What is it? . . . Gilbert kneels on the coat, taking Thérèse’s hands away from her face . . . Mrs. Ingle, tell me what’s happened.
Vicar and I were having an all-out search for this expensive pencil sharpener we invested in not two—
Yes yes.
Suddenly I realized the girl was crying. Well I went over to her and—
It’s in my eye . . . still Thérèse does not look up.
What is . . . a gentle secret . . . What’s in your eye?
My pencil lead . . . Piers, back and agitated . . . I struck the paper with force, the pencil point rebounded. I was upset it was so ugly, my drawing—
You’re not supposed to be drawing at all . . . Gilbert pets Thérèse, soothing.
I was providing an outline.
I’ve been doing that as well, Mr. Gilbert . . . Butcher worries . . . Is it against the rules?
The child has lead in her eye, can we all keep our heads. Vicar?
Yes Mr.—
Pass me your water jug and the palette, there.
Gilbert moves swiftly quietly, cleaning the palette, filling a hollow with water, We’re going to flush your eye We’re going to flush your eye. Thérèse moans and Butcher says, After this course I should go back to nursing with all the casualties on any given day.
Standing by Piers, looking out on rocks. Way up on the next peak, a dot of white. Clump of edelweiss if they were Swiss. If they were in France, it would be a likelihood. But they are in Cornwall. So it is perhaps a colony of gulls, or covey, mutton stranded on a moutonnée.
I have blinded her, Piers says lighting a cigarette, I never expected the lead to bounce like it did. I was annoyed at my drawing, I was annoyed I was making no progress and I found the scenery, here he gestures with his cigarette, Boring. A stream of smoke dissipates into air. Behind them, the commotion of flushing and Vicar’s new accents for Thérèse’s amusement. They assess the same cliffs, she and Piers. She has no special vantage. A pause. Smoke. Piers? Mm, a draw on the cigarette. Well it seems we are looking at the same landscape, you and I, these cliffs, mountains, the blue sky and that clump of gulls or somesuch, well, this landscape you choose to call boring, the boredom of which you break your pencil point over, the boredom for which you blind a girl, I don’t find so boring at all. I take offense. I think it’s. Majestic.
A clicking like a key in a latch, back and forth. Yesterday, free day, no painting, morning after the day of cows and sheep but the morning before porridge, walking stick, the lie. Yes, it is the morning after the evening Giddy opens the bathroom door, proving to Gilbert that there can be such a thing as one bath too many. You must take Catrine to show her Penzance, Giddy, fingers drumming, The town after so much country. You must show her everything Cornwall has to offer.
On the boardwalk, before the games, the arcade and the shoes. Thin clouds, cirrus clouds suggested no rain. Two mornings after the night of the moth. His stomach persisted on this day too, the shoe day, in an on again off again fashion. But he brought her to the water, to the ocean which she hadn’t seen in a year. And they sat down next to a great steerhorn for rope, sat down the two of them below the railing designed to prevent sitting. He said, Welcome to the Atlantic the very same water as yours back home.
Staring at the ocean, Gilbert gave insight on ablutions, how Bonnard frequently painted women bathing because his wife never stopped, how she never gave him affection of any kind.
Maybe he was repulsive.
On the contrary, he was very handsome.
Maybe he wouldn’t take her swimming.
Enough. Enough.
Maybe he was mean to her.
Shall we switch the topic?
Did he expect her to cry for the last time she had ocean, reminded of Mother, Maine. She wouldn’t. They sat close together side by side after the moth but before the lie. They looked down at the brine and laughed about Vicar and old Inred, Piers’ state of German angst. They smelled the sea together and pointed out a gull or turtle which on closer inspection always became rubbish. Nothing mattered. They looked down upon their remarkably similar shoes swinging off the boardwalk together, the leather lace-ups excellent for squashing. Gilbert took her hand when he pointed to a man whose hat was blowing away. And she pulled her hand back as she drew his attention to a faraway ship. Instead of looking to where she pointed, he looked to where she replaced her hand, to her lap, then down to her squashers which is when he said, Time For New Shoes.
