Schooling (29 page)

The bathwater reaches a dangerous level, she motions, he turns to address it, twisting the tap. He runs his fingers through his hair, looks at her as he did that day in February so long ago when he painted her. How young she was then. She had been in the country for six months, she was a child fresh from trees she saw as horses. Now, she can no sooner imagine straddling a tree, than see it take equine form and bear her away. Gilbert’s fingers wrap his chin, his legs plaited at the side of the tub. Painting her. What did she want from him so long ago, she hardly knew him, had not yet heard that he figured as Hamlet in the death of a father. She wanted to sleep on his pillow as she had done once and why will her thoughts insist on returning to chocolates.

Does that make sense to you?

All I wanted was for you to lift me up.

Everyone else feels old and dull to me . . . he leans toward her. She leans away.

You’re right. There doesn’t seem anywhere to go . . . he stands, the mirror fogs, he runs his hand through his hair again.

I feel so dead.

He looks down at her, his hair is stuck. Sitting down again suddenly on the edge of the tub, Gilbert presses her hand to his mouth.

Stop . . . she pulls away.

Tell me you wanted—

No.

I thought—

I didn’t want that. I wanted you to lift me up.

Please stop saying that Catrine, I don’t know what it means. We were by the car, eating chips, yesterday evening. The sky is so purple, I thought. I said so and as I said it I looked at you, your concern with your vinegar-sodden chips, head bowed over them as though you prayed and I thought, Now there’s a sky a Fauvist would love, I thought I love you, I thought you are my Fauvist and I love you. It overcame me. I wanted to eat you or grab you or have you. I didn’t want anyone to get you, to spoil you.

So you did instead.

I thought that I was there as your protector and I would protect you always, watch over your bowed little head matted with sleep. I kissed you, you understand I had to, I had no choice, I had to touch your face, your mouth, I had to have what those chips had, your lips. And you kissed me back, Catrine. Didn’t you. You kissed me back?

I don’t know what I did. I’ve never kissed a boy.

Now come on, we both know this is something you wanted. We came into the house, I brought you upstairs, you took my hand.

I wanted to hold your hand. I wanted to smell you. I didn’t want that. How was I to know? You act so old.

Well I’m not.

You led me to believe—

I wanted the hair at the back of your neck, the shaven part and your scar and the way you hold your waist with your fingers pinching. I thought maybe you would hold my waist like that. I wanted to hear your horrible squeaky voice and see your teeth stick out like fangs when you can’t stop laughing. I wanted to make you laugh. I wanted there to be no one else for you not Nessa or Fi or Dido, but I didn’t want that.

All those times, in the snow in front of the school, and when you look at me that way.

Mr. Gilbert.

But I stopped I stopped tell me I stopped. I stopped.

You didn’t.

He looks at her a look of fear his eyes move over her his hand he falls to his knees the water is so still he buries his head in her knees. It’s true.

A movement. A sound. The door opens. Giddy.

6

Of course. The mountain. In stages of exhaustion. Behind her, still struggling up the final ascent, Vicar on the brink. At least the yodeling’s stopped which was funny in concept only. And Piers with his damp matches unable to light a cigarette in one, stopping to concentrate on the strikes, yapping his most interesting or is it simply most frequent question, Why Am I Here which is not philosophical inquiry but a boredom with the whole enterprise.

Yes, she is first up. Butcher has done some evening reading in medical dictionaries, wants to spend the morning unloading gastric insight on Gilbert. First to take in the extraordinary swell of grassy meadow, the outcropping of cliff. Across a ravine, the rock has faces, folds of skin, a cragginess of age. Salt, she can smell it even here. Pervades. The bread of sincerity, the bread of truth. A deep breath.

