The Year of the Lucy

by Anne McCaffrey

  ‘I’m afraid we keep a file on all our members, Mrs. Martin, and Reverend Ogarth from Ashland mentioned your talent for sculpting so it’s down on your card. We’re in need of one creative booth,’ June Treadway’s pleasant drawling voice explained, ‘and I was wondering if you would consider bringing your wheel and clay, and making things right at the Bazaar.’

  Almost, Mirelle rudely interrupted the woman to say that she would not consider whipping up some clever little pots that would sell.

  ‘I don’t mean,’ June Treadway went on as if she might have sensed Mirelle’s refusal, ‘please understand me, mass produce anything. Bob Ogarth – we were once in Ashland, too . . .’ and there was such a wistfulness in the woman’s voice that Mirelle’s cool rebuke died a-borning. ‘Bob said that each of the Christmas figures which you created were unusual and imaginative. We’d really like to have more originality in our exhibits and offerings. Quality rather than quantity. I’m so bored with standardisation and badly finished gimcracks. When you think of the individual talents in this congregation, I’m just certain we can do better than doilies and pot-holders!’

  ‘In that case, it would be a pleasure to contribute.’

  ‘Oh, would you? Really? How kind you are!’

  And Mirelle was astonished at the genuine ring to the banal phrases. She was also chagrined at her initial uncharitable thoughts about June.

  ‘No, I’m not kind,’ Mirelle replied honestly. ‘I’m extremely selfish or I’d have volunteered to help when the notice came out in the church calendar.’

  ‘My dear girl,’ said June Treadway with a warm throaty chuckle, ‘that notice just gives you warning to think up good excuses. Seriously, you know how hard Ken O’Dell is working to get us all to re-evaluate church life. And that means every facet, especially Christmas. The way Bob Ogarth spoke of your creche figurines, I’m sure we want them. But I thought it would be even more interesting if people realised how much skill and work it takes to create the finished product. So, if you could be there, actually working on something . . . or would you feel . . . inhibited? Is that the word I want?’

  Mirelle laughed. ‘That’s supposed to be the word. But observers never bother me.’ After all, one doesn’t feel inhibited about breathing.

  ‘Might you possibly have something which you’d consider adding to the saleable articles? And I mean at the price it ought to bring, not a charitable give-away.’

  ‘I might by the end of November,’ Mirelle said, responding to the woman’s diplomacy. She hated being pressured into selling or donating. Sylvia Esterhazy’s appraisal of great love in her work had something to do with her unwillingness to squander her production on the unappreciative.

  Adroitly June Treadway accepted an invitation to come to Mirelle’s house one day the following week and left a very pleasant feeling of anticipation with Mirelle when the phone call ended.

  Stimulated by the notion of working a booth for the Bazaar, she was looking through unused sketches when she heard the sound of Steve’s car in the driveway. It was only 4:00 and she wondered what brought him home so early. She stood waiting for him at the door. His head was down, his hands thrust deep into his pockets as he came up the walk.

  It was so unlike him to use the front door that Mirelle wondered what could have gone wrong at the office. Then she recalled that he was probably not sure what his reception would be. He didn’t know that she’d reworked the statue so successfully: he couldn’t know how indifferent she was to whatever emotions he might be entertaining: remorse, regret or revenge. He stopped short when he saw her standing in the doorway.

  ‘Are the kids home?’ he asked.

  ‘Out playing,’ and she swung the door open for him.

  He hesitated before he stepped in. Then he stood in the hallway, hands still thrust in his pockets, one shoulder higher than the other. She felt as awkward, suddenly, as he looked, and moved briskly towards the dining-room.

  ‘A drink?’ she called, fixing him one before he could answer.

  He stood in the dining-room archway and accepted the drink. But, as she moved to pass him, to go back to the studio, he reached for her arm. She stiffened but didn’t pull away. His hand relaxed.

  ‘I hate it when I can’t reach you, Mirelle, when you withdraw like that. You’re like two different people. You drive me to hurting you physically. But I didn’t . . . honestly . . . I didn’t mean to damage the statue. I was fond of Lucy, too.’

  ‘The statue was not irrevocably damaged, Steve,’ she said, trying to put a little warmth in her voice.

