Colours in Her Hands, page 13
He sat on the bed with the box and eased off the lid. Folded back the white tissue paper. The porcelain face was painted cream and pink with the doll’s lips parted on small teeth. She seemed about to start speaking. She had blue eyes and a braided crown of dark hair. A blue dress gathered with a wide yellow cummerbund. Tiny hand-stitched leather boots. But all the details paled next to the unnerving gesture of speech arrested. He covered her mouth with his hand. Without her teeth showing, her expression was cold and fixed.
The dolls he’d found to use as props for the dance had peachy, surfer-girl tans. He supposed the colour made them look friendlier to a child living in the twenty-first century. But this doll, despite the hard cream and pink tones, looked infinitely more bewitching.
3
Mina had had a good day. First, the #61 bus to the dollar store, then she walked to the video shop where she got an Indiana Jones movie. She’d seen it many times already but she wanted to watch it again. She’d walked so far that she needed a rest before getting on the bus to go home, so she went into Lafleur to have an order of frîtes. Each golden brown fry dipped into a happy blob of ketchup!
When she got home, the man from down the hallway with the little dog held the door for her. She said hello to the dog, who was very smart. He only ever barked once to let you know he was there. That was enough. Dogs who barked and barked were stupid.
She locked her door and put the chain on. Took off her hat and emptied her pockets to examine her loot. A long skinny tube of peanuts from the video shop. A package of erasers. Dishrags in blue and pink for the sink. An oblong piece of plastic. She didn’t know what it was for, but it had a dial with numbers on it and numbers were always good.
She had to use her scissors to get the cardboard off. Too much cardboard! A job she’d had once was stapling cardboard onto hangers. That was all it was: stapling the same size of cardboard to the same kind of hanger, one after the other. Cardboard and hanger, cardboard and hanger, cardboard and hanger, cardboard and hanger, cardboard and hanger. At night she started dreaming about cardboard and hangers. But when she tried to tell Bruno, he didn’t understand. Her stapler had to fall in the toilet and wouldn’t flush down before they let her stop doing that job.
After supper she made a cup of tea to get ready to watch Indiana Jones, but when she put the movie into the player, it didn’t work. She pressed every button. She punched the top. If she poked with a knife in the front to fix it like last time, Bruno would make his angry stone head. She grumbled at the angel. Why did Mama give her Bruno and not someone nicer?
But. She had no choice. With a grim face she dialled.
“Allô?”
“Something to tell you.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“My D-D-D-D —” She exhaled, too annoyed. “For watching movies!”
“Minaaaaaaah! You didn’t break your dvd player again, did you?”
“No!”
“Right. It broke all on its own.”
“Yeah.”
“How often do you even use your player? Whenever I come you’re watching TV.”
“Movies too.”
“Like what? Tell me.”
“Swing Time.” He should know that. He gave it to her.
“Is that the only one?”
“No.”
“So what else?”
Movies were movies. What did he mean?
“Movies about what? What happens in these movies?”
She sighed. “Y a un homme. Pis une femme.”
“A man and a woman,” he said slowly. “Are they dressed?”
“Yeah.” And then she added, “No.” Because sometimes they were and sometimes they weren’t. Didn’t Bruno watch movies?
“What’s going on in these movies? Are they doing things?”
How could it be a movie if they did nothing?
“Are they driving? Do they have guns? Are they talking? . . . Are they having sex?”
All those things happened in movies! Why was Bruno always trying to trick her with questions? “It’s b-b-broken!”
“Okay, okay, I’ll come over.”
“Quand?”
“Now. I want to see what kind of movie you’ve got.”
Was Bruno going to watch a movie with her? They hadn’t done that for a long while. What a great day!
But as she waited, glancing at her watch to see how much longer he would be, she wondered why he was coming now when he should be having supper with Gabriela.
* * *
Iris sat in an alcove of the bar with a glass of Merlot. Techno music pulsed softly. Jenny was coming when she finished work and Iris had her notebook out to show her. Bruno had seen the sketches and said they were perfect.
At first Bruno had only asked if Iris could make britches. Easy, she said. They’re no different from trousers, only they have a cuff below the knee. Why, are they for you? No, he said, surprised. It’s a costume for a dance. So the fabric has to be stretchy, she said. Exactly, he nodded. Stretchy and quick-drying since it might have to be washed after every performance. They’d kept talking about costumes for dance in general and he seemed impressed with her ideas. He said he wished they had a budget for costumes because he would hire her. She offered to make them pro bono if her name was on the program as costume designer.
An upright sleeping bag loomed over the table. Jenny threw back her hood, unzipped her coat, stuffed it on the bench, and slid into the booth. “My coat doubles as a pillow.”
“Quadruples,” Iris said.
A slender figure who might have been waitstaff paused at their table. “Mojito,” Jenny said. And to Iris, “What’s up with you? You look like you’re going to pop out of your shirt.”
Iris flipped her notebook open to a page with two quickly pencilled bodies. One wore a tiny apron — a triangular flap that barely covered the groin, more a suggestion than a functional apron. The other had knee-length britches.
