The Fourth of July

by Bel Mooney

  Miranda called out agreement, adding, “Go on, Babs. They’d be nice to have.”

  “My stuffs upstairs,” I said.

  “Go get it, hon … go on, please.” Marylinne put her head on one side.

  “You gonna have your picture taken with your clothes on?” laughed Corelli hoarsely. “Why, I’d say that was indecent, wouldn’t you, Sam?”

  “I guess so.” As usual, Luenbach’s voice was cool; he had perfected the art of sounding distant from what was happening two feet away, even if he was part of it.

  “You ain’t gonna make no photographer climb them stairs for a camera unless you give ’em sumthin’ real good to shoot.”

  I looked at Corelli and shook my head. “Listen, I just want to swim,” I said feebly.

  “Hey now, come on now, babe,” he sang with a hypnotic lilt, clicking his fingers at Marylinne, “give her sumthin’ to snap – you too, Lacey!”

  Marylinne shrugged for a second, then burst into loud giggles. “Okay, Corelli, you got it,” she said, reaching behind her own back, undoing the scarlet bikini top, and throwing the small piece of sodden cloth at him with full force. Luenbach intercepted it with one hand, then held out the other hand towards Lace, silently, his palm open. She obeyed, but tossed her bikini top on to the paving at the edge of the pool.

  Tony Carl guffawed, and clapped.

  “What about Miranda?” said Marylinne coolly, standing now, her hands on her hips. Lace looked slyly at the other girl, who stood near her at the shallow end.

  “I got a one-piece on,” Miranda said.

  “Why, you could roll down the top,” replied Marylinne, “That’s how they like ’em in the newspapers. That’s how I was in my very first pictures.”

  “Why not?” said Miranda, but did nothing.

  “She’s shy, Lacey,” called Marylinne, grinning broadly, her large breasts shaking as she began to laugh.

  I could not stand it. The game was over, the frolicking of water rugby, the scoring, the laughter.

  I was about to say something when Luenbach spoke quietly. “Listen, Miranda, you touch your swimsuit and your father will hit the sky, okay? And, Marylinne” (his voice grew harsh), “just cool it, will you?”

  She stiffened, but pretended she had not heard. “Well, Babs,” she said, throwing her arms out wide, clowning, “you gonna take some pictures of me or not? Tell the truth now, you ain’t never seen nuthin’ so beautiful in your life!”

  “Yes, she has,” called Lace, folding her arms behind her head so that her breasts, unmarked by any tan lines, were taut, “she’s seeing me,”

  Corelli guffawed, “Luck-y lad-y!”

  “Getcha cameras!” shouted Tony Carl.

  I realised, to my amazement, that I was shaking, and sat down on the nearest white plastic chair. It was warm; my skin stuck to it right away.

  “I am not taking any pictures,” I said, extremely slowly.

  “Sure. She’s on holiday right now, kids,” said Luenbach.

  The game in the water continued in a desultory fashion, but everyone moved more slowly as if tired, and this time nobody asked me to join in.

  My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic. It was a birthday present; I can’t remember which year. We had never been a family for taking holiday pictures: no dog-eared albums in our sideboard commemorating time past, just odd black and white snaps loose in the drawers, some of them dated on the back, some not. The lack of dates pleased me later, when I went to clear out after she had died. Was that Blackpool in 1956 or 1957? All the summers in Cornwall merged: same weather, same rocks, same uneasy expression, squinting at the camera. Only we changed, getting older, the time of childhood as brief as those fleeting smiles at Dad’s Brownie: “Look at me, Barbara! Say cheese, James! Smile – both of you, smile!” Glower into the sun, but stretch the lips: “Hurry up, Dad, this is boring.”

  “Smile!” Click.

  I unwrapped the little camera in its box, and Dad quipped, “This is an idiot’s camera so you ought to be able to work it, love.”

  I had wanted oil paints. “What shall I take pictures of?” I asked, looking down at it.

  “Anything – stupid. Us. Your friends,” said James.

  “Scenery,” said my mother.

