Bad Things Happen

by Tim Buckley

“OK,” I said, happy that she at least planned to take a break. “And look, you don’t need to come here early tomorrow, I’ll just be retouching. So take it easy, have a lie-in. Just come down whenever you’re ready. And listen, if you need anything, anything at all, just call me, yeah? Promise?”

  “I promise. Thank you.”

  I wondered again why she chose to be alone, to stay alone in that big old house just when she surely needed the comfort of company. Some of us need the reassurance of support. Some, I suppose, recognise that there is nothing anybody else can do and just want to avoid the well-meaning but cloying concern. I could understand that, I suppose.

  A horn blew from the end of the drive – you would think that cab drivers would relish the chance to get out of the car, stroll up to your front door and stretch their legs, so why do they insist on summoning you rudely from a distance, like a diner clicking his fingers at a waiter? – and she left.

  I walked back to the studio, stopping in the kitchen on my way to make some coffee, and pausing in the garden to look out over the sea below. Away to the East the sky darkened and ominous banks of black cloud gathered like troops on the front poised to invade. Looking over the sea and towards England, it struck me how little thought I had given to London in recent days, and to my friends and my life. I missed it not at all, but more than that, I didn’t care that I didn’t miss it, didn’t even think about it. And for the first time, I didn’t want to think about when or how I would go back.

  But more than any of that, I felt guilty that Caitríona had not been, for a week or so, at the exclusive epicentre of my world, at the forefront of all of my thoughts and at the heart of everything I did. Nothing had, since she left, distracted me in the same way, nor provided a focus that dragged my mind away from the desolate place that it inhabited. Nothing – and nobody. None of my friends had drawn me out of my refuge – and they could not, because there was no pretext that allowed them to do so. But here, it was ok that people had lives outside my reality and it was right that they carried on with Caitríona on their minds, if not at the centre of their world. It would have been pointless to feel guilty because I know Caitríona would have only contempt for such self-indulgence. But nonetheless it all made me somehow uneasy.

  I wandered slowly back to the studio, and when I walked through the door, Lochlann was sitting in my chair, fingers steepled to pursed lips, staring at the painting. So intent was he that he didn’t hear my entrance, and I thought fleetingly of quickly leaving before he saw me. But I couldn’t leave. I was desperate to hear his verdict, desperate and terrified.

  He looked up at length.

  “Aengus. I didn’t see you there,” he said, standing up and gesturing to the easel. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not, Lochlann,” I said, walking over to where he stood. “Of course not.”

  We stood in silence for moments that felt like hours, both looking at the canvas board. I silently begged him to speak, but couldn’t bring myself to ask the question.

  “I cannot quite see where it fits into any of the four sections of the show,” he said, suddenly. “She is clearly not one of the old generation of Irishwoman, nor is she an Irish mother. She is not a strong professional woman, nor is she the radical non-conformist.”

  So that was it. True to form, Lochlann had gone straight to the point and not bothered to patronise me with flannel. No faint praise, no words of consolation nor encouragement. He had considered and decided, and I could not have reasonably asked for any more. But I was crestfallen. My assertion that the important thing was for me to be happy with the result, regardless of whether he chose to hang it or not, was exposed for the transparent fabrication it was.

  “So I have decided to hang it in the central area, just after the exit from the fourth section. Visitors will pass it after they have been through all four sections, and it is therefore a logical place to hang a piece that asks ‘What comes next?’ What comes next is in the hands of artists of your generation and young women like Hélène. I find that symmetry appealing.”

  I had all but tuned out in my disappointment, and so I couldn’t trust myself that I had heard correctly. I stood there stupidly trying to replay his words and to make sense of what couldn’t be, of what I had clearly misunderstood.

  “So… so you’re going to hang it? At the exhibition?”

  He looked at me as though I had said something so patently obvious as to be ridiculous.

  “Of course,” he said, a hint of impatience in his voice. “Why would I not hang it?”

  “No, no reason,” I stammered, “I’m just pleased you’re going to. More than pleased. I’m really delighted. Thank you. Thanks.”

  “Are you alright, Aengus?”

  “Sorry, Lochlann,” I said, regaining my composure. “It’s just that when you said it didn’t fit any of the four sections, I thought you meant you weren’t going to include it. You don’t know how much this piece means to me – I don’t think I knew myself until about half an hour ago. And it means more to me than I can tell you that you’re going to put it on display.”

  It was the closest to emotion that I had displayed to him since I was a boy, and it took both of us by surprise.

  “Good,” he said, composing himself. “Good, I’m glad it means that much to you, I’m glad I can do this for you.”

  “Is there anything you think I should do, any last touches?”

  He looked at it thoughtfully.

  “It is often in the finishing touches that we spoil a piece,” he said, pensively, “so take care not to attempt too much.”

  He stepped over to the easel.

  “You might darken this window frame a shade to provide a greater contrast with the sunlight outside,” he said, pointing to the window behind Hélène’s image, “so that it blends less with the interior walls. And you might add a little texture to the walls on this side, bring out the surface of the stone just a shade more here.” He waved his hand over sandstone walls that bounded the picture.

