Hazel Willow.
Terry Collett

 

Hazel Willow stands by the door of her mother's front parlour. Hesitating, she peers round the room and sees the dark-brown coffin resting on wooden trestles over by the unlit fireplace. Her father had died five days before and is now home for the day until the funeral. The room has a certain smell and quietness that Hazel tries to ignore, but can't; it permeates everywhere. Hazel stands anxiously staring at the coffin seemingly waiting for something to move or happen, but nothing does; all is still.

"Go on, Hazel, give your father a final kiss," says Nan, pushing Hazel forward with her elbow. Hazel resists. Nan pushes harder. "Go on, you great thin feather; anyone'd think you were frightened of him." Hazel is pushed forward into the center of the room; she stares at the coffin: the dark wood, the white silk.

"What�s that smell?� Hazel asks, screwing up her prominent nose.

"It�s what they use at the undertakers to keep bodies smelling nice and preserved for a while," says Nan. She takes Hazel's arm and moves her closer to the coffin. "Go on, Hazel give him a kiss."

Hazel stares into the coffin. The body of her father looks stiff and smart in his best suit, but to her he looks like someone else, not her Dad, at least not as she remembers him. His skin is pale and waxy and has an unrealness about it that makes her feel strange.

"I thought you loved your father, "Nan says at her ear.� Funny way of showing it, if you can't even kiss him for the last time."

Hazel pulls a face, but leans forward over the coffin and barely lets her lips touch the waxy coldness of the forehead. Unreal, she thinks leaning away, brushing the back of her right hand across her lips.

"He won�t bite you, �Nan says meanly. She leans over the coffin and plants a wet kiss on her late son's forehead. Spittle sits on the waxy skin like a teardrop. Nan gazes at the face. Sighing she waves at the corpse and moves away. "He was a good boy,� Nan says quietly.

Hazel's mother comes into the room and stands beside Hazel. She holds a tissue to her nose and sniffs. "I can't believe he�s gone, Hazel. Your father..." She pauses. Her nose sniffs, her eyes water. Hazel puts her left arm around her mother's narrow shoulders.

"We�ll miss him Mum," Hazel mumbles. Mrs Willow nods, and moving away from Hazel's arm, goes to the coffin and peers in. Hazel follows and stands beside her mother again. Nan sits in an old armchair beside the coffin staring at the green patterned carpet.

"Leon, I'm going' to miss you," Mrs Willow cries. Moving over the coffin she gently kisses the forehead for the last time. "Goodbye, Leon, don't forget, to wait for me," she adds tearfully. Hazel frowns and senses tears in her eyes. Nan shakes her head at the carpet, sighing to herself. Mrs Willow moves away from the coffin sniffing.

"Bye, Dad," Hazel whispers. The smell continues to drift. The three women depart the parlour in sniffs and sobs and then all is quiet.
                            =========

"Beauty," Basil Sagely exclaims, "beauty." He dabs oil paint onto his canvas that sits precariously on the easel. Hazel, who is reclining on an old sofa naked like Titian's Venus of Urbino, moves her hand from her lap and scratches her nose.

"How much longer you going to be, Basil? My necks getting stiff and my arms are aching," Hazel says, placing her hand back where it was previously.

"Not long, my dear, Hazel," Basil replies. He dabs another brush of paint to the canvas with a flick of his slim wrist.

Hazel muses for few seconds scratching at her naked right thigh. "Wonder what my Dad'd think if he could have see me here like this? He'd tan my backside he would, if he were alive and found out," she adds moodily.

"Well he can't and won't, so your backside, as you call it, is quite safe, Hazel, my little beauty," Basil says holding his brush away to one side and studying the canvas. Hazel looks across at Basil as he stands gazing at the canvas. Tall, dark-haired with deep-set eyes,
he puts down his brush and flicks his right finger against his dark thin moustache. "It�s coming along, coming along, Hazel my dear," Basil exclaims with a sigh.

"Can I see it yet?� Hazel asks sitting upright on the old sofa.

"No, not yet, Hazel...Bad luck and all that sort of thing, my dear," Basil says taking his eyes from the canvas and studying Hazel momentarily. "So, how did the funeral pass off?" he asks once again rubbing at his moustache.

"Well, Mum cried a lot and Nan sniffed and sniffed and I had to show a brave face when I didn't feel brave," Hazel replies putting a gown over her naked body. "But it went off all right, as much as funerals do..." Hazel pauses. She wonders that her father would say if he could see her now and shakes her head. "I shouldn't really do these nude sittings, Basil," she says suddenly. "I�m only seventeen and God knows what my mother�d say if she ever found out."

