by Tim Buckley
I sat up straight. “He’s not…”
Pauline raised her hands and shook her head. “No, no, no. Nothing like that. But he’s getting older, we all are. Don’t leave it too late, that’s all I’m saying.”
I nodded. No matter how often she and the Master protested that he missed me or worried for me or cared for me, I couldn’t fight the feeling that they were acting out of loyalty to him and affection for me, and that their assertions were founded on no more than that. I hadn’t discerned the slightest crumb of affection in my father’s greeting, especially when compared with his obvious concern for Oran.
“Now,” she went on, her tone breezier, “where are your bags? I’ve made up your room.”
“Down in the Arms. I stayed there last night, it was too late to just land up here by the time I got finished.”
“Hmm,” her response told me my story was gaining no credibility with the telling. “Well, you go down and get them and I’ll have dinner ready for you this evening. What would you like? How about a bit of bacon?”
“That’d be…” I stopped, remembering one of her comfort food dishes that had soothed turbulent times often in the past. “Actually, Pauline, d’you remember that thing you used to do with the steak, stuffed with mushrooms I think it was?”
“Stuffed steak? Lord I haven’t done that for a long time, not sure I can remember how! But let me see what I can do,” she said, elbowing me gently in the ribs.
I arranged the last of the string, and sat back to survey my work. To my untrained eye, it looked all in place. But I didn’t hold out much hope. Even if it was a perfect reconstruction, I felt sure Oran would find fault.
The Master and Lochlann came back in, and I stood up quickly.
“I’m just going to pop into the village to get a few things for dinner,” Pauline said to my father. “Can I pick up anything for you?”
“No thank you, Pauline,” he replied. “I might go down myself a little later.”
He turned to the Master.
“Will you join us for dinner, Críostóir?”
“Thank you all the same, Lochlann, but I have a school councillors meeting this evening. ‘Twon’t go on too long hopefully, maybe I’ll come up for a wee nip after.”
“Do that, Críostóir, do that.”
“Right so, I better be off, see if I can find that recipe!” Pauline winked at me and hurried away.
The Master wandered around the Gallery, then went into the studio, his face and furrowed brow betraying the whirr of cogs in his head.
“Tell me, what d’you use this for these days, Lochlann?” he asked, waving his arm around the small room.
“Nothing really. A store room sometimes, but other than that it lies empty. A pity I suppose, a waste really. I considered knocking down that wall, making it all part of the Gallery, but you never know when that space might come in useful.”
“Mmmm.” The Master stroked his chin. After a moment, he turned to me.
“Aengus, that friend of yours from France, the girl living in Malahide. What did you say she did for a living?”
I sensed that the Master knew exactly where this train was headed and, despite my reticence, my instinct said I should trust him.
“Well, she’s a musician I suppose.”
“Mmmm.” Another pause.
“D’you know what I was just thinking, Lochlann? And hear me out now, it’s just a thought.”
He paused to collect his thoughts, though the speech he was about to deliver had been well practised, carefully rehearsed.
“Despite your protests, I firmly believe that this show will go down as a landmark exhibition for Irish art. Wait now, wait…”, he raised his hands to quell my father’s objections and counted off on his fingers the reasons for the show’s importance.
“It will be a landmark show because it heralds a return to form for one of the country’s foremost living painters, because it is the only show in recent years to chronicle the human aspect of our changing times, and because it marks a return to the traditional in a time where modern and alternative art-forms are taking centre-stage.”
The Master’s time in education, addressing a sometimes unwilling and often disinterested audience, had honed his oratorical skills, and he was now in full flight.
“What, then, could make this an even more compelling event? What could ensure that this is an event that the art establishment and art-lovers alike simply cannot afford to miss?” he paused, leaned forward and looked at the two of us, eyebrows raised and arms outstretched as the question hung between us. Still he waited. My father drew a breath to respond, but before he could utter a word the Master continued.
“The passing of the mantle from father to son, the coming of age of the next generation!” He was triumphant. “We show to the public, for the very first time, the work of the virgin son in the midst of the work of the established father.”
Lochlann and I both just stared at him, trying to make sense of what he had just said. We understood it, but could make no sense of it. Lochlann’s eyes, as they always did when he was deep in thought, narrowed slightly, as though to hide the machinations of his mind from the rest of us. I searched desperately to see what I was so obviously missing, what it was that made this proposition even possible, let alone attractive. But try as I might, I could not.
Sensing our failure to follow his thread, he adopted the air of a teacher helping the class laggard. He came over
“Lochlann, I’m simply suggesting that you add just one of Aengus’ portraits to the collection.”
Lochlann looked at me, clearly deciding on his words but not his response.
“I see, Críostóir, I see. A very interesting proposition. Very interesting indeed. But we are less than a month from the show’s opening, there simply isn’t time to work through the logistics. Perhaps if we had thought of this a little sooner… Perhaps next time.” And with that the case was closed.
