Loving Sylvie

by Elizabeth Smither

  Why, she asked herself, as finally she lay back, making the other effigy, the consort, with one arm straight by her side and the other now lightly touching her husband’s hand. It was uncomfortable to sleep on her back for long but it seemed important to locate herself firmly where she was before sleep came. But the strong hold of early impressions, of the toy and the book, could never be undone. They had seized on such deep and receptive soil that she would carry them with her until her last breath. She could only be aware, alert. Pied beauty and dappled things.

  One strong image came to her before she closed her eyes until morning. She could practically see the comic book, passed from hand to hand or hidden inside an exercise book. The scene of the rescue occupied a whole page. On the left-hand page the girl dived, her gym frock and stockings left on a rock. Then the rescued girl was led off with a towel over her shoulders, a weeping helpless figure. The mysterious girl, with the page to herself, put on her stockings and shoes again, and though figures watched, and probably praised, the silence that had surrounded her remained. It was as clear to Isobel as love, or moonlight, wet grass, rain, sea breezes. As clear and troubling to her heart as Sylvie.

  Rain-scented air was coming through the window when Isobel woke. It was her favourite scent, the air suddenly freshened and laden with moisture like a separate air, loosely held together. The leaves of the elm were turning towards the moisture and drops ran into the cupped leaves. Two thoughts came to her: that aging cannibals ate human flesh to restore their youth—that came from a book on the South Seas—and second that, like the tree, she had work to do. But for the moment she surreptitiously stretched her feet towards the bed end, noticing the creak in her knees, as if something was flowing and then blocked. Beside her Kit slept on, at ease, undoubtedly enjoying the soft moist air.

  The day would not wait. Her old friend, Lillian Thorpe, was in hospital, and Isobel must press through the swing doors and walk with a confidence she could not feel along the polished corridor—it reflected her shoes back to her—in search of the label bearing her friend’s name. She dreaded that Lillian might have been moved overnight to one of the private rooms she passed first: rooms in which could be glimpsed bodies in strange states of semi-nudity—a grossly fat man with his billowing stomach exposed, lolling as if beached; a sleeping woman with her mouth open and vacant eyes. She would need to prepare some words if that happened: the pleasure of privacy and a television high on the wall.

  But Lillian was still in the ward with five other beds. One woman was sitting primly on a chair, waiting to be collected: her breast lump had turned out to be nothing more than a cyst, Lillian confided, and it seemed to Isobel that the woman’s stature had diminished and she looked almost apologetic. Her friend seemed more concentrated on this little group of strangers, each in their own domain, though there were no boundaries except curtains. Some kind of common humanity was operating, and after quarter of an hour Isobel thought she was glad of it. It freed her as well as Lillian: their talk could be desultory, casual. Isobel had once taken a first-aid course where realistic-looking plastic wounds were applied to skin: gaping lips in need of suturing, a savagely torn ear that would require a complicated head bandage. Isobel had wound what seemed like yards of gauze around the head of the woman who was her partner as she lay on the floor.

  Now Lillian’s glance returned to the women whose biographies she already knew. The son of the woman who was being discharged arrived and a sigh of relief filled the room. But who wouldn’t want to be an imposter in such a place, Isobel thought, as with a half-turn and a wave she was in the corridor again, passing through the swing door and moving close to the wall to avoid a passing trolley.

  Was everything about human beings perverse? Isobel wondered as she came out into the fresh air. She knew from experience that illness erected barriers, perhaps with its last strength. Lillian could hardly fail to have noticed Isobel’s surreptitious glances at her face which while her husband was alive had never been seen naked.

  ‘Is this true?’ Isobel had once asked her, astonished, as she sat on the bed behind her and watched the application of layers that led to a porcelain beauty.

  ‘It was not exactly in the marriage contract,’ Lillian replied, ‘but it was something he asked for and I granted.’

