covers, travels in Europe. “You have the features,” she said, running fingers over Beth’s cheeks. “These are magazine-cover bones. You have a fortune in your face, we can go anywhere, you can accomplish anything we decide on.”
Accomplish?
The word jarred, began to sound like something vaguely hard and opposing.
That was a long time ago. Soon Beth will be thirty. Sometimes she can nearly feel her blood close to the thin surface of her skin, heating and bubbling. The first time she sat with Nora in this kitchen hearing Nora’s visions and plans she felt that, and now she feels it again. Because there will be new visions and plans, made necessary, if contrary to his desires, by Philip.
And what were Philip’s desires? Not Beth, and not death. Oh, that’s funny, that rhyme, she is clever sometimes.
She has a suspicion, however, that his desires did include Sophie. She has noticed his eyes following Sophie now and then with a particular light, and recently there’s been a straightening, some sharp alteration in Sophie when Philip came into a room. Sophie is efficient but she is not trustworthy. It is Beth’s belief that Sophie has witnessed such atrocious brutalities that her soul is toughened against more ordinary sins.
There’s some of that in herself, too.
Nora was a godsend. These sorts of miracles seem random, but also intentional. They can’t really be both, can they?
At an art show opening, Beth noticed a short dark-haired woman in black trousers and a pale blue, loose blouse, staring and staring at her. Which was fine. It’s more or less Beth’s one great
accomplishment
, what she was trained for: being noticed. The show was a sculptor’s for whom Beth had donea little modelling with results, she was interested and pleased to see, that were reasonably unidentifiable. There was a good crowd, lots of perfumes and glittering eyelids, bald heads and beards, different shades and complexions and voices. Eventually Beth felt Nora, whom she did not know then to be Nora, angling more directly towards her. “Hello, excuse me, you’ve maybe noticed me watching you, but—are you a model, by any chance? Or”—that quick, now-familiar, lilting uptilt of Nora’s lips—“would you ever consider being one?” Beth pointed towards a looping, arced bronze the height of a man’s hand. She was at the time modelling, yes, not only for this particular sculptor but for trade shows and catalogues, for minor fashion shows, for minor art schools. She offered bendability as well as beauty, her body amenable to being twisted and flexed in many shapes and directions. She could hold difficult poses. Nora nodded and smiled and Beth saw they did not need many words.
Nora said she was a painter who incorporated other materials into her work. She said she had roughly in mind a series in which, it had struck her from across the small crowded gallery, Beth might feature perfectly. Oh, and she introduced Philip. “My husband.”
He was a large man who looked as if he might do large things. “Are you an artist as well?” Beth asked politely.
“No chance.” It was the first time Beth heard that barrelling laugh. She had no idea what he’d found funny.
That laugh of his—it was too large in the confines of this house. It wilfully, deliberately, drowned out smaller voices.
Not any more.
The music on the radio stops, news begins. People are injuring each other in several horrible ways in several parts of the world, which is unpleasant. Beth is turning the thingoff just as Sophie arrives in the kitchen looking sad and ferocious, both. “God damn it, Beth, music? Do you think that’s respectful?”
Respectful of what, death? Philip? Oh, but maybe of Nora. “You’re right, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
Without fury the air, the power, go right out of Sophie, and she’s left just looking sad. That’s interesting. Even her hair looks subdued and her eyes are shadowy. Shock affects anyone close, and just how
Accomplish?
The word jarred, began to sound like something vaguely hard and opposing.
That was a long time ago. Soon Beth will be thirty. Sometimes she can nearly feel her blood close to the thin surface of her skin, heating and bubbling. The first time she sat with Nora in this kitchen hearing Nora’s visions and plans she felt that, and now she feels it again. Because there will be new visions and plans, made necessary, if contrary to his desires, by Philip.
And what were Philip’s desires? Not Beth, and not death. Oh, that’s funny, that rhyme, she is clever sometimes.
She has a suspicion, however, that his desires did include Sophie. She has noticed his eyes following Sophie now and then with a particular light, and recently there’s been a straightening, some sharp alteration in Sophie when Philip came into a room. Sophie is efficient but she is not trustworthy. It is Beth’s belief that Sophie has witnessed such atrocious brutalities that her soul is toughened against more ordinary sins.
There’s some of that in herself, too.
Nora was a godsend. These sorts of miracles seem random, but also intentional. They can’t really be both, can they?
At an art show opening, Beth noticed a short dark-haired woman in black trousers and a pale blue, loose blouse, staring and staring at her. Which was fine. It’s more or less Beth’s one great
accomplishment
, what she was trained for: being noticed. The show was a sculptor’s for whom Beth had donea little modelling with results, she was interested and pleased to see, that were reasonably unidentifiable. There was a good crowd, lots of perfumes and glittering eyelids, bald heads and beards, different shades and complexions and voices. Eventually Beth felt Nora, whom she did not know then to be Nora, angling more directly towards her. “Hello, excuse me, you’ve maybe noticed me watching you, but—are you a model, by any chance? Or”—that quick, now-familiar, lilting uptilt of Nora’s lips—“would you ever consider being one?” Beth pointed towards a looping, arced bronze the height of a man’s hand. She was at the time modelling, yes, not only for this particular sculptor but for trade shows and catalogues, for minor fashion shows, for minor art schools. She offered bendability as well as beauty, her body amenable to being twisted and flexed in many shapes and directions. She could hold difficult poses. Nora nodded and smiled and Beth saw they did not need many words.
Nora said she was a painter who incorporated other materials into her work. She said she had roughly in mind a series in which, it had struck her from across the small crowded gallery, Beth might feature perfectly. Oh, and she introduced Philip. “My husband.”
He was a large man who looked as if he might do large things. “Are you an artist as well?” Beth asked politely.
“No chance.” It was the first time Beth heard that barrelling laugh. She had no idea what he’d found funny.
That laugh of his—it was too large in the confines of this house. It wilfully, deliberately, drowned out smaller voices.
Not any more.
The music on the radio stops, news begins. People are injuring each other in several horrible ways in several parts of the world, which is unpleasant. Beth is turning the thingoff just as Sophie arrives in the kitchen looking sad and ferocious, both. “God damn it, Beth, music? Do you think that’s respectful?”
Respectful of what, death? Philip? Oh, but maybe of Nora. “You’re right, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
Without fury the air, the power, go right out of Sophie, and she’s left just looking sad. That’s interesting. Even her hair looks subdued and her eyes are shadowy. Shock affects anyone close, and just how
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