Fragile Lies (7 page)

B
rahms Ward
, 8 p.m.

K
illian
, I know what happened that night. I want to weep but I’ve no tears left. Bozo Daly gave her an identity. He put flesh on her bones and turned her from a phantom into a living, breathing being who can be traced and be held accountable. He’s ill, I’m afraid, very ill. A nurse rang to tell me. She referred to him as Luke Daly. Did you know that’s his real name? Neither did I until she described him. He wanted to see me urgently and so I went immediately to his bedside. He’s in the Mater Hospital, frail and old in his striped pyjamas. I can’t imagine him as a Luke. Too biblical. But he’s sober for a change and his nose, that humped and cratered structure that belongs to an alcoholic, not a clown, no longer resembles an angry weal. It was the first time we’d spoken since your accident.

Lorraine Cheevers is her name. I wonder if she noticed a clown on the pier that night? Probably not. Bozo Daly is used to being invisible. But he saw her take her lover’s hand and pull him back into the safety of her car. It’s a crazy story, Killian, and will be impossible to prove in a court of law, not that Bozo will ever get that far. From the look in his eyes I’d say he’s already hearing the beat of angels’ wings. He refuses point blank to talk to the police. He’s well-known to them and they, for their part, have little faith in a clown with selective memory lapses. I could go to them myself but what can I say? A robbed bracelet, a television programme and the opinion of a wino who lived the last ten years of his life on the edge of a river.

Remember
Artistically Speaking
? Talking heads and boring art farts, you used to say. They made a programme about her. I know the producer. We shared a flat for a few months when we were students. He used to wear knitted bedroom slippers. Now he wears Gucci loafers. We’ve all moved on, I guess, since those days. He gave me a copy of the tape.

Last night I switched on the video. Red hair, blue eyes. Her neck is long and slim. I could fit my hands around it easily. I could squeeze it until the life fades from her eyes and they are lustreless, empty. Like your gaze, Killian. So far removed from us. Yet you weep tears. I see them ooze from the corners, trickle down your cheeks. Where do they come from, those tears? Are they the last ripples in a dried-up riverbed, flowing heedlessly from a wasted reservoir? Or do they signify emotion, the possibility of hope, the glimmer of a nightmare ending?

Jean touches your tears and signs the cross on your forehead. I see them fall and I think of revenge. Last night I watched Lorraine Cheevers. I studied her face, her willowy frame, her smile, her white, straight teeth. I switched off the machine and waited for the mist to pass from my mind.

M
isty man
… Mister Men … Mr Dizzy … Mr Bounce … Mr Bump … bump … smash … crash … whirr-whirr-whirrwhirr …

“
M
ount Subasio” was engraved
on a granite slab outside the gates of the Sheratons’ residence. Lorraine drove slowly along an avenue that curved into a wide-angled view of the house. The style was mock-Georgian, or had started off as such, but other influences had created a startling edifice of pillars and turrets. A flag with the Sheraton crest hung from one such turret and gave the building the appearance of a massive but ill-designed conference centre. Stone lions crouched like sentinels at either side of the steps and, as Lorraine approached the entrance, a massive studded hall door opened to reveal Andrea Sheraton.

She waited until Lorraine mounted the steps then lightly brushed her fingers, coolly establishing the fact that this was a business rather than a social lunch. Gold hung from her neck, gleamed on her wrist and fingers. Her hair fell to her shoulders, sleek and flawlessly blonde. She led Lorraine into a dining-room where the windows offered a spectacular view over the Dublin mountains. Throughout lunch she toyed with an avocado salad, unable to hide her impatience whenever she glanced at her son.

Lorcan Sheraton had the fidgety unease of a landed fish, flapping and helpless under his mother’s scrutiny, his shoulders twitching involuntarily every time she addressed him. He crumbled a bread roll on the damask tablecloth and replied in monosyllables to Lorraine’s questions. He was not going to be an easy subject to paint. From his comments it was obvious he hated the idea of a family portrait. She would have to work on him, reassure him without sounding patronising, focus on his strong features which, looking into his woebegone eyes, could be difficult. His father, after a few failed attempts to include him in the conversation, ignored him completely.

