Читать книгу Dream House - Catherine Armsden - Страница 12

A book is a home for a story

A rose is a house for a smell

My head is a house for a secret

A secret I never shall tell!

Mary Ann Hoberman, A House Is a House For Me

Just when it seemed her mother’s birthday was doomed, Ginny’s father was struck with the idea of a family trip to the Museum of Fine Arts. Eleanor had frowned at his other ideas of how to spend the day: lunch at Howard Johnson’s or a drive to the mountains.

“Okay, the museum—that’s good,” she had said, and Ginny, her father, and maybe even the timbers of the house, having been in suspense all morning, sighed with relief.

The Gilberts wound out Pickering Road, mounded on both sides with colorful leaves.

As they approached Lily House, Eleanor said, “Slow down, Ron. Look! They finished the roof job. The color of those new roof shingles is all wrong.”

Ginny turned to look. Everyone in the car expected Eleanor to remark about something or other every time she drove by Lily House. Wasn’t the field behind it getting high or the barn needing some paint? From her mother’s vigilance Ginny gleaned that Lily House was her mother’s real house, the one she would move into if Fran weren’t living there. Because her mother and Fran didn’t get along, Ginny had only been inside Lily House a handful of times.

“Stop!” Eleanor now commanded. “It’s Sid—in the driveway. Let’s see if he wants to go to the museum.”

“Oh, honey, you don’t really want—”

“Certainly I do! Pull in.”

Ginny slumped in her seat. Cassie had left for her first year of boarding school six weeks ago, and Ginny missed her almost unbearably; it didn’t seem fair to have your sister leave home when you were only nine. They were going to pick her up at school to go with them to the museum, and Ginny had been looking forward to having her to herself in the backseat. Plus, for some reason, Cassie hated Sid, and she’d be mad he was coming.

Ron pulled into Lily House’s driveway, and Eleanor got out. Ginny couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Sid. She took in his bell-bottom corduroys and jean jacket, the dark hair that reached jaggedly for his shoulders, and the cigarette clamped in his mouth and decided he looked like a musician on the cover of a record album, lanky and loose. He appeared to be fiddling with the windshield wiper on Fran’s car.

Sid looked up at them, plucked the cigarette from his mouth and ground it into the dirt with his boot. He didn’t move toward them when Eleanor got out of the car.

“Oh, boy,” Ron said.

Sid and her mother exchanged a few words, and Sid disappeared into the house. Eleanor marched back to the car. “Fran will come up with some reason he can’t go with us, of course. Even on my birthday.”

Ginny hoped she was right. Ron started the engine, and Eleanor said, “Turn it off. We’ll just wait. I haven’t seen him in three years, for God’s sake. She’s just jealous! She’s been jealous since the day I was born!”

Lily House’s door opened. Sid stood on the porch with his knapsack for a few moments, as if still deciding.

Eleanor said, “Oh!” and her face lit up the way it did when she’d see a Jack-in-the-Pulpit in the woods. She got out of the car and climbed into the backseat with Ginny.

“Why does he get the front?” Ginny asked.

“Because he has long legs.”

Sid’s knapsack landed on the floor in the front seat. “Thanks for the rescue, gang,” he said when he got in. “Nice Pontiac, Ron.” The car filled with a smoky smell.

“Sid’s coming to the museum with us!” Eleanor announced gaily. “Then we’re going to drop him at the bus station to go back to Chapin. Ginny, say hello.”

“Hello,” Ginny said.

“So how’s school, dear?” Eleanor asked Sid. “Are you still painting?”

“Still painting. Senior year. A lot of work. Not much sleep. On top of it, I was up half the night with Fran, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to take a little snooze.”

Sid slumped against the car door. Eleanor looked out the window. Ginny stewed; her mother would never have allowed Cassie to get away with such rudeness.

No one said a word. Halfway between home and Boston, they stopped to pick up Cassie at Andrews Academy, the all-girls boarding school that Eleanor’s “summer person” friends had recommended when Eleanor complained that her older daughter had gone boy crazy and her teachers didn’t challenge her. Andrews had given Cassie a scholarship, and her wealthy godmother had provided the balance of the tuition. To Ginny’s astonishment, Cassie had been fine with going away to school and didn’t even tear up when they dropped her off in September. Ginny had cried hard that night, in bed.

