‘Where is Verity?’
‘She’s gone to bed. The exhibition is all set up.’
Struan pulls me forward so that our pelvises meet; he tightens his hands to the small of my back. He dips his head to my ear and sings along to the song we are dancing to, asking me how he’s supposed to live without me.
I laugh. ‘Shut up, will you?’ The song ends and we walk hand in hand back to my seat. I swallow the last of my pint; it tastes like soap bubbles. ‘Let’s go; I’ve had enough.’
It is cold outside the hall. The village and harbour sit below us; there are boats dotted in the loch which shines like quicksilver and the streetlamps throw tentacles of orange onto the water. Struan wraps his arm around my shoulders and we start the descent down the tarmac road into Kinlochbrack.
‘Your mother might be a pain sometimes, but she’s only here for a few days. Stop acting like a brat and spend some proper time with her.’
‘She annoys the shite out of me; she hit me, you know.’
‘I saw it.’
‘No, before that. She snuck up behind me and slapped me across the neck.’
‘She’s nervous about the show, I suppose; she’s on edge.’
‘Will you stop defending her? She was hungover today, end of story. She gives me a pain in my hole.’
‘That’s what mothers do. First and foremost they are themselves, and that won’t change. And they have their own vision of things, of how their kids should be and act and react and it doesn’t match our vision for ourselves. Be nice to her.’
‘Verity makes it so hard. One minute she’s grand, the next she’s lashing out like a psycho.’
‘Try to be patient.’
‘I will, I will. I’ll make it up to her tomorrow.’
He hugs my shoulder into his side and, with his free hand, lights a cigarette.
Verity and I are dusting the bell jars and all the intimate folds and grooves on the uncovered pieces of art. I am using a badger hairbrush to clean in between the creases of the chimpanzee’s pinny.
‘Promise me you’ll do this daily. Don’t let any dust gather whatsoever,’ she says.
‘I promise.’
‘I feel like I’m leaving my arms behind,’ she says, biting down on her lip.
‘You knew they would sell, that you’d have to part with them sometime.’
‘They’re so new; I’ve barely bonded with them and they’re off.’
‘You have money now for more materials. You’ll be able to start lots of pieces the minute you get home.’
Verity grunts.
Struan bustles in, shaking a newspaper. ‘Listen to this. Listen!’
Verity and I put down our brushes and turn to him.
‘Go on,’ she says, ‘get it over with.’
‘Intelligent Surrealism at the Strathcorry Gallery. There is nothing passé about the artwork currently on display at Kinlochbrack’s Strathcorry Gallery. Irish fine-art taxidermist Verity Yourell from Dublin calls herself a ‘taxidartist’ – a term, I must confess, that makes me cringe. Is she Ireland’s only taxidartist, I enquire? Her reply is blustered and impatient: “Of course not. But I am the only one doing it right.” I suggest that skinning and stuffing animals for a living is not a particularly feminine pursuit and am met with silence. Ms Yourell clearly does not agree. And why should she agree? As Ireland’s best taxidartist she is flying the flag for all artists who choose to follow their own path. She then informs me that the pioneer of taxidermy, as we know it today, was an American woman named Martha Maxwell. “A lifelong vegetarian,” Yourell states, lest I question Maxwell’s credentials as an animal lover.’
Struan pumps one hand through the air to emphasise the bits he likes, and glances at Verity to see how she is reacting. She stands with her eyes closed.
‘Nomenclature aside, Yourell’s fantastical stuffed animals are a welcome injection of intelligent surrealism into the current art scene. I am particularly taken with a glamorous pigeon entitled The Bower Bitch – which the artist says is “one of the suicidal pigeons of Capel Street”. She hit the bird – accidentally – with her car, and there was apparently “nothing for it but to take her home and re-birth her”. The blue-gowned bird holds a tiny tortoiseshell and gold cigarette holder of such perfect proportions it’s hard to know how it was fashioned.
‘Yourell says that generally she acquires the animals free of charge and that mostly she doesn’t take people’s pets. “The owners expect their pets to look like they were when they were alive, and with me on the job,” she waves her arm to indicate her artworks, “that’s not going to happen.” The artist states that the animals are chased into her life “by serendipity, the muse’s busy twin.”