Down for breakfast in her tunic. It was a uniform sort of dress but Father liked it. One large kickpleat in the front. A kickpleat, to say the word was worth the dress seeming uniform. You’re climbing cliffs today, Giddy said, spinning a bowl of porridge in front of her, Is that appropriate for climbing? A dress? With a mouthful of porridge she turned sideways and kicked out a foot to show Giddy that she wore not her new Gilbert shoes but her squashers, exceptional for climbing mountains or kicking any pleats. Gilbert came in then fixing his collar saying, It’s not the matterhorn, Giddy, she’ll be alright. Over her spoon and for some reason her mouthfuls were extra large this morning so she could chew for minutes without reloading, she was interested in the space Giddy kept between them. A gift for you Catrine, Gilbert said disappearing into the corridor, Look what I have for you.

And here, first on the scene, a detective. The craggy faces hers for five minutes, hers alone. Resting both hands on top of the crook. You make a fine shepherd, he said when he gave it. I know how much you like sheep. Although, turning to Giddy, I tell you her handling of cows on Monday was expert indeed.

A sun plays on the rocks, takes them nearly white. Gilbert has the paints, what will she mix with white to find that camel color. The brown Gilbert owns is too yellow. Yellow belonged to another time. No yellows today. As if she needed him to name her. Fauvist. My name is for my friends. She is no wild beast. She has a kickpleat and a belted waist. Nothing out of place. Shortly to follow, a tidy mind. The canvas bag belonged to Father when he was a bicyclist. She found it at Felmar, wanted the bag because it appeared to have survived war. Strapped across her for her special brushes and a pear. The Gilbert original and a letter she found on the road this morning while Gilbert and Vicar changed the flat on the Deux Chevaux. The letter was impossible to read from water damage but had a Spanish stamp.

Piers and Thérèse arrive. A breeze raises goosebumps. Thérèse wears the red cardigan because she nearly cried about it. Giving it to Thérèse, she said, Watch out for Piers. Watch out for those motivations.

Well . . . Piers sets down his rucksack, takes out a cigarette, lights it to say . . . Not bad.

A valley in the distance holds the sun in a bowl. Now Vicar appears, no longer yodeling, in fact panting alarmingly. Thérèse lies down on the grass, looking up to the sky.

I have a leak somewhere . . . Piers folds down next to her cross-legged . . . Everything of mine is sopping.

Very blue at the same time containing every color like white. This vast, this infinite. This is where she is.

My . . . Vicar breathes . . . I can think of only one word for this.

Thérèse takes in Piers, his bag . . . Do you have a canteen in there as well?

Majestic.

Not funny . . . Piers begins taking out pencils, a book—

I usually sit on rocks will that be alright for all of you? . . . she doesn’t move at the sound of his voice.

That’s fine for me, Mr. Gilbert . . . Butcher’s voice . . . Still young enough to rough it.

Folding her arms against the chill, the strap of her bicycling bag, some land alright.

Brought my own . . . the sound of Vicar arranging? pulling off? his rucksack, the light tinny sound of metal or steel . . . Brand new, made of poly—

Super. Let’s begin. Catrine?

Yes, Mr. Gilbert . . . now she turns to face him.

I have your paper and paints . . . his shirt open a few buttons, faintly perspiring holding by a long strap the bag at his feet . . . Give me a hand won’t you?

Taking in the landscape one final time, no longer a private one, she goes to him . . . Are you still sweating from the tire? . . . she touches his forearm . . . Why are you so hot?

Gilbert kneels to the bag, draws out her paints . . . Butcher’s been terrifying me with all the possible diseases I might have. Gastroenteritis, appendicitis.

But it doesn’t hurt anymore. You said so this morning . . . kneeling next to him, kickpleat pleating, she takes up her paint tin, a loan for the trip.

Well Mrs. Ingle informs me that cancer pains can come and go.

Opening the tin then closing it . . .
Cancer?

What now?

What do you mean, cancer?

Gilbert still bowed over bottled water and dirty cloths . . . Mrs. Ingle thinks it terribly funny I’m—Oh . . . he looks up . . . What was I thinking? I don’t know what’s happening, Catrine, my mind has gone to mush.

