The Persistence of Memory

Chapter Four

I almost throw up onto the fucking keyboard:

O: A smart beautiful woman who knows her own mind. Elegance and grace are a must, and beauty too, of course. E: What does beauty look like to you? O: A lot like you actually. [He laughs, charmingly] Whether Oliver Alford charms all the women who interview him, I don't know, but there's something old-fashioned about him, something distinctly Rhett Butler about him. There's a quality which is quite hard to pin down. But one thing is certain, he knows what he wants and knows how to get it.

I could literally picture his grinning cunt face as he read her article afterwards. Had he seduced her before it went out? Or had he decided he wanted her after reading it? Why did it matter? He had her. She married him. Wanker.

Jesus, I hadn't felt this kind of anger for years. Frustrated, self-pitying anger that I was pretty sure I was done with. I slam the laptop closed and grab the bottle before staggering up the metal stairs to the studio.

Might as well make my fucked-off inebriation productive. I always did my best work under the influence of rage and alcohol.

Two hours later I'm covered in red paint and limestone plaster up to my elbows. I'm stinking drunk staring at a monstrosity I don't even remember assembling.

I say staring, mainly I'm struggling to see anything through the whisky fog that's settled over my eyes. Being Irish invariably means my tolerance for alcohol is higher than most. This basically manifests itself in the fact that the bottle is empty and I'm still standing. I was my father's son after all.

I can see her in the curves of red. The arch of her neck, the hollow of her throat, the plump bottom lip in the smudge slashed across the middle. I'd memorised every inch of her and yet I'd still never been able to capture her in any art form. For years after I'd tried to sketch her. She was my go-to doodle. Over a decade ago in that class, she had been my first attempt and clearly not a whole lot had fucking changed.

Well, some things had changed. She'd married a banker.

But she wasn't happy. She was a million miles away from the smiling Eloise from her wedding day, that much was obvious. Whether it's about him I don't know, but all wasn't perfect in the Alford's paradise. Sadistically, it's this thought alone which causes a glimmer of hope to shine through the dark rage brewing inside me.

Staggering back downstairs, I move to switch the stereo on to full blast level despite it being after 4am. New York never slept which was good because I rarely slept in silence. The angry loud post-rock blares at me from a speaker above the bed as I remove my paint-stained t-shirt and drop it on the floor trampling it as I walk to the bathroom. I then spend ten minutes scrubbing my hands raw in the sink before calling it a night. I can't even be arsed removing my jeans, although the urge to stroke myself as I think about her is overwhelming.

There had to be some sort of divine intervention in it. In her being here in New York at the same time as me. At her being at my show. There had to be. Just before I pass out, I start thinking about how the hell I'm going to see her again. Nicole knows them. I'd start there. Tomorrow I'd start there. The last thought as I go under is of her glancing back at me as she walked out of the door of the gallery. Did she look scared? Or had I imagined that?

***

The sound of an air raid siren is the first thing I hear as the light explodes in my eyes and in my temples. What the fuck? Turns out I'm not living in a war zone again. The intercom in this place is just industrial-sized like everything else.

My body creaks and groans as I haul it up from the bed towards it, almost stumbling down the two steps as I go, lunging for the black thing screaming at me from the stone pillar in the kitchen. Why is it so fucking loud? My Irish constitution has a kind of cinderella type expiration point on it - it disappears by morning and so my head feels like it has a herd of fucking elephants in it.