"That's how mine would probably look, too," June said with a chuckle.
A memory, forgotten like so many parts of her childhood, leaped to mind in unbidden association.
"When I was a child, about eight or nine," Mirelle began, "I was taken to see the Martelet at Loches. It had a horrible dungeon…" and she shuddered at the recollection of the cold clammy smell of accumulated fear and terror in that dark place, "… where the Duke of Something had been imprisoned for twenty years. He'd painted a sign on the curve of the wall. You could still see traces of the paint. The reds held up best. He'd written 'celui qui n'est pas contain' …"
"How apt," June interjected drily.
"Very. The 'celui qui' was huge and the 'n'est pas contain' progressively smaller until it got crammed in a corner. The guide didn't say whether he ran out of paint, energy or light. But I suddenly realized that's why the Plan Ahead sign always fascinates me."
"I didn't go down in those dungeons. I'd had enough of them," June surprised Mirelle by commenting. "The children chattered all afternoon, I remember, about how hideously dark and scary it had been and so cold underground. Although it was July and warm for France. We were there in '58. Marvelous trip. But you said you were eight or nine? Were you raised abroad?"
"No, just visiting." Mirelle tried very hard to keep her answer casual, remembering how she had answered Jamie Howell.
"I guess at that age you weren't taken to any of the museums or galleries?"
"1 was, but I got my training here in the States. At Cooper Union."
"But that gives excellent training. My grandfather went there. He was a printer and engraver."
"So that's why you know about the mechanics of sculpting."
"I don't know anything, my dear, but I can appreciate the result."
June was a comfortable personality and Mirelle found herself wishing that the woman would stay longer. June always seemed to have another appointment that she had to get to on time. She never appeared hurried, however, for her energy was not obtrusive, yet she apparently accomplished a great deal for the Church.
"I've got to go, Mirelle," she said now with a groan and rocked herself up out of the spring studio couch. "I should spend more time walking than 'going', " she added, smoothing her skirt over her plump hips. "Oh, well, who wants a bony grandmother?"
She grinned down at the unpainted Dirty Dicks in their various postures.
"Have you ever seen Dr. Mason's six year old Tommy? I could wish that you'd put his face on one like this fiend," she said, indicating the one with Nick's face. "But that wouldn't be very good public relations, would it?"
That Sunday Steve entered the studio for the first time. He made an exclamation at the sight of two rows of the glazed, finished Dirty Dicks.
"How many of these are you donating to the Bazaar?" he asked.
"I'd planned on sixteen of these, some of the cat poses and animals to add to Christmas scenes."
"Done anything for that Howell guy?" The question was casual.
"No. Not yet."
"What did he want?"
Mirelle decided to take the question at face value.
"He saw the Cat in the Stamford Museum. He wants something with that kind of feeling."
"What? Washing its paws? Wasn't that Tasso?"
"I should pay the cat a percentage of what he's earned for me," Mirelle said with a laugh.
"Howell doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd go for cats."
"On the contrary," and Mirelle regarded Steve's frowning face with bland amusement, "he's so constantly on the concert circuit that the at-homeness is very much what he wants."
"Funny he should see that in the Cat. That wasn't what you intended at all, was it?"
Mirelle looked Steve right in the eyes. "As a matter of fact, it was. I did it just after we left Ashland."
Steve flushed and Mirelle held her breath, wondering if yet again her errant tongue would precipitate an argument.
"You were pretty torn up then, weren't you? And I was so damned glad to have a territory of my own after two years of being overruled by that paper-assed Patterson."
It was Mirelle's turn to feel chagrined. She had been such a bitch then, and Steve had been so elated by his promotion. He'd done very well and the bonus that year had been substantial.
"I got two hundred for that Cat," she said. "It isn't everyone who can make money out of being homesick."
Steve snorted. "I guess not."
He went off to bed while she put her tools away. It had been a tranquil weekend, she reflected gratefully. And he hadn't taken exception to the extent of her proposed donation to the Church, or Jamie Howell's commission. If only he would not say something, or if I can just hold my tongue, if only this truce will last a little longer, maybe I can find my way out of this impasse.
She took a shower because plaster dust was gritting between her breasts and sticking to the fine hairs on her arms. When she came back into the bedroom, Steve was lying naked across her bed. The sight of his well developed arms, his heavily muscled chest tapering to a still trim waist no longer aroused her as once it had done. There had been a time when she had risen from love-making to sculpt his relaxed and satisfied body. Plaster replicas of every portion of his physique gathered attic dust. She knew each tendon, muscle, bone and plane of his body: a knowledge that had thrilled her as lover and sculptor.
She understood what had prompted his generous attitude in the studio. Did he honestly think that a passing interest in her work constituted an apology? Or the reminder that she, too, had been at fault in their relationship?
Peace at any price, she told herself. She felt neither desire nor revulsion as she joined him on the bed.
CHAPTER NINE
THE NEXT MORNING Steve went off to work in high good spirits, kissing her soundly in front of the kids. She stared after him, mildly astonished that he actually thought last night's performance had mended all.
She had been completely uninvolved in the love-making, responding out of habit. She wondered vaguely if that's how prostitutes felt, amused at such a thought - amused in an unfunny way. Why Steve hadn't felt her unresponsiveness, she couldn't guess. He hadn't wanted to? Had there really been a time when she had adored Steve and his body, and the expression of their healthy appetites?
No bang, no whimper, not even a gasp. Was that how a marriage ended?
The question, popping unbidden into her mind, was startling enough. She rose quickly, busily clearing the breakfast table: anything to keep from thinking. She filled her coffee cup. None left for Sylvia!
God, how she hoped Sylvia would be early this morning! Talk about needing to sound off… just to hear how silly a notion was… Mirelle gulped. How could she talk around something as devastating as this? You simply don't just up and discount fifteen years of marriage one morning. And you sure as hell don't bring it up as a subject of casual conversation.
Rather desperate for diversion, Mirelle looked around the studio. She didn't have anything to glaze or fire. She had nothing started on the wheel. Her eye caught the Lucy. Okay, rub salt in. That might do the trick.
The Lucy had been relegated to a corner so she pulled it out into the center of the room and uncovered it, backing off until the couch caught the back of her knees. She sank down.
Lucy would have had an answer, at least a solution, or an idea. She wouldn't have wanted me to quit, not when I'd come so far. She never disqualified the hard work required in any marriage: hard work on both sides. But, what do you do, if there's nothing… nothing… there anymore?
Despair, like a cold wave, swept over Mirelle. She began to cry, in gusts that came from deep in her guts. She drew her legs up against her stomach against the racking spasms. Her body was suddenly more committed to the exertion of weeping than it had been to last night's sexual act.