by Anne Donovan
THE ENVELOPE HAD a plastic windae that the name and address were supposed tae show through. I don’t know why they use them for something important like results – hauf the time the letter moves inside the envelope so you don’t know who it’s for. I was lucky I got it at all – takes our postie all his time to deliver mail which has the exact name, address, flat number and postcode typed on it in enormous letters. Anything the least bit dubious gets left in the close or delivered to the empty flat on the ground floor, presumably cause they don’t complain. The guy lives with his girlfriend and just comes round every three month tae check on the place; it’s like Christmas when he appears with a pile of letters that have been lying on his mat all that time. I did try tae complain but the postie tellt me he was dyslexic so he fitted the Post Office’s commitment to taking on people with a disability.
Anyway, it did get here and not only were the results As all round but there was a letter telling me I’d won a special prize, the chance tae get my work exhibited in a trendy London gallery.
When I phoned Patric, he was over the moon.
You’re kidding, Fiona. That is so cool.
It’s just a wee exhibition of work by students fae different art schools. I mean it is great but.
It is, Fi.
So can I stay with you then?
Of course – look, why don’t you come and stay for a few weeks? I have to work but there’s loads you can do on your own during the day and I’ll be around in the evening to show you about. It’ll be fab.
Patric had flitted again, this time tae a grand apartment building in Bloomsbury – I guessed it must be worth a fortune. He rented it from a friend of a friend. This seemed to be how things worked doon here; someone like Patric, who kept everything that neat and perfect, was in demand fae all these folk who had spare property lying around while they lived abroad or went off on endless business trips. Justin, the friend of a friend, still used a bedroom in the flat but was only there about three or four days every few months and Patric wasnae expecting him till September.
I don’t like to use Justin’s room, so I’ll sleep on the couch – it folds down into a bed. You can have my room.
I can sleep on the couch.
No you won’t.
It’s a hassle for you.
I’ve already moved some clothes to a cupboard in the hall. Honest, Fi, it’s easier this way. I’ll be getting up for work and you may want some long lies after all the partying we’ll be doing. I thought we’d have a quiet night in tonight but, break you in gently.
Patric cooked a lovely dinner which we ate in the dining room. There was a table in the kitchen, but the flat had a proper dining room too, with retro wallpaper and modern silver candlesticks. The table was set with a runner in the middle and fresh flowers, artistically arranged.
This is amazing, I said. It’s like a restaurant.
Patric smiled.
You don’t live like this all the time but, do you? Don’t you ever flop on the couch and eat something fae the microwave?
Patric lifted his wine glass, twirled it round for a moment and looked at me seriously. You know, Fiona, I don’t.
I waited for him to go on.
I reckon that’s what life is about. Having the best. No just the most expensive, though usually if something’s good it is expensive. But having beautiful things round you, wearing good clothes, having your hair cut properly, manicuring your nails.
Some folk cannae afford all that.
I know, Fiona – and I never forget how things were when we were wee. But I remember, even when we didnae have much money, Mammy always got us leather shoes, measured properly. And we always had good home-cooked food.
I thought of the way things were at hame noo, the freezer filled with ready meals, the twins’ plastic trinkets littering the house.
And it’s about looking after what you’ve got – nae use having silver candlesticks if you don’t polish them. Anyway, let’s drink a toast – to your show. Success.
* * *
Next morning it took me three buses tae get to the gallery. Patric gied me directions for the tube but I hate the London underground. Hate being underground at all, only cope with the Glasgow subway cause it’s so wee – even if you go the whole way round in a circle it only takes hauf an hour. But the thought of all they vast subterranean tunnels, the clunky escalators and great waves of folk who always seem to be gaun in the opposite direction, just does my heid in. The buses in London are nice; the stops tell you the destination and how long it’ll be till the next one, and with my day pass I could hop on and off as much as I liked. I sat with my wee streetmap, following the route. All the streets you’ve heard of even though you’ve never been here.
