Chapter Two
Sometimes I really fucking hate Americans.
They sound totally fake in their enthusiasm for every single fucking thing except they're not - they're totally sincere, which annoys me more. Why the fuck are they so happy? What do they have that we British don't? Apart from the good teeth. Maybe that was it.
Also, I hate these fucking things. Showing off my shit for strangers, 'experts', critics. Like I want anyone to be able to see inside me let alone judge me for it.
I make it for myself. I exhibit it for the money. Because a guy needs to eat.
As I look around the crowded gallery I congratulate myself again for refusing to have my picture on the brochure. Being able to pass through unobserved and listen to what people really think is a gift.
On the other side of the room, I see Nicole and her husband -my sponsors for all intents and purposes. They're talking to a tall guy in a suit and a woman who has her back to me. They look like a couple but something is off. I should probably go over but I really can't be arsed making small talk. I'm shit at it.
The woman with them breaks away from the crowd and walks slowly toward the screen that's showing my film. The first thing that strikes me about her is the sadness. It's coming off her in waves, but she's hiding it well. Not well enough to me, because I hide it too and so can smell it at fifty feet from other people, but well enough to the self-absorbed, overly-happy Manhattanites milling about the room.
She's tall and slender with alabaster skin and light strawberry-blonde hair. The silk floral dress she's wearing seems to float on top of her body rather than cover it; hiding everything and nothing at the same time, the colours of the fabric highlight her skin and hair perfectly.
I'm not going to pretend it's my artistic eye that's stopping me taking my eyes off her. Though I wouldn't mind filming her, moving, smiling. There's an etherealness to her, a presence that draws the eye and demands a close study. She's fucking beautiful actually.
I wonder if its the fact that she's so closed off that makes her more attractive. Distant, untouchable. The kind of women I've always been attracted to.
In any case, she exists utterly in her own space, completely oblivious to everyone else in the room — including every man she passes who steal hungry glances at her.
That's when it hits me... I know that elegant, graceful, unattainable poise - I'd know it anywhere. Even 12 years since the last time I saw it. I know her. I've loved her.
Eloise fucking Airens.
I can't move. Not right away. I just stare, mouth open, palms dampening with sweat, heart racing. The thoughts and questions bombard me all at once. What the fuck is she doing here? Why is she in New York? At my show? Why does she look so fucking sad? Who's the suit-wearing wanker she's with? Does she still wear glasses when she reads?
Then I realise that I've been standing still staring at her for far too long and so I force my feet to move, towards her. I brush my hand through my hair and straighten my jacket as I cross the large space to where she is. There's no way on God's green earth she'll remember me, not a fucking chance.
Was there?
As I approach she's sipping elegantly on a glass of champagne while studying my video. She's frowning at it like you'd frown at a dogfight, yet somehow the frown still manages to look fucking exquisite on her.
She looks older, wiser - like she's lived through something and come out of it stronger and more beautiful, the pain sharpening and defining those delicate features of hers I'd imprinted on my memory. I haven't seen her in the flesh in over a decade but she still makes my dick throb and my hands shake like no one ever has.
Stopping a few feet from her, I watch as my emotional innards unfurl themselves in front of her eyes. The shed where I found George - my dog - dead; the telephone mast visible from my bedroom window that I contemplated killing myself on more than once; me, caught on camera age six by my uncle Liam the day of my mothers funeral; the car journey from our house to my nana's on the outskirts of Belfast. Pretty much an amalgamation of every shitty memory I'd ever had. The look on her face tells me that she isn't particularly enjoying it. That was good. No one should enjoy it.
I open my mouth to speak about three times before I get the nerve to let anything come out. What if she did recognise me? What then?
Nah. I was pretty sure there was no chance of it. None whatsoever. She'd barely even given me a second glance back then. I'd spoken to her for two minutes, one day nearly thirteen years ago - she'd never remember me. And strangely, tonight that thought comforts me. Tonight, I wanted to be Aidan Foley, visual artist. Not Aidan Foley, stammering tit from way back when.
"You look like you're concentrating pretty hard," I say quietly, not wanting to startle her. Still, my voice sounds harsh in the sparse space and her head whips around to me. I keep my eye on the screen because I'm still paranoid she might recognise me and I'm not ready to be that guy again. I'm also not ready to see her face again. Not yet. I feel her eyes sizing me up though, deciding something. Then finally she turns her head back to the screen.