Just then the door of the studio opens and Hyacinth Reed puts her head round the door. "Am I disturbing you, Basil?�

"Hyacinth, my dear Lady, nice to see you, no, your not disturbing us, we have finished for the day," Basil says, marching excitedly over to where Hyacinth stands. Hyacinth smiles a thin smile and stares back pass Basil at Hazel standing wrapped in a gown.

"Ah, Hazel," Hyacinth says prudishly,� should get dressed, dear girl, or you'll catch a death." Hazel nods. Basil bows slightly and gestures for Hyacinth to enter further into his studio. "Don�t you find it cold in here, Basil?" she asks.

"Too busy to feel the old chill, Hyacinth, " Basil returns smiling.

"But your young model, Basil, looks frozen,� Hyacinth states.

Basil looks over to where Hazel is beginning to dress and raises an eyebrow. "Are you cold, Hazel, old thing?�

"No, I'm all right, Basil," Hazel informs buttoning up her white blouse. "I don't feel the cold here at all while I am working," she states.

Hyacinth freezes her smile and tosses back her head so that her blonde hair drops behind her back.

Basil nods and turns back to Hyacinth. "We artist-types are tough as old boots, Hyacinth, dear. Now to what do we owe the pleasure of your dear company?� Basil asks with ease.

"We have an engagement, Basil; have you forgotten?� Hyacinth says.

"Engagement?� Basil asks, rubbing at his moustache.

"Dinner, Basil, dinner. We're meeting the Home Secretary this evening. Don't say you've forgotten?� Hyacinth pleads.

"Golly gosh, no, course I remember. So, we're meeting..." Basil scratches his head and gazes at the tall broad woman before him.
"Can�t remember the fellows name...Still, be nice to meet him."

Hyacinth stares at Hazel sitting on the old sofa putting on her shoes. She senses jealousy in her bones as she stares at the slim dark-haired beauty half her own age younger. "When I say we, I mean, you and I, Basil, not your young model."

Basil pulls a face and then at his moustache. "Not young Hazel?�

"Basil, surely, you can't expect..." Hyacinth sees Basil's face and stops her voice. Her stare hardens at Hazel. Basil tut-tuts. Hazel looks at one then the other face before her.

"I am grooming her," Basil says like a hurt child. "She�s such an angel."

"She�s your model, Basil, from Southwark. You can't expect her to be comfortable with our kind?� Hyacinth says coldly.

Basil sniffs and goes to his canvas. He studies his work. Daphne would have understood, Basil muses, standing before his painting, rubbing at his nose. A picture of Daphne Yew his lover of many years, now deceased, enters his mind for a few seconds then, slowly disappears.

"Daphne would have understood, Hyacinth,� Basil states.

"I don't expect to go anywhere,� Hazel says timidly. She stands by the sofa with her black coat over her arm.

"What will people think, Basil?� Hyacinth says coolly. "I mean a model?� She stares again at Hazel and then moves her eyes to Basil, who still stands by his easel gazing at the canvas.

Silence is Basil's reply. Both women watch him as he lets his eyes scan the picture like a hawk for prey. Finally, after five minutes he moves away from the canvas, goes to the clothes stand in the corner, and puts on his coat.

Hyacinth sighs and shakes her head. "I suppose she could come,� she states stiffly, "providing she doesn't drop her aitches everywhere like some drunken juggler."

"She�ll be an angel," Basil says. Hazel frowns, Hyacinth sighs and Basil hums as they leave the studio with a short click of the door.
                          
                        *

Hazel sits in silence at the huge table. Basil had brought her a beautiful black dress and had her hair done by professionals, and now she sits shy and beautiful, opposite the Home Secretary, next to Hyacinth on her left and Basil on her right, and others unknown to her along the rest of the table. Hyacinth watches her every move with a critical eye. She can sense it. She feels stiff with immovability.
The others are talking freely and with good humour and the Home Secretary gazes at her periodically with interest.

"So, this young lady is whom did you say, Basil?" a fellow guest says from Hazel's far left. Hazel blushes and lowers her eyes.

"This young beauty," Basil exclaims," is Miss Hazel Willow. I have been commissioned to paint her," he adds giving Hyacinth a glance.

