Home Schooling (23 page)

“The bread is for people, not dogs,” Désirée told her. “You're setting a bad example,” she said to Robin, reaching over and swatting his hand. He said, “Ah, but the child is enjoying herself, aren't you Loren,
bach
?” He gave Loren a piece of bread, so she could feed the dog. “Watch that the doggie doesn't nip your fingers,” Alex said, a small, sensible warning in her opinion, but it came out sounding neurotic, tedious, dull. Désirée said, “That dog wouldn't bite anyone. It hasn't got any teeth, poor old bugger. Why are you always looking for the worst to happen, Alex?”

“I'm not,” Alex said. “I don't mean to.” She poured Loren a drink of lemonade. “Don't spill it,” she cautioned and Désirée laughed and moved a little closer to Robin and there were the three of them, Robin and Loren and Désirée. Robin held up the book he was reading. “Albert Camus writes: ‘It is normal to give away a little of one's life in order not to lose it all.' I like that very much,” Robin said. “It could be applied to the bread. It's normal to give away a little of what you have, even if it's your last scrap and it is only to a dog.”

If Robin Pritchard had not turned up at Grove's End, nothing would have happened, Alex believed. Nothing, that was, other than a great deal of talk about art and lots of walks in the mountains and the valley, and getting used to a high-carbohydrate tea at four o'clock in the afternoon, with sausage rolls and ham sandwiches and, occasionally, rice pudding with currants as a treat for Loren. But Robin Pritchard was inevitable, Alex could see, or at least came to believe. He was a Welsh poet, a dark figure straight out of Welsh bardic history, from the Mabinogeon. Désirée had heard some former residents at Grove's End, who occasionally dropped in for tea, talking about the poet. He was in the vicinity, she told Alex, and might even put in an appearance and then they'd get to meet him. They would get to meet Robin Pritchard, she said excitedly. They were in the front hall, on their way out, and Felix Curtis was just coming in the door, returning from a walk. His eyes were bright and
his face was rosy. He took off his cap and hung it on a hook. “Ah, Robin Pritchard,” he said, rubbing his hands. “I know him. I know him well. He's a marvel, is Robin Pritchard. Not a word of a lie, now; he's devilishly good, an individual of real talent. Nearly as good as Dylan Thomas. Well, no, perhaps not. He's entirely unique. He's his own sort of poet.”

He had stood aside with a flourish to let them pass. Outside, Désirée had imitated Felix Curtis. She had gripped the lapels of her coat and strutted around, her feet squelching in the mud, saying, “Devilishly good; quite the man; quite the thing, old girl. Quite the bloody marvel.”

They were on their way to get Loren from her nursery school. They were walking through this alien, beautiful landscape as if they belonged here, Alex thought. They were in Cambria. They were in the ancient land of Myrddin, who was Merlin, she believed, and of King Arthur, and of men with coal-blackened faces who lifted up their voices and sang as they walked home from the mines.

Alex and Désirée didn't meet Robin Pritchard at Grove's End. They came upon him in a bookshop, by chance, one rainy afternoon. The name of the bookshop was Madog's Corner, and the poet, about to read from his own work, was saying, “Madog, impartial protector and defender of all manner of poets, those significant and those highly forgettable. How suitable the name, is it not? This lovely bookshop, preserve of the wild-eyed poet.”

“Good Lord,” Désirée said to Alex, under cover of a shuffling of feet and backsides on chairs and an appreciative wave of self-conscious laughter.

Robin Pritchard looked, Alex thought, more like Rupert Brooke than Dylan Thomas. Alex had loved Rupert Brooke since she'd studied Literature at teacher's college and had come across his picture in an anthology. He had died in
1915
, after Gallipoli, and because of this she hated war and was a Pacifist, which to her meant being patient and kind and not raising her voice in anger. Robin
Pritchard was not as handsome as Rupert Brooke, but he was good looking, she conceded, glancing at him covertly. His thick black hair curled over his high white forehead. His eyes were luminous, dark. She watched him while pretending oblivion, browsing through the cookbooks. Désirée, on the other hand, was plainly intrigued. Her eyes were bright, her lips parted in the slightest of smiles. Alex tightened her grip on a book of Welsh recipes.
Teisen Nionod,
she read, required two pounds of thinly-sliced potatoes and one pound of onion.
Bara Sinsir
was gingerbread with black treacle and brown sugar, although minus ginger. How curious, Alex thought. Loren tugged on her coat sleeve.

