Bad Things Happen

by Tim Buckley

  I looked past the lighthouse towards the unseen Welsh coast, and beyond that unseen Snowdon, unseen England and, deep in her bosom, London. And my home. Only months before, that’s what London had been to me – my home. The home we shared and the life we had built together. From those grim, bare days in Dublin we had somehow fashioned a life that would have seemed impossible, fantastical. We worked in jobs that, if they failed to inspire us, then at least were tolerable. We endured the mindless trudge from Monday morning to Friday evening because that is what you do. Along the way, we found islands of relief in Tuesday evening dinners or Thursday night sessions in the pub. And they steered us safely through the traffic and the bills and the long days to Friday night and the sanctuary of the weekend.

  Ah, the weekends. How we cherished those days. We sucked out of Europe all it had to offer, from Paris and Florence and Barcelona to Istanbul’s Asian frontier, the Croatian coast and the frozen snowscapes of Scandinavia. Or we eloped to those isolated gems in Britain’s jewellery box: Devon’s moors and Cornwall’s coast and Yorkshire’s dales. In Winter we skied the Alps and the Pyrenees, and in Summer we took holiday homes in the California winelands or the Canadian outback. It was a time to experience new and exciting worlds, to inhale them and to draw inspiration from them. We bought the world’s beauty, put it in a bag and brought it home, where we stole furtive glances in that other Monday-to-Friday world. The weekends and holidays that burst at the seams with impossible plans and ended all too soon, and emptied us again into Monday morning.

  And carried along by our zest for discovery and experience, we never questioned the unfulfilling banality and covert tensions of that humdrum world. We might never have admired the emperor’s new suit, but it blinded us to his nudity. The camaraderie of the afflicted bound us and made us somehow content. And I suppose we were content, with our legion of friends and colleagues who were really strangers. And our world carefully hid from us the startling truth that these were strangers whom, if we looked closely, we would not recognise. Because no matter how many times we had dinner together or visited their homes, we never truly got to know them in the brief liaisons that those abbreviated evenings afforded us. They were nice people, good people in whose company I revelled and who entertained and interested and amused me – but they remained benign strangers nonetheless.

  I stretched the lactate out of my aching muscles. Somewhere below me out in the bay, the Leinster sat under twenty metres of water. At school, the Master had taught us the stories of the ships that had been lost off Dublin’s shores. The Leinster was the one that captured my imagination. She and her three sister ships, each named after a province, were owned by the City of Dublin Steampacket Company, and carried passengers and mail between Dublin and Wales. It was October 1918. The mutinous and wounded German submarine fleet had taken to picking off the easy targets in the Irish Sea, who sailed without the naval protection of the Atlantic merchant navy. As the Leinster began its familiar journey from Kingstown to Holyhead in heavy seas that day, they could not have known that the battered German leadership had already sent a message to the Americans asking for peace. They could not have known that the war had only weeks to run. They had no sense of the catastrophic irony that placed them in the path of a lone hunter u-boat. Some of the 700 passengers on board, many of them troops heading to England and the front, saw the first torpedo as it waked past their bow. The second hit the port side, the postal sorting room. The captain tried to turn back to Kingstown, but a third hit the starboard side while the crew deployed lifeboats and tended to the injured. To be so near safety and yet so doomed.

  Doomed and forgotten. It served neither the leaders of Ireland’s struggle for freedom nor the British still chastened by that rebellion to remember that Irish soldiers fought and died alongside the British, Americans and Canadians in French poppy fields. And so the names of many of those who died that October night in the Irish Sea were consigned to the record archives and conveniently forgotten. Forgotten lest the truth should embarrass or obstruct or deflect the chosen course.

  Conveniently filed away and forgotten, until it became more convenient to remember. The mist lightened and lifted its shroud from the sea below. What would my reaction have been if Aoife had found it opportune, convenient to remember us? Before we were ready? How would that have deflected us? If she had chosen to introduce herself into our world, to obstruct our path to wherever it was we were going? I remember my reaction to the Adoption Agency letter that my father had forwarded to us, when I thought she had come looking for us and found us. I was excited and thrilled in that first instant before I realised the truth. But if it had been really so, really Aoife, how would I have felt as the realisation dawned and all of the implications became clear? Because when I had imagined meeting her and seeing her and talking to her, it was in romantic soft focus. The crystallisation of responsibilities, pleading justification for what we had done and what we had gone on to do, maybe even coming to terms with who and what our baby had grown into could be, in reality, a much harsher truth.

  The nervous couple in the nun’s office not daring to hope, holding on tight to each other’s hands when we met them, assured us that they would never hide Aoife’s adoption from her, that they would be open with her from the outset. And so I had always assumed that she grew up knowing her heritage. Of course they may never have told her, left her to discover it by accident. Filling out a passport application form or applying for university, perhaps. They had promised also not to change her name. Caitríona had been adamant. It was the one thing we could leave her. At least I knew they had kept that promise.

