The O'Briens (12 page)

“Yes, it is. Good night, Mr. O'Brien.”

Acrid scent of the sea, of rank grasses and cold sand.

“Good night, Miss Wilkins.”

~

Elise said that the best thing about coming to California was everything you could leave behind. “Everyone should move to California once in their life. Think if you'd stayed in Cow Hampshire, Iseult. Think how tied down you'd feel.”

“It was sometimes hard to breathe there,” Iseult admitted. She had not told Elise what Joe said on the pier.

“I got no use for people myself,” Elise said. “People make such a big fuss about their families, and I just don't get it. Me, I come from a family of rats. Papa Rat, Momma Rat, Bubbie Rat, and all the baby Rats of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I'm done with all that clawing and nibbling. Myself alone feels nice to me.”

“What about your husband? And the baby?”

Elise did not respond.

“You care about Grattan, don't you?”

“Sure I do.” Elise's small face suddenly looked older. “I've put myself in a cage, Iseult. You think I don't see it? The world is not set up for a woman to stay free. Maybe I should've held on to the life I had, not let go so easy.”

Iseult glanced at her.

“Aw, sheesh,” Elise said. “Poor little me, huh? Let's get out there and shoot some film.”

~

Venice Land Company

Windward Avenue

Venice, Calif.

20th February

Dear Miss Wilkins,

There will be a surf riding demonstration Sunday afternoon next, between the piers. Would you care to see it from the beach? I shall call for you at one o'clock, unless I hear otherwise.

Best regards.

J. O'Brien

P.S. Bring a bathing costume, if you care to, and we might try the Plunge.

Searching for her bathing costume, Iseult finally found it in one of the trunks she hadn't bothered to unpack yet. She had trouble getting to sleep and woke early on Sunday morning, made coffee, loaded film, and polished the lens of her camera. She kept looking at the Leavenworth clock. It was quite possible he would forget his invitation, she decided. He might have left for Mexico already. Was it possible? Could he have? He was deep in his life already and she was stopped on the surface of her own.

She started cleaning her house, unnecessarily and somewhat frantically. By noon she was exhausted. When she opened the windows in the bedroom, the air outside was warm and pleasant and smelled of the sea. Falling down upon her bed, she drifted into a dream that she was riding a train. Not in one of the coaches but on the black locomotive, boilers seething, drive wheels pounding. She woke with a pillow clenched between her legs and caught a glimpse of something outside her window. Racing to look, she saw Joe O'Brien circling her house on a snarling, sputtering red motorcycle with a sidecar, bouncing over dirt and dry yellow grass, raising a tail of dust. Seeing her, he braked to a stop. He wore goggles and a big grin. He reached down and cut the motor; there was abrupt silence and the sweet tang of gasoline.

“What do you think?” he cried. “Isn't she a beauty?”

~

He parked the motorcycle in front of the big red-brick bathhouse on Rose Avenue. “We'll watch the surf riders first, then come back here for a plunge. The tank is heated salt water.”

She pulled off the goggles he'd made her wear and retrieved her straw hat. Climbing out of a sidecar was nearly as difficult as climbing in. She felt tight and uneasy. It wasn't her clothes — the blue skirt and fresh white blouse would do, though she was uneasy about her bathing costume. Maybe it was the wild sun and the hot, strumming wind. She was unattached, weightless, dizzy.

“All set?” He wore a bathing costume under his seersucker jacket and cotton trousers. All his clothes were new. He picked up the picnic basket, offered his arm, and they started down Windward towards the hard blue line of the sea. On the beach between Fraser and Ocean Park hundreds of people had gathered to watch the surf riding. Joe O'Brien rented a striped umbrella and a couple of beach chairs and they watched the riders — three Hawaiians and three white boys — start out, kneeling on big polished planks and paddling ferociously. With their black costumes, dark skin, and sleek hair, they looked like seals. One board was caught by an incoming wave and flipped, but the others kept paddling, dashing their boards over the waves. Out beyond the surf break the riders straddled their boards and floated up and down on the swells, facing out to sea, waiting.

