The Year of the Lucy

by Anne McCaffrey

  Mirelle eyed her levelly. ‘No, it’s not Steve.’

  ‘Yourself, then? Do you fear your inherited tendencies?’ Sylvia flung the sarcasm as a challenge.

  Mirelle turned back to the little pig, needlessly smoothing the spine with her thumb. ‘No, it’s a question of timing, Sylvia. I don’t think this is the right time for me to start.’

  ‘Not the right time to start?’ Sylvia gestured expansively from the Lucy to the Howell head and then the sick pig. ‘You’ve already started. You, inside you, is telling you to start with these! I’m disgusted with you, Mirelle. Lucy Farnoll would be, too. You don’t deserve the right to sculpt her, not if that’s your attitude. “It’s not the right time!” Ha!’ Sylvia’s acid scorn seared Mirelle.

  ‘It’s not that I wouldn’t like to . . . particularly for Lucy,’ Mirelle began tentatively, ‘but I’ve children now. What if that story got repeated?’

  ‘What story? Oh! That you’re a bastard? Kids use that word so much on the playgrounds it’s lost its original connotation. One of your in-laws’ arguments no doubt.’ When Mirelle looked up, troubled, Sylvia went on. ‘Thought so. Just what a petty narrow mind would spew out. Look, Mirelle,’ and Sylvia’s manner changed abruptly to entreaty, ‘you’ve got a talent that I’d give my eyeteeth to possess. A genuine talent with a sensitivity and perception far superior to contemporary plaster hacks. Part of that sensitivity and perceptiveness is a result of that irregularity in birth, the drek you suffered as a child at Barthan-More’s hands, even your arrival here in the States. I’ll bet your father made that bequest to dare you to do something!’

  ‘He never knew . . .’

  Sylvia raised her eyebrows. ‘Want to bet on that? After all, he knew he had a daughter, and he must have known where you lived to have left you money in the will. Figure it out. And you have no right, do you understand, no right, to deny that gift. Besides, I doubt anyone in this decadent age would bother with a triviality like bastardy. If they do, make it work for you!’ Sylvia chuckled maliciously, then returned to exhortations. ‘Look, Mirelle, I’ll bug you until you do get work shown if only to get me off your back. Until you finish the Lucy and . . . hey, hey, what’re the tears for?’

  Bewildered by her own reaction, Mirelle felt the tears spilling onto her cheeks, her throat too tight for speech. Instantly Sylvia knelt beside her, a comforting arm across her shoulders.

  ‘Honey, don’t you see? If you were a half-baked pot thrower, it wouldn’t matter. But when you can create a tribute like the Lucy, with so much love, you can’t just ignore it. You can’t. Not when you loved Lucy so much and when she wanted so much for you. Because that’s what she said in that note to me. That she’d come across a really fine woman sculptor who needed to be cosseted and encouraged.’

  That made Mirelle cry harder into Sylvia’s shoulder. She wept for her lonely mother, for the father she had never known, for all her early aspirations sublimated in childbearing and husband care, for all the terrible lonely hours when she had wished for success to compensate for scorn and neglect, for the emptiness and betrayal. Sylvia made no attempt to stop her crying until Mirelle looked up apologetically and saw, with amazement, that Sylvia had tears in her eyes.

  ‘Why are you crying?’

  ‘For you, you loon,’ and Sylvia smiled a Mirelle with great and fond affection, taking her by the shoulders and giving her a little shake. ‘And to think you’ve been squirming all this time on a bed of in-law nails!’

  The vision projected made Mirelle laugh and she dried her eyes resolutely on a clay rag.

  ‘You’re a real sight now,’ was Sylvia’s comment. ‘You wash your face and I’ll hot up the coffee.’

  Mirelle washed her face in the laundry-room, recalling that last time she’d done so.

  ‘Confession is so good for the soul,’ said Sylvia, returning with the steaming pot. ‘I’d left the kettle on low so it didn’t take long. Now, there’s another minor detail which I feel I should impart to you as the ultimate in reassurances.

  ‘As you may have noticed, G.F. is a great one for the skirts . . . however, we won’t go into any detail today,’ and Sylvia took a long breath. ‘Suffice it to say, he is. However, tomcat though he may be, he also knows when not to press his luck with a gal. He also knows who’s screwing whom, for he belongs to all the best clubs. If you think women are gossips, you should hear men!’ Sylvia rolled her eyes. ‘It’s G.F.’s informed opinion that you not only haven’t, but won’t. He heard all about it from Bill Townshend, Ed Eberhardt and Red Cargill.’