I don’t want you to die, Mr. Gilbert . . . and taking the tin, she leaves him.

Thérèse and Piers have claimed a rock. Vicar, legs in a triangle, stands at his space-age easel. Choosing a place next to Butcher, she brings out her special brushes from Father’s bag.

Over the porridge, and she ate two bowls, her hair dripped on the table. Giddy had shouted up to her that Gilbert might like one too. From the bath she did not call back, because the kickpleat tunic awaited and she was a pleasant tunic girl, No one knows your son’s bathing habits better than I, and I agree, a few more baths would not go amiss. Instead she stepped out wet into slippers to take a blue towel to her hair and back, rubbing vigorously. Knowing Gilbert likely awaited, she brushed combed smoothed her hair straight straight straight, squeezing out any stubborn water. Rummaging in the medicine cabinet she chose baby oil and combed it into her hair thinking it might keep tame. At breakfast, the oil dripped on to the table forcing her to furtively wipe it with her sleeve every time Giddy looked away.

As Gilbert drew his bath upstairs, she sipped her tea, waited for the porridge she would eat two bowls of, and tried to make conversation with this ungiddy mother. Nothing provoked more than one word answers until she said, I was sorry to hear about your illness last month. At that very moment Gilbert swung in looking for salt to put in his bath. He stood at the cabinet with his back to her, salt in one outstretched hand. She was thinking it was peculiar to see a teacher in his dressing gown so it took a moment to register Giddy’s answer. In fact it was only after Gilbert left with his salt that she heard.
Haven’t been ill
in two years. O Treachery O Treason.

Butcher leans across for an assessment . . . You’re doing it so dark, love. Is there a storm approaching I’m not seeing?

O perfidious man. Haven’t been ill in two years. There was a surprise for you. You who didn’t think there’d be one. Then there was the gift of the shepherd stick. When Vicar honked from outside they walked down the rock path to the faulty car though they did not yet know the tire would puncture. And Gilbert only said Catrine. Her name like that as if that meant Forgive Me without having to say anything else. When the Deux Chevaux became an Un Cheval and she scoured nearby and found the letter, she looked over to the two men. Gilbert’s newly bathed self becoming, even at that prebutcher point, sweaty at the back. Giddy’s answer did not surprise her even as it did. Knowing and not knowing. When the new tire was secure, Vicar climbed in the driver seat as she and Gilbert put the flat in the boot. Gilbert said to her, Remember at Harrington when I showed you how to translate what you see instead of what you know? Yes, she said. Well, he said, shoving at the tire. Sometimes you have to rely on what you know to be true instead of believing what seems apparent. She wanted to answer, I’ll Bear That In Mind. But with her tunic she tried for better. I see, she said. I see. He was, after all, showing her how.

Choosing where the sky gets pierced by two grassy peaks, between them, a blear of distant rocks. Blurred due to the demands of distance.

Penny for them.

Not Gilbert in the night, asking the wheel, the road darkening those moments before they ate haddock, but Butcher.

They’re not worth a penny.

Some artists don’t believe in green from a tube . . . Butcher judges her mountain . . . They think it should be mixed from primaries.

Checking her borrowed tin . . . I have green.

Ingle takes the paint . . . I’m sure your thoughts are worth quite a bit more than a penny.

I was thinking, am I petulant.

Petulant? Who called you petulant?

I looked it up in the dictionary . . . wiping her brush . . . Isn’t that pathetic? I didn’t know how I was being insulted.

Was it a teacher or—

It means unreasonably ill tempered, peevish.

But if you have reason to be ill tempered, would that make you not so much petulant as . . . Butcher squeezes out an ugly blue . . . Angry?

A thin brush to define mountain against sky perhaps she is a landscapist, a Constable, a Cole. He will call her dull. A wash of what. She can’t stop herself, the side of the mountain cries out for red, is there any logic to it.

