Martin Sloane

by Michael Redhill

  I heard him, said Molly, draining her drink. I’ll be back in a second. She got up and went back into the house. We watched her go in through the sliding door. She’d seemed a little put off.

  Are you even drinking? Martin asked me.

  I sat down on his lap. A little.

  She doesn’t need to see this nonsense. You’re making her uncomfortable.

  She can take it, I said. She’s Molly. Water off a goose.

  A duck.

  A duck, you’re right.

  Well, quit it. She came a long way to see you and you’re behaving very spoiled.

  Can I really come?

  Sure, Jo. I don’t want to fight about it anymore.

  No! Don’t give in! Tell me I can come because you want me to come.

  I do. I want you to come.

  Yayyy!

  But if you come, no complaining about how dull it is.

  If I’m bad, maybe you’ll have to spank me.

  Shush, he said. Molly was coming back out and she was in a smallish yellow bikini. We both stared for a moment, gobsmacked, before making a show of getting out of our chair and gathering things up, as if we’d fallen behind in an agenda only she recalled.

  Let’s find somewhere to go swimming, she said. Okay? It’s too hot.

  Sure, sure, I said. I’d forgotten how beautiful she was, gorgeous sleek black hair, and her long, generous body. I picked the beer cans out of the grass as she stood between us, towel folded over her arm.

  So that’s your workspace, huh? she said to Martin. Will you show me later?

  Actually, I said, Martin doesn’t let anyone in there. Not even me.

  Okay.

  She gets to come in once in a while just to keep the peace, Martin said, but it’s really a mess. He leaned in toward her and laid his hand on a bare shoulder. It’s nothing personal, he said.

  Molly smiled at him. No offence taken.

  He stood there, touching her, a circuit or two blown. When you’re finished fondling my oldest friend, I said, why don’t we go for a swim.

  They both laughed and Molly stepped away from him. A swim, he said. Good idea. And you’re coming to the opening tonight, aren’t you?

  That’s why I’m here! Molly said. By invitation only!

  Then you’ll see a few of the new things then.

  Excellent. He began walking into the house.

  I watched him vanish through the door. I’m sorry, I said when he was out of earshot. We’re being obnoxious.

  Nonsense, said Molly. It’s great to see you guys.

  Well, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do, I said.

  Martin reappeared with my bathing suit and a couple more towels.

  You know what I was just thinking, Molly said to him. I was thinking about this one thing you made Jo. I’d love to see it again. I don’t remember exactly what it was … a hornet’s nest, or a honeycomb, she said. And there was one little hole, that if you looked in it, you could see in the middle a tiny doll wearing a crown. I always wondered how you did that, how it got it in there.

  I don’t remember that, I said.

  Well, I cut the nest open, said Martin. Along a line of cells so the cut would be invisible. And I hollowed it out a little and built a platform inside out of balsa, pinned the little queen there, and then I closed it up. And that was it. Pushed little pinholes through certain cells so the doll would be lit right, and hollowed one out to look down.

  The hornet’s nest? He nodded at me. The hornet’s nest. I know that piece, Martin.

  Okay.

  I stared at him a moment. I’m not going to get it.

  I didn’t suggest you do.

  I can’t fucking believe this, I said, and I ran into the house and went into my closet. I never threw anything out that he gave me; the artworks I kept safe, or put on display, but the mounds of detritus that he also gave me — little love tokens, things I thought maybe one day he’d ask after — remained in storage. In a minute, I’d found the nest and ran back out with it, and turned it in my hands, looking for a peephole.

  You’re lying, I said.

  That’s the one, said Molly. I saw light coming out of it one day when I passed the shelf everything was on. I convinced her to put all those things you made in a common room so everyone could enjoy them.

  I don’t believe this. I couldn’t find any so-called peephole. You are lying, I said. Martin took it from me and held it out at arm’s length. Then turned it slowly one way at eye level until, suddenly, a gold light burst from one of the cells. He passed it back to me. I looked into the glowing hole, and sitting in a nimbus of pale afternoon sunlight was the thing I’d never seen.

