The flaws in her execution were startlingly apparent and she spent nearly an hour making minute precise alterations.
‘What? Not brewing calf’s foot jelly?’ was Sylvia’s greeting. ‘Say, when did you do that?’ she asked as she recognised the head. ‘Mirelle, how long HAVE you known James Howell?’
‘I met him last May,’ Mirelle replied, hoping that a casual answer would inhibit Sylvia’s curiosity.
‘That’s a mighty . . . ah . . . study for a casual acquaintance.’
‘Is it?’ Mirelle stared at the head as if seeing it objectively for the first time. ‘Not really. It’s not at all finished.’
‘No, it isn’t.’
Exasperated by the droll remark, Mirelle turned on Sylvia. ‘What are you not saying?’
Sylvia returned the look with a sardonic expression and then, suddenly relenting, sighed, and headed for the stairs.
‘Sylvia!’
‘Well, it is an awfully perceptive study, until I remember that you worked the Lucy from a memory seven years dead, so forget the sordid innuendo. Any idea how the invalid and his nurse are faring?’
‘He had a restless night.’
‘Will she be able to cope?’
‘I think so.’
‘Interesting type, Howell. I can see why his face caught your artistic eye.’
‘Go thou and make coffee.’
Sylvia went with a show of alacrity. Mirelle stood back and eyed the plasticine model critically, beginning to experience some satisfaction in the result. The phone rang and Sylvia picked up the kitchen extension.
‘It’s Margaret,’ she called down to Mirelle. ‘He insists on beef tea and all but threw the bouillon she made him in her face. Ha!’
Mirelle joined the conversation on the studio phone.
‘There isn’t any more beef in the house to make the tea. We can pick some up and be right over. D’you need anything else?’
‘Yes, indeed, Mrs. Martin. Fruit juice. He drinks like there’s no tomorrow. And Dr. Martin was calling Eckerd’s to make up a new prescription for that cough. It’s awful. My throat hurts just listening to him hack.’
Mirelle and Sylvia entered by the kitchen door to prevent Howell being disturbed. Sylvia started the beef tea while Mirelle took up the cough medicine. Margaret was sitting on her father’s bed, reading letters to him. He looked, if anything, worse this morning. She still didn’t have the dimensions of the forehead right. That would account for faulty positioning of the eye socket. No, she’d have to wait until he recovered from his illness. The bones in his skull were abnormally pronounced, his face drawn by fever and fatigue.
‘Hi, Mrs. Martin.’
Jamie opened his eyes slightly.
‘There are females cackling in my kitchen again,’ he complained.
‘Nonsense. You’re hearing the rales in your chest.’
‘And another thing,’ Jamie opened one eye wider, ‘couldn’t you at least have recommended a physician affluent enough to use sharp hypodermic needles. I’ve a bruise the size of a dinner plate on my butt.’
‘Couldn’t get through the calluses on your tail bones from sitting on all those unpadded piano benches.’
Margaret let out a whoop of laughter and Jamie kicked her off the bed, glaring at Mirelle.
‘Will you kindly instruct this infant of mine in the proper recipe for that beef tea? She fed me a substitute, poured no doubt from last night’s dishwater.’
‘Thy wish is our command, effendi.’ Mirelle salaamed, and gave the necessary instructions.
‘You see, I told you it was an essentially simple decoction,’ Jamie said with weary patience.
Margaret rolled her eyes expressively heavenwards. ‘You’re saving my life.’
Then Jamie caught sight of the bottle in Mirelle’s hand. ‘Cackling females! Here I am, with a throat like a sandstorm, relief in sight,’ he pointed at the bottle, ‘and you two stand there exchanging inanities.’
‘Oh, Dad,’ said Margaret contritely.
‘Never mind him, Margaret. Here’s the syrup and I hope it’s more vile than yesterday’s. I’ve got to go. The beef tea will be ready in half an hour. Don’t forget.’ She gave Jamie a jaunty salute and went out.
As she and Sylvia left, they could both hear Margaret upbraiding her father for resisting the new medicine ‘that Mrs Martin was kind enough to collect.’
‘We’re going to have to rescue that child,’ said Sylvia. ‘Once he’s over the fever, he’ll be impossible.’
