Painted in the dome, angels and deer. A bearded man . . . God?
St. Francis. Here’s his wife, Lady poverty.
Around the desk and man, with his bag under arm, his hand on her shoulder, Gilbert leads her up a flight of stairs. Into a dingy common room of burn-dotted armchairs. He stops in a smoky plebeian corner to buy them coffee from a machine.
Always say a prayer for these, they can be quite vicious. One exploded on me in a bus station once . . . he buys a penguin too . . . Does chocolate count as sweets which I know you don’t eat?
No . . . she tells him . . . Those are more like cookies . . . knowing this will amuse him which it does smiling as he rattles the knob for a second biscuit.
Handing her the cup and . . . Watch it that’s hot, red or blue?
Blue . . . penguin he leads them back out to the corridor . . . It’s illegal to take refreshments from the lounge so hurry . . . past doorways of smoked glass apologetic . . . I revert to student behavior whenever I return.
Gilbert opens an unmarked door to a small room overlooking the entrance. A balcony. Or is it a mezzanine is it a shelf is it a ledge. Potted ferns on either end of a glossy bench. She sits down. Far below, the serious man belted by his desk. Head, a portable dome.
Gilbert sets his coffee on the bench next to her . . . Regarding symmetry, the line of the doorway . . . his hands dart as they assign . . . Those windows, the ornate frame of that door. See the way this window behaves? Let’s discuss measure. Let’s learn about perspective. Let’s discover how to translate what you see instead of what you know.
I’m not very good at perspective.
Stooping to his doctor’s bag from paying art a housecall the white domed light bleaching his face . . . Yes . . . a certain press to his lips . . . Quite.
Caught on the balcony well above the serious round desk but some ways below St. Francis with his trouble & strife Gilbert pulling out protractors and pencils in a manner which suggests humming although he is not his concentrated air oblivious to her and her coffee sipping her taking care not to let blouse or mouth stain brown her wanting in an idle way to throw something over the edge to watch its descent to measure speed distance velocity she could stay here like this with Gilbert moving so surely next to her in his pullover a bitter smell to him he has no classes to teach so no baths to take on Wednesdays could stay like this for some time with him about to give her some perspective which she hasn’t yet decided if she really wants.
They sit together, looking down. Cutting board and easel propped side by side against the balustrade. Ready to sketch. Gilbert shows her how to break perception into boxes. Draws a grid on her paper says This might seem boring but you’ve no idea how useful it will be in the long run.
And he smiles down at her. Gilbert has his own grids the lines bracketing his mouth eyebrows a horizon the axis of nose around which his whole face can turn and sometimes her stomach flips around it too. I’m going to draw the ceiling she says lying back on the bench to face the dome so that when the door swings open when Gilbert flicks around with a surprised hello she has a very strange perspective an askew you could say perspective of the door angled away the man’s body much larger at the bottom than the top a matter of what one knows versus what one sees a matter of comparing the body atilt in the doorway beyond her bent knees and tented skirt to the doorway itself framing him.
Struggling up, there’s no way to delicately drape her skirt clutching her cutting board to her chest knowing even as she’s doing it that her blouse will become imprinted with his soft horizons.
Mr. Gilbert. Evans? . . . Mr. Betts, hair frowsy, as if they’ve called him and he came running . . . Good heavens.
Patrick . . . Gilbert puts down his drawing paper a strained smile a strain to the way he puts the notebook down on the bench between them marking a divider a boundary a border she is right the way over there I, on the other hand, am here. In his Patrick a sort of startled amused lift to his eyebrows a standing a curl to his hands dropped to his sides. She is watching him not Mr. Betts but following Gilbert’s lead she gets up too stooping to collect their penguin foil and coffee cups standing helplessly not knowing how to not draw attention to their rule-breaking litter.
Well this is a coincidence. Advanced tutorials, is it?
Of an artistic nature, Mr. Betts, rather than a scientific one.
An artistic nature . . . Betts takes in Mr. Gilbert from the shoes up . . . I’m confused.
