A Thousand Tiny Truths Page 5

  CHAPTER 2

  A Thousand Tiny Failures

  WE MET PIPPA AGAIN IN LATE SPRING. It was drizzling and we noticed her across the Common, getting out of a taxi. She was struggling to remove something from the cab and when we crossed the street towards her, she seemed relieved to see us.

  “Mish, Oliver,” she said, her eyes brightening. “Just in the nick of time. I could use a hand.”

  We helped her remove a sewing machine and a wooden ironing board from the boot of the cab.

  When the car pulled away from the curb, she looked me over quickly and said, “I like your new hat.”

  I was wearing a yellow rubberized hat and matching coat with metal clasp closures. Oliver had secured the hat tightly under my chin so it wouldn’t fly off in the wind as the last one had.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I like your new hair.”

  Since we last saw her, Pippa had cut her hair into a chin-length bob.

  She smiled and gave a shiver and said, “Shall we proceed?”

  She picked up the sewing machine in its carrying case, and we followed behind with the ironing board. The rain pattered onto the pavement.

  “A quick cup of tea?” said Pippa, when we reached her flat.

  “We’d love to,” I said.

  “We can’t,” said Oliver.

  “Please, Oliver,” said Pippa, sliding her hand along his arm, one easy movement, as if she had known him forever.

  His eyes met hers for a moment, then he said, “All right, then, a quick cup.”

  I don’t know if it was the living room’s warm glow—an effect created by several cloth-covered lamps, which cast everything in a hazy pinkish light—or if it was Pippa’s natural, cheery hospitality. But the moment I stepped inside, I felt at home.

  This was odd because, in reality, Pippa’s unruly flat could not have been more unlike home—at least the tidy, organized one I shared with Oliver. At Pippa’s, there were mannequin parts, bolts of fabric in reds and burgundies, piles of fibreboard boxes. There were shelves crowded with china animals, books and fringed pillows. In one corner, there was a stuffed partridge, a set of deer antlers and the number 3 pinned to a tailor’s dummy.

  Oliver took the room in quietly, calmly, almost knowingly, as if he had already pegged Pippa as a woman who would live this way, with mysterious layers of things piled upon things. I felt a shift in his mood. On the doorstep, he had acted as if he wanted to turn around and leave. Now he removed his coat, his overshoes, with the manner of someone settling in to stay a while.

  Pippa looked down at Oliver’s socked feet with a smile and said, “I don’t remember the last time I had a man over to visit.”

  “Really?” he said, doubtfully.

  She halted, took a deep breath and exhaled. “I have no time for anything lately. I’ve just started as a window designer for Marks & Spencer. They hired me to work at the flagship store over at Marble Arch. My job is basically to sell raincoats in the summer and beach frocks in the winter. But I like to try out new ideas at home. Thankfully, Stasha—my sister—doesn’t mind. Did I mention that we share this flat? She lived with me in France too. That’s where I trained. I apprenticed at the Galeries Lafayette under a very snooty but talented window designer. When I moved back to London and started working at the Arch, they had really dreadful windows. I mean, completely forgettable. Boring cotton vests dangling on visible strings and dusty trousers tacked to ugly boards with putty and tape to keep everything in place.” She stopped and smiled. “Am I talking too much? How about a tour?”

  She showed us around the rest of the flat, switching the lights on and off as she went. At first it seemed to be a tour of all the things she had removed. In the dim hallway: “There used to be a ghastly light fixture here. And beef brown wallpaper over there.“ In the bathroom: “That’s where they had their rotting curtain and, right where you’re standing, a mouldy runner.”

  She showed us her room, the bed where she slept. The open wardrobe, with its dresses organized in colour blocks, seemed to be the only spot of order in the entire flat. Then she led us to the guest room at the back of the flat where she presented us with “The Wall.”

  The Wall was a floor-to-ceiling corkboard where she tried out new ideas for future window arrangements. There were rows of tinsel for the Christmas display tiered to look like a massive dress, a collage of mismatched toes and heels and arches carefully scissored out of magazines as a possible backdrop for the spring footwear line. I ran my finger over squares of fabric. Each square had a strange name written under it: nylon, Terylene, Crimplene, Orlon, leatherette. Off to the side, in an otherwise blank area, was a row of three photos taken at the park. The corners were slightly curled.

