The Colours of Birds

by Higgins, Rebecca

  Despite what Siobhan seemed to think, Dorinda didn’t go to tai chi to meet men. She liked the slow movements. She liked how they repeated the same postures together in sequence, and if she didn’t pick it up the first or tenth time, it was fine because they were just going to be doing the same moves again the next week and the week after that. She liked the feel of her weight shifting from foot to foot.

  Besides, there weren’t a lot of men in there to be met. There were a handful of other students, but they were all women except for Alfred and a guy named Stan who seemed to skip more classes than he attended. The tai chi instructor was a man, but he was young, sort of, although it was kind of hard to tell. He could be fifty, or he could be eighty. In the first class, he told them all about how good tai chi was for your body, that it could be as good for you as swimming. Maybe the instructor was like a vampire, getting older like everybody else but keeping the body and face of his fifty-or-eighty-year-old self.

  Alfred called the day after he asked for her number. This was another thing about Alfred to like—he didn’t dither around and keep a person waiting.

  “Is Dorinda there, please?”

  Dorinda mentally snorted. Did he think she lived in a colony of other women? Although she supposed some women her age lived with their children. Maybe Alfred thought it was Miriam answering the phone. God help me, Dorinda thought. If Miriam moved in, it would be the end of eating those crunchy Cheezies in bed, the end of boozy coffees on Sunday mornings, the end of wearing her muumuus without reproach. The end of everything fun and the beginning of house arrest.

  “This is she,” Dorinda said primly. She was out of practice being ladylike.

  “This is Alfred. From tai chi?” As opposed to the dozens of other men who might be calling her. But Dorinda was glad he didn’t presume he was the only man in her life. Which, of course, he was, unless you counted Velcro Neil, which Dorinda didn’t.

  “Yes, Alfred. How are you?”

  They exchanged pleasantries, and then there was a pause.

  “So … would you like to go out with me this Sunday evening?”

  Hmmm. Not as solid an offer as a Friday or Saturday night, but who was she to be so choosy? Maybe he had something special planned. Or who knows—maybe Sunday was date night, now. It had been a while.

  “Sure.”

  After that, Alfred offered to pick her up at six thirty. She gave him her address, then gave it to him again after he’d put the phone down to find a pen. When they got off the phone, she started thinking about what she might wear, and she felt a strange feeling in her stomach, like there were waves in there or something. It had been so long since Dorinda had felt nervous about anything that it took her all afternoon to figure out what the feeling was. What am I nervous for? Stupid old woman, she thought to herself as she flipped through the clothes in her closet, looking for something decent.

  “Let’s go shopping!” Siobhan shouted.

  “You don’t need to yell. I’m not deaf yet.”

  “Sorry, I’m so used to Neil,” Siobhan said at a volume that was only slightly lower.

  “I’m sure I can just wear something I have. Or borrow something from you.” This last thing was a charitable gesture on Dorinda’s part, since anything Siobhan had would be like a tent on her.

  “No, let’s go shopping. I’ll pick you up later this afternoon, and we’ll go to the mall.”

  Siobhan loved driving. Dorinda didn’t like to drive unless it was an emergency, and only if it was an emergency in daylight, and only when it wasn’t raining or too sunny. Siobhan also loved shopping. At her house, when Dorinda went to put empty wine bottles in the recycling container, there was always a lot of packaging and boxes from Siobhan’s latest online shopping binge. It was amazing Siobhan had anything to live on with the way she spent. Probably Neil had always been a good saver, though. He had that look about him.

  At the mall, everything was too flowery.

  “It’s because it’s spring,” Siobhan said. “Don’t be so sour.”

  “I’m not sour. I just want a solid colour.”

  “Fine. But no muumuus.”

  As if she would wear a muumuu on a date. Dorinda rolled her eyes.

  “Ooh, look at this!” Siobhan tugged something off a rack and held it up to herself. It was a puffy, flowery smock that Dorinda wouldn’t be caught dead in.