"Are you of the Norfolk Willows?� A lady asks from Hazel's far right. Hazel opens her mouth, but nothing comes. She stiffens.

"No," Basil says, "she�s of the Hampshire Willows." He gives Hazel a smile and raises his eyebrows.

"Yes," Hazel says in a voice she finds within, "Hampshire Willows. Have you heard of them?" she asks. There is a murmuring of assents and the sight of nodding heads.

"Salix magnifica, what?" a man chimes in from Hazel's near right.

Basil laughs and taking Hazel hand says, �Corylus magnifica!�

Hazel smiles innocently at the faces around her, but Hyacinth does not return the smile. She sits for a few minutes and then says:
"More like Corylus Avellina, I'd say." There are a few scattered guffaws then silence follows. Eyes look from one to the other.

"There�s nothing common about this Hazel," Basil says suddenly.

Hazel is unsure what has been said, she knows no Latin. She looks at Basil then at Hyacinth. She smiles at the Home Secretary and says:
"What would you say, Sir?�

The Home Secretary smiles broadly and says: "What adjective
can one add to such beauty." There are assents and a few scattered laughs. Hyacinth frowns. Basil squeezes Hazel's hand gently and smiles. The talk moves on to other topics and Hazel occasionally enters with caution when she feels on safe ground, but Hyacinth is waiting her turn to undermine.

Finally after a short break in the talk she says:" And who has commissioned this painting of yourself, Hazel?� Eyes around the table move back to Hazel and Hyacinth sits with a thin smile on her lips waiting for the reply.

Hazel looks at Basil then at the Home Secretary. "My father, before he died,� Hazel informs bring her hands together before her as if she were about to pray. "He died a few weeks ago," she adds, her voice soft, painful. There are murmurs of commiseration and condolatory comments from around the table. Basil nods. Hyacinth sighs and Hazel dabs at her eyes with a napkin as other talk begins and the evening moves on seemingly like an endless horizon stretching into darkness.
                               ===
As Hazel reclines on her bed at home on the Sunday morning, she can hear her mother sobbing and her nan trying to comfort her and at the same time bring down curses on her Hazel for being a loose woman and staying out all night at some gentleman's house from up West. She lays back, lets her head rest on the pillow, and tries make out the faded pattern on the yellowing light shade above her head, but fails.

"I tried to make them understand," she whispers to herself,� but they wouldn't listen. Nan going off at an angle and Mum getting herself all upset wondering what Dad'd say if he were here." She pauses and listens again to the sounds downstairs. She sighs. If Dad were here, it'd be more than a tongue-lashing, I'd be suffering now, she muses sadly, yet relieved, again feeling a little guilty at wishing her father not there, when deep down inside she wishes he was.

"I told them Basil wasn't that type of bloke, not the sort to take advantage," she says audibly to herself, lowering her eyes to the greying curtains drawn across her windows. She ponders on the night before with Basil at his house. A real gent he was, offering me his bed while he slept on that sofa of his. And now all this fuss, she muses shaking her head, glancing at the black dress Basil had bought the day before for the dinner that evening, folded over the chair across the room. They couldn't belief their eyes when I showed them. I thought Nan was going to hit me one .He's sweet Basil. Wants me to go up there again tomorrow to finish off the picture. Says he can get me more work. If I'll be his regular model, she muses deeply, thinking of her future, looking round the room at her present.

Turning her head she sees a photograph of her father on the old oak chest by her bed and smiles a weak smile as if her father might see her and expect it. Guiltily, she turns away and is glad her father couldn't have seen her yesterday in the nude posing for Basil. She wonders if her father would have understood, but knows he wouldn't. He would have gone off the deep end and she'd have been for it then, she muses sitting up on the bed, resting her chin on her knees.

Reflecting on Basil she remembers how she blushed when he offered her his bed for the night, and how she felt slightly disappointed when he added that he would sleep on the sofa. "Thought my luck had changed," she says audibly to herself, gazing at the black dress, remembering the dinner and Home Secretary. "And that Hyacinth is right jealous of me," she adds." She's a snooty cow. Don't like it because Basil..." She stops and lays back, her eyes catching again at the faded light shade, the voices from downstairs drifting away, her limps relaxing, and the room darkening as her eyes close and she drifts slowly into a sleep far away from her jaded room and present. "And if only Basil had," she muses in her sleep, turning on her side, hugging her pillow, thinking it Basil. Dreaming her dream.

 

 

Copyright © 2000 Terry Collett
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"