  Isobel’s own makeup had stopped at some halfway station: a moisturising cream like the cold cream used in the theatre, a concealer around her eyes and over her cheekbones, a liquid she poured a dab of into her palm and smoothed over the rest of her face. But Lillian had gone on, like someone venturing deeper into Siberia, until her skin was entirely obliterated and an artificial but very beautiful flush rose through the layers.

  They had been staying in a hotel and now they walked down the stairs to breakfast. The heads of men turned to gaze at Lillian. In the lift mirror Isobel caught a glimpse of her own unfinished face and felt diminished. If Isobel could have chosen between the naked face and the porcelain one she would have chosen the porcelain one, if she could have had the speech that went with it. For it seemed that once her friend’s mask was in place her speech became uninhibited, blunt and challenging. The effort of making up her face—it took an hour and she’d set an alarm clock so she could attend to it before her husband woke (they had adjoining rooms)—made up her spirit at the same time. At the breakfast table she made notes of things to attend to while her husband buried himself in a newspaper. Or she leaned her face on one hand and gazed into the distance, knowing she was noticed and admired.

  ‘Absurd,’ Kit had said when Isobel’s semi-naked face was nestled in his shoulder and her nightgown was in a ball at the bottom of the bed.

  Kit had felt affronted on Lillian’s behalf. He would revoke the treaty and draw up another. The naked face, like the body he was clutching, would gradually be revealed.

  Isobel got in her car and drove home from the hospital. She drove over patches of melting tar and around roadworks where a lollipop man held up a STOP sign. As she waited she wound down the window and leaned her elbow out of the car, exactly the way Lillian did when she was about to make a serious pronouncement. Now there were no serious pronouncements, all the firmer for having been issued behind a flawless mask. Now there were just murmurs behind a screen or someone calling plaintively for a bedpan. Isobel felt that Lillian, with her bare face, would never concentrate on her again.

  Sylvie’s term as a tutor had been renewed—her useless degree, if measured in commercial terms, had still brought her respite. The exam results had been posted and most of her students had passed; one girl had achieved excellence.

  Now she was meeting Isobel for lunch. A park bench had been proposed, but Isobel preferred a table and chair, and they had settled on a little Basque restaurant close to the park where they could walk later. Sylvie was early, so she passed the time looking into the shop windows with their dresses designed by fashion students. Nothing resembling them was ever seen on the street, though plenty of young people were passing. It seemed everyone had their own style and was anxious to show it; the tartan dress she was gazing at was cut in a way that suggested anarchy: the waist was swathed in sashes and the skirt had hanging threads.

  Suddenly Isobel was beside her, dressed in an old but classic suit, its long skirt deeply slit, showing a glimpse of fine hose. The pearls that Sylvie hoped one day might be hers—though such matters were never discussed—warmed her throat. But her grandmother’s face was paler than usual and her breathing was shallow. She understood the need for a seat.

  ‘Are you well?’ Sylvie asked.

  It was what Isobel would have said. Not ‘Are you all right?’ Somehow her grandmother always implied the answer mattered.

  ‘Not very well,’ she said, ‘but better for seeing you.’

  They sat at a table near the window where they could watch the passers-by.

  When Sylvie was a child, missing her mother more for the fact of not having one, Isobel had used the word ‘Darling’ often. It flew around Sylvie when she was
five or six, and then when she was seven it stopped. Isobel told her that seven was the age of reason and the soft caressing word had served its purpose. It would always be there, under the surface. It could be taken for granted. She thought too that if other children overheard it Sylvie could be embarrassed. Isobel had never believed in reinforcement beyond a certain point.

  To mark the age of reason Isobel had taken Sylvie to her first pantomime. Afterwards they had gone backstage to meet the pantomime dame and Sylvie had found it more exciting than the play itself. Clutching Isobel’s hand, which she didn’t let go until they were in the daylight again, she had taken deep breaths of greasepaint, dusting powder and cold cream, which the actor was smearing liberally on his cheeks while dragging on a cigarette.

  ‘Darling’ had come a loud voice from the doorway, and one of the actresses had squeezed herself in. Isobel and Sylvie had exchanged a smile and Sylvie had understood.

