The Breezes

by Joseph O'Neill

  Something had to be done.

  I picked up the phone and rang the dogs’ home. Trusty had not made an appearance, they told me.

  Rosie said, ‘Trusty’s missing?’

  ‘Yes. Since Sunday.’

  ‘What, you mean she’s run away?’

  ‘That’s right. You’d know about it if you bothered to speak to Pa.’

  ‘Trusty,’ Rosie said, sobbing suddenly.

  I said, ‘Jesus, Rosie, don’t do that. Not now. I can’t take that bullshit right now.’

  Steve said, ‘Johnny, that guy rang for you again. Mr Devonshire. Oh, yes, and you got some mail from him, too.’

  I got up and walked out into the street and kept going. Run, Johnny, a voice in my head was telling me. Run.

  In a daze, I walked aimlessly for an hour, past hamburger bars, West Indian restaurants, drink shops, drugstores, trees, cars, Pakistani grocers, pubs and travel agencies, past houses and more houses, past underground stations. I walked through a park and a housing estate, past a roundabout with signs pointing the traffic in every direction possible and then down towards the shore, the beam of the lighthouse beginning to swing over the city as the darkness encroached from the east.

  Halfway down to the shoreline, I stopped and sat on a bench. Where to? The Foreign Legion? The sea? The west? The circus?

  Two huge seagulls floated down to the ground in front of me.

  I got on the bus to the Birds’ District.

  Pa was upstairs when I arrived, and I didn’t disturb him. I sat alone in the living-room and drank a beer with the television switched on.

  I noticed, on the floor beneath the table, the Bear Elias report.

  Hadn’t Angela realized what this would mean? Did she really think that she and I could go on as before?

  Of course not. She wasn’t stupid. She had known all along what the consequences would be.

  There was only one conclusion, then. She wanted the consequences. She wanted the damage.

  Well, fuck her. Fuck her.

  I climbed up the stairs and knocked on the door of my father’s bedroom and entered. He was not asleep. He was lying on his side, staring as though in a transfixion at the space between the bed and the cupboard. I looked at his limp palm and imagined it helplessly grabbed and squeezed goodbye by the huge golden hand of the Network.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ I said. ‘A cup of tea?’

  One eye flicked in my direction and locked there.

  An unventilated reek reached my nostrils. On the floor, trails of unwashed clothes led to the crammed laundry basket. There, crumpled at the foot of the bed, was his referee’s shirt.

  I stooped to the ground and picked up an old newspaper. I sat on the edge of the bed and turned the pages. ‘I was thinking,’ I said, ‘that I might be getting myself a job.’ This was not strictly true, of course, but I could think of no other way of bringing up the subject. I glanced at him. His eye was still unblinkingly pointing at me from the corner of his face, like the eye of a fish. I came to the appointments pages. Warehouse manager. Quality supervisor. Construction superintendent. Development manager. Mechanical engineer. Team leader, housing support staff. Seasonal ranger. Nothing for which Pa, with his twenty-five years plus in the railways, was particularly qualified.

  ‘There are plenty of jobs here which you could do in your sleep,’ I said. ‘With your experience– ’

  ‘Stop fooling around, John,’ Pa said, his voice half muffled. ‘I’m not a baby. I don’t need mollycoddling.’

  ‘I’m not mollycoddling anybody,’ I said. ‘I’m serious. This is a big opportunity for you to do all those things which you’ve always been interested in.’

  ‘I’m fifty-six years old. It’s finished. It’s the end of the road.’ He pulled the bedspread over his cheek.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I said. ‘You’ve got a lot to offer. Why don’t you join one of those executive job clubs? Or sign up with a head-hunter?’

  Pa suddenly twisted around and looked directly at me. ‘Head-hunter? Where do you think we are, Borneo?’ He laughed sourly. ‘You look for a job, if you want to,’ he said, falling back on to the mattress. ‘As a matter of fact, it’s about time you did. I’ve given it some thought. The days of subsidizing your activities are over. The money simply isn’t there any more.’ He rolled further over, showing more of his back to me. ‘You’re on your own now, Johnny. I’m through with working my guts out just so that you and your sister can live for free. You’re going to have to stop feeling sorry for yourself and go to work like everybody else.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said.

