Tender
Page 37
There were eight or ten other portraits in the gallery, Catherine saw now, looking around; Liam was there on the adjoining wall, the photo of him that James had taken in the hospital. She had seen it before; she forced herself now, to look at it, not to look away from it. She looked at the pillow on which his head rested, and she looked at the softness of his hair, and she looked at his skin, his young, perfect skin, and she looked at his eyes again, and she looked at the bandages on his neck and on his shoulders, and she looked at his hands. Her heart was pounding. Behind her, Alice was saying something, but Catherine did not know what it was. An adjective; it was always an adjective. As though an adjective could come close to this. As though an adjective could come close to any of them. Then she looked more closely, Catherine did, and she saw something she had not seen before, and she realized why the angle of the photograph seemed crooked somehow, seemed somehow haphazard; it was because the photographer was holding the camera only with his right hand, and because his left hand was covering Liam’s; it was because that was the photographer’s thumb, the photographer’s index finger, there, in the bottom corner of the photograph, laid over Liam’s hand. And that was why the frame was so tight. That was why the lens was so near. That was what explained that look in Liam’s eyes.
Catherine heard Alice clear her throat now, and say something, and as she glanced her way she saw how Alice’s expression jolted and then hesitated at the sight of Catherine’s tears.
“I’m sorry?” Catherine said, wiping them away. “I’m sorry, did you say something to me?”
Alice smiled apologetically. “I was just asking whether you had any questions.”
Catherine shook her head. “No questions,” she said, and she turned to look at the other faces in the room. “No questions at all.”
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Peter Straus, Anna Stein, Paul Baggaley, Kris Doyle and Lee Boudreaux.
Huge gratitude to my first readers John Butler, Michele Woods, Jamila-Khanom Allidina, Philip Coleman, Mark Doten and Kimberly King Parsons.
And to Aengus: thank you for this and all the rest.
Permissions Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following:
The epigraph on page vii is from Light Years by James Salter; it appears here with the author’s permission.
The phrase “Dreams fled away” is extracted from Thomas Kinsella’s poem “Another September” and appears here with his permission.
The extract from “The Planter’s Daughter” by Austin Clarke on page 52 is reproduced from his Collected Poems (Carcanet Press Limited, 2008).
Part of the exchange between Catherine and James on page 125 refers to a refrain in the animated TV show Pinky and the Brain.
“You’re terrible, Muriel” is a reference to the 1994 film Muriel’s Wedding, written by P. J. Hogan.
The 1998 Trinity College Dublin Department of English examination paper on Romance appears here with the permission of the copyright holder, Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin.
Extracts from “Blue Moles,” “Morning Song,” “Nick and the Candlestick,” “The Rabbit Catcher” and “Tulips” are taken from Collected Poems © Estate of Sylvia Plath and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
Extracts taken from “Child’s Park,” “18 Rugby Street,” “Epiphany,” “9 Willow Street,” “Robbing Myself,” “The Rabbit Catcher” and “Wuthering Heights” are taken from Birthday Letters © Estate of Ted Hughes and reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
Lyric excerpt of “Exit Music (For A Film)” by Radiohead. Written by Philip James Selway, Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood, Edward John O’Brien, Thomas Edward Yorke and Colin Charles Greenwood. Copyright © 1997 Warner/Chappell Music Ltd. Reprinted by Permission of Alfred Music. All Rights Reserved.
Lyric excerpt of “Shine” by David Gray. Copyright © 1993 by Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group. Reprinted by Permission of Alfred Music. All Rights Reserved.
Lyric excerpt of “Lucky” by Radiohead. Written by Mark P. Dombroski, Philip James Selway, Edward John O’Brien, Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood, Thomas Edward Yorke, Colin Charles Greenwood. Copyright © 1997 Warner/Chappell Music Ltd. Reprinted by Permission of Alfred Music. All Rights Reserved.
About the Author
Belinda McKeon’s debut novel, Solace, won the 2012 Faber Prize, was voted Irish Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Her essays and journalism have been published in The Paris Review, the New York Times, The Guardian, and elsewhere. She has had plays produced in Dublin and New York, and is under commission to the Abbey Theatre. McKeon was a nominee for the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction post. She lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Rutgers University.
Also by Belinda McKeon
Solace
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
Awake Chapter
Moonfoam and Silver 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Romance 1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
Untitled Chapter
Frieze Chapter
Acknowledgments
Permissions Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Belinda McKeon
Lee Boudreaux Books
Newsletters
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2015 by Belinda McKeon
Cover design by Julianna Lee
Cover art by Shutterstock
Author photography by Alen MacWeeney
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: February 2016
Originally published in Great Britain by Picador, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, June 2015
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