Wicked Forest (29 page)

I smiled to myself, recalling how one of my teachers. Mrs. Foggleman, had once compared our socially accepted rituals, such as bachelor parties, to primitive tribal events.

The line between what is primitive and what is not is often blurred by who is deciding," she lectured.

"Sort of like history being written by the conquering army."

Maybe what was basic and natural to humanity made us all more alike than we would like to think. I concluded, although to compare people here to people in primitive lands would surely cause a social nuclear explosion. I laughed to myself, thinking how Bunny Eaton would react to such an idea.

As I turned to leave Linden's room. I caught sight of a stack of photographs on his dresser, Curious, I walked over and looked at them. They were all pictures of me, his famous candid photographs. I was astounded not only at the number of pictures he had taken, but at the variety of locations, the things I was doing at the time, the times of day, the people I was speaking to when he'd snapped them. It was as if he had been truly a fly on the wall, invisible and so inconspicuous. I couldn't recall his presence at a single one of these occasions.

He had me sitting at a table on the loggia, bent over my notebook, my face intense as I read and reread notes. He had me eating, speaking with the servants and with my mother: to my surprise, he even had pictures of the Butterworth twins. Holden, and me studying before he had arrived to join us for coffee that day. There were many close-ups of me, catching almost every expression on my face.

But it was the second pile of pictures that shocked me the most. These were taken of me in my room during various stages of undress. Somehow, like some voyeur, he had snapped photographs of me totally naked. There were even pictures of me taking a bath and stepping in and out of the shower stall, as well as bending over the sink, fixing my hair, putting on makeup, in every conceivable place and position—even going to the bathroom.

After my initial astonishment, my first reaction was a blood-angry rage. I wanted to tear each and every picture in two and throw the pieces at him.

When he had told me he wanted to take candid photographs. I had no idea that meant he would invade my most private moments as well. There was just so much abhorrent behavior I would tolerate in deference to his emotional and psychological problems. This was totally unacceptable and inexcusable. I couldn't wait for him to recuperate enough to be chastised.

After my boiling anger receded somewhat,

however, and I looked at the pictures again and then at him still dead to the world in his bed. I had a secondary reaction, one based upon a more thoughtful and objective analysis. This wasn't just annoying and infuriating: it was also somewhat frightening. To what would Linden's obsession with me lead? Was he capable of ever accepting who and what we were to each other? Could he ever have a substantial and satisfactory relationship with another woman?

If I ranted and raved at him and threw these photographs in his face, would he charge madly toward some dark abyss again, and would I then have to live with the knowledge that I had driven him there? Would I stand over his gravesite with my mother beside me and feel it was all my fault? Here I was, a student of psychology, someone who, if anyone could, should be able to step back, calm down, and first seek to help him, not punish him.

I once asked my father how he was able to maintain his objectivity and remain calm enough to help his patients after hearing about some of the terrible things they had done to themselves as well as to others.

"It's a balancing act," he explained. "A surgeon performing a heart transplant on a convicted killer can't think of who he is. He has to think of the medical issues, the problems to solve, and treat the body, not the man.

"People often accuse doctors of being too cold, too indifferent, but sometimes they have to be that way to survive and to perform without prejudice.

Caring too much for your patient might make you tremble at the wrong times, just as caring too little might make you negligent.

"I have had patients so full of belligerence and rage, they want to leap out of their seats and choke me to death. Their eyes are sending darts at me. but I can't show them I see that as a threat or see them as so terrible I won't want to help them.

"So. I think of the mind, the condition, the mental problems, and try to isolate them first," He smiled. "I don't always succeed at being so objective.

but I have to try and to at least appear as though I have succeeded.

"We're all actors in a sense. We're all wearing masks. Willow. Just choose your masks carefully," he told me.

I looked down at the pictures again, then at Linden, asleep.

What mask do I choose now, Daddy? I asked him in my imagination.

