Tim Wynne-Jones - The Uninvited

Her paintings. She had put her paintings on display around the place. There were nine or ten of them, sitting on chairs, leaning against the window jamb, the latest-he supposed-sitting on the easel. He relaxed. She just wanted his opinion.

“Oh,” he said. “Wow. Great.”

“Really?” she said. “Are they really great?”

He looked again. Sometimes she needed more encouragement. He understood that. He had learned how to talk to her-learned from The Artist’s Path. There was a quote there about the spark of uniqueness that is carried through you into action, and under no circumstances must one ever try to block it. This was called the quickening. It was scary sometimes. When Mavis was painting, her eyes flashed with a different kind of energy-good energy, like a car running clean, like a computer humming. And when she was happily tired, the light in her eyes was a soft thing you could come close to. But when the quickening arose, you paid attention and responded to every need, every whim.

“Well?”

He looked hard at the paintings, feeling her agitation growing-almost smelling it. Made it hard to think straight. There was that first one, which was so rich-writhing with energy. There were a couple more like that-bursting with colors, the line work strong. But as he scanned the little show, it was as if the lights were dimmer everywhere else in the room. Each canvas was duller, as if its battery was running low. There were more shades than tints. Less pure color. He could see that, but could he afford to say it?

There was a quote in The Artist’s Path. “My vanity wants your lies but they are poison to my soul.”

“Well?” said Mavis. She was rubbing her hands together nervously. They were spotted with paint. Blotched with paint she had not bothered to clean away.

“Some of them are real good,” he said, reluctant to limit his praise but afraid of lying to her.

“Oh,” she said, her voice tense. “But just some of them?”

He could feel himself being drawn into the trap. But there was no way to avoid it. He swallowed hard. “Some are… darker?”

“Darker? And what else?”

He hated it when she did this. She was like the worst teacher in the world, fishing for an answer he didn’t have, an answer she wasn’t going to like if he found it.

“There just seems to be more, you know, like, spirit in the… in those…” He pointed weakly toward the first painting and the other two that shared its intensity.

“Ahhh,” she said. “Very perceptive.” Then she grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the picture on the easel. The paint was still wet in patches. Just finished-if it was finished. He had no idea. It wasn’t anything. Just a mass of conflicting patches of color, subdued color: browns mainly and grays. A yellow seam livened up the canvas, but it was thin; he could see the canvas through it. Looked as if someone had pissed on it. He sure wasn’t going to tell her that. He glanced at the worktable and saw the wreckage of paint tubes and plastic jars, empty, lying on their sides.

Her point was pretty obvious.

“What about this one?” she said, her voice as thin as the stream of yellow on the canvas.

“You’re out of paint,” he said, tired of the game she was playing.

“Very good!” she said, and started clapping. “Three cheers for the art critic.”

“Mom,” he said softly, but it was no use.

“Congratulations to the boy too busy with his little smelly games to help his mother when she needs him the most.”

“I’ve been trying-”

“His mother who is working her fingers to the bone to find her way back to the good place where the art happens and the success happens and the happiness happens.”

“I will get you the money, honest, I-”

“Oh, good. When? When I’m dead?”

“Don’t say that.”

“Dead? You don’t want me to say ‘dead’?”

He tried to leave but she held on to him, dug her fingernails into the flesh of his forearm until he winced.

“I will die, you know,” she said, her voice tremulous. “Cramerthis is what makes it possible to live.” She threw out her arm to indicate the meager handful of paintings displayed around the room. “Without it, I’ll just rot away. That what you want?”

“No.”

“Because I’m this close,” she said. “This close!”

He peeled her hand away from his arm. “Stop it,” he said.

“Oh, I’ll stop, all right,” she said. “I have stopped, thanks to you. You want some ordinary mommy who drives into work at the Wal-Mart. Is that it? Is this your way of making me pay?”

“Shut up!” he said.

And the force of his voice stopped her, frightened her. It frightened him, too. He’d never yelled at her.

“I do have a plan,” he said. “ I have a plan. It’s hard to do anything while I’m working, but I’ve…” How was he supposed to put it? “I’ve talked to someone,” he said.

“Someone?” she said. “Is she the one who stinks like a whorehouse?”

Cramer’s hands curled involuntarily into fists at his side. And his face must have looked fierce, because Mavis backed off, lowered her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I… I didn’t mean…”

She walked over to the easy chair and sat on the arm, her back to him, looking out at the sunshine. Very slowly, he regained his composure, but his voice was shaky now.

“I’ll get your money. I don’t want to discuss it till I know more. Okay?”

She could have given him something then: a thankful smile, a little slack. She could have acknowledged what he said in some small way. Was it so much to ask for? But there was nothing. When she looked at him, her eyes got kind of lost, as if she wasn’t seeing straight.

“I should… find out in the next few days,” he said. “Believe me, you’ll be the first to know.”

Her eyes found his, but there was nothing in her gaze but disappointment. No. It was worse than that. There was nothing in her eyes but disenchantment.

He turned to go. Stopped when he heard her clear her throat but didn’t turn around.

“You’ve changed,” she said. “Yelling at your mother like that. I don’t hardly know you anymore.”

Mimi slept in late. It was eleven before she stumbled into the kitchen, where Jay and Iris were sitting with the remains of toast and orange juice and a school yearbook open in front of them.

“Iris is trying to find my stalker,” said Jay.

Mimi leaned over Iris’s shoulder as she flipped the pages. She got to the end with no luck.

“Told you,” said Jay. “He was a figment of your imagination.”

Iris shook her head. “No, it’s what I said last night. He wasn’t remarkable in any way. I thought maybe the yearbook would jog my memory.”

Mimi helped herself to coffee, which was all she could face. She had a headache, a serious one. She didn’t drink much normally, and last night had not been good for her. She wandered out to the screened-in porch and stared out at a gentle rain, felt the cool of it on her face. It helped a little.

Rain without exhaust fumes. Strange.

What was she supposed to do? She needed to get Ms. Cooper-that much was certain. But then what? Her laptop was out at the snye. Clean clothes were out at the snye. She would have to go and yet she didn’t want to. She leaned her head lightly against the screen. She didn’t want to do anything. She heard Iris giggle about something Jay has said. She wanted to go home. No. Yes. Hell.

Der ungebetene Dritte, thought Mimi. That’s what I am. It was something her German grandmother used to say: the uninvited third.

Then Jay came out on the porch. “You okay?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” she said.