I wanted to be happy for her. A tightness had come into her voice, a sort of pent-up ferocity that in another time and place, a classroom or studio, I’d have taken for passion. Here, though, in such isolation, it unnerved me, and it was all I could do to keep the distress out of my face. I smiled and nodded, told her that I had a waiting list of clients the length of both arms and as long again lined up for new work and that I’d be more than thrilled to take anything with me that she considered finished.
But she shook her head, no.
‘The paintings themselves no longer matter. For a long time I couldn’t understand that, but I get it now. When I finish something, it’s lost to me. Sometimes I reuse the canvases, sometimes I need to burn them or throw them into the ocean. Give them to the tide. What counts is the work, the actual physical doing. That’s the only art involved. The rest is just commerce. All these years, I never really knew what I was about, but these last few months the whole thing has become clear. I’m capturing moments. That’s all. And once they’re caught, something happens. They exist on canvas but they’re dead. They’re paintings, nothing more. Depictions. I do them and they’re done.’
‘But you need some income,’ I said. ‘You have to live, Maggie.’
The strand on our left side stretched eastwards as far as the eye could see, penned in and shaped into a curl by the sloping fields, and the water along its open side lay flat and seemingly still. Her gaze took her to the furthest point, where the last of the beach faded out of sight, and her voice, when it came, was a murmur, airy as sleep-talk.
‘Every morning before the sun is up I climb the hills and sit in the druids’ circle. I try to be there just as the day is getting light. I go even if it’s raining, though I don’t paint on those days, I just sit in the grass. I don’t pray, but it’s like praying. I suppose you could say, technically, that I’m trespassing, because it’s farmland, and private property, but I’ve never seen anyone up there, and nobody has complained yet. Actually, it looks like the ground has been left to waste. But that’s no surprise. Standing stones have a kind of magic about them. An energy. Around here, farmers won’t interfere with such things. As I said, nothing really changes in a place like this.’
I could believe it. A lot of people are still ruled by superstition, especially in the country, where good and bad keep wider shades of grey. Nature runs through us like grain through wood, and it can be hard to break the habit of a thousand generations.
‘The circle itself isn’t particularly impressive,’ she went on. ‘Not like some you’ll see. There are seven stones, one that comes to about my waist and the rest that reach maybe knee-high or a little bit less. The grass is long and lush, so the details aren’t exactly distinct, a few have fallen over and look out of position, but when you think about how long they’ve been standing there it’s nothing short of incredible, really, that there’s any trace of them left at all. But there’s a silence about the place that you’ll find nowhere else. The air up there feels different. I don’t know, alive, or something. As if the world is listening. On good mornings, when the sun starts to break the sky, you can see practically forever in three clear directions. And you sense the past in every breath. Two, three thousand years can slip away in a heartbeat. People talk all the time about haunted places, and that’s certainly one. But I’m not sure it has much to do with ghosts, I think it just means it’s held tightly by the past in ways that other places aren’t.’
‘And that’s where you like to go to paint?’
‘It’s where I paint best. But I’d go there even if I never painted a line. It welcomes me in some way, opens me up. Moves me. I must have finished twenty canvases up there, and taken hundreds of sketches. Sometimes I’ll change angles, and the light is never twice the same. Those paintings are the most satisfying work I’ve ever done, because I can feel the place. Up there, the air runs through me. I’ve never been so connected to anywhere else. I don’t know how else to explain it. Five years ago the paintings, and the sketches, would have made for a good exhibition. Maybe a great one.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘even if I can’t sell them for you, will you at least let me see them?’
She shrugged. ‘I can’t. They’re gone.’
‘What? All of them?’
‘It doesn’t matter. I know them exactly. Down to the very stroke. They’re gone, but they were gone the instant I finished painting them.’
‘What did you do? Did you burn them?’
‘Some I burnt. Others I cut up or painted over or threw off the cliffs. I like that best, because they float, and I can stand at a height and watch the tide carry them away. Though the fire is good, too. Satisfying. For the whispers and smell the paint gives off, and the colours of the smoke.’
I wanted to be angry rather than afraid, but both emotions seemed to spout from the same spring.
‘Jesus, Maggie,’ I said. ‘You can’t keep doing this. You’ll run out of money soon, if you haven’t already. From what I’ve seen, the house could certainly do with a bit more work. Those paintings could help you out, if you’d just let them.’
‘I know. But I’m not ready to think about any of that. For now, I just want to paint. Nothing else matters, not money, not comfort. Nothing.’
‘And this?’ I indicated the canvas that she held outward at her side.
She glanced down. ‘Part of my routine. I spend the mornings up at the stones. Afternoons and evenings I come down here and try to capture the ocean.’
I pretended then to scrutinise the picture, though by now I’d already studied it closely and could barely bring myself to even glance in its direction. Maggie, out of either habit or duty, raised it to chest height, the small slow trawl of her inhalations practically counting beats.
