by Neil Hegarty
She might say.
It might get better.
Who knows what she might say.
Emma Read had been filled with joy, she’d been told. Perhaps this joy was in bad taste: what about Gerard’s neck, what about the ruined silken walls of the Sculpture Court? Bad taste – and yet, perhaps not so. Gerard was alive, and the silk could be replaced, or done away with entirely, and the walls left bare. She had never, after all, been entirely comfortable with that shade of phosphorus. She might have made a mistake, there.
And they had all survived.
‘Tell me something,’ Maeve had said, long ago. ‘Just this: what do you want to do with yourself?’
‘What, just that?’
‘Just that.’
‘See a little bit of the world,’ she’d said. ‘That’s all; and try to be happy. What about you?’
Maeve considered. ‘Just to survive,’ she’d said, ‘would do me.’ And roared laughing.
Roisin looked again at her walls. She could do more than survive, now that she’d been given another chance – and now her doorbell pealed. When she answered it, she saw Michael Clancy on the doorstep, smart in a car coat and dark jeans. He’d heard she was poorly, had had a shock, the grapevine had been working overtime. He thought she could do with some company – so here he was, just off the plane. Hoping to stay in her spare room. ‘Amn’t I great?’
She nodded.
‘You’d better ask me in, then. And I’ve a lemon cake, too, in my bag: Tim baked it and sends it with his best love. His warmest love. Again, aren’t we great?’
‘You are.’ Roisin nodded again. ‘You’d better come in.’ She held the door wide, and he stepped in, and she closed the door behind him, and they stood in the cloistered hall.
‘Poppy seeds and everything,’ Michael added, and looked around in undisguised appreciation. ‘Well! This is nice, isn’t it? My God. Very, very nice.’
She smiled a little, and considered for a moment. ‘You both are. Great, I mean. You’re great,’ she said. ‘Come on through.’
*
They checked in using one of the self-service machines, trying their passports one way and then another way, bending, typing in sequences of letters and numbers, all around them people doing the same thing, until the machine allowed them to carry on. Then they began walking towards the security area.
Ward said, ‘Englamoured?’ – and Rob didn’t seem all that surprised to have this word fished out of the ether, seemed to be almost expecting it, expecting the challenge.
‘I heard it used once. I can’t remember where. I thought I’d use it when some special occasion came along.’
Ward nodded.
He had dialled Martin’s number from outside the gallery, while awaiting the taxi. He had tried again when they clambered out of the taxi in front of the terminal building. Now he tried again. ‘I’ll just make a call,’ he said.
Rob had been calling too – phoning Jane, and he’d had more success at getting through, if not in actual conversation. He could take the kiddies this weekend, after all, he told her – but from the gleaned fragments of conversation he could overhear, it seemed to Ward that Jane was on her high horse, that the new plans that had been made could not now be unmade, that Rob wouldn’t be seeing the damn kiddies this weekend after all.
‘Never mind,’ Ward said.
‘Never mind, you,’ Rob said. ‘What, is His Lordship for the, now, what would this be, third time not picking up?’
‘It doesn’t seem like it.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘He said something about going to Kent.’
‘Oh yes, that’s right. To Nige, the ex, the Kentish oast-house dweller.’
Ward flinched. ‘Nigel.’
‘Because you could go to Southwold after all now, couldn’t you? For your weekend?’
But somehow Ward doubted it: and his doubt must have registered in his expression.
‘Englamoured,’ Rob said now. ‘Ward, did you know that this word has two definitions?’
Ward shook his head. What?
‘It means “rendered glamorous”. Glamorous, in the modern, Hollywood meaning of the word. OK?’ Rob took a breath and said, ‘And it means “surrounded with illusion”. Englamoured.’ Ward watched as Rob studied his face: watched, aware of a stepping back. ‘What I’m saying is: that’s you.’
Ward said nothing, but his mind took another long step back – and now Rob shrugged in sudden irritation. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’
‘For Christ’s sake?’ Ward repeated, and stared. ‘For Christ’s sake what?’
