Girl Reading (26 page)

She trips along the path, pushing aside low-hanging boughs fat with foliage until the trees thin and a space opens, revealing the pond (Cynthia has a childish name for it). It is shaded by bending and swaying perennials that repeat upside down in the pool, hidden from view to one side by coppice and obscured by a woodland incline to the other, away from local thoroughfares. The water probably deep. It is secluded and has drunk centuries of rain. It is made of the fresh greens and earth browns of nature’s England, and its sounds are the staccato chiffchaffs and excitable wrens, the hum of damselflies and the plop of invisible fish kicking the surface with their tails. Leaves answer with hushed applause.

Gwen sees him. Visualizes her appearance in this place like the entrance of Titania.

Laurence Fern is painting the scene with intensity, like sickness, holding a stub of cigarette in his mouth. He attacks the canvas with his brush and palette knife, works quickly, the strokes going on in thick globules, raises his glance briefly to confirm some detail, and attacks again. It is the stippling of the Impressionists, but with less regard for form and an arbitrary use of color. “Expressive.” He works with speed and can make a picture in a day or two.

Gwen had never seen anything like it until he showed her. At first she thought it infantile, but having it explained to her so richly, so fiercely, has come to the conclusion that Laurence might—just
might
—be a genius. He does not look like a genius, to be sure, if geniuses are hoary, wrinkled men grown pale with obsession, grown withered with deep thought. Virility usually precludes talent; attractiveness is the compensation of a mediocre mind. Yet here is
Laurence, with creativity and the physique of a boxer, a man who combines artistic sensibility with latent brute force. That Laurence is unaware of his attributes makes him more charming. That he paints with personal disregard, that he gives his art to the world selflessly . . . rapture.

He does not look like a conscientious objector either (the first and only one she has knowingly met). Gwen had preconceived ideas of how they ought to look: pallid little boys, trembling weaklings. Not this. Not a specimen like him. It had not been easy to accept but accept it she did, although she still does not fully understand it.

It definitely has something to do with some men being too good to fight in wars (she likes the sound of that, even if she cannot make up her mind what it means). Perhaps, when you are touched by enlightenment, you have to take a contrary and lonely road. It is the lot of the tragically gifted, and all part of Laurence Fern’s mystery. And would it not make—she thinks to herself as she steps down to the edge and nearly falls in—would it not make their journey together, as two halves of the same being, one of mutual discovery and therefore the sweeter for it? As long as Gwen is able to know him and his thoughts in the end, however complex they are, however long it takes, every one.

Good morning, Laurence.

Miss Watts.

Miss Watts? I think it is time for you to call me Gwen, like everyone else.

Laurence does not reply.

I often come to this spot to read my book. You don’t mind, do you? (This is not exactly true; Gwen has never read here before but resolves to do so frequently from now on.) It’s
Emma
by Jane Austen. (This is important to say aloud, so she does.)

She takes his silence for consent. Laurence works on mutely.

Can I see it, please, even though it is not finished?

If you like.

She steps behind and announces, It is your best, Laurence, your very best. Really it is.

I am most dissatisfied. It is average. It is repetitive; I have done it all before. I have not the inspiration today.

Oh, but you do. I love it.

Laurence Fern makes an expression that Gwen interprets as pleased embarrassment. He paints on.

Gwen finds a seat where she can watch. She takes off her hat so the sunshine can play on her hair and tries to find her book absorbing. Indeed, Austen usually moves her and induces sighs of admiration, but today she reads it barely at all, only the same lines over and over, never coming to the end of a paragraph or needing to turn the page because there is some sound or movement to take her interest, some stone digging into her rear that makes her rearrange. The game of predicting when Laurence will speak next is as distracting as thinking of things to say that he might find fascinating or witty.

She pipes up, You know, people tell me that I am the best at drawing in my class.

He does not seem to hear. No matter. She is certain they will have plenty to talk about when they have found the words. She must be patient with him whenever he is working, and while their relationship is new and tender. She shall be no shrew.

The heat is overpowering. She leans back on her elbows, for thinking can be work. She tilts her face to the sun.

Like a daisy; I am a daisy basking in the warmth of the sun.

