Ralph's Party

by Lisa Jewell

  I am, I fear, a fickle old man, my head so easily turned by a pretty canvas and the indulgent pleasure of my own words on paper. But, like the abandoned wife who makes a dramatic re-entrance – years after she has been traded in for a younger model, whose charms soon fade – thinner, happier, more confident, and glowing with inner beauty, Ralph McLeary has re-emerged to put us all to shame. His show, currently on display at the Notting Hill gallery of his one-time mentor Philippe Dauvignon, is a reminder that art is not, and nor should it ever be, prey to the same fads and foibles as the eminently more disposable, high-turnover worlds of fashion, film or popular music, and that a true genius can quite happily survive and, in McLeary’s case, positively flourish without the ego-driven attentions of some fossilized Fleet Street flunkey.

  These are McLeary’s first works in over five years and I find my fingertips nervously twitching above my keyboard with the effort of not gushing forth, once again, in the manner of a lascivious old man. I will restrain myself.

  McLeary’s work has matured in a most satisfactory manner, his earlier anarchic stabs, jabs and thrusts at the canvas being replaced by a soft, almost romantic realism in a series of portraits of heartbreaking beauty and haunting eloquence. Maybe the previous McLeary incarnation was suffering from a delayed and troubled adolescence, but the McLeary of today is all grown up with a freshly pressed shirt, a decent haircut and is, no doubt, nice to his parents. And all the better for it. In these days of toilet bowls, chocolate bars and maimed animals masquerading as art, it makes an old man very happy to view a collection of paintings that speak so traditionally and with such beauty of the simple concepts of love and happiness and light and dark. I will not say another word …

  Ralph’s back was a mess, his shoulders ached, his hands felt arthritic. His nose was streaming, his throat was raw, his sinuses felt like they had fishing hooks stuffed into them. His clothes hung off his rake-like, emaciated body like enormous flaps of skin, dark circles surrounded the grey pits of his eyes, he hadn’t had a haircut in nearly two months and his hair was matted into small grimy peaks of grease and paint and dust.

  He looked appalling, he felt appalling, but he didn’t care. He was a man possessed. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since Christmas, he hadn’t been out for a meal, touched a drink, seen his friends, watched telly, been to the shops, had sex, had a bath, read a paper, sat on a sofa. Nothing. All he’d done, for nine weeks, was paint and smoke. Paint and smoke. Paint and smoke.

  He’d survived on Ginster’s pasties, plasticy sandwiches and microwaved burgers from the Esso station around the corner on Cable Street. His social life consisted of sharing the occasional spliff in the wheelie-bin area with Murray the security guard.

  Bed was a large, smelly piece of foam, covered over with an old dust-sheet, and his pillow a couple of Tshirts folded into each other. Entertainment was his paint-splattered old tranny and sex was the odd half-hearted wank.

  Everything else was painting and cigarettes.

  It had been a small life, an uncomfortable life. It was cold and dark and lonely and unhealthy. He lay on his mattress at night, listening to the wind whistling through the cracks in the window-panes, the scurrying of rats outside his door, the neverending drone of four lanes of traffic speeding by on Cable Street. He awoke each morning at five, he washed in the toilets down the corridor, he painted, he popped out to the Esso station, he ate something, he painted, he painted and he painted, he went to bed at midnight, one in the morning, two in the morning, and then he woke up and did the same thing all over again.

  He was prolific. Pro-lif-ic. After so many barren, stagnant years, he was unstoppable. He’d phoned Philippe, who’d been to visit him after the first two weeks, seen what he’d already produced and immediately written him out a Coutts account cheque for five hundred pounds, which Ralph had banked and spent on canvases and paints.

  Day by day the walls of his studio were lined with more and more paintings – twenty-one paintings to be precise, small and large, portraits and still lifes. Twenty-one paintings in sixty-four days. Quite an achievement. Philippe said he’d never known anything like it.

  What Ralph didn’t explain to Philippe, because it sounded so naff, was that his inspiration through it all had, strangely enough, been a DJ, a DJ called Karl Kasparov.