I was showing Evans the structure of Harrington here. Perhaps you recall from your own University days, Patrick, how beautifully this building exemplifies certain notions of architecture, form, construction. Yes hum so I was showing Evans, who has taken some interest in technical drawing, how to site along an axis, etc. Formulate theories of plane—
Isn’t Technical Drawing usually a Fourth form subject?
Well yes. Technically . . . a strange whinny . . . Still if we were always to follow the school’s pace one wouldn’t know who ran the country until one had reached the Lower Sixth. Studied politics. Difficult to shut out the outside world. It always intrudes . . . Gilbert watches his toe touch a leg of the bench . . . I find.
The outside world, that’s true enough.
Silently, Gilbert raises his eyes to the intrusion in the doorway.
Well, what a fun day you’re having. And you are altruistic as always, Mr. Gilbert. Not many would give their time on a day off.
That’s why we teach, isn’t it Patrick, to give of ourselves?
So it is, Mr. Gilbert obscure latin as they say.
And you Mr.—
I was down in the green room. Harrington has a marvelously well-preserved collection of rare moths.
So you’re a weekend lepidopterist?
Doesn’t that sound rude . . . Betts snickers . . . No, more of an amateur botanist. I was sent up to speak to . . . groping for the name in his hair . . . A Mr. Powell. Any idea? Records room or some such. I’m a bit lost.
Down on the left two doors. Actually it’s marked Records.
Well I shouldn’t have any trouble then. I look forward to seeing the results of a day spent in such academic vein . . . Betts turns in the doorway . . . What fun . . . he says it to Gilbert rather than to her in fact the two of them have not looked once at her standing by the balustrade litter in hand.
The men stand motionless, staring. Then Betts laughs abruptly . . . Off I go . . . he leaves with a slam.
Slowly slowly Gilbert sits down on the bench staring at the just shut door his shoulders round his back to her. She sets their coffee cups down, plants them in the potted fern. Keeping the foil to squeeze into a ball.
I flashed him.
What’s that?
Mr. Betts. My skirt was kind of up—the way I was sitting and—
I see.
Squeezing squeezing, the foil scoring her palm . . . He already thinks I’m pornographic.
Does he? . . . Gilbert trails his hand along the bench beside him, no doubt measuring the fit of door to frame, factoring the ingress degree of cold air. Finally he swivels one hundred and eighty degrees to face her. And the lines of the background drop away.
Is that grid helping? I could show you the way tangents work. Degrees of distortion. It might help. Then again it might just confuse you.
Gilbert leans forward leaning not his drawing paper but chin on hands against the railing. She sits next to him foil in a ball leans her elbows looks where he does. Below them a woman at the desk, terrier snuffling her ankles, hectors There’s never been any trouble about it before. Are you new? Where did you come from?
She wants to bring her dog into the library.
Yes.
That man won’t let her.
No. How insignificant things can seem, hum . . . Gilbert turns to look at her, resting his cheek on his hand . . . From a height.
Facing him, her face pressed against her own hands, the perspective is mostly elbow, sleeve, fingers. Then Gilbert. Sharp-nosed. Eyes wide, pupils making
small shuttering movements. Beyond Gilbert, the white walls of Harrington. Betts, he wouldn’t look at her disarrayed across the bench. First photographs, now this.
Mr. Gilbert, are you allowed to sign me out on half days?
Of course . . . sitting up . . . What’s on your front?
She pulls at her shirt . . . Your grid.
For some reason her nose is running. And he pulls out his handkerchief but as she is blowing they realize it is the one with paint so he has to root through his doctor’s bag to find the antidote another handkerchief to wet and take the paint off her nose. Finally it appears Gilbert has forgotten about Betts bursting in on them on their Wednesday on their balcony. Finally they are alone again even the woman with her dog and the librarian’s agitated baldness remain far below as much a fresco as the deer above just Gilbert and her Gilbert saying, Even some on your eyelash, concentrating on the motes thereon although that paint has been there the entire time to remind her out the corner of one eye that she is the kind of girl who gets things all over herself.
