by Tim Buckley
Eventually Niamh stood back, embarrassed slightly by the unsolicited display of affection, and reached for my hands, squeezing them hard.
“I was going to say ‘are you ok?’” she said. “Why do people always say that when ok is so obviously the last thing you are?”
“Because there’s nothing else to say, I suppose.”
We smiled.
“Thanks, Niamh,” I said, again. “Christ, I think that’s the first time I haven’t had to run away. Whenever someone talks about it, I just panic. I can’t be in the same place as the words. Do you know what I mean?” I was clutching for a way to express the feeling, and I shook my head in frustration. “Sorry, I’m talking shit. Sorry.”
I pulled a tissue from a box on the counter, and handed her the box.
“No, I do know what you mean,” she said, quietly. “I think I do. At first, it’s all too much, too much to handle. So you run away and hide from it. But eventually you know you have to stop running. You know it’s going to hurt you, but to even begin to face it, you have to be able to stand up to it. If you don’t stand up to the bully, the bully’ll keep beating you up.”
I nodded. That was exactly it. Eventually I would have to stop turning tail and taking emotional flight. Even if I was going to get badly beaten up, eventually I would have to stand and fight.
“I just battle to see the future, Niamh, you know?” I said. “It’s not like we had it all mapped out or anything, but I knew it would be fine because I knew she was going to be in it. Standing up to it means facing up to a future that doesn’t have her, and I can’t even begin to imagine what that’s going to be like.”
I suppose she knew exactly what that felt like.
“They say time is a great healer, but sure it’s just wishful thinking,” she said, with a rueful shake of her head. “It doesn’t really heal anything, you just get used to the pain. Your leg is still broken, but you learn to limp faster. I think you have to stop waiting for the pain to go away and just accept that it’s always going to be there. Learn to live with it and get on with building a future. What else is there?”
The clock on the window-sill chimed, and Niamh looked at her watch.
“Oh God, I’m picking Micheál up and I’m late,” she said. “I have to go. Are you going to be ok?”
She looked up into my eyes to search for a sign of life.
“Look, I’ll come back,” she said. “I’ll drop him at nursery and I’ll come back.”
“No,” I said, “I’m fine, really. You go ahead, I have to get to work and, anyway, Hélène is going to be here soon.”
Her eyes asked the question.
“Hélène,” I said again, “I’m working on a painting and she’s sitting for me.”
“OK,” she said quietly.
“Listen,” I said, “some night, let’s go for a drink or something. I promise I won’t cry like a girl again, honestly.” It was a weak attempt at humour but a genuine offer. It was never going to be easy, I had no doubt about that. But somehow I felt that the pain, although heartbreaking, had stopped somewhere short of hopelessness for maybe the first time.
“That’d be nice,” she nodded, softly.
I walked her out to the car park and she unlocked the car.
“I feel terrible leaving you like this,” she said. “Some friend I am.”
“It sounds daft,” I said, “but I meant what I said. It… I don’t know… helped. Or something?” I shook my head, unable to express a headful of emotions.
She nodded.
“I’ll see you soon, Aengus, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She reached up to kiss my cheek, got into the car and was gone.
Only the most naïve of us think that we are immune from fortune’s cruelty, the way it has of blindsiding you. It knocks you off track so that no matter how well you plan for life, no matter how you insulate yourself against fate, these is no assurance that you will not be subject to some vindictive trick. Just the opposite.
Niamh and I were proof, if proof were needed. We were never gamblers of fortune, nor speculators on fate’s markets. We never entertained thoughts of an adulterous fling that might rent our world asunder. We never bet our house on a sure thing investment, nor took holidays in exotic but dangerous locations. We never even drove too fast, for Christ’s sake. And yet, somewhere along the way, we must have made a bet and lost. I just don’t remember when. And lose we did, and our safe, solid, stable worlds were obliterated without reason.
I was left with part of a daughter, the part that is intriguing and interesting and beguiling. A young, independent woman in my mind, full of promise and potential, a world of opportunity at her feet. Sure, it was a part that caused me pain and longing and frustration, and for sure it was a part that would never banish the pain of Caitríona’s loss. But it was the part that was – if any part of a child is – easiest.
But Niamh was left with two young children who depended on her totally, two small children to raise alone. Her time would never be her own, not for nearly twenty years. She would fetch for them and provide for them and nurture them, and she would shuttle them through their young lives. Never daring to be late for a pick-up, never wanting to refuse them a pleasure. Resenting their father, perhaps, but careful not to turn them against him, never wanting them to be without a daddy, even an absentee one. She would bear the brunt of their tantrums and irrational moods and the invective of the child denied. Although she would never admit it, she was trapped. She couldn’t take a job in Cork or New York, couldn’t spend Christmas on a Pacific Island, couldn’t take up guitar classes at night school or join a drama group or a film club. She couldn’t even hold out much hope that she would find love again.