‘Just like my Nick who was a terror,’ Mirelle agreed.
‘Mirelle,’ began Sylvia, edging sideways into the Sprite’s bucket seat, ‘where did you meet Howell?’
Mirelle chuckled.
‘Now don’t give me that bit about a flat tire. And the day that man steps into a Food Fair short of starvation . . .’
‘To tell the truth and shame the devil . . .’
‘By all means . . .’
‘I won’t say another word if you keep interrupting . . .’
‘I’ll behave . . .’
‘I got tossed from a horse last spring and as I turned onto the highway, the tire blew. He saw it and played Good Samaritan.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought that piece was in his repertoire.’
Mirelle gave Sylvia a stern look and she made a show of remorse.
‘I’d wrenched my ankle in the toss and he said he decided to stop because he saw me limping.’
‘Where did the steak juice drop in?’
‘That was later, in October.’
‘All right, if you insist on being coy . . .’
‘Now, look, Sylvia,’ Mirelle began with a touch of anger in her voice, ‘don’t go imagining a situation when one doesn’t exist.’
‘I’m the slave of my romantic soul. That’s a lot of good man going to waste.’
‘Howell? I doubt he allows any waste, the way he talks.’
‘It’s so easy to talk a good game,’ and Sylvia’s voice took on a caustic edge, ‘but when the time comes to produce . . .’ She shrugged eloquently about such failures.
Though the words were glib, Mirelle began to wonder about the basis for such a cynical retort. She was reasonably certain that G.F. Esterhazy was the sort of man to take favors whenever offered them. It occurred to Mirelle that Sylvia would retaliate by finding extramarital solace if the mood struck her. Mirelle had good reason to regard infidelity as a minor offense.
‘Have you fallen silent in respect for my shrewd insights?’ Sylvia asked Mirelle as she turned the Sprite into her development.
‘I’m speechless, but only because I’m trying to figure out how to turn the wrath of El Howell from doting daughter.’
‘Shall we throw a wake?’
‘And ask the corpse to play for it? That isn’t done.’
‘I should like to hear him perform,’ and Sylvia’s laugh and was wicked with double entendre.
‘My, we have an edge to our tongue today, don’t we?’
‘Pay no attention. This is “I Hate Men Week”. Join me?’
‘I’m not big on causes.’
‘At least that one? Well, that’s a relief. I’d a notion things might be sticky in that department for you.’
Mirelle smiled reassuringly. ‘There’s always times.’
‘Hmmm,’ and the monosyllable was knowing as Mirelle brought the Sprite to a halt in the driveway. ‘I’ll finish making coffee. I’ve only had one quart today.’
Mirelle went back to her pig work and, when Sylvia brought down the coffee tray, they both admired her efforts.
‘Now,’ said Sylvia with a drawl, cocking her head at the pig, ‘If it had jowls, an unshaven appearance and a more sardonic expression . . .’
‘The very idea!’ Mirelle leapt to the storage box and extracted a wad of clay. ‘To help Margaret, I’ll make a Howell pig to remind him of how difficult he is.’
‘This I gotta watch.’
‘I used to make little animals for the children
when they were sickabed. I developed a series of beasties, usually with obnoxious expressions, and just gave them hideous colors. Nick would be a blue mule when he wouldn’t take his medicine. Roman was a yellow ostrich. He always burrowed under the sheets to avoid a shot.’
‘Can’t say as I blame him. Nor would Howell.’
Mirelle laughed, remembering his complaint. ‘The kids would play with the animals in bed, before I broke down and permitted TV in the house.’
‘Are there any left?’ Sylvia peered at the back of the storage shelves.
‘No. They were just hardened clay and friable. In fact, the kids used to smash them in victory when they got well.’
‘How quickly can you work?’ Sylvia asked, her eyes dancing.
‘Depends . . .’ and she lifted the pig explanatorily. ‘This will take only a few minutes but I used to do a lot of such things.’
‘Because . . . you know what you might do for your church booth? Turn out small busts of the children there. Could you do a rough one in say fifteen minutes?’
‘Well, yes, I could,’ and Mirelle’s admission was reluctance itself, ‘but that isn’t the way I like to work.’
‘Work, schmurk,’ Sylvia said derisively. ‘You could charge . . . how much does the clay cost in a piece that size?’
