Authenticity

by Deirdre Madden

  ‘That’s something else now for us to celebrate.’

  At the end of the meal he said ‘Have you guessed yet what I’m giving you for your birthday?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘It’s something special.’

  From his pocket he took a small package, clumsily wrapped in flowered paper, and handed it to her. Inside was a slim flat leather case, slightly worn. She pressed the brass dimple on the side to release the catch and open it. On the faded cream silk lining was a watch, a gold wristwatch with a lozenge-shaped face. The supple bracelet was made of overlapping gold scales, as though it had been fashioned from the skin of some fabulous mythical fish. Julia stared at it.

  ‘I gave it to her,’ Dan said, ‘for her twenty-fifth birthday. I’ve been keeping it safe all these years to give to you on yours.’

  She didn’t, couldn’t speak.

  ‘Put it on, why don’t you?’ he said, and she removed her own watch, took her mother’s from its box and Dan leaned over her wrist to help her fasten the catch. ‘It’s a good one. I only ever bought the best, even when I couldn’t afford it.’ He didn’t seem to mind that she still hadn’t spoken: he could see that she was completely overcome, and then he guessed why. ‘Have you seen it before?’ he asked hesitantly. ‘I mean, do you remember it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said eventually. ‘I do.’

  Dan realised that she had remembered it as soon as she saw it. She had comprehensively forgotten it for all the years that it had lain upstairs, hidden away in his room, and if during that time anyone had asked her to describe her mother’s watch she wouldn’t have been able to do it.

  But what he didn’t guess, and what she couldn’t yet tell him, was that as soon as she opened the box she had recalled not just the watch but the arm that wore it: a strong pale arm, ending in a somewhat elongated hand with almond-shaped nails trimmed short. Her mother’s arm. In what part of her mind had this memory been locked away so completely for all these years? Everything else must be there, everything, but how could she get at it?

  ‘I thought I might go outside for a while,’ Dan said. ‘Do you want to come with me?’ She nodded, grateful to him for breaking the mood. ‘Put your jacket on,’ he advised her. ‘It’s cooler than you might think.’

  It was late now and dark, for there was no moon. As she walked to the end of the house, Julia stumbled against an uneven stone, and Dan warned her to be careful. At the gable end they stopped and looked up at the points of silver light high above them. To begin with they seemed to be few, scattered and faint. Although her father was superstitious about many things he set no store by the stars, which he knew made nothing happen. Comets, eclipses of the moon, the immutable precision of the constellations: to admire their futile beauty was enough for him. As they watched the stars thickened and clustered, more and more becoming visible as their eyes became accustomed to the dark, and the night gradually revealed itself in its fullness.

  Although Julia could not see Dan she could hear the sound of him fumbling in his pockets, and then there was the rasping sound of a match being struck. The little flame flared up, illuminating his profile for a few seconds as in a painting by de La Tour: the same sharp shadows, the same intensity of what could be seen in the yellow light, and then the match went out and there was only blackness again. She could smell the spent match and the smoke, see the lit point of the cigarette like a fallen star. ‘May I have one of those?’ From the sound of her voice he could tell where she was standing and reached out. Julia could feel his hand, warm, rough, giving her the cigarette packet and the matches. ‘Thanks,’ and then he saw her profile as the match flared, was extinguished. They stood in the darkness, smoking, not talking, inhaling the smell of the earth. In the distance a bird cried, once, twice, forlorn. A breeze rustled the trees of the orchard. Even though she could see next to nothing, the atmosphere around her told her she was at home; could have been nowhere else on earth.

  ‘Who invented the constellations?’

  ‘The Babylonians. And it wasn’t so much a case of inventing them.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she conceded. Cassiopeia. The Great Bear. The Little Bear. Orion’s Belt. The tiny cluster of glittering lights that was the Pleiades, the Jewel Box. Its name recalled her gifts, which she could not see, but she instinctively touched her new watch, feeling the outline of the face, then reached up and stroked the brooch on her lapel.