Her job consumed seven days a week, she was on duty twenty-four hours a day. And the quiet moments, just after bed-time or during the school-day, must have been where guilt lurked. No parent can ever deliver the perfect world for their child, because the world is so far from perfect. The best they can ever hope to do is to deflect the pain, decorate their children’s lives with pretty things that paper over the ugliness of the world, sing a happy song to drown out the sound of weeping. And on those days – and there will be lots of those days – when they’re not there to block the pain, or when the paper is ripped to reveal the darkness below, or when they’re just too tired to sing a happy song, the stunned, uncomprehending pain in a child’s eyes will trigger remorse and self-loathing. Until the next time.
We’re not all naïve, and yet generation after generation thinks that for them it will be different. The pure hope that comes from the programmed human need to nurture is stronger than any threat of hopelessness. Caitríona knew it. I never really understood.
I got back to the house to find Hélène waiting by the Gallery door, reading the newspaper. I asked her to make some coffee for us both and ran upstairs to shower quickly and change my clothes. When I came back down, she was waiting for me in the studio.
“Sorry about that, Hélène,” I said, “I got waylaid. An old friend came up to see me.”
“Yes,” she replied, “I saw her, at her car.”
To my surprise, she was clearly annoyed that I had kept her waiting. Of course, she had every right to be. She came in from Malahide every day, had never been so much as a minute late, and I couldn’t even manage to travel the fifty metres to the studio on time.
“I am sorry, really,” I said. “I should have been here. Sorry.”
She dismissed my apology like a wronged teenager.
“You have to look after your girlfriend,” she said.
I laughed, shaking my head.
“No, no,” I said, “Niamh’s not my girlfriend. We’ve been friends since we were children. Just friends.”
“Oh. So you just had a sleepover then?” she said, her voice laden with a sarcasm I hadn’t heard from her before.
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It suddenly struck me that what Hélène had seen, a woman kissing me and leaving my home so early in the morning, suggested more than friendship. She was, I suppose, justified in leaping to the conclusion. If it made me seem nonchalant about the work we were doing, seem to be taking her for granted, then her annoyance might have been justified. But worse than that, sleeping with another woman, a woman who was not Aoife’s mother, might suggest not only contempt for our work but, worse, a carelessness for the mother of the child I professed so desperate to find.
I cut the air with a flat, sweeping hand to stress my denial.
“No, no, no – you’ve got it all wrong, Hélène. It’s nothing like that,” I said. “She comes up here with her little boy in the mornings.”
“But there was no little boy?”
“Not this morning, no,” I threw up my hands to emphasise my innocence, conscious that I was making it sound so much more far-fetched than it should have appeared. “But a few days ago she was up here with him – on the Head – and her car wouldn’t start and I got it going for her. And she just came up to say thanks.”
“She could not have called, she had to come here before eight o’clock in the morning?”
“She had to pick up her little boy from his father’s – they’re divorced – the little boy spent the night with his father, and she came here on the way – that’s where she was going.”
My words were racing in my attempt to explain the innocence of it all, but succeeded only in making me sound desperate and thus guilty. I had nothing to explain, and no reason to explain myself nor justify my actions to Hélène, and yet for some reason here I was pleading for her to believe me.
“Look,” I held up my hands to halt the careering words that threatened to knock me down. “Niamh is a friend. She came to say thanks. There’s nothing more to it than that.”
“It’s fine,” she stood up, put her mug on the desk and settled herself in the chair in front of the easel, ready for work. “It’s none of my business anyway, what you do.” She tossed the words at me in attempted nonchalance, but couldn’t quite disguise her irritation. “But I leave my home at seven, I walk to the station, I take two trains and one bus – so just please try to be here when you say you will be here.”
I nodded, suitably chastened, and we got to work.
The backdrop to the painting, the window behind Hélène and the stone walls around her, was a little more consistent with the figure in the chair, and I had decided to leave it alone for the time being to focus on putting the finishing touches to the pencil sketching of Hélène’s form. I was finally satisfied with her hands, too, and was working on the shading of the shadows cast on her face.
We worked in silence, born partly, I suppose, of a little bit of lingering strain from the misunderstanding about Niamh, but partly also of a growing comfort with the process of painting. We had been working like this now for over a week, and we no longer felt the need to fill silence. For me, it was a chance to focus on my work. I don’t know what passed the time for Hélène.
Around mid-morning, we took a break and made our way into the kitchen to get some coffee and toast, as had become our daily ritual. Hélène went to the bathroom and I put on the coffee machine. Pauline had left a note on the fridge door to say that she had gone into Dublin and would be back later in the afternoon.
Hélène came back in, twisting the ring on her right hand and looking a little sheepish.
“I’m sorry,” she said, quietly. “I was wrong to say what I said. I jumped to the conclusion and anyway it’s not my business. So, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, relieved that the episode was over. “The important thing is that we sorted it out. And there’s no chance of me being late again – I wouldn’t dare!”
She smiled, relieved too, I think, to close the chapter.
