by Paul Murray
‘But he would understand,’ O’Hara protests. ‘A boy like Whacker simply has no concept of antiques.’
‘Those hideous pedal-pushers,’ Crispin remembers with a shudder. ‘That was the last straw. I told him, “Darling, I have no objection to a ménage à trois, if it’s tidy, but I will not cohabit with culottes.”’
‘It sounds like a most worthy endeavour,’ Mary Cutlass tells O’Hara.
‘There but for the grace of God,’ he replies with a sigh.
‘The slums of Dublin are like a five-star hotel compared to New Delhi,’ Bimal Banerjee sneers.
‘Yes, but try getting room service after ten o’clock,’ Crispin says.
Banerjee has barely tasted his food, although he is making inroads into the wine; instead he occupies himself staring across the table at Ariel, the editorial assistant, who blushes into her soup bowl, as if the bisque were making improper suggestions to her. Attempting to draw him into the conversation, or distract him from whatever episode is unfolding, or not unfolding, Robert Dodson clears his throat and says, ‘I should have mentioned before, Bimal – Paul here is a writer too. In fact, we published his first novel, seven years ago.’
‘My condolences,’ Banerjee says, swivelling his heavy-lidded eyes on Paul.
‘Hmm…’ Mary Cutlass brings her finger to her lip and away again. ‘Yes, I think I remember … a thing about … ah…’
Paul issues her a watery smile.
‘And what have you been doing since, Paul?’ Victoria asks. ‘Working on another novel?’
‘Well, Victoria, interesting you should ask me that. No, I’m actually in business these days, and as it happens I’ve been working on a proposal you might fi—’
‘Clowns!’ exclaims Mary Cutlass. ‘Wasn’t it about clowns or something?’
‘You’re thinking of Bimal’s first book,’ Victoria tells her.
‘No, no, it’s coming back to me now. Gosh, I think I may even have reviewed it.’ She covers her mouth with a beefy hand and twinkles merrily at Paul. ‘I hope I didn’t say anything too awful.’
Paul offers no response to this, other than the same thin smile.
‘You should feel no regret at having failed as a writer,’ Banerjee says to Paul. ‘It is the dying art of a dying civilization.’
Paul looks surprised, then his eyes narrow.
‘You believe the novel is a dying art?’ Mary Cutlass presses Banerjee.
‘I believe art is a dying art,’ he says. ‘What we are witnessing in twenty-first-century Western society is nothing less than the death of subjectivity. We are in Dublin, so I will quote to you a Dubliner, George Bernard Shaw, who said that man looks in a mirror to see his face, and at art to see his soul. But modern man has no soul to see. He has become little more than a conduit for the transfer of wealth between corporations.’
‘That seems a bit pessimistic,’ Victoria notes gently. ‘Given that modern man has bought several hundred thousand copies of your book.’
‘People will always need art,’ William O’Hara declares. ‘What is it they say? Art exists to keep the truth from killing us.’
‘You have to be alive for something to kill you,’ Banerjee snaps back.
‘I don’t think that’s true.’
We all turn; Ariel, the beautiful editorial assistant, blushing a deep pink, lays down her cutlery and speaks tremulously to her plate. ‘I just mean…’ Her voice is barely louder than a whisper. ‘I think we need art to remind us we’re alive. To remind us of the beauty around us. And the people around us. And that they need us. Sometimes we forget. And that’s what kills us.’
Hearing this, Banerjee’s face utterly transforms: his severe expression disappears, melting into tragic puppy-dog devotion.
‘Has anyone read the other books on the shortlist?’ Dodson says hurriedly, as the Indian seems on the point of making some sort of declaration. ‘I had a look at the Conway Inchbold title, Antelope Crimes. Really quite impressive. Built up a genuine sense of menace. The antelope itself was bloody terrifying.’
‘Oh yes,’ Mary Cutlass agrees. ‘The claustrophobic atmosphere, the constant sense of threat – reminiscent of the Russians. Gogol in particular. Don’t you adore Gogol?’ she says to Paul.