Gwen reminisces about herself as a child pretending to be a bride. That is too bourgeois for us, she now concludes; I will simply live with Laurence as his mistress and there will be a terrific scandal.

She raises herself, shields her eyes. Is there anything you would like? I can go back and fetch it for you.

Not right now.

She frowns.

He wipes his hands on a rag, screws it up, then takes a new cigarette out of a silver case and mutters, It is not working, I am going to have to—I don’t know, maybe try to salvage it, maybe abandon it.

Gwen sits up, worried. It isn’t my fault, is it?

Why should it be?

No reason. (She senses this as an opportunity to show her worth.) Don’t abandon it, that would be dreadful. Perhaps just take a break? Do something else this afternoon? Have some fun and try again tomorrow. It’s like when you’re stuck on an algebra problem: best to leave it for a while, and then when you come back to it, you have it figured out.

Laurence sticks out his chin as though impertinence will shame the picture into shape. You could be right there.

You have been working nonstop. There ought to be a balance.

Ought to be, but there isn’t. Who knows how long the weather will hold? If the light is different tomorrow—you have heard the phrase striking while the iron is hot, Miss Watts?

Gwen has heard it. It is a sign of their growing intimacy that she empathizes with his frustration. To leave a painting incomplete would be torture for him. He must finish it.

He adds, Anyway, I have to meet Sinclair from the train station tomorrow.

Who?

Sinclair.

Yes, she remembers him now. Laurence has already mentioned it. Another guest at Arnault; another conchie that Cynthia is giving asylum to; another artist, perchance. I could go? She offers without thinking.

Could you?

Gwen would like nothing better than to do a favor for him, but she shrugs as though she does not care.

I would appreciate it. In fact, that would make it easier. Thanks. He smiles a small, odd, delicious smile like a sip of wine.

But you must do a good turn for me and call me Gwen. No more Miss Watts, it is too fusty. Sinclair should call me Gwen too. We are all friends here, aren’t we?

Yes, I suppose we are. Laurence begins to dismantle his equipment. At Gwen’s insistence he gives her the easel to carry back.

Gwen runs. She runs fast. She is good at running, can outrun most boys her own age. She runs from the station, avoiding pedestrians, crosses a road and down the lane. She runs past the Cross Keys and St. Peter’s Church—hair, hat, and skirt streaming behind her like she is being chased by wolves, bag swinging at her side. Her blood rushes, she rushes—the exertion like a lashing for some transgression or a reward for the endurance of some trial. It feels good to expend the tension, the energy, to be doing this instead of thinking. She runs away from the image. Runs the shortcut to Arnault, will get there first. Knows she will, without having tried it before. The house is in sight.

Within Arnault, Cynthia bowed over the table. She acknowledges it is not the way it was yesterday. What had seemed clear is now muddy. What had seemed obvious is now uncertain. And the thoughts, the unwelcome thoughts have come back. The wavering between existence and nothing. The mental vertigo. Whirling. Dizziness. When life and silence smear into one. It makes her irritable.

The hefty thump of approaching feet up the path—it is Gwen.

What are you doing here? I thought you went to the station to meet Laurence’s friend.

I did.

Then where is he?

Gwen pants for breath.

Did something happen? Was the train canceled?

There is something you should know about Sinclair . . . he’s a woman.

Cynthia opens her mouth, partially. I can’t help that.

Gwen leans against the wall, feeling her exhaustion—and because this is a disaster and one makes such a pose during disasters.

You didn’t just leave her there . . . ?

Gwen rolls her head over one shoulder, then the other. She’ll be all right, she’ll find a taxi.

She thinks someone’s going to meet her.

Gwen has an answer for this but knows it is unbecoming, so she whispers it to herself: Tough toads.

Cynthia has never known the agony or elation or perils of love, cares only for her studies and was to be pitied until this morning . . . now Gwen envies Cynthia her ignorance, her frumpiness, her dreary life isolated from the politics and pitfalls of human relations. Cynthia has never had a rival and, if she did, would faint at a rival like Sinclair.

