The Year of the Lucy

by Anne McCaffrey

  Dad Martin looked skeptically at the weak solution in his cup.

  ‘Mirelle, perhaps you’d make a new pot for me?’

  ‘Arthur Martin, what’s got into you?’

  ‘Marian, you know I like coffee with some guts to it. Awfully glad when instant coffee came out, Mary Ellen,’ he said as Mirelle took his cup and the pot back to the kitchen. ‘Then I could make mine strong if Ma wanted hers weak.’

  Between getting her husband’s breakfast in irritated silence and bustling about to iron the packing creases from her dress for the afternoon bazaar, Mother Martin kept pretty much out of Mirelle’s way that morning. Mirelle loaded the Sprite with the last of her supplies, got the house picked up and a load of washing started.

  ‘I don’t know why you won’t let me cook us a nice family supper here at home,’ Mother Martin began when she cornered Mirelle in the kitchen fixing a light lunch.

  ‘What? Ask you to cook on your first day of holiday? No, the children have looked forward to the church dinner. Roman is acting as busboy and Nick is being allowed to put around bread and butters and set the tables between servings.’ Mirelle kept her voice light.

  ‘I should think they’d be glad to sit down with their grandparents, they see us so seldom.’ Mother Martin gave an aggrieved sniff.

  ‘Steve thought it would be a chance for you to meet more of our friends than we could have in the house at one time,’ Mirelle said, trying not to sound defensive.

  ‘Hmmm, what’s in this casserole?’ asked Dad Martin, smacking his lips.

  ‘One of my by-guess and by-gosh concoctions.’

  ‘Your cooking’s as good as ever, Mirelle.’

  Mother Martin looked displeased, but Mirelle could think of nothing placatory.

  ‘Children get hot lunches at school?’ her father-in-law asked.

  ‘Very good ones, too. For some of the students, it’s the best meal of the day,’ Mirelle replied elaborating to keep the conversation on a safe topic.

  ‘Hummph. I hope you haven’t had to have your schools desegregated,’ Mother Martin said austerely.

  ‘No,’ and Mirelle could answer truthfully, for the Wilmington school which the children attended had always had a black enrollment. She knew perfectly well that there had been blacks in Steve’s Allentown high school class, so she felt slightly nauseated to hear borrowed phrases and secondhand opinions frothing out of the mouth of her mother-in-law. She listened patiently to a badly organised and trite solution to Allentown’s problems of overpopulation, lack of business, school system and town managerial shortcomings, fully aware that the founts of such wisdom were the omniscient Randolphs.

  ‘If there were any real affection between us,’ Mirelle thought as her mother-in-law chanted the magic phrases, ‘this sort of thing would be tolerable, like her well-meant actions this morning at breakfast. I could have teased her about the eggs, and the weak coffee, and we could have laughed about Dad Martin longing for a pot of strong coffee and . . . oh hell. She hates me. It wouldn’t have mattered who Steve married! Even the paragon Nancy Lou Randolph. Her one talent in life was dominating and she lost two-thirds of that when her boys grew old enough to leave home and marry. Good thing she had no daughters. They’d never have escaped. And yet, no thoroughly bad person could have raised someone like Steve. Why can’t I find the good in her?’

  When Mother Martin finally concluded her monologue, Mirelle stacked the dishes in the dishwasher and went to change her clothes for the Bazaar. June had had bright colorful smocks run up by the Women’s Guild, and supplied floppy artist’s bows. Mirelle had unearthed a beret from her English schooldays to complete the outfit.

  ‘You aren’t going to wear that outlandish get-up?’ Mother Martin was shocked.

  ‘Everyone manning booths at the Bazaar is wearing the same thing,’ Mirelle replied calmly.

  ‘I think it’s cute,’ said her father-in-law.

  ‘I think it shows very bad taste under the circumstances,’ Mother Martin declared.

  ‘The circumstances are, Mother Martin, that this is the costume which the Bazaar chairwoman chose for us. She has absolutely no way of knowing that I’m the bastard of a artist.’

  ‘Mary Ellen!’

  Mirelle wished the sharp retort unsaid the moment she saw her father-in-law’s reaction and cursed herself for losing control. Dad Martin was not the staunchest ally but she had prejudiced him once more.