‘I’m more of a Yahoo man myself,’ Paul says.
Mary Cutlass looks blank.
‘Conway Inchbold is a cancer,’ says Banerjee.
‘All right.’ Crispin throws down his napkin. ‘I’d like to announce that I’ve just invented a new rule of etiquette, which is that whoever cooked the meal gets to choose the topic of conversation. And my decision is, no more books.’
‘What are we supposed to talk about?’ his partner says, looking rather affronted.
‘There are several topics available,’ Crispin replies blithely.
‘Such as?’
‘Well, for starters, I’d like to hear more from this mysterious gentleman,’ Crispin says, and my blood freezes as I realize he means me. ‘Who is he? Who are you? You’re not a writer, are you?’
‘I’m a banker,’ I say.
‘Oh, snap!’ O’Hara exclaims.
‘You work in finance?’ I say to Crispin.
‘I dabbled, that’s all. Anyway, I’ve retired.’ He says this without irony, though I doubt he is even forty years old; but before I can ask what he did, he has pointed his fork at Paul and me. ‘And the two of you are a pair?’
Does he suspect? I stare back at him, words dying in my throat.
‘That’s right,’ Paul steps in. ‘A pair, that’s what we are. A pair of men, two men, in a relationship.’
‘And tell us, where did you meet?’
‘In a sauna,’ Paul says. ‘A gay sauna.’
‘Which one?’ Crispin says.
‘Hmm, which one…’ Paul says, drumming his fingers and contemplating the chandelier. ‘Darling, do you remember which one?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘It was in San Francisco,’ Paul says, with a flash of what I suppose we must call inspiration. ‘I’d gone over for research. Claude was working as a go-go dancer, weren’t you, Claude? Claude, weren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I say, through gritted teeth.
‘He was just out of the French navy,’ Paul continues. ‘They called him the Arse de Triomphe. Our eyes met in the steam room. Next thing, we fell in love.’
‘Ah, che bello,’ William O’Hara says fondly.
‘Now we do everything together,’ Paul continues; it is like watching a runaway train, a runaway train that is pretending to be gay. ‘Holidays to Sweden to buy furniture, London every year for Fashion Week, the opera –’
Crispin pounces on this. ‘What’s your favourite opera?’
Paul, put on the spot, goes blank. His mouth opens and closes; the runaway train abruptly comes off the track, and with a certain amount of enjoyment I watch it fly through the air, wheels spinning fruitlessly. ‘That would have to be … ah … Mamma Mia!’
Crispin and William look at each other in surprise, then dissolve into guffaws. ‘Us too!’ Crispin squeals. ‘It’s our terrible secret!’
‘And Paul – did you say that you were working on a business venture?’ William inquires.
‘Yes, William, I did. In fact, it’s something you might find inter— ow!’ He looks accusingly at me. ‘Darling?’
‘You promised you wouldn’t discuss business tonight, darling,’ I say to him.
‘I’m not discussing business, darling, they asked what I’m doing and I’m telling them. Actually, I think I may have some brochures here somewhere – ow! Darling, would you please stop kicking me?’
‘Darling, I would like a word with you outside, please.’
‘What’s the problem, I’m just – hey, put that back!’ as I snatch away his wine glass.
‘I’ll give it back after we’ve had a little word,’ I say firmly; grousing under his breath, Paul gets out of his seat.
‘Obvious who wears the trousers in your household,’ Crispin
teases.
‘I wear the trousers,’ Paul rejoins as I bundle him out the door. ‘And I go on top!’
* * *
Ignoring his protestations, I propel him down the hall and into a darkened sitting room where we are certain to be out of earshot. ‘What are you doing?’
‘What are you doing?’ Paul returns. ‘I thought you were going to help me!’
‘I am helping you. I have spent the last two hours pretending to be gay. But that was because I thought you were trying to win over your editor. I did not realize that you had constructed this charade in order to bilk our hosts out of their money – this is a word, bilk?’
‘How am I bilking them? I’m just making conversation.’
‘Answer this: did you come here this evening with the specific intention to drum up investments for Myhotswaitress?’