But the Master was not to be so easily deflected.
“Now, Lochlann, think it through before we discard the thought. Think of the publicity this could generate. I’m sorry to be a bit mercenary, but just think of the sentimental value. Think of how the galleries would see it, the opportunity it would present to them. There’s never been anything like it.”
“But, Master,” I found my voice having grasped the gravity of his idea, and its implications, “I don’t have a portrait to show, nothing that would be good enough anyway.”
“And even if he had, there is the question of compatibility with the other works on show,” my father said.
“Ah, and that’s where your friend in Malahide comes into the picture,” he clapped his hands and beamed jubilantly. My blank expression was his cue.
“This show is about the changing face of Irish women, is it not? One of Aengus’ works would introduce a whole new angle to the show – the emergence of youth and how a new generation of Irish men have a new perception of Irish womanhood. And crucially…” he paused for dramatic effect, “crucially, Aengus’ work reflects an entirely, entirely new Irish woman – those who have come to live here from abroad. Aengus paints this girl, this young French musician seeking to make her way in strange, foreign Ireland with its foreign language, strange customs and unfamiliar culture. She is both teacher and learner, like every foreign migrant come to our shores – with knowledge and experience to glean and to impart. And that’s the silver bullet.”
“But it would take weeks to work on a piece like that, if not more,” my father said. “I’m sure Aengus doesn’t have that kind of time to spare at such short notice.”
The Master looked at me. “What do you think, Aengus?” he asked.
“I could probably find the time, I suppose,” I replied, increasingly conscious that his arguments were well-prepared and certain that he would brook no dissent.
Had I been a d
ispassionate observer, listening to a promoter describe the theme of an exhibition, I would have been in full agreement. It made sense, and in a world where art must compete with a myriad other channels of entertainment, it was indeed compelling. But it was impossible. I could not deliver a piece of sufficient quality in such a short period of time. And even if I could, it wouldn’t matter – my father would never deem it good enough.
My father shook his head slowly.
“It’s wonderful in principle, Críostóir, a delightful development of the theme. But the fact remains that we don’t have enough time to crystallise the thought. We have already produced the publicity material, already briefed the galleries and the press. It’s simply too late.”
The Master was a study in calmness and perseverance. It dawned on me that he had probably been concocting this scheme since I left his house the night before. He knew exactly what my father would say, what I would say, and we had played into his hands. He sat on the edge of the desk, his face pensive as though searching out a solution already long found. He shook his head in resignation.
“You’re right, Lochlann, I know you’re right of course, absolutely right. Time is too short. Too short.” He appeared to concede the folly of the project, when his countenance brightened and he stood up again. He walked over and took hold of Lochlann’s arm, as though his counsel or opinion could not be imparted by words alone.
“But hang on now, how about this. Aengus starts to work on a portrait of this French girl. If he doesn’t finish it in time, or if it’s not compatible with the other works to be shown, then fine – nothing is lost and at the very worst, sure we have a new piece to show after the exhibition is over. But if it is finished in time, and if it does fit with the other pieces on display, then we add it to the show. And we use it as an excuse to republicise the exhibition closer to the opening.”
It was a master-stroke. We had already denied him once, a denial he had graciously accepted. It would have been mean-spirited to deny him again, to deny so reasonable a compromise.
But I was still reluctant.
“Master, I don’t even know if she would be willing to sit, if she even has time.”
“Who is this girl, what is her name?” my father asked.
“Hélène. I think.”
“You think?”
“Yes,” I mumbled. “I don’t really know her, she’s more a friend of a friend.”
“Well, in light of that our debate seems a shade academic. One doesn’t simply find models growing on trees. It’s a little more complicated than that.”
The Master realised that he was losing his position of authority to our analysis of detail.
“Look, maybe you’re right, maybe she won’t be able or willing. But let’s worry about all that when you go and see her, Aengus, when you’ll have to put the proposition to her in a way that has both virtue and value. We can think that through, figure out a plan. The important thing is that we all agree that you’re going to work on a piece with a view to adding it to the exhibition. Don’t we?”
My father and I looked at each other. The Master had succeeded in uniting us, if only in opposition, where blood and circumstance had so often failed. We looked at him, and nodded.
“Well isn’t that grand?” he smiled, his work done.
Oran came back into the Gallery, his demeanour a little improved by the tea.
“Oran, we had a wee look at your car, it’s not as bad as maybe it looks at first sight,” the Master reassured him. “It’s fairly superficial. Have you comprehensive insurance?”
Oran shook his head.
“Only third party,” he said. “Do you have any idea how much comprehensive would be, even on that old thing?”
He looked at where I had destroyed and then tried to reconstruct his work of the previous night.
“You do that?” he asked me.
“I had a go, yeah.”
He looked back at the floor, then back at me, and nodded. “Thanks. Not bad.”