  He continued as though he hadn’t heard me. ‘You sit there moping around all day waiting for I don’t know what, inspiration, as though some angel is going to come down and make those chairs for you. Doing nothing, that’s what it comes down to. Meanwhile, I’m bankrolling you.’

  ‘I told you,’ I said. ‘I know, and I’m going to look for work. I’m going to pack in the chairs. There’s no need for you to pay anything.’

  ‘Oh, no? What about the flat? Who’s going to pay for that? You think I’ve forgotten that you’re supposed to be paying rent for that?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Johnny, all I’m saying is, time’s up. Welcome to the real world.’

  ‘OK, OK,’ I said irritably, rising from the bed. ‘And what about you? What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ve finished with the whole racket. The whole thing can go on without me.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Pa,’ I said.

  ‘For God’s sake?’ He hurled back the bedcover and sprang out of bed in his underwear, the straps of his vest loose on his shoulders. ‘What do you mean, for God’s sake?’ He pointed furiously at the ceiling. ‘You think He’s interested in any of this? You think He gives one single damn?’

  Suddenly self-conscious, he flattened his hair with his hand and pulled up a vest strap.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, as he started to speak.

  I went on my own to a bar by the quays and drank beer and angrily and fearfully thought about Angela, trying, as one drink followed another, to think of a way through all that had happened, to conceive of a turn of events by which the present mess would be left behind and she and I would emerge together, in a different and hopeful place, united. I couldn’t.

  I also thought about my father. His problem was simple. He was suffering from overexposure to truth.

  I thought, Join the club, Pa.

  I was drunk by the time I got home. Rosie and Steve were in bed. I walked through the wreckage of the sitting-room to switch on the television; on top of it was a large manila envelope franked by the Devonshire Gallery. I ripped it open. A glossy brochure fell out.

  It was entitled ‘THE FALLEN – Five chairs by John Breeze’. On the left page were two brightly lit photographs of my chairs lying on their sides and casting a dramatic amalgam of shadows. On the right page was a text.

  Common, in these oblique – some would say bleak – times, are creations the chief, indeed sole, purpose of which is purportedly to illustrate or exemplify an ideology or thought, no trace of which, alas, is discoverable in the work itself. Thus the vehicle of art, hitherto harnessed to truth and beauty, is hijacked by charlatans, attention-seekers and fraudsters of numberless variety and steered to destruction. This banditry is most harmful in its obscuration of that handful of artists who, unlike the aforesaid impostors, infuse their work with a genuine intellectual and moral content. From time to time, however, there arrives a talent so distinctive and so self-evident that no bogus overshadowing is possible. Such is John Breeze.

  These five fallen stools are, first and foremost, beautiful. The graceful steel legs, evocative, perhaps, of the animal world, and the perfect maple seats, individual yet familial, are harmonious and apt. But it is the dimension of veracity which makes these objects other, and more, than furniture. For, while exhibiting every appearance of balance – the tripod is the most ancien
t and trusty of stands – the chairs cannot remain upright. Raise them up and time and again they tumble to the ground. The result is both true art and art that is true. The fallen, futile stools, pathetic and dysfunctional, at once flawed and possessed of perfection, are the interrogative, unmistakable icons of our very selves.

  S.D.

  I pocketed the brochure in my jacket. In the middle of the night I awoke on the sofa, drank cold water from the kitchen tap for thirty seconds, and hauled myself to bed.

  18

  I was awoken on Thursday morning by Rosie’s loud voice. ‘Come on,’ she was saying. ‘Get dressed, we’re going.’

  ‘What? What time is it?’

  She pulled open the curtain. ‘Time to get up.’

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  Rosie pulled a face. ‘God, it smells in here.’ She opened the window. ‘We’re going to cheer up Pa,’ she said, ‘by treating him to brunch. I’ve done all the shopping.’

  I said, ‘Close the window, will you, you’ll let in the flies.’

  I pulled on some clothes, lit a cigarette and went barefooted into the living-room.