  “For me?”

  “No, for me!”

  “Aren’t we shopping for me?”

  “Fine. You’re such a stick in the mud sometimes.”

  Dorinda wandered deeper into the store. On the sale rack, there was a lovely white eyelet dress that reminded Dorinda of things she used to wear to the beach when she was much younger, just see-through enough that the boys could spot the outline of her bikini underneath.

  She sighed and picked up some sensible grey slacks to try.

  “Oh, God. Live a little!” Siobhan said when she saw what Dorinda had in her hand.

  “I like these.” Dorinda frowned. She should have taken a taxi to the mall and come by herself.

  “Well, at least try them with a bit of colour.” Siobhan held out a turquoise top with a scoop neck. It looked like it would fit Dorinda perfectly.

  “That’s not too bad, actually.” Now it was Siobhan who rolled her eyes.

  When Dorinda came out of the change room, Siobhan tried to whistle. It sounded more like a child blowing out birthday candles, but Dorinda got what she meant. She had to agree. The pants fit her nicely and showed off her figure, still fairly trim really, despite the Cheezies and age, thanks to her walking and tai chi and small meals. And the turquoise top was flowy and flattering. Siobhan was definitely a good shopper.

  “Alfred is going to die when he sees you,” Siobhan said as they stood at the cash.

  “I certainly hope not,” Dorinda said, suddenly picturing Siobhan showing up at Alfred’s funeral to comfort her, Neil trailing behind her in a black suit and Velcro shoes.

  On Sunday, Dorinda started getting ready for the date around three, just to be safe. By five, the tops of her new slacks were wrinkled from sitting. The top covered some of the wrinkles. Dorinda thought about changing into different pants, but she didn’t want to look too pressed and uptight, so she kept the wrinkles in the slacks. In the bathroom, she stared into the medicine cabinet mirror, wishing she had a smoother face to change into. Inside she felt as young as the girl with the eyelet dress over her bikini, walking with purpose across the sand, knowing the boys were watching her legs, her swivelling hips. Until the next time she saw her reflection and the girl in the eyelet dress poofed away and the sand blew back into Dorinda’s eyes, stinging and making it hard to see anything at all.

  By the time Alfred arrived at quarter past six, Dorinda had put two thousand steps on her pedometer just from pacing around the apartment. He was wearing khakis and a burgundy golf shirt, his hair neat as usual, and he smiled broadly—a bit nervously, she thought—as he stepped into her foyer.

  “You look lovely,” he said.

  She suggested he come in for a glass of wine, but he said they should probably get going.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Oh, you’ll see. It’s not far from here. Do you mind walking?”

  Bill never wanted to walk anywhere, but she had always preferred it to driving.

  “Not at all. Just let me get a sweater.”

  She went upstairs to her bedroom to get it, leaving him in the hallway. When she came back downstairs, he was jingling the change in his pocket just like Bill used to do. She shivered and pulled the door behind them and locked it.

  “So, I wanted to take you somewhere special, somewhere that was really me,” Alfred said as they walked.

  Dorinda wondered again where they were going. Maybe a particular park or a pub where everybody would smile and pat Alfred’s back when they walked in.

  “That’s nice,” she said and regretted it. Alfred was going to think she was bland. “What’s your grandson been up t
o this week?”

  He grinned and talked animatedly about the little boy as they turned down a side street and then onto another. At a church she’d walked by many times but never gone in, he took her elbow. Dorinda was beginning to feel uneasy. A slim man passed them on the sidewalk and nodded at Alfred. He nodded back. The man went ahead of them, pulling open the door to the church basement.

  Inside, everybody seemed to know Alfred, and some of them even patted him on the back. But there was nothing to drink except coffee in Styrofoam cups. Dorinda was getting a feeling about where they might be, and this was no pub.

  “Welcome, everyone,” said a woman at the front of the room. “Let’s get started. My name is Andrea, and I’m an alcoholic.”