‘If all art is an ironic attempt to perpetuate the self, then eyebrows will surely be raised at Yourell’s vision of herself: she is at times a pirouetting mouse, at other times a pipe-smoking chimpanzee. The viewer is engaged, amused, perhaps even appalled at the animals’ eccentric beauty. Taxidermy may be the dirty little secret of the world of fine art, but Verity Yourell is its shining beacon. The effect of her menagerie – tucked into a tiny Highland gallery, when surely the show deserves an Edinburgh or London outing – is stunning.
‘The works, despite being dead as dead, pulsate with a knowing wit and a life that puts Yourell’s younger contemporaries to shame. She explores the potential of humans for folly through our animal brethren and she does so with charm and skill. And, just like her artworks, Verity Yourell is something of a maverick and, most definitely, a true original. Strathcorry Gallery, Kinlochbrack, until August 31st. What do you think of that?’ Struan almost shouts the words.
‘It’ll be lining the bottoms of budgie cages by Friday,’ Verity says.
‘Now, Mam, that is what I call a glowing review,’ I say, taking her hand.
She smiles, drags me into her arms and lets a squeal. Over my shoulder she beckons to Struan and he bounces across and puts his arms around both of us.
‘Take it, Verity. It’s brilliant, just brilliant,’ he says.
‘It is brilliant,’ she says, and puts her head onto my shoulder. The three of us rock together in silence.
Chapter Fourteen
I sit on the harbour wall by Loch Brack and swing my legs over the water; it is flat calm and a seal raises its head out of the murk, its raisin eyes curious. I bite into a beef sandwich and look at the Klondyker ships hulking in the bay like the forgotten remnants of a war. They are battered and loaded with ragged nets; one ship even has a Lada on board, sitting white and impatient on the deck. It is a drowsy day but, behind me, The Windhorse is having a busy afternoon – drinkers scatter out through the door onto the footpath and huddle in groups. They call to each other in Russian and I realise they are workers on shore leave from the factory ships, free for a few hours from processing mackerel by the thousand. My sandwich is not agreeing with me – my stomach fizzles and aches – so I shove it back inside its wrapper and toss it into my satchel.
The sky over the loch is a peculiar zinc and tangerine; the sun beats on my face and shoulders, worms its way into my pores. I let the voices from the pub and the traffic noise fade; I enter one of those momentary contented highs that exist beyond life, beyond reality, in a sort of dream garden. I let myself linger in that trance, like someone who has passed into another world; I sit for a moment in that bliss, owning it, then I wander out again. These transcendent sparks don’t happen a lot, but are so welcome when they do. There is a barn in a field on the road between Galway and Dublin, near Tyrrellspass. When I see that barn – every single time – I experience one of those golden moments. Depending on what season it is, the red barn sits on its slope above a field of glossy green barley; or muck ploughed into perfect ridges; or an eiderdown of snow. That barn, alone against the sky, pulls at my insides. It is perfect somehow, simple and elemental, like babyhood.
I have never photographed it; I prefer to hold it in the pocket of my memory and be delighted by it every time I pass the field it lives in, on my way to or from my father’s house.
A tap on my shoulder. ‘Miss, would you like to buy cigarettes?’ It is one of the Klondykers.
‘No, thanks, I don’t smoke.’
Struan has told me he wouldn’t touch the fags they sell; they are cheap and stinking. The man reaches into his plastic holdall and pulls out a matryoshka doll. He hands it to me.
‘She has many inside. Look.’
He makes twisting motions with his hands. I open the doll. She is nothing special: her yellow casing is painted with a red rose. She has four nesting sisters; the smallest one – a red, frowning peanut – doesn’t match the others. The bigger dolls are pink cheeked and smiling. I have seen the same matryoshka for sale in gift shops in Dublin, but the man’s earnest, needy eyes make me ask him how much.
‘Ten pounds,’ he says.
I hand back the doll. ‘No thanks.’
‘Eight.’
‘Five,’ I say.
