Art Freaks

In the words of Father John Misty "I'm writing a novel, because it's never been done before"

Since January of this year I’ve been wrangling this short story that got out of control into a novel, here’s a bit of the short story that started it.

The car is coated in a layer of frost. It looks like a child’s arts and crafts project. Like a little sister has coated a model car that wasn’t hers in a perfecting layer of glitter.

The Gallery was going to be difficult to get to. Eoin and his family made it their mission to teach me how to drive when Eoin and I moved back to Skerries. Eoin still liked to tell the story of the first time I encountered a sheep in the middle of the road leading to and from the farm his parents lived on. I screamed bloody murder since the car headlights made its eyes a demonic yellow. I cried and said it’s not funny, flapping my hands up and down in distress as Eoin laughed and failed to comfort me.

Eoin is the nicest man I have ever dated. I was always wary of men so devout to their family. I had a hard time understanding it. My therapist had to break down to me that some people took great comfort in the fact that this set of people would always love them. I could render the fact that at some point my parents had loved me enough to secure my economic well being, but really I think that just came down to a sense of responsibility. My counsellor said this was a big barrier for Eoin and I’s relationship to succeed. What does a successful relationship look like, I had asked her.

That’s for you to decide, she told me.

I stopped going to counselling after that.

I go to the kitchen to boil the kettle to pour over the windscreen. Eoin has told me several times to stop doing this. That it would eventually cause the glass to crack. But I’m impatient and the ice scraper made a terrible scratching sound as I shaved the ice from the glass.

The cat hearing signs of life scuttled over from the couch and began to wrap herself in figure eights around my legs. I text Lisa and ask if she had any problems getting into The Gallery. None, she says. I ask if she drove the tractor into work. She responds with a laughing reaction to my text. She reminds me she only resorted to using the tractor once to get to The Gallery.

Lisa is a farmer’s daughter turned fine arts aficionado. She came home after years of travelling as her father was dying. She brought a Spanish husband back with her, he tends the farm. Eoin and I were besotted with them when we first moved back. But then we did MDMA in the barn with them one time too many, and now they’re simply, my boss and her husband.

The cat began to meow and rub her head against the handles of the cupboard that her food lived in. I ripped open a pouch and the gravy from it spilled onto the floor. I wiped it up with a piece of kitchen roll and served the cat her food on the golden plate.

Nicola got it for us since she joked we raised the cat like a spoiled only child. I had raised an eyebrow at this. Not you silly, she said, you’re the farthest thing from spoiled I know.

Eoin’s sister couldn’t really wrap her head around the fact we weren't married. That we didn't openly plan on having kids. I think Eoin wants them but is too scared to say. Eoin’s sister, barely thirty, already has two children. Eoin often despairs on how little time she had to grow up before she became a mother. Eoin’s the eldest. There is a five year age gap between us. For him this was the cause for much concern at the start of our relationship. I reminded him that I was dating men his age when I was eighteen, and I believed I would continue to be dating men his age, thirty-two, even after he widowed me. I promised, I’d be eighty with a thirty-two year old boy toy.

I wish I was joking. I love a man who flamboyantly will tell me how he despairs about certain issues. Maeve, Maeve, Maeve, I despair at the children’s lack of knowledge about the rule of threes in stand up, their tight fives for the nativity will never be ready in time. Then he would sigh, place his head on my shoulder and sigh again.

I hear the rustle of Eoin looking for me in the bedsheets. A small groan. Then his feet on the floor.

He comes into the kitchen and crouches to scratch the back of the cat’s neck as she eats.

“You should be in bed,” I tell him.

“Not tired,” He responds, before yawning. He stands at the window and looks at the grass, which has turned to green crystal flicks from the cold.

“I’m going to drive you to the gallery,” he says.