  All at once she was overcome by an intense physical longing for Roderic, a suffocating, dragging pressure that was also an emptiness, a lack. She wished then that she had been able to spend all of her birthday with him, and resented having had to come home to be with her father as usual. In the darkness Dan coughed, and she realised then that this had been his lot, this miserable aching tension, not just for a night or so but for year after year. Her mind shrank from all of this: it didn’t seem decent to follow these thoughts through. Then she thought no, it should be like this. She was his child but she was a woman now, and it was right that she should understand fully the refinements of his suffering, the painful detail of all he had endured. The great bulk of the mountains was visible now against the sky. The bird in the distance cried again.

  What if the people she loved were all here with her, and she simply couldn’t see them in the dark? What if her mother was here with them looking at the stars, standing silently beside Dan? What if Roderic was standing between Julia herself and her father? The power of the wish made it so: suddenly she could imagine their presence so completely that they were there. She experienced a peace, a deep contentment such as she had rarely known before.

  And when she went back into the house with Dan some time later, her eyes smarting in the bright light of the kitchen, she realised that she had just had exactly that sublime experience she had dreamed that afternoon of creating for others.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  She crushed out her cigarette and looked him straight in the eye. ‘You’re jealous, aren’t you?’ she said. They were sitting at a café on Thomas Street on a warm June day, a couple of weeks after her birthday. Julia had arrived some ten minutes earlier and without any prompting had told him artlessly about William: about how he had phoned her recently, how he had dropped by the shop that morning and how she had arranged to see him again towards the end of the week. Roderic’s displeasure at all of this, which he made no attempt to conceal, was clearly something she had not expected.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ she asked. ‘Am I not supposed to have friends of my own?’

  ‘You know perfectly well that isn’t the case.’

  ‘So it’s just this particular friend?’

  ‘Just this particular person, yes.’

  It was at this point that she suggested he was jealous. He didn’t respond. ‘Well, you’ve no need to be,’ she went on, ‘none whatsoever. He’s only a friend. There’s no sexual element in it, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

  ‘With men,’ he said, ‘there’s always a sexual element. Believe me. I know. I’m a man.’ She stared straight back at him. He couldn’t fathom what she made of this. For a moment he thought she was going to laugh, then he wondered if she was angry. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘that’s not what I’m worried about.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at.’

  How was he to explain it? Emotional seduction, which was what he believed William to be intent upon, was, Roderic thought, more dangerous than the usual variety. It was a more insidious thing, more subtle, more easily denied by the perpetrator and more difficult for the victim to identify. He understood all too well how it operated: the gradual but inexorable forcing of one’s attentions upon another person, to bully them into friendship without their being able to resist, without their even being aware of what was happening. And William, who was used to getting his own way, stood a good chance of success. But how was he to explain all this to Julia? ‘I just don’t want you to get hurt,’ he eventually said.

  Julia rolled her eyes
, threw him a look that silently said Pl-ease! Give me a break!

  The waitress arrived with the coffee they had ordered when they sat down. Julia sullenly poured sugar into hers, stirred it, lit another cigarette and flung the plastic lighter down on the table with a clatter. She sat back in her chair and blew out a long stream of smoke, stared into the middle distance and did not speak. Eerily, she reminded him now of Serena, right down to the setting of the café, right down to the fact that people at neighbouring tables had noticed them, and were plainly wondering what was the reason for the tension and disagreement between the young woman and her older companion. Never before had she reminded him of his daughters, to whom she bore not the slightest resemblance, who were wholly different in their looks, their social habits and their cast of mind. Allegra excepted, they were not particularly interested in painting, and the real subtext of that interest was easy to read. He remembered how she said she would like to come to Dublin and visit him. There had been no further mention of this, but as his relationships with his daughters slowly mended it wasn’t impossible or even undesirable that they might come to Ireland. Perhaps they would meet Julia. This was an idea so strange that he couldn’t even begin to imagine it, for down through the years he had always found it somehow uncanny when the two halves of his life, the Irish and the Italian, met. To see Dennis and his mother-in-law sitting awkwardly side by side at dinner, or to watch Marta in the green striped drawing-room casting around desperately, trying to find some conversational common ground with Maeve, had always made him uneasy.

