Notes from an Exhibition

by Patrick Gale

  He crossed the road when he neared the Lugger and wheeled up to Captain’s to buy chips, which he took back to the front. They were perfect chips, crisp, hot and salty, and he ate them with slow relish so that his pleasure in the taste of them and his pleasure in the scene around him – water, people, dogs, life – became indistinguishable. He ate carefully. He had learnt the hard way that seagulls registered the wheelchair rather than the adult in it and read him as an overgrown and helpless child, easy to plunder. He had lost the best part of a pasty and suffered a nasty peck to the back of one hand before he learnt to eat with his food tucked beneath a jacket or coat.

  As he wheeled himself homewards, the Mazey Day parade started off with a cacophony of steel drums, pipes, school bands and even what sounded like bagpipes and the synchronized chants and whooping of cheerleaders. As he came back over the Ross Bridge he saw the last of a squadron of drum majorettes, in white calf boots and rumpled pink satin, heading round the corner near the station.

  It was one of several local festivals that had grown up in his lifetime, cheerful traditions confected to promote tourism and perhaps imbue a pride in all things Cornish. It meant no more to him than the dual-language English-Cornish signs that had begun to appear about the place, but perhaps future Cornish children would feel differently.

  He saw Father Barnaby getting out of his impossibly old Rover up ahead and joining the crowd on the prom. He was all in black – a human crow amid the holiday crowd. Lenny had teased him once, about always wearing black, and Father Barnaby had joked that always wearing the same meant one less thing to decide in the mornings. In fact he did wear civilian clothes occasionally – he had a weakness for black, no-label jeans – but he looked strange in them and vulnerable, like an habitual glasses-wearer when he took his glasses off to clean them.

  Lenny tailed him for a few minutes, noting how people made way for him, either because of his height or clerical dress, and how many of them stared or even flinched then let out nervous smiles. But then Lenny was held up by a double pushchair with a dog at its side and lost sight of him. It was probably better that way. If Father Barnaby had spotted him he would have offered to push the wheelchair and Lenny would have felt doubly exposed.

  Predictably he was in conversation with one of the neighbours as Lenny approached the ramp. On a sunny day like this there was always one or another of them out on the walkway and priests were always good for a chat. Kitty had found him. Kitty who had the foul-mouthed, secondhand mynah bird that so embarrassed her. And now here she was, a schoolboy joke made flesh, all puffed up and aglow from the pleasure of passing the time of day with a handsome vicar. Tense, though, in case he wanted to step inside and heard her bird.

  Barnaby was no idler. Lenny was counting on that. His focus on the matter in hand was always total. Sure enough, the moment he spotted Lenny, he broke off chatting.

  ‘Here’s the man I came to see. Goodbye – sorry. I don’t know your name.’

  ‘Kitty,’ she said, preening like a ten-year-old. ‘Kitty Arnold.’

  ‘Goodbye Kitty.’

  He didn’t offer to help, as Lenny had been dreading, but simply strode forward and shook him by the hand. ‘Good to see you,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ Lenny began, leading the way to his door.

  ‘You’re bang on time. I was early. I’d forgotten about Golowan when we spoke and I thought I’d never be able to park but I got lucky.’

  ‘I know. I saw you.’

  ‘You saw me?’

  ‘You don’t exactly blend in, dressed like that.’ Lenny had his mother’s candour. He saw Father Barnaby flinch. ‘It’s not just the dog collar,’ he added. ‘You’re tall. Sit down. Can I get you anything?’

  ‘A glass of water would be good.’

  Perfect. Lenny wheeled into the kitchen, poured him a glass of water and tipped his own drink into a second glass.

  ‘Thank you.’ Barnaby took his water and raised it. ‘Cheers.’ He drank, looked around him. ‘It’s nice,’ he said. ‘You’ve settled in?’

  Lenny nodded. This was proving harder than he had imagined.

  ‘It must be a relief to be on your own. Your mum worries and that can be …’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Barnaby stopped talking and let silence fall between them. He looked Lenny directly in the face. Lenny met his gaze for a few seconds then glanced away and fiddled with his glass. He remembered Barnaby as handsomer – Hollywood cowboy handsome – perhaps because of all he represented. In the flesh his jaw was weaker, his nose smaller than in Lenny’s memory. But his pale grey eyes had a startling intensity that was unnerving at close range.