There was no point in breaking out her little camera. The lens would make nothing of the scene: the distance too great, the figures too small. A good pair of binoculars would have been useful.

A rider stood up on his board. Shading his eyes, he stared out to sea. Then he knelt and quickly swung his board around until it aimed at the beach.

“Here it is,” said Joe. “What they're waiting for.”

She could see the swell rising, green and blue, behind the riders. The hump of water was moving fast. They were paddling furiously to keep ahead of it. One, two, three riders were pulled up over the crest, but the two others had caught the wave and were riding on the edge of it, standing on their boards, balanced and calm. She'd never seen anyone capture the force of nature so neatly. She felt a tremble of excitement and suddenly knew she had to transpose her life into another key — harsher, riskier. It wasn't enough to be alone. Watching the surf riders moving in perfect equipoise through tumult and complex disorder, she felt space opening up within her chest, lungs expanding, the power to breathe deeply and well.

~

In the ladies' dressing room she gave a dime to an attendant with peach-coloured hair and was handed a key to a stall. She entered one and started to undress, hanging her clothes on the hooks provided. Standing naked in her small cube of space, she looked down at her white flesh and nipples prickling in the cold — or maybe it was excitement, fear. She could hear showers hissing somewhere, women's laughter, a baby screeching.

Her costume was black flannel in two pieces: drawers that reached her knees, with a skirt attached, and an unbecoming blouse. Her breasts felt exposed and heavy. Her mother had always said that her legs were good. Long and strong.

As a girl she'd been a dipper, not a swimmer. Secluded female dips at Squam Lake just after dawn, with aunts and female cousins.

What would he see? She was afraid, but she knew she had to go out there.

She found him sitting at the edge of the giant swimming tank, waiting for her. Hundreds of people were dousing and plunging, and the enormous room echoed with splashing, screams, and laughter. He was wearing his costume.

Man's body like a tree trunk
, she thought. Solid. Humming. Energy within.

“Shall we take the plunge?” he said.

“I suppose we'd better.”

They descended the tiled steps together. She slipped into the warm, briny water first and started swimming, nipples prickling again, wet wool pulling at her skin. He caught up and they swam the length of the tank side by side, only their heads above water. Men with droopy moustaches and girls with ringlets plastered wet splashed and shouted. Her silent swim with Joe O'Brien through that uproar felt as intimate as she had ever been with anyone. She felt naked and warm, without fear.

~

When he brought her home on the motorcycle, her hair was still damp and she could taste salt on her lips. It was late afternoon and the light was cooling. She hadn't changed because she hadn't wanted to shower with strangers, so she wore his seersucker jacket over her bathing costume, the rest of her clothes and her shoes in a bundle. He wore his bathing costume with trousers and tennis shoes. She thought of asking him in for tea, but she knew she needed to be alone after the wild scattering the beach and the surf and their swim had given her. Still, she didn't want to let him go.

“May I take your photograph?” She hadn't opened the camera all afternoon but she wanted to capture him before he left. Something important was at stake. The last time she had felt so alone with a man was in the schoolhouse cellar with Patrick Dubois. “On your machine, I think. That would make a splendid photograph.”

“Let me get dressed first. I'll go around back, put on the rest of my clothes.”

“No, really,” she said. “Just as you are. Please.”

He looked at her with such a serious expression she wondered if she had offended him somehow. Maybe he thought she was making fun of him.

“Please.”

He shrugged. As she opened the camera he walked back to the machine, threw his leg over, and sat in the saddle. For a moment she was afraid he might grab the handlebars and try to pose as though riding. Instead he leaned back slightly, crossing his arms on his chest.

As she peered into the viewfinder he looked straight at her, with more force and determination than she'd felt in any other man's gaze. A hardened loneliness in him, matching and filling something in herself. He was almost beautiful. Maybe she was too.

She made six exposures from different angles.

“I like to smell the sea,” he said. “I'll miss it. Miss you as well.”

“When do you leave for Mexico, Mr. O'Brien?”

“Damn Mexico. I like it here.”

If you want to kiss me
, she thought,
you might as well do it now. I want to be open, not closed
. What if she slipped off the seersucker jacket, pulled the black woollen blouse over her head, and offered herself to him? A woman shaking with desire and loneliness, like a door left banging in the wind.