The gallery was in the east end, which, according to Patric, was the place for the mair avant-garde stuff; the exciting trendy parties and media openings were all out here. It didnae look that edgy to me, too clean and neat by hauf, freshly painted wi big windaes and a fluorescent sign. The street was clean too – nae litter, nae dodgy-looking folk. Obviously cutting edge in London was a bit mair gentrified than in Glasgow.
I hadnae expected to be welcomed with open airms – they’re mair used tae dealing with Tracey Emin than some peelywally art student fae the frozen north – but the bored-looking lassie glued to the phone never even said hello, just nodded me in the direction of the gallery. Took me ages tae find the box with my stuff in it, stuck in a corner at the back under a pile of junk, but nothing was damaged and I spent ages getting the piece ready. The space wasnae as good as the one I’d had for the show at hame. All the students’ work was in this wee room at the back of the gallery, and the areas werenae marked out properly. One other exhibit was up – looked like trees made out of bits of broken glass – but there was naebody else there. When I finished I went and stood at the desk till the bored girl eventually turned, put the phone against her breast as if it was a baby, and said, Can I help you?
Just tae say I’ve finished.
Cool. She returned tae her conversation.
The heat hit me as soon as I left the air-conditioned building. City heat, trapped in the grey tarmac of the pavements, intensified, multiplied by buildings all squashed thegether till it became almost unbearable. I was wearing a pair of cotton trousers and a long-sleeved shirt but the skin on my wrists and my cheeks started tae burn afore I’d got the length of the street. It was two o’clock and the pavements were crowded; it felt as if everyone was outside pubs, drinking. I had tae weave on and off the pavement to get by them, hearing fragments of conversations and peals of laughter. Everyone here looks that confident in their summer city clothes, with their mobiles and sunglasses, as if they belong. At hame when it’s sunny folk havenae a clue what tae wear, they put on shorts and tops meant for the beach and roll up their tee shirts. But people in London actually have summer clothes for work, wear the kind of clothes you see in magazines and think are ridiculous – city shorts, dresses with tulip-shaped skirts.
I was parched. The bottle of water I’d brought with me was finished and I bought another at a stall. Leaning on a wall outside a hairdressers tae drink it, I smelled the fruity scent of conditioner and shampoo wafting fae the open door. I swigged the last of the water and set off towards the bus stop.
* * *
I know it was really stupid but in quiet moments I’d fantasised about the night of the launch – important folk seeing my work and being dead impressed, the gallery signing me up and asking me to dae a show when I left Art School. On the train yesterday, sitting spread out with my coffee and my paper, looking out the windae as the green fields sped by, watching the changes in architecture as we came further south – the back to back houses of the north, the red brick estates of the south – I’d felt free, as if the edges of who I was had started tae blur, possibilities opening up. In the imaginary story running in my heid as the train tracks rushed past, I was scrubbed clean of all the messy stuff.
Standing, legs aching, squashed inside a crow
d of braying folk who neither knew nor cared who I was, who never even made it intae the room which contained the art students’ exhibits, but stayed in the main part of the gallery with the work of the big boys and girls, mair interested in the canapés and the conversation than they were in art. One guy in a navy-blue suit with a chin like Desperate Dan shoved his prawn wonton in my face as he gestured round the walls. So, you an art lover, then?
Art student.
St Martins?
Glasgow.
Oh, Glasgow, he said, stuffing the pastry in his mouth in a oner. I’ve heard it’s a very sexy city.
I didnae know what to say but couldnae move away.
So what brings you here?
I’ve an installation in the other room.
Is there another room? I came with my sister, she’s into art and all that. I’m just here for the bubbly. Still, I must go and look at your … installation. Is it in the catalogue?
Dunno. Obviously they kept them for the visitors.
He thrust it intae my haund and I turned the glossy illustrated pages till I found the place. Nae photies, just a list: Title, Art School, Artist.
I ran my finger doon the page. Here it is – ‘Oh Yes You Are, Oh No You’re Not’.