“Yes, yes, in a minute, love,” she whispered to the child.

She watched Désirée taking books from the shelves, opening them, shutting them, putting them back.

“I want to go,” Loren said.

“Yes, we will go,” Alex said. “We are going, right now.” Alex shelved the recipe book.

It was warm in the bookshop. Loren's face was flushed and her nose was running. Alex glanced at the women in their navy blue macs and tweed skirts perched on folding chairs in front of the poet. It seemed to her there were two groups of women in attendance, of different ages, one group middle-aged and attentive, the other young, dreamy, full of smiles, equally attentive perhaps, but more to the poet's fine eyes than to his words. Very cleverly, by not taking a seat, by appearing not even to listen particularly, Désirée avoided joining either group. She simply leaned over one of the women while Robin Pritchard was reading and casually plucked a copy of his book from a stack on the table.

“Excuse me,” Alex heard her say, while she held her hair away from her face. Wordlessly she paid for the book, tucked it under her arm, and then walked out of the bookshop with Alex and Loren trotting after her. They went down the street and got into Felix Curtis's grey Hillman Minx, which they had borrowed for the afternoon.

“Well. I am full of admiration,” Alex said to Désirée. Désirée smiled, shook her head a little, and bumped a front wheel up over the curb. “Whoops. Daydreaming,” she said. She pulled out into the road and shifted gears. “I beg your pardon, Alex?” she said. “What are you talking about now? Admiration for what?”

“You know,” Alex said. “You know what I mean.”

Later that same day, Robin Pritchard appeared in the dining room at Grove's End, his hair dripping wet and hanging in his eyes, his shoes, which he had removed and was holding in his hand, soaked. “Good evening. Where shall I put these?” he began, and Felix Curtis, from his place at the head of the table, said, “Robin. Dear boy. Welcome, welcome. Put them on the radiator, there's a good man, and do, please, join us. Have a cup of nice hot tea.”

Désirée said, “Pour Robin a cup of tea, Alex.”

Alex had been buttering bread fingers for Loren to dip into her soft-boiled egg. She wiped her hands and poured the tea. It was black and not very warm. She handed it to him. All roads evidently led directly to Grove's End. All poets, writers, artists, stonemasons too, for that matter, she shouldn't be surprised, ended up here. Felix Curtis, patron of the arts, gathered them in and found them a warm pile of straw.

Robin Pritchard said hadn't he seen Alex and Désirée earlier, in the bookshop? “I saw you with your little girl,” he said to Alex, and, before she could correct him, Désirée began saying how much she'd enjoyed listening to him. “I bought your book, by the way. I love poetry. I'm going to read it tonight,” she said.

“I think we shall have to persuade Robin to give us a private reading,” Felix Curtis said. He was feeding his dog scraps of meat under the table. The dog's jaws kept snapping shut with loud cracks, like breaking crockery.

“It would be an honour,” Robin Pritchard said, smiling at Désirée and turning his teacup around in its saucer.

Seven of Désirée's paintings in the Seattle exhibition were completed during that summer at Grove's End, and were actually referred to, in a pamphlet Alex picked up at the front door, as The Grove's End Paintings. There are also some pencil sketches from the same time, and a few oil pastels of Loren, which are Alex's favourites, and which, it seems to her, ought to belong to Loren.

The pamphlet also points out that, sadly, Désirée didn't produce a great deal in her brief life, her tragically short life, and Alex thinks wryly that yes, that was true enough, Désirée's life was brief, but not, she thought, tragic, and if she hadn't produced a great deal, it had as much to do with her habit of tearing up or otherwise destroying her work if it didn't please her, as with anything else. In fact, the wastebaskets and dustbins at Grove's End were always brimming over, and not only with Désirée's discards. Artistic dissatisfaction was greatly in vogue, it seemed to Alex, in
1957
. No one was ever pleased with what she accomplished. There was always some writer or poet striding maniacally around the low-ceilinged rooms or else slumped, greatly despondent, in an armchair.