  ‘I was only reminding you that that fact is not common knowledge here in Wilmington.’ She didn’t think an oblique apology would be acceptable but for Steve’s sake, she would try. ‘My costume is a sheer coincidence, not something which I planned as a personal affront to you. If you still want to attend the Bazaar, just turn right onto the main road in front of the development. Take the first left-hand turn, and you’ll run right into the church parking lot. Steve will be joining us there when he leaves the office.’

  Still seething, Mirelle drove the Sprite as fast as she dared on the now slippery roads. She was astonished to see that the light snow was beginning to cover the ground with ominous rapidity. She hoped that it wouldn’t limit attendance at the Bazaar. As the church drew most of its members from the nearby developments, the snow might just add to the occasion. Mirelle pulled the Sprite up on a gravelly bank which had been left over from driveway repairs. It meant a longer haul with her clay but it would also give her tires traction when it came time to go home later.

  A good crowd of women was already wandering around the booths in the halls. Mirelle chuckled at the sight of the colorful smocks, bows and berets. ‘Under the circumstances’ indeed! As she got to her booth, set in the far corner by the stage, Mirelle noticed that quite a few of the figures were already gone. The pretty young girl who was also working in her booth was busy wrapping a purchase. Would the Martins also consider her ‘shameless’?

  ‘Hi there, Mirelle, your Dirty Dicks are a hit,’ Patsy greeted her. She leaned across the booth to the purchaser and said in a mock confidential tone, ‘This is the sculptress . . . or are you a sculptor, Mirelle?’

  ‘Either,’ Mirelle replied, conjuring a smile for the customer.

  ‘I’d’ve sworn you’d used my nephew as a model if I didn’t know he was in California,’ the woman said, cradling the Dirty Dick carefully in her arm. ‘This is just him to the life.’

  ‘Which one did you choose?’

  ‘The Sunday school clothes one. I’m sending it to my sister. That is,’ she added hastily, worried, ‘if it’s safe to ship?’

  ‘The figure’s been hard-fired so it should be all right if you pack it in styrofoam. And label it “fragile”.’

  ‘Are these more?’ the woman asked curiously, noticing Mirelle stacking the blocks of clay.

  ‘That’s what the sign is all about,’ Patsy answered. She’d obviously just been waiting for an opening. ‘Mrs. Martin is going to do small busts of anyone who wants to sit for her.’

  ‘Really?’ The woman was definitely interested. ‘I’d love to have one of my daughter. She’s nine.’

  ‘At that age they can usually sit still . . . with some judicious bribery,’ Mirelle said, smiling.

  ‘Do I make an appointment?’

  ‘No, just bring the child in when you can.’

  ‘I might just do that very thing. After school. Oh, I’m so excited by the thought,’ and she walked off, murmuring to herself.

  Such gushing could become wearing, Mirelle thought. Ah, well, all in the line of duty. She assembled her tools, put a block of clay on the board and sat down, looking about her, and realising for the first time today that she was already tired by the emotional strain of dealing with the Martins.

  Mirelle glanced up at the shadow-box shelves where her smaller finished pieces were displayed. She had acceded to the demands of Jamie and Sylvia. The yellow velvet did show off the horse, the latest pose of Tasso, the bronze pig borrowed from Tonia (‘only to be shown, Mother, not sold or anything’), and on the top shelf, the face hidden
by the shadow of the helmet, the Soldier. On a pedestal was the Running Child, backed by a vivid red velvet swag. Should she have risked the unfinished Lucy? No, but this assembly of her output for the last ten years didn’t make much of a showing, no matter what the circumstances. Considered dispassionately, the head of James Howell and the Lucy were her most impressive work to date.

  Patsy had ceased rearranging the displays of the Dirty Dicks, the Christmas creche animals and the mugs which Mirelle had thrown for the Bazaar. Now she stood, listening to the conversation on the Apron Line that was strung across the stage, perpendicular to their booth. For lack of something more constructive, Mirelle started to carve Patsy’s features from the clay rectangle. She glanced at her watch to have a time-check on sculpting a credible likeness.

  ‘Do hold still, Patsy,’ she called as the girl started to turn.

  ‘OOO,’ Patsy squealed. ‘I’m being done.’

  ‘Patsy, just look back at Aprons. For a moment more. Fine. Now, if you’ll just turn and let me have the full face . . .’

  Mirelle was only peripherally aware that a small crowd had gathered. She could feel their presence and hear their muted whisperings.