  There had been a transformation. The carpet was clean, the sofa cushions had been plumped, a fresh bunch of daffodils stood pertly in a transparent vase. Even the jam-stains on the wall had been washed down to a pale raspberry shadow.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ I said.

  ‘Steve did it,’ Rosie said. ‘He got up early and did it all by himself.’

  Steve was standing at the door of the kitchen, bashfully scratching his neck. ‘Well, this is great,’ I said. ‘I’d forgotten how nice this place can look.’

  ‘Get some shoes on,’ Rosie said, picking up a full carrier bag and handing it to Steve. ‘The cab’s here.’

  Rosie paid the fare. ‘Pa, it’s us,’ she shouted as she opened the front door. She went into the kitchen. ‘This place is disgusting. Look at the cooker, look how greasy it is.’ She removed the gas rings and began to wipe the surface. ‘Now leave, all of you. Steve, go mow the lawn. John, you go get Pa. Tell him brunch will be served in ten minutes. And set the table. Use the silver.’

  I found my father by the window in his towelling dressing-gown, looking down at the garden. I went to stand next to him, and shoulder to shoulder we watched Steve bringing the old mower on to the lawn, the blue-painted blades splashed with rust. Even though the grass was long, in Steve’s hands the mower travelled fluently over the ground, each noisy forward drive rhythmically giving forth a full spurt of cuttings, each drawing-back making the same high wheeze. He turned around at the holly tree and, accompanied by the machine’s rich summery rattle, in one continuous movement swooped towards the house over the path he had just cut.

  Pa sighed. ‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ he said, still looking out.

  Downstairs, I unflapped the white tablecloth, decking it out with the silver cutlery which had come down from my mother’s parents as a wedding present. Rosie entered with small purple flowers and put them in a vase on the table. ‘Not like that,’ she said, adjusting the position of the knives and forks. ‘Like this.’

  By the time Pa descended, now wearing stripy pyjamas under his dressing-gown, the table was crammed with pots of marmalade and strawberry and blueberry jams, with cartons of orange juice and grapefruit juice, croissants, pains au chocolat, a pot of coffee, boxes of branflakes and cornflakes, a jug of milk, a full toastrack and white plates festooned with strips of smoked salmon. A crazy, excessive spread. ‘Sit down, Pa,’ Rosie said, unfolding his napkin and inserting it into the neck of his pyjama shirt.

  ‘I’m not really hungry,’ Pa said as she left for the kitchen. ‘I’m never going to be able to eat this.’

  Rosie returned with a panful of scrambled eggs which she heaped on to Pa’s plate, then ours. Then she served up sausages and bacon.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘let’s tuck in.’

  Our father looked with dismay at his plate, then began picking weakly at the soft rubble of his eggs. Rosie poured him a glass of grapefruit juice. ‘Drink this,’ she told him.

  He took a mouthful.

  Rosie said to Steve, who was wolfing down an entire piece of buttered toast, ‘Stop making that noise.’ She looked at me. ‘What are you waiting for? Start eating.’

  We all ate.

  We needed something to talk about. I rose from the table and brought back the Devonshire brochure, which was still in the pocket of my jacket. ‘Here,’ I said to Rosie. ‘Something to make you laugh.’

  ‘What’s this?’ she said, beginning to read, and then a smile appeared on her face. She started to chuckle, then coughed on her food. She swallowed and shouted, ‘I don’t believe it. I just do not believe it.’ She was laughing uncontrollably. ‘Pa, look at what your brilliant son has done.’

  Pa read. He tapped the paper when he had finished. ‘Is this it? Is this what your exhibition is?’

  I said, ‘This wasn’t my idea, Pa. It was Simon Devonshire’s. I had nothing to do with it.’

  Pa said, ‘Do you believe this stuff? Do you really think’ – he paused to quote – ‘that we’re ‘pathetic and dysfunctional”?’

  Rosie said, ‘Johnny, I never knew you were so deep.’ Her elbows banged against the table as she toppled forward with laughter. ‘And there I was thinking you were just a nerdy little brother making crappy furniture.’

  Pa was sitting there with an expression of bafflement. I said, ‘Pa, you can’t take this stuff seriously. It’s just something which has been dreamed up by the gallery.’