‘You say that like it’s a bad thing,’ he protests. ‘Myhotswaitress is going to be huge, and I’m giving them the chance to get in on the ground floor! I’m basically thrusting millions and millions of euro into their hands, and you’re telling me I’m a bad guest?’
‘You told me you had come here to rebuild your relationship with your editor and restart your career.’
‘I said no such thing, Claude. I said they were influential people, and they are. Look at the size of this place! I could move my whole family in here and it would take those guys about six months to notice. They’re exactly the kind of investor we need.’
‘That may be so. Nevertheless, I am informing you now that my part in this deception is over.’
Paul grinds his fists against his temples. ‘I don’t understand you. You’re always on my case about doing something with my life, and then when I try, you’re completely unsupportive!’
‘Because I want you to write! And everything you do is just a way of avoiding writing! Don’t you understand – you are the great investment opportunity! You have the chance to get in on the ground floor – of yourself!’
‘What are you talking about?’ Paul exclaims.
It is true, this did not come out quite like I thought it would. ‘I am talking about the chance to create a work of art! Instead of merely adding to the transience and the falsity of our times, you can rise above them! Find some meaning within them!’
‘Oh, well, that’s just peachy for you, isn’t it? I’m sure from your perspective it looks like a great idea to crawl up my own ass, or however you put it –’
‘“Get in on the ground floor of yourself” –’
‘So you and your banker pals can keep merrily turning the world to shit, and then any time you’re feeling bad drag in the poor old artist to find some meaning for you! You’re like the property developer who spends the year demolishing the countryside, then wants to go on holiday to somewhere completely unspoiled. Well, I’m not your meaning-monkey! I’m not here to make you feel better!’
‘That’s not what I’m saying –’
‘I’m living in your world, pal. I’ve got to play by your rules. If I’ve got to add to the falsity to feed my family, then falsity it is. And as for transience, I’ll say this for it, at least it’s over quick.’
‘Ah, young love,’ comes a voice from behind us. Standing in the doorway, framed by the light of the hall, is William O’Hara, wine glass perched between finger and thumb like a spheric, translucent butterfly. ‘Crispin and I used to fight like that,’ he says. ‘Now we’re like two old maids, making each other tea. But I see you’ve found it.’
He nods at the far wall. We turn around. Hanging over the fireplace is a painting. In the gloom it appears to be a rectangle of solid black; but now O’Hara switches on a lamp and I can see that the darkness is composed of minute inscriptions, accreting here a little more, here a little less, so that shapes seem to emerge, swim about and disappear again. The effect is surprisingly powerful, and quite beautiful.
‘I wanted to bring the guests in for a private viewing, but Crispin thought it would seem like showing off,’ O’Hara says. ‘He doesn’t understand that I don’t think of it as mine. How could anyone ever believe he owned something as monumental as this?’ He gazes up at the painting, as if he were speaking to it rather than to us, drifting across the floor towards it like a strand of inverted smoke pulled backwards into the unlit fire. ‘The instant I saw it, I knew I could spend the rest of my life looking at it. Crispin says that’s exactly why he doesn’t like it. “You never say that about me,” he says.’ O’Hara smiles. ‘He’s such a silly old duffer.’
I recognize the painting: after my failed encounter with Ariadne, I spent many nights online looking at this and others, taking some consolation, if that’s the word, from their charred and tortured surfaces, like selenographies of some bleak moon.
‘François Texier,’ I say.
‘The philosopher?’ Paul is staring up at the painting with a certain amount of misgiving, as if shadowy hands might at any moment emerge from it and pull him in.
‘That’s right,’ O’Hara says. ‘You probably know the story?’
Paul shakes his head.
‘In the late 1990s he disappeared – dropped out of contact, left his job at the university. He’d been about to begin work on what was to be his definitive statement – he had a title for it, and indeed a contract. But the years went by and the book never surfaced – and neither did Texier. Instead these paintings began to appear in Paris – gifts to his friends, many of them, strange portraits, strange landscapes, strange abstractions. All very strange, and yet in some ways you could see the connection to his thought.’