I made the coffee and Hélène made some toast and we took them back to the studio and sat around the little desk.
“Are you guys playing tonight?” I asked her.
She nodded, munching on some toast.
“Yes, in Dublin. We are in Dublin for a week now, we play five nights.”
“It’ll be nice not to have to travel so much, eh?”
“Yes. And Gerry – who drives? – I think he is not a very good driver. So I sit in the back and close my eyes and try to sleep.” She shook her head, a faint smile playing on her lips at the thought.
Despite Gerry’s questionable driving ability, I detected a change in the tone of her voice when she talked about him, a softness.
“What does he play?”
“He plays guitar, acoustic usually. And he sings.”
“Is he any good?” I asked, trying to draw her out.
“Yes. He is very good.”
“And what’s he like? Is he a nice guy?”
She nodded and smiled again.
“Yes, he’s a very nice guy. He has been very good to me, they all have. But especially Gerry. He helps with the songs, you know? Explains them to me and what they mean so I can really feel them when we play them. I think he makes me better, you know? I play better because of him. I don’t think I would have found a place to play music if Gerry hadn’t offered me a place.”
There was a knock on the door and Lochlann came in.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said. He nodded almost undiscernibly to Hélène. “Good morning, Hélène, it’s very nice to see you again.”
Hélène smiled and nodded. “Hi. It’s good to see you again, too.”
“There’s coffee in the pot – would you like some?” I said, standing up.
“No, no thank you. I’ve just come to see if you would be available to meet the exhibition manager tomorrow afternoon? He is going to be here at three o’clock. I thought perhaps you could share your thoughts with him.”
“Sure, I’d be happy to.”
“Good. Three o’clock then.” He made a move to leave, then stopped, his eyes on the back of the easel.
“May I?” he said, his tone suddenly less sure, less business-like .
I nodded, and my stomach lurched at the thought that rejection now might put an end to all of this. And I was starting to feel comfortable in this persona, to be inspired by the work, to enjoy it even.
He came around the front of the easel and stood square in front of the canvas board. For what seemed like an eternity, he stood almost motionless, one hand slowly caressing his chin, the other behind his back. Still his expression betrayed no emotion. I looked at Hélène, her wide eyes even wider, filled with raw suspense. Still he said nothing, didn’t move.
Finally.
“What colour do you intend applying?”
“Very little,” I replied slowly, searching for the right answer, checking my words carefully for any indiscretion or error, like a child having his homework marked by a devious tartar teacher. “Monochrome, mainly. And a vivid red for the sash across the back of the chair.”
“Hmm.” Still silence again.
Then.
“You might think about browns. To bring out the earthy hues in the stone, the textured wood of the violin, her hair. They would merge with the burnt siena wash, when you apply it.”
He was right, of course. The monochrome image I had pictured would be clean, but might be cold, lacking atmosphere. The earthy tones would make it warmer, maybe even bring it to life.
For a moment I forgot my nervousness and that he was delivering a verdict. For a moment we were friends collaborating, or he was a benign mentor.
“You’re right,” I said, with growing excitement as the image formed in my head. “That’s a great idea. Make it real – turn it from a photograph into a window into a real room…”
“Indeed.”
He made for the door to leave, then turned.
“Three o’clock tom
orrow then, in the Gallery,” he said. There was a long pause, then the faintest of nods. “Well done.”
And he was gone.
We said nothing for what must have been two or three minutes after he left, then I couldn’t contain a quiet, relieved laugh. Hélène looked at me and smiled.
“We did ok,” she said, “yes?”
“You never know, I suppose,” I rubbed my eyes with a smile that dared not to hope, “but yes – I think we did pretty well. We’re still in the game anyway, that’s the important thing.”
We set back to work with the renewed vigour of affirmation. I put on some music and hummed out of tune to some of my favourite old rock classics – most of which had made it onto greatest hits compilations before Hélène was born. In that place, with Hélène, with work for which I had a real passion, with Lochlann’s tacit approval, I felt infinitely less empty, less desolate. And, somehow, even a little less guilty for it.
CHAPTER 23
After Hélène had left for the day, I spent a couple of hours putting what were to be the final touches to the pencil sketching before “bringing it together”, as Johnny had put it, with acrylics. I was terrified of the damage I might do with the paints. Quick-drying acrylic left little margin for error, and far from bringing it together, I was afraid I might tear it apart. But if it was to be finished in time, then now was the time to move on.
Oran came into the studio as I was tidying up for the day.
“Did Lochlann tell you he’s meeting O’Leary tomorrow?” he asked.
“He did.”
“Good. He’s a lazy bastard, and he won’t want to change the design. So it’ll take the three of us to bully him.”
“If he’s used to fighting with you and Lochlann, he’s not going to be too scared of me.”
He winked conspiratorially.
“The more the better. And you’re new and you’re a big-shot designer from London. Or at least we’ll say you are. He doesn’t need to know you just draw pictures for a living!”