The Fountain of St. James Court; Or, Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  Kathryn was a friend, or at least unfailingly friendly, and then, of course, despite being a published writer, Kathryn had experienced her own disappointments. Three husbands. Not one good and faithful man whose happiness lay in making his wife happy. This, Shirley had for herself (though they had lost the house on Belgravia and found it necessary to move into the St. James flats). St. James Court was an upstart compared with Belgravia, where most of the houses dated back to the 1880s. Shirley zipped her robe a little higher to the top of its mandarin collar, so that the robe was neat and fashionable as well as comfortable.

  Still, the view here on the Court was interesting to her—St. James and its fountain. But what a din it made, all that rushing water calling attention to itself! Belgravia maintained a quiet elegance.

  It doesn’t beat, it gushes, Shirley thought suddenly, of the heart, remembering the home she’d left on Belgravia Court. She grieved, too, for the bank where she’d worked, the other women, but losing her home! It was as though a vital organ had been taken from her own body. She thought of her former fireplace, not a mere Victorian mantel of natural wood, a few spindles and a dull, oblong mirror, but a work of art, glazed tiles, a rich, black-hued blue, not a one cracked or missing. Cobalt blue. The tiles were from the same famous Cincinnati manufacturer who had tiled the Rathskeller in the basement of the Seelbach Hotel downtown.

  Whenever Kathryn had visited Shirley and Trevor on Belgravia and a real fire burned briskly (Shirley’s husband knew exactly how to build and tend it), Kathryn always said, “Why, that’s the most gorgeous fireplace I know, the blue surrounding the orange-red!” She said it with real joy, a generosity of admiration, which was one of the reasons Shirley liked her. Kathryn could take pleasure in what belonged to others.

  She and Kathryn recognized what was truly unique and admirable in each other, never mind the warts. Theirs was a realistic neighborliness, Shirley thought. She clenched her fist and then spread her fingers. That was where the strength and beauty of a good neighbor lay—in being realistic, honest. Each knew and forgave the other’s shortcomings. Forgiveness like smooth vanilla pudding, they offered each other. Shirley smiled.

  But Kathryn had never shared a deep trouble with Shirley, as she had with Daisy, who still lived on Belgravia. Shirley thought of a time when Shirley and Kathryn and a few of Daisy’s other women friends had accepted an invitation to tea at Daisy’s house, and Kathryn had suddenly talked about desperate times. Not the economy. She had told about her personal traumas in an offhand way, at first, then she had become overwhelmed with emotion.

  Kathryn, in the presence of Shirley and the guests, had said how when she was really overwhelmed, back when both Kathryn and Daisy lived in the Highlands before they moved to Old Louisville, how Kathryn, desperate, had simply found herself, twice, on Daisy’s doorstep, knocking at the door. Both times, Daisy just took one look at me—she hadn’t been expecting me—and she said, “Why, Kathryn, won’t you come in and have a cup of tea.”

  Shirley knew Kathryn was telling the stories to honor Daisy and not because she trusted Shirley or the other guests with privileged information. They scarcely mattered; Kathryn just wanted them to understand that Daisy was a special person. It was an honor to be invited to the home Daisy and her husband, Daniel, shared on Belgravia. A bitterness came into Shirley’s mouth.

  The tale of how Kathryn had turned to Daisy was about how Kathryn had finally taken her mother to the nursing home. A late bloomer, Kathryn had been on the cusp of publishing her first book with a small university press; it was long ago. As soon as she left her mother at the nursing home, Kathryn had come to Daisy for succor. It was the only place I knew to go, Kathryn told the neighbors over tea. And ah, yes, five years before that, Kathryn had broken down over enrolling her darling young son in day care.

  Life’s turning points were things people just had to get around, like corners, Shirley had remarked sagely, before she bit into one of the delicious tea-cake cookies Daisy had provided. In response, all the other guests, but neither Kathryn nor Daisy, had silently nodded in agreement.

  What an excess of feeling had gushed out of Kathryn, despite Shirley’s wise, objective tone! Holding one of Daisy’s nicest teacups with the fingertips of both hands, Kathryn had allowed twin rivulets of tears to course down her cheeks and fall from her jawline. Her mother, so old and defenseless; her son, still a toddler—probably that was what she was recollecting.