  At that I brightened. So it was that I started to accumulate little packets of identical pictures: distant grey hills and grey trees, and stretches of grey grass under grey skies, few of them even with any foreground detail to add interest. It was easier than painting; it always looked “right”. My eyes were the same, looking. But the gulf between eye and hand, in drawing and painting, was so often heartbreakingly wide, the messages lost somewhere in transmission, leaving nothing but crudeness and the sense of failure.

  Now I could look at the tree in the park, load the little cartridge, lift the Instamatic to snap – and there it was a couple of weeks later, when my mother collected my film from the chemist, grumbling at the cost. Even then I would take several pictures of one thing, like a precocious press photographer, profligate with film – because I was afraid I had not “got” it somehow, as if in the second before the shutter clicked the reality before me might be transformed into something else and betray me, as the image of beauty on the retina was lost in the painting. Of course, it never was.

  And, “God, your pictures are boring,” my brother jeered.

  “Why don’t you take different things?” said my mother.

  My father said, “Leave her alone, she’s learning.”

  I became obsessed by winter, walking around alone with my teenage angst, taking photographs of hard earth, bare branches, stormy skies, snow degenerating into slush, light glancing off rainwater puddles. It was then that I felt I belonged – the world, in all its monochromatic bleakness, pouring into me through my eyes, no gulf between subject and object at last.

  That was what taking pictures was all about.

  “Smile, please. SMILE.”

  That had nothing to do with me, attempting as it did to fix a lie about our life, that would lurk in a drawer, curling at the corners, to blame me years later, after a funeral.

  Gradually the pool emptied. Marylinne and Lace went towards the house, Miranda and Tony sprawled on lounger chairs, and closed their eyes as if to sleep.

  “It’s lookin’ good then?” asked Corelli. When Luenbach nodded, he rubbed his hands together. “I knew it. I just knew it.”

  “There’s few things you can’t handle when …” It was as if Luenbach was too languid to finish; instead he just rubbed his fingers and thumbs together.

  “Every-goddam-body’s gotta price, hey?” grinned Corelli.

  “You got it,” yawned Luenbach, stretching.

  I walked to the edge of the pool, gripped it with my toes, braced myself, and dived. It is as if a skin is left behind there on the surface, an old hot self sloughed off by the shock of cool water – to break up amongst the ripples on the surface and disappear for good. Stinging eyelids in turquoise and white light, breath knocking hard against your chest … and then up into the air again, purer now. Remade. Their faces were blurs; I thought I heard a little patter of applause for my dive, but took no notice. Twelve lengths I decided on, half-crawl, half-breast-stroke, glad that the pool was empty and I could put myself to the test. For I am not a strong swimmer, lazy as well, and I knew that the self-imposed task would be exhausting. In water, conquering it by degrees, you forget things; all that matters is that turn, and the feel of the side against the soles of your feet as you push off for another length.

  About halfway through this self-imposed test, I became aware of another two people coming to join the group by the pool. Anthony and Zandra were walking hand in hand, like a much younger couple; she waved to me briefly, expecting no response. Water rushed in my ears; my own breathing sounded harsh; my arms were aching.

  At last I counted twelve, and stopped, at the deep end, treading water with relief. Almost immediately a hand was stretched out to me. “Come on, hon, lemme help you ou
t. That was some piece of swimming,” said Anthony Carl, smiling down. He had to praise, to try to please, even for nothing. They were all grinning. The firework man walked past behind them carrying an enormous pointed rocket of the joke variety you see in cartoons – to which Tom will be tied by Jerry or Spike and catapulted up to the stars, his tail singed by gunpowder.

  “Shall we open some now?” asked Zandra.

  “Let’s wait till we’ve all changed. Let’s start the party off real well tonight,” Carl replied, throwing an arm around my shoulders. “Man, I can’t wait,” he added.

  Zandra handed me a towel from the neat pile that was always in a basket by the pool. “We’ve had good news, Babs,” she said, a little ripple in her voice, like music.

  Of course, I knew immediately. It was as if I was surrounded by huge, gleaming white tombstones, as all those mouths smiled at me at once.

  “Spiegleman’s worth every penny he charges,” said Carl.

