Authenticity (33 page)

‘Be careful about that idea,’ he replied. ‘You shouldn’t be saying, “I want to be a painter,” but rather, “I want to paint.” It’s something you do. That’s how you become it, by
doing
it. Because if you become fixated on the idea of “being a painter”, you end up just playing at living the artistic life rather than actually being an artist. Can you see the difference? Do you understand?’

‘I think so.’

‘Would you like to show me the work you have in your folder?’

They were every bit as bad as he had feared they might be. The first was a seascape in which neither the sky nor the sea had in it anything of air or water’s elemental clarity and lightness. Instead, there were opaque waves of dense pigment and heavily impastoed clouds. The next painting, a portrait, and the one after that of a brown puppy were, if anything, worse.

‘They’re not very good, I know.’

Roderic tried to find a diplomatic way to frame his criticisms. ‘I think you need to go back to first principles. You need to work on your drawing skills.’

‘Will you show me how?’

From the bathroom he fetched a drinking glass, half filled it with water from a plastic bottle on the bedside table, then placed both bottle and glass on a dresser together with a second empty glass tipped on its side. There was a pencil beside the telephone and some sheets of paper printed with the crest of the hotel. ‘Try to work towards something fluid and relaxed. You need to look properly at what’s before you,’ he said. ‘Remember that drawing isn’t just about making marks on a page, above all it’s about how you see things. You need to learn how to look properly at what’s before you, but
really look, with a fresh eye and no preconceptions. Even if you’re drawing something – I don’t know what, a table or a vase that you’ve lived with and that you’ve seen before time without number – even if its something you’ve actually already drawn a hundred times, in fact particularly then, make sure that you really
see
it. Learn to trust your own eye, learn to trust the truth of the object you’re looking at.’

She began to draw and as she worked, they both became wholly absorbed in the project. Roderic moved into that remote and rigorous part of his consciousness that was completely given over to art, and that had remained inviolate down through the years in spite of everything that had happened in his life. He could see his daughter’s pleasure as, under his guidance, the drawing began to emerge. ‘Relax your fingers more. Hold your pencil like this,’ and leaning over to adjust her grip he touched her hand. Again that heady sophisticated perfume, again that physical warmth, unknown now for so many years.

Allegra sensed his sudden emotion. She released the pencil and closed her hand over his. ‘Don’t worry, Papà,’ she said. ‘We all know it can’t ever be the same as it was before, but things will work out. Everything is going to be all right’

And for the first time since his return to Italy, Roderic felt that what she said might be true.

She came into the room carrying the cat by the scruff of its neck. With his eyes narrowed and his paws stuck straight out before him, Max looked like a small child pretending to be a ghost.

Roderic glanced up from the open book on his knee. ‘This is a fine thing you’ve bought for yourself.’

‘It was a present,’ Julia said. ‘William gave it to me.’ She released the cat’s neck and Max dropped to the carpet with a loud thud. ‘It was a peace offering, as a matter of fact. We had something of a falling out a couple of weeks ago.’

‘Did you indeed.’ It was a comment, not a question. He turned the page. She half hoped he might ask what their quarrel had been about but instead he said, ‘And now you’re friends again.’

‘We are, yes.’

After closing the shop one evening in early September, Hester had come up to Julia’s flat. ‘Someone left this for you.’ The large package she handed over was so tightly wrapped and sealed that Julia had considerable difficulty in getting it open, even with the help of scissors. Inside was the book on Venetian art she’d admired some four days earlier, together with a letter from William. His apology was so complete, so finely judged and delicately phrased that she felt to refuse it would be churlish. She did, however, attempt to return the book when next she saw him but he insisted that she keep it. What he didn’t realise was that because of the disagreement connected with her acquiring it, the book felt tainted to Julia. She didn’t, couldn’t, feel the same about it as she had when first she saw it, or as she would have done had it been a straightforward gift.

‘You can borrow it if you like,’ she said to Roderic.