  ‘How can I help you, Lenny?’ he asked at last.

  ‘I’ve not been a very … Does it matter that I never go to church these days?’

  ‘It does if it makes you unhappy. Does it?’

  ‘Not really. But … Do you pray for us? The people that don’t show up?’

  ‘Yes, but that’s a pretty impersonal prayer. I pray for you specifically.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘No,’ Lenny said, ‘but why?’

  ‘Lenny! Obviously I’ve been praying for you ever since your accident and during the operations and so on but … Do you need me to pray for you now for a specific reason?’

  Lenny forced himself to meet Barnaby’s stare. ‘I’m going to die,’ he told him.

  ‘We’re all going to die. Does dying frighten you?’

  ‘I mean I’m going to kill myself.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Fucking can. Sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right. Why?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? Don’t worry. I’m not depressed or mad or anything. I know exactly what I’m doing. It’s a decision, that’s all. My life, my death.’

  ‘Lenny, your hands are shaking.’

  Instinctively Lenny clasped his hands onto his useless knees to hold them still. ‘That’s because I haven’t told anyone this. Not my mum. Not …’

  ‘Not Amy?’

  ‘Certainly not Amy. Jesus! Sorry.’

  ‘That’s quite all right.’

  ‘I just can’t do this, OK? Everyone has been brilliant – the boys at the club, the people at work, the council, the physios, the old bats in this place. But I can’t do it. I mean look around you. No books. Not even a few. I don’t have – what did you call them that time? – inner resources. I know you think I just have to wait and they’ll well up in me like a bath but they won’t. I’ve always been a doer, a player. I did OK at school and college but I hate indoors. Working in a dispensary, it’s just a job. I lived for the nights out with Amy and practice and matches and … If I stay here like this I’m going to turn into some bitter old fuck-up downloading porn and taking pictures of girls who pass the window there …’

  Barnaby winced: not as cool as he liked to make out.

  ‘Lenny, I’m so sorry. You should have said you needed help.’

  ‘Yes, well, everyone was being so nice.’

  ‘It’ll pass. You’ll find new things. New things will enter your life and change it.’

  ‘They already did. They’re called incontinence pads.’

  ‘Christ!’

  ‘You swore!’

  ‘Lenny, please. Give life a chance. I’ve seen lesser men than you work through things like this. When the mines were still open here the accidents could be—’

  ‘I’m never going to run or walk or surf again. I’m never going to score another try again. Or fuck.’

  ‘They kept you a place at the chemist’s, didn’t they?’

  ‘Oh yeah. They’ve even installed a ramp so I can get up high enough to see over the counter. But I won’t be able to reach the higher shelves so there’ll always have to be another dispensing assistant on duty with me. It’s charity. It’s making allowances. I know they mean well but I don’t want that.’

  ‘Please, Len. Think of your mum.’

  ‘I
am thinking of her …’

  ‘And Amy. You’ve upset her dreadfully already. This’ll devastate her.’

  ‘Well she’ll get over it. I had to push her away. I couldn’t let her martyr herself.’

  ‘But if you’d been married already?’

  ‘I’d have divorced her.’

  Barnaby broke off and looked at him with those eyes.

  That’s shocked him into silence, Lenny thought.

  Barnaby glanced at Lenny’s untouched glass in a way that made Lenny think he knew. He sighed. ‘All I’m saying,’ he started.

  ‘Don’t,’ Lenny said. ‘Don’t say anything, OK? I didn’t ask you here for that. I could have rung Samaritans if I wanted that.’

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’

  ‘Just … stay here for a bit.’

  ‘I’m here, Len. I’m not leaving until you want me to.’

  ‘It’s really fast. It takes two minutes till I pass out and another till my heart stops.’

  ‘Think of the risks. If it goes wrong you could end up—’

  ‘I know the risks. I researched them. Like a fucking chemistry project. I’ve tested it. It won’t go wrong. People do this all the time.’

  ‘And plenty choose not to.’

