by Tim Buckley
We are programmed to perpetuate the race and to continue proud family lines. We think of the good things that we have enjoyed, and we want to pass them on. But when we think about the uncertainty and the fickle chance that would define our child’s life, that should at the very least raise a question. To bring a child into the world, and to raise that child and to send it out into the world prepared and able – that involves surely the greatest sacrifice that we can make. And for what? So that our children can struggle through the daily mire of life and live just to stay alive. If we are so desperate to bring our children into the world, why are we so unwilling to make it a place that will protect them and inspire them and give them joy?
“I need to go back to the Gallery,” I said to Hélène as we finished our coffee. “I’m meeting the exhibition manager with Lochlann to talk about the design for the exhibition hall. Are you going to be ok? Why don’t you come back with me – the meeting won’t take long, we could do something afterwards?”
“No, Aengus, thank you. I will be fine, really. I have handled this from the beginning, nothing has changed. You go, and I will see you tomorrow. Anyway, we are rehearsing again tonight and it’s important to be ready.”
“Just take it easy, eh? Don’t overdo it.”
She laughed at my pointless caution.
“I am fine! Just go, go!”
She waved me away good-naturedly and I stood up to leave.
“OK, but please call me if there’s anything you need.”
“Aengus – go. I am fine and there is nothing for you to do. I will see you tomorrow.”
I nodded, awkwardly squeezed her shoulder and headed back for the house.
Oran and Lochlann were already talking to the exhibition manager when I got to the Gallery.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said. “Aengus.” I reached out to shake his hand.
“Stephen O’Leary,” he said formally, “Pleased to meet you. I hear you have a few ideas for the exhibition?”
“Er, yes. Yes, I suppose so,” I said, trying to keep my mind on the conversation and the subject at hand, trying not to think of Hélène sitting alone in the café as I left.
Lochlann laid out the sketch I had drawn on the table.
“Why don’t you talk Stephen through your thoughts, Aengus,” he said, a familiar note of impatience in his voice.
“Sure, sure.”
I described my vision for the Gallery space and the four rooms, one in each corner, which would house the four sections of the exhibition. I talked about the central area and how it would lend itself to formal or informal gatherings, a social space. And I talked about exploiting the physical beauty of the room and making it a part of the show.
O’Leary nodded throughout, then stroked his chin thoughtfully when I had finished.
“It’s an interesting idea, I’ll give you that,” he said in a condescending tone, “but I’m not sure it’s very practical. Have you done an art show before?”
“No,” I said.
He screwed up his nose and nodded knowingly as though to a child that has made a reasonable effort at tieing a shoelace or writing their name.
“Well I’ve done quite a few of them, and the thing you’re forgetting is the flow – how people will get through the show,” he explained slowly, lest I didn’t understand the concept of ‘flow’. “We have to make sure that people follow the sequence, and the corridor design does that very effectively.”
He waited smugly for my epiphany and acknowledgement of his genius.
“I see,” I said, suddenly offended by his very presence.
“Oh yes,” he continued. “And of course the other thing is time. Your ‘four rooms’ – ” he wrinkled his nose as though I had suggested strippers and a tattoo parlour, “ – would be a lot more work. And that’s hardly what we need just now, is it?”
He nodded knowingly to Lochlann, who said nothing.
“So I think maybe you should stick to what you do,” he winked and patted me on the back, “and let me do what I do. Isn’t that right?”
I weighed up my choices. I didn’t really need the additional complication of getting involved in the show design, and I certainly didn’t want to engage in a debate with this man. But I wanted the show to be the best it could be, and I believed in what I had suggested. And my affronted pride got the better of me.
“So, Stephen, what you’re saying is that the people who come to this exhibition are idiots who can only be trusted to follow the show if confined to a narrow channel that herds them along and makes it almost impossible for them to go back to an exhibit that they might want to see again. Yes?”