  ‘Oh, I’d no idea you were doing me, Mirelle. Oh, this is thrilling. I was just talking to Ann Mulholland in Aprons and when I started to move, Mirelle told me to stop.’

  Mirelle permitted a very small gentle sigh for Patsy’s exuberant chatter but the work reabsorbed her and she forgot about the ceaseless babble that drifted harmlessly over her head, pausing only when Mirelle asked the girl to turn.

  ‘Would a piano stool help?’ June Treadway quietly suggested at Mirelle’s elbow.

  ‘Indeed it would,’ and Mirelle gave her a quick smile of gratitude.

  A moment later June installed a giggling Patsy on the claw-footed, swivel-topped stool. Mirelle could now reach over and turn the model whichever way was required. Finishing the little bust, Mirelle held it up for inspection.

  ‘No, please don’t handle it,’ Mirelle said as Patsy reached eagerly for it. ‘The clay is still malleable. It’ll need a chance to harden.’ She put it on one of the shadow-box shelves and pulled a corner of the velvet behind it.

  ‘Oh, that’s so . . . so me,’ Patsy crowed, her pretty face glowing with pleasure. To Mirelle’s astonishment, the girl hugged her in an excess of gratitude. ‘I’m just so thrilled. Wait till my Pete sees me.’ Then she turned to the watchers. ‘Now that you’ve seen what Madame Michelangelo can do, who’ll be next?’

  Mirelle smothered a laugh at the girl’s instinctive salesmanship.

  ‘I think I’d like my children done,’ said a woman, stepping forward from the crowd. ‘How long does it take?’

  Mirelle made a face for forgetting to check the time. ‘About twenty minutes,’ she said in a quick approximation. ‘I don’t like to work so quickly. I have to warn you, too, that there’s a danger of losing the detail if the soft clay gets knocked about.’

  ‘For two dollars, it’s all in a good cause.’

  ‘Could you do my baby?’ A younger woman pushed through the crowd with an eighteen-month-old boy.

  ‘If you can keep him still long enough,’ Mirelle replied, a little dubious. The child was already squirming in his mother’s arms.

  ‘I will!’ the mother replied grimly and sat down on the stool.

  Three people crowded the booth too much, so the stool was placed between the stage and the booth and Mirelle proceeded with the sitting.

  The baby wiggled, squirmed, bawled and fussed but Mirelle kept on doggedly, and though the result did not please her, the mother professed to be delighted. She readily agreed to leave the clay in the booth until it had hardened.

  From then on, Mirelle was kept so busy that coffee brought to her turned lukewarm before she could take more than a sip. Though she could see gross flaws in the execution, everyone seemed so pleased that she abandoned self-deprecation.

  Tonia arrived with Nick in tow and they both begged money for the food display and the Trade-a-Toy table. Roman rambled in later, quite willing to stand and watch her working. Nor was he remotely embarrassed for he announced to any cronies who wandered by that the lady sculpting was HIS mother.

  Mirelle found that she was cutting her time down to 15 minutes with children. Then Patsy had an inspiration and gave out hastily printed numbers so that people could wander around to other booths until their number was called. If they didn’t answer, one presumed they had gone home and she went on to the next number.

  ‘We need more sculptures,’ Patsy said once to Mirelle in a fierce whisper. ‘I’ve sold nine of the Dirty Dicks and there’s all of tomorrow to go as well as tonight. What’ll we do if we run completely out?’

  ‘Take orders.’

  ‘Now why didn’t I think of that?’ Then she sniffed hugely. ‘Doesn’t that roast beef smell heavenly?’

  ‘Now that you mention it, it does,’ and Mirelle paused to rub shoulders stiff from her concentrated efforts. ‘I hadn’t realised how hungry I was getting.’ As she rotated her shoulder blades to ease the muscles, she turned towards the door and saw Steve entering with his parents. She bent to her table. She’d managed to forget all about that problem and resented its intrusion now.

  ‘Hi, hon. Wow!’ and Steve whistled appreciatively as he saw the many little heads in various stages of drying on the shelves. ‘They sure have been working you.’

  ‘You know Patsy McHugh, don’t you Steve?’ Steve shook hands with Patsy and introduced his parents.