  Oliver leaned in closer for a better look. “Wait a minute. These are all of Marcel,” he said.

  I walked over and saw that it was true. I was somewhere in each of the photographs.

  For the first time since we had met her, Pippa’s face went blank. She tilted her head to the right, drew a shoulder up to her ear. Then she stood up straight and smiled. “Look at me just standing here. Where are my manners? I’ve completely forgotten about that tea I promised.” She pointed to the other room. “Why don’t you two have a seat? I’ll put some music on while I change.”

  When Pippa called us into the dining room a few minutes later, she had changed into an orange shift dress and her damp hair was slicked back off her forehead. Her legs were bare but she had slipped her feet into a pair of pointy leather boots. There was a pot of tea and a bowl of ginger biscuits on the table.

  Not wanting to appear rude, I took one biscuit at a time, leaving long breaks in between. I noticed Oliver’s collar protruding at an odd angle from his sweater and touched the collar of my own shirt to let him know.

  The tea was underboiled. There was a scudding of cloud on the surface. As we sipped the tasteless liquid, Oliver eyed a vase of peonies in the middle of the table, and finally reached over to tap the ceramic side with two fingers. A petal fell. He withdrew his hand and frowned.

  For a moment we rested in the quietness of that fallen petal.

  “A gift from an admirer?” Oliver finally asked, a sudden strain in his voice.

  Pippa shook her head. “But if they were?” She smiled playfully.

  When Oliver didn’t say anything, she stood up, picked up the flowers, walked over to the garbage bin and dropped them in. As soon as she had done this, she returned to her seat. She looked at the empty vase for a moment before turning to me.

  “Mish, don’t be shy, eat up,” she said, pointing at the one remaining biscuit.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I could tell it was not an entirely comfortable visit for Oliver. But at the end of it, when we were walking home, he surprised me.

  “Well, that went well,” he said.

  “Do you like her?”

  “Hmm. She’s quite nice.”

  I asked him what he thought of her decor and the words he used were complete mayhem and obviously communist, but he seemed amused. Though he was usually appalled by disorder, there was something about Pippa’s messiness, about Pippa, that he appeared to find appealing.

  I stored away any nagging questions I had about the photos in her workroom. And the flowers in the garbage bin.

  I STILL HAVE PENCIL SKETCHES of Pippa from that time. Pippa in a hot air balloon. Pippa playing the piano. Pippa holding an umbrella. Pippa on a swing, kicking the air, her shoe flying off like the girl in that famous Fragonard painting. Even today, I tend to draw more when I’m freshly captivated.

  Lately, I’ve been sketching Iris. Tonight, I sketched her along the margin of the magazine article I was reading, her untidy dark hair recently liberated from an elastic band. She was sitting sideways in a chair, lost in a book, with her legs dangling over the armrest. I have discovered that she enjoys the occasional introverted moment. I’ve never been a big reader (much to Oliver’s disappointment), but Iris can sit for hours with a good mystery. R
ight now it’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. (“Is that appropriate?” “Yes. Book report material.”) Later, she joined my neighbour Sarah downstairs for a restorative yoga class. A waft of sandalwood incense crept up the stairs on her return.

  Over the past few days, I’ve noticed myself awaiting her homecoming whenever she leaves the flat with Kiyomi’s irritating acquaintance, Elizabeth. In the morning, I watch them from my study window and keep watching until they pass the Portuguese bakery and disappear around the corner, and I don’t feel quite right or settled until the front door flies open and Iris reappears.

  OLIVER TOO WAS HUNG UP ON PIPPA. After that visit to her flat, he began using words like fantastic (Mrs. Bowne’s lemon cake) and gorgeous (the neighbour’s garden) and hilarious (the cover of Punch magazine). He was unrecognizably cheerful and started wearing mod polo shirts and stovepipe trousers, taking extra effort to look suave.

