After the Fire

by Belva Plain

  The hall clock struck once. It was Granny's tall clock. And Hyacinth thought instantly: That comes with me. Whatever else I leave behind, that comes; it's my lucky charm.

  When it struck three more times, Arnie stood up. “Now that I know you're all right, Hy, I'm going to leave you. But I'll be looking in on you in New York. I always have business to tend to there, so I fly up now and then.”

  They shook hands, she thanked him, received a peck on the cheek, and saw him to the door.

  “Yes, I tell you again, the man's a little bit crazy about you,” Francine observed.

  “I don't see it at all.”

  “You may not see it, but I do. I like him, Hyacinth. He's a man, straightforward and able to look you in the eye. Not that you're in a position to do anything now, but the time will come.”

  “I'm not interested in him or any man.”

  “You will be. You heard what Arnie said.”

  “I have very little in common with Arnie.”

  “I only meant that he can be of help to you. And he's so nice to Jerry and Emma while they're in Florida.”

  “Yes, he's very kind, and I appreciate it.”

  “He's a very clever man. You'd do well to take his advice on business.”

  “I don't need his advice. I am learning not to depend on anybody.”

  “Well,” Francine said. And then, “You look tired.”

  “I am a little.”

  “Go out to the porch. I'll bring some tea.”

  Understanding her, Hyacinth obeyed. Being a mother had nothing to do with age. Granny at eighty had mothered her fifty-five-year-old son.

  “I was thinking,” Francine said, stirring the tea. “Since you've made up your mind about what you want to do, you should at least keep all your beautiful furniture. Take what you need for your apartment, and put the rest into storage. You'll need it someday,” she finished positively.

  No, never will I need it. How shall I ever have a house like this one?

  “You don't agree?” For Hyacinth had not replied. “But then you never did listen to my advice, so I should be used to it by now.” And Francine sighed.

  She looked haggard. Her vertical forehead lines were so deeply carved that you could only hope they were not going to become a permanent flaw on that exquisite face. It has been a terrible year for her, and I am part of it, Hyacinth thought. With a sudden rush of sadness and regret, she reached across the little table and laid a hand over Francine's.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered. “We don't always agree. But then, so many people who love each other don't agree. Isn't that so? But I will take your advice about the furniture.”

  Furniture. How unimportant in the scheme of life! She could have thrown it all away without missing it, especially this furniture, with all its past. Yet apparently it had significance for Francine, who in her love saw it only as a guarantee that “normalcy” for her daughter would someday, somehow resume.

  The climbing rose was gradually coming into leaf on the arbor. Faithful creature! When first snow was stirring in the gray air, it still carried gravely a last small, shriveled bud. I shall miss it, Hyacinth thought. I was so serene on the day I planted it! And we were so satisfied in this new house! No. It was I alone who was satisfied…. And she sat there holding the teacup, while the season's first bee went darting and buzzing through the sunshine.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Hyacinth, as she moved through the Institute's classrooms and corridors, was reminded of those newspaper accounts in which people of seventy or eighty at last obtain a college degree. She was hardly that age, and yet there was an extraordinary difference between the rest of the students and herself. They were so light and unfettered! They were too cheerful, too earnest, too ignorant of evil, too lovely in their youth— too everything. Among them, she thought, I might be from Mars.

  It was almost midsemester before she became aware that the instructors, unlike the students, were taking notice of her. Having been so unsure of herself at the start, she was totally surprised when one of her sketches was displayed before an advanced class on drawing techniques. Afterward the instructor told her that she really did not need to be taking that class at all.

  This bit of encouragement, she sometimes reflected, was probably what kept the various parts of her psyche from coming unglued. She had, of course, a comfortable familiarity with color and form, so that although she had never been intensely concerned about clothes, other than to have a natural desire to look “nice,” the preparation of a design portfolio seemed no harder than it had once been to stand at the easel in the studio at home. Very often she brought work to the apartment, where on a card table she laid out patterns and practiced drawing in pen and ink.

  Almost always, on Saturdays and Sundays, she went to special classes. And so by filling every moment of the week, she fortified herself against a loneliness that sometimes threatened like a tidal wave to wash her away.

  Lonely in the midst of crowds is by now a cliché. Hyacinth had never lived in a place where the postman did not pause to chat for a moment at the front door, or where the checker at the supermarket was too rushed to pass the time of day. In one sense this anonymity was a relief, while in another it gave her some rather terrifying moments. The diversity of people in the city, and especially in her neighborhood here on the border of Chelsea, should in theory have given her many choices, but actually there was such a medley of types in her building alone that the result was no cohesion and no real contacts other than a few friendly nods. She had nothing except humanity in common with the nineteen-year-old aspiring actress who lived across the hall with her boyfriend; nor did she have any contact with the garment workers who spoke no English. The tottering couple who had lived in the building for the last sixty-five years were in still another world.

  Below her window, the street itself was in a state of change. The past remained, in the form of five-story walk-ups at whose windows bedding was hung out to air and on whose stoops sat clusters of women gossiping and watching troops of children. The present and the future showed all the signs of gentrification; the brown-stone fronts had been cleaned and lightened enough to show a touch of faintest pink; shops had polished brass fittings on their polished doors, and quaintly lettered signs announcing that Victorian antiques, Thai food, or secondhand books were on sale within. Over all was a bustle and haste such as Hyacinth had never seen before.

