The inferiority of press molding. The inferiority of opaline. The inferiority of latticino. The sanctity of the batch.
• • •
In his studio, my father draws the clear concave bell of a medusa, the central peduncle, the dangling tentacles—forty-nine of them, exactly forty-nine, no more, no less. He is exacting, never having forgotten the boyhood sting of Felix Girard’s It is wrong here. And here. And here. Around the margin of the bell, he adds slightly raised spots, blue-green bulbs; these would be phosphorescent, in a living animal, in an ocean thickened by night. Dear Harry, I have received your letter and thank you for the kind words regarding my little sketches. Please find inclosed, copies, as many as I could complete, with more to come. Dear Harry, I work very slowly these days. The cold cramps my fingers and I do not want to make a mistake. Dear Harry, Since you have asked, Clotilde is very well except she misses her Papa. Too, the early darkness at this time of year can be so oppressive. Dear Harry, Another recent rockfall has exposed more petrifactions on the Scaur. I think they are worth exploring, despite the danger of further collapses. Dear Harry, Recently I have begun, by necessity, to work in glass, a medium difficult and unfamiliar to me, but filled, I think, with possibilities, could I only gain the opportunity to explore them. Dear Harry, Clotilde is very quiet, and unless I am mistaken, she thinks often of her “Darling Papa.” I am sure it would cheer her immeasurably, and me too, if you could make a foray north . . .
He draws an anemone, the thick, warty stem, the pale olive disk, the lobes of the mouth, the four surrounding rows of lilac tentacles. These are slender and tapering, like fingers. The soft, inner whorl of an oyster like the whorl of an ear, listening. He writes to Harry Owen in London. But he does not go into the Birdcage, and so he is not there on that particular night, that one out of the many nights, to stop Thomas Argument rising from his chair, following Clotilde to the window where she has sought shelter in her discomfort and anxiety. Argument stands close behind her as she looks down into the courtyard, seeking that wavering light, my father’s light. He stands so close that she does not dare to turn around, lest she find herself closer still. Closer than she wants to be.
A single probing fingertip traces the edge of her lace collar. In response, a nervous vibration. She trembles. Perhaps from fear.
• • •
I am sure it would cheer her immeasurably, and me too, if you could make a foray north . . .
• • •
All this, of course, is speculation. I do not know what Thomas Argument did, or how my mother reacted. This is all a refraction of my fears, which are my father’s fears, handed down to me through his diary. My mother wrote nothing, left nothing, except, of course, that charming enigma, her photograph. She is a sphinx, a cipher. We have projected upon her in turn, first my father, now me. We are making her, he in his way, I in mine. She is our creature, our creation. At the same time, she is not ours at all. She has slipped away from us. Our created Clotilde is a simulacrum, inserted by us into the space where she really used to be, the space we are always seeking, and always failing, to fill.
It was a warm space. Warm no longer.
I believe the process of her slipping away began that night, at the window, when Thomas Argument stood so close behind her that she could feel, without touch, the heat of his body on hers.
And then the touch.
Every night since, there has been less and less of her.
Does my father, out in his studio, feel her slipping away, feel the escaping molecules of her attachment to him? Is that why he begins work on the complicated sketch of a prawn—striped carapace, tail-fan, antennas, the legs with their complex joints, the blue pincers, the stalk-eyes? Is this when he begins it? So as not to feel it, this process that is taking place despite him, beyond his control? Or because he thinks he can keep her, through some mysterious alchemy, by working harder?