  Now while their orders were being brought Sylvie stole glances at her grandmother’s face. Isobel must have observed her, for she said sharply, ‘Just look. We’re not in a spy movie.’

  But Sylvie had turned away her head. Everything about her grandmother was connected with strictures. She could feel them hovering behind her chair and yet, strangely, she knew Isobel exercised an iron control: for every stricture spoken there were several delegated, sent back for revision or discarded altogether. And between them—‘Look harder’ was one—flowed something that could not be divided into bars or lines, an affection that was too harsh for such a soft word, that contained aches and fears and even action. As the waiter came with their tapas Sylvie remembered that Isobel had proven herself capable of writing anonymous letters, disguising her voice on the phone, investigating adding sugar (what kind of sugar, white or brown?) to a petrol tank, acquiring a Stanley knife in case she plucked up the courage to slash a tyre—though how deep would the slash need to be and where on the tyre and was length more effective than depth?

  Now Isobel was looking her firmly in the eye and Sylvie was trying to take small bites of her frittata and wondering if she could manage a cake.

  ‘Married life,’ Isobel said suddenly, cutting a croquette in half and peering at the inside. ‘Does it agree with you?’

  ‘So far,’ said Sylvie. She had half a black olive in her mouth and was savouring the taste. So far, she said to herself, but how could anyone tell? It was there in that tiny phrase, so far from comforting, so far to go. Already she was beginning to feel reined in, though other things were coming undone. Sometimes she wondered what Ben saw in her or whether he considered himself her rescuer. It was a view his mother might promote. In time she might measure up. Luckily, looking into Isobel’s eyes calmed her. She reached out and touched the fine skin on the back of Isobel’s hand.

  On Sundays she and Ben stayed in bed or lounged about, or they went out, holding hands and swinging their arms, refusing to uncouple when the incoming crowds would force them apart, as if this physical message could be translated to their emotions. Sylvie wore no makeup and her damp hair from the shower dried in the sun. They chose somewhere to eat that was dark and mysterious.

  Today Isobel did not feel like the park, so they went to the art gallery. There was a travelling exhibition of portraits, the winner and runners-up in a prestigious competition, but Sylvie felt bored. So few of the subjects seemed to look at the viewer. She felt she would have preferred a glare the second she stood on the threshold to the austere white room with its high ceiling and plaster rose from which hung a chandelier. A dark baleful glare that since it belonged to another century need not wait upon manners to show its distaste at being observed.

  Isobel, however, was soon absorbed. She sat on a low settle and gazed at the winning portrait: a face that looked as if the artist had taken to it with a palette knife, removing layers of skin and exposing cheekbones, eye sockets. ‘Before Treatment’ was the title, and it was a face too desperate and self-absorbed to look at anyone. I must look at you, Isobel thought. You have nothing to offer back. Perhaps there was a style of portraiture devoted to introversion, that implied an interest in the outside world was at best a sham and real experience was always internal. She looked around for Sylvie and found her peering at a portrait of a baby in a bonnet.

  ‘Let’s go further back,’ Isobel said, taking her arm.

  In the doorway of the 18th Century Portrait Gallery eyes leapt at them as if a hunt was in progress and they, the portraits, were the hunters. Not a single face was pleasant: pretty and spoilt, with trappings taken from their rooms. Long satin dresses trailed on carpets, long bony hands touched a shadowy globe as though patting a child’s head. Two young foxy foppish men curled their lips sardonically. Sylvie felt she would like to meet them.

  Later, when they were walking down High Street again, she examined men’s faces as they passed. But she saw none as confident, none with a sneer that suggested powerful connections and great wealth. One young man she looked at turned his head and looked back, but Sylvie lightly shook her head. That at least hadn’t changed: the way human beings scrutinised one another, a brief summing up that might be true or false but was also quick and deadly.