  After her long days, she climbed four flights of stairs and closed her door with feelings that varied. At times the two small rooms were a shelter, while at other times they were a prison. It was not always hard to know what caused these wild swings of the pendulum. The sight of a mother walking with young children might send her running to shelter, where she need not be reminded of other people's normal lives, whereas the pleasure that came from a stimulating workshop or some words of praise so filled her with the need to be successful, to triumph over her circumstances, that she hated her prison.

  Ignoring Arnie's offers of assistance, she had found the place herself. Ignoring Francine's advice, she had made no effort to adorn the two small rooms. There was a bed, there were two chairs, one in each room, and there was a card table for her work. There was a kitchen, closet-sized; but she cooked very little, ate very little, and grew even thinner. It did not matter. All she wanted was to get through the course of study and find a job that would pay enough to provide a place where her children could stay.

  Repeatedly, she told herself that the important thing, the elementary thing, was to look forward. Backward looks are not only futile, Granny always had said; they were confusing. So on the day when the final divorce papers were signed and she was legally freed from Gerald, she had a blinding flash of remembrance much like what is said about a drowning man's instant recall of his entire life. She saw the motel where they had had their secret afternoons under her satin quilt; she saw the wedding, their dance, the passion of her first night lying with him the whole night through with his ring on her finger….
How could all of that have disappeared? Vanished! Turned into disillusion, as though it had never been.

  Yes, the only thing left was to look forward. Yet too often when sleep failed, while voices shrilled and trucks rumbled on the street outside, her mind took a short journey back to the house she had left and her wrenching last hour there.

  Only a few people had been told that she was going away. These were sensitive people, friends who asked no questions and had come only to wish her well. Moira was there, of course, along with two teachers who, assuming that she was on her way to Florida, brought little gifts for Jerry and Emma. The house painter came; when his wife had been dreadfully ill last winter, Hyacinth had cooked and frozen meals for the family, and he would never forget her.

  Francine was baffled and crushed and very, very angry at her daughter, but being Francine, she was gallantly trying not to let it show. When she gave her a final hug and kiss, her eyes were glistening with tears, but she had nothing to say. Had not everything been said?

  Sometimes as Hyacinth lay awake hearing the bedside alarm clock tick past midnight, she also thought about Will Miller. No doubt he would have been surprised to hear that a total, or almost total, stranger had taken his advice. If it were possible, she would have liked to tell him about it. But it was not possible. In departing she had left a false trail, and anyway, he might not even want to see her again. In any case, he would lose interest in her when, as ultimately he would have to do, he learned what an oddity she was: a woman who had given up her little children. And in the second case, she really wasn't much interested in him, either, or in any man, attractive or not.

  One morning after one such restless night, she awoke to find a drift of snowflakes in the air. It was still early in November, and these premature flakes were already melting into gray mush on the sidewalk. They did, however, serve to remind her of the nearness of Thanksgiving. Last year's had been a horror best forgotten. This year's was going to be empty, with no place to go. Fran-cine was flying out west to be with the grandchildren, whose number seemed to be continually increasing. Surely Hyacinth could have no desire to go there. Nor would she risk another fiasco like last year's in Florida.

  Two weeks either before or after the holiday, which Gerald would be celebrating in his customary sociable style, would make more practical sense for her. An insistent need, over and above her constant yearning, suddenly seized her as she watched the snow. Already the year was coming toward its end. Months went by as fast as hours do. By the end of the next semester, Emma would be in first grade. Jerry would be in fourth. Before she knew it, their childhood would be gone.

  It occurred to her that she should ask Arnie to arrange a visit for her. It occurred to her also that this dependency upon Arnie was most unusual. Yet at the same time, it also seemed quite natural.

  Flying southward, Hyacinth was continuously aware of her own mood. Almost every adjective began with an e: euphoric, elated, and excited—but tremulous too, on the verge of tears. Determined not to allow even one tear to fall, she recited her mantra—Head over heart—and returned to her book. She was reading the life of Coco Chanel, a girl who had learned to sew in an alteration shop and had become an international name.

  The tale held her interest, so much so that later in the hotel—where, since Emma and Jerry were not to arrive until next morning, she had dinner alone—she surprised herself by passing judgment on all the other women's clothes. Never before had she paid that much attention to what people were wearing.

  Now there's a very fine suit, she noticed, but it doesn't fit the woman. There's a lovely dress, but the color is too drab for her. Francine would liven it with a scarf; scarlet or emerald would do the trick. Now there's a dress! Hand-woven silk. You can't mistake it. A few months ago, I didn't know anything about hand-woven silk.

  With fabric like that, she thought, with a cut that simple and a few yards of contrasting color, you could work out half a dozen fabulous designs if you wanted to: a Japanese effect with an obi in the right print, in white or black maybe; you could have a sash tied and lapped over into a tiny bustle, or a pleated flounce at the hem.

