close was Sophie to Philip? She has already thrown up. Beth steps forward, places her thin fingers on Sophie’s arm. “Can I get you something? Come on, come sit down.” Sophie flinches, but Beth tightens her grip, pulls Sophie to her chair at the table. She pats Sophie’s hair, not stroking and soothing the way she did with Nora, or when Sophie was heaving on to the floor. “I’ll make tea.”
It takes a few minutes, but “This is for comfort and courage,” she says, placing a cup in Sophie’s hands. “It’s bitter, but if you drink it down fast, you’ll feel better.” People trust Beth on this subject at least. Sophie sips, she makes a moue of distaste, but then she does drink it right down. “Are you very sad about Philip, then?” Beth dares to ask. “Are you grieving, are you distraught?”
Those are big words. Sophie sits up straight and looks a lot more alert. Which is good. With her wits about her, Sophie can resume her duties and chores, and Beth can concentrate on being helium-hearted and hopeful. It’s amazing how a person can be jolted awake by a scream, that sound of awful distress, and a few hours later be aware of so many unforeseen and quite joyous prospects. Life is full of surprises. Beth’s mother used to say that, although generally on unfair, unhappy occasions, such as when Beth came in second or third runner-up.
“No,” Sophie says slowly. “Just tired. A lot of people to talk to.”
Beth wonders how long Nora will sleep.
Nora’s an expert in things that aren’t visible. Which must be why, despite Sophie’s bright springing-up hair and abundance of flesh, Nora has never done a painting of her. It must be why she found Beth instead: because Beth’s power is untouched and private, all under the skin, not out on the bold, uninteresting surface like Sophie’s. What Nora works with are the ways light can hit skin, textures can be molded and formed, bones can be reshaped. Which shows that even though Nora may not always know what’s going on right under her nose, she must be good at discerning the grave depths and mysteries lying beneath. And that must be what makes her an artist, and why she chose Beth: because she knows things about Beth; even though in particular ways, and this is a good thing, she really knows very little at all.
Five
N ora was faking with Beth, she is not sleeping. Among the many, many things on her mind is, what the hell was Beth’s lingering, swaying embrace about, not to mention that excessive stroking of Nora’s forehead? Some misplaced and transferred passion for Philip? There was something … lascivious about it, unnerving, and quite soon unpleasant.
Also surprisingly bold. Beth wafts about all skin and bones in her long floaty dresses, her only discernible interest her boring curative teas, so quiet and malleable that even Nora, who has spent many hours bending her this way and that, has to agree with Sophie that Beth’s still waters run more stagnant than deep. Life does not thrive in her depths, nor flourish at her shores.
So that was weird.
Of course, sexual responses to death are not uncommon. However clumsy, they are at least defiant, insistent gestures of life, and in fact Philip’s arms holding Nora after her mother died led slowly, then furiously, to just about the most rampageously lusty night of their lives, a wildly free and fervent display of thrusting tongues and threshing limbs and powerful assertions of one sort or another.
But still.
Wondering about Beth’s embrace is a small matter, though. What’s large, what’s heart-cracking, is Philip as Nora saw him smiling strangely beside her this morning at that cool point between existence and non-existence, still Philip but grown disengaged and remote; and, no middle life between the last and the first, his earliest face, young and broken wide open, grinning and full of interest, in Nora.
If she’d known that last night would be the end of his voice, anger, heat, tenderness,
It takes a few minutes, but “This is for comfort and courage,” she says, placing a cup in Sophie’s hands. “It’s bitter, but if you drink it down fast, you’ll feel better.” People trust Beth on this subject at least. Sophie sips, she makes a moue of distaste, but then she does drink it right down. “Are you very sad about Philip, then?” Beth dares to ask. “Are you grieving, are you distraught?”
Those are big words. Sophie sits up straight and looks a lot more alert. Which is good. With her wits about her, Sophie can resume her duties and chores, and Beth can concentrate on being helium-hearted and hopeful. It’s amazing how a person can be jolted awake by a scream, that sound of awful distress, and a few hours later be aware of so many unforeseen and quite joyous prospects. Life is full of surprises. Beth’s mother used to say that, although generally on unfair, unhappy occasions, such as when Beth came in second or third runner-up.
“No,” Sophie says slowly. “Just tired. A lot of people to talk to.”
Beth wonders how long Nora will sleep.
Nora’s an expert in things that aren’t visible. Which must be why, despite Sophie’s bright springing-up hair and abundance of flesh, Nora has never done a painting of her. It must be why she found Beth instead: because Beth’s power is untouched and private, all under the skin, not out on the bold, uninteresting surface like Sophie’s. What Nora works with are the ways light can hit skin, textures can be molded and formed, bones can be reshaped. Which shows that even though Nora may not always know what’s going on right under her nose, she must be good at discerning the grave depths and mysteries lying beneath. And that must be what makes her an artist, and why she chose Beth: because she knows things about Beth; even though in particular ways, and this is a good thing, she really knows very little at all.
Five
N ora was faking with Beth, she is not sleeping. Among the many, many things on her mind is, what the hell was Beth’s lingering, swaying embrace about, not to mention that excessive stroking of Nora’s forehead? Some misplaced and transferred passion for Philip? There was something … lascivious about it, unnerving, and quite soon unpleasant.
Also surprisingly bold. Beth wafts about all skin and bones in her long floaty dresses, her only discernible interest her boring curative teas, so quiet and malleable that even Nora, who has spent many hours bending her this way and that, has to agree with Sophie that Beth’s still waters run more stagnant than deep. Life does not thrive in her depths, nor flourish at her shores.
So that was weird.
Of course, sexual responses to death are not uncommon. However clumsy, they are at least defiant, insistent gestures of life, and in fact Philip’s arms holding Nora after her mother died led slowly, then furiously, to just about the most rampageously lusty night of their lives, a wildly free and fervent display of thrusting tongues and threshing limbs and powerful assertions of one sort or another.
But still.
Wondering about Beth’s embrace is a small matter, though. What’s large, what’s heart-cracking, is Philip as Nora saw him smiling strangely beside her this morning at that cool point between existence and non-existence, still Philip but grown disengaged and remote; and, no middle life between the last and the first, his earliest face, young and broken wide open, grinning and full of interest, in Nora.
If she’d known that last night would be the end of his voice, anger, heat, tenderness,
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