Random Winds by Belva Plain Read Free Book Online

thought of greatness in art—but how can I know unless I’m taken seriously?”
    “And no one does?”
    “My mother did. If she were living, I’d be in New York or somewhere studying. But Father thinks it’s all ‘nonsense.’ If I had any money of my own—”
    “You’d go away?”
    “Oh yes! Yes! I do so want to see somewhere else!” And she made a free gesture with her arm. “Haven’t you ever wanted to—get beyond?”
    “All my life, as far back as I can remember.”
    “And have you done it?”
    “In a way. My beyond is my work. Medicine.”
    “Ah, then you’re very lucky! I don’t even know whether my work is any good! I’ve done nothing yet Nothing. And I’m already twenty.”
    “You’re in a great hurry. I understand.”
    “Do you? Do you ever feel you want to hear all the music ever written, see all the great cities, read all the books, know everything?”
    He smiled. “All that and art, too?”
    “Art, too. I have to find out who I am. Because I’m surely not Monet or Winslow Homer, am I?” Then with sudden embarrassment she said, “I’m sorry. You can’t possibly be interested.”
    “You’re wrong.”
    “Well. You did ask about my ‘rebellion,’ didn’t you? It’s not very savage or successful, so far. And sometimes I’m even ashamed of it.”
    “Why should you be?”
    “Because of Jessie. After all, I have so much. She has so little.”
    He nodded. What conflict must be within these walls!
    His eye fell on a watercolor hung on the wall between the windows: a girl in a swing, her curved back half hidden by a fall of leaves.
    “That’s Jessie?”
    “Yes. She didn’t like it. But nobody sees it in here.”
    “It’s very good, I think.”
    “It’s the truth, anyway.”
    “People don’t always want to see the truth.”
    “Oh, Jessie sees it well enough! It’s Father who doesn’t, or won’t. She needs so much to talk to somebody about herlife! What’s to become of her? Father’s not a person one can really
talk
to. He wants to pretend there’s nothing the matter, while all the time he’s so afraid.”
    Martin didn’t know what to answer.
    “What will become of her?” Mary repeated.
    “Won’t she just stay here as she is?”
    “Father won’t live forever. And I’ll do what I can for my sister, but I probably won’t stay here, either.”
    He felt absurd alarm. “Suppose you were to be married?”
    “I doubt I shall marry anyone from Cyprus.”
    He wanted to ask, “Why? Is there anyone? Do you—” But that, too, would have been absurd.
    When they went to the door, he told her he’d be back for a while in the summer after graduation and asked whether he might come again.
    “Come. But come and see Jessie, too.”
    “Do you always think of Jessie?” he asked curiously.
    “Wouldn’t you, if she were your sister?”
    He considered, feeling the moment with acute and sudden pain: the allure of the girl, the melancholy of the house and, over all, his old familiar sense of time eluding.
    “Yes,” he admitted. “I probably would. So I can just be a friend to both of you, can’t I?”
    Spring came and commencement and he was home again. His mind was filled with Mary. He thought of all the clichés in the language. “Head over heels.” “First sight.” “Chemistry,” whatever that might mean. All were expressions which he had once found unbelievable.
    He was, of course, too easily moved; he knew that about himself. He was embarrassingly given to tears not easily blinked away. Only a month or two ago, for example, passing an exquisite baby in a carriage, a Delia Robbia cherub with bright hair, he had stopped. The baby had given him a smile so miraculous, and he had been so touched, that the mother, seeing the absurd rise and glisten of his tears, had hurriedly wheeled the carriage away, thinking no doubt that he was some sort of madman and possibly dangerous.
    Now joy pierced him through: his own, and the joy of the eyes in that dark, poetic