  Upstairs in her room after dinner and impatient for morning, she whiled away the evening by drawing sketches on the hotel's stationery. She drew the obi and the flounce. She drew a woman in daytime dress with a large summer hat, and then the same dress worn with a small round hat. She thought of people she knew—of Moira, for instance—and how best to disguise those extra twenty pounds.

  She was embarrassing herself. Who do you think you are, Madame Chanel? Well, she started with a little hat shop, decorating plain straw hats so that they looked like a million dollars, or francs. Of course, she had a rich lover, and that must have helped a little.

  It was all amusing.

  The next morning they arrived in splendor, stepping out of the newest, most lavish sports utility van, with their nanny at the wheel. For an instant, Hyacinth had to blink before she was sure of them. In the second instant, she saw that Jerry had grown at least two inches; there could be no doubt now, if ever there had been, that he was Gerald in miniature. Emma's pigtails were gone. Her hair hung loose and wavy like Francine's, so that in a subtle way she had left babyhood behind. They were both new to their mother. And having vowed to shed no tears, not even a tear of joy, Hyacinth shed none now, even as she pulled them both together into her arms.

  In the background stood an elderly-seeming woman wearing a white uniform and a cheerful smile.

  “You're Mrs. O'Malley,” said Hyacinth.

  “Oh yes, and haven't I had a time with them this morning! They would have started at six o'clock if I'd let them. They were in such a hurry to see Mommy.”

  “We brought our swimsuits!” Emma cried. “Daddy says this hotel has a pool, and you would let us go in.”

  Could she ever have thought that the word Daddy would be abrasive?

  She answered brightly, “Of course. I'm sorry I never thought to bring my suit, but Mrs. O'Malley and I will sit and watch you. Then we'll have lunch outside by the pool. It'll be fun.”

  “Her name is Nanny,” Emma said.

  “Nanny and I will watch you. You can change in there. Which beach bag is yours, Emma? I'll go in to help you.”

  “No, Nanny will,” Emma said. “She always does.”

  “Fine. Then I'll go find some chairs in the shade.”

  Nanny always does. It was such a small thing, yet it made her feel extraneous, as if she were not needed.

  Having arranged the chairs, she sat and waited. The kiddie pool was uncrowded. A few young children were splashing, and a few more were running while mothers warned against the slippery tiling; you could tell they were mothers not only by their appearance but by the way they spoke. There was always something recognizable about a mother's voice.

  I am looking for trouble, she thought then, reprimanding herself. I am simply waiting and expecting to be hurt. Can't you look for the positive, Hyacinth? Here they come. Here in the red trunks and the pink bikini, the little bodies, my flesh and my heart.

  “Oh, no!” she cried as Jerry dove into the adult pool.

  Nanny assured her that he was allowed to, “as long as there's a lifeguard and he stays in the shallow end. Jerry's a fine swimmer already. You don't have to worry.”

  “I didn't know he was that good.”

  “Yes, he's a real athlete, Jerry is. He started tennis lessons last month, and the coach says he's way ahead of any other kids his age.”

  “He didn't tell me, and I speak to both of them almost every day.”

  That had been a stupid thing to say. It sounded positively apologetic, as if she wanted to explain herself, or show that she was, in spite of all, an attentive, caring mother.

  “Oh, I know. I'm always there to remind them of the time. You must be waiting for their ring.”

  They were acting, playing a role, the mother and the woman who must be—in a perfectly decent, understandable way—fascinated by this odd situation. And
the mother is sitting here, imperturbable, well groomed and calm, in the groomed setting of marble, sky, and pool, pretending that there is really nothing odd about the situation. Surely there must be plenty of speculation between this nanny and the other woman in the house, the unfriendly servant on that awful day. Nanny was even now stealing a curious look at Hyacinth, but catching her glance, she pretended to be watching Emma, who was talking to another girl in the pool.

  “Emma's the sociable one. A real chatterbox. Makes friends everywhere she goes. And people take to her, even people you wouldn't expect. Why, the other day a real grumpy-looking old man in the drugstore got talking to her, and—”

  The woman was speaking as if these children were strangers who needed to be introduced to Hyacinth and described for her.

  “—and so, when I told her daddy, he laughed, got a big kick out of it. He always—” She stopped.

  Fight anger and pain, Hyacinth. Keep your dignity.

  “It's quite all right to mention their father, Nanny,” she said.

  Nanny flushed. “I only meant she's a personality, that one.”

  Yes, that's another resemblance to Francine, and it was a good thing, too. It would make life easier.

  Jerry, who had also found friends, came bringing one with him. “This is Doug. He wants to have lunch with us. His parents won't be back till after lunch. Can he have lunch with us?”

  It was not clear whether the question was being addressed to Nanny or to Hyacinth. She answered quickly, just as Nanny did the same.

  “Yes, he's welcome.”

  He was not really welcome. This innocent little boy was, on this one day of days, an interloper, as was Nanny or anybody who took her precious minutes away from Hyacinth. She was a prisoner here, without transportation to take the children anywhere else. She could not very well ask Nanny to go eat by herself. And then the thought came that, quite possibly, or more likely probably, Gerald had instructed the woman not to leave the children alone with their mother.