by S D Monaghan
Scott continued: ‘So, a ten-seater Cessna does it on these trips, and we bounce around for a few days, landing at scratch airports. The kind where kids in shorts run beside the plane waving and throwing stones at the propeller – the crazy little turds. So we’re coming in to land at Mufulira, where the crew are sleeping in tents next to the strip mine – you should smell the sulphur – the guys love that – makes them feel all rugged. And they’re all gleaming with sweat – even at night it doesn’t dip below eighty-two.’
‘I don’t know Fahrenheit.’
‘It’s no cooler in Celsius. So we’re coming in to land and there’s a bird strike. Believe me, David, nothing will scare you more than a bird strike in a Cessna. The propeller chops up some of them, but the engine sucks the rest right in and the bones twist the fan blades and that’s it – game over. But we survived. Both wings broke off when we hit the runway. And the miracle is that we were all unharmed. Not even bruises. Just twelve hours ago, I was walking around the crash site, making my way between spilled suitcases, broken wing spans, a shattered propeller shaft and feeling the power of what it is to be alive – feeling the gift of it. I wish I could give it to you, David. I really do.’
David already detested Scott. The American was actually trying to imply that faith was the measurement of all things, when they both knew that money was how the world really measured things. If you were rich, it meant people liked you. It meant God liked you.
‘So, you like this? The painting?’ David was running out of small talk.
‘I love this. It’s great.’
‘You’re interested?’
‘Am I interested?’ Scott repeated, as if trying to get to grips with a curious type of street slang that David was speaking.
‘It’s for sale.’
‘Everything’s for sale. I come from America, buddy: the Land of the Free, where nothing’s free. How much? A thousand euros?’
David glanced at the revolving door. He knew that Tara had stuck a €250 tag on the railings next to the painting. Don’t mess with this. It’s not yours to gamble with, he admonished himself – before gambling with: ‘Scott, I’m genuinely surprised. Be more ambitious when valuing this work. It’s not junk. Add a zero to your numbers and then we’ll start talking.’
Scott took a step back. ‘I’m driving out west to hike in Connemara. Just waiting for my car to pick me up.’
David offered a half-shrug. So?
‘Well, if we’re gonna make a deal, we better make it fast.’
‘Oh – so you are interested?’
He smiled an ‘of course I am’ smile.
Just in time, a hand slipped around David’s waist and Tara said, ‘There you are.’
He wanted her arm to remain there. But it didn’t.
‘This is Scott McCoy. The producer. He likes your painting. He likes it a lot.’ David inhaled deeply. He had no idea how to let Tara know that he had completely inflated her prices.
Scott smiled a white American smile. ‘You’re the artist?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Tara placed two smaller paintings on the ground, their frames leaning against her knees.
‘Well, label me surprised. So what are you like?’
‘Smart, young and fabulous. Ask David, he’ll tell you.’ Tara unzipped her jacket and withdrew the bag of neon tetras, which she handed to David. ‘Your babies – safe and sound.’
‘Know what I like about your work?’ Scott asked. ‘It’s straightforward.’
‘Wow,’ Tara said drily. ‘Someone gets me at last.’
‘Warren Buffett said never invest in something you don’t understand. Now, the way I see it, with art of any kind it’s easy to be complicated. It’s much harder to be simple and clear. That painting of the world – it is perfect.’
‘I wish. Nah – it’s not perfect. None of them are. I’m never happy with them. All my paintings are ruined at the first stroke of my brush. It can never be exactly as I imagined it. I’m not good enough. Not accurate enough. But you know, it’s this failure that drives me on.’
‘You’re honest. You probably think success in art is just selling your paintings.’
Tara’s face straightened as if figuring out the final question of a long intelligence quotient test. ‘Er, like, yeah?’
‘But you’re wrong. It’s not just selling your paintings – it’s selling them to the right people. Miss Artist – would you like to be a star?’