  In Paris Madame Récamier was ailing. Her daughter Margaux had arrived from Tours but could stay only for a week. She contacted Madeleine and asked if she could come. Her mother was being extraordinarily querulous, as if all the childhood instructions Margaux had not acted on must be repeated. The air was full of unsaid things, complaints and love that neither knew when to offer. At least Madeleine was inured to her mother’s scolding.

  Every afternoon Madeleine received her quota of aphorisms. A nurse came in the morning to bathe and dress, arrange Madame Récamier’s hair. Some afternoons she sat in a chair, knees covered with a rug, a bolster pillow at her back. One afternoon Madeleine was surprised to find Madame’s hair down, a long grey cascade reaching almost to her waist.

  ‘My bridal hair,’ Madame Récamier said. Nothing could have made her look older. Did every bride become a witch? ‘It used to be a sign,’ she explained. ‘Your hair was taken up to signify womanhood and then on the wedding night it was let down.’

  Perhaps to cover blushes, Madeleine thought. Or to give the man something to stroke.

  ‘I want you to cut it off,’ Madame Récamier said. ‘I want to feel lightheaded before I die.’

  Useless for Madeleine to protest she had never cut hair in her life, except for Sylvie’s, and that had been only to trim an overlong fringe while she slept or to cut a curl to take with her to Paris.

  Madame Récamier’s will seemed to have grown stronger as death approached. ‘As if I care about fashion,’ she said. All the protocols of the bookshop were forgotten: the careful pyramid of books in the window, the latest John Barth or Kurt Vonnegut. Forgotten too were the feather dusters on their long handles that Madame Récamier had wielded like a Folies dancer, one in each hand. There was one old gentleman whose neck she coquettishly tickled … ‘Well, what have you got for me, Madame?’ customers would ask, and she would appraise them, considering if they were worthy of new paper and ink and marker ribbons.

  One strong cut with the scissors—the same that opened parcels and sheared through tape—and the hair began to fall on the carpet. In this nearly last act Madeleine was almost as bold as Madame Récamier could wish. Soon the neck was revealed, then the ears. In the mirror Madame’s eyes shone with a queer light; Madeleine took care not to meet them. Finally it was done: a boyish cut with two wings from the centre parting softening the face which had emerged.

  ‘Stare as much as you like, child. No one is going to feast their eyes for much longer.’

  But Madeleine, in order to gain the courage to inspect her handiwork, had fallen on her knees and was sweeping up the cascade of hair. Clumps and miniature tangled nests that a bird might seize on with delight. She took one of the book boxes and packed it inside. Then, because Madame insisted, they sat side by side, gazing at their two faces in the mirror.

>   One afternoon, not long after she first arrived in Paris, Madeleine had found herself in Saint-Sulpice, looking at plaques, testing her rudimentary French on their inscriptions, moving from altar to altar, when a funeral procession appeared. Uncertain what to do, what protocols might apply, she slunk towards the back of the church and sat in one of the hard wooden chairs. In her hand she held a pamphlet about choir practices.

  The little group of mourners, elegant in black, were clustered in the Lady Chapel towards which Madeleine had been moving. The coffin was mounted on a bier surrounded by a circle of bouquets and wreaths. Directly under it was a tub of white chrysanthemums. Choir practices every Tuesday and Sunday after High Mass, Madeleine read. She could sing, but in French it would be impossible. That morning she had been demoralised by a small boy in a school crocodile rolling his Rrrrs on a pedestrian crossing. Finally the priest and the altar boys, the cross held aloft, lined up and the mourners fell in behind. Their self-assurance, for there was a sense of exclusiveness, as if death was the final elegance, increased Madeleine’s loneliness. When the door was closed again and the great shaft of light gone, the undertakers came back and removed the flowers. A wreath was looped over an arm and the great tub was lifted and cradled.

  It is from Saint-Sulpice that Madame Récamier will be farewelled. When the gazing in the mirror was done and Madame had patted her neck several times and examined her ears, she had instructed Madeleine to fetch a bottle of Napoleon brandy and to open her safe.