  “You bet.” Corelli slapped his fat thigh in the loose shorts.

  “It’s all about contacts,” said Luenbach.

  “And money. Don’t forget the money,” said Carl, with a sudden, harder note of arrogance, as if he must be sure to claim the due that was his alone – his achievement because his cash.

  “Have you guessed, Babs?” asked Zandra, actually leaning forward to rub my shoulders within the towel – an intimacy from which I had to steel myself not to recoil.

  “I suppose you’ve heard … You’ll get your film in?” I said at last.

  “Got it in one!” yelped Carl, giving me a bear-hug, and almost dancing on the spot. I had to respond; in any case, it was hard not to. The sense of triumph and celebration was contagious.

  So I hugged him back, and even said, “Well done.”

  Over his shoulder I glanced up towards Annelisa’s window. It was wide open, black like the mouth of an old woman.

  Chapter Ten

  “Bottom line is – how far you prepared to go to break the law – speaking technically, you know? – when something a whole lot more important’s at stake?”

  Showered and changed, I approached the patio doors and the hot July evening, to hear Anthony Carl on his favourite subject, again. He was standing with Luenbach in a light drift of charcoal smoke, waving a pair of barbecue tongs. “No doubt about it, we made the right decision. All we need now is to have the premiere in Minnesota, and the born-again freaks’ll make such a noise they’ll get us millions of dollars worth of free publicity,” said Luenbach.

  “Coast to coast.” Carl punched him playfully on the arm.

  “Uhh huh!”

  “Oh man, am I gonna enjoy my first glass tonight!” Anthony threw down the tongs and rubbed his hands together. They rasped strangely; Carl’s hands were white and smooth – many years since they had worked, washing up for Emmeline after the brownies. This small dry sound, of his flesh meeting itself, was a measure of the strength of his feeling; he ground his palms together with triumphant glee.

  “You deserve it, Anthony,” said Luenbach, earnestly.

  “We all do, Sam,” Carl replied, with intensity.

  I felt that I had disturbed a secret act of mutual pleasure, of a kind that once got boys expelled from English schools. Joining them, I felt instinctively that they were sorry for the intrusion, although the smiles were as broad as ever, politely barring the outsider. I was glad we were not long alone; Tony and Miranda came round the corner from the pool at the same time that Corelli and Mrs Carl followed me through the patio doors. Zandra called from the kitchen for someone to help her, and David Sternberg joined the group, carrying a beer for the man who had fixed up the fireworks. In the sudden bustle, punctuated by compliments on everyone’s appearance (for Emmeline admired her son’s shirt, as he commented how pretty my hair looked caught up with combs, and Luenbach bent, with exaggerated gallantry, over Emmeline’s be-ringed hand), I looked around for Annelisa.

  Upstairs, I had hesitated outside her bedroom door. Who should tell her the news but me? I knew the answer, and yet I stopped, and the pause became longer and longer in the quietness of the landing. My wet hair clung to my shoulders, I shivered, but at last went to my own room, closing the door very quietly behind me. “After all, it’s not your fault,” I said aloud to the Medusa face, framed by dripping snakes, that frowned at me from the mirror.

  Sometimes I have a dream that every mirror I face will be black. And I would like to put Annelisa there, before each of them, making her look into the blankness, photographing her astonishment and fear each time; then I would mount all these little images in rows, calling my picture, “The Secret of Narcissism”. Of course, it’s too late now. But I could do it with somebody else … On second thoughts, I do not need the face. Not any more. Today I took three little mirrors, and arranged them on my photocopier, suspecting that the light would make them gleam in the copy. I wanted no light. And to my great joy there were three dull black circles, their pretty frames crisp against the white background. Just lately I have used the machine many times in this way; these are copies of reality which divest me finally of any control, and therefore of responsibility. I think my little scraps of A4 – bearing the ghostly images of small objects I arranged on the plate – have more in them of art than all the photographs my cameras have taken.

  So I did not tell Annelisa, and now I waited for her to arrive. By the time she did, Marylinne and Lace had come down, and Anthony had already popped open three bottles of champagne. The terrace felt crowded; eleven people talked too loudly, taking the cue from their host, and David Sternberg refilled glasses when they were half-empty.