  Siobhan swallowed another gulp of merlot. Her lips were looking bloodier with every glass.

  “I mean, it’s kind of nice in a way, right? He wanted to be honest with you, right from the start.”

  “I guess, but a proper date would have been nice.”

  “He’s obviously into wellness, right? The tai chi and the AA …”

  Dorinda refilled her glass and wondered what Alfred would say if he knew about the Cheezies and the merlot and the muumuus. Suddenly it seemed like an awful lot of effort, the whole process of revealing yourself to someone else, one ugly bit at a time.

  Neil came into the room.

  “Goodnight, ladies,” he said, doing a weird little bow and shuffling back out of the room before they could say anything.

  Siobhan grinned at Dorinda with her big, bloody mouth and held out her glass for a top up. Dorinda rolled her eyes and started laughing at all of it, at Neil and Alfred and Siobhan and especially herself, getting all dressed up and nervous and pacing around the apartment in her wrinkly new slacks and old face.

  The White Stain

  Lee Krasner loved parties before she met Jackson Pollock. She loved the excitement she felt when standing on the doorstep after ringing the bell. Poised on the edge of the evening before the host opened the door and swept her inside in a flurry of kisses and coats.

  Pretty girls weren’t as good at parties as she was. Sure, they were lovely to look at, but you could only stare at a lily for so long, Lee felt, before its tips seemed to wilt and brown under the scrutiny. When Lee moved through a room, winking and squeezing shoulders and poking her sharp jokes into places they didn’t belong, she felt better than pretty. She felt significant.

  After she met Jackson, it wasn’t as much fun anymore. She still chatted and enjoyed herself, some nights, but there was always the risk of an Incident, so she could never really relax. He might fall or scream or piss or, at the very least, spill something too bright on something too expensive. So she was never quite listening, and people noticed. It is hard to make small talk with someone whose ears are tuned to shattering glass.

  Tonight is the first party after Jackson’s death. Lee hasn’t been farther than the garden in weeks or longer, it’s hard to remember. She has declined party invitations for months. She doesn’t want to go tonight, either, but she was too tired to say no this time; it was too much trouble to muster up the negative. Over the phone, her silence was taken as acquiescence.

  After bathing, she stands in front of the wardrobe, completely still. Fat drops splash down her back and onto the hardwood. She looks at her clothes. Azure, vermilion, raspberry. Magenta, green, cadmium yellow. Her eyes hurt. She rests them on an ivory blouse and listens to her breath for a moment before facing the task of dressing. But the decision is too difficult. Lee feels a stir of panic. She stares at the colours in the closet, and eventually her eyes grow used to them again. She begins naming them to keep herself calm. Aubergine, carrot, alizarin crimson. She names the colours of every button and shoelace. She takes apart paisleys and flowered patterns, breaks them down into each thread of discrete colour. Rose. Cobalt. Then she names the colours that make up the closet itself. Cerulean doors with a lavender interior. There are stockings crumpled on the floor of the closet—midnight blue—and she squints to name the lint on the square of carpet under her shoes. Malachite and sepia. Lee peers into the closet, looks along the shelves and in the dark corners at the back, but there are no colours left unnamed.

  Wrapped in a towel, she backs away and sinks down onto the bed, listing to the side like a ship, the towel coming untucked. It is too much effort to tuck it back in, so she lies on the bed and waits for something to happen. The pillow grows damp from her hair and face, and the towel is wet on top of the crumpled sheet. It will be a little more comfortable if Lee rolls over. She starts to shiver and doesn’t move.

  The phone is ringing. Lee lies still. It rings and rings. She drags herself off the bed, leaving the towel behind, shaking her head to get rid of the haze of sleep.

  “Hello?”

  “Lee, you haven’t left yet?” Anna sounds annoyed. It’s very noisy in the background. Lee’s shoulders inch up tensely. Someone is laughing too loudly, a shrill noise that covers the other sounds of the party: clinking, low music, a dozen conversations, a “Fuck!” after a smash, and the scurrying around to clean something up. That’s what Lee hears as she tries to figure out what to say.