Andrea insisted that Lorraine paint from photographs rather than sketches. “Photographs will give a truer representation of our family, don’t you agree?” She gave up all pretence of eating and lightly dabbed her lips with a napkin.

“Whatever you wish.” Usually Lorraine preferred to work from sketches but on this occasion she was determined to spend as little time as possible with this family, whose combined unease in each other’s presence was unnerving.

“And I insist on seeing all the preliminary work,” Andrea continued. “I adore your work, Lorraine, but ‘quirky and cheekily Cheeverish’ is not what I’m looking for on this occasion.”

Lorraine winced away from the affected laughter of the woman sitting opposite her. The phrase had been used by the presenter of
Artistically Speaking
and it had annoyed her as much then as it did now.

“Just as well you won’t be organising regular sittings.” Bill glanced at his son and grinned wryly. “As you can see, Lorcan wouldn’t be capable of sitting still even if he was encased in cement.”

His attempt at humour settled wearily across the table and was rewarded with a glare from his son. When the meal finally came to an end Lorraine made excuses and left, after arranging to return the following day for the photographic session.

Throughout the night, the road-works continued outside her parents’ house. She stood by the window staring down at arc lighting which illuminated the workers in their yellow jackets and hard hats. The lateness of the hour added a surreal image to a scene she would have passed without a glance during the day. She remembered the old night watchman from her childhood who used to guard the cordoned-off trenches and how he called out to her when she passed him by, his hunched figure sitting before a glowing brazier, his gloved hands clasped around a tin mug of tea.

Before she could change her mind she slipped on her clothes and took her camera outside. The foreman was defensive at first, believing she had come to complain and was using the camera as a means of gathering some evidence of wrongdoing on his part. But she was persuasive and after consulting with the workers he gave permission. As she approached the crew she realised one of them was a woman. She worked silently alongside the men and paid no attention to Lorraine, who moved among them as unobtrusively as possible.

When they stopped for a tea break she was still photographing them. They began to talk to her, the men striking macho or provocative feminine poses, asking if they were going to feature in a
Playboy
centrefold. When they heard she intended painting them they whistled and sang “Mona Lisa”, the woman joining in, a husky voice, one of the lads. She looked wiry and skinny against their hulking masculinity. Lorraine studied her tough face with its give-as-good-as-you-get expression. Did she suffer sexual harassment? Was her bottom pinched, patted, stroked? Had she been lewdly teased? She did not look like a woman who would suffer silently. Lorraine took their addresses and told them she would send invitations if the painting was ever exhibited.

Bill Sheraton fretted about time-wasting. Lorraine fretted about missing the light. Lorcan, glowering and inflamed, fretted about her close scrutiny of his skin. Andrea piled clothes on the bed and fretted over the most suitable outfit to wear. A hair stylist and beautician attended to her hair and make-up. Tempers were frayed by the time the photographic session started.

Lorraine photographed the family in the garden, grouped before a copse of blazing redwood trees, in the drawing-room, in the conservatory and at the foot of a curving staircase. Lorcan’s head jerked defensively whenever she approached him for a close-up shot. His bottom lip was cracked as if he had bitten down hard on it.

“They want to play happy families,” he muttered. “I told them it was a sick idea but nobody around here gives a fuck what I think.”

“Trust me. You’ll be pleased when it’s finished.” She tried to reassure him, hating her glib response but unable to think of anything else to say.

“Will I?” His eyes rejected any comfort. “What are you going to do, airbrush out my face?” He glared at his mother whose lips were again receiving attention from the beautician. “Don’t bother inviting me to the unveiling.”

He reminded her of Emily. The same angry struggle to break free from the decisions of adults. Following in the footsteps of a man who smelled his first million when he was eighteen was a hard burden to carry and Lorcan’s slouching posture revealed his determination not to try.

In a clipped, cultivated accent Andrea questioned Lorraine’s fee, convinced that anyone who provided a service to her family was out to exploit their wealth. She fixed her rigid smile on Lorraine and suggested that, as she could work more easily from photographs than time-consuming sketches, surely her fee should not be so exorbitant.