He looked. Fun title. Pleased to meet you, Fiona O’Connor.
O’Connell.
My eyesight’s getting worse. He squinted. Nope – look.
Sure enough, in black and white – Fiona O’Connor. They’d got my name wrang. As the guy left, Patric fought his way back, thrust a drink in my hand. The fizz has run out, I’m afraid, it’s just ordinary wine.
I took a sip; it tasted flat and dull.
Patric was great, done everything he could to gie me a good time. Lined up dinners, theatre trips, visits tae trendy bars and God knows what, paid for everything. Any normal poverty-stricken student fae the sticks would of been in seventh heaven but I dragged mysel through it.
I had the days to mysel. The first three I spent gaun round galleries; after all, seeing some art would make my trip worthwhile. I checked out all the exhibitions in Time Out, drew up a list and set off: Old Masters, photography, sculpture.
At least it gied me something tae talk about at night. Patric and me were rarely alone and hardly ever spent an evening wi the same folk. One night we went tae a Channel 4 party where the waiters were dressed as devils; we drank margaritas and ate food fae an enormous flaming barbecue with ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here’ printed across it in red letters. Everyone we met was either a journalist or a director of documentaries. Another night we had dinner with a group of designers and architects in some new restaurant that had opened on a houseboat. Jack and Melissa were married and she was expecting her first baby, Owen and Simon ran a business thegether and wore matching rings.
They were all really nice, but I felt like a six-year-old allowed to stay up late with the grown ups. No their fault. As we nibbled delicious appetisers, I sipped the lovely wine, looked round the picturesque boat with the hanging baskets of summer flowers, felt the slight sway of water beneath us and a fresh warm breeze on my cheek.
Isn’t this perfect? said Owen, squeezing my haund. It’s so lovely to meet you at last, Fiona. Patric is always talking about you.
I looked across at Patric. Lightly suntanned, in a blue linen shirt and expensive watch, he was laughing and his smile was perfect. Patric always had nice teeth but he’d now had the back ones veneered so nae matter how widely he smiled all you could see was a wall of white. The only thing that looked the same as when he was young was his neat fair hair, seemingly unchanged since he was seventeen.
Patric and I used to be an item, Owen confided.
I looked at Simon, head bowed in conversation with Melissa. Doesn’t that make things a bit … awkward?
Oh no, Owen laughed. It was the most amicable break imaginable. Patric and I both knew it was, you know, as the divine Cole says, just one of those things. And when I met Simon, well, he’s the one. But I always think it’s so important to keep one’s friends. Lovers may come and go – I mean don’t get me wrong, Simon and I are absolutely rocksolid and all that – but friendship is what really counts. And we just adore Patric.
He raised his glass and caught Patric’s eye. Patric raised his and looked across at the two of us, smiling his lovely white smile.
* * *
On the third day I went tae the National Portrait Gallery to see the painting of Emily by her brother. It was in a room with lots of other pictures of Victorian writers, like Dickens and Elizabeth Barrett Browning but they were all professional portraits, formal and highly finished, while hers was a scabby remnant fae a lost canvas. The image was that familiar, fae the paperweight, the postcard, the cover of the biography, but I felt shivery when I seen it in the flesh. It was a lot smaller than I’d expected, the paint cracked and peeling, and I didnae believe the way he’d made the line of her neck that perfect, her dress hingin aff her shoulders. The auld da would hardly of let his daughters sit like that. I mind being fascinated by the picture when I was about thirteen and in the first flush of my obsession with Emily. I thought it was dead poetic tae sit in profile, gazing out the picture, contemplating the vision fae your muse, that you alone could see. I even tried tae practise that pose, using two mirrors to see my profile, pulling my tee shirt aff my shoulder. I mind Mammy coming in when I was daeing it – I was dead embarrassed but she never even laughed, just smiled and put her airm round me. Noo I seen the picture for what it was – her brother’s vision of a romantic portrait, rather than a real picture of his sister.