  ‘There I was, just talking to Ann in the Apron section,’ Patsy began effusively, ‘and I turned around to see Mrs. Martin working on a bust of ME. In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, there I was,’ and she pointed triumphantly to the small replica. ‘I’m so excited. This is much more original than a charcoal sketch. Why, it’s much more me!’

  Except, thought Mirelle, somewhat appalled at her reaction, that the statue doesn’t have its mouth open. Then she looked at her mother-in-law and saw her counting the number of busts. Probably adding up all the earnings.

  ‘Yes,’ Dad Martin said slowly, ‘it is a good likeness. Of a very pretty girl.’ He smiled at Patsy, who blushed with becoming modesty.

  ‘Oh, Mr. Martin,’ she murmured without, Mirelle also noticed, a trace of coyness. Patsy was a nice child in spite of her garrulousness. ‘But it’s really a crime for Mirelle to be doing a church bazaar,’ and her tone was scornful. ‘Why, she should be doing things for the Louvre.’

  Mirelle closed her eyes briefly. Patsy never knew when to stop, did she!

  ‘I hardly believe that Mary Ellen considers herself that talented,’ Mother Martin said reprovingly.

  ‘You cannever tell, can you,’ Patsy babbled on. ‘All she really needs is someone to discover how gifted she is.’

  ‘Mother,’ and Steve broke in diplomatically, taking his mother’s arm, ‘come see the white elephant booth. I believe there’s some china there with the exact pattern you’ve been collecting. Mirelle, are you joining us for dinner?’

  ‘As soon as I finish Tommy here.’

  There was little time for family conversation at dinner. Many acquaintances came up to meet the senior Martins and, unfortunately, to speak to Mirelle about her sculpting. Before Mother Martin could feel her eminence eclipsed by that, Mirelle finished her dinner and excused herself.

  Though she worked as fast as possible, there were still ten uncollected numbers at nine-thirty when the Bazaar was officially closing. Mirelle promised that, if the next-in-line arrived by ten the following morning when the Bazaar reopened, she would do him. Patsy was overjoyed with the success of their booth but Mirelle was so stiff and tired that she wondered if she could make it home. Steve, the children and the grandparents had left after eight.

  When Mirelle finally stepped out into the crisp air, she was amazed at the serene snowy scene. She stood in the doorway a moment, breathing deeply, enjoying the smell of snow and the quiet around her. The new-fallen stuff was fluff
y and still drifting down in fine dustings here and there. It was wonderful and Mirelle dreaded going home.

  Steve had left the station wagon in the driveway so that she could put the Sprite in the garage beside his father’s Buick. She appreciated the thoughtfulness and went in through the laundry-room to be confronted by the sight of her parents-in-law and her husband gathered around the Lucy in her studio.

  ‘Hi, Mirelle. Say, why didn’t you put her on show instead of the Child?’ Steve asked.

  Her father-in-law was handling the unfinished bust of James Howell. Raging inwardly, Mirelle stood in the doorway, not trusting herself to speak. Steve turned around again.

  ‘What’s wrong, honey?’ he asked. ‘Why didn’t you bring over the Lucy? It’s very good, you know, Dad,’ he told his father earnestly. ‘You never met Lucy Farnoll but she was wonderful to us when we were in Ashland.’

  Managing a tight smile at Dad Martin, Mirelle took the bust from him. The malleable plasticine had been handled and several lines blurred. Trembling inside her skin, Mirelle put the head back on its shelf and covered it.

  ‘I’m the only one capable of judging what work I show,’ she said. She knew her voice was cold and expressionless. ‘The Lucy is not finished and to show rough plasticine is amateurish.’

  ‘Mirelle!’ Steve began to realise how very angry she was.

  ‘I’m very tired and I’m going to take a bath. Please excuse me. Good night.’ She turned to leave the room quickly, her steps jolting through her body.

  ‘Mirelle!’ Now Steve was annoyed.

  ‘Now, son,’ Dad Martin said soothingly, ‘she was working at quite a pace there, you know. A good hot bath is just what she needs.’

  ‘I just don’t understand your wife, Steve, try as I will . . .’

  Mirelle heard her mother-in-law’s condescending tones as the last indignity and it was with great effort that she kept from slamming the door behind her.

  Steve came up after she had bathed and got into bed.

  ‘What the hell did you mean by that show of temper, Mirelle?’ he said in a taut voice as soon as he’d closed the door.