When the station wagon pulled up in front of the dormitory, two girls wearing carpenter’s overalls walked by, and Ron chuckled, “Would you look at the outfits?” Cassie bounced down the steps smiling, her long blonde hair shimmering against her navy loden coat. She hadn’t gone for the “hippie” look yet, Ginny noted with some relief.

When Cassie spotted the sleeping Sid, her mouth dropped open.

“Oof,” she said, sliding onto the seat next to Ginny. “What’s Sid doing here?”

“He’s coming to the museum with us!” Eleanor said. She put her finger to her lips to keep Cassie from saying more.

Cassie pinched Ginny’s arm lightly, signaling her annoyance. “Happy birthday, Mom,” she said. “Pretty jacket, Gin.”

Ginny looked down at the red-and-purple plaid that had caught her mother’s eye in the bin at Filene’s Basement on their semiannual shopping trip. Now, she floated in Cassie’s sweet smell—Prell, she knew; their mother had taught them to wash their hair with soap, but Cassie had graduated to shampoo.

Eleanor opened the cooler and passed the girls the cucumber sandwiches she’d made.

“Our chorus sang at chapel this morning,” Cassie said.

“Oh, how nice, dear. Something classical? Hymns?”

“We sang ‘Blowin’ in the Wind.’ It’s a Peter, Paul, and Mary song.”

Eleanor clucked her tongue and shook her head, dispersing her disapproval over the backseat.

Cassie said, “It smells like pot in here.”

Sid woke up as they were parking the car in the museum lot. “Whoa, where’d we get Cassie from?” he said, twisting to peer at them.

“I’m their firstborn, remember?” Cassie said. Eleanor shot Cassie a frown.

“So,” Sid said, grinning at Cassie. “You going to that Woodstock concert next weekend? Going to be good.”

Eleanor’s head cranked hard to look at Cassie. “I’m only kidding, Ellie,” Sid said. “She’s way too young for that.”

Cassie got out of the car and motored toward the museum entrance. Ginny trailed behind, wondering why Sid rankled her older sister so and feeling fairly certain that one of them was going to ruin the birthday.

But something came over her mother, Ginny noticed, whenever she stepped inside a museum or concert hall; here, at the Museum of Fine Arts, her mood and even her height seemed to elevate in proportion to the majestic domed lobby.

And now, Sid cocked his head and said to Eleanor, “Your coat, Madame?”

“Well, certainly sir,” Eleanor beamed as Sid lifted her coat from her shoulders.

Cassie looked at Ginny and frowned. As the family followed the crowd toward the grand staircase, an older woman with a large emerald dragonfly pinned to her blazer lapel bent down to say to Eleanor, “Your daughters are just lovely!”

“Well, aren’t you nice to say so,” her mother said. She looked her girls over proudly, and Ginny stood up straighter. “And this is my nephew,” she said, turning with a sweep of her arm, only to realize Sid had drifted away.

Experienced museumgoers, the Gilberts spent a respectable amount of time on each painting, careful not to block the views of others. Today, Ginny had a hard time concentrating on the art because she was busy monitoring Cassie and Sid, who seemed to be steering clear of each other and the rest of them. At least Ginny’s father—balding but handsome, she thought, in his tweed sport coat—had placed his hand protectively at the center of her mother’s back and for once, Eleanor didn’t pull away.

Now, her father lowered his head to catch her mother’s murmured remarks to Ginny.

“Isn’t it interesting how quiet his colors are compared to the others? Just exquisite!” Ginny and her father leaned their faces closer to Eleanor’s; the rapture emanating from her felt almost like love. “You can see the way he made the shadow with different shades of blue and purple.”

Her mother touched Ginny’s arm, and the three shifted to the next painting. “And look at the simple, soft shapes in this one,” she said. “Don’t they remind you of your paintings?”

They did, Ginny thought, but only because they seemed inaccurate, like hers.

“Psst!”

Ginny swiveled to see Sid, her mother’s coat hooked on his thumb over his shoulder, peeking at her from around the door frame of an adjacent gallery. Behind him hung an intriguing and enormous black-and-white image. Keeping an eye on her family, she moved toward Sid into the room where a sign announced, “The Pleasure of Ruins.”

Sid poked her in the back. “Hey, don’t look so sad.”

“I’m not sad,” she said.

Sid laughed. “Look over there at your sis.”