"Yes, I am concentrating hard. On being anywhere but here," she says in that clipped English accent. It makes my dick throb harder. Man, she really doesn't want to be here.
"Thought I spotted a foreigner," I smile. I turn to look at her then and she does the same, turning her head to meet my eyes.
Jesus.
At that moment I know that even at eighty she'll still be the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Her skin seemed to glow from underneath, as though there's a light shining below it. The glittering oval blue eyes, the long slender neck, that full mouth I'd fantasised about all my adult life. Eloise Airens.
People used the term, 'The one that got away.' But they never used the term 'The one I never had a remote fucking chance with'. That was more accurate here. Or maybe, 'The one who wasn't even aware of my existence.'
"Sense a kindred spirit did you?" She smiles.
Her smile was still something else. Shy, beguiling and seductive all at the same time. Just like I remembered it. Except I never had those words for it back then. I barely had any words back then.
"Yeah, something like that. You looked a little..... lost," I tell her.
She stares at me, her eyes glittering under the hard gallery lights. Eyes which I'd never really forgotten. They looked different now mind you. A tonal shift. One I knew well. There was pain and misery there now. I'm sure my fucking trip down memory lane isn't helping her misery.
As she stares at me hard, the thought occurs to me that maybe she is trying to place me, that maybe she does recognise me. I turn my head away from her. "So I take it you don't like it then?" I ask. I'm pretty sure I know the answer already.
"I think it's one of the most depressing things I've ever seen," she sighs. 'I honestly don't get why anyone would enjoy this."
Her tone is cutting, but I'm not hurt by it. I also don't get why people wouldn't enjoy it. It's a collection of some of the most depressing memories of my life. I understand why she doesn't want to look at it. Especially since she seems to be drowning in her own misery.
For some reason, maybe to keep her talking, I ask her if maybe she isn't supposed to enjoy it, maybe she's supposed to feel it. The sort of shit critics say to me. It's just words really. It goes down like a lead balloon with her as I can tell when her eyes narrow on me and her shoulders tense.
When she tells me in a sharp tone that she's incapable of feeling art because she's a normal human being I'm not really listening. I'm imagining her naked, screaming my name as I fuck her. It's quite the visual masterpiece. Far better than my video installation anyway.
In fact, I have a semi by the time Nicole, her short-arse husband and the guy they're with comes striding toward us. I smile the smile I do at family dinners with my Aunty Breda. Reserved, polite, fake.
"Sweetheart, I see you've managed to nab the man of the hour," Eloise's date says. When he slides his arm around her I feel something inside me tense up. It's a familiar stance. A familiar gesture, like he's used to holding her like that. He's clearly more than just a date.
Immediately Eloise begins to look confused, glancing from me to her date and back again. When she catches my eye I flick my eyebrows up and smile, before turning to Nicole's short husband.
He's yapping in his overly sincere American accent from about a foot below me about how amazing I am, about how amazing the little snapshot of my childhood misery is. Like always, it makes me feel defensive. I'm always ready to defend it as something that built me. Something that forged me, like I'm a fucking ship.
I know the moment Eloise realises what she's done because she makes a soft little sound which only I seem to hear. It's like a gasp or a breath that she didn't want to let go of so soon, her pale skin paling a little more. I try not to stare at her but I see from the corner of my eye the look of horror take over her face. She hides that well too as it happens.
When I look round at her I can tell she's only pretending to listen. My guess is that she's in fact thinking about how to escape, to get as far away from me now as possible. She bites her bottom lip anxiously as Jordan yaps on and on incessantly. When she excuses herself and slips past me, I turn my head and watch her immaculate form walk away for a moment before turning back to Nicole, Jordan and the date.
"Well, we sold every ticket, Aidan. Literally, I had people snatching them from my hand," Nicole drawls.
"Yeah?" I rub the back of my neck. "I don't really get it to be honest," I say turning my head to Eloise's date. He's tall, about as tall as me, and good-looking in a guy-in-a-suit kind of way. His mouth is big though - shark-like. He grins rather than smiles.
"Aidan, my god sorry I'm so rude!" Nicole exclaims. "This is Oliver Alford. He works with Jordan." She smiles at him, not me. Which makes a change. She's always smiling at me. She smiles at me too fucking much. But then, everybody here smiles too fucking much. Oliver stretches his hand out, smiling. Obviously.
