mourning-wear. Emilio Dell’oro is very good at that. He is an artist, a craftsman, a slyly obsequious salesman who succeeds, despite all, and prospers, in this place of bitter rains and hard rock and cold, unyielding unacceptance.
My other grandfather, that would be. The one with the little, round spectacles, the rather severe manner. I’ll never meet him either.
My father, though, is having none of this. He has chosen the sea instead. He has his reasons.
And does everything he can to avoid her.
It’s a wonder I’ll ever be born, at this rate. Such ineptitude on his part. Also on hers.
Yet, of course, it’s inevitable, it’s going to happen. For am I not here, at the edge of the world, getting ready to jump off it, the whole ginger length and breadth of me? My father feels this inevitability, he senses it, feels me, perhaps, readying my leap, and hunches all the more tightly over his pad of paper, clutches tight to his pencil, as if this will make him safe, and me, too.
Mr. Dell’oro, what is that you are drawing? Is it a portrait of me? Or is it a porcupine fish? I’m sure you are a very talented artist, Mr. Dell’oro! Won’t you let me see?
He won’t.
Her laughter is like an object in itself.
He clutches tight, very tight, until she has passed by. Repulsion and attraction, attraction and repulsion. It’s as if he can see the future, and he doesn’t like it. That stink of inevitability.
For, in fact, she’s right: he
is
drawing portraits of her. It’s all her. How does she know? She can smell it, that’s how: his adoration, his fear, it’s in the air, and something else, too. She senses it, fears it herself, without knowing what she fears. Of course she’s used to the rest, the admiration, the desire, the hand that longs to touch, repressed: stilled. That’s nothing new, to her. But for him. It makes him feel naked. Exposed. Flayed. Vulnerable. A poor soft creature, unshelled. And then the drawings: Clotilde at the taffrail. Clotilde at the spinet. Clotilde bending over to button her boot. She mustn’t see those. But there’s no denying it’s all her to him, as far as he is concerned, the blue of the sea her eyes, the gold sun her hair, the thrilling, vertiginous swell of the waves her breasts and belly, even the sea in its darker moments, its rages, yes, all her, already he is lost, lost, already sinking, he with his pale stalk of a neck, his awkward, ill-fitting suit, with all around him filth, discomfort, danger, bad food, foul companions, the whole wobbling scientific contraption, the career he might or might not make of it, the home he left, none of that matters, it’s all Clotilde, all around, to him.
He doesn’t want her to know.
Everything swollen, stinging with brine.
• • •
As for her, she is interested in her Papa only. He is in his workroom, studying the
Proceedings
. Or hunched over a map book, latitude and longitude laid out before him in wedges, exotic fruit that he longs to devour. Is devouring, with every mile of progress.
Papa will not leave me. Papa will never leave his Clotilde again.
• • •
My father, though, is not neglected. In the half life they occupy beneath the billowing canvas, he, too, is pursued, though not by her. What need has she to chase that which comes to her naturally, inevitably, like an act of homage? Rather, Harry Owen is on his trail. The scientific gentleman, momentarily lacking in objects of study, studies my father instead.
In the Mayfair of my existence I’ve never met anyone like him.
So he writes in the journal he keeps of this voyage. That familiar, precise handwriting. Soothing it is. Soothing. They each have their methods. Here it is on my desk.
In the Mayfair of my existence.
And:
He is a study indeed.
And:
Today, walking into our cabin, I found Dell’oro, motioning over his shoulder and muttering some weird incantation, thus: Black black bear-away, don’t come down by here-away.
Twice he said it. Then
My other grandfather, that would be. The one with the little, round spectacles, the rather severe manner. I’ll never meet him either.
My father, though, is having none of this. He has chosen the sea instead. He has his reasons.
And does everything he can to avoid her.
It’s a wonder I’ll ever be born, at this rate. Such ineptitude on his part. Also on hers.
Yet, of course, it’s inevitable, it’s going to happen. For am I not here, at the edge of the world, getting ready to jump off it, the whole ginger length and breadth of me? My father feels this inevitability, he senses it, feels me, perhaps, readying my leap, and hunches all the more tightly over his pad of paper, clutches tight to his pencil, as if this will make him safe, and me, too.
Mr. Dell’oro, what is that you are drawing? Is it a portrait of me? Or is it a porcupine fish? I’m sure you are a very talented artist, Mr. Dell’oro! Won’t you let me see?
He won’t.
Her laughter is like an object in itself.
He clutches tight, very tight, until she has passed by. Repulsion and attraction, attraction and repulsion. It’s as if he can see the future, and he doesn’t like it. That stink of inevitability.
For, in fact, she’s right: he
is
drawing portraits of her. It’s all her. How does she know? She can smell it, that’s how: his adoration, his fear, it’s in the air, and something else, too. She senses it, fears it herself, without knowing what she fears. Of course she’s used to the rest, the admiration, the desire, the hand that longs to touch, repressed: stilled. That’s nothing new, to her. But for him. It makes him feel naked. Exposed. Flayed. Vulnerable. A poor soft creature, unshelled. And then the drawings: Clotilde at the taffrail. Clotilde at the spinet. Clotilde bending over to button her boot. She mustn’t see those. But there’s no denying it’s all her to him, as far as he is concerned, the blue of the sea her eyes, the gold sun her hair, the thrilling, vertiginous swell of the waves her breasts and belly, even the sea in its darker moments, its rages, yes, all her, already he is lost, lost, already sinking, he with his pale stalk of a neck, his awkward, ill-fitting suit, with all around him filth, discomfort, danger, bad food, foul companions, the whole wobbling scientific contraption, the career he might or might not make of it, the home he left, none of that matters, it’s all Clotilde, all around, to him.
He doesn’t want her to know.
Everything swollen, stinging with brine.
• • •
As for her, she is interested in her Papa only. He is in his workroom, studying the
Proceedings
. Or hunched over a map book, latitude and longitude laid out before him in wedges, exotic fruit that he longs to devour. Is devouring, with every mile of progress.
Papa will not leave me. Papa will never leave his Clotilde again.
• • •
My father, though, is not neglected. In the half life they occupy beneath the billowing canvas, he, too, is pursued, though not by her. What need has she to chase that which comes to her naturally, inevitably, like an act of homage? Rather, Harry Owen is on his trail. The scientific gentleman, momentarily lacking in objects of study, studies my father instead.
In the Mayfair of my existence I’ve never met anyone like him.
So he writes in the journal he keeps of this voyage. That familiar, precise handwriting. Soothing it is. Soothing. They each have their methods. Here it is on my desk.
In the Mayfair of my existence.
And:
He is a study indeed.
And:
Today, walking into our cabin, I found Dell’oro, motioning over his shoulder and muttering some weird incantation, thus: Black black bear-away, don’t come down by here-away.
Twice he said it. Then
Similar Books