“You’re going to have some company in here, Oran,” the Master said. “Aengus is going to use the studio to work on a piece for the show.”
By making it public he brought it a little closer to being a reality, although the look on my father’s face confirmed his continued reservations. Only the Master could have pulled off such a stunt and not incurred my father’s wrath.
“Right,” said Oran, eyebrows raised in surprise as he processed the Master’s words. “Right. We’ll have to figure out where to put the tools and things while you’re in there. Right.” He picked up his toolbox. “Well, I better get on with this.”
“And I better make a move or the day’ll be gone,” said the Master, making his way to the door. “I’ll maybe see you tonight Lochlann. You’ll be here, Aengus?”
“I will,” I answered. “Actually, if you’re going down to the village, I might grab a lift, I need to get my bags from the Hotel.”
“No bother at all, come on and we’ll go so.”
“I’ll see you in a while?” I said to Lochlann.
“In a while then,” he replied.
I climbed into the Master’s car, moving books and newspapers and leaflets onto the back seat. He started the car and pulled away, and I looked over at him.
“Can you tell me exactly what happened back there?”
He smiled a mischievous smile.
“Sometimes the right course of action is so obvious we are blinded to it,” he said. “And we just need a wee steer and a wee push. That’s all that happened. A wee steer and a wee push. Now it’s up to you two.”
“She might not even go for it…” I began to protest.
“Details, gosso’n, details,” he swatted away my arguments with a dismissive hand. “We’ve been through all that. If she won’t do it we’ll find somebody else. But if she agrees, you have your model and your path to Aoife.”
We arrived at the harbour front, and he stopped the car and turned to me, taking hold of my arm.
“Look’t, you two need one another more than you think, more than either of you thinks. Now you have your chance to make a start.”
I nodded slowly, still uncertain but shrewd enough to recognise an argument I wasn’t going to win.
I opened the car door and got out, then leant back in and smiled.
“Thanks, Master. I don’t know what you’ve let me in for, but thanks.”
He winked at me, pulled the door closed and drove away.
CHAPTER 9
It was like a portal to another world, a sinister, hopeless place. We walked hand-in-hand through the bright city square outside, teeming with life and youthful vigour. Artists peddling their wares from wrought iron fences. Buskers howling soulful laments. Children throwing stale bread to the ducks, running with bravado at the pond’s edge, retreating with giggling terror from a too-bold mallard. Dappled sunlight through spring-green leaves. The noise and smell of the city, familiar and safe.
And eventually we passed, timid and alone, through the hospital door. The building wrinkled its nose with disapproval. The first time you were small, so small we might have been visitors come to see your mother or aunt or cousin. The helpful smile at the welcome desk disappeared with a sniff, the finger that pointed the way was accusing. Down endless dark corridors, deeper into the building’s belly. To sit on hard chairs at sticky tables with dog-eared magazines. Your turn came, and you went inside with a backward pleading look. And were gone. I have never been so bereft.
That first day at boarding school, lost in a sea of lost faces, instinct becomes your guide and leads you to some common solid ground. That first day at university, far from the insulated security of the school, awkwardly-feigned teenage indifference rescues you from fretful isolation. That first day at work, desperate to impress and prove your worth, the false confidence inspired by the shiny veneer of learning provides th
e rock to which you cling.
But what ally can save me from a place like this? A place where I have no place, where I am an interloper tarnishing beauty. I have no allies and so I try to make myself small, to fade into the stern background of the institution. Nurses pass me by and I am invisible. Doctors and surgeons and therapists bustle purposefully through vaulted, mosaic-tiled halls, and I see only their coats and clipboards and stethoscopes – in my mind they don’t exist outside this place. They have no car and no house, they don’t take holidays nor play golf. They don’t go home for dinner and dinner-parties and parties. In that place, the world outside evaporates until that place and our plight is all there is, all I have, all I am.
And recently I’ve had this nightmare that she is sitting alone in some alien place, searching for a way out. But she has no-one, she has no ally. When bad things happen, they remind you that bad things happen. And they remind you how indiscriminate and fickle a foe is fortune. She might be alone. In my dream, she has perhaps abandoned or she has maybe been abandoned, has discarded or been discarded. But in the black night of solitary hopelessness, she has no bond of blood. We denied her that harbour in the storm.
I know you think I’m wrong. I know your reasons and once upon a time I grant you they were right. But that time passed with you the day the world changed. Bad things happen. Not gradually, they follow no convention, they tread no well-worn path. They just happen. And whatever provision we think we have made, however strong we think we are, we are never prepared.
Friends might seek to provide comfort in the white spaces in busy diaries. They will reassure that time heals, that all is inevitably for the best, that life goes on. And on. And on. The bland, beige bullshit of the unaffected and the innocent. And then they will drift away to collect their children from school and pick up the dry-cleaning and make a reservation for dinner on Saturday. While she maybe sits alone and quiet and lost. Lost.
She maybe needs to be found.