  “Lee?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I know. That’s the problem. Why aren’t you here? People are asking.”

  “I got held up. I’m coming.” Lee rubs her face with the hand not holding the receiver. She can’t figure out how to get out of this. They’re expecting her. She sighs.

  “You promise?”

  “Yes. I’m coming. Goodbye.”

  Lee is irritated. She realizes she can’t remember what the party is for, if there’s some kind of celebration she’s forgotten to mark. It takes too much energy to both remember this and attempt dressing, so Lee goes back to the closet. She stands in front of it, closes her eyes and reaches in, swims her hand around in the dark air and stops at the back of the closet. As soon as she feels cloth, she tugs down and pulls it toward her. The freed hanger clatters against another. The wood sounds soft and hollow. Lee opens her eyes. She is holding a flowing white dress with capped sleeves. It doesn’t hurt her eyes. She peers at it. The white is bone.

  Lee backs out of the closet and steps into the dress. She pulls on the crumpled midnight-blue stockings and slips on the shoes nearest to her, some old ochre shoes she gardens in sometimes. In the kitchen, she picks up the keys to the truck and hears the clink and slide of the keys coming off the Formica into her hand. When she looks down, she sees a smudge of white on her wrist. She stares at it. Zinc white. She tries to think of when it is from, but she can’t remember. She’s been painting at night in shades of white, finding colours too sharp, too noisy. But the last few days, she’s been in bed and hasn’t been interested in finding her way to canvas. The white stain must have been there for several days. She realizes that her hands must be very dirty and holds them to her face to smell them. Her hands smell like dried grass and copper. She goes back into the bedroom and takes a bracelet from the bureau, a green cuff that covers the stain. The phone starts to ring again. Lee walks quickly to the door and lets the screen slam after her as she ducks into the pickup, turns on the engine, looks behind her to reverse and pull away.

  It is too cold to be wearing the white dress, Lee realizes by the time she arrives at the party. Although it is only October, the air is turning. When she closes the door to the truck, she hears the creak of cold trees. As she draws closer to the house, the noises of the party leak out and spread toward her, a mess of laughter and voices.

  “Lee! Finally. Come in, come in!” Lee feels her chest shrink under her skin. She follows the hostess into the foyer.

  “Anna, shut the door! It’s freezing!” someone shouts.

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  “Oh, it’s fine. Better late than never!” Anna trills.

  Lee winces. She can’t remember what she used to bring to parties—wine probably, didn’t help Jackson, why do that? She says nothing and follows Anna into a loud room
full of party guests. Lee’s shoulders tighten. She sees a corner with an unoccupied chair and begins to weave her way through the crowd. As she passes, people grab her elbow, give her sympathetic looks. Someone touches her back. The faces are red and sweaty, some of them; others are thin and sallow. She keeps her eyes on the chair.

  “So sorry, Lee. He was a great painter,” someone says to her left. She nods in the direction of the voice but doesn’t stop. She reaches the chair and sinks into it, feeling like she’s been on a hike instead of just crossing a room. She thinks about the relief of going back into her house, creeping back into bed. Someone hands her a drink, and she clutches the tumbler tightly without tasting what’s in it. What these people don’t know is that she feels a thud of pressure in her chest, and her thoughts start repeating themselves: get out, get out, get out of this. Sometimes, being in the presence of other people’s voices is physically painful. It is suddenly too loud. Shut up, shut up, shut up. She remembers that she used to not feel this way. She remembers spending hours on the phone making arrangements for Jackson, bargaining with art dealers, trying to get him shows. She doesn’t remember feeling a thud of pressure in her chest when people spoke to her then. Now she sits and looks at the blur around her, and she notices herself tightening and tightening. The clash of the party presses against her, closer and closer, and it’s so noisy she imagines screaming would not attract any attention.