‘Sometime, perhaps, but not for the moment, thanks. I have too many other things on hand.’

‘By the way, would you do something for me? Would you, when you come to see me, ring the bell twice in quick succession so that I’ll know it’s you?’

He looked at her shrewdly, answered her question with a question. ‘So William’s being a pest, is he?’

‘Just a bit. Once or twice lately he’s called in mid-afternoon when I’m working. I’d always let you in, but if I thought it was him I’d rather not open the door.’

Roderic pointed out that he would never drop in at a time when he knew she would be in her studio, ‘But I’ll ring the bell twice if that’s what you want.’

‘Thanks.’

He closed the book and set it aside. The cat hopped up on to the sofa beside him and he reached out absentmindedly, ruffled its fur. He looked, Julia thought, rather preoccupied.

‘You’re not worried about him, are you?’ she said.

‘Who, Max?’

‘No! William.’

‘Not in the least. I’ve told you before, he’s your concern, not mine. You’re a free agent. No, to be honest with you I was thinking about my old companion in misfortune, Jeannie. I saw her in town today.’

‘How was she?’

‘Much as she ever was.’

Wretched, in other words, tottering along unsteadily looking miserable and unkempt in an old brown jacket she’d had for years. She’d been wearing it, Roderic remembered, on the day she’d said to him, ‘It’s not as bad for you as it is for me, not being able to be with your children, because you’re a man.’ It was an occasion he’d never forgotten, because it was the only time in his life that he’d been sorely tempted to hit a woman.

‘What did she say?’

‘Nothing. I didn’t speak to her.’
Hello, Jeannie. Piss off,
Roderic.
That had been the sum total of their exchange the last time he’d seen her in the street and approached her, an experience he saw no point in repeating. There’s nothing I can do to help her,’ he said. ‘It’s not in my gift. It never was.’

He was always cautious in talking to Julia about his past life. While he thought it important that she knew a certain amount of all he had been through so that she might know who he was, he was wary of telling her too much to no real purpose. There was no point in simply shocking her, in imposing all his past misery for the sake of it. After he came out of hospital, his confidence all shot to pieces, he’d gone into six successive newsagents one afternoon before he could summon up the nerve in the seventh to go to the counter and actually buy a paper. Incredibly, he’d told Julia about this shortly after they got together because he thought she might find it entertaining, instead of which she’d come back on it several times in the following days. ‘I hate to think of you like that. It breaks my heart’ He didn’t point out that the anecdote was linked to his recovery and that it was the tales from his drinking days that were truly heartbreaking, but ever since then he had been insistent about the facts, sketched out in broad strokes, while sparing her the detail. He was mindful too of the other people who were implicated in his life and of the need to respect their privacy: Marta, Jeannie, Dennis, even.

For all that, he felt the balance was generally right and now that they were on the subject of his old life he pressed on to say, ‘I’m thinking of going back to Italy again towards the end of the year.’ Although he was reticent about his past, he was forthcoming about his present: ever since getting together with Julia he had talked to her freely and frequently about his daughters. He had passed on bits of news about them gleaned from letters and phone calls, sharing the minutiae of family life. Serena had done well in her exams, Oriana had got a new dog. When they sent photographs he
showed them to Julia and he had recently sent to Italy a few pictures taken by a friend at a reception, in one of which Julia appeared.

‘I think that the time is right for another visit. The next time I’m on the phone to them we’ll try to fix up a date that would suit everyone, perhaps December or even early January.’ Julia said nothing. In his turn he now thought she looked preoccupied. ‘Does that sound all right to you?’ he asked.

‘Of course. I don’t know why you’re asking. It has nothing to do with me.’

In the remarks that had brought about their estrangement for a short time, William had unsettled and disturbed Julia. By speaking of the future he’d forced the issue, pushed things up the agenda long before either she or Roderic were ready for them. Although she’d always known that the complexities of his past had serious implications for their future life together, Julia hadn’t yet thought them all through, much less discussed them with Roderic. She didn’t believe this was an evasion; the time simply wasn’t yet right. Rather than plunge straight into imponderable questions she had thought it best that they simply enjoy being together and get on with life. On the strength of that, she had always thought, they would be best equipped to deal with the difficult issues when they did arise.