Ginny turned; Cassie looked like she always did: pretty, serious.

“She’d rather be anywhere but here. But it’s your mum’s birthday. Your mum and mine, they’re sensitive and get their feelings hurt easily. So we have to try to be extra nice to them.”

Now, Ginny did feel sad. “I know,” she said.

“Cheer up, kid! We’re in the presence of greatness.” Sid gestured to the artwork. “This is the really great stuff,” he said. He was standing so close to her that she could feel his excitement, as if bugs were jumping from him to her. She circled the room, trancelike, astonished by the photographs covering the walls: columns rising from rubble and huge blocks of stone standing upright in a field, heavy crumbling walls and windows with only sky behind. Their labels read: “Stonehenge,” “The Parthenon,” “The Forum,” “The Baths of Caracalla.” The images filled her with a wonder she felt in her bones.

She’d nearly forgotten Sid was there until he said, “These places are more alive in death than most places are at birth. They’re cool, huh?” Ginny almost understood what he meant; mostly, she jittered with the idea that he’d speak to her in this grown-up way. “What do you think?” he asked.

Ginny looked at him, wondering what in the world he expected her, his nine-year-old cousin, to say. His dark eyes danced. “I like that they’re mysterious,” she said.

“Ginny?” She almost didn’t hear her father, who’d come up behind them. “Great shots, aren’t they?” he said. But it wasn’t the ruins that captivated her now. Still under Sid’s spell, she slid her hand inside her father’s, and they left the gallery to once more traipse through the halls of Degas and Van Gogh and Bonnard and the three M’s: Monet, Matisse, and Morandi.

At dinnertime, the Vietnam War silently flickered on the TV as it did every night.

The kitchen was cramped and brightly lit, with uncurtained black windows that steamed up from a single boiling pot. A birdcage hung in one corner, but their liberally supervised finch, Pepe, was not inside, having found a warmer place to perch somewhere in the house. While her father peeled potatoes and opened cans of corned beef hash—a favorite quick dinner of their mother’s—Ginny put candles on a small cake in her father’s darkroom. The birthday had gone smoothly enough; all the way to the bus station to drop off Sid, Eleanor had plied him with questions about which colleges he was interested in (“No idea”), whether he had a girlfriend (he didn’t), and if he’d be in Whit’s Point for the summer (“I hope not.”). When he got out of the car, Eleanor said, “He’s so handsome. I can’t believe he doesn’t have a girlfriend.” Cassie had said, “Maybe because he smokes pot. Or, maybe he likes boys.” Ginny had braced for her mother’s reaction, but all she’d said was, “Poor thing. He’s awfully good to his mother.” Then she’d said to Cassie, “Too bad school’s so important you couldn’t come home for my birthday weekend.” Gina had squirmed while Cassie explained in a tight voice that she’d had a long play rehearsal on Saturday.

Now, Ginny was already missing Cassie, but she excitedly eyed the wrapped presents on the worktable. The biggest one, she knew, was a white Singer sewing machine that would replace her mother’s ancient black one.

After dinner, her father lit the candles on the cake, and Ginny carried it into the kitchen singing “Happy Birthday.” Her father set the presents on the floor next to her mother’s chair.

“Well,” Eleanor said, looking down at the sewing machine box, wrapped in Christmas paper. “What a surprise—poinsettias in October!”

“Oops,” Ron said, shifting his weight awkwardly. “Guess I was just reaching for the biggest piece in the box.”

Ron helped Eleanor pull the paper off the sewing machine and stepped back, as if it might explode.

“Wowie!” she exclaimed. “A sewing machine! Now let’s see . . . are you going to learn how to sew, Ron?”

Her father’s nervous laugh. “Oh . . . well, sure, why not?” They’d been warming the kitchen with the open oven, and it had grown too hot; perspiration beaded on his forehead.

Eleanor unwrapped Cassie’s present—a knit hat—and said, “Ooooh.”

Ginny waited, excited about her present—a pair of pajamas. They were her idea, even though she knew her parents usually slept without anything on, which she surmised was because pajamas were a luxury. Her father had taken her to Riversport to buy them. She picked out a cotton pair with green and white stripes; her mother was practical and wouldn’t like frilly, silky ones.

As Eleanor unwrapped the pajamas, Ginny stood at her elbow and held her breath. Her mother picked up the starched, long-sleeved shirt-style top, inspected it, then looked up at Ron. She carefully laid it back in the box.

