The Italian Teacher(36)

“You have to tell me,” she says, toying with the teapot lid, “if everything is right with you. I’ve been worried.”

“I’m fine. Tell me about you, Mom. You’re selling at three craft shops now—let’s hear.”

After a pause, she concedes, “I’m all right.”

“Your pottery?”

“What can I tell you? If you saw a ceramics fair these days, Pinch, it’s such a muddle. You wouldn’t know what you’re looking at. Everybody’s so bloody English—determined to be small, droning about salt-glazing and fiberglass. But I’m producing my sculptures, as I always wanted. Sometimes I think they’re good. Except when I think they’re god-awful. Depends which day. Which hour. Which second!” Flushing, she laughs, hand over her throat, twisting a chunky red plastic necklace.

“What are these new sculptures? I don’t have a picture in mind.”

“Calling them ‘sculptures’ is a bit rich of me.” She shakes the salt dispenser onto a fingertip, tastes. “They’re mashed lumps of clay, Pinchy. Gestural craziness from your crazy mother. Un pasticcio, a garbled mess.”

“Don’t make yourself sound so inept. People will believe you.”

“Well, I believe me. No, I’m joking. You’re right. I think they are decent, this batch. They’re brilliant! How about that?”

When he turns his head to consider the “Soup of the Day” on a blackboard, her jollity subsides in the periphery of his vision only to reassemble when he turns back. “So you dare to make pottery without a function—what would Cecil say?” he jokes.

“Dear old Cecil.” After his awkward visit to Rome, they fell out of touch for several years—Natalie cringed to recall her wretched state when he was there, how she misinterpreted everything. But they are back in touch again, and she still loves Cecil; he’s still her supporter. “He’s in Brighton now, still making the same terribly serious pots.”

“Do you see him often?”

“When he can stand me. And your father? How’s Bear? I marvel at that man.”

“Same as ever.”

“It’s so hard to believe we were together. Don’t you find? Anyway, the force of will in Bear is incredible. I envy him that. You need to be selfish as an artist—that’s why it’s so much harder for a woman.” She pauses her rapid-fire stream, looks hard at Pinch. “I was at the craft shop the other day, and someone said, ‘Natalie used to be married to Bear Bavinsky.’ Another person went: ‘Were you his muse?’ I told them, ‘When people say “muse,” you know they mean “assistant”?’ They thought me very bolshie, very women’s lib.” Fast, Natalie sips her mint tea, looks around as if everyone were staring. “But your father was an encourager of mine. It was Bear who bought my potter’s wheel in Rome. Made me feel like a proper artist. I shouldn’t forgive him for that! He inspires people, makes you feel you can. Sometimes, I wonder if that’s fair, like when kids get told: ‘You can become the president or an Olympic gold medalist! Just put your mind to it!’ Such rubbish.”

“You never told me I could be an Olympic athlete,” he says.

“There are limits to what is credible, Pinchy.”

He laughs. At first, Natalie seemed to blare her eccentricity. But this is a peek at his mother again, as if she were on the other side of a door and now leans out, and they see each other, know each other too well.

“I don’t get why you always talk as if your career ended, Mom. You were just saying how well your sculptures are going. You can’t doubt everything. You love your work, so it’s worth it, right? You even loved Dad, right? Or you wouldn’t have waited in Rome all that time for him.”

“It was different in those days. I could hardly have returned to college in London while raising a baby, unmarried. At least in Rome, we had a place to live for free. But, of course, I was very keen on Bear.” She smiles. “As your father liked to say, ‘Natty, you’re one in a million girls!’ Eventually, I realized he meant it.”

“You must’ve known he was like that. You two started seeing each other as an affair.”

“But I was so young, Pinch. I didn’t understand much of anything. And I was so unsure of myself. If someone told me I ought to do something, I figured they knew. What amazes me is I ever had the guts to tell Bear to leave. Seeing your father’s face! Like a scolded little boy, poor thing.”

“You broke it off?”

“I asked him to leave, yes. And immediately started regretting it. But it was impossible to back out. He got angrier and angrier, wouldn’t listen to me anymore. I suspect he was ready to go himself. He shouted for a while, burned a few paintings, and went.”

“Why burn a few paintings? Out of anger?”

“No, no. He just didn’t want to leave anything substandard behind. Your Dad, as you know, is very worried about people seeing substandard work.”

“Worried?” Pinch says. “Dad doesn’t care what anybody thinks.”

“I’ve never met an artist who didn’t worry what everybody thinks. Or what are they doing it for? Some act like they don’t care, but you can pick those out—they’re the misanthropes. ‘I’ll hate the public before the public hates me!’ Oh, poor Bear.” A half smile. “I’ve never been able to get mad at your father. Why is that?”