All summer long Lucy had delayed. Each morning as her husband turned out of the driveway, slowing down at the last pillar but one to lift his fingers from the wheel in a brief farewell, Lucy lit a cigarette and contemplated the blank hours stretched out before her. Until her husband’s call at noon there were four empty hours, and six more to come afterwards.
When she had finished her cigarette she lit another and, sipping from her coffee, opened her notebook of lists. The notebook, which Lucy had bought at the beginning of summer, contained 100 narrow-lined pages. Of these a little less than half held lists. The others remained blank. These lists, often formulated in the moments before she fell asleep, to be written down the next morning, filled Lucy with one of two feelings. The first and more transient of the two was joy: the joy of inscribing the items themselves, erecting a new and spindly column. Lucy’s joy at performing this task would soon give way to lethargy and despair. For her lists, inspired, bright, remained so only in the towers of her notebook. She could not translate her lists so as to conspire with the ever empty hours of the summer day.
It did not occur to Lucy to regard these compilations as a diary, nor was she aware of how often a single word or phrase from a list now weeks old would fall under her eye and plunge her into a daydream that might last hours. This summer was to have been her season of achievement. She had told herself, and her husband, of her plans and ideas, as often vague as they were excruciating in detail, and as yet there was nothing to show for it.
The lists were, Lucy was certain, codified in such a way as to be unintelligible to all but herself. She utilized this personal shorthand to avoid embarrassment should her husband ever chance upon the notebook and to ensure a secret significance to what might otherwise appear intolerably mundane.
Thus her intent of writing her sister Polly, at a teaching post in China for a year now, appeared regularly as ‘missive to the east’, or ‘family scripture’, or the even more enigmatic ‘compose my blood mirror’. As with any code, coherent syntax could be sacrificed so long as the key was remembered. Occasionally Lucy would stray upon some trivial item which she found she had dispensed with already. This would then be canceled with a single pencil stroke. There were few such cancellations, and the letter to China was not among them.
Among the towers signifying books to be read, essays to be written, photos to be collected, clothes to be mended or orphanaged, drugs or recipes to be experimented with, books to be returned, bought, annotated, Polly’s letter nagged and loomed larger with each succeeding day. By the first week of summer there was already a surplus of news for her sister, and Lucy would often mentally compose a sentence or two which expressed some thought or incident and which would, she was sure, amuse or provoke. As yet pen had not touched paper to bring any of these sentences to life. They were, however, hinted at in the notebook, hinted at so often that the unwritten letter had taken on an intimidating and demanding aspect, before which some elements were seen to have grown obsolete, others revealed as neither so amusing nor provocative as they had once seemed.
All summer long Lucy had delayed but this morning was to be different.
Lucy found she had no words to write. After an hour she laid the notebook aside. She knew the time would come when she would have to rise from the armchair beside the window which overlooked the front garden, if only to refill her empty coffee cup and locate another pack of cigarettes. She glanced at the battered pack on the sill. Three cigarettes to go and only one remaining match. She lit one and shifted in the chair, away from the window, the flowerbeds, and the street beyond.
When the cigarette was two drags from done Lucy considered the possibility of lighting one of the remaining two with the fag end. Before she could properly resolve this consideration she found her fingers stubbing reflexively at the ashtray.
She rose without a sound.
Returning from the kitchen she sat, not in the chair by the window but on a small lilac-colored sofa, out of the passage of the day’s sunlight. She had brought with her from the pantry two packets of cigarettes, a bottle of vodka, and a tumbler. She poured herself half a tumbler and sipped, letting the first sip rinse slowly over her tongue and gums before swallowing.
Lucy was not a heavy drinker, not by her or anyone’s standards. But this morning was different, for she had risen with a slight feeling of hangover. The coffee had not helped. she had only had two glasses of wine with her dinner and one small vodka while she watched her husband prepare it. She couldn’t remember what they had had. Fish? Yes, fish, with some sort of thin sauce, her husband’s own improvisation. There had been vegetables also though she had not eaten any. He was a good cook she supposed. She did not know if he enjoyed it or not, but it was either that or going out and she had not been up to the bother. When her husband worked late, which was often, or when he took part in the late night sessions with his colleagues and juniors in the hotel bar across the street from his office, Lucy did not eat at all.