  He paused, examining every piece of the canvas carefully, shaking his head slowly, deliberately.

  “But other than that, no. I would do nothing to the girl, nothing to the violin or the bow. They are not perfect, of course – they never are, but the risk of damage is too great. You will always feel you can make it better up to the point where you make it irredeemably worse, so make sure you let it be, in time.”

  I nodded, greedily absorbing his wisdom and eager to show that I valued his words. Because I did.

  “OK. I’ll do what you suggested and maybe I’ll just leave it at that. You’re right – I can see a dozen things that I think I should touch up, but I’m actually not sure what I think I should do.”

  “That is the acid test, Aengus,” he said, pointing a serious finger at me. “If you’re not sure what it needs, then it really needs nothing.”

  “God, you’re on fire with the old aphorisms today, eh?” I said, with a grin, and he smiled back.

  “Hélène is a wonderfully expressive subject,” he said, looking again at the picture. “How did you say you found her?”

  CHAPTER 29

  I took a deep breath, and considered how to explain – to tell the truth, to concoct yet another lie, or to craft a compromise story? Lochlann had made a great concession by including my work, even though it was out of context and, despite his assessment, unquestionably amateur in comparison with the works he would display. He had helped Oran, reacted evenly when I had rejected his advice on media and been kind to Hélène. It would have been, I decided, unfair to lie to him again. I steeled myself and prepared to bare my soul.

  “You might want to sit down,” I said.

  He cocked his head with an unspoken question, but stayed on his feet and stared into my eyes, waiting for my explanation.

  “I’ve been looking for Aoife.”

  He raised his e
yebrows, was still for a moment, then nodded his head slowly.

  “I see,” he said, after a moment. “Perhaps I will sit down.”

  He took a seat across the desk from me, and his expression bade me continue.

  “The letter you forwarded to me from the Adoption Agency was a notification that they had set up a database to help adopted children and natural parents find each other. I registered, and found that Aoife had also registered, a year earlier. She gave no contact details, but she said she was in Paris, playing music in a club. And so I went to Paris and searched for her in every bar and every club I could find.”

  Memories of the tawdry nightly trawl of Paris’ best and worst neighbourhoods and bars came flooding back, and the feeling of hopelessness that had grown as time went by.

  “Finally, I found the bar where she had worked and where Hélène, her friend, had worked too. There was an old cellar-man there who knew them, told me they had left together to travel the world, and showed me a farewell message from Hélène scribbled in an old photo album. It gave an address in Malahide, of all places. Can you believe it? And so I went there. Aoife was not there, but Hélène was. And that’s how I found her.”

  He said nothing for a few moments, didn’t move, but I could hear his mind processing the story.

  “And where is she… I mean, where is Aoife now?” He spoke her name slowly, as though caressing it.

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t know. She was to come to Dublin with Hélène – they were going to play music together – but she went travelling on her way and Hélène doesn’t know when she’s going to arrive. Or if she’ll arrive, even. She expects her still, but she is not holding her breath.” I paused, reluctant to appear disloyal, but somehow indignant on Hélène’s behalf. “She’s not, according to Hélène, the most reliable. Hélène isn’t putting anything on hold while she waits.”

  I shuddered a little at the strange, and somehow perverse, logic that offered that my sympathy and loyalty to Hélène, a stranger whom I hardly knew, and not to the girl and woman to whom I had displayed such a lack of reliability, such a selfish disregard.

  “Will you continue to look for her?”

  I nodded.

  “Yes. To be honest,” I said, almost embarrassed to reveal my hidden agenda and selfish motives, “that’s why I’m still here. I don’t know where else to look.”

  “And when you find her?”

  I took a deep breath. This was the question I avoided every day. I was sure that my motives were pure, that the deed was born of the right reasons. If I merely used Aoife to recover a piece of Caitríona, if this was all some knee-jerk reaction to losing her, then there was no merit in my quest. But if I had, as I was sure I had, her welfare in mind, then this was the right thing to do.

  “I want to make sure she’s ok,” I said, shaking my head at a loss to explain exactly what I felt, what I feared. “There’s so much pain, so much loneliness and despair, I want to make sure she’s not alone. That she has a sanctuary.”

  “And you think you can be that sanctuary?”

  “I wouldn’t dare to assume that but I can only give her the choice.”

  He nodded, tacit approval in his eyes.

  “If there is any help you think I can offer, any support whatsoever, please come talk to me.” He got out of the chair and walked deliberately to the studio door. Then he turned and looked at me. “Aengus, I know you and I have not always lived by the same rules but, for what it’s worth, I think you are doing the right thing.”

  He nodded as though agreeing with himself, turned and left the studio.

  I spent the rest of the day following his advice, darkening the window frame, deepening the texture on the far wall. He was right, of course, I knew he would be. The touches added just a shade of depth and definition that warmed the piece and centred her even more at its heart. And I resisted the urge to do more, to retouch her hair, her hands, the lines around her eyes. The sun was already going down by the time I finished, and I cleaned my brushes and rags and tidied away for the evening.

