The O Negative Diaries
An Installation by Agnes Conway
Medium – Artist’s Own Blood
and I stood there in the middle of the crowd, vacant of everything save the single thought – that whatever dreams a man may have for his daughter it is safe to say that none of them involve standing in the middle of a municipal gallery with its walls covered in a couple of litres of her own blood because this, I slowly realised, was what I was looking at, this was the red mist that suffused the weak evening light which streamed in the front windows in such a way that the script itself appeared to project from the walls into the middle of the room, the livid words and sentences themselves hanging in a light so finely emulsified that we might take it into our very pores and swell on it, so that even if the crowd broke up the continuity of the space there was no doubting that the light served to make everyone part of a unified whole that occupied the whole gallery, Agnes’s blood was now our common element, the medium in which we stood and breathed so that even as she was witness-in-chief, spreading out the indictment which, how ever broad and extravagant it may be on rhetorical flourish, how ever geographically and temporally far-flung it might be, the whole thing ultimately dovetailed down to a specific source and point which was, as I saw it
me
nothing and no one else but
me
plain as day up there on the walls and in the sweep of each word and line, I was the force beneath, driving it in waves up to the ceiling and it was clear to me through that uncanny voice which now sounded in my heart, a voice all the clearer for being so choked and distant, telling me that
I did this
I was responsible for this
whatever it was
definitely something bad and not to my credit because only real guilt could account for that mewling sense of fright which took hold of me there in the middle of that room, something of it returning to me now
sitting here at this table
that same cramping flash within me which twisted some part of me with such sudden fear that before I had made any decision whatsoever I was praying, or rather
I was being prayed as
a prayer
torqued up out of me with an irreversible urgency, speaking itself to completion before the words had properly stumbled through me
Jesus Christ
let it be some vision ahead of her
and not torment behind
responsible for this
just as Mairead grabbed my elbow, a startled look on her face which, for one wild moment, had me believe I may have spoken my plea out loud like a madman because I was now finding myself scrabbling on a knife-edge of panic, a horrible vertiginous moment which I overcame only with a savage effort of will which pushed me in a sudden, awkward lurch across the floor and out the door into the March dusk where rain and the rush-hour traffic clogged the narrow street in which the gallery was situated and those few people who had stood out into the mist to smoke and chat along the pavement now stared at me in such alarm while I tried to gather my wits and steady my breathing that I had a clear vision of how I must have looked careering through the gallery and out into the street, the country man with the big farmer’s head on him in the collar and tie, shouldering his way through the crowd with his two fists balled at his side
fit to kill
fit to fucking kill
Mother of Jesus
and so much for the promise to put my best foot forward for Agnes’s sake on her big night, so much for making a good impression on her behalf I thought bitterly as I stood there with the rain pissing down on me, nothing but sour embarrassment churning around inside me as
a young man with a wispy beard took a step towards me, concern writ across his face and I can’t remember what I said to him or how I replied but his two hands were suddenly raised in front of his face as if someone was going to lash out and hit him – and how ever I responded at that moment it seemed to convince him fairly sharpish that he did not want anything to do with me so he backed off, leaving me alone on the sidewalk outside the gallery where I stood for a further half hour, trying to get a grip on myself, getting soaked through while the crowd gathered up and down the street, smoking and drinking wine before eventually breaking up and spreading out into the gathering night by which time I had calmed down a bit
just a bit
my temper and nerves under control somewhat, helped by the fact that I had gleaned from the snatches of conversation around me that the exhibition was a striking achievement and should, with any luck, be a real success, so I was relieved for Agnes – I did not appear to have done any damage – and could set aside those worries for the moment while I examined once again what I had seen of the installation itself and more specifically try to fathom the shock I had in its presence, why had I felt so deeply about it all, why had I taken it so personally and, most bafflingly of all, how a man of my age could be so overcome by his own feelings, so totally undone as to make him feel very foolish since all I knew, standing there in the rain, was that this was something I did not appreciate one little bit, sifting through feelings that grated and twisted within me, trying to give them their proper place and measure with my back to the cut stone wall of the gallery and I had no need to step outside of myself to know that I must have presented a strange sight to anyone who cared to look, this burly man with a suit and tie on him and the raw winter face of a farmer, standing there as if he was outside second mass of a Sunday, and how ever this may have looked to those last stragglers who stood along the pavement, it was safe to say that no one could have guessed the degree of turmoil and inner vexation which troubled me because never
had the consequences of fatherhood and everything it entailed weighed so completely on me than at that moment with