‘It’s stunning,’ I said, doing what I could to sound truthful, and upbeat. It was stunning, too, but only in the fuller sense of the word. ‘Visually, it takes your breath away, stops you cold. There’s something, I don’t know, a kind of menace. Something elemental. It makes me almost afraid. If I saw it on a wall in a gallery, I’d be hard pushed to recognise it as your style. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. If the rest of the stuff you’ve done is anything like this then your work seems to have taken a fairly dark turn.’
‘This is how I see things now,’ she said, with another shrug of her narrow shoulders, and her gaze fell away from me and fixed again on that distant point of beach. ‘And this is how the world really is, if you want to know the truth. You should be afraid. We all should. Because none of us ever looks close enough to see. But once you peel back the surface, this is what lies waiting. This is all there is.’
*
We came up from the beach, following the same broken pathway as before. The uneven ground around us was sand and earth and mostly rock, combed with wiry sweeps of grass. Maggie, barefoot, seemed comfortable at my side, but then the cottage rose into view ahead and slightly to our right, and I felt an instant shift in her demeanour. She stopped, and turned to me.
‘Well,’ she said, in little above a whisper. ‘Thanks for coming. There was no need, but thanks. It’s good to know that someone cares. And I’ll have some paintings to send on very soon. I promise. You can sell them if you want, or think about an exhibition. Or just give them away, if you feel like it. Whatever you want to do is fine. I’ll leave it all to you.’ She reached out and touched my arm just above the elbow. ‘I owe you a lot, Mike. And I don’t just mean money, either. I owe you everything.’
I shook my head, not yet ready to shoulder such responsibility. ‘The only thing you owe me is a promise that you’ll look after yourself, and that you’ll make more of an effort to keep in touch. It’s not good to cut yourself off so much from the world. A phone call, once in a while. That’s all I ask. To me, or Alison. Or Liz, even. Just to let us know that you’re still going strong.’
‘I will. I promise. This is all my fault, dragging you out here for no good reason, making you worry over nothing. I shouldn’
t have let so much time go by. To be honest, I’m not sure where it went. But from now on I’ll do better. I’ll write, and call too, every chance I get. Once a week at least.’
From where we stood, we could see only part of the house’s roof, the repointed chimney and the thatch dull as mud against the day.
‘You can just leave the easel here, and the paints. I’ll come back down for them. But it’s getting late. You shouldn’t be on these roads after dark. You can get a bed and breakfast in Castletownbere. The season for the tourists is finished so the guest houses will be quiet. Or you could make for Bantry, if you’d prefer somewhere with a bit more blood in its veins and don’t mind the extra few miles.’
My mouth was dry and I could taste the ocean on every breath, in a way that was starting to make my throat hurt. For a few seconds, I wasn’t sure how to respond.
‘I was thinking,’ I said, finally, ‘that maybe I could just stay here tonight.’
‘With me?’
‘Well, just for tonight. If that’s all right. To tell you the truth, I’m exhausted, and I really don’t fancy the thought of more road. I’ve been working fifteen laps of the clock lately. And on top of that, I had the flight, and then the drive from Cork. Don’t worry, I won’t put you out. And I’ll leave early. I have an engagement in Dublin. An armchair will do just fine. All I want is to get my head down and sleep. Even if only for a few hours.’
‘I’m afraid I’m not set up for visitors. There’s nothing in, I haven’t been to the shops.’
‘That’s all right. No problem. I can pop in to Allihies. Grab a few things. Fish and chips, something like that. Even cold food is fine. Bread, cheese. Whatever you fancy.’
In three-quarter profile, she seemed on the brink of tears.
Something odd happened to the moment then, as if a flash of past was brought into overlap, attaining a kind of duality. I saw that the beauty was gone from her face but also that it was all around her, present but separate, like a veil. In that instant, the person she’d been measured itself against the person she had become. Then, as I watched, the skin at the corners of her eyes pinched with what I can only believe was fear. Slowly, sadly, she shook her head.
‘You can’t stay, Mike. I’m sorry. I have to be alone. He doesn’t like outsiders in the house.’
‘Who doesn’t?’
‘The Master.’
The shaping of the word, even in her own hushed voice, struck her with the ferocity of a slap. She turned away, and her eyes, wide and glassy, again found and held to the roof of the cottage above the scrub. Instinctively, I looked in that direction too, but whatever she saw eluded me. Instead, a sense memory flamed awake, the festering, rotten-meat stench that I’d earlier experienced. But there was nothing out of place, nothing to bother the stillness. The low hush of the early evening tide continued to carry over us from behind and even as we stood there, close enough to touch but not touching, the light gave up its shadowy glow and the edges of the world around us were gently lost, blurred by the smothering dusk. And I felt sick to my stomach.
‘I’ll write,’ she whispered. ‘And I’ll call. I promise. Now go. Please.’
I just stared at her. ‘What are you saying?’
‘He knows you. He remembers. And he doesn’t want you here. You have to leave.’
‘Maggie, this is insane talk. That night was just a game, a bit of fun. Nothing happened.’
‘Please, Mike. If you have any feelings for me at all. And I know you do. I’m asking you to go. There’s nothing to worry about. Everything is fine. I’ll call you tomorrow at Alison’s.’