You'll blow

What if I don't know? Daddy? I heard nothing in my mind.

Some answers I had to find for myself. I

thought. I was a little girl again with my daddy holding the bike as I learned how to pedal.

Suddenly, he let go.

He stepped away.

And I was on my own to ride. Or to fall,

12

A Routine Organization of Assets

.

I didn't say anything to Linden about his pictures all day. When he finally awoke, he had such a bad hangover he spent most of the day sleeping in his room with Mother pampering him anyway. I took Thatcher to task again when he rose and came down for breakfast about noon. He apologized profusely and assured me repeatedly that Linden really did have a good time.

"My friends made him feel at ease immediately.

Willow. They were all sensitive to him. There were so many guys there, it was impossible for me to keep an eye on him continually, and besides, I thought if we treat him like an invalid, he'll behave like an invalid.

Now he is at least aware of what he should and shouldn't do at events like this."

"I doubt that he'll attend another."

"Oh, don't be so sure. You want him to break out of his doldrums, don't you? You know haw unhealthy it is for him to have no one but you and Grace all the time. He has to meet other people, do other things. Otherwise, he might as well be in some clinic." Thatcher insisted,

I didn't dare mention the photographs, but they surely underscored what he was saying. Linden needed to develop other interests, new friends.

"I'm upset more for my mother than for Linden," I told him, and he did look very remorseful then.

"I know. I had no idea Grace would stay up and wait like some parent of a teenager, otherwise I would have taken him to a motel and sobered him up first—not that I was that sober myself." he admitted with a grin. "This little drum in my head convinces me of that. I'll apologize to her.

"You know what I want to do today?" he said, looking down at the pool. "Just vegetate. We've got to train for our honeymoon, you know." he told me, and kissed me.

Even with his hangover, a light of excitement sprang into his dark-blue eyes, bright like golden candles seen through a window on Christmas Eve.

Haw could I stay angry at him long?

"Consider all that we are doing now as merely our training. The main event is vet to come. Willow,"

he said, reaching for my hand.

"First you made our marriage sound like a movie, and now you're making it sound like a prizefight."

He laughed.

"That's why I tell everyone and everyone tells me you're a knockout." he said. and I laughed too.

We spent the rest of the day as he wished, lying by the pool. sipping cool drinks, listening to music, swimming and enjoying each other's company. With my exams over, my first college term here completed, the wedding now looming before me, this was a welcome interlude of relaxation.

Afterward, he went up to nap and I looked in on Mother, who was much calmer and philosophical about what had happened. Thatcher had gone in to speak with her and apologize once again.

"Maybe Thatcher is right. I'm being

overprotective," she said. "Linden is so much like a little boy to me. I forget how old he really is."

"It's understandable," I told her.

"Yes, but it's time to let go, actually past the time to let go." She looked so tired. I knew she had spent a restless night.

"Go rest, Mother." I said. "I'll see to Linden's supper."

"No, I—"

"Go on. Mother," I insisted. "Get some rest.

We've got a very, very busy few days ahead of us. My final fitting. Your preparations, the arrival of guests."

"Amou?"

"Yes. I'm so excited about it."

"I can't wait to meet her. Your father spoke so highly of her and so often, I feel I've known her for years." she said.

"I know."

We hugged and she went off to rest. I went to the kitchen and had the maid prepare Linden's dinner.

Then I took it up to his room myself He was sitting up in his bed, his eyes half-closed, still looking a little pale, with a small bruise on the bridge of his nose.

When I appeared, his face took on some color and he tried to be more animated.

"I guess I made a fool of myself last night." he said. "I've told Grace how sorry I am. and I am telling you."

"It's all right. Linden. As long as you had a good time. But you knew with your medication, you shouldn't drink at all, much less drink too much. It could have been far worse for you."

"I didn't take my medication."' he confessed,

"I'm tired of feeling like a leper.'

He looked at the food.

"I'm not very hungry."

