The Nature of the Beast
Making herself a cup of tea, Ruth opened the play and started to read.
* * *
The party broke up and Armand went into the kitchen. Reine-Marie could hear the tap water and the clinking of dishes and cutlery.
Then the clinking stopped and she heard only the steady stream of water. Going into the kitchen, she stopped at the door. Armand was leaning over the sink, his large hands clutching the counter, as though he was about to be sick.
* * *
“Are you still going to rehearsal tomorrow?” Gabri asked, as he and Myrna walked home.
“I guess. I don’t know. I … I…”
“I know, me too.”
Gabri kissed her good night on both cheeks, then went into the bistro to help Olivier with the last of the evening service. Myrna climbed the stairs to her loft apartment above the bookstore and got into her pajamas, then realized she was both tired and wide awake. Looking out the window, she saw a light at Clara’s home.
It was eleven o’clock.
Putting a shawl around her shoulders, and slipping on rubber boots, she clumped around the edge of the village green and knocked on the door. Then she let herself in.
“Clara?”
“In here.”
Myrna found her in her studio, sitting in front of the unfinished canvas. Peter Morrow stared back, ghostly. Half-finished. A demi-man in an unfinished life.
Clara was wearing sweats and held a paintbrush in her mouth, like a female FDR. Her hair stuck out at odd angles from running her hands through it.
“Pizza for dinner?” asked Myrna, picking a mushroom out of Clara’s hair.
“Yes. Reine-Marie invited me over but I wasn’t really in the mood.”
Myrna looked at the easel and knew why. Clara had been obsessing over the portrait again. And Peter, now gone, was still managing to undermine his wife’s art.
“Do you want to talk?” Myrna asked, drawing up a stool.
Clara put down the brush and ran her hands through her graying hair so vigorously that bits of pepperoni and crumbs fell out.
“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” said Clara, waving at the portrait. “It’s as though I’ve never painted in my life. Oh, God, suppose I can’t?”
She looked at Myrna in a panic.
“You will,” Myrna assured her. “Maybe you’re just doing the wrong portrait. Maybe it’s too soon to paint Peter.”
Peter seemed to be watching them. A slight smile on his handsome face. Myrna wondered if Clara knew how very well she’d already captured the man. Myrna had cared for Peter very much, but she also knew he could be a real piece of work. This piece, in fact. And Myrna also wondered if Clara had been adding to the portrait, or taking away. Had she been making him less and less substantial?
She turned away and listened as Clara talked about what had happened. To Peter. It was a story Myrna knew well. She’d been there.
But still she listened, and she’d listen again. And again.
And with every telling Clara was letting go of a bit of the unbearable pain. The guilt she felt. The sorrow. It was as though Clara was pulling herself out of the ocean, dripping in grief, but no longer drowning.
Clara blew her nose and wiped her eyes.
“Did you have fun at the Gamaches’?” she asked. “What time is it anyway? Why’re you in pajamas?”
“It’s half past eleven,” said Myrna. “Can we go into the kitchen?”
Away from the goddamned painting, thought Myrna.
“Tea?” Clara asked.
“Beer?” Myrna countered, and pulled a couple out of the fridge.
“What’s wrong?” Clara asked.
“You know I joined the Estrie Players,” said Myrna.
“You’re not going to ask me again to go and paint sets,” said Clara. When Myrna didn’t answer, Clara put her beer down and reached out for her friend’s hand.
“What is it?”
“The play we’re doing. She Sat Down and Wept—”
“The musical?”
But Myrna didn’t smile. “Antoinette took the playwright’s name off the script. She wanted to keep it a secret.”
Clara nodded. “You and Gabri were all excited, thinking it must be by Michel Tremblay or Leonard Cohen maybe.”
“Gabri was hoping it was by Wayne Gretzky.”
“He’s a hockey player,” said Clara.
“Well, you know Gabri,” said Myrna. “Anyway, Antoinette said she did it to attract attention, interest. To get people talking.”