the anxious worry that I might be responsible in some way for what was on the walls of the gallery behind me, a wringing fear within me which gathered to its tight core two decades of consequence, so that it was now clear to me that this whole evening might be nothing less than a full reappraisal of myself as a man and as a father, something I had not reckoned on when I got into the car that evening and drove the sixty or seventy miles to the gallery, that I was travelling towards this moment of reckoning with myself because, like many another man, I had gone through life with little in the way of self-examination, my right to a life of peace from such persecution something I had taken for granted, something I might have acknowledged as the responsibility of others but not the type of inward harrowing I ever expected of myself but which nevertheless I now found myself subjected to in a way which took its prompt from a central, twitching nerve within me which kept asking
had I failed my daughter
had I pushed her towards this – whatever this was – on the walls of the gallery, this was the question that would not resolve one way or another beneath the sifting rain which shadowed the street in both directions, with the conviction hardening within me that having lived a decent life might not in itself be enough – or a life which till now I had honestly thought had been decent – since there was now some definite charge or accusation in the air which made it appear that not having done anything wrong was not enough and I noticed also that
the rain had that steady fall to it which meant it was down for the rest of the evening with the traffic passing in a muted light that was cold and wet and made me realise I was now soaked, particularly across my shoulders and down my back but also, that I could not move, I could not go back inside from shame and embarrassment so I spent another fifteen minutes standing there alone with the wall pressed to my back until Mairead and Agnes finally showed up on the pavement beside me with a look of irritated relief on both their faces, exclaiming
so that’s where you are
we wondered where you’d got to and
I tried to avoid the look in Mairead’s eye, that look which told me that she was going to set aside her anger and disappointment for the moment but that I would hear about
it later on, so I made some foolish play of welcoming them both, hopelessly pressing the excuse that
I’ve been here all the time, I needed some fresh air, which
was a lie neither of them believed but one they went along with for the moment in their anxiety to move out of the rain, Agnes grimacing and doing a little stamping dance of impatience on the pavement, her high-collared coat, buttoned up under her chin, transforming her from the pale totem of earlier in the evening to someone almost corporate-looking, her whole appearance now that of a young, professional woman who had just dropped into the exhibition on her way home from work and I remembered that this coat was a recent gift from Mairead in both our names to mark this occasion, the prize at the end of a long day spent shopping together, a day which had brought Mairead home glowing with a renewed sense of her daughter’s good taste in such things as coats because even if, as she admitted at the time, it would not have been the one she would have chosen for her – so conservative, plain even – and even if she was slightly perplexed by her choice, she was also pleased because for all her support of Agnes’s artistic career there were periods when Mairead openly worried about her and wondered would it not have been better if she had not chosen a career which was so governed by luck and uncertainty, a career which was likely to bring more than its share of disappointment and frustrations and
did I know how few practising artists managed to make a living from their work, did I
which of course I didn’t
but which sometimes gave me to believe when listening to Mairead going on in this vein, that her all worry was not really for Agnes but was in reality for herself in that it underlined some hesitancy in her own character, possibly evoked a moment in her own past when she might have done something similar with her life but had settled instead for the safer option of teaching, discovering somewhere along the way that for all her travel and adventuring abroad she lacked that courage to make the commitment to something as dicey as an artistic career so that now, whenever Agnes made a conservative choice in something like a coat it was as if Mairead was no longer suffering that rebuke to herself and
here she was now, our artist daughter in her sensible coat, looking so sharp that had she been someone else I would not have been surprised to hear that she worked in some sort of financial services job, insurance or something, some career where the value of the present moment was wagered against some unknowable future and standing there in the rain, looking at her, I found myself getting so carried away on this idea, this alternative life to which my daughter might have been born, that it took me a moment to realise that I was being spoken to, Agnes suggesting that we go for something to eat as she was meeting up with friends later for a few drinks but that it would be nice if we could have some time alone together, just the three of us, besides
I’m famished, she said, absolutely famished
as she hadn’t had time all day to have a proper meal and had not eaten since before noon, all nerves and anxiety, which might well account for the fevered glow of her cheeks now which blushed up her pale complexion in that same way that makes mothers want to place their hands on children’s foreheads and get them to stick out their tongue as she finished pulling on the leather gloves that completed her outfit, that final detail which so clinched the whole look from smart-casual to something much more purposeful and the sight of which galvanised me into a kind of blustering anxiety to move the whole evening on to another place and mood so
yes, something to eat, where can we go this time of the evening, won’t everywhere be booked out, we should have thought about this earlier and rung ahead and
Mairead was giving me that look, shaking her head sorrowfully and I hauled up, mid-surge
calm down for fuck’s sake, I said to myself, calm down