I nod. "Thanks for coming man. Means a lot," I lie as I take his hand. It doesn't mean a lot. It means nothing. I'm thankful the place isn't empty but I'd definitely rather Eloise was here alone.
"God no, my pleasure. Your work is exceptional. Really moving," he says, in a British accent, whilst grinning at me. He has so many fucking teeth. Why does he need so many teeth? Why does anyone need so many teeth?
"Thanks. Appreciate it," I lie again. Casually, I glance back again in the direction Eloise went.
"Sorry, my wife isn't a big art fan. She hates these kinds of things," Too many teeth explains. "I'm surprised I got her to come at all, please take no offence." He looks after her and a strange look passes across his face.
His wife.
She's his fucking wife.
The thud to the chest is immediate. I feel winded. I try and swallow but it doesn't happen. Instead, I end up blinking a few times and nodding. Her husband. The grinning twat with too many teeth was her husband.
"Let me introduce you to some people, Aidan. I know George Dahmer from The Circle is dying to meet you," Nicole chirps grabbing hold of my arm and pulling me away from her husband. Both her own and Eloise's.
I grunt my thanks at them both and let her pull me across the gallery, past my paintings to where the photos are, and to a small fat guy in a tweed suit, red shirt and green bow-tie. "George, darling," she says interrupting his conversation with another less eccentrically-dressed man. "This is Aidan. Aidan this is George Dahmer, he's the senior art critic with The New York Circle."
I stretch out my hand to him and he switches his champagne to the other and takes my hand, shaking it firmly. I try and offer him a genuine smile. He's important. Could likely make or break me in the city. Except I'm having a hard time caring. Because all I can think about is that Eloise Airens is here, with her husband.
Well-dressed George chats to me in detail about a couple of my pieces, as well as the Morley and the New York art world in general. How ever-changing it is, how exciting it is when "someone like me bursts onto the scene."
I converse with him in the way I normally do with these people. With self-deprecating humour and very little recognition of my own ability. I tell him like I always do, that winning the Morley prize was as big a shock to me as it was to anyone. I tell him that I'm mainly using the money from it to chance my luck at selling depressing overrated Northern Irish art to New Yorkers because I have no other discernible talent. This makes him bark a belly laugh that draws the attention of half the gallery.
At every opportunity I turn my head in the direction of the ladies' toilets, waiting for her to come out, desperate to observe her with her husband, desperate for another kick in the fucking balls.
Her being here had to mean something — it had to. I hadn't thought about her properly in so long. I tried not to. There was a time when I literally never stopped. When I almost let thoughts and fantasies and memories of her ruin my life. I couldn't have been in love with her, but it had felt like love. I'd stared at her for weeks in that class. Memorising every curve of her body, every feature of her face, every freckle and eyelash.
When I turn my head again I see her emerge from the bathroom and hurry across the gallery towards her husband. When she takes his hand and he pulls her into him the tightening in my chest intensifies. It's accompanied this time by a surge of resentment, of anger. I bite the inside of my lip hard as I watch them whisper to each other, the intimacy between them like a torture scene I can't look away from.
I never saw her like this. Natural, her easy fluid grace loud and hypnotising. I saw her poised, posed, and totally closed off. Except once.
The day I saw her reading in a coffee shop had imprinted itself on my brain. I could sketch it from memory it was so clear. Even reading and picking at a chocolate muffin she had more grace and elegance than I'd ever seen on another human.
The cafe is busy. The clinking of crockery and the sound of milk being steamed means I can't concentrate on the article I'm reading, a five-guitar review of some album that was complete pretentious shite. I close the magazine, roll it up and reach down to shove it into my rucksack. When I lift my head up, that's when I see her. She's wearing old fashioned black-rimmed glasses — like maybe they belong to her grandad or dad — and her hair is piled on top of her head but it's her alright. I'd know her anywhere.
She looks almost normal in here. Still beautiful, still leagues above any other girl I'd ever seen, but almost approachable. Almost. I'd never seen her outside of the class. She was just there when we came in and there when we left. It was weird seeing her here. Moving. Breathing. Smiling. She picks off another bit of muffin and slips it into her mouth as she keeps her eyes on the book she's reading, mouth softened into a smile.