‘A few pennies only. Firing runs the price up.’
‘Don’t fire. I’m sure you’d sell a lot. You probably wouldn’t have time even to pee. The previous minister at your church used to do quick charcoal sketches for a dollar a pose at the Bazaar and he could’ve had all the portrait work he could handle.’
‘Sylvia, I just don’t work that way.’
‘I know, I know. But I was thinking that the exposure might lead to more commissions of the kind you do want. I just hate to see your light under a barrel.’
Mirelle laid a gentle admonitory finger on Sylvia’s hand.
‘I appreciate your partisanship but kindly remember that I have placed sculpture in a few museums.’
‘So you’ve told me. But you’d better start doing more. Look, Mirelle,’ and Sylvia warmed to her subject, ‘your kids are growing up. Soon they’ll not see you for small potatoes unless you yourself are something. They’ll go off to college and you’ll be left with nothing to do in this big house. You’re not an organisation type like June Treadway and you’re not politically oriented like me. You’re an artist and you’re going to have to create a market for yourself and find an outlet . . . Oh, God in Heaven, where’s my memory?’ Sylvia slapped her forehead in exasperation. ‘If I were more dense . . .’
‘What are you talking about?’
Sylvia leaned forward eagerly. ‘I haven’t seen him for years, but Mason Galway and I were very friendly at one time. He now runs a very exclusive gallery in Philadelphia . . .’
‘Sylvia, thanks, but there just isn’t much demand for sculpture . . .’
‘I keep telling you, you create your own demand. Make it a status symbol to own a Martin . . .’ Sylvia noticed the change in Mirelle’s expression. ‘What did I say now?’
‘For one thing, I don’t use Martin professionally.’
‘So?’ Sylvia eyed her friend quizzically.
Mirelle got up and walked over to the window, scrubbing the adhered clay from her palms into a little scrap.
‘Sylvia, one reason I don’t aggressively seek commissions is because of the trouble it causes with my in-laws. Steve’s parents.’
‘What trouble?’ Sylvia’s tone invited the full story, and Mirell knew that evasions would not suffice.
‘They don’t understand about Ahrt,’ she exaggerated her pronunciation deliberately, ‘and they certainly have never understood my propensity for mucking about with kindergarten goo.’
‘All the more reason why a few respectable sales will make them change their tune. Nothing like money to sway the middle-class mind.’
‘It’s not that, Sylvia. You see, I had established a little reputation as Mary Ellen LeBoyne and then my father died.’
‘Skeletons in your family closet?’ Sylvia was delighted.
‘Me.’
‘You?’ Sylvia snorted. ‘You?’ Her tone was incredulous.
‘My mother was an opera singer, Mary LeBoyne. She married a rich, if untitled, Englishman, Edward Barthan-More, in 1920. She never gave up singing. In the spring of 1926, she sat for her portrait, as Tosca actually, for Lajos Neagu, an artist much in vogue in Vienna at the time. I was an unexpected bonus.’
Sylvia’s eyes widened dramatically in surprise at Mirelle’s quiet disclosure.
‘Barthan-More was terribly conscious of family honor and dignity . . .’
‘Good old Victorian upbringing, no doubt.’
‘He permitted me to be raised as his child, although he never allowed Mother to have me baptised in the family church.’ Mirelle grimaced. Barthan-More’s stricture had hurt Mary LeBoyne, a staunch Anglican. It had been one of the many mean little ways the man had had of revenging himself under the guise of magnanimity. ‘I was a blonde baby and there were blue eyes in the family. Unfortunately,’ and Mirelle tapped one cheekbone, ‘by the time I was six, it was painfully apparent that I was a . . . changeling.’
Sylvia’s face darkened with irritation for the unknown Barthan-More.
‘In English families of his class, no child is allowed out of the nursery so I was conveniently kept out of sight of the relatives. I was, however, permitted to accompany my mother when she sang on the Continent because it meant my nanny had to go along.’ Mirelle was aware of the change in her voice as she mentioned Nanny.
Sylvia caught the harshness. ‘How convenient to have an indispensable sort of spy.’
‘Yes, but despite her, Mother and I were very happy together. We could forget her at concerts and rehearsals. Nanny had no ear for music.’