  He drank his coffee and looked at Julia again, caught her eye. She gave a brief strange smile, as if she couldn’t decide whether or not to remain cross, looked away again. Was it really possible that she was so like Serena? He remembered how his daughter’s blue eyes had watched the men in the square watching her and how he had wanted to tell her things, to warn her, while knowing in his heart it was pointless. Any advice he might give Serena would be like a book written by someone late in life. Rich in moral experience and subtly expressed, to someone who came to it too young it would seem merely dull, although in the same book the same reader some twenty years later would be astonished to find the story of their whole life.

  Julia seemed prepared to at least give him a chance.

  ‘What is it exactly about William,’ she said, ‘that worries you?’

  ‘To begin with, he’s extremely wealthy.’

  ‘This is true,’ she agreed. ‘You think that impresses me?’

  ‘No, not at all; but it does set up a particular dynamic. He takes being rich for granted, together with everything it naturally brings with it. To put it crudely, William is somebody. Because of the social confidence his money gives him, people tend not to question this: they take him on his own terms. And they don’t even realise that they’re doing it. They never stop to ask: Who is this man anyway? Who is he, really? Now William himself has started of late to ask these very questions, and he’s none too happy with the answers he’s coming up with, but that’s another day’s work altogether. Just keep in mind that William is working from a position of strength. You, Julia, are not like that at all.’

  As she listened to him she leaned back in her chair and stared out into the street. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Your position is a vulnerable one. You have neither money nor power. I believe you know and understand this. It isn’t something you’ve exactly chosen, but you accept it. You want something particular out of life and you know what you have to do to get it. You’ve thought your situation through. That’s your strength. By your own admission, what you do isn’t fashionable. You’re working away at your own view of the world, and you’re refusing to tweak it at the edges, to blur it or falsify it in any way so as to make it more palatable to the powers that be, more commercial, more acceptable – whatever. You’re determined to be absolutely true to your own vision. It’s one of the things I admire most about you. It’s also, if I may say so, the reason why you’re living in a glorified hole in the wall, on loose change and cups of tea. But you do live in the world. Like everyone else you live in society and that’s no bad thing, for the checks and balances it provides. Your vision is your own, but if it doesn’t connect in any way with anyone else, perhaps you’re deluding yourself. You need money of course, and you also need – what can I call it? It’s something other than mere praise. It’s a certain kind of endorsement. It helps reassure you on the bad days that what you’re engaged upon in your work isn’t simply a monumental exercise in self-deception. Which is where William comes in. He’s intelligent and he’s wealthy and he’s powerful. He’s in a position to give you that endorsement.’

  ‘He bought my box.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Roderic said. ‘Exactly’

  ‘Is there anything wrong with that?’

  ‘No, but in the light of what I’ve just said, don’t you see how it complicates things between you?’

  She evidently took this to be a rhetorical question. After considering his words for a few moments she asked, ‘Anything else?’

  ‘It’s also possible,’ he said, ‘that what William is going through at the moment is little more than a midlife crisis.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning that when you get to his age – my age – you start to consider how your life is panning out, you start to balance the books. And the strange thing is, it never looks good. If you’ve failed in things, you feel it keenly. If you’ve been a success it seems hollow, and that’s William’s situation. By anyone’s reckoning, he’s done well. He has a marriage that has lasted, two children, beautiful home, career, money, the lot, and yet he’s going about with a face like a late breakfast because he’s a failure. Isn’t life strange?’

  ‘It most certainly is,’ she agreed. ‘You, on the other hand, really did fail in all those things, didn’t you? None of them worked out.’