  A tiny doll the size of a thumb, papery wings on her back, sitting alone with a crown on her head in the middle of the hive. I stared at her, rapt. Finally, I passed it to Molly and looked over at him, my mouth open in disbelief. How is it possible … you must have thought I hated it.

  I knew you hadn’t found her.

  I would never have found her.

  Yes, you would have. There was going to be a day when somehow she’d have been revealed to you.

  I forgot you had wings! Molly said. She lowered the nest, her eyes shining. Martin took it back from her and started walking to the shed with it.

  I might clean it up a bit though, he said.

  Oh! said Molly, following him. Can I peek?

  Molly!

  Sure, he said. You can peek. He unlocked the door and leaned in to put the honeycomb on a shelf for later. Molly stood back, peering over his shoulder.

  Looks all jumbly in there, she said.

  It’s a pigsty, he said. That’s the real reason I don’t let a soul inside. He closed the door and came back across the lawn toward me. He was trying to contain a stupid grin.

  Look at you, I said. You’re so proud of yourself.

  Took you three years.

  Were you ever going to tell me?

  These things come together for their own good reasons, he said. I don’t want to push them.

  Push them! What else is in those boxes in my closet? They’re sitting in the dark covered in dust.

  They’ll let themselves be seen when it’s time, he said, and raised his chin at me.

  I’m coming to Toronto next week. I need to keep a closer eye on you, mister.

  Molly was still standing in the grass, watching us expressionlessly, her towel over her belly. So … swimming? she said.

  We loaded some beers and a watermelon into my car and headed down 28 to a gravel road that led to the quarry pits. It was now late in the day, and the sun had baked into the stone — a weft of hot air rose from the road. Molly dropped her hand out the window, sighing.

  You should be careful you don’t burn, I said.

  You know me, she said, batting her eyelashes. I just smoulder.

  Most of the locals had stopped going to the quarries in September, so we had them to ourselves, and I directed Martin to the smallest one, farthest away from the rest. He pulled over and Molly got out and quickly laid out a towel on the flat rock that led to the edge of the quarry. I started changing behind a tree. Martin sat by Molly with a cap over his eyes and peered down into the glassy water, more than forty feet below.

  Which of us hasn’t seen you naked? Molly called to me.

  She does this at home too, Martin said. Runs outside and changes in the trees.

  I could see them, fragments of skin and colour, through the branches and the leaves. I’m not changing in front of you both, I said. You know, the two of you seeing each other seeing me naked.

  He wouldn’t care if we both skinny-dipped. She turned to him. I’m assuming.

  There’s no sunblock.

  Sunblock wasn’t actually the topic.

  He shielded his eyes from the sun and looked at her. I’m another generation, he said. I’m not with-it enough to look at a naked woman I don’t know that well and act nonchalant. He paused a moment. Not to say I wouldn’t mind stumbling upon such a scene.


  Molly laughed. I came out in my one-piece and hauled her up to standing. You’re not coming in? she asked as I pulled her toward the edge.

  He doesn’t do water, I said.

  We stood and looked down. Long-ago industry had carved out these pits and left them to fill with water. It was like looking through a window onto one of the summer skies of your childhood. I was a bit buzzed from the beers and the sun, or I would never have considered jumping. Molly took my hand and we counted to three and leapt. We gulped air, a delicious moment of death, and then the cold, cold plunge. I came up gasping and blinking, the water so cold, so piercing. I could feel it leaching the sun from me, the baked-in heat of the day dissolving.

  This smallest quarry had been nicknamed the Elephant Graveyard because there were two Volkswagen bugs at the bottom, one green, one blue. People had spread a story about a nighttime drag race and a dark burst over the edge. The green one was closer to the other side: the winner. No one believed it, but it was hard not to conjure the bodies of two boys in their cars below us, their hair moving back and forth in the water like ferns. The tingle of picturing a hand on your ankle. The two bugs were unreachable without airtanks, and no one, as far as I knew, had ever gone down there. The cars swayed in the distant light like treetops.