A tall glass with a clear drink where mint leaves and lime slices floated was set near Jenny’s hand. “Merci, cher,” she said. And waving a hand across the drawings, “These are . . . ?”
“Costumes for Bruno’s dance company.”
“Mmmm.” Jenny hummed as she took a sip. “Are they paying you?”
“Not yet, but I get my name on the program.”
Jenny raised her glass in the air. “You always said you wanted to do costumes. You go, girl! Just don’t forget me when you’re famous. Remember who your friends are.”
“I’m not going to get famous from this. It’s only a mini-apron and britches.”
“It’s a start. And . . .” Jenny singsonged. “Did you say Bruno’s dance company, as in you’ll be seeing more of him?”
“He has a girlfriend. I told you.”
Jenny shrugged. Whenever Iris mentioned a man, Jenny imagined possibilities. She thought it was too long that Iris had been single.
Iris didn’t understand why people always thought that being single was a failing. It wasn’t as if she’d never been in a relationship. But everyday life with Josh had been frankly boring and Renée had wounded her too deeply when she decided to return to her ex. Iris didn’t ever want to be hurt like that again. Casual arrangements were more practical and suited her. The neighbour, Xavier, who sometimes tapped on her door. Xavier had a wife and a kid and no claim on Iris. Or the nights she put on a dress and went to a bar. If a woman stood in a certain way, or had Renée’s eyes, Iris might follow her home. There had even been the odd client who arrived for a fitting in suggestive lingerie, though that felt more risky because it could impinge on her professional reputation. She didn’t tell Jenny about the oneoff escapades. Or about Xavier. No more than she would have shown her the lipstick vibrator in her bedside table. The official party line was that running her own business took up all her time. She had neither the energy nor the patience for the strategies and compromises that coupledom required.
Yet Jenny persisted in believing that having someone else’s toothbrush in your bathroom was a universal ambition. “I think you like this Bruno.” She clinked her glass against Iris’s. “The way you talk about him.”
“Sure,” Iris agreed. “I appreciate that he asked me to make costumes.”
“And you’re nice to his sister.”
“That’s got nothing to do with him.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
Irish shook her head. She’d met Mina first.
Jenny ordered another drink and asked if Iris was having another too. Sure, why not?
Then Iris said, “There is something strange about the girlfriend. He’s never mentioned her but Mina talks about her, so I assume he has one. But yesterday when I went to the studio, one of the dancers said something that made it sound like he’s on his own. She told him not to turn into a hermit, he should come over for supper.”
“Uh oh, you’ve got competition already.”
“She’s got a boyfriend. And besides . . .” Iris tapped her notebook. “This is what interests me.”
Jenny leered over her straw. “It’s not all that interests you.”
* * *
The queen had locked the girl in a stone room that was full of straw. “She was c-c-crying.” Because the queen said she had to knit the straw into gold. Straw was old and dry. Gold was shiny like the wings on Mama’s angel.
How? The colours asked.
Mina didn’t know. She could knit but she couldn’t knit straw into gold. She poked her needle into the cloth but didn’t pull it through. She was remembering the scary part and she squinted, not wanting to remember.
The story! the colours shouted. They already knew about the little man. They’d heard the story before. But Mina still had to tell it.
“D’okay,” she said. The little man came. He didn’t need a key because he was magic. All night he knit and in the morning the queen unlocked the door. The man was gone and the straw was gold. Shining piles of it all over the floor and heaped against the stone walls. Mina remembered the picture in the book.
Now the girl married the prince. That was good. “And she had a baby.” But that wasn’t good because the little man was going to come take her baby. That was the deal.
Mina would never make a deal like that with her colours. They were hers! She lay her hand on the stack of knitting beside her on the sofa. In her fingers and in her palm she could feel how the colours throbbed, the outlines of the shapes, the energy mingling.
Go on, the colours said. Finish the story.
“His n-n-name.” The girl had to guess his name. That was the tricky part of the deal. There were always tricks when you made a deal. The name was long and hard but the girl remembered it. “Stiltskin!” A hard name but Mina remembered it too.
The little man was so angry that he stomped on the ground. He stomped so hard that his leg got stuck. When he tried to pull it out, he ripped in two. No more mean little man! That was a good story.
* * *
Mathieu was prancing about the studio in the mock-up britches Iris had sewn from remaindered purple paisley broadcloth. When she’d taken them from her knapsack, Bruno said, We can’t use that, it’s too heavy for dance. I know, she said, this is only for the pattern. To give me an idea. Don’t worry, for the costume I’ll get spandex.
He flushed, embarrassed that he’d been so quick to criticize. Why had he done that? But she seemed not to notice. She laughed at Mathieu’s enthusiasm. He’d already peeled off his tights and was waiting in his boxers to try on the britches.
Val and Tandi made faces as Mathieu preened and posed, pointing his ankles and bulging his calves. “We try not to flatter him,” Tandi told Iris. “As you can see . . .”
“I love the button-up flap!” Mathieu swivelled his hips.