  ‘Mirelle!’ This time his voice stopped her. ‘The boss called me in when I got to the office this morning.’

  Mirelle turned around. Could their bickering have affected his work? Or were they to be transferred . . . again! She felt sick.

  Steve began to smile, self-consciously, and with a return of the boyishness that had so often made her feel tenderly toward him.

  ‘I’m off the road. I got a raise and I’m to take over Jerry Cathcart’s job. He got a boost to district manager in the Southwest.’

  His face was lit now with pride in his promotion and, Mirelle sensed, relief at the reprieve from the grind of constant travel.

  ‘I’ve hated the road. You know . . .’ he said, turning away from her and looking through the window to the front lawn, did it because I had to, and I guess I’ve been taking my resentment out on you and the kids. You could get your work done but I couldn’t even be home long enough to weed the lawn or plant a decent garden.’

  ‘It is a big relief,’ Mirelle said, ‘to think we’ll be staying here awhile. I’d dreaded having to uproot the kids but two years has been our limit in one town over the last twelve years.’

  Neither of them was touching the core of the problem, but Mirelle didn’t want to talk about that even if Steve had the guts to bring it up. She needed much more time to analyse how she did feel about Steve right now. She didn’t want to be forced to voice any sentiments at the moment. She was empty emotionally, indifferent.

  Perhaps his being home would help heal the rift. Surely their marriage had once had a firm footing, even after the disastrous episode over her father’s bequest. Divorce did not enter her solutions, nor did an empty relationship, but it was obvious that their marriage was shifting its emphasis and they would both have to feel out the new balances and checks.

  Rather than precipitate any further mention of this dangerous area, she told him of Sylvia Esterhazy’s visit and June Treadway’s call.

  ‘Ironic, that,’ Steve said with a wry smile.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That both were somehow connected with Lucy Farnoll.’

  ‘Oh? Yes!’

  ‘Lucy’s still got her eye on us.’

  ‘You could say that,’ Mirelle replied in such a way that Steve would not expand that coincidence. He flushed with angry hurt but said nothing more.

  As Mirelle lay down for sleep, her mind returned again and again to the enticing prospect of staying in Wilmington, in this house. Of knowing that she could develop the friendship which Sylvia Esterhazy seemed to be offering. The woman would be good for Mirelle. It would be impossible to resist her ebullience.

  She excels each mortal thing, Upon the dull earth dwelling. Mirelle snickered at her sleepy thoughts, from Wordsworth to Shakespeare. Backward, oh time, in thy flight.

  Unbidden, the dream sequence started its remembered round, to fall apart with the alarm clock and the morning’s reluctance to begin a new day.

  7

  ON SATURDAY, MIRELLE and Steve did go together to the registration at the elementary school. Sylvia Esterhazy was very much in evidence and introduced the Martins to her husband, a tall extremely attractive leonine man, with the slightest trace of an accent.

  Mirelle was disconcerted when George Frederic Esterhazy held onto her hand in a lingering fashion. Steve would notice such attentions and bring them up the next time he was consumed by jealousy. Esterhazy made her slightly nervous an
yway, with the all-knowing scrutiny of rather penetrating cynical eyes. He reminded her of the actor George Saunders, not altogether a compliment to Esterhazy. Mirelle wondered what Sylvia had told him of her. Fortunately two women swept up to divert George Frederic and she took the opportunity to get on with the business of registration.

  ‘Esterhazy seemed taken with you,’ Steve remarked when they were leaving the building.

  ‘No more me than anything else in skirts in his vicinity,’ Mirelle replied with a scornful laugh.

  ‘I guess you’re right,’ was Steve’s rejoinder as he noticed Esterhazy ingratiating himself with another female arrival.

  The rest of Saturday passed in a similar state of truce. Sunday was placid and Mirelle didn’t really have any sense of change in their routine until Monday evening when she realised that she’d be cooking full dinners every night. When Steve was on the road, she and the children generally made do with pancakes, scrambled eggs or hash, saving the big cuts of meat for the times when Daddy was home. These evenings, Steve would be home in time for a drink. The children did less fooling and more eating at the table and, as Steve was engrossed in his new responsibilities, the family dinners were downright enjoyable.