I should have refused to leave, or at least refused to leave without her. I had every logical excuse on my side: how far she’d let herself go, the sheer squalor of her living conditions and, most significantly, her obvious psychological deterioration. Even apart from the candid reference to a supernatural entity, one that seemed to have gained dominion over her increasingly contracting world, her artwork was clearly the product of a delusional mind. In hindsight, I know what I should have done. I had a duty to resist, and to save her, even if only from herself. But the truth, to my great shame, is that I was frightened.
I told myself that my fear was for her. She’d always tended towards fragility, and the years of physical and mental abuse, followed by such sudden and complete isolation, was a weight too great to bear. The assault that put her in hospital had been brutal and depraved, unimaginable, really, in its magnitude, but even after the scars and broken bones began to heal, the memories kept her on a brink. And either by accident or with intent, she’d used her time alone to dredge the most repressed and isolated corners of her mind, until the cracks and fissures opened into chasms.
But there was something else. The house, and this place, had played a part. In a city, with its crowds and traffic noise, reality is a sheet of thick glass, solid and impenetrable. But out here, it is a far less certain state. Out here, just like the ocean, it pulls to tide and current. And, just like the ocean, its surface can be easily broken.
Such casual mention of something supernatural disturbed me, but at its base level my anxiety was a selfish one, fuelled with dread that whatever was happening to Maggie could somehow happen to me. Something about this landscape, beautiful as it was, inspiring as it must have been with its rare light and aura of ancient magic, troubled me at an almost primal level. Solitude could be treacherous to certain minds, and while I was stronger, and probably far less sensitive, far less attuned to these vibrations, that did not mean I couldn’t be broken down.
I made an excuse. I told myself that by gatecrashing her situation I’d very likely threaten the precarious balance of her mind, maybe even pitch her into some kind of irreversible psychosis. She had survived until now, not unscathed but at least retaining a basic level of functionality, and even though the evidence of her suffering was irrefutable she’d obviously found or developed some sort of coping mechanism and would surely continue to get by until I could return with the proper help.
‘All right,’ I said, giving in. ‘I’ll go.’
I set down the easel and the box of paint, came close and drew her once again into my arms. She allowed this but did not bodily respond. Her arms hung to her sides, and her frame lay slight and limp against me, alive only with the slow, gentle pull and ease of her breathing. I held her for as long as I could, not really wanting to let go but more than a little hurt, too, at her lack of reciprocation or even response, then finally kissed her cheek and took a step back.
The way she was then, during those following seconds, is how I continue to picture her now, in my mind. Bedraggled, ruined, her narrow shoulders hunched with a kind of inherent grief, her naked arms thin as cane, her scant cotton dress filthy from days or even weeks of wear, her small feet naked and pale against the dirt, her huge wide eyes the same pond-green that I’d always known, a bottomless shade, but shining now, glassy with some kind of imbued semi-trance. I had seen her in beauty, on her best days, of which there had been many, but the way she was then, in that moment, is the recollection that dominates, maybe because of the guilt I feel, the knowledge that through my casual abandonment I’d helped cause or at least enabled such degeneration.
Not knowing what else to say or do, I turned and started on ahead, careful without thinking about it to skirt the cottage in a wide sweep. As before, the incline that led up to the road pulled at my breathing, and when I at last looked back she was still standing exactly where I’d left her, in the lowing half-light. I raised a hand in goodbye, but she did not wave back. And in the distance, a hundred or so yards further on against the now dark ocean, I again made out what I took to be that figure of the girl or woman, standing on the reefs. The same as before, dark-haired and naked, her body a pale, stubborn filament against the darker shades of rock and water. As I watched, she appeared to turn away from the ocean, sensing, it almost seemed, that she was no longer quite alone. From such distance, it was impossible to tell where her gaze settled, but a col
dness flushed through me. I got into the hired car and started the engine. I had already seen too much.
*
Dublin kept its own season, the lurid lamplit streets slashed by gales and the low-slung sky a murky, tallow dark, thick with the suggestion of more and worse to come. The sensible course of action would have been to get a room in either Castletownbere or Bantry, in keeping with Maggie’s advice, but both felt too close to Allihies. I knew that if I were to stop for the night, I’d be unable to resist the urge once morning broke to go back out there, and I think I was afraid of what I might find waiting. So, instead, I pushed on, even though I was in no fit state to drive, and because the roads proved relatively quiet for a Wednesday, I made Cork city a little before eight and Dublin somewhere around half ten. I arrived, unannounced but not unexpected, weary and fractured from the long road, and glad to my soul that I’d forced these five days open in my schedule.
That night I refused to think about anything beyond the immediate. I was alive, and it was all right to let myself be happy within the moment. Alison and I ate something sweet and sour from a Chinese takeaway and by accident got through a couple of bottles of a better than decent Chilean Malbec, and I remember that there was a flash of pure insight somewhere in the mix, watching her walk barefoot into the kitchen for the second bottle, when everything about us and about myself slammed into place. She’d hesitated in the doorway and glanced back over one shoulder, and when she saw me watching she smiled in such an open manner that I knew, suddenly and without doubt, there was love involved, and that this was exactly what I wanted from my life. The rest was just clutter. Only this was real.
The Dead House Page 9