Gwen has spent her life willing her hair to grow into luscious locks, has fought battles with her mother over it, thought it a badge of femininity. Her hair is longer than most but insipid; she is still waiting for the swishing tresses of her imagination. It would have been hurtful to find a woman who was Laurence’s friend and had such a gloriously long curtain of hair, but Sinclair is worse than that, for she is a crop-head. The first feature that struck Gwen about Sinclair as she stepped off the train carriage and onto the platform was her short, androgynous haircut, and that she wears it with the unmistakable air of sex. The woman is divine, simply too divine, and predatory. The clip of her heels, the insolence of her red lips, her nipped-in waist. Detestable. The vacant face, oh, how empty of serious thought. Her nose and forehead powdered. Wearing dark blue as though it were autumn, not the height of summer. Gruesome.
A piece of heavy luggage and a man in uniform assisting her with it gave Gwen the opportunity to abandon this monstrosity unobserved—if it cannot make its own way to the house, then what exactly is its purpose?

Gwen wants Cynthia to hate Sinclair as much as she does, for them to be allies, but already Cynthia has lost interest and gone back to her work. Her drudgery.

What of Laurence? He cannot mean to like this interloper, this miscreant? Gwen shoves away the thought. No, he will certainly see through it—the tailoring, the cosmetics, the reek of fragrance—it shall not impress him, it shall not penetrate. He will find it for what it is: labored, common, obvious. Laurence is a man of substance, his taste is more refined, his mind on higher matters. Gwen ought not to be afraid of Sinclair; Gwen can still win.

She sniffs her fingers. They have the smells of bacon fat and pencil sharpenings on them, have cuts healing, the nails and cuticles bitten down. Sinclair’s will be graceful, as pale and even as milk, have buffed nails with tinted polish, the scent and slipperiness of lotion. Even Gwen realizes, through her agitation, that Laurence may prefer those pampered hands on him to her own. Can it be that bad?

Laurence has returned to Arnault to meet Sinclair; Gwen realizes he may be annoyed at her for breaking her promise.

He is not annoyed, though, because he has forgotten it, has expunged the gesture from his memory—does not notice Gwen hiding in the parlor and peeking out of the window, notices instead the unflustered outline of Sinclair paying the cab driver. He goes to her with a secretive smile and, here is perhaps the worst, kisses her full on the mouth—greedy kiss, public kiss—and Sinclair is almost bent in half backward from the pressure of it, then rebukes him with a tap. To apologize—flippantly, ironically—he opens his cigarette case and offers it to Sinclair (he has never offered it to Gwen before), lights it for her. Sinclair smokes it smugly.

This is terrible.

Gwen slides to the floor in a heap, for there is nowhere on the ample furniture to rest a spirit as battered as hers. Armchairs are too good for her. She must feel the woe and discomfort in her whole body, even in her knees. She must assume the position of melancholy. She is suffering, her heart is in shreds. Laurence Fern, behold your greatest work.

Is she overreacting?

Gwen carries a basket of eggs from Mr. Bolingbroke’s back to Arnault (all her eggs in one basket; if she drops it, it will be some sort of poetic warning).

Perhaps it can be explained. Perhaps Sinclair has a hold over Laurence that he resents, for Gwen detected some contrivance on his part. A stiffness. A definite strain. Indifference, even. Or is he playing a game with Gwen’s affections by testing her fidelity, knew somehow that she was watching? Will she be unreasonable? Possessive? Will she give in to her tantrum? Will she show her disgust at the trespasser, at her shoddy treatment, at the injustice of it? No, that is not Gwen.

Be as carefree as he is, is the key. She will twitch lightly on the line for fear of it breaking. Actually, she should behave no differently from the way she did before Sinclair got here; he said himself they were all friends. It is Sinclair who will have to fit in. She does not know their ways, their rituals, has missed days of conversation and shared experiences. Gwen has got a head start and shall simply act as if nothing has changed. (What a relief.)

Laurence has picked some tomatoes from the vines and put them in a pottery dish to paint as a still life. Some of them are green, while others are bright red and beginning to split.

Men like to be taken care of; therefore, Gwen has offered to
make omelettes for lunch. She makes splendid omelettes, fluffy, golden on the outside, runny in the middle.