  Not the least worried about causing the tea to be spilled, Daisy had reached over and touched Kathryn’s hand. You did what you had to do, Daisy had said in a firm, even voice. But the writer still felt guilty though the event was long ago. What did ordinary readers of Kathryn’s novels know about her instability? Her confusion? Or was it grief? Yes, it was grief, not guilt, Shirley was sure. An excess of grief.

  Shirley had felt that unwanted surge too, sometimes. Not that she had let on. When they had to leave their home on Belgravia for the St. James condo, for instance.

  Kathryn was behaving as though she had killed her child or her mother, or killed something in herself, when she took him to day care and her to the nursing home to live. Those were just natural things to do; it fell to most people to have to do one or the other, if not both.

  Shirley regarded the two square planters that fitted into the corners of her balcony. The plump little yellow chrysanthemums nudged each other in a way that suggested a cup of Lemon Zinger tea. Given air, sun, and water—and she had plenty of all of those elements on her balcony—her chrysanthemums should flourish till hard frost. From one planter, Shirley plucked out unwelcome yellow leaves and tossed them over the railing. It was a rather grand gesture, her flinging of leaves off the third-floor balcony.

  As she turned her attention from the concrete planters to her narrow flower boxes hanging from the iron railing, Shirley realized that Kathryn’s mistake, based on vanity as well as good intentions, was that she thought she could and should have any and all of the goodness of life; Kathryn didn’t like feeling she was incapable of achieving whatever she wished. That was it: Kathryn believed she was entitled to any and all of the goodness of life.

  But sometimes—no one knew this truth better than Shirley—you couldn’t take care of others the way you’d wish to do. Maybe people who had enough money could, but most people couldn’t. Not with Alzheimer’s. Shirley had had to take her own father to a home, and it wasn’t very nice either, though it was the best they could afford. It stank.

  Across the Court, Kathryn, in her sloppy clothes, had descended the semicircular steps of her house and was studying a few pink blossoms on the autumn sedum (or live-forever, as Shirley’s father would have called it; he had loved plants). Now Kathryn proceeded toward the sidewalk, down her double-wide walkway between her magnolia trees, which from Shirley’s high angle were towering piles of still-shiny green leaves while all other foliage was turning colors. Kathryn stepped lightly down three more steps to the public sidewalk. She lifted her head to look at the fountain, then turned right, scuffing her feet through the brilliant red leaves the maple tree had dropped. Acting like she’s a schoolgirl again, Shirley thought. Kathryn’s head was bowed as if she were interested in the pavement or the fallen leaves.

  Perhaps this was a moment when the past was all too present for Kathryn, just as it was for Shirley sometimes. Juggling all those balls from the past, the present, and the future exhausts the mind, causes you to look down to avoid the world hanging all around you. You want to think, to focus, to sort it all out, what’s happened and why. Headed south toward Belgravia Court, Kathryn kept her eyes on her laced-up walking shoes. She hadn’t looked across the Court to see who might be out on her balcony; she hadn’t waved.

  It wasn’t usual for Kathryn to walk like this in the morning; early in the day was when she did her writing; dusk was the time for absentminded walking. It was in the evening when Shirley and Trevor were walking the little dogs that they encountered Kathryn, exchanged pleasantries. Because Trevor though
t she was famous, he didn’t want to stare at her and embarrass her, but then he would go and address her by a nickname! Just one quick glance, then Trevor would say in a friendly voice, “Good evening, Ryn.”

  Why would her husband make up an ugly nickname just as though he understood her in some special way! Kathryn was a lovely name. Ryn sounded like part of rent, not what you pay for lodging but rent like a tear in a piece of cloth, like in the Bible when a person rent his clothes to show his grief.

  Maybe Shirley’s slightly famous neighbor had finished her novel and didn’t need her best brain, as she called it, this morning. She could waste it on a walk. Shirley hoped so (she sighed); she knew how hard Kathryn worked at the writing. Hours and hours. Sometimes, like last night, even burning the midnight oil. Thank God, they had had regular hours at the bank. People needed regular hours or life fell apart. On the other hand, Shirley knew that sometimes a writer got stalled. What would that feel like to Kathryn?