  But what followed was a disappointing week of no further Pippa sightings.

  By the second week Oliver was less cheerful. He broke the toaster knob, which meant the door wouldn’t close, and he tried to fix it with tape but the tape melted from the heat. He swore at the toaster. Then he put his hands on the counter and breathed slowly, deeply.

  I tried to remain calm and positive.

  By the third week, Oliver wasn’t whistling while he shaved any more. He grumbled at the babysitters and snapped at me. The days and nights passed without lectures or lessons. In an effort to lift his spirits, I made him pots of tea and heated tins of soup.

  Then I remembered Pippa saying that she worked at Marks & Spencer as a window dresser. That afternoon, I found a pair of scissors and carefully cut a hole in the seat of my trousers.

  “Oh, no. Look,” I announced when Oliver returned from work, holding up the damaged trousers.

  “You don’t have others?”

  “They were my best pair.”

  “I see,” Oliver said, examining the hole and nodding serenely. “Well, we had better see about getting you new ones. How does Saturday sound?”

  On Saturday I made sure he brushed his hair and wiped the thumbprints off his glasses. I turned his wardrobe inside out in search of a suitable shirt for him to wear.

  It was still summer but at Marks & Spencer the mannequins were wearing sweaters and scarves and heavy wool coats. A sign announced in large friendly letters, in print that was supposed to look like it was written by a careful human hand and not by a machine: Winter’s most fashionable women!!

  I spotted Pippa through the pane of glass. She was wearing a short red dress and standing in the corner like a theatre director issuing cues to her immobile actors. In profile, I could see her short hair was pushed up at the back in the latest fashion. She seemed not to notice the passersby, even the ladies who paused to examine their reflections in the window. I watched as she adjusted a scarf on a mannequin, ducking to avoid a cluster of silver balls that were hanging from the ceiling, swinging and sparkling in the sun.

  Oliver and I entered the store and made our way to the display.

  “I’d like to buy the yellow coat on that mannequin,” I said.

  Pippa turned around and removed the tape measure from her mouth. She rubbed her eyes as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, but really she didn’t seem at all surprised.

  “Hello, Oliver, Mish. Once again, perfect timing. Take this,” she said, passing one end of the tape measure to Oliver. “I have a wooden sleigh that’s being delivered this afternoon and I need to decide where to put it. Now stay still while I measure.”

  Oliver held the end while she stepped away, stopping after a few yards. She closed her eyes, silently counting, then walked back.

  “You shaved,” she said to Oliver, rolling up the tape measure and dropping it into the pocket of her dress. “And bought a new shirt.”

  I hid under a clothing rack while they chatted. After a few minutes, I noticed an awkward lull and whispered loudly, “Come and have dinner with us tonight.”

  “I don’t know,” Pippa said. “I’ve never been to dinner with a shop rack before. What do you say, Oliver?”

  I poked my head out and gave Oliver a look.

  “If you don’t mind a simple meal,” he said.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll be done work by six.”

  Back at the flat, Oliver attempted to prepare something involving chicken, onions, stewed tomatoes and crisped bacon. He cleaned the countertops and set the table. He neatened, then unneatened, the furniture. Then he bathed and shaved while I banged on the door, yelling, “Remember tonight, whatever you do, don’t panic!”

  Oliver was stiffly cheerful at first and his hands shook when he poured the wine, but I was proud of him that evening. Pippa wore a perfect black velvet dress with a lacy cape over her shoulders. She was flawless. Oliver kept his eyes on her the entire time. He was a perfect gentleman. When it came time for Pippa to leave, he escorted her to the door, lightly resting his hand against the small of her back.

  I’m fairly certain that Pippa came back that night after I went to sleep. I heard a knock and the creak of a door being opened. In the morning, I saw candle stubs and puddles of hard wax dotting the table. I remember feeling surprised but not shocked by this evidence. (There had been other candles on other mornings.) All the same, I sensed that Pippa was different from the other women who had slept in Oliver’s bed over the years. Mostly women he met through work, they never stuck around for very long. They would leave quietly. On occasion, on my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I would come across a woman silently searching for her shoes, or folding pound notes into her purse, or jotting down a message for Oliver. But Pippa was different.