  Molly was groaning with happiness, floating on her back. This place is incredible. If you want to swim in New York, you join a health club, or risk herpes from the public pools.

  Yuck.

  We both floated on our backs and looked up. The yellow walls rose at perfect right angles to the water. Martin looked tiny at the very top. The bickering was very cute, she said.

  I don’t get a lot of opportunity to see him squirm.

  Or me.

  Right.

  She swept her arms back and forth through the water slowly. Mmm, she said. This is perfect.

  Isn’t it.

  So you’re happy, aren’t you?

  I am. Yes. We drifted a little, the sky unblemished to all horizons. What about you? I said. You keep getting cut off with the Martin and Jolene show.

  Oh, you know. It’s the same old story. Men like to conquer me and I let them, but I scare the shit out of them. Too smart, too beautiful.

  I’m supposed to say that part.

  There might be someone, I don’t know. He keeps kissing me on the cheek.

  That’s gallant.

  It’s just as well. This is the good part, you know? Nothing’s gone wrong yet.

  Since when do you have such a bad attitude? I said, but before she could answer, I pushed off her with my feet and arced over backwards under the water. The bugs glowed in their dead light below me.

  — unlucky, she was saying when I came up. Huh? It doesn’t matter. She gave a strong slow pull underwater and drifted away a little, then swung her arm back and forth through the air. Wave, Jo. He’s waving.

  I looked up to the top of the stone wall, where shafts of sunlight were pouring down, and waved to him.

  I didn’t upset you this afternoon, did I? she said.

  No, I said, although I’d been deeply embarrassed. How did you know about it, though? How did you remember?

  I just remembered it from the house. It was one of my favourite things.

  I didn’t know you even looked at them.

  I did.

  I tilted my head into the sun, squinted at her. Do you want it? I said.

  He made it for you, Jo. You can’t just give it away.

  I know, but I’ve kind of lost my privileges, I’d think. We’ll ask him afterwards.

  No, don’t, she said quickly. It’s not meant for me.

  I nodded, treading water. Okay. She tipped her head back and rewet her hair, then submerged and swam toward the far wall, a lithe shadow under the surface.

  That evening, we all dressed in good clothes and went to the Bergman ceremony. Martin was in his “openings” suit: I’d only seen him in it once before, in Washington, and more frightening than making him look his age, it made him look like a respectable man his age, which made us look especially suspect as a pair. Of the three of us, Molly was the one who seemed distracted: she fiddled with her glass and was uncharacteristically wordless after being introduced to various functionaries and friends.

  We circulated in the crowd, nodding at the right times in conversations, nibbling the appetizers that went around. The small glass tables throughout the reception hall were littered with cellophane-wrapped toothpicks and empty champagne flutes. Martin had mentioned earlier that he was hoping for something subdued and tasteful. Is coconut shrimp and tamarind sauce with Tattinger’s lowbrow enough for you, my love?

  Don’t rub it in, okay?

  Two men in tails blew cornets to announce the ceremony was about to begin and everyone filed through a pair of doors to one of the larger galleries, where a hundred or so seats had been set up. Up at the front, Clark Johannson, the curator, was waiting for people to settle. He was a big Swede, with hands like paddles and long legs. You could always see him walking across campus, bright in his yellow ties and chinos, towering over those beside him. He’d come up to Martin and me a month earlier at a rally down by the student union. Some students had built a shantytown there to protest apartheid, and the field below the road had become the centre of the university’s social life during that spring. Johannson had recognized Martin from a show at Tufts two years earlier.

  Now he was coming to the podium, slick and glinting in a shark-coloured shirt and a black tie, and he steadied himself with his flipper-like hands. He leaned down into the microphone. Today we’re celebrating the acquisition of a marvellous new work of art from the Canadian artist Martin Sloane.