‘For Christ’s sake, how many times are you going to call him? Three times now: how many more times? Do you think he’ll be waiting for you at home tonight, glass of whisky in hand? You know he won’t. He’s punishing you, Ward. He’s sitting in some oast house punishing you. What are you even doing with him?’
Stared and stared. The airport terminal reverberated and flowed around them. What?
Rob repeated, ‘What are you even doing with him?’ A beat of silence, and then, ‘Ward, I don’t think you should be with Martin. I think you should be with me.’
With you? Standing very still. ‘What?’
Rob spoke hurriedly now, the harshness gone, tripping over his words. ‘I’ve been thinking about it for some time; I’ve been looking for some opportunity. This trip, this Ireland thing, made it all clear. The painting, I dunno,’ and he ran a hand over his mouth. ‘It’s about taking the opportunity, Ward.’
Ward said again, ‘What? – what, is Emily Sandborne directing you from the grave?’
But it was no time for heavy humour: now it was Rob’s turn to flinch. That was a line Martin might have used. ‘I’m sorry, Rob, I didn’t mean – but I’m with Martin. I’ve been with Martin for years.’
‘But you shouldn’t be with Martin,’ Rob said. No turning back now; now his agitation was plain to see. ‘Ward, you should be with me.’
‘You said that.’
‘You should come home with me.’
Home?
‘Home with you?’
‘Yes, Ward, that’s what I’m saying.’
‘But I have a home,’ Ward said.
But Rob said that, no, he had a house. A very nice house, but a home was a different matter.
‘I don’t know,’ Ward said. ‘This is too much to take in.’ He said, ‘Martin trusts me.’
‘He put your life into an article without even asking you. He mocks you. He goes out at night, Ward, and doesn’t come back.’
‘I shouldn’t’ve told you that.’
‘Yeah, well, you did.’
They stared at each other.
‘Home with you?’
Rob nodded – and now the shock seemed to recede a little, to be replaced with something else. A glimmering of colour, perhaps. A lifting of the light. His eyes were so green.
But – no.
‘This is insane. I mean, what if it doesn’t work out?’
‘Then it doesn’t. At least we’ll have tried it. Life’s too short, Ward. It really, really is too short.’
‘And what about Felicity?’
‘So, we’ll go to your place, and pick up Felicity, and go home.’ Now Rob paused, and selected the words. ‘I’m offering you something else, Ward. The possibility of something else, anyway. That’s all.’
Ward stood, and looked, at the crowds and the shop fronts, and the glaring lights. ‘I need to ring Martin again,’ he said, and he watched as Rob’s face fell into folds of exhaustion and something that might have been grief, and humiliation.
But, not watched from far away: instead, he had a sense of space collapsing, falling in on itself, of the two of them standing not far apart, not gulfs and gulfs apart – but, suddenly, forehead to forehead.
And so, instead of turning away, as he would normally do, as he always did, to make a call: instead of turning away, Ward looked at Rob as he dialled Martin’s number and held the phone to
his ear, and he continued to look at Rob as the phone once more rang and rang and rang, before cutting, again, to voicemail.
Acknowledgements
Significant sections of this novel were written at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig: this, the result of the Jack Harte Bursary awarded to me in 2018. My thanks to Valerie Bistany, Maureen Kennelly, and Conor Kostick; to the Irish Writers’ Centre which endows and administers the Bursary; and to the Director and staff at Annaghmakerrig for their friendship and hospitality.
Thanks to my agent Veronique Baxter at David Higham; to Helen Francis, for sensitive editing of this novel; and to Clare Gordon, Chrissy Ryan, and especially Neil Belton at Head of Zeus.
I am grateful to Catherine Toal, for reading and commenting on a draft of this novel; and to Ruth McDonnell, for discussing with me modes of painting using the medium of distemper.
Last and most, love and thanks to John Lovett.
About the author
Neil Hegarty grew up in Derry, and was educated at Trinity College Dublin. His first novel Inch Levels was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Novel of the Year Award in 2017. Other titles include Frost: That Was the Life That Was, a biography of David Frost; and The Story of Ireland, which accompanies the BBC television history of Ireland. His essays and short fiction have appeared in the Dublin Review, Stinging Fly and elsewhere. He lives in Dublin.
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