You mustn’t let Mr. Betts disturb you. After all, nothing in the school rules forbids a master taking a pupil out drawing or even for tea in his or her home.
I’ve never read anything like that.
Especially a foreign student who cannot visit his or her parents as often as the others, a pupil such as that risks feeling homesick, lonely. Surely it’s only charitable to ensure that a foreign student won’t feel isolated in our country. In fact I almost think I’ve seen something in the guidelines encouraging that sort of thoughtfulness among the staff.
When I asked if you felt sorry for me, you said no.
And I meant no . . . Gilbert pulls back resting his elbows on the railing . . . I suppose you imagine I have endless amounts of spare time. That I’m bringing Joyce Tebazalwa off to paint the old bridge by the river, owning up to a sentimental affection for Courbet. Or that Minter and I discuss symmetry and angles in eighteenth-century buildings over tea. Is that what you think?
There is nothing really to say to that but at least she can know next time Sophie says He’s like that to everyone can say, No he’s not like that to everyone, I’m different. Not that she would of course. Not that she would say that. Not that it’s in the school rules not to say that, it’s just not the kind of thing you say.
He still looks at her . . . Is it?
No.
No . . . he stretches across her to pick up the doctor’s bag a T square . . . Don’t make a scene, then. Let’s go home.
54
But first he stops at Penford because she spots the spire from the road and begs not to go back yet. We can have tea there’s always tea and I’ve been to the gardens. First he says No. Then he says No again. Finally he reverses, one arm around her seat.
Jumping in place as he locks up the car in the sudden rain Hurry up hurry up to which he says, We really have to see about your core temperature huffing as they hustle from the carpark in the drizzle. I want to see the castle, she says, I want to see it, a child repeating herself.
Foul.
Disgusting . . . she has part of the sandwich in her mouth still laughing but trying, after all she has charcoal on her front, paint in her hair and likely still some left on her nose, let’s try not to have the bread fall from your mouth. This is not some slapstick.
Dreadful.
Please don’t make that face, Mr. Gilbert.
What this one?
Don’t. I’ll be sick.
Good God girl not here. They’ll behead us. What’s funny about my face? Don’t eat that sandwich to spare my feelings. I think this scone . . . throwing it down, it bounces . . . Has been around since the place was built . . . consulting the menu . . . Fourteen eighty-two.
Same heat system from then as well.
He laughs, fangish, flicking his eyes up at her, hazel they call that, the color of.
In Penford’s grand hallway, Gilbert follows her to a picture framed in ornate gilt curlicues . . . Here’s an epic of the art world. A reproduction of the Martyrdom of St. Lieven. He was a bishop, set upon and killed by these robbers. But first they cut out his tongue and fed it to their dogs for lunch. There it is in those tongs.
The bearded man a saint the ecstatic tongue a slice of ham. They are near the window the rain has stopped she is about to say something American possibly embarrassing for it has been a long day what with Betts the rain stale scones in the old stall and brownish ham in his sandwich a roil to her belly which could be love or bad food. She has felt adrift like this before both hot and damp.
He’s answering, Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it’s not the last time I’ll sign you out, leaning his shoulder against the old window with its buckled glass a microscope looking out to the stable teahouse the town down the hill. His skin in the western fading light like paper a sheen tired together at the end of the party.
