Tony wrote her outer name with her right hand and her other name, her inner one, with her left; although, officially, she was forbidden to write with her left hand, or to do anything else of importance with it. Nobody had told her why. About the closest she’d come to an explanation was a speech of Anthea’s—of her mother’s—in which she’d said that the world was not constructed for the left-handed. She also said that Tony would understand better when she grew up, which was just another of Anthea’s assurances that failed to come true.
When Tony was younger the teachers at school would slap her left hand or hit it with rufers, as ifshe’d been caught picking her nose with it. One teacher tied it to the side of her desk. The other children might have teased her about this, but they didn’t. They couldn’t see the logic of it, any more than she could.
That was a school Tony got yanked out of quickly. Usually it took Anthea eight months or more before she got fed up with a school. It was true that Tony couldn’t spell very well, or not according to the teachers. They said she reversed letters. They said she had trouble with numbers. They would say this to Anthea, and Anthea would say that Tony was gifted, and then Tony would know it would soon be time for a change because very shortly now Anthea would lose her temper and start insulting the teachers. Nincompoops was one of the nicer names she called them. She wanted Tdny changed, fixed, turned right side up, and she wanted it to happen overnight.
Tony could do things easily with her left hand, things her right hand would stumble over. In her right-handed life she was awkward, and her handwriting was lumpish and clumsy. But that made no difference: despite its good performance her left hand was scorned, but her right hand was bribed and encouraged. It wasn’t fair, but Anthea said that life wasn’t fair.
Secretly Tony continued to write left-handed; but she felt guilty about it. She knew there must be something shameful about her left hand or it would not have been humiliated like that. It was the hand she loved best, all the same.
It’s November, and the afternoon is already darkening. Earlier there was a dusting of snow, but now it’s drizzling. The drizzle runs down the living-room windows in icy, sinuous trickles; a few brown leaves are stuck to the outside of the glass like leather tongues.
Tony kneels on the chesterfield with her nose pressed against the window,., making fog patches with her breath. When the patch is big enough she writes on it, squeakily, with her index finger. Then she rubs out the words. Kcuf, she writes. This is a word too bad even for her diary. Tihs. She writes these words with fear and awe, but alto with’a superstitious relish. They are Tnomerf Ynot words. They make her feel powerful, in charge of something.
She breathes and writes and rubs out, breathes and writes. The air is unfresh, filled with the dry, burnt smell of the chintz curtains. All the time she’s writing, she’s listening to the silence of the house behind her. She’s used to silences: she can distinguish between full silences and empty ones, between those that come before and those that come after. Just because there’s a silence it doesn’t mean that nothing is going on.
Tony kneels at the window as long as she dares. At last she sees her mother walking quickly along the street from the corner, head down against the drizzle, her fur collar turned up, her face hidden by her maroon hat. She’s carrying a wrapped package.
Probably it’s a dress, because clothes are a solace for Anthea; when she’s feeling “blue,” as she calls it, she goes shopping. Tony has been dragged downtown on these expeditions many times, when Anthea couldn’t figure out where else to stash her. She’s waited outside change rooms, sweating in her winter coat, while Anthea has tried things on and then more things, and has come out in her stocking feet and done a pirouette in front of the full-length mirror, smoothing the cloth down over her hips. Anthea doesn’t often buy clothes for Tony; she sa~s she could dress Tony in a potato sack and Tony wouldn’t notice. But Tony does notice, she notices a great deal, She just doesn’t think it would make any difference whether she wore a potato sack or not. Any difference to Anthea, that is.
Tony gets up from the chesterfield and begins her piano practice. Playing the piano is supposed to strengthen her right hand, though everyone including Tony knows that Tony isn’t musical and that these lessons will lead nowhere. How could they? Tony, with her little rodent paws, can’t even span an octave.
Tony practises doggedly, trying to keep time to the ticking metronome, and squinting at the music because she’s forgotten to turn on the piano lamp, and because, without realizing it, she’s becoming near-sighted. The piece she’s playing is called “Gavotte:” Ettovag. It’s a good word; she will think of a use for it, later. The piano reeks of lemon oil. Ethel, who comes in to clean, has been told not to polish the keys with it—she’s only supposed to use a damp cloth—but she pays no attention, and Tony’s fingers will smell of lemon oil for hours. It’s a formal smell, an adult smell, ominous. It comes before parties.
She hears the front door open and close, and feels the cold draft from it on her legs. After a few minutes her mother walks into the living room. Tony can hear the high heels, tapping on the hardwood floor, then muffled by the carpet. She plays on, banging the keys down to show her mother how studious she is.
“That’s enough for today, don’t you think, Tony?” her mother says gaily. Tony is puzzled: usually Anthea wants her to practise as long as possible. She wants her safely occupied, somewhere out of the way.
Tony stops playing and turns to look at her. She’s taken off her coat, but she still has her hat on, and, oddly, her matching maroon gloves. The hat has a spotted half-veil that comes down over her eyes and part of her nose. Below the veil is her mouth, slightly blurred around the edges, as if her lipstick has run because of the rain. She puts her hands up behind her head, to unpin her hat.
“I haven’t done a half-hour yet,” says Tony. She still believes that the dutiful completion of pre-set tasks will cause her to be loved, although in some dim corner of herself she knows this hasn’t worked yet and most likely never will.
Anthea takes down her hands, leaving her hat in place. “Don’t you think you deserve a little holiday today?” she says, smiling at Tony. Her teeth are very white in the dim room.
“Why?” says Tony. She can see nothing special about this day. It isn’t her birthday.
Anthea sits down beside her on the piano bench and slides her left arm with its leather-gloved hand around Tony’s shoulders. She gives a little squeeze. “You poor thing,” she says. She puts the fingers of her other hand under Tony’s chin and turns her face up. The leather hand is lifeless and cool, like the hand of a doll.
“I want you to know,” she says, “that Mother truly, truly loves you:”
Tony pulls back within herself: Anthea has said this before. When she says it her breath smells the way it does now, of smoke and of the empty glasses left on the kitchen counter in the mornings after parties, and on other mornings as well. Glasses with damp cigarette butts in them, and broken glasses, on the floor.
She never says “I truly, truly love you:” It’s always Mother, as if Mother is someone else.
Rehtom, thinks Tony. Evol. The metronome ticks on. Anthea gazes down at her, holding onto her with her two gloved hands. In the semi-dark her eyes behind the spots of her veil are sooty black, bottomless; her mouth is tremulous. She bends over and presses her cheek to Tony’s, and Tony feels the rasp of the veil and the damp, creamy skin under it, and smells her, a smell of violet perfume and underarms mixed with dresscloth, and a salry, eggy smell, like strange mayonnaise. She doesn’t know why Anthea is acting like this, and she’s embarrassed. All Anthea does normally is kiss her goodnight, a little peck; she’s shaking all over, and for a moment Tony thinks—hopes—it’s with laughter.