I was sure I was right. And soon enough, I had proof. My spirits soared so . . . they could have lifted me over the tops of the tallest pines.
Diccon invited us all over for a campfire supper. In a huge cast iron skillet, he fried up sliced potatoes and some trout he’d caught in the stream behind his cabin. We drank bootleg whiskey in tin cups. Diccon was in a festive mood. He said he’d had a real breakthrough in his writing and felt like celebrating. He came and sat next to me, and the dank, woolly smell of his lumberman’s shirt, laced with pipe smoke and charred fish, filled me with a familiar joy.
This was what I had dreamed of when I first learned he was coming back to America. I was close to Diccon again. He wouldn’t stay away any longer, I thought. There was still time for everything to work out.
We all got rather rowdy. At one point Diccon, standing precariously on a rock, held out his cup and shouted out a toast.
“To the Biancos! No fairer, finer people on God’s green earth! How I do love the lot of you!”
He sat down next to me again. He knocked his pipe against the log, then brought his face close to mine.
“’Tis true, Pamela, I love the lot of you!”
Of course I knew it was his way of telling me. He meant he loved me. I wanted to kiss him right then, his face was so close, but there was my family across the fire and all I could do was smile back at him. Happiness flooded all through me.
Diccon was mine. He’d meant that letter for me. I should never have doubted it.
pamela
In May, when we returned to the city, Diccon stayed on in the mountains.
What was wrong? I couldn’t understand why Diccon stayed in the country so long. The six months would soon be gone, he’d be going back to England. Was he really going back to Nancy? Would he leave without a word to me? I wrote him several letters, asking when he’d be coming back to the city, but he didn’t reply.
I sank low, then.
Such a bleak time. It’s hard, remembering it.
I stayed in my studio, sleeping late, rousing myself by noon to work into the small hours of the morning. When I was painting I was all right—it took all of me, brain and heart and hands, and I didn’t think of Diccon then. I’d fall into bed exhausted, but when I woke I’d just lie there, staring at the wall, for hours.
Nothing is anything, I’d think. What is wrong with me, why do I make a mess of everything? Why won’t Diccon write? How could he love me, why should he? I’m nothing, nothing at all.
Sometimes, late in the morning, Mam would come over.
“Goodness, Pamela—still in bed? You’re missing a beautiful day!” She’d open the shutters, start some tea, say she’d just come over to let me know Daddy was off to Woodstock, or that she just thought she’d take a break from writing. But she was not just popping in for a visit, I realize that now. I didn’t think of her feelings, how worried she must have been.
Why couldn’t Diccon answer one of my letters? Why did he have to stay away so long? What was the use of his coming over from England if we never saw him?
I kept thinking of the one jolly evening we’d had, the campfire supper when he’d been his old warm and lovely self. I didn’t understand anything. Hadn’t he looked at me in that meaningful way, letting me know he loved me, saying he loved me? I was sure he had. I went over and over the events of that night, feeling Diccon’s face so close, his eyes on me, his grin, his declaration of love, the way he’d repeated it especially for me.
I was terribly confused. Why did it have to be so hard, so mystifying? Why couldn’t I have what everyone else had? All those couples in the Village, just outside my studio door, they were all quite happy. It seemed so simple—why couldn’t Diccon and I be like them?
I wanted to stop thinking about it but I just couldn’t.
In my studio I found a broken frame. I sat on the floor, and with my penknife I carefully cut off bits of wood until I had a little pile. I put the wooden shards in an envelope.
My letter was brief.
Dear Diccon,
I am enclosing for you a few pieces of firewood. You may light your fire with them. I imagine that you are having quite a nice time.
With love, Pamela
I posted the letter, returned to the studio, and picked up my knife. I cut at the frame, slowly, methodically, until there was nothing left of it but shavings.
pamela
Diccon never answered my letter. He ignored me entirely. When he finally did return to Greenwich Village it was only for the briefest moment—he’d booked passage back to London in two days’ time. He did allow us to give him supper on his last night in the city. It didn’t take him long to get around to the subject of Nancy. He was positively alight with joy.
“Well, I’ve done it—I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain—and I’ve managed to write up a storm. Philippa has no grounds for complaint now . . . looks like I’ll be a married man soon!”
I was silent while everyone around me chatted cheerfully, as if there were something to celebrate. Mam cast furtive glances at me. She must have been awfully worried by my silence; she must have been alarmed by my face of stone. She was powerless to stop me.
I pushed back my chair and stood up. Everyone looked at me in astonishment.
How I wish I could take back what happened next. . . .
I screamed at Diccon.
“I hope in future all your hotcakes burn and that all your children are acrobats!”
There was silence. Utter, terrible silence.
What had I done? What had I said?
I had no rational thought. I was an animal. I ran from the table. The next day I stayed in bed. I lay there unmoving.
I could not move, for a sorrow heavy as a boulder was strapped to my back. Pressing on me, suffocating me.
Mam came over, sat by me. Asked if she could do anything at all. I knew that she wanted to unbuckle the straps, lift the burden from me, but it would not be lifted.
I shook my head. Slowly. Even that seemed an effort.
The heaviness was unrelenting, now clamping itself around me like a full body cast. I couldn’t raise myself up.
Anyway, I didn’t really see the point.
What good was anything? What good did it do to be grown up, to be pretty, to feel desire . . . if no one desired me? I was nothing to Diccon. I was nothing to anyone.
I’m smaller than the smallest ant. Someone should go just ahead and step on me. I’d feel better then.
I’m nothing, nothing at all.
? ? ?
I won’t think of Diccon. There is nothing to think about. You can’t really think of what you don’t have and if I try I might start pacing again and I couldn’t bear that and I couldn’t let Mam see me that way.
I’ll think of the paintings. I can turn through them in my head like pages in a book. Each one crystallized. The chandelier. The pomegranate. The maze. Children like statues, frozen. I’ve painted them a million times.
All those ghosts. I’m afraid of the ghosts, but at the same time I want more than anything for the ghosts to return so that I can begin.
Why don’t I just go ahead and paint, what is wrong with me?
How can I tell my mother about these things? Why do I talk and talk and say nothing?
margery