He was taken aback by my candour, and looked at Lochlann for support that was not offered.
“Well, that’s a… that’s a very…” he began, but I cut him off. The morning’s news had evaporated my tolerance.
“You’re ignoring the ergonomics of the room, the logistics of serving refreshments and the impact of exposing people to a wide open space framed by a beautiful building. You have dismissed the possibility of a central social space. It hasn’t occurred to you that this has to be a very human experience, an experience that touches our guests through the art and the atmosphere, through the sound of music and the impact on other people.”
I was angry that Hélène had been made to suffer for no reason, angry that she should have been so unfairly treated, And I vented my spleen on this patronising, inflexible sycophant because he was the first target I had found.
“But you’ve always done it this way, and you’re afraid to change because you don’t have any other ideas. And you keep going on about ‘the flow’ because you know that that’s what Lochlann is concerned about and if you keep banging on about it you think you’ll keep him onside. Is that a fair summary? Stephen?” I spat out his name. It had been an entirely excessive outburst, but I felt much better.
He was lost for words for a moment, but regained a modicum of composure to blurt a stuttered response.
“Well, Lochlann, I’m sorry but I think you’ll agree that that was out of order. Very much out of order indeed,” he could barely get the words out in his red-faced anger. “I have never, ever been treated so rudely. Never.”
Lochlann ignored his indignation.
“Aengus is right, Stephen. I want to see his ideas in the form of a revised plan. We will reconvene here tomorrow evening at five o’clock to review it. Thank you for your time today. Now if you will excuse me.” He nodded to O’Leary and walked out the door.
O’Leary took off after him immediately and I could hear his desperate protests fading as they walked away from the Gallery.
Oran, who had been watching the unfolding debate with a growing smirk that he tried to hide, burst into peals of laughter and bent double.
“Jaysus, lad,” he said, when he finally caught his breath, “I’d have paid a lot of money to see that. A lot of money.”
He slapped me on the back and we went in search of coffee.
CHAPTER 24
Would you not be curious? Would you not even want to see what they look like, your parents? I think you could probably live without that knowledge. I think the you before Aoife might even have done so on some bloody-minded principle. But I would want to know. I’d want to know if they were tall or short, fat or lithe, handsome or gruesome. I’d want to know what colour was their hair, and was it long or short, thick or thin. I’d want to know how they spoke, how they walked, how their presence was felt when they walked into a room.
But more than that, I’d want to understand more about myself. I’d want to know if they wore glasses. If I was left-handed, a citeóg, I’d want to know what hand they wrote with, what foot they used to kick a ball. If I was a beautiful singer, could they hold a tune? Were they happier with numbers or words, science or art? Were they honest and generous? Or were they devious and mean-minded,
and did I see some of that in myself sometimes? Would they leave a legacy that enriched the world they left behind, or a hole where they had taken more than they had given back?
I might want some guidance on how I should live my life. Recklessly seizing every day because all our men die young? Or shunning the ski pistes and the football pitch because my mother’s side is cursed with brittle bones? Maybe I should be wary of the drink, we have a weakness for it. Maybe we’re obsessive and compulsive and I need to calm my ardour sometimes. Maybe I should avoid stress, it might stop my fragile heart.
And I would want some sense of history. I would want to know what part we played in 1916 and the War of Independence, what side we took in the Civil War. Did my uncle play at Croke Park or Lansdowne Road, or did my grandfather pen a classic tune? Around a friend’s dinner table, I could join in the chatter and talk fondly and proudly of a heritage not adopted, but coursing through my veins. A heritage that made me the hero or villain that I was.
Of course, it wouldn’t matter. In the heel of the hunt, it would make no real difference to my success or failure, could neither inspire a virtue nor cure a vice. I am what I am, and knowing the origin of my self would change nothing.