  I hadn’t seen Oran all day and he wasn’t in the Gallery when I was leaving the studio. My mind was buzzing with thoughts that flitted about like evening fireflies so that I couldn’t catch one and hold it down to find a conclusion. Hélène and Aoife and Oran and Lochlann all agitated about my head, competing for space that only Caitríona had occupied for the last months. I needed a pint and, in Oran’s absence, I’d have to go alone.

  McGrath’s was bustling when I arrived, the evening crowd crossing paths with those city workers who had been there since their train dropped them in Howth, some of them getting red-faced and loud, ties askew and shirts stained with drips of beer. Already on their third or fourth “just one more”, they had missed the crucial last flight out and were in for the night and in for a cold welcome when they finally fumbled through the door in clattering, stumbling silence. And yet despite the frosty breakfast table, there will remain a twinkle in the eye because, sure, wasn’t it a great night, the way impromptu sessions always are?

  My regular table was occupied, and so I stood with a pang of petty annoyance by the bar with my crossword and ordered a pint from the barman, who nodded his curt recognition. Ella flitted like a tray-toting Tinkerbell between groups of men in various stages of lechery, flirting and playing them for tips like a professional entertainer. And standing at the far end of the bar among a group of his cronies, the Master was deep in earnest and animated debate. A compilation of Irish rock music played in the background just below the din of conversation punctuated by the occasional explosion of laughter and raised voices vying for airtime.

  Where is the line, I wondered, and why does it define places for some of us and not for others? The line before which a local pub is a warm, comfortable place with familiar faces where you can scrape away the day’s travails with talk of football and women and music and dreams. The line after which the same pub takes on a claustrophobic sameness and seems to contract around you so that you feel restricted and violated. It’s the same with places – if you are cursed with the wanderlust, what was once ideal is ultimately never enough and you drift unconsciously from belonging to resentment.

  Ella came to the bar to order drinks for a particularly rowdy group of suits and raised her eyebrows to the barman.

  “Keep an eye on those boys,” he said to her, checking her list and pulling a pint of lager. “They’re puttin’ it away at a fierce pace altogether.”

  She smiled and winked at him.

  “No worries, PJ,” she said over the noise, “just a bunch of big pussy cats! I’ll be back for these in a minute.”

  He nodded, and she set off again around the floor. As she did, she saw me, smiled and came over.

  “Hey ya,” she said, putting one arm around my shoulders. “Good to see you.” She pointed at my crossword. “If you need any help with that, just shout.” And like a sprite, she was gone.

  From the far end of the bar, the Master caught sight of me and waved. He excused himself from his company, and came through the crowd to my end of the bar.

  “Quite the Lothario you’ve turned out to be, eh?” he grinned, nudging me in the ribs. “Watch that one though – she’s like fire.”

  “I’ve figured that out, Master,” I grinned, “and I’ve also figured out that she probably doesn’t go for old men like us! Tell me, does it happen to everybody? I woke up one day and I was twenty years older than when I had gone to bed the night before.”

  “Gosso’n, when you get to my age, come and talk to me about getting old. Until then, would you ever whisht!”

  I put my hands up in mock surrender.

  “Will you have a drink, Master?” I asked him, noting his almost-empty glass.

  He looked at it and nodded.

  “I will, thank you, Aengus.”

  I motioned to the barman an
d pointed at the Master’s glass. He nodded, knowing well the Master’s favourite whiskey, and drew a dram from the optic.

  “Thank you, PJ, and thank you, Aengus,” the Master said as the barman handed him a replenished glass. “Now, gosso’n, tell me what you’ve been about. I haven’t seen you these past few days.”

  I told him about the painting and its imminent conclusion and that Lochlann would hang it at the exhibition. He beamed and raised his glass in salute.

  “Well done, boy!” he enthused, putting his whiskey on the bar counter to clutch my hand and shake it vigorously. “Well done! You must be delighted?”

  I allowed myself a little smile of self-congratulation.

  “To be honest, Master, I am,” I grinned, stupidly. “I didn’t realise how much I wanted him to hang it, I’d convinced myself that it didn’t matter. But it really did – really does.”

  He nodded with a knowing smile, the sparkle in his blue eyes even more vivid.

  “The last few months,” I went on, “whenever anyone has asked me what I do for a living, I haven’t been able to say ‘I’m a painter’ or ‘I’m an artist’ – I had no right. But now… now I feel like I’ve earned at least some right, some vindication. And if I’m being honest? It feels great!”

  He clinked my glass again and took a swig of his whiskey. Then he waved to PJ and gestured for a couple more.

  “This calls for proper celebration – we can’t have you drinking on your own on a day like this!” he said. “I have to admit, I had lunch with your father today, and he told me the scéal – I’m telling you, Aengus, he was glowing, he was that pleased. He’ll never tell you himself, of course, but make no mistake – he is very, very proud of what you have done. And proud too that you’ve persevered when, to be honest, you might easily have thrown in your hand.”

  He paused and looked at me, considering his next words. His voice became serious.

  “And he’s pleased too that you are looking for her, Aengus,” he said, quietly. “Very pleased, I think.” He nodded, to reinforce the words, and I nodded too, hoping earnestly that the Master was right.