Tara smiled as if she was facing a child who had just asked an adorably naive question. ‘No. Definitely not.’
In turn, Scott smiled at Tara like she’d just said the most stupid thing he’d heard all week. ‘Yeah, you’re right. I mean, who wants to be beautiful, rich and desired?’
Tara looked at David and made a ‘who the hell is this nut?’ expression.
Ignoring – or even enjoying – her insolence, Scott added, almost to himself, ‘So much energy, you’ll probably remain young until you’re sixty. And so will your art. Therefore, young lady, I’d now like to speak to you about your existing and future oeuvre.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ David said. ‘But I’ve got to go, so just give me a second to say goodbye to her.’ He nodded a farewell to Scott and walked halfway across the foyer with Tara. As they approached the exit, he leaned in and whispered, ‘So far, ten grand. Go for it. You deserve this.’ Before she could say anything, David pecked her on the cheek and drifted away through the revolving doors. It was time to let Tara get on with her great adventure and put an end to his ridiculous daydream. She may be single, but what could he offer a young woman like her? David told himself to be grateful for the taste of youth he’d just sipped from her. It had reminded him of what it was like to enjoy life, to feel that he wasn’t wasting a moment. But of course, that was over now. Tara had plans, and as long as David’s mother was ill, he had none. Tara had time to make mistakes. He didn’t any more. She could even enjoy her mistakes, learn from them, while if he committed one, it could destroy him completely. The anxiety of his current stasis returned, alighting into him like disturbed sand settling back to the sea floor.
Beneath the hotel canopy, the pounding rain, tropics-like, hadn’t slowed down or petered out – it had just ceased. The sun was again beaming, the marble patio of the smoking area already steaming itself dry. There was a smell in the air like the fresh chlorine bouquet of a suburban pool, as if the oxygen had been rinsed and then perfumed.
David’s Trop Shop bag, weakened from being pressed from one person to another, suddenly burst. Water rushed down the steps until all that remained was the fresh stain on the concrete and three neon tetras flapping against their annihilation. David stomped on the nearest one. The second fell off the side of the step and the third vanished beneath the feet of the pedestrians. The sight of their obliteration almost winded David. He had accepted responsibility for the lives of these creatures – no matter how simple they were – and he had failed them completely, giving them no chance to take anything from their brief existence.
And then David saw the two men. Standing only feet away on the busy pavement, Ryan’s hi-vis jacket and the architect’s scroll of significance suggesting that nothing in their immediate surroundings could possibly be important enough to demand their attention, except each other. Immune to the outside world, they continued talking, Gordon’s hand on Ryan’s shoulder.
‘Hey, Ryan,’ David called from the second step of the Shelbourne. He knew that Ryan would have no idea who he was, but something within him needed to get a glimpse as to what this Ryan was like.
Both men looked stunned, as if someone had barged straight through them.
‘I’m David.’ He was surprised at how childish the sentence sounded. Most adults didn’t give their name voluntarily. ‘I’m Tara’s friend. You two were with her across the road, right? Just about, what, five minutes ago?’ Why am I still talking?
Ryan took off his hard hat and brushed a hand through thick brown hair.
‘We met once before,�
�� David continued. ‘About eighteen months ago. Back when Tara was in Trinity. Very briefly.’ Why did I say that? He hadn’t met Ryan. He’d only watched him from a distance as he’d broken up with Tara in a burger joint.
‘Who are you again?’ Ryan asked.
‘Tara’s friend,’ David replied, his smile straightening.
Gordon began texting on his phone. Without looking up, he asked, ‘Who did he say he was?’
Ryan shrugged. Gordon looked at David again. When the moment for the expected ‘hallo’ came, he instead spoke to Ryan. ‘The steel has to be sorted. Let’s get to site.’
‘Yeah, suppose…’ Ryan looked up at David like he was about to say something, but just offered a bemused grin and nodded. It had taken so long for him to smile that when it finally arrived it felt like a gift.