  Kathryn’s library light had been burning last night when Shirley went to bed at eleven. Since the plantation shutters had been left open, Shirley had noticed Ryn seated at her large white desk, in front of the computer. Stalled, probably.

  Shirley heard a car coming too fast rushing down the west lane of St. James Court. She welcomed the diversion. It was tough just being home all day. When the driver passed Kathryn’s house, she saw him swivel his head quickly to look at the house, not the fountain. He had bright red hair. Kathryn was already halfway to Belgravia Court, and she paid no attention when the speeding car passed her. Rather recklessly, the car looped around the south end of the court and sped up the east lane, right under Shirley’s balcony. She couldn’t see the driver much now, just a glimpse before the car was too directly below, but the way he had dashed past Kathryn’s house reminded Shirley of somebody. Not in a real hurry to get where he was going after all, this too-fast driver, since he had turned around at the south end and come back. Or lost and confused.

  It was an old car, pea green, long and heavy, with some sort of mod orange drawing painted on the passenger door. Probably a substitute door that hadn’t been on the original car. Not a bad-looking fellow, red hair and all. Then she remembered Humphrey’s old boyfriend. That was who he’d reminded Shirley of. The way he drove had a sort of contempt in it. She hoped it wasn’t him. In the end he had made Humphrey miserable, and Kathryn had gone to Atlanta to help her son move out.

  Shirley imagined Kathryn standing like a peace totem between the two young men in Atlanta. Packed boxes and suitcases or satchels were scattered around. The other guy had gotten the cat, pure white, a glamorous powder-puff cat, and the big dog.

  Probably not Humphrey’s old partner. But what about the way the driver just wheeled into St. James Court and then turned around at the south end and raced back north again, fast? He hadn’t paid any attention to the fountain. It was the main thing to look at. Most people slowed down at least a little, and hardly anyone ever drove fast; the west lane and the east lane were single lanes, too narrow for fast driving even if they were one-way passages. The lone driver could have exited at the south end, turning either left or right into Hill Street, though turning left was rather hazardous as visibility was limited. Shirley knew she was a careful observer. That was the way to make sense of things. And to make very few mistakes at the bank.

  Why had they let her go? No chance now of a trip to England for her and Trevor. Kathryn and Humphrey had gone to England that spring when he broke up with the bad boyfriend. Humphrey and his mother were awfully close—always celebrating this or that together. Traveling at the drop of a hat.

  From the flower box hanging on the iron railing, Shirley plucked out a baby oak tree. Planted by a squirrel probably. All her hanging flowers were blue. Plumbago, which had done well, lasting well into autumn. They were bright blue, restful and spritely all at once, like chips of the October sky. Nothing but blue plumbago in her narrow boxes, like a blue horizon hanging along the railings in front of the balcony; the bright blue flowers had a unifying, elegant effect that way. What with the sturdy yellow chrysanthemums in the concrete planters, the colors reminded Shirley of the way French painters sometimes liked to pair the colors blue and yellow.

  Kathryn’s yard always had a huge mixture of colors; her chrysanthemums now were an autumnal medley: rust, gold, bronze, yellow, snowy white, dark red. The statement they made was too complex. Confused, actually, or greedy, this trying to have any and all. Kathryn was out of sight now, around the corner walking west on Belgravia.

  KATHRYN HALF HOPED she would run into her friends Daisy or Daniel on Belgravia. She was beginning to feel that this morning was a morning to reconnect with the world. Daisy and Daniel never held her writing hibernations against her. And there was the ginkgo tree at the south end of the Court: completely, uniformly gold. It lacked variety and complexity, but it was a tree that excelled in consistency. Pure, bushy gold every fall.