But I might like them. There might be siblings, hewn from the same stone as me, or even just half of me. And we might be friends. We might share a passion or a dread, we might think the same thoughts at the same time and simultaneously blurt out the same words, and then laugh at the good of it. We might wink knowingly in a crowd, hearing each other’s unspoken words. We might visit each others’ houses or spend our holidays together. I might stand for their child, or they for mine, closing the circle and rebalancing the world. Maybe I could help them or they could help me, provide some missing skill or knowledge. But maybe that’s all because I have no siblings and I’m just curious.
I suppose the adopted me might be angry or bitter, waiting for an opportunity to release the long-festering tirade at the self-serving injustice of it all. Or maybe I would be sensitive to the parents who had raised and looked after me, unwilling to spurn them with treacherous curiosity. Maybe I would be afraid of what I might find or too consumed with the reality of my life, good or bad, to care about the past and the irrelevant truth. Maybe I would have cares more urgent, more important or just more interesting in my world.
Maybe she is a little bit curious or searching for a past or searching for a key to herself. Maybe she is looking for a solid foundation from which to launch her crusade through the world. Maybe she is looking for guidance or just for a friend? Maybe she’s angry with us or just protecting them?
Or maybe she just doesn’t care.
But where is she?
CHAPTER 25
The butter yellow tones of the sandstone walls emerged slowly like the colours of waking. Warmth bled from what had been cold, life from where there had been none. My eyes could feel the gritty texture of the sandstone. The charcoal beneath betrayed the rock’s impurity, hewn from Wicklow hillsides that were abashed at its imperfection. I was working with hands that were not my own. Every development of the canvas made me catch my breath and shake my head and smile, and I watched the results unfold from outside myself. The stone floor rose out of itself and a creamy sun peeked in through the tall windows behind Hélène. The dark eyes of the slight, grey figure with the violin pleaded for colour.
Hélène came round the easel to look.
“My God!” she let out a quiet exclamation and brought her hands to her face, her mouth open. “My God, Aengus, it is like a different painting!”
She looked at me proudly, proud that what we were doing was finally becoming the treasure we had both hoped it would. Even if only to us. We looked at it in silence, eyes drinking in the honeyed infusion.
She looked at the palette in my hand, then at me, holding my gaze a moment before speaking softly.
“Where is your wife?” she said, like she was asking if I wanted a coffee.
Not at the palette, then. At the ring on my finger that I had never taken off. How could I? I let Caitríona put it on my finger as a symbol of commitment and belonging. She was gone, but I still belonged to her. And I was still committed to what we believed in and stood for. Except maybe in pursuing this search.
At her question, I felt the familiar desperate ache, felt myself start to crumble into weakness as was my way, and prepared to be submerged. But the wave broke on some new reef out to sea, whimpered in to shore and lapped at my feet. It reminded me of the pain and the desolation, but didn’t drown me in them. I waited for the blackness to descend but it lingered just out of sight, casting a shadow but not plunging me into bleak, weak night.
“She’s not with me anymore,” I said, my voice just staying afloat.
She nodded gently.
“I’m sorry,” she said, after a few moments. “When did you break up?”
I was a little taken aback by her directness, and it was a moment before I recognised her misunderstanding.
“We didn’t break up,” I whispered. “She isn’t with us anymore.”
Euphemisms. I had found so many to replace the words I couldn’t bring myself to say, even still. It was ridiculous, of course. But if I said the word, I might lose her again, lose what I had left of her. I might wake up one morning and not be able to hear the sound of her voice or the pitch of her laugh. Not really. Nor see the detail of the laughter lines around her eyes. So I clung to what I still had, guarding it jealously.
Hélène looked at me blankly for a moment, assuming perhaps that it was language taunting her. Then the realisation dawned and she reached out involuntarily to touch my arm, her other hand reaching to cover her mouth. The guilty pity of the insulated, who don’t know the real nature of grief, just how we represent it. The reaction of the grief-stricken is different. The resigned and knowing nod, the momentary, almost indiscernible flight to a dark corner of the mind behind eyes well-trained to mask the pain. Their pity is not the tactile kind. Not for them the embarrassed search for words, nor hollow assurances that passing time will heal the wound. Like Niamh, they know it heals nothing, just makes you used to the pain. It never hurts less, you just bear it better. As Niamh said, the wound won’t heal, you just learn to limp faster.
