advice to Bette post -breakdown, as she’s boarding the boat, came back to me now: “Be open, take part, be curious, unbend!” If Bette could take on South America , maybe I could return (briefly) to Virtue and Chewing Gum. This was the sort of guy Chevron had made me—lazy, scared, shy, indecisive. . . but also susceptible to sycophancy and old movies. So I wrote back saying I’d do the damn speech—and had my mechanical pencil ever turned up, the one stolen from my locker in 1978? I sealed the envelope and let Deedee mail it when she left—and then I got the heebie-jeebies, with the jitters, with the sweating, with the hiccups. I had just volunteered for the surest form of vexation: senseless, vapid, unpaid public humiliation. What was I thinking? This was no South American cruise, with Claude Rains just a phone call away!
But I could call Bee. Bee would help me. Bee always had an answer and she was usually right—except for that time she made me dress up like Little Lord Fauntleroy and drag her through the hot streets of Virtue and Chewing Gum, while she sat in splendor on our little red wagon: our contribution to the Fourth of July parade. Bee was Fauntleroy’s mother, I was the truth-telling, charity-giving goo f ball. We really killed that day—killed a lot of patriotism anyway.
“Why would you want to talk to those bozos?” was Bee’s first question, once I got hold of her.
She was in a bad mood. Her Canterbury patrons had pulled the plug on one of her Coziness Sculptures. Bee, the least “cozy” character I ever came across, had started making these emblems of domestic calm and peace she called Coziness Sculptures some time back: they consisted of assemblages of found or bought materials which she housed in tamper-proof Perspex boxes and displayed in public spaces, to work as subliminal mood-enhancers for passers-by, “a salve for anxiety and despair.” She’d discovered that the English populace was in particular need of cheering up, and as soon as she got to Canterbury, had made it her mission to comfort them. So it was a blow to be told her efforts were not deemed worthwhile.
The latest (rejected) Coziness Sculpture was a peaceful fireside scene involving a comfy armchair, a glass of wine, foxed leatherbound book lying open on an antique table, small Persian carpet on the floor; everything suffused in a warm, soft yellowish light supplied partly by the (pretend) fire and partly by an art deco lamp on the table. But her patrons (through their representative, some guy Bee couldn’t stand) were quibbling about the cost. They wanted her to use a paperback or no book at all, a junk-shop table covered by a fake lace tablecloth, a cheap ugly armchair, a mat painted to look like a Persian carpet, and no lamp—she was supposed to light the whole scene with hideous low-energy bulbs. In Bee’s opinion, no “coziness” would result.
“I saved them money on the fireplace!” she said, referring to some sort of clever hidden flickering-light effect she’d been working on, suggestive of a log fire just out of sight. “The whole point was to have a nice old copy of Our Mutual Friend lying open at my favorite bit, when Eugene knocks Mr Boffin’s recommendation of bees as role models.” And she ran to get the passage so she could read it to me over the phone (when was she going to deal with my problems?). “ ‘I object on principle, as a two-footed creature, ’ ” recited Bee, on her return, “ ‘to being constantly referred to insects and four-footed creatures. I object to being required to model my proceedings according to the proceedings of the bee.’?”
“I know, it’s great,” I agreed (thinking of Bette’s scary mother in Now, Voyager who mockingly remarks, “Are we getting into botany, Doctor? Are we flowers ?”).
“This is the bit I really like. . . , ” Bee continued. “ ‘Conceding for a moment that there is any analogy between a bee and a man in pantaloons (which I
But I could call Bee. Bee would help me. Bee always had an answer and she was usually right—except for that time she made me dress up like Little Lord Fauntleroy and drag her through the hot streets of Virtue and Chewing Gum, while she sat in splendor on our little red wagon: our contribution to the Fourth of July parade. Bee was Fauntleroy’s mother, I was the truth-telling, charity-giving goo f ball. We really killed that day—killed a lot of patriotism anyway.
“Why would you want to talk to those bozos?” was Bee’s first question, once I got hold of her.
She was in a bad mood. Her Canterbury patrons had pulled the plug on one of her Coziness Sculptures. Bee, the least “cozy” character I ever came across, had started making these emblems of domestic calm and peace she called Coziness Sculptures some time back: they consisted of assemblages of found or bought materials which she housed in tamper-proof Perspex boxes and displayed in public spaces, to work as subliminal mood-enhancers for passers-by, “a salve for anxiety and despair.” She’d discovered that the English populace was in particular need of cheering up, and as soon as she got to Canterbury, had made it her mission to comfort them. So it was a blow to be told her efforts were not deemed worthwhile.
The latest (rejected) Coziness Sculpture was a peaceful fireside scene involving a comfy armchair, a glass of wine, foxed leatherbound book lying open on an antique table, small Persian carpet on the floor; everything suffused in a warm, soft yellowish light supplied partly by the (pretend) fire and partly by an art deco lamp on the table. But her patrons (through their representative, some guy Bee couldn’t stand) were quibbling about the cost. They wanted her to use a paperback or no book at all, a junk-shop table covered by a fake lace tablecloth, a cheap ugly armchair, a mat painted to look like a Persian carpet, and no lamp—she was supposed to light the whole scene with hideous low-energy bulbs. In Bee’s opinion, no “coziness” would result.
“I saved them money on the fireplace!” she said, referring to some sort of clever hidden flickering-light effect she’d been working on, suggestive of a log fire just out of sight. “The whole point was to have a nice old copy of Our Mutual Friend lying open at my favorite bit, when Eugene knocks Mr Boffin’s recommendation of bees as role models.” And she ran to get the passage so she could read it to me over the phone (when was she going to deal with my problems?). “ ‘I object on principle, as a two-footed creature, ’ ” recited Bee, on her return, “ ‘to being constantly referred to insects and four-footed creatures. I object to being required to model my proceedings according to the proceedings of the bee.’?”
“I know, it’s great,” I agreed (thinking of Bette’s scary mother in Now, Voyager who mockingly remarks, “Are we getting into botany, Doctor? Are we flowers ?”).
“This is the bit I really like. . . , ” Bee continued. “ ‘Conceding for a moment that there is any analogy between a bee and a man in pantaloons (which I
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