‘A distinct handicap for an eavesdropper.’
‘Nothing to eavesdrop on.’ Mirelle shook her head sadly. ‘Mother never sought Neagu. Nor any other man.’
‘Pity!’
‘I agree but I think she’d made a bargain with Barthan-More for my sake. At any rate, I never remember her speaking to anyone or of anyone. Backstage, she was known as the Untouchable, or the Icy Irishwoman.’
‘And all for one small fall from virtue.’ Sylvia let out a dramatic sigh. ‘Thank God I saw the light of day in enlightened times. So what happened to part the charming twosome?’
‘The war,’ Mirelle replied with a shrug, ‘and me growing old enough to attend public school.’
‘Looking more and more Hungarrrrian?’
‘Yes, and Barthan-More getting nastier and meaner. When the bombing started, my mother’s dearest friend and former dresser, Mary Murphy, wrote from the States, offering to take me. Mother accepted.’
‘And . . .’
‘Barthan-More bought a one-way ticket.’
‘He would.’
Mirelle broke the clay fragment in two pieces. ‘Thirteen months later, Mother was killed in an air raid, singing to the wounded.’
She couldn’t help the tears that welled up in her eyes. Sylvia’s small square hand patted hers gently.
‘So you spent the rest of your childhood happily in the States?’
‘Yes, with Murph. Five wonderful years.’
‘How come you lost your English accent?’ Sylvia asked in the silence that followed.
‘Why should I keep it?’ Mirelle replied sourly. ‘I promised myself a completely new start in the new world, and I assumed my mother’s name as a beginning.’
‘Then what’s with the in-laws?’ asked Sylvia, exasperated.
My father left me money.’
‘Father? Neagu, then, not Barthan-More. And what’s wrong with money?’
‘The Times, which reported the terms of the will, had me named as his natural daughter by the late opera singer, Mary LeBoyne.’
Sylvia groaned. ‘Reporters! Anything to spice up copy. I can imagine how middle-class morality accepted that cho
ice bit of news coverage.’
Mirelle sighed at the memory of those distressing days of scenes and recriminations.
‘Steve knew about my birth . . .’
‘We are such idealists in the blush of love,’ Sylvia commented ruefully.
‘There’d been no occasion to mention it to his parents.’
‘Until it was all over the local rag which probably elaborated on the story from the Times. So the in-laws were suitably shocked, shamed, appalled and acted in the best tradition of outraged middle-classery.’
‘I can’t blame them. It was an awful shock to me, too. I didn’t think that Neagu knew or cared about me.’
‘Well, he’d’ve known not to inquire of Barthan-More. What did Steve do?’
Mirelle flushed, not willing to discuss that.
‘He didn’t side with Mommy and Daddy, did he?’
‘That isn’t fair.’
‘Who to? You? His precious prude parents?’ Sylvia flounced up out of the chair, furious. ‘And, for that kind of . . .’ words failed her so she waved her arms about eloquently. ‘you’ve deliberately neglected your talents?’
‘I haven’t neglected them.’
‘Well, you sure haven’t cultivated them.’
‘I don’t want any notoriety, Sylvia. It makes my life too difficult.’
‘I’d never have taken you for a coward, Mirelle Martin.’ Sylvia flared up, the accusation flung out and then instantly retracted. ‘No, Mirelle Martin isn’t but Mary LeBoyne sure isn’t pushing. And I think it’s downright asinine for you to stifle the contribution you could make because of an anachronistic irregularity of birth. Why must you be saddled with your parents’ sin? Particularly in today’s permissive society? For God’s sake, as an artist, any sort of deviation is permitted. Encouraged!’
‘That’s part of it, too,’ Mirelle said, doggedly resisting,
Sylvia regarded her scornfully. ‘You mean, your dear in-laws are afraid that immersion in the artistic world would result in your descent into promiscuity? Hah! I got news for them. Most women don’t need parental example to stray from the marital bed. It’s so fashionable to be unfaithful.’ Sylvia fumed silently, waiting for Mirelle’s response. ‘Well, are you going to wait until all the dear in-laws are six feet under before you walk out into the light of day? Or is it Steve you’re afraid of?’
The Year of the Lucy Page 14