THE SPIRIT LAMP (2)

Arthur set the lamp on his desk blotter. It was smaller than Muriel remembered it, but then, she wasn't quite eleven the last time she saw it.

It had been in a packing case back then. She had seen only the stained glass shade and the gold-plated screw that held the shade in place. Her imagination must've pictured the stem of the lamp and its base as bigger than it was. It had fascinated her: the irregular squares of different colored glass held together by squibbles of polished silver. They reflected the light from the open back door, her face seen in each square of glass, each in its own bright hue. But what had amazed her beyond the fascination were the many miniature figures of people seen in the glass. She got down on her knees and looked closely, trying not to blink or to block the light. She could have sworn that the figures were moving. She glanced around, but there was no one else in the room.

"Jane, I do hope it wasn't--" said Grendel, out on the broad back porch, her voice straining to deny what she knew to be true, and faltering. But she didn't give up, not even when Jane turned away from her and came through the door into the living room.

"I hope it wasn't me," Grendel went on, standing in the doorway. She smiled at Muriel with a mix of contrition and delight. It came across like an insincere apology. Muriel smiled back at her in much the same way, but without knowing why.

"It's everything," Jane said, fingering her collar as she looked around at the cardboard boxes, each labelled with Rex's flamboyant cursive: Bedroom, Den, Kitchen, Office... and so on, all meticulously packed and arranged. Muriel on her knees ruined the effect.

Jane frowned, glancing at her. Muriel felt guilty. She thought she must be to blame for her parents separating. She must be. Didn't it always seem that her mother was pushing her away with her eyes, with her frown, while her father's breathing drew her toward him? Yes, his breathing, like the life-giving air, like the spirit of spring, drawing her to him as if to make a barrier between him and the iciness of Mother.

"It's everything," Jane repeated, turning with a swish of her pleated skirt, her fingers letting go of her high pointy collar and touching her jade earring. She gave Grendel a fierce smile. "These things don't happen when it's only money, or an argument about a piece of furniture or something." She made a harsh laugh, as though her throat had exploded. "Everything has to be wrong and THEN it happens."

Grendel smiled very tenderly at Muriel, too tenderly, and then looked with too much sympathy at Jane. "I can't escape it," she said, "I can't not be included in 'everything.' I shouldn't have posed..."

Muriel noticed the hot blush on both women. They stiffened as if each had been slapped. Grendel looked at the line of boxes like she had crawled out of one of them, unhappy to be free of it. Her beauty was of the fragile sort. Her figure was not quite what it used to be. Muriel saw her mother examining the fading beauty with narrowed eyes and with a smile that was both spiteful and triumphant. Her mother was the prettier of the two. Her beauty was more resilient. She could still catch a man's attention. But Grendel was at that stage where her looks prompted a curiosity about what she had once looked like, not admiration for how she looked now. Muriel sensed this intuitively.

"It isn't the beholden," Jane said, "it's the beholder who's responsible. It isn't the fault of the cake when one eats too much of it and gains weight."

Grendel drew a sharp breath and turned to the back door. She seemed to be measuring its width. How had she managed to...

"I think it's the nature of the business," she said, blowing her nose with a large rose-patterned handkerchief that Muriel thought was the most beautiful cloth she had ever seen.

"Oh that's true enough," Jane said without a trace of disgust in her voice. "When a man spends all day around naked women..." She frowned at the box at which her daughter knelt. She had not meant to speak so frankly, and did not look at the surprised face of Muriel, but went over to the box and read the handwriting. "The Studio, it says. 'Studio' he calls it. An atmospheric trinket for the nasty room where..." She grabbed Muriel's arm and pulled her to her feet. "Go make lunch for your dad. You know how much he loves pulled pork sandwiches and onion soup. And he simply MUST eat the very MINUTE he gets home."

Muriel hurried into the kitchen and washed her hands. There were no clean towels to dry her hands on. She wrung them out over the sink, considering the apron hanging on the pantry door. She loved wearing aprons anyway. She put it on and tied a neat bow at the back of her waist.

"Hello... Honey... Grendel," said her father's distinctive voice. She heard the front door closing and the sound of his shoes on the linoleum tile of the entryway.

"And I was just..." said Grendel.

"Oh stay for lunch," Jane said. "I'm having the curried rice from last night. There's enough for both of us."

Muriel opened the fridge and took out the covered glass bowl of rice.

"I know what I'M having," said Rex.

Muriel reached for a Tupperware container full of pulled pork.

"I hope you're getting rid of these boxes, they're making marks on the carpet."

"Immediately I finish lunch, Jane." There was a pause in the conversation. It seemed to Muriel that her preparations were making an awful amount of noise. She put the soup on the fire, bread in the toaster. Using a wooden spoon she very quietly scraped the curried rice into a skillet.

"How's Arthur these days?" her father asked.

"He's... starting up a new magazine."

"Is he? Well that's splendid. It wouldn't be that my French Bunnies has inspired him? The circulation doubled this last quarter."

"Is something wrong?" Jane asked urgently.

"No, no, just a little heartburn."

"I'm glad to hear it, Rex. I mean the increase in circulation. Arthur's net sales have dropped twelve percent. It's the growing popularity of television, he thinks. The new magazine will feature cowgirls. You know how popular the TV westerns are."

"Yes, it's all gunslingers and private eyes. Myself I prefer the radio dramas. Is that the rice I'm smelling? Darling, don't burn the toast," he called out. She heard him coming into the kitchen.

Muriel turned with the wooden spoon and was in his arms, hugged, the top of her head kissed. She was determined not to cry, but when she said, "I want to live with you," the tears came. Her voice was muffled by his coat.

"There now," he whispered, "your birthday is coming up. Then you'll be able to live with me. But for now--" He held her at arms' length, squeezing her shoulders affectionately. She started to wipe her eyes but the spoon got in the way. They both laughed.

"The toast is ready," he said. "You needn't heat the pork."

Her mother came in. She brought a chill with her. Muriel stirred the rice.

"Grendel left, out the back way," Jane said. "You ought to know how uncomfortable she is around you."

"That was a decade ago. Well it's too bad. I wanted to hear more about Arthur's new mag."

"I expect you will. You look piqued. Are you sure you're all right?"

"I could use a vacation. My apartment's being painted. The fumes... they give me a headache. Darling, put a bit of rice on my plate."

"Aren't you being silly about that lamp?"

"No, professional. It gives off a unique light," Rex said enthusiastically. "You know what I mean."

"Don't drag me into this."

The silence was suffocating. Muriel busied herself making the pork sandwich, her hands trembling.

"Just... don't," her mother said.