Chill Waters (16 page)

She had her black moments. They came at her like tidal waves, unexpected, savage, dragging her into their undertow, leaving her weepy and fragile, as if she’d contacted some exotic illness.

‘A little death,’ Iris had termed it. But it would have been easier if Greg had died. She could have worn black, then, attended his funeral. There would have been dignity in that. My God, how could she even think such a horrible thing. What kind of person am I?

Iris was asking about her mother and father, if they were still alive. Rachael confided that her mother had died of a massive hemorrhage just days after giving birth to Rachael.

“How sad for you never to have known her. Surely your father…”

“My father never spoke of her. My questions were met with silences, or curt answers. I soon learned not to ask them.”

Maybe it was the car breaking down that shed her defenses. Or maybe it was just easier to confide in a virtual stranger. Whatever it was, Rachael found herself opening up to this woman who conveyed a quiet wisdom through her eyes, even by her very presence.

When they finished their tea, Rachael followed Iris through the long narrow hallway to the studio at the back of the house. Cleo padded behind them, nails soundless on the dark blue carpeting, alternately clicking on the hardwood stretches between.

As Iris opened the maroon-painted door, Rachael bent down and patted Cleo, was rewarded with a deep, affectionate purr.

“She likes you,” Iris said. “Cleo doesn’t take to many people. She’s a good judge of character.”

The compliment warmed her, probably more than it should have. When had she become so needy?

The studio was a rectangular room, dominated by a long wooden table strewn with various wooden-handled tools, brushes, drawings, and other items alien to her eye.

On the clay-spattered floor, an organized clutter of boxes, bags, clay pots, jars and other paraphernalia stood against the walls.

The room smelled pleasantly of something vinegary, and of paint and clay, and dry heat from the fired-up kiln across the room.

Portraits and drawings hung on three walls, while at the far end of the room, a large, curtainless window overlooked a brief stretch of parched field, coming up against the backs of houses. Sheets flapped on a line spanning two of the houses.

Floor to ceiling shelves flanking the window displayed an assortment of vessels and plates.

One plate in particular grabbed her attention. Painted a deep scarlet, it was edged in gold, centered with an Indian Chief’s profile in full headdress. “Gorgeous,” Rachael breathed.

On the next lower shelf a small bowl decorated with bluebirds in flight, rimmed with intertwining silver leaves, drew her admiration. Some of the other pieces were bare of adornment, but striking in their own primitive rendering.

“I’m no expert, Iris, but even I can see you are a gifted artist. These are wonderful. By the way,” she smiled. “I bought a set of your blue mugs the other day. Hand-painted with yellow flowers. I saw them in a little craft shop on Water Street.”

She had just left the lawyer’s office after filing for a divorce, and the sight of the mugs in the window had lifted her spirits.

“The mugs with the butter-and-eggs flowers from my childhood,” Iris said, clearly pleased that Rachael had fancied them. “Toadflax, actually. Weeds, you know. But I’ve always rather liked them. What a lovely compliment that you bought them, Rachael.”

Iris turned her attention to the contraption on the table, referring to it as a ‘hand-wheel’. Propped on this hand-wheel, wrapped mummy-like in a white cloth, was what appeared to Rachael to be a work-in-progress.

Beginning to remove the wrapping, Iris said, “I’d like your opinion on something I’ve been working on, Rachael. “It still needs work, I know. I don’t have the face quite right.” Setting the cloth aside, she stepped back so that Rachael could view the piece in its entirety.

As Rachael looked at it, a cold chill slid over her. For the moment, she was at a loss for words.

“You don’t like it.”

“No, no it’s not that. It’s just sopowerful,” she faltered.