  Ralph had tuned into ALR one afternoon, by mistake. He didn’t usually enjoy commercial radio, all those adverts and brain-dead DJs. But something about the desolate tone of the Irish DJ’s voice had appealed to him and then he’d understood what he was talking about – lost love – and he’d been almost moved to tears by the empathy he felt with him. He sounded like such a nice bloke and his honesty was breathtaking. And then he’d seen a picture of him on the front of some trashy magazine in the petrol station and had put two and two together and realized who he was. He was the guy from the upstairs flat at Almanac Road, the one with the quiff and the spaniel and the fat girlfriend, the guy he’d said hello to in passing dozens of times, but had never really spoken to …

  He’d started listening to his show every day, like the rest of London, just to make sure Karl was all right, to find out how he was feeling, poor bastard. And he’d found that Karl’s misery had fuelled his own, motivated him, inspired him. Cut off from humanity, from reality, and from the source of his own unhappiness, Ralph had needed Karl to remind him why he was there in the first place. Three-thirty p.m. had been the high spot of his day, his chance to feel something again, to feel human. He had a lot to thank Karl Kasparov for. He’d never really met him, but he felt like an old mate now, a really good mate. Once this is over, he’d promised himself, I’m going to buy that bloke a drink; actually, I’m going to buy that bloke a lot of drinks.

  Ralph sat back now, a cigarette burning between his fingers, his stiff, sore back against the wall, his knees brought into his chest. He sucked hard on his Marlboro and blew out a thick cloud of soft, white smoke. He had finished. He couldn’t paint another stroke even if he wanted to. His collection was complete and he was satisfied. He looked around his studio and breathed a sigh of relief. And then he felt a small stab of sadness.

  God, he missed Jem. He missed Jem so much. He couldn’t wait to go home.

  He’d managed two days of attempting normality at Almanac Road after their disastrous curry in Bayswater, two days of hiding out in his bedroom, trying to avoid Jem, trying to avoid Smith, controlling his urge just to leap on her, shake her by the shoulders and tell her all about Cheri, to tell her that Smith was a tosser, before he realized that he had to go. Jem barely acknowledged him, the atmosphere was foul. He couldn’t live like that. So he’d packed a small bag and gone to the studio, started painting and not stopped since. He spent Christmas Day painting, New Year’s Eve painting. He’d phoned Smith to say he didn’t know when he’d be back, he’d phoned his parents to wish them a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and, apart from Philippe, he hadn’t contacted anyone else for more than two months.

  But now it was over and time to start living again. Besides, he had a party to organize. Thursday night was the press launch but Friday was his night. Invite whoever you want, Philippe had said, your mum and dad, your friends, your flatmates, your Uncle Fred. Get some caterers in, a sound system, have a party, you deserve it – and for God’s sake, get a haircut, you look appalling.

  He had a plan. He’d go back to Almanac Road now. He’d have a bath, he’d get one of those £3.99 spit-roast chickens from Cullens and have it with mashed potato and gravy and eat it with cutlery! The thought excited him. He’d dig out his address book, he’d whack out some sort of groovy party invite on his Mac, print off a few dozen, go down to the Post Office, buy some stamps and send them out to all his friends. He’d put one in Jem’s room and one in Smith’s room.

  And then he’d go upstairs. On the way to the first-floor flat he’d stop and put an invitation through Karl Kasparov’s letter-box. It was the least he could do for him after everything he’d, albeit unwittingly, done
for him.

  Then he would wander up the stairs to the first floor and he’d knock on the door and ask that Cheri girl if he could come in for a moment. He’d accept her offer of a cup of tea and then he’d ask her a favour. She’d be confused at first but then he’d explain, in graphic detail, why he wanted her to do this for him and, hopefully, she’d smile and say ‘Sure’, and she’d be glad to help. He’d finish his tea, thank her from the bottom of his heart, shake her hand, maybe even kiss her cheek and go back downstairs.

  And then he’d walk into his bedroom, take off his shoes, strip to his boxers, peel back his soft, heavy duvet and slip into bed. Aaaah! And then he’d sleep, all night and most of the next day, and he wouldn’t wake up until the sun had already started to sink in the sky, until the sky was the colour of blueberries and plums and the football scores were tap-tapping their way through to Grandstand. And then … and then what?