‘Nyet,’ he says. Then, ‘Uck.’ It is part defeat, part exasperation; I see a line of gold teeth in his mouth. I hand him the money and he gives me the doll; I rattle her gently and put her into my satchel. The man nods and walks away.
The index finger on my right hand begins to itch; I examine the tiny red bump that has appeared there on and off over the years and scratch at it. It reminds me of the summer I tried hard to become a smoker; I never took to it because Dónal and Robin laughed so hard at my attempts to inhale that I felt like a fool; I backed away from the smoke, blinking, and held the cigarette at arm’s length. Dónal called me a dope, so I gave up as soon as I started. The finger-bump had appeared then, like a memento mori to remind me that cigarettes don’t suit me.
Dónal again. As ever present as my own blood. It doesn’t take much to conjure him. I sling my bag across my body, hoosh myself off the sea wall and walk down a busy Shore Street. Back in my bedroom, I put the matryoshka on my windowsill and root in the wardrobe. I take out the package Dónal’s mother sent. I sit on my bed and undo the string, the brown paper, the Sellotape. Inside, swathed in a wad of bubble wrap, is a photo album. With it, a note: ‘Yours, I think. And if not yours, have it anyway. I hope all goes well in Scotland. Verity gave me your address. Sincerely, Treasa Spain.’ In the album there are pictures of me from birth to age twenty. A lot of the photos were taken with Mr Spain’s Instamatic, but a few of them were lifted from my parents’ house. I haven’t seen some of these pictures in years.
The pages are those sticky bump-lined ones and the pictures are held in place by plastic sheets. Under the plastic, I sit: a pudding-faced baby in a square pram; at age five in a school photo, a cold sore on my mouth subduing my smile. Me on my first Holy Communion day, veiled and smirking. (That one was taken from its frame on our sitting room mantelpiece and Robin had been blamed for destroying it out of jealousy. There was murder over it.) Here are Dónal and me having our wedding: a pillowcase dress and daisy garland for me; a school tie and tweed cap on Dónal; neither of us with any front teeth. Me, squinting into the lens at Dublin Zoo, giraffes swinging behind. Me drunk, waving a can of lager, eyes scrunched up to ward off the camera. Me paddling in the sea at Salthill, Black Head lurking like a behemoth in the background. Me sad-faced, me radiant. Me with stupidly short, puffy hair. Me with Dónal.
Some of the images make me laugh; some make me gasp at what the spoon of memory stirs up to go with them: the hot smell of animal shit at the zoo; the feel of dewy grass soaking through the back of my shorts; my mother’s firm grip as she clipped the daisy garland into my hair, so like her own hair. How young she was.
I can’t commit to one set of feelings about this album; this homage or obsession or whatever it is. Is it creepy? Is it lovely? I cannot settle on whether I feel violated, guilty, touched, annoyed or tender. I flick through its pages over and over – I haven’t seen many of the pictures before; some explain the gaps in our family albums that annoyed my father so much. All of it explains Dónal. I sit on the bed and hug it to me; I rock with it, keening quietly for Dónal and all he could not and never will have. It takes less than nothing to make me cry these days.
I fall asleep with the album held to me and dream of Dónal. For once he is not distant or untouchable. He stands before me and I cup his face in my hands and tell him that I am sorry. He smiles and the dream skitters off in its own direction, barely taking me with it.
I know the exact day that it happened; it was the Saturday of the hike. Either up there on the hills above Kinlochbrack, or later that evening when I got mad drunk. I swilled wine like water that night and Struan half-carried me from The Windhorse to my room in the staff house. He meant to go back up to the inn, to wrap up the night, but I forced him to stay and we had sex on my little, narrow bed. I can barely remember it; I just know that we didn’t use anything because I said to him afterwards, ‘If I’m pregnant, I’ll kill you.’ I remember that. We hadn’t used anything up on the brae either, but it didn’t seem to matter to me then. No, for some reason when I was drunk, I cared – the weird moral clarity of the stocious.