But what William said had planted a doubt in her mind. Take children. The only thing she knew for sure was that she wasn’t herself ready to think about having them, and wouldn’t be for years yet. But what were Roderic’s views on the matter? She had no idea, none whatsoever, and she had only realised this after William had so blithely predicted what Roderic must surely think. Worse, what if he were correct? What if she did ask Roderic and he stated categorically that he didn’t ever want to start a second family? She didn’t know how she would react to that, was nowhere near ready to deal with it. Damn William, anyway,
for starting all this! Even though they had re-established their friendship she realised now that she still held this simmering grudge against him. Although she knew it was irrational and unfair, she was also irritated that Roderic didn’t pursue the cause of her quarrel with William so that she might broach the subject, however obliquely. Still, he knew something was up.

‘Nothing in particular troubling you, Julia?’ All she could do was shrug. ‘Work going all right?’

‘Work’s going fine.’

She’d told him recently that she’d put aside the project on fragrance for the time being, as she hadn’t been able to find a satisfactory form in which to present it. Instead she was collecting new material, recordings of people talking about a relationship that had been important to them. Julia would make a box for each person, incorporating an object they had chosen. These boxes would be displayed with headphones beside each one, so that while looking at each particular box the viewer could listen to the relevant recording. She got up from her chair and Max, thinking that she was going to the kitchen, lifted his head in expectation, but when she only crossed to the cassette recorder he closed his eyes and went back to sleep. ‘I spoke to this woman yesterday,’ she said. ‘The box will have fishing flies in it, what else I don’t know. I may subdivide the interior with panes of glass into a series of closed compartments, I haven’t quite decided.’ She put a cassette in the machine and pressed the play button. There was silence and then a woman’s voice, hesitant and uncertain.

The effect of this was so powerful that for a few moments Roderic didn’t know what to say. ‘What gave you the idea?’ he asked eventually.

‘I read something a while back that spoke of “the fragility of human relationships” and I immediately thought, No, that isn’t true. Or at least, it isn’t quite that. What’s extraordinary is how fragile and yet enduring they can be at the same time. I mean, look at my parents, what happened there and the effect it has upon my father to this day. Then I decided to explore the whole idea further. I’m not looking at families – siblings, parents and children – because I was more intrigued by the idea of people who started out as strangers to each other. It’s not just a question of how close you can ultimately get to someone, it’s also whether or not, having been close, or even having been somehow connected at all, you can ever really get away again.’

‘That’s a good way of putting it’

‘What do you think it is that makes the difference?’ she asked.

He replied without a moment’s hesitation, ‘Children. Once you have children with someone you’re linked to them for the rest of your days.’

Julia was silent and then she said again that he could borrow the book if he wished, that he could hold on to it for as long as he pleased. Roderic looked at her, trying to work out what was in her mind. ‘I don’t know what’s at the back
of all this and I don’t particularly want to know, but I’ll tell you one thing: he’s not worth it’

‘Who?’ she said. ‘Max?’ But she did smile.

Before he left that night he offered to take her to lunch on Saturday. They clattered down the stairs together and when she opened the front door they saw at once that the moon was full. When she went back upstairs she crossed to the window and stood for some time looking out. On a night such as this it was easy to see why ancient peoples had worshipped the moon. A veil of mist gave it the quality of opal, yet still its light was considerable, enough to cast shadows. Her father would have gone outside to admire it. She imagined him standing alone at the gable of the house at the edge of the silent orchard, the compass of his world lit by this cool benevolent light. Her father! He had said he was coming to Dublin in September: he would be here this weekend. She should have remembered that when Roderic suggested lunch. Frowning, she wondered how she might square these two things but then her thoughts drifted away again and she fell into a kind of reverie.