“Go back to bed, I bet the gritters were out early,” I tell him. “Maybe Lisa’s feeling kind and she at least threw salt down on the way up to the gallery,”

He grunts, puts on his slippers and grabs the car keys. He holds them tightly in his fist as he shoves on his jacket. The nice wool one we got to share in Donegal. I watch from inside as he leans into the car to start the engine and the heating. He grabs the ice scraper and begins to go at the windscreen.

In moments like these I am grateful for everything that brought him to me.

In the car ride to the gallery, we discuss having friends to the house soon for a long weekend. We debate about who to invite, who’s actually likely to come and what we’ll take them to do. Eoin jokes that it feels like we are hosting evacuees from the city. I ask if he misses them. He breaks his concentration from the road to smile at me and put his hand on my knee and squeeze.

“Hard to miss it,” he says. He has, as usual, put too much emotion on an odd note.

When I moved back to Dublin after my master’s and a failed start at a PhD, I fell in with a girl I went to secondary school with. She’s how I met Eoin. She didn’t go to university. I had only recently been exposed to life out of university and thus found this to be subversive and slightly degenerate.

The Maoist ended up in England to try and be a musician. Instead, she lived in a squat and got radicalised. She landed back in Dublin after a torrid affair with a man who knew too much about why the anarchists and the communists split at the L'Internationale.

One night after a rave she’d dragged me to after promising ‘a quiet one’ at the pub, I woke up on a blow up mattress in a kitchen I had never been in before. I was awoken by the buzz of hair clippers. Sitting on a plastic children’s stool was a mess of pilling fabric and blonde hair. The night before Eoin had a mess of soft blonde curls that was now half-way buzzed off. I leaned up from the mattress to evaluate the situation nearly hitting my head on the dining room table I was lying under. The Maoist was cutting his hair. The oven was open and the warm light and air spilled out of it and into the kitchen. Realising I was awake, he jolted, the razor running away from his temple and into the stem of his left eyebrow.

When the Maoist and I left the house she told me the boy getting a haircut wanted to get in with me. That she had watched him take some study drug so that he could blow up the mattress and tidy the house upon my arrival back in some tuk-tuk we had taken with the intention of getting yokes. She told me it was my idea to get a tuk-tuk and ask him to buy yokes. That I kept talking about how I had never bought my own yokes and that I wanted to experience that liberation.

The Maoist was sexually competitive. I knew from how focused she had been on his hair between her fingers that she in some capacity loved him. The Maoist had slept with Eoin a few times, but Eoin had kept stressing they should just be friends. The Maoist acted as if this didn’t upset her. The Maoist relayed a story of me in the smoking area as I spoke to him about desire and God for half an hour, burning through cigarettes and barely taking drags off them. Every time she came to check on us, I was onto a new philosopher. The Maoist told me I was still stuck in the ivy tower of academia and that I would never truly understand the politics I wrote about. Finally, she gave me Eoin’s number, and never invited me out again.

Five months into dating, Eoin’s Dad got sick. His brother-in-law Brendy, offered Eoin The Cottage if he came back to help out. The Cottage was the first prototype of Brendy’s plan to turn Skerries back into The Holiday Destination it used to be. He wanted to make North County Dublin an idyllic yuppie haven. The Cottage was essentially one large room. Our bedroom was lofted above the living room which after months of begging, Brendy installed a better ladder to. We had a small kitchen and an oddly shaped bathroom, and we made do.

The land Brendy bought was supposed to be the site of a council housing estate that the locals had petitioned and protested against. The council supposedly ran out of funding.

Eoin’s Mum, Mary, had led one of the crusades against the councillors for the area, leading a large game of ding dong ditch, a sensation locals feared would become a scourge if working class families moved into the area.

Eoin packed his belongings into a car in under four hours. It was only once he was on the M50 that he realised he forgot to tell me he was gone, and that I would be on the way over to his house to go see a movie that night.

I was standing at the doorway, confused as Eoin’s flatmates told me he had moved out when he called to explain.

He said he’d come back and we’d go see our movie and he’d explain then.