‘And the book?’ Paul asks. ‘What happened to that?’
‘Well, this is the book,’ O’Hara says, gesturing to the painting. ‘La Marque et le Vide. The Mark and the Void. If you look closely, you can see –’
‘Words…’
Words upon words upon yet more words; hundreds of pages of text superimposed one on top of the other, rendering each other utterly illegible – creating instead a cascading darkness that seems to devour the very possibility of meaning.
‘He wrote it all out, you see. His book, the unfinished book, on the canvas, in pen and ink. When he had finished he burned the transcript and all his notes, and treated the canvas with the soot. And he stipulated that whoever owned it subsequently would have to expose it to smoke, which it’s been chemically designed to absorb over time – that’s why we’ve hung it over a fireplace.’
‘What happened?’ Paul says. ‘He’d had some kind of breakdown?’
‘He’d certainly grown wary of the idea of definitive statements,’ O’Hara says. ‘But in fact the painting fits his philosophy rather well. The mark, “making your mark”, this idea that to live in full means to leave some permanent evidence of yourself on the world, he’d become quite suspicious of that. And the corresponding notion that the world is a blank page waiting to be inscribed, a void to be covered up with our doings. No, no. On the contrary. The void comes from inside us, from deep inside us. And the more we try to escape it, the more we turn the world into a mirror. Of that emptiness. That’s what he felt he’d done, while attempting to come up with his definitive statement.’
‘Dark,’ Paul says, his eyes still locked on the painting.
‘Well, that depends on how you look at it. You can transform it, you see. That’s the point of art, as he saw it.’
‘Isn’t art about making your mark?’
‘In a sense. But art is something you give away, that’s the difference. Instead of grabbing up bits of reality for oneself. He became very interested in the tribal cultures of the Pacific – his wife was an anthropologist, he used to travel around Polynesia with her. Anyway, he was very taken with these cycles of exchange they have, whereby objects are passed back and forth through generations, and nothing belongs to anyone in perpetuity. Or rather, that there is no “one” for things to belong to. He used to say that in that part of the world, you wrote your address backwards, that is, first you wrote the country, then your town, then yo
ur street, and only lastly your name. Which, when you think about it, makes much more sense. And art for him was an attempt to write his address backwards, so to speak.’
‘It’s so dark, though,’ Paul says, his eyes still locked on the painting.
‘Yes, the problem was those very cultures were in danger of being wiped out by all the others busy making their mark.’
‘Climate change?’
‘Travelling around the Pacific, they could already see it happening. That had a powerful effect on him. Not just the threat of floods and cataclysm and so on, but the fact that no one in the First World wanted to know. And then when his wife died, that seemed to compound everything. This was painted only a few months before his suicide.’
I hadn’t known this; I think of Ish and her islanders, and looking at the painting I feel a chill, as if behind the impenetrable black veil I can see drowned faces buried under relentless waves.
‘Crispin can’t stand it,’ O’Hara says, returning his gaze to the painting. ‘He says it’s depressing. And what it’s done to the insurance is just shocking – they’re insisting now we install some sort of ghastly alarm system, it’ll be like living in a bank vault. But looking at it makes me feel rather hopeful. There’s a sort of comfort in the thought of us all swimming around in this void together. The notion that our borders are porous makes me feel oddly complete. Like love, I suppose, isn’t it? It’s when you forget yourself that you’re most who you are. And conversely, as Texier said, there’s nothing so selfish as the urge to escape ourselves. Crispin can’t stand it when I quote him either,’ he concludes apologetically. And then, as a voice calls from elsewhere in the house, ‘Dessert!’ he says. ‘Come.’
* * *
Back in the dining room, the conversation has turned to the banking crisis.
‘Oh Lord, not again,’ O’Hara says.
‘When you cook the dinner, you can choose the topics,’ Crispin tells him primly.
‘That Miles O’Connor is the worst of the lot,’ Mary Cutlass says with an access of anger. ‘I don’t understand how he hasn’t been driven from the city.’