  ‘Don’t. I don’t need that.’ Lenny pointed to the table where he’d been writing earlier. ‘Those are letters to Mum and Amy. And you’ll need to call a doctor.’

  ‘Len, I’m a priest. I know what to do when someone dies.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  There was a fresh blast of music from outside. Perhaps the front of the parade was already coming around again. Was that possible? Barnaby glanced away towards the sound and Lenny seized the moment to drain his glass. Barnaby didn’t see him do it. Lenny knew he had no idea.

  It was unbelievably bitter, like drinking a whole glass of Stop’n Grow. Like drinking death itself. He gasped but managed not to retch. He felt utterly calm. A seagull hovered briefly outside the window then rolled off to the side. They can because they think they can.

  ‘Not long now,’ Lenny said and saw that Barnaby had realized then what was happening.

  ‘No!’ he shouted. He took Lenny’s hands in his. He kissed one of them. ‘Len?’

  ‘You’ll send the letters?’

  ‘I’ll send them.’

  ‘You can pray now. If you like.’

  His mouth was going funny already and he wasn’t sure Barnaby had even understood him. Barnaby was gazing at him with those I-will-find-you eyes and he whipped out a little silver bottle and tipped some oil onto his finger, hands shaking, and touched Len’s head with it.

  ‘O Almighty God,’ he said, ‘With whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prisons, I humbly commend the soul of this thy servant, our dear brother Lenny, into thy hands as into the hands of a faithful Creator, and most merciful Saviour; most humbly beseeching thee, that it may be precious in thy sight.’

  Barnaby’s voice grew quieter. His face was wet with tears but his words didn’t falter. It wasn’t like a prayer in church. It was like an important conversation with someone in the room. Someone else. Len’s sight clouded and he felt his head grow insupportably heavy. For a short while he was aware of nothing but the continuing voice.

  ‘Wash it, we pray thee, in the blood of that immaculate lamb, that was slain to take away the sins of the world; that whatsoever defilements it may have contracted in the midst of this miserable and naughty world, through the lusts of the flesh, or the wiles of Satan, being purged and done away, it may be presented pure and without spot before thee.’

  Without spot, Len thought. That’s nice. Like sheets. And he pictured bed sheets on his mother’s washing line high above Morvah on a day when the sea down below was deep blue with white horses on it, and the temptation was strong to hold your face in them as they flicked and cracked in the wind and the bleaching sun. Pure. White. Without spot.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The Dame Barbara Hepworth who appears in this novel is a fictitious character loosely based on the real woman however. In the construction of that fiction I was indebted to first-hand accounts from Michael Sheppard and Elizabeth Anderson and assisted by Arwen Fitch at Tate St Ives.

  Michael was one artist friend whose work and dedication triggered the novel. Another, less happily, was the Scottish painter, Graeme Craig-Smith, who lost his life to bipolar disorder.

  Heartfelt thanks to Alexander Achilles, Mark Adley and Catharine Gale for furthering my understanding of bipolar disorder and the challenges of its treatment, to Simon Ewart, Margaret Chinn and Nancy Buchanan for teaching me about the Quakers as much by quiet example as through facts, to Barbara Gowdy and Rob Lindey for their invaluable assistance with the Canadian elements of the story, and to my editors, Patricia Parkin and Clare Reihill and my agent, Caradoc King, for their unwavering support.

  Notes from an Exhibition was completed during a residency in Brussels in 2006 thanks to the generosity of Piet Joostens and Het Beschrijf.

  Also by Patrick Gale

  The Aerodynamics of Pork

  Kansas in August

  Ease

  Facing the Tank

  Little Bits of Baby

  The Cat Sanctuary

  Caesar’s Wife

  The Facts of Life

  Dangerous Pleasures

  Tree Surgery for Beginners

  Rough Music

  A Sweet Obscurity

  Friendly Fire

  Copyright

  First published in Great Britain in 2007 by

  Fourth Estate

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road

  London W6 8JB

  www.4thestate.co.uk

  Copyright © Patrick Gale 2007

  The right of Patrick Gale to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins eBooks.

  Epub edition DECEMBER 2011 ISBN-9780007292356

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