David gazed after them as they merged with the faceless. There were many victories, defeats and wars which man must endure that are not recorded in history books. David just wasn’t sure what that had been; had he discovered something about Ryan, or had he made a complete fool of himself for nothing? What a pair of dicks. David stepped down to the pavement. But forget about them; it’s not as if you’ll ever see them again.
‘David! Where are you? Get your ass back up here.’
Tara stood beaming before the revolving doors and David forced himself not to run up to her, to just take two steps at a time, to be cool.
‘Oh my god,’ Tara gushed, waving a cheque. ‘Ten grand. Ten fucking grand. And that’s for a small one! He wants the big one, too. We just have to work out the price. And then he wants more, more, more!’
‘Jesus.’
‘He gets no credit. It was you. I mean, it’ll probably bounce. But will it? I mean, he’s staying in the Shelbourne, after all, and his secretary just took all my details. He’s insane. A mentalist. But he’s my mentalist. And he loves my stuff. He wants them for his offices in Los Angeles. Los freak’n Angeles. He says that if he pays that much, then that’s what the market will decide they’re worth. For him, like. And they’ll only get more expensive as my name gets around. And he’ll make sure my name gets around. Oh my god. This is it. This. Is. It!’ She wrapped her arms around David and squeezed, like she meant it, like it was important, like it was a moment she – and not just David – would remember forever.
David prolonged the embrace for as long as he dared, relishing the cushiony softness of her cheek against his. He already knew that they belonged together. Then he said, ‘Tara, is this for real, or is it just an excuse to talk to me again?’
‘It’s real – and it’s an excuse to talk to you again.’
‘Good. Cancel everything. You and me. Let’s get hammered and tell each other all our secrets. Let’s do this now. Here. In the Shelbourne bar.’
‘A very fine idea, Prof.’
David looked beyond Tara at the traffic-jammed road, the bustling pavement, the city and the sky. He had challenged the world and it had backed down. He could see the future and it was stretched out in front of him. Nations would splinter, empires would fall, wars would begin and end and everywhere on the planet things would become undone – except for him and Tara. Their knot would persist and tighten.
Chapter Nine
The wine glass exploded against the wall behind David, the splattered wine colouring the kitchen cupboards. Shards came to rest between his jacket collar and his neck. Slowly, he straightened and calmly observed Tara’s fury as if through a reinforced window. David had rarely seen her cry before. It was like a new skill. Tears made her face settle in folds and creases that he didn’t know it had. A shiver ran through him from the ground up, rippling through his head. Dora miaowed loudly, ran across the kitchen, out into the hall and disappeared upstairs.
There was a clock on the wall behind Tara. It hadn’t been there that morning. Each sharp tick, every perfect stroke of the second hand, invaded the kitchen. The silence between them thickened like ice. Very slowly, 4.07 became 4.08. She knows. But what does she know? That he’d killed Ryan? That he was buried ten feet away under the travertine? Did she know about the money? Or did she know about it all? David glanced at the ceiling. Upstairs in the attic, his life had caught fire and had burned until reaching critical mass – before detonating, just now, in his brand-new kitchen.
‘Our money. You’re trying to take all our money.’
‘It’s not what you think.’
‘Well, what the fuck should I think? I make one mistake and you punish and you punish and you punish. You’re driving me insane. Voices in the head insane. Dark fucking thoughts insane.’
And suddenly it was all so clear to David. Of course he was going to the police. He had just been delaying and delaying and delaying because he didn’t want it to ever end. The ‘it’ that was Tara: her presence, her voice, her warmth, her mind, her art, her body, her gaze – and that amazing thing they were making together – their baby.
David looked down at the destruction before moving towards the island counter, his shoes crunching dozens of glass diamonds. He sat on a metal stool and felt like an old man. Leaning over, he stared down into the black marble. Can I kill myself? His own death was something he’d found almost unfathomable when he was young. Now, it was a reassuring solve-all option; a gilt-edged opportunity to stop struggling. But all was not lost. It couldn’t be. Not yet.