I went to a pub around the corner from Eoin’s old house share. The movie was already an hour in by the time Eoin burst through the doors of the pub. I felt the heat and the dampness of his breath on my neck when he hugged me.

As Eoin drove to my Dad’s flat he told me he was moving home. I was tired and confused from having waited in the unfamiliar pub for an hour and being told my boyfriend had moved out of his house without telling me. When we got back to my flat, I went upstairs and told him he could come up if he wants, since he seems to do whatever he wants anyway. It started the fight that led to me holding Eoin as he cried about his Dad being sick. It was the first time Eoin had cried about it. The first time it had set in. I promised him if he felt out of control, he could be out of control. I could be the one in control for a while. Pretend I’ve taken the reins on the universe and all I want is for it to go your way, I told him.

Eoin and I tried to break up. I stayed in the city and reapplied for my PhD at all the Dublin universities. Everywhere turned down my proposal and one even gave me my former academic supervisor at Queen’s contact information as they thought it would be of great interest to her.

I remember calling Eoin crying when I got the final rejection. I was nearly hysterical. Eoin was asking questions like when the last time I drank water, went for a walk or ate a meal was. As if any of these things were important. I was squirrelled away with groceries ordered from the internet on one of Dad’s credit cards that miraculously wasn’t cancelled yet. The blinds were down for the entire day and I raised them at night. I watched Mark Fisher lectures and scribbled down incomprehensible notes.

Eoin invited me to come out to Skerries to get out of the city. Just for a while. He would take me back whenever I liked. He would come and collect me tonight if that worked for me. As we pulled up to the house, I could hear Eoin’s mum yelling They’re here! They’re here. Eoin’s four-year-old niece, Blanaith, ran out to us, Nicola stood in the doorway. Eoin teased his sister for using the front door meant for guests. I had met the family once before. Eoin had brought me to his newest niece, Fiadh's christening. He thought it would be less loaded than introducing me to the parents one on one. It completely backfired in his face when a postpartum Nicola cried about my being in the background of some important photo and what that picture would mean if Eoin and I broke up.

Nicola joked that Eoin had picked up some mad city sensibilities. When I stepped out of the car, Nicola pulled her head back and cocked it. She shouted Hi love, over to me and I realised she could not remember my name.

In the kitchen Eoin’s Mam hugged us each in turn. We sat and ate lasagne a neighbour had dropped over. It barely needed to be reheated, it had been made so recently. I watched the news with Eoin’s dad, Peadar, as the siblings conferred with their mother in the kitchen. You’re good for coming, Eoin's dad said. Sure with the way Eoin was driving, it’s mad we got here at all, I said.

That night Eoin and I slept in his teenage bedroom. The bed was long enough but not wide enough to hold us both. We slept in a tangle of limbs. I woke to Tony Hawk and Pamela Anderson staring down at me from the ceiling.

Eoin’s dad was better now, thank God. Eoin’s dad was the best kind of Irishman. He exclusively calls me cailín. He points to things on the news and asks me what Lenin/ Stalin/ Putin/ Trump/ Kennedy would think about that. Whenever I offer to make him a cup of tea, he tells me his son will do it. He knows every time he does this I will stifle laughter at Eoin’s faux-belligerence about making his father tea.

I tell Eoin not to bother driving up the lane that led to the Gallery. It wouldn’t be pleasant today. He says it’d be no bother. I tell him I’d rather walk the final bit. Gear myself up for Lisa. I kiss him and tell him to get back into bed when he got home.

Even though Lisa is sitting at the desk at the back of the gallery, I can see the manic look in her eye when my entrance sets off the electronic bell that goes off every time the door is opened.

The gallery is not much warmer than outside. Lisa stands up from the desk. She catches it herself, the oddness of her behaviour.

She’s wearing a long black skirt and jumper. She has made track marks with her wellies. There is a portfolio spread out in front of her on the back desk. She looks up at me like she’s a child caught. She stays still. She doesn’t try to obscure what she’s looking at.

