Part 22 (1/2)

*A reference to the navigation cable, an issue which divided Eficans. Supporters of the Blue Party, like Sparrowgra.s.s, felt those unexplained cables to be a humiliating invasion, a reminder of our craven servility to another power. [TS] [TS]

46.

Felicity clambered into the back seat, cut her knee on a broken ashtray, laddered her stocking, squashed Tristan Smith to her. She touched his face, felt his legs, pulled up his s.h.i.+rtsleeves to examine his chamois-soft skin.

I, Tristan, was full of blame. It ran through my veins like bubbling sap, ruled my glands, my limbs, my actions. I pulled away. I crawled to the far side of the seat. My beautiful Mouse mask now littered the s.h.i.+ning malodorous back seat like poor grey petals.

'My baby. Are you burnt?'

I thought she was using 'burnt' poetically. I did not know that she and Vincent had tracked me to the Burns Unit.

'Sweets, I'm so sorry.'

While she tried to pull up my s.h.i.+rt and look at my chest, I turned away. I picked up pieces of torn papier-mache and stuffed them in my pocket.

'Is your mask broken?' she said.

As if it were not her fault.

As if it had not been her cultural imperialism cultural imperialism, her hegemony hegemony, her hatred of the Sirkus, which had guided my hands in its destruction.

When I saw the famous cheekbones wet with tears I showed none of the compa.s.sion I feel for her now. She was suffering and I was bitterly, triumphantly, angrily, happy.

My poor maman squeezed herself into that tight s.p.a.ce between the front seat and the back and deaf to the taxi driver's abuse, insensitive to Wally's hand on her shoulder helped me gather the bits of Mouse and place them carefully in her open handbag.

'You can be an actor,' she said.

My heart stopped. I turned to face her. She was wearing Vincent's jacket over her dress. She pulled it tight across her chest. 'OK?' she said.

I could feel my mouth s.h.i.+vering. I held my hand across it.

'I'll teach you, OK?'

I nodded, and then turned away, not wanting her to see me cry.

She gave me a handkerchief. I wiped my face. She wiped her own even as she did this she was aware of Vincent sitting sideways in his car seat talking on the telephone. She knew she had a meeting with Giles Peterson who was important in her preselection as a candidate for Goat Marshes. This was her new life. She was serious about the elections. But she had her son back, alive.

'Shall we fix up Meneer Mouse?' she asked me.

I nodded. She carried me into the Feu Follet, and left Vincent to untangle the mess she had made.

Felicity rushed through the foyer, squinting, trying not to see the peeling paint, the flapping posters, the rusting drawing pins. She carried me into the theatre, crossed the sawdust ring and entered the workshop a long brick-walled room divided by three high archways which made the workshop fall naturally into three areas. In the last of these, curtained by a sheet of paint-splattered clear plastic, was a long workshop bench where our designers had their studio.

My mother was a practical woman in all sorts of ways money, scheduling, the organization of people, the resolution of conflicts but nailing, cutting, gluing, these were not her strengths, and she knew this, even as she took the designer's chair. Other people-Wally particularly would have made a better job of fixing the Mouse mask.

She sat me on the workbench. 'I'm so sorry,' she said. 'Do you understand?'

I was not sure exactly what she was sorry about, but I did not ask and I did not soften. I stared at her.

'Maman is going to fix your mask,' she said at last.

Wally had fixed some expensive-looking kitchen cabinets to the wall above the workbench. Inside one of these Felicity found a large jar labelled 'Milliners Solution' and two sheets of white cartridge paper in a brown cardboard tube.

'What we do is lay the paper on the bench,' she said. We both knew that she was bluffing. 'And then we make a jigsaw puzzle. See there's his eye.' She laid the crumpled Mouse eye on the white paper, but when she looked up her own eye could not hold my gaze. 'And here's a corner of his cheeky mouth.'

'There's ... his ... ear.' I pointed. I did not pick it up.

'Did anyone hurt you?' she asked.

'That's ... part ... of ... his ... head.'

She picked up the piece I pointed at. We progressed this way, for ten minutes or more me pointing, she placing the crumpled papier-mache on the white cartridge paper.

'The thing about being an actor,' she said, as I tried to figure where the last few pieces belonged, 'is it's a very hard life. It's OK,' she said hurriedly, 'you will be an actor because that's what you want, but I'm telling you, it'll be hard for you, harder than for other people. Do you know what I'm saying, mo-sweets?'

'This ... piece ... is ... from ... the ... mouth.'

'It's very difficult,' she said, 'and that's why I didn't want you to do it. I knew it would be a very hard thing for you to do. Do you understand?'

'I ... know ... I'm ... a ... mutant.'

She did not look at me when I said that, but I felt her stillness, all the air held in her lungs.

'Are you angry at me?' she said at last. 'Because I made you how you are?'

'I ... want ... to ... learn,' I said. 'All ... the ... things ... you ... can ... learn. I ... want ... to ... talk ... so ... anyone ... can ... understand.'

'Maybe there are some things you won't be able to do.'

'I ... can ... learn ... to ... talk ... better.'

'The problem with diction is physical, darling, you know that.'

'I'll ... learn.' learn.'

'OK, OK.' She looked at the hateful Mouse, carefully a.s.sembled on the bench. Anyone could see it was ruined. 'I'll tell you what we'll do,' she said, not looking at me. 'We'll leave the mask. We'll let it set set and while it's setting we'll do a workshop. I thought you might like to play the part of Puck. I think I'd like to make you gold and silver.' and while it's setting we'll do a workshop. I thought you might like to play the part of Puck. I think I'd like to make you gold and silver.'

I did not ask her about how the mask could possibly set. It was a ludicrous notion, best left alone.

'Come on,' she said. 'We'll do it out in the ring.'

She picked me up and put me on the floor. I watched her choose the make-up pots and sticks with my heart beating so hard that a big vein pulsed weirdly in my neck. She sat the pots down on the bench small tubs with colour spilling down around their white s.h.i.+ny lids. She placed the fat sticks beside them. She opened the tiny closet where the fabric oddments were stored, collected two or three pieces of tat. Then she carried me out into the ring and removed every single item of my clothing.

I sat still on a white enamel chair while she ran back for the make-up, and then again up to the booth where she fiddled with the lights. When she returned she pushed me into a single tight spot. My skin tingled. I felt the pool of black, the heat of light around me. She knelt in front of me. She gave me Nora's little silver-backed mirror from Doll's House Doll's House so I could look at myself as she painted me. so I could look at myself as she painted me.