  I walked back up the path to the house. In the Summit car park to my right, someone was trying to start a car. The motor coughed like a smoker but refused to start. A car door opened and slammed shut, and a woman’s voice swore in exasperation. From inside the car I could hear a child crying. I looked at my watch – still a couple of hours before Hélène was due to arrive. I walked over and into the car park. The woman had her back to me and was stabbing frantically at the keys on her mobile phone.

  “Sounds like a flat battery,” I said.

  “I’d figured that out, thanks,” she said, still stabbing at her phone. “Aargh, answer for God’s sake,” she growled under her breath.

  She turned around, looking sheepish.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her hand to her brow. “That was very rude. Yes, I think it’s the battery. And I need to get this fella to school.” She nodded to the sobbing child in the car.

  Then she stopped and stared at me for a moment.

  “Aengus? Is it you?” she said.

  “Niamh?” In another life, in another world, she had been my girlfriend. My first real girlfriend. I was, I suppose, fifteen or sixteen, and in the summer holidays before my last year at school, we had been in the same crowd of hormone-fuelled teenagers looking for something to do in Howth. She hadn’t really changed. A few flecks of grey in her hair, a few more lines around her face, but the same eyes. The same bright, open, kind eyes. Niamh was always the quiet one in our gang, the sensible one. The last to take a self-conscious sip from the cider bottle as it was passed around, the girl least likely to steal a box of fags from the newsagent or to leave her mark in graffiti on the DART station wall. She was in my class all through primary school, and we had been friends forever. And as friends, we had never really known how to be more, how to be boyfriend and girlfriend. I remember our physical encounters as embarrassed and awkward experimentation. We had never actually broken up, we just stopped kissing.

  “Jesus, how are ya’?” she smiled and hugged me. “When did you get home?”

  Funny how those who never left assume it’s still your home too, like it was only a matter of time before you saw sense and came back to where you knew you belonged.

  “A few days ago. You’re looking well.”

  “Thanks,” she blushed. “So are you.”

 
The little boy’s sobs grew louder and she looked at her watch.

  “God, I’m going to be late for work.”

  “Come on, I’ll give you a push.”

  “Are you sure? Do you think it’ll start?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea, but we’ll know in a few minutes and then if it doesn’t work we’ll go to plan B.”

  “What’s plan B?”

  “I still have a few minutes to figure that out! Come on, get in.” I opened the driver’s door and she climbed in.

  “Now,” I said, trying to remember. “Take off the handbrake, put it in first gear – no, second gear – and put your foot on the clutch. Oh, and half turn on the ignition, only halfway now. Then as soon as we get rolling, let the clutch out and it should start.”

  “Will it work?” she asked doubtfully.

  “It’ll be a miracle,” I shrugged, in a poor impersonation of Billy Crystal’s miracle-worker from the cult movie of our teens. “But if it does, just keep going and don’t stall it. And go straight to the garage down in the village.”

  “Off you go then, Max,” she grinned, and pulled the door closed.

  The car park was empty and we had a clear run to the road. With the help of the slight downslope I got the car moving.

  “Now,” I screamed as we got up to speed. She let out the clutch, the car jerked and then spluttered to life. The engine roared as she revved it hard. Through the back window I saw her waving. I waved back, and she was gone.

  I turned and walked slowly towards the house. The longer I spent in Howth, the more my two worlds would inevitably merge. You often imagine that the world you left behind hasn’t changed. In your head, its inhabitants stop ageing, like some banal Tír na nÓg. In your condescending mind, they continue to do the same things and remain beset with the same problems that populated your world. Like you were the fuel that powered them. But Oran had opened a restaurant and assaulted a critic, and Niamh had a little boy in tow. Without my permission or agreement, for better and for worse, they had moved on.

  I got back to the house and went into the kitchen to make some coffee.

  “Well aren’t you the early bird! God bless us and save us, Aengus out of bed and it still morning? Wonders’ll never cease!” Pauline came bustling and beaming into the kitchen behind me and tousled my hair. “What has you up so bright and breezy?”

  “I just couldn’t sleep, Pauline, to be honest. I’m starting work on the portrait today and, frankly, I’m shitting myself.”

  “You mind your language, young man,” she said with mock horror. “You’re not too big yet for a clip round the ear!”

  The coffee machine pinged and she poured a mug for me and made some tea for herself.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I have some ideas, but they’re just ideas. And I have someone to sit for me, someone who was recommended to me. And that’s about as far as I’ve got.”

  “Well, himself is around for most of the day, most of the morning anyway. Why don’t you sit down with him and tell him what you’re thinking. He’s done this before you know, might have an idea or two,” she smiled.

  I smiled back.

  “What could he possibly have to tell a man of my experience? But just to please you, I’ll do it. I’ll humour him.”

  I paused to drink some coffee.

  “Oran told me what happened,” I said, changing the subject. “Is he alright, do you think?”