Désirée had said to Alex: “Oh, God, what am I doing here? I'm surprised I haven't been kicked out already. Alex, I'm a dabbler, a dilettante, an amateur.”

“You know that's not true,” Alex said automatically. She said again, with more enthusiasm, “You are definitely not a dabbler.” She picked up some sewing. She was mending the hem in one of Loren's dresses. Loren was sitting on the floor, taking the apron off a doll in Welsh national costume that Felix Curtis had given her. It occurred to Alex that she had learned to absorb Désirée's rages and doubts as placidly as if she were a pool of water, the same pool into which Narcissus had stared with such devotion, such need. This was her role in life; it was a role she had willingly taken upon herself, immersed herself in. Désirée needed her; Loren needed her. But perhaps she was the one being too intense, too analytical. Perhaps she was simply
here.
She squinted, trying to thread her needle.

“Do you want to go home?” she said, knowing what the answer would be, and Désirée, purged by now of her distress, replied, “No, I don't. You'd like to, wouldn't you? But I'm not ready to give up yet. It's just that it's so hard. You have no idea, Alex. It takes everything, all the strength I've got, which is never, ever enough.”

Alex and Désirée had been friends long before Désirée married Tom. They were friends at school. They lived in the same town. They were intent on experiencing everything possible, as quickly as possible — why else were they alive, Désirée had said — including fast cars, cigarettes, hard liquor, haunting love affairs with men who would be almost strangers to them, and in whom, indeed, they'd profess more interest than they felt. At least, they had dreamed of these things. Mostly, they had driven up and down the coastal highways in Désirée's battered red mg. And then they began making detours in order to call on Désirée's friend Tom, who managed his parents' nursery on several acres of former farmland in Washington State, overlooking Puget Sound. This was where Désirée wanted to paint, she'd said at the time. This was her landscape. She wanted to try to capture the fog shrouding the opposite shore, its reflection a milky stain on the water. And then the sun suddenly breaking through and the rain-drenched air gold and silver, the finest, noblest of elements.

Désirée kept saying, jokingly, that Tom was perfect for Alex. He was quiet, home loving, honourable — oh, yes, a truly honourable individual — with an abiding, innate love for the soil, the family, the community, his country. “A real square,” she had said, laughing. “Exactly your kind.”

Alex had to agree; he was her kind. She respected Tom's honourable nature. She liked him very much. This did her no good, however; she knew that, when Désirée was there, and she always was there, Tom didn't see her at all.

“It's
you
he likes,” Alex said. “If he does like me, as you say, it's a shame,” Désirée said. “He's wasting his time.” She wasn't getting
serious about anyone, she said; in fact, she planned never to marry. Once a woman married, she didn't have anything of herself left over. You had to choose: was it going to be a career as an artist, or was it going to be marriage? In her opinion one excluded the other, and she'd made her decision: she was wedded to her art. “Oh, yes?” Alex said, laughing. Was it possible, she sometimes wondered, that Désirée believed the things she said? Did she even hear what she was saying?

They spent a lot of time that summer hanging around the nursery. They volunteered to help out. They learned to pinch back the growing tips on geraniums, and to transplant tender young seedlings from flats into pots filled with vermiculite and peat moss, which they mixed together according to Tom's instructions, and at the same time they watched Tom as he worked at the far end of the greenhouse. He was tall, lean, with fine, light-brown hair and the slightest limp, acquired not in the war (he had enlisted several months before the war's end, on his eighteenth birthday), but from an injury to the ligaments of the knee in a football game the previous fall. They knew that he liked fried chicken, vanilla ice cream, and preferred coffee to tea. He admired — how was this possible, Désirée and Alex laughingly asked each other — John Foster Dulles. He thought Doris Day was cute.

“Well, she is cute, I suppose,” Désirée said. “Cuter than John Foster Dulles, anyway.”

“Ask him if he has any snapshots of himself we could have,” Désirée said. “No, you,” Alex said.

“No, you,” Désirée said. They laughed and chased each other, spilling a bag of potting mixture on the floor of the greenhouse. Tom pretended he couldn't see or hear them. He pushed a wheelbarrow piled high with flats of petunias out of the greenhouse. “Piers Plowman,” Désirée said. “You're evil,” Alex said. “You're just plain evil.”