I walk over to her, and I can begin to see the contents of the portfolio. Photography. Glossy. Urban somewhat. Washed out hues. Human figures.

I can see Lisa’s eyes flicking up and down from me and the portfolio in front of her.

There I am. Twenty-two. In a purple fluffy dressing gown with flowers embossed into it. There are fluffy socks on my feet that have cow print and little cow heads with horns by my ankles. The mug of coffee, if you could fully see it, says FUCK THE DUP. But because of the perspective, all you can read is FU T DU. The mug was washed out and faded by that point anyways.

In the picture I am sitting in the doorway between the kitchen and garden. Behind me is a chequered tile floor and an obnoxiously American fridge. I want to laugh now, at how serious I look. The soft empty look on my face. The tilt of my head. I was no model. I just lived with a man who was good at posing me. The point wasn’t to be posed anyways. I could never get it just right. The acne scarring on my chin is darker and positioned towards the camera the way he liked it. I look well rested. I slept a lot then.

“I didn’t know you smoke,” Lisa comments on the cigarette clenched between my fingers.

“I gave it up,” I tell her, breaking my gaze with myself to look at her glancing at me.

“When?” Lisa is trying to get a timeline of when this picture happened.

“A while ago.” I say.

“Nothing is a while ago at your age,” Lisa points out. I am used to this sentiment from her. I stay quiet.

“This photographer is becoming a bit of a big deal now,” Lisa says.

“Yes, people have been saying that about him for many years,” I tell her.

Lisa laughs at that.

“It always seems that way when you’re in an artist's orbit, doesn’t it?” she says. She seems relieved.

Lisa will eventually start to pry further about why I was in this up-and-coming photographer’s portfolio. Lisa would read all sorts of intrigue into it. To me, standing here now, what happened between Ronan and I felt all very small and far away. That girl in the picture felt very small and far away. Sometimes I think when I got the bus back to Dublin, that girl kept walking around Belfast. Sticking her key into random doors, seeing which would open next.

Lisa gets up from her chair and offers to make coffee. I tell her to turn on the heating too. She said it was bad for the oil paintings.

The last time I saw Ronan, I was up in Belfast for a friend from my Master’s program’s wedding. I booked myself a room in a cheap hotel. The night before the wedding, I took myself out for a drink. I went to a cocktail bar. I drank a single martini and read my book and felt like a grown up.

I left the cocktail bar. I did not want to go back to the oddly sterile hotel room like this. I felt as if I was hiding out. I’d planned my routes around not running into anyone from back then. I was too young to know I could say no to a wedding invitation.

I wandered into a bar off the main street that I did not recognise. At the back there was a small dance floor. An apathetic DJ played soul remixes to the small but enthusiastic clusters on the floor.

And there Ronan was. Bringing a pint up to the DJ Booth. I stared at him for a while but he was too busy talking to the DJ. He kept making movements with his hands as if he was controlling his own set of decks in the air. He was trying to make the apathetic DJ laugh. He didn’t break once. He simply took calm sips of his beer, and searched through his records. Ronan looked up and through the crowd.

I watched him look past me. Then see me.

Young Hearts run free, screeched at the young woman who got in my face and tried to drag me onto the dance floor. She was dressed in tight polyester. I felt so stiff in my denim and cotton compared to the shining movement of the dance floor. I got myself out of her grasp and left the bar.

I walked up the street some and stopped at one of those aggressively trying to be traditional but you know with a modern swing on it sort of vibes pubs. Those pubs were made for lads from down the country who didn’t want to be accused of being metropolitan from the lads back home. These lads are always the most generous with their cigarettes. No questions asked. I made small talk with the lad who offered me a rollie.

I think I was trying to see if Ronan would leave his night and run after me. He didn’t.