“Why, Ginny!” she exclaimed, pulling Ginny toward her. “Thank you, sweetie.” Ginny looked into her mother’s face. Her lips were smiling, but her eyes were not.

Late at night Ginny was awakened by her mother’s shout, “This goddamn pigsty!” Silence. Her father, mumbling. She looked at the door that connected her room to her parents’. In the past few years, it had become dangerous, like the door she’d been told never to open if she smelled smoke and the wood felt hot to the touch.

“You don’t know anything! She’ll turn that boy against me . . . Oh, how I loved him. He could have been mine . . .” Her mother wept, steadily and quietly enough that it nearly lulled Ginny back to sleep. But then a mournful tune filled the darkness: “Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me . . .” Her mother’s singing was so creepy Ginny wished she’d go back to crying. Her father mumbled. Her mother: “You really have no idea; do you!” Then, a tearing sound: zripp—zripp—zripp!

“Oh, honey, don’t . . .” Her father’s plaintive voice.

“Don’t touch me! You think I’m just going to be the servant in this pigsty for the rest of my life? Well, don’t count on it! This isn’t life...this is some kind of death! Oh . . . oh . . . oh . . . I wish I could just die.”

The door was burning; her mother’s cries leapt through its old wood like flames. Ginny wrapped the pillow around her head and scratched it with her fingernails, scratch-scratch-scratching away the world. Tonight, she would begin to practice forgetting; she would build a wall-of-forgetting. The less you heard, the less there was to be forgotten.

She must have dozed off. She awoke to the squeal of her parents’ window sash going up and slamming down.

It seemed like hours before she could fall back to sleep.

In the morning, she raised her shade slowly, so the noise wouldn’t wake her parents. It was so early that it was still dark, and across the cove the silhouette of pine trees was just barely distinguishable against the sky.

After switching on the light, she stretched up her arms and looked around her room. Was it a “pigsty”? It was messy but in a good way, in her opinion, because the mess was what she herself had created. Everything else in the room—desk and bookshelves, bed and bureau, pale pink walls and most of her clothing—had been passed down to her. She’d divided the room into zones: one for sleeping, one for homework, one near the window for thinking and reading, one for dressing, one for art making. She’d nearly covered the pink walls with her artwork; everywhere, there were so many animals and books and knick-knacks to look at, that the looking nearly silenced the world outside the room. Perhaps, she thought for the first time, she should sleep with her light on.

She began picking up the clothing layered on her desk chair, separating dirty from clean. The dirty things went into a pile near the door; the clean things she hung up in her closet or folded neatly in drawers.

She went to her easel and flipped through sheets of newsprint. None of the paintings she’d made of flowers and bowls of fruit looked real. When she took her sketchpad outside, on the boat or in the yard, lines and brushstrokes seemed to have wings. But here in her room, she couldn’t get the shapes right. She thought of the ruins at the museum that seemed more like creations of nature than of human hands. She thought of the mysterious Sid and wondered when they’d meet again.

After sorting through every one of her drawings, she selected a few to clip back onto the easel. The rest she stacked on the floor next to her dirty clothes.

Now, she carefully placed the tubes of paint in their box in order by color. Pinched the dry, hard spots off her modeling clay, then rewrapped each color. Switched her Cray-pas around in their box, matching each one with its named slot. She eyed her art supplies; organized in little rainbows, they were as tantalizing as the cookies in a bakery case. She liked arranging and deranging them almost more than drawing with them.

Through the door, she heard her father snore, like a warm-up for the blub-blub-blub of a lobster boat starting up now, on the other side of the cove. She hastily assessed her cleaning effort. With everything in its proper place, the room looked bigger, sleeker, its horizontals and verticals clearer. Surely, she thought, this would make her mother happy. If she was still alive, that is. On mornings after a night like last night, she could never feel sure she would see her mother again.

It was seven o’clock, time to get back in bed. She turned off the light and went to the window. The sun was up, and it set the edge of the red sumacs ablaze. The rocks of Miller’s and Poison Ivy Island were black against the midnight blue sea; the trees were losing their leaves, and she could see all the way to New Hampshire. When she turned ten next year, she’d be allowed to sail their boat across the harbor and river mouth, to New Hampshire. To another state, by herself!