"Eat what you can," I said.

I glanced back at the dresser and saw that the pictures were gone. I couldn't imagine Mother having seen them and not mentioning- them to me.

I watched him eat and saw that every bite he took looked painful.

"How did you fall and smash your nose.

Linden?"

"I don't remember," he said. "I'm sorry if I made a fool of myself and embarrassed Thatcher."

"That's not what I care about. I'm sure at a bachelor party, everyone makes a fool of himself'"

He nodded.

"Including Thatcher." he said, "I was surprised at some of the things he and the others did."

"I don't care to hear about it. Linden. but I do want to talk to you about something else." I said, and pulled the desk chair up to his bed. He ate a little more, then put the tray aside.

"What?"

"This morning when I looked in on you, I saw the pile of photographs on the dresser."

He nodded, showing no signs of apprehension.

"I was surprised at how you invaded my privacy.

Linden. Do you think that was right to do?" I asked. I felt like Daddy speaking to me when I was just a child and my adoptive mother had brought some minor in-fraction to his attention,

"What do you mean? I told you I was going to take candid photographs of you. It's not like you didn't know," he defended himself.

"Candid is one thing. Linden. invasion of someone's most private and personal moments is another. How did you do that?"

"I'm an artist. I don't think of that as invasion of privacy. I wanted to get a complete image in my mind, and I've got it now. You'll see."

"I hope you're not painting a portrait of me sitting on a toilet, Linden," I said sternly.

"Of course not, but everything we do reveals another aspect of who we are This is how Arliss Thornbee went about it. I told you that."

"I never heard of Arliss Thornbee. Linden, and even so, just because he did it doesn't make it the right thing to do, or even the artistic thing to do."

"I'm an artist. I don't think of you as a naked woman when I paint you. I see the beauty in you, and that beauty appears in everything you do, even when you go to the bathroom."

"I'm embarrassed by that. Linden. I hope you destroy those pictures."

"Sure- he said. "I don't need them anymore.-

"You don't invade someone's privacy without his or her permission. Linden. Art isn't a good enough excuse."

"You will do it when you practice

psychotherapy. won't you? You'll justify it by claiming it's part of what you need to know to do your job properly."

"That's different."

"No, it's not. We're all artists of one kind or another. That's what they call it the art of practicing medicine." he said, smiling.

I stared at him and then I stood up.

"I'm not happy about it. Linden. I'm disappointed in you."

"You won't be when you see the portrait," he insisted, refusing to see or admit to my points. "You'll forgive me," he added confidently.

"There are things that, no matter how beautiful they may be, are not worth the price. Linden," I warned him.

"Including love and marriage?" he shot back, his eyes so full of fury I couldn't help trembling.

"Including everything," I said as firmly as I could. I stood up and returned the chair to the desk.

"Drink your tea." I advised, and left him, wondering if the cure I hoped to see occur in him wasn't worse than the illness after all.

.

My confrontation with Linden set off all sorts of alarm bells, but the impending arrival of Amou, my aunt, and my cousin, not to mention the army of people Bunny brought to the house to prepare for the wedding ceremony and reception, occupied too much space on the stage of my attention for me to think about Linden. He withdrew to the sanctity of his studio, claiming he was down to the actual creation of a work now and had to give it all of his time and energy. He kept the studio door locked and some days didn't even come out to eat. Joan and Mary were instructed to bring his food to him, knock, and wait for him to open the door.

I saw how much this troubled Mother. so I tried to diminish her concern by assuring her that it was a good thing for him to have something he loved occupying his time. Meanwhile. I couldn't help trembling every time I thought about what his painting would be like. If he dared do a picture of me in the nude. Thatcher would be more upset than I would be, and no matter how good were Linden's intentions, it would in the end cause more problems for us than we presently suffered. A negative reaction on our parts would surely send Linden into a deeper depression as well. Sometimes. when I moved through the house and passed his studio door. I found I was holding my breath.