mother smiled a thin smile and asked, “And are we to have a bride in the house?”
The father came home, sat down at the table, and said, “We did a good day’s work today. This house will never again want for things.”
That night Elma began to weep. Her mother said not a word—but Elma did: “I’m not marrying that old fellow.” Elma told us, “My mother collapsed onto a chair, and she said, ‘Oh, Jesus. Your brother, your brother.’ ”
Elma, again frightened, finished her tale:
“I had a young brother who died a few years back. He had an argument with my father, and he ran out of the house and my father ran after him. My father came back, but my brother never did, and we found him that night under a tree. His head was all crashed in, and my father said he must have climbed the tree to hide and then fell out of it.”
20
As the fire began to die, Randall said to me, “You and I have unfinished business, Ben.” Mystified, I walked with him down a long passageway. “Somebody,” he remarked, “should scare the life out of that beast of a father. Why don’t you do it?”
I said, “Randall, I’m only around here once a year or so.”
“Avoidance again?” he said. “Old habits die hard.”
My heart lurched from annoyance to shame.
Why don’t you ask him what he means by “avoidance”—and “again”?
He had converted the large old stables, replaced stone walls with glass. Dozens of finished canvases leaned in stacks against every wall of the studio. I counted six easels, all with work in progress. On the largest and most central stood a nearly finished nude study.
He means, doesn’t he, that I have no guts, that when it comes to the crunch, any crunch, I sidestep? Or run? That is what he means, isn’t it, by “avoidance”?
“Randall, why is this portrait familiar to me?” I asked, looking at the nude.
“You’ve just praised her cooking.”
Annette! I hadn’t known. Are the locals aware that she poses for him? They’d drum her out of the village
.
“Good models are so difficult to find,” he said. “I trained her. She now understands how to concentrate with her body.” Then, as Randall always could, he surprised me further. “And I suspect that’s a good model you brought with you.”
“Which of them?”
He laughed. “Well, not Jimmy. Not that little narcissist.”
“How do you know Elma could?”
Randall said, “Natural to her, dear boy.”
And then he unfolded a plan, taking, as he always did, great leaps of life in a few sentences.
“Tell everybody she’s gone to England. Let her stay here in seclusion with me. We’ll teach her to model. She can always go to Paris then and make some kind of living.”
Randall said all this while standing before a small canvas on a wide easel. I watched as he took a brush and scratched at the paint with the handle. On tiptoe I half-circled him. He peered at his work and blinked, blinked again, wiped his eyes with great care, closed the unbruised eye, peered with the other, then blinked again. In a moment his face began to rest; he had dismissed his anxiety.
I tiptoed away. He left the easel, looked around for me, and called.
“Our unfinished business, Ben.” He beckoned, and I followed. At the large canvas of the nearly completed nude, he paused, and with a gentle fingernail adjusted one of Annette’s eyes.
On a table nearby, next to an antique leather chesterfield, lay months of magazines, art gallery catalogs, newspapers. Randall picked up a thick folder leaking with press clippings and crooked a finger to draw me in close. He opened the folder and searched, then opened it wider and showed it to me: an old newspaper report of Venetia’s disappearance in 1932.
“That’s what I meant by avoidance.”
And still I said nothing.
Don’t answer. If you don’t answer, you can’t make a mistake
.
“She’s back, Ben. Did you know that? She’s touring the country. But I’m sure you know it. And you’re avoiding
The father came home, sat down at the table, and said, “We did a good day’s work today. This house will never again want for things.”
That night Elma began to weep. Her mother said not a word—but Elma did: “I’m not marrying that old fellow.” Elma told us, “My mother collapsed onto a chair, and she said, ‘Oh, Jesus. Your brother, your brother.’ ”
Elma, again frightened, finished her tale:
“I had a young brother who died a few years back. He had an argument with my father, and he ran out of the house and my father ran after him. My father came back, but my brother never did, and we found him that night under a tree. His head was all crashed in, and my father said he must have climbed the tree to hide and then fell out of it.”
20
As the fire began to die, Randall said to me, “You and I have unfinished business, Ben.” Mystified, I walked with him down a long passageway. “Somebody,” he remarked, “should scare the life out of that beast of a father. Why don’t you do it?”
I said, “Randall, I’m only around here once a year or so.”
“Avoidance again?” he said. “Old habits die hard.”
My heart lurched from annoyance to shame.
Why don’t you ask him what he means by “avoidance”—and “again”?
He had converted the large old stables, replaced stone walls with glass. Dozens of finished canvases leaned in stacks against every wall of the studio. I counted six easels, all with work in progress. On the largest and most central stood a nearly finished nude study.
He means, doesn’t he, that I have no guts, that when it comes to the crunch, any crunch, I sidestep? Or run? That is what he means, isn’t it, by “avoidance”?
“Randall, why is this portrait familiar to me?” I asked, looking at the nude.
“You’ve just praised her cooking.”
Annette! I hadn’t known. Are the locals aware that she poses for him? They’d drum her out of the village
.
“Good models are so difficult to find,” he said. “I trained her. She now understands how to concentrate with her body.” Then, as Randall always could, he surprised me further. “And I suspect that’s a good model you brought with you.”
“Which of them?”
He laughed. “Well, not Jimmy. Not that little narcissist.”
“How do you know Elma could?”
Randall said, “Natural to her, dear boy.”
And then he unfolded a plan, taking, as he always did, great leaps of life in a few sentences.
“Tell everybody she’s gone to England. Let her stay here in seclusion with me. We’ll teach her to model. She can always go to Paris then and make some kind of living.”
Randall said all this while standing before a small canvas on a wide easel. I watched as he took a brush and scratched at the paint with the handle. On tiptoe I half-circled him. He peered at his work and blinked, blinked again, wiped his eyes with great care, closed the unbruised eye, peered with the other, then blinked again. In a moment his face began to rest; he had dismissed his anxiety.
I tiptoed away. He left the easel, looked around for me, and called.
“Our unfinished business, Ben.” He beckoned, and I followed. At the large canvas of the nearly completed nude, he paused, and with a gentle fingernail adjusted one of Annette’s eyes.
On a table nearby, next to an antique leather chesterfield, lay months of magazines, art gallery catalogs, newspapers. Randall picked up a thick folder leaking with press clippings and crooked a finger to draw me in close. He opened the folder and searched, then opened it wider and showed it to me: an old newspaper report of Venetia’s disappearance in 1932.
“That’s what I meant by avoidance.”
And still I said nothing.
Don’t answer. If you don’t answer, you can’t make a mistake
.
“She’s back, Ben. Did you know that? She’s touring the country. But I’m sure you know it. And you’re avoiding
Similar Books