  It struck him as a wounding and intentionally brutal remark. He didn’t know how to answer her but in any case she didn’t wait for a response.

  ‘And yet,’ she said, ‘and yet, if all those things had gone well – your marriage and family life in particular – it still wouldn’t ever have been enough for you, would it, if the painting hadn’t worked out too. Am I right?’

  ‘You know the answer to that.’

  ‘Well, perhaps it’s the same for William.’

  Julia had put her finger on exactly what was, to Roderic, the most dangerous element: William was the real thing.

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ he said. ‘If painting had been only a pipe dream, then there’d be no problem. It would be enough for him to have it as a hobby. Unfortunately William really has made a huge mistake. He’s done the wrong thing. It isn’t just that he thinks he’s wasted his life, he knows he’s wasted his life. But what can he do? His situation is all but set in stone. He needs to keep his family – and himself, mark, and himself – in the style to which they’re accustomed. Nor am I saying for a moment,’ he added quickly, ‘that I think he ought to walk out on his family. I don’t consider that kind of behaviour a prerequisite for being an artist’

  ‘Do you honestly believe I would think you might?’ She wasn’t angry. She was sad.

  He reached out and took her hand, held it tightly and she smiled at him. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘Of course I don’t believe that. What I mean is that it’s not enough to have a gift. You have to have the courage of your gift as well. And that’s where William’s failing lies.’

  ‘Danger,’ Julia said. ‘You keep talking about danger. What are you afraid of? What do you think is going to happen?’

  ‘What’s going to happen,’ he replied, ‘what is happening, is that William is working his way into your affections. He’s on his way to becoming your friend: to your mind a sincere and trusted friend. There’ll be that slight edge that there can only be in a friendship between a man and a woman, but that isn’t where the harm lies; the danger isn’t there. Already his wife is probably wary about what you represe
nt, but she isn’t, I think, unduly worried. She’ll bide her time, because she also knows what’s going to happen. You’ll meet him every week to ten days, as we’re meeting now, and you’ll talk about things that matter to you, most particularly about your work. You’ll help and encourage him in his own attempts to paint, and for a while he’ll really appreciate the moral and practical support. Oh, you’ll enjoy it, make no mistake. William can be good company: he’s an intelligent man, with many fine qualities. It would all be perfectly valid, were it not for what’s going to happen.

  ‘Because one day, out of the blue, he’ll simply drop you. There won’t be a quarrel, no hostility, nothing as dramatic as that. He’ll just wake up one morning and decide that he’s not remotely interested in you any longer. The fact that you’re an artist will have lost all its magic for him, its cachet. There are hundreds of artists out there, thousands, and you’re just one of them. You’re not famous or successful and show little sign of becoming so. You’re a motor mechanic’s daughter, for goodness’ sake, and you make no secret of the fact. At the moment he finds that amusing. In time he’ll consider it vulgar. You’re not worth knowing so he won’t want to know you.

  ‘A week will go by and you won’t hear from him, the week will run into a fortnight, if you let it go as long as that. You’ll phone him up and get an answering machine. There’ll be no response to the message you leave and some days later you’ll ring him again. Perhaps this time you’ll speak to him directly. He’ll be distant, brisk and busy, far too busy to arrange to see you in the near future. He’ll all but hang up on you. And you’ll be puzzled and hurt by this. Because you would never behave as he’s behaving, you won’t be able to fathom what’s happening and why, and so you may well ring him up again. This time he’ll be annoyed. He’ll think it can’t be possible that you don’t understand. He’ll think you’re being obtuse, that you don’t know how to behave. You ought to know that this is the way the world works: that you clearly don’t will only confirm in his own mind how right he is to want to have nothing more to do with you. And even you, Julia, even you, will by this stage have got the message that you’re not wanted. You’ll be angry and wounded that the friendship you sincerely offered to him has been thrown back in your face, like a worthless thing. And what I’m suggesting in telling you all this is that you try to spare yourself considerable pain by not getting involved with him in the first place.’