  Oliver made her an extra key, stocked the kitchen with her favourite tea blends and biscuits. He even bought her a toothbrush.

  It is commonplace to say that memory is an art of reconstruction. But in my experience it isn’t always so. When I think back to those early days with Pippa, it all comes back to me effortlessly. It’s like that film trick when a scene is played backwards and the pane of glass that has been shattered earlier suddenly coalesces, all the shards flying back together, drawn by magnetic force.

  Pippa had cast her spell and I was in thrall. She was everything that Oliver was not. Not once did I feel that I was her mission or her busy work or her clay to be moulded. She never sat me down with a “topic” in mind. When she said how are you, she actually wanted an honest account of my feelings.

  We had roomy conversations. She offered me words I craved without knowing it, words such as aquatic and iridescent that filled my mind with shimmering light. She spoke about things that were good for my “psyche.” She told me she disliked “dogma.” She played Tito Schipa and Cleo Laine, even though Oliver thought them bourgeois. She brought me end-of-the-run M&S shirts with right-out-of-the pack creases, but also picked up a checkered blue and yellow sweater at a second-hand store, teaching me that style was a product of your ability to combine the new and the old. She showed me all the secret spots in the neighbourhood. Walled gardens with disguised doors. A bench hidden beneath a screen of climbing vines.

  Number 95 New King’s Road in Hammersmith and Fulham was the flat I shared with Oliver. Number 107 New King’s Road was where Pippa lived. For a while, she would always return to her own place after her visits, but one evening during a thunderstorm, the walk home suddenly seemed too long and she decided to spend the night. Then came the time of sleepovers, of waking and running into a warm bed on weekend mornings. Of lying between Pippa and Oliver while they divided the newspaper until the bed was covered in a quilt of pages. It was a time of Pippa reading aloud from her latest detective novel, and Oliver delivering sermons on the crisis in the Middle East and other topics that consumed his attention: coups, the Geneva Convention, cholera. There were a lot of statistics in these discussions. Sometimes there were questions: What do you think will happen with the secession of Katanga? Do you think Belgium will remain a presence in the Co
ngo? Has the UN been too lenient? Sometimes, when he went on like this, you could see that Pippa wasn’t listening any more. She looked out the window, at the night sky, lost in the daze that too much information brings on. Sometimes she had a drowning expression. Occasionally she yawned.

  I was experienced enough to let Oliver’s flood of facts wash over me. While he droned on, I pictured myself as a swimmer threading the waves. Sometimes my mind wandered and I fantasized that I lived in the top branches of a tree. I wondered what it would be like to draw people from up high. If I drew them from the sky, they would look stocky and more tied to the earth—like anonymous peasants. If I drew them from the ground, they would look taller and more heroic—like famous Bolsheviks.

  It wasn’t all lectures, of course. Pippa knew how to soften Oliver. She teased him and made him laugh. She seduced him away from the news. She took him to the pub, to the repertory cinema to watch old movies, to local churches for free music concerts, and to galleries to see modern art. There were times it seemed that he stopped gazing at her only when he was asleep or when someone or something came between them and obstructed his vision.

  No more letters on pink hospital stationery arrived by post, or if they did, Oliver no longer kept them. Pippa walked around the flat as if she belonged with us. I couldn’t remember ever feeling so happy. But I noticed that Pippa never stored her personal things at our place: no clothes, no cosmetics, no books. She might leave an umbrella or her scarf behind, but only out of forgetfulness. When Oliver cleared a drawer in his dresser for her, she didn’t use it. It became an issue. I tried to stay out of it, but it began to upset me that when she was out, there were virtually no traces of her.

  One evening Pippa said she wanted to go back to her flat. Her sister was inviting several friends over. A group of artists. Not wanting to spend the evening apart, Oliver asked if we could tag along. He had nothing against art. After all, Pippa was artistic.

  Pippa laughed at his enthusiasm, its obvious insincerity, but quickly agreed and told us to get dressed.