  Aghast, Mirelle stared at Sylvia. ‘I never told a soul . . .’

  ‘Of course you didn’t. But they did. When I told G.F. that you sculpted, well, guess what he said?’ Dutifully Mirelle shook her head. ‘“Well,” he said, “so that’s where the fire goes?” ‘Sylvia’s smile broadened as she watched the effect of her words on Mirelle. ‘Ah, honey, you got sold a lousy bill of goods. You’re a big girl now. You’re not minor, middle-class league. You can be big-time stuff. You always were, so get with it. Show the Lucy and . . . show Lucy.’

  Mirelle listened with one sane rebuttal running like a descant around Sylvia’s unexpectedly impassioned arguments.

  ‘Sylvia, I’m never going to shake the world.’

  ‘So you’re no da Vinci or Michelangelo, who cares?’ Sylvia gave a massive shrug. ‘And the Lucy’s no Pieta, just a good friend of mine, but your work is no bundle of wires tied together with perforated metal strips. It’s not holey blobs of concrete that resemble tortured bookends. There’s humor in that silly little pig: great love in the Lucy and in that study of Howell. There’s something . . . I’m running out of words. At any rate, I think it’s worth goosing you. And besides,’ she cocked her head cheerfully, ‘I’m fresh out of causes. You realise, Mirelle, that my only talent is causes!’

  They were facing each other, Mirelle on her work stool, Sylvia on the chair she had drawn up, leaning towards Mirelle with only the work table and the half-finished sick pig between them.

  ‘Your talent is caring when others can’t be bothered,’ Mirelle said. ‘You’re like Lucy in that respect.’

  ‘If I were half the woman Lucy Farnoll was . . .’ Sylvia began with a bitter edge to her voice. Then she slapped her knees to indicate a change of mood and pushed herself off the chair. ‘Well, promise me this, Mirelle, if Mason Galway, that gallery friend of mine, wants to exhibit your work, you’ll agree?’

  Mirelle decided that that was a safe enough promise.

  Sylvia waggled a finger in her face. ‘You don’t fool me, Mirelle. I know what you’re thinking. That he won’t buy. I bet he will. So there, too. Good God, it’s nearly one o’clock. Goodbye!’ And she dashed for the front door, slamming it behind her.

  Mirelle sat still for a long moment, looking at the closed door, Sylvia’s arguments reverberating in her head. She smiled, genuinely affected by such loyalty. Then she turned back to the sick pig. That night she dreamt of the hands for the first time.

  11

  TWO DAYS LATER, Mirelle brought the finished pig, some chrysanthemums from her garden and a pan of butterscotch brownies over to the Howells. When she drove up, a black Mercedes 420 was parked in the driveway. She hesitated about intruding but she had cut the flowers and the brownies wouldn’t last long if returned to her house.

  Margaret, looking harried, answered the door and made an effusive gesture of relief.

  ‘He’s impossible,’ she said in a stage whisper, jerking her thumb towards the music room. ‘His agent is here, Dave Andorri, and Dad simply isn’t well but he won’t listen to me or Dave.’

  Mirelle exhibited the sick pig to Margaret and the girl let out a whoop of laughter, suppressing it quickly in her hand.

  ‘Well, Margaret? Who’s badgering me now?’ demanded Jamie from the music room. Mirelle could hear the rumble of another male voice, evidently placating the sick man.

  Mirelle gave Margaret the brownies and the flowers, and walked in. She had a quick
glance at the heavy-headed, grey-haired man sitting on the couch and then marched up to Howell who was slouched on the piano bench. He had shaved, so part of the similarity between pig and man was eliminated. His expression of dissatisfaction, ill-health and gauntness, however, was perfectly captured in the porcine face. Jamie had risen from the piano bench as she entered. He sat down again as Mirelle placed the sick pig on the music rack of the grand piano. His eyes widened, his jaw fell open, and he began to sputter with indignation. The agent, who had also risen at Mirelle’s entrance, had a view not only of the pig but of Howell’s reaction. He burst into laughter, the contagious kind which can set off an entire room.

  Howell, struggling against the infection of Andorri’s laugh, his discomfiture and convalescent irritability, gave up and joined in wheezingly. Margaret, after watching apprehensively until she saw how her father was taking the joke, visibly relaxed.

  ‘If you think, for one moment,’ Howell managed to say between wheezings, ‘that this is what I commissioned, you’re crazy.’ He began to cough violently.