He kick-started the engine and ran it up a couple of times. The noise was too much, and before she could say anything more he had started off down the canal path, kicking up dust, not looking back once.

Was he annoyed with her for taking his picture on the motorcycle? Maybe it wasn't how he saw himself. She had his jacket anyway. He'd have to come back for that.

~

She developed the negatives and laid out the first set of prints for Elise to look at.

“Hmmm, these are good,” Elise said. “These are rather wicked.”

“What do you mean?”

His bare arms were crossed, the goggles were pushed back on his head. Clear eyes, burnished face. His black hair was stiff and coarse with salt.

“Maybe you've caught a little bit of Mr. Joe O'Brien that he didn't want you to see.”

Iseult reconsidered the images.
He looks like the future
, she thought. Lucid, gleaming, and something withheld.

She went home to bed, slept deeply, and the next morning walked all the way to Santa Monica to buy expensive German paper at the camera shop on Third Street. Then she went to the studio, chose the strongest image, and printed it over and over again until she was satisfied.

~

Venice Land Company

Windward Avenue

Venice, Calif.

1st March, 1912

Dear Miss Wilkins,

Would you care to see some flying? My brother and his partners will be at the aerodrome at Griffith Park, Sunday next. I could call for you at say 9 a.m. and make a day of it. But let me know. I think you must have my jacket, by the way.

Yours truly,

J. O'Brien

~

Linnie Cottage

2nd March

Dear Mr. O'Brien,

If you come by at 9 o'clock I shall be ready.

Regards,

Iseult Wilkins

~

The motorcycle roared up through the canyon and down into the San Fernando Valley, which sprawled like an exhausted animal in the heat. Their tail of dust caught up with them as Joe turned off the main road at a sign:

LOS ANGELES AERONAUTICAL CLUB

It was supposed to be an airfield, but as they were driving in, the place looked like any ramshackle California farm. She saw a barn. Then she saw a big, luxurious Pierce-Arrow automobile parked next to pair of flying machines tethered to the ground. The barn doors were open and Grattan and two other men were inside, working on a flying machine. As Joe helped her from the sidecar they came out, all three wearing blue coveralls.

“What do you say, Grattan?” Joe asked. “Will you be going up?”

“Good flying weather, isn't it.” Grattan introduced Iseult to the two Frenchmen. M. Levasseur was tall, thin, and gawky in his movements, like a heron. M. Tourbot was stocky and dark, and he shook her hand with some impatience.

“We have installed the new propeller,” Grattan said. “If you and Miss Wilkins will lend us a hand, we can roll her out. I'm taking the first hop.”

They trundled the machine out of the barn, Iseult and Joe at one wing, Tourbot and Levasseur at the other, Grattan pushing the tail. The aircraft seemed delicate and fragile, like an enormous dragonfly, she thought.

While Grattan strapped on a leather helmet and pulled on leather gauntlets, the Frenchmen adjusted wires and struts. She watched the cloth-covered wings warp and flex when little M. Tourbot manipulated a pair of wooden pedals in front of the pilot's wicker seat.

“Now, Miss Wilkins, would you like to go up?” Grattan said.

A quick panic so deep she felt like laughing. And a sense of everything being unreal, colours changing, sparks of light flying off M. Levasseur's spectacles.

“Of course,” she heard herself saying. “I'd love to.” She couldn't bear to show any fear in front of Joe O'Brien.

“No, Grattan, don't be ridiculous. Of course she won't,” Joe said. “That's not why I brought her out. ”

“But I want to,” she insisted.

“No,” Joe said. “I won't allow it.”

“I tell you, I want to go.”

“No. It's too dangerous.”

“Joe's right,” Grattan said. “It is too dangerous.”

“Miss Wilkins, there was never any question of your going up in the machine. It never occurred to me.”

“Why did you bring me out here, then? And who are you to tell me what I can't do?” She turned to Grattan. “Grattan O'Brien, if you're a gentlemen, you won't be bullied by your brother. Does your offer stand, sir?”