Gilbert takes a step a slack to his knees as if to make out something behind a tree a sort of cary grant manner of coat through akimbo arm, After all, do you think I want an end to stale sandwiches? You went home for Break let’s speak about that, he says or does it come of her own accord memory can be like that math equations then the hen-house door in Felmar fixed with laces. Barefoot in the garden after a brief encounter studying the house four lit windows ceramic lamp by the television. Mother never let her watch in a dark room it is hard on the eyes. Father’s inadequate light rounded over his desk as he made cramped notation. No dog no company nobody to unexpectedly pass in front of the kitchen window no neighbor returning some bowl. The grass was sopping pyjama bottoms clung to her leg she might have riled herself into a tornado of fever. Gilbert still amutter because her thoughts come quicker than this. No one to find her a fright in the garden haunted statue galatea come to life. Inside poorly lit a father. Father in a name sewn into school clothes one hot night in a London hotel when the flat next door had a grease fire. Father in sellotape in set square in geometry. Your father
Pottering around on his amateur botany Wednesday like the old hen he
Was a smoker when I met him hair all over never met a comb he liked Lucky Strike his appendage a gangle of limbs thin as spaghetti straddling up to the bar staring at my hairpins those aren’t real his idea of a pickup can you imagine pulling me out against traffic to say he would never take no for an answer that was your father head hung over the railing of the liner while
Nothing’s changing
I stomped inside with girls from Brooklyn quickstepping into New York Harbor then up the seaboard stopping and starting into restrooms in Rhode Island for more Royal Crown the red peanuts I loved Connecticut night in a cabin stepping onto a mingy porch wrapped in a mingy towel where the badgered sky tested clouds zzzsshhh the distant highway sweet night my life opening me releasing me he is your father it was it was
Where do you go when you leave me like that, Catrine Evans?
And before she knows what exactly sliding her arms through his studying what exactly around his waist and he recoils a step but she has her face firmly against his cardigan chest musty daytrip.
55
The drama begins one evening in a courtyard behind an old mansion obviously used for some other purposes, a school or some such. It is a ghostly night. Swaths of fog make it difficult to see clearly. A figure emerges. A young man in a raincoat. He approaches a waiting girl.
BOYISH MAN
What ho, young girl. I think I know who you expect to see.
GIRL
Perhaps you do not know me as you think you might.
The boy ignores her and checks his watch.
MANNISH BOY
She should be here by now.
GIRL
I want to be a delighted girl not delightful, you understand, but a girl with some perspective. He took me to a balcony to teach it. He said I will tell you how to translate what you see instead of what you know. Well I see a girl who does not know. I cannot find the pleasure in order they urge me to take. Cursed with an untidy
mind. Once Sophie Marsden took me away across the back fields to a place of lying cows. We can sit on them she said. And though I did not believe, though I was afraid, I sat on one. In the thin sun, we sat each on our own cow while Sophie spoke of her brother’s achievements and I thought, I know what kind of girl I am. But ever after I have not found it.
SLINGS & ARROWS OF OWEN WHARTON
I can only laugh at you, your petulance, when I think of what has befallen me. Why I have rough hard stories, enough for two lives. You stand here before me in your rumpled knees as if I should pity you. I prefer your tales, your wandering, to bleatings on evil house matrons, long days, forsaken comfort. You are here to learn, not to love. Although you may learn not to love, which is another thing entirely.
GIRL
I don’t believe in your scars. They are more likely from pencil wounds, perhaps even self-inflicted ones, than cuts from a knife.
BOY-MAN
Recognize your own scars, leave me to mine.
Cue dead mother. Nothing. The boyish stage manager crosses and peers into the wings. A silence ensues. A silence which says Look, where the hell’s the dead mother? We’ve all paid quite a bit of money and if she doesn’t appear soon we’re going home.
GIRL
At home, the home I had that is, another home from this one, not that this is not any kind of—
THE SAME BOY
This is not a home yet you eat here, jam sandwiches, thrice a day. You sleep here, bundled in your logic of scarves and mittens. Tell me you do not learn here, that you do not have at least one friend and two enemies. Do you not hunch over the toilet in the girls’ washroom, afraid to touch the cold seat, rubbing waxed paper to take the edges out? There’s the rub, a fistful of toilet paper. This is as much a home as any I’ve seen.
GIRL
We wanted horses but only had trees. We never named them, that would have been foolish, we rode out fields, our hair flaming back, nothing kept us, not fathers or dinners we were—
Schooling Page 15