The Story of My Face by Kathy Page Page A

her thumb, she makes tiny stroking movements on the back of her husband’s hand.
    â€˜I’m not – I just know,’ he tells them. ‘She’s beginning to do it already –’
    Barbara interrupts: ‘Is this another vision?’ she asks.
    â€˜Shouldn’t we welcome a stranger who seeks us out? Christ Himself turned no one away. Didn’t He say –’
    â€˜Please –’ Mark’s voice gets lost in his throat, emerges thin and high as if whatever made the proper sound had slipped out of place. Both parents smile, then stop themselves. ‘She wants something. She’ll just take it.’
    â€˜What might that something be?’ his father asks. ‘Could it be the Lord’s Grace ?’
    â€˜Whatever it is,’ Barbara says, ‘even if it’s just some company, can’t we just give it to her?’
    John disentangles his hands, clasps them together. He closes his eyes, pulling the pale lids down like blinds, so as to hear more clearly the inner voice. Mark has no choice but to look hard at his mother, pushing hopelessly at her for some kind of acknowledgement of her duplicity, for a last-minute withdrawal. It’s hopeless. He’s appalled, but not surprised to hear his father eventually say:
    â€˜It must depend, of course, on what her parents think. So long as she enters into the spirit. . . . Well, we do have four berths, after all –’ He reaches for his wife’s hands again, looks up to her face, watching and unconsciously copying with his own smaller, redder lips, the smile that’s growing there.
    The next morning a letter adressed to ‘Mrs S. Baron’ nestles in Barbara’s best, cream-coloured handbag. Her face is smooth and plump, as if she’s slept particularly well. Her green skirt and matching short-sleeved blouse are home-made as ever, but smart. She hums to herself as she lets the blue gate swing closed behind her and sets off briskly down the Avenue. The May blossom and ceanothus are finished and the last of the flowers lie in faded pink and blue drifts on the pavements and grass verges. Laburnums are out now, and peonies.
    Few flowers grow in the estate. No. 88 is a flat-fronted, pebble-dashed semi with the Council’s maroon paint peeling from the front door. From the other side of the road she watches a stringy, bullet-headed man hack at the tangle of brambles and columbine which spills over the front fence and reaches higher than the ground floor windowsills. His efforts are vigorous but have little effect on the sheer bulk and tangle of vegetation. As she watches, he throws his shears down and begins pulling at the bushes with his gloved hands. The down of thistles and dandelion clocks clots the air. Barbara crosses the road, stands by the fence.
    â€˜Excuse me – are you Mr Baron?’ She repeats herself several times before he notices.
    â€˜No –’ He faces her, sweating hard, hands fisted, the creases of his face black with dust. ‘Not to my knowing!’ He adds, ‘I’m just the gardener, me.’ At this, he makes an explosive noise in his throat, halfway between laughter and a cough. His forearms are scratched and bleeding, his eyes still bright with effort, angry, she guesses, with the bushes for taking more out of him than they should.
    â€˜You’ve got your work cut out!’ she tells him. ‘This is where Mrs Baron lives, isn’t it?’ The tattoo of a snake, she realises, is winding its way around and around the man’s upper arm. She glimpses the head – socketed eyes, jaws agape, red mouth, split-whip tongue, and blinks, returns her eyes to his face; a flush comes to her own, takes hold, spreads. Anything can bring it on –
    The man stares at her, grins. She can’t look away, in case she sees the image of the snake again.
    â€˜I’m looking for Mrs Baron,’ she persists. ‘Is she in?’
    â€˜Not so