  And then he’d smile from ear to ear because he’d be half-way to happiness, half-way to where he wanted to be, half-way to Jem.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  His coat was hanging in the hallway, his clumpy boots stood side by side by the doormat, laces loose and undone, toes slightly turned in, just like his feet. Jems heart missed a micro-beat. She hung her coat over his and wandered into the living room, looking for more signs of his return.

  The ashtray on the coffee table overflowed with Marlboro butts and the remote control sat where he had always left it, on the arm of the sofa. In the kitchen a plate smeared with congealed gravy and shreds of crispy chicken skin sat at an angle in the sink, half-heartedly rinsed. A packet of Smash sat on the counter, by the kettle, surrounded by hard, floury nuggets. The door of the dishwasher was open, again like he had always left it, and a tea-bag sat in a pool of its own tan emissions on top of the bin.

  So, thought Jem, the Phantom Diary-Reader is back.

  The bathroom was humid and slick with condensation – large wet footprints steamed on the bathmat still on the floor, his old green toothbrush with the long-flattened bristles lay on the side of the sink. Small globs of toothpaste clung to the white enamel.

  Jem allowed herself a smile and walked quickly across the hall to Ralph’s bedroom, her heart racing with anticipation. She knocked tentatively at the door and pushed it slowly open when there was no reply. Her spirits dropped as she encountered an empty room. He was out. He was out, but he was definitely back! Ralph was back!

  She’d really, really, really missed Ralph. She’d missed everything about him, his sleeping presence behind the closed door of his bedroom while she got ready for work in the mornings, his half-drunk mugs of old, cold, milky tea lying around the flat in the most unexpected places – she’d found one in the bathroom cabinet once – his barefooted padding around the flat, the packets of Marlboro stored all over the place like a squirrel’s nuts, but most of all she just missed him being there.

  She’d tried her hardest to put all that love stuff to the back of her mind. It was just silly. She didn’t love Ralph – how could she love him? She didn’t really know him, she’d never kissed him, never slept with him – she was just fond of him. And he was just being silly, too, as silly as all those other boys, all those other ‘I Love You’s. She was sure he’d realized how silly he’d been over the past couple of months, probably had a new posh, skinny girlfriend by now. And she’d got over her anger about the diary-reading business. It was good that Ralph had gone away, away from Almanac Road. It had given her time to put her mind into order and make sense of that night in Bayswater. If he’d stayed around she’d have been confused and bewildered, constantly comparing Ralph and Smith, wondering what to do. She’d have worried about the falling-off of her feelings towards Smith, the growing intensity of her love for Ralph. She might even have started to believe that Ralph was right, that they were supposed to be together and Smith wasn’t her destiny.

  Which, given the way things had been going between them for the last two months, was not quite such an outlandish theory.

  Things weren’t going well. Things were, in fact, quite hideous. Smith had changed so much lately, since his weekend away in St Albans. At first she thought maybe he was sulking, maybe he was jealous about her and Ralph having such a great weekend together, going out for that curry together, maybe he was just like all the other boys after all. But after a while she’d realized that he wasn’t jealous, he wasn’t sulking, but that he quite simply wasn’t interested in her any more. And she didn’t have the first idea what to do about it. He was no longer affectionate, no longer funny, he didn’t make an effort, hadn’t been out with her and her friends for two months, hadn’t held her hand, taken her out for dinner, phoned her at work, nothing. Jem was well aware that she didn’t have very high expectations as far as men were concerned, she didn’t demand much in the way of attention or romance, but this was ridiculous! She’d tried to talk to him about it, tried to voice her concerns without coming across as insecure or paranoid, which she most definitely wasn’t, but each time he’d reassure her that really, he was fine, of course he was, he was just a bit tired, a bit stressed, a bit overworked, a bit preoccupied. And he’d apologize and stroke her hair absent-mindedly and that was that. She didn’t like to go on about it because she knew from her own experience how trying that was, the incessant questioning: ‘Are you all right? … Are you sure you’re all right? … Why are you so quiet? … What’s the matter? … Is it me? …’ etc etc. She’d hated it and she refused to inflict it on somebody else. Even if they quite patently weren’t all right.