Lisa’s quite old school with her photographers. She doesn’t trust their websites. Says there is a difference between the screen and the print. She often tells them she needs to see how their work interacts with the light of the gallery. I can imagine Lisa on the phone to Ronan explaining this. I know the faces he would pull. Pulling his lips downward to maintain a serious tone. I’m sure he found Lisa somewhat ridiculous. We used to bitch about curators like her. The ones that would call him an Irish Male Nan Goldin. I liked Nan Goldin before I met Ronan. Ronan didn’t do enough heroin to deserve that title either.

How did Ronan find us?

“So, your relationship to the photographer?” Lisa askes and takes a sip of her coffee.

“Ex-boyfriend,” I respond.

Lisa looks at me and smiles, “It’s so odd to imagine you with anyone but Eoin. Especially this guy,” She flips to the back page of the portfolio where his headshot/self-portrait was. Shirtless, showing off the softness of his skinniness, the curls of wiry hair on his chest, the restraint of his bones against the skin. Slouched, to create rolls, artistically curated, as if to poise the work as challenging.

“You know I chatted to him on the phone because he submitted work digitally and I wanted the print portfolio” Lisa pauses to allow me to roll my eyes at this, “I asked if it was you in that picture. And I mean, it’s obviously you in the picture. He said you two had a torrid love affair when you were getting your Masters in Belfast.”

I raise an eyebrow and flip four or five pages back from his headshot. I find myself again. A still from a VHS tape Ronan and I made. I admire it for a second. How lovely I was. The strain in the muscle of my calves, my torso perfectly twisted as if I was wrung out. Then I remember the sensation and the humiliation of the oil and the talcum forming a paste that would not wipe off the latex. Was this something we shot for an exhibition? Whose bedroom is that?

I flip again. It seems every page, there I am. This one is some sort of grayscale film but some hint of colour shines through. Was this when Ronan let me paint on pictures rather than write my thesis, or just some fun film he had on hand? It’s from the first night we slept together. In his garden smoking right before. Bathed in warm light from the kitchen window. My face looks cut off from my body, the black dress I always wore blending in with the wall behind me. My hair is tied out of my face but some strands are being pulled around by the wind. It was exhausting to take myself so seriously all the time. Ronan had asked me to stand next to some graffiti as a test for a shoot he was thinking about. He said that in Belfast people tried to patron the arts as much as they could. He said this so sincerely that I remember trying not to laugh.

Smoking in his garden, he asked if I understood Belfast yet. I made some jokes about orange and green, north and south. He reassured me it was fine if I didn’t get it yet, I was less than a year into the city and I was coddled and out of the way at Queens. He promised I'd understand the city soon. He clarified, not just in knowing your way around, but in like a year, you’ll think you’ll understand it. I promise you, you don't, he told me. I nodded, agreeing in hopes he’d change the topic to something I could actually engage in.

“Are these the lost years we’re not supposed to bring up?” Lisa asked, dragging her finger across a picture of a dancefloor that I was lost in.

“Is iad ” I used my seldom Irish as a way to tell Lisa to leave something alone. Lisa liked to pick at scabs and see what came out this time. What new shade of infection would I reveal?

I learned quickly that speaking Irish made Lisa uncomfortable. Both her parents were Gaeilgeoirí and it was their first language at home while Lisa was growing up.

One night at Lisa’s, the state of Irishness as it stands was put on the table, but more accurately, the state of Irishness in the male. Eoin had been teaching the kids Keane that week. He found the kids santa wigs and got a lend of big wool coats from the Theatre in Rush and made them really go for it. Eoin went on to explain how this generation will never feel the same connection to the actual land of Ireland as any previous generation.

Lisa loved discussing Irishness. She loved discussing the dichotomy of hating being brought back by the farm and yet using her Irishness as a weapon every chance she got in London. I once asked if she thought she relied on being Irish being the most subversive thing about her. She looked at me and said I wouldn’t understand till I spent enough time in the United Kingdom. I bit my tongue about Belfast then.