What, she said, she protested she nearly became angry because there was reason for it, at least in her book, but he insisted, leaping up in his short-trousered way, babbling about the sky’s appearance for rain. They rollicked down the boardwalk screaming, scattering gulls because he tried to take her hand again so she made it a game. Breathing vicarlike up the hilly little town streets past the buttery the odd shop for bonnets or lace until they found a shop displaying winklepickers and sheepskin slippers.
Here we are, Gilbert swung in, leaving her outside pointing to the skinny shoes saying, Well I’m not wearing those. The rain began gently while they were inside. The clerk switched on a light, they were the only customers. Warm in lamplight. Gilbert walked the perimeter, hum, hum, pulling out a red shoe, high heel, an odd assortment. The clerk measured her foot using a metal slide rule. When the man disappeared she said, Mr. Gilbert I can’t wear a shoe with a heel like that, I’ll tip over. They stared at each other over a disembodied foot pierced by a rod. Sunday service requires a smarter shoe surely. Then the foot came into focus whereupon she laughed, not only because of the cutoff foot, but because he sounded so serious. A smarter shoe. She laughed and laughed. Gilbert picked up a galosh, We can experiment at the very least. No harm in experimenting is there?
This one too loud, that one too small. She wavered in the pair with the heel. They came off with a suck. The clerk said, She’s got a pair. A pair of what? Oh nothing, said the clerk, nothing at all. Careful mate, Gilbert told him, She’s got a temper. Mate, like that like he was better friends with the clerk. I don’t like that pair, she said, yes yes perhaps a tad petulant though there was reason enough in her book. Really? Gilbert said, I quite like them. Folding her arms against the best mates in cahoots against the far wall, she said, I find those shoes to be the ugliest in the shop. But as she summed up the sallow clerk in his pathetic frayed elbows, she saw them. Mr. Gilbert, she pointed. Mr. Gilbert.
Mate’s name was Steve. Steve went to get them in a five, green shoes with a darker green circle embossed on the front. Timid heel, but she could still run. If she had to. Gilbert said, What’s the circle, for it looks like someone’s dropped a penny on her foot. It’s decoration, Steve said. Just for fun.
It’s just for fun, Mr. Gilbert. For fun.
You like those?
You don’t.
Not as much. I like whichever you choose. I want your happiness.
I’m happy with these.
The dropped penny shoes.
Pennies aren’t green.
Well squashed pea then . . . Gilbert reached to pay . . . Are you wearing them?
Of course she was wearing them, though first she ensured that Steve had a box for her old shoes, the ones Father bought for her. Of course she was wearing them. Coming out of the store into rain with no umbrella, they darted from doorway to shop awning on down the hill. Gilbert held her shoebox under arm, guiding her always with a hand to her back down the hill down the hill on to the boardwalk on to the arcade. Of course she was wearing them, they made her socks pink by the laundry appear intentionally pink.
Turning her foot as they went inside to wipe off the rain . . . Mr. Gilbert.
I’m buying us tokens.
Mr. Gilbert.
Which games do you like?
Over machines and whistles, sirens and the thwack of paddles, he couldn’t hear so she pulled him down to say in his ear . . . Do they really look like mushy peas?
And he laughed his fangish laugh yes your honor the ugly one that breaks her heart, Of
course not and lifted her shoe as if he were a blacksmith, pronounced them the most elegant he’d ever seen and had he succeeded in the tiniest way in making her happy? Saying it all into her ear somewhat too loudly for comfort but remembering a time when the smell of him and his sweater but that was in the past and what was the point in thinking about that. The present was now or at least it was then and she said into his ear, Thank you Mr. Gilbert. For my new shoes.
A scream. She turns with Piers who throws his cigarette to the ground leaving her to stomp it. They abandon the boring scenery and run back, nearly knocking over the vicar’s metallic easel.
What is it . . . Piers hovers over Thérèse . . . Why is she screaming like that?
Gilbert glances up . . . She’ll be alright. It’s painful.
Piers picks at his lip and pulls out another cigarette.
Elsewhere if you don’t mind . . . Butcher says to him taking the palette from Thérèse and examining it. She passes it to Gilbert . . . Think we got it.
Yes . . . he pats Thérèse . . . It’s out. You’ll be fine.