  At first she’d been worried by Smith’s change in attitude, alarmed, had spent hours agonizing over what might be the problem. Boredom? Depression? Someone else? And then a couple of days ago she’d stopped thinking and stopped worrying and all of a sudden she’d stopped caring. And that was more worrying than anything. If she truly loved Smith, surely she’d still care? No matter how awful he was, how cold, how distant? But she didn’t.

  Somewhere along the line, she realized with horror, they’d turned into one of those hideous middle-aged couples you see staring into space together in restaurants and pubs, seething with uncommunicated resentment and loathing, staying together for years on end, compromised to the nth degree, because neither one of them ever had the guts just to get up and walk out, one of those couples who just don’t care about each other any more.

  Jem had tried to be positive about it; she knew that the early pheromone-induced passionate phase of a relationship was not a long-lived state of affairs and the fact that she and Smith had been living together from day one had probably hastened the whole process towards its inevitable conclusion a little, but still, it had only been five months. Surely they were allowed a little more love-hued bliss than that? But it appeared not.

  And now, Ralph was back. Ralph who did care about her. Lovely, lovely, lovely Ralph. Dearest, darling, gorgeous Ralph. It was the happiest she’d felt in weeks.

  She wandered into her bedroom and kicked off her shoes.

  There was a small red envelope sitting on her bed, addressed to Miss Jemima Caterick, in Ralph’s untidy handwriting. She leapt upon it and ripped it open. Inside was a brightly coloured invitation on shiny colour-printer paper.

  Ralph is about to be stinking rich.

  So come and celebrate at

  RALPH’S PARTY

  Get drunk, dance, flirt, do whatever you want – I’m paying.

  You can even have a look at my paintings if you like.

  Galerie Dauvignon, 132 Ledbury Road, London W11,

  Friday 6 March 8.30 onwards.

  RSVP

  Jem’s spirits lifted substantially. A party! How thrilling! She could wear that lovely rose-printed dress with the skinny straps and all those little buttons down the back that she’d never had a chance to wear before. She’d be able to see Ralph’s paintings, as well, these amazing paintings that the press were raving about. There’d be dancing, she hadn’t danced for ages – Smith didn’t like dancing, of cours
e, boring old git. But she’d dance anyway. With Ralph. She’d dance with Ralph. Sod Smith. Sod him.

  She penned a reply and propped it up against Ralph’s door.

  Ten pound forty, mate.’

  The cab driver held out his hand and peered up at Karl through the open window. Karl slowly ransacked the pockets of his jacket, his coat, his jeans, swaying ever so slightly in the cold, damp night air. He eventually located his wallet, licked the tips of his fingers with a delicate pink tongue, and awkwardly pulled out a twenty-pound note.

  ‘Keep the change,’ he slurred, turning heavily on his heel and weaving towards the front steps of number thirty-one. The cab driver eyed the twenty, eyed Karl, shook his head and drove away.

  Karl lumbered precariously up the stone steps, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, leaning in towards the door to maintain balance, scraping his front-door key around the lock in clockwise and anti-clockwise circles before it finally, more through luck than judgement, slid into the hole. The door opened heavily under his weight and took him somewhat by surprise. He closed the door gently behind him and surprised himself again when a loud slam echoed around the hall. He winced and put his fingers to his lips. Shhhhhhh! He giggled and fell back against the door.

  A small pile of letters sat on the shelf in the hall. He picked them up between unwieldy fingers and his face puckered into an absurd mask of concentration as he screwed his eyes open and closed in an attempt to focus his two perfect fields of vision into one perfect field of vision and read the envelopes.

  ‘Miss Shee Dickshon – ha! – shlag.’ He tossed the top one away from him, towards the stairway leading to the first-floor flat. ‘Miss Esh McNamara – huh! She’s no’ here, nah – she’s fucking gone!’ he shouted at the envelope. He fished in his inside pocket for a pen, removed the lid with his teeth and began to scrawl all over the front of the envelope: ‘She’s not fucking here – she’s at her fucking mother’s – 78 Towbridge Road, Potters Bar, Herts – send her my fucking love.’