  ‘Of course not,’ she replied blandly. ‘But when my children are ill and disagreeable, I found that if they had their “sick” faces in front of them, they remembered to recover their good humor. The other nice thing about sick pigs is that they are breakable. It is so satisfying to temperamental patients to hear things shatter.’

  ‘Ohho,’ said Andorri with a resonant crow, ‘she has you there, Jim. I’m Dave Andorri and you can only be Mirelle Martin,’ he went on, warmly shaking hands with her. ‘Your entrance couldn’t have been better timed, Mrs. Martin. This idiot has been trying to prove to me that he’s completely recovered. All he’s succeeded in proving is how sick he still is.’

  Howell slithered around on the piano bench, the pig in one hand.

  ‘The next time I’m ill-tempered, Margaret, just hand me my pig,’ he said, his long face repentant.

  ‘Oh, you’re all right, Dad. You just aren’t as well as you think you are. I’m just scared you’ll get sick again and not make the concert on the 18th. That’s the important one, isn’t it?’

  When Howell graciously waved Mirelle to a seat, she could see that his hand was shaking and his complexion pasty.

  ‘How about that tea you were threatening me with, Margaret? She makes a fair cuppa. Mirelle, will you join us?’

  ‘If you promise to go back to bed immediately afterwards,’ Mirelle said, ruthlessly determined to compel him to agree.

  ‘But Dave just got here.’

  ‘And Dave can just go,’ the agent replied, getting to his feet, ‘unless you promise. Mrs. Martin is quite right. I’ll stay for a cuppa to cheer me for the drive back to town. And we’ll hear no more about how well you are. For that matter, I can get Nichols if I give Madame Nealy sufficient notice and enough rehearsal time.’

  ‘I’ve told you, Dave,’ Howell said, setting his mouth angrily, ‘that I’ll be well enough to play for Madame Nealy on the 18th, but I simply cannot leave everything . . .’

  ‘That’s the last time we go round that argument, Jim,’ Dave replied with equal force. ‘Maggie, the tea!’

  ‘I’d just brewed it,’ the girl said in Mirelle’s direction, ‘and Mrs Martin has brought us brownies to go with it,’ she added as she ran down the hall to the kitchen.

  Howell glared at Mirelle. ‘How suburban! Brownies to the sick friend!’ He appealed to the ceiling of the room.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of forcing such suburbiana on you, then,’ Mirelle said, blinking her eyes at him and turning to smile with exaggerated sweetness upon the agent. ‘Mr. Andorri, Margaret and I will eat them all.’

  Margaret reappeared with the tray, depositing it on the music-strewn table.

  ‘For God’s sake, Margaret, watch what you’re doing,’ Jamie said with sharp irritability.

  ‘Don’t be difficult,’ Mirelle suggested, motioning to Margaret to raise the tray so she could clear the music. ‘If you didn’t spread out like an overweight rhino . . .’

  When Howell opened his mouth to make a sharp reply, Mirelle pointed at the figure in his hand. He burst out laughing.

  ‘You’re right. I’m impossible. Forgive me, daughter dear. I must have been snapping your head off all day without realising it.’

  ‘Well, not all day,’ Margaret said demurely and glanced up, surprised at the laughter from Mirelle and Dave. ‘As a matter of fact, this morning you had me wishing that you had been laid out as a corpse!’ She made the confession with asperity and then, seeing his contrite expression, ran quickly around the table to plant an affectionate kiss on his cheek. ‘But you’re never sick, Dad, so you’ve had no practice at being good and that cough would drive anyone up the wall.’

  She rumpled his hair, against his vociferous complaints, and then sat down, decorously, to pour the tea.

  Howell fingercombed his hair down and settled his dressing-robe over his shoulders. He snatched a brownie from the plate before Mirelle could carry out her threat and chewed it smugly as he eyed her.

  ‘That cough’s the worst aspect of this bronchial pneumonia,’ he admitted. ‘I feel as if the lining is coming out of my throat.’

  ‘He had coughing fit just as you got here, Mrs. Martin. Brutal,’ said Dave sympathetically.

  ‘Leaving me weak and wretched.’ Howell assumed a dramatically limp posture.

  ‘Ha. Years of riotous living have caught up with you,’ Mirelle said with cool disdain. ‘Bucketing around the States from one concert hall after another.’

  ‘All of them draughty,’ and Howell jerked his thumb at Andorri. ‘He picks them especially for the draughts.’