Thérèse doesn’t move . . . I can still feel it.
Likely you’ve scratched your cornea . . . Butcher pulls back Thérèse’s hair . . . Like with a splinter, you think it’s still there. But we have the evidence. May I see your eye?
Hurts to open it.
Only for a moment, then you can have a nice sleep.
Thérèse opens her eyes looks straight at Catrine then turns for Butcher’s examination. Vicar’s comments on cleavers don’t emerge. Butcher looks into corners pulls at the flesh around the girl’s eye mutters a need for the torch she left in the car. I can’t see, Thérèse says. We’re fine, Butcher says. No. Everything’s blurred, please. I can’t see, Mrs. Ingle.
Close them . . . Butcher pets the coat on the ground . . . Have a little rest.
Thérèse lies down, closes her eyes. They move away.
Gilbert says to Piers, Didn’t think I had to give a lecture on safety. Seems I should have.
Vicar says to Butcher, Now I recall I left the sharpener at home. Didn’t want to risk losing it.
Butcher says to Gilbert, Don’t be too hard on the lad. Everyone’s capable of mistakes.
Vicar says to her, Seems you and I are the lucky ones as far as ailments go.
Butcher says to Vicar, What’s the point in buying it if we’re not going to use it?
Gilbert says to Butcher, Never thought I was ringmaster of catastrophe.
Vicar says to Gilbert, Now that’s apiece dramatic wouldn’t you say?
She says to Gilbert, Is that what happens when a splinter comes out? You still feel it?
Piers says to them all, I wish I’d never done it and what’s the likelihood of her regaining sight?
They played games for hours, skittles where you threw a ball down a wooden ramp and a game which required you to maneuver a gripper over a host of ugly toys. Her favorite was shooting chickens with a rifle, she won a stuffed frog. He excelled at throwing balls into a basket but never managed five consecutively. And throughout they took turns the two of them to comment on her shoes and what round green thing she had dropped thereon. When she won her frog, Gilbert said, It’s a frog baby you dropped which was so patently stupid it made the Lilt she was drinking come out her nose and onto the sidewalk. They were on the way home, it was beginning to go dark, it was the last time she laughed that evening. The next day she would discover the lie. In Giddy’s lane, they stood together watching a pinkish sunset, the clouds had spun away as they played. When Gilbert said, Another Fauvist sky, she went on walking. At the door, he said, Why not put your other shoes back on, we’ll save these to surprise Giddy with some other time. A special occasion perhaps. Sure, she said. Okay by me. He bent to help, she leaned against the windowsill, stockinged foot balanced on the bootscraper. Watching the top of Gilbert’s head as he guided her foot back into Father’s shoe. He was beginning to thin at the crown.
Is it fear of blindness that has them all hesitant to resume. They hover, some smoke, some reflect. Piers says, Travelers used to go through the alps blindfolded because mountain scenery drove them mad. And Vicar says meanly, Ah was that the plan then with the girl? Gilbert busies himself to not notice the pall the accident has left on his group. And then it becomes impossible, even for a resolute man, not to notice Inred’s idle flicking back and forth of her sketches, or Vicar’s consumption with his easel’s efficiency. The mountain the mountain. And the edelweiss or gulls or is it some chalky patch like the white cliffs of dover or that horse in the hill. Difficult to tell, it seems closer.
Right then . . . Gilbert claps his hands, they turn from the mountain to face him . . . I was planning to address this later this afternoon, after a full day of painting. Over tea in the church hall. But while Thérèse rests, this seems a good time. Vicar, may I? . . . Gilbert borrows Vicar’s easel and sets it in front of the group . . . Can you all see? . . . aiming it to Piers who watches Thérèse sleep.
Piers has one final look at his work, sits on the rocks next to Butcher. Gilbert pulls a large sheaf of sketches from his bag. These are his own. He lays them on the ground, chooses one and places it on the easel. A girl in red. The same red now pillowed beneath Thérèse’s blind head. Yes, for he is saying, One sleepless night. He is saying, I painted it from memory. A girl sitting hands across lap eyes downcast. What is she sitting on, a settee, a chair, the seat of a car? He speaks of acrylics which await the group in days to come, he speaks of tone of harmony and scale. He does not mention truth.