Something in her has lifted, yes it has. She never needed him to lift her up. A rock by her foot. She has been weathered day-in day-out or does weathering imply some sort of negative effect, in which case perhaps she has metamorphized. After all, she has felt heat, she has felt pressure. Scraping the rock against her hand. The mountain, squeezing the mountain she holds in her hand.

There he was on her first day at Monstead under the arch. She remembered the wall from her visit with Father. Gilbert stood, hands pocketed, head bent to a short teacher as if he were hard of hearing. Here she was sweating from the train with her tabby and chocolates not knowing where or what, the taxi driver near expiration with the weight of her things, this frivolous lady with too many hatboxes. When she arrived, the halls were empty. Middle of the day middle of lessons the cement rang with her dropped suitcase. Gilbert was not hard of hearing for he jolted, saw her and her cases her distress over the shoulder of his anonymous colleague. Pushing the man aside, Gilbert rushed to help to say You can’t possibly manage that. Then told a passing someone Will you alert the POD a new pupil’s arrived. When she said to him as they bent to rezip her bursting case having paid the exasperated cabbie big bright bills all caught up in her moneybelt zip said to him What’s a Pod? He grunted with the zip That’s the Person On Duty let’s hope he’s a stronger man than I. It was Mr. Betts. It was Mr. Betts who came to fix the zip and organize her cases and trunks. Everything so new and obvious she wanted to kick it but that would have been kicking Father. It was Mr. Betts who made a funny joke who asked her if she knew a woman he met at a party who lived near Missoula. When she said Missoula Missoula I’ve never been west of the Mississippi river but remembering manners politely added Though I would certainly like to go someday. Those were the days when she often said certainly because it sounded polite but it was a lie to say you were certain if you were not so she stopped the habit only a few weeks later. It was Mr. Betts who said I’m sure you will visit many places both in America as well as in our own country which I hope will please you. It was Mr. Betts who smiled at her even when he had other worries thin hair unkempt from the flights to her dorm from cuffing Owen Wharton it was Owen it was Owen and some other boy who helped Mr. Betts carry her many American cases up the five flights. And when she went to her first English lesson, Mr. Betts made excuses of jet lag when she couldn’t find Missoula on the map. Laughed when she said But this is Boston because she knew where Boston was. It was Betts who said softly You may sit down now Miss Evans when their eyes met across her trembling pointing finger. The same man who called her pornographic the same man who looked forward to seeing the results of a day spent in such academic vein. How could that be. It was not Mr. Betts her first day in Chemistry who said We have an American in our midst who asked her to stand and say an American phrase so the class could hear the accent who said Let’s not blame nuclear threat on our new student hum. Almost giving them the idea to do so. It was not Mr. Betts who arranged a meeting in the library then never appeared due to Misunderstanding. How did it all unravel from her first days. Was it simply perspective. Surely what one sees provides what one knows. Surely those two things are not completely unrelated. The perspective for example on Gilbert’s head that first day as he struggled with her zip was never again the same detached view. When she leaned to shove at a piece of shirt which Gilbert couldn’t see but which was impinging his zipping efforts he watched her as he waited for the improvements.

Pretty.

He blocks the sun. She drops the rock, picks up the painting again. Gilbert squats down beside her, elbow against her back, then looks across to Butcher.

The cliffs, I trust, are holding still for you, Mrs. Ingle?

Better than cows, Mr. Gilbert, any day. How’s Vicar?

Finding odalisques I’m sure. And you, Miss Evans, may I? . . . Gilbert reaches for her half painting, propping it on one knee so they can both mull it over.

In the style of Thomas Cole . . . she tells him.

Ah.

Of the Hudson Valley group.

I’m aware which Cole you mean.

He’s one of my favorites. They have a painting of his in Oxbow. A lovely oil of a river. At the university museum. You took me there once, remember?

Dryly . . . Yes I haven’t developed amnesia along with my stomach pains, Catrine. Lovely. Lovely work . . . passing the painting back, he stands abruptly . . . Carry on . . . almost militarily . . . Cole will inspire, no doubt.