  Not Canadian, Martin said out of the side of his mouth.

  There was applause. I joined in, but he took one of my hands in his. Don’t applaud, he said.

  Why?

  You don’t throw confetti at your own wedding.

  A little bit about the artist, Johannson said. Born in Dublin, raised in that city, as well as Galway, Montreal, and Toronto. Divides his time between Toronto and our little town. The winner of the prestigious Carrick Foundation Prize for a body of work in 1975, and he’s had some major shows since then, at the National Museum of American Art, the Menil in Houston, the Tufts University Art Gallery, and of course the group show at Castelli, a very popular show in 1983. But his work is hard to come by! Very few galleries have anything in their permanent collections, and what the public gets to see generally goes home with the artist. Mr. Sloane’s reputation has grown via a peculiar kind of absence on the art scene. Very clever, Mr. Sloane!

  Laughter. A weak smile from Martin.

  But today, we unveil three boxes, albeit a single work, but three pieces which will take pride of place in our contemporary galleries.

  Someone at the back dimmed the lights and Johannson said, I give you Going Under, and I leaned forward with the crowd. In the darkness of the room, we could now see three squares of faint light glowing behind a sheet. An invisible hand drew the sheet back and revealed three boxes on a dais, barely lit from within, as if their surfaces were giving off the last of a light they’d somehow stored. They were breathtaking in the darkness and immediately a silence that was like intimacy came over the crowd. When our eyes adjusted, the box at the left revealed only a miniature buoy floating against a background of inky darkness. The middle box was empty but for (so Martin claimed) eighty-five layers of warped, cracked, bubbling blue paint and varnish on the back wall. The third showed a rotting galleon hidden amongst a copse of weed and thickly laid twigs. Martin’s handwritten instructions for installation indicated the effect was to be of muted moonlight. And so they seemed to float in the air at the front of the auditorium, phosphorescent pale, like drowned rooms.

  The applause started and grew louder. The lights came on slowly, so that the boxes faded a little, their magic retreating. People at the front turned to face us and Martin stood up beside me, stiff, uncomfortable. I applauded and Molly stood u
p to kiss Martin on the cheek, and then he leaned down and kissed me, and everyone just stood there clapping. Molly sat back down and I watched Martin taking it in, and after a few moments of smiling, his face tired and he dropped it, and then the three of us remained there, waiting for it all to end.

  Back at the house, we tossed our coats over the back of the brown couch and Martin went straight to the back door, murmuring, Back in a minute. Molly turned to me, surprised, but I’d learned to smile inwardly at these abrupt withdrawals. It was one of the things we fought about, but I’d learned to stash my frustration with this behaviour in the Unchosen Battles part of my mind. Sometimes he told me what was on his mind at these times, or he just didn’t; I learned to live with this spectacle of concealment. I always imagined that from it emerged the things that I loved, the general peace of the rest of our lives together, his art, his self. I waved off Molly’s expression of confusion and said, He’ll be just a second. She shrugged and joined me in the kitchen. It was dusk now, that light that presses distances together and makes the world look like a charcoal drawing. I poured us both some of the sherry Molly had brought — we were already a bit drunk, but a little more wasn’t going to hurt. The light in Martin’s shed blinked on, and we could see his shadow behind the high smoky window. A misty fog coming off the river was drifting through the yard and the light from the window hung in it like something solid.

  Trouble in Paradise? Molly said.

  No … it’s just. This is actually normal.

  Normal.

  Well, I’m used to it, I said.

  She looked back out toward the shed. It’s funny what we can get used to.

  It’s not a big deal. I put my hand on hers. Don’t be insulted. It gives us a few minutes to catch up, see? I led her into the front room and we sat on the couch. It really has been a long time, I said. Molly sipped from her sherry, distracted.

  You know, she said, looking over the tops of her glasses at me. I haven’t seen you in about two years, but I haven’t seen him in five.

  Well, you never —

  Exactly. I didn’t wait five years to meet Martin only to have him go have a sulk on me.