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Catlike. Certainly that was the word which best described Clare Kendry, if any single word could describe her. Sometimes she was hard and apparently without feeling at all; sometimes she was affectionate and rashly impulsive.
In Part One, Chapter One, Irene compares Clare’s personality with that of a cat, explaining that Clare oscillates between apathetic coldness and bursts of passionate emotion. Clare is, ultimately, deeply selfish and self-serving, but, as Irene notes, she also has a depth of emotion that draws people – like Irene and Brian – to her despite their better judgment. Clare is not entirely disingenuous when she inundates Irene with flattery and affection, but her apparent love of Irene does not keep her from behaving in disloyal and hurtful ways.
You know, ’Rene, I’ve often wondered why more coloured girls, girls like you and Margaret Hammer and Esther Dawson and – oh, lots of others – never ‘passed’ over. It’s such a frightfully easy thing to do. If one’s the type, all that’s needed is a little nerve.
Clare explains to Irene in Part One, Chapter Three that “passing” is often less difficult than it might appear. While Irene passes occasionally in order to access exclusively white spaces, Clare passes in every aspect of her life, including in her marriage to a racist. Clare has never had to provide a fake backstory to her white social circle, or explain her ambiguous skin tone, because she has found that white people are, for a number of reasons, easy to fool in the matter of race. Clare believes that one only needs to be confident enough to play pretend, and they will successfully pass. Irene and Gertrude, however, remain convinced that it takes more than “a little nerve” to get married to a violently bigoted man, showing that Clare is more likely than most to take dangerous risks to achieve her goals.
Can’t you realize that I’m not like you a bit? Why, to get the things I want badly enough, I’d do anything, hurt anybody, throw anything away. Really, ’Rene, I’m not safe.
When Irene expresses shock that Clare isn’t particularly excited to travel to Switzerland to see her daughter because it means leaving her Harlem social circle for several months, Clare warns Irene that not only does she not consider motherhood the most important part of her life, she also does not have a strong sense of morals or duty. When Irene attempts to refute this, Clare breaks down in tears. At this point, Clare has likely already begun her affair with Brian and is warning Irene that she can’t be trusted. This action in Part Two, Chapter Four shows that, despite her selfishness, Clare is not without shame or remorse. She does have strong feelings for Irene, although these feelings are sometimes at odds with her actions and ultimate goals.
She isn’t stupid. She’s intelligent enough in a purely feminine way. Eighteenth-century France would have been a marvellous setting for her, or the old South if she hadn’t made the mistake of being born a Negro.
In Part Three, Chapter One, Irene tells Brian that, in her estimation, Clare is not intelligent in the traditional sense; for example, she can’t keep up with sharp intellectual minds such as Hugh Wentworth’s. Rather, Clare’s smarts come in the form of her ability to seduce and manipulate. She is able to direct the behavior and actions of men and even women like Irene to her benefit, whether that means gaining access to whiteness and wealth through Jack Bellew or gaining access to the Black community through Irene and Brian Redfield. Irene believes that Clare would have done well in 18th-century France or the Old South because both time periods include many instances of women gaining political power via their seemingly apolitical roles as wives and courtesans.