  Pauline shook her head.

  “Shocking business. God love him, he’s got himself in a right mess. Your father’s looking after him, but sure what can he do?” Her expression lifted, some of the darkness faded. “You know, it’s just what he needs, having you home. Your father’s been a great help to him, Críostóir as well. But he needs someone his own age, someone he can trust and let off a bit of steam to.”

  “Well, he’s done that,” I grinned.

  “I suppose he has!” she smiled a rueful smile. “But keep an eye on him though, Aengus. Make sure he’s alright. He’s a closed book, that one. He might open up to you more than he would to the likes of us.”

  I looked at my watch. “I better get a move on,” I said. “I need to give Lochlann a few tips for this show.”

  I winked at her and went up to take a shower, and to mentally prepare for what the day might hold.

  An hour or so later and I was sitting at the small desk in the studio, coffee in hand. Hélène would soon be here, and I still hadn’t made the most basic decision – the medium in which I would work. It was a mark of my amateurism that I had no particular strength in any – passably adept in each, exceptional in none. I had not had the kind of childhood where smudged schoolwork watercolours or lurid potato-stamps were hung proudly on the fridge door. Such exhibitions were rarely humiliating at nine years old. How vulnerable the adult son in the same position.

  Of course I wanted to work in oils. Lochlann had always worked in oils. In his view, it was the only medium of the master, all others being the hiding place of the amateur. But I had no time to dredge up from the distant past some long-dormant experience, and the stark fact remained that an oil canvas would never be dry in time to hang at the exhibition. Acrylics were more practical given the time frames in which I had to work, more manageable and more straightforward. But also unforgiving in their own way – faster to dry but therefore also easier to make permanent a blemish. They demanded that every stroke was true and tolerated no mistakes, no change of mind to follow a change of light or mood. And I hadn’t worked in acrylics for so long. My technique could not have held up during the barren, corporate years, and I just didn’t have the time to rekindle it with the patience it would require. And even if I could somehow craft a work of passable quality, it would be simply outclassed, overshadowed, disregarded perhaps in the midst of Lochlann’s work.

  I had never worked in pastels or watercolours and had no real interest in either. Which left me effectively back where I started.

  “Pauline said you were looking for me.” I looked up to see Lochlann standing in the doorway. His voice was tinged with a faint impatience that he tried to hide but that seeped out with his words.

  “Em, no. No, not really,” I said, uncertainly, feeling caught out, not sure what to say. “How are you?”

  “Fine, thank you. Fine. She must have been mistaken. Well, we’ll see you later no doubt.” He half-waved his hand and turned to leave.

  I stood up from the desk.

  “Actually, Lochlann, there is something you could help me with. If you have a moment?”

  He turned back towards me and raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m battling with this portrait a bit,” I said, trying to exude the nonchalant calmness that eluded me, as though I had only a couple of minor questions to resolve. But my mouth betrayed me. “I’m not sure where to start to be honest.”

  My voice was pleading in spite of my determination to appear in control,

  He hesitated, looked curious.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s daft really, but… I don’t know what to do. I mean, I can picture what I want to do, I really can. And I know what I want my message to be, what I want to say.” In spite of myself, I found myself blurting the very weaknesses I was desperate to hide from him. “But what format should it all take? I don’t have enough time for oils, I haven’t painted in acrylics for ten years.” I looked at him. “And I don’t want to produce some piece of amateur crap that you might feel bound to show.”

  His face, usually a screen for the thoughts in his head, couldn’t hide tumbling emotions as he stared back at me through narrowed eyes. Vexation begat irritation which gave way to frustration which in turn gave way to his irrepressible urge to contribute. I always thought my father should have been a teacher. Perhaps that’s why he and the Master were such firm friends.

>   He sighed.

  “I fear you’re starting from the wrong place,” he said. “You’re basing your decision on what you think others might think of the outcome. Do what your heart tells you, go where your passion lies. Do what you want to do and what you can do, not what you think others expect.”

  I stared back blankly, and so he went on.

  “You have always expressed yourself most eloquently in a medium where expression is perhaps most difficult. And I suspect that medium is the most closely associated with the work you have been doing in London, however sanitised that might have been.”

  I desperately wanted to trump his conclusion with my own Eureka, but the waters were too murky, the maze too intricate. I waited for the finale.

  He shook his head like one who has given every reasonable clue but cannot draw out the blindingly obvious answer.

  “Pencil, Aengus, pencil,” his outstretched arms and upturned palms betrayed his exasperation. “Coloured if you want to. You have time to experiment, you can easily correct and amend. You could even work on a series. And there would be nothing else comparable on show. You would have your own stage. If that indeed is what you want.”

  I tried to take it in. Not so much his ideas, but the fact that he had given it such thought.

  “You’ve got it all figured out,” I quipped and immediately regretted the attempted levity. “I mean, you… you...” I shrugged. “You’ve thought about it.”