so I shut up and stood back while the two women consulted and eventually the three of us moved off, following Agnes up the narrow street and across the bridge, through a small alleyway in the shopping centre which opened into a parallel street where there was a restaurant wedged between a church on one side and a theatre on the other, a quiet place where we had the full attention of a waiter who stepped up and fussed around us when we entered, took our coats and bags and led us to a table, one of seven or eight in a small room that was near empty and I was glad to see how happily Mairead surveyed the tables with their linen napkins and heavy cutlery and, as if reading my mind, she turned with a wide smile and a girlish squeeze of my hand to say
isn’t this very nice Marcus, very stylish and
her glad enjoyment filled the space around us with its own brightness while the next few minutes were taken up with settling into our seats and picking our way through the menu, gladly taking guidance from Agnes who seemed familiar with the place and what it had to offer so it wasn’t long before our orders were taken and we were relieved of the large menus to settle back and review the whole evening which, from what I could gather, had been an unqualified success, with much for Agnes and Mairead to talk about, specifically how the exhibition was likely to play out in the weeks ahead – hopefully it might travel to other galleries, possibly going to Dublin, the work would need that kind of exposure if it were to get any reviews in the national papers – and I chipped in with a few questions to assure them that I was not sulking or upset and that, like a good schoolboy, I had been paying attention and Agnes answered them with that careful measure of attention and consideration which assured me that nothing I had done during the evening, nothing of my fright or panic, had thrown her or damaged her confidence and I was relieved and proud of her also because
her self-confidence was one of those markers I’ve always held up to myself as proof that I had done a decent job as a father, a true indicator that she had grown strong and self-sufficient and would not be buffeted too easily by whatever life threw at her, nor would she shirk those moments when she would have to stand her ground, moments such as now when she turned her full face towards me and began abruptly
you were surprised by the work, upset
by way of opening the topic
I saw it on your face, it took you by surprise
yes, I conceded, a bit shocked, it wasn’t what I had expected, nothing like your previous work and
while the puzzlement in my voice was genuine it did nothing to hide the hurt which I feared would swell up in that surge of self-pity that was boiling within me and which was aggravated by the patient, conciliatory tone with which Agnes began telling me that
yes, it’s a bit of a departure all right, I don’t think I’ll ever fully get away from oils – nor would I want to – but over the last couple of months I’ve wanted to try something else, an experiment – to step outside the idea of oil painting towards something new and
this is it
yes, she said, with a frown, and however successful this exhibition is, my next work will probably be a return to oil, oil with blood on canvas, some sort of new amalgam possibly, I don’t know yet
she said, smiling and
leaning forward in the chair to offer me her full face, her shoulders straining out of the folds of her shift as if anxious to give clear evidence of both her commitment to the idea and her wish to set my mind at rest, all of which undid me so that in a gulping lurch I found myself explaining that
what I found difficult about the whole piece wasn’t just the blood
I should have warned you
it wasn’t just any blood, it was your blood
it’s ok, I took precautions
it’s a mutilation
no it’s not Dad, it was just a jab for god’s sake and she threw up her hands and smiled so
I felt assured now, ready to grasp this moment and press ahead with my own thoughts because
what I found difficult was the mixture of finger pointing and sanctimony in the whole piece, your righteous standpoint over the material, I wasn’t so sure about that
you think that’s a cheap shot, that I’m standing on some urban stage and p
oking fun at culchies with
her voice threaded through with that steely edge which always gratified me – a response all her own and so different to what would have been her brother’s evasive clowning in such moments – Agnes was always likely to go toe to toe on any point she felt strongly enough on so that
I’m not sure my accusation is that you are taking a cheap shot or
that maybe I’m Uncle Tomming here, gratifying urban audiences with the comedy capers of their country cousins
something like that, cheap ridicule, although I would be disappointed if you hadn’t thought of that yourself, you’re smarter than that
yes, that crossed my mind, but that’s not the same as saying I managed to circumvent it and
the choices you made were soft options, just the sort of stuff that would make us look ridiculous, all those drink-driving convictions, common assault, public order offences – as crimes there was something almost comic about them so that
yes, I agree, there is more comedy than danger in some of them – even the incidents of assault – but all the cases were taken from reports of the circuit and district courts and it was that sense of local reckoning which appealed to me – why, I cannot honestly say, but it was as if there was something manageable about the transgressions and sins that go to trial there – I don’t know, as an idea it’s still not fully formed, I’ve given it a lot of thought but it’s still not fully clear to me and
she looked serious now and I had a moment in which to consider that maybe I’d got ahead of myself in an attempt to understand the whole thing as these were not words that normally came tripping off my tongue, or more accurately I had never found myself in the sort of places where words of this type were necessary, but now they flooded ahead of me, threatening to carry me off to some sort of disaster so I drew hard on the reins and pulled back from wherever it was I was going because nothing good could come from losing the run of myself at an hour of the evening when it was nearly won, especially now with Agnes herself in such a conciliatory mood and winding up the topic by admitting
Solar Bones Page 5