She's wearing a white woollen jumper that's too big for her, black leggings, and brown riding boots. She has her knees pulled up under her chin and her back pressed into the frame of the window seat where she's sitting. She brings the large white mug to her mouth and sips before lowering it and turning over the page. I could stare at this girl for hours. I did stare at this girl for hours. A weird fluttering sensation moves through me, like adrenalin, like the moments before the drop of a rollercoaster, and before I know what I'm doing I'm standing and moving toward her. The courage almost leaves me at the last moment but something stops me right at her.
"Eloise, isn't it?" I say, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. I know full well how a scrawny Northern Irish guy in a hoodie and baggy jeans may appear threatening to some people.
She glances up at me from under very long light coloured lashes, over the rim of her glasses. Her eyes are a cold ice blue and I realise then its the first time she's ever looked directly at me with them. She looks vaguely annoyed at being interrupted. It's at this point I see the book she's reading: Enduring Love by Ian McEwan.
"Sorry do I know you?" She says, eyeing me suspiciously. She probably gets interrupted by stammering guys a lot as they try and chat her up. Is that what I'm doing? I lick my lips which have gone completely dry.
"I draw you. I mean, you model in my life-art class — I draw you there." I say. Did I actually just say that? I draw you? Considering I actually fail badly at drawing her I definitely should have opened with something else... fucking idiot.
"Oh," She says, looking faintly uncomfortable. "Well, in that case, I should apologise, I'm a terrible model.'
"Nah, no way, you're amazing," I reply. Her eyes widen with surprise and she shifts a little in her seat, looking uncomfortable. I slide my hands into my pockets feeling like an utter tool. Great, now I've embarrassed her. "I just mean, it must be really hard to sit there for hours and have people just stare at you."
She laughs then, a soft light musical sound. "Yes, it's soooo bloody hard!" I feel my cheeks start to burn but I'm so overcome by how beautiful she looks when she's laughing that I don't even care. "Actually, I tend to forget you guys are there. I write in my head a lot, it passes the time."
"You write in your head?"
She nods and reaches forward to pick off another bit of muffin. "Yeah. I get it all down in my head when I'm sat there," she says as she chews, "and then I write it all down when I get home. I write in my spare time. When I'm not reading that is. Or studying. I write." She says it like it's the most uninteresting thing in the world.
"What kind of stuff do you write? You mean like stories?" I'm actually conversing with her. My heart rate has slowed a little and I'm no longer stammering. My cheeks still feel hot though.
"Stories mainly, yes. Essays. Thoughts and feelings, you know?"
"Sounds interesting." Her thoughts and feelings certainly interest me anyway.
"It keeps my mind occupied. Out of mischief." She smiles. Actually smiles. At me. I want to ask her out. I should just ask her, she may want to have a drink sometime. I'm about to speak when I see a guy charging toward us carrying a leather man bag. He looks me over suspiciously as he approaches and then turns to Eloise. He's wearing glasses like hers except not as pointed at the corners, and a blazer. He looks older. He looks smart. So she liked older smart guys. Good to know.
"Sorry I'm late, babe," he tells her. I step back out of the way as he crowds her body with his to kiss her quickly on the lips before dropping into the window seat next to her.
"Oh, it's cool. Brought my book," she chirps brightly. The two of them turn to me then, and she gives me a slightly awkward smile.
"Um... So I guess I'll see you in class," I say as I start moving away from the table.
"Sure," she says, smiling politely before turning to The Blazer. I look back once but her attention is on him. It occurs to me then that I never even told her my name.
She'd never come back to the class after that day. No explanation, we were just told that we had a new model and we'd have to adapt our sketches. I'd always assumed it had been my fault for making her feel weird, for creeping her out that day.
It hadn't stopped me walking past the cafe a few times after that mind you, but she'd never been there again. It obviously wasn't her regular place. The day in the cafe was the last time I'd ever seen her.
At that moment, she lifts her head from her husband's shoulder and looks straight at me. Something happens in that moment. Something I'd longed for and hoped for years. We connect. At first, I think it's because she remembers me. But it's not. Of course, it's not. I don't know why she'd remember a guy she'd been aware of for about three minutes twelve years ago. But the connection is tangible, a solid thing that I feel pulling at me, pulling at all the dark parts of me. Warming them, stirring them from a deep dark sleep. This time she won't forget me. Husband or not, I'd make sure of it. She was here. She's appeared back in my life for a reason.
I'd be fucked if I was letting her go this time.
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