She finished off her drink and lit a cigarette before pouring some more. Normally, she would sit in the kitchen with a cup of tea, listening to her husband as he washed up the dinner things. Or sometimes she would half-listen, glancing through the magazines he had brought from work. Last night though, she had gone straight up to bed. There had been a bit of a scene. Her husband had been in a nasty mood, going on and on about something or other. Lucy tried to remember. He had been scolding, telling her that she never paid attention anymore. Wasn’t she interested? How long did she intend to keep putting off the Sylvain’s dinner invitation? Wasn’t she at all curious as to how Captain Plum’s latest book was coming along? Had she even remembered his business trip coming up in a week? Lucy hadn’t any answers to her husband’s questions. She needed time to think, to consider all these things. Who was Captain Plum? Her husband had scolded and scolded, holding his full fork aloft for long minutes at a time before bolting down his food, his blue eyes cold with anger and irritation. Perhaps ‘scolding’ was a bit mild. At one point he had actually risen from the table and shouted at her before throwing something to the ground. Thankfully, whatever it was had not broken, she would have remembered that.
After awhile Lucy lay back upon the sofa, her now full glass at rest just below her chin, where she could sip from it without undue exertion. She was daydreaming of China, a field full of flowers, unfamiliar flowers, some quite simple, others garish and exotic. She was having a picnic with her sister. Polly was telling her the names of the flowers, their medicinal uses, their mythological attributes. The two sisters were laughing. The flowers seemed to be laughing also, swaying about in the breeze, the taller of them awkward and out of step, like adolescent boys. Somewhere at the border of the field a bell sounded a pure and sustained note. Again. Again. The bell stopped. Lucy was alone, watching the snow fall past the terrace where she stood, falling soundlessly down into the dark garden. She looked up. The Chinese moon, huge and unblemished, hung in the vaporous shrouds of rushing clouds. Like cataracts across a great blind eye. The wind was up, the snowflakes drifting horizontally, to leap away over the tall western wall of the garden. Lucy huddled to herself against the cold, staring up at the icy melon of the moon. The moon was dissolving, diminishing backwards behind the veil of shadowy, tumbling clouds.
lucy
Lucy
Lucy?
-Lucy?
Lucy opened her eyes.
-Lucy, are you drunk? Lucy, wake up.
-Robin, is that you.
-Yes, it’s me. Please sit up, can you?
-I must have fallen asleep.
-Sit up. There. Come on, sit up.
Lucy stared up at her husband. He was standing before her with a sharp, worried look. The vodka bottle dangled from his left hand, a little more than half empty.
-What time is it? Lucy asked.
Light still shone faintly through the window.
-Just past six. You didn’t answer the phone. I got worried. Couldn’t get away till now. I’ve been tied up all day with arrangements. What we decided last night.
Lucy brushed her hair from her eyes, trying to remember. Her husband stood still, staring down at her. Muttering something about coffee he went off towards the kitchen, carrying the bottle with him. Lucy looked for her cigarettes. She found them lying on the floor beside the sofa. The first drag made her head throb.
When her husband came back he lit a cigarette from his own pack and stood watching her drink the strong black coffee. Then he sat down across from her. He was still watching her in silence. The notebook lay on the coffee table between them. Lucy stared at it over the rim of her cup, trying to think of something.
-Geoffrey, Lucy said.
-What about Geoffrey?
-There was something I wanted to ask you about him.
-Never mind that now. Why this? What have you been up to?
-You mean why have I been drinking? I don’t know.
-You don’t know? That’s remarkably weak.
He sent a cloud of smoke spiraling upwards. Then, softening his voice:
-is the coffee helping?
Lucy tried to smile.
-I’m waking up.
Her husband gave her a look. Sympathy, pity, confusion, she wasn’t sure which.
-Are you in any state to talk? I mean, would you like some more coffee, or a shower perhaps?
-Yes. A bath maybe. I doubt I could stand up.
She forced a laugh.
-Good. I’ll get you another cup and you drink that while I run you a nice hot tub.
-All right. Thanks.
By the time Lucy had gotten up the stairs and undressed she had begun to remember. Her husband was going away. Robin was leaving her. Lying in the tub with a washcloth across her eyes, Lucy began to cry. Robin going away. Enough, he’d said. Throwing something down. Waiting for it to shatter. He’d had enough. A man needed support. He shouldn’t have to rely upon his friends for everything. People were beginning to talk. Beginning to talk. Wasn’t she happy? Enough. Happy enough. Poor Lucy. Poor Robin. Poor idiotic little birds. Lucy sat in the tub for an hour and cried. Afterwards she felt better. She would sleep well tonight and tomorrow she would get up early and work.