  III

  RITES OF AUTUMN

  FOUNTAIN

  YES, THIS IS AUTUMN, at the height of her splendor, Kathryn thought as morning yawned and elongated itself, and I’m glad I’m free to enjoy it, whether Yves visits or not. She lifted her arms over her head, laced her fingers, and stretched. Autumn. Oh wild west wind, thou breath of autumn’s being!—Percy Bysshe Shelley. But that would come later. Now it was blue sky and colors galore; she admired the five-pointed yellow leaves, like a star or a hand, of a sweet gum tree against the sky. The prickly sweet gum balls swayed like balls on a jester’s costume. Her muscles were warmed up, and now she would walk more quickly; she would get twenty minutes of good exercise before she met Peter in the park at eleven thirty.

  Some two weeks earlier, when the St. James Art Fair weekend was in full swing, the sidewalks of St. James Court and Belgravia and the walks of Fourth Street and even Third Street had been full of people browsing the rows of tents: pottery, furniture, jewelry, clothing, photographs, rugs, sculptures, woodcuts, yard ornaments, stained glass, oil paintings, purses, watercolors, and hats—the whole array. For more than fifty years, artist-vendors from all over the country had converged every October on Old Louisville; Kathryn loved the medieval feel of it. A harvest homage to beauty, handmade, individualized, worthy. This autumn weather had been sunny and mild. Perfect.

  And the trodden grass had been tilled and replanted on Monday, the very next day after the booths were folded, stowed, and removed in vans and trucks, late Sunday.

  As she turned west down Belgravia, Kathryn thought of the cyclical order that Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun had brought to her old age: fall and winter in Paris amidst a cultural scene full of theater, opera, music, parties; in spring and summer she fled the city to live her days simply, close to nature in the countryside.

  When Kathryn was a child, she had loved the academic excitement of the beginning of school and the robust fulfillment of autumn. By the time the leaves changed, the semester was in full sway. It was a blessing to have continuity in her life—first a student, then a teacher. Down through the decades, the rhythm of the academic year had given order to her life. Except for math, she had loved all her studies, literature best of all. Reading was pure pleasure, but in college, full of philosophical imperatives, she wanted to choose a profession that made life more possible for other people, in an essential—no, existential—way. I want to do something that counts, she had told Giles, the smartest of the smart. He had looked at her wonderingly, without comment. (And what was that pain she glimpsed behind his intelligence? She felt kin to him, essentially, yes, essentially.)

  “In what way,” their perceptive English professor, Dr. Abernethy, had asked the undergraduates, “are Pip of Great Expectations and Huck Finn alike?” No one knew. But she did know this much: that the answer, whatever it was, would be of tremendous importance to the young man across the aisle, to Giles, whose direction was all uncertainty. She held her breath. The skilled professor left a few moments of silence so that the students could adequately plumb the depths of
their ignorance.

  “Both are boys in search of a father,” Dr. Abernethy had explained. And class ended.

  As they stepped through the classroom door into the hall, Giles had said, without looking at her (she knew his eyes were glazed with tears), “So how can you doubt, Kathryn, that literature fails to do good in the world?”

  I know, I know, she had answered.

  If literature helped to still the confusion of just one extraordinary person, had it not earned its keep as an appropriate lifework? Yes! She had rejoiced. Now she could take the path of reading and writing. Yes! No need to be a social worker or a medical missionary. No need to worship the Bible, when literature also had its truths. Its essential truths. A truth that cleared the vision for one whom she loved, for she had loved Giles more than anyone. That was enough to justify the entire existence and study of literature. (And perhaps she could write fiction, too?)

  Giles was dead before he turned twenty-one. A car accident.

  Loss, loss, loss. Was that what she was cut out for? Death and divorce. Why? Why not?

  Ryn told herself she was more experienced at divorce now; the loss itself was less devastating. But there was a silence in the house, and her soul felt saturated with disappointment. And of course her age made it harder to be alone. The quiet and narrow sidewalk of Belgravia Court felt comforting to her. Belgravia Court had its own hushed timelessness: no traffic, no cars even visible, a real retreat to an earlier era; here were narrow sidewalks with discrete little gutters running beside them and the lovely new emerald grass standing as upright as a boy’s crew cut. Belgravia held change at bay. It was the domain of healthy pet cats lounging peacefully on porches or stalking birds. The birds and squirrels of Belgravia were wary, well versed in the nature of cats.