  Steve made no overtures to Mirelle, for which she was thankful. She really did not wish to rebuff him openly. She had no warmth left toward him to dissemble. Only the habit of fifteen years of marriage sustained her.

  On Thursday morning, she answered the phone to hear Sylvia’s bright and challenging ‘hello!’

  ‘How did the registration go?’

  ‘Ninety percent of all eligible voters.’ Sylvia was chortling with understandable pride. ‘I am assuming, of course, that the reluctant and un-American ten percent are all Republicans and we can do without them. Say, you made quite an impression on my husband.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘Not nonsense at all.’

  ‘He was doing the gallant with every . . . one.’ Mirelle nearly said ‘everything in skirts’.

  ‘He breathes, too,’ Sylvia replied with a kind of sardonic undercurrent in her voice. ‘But he doesn’t remember doing it. It’s when he talks about a certain female hours later . . . I have never argued with his taste. However, that wasn’t what I called to say. Would you join us for dinner at the Country Club tomorrow evening? And no wheezes about not belonging or not dancing. I have to go because G.F. is entertaining business associates, but I held out for a couple of MY choosing to make the pills palatable. You and I can have our heads together all evening because people are accustomed to me behaving rudely or in other bizarre fashion. Part of my democracy.’

  ‘I’ll have to ask Steve . . .’

  ‘Don’t ask him. Tell him. Oh, all right, then. Do the wifely and get permission of your lord and master, so long as the answer is “yes”.’

  ‘Let me call you back tomorrow.’

  ‘If you don’t, I’ll be over there.’

  Sylvia gave Mirelle her unlisted number. Surprisingly enough, Steve didn’t hesitate a moment, remarking that they hadn’t had any evenings out in a long while. It occurred to Mirelle that Steve would have agreed to anything she suggested right then: an advantage which she’d had rarely and wasn’t certain she wanted. His compliance emphasised his remorse over Lucy. Perversely Mirelle wished he’d had to be persuaded against his will. However, Roman agreed to baby-sit if he could stay up as late as he wanted, watching TV. As Tonia was apt to fall asleep whenever she felt tired, Roman didn’t fuss when she said that she was going to stay up all night, too. Mirelle and Steve left the kids eating hamburgers, eyes glued to the predictable pattern of a Western.

  The Esterhazys were waiting for them in the gold and white open hallway of the new clubhouse.

  ‘The McNeills and the Clarensons are being fashionably late,’ Sylvia said to Mirelle.

  ‘Steve has a thing about being on time, a hangover from the Army,’ Mirelle replied with a smile.

  ‘Mine comes from difficult judges insisting on punctuality,’ Esterhazy said as he deftly relieved Mirelle of her coat. He and Steve moved off to the checkroom, leaving Sylvia with Mirelle.

  ‘Oh, he is giving you the treatment,’ said Sylvia with a laugh. ‘Don’t blush. He’ll do much the same to Fritzie McNeill and Adele Clarenson but without the extra flourishes. Or is your husband the jealous type? G.F. takes getting used to.’

  ‘Oh, Steve fancies things,’ Mirelle replied, astonished to hear herself making such a casual admission. But then, perhaps Sylvia would kindly drop the word to G.F.

  Sylvia snorted, glaring over her shoulder at Steve’s broad back. ‘Then he should have married a plain woman instead of an exotic one. That shade of red is superb on you. How do you keep your figure? Oh gawd, here comes death and boredom,’ she said sotto voce, switching almost instantly to smooth cordiality as she greeted their other guests.

  No sooner had the Clarensons been introduced around than the McNeills arrived and the party went in to the bar. Mirelle saw an almost imperceptible sign pass from G.F. to Sylvia, who deftly herded the three women to one side, allowing the men to do a bit of pre-dinner business. Watching Sylvia as a hostess, Mirell was a little awed. She would never have guessed that Sylvia privately held the women in good-natured contempt. She was graciousness personified: seemed to recall every detail of their domestic routine and recent tribulations. She listened with every appearance of concentrated attention. Only the slight glazing of her stare told Mirelle that neither Adele’s latest servant trials or Fritzie’s dietary restrictions were registering. What, wondered Mirelle, was Sylvia’s private opinion of Mary Ellen Martin then, vouchsafed at another time to other, more vivacious companions?