  Steve, who meanwhile had been reading the brochure, said, 'This is so depressing.’

  Rosie said, ‘Steve, we’d all appreciate it if you refrained from being stupid for about one hour. OK? After that you can go back to being dumb.’

  ‘No,’ Pa suddenly asserted. ‘Steve’s right. It is depressing. It’s depressing because it’s true.’

  I said to Pa, ‘I told you, it’s all bullshit. It’s– ’

  ‘It’s bullshit, all right,’ Pa said, ‘but it’s true. Bullshit is the truth.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I said. ‘I tried to make those chairs properly. I didn’t mean to make them like that.’

  ‘Forget about the chairs, will you?’ Pa shouted. ‘I’m telling you, bullshit is right. Bullshit is what it comes down to. This is bullshit,’ he said, gesturing at his gathered family. ‘This breakfast is bullshit.’ He was standing up now, tightening the belt of his dressing-gown, swaying slightly. ‘Shut up, Rosie,’ he said, as she opened her mouth to speak. ‘You don’t give a damn for months, then you come here and make a few sandwiches and a cup of coffee and everything is supposed to be fine. Jesus.’ He pulled his napkin from his throat and threw it on to his food. ‘I can’t breathe. I need some air.’

  He went to the french windows and, face aflame, struggled with the sliding door. It gave way with a loud crack.

  The musical sound of the garden filled the room.

  Rosie said, ‘You’ve broken the window, Pa.’

  Pa said, ‘I want you all to go, please. Now.’

  Rosie said tremulously, ‘Right, we’re leaving,’ knocking her chair to the ground as she rose. ‘Steve.’

  I said, ‘Come on, Pa, let’s not fight like this. It’s us.’

  ‘Us?’ He swivelled into a brawler’s stance, legs apart and fists clenched. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Who the hell is us?’

  Rosie looked at me, frightened.

  Pa said, ‘Well? Well, Johnny? You’re so smart, you’re the one with all the hotshot ideas, what’s the answer to that one?’

  ‘I …’ I said. ‘Pa …’

  Steve said, ‘Look.’ He was pointing into the garden.

  It was the dog.

  ‘Trusty!’ Rosie shrieked, running out on to the lawn. She hugged the animal ecstatically and led her into the house. ‘Steve, get a bowl of water, she must be parched.’

  Claws clicking, tongue tipped out of the slack folds of her mo
uth, Trusty ran towards Pa, who had dropped into a chair, and jumped on to his lap.

  He pushed her away roughly and she fell squarely on to her side with a yelp.

  ‘How can you be so horrible?’ Rosie shouted. ‘Come here, Trusty, my darling.’

  Pa said, ‘If she’s got pups inside her I’m putting them down. I mean it. I’m putting them down.’

  ‘Here, Trusty,’ Rosie said, putting a plate of sausages and eggs on the floor, ‘here, my darling.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ Pa said. ‘If you reward her now she’ll just run away again.’

  I saw an opportunity to laugh. ‘Pa, not even Trusty would be so stupid as to run away for a week just for a plate of bacon and eggs. She gets that anyway, just by staying here.’

  ‘Not for long she won’t.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He sighed and closed his eyes. ‘I’m thinking of selling up.’

  ‘Selling up?’

  ‘Selling this place, selling the flat. Selling up. Leaving.’

  I hesitated. ‘Where to?’

  He sighed again. ‘I don’t know, son. Just leaving.’ He opened his eyes. ‘I need a change. I need …’ He took a deep breath and said hoarsely, ‘I don’t think I can take it here much longer. Every time I see the garden, see those flowers, see that tree over there, that hedge even – I see your mother. Or I don’t see her. That’s the thing, you see,’ he said, looking down. ‘I don’t see her. I just see a garden.’ He snorted suddenly and put a hand over his face. ‘I just see a garden …’

  My sister ran over to Pa and held him. ‘Pa,’ she said, ‘Ma hasn’t gone, she’s here, she’s right here in all of us.’

  He was sobbing now, both hands over his face.

  Rosie looked at me furiously. Desperately, I said, ‘Rosie’s right. Ma … Ma’s right here,’ I said. ‘With us.’