On to the next, the red sleeves pushed up, the girl’s arms folded, eyes no longer downcast but staring out, reproachful. Likely she makes that very face now. Butcher is saying something, I wish my nights of insomnia were only half so fruitful and Vicar, Girl resembles Catrine here, Vicar is laughing. Vicar is sticking out his teeth and bobbling his stupid head. Calling a vicar stupid might bring down some wrath but the hell with it. To hell with petulance. Gilbert can make her up from pigment, can take her apart by tone and light.
He came upstairs to carry the shoebox. Giddy was out the lights were out and the house needed lights for they had both seen the sun go down and noted the flavorful sunset. It was the night before she discovered he lied a white lie. A small act the kiss, determined. It was the night before the morning Giddy asked her not to wear the tunic and the house was dark except for one light in the kitchen, obese Mouser bumping against them, Gilbert saying, Well her car’s not here adjusting the shoebox she didn’t need him to carry. He sat on the moquette, she brought out the new shoes, they looked on them, he was so pleased. He looked at her. But a sweep of lights across the far wall had him hurrying out to light up the corridor and his bedroom downstairs. She remained in the dark holding the shoes. That night, the night before the lie, it was clear she would never wear them again.
My homage to David . . . Gilbert picks up a new drawing.
And there she is slumped over in the bath, back up like a cat, looking out at them all with reproach or was it rebuke. It was the Re-’s she failed in Betts’ test.
You know about Bonnard of course . . . her voice rings out, high, unusual.
Sorry, Catrine? . . . he looks up, a finger tracing light along her painted shoulder.
He forced his wife into baths all the time . . . oh this is strange . . . Made his wife scrub herself bloody she repulsed him so.
Gilbert presses his lips to stop himself.
When she met him she was a sweet girl from a village in Flanders where her family raised sheep and sold them at market or made sweaters from the wool. In the spring she helped her father shave them up . . . turning from them, Butcher’s amusement to the mountain yes that white is definitely closer now it looks like a figure but she is forever finding things where they are not . . . She met Bonnard his name was and he convinced her that she was so dirty she should always take a bath . . . turning back . . . In fact it was his greatest wish in life that she never wear any clothes at all.
The story I’m familiar with suggests that she hated him.
Maybe she did but not at first. Maybe she got tired of having prunes for fingers.
Well, Catrine, this is all very amusing. You’re amusing us greatly but the others in the group are paying for—
Your great wisdom—
Just—
On how to see.
Alright—
What you know might be different from what you see, have you told them that?
Sit down, Evans, this is no longer amusing, your dramatics are getting very very stale. And very silly.
They’re paying for your opinion on whether they are or are not wild beasts.
I said sit down . . . Gilbert snaps.
Butcher looks up at her, mystified.
But you haven’t even asked us, we could go around the circle, Mr. Gilbert, we could all tell about our own experiences with things like perspective. We could describe what it means to have an eye, Vicar could show us how the nude can be a mountain and Butcher could . . . now she’s crying in front of all of them, it’s not in control . . . Butcher could—
Gilbert is by her, has his arms around her, the others are bewildered in her watery focus, Vicar beetles an eyebrow, she is crying. Gilbert says, What an unusual day for girls, is it the moon, a planet’s retrograde path. She lets him stroke her hair, how could he put her up on an easel as if she were a tree. In the bath. When he knew how happy she was about the new red cardigan, the one she hates because right before he did it he said I rarely see you in color. And then he did it kissed her with his tongue like that.
Gilbert says, How do you feel about calling it a day. The white gone, it was a gull. It’s a day, says Vicar and the others move away to pack up the paints and Gilbert’s hand moving in the soothing now his mouth in her hair now.
Gilbert pulls away sharply. She wipes her face looks at him. His face is distorted. She looks where he does but cannot make sense of it. Gilbert says, What On Earth. Vicar and Butcher huddled over sketches together on the rocks, Piers prostrate at the feet of Thérèse, but now the figure of a man emerges at the crest of the hill transforming from a white spot into the figure of an amateur botanist, booming as he approaches, I THOUGHT AS MUCH.
Schooling Page 28