There was a sharp noise. Click. Click.
Tara was next to him, snapping her fingers like a hypnotist bringing her patient out of a trance. Her stare was so powerful it felt like a violation. ‘Pay attention. Talk to me.’
‘I just want... I just want you to know... that...’
‘Complete the thought – what do you want me to know?’
‘Ryan... He’s... He’s…’ David would need to tell Tara gently, but there was nothing gentle about this news.
‘I made a mistake. I can’t unmake it. Fine – you’re angry. But you need to deal with it rationally. You don’t just take all our money. What the fuck is the matter with you?’
He tried to reply, but his mouth wouldn’t open. Now that he was finally cornered, David’s entire existence had become a singular emergency in which he was too paralysed to act. Choice was no longer an element of his world. No matter what he did from this moment on, it would make no difference.
‘Why do we have to still talk about Ryan?’ Tara continued. ‘And even if Ryan is missing, I don’t fucking care. People vanish all the time – it’s one of their saving graces. I don’t care where he is. The house is finished. We don’t need him any more. We don’t need to see or talk about him ever again.’ She crouched to the maple boards and picked up the sharp, jagged stem of the wine glass and placed it next to David on the counter.
‘I killed him. I killed Ryan.’
Tara made an expression as if someone had just splashed cold water on her face.
‘I’ll tell you everything. But you’ll find it hard to believe.’
* * *
And she did find it hard to believe. To steady herself, she placed her hands over her stomach instead of the wall. They were about to lose it all. Their names would soon be abhorred. The tabloids would splash horrible pictures of them across their front pages. Those who trusted her would curse her. Her family would fall apart before it had even begun.
‘David... I just need to know... Did he suffer?’
Silence. The pause lengthened and darkened. David stared at her, and she knew that she’d asked the wrong question.
‘Did he suffer? Who cares? I hope so.’ David looked shocked by his own words. But then his eyes widened, ready to unload what he’d been storing inside for two long, terrible days. ‘He screwed my wife. He screwed my wife in my house. Well, he’s paying for it now.’
Tara looked out to the neatly grouted slabs. No one pays for anything when they’re dead. That’s when you stop paying for it. But she nodded as if she agreed.
In the background, the radio switched to the news: a calm voice discussing the savagery o
f the last hour. Suicide bombers, apartment blocks shelled, people wailing in grief, American drones over Syria, a wedding party blasted to smithereens. Tara’s lover was ten feet away, buried outside the window. Her husband was a murderer. Another man that she had trusted was blackmailing them. A fourth man who had pretended to be a policeman was threatening them. She was surrounded by man’s atrocity, and it enraged her. But there was a greater horror, more intense and imminent than all the others: the possibility that David was close to being taken away from her, locked away, scrubbed from her life. The mere idea was as difficult to imagine as her own death. It was simply beyond her scope of experience.
‘Look, it was an accident,’ she said. ‘You know that. I know that. But it’s happened. Irreversible. We can’t bring Ryan back. The fact is, his death was an accident. So there’s no point in you going to prison. It would be the most pointless thing in the world. And they’d sentence you for murder, not manslaughter. It would be insane. It would ruin our lives and the life of our child, and for what? For nothing! Nothing that can be changed. Nothing that could be helped. And once Gordon gets paid, it’s all over. I mean, it’s not as if Ryan left a note.’ Tara thought of her father. Without a goodbye, death brings a silence with it.
‘And Fenton is just desperate,’ she carried on. ‘A desperate bully who shapes around trying to get what he can’t have. To think of that scumbag here in my kitchen, in my home. And then what he did to that guy in the car… But he did it to him and not you. Get me? He just wanted to scare you. Not harm you. Fenton can watch us all he wants, but he’ll eventually accept that you and I have no idea where Ryan is. And then... Then he’ll go away, too.’