“You don’t have to patronize me, Rachael.” Iris sounded disappointed but not terribly surprised. “I know the face is too broad,” she said, misunderstanding the reason behind Rachael’s hesitation. “Cleo has much finer bones…”

“Iris, I do like it. Really,” Rachael cut in, though not quite sure
like
was the right word to describe her almost visceral reaction. “It’s just that Cleo always seems such a sweet, serene animal. What possessedmoved you to sculpt her in this particular …”

“Pose?” Iris finished, contemplating the sculpture. “Something frightened her one nightfrightened both of us, actually.” She spoke quietly. “I felt compelled – or maybe possessed
is
a better wordto recapture her in that moment. Maybe to remind myself I wasn’t alone in my…” She let the sentence drift off, shook her head, picked up a nozzled-spray bottle from the floor.

Rachael continued to stare at the sculpture. Yes, it
is
terror that I see in her eyes. Far moreso than any threat against whatever it was. In this rendering, Cleo’s back was arched, her small teeth bared in a silent, eternal growl. A shiver passed over Rachael.

“What was it that…?”

“Overactive imagination, I’m sure,” Iris laughed, a laugh that held a false and unconvincing note. “On both our parts. What I’m doing now Rachael,” she said, switching subjects, “is spraying the piece with water so that the clay doesn’t become too dry to work with. You want it to remain malleable,” she smiled, now fully the instructor imparting a lesson to her student.

The sculpture sprayed to her satisfaction, Iris rewrapped it in its cloth and set it on the shelf behind her. Reaching into a pail on the floor, she tore off a chunk of clay about the size of a bowling ball, and positioned it on the hand-wheel. Giving a theatrical sweep of her hand, she said, “There you go, Rachael. See what you can make of it.”

“Oh, Iris, I don’t know…”

“What’s to know? You select your clay, which I’ve already done for you. You shape it, let it dry, then glaze it or not, as inspiration moves you. After that, you bake it in the kiln.”

She gave a delighted laugh at what must have been a rather dazed expression on Rachael’s face. “Well, maybe there is a little more to it than that. But essentially, that’s the process. And we all have to start somewhere.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready. Why don’t I just watch you today, Iris? Maybe next time…”

“Nonsense, we learn by doing. You mentioned that you used to like to write poetry. Well, now, instead of words, you will express your inner vision, your emotions, through the medium of clay. The main thing is,” she said, taking a leather apron from a hook on the door and tying it around Rachael, “is to relax. Let yourself get a feel for the clay.” She stood back and smiled. “Perfect. You look like a natural to me.”

After a brief hesitation, Rachael stepped up to the lump of whitish-grey clay awaiting her at eye-level. Soon, a tingling started up in her fingers, bringing with it a sense of anticipation, of possibility. At the same time, she feared looking foolish in front of Iris.

“Try to work it as a whole,” Iris said, moving to the far end of the table. There, she donned a paint-spattered, blue smock.

“Remember to turn the wheel every so often,” she said, as she took up her pen and turned to a new page in her sketchpad. “That way, you’ll be able to view all sides of the piece and it won’t end up being one-dimensional.”

“I feel like a kid with play dough,” Rachael said, as she tentatively placed her hands upon the clay. The touch of it conjured memories of rainy days spent inside with Jeff and Susan. She recalled flowers and elephants and impossibly shaped dogs formed by small, industrious fingers.

“Good,” Iris smiled. “That’s exactly how you’re supposed to feel. It’s the state of mind we artists strive for, and so seldom achieve.”

As she worked, gradually everything else faded to some far place in her mind. Only the image she hoped to create and the clay beneath her fingers held any reality for her. So completely focused on the task at hand, Rachael jumped when Iris spoke to her.

“Sorry, but you’ve been at it for…” Iris looked at her watch …”over an hour now. Impressive for your first time. How about we stop now for a little bodily sustenance. How did you get on?”

“I’ve been trying to do a bust of my grandmother,” Rachael said, kneeding the knot of tension from her left shoulder. “But I’m afraid it looks more like Richard Nixon.”

Iris laughed. “Oh, I’m sure you exaggerate,” she said, coming round to look. She cocked an eye at it, and absolutely deadpan, said, “You know, it does look like him at that.”

They both laughed.