Iris was attaching a wrist strap, topped with a pincushion that was bristling with straight pins. “I would have sewed a few pompoms on if I knew you were going to move like that. But you know, the flap is just for now, right? For the real costume, I’m going to draw the lines.”
“Can I still have buttons?” he pleaded.
Iris looked over her shoulder at Bruno who said, “We can’t risk a button getting ripped off and rolling across the stage.”
“I’ll draw the buttons,” she said. “That’ll still be cool. Come.” She beckoned Mathieu toward her.
He executed a neat demi-plié and skipped across to where she waited on her knees.
“You’d better be still now.” She held up a straight pin. “Or you know who will get pricked — not me.” As she began to pin the inside leg seam, Mathieu looked as if he’d even stopped breathing.
“Now we know how to threaten him when we want him to shut up,” Val said.
“Injury to his precious kiwis,” Tandi droned.
Mathieu slit eyes at them but took care not to move.
Bruno saw how Iris’s hands, so practical and assured, moved on Mathieu’s body, and imagined her touching him like that. Her competent hands smoothing his thighs.
She sat back on her heels, appraising the fit. “Good,” she nodded. “But they’re full of pins. Hold still, I’ll get them off you.” She unbut-toned the flap over his crotch and gently eased the tight britches down his legs.
Boogie was crossing the room on soft feet, returning from his smoke break. He lifted the neck and body of his cello from the floor and settled himself on a chair that would correspond to down-stage right. Boogie — real name Bogdan — had only started coming last week. He sat with his eyes half-closed, listening to the dancers’ movements, now and then plucking strings. He was composing a soundscape, which wasn’t meant as an accompaniment but an aural environment for the choreography. He would play onstage during the Montreal performances, and Bruno would record him for when they took the show on tour.
Val clapped once. “Thank you, Iris, the britches are fabulous. Now let’s get back to work, people! Let’s try that last sequence again.”
Bruno moved to turn the videocam on but saw now that he’d forgotten to turn it off when Iris arrived. It had been recording the whole time. Val wouldn’t be amused when she reviewed the day’s work.
Tandi and Mathieu windmilled their arms and stretched their necks, limbering up. Iris had squatted against the wall to watch.
“Can we go back to that leap over the head?” Val called. “I need you to swing your leg higher.” Val always wanted higher, deeper, more intense, more powerful.
Bruno, heading back to his workbench, stole a last glance at Iris. He liked seeing how absorbed she was. He would be meeting her more often if she kept making costumes for them. A prospect he realized he liked.
He had four dolls on whom he’d performed successful head transplants. The trick was to pull the fabric shoulders of the cloth doll up around the plastic neck and use crazy glue. Anything less wouldn’t withstand being smashed on the floor.
Now he had another idea. He’d braced one doll in c-clamps. On the cupboard door next to him he’d tacked an enlarged photo of his mother’s doll. He got out his paints and the lid of an old tub that he used as a palette. He squished out a thick swirl of white and a separate tiny dab of ochre, touched only the tip of his brush into the ochre and mixed that into the white. He looked from the paint he’d mixed to the photo, back to the paint again, back to the photo. Close.
He could hear Val telling Tandi to stoop lower. There was silence, then audibly expelled breath, and a thump on the floor. “No,” Val said. “Let’s rethink this.”
He felt movement beside him and was surprised to see Iris. He would have thought watching the dancers was more interesting than him painting a doll’s head.
“You want to match the colour.” Iris was looking from the photo to the doll in the c-clamps.
“Same timeframe as the britches.”
“She’s beautiful but she’s creepy. The way it looks like she’s going to start talking.”
“I can’t change the mouths on these dolls, but the complexion . . .”
“Porcelain, yeah,” she said. “I like that. It looks cold. And hard.”
He was conscious of how close she stood. Curls loose around her face but short on her nape. The delicacy of her pale skin. He wasn’t usually attracted to blonds.
“I have another costume idea I wanted to tell you about,” she said. “You know how Val talks about frustration bursting out as viciousness?”
He made a sound in his throat he hadn’t meant for her to hear but she said, “What?”
He shrugged.
“Tell me.” She nudged his arm.
“Just something . . .” He could smell the faint scent of her soap.
“Yeah?”
“Val spins a lot of words and ideas around the dances.”
“You don’t like the dance?”
“I always love the dance,” he said quickly. “I work in dance because I admire what dancers do. The way the body moves. But I could do with less talking about what a dance means and why it’s relevant. Movement should speak for itself, don’t you think?” Even as he said it, he knew he wasn’t being fair to Val.
“But the talk is necessary too, isn’t it? People want it.”
“People want it, you’re right. In fact, if you don’t know how to spin words, forget getting funding. We’re actually lucky that Val knows how to play the game.” He couldn’t believe that he’d almost betrayed Val. Like a kid showing off how much he knew. But instead of coaxing him to say more, Iris had snatched him back onto safe ground. She was okay.
“Can I tell you my idea?” she asked. “I thought I could sew a few strips of fur to the britches. Nothing that would get in the way, just a wee subliminal hint to the audience.”
“You’re good at this, aren’t you?”
She smiled up at him, pleased, and he felt how he was smiling back.