  “I’m not gonna propose the toast till she’s here,” said Carl.

  “She’ll be here soon,” said Emmeline. “Got to make herself look extra pretty, now, ’cos it’s an extra special evening.”

  “Too right.”

  “I’m surprised she’s taking so long to make herself look good,” hummed Marylinne, idly stroking the thick twist of golden hair that hung down over one shoulder. The men laughed.

  “You wanna saucer of milk, pussy cat?” snorted Corelli at last, slapping her on the behind so that she staggered playfully, champagne spraying from her glass.

  “Now then, now then, let’s not spoil our happy family,” murmured Emmeline, “and especially on the Fourth. You hear me now, Marylinne?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Marylinne spoke very quietly. The blue eyes were wide and obedient but the mouth sullen. In contrast, Emmeline’s face was a less predictable contradiction, the mouth smiling gently as usual but the eyes steely, tolerating no opposition. She laid a gnarled hand, like a claw, on Marylinne’s arm.

  “I’m not sure I heard you a-right, dear.”

  “I said, yes, ma’am” said the girl, loudly, but dropping her gaze as if in defeat.

  Corelli chuckled deep in his throat. “She sure takes some taming, this one,” he said.

  On a trestle behind us, the food was laid out ready for the barbecue: huge crimson steaks edged with creamy-yellow fat, sitting in a seepage of bright blood; chicken drumsticks smeared with a sweet blackish marinade which dripped off the edge of the dish; jagged red chunks of lamb spiked on skewers, with green peppers, scarlet tomatoes and the deathly pale caps of mushrooms in between, each kebab sweating olive oil; a mound of pinkish-white sausages curled like entrails on a plate. There were salads, cold new potatoes, a dish of mayonnaise, squat loaves, and bowls of potato chips and peanuts.

  “Don’t you think it looks fantastic?” Emmeline said, to no one in particular. “Just like one of those photographs of food you see in the magazines.”

  “Yes,” I said, staring at the display, for that was what it was. Or a statement. Either way, Emmeline could only speak about it by comparing it to an image, only make it real by reference to the unreal. What if she were right, I thought, and we ourselves were all photographs of people who had once lived, now decayed as the food in those cookery shots melts and curdles and stiffens under the lights? A
nd each smile there, once brief, now fixed forever?

  Annelisa was wearing black. The dress had no back, and was caught at the waist with a long silk sash in shocking pink, that drifted out beside her as she walked. Her lipstick matched its colour exactly, the outline sharply defined with a darker crimson pencil. The gold sandals, jarred, surprising me. It was not like her to have forgotten to bring pink or black ones – but then, she had packed in a hurry with David Sternberg bullying her. The bruise on her arm was still there, though faint.

  “Here she is!”

  “Honey, you look beautiful!”

  She smiled at them all, aloof and queenly, holding out her hand for a glass with the graciousness of one who knows that her acceptance is a favour. That floating confidence made me suspect she had been snorting cocaine again. But what if she had? I thought, in sudden sympathy, that if I were her I should need it.

  Carl stood next to her, his arm around her shoulders, and raised his glass. Oh no, I thought, don’t tell her now, not in front of everybody … How would she respond? I dreaded hysteria, the collapse of that perfect face, their anger. Above all I wanted to protect the big dumb creature from their anger, as if she were a circus creature unable to perform its tricks, and the ringmaster cracking his whip in vain, and the crowd baying …

  “Okay, folks, before we start the evening’s eating … let me propose a toast. Here’s to the first of what’s gonna be many successes for Emperor Films – The Nights of Penelope!”

  “The Nights of Penelope” they chorused.

  Raising my glass a fraction, I said nothing, watching Annelisa carefully. Her face did not change. She looked at Carl with exquisite casualness, and asked, “You had good news then, Anthony?”

  “We sure have. The telephone wires been buzzin’ all weekend, and all I’m gonna say is that we’ve fixed those ol’ customs real good, and so there’s nothing to stop us having a big box office smash hit on our hands.”