Somehow, after talking to Niamh, I felt ready to limp just a little faster. It was in part the solidarity that shared misfortune brings, the forced acknowledgement that my own heart-ache was not unique. But it was also her strength, her determination to stand up and face her troubles, that made me embarrassed by my own weakness. Niamh’s defiance, Hélène’s robust acceptance that she was ill – I took strength from their strength or was shamed by it. I knew Caitríona would have applauded their stoicism and she would have belittled my frailty if she had seen it in someone else.
“What was her name?” she asked.
“Caitríona.”
“Was she Aoife’s mother?”
“Yes.”
She twisted the ring on her own finger.
“Aoife talks a lot about her. I mean, about what she might be like. I think that is what she is sad about. I’m sorry. She wonders what her mother is like, not so much her father. I am sorry, that sounds terrible.”
It didn’t sound terrible, although it should have, I suppose. I didn’t feel hurt or slighted – how could I bear any resentment, having done what I had done? It was right that she wondered more about her mother. That is why I was looking for her, to share Caitríona with her. Far from hurt, I was actually pleased – really pleased, elated almost – that she thought about Caitríona, that Caitríona in some way was a part of her consciousness. I couldn’t really have asked for more.
“What was she like?” she asked, carefully.
It wasn’t ok. Everything wasn’t fine. I didn’t feel a weight suddenly lifted, didn’t emerge from the jungle to see a better life open up before me, didn’t arrive haggard and exhausted at the mou
ntain top to marvel at the vista of opportunity spread out below. Drums didn’t roll nor trumpets blow a fanfare. It still hurt, my life was still robbed of its centre, my moments of joy would forever be tempered with a desolate sadness.
But it was better.
It was better because the pain had a purpose. It wasn’t a mournful response that I didn’t want to give to a question that someone hadn’t really wanted to ask, but felt duty-bound to inquire. It wasn’t a plaintive recital of how my life had plunged into a chasm of darkness accompanied by embarrassed consolation that could never understand. It was a story that might find its way to Aoife. Just as the euphemisms stopped me losing any more of her, this might actually win some of her back.
“She was beautiful.” I described her hair, her eyes, her tall, imposing litheness. I described her smile and how her eyes danced when she laughed and how every laugh seemed uncontrolled, like it took her over and would let her go only when she had drawn every last ounce of joy from it. I told Hélène how she had bewitched me that first week in university in Dublin, how I almost feared her and was entirely under her spell.
I told Hélène about her contempt for the pompous, the disingenuous and the selfish. For anyone who would hurt another person just for their own gain or for no gain, just out of laziness or disinterest. Her disdain for the self-absorbed. How she could not suffer the stupid, nor tolerate the tedious. How she loved the silly and the serious just the same, fun and philosophy, pleasure and the profound. How she could find the plain-some awesome.
I told her about the work she did, defending people she believed in who fell foul of society’s norms doing what they believed in. That she was strong, often fearsomely so. That people were sometimes intimidated by her and often missed the softness below the hardness above. That she was undiplomatic, indiscreet and impolitic but never nasty. I told her about our “time-out” system, how with a T-signal of my hands I was allowed to dam one of her rants if it had gone on for more than five minutes over dinner or in the car or while I tried to watch television. How she often missed out on the pointless pleasures of life because there was almost always a fight to fight. She was sometimes too preoccupied to even see breathtaking scenery, or sometimes fidgeted impatiently when we walked through Richmond Park on a frosty Sunday morning or spent a winter afternoon lounging by the fire while the rain beat the window and the wind played tuneless music on the chimney.