As Lilian sits in her chair by the window, the blank white sky almost sends her to sleep. Her eyes glaze as though she has lost her mind but inside her head the film of Evie is becoming sharper, her footage of Evie always starts in the bath.
It was dark and as Lilian climbed the stairs she imagined that the carpet was thick with fleas. At the top she could hear the slopping of water, the clatter of metal slow and menacing. Edie always bathed with the door open and when Lilian reached the top she was confronted by the most terrifying woman she had ever seen. Her face was hard and housed eyes that looked as though they had never flinched. The raw directness of that look shocked Lilian more than the image of Edie, huge and naked wearing only a collection of heavy gold rings on her grubby fingers and chains of pearls dirty about her throat. She continued to soap herself, not oblivious to Lilian's stare but impervious to it. Edie had no modesty or shame. This was her house and she behaved as she pleased, barking orders from the bathtub like a theatrical director .Lilian could never remember what Edie said to her that day, she can only see her cold eyes and her thin lips moving above her square jaw. The enduring image of Edie Humphrey's was that of a woman soaping her body with fingers still clad in her entire collection of solid gold rings. Of a woman who smoked in the bath and applied lipstick layer upon layer like wallpaper upon a parlour wall, a woman who never seemed to be clean. Edie was not beautiful or even attractive, she was formidible.
It was dark and as Lilian climbed the stairs she imagined that the carpet was thick with fleas. At the top she could hear the slopping of water, the clatter of metal slow and menacing. Edie always bathed with the door open and when Lilian reached the top she was confronted by the most terrifying woman she had ever seen. Her face was hard and housed eyes that looked as though they had never flinched. The raw directness of that look shocked Lilian more than the image of Edie, huge and naked wearing only a collection of heavy gold rings on her grubby fingers and chains of pearls dirty about her throat. She continued to soap herself, not oblivious to Lilian's stare but impervious to it. Edie had no modesty or shame. This was her house and she behaved as she pleased, barking orders from the bathtub like a theatrical director .Lilian could never remember what Edie said to her that day, she can only see her cold eyes and her thin lips moving above her square jaw. The enduring image of Edie Humphrey's was that of a woman soaping her body with fingers still clad in her entire collection of solid gold rings. Of a woman who smoked in the bath and applied lipstick layer upon layer like wallpaper upon a parlour wall, a woman who never seemed to be clean. Edie was not beautiful or even attractive, she was formidible.