Fuck. And now Robin is on his way to Kinlochbrack to see Verity’s show and I will have to tell him or not tell him. If I don’t say anything he will know something is up because I won’t be able to go for drinks and he will be suspicious. And if I do tell him he will tell Verity and Anthony, because Robin can’t hold his piss. I look at the matryoshka on my windowsill, her smaller selves sealed inside her; the tiniest one a foetus-like thing, snugged deep. Her expression looks self-righteous to me – smug. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. What am I going to do? What in God’s name would I do with a baby? I haven’t the first notion about how to be a mother and I don’t want to learn either. How did I miss the monthly need for sweet things that comes on as predictably as the bad mood that goes with it? This is wrong, all wrong.
I drop the pregnancy test into the bin; its twin lines wink like candy stripes, sweet and gentle harbingers of happiness. Taking the test back out, I wrap it in tissues and shove it right to the bottom of the bin. I leave my room and the staff house and walk to Margaret’s place on Market Street.
‘You poor wee thing,’ Margaret says. We are sitting on opposite sofas in her lounge, drinking tea. ‘It’s such a tragedy.’
I look at her, clutching Charlie to her body though he squirms and tries to get away; she lifts and shifts him while he tenses his limbs against her movements. I find him repulsive suddenly, with his snot-sticky face and endless need for attention.
‘A tragedy? How?’
‘Well, pet, if you don’t mean to tell Struan, I’m guessing you’re going to have an abortion.’ She spits the word.
‘I don’t know what I’m doing yet; I can’t think straight. Should I go to a doctor, do you think?’
‘Yes, pet, I can ring ours and get you an appointment. I’ll sort that out, don’t you worry.’
Behind her sincerity, I can see Margaret taking everything in, storing up my words and actions to relay to Gordon. They will chew over it all, digest the hard bits and try to figure it out. I know this without ever having heard myself dissected; I have seen them at work on others. Her earnest milk-heaviness sickens me now; her plumpy, all-woman perfection. Margaret is not yet thirty but she seems a thousand years from where I am. She puts Charlie to her breast, fumbles herself out of her bra and I watch the baby’s greedy snuffling as he digs in.
I wish now that I had said nothing, that I hadn’t told Margaret; I can’t believe I blurted it out. All I wanted was to say it aloud, to test the sound of it. I am pregnant. I could have said it to myself in my bedroom, or shouted it down the beach to a passing gull. I’m fucking pregnant!
‘I have to go,’ I say, getting up. ‘Promise me you won’t tell Struan a thing.’
‘I promise,’
she says, her eyes, like a hurt dog’s, reproaching me.
I am busy in the gallery, doing paperwork. This is my favourite time of the morning, before anyone comes in to view the exhibition, and before the inn has properly gotten going for the day. I can get on with things and not think about myself. I perch on my high stool at the shelf that I use as a desk, sorting through letters, mostly from artists who want to have an exhibition. Some send poor images of their work; most don’t even bother with that much. I hear footsteps at the door and glance idly up from the pile of envelopes and sheets of paper. A tall man stands there – lots of blonde curls, a silly goatee. I look away for a second, then leap from my stool and throw myself onto him.
‘Rob! You’re early! How are you early?’ I hug Robin hugely and step back.
‘You’ve put on weight,’ he says, ‘it suits you.’
‘Really? Where?’
‘Your face. Here,’ he says, pinching my hips.
‘That’s a stupid beard,’ I say. ‘Coffee? Food? I’m starved.’
While we walk across reception to the bistro, he tells me that he stayed the night in Inverness and took the early bus up to Kinlochbrack. Struan is supervising breakfast and he grabs Robin’s elbow with one arm and slaps him on the shoulder with his free hand.
‘Well, you got here safe and sound. Lillis has a key – leave your stuff down to the house.’
‘Thanks for the bunk.’
‘No bother, man.’
Under a purpling sky, I watch rainclouds spread eastwards across Kinlochbrack. The Highlands have been rain bullied for thirteen days and this is the first dry spell. But the storm is on its way back and the grey of it oppresses me. I am dawdling in front of the draper’s shop on Ardmair Street, examining a chipper-nippled mannequin with an impossibly flat stomach. The place is closed but the shopkeeper steps into the window and dresses the dummy in a wax jacket and nothing else. He disappears from view.
The Closet of Savage Mementos Page 12