The temptation to walk away without a second thought from this elegant, spoiled woman was almost irresistible. Such an action would be gossip fodder for Andrea and her friends but what did it matter. Let them say what they liked. They had probably said it all anyway and she was far removed from the circles Andrea frequented. But, suddenly, it seemed important that she hold her ground. If she walked from this house she would do it calmly, on her own terms. “As it was your husband who commissioned the portrait, then you must make your views known to him. My fee is not negotiable. But if you decide to cancel the commission I’ll accept your decision.” She spoke crisply, reverting to the business-like attitude she always displayed when dealing with difficult clients and heard, as she expected, Andrea’s sigh of capitulation.

“You’ve such a long journey ahead of you,” she said when Lorraine was leaving. Her tone suggested that Lorraine had settled somewhere far beyond the Russian steppes. “Bill says you’ve gone quite rural. It must be incredibly difficult to adjust. You’ve had such a busy lifestyle –”

“I’ve adjusted very well, thank you.”

“I’ve suppose you’ve heard that the studio in Blaide House is being turned into an art gallery. It should be quite a transformation.” She smiled, offered Lorraine a limp handshake. “I really am looking forward to working with you. Safe journey.”

The neighbouring houses were mainly hidden behind dense shrubbery. As Lorraine drove down the driveway she caught tantalising glimpses of roofs and balconies. The road leading back to the main junction was narrow and sharp with dangerous bends. The sense of affluence, hidden wealth screened behind high walls and overhanging trees, was a tangible presence when she slowed on the corners and cautiously approached the main road. She reached the centre city in the late afternoon.

Before moving to Trabawn, she had driven through Dublin without a second thought, equally at home in traffic grids or on the crest of busy motorways. Six months of driving along country roads where she was more likely to be held up by the rump of Frank Donaldson’s cattle than a set of traffic lights had made a difference. She drove slowly past Blaide House, averting her gaze from the glossy exterior, the grey hammered limestone walls and marbled entrance. The windows reminded her of opaque eyes, staring outwards, slanting inwards. She imagined hushed footsteps on carpets, the silent glide of an elevator rising to the first floor where Ginia Communications was located. On the ground floor, the discreet brass plate signposting the direction to Strong–Blaide Advertising would have been changed by now and her studio, that slanted attic space, would soon be stripped bare, the last remnants of her personality removed, the walls hung instead with expensive paintings. On the car radio Bob Marley sang about slavery and freedom of the mind. Music will undo me, she thought, remembering the summer of ’82 – and her memories blended with the plaintive voice of the singer, so alive and in tune with a moment, a movement, his star dying in the throes of fame. Sirens shrieked and traffic grid-locked around her. The trail of the river followed her along the quays. Firmly, she switched channels and listened instead to politicians slugging it out across the airwaves.

B
rahms Ward
, 9 p.m.

I
called
to her studio today. The clouds were heavy with rain. It suited my mood. Blaide House overlooks the Liffey. It’s only a short distance from my apartment yet how often have I passed its walls and never once looked upwards towards her attic where she was busy painting dreams? I climbed the spiral staircase and entered a room with windows in the ceiling and a view of a grey sky. The walls were streaked with paint. Abandoned canvases and broken frames lay on the floor, the remnants of a dream turned sour. Workmen were putting a new shape on the place. They’d no idea where she’d gone. A carpenter gave me the name of the owner, who has an office on the premises. Ginia Public Relations is written outside. A woman with sculpted black hair introduced herself as Virginia Blaide. The lease had changed hands, she told me. The artist was out of town and had left instructions not to be contacted. Her attic is being converted into an art gallery.

I demanded her new address. I refused to leave without it. The woman’s anger was contained but visible when she flashed her dark eyelashes, a beautiful face but formidable. In the end I left. Short of beating her up, what else could I do? She escorted me to the ground floor. We walked past the frowning receptionist whom I’d successfully evaded on my way in. Glass doors slid open and released me to the streets.

How can someone fall off the edge of the world? No forwarding address.

G
lass
… glass snowball … shake snow … glass … bottle … Bozo … glass … smash … crash … whirr … whirr …