When she came downstairs Lucy saw her husband’s two small suitcases by the front door. His ‘gypsy gear’ he always called them, smirking. It was already dark outside. He was sitting on the lilac sofa. The notebook was beside him. Lucy sat down on the edge of the coffee table. How subdued he looked. But then of course this was awkward for him.
-Don’t worry about it, Robin, Lucy said, patting his knee.
-you’re right, I see that. It was just foolishness. The drinking, I mean. It wasn’t anything serious.
-I know. Still, I worry. I’ll call you in a week. We can talk then, see how things stand. You never know.
-Don’t worry about it. If you’re thinking that things may have changed in a week, well, we’ll deal with it then. I don’t want to complicate things for you.
He looked away and laughed.
-We’re so reasonable it hurts.
Lucy let her eyes wander to the notebook.
-Well then.
-Well then, her husband said.
He picked up the notebook and glanced at the cover. When he spoke again his voice was gentle, explanatory.
-I’m really terribly sorry about some of the things I said last night. Communication breaks down and you start believing things, distorting them because you want to feel that what you’ve got bottled up inside is not just some phantasm. I guess I’d begun to believe since the summer began really, that you were just mucking around her all day, not doing anything. I never realized ….
He looked up at her, hefting the notebook lightly in his hand.
-Some of these, he went on, some of these are really quite good. They’re all accomplished but some stand out. Quite powerfully.
Lucy stared at him in alarm. He didn’t seem to notice. His voice was still gentle, but a tone of urgency had crept into his words.
-I’m little better than an amateur enthusiast but I think I can judge some things and your poems …
-My what? Lucy interrupted, tilting her head slightly.
-Your poems, he said, glancing up briefly.
But he was caught up in what he was saying, going on about the aesthetics of repetition, the imagery of private experience, the epiphany of the mundane, the quotidian.
Lucy put a hand to her mouth. What in God’s name was he talking about? She found herself drifting.
-This one is especially nice, he said, leaning up and turning a page of the opened notebook towards her.
Three weeks old. Only one cancellation. She read, silently.
A note on childhood
Bath, no perfume
Listen (the birds’ cantata)
Dress dark
Smoke light
Amphetamine or powder
Replenish flowers
Primer of bird latin
Silver, gold, polish
Boots to be relaced
Walk in the garden
Look for land maps
De-bone & sharpen
Candle shavings
Take this season into account
Compose my blood mirror
Ulysses
-I don’t know, Lucy said.
An hour later, as they stood at the front door, Lucy still did not know. What she did know was that this was no grand joke of Robin’s, conceived from some font of heretofore unnoticed malice. But for now poetry was set aside. It was the hour of half-promises and final farewells. Lucy put her shoulder against the open door and regarded her husband.
-So tell me, then, how is Geoffrey’s book coming along?
Her husband shrugged lightly, looking down. For an instant Lucy knew what effect she had on him, might have on him. To be relied upon to pose such a question as the one just posed. So that is what he would miss, the extended invitation to be bright, enthusiastic, unlimited. She had let him down and now she was twisting the knife.
-He’s almost done. It’s a study, I’m sure I’ve told you, of senility and precociousness in literature. Old Geoffrey, always the something-and-something man. Anyway, he’s done all the work on Hemingway, Maugham, Brooke and Sisson. He showed me his chapter on Rimbaud this afternoon. It’s still in draft. He seems quite hung up on what seem to me well-trod but irrelevant details. Rimbaud’s relationship with his sister, the whole self-exile quiescence in Abyssinia. It’s a compelling story though and I’m no expert so I just give him my usual layman’s opinion and slap on the back and off he trundles. I do enjoy talking with old Plum.
He laughed sharply and Lucy smiled to his laugh. Another second of awkward silence and it was done. He kissed her without lingering and was away down the stairs. In one of his suitcases was the notebook which he had promised to show to Geoffrey Plum. He was certain the Captain would be impressed. He had even joked that Plum would think him a fool for parting with such a talented woman. Lucy had said nothing.
As the car started up she closed the door and went to stand at the window. Though it was too dark to see she was half certain that her husband’s fingers had lifted from the wheel. Farewell, I’ll call you at noon. Lucy watched the receding lights go up the hill, slowing at the intersection, before disappearing around the end of the corner house.
All summer long she had delayed and now her vocation had haloed her like a bolt from the blue. In the distance an unseen car briefly gunned its engine. Her husband’s or someone else’s. No way of ever knowing. Lucy smiled and turned away from the dark window.