The doorbell rang into the studio. There was urgency in the sound.

Rachael was getting into her coat as Iris opened the door to a frail looking woman with an anxious face and haunted eyes, an air of desperation about her.

“I need to talk to you, Iris,” she said, running a hand through hair carelessly swept back from her face. In her other hand she clutched a large canvas bag with a fierceness that suggested the bag held all she possessed in the world.

“Of course, Helen,” Iris said gently, drawing the woman inside. “I’d like you to meet a friend of mineRachael Warren. Rachael this is Helen Myersyou remember …”

“Yes,” she said, extending her hand, knowing intuitively who the woman was even before Iris introduced them. “I’m so sorry…” Such empty, useless words. She wished she could think of something profound to say, something that would ease the pain so evident in this woman’s face, but she knew no such words existed.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” she said to Rachael, “but I must talk privately to Iris…”

“Please don’t apologize. I was just leaving. It was nice to meet you. Iris, if you wouldn’t mind calling me a cab…”

“Rachael, I’m…” Her eyes were full of apology.

“No problem. I’ll call you.”

Bad enough to lose a child, Rachael thought, as Iris went to call her a cab. But to have one murdered… Incredible what the human heart can endure and still go on beating.

Forty miles away, in Silverglade Nursing Home, an elderly woman in a navy print dress and pink fuzzy mules sat rocking in her rocking chair, and watching an old rerun of
Bewitched.
She’d been upset when they took it off the air, but it was back on now, these many years later, along with some others she’d enjoyed. Programs you could watch without all the swearing and nastiness.

James had left a fair bit of insurance, enough to allow her to have her own private room in this place, with her very own TV set. He’d been an accountant and had a good head for the markets, did James. A quiet man, he never once crossed her in all the days of their marriage. A Saint. Though she had never quite forgiven him for leaving that boy so amply provided for. It was his own forgiving nature, she supposed grudgingly, that mislead him.

Most of the residents at Silverglade shared a room and watched television in the common room down the hall. Occasionally, Ruth joined them just to be sociable, but mostly she preferred being on her own. That way she could watch what she wanted to with no one grumbling at her or changing channels. Besides, with her heart problems, she couldn’t go too far anymore. Just walking down the hall could set her heart to scrabbling in her chest like some terrified little animal trying to escape.

During a commercial, Ruth’s faded old eyes strayed to the nighttable, the windowsill, then to the dresser, surfaces on which were displayed evidence that she’d once had a real life. Personal belongings she’d been permitted to take with her when ill health forced her to sell the house and move in here.

The little ballerina regarded her from the windowsill. In her pink tutu, hands positioned over her head, she was frozen in time. Once, she had pirouetted to the tinkling of something by Mozart, but the innards had long since seized up.

The porcelain Japanese doll in her red silk kimono that James brought back from the war stood elegantly on the dresser beside the ebony jewelry box. Inside the box were the two medals he’d received for bravery, along with a few pieces of jewelry he had given her over the years. Sometimes people came to the home to entertain the residents, playing their accordions and such. Ruth would wear one of her nicer pieces on these occasions.

Eight framed photographs were also arranged on three surfaces, six black and whites she’d taken herself with her little Brownie, of her daughter at various stages in her short life. This one taken the day Marie was leaving for summer camp, a blue plaid canvas bookbag slung over her shoulder. Squinting into the camera, her sweet smile revealed a space where her two front teeth had been.

Ruth remembered the day like it was yesterdaythe way the warm afternoon air had smelled, softly scented with lilacs. She'd been beside herself at the thought of her little princess going off on her own for a whole week.

The most recent photograph was an eight by ten, color. Ruth had snapped it just before Marie left for the prom that night with that nice Johnson boy, whose father was a dentist. It was the last time she saw her daughter alive.

There’d been mud on her white prom dress.
Stop! Don’t
think about it.
The flowers in the corsage on her small wrist were crushed.
Don’t! You know how your heart gets when you start thinking about it.