favour. She had only to find some teenager who would be responsible and available. ‘I can take care of them myself if we can’t get anyone else. I have to go to New York next week, but I don’t leave until Monday morning.’
‘You don’t usually go to the city in the summer, do you?’ Tyrone asked.
‘Never.’ She explained briefly, slightly exaggerating so that it would sound more interesting, more glamorous than it was.
‘Oh, you’re a designer,’ Candida said. ‘I never knew that. How fabulous. I must have something of yours.’
Tyrone said, ‘Do you have to spend the night?’
‘I’m afraid so. I have to be there Monday and Tuesday.’
‘Then why don’t you stay in my apartment? Unless they’re putting you up in a good hotel?’
Her heart missed a beat. It lurched painfully under her breasts. ‘They don’t do that. I’ll be lucky if they buy me a deli lunch,’ she managed to say lightly. She dared not reveal how badly she wanted his apartment.
‘It’s rather closed up. And Celeste is here with us. However, the building’s secure, the doorman’s on duty. If you don’t mind the general air of desuetude, I’m sure you’d be comfortable.’
‘That’s enormously kind of you, Tyrone. I’d be delighted not to have to worry about a hotel. This came up suddenly. I made my airline reservations, but I hadn’t done anything about a hotel.’ She was not flying down, she was driving. They could not afford to blow a couple of hundred on plane travel. She did not know why she had said that. She was flustered and trying to seem cool, as if Tyrone offered her his apartment every other day.
‘That’s all settled, then.’ Tyrone rose, shaking Candida’s hand rather formally. ‘You see, you did solve my problem.’
‘No thanks to me. If Susan hadn’t dropped in … Well, I was really surprised when you popped out of the woods, Susan. You’ve never done that before! It was like an apparition.’
‘You’ll call me tonight about the baby-sitter.’ Tyrone put his arm around her shoulder and led her out with him. Unresisting she floated beside him. She had no desire to sit and chatter with Candida now. She was too happy, too excited. She had no idea where to locate a sitter, but she would call everybody she knew in town, absolutely everybody. Sometimes Zee baby-sat for pin money.
‘I’ll get right on it, Tyrone, I’ll get on it as soon as I get home. And if I don’t find a sitter, I’ll do it myself. I promise!’ She felt bathed in radiant light. The heat of the day no longer seemed oppressive. A slight but refreshing breeze had risen, riffling the pond. The day seemed delicious as a ripe peach.
‘That’s terribly sweet. I knew I could count on you, Susan, as ever, as always.’ He gave her hand a hard squeeze.
She was glad he had taken her with him out of Candida’s, giving them a little time together. ‘Tyrone, I’ve been miserable being at odds with you.’
‘Between old friends, what does such nonsense count for?’
‘I’ve missed you. I wanted so badly to hear about your trip to Japan.’
‘Susan, I won’t fool you. It was a business trip. I made money, and that was about the sum of it.’ He paused, waiting for a reaction.
She stood flat-footed and then realized as she went over his words for the third time that he had made a pun. She laughed.
That freed him to continue. ‘You know I’m much happier to be here. You find me that sitter. And ask Willie to call me about the gallery roof pronto.’
She started to walk around the pond the long way, toward his house, but he stopped her. ‘I’m off to work now. I have a desk full of obnoxious items to deal with. You need to get on the phone too.’ He squeezed her shoulder and turned her toward her house, along the path she had come on. Then he gave her a small pat on the behind and strode off.
She was startled so that for a moment she stood absolutely still, feeling the imprint of his hand on her buttock. Never had he touched her so intimately in all their years of friendship, never. He was unfailingly correct. It was not like one of the carpenters trying to pat her fanny. It had been a gesture of affection, yes, but how unexpectedly physical. Just as he had never before offered her his apartment. She had stayed there once with Willie when Tyrone was in town, although extremely busy. This was something new. From exile and separation, she had passed with Tyrone onto a newer higher more intimate level of friendship.
She hurried down the wood path, tripping over a root and loosening her sandal, resenting the time required to stoop and put it back on. She would call the library first and ask Burt. He knew everybody and everything. She had not seen Burt and Leroy socially in ages and she had scarcely been in the library since she had stopped volunteering, but she would chat him up and then ask him for names. The Hills had a daughter. Too young for sitting, too old for a sitter, but they might have somebody they had used. Zee would talk her ear off, but she would ask her too. She’d ask everyone in town!
She rushed across the lawn, shouting at Willie, ‘Call Tyrone. He wants the roof repaired.’
/> ‘Oh, he does, does he?’ Willie growled. ‘He knows my phone number. He also knows how to sign his name on a cheque. Let him pay me what he owes me and then I’ll start on that rotten mansard roof.’
She paused and groaned. Willie wasn’t going to screw up the return of Tyrone into their lives. She would make her phone calls and then she would go to work on Willie’s attitude.
Even as she was softening up Burt, prior to her request, she kept remembering that private moment when Tyrone had touched her and wondering, wondering what he had meant. Poor Willie. She would cook tonight, once she got the sitter lined up. He would come in from construction and find a sumptuous meal. Then she would go to work on him about the gallery roof.
Chapter Thirty-Six
LAURIE
Laurie found out that in spite of Tyrone’s misimpression, Susan was driving to the city, not flying. She asked Celeste where the rest of her summer things were stored; then she arranged with Susan to bring them back. She had begged Tyrone to carry those boxes with him, but he had had too much of his own stuff; more likely, he had simply forgotten in the press of returning from Tokyo, clearing up New York business and packing for the summer house.
Jimmy and she couldn’t go because he was working seven days a week, trying to put up Dinah’s addition and helping Willie with his garage-studio while there was a lull in the gallery. Tyrone was all exercised about the gallery, but she was indifferent. She had always known she couldn’t get a gallery together this summer, so there was no hurry. If the renovation was finished by spring, the gallery would be ready for next summer.
She had a great deal to do before then, lining up artists, arranging for shows. She had already decided she would not curate all the shows herself, but would have more than half of them guest-curated by people whose names might draw in the knowledgeable. She would have her hands full with whatever remaining shows she chose to hang.
She liked to talk about her gallery and her plans to Jimmy. Like his father, Jimmy could interest himself in anything, an agreeably civilized wide-ranging intelligence, far less narrow than the men she had been involved with before. Tom had been interested only in publishing, drugs, media and rock music. Rick had cared only about the market, money, expensive cars and basketball. Tyrone, who had led her to expect a broad spectrum of interest in a man, would be astonished how much closer Jimmy came to that ideal than her husband or her former lover had.