  ‘What about long underwear? Or leg-warmers?’ Mirelle suggested with mock concern and Margaret giggled at the thought of her fashionable father wearing either.

  ‘I can get my hands on a reliable portable heater,’ Dave made his contribution solicitously.

  ‘You’re cruel to a sick and ailing man,’ Howell said, hand to his forehead.

  ‘Not at all,’ Mirelle and Dave replied in unison. ‘Just trying to be helpful.’

  Howell snorted. Then Dave leaned over to examine the pig more closely, chuckling as he inspected it.

  ‘That’s delightful, Mrs. Martin. Would never have expected porkers in Jim’s genealogy.’ Howell made an attempt to snatch it back.

  ‘You might have used a more elegant animal,’ Howell told Mirelle when Dave returned it. ‘But it will remind me to maintain dignity at all times.’

  ‘Has Will Martin been in to see you recently?’

  ‘Today,’ and Howell rubbed his hip.

  ‘He came first thing,’ and Margaret giggled, ‘and warned Dad not go get up.’

  Dave was on his feet instantly. ‘If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have allowed you downstairs, Jim.’

  ‘Don’t be an ass, Dave.’

  ‘You’re the ass,’ replied the agent with some heat. ‘I’m glad you spoke, Mags. I’m serious, Jim. You can’t take any risks. Bronchial pneumonia is no joke.’

  ‘Is your fever down?’ Mirelle asked, for Jamie was beginning to frown at the harassment.

  ‘Only yesterday,’ Margaret said when he didn’t answer.

  Dave took Howell’s cup from his hand, gave it to Margaret and, firmly holding the sick man by the elbow, propelled him out of the music room and up the stairs.

  ‘If I’m your manager, James Howell, I’m your manager. And I am managing you back into your bed, you pig-faced espèce de canard!’

  Dave might be shorter than James Howell by several inches but he had considerably more bulk which he used to coerce his victim. Margaret sighed with relief as she saw the brute force was working where tact had not.

  ‘Honest, Mrs. Martin, I don’t think Dad realises just how sick he’s been. Of course, my opinion is a child’s. Just at the wrong time he thinks I’m still nine. Well, I’m nineteen and old enough to take care of him now.’

  ‘Mirelle!’ James Howell roared from his room and the effort starte
d him coughing.

  ‘Got any honey?’ Mirelle asked Margaret as she pulled the girl to the kitchen. ‘Be right there, Jamie.’

  ‘He’s got a cough mixture,’ the girl said.

  ‘Well, it’s not effective and this always works with my kids. It coats the throat tissue.’ She had put several teaspoons of honey in a glass, added lemon juice, and stirred. ‘Add some whiskey later on. That’ll improve the taste.’

  Margaret was dubious but she followed Mirelle up the stairs. Andorri had got Howell back into bed, under the blankets and propped up against the pillows, but the invalid was still sulking.

  ‘Here, try this. Always works,’ she said, sitting on the bed and giving him a spoonful.

  ‘You are, my dear, a continual surprise package. Nostrums and sculpture?’

  ‘Why not? Feeding sick cranky children requires the knack,’ she said, and when Jamie opened his mouth to protest, she tilted the spoon in so deftly, he had to swallow or choke. ‘Very similar to plastering.’

  Dave Andorri guffawed loudly. ‘You’ve met your match, Jim.’

  ‘Ungrateful wench. Never again will I extend a helping hand to a female in distress,’ Howell said and then realised that his voice was less rasping. ‘Even more reprehensible is your distressing tendency to be right!’ He reached behind him for a pillow to throw at Mirelle but she ran nimbly to the door, waving goodbye.

  As she drove home, Mirelle was unexpectedly satisfied with the day, a state of mind which she’d not experienced in months. She’d been vaguely disoriented for so long that she couldn’t quite pin down why her mood was improved. To be sure, she thoroughly enjoyed matching wits with Howell. He had such an atrocious sense of humor. She was pleased with the reception of the sick pig which should give Margaret a useful talisman. Everything contributed to her sense of euphoria.

  She resolved to maintain the mood, even if the children got to wrangling. Not even the sight of a letter from her in-laws put a damper on her exhilaration. As usual, the letter was addressed only to Steve. Not since the terrible fight in Allentown had she ever written directly to her mother-in-law. She propped the letter up on the hall table with a disdainful sniff. It couldn’t prick her mood as she set about getting supper, an especially good supper.