I bought a poster of the painting in the gift shop, showed it tae Patric when I got back to the flat.
I don’t think he wanted tae paint them – just didnae have any other models while he was learning.
Patric scanned the reproduction. It’s dead romantic, isn’t it? Just how you’d imagine her. He rolled it up and started to replace it in the cardboard tube. So did Branwell ever make it as an artist?
Naa. They wanted him to go to the Art School in London but he never even went to the interview or whatever it was then. Chickened out and crawled back hame with his tail between his legs. Then they set him up in a studio somewhere – they thought cause he was the boy he’d make something of hissel, but of course he never.
I was due tae stay for two weeks but haufway through the first I was desperate tae get back hame and managed to change my ticket for Saturday. Patric tried to persuade me tae stay but eventually gave in.
We’ll just need to make sure your last night’s a good one. Lionel and Clara always know the coolest places – we’ll get a crowd together.
I thought about arguing with him but kept my mouth shut. Why bother if it made him happy. Soon I’d be away on the train, back to my boring routine life in Glasgow. I never needed to go out the house again if I didnae want.
I couldnae be bothered traipsing round galleries any mair. After the late nights I’d sleep in till eleven or twelve o’clock, pick at some leftover food fae the always well-stocked fridge and wander about the hoose, unable tae settle to anything. Eventually the sunshine lured me outside and I made my way through dusty streets to a square where I could sit on a bench in the shade of some scabby trees, eat an ice lolly and flick through wanny Patric’s design magazines. They’re nice, these wee gardens scattered about London. In Glasgow they’re building on every square inch that isnae already built on – bits of wasteground that have laid derelict for years suddenly sprout scaffolding and girders and a month later a hideous block of grey flats have been thrown up. Every week the local free paper runs headlines about yet another attempt tae take over a bowling green or tennis club and build on the land. It’s one of the few things that gets my da’s goat, drags him away fae Countdown or holiday programmes about the Seychelles.
There won’t be a patch of green left if these vandals arenae stopped. What the hell are the council up tae, lettin them away wi this? The dear green place they used tae cry it. There’ll be na
e green left and it’s already far too dear tae live here. They’ve nae right to be selling aff bowling greens. When the city was designed they were part of the plan, so folk living in tenements could have a wee patch of grass to look at.
These squares didnae seem to be under threat. Mibbe in London they had enough buildings but then there never seemed to be enough houses. I’d mentioned this to Patric on a rare night when we stayed in.
It’s the demography, Patrick said. More folk live alone, more folk want holiday homes. And they want space in their houses too – look at this. He showed me a spread in wanny his lifestyle magazines. A meditation room, a spa, an office. Bedrooms and living rooms aren’t enough now.
If I move out ma da’s, he could put a meditation room or a spa in my bedroom, aka the cell.
Patric laughed. So you really thinking about moving out, Fiona?
Dunno. But with the baby coming, there’s gonnae be even less space than there is noo.
Will Mona go on living at my da’s?
Guess so. I mean she’s too young for a flat of her ain. Though she’s talking about getting married tae Declan when she’s sixteen.
Christ.
I know. He’ll probably move in as well. Mibbe you could get your architect pals to design us a mezzanine flair.
Mibbe. But it’s time you thought about what was best for you. And it’s really time you left, shared a flat with folk your own age.
Patric opened a pack of mixed leaves and arranged them in a glass salad bowl. He drizzled olive oil over them. Can you pass the balsamic – it’s just behind you?
Patric tossed the salad, mixing the oil and vinegar. I did think at one stage you might move in with Amrik.
That was never an option.
You weren’t that serious then?
In Wuthering Heights there’s this scene where Catherine tells Nelly how she feels about Heathcliff, how it would degrade her to marry him. She doesnae know he’s behind the settee listening but when he overhears this, he leaves and never gets to hear her say how much she loves him. That’s the turning point that changes everything. All because she doesnae know he’s there.