Chapter Nineteen

19

Anglican

Cowgirls

BENA & KATYA & GEORGE…
& ELIZABETH & MAUDE

“It’s not a very big Klimpt, but then size isn’t our qualification.” George handed Katya scotch and water in thick crystal and turning offered Bena a stemmed glassful of red-purple liquor.

“Excellence is a better virtue, certainly.” Katya turned an appreciative smile to the room and looked questioningly at Bena’s glass.

“Believe it or not, that has been in my cupboard since the day I met Bena. I do that sort of thing. Slivovitz. Plum gumbo. Just on the off chance that this should ever happen. It’s the only kind of magic I know how to do.”

“You see my gentleman, Katya. You laughed about blankets and seashells, my Katya. You made jokes and were cruel. Jealous, I think perhaps you were. You were not nice.”

“Not nice? Jealous?” Leaden and thick of a sudden, Katya’s feet shuffled on the carpet and she turned herself to see the long canyon through the window, the orange-white light of electric sun down blocks of stone and glass and steel and thought perhaps it was true, she maybe had been a bit jealous. “Well, it may have bothered me that you really liked somebody I didn’t know. But I’m always nice.”

“What’s going on in here?” The door was still swinging when Elizabeth’s heels hit the middle of the office floor. “I want an explanation! I want to know now! What is it, George? What’s going on? Who are these women? I know who they are. They’re tramps. Why are they…” Her eyebrows froze, “Tramps? Oh, God, George, they’re not that kind of tramp?” She reasoned with herself, “Impossible. She looks like something off the top of a music box. An old, cheap music box. And this one just looks dumpy now, but I’ve seen her look worse. These animals assaulted me in front of the Gallery, George, this afternoon. Threw garbage everywhere. They were after my bag. I put a stop to it. I can’t take this, George, this foolishness, people being crazy and not doing things right. It’s not fair that I should have to be the one everybody thinks they can just dump their messes on!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Elizabeth, these women are my friends. At least Bena is. And Katya could be, I think.”

“She will be, George, I quite like her.” Maude stood in the open doorway, one fist on the collar of her trailing lamb, the other absently clutching a black-handled cheeseknife which, when she thought about it, had been pressed upon her by someone – Tillie Sutherland, for god knows what reason. “George has friends, Lizzie. People you don’t know about because you’d never approve. There’s a lot of George you’d never approve of. Me, you don’t approve at all. Well, Lizzie my darlin’, we don’t give a damn. Do we, George?” Twirling her jacket into a heap on a homburg, she made for the cabinet, “Which one’s the good scotch, George?”

… & PAUL

“So, this’s where you all are. Katya. Bena.” Paul nodded greetings from the doorway. “Nice room, Mister Preston. Maude, if you’re pouring? Please. And Missus Preston, Elizabeth, dear heart, what a marvelous evening. The Klimpt is good.” He stepped for a closer look, “Very good. Yours? Or did it fall off the Gallery wall? Of course it’s yours, just teasing.” He pointed a baleful look at Elizabeth, “It’s a good thing to buy pictures and treat them with respect. The painters, too, especially when they’re still mouthbreathing in your foyer.”

“What bloody business is it of yours, you… Doorman!”

“Elizabeth!”

“Shut up, George! You’re depraved, you and your old tarts. And you…” She stabbed a finger at Paul, “You’ve no right to be here.”

“I was invited.”

“Not by me you weren’t! And neither were these street trash.”

“Oh, they’re my guests, Lizzie, dear.” Maude handed Paul a tumbler, “The ladies are. This gentleman’s a friend of the family.”

“What family?”

“Don’t be arch, girl.” Maude’s voice was flat as she planted herself in front of her sister, “Katherine…” She looked to Paul for confirmation, “Bailey. Her family, Elizabeth.”

“Yes!” A long swallow of scotch exploded inside Paul’s head. “Katherine, who you’ve decided to humiliate, deciding now, tonight, at the top of the party, that you don’t want her picture after all. It’s outta here. She’s outta here. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers beside her ear. “You decide to trash Katherine, trash her painting for god only knows what reason, just like you go around pissing on everybody and everything that doesn’t tug its forelock at you. You have outrageous pretensions, woman. Old George here has a bank, so you’re divinely anointed to judge for the rest of us. Like hell! You can’t even hang a picture!”

“He is harsh, Missus George, but I think that he is right. You believe a great lady, a princess, can be this way? Shouting names at people you do not know, saying who is on the sidewalk and who is not. No, I will tell you this is not good manners.”

“Bena, I expect she means well.” Katya was watching the bodice of the grey challis rise and fall in short explosions.

“No, she doesn’t, she doesn’t mean well at all.” Maude tapped a foot, “So, you’re not keeping the painting. Is that it?” The foot tapped faster and stopped, “Is that it, Little Bess? You stabbed poor silly Bea in the back because you were bored and now you’re going to do the daughter in because of… What, Lizzie? Guilt? Envy? Stupidity? What? Just habit? Well, here, here’s the knife to do it with. Take it. Old Tillie Sutherland handed it to me. Really. You know she was a friend of our mother’s. I guess she saw you coming again.”

Elizabeth Preston spun her pumps and was out the door in a gasp, the cheeseknife in her fist.

KATHERINE & BEA & TILLIE

“You know, I really don’t give a damn if she doesn’t want it.” One arm around Tillie’s waist, one on Bea’s shoulder, Katherine pointed her chin up the wall at her picture, “I can probably get a couch in those colours myself.”

“Katherine, I wish you wouldn’t speak like that. It’s actually nicer than the couch you’ve got.”

Tillie leaned to peer at her daughter, “You did wear that old sweater, pilled at the elbows,” and straightened to nod at the painting, “Could you put a peacock in there, Katherine?”

PAUL & GEORGE

In the corridor, running, George at his heels, Bena fast on the outside, Paul heard the soft whoosh around the turning, “Elevator. She’s going down!”

Running, laughing with fear, George heard a second soft whoosh and felt the ship go into a dive. “The button, she’s hit the Brigadier’s button!”

MAUDE

Maude said afterward that she saw her do it. She said you have to stand by your flesh and blood no matter the cost. Bena said she thought Missus George could have worn something a little nicer if she’d known she was going to wave from the balcony.

TILLIE
The rocks slid. Katherine’s granite avalanched down the marble, slammed to the slate and stood and slowly tipped its great coloured tent of canvas. Tillie raised her stick and its silver ferrule pierced the drum-taut cloth that fell to her fist, which after she found much bruised, and the fabric burst, tore with a squeal and slipping down past Tillie’s ears, ripped again on Katherine’s shoulders, dragged at Bea’s skirt and subsided with a burp about their feet. “Enough is enough,” Tillie said.