  Two cocktails later, G.F. seemed to have concluded his business talk and the women were drawn into general conversation. They adjourned to a reserved window table in the dining-room and G.F. began to carry on a flirtation with Adele who was taking it as no more than her due. Fritzie McNeill got herself seated between Bob Clarenson and Steve, across the table from her husband whom she watched even as she coyly chatted with her seat mates.

  They aren’t even subtle about it, Mirelle thought, more than a little disgusted. Sylvia, at least, was witty and funny but the general atmosphere depressed Mirelle, who was not at ease in social chitchat, and unable to act the coquette, the role in which she was generally cast at first encounter.

  They were waiting for dessert and coffee when Mirelle noticed G.F. Esterhazy squinting at someone on the other side of the room. Steve also concentrated in that direction so noticeably that Fritzie turned around to see what they were staring at. She gave an exasperated snort.

  ‘Men!’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Always an eye for pretty girls.’ In that tone of voice, ‘girls’ was synonymous with ‘children’.

  Mirelle, whose back was to the rest of the room, refrained from turning but Sylvia craned her neck, raised her eyebrows appreciatively and made a little moue with her mouth.

  ‘G.F., especially,’ she laughed, flicking a glance at Steve. ‘That one appears to be fair game. And such a handsome escort. I’ll take him any time! Très distingué. Whoops, they’re coming this way.’

  Someone brushed against Mirelle’s chair and as she moved it to let them pass, she inadvertently looked up. She was startled to see James Howell behind her. He smiled, wished her good evening and passed by with his companion.

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Sylvia in a hoarse whisper at Mirelle.

  ‘James Howell,’ Mirelle replied, glancing apprehensively at Steve. He was still following the girl with his eyes.

  ‘Why, he’s old enough to be that child’s father,’ Adele remarked tartly.

  ‘Your claws are showing, dear,’ her husband remarked. ‘For my part, I’d say he had damned good taste.’

  Mirelle hoped that her face didn’t show her annoyance but she didn’t feel that she ought to mention that Howell had a daughter: Steve might wonder that she was so knowledgeable about the affairs of a man whom she was supposed to know
only casually.

  ‘Who is he?’ Sylvia asked, insistent.

  ‘He’s a concert accompanist.’

  ‘The one who played for that soprano in last spring’s Community Concert?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know that.’

  ‘Fancy you recognising his face,’ remarked Fritzie in an insinuating drawl.

  ‘We’ve met a couple of times. He helped me change a flat tire once last spring,’ Mirelle said. Some perverse whim prompted her to add mendaciously, ‘Then he was dripping steak juice on my toes one day at the Food Fair. He was very apologetic and we got to talking in the line. He introduced himself.’

  Sylvia slid into the rather awkward pause with a ‘sick’ joke about supermarkets and the subject of James Howell was dropped. Later Mirelle glanced unobtrusively towards his table. The girl’s profile was turned towards her and it was immediately apparent to Mirelle that she was Howell’s daughter: the jawline and the set of the ears were unmistakable. She was lovely, young, and very pleased to be dining with her father. She was teasing him, leaning across the table, waggling a finger at him. He laughed and grabbed the finger.

  ‘I promise not to drip steak juice on your toes,’ said G.F. in Mirelle’s ear, startling her. ‘Will you dance with me?’

  ‘Certainly,’ Charm-vendor or not, G.F. had an unembarrassing way of flattering a woman.

  He was tall enough to be a good partner, and led easily and well, holding her firmly but not objectionably against him.

  ‘You’re deceptively tall, Mirelle.’

  ‘All legs.’

  He gave her a searching glance. ‘To descend to the banal, your face is strangely familiar.’

  ‘And you’d be originally from Austria?’

  He laughed at her evasion. ‘Very good actually. But off-putting. I’ve prided myself that I’ve lost all trace of my accent.’ He said the last in a very broad musical comedy inflection.

  ‘Almost. It’s a game I play,’ and she glared at him for the mischief in his eyes, ‘that I can place people’s accents.’